Shit Tax

Reviews

Brain Bleed / Infuriate / Riot Division / Shit Tax Four Way Split CD

Four-way split effort delivered to us by Hey Fuck You! Records, featuring two tracks per band coming from Chicago, Minneapolis, Richmond, and Montreal. Crust punks BRAIN BLEED really stood out here with their forceful, female-led vocals in the track “Empty,” while INFURITATE grasps at much more precise, metallic-driven crust punk that features a minimum of powerviolence stances. RIOT DIVISION lacks precision and the mixing efforts are missed, as it sounds like rotten bananas, perhaps better live. SHIT TAX is near noisecore in its purest form, recommended for lovers of such, as it still lacks mixing effort, or rehearsal, hard to tell.

Shit Tax World Demise cassette

SHIT TAX seems to be a band that has been going for more than ten years, but only bothered to release something last year. To each their own pace, I guess. The moniker gave it away a little: SHIT TAX is a punk-as-fuck band playing direct, punk-as-fuck music. I am reminded of ’90s US anarcho-punk bands a lot, like RESIST, BROTHER INFERIOR, or DEPRIVED. Fast and snotty punk rock with lyrics against the pigs, religion, and consumerism, and about trying to survive in a violent society without going insane. It’s not bad, but with all the songs sounding a lot like each other, I found myself losing focus halfway through the tape. It is not so easy to keep the listener engaged with such a straightforward punk rock sound, and I think the EP format would have suited SHIT TAX better. They must be fun live, though, and I’m sure the local studs-and-spikes brigade are into them. And they’ve got a raptor playing the guitar on their Bandcamp, which is a definite yes.