An adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: CONTRAVENE / SVART AGGRESSION "S/t" split Ep, 2000

The first time I saw the Contravene logo I thought it was a chicken or maybe a fat water fowl or common pigeon. It was a little bewildering. Even back then, in 2003, when my doomed quest to know everything there is to know about crust, anarchopunk and patches was still in its infancy, I already knew that there were only a couple of bird species that punk bands were legally allowed to use if they wanted to earn the bitter respect of their peers. There was the dove for the anarchopunk bands, a symbol inherited from the original 80's waves and popularized by peace-loving soap-dodging teenagers like Omega Tribe, Alternative or The Iconoclast and then re-adapted by countless crust bands like Nausea or SDS (Japanese crusties certainly love their dove). The use of this bird is something of a prerequisite in those genres if you have an anti-war song (more likely you'll have at least seven of them) and while no doves fly here in the real world, they certainly do on punk shirts.

The eagle is also an acceptable punk bird, but more of an aggressive, threatening, majestic one, sometimes used as a patriotic symbol if you are unlucky enough to be American. Some neocrust or blackened crust bands use it often. I have to say that Tragedy's take on the eagle is particularly striking and, unsurprisingly enough, it has been a popular logo. Vultures can be used as well, often in the stenchcore or metal crust imagery in order to reflect war, desolation and death, the vulture is the bird that comes when we're all already dead and we have effectively committed self-inflicted extinction. Lol.

Chickens on the other hand have never been popular punk birds for obvious reasons. It looks thick, it cannot fly with any sort of grace (when it can at all), it is certainly not threatening in the least. And to most people it symbolizes food. So why would Contravene use it at all? It did take a couple of years and a friend's compliment for me to realize that the band's logo was actually and logically a dove. I had a Contravene badge (and still do I think) with the logo because I loved the band and did not mind enduring the mockeries and ridicule in relation to wearing a chicken on my jacket. And then that friend told me something like: "Cool dove logo mate" which made me understand that it was, in fact, a dove but a short-winged, featherless one with a strange goose-like neck. But a dove nonetheless. I guess. Stupid me, I can see the dove perfectly now.

I was a big fan of the band in the 00's (I may have overplayed A Call to Action to be honest) and while I still listen to Contravene from times to times I cannot say they move me like they did back when I still had all my hair. I do see the band as a genuine 00's anarchopunk classic however and I cannot think of any other that sounded quite like them. The Phoenix-based unit were quite prolific too with one Lp, two Ep's and two split Ep's under their vegan belt in only six years (between 2000 and 2003 actually) so that if you were into DIY political punk at that time you would have heard of them, even more so since they toured in Europe in 2001 (or something? I was too busy listening to streetpunk dross in 2001 and missed them like a bellend). In addition Contravene were from Arizona and while areas like Portland, New York, Minneapolis or any Californian shitholes were deemed "cool" and would attract punters regardless of the bands on stage, Arizona was not exactly the trendiest punk place and that made them a little more special in my eyes as a result. They were very outspoken politically, very serious, very passionate and supported revolutionary ideals (there is the obligatory political text about multiple oppressions with the Ep) and it made them quite inspiring in a lot of respects. They had that kind of youthful energy and belief that matter and their lyrics are every bit as relevant today, sadly I must add. 

And well, they were quite unique musically too. Not perfect and listening to them carefully and critically again, there are bits that don't quite work but I don't think it really matters because they had all that sincerity and they did strive to create their own brand of anarchopunk (to an extent, it is not like they went all experimental and played the guitar with forks like The Ex did) which makes them remarkable. Their side of this split is made up of one long song, recorded in early 2000. "Stand up and resist" is classic Contravene in all its glory. It opens with a sample of a political speech then proceeds with a rather melancholy and melodic, mid-paced, short introduction before unleashing the dark and heavy crusty riffs with a singalong chorus, then some sort of metallic-yet-melodic instrumental moment, then back to the fast crust riffs and then, as an epic conclusion, the same arpeggio tune as on the opening is back this time with more dynamics and catchy poppy backing chorus. Contravene were great at telling stories with their songs, that were often quite long for the genre, through the use of introductions, conclusions, twists or transitions and on this number it works flawlessly.

They have often been compared to Nausea, probably because of the strong shouted female vocals, but they were more tuneful and versatile. They definitely belonged to that 90's wave of female-fronted US anarchopunk of classic bands like Antiproduct or Mankind? but they were also heavier, metallic and crustier like the aforementioned Nausea and even European bands like Homomilitia (the fact that some members from the band also played in Misanthropic and Sea of Deprivation accounts for the metallic sound). What made them really stand out was their surprisingly melodic poppy moments reminiscent of Civilised Society and even Chumbawamba or Omega Tribe - I love anarcho-cheesy and Contravene sometimes did go full out which can scare some eway - although the production is always on the heavy side. It might be too melodic for the crustier-than-thou and too heavy and metallic for the lovers of traditional anarchopunk but in the end that was what made Contravene who they were. One of the most relevant anarchopunk bands of their generation.

On the other side Svart Aggression were a perfect choice for a split with the Arizonians, full of significance and meaning. Hailing from Kalmar, the band is mostly known nowadays (and by "mostly known" I mean that I have one mate locally who knows the band because they did do a split with Kaaos, which is pretty brilliant) for their connection with Protestera with whom they shared two members in the early days. One year before Operation, a criminally overlooked angry Swedish anarchopunk band, officially folded, two members of the band formed Svart Aggression. In 1999 Protestera, basically the progression from Operation, started and both bands sounded very similar in the beginning, fast and angry 90's aanrchopunk, pretty much the same people under a different name. While oft forgotten when one meditates about 90's Swedish hardcore, crust and d-beat, Svart Aggression certainly deserves to be rediscovered, if only because they were a little different and did not quite fit the orthodox Distortion Records template.

In some respect Svart Aggression unintentionally stood for some stylistic transitions that took place between the late 90's and the 00's in Sweden as some bands started to add different influences to the otherwise fairly classic scandicrust recipe. The furious and savage käng attack is present with the cracking song "Mördare" and its traditionally pummeling fast d-takt and epic crunchy hardcore riffs, not unlike Tolshock maybe, but there are also heavier elements with a down-tuned melancholy vibe like on the introduction to "Skit system" and its slow d-beat. Pretty much how the so-called neocrust wave would work just a few years afterwards but I suppose it was more the dark Wolfpack influence speaking in this case. The dual male and female vocals really gives the band that classic anarchopunk feeling that already prevailed in Operation - and many other bands in the 90's and early 00's - and on the whole you could see Svart Aggression as a sort of Swedish version of React. I love how the two vocalists work together as Emma has a very peculiar way of singing that is almost spoken but still powerful and that balances well with Coffe's raspy aggressive käng shouts. A genuinely great combination. These two songs were recorded in late 1999 during the same session as the five songs that would eventually appear on the brilliant Tänk Själv Ep in 2006 released on Scream Records (although the label does not appear on the backcover, in true DIY fashion, a small promotional flyer from Scream Records referencing the Ep was actually included in the Ep) but, not owning the split with Kaaos, released in 2000 like the present record, I can't tell you if the two songs it has were also taken during the same session. 

This split Ep was released on Catchphraze Records, a label based in Arizona that was responsible for records by Axiom, Inner Conflict and all of Contravene's. The label also ran a small distro that sold DIY tape versions of old, sold-out records that were seemingly impossible to find - to me anyway - and I remember ordering several tapes from them around 2003, notably Sacrilege's first Lp on a very simple dubbed tape with a xerox cover. Needless to say it severely kicked my ass. So thank you Catchphraze. 

                                                                             Svart Contravene

An adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: POLIKARPA Y SUS VICIOSAS / DEFUSE "What's right" split Ep, 2000

We're in early January, you still have a vague but persistent headache from New Year's Eve. Your body is not the seemingly forever youth machine you thought it used to be and for some reason someone you haven't seen since middle school has bombarded you with inane selfies on the 31st - hopefully it was just a matter of texting the wrong person - and the realization that you will be one year older by the end of the year slowly dawns upon you. I have never been one to enjoy partying hard on this annual occasion since some inebriated stranger dressed as a penguin vomited on my Hulk Hogan costume some years back. This shameful incident involving unsolicited bodily fluid being excreted over my beloved copy of the 90's WWF championship belt significantly scarred my self-esteem and I have not been able to look at a penguin in the eye since. 

Fortunately this year did not end in such a traumatic fashion and therefore the morale is not worse than usual which is already good enough and I feel light and breezy with the prospect of a new year which will inevitably bring the usual amount of ruthless bloody wars, massacres and right-wing wankers somehow getting into power. And of good records too, hopefully. 2024 will see us go through more split Ep's, from the noughties first, ten of them like for the 90's, and probably some from the 2010's (I already have a couple in mind). But let's start with the opening year of the new decade: 2000.

In 2000, my own preoccupations were rather insubstantial as I was bent on scoffing at anyone at school who did not listen to punk music and The Casualties (the two were strict synonyms). As a man on that admittedly puerile mission, I did not have many friends as a consequence but "integrity", as I would call it, was what mattered in punk-rock I had been told. It could have been worse though as a lot of adults seemed to be obsessed at the time with the coming collapse of civilisation because of the infamous Y2K problem and I can remember my dad running around the house in panic because he didn't know shit about computers and antivirus. While I was busy being a self-righteous arrogant nuisance convinced of his own self-importance to "normies" (my rivals would that this has not changed that much), real punks were doing important work and I see this What's right split Ep between Polikarpa y sus Viciosas from Bogota and Defuse from Osaka as a humble but meaningful piece of punk history. 

I talked about it before but DIY punk made my younger self realize that if the actual world was big indeed and seemingly torn apart, the punk world was small and connected. Browsing through distro tables in the early 00's I became aware that, not only were there punks all over the place in countries I couldn't really place on a map, but that there had been punks there for two decades already. In an era when people only listened to American or English music beside our own local pop dross in French, the realization that there were bands delivering the goods in Peru, Slovakia or New Zealand came as a shock that was electrifying, stimulating as it opened new horizons and allowed me to feel superior to my brethren on a whole new level. "Oh, so you haven't heard of Venezuelan anarchopunk? What are you? Some sort of cultural imperialist abiding by the United States' hegemonic culture?". At that same time, it also struck me that there were apparently a lot of women involved in punk bands, far more than I thought, just screaming angrily at our world's madness and gender roles. Contrary to what my sexist upbringing taught me, girls also played fast and aggressive punk music and rightfully protested in the face oppression. This got me mum very worried.      

This Ep is absolutely wonderful because it combines both aspects: it is a collaboration between two all-female bands from opposite sides of the world. The significance of such a project certainly transcends the actual value of the record, which does not mean however that their output should not be looked at critically, like any piece of art. To completely ignore the creative content in the name of this significance would be somewhat disrespectful and implies that it does not require critical thinking and engagement. This is a sad tendency of our time. To be positive and supportive does not mean to be acritical, quite the contrary. To not critique (when it is done respectfully, knowledgeably and constructively) implies the denial of a work's identity as art. 

Alright let's cut the critical theory and let's get to punk-rock. Polikarpa y sus Viciosas (they took their name from Policarpa Salavarrieta, an important political figure in the resistance against the Spaniards during the 19th century who ended up executed) are a band from Bogota formed in 1994 and they are still active. If you have been to gigs in Europe on a regular basis you have certainly bumped into their name since they have been touring several times in the past 15 years. In fact, they were probably one of the first Colombian punk bands to even tour in Europe. Since the incredible success of Muro in 2017, a lot of bands from Bogota gravitating around the Rat Trap Collective have been able to tour internationally but before that few Latino bands could afford to tour so that the idea was unrealistic to start with (Brazilian bands have been an exception to an extent because of their long-lasting ties with the European and North American scenes). The achievement of Polikarpa in that respect, and a little before of Apatia-No or Doña Maldad, cannot be overlooked especially since the band started out musically as a fairly straight-forward angry punk-rock band with that raging Latino punk flair.

The three songs on Polikarpa's side are fairly unpolished which confers a genuinely pissed off vibe and a sense of urgency that reflects their own political, social and national context. Raw Latino punk (and punk in Spanish in general) has become quite trendy since the 2010's but at the time this kind of sound was still something of a novelty for a lot of us, not because the songwriting vastly differs from your usual spiky punk songs but because the overall raw and direct sound and the primal urgency sounded fresh from a European perspective. These were punks that had lives that were much harder than in the North (it brought to light the North/South paradigm while from the 80's to the mid-90's, because of the Cold War, the focus was more West/East). As I mentioned earlier, there have been top punk bands in Latino America in the 80's but to see acts like Apatia-No, Doña Maldad or Migra Violenta touring in the early 00's certainly opened the gates to a new generation of bands and created new connections. You should see Polikarpa from that same perspective of Latino bands touring in the 00's rather than the next generation of Bogota bands. As I said, meaningful times.

Polikarpa's sound could be described originally as a fairly typical Colombian punk style reminiscent of classic Medellin punk-rock bands like IRA, Fertil Miseria or Kontraorden, pogoable tupa-tupa punk with angry vocals and a direct approach. I would argue that on this particular recording Polikarpa showed more of a raw hardcore power, it is more focused than on their previous work, and I like how the tunefulness of the vocals on "Denuncio" adds catchiness to the otherwise fairly basic song (not unlike Vice Squad). Pretty furious stuff that works perfectly with the Ep format. Punk as fuck indeed. The lyrics deal with Colombia's culture of political violence and the need to break free from it all. 

On the other side we have yet another Osaka band after Victims of Greed: Defuse. I cannot think of many Japanese crust or hardcore bands with female members beside the fantastically primitive all-female Crusade and their quest for cavecrust in the early 90's while Mental Disease also had a girl on vocals. For some reason that may escape me, it looks like there just haven't been many women involved in bands in that part of the scene in the 90's while the decade was favourable to more inclusion and diversity in many other places globally. Defuse were certainly an exception in that respect and next time your racist sexist uncle claims that women suck at playing loud music during a dreary Sunday lunch, feel free to blast the band at maximum volume, if anything just to keep everyone from listening to his gammon bollocks. And then show some sympathy and proceed to euthanise the poor bastard.

Defuse did not initially start as a crust band though and if their 2017 Ep Cry of Roar (yeah, they are not exactly the most prolific band) proudly carried the (chaotic) crasher cavecrust banner, this first vinyl appearance sounded far closer to the Japanese tradition of Confuse (I mean, they are called Defuse for a reason), Gai, Kuro and the likes, an aestheticized punk noisiness that has come to be known as "noisepunk", a convenient if anachronistic term in this case. The classic Kyushu noise had not vanished in the 90's and some bands still abided by the "let's maximize the 80's Bristol thrash punk sound" like Order and their snotty take on The Swankys or the brilliantly Confuse-loving Dust Noise and their impeccably distorted fuzzy sound. Of course the tremendous overarching influence that Gloom had then in terms of raw distortedness and aggression, especially in their hometown of Osaka can also be felt here, but more in terms of intensity and bass-driven heaviness than songwriting. You could that Defuse tried to evolve between these three bands as they had Order's punkiness, Dust Noise's obnoxious noiziness and the Final Noise Attack scene. The faster hardcore thrash song "Don't conform" also showed that Defuse could speed things up with great efficiency. 

Before this Ep, the band had recorded a demo tape entitled What's Right - Don't Conform demonstrating that Confuse and The Swankys were the band's primary influences indeed and the first four songs of the tape were re-recorded for the split Ep. I wish that Defuse had the opportunity to record a full record with the production they enjoy on the Ep as the sound is perfect, raw but hard-hitting and really emphasizing the fuzz and distortion of the guitar (the sound engineer Koichi Hara also worked on Gloom's Recomendation of Perdition and Framtid's first Ep so he knew the job). I like the vocals too, not forced, just angry and snotty with sometimes some hoarse high-pitched demented screams for good measure (it is Osaka in the 90's after all). 

Overall this is a very enjoyable split Ep that can appeal to spiky punks as well as distortion and feedback junkies. This was released on Answer Records in 2000, a label that also released records from Reality Crisis, Demolition and even a reissue of CFDL.      

POLIKARPA Y SU DEFUSE

       

Wesh to Sweden, the Formative Years (part 4): Uncurbed "...Keeps the Banner High" cd, 2000

A few weeks ago, "lockdown" was unsurprisingly named Collins English Dictionnary's word of the year for 2020. I guess it is a half-arsed prize that you probably do not care about, and rightly so too, and if you do happen to live a life as fascinatingly rewarding as your instagram account suggests, you probably don't have time for such trivial matters. I don't think the judges had to scratch their heads for very long before reaching a consensus as this year's prize was what you would inelegantly call a "no-brainer". Still, it is rather amusing to see that a term that I had always readily associated with wrestling events without giving it much thought has become so pervasive. 

Anyway, the current French lockdown has not exactly developed the healthiest cultural habits in my case since I have recently taken to watch usually mediocre horror movies at night, not because I really fancy them (I must confess I am a sucker for creature movies though) but just because I can stay up late because school's out. Last time I watched The Ritual, a pretty decent witchy movie, somewhere between Blair Witch and Predator, but with half-witted English lads in the middle of a dodgy forest in north Sweden. The bloodthirsty creature was meant to be some sort of pagan god but looked a bit ridiculous to be fair (half giant centipede and half bloody moose) and ended being defeated by Johnny English from Slough. Take that Scandinavian pagans. It made me wonder about the Swedish fauna and upon checking a website about the wildlife of Sweden, I realized that the country's woods were inhabited by wolves, bears, lynx, fucking wolverines and, at the top of the food chain, black metal musicians, the latter having been listed as particularly endangered because of climate change. Sad. But why am I telling you about animals and natural habitats in a post about Uncurbed? Well, the movie unexpectedly put me in an allegorical mood and I just want to claim that Uncurbed's ...Keeps the Banner High basically sounds like a loaded moose being ridden by a bunch of rabid wolverines. Rock'n'roll mate, rock'n'roll. 

 

In spite of a twenty-year career in scandicrust and no less than 16 (!) records, Uncurbed do not often pop up in conversations about classic 90's Swedish hardcore bands. Their prolificacy and longevity might look somehow suspicious or even unwise to some (how many albums of similar songs can a band write?) but I, for one, am always favorably impressed with bands who stick to their guns and display resolve and faith. The idea of a band remaining true to their crusty käng roots impervious to trends, receding hairlines and growing beer bellies is deeply romantic and, in its quixotic nature, punk as fuck. Just picture how much punk changed between the time when Uncurbed formed in 1990, and Disfear and Dischange hadn't released anything yet, and when they split up in early 2011 - a lifetime later -  and Belgrado were recording their first album. While I am unfortunately not qualified enough to assess the band's popularity and legacy in their home country nowadays, I would think that their mid 90's era (a decade which was the apex of the d-beat/käng/scandicrust wave and saw dozens of Swedish bands having a determined go at surfing it) does stand the test of time and even though some of their works may not be of the highest order, others were not far from the top and the band was undeniably able to deliver some serious blows at a contest that also included contenders like Wolfpack, Skitsystem, Meanwhile or Driller Killer. On the whole Uncurbed's run was respectable and, as you have guessed, I am a bit sentimental when it comes to them but then Wesh to Sweden, if anything, is a series about sentiments, subjectivity and the coming of age ritual of getting pounded by a d-takt. This softness of mine may account for the utter disbelief upon discovering recently that some close friends, people in their late 30's really into the Swedish hardcore thing, confessed after I played Peacelovepunklife... that they had never heard of Uncurbed. Odd, right?

 

Such a discrepancy might be accounted for by the fact that Uncurbed's first four albums (released on Lost and Found Records and Finn Records) were only available on the cd format, a practice that was not uncommon at the time but now seems unintelligible because of our fetishisation of the vinyl format which renders cd-only 90's records irrelevant, hopelessly passé and undeserving of the cool "vintage" varnish that us punx irrationally confer to tapes. My argument could be countered by the existence of a 1993 split Ep with Disfear, however, because it was a crappy Lost & Found release with only four minutes of music, it can barely be called a classic although it is worth mentioning. In fact, the band had to wait until their fifth album Peacelovepunklife... Andotherstories from 1998 to finally have their own vinyl Lp. It was Uncurbed's first collaboration with Sound Pollution, a label which would eventually release three other Lp's and one Ep for the band until 2006. I first became aware of Uncurbed through the Sound Pollution connection that I mentioned in the series' previous part. In the early 00's, my unshakeable and disciplined thirst for knowledge combined with a limited budget drove me to adopt rational record-buying tactics. It seemed wiser to get two or three records from one particular contemporary label, in an attempt at conceptualising what it offered in terms of genre, aesthetics and politics, instead of getting a full discography of a specific band. That way, I thought, I would be able to accumulate enough musical knowledge, therefore sharpening my taste in order to find my way in the maze of DIY hardcore punk and take over the world in no time. That Sound Pollution order included Krigshot's Örebro-Mangel, Hellnation's Thrash Wave and Uncurbed's ...Keeps the Banner High, all on cd to save money on shipping costs. 

 

The reason why I originally picked this particular Uncurbed cd instead of Peacelovepunklife or 2002's Punks on Parole was pretty simple: ...Keeps the Banner High's cover was better-looking. I mean, Peacelovepunklife had actual 70's hippies in the nude on the cover and the punk religion prohibited me from getting involved in any hippie business, whereas Punks on Parole was basically a spoof of The Usual Suspects' poster and, while I was never deprived of a sense of humour, one is never too cautious about punk bands trying to be funny. So I went for ...Keeps the Banner High as the picture of demonstrating autonomous punx looked much more comforting and I thought - quite rightly so by chance - that the three albums were bound to sound similar anyway. And I did buy the hippie album years later in case you are wondering. By the late 90's, Uncurbed was a significantly different animal than on their first album The Strike of Mankind, an overlooked classic record of dual vocal dark käng crust with a raw old-school Swedish death-metal vibe. The lineup had not moved that much until the 2000 album with only Tommy, former singer of Asocial in the 80's, replacing Henrik on vocals in 1994. The change of direction was progressive but manifest and one could say that, by the time Uncurbed entered the studio in early 1999, the band was at its best and they had turned their brand of rocking Scandinavian crust into an unstoppable beast, indeed into wolverines obnoxiously riding a moose.

 

We all have a mate like Uncurbed, someone that you are not that intimate with but that you are always pleased to see, a friend who is just the best to party hard with. Uncurbed is like getting stupidly and happily wankered, it is not something you are going to reflect on afterwards, something deep and life-changing but it is still a brilliant time that brings smiles to your ugly face. On ...Keeps the Banner High Uncurbed sounded like a rock'n'roll machine delivering blows after blows of hard-drinking Swedish crust punk anthems with two wild punk vocalists and two guitar players, allowing for additional heaviness and many cheesy guitar shredding that work well in that context and give the songs that high energy, over-the-top vibe. I had forgotten how guitar-driven Uncurbed sounded like, it is basically riffs after riffs after riffs often nodding in all the right places. The pace is mostly of the fast and pummeling käng variety but it must be pointed that you are also offered mid-paced dirty Motörhead numbers for some variety, although I personally think the record loses a bit of momentum because the band slows down too often (but then I'm hardly the "rocker" type). With a production by Mieszko (yet again) the result is punishing and emphatic to say the least. The dual vocal style of course points to the Extreme Noise Terror tradition and the eurocrust wave it spawned but the Swedish foundations of Uncurbed's music are strong and classics like 90's Anti-Cimex, No Security, Driller Killer or Disfear do come to mind although the Motörhead influence is far more present and Uncurbed rock harder, perhaps excessively so at times. To be fair, I think Uncurbed sound best when they are at their most aggressive, when they use those Totalitär riffs and intense crust singing styles in Swedish to emphasize the raging hardcore aggression and the heavy rock'n'roll influence can be said to be a little overbearing by the end of this 40-minute long album. I think, overall, that in retrospect the slightly rawer, more direct and shorter 30-minute long Peacelovepunklife may be slightly superior although I should also point out that, in 2020, we are no longer used to 40-minute long käng albums. Besides, if Uncurbed already used that Motörhead vibe in the late 90's, twenty years have passed and all the post-Inepsy, "metal punk death squad" and post-Misanthropic Generation bands pretty much spoiled and wore down the genre so that I am now almost allergic to any "Motörhead punk".

 

I really like the booklet coming with the cd with its deliciously punky DIY cut'n'paste aesthetics, with handwritten lyrics, blurry pictures, gig handouts, crushed beer cans and dodgy ashtrays. It looks like a humble, homemade record coming from the heart, almost like a family thing, and it is no coincidence that the band often referred to themselves as "The Uncurbed Family", although their family reunion must have suspiciously looked like massive punk parties. The lyrics are of a political nature, in the protest punk tradition, but you also have more rock-oriented words that you can sing along to while spilling your beer on your friendly neighbour's boots. This album does exactly what it says on the cover, keeping the punk banner high and providing you with the perfect soundtrack to party and get pissed to with friends and family.          

 

Riding on the highlife indeed!

Keeps the banner high!

 *about the title of the series "Wesh to Sweden": "wesh" is a slang word commonly used in France by the urban youth. It is derived from the Arabic language and can mean a variety of things like "hello", "what's up", "how are you?", "what!", "fuck" and the list goes on and on. Sorry if the meaning gets a bit lost in translation.

Kids of the 90's (part 10): Okotta / Visions of War "恐った / Untitled" split Ep 2000

Could there be a better choice than a Visions of War record to close the Kids of the 90's series with splendour? I think not. I am pretty sure everyone reading this will already be familiar with the mighty VOW. They have been going through thick and thin for twenty years, have toured extensively and released records at a steady pace, so unless you have been hiding under a crust-proof rock for years, you must have heard about them (which is not synonymous with actually hearing them, I'll give you that). Although it is true that the majority of their materials was released from the early 00's on, I personally see VOW as a quintessentially 90's band and not just because of the age of the participants. They stand for a specific genre - in terms of vibe and sound but also of casually genuine DIY attitude - let's call it eurocrust for the sake of clarity, that reached its peak during the mid-90's and almost completely vanished during the last decade (there have been a couple of sporadic instances to be sure but while everyone's talking about a so-called 90's revival, I am still not seeing much of a difference in my punk niche). But, not unlike bands such as Hellkrusher or Extinction of Mankind, they are still standing, undisturbed and unperturbed by the endless flow of newish punk trends and if that's not true dedication and crust heroism (albeit a quixotic one perhaps), then I don't know what is and I should probably open an organic, gluten-free, gender-neutral, streetfood stand selling kale cupcakes and lattes instead of raving like a cyber lunatic.

You can notice that the release date of this split Ep is actually 2000 (hence not the 90's, thanks for pointing it out Captain Obvious) but since the VOW songs were recorded in December, 1998, and mixed in January, 1999 (and since this blog is a domain I rule with an iron fist), I decided to select it as a logical conclusion. Let's start with Okotta, on side A. I must admit that I wasn't really familiar with this lot and therefore had to ask some knowledgable old-timer (merci Lolo!) for details about them. They were a short-lived band from the Antwerp area in Belgium, active in the late 90's (they had split up when the Ep came out). Okotta was made up of Tim and Kurt who had previously played together in Noise Reduction (who did a split Ep with Disaster-fanatics Deadlock from Japan), in Karma and in Orchestrange. Tim was also running Filth-Ear Distributions, a noisy label responsible for some solid records from the likes of Active Minds, Social Chaos and even Jobbykrust (the first Filth-Ear release in fact). With such a pedigree, I guess you can already imagine what Okotta may sound like, right? Noisy hardcore indeed.

The six songs on Okotta's side are raw and to the point, gruff and angry bursts of fast hardcore thrash with hoarse vocals and tightness as an option. If a bunch of grizzly bears tried to cover Hellnation, they would come close to this. There is an undeniable sense of fury and urgency conveyed by the rough sound of the recording and I would venture that the simplicity of the songwriting is also intentional and is meant to reinforce that vibe. But simple is difficult and although I think the songs work as part of the split Ep, I am not sure I could go through a full album. The lyrics are pretty dark, direct and aggressive which of course works well with the genre. There is no recording date but I suppose the songs were done in 1999. Another Okotta release does exist as Filth-Ear put out a cdr album entitled 恐った, same as their side of the Ep, in 1999 (apparently it means something like "I was scared" but I am pretty clueless when it comes to Japanese). 

On side B are the always valiant VOW, also from Hellgium, with their second vinyl appearance. The first one was on the Ups The Record compilation Ep from 1998 (which also included Sin Dios, PCP, Boycot, Dekadent, Shears and Point of Few) but the least you could say about VOW's contribution is that it was a bit of a miss since the song "D-Cay" was at the wrong speed and sounded much slower than it was supposed to (I also love the 90's for stories like these). This track was actually part of the band's first demo, recorded in April, 1998 (VOW formed during the autumn of '96), an ultimate collection of eight songs epitomizing rough and ready dual-vocals cavemen crust that makes Accion Mutante and Warcollapse sound almost soft in comparison. The three songs included on this split Ep were taken from the second demo recorded in January, '99 (the full demo can be found on the cd version of the split with Mass Genocide Process from Czech).

Because the 2002 split Lp with Olho De Gato was released on Maloka Records, it was very easy to find copies of it in Paris in the early 00's and a mate of mine taped the Lp for me at a time when I was slowly but surely getting heavily into crust. But in these days of intense crust exploration, I suppose it kinda got lost in the midst of so many other bands, so I did not pay that much attention to it at first (though I did mentally classify VOW in the ENT/Disrupt drawer). Then in early 2004, at an afterparty in Leeds, someone (I cannot remember who exactly but I do recall that, among the guests, he was reputed to play only "super gruff crust and grind" which, reflecting on it now, I am not sure was exactly a compliment) played VOW's side and, amidst the cider fumes, I was struck by how bloody great it sounded. Fast-forward to spring and to the 2004 K-Town festival, back when it was still an anarcho/crust event relatively hipster-free, where some good mates of mine went (I could not for some stupid reason I forgot) and saw VOW play. According to several trustworthy reports (with the usual hyperbolic storytelling of course), the band pretty much outcrusted everyone on stage: they were savagely intense and the equivalent of time-traveling to see ENT in 1988. At that time, to be convicted of outcrusting at K-Town was not something many could claim to have achieved so I was, once again, really quite impressed and thus the aforementioned record (which I had bought in the meantime) got played even more often at home. 

These are all silly stories of course, but, being sentimental, I suppose the band means a lot to me. VOW is a bit like that old friend you can always rely on. Sure some years were better than others in your relationship, but he's one of the proverbial boys. I am not sure whether or not the band still played the songs from this second demo when they hit the K-Town stage, but it can still give you a significant idea about where the allegation of outcrusting comes from. 

Prior to VOW, vocalist Stiv (who is gossiped to have started as the "high-pitched" screamer in the band) had been singing in Insane Youth, a crusty and noisy hardcore punk band who did a split Ep with Boycot, second vocalist Steffen was part of Deconsume and guitar-hero Stef played in Corpus Christi, a Mob-47-meets-Zyklome-A-at-a-crust-conference kind of band who did a split Ep with Força Macabra, and in the late Insane Youth Lineup. As for the very original moniker, the rumour has it that it was the result of a dare with the guys from Hellkrusher who challenged Stef to form a crust band with a clichéd Discharge-inspired name. I doubt anyone involved expected said band to last twenty years but here it is. 

And the three songs on this particular Filth-Ear split Ep I hear you ask? Well, they are top-shelf pummeling gruff crust with dual vocals and a crunchy, powerful and heavy raw sound, up there with the finest of the 90's. Vintage Hiatus, Amen, Warcollapse, Amnesty, MVD, all the best come to mind and the VOW side can be seen as a "90's crust for dummies" guideline, or, perhaps more accurately, as the perfect eurocrust synthesis of the decade. Absolutely ace stuff done with taste and knowhow. In 2000, Lolo from Primitiv Bunko and Arnaud from Detritus joined the band and contributed to the making of the furious split Lp with Olho de Gato. More records followed but that's a story for another time. 

Get some fucking 90's crust in your life, yeah?            

Les visions de la guerre

"Chaos of Destruction 2" 2xLp, 2000

Context is everything.

It always amazes me how the meaning of a same word can change throughout the years. In fact, 10 years is now more than enough to alter the implications of a particular term. It is not always for the worst actually as I am not one to mourn for any supposedly lost purity that never was in the first place. Sometimes, the meaning and the concept itself can be expanded meaningfully and tastefully, and 90's crust was a good example of such a phenomenon. On the other hand, the meaning can also be diluted into irrelevance and laziness, or it can become an awkward blueprint that focuses solely on the outcome and never on the actual creative process, dismissing the context that allowed both. So, what does one think about in 2016 when reading the adjective "raw" applied to "hardcore" (well "hard core" actually) on the cover of a new record? He or she will irremediably expect modern "raw punk", in other terms bands trying to recreate the direct and raw sound of 80's hardcore punk bands, usually through the addition of effects that will make the music purposefully dirty. Usually these newer bands know how to play and master what they are doing, "raw punk" is just another genre to play and "raw" one of its prerequisite. As a recent creation, "raw punk" retroactively includes bands as diverse as Wretched, Anti-Cimex or RIP precisely through the "raw" prism (a move that also speaks volume about the polished sound of "modern hardcore" that a lot of people listened to before). Of course, there always was punk music that was raw. But there wasn't always "raw punk".

All this to say that, even though "Chaos of destruction 2" does indeed claim to be a "raw hardcore compilation", it is very different from what we understand as "raw punk" nowadays. In the case of this compilation, "raw hardcore" is purely descriptive: the bands play hardcore punk music - in the broad sense of the term - and the sound is raw. Had it been released today, "raw hardcore" would have been indicative of a structured genre much more than of a sound and a way of playing punk. Words are tricky things.

"Chaos of Destruction 2" was co-released in 2000 by Dan-Doh Records, a Kochi-city-based hardcore label that has been delivering quality Japanese punk music for twenty years (Disclose, Insane Youth, AGE...) and Chaos of Destruction, a small label that was run by none other than Kawakami which makes this compilation very interesting (after all, he pioneered the concept of "D-beat raw punk"). Kawakami was the one who compiled and produced the two "Chaos of Destruction" compilations and as everyone knows, the geezer had a good ear for raw punk music so it is a safe bet to assume that they reflected his tastes and his vision of what "raw hardcore" meant. In our decade marked by very high levels of (often half-digested) referentiality, trend-following and calculated genericness, the relative diversity, the open-mindedness and the obvious passion and genuine love for punk that permeate the compilation is refreshing. Of course, we are in the realms of hard-hitting punk music so don't expect anything melodic here, but still, there is no denying that bands like Xaotiko Telos, Dios Hastio or Framtid sound very different from one another. "Chaos of Destruction 2" gathers hardcore bands with a raw sound, not "raw punk bands". And I like it. The compilation sounds unpretentious and it is a proper celebration of punk-rock. It doesn't try to look punk, it just is. Here is what Kawakami enthusiastically had to say about the making of "Chaos of Destruction 2": "All the bands are great. Although their sound style is same Crust/UK HC noise, there are some difference between each band's expression, so you will enjoy all of them."

While the first volume of "Chaos of Destruction" from 1997 only included Japanese bands (it was a freakish 3xLp compilation...), the second one is firmly rooted in the international punk scene, just like "Whispers" and "Iron Columns", which, in addition to its variety, gives it a real 90's DIY feel. It is obvious that Kawakami strongly believed in the internationalist nature of punk as the numerous splits Disclose did with foreign bands can attest. The object looks great, the punk as fuck cover was drawn by a Brazilian bloke while the backcover was done by Jacky Crust War. The cover is made up of a huge gatefold poster with artwork and lyrics from all the bands. There are some rather famous names here next to very obscure bands, united in an unabated and shameless true love for noisy and fast punk music. 22 bands for 45 songs.

- AGE: what could be better than open "Chaos of Destruction" with some proper CRUST? Nothing, of course. I absolutely love AGE's 90's records ("Inside darkness" and "Exploding insanity" are old favourites at the TSN headquarters) which rate as some of best crust music Japan has ever produced. "Insolent Japan" is an early AGE song recorded in 1997 and embodies everything that is good about proper crust: heavy, groovy and dirty. The song is deliciously metallic with a crunchy guitar sound and top bass lines, very reminiscent of Antisect, SDS and even Sacrilege. There is a deceptive, flowing simplicity in the songwriting that is often the sign of genuinely good crust. A band that will eventually be back here. Top shelf.

- Neurose Urbana: raw. This is raw. Very raw. Not in a calculated way, not as a fashion statement, no "let's press quickly our demo tape onto a limited Ep" bollocks. Neurose Urbana were a Brazilian duo playing 80's-flavoured hardcore punk influenced by the Brazilian and Swedish schools. I am aware that the term has become pretty meaningless but this is the real deal. Sloppy, brutal and pummeling fast punk music with super aggressive reverb vocals reminiscent of this raw Brazilian sound of bands like Ulster, SP Caos or Kaos 64. The three songs were recorded in early 1997 and the band also released three Ep's in the early 00's. "We are punx, chaotics and anti-fascist. We speak about punk, chaos and urban neurosis. Viva o punk, viva o chaos". Did I mention this was raw?

- Cluster Bomb Unit: an early song from 1994 by the mighty Cluster Bomb Unit that is here to remind you how to play energetic, fuzzy, distorted punk music. CBU's music certainly became more refined throughout the years but this song is just a wall of Scandi drum beats and Japanese-styled distortion captured through a cheap tape recorder. Absolutely brilliant.

- Hell On Earth: more sloppy and raw Scandinavian hardcore music, this time from Bratislava. The three songs have an urgent and direct feel that cannot be faked. They were recorded in 1997 "in 30 minutes high on weed, lyrix are in Slovak so don't try to singalong kids!". Sounds like a jam between Avskum and Shitlickers.

- Χαοτικό Τέλος: although it does not show in his music, Kawakami must have loved good crust. At least, he certainly knew quality crust when he heard some. Were Χαοτικό Τέλος the best European crust bands of the 90's? This is a bold statement but one that I tend to agree with. Their "Πέρα Από-Τα Τείχη Της Σιωπής" demo from 1991 is probably the best work of synth-driven crust I have heard (truth be told, you do have to love epic and dramatic synthesizer to get into it) and their "Μπροστά Στην Παράνοια" Lp from 1993 is a flawless blend of mid-paced UK crust à la Axegrinder and Amebix, Hiatus/Doom-type crust and Antisect/Anti-System-anarchopunk, seasoned with that specifically Greek dark sound and epic songwriting. A band that truly worked on the classic bands to shape a sound and world of their own. "Fugitives of silence" must have been recorded in the mid-90's and is a bouncy fast crust number with appropriately heavy and groovy Frosty breaks. Winner.

- Katastrofialue: sounds like an evil dogfight. Noise-infused rabid and mean Finnish hardcore, like Kaaos getting drunk with Gai and Bathory. The music is very chaotic, distorted and bass-driven and the energy is certainly not lost. The singer really sounds like he is barking though. This is ripping and intense but slightly exhausting and I don't think I could listen to a whole Lp of Katastrofialue. Actual noise not music.

- Ability: a band I know virtually nothing about. Ability were from Japan and deliver distorted D-Beat punk music with a distinct Japanese noisepunk feel (especially with the very loud and thick bass sound and the triumphant riffs), somewhere between Disclose and State Children or something, although they are not quite heavy enough to fall under the crasher-crust umbrella. These two songs are their only recordings says Discogs.

- Holocrust: cavemen crust at its best but the name gives it away. Seriously. This would be the perfect soundtrack for a neanderthal wedding party. Absolute Swedish crustcore with over-the-top dual gruff vocals and this relentless vibe that is so characteristic of 90's crust. It sounds like a sloppy, archaic version of Warcollapse and actually the two bands had members in common (Jalle from Warcollapse drummed for them and recorded the songs as well). The two songs were recorded in 1996 and were meant to appear on an Ep (Holocrust intel). I don't like it: I love it.  

- Agathocles: yes, Agathocles, not in their usual mincecore mood but having a go at Discharge-influenced, Scandi-flavoured hardcore punk. The sound is very rough and it is sometimes a little difficult to understand what is actually happening. You wanted raw, well there you go! The three songs were recorded in 1994 in Barcelona at the Violent Headache's headquarters and point to a period when grindcore was definitely punkier.

- Squandered: the follow-up to Cracked Cop Skulls. Distinctively British D-Beat orthodoxy with cracking angry double-track vocals, groovy bass lines and a guitar sound to die for. Stick from Doom drummed for Squandered and you can spot his usual rolls here and there. The band also covers a 6 Minute War song, "Nurses", which is a lovely choice. Ace.

- Sista Civilisationens Död: I know very little about this Swedish lot to be honest. SCD played pretty standard Swedish hardcore with a raw sound (you saw that coming), not unlike a rough Diskonto. The songs are not bad but I feel they lack energy and intensity but then, the production does not exactly help either.

- Framtid: how intense can you get? As a kid, I wanted to become a wrestler, which is pretty funny considering how skinny I am today. I have come to terms with the sad reality that I will never be a wrestler. However, I am pretty sure that taking a dropkick must feel something like these two Framtid songs. Whirlwind hardcore punk that is incredibly relentless and punishing. The band was formed by Jacky from the Crust War label and has acquired a cult status throughout the years and I can understand why. The two songs were recorded in october, 1998 and sounds like a steroid-induced brawl between Extreme Noise Terror and Confuse with a super tight drummer playing for his life. Sheer brilliance.

- Dios Hastio: that's a tough one to describe. Fast and intense epileptic hardcore punk from Lima that is genuinely original and inventive. The vocals sound demented, furious and threatening, a little out of sync, with a lot of reverb, while the rhythms of the songs are unconventional but still manage to be energetic. There is an atmosphere of insanity floating over Dios Hastio's music. I can hear some classic Peruvian hardcore here like Descontrol or Kaos, but also Italian bands like Negazione or Indigesti and I am guessing that the song structures of powerviolence gave Dios Hastio a few ideas as well. But all in all, they really have a sound of their own and they have penned smart, slightly morbid, deep political lyrics that are well above average.

- Nailed Down: for some reason, a band I have always ignored although the name is of course familiar. It is probably too American-sounding for my tastes but I suppose that these two songs fit well on "Chaos of Destruction": raw, fast and angry hardcore from Australia with super fast parts.

- Recharge: "Hear nothing"-worshipping hardcore punk from Hannover with a Deutschpunk feel in the raucous vocals. Recharge are often forgotten when discussing the 90's D-Beat wave. I would argue that their take on the genre was probably closer musically to mid-90's Varukers and Hellkrusher than to Disfear or Dischange, although they still referred heavily to Discharge and aimed at emulating them. And that's the issue, they probably focused on the wrong things: instead of emphasizing the directness and crude power of the Discharge formula (like Dischange), they tried to beef it up with typically mid-late 90's hardcore-punk production and vocals that cannot really work if you still try to stick to Discharge too much. This said, the two songs (recorded live in Japan) still do the job and they did sound like a good live band.

- Muckspreader: to some extent, the odd one of "Chaos of Destruction 2" as Muckspreader were not really a hardcore band but raw and fuzzy they certainly were. The band started after the demise of Zygote and kept building on their heavy, mid-paced, grungy, dark but rocking punk sound. If you are familiar with Smartpils or Zygote, you can tell that Muckspreader had this typical Bath pagan sound, slightly psychedelic, in an incantatory way, but still ominous. "Hellraiser" is one of their best songs: the sound has an earthy and organic texture and the mood is appropriately anguished and macabre. A clear winner that shall return here.

- Plutonium: yet another band I know very little about. And that is a shame since the two songs are really good. Plutonium were from Utsunomiya and played high-energy, bass-driven distorted Japanese hardcore. It is difficult to tell from just two songs (one of which is an epic, slow number with spoken words, more of an intro probably but I really like the triumphant anarcho vibe) but I suspect Plutonium were into lightning fast angry hardcore with singalong chorus (the second song makes me think of a cross between Ripcord and Gauze).

- Sanctus Iuda: a great Polish anarchopunk band that already got invited at Terminal Sound Nuisance. I love the aggressive, slightly crusty, but still song and tune-driven music of Sanctus Iuda. Dynamic, angry and expressive. On "Chaos of Destruction", SI tried something particularly difficult: a Crass cover. This exercise is extremely tricky because if you try to stick too much to the Crass sound you will end up making a mess of it as their music was much more complex and intricate than one might think and it is almost impossible to replicate the Crass texture. But if you cover Crass with a totally different genre, you can end up making the original song unrecognizable and the very particular flow of the lyrics can prove to be almost impossible to adapt to many other genres. Tough shit. I think SI did it well though, they turned "Do they owe us a living?" into a fast-paced, but still tuneful, anthemic hardcore-punk songs with a cool singalong chorus (although the singer does struggle a bit with the vocals but who can blame him?). Really good job.

- GJPB: I'm afraid to say I am not really familiar with that one either. Apparently the name means "Great Japanese Punk Band" which is both ridiculous and really funny (but then the song is also called "Grope in the dark"). They were from Tokyo and played fast and distorted Japanese punk, not far from the local noisepunk classics with a dash of Doom. The bass sound is absolutely monstrous, but I am not sure yet if it is a good or a bad thing.

- Domo Arigato: people often make fun of Japanglish and while I think it is a little unfair, I must admit that some bands did fall into nonsensical lyrics, closer to futurist poetry than protest punk. Domo Origato were from Switzerland, with members of Earth Citizens, Viktors Hofnarren and Strongly Opposed Records, and sang in Japanese so that, for once, the table was turned. Musically, Domo Origato played basic and fast 1-2-1-2 punk with a rather clear guitar sound. Lovably sloppy.

- Silêncio Funebre: the name won't probably ring a bell but Silencio Funebre was actually a side-project (in the shape of a duo) done by Fofao from Besthöven. The presence of Fofao on "Chaos of Destruction 2" is obviously relevant, if not mandatory, since he has embodied a certain idea of hardcore punk for a long time and, to a large extent, set the standards for what we call "raw punk" today. By the time the compilation came out however, Besthöven had not released anything on vinyl yet, and the inclusion of three Silencio Funebre on such a project may have helped put the horrorcore sound on the punk map for good. Musically SF sounds a lot like Besthöven: genuinely, rather than aesthetically, raw punk inspired by 80's hardcore from Sweden, Brazil and Italy. Despite the very thin sound, the songs are very dynamic and you can sense the anguish and the tension in the dark bottom of the music. This is good.

- Disclose: yes, them again. Two songs recorded in may, 1999, "The nuclear victims" (which contains the classic Discharge line "Men women and children crying in agony") and "The end approaches", a cover of The Sexual, that would also appear on "The nuclear victim" Ep from 2000. Disclose in their D-Beat Raw Punk prime.

Are you going to survive this?

Chaos of Destruction 2