Japanese CRUST (compilations) Against the Millennium (part 4): "Yotsuva - Japanese Noiz Cruster Comp" Lp, 2009

When a kid gets into punk, he or she often makes it very loud and very clear through dodgy hair dye, randomly drawn circled A on still pristine denim jackets, typically shit early attempts at a mohawk or the sudden disappearance of every safety pins in the house. Parents aren't exactly excited and not too chuffed to have to tell your grandparents aka their own parents - rather embarrassingly - that you're "going through a phase" and that they shouldn't pay too much attention when their once adorable grandson or granddaughter now cannot stop ranting about how the final bloodbath is coming and is just around the corner or some shit. Know what I mean? 

When it is indeed a mere phase, you can all laugh about it years later when the former snotty little punk has finally accomplished his or her destiny and become a mediocre accountant in a boring shithole and spawn two horrible children. Mum would be so relieved that you quickly dropped the bondage trousers and the torn Exploited shirts (although nothing could be done about the still half-infected tattoo of an oddly shaped skull that your mate Paul did during a party while on mushrooms) and became presentable and proper enough to be introduced to her own old high-school friends who grew up to be much more successful. When it is not a phase (meaning when you're still rocking the haircut by 25), well, things are more complicated, aren't they? Parents often beat themselves up, convinced that they must have done something terribly wrong and have basically failed dramatically at parenting. If not, why would their beloved offspring wear what can only be kindly described as a bum's rags, play in a dreadful band called The Riot Cunt Boys and stop eating meat. By that point, the grandparents would have already blamed the mother repeatedly (because in a patriarchal society it's always the mothers who take the blame) for the revolting hygiene of their grandkid and the neighbours gossiped relentlessly about the parrot-looking youth living next door who often gets bullied by "real men".

Why such subtle sociological analysis you might ask? Well, have you seen the cover of the Yotsuva compilation 12" Ep? What would the gran say? It has to be the crustiest picture of a human being that you have ever seen. There's so much hair you can't even see the face of that punk and he probably can't see shit either. It looks pretty much like a scarecrow who lost his comb or the hidden punk baby brother of Cousin Itt, the opposite of presentable. And isn't the creature a little scary as well? If I bumped into that crusty punk at midnight in a poorly lit dark street, I would maybe think that Sadako, instead of dicking around in old wells, just got into Deviated Instinct and is on her way to haunt fake punks who like shoegaze and Turnstile. In any case a mere cursory glance at the cover of Yotsuva is enough for even the least discerning of us to understand that it is an unhealthy, unmitigated slice of crust-for-crusties (noise-not) music. To make sure everyone got it the subtitle Japanese Noiz Cruster Comp was added. Just to be safe.

There are only four bands on this compilation (or would it be more accurate to call it a four-way split?) but the lineup is fantastic and I personally see the record as something of a classic Japanese crust record and a highly relevant snapshot of a time period. One of the most chaotic and noisiest bands of a subgenre already based on chaos and noise opens fire first: Tokyo's Isterismo. It did take me a few years before I understood what the hell they were trying to do first and second to genuinely enjoy them. Emphaticalness might be the key word here. Imagine early Gloom and Frigöra teaming up to create a band doing covers of Plasmid and Asylum and then make it noisier, faster, blow it out a bit more and add an obsession for the amusical side of Italian hardcore like London 77 or Fottutissima Pellicceria Elsa. An intentional fucking racket indeed from a band known and sought after precisely for that. Like Tantrum, Isterismo sang in Italian and these three songs belonged to the early years of the band, my favourite era as I always thought the later Lp was rather disappointing. These Tokyo crusties went on to play in bands like Solvent Cobal or Haava. I recommend the compilation Lp Tokyo Crusties (duh) which you can still find for quite cheap if you want your senses to be assaulted by the band's early period.

The humungous Death Dust Extractor grace us next with three horrendous noise cavecrust songs and it sounds exactly like it should. Do you love early Doom and Sore Throat? Have you always thought that Japanese bands Mindsuck or Abraham Cross did a magnificent job revering Doom and Sore Throat? Have you ever wondered what would happen if you threw a bit of Terminal Filth Stenchcore into the mix and a spoonful of unhinged Osaka crasher crust? Well, it's your lucky day and these three songs are tailor made for your sick tastes in music. A pretty unique band indeed.

Lastly are the third band to enter the crust arena and they are possibly the lesser known of the four stenchmen of the apocalypse. They were from Hida-Takayama, in the Gifu prefecture, a region known for its mountains and I wouldn't be surprised if the members of Lastly were all actual feral kids living in the wilderness of these mountains, eating roots, throwing shit at each other and communicating through noises before they learnt how to speak at age 20. In fact they might have learnt how to play crasher crust before the linguistic skills. This is savage relentless noizy crust praying at the altar of Gloom and Collapse Society and must clearly be seen in the same light as Isterismo, D-Clone or Zyanose. Nothing new here, it's all very well done, by the book, but you might argue that Lastly missed that bit of personality that would have helped cement their spot in the Japanese crust pantheon. You could say they were a mid-table crust bands but then the Japanese league was perhaps the best in the world at that time so it is already remarkable. These four songs (one is not listed) were the first appearance of Lastly on record and they pack a serious punch, I actually like them better than their first cruder more noisepunk Ep while the second one was closer to Contrast Attitude. 

Finally the listener is rewarded for his or her persistence with three songs of noise insanity by the mighty Zyanose. Thanks to a serious and globally solid discography Zyanose have definitely become a reference in the Confuse-meets-Gloom-at-a-crust-convention-held-in-a-mental-asylum. It's still pretty much a musical freak show but one that has become more respectable with time. I have written extensively about these Osaka nutters and I don't feel I need to reiterate because, by now, you know what I am talking about.

As a conclusion, Yotsuva (I haven't been able to find where the name comes from so information is welcome) will delight the most monomaniacal of us and if you are looking for variety then I suggest you keep away from it. However if you crave for your dose of crasher crust it is the perfect choice and a high quality product from the best noise dealers around. A perfect compilation as far as its intentions are concerned: in 15 minutes it succeeds to do perfectly what it claims to do on the cover. No bullshit, just crust pants. Another winning endeavour from everyone's favourite supplier Crust War Records.

YOTSUVA!

  

Japanese CRUST (compilations) Against the Millennium (part 3): "混沌難聴大虐殺 (Konton Damaging Ear Massacre)" Lp, 2005

Osaka. Third most populated city in Japan, legendary punk spot, historical epicenter of the crasher hardcore style and home to that massive plastic red crab. I only stayed there for a couple of days in 2018 for the All Crusties Insane Noise Victim festival because of its smashing lineup, along with rather cheap plane tickets, that prompted me to go there on my own, like a nerd armed with determination and resolve, with the desire to spend far more than reasonable in notoriously busy record stores. Before I traveled to Japan, I had been told Osaka was supposed to be a place where people were rather outgoing and a bit rough as well, something of a raucous, boisterous city as opposed to the more conservative Kyoto. It was described to me as the Marseille of Japan and you'd know what it means if you have been to the South of France. And of course, I had very good time, got absolutely plastered at the Konton bar (a very apt name for the place), got lost on my way back to the hotel, found a fellow punk randomly who kindly took me there (to my great embarrassment I realized the next day that he happened to be Framtid's drummer...) and obviously forgot to take off my boots when I came in the building. Proper French class.

But let's get back to more interesting matters. Beside the great music that everyone knows, I often associate Osaka punk with elite crust pants, vast knowledge of punk and with words, very specific neological phrases created to describe the sound of a band. These are combinations of familiar word commonly used in the punk world, that are, strictly speaking devoid of literal sense, but very rich in evocations and pregnant with meaning if you "speak punk". Know what I mean? This linguistic practice cannot be restricted to Osaka, of course, it's a national phenomenon and most crust or d-beat bands do it - they could be legally bound to for all I know. A quick glance at the Inferno Punx photo book published in 2003 and edited by influential Osaka punks, Jackie (Framtid and Crust War), Mitsuru (Gloom) and Jhonio (Gloom, Defector and others) illustrates what I mean: Deconstruction's sound becomes "Ultra collapsing noise crust", Collapse Society are referred to as "Ultra-scandi Tokyo crusties", Frigöra as "Scandi-magnum crusties torpedo" (I like that one) or Condemned as "Primitive blast crust core". There are many other telling examples of such imaginative portrayals in reviews, fanzines, on record's inserts and of course on bands' logos themselves, like the iconic Gloom logo for instance and Contrast Attitude's "Dis noise attack survivor", Effigy's "Grinding metal massacre", Death Dust Extractor's philosophical "Destroy death energy" and plenty more. In fact, this phrasing was adopted by a lot of bands outside of Japan, notably Physique and their "Disbones crasher" or Fragment's "Total noise fuckers". It can arguably get very redundant, if not lazy at times, but I like how cryptic it really is as these nonsensical phrases are coded for punks. It's fun, folkloric and validating I suppose. In my tiny mind it is very associated with the culture of that place.

And all that for some noisy punk bands. 混沌難聴大虐殺 (Konton Damaging Ear Massacre) (the word "konton" can be translated as "chaos" and it's also the name of a tiny punk bar where I lost my usual sense of moderation, so that gives you an idea) was released in 2005 on none other than Crust War Records. A pretty close knit affaire indeed as Jackie also provided some art, Framtid Takayama the text and Defector Toyo and Jhonio did the design. I have said it many times but I will reiterate because it is my blog: I love town-based compilations. They provide a fair but biased (there's always a curator) view of a specific scene at a specific time. The theme of the Lp is crystal clear: noisy hardcore punk for noisy hardcore punks. All the songs were recorded in 2004 so I imagine it had been planned well in advance to make time for the bands. The artwork reeks of classic crust punk imagery so the more timid listeners might be willing to avoid this one but it'd be a mistake because the Lp is more diverse than it literally looks like and claims to be. 

The opening band is Framtid and I don't really need to introduce them at this point. In the second part of the 00's, they just sounded unstoppable as they maximised the traditional gruff scandicore formula, making it sound more aggressive than ever thanks to triumphant guitar arrangements and riffs, this manic ultra energetic Osaka crasher drumming style and intense vocals. Like Gloom covering Svart Parad and Asocial. Excruciatingly good. Framtid are a tough act to follow and Poikkeus have been picked to take this tricky spot. Poikkeus is the kind of bands that I am familiar with but never really cared for at the time. Japanese punks never show restraint when they get involved and like Frigöra sang in Swedish because they loved Mob 47, Isterismo in Italian because they took "Chaos non musica" very seriously, Desperdicio in Spanish because they overplayed Destruccion and Voco Protesta in Esperanto because they romantically believe in the power of language as a tool to unite people, Poikkeus went for Finnish because they revered Propaganda Records. It does take a lot of courage and dedication to try to sing in Finnish, I'll give the band that, and their distorted take on the traditional Finnish hardcore sound of Kaaos, Melakka or early Bastards must be commended. I like the amount of energy they put in, especially with the first song, but it is sometimes too punk-rock oriented for my tastes and the songs are a little long. I prefer my Finnish hardcore fast and furious with generous pints of snot but this is well-executed enough.

I had absolutely never heard of Kruw before playing this Lp and a damaging ear massacre they are certainly not. The band was active for most of the 00's and played tuneful, old-school hardcore, but the first number sounds almost like a late 70's punk band (like Anarchy maybe with the lyrics in Japanese). The second one is much faster, with still a clear guitar sound which makes quite a contrast with the rest of the lineup. High-energy hardcore with a slightly crazy punk vibe. I wouldn't listen to Kruw all night but I welcome these fresh songs in this context. Adixion are next, a band with an interesting history. They had been active since the early 90's and used to call themselves Addiction back when they were a very different animal. Originally, up until the mid-00's, Addiction played excellent UK82 influenced punk-rock with singalongs and great spirit and you could argue that they were one of the best bands - not to mention one of the earliest - working on that sound around in the 90's (let's remember it was the heyday of bands like Tom & the Bootboys, Discocks, The Kickers and the whole Pogo 77 Records scene). Their switch to Adixion was also a musical switch as they started playing a more experimental and dissonant, not as regulated you could say, kind of hardcore music. I am a man of recipes and while I can really enjoy Addiction, Adixion are not my cuppa. This said I appreciate the fact that they were included on this compilation and this is exactly what makes such endeavours interesting and even challenging.

The other side of the Lp is, undeniably, much more in line with the Osaka crust orthodoxy. And we start off strong with Zoe and their groovy blend of Amebix and Zygote. Zoe was very much Taki's (from Gloom and Defector amongst others) baby and a grand opportunity to rename himself "lightning baron" which makes him sound like a crust superhero I suppose. I have always loved Zoe and almost twenty years after their demise I realize how genuinely original they really were and I cannot think of a band really working with the same Amebix-as-language predicate. As for the songs you have two rerecorded numbers that originally appeared on The Last Axe Beat (that I covered extensively here), the very Zygotish "New world" and the supremely Amebixian "Zygospore". It's good stuff. Did I mention they loved Amebix?

The listener is then brutally attacked by two songs of Ferocious X, then still a relatively new Osaka bands immersed in a relatively old Osaka tradition: playing emphatically furious käng hardcore with a lot of distortion. If Poikkeus decided to sing in Finnish because they revered Riistetyt, Ferocious X went for the Swedish language because they dreamt of Disarm and Mob 47. Or - much - closer to home of Frigöra, the Japanese hardcore band that pioneered the notion that hardcore could very much be used as a second language in the 90's, that substantially singing in Swedish (or in any other languages tied to a legendary hardcore scene) was a way for you to sound closer to the source material. I think that it does make sense conceptually but it also does make for some odd syntax moments and I cannot wait for a Japanese bands to sing in French because they like Les Béruriers Noirs (they won't dress as clowns hopefully). To get back to Ferocious X, I only got into the band rather recently (by which I mean 10 years ago) and was unaware of them in the 00's. They are one of the oldest - if not the oldest - bands doing the blownout crasher käng thing still in activity, have produced some solid records throughout the years and even though they may not be as popular as other Osaka, these two songs are absolute hardcore tornadoes of anger, distortion and just plain dementia in the pure local crust tradition. The drumming, courtesy of Takayama from Framtid, is insane and the vocalist (formerly doing similar noises in Reduction) sounds like a howling rabid seal lion. If you know, you know as the kids say.

The second Suomi band of the record comes next under the guise of Laukaus and I actually like them better than their brother in arms Poikkeus. Laukaus were snottier, with a touch of UK82, maybe just punkier, with a clearer guitar sound and overall less effects. They are very reminiscent of Bastards and Kaaos (just listen to that bass sound) with a spontaneous sense of fun and a "two fingers in the air" attitude. This is hardcore to pick up your nose to while drinking cider outside of the venue if you know what I mean. The song "Poisiukaa" even made me want to pogo (briefly and just metaphorically but still more than usual). The band's three Ep's (on Distort Label Records, Putrid Filth Conspiracy and Pogo 77) are also very strong and let's just hope that someone will have the grand idea to release a discography because Laukaus could rightly be considered as one of the very best Finnish hardcore of their generation. Not a mean achievement when you're from Japan.

Finally Konton Damaging Ear Massacre ends on a very crusty note with two songs of Defector, the band vastly known as being "post-Gloom". There are elements reminiscent of Gloom of course but you could always tell that Defector craved to create something a little new and different, not to the extent of going free jazz as they still very much want to destroy your ears and the little sanity you have left. There is precisely an atmosphere of insanity, chaos, lunacy in their music as the band plays with song structures and paces, maybe not unlike Confuse's latest period but with still Osaka crasher crust tools. It might be a bit too chaotic and loony for some but I have always found the band very endearing and an interesting sequel to a legendary band whose legacy permeates the compilation textually and paratextually. 

Is this a must-have, a classic, a compulsory record to own, a genre-defining moment? Not really. There are some brilliant moments indeed - the whole side B actually - but other songs leave me a little cold. However the album must appreciated for what it is, a snapshot of a portion of the Osaka scene at a given point in time so that it reflects what was happening there and then. Beside the bands included are quite diverse for a Crust War Records production and the album must be given some praises for it. 

As much as the unreasonable part of me would have loved to be punished by crasher hardcore crust bands playing the exact same thing for 30 minutes, the reasonable one also appreciates some variety and the discovery of bands I did not know. That's what's called wisdom apparently.

Konton Konton Konton

    

 

  

Japanese CRUST (compilations) Against the Millennium (part 2): "Mie City Hardcore 2 - Howling Noise Crusties From Gates of Hell" Ep, 2002

This will be an interesting record to review because I actually wrote about the first volume of Mie City Hardcore more than 7 years ago, in May, 2018 (you can read it here if you haven't delved into this masterful piece of writing yet) and in fact, when I did some research about that Ep at the time, unbeknownst to me until then, I realized that a second volume, a Mie City Hardcore 2, had come out 8 years after in 2002. What is particularly arresting about this follow-up is that it is a very very different one. You cannot really do more different than that. Of course, your uncle Bob will still find that it's still exactly the same bloody racket and that it's nothing compared to real music like Dire Straits or The Police, but people who listen to rather than just hear music will be unquestionably flabbergasted and drop on their knees. While the 1994 compilation largely focused on traditional Japanese hardcore (often referred to as "Burning Spirit", perhaps wrongly), the 2002 opus was all about noizy crust with a crasher major. Wow.

Alright, I might get a little overexcited here, in the end it's still hardcore punk I guess, but the shift remains impressive. You could argue that, beside the bands' similar town of origin, the most significant parallel lies in the very crust-oriented artwork on both Ep's. I noticed it at the time but it stroke me as rather odd in the first installment's case because, beside Carnage's excellent song, the Ep was crust-free, whereas Mie City Hardcore 2 visually appears to be an ode to crust. The subtitle refers to a subspecies called the "howling noise crusties", apparently native to Mie and very well-represented on the 7 songs, so you've definitely been warned. The artwork was the work of Jhonio from Osaka's crasher crust pioneers Gloom so it is a heavy clue to be fair. The cover looks like classic Japanese crust or what has become associated with this concept anyway. Rather naive and chaotically drawn crusty punks often with instruments and studs, this time with the skeleton option, it can be said to be a variation on the Bristol school of Disorder and Chaos UK, one revolving around punx drawing punx doing punk thing for a punk audience. Many non-Japanese bands have been using this sort of aesthetics since the 2010's and it almost always indicates that you're going to get served Japanese crust worship. But in 2002 it was still very much the preserve of Japanese crusties (I don't see the Doom/Sore Throat visual references quite in the same light although they're cousins of course). The punk penis on the backcover does not exactly win me over however as it just feels very awkward to have a dick (a literal not a metaphorical one, the latter being far more common in real life) with charged hair seemingly looking at you. 

But yeah, Japanese crust it is. In case you're supremely thick, the caption "Mie Crusties Raw Punk!" has been added to make it clear that the Ep is crust-appropriate. The three bands included on the Ep are thus all from Mie City: Contrast Attitude, Alive and Deceiving Society. Let's start with Contrast Attitude, undoubtedly the most famous of the bunch, a band I have discussed for their split with Acrostix from 2004 and their appearance on the Crust Nights compilations. Mie City Hardcore 2 was the band's first endeavour into the world of records (along with Crust Night 2: the War Being For Them !! I reviewed before). Throughout their rather dense career, the band has not changed that much and has kept playing what they poetically coined "Dis-noise attack survivor" on their first full Ep and if I haven't been able to listen to their brand new album yet, I am sure it graces the world with their apocalyptic raw assault (the rumour that they had turned into a 90's skacore revival band was, of course, a hoax created by a rival d-beat raw punk who remain anonymous).

Back in 2002 when the songs were recorded, and in spite of the strong similarities between their young self and their current self, Contrast Attitude had a very different lineup. In fact, between 2002 and 2003, guitar player and singer Yasuomi was replaced with Gori and bass player Hidehiko with Sin (who also played in Acrostix), the only original remaining member until recently being drummer Hirotsuna (the lineup on the recording from the 2004 compilation The Time of Hell still had Hidehiko on bass so there would have been some sort of transition). Stylistically speaking, the new members kept the sound and built on it to become a truly unstoppable noizy d-beat machine. In 2002 the band was a bit rawer than on the subsequent releases with the classic lineup, the aforementioned split with Acrostix and the Sick Brain Extreme Addict (a genuine must-have), but was already working with the same tools, namely Disclose and Gloom, to create that relentless wall of noise they are known for. I suppose the new lineup quickly stopped playing the three songs from this Ep although "All sea all sky and all war" appeared on the 2013 Stand Up and Fight Now Ep. That the first version of Contrast Attitude as a d-beat raw punk machine was already so impressive is not that surprising since the band has been playing since 1998 and their 1999 demo tape was a much more primitive raw discore affair and they basically had the time to train before reaching this level. Solid numbers here and I love the introduction of the first song with all the guitar layers. You already know if you like it I suppose.

Let's go to the other side of the Ep with the rather obscure band Alive with two songs that are their sole recording to my knowledge. The drummer Kaziyan also played in LIFE at the time and in Frigöra before so it gives you an idea of what he's capable to do to a drum kit. Just looking at the band's Celtic artwork you would be entitled to think that Alive's sound must be influenced with Sedition or Scatha. And well, not really. They still play fast punishing hardcore and I can hear the singer is trying to go for that high-pitched screamed tone (almost emo-ish at times?) but in the end it is still very much in line with classic Japanese noize crust, not unlike what crusties were up to in Osaka or Tokyo in 1994. Well executed and I love the raw thrash introduction to "Mind" before it explodes into pummeling fury. I wish there was more.

Finally here come Deceiving Society, certainly the most established band on the Ep at that point in time with two songs of quality raw crasher noize hardcore cruster punk. Something like this. Deceiving Society belongs to the category of "minor classics" of the crust genre. They are basically a band that is respected and whose value is correctly recognized but has not reached the upper level, the so-called collective canon. Often bands like Deceiving Society will be loved - rightly - by people that are well into the (sub)subgenre and seek to dig deeper and strive for comprehensiveness (the geeks' grail) but people with only a liking to the whole Japanese crasher hardcore and crust sounds will be quite content with Gloom, SDS, Zyanose and Framtid (I suppose) and not necessarily crave to stuff themselves with the bulk of the horde or think too much about it (well I bloody do). In the end, only people genuinely into the Japanese crust subgenre will see Deceiving Society's Detonation Cruster as a classic but from a wider crust perspective it can only be a minor classic. A crasher crust classic but a minor crust classic. Know what I mean? A matter of perspective and all that.

I find their highly energetic and aggressive blend of dis-loving raw punk and fuzzy Gloom-ish crasher crust very endearing indeed, very well-executed, solid, kind of a blueprint for the style. You won't find the weirdness of Defector, the madness of Zyanose, the relentlessness of Framtid or the crust versatility of LIFE but Deceiving Society has everything you can expect from a competent Japanese crasher unit, classical in a good way, tasteful, solid, very much like what Contrast Attitude would quickly turn into in terms of quality. The drumming is manic, the guitar is distorted, the bass is thundering, the singer shouts like a mad bastard and it is saturated with punk references (whether sonic, lexical or visual). The music is done by the book and since it's a novel I really enjoy rereading and re-exploring, I won't be one to complain. The way "Because freedom" accelerates instantly and bursts into speed at the start always impresses me, not unlike old CFDL on this song actually, especially with the dual vocals.

According to the liner notes written by Jhonio for the Lp, the band started in 1997 with the guitar playing only joining in early 1998 and a new bass player getting recruited in early 1999. Apparently the band made quite an impression on the Osaka crusties when they played their first Final Noise Attack gig in 1998 (there would be more, the flyers in Inferno Punx attest it). Drummer Daigo and Kinochi also played in Ability, a Japanese-styled d-beat raw punk that existed at the same time as Deceiving Society between 1997 and 2001, and the two bands did a split tape together in 1999 with some demo recordings. Ability's can be found on the Reality Was War cd but I haven't been able to find Deceiving Society's but then I presume it would have been some sort of more primitive version of the noisecore-sounding Cruster 16 Minutes Shock!! released on tape in 1999 (or early 2000, it's unclear). The aforementioned classic Detonation Cruster would be the band's parting glory, something of a shame as I would have loved more recording from the band. Daigo and Kinochi went on to play in Radio Active (with a member of Dropend and Zodiak) and the former recetly joined Contrast Attitude, 23 years after the release of Mie City Hardcore 2. 

Howling noise crust to the max.  

Howling noise crusties in Mie

An adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: PISSCHRÏST / FRAMTID "Hardcore Detonation Attack" split Ep, 2009

This will be the last Ep from the 00's to be included in this series which you hopefully enjoy, at least enough to warrant a decent read while on the toilet. Since I haven't decided on the - certainly smaller - selection for the following decade (the dreaded 10's) there will be some wait before the next installment, especially since I am fucking off on tour in April. Yes, I am THAT cool a punk.

Let's end the transitional era of the 00's with something of a classic record from 2009: the Hardcore Detonation Attack split Ep between Melbourne's Pisschrïst and Osaka's Framtid, two rather well-known and respected bands that I haven't covered yet (beside a short paragraph about the latter for their inclusion on the Chaos of Destruction 2 compilation). How long do you have to wait to be officially crowned as a "classic hardcore record" by the Higher Punk Council? It is difficult to say and it really depends on what you mean with "classic". Timelessness is very often narrowly construed and distorted in order to make a work of art somehow fit in and yet transcend at the same time a mythical and mystical post-chronological "time". The notion of a "timeless classic" is therefore meaningless and, more dangerous, it can deprive a work of its meaning (I suppose "time-free" would be more correct albeit as pointless). What we need to think about are classics that are inherently rooted in proper time and space not in an abstract dimension. Does such intellectual brilliance on my part keep people from claiming online that their favourite record of the month is a "classic"? No but it should. Wankers.

Because of its relevance in terms of what used to be before, what was at the time and what would come after, I think this record is indeed a 00's Swedish-styled hardcore classic. Is 15 years a long enough period to be able to look back peacefully at a punk record? Probably and for the sake of this review, let's at least pretend it is. It's certainly been a long enough for me to lose a decent part of my once chivalrous hair.

This Ep was Pisschrïst's last record. The band was a pretty big deal at the time and if I unfortunately never got to see them live (despite two European tours), the reports were unanimous: they were an absolute powerhouse. But I have to admit their records did not totally win me over back then, even though they were getting some airplay and, on a strictly philosophical level, I understood the band's appeal. I mean, they played intense and hard-hitting käng with gruff vocals and a rocking side and their prolificacy reflected their staunch determination: one demo, two albums and five Ep's (three of them splits with Appäratus, Kvoteringen and of course Framtid) between 2004 and 2010. Talking with my wonderful partner about the band's legacy and the reasons why they were so beloved then she pointed out that, at the time, few bands outside Sweden, or to a lesser extent to a then more obscure Japan, played that kind of relentless high-energy riff-driven epic Swedish hardcore with crazy tempos changes. You had of course quite a few bands doing the Wolfpack/Wolfbrigade heavy metallic hardcore thing (like Guided Cradle for instance) but Pisschrïst were different and relied more on the great riff tradition of Totalitär and the relentlessness of Framtid and there just wasn't many bands around at the time that were influenced by those schools of käng. You have to look at Pisschrïst from the 00's perspective to understand their appeal. Nowadays, there are many bands working with the same main ingredients, namely Totalitär-like hardcore and Framtid's take on käng, but not at the time. 

And let's not forget that they were from Melbourne and we did not (or at least I didn't) know that many Australian bands (beside Schifosi, The Collapse and ABC Weapons, a band that had Tim and Yeap from Pisschrïst) but you could sense that something was happening and the band quickly became the embodiment of that new Distort Melbourne scene whose legacy is still going strong today. Talk about a significant band. In addition, Yeap had lyrics in English but also in Malay which was something of a novelty and a breath of fresh air as well. He used to play in Mass Separation back in Malaysia and they did have lyrics in Malay but their popularity was mostly circumscribed to the grindcore scene (I could be wrong though, they did have a split with Kontrovers after all, so it could be relative). The status of Pisschrïst was bigger, they had records on Yellow Dog, then an important label. They also allowed people to discover Appäratus through a split Ep - these days a fairly established scandicore band but back then an unknown Kuala Lumpur act - and by extension it made me curious and drove me to investigate further the great noize that was being made in places like Malaysia, Indonesia or Singapore in the 00's. So on the whole, I think that is what makes Pisschrïst a "classic band". It was not just the music. 

The three songs on this Ep are, by far, my favourite. The band sounds absolutely unstoppable and relentless here and never has their dynamite blend of Totalitär and Framtid sounded so ferocious. The production is rawer, closer to what noizy Osaka bands thrived on, and really highlights the drummer's frantic style full of rolls and crazy changes and the raging vocals. This is close to perfection and one can only imagine how insane a full album of Pisschrïst with that particular production would have sounded like. After the band folded, Yeap would keep playing in solid noizy bands like Krömozom, Nuclear Sex Addict or the well-respected and very active Enzyme and started to run the very good label Hardcore Victim. A busy man. As for Tim he played in the Aussie version of Nuclear Death Terror, ExtinctExist and Jalang.

On the other side of the split, you've got three songs from the almighty supreme Framtid, a band that has, without a shadow of a doubt, earned its reputation as a "classic band" in every sense of the word. The band is rightly revered and their name almost always accompanied by such adjectives as "intense", "furious" and "deafening". To be able to witness Framtid perform live with their customary ferocity can be considered as one of the five Pillars of the Punk Religion, an obligatory acts of worship for proper believers. 

It is fair to say that the band's popularity and mystique grew with time because more and more people got access to their music and because of their impressive longevity given the genre they have been engaging in since 1997. I first came across them sometime around 2005 thanks to a mate of mine who burnt a cd including several bands I was looking for on it, among which he added Framtid's Under the Ashes (there was still space on the cdr and I suppose he just added the thing thinking it could do no wrong). For some reason, the band did not leave too much of an impression on me at that time, by no means did they sound unpleasing but I think I just liked the other bands on the cd better (as I remember there might have been Hellshock's Shadows of the Afterworld on it which, at the time, was unchallengeable anyway). Beside Framtid were at the very end of a cd that was already packed with hard-hitting stuff and the position does affect a first listen's appreciation. I should also point out that I was not really that much into Japanese hardcore bands in the 00's and mostly indulged in their brand of metal crust more than anything. I missed the first train on this one.

Basically it took a good few years for me to really get and more accurately feel what Framtid were trying to create through maximizing and magnifying the hardest brand of käng in order to turn it into a real native Osaka style: the crasher käng transformation. Yes I have just made it up. But still, it's precisely what Framtid achieved through the use of several elements: the - now iconic - insane and thunderous hectic drumming (curtesy of Takayama who also played in Zoe) in order to amplify the songs' savagery, the trademark Osaka crust guitar distortion of Jackie (from the fantastic Crust War label) and hyperbolic gruff but highly antagonistic vocals. When first confronted with the Framtid's sound, one is quick to think that this is a pummeling hardcore chaos (not a bad thing at all in itself) but it is deceptive because closer attention reveals how in control of this chaos the band is. Their real achievement may lie in this fruitful paradox: they are masters of chaos always on the brink of being overtaken, they occupy that liminal space that makes them so impressive .

Framtid have alway claimed that 80' Swedish bands like Bombanfall, Sound of Disaster, Crude SS and of course Svart Parad (they picked their moniker from a Svart Parad's song, although they did not that framtid means "future" in English, which is lucky, it could have meant "hangover" or something) and this primitive, if not primal, cave käng sound is the basis but as I said they infused it with the Gloom Osaka dementia to create a unique wild untamable beast. The three songs included on the split are classic Framtid, recognizable in a heartbeat. The production may not be as insanely heavy and devastating as on Under the Ashes but it confers a rawer edge which suits the genre and the Ep format. One of the best hardcore band of their generation, no question about it.

This is a great split released on HG Fact with brilliant artwork on both sides, just a great moment of punk music. The title Hardcore Detonation Attack is fitting indeed. 

Hardcore detonation attack!!!

An adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: DEATHTRIBE / KRIEGSHÖG "3 Track EP Plus Support / 警告" split Ep, 2008

This split between Deathtribe and Kriegshög can be rightly considered, from a commoner's perspective, as the sonic equivalent of a bollocking of the highest magnitude on the official scientific scale (based on loudness of the riffs, aggression of the vocal delivery and sense of dread before the wall of noise), the kind of bollocking that will be remembered for generations to come. If you sold you mum's one good ring to a neighbour always rumoured to be "up to no good" in order to buy the last Fifa video game, you'd get a similarly massive bollocking. Long after you are dead, mothers will be likely to warn their kids about the mythical bollocking that their great granduncle Punky, since then referred to as "the Ungrateful One" once received when he betrayed his saint of a mother for a game that had Cristiano Ronaldo on the cover. You can imagine how intense and furious this one would be. This record can be said to possess very similar traits: it is an inherently punishing record. 

Not that it would work on me, I love that shit. I don't feel punished but blessed whenever I play a well-executed band of this style of noizy hardcore. If I have had a bad week and I am just trying to vent and let off steam, that's the kind of assault I shall unleash on my eardrums. From an outsider's perspective I suppose you could say that I love to be bollocked sonically so much that I basically no longer realize it and have grown fond of it like a masochist (distorted Japanese hardcore becoming just an example of the Stockholm Syndrome applied to music). On the contrary, mainstream music that is deemed unanimously good or "classic" (which almost always means it is utter garbage) will offend and sadden me. Make me seat through a Billie Eilish album or through my nephew's Tik Tok feed for more than 10 minutes and tears will be rolling down my face. It does make one shiver. What soothes some will torture others. I am a bit of a philosopher I guess.

Funnily enough - and tragically enough - I was late to the Kriegshög party and pretty much ignored the band's early records when they came out in the late 00's because, beside bands like Disclose or Atrocious Madness, I just did not really care that much for that sort of sound then and merely observed it from afar on message boards. Truth be told, the genre was not as popular as it seems to be nowadays (with music streaming and everything) and I often saw it as being the realms of "nerds" and "record collectors", two terms that I used pejoratively to express my disapproval of the commodification and elitism of punk. The irony is not lost on me today. You really cannot cheat karma, can you? Even after I started to seriously get into the whole Japanese noise hardcore crust aesthetics, Kriegshög were not a band I paid that much attention to until I could no longer stand listening to my friends rave over and over again about the band's live performance in London in 2016 and gave Kriegshög an educated listen. I understood that I had missed out on a good band and, obviously, a good gig. I managed to grab a copy of their Hardcore Hell Ep the following year and found this split with Deathtribe shortly afterwards, about ten years after its release. As I said, the ship had sailed for a while. 

But let's get to the actual record and with the A side where you'll find three songs from Deathtribe. Even by nerd's standards, the band is rather obscure and did not exactly leave an eternal mark on the Japanese hardcore scene. Hailing from Tokyo like Kriegshög, Deathtribe were quite short-lived and beside this Ep, only released a tape Ep in 2007, Nothing Your Leader, which was the first release of the brilliant and still active label Hardcore Survives, and they also appeared on the good compilation Lp Hardcore Inferno in 2010 alongside bands like Disturd, Death Dust Extractor or Isterismo. The tape was a sweet affair with six songs of distorted hardcore crust done the traditional Japanese way, with intensity, conviction and distortion, not unlike Contrast Attitude but on a budget. The three songs on this split Ep enjoyed a much better production and I love how bass heavy it sounds and the gruff Makino-like vocals. 

"Sound of silence" and "Zouo" (a Kriegshög cover) are typical fast and groovy gruff Japanese crusty crasher hardcore that reminds me of a blend of Framtid - but not as Swedish influenced - and Contrast Attitude - but not as crasher crusty - with chorus reminiscent of traditional Japanese hardcore. The comparison is somewhat daring because Deathtribe don't quite reach the level of these two heavyweights but they still seriously deliver and who knows what they could have achieved given the chance to record more. The third song "In many nightmare" is something of an oddity and does not fit with the rest as it sounds nothing like the two others. It's basically a very well done '83 Discharge number à la Warning and The Price of Silence with an impressive Cal impersonation. Final Bloodbath also had a number like this and Final Bombs basically made a career playing the bad Discharge period so it would not have been an exception in Japan. I actually like the song, it is a brilliant Discharge-loving mid-paced moment but, like a skinhead at a Carcass show, I don't really understand what it's doing here.

On the other side, Kriegshög also delivered three songs, among which a cover from Deathtribe, "The end" (the original appeared on the tape). In their early days, back when they had their first guitar player Tera, more inclined toward distortion, Kriegshög sounded absolutely unstoppable, like the proverbial enormous door slamming in the depths of hell or the average American in the soda aisle. Their first Ep Hardcore Hell was quite the hit when it came out in 2008 and the reviews it got were, as they say, unanimous. It is a strong Ep, by any standards, but I am under the retrospective impression that it got more praises than you would generally expect for the genre especially for a record released on a new label like Hardcore Survives, or at least that it got more praises from sectors of the hardcore punk scene usually unresponsive to a perfectly fine pair of mummified crust pants than your usual crasher crust record. 

Kriegshög quickly became a rather well-known band (well, everything is relative, innit) thanks to the well-established label La Vida Es Un Mus that released three records for them and therefore gave them more exposition, notably their first album in 2010. Still, a lot of people who were crazy about them did not seem to care much for other 00's bands working on similar grounds like Defector or Deceiving Society or even Contrast Attitude indeed who were intrinsically associated with the pure crasher crust world of studs, biker boots and bad breath (aka the Crust War multiverse) while Kriegshög, through their connection to LVEUM, belonged to a more diverse hardcore punk world. Out of the crust ghetto, so to speak. An interesting case.

This Ep was the band's third recording after Hardcore Hell on Hardcore Survives and their split Ep with Dog Soldier (a band I have always liked) on HG Fact and as expected it saw Kriegshög at their most furious and relentless. They are close to crasher crust perfection here, this is a tornado of distorted hardcore with abrasive shouted angry almost painful vocals and plenty of gratuitous Japanese-style demented yells. The bass sounds absolutely massive and I am sure it would make the floor shake, the drumming is tight and relentless like a shower of vengeful meteorites and the guitar, well, distorted but the riffing is clear still discernible for maximum power. You probably already know what the subgenre is about, what the template usually is and what the audience is entitled to expect (or fear depending on your taste) and Kriegshög are at the level of bands like Contrast Attitude, Frigöra or Framtid here.

Kriegshög is probably the better band here but both sides are very good and hold up very well, not so easy when the style is so similar. Both sides were recorded by Shige at the noiseroom which accounts for the ideal "blown-out" vibe. A very enjoyable record if you like savage Japanese crust but a very tedious listen and just a plain bad time if you do not. After an album built on the same foundations, Kriegshög would release two more records with a different sound cruelly lacking in intensity and aggression, two essential ingredients for the genre. This split Ep was released on the poetically named label In Crust We Thrash that released Disaster's War Cry on cd (already reviewed here on this blog). I though the label was dead but it actually just Private Jesus Detector's rather good new album so who knows what the future holds.

DEATHHÖG

An adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: POLIKARPA Y SUS VICIOSAS / DEFUSE "What's right" split Ep, 2000

We're in early January, you still have a vague but persistent headache from New Year's Eve. Your body is not the seemingly forever youth machine you thought it used to be and for some reason someone you haven't seen since middle school has bombarded you with inane selfies on the 31st - hopefully it was just a matter of texting the wrong person - and the realization that you will be one year older by the end of the year slowly dawns upon you. I have never been one to enjoy partying hard on this annual occasion since some inebriated stranger dressed as a penguin vomited on my Hulk Hogan costume some years back. This shameful incident involving unsolicited bodily fluid being excreted over my beloved copy of the 90's WWF championship belt significantly scarred my self-esteem and I have not been able to look at a penguin in the eye since. 

Fortunately this year did not end in such a traumatic fashion and therefore the morale is not worse than usual which is already good enough and I feel light and breezy with the prospect of a new year which will inevitably bring the usual amount of ruthless bloody wars, massacres and right-wing wankers somehow getting into power. And of good records too, hopefully. 2024 will see us go through more split Ep's, from the noughties first, ten of them like for the 90's, and probably some from the 2010's (I already have a couple in mind). But let's start with the opening year of the new decade: 2000.

In 2000, my own preoccupations were rather insubstantial as I was bent on scoffing at anyone at school who did not listen to punk music and The Casualties (the two were strict synonyms). As a man on that admittedly puerile mission, I did not have many friends as a consequence but "integrity", as I would call it, was what mattered in punk-rock I had been told. It could have been worse though as a lot of adults seemed to be obsessed at the time with the coming collapse of civilisation because of the infamous Y2K problem and I can remember my dad running around the house in panic because he didn't know shit about computers and antivirus. While I was busy being a self-righteous arrogant nuisance convinced of his own self-importance to "normies" (my rivals would that this has not changed that much), real punks were doing important work and I see this What's right split Ep between Polikarpa y sus Viciosas from Bogota and Defuse from Osaka as a humble but meaningful piece of punk history. 

I talked about it before but DIY punk made my younger self realize that if the actual world was big indeed and seemingly torn apart, the punk world was small and connected. Browsing through distro tables in the early 00's I became aware that, not only were there punks all over the place in countries I couldn't really place on a map, but that there had been punks there for two decades already. In an era when people only listened to American or English music beside our own local pop dross in French, the realization that there were bands delivering the goods in Peru, Slovakia or New Zealand came as a shock that was electrifying, stimulating as it opened new horizons and allowed me to feel superior to my brethren on a whole new level. "Oh, so you haven't heard of Venezuelan anarchopunk? What are you? Some sort of cultural imperialist abiding by the United States' hegemonic culture?". At that same time, it also struck me that there were apparently a lot of women involved in punk bands, far more than I thought, just screaming angrily at our world's madness and gender roles. Contrary to what my sexist upbringing taught me, girls also played fast and aggressive punk music and rightfully protested in the face oppression. This got me mum very worried.      

This Ep is absolutely wonderful because it combines both aspects: it is a collaboration between two all-female bands from opposite sides of the world. The significance of such a project certainly transcends the actual value of the record, which does not mean however that their output should not be looked at critically, like any piece of art. To completely ignore the creative content in the name of this significance would be somewhat disrespectful and implies that it does not require critical thinking and engagement. This is a sad tendency of our time. To be positive and supportive does not mean to be acritical, quite the contrary. To not critique (when it is done respectfully, knowledgeably and constructively) implies the denial of a work's identity as art. 

Alright let's cut the critical theory and let's get to punk-rock. Polikarpa y sus Viciosas (they took their name from Policarpa Salavarrieta, an important political figure in the resistance against the Spaniards during the 19th century who ended up executed) are a band from Bogota formed in 1994 and they are still active. If you have been to gigs in Europe on a regular basis you have certainly bumped into their name since they have been touring several times in the past 15 years. In fact, they were probably one of the first Colombian punk bands to even tour in Europe. Since the incredible success of Muro in 2017, a lot of bands from Bogota gravitating around the Rat Trap Collective have been able to tour internationally but before that few Latino bands could afford to tour so that the idea was unrealistic to start with (Brazilian bands have been an exception to an extent because of their long-lasting ties with the European and North American scenes). The achievement of Polikarpa in that respect, and a little before of Apatia-No or Doña Maldad, cannot be overlooked especially since the band started out musically as a fairly straight-forward angry punk-rock band with that raging Latino punk flair.

The three songs on Polikarpa's side are fairly unpolished which confers a genuinely pissed off vibe and a sense of urgency that reflects their own political, social and national context. Raw Latino punk (and punk in Spanish in general) has become quite trendy since the 2010's but at the time this kind of sound was still something of a novelty for a lot of us, not because the songwriting vastly differs from your usual spiky punk songs but because the overall raw and direct sound and the primal urgency sounded fresh from a European perspective. These were punks that had lives that were much harder than in the North (it brought to light the North/South paradigm while from the 80's to the mid-90's, because of the Cold War, the focus was more West/East). As I mentioned earlier, there have been top punk bands in Latino America in the 80's but to see acts like Apatia-No, Doña Maldad or Migra Violenta touring in the early 00's certainly opened the gates to a new generation of bands and created new connections. You should see Polikarpa from that same perspective of Latino bands touring in the 00's rather than the next generation of Bogota bands. As I said, meaningful times.

Polikarpa's sound could be described originally as a fairly typical Colombian punk style reminiscent of classic Medellin punk-rock bands like IRA, Fertil Miseria or Kontraorden, pogoable tupa-tupa punk with angry vocals and a direct approach. I would argue that on this particular recording Polikarpa showed more of a raw hardcore power, it is more focused than on their previous work, and I like how the tunefulness of the vocals on "Denuncio" adds catchiness to the otherwise fairly basic song (not unlike Vice Squad). Pretty furious stuff that works perfectly with the Ep format. Punk as fuck indeed. The lyrics deal with Colombia's culture of political violence and the need to break free from it all. 

On the other side we have yet another Osaka band after Victims of Greed: Defuse. I cannot think of many Japanese crust or hardcore bands with female members beside the fantastically primitive all-female Crusade and their quest for cavecrust in the early 90's while Mental Disease also had a girl on vocals. For some reason that may escape me, it looks like there just haven't been many women involved in bands in that part of the scene in the 90's while the decade was favourable to more inclusion and diversity in many other places globally. Defuse were certainly an exception in that respect and next time your racist sexist uncle claims that women suck at playing loud music during a dreary Sunday lunch, feel free to blast the band at maximum volume, if anything just to keep everyone from listening to his gammon bollocks. And then show some sympathy and proceed to euthanise the poor bastard.

Defuse did not initially start as a crust band though and if their 2017 Ep Cry of Roar (yeah, they are not exactly the most prolific band) proudly carried the (chaotic) crasher cavecrust banner, this first vinyl appearance sounded far closer to the Japanese tradition of Confuse (I mean, they are called Defuse for a reason), Gai, Kuro and the likes, an aestheticized punk noisiness that has come to be known as "noisepunk", a convenient if anachronistic term in this case. The classic Kyushu noise had not vanished in the 90's and some bands still abided by the "let's maximize the 80's Bristol thrash punk sound" like Order and their snotty take on The Swankys or the brilliantly Confuse-loving Dust Noise and their impeccably distorted fuzzy sound. Of course the tremendous overarching influence that Gloom had then in terms of raw distortedness and aggression, especially in their hometown of Osaka can also be felt here, but more in terms of intensity and bass-driven heaviness than songwriting. You could that Defuse tried to evolve between these three bands as they had Order's punkiness, Dust Noise's obnoxious noiziness and the Final Noise Attack scene. The faster hardcore thrash song "Don't conform" also showed that Defuse could speed things up with great efficiency. 

Before this Ep, the band had recorded a demo tape entitled What's Right - Don't Conform demonstrating that Confuse and The Swankys were the band's primary influences indeed and the first four songs of the tape were re-recorded for the split Ep. I wish that Defuse had the opportunity to record a full record with the production they enjoy on the Ep as the sound is perfect, raw but hard-hitting and really emphasizing the fuzz and distortion of the guitar (the sound engineer Koichi Hara also worked on Gloom's Recomendation of Perdition and Framtid's first Ep so he knew the job). I like the vocals too, not forced, just angry and snotty with sometimes some hoarse high-pitched demented screams for good measure (it is Osaka in the 90's after all). 

Overall this is a very enjoyable split Ep that can appeal to spiky punks as well as distortion and feedback junkies. This was released on Answer Records in 2000, a label that also released records from Reality Crisis, Demolition and even a reissue of CFDL.      

POLIKARPA Y SU DEFUSE

       

An adventure in split Ep's! I have no gun but I can split: VICTIMS OF GREED / SCUM NOISE "Fight for freedom / The power has no power..." split Ep, 1999

This is the last post of the year for Terminal Sound Nuisance and it makes sense to say goodbye and fuck off to a particularly atrocious 2023 with a punk message of protest and an international collaboration showing a spirit of togetherness and solidarity in noise. There is more to humanity than the sound of bombs falling and the cries of grieving families, thankfully. 

From a personal perspective, 2023 has been a strange year. Not only did I start working at a job center, ironically enough since my philosophy has always been to work as little as possible without raising suspicion, but I also celebrated my fortieth birthday. Twenty years ago I pictured my 40 year old self as a spectacularly successful man graced with many records and notoriously class and envied crust pants, one who would command respect in "the crust community" (I know, I know, don't judge me) and whose name would be uttered with admiration. 20 year old me was convinced that he would definitely look up to my future 40 year old self which on some level is both adorably stupid and positive. And well, if I could contact 20 year old me tomorrow, I would first tell the little fucker to stop buying trendy neocrust and grab as much Disclose materials as possible, and second I would tell him that twenty years from now he would have the most massive collection of Antisect shirts in the country and if that does not convince that indeed he will succeed in life then nothing will. I would not tell him to enjoy his sumptuous thick hair because time does what it does. I'm not so mean.

So here I am again, sitting on my arse and writing about some rather obscure Japanese crust and Brazilian raw hardcore. Which is quite fine when I compare it with what my colleagues do on their free time, binge watching mediocre American Netflix series while mindlessly scrolling on their phone and thinking what snacks they are going to eat next. Without punk, I could be like them and I like to think that 20 year old me would be proud that I still believe and have faith. Socially, it is rather frowned upon to not have children, not own a flat, not earn more than the minimum wage and still spend most of my money on poorly recorded records, noisy gigs you cannot attend without wearing ear protections and vegan delicacies. Not to mention spending hours in a tiny vehicle to play 20 minutes before a couple of old but lovable fuckers. As a half-wise man once said to me: "Punk-rock ruined my life but I wouldn't change a thing". 

But let's get to work, shall we? As we have seen numerous times, the Japanese 90's crust scene was intense and prolific and the decade put the town of Osaka on the map. Osaka became the birth place of a crust genre that was all its own - one we have come to name "crasher crust" - and although it did spread around the world, marginally, it is still closely associated with what Gloom or Crust War Records built so that when I am told about an Osaka crust band I immediately think about manic seriously distorted savage crust. Punk towns all work this way and conjure up a specific land-base sound and contextual aesthetics. But they are also relative and closely tied to our own personal mythology. PDX punk to me is Hellshock and Black Water and Whisper in Darkness, to others it will be Red Dons. Tragically Paris punk is now synonymous with Ben Sherman collections and constipated oi music and I haven't been able to achieve much in terms of local propaganda. 

But basically Victims of Greed were from a 90's crust band from Osaka. Granted, they may not have picked the best moniker as it is a very common signifier that could point to any punk style but they are worth your while. I actually already talked a little about VoG in a previous post from the Noize Not Music is a Fine Art because they appeared on the very good and under-appreciated 'No Hesitation to Resist' compilation 10". VoG are everything you could expect from a Japanese crust band: they are fast and intense with a crunchy distorted sound, extreme polyphonic vocals (from the traditional low gruff growls to the snotty punk shouts) and pummeling. Typical cave-crust done the Japanese way with that distinct production, a bit like Gloom covering Hiatus. There are some heavier metallic mid-tempo moments for good measure and I think the different vocal tones bring some variety and the four songs in four minutes and a half fly too fast (a full VoG Ep would have been brilliant). The lyrics mostly deal with animal liberation and veganism, not unlike Battle of Disarm at the time (although they were not an isolated case). Convincing 90's crust here. The band gets some extra points for including a verse in Portuguese in the song "Authority and rotten" and translations of their (and Scum Noise's) lyrics in Japanese. Pretty old-school.

On the other side are Scum Noise from Sao Paulo, Brazil, a familiar name if you have been around for a bit of time. I don't know what Brazilian punks drink in the morning but their bands definitely live long as Scum Noise have been playing, more or less actively, since 1990 (likewise Subcut have been going since 1992). I suppose that's what you call dedication and being for real. SN belong to that category of bands that I know without really knowing, even though I have had the 2001 reissue of their self-titled first Ep for ages and play it from times to times. We're not quite intimate but have been bumping into each other regularly if you know what I mean. In spite of being often described as a crust band, SN clearly did not belong to the crust genre. To me they epitomize what genuinely raw Swedish-flavoured hardcore punk should sound like. 

The first song "The Hell is near" is a masterclass in käng with its simple riffing and direct sound, its knowledgeably orthodox vocal flow and perfect drumming. Just fast raw punk the way it should be. The second number "The world around us" is yet another gem, this time dealing with the classic groovy mid-paced Discharge-inspired formula with a primitive thrashing vibe. The Brazilian hardcore influence and its raw anger and typical vocal style does pop out and you can tell SN definitely listened to Armagedom a lot. The last two songs are a little more anecdotal for me, one more direct käng endeavour and an all-out fast hardcore thrash attack but the Ep is worth grabbing for the aforementioned opening tracks alone. Think a title match for the Cimex raw-punk title between '92 Hellkrusher and early Diskonto with '86 Armagedom as a special referee. The raw, thin even, production confers a genuine 80's feel to the music, something that few 90's got to replicate as well. Third-world hardcore punk indeed. The singer of the band actually ran No Fashion Hardcore Records, a label that was of course part and parcel of the Brazilian DIY punk scene but also released Disclose records.

It is unclear when the SN or the VoG were recorded but the Ep was released in 1999 on FFT Label, standing for Fuck Fashion Town, that was run by Koichiro from Argue Damnation. This Ep goes for cheap and is typically a dollar bin bargain. 

 Scum Greed