I've already said a lot of good things about Ex-Dom from Bremen, Germany in my September 2021 review of their demo, with the raging hardcore punk of the Germans and Colombians even making my Top of 2021 list... so yes, you could say I was especially happy to hear that a new tape was on its way!
Available for streaming only for now (except if you're ready to pay
666$!), you should be available to purchase these six new tracks really
soon thanks to
Abfall Records
which is kindly going to put them on tape. NamedZwangsvollstreckung (Foreclosure), this records picks up right
exactly where the demo left off, if you liked their raging hardcore punk
à-la
Jarada
inspired by furious Colombian bands and modern D-beat hardcore groups
you're going to absolutely love this new release. It's raw, it's fast, and
it sounds big, powerful and angry as fuck!
The dual (raw) vocals German/Spanish keep working perfectly, with
both singers individually asserting themselves perhaps a bit more in their
parts than in the demo as they continue to explore a raucous tone that
smoothly takes us to the dark side of raw punk or even crust. My German is
very rusty and I don't speak Spanish at all but it's easy to notice that
with titles like Krieg (War), Kalt (Cold) or
Devastación the topics of these
songs are not the lightest or the happiest (and I like it better this
way).
I have to point out Massengrab Mittelmeer (Mass grave
Mediterranean Sea) which seems to address the tragedy of migrants dying
while trying to cross the sea (mostly) from Libya to Europe (it is estimated that
more than 20,000 people have drowned since 2015) and I always salute punk
bands that deal with today's topics instead of always rehashing the same
worn out clichés about Hiroshima... On top of that, this track got a heavy
and sad mid-tempo vibe which suits the topic perfectly
and stands out from the rest of Ex-Dom's fast-paced tunes.
In a few words it's another great release by Ex-Dom, I
unfortunately still haven't been able to see them live but I hope this
will change in the coming months.
Split System (at last, a band that fully assumes its admiration for cooling technologies) hail from the great city of Melbourne, Australia,
and sorry bu yes, if you're into catchy rock'n roll, here's another Aussie band you
won't be able to resist!
This new five-piece is made of some of the usual suspects from the super
active Melbourne/Geelong scene, they've been seen in various rock'n roll acts bearing names like
Stiff Richards, Jackson Reid Briggs & The Heaters,
Speed Week,
The Black Heart Death Cult,
No Zu and
The Grand Rapids. According to the legend (and their bandcamp page) they "had only one
jam together before lockdowns kicked in again in Melbourne in 2021. Five
songs were written and with rehearsals and gigs on the back foot, once
again, the only option was to record remotely via email. Everyone recorded
their parts at home and Split System's self titled EP was
recorded."
Yes the music is still not done with
lockdown stories!
Released earlier this year on
Legless Records, this four-track EP was made with one simple purpose only: give birth to catchy tunes and make your fat ass boogie boogie on the beach,
honey!
Described as garage punk or punk'n roll, this EP is a perfect combination
of the old school sound of the catchiest late 70s punk / KBD / power pop bands (The Buzzcocks?, The Heartbreakers?, The Lurkers?)
and the sunny vibes of that good ol' australian rock'n roll/punk (shall I mention the almighty Psycho Surgeons?). Ok let's make it simple, take the
Anxious Pleasers, Amyl And The Sniffers,
Priors,
Trash Ferraris
and, of course,
Stiff Richards, just blend the whole thing together, add a couple of Hawaiians shirts, a
tablespoon of nostalgia for the 70s and a fat slice of Aussie laid-back
attitude: that's it, bottoms up!
Mixed and mastered by Mikey Young from Total Control and
Eddy Current Suppression Ring (like almost every rock'n roll record
coming out the state of Victoria right?), this EP is going to hook you
right away, don't fight it! Just enjoy that silly and easy rock'n roll fun,
this is exactly what you need right now! Yes it does sound a lot like
Stiff Richards and hundreds of "rock'n punk'n roll" bands you've
heard before but who's complaining?
Frankly for a guy like me who tends to dive heart and soul into increasingly fast and aggressive types of music, coming back from time to time to a band like Split System is a real delight, and I can't encourage you enough to do the same.
Let's talk a little bit about my Christmas present, the DVD of the 2012
documentary titled Punk In Africa (yes I think people around me
have finally figured out my main areas of interest).
With this kind of title one could be expecting a review of the whole
continent (which sounds both extremely weird and arrogant) but as the
subheading clearly specifies the movie's not about punk in all Africa (54
countries... most of them where punk probably never existed at all anyway)
but specifically about punk bands in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique
(so the eastern part of southern Africa) but, as I will explain below,
mostly focus on the SA (South Africa) scene.
National Wake
The movie opens with a review of the different punk scenes in SA in the
late 70s / early 80s, scenes which could recall by
their sizes
the very small early Australian scenes of the not-so-big cities, but in a
completely different and completely specific context. It's essential to
understand what was the kind of atmosphere at the time, an atmosphere
deeply linked to the political regime in the country which was very far
(and that's an understatement) from conservative, but liberal, Australia.
So, and that's the real point of interest of this movie, how was the punk
movement able to develop under the racist authoritarian regime of the
Apartheid?
Following the
Soweto uprising
of June 1976, the start of the punk movement was inline with a contest
movement against the racist SA regime. Punk started as a white western
youth movement in Europe and North America and therefore spread mostly
(only?) among the working and middle white classes of SA. Regarding how
conservative and oppressive the SA society was at the time (for example it
was obviously forbidden for white and black people to live together but it
was also forbidden for blacks and whites to dance together) it was quite
"easy" to be "subversive" and seen as a "threat", even as a band made of
young white people, and consequences for any kind of activities seen as
political activism could be really severe (arrests, police harassment and
even unexplained "disappearance"). It was also a time of
war in Angola, the situation there was a bit complicated but to make it short the SA
government was not too happy about the independence of their neighbour
from Portugal domination in 1975 and the creation of a communist regime at
their border. Troops were sent and Angola soon became another theatre of
conflict in the global cold war where American-backed SA troops fought
local communists and Cuban soldiers (a lot of Cuban soldiers) sent in by
Castro to support the young free country (and he did so against the will
of the soviet union). And it lasted more than ten years...
So you can guess that a lot of young SA men were not too keen to to go
get killed fighting communists in another country, opposition to the war
and conscription soon became another important "subject" to rebel against.
And rebellion is exactly what Punk is.
But let's come back to music.
The very beginning and the Durban scene:
The documentary takes us first to the city of Durban (which, according to
some, was the epicentre of punk in SA) where
Wild Youth
(which is considered the first punk band in SA), was trying to fight
boredom and the establishment with noise and rock'n roll. They were soon
joined in this noble quest by Safari Suits from Cape Town and they
both featured on the 1979 compilation Six Of The Best with two
tracks each (it's not on YT but you can download it
here) along with other bands from that time.
After Wild Youth came
Power Age
(in 1981) whose raw sound fits easily into the UK82 or anarcho-punk genre.
They're actually a great band with very strong anti-Apartheid lyrics, I
discovered them with this movie and tried to go through their discography,
it's really worth it and you should really give it a go. Despite many
difficulties and some line-up changes they played for seven years and are
probably one of the most important SA bands from that era.
The scene was small, and sometimes extremely small, but there were other
bands too. You can fin some of them (Rotors, Leopard,
War Spike, Gay Marines etc...) on the 1983
Afrika Corps tape compilation released in France which features ten
bands from the early SA scene, mostly from Durban I think (it's on YT but
you can download it here
also).
Johannesburg:
The movie takes us next to the big city of Johannesburg and the main band
there seemed to be National Wake(formed in 1981). Contrary to the
bands in Durban which seemed to be composed of white people only (the
regime was "strongly" against blacks and whites mixing),
National Wake started as a multi-racial band, not really on purpose
but because it was coming from a "house", a "community" where people of
different skin colours were living together.
Clearly calling for unity and a big change in SA society,
National Wake started as a punk band with a rock'n roll sound but
quickly drifted toward reggae. Of course their "mixed racial activities"
didn't go unnoticed and they had to face many problems with the police but
it looks like they managed nevertheless and were even able to play in some
townships.
Unfortunately, after the release of their album in 1981, the police
harassment kept getting worse and worse, the band members lost their
shared house and had to cease their activity.
Another Jo'burg band is mentioned, the completely different and more arty
Koos. They're part of a scene which decided to express themselves
in Afrikaans and not in English (it's a subject I don't know well enough
to try to develop here but languages are linked to important political
issues in SA). Yes we start drifting away from punk shores but if you're
curious about arty and experimental new-wave from SA you should give it a
go.
Cape Town:
So apart from the already mentioned Safari Suits, Cape Town gave
birth to the Kalahari Surfers in 1982,
a band which "was essentially
a string of studio projects realised by Warrick Sony
at Shifty Studios during the 80's" according to discogs. Anyway it
was more or less a real band (a duo?) at the time of the release of
Gross National Product, the first Kalahari Surfers' album.
As you'll quickly notice the music is based on beats and percussions and
doesn't sound punk at all, the political involvement of
Warrick against the Apartheid as a musician and as a person (he was
strongly opposed to the army) is, more than his contribution to punk
music, the main reason for his presence in the film.
And from there the movie starts to drift further and further from shores
of punk to bands (like
The Genuines) which obviously, by their very existence or by their lyrics were
challenging the regime yes... but were not playing punk music. So I
started to slowly lose interest in the rest...
After the Fall:
The Apartheid finally ceased (after more than 40 years since it was
officially formalized) in the early 90s, bringing the youth of SA into a
new era which will not be exempt of challenges and disillusions but which
also gives opportunity, at last, to people to play and sing the music they
want.
So that's all very good news but unfortunately the movie seizes the
occasion to take us into the 90s ska-punk / pop-skate-punk scene (Hog Hoggidy Hog,
Fuzigish) and... that's not really my cup of tea. I mean that's not SA's fault,
the 90s were a tough time for punk in most countries after all...
An interesting point though is the importance put by these white young
men into their South African identity but also into their African
identity, yes it can't be denied that these guys are Africans and it's
good to recall the obvious sometimes, being from Africa doesn't mean being
black and vice versa.
Outside South Africa:
Unfortunately I was also quite disappointed by the parts about Mozambique
and Zimbabwe.
In Mozambique the only band mentioned is
340ml
from Maputo which plays some kind of rock-reggae very far from punk. Their
story is quite interesting though and I don't have the occasion to hear
everyday musicians from Mozambique talking about their experience in a
"socialist" country which went through a 16-year-long civil war until the
early 90s. So yes ok that's kinda cool but that's not punk!
Same with the part about Zimbabwe which mostly focus on two bands:
The Rudimentals, a ska band fronted by a Zimbabwean but that is based in Cape Town, and
yes these guys also got interesting things to say (especially about the
problems experienced by Zimbabwean immigrants in South Africa) but what
they're playing is not related to punk music... Same thing for
The Evicted
from Harare whose music is even less bearable...
Powerage
Conclusion:
In the end I've got really mixed feelings about this movie, on one hand I
was really fascinated by the first part about the development of a punk culture
in such a difficult political context and how the involvement in that
culture was always deeply linked to a strong (and dangerous) rebellion against Apartheid.
I also discovered some cool bands along the way.
On the other hand I find the second part (the post-Apartheid part) less
relevant, Ok the context is still quite interesting and I don't hear very
often about more or less related punk scenes in countries like Zimbabwe
and Mozambique but all that is very far from punk.
Anyway if you're interested I've uploaded the first part (about South
Africa only, until the end of Apartheid) and you can watch it below,
unfortunately there may be a few minutes in Afrikaans without subtitles
but it's mostly in English.
N,J'Oi!
ps: the last documentary I wrote about was about the life of the first singer of Camera Silens, Gilles Bertin, and it's right HERE. It's in French but with English subtitles made by myself.
I wrote a little something about the latest Sial 7" in my
2021 Best Of Records list
explaining how Sial's music didn't really interest me at first and
how it finally grew on me, especially after getting really into the above
mentioned 7". So I started going through Sial's discography and
even if they didn't become my favourite band they probably prepared my
ears for Xyresic on which I stumbled upon a few weeks later.
But let's first answer the most pressing question that has been bugging my inquisitive audience for at least a paragraph : where does that weird
word come from ? Well
the internet tells me
that it could be an almost forgotten and very obscure English word coming
from from an ancient Greek word meaning "sharp as a razor". Sounds like a
cool explanation for a punk band name (I could also be completely wrong
and it could simply be some indonesian slang for glue sniffing, who
knows).
Anyway these guys play together since 2017 or something like that and
some of them played in
Rataa
and
Violent Pacification
a little prior making the world a little louder with
Xyresic.
First thing first, it's important to says that
Xyresic's lyrics are in Spanish (well at least the songs' titles
all are, not sure about all the lyrics as I don't understand anything the
vocalist is screaming all over the place), which is an interesting fact
for a band whose members all seem to be from Singapore (I could be wrong)
and for those who didn't go to school at all: Spanish in not one of the
four official languages of the Lion City. Interesting indeed because at a
time when bands from the Spanish speaking world seem to have (mostly)
turned their back on English (good!) to fully embrace their native
language they seem to have also become a strong enough influence to make
Spanish become another kind of lingua franca of punk bands for
some. I'm strongly in favour of bands singing in their own languages (why
would someone sing in a language not spoken by anyone in their own
countries?), yes it's really an "anti English language imperialism"
intellectual stance (says the French guy writing a blog in English).
Seeing another language taking English place is not really what I had in
mind (Yes I know we're not there at all) but it's a start (now let's ban
English lyrics in French bands!).
Ok so the fours tracks of this demo from 2018 sound really like they
could have been written in a squat in Barcelona or somewhere in Colombia.
Yes that's incredibly similar to Spanish speaking raw punk (that's the
whole point I know), Xyresic's songs are linear and fast (puh pah
puh pah puh pah) and aggressive with a shitload of reverb on the vocals
(of course), fully embracing the codes of the groups taken as models. It
alternates between "fast" d-beat parts and slower mid-tempo heavy raw punk
parts.
I've seenUna Bèstia Incontrolable
(a band that I don't like) mentioned a few times but I was more thinking
of
Irreal
(of course),
Korrosive
(if they were singing in Spanish, Finnish hardcore is not far from that
genre after all),
The Juakinners
for the D-beat side and of courseReacción Violentaor
Pobreza Mental. Well you got the idea.
This demo doesn't bring anything new to the good old recipe but I
surprisingly found myself listening to it several time and really enjoying
it. With three tracks out of four under the 1:30 mark it's short enough to
not be boring, it's well played, it sounds good and it's exactly what I need to blast through my headphones sometimes. A cool demo in my opinion!
Xyresic doesn't waste any time and comes back one year later
(2019) with a brand new 10-track LP (released on
Pissed Off Records
and
Dead Bir Records).
So no surprises here, Xyresic didn't turn into a Rastafari reggae
quartet (fortunately not everybody is Bad Brains), the Singapore
band keeps delivering "classic" Spanish D-beat raw punk songs, which after
the demo review I just wrote above should be just enough to satisfy my
humble needs right? well yes but (yes there is a "but") for some reasons I
don't really get into this album, yes there are some pretty powerful songs
like Dos Caras, Rastreadores Espeluznantes or
El Diaspora and others but a couple of things annoy me though.
First the vocalist seems to want to add a lot of waaarrrghs everywhere
(I'm not against a few
waaarrrghs here and there at times,
waaarrrghs can be cool) and that's a bit too much, it recalls bad taste
Crust and Hardcore and it's tiring. Second I don't like the way the whole
think is mixed, contrary to the demo the guitar sound has no "depth" (or
not much), the drums sound a bit faint and the vocals are way too upfront,
which gives a disappointing result (in my very humble opinion) and my ears
can't really "get hooked".
Despite some cool tracks I find the whole album a bit hard to listen till
the end, a bit boring and tiring to be honest. It will probably fulfil
your wildest and rawest expectations if you're a die-hard D-beat fan
though.
Two years later (in December 2021) appears Nuevo Orden Mundial on
their bandcamp page. Just one song and no explanation, nothing. Should we
hope for a new release in the coming months? I suppose so.
I would even say "let's hope so!". Yes that new song sounds pretty good,
the mix is great, it's catchy and aggressive and (to my knowledge)
introduces a new kind of beat in Xyresic's history (which is cool).
It's still doesn't have the "wall of energy vibe" of Sial's sound but
it's getting a bit closer.
I will let you know as soon as a new release shows up.
I discovered Faze very recently with their latest release, the
Content EP on 11pm records (I'll talk about it below), and I seized
the occasion to dig into the Canadian band's discography. These guys seem
to love skateboarding in summer and playing in loud bands in winter (and
probably all year long for that matter), bands like the French-oi!-oriented
Béton Armé
and the noisy hardcore punk CPU Rave (demo
and
tape).
Oh yes and they've been playing together since 2015 or something like
that, so yes it's been a while already.
So it all started with this 4-track tape released on
Runstate Tapes
in 2016 whose psychedelic artwork is full of acid-infused promises, but
fortunately appearances can be deceiving and, as astonishing as it may
sound, Faze's very far from being a
Jefferson Airplane clone or an Austin Powers tribute band (or vice versa).
Faze play some kind of mid-tempo punk with a lot of reverb on the
vocals and a bit less on the guitar, which may make some think of some
kind of a "psyche" twist but is, to me, more reminiscent of
death-rock-infused punk bands like Rudimentary Peni and the like.
Ok Faze doesn't sound like Rudimentary Peni, the bass sounds
hardcore and they definitely fit in the attitude of that end of the punk
spectrum but listen to No Loss and you'll get what I mean.
It's pretty cool but a bit slow innit? Not so heavy either so this first
release sits a bit on the fence, definitely showing a very strong
potential that could be expressed more openly.
Thankfully Nothing Left,
the closing song, adopts a faster tempo which bodes well for the
future.
Hehe things start getting really interesting with that second tape
released in 2017 onRunstate Tapesand very humbly named Songs by Faze.
Four new tracks that get deeper into the dark corners of gloomy punk
shyly explored in their first release, all the songs open with "long" distressing intros which give way to sinister parts where the reverbed out
vocals take us far into the dark waters of tormented souls. It's still
slow, but a bit heavier though, the songs building up slowly they also
get longer (between 2:50 and 4:50)... and that's Slimy Member that
comes to mind now! There is the same kind of atmosphere even if
Faze tends to play slower and longer songs with a more "d-beat
linearity" feeling than a death-rock vibe.
Faze's songs exude despair and malaise, the vocalist sounding like
he's wading through a sludge of sticky and slimy problems that his Doc
Martens couldn't get him out of. The tape concludes with
Prison Planet which is probably the most disturbing track of all, a
track made to spread uneasiness and self-depreciation throughout the
world... it starts out slowly like a hazy nightmare before speeding up
into a full-blown nighttime battle with the most vicious of our inner
demons... brilliant!
And that's the third tape on Runstate Tapesfor my French-speaking colleagues from across the Atlantic!
Struggling To Enjoy Ourselves While The World Slowly Implodes
was released in 2018andbrings us four more tracks (definitely these
guys' favourite format) illustrated by a pretty cool collage artwork by
Felix Morel.
And I would say that it picks up almost exactly where
Songs by Faze had left it, it sounds quite similar (the guitars
sound slightly "clearer" though) and the general atmosphere is roughly the
same (I can't really say that it is overflowing with joy and optimism).
But I nevertheless feel a new "level of attention" for extra details like
a bit of guitar here, a "rounder" bassline there etc... And it does give
great results, Crooked Light is a great song, a long and
intoxicating song that drags the poor defenceless listener into the depths
of the sweaty and dead-end jungle... before No Feelings accelerate
it all, fast-forwarding the last chapters of Apocalypse Now in what
could be the fast food version for Chinese businessmen of the Coppola
movie in a near future... let me tell you there's going to be some puke on
the tiling...
So giving the circumstances what's better than concluding this nice
soundtrack for a summer country walk than a tune called
Altered State? Yeah right everybody's just out of their bloody mind
at that stage anyway...
Here we finally reach their latest (and best, in my humble
opinion) record, their Content EP released late 2021 on
11PM Records
(so that's the first time Faze got a vinyl out and also the first
time they got anything out on an American label).
To be honest it took me some time to get into this record, I was a bit surprised by the three EPs 11PM records released simultaneously in December (Faze's, Ztuped's and Last Affront's), for some reasons I had in mind a certain type of hardcore identity stuck to the label (Rolex, Loss Prevention, Subliminal Excess, Freon etc...) and... well I was not expecting that. And I actually think it's great to have been taken by surprise by the label's will to keep a strong identity in all the diversity of the genre.
Anyway this time we don't get four but five new tracks (these guys have no limits)!
Starting with a quite long intro partially built around that discreet, but magic, trombone Faze seems to love to use at times on stage, Burn it Faster quickly becomes much faster and meaner, taking a real d-beat meets hardcore turn. The atmosphere still has that gloomy and discomforting feeling the boys from Montreal have accustomed my ears to, but this time the whole thing sounds just a lot more aggressive, ready to go for your throat at any moment.
Let's be honest that kind of nasty hardcore d-beat punk (or whatever else you wanna call it) is quite trendy these days, with labels like La Vida, Static Shock, Symphony of Destruction and many others over the planet competing to find the meanest bastards in the genre (and I'm not complaining as I enjoy all that shit a lot). Faze were already swimming in those waters and they just pushed their concept to the limit, reminiscent of Maladia, Vinegar Strokes and others of that angry gloomy punk sub-genre whose extreme end is made of bands like Koma, Ohyda and S.H.I.T.
But Faze haven't reached that far end yet and even if songs like Can't Understand The Feeling or Tu n'existerais Pu (You Would Not Exist Anymore) (at last a song in French goddammit!) definitely got that pummelling D-beat vibe they keep an "acceptable" level of "buzzing heaviness" if you see what I mean. Born Sinners closes the EP with a perfect recap of the successful band formula: full reverb on angry vocals, heavy (D?) beats and fast "hardcore" parts... and Faze won me over!
A great EP!
And as a famous German band used to sing: It's Only a Faze (ok that's lame but since the beginning I was looking for the right opportunity to crack it, looks like I've failed).
