Asocial Död Åt Kapitalismen CD

Perfect. Absolutely perfect ten songs, sixteen minutes, and twenty-nine seconds of Swedish hardcore. Perfect. I mean perfect. An out-of-the-park, kicks-the-shit-out-of-everything, perfect hardcore record. By the time this record first surfaced on vinyl in 2017 on the F.O.A.D. label, I had forgotten people could even make records this good. ASOCIAL’s early ’80s origins were more lo-fi and raw—the last time they surfaced was on an uneven metal outing in the ’90s—but this incarnation (75% of the original ’80s band, 25% the long-standing drummer of UNCURBED) takes cues from Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing, where adept musicianship completely nails really basic pummeling D-beat without standing in its way, weaving inventive song structures and curt solos to absolutely perfect D-beat hardcore. Unrelenting powerful drumming, with the overdrive of the best UNCURBED moments. Tommy Berggren sounds less like the haunting ghost of his last outing in UTANFÖRSKAPET, but is still one of the consistently greatest Swedish hardcore screamers. The recording is perfect, similar to Hear Nothing where it’s not raw but in no way over-produced, with just the slightest metallic tinges. It’s long enough, just short enough. Only points off: the lyrics are entirely in Swedish, but with no translation or explanation, and the cover, while well-drawn and poignant to the meaning of the record, maybe falls short of the sheer perfection of the music. This totally fucking rocks—it’s perfect.

• Reviewer Ken Sanderson
• Label Halvfabrikat
• Issue MRR #436 • September 2019