Twisted Wrongs & Crooked Rights #3

#3

TWISTED WRONGS CROOKED RIGHTS mdc cursed reign supreme malkovich cruel hand the ocean gewapend beton sick mormons

A

YES WE CAN!

nd just like Obama, we have! I sure hope this man can bring some positive changes to the world we live in. I wish we weren’t so dependent on the United States, but it appears that we still very much need each other. The change Twisted Wrongs has gone through (I’m so glad to inform you about this), is that we managed to release a second zine this year! With our third release it’s a personal record, we’ve been trying to publish this zine in a more constant manner, but unfortunately it never worked out before. Now that you have this issue is your hands, you can imagine the satisfaction at the Twisted Wrongs office!

After issue #2 we intended to do a smaller zine, not just for one, but for two reasons. Reason one was that we didn’t want to keep you waiting for too long and the second was focused on the readers outside The Netherlands. We’ve sold quite some issues abroad, but shipping them has been a real pain the ass. So we wanted to do a lighter version, meaning a lot less pages. Well… we didn’t really succeed. The interviews we did turned out to be too interesting to shorten them and we even have more reviews than we had last time.

Unfortunately two items didn’t come through. We were planning an interview with the Canadian vegan gourmet chef Patricia Ganswind for a new item called ‘Cruelty Free Cooking’, but she’s busy opening a new restaurant, so she didn’t have time to answer us. I sure hope it’ll succeed next time, in order to reveal the mysteries of cooking without harming animals and the planet we live on.

Our last issue had an interview with a producer, under the moniker of ‘Behind The Buttons’, and we wanted to do that again, but unfortunately he didn’t make it to the deadline. If you’re interested in what a producer can contribute to a record, keep your eyes open for the next issue.

colofon editors Daniël Nagelkerke Rowald van Baardwijk revising Lionn van der horst art direction Toula Thijssen Marieke Born Daniël Nagelkerke photography Credits for pictures mentioned individually if known. thanks to all the friends that contributed to this magazine, all the labels that advertised and send promo stuff, all photographers for the pictures and other zines for the inspiration. cover art aaron carwford

Let’s talk about what we do have: we had a chat with Dave Dictor of the American hardcore veterans MDC, about what was so cool about the romantic era when hardcore started, but also popped the bubble about the less cooler stuff. Check it out! We have talked to the German metal collective The Ocean, who have been showing their own interpretation of inventive metal music.

We spoke with the Canadian band Cursed, only weeks before they were robbed on tour and decided to split up. Reign Supreme and Cruel Hand are two bands representing the heavy sound in hardcore today, both of them coming from a background of well-known bands (Blacklisted and Outbreak). This issue has two Dutch bands in store for you. There is a group of young kids bringing new life to the hardcore punk in Amsterdam and we had a chat with two main figures, who both play in the bands Gewapend Beton and Sick Mormons.

Besides the bands we have a column by Paul from the British Initonit zine and an interview with record collector Jaochim Gaertner, who has written a book about now defunct record labels.

You might have noticed that this zine looks a little bit different than before. To make it extra cool we called in the help of two talented female designers, Marieke Born and Toula Thijssen. They have been reading the zine for some time and always were supportive as well as critical. Now it has been their turn to make this as cool as possible. I honestly think it’s the best we’ve done so far and hope you enjoy it as well. Please let us know what you think of it!

Last, but definitely not least: thank you for reading this zine. At the time of release this was one of the few active Dutch fanzines, and we think it’s great that people still care for printed zines.

Last week I had a chat with someone who has started a dubstep fanzine. In case you don’t know dubstep, it’s a musical style somewhere between drum ‘n bass and techno, with its origins in grime, harsh British rap. He has started a fanzine called Brrrap! (www.brrrap.com) in order to inform the vital and upcoming dubstep scene. If he can find the inspiration in his music to do something constructive for the scene, why shouldn’t you for yours?

Our next issue is planned to be out in June (Trashfest!!!), so make sure to keep posted. We just did interviews with Fucked Up (Canada) and Kids Like Us (USA), so watch out for our next one!

Take care, Daniel and Twisted Wrongs & Crooked Rights crew

GET IN TOUCH WITH US THROUGH: Daniël Nagelkerke: daniel@twistedwrongs.com Korte prinseNgracht 50-3 1013 GT amsterdam the netherlands www.twistedwrongs.com www.myspace.com/twistedwrongs

all content copyright by twisted wrongs & crooked all text by Daniël Nagelkerke, unless mentioned otherwise

table of content cruel hand  page twelve

cursed  page four mdc  page seven

embryo punx  page thirty

reign supreme  page seventeen

the ocean  page twenty four

malkovich  page fourty

record collectOR  page TWENTY ONE column  page TWENTY NINE AARON crawford  page thirty six band graveyard  page thirty eight reviews paper  page FOURTY FIVE reviews dvd  page FOURTY SEVEN reviews music  page FOURTY EIGHT

reviews music

FOUR - ISSUE THREE - twisted wrongs & crooked rights

Interview

Cursed This is one of the weirdest interviews I have ever done. Not the interview itself is particularly weird but the things that happened to the bands in the days to come. I spoke to a very friendly Chris Colohan singer of the much praised Canadian band Cursed on a happy and sunny day on the Groezrock festival in Belgium. None of us could predict the awful robbery that was about to happen some days later in a German squat that cost the band and the label (Reflections) somewhere around 8000 euros total. When that happened the band almost immediately decided to quit. Anyway, on the day I did the interview things were still going great with Cursed and when I spoke Chris later on at their last European show (or last show ever?) in Amsterdam there was a great contrast in his mood, which was of course logical, compared to this interview. Chris and I tried to find a quiet spot to do the interview but that was kind of hard so it was a shitload of work to type this interview out. Anyway here we go: text by rowald

twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - FIVE

Interview There’s less weird stuff going on. Do you think I’m right on this one? “Maybe. I don’t think so, there’s only this one long instrumental song and the thing in the end with just the guitar and the sample started out as a whole song and we just kept taking bits out of it. So it turned out to be just Christian but because of the thing I just told you about Christian it made a lot of sense for us. That it’s just him.”

Because he does the end of what might be your last record? “Yeah.”

Please would you like to introduce yourself. “Hi, I’m Chris and I play in Cursed.”

Did you like the confetti during your show just then? “Ow that were you guys? Haha that was awesome.”

Alright then. You are touring Europe for two weeks now. How are things going? “It’s going really good. We’ve done like all the UK, Scandinavia and main part of Europe all in one shot now. We had two days off, but it’s all been going really good.”

Better than the last tour you did in 2005? “Yeah totally. That tour was fun but it was really long. This was perfect but I lost my voice on the first day hehe and then it came back and now it is fucked up but I’m like I don’t care haha. I can’t talk but I can sing, so hey...”

What did you think off the European bands that support you this tour?

“We have met lots of awesome bands. We played with that band Mönster the other day.”

Yeah they’re great.

“Yeah they’re my new favourite fucking thing man.

And that guy Iffi their drummer, he’s my new favourite Euro dude. They’re an awesome good band. It’s been good.”

The new album is called ‘Architects Of Troubled Sleep’. What’s behind that title? “It’s kind of a running theme on the record.

It’s about peoples discomforts, troubles and people’s attention spans being short and people being too tired of fucking thinking if they could afford decisions that are good for them. The idea that that’s not some kind of an accident but that it is a state that is perpetrated our per miss, you know, our mass of life.

That’s what ‘Architects Of Troubled Sleep’ means.

Mostly the intro with the samples pretty much sums up the whole record.”

Is it lyrically very different compared to the other records? “Yeah. Really there’s one theme covering the whole record even as they’re individuals songs of their own. It is mostly that on a lot of the songs on the record like ‘Into The Hive’ comes back to that and ‘Magic Fingers’ is like that.”

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John Baizley did the artwork. How did you come up with him doing that?

“He is a friend of ours and I usually try do every last fucking detail myself, but for once it would be nice to get somebody that’s a friend of ours to do a good piece of art. So we talked about what the record was about and all the themes and all that and this is what he came up with. It isn’t just a random picture it’s specialized.“ Do you still do artwork and stuff?

“I do some crappy design but I am from the generation of ‘cut and paste’ and stuff like that.”

I ask this because I saw in the booklet of ‘Hot Damn’ of Everytime I Die that you were responsible for the photo’s. You know the kissing girls. Do you still do that sort of stuff a lot? “Sometimes yeah.

I do all the Cursed stuff and I did stuff for my old band The Swarm you know. So it was nice for them to do that.”

In the new record is says ‘Goodbye Cruel World’ underneath the credits. What do you mean by that? “That’s about I’m not exactly sure what is going to happen to us. It could be our last record, it could be our last tour. We don’t ever plan very far ahead and we got to take this whole year off because Christian our guitar player was fucked up in his hands. He had surgery or double surgery on his hands and he can’t ever work again and he can’t or he isn’t supposed to play guitar this much. So he just had a year of surgery and rehabilitation. So it’s sort of killing him to be playing all the time.”

And if he quits wouldn’t it be possible to replace him and go on with Cursed?

“No, if he quits that it. It’s the four of us or nothing at all so. We are doing our best with him and we got back here. We try to make people say ‘wow’ when we’re still around instead of making a big deal out of our band five years after we’re dead.”

You’re doing alright. “Yeah, this tour has been going really great but we just don’t ever know.”

If I listen to the new record it seems to me that there are more slower songs and the songs are more stripped down.

One of my favourite songs on the record is ‘Friends In The Music Business’.

What is it about? Did Johan (owner Reflections Records) fuck you over or anything haha? “Haha no not Johan he’s great.

A lot of people fucked us over in seven years. A lot of people fuck everybody over. Everybody that makes a business out of you know ‘music’ for any reason out of ‘because it’s what they love’ make it really suck.

They think you are doing it for everybody else because you are contractually obliged to. We never wanted to make a record because we had to, but because we wanted to. So it was like combining all those shitty things at once in that song.”

Is that a reason why you switched labels? “A lot of times yeah. Deathwish was hard to work with because we were in Toronto and they’re in Boston, but that wasn’t really such a big deal.

There just wasn’t a contract that we had to break or anything. We just did that one record with them. We did records with lots of different people. Goodfellow was good for us because it’s of this really really old friend of mine. We go way back. The song’s more about bookers and agents and agency’s. Everyone that is trying to build a fucking empire around music instead of just doing the work and helping people out.”

You also have a record label yourself right? What kind of bands are on it?

“A lot of younger Ontario bands that are really fucking good right now but nobody knows who the hell they are. So I try to do stuff like that. First thing I did is for a band called ‘Living Darkness’. I think Reflections sells that 7”. I’m gonna do Deep Tragedy’s record with Tony from Nine Shocks Terror. With Cursed we did a BBC session two weeks ago and that was in a studio but pretty much recorded live so maybe that will be coming out. We have a lot of material of seven years of shows so maybe we’re gonna bring that out on a DVD as well. So beyond that I don’t know where it’s going.”

Hah I like to live from day to day as well.

“Same here, same here man.”

Anything else you want to mention?

“Live from day to day haha and have a good breakfast with all four foodgroups. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day haha.”

I spoke Chris on the last show, the one in Amsterdam, if he would like to say a few things more because of the shitty things that happened. He kindly refused and said: “It’s funny how things can change so much in just a weeks’ time. We had a good conversation at Groezrock so I’d like to leave it to that.” http://yourfuckingfuneral.blogspot.com/

m

Interview

mdc

millions of dead cops

MDC has been grinding the rock ‘n’ roll trail since the early ‘80s. They started out in 1979 as The Stains, but soon changed their name to MDC. Recently they have done their eigtheenth European tour and on the first day of that tour Rowald and I had a really nice chat with singer Dave Dictor, about the death of their bass player, Mikey Offender, hardcore in the ‘80s, bands that have lost touch with the underground and what’s wrong with this world in general.

Pic by Marcel van Schooten (Leiden 2007)

twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - SEVEN

What are you looking forward to the most this tour? “Survival! We’re doing this tour to celebrate that our original bassist Mikey died.

When he passed in October we were all stunned.

And then this tourbooker contacted us, and he is a real professional agent. He’s not as big as doing Madonna or anything, but he does The Doors and a lot of other bands like Agnostic Front and Leftover Crack.

He said ‘I’ll book you a really good tour’ and the last tour we did, last year, we went from the bottom of Italy all the way up to northern Finland. I had booked it all myself and it was a lot of work. It was really cool, but it was a lot of work. So this time it was tempting, to not do any work and let someone else do it and see how enjoyable it is. With the shock of our bassist dieing, we just wanted to do a memorial tour and play the music one more time for him. We wanted to honour him and thought a tour was the right way to do it.”

Didn’t you feel like quitting the band after he died? “Yeah, it was very numbing. I didn’t feel like I wanted to quit, but I felt numb.”

“Now we’re playing with DRI’s drummer Felix Griffin and we’ve been old friends. The drummer we’ve been using is Dan and he lives in a squat in north Amsterdam and it’s kinda crazy to have a band that’s half in Amsterdam and half in America. We’re just playing on tours and other than that I have no idea what the hell we’re doing haha… I’ll be making music in the future, but it’s weird to carry on without one of the original guys… We’ll see what the future brings…”

Are you still making new material?

“Yeah, I’ve been doing this unplugged project and I’ve laid my heart into that. We’re playing acoustically and we have split record out with John The Baker. We did an electric song just a couple of weeks ago that’s on our MySpace, it’s called ‘Mary-Jane For President’.” (Dave heads over to the computer to get behind MySpace and play the song.)

Will the record be released in Europe?

“I sure hope so.” (Dave starts the music player on MySpace, plays the old song Chickensquawk in acoustic version. The song sounds kinda folky/country like.)

How did this come the exist? “Well you know, most of the songs started out acoustically.

This song, ‘Dick For Brains’, ‘John Wayne Was A Nazi’, ‘Let’s Kill All The Cops’, lots of different songs were created this way. I’ve always made songs like this, just waking up in the middle of the night and playing it on a guitar. And our new bass player Mike Smith is in that project as well, and it’s based in Portland, Oregon. But life is good, here we are, grinding out the rock ‘n’ roll trail.”

Isn’t it weird to have a band that’s so spread out? “It’s really weird. Sadly electric MDC has become some sort of dinosaur band that gets together to tour. You meet up with these other dinosaur bands, you play these festivals and you’re looking at these dinosaurs!”

EIGHT - ISSUE THREE - twisted wrongs & crooked rights

“In 1982 it was punk rock versus this big corporate world. It didn’t matter who you were, you were punk rock.

In ’86, ’87 that started to wear off” Haha, how do you communicate with your fellow band members in order to practise new songs? “What’s really going on is that the creative focal point of the band has been in Portland where I worked with the unplugged MDC. We’ve come to a point where the stuff created with unplugged, is being picked up and played by the electric MDC.” Has playing acoustically anything to do with getting older? “Haha yeah probably, as it’s a little bit more mellow. We did a bunch of gigs with Leftover Crack and Agent Orange in the US and it works very nicely. The kids like it and the older people like it! We write new songs with it, this band is pretty much out there.”

With the original band, you already did quite some European tours in the ‘80s. What were these tours like and how many have you done? “I believe this is our eighteenth European tour. Our first tour was in with the Dead Kennedies, that was a real cool opportunity. We played the Paradiso in Amsterdam and did eighteen European gigs with the Kennedies.

Paradiso was actually one of the smaller gigs, when we played Germany two- or three thousand people would show up. And the ones in London… Dead Kennedies were just gigantic there and people picked up on us. There was a spirit in the air, it was really crazy. We met Jesus & The Gospelfuckers and then we got to know the BGK guys and they brought us over the next year. We played Hengelo, Venlo and a bunch of other gigs in Denmark and Germany. It was very fresh and idealistic and a lot of fun. I don’t really know how to describe those days, it was beautiful.

We went to Italy and Spain and we were some of the first American hardcore bands of even punk bands to go to any of those countries. It was a lot of fun and the excitement was so interesting. There was something magical in the air, in the US as well. Everyone was so excited. And then in ’86, ’87 it got less exciting. One of the big things in America was that we started realising how different we were. We didn’t get along with the Bad Brains and all these others bands in these different scenes. In the beginning it was like ‘Oh cool, we get to know new people!’ and it didn’t matter how different you were, but later they realised how political we were. Then we got shit for shoving these left wing politics down their throats. And then musically things started changing, going more towards metal like DRI. So then we realised that both musically and socially, we didn’t have that much in common, besides the fact that we were ‘punk rock’. In 1982 that seemed like a big thing to have in common. It was punk rock versus this big corporate world. It didn’t matter who you were, you were punk rock. In ’86, ’87 that started to wear off.

We knew people got it, they liked ‘John Wayne Was

Interview

A Nazi’ and the political stuff behind it. But there were also people resentful, about the vegetarianism and they had the feeling we were shoving it down their throat. On both sides people got caught up in it, there were people going ‘You’re wearing leather, look how unpure you are’ to a point where everybody was telling each other what they were doing wrong. We started realising how different we were, lots of bands were even breaking apart. In the book ‘American Hardcore’ they say that hardcore died in ‘86, which I don’t think is true. Ok, Black Flag broke up and Minor Threat broke up, but many bands went on.”

Do you think the ‘80s are romanticised a lot in hardcore punk? “It was a romantic era! I’m telling you, it was a lot of fun. When we were going to Spain, in ’83 or ’84, it was unbelievable. In Italy we played the Virus squat, people still e-mail me about it today. It was something special and really fresh.”

There must have been things that were less nice in those days? “You could get your ass kicked real easy by rednecks. Especially in America, just having a mohawk was reason for people to get out of their car and fight you. And then at certain point Mr. T wore one on a TV show and it became fashion. Since Mr. T and The A-Team were wearing mohawks, it suddenly became acceptable. All the sudden these professional wrestlers and football players starting having mohawks! But being outside of the mainstream could be dangerous. We got arrested as a band in ’83 and ’84 and we had problems crossing borders.

Of course we had ‘MILLIONS OF DEAD COPS’ stencilled on our equipment and in our t-shirt bags haha… They wouldn’t let us into England once and we got arrested in Canada, because they saw we were punks and they decided to fuck with us. And then they found these Millions of Dead Cops pins and shirts and they freaked out! So they arrested us for ‘weapons dangerous to public safety’, which basically saying ‘we had chains and we walking around roaming the streets’ or something, but what it was: we had a crowbar in the van in case we would get a flat tyre.”

“Just having a mohawk was reason for people to get out of their car and fight you.

And then at certain point Mr. T wore one on a TV show and it became fashion.”

“You really had to be careful, you’d be walking around the street and someone would yell at you ‘Hey asshole’ and you’d be like ‘Fuck you!’, but you wouldn’t know what’s coming at you. It could be this hometown idiot with a gun in his car or something.

It’s a lot less that way now.”

But that only strengthened the feeling of ‘us against the world’ right? “It did do that, you had that feeling. Every town had two- or three hundred punks. It was so cool, when Reagan Youth or Minor Threat would come into your town or you would come to their town, wherever we where, you had the feeling you were similar, but still somewhat different. And to realise the similarities and just how we were doing this thing all at the same time, was very unique. A lot more than it is now… Like ‘Wow a new band! That’s cool, but you’re one of ten thousand bands’. In the early ‘80s it were maybe a hundred bands in the whole US. So when you would go see a band, it could be that you would bump into the guys of Crucifix for example. You really felt like you were part of this underground movement. It’s not like that anymore, now you meet a cool band and suddenly they sign this big record deal and that’s the way they want to go. You realise they don’t have the same spirit. I know it’s hard to be in a band and play a hundred cities without guarantees. And maybe they want more people to know them and sell out, try to get on the Warp tour or something. And then you’re standing there in front of all this sneaker fashion, three hundred dollar sunglasses, surfboards, snowboards, the whole consumer nightmare.”

You don’t approve of bands doing that?

“It’s not my thing. I’m not going to say that I don’t approve, but it totally has never been my thing.

I’m not going to stand on a Warp tour with all this fucking advertising, I think that’s one of the biggest things wrong on this planet: that everyone’s hooked on consumerism. You’re supposed to feel that you don’t have any success unless you have a nice car or a nice house etcetera. They mindwarp everybody to sell their lives out, to sell their souls. To work a job they don’t like, to stay on some treadmill. Especially when the babies come, I know, I’ve got a kid. I looked at him and he said ‘I want Ninja Turtles’ or any other consumer crap. I was so proud of him when, he was fifteen, he said ‘MTV sucks!’ It’s just one big infomercial on how to act, how to dress, how to do your make up, about who’s cool. It’s a big fashion show with all these beautiful people, and if you’re not a beautiful person there’s no place for you on this planet. I became a single dad when he was thirteen, I was already forty at that time, and my ex told me she couldn’t handle raising him. She had some problems in her personal life and asked if I could take a turn in raising him. I always spent one day a week with him, or three times a month, and all the sudden I lived with him day and night. And that’s when you really get to know somebody. In the beginning I was like ‘What do you want to do? Do you want to watch some music videos with Avril Lavigne?’ In the beginning Avril was cool.”

twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - NINE

True. “She was this cute little skate girl from Canada, you know what I mean. But my son said to me ‘Nah, she sucks!’ He is not a punkrocker by the way, he’s more into games like Magic The Gathering and stuff. It was very much waking up for me to see my fifteen year old son saying ‘MTV sucks, what a fashion show. It really doesn’t include regular people’.”

Like he got the message… talking about selling out: what do you think about the recent reunion shows all these old bands have done? “I think everyone should do what they want to do. I don’t think it’s selling out if you decide to reunite. Some bands are more passionate about it then others, but I actually get a kick out of sitting together with all these dinosaur bands. At a festival or something, with all these people that are my age. It’s not often that I get to see so many bands at one time. At this point in my life it’s not like I still go to shows three, four times a week. I might go once or twice a month at most. It’s just the time, I have my own music, and I find myself busy with holistic medicine for example. I think I’m going to study and become a drug counsellor and I’m a special aid teacher. I’d like to teach about holistic diet, basically getting away from meat and toxic bullshit like fried food and food with taste enhancers and go just back to a normal diet. I’m also into this thing called glyconutrients, which is like astronaut food, made from aloe vera and seaweed. I just try to stay as healthy as I can be.”

It’s not always been like this right?

With drug abuse and stuff. “No, it wasn’t always like that. I’ve had my big drugs periods in my life. I think that’s part of why I’m doing so much health food and health-orientated stuff, like meditation and surfing, to make up for the drug abuse. In the ‘90s I fell into some big drug periods, I was kind of depressed and felt like the end of the world was coming. Greenday, NoFX and Pennywise starting rul-

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ing the record stores, so I just thought ‘My time is passed, it’s time for me to fall on a sword, set my boat on fire and push it into sea, but first I’m going to do a lot of drugs!’ And so I did, and I got very addicted for four or five years, to methamphetamine and a little heroin. Friends died, like Tom Roberts (the guitar player of Poison Idea), who was a great friend.

We lived together and did an album together being called The Submissives in the late ‘90s. We both fucked around with a lot of drugs and then finally in 1999 I quit. I’ve been drug free for eight or nine years, except that I eat marihuana cookies now and then.”

really fucking afford it.’ All these other bands that got their start out there and have grown, very rarely they still hang out with the people they used to hang out with. It’s this whole kind of disease that happens, I understand why people do it but it hasn’t been our way. There have been commercial opportunities for us as a band, record deals, but we turned them down.

It were the early years and I guess it was a cool thing to turn them down, haha. I think if someone would offer us a lot of money to do some big shot album on a fancy label, Geffen Records or something, and a video on MTV, I think I wouldn’t be alright with that. I wouldn’t want to lose touch with the people

“I’m not going to stand on a Warped tour with all this fucking advertising, I think that’s one of the biggest things wrong on this planet: that everyone’s hooked on consumerism.”

Don’t you think the bands you mentioned, like Greenday and NoFX, are stepping stones for kids to discover bands like your own? “It can be. I’m not saying ‘Don’t listen to Greenday’ or anything. I’ve played with Billy Joel, but their dreams are different than my dreams. I understand that bands want to get bigger and I’m still good friends with Rancid (Trivia: Matt Freeman played bass on MDC’s ’91 tour and Tim Armstrong was a roadie on their ’93 tour. –ed.).

I just don’t understand why they don’t look back and take part of the old scene with them. You hear never about any of those bands doing benefits for youth centres, like Gilman Street in Berkeley, these places are always begging MDC to do a benefit, and I’m like ‘Why don’t you ask Greenday or Rancid?! They can

from the underground I’ve known for twenty-seven, twenty-eight years. I’d be sad and fucking lonely to give up on them.”

“I know there’s a lot of pressure on those bands, always winning the next generation of fifteen, sixteen year-olds. Because they are the people that still buy a lot of records. Bands like The Offspring and Bad Religion always try to tap into what fifteen and sixteen year-olds like.”

I don’t think Bad Religion really does that. They’re one of the bands that pretty much stayed the same from the late ‘80s, early ‘90s. They did sign to a big label, but now they’re back on Epitaph.

Interview

“In the ‘90s I fell into some big drug periods, I was kind of depressed and felt like the end of the world was coming. Greenday, NoFX and Pennywise starting ruling the record stores, so I just thought ‘My time is passed, it’s time for me to fall on a sword, set my boat on fire and push it into sea, but first I’m going to do a lot of drugs!’”

“Maybe you’re right, they tried the big leagues and didn’t succeed. But they’re always anticipating on what’s the way to succeed. Don’t get me wrong, I like Bad Religion and I like Greg Hetson, I don’t really know the other guys. Feel free cut me off when I’m talking too much by the way…”

No way, that’s what we’re here right?

Another question: you always have been a really political band. Have you ever thought about going into actual politics? “I don’t really see myself as a political figure. Haha I just wrote a song called ‘Mary-Jane for President’, I mean, I’m not going to get elected by talking about the legalisation of marihuana! Haha, I’m too much of an absurdist.”

In your political beliefs, is there a lot of difference between the past and now? “We did an album three and a half years ago called Let’s Kill All The Cops, but I try to be a lot more hopeful. You can see it in the approach of Mary-Jane for President and Sleep Less, Dream A Little More.

I’m trying to be hopeful; I’m trying to breath better, in contraire to being angry, carry hatred and preach it from the stage. Saying ‘dream a little more’ instead of ‘Fuck the KKK’ etc, people know that’s how I feel already. I don’t feel like I have to cover the same ground. And with the music, the unplugged, it’s a little closer to my soul. Getting the harmony straight, instead of louder and harder, it’s closer to me. If you look at my personal cd collection, it’s a lot more easy listenable stuff.”

Is there any old material you don’t want to play anymore, because you don’t feel it? “No, we pretty much do them all.

Ron is oldschool and he loves it. There are a couple that are not so dear to my heart. There is this song called ‘Selfish Shit’, which is an old song. I kind of wrote it about a person I knew, and later turned it into all selfish people. It drags me back into the anger, and reminds me of the inability to cut people slack.”

(Dave walks away to put on another new song.)

“This is a song me and the unplugged guys wrote.”

It’s a little more technical. “Yeah, the bass is hot. Mikey was hot too, but a different kind of hot.”

The lyrics are about the elections, how’s your view on the whole elections thing going on? “I like Barack a bit, they sling a lot of mud and there’s a lot of money behind it, maybe a hundred million each. It’s a personality and it’s all dirty tricks.”

Do you vote? “I voted, voted for Kerry against Bush, voted for Gore against Bush. I voted for Clinton twice. I voted for Jimmy Carter once back in the ‘80s.

And I’ll vote for Obama.”

“There’s a pretty big difference between them and the Republicans. The Republicans are so fucked up.

You can probably see it from the side, if you look at topics like global warming, you see how cold they fucking are. They rather spend money on some absurd weapon system or some Iraqi’s or whatever.”

The last album Magnus Dominus Corpus was also called Millions Of Dead

Contractors, is this about Iraq as well? “Yeah, the picture is Iraqi’s straining up the contractors. Magnus Dominus is the ultimate dominator and I thought people would get it, but no one got it! Everywhere I went people would ask what the picture meant. So was like ‘fuck, I just should have called it Millions of Dead Cops 2 or something’. It was right over the people’s heads.”

Haha, what’s your favourite explanation of the abbreviation MDC? “Millions of Dead Cops certainly seems to piss off a lot of people.

Millions of Damn Christians feels good on another level, because I went to a Catholic school for a large part of my childhood. Multi-Death Corporations says it all, those three are my favourites.”

Do you have any idea for how you’re going to do this? Is it like ‘When I’m 60 I’m going to quit doing this’?

“I really have no idea, but I think I’ll let the electric MDC go for a couple of years. I want to study and be a health counsellor and in a lot of ways it said it.

This tour is in remembrance of Mikey, we do a couple of different remembrance gigs and there are some benefits for squats. If it wasn’t for that I’m not sure if I would this. I love it, but eventually I’ll take my time.

We toured almost every year since ’82, so I’m just going to kick back and reassess my life. I just wanted to do a good tour for Mikey…”

So we could say the death of Mikey gave the band some new life?

“Well, it has making me reassess my life and right now I’m a confused middle-aged guy. So all I can say is enjoy life, be true, be you and love yourself. Treat yourself good.”

twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - ELEVEN

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Interview

You will probably know the band Outbreak.

Well, three of their members started this cool side project called Cruel Hand, focusing on a heavier sound. For a long time this band has been in Outbreaks shade, but recently these guys decided to leave Outbreak and totally go for Cruel Hand. Their new record, called Prying Eyes has been released by Bridge9 and I had a chat with vocalist Chris about this and the heavy CroMags worshipping that Cruel Hand seems to be into. pictures by zac wolf

ISSUE THREE - twisted wrongs & crooked rights - THIRTEEN

“I have no idea what plans Outbreak has, nor do I want to know.”

You guys are from Maine, how’s life there?

“Life in Maine is slow motion, which is great for relaxing, but there’s not a whole lot going on. Winter sucks, there are no chicks, and I can’t wait to leave.”

Most lyrics on Without A Pulse feel really lost and full of despair. In Severe Character Flaw it even sounds like you’ve given up: ‘I’d rather live in a world of hurt than fix a world that’ll never work’.

Could you get into this? “The lyrics in SCF aren’t necessarily about how “I’ve” given up, they are more about how the majority of us as humans have given up and how there will be reactions for our actions or lack of action. A lot of people see what’s happening in the word and turn their head. A lot of people choose to ignore the chaos in the world. I’m no activist by any means, but at least I’m aware of some of these things and I’m not going to pretend they are not real. As far as the feeling of despair in some of the lyrics, life sucks sometimes so I write about it.

I’ve never been one for slogans or preachy lyrics on how to live. Not everyone can relate to those kind of lyrics. I’d like to think everyone can find some kind of relevance in our songs.”

In the song Trust Me there are some Cro-Mags references, like ‘You come into this world alone. Leave the same’, that’s a lot like the chorus of Life Of My Own (‘You come into this world, with nothing except yourself. You leave this world, with nothing except yourself’).

Your lyrics go on with ‘Open your eyes.

Face the facts’… Why have you made the reference so strong? “Cruel Hand worships the Cro-Mags, you may not hear it in the music but you’ve definitely caught me in the lyrics. We see these lines as tribute to one of the greatest bands of all time!”

While we’re at it, is your band name Cro-Mags related as well? The Time I Am lyrics perhaps? If so, any special reason?

“You know what, Near Death Experience is a very underrated record...”

the full length or will it have exclusive songs? “Yeah, the Life In Shambles release is a single. Originally it was going to have a exclusive track, but that didn’t pan out in the end. Now it’s a two track teaser for the full length.”

How did you enjoy Europe anyway? What was the biggest downside? “Europe was really good to us. We got the offer to go, said ‘fuck life’ and went. Being a new band we didn’t expect any kind of reactions but there were definitely kids at almost every show who knew some songs and would go off.

Would you like JJ and Harley to get back Our driver was a lazy ass motherfucker who broke a together? “It’s not really the Cro-Mags unless you golden rule of touring: bringing your girlfriend without have both of them up there, so yeah.” any discussion of doing so. Shout outs to that big baby.

I’m going to take this opportunity and vent about the There is a tour coming up with True food situation in EU. NO ONE IN CRUEL HAND IS Colors (by the time this zine is printed VEGETARIAN/VEGAN. Three of us are straight edge, it’s probably already done). Your tour but apparently in Europe we are not, because we eat earlier in 2008 was with a non-American meat. Thanks for the food and all but we can only eat band as well (Miles Away from Australia). so much punk rock stew mush. Instead of slaving away Is that a deliberate choice? “We toured the all day on that, how about an easy spaghetti or pasta?

EU and the US together with Miles Away over the I’m sorry... It’s not you guys, it’s us being spoiled retards, course of 2 months. Andy Rice at but seriously, what’s the Deathwish asked us if we wanted deal? I think you would to jump on this True Colors tour save money as well. Soy “Three of us are and we agreed. Perfect timing products are expensive, considering a 7 inch will have just aren’t they? Plain cheese straight edge, but dropped and our full length right pizza rules too.” apparently in Europe around the corner.” we are not, because For how long have This is the 7 inch single Life you been straight we eat meat.”

In Shambles right? Will edge? Why did you this only be a teaser for get into it? “I got into

FOURTEEN - wisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE

Interview

hardcore when I was around 11 years old . I read about the edge in a zine around the same time and never looked back. I was so psyched on the idea of growing up drug free and saying “fuck you” to everyone around me. The fuck you part has definitely changed, considering a lot of my friends aren’t edge anymore, but people change and that’s cool.”

Nate, Chris and Seger, are you still in Outbreak? If so, how does that combine with Cruel Hand? I saw a big tour with Bane and CBK is coming up… Is Cruel Hand put on pause during that time?

“Nate, Seger and I chose to leave Outbreak recently.

I think the band will go on scab style, if that’s your thing. I have not idea what plans Outbreak has, nor do I want to know. Cruel Hand has been put on pause long enough and will full bore real soon.”

Sorry for being illiterate, but what do you mean by ‘scab style’? “A scab is like temporary fix for your band when your missing members or in this case not temporary.”

Around the same time a new record coming up on Bridge9. What can you tell us about that? And any big differences with Without A Pulse? “The name of the record is “Prying Eyes” and will be coming out October 14th.

We are all really psyched on the record and listen to it non stop. We took the heavy parts off of Without A Pulse and basically made a record with those parts on mind. Think Killing Time, Breakdown, Madball and Metallica. Rated H no doubt. We wrote a record we

wanted to hear, despite any current trends in US hardcore.”

You listen to your own record a lot? Isn’t that like a writer reading his own book? “Yes, but there’s more aspects in listening to your own records. I’m not just reading my lyrics like a writer would his book. I’m listening to the song in its entirety: the production, the music, the vocals, and the lyrics. Acknowledging where we went right and learning from our mistakes to make the next record better than the last.”

“We stopped listening to current hardcore bands.

We couldn’t be influenced by generic hardcore consciously or sub-consciously.

This was hard for some of us, but it made the difference.”

influenced by generic hardcore consciously or sub-consciously. I was on a heavy regiment of The Pixies, Dinosaur jr. and Metallica. This was hard for some of us, but it made the difference.

The only real obstacles were booking the studio time with our hectic touring schedules. Nate is in Bane, Seger is in Wake Up Call, and Outbreak being on the road.”

What does Prying Eyes deal with lyrically? What’s the idea behind the title? “Lyrics are little more personal this time around. Less calling people out and more calling myself out. Learning to be human and dealing with human emotion. Instead of uncovering everyone else’s faults I’m taking mine off the back burner and dealing with my own. Prying Eyes is a track off the record. It’s not the overall theme, but we thought it would make a great name either way.”

The artwork of Cruel Hand so far is quite modern (in contraire to Outbreak being more traditional for example) Will the new CH record be along that same line? I sure hope it’ll have the awesome coloured wax again!

“We’ve got our boy, Ryan Eyestone from Maine working on the cover of the single and Hot Ash from Miles Away doing the full length art and layout. Some really great hand drawn stuff and both there ends. We absolutely despise the Without A Pulse art and layout. I want to puke when I see it. As for the wax it will coloured, that’s what hardcore bands do.”

Was it a difficult record to write? Any obstacles you had to overcome? “Not really, our chemistry as a band is impeccable. It was the natural progression of the music. We stopped listening to current hardcore bands. We couldn’t be

Any last words? “Thanks for our second interview ever! Don’t believe the hype, get the record. Shouts out to Wake Up Call, DTN, Terror, Monopolurph, Couch Surphmurf, Resimurph, Maine, Karl B9, Cruel Hand mixtape v.01, EU see you in December!”

ISSUE THREE - twisted wrongs & crooked rights - FIFTEEN

Interview

“I got thrown through a Pepsi machine when Floorpunch started playing, and knew I was home” Pic by Intrepid Photography(Cameron Gardner)

REIGN SUPREME Reign Supreme are from Philadelphia and make heavy music. Heavy as in being dragged through a thunderstorm of sledgehammers-heavy. Frontman Jay Pepito used to play in Blacklisted and has continued the direction he wrote with that band and has taken it to the extreme, more in the vein of Crowbar and Integrity. In 2006, Reign Supreme unleashed a demo on an unsuspecting hardcore world (now released as a 7” titled “Fuck the Weak”). In early 2007, the band released a 12” single for the United Blood Fest, and after that a EP called

American Violence saw the light of day, through Malfunction Records, now part of Deathwish. I was blown away by the intesity of their work and was pretty stoked to hear they were coming over to Europe with Meltdown and Bitter End. Unfortunately Reign Supreme had to cancel their tour and rumors started to spread around. Did it have something to do with Avocado fucking Blacklisted over? Jay makes everything clear in this interview and even gets into spirituality and the violent human nature...

twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - SEVENTEEN

“Spirituality is way more important than religion ever will be” Pic by Robby Redcheeks

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Interview I won’t bother you with the typical first question introducing you and your band. When did you come into contact with hardcore and what attracted you to it? “Thanks haha. I came into hardcore initially at age 11, when I first got into music. I was, and still am, an obsessive Nirvana fan, and I read interviews with them where they talked about influences like SSD, Minor Threat and Black Flag. I immediately went to the local used cd store with my allowance and purchased ‘Damaged’ and Minor Threat’s ‘Complete Discography’. While I think both records initially went way the fuck over my head, I listened to them constantly just because I felt like I was supposed to. I really became a hardcore kid though at about age 14 when my older brother handed down a copy of Turning Point’s ‘Before The Dawn’ and his Forced Down 7”s. I convinced this girl from my neighborhood to drive me to see Breakdown and Floorpunch, got thrown through a Pepsi machine when Floorpunch started playing, and I knew I was home.”

Before you got fulltime with RS, you studied philosophy and history, right? What did you want to do with this education, what did you have in mind? “I was a pre-med student, intending to get my doctorate of physical therapy. I stopped going because I wanted to tour with the band for a little bit, and eventually figure out my education later. But honestly, I’m a personal trainer now, and I like the money and the job now, so I think once the band settles down a little bit, I’ll probably just train people, and maybe pursue some other training avenues, education is definitely on the far back burner.”

You clearly seem to have something with (or against) religion. Song titles related to it keep appearing and you even have an intro with Gregorian singing, as often heard in churches. What’s your relation with it? “I was raised Catholic, so a lot of the imagery I’m comfortable referring is from that background. A lot of the imagery is taken from Buddhist thought as well, but that stuff is a lot more subtle. The line ‘kings in this world, slaves in the next’ refers to the idea of karmic reincarnation and ideas about being trapped in samsara are rampant subject matter for my lyrics. Honestly, I don’t care if people are into or not into religion. If kids who love Jesus love Reign Supreme, more power to them. If kids who hate Jesus love us, that’s fine too. I don’t give a shit. We have no real position on any of that kind of stuff. I sing about what goes on in my head and my heart, and I’m not Christian, but I’m not a vehement anti-religion spokesperson. I think spirituality is way more important than religion ever will be.”

Is violence an important element in your life? A background of military and kickboxing suggests so. “I don’t really think so. I joined the military mostly because I hated college and was bored with my life, and felt like I needed to accomplish something.

“Violence is an inseparable And I train in Muay Thai and Jiu Jitsu and all that stuff the same I did when I played soccer or baseball. I like the violence part of human nature. way and aggression of the sport, but that’s just it, it’s a sport to me.

It will always be there. I’m not one of those silly tapout MMA nerds who sweats Keith A world without violence Jardine and talks about fighting constantly. Which is not to say I love all fight sports, because I do, but lately it’s become the will never be don’t same sort of thing as loving Orange County choppers or quoting a world we’ll see” Borat. I’d like to keep my passion for fighting in the closet until it becomes uncool again haha.”

What do you think this world would like without violence?

“Probably a much better place in a lot of ways. But I’m not really interested in discussing things that are completely impossible and as such, have no real bearing on my ideas. Violence is an inseparable part of human nature. It will always be there. A world without violence will never be a world we’ll see.”

twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - nineteen

Interview

“Reign Supreme can’t wait to come over and show Europe what American violence is all about” Pic by Intrepid Photography(Cameron Gardner)

I’ve read that you’re responsible for most of the creative aspect of the band.

Doesn’t that put a certain amount of pressure on you? “Yes, it does, but it’s a burden I cherish. I love this band, it’s a labor of love. And we do it for ourselves, so if people don’t like the music we do, it’s fine, someday they’ll eventually get it haha.

Which is not to downplay the role the other guys have, everyone has input, and our drummer Joe helps me write a lot of the time, because not only is he a great musician, but I think he actually understands what we are doing sonically, and I’ve never been in a band with another person who was like that. We have a great balance creatively. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

Why did you choose to cover Something In The Way? “Well as I said earlier, I’m a rabid Nirvana fan, always have been. We chose to cover that song because I love how melancholy and lost it feels as a song. It just oozes depression. I feel like it’s a beautiful song, and I just wanted to work on our own rendition of it. We’ll probably do that more, I love when bands take a cover song, and turn it into something uniquely theirs, which I hope we did with ‘Something In The Way’.”

In another interview you said that your

‘new’ guitar player Dave can actually sing. Will you guys be using this skill more in the future? “Yeah probably, we’ll have to see how it goes. I plan on trying a lot more interesting stuff vocally and melodically, as my voice gets stronger and I figure out how to sing more. Definitely try to figure out how to do harmonies with Dave, and a lot of cool shit like that. Haha, I don’t know, I think maybe we both aren’t good enough vocalists to do it.

We’ll really have to see how recording goes.”

When I looked you up online, I found out that in the US alone there are like 15 other acts that are also called Reign Supreme and almost all of them make hiphop. Has this caused any inconvience so far? “Not at all, and actually we recently researched it, and we are purchasing the first trademark band name for ‘Reign Supreme’. Pretty excited about that, because we can now avoid a ‘Give Up The Ghost fiasco’.”

You had planned a Eurotour this summer, but unfortunately it has been postponed, because of some awful things happening in your personal life. There was a rumor going around that you cancelled the tour because of problems

TWENTY - ISSUE THREE - twisted wrongs & crooked rights

with Avocado, what is true about that?

“Nothing at all to do with Avocado, I can promise that.

Nanouk has been nothing but accommodating and hard working and amazing to work with in trying to get us over there. We’ve just had so much shit going on, and I had a death in the family, and some other stuff happen, and just felt like timing wasn’t quite right to come over. The tour is still going on, and it’s Bitter End and Meltdown, so it’s definitely sick, and people should still go for sure. Bitter End is amazing live. I think we are planning on coming over in the winter now, Avocado will book that tour too, they are great dudes, and do a great job. Couldn’t be happier with them thus far.”

What do expect of Europe when you come over this winter? “I think I’m expecting a lot of amazing sightseeing, beautiful landscapes and architecture, intense shows, good food, good hangouts, making fun of a lot of people, trying unsuccessfully to flirt with girls in various languages, and all around Supreme team hell raising in 2008. Reign Supreme can’t wait to come over and show Europe what American violence is all about. ‘Ice so bright we don’t need head lights at night’.” www.deathwishinc.com www.myspace.com/reignsupremehardcore

record collectors

Record Collectors Are Pretentious Assholes This is the third and final episode of ‘Record Collectors Are Pretentious Assholes’. It’s featuring Joachim Gaertner, a German gentleman who writes for Trust Magazine and has written a book about defunct independent labels releasing vinyl called ‘They Could Have Been Bigger Than EMI’.

Needless to say he’s a huge record collector, so an appropriate way to end this trilogy.

The title of this item is ‘Record Collectors Are Pretentious Assholes’, after the Poison Idea record. Is that a fact?

“I know the Poison Idea very well and it’s a joke, but not the truth. Men have always been hunters and collectors since the birth of human beings.”

You’ve been around for quite some time. When did you start collecting records and why? “I started back in 1977 when I got my first money from holiday-working as a child. Around this time my brother owned somewhere around 50 records, which I played over and over. After a while he locked up his room and I had no chance to listen further. So I started buying records for myself. In 1978, when I was 16 years old I entered the new wave/punk scene in my hometown and was fascinated by the new sounds and started collecting it.”

How many pieces do you own? “Not sure. I think all together about 10.000 12”-vinyls, some hands full of 7”s and less than 100 CDs. I’ve always sold items to get fresh money for new releases. I don’t event want to think about the amount of records I would have collected during the last 30 years, without selling some.”

Original releases from the early days of punk are getting more valuable as time goes by, so one could say you should start collecting as early as you can. How active are you in this?

“Lucky me. I started really early with punk/hardcore, so most of the ‘nowadays rarities’ I bought in time as new release. Even today I think some brand new stuff will be ‘KBD-alike’ items in future. (KBD represent Killed By Death, by Motörhead, a single that’s very hard to track down nowadays) But no ideas, which ones haha!”

Do you still buy a lot of new releases?

“Yes, but I´m not into the punk/hc-stuff only. So most new stuff is more psychedelic or avantgarde.”

What’s the last release you bought, and how did you like it?

“Latest new release I bought was by a band called Cloudland Canyon on Kranky Records and it’s beautiful LoFi Kraut-psychedelic. Lovely. Latest 2nd hand record I bought was ‘Meet The Plasmatics’ by Plasmatics.”

wisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - TWENTY ONE

“sometimes it’s better to let labels in their graves.

LIKE SST RELEASING REALLY CHEAP CD’S MOSTLY WITH GREG GINN EGO-TRIPPING.”

Do you think collecting has an influence on hardcore punk in general?

“Sure, for the label politics, not for the music.”

What’s the largest amount of money you have ever paid for an item?

“About 300 Euros.”

What’s the rarest item in your collection? “No idea. I have a couple of test-pressings only and some handfuls of items below a 50 copies only edition. The rareness or the price of a rarity was never something I counted on. A lot of stuff I’m in love with are still bargains.”

What was the largest waste of money?

“Buying an expensive CD-Player.”

What would you like to add to your collection? “About 10 unseen (rare) mod/powerpop LPs, to make sure that they exists.”

How much money do you spend on music on a monthly basis? “There are months I don’t buy music and there are days (record fairs) I spend a lot. Let me say the average amount is about 250 Euros.”

What item differs the most from the rest of your collections? What’s the most sketchy item?

“Leonard Nimoy – ‘Two Sides Of’ (Spock from Starship Enterprise).”

How do you feel about everybody being able to buy rare collectibles, with eBay and the likes? “You aren’t able to buy a lot of rare things at eBay. I have never seen stuff from my small WANT-list at eBay during the last eight years.

It’s ok to have such platforms, but (for example) eBay is a meeting point for a couple of idiots wanna earn

money ‘cause they describe a lot of close to normal stuff as mega-rare, hyper-rare, giga-rare, KBD-rare to make cash and drive other interested kids mad.

Also there are a lot of faked bids to raise the prices.

Not my cup of tea. I love to have records in my hand before buying. And if dealers at record fairs are idiots, I don’t wanna spend money on them, even if it’s a record I really wanna have.”

How do you see the rise of the Internet in relation to the record industry? Has it changed youR consuming behavior?

“There’s no need to panic for small record labels with a good roster. But I feel that the majors have a lot of problems. That’s ok, ‘cause they have to think about their politics. You can spend money in technology and after a while wonder, that kids will use it instead of buying products. For myself I use the Internet to listen to stuff at blogs before paying hard bucks on records.”

record collectORS

You wrote a book called ‘They Could Have Been Bigger Than EMI’, a book on defunct independent labels releasing vinyl. Why did you feel the need for this? “I started the book for my self (as a listing), because from the start I was always fixed on labels and the people who spend their pocket money to make things happen. In 2002, when I started the project, it was hard, maybe impossible to find information about obscure labels and their releases.

For example: I had two records, on ‘label XY’ with the catalogue numbers 2 and 5, I played round and around and wanna know what are the missing numbers (maybe similar goodies?). There was only a spare chance to find the information. So I started collecting information, because I thought that I was not the only one with this problem.”

Did you come across some funny trivia, while collecting the information for this book? “Up to the 2nd edition of the book (May 2007) I had all information online. So while googling, a couple of people contacted me. Not really for help, more to tell me stories about their collecting behavior. ‘Ok, ok, nice to read, but unimportant for my work’. The best email was from a guy called B. George. He wrote that he loved my work and could understand how many hours I spent with collecting data. At the end of the mail he wrote, that he’s the author of ‘The International Discography Of The New Wave’, the bible of collectors interested in new wave/punk up to 1982. He offered me some copies of his first edition book, unfortunately not of the final edition (1983), which is a high-price classic on eBay.” Which one of these labels should still be active, if you were to say? “There are a lot of labels I’m still in love with, but it’s the labels history to be defunct now. Maybe some labels wouldn’t be such a cult in my brain if they still existed or were re-activated. Best example is SST Records. Well I know, a large one, but they definitely had the skill to find interesting stuff to release. Because of different reasons the label went down and was part of my book. Now it’s active again, with the new headquarter in Texas releasing really cheap made CDs, mostly with Greg Ginn ego-tripping. Uargh! So sometimes it’s better to let labels in their graves. I’m sad about labels like 53rd&3rd Records from Scotland, Fierce from Wales or Rabbit Cat from Texas. Labels without a release which makes no sense.”

You’re obviously into vinyl, what’s the surplus value in relation to CD’s for you? “The art of cutting/mastering vinyl and something large (artwork) you can hold in your hands.

Nowadays it’s easy to record music on a computer and burn a CD of it. Absolutely ok, but to cut a vinyl record which sounds brilliant is art. I know it myself, because I released (and I’m still releasing) vinyl. You can make mixing errors in the frequencies and volumes, using compressors wrong, have some weird noises in a digital way – a CD forgives everything.

Not a well done vinyl.”

When a band puts out a demo, would you rather see it on tape or on CD? “Because I don’t own a tape recorder anymore, it has to be a CDR, so I can play it on my computer. But I’m in love with my turntable. No chance to change this.”

wisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - TWENTY THREE

Interview

The ocean collective TWENTY FOUR - ISSUE THREE - twisted wrongs & crooked rights

The Ocean always were a strange sort of band. You could hear the ambition in the music of creating something timeless, something classic. They released some great records but the ambition was never forfilled completely… Until the double disc (or 3x 12”) Precambrian they released last year which is by my standards destined to become that modern and timeless classic. Somewhere in November 2007 I travelled to Rotterdam to see these guys perform at the Waterfront. Because of the shitty time schedule of this venue I missed the band play..but I had time enough to speak to Nico Webers (vocals) and Robin Staps (musical mastermind, songwriter and guitar player). I typed out the chitchat we had about the new record, Neurosis and other stuff. Go! By: Rowald

First of all Nico I didn’t know you sang in War From A Harlots Mouth as well. I was quite surprised when I saw you just now.

N: “Yeah, I didn’t know it either haha, it just happened. They asked me like two weeks before the tour got started. They knew that their singer was not going to the tour because he left the band. The asked me to be the replacement singer for this tour but they also asked me if it was possible for me to become a full time member of War From A Harlots Mouth after this tour as well. So I was like “Hey off course’ because I like these guys and I think they are very good musicians and I am looking forward to play with them and write songs together. So after this tour with The Ocean and War From A Harlots Mouth I go on tour with War From A Harlots Mouth and after the tour we have time to rehearse and everything. When this tour started I got a message or a call from Simon their guitar player that their replacement singer came to the rehearsal room and that they tried it but it was a big mess. He said to me we don’t have a plan B so is it possible for you if you do double time action on the tour otherwise we have to cancel the tour? Everything was already arranged so I was like sure I’ll help you and I do it. So every night it’s double time action but also double time fun. It’s cool.”

Isn’t that really hard for your voice to scream in two bands a night? N: “Aah... yeah I mean I do practise a lot and I sing and scream for a long time almost like fourteen years now so I’m used to it and I arrange my vocals. I do warm-ups every day/every night. Till now everything went fine.”

Aha. Well we go back to The Ocean now, Robin, you’re the man who pretty much started it all. How did it came to exist?

R: “Man I don’t even remember haha. Basically I moved to Berlin when I was like 20 years old with the goal to form a band. I was from a small town in the west of Germany where absolutely nothing was happening. I had a bunch of bands there but they were all shit, we didn’t ever got anywhere so I moved to Berlin and tried to find people to make a band.

I started advertising in magazines and tried to find likeminded people. That didn’t really worked out but eventually I ran into some cool people. I met this guy (pointing at Nico) at some show and our percussionist is also one of our ‘forming’ members. He’s not on this tour with us same as our drummer because they had to work and didn’t had any time left. It took a long time to get the whole thing going. There were a lot of member changes in the beginning. Also because in the beginning I started to look for people who wanted to play my songs really. You know it’s all composed music and stuff, we are not jamming and I basically come up with everything including the drum parts and the bass parts and all the strings and things like that. So it’s hard to find people who

like that approach because most people would like to realise their own artistic visions or whatever and that wouldn’t work with The Ocean. If you look at an album like Precambrian you have 26 people playing on it. If we met up with 26 people in the rehearsal room and everyone is playing fucking guitar solos you know that just wouldn’t work out.”

“when I heard the music I was always thinking of volcanoes erupting”

About the new album Precambrian: it has the first geographical era of the earth, or as you might call it ‘the beginning’ of the earth as its theme.

How did that idea popped into your mind? R: “Two things I’d like to say about this. One thing is that I study geography so the whole subject matter and stuff is not totally out of this world for me. I was exposed to it during my studies. I came across it by visual means when I heard the music I was always thinking of volcanoes erupting. You know like rocks and sulphur and lava, streams of lava and really prehistoric kind of themes. So it felt natural to make an accustomed album about that stage of evolution. I also thought it was interesting because there was no human existence or life. It was so pure in a way. Off course we couldn’t draw that all the way into the lyrics because you can’t write lyrics about stones and rocks for an entire album. You have to deal with human issues otherwise it wouldn’t trap any emotional content. In a way I was really exited to write about and write music about a time when there was nothing on earth not even an atmosphere just pure rocks and gasses and that was pretty much it.”

But Sean Ingram (Coalesce) isn’t on this one.

R: “Yeah, why not you ask? I don’t know we have too many already. I love his voice and it was great working with him for Aeolian and we might work with him again you know for the next album maybe. We wanted to get some new people on here too so not just repeat Aeolian so that also means having to skip some of the former quest vocalists. It just happened this way. You know with Eric from Textures, also a great band.”

Yeah I saw you play together a few years ago in Amsterdam.

R: “We just threw our hats off and after that we were hanging out a lot and stayed in contact. We saw Eric acting and singing and we were like ‘oh my god’.”

N: “He has such a fucking amazing voice. Immediately Robin said ‘I want this guy ‘ for my record and he’s a nice guy so it worked out very well for us.”

R: “He is probably one of the best vocalists in heavy music today I think he’s just stunning.”

I couldn’t find in the booklet on which track Tomas from Breach is singing.

N: “Don’t mention it.”

R: “Don’t talk about it haha.”

N: “Yeah, we are not friends anymore, so we said ‘fuck off’.”

R: “Unfortunately there was a print mistake.”

But which track does he sing on?

R: “He sings on the seventh track of “Proterozoic’ I think (Robin starts counting out loud). Yeah, number seven haha.” 

How did you collect all those guest musicians from other very awesome bands for this new album? R: “Well it just kind of happened. We, Nico and I have been friends with Nate from Converge for a while. Nico played with his former band with them together a bunch of times. He already sang on Aeolian and whenever they’re in Berlin they come to a place where we record vocals and just hang out. There’s nothing new in that regard. Same with Tomas Hallbom from Breach.

I already approached him for Aeolian, it was quite difficult to find him back then but now we’re really good friends and he wanted to do a track. Caleb from Cave In is a friends of Nate apparently and I just wrote him.” twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - TWENTYFIVE

And Nico what was your role in making ‘Precambrian’? N: (Sadly replies) “Nothing. Just kidding. I did sing on some songs and some parts but that’s it. I mean I’m doing it live so. I perform most of the songs with help from Mike Pilat who does a lot of the backing vocals and he did sang some songs on the record too. He plays bass on this tour. Now with all of us doing it live, performing the songs live is a good thing for me. I know The Ocean’s visions and that I’m just for the tour. I know how it’s working. Robin and I are friends for a long time and completely down with the stuff he is doing and I really love to tour and perform with The Ocean.”

R: “You still did like five songs of the album though.”

N: “Yeah, Yeah that’s true.”

R: “You know there’s so many people on this album so he should be glad.”

Haha are you gonna give him a bigger role on the next? R: “We’ll see, we’ll see. It could be one vocalist or it could be one hundred on the next. I really don’t know about the next album.”

I’ve heard something about a big recording studio called ‘Oceanland’ or something, what can you say about that? R: “Oceanland is a facility located in Berlin, Kreuzberg. It’s an old aluminum factory from WWI basically. They used to make panels for submarines.

We moved in there quite a while ago for five or six years now. We cleaned the whole place and we invested a lot of time and work in it to make it accessible. We get it for a really cheap rent and that great.

It’s huge like 120m³ and it’s got like five, six separate rooms. And we got our own little recording studio in there. It’s not that fancy. It was kind of funny when we brought the Converge guys down there because Kurt their guitar player got Godcity Studios which is a really nice and fancy studio. Our place is a shithole compared to that but we got good gear and it sounds good.”

PICTURES BY: MIRKO BETTINI It’s really hard remembering all those vocalists on which track they sing I guess.

R: “Yes, he pretty much does all the vocals in that song. It’s the song (Stenian) that has a lot of clean melodic vocals in it too but all the screaming vocals that is Tomas Hallbom.”

How come that ‘Precambrian’ turned out to be a double disc? Was that decided on forehand or did it just happen spontanious? R: “We just had too many songs and thought ‘Hey! Split it up!’ No, I’m just kidding. It was supposed to be this way in the beginning. We actually wanted to do this with ‘Fluxion’ and ‘Aeolian’ already but that didn’t work out because our first label didn’t wanna do it. So we released ‘Fluxion’ on that label and ‘Aeolian’ on Metalblade. So the idea wasn’t new at all. We always had these two sides to the band: one being the epic orchestral elegiac side with a lot of soundscapes and atmospheric samples and stuff. The other side being the more focused straight-forward technical metal songs. Question was how to combine those elements, should we mix it up and throw it in one pot or shall we try to separate it and take it as far apart as possible. The latter seem a lot more challenging to me; to make two albums by the same band that are very different from one another. So that’s what we tried to do from the beginning and that’s why we did it so strict in terms of putting up the songs. In the ‘Hadian/Ar-

chaean’ songs there aren’t hardly any samples there at all, it’s all just like bassdrums, guitars, vocals and really short like technical metaltunes and you know ‘Proterozoic’ is totally different. We tried to take it as far apart as possible.”

It’s like listening to two different bands.

R: “Yeah well, that’s what we tried to do.”

What will be the next step because this was a pretty ambitious project?

N: “Good question haha.”R: “We could continue the chronology and make another album that follows the next stages that would follow the precambrian and make totally about seven more albums. There were lot’s off interesting things happening in every stage after the precambrian.”

Like man?

R: “Yeah but first jellyfish and maybe some other animals and at some point much later ‘man’. But this would be boring ‘cause we’ve already done something like that now. It must be something totally different than that concept. I honestly didn’t gave it that much thought yet because ‘Precambrian’ just came out. It has been a shitload of work that kept me busy pretty much all of the year on a twelve to thirty dollar a day base so I don’t wanna think of the next album yet. I want people to buy this album, I want to tour on this album, I want to go everywhere we can go and maybe in ten years make another album but maybe it happens sooner we’ll see.”

TWENTY SIX - ISSUE THREE - twisted wrongs & crooked rights

Did you basically lock yourselves up there during the time you recorded the album? R: “The recording sessions weren’t initiated there, we did them in Finland. We did record the drums in Oceanland ‘cause that is the most challenging part in the recording of an album because drums isn’t just one instrument. It’s 22 instruments usually.

We had like 22 microphones to record the drums for this recording. You need a really good sounding room and a sound engineer who really knows what he is doing. I’ve recorded the drums for ‘Aeolian’ and ‘Fluxion’ and ‘Fogdiver’ myself. Given the fact that I did it myself and I’m not a pro-audio engineer I’m happy with the results but we wanted something much better this time. So we went to Finland to record with the guy who really knows its shit and that’s where the whole session started. That was really a matter of totally locking ourselves up there. It was in the middle of nowhere. It was just me, our drummer and all the guitar players going up there.”

N: (Making some obscene moves while Robin was saying this last sentence) “Yeah sounds good hehe.”

R: “Everything around there were like ox and weird animals making weird sounds in the middle of the night. The closest town was like 25 kilometers away or something. So that’s where we bought grocery’s and we were sleeping in the studio but it was great.

We could really focus on the music and record sixteen hours a day. We didn’t really do anything else there. It definitely helped like the whole matter like concentrating on the album. Everything after that was recorded in our own studio in Oceanland and

Interview that was more relaxed. We did it when we had time and went back home to sleep. I spent a lot of nights there too when we had long sessions. But generally it wasn’t a case of locking ourselves up there I think. We did work there on a daily basis. I did work fourteen or sixteen ours a day sometime but some days I wouldn’t go there because I didn’t feel like it. So that’s the cool thing about having your own studio.”

How come you teamed up with Intronaut for this tour?

R: “That was all really coordinated by Avocado Booking. I didn’t know these guys and Avocado introduced me to them. I hadn’t heard their music before.”

N: “I knew them.”

R: “They approached me if I wanted to do a tour with you, Intronaut and Mouth Of The Architect (who’ve been cancelled). So I was like ‘who are the Intronaut and who are Mouth Of The Architect?’ and I checked it out and I was like ‘yeah, let’s do that, it’s good’. They’re great, they’re amazing. I really grew into them a lot during this tour. I haven’t really been listening to them before this tour, but now I have been seeing them every night I’m totally fucking stoked about them. They’re an incredible band.”

Do you guys have any other jobs beside The Ocean?

R: “You have to ask each of the guys in the band personally, but I don’t right now.

I make some money off The Ocean through copyrights and stuff. I also record bands sometimes and I’m gonna dig into that more. I couldn’t do that last year because I was recording The Ocean all the time and my kind of alibi is that I’m still studying. I’m pretty much finished. After this tour I’m gonna start writing my final paper and then after that we’ll really have to see. I don’t really wanna think about that because The Ocean doesn’t generate enough money to live off that for everyone. We’ll see, we hope that the new album sells well. Everyone else pretty much has jobs. Torge (drums) however is unemployed so he has a lot of free time, but he gets really shit money.”

nothing is definitive. We will pretty much be on the road since March and touring for this album I think.”

You mentioned Neurosis. Are they a big inspiration to you?

R: “Oh yeah ofcourse. I didn’t really grow up listening to them. The first album that got me into them personally, well I like all their stuff but ‘Times Of Grace’ was the one that really kicked it for me. And the first time I saw them was in 1998. Ever since I was amazed by them because they’re pushing boundaries and they’re so few bands that do that. They were trying to incorporate visual means into their music from the beginning which is also very important for us. We have our own light show, usually we have visuals as well like videos running in the back but sadly not tonight. All that has opened my eyes at the time to what is possible to do with music. They were definitely very very influential in that regard.”

Well Intronaut is about to start. Do you have any last things you like to mention? N: “Stay brutal! Haha. No I’m just kidding.”

You know I’m gonna type that down.

N: “Alright.”

R: “I don’t know you pretty much covered it all.” 

We always had these two sides to the band: one being the epic orchestral elegiac side with a lot of soundscapes and atmospheric samples and stuff.

The other side being the more focused straight-forward technical metal songs N: “I had a lot of jobs but I lost most of them because of touring. I’m employed for a jeans corporation but my main goal is just to tour. And now it’s a step closer to that goal when I’m on tour with The Ocean as well as with War From A Harlots Mouth. It’s cool and we’ll see. It keeps me busy.”

What are your future plans for The Ocean?

R: “Well after the tour we’re gonna kick back for a little bit. Like I said I have to focus on my paper so me personally I’m not going to do too much till March. In March we’re going to be on tour with Rotten Sounds, Victims and Trap Them. It’s going to be a three or four weeks nightliner tour and we are really looking forward to it although it’s a really weird package. We are the direct support for Rotten Sounds and we’re gonna focus on our calm songs and atmospheric songs to make it really different from Rotten Sounds. And see if they’re going to throw eggs at us, the Rotten Sounds fans of if they’re gonna love it. But I think it’s interesting because nobody wants to see the same band four or five times a night. Some kids do but I don’t think the Rotten Sounds audience because they’re usually grown up kids and not the fucking fourteen year old children like in the UK on this tour.”

Is it so different then in the UK? R: “It’s totally different in the UK but it depends on the bands you’re playing with.

When we played a show with Black Dahlia Murder we had a very young audience and with War From A Harlots Mouth it is kind of the same audience. So maybe these kids wanna see the same band like ten times a night but I think the Rotten Sounds audience probably doesn’t and a lot of these guys are into bands like Neurosis as well so that’s not so far away from us. We do some shows after that tour in April. After that we go to Greece for three days and do a week in Eastern Europe and than we are going to do at least one major support tour next year but

Check out the new album! www.theoceancollective.com twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - TWENTY SEVEN

COLUMN

I was a DIY punk rock child!

I was David of the Island. I had a home-made bow and arrow and I fought for truth and justice like a 10-year-old Robinson Crusoe adrift in Lincolnshire.

Like all children, I had an active imagination, one which journeyed through being the head of a football league, a superstar singer and a shipwrecked hero who only ate animals after they died of old age.

Yep kiddies, I cared about the beasties as a child, even David of the Island was a compassionate shipwrecked victim and the roots of animal liberation were sown. My brother and I pulled up a mole trap on my nan’s farm when we were smaller than Ompa Lumpas and threw it into the dyke over the road – no cute little furry lawn destroyer was gonna get splattered by those big, bad steel jaws from hell!

We actually spent a lot of our time cycling around the fen – we were environmental crusaders, communing with the natural world and travelling the green was – fuck TV, fuck computer games and videos (we were too poor for that shit – we only got a colour TV when I became a teenager) we were wild, free and having fun the cheap way. We used to go down the marsh with dad – you could run and jump over the creeks and collect samphire – a yummy free food that grows there and is full of iron and stuff the posh cunts on the food mags tell you is good for you.

I, personally, think our childhood was pretty idyllic, sure it had tints of the anarcho DIY lifestyle that would grab me by the throat after I left school and kick me down a road of thrashing sounds, angry demonstrations and a love affair with the world of zines, but punks come from many backgrounds. Council estates are a breeding ground for angry working class punks – it spawned the original movement back in the ‘70s, and the emo kids seem to be middle class kids who are so misunderstood by their middle class parents who don’t understand poetry, tattoos and eyeliner. But, for me, the best punk rock comes from attitude, poverty, friendship and fucking good music.

Paul initonit

paul@paulinitonit.plus.com myspace.com/paulinitonit

twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - TWENTY NINE

interview

GEWAPEND BETON &SICK MORMONS: EMBRYO PUNX

A group of young punks from Amsterdam that call themselves ‘embryo punks’ has taken force into their own hands. Most of them have not even passed the age of 20, but still they managed to squat a place, start their own bands and just do things their own way. The squat, that was closed down in April 2008, was called De Baarmoeder (‘The Womb’, that’s where embryos live, don’t they?). The two most significant bands that rooted in this womb are Gewapend Beton (translated: Armed Concrete) and Sick Mormons. Oeds and Douwe play in both bands: guitar and vocals in GB and drums and bass in SM. Besides their high quality music, their passionate and honest approach, has put the squat, as well as the bands, on the map. I had long conversation with the two of them, as they are the most influential members of this crew.

You guys met in the first year of highschool right?

Is the name embryo punx from that era as well?

Oeds: “Yeah, we met when we were around 13 years old. The sister of Renco (the bassplayer of Gewapend Beton) used to go to squats and hung out with punks and we thought that was pretty interesting. I found this website called uk82.com and it had a big list of English hardcore bands on it, so we started listening to that.

Our friends were into alternative music as well and started listening to punk and if we got somewhere, they’d call us ‘foetus punks’...”

Douwe: “Because the generation before us were called ‘baby punks’ by the old gang. As soon as we recorded the first GB demo we had this argue about calling it ‘foetus punx’ or ‘embryo punx’ and it turned out to be embryo.”

Oeds: “Yeah, that true tribe feeling! Our first shows were so minimalist. We had no money, no transportation, so we would go by train to some shithole. We once played in a small town with a squatted army base, where a couple of crusties would have tekno parties and would book a couple of punk bands as well. We were 13 or 14 years old I guess.”

What year are we talking about here?

Douwe: “2003. We would go there and the only thing we wanted was our train ticket refunded. We once played in Nijmegen and received exactly four times the

THIRTY - ISSUE THREE - twisted wrongs & crooked rights

ticket.”

Oeds: “But those were the shows where you’d get the most satisfaction from.”

Douwe: “People often ask where the name Gewapend Beton is from, what the idea behind it is. Like with a name like Chain Of Strength, there really is an idea, a metaphor. But often we were just hanging out like a couple of stoners and occasionally someone would randomly blurp out a couple of words. One time Oeds said ‘gewapend beton’, I replied ‘cool bandname’, and we decided to stick with it.”

It fits the band, as you have some Dutch lyrics as well.

Oeds: “Actually we should write more Dutch lyrics. On the next record there’s only one Dutch song, out of six. I think ‘17 Until We Die’ appeals to a lot of young kids because of the Dutch stuff.”

Douwe: “You know what is strange? Most of the time your international ‘hits’ are in English, but with us it’s the Dutch stuff which is most popular, from England to Germany. Like with ‘Alles In De Fik’, because ‘ficken’ is ‘to fuck’ in German.”

Oeds: “And when we got to Colchester, there were English kids who would know the Dutch lyrics by heart!”

Douwe: “I went on a holiday to Israel with Ming, the drummer of GB, and passed some cd’s around to punks there. Some time ago, when these people visited Am-

sterdam, they sang along to ‘Terug Bij Af’! They didn’t know the words, just the way it sounded.”

And there was a foreign band asking for the lyrics of Alles In De Fik to cover it right?

Oeds: “Yeah, a band from Vienna, Austria. It’s crazy that they understand it, even though the language is so weird for them. I wrote that song when I was 15 years old! And people go off on it! Right now it might sound like it’s not to be taken seriously, but when I made it, I was really serious.”

Douwe: “We had this period, where we would actually roam the streets drunk, trashing stuff. Only for a short time, like half a year, but that’s where the verses are about.”

There is quite a contrast between that song and King Of Fools for example, that seems to be against booze and drugs…

Douwe: “We do like to get drunk, that’s something that shouldn’t be denied.

We’re not straight edge, but along time ago we wrote this song called ‘Our Own Choice’, about edgers and drinking punks, that should get along. A song like ‘Alles In De Fik’ is about having some fun in the weekend, but ‘King Of Fools’ is about real alcoholics and junkies that shave a mohawk and tell other people what’s punk and what isn’t. Like when you go to school, have a job or ask money for a show, you’re not punk. They think they are, just for having a mohawk and living in a squat.”

And they don’t contribute to a scene oR whatsoever.

Oeds: “The most trouble we had with these guys was in a time where we’d organize a crazy amount of stuff. We’d book UK punk bands that these guys really liked, but they wouldn’t come. Or they would come and create so much trouble that they’d get kicked out. They would destroy even what they liked, it was totally insane. The song reflects this period of time.”

Douwe: “Very close related in the song ‘Ruining Punkrock’, about situations at shows where they’d get so wasted and only wanted to fight.”

Oeds: “I don’t think the people who read TW&CR have ever been to such a show.

It’s a totally different scene. We used to play in squats where 80 percent of the people there would be on speed and go crazy, smashing each others heads in with beer bottles, stuff like that.”

Did that ever happen at De Baarmoeder as well?

Oeds: “We had a pretty strict door policy and that’s why the squat community in Amsterdam didn’t like us. We had been to quite a few bars, and every time it was the same group that started fights. Every time something new was squatted, a new bar would open, and they’d get another chance. We weren’t going to wait for someone getting killed by the smash of a barstool, so we did let them in for the first show, but decided that with the first slight trouble they’d get kicked out. And that first night they didn’t want to leave after closing hours and we make a real effort to get these people out. Some of the carried knives, totally disrespectful, so they wouldn’t be welcome anymore.”

Douwe: “An interesting consequence was that we got a load of shit for having a door policy. They believed everybody should be welcome, up to the point where they called us racist. Some of the guys of the annoying group were Polish, but there were people from Amsterdam as well. They just really focused on this and said: ‘You just don’t like Polish people and that’s why they’re not aloud’. The positive side though, was that in the year and a half that De Baarmoeder existed, the atmosphere always was super. The people criticizing never experienced this. You never had to be alert if someone was going to flip out. Sure there would be some trouble with drunken people, but overall it was all good.”

What was the highlight from De Baarmoeder era?

Douwe: “I think the whole period. It’s probably easy to say the final party. There were 500 people that Saturday and I still get goose bumps thinking about it. The whole period was a highlight for us as a group of friends to show what we’re capable of. We were able to build up something beautiful, contribute something to a scene as well as our own life.”

Oeds: “And we’ve lost lots of brain cells haha! And we should be happy for not getting some crazy food poisoning; we were living in between the garbage everywhere.”

“WE USED TO PLAY IN SQUATS WERE 80% OF THE PEOPLE WOULD BE ON SPEED AND GO CRAZY, SMASHING EACH OTHERS HEADS IN WITH BEER BOTTLES” Are you working on a new spot?

Oeds: “There are some places we could squat, but everybody is busy. And everybody has a house now. The first reason for squatting was the need of housing, and that is taken care of. Right now we’re occasionally booking shows, like recently at Maloe Melo, with Destruct and Mad Pigs. But it’s not about the line-up, to make sure that there’s something happening every once in a while.”

Douwe: “That show really was a blast, with 70 paying visitors on a Tuesday.

I’m actually quite stoked on getting a new squat to do shows and giving touring bands a roof over their head, like De Baarmoeder was thé place to be in Amsterdam for a while.”

Do you think Amsterdam doesn’t have such a place right now? Douwe: “Absolutely. There hardly is anything to do anymore. We’ve been playing elsewhere 40 out of 52 weekends and I don’t have the idea that we missed out on anything crucial.

Oeds: “There are places like OCCII or the Amsterdam Underground Collective who give punk a solid base, but it’s different then what we had. Some people just don’t go to certain venues because of the hipness or price.”

Douwe: “De Baarmoeder audience consisted of classic mohawk punks who wouldn’t go to these nightclub-like venues and came because we were cheap, but also the people who would go to these expensive clubs, came to De Baarmoeder because of the quality bands playing. It made a nice clash.”

Oeds: “That last Saturday we had 500 people, with just Dutch bands on the bill.

No one from the squat community showed up. It was just the hardcore scene.”

About the fact that it was just Dutch bands, in ‘Some Will Never Know zine’ Sam from Amsterdam Underground says it’s important not to only look for touring bands. They’ve had shows with three local bands that would draw more people than three touring bands. Do you think that’s typical for Amsterdam? Oeds: “I would rather see a local band once a month than some shitty American band.”

But is that typical for Amsterdam, or is it because of the quality of touring bands? Oeds: “There are just too many shitty bands on tour. They come all the way to Europe and think it’s worth the trouble for us seeing some guys who can’t play their instruments, have no charisma or whatsoever, have terrible equipment and think they can go on tour here oh so  professional.”

twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - THIRTY ONE

RITA JEUGD - SIEG HEIL “THE PUNK SCENE IS SO CONSERVATIVE IN SOME AREAS”

At that Maloe Melo show the contrast between Gewapend Beton and the touring bands (Mad Pigs and Destruct) was crazy… Oeds: “It’s a problem of the punk scene. The idea that it’s ok when it’s shit. But I’m not going to work for a crappy band so they can have their little holiday here. Just come over without your band then, we’ll still give you a place to crash and a beer.”

It is somewhat in the essence of hardcore punk, having the energy as an outlet, rather than to be excellent musicians.

Oeds: “But they’re shit at communicating that energy as well. There are plenty bands that are not tight, but have a really cool vibe, but these bands didn’t have anything and they knew it.”

Back to Gewapend Beton. Your first release was a split with Bakfietsboys, but there is no year mentioned on the sleeve.

Oeds: “It was recorded in 2004, we were only together for a year then. The record came out a year later because the Bakfietsboys were having some trouble. For them it was some sort of a joke, but they really wanted to do this record with us.”

Douwe: “And we with them.”

Oeds: “One of them had a label, called Pogopunx, so we didn’t have to do anything for this release. We had to wait for a long time, but it turned out really cool.”

Douwe: “We were really excited to do it with them.”

That sounds like you were looking up to them?

Both: “Yeah, absolutely.”

Douwe: “It’s a funny story, I was taking a shit when Oeds called to tell me about the record. So I was sitting there like ‘cool, let’s do it!’ haha” THIRTY TWO - ISSUE THREE - twisted wrongs & crooked rights

Musically you have SAILED past them in the mean time.

Oeds: “I don’t know, it all happened so fast. There are some really old songs on 17 Until We Die as well. We don’t even play half of them anymore.”

Douwe: “The contradistinction between 17UWD and the new one is big as well.

On 17UWD you can get a hint of where we’re going, as ‘King Of Fools’ is the newest song on that record. Apart from that, you might as well call it discography 2005-2007. We don’t take songs like ‘The World Is Two Buckets Of Shit’, with cliché political lyrics, that serious anymore. We still believe in it, but to bring it up again…”

Oeds: “There are some things on there we don’t believe in anymore. Time has passed and we’ve changed some opinions.”

Douwe: “I think ‘Once I Believed’, still is very up-to-date. When we were 13, 14 years old, we started getting initiated into politics and we were like ‘those rightwing bastards, fascism and capitalism are fucked up. There shouldn’t be a state, noone telling you what to do, no rules. Fuck the police, they give you fines and pretend to be superior’, and so on. It’s good versus evil, very black and white, nothing in between. But slowly you’re starting to doubt everything and rationalize. You get back to what you said and that’s what ‘Once I Believed’ is about.”

Oeds: “And meanwhile I have become some cynical idiot, like I’m 40 years old haha.”

Douwe: “There will be more political lyrics in the future by the way.”

The song ‘Terug Bij Af’, has a chorus about lost upbringing and education. Not the first thing you’d expect from a punk band? Douwe: “I chose those two words, because the song is about base principles, values that go beyond civilizations. The verses explain this a bit better. You shouldn’t lie and you don’t beat or bully someone. That’s separate from your education. Maybe you were brought up in a Christian way, but don’t believe in it and eventually say ‘fuck this all’. Even then basics remain, like how you feel

Interview

about lying and bullying. All these basics are thrown aside when you become a politician. You make excuses for stuff you should take responsibility for. And cops are annoying people who bully others around, that’s why I chose these words. It’s about the basics in life. Even a child raised by a group of hyenas understands you shouldn’t betray or bully them.”

Douwe: “In the beginning I tried to explain it on stage, but nowadays we just do it. It doesn’t matter where we are, we’ll play it, but we got quite some shit for it.”

Oeds: “If you think about how many times we played it for so many people, it’s not even that heavy though. A lot of people do understand it, even in the most PC places. Kopenhagen for 800 people, Eastern Germany, Czech Republic.”

Alright, that’s clear. Another song from that record is Rita Jeugd, the Reagan Youth cover about Rita Verdonk. Did you ever get in trouble for the ‘sieg heil’ in the song?

Douwe: “Oh man, hahaha, it’s the prelude of all the trouble we had with the squat scene. Before we had the Baarmoeder, we had this ‘Embryo Punk Night’ at ‘Vrankrijk’ (old and PC squat in Amsterdam), because we wanted to do something for the young generation. Desperate Cries were supposed to play, but after two songs Flip broke a string. All GB members were present so we substituted them last minute. We played ‘Rita Jeugd’, and the statement of the song is quite clear, against her fascist politics, everybody got it. So at the chorus everyone raised their right arm and sang along to ‘Rita Jeugd – Sieg Heil’.”

Oeds: “400 kids in the Vrankrijk making a Hitler salute haha!”

Douwe: “Afterwards there was this guy, telling us Reagan Youth was his favourite hardcore punk band, but he didn’t like to see everyone making a Hitler salute in Vrankrijk. That kind of stuff, I really don’t get what their problem is. Apparently it’s only the arm symbol.”

Douwe: “The Köpi in Berlin has shows every day and we would be welcome there, but they don’t want us because of Rita Jeugd. Isn’t that really punk, if you can shock inside the punkscene?”

Oeds: “I think it’s significant for the punk scene, in some areas it’s so conservative. My parents accept the whole Rita Jeugd thing and my dad is 73 years old.

He was there when it happened and he can live with it, in contraire to people our age, who seem to be extremely conservative.”

How did your Israeli friends like it?

Oeds: “Awesome, they were bringing the salute like everyone else. These Jews are so fucked up, some even have MySpace names with SS in there, that kind of stuff. Really frustrated guys.”

It must be a way to rebel for them as well…

Oeds: “Exactly, if they can piss their parents off that way. Imagine what would happen if we toured there!”

YEAH... YOUR new record, will it be released on the same labels? Oeds: “No, on Hate Records and Crucial Attack.”

Douwe: “The guy from Hate really is gold. Just before 17UWD he had a car accident and he is still in revalidation. He just can’t do as much as before, but he still does what he can and we really appreciate that. Meanwhile we’re looking for American labels and maybe another European one, to really get the distribution right. This is something we noticed with 17UWD, we were the biggest distributor ourselves.” Oeds: “We almost sold all records by touring and going everywhere selling records.” Douwe: “And that’s what a label should do. Not to discredit them, but with more help from the labels we would have been a lot further. Now we know what a label should do. It’s strange to still have to promote this record, while we have a new one ready. Take Sweden for example, a country our record is hardly available. You have to know this record in order to get the new one.

And with live shows it’s 75% the first record as well.”  twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - THIRTY THREE

Interview

“WE WERE TALKING ABOUT A STAGE ACT, WHERE WE’D ALL HAVE MANIACAL SMILES ON OUR FACES. THEN OEDS SAID ‘YEAH, LIKE A COUPLE OF MORMONS. A BUNCH OF SICK MORMONS’ ”

That new record, it’s called something with ‘battery’ ?

Oeds: “Yeah, ‘Empty Batteries’. It’s about the rut, the routine of daily life, just like ‘Sick Routine’ by Citizens Patrol. It’s about a time I felt I couldn’t go on anymore, but had to. I was in the Academy of Music, lived in a squat where we did shows, I played in three bands… It wasn’t compatible. I had to get up at six, go to school, come back, practice with a band, do my school assignments, and work behind the bar if we did shows, I was totally exhausted. That’s what the title song is about and there are more songs with this theme. It’s a more personal record, with a bit more mature lyrics. And that’s something we don’t want again for the next record! It will be back to basics!”

One of these bands is ‘Sick Mormons’. Flip was one of the initiators right? Oeds: “We had two practice spaces in De Baarmoeder, so we could always mess around with music. Flip really wanted a band and was really driven, so we started playing some hardcore. At first ‘80s hardcore, with another singer. Back then it was called ‘Out Of Style’, but it didn’t work out with that line-up. Later we decided to go for the Southern Californian style, recorded a first song, ‘Taekwondo’, on tape and somehow it sounded really authentic.”

Douwe: “Back then Taekwondo was even catchier than how we have it on the single now.”Oeds: “No man, absolutely not. It was way less accessible, but sounded really authentic at the moment, on that trashed PA.”

What was it like to be a punk on the Academy of Music?

Oeds: “They just don’t understand what you’re doing, so you feel like an alien.

You’re among people who have never heard of underground or independent music. You get credit in a crazy way though. When I told them I’d go on tour for a month they thought I was making a crazy amount of money and selling a million records, but obviously that’s not the case. I didn’t have many likeminded people, there was one guy into technical metal like Mastodon and that was cool, but he was the only one I wanted to play music with. The rest of them were people wanting to play in Dutch pop chart bands…”

Is that tape still around?

Douwe: “It was just one tape and it’s probably lost…”

Did your teachers get it? Oeds: “The teachers liked what I did, the honest guitar sound. But it was a hard time, so I quit after one year. I’m just doing bands now, I’ll see for how long this goes well.”

THIRTY FOUR - ISSUE THREE - twisted wrongs & crooked rights

Let’s hope it surfaces in 20 years when you guys are huge haha! How did you get the name Sick Mormons?

Douwe: “At first the temporary name was ‘Vork & The Roosters’. We were talking about a stage act, where we’d all have some maniacal smile on our faces, then Oeds said ‘yeah, that’s cool, like a couple of Mormons. A bunch of sick Mormons.’”

Now we’re talking names, what’s up with the Asian titles?

Douwe: “That’s a story worth telling. The first song didn’t really have a word or sentence that would fit as a title. When we were recording it, it was like ‘take one’ -went wrong, ‘take one’ –went wrong again, ‘take one, taekwondo!’. Later

on ‘Kobayashi’ and ‘Sukiyaki’ came along and we wanted to do a single with just Asian names, but ‘War’ fitted too well. We didn’t even know what they meant at first, so we looked it up. Taekwondo obviously is the fighting sport, Sukiyaki is a take away dish and Kobayashi was the winner of a Chinese hotdog-eating contest. We continued this when we made new songs: ‘Hachi Me’ means beginning, ‘Hiroshima’ is obvious, ‘Akitsu’ is a Japanese restaurant in Amsterdam and there’s ‘The Error’. So we have three Asian and one English again.”

Maybe you guys aren’t the ones who I should be asking this, but all the lyrics on the 7” are a bit ‘lost’. Like MARK doesn’t know what to do, where to go. Is it a theme for the record or is it more about him? Oeds: “That’s pretty personal for Mark. He just doesn’t get much of how society works, how thing go. He’s a bit unworldly.”

Douwe: “And on the other hand, there are things he understands and gives you an insight that makes you think ‘wow, I never thought of it like that’.”

Oeds: “In a strange way he can be a genius.”

Douwe: “On the new record you’ve got Error, that has more of this: ‘We are the error on your computerscreen, we are everywhere’, a strange way of thinking. On the other hand there’s stuff like ‘I’m walking down the street and see stuff that makes no sense to me’. Taekwondo is like ‘Everyday I’m coming closer, while time is ticking away. Don’t wanna think about tomorrow, don’t wanna dream about yesterday’. Mark said it’s about nothing, but because people give it their own meaning, it actually is about something.”

What is the new material like? Oeds: “Musically it’s much more elaborate, more dynamic, more atmosphere. Especially Error. It’s more technical, compared to the single. Taekwondo is quite light-hearted, you won’t hear that again.

It’s more like the vibe of Kobayashi, it’s a bit darker, like TSOL. We hear we sound like Agent Orange and TSOL a lot, but it’s not the same, it just has the same vibe.

It certainly isn’t copied, you won’t hear a similar riff.”

To end this, you have quite some Embryo Punks following you. Are there any new bands in there, people you motivated? Oeds: “I do see kids who became enthusiastic, but not in great numbers. The kids in Waardeloos and The Hangouts for example.”

Douwe: “It would be cool if they have the drive to organize something and find out for themselves it’s not so hard to set something up.”

Ok, last words?

Oeds: “Gaan we ff normaal doen?”

Douwe: “Koala!”

UPDATE: The new Sick Mormons single will be released by No Way Records in The US. That’s great news for this awesome band.

twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - THIRTY FIVE

Interview

AARON CRAWFORD The cover of this zine is drawn by the talented Aaron Crawford, a 21 year old guy from Georgia, USA. He has done some really awesome and brutal artwork for bands like Himsa, Knights Of The Abyss, The Used, Stick To Your Guns and Necro, to name a few.

This interview will give you some insight on the cover of this zine and his other work.

Alright Aaron, here we go. How’s life?

“Life is pretty good. I’m staying constantly busy and getting stoked for Halloween.”

The cover you drew for this magazine reflects parts of the content. What makes this a real Aaron Crawford piece? What defines your style?

“The cover I drew up basically reflects sort of the name twisted wrongs, crooked rights, plus a band called Cruel Hand is also featured in this issue, so we came up with the concept of a dead cop (MDC) with sort of twisted & broken limbs extending outward. I think it rules. What defines my style, well I always try to give my work an original feel to it, even though there’s a million other artists out there drawing dark and ridiculous concepts, I feel like I bring something new to the table with each piece I complete. I’m very influenced by artists such as Bernie Wrightson, Alex Pardee, Mark Riddick, Greg Simkins, etc.”

To fully understand your work, let’s get into your background a bit. You lived in Europe when you were younger, where did you live? How do you remember it?

“Yep. My mom decided to move there with her husband at the time because of military issues. I was so young, that I don’t remember a lot of it, but I do remember being fascinated with jets and fighter planes and the food being way too salty. I didn’t get the full experience because I was so young, but it gave me a chance to experience somewhere other then the US, which I feel like everyone should do at least once in their lifetime if possible.”

THIRTY SIX - ISSUE THREE - twisted wrongs & crooked rights

Are you from a creative family? How do your parents like your current work for example?

“Sort of. My mom paints often, she’s pretty insane with acrylics. My family fully supports everything I do when it comes to my art and music. I can even talk to them about my concepts, and they love to hear about it. It’s great, and I feel very lucky.”

Is your artwork something you can live from? You never attended art school, is art something you’d to do for the rest of your life?

“So far I’ve been living off of it. I pay all my bills and I even bought my first car off of money made by art.

I feel very lucky that it’s going so well, and I hope it keeps up.”

It’s seems nice to be able to live of your art. If they bring money to the table, would you do art for a band who’s ideology you don’t support?

“Yeah. I’m definitely not religious in any way, but I will respect another persons beliefs. I’ve done art for Christian bands, atheist bands, and just anyone who is interested in my work. I won’t discriminate. I think artists that do, their only hurting themselves. Everyone is entitles to believe in whatever they want to.”

You did artwork for some pretty big bands, how did this happen? How does a 21-year-old end up drawing stuff for bands like Himsa, The Used and Necro for example?

“It’s weird, they contacted me via email and MySpace. MySpace has brought soooo many clients to me. Some people hate using it, but honestly, it’s such a great tool for promotion and just getting your stuff out there.

The Used hired me to do 3 designs, all of which never even got accepted, but they paid me for the work.

Turns out that they turned down 27 other artists submissions. Oh well, it was a good experience either way. Necro actually just messaged me on MySpace about doing merch for his upcoming Euro tour. I was super excited about it, because he rules, and Himsa, they got at me via email. I did a ton of stuff for them, too bad they broke up. Great band.”

What band would you love to do art for in the future?

“Oh man, there’s way too many. I’d say Converge, Cursed, Young Widows, Hate Eternal, Pig Destroyer.

AHH there’s way to many to name.”

It’s probably too late to do some artwork for Cursed, they broke up not so long ago! Funny that you mention Converge, as their singer is a well known artist as well. How do you like his work? What would you create for them?

“I know, I was so sad when I heard that cursed broke up. They were one of my favourite bands, and will continue to be, even after they’ve disbanded. And as for Converge, I’m a huge fan of Converge. My first tattoo was actually a Jacob Bannon piece on the inside of my arm. If I ever had the opportunity to design something for them, it would be so much fun. Their lyrics are amazing, and I could come up with ideas all day long based solely off of that.”

Have bands ever rejected your work?

And do you often turn down offered jobs?

“Of course. It happens to every freelance artist.

Sometimes you bust your ass for so long on a piece, then when it’s sent, the band or managers totally don’t dig it. Sometimes you have to make changes to it, which is fine, but it’s just something you’ll have to accept if you’re getting into this field of work. I rarely turn down jobs. A lot of artists get so swamped and just completely quit accepting orders, but I feel like if they came to me for work, I want to get it done, no matter how long it takes me to get to it. Usually clients will understand if you need a week or more to get to it.”

Quite some bands you’ve done designs for were on the metallic side… Is that your personal taste as well?

“I pretty much listen to everything. I’m very openminded when it comes to music.”

Come on, you can’t listen to everything!

Isn’t there any music you dislike?

“Yeah of course there’s bands I dislike, but I’ll at least give everything a chance, well, except country and shit like that haha.”

You play drums in a metal band called ‘By The Sins Fell Angels’, how’s that band doing? You have a CD out called ‘Mass Liberation’, what does that name refer to?

“We’re doing good, just writing our asses off, trying to get ready for some upcoming shows. The name refers to the concept of a mass liberation of people, like they basically realize how fucked up things really are and decide to stand up against it.”

Your work is inspired by horror movies, what’s your favourite movie scene and why?

“YES! Oh goodness, where to start! I have a pretty respectable collection of movies going, but some of my favourites include The Thing, Creepshow, The Monster Squad, Fright Night, the Halloween series, Night of the Living Dead.

I’m also stoked about this fairly new movie Hatchet that I just bought, it’s so gory and cheesy, kind of like the old school horror stuff, with just buckets upon buckets of blood being tossed around. It rules.”

What makes horror such a great genre according to you?

“I’ve always been fascinated with it. Just the atmosphere and characters get me stoked, I really love it more than any other genre of film.”

You have a new line out called Cryptic Aesthetic. What is that about?

“Well, I’m kind of keeping that on the low low at the moment, but I will say, that the art I’m doing for the shirts really reflects some of the things I’m into the most.

The first line will only be two tees, one white, and one black, but if these sell well, I’ll be doing a new series with more merch such as hoodies etc. Goodfellas merch rules, they’ve always been into my work, so I always send clients to them for printing. They do a really good job, so I’m anxious to see the outcome of it.”

To see more of Aaron’s work, visit www. myspace.com/flesheatingplague and aaroncrawfordart.com

twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - THIRTY SEVEN

ITEM

- JANUARY BLINDED BY TRUST (Netherlands )

TAKE IT DOWN (Belgium )

BAND GRAVEYARD: TWO THOUSAND AND HATE!

Three band members have had sex with your lover. It’s two versus two whether the band should go emopop or grindcore, or the guitar player drove the touring van off a cliff, killing everyone but you. There are a million reasons to end a band. Maybe you even achieved more than you ever dreamed of. Lots of well-known and not-so-well-known bands have called it quits in 2008 and these ones were among them.

Just to be sure you don’t forget them.

- february ALLEGIANCE (USA)

- april DEAD TO FALL (USA)

I DEFY

(Germany)

MODERN LIFE IS WAR (USA)

- march -

SOME TIMES (Germany)

- may CURSED (Canada)

BALTHAZAR

THE RIPLETS

JUSTICE

THE ITALIAN STALLION

HOODS UP (Germany)

MOMENT OF TRUTH

STILL REMAINS

NO RECESS

(Belgium) (Belgium)

(USA)

(Netherlands) (Germany)

(Netherlands) (Belgium)

RUINS

(Belgium)

THIRTY EIGHT - ISSUE THREE - twisted wrongs & crooked rights

- july ONE VOICE (Belgium)

- august -

SO FAR AWAY (Germany)

HIMSA (USA)

LOSING STREAK (Belgium)

- june - september -

IRON BOOTS (USA)

LIFE LONG TRAGEDY

ALABAMA THUNDERPUSSY

(USA)

STAATHAAT

(USA)

(Netherlands)

CELTIC FROST

TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY

(Switzerland)

(Belgium)

DEAD HEARTS

VUUR

(USA)

(Belgium)

THE FIRST STEP (USA)

SINCE THE FLOOD (USA)

- november - october -

ADAM WEST

IRON CAGE

THE ERGS

FIGHT EVERYONE

OPERATION PHOENIX

REMAIN

STRAIGHT A’S

(Netherlands) (USA)

(Netherlands)

SOLID GROUND

(USA) (USA)

(Netherlands) (Netherlands)

DEAL WITH IT

(Germany)

(United Kingdom)

MALKOVICH

CHARLIE ADLER

(Netherlands)

(Netherlands)

PERMANENT MARK (Netherlands)

twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - THIRTY NINE

Photo report

malkovich There aint no party like a Malkoholic party. This is where we are kings

After eight years, eight releases and thousands of Malkoholic shows it's over.

This Dutch band was the personification of 'the shape of punk to come' and one of the few contemporary European hardcore punk bands, that actually did something different than anyone else.

Ranging from screamo to party rock they delivered eight great releases. Like confetti, the curtain has fallen for them.

They went out with a bang though, for the last time doing what they were notorious for: throwing an party.

FOURTY - ISSUE THREE - twisted wrongs & crooked rights

Pic by: JOEP AMSTERDAM ALL OTHERS BY: Isabbella rozendaal

The youth youth youth are getting reckless. In denial of times to come.

The party's here and the blast is now. twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - FOURTY ONE

Photo report

Let's go dancing. Let's start sw singing. Shake your asses to th we don't need them.

Your bodies weren't made to dance, they're all set to explode.

FOURTY TWO - ISSUE THREE - twisted wrongs & crooked rights

swinging. Hear your sweating bodies the rhythm. Leave your troubles,

twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - FOURTY THREE

reviews paper t

BREAK AWAY #4 (Austria, A4, 44 p, printed) Austrian kids must have a lot of time on their hands, looking at the number of active zines from the country. This is the first review of three zines, ranging from crappy cut & paste ones to first class almost glossy magazines.

Break Away is somewhere in between. It’s done on a computer, but not everything has worked out well. I can hardly imagine the creator is satisfied with how everything turned out. That’s a shame, because the content is very rewarding. Interviews with Honour Among Thieves, The Carrier, Sirens, The Effort, Feeding Time, Unbroken (reprint of Value of Strength #2), a Within Walls tourdiary and interview with Burkhard of photo website FaceTheShow.com and some reviews. The choice of bands is a nice mixture of Euro and American bands, too bad there’s no explanation why these are the bands we should be reading about. The interviews are well done though and all turn out be a great read. There may be some cons here, but I hope they’ll keep it up, because the content is definitely sweet.

DC DAWK MAGAZINE #5 (Germany, A4, 48 p, copied) The cover lines of this zine are really promising: Righteous Jams on bodybuilding and crystal meth; Justice: Powered too far?; Are they boring or are they just not interesting: Pissed Jeans; Hardcore just sucks: an enemy speaks, plus stuff on Stop And Think, Black Flag, 97A, Ian Mackaye, Restless Youth and much more. Unfortunately the feeling of being tricked inside appears as soon as you turn the cover page. It looks like another crappy copied cut-and-paste zine. Content-wise the zine is cool, I especially liked the excerpts of the (upcoming?) Justice book. The creators of this zine definitely try to do something different and they succeeded on some points. Too bad so much stuff is written in German though.

DC JAGGED VISIONS #1 (The Netherlands, A4, 36 p, copied) This first-off was released in the summer of 2008. In the introduction editor Willem tells about how he went to a Mike Watt show and the last words were ‘Go make music, start your own band, go start write poems, go write a book, go release your own music, go start a label, do it yourself and go listen to John Coltrane!’ It made him decide to start a zine and he added some Coltrane pictures to back it up. I like this kinda stuff, it makes it all a bit personal. Next to interviews with hardcore bands like 108, Restless Youth and Second Combat, there is an interview with the manager of Fucked Up. At first it appeared as quite a strange concept, interviewing the manager of a cool band… I guess it was done on purpose, as the questions are actually directed to him and about him. I had my doubts, but the item turned out to be a good read with a perspective the band couldn’t have provided. Another surprising item was the one on Whitehouse, a British noize outfit. It starts out as a

show report of one of their Dutch gigs and gradually turns out to be a good article on the bands, supported by answers from the band. The way it’s written is quite unusual for zines, it isn’t in the usual question-answer format. Jagged Visions pulls it off easily and that’s what makes this special. Don’t be fooled by the ugly cut-and-paste cover, it all makes sense as soon as you’ve finished the zine.

DC LAST BREATH #4 (Serbia, A4, 72 p, printed) This zine from Serbia was started for a noble cause: connecting people from the exYugoslavian region. In order to get as close to this goal as possible the creators have chosen to write the entire thing in Serbian…

In my humble opinion that’s just fucking lazy and selfish. I want to read this shit too! Interviews with Negative Approach, Ratos de Porao, Kill Your Idols, Magrudergrind, Let’s Grow, Hocu?Necu!, Slug&Lettuce zine, scene reports from the Czech Republic and Hungary, 18 pages of reviews and 13 pages of columns. Yeah, you’ve read that right: thir-teen pages. I guess Serbians still actually have something to say. Too bad I can’t read what it’s about haha. The layout looks sweet, the cover is shiny and has a cool drawing. This looks way better than quite some zines from western Europe I’ve seen. On the inside the layout is a bit basic, but looks clean. A message for all you Yugo’s out there: be grateful for this. PS: This issue was released in December ’07, I believe a new one came out in November.

DC MOUNTZA #2 (Greece, A4, 68 p, printed) Sometimes zines are like the Wu Tang Clan.

That’s the case with this Greek beauty: from the moment your eyes fix on it, you know this aint nothing to fuck with. The cover is in fluor-red/black/grey and combines modern graphics with a drawing that looks like it has been taken from a flyer from the early ‘80s. I guess that combination of ‘classy’ and ‘punk’ goes for the rest of the zine as well: the layout looks amazing, this certainly is the work of professionals. All the pages have pretty designs and images are razor sharp. The bands included are Vodka Juniors (+ Cannonball Records), Hjertestop and Bombenalarm, The Amphetameanies and heavier shit like Magrudergrind, Trencher, Mouthbreather, Transistor Transistor and Death Token (+Splid Af Vinyl). Other items are two columns (which unfortunately are written in Greek), a tour report of Burial, Crude and Nightmare in Japan, 8 pages of record reviews, 6 pages with awesome pictures of Mateus Mondini and Daigo Olivia (and some text introducing them) and a ‘epidorpio’ on the second to last page that contains links and some short info on the bands covered in this zine.

The introduction of the zine writes that they plan on releasing 2 to 3 zines a year, so that’s definitely promising. Get this when you can, it’s available outside of Greece through Sabotage, Fishcorp and Yellow Dog in Germany; Wasted Sounds and Instigate in Sweden; Repoman in Denmark and Hako Bastards in Serbia.

DC

twisted wrongs & crooked rights - ISSUE THREE - FOURTY FIVE

MOVE ON #1 (Germany, A4, 28 p, printed) I traded this zine at the final edition of the Light The Fuse festival, a festival that used to have focus on European oldschool hardcore bands. That’s also the kind of bands you’ll find in this straight edge zine from Germany: interviews with Birds Of A Feather, Common Cause, Kingdom, Powered Records and a photo tour report of Hoods Up and Pointing Finger. In addition there is a small interview with a graphic artist called Schommer, who does truly amazing drawings, and two political columns. One is on globalization, (nothing new here) and the other is on finding a social structure way for not having to work. Does that sound a bit lazy to you? It did to me.

Writer Guido Ritz states that all work sucks, even when you succeed to make a living out of your hobbies. Work kills creativity and feelings and if most work was just done by robots, we could divide the worlds wealth and enjoy life more. Eeh… right. Wake up, you might not like your job, but you’ll have to, unless if you don’t want to be living of welfare. Move On definitely isn’t a bad zine. The interviews are cool and well done.

DC

RADIO SILENCE (USA, almost A4, 224 p, book) Yeah I know, this is no fanzine, but this is something probably every hardcore kid enjoys. Anthony Pappalardo, of Ten Yard Fight and In My Eyes fame, teams up with New York art director Nathan Nedorostek for a book taking another approach than, let’s say American Hardcore by Steven Blush. The framework is the time between 1978 and 1994 and by doing so they have captured the first wave of bands, but also the heydays of youthcrew and modern ‘90s hardcore. The focal point is visuals, being photographs, sketches for record covers, letters from hardcore kids to each other and pictures of hand drawn clothing like shirts and jackets. They have done so in a very objective way, in order to preserve the context in which it was made, and more importantly, the people who made it. It’s like walking through a gigantic museum of hardcore music and as you walk by the exposed items, members of your favourite band tell anecdotes to them. Seeing the original sketches of the famous Minor Threat sheep, Dag Nasty, Void and Gorilla Biscuits record artwork, a flyer against Killing Time having violent security personnel on stage (creator Brett Breach explains it’s the dumbest thing he ever did), a hand painted Token Entry demin jacket, hundreds of cool pictures and the stories behind them, there is too much to mention. It makes you wonder how all this stuff survived two decades and made me never want to throw anything away from the time we live in now.

What’s great about this book in comparison to Steven Blush’s book, is that instead of excluding the ones who weren’t there (let’s face it, that’s most of us) this book opens up for you and takes you on a guided tour. It’s sometimes lacking clear routing, but the good stories make up for it. There definitely is a chronologic order, starting with Bad Brains, The Middle Class and The Germs and finishing in 1994 with Snapcase and Earth Crisis, but in between there are switches forward and rewind. The final chapter is separate from the rest and puts Minor Threats Salad Days under the looking glass. Have you ever thought about the fact why only Brian Baker is pictured playing live inside the sleeve and how well chosen the clothes of the band members are?

Well, maybe you haven’t and maybe you don’t care? Maybe you think MTV, who distribute the book, shouldn’t be involved in ‘our’ culture. In that case you’re not alone, as the editors have received quite some criticism for teaming up with them and putting a spotlight on the material side of things. I don’t believe that’s fair, as they go beyond it being material and share the passion it was created with.

DC

RUNNING THROUGH #2 (Belgium, A4, 30 p, printed) This zine has been out for a while. It was released in December ’07, but most interviews have been done in January before that. It’s a nice clear-cut case of a no nonsense hardcore zine: 30 pages, 10 bands, 1 euro. Excellent. It’s in cut&paste style, but good to read and okay pictures. The content is what counts here, interviews with Losing Streak, Career Suicide, Vogue, Government Warning, Regulations, Rush ‘N Attack, Brutal Knights, Common Enemy, Permanent Mark and Bad Reaction. A solid melange of Euro and American bands that show what 2007 has to offer in hardcore punk. Good read, I hope there will be a third issue!

DC SIGHT BEYOND SIGHT (Norway, A4, 44 p, printed) This is the zine from the guy who did a column in TW#2: Erik Anarchy. He starts off with a direct punch in the intro: ‘This is not a FANzine. This scene is not based on fanhood vs. stardom, but on friendship. Not on separation, but on equality. Not on worship, but on respect. I’ve got nothing to sell, and something to tell. Welcome.’ I’m glad that’s clear haha! This zine feels personal, without giving the reader the feeling of being excluded. Erik has quite some personal and even philosophical writings and they’re all pretty strong. You may or may not agree with him,

but at least he’s made you think.

There are three interviews in here, with Code Of Honor frontman Jonithin Christ, The First Step and Ole Petterson (now known as Dhira Krishna Dasa) who was a hardcore photographer in the ‘90s, spent a lot of time in a orthodox Hindu temple and currently works as a photo editor in skate mag Playboard. He has pretty interesting things to say and it was a very good read.

The rest of the bands mentioned on the cover (Sirens, Police & Thieves, I.O.U., Triple Threat, Spacehorse, Get The Most, Epidemic, Death Is Not Glamorous, Ancient Head and Common Cause) are part of this item ‘Words to live by… The bands will have their say’, where bands explain some of their own lyrics. One band a page, sometimes really elaborated (like Ancient Head), sometimes short like Common Cause. The zine can be a bit chaotic and looks very cut & paste, but in a high res printed kinda way. Oh yeah, he also included a piece from his old zine ‘The Dead Horse Still Runs’, where the name of this zine is taken from.

More zines like this please!!!

DC SO MUCH MORE #4 (Austria, A4, 20 p, copied) Are you also the kind of reader that reads from back to front? Well I am, and with this zine that makes us start off at the wrong foot big time. The back cover says: DRUGS END ALL DREAMS: DEAD. Okidoki, apparently an angry straight edge zine. Usually not my kinda thing, but we’ll see… You know what, I’ll just read this zine from front to back. For you I’ll change my habits. Another mistake… the front cover is drawn by marker and is… pretty ugly. The intro has the usual ‘sorry for being a lazy fuck and putting out this zine late’ and to top it off editor Phillip whines about his girlfriend dumping him and claiming to be Austria’s leading fanzine. Yeah Phillip, that’s what it’s all about…

Fortunately he makes up for it in the excellent interviews. They’re a joy to read and I especially liked the choice of bands (The Rites, Terminal State, Hjerte Stop and Wolf Whistle), because these aren’t the usual predictable bands.

DC

SOME WILL NEVER KNOW #1 (The Netherlands, A4, 88 p, printed) There’s one thing we can know for sure: this is a fanzine done by a fan. A fan of zines that is. Creator Pim has been checking out and supporting other zines like no other I could think of. In his intro he explains he’s had plans to create a zine for a long time, but somehow never finished it. Reading the Anti-Matter book convinced him to do so and SWNK was done in the same style. It’s all indepth personal interviews, actually focusing on the people in bands. Instead of asking a band/label how they came to exist, SWNK will tell you why a certain person decided to start a band/label. It’s another approach and has worked very well. After reading the interviews you definitely ‘know’ the person better, or at least understand his motives. The people in this issue were Jonah Jenkins (Only Living Witness, who’s song this zine is named after), Patrick Kitzel (True Blue, Reaper Records), Didier Baert (Losing Streak), Harm Haverman (Reaching Forward, Modern Life Is War), Sean Riley (1917 Records), Wouter Jansen (Permanent Mark, Clocked In zine), Rob Huiskes (Light The Fuse fest/records), Andrew Westerhouse (averionline.com blog), Ronald Boorsma (Not Just Words Records). I liked the intermezzos as well, pieces about old NYHC flyers, vinyl inscriptions, a 16-page DIY special about doing a zine, label, putting on a show and taking photos at shows. If you’re not in a band, after reading this special you’ll no longer have an excuse for doing nothing, as pretty much everything is covered.

It’s all wrapped up in a stylish computer layout, which breathes a constant atmosphere without becoming boring. Nice job, I sure hope this won’t be the last issue.

DC WAKE UP AND LIVE #8 (Portugal, A4, 48 p. printed) This Portugese rock is still solid, with an eighth issue already. They always have great covers, as they’re all drawn and unique. Another constant factor are the bands in here, as they’re all oldschool hardcore and all straight edge. It’s what this zine is known for and it’s pulled off well. Creator Diogo apologizes for always having obvious choices, but I guess it’s inevitable when you choose to be a strict straight edge hardcore fanzine. To be honest, I didn’t feel like sinking my eyes into this one, reading another The First Step or Have Heart interview. Fortunately he’s a great interviewer and even if you’re reading about the same band in here, this interview is probably better than the one you’ve already read. The sequel to ‘The Ultimate Guide for Fanzine Success’, ‘The Hardcore Touring Guide’ is funny and useful at the same time. There even are some pages with reviews (a lot of European bands too!), something not much seen these days. Diogo spoke about quitting WUAL before and only releasing #8 because there was material left after #7… apparently he still loves it, because the zine ends with his plans for issue #9, containing Verse and Mindset. I sure hope he’ll hold his ground for some more years, as he hasn’t been equaled in his league.

DC WILL TO SPEAK #2 (Austria, almost A4, 68 p, printed) This was a zine I was looking forward to.

After Twisted Wrongs #1, Jo from Will To Speak contacted me about a European Zine Overview. Of course I was more than happy to be in it and I really wondered how it turned out. Well, it turned out great, to say the least.

I really dig the layout, I’m actually jealous how slick it all looks. I’d love to see Twisted Wrongs look like this! The bands in here are pretty much all hardcore: Anchors Up, Fall Apart, Allegiance, Dirty Money, I Rise and Damaged Goods. Some guy from Ruiner wrote a European tour report that’s 8 pages long,

but was a bit disappointing to me. Either not much happened on this tour or ‘what happens on tour, stays on tour’… If the latter is the case, why bother to write a tour report? And as for the squatting report Graz, it’s a bit too much text, a quote or picture would have more inviting to read.

Ok, I’m getting a little carried away here and Will To Speak #2 is worth much more than that. The interviews are nice and I especially like how much work is put in the backgrounds. And numbering zines by hand kicks ass, apparently I’m not the only freak into it. Can’t wait for issue #3!

DC

reviews dvd

Coalesce No Business In This Business 4xDVD (Crash And Bang) One of my favourite bands of all time decided to collect all the live material they could get and released it on this 6 hours 23 minutes during 4xdvd package. That a whole lotta music I can tell you. It’s a pity that most of this stuff are amateur recordings of very poor quality.

But that was kind of their mission too according to the story on the back of this release: They just wanted to put everything they could get their hands on out: to show Coalesce shows as they were in bad and better days. Some of the shows are indeed better than others and fun to watch. This is nothing more that something sweet that makes it easier to endure the waiting for their next full length. Last years 7” rocked my world so the next release of Coalesce could be one of the best records of heavy music in the years to come.

R. Pelican After The Ceiling Cracked DVD + 3”cd (Hydrahead) This is a fantastic designed package of one of the best instrumental postmetal bands that’s out there. The DVD captures a 7 song live show in London in 2005. There’s 6 other live songs (shoot on different stages throughout the US) and a music clip for the song ‘Autumn Into Summer’ on here as well. It’s a very complete package featuring interviews, photo’s and pictures from their shows’ flyers as a bonus. The sound quality is great and the shooting is done professionally. The most interesting thing here is the 3” audio cd. There are 3 songs in here: ‘Pink Mammoth’, ‘End Of Seasons (Prefuse 73 Remix) and a collaboration track with These Arms Are Snakes. Especially the latter track is awesome. This is a nice document for the fans to get.

R. The Sound Of Animals Fighting We Must Become The Change We Want To See DVD (Equal Vision) This is a live document of one of the four shows this band ever did. And basically all the cool songs from the first two releases are on this DVD and live they pretty much pull out everything they have. You see painters on the side of the stage creating big paintings and pictures.

Dancers in eerie costumes, multiple singers, lots of percussion and drumming, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) projected on the back…everything is there to give you an insight in the schizophrenic mind of this band. The recording quality is pretty good for a live show. If you’re into this artsy band this is a great thing to have but hopefully this band will play more shows in the future and when they do, they better cross the ocean to do a few here! But the chances are big they won’t…ever!

R.

reviews music 5ive Hesperus (Tortuga) I´ve read in an interview somewhere that 5ive used to be a band that wrote 20% of their songs and 80% were just improvised jams. On this new one they claim that they wrote 90% and only 10% is jamming, That’s probably the reason why I like this a hell of a lot better than their old stuff.

Don’t get me wrong that stuff was great too, but now they’ve taken a few steps higher up the ladder.

Although the bandname was used by some gayass kids for a boy band in the ‘90s, don’t let this fool you by thinking that this must be gayass stuff too.

5ive is a band that digs into monstrous depths to dig up music sounding psychedelic and sludging at the same time (with a deep hidden but profound love for Hendrix). Think of Kyuss, Pelican, The Mevins, Capricorns and Mogwai. Some of the melodies have a certain Asian feel on them. This will surely be a record spinning many hours on my stereo.

R. A Storm Of Light And We Wept The Black Ocean Within (Neurot) This is one of those releases that you find in a distro crate and it strikes you immediately because of the beautiful looking artwork. I had that when I found this, but after reading the promo-sticker I wanted to have this release even more. It’s the new band of Neurosis visuals general Josh Graham (also ex-Red Sparrows, Battle Of Mice and Blood And Time). I’m a fan of his previous/other bands not even mentioning Neurosis (one of the best bands EVER in my book!). This band has water as in seas and oceans, as their main theme (They even mention you should sponsor Greenpeace in their booklet). Musically they use lots of samples/ synths/computerised effects to fill up the spaces, because it sounds like a sort of bleaker Neurosis.

Obviously they can’t come up with such grandeur as the godfathers of this scene so they try to give it a spin of their own. It’s a pretty solid record but when I saw them live some weeks ago I liked it better than this record. It was a lot more intense (except for the drummer who couldn’t stop hitting the drums in between the songs). I think that the next record will truly show their capability and that this is just a fine first record.

R. Alkaline Trio Agony & Irony (V2) Sometimes all a guy needs is nice poppy punkrock to singalong to, that isn’t that complex and has a not too important existence as a summerholiday background soundtrack. I must say that Alkaline Trio isn’t

my favourite Matt Skiba band. That honour is given away to the band Heavens that released a record in ’06 (if you’re into melancholic new wave with sneaky psychotic lyrics and a very good production with almost epical songs you must check Heavens out). But Alkaline Trio is one of my poppunk sins. I must say that they’ve become poppier with every record. This one is even more poppy than ‘Crimson’. I must say that this record isn’t as good as ‘Crimson’ (or earlier records of AT) either. They’re some fillers like ‘Live Young, Die Fast’ and ‘Love Love, Kiss Kiss’.

But on the other hand some of the songs on here are very good, like opener ‘Calling All Skeletons’, ‘In Vein’ and last song ‘Into The Night’. Overall it’s a pretty good record, not their best but good enough to release. If you can get your hands on the special edition it would be wise to pick that one up because the artwork is astonishing and you get a nice bonus disc with 6 songs (most of them acoustic versions of this albums’ songs).

R. ALONE KISS DREAMS GOODBYE EP (REFOUNDATION) The artwork of this record seems to match the title. The departing train leaving a spacious station seems to be metaphor for the dreams that are kissed goodbye, just like the passengers on the train. The record starts of great modern hardcore rooted in oldschool stuff. I like the short and mellow guitar solos as well. As soon as the vocals kick in the listener is tested, I really needed to get used to them. They’re a bit strange in the mix: distinct, far away. At first this is annoying, but as the record goes on, it pushes the band even more towards sounding like Turning Point. There certainly is melancholy in here, but the vocals are still not my thing. How every last word of a sentence is stretched becomes a bit annoying after a while. When you don’t like this record for the start, give it another chance, it took me some time to get into this as well.

DC Amen Ra Mass IIII (Hypertention) Everybody into dark and apocalyptic postcore/metal in Europe must know this band by know. With their overwhelming live shows and creeping visuals they blow their audiences away every time.

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It’s been a while since the released anything new (other members have been busy with shoegaze inspired band ‘Syndrome’ as well) but ‘Mass III’ kept playing on my record player every 4 weeks or so.

Now with this new record their progression is just very subtle. They didn’t really do anything shockingly new to their style. It didn’t grow on me like ‘Mass III’ did and I thought of like a rehearse of what they’ve already done a lot in the past. But when I saw these tracks live they totally grabbed me and pulled me in. So now I’m more into it but they could have kept it more raw and they could try to use different productions per songs, so that it would sound more dynamic like ‘Mass III’. The subtlety kind of work against them. This is a good album though but it could have been better.

R. Anaphylactic Shock Two Thousand Years (Hypertention) This is a band that has it’s sounds somewhere between dark hardcore like Cursed but it also has a death-metal kind of vibe. I like the label punkmetal (that Rise And Fall uses) for this except that it leans a lot more on metal than Rise And Fall (in fact it doesn’t sound like R&F at all but I just find it a nice label for this because of the thought behind it).

Musically this is very badass stuff. It’s low tuned, aggressive and mid-tempo. I find myself nodding my head in content on this easily. But I can’t really get into the singers voice. It’s a bit too over intonated in a blackmetalish kind of way. I think I would like it more if the singer sounded more distorted. I don’t know. It’s a pretty cool style they have here, something that I would normally like a lot but the singer is ruining it for me. Well it’s probably just me. Give this band a shot if you’re into dark metal/hardcore.

R. ANCHOR CAPTIVITY SONGS MCD (REFOUNDATION) In the ancient Western tattoo culture, it was mostly sailors and lowlifes sporting the ink images.

In those days the meaning behind an image was more important than the look of the image itself and a popular choice was an anchor. It stood for reaching the point in your life where you’re settled and happy with your situation, so you throw out your anchor figuratively speaking. This band called Anchor also puts the message before the image, but they’re definitely not happy with the situation around them. Items like religion, alcohol, animal abuse and simply the coldness of this world are well wrapped before they are shouted, sung and sometimes even spoken.

Captivity Songs starts at a steady pace, speeding towards the middle, reaching maximum speed at ‘Captivity’. This is the point where the foot leaves the pedal and Anchor drifts further, but song four ‘It Kills You To Know’ hits it off fast again, switching between mellow and brutal parts. A clean guitar solo takes you into the last song, where the sound becomes thinner.

They are on tour through Europe with Verse until December and will be touring the West coast of the US in February, go see them if you have the chance, I’m sure this is great live.

DC Antillectual Testimony (Shield) This is a collaboration release between six labels: Shield Records, Fond of Life Records, Infected Records, No Reason Records, Rise of Rust Records and Youth Way Records. Well ‘Testimony’ is Antillectuals second album and I must say that it’s quite better than their first, production and songwise. I bet that they’ve taken more time to record this. It all sounds more smoother. But their punk/hardcore style is still the same. It reminds me of Boysetsfire sometimes. Singer/guitarist Willem’s voice reminds me of the singer of No Fun At All but he can sound a bit more snappy at the times (which is a good thing because the lyrics are not all positive). Bassist/singer Ivo brings in the aggressive notes with his maniacal screaming. The thing I like about Antillectual is that they’re a pretty outspoken left-wing band. All lyrics come with an explanation and in a time that punk and hardcore seem to become more flat lyrically it’s good to see that there are still bands out there that care about the whole d.i.y. ethic, animal rights and the fact that we’re all stuck in this web of mass-consumption. Antillectual can sound sweet and angry at the same time and in that lies their songwriting strenght. I think this is one of the best Dutch releases that will come out this year along with the Union Town LP. R. Atlas Losing Grip Shut The World Out (Shield/No Reason/DV’S) Punkrock like this wasn’t all that popular the last couple of years. This Swedish group goes back to the skatepunk of the ‘90s when Satanic Surfers, Venerea and Ten Foot Pole ruled the scene. This band is good friends with Satanic Surfers because some of the members play with some of those guys in the band Enemy Alliance. Rodrigo Alfaro even sings on three songs on this album and there’s an Adhesive cover present. I must say that I don’t listen often to skatepunk anymore. At least not as much when I was 16, but this would be one of the albums I would get really into. The production is good, I like the singing and the guitarlines. It reminds me a bit of a band from around here called Dainty Defiance (RIP) too. The artwork is based upon those silly ‘What To Do When The A-Bomb Drops’ USA propaganda of the ‘50s. Funny shit. I like this and anyone who has a weak spot for the quality Scandinavian skatepunk of

the old days should definitely check this out.

R. Bad Reaction Had It Coming (Reflections) This record contains Bad Reaction earlier releases ‘Dare To Be Dull’ and ‘The Plastic World’ 7”s plus an additional bonus track ‘Pay To Cum’ from the DC legends Bad Brains. I must say that I quite enjoyed these 9 tracks of melodic old school.

It’s not very original but it doesn’t sound outdated at all. I’m glad that in 2008 there are still bands doing this kind music. The lyrics deal with criticism against society, but they do that with a certain sarcasm (like in ‘Keep Your God Out Of My Peanutbutter’). I’m curious if their next release will please me as well as this one did.

R. BALANCE IN LIKE A LION EP (NOT JUST WORDS) If you liked the demo of this Swedish straight edge hardcore band (ofcourse you did!) you’re in for a treat, cause damn! Singer Johan has turned it all up a notch. This six song 7” has three songs about straight edge, one against eating meat and one about backstabbers. And to be honest, who needs modernity if you can sing along to this like it’s ’88 all over again. Even though the edge beliefs aren’t something I share with them, I can’t wait to sing along to this stuff. Every song on this record was meant to cause chaos on dance floors worldwide. They took two songs of the demo (Drop Out and Face To Face), which happened to be the strongest songs of that demo.

The ones that didn’t make it to this record had slower parts, along the line of Judge, but somehow this new record still has a Judge vibe. Especially the drums are simply faster most of the time. And that’s great, ‘cause it keeps this record energetic. Unfortunately these kind of bands have the reputation to leave with the same speed as they came so get this and go see them while you can.

DC Black Anvil Time Insults The Mind (Monumentum) Another cool release on Monumentum (Reflections Records ‘metal’ sidelabel).

Black Anvil is started by hardcore kids who were in bands like Kill Your Idols, None More Black, Madball and more. Obviously these kids grew up in the blossoming scene of the mid ‘80s to the early ‘90s because that is where they draw most inspiration from. Their musical range is somewhere between Possessed, The Haunted, Celtic Frost, Slayer and Venom. They freshly mix up trashmetal with black/death metal elements. They lean a lot more on rocking then that they focus on a dark and creeping

sound like many black metal bands do nowadays.

Overall it’s not that original but its fun to listen to if your into this kind of metal or if you grew up with the before mentioned bands. Black Anvil won’t change the world for you but it entertained me for a minute or fourty and that’s good enough for me.

R. BLACKLISTED HEAVIER THAN HEAVEN, LONELIER THAN GOD LP (DEATHWISH) Already the fourth release on Deathwish for Philadelphia’s finest, Blacklisted. This one is a continuation of their last 7” ‘Peace On Earth War On Stage’, two of those songs can be found on this album. The sharp edges that all their material up till ‘The Beat Goes On’ had are grinded off, but we have received an intense album in return. Instead of bare knuckles it’s a big fucking glove hitting you this time.

It’s a heavy record, with monstrous grooves and lyrically we dig a little deeper into vocalist Georges head. Even though the lyrics always have been personal, this time it’s even more introvert, not blaming the world but himself. He really pours his heart out with final song ‘Wish’ as a peak: “On your strongest of days you couldn’t make me feel any less insane.

Wish the ongoing theme about me, wasn’t “he’s just crazy”. Wish I knew safety. Wish nothing phased me. Wish I felt more than just feelings of unrest.

Wish the darkness didn’t cloud me. Wish I wasn’t an emotional wreck”.

In case you’ve been sleeping on this band (something I cannot imagine) get into it if you even remotely like the Cro-Mags or American Nightmare.

DC Black Tusk Passage Through Purgatory LP Hyperrealist Haling from Savannah, from the same fertile grounds where Kylesa and Baroness sprouted, comes this new mighty creature called Black Tusk. Three men strong all switching the microphone to throw out their screaming vocal abilities. They deliver a metal inspired hardcore sound which reminds me of (old) Baroness, Saviours, Municipal Waste and Mastodon all in once. They’re pretty fast and trashy with stoneresque guitar riffing and old school metal parts thrown together into a original and creative musical style of their own. The artwork is another challenging piece of art from Baroness’ John Baizley. I was totally blown away by this record because of it’s raging tempo and headbangin’ approved grooves. I hope they visit the European shores any time soon.

R. Boris Smile (Southern Lord) It’s been a while since Boris released something which wasn’t a collaboration (not that the Sunn())), Merzbow and Michio Kurihara records were any bad, on the contrary they were great). To me it seems that smile continues where ‘Pink’ left off. They start

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off rather dull with a slow song but little later they start rocking like only Boris can rock. The funny thing with Boris is that you’ll never know what’re gonna get. They can easily turn from a ‘70s rock ‘n roll song to a 10 minute drone to a Melvins styled mini-opus.

They’ve recorded albums that were merely feedback and doom. But they’ve also recorded albums that were mostly rocking from beginning to the end (like ‘Pink’). With this new one it is a bit different than with ‘Pink’ (still lots of ‘70s rock elements) because this one’s a bit harder sometimes (more Melvins!) and that it’s tending more towards their older material (this time it’s 7 stretched out songs instead of 11 relatively short ones). It’s definitely more experimental than ‘Pink’. Although it took some time to get used to it I really like it. Especially the production sounds very strong. Stephen O’Malley once again designed this Boris release so that it meets the eye just as it meets the music.

R. BRAT PACK HATE THE NEIGHBOURS CD (CRUCIAL ATTACK) Hate the neighbours! I used to live in a house with three friends and every once in a while we would throw a party there. All the furniture outside, cocktail bar in the kitchen and dj booth on the place where usually would be a carpet. We would wrap the wooden floor in plastic, set up a tent outside and cram a hundred people in there (not kidding), most of them not leaving until the sun came up. The thing was, we were living in a really nice neighbourhood and left and right of us were all families. We were cool with them: when we’d throw a party, someone would fill in the neighbours by putting a note in their mailbox.

So one day I was setting up this tent outside and the neighbour comes looking over the fence saying ‘I see you’re having a party… I want it to be quiet by 12, we have a important day tomorrow and we want to have a good night sleep.’ Apparently someone forgot to let them know… we invited everyone at 11, so there was no way in hell it would be quiet by 12.

We offered to pay him a hotel for the night, but he refused and decided to stay home. Eventually we ended up keeping everyone inside so they wouldn’t make any noise outside, but still the police showed up a couple of times and as I’ve been told, also multiple neighbours. The best thing was, we could see the police coming up the street, so when they drove towards us we would turn down the music and they would be really surprised what the fuss was all about. I’ve lived there for another year, but the relationship with the neighbours never re-established.

The day after this infamous party Pointing Finger and Hoods Up played in Amsterdam and Brat Pack would open for them. The song ‘Hate The Neighbours’ (or them hating us) has never been so appropriate.

They have been playing these songs live for quite some time now, but this record wasn’t released until May 2008. They did deliver an excellent demo, with a slight faster pace. Two of these demo songs did make it to this record, ‘See If We Care’ and ‘Spending Money’, which is excellently blended with openfifty - ISSUE THREE - twisted wrongs & crooked rights

er Sick Burn. On this record they have brought in some more melody and mid-tempo stuff, creating a melting pot of melodic punkrock and short-fast-loud hardcore. If your favourite bands are from the American West coast you will probably love this. Play it at home, crank up the volume and make your neighbours hate you!

DC BROKEN DISTANCE HOURGLASS CD (MONUMENT/TAKE THE RISK) Pointing Finger has called it quits, but there are still some Portuguese straight edge hardcore bands around. One of them is Broken Distance, operating in more modern and less positive way. Through the lyrics on this record they’re trying to cope with time, as sometimes the past is painful and sometimes the present isn’t as great as the past was. Around this theme they have created six powerful hardcore tunes that combine the dark side of Carry On with fresh contemporary melodies. This is one of the European bands that definitely deserves some more attention.

DC Burial Chamber Trio Wvrm 10” (Southern Lord) Together with the Boskk 2 x 12” this picture disc is one of the best-looking designs that Seldon Hunt ever did. It’s a weird picture of a wormlike thing on both sides but the skull printed on the discs’ plastic envelope makes this release look awesome. Burial Chamber Trio released a 12” earlier on and it contains people from Sunn())). So most people know what to expect.

Droning and doom + weird effects. This sounds like you’re stuck in some demon dimension and a subway station. Funny thing about this is that they recorded it in Rotterdam at Worm (I don’t know if that’s a venue or a studio but it doesn’t sound like it’s recorded live). Cool release.

R. Cancer Bats Hail Destroyer (Hassle/Distort) Some bands just tour too much. Take for instance Parkway Drive; not a bad band but they come to Europe like three times a year. Cancer Bats must take care that they don’t do the same since they’ve done a lot of touring as well the last one and a half year, with nothing but a decent, but not brilliant record. People might get bored of them too easily. Well this new one is a lot better than debut ‘Birthing The Giant’. CB have grown a lot better as musicians. Especially the ‘southern-rock’ riff got way more place on this record. And the sound has thickened more. Also the thing that improved a lot is the way of singing of Liam Cormier on this record.

On the debut he had this standard flow of singing and he did that on almost all of the songs. He put more variation on it this time (and he had some help on the song ‘Harem Of Scorpions’ of Tim McIlrath of Rise Against fame. I think that people who think that this is just one of those fashion bands (because of ‘overtouring’) should really give this band a try. You know southern rock and hardcore combined in one band sounds pretty attractive right?

R. Cavity Laid Insignificant (Hydrahead) This is a re-release with brand new A.Turner artwork from the now defunct band Cavity (some members went on with Black Cobra). Cavity is one of those bands I never get tired of. I really like ‘On The Lam’ and ‘Supercolider’ so I’m glad Hydrahead decided to re-release this out-of-press release. If you’re into stoner/doom/sludge with a nice fuzzy sound and you like bands like Floor, Black Cobra, Electric Wizard and Torche you need to pick this up because this was one of the best bands of this particular genre.

R. CEREMONY STILL NOTHING MOVES YOU LP (BRIDGE9) Atmosphere is key in Ceremony’s notso-wonderful world.

Where violence, bitterness and harsh anger kept stabbing you in the head on their previous records, it’s mostly an unheimlich feeling crawling up your spine this time. Sure, it’s still fucking angry, but it isn’t poured into conventional hardcore formats. Even though the second song kicks in with a drum intro and verse that could have been Negative Approach’s, actual breakdowns are well hidden this time. Still Nothing Moves You again shows what Ceremony is known for: switching the fast Infest like parts with slow doomy dragging stuff. Every once in a while a recognizable ‘80s hardcore tune pops up, making sure you stay hooked. And just when you’re halfway the room ready to trash something, Ceremony switches back leaving you either headbanging like a mongoloid on drugs or furiously stamping your feet in a slow rhythm.

This record was something I was looking forward to a lot, as I believe Ceremony is one of the most urgent bands around. By mixing up existing elements and creating something new they ‘reinvented’ hardcore again, something they’ll probably get more credit for later. This LP didn’t hit me at first, but after some more spins it definitely grew.

DC CITIZENS PATROL DEAD CHILDREN EP (NO WAY/CRUCIAL ATTACK) Citizens Patrol is one of the few Dutch bands that recently have made it to an American label. Good for them, as it’s the country most of the bands that inspired them were from. They haven’t forgot their roots though, as they do a BGK cover live. With

‘Sick Routine’ they already delivered an excellent EP, but this new one is even more pissed off, while maintaining melody. The lyrics are enclosed on a huge sheet, with big letters spelling out what words go along with the songs. There’s a big picture of a dog holding a human arm in the centre, sometimes making the text difficult to follow, but hey, there’s nothing wrong with putting some effort in, because this is totally worth it.

DC CIVIL TERROR SURROUNDED BY ASSHOLES LP (DEMONOMANIA) If variety is the spice of life, these guys must love the taste.

Take singer Jasper for example, who sung in Darkdayrising (death metal), A Step Apart (youth crew), Eye Of Judgement (metalcore) and even a grindcore band if I remember correctly. With every band his vocals are different, but always powerful. The same goes for this band, Civil Terror. He took two of his old bandbuddies of Darkdayrising with him, added a great bassplayer and has taken a deep dive into something completely different: a fast rocking hardcore punkband, that smells like Fear and Slapshot. If you enjoy the direct vocal approach of that band, Civil Terror is the band for you. It’s in your face and by the time you’ve recovered yourself and are ready to react, the song will be done and another pissed off cynic rant throws you over. Great! These songs are actually better than the ones on their demo (and 7”, it were the same songs). It’s still thrashy, but done really well. If there are still some thrash bands out there, who thought that being sloppy didn’t matter, as long as it was fast… well Civil Terror has pushed just pushed the boundaries.

The artwork is also great by the way, the band members are drawn likes zombies, actually surrounded by all kinds of assholes, like crying emokids, smelly hippies, nazis, dumb broads, puking punks, everything up to a priest that receives oral sex from a baby.

DC Clouds We Are Above You (Hydrahead) Another Cave In member side-project band. This time it’s from guitarist Adam McGrath. Last years ‘Legendary Demo’ was a pretty awesome record if you’re into the nostalgic styles of hardrock. It got the 70ties all over it. This new one opens with a more darker tone and overall has a more Black Sabbathesque feel especially in songs like ‘Slow Day’, ‘Empires in Basement’, ‘Garbage in, Garbage out’ and ‘Feed The Horse’. But it’s still an eclectic mixing of styles because the next song could suddenly be a surprise. For example ‘The Bad Seed’ opens with a piano and gives you the feel you’ve ended up in somekind of experimental caba-

ret club. Great song though; probably the best. On ‘Playing Dark’ and ‘Horrification’ it all sounds more aggressive and Adam ‘n co swing their instruments with verve. This record needs more time to get used to than the more spontaneous sounding debut record. But if you give it some spins you will probably like it a lot like me.

R. CRYSTAL CASTLES S/T CD (LIES/LAST GANG) This electro-noisepunk act from Canada was one of my discoveries of last years Lowlands festival. They played in a small dark hangar, packed with heated people, and the only lights inside were a couple of stroboscopes. Even though the music was electronic, the whole experience was like a punk show, including a mosh pit, singalongs and a shouting singer stagediving while fiercely shaking a stroboscope. They do have a background in punk and even claim not to like dance music. In an interview they said: “On the road we listen to Sonic Youth, the Stooges, Joy Division and black metal bands like Emperor and Mutilation.

We’re not going to be listening to dance music.” The duo, consisting of Ethan Kath creating the music and Alice Glass doing the vocals, first decided to work together because they loved all the same bands: AIDS Wolf, Sick Lipstick and Femme Fatale. “We wanted to do something like that without copying it, so instead of distorted guitars we’d use fucked-up keyboard sounds. But at the same time, I love New Order and Joy Division, and wanted to use those kinds of dance beats. That’s what we set out to do: AIDS Wolf get into a fight with New Order.”

After a couple of 7”s they released this self titled cd which combines the intensity of the live show with mellow tracks. The first song ends with a sample from Death From Above 1979, one of my favourite ‘electronic rock’ acts, because of the rawness. It’s a good prelude, as the second song ‘Alice Practice’ is one of the roughest tracks. They combine an upbeat beat with gruff female vocals, distorted basslines and glitches and bleeps that sound like sonic diamonds. If you have the chance to see this live please do so. If you’re not in the position to do so, there are always videos online. If you can’t find one of don’t have an Internet connection, get this cd. Forget what I said, get this cd no matter what.

DC Cult Of Luna Eternal Kingdom (Earache) The story goes that this band found a journal of a mental patient in the ex-psychiatric hospital where they rehearsed/recorded. That journal was called ‘Eternal Kingdom’ and the guys of Cult Of Luna found it so interesting that they decided to use the stories from this journal as a concept for this album. Well I don’t really care about this whether it is true or not. I care about the music. Cult Of Luna stand lonely on the top of the whole postcore/metal genre together with Isis and Neurosis. This is their fifth album already and I don’t think that I say anything weird if I claim that

precious records ‘Salvation’ and ‘Somewhere Along The Highway’ must be considered as modern classics. Cult Of Luna couldn’t just repeat those record and wrote shorter and compacter songs for this record (10 songs in total). They focused more on the harder parts and the screaming vocals are more in front of the mix. It took a longer period of time for me to get into this one. It’s for sure not as genius as the before mentioned records but it is still unmistakably a great record. They’ve included the lyrics again too. The artwork suits the music nicely and overall it has this mysterious feel about it. A record you could buy blindly.

R. Cursed III Architects Of Troubled Sleep (Reflections/ Goodfellow) There’s lot to be said about Cursed and their sudden break-up after they’ve been robbed by in a German squat. But that will be covered in the interview I did with Chris Colohan somewhere in this magazine. Cursed has been one of my favourite bands since their debut album ‘One’ which is also their best record. Although ‘Two’ and the ‘Black Out At Sunrise’ Ep never got to that creative high as on ‘One’ they were still a force to be reckoned with.

Their latest record III still proves that they were the absolute top of the darker tuned hardcore scene.

People who have never listened to Cursed before (thus have been living under a rock or a big pile of dirt); Cursed combine D-beat (like His Hero Is Gone (RIP), Death ‘n Roll (like Entombed), with angry hardcore (like Left For Dead (RIP)) and tune their instruments in C (or B or maybe even lower). This record starts of excellent with a blast beat in ‘Architects Of Troubled Sleep’ and the triptych ‘Antihero Resuscitator´, ´Friends In The Music Business´ and ´Into The Hive` are the best songs of the record in my opinion. That means that after songs # 6 the best part of the record is over. The last 5 songs are alright but they’ve spilled their ammo on the first part of the record. If they’ve balanced it out a bit more this could be a better record. ´Two´ hasn’t been topped by this record either but if a bands is still this good even if they’re not on full capacity they still deserve lots of credit. And I honestly hope that this record is not the last of their legacy.

R. Damaged Goods Fever LP (Crucial Attack/ Crash Landing) Bwaoh! This record looks awesome.

The vinyl itself is transparent green and with the etching on side B it looks like a gigantic eyeball. The neon coloured artwork is beautifully done by Dennis Tyfus. When I saw Damage Done and when I listened to their 7” I thought that it had a massive Dean Dirg goofy but rocking kind of vibe going on. This new record still has that but I must say that I like this one more than the latest Dean Dirg release. The rocking guitar is more on the foreground and these old school hardcore songs have more variety. I think that with this release of Damaged Goods and

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the new 12” of Vogue Belgium finally has some new talent that easily competes with old genre heroes like Deadstop and Justice (although I never were a big fan of Justice). It’s a shame that LosingXStreak quitted before they could jump on this wagon ‘cause I foresee a new ‘golden age’ coming up.

R. DEAD VOWS BAD BLOOD CD (REFOUNDATION) There’s good news, my prayers have been heard. Bands like Dead Hearts, The Swarm and Modern Life Is War may have called it quits, there is a Scandinavian answer that comes really close. Hailing from the notorious Göteborg, Sweden, they have created a record with 11 intense hardcore songs with a rocking edge. This is a record you want to keep playing on and on and gets better with every time you listen to it. Great song structure, amazing raw vocals… I can’t wait to see this live.

DC Dean Dirg …Raus! LP (Wasted Sounds) Germany’s goofiest old school band is back with 14 songs full of semi-political sarcasm and social aware satire. The main figure in this band is Doph the pimp/pornstar/hells-angel lookalike who is always fun to watch when he goes bezerk on stage. With Dean Dirg humour and rocking old school go hand in hand. This album is over before you know it but you just crave to put it on again.

The most surprising song is ‘Dean Dirg’s Bored Part II’ where they throw in some disco party vibe. I like!

R. THE DEFENCE COMMON SENSE EP (CRUCIAL RESPONSE) I was expecting some youth crew, knowing this is a straight edge band and with this label and layout of the 7”.

In fact this band is inspired by people like Ray Cappo, Porcell and Civ, but music-wise not by Youth Of Today or Gorilla Biscuits. The Defense has followed the path bands like CIV and Shelter have paved and created six melodic hardcore punk tracks. In contraire to Shelter, does this band have an anti-religious message, as ‘common sense’ is the only way the break free from the tyrant grip of religion. To quote the title song ‘Looking to the sky doesn’t clean the sins of human kind’. A straight edge band that has lyrics I can relate to, that’s nice for a change.

DC The Devil’s Blood The Graveyard Shuffle 7” (Van) This is just a very well performed joke. These guys play over-the-top mid-tempo metal with a big breast-

ed lady as their singer. On stage they all put lot’s of blood on their faces and they try to look very serious. This is the first record they’ve put out and it contains 2 songs (which are about witches and that kind of stuff). I must say that although I think it’s all a big joke to them you can’t deny their musical skill because the songs are put together rather well. The artwork looks pretty cool as well too. I’m curious about their next release.

R. Earth The Bees Make Honey In The Lion’s Skull (Southern Lord) The masters of country and doom laden music are back with their first real full lengths since ‘Hex…’. Again they conquer and rule with the thing they do better than anyone else: ‘Slowness’.

The artwork looks amazing and is from the hand of Arik Roper (Seldon Hunt pu it all together in the layout). Guitarist Bill Frisell collaborated on 2 of the 7 songs in total. The thing about Earth is that every album sounds reminiscent but also different from the stuff they did before. I think that it’s very hard to keep a certain quality in your songs when you’ve given yourself such a very hard task because everything needs to be slow. Earth is one of the few bands that get away with it easily and probs for that!

R. Experimental Dental School Jane Doe Loves Me LP (Company With The Golden Arm) This is the third release of the hectic circus organ indie/ noise band Experimental Dental School. Their sound has changed throughout the years. The organs still have a prominent place in the music but the music seem to flow smoother now. They have found more ways to show the tricks they’re able to do and they use more variety in their songs unlike debut ‘Hideous Dance Attack’. Organist girl Shoko Horikawa is singing a lot more on this record too. I must I’m a sucker for weird bands like this. Every song is like a little candy with a different flavour.

R. The Faint Fasciination (Blank.Wav) The Faint became one of my favourite bands when they released their fourth album ‘Wet From Birth’ in 2004.

It was a great mix of electro-pop and new wave

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and I never liked the violin more than on that precious disc. Now they’ve released the new release on their own and it seems like they had less time or money to record this. It’s less energetic and jumpy and more it sounds more flat. The violin (oh my god!) is entirely gone. The first listen was quite a shock to me but after some rounds I could appreciate it more (especially after the perfect show they did in Amsterdam this September). This stuff goes more back to their earlier records. Songs like ‘Machine In The Ghost’ and ‘Psycho’ are pretty awesome. I don’t know if The Faint will ever get to that brilliant high but this is not all too bad but mildly convincing after a four years brake.

R. Fall Of Efrafa Elil 2x12” (Symphony Of Destruction) Besides before mentioned label this is a collaboration release of the next labels and organisations too: Behind The Scenes, Alerta Antifascista, Fight For Your Mind, Descontento Rec., Be Part Rec., Sound Devestation Rec. and Halo Of Flies. These guys carry some politics allright. This record contains 3 songs and the d-side is beautifully etched with some skeleton beasts. The music of Fall Of Efrafa goes from quiet to very loud and dirty. Epic crust could be a good label for it because they draw inspiration from band like Neurosis, Tragedy and Icos. This record is heavenly inspired by the famous atheist with a Ph. D. in evolutionary biology Richard Dawkins at well (If you still believe in the grand hoax ‘God’ you should read his ‘God Delusion’). So they not play the typical antireligion thing most black-metal bands do but they throw in something more intelligent called ‘scientific literature’. This is a message I totally agree with so needless to say I like this.

R. Fear Falls Burning Frenzy Of The Absolute (Conspiracy) I’ve seen Fear Falls Burning a couple of times and I think that I only liked like half of the stuff he does live. This is the kind of stuff you really have to be in a mood for or else it’s just boring. I must say that this record kept my attention better than his live shows. With its dooming percussion here and there from Magnus Lindberg (Cult Of Luna) and Tim Bertilsson (Switchblade) it made the overall experience a bit easier to endure. Still this ain’t the stuff you put on to hear some swinging or poppy music (it can be even discussed if this fills in the category ‘music’). This is background music stuff or it would be excellent for an arthouse film to fill the gaps. Maybe I need to be more open to it’s hypnotic abilities and listen to this with my eyes closed being a bit tipsy in order to fully understand this music. However I rather do that to the Sunburned Circle record than this one. Anyway I’ll keep using this disc every now and then because I have the feeling it will eventually grow on me and because it’s nice to hear it on the background when I’m doing reviews and stuff.

R.

Fucked Up The Chemistry Of Common Life (Matador) Man ow man. This band surely knows how to surprise you.

They evolved from simple straight-forward hardcore/punk to epic 6/7 minute song master crafts to a 18 minute long during new wave punkrock styled anthem. Now they continue their successful story with ‘The Chemistry Of Common Life’. It could well be that they lose some of their older fans with this record but it made me more enthusiastic. They throw out everything they got, piano, flutes, a lot of delay pedals, female guest vocals. This album contains some songs that could be shortened versions of last years ‘Year Of The Pig’. A song like ‘Golden Seal’ could very well be an intermezzo on a Mogwai album. If you take 2006 ‘Hidden World’ and you throw in some Hüsker Dü and you shorten the songs a bit. Throw in some experimental drift as well and this is what you get.

An eleven songs, 51 minutes long prog-punk masterpiece with intelligent and thoughtful lyrics. Hats off for that! Plus there’s some nice quest singing from Sebastian Grangier (Death From Above 1979), Dallas Green (Alexisonfire), The Vivian Girls and Katie Stelmanis-Cali among others.

R. Genghis Tron Board Up The House (Relapse) This band uses a drum computer but they made them sound like it is done by a real drummer.

They easily switch between electro-pop parts (like The Faint or Horse The Band) to chaotic grindmetal fury (like Converge, Pig Destroyer). It all sounds a natural way of doing things and not like they’ve just cut and pasted it all together. Compared to their earlier recordings on Crucial Blast the electronic elements stand more on the foreground and it’s all a bit balanced out qua aggression. This is not the straightforward noisegrind monster ‘Dead Mountain Mouth’ but something that you need to dig a bit deeper in to understand it. Not that I didn’t like their earlier stuff. Au contraire my friend. That shit was awesome. But this goes beyond awesome.

This is progression with a little sniff of brilliancy that will place them right on top of the metal-scene and grindcore-scene. Also you gotta love that name Genghis Tron. Like a Mongolian warrior with the powers of a cult cyberfilmhero he took the realm ‘Earth’ with easy might (just throwing in some metaphor trying to sketch the images in my head when listening to ‘Board Up The House’).

R. Glass And Ashes S/t LP (No Idea) Another worthy player on the No Idea records roster. This is supposed to be the second full length but I haven’t heard of this band before. I only I knew they were this good I would have picked

it up earlier. This record I bought because a friend said it was cool. Glass And Ashes can be described as a band that operated in between Planes Mistaken For Stars and Hot Cross. Throw in some epic ness and rock ‘n roll and some modern hardcore flings in the mix and this is what you get. Sometimes dissonant, sometimes straightforward and frightening. If you look at the misty swamp that covers that covers this record and you listen to this record you will feel an primitive anger coming up that fills your mind with depression…but in a good way, like only some records can provide.

R. Gramercy Riffs Demo cd I got this demo at the show these UK kids played at Trashfest this year. The show was pretty energetic and so sound the songs on this demo. These 3 songs start of with a funny sample of a (black?) woman introducing the band. What happens next is 3 raw and short rocking songs of jumpy hardcore. I’m curious how this band would sound on a proper release with a proper production. This is way to short but a save game to play because for the short duration it’s good entertainment.

R. Have Heart Songs To Scream At The Sun (Bridge9) There’s something happening in the hardcore scene.

Bands seem to care more about their artwork (they try to avoid the college lettering and live pics more) and I also see more bands trying to walk off the clichéd paved paths. I take for instance Verse and Ceremony who botch decided to raise their finger to the scene and tried to add a little progression into their ‘core’.

Have Heart does the same with this new record. On ‘The Things We Carry’ they shocked the scene with an almost hardcore record. All the usual ‘youth crew’ stuff was there but Patrick Flynn also knows how to write some intelligent lyrics. With this new record the lyrics seem more personal (the ‘father – son’ bond seems to be the concept of the album). But Patrick’s voice sounds more furious than on their debut album. The music overall is heavier and reminds me more of bands like Carry On and Count Me Out than HH did in the past. There’s more unexpected breaks going on but still the songs stick to me very well. I like this even better than ‘The Things We Carry’. The record title and beautiful photography suits this album perfect. These are truly the angry anthems that must be screamed out loud or so you will at the sun.

R. Holy Fuck LP (Young Turks) The thing I like about acts like Four Tet, !!! and Battles is that they use normal instruments to make something that comes close to dance music (besides instruments they use effect pedals and computers too but that’s not really important here). Holy Fuck is another band that makes ‘techno’ or ‘dance’. Not

comparable in style to before mentioned bands or crazy outfits like Health, Holy Fuck is easy to digest. This is good party music and with a good flow to stick your hands in the air and jump around. They have their dark moments too they don’t have the sort of funniness going on like Battles with their weird vocalic singalongin’ but still it brings me in a good mood. I like listening to it when I’m cycling because of the up beating rhythm.

R. Hooghwater S/t (Self released distributed by Suburban) I don’t have a drivers licence so I don’t own a car. But if had those things Hooghwater would be one of the bands that I’ll play a lot (together with the acid inspired ‘truckercore’ band Scissorfight (RIP)) when driving. Started by members of superb hardcore group Restless Youth this trio focused on the charming hardrock of the 70ties. There’s not much punk or hardcore to be found here except for their way of doing things ( d.i.y.). But I think this band rocks. These 5 songs reach in over half an hour and is filled with swampy chords and rocking riffage. This is stuff your dad would probably like too but hey! there’s nothing wrong with that. I think it’s cool that these guys make something very different than what they used to make. Look out for this band.

R. The Hunger Hope Against Hope (Shield) With Nico (.Omission.) on the microphone, professional asshole and wannabe ‘chickmagnet’ Niels (Straight A’s, Remain) playing the bassguitar this band is bound to become legendary. The Hunger doesn’t sound like any before mentioned bands. It’s a heavy mix of clevo-styled hardcore like Integrity with early 90ties new school like Unbroken with a modern schwung like The Hope Conspiracy. And it’s damn aggressive too. I must say that I like this a lot. I never heard Nico sound so angry before. The lyrics are written from a very personal perspective I think. The song ‘Sway With Me’ is inspired by the liquor drugged poet and philosopher Charles Bukowski. This is a great addition to the blooming Dutch hardcore scene.

R. Jaguar Love Take Me To The Sea (Matador) When The Blood Brothers quitted Johnny Witney and Cody Votolato couldn’t sit still for very long.

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They teamed up with J. Clark (from Murder City Devils and Pretty Girls Make Graves) to form this new band Jaguar Love. It’s way more pop-indierock driven than the Blood Brothers. The one thing that stays on that reference is the characteristic cartoonesk high-pitched vocals of Johnny Witney. I hear lot’s of different influences on this record. There’s still a lot of Pretty Girls Make Graves present but sometimes they go more poppy like Head Automatica and sometimes they go more experimental like The Mars Volta. It can be hectic but not in the way The Blood Brothers did. It’s a fun record and it’s hitting the right chords for me to get into loving this.

R. Jesu/Battle Of Mice Split LP (Robotic Empire) Another awesome looking record designed by Josh Graham. Jesu is shitting out at least 3 records every year.

There’s a split record with Envy coming up on Conspiracy Records and Jesu just released ‘Why Are We Not Perfect’ (The songs from the Eluvium split record + 2 alternative versions) on Hydrahead. Still I keep an eye out for everything Jesu releases. Justin K Broadrick is a busy busy man that apparently can’t sit still. Fact is that these two songs are again pretty good. Battle Of Mice is of a very different kind. It consists of members of Made Out Of Babies (who also released a very good record some weeks ago), Red Sparowes and A Storm Of Light. I still play their album ‘A Day of Nights’ a lot. The strength of this band lies in the vocal capabilities of psychotic play doll Julie Christmas. She can twist her voice to sound very sweet but also wickedly deranged. Their side of the record is way more diverse, less repetitive and very dynamic. It’s just a very different band than Jesu. I applaud releases like this that show two different sided of the spectrum. I tend a bit more towards the Battle Of Mice side of the record though.

R. Kayo Dot Blue Lambency Downward (Hydrahead) I like this more than the ‘Downsing Anemone With Copper Tongue’ record. Toby Driver and Mia Matsumiya shortened the songs and filled up the silence with more theatrical use of instruments. There’s a lot of stuff going on, on this record. I hear flutes, organs, piano’s, violins and horns of different altitudes. Describing the music of Kayo Dot is not so easy. It’s laidback but also haunting. It has it’s jazzy periods but also some kind of dark wave atmosphere. I see myself drinking a 18 year old scotch in a room with deer’s heads on the wall and a television which displays Lynchs’ ‘Eraserhead’ when I listen to this. It’s comforting and warm in sound but it’s confusing and

a bit scary at the same time too. Hats off for Toby and co for this piece of art. And I don’t want to forget Randall Dunn (Earth, Wolves In The Throne room) who did a great job capturing it made the production sound so subtle.

R. Killing The Dream Fractures (Deathwish Inc.) You recognise immediately that this records´ design is from the hand of Converges´ and Deathwish Inc. co owner J. Bannon. There used to be a time when his art was groundbreaking and daring but the last years it feel like he’s out of ideas and just repeats himself by doing the same stuff over and over again. If we look at the music Killing The Dream have recorded a fine piece of modern hardcore inspired by bands such as American Nightmare and Modern Life Is War, They move in the same genre as bands as This Is Hell and Life Long Tragedy. but I found Killing The Dreams new record slightly better than the latest records of the two before mentioned bands. I find this record also better than their first album on Deathwish (don’t know if I like it more than their debut on Rivalry though. They had a nice youthful energy and spirit back then). This is the stuff the hardcore kids go nuts on nowadays. I find it nothing more but decent and well played, but replaceable.

R. Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat The Nebulous Dreams (Conspiracy) The name of this act pictures a strange sight in my mind.

Nonetheless it’s for sure a band that tries to project pictures in your mind because this music is very theatrical in a dark and spooky kind of way, but somehow it’s also warm and comforting.

This music ranges somewhere between fluffy and squeaky soundscapes, folk inspired psych-noise with classical and jazzing undertones. This goes in the same category as a band like David Tibet’s Current 93. You can’t really put your finger on it but somehow it crouches into your mind ands stays there haunting and creeping until your addicted. I really get a hang on this stuff with its droning vocals and repetitive rhythms here and there. Cool stuff and it makes me curious about their older material.

R. Lair Of The Minotaur War Metal Battle Master (Southern Lord) This band breathes, shits and burps metal. If you only see the tracklist on here with tracks like ‘Doomtrooper’, ‘Horde Of Undead Vengeance’, ‘Black Viper Barbarian Clan’ or ‘Slaugther The Bestial Legion’. Yeah I like that sort of over-the-top

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Manowar sort of songwriting. Musically they didn’t do anything different as on ‘The Ultimate Destroyer’ only that this new one is slighty less good. It’s still a lot of trash going on. I would put it as the missing link between Slayer and High On Fire. It’s good to hear there are still good metal bands out there and to compete with the commercial shit of bands like Trivium and Bullet For My Valentine.

R. LIONS DEN ST CD (UGLY & PROUD) Another cool Swedish straight edge hardcore band, this time from Linköping.

Lions Den was started by members of Go For Broke and The Romance, among others, but they already left the band by the time of recording this release.

The majority of these songs are heavy, moshable hardcore not unlike No Warning, Right Brigade. The last couple of songs are a bit faster, combining this with some higher pitched vocals Blacklisted comes to mind. It’s all well done, I can imagine crowds going off to this, actually, I think I would as well. Corey of Internal Affairs once said like: ”You don’t need to know the words to be a part of this. The fast parts are meant for you to run across the stage and dive into the crowd. The singalongs are meant to climb on top of each other and as soon as the mosh part starts, just hit the person left of you in the face!” He couldn’t have been more right and looking at the record as a whole, it has everything you need.

DC THE Loved Ones Build & Burn LP (Fatwreck) I never thought that this band would even turn out turn out to become this good. Sure their debut ep on Jade Tree was fine and so was ‘Keep Your Heart’ but it wasn’t brilliant. Well that has changed because this one is stuck on my recordplayer for some months now. Singer/guitarist Dave Hause parted with some of the bandmembers and had them replaced by guys from the Explosion (RIP). That was obviously a very good choice. The songs have more depth, are catchier and the album has a nice flow. They haven’t really change their style. LO still flirt with bands like Hot Water Music, Against Me and Face To Face but maybe they’ve listened a bit more to Bruce Springsteen. From the open hearted ‘Pretty Good Year’ to the somewhat political ‘Louisiana’ and the maybe a bit corny ‘I Swear’ songs sounds sincere and pure. My Personal favourite is probably ‘The Bridge’. Well to be honest I don’t really think that there’ll come out a better punkrock record than this one for a long time.

R. Maninkari Le Diable Avec Ses Chevaux 2xcd (Conspiracy) I heard a Tibetan throat–singer the other day with some sort of supporting/droning harp–like instrument. That music would be a perfect fit in for a band like Maninkari. These guys already use unusual

eastern instruments like the santoor and cymbalon among others on this record.

This music definitely has something hypnotic and an almost mythic sense to it.

Like you opened a door where some weird traditional Arabian cult feast is taking place.

But there are all sorts of things happening because the mood is on a borderline with ultimate darkness and light and sunny storytelling. The music would fit a cruel beheading one time but it could fit as easily a walk on the bazaar the other. The most surprising to me is that this is going on for two lengthy discs and that it’s really beginning to form some sort of story in my head not unlike the tales of 1001 nights. This music truly does wonderful stuff within my head. I heard that there’s a new album coming up from these Frenchies so I’m wondering if they will cover the same theme on that record.

R. M.G.R. Wavering On The Cresting Heft (Conspiracy) Mike Gallagher (Isis) M.G.R. or Mustard Gas and Roses focuses on mellow yet dark melodic passages and layered soundscapes. This is a worthy follow-up to the earlier released ‘Nova Lux’ record. You cannot compare this with Mikes other band Isis. This is for one an instrumental band but it’s also more minimalistic and less bombastic. It’s very nice music to dream away with, or to play on the background when you’re doing stuff (or it could be a nice trip for the occasional pot user which I am not). Fact is that this music is done by many bands before but only few can keep up a certain quality that keeps you from skipping the songs. I think M.G.R. is of that quality. It gets me in a relaxing mood and it makes me crave for a nice glass of red whine too. I’m sure I’ll visit this band too when they do a show in the Netherlands too.

R. Monno Ghosts (Conspiracy) Don’t mistake this with the Japanese postrockers Mono ‘cause the Swiss/ Canadian Monno operate in a very different field. This record is a big surprise to me compared to their older releases. There are only 5 tracks instead of the 11 on ‘Error’. They’ve laid their distortion pedals to the rest on most of this record because these songs move into a more drone and doom orientated atmosphere.

It’s not the noisy, distorted yet pop in some way inspired band that reminded me of Lightning Bolt and The Goslings so much (except on fourth song ‘Hull’ where they use some of that old spice). This is much bleaker and it’s sometimes on the edge of becoming some sort of experimental black metal band. This is definitely less in your face than their older stuff but I applaud the progression they’ve made with ‘Ghosts’.

Pity is that I got this cd in a white cardboard sleeve

without any artwork. I liked the Dennis Tyfus artwork from ‘Error’ a lot but I can’t give an opinion on this one.

R. Moss Sub Templum 2x 12” (Rise Above) Doom! Moss is a very dirty sounding slow dragging being hailing from the UK. Again they’ve come up with a nicely designed double LP (not as good looking as horror inspired Cthonic Rites). Musically nothing has changed it’s still as harsh and doomy as it can get (think of a band like Khanate and Black Shape Of Nexus). I’d like to see this band live but I guess they’re not really into touring or anything (if they are I’m just stupid for missing them). This is probably one of the best doom acts in Europe right now. Anyway this is not music for the faint hearted but more for the black hearted among us.

R. Mouth Of The Architect Quietly (Translation Loss) I thought that this band had broken up but surprised as I was I found their new record Quietly the other day.

Boy oh boy this is no weak stuff. They’ve overcome themselves with this record and the have found a perfect balance between the hard and quiet parts combining elements of Neurosis (offcourse), Rosetta, Intronaut and Cult Of Luna. This scene is stuffed with a lot of mediocre bands but once a while a little diamond pops out like The Ocean with last years ‘Precambrian’ and this year Mouth Of The Architect with this record. This is destined to raise a lot of heads this year.

R. NO TURNING BACK STRONGER LP (REFLECTIONS) ‘Damage Done’ is probably my favourite No Turning Back record and I doubt if that will ever change. It’s not that I didn’t like their other records, but the songs on ‘Damage Done’ just make me want to annihilate everything in sight. Apparently I’m not the only one, ‘cause the last couple of times I witnessed them live, these were still the songs people went off to the most. But maybe that’s about to change, as this new record is filled with awesome songs, destined to turn wallflowers into loose canons. The weapon of choice is still the heavy oldschool hardcore that New York is famous for. A common flaw with bands in this style is predictability, but NTB is able to sail around that using powerful song structures. This record contains a lot of breakdowns and singalongs and is fit for live shows, but it’s also a record you’ll put on twice when you’re at home. I don’t come

across that often.

That singer Martijn has a great throat is nothing new, but he was able to surprise me in the last verse of ‘Go Away’, as his voice is filled with despair and reminded me of Aaron from Bane. Three other songs have guest vocalists that really contribute, as their voices are distinctively different: ‘Found My Way’ with Saki Vakaloudis (Your Mistake), ‘Unfair’ with Dan Mills and Alex Russin (Cold World) and title track ‘Stronger’ with David Wood (Down to Nothing).

DC NUESTROS DERECHOS STRUGGLING WITH THE DARK CD ‘Metallic core with a Spanish name’ usually isn’t the flavour I order. It gives me visions of sweaty black shirts in the flaming sun, Mediterranean dreadlocks, hair braids in beards… you get the picture. As soon as the first thirty seconds of this cd passed, my prejudices started melting away like ice cream in the Spanish sun. This is some good thrash and definitely fuelled by hardcore punk. This band outshines itself in riffage and vocal lines. They’re as powerful as they are catchy and this cd stays interesting from front to back.

The fact that they’re into hardcore as well as thrash metal shows in the choice of studios as well. They recorded this record with Menno Bakker at Bunt’s Studios, where the majority of Dutch hardcore classics over the years were recorded. Alan Douches, who has done records for bands like Hatebreed, Sepultura, TDEP, Converge and Sick Of It All, mastered it in the US. Apparently they don’t have a label yet, which is a bloody outcry, because this band blasts!

DC On Fire Masquerades (Shield) When I got this promo I remembered I had the first release (Dreaming, Not Dying) of this band lying somewhere under a big pile of dust. Honestly I didn’t really like that first release and honestly I still don’t really like this band. It must be said that the songs and production has much improved since that first release but I still think it’s just mediocre hardcore. Some of the riffs are used many times before by other bands and I’m also not fond of the two singers screaming together. I think with only one singer it would sound catchier and less messy. But there’s one thing about this I like a lot and that’s the bands artwork. It’s a beautifully designed digipack with nice photography.

It looks fresh. If you’re into melodic hardcore/punk with some rocking chords here and there this could be your thing but this is not for me.

R. OUTLIVE MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE EP (POSITIVE & FOCUSED) Outlive was named after the Guns Up record and song that carry the same name. When they were just getting started this Boston band was their main influence and that’s still very present on this first 7”.

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Fast and midtempo grooving hardcore, in the vein of bands in active in the first bunch of years in that city on the American East coast.

Outlive (or the label) unfortunately have made a mistake on the record sleeve, as there are no lyrics of the last verses of the songs on side I… too bad as there are some singalongs in there.

More Than Meets The Eye has been out for some time (it was recorded in December ’07) and was supposed to be one of the last releases to be put out

by Positive & Focused. Only the Youth Crew 08 compilation (with True Colors, Mindset, Break Through, Things We Say, Fired Up, One Voice, Go For Broke and Times Together) was released after this one and then the label announced its demise. But when I checked out their website recently there was a new message that there will be a new release in January (by a band called Golden X)! Great to hear this cool Dutch DIY label will continue after all!

Back to Outlive. There is a new release to look out for, called Swallows, limited to a 150 tapes. According to their current live set, the style has changed a bit, slowing the midtempo stuff down and making the fast faster. Contemporary bands like Ceremony and Trash Talk come to mind, but let’s not judge that record just yet. I’m certainly looking forward to it.

DC Overmars Born Again (Appease Me) I don’t know if many people know this band but I think their fucking great. I really liked their cd/ dvd ‘Affliction, Endocrine…Vertigo’.

They have this evil sounding sludge doom thing going on but they can also rock hard like a band as Zozobra. This new records contain one 39 minute song that brings you into a world where darkness rules the sky. This stuff goes deep and it keeps interesting the whole ride. There’s a nice flow between the parts (nice effects too) There’s some maniacal female screaming on here as well and that’s original in this genre. And Overmars are from France so anyone who thought that all the Frenchies are pussies are proved so wrong because this doesn’t sound pussy at all. It’s for bearded guys with a big pair of balls.

Excellent stuff.

R. Paint It Black New Lexicon (Reflections/Jade Tree) Dan Yemin ‘n co are back with their most diverse album to date. Besides recording some kickass hardcore punksongs they thought it would be cool that Dj Oktopus (from Dälek) gave it a swing of it’s own. And wow he did a good job. There’s synths and sampling and other weird electronically stuff in between and in the songs that spiced up this record. I spoke to

Oktopus the other day when he was touring with Dälek and he thought that he would get a lot of shit on him for doing this weird mixing on a hardcore record. He was surprised that people liked it so much.

I don’t know if I like this as much as ‘Paradise’. That one was more melodic and the vocals were better recorded. I have the idea that Dan has a bit of a lisp on ‘New Lexicon’ or maybe it’s just the anger in which he is spitting out the words. But it’s something I got over after a few spins. I think that the whole experimental thing did Paint It Black good. It’s not that straight forward anymore and it got some weird breakdowns at well. Progression is not always a good thing in hardcore, but in this case it worked for the better.

R. Perth Express Harrow And Wealdstone LP (Vendetta) This is the new and latest record of Germany’s finest D-beat band. Again released on Vendetta (which is becoming one of the cooler labels of Europe with bands like Black Shape Of Nexus, Ghostlimb (check it out if you like Gehenna) and Graf Orlock). It’s a shame that PE decided to quit. When I say them at Trashfest 2005 I was overwhelmed by them. Especially the drumming stood out. They’re one of the few bands that can compete with scene emperors His Hero Is Gone, Tragedy and From Ashes Rise. Harrow And Wealdstone is their best work to date so they say goodbye to the scene with style but I rather had them making many more records. Surely this is a band that will be missed (at least by me).

R. PIVOT O SOUNDTRACK MY HEART CD (WARP) I came across this magnificent Australian on last years Lowlands festival.

The festival guide recommended it for fans of Battles, as this is another Warp act that uses conventional instruments to create unconventional music. As they started playing they pulled me into a trance with their instrumental soundscapes, combining ambient beats and progrock. Some songs even have a postpunk vibe á la Talking Heads. The title of this record is well chosen, as it’s probably best fit to be on the background. At home it’s less intense than it was live, but this music definitely relaxes me.

DC Planes Mistaken For Stars We Ride To Fight (No Idea) Another band that decided to call it’s quits way too early.

PMFS was one of those unpolished pearls on the No Idea roster. Unpolished in the way that they sound raw and rasping. This record is a collection of rare/

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hard to get b-sides and out-of-print ep’s (you know the deal right?). There are four Black Flag covers on here (‘Wasted’, ‘Police Story’, ‘Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie’ and ‘Depression’) plus ‘Fall On Proferb’ covered from Unbroken. It’s such a waste that PMFS are not around any more because they had a truly original style of their own. Like a muddy and very dirty Hot Water Music in a depressive state. Luckily I was able to see them live some times throughout the years.

R. Pleasure Forever Bodies Need Rest (Conspiracy) Pleasure Forever ain’t no more so Conspiracy decided to throw some unreleased stuff together and release it as this 8 song album. Honestly I have never heard of this band before but I got into it immediately. The got some typical Subpop nostalgia going on with 70ties fuzzy guitars and organs raging all over the place. This stuff is definitely swinging. I recognise some Black Sabbath and Deep Purple in this too. On top of 4 original songs they managed to give a swing of their own to a Black Flag, Black Heart Procession, Abba (?) and Alice Cooper song at well. Especially the Black Flag and Abba songs are wildly amusing.

They manage to bring them far far away from their original states of being. They released some stuff on Subpop too so I’m on the hunt for that because this band is great. Members later went on in bands such as Red Sparowes, Sagittarians and Rabbits. Anyway I’m glad I discovered this band through this conspiracy promo.

R. Pre Epic Fits LP (Love Pump United/ SkinGraft) The first 7” of Pre reminded me of the spazzcore of Melt Banana a lot. With this new one they mix those influences with noise and industrial sounding effects and drumming. And fucking hell! This is one mindfuck of a record. I missed their show on the last ZXZW festival (because of the mighty Torche) but I heard that it was something else. With Japanse frontgirl/ singer Akika in an exhibitionistic mood running on stage topless while screaming her longs out. This could raise some eyebrows but knowing they’re friends with other exhibitionistic chaotic noise outfit Aidswolf it’s not all that surprising. This is great yet disturbing stuff.

R. PROGRESS THE CROSSES WE BEAR MCD (DIY) If you like Good Riddance you’ll probably also like what these Dutch guys did on this mini cd.

It even includes a spoken Martin Lu-

ther King quote, something GR was quite fond of as well. This cd has seven songs along the line of Good Riddance’s Operation Phoenix and Symptoms Of Levelling Spirit, but some have a strong Pennywise and Bad Religion vibe as well. To top it off the sixth throws in some Strike Anywhere influences. Not a bad cd, but nothing new under the sun.

DC Pulling Teeth Martyr Immortal (Deathwish Inc.) I’m sure this is the best stuff Pulling Teeth ever recorded.

Their fast mix between Clevo inspired hardcore with crust and trashy solos never sounded so urgent. Mike Riley spits out his words with great determination and anger. These 13 tracks are over before you know it but PT put a little surprise at the end of the record in the form of a dark instrumental drone. So the darkness will creep up to you a bit longer. I think this is one of my favorite bands on Deathwish right now.

R. RAIN MEETS OIL S/T EP (SEVENSTARS) The American straight edge label Sevenstars released this four song EP, by a pretty new band from The Netherlands. These guys used to be (or are still) in bands like Superhero, Born From Pain, Out Of Reach and Blinded By Trust. I guess musically Rain Meets Oil is the closest to the happy punkrock of Superhero, with a clear ‘90s punk feel like Black Train Jack, Good Riddance and Face To Face. My favourite song is Never Forget, Never Regret, the female singalongs fit the song really well.

DC Rise Against Appeal To Reason (Interscope) While their music seems to become poppier with every release their rebellious spirits and political engagement seems to increase with every release. This digipack is printed on 100% recyclable cardboard and the ink they used is vegetable and biodegradable. On top of that they’ve included a big Peta sticker which says ‘Go Vegetarian’. Alright…I like that. Musically it’s not that special. The songs like I said before contain more pop but their not as catchy as their older songs. Also they tend to be a big long ( 14 songs in 51 minutes).

I’m a huge fan of ‘The Unraveling’ album. When that came out in ’01 I was so stoked. I didn’t like their second release but I did like their third one a lot. Their fourth was alright and maybe this record takes a pretty logical step from that one. I still like it though but it doesn’t entertain me the way the once did. The best song on this record is the semi-accoustic ‘Hero Of War’ which deals about a naïve soldier

that thinks that going to war will make him a hero and that a ‘flag’ is worth your dignity. Lyrically this stuff is sharp and critical, just like punk and hardcore is meant to be. Now if they throw in some rawness into their next record I could become a diehard fan again.

R. RHYTHM TO THE MADNESS SOUL DOUBT EP (POWERED) I’ll be reviewing this 7” even though they already have a new record out, called ‘Weltschmerz’.

Rhythm To The Madness consists of two steady members, Klaas Voets who writes the lyrics and sings, and Stief Berchmans (of Justice fame) who writes the music. On this 7” two other former Justice members did the drums and bass, but I’m not sure if they are involved in the creative process. As Klaas says in an interview with the Mind Over Matt blog: “The biggest pro (of having a two-man band) is definitely that we can do exactly whatever we want and how we want it. We don’t have other band-members to consult about music, shirt-designs or artwork. Also, even though we prefer to play out in our studio line-up, we can play with whomever we want and not be a scab band.” Anyway, this ep has four songs, including an intro and a Motörhead cover. The band describes its style as ‘urban metal’, and I guess that’s just another word for crossover: hardcore kids influenced by thrash metal. The two main songs, Soul Doubt and Deliverance From Suffering, have vocals that are definitely hardcore, but the speed changes in the music make it more metallic. If you enjoy Cro-Mags and Leeway, but are looking for something fresh, check this out.

DC ROOM 13 USER/ABUSER EP (CRUCIAL ATTACK/ ANGRY YOUTH) Have you ever been in front of a room and weren’t sure if you should enter? In this case maybe you put your ear to the door, hold your breath and try to hear what’s going on inside. Just after your earshell carefully touches the flakes of blistered paint, five guys on the other side bust down the door, trampling you with some aggressive ‘80s style hardcore punk. With seven songs in ten minutes, they keep bouncing and pounding, leaving you a bit bruised. As you walk away you don’t think you liked it, but on the way out you catch yourself mumbling their lyrics.

If you’re one of the guys who get a thrill out of the thought of being slamdanced into the hospital during a Black Flag show, this probably is your thing.

DC RUSH ‘N ATTACK DONUT/HOLE EP (CRUCIAL ATTACK) Yeah! Great mother of rock n roll riffs! Rush ‘N Attack has four songs for you in store with trembling basslines not unlike Dead Kennedys and swaggering guitarlicks that could have easily been used in rockabilly and even southern- or classic-rock, if they were played at half the speed. The vocals remind

you it is actually hardcore you’re listening to here. Just imagine what would what it would sound like if Motörhead would take a handful of pills and keep playing a Black Flag medley while they’re having spasms. Something like that.

DC Russian Circles Station (Suicide Squeeze) I want to nominate this record for the best designed cd of this year. It’s a digipack with a large photo of soldiers (Looks to me that it’s taken at least fifty years ago) which covers the whole thing when you fold it out. Besides the good looking artwork this is a worthy follow up to their debut record ‘Enter’. Matt Bayless did a good job recoding it. Russian Circles is an instrumental band and they play a polyrhythmic sort of postrock/core with some Don Caballero here and there. It’s hard to create music like this that keeps interesting for more than 2 songs and RC is a band that has that gift.

This one is more of a record that need to grow on you but after many spins I like this beter than their debut record.

R. SAID & DONE ENDLESS ROADS EP (SHIELD) The first couple of songs from Said & Done’s previous release Everyday often lacked a bit of spice, as it took quite some songs before the real vocal fury was unleashed. This new ep starts a bit mellow as well, with midtempo riffs and stretched dramatic vocals. The first time I had put this on, I remember thinking ‘now I remember why I’m not really into this band’, but after listening two both sides some I more or less got into it.

It’s still heavy grooving hardcore like Leeway, and the vocals definitely lean towards ‘80s hardrock from time to time. This record comes with a pretty 8-paged booklet, containing lyrics, explanations and pictures from on the road. The photographs and texts are all grayish, as well as the vinyl itself. They definitely have set a complete atmosphere in this appearance, well done.

DC Saviours Into abaddon LP (Kemado) I liked this band a lot on their previous records on LevelPlane and it’s no surprise that I like this one too. The dirty edges are not so prominent

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on this one but the Black Sabbath influences are more prominent than ever. If you’re into the whole new school metal stuff like Baroness, High On Fire and Mastodon you probably dig this too. It has a nostalgic feel about it but it’s also quite fresh plus they have something crusty going on too. These guys surely know how to produce some killer riffs. If you buy the record you get a free-download voucher too (I like it when labels do that or when they put a cd of the record in it for free). Great stuff.

R. Shai Hulud Misanthropy Pure (Metal Blade) What the hell has happened to that groundbreaking and brilliant band of the past. Only a year after the greatly underappreciated ‘That Within Blood Ill-Tempered’ Shai Hulud decided to quit because Geert v/d Velde wanted to return to his native county The Netherlands again to continue his study. They did a farewell tour in ‘04 and it was said that they were about to change their name into the horrible ‘The Warmth Of Red Blood’. I don’t know why the didn’t stick to that name because this release would suit that bandname a lot better. To sum it up: the new singer sounds okay but you get pretty sick off it after a song or two. He sounds boring, more dynamic and different uses of tone in his voice would definitely make this record a lot better.

Other thing: the production is perfect, everything is sounding as tight and as static as it ever could be.

But it has totally taken the soul out of the music. It’s like the difference between wood and plastic and this record is definitely plastic. On top of it they’ve re-recorded their own classic ‘Set Your Body Ablaze’.

It makes me sad that one of my favorite bands of all time, a band that was truly innovative and inspiring, became such a weak parody of itself. Sad sad sad.

R. Shit And Shine Küss Mich, Meine Liebe 2x12” (Load) I hate it that this record contain no sheet with any info whatsoever. Their other double LP ‘Cherry’ at least contained some info.

I saw Shit And Shine perform with 16 drummers or so on ZXZW 2007. Sadly I left after 15 minutes because I wanted to see Knut. A friend who stayed said to me later that it was one of the most intense shows he ever saw. Although I really liked the Knut show I was sorry that I missed it. On record S&S do weird things too. You can file em under the record Noise/drone rock. Some songs are very repetitive dark drony stuff (like Burial Chamber Trio) and other songs are short and have some ‘metal’ aspects to them (double bass drumming and heavy guitars).

Sometimes they bring you in a hypnotic trance but moments later the tones shake you around and demolish the trance you were in before. It’s daring to sit through this record but it’s worth the ride.

R.

THE Shitty Limits Limits Appear 7” (Keep Screaming) These sympathetic guys from the UK make me smile with their witty ´in your face´ hardcore punk.

It rocks, it’s very energetic and its short, fast, goofy and shaky. In fact it’s way too short. Most of the songs barely reach the one minute border.

One of these guys told me that the total time of the four 7”s they’ve recorded is somewhere around 17 minutes. I don’t like walking to my record player and turn the records every 3 minutes so I hope they put it all on one full length any time soon. Ow and it would be cool to add some information like lyrics and stuff with your records. The music is pretty cool but the format and package could be improved.

R. SHORT FUSE BLIGHT EP (ASSAULT) In the summer of 2004 I travelled through Poland for a couple of weeks and went to a hardcore show in Wroclaw.

The German band Highscore played there on their final tour, we didn’t know the band, but oldschool hardcore isn’t that hard to dance to, so my travel companion and I got up front and were rewarded with a Black Flag cover. Last summer I ran into the former singer of Highscore again in The Netherlands. He still does vocals and his band is called Short Fuse. I liked the show, so I bought the three 7”s they had with them. Among those records was the new release Blight, but I decided to listen to the records in chronological order. The show mostly reminded me of Negative Approach and so did the first release, their demo put on vinyl by Samuel Records. The next release, called Fruitless Effort, is more in the vein of Poison Idea, especially their early stuff like Pick Your King. The freshest piece of wax by these Münster monsters, simply called Blight, is somewhere in between the earlier mentioned bands, stylewise. A blight is something that impedes growth or development, but I wouldn’t say that’s the case with this band. Actually, I’m curious how their next release will be as these three EP’s are all pretty solid. If you’re into ‘80s, you’ll dig this.

DC SICK MORMONS S/T EP (DEMONOMANIA/ ANGRY YOUTH/ GUMMOPUNX) Sick Mormons is an Amsterdam-based band that plays melodic hardcore punk like some bands in southern California used to do two decades ago. It could be filed in the same box as Agent Orange, T.S.O.L. and Articles of Faith, but it’s not simply copied. These songs don’t sound like they have been created in 2008. As drummer Oeds mentions in the interview in this zine, the songs have a certain kind of authenticy to them.

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These youngsters have created four songs that I believe will stand the test of time, as the songs are just complete. The bass- and guitarlines make it very melodic, but the vocals (somewhere between shouted and sung) are raw enough to prevent this from becoming too poppy. The lyrics are something else, as it’s all pretty much about how singer Marc doesn’t understand this world. Three out of four songs have Asian titles, if you want to know what’s that about check the interview in here!

DC SKITKIDS BESÖKET VID KRUBBAN (HATE) When I saw the name of this band on the bill I was expecting some lame crusty band, ready to bore me to death.

I’m glad they didn’t.

To be honest it was more like the other way around. They nearly got me killed because of the pit they made me dance in.

Dancing to songs I don’t know isn’t something I do that often, so when I woke up from the spell they put on the people in front of the stage, I was a bit surprised. To be sure I got this record and after playing it I couldn’t deny it anymore. These guys rule.

Fast punkrock with sweet rock n roll riffs and shouted vocals, great stuff. They have a split out with the Japanese band Nightmare as well, which has recently been repressed by Hate Records. Oh and before I forget to mention, everything is in Swedish, but they have put a description of the lyrics with every song. Ain’t that nice.

DC Sound Of Animals Fighting The Ocean And The Sun (Epitaph) I thought this band would break up but apparently they’ve decided to do just one record before the break up. Weird for Epitaph to sign this band because I don’t think this band would sell that much (because they don’t do shows except for four only: see the DVD review of this band in this issue). It’s way more a record for their old label Equal Vision or an experimental label like Hydrahead or Tortuga. This record sets itself in between ‘The Tiger And The Duke’ and ‘Lover. The Lord Has Left Us’.

There are weird sampling and spoken word/story telling songs but the sharp riffing screamo parts as on their debut are also here. Listening to The Sound As Animals Fighting is like journey through a fairytale book while taken some acid. You never really know what the next song will be. Will it be a relaxing ambient tune or do they open the cabinets to let the boogeyman out. There’s not a single band out there that sound like this band and that proves that they’ve succeeded in bringing the ‘art’ back into music. Ow and I almost forgot Seldon Hunts’ excellent job on the artwork.

R. Sunburned Circle The Blaze Game (Conspiracy) I got this in a promo sleeve from Conspiracy but luck-

ily I already got this release in it’s full glory digipack (which is contains very nice photographs and lots of fire!). This is a collaboration between the creative Sunburned Hand Of The Man and the Finnish experimental extravaganza kraut-rock of Circle (not to be mistaken for the rock ‘n roll hardcore-punk of the once dangerous Belgium band Circle (RIP)). Botch bands were on tour in Europe and ended up making this 40 minute long jamming session. Well what’s to say about it: it’s a psychedelic, hippy-esque ride through different layers of sounds vocals with numerous sorts of effects coming from every corner. I think there’s some African percussion on here as well and horns and bells.

This is a very diverse sort of drone/ambient. If you need something to shake you out of your ordinary life and/or habits this is a piece of art I would recommend.

R. Textures Silhouettes (Listenable) I must give this band a lot a credit because of their d.i.y. skills. They recorded all their records themselves (this is their third), they create the artwork themselves. Well again hats off for the excellent production. I think that no hi-fi 10.000$ an hour studio could do it better. And I like this artwork more than their previous records. Listening to Textures is always a mindblowing experience.

Their music is complex, layered and it’s more mood swinging than any girl in her period. They still have a fundament in ‘Meshuggah’ styled ‘math’metal but they’re more melodic and singer Eric Kalsbeek has a very diverse range. He’s a good singer but even a better screamer and the use of singing and screaming together isn’t annoying (like many other metal or hardcore bands). In contrary to their last record ‘Drawing Circles’ the songs are better balanced.

They’re more actual songs instead of pasting technical part after part. I think that is the quality of this band. We know that they can write difficult and technical metal but now we know that they can use that talent to write real songs too. Best record of Textures yet!

R. This Is Hell Misfortunes (SPV/Trustkill) I have the same problem with this record as I have with the latest Shai Hulud record. It’s too well produced.

Come on people you’re supposed to be a hardcore band. There’s nothing wrong with good production but this fabrication sounds soulless. Dirty edges and rawer sounding drums would make this record a lot better. Most kids nowadays will still walk away with this but there’s a Dutch saying that’s very appropriate for me in this case ´Geef mijn portie maar aan Fikkie´.

R.

This Will Destroy You S/t 2 x 12” (Magic Bullet) This is the follow up to last years released ‘Young Mountain’. Hailing from Texas these guys know exactly how to create some fine post rock. Inspired by bands such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky these guys wrote some nice soundscaping songs. In this genre it’s always about the variation between soft parts and how to build those up into climaxes. TWDY do that in a very natural way.

R. This Routine Is Hell/Alfatec Split (Matzugoru/Dead Gyver) Sympathetic young kids This Routine Is Hell (formerly called ´De Tarrels´) start this split cd with six trashy punkcore anthems that remind of Minor Threat, Black Flag and Millions Of Dead Cops with more groove. Lyrics deal with boredom with daily life, the numbness that seems to fill your very soul sometimes. Negative stuff overall but nicely brought. The Italian Alfatec also comes up with trashy punkcore but in that typical style that Italy was famous of in the ‘80s (with bands like Negazione, Indigesti and stuff like that). I like the vocals in these songs a slighty less than the TRIH songs but both bands really convinced me with this scrappy looking release. And it only costs like 3 euro or something, so guys pick this up.

R. Tombs S/t (LevelPlane/ Black Box) Tombs emerge from the ashes of the now defunct band Versoma. Compared to that band this is a bit slower and reminds me more of Neurosis. But there are hints of Godflesh, Jesus Lizard and Pelican as well. The vocals are rough and raspy and fit the music nicely.

There’s something about this music that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t want to let it go. The seven songs on here are diverse but Tombs already put their stamp on it. Josh Graham ( A Storm Of Light) filled in the gaps with noise and guitar on the song ‘Marina’. If they can keep up this quality their full length could be a beast of a record and I mean that as a compliment.

R. Torche Meanderthal (Hydrahead) All Hail the record of the year! If you wondered how Torche would top their debut on Robotic Empire; Well

I don’t know how they did it either but HELL they fixed the job with style. This record is all killer no filler till the end. 13 tracks of low tuned sing-alongs and catchy riffage that begs for a label like let’s say ‘Stoner-pop”. Where last years ‘In Return” was more focused on longer songs with more harder/dragging parts, this new one is more focused on how to make a song stick. The absolute peak on this record is probably the song ‘Healer’ which could compete with any Queens Of The Stoneage hit any day. But songs like ‘Grenades’, ‘Across The Shields’ or ‘Fat Waves’ easily makes you want to shake your ass like a mad man as well. Not to mention the very good looking artwork. The cd booklet is printed on heavy shiny paper and can be fold out into some sort of mountain pass. The little colorful monsters that walk around that pass are caricatures of the band members themselves.

Little I have to say about this for now just that any self-respecting music lover (if you’re into punk or pop or metal or whatever) should give this record a try.

R. TRASH TALK S/T LP (TRASHTALKCOLLECTIVE/REFLECTIONS) Sacramento’s Trash Talk has taken force in their own hands for their sixth release. After releasing some 7”s through Sell Our Souls, Rumble, Six Feet Under and Malfuction this LP was released by their own label, Trash Talk Collective. In Europe it’s available through Reflections records. Is it smart to do a self-titled record, when you already have EP out that’s called Trash Talk? Fuck it. Who cares, as long as they keep putting out hardcore that sounds like it’s imported straight from hell.

Their last effort is a LP with 12 songs in 14 minutes.

Knowing this, you can imagine that not many songs break through the one minute barrier. In this short timeframe they are able to create furious songs, where the sum is worth way more than the individual songs. This record was produced by Steve Albini (the same guy who did Nirvana, Neurosis and The Pixies records), so I got my expectations really high production-wise. It hasn’t turned out to be so special as I thought it would be, but it’s still an amazing record.

The way I look at it, Trash Talk and Ceremony are flagships for a new generation of bands. Bands that seem to be possessed by hate, combining ultrafast powerviolence, slow dragging doom and ‘80s hardcore, creating an evil concoction. You may like it or not, but at least it’s something new without losing anger and urgency.

DC Transistor Transistor Ruined Lives (LevelPlane) The artwork of this record can be considers as a perfect ode to the beastly amplifier the Marshall Plexi (that thing has only one volume: LOUD. No seriously this thing doesn’t even have a volume button). It contains several pictures

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of the Marchall (and Emperor) cabinets in a snowy forest. Transistor transitor is a typical LevelPlane band: loud, hectic and energetic rocking screamo/ hardcore. I have a weak for bands that play with dissonance and rocking heaviness. I was into their other records as well but with this one they prove themselves worthy to have a permanent place in the history of fucked up sounding and rocking hardcore.

R. Transitional Nothing Real Nothing Absent (Conspiracy) Nothing Real Nothing Absent is the debut record of Transitional. It’s an interesting debut of two musicians called Dave Cochrane (known from Grey Machine, God, Head of David, Ice And The Bug and he is the partner in crime of J. K. Broadrick in Jesu) and Kavin Laska (Novatron). The mastering (no surprise) is done by J. K. Broadrick.

Transitionals´ music follows that same `shoegazing´ ambient path like Jesu in some ways. It builds layer upon layer of distorted guitars, bass and synthetic sound effects but there’s not so much vocals at present. When there are they sound very robotic and not at all uplifting. I´m a huge fan of Jesu´s records and this is something that leans towards that musical section a lot yet it still has a face of it’s own because it doesn’t follow that same industrial path.

R. Union Town S/t LP (Powered) The demo Union Town released last year surprised me a lot because they came up with a style that isn’t done by many bands nowadays.

Reminding me of the Dischord bands of the mid ‘80s like Dag Nasty and Rites Of Spring I became very curious about how their next release would be. Well they still have a little DC sound going on but it’s a lot less ‘hardcore’. They are like a punky version of Mission Of Birma and Rites Of Spring. The guitar has a nice crispy sound and the vocals sound a lot better than on the demo. It’s strange that this band has a lot of ‘fans’ in the hardcore scene because the music should appeal to the punkrock and indie-kids too. I think this is my favorite Dutch record of this year.

R. U.S. Christmas Eat The Low Dogs (Neurot) This is a very atmospheric record with much reverb and sound-effects going on. I like the gnarly vocals too although they’re a bit strange.

The effects make listening to this record a psychedelic experience.

It’s not the cliché sort of postrock that many bands try to make because of those effects. It reminds me

a bit of Comets On Fire too but I don’t know what it is. There’s some Neurosis on here too but it’s not that guitar driven or rocking. When I heard their four song long 12” that they had released earlier this year I wasn’t really sure if they could keep my attention throughout a full-length but I can sit through these 9 songs easily.

R. Verse Aggression LP (Rivalry/Bridge9) Verse has been one of my favorite melodic hardcore bands of the last couple of years.

They have more intelligent lyrics (they refer to political literature in their booklets) to than most hardcore bands and somehow the songs just appeal to me. Aggression is their finest release to this date. They figured that they had to move some boundaries if they didn’t want to repeat themselves.

Well first of all is that the singing is less screamed but more sung (it has a Cedric Bixler Zavala kinda vibe (when he was in At The Drive-in, not Mars Volta). But not only the singing..the music itself seem to contain more emotion too. It got some Modern Life Is War going on too although it’s not that dark. Nice melodic build ups, ferocious outburst, classic singalongs: It’s all here. I think that together with the new Ceremony record this is one of the hardcore releases that will be remembered some years from now.

R. Victims Killer LP (Combat Rock/ Havoc) A big scary looking dog or wolf covers the front of this record. A typical example of the designing skill of Ryan Patterson (Coliseum). Victims is back with a new record and in my opinion their best to date although you wouldn’t find many weak spots in their discography. These swedish d-beat masters have refined their sound a bit more. It still got the political and crusty core but there’s also some Motörhead incorporated into their sound. Some high pitched chords here and there. This band won’t ever abandon their roots but they keep on getting better and better with the years. Nice!

R. VOGUE DICKFACED LP (HOLY SHIT) Around 2006, 2007 there was an outbreak of cool young bands in Belgium, in the slipstream of Dead Stop and Justice. Right now 2008 is coming to an end and that pool has run dry, with only a few bands still standing. Vogue is one of them, and probably the most interesting as well. They already delivered an excellent EP called ‘Vogue Cannot Be Held Responsible For Causing Trends’, but with this LP they prove

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themselves to be more than another ‘80s hardcore revival band. Dickfaced definitely has a solid base in that era, but Vogue has brought in some different influences like some slower sludgy parts. Also the crude lyrics are still what sets this apart. Nihilist and manic-depressive are keywords here and singer Jan is not afraid to let it out and confront himself with it.

Songs like ‘Life’s Too Long’ (“I’m a shallow and crude fucking asshole. I’m a negative creep and I’m stoned.

I’m 21 years old and I’m already bored and I still got 40 years of labour to go”) and ‘Sweet Sweet Sleep’ (“I get up in the morning, but what the fuck for? Only to be pushed around or else be ignored. I go to bed, it’s the best part of the day, because next to narcotics, sleep’s the best escape”) deal with this and the rest of them are pretty negative as well, except for ‘Foghead’ that seems to be about being high. I guess that’s the only moment the negativity is put to the background. I know this might sounds like your stereotypical adolescent ‘I hate myself and want to die’ story, but I don’t think this was fabricated. I hope he takes his medicine enough to keep alive, but stays sharp enough to write another couple of records.

DC Weezer Red Album (Interscope/DGC) I wasn’t really sure if I should review this record because it isn’t really an underground type of band. But fuck that.

I’m just glad that these Nerdrock heroes made such a good album again because the one before this wasn’t ‘all that’. The reminiscent songwriting and humor of Rivers Cuomo and his consorts are supplemented with a little more complexity here and there. The songs range from short ‘Buddy Holly’ esque songs to mini Queen inspired rock opera’s. I was surprised because Rivers never showed before that he could sing so well. I was pretty lucky by getting the deluxe version which contains 5 additional songs. But after all Weezer will always be Weezer.

It’s weird that they never really seem to bore you with their childish humor. The Descendents of pop just know their mission and I hail them to keep on doing this for a long time to come.

R. White Circle Crime Club Pictures Of Stares (Crime Club Rec. Distributed By Conspiracy) The artwork from the releases of these Belgian dudes are something else. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of these guys studies artschool of anything like that. This time again it’s a very minimal design. I have been following these guys from their first ep on Conspiracy and with every release they became a little better. Thus for now ‘A Present Perfect’ was my favorite release of them (the phrase “Woooohohooo toooo be the president’ still keeps popping into my mind once in a while) until now. It sounds a lot more mature now and the recordings quality is a lot better than their earlier efforts. The singing is lower in pitch and vaster in tone (Live the singing is a bit false some-

times and on their releases you could hear the singing barely hold it’s tone right sometimes, not that I really cared about that. I like a bit of clumsiness sometimes). I don’t know if these guys are hip in the whole indie-rock scene or anything but if they ain’t yet this release might be the release that will ‘make’ em. At least they deserve it.

R. Wraith S/t 7” (Reflections) A Wraith is some sort of mythical ghost/demo or witch. I don’t really know but the name fits this dark metallic crust perfectly.

There are hints of Cursed, Tragedy and Entombed here but it’s not as good as them…yet! These guys from the UK are still struggling a bit to find their sound but they already have the skill to make good songs. This is 7” invites me to look an eye open for this band in the future. Especially after the well played show they did at Trashfest this year it seems to me that they’re on the right path to become the next big thing on Reflections Record. The weird but nice looking gatefold 7” package is something I fancy too. The font they use for the name on the other hand is pretty ugly but that I’ll forgive them.

R.

Young Widows Old Wounds By Young Widows LP (Temporary Residence) I didn’t know YW had a new record out till I saw this precious piece of vinyl lying in my favorite record store Distortion in Amsterdam. They’ve switched their label from Jade Tree to Temporary Residence (Home of excellents bands as Explosions In The Sky, Mono and Eluvium). This record comes in three(!) different designed covers. I got #2 an abstract sort of Mexican skull by Ryan Patterson. His brother Evan Patterson is in the band. Some songs are recorded at the Godcity studios by Kurt Ballou but some stuff is recorded live somewhere else. Well I’m really into this. I liked Evan Patterson’s earlier bands Breather Resist, The National Acrobat and Black Cross. Young Widows is more removed from ‘hardcore’ than those bands.

On their debut record ‘Settle Down City’ they’ve committed to a style that’s in between Shellac and Botch. High dissonant tones in a repetitive manner.

This new one is more noisy and rawer. The Botch element are more driven to the background (less high tones) and the Steve Albini inspiration is more present (in the form of Big Black and Shellac). But it’s not just senseless copying these guys do here. There’s a soul in this music which really connects to my ears.

I don’t know if I like this as much as their debut but it’s a very very good record and I’m glad I found it.

R.

Zozobra Bird Of Prey (Hydrahead) This is such an awesome band.

Last years released ‘Harmonic Tremors’ spinned many rounds on my stereo and was a perfect continuation on the Old Man Gloom discography.

Cave In’s Caleb Scofield replaced his old buddy Santos Montano with Isis’ drummer Aaron Harris.

Hydrahead owner and Isis frontman Aaron Turner created the wicked looking artwork (like he does with most of the Hydrahead roster…and between us he’s definitely one of my favorite artists). This records, unlike ‘Harmonic Tremors’ keeps on biting you till the end. There’s less softer parts and Cave In kinda intermissions. You have barely time to breath.

The reminiscent guitar sound (partly stoner, partly sludge, partly hardcore, partly ‘70s psychedelica) hasn’t really changed. Caleb still howls like a caveman with his deep bellowed voice. If the world ever needs a soundtrack for the last half hour of it’s existence (while it’s in total demise) Zozobra must be the band to arrange that piece of music. Another one that goes straight into my yearlist.

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