Showing posts with label mangel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mangel. Show all posts

Friday, 1 April 2022

Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust: Pollen "Fear of another war" Ep, 2017

"Fuck me, what a mean record, don't you think dearest?" I must have exclaimed, rather innocuously, after playing Pollen's Fear of Another War Ep for the first time. I don't remember getting a proper confirmation from the person I was addressing but then, I don't suppose I was really expecting to as the answer would have been highly redundant in any case, something like "yes indeed, it is a really mean record but then that's what we bought it for darling, you silly goose". We like to keep things as civil and genteel as possible at Terminal Sound Nuisance's headquarters. We are not fucking animals, right? 

I bought the Ep from this Philadelphia lot upon its release in 2017 as the internet was telling me there was a new scandi-noizecrust band to be reckoned with in town called Pollen (for some reason). To be fair, since the end of the 00's, the arcane art of noizy hardcore punk and crust - a cultural practice once confined to Japan where it had been previously refined for two decades - like a good wine but stored in crust pants instead of a wooden barrel - had spread liberally in many corners of the world. The Japanese scene has produced bands blasting Bristol-by-way-of-Kyuchu-styled distorted hardcore majoring either in relentless cavemen crust or in orthodox dis-mangel for a long time. It can be said to be a timeless tradition now, something impervious to outside trends, like a local punk atavism. French punks do manly oi with constipated-sounding singers, Japanese punks do noizy hardcore. It comes naturally. I guess I was basically not born in the right country as I have been running from boots and braces, sometimes quite literally and not just aesthetically, pretty much forever. So let's briefly keep 00's Japanese crasher dis-noize bands (or any assemblage of relevant adjectives) out of the picture for now and focus on the contagion. 


The "noise not music" artistic mindset rapidly developed along with the spread of blogs in the late 00's, and a couple of years later, everyone and their mums had their own Japanese-styled d-beat/crust bands while, in parallel with what could be called a global trend of crasher dis noize music, excellent contemporary bands from Japan itself at that time like D-Clone, Contrast Attitude, Framtid or Zyanose became quite well-known and fed further this global trend, even outside of the usual pompously knowledgeable circles, thanks to the nascent music streaming explosion, online pictures (punk is #) and some intense international touring. 


In Pollen's case, the intent is unambiguous as they take the Japanese crusters' 90's and 00's savagely intense reworking of vintage raw brutal käng and mangel and infuse it with an emphatically blown-out sound heavily rooted in the crasher tradition. On a metatextual level, you could say that Pollen don't just love cavemen mangel, they also, and maybe primarily so, love how Japanese punks love cavemen mangel, that is to say through added distortion and absolute frenzy. If you need an example, they basically love Framtid as much as they love how Framtid love. Know what I mean? When the phrase "blown-out cave-mangel" is casually whispered during a reception given by a respected crust delegation, you would not be wrong to think of top Swedish bands like Giftgasattack (who can be said to the pioneers of distorted käng in Europe), Electric Funeral or Paranoid, but as mentioned Pollen are certainly more influenced by demented Japanese acts like Frigöra or Ferocious X that took the classic Stockholm hardcore sound of Mob 47, Crudity, Protes Bengt or Discard and drenched it in distortion and more madness. One of Pollen's other main inspirations is Framtid and their furious and unstoppable reinterpretation of 80's cave-käng heroes Bombanfall, Crude SS and Svart Parad, a mixture which is given the blown-out distorted treatment. Pollen can be located in the middle of all this hardcore fury. 


If many bands are just content with working on their earsplitting wall of dis-noize and forget to actually write catchy harcore songs, Pollen do not and the Ep is well-written and catchy in its own right and certainly one of the best of the genres in modern times. The riffs are solid, absolutely relentless and there are enough tempo changes and hooks to keep the listener interested. Given the template the production is great and you can hear every instruments without having to focus for the whole song and I love the gruff and direct vocals. As for the name, well I am undecided. Let's just say that Pollen apparently once shared the stage with Allergy. With Flowers also on the bill that would have made for a legendary gig. 

Fear of Another War was the band's second Ep after an eponymous Ep that was similarly-inspired but perhaps not as heavy production-wise. Both records were released on Boston's Brain Solvent Propaganda, a strong label that is no stranger to punishing and noizy dis-core with releases from Aspects of War, Life Lock, Paranoid and unsurprisingly Framtid and Ferocious X. The band dissolved sometime after 2017, unfortunate as I would have been curious to see how Pollen fared on a full album, but members kept busy with many other worthy punk projects like Mortal War, Neverending Mind War or Arseholes, some of which will be tackled at some point on Terminal Sound Nuisance. There was something in the water - or more likely the beer - in Philadelphia in the late 2010's.      



POLLEN MANGEL

Friday, 1 January 2021

Käng of the North! A Swedish Odyssey (1992-1999)

Don't act so surprised, you could have seen this one coming from miles away. It was high time I dealt properly with the Swedish fury that came out of the 1990's and as a result, thanks to the utmost seriousness and humility that characterize me, I proved to be, as per usual, amazingly successful. But let's get to the customarily lengthy introduction first. 

 



It is true that I have already touched upon the 90's wave of Dis-inspired hardcore punk that swept across Sweden in the two classic series about D-beat and Discharge love, namely The Chronicles of Dis and Sonatas in D Major, and with the glorious compilation The Beat to End All Beats. Besides, Sweden's crustcore heroes like Warcollapse or 3-Way Cum have already been reviewed at length on Terminal Sound Nuisance and even invited to the famous Christmas celebration A Crustmas Carol. So what I mean to say is that there is little point in rephrasing what has been thoroughly developed before. However, the scope of Käng of the North (I mean, lol, right?) is quite different. Indeed, it aims at covering all the different branches of Dis-centric punk schools that bloomed vigorously in Sweden while the previous series about the specific conception and evolution of d-beat and crust had an international focus, although Swedish bands obviously played an important part in both. Therefore, the inclusion of Meanwhile or Warcollapse on Käng of the North has to be seen from the synchronic perspective of the national explosion of käng-inspired hardcore and crust music in the 90's. 

Even a well-meaning and open-minded individual untrained to the subtleties of the D-related subgenres would probably feel a little lost with this cryptic compilation and think that he or she has just been cruelly subjected to 75 minutes of the exact same song in a row played by 58 bands and, well, it cannot be denied that Käng of the North can turn into a rather confusing experience, albeit a potentially very pleasing, if not epiphanic, one. The primary purpose of the selection is not, however, to demonstrate that 90's Swedish discore was redundant and generic, although to an extent it was deliberately repetitive indeed, but to illustrate the subtleties and the very significant variations in terms of sound, pace, musicianship, vocal tones (and of course the degree of Discharge love) there were between the different subgenres. Käng of the North is as much about similarities as it is about differences and both can be very enjoyable. After all, isn't the devil in the d-tails? 

The whole range of Swedish brutality is represented in Käng of the North, from the contemporary gruff 90's eurocrust style of Holocrust or Genocide SS, to the raw mangel mania of Krigshot or Dismachine, the "just like Discharge" style of Meanwhile or Discard, the raw retro punky käng style of Diskonto or Aparat, the massive and nasty rocking sound of Driller Killer or Wolfpack, the shitlicking chaos of Discontrol or Fucking Chaos (!), the rather clean and precise sound hardcore sound of Svart Snö or Sunday Morning Einsteins, the death-metallic vibe of Skitsystem, the pub-friendly cruising d-beat of Fleshrevels and Avskum, the anarchocrust vibe of Scumbrigade and ENS or the unbeatable riff-driven raw and raspy catchiness of scandicore's references Totalitär and No Security. 80's Swedish hardcore and its historic Discharge roots are, in varying degrees, the cultural and creative ties between all these bands and you will notice that, while some bands went for very clean and heavy "modern" production, others were quite content to keep a rough and ready sound, both takes of course making for distinct styles of hardcore but also conveying different intents and subjective tastes, although the bands could be equally influenced by Anti-Cimex, Doom or Svart Parad. 

Undeniably, Sweden was a unique case in the DIY international punk scene in the 90's - and it still is even if many scenes have copied the käng style outside Sweden from the 90's on - and its number of Dis-oriented bands is particularly impressive (in fact, from a French point of view, it even looks insultingly superior). There could be many reasons for the development of this trend: the country's own specific hardcore background with its unlimited passion for Discharge, Mob 47 and Anti-Cimex combined with a couple of genuinely excellent and recognized driving local bands; the worldwide crust and extreme metal explosion in the early 90's; a strong rock culture nationwide; an easy access to practice space and instrument and nothing better to do in the winter. Or perhaps there was something in the water or, even more plausible, after misunderstanding the lyrics of Discharge, some benevolent punk pilots just dropped hundreds of copies of Why and Hear Nothing - literally dis, dis from abooooove - on Sweden's major cities.    

We either live in strange times or punk's intellectual laziness is just more visible today. Whereas the overwhelming quantity of music instantly available is staggering, in parallel, most critical receptions of old and new punk works have been paradoxically reduced to monosyllabic comments on social media or youtube (when it's not just casually "liked") while internet's vicious equalizing process has caused the decontextualization of punk music. As a result, very different-sounding Dis bands are often being dumped in vague, ill-defined "crust" or "d-beat" categories, that are meant to stand for any band that plays faster and harder than Black Flag or GBH. Hopefully, the compilation will emphasize the sometimes subtle, but nonetheless real, crucial differences that define and distinguish Dispense from Dissober. As I pointed out, all the bands are essentially Dis-centric entities building on 80's käng in order to revive, rework, develop, replicate, toughen up, crustify or dischargify the legacy and I left out the US-influenced Swedish bands, the slower crust units, as well as the melodic hardcore, the 90's anarchopunk and the grindcore acts. I tried to be as exhaustive as possible but some 90's Swedish bands fitting in with my analytical postulate of research may very well have escaped my accurate panoptic vision, so feel free to add any band that I unluckily missed in the comment section. Or better even, send me the lossless files with the full bio will you?

I would like to thank Zeno for the rips he sent me a while back and proved to be very helpful in the making of Käng of the North. Thanks mate.

Here are the culprits that are bound to lighten up your New Year's Eve lockdown party, all tracks were recorded between 1992 and 1999 and I did my best to offer quality rips as usual:

01. Asocial « Rebound reality » from Distortion to Hell compilation cd, 1994
02. Meanwhile « Above our heads » from Remaining Right: Silence cd, 1995
03. Cumbrage « Forced to destroy » from Worlds Burning cd, 1997
04. Svårsmält « Apatiskt liv » from Distortion to Hell…And Back Vol.3 compilation cd, 1995
05. Time Square Preachers « Ain’t smiling » from Don’t Be Numb!!! Ep, 1994
06. Abuse « Var verklighet » from I Guds Namn? Ep, 1996
07. Greenscab « Människan É Sjuk » from Swedish HC Comp. cd, 1997
08. Sauna « Money » from People Killing People split Lp with Disrupt, 1994
09. Dissober « America did this » from Sober Life… No Way cd, 1994
10. Discard « Stand up and fight back » from Four Minutes Past Midnight Lp, 1994
11. Driller Killer « Who? » from Brutalize cd, 1994
12. Visions « Middle East » from Swedish HC Comp. cd, 1997
13. Aparat « Samhällets Bottensats » from S/t split Ep with Totuus, 1997
14. Dismachine « Morotsprofeten » from S/t split Ep with Cumbrage, 1995
15. Sunday Morning Einsteins « Sånger som den här » from Swedish Hardcore Must Die Lp, 1999
16. Atomvinter « Kravall » from S/t 10’’ with Start Snö, 1996
17. Victims « My revolution » from S/t split Ep with Acursed, 1999
18. Slaganfall « Words to regard » from S/t split 10’’ with Scumbrigade, 1998
19. Mörder « Lås Din Dorr » from Really Fast Volume 10 compilation 2xcd, 1999
20. Genocide SS « A new wave of hatred » from Hail the New Storm cd, 1997
21. Totalitär » Nytta, nytta, nytta » from S/t split Lp with Dismachine, 1995
22. Diskonto « Truismer » from Silenced by Oppression Ep, 1996
23. Disfear « Min elegi » from S/t Ep, 1992
24. Tolshock « Moraliskt horeri » from The Heritage of Violence Ep, 1999
25. 3-Way Cum « Poisoned by your greed » from Battle of Opinions Ep, 1993
26. Holocrust « Holocrust » from Arrogant State unreleased Ep, 1995
27. Dishonest « Mania for drugs » from Swedish HC Comp. compilation cd, 1997
28. ENS « Sexist scum » from Swedish HC Comp. compilation cd, 1997
29. Society Gang Rape « Regardless massacre » from S/t split Ep with Uncurbed, 1996
30. Scumbrigade « Being in a band is no excuse for being an asshole » from Really Fast Volume 10 compilation 2xcd, 1999
31. No Security « Med vilken rätt » from S/T split Ep with Crocodileskink, 1995
32. Dispense « When will it stop » from Nothing But the Truth Ep, 1993
33. Uncurbed « System sting » from Peacelovepunklife…Andotherstories Lp, 1998
34. Acursed « Liberate » from A Fascist State…In Disguise cd, 1998
35. Disregard « Chaos » from Distortion to Hell…And Back compilation cd, 1995
36. Avskum « Karma cruz » from From Vision to Nightmare Ep, 1998
37. Masslakt « Snut as » from S/t Ep, 1997
38. Fucking Chaos « Krossade… skallar » from Really Fast Volume 10 compilation 2xcd, 1999
39. Discontrol « Mental overload » from Neanderthal Crust: the Primitive Way split Ep with Demisor, 1999
40. Unarmed « Feeding the death » from S/t split Ep with How Long?, 1997
41. Wolfpack « No neo bastards » from Allday Hell Lp, 1999
42. Hall Keft « Den ömsesinnigt garanterade förintelsen » from Iron Columns compilation 2xLp, 1999
43. Dischange « Image of welfare » from Seeing Feeling Bleeding cd, 1993
44. No Admission « Depraved »  from Distortion to Hell Again!! Vol.2 (the Demo Series) compilation cd, 1995
45. Snifter « Shades of your god » from Distortion to Hell Again!! Vol.2 (the Demo Series) compilation cd, 1995
46. Final Holocaust « Male oppression » from Your Own Holocaust Ep, 1997
47. Krigshot « Krigshot (Mob 47 cover) » from Iron Columns compilation 2xLp,1999
48. Kontrovers « Den sanna lyckan » from Skendedemokrati Ep, 1999
49. Bombraid « Life path » from Elegies from a Closed Chapter Ep, 1994
50. Skitsystem « Dödsmaskin » from Ondskans Ansikte 10’’, 1996
51. The Perukers « Spräckta snutskallar / Cracked copskulls (Shitlickers cover) » from GBG 1992 Ep, 1993
52. Harass « Religion spiller blod » from Swedish HC Comp. compilation cd, 1997
53. Disfornicate « Doomsday art » from …And the Darkman Smiles split Ep with Disregard, 1995
54. Zionide « Starved and disfigured » from Newsflash cd, 1995
55. Warcollapse « Bleakness over battlefields » from Indoctri-Nation Ep, 1993
56. Svart Snö « Ett väl utvecklat vansinne » from S/t split 10’’ with Atomvinter, 1996
57. Fleshrevels « I prefer lager » from Stoned and Out cd, 1995
58. Anti-Cimex « Scandinavian jawbreaker part I » from Scandinavian Jawbreaker Lp 1993 

 

Käng of the North   

                    

Wednesday, 23 December 2020

Wesh to Sweden, the Formative Years (part 7): "Stockholm Hardcore 1983-1986" compilation tape (2004?)

Not so long ago (or at least it seems that way but perhaps I’m heading toward the mid-life crisis faster than was previously thought), tapes were going virtually extinct in the Western punk scene. In fact, I really struggle to remember even buying a demo tape from a Western hardcore punk band (to be understood in terms of living and technological conditions rather than strictly geographically) in the early and mid noughties. Cdr’s - nowadays universally considered as the most uncool format ever for its rather bland and cold aspect - had replaced the tape format in terms of convenience (you could easily burn your own cd’s), low prices (cdr’s were cheaper) and availability (everyone had cd players in those days). My generation saw the decline of tapes in the early 90’s, followed by the unstoppable rise of the cd format, the arrival of a seemingly invincible new challenger in the guise of the mp3, the rapid decline of the cd format, the rebirth of the tape format now declared a deliciously vintage and exclusive - not to mention Insta-compatible - artifact and, eventually, the undisputed victory of online streaming platforms and the downfall of the mp3. And I am not even mentioning the vinyl format here because it had already lost much of its cultural and commercial relevance when I started to listen to music in the 90’s. Of course, punks have always bought vinyls and will keep doing so religiously, forever and ever, until the end of times because, when punk-rock was born, the vinyl format ruled the music industry and since, as a consequence, all the 70’s and 80’s classics were originally released on vinyl, our punk brains have so closely linked the content to the container that to keep releasing and buying vinyls 30 years after the format is a ritualistic way to connect ourselves to our roots and to our tribe, the distro table taking on an almost altar-like function where punk are given Holy Communion. To buy a record from a DIY punk distro is much more than just acquiring new music, it is also engaging culturally and symbolically in a historical subculture and taking part in one if its rituals, an act often summarized as "supporting the scene".  

But I digress as usual. While we still used tapes in the early noughties to make compilations for mates, tape radio shows and records we borrowed from each other or, of course, record our weekly afternoon drinking sessions that we also called "band practices" at the time (though I am really not sure it deserved to be referred to as such), we never considered releasing a demo tape and thought highly of the cd format which granted you more autonomy and could allow for a totally DIY project, though you did have to find someone with a computer that could burn cd's at decent rate. We did buy music tapes though, on a rather regular basis, from the Polish or Czech distro and labels like NNNW, Malarie or Trujaca Fala not only released many tapes of Eastern punk bands but also offered tape versions of Western bands for really cheap. Back then, many Polish punks did not own CD players and tapes were therefore still socially relevant and affordable for the unwashed masses. The format basically still made some sense at the time, even for us since, after all, we had grown up listening to tapes and still used them, only we did not think highly of a format that did not age well and knew it was bound to disappear. Tapes certainly did not have that hip, exclusive, vintage aura of nostalgia chic that it often has nowadays, completely disconnected from its very real convenience, its many uses and the crucial role it played in the development of punk in the 80's. I do buy tapes nowadays - because bands I love release tapes - and I am well aware of the technological obsolescence and the cultural snobbishness inherent in the format in 2020. The modern punk tape is twofold: it symbolizes something I actually love about us punx, that we have strong and meaningful cultural practices and rather subtle aesthetical traditions that we romantically and passionately keep alive (the act of buying demo tape makes you part of the tribe, even though you are going to stream the thing anyway), but the tape is also something that is more problematic and can be our downfall, that lies in our intentional exclusiveness and growing nostalgic obsession with a reconstructed "golden era", whether it translates into the music (the endless mimicking of the 80's) or the format (just show a tape to a modern teen). This might seem unrelated to the topic at hand but it is not as the social and cultural perception of the container also affects the way we engage with the content that homemade. What this endless rants is getting at is that this cheap-looking Stockholm Hardcore 1983-1986 tape, adorned with a xeroxed cover, that will conclude the introspective Wesh to Sweden series cannot be said to have a highly fashionable item of the winter 2004, when it was presumably bootlegged.

It might sound weird but I actually got this tape at an emocore show in 2004 (or was it 2005?). As you can imagine, I never cared much for the genre and, to this day, I would be at a loss to name any proper emo classics although the few bands I knew were actually alright. This did not mean I went to many emo shows but, as I remember it, my mates and I had nothing better to do on that particular Saturday night and it just so happened that it was the only "punk gig" taking place and we thought we would "hang out". At that time, we were really not that picky about the gigs' lineup or the genres the bands were adopting, we just went to "the punk gig", be it savage and sloppy crust punk, nasty goregrind, embarrassing French punk-rock, fucking folk punk or, in this case, bloody emocore. We would usually get a bit pissed on the outside (well, more than just a bit actually) and then get in to watch the bands, out of curiosity and to show our support to "the scene" because we did have some ethical principles. On this night, the long-running French record label and distro Emergence had set a table and was selling your usual hardcore cd's and vinyls as well as a couple of punk tapes, among which one immediately caught my eye: Stockholm Hardcore 1983-1986.

As I mentioned in the first part of my highly fascinating autobiographical series Wesh to Sweden (rumoured to be soon adapted by Netflix but don't hold your breath), I first heard Mob 47 on the radio through a Paris-based radio show called Ça Rend Sourd that was broadcast every other sunday night and, in spite of it being the day of the Lord, played a lot of Scandinavian hardcore, grindcore and things of the D which, one surmises, can be considered as one of punk's dominical sacraments. A friend of mine with a computer in his room and a decent internet connection allowing for some soulseek frenzy then burnt a cdr, on my request, with plenty of random recordings of the band. I absolutely cherished that cdr. Mob 47 was probably the most energetic band I knew, they sounded so relentless and furious but also very snotty and punky. I could really picture a bunch of spotty teenagers getting pissed and playing as fast and hard as possible all afternoon. The very punky vibe that pervaded their raw hardcore songs reminded me of a sped up version of the Varukers' early recordings, a band that I was genuinely fond of. Although I did not own any official record of Mob 47 then - the Ultimate Attack discography was probably not out yet and neither was the reissue of the Ep - I had managed to find a tape that had their 1985 demo on one side and Asocial's 1982 demo on the other (kind of an odd one I now realize) the year before but spotting a vintage compilation with not only Mob 47 but also five other Stockholm bands I had never heard of felt like a sign from above, one not to be discarded (get it?). At that time I did not know that many scandicore bands from the 80's but, thanks to the very referential 90's Swedish wave, I had a rather precise idea of its characteristics. I knew of Anti-Cimex of course (my mate had compiled a very disorganized cdr with songs from all their periods as well as some Shitlickers numbers, for some reason, which was terribly confusing for me), Avskum (I had bought the bootleg Ep of Crucified by the System), No Security (the When the Gist is Sucked from the Fruit of Welfare bootleg discography was mine thanks to an earlier trip to the 1in12 Club in Bradford) and Disarm (read their name in a fanzine, got some mp3's through that aforementioned benevolent friends and adored the raucous but tuneful singing style over the raw hardcore music and still do). Along with Asocial through the aforementioned unofficial split tape, that must have been pretty much it, give or take one Svart Snö. Therefore the perspective to discover five new bands for a mere three euros felt like an unmissable opportunity, one that I took fearlessly with the proverbial heart full of pride. 

Was the name of the band "Discard" or "Discaro"? The doubt remained when we first listened to the tape collectively and passed around the minimal xeroxed cover but, as the self-appointed leader of the Shakespearean language, I pointed out that "Discard" actually meant something while "Discaro", to anybody's linguistic knowledge, did not. Needless to say that I played this tape to death and, to this day, it still easily ranked as one of my favourite hardcore punk compilation. I learnt years later that my Stockholm Hardcore 1983-1986 tape was a bootleg of 2000's Stockholms Mangel compilation Lp (released on the highly transparent label Swedish Punk Classics), a reissue of the original 1986 compilation tape Stockholms Mangel (fun fact: it is nowadays worth twice the medium monthly wage in Moldova). The 1986 tape only included Mob 47, Crudity and Agoni so that Protes Bengt, Discard and Röjers - as well as five Mob 47 songs - did not initially appear on the tape. To be honest, had some knowledgeable punk told me those nerd-oriented details when I acquired the object, I most certainly would not have given an actual fuck, but the compiling and recompiling history of Stockholms Mangel is rather interesting and might get handy on trivia nights. Another urgent reason why I bought the tape also lied in the presence of the band Agoni. At that time, we were seriously thinking of starting a crust punk band and has settled for the name Agonie (the French for "agony" obviously). We were therefore a bit upset that a band had already picked the moniker, even twenty years before, and worried that old-timers would mercilessly scoff at our choice. Those fears related to punk terminology proved to be unwarranted as, not only were Agoni a very obscure Swedish hardcore band, but we were also never good enough to be worthy of being scoffed at anyway.     

I have always loved the manic energy and the youthful anger that pervade Mob 47's music and, obviously, the sheer speed of the songs, so fast that the songs constantly sound like they are on the brink of derailing. As an accelerated hardcore version of the traditional Discharge beat, some people have been calling the Mob 47 pace "C-beat", which is both ridiculous and awesome (but then, so is punk I guess). The seven songs originally included on the Stockholms Mangel tape from 1986 were recorded in January, 1985, with Ake on vocals but the five additional songs come from different recording sessions: "Racist regime" was done in June, 1985, "Stop the slaughter" in February, 1985, "Arms race" in April, 1985, all with Robban on vocals, while "Couch slouch" and "Nedrusta nu" were recorded in September, 1987 with Tommy behind the mike during the band's practice before the band's last 80's gig (in case you did not know, no less than five singers - including guitarist Ake - tried their luck in Mob 47). All the songs were recorded in the "bowling studio" (Ake's parents owned a bowling alley) and therefore have the same specific tone, raw, rough even, but warm and frenzied. What more can I say about this wonderful band that has already been well documented? They epitomized the typically Swedish "mangel sound", that brand of furiously fast, raw, short, Dis-oriented hardcore songs, and were therefore quite particular and identifiable, but, at the same time, as their covers of BGK, Varukers and DRI attested, they were completely rooted in and indicative of the collective worldwide hardcore explosion of the 80's. Both unique and representative. And I had forgotten how brilliantly catchy and powerful those guitar riffs sounded like and how much of an influence on crust punk they have been (just listen to State of Fear and Consume if you need a blatant example). An exceptional band for ordinary punks, one that can appeal to fans of Gang Green, Disorder, Minor Threat, Ratos de Porao or Discharge alike. This band smokes. Love it.
 
The insanely energetic Mob 47 are always going to be a tough act to follow and, to be fair, when I got the tape, I did not think much of Agoni who, though not bad at all, inevitably struck me as a little bland and, well, even slow when compared to the other bands. Throughout the years though, I have taken to really enjoy the gruff hardcore power of Agoni, reminiscent of fellow Swedes Svart Parad, early Avskum, Bombanfall or, of course, Anti-Cimex. Seven rough songs in about eight minutes of raw and pummeling käng with cavemen vocals and aggressive rousing chorus that were originally released as a demo tape in 1985. Classic but aptly executed with that typical Scandinavian crunch. Following those early songs, the band got bitten by long-haired drunks wearing sleeveless denim jacket in a dodgy rock bar on the outskirts of Stockholm and subsequently changed their name to Agony and started playing thrash metal, a turn that, out of common decency, I shall not comment upon. As is often the case in punk-rock, the Stockholm hardcore scene was quite incestuous and one could not be a proper scene member unless he or she played in at least three different Discharge-loving bands (a very sensible rule indeed). Agoni's singer Per also growled in the magnificent Discard (and apparently wrote many lyrics for Mob 47) while Peter joined Svart Snö later on. For some strange reasons, the Agoni demo was never reissued but I am sure it will eventually get the treatment.     

Following up are the fantastic Crudity, a band with a rather unfortunate name from the perspective of a Frenchman fond of silly puns (believe me, that's somewhat pleonastic as I have yet to meet a French person who is not desperate to crack a joke after learning that there is a band called "Crudity"). If you are the kind of punk who cannot ever grow tired of Mob 47, listening to Crudity could be an ideally healthy sonic complement and will have you fantasize the magic excavation of a yet unknown Mob 47 session. Fast, catchy and raw, riff-driven mangel-style hardcore punk with top notch angry singalongs and raspy vocals courtesy of Tommy, who later joined Mob 47. Crudity was also the first band of Mart Hällgren (referred to as a punk legend on the internet) who went on to play in De Lyckliga Kompisarna, Ubba and Greven & James, in other terms bands I have absolutely never heard about... To get back to the heavenly rawness at stake, Crudity were to the point and, perhaps, a little heavier - or just a tad more Cimexian - than their closest neighbours. Twelve short songs of mean hardcore fury recorded in 1985 by Ake in the infamous bowling alley that will have you pogo like you're 16 again (I'd recommend warming up a little before though, one is never too cautious) which, when you think about it, is rather paradoxical since Crudity only ever played one gig in 1984. So maybe don't think too hard about it.
 
Next are the brutal Protes Bengt, the first of the three bands that were not originally included on the compilation tape, but do appear on 2000's expanded version and on this DIY unofficial tape of mine. Although undeniably more a studio project than an actual band, Protes Bengt are the stuff of legends. A shame they never played a proper gig then, a somewhat unusual characteristic in a genre that is best appreciated live with a suspiciously foamy pint of lager and foul-breathed punters speaking far too close to your face. Formed in 1985 by Ake and Chrille from Mob 47 and Per and Ola who played in Filthy Christians, PB will remain in the grand narrative of punk (a narrative is pretty much like a story but it immediately tells the reader you have a university degree, hence its inclusion here) as that lightning fast, crazy and rough hardcore band that had a 32-song Ep in 1986, In Bengt we Trust. I do not know the exact recording details of the 16 songs included on Stockholm Hardcore, but presuming that they were recorded sometime in 1986 at Ake's bowling studio is a safe bet. The first 12 songs originally appeared on the Bengt E Sängt tape, the following three were taken from the Ep and I am clueless about the last one, "Trippelmoral", that has Ake on vocals. Contrary to Mob 47, Agoni and Crudity, who, on the whole, reveled in just one faster-than-D-beat, PB proved to be even faster. With a more direct and brutal hardcore music, but also adopting a less linear style that was closer to that emerging brand of fast hardcore that used proto blast beats (bands like Siege, Gauze, DRI or Lärm), PB sound quite different from the other bands on the tape. Well, there is still a significant reliance on the traditional Dis-mangel beat but I would argue that the dominating beat here is the proto blast beat and I would not be surprised to learn that PB were a meaningful influence through the mid-80's tape trading movement on many early grindcore and crust bands (especially in the light of Filthy Christians' eventual direction). The vocals are deliciously gruff and caveman-like and, among all the insane speed, there are even a couple of mid-paced crunchy metallic pace to remind you that you are entering the second part of the 80's. The sound is, well, rough like a badger's arse but I wouldn't have it any other way because that's exactly how I want speed-crazed old-school hardcore to sound like. Most of the songs don't even last a minute (some don't even make it to 30 seconds in fact) and many obey the untold but pregnant rule of primitive hardcore "one riff equals one song" and there is nothing wrong with such wise zen-like religious beliefs. PB's music is probably not safe for work but will probably be a blast at your 8 year old nephew's birthday party.
 
Next up are Discard which I have already discussed at length in my Pulitzer price-winning diatribe here so I am not going to bother repeating myself too much. If you missed the previous seasons of Terminal Sound Nuisance, Discard was yet another side-project of Ake and Chrille from Mob 47, this time aided in their quest for noize by Per from Agoni and Rickard (later on in Asocial). Discard was the band Doom wanted to be when they started and you could argue that in terms of conception and philosophy (but not of execution), Discard created the d-beat genre. As Ake willfully admits in an interview from the latest issue of the great Our Future fanzine "DISCARD was meant to be a DISCHARGE rip-off band, the music, lyrics and band logo", however I personally would not qualify them as a genuine d-beat band since their version of the Discharge formula was faster, rougher and more gruff, therefore they did not sound "just like" Discharge like Disaster or the 90's incarnation of Discard did. The D is too serious a subject not to be dealt with subtlety. The Discard songs on Stockholms Mangel/Hardcore were taken from the deliciously raw Sound of War recording session from 1985 and sound like Discharge being covered by a bunch of disgruntled bears on speed. Certainly one of my favourite hardcore recordings from the 80's. The last band on the tape is Röjers, yet another band with guitar hero Ake. The band only ever recorded three songs, one of which is just a 24 second long blasting hardcore filler, so it is rather arduous to make a definitive judgement. The perceptive listener will have little trouble to recognize Ake's potent hardcore riffs - the man basically personifies the dynamism inherent in hardcore punk - and vocals (right?). The songs are still bloody fast scorchers and do not stray too far from the safety of traditional scandicore territory, but you can still hear a soft but distinct Venomous and evil touch in the singing style and the arrangements, not unlike Mob 47 jamming with Onslaught and Criminal Justice in the bowling studio, knowhatimean? I had forgotten how thoroughly enjoyable those Röjers songs sounded like and it is a shame the band, more probably a studio project, did not record more at the time. No recording dates but 1985 or 1986 seem sensible.
 
The sound of the tape is obviously a bit rough. First, because all the original recordings were spontaneous slabs of raw 80's mangel so only a simpleton would feel entitled to expect clean-sounding music; second, because it is a homemade bootleg tape that is the same age as the dodgy teenagers who smoke weed listening to vocodered crap in front of your flat; and third, because I played Stockholm Hardcore a lot and I have fond memories of taking the portable tape player out on hot summer days and getting pissed on the river banks with friends while blasting those classic Swedish hardcore songs and showing the fingers to the tourists on their fly boats. Good times.
 
This is mangel heaven. My sole complaint is very minor but why is it called Stockholm Hardcore 1983-1986 when all the recordings were done between 1985 and 1986? I like Stockholms Mangel better, don't you?                           



Mangel-mongers

 




Sunday, 22 November 2020

Wesh to Sweden, the Formative Years (part 3): Krigshot "Örebro-Mangel" cd, 2002

Particularly rainy days are often thought to symbolise the perfect backdrop for musing and reflection, as if the weather somehow allowed for such existential meditative moments, potentially pregnant with self-revelation, epiphanies and, of course, a melancholy sense of vacuity and helplessness, one that might threaten to devour our vulnerable resolve and lead us down the cruel path of shoegaze. Who knows how many of our comrades in hardcore punk were brutally taken away by shoegaze on rainy days, never to return, betraying the scene, their friends and their own promises of staying true to the roots... Perhaps straight-edge were visionaries after all? On such umbrella-loving days, I personally like to ponder over punk albums that deeply affected me in my teenage years and my early 20's, an intense time as much ruled by juvenile idealism and unlimited passion as it is by insecurity, narrow-mindedness and naiveness. Among the records I used to love unreservedly at the time, there are those that I no longer can seriously listen to - either because they are objectively not that good or because they are too anchored in a strictly defined era that is no longer to my liking (yes, I am looking at you neocrust) - and those that still have a similar effect although my context and experience have changed. It is a strange feeling, a sentiment that can as easily be applied to novels or movies and I think it operates on several levels. 

First, when playing again and enjoying a record you used to adore, you also tend to appreciate and rely on the memories of adoration and enjoyment, without which you would not engage in the record in the same fashion, so that it is difficult to be objective (do you love the record or do you love the memory of love?). This nostalgic element can get entangled with the second level, that is based on your acquired, and always evolving, knowledge of the particular field and aesthetics adopted by the record. Your punk culture has vastly improved during the past twenty years (or, at least, it should have), not just in the quantity of bands you happen to be familiar with but also in terms of the creative processes inherent in hardcore punk music, in how trends and waves come and go, how intertextuality and referentiality work in punk, how the context define and illuminate the text, how the medium influences how we listen to and engage with punk music and what bands we chose to listen to and so on. With real knowledge of punk, some did argue, comes the end of the age of innocence and the metaphorical loss of paradise: the inimitable excitement that your excited and uneducated teenage self felt upon discovering on a very primal basis a solid punk record. It is an experience that one cannot replicate indefinitely as it can only last for a couple of years, as long as the magics still work, and d-beat (or whatever punk subgenres) still sounds fresh, new and personal. With the realization that most bands sound the same on purpose, the feeling of novelty, spontaneity and enthusiasm can wear down and an awareness of the aesthetics, context and creative processes at stake can cast a revived light on your subgenre punk record, one that is not incompatible with the primitive enjoyment of its crushing power, but rather, illuminates and completes it. That way I can still unashamedly listen to The Casualties' For the Punx and like it on a nostalgic teenage level and on a fancy pseudo-intellectual as well ("Did you catch the Skeptix reference on "Drunk on the streets"?"). It's a win-win. 


 

All this to say that Krigshot's Örebro-Mangel massively kicked my arse when I first played the cd in 2003 and that it still does today, in so brutal a fashion in fact that it almost feels tricky to take a step back and look at this hardcore tornado with the materialist eye of reason. Like for my Prank Records order, I had picked some records from Sound Pollution because, judging from the website, the label had an international focus and it was well distributed, therefore, easy for a promising youth like meself to find. Also, the short descriptions accompanying the label's releases all sounded like honest promises of intense sessions of hardcore trash bollocking and I just felt I was ready for it. I mean, I had been to many grindcore gigs in Paris before and, although I mostly spent the gig getting pissed outside and chatting about Conflict, I still thought that I had what it took to genuinely enjoy a full album of Hellnation and I was wrong of course. I remember the description indicated that the Örebro-based Krigshot had members playing in grindcore bands but sounded like a more intense version of Mob 47, which I loved. Since I first heard them on the radio thanks to the great work of the show ça Rend Sourd (see the first part for that), I must confess that I had become a little bit obsessed with them and, although a mate of mine had burnt a cd full of random Mob 47 songs, I was frustratingly looking for anything from the band (I was eventually able to find some bootleg tapes, unaware that a full discography, Ultimate Attack, would be released the year after...) so, I thought, a band that sounded like Mob 47 was probably the best I could muster at that moment. Despite my conceited confidence, I was, clearly, unprepared for the awe that Krigshot induced in me. Örebro-Mangel fucking smokes.


 

If Avskum's In the Spirit of Mass Destruction was fairly reasonable and easy-listening for a käng work, one that, because of its rocking vibe and catchy vocals, could be enjoyed by moderate metalheads and even played successfully as background music at a punk party, Krigshot's Örebro-Mangel is a very different and much wilder animal although both albums have similar running times. Who said that scandicore was uniform? I remember having to sit down at the end of the first song "Örebro-mangel", an insanely fast and pummeling hardcore trash number of 44 seconds, a little shocked at the level of intensity and not quite sure whether it was a brilliant idea or a terrible mess. I must say I have never played Krigshot that often compared to Skitsystem or Warcollapse for instance because Krigshot's music usually sounded like it was just too much. Too fast, too loud, too intense and after 10 minutes, a little dizzying, not unlike being smacked in the face again and again and wondering why you still enjoyed it. This style of fast and direct Swedish hardcore is often called mangel by the temple guards of punk and Stuart Schrader - formerly behind Game of the Arseholes - defined the mangel subgenre as a cross between the speed of U$ hardcore and the Discharge aggression, the substantive itself coming from the Swedish language for washing clothes with a laundry roller and the noise it makes. Mangel usually works best on the Ep format for the obvious reason that eight minutes of that relentless a bollocking is more than enough and that, as the latest scientific studies have shown, a normal human being can only take so much radically overblown Mob 47 worship in a day before fainting from exhaustion (the studies also showed that longtime Swedish hardcore fans have developed an additional membrane in the ears so as to be able to withstand without limitation of time, yet another convincing example of the theory of evolution). As a result a full album of 24 songs of uncompromisingly fast and orthodox mangel hardcore can be seen as a tricky endeavour. Indeed, to keep a punk listener engaged for 28 minutes with a Swedish hardcore record made up of one minute long songs is a challenge in itself as you have to keep the intensity level high and the songwriting sufficiently catchy. 

 



To be fair, Krigshot do have a couple of slightly longer and slower numbers on Örebro-Mangel to allow the listener - not to mention the album itself - to catch its breath. A wise and welcome choice. But otherwise, be prepared for an all-out hardcore attack with a very aggressive and loud guitar sound and vocals sounding meaner and throatier than on their previous 1999 Lp, Maktmissbrukare. This aforementioned album used the same songwriting template of mid-80's Stockholm hardcore but had a rawer sound and more distinctly 80's-styled vocals, so that it resembled a 90's tribute to Mob 47 and Crudity whereas Örebro-Mangel sounds more like a more modern extreme take on the genre thanks to its production. As you probably know, Krigshot - originally the name of a Mob 47 song - was a side project of Mieszko and Anders from Nasum, on vocals and drums respectively, while Jallo (from No Security, Totalitär or Meanwhile among many others) was in charge of the Åke-styled riffing and the bass on this recording. If Mob 47 were undoubtedly an influence on the 90's Swedish d-wave, there were not many bands who openly aimed at sounding "just like" them and Krigshot can be relevantly said to be to Mob 47 what Meanwhile were to Discharge. Know what I mean?

Of course, it was recorded by Mieszko at Soundlab Studios, a man who certainly contributed to make Swedish hardcore heavier than ever through his production works with bands like Skitsystem, Acursed, Avskum or Wolfpack and who tragically died in the 2004 tsunami. Örebro-Mangel is an intense, pounding, really fast and brutal hardcore work that is not for the faint-hearted and one that casual hardcore amateurs won't probably play every mornings. However once it kicks in, it sounds like an unstoppable beast going straight for the throat and it is basically impossible not to enjoy those fast, dynamic riffs and the really fucking fast energetic drumming that make you feel like a teenager again. Did I mention the album ends with a Riistetyt cover? Just icing on the mangel cake. As for the lyrics, they are all short, sharp and angry protest songs in Swedish with short explanations in English. One of them, about the song "Denna jävla teknik", rings a nostalgic bell "The song is about the new technique and it's consequences where the punks have 50gb of mp3's in their computer, but not a single classic 7'' in their possession". "The punks" no longer even bother having mp3's, they just stream. So 2001.



Mangel up your life


 *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.