Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust: Ruinas "S/t" Lp, 2017

French people have been famous worldwide for their arrogance for centuries. While other arrogant dicks from abroad don't fully realize how arrogant they can look (let's get real, we're not the only ones afflicted here, a fearful prospect actually), we, on the other hand, genuinely embrace this objectively embarrassing cultural trait. We, collectively, are very proud of being cocky wankers and actually believe that we are meant to be the Earth's smartest, the cream of the crop, the genuine dog's bollocks, a guiding Light in the world's darkness. Even my postie thinks he is some sort of unacknowledged philosopher and, for propriety's sake, I will not even get into the grandeur of my great-auntie's thought system, which focuses solely on the country's supposed decadence largely caused by so-called "zoomers", when she's had one drink too many. This self-proclaimed intellectual superiority goes along with a distinct tendency to never admit that we are wrong. If we don't know something, there are only three possible options: claim that it is just not worth knowing, outrageously lie and pretend we do know better than you or make up a blend of both (that requires a very large amount of pretense and is for elite French people only, usually politicians, TV experts or other professions where being full of oneself is a compulsory requirement). So if you ask my father about Argentina, he will almost certainly assert that the only good thing about it is that one alright movie with Madonna in it - be careful as he might try to sing the song too - and Roman Riquelme (Maradona did too much drugs and is therefore not a good role model). Would that keep him from thinking he knows it all? Of course it would not. 

When you think of typical Argentinian punk music, you may think about bands like 2 Minutos, Boom Boom Kid or Argies (a band that I have seen at least twice for some reason), you think about tunes, 1977-styled punk-rock, unreasonable awkward Ramones worship and contagious energy. And that's assuming you can think about anything at all since Argentina is not exactly a scene that is well-known outside of Latin America. I have already touched upon the subject when writing about Claustrophobia's 2013 demo a few years ago (well, five years ago, fuck me, doesn't time fly), a glorious review that - beside making me the recipient of the much-coveted 2017 Crust Ballon d'Or - allowed me to take a closer look at the more aggressive hardcore side of Argentinian punk and made me realize that I was somewhat familiar with quite a few hard-hitting anarcho or crusty or hardcore punk from that part of the world like Terror y Miseria, Migra Violenta, Disvastacion or Axion//Protesta. And reading the review again made me realize it once again which is quite worrying in terms of memory loss but still a decent ego boost I suppose. Perhaps that's what Alzheimer will look like for me, a constant rediscovery of bands I already know. It could be worse although my partner might disagree and will certainly get a little annoyed with me asking her on an hourly basis if she knew about Ruinas and how great the band was (or is, I will probably think we're still in 2017 and I still have all my hair). 

As you must have guessed now, this writeup will be about Ruinas from Buenos Aires. I started the Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust series with the firm, not to mention quixotic, determination to promote and reflect upon 2010's crust music, to take a critical look at it from my ever comfy pedestal located on the last floor of the Terminal Sound Nuisance twin towers. I just had to write something about Ruinas. Not just because I put on two gigs for them in Paris and they are lovely people, but because the band, formed in 2013, can be considered as both the first old-school metallic crust bands from Latin America and the first stenchcore band with lyrics in Spanish (along with the aforementioned Claustrophobia who were already around in 2013). Which is no mean feat. This is not to say that they have not been class crust bands on the continent before, it goes without saying, as Mexico and Brazil have had a long rich history of furious crust with bands like Discordia, Dischord, Under Threat or Desobediencia Civil (and those are just examples from the 1990's) but those were more of the classic crustcore or anarcho varieties and not of the Peaceville stenchcore school like Ruinas. The exact same could be said about Spain which produced a number of good crustcore (and, excruciatingly, neocrust of course) throughout the years but nothing of the old-school crust sort. This is rather odd considering the huge number of mean hardcore music displaying a pronounced love for metal and thrash but that is how it appears to be. But if it is relevant to approach Ruinas as the pioneers of stenchcrust "en español", which in itself does bring something new to the table, it makes just as much sense to see them as one of the best bands from the second generation of the stenchcore revival, their origins notwithstanding. Taking these two elements into account makes Ruinas' position rather unique. 

The story of the band actually starts in the mid/late-00's with a band called Horror Humano that originally had two - I believe - future members of Ruinas. The band released a brilliant cdr in 2011 although the eleven songs were recorded in 2007 (talk about the cultural habit of being late to the party). This recording comes highly recommended if you are into pissed raw, almost grinding, political crustcore with extreme vocals (think the Seattle school meets the Tijuana one). In 2011 Horror Humano recorded an Ep for their Chile tour with more of a modern crust touch although we are still in the gruff department, not bad but not as furious as their early shit if you ask me. In 2012 they disbanded and Seba, Pato and David formed Ruinas the next year with a much darker and heavier agenda in mind. Their 2013 demo perfectly illustrated the new path: doom-laden slow-paced apocalyptic stenchcore with anguished vocals and a filthy sound. The demo was strong indeed - so much so that it would be reissued on a split Lp with Russia's Chaosbringer in 2017 - and clearly showed that they knew exactly what they wanted to do and where they intended to move in the grand Crust Evolution Gallery, somewhere between Stormcrow, Axegrinder and Lost with a doomy Bolt Thrower touch just to be on the safe side of heaviness. Followed a split tape in 2014 with Avitacion 101 from Montevideo with a much better production and the first recording with Rocio on vocals, her angry very harsh and gruff vocals becoming one of the band's distinctive traits. This change of personnel might come very handy too during family dinners whenever your great-uncle Bob, an elite twat, claims that women, when it comes to music, are only good at singing tunes about heartbreaks. Just play a Ruinas song to the wanker and that will shut him up immediately without you losing any of your precious energy. You can also kick his arse before proceeding to put him into bed but that's up to you.

The first album of Ruinas was recorded in 2015 although it only came out on vinyl in 2017 (there was a tape version in 2016 though) and it was yet another improvement on the previous recording. Building on the same stenchcore template of doomy-axegrinding-Stormcrow, the new female vocalist made the comparison with 13 or indeed Lost very relevant (Bolt Lostcrow anyone?). The full album format also allowed the band to take its time and further focus on plot, storytelling, transitions and atmospherics, elements that are essential for an old-school album to be successful. As a sign of good taste, the Lp opens with that classic Amebix creepy synth sound, which is not unlike a dog whistle for crusties, before offering a proper old-school stenchdoom number that sounds darker and more miserable than a winter day in Dundee. The album oscillates between slow-paced sludgey, doomed metal-crust and mid-paced filthy stenchcore with a black heaviness always at the wheel, like a ghost ship angrily navigating on a sea of despair and rescuing the drowning punks in the process. I really enjoy the grim ambiance of the record and it is clearly one of my favourites of the era, one that will age well I reckon. And those hopeless vocals can probably raise the dead so it may not be safe to play Ruinas while visiting your gran's grave as she will certainly give you a bollocking from the Other World. If you are looking for the perfect blend of the doom-loving OC crust school of Stormcrow and Mindrot, the axemebixian stenchcore like Filth of Mankind, the female-fronted sludge crust of Lost and the unstoppable riffs of Bolt Thrower, then Ruinas will be your cuppa. And it also works if you are just looking for good, solid metal crust without nitpicking about comparisons and possible influences. 

Following this highlight, the band would record a split 12'' Ep with our national crust heroes Lust For Death before unfortunately stopping their activities. The album was released on Neanderthal Stench - a Belgium-based label without which the second stenchcore wave would not have taken off in Europe - and Angry Voice from Germany and I guess you should be able to come across it. The artwork is totally appropriate for the genre and you get a poster which is always a lovely gesture, even though you probably don't have enough space on your walls anyway.    

        

Ruinas 

Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust: Mörkt Moln "The Culling of a Great Flame" tape, 2019

Good afternoon comrades, this is Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust, the crust equivalent of a lifestyle coaching session. Be warned that it will not make you look better, lose weight or get your ex back (but if it did do that, please let me know, it would look nice on my resume and get me a few extra punk points), but, not being one to palter with the truth, it will realistically make you spend more time sitting on your arse looking for rare crust recordings on the web and possibly buy an ugly shirt of an obscure stenchcore band that your mum will strictly forbid you to wear at your niece's birthday even though you're well into your forties. Living the life indeed. I guess you could call me a crust influencer bequeathing nuggets of wisdom for free.

It is that time of the year again: spring is coming. The major difference with the last couple of years is that instead of a worldwide pandemic, you get the lurking peril of the Third World War. An undeniably bloodcurdling prospect but with forty years worth of songs about nuclear wars, I think us punks are more than ready to face the apocalypse, we have the perfect soundtrack for it, although I must concede that it might not be judicious to point it out in public. But still, spring is coming, it's just around the corner, and men, women and children will soon be able to enjoy the suffocating heat, suffocating heat and the nuclear sunrise with equanimity for the last time in order to protest and survive. Being the season of rebirth, spring is often associated with revitalisation, with imbuing thing with new life and vitality. Twats usually interprets this time of the year as the start of the warm season which induces wearing shades at all time, showing off the tats and the muscles, wearing cheap perfume that makes you gag, whistling at girls and generally behaving like a bellend as much as they can, at least until early October. Tasteful punks, on the other hand, get the sleeveless jackets out of the closet, dust the crust pants a little, maybe buy a new toothbrush (to replace the one you lost in January) and piously consider rocking something different to celebrate the opening of the festival season. And I might have just the right thing for you: Mörkt Moln.

To be honest, I did not discover the band by myself but through a member of the band who kindly wrote me an email to introduce me to the music. So thanks Simon. Now, as we negotiated, I will be waiting for your payment and expect the agreed upon percentage on the sales of all your releases for the next five years. Or else I will launch a smear campaign of unprecedented proportions and Mörkt Moln will be accused of playing indie rock gigs under a false name. You have until the end of the month as I know how to be charitable. But character assassination notwithstanding, Martin was right to send me the link. MM are different to what I listen to on a daily basis. The typical day at Terminal Sound Nuisance's headquarters normally includes 80's UK stenchcore in the morning, then 90's "just like" d-beat for lunch, some cavemen crust in the afternoon and a short crasher crust session before going to sleep. MM are a three-piece from Göteborg, Sweden, and belong to that category of bands that are not technically crust but can still be thoroughly enjoyed by the people who are into crust, who live by the crust and die by the crust.

The Culling of a Great Flame was self-released in 2019, exemplifying the DIY spirit in action. I love the aesthetics of the tape with its purposefully primitive and almost naive artwork reminiscent of the early extreme-metal scene. This raw and primitive feel is also very much reflected in the band's music so that the careful listener understands that MM gave some thought to the relation between form and content. Emerging from the DIY punk scene, the band could probably be best described as punks having a proper go at the primal and primitive early black-metal sound while keeping a significant Amebix influence and incorporating some old-school doom-metal in the process. As any self-respecting lover of crust, I like Hellhammer, Celtic Frost and Venom and MM build strongly on those bands not just in terms of actual songwriting but also of vibe and groove. The tape manages to recreate - on purpose I would presume - a sort of pagan atmosphere thanks to heavy and dark rocking riffs, trancy and epic metal-punk moments and moody synth-driven narrative transitions which I am a sucker for (it must be my long obsession with Greek crust) which really make it sound like a whole story, like an initiatory quest into the wasteland or something. 

MM certainly take their sweet time as the tape has eight songs and is about forty-minute long so that it stands as a recording you have to progressively get into. It would be an overstatement to claim that I instantly loved the tape (the band would have had to send a bigger bribe for me to claim that) but I have actually been regularly drawn to it. I love how deceptively raw and primitive it sounds as MM know what they're up to and manage to keep the simple, dark demonic heaviness of Hellhammer and Venom while adding some smart hooks and details that you do not necessarily notice at first. The epic Amebix and Axegrinder (and even Misery at times) influence is present enough to make the recording familiar (in some song structures and vocals especially) while the frequent doom-metal riffing makes it a little original to my untrained ears (my inability to grow a moustache meant I never could get into doom-metal sadly). If I were to make a bonfire in spring in order to sacrifice some hipsters for some random Crust Goddess I would probably do it to the tunes of MM. The production is quite raw but clear, with some sort of organic feel and I suppose you do not need a massive sound for that kind of primitive atavistic doom-y Frost-punk. The lyrics deal with ancient deities, Conan and "Corruptors of youth" tackles the nefarious influence of shoegaze on disaffected youths (the true evil of our time). 

The Culling of a Great Flame sounds like it looks. It is not a crust work although it is certainly dark, rocking and heavy, it also tells a genuinely epic and coherent story thanks to its changes of paces and eerie transitions and, after all, it does rely on bands that have been genuine influences on the old-school crust genre, like Venom or Celtic Frost, as well as on late (but not too late, thank fuck) Amebix and other classic Amebix-influenced bands. 

Now if the band would kindly drop the money at the spot we discussed, that'd be ace.                    

Mörkt Moln

The Empire Crusts Back (part 4): Mindrot "1990 demo" tape, 1990

Alright then, this is the last part of The Empire Crusts Back (rolling out with laughter, right?), my short and humble series about the so-called OC crust bands of the late 80's. As usual, it was a fucking pleasure to be able to school the great unwashed about so crucial a subject if one seeks to understand how the world works and to make sure as to what trendy crust shirts to wear this winter 2021 (in case you haven't heard, OC crust fashion is making a massive comeback so you'd better take my word for it). If you missed out on the first three instalments of the series, I recommend you take a bit of your precious time to take a look at them since it will provide some important musical context from a diachronic perspective and a definition of what is meant through the term "OC crust" at that particular time. As I moaned about previously, the peacepunk and crust bands of this era and area unfortunately remain largely undocumented although Jang from Resist and Exist has interviewed some bands that were part of that wave - along with classic bands from the UK, current anarcho bands and videos about political activism - and uploaded some rare recordings and live performances for his youtube channel. Check it out punk as it is truly a work of passion and dedication that could not be further from the online posing contests that punk-rock sadly too often engages in nowadays.

 

But enough grumbling as I am not here to act like a middle-of-the-road gammon and today we are going to talk about arguably the most famous of the OC crust bands, the brilliantly-named Mindrot (which I have already tackled here with their top notch 1991 Endeavor Ep so I will try to keep it short). Although Mindrot can be said to be something of a respected and recognized band in the extreme metal world, they are rarely connected nowadays to the hardcore punk and crust music scene from which they originally emerged. Just knock on your neighbour's door and ask the geezer about Mindrot. He is very likely to reply "The doom metal band from the mid-90's" rather than "The early OC stenchcore from the early 90's". Or he might just let his staffies out. He'll probably do that actually so let's just pretend you knock on his door. So Mindrot are basically the biggest name of the original OC crust and yet are largely seldom identified as such, although things might be different in California and punk old-timers, who knew of Mindrot before the mid-90's Relapse period, might say otherwise and link the band to the hardcore world so it could be a generational thing.

 

 

 

I mentioned in the review of A//Solution's mastercrust Ep that I first heard of them thanks to the Mindrot's thank list included on their Dawning album, a cd (of course it was the cd version) I bought after reading, or being told, that they used to be a crust band. But then, I tried hard to remember where I might have read such confidential intel or which gentle soul guided my virginal self through my discovery of OC crust. Could I have made that story up or do I actually have imaginary friends? Who cares. Probably both. Perhaps the cd looked enticing enough, with the Relapse label being vaguely associated with hardcore in my tiny mind, and spotting Final Conflict, Total Chaos and Chaos UK on the list - it was second-hand so I could open the case - was enough to convince me that Mindrot was possibly a band that I should know about. That sounds like a much more plausible story actually. Anyway, Dawning is a doom-metal album and at the time the genre was about as alien to me as disco polo so to say that I was disappointed and above all completely out of my comfort zone is an understatement. I did not play the cd much - although I did try to be honest - but I often consulted the thank list and did my best to get information on the bands graced with a punk-sounding name that were included on it. Thank lists are dead, long live thank lists. This grail-like manuscript from 1995 illustrated significantly the position that Mindrot occupied: the space between Orange County's flourishing extreme metal scene and the peacepunk/crust world. With them rubbing shoulders with Morgion, Nausea LA and Fear Factory just as casually as they did with Armistice, Total Chaos or Final Conflict, early Mindrot can be approached as the definitive bridge between both worlds as their sound could appeal to metalheads addicted to doom and death metal as well as crusty punks craving for mean and heavy metallic hardcore music. But then, maybe it was a case of "too metal for the punx, and too punk for the metalheads", an argument that can sometimes be said to be something of a poor excuse used by terrible bands to justify their lack of recognition from either world.

But back to my personal conquest for crust. Because I was unimpressed with Dawning (which I used to call Yawning), I did not really bother researching the earlier Mindrot material and focused instead on bands like A//Solution, Glycine Max or Carcinogen, and of course Apocalypse. When I realized that some Apocalypse songs listed as belonging to the Terror Tapes on the discography cd had actually been released as a split Ep with Mindrot, I immediately got curious and decided to investigate the band's early years further. Fortunately for me, I was able to obtain a copy of the Endeavor Ep from some Profane Existence sales, which proved to be a thoroughly convincing and solid slice of old-school crust metal, and I did manage to find alright mp3 files of the split with Apocalypse, a top record and a genuine crust classic that I rate as one of the greatest crust split Ep's of all time (although it looks absolutely shit, a real shame when you see what both bands were able to offer visually). But the best was yet to come when I finally managed to go back in time and listen to this 1990 demo, an astounding recording that left me in awe.  

 

   

 

The Mindrot demo is undoubtedly an old-school crust classic. The term "demo" might be more than a little misleading in this case. When you read about a demo recording from an early crust band, you are entitled to expect something quite rough around the edges, an enjoyable if rather raw and primitive work that, more often than not, is characterized by dodgy musicianship and a certain ineptitude in the studio, a punk-as-fuck sound which is precisely why people love them so much. The Mindrot demo does not correspond to that definition at all. The boys were already quite accomplished musicians and knew exactly what they wanted to achieve. In fact, it sounded far more like a proper debut album - it is a thirty-minute long sonic behemoth - than a demo as it easily outclassed, not just in terms of production but also very much in terms of creative intent, of cohesion, of focus, of what the band aimed at creating, most crust demos of the era and beyond. 

 

 

Mindrot were undeniably the most metal-tinged band of the OC crust wave. In fact, you would not be wrong to describe them as "doom crust" or "crusty death-doom" but the recording still retains enough of this chugging and filthy threatening crust edge for it to rightly belong in the crust canon, though I would understand that others disagree (not a common sentiment on my part, let me tell you). When I first heard the demo, I was strongly reminded of a blast beat-free Prophecy of Doom, or a doomier, more mournful Bolt Thrower or a death metal act trying to be sound like Axegrinder on antidepressants. Know what I mean? The music is mostly slow, heavy, suffocating almost and very fucking dark though songs like "Lifeless beauty" and "Impurity" have faster moments. The atmosphere of despair, rage and pain that Mindrot try to create is meaningfully enhanced by the amazing sense of storytelling and narration permeating the demo. From the first song till the last one, a whole story is being told, unravels and the listener can spot classic elements of a narrative plot: the demo starts with an instrumental introduction; "Dying breed" and "Hidden people" are eerie spoken poems interspersed between songs; "Demoniac death metallers (from the satanic realm)" is a Sore Throat-like comic relief; and of course, the absolute hit "Darkened existence" halfway through the tape can be considered as the ultimate stenchcore ballad of the OC crust wave. I particularly enjoy recordings that tell a good story and reflect a creative process from the band. They are not just a collection of songs - as great as they might sound individually sound like - as they act as coherent, self-reflexive wholes that engage the listener through music as a narrative. For that reason, I much prefer the 1990 demo to Mindrot's 1991 Ep's as, I feel, the band was more comfortable with a longer format that allowed them to really weave their punishing stenchdoom vibe.  

 

   

The tape was originally released on Wild Rags records (a label that was responsible for releases from Nausea LA, Pungent Stench or Benediction) and I have no idea why this fantastic demo was never reissued especially when one considers how good and coherent it sounds. And it looks brilliant too, with an iconic cover and proper cut'n'paste DIY visuals. The absence of reissue is basically criminal, especially when one looks at the amount of very average demos from totally anecdotal UK82 bands being rereleased. As was customary with early crust/grind and extreme metal bands, a seemingly endless thank list is included where the accomplished punk maniac will be able to notice the usual OC crustpects but also UK's Sacrilege and Hellbastard, local anarchos Media Children and even Lance Hahn from Cringer. Small world, punks of all scenes unite and fight. Following this demo, Mindrot released the aforementioned Ep's in 1991, and then a live demo on Life Is Abuse (guitar player Matt's then brand new label) in 1992 that saw them going in an even more doom/death metal direction and they eventually recorded Dawning in 1995. As indicated previously in previous reviews, Matt Fisher (RIP) played the bass in Mindrot in parallel with his singing duties with Confrontation and his modelling career with Apocalypse, while Mindrot's guitar players Dan and Matt (although the latter had left by the time of the album) formed the legendary Dystopia in 1991 along with Dino from Carcinogen and Todd from Confrontation, which can be seen as something as the OC crust equivalent of the 1992 Dream Team.

 

 

 

Crucial piece of crust history here. All crusties should be required to own at least one '90/'91 era Mindrot patch. 

1990 DEMO

How Crust Survived the Millennium Bug (part 10): Morne "demo 2008" Lp, 2009

If I had to find the most accurate metaphor to locate Morne in the grand crust narrative, one that profoundly resonates with my personal mythology, I would say that Morne were the Ahmed Johnson of the genre. When Ahmed, out of nowhere, ran to the ring and slammed Yokozuna in 1995, I was just like the crowd: flabbergasted. This powerful and, I daresay, legendary slam left me in awe and, as a 12 year-old, confirmed that I wanted to be a wrestler when I grew up. Sadly, reality struck me in the face, and with a physique reminiscent of Harry Potter in the early movies, wrestling quickly became a fantasy that would never come true and my dreams were shattered. My size could have allowed me to become a referee but, as they are often clownishly mistreated, this would have only added to the humiliation. But back to Morne. Just as unexpected as Ahmed's incredible feat of lifting Yoko, the band, it appeared to me, also pretty much slammed crust out of nowhere when I first came across their demo in 2008. 

Now, I realize it is not the first time I have expressed memories of genuine feelings of surprise throughout How Crust Survived the Millennium Bug. Indisputably, the Χειμερία Νάρκη's 2003 album shook me hard and rocked my tiny world. However, this took place in 2003 and, in the subsequent five years, I became a rabid listener and devout follower of crust music and, as patches steadily grew on my sleeveless jackets, I slowly turned into an amateur archaeologist of the genre, reading everything I could find on the subject and saving whatever I could from my meager income to buy crust records (blogs only really kicked off around 2008/09 and the fast and unlimited streaming of music sounded as unlikely as a reality TV star becoming the president of the US of A). I may have been cocky enough at some point in the late 00's to claim boastfully that I had mastered the truth of crust - if the internet never forgets, fortunately people do - but a couple of meaningful revelations taught me (some) humility and that, not only was the quest only just beginning, but that the most important and most fulfilling element of it was the continuous process of realizing your objective, the path of knowledge rather than its completion. If you listen carefully, that's pretty much Yoda's message especially since the Force and the Crust are kinda equivalent at the end of the day. So basically when Morne noisily crashed into my youthful certainties, my knowledgeability of crust was much more solid than it had been five years before. Still, this demo absolutely kicked me up the arse and, well, it was a wonderful feeling which does not happen that often these days. Bloody inspiring, mate.

I first heard of Morne around the time of the release of this first recording in 2008 (in spite of forming in 2005, I don't think many had heard of Morne outside of Boston and probably Poland) through the Profane Existence message board, a platform that acted as a decent source of information about old and new bands from all over the place, hot releases and tales from the past told by heroic old-timers. It was not so dissimilar to Facebook, only the PE board did not display ads, did not spread dodgy theories and was not owned by a multibillion capitalist company. Minor differences really. I think a generous punk posted a download link to the Morne demo and, following the general enthusiasm, my thirst for crust led me to give Morne a chance. Unaware of the band's connection with a definite favourite of mine, I did not really expect anything from it and the gesture had more to do with healthy curiosity than irrepressible excitement. The first listen of the demo instantly proved sufficient to convert me. Bam.

Let's get rid of the elephant in the room right away: Morne is fronted by Milosz, former member of Gdansk-based crust legends Filth of Mankind, who moved to the States in the mid-00's (I guess?). I have no qualms about claiming, loudly as a former post shows, that FOM were one of the best old-school crust bands of their era and the absence of their magnus opus The Final Chapter in this series only has to do with my will not to be (too) redundant but it rightfully deserves a comfy spot in the top crust albums of the noughties. When I learnt about the connection between both bands, Morne's masterly first effort made sense. That this brilliant recording could be categorized as a demo felt a little insulting, as much as I instantly loved it. There was none of the sloppy playing, approximate tuning, non-existent production and naive songwriting that the term "demo" implied to me. Recorded in November, 2007 and March, 2008 at Dead Air Studio by Will Killingsworth, the Morne demo sounded like an incredibly brilliant album rather than a demo tape, which it originally was in 2008 (a cd version also existed). Although the production can be said to be a little raw and dirty - a better description in the context would be organic and cavernous - as opposed to a cleaner sound that the band may have craved for (subsequent events seem to point that way so that intention is of prime importance), I personally believe that it sounds absolutely perfect for a crust album: raw, dark, heavy, brooding and gritty. If the demo of my former band in the noughties had sounded even half as good - inspired and tasteful were not even options - as Morne's demo, I would have been a most unbearably conceited lad to say the least.

As lazy as the comparison might seem, you can certainly recognize Milosz' guitar style in Morne and link it to FOM's riffing and texture, but after all, in their early days, like FOM, Morne played in the metallic crust league and used the classic traits that the genre substantially encompassed. However, where FOM relied on a more aggressively grim sense of imminent threat, Morne sounded far sadder but also deeper and, well, more desolate and beatutiful. You could say that FOM were apocalyptic while Morne's beginnings were post-apocalyptic. Their objectives - let's call it an update of the Amebix/Axegrinder type of crust - might have been similar but the ingredients were different. FOM had both feet loyally planted in the crust tradition while Morne borrowed elements from doom-metal and heavy post-hardcore and as a result sounded more progressive and also much more narrative than a lot of 00's crust bands while still looking at an old-school crust compass to navigate its galloping epic vibe. There are seven songs on the demo for 39 minutes so you can imagine that the band was able to take its sweet time in order to build story-like chapters with proper introductions, endings, climax so that the album sounds like a living cohesive whole with its plot, well set atmosphere and recurring narrative tricks. 

The dominant pace is of the brooding and mid-tempo variety and parallels between Morne's early stage and the heavy doomsday dirges of Axegrinder and Misery, with a torturous Neurosis twist, are relevant. Morne's progressive narrative side also made me think of Skaven's (though they told a very different story) and especially of Balance of Pain-era Counterblast, who were brilliant at playing with moods and ambiance while remaining mean and crushing and proved to be able to speed things up when apposite. The vocals are clever, not forceful or savage, but shouted naturally with a gruff undertone, a bit like Axegrinder, crusty but not growling. Finally, and it certainly contributed to me being so starry-eyed about this recording, Morne were a synth-driven old-school crust band, unfortunately, tragically even, a phrase I cannot write nowhere near often enough. I have always been of the opinion that the addition of a synth transcends the epic gloom that is at the heart of proper crust and Morne used it with dashing maestria. I cannot help but being reminded of the classic Greek crust sound epitomized by early 90's Χαοτικό Τέλος, and quite obviously of Monolith-era Amebix and Axegrinder's Rise of the Serpent Men, and even - perhaps it sounds a bit bold but I am a man who loves danger and I've had more than my fair share of near death experiences, notably when playing badminton - of early Acrostix, and them more than the others maybe. The song "Twilight burns" makes me want to wear cool shades and ride a bike into the sunset, no mean feat considering I tend to be nauseous on motorbikes (anything that has a motor really).

The vinyl reissue of the demo was released in early 2009 with only 330 copies pressed. It had a lovely foldout cover silkscreened with silver ink which is pretty fucking classy indeed. The cover itself is appropriately bleak but not really special (a misty forest), however the lettering of the lyrics was done by Dino Sommese from Dystopia and Asunder and you can definitely recognize his style which I happen to dig (he also did it on the split between Stormcrow and Sanctum). The Lp was released on No Options Records, a busy label on the crust front in the 00's (Stormcrow, Limb From Limb, Phalanx). Following the demo, Morne recruited Jeff from Grief and Disrupt on second guitar (he even appeared on the picture on the back of the vinyl version of the demo, though he doesn't play on it) and this lineup recorded three songs for a split Lp with the excellent Warprayer from Bristol on Alerta Antifascista. The production was much cleaner and Morne's side was certainly monumental, with the sludgy post-hardcore-doom influence significantly more prevalent, still in the metallic crust territory, but very close to the frontier which would be crossed for good on the next record. Untold Wait, released in 2009 on Feral Ward - the band moved really quickly at that point - was basically a re-recording of the demo with a clean and clear production pretty much turning the work into a post-hardcore doom-metal album, which makes one think about the importance of orchestration and artistic intent when it comes to the vibe you are trying to convey. I lost track of the band afterwards - though I did catch them live a second time in 2012 in Paris (I first caught them on their 2009 tour and religiously bought a cheerful shirt) - as they went on to evolve into a more progressive atmospheric doom-metal realm. Not my cuppa but certainly well-executed.

 Can you have training wheels on a motorbike? Just asking for a friend.

Morne 

How Crust Survived the Millennium Bug (part 6): Stormcrow "Enslaved into Darkness" Lp, 2005

We are now deep into the middle of How Crust Survived the Millennium Bug, an as per usual tortuous retrospective series aimed at showing how crust music survived in the noughties after it gloriously peaked during the previous decade. The first five entries dealt with bands whose conception predated the so-called "stenchcore revival" - although Effigy often get associated with the trend, out of their split with Hellshock and of their open intertextuality - arguably the most spectacular crust-centered boom of the 00's and what that decade would be significantly remembered for afterwards. In truth, some would claim that the much more massive, not mention popular, "neocrust" wave is what really characterized the noughties crust sound and, as far as sheer proportions go, this claim cannot be said to be wrong. Still, do we really need terms like "epicrust" or "tragicrust" to be emblazoned forever on the forehead of 00's crust? Do we even want such terms to go down in punk History and be remembered at all? Exactly, we don't. And if someone must volunteer to undertake a radical revisionism of 00's punk and attempt to erase neocrust from History books and the comrades' collective memories and deny that cheap-looking xeroxed fanzines promoting brooding epic crust bands with melodies and, at least, four words in their name ever existed, then, for the sake of future generations, I'll be willing to take on that ungrateful role, even though the truth might resurface one day and, in a Planet of the Apes moment, a young hardcore kid will find an Ekkaia Lp half buried in the sand and thus uncover the conspiracy. It was all for your own good, Comrade.

So the 00's stenchcore revival it is then. Undeniably, the most iconic representatives and initiators of this trend were Portland's Hellshock, a well-known and respected band that I have already laurelled in the past and whose magnum opus Only the Dead Know the End of the War could be rightfully considered as one of the true great old-school crust classics of all time and all places, quite a feat when one keeps in mind that Hellshock was originally pretty much a humble side-project between mates who were keen on nicking Sacrilege and Bolt Thrower riffs, but the music ended being too good to be just that (which must feel lovely as it is generally the other way round). Accurately, if unwillingly, Hellshock also set up a new protocol for knowledgeably building on the original crusty stenchcore bands' sound and aesthetics while still rocking like a much more focused and self-conscious band of the early 00's (a different context of creation and a will to "play crust" that sometimes hindered creativity). Beside the evident sonic reliance on the canonical crust gospels, Hellshock deftly invited Mid from Deviated Instinct to draw the cover art for their first two Lp's and exert his not inconsiderable skills in (re)creating a typical crust visual, one utilizing saturated crust signifiers. The presence of an artist who originally defined the aesthetics of crust and the request from him to "draw crust" of course points to a referential stance and a message clearly delivered, that it's '87 in '03 - although it has to be said that Hellshock's experienced musicianship was undeniably superior to that of the original crust bands (without mentioning that Mid's craftsman ship and techniques vastly improved during this lapse of 15 years). Interestingly, the second bigger name of the stenchcore revival - which was at first distinctly located in North America - also asked talented stenchcore-architect Mid to "draw crust" for the cover art of their debut album, Enslaved into Darkness, and with the band's being name directly taken from a Deviated Instinct anthem - probably my favourite DI number at the time - I guess it would have been impossible to answer in the negative to Stormcrow.

I discovered Stormcrow through their connection with No Options Records, a label run by Will from Born/Dead that had released two records I owned and enjoyed (Endrophobia and Phalanx, the latter of which I still actually play) and whose moves I was monitoring closely. I must have hyperventilated upon reading the Deviated Instinct-inspired name Stormcrow on some message board, as any sane person normally would in the mid-00's, and then proceed the hunt the fucker which I eventually did... on Interpunk. Now be merciful with me and know that my using this provider is the source of no little embarrassment today but, to be fair, at that time, it distributed Prank, Hardcore Holocaust, Havoc, Tribal War and many other DIY hardcore labels. I bought my first Nausea and Antischism records from that website. Out of curiosity, I peeked at Interpunk a few hours ago - I was not even sure it was still standing - and even the most furtive look could not protect my innocence against the abominations proudly displayed on the website's front page, hellish visions capable of leaving your average crusty scarred for life. I'm sure they sell shoegaze over there. But anyway, shortly after its release in late 2005, I ordered the cd version of Enslaved into Darkness (I only upgraded to the vinyl version when I finally transitioned into adulthood in my early 30's), played it, was left astounded and in awe at the ferocity of their filthy metallic crust power, played it again, cavorted and headbang hard about my room for a bit, played it for the third time, swiftly ordered the shirt and prepared to boast about it to my mates the next weekend.

Stormcrow formed in Oakland in 2003 and was made up of members of local hardcore acts In the Wake of the Plague (that also had Will No Option) and Exit-Wound, PDX grindcore band Bent Over Backwards and sludgecore monsters Brainoil, beside which guitar player Nathan had also played in Destroy! and Code 13 while in Minneapolis.  Of course, I was completely unaware of such resumes at the time but remember reading that Stormcrow was made up of people who had been playing in bands for a long time, known faces so to speak, though not by me. The band's association and ties with older Oakland crust outfits should not be left unexamined. Enslaved into Darkness was recorded and produced by Salvador Raya, who played in doom-metal band Asunder alongside former members of the mighty Skaven (with whom Stormcrow would eventually share an outstanding split Ep). Alongside Greg from Brainoil, aforementioned Raya is a sound engineer at Earhammer studios, where Stormcrow's debut, and many other Oakland punk records since, was recorded. Stormcrow were also mates with the people from Dystopia and, if it would be far-fetched and questionable to claim that both bands sound alike (who can even claim to sound like Dystopia anyway?), I like to think that their sound and creative intent arose from older metallic crust acts like Dystopia, Confrontation, Carcinogen and of course the oft overlooked Skaven as well as the heavier sludgy doom-influenced bands that followed. All bands must bloom out of some preexisting context, there is always an initial spark lit by predecessors and, from such perspective, Stormcrow can be seen as both a prominent band of the 00's metal crust revival and heirs to the Oakland crust tradition of the 90's. 

Enslaved into Darkness is a devastatingly heavy and crushing crust behemoth whose raw and filthy metallic production never impairs its impact. In fact, few crust records are able to conjure up both power and rawness as potently as Stormcrow's first born. The two guitar attack confers to the recording a rare heaviness that is almost overwhelming at times in the thrashing department. This Lp is the sonic representation of the four Horsemen galloping through a barren wasteland with a nuclear sunrise in the background while being chased after by a malign horde of punk zombies. But let's not get lost in verboseness and useless convolutions, Enslaved into Darkness contains five long songs of colossal old-school metallic crust with a mean and dirty doom-metal vibe running through it. If Stormcrow do not hesitate to speed up the pace and inflict a deliciously thrashing guitar-driven punishment, this Lp is mostly slow-to-mid-paced and still proved to be their fastest work. I remember thinking that the album felt a bit short with a running time of 27 minutes but, by today's standards, it is actually the perfect length for this genre of crust. The organic, almost rotten, if not putrid, metallic sound of the down-tuned guitars are to die for, like the metaphorical shovels that will bury your skinny but still muscular body, and the relative lack of tightness in places even adds to the savage funeral mood of the whole. The vocals were also a massive selling point for me when it came out. I was never a metalhead and only became familiar with the extreme metal world through crust and therefore was quite inexperienced in the dark arcane arts of living dead growls, cries of excruciating pain and the whole assortment of gratuitous bellows meant to replicate the screams of possessed tortured souls. So when I heard the level of threatening gruffness of Stormcrow, it really sounded like I had availed myself with a direct line to the underworld. As mentioned, Stormcrow did have a sludgy Asunder-like doom-laden side, but at that time the band navigated clearly in old-school crust territories. Bolt Thrower teaming up with early Paradise Lost to cover Antisect and Deviated Instinct after smoking too much weed would be a relevant description, or, to stay local to California, perhaps Mindrot and Carcinogen aggressively jamming in Skaven's back garden. I'm sure you get the idea. 

The length of the songs - more than seven minutes for two of them - really helps the band install a specific atmosphere, one that reeks of pain and despair, rather than the sadness one associates with doom metal, but also of threat as Stormcrow sound like they are ready to bite back and spread rabies if need be, as punks playing metal healthily should, and the lyrics typically deal in allegories about destructive capitalism, alienation and state terror. The joys of our modern age. Like captain Obvious indicated at the beginning of this wordy sojourn, the cover art was drawn by Mid and represents - in his lovingly recognizable apocalyptic, morbid, organic style that came to define the classic crust aesthetics (though I would like to point out that the man is certainly not a one-trick crust poney) - mother Earth emerging angrily from a plague-ridden soil because of humankind's selfishness and greed. As much as I love Mid's art, I still have to admit that the focal point of this artwork, and as a result of my Stormcrow shirt, is the rather large pair of tits of Mother Nature. And I guess it makes sense that she would be big-breasted, what with her feeding the world and everything and, although seldom represented in crust art, there is nothing intrinsically ludicrous in having breasts on the cover of a crust record, it all depends on the artistic intent. Nonetheless, I still struggle to perambulate up and down the streets basically boasting monstrous tits right in the middle of my chest which certainly attracted more than a few frowns of puzzled consternation throughout the years. It's not as bad as my Genital Deformities artifact but still not a piece of garment I chose to wear at my great-aunt's birthday bash. However as a crust record cover, it works much better and I cannot really blame my lack of vestimentary insight on anyone but and I should probably have picked the other design. Oh well.

Hours spent overplaying Enslaved into Darkness converted me into a staunchly devout Stormcrow fanboy so that when I learnt that a split Lp with Sanctum - another stenchcore revival band I was really into - was planned, I exhilaratingly started to hassle everyone I knew about it - including the Sanctum lads when they played in France - and scouted the internet for any piece of intelligence about the Lp. This search came to an end in late 2006 thanks to No Options Records again and it proved to be an excellent effort and certainly one of the best crust split records of the decade with a cracking artwork, done by Dino from Dystopia, that is something to see if you are into Warhammer or Lord of the Rings-inspired fantasy battles (a recurring visual trope of the often very orc-oriented 00's crust scene). Stormcrow loved split records - and so do I to be honest - and 2008 saw the release of an absolutely classic split Ep with Skaven and a split Lp with Canada's prime grinding cavecrust unit on the always solid Agipunk from Italy with Stormcrow starting to display an even sludgier and doomier sound. The band's last two split Lp's (again!) with Laudanum in 2009 and Coffins in 2010 confirmed the band's development, which unfortunately was not my predilect cuppa tea, and my progressive loss of interest.

After the demise of the band in 2010, Brian and Tony formed Femacoffin, an excellent metallic crust act in the vein of Stormcrow's early years the review of which you can read here. I have to admit I quite miss the apocalyptic doomy stenchcore power of Stormcrow, which I actually got to see live in Tucson in 2009 (don't ask) and the guitars were so loud that they almost buried the drums and vocals. Well class.

 

                        

Enslaved into Crustness 

How Crust Survived the Millennium Bug (part 3): Lost "Fear-Strach" Lp, 2003

"Do you like Lost?" 

 

If you are ever being asked the above question during a dinner party held at normies' (collective gasp of horror), the possibility that they are referring to the once-famous-but-now-antiquated American series is strong indeed. In this particular case, it is highly advisable that you come up with something that will make you look both profound and witty in front of the guests - but not so much as to make them feel intellectually threatened - so that you get reinvited next time around (free food is free food after all). The very least you can do is bleat "They were all dead from the very start, innit?", a weak attempt perhaps but one that should insure that you are allowed to stay at least until dessert. If the very same question is formulated at an open air punk festival by a towering middle-aged crusty, still standing despite it being well past 4am, then it is a safe bet that the inquiry has to do with the early noughties Łódź-based band. If, under such circumstances, it is not, then you should probably avoid this interlocutor as you are about to embark on a lengthy conversation about metaphysical angst and the perpetual feeling of "lostness" or, as is more accurately in sententious academic circles, "Verlorenheit". That or a lunatic speech about survival in inhospitable and unfamiliar arctic forest and how to eat leaves, roots and shit (in that order). Either way, you 'd better head straight to the bar.

 

A couple of crows apparently no longer talking to one another

 

Discogs tells me that Lost has been a rather popular band name throughout the years, ranging from UK house techno breakbeat, Portuguese depressive black-metal, Italian eurodance or German gothic metal. Pick your kings. Going for Lost as a name is sound enough of course. Because it evokes powerful images of desolation and conveys an atmosphere of nothingness, it is an ideal moniker if you aim to create dark and oppressive music, a criterion that certainly applies to Polish crust and even more so to Lost, who were probably the heaviest and darkest band around at that time. 

 

I have already written at length about the Polish school of crust in the past, most notably through the Pulitzer-winning series Polish Tapes Not Police States (with Disgusting Lies, Monoteizm-Co-Existence, Stupor, Earth Movement, Undecided and Bisect) I did in 2018 but other 90's bands like the typical Money Drug, the classic Homomilitia and the mighty Filth of Mankind were also offered the Terminal Sound Nuisance treatment so that the TSN staff is far from unconversant with the Polish crust sound (it is even a job requirement). However, Fear-Strach cannot be sanely described as your typical crust band and, while Lost retained significant classic elements of crust, they were a distinctly different animal, one that did emerge from the same crust habitat but thrived on a different diet. Lost have often been referred to as a post-Homomilitia band, which is both true since Agnes used to sing in Homomilitia before and also something of an understandable distortion since, even though the other members were not part of it, Homomilitia were undeniably Poland's most iconic crust exports in the 90's. 

 

One meditative Deviated Instinct-ish crow

 

Lost formed in Łódź in 2000 with a lineup of Agnes on vocals, Jaro on the bass guitar and Marcin on the drums. Apparently Tomek from Filth of Mankind was the first guitar player but was quickly replaced with Simek and then a second guitar player, Jarek, joined in. It was this lineup that recorded the Thoughtless-Bez Zastanowienia Ep in 2001. Frytek then took over the drums and second guitar player Jarek left, thus giving birth to the team that would record one of the strongest crust Lp's of the decade, Fear-Strach. Beside Agnes' connection with Homomilitia, the Lost members were equally busy bees. Guitar player Jarek and drummer Frytek - along with Strzała from Red Corps and Homomilitia - also played between 2000 and 2004 in a band called Disable who, according to sources close to the matter, were quite popular and active at the time and actually toured with Lost. In fact, there was even a first incarnation of Disable in the mid-90's that did not last long and only played the one gig. If you are interested in hearing a sonic rendition of a meeting between Sanctus Iuda and Hellkrusher at a Hiatus gig in 1995 then the Disable cdr from 2003 comes highly recommended and it also gets additional old-school punk points for the use of the Disaster font before the Disaster reissues. Aforementioned Jarek and Frytek also teamed up with guitar player Simek in a rather obscure hardcore band called Hard Life in the early 00's, that never released anything but some videos of live performances can be found if you look hard enough, while Jarek also played in the much mysterious Compos Mentis. Have you been following?

 

A flying crow

 

The city of Łódź is often considered to be one of the birthplaces of the black-clad crust genre in Poland, for good reason, (the ace Nausea live Lp in Łódź only adding more to the mystique) and it has been delivering quality crust acts for the past three decades. Still, Lost's Fear-Strach went beyond what one could rightfully expect from a solid Polish crust punk work and proved to be a unique hybrid pervaded with a vibe that had no real equivalent in the crust universe, although it cannot be said to be really breaking new grounds either. I remember getting this record upon its release after reading a review of it in an issue of the Leeds-based Attitude Problem fanzine. I remember the iteration of the word "dark" throughout the short review which only meant that Lost were bound to sound, well, really dark. While I expected and presumed to embrace the music's darkness, I was not quite prepared to such a level of suffocating heaviness. I was aware of, but merely vaguely familiar with, the doom/sludge metal genre and therefore the punishingly massive slowness that make up large portions of Fear-Strach, interpersed with galloping vintage crust punk or mid-paced stenchcore moments, were almost too much to bear at times and would leave me drained and, well, in a really dark mood. I could withstand some slow and heavy music without hyperventilating though and enjoyed bands like Cult of Luna, Facedowninshit or indeed His Hero Is Gone. But Lost were different, nastier, more menacing, more organic, dirtier too, their hopeless anger barely contained, they sounded like I was being grabbed by the collar by a reincarnation of anger and given a right bollocking for no other reason than the world is a depressive and lonely place where illusions of happiness are left to rot and feed the crows. And while I am on the subject of morbid birds, crows, either literally or figuratively as symbols of decay, inform the whole of Fear-Strach. They are on the cover, on the backcover, on both labels, on both sides of the insert and on the introduction to the first song (while the terrifying last song "Słowa" starts with the barks of fighting dogs). I sense that, had it been available, Lost would have been called Crow but then they just had to give up all hope.

 

The band photoshopped inside a giant crow

 

As expressed subjectively above, Lost blended metallic old-school crust with sludge and doom metal, resulting patently in a heavy, downtuned and joyless mixture that one could locate on the fringes of the crust sandbox. The most obvious influence is the New York City doom-crust band 13 which Lost cover and even thank on this album, but I guess Grief, for their antipathic aggression, and Eyehategod, for their mean rocking aspect, are worth mentioning too. As far as the sheer display of crust power is concerned, late Nausea also come as an evident inspiration, especially when Lost rock their devastating mid-paced moments, as well as the late 80's heavy versatile and pissed sound of Contropotere and I cannot help but hear some modern version Guttural Breath-era Deviated Instinct at times, but probably out of a similar creative intent rather than design. Counterblast's Balance of Pain is also a work that meaningfully sprang to mind, not because Fear-Strach sounds like it, but because both albums presented something different and hybrid, full of personality, but still completely congruent with the crust orthodoxy with its crunchy and filthy - but precise like the rest of the instruments - guitar sound. The incredible vocals of Agnes emphatically propel the music forward into furious oppressiveness. Never has her voice sounded as harsh and almost possessed with uncontrollable pain, although it has to be said that by the time Homomilitia recorded their second album, she was already experimenting with a throatier and raspier vocal style (akin to Alicia 13 and Mags Excrement of War). She prominently affected the overall vibe and atmosphere of Lost, enhancing the overwhelming intensity and black vibe of the music. Polish crust has had a long tradition of powerful female-fronted bands, from pioneers Homomilitia, Silna Wola, Stradoom Terror, Monoteizm-Co-Existence, Stupor, Insuiciety or current bands like Social Crisis (to name only the crusty bands, there are far more examples in other subgenres) and Lost were potent representatives of that tradition.

 

A surprisingly crow-free poster

 

The lyrics of Lost are, well, really dark. Depression, loneliness, inner pain, isolation and of course the obligatory anti-system song, everything that inevitably bury your joy of living deep into the cold ground. The band's Ep, Thougthless-Bez Zastanowienia, from 2001, is also thoroughly enjoyable, though not as heavy and sensibly faster. I would argue that the full album format fits Lost's songwriting, meaningfulness and aesthetic ambitions far better and, with Fear-Strach lasting over 40 minutes, they did cleverly take their time to build the atmosphere they craved for. An atmosphere that is, well, really dark. The Lp was released on Malarie Records, well-known and proficient label from Czech, and Berlin-based Schandmaul Records. 

 

Really dark indeed. 

 

The feast of crows 

 

More crows

            

Ashes to ashes, crust to CRUST (round 10): Ruinebell "Embers' grave" 12'', 2015

When I started to think about a possible roster for this series, I was confronted with a dilemma. Not the kind to keep me awake at night in a pool of sweat and tears, but one that still needed thoughtful consideration and inner investigation (if that helps, just picture me thinking hard while the sun is setting on a postindustrial landscape). The scope of Terminal Sound Nuisance has changed significantly throughout the years and even if I like to think that I managed to maintain some sort of recurring narrative motif for its contents to hold together cohesively, the idea to write about novelty - possibly our epoch's main shibboleth - raised a few issues in terms of the perspective to adopt. Not being particularly prone to rave purposelessly about the latest releases whose cool factor is often too transient to trust ("don't believe the hype" as they say), the relevant trope to be used in this particular case was uncertain. I knew it had to be different because of the novelty element of the works but it wouldn't have made much sense if I only focused on the excitement induced by discovery. There is nothing quite like hearing a cracking unknown recording for the first time but the feeling is not the same if the band is contemporary, especially since we fatally lack perspective about our current present context. How well will 2010's crust hold in 10 years time? And flowing from this interrogation, one also needs to ask: how unperceptive may these words eventually become? And where are my prescription pills?

But to get back on point, the "Ashes to ashes, crust to CRUST" odyssey is, because of its transversality, a fun opportunity to be enthusiastic about new records, focus on the priceless element of surprise and take responsibility for its impermanence. Which brings me to Ruinebell, because it is a band that I did not see coming at all and that I became acquainted with considerably later than I feel is appropriate considering the quality of their music. The fact that no one told me about them before is preposterous and, were we living under the French Ancien Régime, I would have thought of writing a nasty pamphlet and possibly settled things via a couple of bloody - but honourable - duels. But since it is 2017, I am just writing a new post entry, though rest assured that I hit the keys with bitterness in my heart right now.

I do not even remember how or when I first heard of Ruinebell but my first two reactions are still vivid. It was first "OMG this is absolutely excellent! Who? What? When? Where? How? Why?" and second "and a what lovely name they picked!". Obviously, the immediate lexical meaning of "Ruinebell" is "the bell of ruin", which aptly reflects the music's spectral mournfulness and fits with the metal/crust lexical field. But what about the "e" then? It is Ruinebell and not Ruinbell. In a short interview for Terrorizer (that you can read here), multi-instrumentalist Lasse explains that "ruine" is the French word for "ruin" and that they ended up using the former for their moniker because it looked better graphically. However, such a choice also created a rather pleasant double entendre as "ruinebell" is almost similar to "ruine belle", a phrase that translates as "beautiful ruin" and which meaning also coheres with the band's music. So even before I actually listened to the songs, I was already taken in linguistically though, to be fair, I am not sure the band really did that on purpose.

More than an actual band, Ruinebell can probably be best described as a studio project, which implies that we are not likely to ever see them play (which kinda sucks). It is a trio made up of two Finns - Pekka on the drums and Lasse on the guitar, bass and synth - and one Spaniard on vocals, so you can imagine that band practices must be few and far between. This said, the boys have solid experience in playing in bands indeed since Lasse and Pekka play together in Hooded Menace (and before that in Vacant Coffin and respectively in many other acts as well) while Dopi was the drummer/singer of long-running grindcore band Machetazo and has also played in such projects as Dishammer or Mutilated Veterans throughout the years. So not exactly an amateurish lineup and it certainly shows.

The initial idea behind Ruinebell was to write Amebix/Axegrinder-influenced metallic crust music with an industrial touch and heavy Voivod riffs without sounding too referential. Honestly, I could almost stop writing right there since they absolutely nailed the sound they were reaching for and their music speaks for itself, but as we all know, I won't. Their first Ep, Demise in grace, recorded as a duo (with Dopi playing the drums as well as singing) and released in 2011 on Czech DIY metal label Doomentia Records, is a coup de maître that demonstrates how brilliant axegrinding mid-paced doomy crust can sound thanks to concerted songwriting and proper ideas. The Amebixian vibe is strong and potent and yet it never feels old or literal, rather it is used as a binder to make new additions hold together. As they use the basic ingredients of old-school crust, they also update them. Ruinebell sound both old-school and modern and on that level they do remind me conceptually of early Morne. I am not going to dwell too much on the Ep (that, for reasons that may have to do with the unfamiliar label that released it and my own ignorance about the underground metal scene, completely passed me by until recently) but it has everything a crust-loving person can hope for. And yes, that includes apocalyptic moody synth parts and terrific bass-lines.

Embers' grace can be relevantly seen as Demise from grace's sequel, meaning that it is not just a follow-up but also a genuine progression. Assuredly, Ruinebell built on similar grounds for the 12'' and the amegrinder scripture still stands as the music's backbone but it is a more versatile and diverse work with a slightly different mood, not as mournful and more ominously mechanical. I suppose Ruinebell could have picked the easier path and write a full Lp that would have sounded just like a longer Demise in grace - and honestly, I would still have been thrilled - because their musical ability and their sense of clever songwriting would have allowed it, but they went for something a little different, globally more rhythmic and colder, the industrial influence more upfront. And it works. While crust has often been openly infused with black, death or doom-metal in recent years (with varying results, truth be told), I cannot think of many crust bands that have ventured into industrial sonorities since the 90's. The opening song, "Inexistence", epitomizes this shift, with heavy chugging riffs and cold, steely beats cloaked around the classic mid-tempo crust structure. Quite the perfect meeting point between Sonic Violence, Depressor, 13 and Axegrinder. The following track - "The hermit" - is a more orthodox locomotive old-school crust anthem, with a monumental driving synth, some wicked gloomy guitar arpeggios and even a progressive feel on one riff. Clearly an epic number that brings to mind vintage Greek crust, early Morne and mid-90's Counterblast for its inventive recreation of canonical crust elements. On the flipside, "Temple of isolation" is even more indus-influenced with its stark martial beats, super heavy bass sound and dark incantatory guitar riffs, not unlike a combination of early Godflesh, Killing Joke at their heaviest, the mighty Depressor and of course Amebix. Finally, "Flesh bone catacomb" is a galloping Amebix/Axegrinder song with a desperate doom feel concluded with an eerie spoken part that nods heavily toward vintage crust. Quite a ride in twenty minutes.

The production on Embers' grace sounds very clear, almost surgical, in the bleakest sense of the term, so it confers a literal metallic quality to the songs. This kind of production seldom works with the crust genre because it can make the music sound too clean and lose its filthy groovy edge, but in this case I feel it connects adequately with the band's songwriting intent. Because of the mid-paced 80's crust style of Ruinebell, one might think that going for this very cold modern production would have impaired and deprived the songs of their darkly threatening power, but thanks to a clever use of the synth as a texturing agent and a focus on heavy, precise, cold industrial rhythms, Ruinebell manage to offer a new relevant perspective on the genre, keeping it heavy but in a different sepulchral way. The musical abilities of the participants are obvious but always serve the general direction and help create a meaningful oppressive atmosphere that feels tense and sorrowful. I haven't talked about the vocals yet but they clearly demonstrate an awareness and a knowledge of the rules of the genre that are impressive. I can hear some Japanese crust influence in the harsh gruff tone, especially since the singer uses an effect on his voice, but also Steve from Neurosis if he tried to impersonate an entombed humanoid entity (the sorrowful lyrics also point in that direction actually). In any case, it shows that one does not have to squeal like a grossly constipated boar to deliver proper crust vocals and that, in the end, clever vocal placement is the key.

Embers' grace was released in September, 2015 on Doomentia Records (I still have not figured out how to correctly pronounce "doomentia" and probably never will) and I am pretty sure it is still available. The only reservation I can voice about this wonderful 12'' has to do with the artwork that does not really reflect the music (the cover looks more like a doom-metal one) and only partly illustrates the mood. Oh well, great records also have flaws I suppose. 

Belle ruine