This Ep is so quintessentially from the noughties that playing it again after some time was a bit like time traveling to a different era altogether when the internet was not completely taken for granted yet and still felt new. At the time being on Myspace was an issue in the scene which shows how far we've gone. This Ep made me realize how much I am, too, from the 00's and how I grew, as a punk and a vaguely promising young man, throughout this decade. In 2000, streetpunk seemed to me like the ultimate way of life, a happy land where you could be happy just by drinking beer "with the boyz", walking a lot on the streets, wearing too many studs and giving the fingers to "the system" and by 2009 I had formed a semiological critique of neocrust and its use of Nature as a personification of purity and of a paradise soon-to-be-lost to man-made industrialism, very much like 19th century romantics used to do (yes I was already a sad bastard) and I was patronizing enough to look down on people who had no knowledge of Philippine punk too. An exhilarating bildungsroman and a potentially ace biopic indeed. I should talk to my mate Thimotée Chalamet about it, he'd make a smashing me.
I was certainly not late to the party as far as Against Empire and Holokaust were concerned. What I especially liked about those two bands was that, not only were they both relatively new by the time I heard about them, but they were also the members' first bands as far as I knew (let's be kind and not count the Rage Against the Machine cover bands that they probably did in high school). New, fresh and clearly for my generation. I was enthusiastic and had no idea that 20 years later I would be sitting in front of a computer screen reflecting upon the subjective and objective significance of the record. Actually, at the time I had no idea that there would even be a "20 years later" with me in it. I see both AE and Holokaust as being particularly representative of Bush-era anarcho and crust punk, although the latter kept going in the 2010's and are still more or less active as I have seen recent gig poster promoting them. It's true that the rule of Bush Jr covered almost all the decade so that it is tempting to associate 00's bands as Bush-era bands but whenever I hear a 00's political punk bands from the States, the very production reminds me of the president.
How many bands had radical and highly detailed anti Bush lyrics at that time? It seemed like all the bands had a song directly against the Bush administration, the Patriot Act or the war in Iraq. That thick as shit man was seen as a danger for humanity and to be honest a lot of what is still tragically going in the Middle East are consequences of the man's work. He was the Reagan to our 00's, he outreaganed Reagan, even as a Frenchman I felt like it was my duty to hate the idiot and wish for his beheading, and no one thought that the US would ever get a worse a president. Time proved that punks were not exactly the most clairvoyant bunch, sadly. Paradoxically I cannot really think of an anti-Trump punk song, I am sure there are some but he is clearly not as inspiring in spite of being even more hatable. Let's not depair, I am sure he is going to start new cool American wars by 2025 that will give us the opportunity to write antiwar anthems again. But then, to be quite honest, maybe it's not such a bad thing that there are not too many anti-Trump songs. The bastard is already everywhere (even outside the US of A) so I can understand why US bands would choose to keep his name out of our music.
I liked AE a lot at the time. I loved the name, I loved the imagery, I loved the lyrics and I kinda wished I had a band like that if you know what I mean. I first heard them through their The One Who Strikes the Blow Forgets... The One Who Bears the Scar Remembers album from 2005 but I got hold of this split Ep shortly afterwards. I definitely played the Lp a lot when it came out so that I still know all the songs. They have not all aged well and some parts do sound quite dated (or typical of the era if you want to put it nicely) but I don't really mind since, after all, to sound dated is to sound like your time, like you were part of your time and some dated things are very enjoyable. I loved their brand of passionate anarcho metal-crust, they did not belong to the stenchcore revival but still appealed to that crowd and their more melodic, melancholy riffing made them listenable to the then booming neocrust population. I remember people saying that the Lp was overproduced (a criticism usually coming from people used to 90's production or people who collect Japanese records) but compared to a lot of contemporary bands, it is actually a rather direct record and this Ep, the band's first vinyl appearance, is even rawer but just as angry.
It is a pretty straight-forward affair illustrating what AE were good at: a balanced mix of US-styled anarchopunk and crustcore. At first, the opening song "Empire against environment" sounds like it would be very much at ease with 90's anarchopunk bands like Aus-Rotten and Deprived with its fast-paced angry vocal flow and a blatant Antisect-loving riff but then the band uses a full-on neocrust emotional riff on the chorus which I had completely forgotten (although there were some indeed on the album). I don't think it works that well and I would have wished for a simpler hardcore riff but then such endeavours were common in 2004. The second number is a traditional US crustcore monster with super gruff cavemen vocals (a little too forced maybe?) that owed a lot to bands like Disrupt (of course) or React and also Swedish classics like 3-Way Cum or Warcollapse. A Very good cavecrust effort with a brilliant scandicrust riff. The following AE record would be the aforementioned Lp blending metallic gruff crust with 90's US anarchopunk and some "epicrust" (or something?). A split Lp with Iskra in 2007 followed that saw the band with a different lineup include black-metal influences which did not really impress me (the whole record did not to be honest) and the year after the rather good Destructive Systems Collapse came out with a more dynamic and direct production and a solid 00's crustcore style (the band must have listened to Consume a lot). At that point I started to loose interest in AE for some reason and did not grab the split Ep with Auktion (I did get to see them on their European tour in late 2009 and they were quite good). By the time the second Lp Thieves and Leeches was out in 2011 I was surprised they were still going and I don't think I listened the Lp in its entirety.
Holokaust, from Moreno Valley close to Riverside, is a three-piece orchestra that I listen to more regularly than AE and some of their records I still rate quite highly. I am going to use the present tense as I think the band is more or less active and does play the odd benefit gig and festival. In retrospect the choice of their moniker feels a little odd. If anything, Holokaust is the modern band that epitomizes what Discharge-influenced peacepunk was all about. As a Southern Californian band, they are the direct heirs of this specific 80's tradition and sound popularized by brilliant bands like Diatribe, Body Count and obviously The Iconoclast. I cannot think of many bands that kept that sound alive (intentionally or not, this is not the point) after the 80's beside the mighty Resist and Exist (especially their late 90's period) and the cruelly underrated Armistice, a band I love that I will be writing about in a more or less distant future, both of which were actually already around when the OC crust scene was kicking in. As a recent incarnation of peacepunk, which is pretty specific, you would have thought that Holokaust would have heard of Holocaust, a band from Los Angeles that was around between 1989 and 1992 (we already talked about them here because of their inclusion on the SI One compilation Ep), was highly influenced by Crucifix or Final Conflict and very much part of the late 80's/early 90's peacepunk and peacecrust wave. Holocaust were by no means a high profile act so it was clearly coincidental but it is strange that they were not told by an elder that "it's already taken boys". But then, maybe they were told indeed and just though "fuck it, we'll just replace the "c" with a "k"".
Like AE, I got into Holokaust since the band's inception with their self-titled Ep from 2002, a record that I instantly got into and still love. It is the perfect blend of UK-styled Discharge-loving hardcore punk like '83 Antisect, Anti-System and early Hellkrusher and of traditional Californian peacepunk like The Iconoclast or Diatribe. Great stuff with a very pure old-school production that sounds very natural and not self-aware. Just good old-school pre d-beat Discharge-loving hardcore. The Ep was released on After The Bomb Records the label run by Adam from Masskontroll and Deathcharge (which makes sense). A split with Dissystema followed in 2003 (with a brilliant cover of Anti-System's "Dying in agony") which was poorly distributed in Europe and that I never grabbed and then our present 2004 split record. The basis are similar here with "Holy wars" starting with a metallic Final Conflict-like introduction before offering a classic Anti-System-style (they do love that band a lot and the vocals are quite alike) and "Genocide factor" and "Famine" being stellar early Discharge-loving hardcore like Varukers, The Iconoclast, Antisect, before d-beat was a structured thing. You know what I mean. The production is raw and powerful and I love how impactful the very pure d-beat drumming is in the mix as it confers a proper old-school feel. Holokaust's style sounds very spontaneous as they go for a classic sound in a way that few can achieve. The band went on to record a full Lp, that was unfortunately not as good, and three split Ep's with Wörhorse (not sure when this one came out actually, it could have been before AE's), Rattus and Armistice (that was an obvious one). A fairly quiet but delicious peacepunk band.
This was released on Threat To Existence which I think was a label run by an Against Empire member.
