Reviews

Inflammable Material

The Apostles / Anathema Fight Back split 12″

This lovingly assembled release is as much a record reissue as it is a work of brilliant punk scholarship. The LP comes with a joint issue of two of the best music fanzines of the last decade (Negative Insight and Defiant Pose), featuring copious documentation and writing on the lost and unreleased anarcho punk releases of the 1980s. This split 12″, featuring London’s the APOSTLES and New Malden’s ANATHEMA, is among the most famous of those lost, unrecorded, or unreleased records. Originally slated to be released on Fight Back, a sublabel of CONFLICT frontman Colin Jerwood’s Mortarhate, this record stalled out at the test press stage. This left ANATHEMA without any vinyl releases over the course of their short lifetime and robbed the world of some great material by classic punk weirdos the APOSTLES. For those who love the anger, urgency, and underrated melodicism of 1980s UK anarcho punk as much as I do (that is, who love it enough to want more than just CRASS and CONFLICT records), this 12″ is a really welcome addition to the collection. Not only is the music cool (particularly the APOSTLES material), but the zine really is quite lovely and informative. Recommended!

Decadent Few Lowlife LP

The timelessly-named DECADENT FEW seem to have existed in whatever remained of the Londan anarcho scene in the  late-’80s to early-’90s. Lowlife compiles an unreleased session from 1988 as well as some compilation and 7″ tracks, and is every bit enjoyable as their Irrehuus LP. DECADENT FEW is among the clever bands that can strike a single riff or two for three to four minutes and somehow engage me and put me in a trance at the same time. They chose to include a cover of JOY DIVISION’s “Shadowplay” to further demonstrate this. Segments of sparse guitars create a push-and-pull effect over a steady-going rhythm section. But it would be irresponsible for me to not draw attention to the dramatic and theatrical vocal stylings of Kaya, which is really the most unique characteristic this band had to offer. Think SOUTHERN DEATH CULT but more…witchy? Some may find them a bit over the top, but that’s exactly what has always drawn me to this band. The sleeve looks lovely and the glossy fold-out insert has a couple nice gothy black-and-white band photos and lots of cool flyers, but I’d have liked some lyrics. A must for all of you UK anarcho romantics.

Pawns Monuments of Faith EP

Modern deathrock firmly rooted in anarcho-punk. The flangers are spot on, the SPECTRES-esque barks are on point, the lyrics are bleak, and everything is perfect. But “Broken” is a fucking anthem. Open-chord guitar stutters through “You cannot fix what can’t be broken / With open arms you’ll take me there,” into a chorus that’s nothing more than an anguished howl. Dismiss PAWNS as a(nother) goth rehash at your own peril—these are the folks doing it right.

The Klingons 1979 EP

Another day, another short-lived late ’70s UK DIY band getting pushed back into the light. This time, it’s KLINGONS (“of Hildenborough,” as they’re now differentiating themselves), who played a total of five shows, recorded four unreleased demo songs in 1979, and completely flamed out in under a year; the half-life of even the most marginal punk obscurities is unreal. The KLINGONS’ sound was predictably ramshackle and rudimentary, straddling the increasingly shaky fault line between the three-chord first wave of ’77 and the artier, more open-ended approach of turn-of-the-decade post-punk, and clearly indebted to the likes of ALTERNATIVE TV, the PREFECTS, SWELL MAPS, etc. The A-side pairing of “Terminal” and “Cold Love” takes bare-bones DIY amateurism to the extreme, as the drums skitter along in an primitive, unfluctuating thud, the guitar hacks away at halting chords, and the vocals oscillate between monotone rants and and an only slightly more lively quiver—if “Action Time Vision” or “Dresden Style” are Brutalist council estate towers as punk songs, the KLINGONS would be a singular concrete slab. On the B-side, the sparse, seasick rhythm of “Influence” takes things into a DOOR AND THE WINDOW/later DESPERATE BICYCLES-ish direction, with “Manners in Trains” going a bit more trad (relatively speaking), not unlike an ultra-shambolic, way inept WARSAW. That’s a lot of names to drop, and the KLINGONS don’t even come close to leveling up to any of them, but if you’ve been thoroughly Messthetics-pilled, here’s a fresh fix.