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picture by
Noah Ringrose |
Maladia (Disease) is a punk quartet from London, UK, which
consists of John behind the mic, Oliver from
Vinegar Strokes
on bass, Simon from
Fex Urbis
(which got a lot in common with Maladia) and Koma on guitar,
and Marta from
Los Cripis,
Value Void
and
Score
behind the drums on the demo.
Marta is from Argentina so I suppose that she had to go back
at some point and she was
replaced by Alec, who has a more metal oriented background and
plays in
Zek,
Keno
and
Casing.
Maladia's demo tape got out in 2019 on Cold Comfort (a "young" British tape label which has released a lot of top quality demos over the past 3 years).
Based only on the gloomy ripper drawn by the Colombian artist
Juan Sebastian Rosillo
(which recalls the
Slimy Member LP's artwork
of course but also the
T.S.O.L's Dance With Me artwork) you could easily guess that there is a strong "dark side" in this punk
band, and you would be right.
The intro (made in collaboration with Luke Tristram from
Score) immediately locks you into the deepest, darkest dungeon of a Spanish
Inquisition jail. As the strictest religious orders of the time slowly
march down a maze of corridors singing eternal praises to a god without
mercy, an improvised Nathalie Portman repeats the most disturbing
scenes of
Goya's Ghosts
in the next dungeon, entertaining the most sadistic torturers of the 15th
century... in short, it's going to be fun.
You got the picture:
don't expect sea, sex and sun, these five tracks are all bout
darkness, gloominess, slimness,
moisture... and everything else you don't wanna think of during your
honeymoon... (well...)
But it's your lucky day,
Maladia comes with a bonus field trip: "You're all by yourself
buddy, you no longer feel your dirty, torn clothes rubbing against your
emaciated body as you walk hallucinately on a moonlit night through the
marshes haunted by the ghosts of the great ancients and the morbid echo of
Cthulhu's call... enjoy! see you tomorrow!"
Some would say that it sounds better than a full week in a three-star
all-inclusive hotel
hosting hundreds of Australian douchebags
in Bali (but tastes and colours you know).
Apart for some parts (on All You Dead for example) the tracks are
mostly and steadily maintaining a mid-tempo journey through the drifts and
deviations of a guitar that does not hesitate to stray into the wildest
territories brutally conquered by Black Flag in its time.
But most of the time the guitar sound will immediately recall the most
Death Rock influenced bands of the old anarcho punk scene (Rudimentary Peni
of course) as well as all their american offspring (Slimy Member,
Flower City).
The song is hallucinatory, desperate, haunted... and sounds like the
unintelligible cry of a man who has long since crossed the blurred line
between sanity and raving madness...
And worst of it all, you can relate with that...
I advise to listen to
Vinegar Strokes
and
Fex Urbis (past
bands from two band members), these two carry a lot of the dark components
that were used to "build" Maladia.
Well, I admit that for once I was carried away by an exaggerated lyricism
that I usually like to criticise for its often very hollow grandiloquence.
But Maladia is one of those bands with a very strong evocative
power and it would be silly not to try to transcribe the smells and
colours that swim in my brain as Maladia's pest spreads through my
headphones.
I think you've realised by now that this demo is a real gem and deserves
to be engraved on vinyl one of these days.
Not to be missed.
Two years later Maladia is back with a 12" EP called
Sacred Fires
on
La Vida Es Un Mus. Say good bye to the old school tattoo artwork, here comes a lot more
"in your face" kind of art which at first glance would fit better with
some of the most furious/metallic d-beat/crust bands hosted on
Paco's label. At first I thought it was a new
Irreal
12"!
But ok the all-caps Old English Text MT font rip-off
is here for a reason, sure Maladia sounds meaner and angrier than
ever but mostly sounds fucking faster! Maybe the arrival of
Alec behind the drums (see my intro) is for something with the
crazy speed up.
Faster yes but also "heavier", this record got the kind of sound that you
would expect from you next-door D-beat maniacs (who said
Irreal
again?). And I have to admit that this slight loss of sound and musical
identity in favour of a more classic sound disappoints me a little.
Maladia delivers top notch dark hardcore punk for sure, this record
is a killer but doesn't strike me by its evocative power and mix of
influences as much as the demo did. These five tracks will delight you
anyway, whether you are familiar with their early materials or not, but if
you are, you may be like me (very) slightly disappointed.
But don't get me wrong, Maladia has not lost their dark soul, you
can hear it really clearly on tracks like A Pox On The Fuckers,
Evil Eye (with additional vocals from Marta, the band's ex-drummer) and most of all on The Killing Floor It's just that it's a bit more diluted in this new
atmosphere that smells of leather and white paint logos.
Sacred Fires evokes many things, from old UK82 bands that
history and nostalgia have enshrined to more recent bands that don't
hesitate to insist on a dark approach, bands like
Ohydra,
Destino Final
or even
Glib (in a more hardcore way) for example, and yes... it's just pure delight.
My biggest regret is probably the length of the record, a 12" with five tracks only... it's short, very short... I don't know if it's true or not, but I have the feeling that labels are releasing more and more 5 or 6 track records on a format that could support twice as many tracks and it's honestly a bit frustrating.
Anyway, just treat yourself and listen to Maladia!
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| picture by Bobby Cole |
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