Tomorrow's Ashes #1
Kia ora, comrades.
For umpteen years, I've been writing quick-fire reviews about recent noisy releases. Often, I've thrown those shorter reviews together in the shape of a monthly column. Those columns have been published under various banners, including Ear-Drilling Fun, Down Under(ground), and In Crust We Trust. And those columns have sometimes been hosted by websites kind enough to allow me to sully their reputations too.
I'm going to continue that tradition right here.
So welcome to Tomorrow's Ashes — new name, same old stink.
Every month Tomorrow's Ashes will gather a few rowdy recommendations for you to peruse at your leisure. To be honest, I've never really nailed a consistent tone or word count for any of my monthly round-ups. I know a lot of places wrap things up in a punchy paragraph. But it's difficult when the music writing I enjoy runs from the long-form rambles of Julian Cope to the short/sharp and often hilariously barbed commentary of Robert Christgau. I aim to be brief. But I'm frequently not. C'est la vie.
I mainly focus on new Bandcamp additions or releases recently uploaded to YouTube. My criteria for inclusion is simple: if it sounds horrible/enticing enough, it's a contender. I'm too old to keep track of the latest hip band (or super-hot trend), so let me apologise in advance for my shortcomings in that regard. I'm not plugged into the heart of any scene. I am a dork. But that's part of my scruffy charm, right? LOL.
I tend to concentrate on abrasive punk — d-beat, crust, raw hardcore, stenchcore, metalpunk, kängpunk, noise-punk… you get the gist. I don't worry too much about subgenre tags, though. If it's ear-piercing, I'm interested.
Focusing on the harsher end of the spectrum means I don't often talk about more melodic punk releases that are well worth your time. I like all sorts of punk, really. But I don't have the time/space/energy to cover every strain. I'd recommend you check out DIY Conspiracy, Noel's Straight Hedge, Maximum Rocknroll, Sorry State's A+ newsletter, Bandcamp's punk coverage, etc. All of those portals highlight a more comprehensive range of punk.
I'd also recommend you spend plenty of time browsing Terminal Sound Nuisance and Negative Insight. Both of those sites are overflowing with top-notch deep-dive articles.
I'll also be including a brief list of non-hardcore releases every month that feature my most recent obsessions, both old and new. Hopefully, you'll reach for a few of those too.
Alright, that's enough caveats, clauses, and introductory bullshit. I plan to post a new edition of Tomorrow's Ashes every month. If you want to keep up to date on what's happening around here, feel free to follow me on Instagram. Fair warning, my IG page is heavy on dadrock vibes. But I'll try and make up for my dorkiness over there by shoving raucous releases down your gullet right here.
Remember, noise not music, and FTW with PMA.
I'll see you soon.
Kia kaha.
Easier Listening Jams for the Month:
Yard Act: The Overload (Superb retro/future-gazing Brit/post/punk/indie/pop.)
Oasis: Knebworth 1996 (If you know, you know. The only must-own Oasis album, tbh.)
Tom Waits: Live in Austin, Tx, 5 Dec ‘78 (Tom at his growling/barroom balladeer best.)
Michael Monroe: Nights Are So Long (An absolute pop/punk/sleaze/rock gem.)
Roky Erickson and the Explosives: Halloween (Praise him. Our Lord and Saviour.)
Biohazard: Urban Discipline (Fuck guilty pleasures. Own it, bruv. 100% sick.)
Cimiterium: S/T
The aim of this column is to cover recent releases, not future releases. However, I'm breaking that rule straight away to highlight a single song on an upcoming self-titled 7" from Australian stenchcore band Cimiterium.
I loved Cimiterium's 2021 demo and I got pretty damn excited to see they'd uploaded a gruesome-sounding track from their soon-to-be-released EP on their Bandcamp page. (The 7" doesn't have a firm release date at this point due to the backlog of pressing plant delays.) Obviously, you can't tell everything from a single song. But "Tomorrow is an Open Grave" strongly suggests Cimiterium's upcoming 7" will eclipse their extremely promising demo.
"Tomorrow is an Open Grave" is a rotten chunk of heavy-ass punk, with gravel-gargling vocals and a ton of bruising momentum. (Think Stormcrow, Cancer Spreading, Contagium, etc.) It's safe to say Cimiterium's new tracks will be brawnier and feature an even thicker metallic crust than the songs on their raw demo. Recorded and mixed by Max Ducker at Cellar Sessions studio — and mastered by Al 'Dr Alien' Smith at Bergerk! studio — Cimiterium's first vinyl release also features killer artwork from Adam Kindred.
Not gonna lie; I am fucking amped to hear the rest of Cimiterium's first 7". I'll let you know as soon as I hear any intel on a firm release date.
[Black Against Night Records]
Sistema Mortal Tapes: Oväsen Frontera Kollaps, Bipolar, Realm of Terror
A "DIY cruel music network" is how Italian label Sistema Mortal Tapes describes their MO, and the label's an apt home for recent(ish) ear-splitting cassettes from Realm of Terror, Oväsen Frontera Kollaps, and Bipolar.
Oväsen Frontera Kollaps' Self Mutilated Machine CS mines a bleak vein of guttural punk that's indebted to the primal rage and primeval stonk of demo-era Doom. Raw crust is the main thrust here, with chainsawing riffs, garbage can percussion, and gruffer-than-gruff death metal vocals gurgling in a lo-fi mix. Lyrically, Oväsen Frontera Kollaps' key points of concern are the inevitable toll of war and social and environmental collapse. Meaning Self Mutilated Machine is as crust as it gets in tone, texture, and temper. Great/gnarly stuff.
Sistema Mortal released a rough-as-guts split cassette featuring Oväsen Frontera Kollaps and prolific raw punks Bipolar last year. More recently, Sistema Mortal dropped another batch of paint-stripping noise from Bipolar. The band's The Source of Loneliness – Embittered Existence of Abandoned Ghosts cassette features four more super-astringent tracks constructed from mosquito buzzing static. Bipolar flips the switch on The Source of Loneliness'... final track, which ends on a melancholy orchestral note. But, essentially, everything Bipolar touches burns like battery acid.
The first release from Michigan crust crew Realm of Terror, Accelerated Extinction, is a tinnitus-inducing tour de force. Sistema Mortal released a short run of Accelerated Extinction cassettes last December. However, the six-song EP was initially released by Guttural Warfare Records, It's An Action Tape, and Audacious Madness Records. Accelerated Extinction is as raw as a gut wound with Realm of Terror's max-distortion racket tipping its hat to head-splitting groups like Doom, Abraham Cross, Extreme Noise Terror, and Disclose.
Bulldozing berserker crust is the name of the game, and Realm of Terror duly unleash Hell on every one of Accelerated Extinction's savage songs. This is brute-force thuggery. A crude but supremely effective underscoring of raw punk's most visceral strengths. Accelerated Extinction is awesome. HIGHLY recommended.
[Sistema Mortal Tapes]
Disease: To Hell With This Life
Some punk bands like to add cutting-edge elements to the genre's traditional framework. Other bands — like Macedonian noise-mongers Disease — have zero interest in evolving. In fact, Disease's career thus far has been all about devolution, stripping things back to their rawest and barest essentials: aggression, savagery, noise.
That ethos hasn't changed one iota on their latest speaker-melting release, To Hell With This Life. Once again, Disease's torrential blasts of fuzzed-out guitar and incomprehensible yowls pay tribute to Kōchi City icons Disclose. (Fun fact: it’s going to sound like heresy, but I’ll say it anyway, Disease’s hissing/spitting punk often sounds just as good as Disclose.) As per raw punk's usual obsessions, To Hell With This Life's über-caustic songs dig into the pitiless realities of war, poverty, and societal collapse. Tracks like "War Ghosts + Butchery," "The Massacred," and "Thousand Yard Stare," feature brutal blasts of screaming distortion, battering drums, and road-rash raw d-beat. For some, To Hell With This Life will sound like an unlistenable screed of incomprehensible feedback. For fans, the album delivers precisely what we crave: mind-obliterating noise.
Forget nuance or subtlety. To Hell With This Life is all about pure guttural primitivism. Bonus points to Disease for having Shige from Tokyo's famed Noise Room studio cast his magic hands over To Hell With This Life, which sounds great, btw. (Obviously, by great, I mean it all sounds like piss and vinegar being poured into your lugholes, which is pretty much perfect in this context.) To Hell With This Life is abrasive as it gets. Mark it down as yet another ear-fucking triumph for Disease.
[Burning Anger, Rawmantic Disasters]
Final Fukker: S/T
If you liked the new Disease LP above, you might also fall hopelessly in love with Final Fukker's self-titled cassette. The two-piece band — featuring J.P. Hearse (Inepsy/Dethfox) and Chris Goldsmith (Drip, Mueco, and more) — recorded Final Fukker’s 6-songs in a single night, way back in 2016. No idea why it's taken this long to drop, but hey, better late than never, bruv.
Honestly, I’d advise you to avoid Final Fukker’s tape if you’re looking for structured arrangements, well-rehearsed performances, or you know, actual ‘songs’. That said, if full-blown dissonant chaos is your jam, you’re in luck! Final Fukker deal in genuine off-the-cuff raw punk anarchy. There are identifiable instruments (as well as howling vocals) to be found on the band’s self-titled cassette. But (((noise))) itself is just as much of a handy creative implement. Really, Final Fukker’s tape is more akin to listening to some kind of mutated/mutilated beast tearing off its own limbs as it screams into the void. This is a challenging listen. But it's damn hard not to get swept up in the sheer insanity of the 'music' therein. Deranged. Violent. Utter pandemonium. Recommended, obvs.
[Runstate Tapes, Sore Mind]
Inyección: Porquería
There are a couple of ways to approach Chilean/Argentinian band Inyección's Porquería LP. You can just dive right into the filth 'n' fury, which points directly to the back alley delights of ye olde UK82. On that level, Porquería's a total blast. Dig in; it's a studded, tatted, and tattered riot with gruff street punk anthems and dual gravel-gargling vocals. Even better, though, Porquería's sound is so razor-thin that fans of lo-fi punk will also find plenty to enjoy.
Porquería isn't wall-of-noise raw — à la Disclose or Disease levels of acidity. But like a lot of underground Latin American punk, the rough-hewn sound right here captures a wave of anger and energy that's lost in more polished productions. The point is, Porquería sounds and feels authentic.
Listening to Inyección’s corrosive sound inspired me to (re)listen to a couple of early Mexican punk bands with a comparable lo-fi tone — namely, Xenofobia and Autarkia. Obviously, those bands were born in a different era and they’re from a different location to Inyección. But there's a strong connection where Inyección's rawness evokes similar social stresses in a similarly (and brutally) honest way.
[Discos Enfermos, Educación Cínica]
Riesgo: La Edad de la Violencia
Oh, yea. Fuck, yea. I remember writing about Chicago band Riesgo's venom-spitting demo a couple of years ago. Back then, the band featured José Casas from Los Crudos and Carlos Ruiz from Sin Orden in the ranks, but I don't see Casas’ name mentioned on Riesgo's new La Edad de la Violencia cassette. In any case, La Edad de la Violencia is a beefier and grimmer release than Riesgo's kick-ass demo. It's still a full-throttle onslaught of pissed-off Latinx punk. But along with Ruiz's +reverb+ vocals and the all red-hot d-beat, tracks like "Separados" and "Sacrificio" see Reisgo injecting traces of raw black metal into their primitive hardcore. La Edad de la Violencia sounds aptly violent throughout. But Lucas Sikorski's riffs are often downright evil too. Super-dark noise for super-dark times. Ough! — indeed.
[Self-released]
Thatcher's Snatch: S/T
The first punk LP I bought was the first volume in the Punk And Disorderly compilation series. That was back in — well, somewhere in the early 80s (fuck, I’m old) — and I loved that comp and its subsequent editions. Point being, I cut my teeth on UK82, so there was little chance I wasn't going to be interested in Thatcher's Snatch's throwback shenanigans.
Let's pause for a second — Thatcher's Snatch, how good is that? — alright, moving on. The Melbourne-based band features mohawked + chrome-domed + dirty-dye-job miscreants from groups like Blockade, No Class, Reaper, Conniption, and more. Thatcher's Snatch's self-titled EP slaps Exploited-esque cover art on the front and its innards are an on-point/two-fingered salute to the peak cider-guzzling years of Riot City, Clay and No Future Records, etc.
Thatcher's Snatch's obnoxious tracks detail the wicked collusions of politicians and media moguls. They also rip the shit out of the evangelical/homophobic bile spouted by rugby player Israel Folau. And, of course, a couple of the band’s numbers express some good ol’ ‘fuck you’ anti-authoritarian attitude. All of that is matched to a mix of turbo-speed street punk and a little ‘come on, a cheeky line wouldn't hurt’ hardcore. You get boots, braces, studded jackets, and an unwashed stench. Ridiculously catchy tough tunes; with a wink or two for free. Great stuff, lads.
[Hardcore Victim]
Aftermath: Garbage Day
I love stenchcore. Obsessively. Eternally. Unhealthily. All that apocalyptic clatter fills my rotten little heart with glee. More importantly, stenchcore's catastrophic visions feel that much more pertinent at this point in time. Garbage Day, the debut 10" from Umeå-based stenchcore ne'er-do-wells Aftermath, ticks all the ruinous-sounding boxes. The Swedish band includes members from a host of other groups — the most well-known being crusty d-beat crew Misantropic. Like Misantropic, Aftermath combine calls for resistance with far bleaker messaging. In fact, Garbage Day kicks off with a snippet of an on-brand speech from the father of the atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer — "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" — you know the clip.
Aftermath follows up that doom-laden sample with seven songs that reside in the Cancer Spreading and/or Swordwielder school of bludgeoning stenchcore. Tracks like "Menacing Strike," "Exploitation," and "Conservative Stench" are all brooding barrages filled with gravelly growls, crashing percussion, and hammering riffs. Throughout, feedbacking intros, scorching leads, and a mountain of filth and decay are backed by thick, metallic muscle. What's not to love, my friend? Consummate crushing stenchcore.
[Phobia Records, Halvfabrikat Records]
Siege Fire: Storms of Radiation
I promised myself that a new year meant no more writing about last year's releases. But Siege Fire's four-track ‘21 demo, Storms of Radiation, is just too good to leave behind. I'm dropping it in here because I'm a BIG crasher crust fan and Siege Fire’s demo definitely deserves some more attention.
Side note: I was catching up on Terminal Sound Nuisance's latest updates earlier and I saw the blog has started a great new series of posts under the banner, Live by the Crust, Die by the Crust. If that sounds interesting to you, then you should take note of Siege Fire too.
Unfortunately, I don't know jack shit about the band. Aside from the fact that Siege Fire are a PDX-based duo: M (guitars, bass, vocals) and N (drums). This is one of the problems of having fuck all presence on social media. I'm sure all the hot gossip about Siege Fire is out there somewhere. But I'm not signing up to see it, bruv.
In any case, I did see that Storms of Radiation was recorded by Kevin Parnow at Lizzcharge Studios, and Parnow's worked on a bunch of great releases for killer Californian raw punk band Löckheed. Will Killingsworth at Dead Air mastered Storms of Radiation, so you can be confident Siege Fire's demo sounds suitably mean.
The demo’s four songs are also brutal. "Guilty//Unmoved," "Endless Graves," and "Storms of Radiation" are raging madness incarnate. Everything sounds as over-the-top as you'd expect from unhinged crasher crusties, and roughly speaking, Siege Fire pitch their sound somewhere between Gloom and Atrocious Madness. (But then, Abraham Cross, Life, ENT... they get a look in too.) The point is, if you like those bands, you should hit play on Storms of Radiation right this second. I'm not suggesting Siege Fire have released anything as crucial as Gloom or Defector's recordings right out of the gate. But Storms of Radiation is super promising nonetheless.
The demo's final track, "The Reaper’s Scorn", heads a little further off-piste. Not hugely so. But where every other track on Storms of Radiation starts with an instantly crushing chorus of noise, "The Reaper’s Scorn" has a more epic feel that harks back to crust's earliest atmospheric ancestors. At least, it does for a couple of seconds, before the maelstrom begins again.
Look, I'm a total sucker for blown-out crust where noise and rawness are used as critical creative components. Really, my only complaint about Storms of Radiation is that I'd have happily sat through another half-dozen songs! Raw, urgent, and stacked with distorted mayhem, Storms of Radiation is an exhilarating demo. Siege Fire are a band to keep a close eye on.
[Self-released]
La Milagrosa: Pánico
It's ridiculous how many hits versus misses Seattle, Washington, label Iron Lung Records has had over the years. Obviously, I don't mean 'hit' hits. I mean, cleaver-in-ya-skull releases. Big ol’ heavy-hitting punk stompers. You know what I mean.
You can add Pánico to that list. The 13-track LP is the first full-length from Puerto Rican (albeit Brooklyn-based) punks La Milagrosa. Pánico foregrounds political/protest punk from an immigrant viewpoint, and the music here is clearly based on some rough real-world experiences. All the stresses and pressures of a hard-fought life on the mean streets are here as Pánico's songs thrum with an undercurrent of claustrophobic tension and explode with an overcurrent of scorching hardcore. Pánico rages hard out from the get-go. But there are catchy melodic hooks buried in the weeds. Even better, Pánico is definitely ferocious, but it’s not uninviting. If anything, La Milagrosa’s music feels like a rabble-rousing summons to get on board the fucking punk rock bus.
[Iron Lung Records]
I-SO: Total Collapse
H.O.L.Y. S.H.I.T. New York label Toxic State Records sure pumps out the jamz, huh. The demo from N.Y.C. hardcore crew Nisemono 偽者 that Toxic State released last year was one of 2021's best, and the label's straight back into business in 2022 with I-SO's fierce Total Collapse cassette. I guess the big news is I-SO's who's who list of members with musicians from groups like Haram, Android, Drool, and Scalple wading in. Experience goes some way to underlining the raw passion of the pummeling punk here. But you can't discount that Total Collapse sounds so fucking tense and so fucking urgent due to the myriad ills plaguing N.Y.C. in recent times. Mid-paced stompers mix with all-guns-blazing rippers throughout, and while Total Collapse isn't full of surprises, as such, it’s certainly stacked with ferocious cut-throat hardcore. Much like Nisemono 偽者, I-SO seamlessly combine rhythm and intensity at blistering speeds.
[Toxic State Records]
