Okkultokrati - no light for mass Lp (2010)

Some days ago i was chating with a friend that used to be in lund, a small town of sweden (known for great hardcore bands, like snifter and everyday madness, even some connection with intensity) to rent a house for his university's studies. He told me that if he stayed there certainly he would die from boredom and misery. If you are born and raised in a city like athens with fucking everyday's life intensity that drives you crazy (and you get crazy if you lose that intensity) for sure the green mountains of scandinavia could be a little bit annoying...

Moving from sweden to norway, here we have a band from oslo featuring members of hombre malo and haust. It's name : Okkultokrati. Four guys who have gained a lot of respect within the underground black metal and hardcore circles mainly for the way they approach these two genres. Scandinavia's daily life influences drives people do insane think i guess like forming great bands...

Wearing darkthrone shirts and playing hardcore punk would be, besides a great horror movie, the perfect description about those long-hair, tight-pants, dark guys. Imagine the first bathory's lp with celtic frost in a Poison idea feast.. Yeah, sure that's the case.. Punky in your face hardcore full of proto-black metal influences... Down-tuned guitars and mid-tempo drum-hitting creates a dystopian and at the same time sludgy environment. Some reverb adds some spicy taste (no influences from Destino final, or maybe not?)
Great fucking music and hateful lyrics from guys that lives in scandinavia, that is known for the huge suicide rates and extreme music tastes. A band that describes it's own existence under the "True norwegian metaphysical atheist black'n'roll" belt. So, if you wanna hear some good Black flag meets Darkthrone hardcore full of black metal elements "no light for mass" it's everything you want.

The funny think is that i tried to order some copies from ormeyngel but with no pay-pal. Ormeyngel very polite told me that they can't sent the stuff due to currency exchanges. So, when i told it to my good friend dbill, he answered me with a funky style: "Kala o Norvhgos to exei kapsei apo to polu kruo kai ton radienergo solwmo pou psareuoun!!! Pes tou na mas pei poso einai to poso, kai 8a tou ta valoume se Norvhgikes korwnes tou flwrou!....ti einai autoi oi Vorioi re malaka?!!!!....Kollhmena muala!!!!" HAHAHA.
Check also an interview here.
Also if you got fucking pay-pal go and buy some stuff from Ormeyngel records (the label is running by Okkultokrati guys)

download

Snifter - action... reaction! 7''

I think the year was '99 or '00. the phone rang and a good friend of mine - and the first person i ever saw with dreadlocks and patches, a very cool thing back in the day - said : "hey, come from my place. I have some 7'' that you might find interesting". Those seveninches was chupacabra's "Tired of talking to shadows" and some noisy mind-blowing shit from an unknown band called Snifter. He played me that stuff and got me so "unprepared". I run to a fellow shop to buy a casseette (i had no cd-recorder back then, guys) and started to record these two glorious 7'' (actually i recorded also jeniger's first 7''. haha - all my gratitude to alex from hibernation who sent me a physical copy of jeniger's "captured" 7'' back then. same era - full of memories). When i got home i played that goddamn tape, first thing, and started headbanging like crazy. Yeah, snifter was a killer band (later i found them in a cd complilation called "swedish hc comp" including great bands such as diskonto and e.n.s).who captures perfectly the late-90's sound of the diy hardcore scene. Actually, when you were young and other kiddos asked you what your favourite music and you keep on answering "hardcore punk" and they stared like the most stupid human beings in the world you propably had to say except Doom and Extreme noise terror also Snifter, "yeah, the sound i like is snifter's chainsaw-guitar".

This 7'' is a trully great example of d-beat heaviness, dual vocals one shouting - one yelling, heavy as hell bass-guitar and an old-school feeling (ακους μητσο?) with good and fancy artwork. On the front-cover you'll get a cop tie-up an activist with the word "action", and on the back-cover you'll get a cop-car full of bullet-holes and the kind word "reaction". Heavy political hardcore from one the most underrated bands of the late 90's. Some songs are on english and some on swedish. Did i mention some Infest influences ? (check an interview from 1997 here and their split with Yuppiecrusher)
The mastering has been made by jocke tack (also Kontrovers, intensity mastering's fame) so you know that the sound is killer.

krossa

Toamol - demo 2004

Some time ago, a great blog used to exist. It's name was suicidemilancity.blogspot. The chief in command was milan, a guy from serbia. Every now and then i was asking for tones of shit, if he has them, if he could post 'em (real nerd thing) and the rest. And someday milan told me to check out Toamol. So, this post is for milan, nowadays he runs the downsided blog. Man, thanx a lot...

Toamol (their perfect double 7inch is posted here) hails from Tunsberg, in the south-east of Norway and features ex-members of Kort process and Alltid jaget (another killer norway-based band). Toamol blends traditional late-8o's norwegian hardcore (like kort process and the fast parts of So much hate) alongside more modern crusty forms. Heavy and dark guitars borrowing stuff from early - heavy as hell - Neurosis as much as the sickening tightness of His hero is gone, even some thrashy parts (i'm talking more for the feeling in the sound) when they get from fast to faster while the vocals reminds me a straight-jacket lunatic in a panic crisis. The great thing about norway's scene is that every band is so unique, every band has it's own sound, something that i love, and i have to say it's the same thing that i'm totally bored-of the swedish stuff (for some weird reason the majority of swedish bands seems to copy-paste one another). Toamol gives you the impression that they put all their energy and love for what they're doing.
This demo lasts for 10 minutes. 10 minutes that you'll want to live it again and gain, again and again...
and as a friend of mine told me 20 minutes ago : "Καλα ρε μαλακα πως τα ακους αυτα, πρωινιατικα?"

download

Abra macabra - Death is certain. Life is not

 Abra macabra was a band created in Athens on January of 2008 and finally disbanded on february of 2010. In their brief history they fonded of the dark and punk/post-punk sound back from the 80's till now. Moreover, Abra Macabra was a DIY band, willingly have chosen to self-organize their sound / word and support similar actions.
 The copy i have on my hands is a "try" of their vocalist (fotis) to release their album (that won't be released as it should be, due to the already mentioned disband) so the tracks not be "lost" in time... 200 copies will be burnt and will be given hand-by-hand at squares, squats and friends in general against commercial shit and profit. If you’re lucky you’ll get one.
All the rest are in (fucking) greek or for (fucking) greeks, so use google (or some type of) translator.

  Όταν πρωτοέβαλα αυτό το cd στο στερεοφωνικό μου, νομίζω το πρώτο συναίσθημα που ένοιωσα ήταν έκπληξη. Έκπληξη γιατί δεν περίμενα ποτέ πως κάποιοι dark-wave ήχοι θα με πόρωναν τόσο ώστε να τους βάλω στο repeat για να συνεχίσω να περιπλανιέμαι στα υπέροχα στενά της κόκκινης Μασσαλίας (βιβλίο του Maurice attia που συστήνω ανεπιφύλακτα) ανάμεσα σε σφαίρες που σφυρίζουν και πεζοδρομία που ξηλώνονται κάπου στο μακρινό ’68.
 Σαν τέλειο soundtrack νουαρ μυθιστορήματος οι σκοτεινοί και παραπλανητικοί ήχοι τους είναι σαν ένα απλωμένο χέρι για μια νυχτερινή βόλτα που μόλις ξεκίνησε. Φτιάχνοντας αργά αργά μια ατμοσφαιρα βαναυση – εδώ να σημειωσω πως ο ηχος είναι αρκετα πιο up-tempo απ’το σύνηθες rebound-ικο new-wave το οποίο δουλεύει ιδανικά, τουλάχιστον για μένα – και ταυτόχρονα αδυσώπητη οι macabra σε μεταφέρουν σε πλανά από ταινίες του ν.νικολαιδη. Εκεί που οι καραμπίνες οπλίζονται σε αργά μπλουζ θέματα (παρτε για παραδειγμα το κομματι "mouths"), παρανοϊκά βλέμματα κεντράρουν κάτω από ερωτικά μπλουζ και μαύρες δαντέλες αποδεικνύονται θανατηφόρες.
 Οι στίχοι αποστρέφονται κάθε τι που θυμίζει αυθεντία ρίχνοντας χολή για την κατανάλωση, τους κάθε λογής αφέντες καθώς και τη θρησκεία αλλά ταυτόχρονα αφήνουν και μια προσωπική χροιά και άποψη.
 Μια πάρα-πολύ καλή προσπάθεια από ένα group που δυστυχώς διέλυσε. Ευτυχώς που τα κομμάτια κυκλοφόρησαν έστω και με αυτή τη μορφή αφού θα ήταν κρίμα να χαθούν και αυτά με τη σειρά τους όπως τόσον άλλων συγκροτημάτων.
 Το cd-r θα καεί σε 200 κόπιες και θα μοιράζεται χέρι-χέρι, χωρίς αντίτιμο σε καταλήψεις, στέκια, πλατείες, ανάμεσα σε φίλους και γενικότερα με όλους τους τρόπους που ανταγωνίζονται το θέαμα και το κέρδος.
 Βάλτε ένα ποτήρι κόκκινο-κρασί, και τσεκάρετε την “ύπαρξη της μη-ζωής”.
 Καλή ακρόαση (dark) punks

download (while smoking a boyard cigarette and staring at the stars)

Raw nerves - Murderers among us 7'' & demo

First of all, hope you like the new shape of the blog.
Secondly it has been a while and since the world cup started yesterday i think it's time for some refresh...

Some time ago, in the wanting list - on your right - i had a band named Raw Nerves from portland, oregon (don't be confused with Raw nerve from chicago). So, a guy named erik contacted me and finally send me Raw nerves's demo and seveninch. Why i'm bullshitting like this? Some days before i was in a forum asking for the new raw nerves 7'' (named "we must be dreaming") and guess what. Some band member replied back,  his name was erik!
When i asked him if he was the great guy that has sent me raw nerves candy he said : "yep, i wasnt trying to make it a secret, but i guess maybe i didnt mention that. haha"
Once more the communication with bands and places is so fucking wonderful. So all the cheers of the world goes to Erik (besides drummer of raw nerves, the man is the guitarist of Exit collapse and used to play drums in Protest stagnation. Fucking portland guys! They are everywhere.)

Now, raw nerves is a terrific hardcore band mixing their anger with very dark melodies and desperate drums. Heavy political hardcore but not in the usual forms that portland use to offer. I have read on the net the comparison with bands like Bury the living (BTL are way more fast) or acts of sedition. Now for me, i can't find the connections with bands, not that raw nerves are so unique but they have a tight and blistering sound that i love. The drums are so fucking solid that fill negativity and power to the whole recording while the bass is distorted enough to drop-down a wall. Add matt svendsen's howls and screams (Squalora's, The Anti Difrancos's etc fame) reminds me a lot, vocals-style of great bands like Iron hand and Oiltanker. The demo has seven tracks, the four of them have different mastering and released as "Murderers among us" 7''.
Except the new ep, they're gonna release a full lenght lp some day soon, so stay tuned. And as the fucking MRR magazine wrote : "certainly the ingredients on this EP could easily equal a fucking killer live show. Especially in a basement. Especially if it were really hot. And especially if there was beer."

Raw nerves - demo 

Raw nerves - 7'' 

Inu - tracks from upcoming split with Kroia

Spain : a country well-known around the world for awesome dishes and food reserves, barcelona fc and zara clothes. As for the hardcore community, spain is worshiped as the motherland of the modern, pessimistic and catchy as hell, tragedy / from ashes rise influenced crust (don't start throw rocks on me, i know that great bands like otan or destino final are from there too), bands like Madame germen, Ictus, Leadershit and so much more made this genre so popular inside punk community. I'll get to the point.

Some days before moro (guitarist of Inu) contacted the blog and asked, if i can, to post their brand new five tracks from their upcoming split with indonesia's Kroia. After some e-mail exchanges, here we are...

As a big japcore fan i couldn't say no to a truly great band as Inu really is. Hailing from the northwest of spain, la coruna to be more specific, the guys that fuels the engine of Inu have been playing in some other bands also. Blunt (great crust band, check some stuff here and here), Codia (old-school hardcore punk), Noitebrega (black metal), Kephra (post-metal) are some of the them.

Moro has sent me also the lyrics, that deals with personal issues mainly but also with some politics. Now, as far the sounds that will come out of your speakers. Well, you must go and buy some new ones 'coz Inu certainly will burn' em out even if you're gonna play it on 0 decibel. Full DEATH SIDE maniacs here. era : With the first riff "All is here now" comes to mind in a physical way. Crazy, driven by demons Chelsea's riffage, crude drumming and judgement feeling (almost forgotten : add some Iron maiden for the flavour and for satan's sake)... Yeah, Inu rocks really hard. Imagine a torch-holding army marching to the deepest of all hells and you may catch the feeling. The sound is more than decent, counting that the band has recorded all tracks by themselves in their practice-room (that's how DIY recordings must be).
Hope you like them... Cook some extra spicy vegeterian paella, grab a cold glass of sangria and enjoy.

Dedicated to moro who sent me these tracks and black Mitsos that will love them for sure.

Shot in the head

Naytia - European regeneration LP

This one maybe is already everywhere in the net, but it's not on my blog, so shut up and read carefully (and then listen carefully).
Naytia was the best band ever came outta greece (at least for my own taste). From the ashes of the band aganaktismenoi polites (indignant citizens) these four guys (or three guys and a girl, if you prefer it better) accomplished to create one of the most solid and ear-destroying sounds ever to be named in the tiny geographical limits of the shithole of greece...
The band's first release was a demo back in '88 (six tracks, with two great songs that never released on vinyl). After that, another demo (again with six tracks) and a european tour with chaos u.k with their set in oslo, norway to be released as a tape with the occult title "sex, drugs and greek salad". After that the band released this lp that the majority of the fans consider it their best release. Finally in 1994 a split lp with Graue zellen from germany. They participated in many tape compilations in greece as much as in the famous Whispers double lp (here and here).
So, now that we ended the history lesson let's get to the meat...

April '92 and the greek label Athanati ellhnikh leventia (trans. Immortal greek manliness!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), the band's own label releases the lp Europaiki anagennisi (European regeneration). Label's name can be faced as a joke and an ironic description of what greeks think for theirselves.
Mixing the greek punk sound (or the primal-hardcore) of the early 80's scene with european thrash (you can defenetely can listen the Destruction guitar scratching) alongside with great political lyrics that have over-exceed the boring (or surface "touched") punk themes the band made a whole music genre to start thinking more seriously issues like modern-daily life or how the diy thing must "run". Naytia alongside Anasa stahti (Ashen breath) were the first bands that had some political opinions about why a band must-not play in major commercial events, clubs or pubs that others make profit of them. The played mainly in squats and social centres and sold their albums at the price of the cost.

Lyrics referred to topics such as : army, school, the exploitation of animals, jailsystem, human dignity, solidarity and more. The drums are like a machine gun turned onto you while the bass is distorted and heavy and the guitars throw some trully apocalyptic riffs, as for the dual male / female vocals, they work terryfic. The artwork has been made by maria-elektra (r.i.p). i know that i'll go on and on and on if i continue so....
One of the best greek hardcore punk releases ever!
cheers to crustcracker (i've stolen the rip). I've included the lyrics translation and a good pic of the artwork in the folder.

"Μαζι να μοιραζομαστε το αιμα της ψυχης μας...
Μαζι να ενωνουμε τον ηχο της κραυγης μας..."

Burning leather & Slowmotions - split 7''

A long time now i had this feeling, wake-up, the same old-shit, life get ruined by routine. Ok, no more... And the perfect way to overthrow it - if you don't like rihanna's voice - is by far to put on your turntable some good old Motorhead ('till Ace of spades era) and to start shouting some Lemmy's lyrics like "the riders wearing black" etc... Right? Well, no absolutely 'coz the boys are back in town..

As the summer shows it's teryfying heat and your body keep-on asking for some cold lemonade with pure communist rum, the best soundtrack is BURNING LEATHER!

I have to say some things about Slowmotions, so... Tokyo, japan and neither japcore, nor crust.. What the hell? Up-tempo, well-played punk rock by guys that have already released five seveninches.. Good though.

Now let's get to the point : Burning leather.
Imagine some punks (way over thirty years old) that have eaten the road with a spoon over the years and after one million bands they decided to play simple ass-kicking motorhead's punk''n'roll. Including Steve Harris of diy hardcore aka mr. Kelly Haliburton (Defiance, Detestation, Resist, Severed head of state, Pierced arrows and a hell lot more) on bass-guitar, Brian Hopper (hellshock, atrocious madness etc) on guitar, Marty pants of Nux Vomica on drums, Jason roberts (Fall of the bastards etc) on vocals and Scot gotto (also fall of the bastards) on guitar you know that here lies an All-star line-up that isn't as an All-star shit only in the papers. Hell right. Include as a wasted info that chris carrey of poison idea used to play here also, you get the picture...

I was seeking as hell who the fuck wrote the song "the guns come running" 'coz has that smell of 70's texas bar before some serious fights between some rednecks but the only result i got back was Burning leather. So, if you wanna hear some tracks that motorhead chop-off on the "Overkill" sessions check burning leather. One of the best Portland acts for my humble opinion. Metal Punk'n'Roll up your fucking ass, mothafukkkka!!

download 1 : Burning leather - demo

download 2 : Burning leather & Slowmotions - split 7''

Two in the price of one, make some downloads.....