GRASP OF DYNAMITE

 

This is the embodiment of '00s stadium crust never realized......except that it was realized. TRAGEDY and and THE TOTAL END and ZEROID and FALL OF EFRAFA and....GRASP OF DYNAMITE but a decade later. They took the sounds and the energy and made it something else entirely. Something you already know but something you've never felt before...not like this. 

THE ABYSS

MORALLY STRAIGHT

 

In a way, MORALLY STRAIGHT came two years too late......but isn't that want makes them perfect? 2012's Normalitas is a master class in posi-Y2K fastcore, giving off serious LIFES HALT vibes with shades of 97A and some of the more 'crew iterations of the era. I wax nostalgic about this period every so often, choosing to remember the positives and skip the frustrations, and it's bands like this that really drive home how many great people and relationships came out of that time....bands like MORALLY STRAIGHT that help me remember that while hardcore rules, your hardcore (whatever era and/or genre you're a part of) rules more. Pretty sure these kids from Bandung are never going to forget the bonds they made in the early 2010s, and that makes this old white guy smile. 

NORMALITAS

OUR SPIRIT

 

Had a couple of drinks tonight with an old friend (one of my oldest) and for the first time in a long time we didn't talk about nostalgia. We talked about our bodies failing us and our friends failing us and us failing ourselves and we talked about love and we talked about loss and grief and we talked about death and we talked about punk bands and EDM DJs....we talked about his bands and my bands, but we didn't talk about our bands. Sometimes it's good to connect with someone you love and actually connect instead of rehashing as a means of small talk. Anyway....this band from Depok City hits like LIFES HALT and OUTLAST. Eight minutes of determined, positive 'core that makes me feel....well, nostalgic. It's hard to say the before times were better because we (I) didn't know what we didn't know....but fukk that innocence felt good, especially in retrospect. Enjoy and crank "Can't Get Ahead" while you get ahead today. 

OUR SPIRIT

 

KONTRASOSIAL

 

Ferocious ScanDBeat from the subgenre's heyday in the mid-2000s. You can imagine KONTRASOSIAL added to a Pointless Fest basement gig or Chaos In Tejas after show easily; shit would have been the perfect recipe for joyous chaos...and if you know what I meant then you know precisely what I'm talking about. Fist banging kång and lightning fast mid-tempo moshes, it's like THE TOTAL END and DISMACHINE linked arms and doused the entire warehouse with beer. Relentless, in your face and dedicated to the craft - this is the DBeat band I was dreaming of when I dreamed up KS MUTATION with Jon and Anton fifteen years ago....that one four-song set wasb't enough, but we have KONTRASOSIAL.  

KONTRASOSIAL

MARY ANN

 

This sounds like some dead ass '90s "melodic hardcore" aka "skate punk" formed from the solidified drippings of the Fat scene that oozed into every international crevice. It just took a little longer to get to some places, and thus Hit The Road didn't come out until 2004. If you toured in the '90s then you've heard this band, or at least the version of this band that you played with at a VFW in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Or Joplin, Missouri. I think you get my point.

HIT THE ROAD

CONTRASESSION

 

The early 2000s were fukkn magic - so were the early '90s of course, and I guess the adolescent twenty-tens didn't suck either. I focus on today on the aughts though, because posi-political-hyper-fastcore took over the fukkn world and holy shit it was fun. You could argue that 2005 was on the back end of the shit, but try telling that to these Indonesian motherfukkrs. "Awas Prosess"personifies a tape filled with twenty three sub-60 second rippers culminating in the brilliant "The Only Time I Think About Romance Is When I Wonder Why I Don't Think About It." So here's to the tape you didn't know you needed until now....I guess I drop a lot of shit like that in your lap, huh?

LIDAH BERBISA...

Notable: "Topeng" kinda starts off like "Deny Everything" from a different universe.

BURNING FLAG

 

The title tells you what you need to know - Grind IS Protest and BURNING FLAG are standing tall in the face of authority and sonic competence on this 2014 release. No bass (at least not in the mix), raw dual high/low vocals punctuating political DIY grind - you don't need to know BURNING FLAG to know their sound. Tracks like "Revolusi" and "Fuck The System Government" would have been right at home in 1990s Connecticut (if you know, then you know) while "Dinoe Kasetno Indro" is a more primal, metallic lo-fi crust grind assault. Melodic hooks keep creeping out of the manic DBeat guitar riffs; never enough to actually develop...just enough to raise an eyebrow before tracks like "Ludahi Para Pendusta" rip your face off. Let Grind Is Protest serve as a reminder....I'm not sure of what exactly, just consider yourself reminded. 

GRIND IS PROTEST

MOOSEO

 

This band sounds like they were a fukkn blast to see live. Fast, loose and wildly catchy hardcore with roots in early century fastcore and '90s melodic punk, I picture them sharing space with ALL YOU CAN EAT and GOMEZ in some different reality. Seems like this 2012 sample laden release is all that MOOSEO offered the rest of us....so enjoy the next twenty minutes of punk. 

PUNK PERCONTOHAN

SUCCUBUS

 

This one will be tough to describe so I will try to use few words (but more words than I spent on the glorious TOURIST tape a couple of days ago). SUCCUBUS are clearly drawing from classic goth and dark wave but SUCCUBUS are just as clearly rooted in punk sounds so the result is....different. They hit like retro dark wave but they also beg to be filed alongside RAKTA and UNA BÉSTIA INCONTROLABLE and they sound like fukkn punks, particularly on "Judas." Only three songs on 2020's Coherence - soaring and determined. They are still active and still pushing boundaries...

COHERENCE

VENGEANGE

 

Instantly infectious Jakarta punk with OBSERVERS-level hooks. Vocals are forceful, leads are flawless, hooks are endless....it's just a brilliant recording and I want to blast the chorus of the title track on repeat, because The System Doesn't Work.

STAGNANT CIRCLE

WHO WILL BE NEXT

 

Yeah....more Indonesian hardcore. This shit sounds like it was ripped out of the early '00s "old school meets emotional melodic hardcore riffs" subgenre. Like, you're gonna know what I mean when you hear the shit, I swear you will. Dan Gatewood would (probably) love this shit, I can see him rocking back and forth patting an open hand on his chest and smiling until he thrust a fist in the air and mouthed the chorus to the title track "Straight Edge Today." I miss that dude, but I miss a lot of things and alas I digress..... First half of Dari Sini Kita Mulai was recorded in 2014 but the other three tracks were recorded seven years earlier and are a touch more on the Y2K tip. It's just twelve minutes all in, but the shit takes you on a fukkn journey and I am (still) here for it. 

DARI SINI KITA MULAI

NINJA HATORRY

 

Full throttle metallic thrashcore from Jakarta.....there's not much analysis required here because 2021's Fase is more akin to a beating than a listening experience. Twenty three exercises in grind mania with a conscious eye towards Y2KThrash - shit sounds like fukkn magic to my ears. It's great from start to finish, but "Youth" into "Me & My Holiday" gives me exactly what I needed this morning. Sometimes, my friends.....faster really is better.

FASE

THE CHOSEN ONE

This one is problematic, but here we are listening to some twenty year old Indonesian punk. The title track "Anarchy Sunrise" is perfect melodic punk and there's a very clear '90s East Bay influence (specifically talking Kerplunk and Let's Go! here) on tracks like "Otoritas" and "Someone Gonna Die," while there are punk ska/reggae bits to keep you guessing and give you a breather ("Stereo" is the choice jam) and a brilliant would-be street busking classic called "Government." And then there's one rampant violently homophobic track what the actual fukk kids?! Sigh....this is why it's so hard to have nice things. Anyway....maybe I should have just skipped this one, but also maybe listening out of context and off of the radar can shed a light on how conflicted, conflicting and challenging everything was. And can still be. 

ANARCHY SUNRISE

AYPEROS

 

I often write about things that remind me of other things - about listening to things that make me thing about other times when I listened to other things. That's Nihspra in a nutshell, and I am fucking frothing while I introduce myself to AYPEROS because these sounds are emblematic of one of the best times in (my) punk history. This is mid-'00s stadium crust; PDX SweDe-Beat infused with black metal and CELEST(E) blasts and then just.......fukk man, just listen to the title track here. Please. PLEASE. 

NIHSPRA

SPEEDKILL // BERBAHAYA

 

Ten minutes of churning, in your face thrash that....man, the shit just fukkn grooves. The first SPEEDKILL cut has serious NUNCHAKU vibes and settles into something akin to the first HAUNTED record, while the BERBAHAYA tracks are full throttle cruising grind/thrash. There's nothing fancy here - they get in, they destroy, they get out. Not sure what else you could possibly want. 

OPIUM PEMBUS MORAL CANDU NADA NERAKA

TOTAL DAMAGE

 

It feels good (sometimes) to hear something new (to you) that feels like things you already know. I had never heard Jakarta's TOTAL DAMAGE before a couple of weeks ago, but I knew the sounds - throaty, heavy hardcore with stadium crust undertones, liberal grind parts and a few INTEGRITY ghosts lurking in their collective closet - and now I know the band. Struggle For Existence was released in 2018 but the band started more than twenty years earlier, among the first wave of DIY hardcore from Indonesia. They've grown - and now I'm after a copy of 200's Police Racist Action because I want to hear how this shit started. 

STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE

Also there are parts that remind me of Polish crust (think HOMOMILITIA) and the spoken word piano driven interludes are sick and also the tape itself is kinda wrecked so the sound quality is a bit in-and-out in places. You get what you pay for though, and I haven't seen any contributions in a while (or ever). You kids keep it that way, and I'll keep it this way. 

SPORADIC

 

I ran into my pal Mike at OMC tonight when I was loading in for rehearsal (new VEXXYL track is utterly disgusting in the best possible way, by the way) and we had a pleasant stop 'n chat. In addition to the band he's been working on with Laura and HannahLynn for the better part of a decade, he said he's got a new skate-rock project in the works. I was intrigued....because of course I was intrigued. Mike said it's skate-rock because all of the members are skaters even though it doesn't fit the "skate rock" genre stereotype, and I was like "shit dude - coming from a guy who has never skated who was in a band that wrote songs about skating? this is a real skate rock band you're talking about!" Can't wait to hear his shits....and also this SPORADIC tape is rips and I bet it's really good to skate to. Maybe not? I don't know. I don't skate, remember? Never have. Twelve Y2K fastcore rippers in less than thirteen minutes here...also, none of the songs are about skating except "Skate And Destroy" which is about skating (and the title does stronly imply a pro-skating stance). The rest of the lyrics are fierce and political and I think if I skated I would probably want to listen to SPORADIC. Also there's a VITAMIN X cover, but the discussion about that band's relationship with so-called "third world" DIY punk is a discussion for a different day. I've said enough (read: too much and/or nothing) here - this tape rulz. 

HALF PIPE ON YOUR HEAD!

STAND CLEAR

 

There was a hot minute in the early 2000s when it felt like there were three kinds of hardcore - there was retro-PosiCore, Y2K fastcore and crust (an all-emcompassing and criminally non-descriptive descriptor). Of course there was power violence too, and shitpunk and shit...but the whole point of my stupid declaration is that STAND CLEAR rehashed the first two of those first three subgenres as well as any band I can think of. Breakneck SXE 'core with perfect breakdowns - the shit makes me feel like I felt when I was listening to OUTLAST on 24th Street back in 1999. Scottzy was making fun of me (which was fair) and still all I wanted was more of that lighting fast finger pointing shit with those breakdowns, you know? That's what Starting Point feels like, and if you know me (or read these posts) then you know that's a very (very) high bar. They make an SSD song sound better than SSD did, and they just fukkn rip - and STAND CLEAR are still doing the damn thing in 2025. 

STARTING POINT

BOTTLED VIOLENT

 

Talk about a fukkn time warp - Bandung's BOTTLED VIOLENT perfectly manifest TOTAL FURY's turn of the century manifestations of early '80s DC hardcore. They make it completely seamless, neither aping one nor copying the other but flying both flags proudly and alongside their own. Because this hardcore belongs to all of us, and BOTTLED VIOLENT have made it theirs. Get ready for five minutes of magic.

BOTTLED VIOLENT

GRASP OF DYNAMITE

 

A few weeks ago we went to see a bunch of black and death metal bands in San Diego. Some of them were pretty satanic and it was generally a really good gig....but I still left feeling like I wanted something else. Not necessarily something more, just something else, you know? Apparently what I wanted was GRASP OF DYNAMITE. A blackened satanic metal infused crust assault that is distinctly and undeniably punk in approach and delivery, Satanik Krust Impera does in four songs what those six bands tried to do all damn night (with the exception of CARDINAL, that shit ruled...but I digress). 

"In Darkness We Alive" in-fucking-deed. 

SATANIKA KRUST IMPERA