Innersense

Hardcore/punk has become something safe and predictable. Just another youth subculture. You only have to choose your favourite taste (be it youth crew, d-beat or fastcore ecc...), wear the right uniform, conform to the rules and voilà, you're a hardcore kid now. Then you form a band with your peers. I think the last band that was totally innovative but still 100% hardcore was Man Is The Bastards and that happened more than 20 years ago. New bands just follow blindly the rules written 30+ years ago. Not only musically, but also aesthetically and ideologically. Some do it better than other of course, but you can easily predict the style of a band by just looking at their logo or artwork. The thing that scares the shit out of me is reading a band interview and knowing exactly how they are gonna answer to the same boring questions even before reading it. Of course I still love my meat & potato hardcore, but you have to admit that since the 00s' started, hardcore has become just a mere repetition of itself. Safe & predictable, indeed. So a band like Gutter Gods, that has consciously chosen to break all these rules and do its own thing, is more than welcome.    

Fronted by the controversial Reckless Aggression singer, this time Meatdog couldn't be backed up by a line up more different from him. Instead of a bunch of sxe skins, this time he's surrounded by  skinny weirdos that have probably spent a good portion of their life doing drugs. Such a strange line up brings diversity and indeed the final result couldn't be more unique. Add some hallucinated perversion to Darvocets, an amazing guitar sounds that reminded me immediately my country mate Fogna (ie dark/goth & post punk influences), midpaced hardcore songs with a huge aussie kbd vibe, some harsh noise and you'll get a vague clue about how Gutter Gods debut full length "innersense" sounds like. For sure a breeze of fresh air in an otherwise stagnant and boring scene. The perfect soundtrack for your worst badtrip ever. Record of the year?

Not sure about the pressing number. Released by Cool Death Records, my copy comes on a silver cover that's almost impossible to shoot. I've also seen copies with white cover. Comes with a 12 pages booklet that looks like a more trippy version of the already legendary Groin Gravy 'zine...

Of course it couldn't last for too long. Rumors tell they already broke up. Well, at least there should be a final 7" before they leave this planet to another dimension...

The Aspects of War

The last addition to my collection has been a copy of Disclose "4 track" ep released in 1997 by cult japanese label Overthrow. Discharge might be the band that invented d beat of course (and unfortunately moved too soon to a more shitty sound), but the truth is that Disclose IS the band that meticulously dedicated its entire career to it (with a devotion comparable only to the most aberrant religious fanaticism) to make d beat a way of life. While the Discharge formula has always been their main influence (musically, lyrically and aesthetically), this ep also shown a huge swedish flavour. And it couldn't be more obvious with a cover that's such a blatant Skitslickers homage. These four tunes cannot not bring to mind the aforementioned Goteborg gods with their uber-simple song structure that obsessively keep repeating the same riff in an almost hypnotic way. Too bad the vocals are a bit too low in mix, otherwise this could be as great as their masterpiece, the "Tragedy" lp. I can't believe it's been already 7 years since Kawakami passed away. I remember it as it was yesterday. Commemorate him by reading again Stuart Schrader's eulogy that appeared on MRR at that time.

Tales of a pretentious asshole#004

Sometimes I wish I was one of those uber coherent collectors out there that meticulously stick on a specific sub-genre or scene until they've completed it. Over the years, I've instead started a lot of collections (japan, medellin, slap a ham, italy, cleveland & australia) that I've never managed to finish. I gave up on some of them while I'm still slowly working on putting together the others. Also, if I get concentrated, I can hear a little voice in my mind that keeps saying to start new ones. It usually screams "finnish hardcore, finnish hardcore goddammit!" but thanx to represses I've managed to keep it quiet. In the end, I've managed to accept myself as the kind of guy who simply collects records that he likes a lot, no matter the country of origin or the sub-sub-genre the band plays. The highest amount I've ever spent on a record has been indeed for a record that has nothing to do with stuff I usually collect. It's just a record that I do love a lot: a copy of Fatal Rage one and only release, their mighty "s/t" lp released by Mutha Records back in 1983. Needless to say, the day I got it, that bloody little voice has of course immediately started to claim a Mutha collection.

Mutha 004 is a perfect example of why jersey shorecore rules. Constantly ignored or even hated back in the days from the people in the bigger cities because of the bands misanthropic and provocative attitude, New Jersey provided a bunch of awesome bands that were a pure and simple concentrate of suburban rage. Fatal Rage's only release is a perfect example of it: from the amazing cover to the catchy as fuck anthems they wrote, this is simply a perfect record written by people that know how to play their instruments better than your average hc joe. Lyrics might not be as offensive and irriverent like the Chronic Sick or Mental Abuse ones, but Fatal Rage soon got banned from all the clubs  in NJ 'coz their gigs usually ended in a riot or with the place completely destroyed. Of course it couldn't last for too long but at least they left us these 10 tunes as a nice testament to remember them forever as one of the greatest yet totally underrated band that the yankees ever provided to the world. It's hard to think that they aren't as well known as Minor Threat, Bad Brains or Negative Approach because, honestly, they do deserve it.

Cover of the copy I've scored show some signs of time but overall it's still in decent condition and it made me save a hundred bucks so I'm not complaining. Considering that insert and vinyl are in excellent conditions, I think I've made a good deal. 

As you might know, cover is a blank white sleeve with two printed sheets glued on it, front and back (which makes it even harder to find a copy in pristine conditions). They were used lp covers turned inside out. The inner part of mine looks like this: 

Frozen To Death

You might have noticed that, in the last couple of years, all the hc kids obsessed with Boston and New York hardcore have suddenly become finnish death metal experts. Same happened with Mind Eraser & powerviolence. It's all fault of DFJ's (of Boston Strangler and "innumerable" other bands) death metal solo project Innumerable Forms. It's quite funny if I compare it with my death metal period (early to late 90s') when metalheads and sxe assholes didn't get along that well. But this is 2014 and at least it seems that barriers between scenes are not as tight as they used to be. Not that I give a shit about this at all. I'm quite sure this is the first death metal album I've bought since 1997. I'm not a big Mind Eraser fan but their "conscious unconscious" lp has already showed that these guys know how to play even death metal very well. While that aforementioned ME album was a mix of various styles, Innumerable Forms is just pure finnish death metal worshipping. Yeah, I'm talking about Demigod and Abhorrence. Throw in a bit of Winter and you got it. I'm always impressed by how the boston crew doesn't miss a beat, even when they are playing something quite different from hardcore. 

On the other side there's another boston death metal band, Blessed Offal. Not as good as IF but definitely worth hearing. Think a mix beween Autopsy and swedish death metal gods and you got it. A very nice split. Probably the only death metal records owned by more hc kids than metalheads. As you can see I've scored the mailorder version, 100 only were made on this colour. Innumerable Forms is supposed to have a full length out this year, can't wait for it! Consider me a reborn death metal fanatic.

 

N.O.T.A. (None Of The Above) interview 2008

Great recent interview with a bit underrated yet classic US band from the early 80s, the mighty None Of The Above. Taken from Not Guilty 'zine #2 from 2008.

You Shall Never Know Security

One of the latest effort of the mighty Hardcore Victim label is the Forward/Teargas "burning spirits 2014" split 7". Released in january to support Forward tour downunder, this is a serious contender for best ep of the year. You can't get more burning spirits than 2 tracks each by two of the most solid bands playing this sub-genre today. The japanese one includes members of that legendary band that defined this style. Yeah, I'm talking about Deathside. Enough said. The australians on the other side already proved in their previous two efforts that they are able to do it with the same intensity & ferocity of their japanese gurus. Too bad this is their testament. One of the best band from the land downunder in years.

To make it even more perfect, they've got an incredibly good Sugi piece as artwork. Can you get so much burning spirits? 

Frammenti di Vita

If you got into into extreme music (for a lack of better words) here in italy in the early 90s' (like I did), it doesn't matter what you're pretending to be today, Cripple Bastards played a huge role for a lot of us. They were the only link with the glory days of the 80s', the band that introduced a lot of us for the first time to old school italian hardcore bands. Until '97 I almost used to listen to grind, noisecore and death metal only. Cripple Bastards were the band that lemme discover that grindcore roots were in the hardcore scene. It took me a lot to understand it since my friends who were into hardcore were mainly into all those horrible Fat Wreck bands that were so popular in 90s' & youth crew crap. I hated that shit, all I wanted was fast, loud and noisy music with guttural vocals. Cripple Bastards playing covers of Indigisti and Wretched opened my eyes to that scene. It's only thanx to them if "mass media" is my favourite italian hardcore song ever.

For some reasons I got this record only recently. Saw them playing a couple of these tracks multiple times and I had some of them on tapes. I stopped paying attention to CB when Alberto left the band. Only 'coz while they were slowly going more and more metal, I took the hardcore path. But I've always and will always support their anti-PC approach. I must admit this record didn't age that well. After all, it's a cover ep and we all know that, as good as it could be, a cover is always inferior to the original, especially when you're familiar with the original version. But it's not that bad after all. Plus Cripple Bastards "frammenti di vita" represents a period of my life where everything was new and exciting, so I guess I got it because of nostalgia? As with all the Ecocentric releases, it comes without dust sleeve which is quite annoying...