Welcome to Crusty Culprits #5, where I shine a light on some rough fvckin’ diamonds from the world of D-beat, crust, hardcore, and all punk rock points in between. In recent years, Bandcamp has proven to be a goldmine for finding pick-sliding punks, so that’s where Crusty Culprits’ pool of provocateurs is drawn from. Thanks a bunch for reading, and keep an eye out for more Crusty Culprits features in the near future.
Crusty Culprits #5
Ruidosa Inmundicia – Amazing Madness Japan Tour CD
(Self-released)
Ruidosa Inmundicia are an Austrian hardcore band with a couple Chilean members, including the band’s vehement vocalist Caro. All the band’s lyrics are in Spanish, and their music is a beautifully ugly wall of noise—bolstered by insanely violent riffs—that Caro rants and raves over the top of. The longest song on Ruidosa Inmundicia’s caustic Amazing Madness Japan Tour CD is a smidgen over one minute long. So best be prepared for incensed punk, and intense punk, all delivered at breakneck speed. FFO Kohti Tuhoa, Rad, Exotica, and Barcelona.
ruidosainmundicia.bandcamp.com/album/amazing-madness-japan-tour-cd
Deranged Records – the whole fvcking lot
The only word to describe the impressive run of releases from Canadian label Deranged Records this year is ridiculous. I mean, realistically, most labels would be happy to drop a couple of storming albums every year. But Deranged Records has just gone ahead and dropped a lengthy series of unfailingly excellent punk, hardcore, and post-punk releases in 2016. (Mind you, that’s not so different to what Deranged Records did in 2015 as well.) Rather than just pick one Deranged Records release to highlight, let me wholeheartedly recommend you visit the label’s Bandcamp page and listen to Violent Minds (Eyes of Death + Bonus), Worse (Rubber Burner), Mongoloid (Plays Rock ’N’ Roll), BIB (Pop), Cretins (Meat), Spectres (Utopia), Tenement (S/T) and Cult Values (S/T). I flipped a coin to decide which release to stream below, and you get the blown-out hardcore and noise punk of Omaha, Nebraska’s very own BIB. Enjoy, compadres.
derangedrecords.bandcamp.com/album/pop
Disclone – End of the Line/Death From Above
(Self-released)
Whether it’s influential punk icons like Discharge or Disclose, or one of the legions of dis-who/whatever outfits that’ve sprung up over the years, all those groups have one thing in common. They’re all likely to be boiling with rage and advocating dis-fvcking-order. And that’s certainly the case with Austrian kängpunk rogues Disclone. The band’s 21-track full-length, Death From Above, was released back in May. Then a couple of months later, Disclone’s 7-track End of the Line EP arrived as well. Both are feedback-driven and bleeding-raw endeavours slathered in a thick and blackened D-beat crust. Both will allow you to dis(-)cover just how great dis(-)gusting heavyweight noise can be.
disclone.bandcamp.com/album/end-of-the-line
Pollen – E.P.
(Self-released, Brain Solvent Propaganda)
Piss – Stuck in the Gutter
(Self-released, Static Age Records)
Speaking of disgusting noise, both Pollen and Piss make a degenerate racket that’ll sate those seeking a dose of raw and filthy noise. I stumbled on Philadelphia-based band Pollen earlier this year via their violent Manic Relapse Vol IV tape, and the band’s E.P. features a skin-stripping sound that’s influenced by plenty of Swedish mangle reprobates, and cuts like a rusty blade. Berlin band Piss take the Scandi rapunk and acid-soaked audio route too. The band’s frenzied five-track Stuck in the Gutter 7-inch is feedback-fuelled, rotten as a gangrenous wound, and it’s a whole lot of feral fun to boot.
wearepiss.bandcamp.com/album/stuck-in-the-gutter
Vastation – S/T 7-inch
(Self-released)
Portland, Oregon crust crew Vastation recently released a heavy piece of punk rock with the digital version of their upcoming self-titled 7-inch. I first bumped into Vastation on their awesome 2015 split with crust veterans War//Plague (whose formidable Carrion LP this year marks War//Plague as the punk band to beat in 2016). Vastation know a thing or two about sonic tonnage, and they smash hefty death metal headfirst into thickset stenchcore on their new three-track release. The result is a bulldozing sound that’s as mangling as it is massive. No question, Vastation are getting better, and certainly more brutal, with each and every release.
vastation.bandcamp.com/album/vastation-7-digital-release
Cancer Spreading – Ghastly Visions
(Neanderthal Stench Records, Heavy Metal Vomit Party Records, Back on Tracks Records)
Forget running with the bulls, Italian stenchcore band Cancer Spreading sound like rabies-infected mammoth stampeding through the streets. Cancer Spreading’s grinding and guttural second album, Ghastly Visions, sees low-end death metal colliding with crushing old-school crust—think Entombed covering Discharge—and then the band take to that and their hardcore roots with a bloody chainsaw. The end result sees capitalism smashed, politicians trampled, and the man left dead in a rotting heap. Ghastly Visions is ragged and bleak, and it certainly underscores Cancer Spreading’s grim message of nihilism and self-destruction.
cancerspreading.bandcamp.com/album/ghastly-visions
Sarabante – Poisonous Legacy
Halshug – Sort Sind
(Southern Lord)
Label Southern Lord can be relied upon to deliver first-rate punk and hardcore, and here’s a couple more absolute storming releases from 2016. First up, if bands like Wolfbrigade, Martyrdöd, His Hero Is Gone or Tragedy are your thing (and they’re definitely my thing, my friend), then the metallic crust and galloping D-beat of long-running Greek band Sarabante is going to appeal too. Giant snarling riffs greet you on the band’s Poisonous Legacy LP, and drawing inspiration from the political and social upheavals in their home country, Sarabante deliver a punishing and impassioned album that balances aggressive songwriting with melodic hooks. Denmark’s Halshug deal in punishing music and monster-sized riffs too. The band’s new album, Sort Sind, is ripe with razor-edged and raw Scandinavian d-beat and hardcore; and recorded live, Sort Sind boils with cyclonic intensity. Halshug’s 2015 debut, Blodets Bånd, was a raging hellfire, which makes Sort Sind an absolutely decimating inferno. My recommendation: get ’em all.
sarabantesl.bandcamp.com/releases
Fragment – Demo 2016
(Imminent Destruction Records)
Ssyndrom – History Hysteria
(self-released)
I like music that tests your nerves, your forbearance, and the very concept of what music is. I mean, I recognise that mountains of feedback, oceans of distortion, and, well, garbage dumps of ear-bleeding noise are all a very hard sell. I just genuinely like deliberately fucked-up music that sounds like it’s been drowned in acid and then hauled out and sandblasted in a tin shack in the midst of a hurricane. That’s why I think the six-track demo from Canadian punks Fragment is total genius. It features blown-out and feedback-drenched crasher crust that tips its hat to the unhinged noise of Japanese legends like Framtid. Similarly, the supercharged albeit super-raw punk found on Californian band Ssyndrom’s History Hysteria runs riot in the halls of sonic insanity too. There you’ll discover just how far your apparent fandom of distorted-to-fvck noise really goes. Hang on in, it’s a wonderful/horrible ride.
fragmentpunk.bandcamp.com/releases
