FRENTE ARTISTAS EN LA RESISTENCIA

 

The only band I was familiar with before popping this tape in was CUCSIFAE, and by now you surely know me well enough to know that I'm gonna be stoked to dig into ten new (to me) turn of the century Argentinean political hardcore bands. Frente... is all over the place in the right way/s - catchy punk with razor thin guitars (and reggae breakdowns) from LAGRIMAS DE SANGRE, metallic hardcore chugs from O.D.R. and chaotic snarling fastcore rippers from PASO DEL REY. There's the aforementioned CUCSIFAE, whose dreamy punk is still infectious as hell to me, DISIDENCIA (ripping metallic 'hc), MATERIA FECAL who land like KILSLUG by-way-of NIRVANA (and might be the nicest surprise on the tape, and MOVIL VISSION. See....? This is exactly what I want in a compilation - and especially a region (or country) specific comp. JUAN PEREZ (melodic street punk), ASESINATO EN MASA (metalcore churns make another appearance), and addictive punk from TERRIBLES YE YES wind down Frente de Artistas en la Resistencia and then two wild hardcore-meets-RATM tracks from ANALISIS finish the job. To pop in a twenty plus year old comp filled almost entirely with new (to me) bands is still fukkn exciting - and when they're all good? Well, that's the shit that keeps me coming back.

FRENTE DE ARTISTAS EN LA RESISTENCIA

BROUGHAM

 

The Megakut family delivers consistently, and consistently delivers quality. You kinda have to keep on top of their shit because when it drops, it flies (I missed out on WOOFER CRUST and MOBBULATOR earlier this year because I was too slow)...so I treasure the shit I get my hands on. Last year's Bateh Bros. pulls from a time when rap pulled blatant funk and rock samples and BROUGHAM swagger like absolute motherfuckers through "Hemet," the 8-bit heavy "Doin' It With The Ham," "Motel Room" (perhaps the most ridiculous - and ridiculously sick - track I heard in all of 2022) and the infectious "Bad Chemical" opener. Put it all on pause and sink into the world of BROUGHAM - we'll still be here when you come back...if you come back. 

BATEH BROS.

REFUSED

 

By the time I heard REFUSED it was too late. I already knew SNAPCASE and INTEGRITY, I had already dismissed (most of) the Victory catalog because....I mean, obviously. I had heard DOUGHNUTS and they were fine. But I knew NO COMMENT. I was blasting the OUTLAST 10" on the regular and I wanted to go fast. I didn't need a mosh part, I didn't need a tough as nails groove. I had no interest in mid paced hardcore that often struck me as Fat fodder, but slower and with heavier guitars. So when I heard that The Shape Of Punk To Come was reshaping the world of DIY hardcore (and yeah, that really was a common opinion when the record came out) and I listened to it I was like.....nah, hard pass. So what happened when I revisited REFUSED in 2023 after a pal unloaded some unwanted cassettes? Two main takeaways: This Just Might Be...The Truth! is way more interesting than The Shape Of Punk To Come, even if (or especially because) it's more derivative and while I have more space available for ignorant hardcore than I did in the 1990s, ignorant sounding hardcore delivered with insight and intelligence lands exceptionally well. I'm not gonna get into the "did they or didn't they" revolutionize hardcore discussion, because really they were (just) a pretty good and very determined band from a relatively small town in the north of Sweden...and this tape is almost thirty years old. Most people reading this already love them or hate them, but I'm sharing for the people who don't care...because those are the folks who (like me) might be curious, might wonder what they missed.

THIS JUST MIGHT BE...THE TRUTH!

WARNING

 

Marginally competent rapid fire outbursts punctuated by ultra raw mid '90s punk slogs? Yes, please. It's easy to imagine the band honed in on the cold, loose hardcore parts ("Pazarnieki" and "Put Me On The Wall!" as examples) and place Latvia's WARNING alongside lots of Eastern Bloc heavyweights, but the collection of sounds that dates them is also what makes them unique. The vocals suggest a grizzled veteran in tattered clothes with a cigarette smoldering between his fingers, while the band suggests vodka and determination. But look at the picture....WARNING were just some kids from Latvia, going hard as fuck. 

LIKTENIGAIS KOSMODANCIS

VAAL

 

Random pickups are still my favorite. Of course I get stoked when the new CYBERPLASM 12" slides through the mail slot and I know my brain is about to melt, but what about dropping a few dollars because something looked interesting? Because something felt right in your hands? That was my experience with VAAL, mysterious Dutch black metal misanthrope who has been responsible for scores of releases under different monikers since the mid-teens. Since this isn't "my" realm, 2019's Ondood Rehearsal was my first exposure and....consider me exposed. Seven cold and impassioned blasts that led me down a dark hole to find OLD TOWER, STAAR, THE WAMPYRIC SPECTER and other associated manifestations, in addition to a swarm of recordings under the shadow of VAAL. There's a reason I keep the genre at arm's length...these vortices have strong pulls, and one curious soul might never leave their orbit. 

ONDOOD REHEARSAL

SHATTERED BADGE

 

Eight minutes of blasting madness with a few deadly mosh breaks thrown in because...because that's what you're supposed to do. No song titles, just power. 

SHATTERED BADGE

If this band produced more than this one tape on Ratdick, then someone needs to let me know...

THE INVESTMENT

I posted the other THE INVESTMENT tape a few years ago and picking this one up inspired me to spend some time with both of them...time well spent. Four tracks on this first demo - dark, forceful, synth laden pieces of young adult determination. "Monochromatic Night" is a testimony on its own, and I (still) wonder how this band existed right under my nose but just beyond my ears.

EMPTY STATIONS 

TAMTAM'S LIVE HITS

 

The first volume of live hits from Saint Petersburg's TamTam club was posted back in September (and years before that on Muzika - Komunika), and this second volume more of the same in the best possible way. A freaky punky reggae party featuring sixteen bands you've probably never heard of...unless you wisely spent time with the first volume, that is. Absolutely all over the place, from wild dirges (SIVVI MOSS) to straight reggae jam band fodder (RAINBOW ARMY BAND, MOTEMA PEMBE), hi-NRG ska/punk (SPITFIRE) and everything in between (ЮГЕНДЩТИЛБ, MAD FISH, РАШИД ФАНИН). Someone covers "American Woman," someone else covers "Rawhide" - there were no boundaries, even if there were rules. The third volume is just as cool....

TAMTAM LIVE HITS VOL.2

RED MASS

 

Here's the thing: Volume 4. Love & Magik is cool. It's very cool. It's a sultry garage/psych slog that sets a mood and sticks with it, the kind of record your (grand?)parents would have listened to in the woods (if they had record players in the woods) and it would have felt dangerous. But here's the thing...it's not as cool as it should be. Look at that cover - read the damn title for fuck's sake. "Drink My Blood" should be a transformative journey into darkness, instead it's a lurching garage/post-punk jammer that's like, you know, pretty cool. "Black Mass" is the only real burner on the tape and it's shit-hot....but shouldn't that one be creepy as fuck? It's not that I don't like the thing (which is part of a series that does have me curious), but I do...and it's still growing on me a bit as I listen. But sometimes you should be able to admit when you want...more.

VOLUME 4. LOVE & MAGIK

HEAD BOGGLE // BEAST NEST

One installment from an excellent cassette series curated by KDVS early last decade, pairing the futuristic space musings of HEAD BOGGLE with one twenty minute landing from BEAST NEST. You put this on at night, you put this on when you need to know that...you're not alone

ACOUSMATIC WAVES

 

MESS

 

A dozen minutes of fervent bashing and determined pounding from early 'teens Olympia, MESS sound like they are dragging their city's '90s legacy unwillingly into the last decade. 

MESS

CONSTRUCTORES DEL ODIO

 

A part of me wishes that I had encountered this tape in real time when it was released in the late '90s. Honestly though, I'm not sure I could have handled it. Mexico's CONSTRUCTORES DEL ODIO absolutely destroy. Period. A half hour of unhinged hardcore punk that has more in common with early '80s Italian rage than with their contemporaries...and then they drop in to fiery ska-punk on tracks like "PxGxBx" and I just can't....I just can't get enough. Listen to "Un Cambio" (at appropriate volume) and it will fucking change you. Straight up. This is how DIY hardcore punk is supposed to fucking sound. Maybe I wasn't ready in 1997, but I am here for it today. 

COERCION

SHAMEOVER

 

I'm already gone...fucking up for too long

•••

I mean...I don't like this kind of punk. Except when I love this kind of punk. 

SHAMEOVER

CROSTA

 

I feel like the CROSTA 12" gets lost (or got lost) in the deluge of killer records that dropped at the start of the last decade, but it is a record worth revisiting (or seeking out). This demo was released in 2011 (the LP came the following year) and is a perfect harbinger - sharp, no bullshit Spanish punk, rougher than the LP...but that's what you're supposed to get from a demo. "Discos Punk" on repeat.

CROSTA

JULIA MAZAWA

 

Last weekend I went to a small backyard gathering to celebrate the birth of a very nice dude with an all-over-the-map musical taste that I've always appreciated. He told me he'd been downsizing a bit recently and would I be interested in a bag of tapes....even though he had cannibalized some of the outer cases. My first thought was "uhhh - it's your birthday, dude....but of course" and then my second thought was "damn...my friends really know me." He asked me to let him know if there were any winners in the bunch, and yesterday I sent him a message and said that the first tape I listened to, Julia Mazawa's God Bows To Math was more than just a "winner," it was an absolute stunner. Mazawa's approach to noise (sound) hits like an artist's approach to visceral (visual) media - you can hear them constructing as the pieces progress and at points it's as if you can see the sound. Dark, ominous, improvisational, deliberate...and to think that I only popped this one in first because millenials are bad at math....

GOD BOWS TO MATH

 

PALÁNTA

 

You know the feeling when a band just sounds fun? Like the songs are good and they kick you in the ass but mostly you just think "fuuuuck I bet this would be a blast live!" Well folks, meet Budapest quintet PALÁNTA - hard swinging, feisty, psyched-out Hungarian punk drenched in keyboards are ready to absolutely level the joint. "Ehseg" is the summer party jam you never knew you needed, and I'm struck by how much this reminds me of the first time I heard GORILLA ANGREB (I was drunk in Malmö, spring 2003). The two bands sound nothing alike, but the it's the way neither fits into any mold past or present and the way both go hard without trying to be or sound anything other than what they are. That sentence as a descriptor is more esoteric than helpful, but I'm just gonna hope that you, studied visitor, are going to know what I mean...PALÁNTA might just be a once in a (punk) generation band. 

PALÁNTA

 

ANTIFACES

 

What a simple and ferocious (or ferociously simple) tape from Miami's ANTIFACES. Manipulated  stomps delivered with unhinged fury and wild hooks - like LA FRACTION mixed with modern LA Raw Ponx. It sounds so easy when you describe it sounds so wild when you blast it. 

SONMIDOS RECICLADOS

LEVITATIONS

 

Germany's LEVITATIONS sit apart from the hordes. Dark punk roots with an unpolished delivery that leans on the punk part of that descriptor, but LEVITATIONS swell and sway with the fervency of WAX IDOLS, IS/IS or even INTERPOL. 2016's Dust is a gorgeous and instantly addictive recording (there's a vinyl version as well, recommended of course) - the drawn out close to "Assisted Suicide," songs that listen like they sing ("Worn Out" as a specific example), and the desperate deliberate plodding pace of "Everything" and I could (naturally) continue but this isn't a recording to dissect. This is a recording to spend time with. 

DUST

ANNAPURA

 

I saw ANNAPURA on their recent West Coast tour and I was reeling for fukkn days...until I saw them again and they sent me reeling again. Ferocity and devastation - a modern manifestation of so many of the DBeat tinged hardcore/crust trappings of the last two decades, and seeing them back-to-back with MOXIEBEAT was like going back to school. TO listen to "No Pasaran" is simply to know what the shit is supposed to sound like - ANNAPURA are urgent, they are demanding, the songs are ungodly powerful, and I already can't wait to see them again.

NN

LUX

 

I wonder if this album would have landed even harder had it been among the first wave of devastating Barcelona punk that dominated much of the early century. Their wild stomps fronted by flawless and piercing femme vocals are an instant addiction, and as much as I love the New Day EP on La Vida, this full length is a simply perfect document. A jumbled bouquet of dark punk, '80s UK anarcho and inventive modern Spanish hardcore that sounds like fucking LUX and like nothing else. 

LUX

SISSY SPACEK

 

For more than two decades, SISSY SPACEK have been blurring lines that separate thunderous noisecore, harsh noise and grind. Their sound lurches and lumbers and crashes, something more akin to a car crash relived in slow motion than anything approaching music. But of course...this is the point. On 2013's Billions And Billions from the venerable Chondritic Sound label, SSSYSPCK open with the 20+ minute "Belt" that sounds like terror itself tightening around your throat, with no structure, no rhythm, no regard whatsoever for the listener - just swells and surges and violence and a group absolutely having their way with you. While the flips side is somewhat more subdued ("Pink" into "Dislocation") the two pieces serve as an ominous harbinger instead of anything approaching a come down. Disorienting, casually chaotic sonic torture of the highest order. 

BILLIONS AND BILLIONS

SONGS FOR THE SUN

 

The magic of a good mix tape is hard to deny. The way songs flow together, the songs you've never hear by artists you already know, things you've heard of but wondered about, acts that grab you and hold your interest...or just a really good listen that floats around the room while you go about your day. Songs For The Sun is all of those things and more. Just a beautiful collection of sounds from VELVET UNDERGROUND, SKIP SPENCE, THE FUGS, MICHAEL YONKERS, LONNIE HOLLEY and several others...it just hits perfect. Closing each side with drunken 10+ minute violin ragas by HENRY FLYNT is an extra nice touch (even if it was unintentional). Hats off to the creator.

SONGS FOR THE SUN

Today marks fourteen years of Terminal Escape. I realize the format is a relic, and I realize that many earlier visitors are not even aware that it is (I am) still here....but it is (I am). Also - most of the Escape posts are being hosted at archive dot org now, including dozens of posts with dead links. Me? I'll just keep posting tapes.
Every day.
Cheers.

RETAQUE

 

Superb millennial anarcho punk from Ecuador - ANTIPRODUCT, @PATIA NO, SIN DIOS vibes on this sixteen song opus from the turn of the century. Slam, fight, punk. 

DEMOLIENDO EL ESTADO, SEMBRANDO LA LIBERTAD...ROMPIENDO EL MUNDO PARA EMPEZAR DE NUEVO!!!!

30 JUNE 1987

 Second part of a 1987 KALX broadcast, best listened to after hearing the first part (posted in 2022). These tapes are....these tapes are time warps, they are journeys, they are nostalgic...they are a part of a different (past) world that I love to visit. 

KALX - 30 JUNE 1987

BACTERIA

 

Gloriously weird outsider goth which is...apparently a thing I made up. Imagine moody '80s Spanish punk as interpreted by GALLON DRUNK. Imagine something that sounds familiar but....new. 

TRIZAS

TRISTESS

 

Eight minutes of early '00s SwedePunk mania on the second TRISTESS demo (to complement the almost nine minutes on the first), an absolute bomb blast from a criminally overlooked band. TRISTESS kinda just sound like what they were: dudes from stalwart turn of the century Umeå hardcore bands (REGULATIONS and ETA) ripping out raw nods to the Swedebeat kång their country is famous for - and the result predictably lands somewhere between the two. Sometimes "predictable" can be a casual dismissal, but when you're predicting a sound somewhere between DS-13 and TOTALITÄR...yeah, you know. 

INGET LIV

RAZORXFADE

 

They were a quick blip around the turn of the (last) decade, but RAZORXFADE's blip was fukkn loud. Completely unhinged Midwest SXEHC with wild song construction and a COLD SWEAT caliber vocal assault and the way the guitars break in the recording - tiny amps bursting at the fukkn seams with squelches and squeals permeating any dead space in the songs - puts the listener on edge from start to finish. I recommend paying particular attention to "Choke" crashing into "Called Out" because...well, because that shit is just something else. Six songs in a little over seven minutes, and then the 12" they dropped in 2011 was the final word....

RAZORXFADE

MSHR

 

Dark and expansive noise-scapes from Oregon's MSHR...the embodiment of a "sound as journey" approach to creating the sonic reality from other realms. Two complimentary pieces on 2011's Nesting Face; two pieces that will take you away...if you let them. 

NESTING FACE

DISGUSTING LIES

 

I think there was a copy of this record in every North American bargain bin for most of the 2000s. It seemed like there was a battered copy in every distro crate that had been flipped past by every kid looking for WOLFBRIGADE and TRAGEDY records....and I get it. At a certain point when you see a record everywhere, the "I can get it later" thoughts start to get infiltrated by the "well...seems like no one else wants it" thoughts and the record is doomed. But you know who's really fucked in this equation? Every motherfucker who didn't buy this fucking masterpiece. DISGUCTING LIES are '90s crust embodied - talking STATE OF FEAR and DEFORMED CONSCIENCE caliber churn - razor sharp and delivered with relentless brutality. The break in "Się Ściemnia" is worth the entire fucking record on its own, and every time you hear the band drop out and leave the fierce bass rumble isolated you brace yourself for the blast that you know is coming, and the blast kicks your ass anyway. Two decades later - this is still how you fucking do it. 

PEWNEGO DNIA...

RUMINATIONS

 

Apocalyptic atmospheric black death from San Diego's RUMINATIONS, who left us a decade ago with one demo and this raw rehearsal tape. Patience required, not for the lack of fidelity (this is a rehearsal recording, but it settles in quickly) but for the complex and drawn out construction of these three tracks that fill twenty three minutes with emotive brutality.For those familiar, TIDELESS was formed by a key RUMINATIONS member and I think that connection explains a lot - this session is far more primitive (and especially compelling as a direct result) but these are the roots....and they are deep. 

REHEARSAL