September 2013 – #364

Top Ten:

REALITY CONTROL-Document: 1980-1985-LP
ANTI-CIMEX-all EPs
TOTAL WAR-EP/CURMUDGEON-LP+live
DREAM DECAY-N V N V N V-LP
INDUSTRIAL PARK-EP/NEW FLESH-LP+live
CATHOLIC SPIT-LP/POPULATION-EP
HUGH BEAUMONT EXPERIENCE-EP
LOS CRUDOS/COKE BUST-live
TO THE POINT/YADOKAI/RITUAL CONTROL-live
COMMUNION OF THIEVES/SHARKPACT-live


TOTAL WAR – "8 Track Demo" – EP
Distort. Chaos. Repeat. While the raw-til-death aural and visual
fidelity would suggest that this was produced somewhere in Scandinavia
approximately fifteen to twenty years ago, TOTAL WAR hail from today's
ever-brilliant Vancouver scene, which at this point seems to spawn a
new killer band every other month or so. The cream of the demo tape
crop when it was released in 2011, two year later I'm still loving
every second of this; there's not a single wasted note, and these guys
are just plain incapable of writing a boring hook. Hands down one of
the best sets at last year's Subversion Fest—itself no small feat—this
recording captures that same sense of utter recklessness and abandon.
Cheers to Gas Mask for putting this on wax. (WB)
(Gas Mask)

FUCKING INVINCIBLE – "Please Await Further Instruction" EP
Pissed/disgusted hXc from Providence, this 7" finds FUCKING INVINCIBLE
trading off between creeping, deliberate powerviolence and some
surprisingly stoney dissonant breakdowns that I found my head bobbing
along to without even realizing it. Apparently this group draws
members from projects as diverse as DROPDEAD, DAUGHTERS and SOUL
CONTROL, and that's actually not half-bad as a formula for what to
expect here. Simple, but undeniably effective. I'm backing this. (WB)
(Atomic Action!)

CRASH – LP
Proud 80s HC worship from Mallorca, Spain, the insert is pastiche of
flyers and well-loved records from bands like NEGATIVE APPROACH and
ZERO BOYS (an obvious touchstone here), and that kind of sums up
CRASH's overall approach. Like so many retro-tribute acts, the sound
and style is spot-on, but without the standout songwriting that made
the old stuff classic in the first place; I've listened to this LP
twice now and could imagine listening a few more times without really
remembering any of the songs in particular. My favorite parts were
actually when they moved away from their hardcore…core…to a more
melodic punk sound, and the Oi!-ish song that closes out the album was
another welcome surprise. Unfortunately, most of what's at hand is
lost in the sea of bands going for the same old same old. (WB)
(Nuclear Fear/Old Kids Brigade/Inxausti/Eating Shit)

DREAMDECAY – "N V N V N V" LP
A murky, harrowing slice of hallucinogenic excess from the Pacific
Northwest, this record is what happens when art punks sit down and
take all the right drugs. The primal heaviness of late-period SWANS
looms over a maze of post-punk psychedelia, capturing the nauseous,
claustrophobic ego-purge of a mushroom trip through ritualistic,
meandering dirges that do not end so much as bleed out. I could go on
listing reference points—Only Theater-era CHRISTIAN DEATH definitely
stood out for me—but to do so would only detract from the thoroughly
original vision that DREAM DECAY has cultivated here. This is a
soundtrack for navel-gazing, through and through, showing the hippies,
burners and psydubglowstick warriors what a true soundtrack for
skullpeel looks like in 2013. I couldn't ask for more. (WB)
(Iron Lung)

KRANG – "Reclaim (De Aestus Espirit, Et Tu)" EP
Another entry in Profane Existence singles series (and probably the
best thus far), KRANG hail from Chicago, playing a thrashy breed of
stenchcore in the vein of DEVIATED INSTINCT and HELLSHOCK. They're
going for a dark atmosphere, but in the end this is definitely the fun
side of crust, with over-the-top guitar leads and a defiant use of the
whammy bar. This didn't come with any lyrics—an odd choice for an
anarcho-band, no?—but the vocals are spot-on, and help elevate this
above mere genre-clone status. Transparent, crisp production does make
this feel a bit 'pro metal' for my taste, and I ended up wishing I'd
heard it on a home-dubbed mixtape just to get the grit and kvlt
rawness of its 80s forbearers. (WB)
(Profane Existence)

LIGHT BEARER – "Silver Tongue" 2xLP
LIGHT BEARER is, to put it lightly, a band that is uninterested in
making music for the masses. Consider this as a thought experiment:
does the idea of a high-concept post-metal/neocrust opera appeal to
you? Drawing explicitly from Milton's Paradise Lost in its poetic
structure, Silver Tongue is second in a four-album(!) song cycle that
recasts the Biblical fall narrative as an exploration of themes no
less grandiose than morality, oppression and the human condition
itself. Comparisons to the vocalist's previous work in FALL OF EFRAFA
are inevitable, fair enough considering that this project retains the
method of pairing EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY-style guitar crescendo with
crusty atmospherics, but LIGHT BEARER goes a step further in
submerging any explicit ties to hardcore—much in the same way NEUROSIS
did a decade earlier. The quiet interludes were for me the most
compelling moments of this record, the fragile, dreamy vocals of
"Matriarch" adding a gothic touch of BLACK TAPE FOR A BLUE GIRL, while
"Clarus" hints at the whimsical neofolk of CURRENT 93. In lesser hands
this would have been a tiresome, indulgent mess, but LIGHT BEARER have
earned their spot at the apex of this particular style, and Silver
Tounge stands out as their definitive work thus far. (WB)
(Halo of Flies)

NUX VOMICA – "A Civilized World" LP
When I moved to Oakland in the summer of 2008, you couldn't throw a
beer can at a band without hitting someone with a NUX VOMICA patch
sewn to their dirty Carhartts. A manic blast of epic song structures,
acoustic intros and the ugly d-beat/pretty sludge push-pull that we
came to take for granted in those days, this repress of their debut
full-length will have any West Coast crustlord worth their salt
nostalgic for the mid-2000s. Though not my favorite NUX release (an
honor that belongs to their 2008 splits with KAKISTOCRACY and
especially THE MAKAI), A Civilized World is in many ways their opus,
transmuting the shredding thrash/death vibes of precursor band WAKE UP
ON FIRE into a baroque behemoth of new-school melocrust, one that
holds up quite well six years on. While the band sometimes gets lost
in their own technical abilities—most obviously in the absurd
shred-fest that is "The Final Election in a Crumbling Empire"—the bulk
of what's here is tasteful and well-conceived, and the second half of
this LP is pretty much flawless. (WB)