Crusty hardcore punk from Pittsburgh, PA. Six track demo of driving, metal-infused, nasty crust punk. The dubbing of the tape makes it sound super lo-fi, but I also checked out the songs on their Bandcamp and the recording is much more clear than I was initially led to believe.
From the industrial wasteland of Pittsburgh cinders forth a rusty, warped sound of bastardly punk. Vocals are delivered like early DOOM, with a bellow-filled lung of oration. The entire production is burning filth and fills my earholes with grit and noise. Drums have a hard kick and tumble over all the crunchy delights. In some parts INTEGRITY hardcore rolls through, in others, ’90s European crust. Very much digging the surprising riff changes and driving fire of rhythm inside this EP. Side A does not wait up and excites with mid-tempo churning HC punk. Side 2 opens with a classic crust eulogy called “Poisoned Well” that quickly picks up into a D-beating wallop. Lastly, the title track, again with classic squat-style crust that erupts shortly after with galloping verse and throbbing bridges. Four great tracks in total from this three-piece that each have their own merit and personality (the songs, not the members, though they are very gelled on this recording). Come to think of it, this EP fucking rules. Hard and dark as fuck. I only wish I was reading some lyrics because I get the impression they are profound. Totally recommended while you circle-pace around your home this summer wondering WTF is going on. *Sharply inhales*
Pittsburgh’s death-beat crustforce DEATH GASP returns from abysmal stench to deliver their brutal flavor of pulverizing, downtuned mind grind. I thought the first EP was a ripper and this is burying. Galloping distortion and smoldering vocals from the bellows of despair. With this EP, DEATH GASP is proving to be a concentrated behemoth of the style. Again, I thought the first EP was well on its way, but this bloated, embittered carcass of a slab really balances confidently in riff and rhythm, where I think they excel. It’s slightly death thrash, but certainly punk as fuck. It is very austere. Think HELLSHOCK but below-freezing grim frostbitten ghoulishness. Think EFFIGY but vocals like a goddamned beast. But it is essentially more dooming D-beat, like DISCRIPT or KLONNS (Vvlgar EP). Think everything registering low and the axe registering lower; a haircut at the shoulders. Executioner, a crustcore nightmare—respect.
Few D-beaters out there stand out as much as Ontario’s DECADE, and the band’s unique range of styles is on display on this EP. We’ve seen a few different shades of DECADE over the course of their handful of releases, and this four-song record seems to have a hot little mix of everything. The chugging charge and ethereal vocals of the opener give way to the spaced-out, confusion-packed banger “Indifference” on the A-side. The flip opens with the crusty pounding of “Existence is Ignored” before the bass-heavy rocking swagger of the closing track, and the whole thing is painted with killer metal guitar licks. Some of the band’s best looks are when they pick up on less popular sources of inspiration like later ’80s-’90s DISCHARGE and FINAL BOMBS, and overall they’ve got an uncanny ability for forcing strange innovations into the genre with great results. If you haven’t heard their 2018 World Stops Turning LP or split with FATUM, you gotta check those too. These guys are killers.
Damn—a solid decade of disbeat noise from Atlanta’s DISABLE? I welcome it just like I welcome these six bursts of manic distortion into my life. It would be easy to keep cranking out amped-up, mindless D-beat distortion (and I wouldn’t mind), but DISABLE pays attention to the little things: the bit of weird chaotic melody before the stop in the title track, the start/stop that opens “False Flag,” turning “Death’s Head” into slow-motion robotic repetition instead of making it the mandatory mid-tempo stomp that every D-beat record seems to have. The closer, “Whistling Death,” is interrupted by noise, but it sounds like it was actually interrupted instead of some calculated electronics-not-music exercise to prove they aren’t just a run of the mill D-beat band. All of this is to say that DISABLE are, in fact, another D-beat band, but that they’ve used their ten years (and counting) in the game to create something different (and dare I say “interesting”) within the confines of the genre. Killer slab.
Russia’s FATUM should be no strangers to fans of brutal clenched-fist stench, and I dare say this is some of their fiercest material to date. Powerful dark metal crust, with full attention paid to the “metal” part of that descriptor. Canadian crusters DECADE stink up their side of the split with a destroyed collection of blown-out, metallic D-beat with a signature high-end snarl—if this is commentary on some of the questionable eras in the archives of D-beat history, then I dare say they hit the mark (and that bass tone—oooof!). Polished power from FATUM, damaged churn from DECADE—Malaysia’s Black Konflik released this on CD last year, happy to see it’s getting the treatment it deserves.
FORCLOSE plays metallic Dis-punk with highly distorted vocals on the higher register, to the tune of DISCLOSE or FINAL BOMBS meets NIHLIST or the riff style and bone-snapping hits of REPULSION. This is sizzling deathbeat-to-death with blazing solos and maniacal vocals. Great side. DROGATO follows up those three tracks of depression and anxiety with two hammers of solid lo-fi, monstrous dual-vocal crust delivery. Focus very strongly on the early DISRUPT EPs, DESTROY!, DISSENSION, and CONSUME, then add a bit more organization and rhythm change-ups that are a bit wilder and seemingly come out of nowhere Á la MASSGRAV or SCUMBRIGADE. This entire split is Dis-crust for you fukker.
Who wants blistering D-beat kängpunk for disfukker? DISABLE kicks things off with grueling, distorted, mid-tempo hardcore punk. A classic style with slightly reverberated vocals à la GLORIOUS?, DISCLOSE, et al. Pace quickens and riffs thicken by the second track, a snare-pummeling composition called “Enola.” The bass here is a ghost-ridden chopper cycle of fire and mayhem. An awesome three tracks from DISABLE, who switch it up subtly and keep you mesmerized in raw, chainsawing fury for six solid and distortion pedal-immersed minutes. LÖCKHEED follows suit with a slightly more Vevarsle/Scandi-beat style, with the feeling of DISCARD, WARCOLLAPSE, or DISFEAR. Vocals are harsher, solos are higher and more dive-bombing. This heavy madness is the perfect compliment to Side A. I want to describe track two on their side as well, as things really climax with “Pill Mill.” Both sides share a parabolic structure but bring a unique offering of this classic style. The last track “Black Wings of War” takes the register even eerier, ending the entire EP with unsettling ominous death-beat. Mastered with the finely-tuned ear-slaughtering of Jack Control at Enormous Door. Strongly recommended for this gross world/your life.
Fist-banging metalpunk from Pittsburgh—fans of INEPSY, SKITKIDS and the like need to get in line for MÖWER fucking pronto. I know they are several releases into their career but Grand Punk feels like a band realized, and they sound like a machine…and few things sound better to me right now than being half in the bag in a sweaty-ass basement listening to “Burn It Down” burning so hard it makes my ears bleed. Also, I just used the word “career” in a review.
Loose, jangly crust Á la early DOOM demos or ABRAHAM CROSS, with the buoyancy of some early ’90s grind like UNRUH or ACRID. Tight-as-fuck snare and grizzly basslines, sizzling feedback cross-channeling buzzsaw strings and ugly vocals. Lots of breakdowns in the DEVIATED INSTINCT/APARTMENT 213 sense, while constantly driving forth like DEFORMED EXISTENCE or CRUSADE. Low levels of subtle dirge, DISCLOSE riff-raining terror followed by more breakdowns. This is so good. Heavy as fuck with a hard stance toward animal liberation and this world of constantly accelerated pollution. This is worth your attention and speaker destruction. Six tracks of obliterating, downtuned crustcore guts, in a D-beat skeleton, a total distorted onslaught.
Churning, metallic Russian metalcrust. Like a blast from the early 2000s, STEP TO FREEDOM bulldozes their way through seventeen pieces of pure guttural filth, combining two earlier releases. 2017’s Cemetery For The Humankind is a ripping speed metal dervish with MISERY lurches throughout, while 2014’s Social Zombies opts for a more streamlined AXEGRINDER approach. To have all of this mania on one tape is nothing short of a gift.
This is a record I have been anxiously awaiting since I first heard the band’s convincing 2019 demo. If the tape’s cover was pretty much unreadable, the content was certainly more clear and unambiguous: stenchcore for the unwashed. I suppose the rather unoriginal name did give it away, and an experienced linguist would have easily hypothesized that WARKRUSHER would probably sound like a cross between BOLT THROWER’s War Master and HELLKRUSHER. Not bad at all professor, thanks for dropping by. WARKRUSHER is from the prolific Montreal hardcore punk scene, and the members have played in a bunch of other bands that you have probably heard of like NAPALM RAID, PMS 84, and PARASYTES. This is the band’s first endeavour into the world of vinyl and it is, as I hoped, an absolute winner. The production is much better, crunchier and groovier, than on their previous recordings (and I do really enjoy the Pils Session, and not just because it is a terrible pun I wish I had come up with)—it just sounds heavier and more aggressive without falling into the merciless “we wish we were a death metal band” trap which is the equivalent of the Odyssey’s Sirens for crust bands. WARKRUSHER loves filthy metal, but they are in essence a punk band. There are two songs on this 7”; the A-side is a classic mid-paced stenchcore track reminiscent of early HELLSHOCK, SANCTUM, and early ’10s CANCER SPREADING. On the other side, “Visions of Mortality” opens with some AXEGRINDER-esque synth which always gets my attention straight away; it is the equivalent of a whistling toy for crusties. This one is probably more epic and I can picture myself riding a war horse (or more realistically a friendly pony) in the wasteland. What I especially like about WARKRUSHER is that they play the genre exactly as it is supposed to be played and write proper songs instead of just offering a D-beat version of BOLT THROWER. One of the best old-school crust bands around, without a doubt. The tape version of this gem has three additional tracks, two covers from AXEGRINDER and COITUS and an original.
