Filth of Mankind "Czas Końca Wieku" Ep, 1999

To conclude this glorious crust epic that saw us ride throughout the unloved 90's, I chose to talk about a band that is one of the very last 90's crust bands still kicking (I think?): Filth of Mankind. Despite the fact that their records were released in the 2000's, FOM were and are quintessentially a 90's band, and I am not saying this because they are dated or anything, but because they stand for this particular spirit that haunted the decade with hairy band logos and sincere Hiatus-worship.

FOM formed in 1996 in Gdansk, Poland, back when the eurocrust wave was still rocking the country. In the 90's, Poland was the cradle of an intense brand of crunchy crust punk and a reliable provider of quality, hard-hitting noisy punk music with dreadlocks. While some countries like Italy or France had been left relatively unscathed by the crust wave, it definitely clicked with the Polish punks. Perhaps the 1991 Nausea tour over there opened new horizons music-wise and sowed some exciting, inspirational seeds that would be watered a couple of years later by bands like Hiatus or Misery. I was unable to find solid information about Doom's 1989 European tour and while I know they went to (then) Yugoslavia, it is unclear whether they hit Poland... If any local old-timers would be kind enough to enlighten me, the TSN staff would be delighted!

The mid-90's were an era when the Polish punk scene went virally crust, with dozens of bands like the phenomenal Homomilitia, Toxic Bonkers, Silna Wola, Sanctus Iuda, Pieklo Kobiet, Monoteizm Co-Existence or the remarkably enduring purveyors of solid crustcore, Infekcja. The crust tornado did not leave Gdansk alone in the 90's with bands like Enough!, Money Drug or Stench of Death, and the combination of these three entities would give birth to quite probably the best Polish crust band ever, Filth of Mankind. But let's have a look at the three foundational crustketeers first. As is often the case with prolific punk scenes, Gdansk had a high rate of incestuous relationships when it came to punk, with the same people playing simultaneously in several bands. Money Drug was a rather typical, intense ENT/Hiatus/Disrupt-influenced crust band ("Money drug" is actually the name of a Doom song) with the beloved dual vocal style and had Milosz and Balon, on guitar and drums respectively. Few records are as representative of mid-90's eurocrust as their underrated 1995 split Ep with the solid Wind of Pain from Finland. Milosz and Balon also played in Stench of Death, a much more metal affair that sadly never released anything apart from a decent-sounding live tape from 1997 and was an early case of death-metal-influenced crust that didn't fall in the usual traps inherent to this dreaded subgenre. Finally, you had Enough!, my favourite of the three despite a pretty terrible name. They did two very solid recordings, the 1996 "Darkside" tape session, six tracks of which would also land on the 1998 split 10'' with Nula from Croatia, and the 1997 split Ep with Juggling Jugulars. Enough! had Tomasz on vocals and Michal on bass, both of whom eventually joined FOM, and they played super heavy metal crust, not in the sense that they sounded like the early UK wave, but because they infused the crustcore formula with filthy, groovy metal influences and they did it very well, so well in fact that I regularly recommend this band when I am asked about genuine metallic crust, say at the flower shop or during my yoga lessons. Prosaically, put Homomilitia, Warcollapse and Policebastard in a blender and just open your ears.

Therefore, the four aforementioned fellows already had some crust experience and the last, but not least, member of the early FOM line-up was Pawel from another local band, Protest and Survive (I'm wondering where they took this name from...) and founder of the quietly influential label Scream records that released some of my favourite records of the period (thanks for that!). Apparently, the idea behind FOM was to play heavier, darker music, and, I would argue, to borrow the metaphorical quality and the aesthetics of the early apocalyptic crust sound. The moniker is a reference to the song "Filth of mankind" on Misery's split with SDS, and the Minneapolis band was definitely one of the main inspirations behind FOM since their Lp, "The Final Chapter", is also the name of a Misery song (but then, it is also a line in Axegrinder's "Warmachine" so who knows...).

The four songs that make up the "Czas Końca Wieku" Ep were written between 1996 and 1999, which accounts for their distinct mid-90's feel, and were recorded in late 1999. Although the real masterpiece is undeniably the album, this Ep is nonetheless a crucial Polish crust record that set the stage for what was to come for FOM. Although the songs are still fast overall, you can find these glorious classic crust moments in the introductions and many arrangements. The tonality of the guitar is strongly reminiscent of early Misery, the vocals are harsh and powerful, and while the production is probably a bit thin to really make FOM's intent shine, it still gives the Ep an abrasive quality, a bit like mid-90's Warcollapse and Doom. The last song of the Ep is the most significant of the bunch, with its strong mid-tempo beat, its Amebixy bass lines and its simple yet classic early crust riffing. Although the songs were written well before the so-called "stenchcore revival" of the mid-2000's and despite the obvious discrepancy in terms of production (it always amazes me how different in sound the 90's crust sound is to the 00's one), there are deep similarities between early FOM's and what younger bands, like Sanctum for instance, embarked on a few years later. Aesthetically, this FOM Ep is certainly a departure from the previous bands its members were involved in. The cover is beautifully gloomy and has an almost black-metal feel to it, albeit in a DIY punk fashion. There is even a card that comes with the Ep with the full picture of the cover! Just lovely. Lyrically, FOM has one foot in the overtly political crust camp with a song against hunting and another one against patriarchy, and the other one rooted in the apocalyptic league with songs about omens of end of the world and Man's lust for violence.  

I suppose you could argue that the Effigy 12'' and this Ep have quite a lot in common. After all, they were pretty much conceived with a similar set of influences in mind and they predated by a few years the Peaceville crust revival of the 2000's, a short-lived trend that often seemed to ignore much of what the 90's had to offer. Ironically, one of the best crust records the 2000's had to offer was done by a 90's band in the shape of FOM's "The Final Chapter", an amazing work that combined Axegrinder and Misery's brooding anthemic quality, Chaotic End at their synth-driven best and the brutal harshness of 90's Polish crust. A genuine apocalyptic crust masterpiece, the importance of which was hindered by its chaotic release process, first on tape in 2000, then on cd through Japan's HG Fact in 2001 and finally on vinyl through Portland's Black Water in 2006, back when the modern stenchcore hype was at its apex, although I was never under the impression that this monumental Lp got the credit it deserved precisely because trends tend to glorify average records and trivialize the proper value of great ones.

 "Czas Końca Wieku" was released on Pawel's Scream Records, a genuinely punk label that still delivers the goods to this day and it can be found for pretty cheap if you care to actually look. As for the Lp, it is often seen floating on the usual reliable distros and you should not sleep on it as there is no doubt that it is a true CRUST classic, in the strongest sense of term, from an honest band.

Filth of Mankind 

"Slave to convention: A tribute to Doom" compilation cd 2007

Bands like Doom are to punk-rock what beer is to drinking.

Some people merely enjoy having a cold beer on warm days, others drink vast quantity of beer but are not bothered with the quality, and then you have the beer experts who can actually describe the tastes of many different ales and lagers, finally you have people who don't like beer but at least respect it as a worthy beveradge. The same could be said about Doom: the first category hardly listen to Doom but can enjoy a couple of songs at a gig or when really drunk at a mate's; the second category listen to a lot of Doom-type bands but can't really be arsed about the actual quality or even the identity of the bands; the third category include people who know all the records, the recording dates, the line-up changes, they are able to look at Doom and their works critically and are undeniably elite Doom-lovers with a PhD in crust-punk; people in the last category don't give a damn about Doom but at least recognize that it is a quality band, respectable and honourable, just not to their liking. If you don't fall in any of these categories, there are two possibilities: you either have never heard about Doom and I am about to change your life or you clearly are reading the wrong blog and I encourage you to get a life. Seriously, get ouf of my blog.

I generally have mixed feelings about tribute records for several reasons. Bands are often content with merely covering the song without bringing anything new to the table thus making the record a bit tedious to listen to and basically a poorer version of the original songs. In addition, I have seen tribute records with absolutely no information about the bands included or even with hardly any mention about the band that is being paid tribute to (I am thinking about the "Discharged" cd here). But do not despair as there are also really good tribute records, like the two recent (well, relatively) Amebix tributes (the Japanese one and the Balkan one) or the Conflict tribute "Barricades and broken dreams" which exemplify how it should be done. Granted, all the songs were not that great but they aptly reflected the passion that the covered band inspired to the participants and you had some comments from actual members of Amebix and Conflict which made the record more relevant and interesting. Fortunately for you, "Slave to convention" falls in the "good punk tribute" category.

Don't expect too much originality in terms of music on this record. Although there have undeniably been several different periods in the life of Doom with variations in song-writing, sound, musicianship or production, the power of Doom relies on a formula. I would argue that the repetitiveness of Doom - especially early Doom - is one of its strong points. It is a force hammering you again and again with unabated sincerity. Doom took the relentless power of Discharge, Discard (certainly the strongest influence of the band in its infancy), Totalitär or Asocial, added the crusty gruffness (probably more a matter of context than of intent) and the anarchopunk anger and aesthetics. As I mentioned, the Doom sound evolved throughout the years but still, and as the latest brilliant Lp shows, they nevertheless always sticked to the Doom formula, so that for all the different records, and if I may use a witty tautology, Doom will alway be Doom. And thanks fuck for that. Really.

There are 29 bands included on the compilation and I suppose that it would be a boring read if I were to describe each of the songs individually. The bands that took part in this project all belong to the crust/d-beat/scandicore subgenres so don't expect ska versions of "Police bastard". Unsurprisingly, mosy of the covered songs are from Doom's Peaceville days, although some bands also picked songs from "The greatest invention" (my favourite Doom records because of its tension), or from the splits with Hiatus, Selfish and Extinction of Mankind, so it's not 29 covers of "Police bastard" or "Exploitation" either. The strong point of this compilation lies in its international spectrum as you will find bands from the U$A, the UK, Germany, Peru, Japan, Sweden, Poland, Spain, Chile, Canada, Cyprus (yes, Cyprus!), Mexico, Brazil and Italy. In addition to being an ode to world-wide punk-rock, "Slave to convention" includes bands rather "famous" bands like Phobia, Besthöven or Cluster Bomb Unit, but also obscure ones whose contribution to the compilation is actually their sole appearance on a proper record like Aposynthesis, Hollow Scorn or The Indecents. Apart from the Desobediencia Civil song that was recorded in 1998, all the bands recorded their cover especially for this compilation sometime between 2006 and 2007. Not only this but all the bands provided some artwork specifically for "Slave to convention" as well with band and recording information. Funnily enough, three bands did a spoof of the Doom logo, well let's call it an aesthetical tribute, with their own moniker: Ruin, Filth of Mankind and Warvictims. Now that's a labour of love, isn't it?

My personnal highlights include the old-school crust rendering of the mighty Alehammer and the criminally underrated Filth of Mankind, the dual-vocals crustcore attack of the great Accion Mutante, the vintage d-beat punk of Cluster Bomb Unit (with Julia on vocals), Besthöven and Ruin (who have never sounded more like Cracked Cop Skulls than on this recording) and the angry crusty anarcho sound of Autonomia and Desobediencia Civil, a band I specially deal with sometime in the future. Despite unequal production between the songs (some of them must have been taken from rehearsal or live recordings which accounts for some sloppiness), it is on the whole a very pleasant listen and a great way to get familiar with previously unknown bands. In my case, I was really quite impressed with Aposynthesis from Cyprus and wish they had done something else (they get extra Doom points for their Doom/Aposynthesis studded jacket done especially for their piece of artwork).

The booklet is good too and provides an exhaustive Doom biography as well as some words from Stick. It also shows a lot of original Doom artwork, some old flyers as well as some pictures but I hope you have a good eyesight because it's all printed extra small. "Slave to convention" was released on Helvetet Records, a Peruvian label responsible for records from Los Rezios (I am pretty sure the bloke doing the label also plays in Los Rezios), a Warcollapse discography and re-issues of old 80's hardcore bands from Peru like the fantastic Autopsia or Kaos. Basically a label worthy of your interest.

Are you ready for almost one hour of Doom worship? You'd better be.

Slave to doomvention            

Extinction of Mankind "Scars of mankind still weep" Ep 1998

The fourth and possibly last seat at the "bands-you-shall-not-take-for-granted" table, just next to Misery, Hellkrusher and Warcollapse, had to be given to them, the second longest-running old-school crust band: Extinction of Mankind. To say that I hold EOM close to my heart would be an understatement. I am not sure anyone really cares (and if you don't, why don't you go download some indie-rock on another fancy blog) but EOM was the first proper English crust band I got into. I bought their "Weakness" Ep at a Severed Head Of State gig in Paris in 2002 (that same night I also got Hellksrusher's "Doomsday hour"). I actually hesitated befor buying it on that German distro (SHOS played with Protest Stagnation that night hence a huge distro full of Skuld Releases records) because the Ep looked quite different from I was used to. I was heavily getting into anarchopunk at the time, bands like Disaffect, Substandard, Coitus or classics like Icons of Filth or the almighty Antisect. I felt visually that there was a connection but still it looked darker, gloomier but not cheesy in the way that actual metal bands looked to me. Seeing they were from Manchester (that data reassuring me about the potential quality of the band for some reason), I took the plunge...

Twelve years later, I am still listening to EOM and still wondering why people in my corner of the punk world are not as much into them as I am (you can substitute EOM with any of the bands invited to my aforementioned table)... After all, they are the real legacy of Antisect. They don't try to emulate them as much as SDS though, rather, in the 90's, EOM merged both periods of Antisect to create their own sonic landscape. However, I don't think that, had Antisect gone on playing, they would have actually sounded like EOM. In fact, I am pretty sure that, given the clues we have with Kulturo, they wouldn't have landed too far from Coitus, with a more rocking sound. It's a pretty pointless argument I suppose but I'd be lying to say that it doesn't cross my mind from time to time.

There are two distinct periods to EOM that can be circumscribed to two different line-ups and a change of drummer and guitarist that occured just after the release of the Ep we are going to talk about, a record that therefore can be seen as the apex of EOM's first life, with Foz and Mass still in the band, before Tony and Scoot joined in. I really enjoy both periods of the band but the changes in terms of sound are undeniable. On "Scars of mankind", the drumming is still ripe with drum rolls and tempo changes that, to me, defined the early EOM, while afterwards it became more metal in the traditional sense of the word, harder-hitting probably, more accurate certainly, but further from the original crust bands. The evolution in the guitar is the second great change, with Mass having a dark and dirty, gloomy, slimy, at times quite intricate style and Scoot with a more powerful, crunchier, thicker sound.

Undeniably, "Scars of mankind' is EOM's best 90's record. The songwriting is solid, the sound is better than on the first Lp but remains organic and damp (a bit like an Alien egg), the guitar is haunting and threatening, the distorted bass buzzes, the drumming is also more focused and powerful than previously and well, the vocals are as great as ever, with a singer that doesn't try to growl but on the contrary uses his actual - deep and powerful to say the least - voice, something that is often missing in that genre and that's a bloody shame, because that particular singing style is one of the things that makes EOM instantly recognizable and, well, unique. The perfect blend of Antisect and Nausea with a dash of Chaotic End? I'll drink to that.

The artwork is stunning although I am afraid my shitty scans don't do justice to the drawings here. They are actually dark, by which I mean that they convey a sense of doom, of anguish, of fear and alienation and the Alien motif is just the perfect metaphor of the threatening unknown that is both inside and outside the human body and mind. And it shows that you don't need to use fucking orcs and nuclear explosions all the time. The lyrics are on a par with the great songwriting too: "No dignity" depicting the pitiful, lifeless existence that we are offered by the bleak wasteland that we call society; "Puppets of power" is about power and how we are sedated, conditioned to accept our lot from the cradle to the grave (this is one of the best EOM song ever, a crushing, nightmarish mid-tempo number with an additional singer, a real classic); finally "Scars of mankind" is about human destruction and disrespect of the environment and the natural world.

This Ep was a joint release between Profane Existence and Skuld Releases and it is a record that I have seen floating in distros even recently. So you'd better get it before the 90's become officially trendy. The next EOM record would be the split Lp with Misery which is, for me, a tragic missed opportunity. A collaboration between the two bands that epitomised crust music (and I mean CRUST music) the best should have been the ultimate record, some sort of new classic. Sadly, because of a terrible production, the EOM side sounds weak and even sloppy. So, I think, and I am pretty sure that it is the best idea I have had for a long time, that both bands, especially now that they are both at the top of their game again, should do another split record together, with a proper sound for both this time. How great would that be?

     

Scars of mankind still fucking weep
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Ten Steps to Make Your Life CRUSTIER Starting Today (step 9): Extinction of Mankind / Warcollapse "Extinction of Mankind / Massgenocide" split Ep, 1994

As time passes and as the global ecological apocalypse looms ever closer, it seems that, not unlike most of the world's wild species, the average lifespan of punk bands has also grown shorter. According to the last estimate of the World Health Organization, a punk band formed in 2020 is now expected to live a total of 800 days, whereas a band playing a similar style in 1992 could live at least 2000 days. Of course, some factors external to the punk scene like global living conditions, economic hardships, dictatorial regimes or postpunk's growing instagrammability have to be taken into consideration when one tries to analyse the transience of modern hardcore bands. Still, the fact remains that many bands split up after just two years of existence (often involving one 20 minute long album, one Ep, one European tour and about ten different shirt designs), before members disperse in order to start new band with a slightly different approach, thus launching a new punk life cycle. The intrinsic shortness of hardcore punk bands' lives is a subject that has been on my mind for a while now and, in spite of my infinite wisdom and invaluable experience, I don't have much to offer to enlighten this process other than the global acceleration and increase of our consumption of cultural goods and the decrease of our attention span, both as audience and musicians. If internet has affected the way we listen and relate to music, it must have changed how we write and play music and form bands. In any case, it is always heart-warming to see bands formed in the early 90's that are still active, still hold the same values and still deliver the same sonic assault, thus showing that crust music can be a potent - without mentioning largely organic - preservative indeed.                 

Today, Terminal Sound Nuisance will be hosting two familiar ugly faces, gathered on the same split record, an Ep released in 1994: Manchester's Extinction of Mankind and Sweden's Warcollapse, the latter being the only non-British band of this crust lifestyle series. The inclusion of this split Ep made sense on several levels. First, it is a way to connect the past - in this case the early 90's, a crucial time in crust development - to the present, since both bands are still playing in 2020 and although WC have not been anywhere near as active and prolific as EOM in the past decade, the latest Desert of Ash 12'' was released in 2019 and is worthy of your attention. Second, in the timeframe that interests us, from the late 80's to the early 90's, the split Ep format grew to become a proper DIY punk staple. The format was emblematic of the period itself as it symbolised the idea of cooperation and was also a lesser financial risk with the involvement of two bands. Just consider the number of split Ep's released in the 90's and 00's that unquestionably belong in the upper level of the crust punk canon and it is utterly clear that, not only did the Ten Steps series dearly needed such a format as a matter of diachronic relevance, but that you should also have a list of your ten favourite crust split Ep's ready in case you are being challenged to a crust joust by your arch nemesis one day (lets get real, it's bound to happen). And finally, you did not get much crustier than EOM and WC in 1993 when they recorded their respective side of the split. 

I have already written about EOM's Scars of Mankind Ep (here) and WC's Crap, Scrap and Unforgivable Slaughter Ep (here), so that I do not really need to tell you about their origins again and the fascinating stories about how and when I got to know them probably don't deserve another round. I often feel as if I am droning on about the same old bands and sanity, or something approaching, dictates that I should avoid literally repeating myself too often. The day I accidentally review a record I forgot I already dealt with will be the last day of the blog and the first of a gofundme page for my retirement party (possibly a massive Discharge karaoke night). But we're not quite there yet and we have a lovely split Ep to rave about so let's get to it. There are several connections between EOM and WC, the split Ep being only the most obvious, and many parallels can be drawn between both bands. As punk bands do, they toured together in Sweden in late 1994 (Counterblast were also invited) and in central Europe again in September, 1995, but far more strikingly, both bands each recorded a tribute Ep to UK punk bands - Ale to England and the aforementioned Crap, Scrap and Unforgivable Slaughter - that included the exact same three bands (Antisect, Discharge and Amebix). If the similar choice of classic bands undeniably reflected major influences, there remains an impression of crust bromance that I find particularly endearing and relatable since, as any faithful believer of crust knows, Antisect, Discharge and Amebix is the official trinity of our cult. The Extinction of Mankind / Massgenocide split Ep was the first proper record for both bands (although EOM had one song off their Without Remorse demo on Loony Tunes' compilation Lp A Scream From the Silence Volume 2) and it proves to be an apt representation of the bands' rawer past selves. 

Recorded in October, 1993, in Middlesborough, the EOM side is made up of three songs, admittedly thinly produced and rather direct in their approach, that nevertheless pack up a right punch. Although beers and fags have affected Ste's voice during his almost three decades behind the mike in EOM, you can still instantly recognise his vocal style and unmistakable flow, tone and intonations, shouted with a lot of power but never yelled or growled, and always very much understandable (if you are fluent in the language spoken "Up North"). You can hear that the band was still young and not totally comfortable and had not really found its own beat yet. The sonic ingredients that defined the early years of EOM are already present however and the Antisect influence is prevalent indeed as the band tries to offer a blend of In Darkness There is no Choice's relentless power and Out From the Void's rocking darkness, an ambitious initiative that EOM probably did not have the ability to realise at that point in time but that Scars of Mankind remarkably did eventually. There are also elements of Anti-System and Icons of Filth in those early EOM tracks, especially on the faster "Overruled" or on the groovy mid-paced moment of "Extinction of mankind", while "Suffer in silence", arguably the best song, reminds me of a cross between early Axegrinder and Hellkrusher. Lyrically, we are on standard grounds with "Overruled" (about systemic control) and "Extinction of mankind" (about humankind's fair treatment of nature, of course) while "Suffer in silence" is a visceral number about domestic violence. Although EOM would significantly improve throughout the 90's, the key elements and the referential nods, that they would build on, polish and grow to be famous for, already informed their early sound. One may also note that they were one of the few 90's UK bands to worship so openly at the altar of Antisect and Amebix and pay such a powerful tribute to the mid/late 80's both in terms of songwriting and visuals (the artworks have always been brilliantly macabre and the band's logo is the equivalent of a Crust 101 art class), and on that level it is relevant to see EOM as an attempt to continue and preserve the whole Antisect approach to punk and a love declaration to the crust greats. In the end, a rather romantic endeavour.   

There are two songs on WC's side, "Massgenocide" and "Scorned by bombfighters", recorded in February, 1993. These two tracks were part of a larger session as two other songs were also recorded on that occasion, "Misery and despair" (which would end up on Tribal War's compilation War Compilation) and "Warcollapse" (included, along with "Misery and despair", on Distortion Records' Distortion to Hell classic compilation of Swedish crusty hardcore). I think it was the first session under the WC name but the band's website infers that a demo entitled Misery and Despair was recorded when they were still grinding under the Earcollapse moniker (a cracking name indeed). Being a massive WC fan myself, I cannot recommend the band's early era enough as it gloriously epitomised the 90's cavemen crust sound, albeit with a distinct Swedish hardcore vibe, and for all their rawness, the early Ep's did not fail to deliver and let it be clear that the Crust as Fuck Existence minialbum from 1995 is a masterpiece of mid-paced metallic old-school crust. The two WC songs on the split are typical of what would become the band's style. The heavy, slow, stripped-down dark crust number, "Massgenocide", points to Doom's slower moments, Döm Dar or even Saw Throat with super gruff and hostile vocals and such slow-paced epic metal-crust numbers would become a WC trademark. The other song, "Scorned by bombfighters", sees WC unleash a fast and pummeling scandicrust tornado upon the listener, somewhere between Doom, early Sauna, Anti-Cimex and Bombanfall, with the deceptively soft introduction cleverly linking it to the previous number and a spoken words moment nodding to anarcho hardcore punk. A clearly fantastic debut from the masters of Swedish crustcore and a fascinating instance of how influences circulate inside the punk scene with a Swedish band influenced by Birmingham's Doom, who were themselves inspired by Discard and 80's käng, who could not have existed without Discharge's fury. Not that many Swedish bands displayed a strong crust vibe in the 90's - be it of the stenchcore or of the cavecore variety - and many (and there were tons of bands) aimed for a harder version of the Swedish hardcore classics. WC, on the other hand, offered a punishingly convincing cocktail of old-school UK crust and vintage scandicore, and their sound, to me, defines what the term "Swedish crust" really entails.   

Both EOM and WC would go on to become genuine references in the world of crust throughout the 90's and 00's. In spite of important lineup changes (the departure of Mass and the arrival of Scoot on the guitar must have been a massive sonic shift), EOM have progressively become that rather unique and distinctive UK crust band with a sound that is both identifiably linked to the old-school crust wave and yet totally their own and there is something that I find inherently respectable, if not heroic and quixotic, in keeping a band alive throughout all these years, especially when they play such an underground peculiar genre as crust punk, surviving all the shallow trends and the endless punk drama in the process. As for WC just play Desert of Ash if you need to be persuaded that they are still up for it and may the crusties of the world hold hands and pray together that it signifies the rebirth of the mighty WC. 

Released on the Swedish label ElderBerry Records (responsible for records by the likes of G-Anx, Tolshock or 3-Way Cum), this is retrospectively a classic split Ep in the sense that, to some extent, it prefigures the greater things that are to come for both bands, although taken on its own as a rather typical early/mid 90's record, it would be far-fetched to call it a crust masterpiece but reasonable to describe it as a solid and promising raw crust work. It is therefore in the light of future events and of the bands' parallel progression that the EOM/WC split Ep makes the most sense.

To be enjoyed with some ale.    

Extinction of Collapse

Cancer Spreading "Suffering" Ep 2011

For once, I won't be speaking about an old record or an ancient recording today. No, today I shall delve into the field of stenchcore and study the relevancy of its mid-00's variety. Heavy stuff to come, let me assure you. And in order to illustrate this study, I have picked a record that is only three year old, and therefore should be still available, and from a band that is still active and is getting better and better: Cancer Spreading.

Stenchcore. I have always had mixed feelings about that term. In itself, the phrase was just a joke from the Deviated Instinct lads meant precisely to make fun of the trend to invent new genres through the mere addition of "-core" at the end of a word. Since in their own case, they smelled pretty bad, they made up the word "stenchcore". I suppose it was also a comment about their own music that was as dirty and filthy as you could get. But in the end, they could have called it "trampcore" (interestingly the name of a Chaotic End song) or "filthcore" or whatever (in fact, a very similar analysis could be made about the creation of the term "crust" by Hellbastard that was born from the same musical and cultural context). So, why the sudden resurgence of the stenchcore tag? Whereas "crust" has been kept and spread widely, "stenchcore" only rose again about 10 years ago, basically at the beginning of the old-school crust revival spawned by Hellshock. However, the bands that kept playing that genre in the 90's (Extinction of Mankind, Misery, Filth of Mankind, SDS, Coitus, Effigy, Hibernation, you know the drill) certainly didn't use the "stenchcore" tag. So why did it re-appear? Or more correctly, why did it get used at all, since in the mid/late 80's, it didn't seem to be used at all either?

I would argue that there has been a shift in the early/mid 00's, a change connected with the increasing presence of the internet. Since the world wide web allowed everyone and anyone to have access to any obscure records or bands (that great cultural equalizer as they say), the word "crust" came to define pretty much any band that played fast, aggressive music with throaty vocals and lyrics about war or the apocalypse. Disclose? Crust. Wolfpack? Crust. Tragedy? Crust. Aus-Rotten? Crust. How disconcerting. In the end, the term became empty of any stable meaning and that's when the "stenchcore" came handy as it refered to a specific sound contrary to "crust" that increasingly refered to nothing coherent musically, but rather, became synonym with wearing patches, dreads and studs.

The Hellshock boys probably sensed that discrepancy and opted for the term "PDX stenchcore" in order to stress that they were playing old-school, UK (and California) influenced crust. Much more than most of their 90's counterparts (SDS being the obvious exception), Hellshock was a referential band to begin with, probably because the members had already played in quite a few bands before and definitely because they know punk music and punk records very well (Portland, right?). Reading a very early interview of the band in an old Warning issue lately, I don't think the band took itself very seriously at the beginning. They were just doing a tribute to all the great British metal-punk and I really doubt they could have imagined doing three albums, touring extensively and becoming the new reference of the genre. Like many short-lived PDX projects, I think Hellshock wasn't necessarily meant to last long (a bit like Bomb Heaven). But then, they have had a tremendous impact for several reasons: they brought back the old-school metal sound into crust at a time when bands like EOM and Misery were no longer at their best, they revivified the aesthetics and resurrected the relevance of the old UK bands for a new generation, and, of course, they released absolutely crushing records. After years of boring Discharge clones, wasn't it great to finally hear some Sacrilege-type riffs?

Like with their longevity, Hellshock certainly didn't expect to start a new trend, a proper crust revival, or rather, the "stenchcore" revival. A lot of North-American bands started playing referential crust music, some were not exactly newcomers (like Stormcrow or After the Bombs) but others were actual young, spotty bands (like Sanctum, Stagnation or a bit later, Contagium). Very few of those bands are still active (contrary to Hellshock). Japan, being Japan, already had its fair share of old-school crust bands (Effigy, Zoe, Acrostix...) so I am not sure this new stenchcore wave had much of an impact over there, but I could be wrong. Europe got caught up some years later with, among others, Last Legion Alive from Belgium, Instinct of Survival from Germany (though their case is a bit different since they were already around, but playing another genre), Hellisheaven from Poland, Grind the Enemy from London, the mighty Fatum from Russia and Cancer Spreading from Italy.

As my faithful readers already know, I love bands sticking to their guns and Cancer Spreading is one of the kind. They formed in 2006 and have been really prolific: four split Ep's, one Ep, one cd album and two split Lp's. Usually, their records are the product of collaborations between many small DIY punk labels and that too is something I appreciate since it epitomizes, to me, the spirit of togetherness that punk should promote. But above all, the thing I like most about Cancer Spreading is that they are a proper punk band. Contrary to many stenchcore bands that already had a heavy, powerful sound even on their very first recording, CS started out as a shitty, yet loveable, band paying tribute to Deviated Instinct's "Terminal filth stenchcore" (an equally shitty and loveable piece of music that I hold close to my heart). The split with Children of Technology is an amazingly sloppy and yet undeniably great stenchcore record and it is quite possibly the only songs I know of that are genuinely influenced by Deviated Instinct (but after all "Cancer spreading" is a DI song). And then the band evolved, grew, improved, got tighter and tighter so that now, they are probably one of the five best CRUST bands today.

Cancer Spreading is a band I have been following since they started. To be fair, with a name like theirs, I was bound to fall in love with them. The Ep we are dealing with was released in 2011 and exemplifies what the band sounds like today. While it would be easy to dismiss as yet another metal crust act, Cancer Spreading have this genuinely dirty sound: they don't crush you with a clean metal production, rather they bury you under a pile of filth and then proceed to stomp on it while screaming like boars. They don't fall in the "we-want-to-sound-like-Bolt-Thrower-so-hard" trap like most, no, they adapt the impending, unstoppable sense of doom that bands like Bolt Trower, Prophecy of Doom or Mindrot inspire to a dual vocal crust attack owing to Extreme Noise Terror, A//Solution or Mortal Terror. The vocals are completely over the top, which I bloody love, they are gruffy, throaty and mean as if a drunk rabid zombie were preaching the apocalypse. There is that feeling of uncontrolled insanity pervading the music. If cavemen tried to cover Hellshock songs, that's what it would sound like. You really don't get much crustier than that nowadays and their new split with Fatum might even be better (a synth-driven, Greek-influenced, mid tempo scorcher with bear-like vocals? Fuckin A!).

As with most CS records, the artwork is absolutely amazing and a lot of efforts have been put into it, a right orgy of axes, orcs and deformed skulls. Cancer Spreading is part of this new generation of top notch Italian bands that produce quality punk-rock whatever the style they are playing: Terror Firmer, Campus Sterminii, Into The Baobab, Infamia, Dystopian Society, Warpath, NIS and so on.

Cancer Spreading play solid, sincere, proper crust music and I wish more bands were still carrying the banner today. For that I will rely on Instinct of Survival, old-timers like Extinction of Mankind, Misery or Hibernation and newer bands like Fatum, Swordwielder or Ruinas.

Keep stenching.   

Suffering

  

The Filth and the Crusty: an overview of 90's metallic crust (part 1)

After the resounding success of Terminal Sound Nuisance's cavemen crust compilation that focused on brutal and fast gruff crust music produced in the 90's, it was high time I got off my arse and dealt with the other, darker side of crust, the genre's guilty pleasure: metal. 

Sometimes, lines are thin, boundaries are fluid to the point of irrelevance and attempts at grasping the essence of metallic crust can prove to be futile, if not sisyphean. Like for its fast and furious brother, mood, vibe and tension are defining factors, and the mere addition of strict musical elements is not enough to characterize crust. It is not all subjective however, and of course, there are compulsory aspects for a song to be called a metallic crust one. Heavy, groovy apocalyptic riffs, an epic sense of atmosphere, gruff vocals, a thundering bass sound, without mentioning the crucial punk energy and aggression. 

It could be argued that metallic crust has become very redundant and predictable since the 00's (with some exceptions, fortunately). This tendency is paradoxical since, contrary to cavemen crust, which offers limited possibilities for innovations and creativity, the infusion of metal should be door-opening rather than formulaic. But more often than not, when I hear about a contemporary metal crust band, it often sounds like Bolt Thrower with a d-beat, which, I suppose, has a lot to do with the so-called stenchcore revival of the 00's. So while all the songs compiled here have meaningful similarities (especially in terms of vibe I think), I tried to highlight the variety in the contributions to the genre that 90's bands made. There are influences from doom metal, death metal, industrial metal, heavy metal, but it still organically refers to the original wave, and hence fall under the crust umbrella (maybe unwillingly!).

The choice to work from a chronological perspective is probably problematic. If all the songs included here were recorded between 1990 and 2000, some bands were not necessarily "90's bands" like Nausea or Prophecy of Doom. Similarly, some bands make much more sense on an area-based compilation rather than a time-based one. I am aware of these discrepancies but I wanted to do a global overview based on musical similarities and shared attributes. Of course, a Japanese or Californian crust comp would offer a deeper, more significant perspective (like I did for the Greek scene for instance). Maybe on another occasion.

Most of the 25 songs were ripped from my collection and, as usual, for the lazies, I uploaded the thing onto youtube. The second part will be posted shortly.

Enjoy this unhealthy slice of CRUST. 

01. Filth of Mankind "Zwiastun" from their Czas Końca Wieku Ep, 1999 (Gdansk, Poland)

02. Prophecy of Doom "Onward ever backward" from the second BBC Peel Session, 1991 (Tewkesbury, England)

03. Ανθρωπινος Ληθαργος "Μονος Μπροστα Στο Θανατο" from their s/t demo tape, 1992 (Athens, Greece)

04. Hiatus "Equality, conception of life" from their In my Mind demo tape, 1990 (Liège, Belgium)

05. Warcollapse "It's time to..." from their Crust as Fuck Existence mini Lp, 1995 (Värnamo, Sweden)

06. Stagnation "Songs of praise" from their Answer to Time cd, 1998 (Dublin, Ireland)

07. Cirrhosis "?" from a practice session, early/mid 90's (Minneapolis, U$A)

08. Depressor "Mammoth" from their Grace demo tape, 1997 (San Francisco, U$A)

09. AGE "Inside darkness" from their Inside Darkness Ep, 1997 (Niigata, Japan)

10. Ανάσα Στάχτη "Καταδίκη" from their their s/t Lp, 1994 (Athens, Greece)

11. Coitus "Arbeit macht frei" from the Submission/Domination tape, 1992 (London, England)

12. Nausea "Cybergod" from their Cybergod Ep, 1991 (New York, U$A)

13. Carcinogen "Civilized" from their Kure demo tape, 1992 (Orange County, U$A)

14. Defiance "Intro + Future is darkness" from the Meaningful Consolidation 2xEp compilation, 1994 (Osaka, Japan)

15. Policebastard "Major label control" from their Traumatized Lp, 1995 (Birmingham, England)

16. Scatha "I am one" from their Respect, Protect, Reconnect Lp, 1996 (Glasgow, Scotland)

17. SDS "Apocalypse now" from their In to the Void unreleased Lp, 1992 (Gifu, Japan)

18. Misery "Children of war" from their Who's the Fool... Lp, 1994 (Minneapolis, U$A)

19. Σαρκασμός "Απόγονος Ανθρώπινου Μυαλού" from their Ο Ζωγράφος Της Παρακμής demo tape, 1995 (Greece)

20. Lardarse "Slave" from their Armchair Apathy Ep, 1997 (Nottingham, England)

21. Mindrot "Blink of an eye" from their s/t demo tape, 1990 (Huntington Beach, U$A)

22. Extinction of Mankind "Puppets of power" from their Scars of Mankind still Weep Ep, 1998 (Manchester, England)

23. Confrontation "Contortion" from their Dead Against the War Ep, 1991 (Huntington Beach, U$A)

24. Insurgence "Hawk and the dove" from the Squat or Rot 2 compilation Ep, 1990 (New York, U$A)

25. Χαοτικό Τέλος "Τίποτα Αληθινό" from their Μπροστά Στην Παράνοια Lp, 1993 (Athens, Greece)

The filth and the crusty!

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

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

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

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

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

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

           

A new crust for lost mankind