Warsong - The caravan

Hey cats, what's up? Life here in athens are pretty "cool" with all the shiity things goin on and around of Villa Amalias squat and the constant trying of the police eviction, but we will take it back for sure (some columns in english here). A lot of the fellow athenian punks feel Villa Amalias like their second home and so i am too, so this post is dedicated to the squatters, the squat and the punks.

Warsong comes from the Zaragosa desert, where the sand is gold and there is no water, nomads of the modern-day-life Warsong sing their loving interludes as an elixir to our poisonous and ruined lives. You may be familiar with bands like Insomnio and No Escape, bands who recorded some of the most intense yet melodic, soft yet PUNK rock tunes the last 5-6 years (or maybe more). Tracks like "Too hard", "she says no", "still remember" or "any moment" holds a great place in my heart, mainly because when i'm tired of all the speedy hardcore tunes or the dark crust/core bombardment i tent to listen to some smooth and chilling tunes, tunes i can go sing along or shed a tear. Mihael (the good friend behind Teenage Lobotomy and Doomtown records) was kind enough to sent me this ep (12'' lp) but i never listened to it (stubborn i fucking am) cause their previous album "Ancient Times" it was THE letdown. While a friend spined the record on his turntable i was "what's that shit?", and i immediately went to buy a copy. "The Caravan" is the lost Atlantis of the modern melofic punk, bass rtyhms anchored to the drumming simplicity, while the lyrics have been forged with ice and fire, strenght and gentle. Add a great cover to the "window shop for love" of Wipers and you got what it takes.

"You shine, but on my skin i'm feeling nothing

You shine, but deep within i'm feeling frozen"

download (link provided by the band)

Spanish hardcore

My good basque friend borja sent me another great review about a tape with spanish hardcore bands. I upload it on jumbofiles as i wrote on my previous post where you can see a tutorial if you find it difficult to download.

-Borja, from the wastelands :

I was writing one more time some stupid things and i couldn´t concentrate much on what i was writing, so like i always do i started to listen to music. and i started to listen to the fabulous compilation tape from the 80s called SPANISH HARDCORE from bct records from san diego. an italian friend gave me ones this tape... and i promissed mike two different reviews, but this is a FUCKING MUST!!!!!!!!!!! whatever, this tape is a FUCKING AMAZING HYMNE of spanish HARDCORE (and i write it with big letters), starting with MG-15 (from Nerja), IV REICH (Zaragoza), RIP (Mondragon), FRENOPATICSS (Barcelona), ANTIDOGMATIKSS (la Roca) and ULTIMO RESORTE (Barcelona)...

every single band is incredible. i grew up with this sound. it´s normal that after this the raw and aggressive sound from finnland, sweden and italy makes you crazy. but when you listen to this you realize that the spanish hardcore and punk scene in the 80s was totally unique. other band like GRB, Subterranean Kids, HHH, Codigo Neurotico, Ultimo Gobierno, all this fucking crazy bands from the basque country... there are much more bands i would like to write now...

there are a lot of bands on this tape, but i wanna write about one. exactly the band i know since i am very young. it´s RIP. when i started to listen to punk i used to go to a recordstore in barcelona and i found this record NO TE MUEVAS (don´t move) with this amazing cover. i got an edition where you can listen as well to the songs record on the split with ESKORBUTO, called ZONA ESPECIAL NORTE (special zone north). The tape compilation is missing, RIP appeared also on the MRR compilation WELCOME TO 1984.

RIP play hardcore, fast raw brutal and aggressive hardcore (specially on the split with eskorbuto and on the compilation) and FUCK GORILLA BISCUITS and FUCK VICTIMS and JOIN RIP! DISCOVER real HARDCORE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! all their songs (you should know spanish for the brutal fantastic lyrics, i knwo they are not anarchists, but their lyrics beat even bakunin or bonanno) are very powerfull. it is very rare to listen to such a band with a combination between beeing raw and dirty and having at the same time clean recordings. i could write about every single song and start cutting my veins in this orgasm of music. now the song ODIO A MI PATRIA (i hate my fatherland) started and outside it is raining. i hope that the lightnings destroy everything (as well me)... i really can say that i love this band. when people talk about hardcore without having listend to RIP, discharge, crucifix, agony, kafka process, wretched, UBR or ripcord (for example)...they never have had listened to hardcore

download

Invasion - discography

Yeah, right : Destino final, finally will come to town(s). 24 & 25 of september athens and thessaloniki will feel their grounds shaking and huge volcanos will pop-up when the mountains eventually turn to grey. But before that, it was Invasion. I kindly requested d. (guitarist of black trinity / Go filth go) to sit his ass down and write a proper review about these spanish dudes. He said : "Yeah, why not? Do i have a dealine?" and after 12 hours he sent a ball-breaking review in FifteenCounts headquarters. Enjoy him (and Invasion).

Amazing grace :

something like Invasion (destino final live)

Old school: two words that I really really love to use!
Also two words that I never used when I was talking about Spanish bands the last few years. Fortunately Invasion came to change this!
Here we have the previous band of the vocalist and guitarist of Destino Final. They released a demo and two LP’s. Destino Final is a great band that I like very much and I really wanted to listen to the Invasion stuff too. So, Mike gave me the chance and here I am. And I am very pleased with what I listened to!
Invasion played true old school punk! With the right sound and attitude! Simple song structure, but it has it all! Great riffs, kicking up-tempo drums, delayed spitting vocals. Nothing odd, no exaggerations. Just punk! Everything is where is needed to be. Less is more, as we say…
But what’s really good after all is that they manage to have a quite personal sound. I mean, you can see their influences, but all filtered perfectly in their sound. There are some old Swedish and Finnish punk influences, some late 70’s punk along with some Stooges and G.B.H., some Japanese (their spirit is burning alright!) and also a bit of old school metal for the final touch.
A plus (for me at least) is the fact that they keep their music close to politics.
I got to tell you. I love the raw sound of the instruments, the ultra-delayed vocals (reminded me a lot of the Hellhammer demos) and the evil laughters of the vocalist here and there, the energy and the darkness! And after you finish listening to their records (and you are a bit sweaty because you were banging the whole time) you instantly get the thought “Ah, it would be great to watch them live!”
Hopefully, we can do this with Destino Final. They still play a couple of Invasion songs live (their sound hasn’t changed much), so that’s just great!
Download or piss off!!!

Mitsos or Meatsauce

download

Inu - tracks from upcoming split with Kroia

Spain : a country well-known around the world for awesome dishes and food reserves, barcelona fc and zara clothes. As for the hardcore community, spain is worshiped as the motherland of the modern, pessimistic and catchy as hell, tragedy / from ashes rise influenced crust (don't start throw rocks on me, i know that great bands like otan or destino final are from there too), bands like Madame germen, Ictus, Leadershit and so much more made this genre so popular inside punk community. I'll get to the point.

Some days before moro (guitarist of Inu) contacted the blog and asked, if i can, to post their brand new five tracks from their upcoming split with indonesia's Kroia. After some e-mail exchanges, here we are...

As a big japcore fan i couldn't say no to a truly great band as Inu really is. Hailing from the northwest of spain, la coruna to be more specific, the guys that fuels the engine of Inu have been playing in some other bands also. Blunt (great crust band, check some stuff here and here), Codia (old-school hardcore punk), Noitebrega (black metal), Kephra (post-metal) are some of the them.

Moro has sent me also the lyrics, that deals with personal issues mainly but also with some politics. Now, as far the sounds that will come out of your speakers. Well, you must go and buy some new ones 'coz Inu certainly will burn' em out even if you're gonna play it on 0 decibel. Full DEATH SIDE maniacs here. era : With the first riff "All is here now" comes to mind in a physical way. Crazy, driven by demons Chelsea's riffage, crude drumming and judgement feeling (almost forgotten : add some Iron maiden for the flavour and for satan's sake)... Yeah, Inu rocks really hard. Imagine a torch-holding army marching to the deepest of all hells and you may catch the feeling. The sound is more than decent, counting that the band has recorded all tracks by themselves in their practice-room (that's how DIY recordings must be).
Hope you like them... Cook some extra spicy vegeterian paella, grab a cold glass of sangria and enjoy.

Dedicated to moro who sent me these tracks and black Mitsos that will love them for sure.

Shot in the head