Filed under: Reviews
Dog Soldier-At Your Throat CD (HG Fact Records http://www.interq.or.jp/Japan/hgfact/) One of the more underrated bands hailing from Portland, Oregon’s incestuous hardcore/punk breeding swamp, Dog Soldier rose from the ashes of apocalypse tripper punx Blood Spit Nights. The band maintained the UK-style spikes’n studs infatuation of their former incarnation, but dispensed with the gloriously noxious vocal fx and raucous distortion that typified the BSN-era, trimming their delivery to a metal-singed gallop which recalled the anthemic ‘hard punk’ crossover of Broken Bones and the English Dogs.
While Dog Soldier’s debut 7″ and full length LP were not without their memorable moments, they sounded somewhat rushed and repetitive. Subsequent recordings by the band, however, including two ferocious contributions to the Portland Hard Punk Compilation (released on Hardcore Holocaust in 2006-mandatory listening) and their “Ghosts” 7″ (Whispers In Darkness, 2006, ditto), were notable displays of bestial punk aggression, caustic metallic burn, and doomsday atmospherics.
Where some of their more recent material displayed considerable promise, Dog Soldier’s latest full length, “At Your Throat”, represents a step backwards for the band, delivering the expected dosage of barbaric axe squall but lacking in the standout songwriting and production of their best work.
Released on Japan’s HG Fact Records imprint, the record opens with a bang (or, more aptly, a procession of blood-curdling shrieks) that segueways into “Trade of Delusion”, a by-the-books “Dem Bones”-era Broken Bones-style ripper. Other numbers like “Devil’s Masquerade” and ”Divine Wind” exemplify the band’s ‘hard punk’ warrior crust quite well, but these songs are fewer and farther between than one might hope.
Though the formula remains the same throughout its nine song duration, bristling with the rhythmic battery, careening leads, and brutish vocal convulsions one would anticipate from these PDX crusties, the majority of the record blends into an interchangeable blur of heard-it-before rhythms, riffs, and howls.
Less musical variation means fewer memorable hooks, and the flair of earlier work is more often than not bypassed for a more generic thrash fest. The production here is also surprisingly unadorned, lacking in the dense, dank sonic stew of better material, while less tempo variation equals a near-non stop steamroller of dis-hammering that grows monotonous after a time.
By and large a below par effort by an above average group of punks. Get their previous 7″ instead.-Mike Ramek
Filed under: Reviews
Self Abuse-s/t (Higher Conscience Records-Arlington, Virginia) The essential ingredients on the self-titled debut from Self Abuse are spare- downbeat percussion and brawny riffs inspired by a smorgasbord of early-to-mid-’80s British and American hardcore, NYHC, Oi!, and crustier inclinations. What sets this recording apart from the pack are not merely the well honed, if unadorned, chops but also a relentlessly morose lyrical bent and grotesque vocal delivery which greatly accentuates its forlorn tone.
This nightmare vision slithers out of the same sort of primordial muck that typified GG’s most primitive rants, but there is burlier, tighter structure to the depravity, like early Sheer Terror and Iron Cross recordings on an ether binge. Alcohol-fueled ruminations on futility, resentment and isolation abound, as this ode to all things dismal, dispirited, and down-and-out lumbers on.
While the mid-paced dis-bludgeoning, three chord sludge, and primal punk hammering may seem familiar, this journey into the darker recesses of addiction and, well, self abuse, is underscored by a procession of the most fetid, subhuman vocal croakings in memory, somewhere between an ENT-esque retch and Paul Bearer-style guttural growl.
Fans of fellow D.C. crushers 86 Mentality will be pleased with the street-wise stomp-and-slash assail that Self Abuse brings to the table. There are similarities between the brick’n'mortar blue collar fracas on this record and that of the aforementioned outfit, although this recording maintains a darker, more repugnant vibe throughout, eternally on the brink of collapse.
This is a deceptively simple affair, as the individual segments coalesce into a putrid heaping of hardcore/punk sputum not soon forgotten. -Mike Ramek
