Last Night a D-Beat Saved My Life (part 1): NO FUCKER "Conquer the Innocent" Ep, 2008

Why why why but why? Well, why not?

In a world ruled by chaos, people have always needed some semblance of stability to cope with life without falling into madness, despair or shoegaze. Some choose religion because absolute truths construed as eternal and transcendental are reassuring and because it is looks like a logical, if lazy, choice. Others choose the footie because the love for your club is immortal and thicker than blood. Pets can be a solution because a dog's love is unconditional, comforting and stable. Punks would go for d-beat because not only has the genre not evolved much throughout the years but because it is not supposed to, it is seemingly unaffected by time, immutable. You can't get much more stable and anchored than this. Of course, there have been evolutions in terms of production, music does not exist in a technological vacuum, some bands did bring new elements as far as textures are concerned and others played with the degree of referentiality (aural and visual), an essential part of the genre in itself. But still, the potential for change is limited indeed. And well, I need stability right now and d-beat appears to be a pleasant way to indulge. And to be honest, it is fun.

To make things clear, I will only be talking about orthodox d-beat and "just-like-Discharge" bands here, just like I did in the two previous d-beat series The Chronicles of Dis in 2016 and Sonatas in D Major in 2019 (and needless to point out that I also wrote about such bands in transversal series). It does not mean that all the bands will sound exactly the same. Well, it will if the genre does not particularly appeal to you or if your don't know your Disclose from your Dischange. But the idea is to focus on the variations or absence thereof, the details, the context, all the tiny things that make a band stand out and draw the lines between absolute Discharge clones, proto-d-beat raw punk lovers, orthodox d-beat and even "just-like-Disclose" bands, a category that did not exist in the 90's and 00's. The selection was particularly difficult this time because I decided to cover a long period, from 2008 to 2023 (Sonatas on D Major tackled the 1991-2006 span), and there have been literally hundreds of d-beat bands, or rather bands claiming to play d-beat, in the past 15 years and I had to settle for 21 (obviously the length of the reviews will vary). Punk changed drastically between 2008 and 2023 with the scene becoming irremediably and vitally dependent on the internet and social media. Playing traditional d-beat in the mid 00's and today are two very different sports. With youtube, you can have access to every one of the most obscure dis-influenced bands of the 80's and as a result it is much easier to play specific "niche" referential hardcore punk. Not so much in the 00's.

And what better example of this shift than No Fucker from Utica, a band that I thought had been dead for years but actually toured Europe this spring. They formed as early as 2002 and Conquer the Innocent is the last record they released in the 00's. At a time when neocrust and stenchcore dominated the punk airwaves (with Japan being the usual exceptions), No Fucker were a very different scruffy animal, a proper d-beat raw punk band, one of the last of their kind in that decade. The 90's d-beat wave was long gone in Sweden by then and the few survivors like Meanwhile, Disfear or Diskonto no longer relied on the primitive raw aggression of the genre. In North America Deathcharge had turned into an excellent dark punk act, Decontrol had split up and Holokaust's raw hardcore period was short-lived. Tragically, Kawakami, and with him the immensely influential Disclose, passed away, turning him and his baby into a legend and probably the most appreciated d-beat band ever. The late 00's were a peculiar transitional time.

It has to be said that Disclose were the inventors of the concept of "d-beat raw punk", a specific take that relied as much on Discharge as on the proto Discore, the pre d-beat bands, those raw hardcore bands that predated the actual "genrification" of Discharge-worship of Disaster and Dischange (which is when I personally placed the real birth of d-beat as its own genre). They were significantly influenced by Discharge, sounded like Discharge to an extent, but did not crave to sound "just-like-Discharge" as their work on textures underlined. And No Fucker belonged exactly in that philosophy. They were not the only ones to bow at the altar primitive and raw d-beat bands at the time, and Spanish bands like Destruccion or Firmeza 10 were even cruder in their "hardcore radikal" approach (an ambitious aesthetic choice in a time of overproduced neocrust and metal crust that certainly alienated many listeners). 

That is not to say that there were no Discharge-influenced bands in the 00's, there were tons of them. After all, who doesn't use a dis beat? And let's not forget that Portland's Warcry, a serious "just-like" band were going strong. But No Fucker were one of the last of the d-beat raw punk of their generation and although they are mostly remembered for their splits with Disclose (their major modern influence, undeniably) with whom they toured in States, they are not necessarily looked at in depth. No Fucker is a band aimed at fans of Discharge, fans of Discharge-influenced bands, fans of Discharge-mimicking bands and (all euphemisms for nerds). 

Their music is as much a display of great raw hardcore as it is a loving reflection and a comment on the Discharge phenomenon itself. The name of course refers to the notes on Discharge's first Ep that said "thanks to no fucker" so from the start, if you do not get the reference, you can be a little left out of the fun, not that it is the band's intention (I assume) but you will not "get the ref" as Gen Z's say. The band's label is called No Real Music, a line taken from the song "But after the gig" and a song from the Ep is called "Realities of the war" (let's not even mention the Discharge font, that was already very common and a prerequisite of the genre and the last words of the Ep "svart framtid" like the 80's Norwegian hardcore band). You can see this in two ways. You can either find it ridiculous, a proof of the absence of creativity and "dis is getting pathetic" like Active Minds would claim, or you can say that it is a way to engage the listener in a network of common reference and a genuine demonstration of love for punk culture. And really, that will be a central aspect Last Night a D-Beat Saved My Life (as if you had not already guessed).

But let's talk a bit about the six minutes of music you will find on Conquer the Innocent, shall we? As I mentioned No Fucker are not a d-beat band in the same sense as Warcry or Meanwhile, they build on the rawness of early Discharge, on the Dis-inspired 80's bands that immediately followed and on a band that had already worked on such a synthesis, namely Disclose. The sound is perfect for the genre, raw, evidently, but still with a lot of energy (I love how the drums are really forward). The guitar sound is dirty and distorted but you can hear that it has been thought out and purposefully created and the vocals respect the old-school scansion, flow and accentuation. I can hear Shitlickers, early Cimex or Subversion on the first side, brilliantly executed, the second side is a little faster and include some Bristol-by-way-of-Japanese-style "crasher" rolls, adding some punch and on the whole Disclose's Tragedy is a close point of comparison (in fact they can be said to be as influenced by the actual record as they are by the influences of this record) but the distortion is not as prevalent here and I am reminded of the vastly underrated Decontrol too (dislickers pioneers I suppose). By its own standards, it is a flawless record.

The band released a discography for their recent tour and it is a good way to get all the band's material but the new Tombs Ep.      

No idea why the previous scribbled on the record...

Conquer the fuckers

 

An adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: DEATHTRIBE / KRIEGSHÖG "3 Track EP Plus Support / 警告" split Ep, 2008

This split between Deathtribe and Kriegshög can be rightly considered, from a commoner's perspective, as the sonic equivalent of a bollocking of the highest magnitude on the official scientific scale (based on loudness of the riffs, aggression of the vocal delivery and sense of dread before the wall of noise), the kind of bollocking that will be remembered for generations to come. If you sold you mum's one good ring to a neighbour always rumoured to be "up to no good" in order to buy the last Fifa video game, you'd get a similarly massive bollocking. Long after you are dead, mothers will be likely to warn their kids about the mythical bollocking that their great granduncle Punky, since then referred to as "the Ungrateful One" once received when he betrayed his saint of a mother for a game that had Cristiano Ronaldo on the cover. You can imagine how intense and furious this one would be. This record can be said to possess very similar traits: it is an inherently punishing record. 

Not that it would work on me, I love that shit. I don't feel punished but blessed whenever I play a well-executed band of this style of noizy hardcore. If I have had a bad week and I am just trying to vent and let off steam, that's the kind of assault I shall unleash on my eardrums. From an outsider's perspective I suppose you could say that I love to be bollocked sonically so much that I basically no longer realize it and have grown fond of it like a masochist (distorted Japanese hardcore becoming just an example of the Stockholm Syndrome applied to music). On the contrary, mainstream music that is deemed unanimously good or "classic" (which almost always means it is utter garbage) will offend and sadden me. Make me seat through a Billie Eilish album or through my nephew's Tik Tok feed for more than 10 minutes and tears will be rolling down my face. It does make one shiver. What soothes some will torture others. I am a bit of a philosopher I guess.

Funnily enough - and tragically enough - I was late to the Kriegshög party and pretty much ignored the band's early records when they came out in the late 00's because, beside bands like Disclose or Atrocious Madness, I just did not really care that much for that sort of sound then and merely observed it from afar on message boards. Truth be told, the genre was not as popular as it seems to be nowadays (with music streaming and everything) and I often saw it as being the realms of "nerds" and "record collectors", two terms that I used pejoratively to express my disapproval of the commodification and elitism of punk. The irony is not lost on me today. You really cannot cheat karma, can you? Even after I started to seriously get into the whole Japanese noise hardcore crust aesthetics, Kriegshög were not a band I paid that much attention to until I could no longer stand listening to my friends rave over and over again about the band's live performance in London in 2016 and gave Kriegshög an educated listen. I understood that I had missed out on a good band and, obviously, a good gig. I managed to grab a copy of their Hardcore Hell Ep the following year and found this split with Deathtribe shortly afterwards, about ten years after its release. As I said, the ship had sailed for a while. 

But let's get to the actual record and with the A side where you'll find three songs from Deathtribe. Even by nerd's standards, the band is rather obscure and did not exactly leave an eternal mark on the Japanese hardcore scene. Hailing from Tokyo like Kriegshög, Deathtribe were quite short-lived and beside this Ep, only released a tape Ep in 2007, Nothing Your Leader, which was the first release of the brilliant and still active label Hardcore Survives, and they also appeared on the good compilation Lp Hardcore Inferno in 2010 alongside bands like Disturd, Death Dust Extractor or Isterismo. The tape was a sweet affair with six songs of distorted hardcore crust done the traditional Japanese way, with intensity, conviction and distortion, not unlike Contrast Attitude but on a budget. The three songs on this split Ep enjoyed a much better production and I love how bass heavy it sounds and the gruff Makino-like vocals. 

"Sound of silence" and "Zouo" (a Kriegshög cover) are typical fast and groovy gruff Japanese crusty crasher hardcore that reminds me of a blend of Framtid - but not as Swedish influenced - and Contrast Attitude - but not as crasher crusty - with chorus reminiscent of traditional Japanese hardcore. The comparison is somewhat daring because Deathtribe don't quite reach the level of these two heavyweights but they still seriously deliver and who knows what they could have achieved given the chance to record more. The third song "In many nightmare" is something of an oddity and does not fit with the rest as it sounds nothing like the two others. It's basically a very well done '83 Discharge number à la Warning and The Price of Silence with an impressive Cal impersonation. Final Bloodbath also had a number like this and Final Bombs basically made a career playing the bad Discharge period so it would not have been an exception in Japan. I actually like the song, it is a brilliant Discharge-loving mid-paced moment but, like a skinhead at a Carcass show, I don't really understand what it's doing here.

On the other side, Kriegshög also delivered three songs, among which a cover from Deathtribe, "The end" (the original appeared on the tape). In their early days, back when they had their first guitar player Tera, more inclined toward distortion, Kriegshög sounded absolutely unstoppable, like the proverbial enormous door slamming in the depths of hell or the average American in the soda aisle. Their first Ep Hardcore Hell was quite the hit when it came out in 2008 and the reviews it got were, as they say, unanimous. It is a strong Ep, by any standards, but I am under the retrospective impression that it got more praises than you would generally expect for the genre especially for a record released on a new label like Hardcore Survives, or at least that it got more praises from sectors of the hardcore punk scene usually unresponsive to a perfectly fine pair of mummified crust pants than your usual crasher crust record. 

Kriegshög quickly became a rather well-known band (well, everything is relative, innit) thanks to the well-established label La Vida Es Un Mus that released three records for them and therefore gave them more exposition, notably their first album in 2010. Still, a lot of people who were crazy about them did not seem to care much for other 00's bands working on similar grounds like Defector or Deceiving Society or even Contrast Attitude indeed who were intrinsically associated with the pure crasher crust world of studs, biker boots and bad breath (aka the Crust War multiverse) while Kriegshög, through their connection to LVEUM, belonged to a more diverse hardcore punk world. Out of the crust ghetto, so to speak. An interesting case.

This Ep was the band's third recording after Hardcore Hell on Hardcore Survives and their split Ep with Dog Soldier (a band I have always liked) on HG Fact and as expected it saw Kriegshög at their most furious and relentless. They are close to crasher crust perfection here, this is a tornado of distorted hardcore with abrasive shouted angry almost painful vocals and plenty of gratuitous Japanese-style demented yells. The bass sounds absolutely massive and I am sure it would make the floor shake, the drumming is tight and relentless like a shower of vengeful meteorites and the guitar, well, distorted but the riffing is clear still discernible for maximum power. You probably already know what the subgenre is about, what the template usually is and what the audience is entitled to expect (or fear depending on your taste) and Kriegshög are at the level of bands like Contrast Attitude, Frigöra or Framtid here.

Kriegshög is probably the better band here but both sides are very good and hold up very well, not so easy when the style is so similar. Both sides were recorded by Shige at the noiseroom which accounts for the ideal "blown-out" vibe. A very enjoyable record if you like savage Japanese crust but a very tedious listen and just a plain bad time if you do not. After an album built on the same foundations, Kriegshög would release two more records with a different sound cruelly lacking in intensity and aggression, two essential ingredients for the genre. This split Ep was released on the poetically named label In Crust We Thrash that released Disaster's War Cry on cd (already reviewed here on this blog). I though the label was dead but it actually just Private Jesus Detector's rather good new album so who knows what the future holds.

DEATHHÖG

Still Believing in ANOK: Capite Damnare "S/t" cd, 2008

I was a big Jurassic Park fan as a kid. Like most children, I was really into dinosaurs although I would be struggling to give an actual reason for that passion. Maybe the idea that giant extraordinary lizards once roamed the Earth sounded much more exciting than doing math homeworks I was predisposed to fail miserably or listening to my dad whining about his nemesis, Helen from accounts, being obnoxiously mean to everyone at work. What a life. So when Jurassic Park came out in 1993, it was a genuine revelation, not just because it taught me that one should bring an extra pair of underwear when watching some movies (i.e the raptor scene), but because, beside the whole dinosaur thing, it displayed the absolute wonder, the pristine awe, the purest amazement at discovering, unearthing old bones hidden in the arse end of nowhere. The archaeologists don't give damn if a little bastard tried to be funny by comparing dinos with chickens (odd that he did not end up being fed to the T-Rex), and whether the discovery is ground-breaking or banal, the excitement remains: something that makes the heart beat has been found.

The concept of such an innocent joy was one of the most potent motivations when I decided to create Terminal Sound Nuisance 11 years ago. That and the drive to become a crust influencer on Insta but, tragically, I could never get the hang of it and the few attempts at taking selfies were, to say the least, very inconclusive as my nose always looked too big and I did not want people born after 9/11 to scoff at me. That people are totally unbothered to not resemble their profile picture is a worrying sign. After all these years, I still strive to convey that sense of excitement over the punk bands that I love and to show that, whether they are consensually accepted as canonical works or just random obscure local acts, they deserve to be loved and talked about critically (isn't acriticality the major threat to culture?). The noble mission I have assigned myself today, an introduction to Capite Damnare (which translates as "condemned to death"), is arduous indeed as it proves difficult to describe objectively the overwhelming sense of marvel that I felt when I bumped into their self-titled demo in 2014 (I checked the dates). 

The first time I listened to CD, I immediately knew that I would be writing about them at some point on a special occasion. But since everyday is a good day as the poster in my mum's toilets proudly claims, why not get to it in Still Believing in ANOK? Like Enola Gay (the first band tackled in the series), including CD here is an editorial choice (significantly facilitated by the fact that I am alone at the helm and therefore fundamentally uncontradicted), as CD like the Germans were active in the late 80's at a time when the original UK anarchopunk wave was still on its last legs and crust and hardcore would soon rise in force. This said, it is difficult to gauge the influence anarchopunk had on foreign scenes and how fast it spread. The Italian punk scene in the 80's was absolutely massive and one of the strongest in the world. Traditional anarchopunk did have an influence on bands there, but the politics (the scene was very political indeed) and the aesthetics more than the music really transcribed this influence. Wretched is a case in point as they were visibly inspired by Crass and the anarcho spirit but were musically closer to Disorder and the likes. You could very well argue that a meaningful part of the Italian hardcore scene was influenced by DIY anarchopunk in terms of politics and visuals (anti-war, animal liberation, pacifism, squatting, the banners, the black clothes and so on) but that American hardcore, discharg-y bands and Bristol noise mongers far prevailed as far as music was concerned. 

As usual, there were exceptions, Bed Boys from Torino were one of the most remarkable non-British old-school anarchopunk bands of their time and the magnificent Contrazione (which we will discuss) were not far off the mark either (you could throw Rivolta Dell'Odio for the artier, goth side of the anarcho spectrum). But still, not exactly a legion of Flux fanatics. With this context in mind, CD's 1988 demo was nothing short of a miracle. Coming from Milano and Verona, information about the band itself is scarce, but judging from their thank list (I miss the ancient wisdom that those conferred and as a teen I would have given everything, including my baby brother, to appear on a cool band's thank list) CD were pretty active and connected to the then dwindling hardcore scene as they mentioned Impact, Disperazione or Infezione. The presence of Contropotere is unsurprising as there were undeniably similarities between both acts. They had a female singer at a time when there were not many girls in punk bands in Italy, they worked on the British post-anarcho sound, they had many eerie melancholy moments and heavily used pagan visuals and atmospheres.

However, while Contropotere can be rightly considered as an early crust band (though they were so difficult to categorize), CD stopped just before the crust turn. In fact, I see them as one of the very best examples of the liminal space between old-school anarchopunk and the rise of crust, between Deviated Instinct's Tip of the Iceberg and Terminal Filth Stenchcore so to speak. They were quite incredible. They had those proto-crust dirty metallic riffs but also straight-up anthemic punk moments as well as melancholy delicate anarcho parts and they managed to blend all these elements seamlessly and with a refreshing spontaneity emphasized by shouted vocals that remained tuneful and on the punky side of the spectrum instead of bearlike growls. '87 Deviated Instinct's riffing can be heard, Civilised Society? could be a good point of comparison too while The Mob and Karma Sutra are clearly invited to the party. In terms of Italian bands, beside Contropotere, Torino's Contrazione, with their inventive moody anarcho-tinged angry punk with dual male and female vocals were very close and it is not irrelevant to see CD as a "Deviated Mob" take on their sound. I cannot overstate how good this band sounds, from the thrashing anarcho anthem "Aspetti la morte" to the soft, dark number "Vivere e' stata la tua colpa" and the eight minute epic "Inseguendo un sogno" and even the dark folk a capella song "They say: it's safe", this demo is a gift from the punk gods. 

Visually, CD were also fascinating. The omnipresence of celtic frames and macabre skulls is not unlike Antisect's protocrust era (which makes sense in 1988) and clearly heralds what bands like Oi Polloi or Sedition would soon look like, but you also find a Conflict-style vegetarian/animal liberation essay. This recording should be the object of cultish devotion. I remember stumbling upon it thanks to the Kalashnikov Collective website and my disbelief quickly turned into enthrallment, then enthusiasm and finally a craze for knowledge as I scouted the internet for details. The present version of the demo is a cd reissue from 2008 on two Udine labels, Lazy.punx Autoproduzioni and Fra Il Di E Il Fa AlE Di Mieç Il Mâr Autoproduzioni. The thick booklet that comes with the cd is beautiful and I cannot recommend it enough. I am sure you can still find it for cheap.              

  

Capite Damnare

How Crust Survived the Millennium Bug (part 11): Death Dust Extractor "Slay Your Master or Slave in Chains" Ep, 2009

- Death Dust Extractor??? 

- Death Dust Extractor!!! 

- DEATH DUST EXTRACTaaaAAARGGHHHH!!!! 

- Death Dust Extractooor... 

- Death Dust Extr... 

- Death

Above are the six stages commonly found in patients who have been exposed to excessive amounts of Tsuyama's Death Dust Extractor. After conducting groundbreaking experiments involving thorough observations of unsuspecting crust punks in their natural habitat, scientists around the world have reached a consensus. They came to the conclusion that prolonged listens of DDE (in this case, "prolonged" means any length of time superior to six minutes) led to to high concentrations of DDE's music in your blood stream and could cause fits, dementia, nausea, insomnia, nervous breakdowns and even, in the most extreme cases, a near total loss of hearing. The six above-stated stages stress the steady aggravation of symptoms in tested subjects: firstly, utter surprise; secondly, genuine enthusiasm and appreciation; thirdly, excessive excitement and the progressive loss of control over speech abilities; fourthly, a stark decrease of the basic brain functions; fifthly, the eventual total collapse of the patient and the potential development of the aforementioned sequelae; sixthly (this only concerns people who have listened to the full DDE discography in one sitting) death by noize.

Depending on who you are speaking to, DDE can strike fear or, on the contrary, induce visible animation in your interlocutor. While your mom, your neighbours and your Buzzcocks-loving mates probably experience the greatest misunderstanding and perhaps even display an open hostility towards DDE's "music", the crust pants-wearing sect will often prove to be much more receptive. Contrasting reactions notwithstanding, there is one thing everybody agree upon: DDE were not messing around and were certainly not here to lick stamps, fuck spiders or put socks on caterpillars (Aussie slang is brilliant, isn't it?). Keen on destroying hearing faculties and yet requiring careful attention from the listener for him or her to even grasp what the hell is going on with all that bloody noise, today we are going to take a long hard look at DDE's 2008 Ep Slay Your Master or Slave in Chains.

As with any artists (in the broadest sense of the term, even shite ones), the subjective context of the first encounter always influences and defines the perception one will have of bands. Years may pass, knowledge may accumulate, appreciations of previously cryptic genres may improve, records may seriously reduce and slowly threaten your living space, still the first impression will remain imprinted on your mind. For instance, listening to Sick of it All for the first time, as a young and vastly ignorant lad, just after being mercilessly and repeatedly high-kicked in the "pit" - a word you were not even familiar with - by a jersey-wearing bodybuilder at a hardcore gig you had no idea implied an expertise in martial arts will forever trigger hard feelings about the NYHC genre and its practitioners (not to mention phantom pain in your dignity) and make any sincere attempt at relating to the band impossible. Context and knowledge matter. 

An instant grasp of and liking to DDE's work must imply that you were really (REALLY) into noizy Japanese hardcore, old-school noisecore and crasher crust. Otherwise, DDE must sound either unbearable (unless you work with circular saws and like the sound of them so much that you need to hear it even on your free time), contemptible ("this is preposterous, back in my day we had proper music like Dire Straits or Genesis"), absurd ("is it some kind of avantgarde performance?"), ridiculously funny ("whaaaaat? I mean like laughing emoji") or plainly unintelligible which is of course the healthiest intellectual position ("I don't quite understand what is going one here but, in the name of Chaos UK and Disorder, one day I shall!"). What I mean is that DDE belongs to that category of hardcore bands that requires a solid connoisseurship in punk history, an acute sense of diachroneity and synchronicity and an ear for referentiality beforehand in order to be relatable. Of course, anything can be relatable on a primitive level, which is perfectly fine as punk music is very immediate, but then you don't really need to be reading blogs to do that and just have to click on the "play" button of a youtube video and relish the comments below, you plebeian bastards. 

Like for Morne, I first heard of DDE through the Profane Existence message board. Reminiscing about the years when I would check out - and sometimes contribute to - this board daily, I came to realize that the amount of bands I chanced upon while browsing carefully the many threads was far from negligible. Quite the contrary in fact as many knowledgeable punks, conversant in the arts of obscure hardcore bands - commonly called "nerds" in the real world although this crowd tends to prefer the term "experts" - congregated on the board. And it is now an established fact, oft proved by science, that, where punk nerds gather in unison, discussions about Japanese hardcore is never far out of the picture and heated, and sometimes very uncivil, debates about the merits of Gai and Kuro can erupt at any moments, making the presence of accomlpished moderators necessary. I must have read about DDE around 2008, probably around the time of the release of the Slay Your Master or Slave in Chain Ep that materialized that following year. Were DDE widely known before the late noughties and the band's vinyl productions? I doubt it, although I am sure that copies of their two first demos - both from 2003 but with the first one apparently being a "live demo" that I am not familiar with but has a similar setlist to the studio one - must have circulated clandestinely among those who had Japanese penpals and among the hardcore elite (membership cards were not issued liberally). In any case, the band must have been deemed good, distorted and savage enough for a release on the Crust War, a label I was proudly loyal to with a name which, had I been less of a wimp, I would have scarified on my chest.  

But back to the demo. So what about DDE's first studio recording then? Well, it is everything you are entitled to expect from a Japanese crust band who took its name from a Sore Throat song, by which I mean from a burst of noise since "Death dust extractor" was included on Sore Throat's early demo from 1987, Aural Butchery (a very tautological title in the present case). The influences of DDE on this recording could not be more transparent, early Doom, early Extreme Noise Terror and, well, Sore Throat. DDE's attempt at sounding just like Sore Throat was extremely impressive, and, were it not for an additional layer of guitar distortion, one would swear that the recording was in fact a lost tape from Huddersfield's infamous noise-makers. At that point, DDE were to Sore Throat what Disclose were to Discharge. The cover of their demo used Never Mind the Napalm's famous visual with the two buses (I don't need to remind you what the beef was in the late 80's and who it involved) and DDE went as far as covering Shitlickers's "War system" just like Sore Throat, in an act of nodding to the nod, of covering the cover itself. 

Of course, you could very well name some meaningful Japanese bands as early influences too, acts like Abraham Cross (probably the closest to DDE's artistry), Mindsuck, Reality Crisis or Gloom (although they were not as versatile as the Osaka's crasher crust pioneers then) who built on similar premises consisting in working with the utmost seriousness on hyperbolic referentiality and on sound textures, although the latter was not as accomplished as it would eventually become. Because - when I first made the acquaintance of DDE - Doom, Sore Throat, ENT and all the early cavemen crust bands were absolute favourite of mine I quite enjoyed this 9 minute-long demo in spite of - rather than because of - the obvious Sore Throat copying (I was not as sensitive to the poetical arts of absolute worship back then), and because I already had records from Abraham Cross, SDS or Disdomestic Violence I understood, at least partly, what the band was trying to achieve, the nature of their proclamatory intent and how it fitted in the tradition of Japanese crust music. 

I made a mental note to give the upcoming Ep a listen, which I did after its release (there was a cdr version of Slay Your Master so it might have been floating on soulseek before the vinyl version) but, to be honest, I was not particularly impressed by its blown-out chaotic sound and the techno song at the end made me discard the geezer without a second thought. My dislike of electronic music has always run deep and, to this day, I remain largely unimpressed with it. My hasty and ill-informed dismissal of the Ep led me to disregard the band and pretty much forget about it, which feels odd to write now, even as I progressively became more and more interested in the specifics of Japanese crust and impressed with how accurate they were in terms of linkage. And then I came across a second-hand copy of their Chainsaw Mayhem one-sided Ep from 2013 and thought that it sounded much better than I thought it would and quite close to the Sore Throat/Doom worship that I remembered their demo sounding like. The discrepancy between the demo and the first Ep can be easily explained as the lineup changed completely in the meantime and only the singer Shinsuke remained. The 2008 team was made up of Miya, later in Ferocious X an Black Hole, on the bass, Zerotsu, from Laukaus and No Survivors, on the drums and Age, from the mighty Disturd, on the guitar who certainly unleashed his love for noize. On Slay Your Master, the guitar is obviously distorted, but not just in a traditional Japanese crust way, as what makes it sound different to the other DDE's recordings lies in its layered noisiness, dissonant leads and hyperbolic feedbacks that goes further than Gloom and is very close to the Kyushu classic noize hardcore sound of Confuse. 

 

The legacy of Japanese noizy hardcore punk bands from the 80's (the phrase "noisepunk" would be anachronistic here and, for the sake of clarity, I wish to avoid using "noisecore") is distinct on the Ep which might have been one reason why it did not quite click as I had some artistic issues with this sort of texture then. I appreciated the old-school Japanese noize, out of curiosity mostly (Stuart Schrader's top ten list of Japanese noizy hardcore records came handy and provided context, analysis and even some biting wit) but was not crazy about it. For instance, a band like Lebenden Toten really had to grow on me (but Gloom and even Atrocious Madness were love at first feedback deals, so go figure...). I understood that the Japanese crust crowd rightfully borrowed from that tradition but when one expects to be sore-throated-to-death, one wishes for a more direct, not as strident and shrieking, distorted sound. But one learns. From the old-school noize prism, the combination of the insane-sounding delayed, reverbed and distorted vocals reminiscent of mental asylums at night and hungover bears with the feedback-drenched noizy sound of the guitar actually makes sense. DDE tried to go beyond the strict and studious Peaceville-cavecore worship - although the songwriting and structures are still all about Sore Throat  - through a more demented-sounding carefully-crafted Confuse-like guitar sound, transformed vocals and the addition of an actual techno number at the end. Bands like Exithippies certainly paved the way for such experiments between noisecore and hard techno/dance music and especially Truth of Arize - which I only discovered relatively recently - whose Genocide Massacre Holocaust Lp from 2000 transcended the typical intense Doom/ENT-worship by inserting it in ambient harsh noise music which makes for quite a listening experience (this is definitely not for poser... I mean the faint-hearted). Or perhaps, DDE's artistic stance was yet an additional Sore Throat tribute as the Brits did experiment with noize too, though in a different fashion, with their totally unmusical atmospherical noisecore bursts and under their Saw Throat identity. Maybe it is all of that.

Can Slay Your Master be relevantly described as a harsh-noize cavemen crasher crust band? A bit of a mouthful, right? I read somewhere online that "DDE were the noisiest band that you can still classify as crust" and I think that is just right. They proved that you could pull the punishing crust worship thing while still bringing something new and fresh (if such a word applies to the wall of noise the band offers) in terms of texture and ambiance (the hand of Habi from Gloom in the mix certainly helped achieve this). I don't think such a template could work on a full album, it would just be overwhelming (like on the aforementioned Truth of Arize Lp) and the length of the Ep - 11 minute long - conveys the adequate urgency and does not let the listener get used to being (too) punished by the insanity of noize (assuming it is possible at all). In the end, the merit of DDE's Slay Your Master is threefold: it is a wonderful example of accurate old-school crust worship; it contributes to the Japanese tradition of noize-drenched crasher crust; and it transcends the genre through the addition of a layered feedback-fueled noizy distortion reminiscent of the 80's, demented effect-driven vocals and even some techno music. DDE's Ep deserves a spot in this series because it is both extremely traditional (there have always been many referential Japanese crust bands obsessed with crust explorers like Doom, Sore Throat and the British pack) and very unique. And in the end, that is how a genre survives, through a balance of artistic conservatism and creative twist (a similar noize-crust stance can be found in the resilient Zyanose from Osaka).

The vinyl version of Slay Your Master was released in 2009 on Osaka's Crust War records and the object proved to be rather austere and only an insert was included. A nod to old-school techno music vinyl? Fuck me if I know.  

Now that was a tedious one.     

                                                                    Them buses again...

                       

                DEATH DUST EXTRACTOR!!!                  

How Crust Survived the Millennium Bug (part 10): Morne "demo 2008" Lp, 2009

If I had to find the most accurate metaphor to locate Morne in the grand crust narrative, one that profoundly resonates with my personal mythology, I would say that Morne were the Ahmed Johnson of the genre. When Ahmed, out of nowhere, ran to the ring and slammed Yokozuna in 1995, I was just like the crowd: flabbergasted. This powerful and, I daresay, legendary slam left me in awe and, as a 12 year-old, confirmed that I wanted to be a wrestler when I grew up. Sadly, reality struck me in the face, and with a physique reminiscent of Harry Potter in the early movies, wrestling quickly became a fantasy that would never come true and my dreams were shattered. My size could have allowed me to become a referee but, as they are often clownishly mistreated, this would have only added to the humiliation. But back to Morne. Just as unexpected as Ahmed's incredible feat of lifting Yoko, the band, it appeared to me, also pretty much slammed crust out of nowhere when I first came across their demo in 2008. 

Now, I realize it is not the first time I have expressed memories of genuine feelings of surprise throughout How Crust Survived the Millennium Bug. Indisputably, the Χειμερία Νάρκη's 2003 album shook me hard and rocked my tiny world. However, this took place in 2003 and, in the subsequent five years, I became a rabid listener and devout follower of crust music and, as patches steadily grew on my sleeveless jackets, I slowly turned into an amateur archaeologist of the genre, reading everything I could find on the subject and saving whatever I could from my meager income to buy crust records (blogs only really kicked off around 2008/09 and the fast and unlimited streaming of music sounded as unlikely as a reality TV star becoming the president of the US of A). I may have been cocky enough at some point in the late 00's to claim boastfully that I had mastered the truth of crust - if the internet never forgets, fortunately people do - but a couple of meaningful revelations taught me (some) humility and that, not only was the quest only just beginning, but that the most important and most fulfilling element of it was the continuous process of realizing your objective, the path of knowledge rather than its completion. If you listen carefully, that's pretty much Yoda's message especially since the Force and the Crust are kinda equivalent at the end of the day. So basically when Morne noisily crashed into my youthful certainties, my knowledgeability of crust was much more solid than it had been five years before. Still, this demo absolutely kicked me up the arse and, well, it was a wonderful feeling which does not happen that often these days. Bloody inspiring, mate.

I first heard of Morne around the time of the release of this first recording in 2008 (in spite of forming in 2005, I don't think many had heard of Morne outside of Boston and probably Poland) through the Profane Existence message board, a platform that acted as a decent source of information about old and new bands from all over the place, hot releases and tales from the past told by heroic old-timers. It was not so dissimilar to Facebook, only the PE board did not display ads, did not spread dodgy theories and was not owned by a multibillion capitalist company. Minor differences really. I think a generous punk posted a download link to the Morne demo and, following the general enthusiasm, my thirst for crust led me to give Morne a chance. Unaware of the band's connection with a definite favourite of mine, I did not really expect anything from it and the gesture had more to do with healthy curiosity than irrepressible excitement. The first listen of the demo instantly proved sufficient to convert me. Bam.

Let's get rid of the elephant in the room right away: Morne is fronted by Milosz, former member of Gdansk-based crust legends Filth of Mankind, who moved to the States in the mid-00's (I guess?). I have no qualms about claiming, loudly as a former post shows, that FOM were one of the best old-school crust bands of their era and the absence of their magnus opus The Final Chapter in this series only has to do with my will not to be (too) redundant but it rightfully deserves a comfy spot in the top crust albums of the noughties. When I learnt about the connection between both bands, Morne's masterly first effort made sense. That this brilliant recording could be categorized as a demo felt a little insulting, as much as I instantly loved it. There was none of the sloppy playing, approximate tuning, non-existent production and naive songwriting that the term "demo" implied to me. Recorded in November, 2007 and March, 2008 at Dead Air Studio by Will Killingsworth, the Morne demo sounded like an incredibly brilliant album rather than a demo tape, which it originally was in 2008 (a cd version also existed). Although the production can be said to be a little raw and dirty - a better description in the context would be organic and cavernous - as opposed to a cleaner sound that the band may have craved for (subsequent events seem to point that way so that intention is of prime importance), I personally believe that it sounds absolutely perfect for a crust album: raw, dark, heavy, brooding and gritty. If the demo of my former band in the noughties had sounded even half as good - inspired and tasteful were not even options - as Morne's demo, I would have been a most unbearably conceited lad to say the least.

As lazy as the comparison might seem, you can certainly recognize Milosz' guitar style in Morne and link it to FOM's riffing and texture, but after all, in their early days, like FOM, Morne played in the metallic crust league and used the classic traits that the genre substantially encompassed. However, where FOM relied on a more aggressively grim sense of imminent threat, Morne sounded far sadder but also deeper and, well, more desolate and beatutiful. You could say that FOM were apocalyptic while Morne's beginnings were post-apocalyptic. Their objectives - let's call it an update of the Amebix/Axegrinder type of crust - might have been similar but the ingredients were different. FOM had both feet loyally planted in the crust tradition while Morne borrowed elements from doom-metal and heavy post-hardcore and as a result sounded more progressive and also much more narrative than a lot of 00's crust bands while still looking at an old-school crust compass to navigate its galloping epic vibe. There are seven songs on the demo for 39 minutes so you can imagine that the band was able to take its sweet time in order to build story-like chapters with proper introductions, endings, climax so that the album sounds like a living cohesive whole with its plot, well set atmosphere and recurring narrative tricks. 

The dominant pace is of the brooding and mid-tempo variety and parallels between Morne's early stage and the heavy doomsday dirges of Axegrinder and Misery, with a torturous Neurosis twist, are relevant. Morne's progressive narrative side also made me think of Skaven's (though they told a very different story) and especially of Balance of Pain-era Counterblast, who were brilliant at playing with moods and ambiance while remaining mean and crushing and proved to be able to speed things up when apposite. The vocals are clever, not forceful or savage, but shouted naturally with a gruff undertone, a bit like Axegrinder, crusty but not growling. Finally, and it certainly contributed to me being so starry-eyed about this recording, Morne were a synth-driven old-school crust band, unfortunately, tragically even, a phrase I cannot write nowhere near often enough. I have always been of the opinion that the addition of a synth transcends the epic gloom that is at the heart of proper crust and Morne used it with dashing maestria. I cannot help but being reminded of the classic Greek crust sound epitomized by early 90's Χαοτικό Τέλος, and quite obviously of Monolith-era Amebix and Axegrinder's Rise of the Serpent Men, and even - perhaps it sounds a bit bold but I am a man who loves danger and I've had more than my fair share of near death experiences, notably when playing badminton - of early Acrostix, and them more than the others maybe. The song "Twilight burns" makes me want to wear cool shades and ride a bike into the sunset, no mean feat considering I tend to be nauseous on motorbikes (anything that has a motor really).

The vinyl reissue of the demo was released in early 2009 with only 330 copies pressed. It had a lovely foldout cover silkscreened with silver ink which is pretty fucking classy indeed. The cover itself is appropriately bleak but not really special (a misty forest), however the lettering of the lyrics was done by Dino Sommese from Dystopia and Asunder and you can definitely recognize his style which I happen to dig (he also did it on the split between Stormcrow and Sanctum). The Lp was released on No Options Records, a busy label on the crust front in the 00's (Stormcrow, Limb From Limb, Phalanx). Following the demo, Morne recruited Jeff from Grief and Disrupt on second guitar (he even appeared on the picture on the back of the vinyl version of the demo, though he doesn't play on it) and this lineup recorded three songs for a split Lp with the excellent Warprayer from Bristol on Alerta Antifascista. The production was much cleaner and Morne's side was certainly monumental, with the sludgy post-hardcore-doom influence significantly more prevalent, still in the metallic crust territory, but very close to the frontier which would be crossed for good on the next record. Untold Wait, released in 2009 on Feral Ward - the band moved really quickly at that point - was basically a re-recording of the demo with a clean and clear production pretty much turning the work into a post-hardcore doom-metal album, which makes one think about the importance of orchestration and artistic intent when it comes to the vibe you are trying to convey. I lost track of the band afterwards - though I did catch them live a second time in 2012 in Paris (I first caught them on their 2009 tour and religiously bought a cheerful shirt) - as they went on to evolve into a more progressive atmospheric doom-metal realm. Not my cuppa but certainly well-executed.

 Can you have training wheels on a motorbike? Just asking for a friend.

Morne 

Gutrot "Filthy muck" 10'', 2008

I love it when, out of the blue, a record of an old British band that I have never heard of comes out. I usually get all excited and restless and generally a real pain in the arse. Things tend to go back to normal after I eventually get the record, listen to it and ponder over it in order to place it in the grand narrative of punk-rock. In 2008, when Wicked Witch released that geezer, I was taken by surprise when I first read the short description that you find on online distros: a new band was about to come, uninvited, into my life.

"What's it called? Gutrot? It sounds a bit grindy, doesn't it?... Old recordings from 1987... A good year this, Antisect were at the top of their crusty game, Deviated Instinct were recording the song "Stormcrow", Amebix released "Monolyth"... Live and rehearsal tapes. Must be rough. Wait! What? With members of AOA and Axegrinder!!! It cannot be! And no one thought of telling me before? For fuck's sake! I NEED to hear that." Well, you know the drill...

A careless listener might think a Gutrot reissue should not have been a top priority, and musically speaking I guess I can understand the argument. However, in the light of this record and of the chapter from the holy "Trapped in a scene", one can grasp the significance of a band such as Gutrot, not necessarily in terms of music but in terms of their involvement in a specific time and place, namely the North London squat scene of the mid-80's. Like Eat Shit and Sons of Bad Breath, their brothers in unrestrained noise-making with a dodgy hygiene, Gutrot played a central role in establishing and promoting a vibrant punk scene in their area and so were an important part of punk history, that is if you see punk as more than just the accumulation of records. Basically, this 10'' is as much a historical document as it is an unhealthy slice of noisy bollocks.

The story of Gutrot began in 1986 under a different - and ridiculous - name: Terry Wogan and the Hellbashers. Then, the band was far less serious and include Skinny from Coitus on bass guitar. The band then changed its name to Gutrot and recuited another bass player called Tim who formerly played in Obliteration (could this be the obscure thrash/death metal band?), alongside Steve who used to sing in AOA and had moved to North London from Scotland in order to be part of the thriving squat scene there, Dalby who now lays in Argy Bargy (an unlikely connection indeed!) and Darryn who would join Axegrinder after the demise of Gutrot. This bunch of merry and active drunken punks played a major role in setting up squatted venues in Hackney such as the Kardboard Box or the Ballet School. From what I can gather from "Trapped in a scene", not unlike the infamous Hackney Hell Crew, their way of life seems to have been fairly chaotic, extreme even, but I bet a Gutrot gig must have been a night to remember if you like Mad Max reconstitutions or the idea of hordes of filthy punks dancing to a Disorder cover band (I know I do). Bands like Gutrot certainly pioneered the crust punk lifestyle, if not the music. And, they had a beef with Conflict, but then, as I understand it, who didn't by 1986?

What? The music? What do you expect really? This is rough, shouted, angry, political, raw, distorted and filthy hardcore punk for the hardcore punks. This is probably much faster than you expect too. Chop one pound of Chaos UK and Disorder, add a glass of Plasmid or early Heresy and mix it with a Legion of Parasites-shaped spoon until you get a thick paste. Bake it for two hours in furious Italian hardcore à la Wretched/Impact/early Negazione and let it marinate for two weeks in the bogs of a punk squat. The first side is taken from a rehearsal while the second one, my favourite, is a live recording that manages to sound better. You can hear the vocals better on the live tracks, a good thing because you can really tell that the singer also did time in AOA (the early line-up) and he's got a cracking voice. Looking at the gig handouts you will realize that Gutrot shared the stage with some fantastic bands during their short existence, like Extreme Noise Terror, Atavistic, Deviated Instinct, Karma Sutra or Axegrinder.

As previously mentioned this was released on the ever reliable and tasteful Dutch label Wicked Witch that also did Lebenden Toten, Aftermath, Atrocious Madness, Effigy or Substandard. I am not a sucker for 10" but this one makes sense since you only have about 10 minutes of noise on each side. The artwork was done by Mid from Deviated Instinct and since no one seems to really give a damn aboyt Gutrot, I am pretty sure you will be able to find a copy for cheap on some distros.

Gutrot

Anguish "Within the darkness" Ep 2008

Don't believe the filthy liars whispering that Terminal Sound Nuisance is dead and buried and the rumours that I have fucked off to Istanbul to be come a hooligan (though I admit it did cross my mind at some point). In fact, I have been working full time for two months after more than a year of being on the dole and I moved to a new flat last week so I haven't had the time to take care of the blog. I will therefore try to keep this review short and to the point.

This Ep was definitely among my favourite of 2008. It was World Funeral's first release (the label went on to release records from the crust kings Instinct of Survival, Desperat and Deathraid) I had heard the demo of Anguish, liked it but wasn't particularly overcome with awe although I did order the record. Listening to it for the first time was like witnessing the four horsemen of the apocalypse splitting the earth open  or, I guess, like wrestling with a polar bear. It is very intense and the recording is absolutely perfect: heavy, crushing and proper dark. The songs have a trance-like quality and I tend to believe that was what the band was aiming for. The vocals are guttural and rough, a bit like an evil sleep-deprived old-school death-metal singer, the drums have a thick crusty sound and are really put forward not unlike on the Hibernation Lp but even more pummelling and the guitar has a massive, filthy texture that reeks of old extreme metal. In a word: the sound is top notch.

At the time, I saw Anguish as being part of the stenchcore revival of the mid/late 00's triggered by Hellshock and widely followed in North America (bands like Sanctum, Stormcrow, After the Bombs, Stagnation...). Retrospectively, Anguish may rather have been tried to do the metal-punk thing, mixing bands like Hellhammer, Bathory and Sodom with a crusty energy (a bit like Limb From Limb and Dödsfalla maybe or, in terms of intent, Order of the Vulture and Legion 666), an hypothesis that seemed to be confirmed by their subsequent record, a split Ep with Perversion, which was much more in the old-school thrash/death/whatever worship (and possibly too much to my liking to be honest). But this Ep is an absolute scorcher. Take Sacrilege, early Bolt Thrower, Warcollapse, early Stormcrow and blend it with vintage extreme metal and you will get an idea. The lyrics are, of course, dark and quite occult but the song "Life expense" caught my attention and incidentally the song cannot be closer to the current news as it is about Detroit, Anguish's hometown. The song is a gloomy depiction of this industrial town that is now officially bankrupt  and the alienation and hopelessness it creates. Yet another sign that capitalists don't give a fuck about the people who made their fortune in the past. I guess the dark atmosphere of the bandn beside obvious musical influences, partly finds its roots in Detroit. Actually, take a look at the lyrics:

"Live in this land of industrialized waste

Hope and compassion don't exist in such a place

Miles of ghetto in a city of depsair

Millions in misery yet no one fucking cares

Life... Life expense

Empty concrete towers shadow this abuse

Broken, cracked monuments never put to use

Grey desolation, factories and empty streets

Increasing decay, no chance of peace

Life... Life expense"

If only for this one song, you should give Anguish a go. That and if you like your crust heavy, filthy hairy and metal-tinged (in other words if you like crust at all).

Within the darkness