A Bastard Noise: Power Violence Lives on in a New Generation

“No Comment! Manpig! Capitalist Casualties! Man is the Bastard! West Coast Power Violence! Let’s fucking go! Kick ass!”
And with that, the term power violence entered the hardcore lexicon. The loose confederation of California bands had little in common stylistically beyond a penchant for brevity. They certainly didn’t set out to spark a musical revolution. But 20 years after Man is the Bastard shouted the term into existence, a host of up and coming bands are taking what was once an inside joke to brand outcasts in the California hardcore scene and turning it into an ongoing and constantly evolving musical movement of its own.
Though the term power violence has been “commodified and bastardized” in the two decades since its introduction, Robby Komen of Sea of Shit still sees the spirit of that first run of bands in the wave of contemporary practitioners.
“It was definitely a time/era specific thing in its original incarnation (just like anything, it has to start somewhere), but I do believe there are contemporaries that earnestly share the same ethos and ideologies that unified these bands in the past,” Komen said.
Attracted by power violence’s aggression and malleability, a modern wave of neoviolence bands are taking short shocks of hardcore festooned with prominent bass and exploring all of the possible permutations, keeping it from going stale and extinct. Sprawling across the globe and adapting to fit new musical ecosystems, power violence is more vibrant and fertile than Man is the Bastard and their cohorts ever could have imagined.

G&P Review: Chulo

Chulo
Odio a Primera Vista
Grindcore Karaoke
At this point, to proclaim oneself a drug crazed grind freak is not exactly a novel proposition. Plenty of bands have appropriated drug tropes either in praise of their preferred pharmaceutical or to acquire a second hand edge by posing as a latter day Hunter Thompson. But being from a genuine narcostate like Colombia does give Chulo’s “Narcosarcasmo” a cred that their first world peers lack on Odio a Primera Vista (Hatred at First Sight in ’Murican). And like your favorite misused medication, a little bit of Chulo goes a long way with 11 songs of Man is the Bastard filtered through early Agoraphobic Nosebleed dished up in eight minutes. There is zero subtlety to the band’s weapon of choice: it’s blunt edges and relentless in a way that will leaving you craving variety.
I believe a great bass tone can take you far, and Chulo will leave you missing some dentition, but that power never gets harnessed toward any clear goal. The songs, in isolation, have a great suffocating atmosphere, but even in eight minutes they begin to blur into a faceless wall of smashing bass and screaming as each song body slams into the previous. “Puertas” and “Society” are notable simply for easing back the tempos enough to break through the brick wall of noise Chulo has erected.
Odio a Primera Vista is nasty and noisy but ultimately one dimensional. If Chulo hopes to get regular customers hooked on their product, they need to promise a more varied trip next time out.

[Full disclosure: The band requested a review.]