The Empire Crusts Back (part 3): Confrontation "1989" Ep, 1992

Growing old sometimes sucks. Well, I am not technically quite old enough - though Tik Tok would definitely disagree - to utter such pompous and peremptory statements and therefore may lack the necessary legitimacy and worrying back pains. But still, one observes, one witnesses and one is not a fool. As punks grow older, their record collection gets more and more important, threatening to make the living room's floor - and oftentime their marriage as well - crumble and collapse under its weight of vinyl, potentially crushing a charming gran living downstairs or, better, a twattish busybody who could not stop complaining whenever you play Chaos UK supposedly too loud. We've all heard horror stories of honest, ebay-abiding record collectors being squashed under a landslide of single-sided Japanese flexis, of granduncles being knocked out cold during a family reunion by a box of demo tapes that you had promised to take care of or of innocent pets being flattened by the limited edition of the Noise Not Music Discharge box (there are far worse deaths than this one actually). The exponential activity of collecting records can be hazardous physically but also mentally. 

 

Indeed, as records keep piling in their living room, old punks can become quite pedantic about some aspects of hardcore music (it is almost always about hardcore music), especially about the correct terminology of subgenres and about the inclusion or exclusion of specific bands in specific genres. Just ask on a message board roaming with officially recognized record nerds who the first real powerviolence band was and enjoy the ensuing verbal brawl and below-the-belt name-calling. Occasionally, physical violence can ensue - although it is quite rare as record collectors usually only resort to fighting to get first to merch tables - and combatants end up solving their personal issues in the octagon to assert their supremacy. As much as I would love to tell you that I am above such rivalries and epistemological disagreements, I must confess that I have already engaged in heated arguments about the archaeological position of Los Saicos in punk culture or the value of post-"New age" Blitz and while I haven't headbutted anyone because of my proverbial lack of basic bravery, also called being a wimp, there was a lot of finger-waving, scornful looks and offending accusations about being a middle-class poser and only getting into Blitz after I did. Oh well. I still think genres do matter and should be discussed and that precise descriptive names can be useful in order to reflect on histories, eras and areas. But instead of being bones of contention, arguments about genres should improve our appreciation and not limit it. Peace and love my friends. Which takes me to today's record: the 1989 Ep from Confrontation.

 

 

 

I have seen Confrontation being qualified as grindcore, as powerviolence, as crust - and even as modern hardcore but it was an honest mistake and the person was actually talking about the late 90's German band on that one so that the virtual tar and feather might not have been totally warranted and I probably should have refrained from sending anonymous threats to his house but I prefer to see this incident as a life lesson for the both of us. In actual fact, you would not be wrong indeed to qualify the band as grindcore, powerviolence or crust as each appellation makes sense for different reasons. Because of its dirty metallic groove and its blast beats the grindcore tag would fit Confrontation; but then 1989 having been originally released on Infest's label Draw Blank and because of the band's typical hardcore breaks and riffs you could say that powerviolence is not far off the picture either; and of course, because of the band's close connections to Glycine Max, Apocalypse or Mindrot - in a word the OC crust galaxy - and its raw and filthy punk production and emphatic cavemen vocals, claiming Confrontation were an old-school crust act is not irrelevant, and since we are on Terminal Sound Nuisance here, the Ep will be approached and tackled through a distinctively crust perspective, without discarding the other influences, because I am, after all, known, among other things, as The Magnanimous One. However, not being particularly well schooled in old-school grindcore - though I can hold my own to some extent - and being absolutely clueless about powerviolence - it always sounded too American to my delicate ears and I never really got the appeal, I will ask you to bear with potential inconsistencies. Now that the issue of terminology and nomenclature has been settled, we may proceed to the crux of the matter: my own record coll... I mean the band.

 

Confrontation was actually the first OC crust band I came across although at that time I had absolutely no idea that there had been a fabulous crust source over there and, apart from Resist and Exist, I don't think I was aware of other anarcho/crust bands from that area or aware that this area had its fair share of extreme bands. I was, as you might say, still green. Because finances were low and grim while enthusiasm was high and unquenchable, I was able to lay my hands on a second-hand copy of the Confrontation's discography cd after hearing the In Crust We Trust compilation that a gentle soul had found for me on soulseek, back when it took two days and a half to download an album. I did not enjoy In Crust We Trust as much as I thought I would to be fair. At that time, I was still in the process of discovery of crust and the title, which I now find cheesy as fuck, announced something spectacular and developmental. There were some good bands on that compilation, don't get me wrong, it had Disfear, No Security, Concrete Sox and Heresy, but if you look closely, there was not much proper crust and it was bit misleading really. In retrospect, I understand that it was just a sample of Lost & Found's catalogue and that the misleading title did not illustrate the content, much like The Best Crust Compilation in the World Ever! compilation whose hyperbolic irony was lost on me when I bought it, especially since, without really disappointing, there was, again, not much crust in it. But I did like the Confrontation songs - they are some of their best numbers - and seeing that Lost & Found also released a full cd of the band and that it was cheap, I did not fuck around and bought the copy online. I learnt later on that the not-so-virtuous label released this cd because they claimed that the band had received an advance payment for the recording of a full album which they never did since they broke up and the cd was a way to get some money back. Not really the classiest act on the part of a label that was famous for this kind of dodgy moves and it is no coincidence that the cd is listed as "unofficial" on Discogs. Just bad punk ethics.

 

 

 

I couldn't find many details about Confrontation's noisy career and I really wish some heroic old-timers from that time and place will one day write a book about the Californian 80's peacepunk/crust scene like Ian Glasper did for the British waves. A boy can dream. The band formed in Huntington Beach probably in late 1988 - the Ep was recorded in May, 1989, so that sounds plausible enough. I have seen a mention of that record being a demo Ep and it might have originally been some sort of demo tape that they decided to reissue as a proper Ep. Still it does not seem very likely as this practice was not widespread at the time, whereas releasing a demo again on a vinyl has become very commonplace these days. What's the point of engaging in an activity bound to saturate the already fragile punk records market especially since demos are readily available online and, well, they are demos, I hear you ask from afar? I ain't got clue guv. To get back to Confrontation, the band was from Huntington Beach and had Matt Fisher from Mindrot on vocals and future Dystopia bass player Todd on the bass. As my jaundiced speech indicated earlier, the band remained mostly associated with the mean and manically fast hardcore bands - the early powerviolence wave - and they shared some common ground with the groovy grindcore freaks that roamed this very part of California at the time. Just consider that powerviolence legends Infest were from Valencia, Crossed Out from Encinitas, No Comment from North Hollywood and the unique Man Is The Bastard from Claremont. All those hardcore acts lived in a 50 kilometers radius and therefore it is little surprising that the area, in punk's more or less unreliable collective memory, has often been closely connected with powerviolence. Similarly, just consider that grindcore legends Terrorizer - the grindcore equivalent of the 1992-era Ultimate Warrior - were from Huntington Park and Nausea from Los Angeles. The Infest connection is clearly the most relevant since 1989 was initially released on Infest's own label Draw Blanks Records - it was only DB's second release - although Confrontation sounded nothing like them so that's the grand network of friends in action for you. The version we are dealing however is not the original but the remastered one from 1992 that Misanthropic Records - the first output of Todd's label - took care of. 

 

There are eight songs on this Ep and let me tell you that Confrontation had little time to waste. The opening song "Deathtrap", my favourite number on the record, is a grinding crust masterpiece that reminds me of the early rawer Napalm Death, Electro Hippies and crust maniacs Mortal Terror. The first riff epitomized what old-school crust has always been supposed to sound like and Instinct of Survival on their split Ep with Guided Cradle had no reservation about borrowing it - to great effect I must say. After that groovy metallic crust introduction, Confrontation unleash their brand of fast and abrasive crusty hardcore with harsh cavecrust vocals. The rest of 1989 keeps maintains this high level of quality, navigating between snotty UK hardcore classics like the above-mentioned powerhouses, local OC crust heroes like A//Solution and Apocalypse and that contemporary brand of punishingly fast and violent US hardcore (some of the breaks undoubtedly fall in that category). In terms of production, and in spite of a second mastering work, the Ep sounds like raw and urgent early stenchgrind - the band included a five-second burst of referential noise called "Scum..." to wrap up the Ep, just to make sure the listeners understood where they were coming from - and can be said to be a typical and solid example of the sound of the area at that time. I love the cut'n'paste DIY look of the foldout bringing to mind the traditional early crust aesthetics and the band's logo depicting a roughly-drawn picture of a rather melancholy-looking crusty punk's shrunken head is wonderful and gets an A+ for me. The cover is undeniably more enigmatic as it is a picture of a prisoner-of-war or concentration or refugee camp with a dozen of miserable-looking men behind barbed wire. Pretty shocking and grim really. True realities of war. I do not know when this was taken or if it holds any relation to the year 1989 but judging from the prisoners' clothing I doubt it. I suppose the band's choice was meant to reflect the constant war mongering and disdain for basic human rights that defined the twentieth century and while I agree with the sentiment and the content, the visual form can be considered as awkward, or even, in 2021, as "problematic". From a very prosaic standpoint, it makes their shirt particularly hard to wear and I only sport if at grindcore gigs where I am confident the majority of the audience will be wearing far more shocking and distasteful shirts. Clever me.

 

The following Ep was released in 1991 - before 1989's remastered version - on Tribal War Records back when it was still located in New York City. Entitled Dead Against the War, it was the label's very first release (or was it actually the Warning Ep?). Confrontation pretty much kept on the same old-school grinding crusty hardcore tracks with new singer Ben, although they started to include heavy and suffocating doomy sludge part in the songwriting, adding a suffocating sense of atmospherics that will characterized what Dystopia would be known for a few years later. In fact, you could say Dead Against the War and the 1991 split Ep with Cantankerous (a band that had Matt from Mindrot on guitar) pretty sounded like a raw, unfiltered blend between between early Deformed Conscience, Concrete Sox and Embittered. Although I like 1989 better for its superior bollocking power and filthier blasting bum crust sound, the later material is also solid and thoroughly enjoyable and an interesting pre-Dystopia endeavour. After the demise of Confrontation and Cantankerous, Todd and Matt formed Dystopia along with Dino from Carcinogen (he actually provided some artwork and drew the liner notes on Dead Against the War) and Dan from Mindrot, a band that went on to write some of the most potent, original and influential punk music of the 90's. 

 

This write-up is dedicated to Matt, who sadly passed a year ago.        

 

 

 

Confront!       

The Empire Crusts Back - the OC Crust Years (part 2): A//Solution "Butterfly" Ep, 1989

Of course, no one could have known then. No punk band from the past could have predicted the effect their choice of moniker would have on future punk palaeoanthropologists. And let's face it, if a time machine had been working in the 80's, I very much doubt that it would have been lent to a scruffy punk band so they could check whether people still liked their music twenty years on - that would have led to at least 90% of bands splitting up - or whether calling themselves Genital Deformities, Pink Turds In Space or Seats of Piss was such a good idea after all. But then, they could have just asked their mum for a sensible assessment. It would be unfair and even far-fetched to claim that A//Solution picked a mediocre or embarrassing name. I actually like it a lot. It does not sound as straight-forward and ominous as Apocalypse or Misery but at least it suggests a glimmer of hope to the listener instead of openly offering the end of humanity or perpetual pain also known as the king size crust menu. A//Solution used a polysemous figure with the inclusion of a capital "A" at the beginning that can either indicate, on the one hand, the common indefinite article "a" which would mean that the band believed in one actual if indeterminate solution for our future or our peace of mind, or, on the other hand, because of the two slashes between "A" and "Solution", it could also stand for "Anarcho//Solution", the "A//" acting as a graphic substitute for the circled A. Both options satisfy me and I have to say that it might be more significant to keep the polysemic potential in mind rather than fixate on one interpretation. Know wot I mean?

 

Do people in 2021 think hard about A//Solution's lexical play? No, they don't. Should I? Absolutely, since the band's name - as appropriate and clever I found it - also implied hours of frustratingly unsuccessful internet searches when I first came across it. Before I lie on the couch and start getting into the details of my traumatic quest for A//Solution's music and biographical information, I should probably explain why I chose to tell such personal anecdotes about my first encounters with bands that I particularly love. Most of those stories are rather unromantic and commonplace and don't offer anything special. However, I feel that the way one discovers a band not only informs the relationship that will be built with it but is also part of a global punk narrative, evolving through time, contexts, technologies, with the hunt for the music sometimes far surpassing in intensity and pleasure the music itself, though the best is when both the quest and the treasure are exhilarating. I love reading about those micro adventures involving records, people and gigs and I feel that they do matter when considered as a collective choral of hearing-impaired stubbornly untidy persons. Beside, being paid 10p per word, it allows me to go on and on and still afford a pint of IPA once every fortnight.

 

 

After reading somewhere, quite possibly in an article in which the author had engaged in a self-rewarding heavy name-dropping session, that Mindrot had ties with the early Californian crust scene, I proceeded to buy their Dawning album. While the cd (of course it was on cd and of course it was second-hand) did not really do anything for me (what with being doom metal and all), it included a massive thanks section with a list of bands that read like a scene repertoire. Such lists were always very helpful at the time as they served as ideal starting points for younger punks like myself to dig deeper into a particular era and notice sometimes surprising links between bands (scenes were clearly not as clear-cut and discrete then). I was absolutely clueless about most of the bands mentioned on the list though - and still are to be honest with ya - but some were familiar faces (like Phobia and, well, Total Chaos) or already personal favourites (like Final Conflict or Dystopia) while others did catch my attention because of their evocative names. Among them were Armistice (the peacepunkest name in the world), Black Maggot (described as "total crusty black metal" with future members of Skaven) and A//Solution for aforementioned semasiological reasons. Because of my obsessive nature, I quickly started to look hard for materials from those bands. Armistice proved to be rather easy but A//Solution did not and Black Maggot remain to this day a myth. None of the venerable punks above 30 around me seemed to know or care to know about A//Solution while searching on the internet by myself proved to be a particularly labourious and gruelling undertaking. Just try typing "A Solution punk" and look at the results. Pages upon pages of rubbish that were often about finding a solution to keep your kid away from the ills of punk-rock. Face it parents, there's nothing you can do about it.

 

 Mindrot's formative thank list

 

Eventually, things sorted themselves out when the band created a Myspace account sometime in the second half of the noughties, which felt like a glorious victory against malicious and clearly nebulous odds. A miracle, that's what it looked like and I was elated. For good reason as the band had uploaded their Butterfly Ep, a work that can arguably be considered as the best Ep of early US crust, a big statement that, in my estimation, is quite reasonable indeed. A//Solution, from Fountain Valley, California, were the quintessential OC crust band (if you need a conceptual definition of the term, I invite you to take a look at the first part of the series here). In actual fact, as Head of the Crust Department at the Sorbonne, the carefully crafted curriculum of the Master's program - often nicknamed Crust Enough among students - includes an intensive comprehensive course about OC Crust. In the first week, students who were brave enough to enroll are required to listen to the Butterfly Ep for three hours straight and will be evaluated on a 10 000 word essay about it. No arsing around. That's how good and crucial this record is. 

 

A witch emerging from a... vagina?

 

A bit of history first. Information about A//Solution is scarce to come by to say the least and even in 2021 typing "A//Solution butterfly crust" in a search engine or on fucking youtube does not always lead the curious dork to the right corridors, and while I am quite fond of butterflies as metaphors of transiency and ephemeralness, the actual insect kinda disgusts me since I unintentionally swallowed a tiny butterfly upon riding a bike as a child. Not only did I become especially careful when opening my mouth since then, but I also completely gave up riding bikes, which was for the best anyway considering my poor skills and the destruction inflicted on the local fauna. Still, thanks to my relentless tenacity, I managed to find a recording of their short and lovingly sloppy demo from 1986 entitled Animal Pain/No Human Gain released on Vegan Babies From Hell Tapes (you can't make this up). It was quite certainly A//Solution's first recording, possibly done in the practice room in pure teenage punk fashion. The tape, I believe, included four songs and poems in less than four minutes and exemplified the strong aesthetical and political ties between the mid-80's Californian peacepunk waves and the late 80's OC crust bands. With animal rights activism as its main theme, this early demo was a rough and raw blend of early Antisect, Anti-System and local influential heroes Body Count and prefigured what bands such as Resist and Exist or Armistice would be doing at the turn of the decade.

 

 The first demo DIY OR DIE

 

Following this first attempt at knocking on the door of punk history, A//Solution released at least another demo. I read somewhere that there were two demos recorded before the Ep, one called Butterfly sounding precisely like the final steps towards the band's definitive 80's moment, and another one apparently entitled Love, which I have never heard and whose very existence I therefore cannot attest to, but if you do know something about it, there is what is called a "comment section" below that you can use, it's a just like the comments on Shitebook and Instacrap without the gratification. Anyway, the Butterfly demo was released in 1989 and saw A//Solution's sound really take shape. At that point, the band sounded like the perfect - and I do mean that - model answer to the early UK crust bands like Antisect's Out From the Void era (for the darkness), early Deviated Instinct (for the filthy vibe from the gutter), early Hellbastard (especially them as some riffs are liberally borrowed) and Pro Patria Mori (for the sheer intensity and bollocking). I cannot really find any flaw to the Butterfly 6-songs demo. As if such exquisite references did not suffice, A//Solution tried to win the crust race with their three (!) gruff and growling vocalists (like Insurgence had), treading heavy blows and rabid bites with one another. I find that the singers complete one another very well and it does give the songs some additional aural aggression, uncontrolled anger and a feeling of vociferous despair before the destruction of beauty and life.

 

 

As I pointed out previously, the Butterfly demo tape was very much a brilliant draft of the Butterfly Ep that came out the same year. Even the covers were similar, both of them depicting two butterflies being threatened - I presume - by some sort of bat-like vampiric demon with the head of a fox, the drawing on the tape's cover looking rougher and maybe not as otherworldly as the Ep's. On the other side, the backcover of the record depicts a witchy being, possibly back from the dead, emerging from a misty vagina shaped opening which, I suppose, reflected thrash metal's visual influence of the time (and, from experience, I can tell you that it does make for a pretty decent shirt on most occasions, your nephew's eighth birthday not being one of them). The Ep includes four re-recorded songs that were already on the tape, with a heavier and crunchier sound that will have you mosh frantically and give up showering right away. Quintessential, ultimate old-school stenchcore here. It does not get really better than Butterfly's demonstration of metal crust virtuosity. The balance between metallic power, genuine punk as fuck anger and a dirty crust-drenched vibe is masterly. The aforementioned British crust classics are obviously invoked and the Ep puts forward a tasteful variety of tempos that can be qualified as the Crust Grand Slam, from thrashing fast, to heavy apocalyptic sludge and mid-paced groovy trot. If I had to find one minor flaw to the Ep, it would be that the song "State of rule" is perhaps too long of an instrumental - especially when they had so much vocal power at their disposal - and that it would have worked better as the opening or closing song. But I am being picky. Listening to "Love" makes me want to run to howl "Looooaarrghhhoooove" - a clear reference to Disorder's "Life" - at the top of a building overlooking a post-apocalyptic landscape, looking up to the sky for the last time. Cheery stuff. The inside of the Ep is all in traditional cut'n'paste fashion and the lyrics are hand-written to the point of being a little hard to make out at times. Words deal with the transience of beauty and harmony, the butterfly metaphor, unity, love and its absence. Certainly not as gloomy than you would expect, and more in line with the peacepunk prose (the Iconoclast come to mind). The Ep was released on a Scarborough-based label run by Stuart from Satanic Malfunctions, I suppose they were penpals since it the only other releases were from SM.

 

Cut'n'paste or die presents: the second demo

 

 

Following this masterpiece, one would have hoped for a full Lp, a work that would have confirmed A//Solution as one of the very best US crust band to have walked and crawled this Earth but this was not to happen as the band tragically split up in 1990. What-iffing (yes that's an actual, if ugly, verb) is pretty useless but still, one cannot help but wonder. However, the band reformed with the full former lineup, minus one of the singers, in early 1992, their reunion gig seeing them rubbing shoulders with Confrontation, Phobia and Mindrot for what was probably the most direct way to go terminally deaf if you lived in the area at that time. A//Solution - finally - recorded seven songs for a full Lp later that same year but it did not materialize then and they split for good afterwards. I came across contradictory information about the Lp so I am not completely sure as to what the original plan was. A full album? I also read that it was meant to be a split Lp on Tempest Recors - Matt Fisher's label - with a local act called Relapse which I have never heard but has a song on a compilation tape oddly called Southercalifornia Not Saudiarabia compiled by Mauz from Dystopia before he launched Life Is Abuse (a rip of this tape would be very welcome). In 1995, an unmastered version of the '92 recording finally saw the light of day as a tribute to singer Nedwob's tragic passing. The Things to Come cd was a clear departure from Butterfly but still sounded as a logical continuation of their savage old-school crust sound. With its strong heavy rock influence and an earthy, organic feel, the album sounds like a post-crust blend of late Amebix, Zygote, early 90's Neurosis and even genuine grunge music and is actually a very interesting work, still in the realms of crust but also progressive and very well-written. Although it did take me some time to get into it - when I first heard it, I could not get into the rockier vibe - I have grown to really enjoy Things to Come and I love the story it tells as the songs resonate well with each other and illustrate great narrative abilities. You can tell that the band gave some proper thought to what they were going to express in terms of narration. Too bad it remained unmastered.  

 

That there has not been an A//Solution reissue yet feels like an absolute shame as it would finally show the greatness of this band to the world (well the crust punk world anyway). A//Solution were incredibly significant in that they reflected the evolution of the OC crust/peacepunk scene and their progress pretty much told its story: from anarcho peacecore, to absolute old-school metallic crust and finally heavy crust rock, all different stages and sounds but still very coherent and logical. Butterfly still remains their best effort and I rate it as the best early American crust Ep along with Born, Fed... Slaughtered, Earth and Cybergod. 

 

Butterfly

 

                                               

The Empire Crusts Back - the OC Crust years (part 1): Apocalypse "Earth" Ep, 1989

Alright then, there's crust to be done. After a relatively long break this summer due to my annual meditation retreat in Stoke-on-Trent, I decided to tackle a topic that had been seductively floating around on the edges of my consciousness for a while. An immense task that no one dared to accomplish, that would secure Terminal Sound Nuisance a comfy spot in the Crust Hall of Fame. I could already picture myself being applauded by my peers as I walked to the stage in order to deliver my poignant speech (I guess I will have to thank my parents though my dad has always vehemently disapproved of Extreme Noise Terror for some reason) and lift the award for my lifetime achivements, a small but refined golden statue of a crust punk passed out in a pool of special brew. I would relish this moment of glory. But before this dream comes true, I have to push myself to the limit, yet again, and wrestle with a scene that has been particularly close to my heart for a while now: the venerable OC crust scene. 

The notion and concept of "OC crust" will be explored and discussed throughout this short series so that my desire to crush you with a three pages long essay straight away will have to be contained. However, some basic knowledge about the term "OC crust" and what it has come to mean and imply do seem necessary. Strictly speaking, it refers to the first wave of crust that emerged in South California, notably in the specific area of Orange County in the late 80's, making it one of the original crust waves in the States and beyond. It goes without saying that those early bands were deeply influenced by the early UK "Peaceville" crust bands and also by fast hardcore punk, anarchopunk (at least lyrically and ethically) and extreme metal, the three roots from which the original British stenchcore tree also grew. It should be pointed out that, while I am sure those OC crust bands were into the classic British anarcho and hardcore bands - like Discharge, Antisect and so on - they must have been stimulated by the local bands who had been or were then flying flags similarly adorned with doves, peace symbols and the archetypal antiwar lexical field: the so-called peacepunk wave. Local SoCal mid-80's noise-makers like Against, Body Count or Diatribe must have been inspirations while their peacepunk contemporaries Another Destructive System, Holocaust and Media Children evolved in the same galaxy but with different artistic intents on the scale of aural bollocking.  Now let's proceed.   

As my honourable sensei used to say to me whenever I felt blue back in the day: "Don't worry and focus on your life goals. If you pay enough attention, you will notice that the singing of the birds sounds just like Cock Sparrer's chorus on "Take'em all". Believe yourself and just wait patiently for the apocalypse". Of course, I was just a wee lad back then and I was not quite sure what to make of my master's cryptic pieces of wisdom and, in frustration, I would punch walls and spit on the floor like I thought a proper hard member of the barmy army would and draw cocks on my dad's car with spray paint. Good times. Little did I know that sensei was actually referring to the band Apocalypse and not the biblical punishment and purification - a myth that happens to have been one of the main, if not the only one, influence on crust lyrics to this day. I remember the pride in the eyes of my punk sensei when I used to tell him that, when I grew up, I wanted to front a crust band called Apocalypse. Even then I could notice a soft cloud of sadness on his face as he encouraged to pursue my dreams and get the crust pants-making technique right. Realizing that there was already a crust band with the Apocalypse moniker broke my heart and shattered my self-confidence. Had my master not overdosed on dodgy shoegaze music some years prior, I would have shouted "Why why, whywhywhyyyy" to him. I think he was just trying to protect me.

 

I first came across Apocalypse sometime in the mid-00's through their 1998 discography cd Coldbringer. I remember picking it from the now defunct Crimes Against Humanity Records distro after reading the eloquent notice describing Apocalypse as an old-school metallic crust band from the late 80's resembling Antisect (there had to be a mention to Antisect for me to hyperventilate that much). Now such an introduction to an unknown band pushed all the right buttons and I immediately and authoritatively ordered the cd. I was already quite well versed in the arcane world of 80's UK crust by then, but I was all but completely unaware of the early crust scene of Southern California (I was unclear about where Mindrot stood exactly in this seemingly impenetrable equation as I had read somewhere that they used to do crust). While I knew that Misery, Disrupt, Nausea or Destroy belonged to the early U$ crust canon and greatly enjoyed the seminal SoCal political hardcore punk bands Final Conflict and Iconoclast, I did not really envision a proper crust scene in California, which, of course, sounds preposterous because that part of the world has had top representatives of every punk subgenres since the 70's (well, us French still rule over the sloppy-minimalistic-punk-with-a-drum-machine genre but no one really covets that spot to be fair). So upon reading about a SoCal stenchcore team, my mind immediately went wild and I quickly took to interrogate old-timers about a potential early crust scene over there, for, as the old punk saying goes "even if there is just the one bottle of brew, there are always more than one crust punk fighting for it", meaning that, because of crust's peculiar reproductive molecular structure, there was bound to be more bands in that style.

The reason why CAH Records had freshly received copies of Coldbringer is somewhat mysterious as it was released almost ten years prior, so by 2006 or 2007 (I think I got it around that time), it was no longer something new. Perhaps the record label behind it, Half-Life Records from Hacienda Heights, found some additional copies of the cd in the attic and offered them to CAH as it used to carry a lot of grindcore bands on the distro and Half-Life was precisely a grindcore label so it could make sense (the connection between Apocalypse and Half-Life was certainly more personal than musical, I guess they were mates and the latter offered to release a discography for them). Whatever the reason was, it looked like a sign from the gods of crust and although I am not the superstitious type and tend to disregard such beliefs, that the cd found itself in my path was not a coincidence. I had been chosen. It was a prophecy. And I also had some money in my pocket for the prophecy to happen but let's not dwell on such trivial, mundane details. 

 

There is little point in telling you how excited I was (and still am) about Apocalypse. They played exactly the style of crust that I loved and, like every old-school records included, there was a short but substantial thank list mentioning other bands I had never heard about, it was like a starting point for an archeological expedition as I was ready to embark into a quest for OC crust. The internet has made it possible, in a extremely short amount of time, to acquire some knowledge - albeit often superficial but it is beside the point - about any punk subgenres, even the most obscure. However, so-called OC crust (that has come to designate bands that were actually from Orange County but also from neighbouring localities), which was really an outgrowth of the strong SoCal peacepunk scene (as the thank list highlights with the presence of Another Destructive System or Media Children for example) rather than a scene of its own, remains something of an hidden treasure. I have already extensively written about the 80's Californian peacepunk scene and touched upon OC crust on two occasions when glorifying Mindrot and Glycine Max but this time I am going to do things properly and write passionately about four top records from that era.

So what about Apocalypse then? They were from Walnut (yes, like a walnut), formed in 1986 and disbanded in 1990. They got to release a fantastic demo tape and three Ep's (the present record Earth as well as splits with the mighty Mindrot and Transgression) and did the Earth Grind Tour around the country with Confrontation (a split Ep between both bands was announced for the tour but it did not materialize). And did I mention they picked the crustiest name for a band? So obvious and self-evident if not corny that it is brilliant (and I am not saying this just because I still envy them). The Earth Ep was recorded in 1988 and 1989 with a lineup that exemplifies the rather incestuous ties that existed among crust bands there: drummer Mark also hit things for Glycine Max then, bass player Al also drummed for Mindrot, while guitar player Rich and singer Ralph were literally brothers. One may justly infer that the OC crust phenomena might have been rather small, a specific and ultimately genre-defining moment that was part of a wider political hardcore punk metal scene in the 80's. 

 

Earth technically contains four songs but the first two "Mother..." and "Earth!" are actually tied to one another so that the former feels like a long dark metallic crust instrumental introduction rather than a separate track which gives it more of a narrative dimension to both. These two numbers make up the first side of the Ep and work perfectly together to create a brilliant and memorable crust epic with variations, from eerie moments to chugging and apocalyptic ones, there is a story being told here. Early Axegrinder, Deviated Instinct and Hellbastard come to mind (it is no coincidence that you can spot posters of the latter two pinned on the wall of the band's practice space, I'm assuming, that was used as a picture for the backcover), as this mid-paced track is groovy, raw and heavy, the perfect way to start the Ep especially since it provides depth and a distinct, sombre sense of doom, settling an atmosphere of grief and pain that would turn into anger in the following song "Earth!". Basically what a crust atmosphere is supposed to sound like and convey. Apocalypse's next song starts off with the canonical heavy-and-slow stenchcore beat before morphing into some mean metallic hardcore, not so far from the crossover style of the time albeit in a much darker version. I am hardly an expert in Californian crossover hardcore but  you get the gist. The great Final Conflict - undoubtedly a major influence on Apocalypse, Ron Martinez even produced the band's '88 demo - and Diatribe also come into the equation, especially in the vocals, which I think work well here, and I would add a spoonful of Concrete Sox as well. Top notch and pretty flawless first serving of proper crust. The other side kicks off with the Hellbastard-meet-Electro-Hippies-under-the-Californian-sun "Heart of man", a song that has a magnificent old-school vibe and ends with a typical US hardcore riff that probably had the whole audience run around in the pit (if they were still able to walk properly, the crawling version being far less impressive). The final song "Wimp-core" is a nine second blast of grinding hardcore, pretty puerile and anecdotal, but it acts here as a loving nod to the likes of Napalm Death, Sore Throat and Electro Hippies who had all previously engaged dealt in such primitive amusical bouts. I am into referentiality so that works for me. The production on the Ep is exemplary for this brand of old-school raw and heavy mean metallic hardcore as it gives a genuine punk edge to the songs and it makes sense that the engineer David Kory also worked with Infest, Final Conflict or even Hirax, exemplifying the ties that existed between the hardcore punk and the extreme metal worlds at the time.  

 

The cover is quite cryptic and a little too simplistic perhaps, although I suppose the conceptual idea was to offer an evocation of Earth and its beauty - a recurring theme in Apocalypse's lyrics - by offering a contemplative peaceful picture of flamingos - they are flamingos, aren't they? - and avoid skulls, nuclear explosions or decaying zombie punks. The poetry does not last long, on the backcover, as previously mentioned, there is a picture taken in the band's rehearsal space (I can only presume) showing faux model but real punk Matt Fisher probably in the nude - though the socks are still on for extra glamour - hiding his parts with a massive sign that says "Smash the skulls of vivisectors - It's your turn next". I can't disagree with this sentiment. The inside includes the lyrics as well as a thank list that adequately illustrates the mood of the time and the DIY network from which the band emerged (the list on the Coldbringer cd is even more eloquent on that level). There is also a text about swastikas (now that is much more uncommon) and how they originally symbolized balance and the Earth power instead of Poland-invading murderers. Still a little daring to sport one and some malign bands and people have been playing with this historical ambiguities for nasty purposes. 

Earth was released in 1989 on Crust Records, the label run by Ben from Dropdead - with the simplest and most desired name in the game - responsible for some classic Disrupt, Dropdead or Totalitär records. Apocalypse would then release two more Ep's, a split with crossover hardcore band Transgression from Indiana and another split, this time with crust neighbours Mindrot before splitting up in 1991. They reformed in the late 2010's and recorded a very convincing split Ep with Extinction of Mankind. 

The whole series is humbly dedicated to Matt Fisher, former member of Confrontation and Mindrot, who sadly passed away in October, 2020.   

       Earth

 

Ten Steps to Make Your Life CRUSTIER Starting Today (step 4): Extreme Noise Terror "Are you that desperate?" Ep, 1995

This step is going to be a relatively small but still important one toward a well-balanced stenchcore diet and a harmonious relationship with the crustmos. So place your healing crustals on the table, light some sweat'n'cider-flavoured incense sticks and let's unclog those chakras.   

I guess everyone here is familiar with the cavemen crust pioneers Extreme Noise Terror so prattling at length about them - as I normally would - does seem a little pointless. Besides, the inclusion of this ENT Ep into the present series has a lot to do with the fact that it is a live recording and a rather rare occurrence of savage but listenable live crustery on vinyl. The marriage between the extreme sonic characteristics inherent to the style, the very limited means of recording in the 80's and a marked inclination to get plastered before playing, explains that there aren't that many good live recordings of the classic crust era, which is a shame since those bands usually played a lot. I certainly can think of a couple of great ones (of Antisect and their three live Lp's and Amebix of course, and even Axegrinder, that were done through the mixing deck), but often it was just an enthusiastic hardcore punk fan armed with a tape recorder in one hand (and a pint in the other) which logically accounted for the sound quality being very rough and the listener being barely able to make out all the instruments amidst all the drunken blabbering of the punters sometimes. All in all a pretty amusing experience and certainly one that makes the passionate punk feel like an archeologist exhuming scarce and precious artifacts of an ancient civilisation, which is probably not completely wrong when one considers that every gig is filmed by at least twenty persons in the audience nowadays.

Are you that Desperate? belongs to that rare category of "listenable live recordings of 80's crust" and let's face it you need to master at least one of those if you want to be a credible crust punk. Apart from the aforementioned forefathers of the genre Antisect and Amebix, Extreme Noise Terror have been the only vintage crust band to enjoy a proper live record of one of their late 80's performances - although the first pressing of the Ep was only released in 1991 - namely their gig at the Powerhaus in London on October, 5th, 1989, with Doctor and the Crippens. Of course, Doom would also have a couple of solid live Ep's later on, 1992's Live in Japan and 2001's Pissed Robbed and Twatted, but those were not recorded in the 80's. Of course, you could also argue that protocrust noize masters Chaos UK - with the B side of 1986's Just Mere Slaves 12'' recorded in Japan - and Disorder - with their full Lp 1985's Gi Faen I Nasjonalitenten Din recorded in Oslo - had official live recordings on vinyl prior to ENT, but since we, at Terminal Sound Nuisance, posit that "crust" is both continuation as well as change, and that, although the Bristol hardcore heroes played a major role, in terms of musical influence, aesthetics and logistics, in the making of crust, they were not, strictly speaking and in spite of similar lifestyles and hygiene, "crust bands". Know what I mean?

Along with Napalm Death, ENT were the most iconic band of the mid/late 80's hardcore crust wave in Britain and their early works remain unsurpassable cult releases like Scum or War Crimes. However, whereas Doom, who started a bit later as a band, always stuck both to the ethics of the DIY punk scene and to their cavemen adaptation of Discard, ENT decided to go for bigger things, signed to Earache Records in the 90's and tried to become a medium-sized metal bands, leaving their crust punk roots and anarcho lyrics in the process, which was seen by many as selling out and understandably left a stain on the ENT name to this day even though the band (which was always singer Dean's band) have gone back to their old-school cavemen crust style and to DIY punk label, a return that some have deemed more than a little questionable and hypocritical. However I am not here to pontify but to talk about the actual piece of wax and the band's legacy because, as much as one may be critical of ENT's past direction, there is no denying the sheer power and insane intensity characterising their 80's period and in 1989 they sounded bloody unstoppable.

Like many a snot-nosed punk of yore, ENT was the first crustcore band I ever knew through their split Lp with Chaos UK, a record that did not really convert me to the cause of noize at first as it all sounded a bit much and just plain silly to me, whereas I immediately connected to Doom at about the same time. I remember not being able to get my head around ENT's dual vocals. Were they for real or just arsing around in the studio? And what about that name? Sure, your band can reasonably be described as an extremely noisy terror but does that justify being so literal? It took a listening session of A Holocaust in your Head while inebriated for me to really grab the essence of ENT. Many years have passed and my appreciation of late 80's ENT is strong and pure and I still cannot help singing along to "Murder" whenever I hear it (with the appropriate level of discretion that the social situation requires of course). The widely accepted current consensus concerning the band's body of works is that the Peel Sessions (all three of them: 1987, 1988 and 1990) along with the In It For Life split Lp with Filthkick are the most ferocious ENT records (and their cover of the Rejects has to be one of the most inspired punk covers ever), but you cannot go wrong either with the raw pogo crust power of Radioactive, A Holocaust in Your Head's emphatic - if a bit sloppy - template for the traditional dual vocal crust attack formula and 1991's Phonophobia certainly heralded the new era of controlled and tighter crustcore brutality that would define the 90's and climax with Disrupt's Unrest.

Contrary to Doom, with whom the comparisons are unavoidable because of common members, who pretty much stuck to their initial career plan to sound like Discard/Crudity/Svart Parad, the spectrum of influences of ENT - who grew out of the ashes of mid-80's bands Raw Noise and Victims of War - was broader and included, beside the Bristol noise merchants Chaos UK and Disorder and anarcho bands like '82 Antisect (to whom they owed their famous trade-off vocal style) or Anti-System, classic foreign hardcore bands from Japan (GISM, Swankys or Kuro, Italy (Wretched or EU's Arse), Finland (Kaaos or Rattus) in addition to the usual Swedish suspects (Anti-Cimex and Shitlickers). Those rather varied but always savage hardcore influences were then blended together until you obtained a smooth enough texture meant to be played at full speed, with cider-fueled intensity and with completely over-the-top extreme dual vocals that still manage to sound punk as fuck. To get back to Are you that Desperate?, it includes six absolute classic ENT classics: "Deceived", "Another nail in the coffin", "Subliminal music", "Murder", "Raping the Earth" and "Punk - fact or faction?". The Ep appropriately starts with "Deceived", and its classic and so epic introduction that has certainly sent shivers down many a spine throughout the years and is just the perfect opener. The sound is pretty decent and the band quite tight so that you can easily understand what is going on. I would not recommend this Ep to someone not previously familiar with ENT as it sounds even more brutal than usual - because of the proximity created by the live recording - like an enraged mob of drunk cavemen banging on your door at 2am. A couple of speeches between the songs indicate that the band was not too happy with the macho dancing and "metal attitudes" they were witnessing at the gig which I suppose is fairly positive and showed that they still cared and, beside the lyrics, there is a text entitled Meat Food for Thought exposing the impact of Western carnivorous diets in terms of pollution, ecological destruction and social inequities in developing countries, that is - sadly - still very much relevant.

The live Ep was originally released in 1991 but this present version of Are you that Desperate? is the second pressing from 1995 with the black border cover. Both were released on Crust Records, a Providence-based label run by Dropdead's guitar player that was responsible for a couple of noizy classics from the likes of Disrupt, Diskonto, Totalitär and of course Drodpead. My only minor issue with the Ep is that the cover, depicting a Oliver Hardy lookalike in a uniform pouting at a burger, is not what it could have been. Indeed, the drawing on the backcover with its crustier than thou gnomish caveman making noise out of a helplessly broken guitar would have made for a legendary cover (but since it already appeared on the insert of The Peel Sessions 1987-1990 maybe they refrained from the idea of putting it on the cover, I dunno).

Probably not the most ideal listen for an ENT novice but an undeniable treat for your inner crusty.  
        

Am I that desperate?

Ten Steps to Make Your Life CRUSTIER Starting Today (step 3): Genital Deformities "Shag nasty! Oi!" Lp, 1989

I have been thinking about all those bands that never got to exist lately. Those that never went past the practice stage, assuming they actually got enough of their shit together to enter a practice room. I suppose we all have dozens of unborn bands, often the result of boozing sessions with your mates during which everyone thought it'd be hilarious to form a mock ska band or agreed that what this town really needed was a more traditional d-beat band called D-Charge. Usually, after sobering up, such projects never really happen since the very concept of it often proves much more fun than its actualisation and the logistics involved in playing in a band. And let's face it, if many such ideas sound hysterical when formulated while intoxicated, the truth is that, in most cases, a lot of them should indeed remain in the realms of projection and although I have been threatening for several years to concretise Skarcass, my ska band devoted to covering early Carcass songs, I am fully aware, deep down, that humanity may not deserve to have this calamity unleashed upon it and that it would be safer for all involved that Skarcass, tragically, never sees the light of day. It would be a right laugh though.

Was Genital Deformities the product of a heavy drinking session somewhere in the West Midlands in 1987 when a drunk teenage punk offered excitedly to form the noisiest band possible with the most disgusting and obnoxious name they could think of? Quite likely indeed. Fortunately for punk history, GD became real and created a genuine early crust classic with Shag Nasty! Oi!. However, and rather unfortunately for matters of appropriacy, they stuck with the moniker Genital Deformities, a courageous choice maybe, one that may have some appeal to lovers of purposefully gory disgusting noise, but akin to shooting yourself in the foot and then trading your crutches for some shite speed offered by a right dodgy geezer in the loo if you are not actually a goregrind band, which GD never were although they have been misconstrued as such.

I haven't learnt much about the band since I last wrote about them in my review of their 1994 split cd with the mighty Subcaos (here) but what you must know is that GD recorded their first demo in December, 1987, a recording (I doubt it was ever actually released physically) that respected the "noise not music" doctrine with the utmost loyalty as it was, quite literally, noise and certainly not music. Made up of fifteen "songs", most of them being short and brutal bursts of hardcore noise, it was recorded with a drum machine and a singer who was clearly on white cider and it can be said to be a prime example of early noisecore giving Sore Throat's Aural Butchery a run for its money in terms of gruff roughness. Amidst the blasting chaos and the utter dementia pervading the demo, some songs introduced heavy mid-paced Frost-like riffing and atmospheric crust moments that did point to where GD would be heading the year after once they got a stable lineup (or once they saw themselves as an actual band) and decided to write proper songs. In 1988, GD recorded an Ep that was never released and included six songs that would all be rerecorded on the Lp. Since this recording can be considered as a sort of rawer version of the album, there is no need to slobber over it too much but let me tell you that it easily outcrusted most of the competition at the time (thanks a million to Panzer Badger for exhuming this unreleased masterpiece). So let's proceed to Shag Nasty! Oi!.

I suppose that when the name of your band already refers to deformed genitalia, calling your album Shag Nasty! Oi! should be considered as rather benign, even though it certainly conjures up the saucy songs of the Macc Lads. Since the Lp does not have an insert, I am unable to assess how ironic this title was in the light of the lyrics which, from what I can decipher, with some difficulty because of the super gruff cavemen vocals, were quite serious and abstain from the lewd and fruity. As for the cover of the album, I could write a whole article about it. First, because it is a stunning artwork drawn by Skinny who had already done covers and posters for Doom, Napalm Death, SxOxB or Extreme Noise Terror at that point and second because it is a stunning but penis-based artwork. Again, you could argue that a band called Genital Deformities and an album called Shag Nasty! Oi! would use a phallic landscape for a cover, it just makes sense, and at least their artistic choices are coherent and the vision is clear, as overrun with dicks as it might be. On the one hand, I love the cover because it looks very macabre, nightmarish and grotesque and very punky too and it can be admired for the well-composed and detailed piece of punk art that it is. On the other, it makes wearing my GD shirt a highly delicate endeavour for, if its aesthetics kinda look like Nightmare Before Christmas from a distance, anyone looking closer can notice that I am covered in erect ejaculating penises and there is a priest with two cocks in his mouth holding what appears to be a penis-made nunchaku and very much enjoying it (without mentioning the lecherous Thatcher-like figure seemingly involved in some kind of wild orgy with penis-shaped skeletons). So probably not the most adequate outfit to wear for your nan's birthday (although you never know, do you?). In spite of all the sexual references and if you manage to abstract yourself from the penis imagery, the overall atmosphere of GD's visuals did possess that dark apocalyptic and decadent feel one can find on a lot of classic crust records, locating the band in the original strong crust tradition.

Shag Nasty! Oi! is, as deliberately disgusting as the cover might be, an absolute stenchcore crust classic, a practically flawless album worth of praises that ought to be celebrated as often as possible. I remember getting the Lp for quite cheap about fifteen years ago and looking at the prices on discogs, it looks like Shag Nasty! Oi! is a crucial piece of crust culture that is still rather affordable. I have to admit that I was extremely suspicious upon ordering it because of the band's name but it was described as "UK crust from 1989" and, in my fanaticised mind, this combination of words always evokes images of crust grandeur. It makes the heart beat so to speak. Once I got over the shock caused by the cover and mentally accepted the fact that I had been conned into acquiring a grindcore Lp, I played the album and realized how wrong, mistaken, naive, foolish, arrogant, misled and juvenile I had been. Throughout punkstory, although a consequential number of crust bands have claimed to be influenced by Celtic Frost and Hellhammer, few succeeded in crustifying properly the mighty Frost sound and among those who did, GD have to lead the pack. Shag Nasty! Oi! manages to incorporate and rework Frost and Hellhammer riffs and structures into a decidedly metallic UK crust sound. It has got the incredible rocking groove that the Swiss were known but instead of evil and ominous, GD sound like noisy cider-fueled punk cavemen in an advanced stage of dementia obnoxiously covering Celtic Frost opening for Napalm Death and Doom at the Mermaid in 1988 (quite possibly the best compliment I have ever paid on the blog). The songs are dark and heavy, mostly groovy and mid-tempo primitive crusty metal epics, but you do have a couple of faster numbers (like Frost had really) and even a grinding one, and although the songwriting template informing the fifteen songs on the album is clear to see, it never sounds redundant. The guitar sound is to die for, thick, heavy, loud and rocking, with an almost organic quality, it sounds like the gurgles of a happily rotting corpse and makes the Lp stand tall along with the vocals. I suppose you could write a whole essay about those insane-sounding, gruff vocals that sound grotesque and macabrely theatrical, but also very threatening and pissed, even more so than Sore Throat's, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the singer spent the recording session in a straitjacket.

One may venture that the intent behind Shag Nasty! Oi! was to create an hyperbolic and ludicrous, dark, organic, thick crust metal work, that is both serious and farcical. GD were certainly on a par with the best of the early crust waves and meaningful comparisons can be made with early Hellbastard, Axegrinder and Sore Throat whose mid-paced moments were also very Frost-oriented. And if you are still slightly circumspect, please listen to the song "Dark sky," basically one of the best stenchcore crust songs ever written, its anthemic value especially emphasised by the delicate acoustic intro "Crouterposs" that precedes it on the album. "Dark sky" sounds like a crusty dance of death, like the soundtrack to the end of the world, like the crust to end all crusts. The slow-paced opening beat with its long pause is a proof that crust punk can be innovative while remaining heavier than a tramp's breath, the vocals remind me of an intoxicated grizzly bear and the unsuspected ominous Amebix-like synth-driven eerie break in the middle utterly takes the song to Mount Olympus Crustus. "Dark sky" is a perfect old-school crust song, like Axegrinder's "Final war", Hellbastard's "We had no evidence", Nausea's "Extinction" or Misery's "Born fed slaughtered" and .

The lineup on Shag Nasty! Oi! was made up of Tom Croft (who would join Excrement of War shortly after), Crow, John and Tim and it was their last collaboration as the subsequent 1992 Profession of Violence tape (also released on vinyl as a split with Nuclear Death from Poland) had Crow, John, Jez and Mik Vik. That GD lineup then split up but the band kept going for the split cd with Subcaos with only Crow as original member, the rest being Higgy, Neil, Iggy and Ade (who left before the recording session). The recordings that followed Shag Nasty! Oi! may not have been as crusty, but if you are looking for Frost-inspired heavy UK hardcore punk, it does not get much better. A tragically overlooked band, doomed by a preposterous moniker. That's punk, innit?                        

Shag crusty oi!    

Last Week's Trend is Now Passé (part 10): Eve of the Scream "Control" 12'' Ep, 1989

Like my mommy used to tell me whenever I could not stop stuffing meself with chocolate cookies, all good things come to an end. Now that I can be described, in the broadest sense possible, as a grownup, at least officially, I have come to understand the depth of such a saying, and although I allow myself to overeat at times, I am afraid that even the most incredible things in the world - like Last Week's Trend is Now Passé for example, off the top of my head - do have to end eventually. And so this is the last part of this series that has focused on works pertaining to the second wave of British anarchopunk, all recorded during the second part of the 80's. By no means was it the first time I addressed this topic and, being of an obsessive nature, it won't probably be the last either (but I shall reasonably wait until the next pandemics, the dreadful Covid 20, also known as the Walrus Flu, hit the world in 2022 to get back to it). But before I leave you to your torpor and the streaming of irksome lockdown videos showing middle-class families tunelessly singing together in their spacious living room, your day shall be vastly improved by this write-up about a band you have probably never ever heard about: Eve of the Scream.

An unknown band? For real? In 2020? I know how it sounds. Disconcerting to say the least. And I know what you are thinking. Lost marbles and all that. You are probably blaming such a dubious statement on my pathological tendency to hyperbolise, one that can be verified pretty much in every articles I ever wrote for Terminal Sound Nuisance. And you would be wrong. I did take my medication and I truthfully believe that you, my faithful readers, are not acquainted with Eve of the Scream and, for once, I am not going to sneer at your ignorance and condescend to lecture you about your inadmissible shortcomings. In fact, it pains me to confess, until a relatively recent time, I was myself completely and sinfully oblivious to the existence of EOTS and consequently I shall be repenting by reciting three "Punk is dead" and five "Persons unknown" every night until I fucking die. 

I doubt you really want the whole story but you are still going to have it. In late 2015, I traveled to Brittany to attend a mate's party for New Year's Eve. The day before the customary midnight trades of germs, I was staying at another friend's, who is, to put it mildly, "an older punk". And I enjoy hanging out with older punks. Really, I do. They always have fascinating tales of insane punk gigs of yore to tell, or captivating anecdotes about old-school tours going seriously wrong, or gossip about how the singer of a legendary hardcore band is actually expert at behaving like a spoiled wanker. And of course, they often own old records and demo tapes and fanzines that you may never have heard about. So anyway, I was at this friend's place and we were chatting pleasantly, talking about recent bands we were into, this kind of things. Of course he is well aware that I claim to be a bit of an authority as far as vintage anarchopunk and crust go, a bit like a pundit, except I'm slightly better at discussing the validity of Discharge clones instead of Manchester United's shit transfer policy. So he innocently asks if I am familiar an 80's anarchopunk band called Eve of the Scream (with a French accent, as you can imagine). I replied that I did not, so he started fumbling around his record shelves and took out what looked like an Lp. Before the first chords arrived to my delicate ears, I honestly thought that I had either misheard the band's name or that he had mispronounced it. So when I realized that, not only was the band actually called Eve of the Scream, but that it was, indeed, a vintage anarcho act from the UK that was unbeknownst to me, I fell off my pedestal, instantly got off my high horse and started to get very excited about that mysterious band that had all the attributes of a personal favourite. It was a truly humbling experience, one that reminded me of why I enjoyed the company of knowledgeable old punks so much, as there are always things you can learn from their experience and stories. So thanks a lot for that. 

Once back at home, I immediately formed a research team capable to gather as much intelligence as possible about EOTS, the band that had inexplicably escaped me. Predictably, they only had the one record, the 12'' Ep Control from 1989, and I have not been able to find much about them, although a former EOTS member did create a soundcloud page 10 years ago that included the two recordings of the band (the aforementioned Control 12'' and a demo tape entitled Unbelievable Genocide) as well as some biographical elements. EOTS were from the Merseyside area, very close to Liverpool, and must have formed in the mid-80's. Mentions are made of a previous lineup to Unbelievable Genocide, but another earlier demo recording seems unlikely, and I have a feeling that EOTS may have been run like a collective and were possibly close to the free festivals scene, and I am not just saying that because they have a ska moment. Ippy (called Sherry on the cover), who is responsible for the backing vocals was apparently involved in the Greenham Women's Peace Camp movement and main singer Martin - who was still at school - used to play in Happy to be Sad (whatever that band might be!). After some skillful digs on a punk archaeological site, I was able to confirm that the Unbelievable Genocide tape (that is not even referenced on discogs) was originally released on Bluurg Tapes (at number 77), possibly in 1988. Unfortunately, the version of the demo uploaded onto the soundcloud page is apparently incomplete so that only six tracks are included. Although, this recording is not as crisp as Control, it nevertheless indicates what EOTS were trying to do in term of style. The band's music hints at that "free punk" sound that a significant number of anarchopunk bands in the mid/late 80's embraced, bands like Culture Shock, Freak Electric, Hippy Slags, Smartpils, Karma Sutra, basically bands that did not take the metal path and endeavoured to free punk-rock from its stylistic chains (and inspired by earlier non-conformist 80's punk bands) through the infusion of psychedelic rock, dub music, indie pop, ska, prog rock... The results of such miscegenation did not always demonstrate impeccable aesthetic judgements but it was a perfectly logical evolution from anarchopunk, just as valid as the contemporary crust wave. I am not saying that EOTS is an anarcho-dub collective, however I do get that "free" vibe from their catchy and danceable chorus-driven punk-rock with percussions. Three songs from Unbelievable Genocide were included on an anti-vivisection tape compilation entitled No Justification released in 1989 on a French label called Acts of Defiance - responsible for a couple of other such tapes from 1986 to 1992 (says discogs) - that also included Media Children and Γκούλαγκ, two bands who have already been invited to Terminal Sound Nuisance (No Justification also has songs from Brotherhood but, to be honest, they are unlikely to ever land here).

There are five songs on Control, recorded between 1988 and 1989. In fact, I am quite sure the last song "It's your choice", which was performed by a different lineup as stated on the backcover, previously appeared on the demo tape so that it is basically a four-song 12'' Ep with one extra track. EOTS did all their sessions at a local studio, called the Station House, with the help of one Paul Madden who notably worked on We Are Going to Eat You's Everywen the same year. Frustratingly, my copy of the record is bereft of any booklet or insert, which are very helpful in situating a band inside the punk cosmos with accuracy. But I am reputedly famous - and usually celebrated - to never run out of zeal when it comes to formulate wild guesses about unrenowned bands so I'll have a go by myself (and I have got the soundcloud page saved somewhere). Apparently, EOTS shared the stage with bands such as Rubella Ballet, City Indians, Culture Shock, Radical Dance Fatcion or Thatcher On Acid, and if you were to blend all these bands together, the resulting smoothie would taste something like EOTS. Control is a multifaceted anarchopunk record, fueled by clever and versatile songwriting skills and led by an outstanding performance and a strong presence of frontman Martin who really sings his heart out. In terms of musicianship, EOTS were nothing extraordinary - and admittedly having two drummers was probably a little ambitious for the demo session - although they are all pretty sound at what they do and the playing is not sloppy at all. But what really set Control apart lie in the dynamics of the songwriting, its youthful and uplifting energy. Control sounds like a fresh call to action, not because it is a unique punk masterpiece, but for the sense of urgency and optimism it manages to convey. The five songs are very well thought-out. For instance the song "Control" contains four different movements, after a soft tuneful introduction, you get a direct and snotty punk-rock entrée, before jumping to a full on ska interlude, and then to a dark postpunk break and finally to a poppy Chumba moment concluded by some epic guitar-driven punk-rock. Thanks to the sheer positive energy permeating the songwriting, "Control" never sounds disparate or clumsy, on the contrary it sounds like a proper story, greatly told from an angry teenage perspective, and the four other songs are just as convincing and memorable. EOTS were incredibly and, one feels, effortlessly catchy and tuneful too. The passionate dual male/female chorus will stick with you for days ("Dare to dream" is absolute gold) and the songs have that inherent danceable quality that can be found those early 90's anarcho bands like AOS3, Citizen Fish or Scum of Toytown, though EOTS are definitely more punk-rock-oriented. However, positing that this modest Liverpool band can be seen as an aesthetic bridge between the mid/late 80's free anarchopunk sound and the 90's anarcho-dub-punk is not irrelevant. But what do they really sound like, I figuratively hear you ask? Well, I suppose that they would feel comfortable with versatile psych punk bands like Culture Shock, Karma Sutra or Smartpils, but they also have that driving, lively, tuneful punk-rock element to them that can be found in bands like Hagar the Womb, Indian Dream or Naked, and of course they are especially close to the early '82/'84 Conflict sound either, especially in the way they are able to vary the tempos while still expressing a mood of anger.

The lyrics to the songs are not included and it's a real shame. From what I can gather, traditional anarchopunk topics like animal abuse, genocidal Western policies and manmade pollution are tackled. You can spot a dream catcher on the cover, which may be a little awkward retrospectively, and associated with the epigraph "Love, peace and positive change", it does conjure up images of long-haired punks traveling in a muddy van. As for the name Eve of the Scream, I wish I had a witty interpretation to offer but I don't.

Old punx rule, ok?  

Dare to dream

The Tumult of a Decad (part 10): Terminus "Fear, despair & hate" Ep, 1989

This is the last stop of The Tumult of a Decad, it has been a pleasure as usual, thank you all for coming and please make sure to sign the guest book on your way out. Ta. I honestly could not think of a better band than Terminus to end the series, first because of the band's name (pretty subtle, right?), second and more importantly because Terminus were one of the most unique bands of their time. Like Indian Dream, Terminus are no newcomers to Terminal Sound Nuisance since I have already raved about them on two occasions, for the Eight Years Too Late article (here) and the Endless Struggle compilation double Lp (here).

I know the term "unique" is being used so often and in such a lazy way when discussing music that it has become almost meaningless and, ironically, a bad sign. When I am being told that a band is "unique", I instantly think that it must sound like all the other ones similarly characterized as being "unique", as if the adjective was purely descriptive and a reference to a preconceived set of specific traits that - for some reason - were deemed reflective of "uniqueness", as if bands could claim to play "unique punk-rock". Know what I mean? It is all very silly and bourgeois in the end since being "unique" is possibly the most pregnant obsession of the middle-class that is always so terrified to be perceived as being "like everybody else". But then, you can be "unique" and terrible at the same time... Anyway, Terminus were genuinely unique and like most unique bands, they were pretty much a Marmite band which you either loved or hated. I remember a particularly nasty review of The Graveyard of Dreams cd in an issue of Gadgie which stated (from memory) that it was "shite on toast". There were also very positive reviews of Terminus' works, of course, but the good as well as the bad ones all had one thing in common in that they struggled to define the band's sound and find relevant points of comparison. Terminus have been compared to The Damned, The Mob, Motörhead, Anti-Nowhere League, Bad Religion, Naked Raygun, The Stranglers, Subhumans, Hawkwind, Bauhaus, Amebix... And as endless as this list might be, I would gladly add Leatherface, Social Distortion, Cult Maniax, The Dark, Ritual and The Misfit to it. 

The trouble to aptly locate the band in a relevant frame of references and influences teaches us three important things. First, that the music of Terminus escapes easy categorization. Second, that we often project our own musical background and reference system onto a band we struggle with. And third, that, in spite of the apparent difficulty to correctly grasp Terminus, the band still reminded all the reviewers of a familiar band (even very unlikely ones sometimes). This last point makes Terminus a band that sounds both familiar to an experienced amateur of punk music and yet remains strangely undefinable and out of reach because it resists easy musical parallels. The best thing about all this was that Terminus did not consciously set out with the idea to sound like no one and everyone at the same time (quite a feat if you think about it), like your run of the mill, ordinarily mediocre, self-absorbed arty indie rock band from a university city would have. They just did their own thing and wrote music while keeping in mind the diverse tastes of the band members (and there have been quite a few of them in the band's history). Another element crucial to the making of Terminus was that the band took its time. Very far from the quick prolificity that was usual in the 80's (with the short-livedness that often came with it), the band waited almost four years after they formed in 1983 before releasing their first Ep, which would be unthinkable for most bands by today's standards. 

Terminus were from Scunthorpe, a steel town in the North-East, a place I know so little about that I cannot think of another punk band from there. They recorded three demos before the first Ep: a self-titled one in 1984, then Catalog of Crimes in '85 and finally Body Count in '86. They are interesting listens, quite low-fi and cover a large musical scope in terms of genres, from '77 punk-rock, to fast and tuneful hardcore, goth-punk, folk music, heavy rock and psychedelic punk, while remaining cohesive works at the same time, without that patchwork feel I always dread, all tied up with great dark tunes, a rocky vibe and a sense of warm melancholy and combative pessimism. I am tempted to bombard you with parallels and comparisons right now but it would be a pointless effort so let's just say it sounds like heartfelt, rocking but dark anarchist punk-rock. 

The Star Born Thing Ep, self-released in 1987, confirmed the band's potential and gift for catchy hooks and cracking tunes. It also epitomized what Terminus did best, writing paradoxical songs that sound dark and rather desperate but still retain some human warmth and organicity. In that sense, they are completely romantic and the lyrics certainly reinforce that feeling with "Star born thing" being about social otherworldliness and "(Waiting for the) purge" telling the story of a revolutionary waiting for his executioners to take him. The evocatively named second Ep that interests us today, Fear, Despair & Hate, was released in 1989 on Terminus' own TPPL Records. It has a rockier production than its earthy-sounding predecessor and is a strong, powerful follow-up. I suppose you could compare it with that strange, loner kid from school, the odd one out that still somehow belongs. When compared to what British punk sounded like in the late 80's, Terminus had no equivalent but still managed to fit in the punk-rock family, albeit on the edge of it (not unlike Crow People perhaps?). 

The Ep starts with a rather macabre metal-tinged ballad (yes, you read that right) called "Dance with the dead". It is a long, heavy and epic number which stands out in the band's discography with over-the-top guitar solos and borderline cheesy riffs. And although I would not listen to a whole album of such songs, it works remarkably here thanks to the intense singing of Mark Richardson, full of passion, melancholy and indignation, and great, moving lyrics about the power of illusion and the doctrine of unavoidable defeat that the powers that be impose on us. It contains some memorable lines like: "Your 'love' is a disease, a symptom of the fear of a lifetime alone. / A glittering chimera that we search for in vain and grinds us down." The second song (my favourite) is "In another time" and is a faster, rocking one, with a depressive, atavistic and eerie The-Mob-meets-Motörhead-and-GBH feel. Despite the dark, hopeless lyrics about the impossible fantasy of a better, more fulfilling world, the song feels warm, uplifting even, like a bizarrely desperate feelgood song. The last one, "Hunt the hunt", is an anti-hunt fast hardcore number that sounds like Bad Religion having a drink with Leatherface (but probably not, they are just so frustratingly impossible to categorize). 

Terminus released two brilliant albums and three more Ep's after Dear, Despair & Hate that are all highly recommended if you need a revolutionary romantic punk band with working-class politics, fantastic tunes, deep moving vocals and - gasp - variety in their songwriting. The review of this Ep that was published in NME in 1989 said this: "Back to basics, dole boy rock, unimpressed, primitive and powerful". Pretty fitting. 

Terminus have a thorough website that I encourage you to visit. 

Fear, despair & Terminus