TOTAL CON

 

This is one of the fiercest recordings I have heard in....in a long time. Holy shit. TOTAL CON sound like they are ripped from the clutches of the best BCT compilation you were never able to get your hands on, the kind of band that seemed to exist in only in legends told by people who weren't even there. But TOTAL CON are fukkn real, they are from Leeds, and they are unbelievable. Eleven scorchers in fourteen minutes, this is a perfect hardcore punk recording. 

ELEVEN-SONG CASSETTE

DEATH CULT

 

Four more short blasts, this time from San Antonio's DEATH CULT. Dark, in your face PENI obsessed mutant punk done exactly the right way. There are a few other tapes floating around and I recommend seeking this recording on wax....but really I'm here to applaud these folks for blatantly ripping the name from DEATH CULT. Respect. 

SPIRITUAL CONUNDRUM

HUMAN

 

Gloriously blown out chaos from the sun baked streets of Fresno, California - HUMAN make it clear they are the real fukkn deal long before this five minute demo is over. Maximum energy high distortion pogo freaks, exactly the kind of noise I want when I need to be reminded what a fukkn shit we're in. These are folks responsible for Power Glove Dub and a deadly series of DIY gigs and happenings, including a pop-up shop in Fresno's Tower District this afternoon....so if you find yourself rolling up (or down) CA-99 then you've got yet another reason to stop and hang out for a spell. I mean...if you like punk. You like punk...don't you? 

HUMAN

ABYSSAL

 

Doom is hard y'all. And when you're setting up in a sweltering warehouse to play for a cowd of maybe half a dozen people...? Doom gets real real hard. That was the scenario facing Tijuana's ABYSSAL afew weeks ago in Fresno, and I was one of the "maybe half a dozen" in attendance. They got their shit dialed in and calmly announced 'We're going to play one long song for you" and then embarked on an absolutely epic journey of sound. You could hear a pin drop in that warehouse during the introduction...and then came the tonnage. This is the hard part - because doom is (to a large extent a formula) and the audience often knows what's coming, the artist needs to surprise the listener with the how more than the what. And when ABYSSAL got heavy that night, we weren't surprised as much as we were completely blown away. It was hot, the room was awkward, and the band was mesmerizing....doom might be hard, but that night it was as if there was nothing else in this world more important than doom. It was perfect, and listening to A Deep Sea Funeral will always take me back there. 

A DEEP SEA FUNERAL

ROTTERS

The nerds are gonna know "Sit On My Face Stevie Nicks" (the nerds-in-training should get to know it) and there's a solid retrospective LP that came out in the '00s that captures a lot of the brilliant madness of THE ROTTERS. But tape traders....man, those fools had our backs before we were even paying attention. This discretely (read: poorly) labeled cassette has two brilliant bare bones ROTTERS sessions, one labeled Moor Punk College Session (1979) and one label Mystic Session (1984) and I swear if the fools who collected material for the aforementioned LP had had access to this tape then it would have been a double album. "Thank God I'm Damned" sounds demonic, "Autolobotomy" hits like a lost KBD burner, "Delousing Shower" is like DWARVES with roughshod GERMS energy. These songs are absolutely in your face and the recordings are about as perfect as you can ask for. So if you're tryna get a little dirty this Wednesday morning...then look no further. 

THE ROTTERS - MYSTIC & MOOR(E)

THE ROTTERS - MYSTIC & MOOR(E)

DEFACEMAN

 

The Yard Sale For World Peace family of artists is exactly what I want from a label and a group of creators; I never know what I to expect and I always expect that I will be engaged and intrigued. DEFACEMAN playing A Poem About You is no exception (of course) and after several consecutive listens I am still wrapping my head around a truly magnificent collection of sounds. Outsider poetry, primitive punk, reimagined sound....interesting. "Interesting" as in: a cassette that holds your interest. This is what the special artists offer us, and I am (still) here for it. 

DEFACEMAN PLAYS A POEM FOR YOU

LEBENDEN TOTEN // SKITKIDS

 

This tape was released twenty years ago. 

Let that sit there for a minute. 

This tape was released twenty years ago. 

•••

When I first started posting on Terminal Escape in 2009, I was sharing seminal UK crust demos that were just barely twenty years old. And now...I'm posting a split between two bands who are my contemporaries, and the tape is twenty years old. 

Weird things happen when you don't die, I suppose. 

DISTORT THRASH DISTORT HOPE