Ratking "Commonwealth"

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Backbreaker « Cursed for life »

from: Netherlands

sounds like: good old dirty hardcore

jusr one song: Not like you

The killing EP

Bad news knocking at my door. Through the tainted glass appeared that big meat-eating chain-smoking shadow I used to work for at the Waldeck Police Squad. It is standing on the other side like an old white sperm whale, coming from the depths of my past to swallow the ridiculous bits of a present clumsily written backwards on a fragil piece of glass. Pierre Allain, Détective privé, that's what I am now. And it could be written Nobody, Nothing, who would see the difference?

My hand is looking for my tomato juice, and by the time I wipe my mouth of the thick red remains of a nervous sip, he is already in front of me, that stinking over-confident walking lung cancer known by the name of Sergeant Pascal.

I start by showing him the open window :

« Cigarette. »

As he skirts my desk, a big brown enveloppe lands over the paperwork I spread to pretend I'm busy.

«  Why didn't you send this by e-mail ?

- When was the last time you even read one of my e-mail ? »

I open the enveloppe, to find the expected crudely exposed pictures of some dead bodies I am supposed to be interested in.

Male, white, in his late thirties, Buddy Holly glasses hazardously fallen half their way on the nose, thin lips, well shaven. Fashionable haircut, the one you can see on each and every head at electro private DJ sets and other post-hardcore mosh pits. His stupid moustache is covered by a crusty dark red matter that can't be anything but dried blood. No sign of bruises on the whole face. The pictures stapled on the back show the same neat falsely kitsch-but-cool landscape, crossed by a crackled river of hemoglobin. Coming from the left ear. Coming from the right.

Male, white, in his late thirties again. Cautiously bearded. Same haircut, a bit longer ; same face features, a bit grosser. And the same unbroken nose that bled way down to the tightly buttoned collar of a lumberjack shirt that never got closer to any chainsaw. Blood on the front, blood from the right, blood from the left, coming from the same ear-drums haemorrhage.

Male, white, a bit older, his face clearly showing pain and horror, like it was wax suddenly hit hard by the seal of some demonic clerk. The hair is a real mess, and the dressing a bit more classical : white shirt, tie, balck jacket. But the bloodstains are the same : identical freshness and origin.

I feel strangely indifferent to those suffering faces, and much more worried by the old ashtray smell that invaded my personal sphere.

« The names : Alistair Mc Owen, Wes Cassavetti, and Jean-Marc...

- Don't know any of them. What were they ? Designers ? Last victims of the usual gay harassment your men still enjoy after a long working night ?

- Journalist, blogger, pianist. « Music lovers », hipsters faggets I would gladly kick in the face to be sure I never hear their voice. The kind of precious pussies you used to hang out on your spare time. »

He unfolds a paper and starts to painfully read :

« Alistair Mc Owen is a renowned writer for the BitchPork alternative website. Through the years he spent in various music labels... bla, bla, bla... specialized in post-folk and lo-fi neo psychedelic shit. Cassavetti is the official biographer of the what ? ... Hannibal Collective and Panda Smear... bla bla bla... And the last one, the piano player, is a... let's see... minimalist mogul, the direct disciple of Moonfrog and Phillip Grass. That kind of useless fucks.

- If you and your men wouldn't be useless fucks too, you wouldn't be here begging for my help. So, say it now. »

He throws a CD-R over the tortured face of the piano guy.

« Found on each crime scene. The last thing they all heard. And, according to that crazy coroner, probably the cause of their death.

- Killed by music ?

- I thought it was shit. But when I first listened to it, I had to admit it made sense.

- A pity it didn't kill you too.

- I'm not a pussy music blogger, I heard much worse than psychedefuck minimalist crap for masturbating bearded gay wankers. That shit only made me want to kill the fuckers who recorded it. »

No label, no name, no cover. Just a good old silver anonymous CD-R. Why would I give a fuck about this ? I tried to catch his eyes, he tried to avoid mine.

« Say it. Now. »

Big inspiration, big smelly expiration.

« Ok Pierre : we need you.

- Last time you said it, you were about to snitch on me and kick me out of my job, just...

- Play the fucking CD and tell me who these fuckers are. We already talked too much, and I wouldn't like to send one of my colleague to have a look at your licence. »

So be it, fat cocksucker. Play.

1,2,3,4. Harsh hardcore straight in the face. Angry voice, no kidding, and a moshing part arriving only 30 seconds after the beginning of the first song. Slowing down, like a beast approaching its prey, then vanishing. Good job. And I surely know who they are. Roaring punk-rooted DIY recorded EP, New York basement style, no fashion, just dirt. The guy is now screaming « I'm not like you », and that's exactly what I'd like to shove down that Sergeant Pascal's throat. I'm not like you, not like your filthy rotten cops. I never was. The beating continues, wonky rhythm that reminds me of those unlucky ectasy-fueled male prostitutes curled in the corner of their cell after the midnight visit. Of those anonymous faces left with no teeth on a wet pavement just before dawn. Of the pain and the violence oozing from their walls, their smiles, their jokes about the racoons, the niggers, the bitches. Of my own fists on that particular drunken bastard, that particular night. « Bad luck » is the last song of the EP, and it was also the last song on my police career. Bad luck, or kind of : the drunken bastard was not one of those half demented tramp you pick up to drown your dying wedding in a bath of blood and snot supposedly to clean the streets. He was one of us, one of them, one of those cops I wouldn't even spit on. Bad luck for him, he is still on a wheelchair, and I still can't regret it.

Before the usual nausea overwhelms me, before I start to sink into my own misery, past, present, and future, I spit the information. Just to end up that mediocre soap opera. Just to get him out, with his badly cut suit, his begging eyes, and the filth he brought here to stick my nose in.

« Backbreaker. Cursed for life. A bit like you, a lot like me. From Netherlands, if they still exist. And if that secretary of yours didn't burn what's left of her brain on Rosé Pamplemousse, she may find them on the internet. »

He steps forward, collects the picture, carefully avoiding to thank me, to even look at me. When he extends his hand, it's surely not to shake mine, but to press the Eject button.

And next thing I remember is the surprise in his eyes, the blood flowing down his nose, and my fist ready to hit again.

« The CD stays here, and you, you get the fuck out my office. »

Once again, the Sergeant Pascal leaves me alone with my painful knuckles and a shitload of hassles to come.

So I press Play again, just to fill the void, just to kick the silence in the balls like I kicked my life in the trashcan.

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If your brain is not floating in too much Rosé Pamplemousse, you can find Cursed for life, for free download on Backbreaker's bandcamp

Da Facebook (you may get a physical copy if you beg for it, and if the postman is not a kleptomaniac hardcore fan)

Pierre Allain initially comes from here (FR)

Objectivity at:

Legend Arising

An Unfinished Life "Expose my demons"

 from: England

sounds like: metallic hardcore

just one song:grind

 The Ghost Tape

A moonless drive on their way back to Plymouth. The night is quiet. Outside, nothing but an hesitant wind. Inside, the engine, four snoring half-drunk musicians, and a driver, fighting against tiredness, still wondering why the fuck he chose the Moors instead of the A38's. It smells like sweat and cheap beer. Empty bags of crisps lost between the amps, stuck under the guitar cases, wrapped around cables. 

Nothing but an unknown japanese van, old and beige, crossing the rustling emptiness on its way back to Newton Abbot, what’s left of the night, and a well-deserved rest.

Just around Combeston wood, when the B3357 meets an unnamed path , the drummer/driver closes his eyes for half the half of a second.
Just enough time for a gigantic truck to appear on the right.
No lights out, no motor sound. Probably no driver.

And no survivor.

            Next summer. Unexpected heat all over the south of England. Kate and her over-suntanned anorexic brainless crew are on their way to a festival in Brighton. One of her fuck friends is behind the wheel, not liking the way this trip started. The weather is already exhausting, the beer is already insipid, the babbling of the girls is already getting on his nerves. But not as much as the fact of being forced to leave his brand new deep blue Honda Civic in a lousy garage in Yelverton. And not as much as the fact of being forced to drive that shitty dusty rusty whining old van, beige as an un-celebrated MILF’s ass, and slower than Kate cerebral impulses.

The gossip at the back is ending, and the girls are asking for some music. No way to plug any of their IPods to the old radio-cassette player. When they try, in vain, to get any radio signal, they suddenly notice they are in the middle of a kind of nowhere people usually call: “the Moors”. Not a very LOL situation.

But Amy just found a tape under the passenger seat. Black, with three words carved in the plastic. An Unfinished Life.

Why not?

It whiffs for a few seconds, like echos of the hot breeze whirling around their expensive flat caps and haircuts.

But then come the noise.

It’s harsh, it’s raw, and sounds so much unlike their well maintained faces and nicely cut clothes they’d rather cry than go on listening to that shit for a second more.

Chris promptly presses the eject button.

But the tape won’t stop.

I never needed you, you always needed me. 
That's what the tape says. And the music fills the habitacle as a tribe of famished vampire bats would do when entering the donor centre on Derriford road. No more LOL, no more YOLO, just mid-tempi loudly pounding their ears. Cold madness that goes beyond madness, like witnessing an alcoholic mum repeatly stabbing her thirteen years old daughter.

Chris presses the Off button.

But the tape won’t stop.

When sleeping is not my addiction.
That's what the tape shouts. And Chris tries to tear the cassette player out.

I can smell shame in your breathe. 
That's what the tape yells. And Chris tries to drown it in warm beer. To smash it with his fists. And Kate tries to cover the hellish noise with high-pitch screams.

But the tape won’t stop.

And, even worse, it is auto-reverse.

And, even worse, the doors decided to lock themselves.

And, even worse, the engine just puffed and died.

And, even worse, they are stuck in the middle of deserted crossroad.

Thanks God there is no high-speed demonic truck coming on their right.

Well... it seems that the last lesson Life is going to teach them is to never thank God too early: a shadow quickly falls over the van, and its subsequent tangible following just dissolves the old carcass and its occupants into pieces and fluids that will dry and rot in the bushes around for the next thirty six hours.

            Winter. Angela’s Twingo is dead, and she really needs a four-wheel adjuvant to daily reach her uncomfortable chair behind that Tesco cash desk. That’s why she’s here, freezing among the sparse rows of second-to-fifteenth-hand cars. Her budget decides for her: it will be this old beige Nissan. Hopefully it would last till Rob-the-Bastard remembers to pay her her maintenance.

When she is trying to find that bloody handle to get the driver’s seat closer to the wheel, her hand found a greasy bunch of unknown material. It’s a bag of crisps, and it contains a black tape shaterred with pale crumbs.

She grimaces in disgust, and doesn't even try to read the carved words on the plastic No time to lose, the boss is waiting, the customers are waiting, a brand new shitty working day is stamping behind the horizon. She opens her windows, throws everything away, wipes her fingers on her uniform, switches the ignition and sighs. The engine started right away, which is always a good sign...

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Expose my Demons on the Unfinished Life bandcamp (where you can get it for free)
on yutubi
the facebook
the big cartel

Some objectivity and clearer review:
PigsquealsandBreaKdow: "I am usually not one for this type of music, but Expose My Demons is good." What else can I say?...

Always Wanted War "C.R.E.A.M."

from: Germany

sounds like: grunge 2.0

just one song: Stars hollow

Here are the five reasons why I daily listen to this EP for more than one month:

1. The intro: it features a banjo AND it sounds good, and it is the long awaited proof that hardcore bands can go accoustic without playing wimpy tunes a bunch of 15 years old scouts wouldn’t even welcome to their firecamp sessions. Which means three good surprises in less than 2 minutes. Good job.
2. Mixing the stoner riffs and rythmics with the screamo vocals is just a perfect idea I keep wondering why nobody thought about it before: you got the heaviness, you got the emotion, what would you need more? 
3. The good surprises happen all the time, be them the choruses in Stars hollow and the way they play around the traditionnal gang vocals ; the time bomb bridge in Derry ; the blink of groovy disco beat in Gotham ; the distorted new-wavy verse “It seems so far away from me” in Coldmoat ; or the falsely quiet bridge that ends in a dirty heavy metal solo in Blashyrkh. These seven songs are nothing but a succession of small birthdays for your ears. 
4. I am waiting for a decent grunge revival for years, and I finally found a band that sounds like grunge should do in 2013. But don’t get me wrong. Grunge was desperate but naïve, ironic but sincere, heavy but melodic, primal but complex. If C.R.E.AM. fulfills brillantly all these requisites, it also twists the model in order to propose a fresh alternative, namely by swapping 70’s heavy metal for stoner rock and hardcore punk for screamo. It manages to definitively keep the spirit, but also, and moreover, to play with your ears and expectations in a way you wish your girl/boyfriend would do with your body.
5.  Last but not least, I fancy hairy butts and extreme choregraphy:

the bandcamp, where you can download the EP for FREE.

the facebook, just in case.

the wordpress, because you deserve it.

If you don't want to order the EP directly from them, just check:
- Moment of Collapse

- Black Lake Records

- Fake Art Fake Music

- Throatruiner

- SickmanGetting Sick Records

- Shivery Productions

- Tief in Marcellos Schuld Records

Always Wanted Objectivity:

- slightly less enthusiastic SWNK
- short What are blood Wings
-  german winterhimfruehling
- portuguese Misantropia Extrema

 

Gli Altri "Fondamenta, strutture, argini"

From: Italy

Sounds like: Post-rock with muscles

Just one song: Cera

Savona, Italy, was formerly known to harbor a flourishing iron industry and one of Christopher Columbus' houses. But Chronos is a cruel motherfucker. Like almost everywhere in the ancient European industrial hotspots, the business is now as dead as Abdelazziz Bouteflika. And Christopher Columbus's sex-appeal (or what's left of it) is on its way to the junkyard, following the paces of his own statue in Buenos Aires.
So, what's left in Savona, then?
Simply the best, as the other would roar.
They are five, they don't pollute the atmosphere nor infect innocent Indians with whiskey and venereal diseases, and that's fine with me. Even more than fine, as Gli Altri play their post-rock the way it should always sound: powerfully. Period.
If I worried about decency, I would describe their music as a smart mixture of the tormented violence of the emotive hardcore with the contemplative lyricism of the above-mentioned post-rock.
But, unfortunately, as decency went completely out of fashion during the Reagan/Thatcher era , I have no choice but to say it crudely: this album sounds like Mogwaï with balls (the band, obviously).
My apologies for the Scottish crew, the PC-non-gender-biased watchmen and the furry monster. I honestly tried to find some cuter words, I've been beating around the bush for more than three weeks, but in vain...
When you will first listen to "Fondamenta, strutture, argini", you may not see my point directly. The first three songs sound like some solid modernization of Zen Arcade sung in Italian. The ghost of Mogwaï appears only after, right from the beginning of 6:33. It comes dressed with melancholic drops of guitar beating on a falsely quiet wave of (other) guitar and violin. And, over his shoulder, you can even spot his companion from Godspeed You Black Emperor. But unlike the usual ghosts whose aspect usually oscillates between ethereal reminiscences and decomposed remains, these ones get brighter and stronger as the album goes by, their face irrigated by the new blood and energy Gli Altri manage to infuse. And when it ends, you will probably face the same evidence I had to face: this is really how post-rock should sound: a massive yet subtle mingling of power and emotions creating vivid imaginary landscapes through excited (and exciting) brushstrokes.
To say that I warmly recommend this album would be an understatement and a not-very-decent way to conclude this post. But as decency etc.

Legal download from the bandcamp
Stay tuned with the band through the facebook
Buy their stuff via:
- Taxi Driver Records
- DreaminGorilla Records
- QSQDR
- Savona Sotterranea
- Rude Records
- Bus Stop Press
- Bori Punk Asso
- Collane Di Ruggine
- Buridda Distro
- Salterò Autoproduzion

Objectivity with a cloud of latte:
- Interview (EN) BoriPunkAsso
- Onion Magazine (IT)
- Stimolividi (IT)
-  La Caduta (IT)
- Rockline (IT)
- Outsiders (IT)

Reflections of Internal Rain "Answers"

From: Serbia

Sounds like: screamo/punk

Just one song: Answers

Is there anything interesting (hardcorely speaking) going on in Novi Sad, Serbia?

Wouldn’t be this EP, among other things?

Any link with the way Reflections of Internal Rain reaches a well balanced variety in styles by skillfully mixing:

-          the rhythm, energy, nervousness and rawness of punk rock with

-          the direct impact of emocore sincerity and

-          the science of screamo songs’ structure without being too chaotic and

-          the vocal harshness of the above-cited sub-genre counterbalanced by subtle but umistakable melodic tricks (like the hands clapping one here)?

Would all this sound a bit like skinning alive a melancholic cat with the feeling you are doing him a favor?

A bit disorientated by the image? (Never skinned alive a melancholic cat? Nor any kind of cat?)

Is this EP efficient in spite of the psychotic metaphors it can evoke to some fucked-up reviewer?

Does the energy and the emergency that fuel the songs easily contaminate the listener because of the melodic touches they are wrapped in?

Does the band also deserve respect for their DIY ethic? And the sweat they pour by liters during the concerts? (Do I mention this because I had the chance to see them live in an ocean-like moving crowd in Oporto quite a long time ago?)

Could we describe “Answers” as a real positive and challenging following to their “Last flood” album?

Isn’t it a shame to review this EP more than two years after it went out?

Still needing some solid argument? Would you lend an ear to the eponymous song?

And, finally, is it worth downloading (for free) the EP through Strikedown Records, or purchasing the nice transparent vinyl at Throatruiner or DyingDIYDistro? A tape via D'Kolektif, maybe?

Well... in spite of what is screamed in the above-mentioned eponymous song, there IS an answer, it lies within those seven songs, and it’s “YES”. Period.

the facebook
the tumblr

some objectivity?
this noise is ours (EN)
metalorgie (FR)
nuskull (HU)

 

For The Glory "Lisbon blues"

Do the words “Instant classics” mean anything to you?

If not, do yourself a favor, get the “new” (2013) album from the Portuguese crew. It’s worth thousands explanations and examples (including mine).

“Instant”, because it’s direct. No experimentation, no post nor proto-anything. Just pure energy from the speakers to your ears, and body. First, the nodding, the shaking, the moshing, unstoppable for 26 minutes, as if you were discovering Rage Against the Machine or Terror again.

Then, while you are trying to get back your breath, the thinking: what happened?

The same as usual with For The Glory. That’s the “classical” part. Efficiency, fueled by nervous bursts of power, channeled through a well managed groove. Or the perfect balance between punk and bouncing NY style hardcore. Like thousands of other bands? Be honest, when was the last time you heard good ol’hardcore rocking this way? Knowing the recipe doesn’t make you a good cook. You need experience (and these guys have it for sure, cf the 110 song : “after a decade [they] still do it [their] way”) and to put all your heart in the process (same song: “give it all, be sincere, do it [your] own way”).

For what result?

Powerfully played and produced, the album is as heavy as the Portuguese external debt and it hits you as strong as the IMF do on public services in a “supposedly-in-crisis” country.

Those shitty metaphors were not chosen by coincidence. It’s my modest attempt to highlight one more quality (if not the main one) of this album: the way it is linked to a particular reality (in this case the European/Portuguese one).

As a globalized phenomenon, hardcore sometimes loses sight of its local reality. Bands, lyrics and sounds are often focused on emulating the American model and trends. Which is quite contradictory with the nature of hardcore in itself, as a way to claim that you are distinct from the masses.

In this case, the music won’t help you to geographically specify/identify the band. But the lyrics point at very specific situations, like the unfair mantra the IMF/Government/Press try to impose on the portuguese national subconscient (“You say we’re living beyond our means”, in Darktimes). Or the real cancer eating the portuguese society right now (“Lies and corruption like never before”, same song). Or the entire “Lisbon blues” explicitly citing the place and the facts.

I think Portugal deserves attention, in general, but especially now, and I was pleased to see a band like For The Glory (playing groovy hardcore, and representing the portuguese scene since a long time) giving up abstract angers and focus their agressivity on specific things.

the bandcamp

the facebook

the merch

the objectivity:

Daily Rock France (FR)

Echoes and dust (EN)

Metal France (FR)

Soundscape (EN)

Bring me the sound (FR)

Bandcom (PT)

Salad.days (IT)