It feels like it was only yesterday when I was gloriously engaging in discussing the odd anarchopunk record and very much enjoying myself in the process, almost supernaturally propelled as I was by some great, singable tunes (my next-door neighbour would probably disagree but then she's well into Céline Dion). Well, those times are over. Just like summer recently bid us farewell, so did the half-listenable music you had the luxury, and privilege, to read about here because we are going back to the basics with some loud, primitive, guttural, mums-scaring crust music from Japan. Fuck yeah indeed, old bean. This time around I have been digging a bit deeper into the ole collection and have excavated some lesser-known records from what could be best described as "mid-table crust bands" if not "the second fiddles of the crust choir", but also some other legitimately atrocious works that have sunk into obscurity for a reason and a couple of (minor?) classics to give you the impression that I also own some actually decent records. I have ripped many a work so we are clearly in for the long run.
And let's start with a band that went for a moniker that manages to sound both awkward in a silly way and also slightly offensive in its utter nonsensicality: Disdomestic Violence. Yes, them. There was no way we could be content just with brilliant lexical ideas like Disfornicate, Dissober or Disturd (a great band with a poor name) and the world needed a band to take things a step further in the great d-beat dadaism. I assume the band meant that they were against domestic violence even though no lyrics can give any clue on this level beside the very cryptic line "Jealousy disturb take care of woman" which could mean anything and epitomises the sense of being lost in translation. To be quite candid, the first time I read about Disdomestic Violence I instantly thought that they cannot have sold much merch during their run but then I remembered I owned a Genital Deformities shirt myself. You will always find a dorky enough punk to spend money on such things.
If the name does boggle the mind, the music hits all the right keys and solidly reassures the listener that this is not some dodgy anti-PC grindcore band. Disdomestic Violence played classic 90's-style Doom-obsessed Japanese crust reminiscent of Abraham Cross, Macrofarge (the last song must be an "homage") or Battle of Disarm with a thrashing edge and munificent excessive gruff vocals that would make Jon Doom blush as they sound like a moose and a tractor fucking. Yet, Disdomestic Violence do bring some originality in their classic cavecrust attack both in the sound and in the songwriting as they incorporate some Frost-y evil-sounding proto extreme metal influences in some dark transitions but also in the guitar sound and the almost grotesque incantatory intonation. Scum noise future as they offer?
Clearly this Ep will prove to be too much for many of us but I personally completely validate it and I am of the opinion that, 20 years after its release, it can stand on its own crust pants. The band itself is fairly undocumented and while I thought they had been going for just a couple of years in the mid/late 00's before dissolving into the grand punk Ether, a new record actually came out in 2019 seeing Disdomestic Violence experimenting a bit with heavy psychedelic influences and sludge/drone moments (I have sadly never heard it, I'm just dumbly paraphrasing a review). There is however a (very) rough 2009 demo on youtube that saw the band already toying with metallic sludgecore. This development cannot be said to be isolated when you consider that these Tokyo crusties appeared on the very good Tokyo Sound System compilation cd that brought together traditional Japanese crust bands and some techno or experimental acts, the common thread being underground noisiness. Again, the compilation is no walk in the park - unless your park is a den of rabid hyenas on speed - but you should check it out, especially if you claim to be an Abraham Cross fan (as I KNOW you must be).
This 2006 Ep was released on DIY Records, the label of Ryuji from Battle of Disarm and on the whole the discerning punk elite of whom I am a honorable representative deems this humble but fierce and punchy record worth getting if you are an obsessive fan of Doom-like bands or of Japanese crust, which is pretty much the same thing.
Disdomestic Crust
