PROFOSS "S/t" tape Ep, 2018

Sweden. The only country in the world where toddlers are lulled to sleep with the Mob 47 double cd discography and teenagers have to learn all of Zlatan's punchlines for their high-school finals (of course, I will stick to the first proposition of the theorem in this review). I have been told by a renowned anthropologist (also known as my mate Paul) that a common rite of passage for Swedish teens includes listening to the same d-beat song, relentlessly, until studs grow out of their backs, thus being deemed an adult ready to take on the big bad world and attend punk festivals. Sounds pretty legit to me. He also told me that an ancient 80's punk mating ritual was to sing the lyrics of Asta Kask's first three Ep's for a whole week standing under the window of your betrothed. The recipient of these horrendous serenades often went insane and it was not uncommon to see the singers being attacked by wolves because they were often really shit singers. This does make one shudder and I think we should all be thankful for the disappearance of such inhuman and cruel customs and glad to welcome modernity with its more progressive practices of dick pics or toxic dating apps. I am still partial to a bit of Asta Kask though.

So yeah, Swedish punk it is then. Profoss (meaning provost in English) was a rather short-lived band from Malmö belonging to the long käng hardcore tradition, that specific brand of fast, hard-hitting, raw punk music spawned by post-Discharge hardcore punk acts like Anti-Cimex, Shitlickers or Mob 47. It would be overambitious to do a comprehensive history of what quickly became its own hardcore genre (and I may not be the most qualified for this to be honest) but undeniably, not only did the style always maintain its level of popularity nationally (quantity often matching quality), but it spread progressively to all parts of the world throughout the following decades. I sometimes thought of the early examples of the genre as being conceptually more furious, faster versions of the Varukers (who came to life a little before), meaning a Discharge-influenced punk sound but harder. I don't see, however, proper käng bands as d-beat bands - although the common overarching Discharge influence somewhat makes the qualifier unavoidable. Both subgenres are close cousins and inbreeding is not rare but the distinction must be made in terms of scope, d-beat bands relying solely on Discharge and on bands relying solely on Discharge while käng bands work on a wider array of bands. If you want to be a pedant twat during parties, feel free to find a poor innocent bastard and proceed to explain to him or her all the crucial artistic differences between Meanwhile's d-beat, Warcollapse's crust and Diskonto's käng. It always goes well.

One band that has seemingly never been as popular as they are today is Totalitär. There are, I think, several reasons why the band (who ironically played very few shows) reached a widespread cult status. The riffing has to be the main one as Totalitär's guitar player always came up with riffs that were a bit more complex than your usual dischargey scandicore ones but often proved to be catchier and more rocking without being rock'n'roll (if that makes sense). As a result, the songs can be more memorable and have a wider appeal than, say, Svart Parad's primitive writing. Totalitär's sound is dynamic, energetic, raw but palatable, aggressive and angry but not brutal and their discography is solid and consistent when most other 80's bands folded after releasing just a couple of Ep's "back in the day". I myself prefer Anti-Cimex's impact or Mob 47's unparalleled energy but Totalitär's indisputable hooks and hardcore essence make them a genuine classic punk band. However, there were very few strict Totalitär style bands up until the 2010's. Even during the 90's when d-beat and crust solidified Discharge as Sweden's favourite flavour, I cannot think of any band sounding significantly like Totalitär. There were, to be sure, bands with rocking riffs (like Uncurbed for instance) and bands with a distinct raw käng sound (notably in Uppsala) that could be said to have a Totalitär influence (like Abuse maybe) but none that were primarily Totalitär influenced. Enter the 2010's and bands like Profoss.

For once France was not late to the party and in fact might have had a good hand in getting the table ready with Bordeaux' Gasmask Terrör's early 2010's recordings (and to some extent Architects of Death from 2008) showing clear signs of consummate Totalitär love. Things had been cooking for a little while though and a band like Skitkids significantly heralded what was to come while Fy Fan certainly started to piece it together. Swedish bands did not dick around for long and Malmö's Infernöh showed everyone how it was perfectly done and it wouldn't be far-fetched to claim that to this day Infernöh's totalicore remains the benchmark. Unsurprisingly Profoss had a member in common with Infernöh, Jona who also played in the aforementioned Fy Fan and it was recorded at Blakklodge Studio that is run by Jonas another members of Infernöh (it seems to have been a fairly popular name for people from that generation). Perhaps surprisingly, two members of Terrible Feelings, a band I personally really enjoy but I know many dislike. Their bad. 

What makes Profoss so good and one of my personal favourite Totalitär style bands is how they managed to balance the riffing style and the hoarse furious vocals you're bound to expect in this template with a pummeling production that confers a relentlessness reminiscent of '84 Anti-Cimex or 90's Swedish d-beat bands. As a consequence the recording sounds absolutely unstoppable and the expertise is second to none. The band even dared to include two mid-paced numbers (one very Uncurbed-dining-at-Totalitär while the other is a top notch Discharge scorcher) for the kids to mosh and go crazy in the pit while middle-aged punks stand at the back with their arms nodding. There is one additional song on the tape version (released on Pissed Off Records, a Malaysian label that released materials from Fy Fan, Crutches or Tarantüla before this one) so that even if you own Adult Crash's vinyl version there would be some benefits for you. It's unfortunate that Profoss did not soldier for long and I would have loved to see more goodness from a band that epitomised raw and potent Swedish hardcore.

Profoss       

FILTHY HATE "S/t" tape, 2018

Tokyo's Filthy Hate is the perfect example of a band I was late to the party for. I have no idea why no one sent me an invite, it's not like my address is hard to find or anything. Or perhaps there wasn't a party at all and Filthy Hate belong to the "obscure bands department", a strangely defined world that does not seem to have any fixed definition in fact, an object of respect and prestige in the hardcore punk realms, especially among the Higher Punk Council. Knowledge of "obscure bands" - real or faked - is what separates scholarly nerds with plebeian punks who are content to listen to properly recorded bands whose quality has been globally acknowledged instead of rough amateurish 4 track recordings like real punks do. The twats.

So yeah, no one bothered to mention that band to me and I had to just bump into it by myself, rather recently. Needless to say that I had to fire some employees in retaliation. Truth be told Filthy Hate are not exactly the most notorious act so that my magnanimous self only fired two of them, one whom I suspected to listen to shoegaze on his free time so he had it coming anyway. Alea iacta est. The band's League One status can be explained by a small quantity of vinyl releases, namely a flexi Ep in 2011 on their own label and a split Ep with Midway Still, a English indie punk band from the early 90's (you just cannot make that shit up). Definitely not what would get you in the punk charts. It would be a hyperbole to claim that Filthy Hate proved to be a life-changing experience but they are certainly good and relevant enough for me to be upset that I did not include them on my Japanese crust compilations. Oh well, it's not like anyone noticed I guess.

Filthy Hate started in 2010 and were formed by members of Isterismo, Tantrum, Deathtribe, so that you already know the music will be lying on the noisy side of life. This tape was released in 2018 on Black Konflik Records, a well-established and respected Malaysian label that I follow closely and specialises in the release of cd versions of raw hardcore and crust records (old and new) but sometimes also cassettes. This particular one is highly convenient since it includes Filthy Hate's first two tapes, 2012's Possessed To Satan on the first side and 2010's Hatred Stench Corpse on the other, the titles of both should give you serious clues as to what these Tokyoites are all about: old-school thrashing hardcore crust. And if you are still unconvinced songs like "Speak Italian or die" or "Dirty Rotten Flannel not Dirty Rotten Imbeciles" should hammer it home. 

Because the production on the first side gives the impression that it was recorded under water, it does require some getting used to, but once you are ready it is pretty much a mid/late-80's fast and dirty UK hardcore feast with several singers and heavy references to Concrete Sox and Electro Hippies and even gruff stenchcore moments à la Deviated Instinct or Napalm Death (the rather odd melodic hardcore song stuck in the middle of it does not spoil the fun). I like it a lot but cannot help thinking how brilliant it would have been with a different sound production like Asocial Terror Fabrication's for instance. The second earlier recording benefits from a clearer production, with more of a traditional crossover vibe maybe, with Sox and Hippies still firmly at the helm and Cerebral Fix as the guest referee. There is also a different singer - a lady I believe - to support the gruff crusty one and on the whole it is another win, all-out 80's crusty metallic hardcore (with again one strange melodic song so I assume they must have lost a bet and are cursed to include at least a number like this on all their recordings). Very enjoyable and the band borrows an Antisect riff so it instantly raises the dopamine level in my brain because I'm an easy man to please. 

This tape would easily deserve the vinyl treatment, with some remastering maybe, especially since that crossover thrash sound seems to be quite fashionable these days  (or more than it was last decade anyway). If you love old-school crust, give Filthy Hate a chance, you will certainly find something befitting there.

Filthy hate    

HARD SKIN "We're the fucking George" tape, 2011

2025 has been a pretty grim year on a global scale, I suppose it's hardly a scoop. However, truthfully, on a personal level 2025 has been quite generous to me what with the new extension to my manor I had build to store my Agathocles discography and the acquisition of a second yacht. A man has to live, innit? Who would have thought a position as Head of the Crust Studies Department and my bestseller book The Rise of Crust Pants: Crust Attires as Radical Deconstruction and Transversal Challenge to the Oppressive Normative Hygiene Basics in the Fragmented Context of Postindustrial Capitalist Society would finally earn me that much money? Take that dad.

In order to fight the overwhelming bleakness, it makes sense to write about punk's best comedy band (ever?): the mighty Hard Skin from Gipsy Hill, sarf London. Humour is difficult to pull out in punk and God knows we have had our fair share of dreadful "joke bands" in France failing miserably at being funny or witty, usually flavoured with distasteful sexist buffoonery, childish puns and just plain anti-PC obnoxiousness (but then it can be said about French humour as a whole so it is unsurprising). I'm sure every country has its own breed of stupid or silly bands, some possibly much better than others but you obviously have to understand the lingo and the cultural references to really grasp a comedy band so that it is hard to be a global expert. England sucks on a lot of levels, like food or penalties, but one thing they excel at beside crumpets is humour. I have always loved their approach to comedy and it stands, by far, as my favourite. Hard Skin mainly rely on that typical British humour, walking the thin line between gross and awkward and witty, they are self-aware as they play with the codes and conventions of a subgroup - in this case oi-loving skinheads - to create a parodic tribute that is both entertainingly silly and somewhat spirited at the same time. Their cartoonish caricature engages the listener in form thanks to its many singalongs (the easiest way to have people join in, "you know it, sing it!") and its specific cultural references about not only the oi but working-class life as whole. When you really get them, Hard Skin could be said to be the best band in the world. I mean, like they say so, right?

I distinctly remember when I first heard them sometime in 2000. We would often go, a mate and I, to a now sadly closed record store in Paris called Sonic Machine. It was located in Montmartre quite far from our sleepy suburban town and it took us about an hour and a half to get there so that the trip to the big city had a pilgrimage quality to it. It felt very much like a small adventure. We would spend hours there in this shop that looked like a punk version of Ali Baba's cave and where you could smoke and drink your beers (which we did copiously of course). We did not know much at that time - it's an understatement - but craved to listen to everything, mostly so-called streetpunk and oi records (my friend was in his short-lived skinhead phase then) because these were the most accessible contemporary styles for us. We did not really go to punk gigs at that point so that going to Sonic Machine was where we'd meet other people and stare in awe at older and much cooler punks. It was during one of those afternoons that I first heard UK Subs, Infa-Riot, The Unseen or Dick Spikies, influential stuff for me then. We had little money so buying a record was the result of a careful and sometimes painfully long process as we wanted to spend our 5O francs on the right record. It was on such a day that my friend grabbed the first Hard Skin cd Hard Nuts and Hard Cunts and asked the friendly, understanding, advisory, passionate and above all patient guy behind the counter to play the thing. It was love at first listen. I was already an absolute sucker for massive singalongs and terrace style chorus and this album is replete with them - little did I know that this use was in fact ironical. My mate bought the cd (he was the skin of the two so it made sense, I think I bought Oxymoron's The Pack is Back).

There was a good reason for Hard Skin's first oeuvre to be so easily available in a French punk store then. The English label that originally released it back in 1996, namely Helen of Oi! Records, had sold its whole catalogue to Noco in 2000, a label based around Paris that mostly released ska but also some oi (the boss was a skinhead and the singer of Skarface). I think Dick Spikie's Let's Start from In Complate was the first release under the new ownership. Not only did a vast amount of original Helen of Oi! records landed in Paris but a couple of represses (of Braindance or Vanilla Muffins) were also done at that time, among which Hard Skin's glorious first album. Funnily enough, the guy running the label had no idea Hard Skin were a comedy band satirising the genre and I distinctly remember the leaflet slipped in all Helen of Oi! release advertising Hard Skin as having members of the shitty Close Shave, probably because the band had "the new wave of the close shave" on the cover of the first Lp. Yes, French people are terrible at foreign languages and everyone at that time (or almost everyone) must have thought they were for real although even I found that there were an awful lot of "oi! oi! oi!" in their songs. Of course, it's much different these days, and a quick glance at Discogs will teach you that Fat Bob played in Wat Tyler (an equally humourous band albeit nowhere as catchy) and ran Rugger Bugger Records and Johnny Takeaway in Thatcher On Acid, two bands connected to the anarchopunk scene. I have always wondered whether the original boss of Helen of Oi! knew they were a joke or not, but he must have and would have seen them as a cheeky tribute band done well and therefore appealing to the gritty oi crowd. The catalogue was very serious and skinhead-oriented and some of the bands included could be said to be rather dodgy - but then it also released the first Bug Central album, a genuine anarchopunk band so who knows. A surprising choice in retrospect but one that reinforced the parody and kinda blurred the lines for us. I mean, they were label mates with On File so they must be for real, yeah?

A friend of mine could burn cd's at home (cdr's seemed to be insanely high tech for me at the time) and he made a copy for me which I played to death. My mate and I even got to see Hard Skin live, in January, 2002, along with some other local oi bands (among which Les Teckels that had Frustration's singer). The crowd confirmed to me that they were real skinheads as no one was really laughing and everyone looked hard, bald and rather unfriendly and I don't think I ever went back to a proper oi gig after that. As I improved my English significantly, I realized that Hard Skin were indeed a comedy band - I feel the second Lp is even more parodic - and that made them even better in my eyes and I'd play them whenever I feel blue and just want to listen to good punk, warm tunes that you remember instantly and have a good laugh. I suppose they are better live because you have all the stage banter accompanying the hits and that makes the experience unforgettable and the perfect place for a romantic first date.

But Hard Skin are not just about the jokes and swear words, they can actually write songs with catchy hooks and tunes, infectious choruses and great punk energy and that's why they can also seduce people not necessarily knowledgeable in the things of oi. Obviously, oi fans (and ex oi fans like myself) will enjoy them far more and will delight in spotting the ripoffs of Cockney Rejects, Cock Sparrer, Sham 69 or Blitz (are they the equivalent of a bingoi night?) and giggle at the clichés about British working-class life. Shoegaze fans won't probably get it though, because they suck. But what about this tape then? We're the Fucking George was released in 2011 in vinyl on their own JT Classics and on tape on Germany's Cut the Cord That... Record, responsible for records from much more businesslike bands like Catholic Guilt, Neon Piss or Generacion Suicida. I think the title of the tape refers to the term used to call generous tippers during casino sessions which would make Hard Skin's music priceless gold charitably offered I guess. The tape includes the band's singles (beside 2008's Cocks and Cunts which may have been a wise decision) and compilation tracks released between 1996 and 2010 - by which I mean between 1978 and 1981 as the band claims. Until recently, I never considered Hard Skin to be a "singles band" as I only owned the albums and never really saw the Ep's in distros. This release is therefore a convenient one to own if you do not have the originals because you are poor or if you are a lazy twat and can't be arsed to listen to Ep's because you have to turn them over quickly. There are a lot of classics here like "We are the wankers", "Make my tea", "First day angry song" or a live version of "Beer and fags" (but there is a mistake in the tracklist as it indicates "Sausage man" while the song is actually "Two bob cunt"). Elite UK oi indeed that have never tired of listening for 25 years. Pretty neat and educational if you want to warn your kids about how shit Romford is or teach them Santa is a skinhead or that darts are a real men's occupation.

Sadly - and I mean that - Hard Skin are no more as they played their last gigs in December and I was lucky enough to be at the London one on the 12th with The Restarts and Passion Killers. The show was brilliant as usual and Fat Bob's banter as funny as ever (I think Chumbawamba's ears are still red). It was a little emotional for me, after all these years of being a fan and if I had kids I would have them recite the lyrics before going to bed every night.

Oi not jobs!    

They're the fucking George