Sarabante-Έρμαια Των Καιρών / Under The Shadows 7" (Man in Decline, 2013)

Sarabante hail from the metropolis of crisis, Athens, Greece and here is their two track seven inch released in 2013 by Man In Decline Records. Sarabante was formed back in 2006 and passed through several line up changes, sometime they recorded some demo tracks, (if i am correct, back in these days there were 3 songs in their myspace) in 2008 they started working on their first lp Remnants which finally came out in 2011, mastering was done by Brad Boatright (From Ashes Rise, Warcry, World Burns to Death, AudioSiege Media etc etc) and was released by Sara Records, (band's own label) on vinyl in 500 copies and later by Southern Lord as cd. And since a label just like Southern Lord picks them among so many dark melodic crust bands that pop up all over the world that means they discovered something extraoedinary in this band. I won't say anyting else about Remnants since there is a shitload of positive reviews about it (just google "Sarabante Remnants review" and a shit of replies will appear on your screen). Έρμαια Των Καιρών / Under The Shadows 7" came out in spring of 2013 on 300 copies on black, 100  mustard yellow and 100 copies with transparent vinyl with black flecks and also a limited to 25 copies, mailorder only version with different artwork, screen-printed jacket and stamped/numbered labels. Inside the folder you will find a sheet with lyrics and a download code. Music wise there is dark,emotional and melodic crust at its best: No they don't reinvent the wheel since this was developed by From Ashes Rise and Tragedy, adopted by many other bands and first worked back in late 90's by the now forgotten and underated Narsaak before the rise of His Hero is Gone and Wolfpack. The songs of ep, the guitar riffs and chord proggression, the mournful melodies and bass lines, the drum bashing, all are great and stand equal to Remnants or even better than the debute lp, i 'd say there is a slight improvement in everything. The sound quality is excellent. Έρμαια Των Καιρών (Wrecks of times) is a new version of an old demo song titled Unveiling the Truth, (the other demo songs, Blindfold and Remnants appear in the lp). And if 5 Tracks Noise ep by Go Filth Go is the best raw D-beat ep released by greek band, i dare to say that Έρμαια Των Καιρών / Under The Shadows stands on the top of Greek band melodic crust  releases. The only bad thing is that there are only two songs here and nearly seven minutes of running time. This is available for streaming/downloading in Sarabante's bandcamp along with Remnants, btw their weird name is taken from a medieval dance, for more check wikipedia here,  This is also still available in physical copies so can score one, either from the band or the label and its worth to do it. Sarabante have blog, myshit and farcebook. check them.

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Go Filth Go-5 Tracks Noise 7" (2012, Rawmantic Disasters,Truemmer Pogo, Crucificados Pelo Sistema)

Hands down, this is the best raw D-beat recording made by greek band, ever! Go Filth Go come from the shithole of Europe and this is their latest release, a five track sonic hell released in 2012. GFG formed in 2010 by former/current members of Dyspnea, Black Trinity, Melanocetus Murrayi and Terrorismo Musical, in 2010 they self-released No Escape from Noise Dis-truction tape which was followed by the split w Besthoven and split w Electric Funeral and the Make Noise Not Music split tape with Chernobyl Attack. 5 Tracks Noise was released in 2012 by Rawmantic Disasters, Truemmer Pogo and Crucificados Pelo Sistema and the artwork is simillar to the work of Warvictims/Dropend split lp (Rawmantic Disasters/D-Takt & Råpunk) . Sound wise there is top work here, GFG created a personal sound in their previous ep's which is solid, harse, raw and distorted and also unique but thigs are different here: Mixing and mastering was done by Jocke from D-takt & Råpunk  and sound took off to higher levels of quality: 5 Tracks Noise sounds great and stands equal to great bands of subgenre such as Disclose, D-Clone, Giftgassattack, Disable, Aspects of War, Eletric Funeral and others. Ultra distorted guitar and bass, fast D-beat bashing drums and angry cacophonous shouted vocals. This is brutal and distorted, raw and chaotic, earbleeding and destructive. And if this description sounds generic then waste a few minutes and listen the tracks: Jocke' mastering  transformed GFG sound into a sonic monster. And check this vid too. Lyrics deal with the familiar for the genre topics such as the horror of war, social disgust and derpair and you can find them printed on cover. This was the latest GFG release along with the contribution of one unreleased song (State Abuse) in the War For Freedom 12"comp, (a DIY benefit compilation for political prisoners - a collective effort of squater punks of northern Greece, distributed by autonomous libertarian collectivities and political squats) and as i ve been told by D (guit) many moons ago, their next planned release will be a 12" LP but there are not any news about it. 5 Tracks Noise is available for streaming/downloading in GFG bandcamp as well as their entire discography. Hope to hear news about their next release very soon.

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Rotting Christ/Sound Pollution-The Other Side of Life split 7" (bootleg)

This little gem brings you the globally known Rotting Christ and the widely unknown Sound Pollution in a split ep which was the first official release of R.C. and the only vinyl release of S.P.
Rotting Christ need no introduction, before they become known as metal lords they were a noisecore/grindcore band, they recorded a few demo tapes with Carcass-ic medical lyrics (Decline's Return, Leprosy of Death) before they start their journey into black metal realms with Satanas Tedeum demo from 1989. Internet is full of info and resources about them so there is no need to blurb any shit.
Sound Pollution was formed in 1988 as Ηχορύπανση (Ehorypansi, sound pollution in Greek), they recorded a couple of demo tapes: Practic Holocaust (1988) and Demo 1989, they had a split tape with Seven Minutes of Nausea (contributing the 2nd demo tracks) and appeared in Nobody Listens Anymore comp (1988, PPR Records). After some line up changes the band split into two new bands:the black metallers Varathron and the crusties Industrial Suicide (Βιομηχανική Αυτοκτονία,Viomihaniki Aftoktonia) which included people from Forgotten Prophecy and Negative Stance, I.S recorded two demo tapes (demo 1989 and demo 1990), they appeared in Delirum Tremens #17, Bonds of Friendship benefit comp. (1990,tape) and called it a day in 1991 or so, some members along with people from Panikos and Social Outcasts continued with Human Lethargy.
Both bands deliver similar psychoterroristic grindcore farting songs of a less than a minute lenght each, Rotting Christ deliver their Carcass-ic medical terminology with gory background while Sound Pollution grunts and growls are more into socio-political side of things, furthermore the bands shared some members (i think the "vocalist" is the same person in this recording, any help from old time Greek grinders is appreciated), sound quality is horrible, the record came in blue vinyl (this one here is a bootleg) consisting of nine Rotting Christ and ten Sound Pollution songs (or "songs") and a sheet with lyrics was included.
From a comment on Youtube written by Spyros (a.k.a. Captain Death), Sound Pollution-Varathron and Vomit drummer, we found that the influences of S.P were Doom, Napalm Death,Siege and Mob47. Carcass, Sarcofago and Agathocles were the inspiration of R.C and this split was supposed to be with S.P. and a Yugoslavian band but finally RC covered the other side of vinyl.
This split reaches incredibly high prices when pops up on ebay, just take a look at this picture ( or search it in Discogs.com) and to coin Roilo Golez of Brave New World blog, "The Greek government should take in consideration the potential of their early local noise band to solve their public debt crisis." Well i don't if this post speeds on the process to downfall or reduces the imaginary income this record could bring to Greek state as a parameter in a chaotic mathematical equation ( and i have no remorse at all,hahahaha!) but on the other hand this record and its chaotic wrath beyond music forms and the usual formulas describes the Greek Indignados, even the cover artwork is connected with them: Some gallows appeared today in front of Greek parliament, watch it here :)
Sound Pollution demos links are taken from Cerdos Distructores, Raf666Underground, Lord Agz! Punk As Fuck 777 Not 666 and Brave New World,i ranted too much,go get it and torture your ears

Panikos-st 7"

Another repost with a record that was posted in the first days of this blog: Panikos is the living history of Greek crust punk scene, they started back in 1989 when they recorded The War Continues demo tape. In 1995 this ep came out and one years later the split lp with WWK from Germany, their last release was the eponymous cd-r in 2000. A few year later Punk.gr Records released The Burning of the Brain discog cd including all tracks from their releases plus the tracks from the legendary Disturbance of Domestic Peace.
The next years the band was inactive but they were formed back in 2003 for one gig in Anarchists camp in Thessaloniki, Greece during the E.U. summit. Recently they came back in action and started playing gigs while there are plans for a new record on Scarecrow/Scream Rec.s/Alcoholic Desaster
the s/t 7" was released by Genet Records, the package includes a foldout poster with lyrics, translation in English, some poetic writing and the usual special thanks. Artwork is just fine, music wise there are two tracks,"When are we going to learn" starts with with slow pace and continues with changes of fast and midpace parts. "All for the money' is one of the greatest songs they even recorded, it starts with a ambient-ish acoustic intro that turns to a heavy mid-paced crust attack.
I said enough, check their myspace for some previously unreleased tracks and new versions of old songs and an amazing cover of Beyond the Sun recorded for a Balcan Amebix Tribute.

Anti Mob-st 7"

The first post for this year, crusty new year and best wishes to everyone and hope you had great time
Last night i listened to Anti Mob/Burial-split and i shat my pants, both band fucking rule so i decided to put this in the turntable and bring it to you
Anti Mob come from Athens, Greece and this is their first official release. They started as Grey City in 2006 and soon they changed their name to Anti Mob and recorded a demo tape, in fall of '07 they recorded the s/t 7" that was self-released a few months later and recently the split with Burial came out on Hardware Records. Members of Anti Mob are behind the amazing Mountza zine and in bands such as Swartz and Anger, Hitler Died From Tzatziki (lol) and Nekra Katsikia Trikavalo(dead goats three-ride, lol lol lol), in 2008 they toured in central Europe (Damnark, Germany and Czech Rep.)
The ep delivers four tracks of heavy hardcore/crust with shouted vocals (and some backing deep low growls), bass and drums are heavy pounding, guitars are heavy and tuned down with catchy riffs that stay in your mind and some strange melodies appear from time to time in leading guitar parts reminding of Annihilation Time and bands that put hard rock elements in punk.
Their last release came out on Hardware Records and its much more brutal and aggressive, Burial kick ass too (already posted here)
thats the rant, now go get it.

Nakot/Dyspnea-split 7"

Here is a split of Balkan crust/hardcore:Nakot hail from Belgrade, Serbia, they formed in 2005 and recorded a six track demo in 2007, in 2008 they released a split 7" w Dazd (Doomed to Extinction Rec.s) and the 12 track discog cd"Pod nato bombama i represijom nasije" on DPH-AK47 distro and tape version on on Doomed to Extinction Records(U$A), the 4 way split LP "Grombiera and Paprika" together with Nulla Osta(Croatia),Corrosive(Germany) and Murder Disco X(Germany). A split with Man Made Filth from Hellgium was announced in their myshit but never saw the light of day.
Dyspnea come from central Greece and they shared the stage with Hellshock a few days ago, this is their first vinyl release after a rehearsal demo cd(2007) and Ston topo me ta agkathia (in the land of thorns) cd (2007), they are supposed to release a split with Doomsday (crusties from Athens) and god knows when..(edit:as far as i know Dooms'say called it a day), members are also involved with Black Trinity(old school raw Black Metal) and GoFilthGo(Disclose worship Japanese D-Beat)
This split was released in 2008 by a co-operation of three greek distros:We Don't Fight It, Alcoholic Disaster and Scarecrow. Nakot contribute three tracks taken from the '07 demo recordings and deliver crusty, fast and aggressive hardcore with dual vocals and catchy riffs, the production is dissent. On the other side, Dyspnea bring the re-recorded versions of two tracks from In the Land of Thorns and their gloomy crust with black metal feeling delivered by the old school "true" black metal guitar sound. Artwork was made by Doomsday Graphics, lyrics and translation in English included.
That was the rant, this will be available for downloading for short time since can be found in several distros, hunt it down, it rocks!

Hibernation-Loneliness

This is a repost and it isn't:Last week and during the uploads of dead links and reactivating the olds, i started to add some more blurb in old short posts,(Whisp polluted me with perfectionist spirit(!) amongst some other addicts..). So, while i was adding some more in Hibernation's old post, a HTML trouble came up and all changes were locked (there was no way neither to edit nor draft the post plus the fact that links and letter fonts looked different and affected each page this post appeared. I told Whispy what happened and he said "no big deal, leave it the way it is, none gives a shit",well this must be the truth but i do give a shit, i deleted the post(five comments were lost,sorry people) and bring the record in first page with a new rip @ 320 (is this a good excuse or not? shut up Whisp,i know what u r thinkin..)

Hibernation is one of the historic bands of Greek crust scene that are still active (the other one is Panikos). The term historic comes for their connection with some bands from the great era of late '80's-mid '90's of greek scene: Chaotic End and Forgotten Prophecy (and in a chain of links these bands were connected with some other legends such as Ashen Breath,Naytia, Human Lethargy,Stateless in the Universe and others). Their first ep was posted here, Malisha posted their last release "Into the Silence of Eternal Sorrow".
Loneliness was released by Power it Up in 2000. Cover artwork reflects isolation,despair and loneliness and stands off to crust cliches . The record comes with a nice booklet with lyrics and translation in English. There are four tracks here: The spoken word of first track delivers the first dark colors of despair and inner search in a world of hypocrisy and then the crust assault begins: Alex sings in a side tracks while Yanna in b side's.All tracks are fast and short delivering a blending of Doom and Nausea with a metal edged feeling,heavy riffs, excellent rhythm section and hard pounding drums. There are some slower parts while some keyboards here and there add more shades of darkness. the production is a bit better than the first ep
Loneliness (and all Hibernation records) had good reviews (check some in this fan made myspace) but according to Alex's interview in Mountza zine, Power It Up was not happy with it. weird....
Too much rant.. now go get

V/A - Standardsituationen 2

Finally back with a new post after some time during which Billy shouldered the entire blog burden. This is not the post I originally had in mind, but it will have to do - it's a pretty good compilation, after all. So, yes, yet another compilation & probably a somewhat obscure one - in fact, I got this from a german (it was put out in Germany) & I've only heard greek people ever discussing (or owning...) it (Ναυτία/Naytia - greek for Nausea - contribute a song, albeit in the same version contained in their LP). Seeing as this has been an Antifa benefit, I can only hope it fared better back in the day than its current status would indicate.

I'll keep it short, then. Naytia contribute Χρυσή Νεολαία (Golden Youth); further, the awesome belgians Nations On Fire (what a band! some blogwise-old-timers might remember this post as well) contribute T.V. Reality, which also appeared in the "Death Of The Pro-Lifer" LP. This rounds up Side B - Side A, on the other hand, contains a long track by House Of Suffering ("Insel" - german for island), & I'd have to be a liar to write that I knew House Of Suffering when I bought this. In fact, I still know next to nothing about them, but at least search engines can probably deliver more information on this band nowdays than 5 years ago. Naturally, I also rely on german readers of this blog to fill us all in, as "Insel" is as solid a track as I've (re)heard in a long time.

That's it folks, it's getting pretty late. Enjoy.

Social Outcasts?/Eitilop Pots - Retous Metamodernus! (split 7")

I've been thinking about posting this for some time now & finally I managed to invest the time needed to rip the vinyl, shoot & crop the pictures, & write this little blurb. I hope the greeks & dutch visitors of this blog will appreciate this - it sure cost me a lot of time.

Social Outcasts? (Koinonika Apovlita? or, if you prefer, Κοινωνικά Απόβλητα;) were a greek band from Athens active in the period February 1988-April 1990 & mostly known for putting out a split LP with the (legendary in Greece) synthpunk band Anti (Αντί). (In typical sloppy/the-greek-way fashion, the Anti side of the LP is available for download all over the web but the Social Outcasts? side is nowhere to be found - sorry!) Their sound is along the lines of greek proto-crust bands - no more, no less; I was very pleasanly surprised when I listened to this for the first time, as I was expecting something more punky. Information on the band is pretty hard to find, so I'll mostly recite from memory: the band was associated with the squat in Asklipiou 34, while their drummer (Yannis Kolovos) put out the well-known fanzine "Στις Σκιές Του Β-23 (Stis Skies Tou B-23/In The Shadows Of B-23)" (mostly known to youngsters in the greek scene for the "Fragmenta" compilations). Apart from the 7" (1989) & the split LP (1990), they also released a demo tape (1989), which I've never seen though... One member of the band used to be in Χαμένα Ιδανικά (Hamena Idanika/Lost Ideals), an athenian band which formed in 1986 & released a rehearsal tape in 1988. If you happen to speak greek, check out also the Anexartisi website, the indisputable authority as far as archiving the greek scene is concerned. I would also appreciate very, very much any info one might be willing to share with us. (Don't get me in the `we bust our asses & all we get is feedback from the usual suspects' mode, haha!)

Eitilop Pots are a dutch band from Rotterdam (where Anarcrust also hailed from) who is even bigger a mystery for me. Their discography, as I know it, consists of this 7", a split LP with Surf Or Die on Power Noize (1989), the compilation EP "Rockin Together" which also came out on Power Noize (1989 - see also KFTH), & a compilation called "Welcome To Our Scene" (1991) & issued by "Stichting De Wijde Wereld" ("The Wide World Foundation" - also known as "Westfries Radio Front/WRF"). Apart from that though, I've exactly zero information, so additions are more than welcome! I'll just remark that their name is an anagram of 'Stop Politie' (i.e., 'Stop Police') - in fact, the very same anagram that appears on top of dutch cop cars (you know the deal - so that the driver up front can read it in their rear-view mirror, just like 'Ecnalubma/Ambulance'). Either weird or ironic, I guess. Also, their sound is rather singular in that it's not crusty (or nederthrashy) in the list - the only comparison that comes to mind is the Moonlizards one, but it's an awful one (the two bands don't sound alike & Moonlizards were from Groningen, which is another story altogether; but both bands have an ear for melody).

To the best of my knowledge, this 7" has never been posted anywhere before (& it sure as hell has been out of print for a couple of decades - it came out in 1989 on the greek indie-&-HC label Wipe-Out mind you). So, enjoy! Meanwhile, I'll send a shout-out to the Old Punk who Never Dies whose advice on taking photos of covers proved very valuable - thanks!