Not a massive amount to go on with this 7” split single sent over digitally for these two Australian bands. We have all of three tracks notching up under ten minutes here. Inebrious Bastard are no strangers to us having been covered before in similar shortened form. They offer up two slabs of discourse and crust-grind from their Sydney HQ where many of them spawned out of popular scene favourites in the area. They also have ex Brit Alex B from Leech Woman in their ranks so are guaranteed to make a right old orrible racket.
First track ‘Last Rites For Humanity’ has less than two minutes to make its mark and does so with a gruff vocal rasp before flying headlong into a primitive “squat the lot” sounding D-Beat pound and stumbling off like a drunk tramp on a meth mission. It’s as in the face and as coarse as it is tumultuous, vocals really hit the mark spewing out their vitriol and slapping you around silly but it’s all too quickly over. There’s a bit more of a groove and time for ‘Dying Screams Of A Collapsing nation’ to flow and it bullies its way out the speakers with a bass heavy feel that crushes like being run over by an articulated lorry. There’s definitely a crusty feel about this and it piles away raising bruises and you can imagine it being a riotous affair played live something the band have had experience of getting support for heavyweight visitors such as Steve Ignorant and The Subhumans. Hopefully they will have summat with a bit more substance to offer next time around but this is true DIY punk as fuck rock so I doubt it.
Terrorist are a different bag of pus as far as I’m concerned and the volume rises considerably with their number the charmingly entitled ‘Vasectomy Camp.’ It’s obvious that there’s a radically different approach to production between the two bands. Musically they take a spasmodic lurching approach and one that’s a lot more experimental in approach. I have tried but can’t really get my head around the one track here and if it is par of the course can’t find myself warming to them in the future. Apart from the frantic musical frenetic approach that just makes me giddy, vocally they sound a little too screamo for my tastes and indeed it sounds like the singer could be having an impromptu operation on his most private parts. There is a post hardcore feel about it and it’s not all bad, especially when it calms down with a spoken word part and then surges back in for a final attack but on the whole not really hit the mark for me. It’s very difficult though to pass judgement on one number though hence no marks given here.
(Pete Woods)
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