Last Night a D-Beat Saved My Life (part 4): DESPERDICIO "¡Impulso De Destrucción!" Ep, 2011

There are a number of things that all d-beat bands agree upon, elements crucial to the genre without which you just cannot qualify as a proper believer. Things such as disliking bombs but still using them as a main topic. In a subgenre based on the imitation and the emulation of a strictly established formula, there is obviously very little room for originality. The stakes are elsewhere. D-beat in its most orthodox Discharge-loving form (I'm not talking about the legions of bands that are merely influenced by it) can be described as "a tribute made genre". It fundamentally relies on a web of signifieds and signifiers, the meaning and implications of which are understood and accepted explicitly and implicitly among a group of listeners sharing common knowledge. To an extent all subgenres revolve around these dynamics but none as much as d-beat. Referentiality is intrinsic to the "D", to its basis and its end.

It doesn't mean that bands cannot play with conventions. A band like Thisclose, the ultimate self-aware meta d-beat band, was a comment on this peculiar phenomenon and brought tasteful humour to obligatory bleak aesthetics (quite the tour de force, few bands were able to successfully blend fun and the D without falling in the trap of awkward metalhead jokes about "rock'n'roll life"). But the genre cannot be said to be prone to changeability as it values predictability and how accurate and intertextual a band manages to be (No Fucker being a great example). Basically, the covers of d-beat records, as part and parcel of the tribute and of the web of references, seldom lie to the punters. You must be able to spot a traditional, orthodox d-beat record and the church it belongs to from afar. It is all a matter of subtleties.

It would be dishonest to claim that Desperdicio tried to mislead the honest d-beat fan but I have to admit that I was not really expecting this style of D when I grabbed ¡Impulso De Destrucción!. I owned the Acceleration to Destruction compilation Ep (an oft overlooked, good little record) when I got this one but could not quite remember what they sounded like with precision. In my mind, judging from the cover, the error margin was but non-existent: Desperdicio must sound just like Destruccion. The Ep cover is a copy of their split Ep's with the equally raw Sida: it has the same setting, the same composition, the same style and the same intent to produce a naive but punk-as-fuck representation of d-beat as "hardcore radical" as the locals put it. The visual copy was so enormous that it made me curious of how close Desperdicio were to Destruccion, especially as a Japanese bandhaving a go at singing in Spanish. 

Such linguistic endeavours are not rare occurrences in the Japanese punk scene. Indeed, local bands aiming for a highly specific language-based hardcore genres would sometimes adopt the foreign language to make the music sound closer to the original (which is both daring, admirable and more than a little extravagant). Distorted käng fanatics Frigöra or Ferocious X sing in Swedish, Laukaus and Poikkeus in Finnish, Isterismo and Tantrum in Italian and Voco Protesta in Esperanto (and Corrupted sing in Spanish too of course). This trend is actually fascinating as it implies that languages make and create national genres as much as the music itself and the idea emphasizes the importance of linguistics (with the scansion, accentuation, tonalities, flow and so on) in punk. And well, Japanese punks are crazy enough to try to sing in a language they know nothing about. What about French then? 

And there you go, Desperdicio sing in Spanish and yet do not sound as much like Destruccion as you would expect by now. You would assume a d-beat band en Español to be all over classics like MG15 or Destruccion or Mobcharge but Desperdicio are a little more (or less) than that. There is a delightful simplicity and straight-forwardness in the riffing that do point to the Spaniards, but the enjoyable balance of distortion and aggression reminds me of Disaster or indeed Deadlock, a Japanese Disaster tribute band of sorts. We are not wandering in fast and filthy rabioso d-beat land here but the music pummels its way through a well-paced d-beat with an almost hypnotic quality. Beside the slower number "Pesadilla" that I don't really get, the three other songs are ideally predictable but some details point to that characteristic sense of epic songwriting that you find in a lot of traditional Japanese hardcore like the opening guitar lead on "Tomar un futuro", the Bristol-crasher drumming on "La ciudad portuaria pequeño" or on most of the energetic and mean backing chorus, although this may partly have to do with the heavy and highly signifying Japanese accent. The vocals can be seen as the Marmite effect in Desperdicio who are pretty easy to appreciate on the music alone. Recognizing the Spanish language straight away can be a little difficult because the flow and accent patterns are so different to Japanese but I don't dislike the band's choice as I think it does make one pay attention, which, I admit, is not necessarily a good thing in some cases. Beside the vocalist does not growl or yell like a nutter, he is of the shouting variety with a reverb (bands using the effect were still few in 2011) so that you can actually make out what he is on about (although you will have trouble actually understanding). On that level Desperdicio are more in line with a band like Final Bloodbath, even though the intent is different, and I can enjoy this type of vocal style for the duration of en Ep. It makes me think of a man lost at the top of a snowy mountain crying for help.  

It is not a masterpiece but it is a fun and well-executed humble d-beat Ep and the inspiring longevity of this clearly passionate and still active band who believe in their recipe is inspiring and other recent Japanese raw punk bands in Español like Stimulus, Consocio Sentencia and Povlacion owe as much to the national tradition of singing in foreign languages as to Desperdicio. ¡Impulso De Destrucción! was released on the emblematic label Overthrow Records who would also take care of their two subsequent Ep's.

Desperdicio + Destruccion = <3

     

An adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: D-CLONE / NERVESKADE "Obscene noize violence" split Ep, 2011

I suppose playing the song "Mental disorder" to that epically annoying colleague constantly claiming that he loves to listen "to a bit of everything" - which always means "a lot of nothing" - and seeing his reaction of utter disbelief and barely concealed disgust could be the funniest thing to do with this Ep. Neither surprising nor curious at all: how could someone considering that listening to Marilyn Manson once in high-school is similar to living and breathing for the almighty D possibly take listening to D-Clone? If anything the band is a wanker remover. The most curious thing about this very fine split Ep is that D-Clone were never a genuine d-beat clone. The choice of this name could be seen as slightly treacherous at the beginning of the band's run in the mid 00's (they formed in 2004). After all, what could you possibly expect from a band called D-Clone beside precisely a dis-clone? 

They first came to my attention in the late 00's, likely when the Drop a Noise Bomb Ep came out, but I remember being unconvinced with the name and did not properly listen to them. If I wholeheartedly welcome actual tasteful dis-clones nowadays - and yes that includes Disclone - I did not have as much time for that at that point, what with mourning the inevitable downfall of the stenchcore revival (Stormcrow's split with Laudanum was the nail in the coffin). So as usual when it came to the really noizy Japanese stuff, I did not get it right away and had to go back to it several times, like an aural masochist, to understand what the hell was happening. Strangely, it proved to be easier to understand Death Dust Extractor than D-Clone. It probably has something to do with the former's perfect crust pants. But once I managed to really immerse myself into the Nagoya power trio's art of noize, I was massively impressed and significantly deafer.

If they were never a one-trick d-beat clone, the band always and proudly held Disclose in high esteem, especially for Kawakami's sense of distortedness, which they built on and arguably enhanced, and for his singing style (in terms of scansion and tone). They clearly relied on elements of d-beat but they were never as strict, especially as they progressed. On that level, they are a little like Contrast Attitude, influenced by orthodox d-beat and its template and loving the tradition of distortion, but not to be describe as Discharge mimicking lunatics like Final Bloodbath or, of course, Disclose. D-Clone was a band that grew angrier, wilder and more intense with each release, to such an extent that their only album Creation and Destroy can be considered as one of the most brutal and noisiest hardcore Lp's of the 2010's. It is at the limit of sounding too extreme, too relentless and it leaves one exhausted but happy (or traumatized). It is no coincidence that the aforementioned Lp was the last thing they recorded: where could have they gone from there without falling into noisecore? An absolutely fascinating and almost frightening work.

D-Clone's timing was perfect. When they really kicked out in 2007, the punk world was just ready for them as a wave of noize-loving bands was starting to rise then and, if it would be far-fetched to assert that the band initiated it, they were certainly initiators and they have come to be closely associated with the so-called "noisepunk" trend (the term is vague and somehow inaccurate but we'll get back to it) that saw bands working on the classic distorted sound of Bristol and Kyushu as well as Japanese crasher hardcore and d-beat. A lot of those bands sounded well different but they all had a highly distorted guitar sound and aggressive hardcore style to offer. Enjoy D-beat and Noise as D-Clone rightly said. It is not easy to formulate a relevant retrospective critique about that short but prolific burst of the late 00's and early 10's and define and identify its best moments. D-Clone undeniably were but there are many bands to examine here so that will be for some other time. Still, let's all agree that The Wankys were the real - not to mention the self-proclaimed - noisepunk heroes.

But what makes D-Clone so compelling then? I would argue that it is the dementia they managed to build through their hectic and intense songwriting and their articulate art of deafening distortion. D-Clone sound like a storm of noise, a relentless shower of hardcore music. The introduction "Mental disorder" is masterful in that respect. Sure, for your Bruce Springsteen loving dad, it is just a weirdo screaming like he is totally mental over some chaotic fuzz but the way the way the music speeds up and how the changes in guitar distortion and textures goes along the changes of vocal tones is brilliant and really confers a sense of impending madness. The music often stops without warning, sharply, leaving you on edge and gets back to the intense bollocking right after, conveys powerfully the feel of an angry capricious storm. The two songs leave the listener in a state of shock, in awe. D-Clone were quite versatile and narrative too, there is even an almost emocore-like transition in there to give you the hope that the torture could be over and overall the songwriting does tell a proper story with many moments - albeit one of dementia through noise overdose. On this recording, the Kyushu-by-way-of-Bristol is pretty strong and I can hear a lot of Confuse and Chaos UK in some of the bass lines and pogoable tunes. Classic crasher crust legends like Gloom and Collapse Society and distortion-driven Discharge-love stand as obvious sources of inspiration but they somehow manage to crank up the insanity through a fantastic frenetic drummer able to change paces and electrify the music through typical crasher-style drum rolls. Just great stuff from one of the best hardcore bands of the 2010's. 

D-Clone are a difficult act to follow. I remember the painful experience of having to recite a poem that we were supposed to memorize at school when I was 8 before the whole class. I roughly knew the text but had to go just after the best pupil and despised teacher's pet, who of course absolutely killed it, leaving me with a lot of pressure. I honourably failed but somehow managed to shift the blame from my own laziness to the perfect student. Nerveskade were a good solid band though and if they don't quite match their tag team partners' intensity, they still stood as one of the most convincing noisepunk bands of the 2010's with a solid discography and an early start. The Obscene Noize Violence Ep was actually released for their 2011 Japanese tour with D-Clone during which they got to share the stage with average bands like Reality Crisis, Axewield, Framtid or Death Dust Extractor. There is actually a tour poster with all the different flyers included with the Ep which is a lovely thought to make you feel well jealous.

Nerveskade crashed into the scene in the late 00's and by that time you could sense that something was up by the way everyone suddenly became fan of Disorder and Chaos UK. The term "noisepunk" appeared around that time, not just to talk about the new generation but also to refer to the classic distortion-loving 80's bands, something of a retroactive move, the relevance of which is relative. It is both convenient and somehow reductive (there were a lot of different takes on noize) and it followed a terminological route that is not unlike the UK82 coinage that rose a couple of years earlier. For once France was not late to the distortion party with bands like Saint-Etienne's State Poison (reviewed here in 2015) and Bordeaux' Warning//Warning (both towns being natural reserves for punk nerds), and unsurprisingly quite a few bands from the US of A like Perdition, Effluxus or Nomad, Australia's Nuclear Sex Addict, England's Wankys, Sweden's Giftgasattack and Sex Dwarf or Finland's Kylmä Sota (let's ignore Japan, they have their own dynamics). As mentioned, those bands did not necessarily sound alike but they had the love of distortion in common, which I think was contextual and part of a new global trend. Ironically, the noize revival happened at the same time as the postpunk one and one day we'll try to make sense of all of it.

Arguably Nerveskade's situation might be seen as a little different since they came from Portland and the style had been worked on earlier locally for a while through bands like the mighty Atrocious Madness and of course Lebenden Toten, who could rightly be seen as the most significant and obvious modern band that would influence this noize wave. For what it's worth, Lebeden Toten was to "noisepunk" what Hellshock was to "stenchcore" a few years prior: a spark. Bloody Portland at it again. So Nerveskade were pretty close to the source, and, if one must highlight that they did not sound like Lebenden Toten, there shared enough sonic elements (the degree of intentionality is irrelevant) to link them both. 

It was a real punk band with spikes, studs and all and I would say British acts like the immense Chaos UK and Disorder, perhaps more than their Japanese heirs (beside Swankys), were Nerveskade's major influences. I would be tempted to throw some post-Bristol bands like Dirge (especially) as well as Insurrection and some Ad'Nauseam's demos (wild guesses here as the youtube supermarket had not really opened when the band started). The Ep format fits the band perfectly, they play quite a bit faster than the aforementioned cider-drinking bands with the classic binary hardcore beat and the gratuitous snotty punk screams just to make sure you get the gist. Nerveskade could appeal to the pogopunk crowd, the DIStortion-loving crowd and the nerd crowd made up of people arguing with one another about Japanese flexis that no one can afford. A good band and this recording is probably my favourite of theirs, it goes nicely with D-Clone's style as they had a different kind of energy. Some members were also playing in Bi-Marks at that point and would end up in Frenzy or Rubble, but guitar player Jake would also do time in the Gloom-worshiping Zatsuon and the solid d-beat band Aspects of War. 

This lovely little Ep was released in 2011 on Tokyo's Hardcore Survives. Time flies.

Obscene Noize Violence

         

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: 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

POLIKARPA Y SU DEFUSE

       

An adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: VICTIMS OF GREED / SCUM NOISE "Fight for freedom / The power has no power..." split Ep, 1999

This is the last post of the year for Terminal Sound Nuisance and it makes sense to say goodbye and fuck off to a particularly atrocious 2023 with a punk message of protest and an international collaboration showing a spirit of togetherness and solidarity in noise. There is more to humanity than the sound of bombs falling and the cries of grieving families, thankfully. 

From a personal perspective, 2023 has been a strange year. Not only did I start working at a job center, ironically enough since my philosophy has always been to work as little as possible without raising suspicion, but I also celebrated my fortieth birthday. Twenty years ago I pictured my 40 year old self as a spectacularly successful man graced with many records and notoriously class and envied crust pants, one who would command respect in "the crust community" (I know, I know, don't judge me) and whose name would be uttered with admiration. 20 year old me was convinced that he would definitely look up to my future 40 year old self which on some level is both adorably stupid and positive. And well, if I could contact 20 year old me tomorrow, I would first tell the little fucker to stop buying trendy neocrust and grab as much Disclose materials as possible, and second I would tell him that twenty years from now he would have the most massive collection of Antisect shirts in the country and if that does not convince that indeed he will succeed in life then nothing will. I would not tell him to enjoy his sumptuous thick hair because time does what it does. I'm not so mean.

So here I am again, sitting on my arse and writing about some rather obscure Japanese crust and Brazilian raw hardcore. Which is quite fine when I compare it with what my colleagues do on their free time, binge watching mediocre American Netflix series while mindlessly scrolling on their phone and thinking what snacks they are going to eat next. Without punk, I could be like them and I like to think that 20 year old me would be proud that I still believe and have faith. Socially, it is rather frowned upon to not have children, not own a flat, not earn more than the minimum wage and still spend most of my money on poorly recorded records, noisy gigs you cannot attend without wearing ear protections and vegan delicacies. Not to mention spending hours in a tiny vehicle to play 20 minutes before a couple of old but lovable fuckers. As a half-wise man once said to me: "Punk-rock ruined my life but I wouldn't change a thing". 

But let's get to work, shall we? As we have seen numerous times, the Japanese 90's crust scene was intense and prolific and the decade put the town of Osaka on the map. Osaka became the birth place of a crust genre that was all its own - one we have come to name "crasher crust" - and although it did spread around the world, marginally, it is still closely associated with what Gloom or Crust War Records built so that when I am told about an Osaka crust band I immediately think about manic seriously distorted savage crust. Punk towns all work this way and conjure up a specific land-base sound and contextual aesthetics. But they are also relative and closely tied to our own personal mythology. PDX punk to me is Hellshock and Black Water and Whisper in Darkness, to others it will be Red Dons. Tragically Paris punk is now synonymous with Ben Sherman collections and constipated oi music and I haven't been able to achieve much in terms of local propaganda. 

But basically Victims of Greed were from a 90's crust band from Osaka. Granted, they may not have picked the best moniker as it is a very common signifier that could point to any punk style but they are worth your while. I actually already talked a little about VoG in a previous post from the Noize Not Music is a Fine Art because they appeared on the very good and under-appreciated 'No Hesitation to Resist' compilation 10". VoG are everything you could expect from a Japanese crust band: they are fast and intense with a crunchy distorted sound, extreme polyphonic vocals (from the traditional low gruff growls to the snotty punk shouts) and pummeling. Typical cave-crust done the Japanese way with that distinct production, a bit like Gloom covering Hiatus. There are some heavier metallic mid-tempo moments for good measure and I think the different vocal tones bring some variety and the four songs in four minutes and a half fly too fast (a full VoG Ep would have been brilliant). The lyrics mostly deal with animal liberation and veganism, not unlike Battle of Disarm at the time (although they were not an isolated case). Convincing 90's crust here. The band gets some extra points for including a verse in Portuguese in the song "Authority and rotten" and translations of their (and Scum Noise's) lyrics in Japanese. Pretty old-school.

On the other side are Scum Noise from Sao Paulo, Brazil, a familiar name if you have been around for a bit of time. I don't know what Brazilian punks drink in the morning but their bands definitely live long as Scum Noise have been playing, more or less actively, since 1990 (likewise Subcut have been going since 1992). I suppose that's what you call dedication and being for real. SN belong to that category of bands that I know without really knowing, even though I have had the 2001 reissue of their self-titled first Ep for ages and play it from times to times. We're not quite intimate but have been bumping into each other regularly if you know what I mean. In spite of being often described as a crust band, SN clearly did not belong to the crust genre. To me they epitomize what genuinely raw Swedish-flavoured hardcore punk should sound like. 

The first song "The Hell is near" is a masterclass in käng with its simple riffing and direct sound, its knowledgeably orthodox vocal flow and perfect drumming. Just fast raw punk the way it should be. The second number "The world around us" is yet another gem, this time dealing with the classic groovy mid-paced Discharge-inspired formula with a primitive thrashing vibe. The Brazilian hardcore influence and its raw anger and typical vocal style does pop out and you can tell SN definitely listened to Armagedom a lot. The last two songs are a little more anecdotal for me, one more direct käng endeavour and an all-out fast hardcore thrash attack but the Ep is worth grabbing for the aforementioned opening tracks alone. Think a title match for the Cimex raw-punk title between '92 Hellkrusher and early Diskonto with '86 Armagedom as a special referee. The raw, thin even, production confers a genuine 80's feel to the music, something that few 90's got to replicate as well. Third-world hardcore punk indeed. The singer of the band actually ran No Fashion Hardcore Records, a label that was of course part and parcel of the Brazilian DIY punk scene but also released Disclose records.

It is unclear when the SN or the VoG were recorded but the Ep was released in 1999 on FFT Label, standing for Fuck Fashion Town, that was run by Koichiro from Argue Damnation. This Ep goes for cheap and is typically a dollar bin bargain. 

 Scum Greed

Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust: LIFE / Judas Krust "Polluted water drainage wreck of culture / Genosida populasi" split Ep, 2017

I still use an Ipod nano to listen to music when I'm out. Yes, the device still works fine and its relatively short storage space allows me to actually choose and select what I really want to listen to carefully instead of being drowned in an overwhelming ocean of available music. Endless listening options make the very notion of choice meaningless as one just jumps from one song to another according to an ever-changing erratic mood that can nowadays change all the time as we cannot stand being frustrated. By limiting myself to a specific number of works - often new ones I wish to pay closer attention to - I like to think that I am more focused and prone to engage with them. Sure, I could just stream the things but, let's face it, I could change my mind after two minutes and just browse or doom scroll indefinitely. On the contrary, when I am at home in my Disclose pajamas (I have already mentioned them but it is just reminder that I am a class act) and am faced with endless possibilities, the mind sometimes gets distracted. It is hard enough not to get lost in this gigantic maze of punk bands and I personally need to draw boundaries and create a delimited field of expertise that I will explore. I suppose infinite choice does not quite work for me and or least not when I want to integrate and absorb a band's music into my repertoire of knowledge. I am like an older robot that needs to compute.     

So the other day, I was riding the underground on my way to work while blasting some Meanwhile on my Ipod nano - I affectionately call it Captain Pod - because in the morning you need softer music in order to wake up progressively. I noticed a teenager with pinkish hair and weird pricy trainers staring at me. I don't enjoy being stared at and I suppose no one does. And she kept staring, looking vacant and chewing a gum. That made me quite uncomfortable and self-conscious. Was she judging me for something? A disgraceful, shocking cowlick? An open fly? A rebellious bogey? Was my State of Fear enamel pin somewhat misplaced? Or worse, had Antisect been cancelled and no one told me because I am not on Insta? And she just got off and stared her way to the nearest exit. Of course, like every teenager, she was wearing airpods, the kind that people never really seem to ever take off (I read that some where actually water proof so that you can keep listening to Billie Eilish, inspiring fitness podcasts or vocoder contests while in the shower) and I wondered what music she was listening to and what was the soundtrack to her staring at the world like a stoned tortoise. Maybe I will soon be an object of mockery on some viral Tiktok video. Let me know please. 

To fight this early uneasiness I looked at the bands I had on my loyal Captain Pod and settled for a life-saving act by which I mean LIFE because if there is one band that I often play to cheer me up, boost my spirit, make me smile like a buffoon or prepare myself to be relentlessly bullied by middle-class customers, well, it has to be LIFE. Yes, LIFE is life, just like in that Opus song. It would have been unprofessional not to include a LIFE record in Live by the Crust, Die bv Crust. This band certainly live by the crust and just like Crux claimed that they would die with their boots on when they 16 (while they stopped wearing any by 1985), LIFE will probably die with they crust pants on. Much more romantic if you ask me.

It would be a little pointless to tell the full story of this legendary Tokyo band that has been going since 1991 and has logically released a lot of records. In a world of status-obsessed wankers, LIFE have always been a breath of fresh air. They are politically-motivated, sincere, positive and stand for everything that is good in the DIY punk scene. Beside, live they play hard like their bums are on fire. Their latest records have been particularly good and I cannot recommend enough their new album Ossification of Corral. I am aware that it would make me look much cooler if I said that I much prefer their first demos, or even better their first rehearsals, and that they lost it as soon as more than 20 people knew about them (I mean, it is in the Elite Punk-rock for Dummies guidebook) but I do believe it is among their best works. This split with Zudas Krust from Indonesia was originally released on tape in 2015 on Doombringer records and the vinyl version came out two years after thanks to a collaboration between the aforementioned Indonesian label, Phobia Records, Crust War, Headnoise Records and Not Enough Records (many great labels that would make a brilliant team at Survivor Series). 

These two songs from LIFE are not a bad start at all if you have never really taken the time to dig into them. They incorporate the essence of proper Japanese crust, the heaviness, the relentless intensity, the distortedness, the angry raw aggression. LIFE just sound unstoppable here. I have left the two songs "Polluted water drainage wreck of culture" and "River of filth" on the same track to emphasize the ferocity. Both have groovy stench filthcrust parts that remind me of Effigy or After the Bombs and give them a genuine epic feel, further enhanced through epic guitar leads, before exploding into their classic brand of punishing blownout Japanese-style crasher scandi peacecrust. It is like SDS and Frigöra teaming up at Gloom's place to write a ruthless record for Distortion Records. The lyrics are decidedly about ecology and nuclear power. The five minutes fly fast and will leave you craving for more (I usually combine this split and the one with Instinct of Survival and I can guarantee you will be ready to rip the head of your smug boss upon arrival). 

Zudas Krust formed as early as 2008 and have been pretty prolific since which make them a leading hardcore punk band in Jakarta. I first became aware of them in the late 00's back when there were a plethora of blogs dealing in d-beat and crust (15 years later and I sometimes feel like the boomer equivalent of punk bloggers) that were a brilliant way to get to know old and contemporary bands from places I was bit clueless about. I remember downloading quite a few punk bands from the very dynamic Indonesian scene (beside them, Kontrasosial and Peace of Annihiliation are two solid bands that immediately spring to mind when I think this genre in this locality). I was favourably impressed with the raw Swedish-flavoured hardcore punk sound of ZK and made a mental note to, one day, get a record from them. Unfortunately, tapes and records from that part of the world can be quite difficult to get in Europe so that a split Ep with both LIFE and ZK was a perfect opportunity.

On that 2014 recording, ZK definitely took their influence from the raw attack of Japanese crusty crasher scandicore bands and closing your eyes, for its the raw production, I could definitely imagine them belonging to the booming 90's scene of the Final Noise Attack and Punk and Destroy gigs. Three punishing songs, two of them with lyrics in their mother language, reminiscent of early Framtid, Collapse Society and Crocodileskink that would definitely delight devotees of the genre. This band should get more attention and I am sure that if they were from Tokyo, Stockholm or New York, they probably would. Both sides of the Ep were mastered at the infamous Noise Room, which accounts for their power, textures and dynamics, although the ZK songs are not as loud and less produced. I don't think this Ep should be too hard to find so make yourself a favour and support the scene. 

KRUST LIFE