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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  

Capite Damnare

Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust: Zyanose "Putrid Sick Society" cd, 2014

Let's refocus and balance our chakras a bit. Even if the present series was always meant to be an exploit in crust marathon, I have to confess it sometimes feels as if Terminal Sound Nuisance has now turned into a "crust-only" beast and I sometimes crave to be able to write about 80's poppy anarchopunk again. I'll just have to light a candle at the local crust ossuary to gather some strength.  As a reminder, Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust is not really about the top 100 crust works of the 2010's (though that'd be pretty fun to do) but about recordings and bands from the crust punk multiverse that I find relevant, meaningful and therefore worth investigating as they provide an interesting, albeit partial for exhaustiveness is impossible, picture about what happened crust-wise during that decade. And it has to be fun of course. They have to be fun to write about. Or at the very least fun enough to keep me from sobbing before Razor Ramon or Mister Perfect tribute videos on youtube. 

And Zyanose are really fun. Very serious and passionate about what they did, but also cheeky and brash and really quite delightful and entertaining to write and think about. Although they were already active in the second part of the noughties (Toyo said in an interview with the iconic Warning fanzine that the band played their first gig in 2003 but the "official" version often says 2004) and released three Ep's and a split cdr between 2005 and 2008, they were certainly more productive afterwards with four Ep's and three Lp's being released between 2012 and 2019. People who favour their earlier endeavours into love-4-noize will probably associate Zyanose with the mid-late 00's but I personally enjoy their later - and crustier - material better, hence their inclusion here in the series about the 10's. In the end, it is always pretty random to reason rigidly when it comes to decades anyway, especially with such a boundary-pushing act. What really matters is that this Osaka noise crust monster progressively grew to be an objectively crucial and even popular band from the early to the late 10's. It would not be irrelevant to venture that the band has known three periods with Toyo, Sakana and Illie as the three constant members: the first one from 2004 to 2008 as a four-piece with a distinct guitar player and Toyo only on vocals; the second from 2012 to 2014 when Zyanose were a three-piece with two bass players and Toyo switching to the second bass guitar; and the last one with the band back as a four-piece, Toyo back on vocals only and an actual guitar player. 

My own genuine appreciation for Zyanose did not start in the 00's (go on, take some hard-earned punk points away from me). I don't even remember reading that Warning interview (which you can read here) although I remember having that zine at home. At that time, this school of noise-loving Japanese crust did not really appeal to me at that time that much and I was satisfied with my Gloom and Atrocious Madness records and so did not really bother with Zyanose. I definitely missed the first bus, and even the Loveless Ep released on Crust War Records, a label I followed as closely as a French pigeon behind a messy sandwich eater, did not really catch my attention, but then, at that time a lot of the highly distorted and chaotic end of hardcore bands escaped me as I was more looking to the sound of Japanese stenchcrust bands like Acrostix, AGE or Revölt. Even upon first hearing them a few years later, I was not particularly impressed, which sounds a little strange because I was well into Death Dust Extractor or D-Clone for example, also rather demanding listens to say the least, but I did not bother exploring Zyanose. It may have to do with the fact that it is after all a German word (meaning "cyanosis", a "blueness lividness of the skin" which sounds pretty nasty and therefore did not look up on google) and learning the language for years at school scarred me for life and leaves me unable to make a proper sentence in German, although I can vaguely sing along to a Chaos Z or Slime song. Or give a convincing impression when pissed anyway.

My first proper encounter with Zyanose was when they did a European tour in 2013, promoting their Why There Grieve Lp on La Vida Es Un Mus if I remember correctly, and played in Paris. An unlikely lineup since they shared the stage with Traitre (the infamous autonomous oi band from Lille), Krigskade (our local käng unit at the time) and a streetpunk band from Czech called Climax, an unfortunate name considering they played along the very climactic Zyanose. So a decidedly diverse lineup and I remember most people came for the other bands so that when the Osaka misfits went on stage, people did not know what to expect exactly and were in awe, bewildered, disconcerted, flabbergasted even. The band played like there was no tomorrow, broke some of the gears they had been lent and one of the bass player forgot to plug his instrument for the first few songs which no one really noticed - even himself - because it was so intense and noisy and just different. In this specific environment, Zyanose looked and sounded like an alien species coming from a a world bent on deafening other civilizations through severe noisecore music. Sore-Throating the innocents to death as I call it. That was a very fun gig, one that taught me that I had definitely missed out on a good band.

At that point in time, Zyanose had switched to playing as a three-piece with two bass players - Toyo formerly of the mighty Defector and Sakana from Poverties - also sharing the "vocal duties", by which I mean reproducing the screams of a 19th century psychiatric ward, a rather daring configuration (the only other noisy/crusty band using it to my knowledge is Nulla Osta from Croatia). The transformation of the Zyanose lineup can be found easily on the internet so I won't be focusing on the pre-2012 period of the band, which is still well worth investigating. Putrid Sick Society is my favourite records of the two-bass-players era of the band, pretty much because it is the groovier, crustier-sounding of their works (but all of their 2012/2014 outputs comes recommended). I love how the layers of noise work energetically together on this one. Genuine "noise cruster hell" as they proudly claim on the backcover. If you have never paid close attention to Zyanose, you are in for quite a journey in noisiness. And in fact, it is not so unlikely that many people will have heard of the band (because of their European and American tours and because Japanese bands don't often play abroad) or even seen them live - a memorable experience no doubt - but are really not familiar with the genre they belong to, namely the Japanese crasher/noize crust tradition. This, as a result, has made Zyanose into either a common point of entry to said subgenre or even one of its only examples for some which confers them a special status. You will meet people who are familiar, to some extent, with them but have never heard of Defector or Gloom, although it also very much depends on where you live and on the local obsessions of your scene (needless to say that in Paris, practically no fuck is given about that brand of noizecrust). 

So what about Putrid Sick Society then? Well, as my crust sensei would say in his immense wisdom: "It's the dog's bollocks mate". If you were to get a Zyanose record that aptly stands for their two-bass players era, then that'd be this one. The decision to play without a guitar, whether it was by necessity or artistic choice, especially in a genre putting such a massive emphasis on distortion, was a rather daring move to say the least. If anything, it showed that you can sound as distorted, deafening and produce as much damaging feedback than with a proper guitar. The "hail noise" bass - as poetically referred to on the backcover - sounds like a transistor haunted by the bastard child of a fuzz pedal and a distortion one or maybe like a mean radio station broadcasting from Hell bent on punishing lovers of shoegaze music. Meanwhile the "bulldozer bass" unleashes Chaos UK/Confuse bass lines relentlessly. Zyanose is a band that is clearly aimed at noize fanatics, especially on records since their impressively convincing intense live performances can easily win punks of all creeds that are not particularly interested in the genre (and that's how you recognize genuinely great bands). 

There is a - proudly stated - sense of uncontrolled dementia and chaotic insanity in the music even though the listener can tell that the Zyanose boys know what they are doing and are in control of their furious output. Self-aware chaos. While some crusty noizepunk acts can sound a little boring and uninspired after the first three songs, Zyanose have enough tricks in their bag to keep things interesting. There are many tempo changes in the music from the classic cavemen crust beat, to 80's hardcore blast beats, mid-paced Bristol-loving tribal stomps or Kyushu-styled breaks so that the aural punishment does not feel monotonous. Of course, Zyanose's foundation is found in Osaka's legendary manic crasher crust pioneers Gloom but, if they certainly build on their predecessors's versatile sense of songwriting, they put a much greater emphasis on the noize side of Gloom's legacy. They lean more on the Confuse school of distorted texture but crust bands like Collapse Society, late Truth of Arize, Death Dust Extractor or Mindsuck can be relevantly mentioned as parts of the equation as well, not necessarily as direct influences, they have different sonic intents, but more as a background of the creation of noise. Some loving references to Chaos UK and Disorder's threatening tribal numbers and bass lines can also be found while Sore Throat are also invited to the loudest of parties (the typical opening noise on the opening of "The total arse" is obvious) and classic cavemen crust influences of early Extreme Noise Terror, Sarcasm or early Disrupt also circulate throughout. That the noisecore style - or what we have progressively come to define as "noisecore" - is included in Zyanose's recipe can be said to be an uncommon move as noisecore is more often associated with the grindcore scene, but it could just be a European thing not relevant to Japan. The vocals sound absolutely insane and rabid, with high-pitched straitjacket screams often seasoned with thunderous cavecrust shouts delivering a rare assault on your hearing. It is like anti-yoga music. 

The cd version of Putrid Sick Society is deceptively long, 8 songs in 19 minutes, with the last song, "The total arse" being a nine minute slice of old-school noisecore stench madness and actually a Zyanosed cover of a classic Framtid anthem. A great initiative as it turns the song into something completely different but still compelling.   

Zyanose, the self-identified "noise philia crusters", have been known through many subgenre monikers, so many that it is more like a game than anything too serious: "ditch crust noisecore", "crust hardcore speed noise", "crasher crust violence", "noise cruster hell", "antisocial crusher noise crust militia" or "insane noise raid". Make up your own noizecrust subgenre. The aesthetics of the record harmoniously reflect the music. A chaotic collage with the members proudly exhibiting the crust look, cruster rags, crust pants and some studs and a variety of signifying elements like "ear damaging 8 tracks", "Osaka punk never dies!!!", "Noise chaos kill your brainswashed mind" and a variety of referential nods that I will let the reader look for. The cd comes with an obi that includes a biography of the band if you can read Japanese (mine is well rusty to be honest). Zyanose have always been adamant about their own creative noisiness and their unshakable true punk identity and songs like "Our noise not yours" or "Poser must die !!!" attest to that radical stance but more serious, or typical, topics are also tackled. Putrid Sick Society was recorded in late 2013 and released on L.A.R.V.A, a short-lived cd-only - cd's are not deemed as "uncool" in Japan - local record label that also reissued Poikkeus and Ferocious X. Brain Solvent Propaganda put out a vinyl version of the work - in case you have a fetish - but I am confident that the post-2011 Zyanose saga will be reissued at some point (D-Takt Råpunk Records already took care of the early material). 

Sadly Zyanose stopped in 2019 and I am not completely sure what the members are up to nowadays, but Toyo now plays in the mighty Framtid and Illie joined the magnificent Disturd. Informants are welcome to add on to this. Noise Philia Cruster never dies.

Poser must die !!

Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust: Repression Attack "Алтарь Разрушения / Altar of Destruction" cd, 2013

Lately, we have been talking a lot - it is a royal "we" obviously - about names and how they can convey an idea of what a punk band is about in terms of sound and influences. Sometimes a rather unusual moniker can work great for a given genre or on the contrary prove to be a very unfortunate choice, the quality of the band notwithstanding (see the Genital Deformities case). But generally, especially since the unstoppable and ungovernable rise of the internet, names are pretty straight-forward and transparent, unequivocal, although exceptions like Disface do force even the learned listeners to be careful, alert and humble. Otherwise you will end up with a (rather good) melodic punk-rock band instead of an unremarkable d-beat band. So even though the old saying "don't judge a book by its cover" remains true, if you bump into a band called Stenchkrusher exhibiting axes, disgruntled orcs and gutter crusties, the chance that they play indie-rock is virtually nil, unless it is your mate Gary trolling you again with his imaginary bands. Get a life Gary. 

The name Repression Attack does not really conjure up images of hyperbolic Russian stenchcore and yet that's exactly what they were in the 2010's. It has to be said that the band started as early as 2007 back when they were a punkier-sounding outfit, influenced mostly by Anti-Cimex, Extreme Noise Terror and Disclose (as revealed in a recent interview for the excellent and highly recommended Disastro Sonoro blog) and when the whole Russian d-beat/crust wave was still very much embryonic. And indeed, upon listening to their first proper recording in late 2009, a split tape with pan Zlobek, RA - based in Ryazan, South of Moscow - were still metal-free and a solid and savage example of ENT-styled dual-vocal crustcore. I had not played the songs for a while and I was pleasantly surprised at how good they are. So I suppose the name "Repression Attack" is not out of place if you originally settle for that kind of political crust punk vibe and I suppose it felt a little pointless to change name after they embarked on the 2010 stenchcore revival cruise. The one thing that definitely looks incongruous on that initial tape is the "Good night white pride" cover from Loikaemie, a rather tragic German oi band, even though I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment. But then, I presume that the idea to cover that particular number had a lot to do with the strong presence of local far-right hooligans and skinheads in those years more than the actual music. And on that level the name Repression Attack also feels like a political comment in itself in relation with the repressive politics of the Russian government. Sometimes you do not chose the name, the name choses you. 

I have already written about my love story with Russian crust several times, notably very recently through my post about Kärzer, so I am not going to bother you one more time with how much I love Fatum or how I first came across Distress in 2006 when a roommate brought back their demo tape after a trip to Russia. My brain resembling more and more a giant crust gridlock - my doctor actually described it as the most severe instance of the Rush Hour of the Crust Syndrome she had ever come across but I am still struggling to know if it was a compliment - I do not remember how I became familiar with RA but I suspect it was through a blog back when the whole punk blog thing was at its peak and before people got addicted to selfies and their own image and I am quite sure it was with the early split tape because I do remember identifying RA as a stenchcore unit only afterwards. While the early incarnation of the band had dual male vocals, the Алтарь Разрушения cd have prominent female lead vocals, which I have to say surprised me even more, in a good way as I have always been a sucker for female-fronted crust music. That RA's music changed a lot between both recordings is an understatement, not just in terms of style and where they moved to on the crust spectrum but also in terms of musicianship. In 2009 they were enjoyably raw and in-your-face but in 2013 they were truly a tight unit and, had they changed their name, I don't think I would have been able to recognize them.

Алтарь Разрушения came out in 2013 at a time when Russian crust was becoming a real thing and it is a work that clearly matters from that national perspective but even on an international level this album clearly held it own at that point in time and can be said to be a highlight of the early 2010's. The sound is pretty raw and unostentatious, a bit thin and sloppy sometimes (it was recorded live in late 2012), but still very powerful and it aptly conveys that sense of dirty anger pervading the band's music and a crust-as-fuck soundscape. It would be far-fetched to claim that RA is an openly referential band although they can't pretend to be reinventing crust pants on that one. The attentive listener will be able to spot a couple of literal Deviated Instinct riffs on some songs but they are not really used as nerdy nods, they just fit very well and serve the purpose of the songwriting. RA know and love the formula, you have heavy and filthy, stenchy metallic mid-paced moments as well as fast relentless thrashing d-beat with mean, hoarse and raspy female vocals supported by a second male vocalist dealing with the lower Antisect-grinder pitch. The interplay between the two guitars works very well and allows for the cracking hooks and the dirty bends that can take a modern stenchcore act from good to great. The variety of beats is important, at times too much so as a single song can have four distinct tempo changes and accompanying riffs which can be a little distracting narratively and overwhelming given the length of the album. But that's a minor criticism. The band gets extra points for their eerie synth driven introduction on "Холодная Смерть" and transition on "Мёртвая Тишина" (with the exact same tune as Effigy's "From Hell"). Brilliant old-school call. 

RA can be relevantly be seen as a second-generation stenchcore revivalist band and should be mentioned in the same breath as Cancer Spreading, Last Legion Alive and Fatum as they share common influences (the UK greats and the 00's stenchcore revival), aesthetics and intents and let's throw some AGE and Ναυτία in there too. Pila's vocals do set the band apart on Алтарь Разрушения, very aggressive and spiteful not unlike Agnes from Homomilitia/Lost and I like that she firmly keeps RA on punk grounds. The cd was actually self-released, which is pretty preposterous considering its quality, and goes on to show that sometimes class bands are unfairly ignored. In early 2014 the band recorded a proper Ep with a better sound (and a love for Deviated Instinct riffs again) that would only be released in 2016 thanks to a collaboration between seven labels among which Neanderthal Stench, Insane Society and Totalpunk. Return to Instincts was made up of two long old-school crust anthems and was an improvement, it saw the band further work on the narrative dimension of crust thanks to longer songs that allowed for a real story to develop and an atmosphere to settle. It's an excellent Ep. Tragically, one member, Dimashkin, passed away that year and it must have been a massive blow to RA and I did not hear anything from the band until earlier this year.

I was delighted to see that the band was still going but since they never were too keen to show off on the internet or social media, I guess I just did not do my homeworks - since youtube reveals that RA did play live in recent years - and thought they had split up. The 2022 version of RA is different as only the drummer Gleb and guitar player Kobra are still in the band and I must say, and I am not exaggerating for once, that never did RA sound as good as on their new album An Endless Landscape of Ugly Shapes. The band now claim to play "psychedelicrust" (it reminds me of Akrasia and their "cataclysmic space crust") and, while they are still rooted in the stenchcore world, this time with a greater emphasis on the apocalyptic groove of the Axegrinder branch of the family tree, they have infused their crust with psychedelic influences, danceable tribal beats and progressive elements. On paper, the idea of having a saxophone on a crust album is akin to blasphemy to me and would have you decapitated but it is, I have to admit, really good. Brilliant, excellent even. RA use these new sonorities and vibes to tell a different crust story that still makes sense. It is still definitely an old-school crust work but undeniably very original and unique, which is not something one is able to say often when it comes to crust. I am reminded of 90's bands like Bad Influence, Iowaska and Πανικός. It is like Swordwielder on shrooms or something. Cracking stuff. For the moment, a physical release is not planned but I really hope it will materialize at some point because An Endless Landscape of Ugly Shapes is bound to become a genuine crust classic and already one of the best of the 2020's. 

There is an interesting interview of the band on the Disastro Sonoro blog (here) where they talk about Russian crust, crust songwriting and the current situation in Russia with the war and Putin's iron fist. A good, albeit depressing, read. This is precisely the moment when Russian punk bands, especially those who have something to say and work in genuine DIY fashion, need support. Grind the enemy. 

Repression Attack

Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust: Hostiliter "A New Dawn for Lost Mankind" cd, 2016

I have already touched upon the topic of how Italy from the mid-00's until the late 10's became one of the hotspots for genuinely solid old-school crust music in Europe - and beyond I would argue - while in the 90's, the decade traditionally associated with the rise of the genre, the country was surprisingly, not to mention sadly, crust-free (with the exceptions of Scum of Society and to some extent Dissciorda). I have never been sure about the reasons of this discrepancy. There certainly was grindcore so speed was not the issue. Did Italian parents choose to abandon their baby crust punks in the local woods? Legends of feral kids howling Doom lyrics at the moon would seem to point in that direction. Did they try to exorcize them? Were foreign crusties prohibited to enter the country by the government? Were the pigs equipped with crust repellent Bat-spray? The idea that Italian punks in the 90's did not enjoy crust music like the rest of the world is just preposterous so I would go personally go for the repellent spray. In any case, this mystery remains a cold case and any theory is a good theory.  

In the 00's, things changed drastically through the impulse of top bands like Campus Sterminii, Dirty Power Games and Kontatto and eventually something close to an Italian stenchcore wave (in punk terminology, a "wave" appears when more than five bands sort of play the same style) emerged by the end of the decade with Cancer Spreading as the last crust standing at the time of writing. These are basic historical facts that anyone can find in the Harvard Encyclopedia of Crust - chapter 7, section 3 - and I am definitely not paid enough for this gig to repeat myself on a sunday so if you need an even deeper exploration on the subject of Italian crust from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective, check the piece about Campus Sterminii's Life is a Nightmarish Struggle I did last year. 

Hostiliter can be said to have been part of that 2010's wave of Italian stenchcore as they were active during the heart of it, between 2010 and 2016 (or 2017?) and even though it is quite hard to gauge how those bands will fare in the future, it is still crucial to investigate and analyze them since, if punk does belong to the punks (and not the businessmen or the cultural establishment and the academia), it also belongs to the punks to write our own history and memory of punk. I must confess that I have absolutely no recollection of my first encounter with Hostiliter but it might have been during one of those nights when I end up scouting for new upcoming crust bands online for hours while I had promised myself I would just check whether Warcollapse did two or three split Ep's in the 90's (they only did two in case you were also wondering but wanted to spare yourself the effort). But anyway, the band was from Viterno, between Roma and Perugia and self-released a five-song demo cd in 2011 entitled Intoxication which will be your cuppa if you are into raw and straight-forward early Cancer Spreading (and clearly you should be). They recorded a remarkable promotape in 2012 (or was it later? The youtube videos says 2015) called Age of Decay that sounded more apocalyptic and metallic, with some great mid-paced moments and even some synth while keeping that fast and raw crust punk approach style. 

By 2015, the band had evolved into a more death-metal oriented crust unit - some would say "deathcrust" but I hate the term - not unlike what Cancer Spreading were doing at that moment too (I am not suggesting that Hostiliter's evolution was necessarily influenced by CS's but the fact is worth mentioning). A New Dawn for Lost Mankind is a modest but effective recording of death-metal influenced stenchcore with a hardcore punk production. The album lacks a little in heaviness but makes up for it thanks to its dynamic and aggressive crusty punk vibe. Bolt Thrower-influenced crust is of course the band's main template and bands like Heallisheaven, Sanctum or Last Legion Alive (and of course Cancer Spreading) come to mind and, while it would be far-fetched to claim Hostiliter were the cream of the crust crop - their sorry lack of vinyl output especially not helping - but they still definitely delivered, were apt specimen of the 10's metal crust subgenre and the cd is very pleasant precisely for its typicality. This is crust that has crows, chaos crosses, skulls, barren wasteland and torn war banners at its core. You already know the menu if you are seated at this table. The lyrics in Italian are definitely a plus and I had fun finding several borrowed bits from classic crust bands (a barely modified Deviated Instinct riff here, a Filth of Mankind break there, some Nausea flow too). The icing on the cake is the top Contropotere cover - "Demoni e dei" from their 1988 album Nessuna Speranza Nessuna Paura - which Hostiliter greatly pulls out. I don't know any other band covering the absolutely magnificent and unique Contropotere so A New Dawn for Lost Mankind is worth hearing if only for that very relevant choice. Great job.

The cd was released on Suoni Oscuri in 2016 and I suppose may still be ordered through the band as it was not well distributed at all. Mind you, I don't even know how many copies were pressed as I was lucky enough to get it when they played in France. Until then, here is the download link. 

           

A new crust for lost mankind

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

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

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

 

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

 

 

Kontrovers 2002               

Wesh to Sweden, the Formative Years (part 4): Uncurbed "...Keeps the Banner High" cd, 2000

A few weeks ago, "lockdown" was unsurprisingly named Collins English Dictionnary's word of the year for 2020. I guess it is a half-arsed prize that you probably do not care about, and rightly so too, and if you do happen to live a life as fascinatingly rewarding as your instagram account suggests, you probably don't have time for such trivial matters. I don't think the judges had to scratch their heads for very long before reaching a consensus as this year's prize was what you would inelegantly call a "no-brainer". Still, it is rather amusing to see that a term that I had always readily associated with wrestling events without giving it much thought has become so pervasive. 

Anyway, the current French lockdown has not exactly developed the healthiest cultural habits in my case since I have recently taken to watch usually mediocre horror movies at night, not because I really fancy them (I must confess I am a sucker for creature movies though) but just because I can stay up late because school's out. Last time I watched The Ritual, a pretty decent witchy movie, somewhere between Blair Witch and Predator, but with half-witted English lads in the middle of a dodgy forest in north Sweden. The bloodthirsty creature was meant to be some sort of pagan god but looked a bit ridiculous to be fair (half giant centipede and half bloody moose) and ended being defeated by Johnny English from Slough. Take that Scandinavian pagans. It made me wonder about the Swedish fauna and upon checking a website about the wildlife of Sweden, I realized that the country's woods were inhabited by wolves, bears, lynx, fucking wolverines and, at the top of the food chain, black metal musicians, the latter having been listed as particularly endangered because of climate change. Sad. But why am I telling you about animals and natural habitats in a post about Uncurbed? Well, the movie unexpectedly put me in an allegorical mood and I just want to claim that Uncurbed's ...Keeps the Banner High basically sounds like a loaded moose being ridden by a bunch of rabid wolverines. Rock'n'roll mate, rock'n'roll. 

 

In spite of a twenty-year career in scandicrust and no less than 16 (!) records, Uncurbed do not often pop up in conversations about classic 90's Swedish hardcore bands. Their prolificacy and longevity might look somehow suspicious or even unwise to some (how many albums of similar songs can a band write?) but I, for one, am always favorably impressed with bands who stick to their guns and display resolve and faith. The idea of a band remaining true to their crusty käng roots impervious to trends, receding hairlines and growing beer bellies is deeply romantic and, in its quixotic nature, punk as fuck. Just picture how much punk changed between the time when Uncurbed formed in 1990, and Disfear and Dischange hadn't released anything yet, and when they split up in early 2011 - a lifetime later -  and Belgrado were recording their first album. While I am unfortunately not qualified enough to assess the band's popularity and legacy in their home country nowadays, I would think that their mid 90's era (a decade which was the apex of the d-beat/käng/scandicrust wave and saw dozens of Swedish bands having a determined go at surfing it) does stand the test of time and even though some of their works may not be of the highest order, others were not far from the top and the band was undeniably able to deliver some serious blows at a contest that also included contenders like Wolfpack, Skitsystem, Meanwhile or Driller Killer. On the whole Uncurbed's run was respectable and, as you have guessed, I am a bit sentimental when it comes to them but then Wesh to Sweden, if anything, is a series about sentiments, subjectivity and the coming of age ritual of getting pounded by a d-takt. This softness of mine may account for the utter disbelief upon discovering recently that some close friends, people in their late 30's really into the Swedish hardcore thing, confessed after I played Peacelovepunklife... that they had never heard of Uncurbed. Odd, right?

 

Such a discrepancy might be accounted for by the fact that Uncurbed's first four albums (released on Lost and Found Records and Finn Records) were only available on the cd format, a practice that was not uncommon at the time but now seems unintelligible because of our fetishisation of the vinyl format which renders cd-only 90's records irrelevant, hopelessly passé and undeserving of the cool "vintage" varnish that us punx irrationally confer to tapes. My argument could be countered by the existence of a 1993 split Ep with Disfear, however, because it was a crappy Lost & Found release with only four minutes of music, it can barely be called a classic although it is worth mentioning. In fact, the band had to wait until their fifth album Peacelovepunklife... Andotherstories from 1998 to finally have their own vinyl Lp. It was Uncurbed's first collaboration with Sound Pollution, a label which would eventually release three other Lp's and one Ep for the band until 2006. I first became aware of Uncurbed through the Sound Pollution connection that I mentioned in the series' previous part. In the early 00's, my unshakeable and disciplined thirst for knowledge combined with a limited budget drove me to adopt rational record-buying tactics. It seemed wiser to get two or three records from one particular contemporary label, in an attempt at conceptualising what it offered in terms of genre, aesthetics and politics, instead of getting a full discography of a specific band. That way, I thought, I would be able to accumulate enough musical knowledge, therefore sharpening my taste in order to find my way in the maze of DIY hardcore punk and take over the world in no time. That Sound Pollution order included Krigshot's Örebro-Mangel, Hellnation's Thrash Wave and Uncurbed's ...Keeps the Banner High, all on cd to save money on shipping costs. 

 

The reason why I originally picked this particular Uncurbed cd instead of Peacelovepunklife or 2002's Punks on Parole was pretty simple: ...Keeps the Banner High's cover was better-looking. I mean, Peacelovepunklife had actual 70's hippies in the nude on the cover and the punk religion prohibited me from getting involved in any hippie business, whereas Punks on Parole was basically a spoof of The Usual Suspects' poster and, while I was never deprived of a sense of humour, one is never too cautious about punk bands trying to be funny. So I went for ...Keeps the Banner High as the picture of demonstrating autonomous punx looked much more comforting and I thought - quite rightly so by chance - that the three albums were bound to sound similar anyway. And I did buy the hippie album years later in case you are wondering. By the late 90's, Uncurbed was a significantly different animal than on their first album The Strike of Mankind, an overlooked classic record of dual vocal dark käng crust with a raw old-school Swedish death-metal vibe. The lineup had not moved that much until the 2000 album with only Tommy, former singer of Asocial in the 80's, replacing Henrik on vocals in 1994. The change of direction was progressive but manifest and one could say that, by the time Uncurbed entered the studio in early 1999, the band was at its best and they had turned their brand of rocking Scandinavian crust into an unstoppable beast, indeed into wolverines obnoxiously riding a moose.

 

We all have a mate like Uncurbed, someone that you are not that intimate with but that you are always pleased to see, a friend who is just the best to party hard with. Uncurbed is like getting stupidly and happily wankered, it is not something you are going to reflect on afterwards, something deep and life-changing but it is still a brilliant time that brings smiles to your ugly face. On ...Keeps the Banner High Uncurbed sounded like a rock'n'roll machine delivering blows after blows of hard-drinking Swedish crust punk anthems with two wild punk vocalists and two guitar players, allowing for additional heaviness and many cheesy guitar shredding that work well in that context and give the songs that high energy, over-the-top vibe. I had forgotten how guitar-driven Uncurbed sounded like, it is basically riffs after riffs after riffs often nodding in all the right places. The pace is mostly of the fast and pummeling käng variety but it must be pointed that you are also offered mid-paced dirty Motörhead numbers for some variety, although I personally think the record loses a bit of momentum because the band slows down too often (but then I'm hardly the "rocker" type). With a production by Mieszko (yet again) the result is punishing and emphatic to say the least. The dual vocal style of course points to the Extreme Noise Terror tradition and the eurocrust wave it spawned but the Swedish foundations of Uncurbed's music are strong and classics like 90's Anti-Cimex, No Security, Driller Killer or Disfear do come to mind although the Motörhead influence is far more present and Uncurbed rock harder, perhaps excessively so at times. To be fair, I think Uncurbed sound best when they are at their most aggressive, when they use those Totalitär riffs and intense crust singing styles in Swedish to emphasize the raging hardcore aggression and the heavy rock'n'roll influence can be said to be a little overbearing by the end of this 40-minute long album. I think, overall, that in retrospect the slightly rawer, more direct and shorter 30-minute long Peacelovepunklife may be slightly superior although I should also point out that, in 2020, we are no longer used to 40-minute long käng albums. Besides, if Uncurbed already used that Motörhead vibe in the late 90's, twenty years have passed and all the post-Inepsy, "metal punk death squad" and post-Misanthropic Generation bands pretty much spoiled and wore down the genre so that I am now almost allergic to any "Motörhead punk".

 

I really like the booklet coming with the cd with its deliciously punky DIY cut'n'paste aesthetics, with handwritten lyrics, blurry pictures, gig handouts, crushed beer cans and dodgy ashtrays. It looks like a humble, homemade record coming from the heart, almost like a family thing, and it is no coincidence that the band often referred to themselves as "The Uncurbed Family", although their family reunion must have suspiciously looked like massive punk parties. The lyrics are of a political nature, in the protest punk tradition, but you also have more rock-oriented words that you can sing along to while spilling your beer on your friendly neighbour's boots. This album does exactly what it says on the cover, keeping the punk banner high and providing you with the perfect soundtrack to party and get pissed to with friends and family.          

 

Riding on the highlife indeed!

Keeps the banner high!

 *about the title of the series "Wesh to Sweden": "wesh" is a slang word commonly used in France by the urban youth. It is derived from the Arabic language and can mean a variety of things like "hello", "what's up", "how are you?", "what!", "fuck" and the list goes on and on. Sorry if the meaning gets a bit lost in translation.