Kurwa CRUST Przeciwny Systemowi! An anthology of Polish crust (1991-2022)

I am finally back after an unusually lengthy break from the blog. Not that I was insanely busy, although I'd love to pretend to. I just needed some time for myself, not unlike a distraught parent leaving his children alone in the wood for a couple of weeks in order to sort his life out or a wrestler who gets injured after attempting an elbow drop from the third rope. I even toyed with the idea of stopping Terminal Sound Nuisance altogether and find another hobby that would bring more attention to my once ravishing greatness and undeniable charisma, like food influencer or a shark whisperer, something contemporary. I even took a pretty pricy but eventually useless selfie class in July (I was unable to pass the test though, something to do with me being the antithesis of photogenic or something). What is the relevance of running a punk blog these days beside making you feel prematurely old? Maybe the quest for relevance is itself irrelevant in this day and age when quantity largely prevails over quantity. The term "content creator" is remarkable in this sense as modern "creators" are not even able to qualify what they offer and resort to the generic and vague term "content" and as pop culture gluttons we stuff ourselves with forgettable but mildly enjoyable shit. Oh well. 

The thing is, despite investigating a number of alternative options, I could not quite figure what I could replace the blog with, which must mean that Terminal Sound Nuisance has to be kept alive. The absence of answer was the answer. And so here I am again, ready to rock (reasonably because of my bad back) and entertain the punk masses, something I was born for although my mum would disagree firmly. 

All this blabbering to say that I am back with a solid CRUST and to get things going again I have something special for you: an anthology of Polish crust. As even the least discerning readers will have noticed (they are few, I am well aware that Terminal Sound Nuisance's readership is notoriously class and well sound), I have a soft spot for Polish crust and, because the genre has never ceased to be not only popular but also strong in this country, working on retrospective compilations made a lot of sense. Fun was had.

I have already written quite extensively about crust and punk in general in Poland throughout the years and re-reading my elegant prose for egotistical inspiration made me realize how prolific, vibrant and dynamic the scene was in the 90's. Indeed, the claim that Poland was a major punk stronghold during that pivotal decade (in terms of bands but also of touring destination) is true and even a quick superficial glance at classic bands like Infekcja, Homomilitia, Sanctus Iuda or Filth of Mankind (to stick to my initial plan) can prove enough to illustrate this. If the crust genre became less popular in many parts of Europe, Polish punks faithfully, loyally kept producing quality crust bands to this day. Many of these bands' reach does not go beyond the country's borders but if you bother looking for information, instead of waiting passively for information to look for you, you will make some new friends. But since you are most certainly a lazy bum, I am more than happy to take on that role.

While selecting and compiling the songs, I wondered with a Sartre-looking expression if Polish crust could be described as its own subgenre, like the Greek or Japanese schools of crust, or if it was merely crust sung in Polish. While I would argue that its identity is not as strong and peculiar as its aforementioned two cousins, there are enough common recurring traits among all the bands to hypothesize a "Polish crust sound". First, with almost all the bands singing in Polish, the language with its sonorities, dynamic accents, its flow and pronunciation has an impact on the overall sound and gives it an aggressive edge. Second, more often than not, right from the start, Polish crust has displayed a heavy, crunchy, dark metallic influence, not in the apocalyptic sense like the Greeks (with some exceptions) but faster, thrashier and keeping a raw intensity. It should be pointed out as well that, originally and distinctly, more than in any other countries, Polish crust bands must be said to have been some of the best examples of fast and pummeling 90's eurocrust, far more Hiatus than Doom if you wish and if the genre evolved along with the rest of global crust scene (Japan being the usual exception) these are the basis and basics.

Do these can justify and potentially cement the "genrification" of Polish crust? Probably not, such elements can be found in other scenes abroad, however they still stand as meaningful, defining traits running through a large enough body of works for me to offer cohesive and coherent compilations. By no means has Polish crust been undisturbed and insensitive to the various international crust waves as the comps can attest. Some bands are more progressive, to the extent of neocrusting at times, others are heavily infused with death, black or doom metal, but the similarities are sufficiently present and relevant. I chose to leave out bands that, I felt, as good as they might be thought to be, did not totally qualify as crust although they certainly had crust elements like Silence, Deczcz or Evil or some of the faster 90's anarchopunk bands. Or as my sensei would sometimes tell me when he was teaching me the way: "it ain't crust enough my little lad". On the other hand, I did include some bands that are often seen as pertaining to the early grindcore scene, like Toxic Bonkers or Grossmember, but shared enough common points with their crusty contemporaries at some point. Subjectivity, yeah? 

I tried to be exhaustive without but I probably missed out some bands, either out of sheer forgetfulness or because they were either just too obscure or because Alzheimer arrived early at the party. In any case, you are more than welcome to mention bands that could have made it here or to point out mistakes. The more the merrier like my gran would say, although she was mostly referring to wine I guess. There are 2 compilations with 43 bands and songs in total ranging from the proto-crusty year of 1991 to our fetid modern time. Thanks to the people I borrowed (well...) the pictures from.

In bimber there is no choice    

PART ONE:

01. HOMOMILITIA "Intro + To możliwe jest tylko tutaj" from Twoje Ciało Twój Wybór Lp, 1996 (Łódź)

02. HELLISHEAVEN "Sedes sapientiae ora pro se" from S/t split Lp with CREEPIN CORRUPT, 2009 (Lublin)

03. DRIP OF LIES "Lies" from S/t demo, 2009 (Warszawa)

04. SOCIAL CRISIS "Zachowaj spokój" from S/t split Ep with WOJNA, 2018 (Biała Podlaska)

05. FUCK FINGER "Zdrajczynie" from S/t tape, 2002 (Łuków)

06. S.O. WAR "Mili chłopcy z policji" from Bullshit Propaganda tape, 1998 (recorded in 1993), (Strzelce Opolskie)

07. UNDECIDED "Pokoj W niebie jak i na ziemi" from S/t tape, 1996 (Bartoszyce)

08. PATROMONIUM DEL PUEBLO "Pliczy się tylko muzyka..." from Pustka tape, 1999 (Dąbrowa Górnicza)

09. HUFF RAID "Insect" from Euro Tour Tape, 2017 (Toruń)

10. CEASELESS DESOLATION "Jutro" from Nicość Lp, 2013 (Lublin)

11. BURN THE CROSS "Thirteen" from S/t split Ep with HOLY EXTERMINATION, 2013 (Jasło)

12. FILTH OF MANKIND "The foundation" from They've Taken Everything - A Tribute to Icons of Filth double cd compilation, 2007 (Gdańsk)

13. SORROW "Black crow" from Black Crow Lp, 2022 (Poznań)

14. MITRĘGA "Przelana czara" from Kraina Wpływów split Lp with NON PRESIDENT, 2015 (Lublin)

15. CHORYGEN "Ścierwa" from S/t Ep, 2014 (Łódź)

16. DISABLE "Wojna 1" from S/t cdr demo, 2003 (Łódź)

17. STRADOOM TERROR "Kapitalistyczni hipokryci" from Głuchy Głos Protestu?... split tape with NON TIBI SPIRO, 1996 (Rzeszów)

18. ALCHEMIK SENDIVIUS "Cholerny sen" from Przeciwko Wiwisekcji demo/live tape, 1993 (Grudziądz)

19. GROSSMEMBER "Fucking pigs" from 4-way split tape with AGATHOCLES/DISCHORD/OPC, 1997 (Warszawa)

20. MIND "Full of dark memory" from S/t split Ep with DISTRESS, 1998 (Łódź/Berlin)

21. PIEKŁO KOBIET "W Pułapce Dziedzictwa" from Wyzwolenie Kobiet Wyzwoleniem Mężczyzn = Liberation Of Women, Liberation Of Men 10", 1998 (Łuków)

22. DISGUSTING LIES "Administracja" from Rich Man/Poor Man Ep, 1996 (Łódź)

PART ONE

PART TWO:

01. INFECKJA "Ziemia" from S/t Ep, 1997 (Wrocław)

02. ENOUGH! "Dlaczego" from Darkside tape, 1996 (Gdańsk)

03. CHORY "Krzyże hipokryzji" from S/t tape, 2000 (Bielsko-Biała)

04. HOLY EXTERMINATION "They need blood" from S/t split Ep with BURN THE CROSS, 2013 (Nowy Sącz)

05. WOJNA "Stołkowe kurwy" from S/t split Ep with SOCIAL CRISIS, 2017 (Poznań)

06. TOXIC BONKERS "Kłamstwa w imię Boga" from S/t demo tape, 1994 (Łódź)

07. HOSTILITY "Tak bardzo sie boisz" from ...I Niech Jeden Strzał... tape, 1995 (Białystok)

08. BISECT "Zdyscyplinowane ogniwa" from Nastepna Krwawa Interwencja tape, 1995 (Radom)

09. SILNA WOLA "Anarchistyczny Czarny Krzyż" from Zero Akceptacji Dla Państwa Chiny tape, 1997 (Lebork)

10. TRÜD "Samogwałt" from Wszechświat B tape, 2016 (Torun)

11. VICTIM OF TRUTH "Więcej" from S/t cdr demo, 2010 (Biała Podlaska)

12. DEATH CRUSADE "W zamian" from Rakieta//Bomba Lp, 2017 (Gdańsk)

13. MENTAL ABERRATION "Cywilizacja" from Okrutna Rzeczywistość tape, 1991 (Gdańsk)

14. RZEŹNIA "Machina spoleczna" from Żreć tape, 1996 (Opole)

15. NON TIBI SPIRO "666" from Głuchy Głos Protestu?... split tape with STRADOOM TERROR, 1996 (Rzeszów)

16. MONOTEIZM CO-EXISTENCE "A homo sapie" from Patrz I Odczuj! tape, 1998 (Kolno)

17. SANCTUS IUDA "Prawdziwe Oblicze Kapitalizmu" from Rząd-Korporacje-Wy/Zysk tape, 1995 (Białystok)

18. NON PRESIDENT "Aborcja" from S/t split Lp with HUFF RAID, 2018 (Wojcieszów)

19. SCUMSTADT "Ścierwogród" from S/t cd, 2018 (Łódź)

20. LOST "Jak długo jeszcze" from Strach Lp, 2003 (Łódź)

21. MONEY DRUG "Przymus Państwa from S/t split Ep with WIND OF PAIN, 1995 (Gdańsk)

PART TWO

An adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: HELLISHEAVEN / WEALD "S/t" split Ep, 2015

This review will be the last one of the I have no gun but I can split series (for the illiterates among you this was a trivia-worthy reference to the mighty Exit-Stance's "I have no gun but I can spit"). Because the 2010's are still fresh, it is difficult to think critically about what it spawned punk-wise and formulate what it will be remembered for, for better and for worse (I already have a pretty definitive opinion about the latter and it starts with an "o", ends with an "i" and often has an exclamation mark). Thinking in terms of decades is not always relevant but I do believe the 2010's marked a radical shift in the scene with the unstoppable rise of social media and streaming. I have already written about the topic at length and repeating myself again will make me sound like a basement-dwelling incel type (basically the least sexy thing you can think of) who dislikes bands that emerged thank to this epistemological earthquake. I should do a series about brilliant young contemporary bands that I love with members who have luxurious hair and never watched a VHS non-ironically. 

Stopping in 2015 seemed like a decent idea, especially with a classically executed stenchcore split Ep. I haven't really included a full-on, orthodox stenchcore record in this series so that it felt right to discuss one for the 25th and final part, to leave on a high note, to leave the reader with a desire to ride a grizzly bear in an apocalyptic wasteland or to join a horde of pagan zombies or scare your nan with some hastily done corpse paint. I remember well where and when I grabbed this Ep as it was at Doom's first Paris gig in 2016. I was, of course, as a master of the crust craft and because it is my job to keep crust punk elite, well familiar with the rather experienced Hellisheaven and was excited about their teaming up with Weald, a band I thought was no longer (for some reason). It was a well spent fiver and this Ep does exactly what you expect it to do.   

Hellisheaven were from Lublin and formed in 2008. Upon looking at their discography I realized they had been going for much longer than I thought they and in fact disbanded only last year. I must admit that I progressively lost touch with what the band was up to as the death-metal influence became a little overwhelming for me and I could never really get into their 2013 album Abyss of War. My first encounter with Hellisheaven (I always wondered if they meant Hell is Heaven or Hellish Heaven or both, such poets) was, however, magnificent. Their first record, the split Lp with Creeping Corrupt released in 2009, can be said to be one of the finest examples of a successful blend of old-school heavy crust and raw death-metal. The five songs - among which a class State of Fear cover - were recorded at the band's practice space and the result sounds urgent, filthy and aggressive and the style fits the genre perfectly. A bit like classic 90's Polish crust (think Homomilitia and Hostility) on a romantic date with Stormcrow and Bolt Thrower. You could sense that the people involved had been fucking around in bands before and indeed the members had nice resumes (three members were actually also playing in the now classic grindcore band Suffering Mind in 2009). A very underrated recording and I wish this had been a full length rather than a split album. 

Following this great start, I was clearly watching for Hellisheaven's followup but had to wait three years until the release of a split Ep with Dissent. By that time the band had clearly opted for a more metal-oriented Bolt Thrower-ish sound that did not totally win me over at the time. I was expecting, rightfully I might add, an epic stenchcore Lp and got served one song of gruff Bolt Thrower worship with a crust edge. A little underwhelmed I was. In retrospect, I suspect that the band probably used the gap in time to regroup and initiate a shift in terms of intent and songwriting toward bulldozing death metal with a fetish for double-bass drumming. To be fair, it is not a bad song (some of the heavy moments remind me of Lost) and Hellisheaven proudly took that path, or rather they crawled agonizingly and growled their way through it. The song on this 2015 split Ep - while still recorded in their practice space - is a focused, unstoppable and heavy, sludgy and punishing Crust Thrower monument with some Swedish death-metal's down-tuned gutturalness that ticks all the right boxes and somehow keeps that DIY hardcore punk feel as it never get too technical. While I would certainly enjoy a full set of the genre live, it must be like being punched to death by a gorilla into Warhammer 40000 cosplay, I don't think I could take a full Lp. But "Oponenci procederu" works like a charm on a split Ep.

On the other side you have one song of the sadly short-lived Weald from Connecticut, a band that managed to split shortly after the release of the Ep. It would be far-fetched to claim that Weald will remain in our glorious History (that of crust of course) as a sorely missed groundbreaking band. In fact, it would already be a good thing if people remember them at all, beside their mates and local punks who were around during the first part of the 2010's. And, well, c'est la vie. If you really think about it, punk could not exist without the myriads of short-lived small but genuine bands like Weald. If fact, punk is by and large made up of such bands, they are our bread and butter. Those who tour and release records that actually sell are a minority. So even though the likeliness of meeting someone wearing a Weald shirt on the street is about as high as your bigoted great-uncle Paul becoming a vegan, they played their part, mattered and have their place in the grand crust narrative and that's good enough for me. 

My research revealed that Weald seemed to have trouble securing a steady lineup with several changes of guitar player and the original singer leaving before the recording of this Ep. The band caught my attention when their 2011 demo was uploaded online. It was a raw affair, evidently, primitive, sloppy at times, but its roots were clear and I definitely related to them: total 00's stenchcore revival. Not reinventing the wheel but pushing the crust cart in the right direction with heart and filth. I was hearing some classic Hellshock and Stormcrow on the music and if the songwriting could be improved, I sensed potential. And then... fuck all. Nothing for years and the release of this Ep and, in our day and age when bands release a record every two years, I thought Weald had vanished and its members had all gone on to play in postpunk bands as this virus was very contagious back then. But I was wrong as the band was still active and even recorded a another demo in 2013 (incidentally it was uploaded to their bandcamp two weeks ago, talk about a coincidence) with two songs one of which, "Vengeance is mine", would be rerecorded for the split with Hellisheaven with Will on vocals and a new guitarist.

This 2015 recording is a massive improvement, undeniably, and it makes one wonder what Weald would have been capable of on a full album. The story told by the song is great, it is a perfect stenchcore number. It has that super heavy grinding bass sound with dirty guitar leads and dirty thrashing riffs and it all points to early Stormcrow of course, the dominant influence, to which you can add early 00's Hellshock and Cancer Spreading too as the Italians were one step ahead of everyone in that niche at the time. Such a shame that Weald did not get to build on the momentum. Kind of a one-hit wonder - or nightmare depending on your tolerance for grizzly crust - I suppose. Speaking of bears, the cover displays a pretty angry one and illustrates the ecological theme of the songs. I am not sure I like it but at least I remember it and there are a couple of skulls too so that I am not too disoriented. Shane would join bands like Mortal War, Neverending Mind War, Condemned or Oiltanker in Philadelphia but I am not sure about the other members.  

This Ep was the result of a collaboration between many labels such as Neanderthal Stench (an important crust label then), Grindfather Production and Anomie Records. If you are a crust metal fanatic like myself, this is a split Ep you would want to grab for sure and it can still be found easily. 

HELLISHWEALD

  

     

Still Believing in ANOK: Włochaty "Wojna Przeciwko Ziemi" cd, 1996

If the name FUAL, the Irish band we covered last time, was a little tricky and rather confusing, to pronounce the name Włochaty properly on a first attempt would be akin to a miracle, an event that neither science nor reason could explain. A bit like that bloke who woke up from a coma speaking a highly difficult random foreign language perfectly while he had never even left his hometown in the arse-end-of-nowhere and could barely spell in his mother language to start with. Unless you're Polish or have some knowledge of it. Sometimes I wonder whether Polish punk bands pick names that are hard to pronounce just to take the piss (I know I would). 

Włochaty is actually one of the first Polish punk bands I became familiar with in the early 00's, an innocent time when hair loss was still a prospect so distant it was practically unreal and when you could look like a fool without fearing to be the object of a demeaning viral video online. The drummer (who was Polish) and the guitar player of my very first band, a pretty basic French-style punk-rock band with more motivation than talent, were really into Polish punk-rock, a concept that, at a time when I mostly knew English and American bands, sounded about as strange and exotic as polar bear racing ("so they also have punk in Poland! Fuck me!"). I realize now it sounds a little stupid and adorable (alright, mostly stupid I suppose) but I remember vividly the Polish punk tapes my friends played in the guitar player's derelict car. The sound was ghastly as the tapes had been played to death and the tape player was not exactly top-of-the-range (cd players in car were a thing of the upper-class and we loathed them with a passion). On those tapes were Dezerter (obviously) but also Tzn Xenna, Moskwa and many others I cannot remember (those would have almost certainly been classic 80's bands in retrospect). And Włochaty, certainly the band that impressed me the most as they didn't really sound like anything I knew.

As fate would have it, Włochaty toured Europe after this musical encounter (in 2002 or early 2003 I think). A mate of ours was doing a fanzine at the time and he asked us if we could interview the band. So we wrote down some questions (pretty much the usual police interrogation about their influences, politics in Poland, nazis, the local scene and so on) which the drummer translated and we interviewed the band. I have to admit I was pretty proud of myself although I cannot say I did that much. I do remember including a question about how much they loved Conflict and lecturing a helpless friend in the audience about the correct pronunciation of the band's name. I barely knew better than him (after all I had only just talked with the band as some of them spoke English) but I was in a position to pretend I did. Włochaty played a solid gig and that was that. My band split up and I did not really listen to much Włochaty afterwards. They became that kind of good bands that you know you like but don't listen to anymore. A bit like that high school friend who got pissed with you instead of going to P.E. class. A solid dude you would love to see more often but whom you just never call.

When I started thinking about Still Believing in ANOK there were bands that spontaneously came to mind, because they epitomised the survivance of the traditional 80's anarchopunk sound into the 90's and also because some of those bands had been unfairly forgotten (like Capite Damnare or Firing Squad) despite penning some great anarcho songs with their own twist. I instantly thought of Stracony - the Polish Alternative - because they are brilliant and underrated and quite naturally my thoughts drifted towards Włochaty (it actually means "hairy" in Polish) and their magnum opus Wojna Przeciwko Ziemi. I played the album carefully because I only remembered it through younger ears that had not yet been polished and elevated by two additional decades of listening intently, intensely and relentlessly to punk music. And well, you could make the argument that Wojna Przeciwko Ziemi is easily one of the best anarchopunk albums of the 90's. 

Such a claim is a matter of perspective too of course because Włochaty were huge in Poland: the tape version of their first album from 1994 sold about 20.000 copies and the band grew into something that no longer belonged to the realms of DIY punk. And let's face it, some of their 00's albums were dreadful and the band did not necessarily take the right turns. So that if you are from Poland, because of this history with which you're obviously familiar because Włochaty is that big famous band, your view of the band is different to that of a punk with a relative knowledge of Polish punk music but oblivious to the status of the band. Because I, the coolest kid in town, am a refined connoisseur of Punk and not just a vowel-challenged nincompoop, I am of course aware of such a discrepancy and therefore I have to do my best to be as objective as possible about Wojna Przeciwko Ziemi. And objectivity dictates that this album must be seen as one of the great anarchopunk works of the 90's along with FUAL, Aus-Rotten's The System Works... for Them, Cress' Monuments or Resist and Exist's Ep's. 

Wojna Przeciwko Ziemi's main quality is how monumental, original and epic it sounds, and I mean genuinely formidable, armed with a powerful scope, a coherent meaningful discourse and a sense of narration that is rarely seen in punk-rock. Włochaty were not the heaviest or the most aggressive but the intensity and creativity displayed on their second album is nothing short of awe-inspiring and few anarcho bands can claim to have crafted a work as impressive and convincing as Szczecin's most famous punk export (yeah try to pronounce this while you're at it). There are a lot of great things going on on this Lp so that it would be impossible to list them all. Like any good punk albums (or just albums really) Włochaty's is built like a real story fueled by narrative tools and recurring themes. The use of radio samples reflecting the post-communist Polish society of the 90's, with all it entails in terms of cultural and political changes, throughout the work indicates a cohesive thematic continuity. Likewise the brilliantly epic sax (it pains me to say that I actually enjoy it a lot here) is not overbearing and only operates tastefully at some specific moments to emphasize a mood, increase the pressure or introduce transitions and interludes between songs, keeping in mind that most of the songs are tied with one another through feedback (a trick that Conflict, of course, also used 10 years prior) forming a whole. 

The very fast-paced vocal delivery, the maniacal rants and the crazy length of the lyrics are breath-taking at times and can clearly be said to be one of the band's trademarks, it has that intense, almost insane feel that some angry punks are endlessly shouting pamphlets at you (not unlike Dave Trenga from Aus-Rotten and Behind Enemy Lines but with even more words) and the listening experience can be a little exhausting, although I personally love it as it reminds me of a lot of the UK anarcho greats. On a strictly musical level, Włochaty were certainly not a one-trick poney (or rather a one-beat poney) as they experimented with a lot of changes of paces, song structures (there is a proper punk epics on Wojna Przeciwko Ziemi), wrote real transitions and melodies while hitting hard and on the whole displayed a versatile and inspired songwriting ability (yes there is some reggae, get prepared, but also spoken parts and instrumental songs). Conflict's Ungovernable Force - and even Conclusion actually - are by far the band's prevalent influences here, not just in terms of sound but also in terms of structure, form and how it helps shape the music and the message. It has to be noted Włochaty's sometimes complex songs also illustrated a context that was confusing, contradictory and polymorphous. And well, there are also direct loving nods to Conflict as well as Crass (not an easy feat) just to be on the safe side, and Icons of Filth are definitely not far away. The top-drawer riffing, with that inventiveness characteristic of Polish bands, can bring classics like Abaddon or Armia to mind. The band was definitely a 90's band though. I am reminded of what Kochise or Sin Dios were trying to do, not because these bands sounded alike (they did not) but because they built something that was relevant and original at a time when it mattered.

This is a wonderful punk album with a clear production highlighting the musicianship and I keep noticing new details each time I play it, whether it is a bass line, a transition I had not really given much thought to or just a jazzy guitar tune, Wojna Przeciwko Ziemi is a rich work (and it has a song called "Hiroschirac" which always cracks me up). The album has one major flaw: it does not look good. The cover is pretty bland and, if the thick booklet is packed with lyrics (they had a lot to say and those are very long, dense lyrics), it does not really look like anything and is mostly informative. English translations are provided in case you want to know what this is all about (you should). This is the cd version released on Nikt Nic Nie Wie (aka NNNW) the classic Polish label and distros that has been running since 1989. The vinyl version may look better but the cd also includes eight (!) bonus songs that were not included on the tape or vinyl versions. I am not sure where the songs come from, they were not meant to be part of the album-as-story and some are new takes on older songs with a better production but they were probably recorded around the same time, between December, 1995 and January, 1996. For once, I therefore actually recommend you pick the cd version. 

Proper anarchopunk epics here.

Wojna Przeciwko Ziemi

Still believing in ANOK: Stracony "Love and friendship" Ep, 1998 (?)

Sometimes I feel the 90's often get a bad name unfairly, and I do not just mean the old age with adult diapers and Alzheimer, but also the decade's musical production. Being a man prone to right wrongs, even when I have actually been proven wrong, Terminal Sound Nuisance has often been a safe space for 90's punk records that are ignored or discarded to the £2 record bin, the pits of Hell for a record. This common dismissal of an objectively very rich decade is somewhat curious and maybe revealing of our modern mood. I am the first to admit that some 90's bands (it was also, after all, the explosion of emocore) did manage to seek new heights of musical atrocities, no mean feat considering the 80's birthed the New Romantics trend. Of course, the 80's always get a free pass, even the shite music recorded during this decade (cough cough Grave New World) can now be ironically enjoyed but the 90's are judged harshly. Perhaps the period needs its Stranger Things to be appealing again? 

90's punk was an intensely creative period and literally dozens of subgenres solidified meaningfully or popped up during that time period. A lot of the DIY network we still deal with today was originally built in the 90's and taken care of afterwards. The decade was also the last days of pre-internet punk - what I love to refer as the Prelapsarian Era - and by the mid-00's the unstoppable march of social media on our listening and creative practices began for real, like an epic hog taking a dump on your mum's favourite flower bed. Absolute 80's worship was not as common and generic yet (except for Discharge worship obviously), and a lot of bands claimed that they wanted to do something new, which was perhaps a little paradoxical when one considers the amount of similar-sounding eurocrust or Swedish d-beat bands, but then you did have some genuinely free punk music. Nothing should be idealized but nothing should be overlooked. The 90's remain too undocumented or unloved and this series, like many before, is also about showing some appreciation to bands that toyed with the original anarcho sounds and took it into a new decade 

Enter Stracony from Kołobrzeg on the Baltic sea, one of the best bands that took a classic 80's UK anarcho variation and used it to create their own sound. If you are a cynical, perpetually angry bastard, you could say that the band suffered from the Portland Syndrome, a condition that implied that if you were from a cool punk city (usually from the U$ of A or Japan) you would get much more acknowledgement than if you happen to be from the arse-end of the world (aka a poor country), even if you played exactly the same music. Nothing to do with Portland per se but at the time I brilliantly synthesized this theorem, Portland was all the shit and anything coming out of there was applauded. It can easily be replaced with New York, London or Paris nowadays - assuming your sole musical ambition is to play a Fred Perry fashion show - and the place can be a record label too. But then, some 25 years later, what does it matter? Punk has always been made up of trends, fashions and is ruled by the cult of hype and instant fame like all aspects of cultural life. One just has to be curious and keep in mind that punk is an international movement and not just a showcase for egos and if people want to miss good music because it does not come from the right place, so be it. 

Stracony were quite popular in Poland and the distribution of their Uważajcie - Bomby Wiszą Nad Waszymi Głowami album was good since it was released on Tribal War Records in 2000, the label being based in Portland at the time (lol I know right!). The Tribal War connection definitely made me buy the album. I was closely following the label's production and always loved the releases, and still do for the most part, and the striking cover left little doubt as to the band's sonic stance and politics. It was also a time when I realized the international quality of the punk scene and completely embraced it. Polish punk was massive and it made sense to give it a go for that reason as well. To this day, I still believe that this work is one of the best anarcho albums of the 90's and an unsung classic, like most old-school anarchopunk records of this era (with some exceptions which we will see).

         

Fun fact: the first time I met my future wife in 2017, we actually talked about Stracony. Her being Polish and very knowledgeable about the scene, we started chatting up about Polish punk bands and I did my best to impress her with my astounding expertise. Little did I realize that my appalling pronunciation led to some misunderstanding and at times she stared at me like I was just making up bands with strange names. One of the bands I could not pronounce the name of properly was Stracony (the gold medal in my terrifying attempts went to Insekty Na Jajach). Later on, after I described the Lp's cover, she finally understood my mumbo jumbo, and confirmed that the band was very popular and pretty much a classic. Ironically "stracony" means "lost". You cannot make that up. 

But let's get back to the record. I found the Love and friendship Ep in the ¥300 record bin at the Punk and Destroy record store in Osaka (it was originally the record's actual price). It might seem like an odd location to find a Polish anarchopunk record but the Ep was released on Peace Punk Records, a short-lived Japanese label from Tokyo that released materials from Social Genocide, Dios Hastio and Peaceful Protest (could there be a connection?), so the presence of Stracony was not extraordinary. The production on the Ep is much rawer than on the very clean-sounding latter album and it confers to the songs a very old-school youthful vibe, so that if you don't know the band you could very well believe the year was 1985. The influences are quite obvious early Chumbawamba (especially in the changes of danceable beats and the versatility) and Alternative (in the positive punk energy) immediately comes to mind. Crass is not completely out of the picture but in terms of comparison Stracony would be a dynamic, spontaneous and a shambolic teenage take on this music monument, which, from my perspective, is a massive compliment. I just love the impetuous genuine energy of the music, of the snotty angry male/female vocals and the catchy hooks in the songwriting (yes, even the reggae part) are irresistible. It just sounds fresh and unself-conscious. You can sense the band just believed in what they were doing and you cannot fake that. No recording date is included but the six songs of the Ep actually appeared previously on a tape entitled Nowy System and released in 1997 on Qrva Sistema, a prolific tape label in the 90's. There is no release date either for Love and friendship but my best guess would be 1998 but correct me if I am wrong. 

At that point in their "career", Stracony were sonically not far at all from another Polish band that also worked on that Chumba-meets-Crass-Records sound called Kanada. This band's run was short (from 1989 to 1991 I think) and they were apparently not very well-known so that it would be difficult to assess that Stracony had been in some way influenced or inspired by an older band with a similar music (old-school UK anarchopunk with mixed vocals in Polish, a bit moodier maybe), but whatever the answer is, the fact is rather fascinating. The last number of the Ep is an instrumental with some trumpets, an instrument that I generally avoid at all costs in punk music but actually works (it would be used a lot more on the Lp) and, well, Armia and their horns were also brilliant so maybe Polish punks are just good at arsing around with them. The Ep comes in a DIY foldout cover with the lyrics about religion, revolutionary violence, the traditional Polish family or NATO being translated into English and Japanese.

This is a little jewel of sincere and bouncy old-school anarchopunk and should be a part of any decent collection if you are into that sound.    

Love and friendship                 

Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust: Wojna / Social Crisis "S/t" split Ep, 2018

Poland: its beautiful forrest inhabited by easily irritable bears, its delicious - albeit treacherous - Soplica orzech laskowy vodka, its grandiose punk history and its bloody unpronounceable nouns. Seriously, just try to utter such words as "źdźbło" or "bezwzględny" and you might twist your tongue so hard that you should check where is the closest hospital before even trying. Or just "żółć", meaning "bile", a culturally relevant word that could actually come handy and also proves that the Polish language can kill the game in just four letters that are unsurprisingly exclusive to the language. And of course "szczęście" means "happiness", an incongruity that poetically and metaphorically suggests that such a metaphysical state and mindframe is hard to attain indeed. Or even pronounce for that matter.

But enough linguistic silliness, you are probably not here to actually educate yourself about the richness of the world's languages but about scruffy-looking people with a dodgy hygiene screaming in a microphone and playing as fast as they can in front of an audience made up of mostly scruffy-looking people with a dodgy hygiene expecting to be seriously bollocked. That is how the fragile crust ecosystem works. 

I have consistently written about Polish crust in the past, especially the 90's wave, since Poland was without a doubt one of crust's hotspots during that portentous decade and has produced a significant number of classic bands, some of which have enjoyed class reissues in later years like Enough!, Hostility and Disable, a largely underrated band outside of their home turf (alright, this lot mostly played in the early 00's but they were clearly rooted in the 90's). Therefore, briefly stated, the Polish DIY punk scene has a strong history of good, solid crust music. This implies that the genre is well established and popular there, that there is a large body of work to rely on and be inspired with, more so than in many European countries. Not that crust exists in a vacuum over there, there are many outside influences (from the UK, Sweden, Belgium...) that have helped shape Polish crust - like any other scene, it goes without saying it is a global circular process - but it can relevantly be said there is such a thing as a classic Polish crust style, not necessarily radically different to others, but different enough to be distinctive, like Japanese noizecrust or Swedish käng. Like French oi music too but without the endless embarrassment. 

This is not without consequence. If you are a local punk kid, the amount of quality material in terms of Polish crust (and hardcore and anarchopunk) is a powerful enough legacy to be deeply inspired by it and be able to build on it easily and seamlessly, through emulation, without being self-aware. This strong historical basis ensures that the genre persisted tenaciously. To be very bold, I'd rather have had bands like Homomilitia, Post-Regiment, Infekcja or Sanctus Iuda to be inspired with as a youth (and I am only mentioning 90's bands because of my own age and because 80's punk looked too far away when I was a wee lad) than most of the painful French bands that unsurprisingly never inspired the already demanding punk aesthete that I was, let alone inspiring anyone else outside of the country. Thank fuck punk is an international movement.

It is thus not unnatural for a Polish band to play heavy crust, whichever flavour one craves to give it, because there were dozens of such bands before and there probably will be dozens more after. Simple math that indicates that the 2010's were also rich in crustness. I would not have time, energy and coffee enough to thoroughly examine what went on crust-wise in this part of Europe - in spite of very reliable informers - because of the scope of the task and because many bands remain rather local acts, a situation that the current relative unpopularity of the crust subgenre, generally speaking, only exacerbates. Basically, since the scene and the genre are not exactly hyped and fashionable, one often has to actually look for the information instead of being passively reached by the information. This is so 2009. But as self-sustainable as one might argue the Polish DIY punk scene is, it remains important to try to take a closer look at it in a series called Live by The Crust, Die by the Crust aiming at providing subjectively some sort of global picture about where crust music bloomed in the past decade. 

So here are a couple of recommendations I can offer for those who cannot be arsed to do their own research or suffer from an early Alzheimer syndrome (or both): Huff Raid from Warsaw (solid, groovy Swedish crust-styled), Hellisheaven and Ceaseless Desolation from Lublin (nasty stenchy metal crust and thrashing blackened crust respectively), Holy Extermination from Nowy Sącz (evil stench-thrash crust), Death Crusade from Gdansk (classic heavy dark crustcore), Chorygen from Łódź (angry crusty hardcore)... There are many more, it is by no means exhaustive, and feel free to add other bands in the comment section, but those are the bands that actually bribed me financially to appear in this post and with the rise of the cost of living and my champagne life style, choices have to be made (I do accept Western Union transfers for those interested). If anything it might provide the uninitiated listener with some sort of starting kit.   

So why choose this humble split Ep between Wojna and Social Crisis? After all, it cannot really be said to be the top Polish crust record of the decade, although I personally rate it quite high. But I like this split Ep because, first, in the long DIY hardcore punk tradition, they have always been a meaningful collaborative way to discover new bands, and second both bands are quite young, very energetic and intense and offer a dynamic, authentic, powerful image of the genre which felt quite refreshing for some reason. Let's start with Wojna (it means "war" in case you want to write a d-beat haiku in Polish one day). They come from Poznan and started playing in 2015 with members also playing in Deszcz (blackened neocrust), Fight Them All (old-school Us hardcore) or Fausto Coppi among others I presume. The four songs they contribute to this split were recorded in 2018 and followed a first recording from 2016 entitled Pod Gruzami, first released as a tape and then as a proper Ep.

 

Although the band did not change direction between both, we are still in dark and heavy crustcore territory indeed, the sound on the present Ep is more intense and hard-hitting and I particularly love how thick and punishing the drums sound. Wojna's music sounds fucking unstoppable, like a freight train drunk on the strongest, beefiest brew of käng crust and high on that hard-hitting brand of stenchcore-loving eurocrust or like a triple threat match between Enough!, Nuclear Death Terror and Man the Conveyors with Warcollapse as a special referee. The very gruff harsh vocals, reminiscent of an angry living dead, certainly point in the third wave of stenchcore direction, but in spite of some obvious metal riffs, some typical metalhead transitions, the dark and heavy production and the fact that the Wojna guys probably have Hellshock and Filth of Mankind Lp's hidden under the bed, it would be far-fetched to impose that tag upon the band. Let's settle for "straight-forward-charging-buffalo type of metallic crustcore band that packs a serious punch". The prosody, scansion and tonalities specific to the Polish language give the music that peculiar vibe and rhythm that characterize the idiosyncratic version of the crust genre there and root Wojna in a specific soundscape. Four songs in less than six minute of solid crustcore, modern but heavily influenced by 90's and 00's metallic crust.     

On the other side are Social Crisis (which means, wait for it, "social crisis") from Biała Podlaska, close to the Belarus border, a band that you are more likely to have heard of than Wojna since Social Crisis have released one full album, three split Lp's and three split Ep's since 2014 and whose records you are therefore more likely to bump into on a distro table, the place where all great minds meet, or even see them pop up online if the records don't physically reach you. Simple math again. They even played in France! This creative prolificacy does show that SC really mean business but it also entails that some recordings - be it for matters of songwriting or production - are, subjectively or objectively, better than others. I would like to thank my old pal Captain Obvious for that brilliant theory. I have always liked the idea of SC a lot, fast käng-crust with dual female vocals, but sometimes felt that some of the earlier records lacked the necessary intensity to really pull it out - a criticism that can logically be made about many bands of course. The cultural practice of dual vocal crust is one that finds its roots in the late 80's and, almost 30 years later, it is not so easy to find, let alone offer, a convincing version of that well-established if rarefying punk tradition. It is not unlike replicating your grandmother's soup. As cognizant of recipe you might be, will you be able to do it properly or will your mates pretend it is good not to hurt your feelings while it is merely "alright" and would painfully get two stars on Trip Advisor? The world can be a cruel place.

But those five SC songs - in less than six minutes - can clearly be described as a tasty traditional crust soup. Not many bands use two female singers to unleash the fury (you had the Swedish pioneers Society Gang Rape in the 90's or Scousers After the Massacre in the 00's) and I am a massive sucker for female-fronted crust punk so the band was bound to have a comfortable place in my mental crust database. This side of the split Ep is pretty much an ideal example of dual-vocal crustcore. Compared to Wojna's crushing power, SC's production here is much rawer and punkier, which fits their style well as it gives the songs a direct angry edge. The primitive unpolished sound of the drums (they are very up front in the mix) reminds me quite a bit of Frigöra's and - unintentionally? - confers a raw 80's käng feel to the music. In terms of style, SC's influences are evident and to the point given the subgenre's template. All-time classic bands like State of Fear and 3-Way Cum are the obvious points of references and along the 90's Polish crust powerhouse Silna Wola, notably in the way the Polish language's scansion and flow are concerned. The vocals are brilliant, coarse and raspy on one side and gruff and deep on the other, and both very aggressive, following the traditional "lower-pitched having a massive fight with higher-pitched". The singers can clearly be said to belong to that long tradition of strong and mean punk female vocalists that is a characteristic of Polish crust and hardcore. The disposition of the vocals, their placement, is exactly as it should be. If you were to start with SC, this split Ep would be the perfect starting point. 

The sonorities of the Polish language, especially applied to punk music, convey a feeling of anger, outrage and threat and obviously crust music need such elements to flourish. The lyrics of both Wojna and Social Crisis are serious and political. The bands tackle the rise of fascism and homophobia, the electoral farce, the rape culture, modern alienation and social media. There are definitely enough to be angry about these days. The split Ep was the result of a collaboration between several labels: Dingleberry from Germany, Up the Punx and NIC from Poland, the Berlin-based DIY Koło, In My Heart Empire from Spain and Svoboda from fucking France. 

Direct, sincere and hard-hitting crustcore, the way it should sound.   

Social Wojna                

Ace Compilations for Less Than a Fiver on Bloody Discogs (part 3): "1997 - Damn the Contorol" compilation Ep, 1997

Here we go again, this is the third part of Ace Compilations for Less Than a Fiver on Bloody Discogs and yet another lovely compilation Ep that you should be able to grab for the price of a döner kebab, a suspicious pint of lager in Paris or a single ticket in the London subway (for real, I almost lost it the last time I went there and I demanded to see the manager immediately, I mean, £5!!!). I have to admit that I had absolutely never heard of, never mind seen, this Ep until quite recently when fate graced me with the opportunity to own it for a particularly inexpensive sum. Hail old-school distros and their sleeping stock from the 1990's. It felt a little odd that no one ever mentioned 1997 - Damn the Contorol to me and that even the nerdiest corners of the internet appeared to be devoid of references to it. A mate of mine told me that there were rumours on the dark web that the Ep was haunted and that every owner suffered particularly violent death, their bodies dislocated, pure expressions of horror upon their faces, shoegazed to death. It does make one shiver and there's little wonder that, faced by an awful doom, people kept silent about this Ep. 

 

However, I am not one to be afraid of any record and I once again proved that my fearlessness and proverbial placidity before danger were real and not the stuff of old wives' tales (in fact, only ponies, geese and Dire Straits can scare yours truly, the combination of the three, say a couple of geese riding a pony while playing Dire Straits on their phone, would certainly cause sudden death). So I picked the Ep and, after playing the geezer, thought out loud - and I am quoting with utmost exactitude here - "Fuck me, that is an exquisitely lovely piece of punk art that I shall proudly dress with the gleaming escutcheons of Terminal Sound Nuisance". I still keep being astonished in no small degree at the relative obscurity and unpopularity of the compilation especially since it does not appear to have been hard to find at all. Did any of you, my dear readers, know of it? Maybe I just don't hang out with the cool used-to-be-kids anymore. Sob, fucking sob.

 

From what my ready mind can infer, and rather predictably, 1997 - Damn the Contorol (yes, actual spelling and a top example of Japanese-English) has something to do with the year 1997. The Ep was released on Vomiting Label, a short-lived (it was actually the label's sole release) entity based in Finland (EDIT: well-informed elders told me that behind Vomiting was actually Otto from Força Macabra who liked to change label names so that people would be very confused. Good one!), which possibly accounts for the presence of two Suomi bands (there's the quick-wittedness at it again). Did some sociopolitical unrest occur in Finland in 1997? I found no information supporting this claim. Since the blurry and highly contrasted picture on the cover depicts some sort of riot or urban unrest and that the subtext reads "That's the information they don't tell you... That's the information that exists... That's the information we never get...", one may deduce that the title refers to a political event that took place in 1997. I did not find much about this particular year in terms of eruptions of anger and violence promptly cured with state-sponsored truncheons, water cannons, teargas, good old beatings and even, if you're very lucky, non-lethal crowd control weapons. 1997 saw intense rioting in Northern Ireland on the part of Irish nationalists and bloody state repression against the Uhygur populations in China known as the Ghulja incident. Some things sadly never change. There was also the unexpected retirement of Eric Cantona but that's a French-only trauma that I'd rather not get into. It still hurts.

 

 

Another political element to Damn the Contorol lies in its open antinazi stance with a picture of local boneheads with targets on their faces and a "Break Neck Action" caption. I doubt any nazi actually saw this compilation Ep but regardless giving the finger to the scum is always a noble intention. If the purpose and binding theme of the compilation in relation to the context of 1997 is never properly expressed but there is however an inflated dithyramb from the producer/label guy on the eternal glory of hardcore punk, stating at some point that: "The dance floor leaves and breathes, and the dancers are one with each other in a huge machine gun panorama of noise and light and movement. When music is good for today's dancing, it's HARDCOREPUNK". Now that's a moving declaration of love and, even if many of us have a bad back these days, I suggest we all joyously dance together like the man said. 

 

Although Vomiting was a Finnish label (the name would have been rather fitting for a goregrind endeavour but whatever) there are no less than four Japanese bands out of the nine acts making up the thing. The first band is Chaos Channel from Osaka with the song "Don't kill future" which, whoever it was aimed at, was not an unreasonable demand after all. Modern streaming platforms such as youtube (I don't know if you are familiar with it but it's apparently pretty big and millennials really dig it) have made the noizy punk style of bands like Chaos Channel readily accessible and nowhere as obscure and confidential as they still were not so long ago. I am sure it was different in Japan because they have always had this tradition of highly distorted fast and binary Bristol punk-rock initiated by Confuse so that the genre must have been pretty normal to Japanese punks (like käng in Sweden or shite oi music in France). However, outside of the country, only the nerdiest punks were conversant with top secret bands like State Children or Gess so that it is hard to gauze the popularity of heirs like Chaos Channel. Even if the phrase "noisepunk" was only coined in the mid 00's by the Wankys, I feel it is the perfect description for Chaos Channel's music. Absolute pogo-compatible Swankys worship with the same assumed silliness and hyperbolic punkiness musically and aesthetically. The singer sounds like an absolute pisshead raised on early Disorder and Chaotic Dischord, the guitar's piercing distortion is reminiscent of the national classics, the bass is driving on a Confuse team dragster and the drummer has fun being as primitively ciderpunk as possible. If you enjoy the style, Chaos Channel, along with neighbours like Order and Dust Noise, were the real noisepunk deal in the mid 90's. Absolute swankers, "Chaotic punk is forever" as they proudly stated. The song was recorded in 1995, a busy period for the band since they released two Ep's on Overthrow in 1994 and 1995. And did I mention guitar player Yamakawa also played in Gloom?

 

Next up are Leben, a band from Graz, Austria, I know nothing about. Very rough and fast hardcore punk with a cavemen grindcore vibe. They only ever appeared on one other compilation Ep entitled More Noise by Nice Boys released on Insane Society in 1997 alongside Agoraphobic Nosebleed and Mrtva Budoucnost. Besthöven follow and it was Fofao's progeny's first inclusion on a vinyl but certainly not the last. The song "Sacrificio grotesco" was recorded in 1996 and Besthöven was a three-piece at the time. When Damn the Contorol came out, people who had actually heard of Besthöven, outside of Brazil, and even there they were probably quite obscure, must have been very, very rare indeed. In the Latino America's punk scene of the mid-90's, Besthöven were assuredly something of an oddity. Of course, there were legions of hardcore punk in Brazil, but their open 80's Scandinavian hardcore studded worship set them apart (they covered Shitlickers and Fear of War at that time). As they proudly claim on the cover "Our sound is influeced by hardcore punk bands that making punk a threat ever''' Swedish bands and other crustraw punk core band like Japanese and more...". Since they wholeheartedly thanked Força Macabra, I suppose that was how they ended up on this Finnish compilation. The song is exactly as you would expect early Besthöven to sound like, a blend of raw and primitive käng hardcore with Silencio Funebre-era Armagedom. Not for posers.

 

The last band on the first side is Kirous from Finland with a short and sweet antifascist song "Kasvava uhka". The sound is quite raw, a defining uniting feature of the compilation, and there is a mean chaotic vibe running through the song. Somewhere between Kuolema and their contemporary Uutuus and Katastrofialue maybe. If you had no idea, you could think that Kirous song were recorded in 1985. The band went on to release an Ep for No Fashion Hardcore Records and two split Ep's with the very good Sharpeville and Silna Wola. If you are into raw hardcore, you are in for one minute of classic Finnish hardcore delight. If you are not, I strongly suggest you leave the room immediately. 

 

The following band is Guernica y Luno from Słupsk, Poland. GyL are not widely known outside of their home country but they were undeniably one of the more crucial bands of the 90's along with Włochaty, Homomilitia and of course Post-Regiment. Their lyrics, judging from the translations, were highly political and quite deep and beautiful at the same time which accounted for their undying popularity as the 2017 Nigdy Nie Będziesz Szedł tribute Lp can attest. Heartfelt, intense even emotional at times anarchopunk with male and female vocals and a raw, old-school Polish punk vibe that combined perfectly with their distinct 90's anarcho sound. Tuneful with memorable chorus and a genuine inventiveness in the songwriting for what was one of the most relevant anarchopunk bands of the 90's. The song "La programo" is actually in Esperanto which might come as a surprise to some but makes sense in the context of the band and of the 90's, the Esperanto language standing for unity between people and a common linguistic ground for peace and freedom. If you look close enough you can find quite a few European bands who had or have songs in this Language and obviously Voĉo Protesta, being Japanese, took the concept of Esperanto hardcore to its logical conclusion by singing in this language only. The GyL song is an anthemic anarcho crust punk song with a singalong chorus and something of an 80's Finnish hardcore touch like Melakka when they shout "Kontravaj al kurwa sistema". Ace.

 

Next up are Conclude from Japan with their song "No need flesh". If you close your eyes and play the song, you can spot easily that they were a Japanese going in the direction quite similar to Chaos Channel or Order. The song is a sloppy but fun, drunken, punky and bouncy number with snotty vocals that will please lovers of noizy obnoxious punk-rock and the use of the Iconoclast font is not fooling anyone here. More surprising perhaps is that most of Conclude's subsequent recordings were sung in Finnish and sounded much closer to classic 80's Finnish hardcore like Bastards or Destrucktions although the vocals were still reminiscent of swanking. They even had an Ep called Made in Finland and apparently toured Finland in the 90's. By no means was their choice to shift language unique in Japan as Frigöra sang in Swedish (or in Mob 47 depending on how accurate you want to be) and Corrupted in Spanish. A decent song about animal liberation, a topic Conclude tackled heavily.

 

Totuus are the following contestant with their short sharp shock of a song "Kirkot Hyötykäyttöön". Pretty classic Fight Records-era Finnish hardcore, direct, fast and fierce hardcore with an added 90's touch to the old recipe. Very effective and rather well recorded compared to Kirous but I prefer my hardcore simpler and punkier.

 

Disclose are next with the song "Right of liberty and equality", recorded during the same session as the three songs on the split Ep with Homomilitia from 1995 (you can read a full review here). I recommend you read Pawel Scream's comment at the bottom of the review so that you understand why the Disclose song sounds so bad. The DAT (Digital Audio Tape) containing the Disclose recording got fucked at some point and as a result the noise-not-music creative stance of Kawakami became a little too literal. Anyway, you all know Disclose, we have already been talking about Disclose on Terminal Sound Nuisance so there is not much point rehashing. Typical mid-90's, Great Swedish Feast-era Disclose, distortion-drenched shitlicking Discharge mythology. Funnily enough, some of the noiziest d-beat crasher bands went for a distorted guitar sound rather similar to the one Kawakami had on this song although it resulted from a technical mistake he had nothing to do with. Such is the magic of the Dis.

 

Finally, you've got Blaze, a traditional "burning spirit" kind of hardcore punk band from Machida, Japan. As I have often pointed out, I am not a fanatic of the late 80's/early-mid 90's Japanese hardcore wave. I love the crust of that period but the whole Death Side/Bastard sound, if thoroughly enjoyable and regularly enjoyed at the Terminal Sound Nuisance castle, does not totally speak to the old heart. I was not familiar with Blaze until someone recently pointed out that a much-expected Blaze reissue was going to be released on the hard-working noize-loving General Speech. The book Flex - 1987-1992 tells me that Blaze were "totally in line with the Burning Spirits scene and a classic of that era. Demand for this EP (the 1992 But Nothing Ever Changes Ep) has shot up during the past years" so needless to tell you we are dealing with the cream of the crop here, such bands that generally cause the nerd elite to ruthlessly compete with one another for the throne, a bit like at a Royal Rumble but with much less atheleticism. The song "Heavy conufsion" has super epic riffs and a triumphant thrashing hardcore vibe combined with gruff vocals and beefy singalong hardcore chorus. Pretty flawless for the genre and easily the tightest band on Damn the Contorol. Makes one want to ride a massive wave while wearing shades.

 

The foldout cover turns into a poster when you flip it which displays an anti-technology bordered with a message that is a little hard to read. "A dream of a technophile... The beginning of the end of the world...". Not such an insightful statement considering that 25 years late people can actually pay with their watch. Well only twats do, but still. Each band included a small visual with the lyrics giving Damn the Contorol a real sense of punk collaboration and togetherness which has always been the very point of such endeavours.  

 

That's the real question

Damn the Contorol!