Reviews

Todo Roto

Banda Des Femer Herència Enverinada 12″

It’s the first time I get assigned a band singing in Menorcan Catalan, which is a specific type of Catalan from the Balearic Islands, and if the language is new to me, the music certainly is not, because BANDA DES FEMER play good old raw, käng-influenced hardcore punk that takes no prisoners and gets straight to the point. What sets this LP apart might be the peculiar production that keeps things deceptively simple and primitive—it doesn’t go for any deafening “wall of noise” or anything fancy, but just old school D-beat punk for the punks (a noble cause indeed). The band clearly displays self-awareness about the genre and their own technical prowess, which I find quite refreshing. I like the upfront vocals that are still intelligible, and there are some welcome mid-paced moments and even a couple of sing-alongs. There are strong hints of ’90s D-beat and some songs would have been at home on a Distortion Records compilation in 1994. The music also reminds me of DHK for its spontaneity and its radicalism, not synonymous with extremity here but of core value. Simple, fast, and loud political hardcore punk that loves DISCHARGE lovers. However, I think the record should have been longer, as seven songs in fourteen minutes is a little short for an album (although the three members do not live in the same town, so practicing has to be an issue), but these are fourteen good minutes.

Disolvente Disolvente cassette

Mid-tempo, no-frills punk rock trio from Barcelona. All Spanish-language chanted vocals complete with doubled-up, sing-along style choruses on many of the songs. Repetitive riffs that manage to keep my attention and make the recording sound incredibly timeless. We’re not reinventing the wheel here, because it needs no such reimagining. This is A+ in my book.

Disolvente Guerra cassette

Some mid-tempo headnodders from Barcelona’s DISOLVENTE. Nothing too complicated here; this is very much your meat-and-patatas bravas UK82-flavoured street punk. It does chug along at a decent pace, but is nothing that’ll stay with me beyond the end of the record. I’m sure they are a laugh live, at the least.

Agathocles / III Guerra split EP

Mallorca’s III GUERRA opens this split with some no-frills hardcore punk that has the old school attitude with a relatively modern sound. Shouty vocals drenched in delay sit on top of guitars with perfectly dialed-in distortion and gnarly bass with a strict sense of duty, while the drums punch their way through the mix. This side sounds like getting hit in the face with a concrete block that is so perfectly cut that you don’t really get mad about it. But once you get to the mincecore pioneers AGATHOCLES’s side, the sound definition degrades dramatically. It sounds as if the band recorded their side through a single AirPod’s shitty microphone, but decided to place it even closer to the hi-hat this time around. But hey, if you have any prior experience with this band, you should have seen it coming from a mile away. So, that’s kind of on you if you have any complaints. To be honest, I’m not well-versed in AGATHOCLES’ discography—I mean, who even has time for that??—but it sounds like they incorporated a tongue-in-cheek parody of Oi! punk into their sound to celebrate their bajillionth split. Yay?

Katupartio Apatia cassette

At first listen, I admit I was a bit confused by this cassette. KATUPARTIO is from Barcelona, Spain, but all song names and lyrics are seemingly in Finnish. There was a band from my neck of the woods years ago that was obsessed with Finnish hardcore and attempted to learn Finnish so as to sing badly in the language. Too much of a gimmick for me. I did my research and found a ripping live set of KATUPARTIO where the singer looks like a true madman, a wild punk that inexplicably seemed slightly out of place. That all made further sense when a bit more research discovered that he was originally from Finland. No damn gimmick here. Weird, plodding, mid-tempo punk with killer barked vocals drowning out the lackadaisical “woah-oh”s sung by the backing band.

Banda Des Femer / Svnya Talaiotik Attack split cassette

Two bands from Barcelona that I have absolutely never heard about (damn, I do get older) do a split tape together, and well, you’ve got to like it when local bands team up to release something. Sadly, this is not my cuppa at all. SVNYA reminds me of late ’80s Deutsch punk or early ’90s Mexican hardcore back when both genres were starting to become boring. The band definitely sounds like a Spanish band (especially the very special vocals, half spoken/half shouted). I am not really sure what the band is trying to achieve—you’ve got straight-up punk songs, some with a crossover metal punk feel, and the production is heavy but somehow lacks energy and aggression to really work. I am a bit harsh and I can see the band has a worthy political message, but their side is not for me. On the other side, BANDA DES FEMER delivers 21 short hardcore songs, and I actually quite like it. Simple and unsophisticated old school hardcore punk in Catalan with a raw sound that fits the genre. I am reminded of classic Spanish bands like HHH or ANTI DOGMATIKSS, and more recent bands like OTAN when BANDA DES FEMER goes fast, but I am unconvinced with their slower, snotty punk songs. You can tell the band has a lot of fun and they’ve got that youthful energy that makes their side worth giving it a try if you are into raw Spanish punk. This is the first recording for both bands, so they are bound to improve (or are they?). The artwork is punker than you.