Hellbastard - Feral

One thing I will say about Hellbastard is that Hellbastard live is a different beast to Hellbastard on a record. Whilst the band have always stood apart from their peers (even when they wallowed in the crust scene), there is an undeniably experimental, forward-thinking edge to the band's bizarre mix of metal, punk and other things in-between. Granted, this experimentation doesn't always pay off, but on the Feral record, it pays off in spades.

My only initial complaint is that the snare sound is pretty synthetic, but you can adjust to this fairly quickly. That aside, the production is solid and dense, and nothing is left fighting for breathing space. I remember checking out the video for "We Are Coven" when the single first dropped and was taken aback by the ambitiousness of it all. "Shame On Us" is super catchy in a chuggy way, and "And The Point Of Your Being Is...?" has a cracking guitar solo towards the end.

All in all, the world is a better place with Hellbastard in it, and Feral is a solid addition to their repertoire.

Wolfbastard - Wolfbastard

(Words by Griefmonger, K.I.N.G. ov thy trvest sounds)

Grim, inappropriate, catchy and scathing - these are the first things that come to mind for describing Wolfbastard’s debut. Self-proclaimed as d-beat black metal, don’t expect later Darkthrone worship as this little 21:41 minutes of fuck you has more in common with Discharge-meets-Carpathian Forest than F.O.A.D. It’s a bastard (forgive the pun) of two thirds of blackened death Mancs Burial (more blackened nowadays). The first four tracks have a very grim feel and you can hear the black metal run true with a loose right hand, a fast d-beat and a scream that gives a little bit of a goat blood flavour.

As for the rest of the album, you can hear where the cult live-gig-crowd are gonna chime in and fucking love it. From then on, you know: "Sick In The Bath". "F.R.P.B" ( Fat Romanian Punch Bag anyone!?), "Fuck The Pope" and "Die Bastard Die" are going to be chanted live by those who have learned the chorus. There's no lyric sheet, but there's no need though, as you can hear the expletives and that’s all we need, right? It's nasty, filthy and it shall appeal to crusties, black metal heads and some of the more extreme punk crowd alike. The artwork is pretty cool, too; buxom scarred beauties engaging in foreplay with wolves - what’s not to love? "Sick in the Bath"! You are all gonna be singing it sooner or later.

Scumpulse - Broken Reflection

Scumpulse are a crusty black metal band from Edinburgh, all the way up in Scotland - that distant and mysterious land just above the flat and boring desperate shithole that is mainland England. Broken Reflection is a nifty little tape single (can't remember the last time I saw a tape single, I'll be honest) featuring two tracks ov blackened crust in the vein of Skeletonwitch-meets-Darkthrone-meets-Discharge (yeah that's a subgenre of crust now, okay?). 

The title track is the A side here (who am I kidding, I streamed it on the fuckin' Bandcamp page). It is the faster of the two tracks; a lovely cider-swilling pace in fact, perfect for spilling the dreaded West-Country rot all over your friends as you mosh about during good times. The second track, "Hide" is a bit slower, but a lot more nuanced, with a savage vocal delivery and even a surprise guitar solo to round things off. 

You can stream these lovely ditties from the band's Bandcamp page or get your grubby tobacco-stankin' fingers on a copy of the physical cassette, which is limited to 50 copies.

Martyrdod - Elddop

Martyrdod are one of them crust bands that have somehow managed to partly transcend the restrictive confines of the d-beat genre and turn into a full fledged metal band in their own right. Don't get me wrong, there's quite a few crust bands playing these days with melodic riffs and song structures, but none quite manage to mix soaring metal melodies with messy d-beat drumming as well as Martyrdod have. 

Melody has been slowly creeping into Martyrdod's music for quite some time, but Elddop is an extremely bold statement to the crust punk scene. It's hard not to class this record as crust or d-beat (it even has what sounds to me like a massive black metal influence too) but I can imagine quite a few patched nonwashers blowing this off as "too soft" or something like that. Opener "Nodkanal" is just absolutely perfect - perhaps one of the best intros to any album ever, before "En Jobbig Javel" kicks off Elddop proper. 

The over-arching sorrow and melancholy in these weeping riffs just oozes out of the stereo, and coupled with the blasting ruckus in the background, creates the perfect balance (like when you put a blob of greek yoghurt on top of a fucking scorching chilli) of metallic sounds for my brain. 

Please press play. Go on.

Fukpig - Belief Is The Death Of Intelligence

For me, this is the ultimate Fukpig release, and it trumps anything else they've ever done (which in itself is no small feat). If the first three tracks alone aren't enough to get you hooked then I think you are listening to the wrong genre, mate. "Die Bastard" is fucking vicious, "Britain's Got Fucking Aids" is a rabid stroke of pure genius, and "This Is England" completes the hat-trick of brutality with a back'n'forth blasting atmospheric minute and a half. 

The sound is perfect in the nastiest way possible; the drums are crystal clear and the guitar is like a fuckin' buzzsaw. The vocals...well, they have to be heard to be believed, as any description I could attempt probably wouldn't do them any justice. I think that Belief... is much more focussed (and angrier) than the band's debut - which loses itself a bit - and with that intense production being just spot on, I find it really hard to fault this beast of an album. Is it grind? Is it d-beat? It's fuckin' necropunk!

Fukpig / Kroh - Split 10"

Fukpig bring their haunted crusty d-beat mind-melt to this 10" with Kroh; a confusing clean vocals 'n' super heavy doom combo act. I believe both bands share the same guitarist, but I could be wrong. The guitar tone is really similar by both bands though, even if musically they are completely different. Fukpig bring us three tracks of blackened punk madness, my favourite of which must be "The Prisoner", although opening track "Docile Subjects" brings all the synth creeping in the universe. Kroh lament us through two sludgy hymns of stonery goodness, my favourite of which has to be "Retribution", that although with a softer vocal has a bit more punch to it all round. 

I believe that this is quite a collectable now; not that many of these 10"s were made and like all Fukpig vinyl (this is no exception), it has a habit of disappearing very quickly. Self-released under Devizes Records - also home to both bands. 

Mistress - In Disgust We Trust

This album should be called In Disgust We Crust! I’ve never been into Mistress really; I always got my superfast metal fix in Anaal Nathrakh and my crusty d-beat headbangery fix in Fukpig, both projects relating to members of this band. For these reasons I always tended to look over Mistress’ existence – that was until I caught their farewell show at Damnation Festival a few years ago, and bloody shitting heck, son – that was a mad one! Mistress’ fervent blend of grindy blasting and sludgy doomery really blew me away.

And that’s exactly what’s on this disc of crusty bludgeoning anthems. Take away the muddy live sound and filter the excess roughness through a decent studio production job and voila – the crème de la crème of sludgy grindy, er, music. In Disgust We Trust starts off with faster, more blastbeat orientated tracks and slowly works it’s way (but not too slowly) towards a meandering groovy conclusion with latter tracks possessing astronomically heavy riffage. As always, Dave Hunt’s vocal carnage is a welcome bonus to literally any music on the planet (except maybe hip hop? Ha!).

Malignant Tumour - Burninhell

I've had this album for years, and I can't remember where I got it from. Anyways, I got it and was expecting some nasty goregrind but instead was met with some metallic punk sound so I fucked it off and forgot that I had it. It wasn't until I saw Malignant Tumour live in Obscene Extreme Festival 2013 that I remembered I had this 12"; Gumpy said something about really enjoying them and wanting to get some albums and I just clicked that I already had one somewhere. Sure, Burninhell isn't as polished or as rock'n'roll as later, more accessable material by the band but it's still a pretty cool d-beat influenced metal record. To me it sounds like Motorhead, Discharge and Agathocles crossed over in a modern studio. I can get behind that!

Opener, "Clearance of Century" has a huge punk feel to it, whilst second track "Here We Are" brings the grind that I love so much. The ferocity here is totally non-stop; the vocals are super savage and really match the hybrid sound perfectly. "Commands from the Oval Throne" on side B is another favourite of mine. The whole thing closes out with "Oseriost som fan", which is crusty as absolute fucking fuck, before ending with some epic chanting shit. This has been out for some time now on CD and vinyl thanks to Insane Society Records. Czech it out in the link below!

Agathocles / Partiya - Split CD

Up until now I've been avoiding Agathocles split CDs to lower my risk of obtaining duplicate material that may already be on a 7" that I own. Agathocles have a notorious back-catalogue of re-hashed shit (sorry, but it's true), and as a collector on a budget I have put barriers in place to lessen the blow of unknowingly buying something that I already have. This was all well and good, until during a trade with a Canadian chum, I was gifted with a AGx split CD that is actually really, really good (and as far as I can tell, all original material). So, this no-AGx CDs barrier is now broken. Fucking great.

I've never heard of Partiya before. Hardly suprising, what with them being a rather obscure Russian crust band. All the songs and lyrics (and even the original name and logo) are in Russian, but are kindly translated for us English-speaking folk in the booklet. Thanks a million for that, because otherwise I wouldn't even know what the name of this band was. I cannae write Russian on me keyboard! That would have been a pickle. Their material is fast and well-produced, and despite the language barrier and potential difficulty in obtaining their stuff I am now on the quest for more Partiya recordings!

Agathocles sound a bit dank in comparison the well-put-together Partiya, but it doesn't take long for me to adjust. The sound here is really similar to the Mincer sessions, if not a bit thinner. This band know what they are good at, and seem to have fallen into a well-working system over the last 8 years or so. Blast blast blast, growl growl growl. What more do you want?

This little CD was put out through a collaberation of labels, so put aside a few minutes and check 'em all out. They are (in no particular order): No Bread, Black Cardinal, Wee Corn, Resist Label & Distro, Ok Punk Rock Records, Raw Distro and 83 Records.

Fukpig - Bad Fucking Dickhead

When I heard that Fukpig were returning with another 7" I welcomed the news with open arms. Bad Fucking Dickhead looks absolutely fucking amazing...shit...just look at it! And thankfully, after the slightly off-key release of 3, Fukpig are back on track; Bad Fucking Dickhead sounds as fucking amazing as it looks. I can't really understand what is being said but there is a lot of swearing and a lot of screaming, which is always a good thing.

 

THAT vicious guitar tone is back, as is the haunting synth over the top of everything that gives Fukpig their unique vibe. The B Side, "The Place That We Called Home" opens with a much more classic Fukpig vibe...the d-beat style drumming and the wailing guitars are fucking everywhere, making this a tune that is not only goddamn awesome, but makes me want to get out Belief Is The Death Of Intelligence and spin that bastard as well.

Fukpig are such an under-rated band. There can be no denying that they are absolutely fucking excellent, and their under-exposure is puzzling. Everyone listen to this shit and then go and buy the 7", then all the albums. I'm not asking....I'm telling! Self-released on the brilliant Devizes Records, and limited to 250 copies, all of which are the fantastic transparent yellow with black splatter. I have number 27. Amazing!

Fukpig - Spewings From A Selfish Nation

As much as I facking adore Fukpig I can't help but get tits-bored of this album by track three or something. I almost feel bad writing this, but this record is equal amounts nasty, heavy and boring. I know that it is hard to be original in the d-beat/crust corner of grind and punk, but even when Fukpig bring their own rather unique black metal-esque distorted tinge to the table, the combination of different outcomes is still disappointingly low.

For starters, you need to listen to this record on a decent sound system to get over THAT bass drum pattern. If you can't pass this hurdle you might as well give up all hope now. Proceed no further, friend! Ha ha - in all seriousness however, this is an excellent record, I am just over-exaggerating. Do heed my warnings however; I am not lying when I say that it is very repetitive and sometimes boring. Despite my complaints this album contains some brilliant tunes perfect to get your head banging to, or to tear each other apart to in some of the mentalest mosh pits I have ever seen. To the uninitiated; imagine Anaal Nathrakh crossed with Extreme Noise Terror and you'll get a pretty good idea of what is going on here, and hopefully what I mean by a bit boring! Sorry!

Spewings was released by FETO Records and is/was limited to 200 copies. Some copies were released directly by the band and were called the "black" copies. Every single last piece of artwork on these was jet black.

Cripple Bastards / Looking For An Answer - Split 6"

I've become very selective with my grind purchases these days (which is a real shame, but money is a factor), but this looked really interesting so I picked it up. I love the homage-style splits that come around every so often, and this one features two really awesome players in the grind scene so it would have been daft not to get it. I got it in June 2011 at some stall in Hellfest, three months after it's initial release on Rescued From Life Records.

I don't want to spend ages picking this one apart, because I don't feel right doing it. This is a blistering cover-fest by two no-nonsense grindcore outfits, and can only really be described as that. You must have been living under a rock if you're into grind and not familiar at least with one Cripple Bastards release; these folks have been going for fucking ages. Here they cover tracks by Impulsive Manslaughter and Negative FX. Even the influencers have their influences! (Does that sound stupid? Fuck it). Looking For An Answer spew out cover versions of Ruido De Rabia and Napalm Death.

I'd recommend this little 6" to fans of both modern blasting grind and to fans of 80s hardcore/crust. It's a modern day homage to the latter, and an excellent passageway backwards in time for the uninitiated. It's still pretty cheap to pick up too.