Absolut Country of Sweden

Imagine my surprise when I learned the de facto Swedish national anthem, " Du Gamla, Du Fria," does not actually feature d-beats (though I'm sure as we speak Tomas Lindberg is pulling together a roster of Swedish punk greats to rectify that oversight).
Because in my mind, even beyond the greatness of Scandi-grind, Sweden first and foremost has always stood out to me as a joyous celebration of Discharge's swinging punk legacy just with way more umlauts. It's a story that begins with seminal punk bands like Anti Cimex and continues through .... a whole lot of other bands that also contain ex-members of Anti Cimex and whatever band Tompa hustled into a studio during his free weekend.
Where Discharge were pissed and spitting, the Swedes (while still dealing a decent amount of aggression) also seemed to have realized that a hopping d-beat can actually be fun. They're screaming, sure, but you can just feel the corners of their mouths quirking, fighting to hide back an idiot grin.
Or maybe that's because Swedish punk bands, like a lot of their Scandinavian kin, tend to stick to their native language, so I have no clue what they're saying. As Totalitar said in the liner notes to Ni Mast Bort!, "... I would feel rather stupid if I wrote about these subjects using someone else's language. This has nothing to do with nationalism, to me it's just a simple fact that I react, think and have much more complex knowledge of the language I grew up with." But language has never been a barrier with Swedish punk, the intent comes through in the musical chops and the vocal passion just fine without resorting to Babel Fish.
Since I've been binging on Swedish punk lately, I thought I'd share a few of my favorites. I'm by no means an expert here and compiling this list made me realize my collection is short a few goodies (Krigshot! Svart Sno!), but I haven't made you guys a mixtape in a while and felt the need to share.

Swedish Punk [Mediafire]

Disfear - "Powerload"
Skitsystem - "Det Sociala Arvet"
Avskum - "Masskonsumtions Helvetet"
Victims - "This is the End"
Wolfpack (aka Wolfbrigade) - "Power and Greed"
The Great Deceiver - "Strychnine"
Anti Cimex - "Victims of a Bombraid"
End of All - "Fostrad"
Acursed - "Tunneln I Ljusets Slut Track 13 [Untitled]"
Totalitar - "Mediet Som Vapen"

The Feel Good Hit of the Summer

I had a mini-epiphany the other day when I was roaring down one of the local hills on my bike, doing 20 mph down the slope (that's 735 deciliters per kilojoule for your foreigners) with my headphones on and a suicidal disregard for local helmet laws. In my mind I'm one of those insane Chilean downhill bikers.

Sleep's Holy Mountain Bike*

Insect Warfare roaring in my ears, my face to the wind like a dog hanging out a car window, I realized that GODDAMN but grindcore and hardcore are fucking fun music! I know that's probably not much of a revelation to most of you, but every so often I get caught up in the grim misery that so many metal and punk bands (hilariously) try to project that I forget that this stuff is really enjoyable. It's helpful to remember the earliest Napalm Death rehearsals collapsed into giggles at the absurdity of it all.
Not everything has to be all serious and intense. In honor of that helpful reminder, here are a handful of albums that will staple gun an idiot grin on your face.

Insect Warfare
Endless Execution Through Violent Restitution
625 Thrash
2007
World Extermination is obviously a better album, but this collection of early EPs, comp appearances and leftover tracks is a more fun Insect Warfare experience. The guitars are bigger and burlier and the performances are looser than World Extermination, making it all feel more casual. I dare you not to smile during a song like "Freebase Diarrhea." Go ahead. Try it.

Graf Orlock
Destination Time Yesterday
Level Plane
2006
The first chapter of Graf Orlock's three-part '80s action film-quoting, time traveling narrative mindfuck was totally unexpected and unique when it dropped in 2006. There was absolutely nothing like it at the time. From its conception through its execution, Destination Time Today was the equivalent of a very well done, but not exactly deep action flick on cable at 3 a.m. after a hard night of drinking with friends. Graf Orlock would improve with each outing both in output and packaging (see the Alien facehugger packaging of Destination Time Tomorrow or the exemplary Doombox). But by then we knew what to expect. Not that it lessened the fun factor in the slightest.

Disfear
Misanthropic Generation
Relapse
2003
Right from the adrenal OD of kickoff "Powerload," Disfear's bouncing d-beaten hardcore is ready to play. While Discharge may have been all intense and serious, many of their wayward progeny have picked up on the fact that a skipping d-beat just naturally lends itself to an uptempo, feel good rager. Bolstered by a buzzing, electric production courtesy of Mieszko Talarczyck (who I've read was actually disappointed in its sound), Misanthropic Generation, the first Disfear album to showcase you-know-who up front, jolts you out of your chair with its freewheeling guitar leads and compels you to move.

Wormrot
Dirge
Earache
2011
My relationship with Dirge has been ... complicated. But it all clicked into place a few weeks ago when I realized I'd simply been approaching Wormrot's second album all wrong. Abuse was a brutal little nugget of a beast. My mistake was trying to box in Singapore's finest. I forgot that Wormrot are three young dudes who unexpectedly landed a deal with one of grindcore's most venerable labels. They wanted to see the world with a little cash in their pockets and just have some damn fun. And Dirge is a fun record. It's loose, blasting and was recorded in a hurry. There was no overthinking or serious sophomore slump. I still prefer Abuse, but I find myself increasingly reaching for Dirge when I just want to smile.

Unholy Grave
Grind Killers
Selfmadegod
2010
Grind Killers has very quickly become my favorite album from prolific Nagoya terrorist foes Unholy Grave. There's a spontaneity that comes from its live in the studio production that ups the fun factor substantially compared to some of their other voluminous offerings. And if that's not enough to remind you that grind is supposed to be fun, a cover of the Ramones' "Beat on the Brat" that can only be described as very ... Japanese ... underscores you're supposed to feel good when you give Grind Killers a listen.

Bad Brains
Bad Brains
ROIR
1982
I dare you to name a better hardcore record (Shane? Hmm? Ball's in your court). The Bad Brains' iconic first album was the pure essence of adrenaline captured on tape and distilled into a pure audio form. Straight from needle drop on opener "Sailin' On," Bad Brains just explode. Damn near every song is a class on uptempo pit-movers and the reggae breath-catchers are perfectly placed to build up the anticipation for ragers like "Fearless Vampire Killers" and "Pay to Cum." I and I rock for light.

Rotten Sound
Cycles
Spinefarm
2008
I would be remiss if I didn't include one of the best grind albums for biking, Rotten Sound's Cycles. Geddit, geddit? Cycles! Ha. I kill me.
But seriously, this is a fun album to ride to.




*Yes, I have a bit of a sticker obsession.

Harder Core Than Thou 2008

When you get down to it, hardcore is a lot like sex. It’s a pretty simple operation for all the joy it brings us and each new generation is under the mistaken impression that they personally invented it. But it’s that simplicity that keeps it vital. Teen angst + a modicum of musical know how = instant excitement. Just some of us never seem to grow out of it a couple of decades later. Looking back on 2008, here’s hoping I never do. Here are the 10 punk offerings that got the most love and spins from me this year.

10. Early Graves
We: The Guillotine
Metal Blade
If you told me 12 months ago I would lead off a best of countdown of anything with either a metalcore outfit or something off the Metal Blade roster – let alone both – I woulda ROFLMAO in your face. So I guess I better sell off my palm reading business because these light fingered San Francisco musical appropriators Frankenstein together an impressive metal/punk monster by five finger discounting the finest bits of In Flames, Today is the Day and Mastodon and sewing them into a believable whole that nods to its sources without tipping the scales into out and out ripoff.

9. Trash Talk
Trash Talk
Trash Talk
To paraphrase a modern day classic, short, fast and loud is no way to go through life, son. Perhaps the greatest achievement to come from the too brief power violence movement was the reminder that dynamics and *gasp* even slower tempos can be just as effective and intimidating as all the attempts to shatter the sound barrier on instruments. Trash Talk, though they slung plenty of the short, fast and loud on their eponymous third release, they reached their apogee today by swiping Man is the Bastard’s Quaalude stomp. Misanthropy played at cough syrup speeds.

8. King Generator
King Generator
Tank Crimes
Because every countdown list needs a little Dave Witte and Mike Hill. Rounded out by The Process/Shank guitarist Jamie Thomson, the trio blew out speakers with this delightfully (and hopefully deliberately) lo-fi old skool hardcore outing, slavering their way through eight minutes of primo punk lacking in any subtlety but swinging a sack the size of Stephen Colbert’s. Witte and Hill’s drums and bass ooze together into an indistinguishable but palpably percussive mass colored a contusive purple. You see that dog on the cover, rumor has it Thomson grafted its vocal cords into his throat to achieve the perfect punk bark. Nice doggy.
Hill and Witte have this awful habit of dropping bands right when they seem to be on the crest of greatness. Here’s hoping Thomson can wrangle them back into the studio again.

7. Rudimentary Peni
No More Pain
Southern
We walked down the aisle to Pachbel’s “Canon in E” at our wedding this year; sadly I couldn’t talk my wife into doing it to Rudimentary Peni’s psychedelic take on the matrimonial standby. Her loss. Nick Blinko et al seem to pop up every three or four years now with a new EP delving into the cobwebbed corners of its infamously unstable frontman’s psyche. Just because anybody with about six months of guitar playing under their bullet belt could master just about any riff from “A Handful of Dust” or the Alice in Wonderland via ZZ Top boogie shuffle of “Doodlebug Baby” in no way impugns the sheer artistry involved. Like Blinko’s obsessively lined black and white artwork, Rudimentary Peni employ the simplest means to achieve transcendence.

6. The Endless Blockade
Primitive
20 Buck Spin
Vying with Iron Lung for the best nu-power violence (did I just coin yet another awful genre tag?), Toronto’s The Endless Blockade come Man is the Bastard-approved and unlike a lot of those who would aspire to the second gen power violence crown, The Endless Blockade actually channel not only their predecessors’ obsession with setting new land speed records on their instruments, but the top flight band’s penchant for bizarre electronics and other audience-hostile musical measures. Primitive has all that in spades, crushing both The Endless Blockades’ prior efforts and just about all challengers as well. But like Lavar Burton ‘s minions would say, don’t take my word for it, Apoctosis digs this shit too.

5. Iron Lung
Sexless//No Sex
Prank
Hulk smash! I double dog dare you not to circle pit in your bedroom as the stompalicious, shout along chorus of the titular track kicks in. It’s astonishing how much noise this duo managed to make and in just a scant 20 minutes. Welding Helmet’s street level thrum to Man is the Bastard’s power violence grooves, Iron Lung, quickly becoming underground darlings, took a Godzilla sized step forward on Sexless//No Sex. Their best written and best sounding effort, Iron Lung lay waste to metropolitan skylines whether they’re idling in first gear or dive bombing in fifth. But it for the awesome Nick Blinko art, stay for the stop shelf power violence beat down.

4. Black Ships
Omens
New Romance for Kids
Black Ships are like punk rock comfort food. Being Canuckistani and Quebecois to boot, I assume that’s a giant plate of poutine for them. Black Ship’s greasy plate of gravy and fries is nothing you haven’t heard before, but I doubt you’ll have heard much better. It’s hardcore punk at its most basic but executed with such deft skill and confidence you can’t help but be won over. The band seemed to come out of nowhere this year, first snagging my attention with their crafty Low EP. With two solid and monstrously large sounding releases under their studded belts in just nine months or so in 2008, I can only imagine the kind of delights they’ll unveil in 2009.

3. Trap Them
Seizures in Barren Praise
Deathwish
For an album I still don’t particularly like (I’m more of a Clandestine guy), Entombed’s Wolverine Blues has seeded a new generation of punks that intuitively grasp its mix of death metal chug and rock swing as a tonic to revive a flagging hardcore scene strangled by its own deflated decadence. And Ryan McKinney’s lyrics, scraped like peeling paint in a rotting home from the underside of his psyche, are more effectively horrific than any of the morbid musings or Lovecraftian posturing of any death metal ensemble. Perennial producer and frequent collaborator Kurt Ballou contributes the occasional riff and Sunlight soundalike production to ensure Trap Them razor their way through the growing ranks of also rans jocking the latest it sound.

2. Ghostlimb
Bearing and Distance
Level Plane
Graf Orlock side project Ghostlimb jack their instruments straight into America’s collective id on second EP Bearing and Distrance, deftly sailing the shores of the misty dream country Neil Gaiman chronicled in Sandman. From the artwork and anxious melodic hardcore through the simple but insightful lyrics, crystallizing modern unease in a cultural seemingly awash in plenty but devoid of any true substance or sustenance, a plastic wrapped throw away society quietly strangling in its own detritus. It’s a cartography of isolation and anxiety on the cusp of the 21st Century.

1. Disfear
Live the Storm
Relapse
Sweden’s self-proclaimed defenders of the d-beat hear nothing, see nothing, say nothing new on their second Relapse effort. Not that I’m complaining.
The quintet merely turned in the single most energetic, tightly written and just plain fucking fun hardcore album of 2008.
Hell, I’m in my 30s and listening to it has me breaking out the air-guitar and –drums and circle pitting like a moron in my living room to my wife's amusement.
We all know Kurt Ballou can produce the hell out of an album when he’s not strangling his own guitar in service of Converge, but he really outdid himself on Live the Storm, his finest studio moment since Jane Doe. I shit you not.
The intro to “Get it Off” could have been lifted from “Welcome to the Jungle” while “Fiery Father” and “Dead Weight” could serve as instructional materials for a course on hardcore singalong songwriting. Hell, all 10 songs on this, including the nine minute closer “Phantom,” perhaps the longest d-beat song in history, are damn near instant classics. The addition of Uffe Cederlund of Entombed fame was a brilliant master stroke and his frenzied soloing and riffing gives Live the Storm a serrated, urgent edge that explodes the songs. It’s like fishing with dynamite but in audio form.
The first new album of 2008 I laid my hands on, Live the Storm has drawn me back time and time again over the last 12 months. For an album that offers pretty much nothing new since Discharge drummer Tezz first fumbled his way around a kit, Disfear’s latest opus proves that conviction and balls out ferocity can still keep hardcore vital well into the 21st Century.

G&P review: Disfear

Disfear
Live the Storm
Relapse
That 14-year-old in Cheboygan who just fragged your digital ass for a fifth time in a Halo 3 death match, the one who calls himself n00bslaya1994, this is probably his soundtrack. At least the little fucker has decent taste.
In a perfect world this rampaging platter of d-beatery would pulse through hockey rinks everywhere, replacing that annoying Mortal Kombat techno dance thing as the sports hype theme of choice. Ah, a boy can dream.
Owing as much to Ace of Spades as it does to Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing, Live the Storm is a pick-sliding, gang-chorused fireball of punk fucking rock fun. For all the talk of mushroom clouds, self mutilation and funeral pyres, Tompa et al are clearly having a blast on their rampaging second *Relapse* album [Thanks for the catch, Adam].
Like grindcore, d-beat is one of those niche styles that excels and thrives as much because of its self-imposed limitations as despite them. Swedes Disfear don’t do much to advance the three-decade old style, but their second album exemplifies all that made the legion of Discharge clones great unleashing their latest powerload of songs.
Guitarist Bjorn Pettersson gets some extra help on Live the Storm from ex-Entombed shredder Uffe Cederland. Tomas Lindberg, who managed to squeeze this album in between recording with The Great Deceiver and an At the Gates reunions sounds are focused and forceful as he has in years.
The lyrics, all upbeat and revolutionary, manage to cram in nods to prime George Romero films (“Testament”) and several repetitions of the Lovecraftian concept of “dead but dreaming” (“Fiery Father,” “Testament” again).
And we haven’t even talked about closing track “Phantom,” a circle pitting blast that’s way more engaging than any seven minute (!!!) d-beat song has a right to be.
Disfear’s 2003 effort, Misanthropic Generation, was a workmanlike if rather unremarkable album bogged down by mushy production, but Kurt Ballou’s (Converge) knob twiddling on Live the Storm is crystalline. Each instrument gets its own space in the mix, which is beefy and raw. Frequent solos cut across the chunky guitars and snapping drums propel the entire enterprise with a compelling, infectious energy.
Again, Disfear are not teaching the old d-beat dog new tricks, but they are getting the most out of Fido’s beloved standbys. Saying that guys whose C.V.s include Slaughter of the Soul and Left Hand Path have dropped a landmark album is not something to be done lightly. But Live the Storm does represent five relaxed scene vets having the time of their life playing what they want.
One of Relapse’s first 2008 releases is also one of the year’s first must buys.