FATAL

 

Hyper speed DBeat punk. The energy defies description and the pure desperation is palpable. I'm not gonna give you the members-of routine here, I'm just going to give you six minutes of pure hardcore. 

SIX SONGS

SOLVENT

 

Bombastic, raw Covid-era DBeat from Seattle. Six minutes of insistent distortion drenched urgency punctuated by a 55 second manipulated missive that sounds like you're standing at apocalypse beach watching studded jackets wash up onto the shore. That's how I want the world to end. 

SOLVENT

KONTRASOSIAL

 

Ferocious ScanDBeat from the subgenre's heyday in the mid-2000s. You can imagine KONTRASOSIAL added to a Pointless Fest basement gig or Chaos In Tejas after show easily; shit would have been the perfect recipe for joyous chaos...and if you know what I meant then you know precisely what I'm talking about. Fist banging kång and lightning fast mid-tempo moshes, it's like THE TOTAL END and DISMACHINE linked arms and doused the entire warehouse with beer. Relentless, in your face and dedicated to the craft - this is the DBeat band I was dreaming of when I dreamed up KS MUTATION with Jon and Anton fifteen years ago....that one four-song set wasb't enough, but we have KONTRASOSIAL.  

KONTRASOSIAL

HEKTIKS

I used to make a point of highlighting blown out guitars and bombastic distortion every Monday. Listening to HEKTIKS.....I kinda think I should get back into the habit. Can't really think of a better way to put this shit life into perspective than the complete destruction of your senses. 

OBLITERATION

TUNGA PENETRÁNS

 

What a gloriously filthy quarter hour these punks have offered us...and I will accept their offer with verve and enthusiasm. Chaotic, blown out, stripped down Hungarian DBeat delivered with the weirdest fukkn style imaginable. I(t's a sound you've heard before....you just haven't heard it quite like this. Listen to the guitar (and the vocals) on "Leépülés" if you don't believe me. 

A LEGJOBB FÉREG

AYPEROS

 

I often write about things that remind me of other things - about listening to things that make me thing about other times when I listened to other things. That's Nihspra in a nutshell, and I am fucking frothing while I introduce myself to AYPEROS because these sounds are emblematic of one of the best times in (my) punk history. This is mid-'00s stadium crust; PDX SweDe-Beat infused with black metal and CELEST(E) blasts and then just.......fukk man, just listen to the title track here. Please. PLEASE. 

NIHSPRA

SKITKIDS

 

I truly hope that this needs no introduction, and I suspect that for most readers this will be a reminder to go (re)listen to one of the best releases of the '00s and not any kind of new discovery. SKITKIDS were a product of their time and place, and when Besöket Vid Krubban dropped it completely changed the game. I remember Mick giving me a copy in Philly and being stoked to crank it once I got home...he warned me devilishly that I was not prepared but even still I underestimated. It was like INEPSY and ANNIHILATION TIME and fucking TOTALITÄR all at the same time, but faster and wilder than any of them. The were shit-hot fire on stage, and as good as Onna For Pleasure was...this is possibly the only recording that came close to capturing that shit in the flesh. Hard to imagine anything hitting like this ever again. 

BESÖKET VID KRUBBAN

FRAGMENT

 

Maybe it was just because it's been a minute since I blasted FRAGMENT, but this tape knocked me completely on my ass when I popped it in last week. This is the same In The Dust that Desolate released on wax six or seven years ago and I swear it hits harder in a 2025 world dominated by retro 'hardcore' and punks who've grown out of the genre/s and seemingly turned to dark wave for excitement (don't get me started). This is thirteen minute of pure hell - distorted and chaotic crasher crust rooted in DBeat, speed and confusion (or CONFUSE-ion, if you're picking up what I'm laying down). Every single EP is a killer and all are recommended - I'm not even going to say this one is the best (that status might be reserved for the Serial Mass Destruction EP on Sewercide) - this one hits just fukkn right in the moment though. Listen to "Final Stand" before you do anything you think is important today and I reckon you'll change your mind as the Maritime dominance continues....

IN THE DUST

VAARALLINEN

 

Spent some time at practice tonight learning an IMPALERS cover that we may or may not play in a few days, and honestly I can't think of a better  thing to settle into than this VAARALLINEN tape. The bands that tweak the DBeat formula and make it sound different are special bands - and these punks from Singapore do (did) exactly that, just like those punks from Texas. This is the 2012 demo with tracks from the Hautausmaa EP crammed onto one cassette, and if need a reminder that Scan-DBeat hardcore rulz then I suggest you look no further. Shit is absolutely mental, even (especially) while it's more than a decade in the rearview mirror. "Ei Jumalaa" at full volume, all damn day. 
 

SOSIAALINEN KONTROLLI

FLEXITD

 

FLEXITD blew the fukkn windows out of my apartment and wrecked my earholes. It's like a crasher crust LP played at 45rpm....but faster. The bass that opens "Stabilized Destruction." The midtempo part near the end of "Only Death" (that's only midtempo because everything else is so fukkn fast). The piercing distortion that opens "Killing Nation" and gives way to the face melting cacophony. The complete lack of low end anywhere in the mix creates a void that the vocals fill with crushing efficacy. Everything. I'm telling you.....this is an eleven minute masterclass. Readers remotely interested in noise punk, bombastic DBeat, FRAMTID-worship and/or anything close to any of those things...you've found it. It is FLEXITD.

MASSIVE SUFFERING OF THE EMPTY WORLD VERSES

DISSLATE // PERDICIÓN

 

I like how this blog typically pays no attention to "special" days and/or dates, because what is important to a person in a place or space may mean nothing whatsoever to another person in another space or place, you know? Punk is important though, and I know I share a lot of no necessarily punk things here but punk is what started this nonsense and punk music in all its forms is what keeps me breathing. So fuck a colonial "holiday" and listen to Mexican hardcore punk...right? DISSLATE are more ferocious than ever. PERDICIÓN are raw Mexican punk on a diet of DYSTOPIA and I'm here for it. So yeah....fuck your aunt's pumpkin pie recipe and who gives a shit about the sports game. Punk rules. 

TE•PER

DISTRUST

 

Greater than the sum of its parts, Greatest Very Fuvkin' Shit$ gives you everything that you might be (should be) expecting from the promises made by the cover, but DISTRUST gives you something else. DISTRUST gives you more. Wild studded jacket dis-crust mixed with stench and a healthy dose of Detestation, this collection of tracks smothers you like an avalanche from the unhinged Scan-DBeat of "Nuclear Tomorrow" to the hollow metalcrust of "Doomed To Oblivion," these Singaporean veterans do absolutely nothing half-assed even when it's painfully simple two riff offerings like "Protect And Save" (okay, four riffs if you count the breakdown and the second solo). Plenty of bands hump the corpse of G.I.S.M. and there's a touch of that here to be sure, but DISTRUST just harness that sonic energy and fuckkn own it in the most diabolical way imaginable. Just filthy, desperate and essential metallic hardcore. Listen to "Nightmares Of War." You're welcome. 

GREATEST VERY FUVKIN' SHIT$

PROTEST

 

I mentioned this release when I was blabbing about the MIDHUMANS tape a few days ago. The bands are nothing alike, except that both existed in the 1990s and then reformed in the 2010s - MIDHUMANS were from Indonesia, while PROTEST were one of the first DIY DBeat/crust bands from Singapore. Thankfully, this release captures the first (?) PROTEST demo from 1998 (The Biggest Proof Of Human Greed Is War) along with 2017's Moral Injustice. Both are killers, and it's interesting to hear the band as initially presented and eventually realized. The vocalist is the only constant member, and the modern incarnation is significantly more metallic, polished and.....well, brutal. Both incarnations are spectacular though, I'm glad I have both. 

MORAL INJUSTICE
THE BIGGEST PROOF OF HUMAN GREED IS WAR

••••••

HELL ÖN FIRE // KÖMBATAN

 

Okay, so someone has listened to a little DISFEAR and that's so totally good with me. Mayhaps they've cranked some MOTÖRHEAD too, and that's also acceptable. Loom at the cover and think about what you know is in store for your earholes.....and yeah, that's what you're in for. All that and more. HELL ÖN FIRE are like INEPSY through a Powerload filter, it's textbook shit and it's perfect. KÖMBATAN are like MOTÖRHEAD recorded through an ANNIHILATION TIME filter, also textbook and also perfect. I'm having a hard time accepting that all of this exists....you should just have a good time raising beers and blasting the shit out of this shit. Because this is shit that was made to be blasted. 

D'BEAT ROCK 'N' ROLL MAYHEM

DEATHRACE

 

Look at the cover and image how DEATHRACE sounds. You're close, but they're better. They are looser and more intense than you expect. The high end is more in your face than you expect. The brutality of the repetition in the title track is noteworthy inandof itself, but it's a theme for the entire recording and that's what makes DEATHRACE so fucking good. Simplicity meets ferocity, DBeat mania delivered with reverence and respect.

WAR IS NOT THE MATTER, THE MATTER IS YOU

RIBAG SUDE

 

14 minutes of fierce and relentless raw Indonesian DBeat released in 2021. 

Bleak sounds for a bleak reality. 

WAR VICTIMS

ZUDAS KRUST

 

I like the ZUDAS KRUST approach. Lots of releases (so many you can't really get a handle on them all) featuring tracks from the same recordings. You regurgitate songs and sessions because what are the chances that punks are going to seek out every single one...right? Nah, punks are looking for something to pop into the deck and crank up while they clench a fukkn fist - how many people are going to know that half of these tracks are from the Matanza Y Muerte Masiva tape that I posted more than eight years ago...? Not many. So here you (all) are again: one half hour of raw and uncompromising DBeat hardcore from the streets of Jakarta. Maybe it's all been released on other tapes and/or CDrs....but have you blasted "Punx Cinta Damai" today? Well....? No? Then you're welcome, because this shit is next level. Also they cover that SHITLICKERS song (again).

A LOYAL SLAVE TO THE APOCALYPSE ORDER

NAILBITËR

 

Five minutes of buzzsaw Indonesian kång. Really can't think of a better way to lay the foundation for the first full week of June. Look at at the calendar and wonder where the first half of the year went, blast "Nation On Fire" and wonder where your life is going. 

NAILBITËR

BOMB HOARDER

 

They never made it too far outside of the Bay Area (and their legacy barely made it out of the early '00s), but BLOWN TO BITS were a constant in the Mission Records era. The singer's name was Punk Rock Jim, one of the dudes had been in OPPRESSED LOGIC and it seemed like if there was a good show then BLOWN TO BITS were probably playing. A very specific reference perhaps (and one that will likely escape most readers), but I'm willing to bet that band existed in your scene too.....and in the narrative I create in my own dusty mind,  BOMB HOARDER were Corpus Christie's BLOWN TO BITS. Fist banging, studded jacket wearing, midpaced drunken DBeat-adjacent hardcore punk. This tape from 2013 is all about the guitar break in "Body Bags" and memories. 

BOMB HOARDER

THE SABOTAGE // DICKHEAD

 

Gloriously raw first wave Indonesian hardcore from two of the scene's fiercest. Both bands hail(ed) from metro Jakarta, both bands deliver uncompromising DIY punk....and really that's the end of my in depth analysis. DICKHEAD evolved into something that was more strictly DBeat, but listening to this 2000 recording makes me wonder if that's what they were trying to do from the beginning. THE SABOTAGE tracks are more street punk tinged, like a primitive group of UK82 miscreants stumbling through the slums kicking nazis in the face. I know I said my genius analysis was over, but this shit is absolutely punk as fukk. 

THERE IS NO GOOD SIDE OF WAR