After spending two months traveling across the US, I came home to close to full time hours in my job, started two new bands, started boxing and am now attempting to get an issue of DISTORT out every month. As I said last issue, this means the majority of stuff you read here is going to be old, but, also like I said last issue, it's also going to be good. I'd like to talk a little about traveling sometime, but not now. I'd also like to talk a lot about the Gorilla Angreb tour that just ended, but not now. Just a lot of talking about NOISE, from SEX/VID, SMASH N GRAB, GISM and old UK hardcore band VOORHEES.

SOLD OUT

REVIEWS:

WARKRIME 'Get Loose' EP (No Way) I can't think of Warkrime without thinking of the drunken argument Dave and I interrupted between a couple of US punks on the dirty Austin streets after The Kids had just kicked 'em out, settled only by one side refusing to budge on their position: 'Warkrime Rules'. Warkrime, as I determined last issue, are a bunch of brats from the Bay Area who insist the context for their battalion cannot be understood by anyone outside of the Bay Area, but I think I have a pretty good idea of what they're going for / trying to do, and while they're inconsistent - EP was a mess of good / bad tunes, song on the No Way compilation was a pieceashit, some self pitying b.s. from vocalist Brace blubbing bout how everyone thinks he likes the nazis and so they hate him, but the poor little guy hates himself too… damn… - this is to be expected. What good band is consistent, does not have painful or mortifying moments? 'You Bet I Got Something Personal Against You' is probably the first and best example that comes to mind, but anyone who has skipped through the reggae songs on their Bad Brains records knows what I'm talking about here. Warkrime are young and they are obviously audacious enough to make the kind of stupid mistakes that older and more mature types (the kinds of people they are writing their tunes to berate and antagonize) would be afraid to make, and therefore they are a better band for it. I don't think they're as smart as they think they are but at the same time I don't think they are as mono-dimensional as most people would like them to be. Warkrime have apparently have a big impact on the Bay Area scene, and from the stories I've heard it sounds like they are not far away from the Germs when they started playing shows, but they sound nothing like 'em and are probably a little too obviously attempting to ape the mystique of D.B., especially given the MRR i/v most of my opining is based upon. But they are young, loud and snotty. Anyways… it is a really, really good punk hardcore record, comparable to Sick Pleasure and Bad Posture. Goddamnit, this record is, as far as the No Way Records scene and all of the modern bratty scumbag US punk bands, the next level, a real achievement, a solid, raging platter from one of the few interesting / intriguing US punk bands.

GENTLEMAN JESSE AND HIS MEN 's/t' 7" (Douchemaster) Totally disappointing predictably written and poorly executed power pop from this Carbonas member, whose pedigree inflated my hopes that this would be the next Exploding Hearts, the record that 'Shattered' should have been, etc. Instead, devastatingly, we have to wait for King Louie to start a good band and stop putting out solo records, or at least we can hope the Carbonas put some more tunes out soon. All this said, if you like power pop, don't let my zestful negation disturb you too much as you'd probably flip over this and spill coffee on your white denim: I just have very high standards for music with this kind of melody and punch.

DISCLOSE / SCARRED FOR LIFE split 7" (DESPOTIC) I generally ignore the bands on the other side of a split w/ Disclose (excluding Framtid) so I haven't had a chance to jam the Scarred For Life side yet, but I'm gonna prematurely ejaculate in your lap here and gush a little about Disclose with the last space I have to fill in this issue, because (as you probably know) gtr/ vox Kawakami is dead and these are some of the last tunes (that I know of) that Disclose recorded, so it'd be the right thing to do to soak in some of Kawakami's words in this interview stolen from Voices Wake Us. Thanks Ben and thanks to G.O.T.A. for releasing the 'Sound Of Disaster' tape, my first introduction to the best Dis-band to exist post-Charge.
The new records have 'Disbones' written on them, and although I like Broken Bones and also the new Disclose records I do not see the similarity so much. Maybe in the way the riffs are strummed / muted, but the vocals and production are more raw than ever. Where do you find the similarity and also the 'disbones' term? Disbones means DIS: riffs, drum style, vocal style and not changed DISCHARGE clone. BONES is: muted guitar and solo style. So both together is 'Disbones'. But I don't like good production as over production… I like raw, raging rads sound. So it's our style now, called Disbones.
Will Disclose ever make a record like 'Grave New World' or even worse 'Massacre Divine'? (I hope not!!) I notice that 'Yesterday's Fairytale, Tomorrow's Nightmare' has the lyric "Hell is War" from a later Discharge album. Where do you draw the line of when Discharge went bad? No, we won't 'Grave New World', 'Massacre Divine'. Our important is Bones with Discharge!!! "Hell is War" from new Discharge words – at that moment, we made a song at recording studio, but had no idea for lyrics, so I decided to steal lyrics from Discharge. Ha ha!!
Do you think many people ignore the band because they say "Oh it is just another dis-band" without realizing how long Disclose has been around? I don't know. It seems that UK people don't like dis-style bands cuz Discharge is god, so they don't need another dis-, need only Discharge. But in Europe, USA and Japan, Disclose is popular (ha). They liked us, and we are running over 10 years, tons released, tons ordered. I don't care some people say Disclose is wrong shit. But to these people I want to say: "Can you keep d-beat for over 10 years? I like Discharge more than you!!!"
Why is it that Americans cannot play the d-beat? Maybe they want to mix other hc too, like Swedish, USA and Jap-core. But I know pure great d-beat bands in USA: No Fucker (will release split with Disclose soon), Deathcharge.
Although it is a simple style of music, I think the members are probably very talkented at your instruments. Does playing in one band and style restrict or frustrated you ever? No untalented! Just raw punk!! Ha.
How is the crust scene in Japan? I heard there are many divisions and people do not mingle from other scenes. Yes, many divisions and many scenes, especially in the big cities. But in the small cities, we mingle because there aren't as many bands and all are friends in smaller cities.
Best Discharge song? No. All Discharge records are best!! (Especially with Bones.)
Will there be a third volume of the Dis-cography CDs? In the future, we have a plan to do this, but we still have too few songs for it.

HARPOON GUNS 's/t' 7" (Sqaure Wave / Eliminator) CROSS LAWS 'Behind The Curve' 7" (Cross Laws) Someone recently pointed out, in a more coherent manner than I'm capable of at this point, the garage rock scene has produced far better punk records over the past couple of years than the hardcore scene has over the last decade. I'm not going to agree, but there's no arguing with the Harpoon Guns, who's jangly guitar sound roots them in the garage, but the velocity of their music and the general attitude is in the proverbial "streets", if you wanna argue that's where hardcore punk belongs. Haha.
Cross Laws pretty accurately illustrate my point. They sound like Harpoon Guns with a little more aggression, which is to say they sound like a good old fashioned thrash hardcore band (with a nice NY bass sound). I like this record, and could imagine one of these tracks on a BCT cassette in between a couple of equally great tunes. Pretty limited?

CRIME DESIRE 'In Lucifers Grip' 7" (Life's A Rape) The Crime Desire LP came and went to very little attention, and that's probably a good thing as far as this band is concerned because this is light years ahead of what they were doing on that record: the playing is tighter, the vocals sound a lot stronger (songs can get dragged down here by a weak delivery and the vocal style is unusual) and the whole thing has a greater sense of achievement to it. If you could picture the link Dwid wanted people to form between GISM and Septic Death and Integrity, Crime Desire would probably fall somewhere in that universe: it's a morbid, apocalyptic mess of metallic riffing and wailing vocals and draws on Japanese hardcore without sounding like Japcore.

CRIMINALLY INSANE 's/t' 7" (PARTS UNKNOWN) The target audience for this record is obviously the kind of modern hardcore kid who hasn't heard enough of Mr. Damien's vocals on the twenty-three Fucked Up records that are released each month. Are you the target audience for this record? If so, I'll warn you: this is mediocre thrashy hardcore with "mosh", Damien's vocals are not at their strongest, and the layout is remarkably similar to the Pink Eye records you bought last week. I respect the power of this guys pipes, but there is such a thing as spreading yourself over too many bands that end up sounding exactly the same. Case in point: Criminally Insane sound like the rejected Fucked Up demo tunes that you're happy to not hear again. Personally, I'm not buying anything til he hits some Danzig style boogie metal and can really start to croon for me.

THE PINK FITS 's/t' 7" (OUTBACK RNR) VAE VICTIS 'Pro Patria Mori' 7" (Endless Blockades / Spin Control) My copies of these records both came to me warped, so make sure when you pick up a copy it's flat. That is seriously the only thing these records have in common, but it's enough of an issue to mention them together. Any tips of flattening warped recs, email or write me.
The Pink Fits are high energy garage rock from my old hometown, Wollongong, and if they were playing while I was there I might have been inclined to leave my bedroom a little more. This is a great single: bands that come to mind would be the modern Swedish rnr types, but the bullshit is filtered out. No unnecessary flash and flamboyance here. They should give the graphic designer who put their packaging together a lariat: the pixilated text and images is both unrepresentative of their sound AND completely unnecessary. Cheaper to do a plain paper sleeve, and more bands should consider it.
This Vae Victis record is great! In the red, raw thrash from Sydney: Absolut Sweden, ripping UK thrash, you know the deal. I missed their live show in Melbourne because the Nation were touring: they just crossed Europe and apparently it went well, and no surprise with songs like these. Sydney is finally consistently churning out some solid, listenable records, and once again Endless Blockades have pressed a good Australian punk record.

SWEET ROT 'Drug Fiend' 7" (Square Wave) Three songs of lo fi surf punk, semi sketchy (actually, just stupid stupid) lyrics and an over-reliance on the monster mash styled backup vocals to pin the songs down structurally, but the snotty delivery and reverb heavy guitar sound grabbed me and keep grabbing me. In fact, this sounds like a modern extension of the Vom / early Angry Samoans sound, and seeing as the number of bands doing this effectively equals this record alone, it's a keeper.

VEGETATIVE STATE 's/t' 7" (Death By Noise) These four young uns played a Cleveland all ages show in the early afternoon to a crowd of hungover scene types, and they churned through a set of their own songs bookended by Fear covers and the like, and it was great. The singer / guitarist was a real arrogant little fuck on stage, but he meekly gave me this record when I asked him for it and then got into the car his parents drove him to the show in. All this made me very happy, and I like this record a lot: three tunes of sloppy, edgy punk hardcore tunes that I wouldn't be surprised if they appeared on a future KBD compilation. They're all played and recorded with a real punk mentality: they just sound strange, and not in the sense that they're attempting to intelligently "capture the sound of a strange sounding band": it's not calculated and conspired, it's just an accident and it's just right. Pay special attention to 'Laguna Beach Rules', my pick.

MIDNIGHT 'Complete And Total Fucking Midnight' LP Continuing on from the Cle-tale dropped in that review, I'd like to talk about this band. This is a solo project from somebody distilled everything that is great about Venom, Celtic Frost, Motorhead and Sabbath, cooked it, tied, shot it, and recorded this searing collection of galloping, grinding kult metal. Most every song makes reference to hell, satan or evil, most every song includes a searing guitar lick or howling screech, and most every song is the best fucking metal song I've heard in a while. While I assume most metalheads would probably not find anything special in these tunes, for someone whose metal collection consists of two other records (they are 'Morbid Tales' and 'Reign In Blood', though this is discluding Sabbath and piles upon piles of burnt CDs of black from Norway) this record sounds like everything that I like about metal, and this means it's raw and over the top and abrasive and a little bit comical without being overly goofy. In short, it's FUCKIN METAL.

LOS INVASORES 'El Ejecutivo' 7" (Inocencia Discos / Lengua Armada) If you've been paying attention to this fanzine for a while you may understand what I mean when I suggest this is an essential record. Incredibly punk tunes from this band whose record comes with no liner notes or explanation: just a cool looking band photo on the front cover, some great lyrics (well, great translation of lyrics), that's it. Where are they from? I'm completely clueless: Martin put it out and gave me this copy when I stayed with him, and he said either Uruguay or Peru, but I was jetlagged and busy trying not to drool over his hand coloured Negative Approach single, so typically I neglected learning about a band and record I'm probably going to listen to more over the next six months than NA. Four killer punk rock songs: agitated vocal delivery, warm tone on the surf guitar, new wave drum sound. I don't know anything more, but I want to know more: Martin doesn't answer emails, so help me out if you know anything, and even if you don't, do yourself a favour and try to track this one down.

BOMBEREGN 's/t' 7" (Kick N' Punch) NO FUCKER 's/t' 7" (No Real Music) KVOTERINGEN 'Vidrig…' 7" (Terroten) Modern d-beat records. My favourite modern punk record label ends it's almost flawless run of records with this d-beat 'Biker War Punk' 7", and I must admit the apocalyptic crust skeletons artwork had me worried before the needle hit, but that is because I am flawed by being quick to judge. In most cases, my flaw is a blessing, because my judgment is correct. This is one of those occasions. Danish punk is among the best punk anywhere over the past ten years, and I wish I could say that their crust scene was no exception, but it seemingly is. File this record with Gasmask Terror, if that helps you: if you like that, you'll like this.
If you don't, then there is always No Fucker. I think this band is reliable, and it's suitable they've split 7"s with Disclose: both bands are the cream of the modern discult, with Disclose the definitive statement as far as the disobsession can become and No Fucker I feel pay tribute more to their interpretation of Discharge than anything else. I think the cover of this record is, like most aspects of this style and scene, stupid: an Asian baby sits in a pile of warheads. A pertinent reminder of the reality of war, or an exploitative image of distant suffering?
Kvoteringen, the band who had an MRR interview and a couple of records out before they'd even played a show, are probably the definitive example of what I don't like about this style of music. Their rawness is seemingly an affectation of studio gimmickry, their imagery is stale and ineffectual, the tunes sound somewhat decent but have no character or life. No Kvoteringen.

C.C.S.S. 'Commun Chfeu Sa Soupe' 7" (Ugly Pop) C.C.S.S. 'Punkcore / Punkwhores' 7" (Radio 81) Sneering punk from Montreal that I picked up on the promise that members of Inepsy are involved in it's production, and while it shares the galloping pace and confident swagger of said Canuck scum, it's entirely street punk (as opposed to biker metal). The first record has a lot more in common with hardcore than the second, which features a more prominent bass and poppy drum sound, but given these options I'm far more likely to go past both of these records and put on something Danish. I imagine if I was fifteen and loved the Casualties or the US Bombs, these records would have opened my eyes to a whole bunch of cool shit, but I'm not fifteen and I don't care about those bands.

TOTALITAR 'Vi Ar Eliten' 12" (Prank) & 7" (Feral Ward) One thing this band has working against them is the hardcore punk messageboard geek scene who have taken Totalitar and shrouded them in unnecessary mystique as if they are the revolution. I don't think I understand entirely why people weep at the news this band has broken up – and I mean literally weep, my friend told me someone involved in putting the LP out physically burst into tears at the sound of the opening chords of 'Vi Ar Eliten'. The 7" is definitely the better record of this bands swansong releases, but at the same time I'm confused because I find myself distracted by the thought that people really, really love this band, and up against a lot of modern hardcore it just doesn't really offer me much. In fact, the whole entire country of Sweden is altogether overrated as far as their sonic output over the past decade goes. All this said, these are good records, the 7" is definitely a GREAT record, but I remain confused and colourblind.

KYKLOOPPIEN SUKUPUUTTO 's/t' 12" PEDESTRIANS 'Ideal Divide' 12" FATAL 'Fatal' 7" These three records arrived in a package a few days after returning from the USA, and with the amount of records I'd actively sought for knowing I'd like or want to hear them, they were put to the back of the listening pile and left to wait until I could sort the wheat from the chaff of my o/s purchases. Somebody from German label / distro 'Contamination' obviously spent a deal of time and effort getting them to me for review in these pages. Which marks a precedent, the first time anyone has actually sent vinyl all the way from Europe for review in these pages. I'd like to try and reciprocate their effort with praise, enough hyperbole that you'd chase down these records and justify the postage, and further justify more European labels sending me their records. But, here's the deal: I think all three of these records will appeal mainly to those whose record collections attempt to be a catalogue of modern punk, as they are fairly representative of three major modern punkisms, without defining or being particularly GREAT at their style.
KS, whose name nobody likes to pronounce or type out, are attempting to thrash with eclecticism in their song structures and approach to layout, and would likely appeal to the type with a penchant for European punk / thrash bands, the type who likes to listen to Napalm while very, very stoned. Pedestrians are the US melodic hardcore band with a political perspective. No doubt you'd hear them referenced in the same breath as the Observers. The bassist of this band also plays bass in Repercussions, who deserve all the hyperbole and praise they're attracting. Pedestrians fans, I'd imagine, grew up on Bad Religion records, like Husker Du / later SST, and have a very left leaning politic. Fatal are the instantly forgettable German hardcore band; their members all sound like they listen to different styles of punk / hardcore and so try to bring their own unique sound and style and perspective to the table. With enough talent and strong songwriting, this can be a great thing. Unfortunately, Fatal don't seem to have anything in that department.
I guess the tone of this review is fairly representative of the way I feel at the moment, as I'm culling almost a third of my records and the deciding factor to whether to keep or throw a record is "will I want to listen to this record at any time in the next year?". For all three of these records, the answer was no, but if you've read anything in the last couple of paragraphs you should be able to tell why and whether it's gonna matter to you.