Japanese CRUST (compilations) Against the Millennium (part 4): "Yotsuva - Japanese Noiz Cruster Comp" Lp, 2009

When a kid gets into punk, he or she often makes it very loud and very clear through dodgy hair dye, randomly drawn circled A on still pristine denim jackets, typically shit early attempts at a mohawk or the sudden disappearance of every safety pins in the house. Parents aren't exactly excited and not too chuffed to have to tell your grandparents aka their own parents - rather embarrassingly - that you're "going through a phase" and that they shouldn't pay too much attention when their once adorable grandson or granddaughter now cannot stop ranting about how the final bloodbath is coming and is just around the corner or some shit. Know what I mean? 

When it is indeed a mere phase, you can all laugh about it years later when the former snotty little punk has finally accomplished his or her destiny and become a mediocre accountant in a boring shithole and spawn two horrible children. Mum would be so relieved that you quickly dropped the bondage trousers and the torn Exploited shirts (although nothing could be done about the still half-infected tattoo of an oddly shaped skull that your mate Paul did during a party while on mushrooms) and became presentable and proper enough to be introduced to her own old high-school friends who grew up to be much more successful. When it is not a phase (meaning when you're still rocking the haircut by 25), well, things are more complicated, aren't they? Parents often beat themselves up, convinced that they must have done something terribly wrong and have basically failed dramatically at parenting. If not, why would their beloved offspring wear what can only be kindly described as a bum's rags, play in a dreadful band called The Riot Cunt Boys and stop eating meat. By that point, the grandparents would have already blamed the mother repeatedly (because in a patriarchal society it's always the mothers who take the blame) for the revolting hygiene of their grandkid and the neighbours gossiped relentlessly about the parrot-looking youth living next door who often gets bullied by "real men".

Why such subtle sociological analysis you might ask? Well, have you seen the cover of the Yotsuva compilation 12" Ep? What would the gran say? It has to be the crustiest picture of a human being that you have ever seen. There's so much hair you can't even see the face of that punk and he probably can't see shit either. It looks pretty much like a scarecrow who lost his comb or the hidden punk baby brother of Cousin Itt, the opposite of presentable. And isn't the creature a little scary as well? If I bumped into that crusty punk at midnight in a poorly lit dark street, I would maybe think that Sadako, instead of dicking around in old wells, just got into Deviated Instinct and is on her way to haunt fake punks who like shoegaze and Turnstile. In any case a mere cursory glance at the cover of Yotsuva is enough for even the least discerning of us to understand that it is an unhealthy, unmitigated slice of crust-for-crusties (noise-not) music. To make sure everyone got it the subtitle Japanese Noiz Cruster Comp was added. Just to be safe.

There are only four bands on this compilation (or would it be more accurate to call it a four-way split?) but the lineup is fantastic and I personally see the record as something of a classic Japanese crust record and a highly relevant snapshot of a time period. One of the most chaotic and noisiest bands of a subgenre already based on chaos and noise opens fire first: Tokyo's Isterismo. It did take me a few years before I understood what the hell they were trying to do first and second to genuinely enjoy them. Emphaticalness might be the key word here. Imagine early Gloom and Frigöra teaming up to create a band doing covers of Plasmid and Asylum and then make it noisier, faster, blow it out a bit more and add an obsession for the amusical side of Italian hardcore like London 77 or Fottutissima Pellicceria Elsa. An intentional fucking racket indeed from a band known and sought after precisely for that. Like Tantrum, Isterismo sang in Italian and these three songs belonged to the early years of the band, my favourite era as I always thought the later Lp was rather disappointing. These Tokyo crusties went on to play in bands like Solvent Cobal or Haava. I recommend the compilation Lp Tokyo Crusties (duh) which you can still find for quite cheap if you want your senses to be assaulted by the band's early period.

The humungous Death Dust Extractor grace us next with three horrendous noise cavecrust songs and it sounds exactly like it should. Do you love early Doom and Sore Throat? Have you always thought that Japanese bands Mindsuck or Abraham Cross did a magnificent job revering Doom and Sore Throat? Have you ever wondered what would happen if you threw a bit of Terminal Filth Stenchcore into the mix and a spoonful of unhinged Osaka crasher crust? Well, it's your lucky day and these three songs are tailor made for your sick tastes in music. A pretty unique band indeed.

Lastly are the third band to enter the crust arena and they are possibly the lesser known of the four stenchmen of the apocalypse. They were from Hida-Takayama, in the Gifu prefecture, a region known for its mountains and I wouldn't be surprised if the members of Lastly were all actual feral kids living in the wilderness of these mountains, eating roots, throwing shit at each other and communicating through noises before they learnt how to speak at age 20. In fact they might have learnt how to play crasher crust before the linguistic skills. This is savage relentless noizy crust praying at the altar of Gloom and Collapse Society and must clearly be seen in the same light as Isterismo, D-Clone or Zyanose. Nothing new here, it's all very well done, by the book, but you might argue that Lastly missed that bit of personality that would have helped cement their spot in the Japanese crust pantheon. You could say they were a mid-table crust bands but then the Japanese league was perhaps the best in the world at that time so it is already remarkable. These four songs (one is not listed) were the first appearance of Lastly on record and they pack a serious punch, I actually like them better than their first cruder more noisepunk Ep while the second one was closer to Contrast Attitude. 

Finally the listener is rewarded for his or her persistence with three songs of noise insanity by the mighty Zyanose. Thanks to a serious and globally solid discography Zyanose have definitely become a reference in the Confuse-meets-Gloom-at-a-crust-convention-held-in-a-mental-asylum. It's still pretty much a musical freak show but one that has become more respectable with time. I have written extensively about these Osaka nutters and I don't feel I need to reiterate because, by now, you know what I am talking about.

As a conclusion, Yotsuva (I haven't been able to find where the name comes from so information is welcome) will delight the most monomaniacal of us and if you are looking for variety then I suggest you keep away from it. However if you crave for your dose of crasher crust it is the perfect choice and a high quality product from the best noise dealers around. A perfect compilation as far as its intentions are concerned: in 15 minutes it succeeds to do perfectly what it claims to do on the cover. No bullshit, just crust pants. Another winning endeavour from everyone's favourite supplier Crust War Records.

YOTSUVA!

  

Last Night a D-Beat Saved My Life (part 2): ATENTADO "Todo está oscuro" Ep, 2009

As I remember, hazily I have to admit, in my tiny 00's mind, a large part of the Spanish scene very much revolved around neocrust. It would be easy, tempting, to blame Ekkaia and, well, the state of thing had a lot to do with Ekkaia's emotional take on Tragedy's music. Was it always for the best? Fuck no. Interestingly there is a still an "emocrust" scene in Spain so that the style never really went away over there whatever one might think about it. But there was something else brewing in Barcelona and, although I only paid limited attention to it at the time - what with being busy keeping track of all the booming stenchcore bands - it proved to be highly influential, if not pivotal in a lot of respects.

Enter Invasion (renamed Destino Final in 2008) from Barcelona, something of a cult hardcore band whose influence, sonic, inventive and aesthetic, can still be felt to this day. My roommate at the time was a massive fan (he also overplayed Criminal Damage, No Hope For the Kids and Lebenden Toten, bands that truly left a mark on those years) and, if I was not as enthused as he was, I could get the appeal: mean, snotty, raw hardcore punk with a distinctly raging Spanish feel, both old-school and yet modern, or rather a modern vision of old-schoolness. It opened a lot of doors well beyond the Spanish confines (and certainly helped putting La Vida Es Un Mus on the punk map) and I see today's band Atentado as a spawn of that same spirit and creative intention. 

It was however not the only context the band grew from. A very raw primitive brand of Discharge-loving (noise not) music appeared in the early 00's whose most significant representatives were Destruccion. They are something of a legendary band these days (we all have our own self-created legends I suppose) for their famous song "Te amo d-beat" that everyone knows and loves or at least pretend to not to lose any punk point in my presence. At a time when Swedish discore had lost most of its contenders and when most bands were looking for a more polished, heavier, "metal" production (because neocrust), Destruccion, possibly as an answer, went in the exact opposite direction carrying the torch of the primal rabioso noisy hardcore sound that Spain was renowned for in the 80's. 

Destruccion was d-beat raw punk at its most literal. The most obvious reference was MG15, one of Europe's most convincing - and stripped to the bone - love declaration to Discharge from the 80's but the band more globally owed to the Spanish hardcore wave of Shit SA, Atack, Antidgmatikss or the unlistenable Delirium Tremens. Destruccion, and shortly after the even more minimal Firmeza 10, epitomised a primitive d-beat sound that suited perfectly the Spanish language and it is barely a surprise that many Spanish-speaking hardcore bands would be influenced by these bands, not necessarily their music but at the very least their concept. To be honest, I cannot say I was totally taken by Destruccion when it came out at the time but I was probably missing the point or just lacking in knowledge to really "get it". In the 90's there would be acts like Angry Mob and Mobcharge that worked faithfully on the d-beat (both of them had the Becerra brothers from Violent Headache at the helm), the former flirting with the "just-like-Discharge" philosophy while the latter were clearly very close to what we have to come to conceptualize as "d-beat raw punk" in the wake of Disclose and can be seen as modest precursors in that respect.  

So to summarize, Atentado grew from the same hardcore scene as Invasion (Guillem played in both bands), in terms of drive, in Barcelona, and went for that brand of 80's inspired d-beat raw punk en Español revived by Destruccion with a significant Disclose influence in terms of distortion and groove and a delicious Discharge-loving retro feel. Todo está oscuro is a solid short and sweet Ep that is often forgotten although I personally think that it is a significant example of d-beat raw punk done right. Old-school d-beat love done right with a chaotic vibe and a thought-out minimalism inherent to the national style. I love the raspy angry female vocals, a nice change because the strict d-beat genre proves to be mostly populated by males (Atentado's drummer is also a woman by the way), and the simplicity of the compositions (the band throw a brilliant early Discharge mid-pace number that had a terrific old-school vibe). If you are looking for a good illustration of what d-beat en español is all about, it is a perfect choice, but it is clearly a niche band that is unlikely to convert anyone to the D. A modern vision of old-schoolness as I wittily pointed out earlier.

This Ep was actually the first release of Discos Enfermos, now an established label expert in offering top notch raw punk (notably en español), as a co-release with Crust As Fuck Records. Atentado would release a full Lp in 2012 on La Vida Es Un Mus that was something of a disappointment as the Ep format proved to be far more suited to their primal d-beat approach. If you have five minutes to spare and you enjoy Discharge Todo está oscuro should delight you during your fag break. 

Todo esta oscuro

An adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: PISSCHRÏST / FRAMTID "Hardcore Detonation Attack" split Ep, 2009

This will be the last Ep from the 00's to be included in this series which you hopefully enjoy, at least enough to warrant a decent read while on the toilet. Since I haven't decided on the - certainly smaller - selection for the following decade (the dreaded 10's) there will be some wait before the next installment, especially since I am fucking off on tour in April. Yes, I am THAT cool a punk.

Let's end the transitional era of the 00's with something of a classic record from 2009: the Hardcore Detonation Attack split Ep between Melbourne's Pisschrïst and Osaka's Framtid, two rather well-known and respected bands that I haven't covered yet (beside a short paragraph about the latter for their inclusion on the Chaos of Destruction 2 compilation). How long do you have to wait to be officially crowned as a "classic hardcore record" by the Higher Punk Council? It is difficult to say and it really depends on what you mean with "classic". Timelessness is very often narrowly construed and distorted in order to make a work of art somehow fit in and yet transcend at the same time a mythical and mystical post-chronological "time". The notion of a "timeless classic" is therefore meaningless and, more dangerous, it can deprive a work of its meaning (I suppose "time-free" would be more correct albeit as pointless). What we need to think about are classics that are inherently rooted in proper time and space not in an abstract dimension. Does such intellectual brilliance on my part keep people from claiming online that their favourite record of the month is a "classic"? No but it should. Wankers.

Because of its relevance in terms of what used to be before, what was at the time and what would come after, I think this record is indeed a 00's Swedish-styled hardcore classic. Is 15 years a long enough period to be able to look back peacefully at a punk record? Probably and for the sake of this review, let's at least pretend it is. It's certainly been a long enough for me to lose a decent part of my once chivalrous hair.

This Ep was Pisschrïst's last record. The band was a pretty big deal at the time and if I unfortunately never got to see them live (despite two European tours), the reports were unanimous: they were an absolute powerhouse. But I have to admit their records did not totally win me over back then, even though they were getting some airplay and, on a strictly philosophical level, I understood the band's appeal. I mean, they played intense and hard-hitting käng with gruff vocals and a rocking side and their prolificacy reflected their staunch determination: one demo, two albums and five Ep's (three of them splits with Appäratus, Kvoteringen and of course Framtid) between 2004 and 2010. Talking with my wonderful partner about the band's legacy and the reasons why they were so beloved then she pointed out that, at the time, few bands outside Sweden, or to a lesser extent to a then more obscure Japan, played that kind of relentless high-energy riff-driven epic Swedish hardcore with crazy tempos changes. You had of course quite a few bands doing the Wolfpack/Wolfbrigade heavy metallic hardcore thing (like Guided Cradle for instance) but Pisschrïst were different and relied more on the great riff tradition of Totalitär and the relentlessness of Framtid and there just wasn't many bands around at the time that were influenced by those schools of käng. You have to look at Pisschrïst from the 00's perspective to understand their appeal. Nowadays, there are many bands working with the same main ingredients, namely Totalitär-like hardcore and Framtid's take on käng, but not at the time. 

And let's not forget that they were from Melbourne and we did not (or at least I didn't) know that many Australian bands (beside Schifosi, The Collapse and ABC Weapons, a band that had Tim and Yeap from Pisschrïst) but you could sense that something was happening and the band quickly became the embodiment of that new Distort Melbourne scene whose legacy is still going strong today. Talk about a significant band. In addition, Yeap had lyrics in English but also in Malay which was something of a novelty and a breath of fresh air as well. He used to play in Mass Separation back in Malaysia and they did have lyrics in Malay but their popularity was mostly circumscribed to the grindcore scene (I could be wrong though, they did have a split with Kontrovers after all, so it could be relative). The status of Pisschrïst was bigger, they had records on Yellow Dog, then an important label. They also allowed people to discover Appäratus through a split Ep - these days a fairly established scandicore band but back then an unknown Kuala Lumpur act - and by extension it made me curious and drove me to investigate further the great noize that was being made in places like Malaysia, Indonesia or Singapore in the 00's. So on the whole, I think that is what makes Pisschrïst a "classic band". It was not just the music. 

The three songs on this Ep are, by far, my favourite. The band sounds absolutely unstoppable and relentless here and never has their dynamite blend of Totalitär and Framtid sounded so ferocious. The production is rawer, closer to what noizy Osaka bands thrived on, and really highlights the drummer's frantic style full of rolls and crazy changes and the raging vocals. This is close to perfection and one can only imagine how insane a full album of Pisschrïst with that particular production would have sounded like. After the band folded, Yeap would keep playing in solid noizy bands like Krömozom, Nuclear Sex Addict or the well-respected and very active Enzyme and started to run the very good label Hardcore Victim. A busy man. As for Tim he played in the Aussie version of Nuclear Death Terror, ExtinctExist and Jalang.

On the other side of the split, you've got three songs from the almighty supreme Framtid, a band that has, without a shadow of a doubt, earned its reputation as a "classic band" in every sense of the word. The band is rightly revered and their name almost always accompanied by such adjectives as "intense", "furious" and "deafening". To be able to witness Framtid perform live with their customary ferocity can be considered as one of the five Pillars of the Punk Religion, an obligatory acts of worship for proper believers. 

It is fair to say that the band's popularity and mystique grew with time because more and more people got access to their music and because of their impressive longevity given the genre they have been engaging in since 1997. I first came across them sometime around 2005 thanks to a mate of mine who burnt a cd including several bands I was looking for on it, among which he added Framtid's Under the Ashes (there was still space on the cdr and I suppose he just added the thing thinking it could do no wrong). For some reason, the band did not leave too much of an impression on me at that time, by no means did they sound unpleasing but I think I just liked the other bands on the cd better (as I remember there might have been Hellshock's Shadows of the Afterworld on it which, at the time, was unchallengeable anyway). Beside Framtid were at the very end of a cd that was already packed with hard-hitting stuff and the position does affect a first listen's appreciation. I should also point out that I was not really that much into Japanese hardcore bands in the 00's and mostly indulged in their brand of metal crust more than anything. I missed the first train on this one.

Basically it took a good few years for me to really get and more accurately feel what Framtid were trying to create through maximizing and magnifying the hardest brand of käng in order to turn it into a real native Osaka style: the crasher käng transformation. Yes I have just made it up. But still, it's precisely what Framtid achieved through the use of several elements: the - now iconic - insane and thunderous hectic drumming (curtesy of Takayama who also played in Zoe) in order to amplify the songs' savagery, the trademark Osaka crust guitar distortion of Jackie (from the fantastic Crust War label) and hyperbolic gruff but highly antagonistic vocals. When first confronted with the Framtid's sound, one is quick to think that this is a pummeling hardcore chaos (not a bad thing at all in itself) but it is deceptive because closer attention reveals how in control of this chaos the band is. Their real achievement may lie in this fruitful paradox: they are masters of chaos always on the brink of being overtaken, they occupy that liminal space that makes them so impressive .

Framtid have alway claimed that 80' Swedish bands like Bombanfall, Sound of Disaster, Crude SS and of course Svart Parad (they picked their moniker from a Svart Parad's song, although they did not that framtid means "future" in English, which is lucky, it could have meant "hangover" or something) and this primitive, if not primal, cave käng sound is the basis but as I said they infused it with the Gloom Osaka dementia to create a unique wild untamable beast. The three songs included on the split are classic Framtid, recognizable in a heartbeat. The production may not be as insanely heavy and devastating as on Under the Ashes but it confers a rawer edge which suits the genre and the Ep format. One of the best hardcore band of their generation, no question about it.

This is a great split released on HG Fact with brilliant artwork on both sides, just a great moment of punk music. The title Hardcore Detonation Attack is fitting indeed. 

Hardcore detonation attack!!!

An adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: BESTHÖVEN / BETON "Different wars same victims" split Ep 2009

I did not realize how long Besthöven's discography was until I started writing this Pulitzer-level masterpiece. I was of course aware of the band's fecundity (it could more accurately be referred to as "a solo project", although Fofäo dislikes the term, or oxymoronically as "a one-man band" but then how do you even define what "a band" really is and what qualifies as one?) but not quite to that extent. I understood that I had not even listened to a lot of Besthöven's body of work. In general, I do check the band's new releases because I often like what I hear and because they are often split records a befitting format for the genre. But then, as you would, I get lost in that endless maze of new d-beat and käng bands that bandcamp and youtube have turned into and end up almost overdosing on war songs, cheap solos and studded jackets and basically quickly forget about what I have just heard, like a goldfish. But I suppose that's pretty much what modern kids have to deal with: fighting the desire to indulge in an infinite supply of cultural distractions in order to keep a shred of attention span. It is, like finding love without using cheesy filters for your profile picture, a losing a battle in 2024. 

It seemed fair to include a Besthöven work in this series since Fofäo (the obsessive Doctor Frankenstein to this monstrous project) has been contributing his limitless enthusiasm - bordering on the maniacal - for primitive d-beat raw punk (aka the "DIS-CIMEX style") to many shared records. With bands like Disclose (an achievement in itself), Warvictims or Disease. Or indeed with Beton. The format fits the music to a tee. Besthöven's story is quite fascinating and inspiring. It started as your usual noisy punk band in the early 90's but turned into a very prolific one-man affair in 1994 (Agitate did an interview with the man in 2006 that you can read here) which is pretty impressive indeed given the rather strict template Besthöven works on. Depending on your philosophical stance on dis-music, you will see the task as either piss easy because you consider that it's always the same song anyway ("who cares if you already used the very same riff 27 times, it has always worked and it's not like you have a demanding audience") or as very challenging since it is difficult to do the same thing on an on again without losing the passion, dedication and a sense of inspiration. If anything, Besthöven and its longevity, whether you like and rate the music or not, is an undying testimony to the validity and relevance of d-beat and käng as genre and aesthetics and an affirmation that it can be an actual way of life. Still bollox but still here.

This is not to say that all Besthöven records are exactly alike but Fofäo's work ethics have not changed: the goal is to produce raw and unrefined hardcore punk. The influence of Anti-Cimex always prevails of course but most of the 80's Swedish hardcore bands are invited to the table and in recent years I sense that Disarm and Avskum were regular guests especially with Fofäo's very distinctive vocals. What I love about them is that they are shouted and angry, respect the obligatory flow and prosody but still maintain some rough-hewn tunefulness like in the two aforementioned käng classics (Avskum's Gunnar is the master of such a vocal style) adding some gruff melodies and, dare I say, emotions. It's not as brutal vocally as what you could expect but I always felt Besthöven's approach was the right one in this case and it makes the band easily recognizable. 

The three songs on this split Ep are typical of what Besthöven do on a good day which is exactly what you want. Straight-forward and raw galloping d-beat käng with a purity and an orthodoxy that is both admirable and a little scary. I get a 90's dis-vibe on this one, there is a lot of Disclose-meets-Diskonto-at-an-Avskum-karaoke-night here here more of an 80's. It's difficult to call yourself a fan of the D if you don't own at least a couple of Besthöven records and many are fairly to find.

On the other side, two songs of Beton (meaning "concrete" just like in French for once) from Bratislava await the listener. To be quite honest, I mostly grabbed this split Ep for Beton (although I am always up for some Besthöven) as I am a bit of a fan of heavy crust punk from Central Europe and they are certainly up there when it comes to delivering groovy Swedish-inspired hardcore heaviness. I would not say I really missed out on the band. When they first came to life in the mid 00's, I remember downloading their 2005 demo on a blog (from crust-demos probably) and being pleasantly surprised. Well, surprised might not be the most accurate term as even though I did not know current bands from Slovakia, there was no reason for the country to be deprived of smelly punks keen on making a crust racket when neighbouring Czech and Poland definitely had their fair share of this strange species that baffle anthropologists to this day. So when I first bumped into Beton, they basically made sense even before I listened to them and because their take on the genre was rather akin to that heavy dark vibe that characterized 90's and 00's crust bands from Central Europe, Beton felt very natural.

Prior to that 00's generations, the one Slovakian band I was significantly aware of was Nonconformist from the Eastern town of Košice. It would be a lie to claim that I am fully conversant with the band's discography - on other occasions it is a lie I would certainly embrace - but their Open Your Eyes Ep from 1994 is a cruelly underrated jewel that fans of female-fronted anarcho crust-punk should revere. Still, despite strong suspicions, I was pretty clueless as what had been and was happening there but the arrival of Beton, Deadissexy (I absolutely loved their demo of cavemen käng crust) and Roxor, whose 2006 demo was an equally convincing heavy crust effort, was pivotal. You had your Slovakian crust Big Three. But then things grew kinda quiet (Beton did release a split Ep with national grinders Čad in 2007 though) and it wasn't until the late 00's/early 10's that Beton and Roxor really started to record and release things. But as I said, caught in the constant flux of novelties, I did not pay enough attention to what they were up to until a few years ago when I took the time to.

When Beton reformed in 2008, they turned into a different animal, more powerful but still feeding on things of the D, more accurately the leaves that one can find on the Scandinus Crustus tree. By that time the band had absorbed three members of the aforementioned Deadissexy and their first endeavour in the studio with that team was devastating indeed. The two songs included on this Ep are perfectly executed examples of what heavy and dark metallic crust-käng should sound like. Use the mean metallic hardcore side of late Anti-Cimex (the song "Konvoj" is actually a tribute to them) and early Wolfbrigade as your dow and the dirty crust vibe of Warcollapse and Mass Genocide Process as your filling and serve warm with a can of lager. The two songs do exactly what they are supposed to do and I love the fact that the production manages to highlight the heaviness and the raw aggression as well. Of course the choice to sing in their mother language also adds to convey the dark anger permeating the songwriting. A really good job.

Both bands are still going, Besthöven doing what Besthöven do and Beton evolving into something more metal-oriented. This was as collaboration between several labels: the local Totalitarianism Still Continues, I Feel Good (from Britanny!), Rabia Contra el Sistema from Spain and Dist & Confuzed from Sweden.   

BESTHÖVEN vs BETON

How Crust Survived the Millennium Bug (part 12): Campus Sterminii "Life is a Nightmarish Struggle" Lp, 2009

Alright, here we go then, this is the last part of the Homeric series How Crust Survived the Millennium Bug. It was, as usual, a pleasure to grace you punk plebs with awe-inspiring knowledge and bitingly insightful examinations into some of the most crucial crust works and bands from the noughties. If you want an autographed photo, please send a personal message and I will provide you with banking details for a transfer that will help fund Terminal Sound Nuisance. It's all for the cause comrades. Before I enlighten guttersnipes with yet another top article that will conclude the series in great fashion, I wish to say that the series was not meant to be, properly speaking, an 00's crust best-of. Although the endeavour to achieve such a task could be worthwhile in its comprehensive scope (and I would be very curious indeed to read lists on the subject), the series did not attempt to achieve it. Rather, I have tried to select works that reflected both the variety of crust styles with their different contexts of creation and the genre's evolution and milestones that defined the decade; how those recordings connected with the 90's; if they brought something new and original to the orgy or if they purposefully chose to keep closely to the tradition, a move which might be, in itself, innovative contrary to what the end result might sound like. For instance, you may argue that Consume's Forked Tongue cannot be said to really stand as an instant crust classic in itself, however the band proved to be not only very influential and memorable but also acted as a symbolic hyphen between the 90's scandicrust sound and its continuation into the 00's, hence the necessary inclusion, from my point of view, of a Consume Ep. Just another day at the office really.

Establishing rankings is always a struggle that oft causes one to wallow in self-doubt, but of course the twelve records making up the series would be part of my own 00's ranking. Others, that were already discussed previously on the blog and therefore were not mentioned in the present series, would also be elected, like the Acrostix / Contrast Attitude split Lp or the Defector Ep. I also chose to leave those bands that were extensively dealt with in the past - like Filth of Mankind, Extinction of Mankind or Warcollapse - out of the series, although it goes without saying that The Final Chapter, Northern Scum and Defy definitely have their place. Other records and bands had to be, sometimes heartbreakingly, omitted for lack of space and stamina as I did not want to embark on a two-year long series with fifty records (beside you probably would have gotten fat spending your precious time reading my achingly long reviews and I do care a little about your health). This said, and because of my beneficent nature, I shall provide some clues if you are inclined toward a deeper, more thorough exploration of 00's crust. In this prospect, you might want to try to quench your thirst for knowledge through attentive inspections of the Stormcrow/Sanctum split Lp, Doom's World of Shit Lp, the Stagnation S/t Ep, the Cancer Spreading/Disköntroll split Lp (one of my favourite CS records), Zyanose's Loveless Ep, Instinct of Survival's North of Nowhere Lp and Winter in my Mind Ep, Svart Aggression's Tänk Själv Ep, Against//Empire's The One Who Strikes the Blow Lp, Man the Conveyors' Cheers cd, Visions of War/Olho de Gato split Lp and many more, this is only a sample, but since I cannot be arsed to namedrop bands on punk civilians for the rest of the afternoon, your suggestions are as good as mine and feel free to add to the list. 

Today, we are going to tackle - with the inspiring erudition and intellectual dynamism that have come to characterize Terminal Sound Nuisance - Campus Sterminii from Bologna, which will also serve as an opportunity to tackle the new wave of Italian metallic crust that emerged in the mid-00's. I have already touched upon Italian crust punk in the rather distant past through a review of Scum of Society's '97 Ep Violenza Legale, a humble but thoroughly enjoyable Ep that happened to be one of the few examples of an Italian take on the 90's eurocrust wave that swept through the continent. In fact, I cannot think of many 90's Italian crust bands but maybe I am just unaware of some. Original anarchocrust legends Contropotere could hardly be described as "crust" anymore by then and, although they rubbed shoulders with many bands that fitted the tag in the 90's, they did not belong to the decade's wave, even if their progressive 1991 Lp Il Seme Della Devianza was not deprived of an old-school metallic crust influence. Jilted only belonged to the category to some extent as they were - and in fact still are - more a crusty hardcore band and most of their records were released in the 00's. Considering the insane number of class Italian hardcore acts in the 80's, the lack of typical 90's crust bands in the country is surprising though there was definitely no shortage of grindcore or fastcore bands then. Things drastically changed in the 00's.

 

It can be said that labels and distros such as Agipunk certainly contributed to the rise of crust in Italy during the first half of the 00's through their promotion of international hard-hitting raw hardcore and fast crust music. This development can be witnessed in the evolution of Kontatto, a band that included a future Campus Sterminii member on the guitar, Koppa, who also ran the Disastro Sonoro label. From a rather typically fast and raw Italian hardcore band in the late 90's, they crustified their sound throughout the decade so that by the mid/late 00's a distinct crust vibe could be noticed in their furious hardcore sound. Although merely an example, such a process prevailed in significant sectors of the Italian punk scene in the 00's with the rise of acts such as Drunkards, Disforia, Disprezzo, Berzerk, Dirty Power Game, Dissciorda or the band that will be covered today for your greatest enjoyment, Campus Sterminii. With a moniker translating, I reckon, as "extermination camps", parading in Italy with a CS shirt is bound to raise a few eyebrows and potentially elicit some misunderstanding but you are pretty much fine in the rest of the world. The whole CS story can be found here on the Crucified Freedom blog so I am not going to bother too much with minute details. The band formed in 2002 with aforementioned Koppa from Kontatto on the guitar, Marzia from Pussy Face as well as Jessica on the bass and Gra on vocals. Their first recording session took place in 2004 and appeared on a split Lp with Poland's Disgusting Lies in 2005 released on Agipunk and, let me tell you, the six songs that made up their side of the Lp epitomized what cavemen crust has always been all about. Deliciously raw if not rough (not quite bardger's arse rough but close), CS delivered furious old-school cavecrust with insane-sounding dual vocals - like a tempestuous row between a gruff undead logger and a rabid demon taking place in a dirty Italian gutter - reminiscent of Extreme Noise Terror, Warfear, Amen or Decrepit with some epic and metallic guitar leads and a production bringing primitive Brazilian crust bands like Dischord to mind. I am not too convinced by the boisterous singalong closing track "E cosi sia" but otherwise it is pretty much flawless if you like your crust dirty, primal and vocally savage. Well, if you like proper crust really. 

 

After this excellent first effort, CS went on hiatus as Koppa and Marzia moved to London for a bit (and managing to play with Gianluca Nailbiter in Death From Above, a band whose genre you will never guess) and after their return CS recorded a couple of songs for a split Ep with Croatia's Nulla Osta. The three numbers on their side displayed the same fire as the previous record, this time with a Scandinavian hardcore influence creeping in, although crust as fuck sonic savagedom firmly remained their dominant trait and with the same insane-sounding feral dual vocal work I am such a sucker for. The split Ep was released in late 2006 on Koppa's label Disastro Sonoro by which time he had also started to run Agipunk alongside Mila. In 2007, CS played the Scumfest festival in London where I got to see them (twice I believe?) and became an instant fan of their direct, emphatic and filthy take on the crust genre. After the quick acquisition of their available releases upon coming home, I clearly anticipated their next move, especially in the context of the late 00's when crust's renascent old-school metallic outgrowth, stenchcore, had just peaked and was already declining. Life is a Nightmarish Struggle was well worth the wait.

Recorded in early 2009, the Lp exhibited a massive improvement in terms of production. The much heavier and cleaner sound also reflected an evident metallic influence in the band's songwriting and, more especially, a distinct and prominent addition of hard-hitting scandicore in the vein of Wolfpack, Driller Killer or late Anti-Cimex - obvious points of reference - but also particularly reminiscent of what Guided Cradle were creating in the mid-00's. CS's revisit of metallic and epic scandicore also included some overt death-metal moments and more than a few solos, further grounding them in the Swedish tradition of extreme music, even if the cavemen dual vocal attack (which always worked better on the songs in Italian) and several loving nods toward galloping stenchcore and nasty crustcore also indicated a strong crust basis. The album could therefore be seen as a solid blend of beefy scandicore and gruff old-school crust, a very fine thing in itself but not necessarily a feat that would warrant the inclusion of Life is a Nightmarish Struggle in this series. In fact, the presence of the Lp in this elite selection can be explained by "Wasteland" and "Non c'e' limite al peggio" (which is actually a reworking of an older song that you can find on the split with Disgusting Lies), two songs that - and I will firmly stand by my statement until Death (not the band) takes me to the grave - I rate as some of the very best mid-paced old-school crust anthems ever written. I realize this is no small declaration and if anyone wants to discuss this with me in a crust-themed octagon, then bring it on if you think you're fucking hard enough.

 

The two aforementioned gems were already heralded through the Lp's introduction "Midnight storm", one that was not only fittingly heavy, apocalyptic and foreboding but also highly reminiscent of what trad crust had best to offer in terms of narration and storytelling - I love epic crust intros - so that definitely put my private crust detector on high alert. Believe me, I was rewarded well beyond the soundest of my expectations. The two songs have everything you can dream of when it comes to mid-tempo old-school metallic crust: filthy pounding heaviness, desperate moodiness, hoarse and growly vocals, crushing beats, eerie guitar leads and memorable poignant chorus. I am reminded of Warcollapse's punishingly primitive Crust as Fuck Existence, of Skaven's painful crust dementia, of classic 90's Misery epics, of Effigy's aggressive thrashing stenchore as well. That the songs are placed at the end of the album ("Wasteland" is the antepenultimate, "Non c'e' limite al peggio" the ultimate)  somehow brings a new light on the whole work. As a conclusion, beside the usual doomsday metaphor, the songs announce the end of the Lp as much as the figurative end of the 00's stenchcore revival. By penning two of the best crust anthems of the decade, CS unintentionally - and rather ironically - symbolized the closure of a trend that recently had lost many of its representatives. It would not be the end of the stenchcore subgenre, by no means, as bands like Instinct of Survival or Visions of War would keep going, and brilliant new bands would pick up the banner and carry it throughout the following decade of the 10's with a renewed source of influence thanks to the additions of 00's stenchcore bands to the old-school canon. Still, I always felt that this Lp was one of the last great crust works of the 00's, but then to think of music with the rigid notion of decades might not be relevant though it certainly is useful to have that sort of frame to think with. 

 

The Lp was released on Agipunk - obviously - and my copy is the purple stained clear vinyl. Crust artist extraordinaire Stiv of War was responsible for the cover which reminds me of a cross between the yin and yang Neurosis symbol and the typical 00's obsession with bloody orcs. I think the band stopped around 2010 and after the demise Koppa certainly kept busy - he was playing in Kontatto with Marzia and Giuda at the same time as CS - as he formed the gothpunk band Horror Vacui in 2010 and now plays in Tuono - a vintage Italian hardcore band, alongside members of Komplott and Impulso - the latter two also having Marzia on the drums. Guitar player Jacopo, who had joined CS at the end of the band's existence, kept playing with Cancer Spreading (one of Europe's best crust bands of the 10's). There is no doubt that bands like CS, as important players in the revitalization of the genre, opened the gates to a substantial number of crust bands in Italy in the following decade and one can name, beside the brilliant Cancer Spreading (already dissected here and here), like Hostiliter, Nihildum, Warpath or Stasis.

A relevant record to close this series. Play loud.

 

Life is a nightmarish crust song

                   

Dažd "S/t" Lp, 2009

After two rather glorious walks along vintage 80's punk lane, I realized it was high time I ranted a bit about a recent band. Punky goodness can be found in any time or place and if I do have my own strong obsessions, I am also a curious geezer who likes to be taken by surprise. And let me tell you that Dažd (which translates as "rain") totally took me by storm the first time I heard that wonderful album.

The last decade or so had its fair share of classic crust albums. And although it is sometimes difficult to assess the real worth of an Lp when it comes out, now that a few years have passed since Hellshock made the so-called stenchcore subgenre glamorous again, it is obvious that there were some rather average, if lovable (to me anyway), crust bands and some genuinely great works as well. Dažd fell in the second category for one major reason: they were effortlessly original. Although they clearly aimed at incorporating a lot of different influences into their music, it is neither original for the sake of originality, as each addition actually brings something to the music, nor does it have that annoying patchwork feel that bands claiming to blend genres tend to have. Dažd's music feels like a whole, it is fluid yet multifaceted.

The band apparently defined their own music as"Balkan black (anarcho) occult crust post punk". Now I must admit that this sort of annoucements usually scares me. But in this case, this definition is actually relevant. For obvious reasons, Dažd's sound is difficult to pinpoint. It is an organic, thick, substance made of old-school black metal, sludge, doom metal, old crust and metal punk. But despite the extreme metal influences, the music is not as much brutal as it is always heavy. Rather than goat sacrifices and face paints, the music is more like a potion, one that you would be made to drink during a pagan ceremony so that you fall into a trance. If you had a dinner party with an occult metal theme and your guests were filthy crusties, well, that Dažd Lp would be the main course. The music has a ritual, incantation feel to it and range from fast pummeling parts owing as much to Anti-Cimex as to Bathory, to crusty mid-tempo beats reminiscent of Deviated Instinct and Skaven, to slow and heavy sludgy, doomy moments, to dark feral rhythms lifted from Amebixes' Spiderleg era. The vocals may take some time adjusting to if you are not familiar with the band. They have been compared to GISM's which makes some sense since the singer sounds like he is on the verge of insanity, but I would argue that this is a different kind of insanity, one that has to do with the occult, with wilderness, if not with wizardry (close to Skaven's singer doing doom metal maybe?). If the music is quite dark, it is certainly not cold. There is a magical bonfire at the centre of this Lp warming the hearts and the studded jackets of the audience.

The aesthetics of the album are a perfect complement to the music, the visual side of the Dažd experience. The artwork was done by one dude called Jason Barnett and it is just stunning: creepy, slightly disturbing drawings that give a sense of the occult and of magics without falling in the cheesy gore trap (and thanks fuck for that). The lyrics in Serbian use esoteric references and deal with the end of the world, suffering, war, pain, human misery and cute kittens. And for those like me who are wary of pagan metal bands because of possible connections with right-wing politics, you are in safe waters with Dažd as they support anarcho-paganism (I am not too sure what it entails but if it involves listening to Scatha and Iowaska, you can count me in, but only if I can keep my clothes on) and take a stand against fascists. As it says on the inner sleeve "Anarchy/Peace/Chaos/Magic".       

This Lp was released in 2009 (but recorded in 2007) and followed two split Ep's released in 2008, one with fellow Serbians Nakot (on the great Doomed to Extinction Records that later released records by Instinct of Survival and Contagium) and one with Order of the Vulture, a band not so dissimilar to Dažd, although they are more generic. Three labels were responsible for this beauty: Fuck Yoga records from Macedonia, pretty much a grindcore label though it also released some Depressor as well as old-school Colombian hardcore bands like Ataque de Sonido and Herpes; Gasmask Records from Czech Republic that was also involved with the records of the amazing Fatum from Russia; and Kill the Man Who Questions. I am not exactly an expert in the Balkan punk scene, but as far as I can tell, I would situate Dažd in the same wave as bands like Nakot (whose singer was the person behind Doomsday Graphics), Dishumanity, Anaeroba from nearby Slovenia or even Nulla Osta (even though they have been playing since 2002) that were around in the late 00's and succeeded to the mid/late 90's ex-Yugoslavian anarcho crusty wave that gave birth to bands like the brilliant Intoxicate, Brigade OD, Demant, Radikalna Promjena, Krvavi Mandat, Debeli Samuraj or Verbalni Delikt among others.    

The Dažd Lp can still be found pretty easily (because of the infamous "had they been from Portland" paradigm) so I strongly recommend that you pick this unique 00's crusty metal punk album. I have always been more than a little dubious about so-called "blackened crust" because if often sounds like D-beat driven black metal and not like real crust and it's usually just not enough to catch my attention. However this lot are different and managed to create a largely unsung classic album without meaning to. And sometimes, this is the key.

Anarchy/Peace/Chaos/Magic