Oxygen Destroyer

Reviews

George Crustanza / Oxygen Destroyer split LP

A “Sein Francisco hardcore, SF skate thrash” split, as per the text on the LP spine. GEORGE CRUSTANZA doesn’t take themselves too seriously as you may be able to tell, but song titles like “Social Disconnect” and “Depression” indicate they are not a joke band. They’re doing a familiar and competent thrash-influenced style hardcore, with the drumming and vocals in the forefront. I picture Calvin and Hobbes pitting with flipped-up-bill ball caps. OXYGEN DESTROYER takes a grungier, destructive punk approach reminding me of BAD POSTURE mixed with BUTT TRUMPET. Both bands dabble in some digital delay on the vocals, but OXYGEN DESTROYER tends to turn the knobs a bit further. These recordings appear to have been previously released on a tape and 7″ respectively. I could see the Thrillhouse basement full of stinking-ass kids going off to this pairing, probably a thing that happened prior to March 2020, and perhaps could resume in 2022?

Oxygen Destroyer November Brain 10″

A wildly limited 10″ lathe compiling unreleased cuts and outtakes from OXYGEN DESTROYER, who started the early 2010s in Japan and finished out the decade in San Francisco. The title track is a wildly melodic (almost emotional?) opener that sets false expectations for ten noisy hardcore bursts that follow. OXYGEN DESTROYER would have fit in nicely in the 1990s Bay Area, with tracks like “Slowride” and “School Jacket” landing them somewhere between Mission District fuck-ups and West Bay Koalition sonic violence, and then there are straight raw punk crushers like “Manhunt.” As a swan song, November Brain has it all; from the nine-plus minute raw punk opus “Evolution Of Man” to a slew of sub-60 second blasts of chaos. Sure, there are only 25 physical copies, but I suspect that the intent was to make it clear that OXYGEN DESTROYER existed, and these eleven tracks make that abundantly clear. The punk world needs fewer sonic constraints and more of this.