War//Plague The Rot Thickens LP
In our day and age when bands often don’t last longer than two years, I am always astonished that WAR//PLAGUE has kept it going for so long. I distinctly remember when I got their first EP and have more or less followed them since, sometimes from afar as I must admit I did not get into all their releases, but I am always happy and relieved to see they’re still at it (a bit like that old friend you bumped into every five years and are relieved to see that he’s still a punk), and it makes sense that fate attributed their new LP The Rot Thickens (what a sadly relevant title) to me for review. The WAR//PLAGUE gents are old school punks raised on ’90s and ’00s DIY anarcho crust-punk, so you know you’ll be offered honest punk music, and that is the case here. The band is back to dark, metallic crust bordering on stenchcore on this one, reminiscent of Minneapolis crust anti-heroes MISERY and early HELLSHOCK, but also faster, “blackened” (I dislike the term, but it makes sense here) hardcore crust, not unlike MARTYRDÖD maybe? I find the album pretty solid, classic in terms of songwriting and riffs too, and I believe that’s when the band is at its best, as a resilient old school metal crust unit with something to say.