Pitva

 

Pitva is a noisy-punk quartet hailing from Vienna, Austria.  

Dominik, the singer, is from Czech republic though and most of (all?) the lyrics are in Czech (Pitva means Autopsy). Dominik seems to be the very active type, I won't even try to mention all the projects he's been involved in, but he was/is part of several Black Metal influenced bands like Parasite Dreams and Smuteční Slavnost (Funeral party) but is also in Autor (I reviewed their debut release very briefly two years ago) and in Urban Lurk, not a band but a tape label and show promoter based in Vienna.

Standing behind the synth is Robert Pawliczek, a german visual artist and musician who plays/played in a bunch of bands you probably have heard of like Heavy Metal, Bobby Would, Schiach, Privat and Agir (I've probably missed a few), he also manages an "artist run off space" called Drive-In / Drive-Thru and is involved in a label and distro called Quality Music. Yes the man's been busy.

Raphael, the drummer, is not the idle type either and he's spent years exploring various musical genres (from black metal to dark-wave and post-punk). He is the drummer for Parasite Dreams but also the man behind Rosa Nebel and plays in Gates of Londra, Phantom Gold and Peace Vaults. He is also the other half of Urban Lurk with Dominik.

The guitarist, aka Johnny Brise, seems to be obsessed with Metal, he played/plays in Death Racer, Hagzissa, Kringa, Forgotten Shrines and other loud acts which are light-years away from my musical interests... 

Anyway you got the point, these guys obviously didn't grab their first guitar/drum kit/whatever last week end... so what do we have here on the postmortem table?

 

Pitva's demo was released at the end of 2018 on the Prague-based label Stoned To Death and let me be straight, I'm not going to spend much time reviewing it. I discovered the demo after I listened to their self-titled LP, which is a completely different story, and the demo black metal infused vocals is a straight NO NO for me, I just can't stand it. So yes this first release sounds closer to Parasite Dreams, and all that black metal stuff Dominik is fond of, than what came next. Give it a try if you're into that kind of stuff, I'm not.

So here is what deserves your full attention in my opinion, Pitva's recent (2022) self-titled LP released on the super cool Berlin-based label Static Age.

At first I didn't really understand the cover picture (wtf?), and then I remembered what Pitva means (I told you at the very beginning of this post!) and the whole thing instantly made sense! (thank you dear Google Translation).

Ok here were are, forget about the lousy Black Metal shit, this record is something else!

To be honest I had to listen to this LP A LOT to be able to really figure it out, yes it starts a bit like a noisy but bass-less punk band, the synth building up a dark and gloomy atmosphere made of distorted layers on which the guitar nails acute and haunting melodies. The vocals and the drums counterpoint all of this, keeping the burning anger right in your ugly face, Dominik screams and shouts while Raphael keeps it sharp and fast. The whole noisy punk vibe made me first thought of Bathouse (even if the bass is a big part of the swedes' noise and not of Pitva's) and the comparison's not completely irrelevant in my opinion but limiting Pitva to that is way too narrow.

 Indeed, from the third track onwards, the record turns into something else, something that sounds colder, something that sounds a lot more "disillusioned", something that sounds very German in my opinion and recalls dirtier versions of Maske and, even more recently, of Die Verlierer.

But don't get me wrong, the noisy coldness "à la" Einstürzende Neubauten (the freezing cold Pytlak!) and the eastern anger from "behind the iron curtain" hardcore bands (Odpadki Civilizacije was mentioned somewhere, even if Pitva doesn't swim in the same kind of waters) are never very far. On Bestie the band even takes us halfway between Indus and cold-wave before diving back into a fast and cold synth punk. 

But the main question in the end is always the same. Is it good? Do I like it? Yes and Yes I do but beware, don't be fooled by the "punkitude" of the first two tracks, the whole thing is a lot darker, gloomier and cold than what you might expect at first, yes, this album is a grower! The kind you're going to love coming to again and again.

Probably the best disturbing and noisy record to come out on Static Age since the amazing Walking Korpses LP!

 

 

N,J'Oi!

 

 

 

 

You can listen to Pitva on Rien à Faire #33.

 

  

 

 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

 

 

 

VA - Rien à Faire #33 - Punk, Hardcore, Post-Punk... new stuff only! April 2022

 

Here we go for the 33rd edition of the infamous RAF compilation featuring a quite balanced mix of hardcore punk, noise punk, anarcho-punk and even some post-punk here and there (yeah the options in terms of adjectives you can put in front of the word "punk" are literally limitless!).

The 17 bands of today are from the US, Australia, Austria, Malaysia, Germany and Romania, mainly from the US to be honest, I try to keep on covering bands from all over the world but the American scene is so vivid and full of great bands it's just impossible to ignore them.

  

N,J'Oi!

 

 

 

01 - Crisis Man - No Standing Ovation
02 - Split System - Climbing
03 - Pitva - Kapr
04 - Church Clothes - Relative Power
05 - D.Sablu - Bomber Stomp
06 - ConSec - You're Not Going Anywhere
07 - Crime of Passing - Tender Fixation
08 - Deluded - Wash The Scum
09 - Straw Man Army - Faces In The Dark
10 - Mercenary - No Uniform
11 - Xero - Scheme
12 - No Future - Pig Fiend
13 - The Hard-Crop's - The Band
14 - Cold Brats - Living Room La Vida Loca
15 - Science Man - The Want
16 - Maske - Eiszeit
17 - White Suns - Night Pours In

 

 

 YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE WHOLE THING HERE

 

 

   

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

 

Running

 

I talked briefly about Running in my post about Brandy one year and a half ago, the two bands sharing the same vocalist, and this new tape recently released on Physical Medium finally gives me a good reason to talk a bit more about the band from Chicago.

I'm not going to "scrutinize" the quite long discography of the band but rather give a quick "overview" of their main releases before taking a closer look at this tape. If you're not familiar with Running music, I would suggest to listen to the tape first and then go backwards, but you can do whatever you want.

 

Running released their self-titled debut album in 2010, a time when mass extinction and World War III were still just another depressive vague topic and not an upcoming date in our agenda. Running is punk, chaotic punk with lots of noise. These guys make it loud, real loud, the sound is heavy and crunchy but don't get me wrong, shrieking feedbacks are never very far, ringing ears are just around the corner... To make it short I would say that Running is a mix between the sound of the MC5, the energy of the dirtiest garage punk, Chicago noise-rock and a strong punk attitude. What a mix, huh? Yes this is the type of cuisine the band has been cooking up with every conceivable condiment for over a decade. Put on your bib, it's spicy and it stains.

 

With Asshole Savant (their second album, if you consider that a one-sided 12" is an album, I do) released in 2012, Running gets a bit more reasonable, the chaos of exploding noises of the first album has been tamed, the trio's now playing something closer to a trashy kind of garage noise or something like that. Something that would not be completely off topic on Voodoo Rhythm.

This album is not easy to find online, so I uploaded the files I found: Running, Asshole Savant.

That's it! With Vaguely Ethnic (2013), the band's found the perfect balance in their recipe, delivering what is, in my opinion, the embodiment of what Running music is. The trio keeps playing the same kind of trashy garage noise they explored in Asshole Savant but this time they add a stronger rock'n roll attitude, catchy guitar riffs and, most of all, a great sound. Yes in this LP is a bit of a rough draft of what Brandy will be a few years later: a delightful cocktail of extremely catchy songs.

Same as with Asshole Savant, download it here: Running Vaguely Ethnic.

 

 

 With Wape Up Applauding (2016), Running moves away from the trashy, but catchy, garage punk of Vaguely Ethnic, to make things slower, deeper, even more subtle maybe. Running is still Running, that unique guitar sound and the very recognizable vocals (with a lot of chorus effect) announce it very clearly from the first seconds of the record. But this time the trio takes their time to build up slowly noisy atmospheres, atmospheres which can almost be described as psychedelic sometimes as the repetition of haunting riffs, often heavy but never brutal, exalts the brain to excess. No catchy chorus or melodies here, Wake Up Applauding is not danceable, it's dark, twisted and dense. No "hit song" either, the album is a whole that you got to attack repeatedly, from different angles, to be able to penetrate to the core. A bit like this strange and thick layer of skin on the cover.

Not their easiest album to get into, but perhaps the one you'll come back to most easily.

Almost impossible to stream online, here is the downloadable version: Running Wake Up Applauding.

 

 

And that was mostly it until now. Ok there are other EPs and collabs I haven't mentioned, for example the very last Running release is an instrumental and very psychedelic tape with Ryley Walker recorded in 2018 (not very interesting in my opinion).

So let's come back now to Asked You Nicely, the "cassingle" I was talking about at the very beginning of this post. Recorded in 2019 in New York, these two songs are unfortunately the very last of Running, Alejandro Morales (drums) passed away in March 2021 (RIP). 

Opening up with WUYFOWTIA, Running benefits from a particularly sharp sound that's used to punch you in the face with the best of their noisy, almost raucous and cold, almost industrial, rock whose icy melodies pierce your eardrums to the bone until your brain drips through your nostrils. Savage!

But don't get excited, you're not getting away, the trio's not done with your fragile mind: The five-plus minute track Asked You Nicely tortures every inch of your body and soul until you talk, sing and scream your lungs out... sorry no one can hear you here in the basement baby. It's cold, very cold, and that sharp shrieking metallic sound is going to hammer you down man... Wow what a track!

 

The third and final track is a remix of Asked You Nicely by Bill Conors (the man behind Physical Medium, he also made the tape cover artwork), and this version is even colder and darker than the original one. A lot of gloomy electronic sounds are taking you hostage and your cell this time is the antechamber of EBM and all this kind of gloomy, gothic and deeply unsane electronic music. You're totally wasted in a sweating basement, the party's been going on for days, weeks maybe, you can't move and you're watching, helplessly, Running meticulously crushing your useless brain...

 

What a tape! Probably the best post-mortem release Running could dream of! 

REST IN POWER!

 

 

 

 

 

You can listen to Running on Rien à Faire #32.

 

  

 

 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

Jailer

 

Jailer's demo reviews have popped up a bit everywhere online over the past weeks and it's quite funny to see that while everybody agrees that this tape rips, it seems that Jailer's sound recalls very different things to each reviewers depending on their musical tastes and backgrounds. So now I guess it's my turn to add a little more confusion to the upbeat cacophony of the online punk world intelligentsia.

 

But first things first, according to various sources Jailer is one of the newest project of NYC and Philly punks who have a long record of obnoxious noise-making behind them, it even seems that one (the drummer maybe?), or some, of them, was/were involved in Sirkka, a great Finnish-hardcore-infused raw punk band from NYC which released a killer tape in 2020. Despite being obviously very talented, these guys also seem to love secrecy and I've not been able to dig up any first-hand information (congratulations, I usually manage to stalk almost everybody online).

 

 

  So first these guys like it loud and noisy, the guitars got that crushing buzz-saw sound and the deafening crunchy cymbals add the extra ingredient to something that could really fall into the "noise-worship" category. Thankfully the bass sticks out in that mess with a very medium round sound which gives an old-school anarcho punk vibe to the lot. On top of that the vocalist seems to particularly like the typical vocal flow dear to a part of the 80s British anarcho-punk wave (obvious on Vision Zero).

Yes, to me a lot in Jailer is reminiscent to the most "hardcore" bands from the 80s British anarcho-punk movement, I can think of Anti-System, A.O.A or some parts of Conflict's discography even if Jailer adds to that a "noise mayhem approach" closer to what Scandinavia used to offer at the time.

Something else entirely: the most music-loving or film-loving among you will appreciate the surprising reference to that good old Richard Wagner on Sexual Janitor.

 

 Whatever Jailer will make you think of, it's obvious that these guys' four songs totally rip. It got that in-your-fucking-face energy mixed with great songs structures and perfect punk vocals which make you wanna pogo AND listen to that shit on your way to work in the morning while you're being crushed in the packed subway wagon. The only thing that bothers me a bit is the tendency to play noisy but annoying guitar solos here and there (especially on Human Momentum), thankfully it doesn't reach the "Metal-inspired threshold" so it's still fine.

Let's hope that, not like Sirkka, something else will come out very soon...

Oh yes, of course I agree too... what the fuck is this cover artwork?

N,J'Oi!

You can listen to Jailer on Rien à Faire #31.

 

 

 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

  

 

 

Mop Buckets

 

Mop Buckets is a new quartet from Los Angeles, California, made of three guys from Cunts (the ones from LA not the ones from Australia with a Z, don't be misled by their album lame Metal cover artwork, these guys play cool punk songs) which is a good point for a start as I can't help but feel a lot of respect for anyone playing in a non-grindcore band called Cunts (there is actually a Japanese grindcore band called Cunts but it has no relevance to our topic). These guys also played in bands like Retox, Dead Cross, Niis, Qui, Planet B (three of them are produced by Ipecac Recordings by the way) and other punk/metal/trash/whatever bands from the Los Angeles area...

 

So a 6-track one-sided 12" just got out on Order 05 Records, a pretty cool label from Berlin I already mentioned in my post about Skeleton Glove, and it's definitely worth a write-up so here we go! 

Happy, the opening track, immediately sets the scene of the next fifteen minutes, it's going to be dark, weird and deeply tormented. The bass and the battery lead the song, like in a lot of noise-rock track, while the guitar and the synth/electronic noises alternate between "reasonable" surf-ish melodies and dives into madness. Of course the vocalist's screams and shouts are not here to help us regain our sanity and the defenceless listener can't help but be drawn into this insane delirium whirlwind.

 

Scroll brings the heaviness back, the guitar crushing massive chords on your fragile eardrums, unfortunately leading at times to some very Metal-inspired parts the album didn't need at all.

The four other tracks subtly mix a heavy "noise-rock sound" with the kind of "maniac spoken words" parts which will immediately make pop in your mind the crazy face of the leader of a famous band from California that took its name from two famous murdered Democrat brothers. Yes THIS guy. In fact, the similarity is not limited to the tones of the singer's ramblings, but also includes the music, you know that "surf guitar vibe" and all that. Of course the Man has put his speaker talent at the service of other bands as you well know (D.O.A, No Means No, The Melvins and of course The Guantanamo School Of Medicine and others) and I will let you decide which of these sound the most similar to some parts of Mop Buckets' songs. 

But don't get me wrong Mop Buckets is not spoken-words band, they increase the tempo at times and clearly leans towards an appreciable hardcore punk side.

 

And strangely the riff of It's A Love Song brings Refused to mind (The Deadly Rhythm?) but that's probably just me.

But my favourite track is definitely Little Fucker (the closing track) which starts like a haunting rhyme about "the little fucker, the sneaky little bugger", a highly disturbing rhyme that one can easily imagine being repeated senselessly by poor Jack Torrance, before the song unleashes, in a ball of heavy guitar and obsessive melodies, all the contained fury that the madman has stored up for too long...  IS THERE NOTHING YOU CAN DO?

Brilliant!

Anyway don't get me wrong with all these comparisons, I really enjoy this (short) album (except for Scroll's lame Metal-inspired parts), there are a lot of great things in these songs but I would have appreciated more deeper plunges into "insanity" (like Little Fucker). But I'm sure the "Journey Into Madness" of these guys is just starting and the best is yet to come... in the meantime don't deny yourself the perverse pleasure of listening to Mop Buckets!

ps: I really love the cover artwork by T.J.Bohm!

 

N,J'Oi!

 

 

 

 

You can listen to Mop Buckets on Rien à Faire #29.

 

 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

 

 

 

 

Xyresic

 

picture by Kxngazlan

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 seen Una 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 course Reacción Violenta or 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.

In the meantime....

N,J'Oi!

 

  You can listen to Xyresic on Rien à Faire #30.

    

 

 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

 

 

VA - Rien à Faire #30 - Punk, Hardcore, Post-Punk... new stuff only! January 2022

 

Welcome to 2022!

It's your lucky day mate! I've selected all you need to calm that nasty jackhammer that's drilling between your ears, yeah that's a bad bad hangover you're starting the new year with and fifteen tracks of nasty hardcore punk, post-punk and other sorts of blissful melodies are gonna take care of it in no time!

This one collects songs from December releases and a couple of late comers I discovered only recently (shame on me).

Happy new year anyway!

 

 

N,J'Oi!

 

 

  01 - Sect Mark - Denied Self
02 - Faze - Tu N'existerais Pu
03 - Ztuped - i don't wanna see
04 - Shock Tactics - Fall Of Rome
05 - Asesinato - Manufactured Crisis
06 - Butchers Dog - Scandal Monger
07 - Glaas - Easy Living
08 - La Milagrosa - Pánico
09 - Gel - Mental Static
10 - Eterno Ritorno - Sola
11 - Mano Fico - Inferno Night
12 - Wipes - Dumpster
13 - Xyresic - Nuevo Orden Mundial
14 - Ultras - Deniability
15 - Börn - Norn

 

 

 YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE WHOLE THING HERE

 

 

  

 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM