BIB

Pretty massive sounding Midwest hardcore. Following the "everything louder than everything else" approach to recording, their already colossal riffs feel kinda like an avalanche when the bottom drops. They added a (third) guitar at the EINOK2 show, and the wall of beef on that stage was imposing before they hit a note...listen to the discordant chugs during "Baby Worm" and it won't be hard to imagine how terrifying it was. Squirmy affected vocals veer things from huge to weird...and these tapes are dubbed so hot that it hurts to touch 'em. Plop this band in New York or Toronto or Boston and everyone would be soaking their drawers and humping their legs...that's why the middle of the country rules, punks.

BIB

As is often the case, the physical cassette manifestation that I try to capture here has a different vibe than the digital version...it's not a better or worse thing, but this is how these punks sold be the tape, so this is how I share it with you, you know? I want my experience to be your experience.

TIME OUT

Total relentless fury. Out of control Swedish hardcore with howling desperation from dual vocals,  perhaps too fast and loose to still be DBeat. Eight tracks spanning thirteen minutes, this 1998 demo just crushes from the first rumble of "For How Long" and only lets up long enough for a few depressing and ominous missives from the annals of history. The 1-2 punch of "Backstabbed" into "Orgies Of Insanity" is textbook, a thing worthy of repeat listens and scholastic analysis. Riffs upon riffs delivered by piercing guitars....it's like being hit in the face by a freight train over and over and over. And still you scrape your jaw off the floor and do it all again. 

.....HISTORIES WARNING

STILL LIFE

For years, the only thing that I knew about STILL LIFE was that they weren't punk. Maximum Rocknroll (in)famously determined that their record on Ebullition didn't meet whatever threshold there was for determining punk vs. unpunk and refused to review the record, prompting the birth of HeartattaCk 'zine from the folks at Ebullition. Considering the musical climate at the time - MRR leaning more towards raucous garage punk and a head spinning proliferation of emotional hardcore bands playing slower, longer songs (and let's be honest, the last track on this demo opens with acoustic guitar strumming for 70 seconds and then the vocals kick in with "This is a song about Love! Love! Love! For life!" - it isn't really surprising, even though I think that with older ears (in this case, mine) there's little doubt that these sounds fall under the punk umbrella. I never listened to STILL LIFE at the time, not because some Authority had deemed the band not punk, but because what little I heard didn't really appeal to me. I wanted fast and I wanted in your face, and if I wanted emotional and introspective then I would crank some MOHINDER, you know? But for whatever reason, these sounds made by suburban Southern California teenagers appeal to me now, in my mid-40s. Go figure. 

STILL LIFE

ZUDAS KRUST

I picked this little creamer up in Indonesia on the CFD tour in 2008 and unearthed it when I moved last summer. Still furious, still chaotic and energetic as fukk, still killer - and then I saw a flyer for a show in Jakarta this Friday and it made me want to plop down the cash for a plane ticket. Would love to fist bang wildly in the flesh....but I'm afraid this tape is gonna have to be enough. It's cool though, because it's a wild ass ride.

MATANZA Y MUERTE MASIVA

And in case you find yourself in Jakarta this weekend....do yourself a favor because this gig is a fukkn BANGER (and that's just looking at the bands I'm familiar with!). Cheers to the punks we met while we were there - hope to come back and do it again!!

KAPPA CHOW

Garage punk is supposed to sound like it doesn't give a fukk, right? Like the band is half drunk and almost forgot to even bother coming to the gig but since they are here they are going to get sweaty and work on the other half of their drunk while showing show how effortlessly they can crank out hit after hit. "Shrug It Off" is a perfect pop/rock 'n roll track demented to oblivion, "Love Drug" is an impossibly simple 67-second creamer, "Knee Jerk Reaction" is quintessential power punk, and "I Don't Like You" is just pure damage. Cigarettes hanging in their mouths not because they are trying to be cool, but because they forgot they were smoking. Too busy rocking.

"TOUR TAPE" 2015

THICK SKIN

DC fukkn exploded a few years ago - I know, it's not like shit ever really died there, it's just that the crop of new bands was exceptional...and there were a lot of them. This cassette compiled two recording sessions (the only two?) from THICK SKIN, rabid hardcore/PV with fierce breakdowns and relentless fast bursts...and check the guitar wanking on the intro to "Stress Related Aneurysm.". Simple, to the point, and damn near perfect.

THICK SKIN

WORSHIP BLACK TWILIGHT

This is where it all started, at least for the uninformed and/or geographically challenged minions. Six offerings from the artists that made up the initial nucleus of Black Twilight Circle in Los Angeles, who would spend the ensuing years creating some of the most dissonant and interesting black metal in The Americas. One track each from ASHDAUTAS, VOLAHN, ARIZMENDA, KALLATHON, AXEMAN and KUXAN SUUM, most available on other Crepusculo Negro releases, and many previously shared on this site...Worship Black Twilight makes it clear that this force was formidable from the start.

WORSHIP BLACK TWILIGHT