Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust: Ruinas "S/t" Lp, 2017

French people have been famous worldwide for their arrogance for centuries. While other arrogant dicks from abroad don't fully realize how arrogant they can look (let's get real, we're not the only ones afflicted here, a fearful prospect actually), we, on the other hand, genuinely embrace this objectively embarrassing cultural trait. We, collectively, are very proud of being cocky wankers and actually believe that we are meant to be the Earth's smartest, the cream of the crop, the genuine dog's bollocks, a guiding Light in the world's darkness. Even my postie thinks he is some sort of unacknowledged philosopher and, for propriety's sake, I will not even get into the grandeur of my great-auntie's thought system, which focuses solely on the country's supposed decadence largely caused by so-called "zoomers", when she's had one drink too many. This self-proclaimed intellectual superiority goes along with a distinct tendency to never admit that we are wrong. If we don't know something, there are only three possible options: claim that it is just not worth knowing, outrageously lie and pretend we do know better than you or make up a blend of both (that requires a very large amount of pretense and is for elite French people only, usually politicians, TV experts or other professions where being full of oneself is a compulsory requirement). So if you ask my father about Argentina, he will almost certainly assert that the only good thing about it is that one alright movie with Madonna in it - be careful as he might try to sing the song too - and Roman Riquelme (Maradona did too much drugs and is therefore not a good role model). Would that keep him from thinking he knows it all? Of course it would not. 

When you think of typical Argentinian punk music, you may think about bands like 2 Minutos, Boom Boom Kid or Argies (a band that I have seen at least twice for some reason), you think about tunes, 1977-styled punk-rock, unreasonable awkward Ramones worship and contagious energy. And that's assuming you can think about anything at all since Argentina is not exactly a scene that is well-known outside of Latin America. I have already touched upon the subject when writing about Claustrophobia's 2013 demo a few years ago (well, five years ago, fuck me, doesn't time fly), a glorious review that - beside making me the recipient of the much-coveted 2017 Crust Ballon d'Or - allowed me to take a closer look at the more aggressive hardcore side of Argentinian punk and made me realize that I was somewhat familiar with quite a few hard-hitting anarcho or crusty or hardcore punk from that part of the world like Terror y Miseria, Migra Violenta, Disvastacion or Axion//Protesta. And reading the review again made me realize it once again which is quite worrying in terms of memory loss but still a decent ego boost I suppose. Perhaps that's what Alzheimer will look like for me, a constant rediscovery of bands I already know. It could be worse although my partner might disagree and will certainly get a little annoyed with me asking her on an hourly basis if she knew about Ruinas and how great the band was (or is, I will probably think we're still in 2017 and I still have all my hair). 

As you must have guessed now, this writeup will be about Ruinas from Buenos Aires. I started the Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust series with the firm, not to mention quixotic, determination to promote and reflect upon 2010's crust music, to take a critical look at it from my ever comfy pedestal located on the last floor of the Terminal Sound Nuisance twin towers. I just had to write something about Ruinas. Not just because I put on two gigs for them in Paris and they are lovely people, but because the band, formed in 2013, can be considered as both the first old-school metallic crust bands from Latin America and the first stenchcore band with lyrics in Spanish (along with the aforementioned Claustrophobia who were already around in 2013). Which is no mean feat. This is not to say that they have not been class crust bands on the continent before, it goes without saying, as Mexico and Brazil have had a long rich history of furious crust with bands like Discordia, Dischord, Under Threat or Desobediencia Civil (and those are just examples from the 1990's) but those were more of the classic crustcore or anarcho varieties and not of the Peaceville stenchcore school like Ruinas. The exact same could be said about Spain which produced a number of good crustcore (and, excruciatingly, neocrust of course) throughout the years but nothing of the old-school crust sort. This is rather odd considering the huge number of mean hardcore music displaying a pronounced love for metal and thrash but that is how it appears to be. But if it is relevant to approach Ruinas as the pioneers of stenchcrust "en español", which in itself does bring something new to the table, it makes just as much sense to see them as one of the best bands from the second generation of the stenchcore revival, their origins notwithstanding. Taking these two elements into account makes Ruinas' position rather unique. 

The story of the band actually starts in the mid/late-00's with a band called Horror Humano that originally had two - I believe - future members of Ruinas. The band released a brilliant cdr in 2011 although the eleven songs were recorded in 2007 (talk about the cultural habit of being late to the party). This recording comes highly recommended if you are into pissed raw, almost grinding, political crustcore with extreme vocals (think the Seattle school meets the Tijuana one). In 2011 Horror Humano recorded an Ep for their Chile tour with more of a modern crust touch although we are still in the gruff department, not bad but not as furious as their early shit if you ask me. In 2012 they disbanded and Seba, Pato and David formed Ruinas the next year with a much darker and heavier agenda in mind. Their 2013 demo perfectly illustrated the new path: doom-laden slow-paced apocalyptic stenchcore with anguished vocals and a filthy sound. The demo was strong indeed - so much so that it would be reissued on a split Lp with Russia's Chaosbringer in 2017 - and clearly showed that they knew exactly what they wanted to do and where they intended to move in the grand Crust Evolution Gallery, somewhere between Stormcrow, Axegrinder and Lost with a doomy Bolt Thrower touch just to be on the safe side of heaviness. Followed a split tape in 2014 with Avitacion 101 from Montevideo with a much better production and the first recording with Rocio on vocals, her angry very harsh and gruff vocals becoming one of the band's distinctive traits. This change of personnel might come very handy too during family dinners whenever your great-uncle Bob, an elite twat, claims that women, when it comes to music, are only good at singing tunes about heartbreaks. Just play a Ruinas song to the wanker and that will shut him up immediately without you losing any of your precious energy. You can also kick his arse before proceeding to put him into bed but that's up to you.

The first album of Ruinas was recorded in 2015 although it only came out on vinyl in 2017 (there was a tape version in 2016 though) and it was yet another improvement on the previous recording. Building on the same stenchcore template of doomy-axegrinding-Stormcrow, the new female vocalist made the comparison with 13 or indeed Lost very relevant (Bolt Lostcrow anyone?). The full album format also allowed the band to take its time and further focus on plot, storytelling, transitions and atmospherics, elements that are essential for an old-school album to be successful. As a sign of good taste, the Lp opens with that classic Amebix creepy synth sound, which is not unlike a dog whistle for crusties, before offering a proper old-school stenchdoom number that sounds darker and more miserable than a winter day in Dundee. The album oscillates between slow-paced sludgey, doomed metal-crust and mid-paced filthy stenchcore with a black heaviness always at the wheel, like a ghost ship angrily navigating on a sea of despair and rescuing the drowning punks in the process. I really enjoy the grim ambiance of the record and it is clearly one of my favourites of the era, one that will age well I reckon. And those hopeless vocals can probably raise the dead so it may not be safe to play Ruinas while visiting your gran's grave as she will certainly give you a bollocking from the Other World. If you are looking for the perfect blend of the doom-loving OC crust school of Stormcrow and Mindrot, the axemebixian stenchcore like Filth of Mankind, the female-fronted sludge crust of Lost and the unstoppable riffs of Bolt Thrower, then Ruinas will be your cuppa. And it also works if you are just looking for good, solid metal crust without nitpicking about comparisons and possible influences. 

Following this highlight, the band would record a split 12'' Ep with our national crust heroes Lust For Death before unfortunately stopping their activities. The album was released on Neanderthal Stench - a Belgium-based label without which the second stenchcore wave would not have taken off in Europe - and Angry Voice from Germany and I guess you should be able to come across it. The artwork is totally appropriate for the genre and you get a poster which is always a lovely gesture, even though you probably don't have enough space on your walls anyway.    

        

Ruinas 

Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust: Alement "Disturbing Future Visions" tape, 2017

It is well known that punks like a drink. More like two, generally. And sometimes far larger numbers of drinks, oftentimes odd and objectively disgusting ones. When I was a teen, we would drink copious amounts of atrocious beverages, not because we were fond of the taste but because they proved to be cheap ways to get hammered and ensured that you completely forgot to check out the touring bands. I did miss From Ashes Rise in 2001 (I think?) getting pissed with my friends on cans of shitty lager right in front of the venue. Our tipsy selves just could not be arsed, but, to be fair, we were heavily into "streetpunk" at that time and so were not particularly impressed with the idea of seeing a "hardcore band" with a strange name so I suppose we would not have got much from the gig anyway. Abominable "cocktails" we would often gulp down included the popular calimucho, the cheapest red wine mixed with the cheapest cola, to be served lukewarm in a plastic bottle that you would pass around, and the not so popular (for good reasons) moloko, probably the king of shit drinks, a mix of the cheapest rum with milk and sugar. Needless to say that your bowels, not to mention your sanity, strongly disagreed with such unfair treatments. How many top bands did I miss because of such liquid horrors? I'd rather not know. 

Punks' enjoyment of booze is often reflected in the bands they play in. We all remember gigs where the guitar player was too pissed to remember how to tune the instrument (assuming he usually tuned it) or even stand or where the singer gracelessly fell on the drum kit in the middle of that good mosh part. But bands are also keen on paying tribute to the rather questionable habit of drinking too much in the very name of the band. Like Alement for example. Is "alement" a good name? It was certainly funny enough to make me giggle the first time I read it but then I actually also like "alehammer" as a name so I might not be the best judge. After all, I come from France and the best crust band we have had for a long time was called Disbeer so this tolerance for beer-related pun could just be a cultural thing (Beerzone did not cut it though). The number of bands with literal references to booze in their monikers over here is truthfully staggering, only terrible puns in "ska" can top off the trend, but to be honest they were seldom good bands so you should not bother. To get back to Alement, well that is really up to your sensa yuma I suppose and how cheeky you like your punk music (the band's members call themselves "axegrinding drunks" too). I know my mum does not like the name much so I suppose their mums don't either. 

Whether you would be ready to parade ostentatiously at work wearing an Alement shirt or whether you are a cowardly wimp does not matter, because what does is that Alement can rightfully be considered as one of the very best old-school metallic crust bands (aka stenchcore) of the decade. The relative low-profile of the band, from my crust-centered worldview, is rather difficult to understand. It might have to do with the fact that crust is about as popular as Hungarian avant-garde experimental films where I live. Only die-hard cosplayers are into it. In a perfect world, Alement - and experimental films - would be discussed at the family table during breakfast. But I am a dreamer as much as a dream weaver, ain't I? It is not like any crust band nowadays is likely to be endlessly raved about (apart from Hellshock maybe), but still, one would expect Alement to be acknowledged more often as one of the most remarkable crust experiences of the past five years. Perhaps it has to do with them only releasing two proper vinyl records since they started 10 years ago in 2012 (a very respectable lifespan for a contemporary band) in an age when the average hardcore bands tend to release two Ep's (one of which is actually a reissue of the demo) and one album in three years before promptly splitting up and occasionally playing the odd gig overseas. The band also self-released two tapes in that time period and a split tape with Toronto's IDNS but these were very limited pressing aimed at the local punk market. But at the end of the day, who really cares about popularity in our microcosm anyway? Quality must surpass quantity.

Alement are from Philadelphia, a town that I have talked about in Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust when dealing with Pollen and Mortal War. I have never been there, probably never will - let's get real - and before the 2010's the town was not exactly renowned for quality discore or crusty music, by which I mean that very few pairs of crust pants were spotted in town even by the most experienced ornithologists until then. And then, suddenly, top bands emerged and the emulation process and cell division inherent to the formation of punk scenes ensured that the bands reproduced giving birth to a seemingly stable scene. There are often as many projects as there are participants but it does give an impression of dynamism from afar. Alement are certainly my favourite band from Philadelphia as they are currently the cream of the crop and those self-proclaimed axegrinding drunks clearly progressed since their first 2012 demo entitled Alestorm (of course it was). You can hear that the band started out as a young crust punk band still trying to find its sound, which they did little by little as each recording saw them improve and refine their songwriting skills. 

I first paid attention to Alement through their solid 2014 demo tape Against the Howling of Chaos that sounded not unlike a meeting between Misery and Contagium at a 00's stenchcore revival fair with metal-era English Dogs as a DJ and some genuine heavy metal riffs and solos at the bar. Thrashing stench-crust to the max and it was at that point that a noticeable style started to appear. The punk vibe in the recording was also strong which made me closely watch the band. I'll fast-forward to the long-awaited marvelous Hunter Ep from 2017 on Ryvvolte Records, a record that got a lot of airplay at Terminal Sound Nuisance Towers. It was the perfect blend of Contagium's relentless stenchcore fury, Fatum's old-school metallic thrash-crust and Zoe's post-crust brew, with a thick organic, energetic production, shouted old-school crust vocals and great heavy Amebixian atmospheric ballads (with synth!). What made Alement stand out was how catchy the songs sounded in a subgenre that does not value tunes, hooks and choruses enough. Hunter managed, in about 13 minutes, to demonstrate a variety of crust tricks, from the fast rocking Sox-like thrash bits to the mid-paced apocalyptic crust, the eerie introductions or the stenchcore mosh parts (and yes, solos, they do enjoy solos), that turned the Ep into an instant modern classic. They are close to Instinct of Survival's post-stenchcore era in places. This record was ready for their European tour which was where I bought it as I moved my arse to Wien in fucking Austria to see them live with Swordwielder and Visions of War, a classic crust night and a very fond memory. At that top gig I also grabbed the Disturbing Future Visions tape.

From what the foldout indicated, the tape was a tour-only thing since Alement clearly refer to their coming European adventure in the foldout. The object itself is rather simple, a xeroxed cover with handmade visuals and writings (like the insert and cover of Hunter actually), it conveys the unpretentious spirit of old-school DIY punk even though some might argue that it all looks a little unpolished. Needless to say that I, as a non-posing person, personally love it. No recording date is provided but it was ready for the tour that took place during the summer of 2017. Songwriting-wise, the five original songs making up Disturbing Future Visions are exactly in the same vein and you will find the same old-school, super catchy stench-crust recipe with desperate vocals. In terms of production, however, there is a discrepancy between both sides. The first one must have been recorded during the same session as Hunter as it has that similar thick organic sound, while the other is rawer and dirtier, but on the other hand this other side has a cover of G-Anx which is a great idea (I remember them butchering that one in Wien though). It could have been a mastering or pressing issue for all I know. In spite of this technical issue - the DIY hardcore world is replete with such amateurish minor mishaps - Disturbing Future Visions remains a self-released tape that can't be described as anything but an absolute scorcher that is significantly better than a lot of the crust production of the past decade. If you enjoy Hunter, the songs on the tape as hidden tracks. That the band did not put it on their bandcamp is a crime against crustity but I suppose it was just out of procrustination. Thank fuck I'm here.  

Following this Alement recorded another top crust record, the 12'' Ep Onward in 2019 but I have been chatty enough. Will the band finally write a full album one day? 

Disturbing Crust Visions   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

Social Wojna                

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: Avvikelsse "S/t" Ep, 2016

Avvikelsse is one of the bands that I missed in Osaka in 2018 because I got too drunk the night before and did not wake up on time. Truth be told I was very jet-laged but, as much as I would love to blame this unforgivable failing on time zones, I just had far too much to drink because I was so happy to be in Japan for the first time and quickly realized that the off-licence just next to King Cobra was open all night. The classic trap that only juvenile punks fall into but I was too excited to think. I did manage to finish the first night and ended up at the Konton Bar blabbering like a twat to anyone in my immediate vicinity. Of course, I got lost on the way back to the hotel because all the streets looked the same, I did not have a smart phone and was properly hammered. My saviour was Framtid's drummer Aladdin who kindly took me back to my hotel which was just two blocks away. I remember, even in my drunken stupor, being very embarrassed to have to be rescued and the day after I humbly apologized to my saviour who, like a crust gentleman, asked me if I was feeling better and that it was alright. I guess I was not the first foreign punk to get smashed and unable to find his way back but still. Let's just deny it ever happened. The worse part of this modest adventure was that I did miss some bands I has specifically traveled to see. Too drunk to crust.

Before making an ass of myself on another continent, I had studied all the bands that I was going to have the pleasure to see perform - or so I thought before fate struck - and Avvikelsse was one that I was particularly excited to see. The name means "deviation" or "anomaly" in Swedish, although it is technically spelt "avvikelse", which is, in itself, a very good choice for a punk name even more so if you happen to play hard-hitting crust punk with an eye on käng hardcore. For some unfathomable reason, this 2016 Ep, so far the only record from the band, has not yet been uploaded onto youtube. In 2022 that is just odd. I suppose this post will correct this discrepancy.

Avvikelsse are from Osaka, glorious place of birth of crasher crust and cradle of the legendary Final Noise Attack gigs (would have I get too stupidly drunk at one of those?), and it is little surprise that the Ep was released on the Osaka-based classic Crust War Records label run by Habi from the seminal Gloom and Jacky from the hardcore whirlwind Framtid and Revenge record store among other loud activities. It was CW's 53rd release and one of the last before the label went dormant. Hopefully it is just a nap and the beast will awake soon. Avvikelsse formed in 2014 but before that some members - I am not sure who - played in Abstrakt at the beginning of the decade, a short-lived, rather classic and raw noize scandicrust unit with that typically intense Japanese distorted sound and delivery, like a rough youthful cross between Framtid and Contrast Attitude. They have a mean primitive demo and contributed four stronger tracks to the Total Exposure compilation in 2013 which is where you need to start if you are interested (especially since Tilltro, a manic scandicore band are also on it).

If Abstrakt was a decent, enjoyable, good even, but generic example of Japanese crust, Avvikelsse is not the same animal, although it would not be irrelevant to claim that the new project built on the former one. I mean, it is not like they went ska, oi or anything atrocious like that. But there are enough new elements and diversity in the songwriting to make Avvikelsse's Ep a noticeable work that deserves to be explored. The band started out with a rough demo tape entitled Doomed that included three songs that would eventually make up the first side of the Ep so I am not going to discuss this particular recording as it must definitely be seen as a draft (you can listen to it on youtube though contrary to the Ep).

 

As the genre dictates, the band plays in the familiar blow-out noize crust category yet Avvikelsse's music is not generic. The opening number "Beginning of the end" starts out as a heavy, dark and slow-paced Antisect-ish song before unleashing the fucking dis-beat darkness fury. The next one opens as a straight-forward crasher dis-crust scorcher and then goes for some crunchy Effigy-styled stenchcore with epic guitar lead (it has to be pointed out that Avvikelsse love solos and epic leads). The third track "1945" is the ultimate peacecrust number with its melancholy stenchcrust introduction (reminiscent of Nausea) to an Antiauthorize-meet-Gloom at an antiwar protest. The other side is just as great, a balanced mix of relentless dark distorted Framtidian scandicrust and old-school crasher metallic crust with aggressive and gruff anguished vocals throughout. The Ep is long enough - a 12 minute long effort - for the band to really develop its own language and tell a good story and I think Avvikelsse have enough tricks in their crust bag to write an ace crust album.

The Japanese crust school being almost always very referential, the visual of the Ep scream "We are a dis-noize crasher peacecrust band" and even entry-level crust amateurs will be able to discern canonical visual elements associated with the practice: a massive dove, two Gloom-y Crass circles around said dove that says "Avvikelesse / Throes of lives" for the small one and "Why war / The unaccountable darkness" for the bigger, more Crass font on the back, a picture of the aftermath of a bombing, of a graveyard and even an additional dove inside the foldout cover. And of course, to reflect upon this customary referentiality I have used an excessive number of Japanese crust slang throughout the reviews, not just in order to exemplify the relation between form and content, but also because it is fun. And in these dire days it is important to find fun where you can.        

A solid Ep from "Osaka Chaos Crusher Crusties" as Revenge Records said that comes highly recommended if you are into Japanese crust and, for its Antisect vibe, one of my favourites of the genre in the 2010's.       

Avvikelsse       

Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust: Χαοτικό Τέλος "Υπόσχεση" Lp, 2017

Χαοτικό Τέλος's Υπόσχεση Lp is the best crust album of the 2010's. Well, along with Swordwielder's System Overlord Lp. I don't think I can decide, they are both equally brilliant and outstanding in their own unique way, the one difference being that I will not be writing about Swordwielder's masterpiece in Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust (but on a side note do try to focus on living by it) because I already tackled the Swedes and their 2014 demo tape five years ago. Maybe one day I will write about System Overlord as, make no mistake about it, this is by far the band's best work and a crust milestone.

Χαοτικό Τέλος (Chaotic End in English) are from Athens and belong to the category of "legendary bands". You could argue all day over the actual requirements and characteristics that define a legendary band. It is not an easy question especially since the hegemony of youtube and music streaming and the subsequent decontextualization of punk bands from the past which turned pretty much all 80's hardcore bands into "legends", even when they only played seven drunken gigs and recorded two demos in 1982. But I personally agree with the statement that Χαοτικό Τέλος is a legendary band, as epic and hyperbolic as the term might be, it is difficult not to. If you need some background about the band and its story, I recommend you read the great interview that DIY Conspiracy did with them especially as it saves me the hassle (#lazy). 

So then why should they be seen as a legend? I think that the phrase "genre-defining classic" might be more accurate when it comes to the band since Χαοτικό Τέλος basically pioneered a style: Greek crust. Now when I say "Greek crust" I don't just mean that they played crust music and were from Greece, although they were obviously. Greek crust is a genuine subgenre that only grows locally - even if its influence can be felt here and there outside of the country - and can be defined by specific traits like OC crust, Swedish crust or Japanese crasher crust for example. Or horrible French oi if you have poor tastes. I have already written about it several times in the past because I am an obsessive geezer but, to put it simply, what I call Greek crust, as a theorized subgenre, is the reworking of the founding mid/late 80's UK stenchcore crust wave of Amebix, Axegrinder, Antisect with an emphasis on heavy atmospherics and synth-driven part, a heavy apocalyptic sound, some relentless pummeling crustcore phases and a dark and hopeless but still angry vibe. It is definitely old-school metallic crust but with its specific characteristics and lyrics in Greek which, because of the scansion, accentuation and general flow of this peculiar language, clearly helped shape and cement Greek crust as a genre (a similar process took place with Greek dark punk). 

Χαοτικό Τέλος were not the only purveyors of gruff apocalyptic hardcore crust in the very early 90's (the wave was still very much brewing in the late 80's although some bands, like Χαοτικό Τέλος, were already active with a different style) and fantastic bands like Ξεχασμένη Προφητεία/Forgotten Prophecy, Βιομηχανική Αυτοκτονία/Industrial Suicide, Ρήγμα/Rift or Πανικός/Panic among others were also active and delivered quality. All those bands, at that particular time and place contributed to the creation of what is now know as Greek crust. Not unlike OC crust, it cannot be said to be a very widely known style (although it does have its hardcore fans) and many crust lovers might be largely unaware of most Greek crust bands - or even that it is a distinct style of crust music for that matter - in spite of my passionate personal quest to promote it at all cost. But if you had to know just one typical Greek crust band - I don't know why you would but let's you had to for the sake of the argument - it would be Χαοτικό Τέλος as they truly are the basic definition of this sound. But if you are not a lazy bum or, worse, a poser, you can also listen to that brilliant Greek crust compilation I did. It is basically a crash course in the art of Ελληνική κρούστα's apocalyptic crust epics.

However, they were not the first Greek crust band I heard, as it was, of course, Χειμερία Νάρκη/Hibernation when I got the cd Στη Σιωπή Της Αιώνιας Θλίψης when it came out in 2003 or 2004 because, being released by Skuld Releases and Power-It-Up, it was well distributed and because I read somewhere that it sounded a bit like Nausea (which it does I suppose). Fortunately for me - and by extension for you since this work of Greek crust made a massive impression on younger me and arguably drove me years later to start writing and teaching about it with my usual arrogance - the first Χειμερία Νάρκη album (reviewed with my usual biting wit here) might be the best crust albums of the 00's so I clearly was lucky on that one. As I mentioned in the review of Στη Σιωπή Της Αιώνιας Θλίψης I had no idea that Χειμερία Νάρκη belonged to the grand Greek crust dynasty and were but the next logical step of the glorious genre. I was clueless that there were others proud specimens of that sound or indeed that it was even a specific sound to begin with. It took a few years for me to formulate the idea that there might be a Greek crust school and it was through Χαοτικό Τέλος's first album Μπροστά Στην Παράνοια. 

I used to order often from Hardcore Holocaust in the mid/late 00's as it was a great resource in d-beat/crust and I really enjoyed the selection and there was a small second-hand section that I droolingly checked sometimes. One day Μπροστά Στην Παράνοια was added, I had never heard of it and yet, to my disbelief, it was described as "probably the best crust album of all time" or something along these lines. It is often said that people change with time but I haven't really, I was as pretentious and smug as I am today only I feel, wrongly I presume, it is now a somewhat sensible way of life. But then that I somewhat did not know and had never heard of an album that the Hardcore Holocaust guy - who clearly looked like he knew his shit - called "probably the best crust album of all time" felt like a slap in the face and was a little humiliating. I would not go as far as saying that it taught me some humility but it was close enough. I was in disarray. Determined to check if it was indeed what he said it might be (it was before music streaming, blogs and high internet speed at home), I bought the record, a bit pricy to be honest but nowhere near what it is worth now, and was in awe. Hardcore Holocaust was not wrong as you could very well make the case that Μπροστά Στην Παράνοια is the best crust album of the 90's. I realize there are a lot of "best album of the decade" claims in this writeup and that my passion for Greek crust may somewhat distort my sharp ability to think critically but there is enough quality in this 1993 album to back such a claim.

Fast-forward to the mid-2010's. The growing success of Terminal Sound Nuisance is making me the undisputed king of crust (like a crust Kenny Omega if you like but with less injuries) and I am renowned, and even feared throughout the crustdom, for my incredible wealth of knowledge in the dark arts of Greek crust. It is an unpaid gig and no one at the job centre really understood what "Professor in Crust Studies" meant on my resume but it still is something although my mum would disagree. At that point in time, social media, some excellent music blogs and music streaming certainly made the concept of Greek crust more widely known and easier to explore, document and synthesize, but it still very much remained a genre for the crust initiates. And then I read that Χαοτικό Τέλος were playing again. Fuck me. I know many people tend to complain about old bands reforming and not being as good as they used to be and so on but just take a look at Deviated Instinct's recent live performances and releases and you will see that a reformed classic band can be as relevant and brilliant as they used to be. In the case of Χαοτικό Τέλος, it has to be said that Αλέκος, who also plays in Χειμερία Νάρκη, kept being active in the scene, that the bass player Στέφανος is an original member and that younger and supremely skillful drummer Βαγγέλης is the brain behind Παροξυσμός and tons of other bands and behind the label Extreme Earslaughter. So it was difficult to go wrong. And finally 24 years after their first album, Χαοτικό Τέλος self-released in true DIY fashion their second album: Υπόσχεση (Promise).    

I am starting to realize that I haven't actually talked about the music: Υπόσχεση is a perfect crust album. Or rather, it is both a perfect Greek crust album and a perfect crust album. I would not change a single thing to Υπόσχεση which is not something I say very often. Or rather the only thing that could be improved is the artwork, not that it looks ugly or irrelevant - there are enough classic crust signifiers with a reaper, desolation and skulls and  for the listener not to get lost - but such a brilliant work would have probably deserved something more original and evocative, something that would have made it stand out visually as much as it does sonically. The 2010's version of Χαοτικό Τέλος is as potent and genre-defining as the 1990's one. The band offer a new version of their original sound, not so much an improvement per se but more like a seamless continuation of similar roots. Χαοτικό Τέλος have not really changed and their Greek crust recipe is as effective as ever. Of course, the sound itself is different. While Μπροστά Στην Παράνοια had that typical 90's eurocrust production, Υπόσχεση sounds like a modern old-school crust album (amazingly they don't have the exact same instruments and amps than in the early 90's). However, while many bands tend to update their sound through overproduction and departure from what made them great and loved in the first place, Χαοτικό Τέλος just sound like their good old selves at the peak of their creativity in a contemporary studio with contemporary gears (not unlike Misery's From Where the Sun Never Shines, another serious contender for the best 2010's crust album). The main difference is that the drumming is more technical, precise and provides a wider range of possibilities. 

Χαοτικό Τέλος lovingly grind heavy slow apocalyptic synth-driven UK crust like Amebix and Axegrinder as well as American crust heroes Misery, unleash fast dark and aggressive Doom/Hiatus-style freight train 90's eurocrust and demonstrate an incredible sense of narration and storytelling which is truly what has always characterized Χαοτικό Τέλος' - and by extension Greek crust's - peculiar greatness. Through smart and inspired eerie introductions, evocative parts, transitions, beautiful layered epic moments followed with intense thunderous climactic bits, changes of pace and beats, some of the angriest, most passionate and expressively anguished gruff vocals you are likely to hear, they manage to tell a whole story from the first to the last minute, from the introduction to the melancholy conclusion, no mean feat considering it is a 42 minute long album as the band take their time and rightly so and never let the listener even take a break to go to the bathroom. The magnificent first song, "Αγκάθια", an 8 minute epics exemplifies all the narrative crust tricks better than any word. Not many bands can do this as brilliantly (Counterblast's Balance of Pain comes to mind here even if they tell a different story, they tell it with a similar gusto). What does Υπόσχεση tell us then? What is the story? It is a journey of anger and passion, beauty and suffering, Υπόσχεση sounds like the wind blowing over the land and it could be the last day of mankind just as the first day of a new hope. Perhaps it is both. It is a shout in the dark, in darkness, it is a call to action, it is the pain of living in such a disgusting world and the possibility of making it a beautiful one. And it is a crushing crust punk album that will have you play air guitar in the bathroom (do close your windows though, it cannot be iterated enough).   

Absolutely class album that is still available so support the band and get a copy. In fact if you were to buy just one crust album this year, go for that one (or for System Overlord). In pure DIY anarchopunk fashion the band self released this masterpiece and you even get a poster and a sticker with the vinyl.  

Υπόσχεση

Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust: Versklaven "S/t" Lp, 2013

Versklaven are just like my friend Tom (the name has been changed as I do not want to upset anyone, especially since I am about as hard as a twig). I never think about Tom and until I came across him last month, I had completely forgotten about him and the crazy night we had in 2014 at some festival where I promised that I'd send him a brilliant mixtape full of obscure and tragically under-appreciated punk bands, maybe not in the coming month but definitely before winter. Of course, I never did make the mixtape and the drunken promise slowly (well not that slowly actually) escaped my mind and I never saw or heard of Tom again. Which was a little disappointing as I had had a jolly good time but then I - what with being busy lip-synching to Antisect before the bathroom mirror - did not make the effort to do it and he must have forgotten about the whole thing anyway. Which is not as bad as it sounds since I am pretty sure I owe him a tenner. 

Well, Versklaven are like Tom. I really enjoyed their outputs when they came out in the early/mid-10's, we had a good time, we bonded quite a bit but the constant flux of quality crust and the subsequent split of the band resulted in their music slowly fading from my memory, not utterly vanishing though, more like sharing a flat at the back of my skull with other worthy but half-forgotten crust bands like Dödsfälla, Massakro SS or Minds Continue. There are worse but also more glamorous roommates.  But doing some research about 10's crust bands for this ambitious series, the modern music equivalent of the the Homeric Odyssey, I came across Versklaven again and I remembered that they were quite good indeed even if I had not played the Lp for ages and upon spinning the thing I quickly realized that they were, in fact, much better than I remembered or can even be said to be, if I may be quite bold, the dog's bollocks.

Versklaven certainly do not pop up in many conversations these days and even yours truly has to plead guilty on that one which proves that I as outstandingly smart, sharp and witty as I may look to my readers, I still have not reached perfection yet. I'll probably be there next year though according to my astrologist. Fingers crossed. To get back to our Houston lot, that's in Texas I reckon, the fact that they are not part of the conversation when it comes to solid old-school crust from the 2010's is unfair. It may have to do with their German name - it means "to enslave" - but then when one considers how difficult it is to find a good name that is still available, the decision to pick the German translation was wise, especially since there was already a Japanese hardcore band called Enslave (and it worked for Aus-Rotten after all). Perhaps they should have picked a fancier punk language like Swedish, Finnish or French (just kidding for the last one unless you are a cheesy emocore band in which case you basically must pick a French name). 

I have already written about Sacrilege-loving bands in my review of Terminal Conquest's demo tape and a lot things I said about the practice of Sacrilege worship as epitomized by Portland's Terminal Conquest are also valid for Versklaven. Formed in 2011 and disbanded around 2013 (or 2014?) as prehistoric live videos on youtube suggest, the Texan group was short-lived but came before bands like Terminal Conquest or Lifeless Dark. The only example of total Sacrilegious metal-punk I can think of at the time was Death Evocation, who got a lot more attention and exposure than Versklaven probably because of the resumes combined with the experience of the persons involved (basically they played in cool Boston bands before, bands I have never heard but that my mates wearing Van's or New Balance trainers and shirts with live shots of angry people jumping around seem to love). DE were more on the metal-side of Sacrilege though, somewhere between Behind the Realms of Madness and Within the Prophecy while Versklaven are decidedly on the first album, so much so that they had no scruples borrowing, more than just a couple of times, Sacrilege riffs and transitions for their own songs.

I suppose you could claim that this self-titled Lp is the perfect rawer, punkier (and overall faster) version of the first Sacrilege Lp. Some anarchopunk-styled spoken parts reminds me of Nausea or Potential Threat and bring an additional vibe to the songs by connecting to the genre's anarcho roots. Otherwise, the riffs are crunchy examples of 80's metal-punk worship and Sacrilege cosplay, thrashing and dynamic without falling in technical wankery. Similarly the songwriting does not mess about and goes for the throat with moshing crust power. I personally have no issue with respectfully borrowing from classic bands but, since some do, be warned that there is a lot of Sacrilege in Versklaven. The vocals are different, raspier, growled rather than shouted - more Nausea's Amy than Detestation's Saira a bit hoarser than After the Bombs' Janick - and I think they work great as they give some supplementary aggression and anger to the music.  

This album is rather short, about 16 minutes, which is not actually a bad thing as a longer work would have probably pointed at its main flaw, the lack of narrativity and storytelling. A 30 minute Lp necessitates more work on transitions, climaxes, atmospheres, plot which the relatively short length of Versklaven's work does not really. Released in 2013, the recording was actually done in 2012 and was made up of seven songs in total as two songs were used for a split Ep with Abduktion (it also comes recommended if you want more Sacrilege-flavoured metal-punk). The album was put out by Torture Garden Company, a local Houston-based label but whose catalogue I am vastly unfamiliar with. I am not sure what the Versklaven members have been up to since the split. Guitar player Tom was also involved in the metallic crust band Dissent and the excellent Bolt Thrower-inflenced War Master before he moved to Portland and took part in Iskall Regn and more recently in Decomp (the new album is ace, check it out), while bass player Mark now plays in Lace. 

Enjoy this piece of crust history. 

Versklaven