Aspects of War is the epitome of a band that does everything by the book. Not any book: the book of the D. This legendary punk codex is the equivalent of the Necronomicon but for people who like Discharge too much - although both readerships fall under the "nerd" category - as its deeper meaning can only be understood by initiates, higher level d-beat fans. It includes Holy d-beat scriptures with the Ten Commandments that must be respected at all costs by Dis nerds if they don't want to end up in Hell where, it is rumoured, one is subjected to shoegaze music for eternity. Beautiful illustrations and parables dating as far back as 1981 also show the way toward the d-beat epiphany to the flock of believers.
How neat would that be, yeah? If there was such an oeuvre, Aspects of War would have reread it a couple of times just before recording A Look Into the Nightmare. Don't be fooled by the simple tape format, it is a flawless collections of four songs that could be shown to students following a D-Beat 201 class where they will learn about the distorted subspecies of the genre (the corpus is brilliant in this class). Aspects of War were an essentially 2010's band in the sense that they have to be approached through a diachronic lens rather than a synchronic one. The 2010's were a decade during which the Disclose worship, or rather the Kawakami adoration, boomed with an astounding parochial fervor. Previously discussed bands like Dispose or Disease are also to be seen from this perspective, and it can be argued that No Fucker were among the first, if not the first, non-Japanese band to theorize the Disclose-styled d-beat raw punk. From the status of unique band with its distinct style, Disclose became a blueprint for a specific d-beat style postmortem and Aspects of War were one of the noise unit that applied the protocol with dexterous determination and picked the name of a Disclose Ep as a moniker just to make sure that you get it.
The studded four-piece started in 2010 and threw the towel around 2017. The band were from the Boston area which proves that you don't have to were trainers to play hardcore punk in this town. The lineup included Jake from Nerveskade or Zatsuon and Chris who ran the very good but sadly inactive label Brain Solvent Propaganda, while Devin and Trevor also played in the noisier crasher band Ambush (who did a solid flexi in 2014), so that you can say the boys already partook heavily in noise-making punk activities. Like a proper d-beat band on a mission, Aspects of War got to work with two raw demo tapes, Total Disfuckers in 2010 and the hilariously titled In Order to Satisfy Their Mania For Conquest Punks Are Squandered the next year (this open self-awareness combined with apropos references stands as another aspect of 2010's d-beat) before releasing the superior The Presence of Death Ep and a split with Contrast Attitude both in 2014 and a split with System Fucker and a flexi the next year, vinyl appearances that saw the band take things to a different level of brutality.
Beside a strict adherence to the d-beat raw punk canon, the strong point of Aspects of War was that they always managed to sound both raw and energetic. Sometimes Disclose-influenced bands rely too much on distorsion and effects and unconsciously forget the most crucial element in hardcore punk: the energy and dynamism. Disclose were never just about distortion, their songs were all angry declarations of love to Discharge and Discharge-loving 80's bands and in that sense Disclose were almost like a sonic filter through which these influences were transformed. And Aspects of War, like No Fucker, got that dimension just right. They balanced raw punk textures with simple but effective Dischargish songwriting with ease and A Look Into the Nightmare stood as their aptest release on that level because it reflected this balance perfectly.
The early demos may be cruder and more primitive, the brilliant split with Contrast Attitude cleaner (well...) and more "produced", but this parting gift proved to be my favourite, not just because I got it for cheap. Three fast d-beat raw punk numbers reminiscent of Disclose (they are not called Aspects of War for nothing) No Fucker or even Final Massakre (especially the vocals) and classic 80's bands (The Iconoclast notably) and a mid-paced Discharge one to wrap it up. Eight minutes of Dis perfection. The North American version was released on Brain Solvent Propaganda for the Varning festival and the European one was done by Voice From Inside. Good shit indeed.
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