HATRED JACKALS

 

This is what I wanted today. Vicious mid-teens anarcho crust steeped in now-classic '90s USDIY sounds and ethos. The guitar leads are going to grab you first (and I warn you that they won't let go), instantly familiar anthemic melodies that float over ferocious dual vocal clenched fist hardcore that borrows liberally reinterprets so you're listening to something that you feel like you already know even though every songs starts with a "holy fukk what is this?!" I first heard the band ages ago on the Singapore Punk Holocaust (with DISTRUST, a recent Monday visitor to The Escape), and was thrilled when I pulled this one out of the stack. It's as good as I wanted it to be. 

DEBELLATO

Controversial Opinion: One of the vocalists kinda sounds like Ernesto on the first LIFES HALT record. 

INYECCION

 

I remember having a hard time putting INYECCION in a box that made sense when this bomber dropped a few years ago. By the time Porqueria came out I think the collective punk world had more or less figured out what do 'do' with them, but this demo was a complete head scratcher. You know the sounds - raucous Japanese pogo, Latin American anarcho/DIY hardcore and fierce UK punk are all here in spades - and INYECCION make it feel like you haven't heard them all together like this. Full force dupa-dupa with ferocious shrill vocals trading off with a sharp bark...and that guitar. GAI caliber sonic damage giving these riffs the fukkn business. I figure folks probably lumped them in with THE WANKYS and the like (right?) and they weren't wrong if they did. For me.....? I'm gonna lump them into their own fukkn world. 

INYECCION

DOLOR Y ODIO

 

This copy is several generations old, so I'm not exactly sure what form this tape originally took....but oh the fukkn power in these six songs. Ultra raw off the rails political hardcore punk from Mexico City related (at least loosely, I think?) to DESOBEDIENCIA CIVIL. There are still undiscovered worlds of punk like this from virtually every corner of the earth....bring them to me, Friends Of The Escape. Bring them to me so that I may share them with you.

NECESITARIAMOS SIFRIR COMO ELLOS PARA COMPRENDER LA TRISTEZA DE SUS OJOS

 

KIEGETT FÖLD

 

After making a brief appearance here back in February and (presumably) taking the interweb by storm via Szégyen Kazetták, I was thirsting for more from Budapest's KIEGETT FÖLD. Luckily, during an evening filled with burritos and friendship and laughter a few weeks ago, I saw this pink sleeve peeking out of a small stack of Hungarian goodies my pal pulled out of his bag and I knew my thirst would surely be quenched. Thankfully, the tracks here are only slightly more realized than the product the band offered on their previous tape - and it's the awkward "not quite there" aspect that makes you feel like you're listening to something special. The foundation is angular UK post-anarcho, but what KIEGETT FÖLD build on that foundation is something that sounds like....well, it sounds like a one person punk project rooted in angular post-anarcho punk, allowed to grow and flourish without outside pressure. It's (still) rare and (still) wonderful to hear a band who sound so much like themselves even while not being afraid of exposing influences that may be a bit all over the place. I look forward to the next installment, just as I look forward to the friendship/s that continues to bring interesting sounds into my life. 

T​Á​BL​Á​ZATOK, INV​Á​ZI​Ó​K

COMUNIONE

 

When the fine folks at Iron Lung Records exposed the world to Italy's COMUNIONE a couple of years ago, these seven songs were the soundtrack to my world for days upon end and I was surely not alone. Cold Euro-anarcho punk with a primitive early black metal presentation, these seven songs sounded positively (or negatively) deranged when I first heard them...and in this case familiarity breeds dementia. A lifetime later (read: last week) I pulled this self titled cassette from the shelf, popped it in the deck and waited for the feeling to fill me. The feeling is brilliance and knowledge, but neither is intentional - COMUNIONE is the sound of compulsion and provenance, the foundation of an as-yet-unknown but undeniably great thing. You might find comfort in the familiar aspects of the sound of COMUNIONE, but whether or not you find hope in the promise buried in those sounds is entirely up to you. 

COMUNIONE

ZYGOTE

 

No introduction necessary....right? Two blokes from AMEBIX and two from SMARTPILS, that should be enough if you don't already know. There's the collection on Skuld that was the introduction for most folks (including me), and the LP on MCR that was a little harder to track down (before the internet), but this tape was elusive as fuck...so I reissued it in the early TE days. No one sounded like ZYGOTE then, and no one has sense...and I swear these two recordings hit me harder today than they did when I first heard them.

ZYGOTE

KIÉGETT FÖLD

 

Excellent and weird are a good combination. One can work without the other, to be sure...but when you have both? Enter Budapest's KIÉGETT FÖLD, a project that drags early '80s angular punk into the new world and breathes life into sounds that come off like they are from another world (not just another time). Fans of ALTERNATIVE and THOUGHT CRIMINALS will perk up at cuts like "Érzelem Rendörség" and at other times (think "Élelmiszer" specifically) they're just good, raw, interesting punk that should perk up anyone reading these words. The Szégyen Kazetták label is brimming with quality, and KIÉGETT FÖLD are just another reminder to pay attention.

KIÉGETT FÖLD

STATEMENT // SOLSTICE

 

Wild bursts of anarcho-noise from STATEMENT, brooding anarcho-goth from SOLSTICE. The song listed as "X Marks The Plot" is probably actually a STATEMENT track, but these damn dadaists made the cover next to impossible to decipher and there are no titles for the STATEMENT tracks anyways. I can only do so much...also, I strongly suspect that SOLSTICE = BLACK SOLSTICE (who are connected to CYANIDE SCENARIO) so I'm posting prematurely because what I really want to do is dig in deeper. Instead I'm just listening again...which is also fine. 

STATEMENT // SOLSTICE

ARGUMENT?

 

The absence of rules is what's supposed to keep this shit interesting, right? Like a cloudy anarcho punk troupe from Los Angeles, a dual vocal trio with no guitar and only occasional blips and whirrs to augment the ploppy bass and forceful, thoughful (read: forcefully thought filled) lyrics that dominate this first tape. ARGUMENT? do not seem even remotely interested in writing (or performing) anything even close to a song, much less a hit song - the title track that closes this 2016 tape leaves me almost frustrated...and interested. In other words: it worked. 

DESPITE HER LOVE

POLITICAL ASYLUM

 

POLITICAL ASYLUM slogged about for almost a decade, and somehow I feel like they're Scotland's most forgotten '80s anarcho export. They don't sound like anyone or anything else and they never did - melodic midpaced poetic and anthemic punk that leaned heavily on ripping leads and a confident lilt behind the mic. Walls Have Ears is five self-recorded tracks and a dozen (plus) recorded live, all in 1985/86 - this might be my favorite version of "Disarm Or Die," even though the vocals are pretty buried. 

WALLS HAVE EARS

LA PLANETE DE TOUS LES DANGERS

 

I have become low-key obsessed with the compilation tapes released by Acts Of Defiance from France in the late 80s and into the next decade. Top quality international punk/hc collections that seem to always manage to reel you in with the candy you know you want (in this case: THE SNAPPING BOGSEATS,  FINAL BLAST, CIVILISED SOCIETY?, THE DIRTY SCUMS) and then smash you over the head with under the radar freaks like DISTURB, RICHARD III, PIN PRICK and LD50. La Planete De Tous Les Dangers was the first of these comps...and the search for the rest continues. 

ACTS OF DEFIANCE: LA PLANETE DE TOUS LES DANGERS

===

EDIBLE

Beyond the contents of this 1983 piece of short run idealism, I seize on the experimentation that flourished within the loosely defined boundaries of the early punk communities. I suppose a modern equivalent would be punk/hardcore musicians finding influence from the worlds of primitive noise and electronic musics which, moving virtually along the imaginary timelines of sounds, might be similar to artists from the early 1980s reaching backwards and drawing from the beats. But pieces (artifacts?) like EDIBLE's You Eat What You Are come off as more soul baring, more generally daring creations. Thirty minutes of spoken word anarcho political realism broken up by a couple of ultra minimalist drum machine backed non-music punk numbers ("The National Health Service" is a standout, but "Not My Life" is a would-be shit-fi classic). If nothing else, placing your ear to the speaker of the time machine and listening to the sounds of teenage frustration and determination from 40 years ago is....pretty fukkn cool. 

YOU EAT WHAT YOU ARE

CORPSE AND 2 VEG

 

Revisiting this no-fi brilliance from the village of Amesbury I originally posted back in 2010. The brilliantly named CORPSE AND 2 VEG slog through four doses of mid-paced snotty, idealistic anarcho punk....just like snotty, idealistic are supposed to do. The recording is rough, but there songs are good sharp bursts of angular minimalist mania. "Boredom" is an utterly nonsensical forty second assault ("this is for all you lot that like hard thrash punk"), and "Meateaters" draws expertly from the playbook laid out by the bands who came before them - and when the singer loses his shit screaming "Why do you? Why do you?! Eat.....eat ANIMALS?! Why? Tell me Why? Why?! Instead of eating animals, why can't you eat food?!" the wheels comes off of the recording and everything sounds completely unhinged. The songs are an awkward, jerky, robotic blast from a distant past. More than worth slogging through 38 years of tape hiss. 

CORPSE AND 2 VEG

SURRENDER

 

When I moved back to the West Coast in 2008, SURRENDER were the coolest band in the Bay Area. Maybe they weren't the best, but they were definitely the coolest. Singer played blindfolded, freak guitars rooted in early UK outsider punk while dual vocals belted pleas and missives that instantly inspired comparisons to CHUMBAWUMBA and the weird fringes of Crass Records fodder. The songs were sparse and jerky, driven by addictive and repetitive bass lines and interrupted by power punk chords before the guitar faded off and returned to off kilter blurts. They looked serious...they were serious. SURRENDER were fukkn cool, man. 

SURRENDER

MAD ARE SANE

 

I initially posted this cassette back in 2009, and in that post I casually compared MAD ARE SANE to a theoretical melding of SUBHUMANS and PINK FLOYD. I was pretty damn spot on - though you could make the case that such a combination really just creates a bastard HAWKWIND with anarcho tinged vocal barks. Every time I try to write another blurb about Look Further Than Vengeance, I find myself spacing out on the sounds and getting lost in a thought about how fucking advanced and brilliant the band is (was), so I think it best to just leave the post there and continue listening. 

LOOK FURTHER THAN VENGEANCE

ATAVISTIC

 

The two EPs that came in 1987 (the year after this demo was recorded) are under the radar rippers and well worth tracking down (as is the much more thrashing Vanishing Point LP from 1990) - much like the ten tracks on From Within, they are a bombastic blasting assault. It's hard to place ATAVISTIC in the context of the UK anarcho/punk/hardcore/thrash scenes - CIVILISED SOCIETY and HERESY were rolling strong, but also DEVIATED INSTINCT and the tail end of ANTISECT. This demo is a whirlwind - intensity definitely valued over proficiency with blast beats that don't even make sense until you realize that it's just a way to play faster. Then listen to the lead drop in on "Timshel" and that blown out bass intro to "Your Time's Up." Fucking monstrous. 

FROM WITHIN

UK PUNK

Imagine you were trading tapes of underground recordings with an excitable young punk in Southern England sometime around 1982. You sent them shitty live recordings of the hardcore bands playing basements and hall shows in your suburban shithole, and they sent you third generation demos of then unknown English bands you had never heard of. Maybe one of those tapes might have sounded like this...

ANTISOCIAL - 
A little over half of the New Punks demo. Hard to believe this band still flies mostly under the radar. If nothing else, snag yourself a copy of the admittedly generic looking Made In England EP in your local shop. It's probably there, and it's probably less than $10. 

NAKED - 
This nine song demo from 1981 is probably the highlight of this tape. This came before the EP on Bluurg and features a chilling version of the chillingly appropriate "Mid 1930s / Pre-War Germany" which is one of my favorite punk tunes of the era. 

SUBURBAN STUDS -
Three song Peel Session from 1977. Think EDDIE & THE HOT RODS and other power pop/mod crossover acts of the time. 

RUBELLA BALLET - 
Another Peel Session, one that suffers slightly from generational duplication. No introduction (should be) needed for RUBELLA BALLET, and this session includes: "My Love Life," "Newz," "Exit," "Death Train" and "Trial 13." I'm struck by how much this sounds like a punk incarnation of GIRLS AT OUR BEST, but also struck by the fact that I've never had that thought before. 

Your friend in England hooked you up good with this tape. Hopefully you'll be returning the favor with a tape filled with bands from your area. Who knows, maybe you live in Michigan...and maybe NECROS are playing down the street next Thursday. You should probably take your tape recorded...just in case. 

ANTISOCIAL // NAKED // SUBURBAN STUDS // RUBELLA BALLET

DAN

You can't really go wrong with DAN. Their somewhat second tier status is likely a product of a few years and scene fluctuations more than a reflection on their recordings - image these tracks had come out in 1983 with a slightly less metal guitar tone, and I think you'd have an entirely different legacy. DAN were serious, but DAN seems fun. Like you imagine their shows were smart and sharp and intense, but you can also picture everyone smiling and singing along to "Into The Field" and leaving all sweaty and full of hope. The instrumental "The Cull" and "Once Upon A Time," presented back to back, are indescribably powerful, and then they launch into the demo of "Loophole" which sounds so totally fucking weird - an all out thrasher, but recorded quietly so to not wake up the parents? The seeds of MANKIND? are here, the bridge between early '80s UK anarcho and the metallic anarcho thrash that dominated the end of the decade is here, but Here's The Story....The Furthur Adventures Of DAN is also packed with demo recordings, live cuts, outtakes, which is what makes is such a great listen (even still) because everything is here. If "anarcho twee thrash" was a genre....

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF DAN! 

THE SYSTEM

Come on, young punks! Tell me what you want that you can't find in THE SYSTEM's 1982 demo? That's a declarative statement in the form a question, because the answer is: nothing. It's anarcho punk, it's the roots of UK hardcore, it's UK82 stomps, it's like the Punk And Disorderly comps reduced to one brilliant and timeless band. Get the discography LP, but blast this version of "Born To Lose" because it is absolutely untouchable. 

 

THE SYSTEM

SOUNDS OF DEFIANCE

 

I should just be able to list the bands and if you weren't already aware of this 1987 comp then you should be salivating. So....DARK AGE (Switzerland, ex-THE DECAY), BAD ATTITUDE (Germany), INSTIGATORS (UK), 16 BLSÂRE UTAN HJÄRNA (Sweden), KRULL (France), UNIFIED FIELD (USA), NO CONTROL (Australia), SCOUNDRELS (Holland), G-3 (Peru), PRESIDENT FETCH (Denmark), R.I.P. (Spain). Not too shabby for a comp put together by some kids from South Dakota, I suppose. More mix tapes, more comp tapes, more international collections. 

SOUNDS OF DEFIANCE