Wesh to Sweden, the Formative Years (part 6): Kontrovers "S/t" cd, 2002

The genuine melomanes among you (and I know that there are many) might be, upon the realization that the sixth part of Wesh to Sweden will deal with the first album of Kontrovers, a tad surprised and understandably so. I wouldn't blame them. The previous parts of the series saw me wrestle bands such as Skitsystem, Avskum, Krigshot, Uncurbed and Diskonto and tackle records strongly grounded in the 90's d-beat/käng wave, works that were, in their conception and execution, fundamentally rooted in the creativity of that decade (the argument that the production of Örebro-Mangel sort of heralded the 00's sound is not irrelevant though). Kontrovers' self-titled opus however firmly belongs to the decade of the 00's, the noughties, not so much literally but diachronically. This is not to claim that this very album was breaking brand new grounds or that it marked a spectacular shift in the world of käng. Kontrovers did not navigate in totally unchartered territory and they relied enough on dual vocal crustcore savagery for the patched punx to know where they were coming from. However, not unlike Acursed at the same time and with a similar evolution, Kontrovers were taking a path that was more progressive, more narrative not to mention melodic, a change that informed large segments of the 00's crust scene on a global scale, in Sweden and abroad. 

 

 

There would be (too) many bands, in the early and mid 00's, taking the dangerous and challenging path of moody and epic - if not emotional - crust music, with varying degrees of success. This new quest for dark melodies was baptized "neocrust" (although in France we called it "crust de salon", "lounge crust" as opposed to "crust des bois", "wood crust" which represented the Hiatus school of crust) and I suppose the old guard must have been rather distrustful of the term, and with reason, since, as the "nu metal" debacle proved mercilessly to the world, the addition of such novelty-implying prefixes is always dodgy at best. Although I was absolutely clueless at the time - as one generally is to global evolutions - a major shift was occurring in the early 00's just as I was starting to understand what the whole Swedish hardcore business really meant. The 90's d-beat/crust/käng wave, as symbolized in Sweden by the Distortion Records empire, was crumbling while new, younger bands, often with related but different songwriting ambitions, started to emerge. In retrospect, it would be relevant to see Kontrovers, perhaps more than any other Swedish band, as an embodiment of this moment of change. The band started out as a pretty classic savage crust band with a typical 90's spirit and ended up releasing possibly one the best (neo)crust album of the era, 2003's När Spelreglerna Ändras.  

 

 

Before I keep going with my enlightening analysis and my breathtaking insights and let my biting wit loose, I would like to point out that, although I very rarely play any bands of the neocrust obedience today, during a couple of years in the 00's, there were dozens upon dozens of punk bands all over the world trying very hard to emulate Tragedy, His Hero Is Gone or From Ashes Rise (but then, haven't most people always fantasized about being American?). Everybody seemed to be into those modern bands and, because that take on hardcore sounded fresh and was advertized as a novelty for the next generation - in other words for me - I was definitely not insensitive to the appeal and charms of neocrust and melody-driven Swedish hardcore. While I think Tragedy and From Ashes Rise are objectively great bands, they unintentionally spawned far too many bands in the 00's that have aged very quickly and not that well in retrospect and whose grandiloquence sounds pretty cheesy in 2020. This said, I am perfectly aware that the same criticism could be formulated about the 90's d-beat clones that I love so much. They may be objectively average but subjectively brilliant. It's all a matter of love. While some of us easily discard all the melodic crust bands of that period (not exactly the boldest of statements in 2020), I believe that there were some genuinely class acts that unfairly ended up getting dumped disdainfully in the "neocrust" wave and were often accused of "jumping on the bandwagon", one of the harshest accusations in the punk world - second only to public allegations of posing - that has been known to destroy once immaculate hardcore reputations. But doesn't the very notion of punk trends (whether it is 80's käng, 90's d-beat, 00's neocrust or 10's postpunk) imply some degree of jumping on the bandwagon? In the end, the other major crust trend of the 00's, the so-called stenchcore revival indisputably won the crust fight from my perspective and I, like most people, stopped bothering with melodic crust rather quickly (it has to be said that, to this day, there is still a quite vibrant emo/neocrust scene in Spain for example). But at the end of the day, I'd rather play Kontrovers, Schifosi or Muga instead of cheap radio-friendly Belgrado clones.

 

The early years of Kontrovers were furious indeed. The band seems to have started playing in 1998 (there is a tape from that year including a live recording of their Malmö gig with Detestation and Operation) and they were quite active on the record front until they folded sometime in the mid 00's. Although vaguely aware of it when I first listened to the band, I was largely indifferent to the band's connection with the rather popular Intensity (two members in common). It was not my cuppa at all and, if anything, my immature self did not understand how someone playing in the crusty Kontrovers would also play in a US-styled hardcore band like Intensity, and, fortunately for my delicate mental balance, no one at the time told me that the man behind Putrid Filth Conspiracy - a label I strongly respected - also played in Satanic Surfers. Such an apparently dissonant impossibility would have surely baffled me to death. Kontrovers' career started properly with the Slendedemokrati Ep in 1999, a fast-paced twelve song crusty affair released on PFC that already displayed the band's love for multiple singers practicing vocal savagery. With a touch of grindcore, some dark Wolfpack-inspired melodic riffs here and there and even a soft acoustic introduction, the first Ep was reminiscent of Scumbrigade and Decrepit but also hinted at a sense of versatility that would prove to strengthen with time. The second Kontrovers record, a split Ep in 2000 with Beyond Description on Crust As Fuck Records, was a heavier effort confirming the band's intent to add more layers, some moodiness and more variety to their songwriting while sticking with the wild scandicrust tradition. Indeed, their side of the split even had openly screamo moments, modern metal breaks and some blastbeats for good measures, which certainly conferred a manic epic vibe to the songs but also felt too disparate at times. Their side of the split Ep with Mass Separation, though released only in 2004, was recorded in late 99/early 00's and shared the same creative characteristics as the one with BD. Their next record, their first self-titled album, was recorded in 2001 by Rodrigo PLC and it was an undeniably stronger and more focused work that can be rightly considered as both one of the best Swedish crust Lp of the 00's and one of the most 00's-sounding of the decade's best scandicrust albums.

 

With my beloved brain cells slowly but irremediably deteriorating, I cannot say that I recall the reasons why I initially bought this cd. I must have thought that it looked quite nice on the website (probably Hardcore Holocaust's) and the label's pitch must have implied that the album, usually referred to as "a classic for this day and age", was taking the genre "to the next level", if not "to a brand new dimension". Needless to say that I was then an ingenuous and dupable young fellow. I have very fond (if hazy) memories of playing this cd on my crappy boom box while smoking weed in my tiny room in Manchester and trying to make out the different layers of guitars and vocals and count the many changes of pace, sometimes in less than a single minute and being quite amazed although probably a bit too high to understand what was really going on. This 2002 offering is an intense and crushing album that sounds genuinely passionate and heartfelt. The album benefits greatly from the perfectly tuned teamwork between the two guitar players - serpentine melodic leads answering to dark and heavy crusty käng riffs - and from the addition of a new singer, Carin, whose rough and hoarse vocal style would make one think she had just swallowed a box of nails and can be compared to such great crustesses as Mags from Excrement of War or Agnes from Homomilitia. Her voice fits the stylistic progression perfectly, reinforces the brutal crust edge of the music and takes Kontrovers into the canonical realms of polyvocal crust music, a tradition that, sadly, barely survived the mid-00's. The very dynamic vocal arrangements sometimes work in the classic time-tested trade-off style but also in more tone-related ways (one vocalist will take care of one particular musical phase), a versatile and manic structure that, combined with the extreme furious singing styles, is possibly what I enjoy the best from the album nowadays.   

 

 

 

The aural punishment as conveyed by the polyphonic crust horde behind the mikes in Kontrovers, though very aptly executed, was not exactly new in 2002. Kontrovers' first album can be said to firmly belong to the 00's crust wave because of its diversity of paces, its overall narrative moodiness and, of course, its dark melodic guitar leads (the first song actually opens on such a trope). On the whole, the album's core remains the traditional and obsessive scandicrust bulldozing of State of Fear, Skitsystem or 3-Way Cum, but Kontrovers infused a variety of paces and narrative styles to tell a poignant punk story of anger and love, from heavy and slow desperate-sounding post-hardcore moments, to relentless mangel-type d-beats, proper grindcore blast beats and the use of political samples over instrumental songs for the anarcho touch. And then of course, you've got the melodic leads over usually down-tuned heavy riffs, probably the most typical and clichéd trait of 00's neocrust, along with the emotional mid-paced break with high-pitched screamed vocals. To be quite honest, although Kontrovers did not overuse the Tragic guitar melodies (like certainly some did), in retrospect some perfectly good and effective brutal crustcore moments on the album get a little spoiled by that mood-changing technique. But then, I suppose that, if there had only been a couple of bands doing it then, it would have been quite alright, but our perception of music is a process conditioned through time and place and listening to this album with hindsight is a very different experience. I think it has definitely stood the test of time and, for all the neocrust leanings, there are enough devastating songs of brutal crustcore with brilliant male/female vocals to keep it afloat all along.            

 

Not unlike the of Easter Island statues', world experts are not completely sure of the origins of "the dark and epic melodic leads" invasion of the crust scene in the 00's but there is a growing consensus that the reptilians had nothing to do with it. Though the truth, after all, could be elsewhere, I would still humbly venture that its birth is threefold. The first point of entry would be essentially Swedish in style with Wolfpack's frequent use of cold yet melodic guitar leads that took their roots in classic Swedish death metal sound and I don't have to tell you how influential Wolfpack were in the mid/late 90's. Second, of course, you've got His Hero Is Gone and Tragedy, two rather different but highly inspiring animals, with the same down-tuned guitar players obsessed with the epic guitar leads of Burning Spirit Japanese hardcore bands. The third thread could be pulled from the heavy and monumental moody post-hardcore terrain laid down by Neurosis throughout the 90's and sometimes borrowed by From Ashes Rise. And besides it's not like melodic hardcore never happened anyway. To get back to Kontrovers, there is little doubt that what inspired their dark tunes was locally bred (just take a listen to Wolfbrigade's 2001 Progression/Regression if you want catch the mood of the times). As I said above, despite the obvious 00's markers, Kontrovers showed enough personality and passion to remain quite unique and I can happily listen to the 20 songs in 35 minutes. It sounds like Scumbrigade, His Hero Is gone, Disrupt and Wolfbrigade rioting and howling in a snow globe.

 

 

 

The cd version comes in a lovely digisleeve (that means it's made of cardboard you dimwit) and a proper booklet with the lyrics, drawings and short explanations in English. Bass player Simon took care of the visual aspect of the album and it looks great, not far from outsider art with a genuine organic feel. Certainly, there was an effort to get away from all the visual stereotypes attached to the crust aesthetics and, compared to the visuals from the first parts of Wesh to Sweden (or even to the band's previous Ep's), you would be entitled to think Kontrovers played a totally different style of music. The lyrics tackle a vast array of political and personal topics, ranging from the usual anarcho rants about the police, sexism or materialism, to critiques of the use of gory imagery or of the constant boozing in hardcore punk or more intimate subjects like depression and helplessness. Not necessarily original but the whole thing looks, sounds and feels sincere and passionate and during this current gloomy period, sometimes that's all a punk may need. 

 

This album was released on Putrid Filth Conspiracy in 2002, the rather excellent label run by Rodrigo from Satanic Surfers (and quite paradoxically the only Swedish label involved in the records reviewed in this series) that put out records from Acursed, Sayyadina, Sanctum or Skitkids. After the demise of Kontrovers, Mattias and Simon teamed up with Rodrigo (from PFC and Satanic Surfers) and two Oskars from Project Hopeless to form the crust hardcore band Ursut. 

 

 

Kontrovers 2002               

Wesh to Sweden, the Formative Years (part 3): Krigshot "Örebro-Mangel" cd, 2002

Particularly rainy days are often thought to symbolise the perfect backdrop for musing and reflection, as if the weather somehow allowed for such existential meditative moments, potentially pregnant with self-revelation, epiphanies and, of course, a melancholy sense of vacuity and helplessness, one that might threaten to devour our vulnerable resolve and lead us down the cruel path of shoegaze. Who knows how many of our comrades in hardcore punk were brutally taken away by shoegaze on rainy days, never to return, betraying the scene, their friends and their own promises of staying true to the roots... Perhaps straight-edge were visionaries after all? On such umbrella-loving days, I personally like to ponder over punk albums that deeply affected me in my teenage years and my early 20's, an intense time as much ruled by juvenile idealism and unlimited passion as it is by insecurity, narrow-mindedness and naiveness. Among the records I used to love unreservedly at the time, there are those that I no longer can seriously listen to - either because they are objectively not that good or because they are too anchored in a strictly defined era that is no longer to my liking (yes, I am looking at you neocrust) - and those that still have a similar effect although my context and experience have changed. It is a strange feeling, a sentiment that can as easily be applied to novels or movies and I think it operates on several levels. 

First, when playing again and enjoying a record you used to adore, you also tend to appreciate and rely on the memories of adoration and enjoyment, without which you would not engage in the record in the same fashion, so that it is difficult to be objective (do you love the record or do you love the memory of love?). This nostalgic element can get entangled with the second level, that is based on your acquired, and always evolving, knowledge of the particular field and aesthetics adopted by the record. Your punk culture has vastly improved during the past twenty years (or, at least, it should have), not just in the quantity of bands you happen to be familiar with but also in terms of the creative processes inherent in hardcore punk music, in how trends and waves come and go, how intertextuality and referentiality work in punk, how the context define and illuminate the text, how the medium influences how we listen to and engage with punk music and what bands we chose to listen to and so on. With real knowledge of punk, some did argue, comes the end of the age of innocence and the metaphorical loss of paradise: the inimitable excitement that your excited and uneducated teenage self felt upon discovering on a very primal basis a solid punk record. It is an experience that one cannot replicate indefinitely as it can only last for a couple of years, as long as the magics still work, and d-beat (or whatever punk subgenres) still sounds fresh, new and personal. With the realization that most bands sound the same on purpose, the feeling of novelty, spontaneity and enthusiasm can wear down and an awareness of the aesthetics, context and creative processes at stake can cast a revived light on your subgenre punk record, one that is not incompatible with the primitive enjoyment of its crushing power, but rather, illuminates and completes it. That way I can still unashamedly listen to The Casualties' For the Punx and like it on a nostalgic teenage level and on a fancy pseudo-intellectual as well ("Did you catch the Skeptix reference on "Drunk on the streets"?"). It's a win-win. 

 

All this to say that Krigshot's Örebro-Mangel massively kicked my arse when I first played the cd in 2003 and that it still does today, in so brutal a fashion in fact that it almost feels tricky to take a step back and look at this hardcore tornado with the materialist eye of reason. Like for my Prank Records order, I had picked some records from Sound Pollution because, judging from the website, the label had an international focus and it was well distributed, therefore, easy for a promising youth like meself to find. Also, the short descriptions accompanying the label's releases all sounded like honest promises of intense sessions of hardcore trash bollocking and I just felt I was ready for it. I mean, I had been to many grindcore gigs in Paris before and, although I mostly spent the gig getting pissed outside and chatting about Conflict, I still thought that I had what it took to genuinely enjoy a full album of Hellnation and I was wrong of course. I remember the description indicated that the Örebro-based Krigshot had members playing in grindcore bands but sounded like a more intense version of Mob 47, which I loved. Since I first heard them on the radio thanks to the great work of the show ça Rend Sourd (see the first part for that), I must confess that I had become a little bit obsessed with them and, although a mate of mine had burnt a cd full of random Mob 47 songs, I was frustratingly looking for anything from the band (I was eventually able to find some bootleg tapes, unaware that a full discography, Ultimate Attack, would be released the year after...) so, I thought, a band that sounded like Mob 47 was probably the best I could muster at that moment. Despite my conceited confidence, I was, clearly, unprepared for the awe that Krigshot induced in me. Örebro-Mangel fucking smokes.

 

If Avskum's In the Spirit of Mass Destruction was fairly reasonable and easy-listening for a käng work, one that, because of its rocking vibe and catchy vocals, could be enjoyed by moderate metalheads and even played successfully as background music at a punk party, Krigshot's Örebro-Mangel is a very different and much wilder animal although both albums have similar running times. Who said that scandicore was uniform? I remember having to sit down at the end of the first song "Örebro-mangel", an insanely fast and pummeling hardcore trash number of 44 seconds, a little shocked at the level of intensity and not quite sure whether it was a brilliant idea or a terrible mess. I must say I have never played Krigshot that often compared to Skitsystem or Warcollapse for instance because Krigshot's music usually sounded like it was just too much. Too fast, too loud, too intense and after 10 minutes, a little dizzying, not unlike being smacked in the face again and again and wondering why you still enjoyed it. This style of fast and direct Swedish hardcore is often called mangel by the temple guards of punk and Stuart Schrader - formerly behind Game of the Arseholes - defined the mangel subgenre as a cross between the speed of U$ hardcore and the Discharge aggression, the substantive itself coming from the Swedish language for washing clothes with a laundry roller and the noise it makes. Mangel usually works best on the Ep format for the obvious reason that eight minutes of that relentless a bollocking is more than enough and that, as the latest scientific studies have shown, a normal human being can only take so much radically overblown Mob 47 worship in a day before fainting from exhaustion (the studies also showed that longtime Swedish hardcore fans have developed an additional membrane in the ears so as to be able to withstand without limitation of time, yet another convincing example of the theory of evolution). As a result a full album of 24 songs of uncompromisingly fast and orthodox mangel hardcore can be seen as a tricky endeavour. Indeed, to keep a punk listener engaged for 28 minutes with a Swedish hardcore record made up of one minute long songs is a challenge in itself as you have to keep the intensity level high and the songwriting sufficiently catchy. 

 

To be fair, Krigshot do have a couple of slightly longer and slower numbers on Örebro-Mangel to allow the listener - not to mention the album itself - to catch its breath. A wise and welcome choice. But otherwise, be prepared for an all-out hardcore attack with a very aggressive and loud guitar sound and vocals sounding meaner and throatier than on their previous 1999 Lp, Maktmissbrukare. This aforementioned album used the same songwriting template of mid-80's Stockholm hardcore but had a rawer sound and more distinctly 80's-styled vocals, so that it resembled a 90's tribute to Mob 47 and Crudity whereas Örebro-Mangel sounds more like a more modern extreme take on the genre thanks to its production. As you probably know, Krigshot - originally the name of a Mob 47 song - was a side project of Mieszko and Anders from Nasum, on vocals and drums respectively, while Jallo (from No Security, Totalitär or Meanwhile among many others) was in charge of the Åke-styled riffing and the bass on this recording. If Mob 47 were undoubtedly an influence on the 90's Swedish d-wave, there were not many bands who openly aimed at sounding "just like" them and Krigshot can be relevantly said to be to Mob 47 what Meanwhile were to Discharge. Know what I mean?

Of course, it was recorded by Mieszko at Soundlab Studios, a man who certainly contributed to make Swedish hardcore heavier than ever through his production works with bands like Skitsystem, Acursed, Avskum or Wolfpack and who tragically died in the 2004 tsunami. Örebro-Mangel is an intense, pounding, really fast and brutal hardcore work that is not for the faint-hearted and one that casual hardcore amateurs won't probably play every mornings. However once it kicks in, it sounds like an unstoppable beast going straight for the throat and it is basically impossible not to enjoy those fast, dynamic riffs and the really fucking fast energetic drumming that make you feel like a teenager again. Did I mention the album ends with a Riistetyt cover? Just icing on the mangel cake. As for the lyrics, they are all short, sharp and angry protest songs in Swedish with short explanations in English. One of them, about the song "Denna jävla teknik", rings a nostalgic bell "The song is about the new technique and it's consequences where the punks have 50gb of mp3's in their computer, but not a single classic 7'' in their possession". "The punks" no longer even bother having mp3's, they just stream. So 2001.

Mangel up your life

 *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.

Wesh to Sweden, the Formative Years (part 1): Skitsystem "Allt e skit" compilation cd, 2002

I would love to tell you grand stories about the tormented but powerful relationship I have slowly built with Swedish punk music throughout the years, potent tales that would inspire or empower you to be all you can be. Some proper moving shit with misunderstandings, breakups, reconciliations and Anti-Cimex covers. I would love to tell you that the first Swedish punk band I came across was Mob 47 or Wolfpack or another such respectable hardcore band that an older friend would have taped for me because that was how knowledge circulated and passion was shared in those pre-internet days. Of course, it did not happen like that and reality, once you remove the gratifying coat of storytelling, is often not so inspiring after all and probably not worthy of a smarmy self-help book complete with ugly mugs and weird dentitions on the cover. The first punk band from Sweden I heard about was Millencolin through Punk O Rama Vol. 2, a cd I got in late 1996 at a local supermarket for 29 French francs (yes, a supermarket, though it has to be said that they used to have decent rock sections in those days). I was 13 and had absolutely no idea that punk-rock was an international movement. In my tiny teenage mind, there used to be punk bands in England before but not anymore as they all died out like dinosaurs but because of drugs and all contemporary punk bands were from California and lived in "the Epitaph house" or in the vicinity and if there were any foreign bands (meaning not from North America) they basically only wanted to be American though they perhaps did not realize it yet. I was not the brightest kid in the neighbourhood as you can see, although I suppose such delusions also say a lot about the marketing powers and tactics and the worldview they generated in the 90's. 

 

So yeah, Punk O Rama. Of course all the bands were American apart from Millencolin who were from Sweden. Sweden... The only things I associated with the country until then were Abba (no thanks) and Henrik Larsson (yes please) and I remember being completely baffled by the inclusion of a Swedish band on the cd. I mean, Sweden? Come on! How utterly preposterous! What was next? Bloody Finland? It was all very exotic but, from my 13 year old wisdom, I somehow convinced my incredulous and ignorant self that, surely, Millencolin were a romantic exception. It is almost endearing to be that wrong I suppose. In the following years, I quickly discovered that not only were there more than a handful of Swedish melodic punk bands but that Swedes were also very present in all the other realms of punk music. By my 16th birthday I was heavily into wearing oversized bondage trousers, purple combat boots, disgraceful homemade patches and being chased down by bigger kids who, for some unfathomable reason, did not understand how magnificent the Casualties were. By then, Swedish "streetpunk" bands like Voice of a Generation, Bombshell Rocks or Guttersnipe were favourites of mine, however I was still blissfully if tragically unaware of Swedish hardcore. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I knew of Swedish bands playing US-styled hardcore but had no idea that the country had developed its own style of hardcore or that there were other styles of hardcore punk outside of the hegemonic tough guy American one for that matter (still a very common and unfortunate misconception to this day). The truth about scandicore hit me hard but progressively during the year 2002 through a local radio show broadcast on Radio Libertaire called "ça rend sourd" - meaning "it makes one deaf" in French - run by older knowledgeable punks with a strong liking for international hardcore, grindcore, crust and extreme punk music in general. To be honest, although I religiously listened to the show on every other sunday nights and did enjoy it, a lot of the bands they played were completely lost on me because my ear was still very much uneducated and unskilled to this type of music. Their scholarly references to Italian hardcore, Spanish raw punk or German powerviolence sounded deliciously cryptic and coded and it completely opened my eyes to the stylistic and geographical diversity of hardcore punk and to the importance of context and intent. And hearing Mob 47, Diskonto or Moderat Likvidation on the radio gave me a massive kick up the arse. 

 

 

How to cast suspicion on your own release...

 

The early 00's were an intense period of discovery, revelation and musical epiphany for me, one that I remember vividly and with nostalgia as everything sounded subjectively new and fresh at the time. In a very short time I became aware of the wide world of DIY hardcore punk and the numerous subgenres that composed it and, from this day on, trying to understand the making and the reproduction of hardcore subgenres in their context and native habitat has become my lifework, a bit like Dian Fossey but with Discharge fanatics instead of gorillas and without a biopic yet (but that goes with being murdered I presume so I keep the faith). My evergrowing love for crust punk made a frontal reunion with Swedish hardcore, one of the genre's inspirations, both unavoidable and highly fruitful. The series Wesh to Sweden* will be a presentation of seven records of Swedish hardcore - be it of the käng, mangel or d-beat variety, with the crust cursor more or less pronounced - that I deeply engaged and connected with during those formative years of intense discovery (2003 and 2004). The selection might look a little random, subjective and illogical as it is based on the purchases I made at the time on distros in order to explore and accumulate enough knowledge and as a result it was linked with the availability of records at that particular time and in that particular place and with my personal whims. 

 

 

One of the first Swedish hardcore cd's that I bought and that really won me over was Allt e skit from the mighty Skitsystem, from Gothenburg. I ordered the cd (because it was cheaper to ship than vinyl and my budget was limited) while I was living in Manchester as part of the student exchange program Erasmus, in late 2003. I had made friends in my hall of residence with a lad who was really into hardcore and metal and he often recommended bands to me. I remember him giving me local distro list that was updated every trimester and mostly carried extreme metal music and grindcore but also had some heavy hardcore and crust. In the list were Skitsystem's Allt e skit and Wolfpack's Allday Hell which he said were both amazing bands and compulsory listenings. Trusting in his better judgement, I sent a letter to the address indicated on the list with a £20 bill and a week later I was able to play Skitsystem and Wolfpack in my rather bleak and very small room (I had had the brilliant idea to bring a cd player along), in awe at the brutality of the music. Out of the two, Skitsystem prevailed in my opinion, probably because they sounded crustier and that was what I was after at the time and for this reason I played Allt e skit to death and can pretty much sing along in mock Swedish to all the songs (human waaaaaaste). I suppose that, in retrospect, Skitsystem is an obvious band to love, a genuine classic of what we mean by Swedish crust. What particularly impressed me at the time was that they sounded very heavy, menacing and aggressive and yet, at the same time, very simple and direct. The music had the desperate power of a charging rhino with a grudge but also felt quite accessible in its composition. Little did I know that Skitsystem was a band conceived by hardcore-loving metalheads as a tribute to that brand of heavy Discharge-inspired hardcore, namely käng, that had become so popular in the 90's in Scandinavia and whose best instances could be found in the releases of Distortion Records. To me, though the recordings were a bit old, it was an active band destroying everything in its bloody path.

 

Contrary to a lot of their peers of the time, Skitsystem had those heavy and dark down-tuned textures and a raw and heavy production closely associated with old-school Swedish death metal, which made sense since the original lineup was made up of members of At the Gates and Sarcasm, so that one gets the impression that, while it does fit with the crusty Swedish hardcore tradition, it nevertheless sounds like it is played by rabid death metal cavemen (I say this now but, truth be told, when I first played Allt e skit I had never even heard of Entombed and death metal was about as foreign to me as space rock). In spite of the intentional brutality of the sound and the punishingly simple riffing, you can tell that the boys had fun writing those early Skitsystem songs and many chorus are wonderfully anthemic ("Human waste", "Allt e skit" or the smashing Asocial cover "Revolt" specially come to mind and I challenge you not to sing along). To be fair, I had not played the cd for a while and had forgotten how fast, intense, energetic, mean and just unstoppable it sounded like. Genuinely headbanging stuff. I recall being blown away by the extremity of the vocals, how angry, direct and hoarse they sounded like, how the singers sounded like they were on the brink of rupturing their vocal cords just for the sake of expressing their blackest hatred of the shit system and outrage at the world's injustices and that just really spoke to me and still does. In retrospect, the sheer pummeling power and forwardness of the music, the dark down-tuned metal sound, combined with the extreme vocals of the two singers (who perfectly work together) and a d-beat drumming of mammoth proportions make Skitsystem a definitive highlight of the 90's Swedish wave and a fascinating instance of hardcore punk infused with death metal in terms of textures and sound instead of structures and composition like a fight to the death between Disfear, Extreme Noise Terror and Unleashed. It comes as no surprise that, to this day, Skitsystem is still a major reference for any band keen on taking the scandicrust path. 

 

 

Although it would not be far-fetched to call Skitsystem a crustcore band, it is not completely true either, not in the same sense as Warcollapse, the other great Swedish crust band of the 90's. While WC were much closer to the eurocrust sound of Doom and Hiatus, Skitsystem's roots were strictly located in the classic Swedish hardcore and metal sound which resulted in them creating a hybrid that was distinctly Swedish and could appeal to both punks and metalheads looking for fast, direct, heavy and extreme apocalyptic music. The ultimate compromise of studs and long hair. Allt e skit included the first three records of the band: the Profithysteri Ep from 1995, the Ondskans Ansikte 10'' fril 1996 and the split Ep with Wolfpack from 1997, all originally released on Distortion Records. This was Skitsystem at the height of their primitive power and while their following records still packed a heavy enough punch, they were also a little too polished for my liking and missed that early Nordic cavemen savagery replaced with a more controlled metallic fury. The version of Allt e skit I own was released on Barbarian Records, an American label that was more on the death-metal side of thing apparently, and there are a number of spelling mistakes in the names of the songs that I actually chose to leave as they were so that you get the most authentic experience possible (that's immersion for ya). Another odd thing about the reissue is that you can hear vinyl crackles at the beginning and end of the songs so I guess the fellow behind the label did not use the studio tapes for the reissue but the actual vinyl records from his collection. Added to the statement at the bottom of the backcover stating that "This is not a bootleg. Full royalties paid on this release to band in cash and copies" and to the absence of the label's contact or even logo, I always had the dubious feeling that, despite the warning, it was indeed a bootleg cd. And did bands really get royalties in cash when playing crust music? Now, that was a work option I could heartfully consider. Barbarian Records even reissued the reissue in 2004 with a new cover parodying the typical "singles collection" of 80's UK punk with a mohawked lion wearing a studded leather jacket at the center! That really cracked me up and it shows that for all the dark heavy music, we all enjoy a bloody larf at times. 

 

For opening my mind to the wonderful world of Swedish crust on a cold Manchester night, I would like to address my most sincere gratitude to Skitsystem. Allt e skit!                     

                             

Allt e skit indeed  

 

*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.

Sonatas in D Major (part 11): Final Blood Bath "Dead or alive" Ep, 2002

That one was definitely just around the corner.

The price of pixels

As tackled in the previous entry, a common way to pay tribute to the Stoke-on-Trent deity has long been to adopt a title taken from the holy scriptures - with Why being obviously the Old Testament of a vengeful d-beat - as your band's name. It is probably the most demonstratively effective fashion to show your love for Discharge to the world and, more importantly, to fellow Discharge-lovers who may be tempted to get your records and help you cover your petrol expenses during tours. If you use the classic Discharge font not just once but twice on the record cover (for the moniker and the title), then it clearly screams that you mean business and see yourself as a serious contender. And finally if one of your songs has the same name as a Discharge anthem but is not a Discharge cover ("Decontrol" in the present case), then it is undeniably synonymous with demanding a shot at the World D-beat Federation title. It is a bold move that reflects an unbreakable self-confidence and possibly feeds on an Icarus complex but I suppose that you could see Final Blood Bath in that light after all. 

There is not much information floating around about them but they were from Tokyo and must have formed in 2000 seeing that there is a live tape from a gig that took place in March, 2001. A eight-song (demo?) tape entitled Dead or Alive was also released, probably before the Ep's, but I haven't heard it. This tape is still quite fascinating since Final Blood Bath did not merely include the Discharge font and other references on the cover, they went further and re-used the Fight Back cover picture. Of course Active Minds did the same thing a couple of years before but the point they were making was of a very different nature and, as usual with them, was the strong means to formulate a strong criticism of d-beat as a subgenre, the validity of which they were arguing against (a battle Active Minds obviously lost as subsequent years confirmed). Final Blood Bath's use of the same Discharge photograph comes from the completely opposite critical stance: the picture is both an overt tribute and an identificatory trope. Still, if you think about it, Final Blood Bath basically put a picture of another band on the cover of their own tape, an action turning the classic Fight Back band shot into something akin to a religious representation, an icon that far transcends what it originally depicted - teenage British punks playing live in the early 80's - to become a symbol, the signified.

Final Blood Bath (who will be referred to as FBB from now on because of global warming and that) picked a great Discharge song for their band although it is admittedly a bit of a mouthful. But then by the early 00's, the catchiest Discharge song titles had already been taken and bands had to resort to names like Four Monstrous Nuclear Stockpiles in order to exist at all. Those were tough years for the D as the 90's wave was surely fading and only punk fanatics like Disclose or Meanwhile still engage willingly in the strictest Discharge worship. FBB belonged to that category of bands for whom the Discharge '80/'83 canon was creatively-speaking both the basis and the aim to their sound. Meaning that they carefully used some classic Discharge elements in order to craft a new and paradoxically fresh-sounding tribute to Discharge. I remember that the mate of mine who was distributing Crust War Records in Paris at the time introduced Dead or Alive to me in such a fashion: "they are an absolute Never Again rip-off with cheesy vocals and a Japanese vibe. Great stuff". And I guess he was right. He also described Zoe as "terrible Amebix-like heavy metal with members wearing make-up. It's crap and you will love it", and I guess he was also right. Contrary to most of the 90's d-beat legions, FBB did not try to go for harsh, hoarse vocals but rather opted for a reverbed tone highly reminiscent of Never Again but also and even more so of the more metallic, thrashier post-1982 Discharge. Until quite recently, the general consensus was that the last great Discharge record was the State Violence State Control Ep, but the 2010's have seen a growing number of people claiming that Warning or The Price of Silence were equally great (some raving lunatics even believe that Brave New World is not that bad if you forget that it is a Discharge Lp... The fools!). I don't dislike those records but never really loved them as I distinctly remember that the songs were at the end of my first Discharge cd (one that contained the Hear Nothing Lp and the '82/'83 singles) and I used to wonder why all the UK bands had turned shite around the mid-80's, a principle I had theorized after suffering a double cd Blitz discography. But anyway, the influence of such records as Warning and The Price of Silence was rather low on the d-beat production at the time so FBB's song "See the dark see the gream", an ace bouncy mid-paced blend of "The price of silence" and "Born to die in the gutter" sounds refreshing in the context and clearly points to Final Bombs in terms of intent, the legendary d-beat-free Discharge-loving heavy band. Although I have to say that I have no clue as to what "the gream" is meant to be (a grim gleam?). If you listen closely to Dead or Alive, you will find many details, dis-nuggets (some bass lines, intonations, guitar leads and so on) that refer to '82/'83 Discharge which, in the early 00's, paradoxically made FBB's songwriting original in its referential range. The basis for the cake is devout Never Again worship but the icing is clearly '82/'83. I just love that Ep. My only tiny complaint would be that the effect on the vocals, if it does achieve the intended result in terms of recreating a "1983 Cal vibe", lacks a little in aggression. But this is the price, the price to pay.

Dead or Alive was recorded in June, 2002 and was Crust War's fifteenth release and it was mixed by Habi, the drummer of Gloom and Defector, who managed to confer a raw but energetic vibe to the sound. The cover of the Ep is a live shot of FBB and it is full of leather and studs and charged hair and it is perfectly natural. What I love however is the (involuntary?) mise en abyme that lies in the presence of a Fight Back patch on the singer's right shoulder. It is a live shot inserted in a live shot, the second live shot - the cover - being a reference to the first one - the detail. Amazing, right? What I don't quite love as much is the highly pixelated quality of the cover, a common flaw in those years. It is odd to think that older records have aged much better visually than those that used a digital technology that was in its infancy. I don't remember noticing the pixels much at the time but in retrospect I cannot believe labels and bands thought they could get away with such results... FBB recorded another Ep just a week before Dead or Alive, a self-titled work released on Paank Levyt that also comes recommended but is not quite as good in my opinion (it is another pixel fest of course). In 2003, FBB then shortened their name for Final and also changed direction with more of a metal-punk vibe and more studs. They recorded an Ep for Crust War under the Final moniker that I personally find really enjoyable and powerful, a bit like a cross between Painajainen, Broken Bones and first-raising Japanese hardcore (they called their new style "Kamikaze gravecore metal" which makes me giggle all the time). I only wish they had done a full-on cavemen crust band called Final Bath. That would have been legendary.

Dead or alive

     

Sonatas in D Major (part 10): Meanwhile "The Show must Go on" Ep, 2002

How criminal would the absence of Meanwhile have been in the context of a series dedicated to d-beat music? To exclude the most consistent "just like Discharge" band to ever come out of Sweden, an exploit that is no mean feat to say the least, the band whose very artistic path was heavily criticized on Active Minds' Dis Getting Pathetic... cult Ep, would have looked as either a silly provocation or the definite proof that I have no idea what I am talking about.

Although it is technically Meanwhile's first appearance on Terminal Sound Nuisance, the band's former incarnation, Dischange, was previously dealt with on two occasions: the split with Excrement of War and the Crust and Anguished Life compilation cd. I am not sure why the members felt the need to switch from Dischange to Meanwhile in the mid-90's (the first record under the Meanwhile moniker was the Remaining Right: Silence 1995 album). Maybe they realized that "Dischange" was too goofy-sounding and that the idea to combine the dis prefix with a random word made them look a bit silly after all. Besides, by '95, there were many bands rocking a Dis-name, especially in Sweden, so that, despite them objectively and gloriously pioneering the genre, they may have thought that picking a Discharge-related but dis-free moniker was a wise move. And so they went for a Discharge song: Meanwhile. The practice of selecting a Discharge hit as a name for your Discharge-influenced band is an old, time-approved one that many bands (Fight Back, Decontrol, Realities of War, Visions of War...) have relied on throughout the years. It provides your band with a Discharge reference that is quite explicit but that still requires people to be familiar with the Discharge gospel, maybe not all faithful but at least believers. And so Dischange renamed themselves Meanwhile, and of course "Meanwhile" is a brilliant Discharge song that is beloved by all although it is not their most transparent title. But Meanwhile's music speaks so much for itself anyway, loud and clear, that you couldn't sound much more like Discharge and stand for the d-beat subgenre than Meanwhile do. They are that iconic. This said, I tend to think it is an objectively pretty strange name for a hardcore punk band, and while I love the implications hidden in the meaning of "meanwhile" (the idea of different realities for instance), it still is an adverb, a lexical category that is uncommon in the naming of punk bands. Let's face it, not many hardcore unit are called "Henceforth" or "Afterwards" and I don't remember thinking about the Discharge song the first time I heard Meanwhile (it was on The Best Crust Album in the World ever! compilation cd, a deceitful work if there ever was one), I was just a little confused as to why they weren't called Disdoom 47 or something unequivocal like that.

If you are not familiar with Dischange/Meanwhile, here are a couple of details you should know. They were from Eskilstuna, Sweden, and started playing as a three-piece under the name Dischange in 1989. Jallo, who also drummed in No Security, was the guitar player (and vocalist at first) while Kenko, who also played the guitar for No Security at the time, was beating the D in Dischange, so that it could be quite relevant to see the band as some kind of Discharge-oriented side-project when they started. After the split Ep with Excrement of War, Dischange recruited a proper singer, Jocke, a tremendous addition to the band as his rough-hewn shouted vocal style fitted the Discharge-worship perfectly: aggressive but not overdone with the proper Cal-inspired prosodic elements. The band progressively got better and better, rebaptized themselves Meanwhile, and recorded what is arguably their best work in 1996, their third album entitled The Road to Hell. I personally enjoy everything Dischange/Meanwhile did, but I rate that album as one of the finest examples of "just like Discharge" d-beat with some songs being genuine punk hits. 

The Ep The Show must Go on was recorded in November, 2001, and was the follow-up to the very strong Same Shit New Millenium 2000 Lp on Sound Pollution. By that time, Meanwhile had started to incorporate more rocking elements to their d-beat tornado, reminiscent of Motörhead at their hard-hitting best. In general, I get extremely suspicious whenever I read phrases such as "motörcrust" or the even more appalling "d-beat'n'roll". In fact, if you want to get me out of a venue, just tell me that it is a Metal Punk Death Squad night and that a "d-beat'n'roll" band is playing next, and I will rush outside and remain in hiding for at least a few weeks, protecting myself from the aftermath of such abominations... But yeah, I am not a big Motörhead fan and the chances that you are going to spoil a decent d-beat song with lame Lemmy impersonations are always high. But Meanwhile can and do pull it with class as their rocking d-beat sound actually convincing, heavy and groovy, without overdoing or overproducing it and keeping it angry. While their '00 Lp, and most of their releases really, enjoyed a solid production emphasizing the Discharge power without sacrificing the punk rawness, The Show must Go on is purposefully underproduced, or, as the band put it, "not very produced". Seeing that Kenko is a sound engineer at Communichaos Studio, the raw sound is not accidental. It could be an attempt at sounding as direct, spontaneous and aggressive as possible, not unlike some sort of return to the hardcore punk roots out of a desire to sound meaner and grittier, maybe as a counterpoint to the massive production that many d-beat/crust bands opted for at the time (like Disfear or Skitsystem). Whatever the intent was, I love this Ep. It opens with the eponymous "The show must go on", a one-minute long, crunchy and rocking mid-paced dischargy number, while the three remaining songs are anthemic bass-driven raw d-beat scorchers with a primitive Motörhead vibe. It sounds mean and direct with a dirty rock'n'roll energy that works well with the format (an full album with such a production would have been riskier I suppose). That the result sounds so pissed and dynamic shows that even with, or maybe especially with, such a limited genre as orthodoxal d-beat, you need to focus on writing solid songs in order to succeed and no amount of guitar layers or distortion pedals will change that. Genuine d-beat raw punk.  

The Show must Go on was a cojoint release between Communichaos Media, run by Kenko, a label that also put out materials from Imperial Leather, Burning Kitchen (he also played in both) and DS-13, and Feral Ward, a well-known Portland-based label run by Yannick from Tragedy that reissued the two first Meanwhile albums and the 2008 Lp Reality or Nothing, all top-shelf works. 1500 copies of this Ep were pressed so that it is not too difficult to bring this lovely geezer home.         

          

The D must go on

Japanese Crust vs The World (part 2): Crazy Fucked Up Daily Life "Atrocity exhibition" 12'' Ep, 2002 (1990)

As a theme, love is often shunned by da punx. And sometimes, it is fair enough. No one wants to be compared to a dreadful high-school emo band singing about being miserably single at 16. It does not exactly fit with the "rebels of the state" pose and we just love acting all tough and unaffected by affairs of the heart ("cuz, you know, like, there are more important issues to discuss, like, you know, wars and stuff, yeah?"), which does not keep anyone from listening to The Buzzcocks or The Undertones in secret (or to Joy Division and The Smiths if the culprit feels that playing non-punk bands somehow makes it alright). And this is pretty odd if you ask me, especially since most people's (including, gasp, da punx') daily lives, judging from all the usual drama, strike me as being more akin to Bonnie Tyler's tirades than to Conflict's rants. If love as subject can't be said to be one of punk's strongpoints, I would argue that the feeling is necessary in order to write good punk-rock. Love punk if you want to do it right. Take Disclose for instance. Kawakami's exclusive love for Discharge was of fanatical, unconditional, unshakable proportions, a source of limitless inspiration if one cares to listen past the strictness of the beat. There was more love involved in Disclose than in most love songs ever written. They were a romantic band, for real.

Whenever I listen to CFDL, love is the first thing I notice about them. These boys just LOVED punk music. Passion for punk permeates their songs, even (or especially?) the very sloppy ones. CFDL had this unequivocal, youthful enthusiasm for things punk that almost tended toward the existential. The band's tunes, DIY ethics and aesthetics are here to remind you, in much the same way a raving young lover is here to remind you of the new subject of his or her affection, that they love punk, noisily and staunchly. But whereas the aforementioned friend's infatuation can quickly come as rather monotonous, CFDL's always sounds fun. Punk and CFDL are a genuinely happy couple and you can hear that their relationship is a source of constantly renewed energy and the feeling is contagious. They really found each other these two and having CFDL in your life is not unlike stuffing yourself with ice-cream while rewatching that one good Hugh Grant movie when you feel low. Love punk and it will love you back.

But let's leave the cheesiness and the tired allegory for a moment. Love has never been enough artistically speaking, otherwise any happy lover would be able to write good poetry and we all know this has never been the case (and thanks fuck poetry editors often have higher quality standards than punk labels). Like love, punk-rock requires a mutual, even if tumultuous, understanding if you want things to work. And CFDL really got the essence of the punk spirit, its exultant exuberance, its bare-bones energy, its obnoxious and yet empathic anger. And of course its relevance as a culture echoing itself in a process of rejuvenation. Some would argue that there were more powerful, more intense, more radical bands than CFDL in Japan at the time, and they may be right. But was there a band more genuinely, goofily and unpretentiously in love with punk than them? I don't think so.

The band originally started as Atrocity Exhibition (yep, that is from the Joy Division song although one would definitely struggle to find common musical ground between the two bands) around 1989. They didn't record much under that name, only two songs, "You" and "Arsehole!", that appeared on the game-changer "Must get to the power of the defense for" flexi in 1989 along with SDS and Naüsea (one of the first Japanese grindcore bands, from Nagoya as well, who formed in 1987 and shared the same drummer as AE, Hisahiro, and whose singer, Takaho would late form the legendary Unholy Grave). The two AE tracks are sloppy as fuck, and I do mean that. Recorded without a bass and with just Takeshi on vocals, they stand as joyful, fast and rough hardcore songs. The AE live demo is probably more interesting (albeit definitely as rough and testing for the faint-hearted) if one craves to understand what CFDL would get at one year after. Entitled "Never mind the atrocity exhibition here is crazy fucked up daily life", it featured the dual vocal attacks CFDL was famous for at the beginning of their journey and is a clear (well... figuratively speaking) indication of the band's direction. This handmade DIY tape is ripe with references to the late 80's UK crust scene, especially Extreme Noise Terror (there are covers of "Deceived" and "Bullshit propaganda"), but also Antisect, Napalm Death and Electro Hippies (a couple of spottable riffs here and there), Disorder (with the song "I love DISORDER") and Sore Throat (like them, AE covered Shitlickers' "Warsystem"). It is precisely in this 87/89 "fast and crusty" Peaceville interstice that the band would nest when they changed their name to CFDL (another Disorder reference as it is a line from the song "Daily life") and lay a spectacular egg with the "Atrocity exhibition" Ep (they did seem to have second thoughts about leaving the AE moniker methinks).

Quite obviously, Disorder-influenced Japanese bands were nothing new by 1990. However, as we have seen, but for So What, the Bristol trend, though by no means completely extinguished (and it never will over there judging from the number of bands still flying the chaotic cider flag), was not at its best. But CFDL incorporated this element very differently from their noize forefathers. The music is both extremely direct and accessible and yet stems from an incredibly dense and even complex background, a literal maze of influences interacting with each other. It would be tempting to say that CFDL's "Atrocity exhibition" was just a brilliant take on ENT (especially the first Peel session) moulded with Japanese clay and spiced with UK hardcore, but it would not cover half of the record's essence. Just like bands like Atavistic or Electro Hippies was the result of a collusion of many international hardcore influences, CFDL's music feels like a synthesis of almost all the brands of fast and raw 80's hardcore punk written by a Japanese student majoring in the UK sound (the dissertation topic could be "The Disorder sound and its ramifications in the post-"Holocaust in your head" era"). If you care to listen, you can hear so many things going on in "Atrocity exhibition". From Mob 47-type riffs, a Shitlicker cover, G-Anx's upbeat tempo, Negazione's fury, Chaos UK-drumming (the opening beat of "Make my day" is the as "Victimized"'s), MELI's crude anger, Dirge's Bristolian dual vocal approach, Siege's "take no prisoner" stance, Gauze and SOB's frantic hardcore whirlwind, Kuolema, Lärm and Rapt's "noise not music" ethos and I could go on and on. And that is why it really is so good. While "Atrocity exhibition" makes sense as a post-ENT dual vocals crusty hardcore band (like Amen, Disrupt or Embittered), it is also a friendly, loving, passionate reminder of what makes international hardcore punk (or just PUNK in fact) so crucial and fun.

The sound on this 1990 Ep is insanely good. It is raw but it has a thickness and an energy that are impressive. The guitar 's texture is hard to define, you can almost feel it but it still sounds like it's flowing, like a current of energy through the sewer or something. It is not completely blown out either, it sounds more like Ake Mob 47 is playing on Gauze's guitar amp. The bass is definitely more reminiscent of the Chaos UK school but I am also reminded of NYC Nausea for some reason. It is omnipresent on the songs, with a round, groovy sound that gives the whole that mandatory crust edge. The drummer relies heavily on the crash cymbal and is in total "all out bollocks raw hardcore mode". He plays fast and tight, despite the rather thin production on the drums, and yet completely frantically, relentlessly, a bit like the 80's Swedes really but with more craft. CFDL were the first band (to my immodest knowledge anyway) to use the time-approved, specifically British, dual vocal attack in Japan and I particularly love its arrangement that brings to mind ENT at their most ferocious. Rabid and insanity-driven high-pitched barks answer to more traditional raucous and slightly gruff shouts not unlike very early Doom. On the whole, the songs are rather simple but they work perfectly, nothing sounds out of place or distasteful, and the untiring raw energy is truly incredible.

This version of "Atrocity exhibition" is actually a reissue from 2002. The original release was done by Yappy Core (CFDL's own label) and Standard of Rebellion in 1990, but this 2002 repress includes three extra songs from the same recording session, as well as liner notes from Takeshi and a history of the band written by Jhonio Crust War (yes, it is in Japanese). It was released on Scruffy Records and Answer Records (a Nagoya label that also put out records from Disclaim, Reality Crisis or Demolition). The cover is gloriously typical of the early crust days with an illustration of the proverbial "crusty and a dog" (a nod to Sox's "Sewerside"?). The real visual nugget is the very cheesy punk as fuck, crust as hell drawing of CFDL playing live on the insert. This good-humoured, snotty cartoon sums up what the band is about more relevantly than 1000 words (which kinda makes this post rather useless... oh well). Following "Atrocity exhibition", CFDL went on to be rather prolific, significantly not as crusty but still as energetic and wild. The 1991 demo and the "Thrashpunk '91" from 1996 are highly recommended. But man, what an unsung masterpiece "Atrocity exhibition" is... And how influential, of course.

It really was all about love.

<3    

  Crazy fucked up daily atrocity exhibition of life!!!