Rapid Fire: EP01: Theist - Self Titled // Dance on Your Grave – Paper Guns

What is Rapid Fire? Rapid Fire is a series of reviews for short EPs or Demos that the Audiocancer team does not feel the need to write a three thousand word essay on. It does not automatically mean your EP or Demo was horrible, it’s just that there are limited amount of things to state about your 20 micro-song 7 minute Grindcore EP. So seat back, and enjoy the Rapid Fire.

For this week’s (inaugural!), Rapid Fire we have Theist (Bandung, Indonesia) and Dance! On Your Grave (Kuching, East Malaysia)

Theist - Self Titled

Theist is a Crust Punk band (they call themselves Neo-Crust) from Bandung, Indonesia. While most Crust Punk bands attempt to get a lo-fi aesthetic, akin to their fore fathers, Amebix, Theist decides to discard this for a much more modern production. To be fair, in this day and age, it is easier to get that modern production, judging from the availability and range of production tools at the disposal of the average man.


While Amebix took their harsh production qualities from old school raw Black Metal, Theist seems to be from the camp that tries to modernize that crossover sound. Like the evolution of Black Metal also, Crust Punk has evolved from the raw abrasive melody to more complicated pieces. Theist embodies that concept, thus the tag neo-crust. While in essence, the faster power-chord charged parts are the embodiment of Crust Punk/D-Beat, the slower parts carry an atmospheric feel with riffs that are almost Doom Metal like.

Source: THEIST.NEOCRUST

In fact, if the band were to have riffs that were to be bluesy, the band will be able to pull off as a Sludge band. That however, would take away from the dirge environment they attempt to create. While not the first band to play in this style, the riffs of the band are not second-grade throwaways. It manages to be hard and uncompromising.


The feedback continues to ring in the background while the guitar goes into a melody line in the lower strings, almost Post-Punk like. As you are about to get ready to be adjusted into the doom-laden vibe, the band then pushes the tempo a few notches up but not turning the knob until its fullest extent.


The result being a transition between slow to mid paced rather than an abrupt change in speed like most Hardcore bands would do. The closest there would be to a snare-centric blastbeat would be in the track At the End of The Maze but it quickly dissolves into an old school Hardcore breakdown. All in all, a good listen for a few spins. Neo-Crust isn’t for purist but those who enjoy a good modern interpretation of Post-Punk influenced Crust now and then will love this.


Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/THEIST.NEOCRUST

Bandcamp: http://theistsludge.bandcamp.com/

Dance On Your Grave - Paper Guns

Dance! On Your Grave (DYOG) is a band from Kuching, Sarawak. While we had a Crust Punk in the first of this article, Dance! On Your Grave plays a cheery (for a lack of a better term) version of Hardcore Punk. What struck me at first was the band’s name which sounded similar to Motorhead’s song “Dancing On Your Grave”.


Judging from how the scene has gone through so much crossover the years, it won’t be that surprising the band got their name from the song. However, if one were to listen to the music is far from Lemmy’s Jack-Daniels charged brand of Metal.

This two track EP consists of two catchy mid-paced Hardcore Punk. Don’t expect the micro-songs of Minor Threat nor their ferocity but they have more in common to modern day Punk Rock like The Distillers and an almost Garage Rock like vibe in the verses or leads.


The guitar work isn’t your simple power chord centric you might expect from a Hardcore band but they contain amazing melody-lines. The bass comes in and does not blindly follow the guitar by playing root chords but liberally comes in with its own amazing lines.


In fact, I was half-expecting a solo like in Hellacopter’s Paying the Dues. What I really love about these two tracks are the extremely catchy chorus with the double vocal attack. On one layer, you have a female vocalist starting off with a percussive method of sing talk, compressed and filtered like an old microphone, only to be accompanied by another half-screaming male vocal in the chorus.


The chorus of Paper Gun, while the vocals may come off with those rough sing-a-long qualities, the lead guitars joins the trip and becomes the base melody. On the track El-Matador on the other hand had an almost Post-Hardcore vibe when another vocalist comes in with a repressed scream.


If you enjoy some Garage Rock influence in your Hardcore (and I assume the band does listen to those kinds of bands), just get this EP. This is a nice alternative to your library of aggressive Hardcore bands and let those amazing guitar melody take control instead.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danceonyourgrave

Bandcamp: http://danceonyourgrave.bandcamp.com/
(It's free by the way)

Terence A. Anthony commutes between Kuala Lumpur and Kuching. Co-Founder of Aural Chaos. He also writes for Greater Malaysia and Opinions Unleashed.

Cara Neir - Portals to a Better, Dead World

I don't mind me some Skramz or Post-Hardcore and I absolutely love my Black Metal. However, when I hear this eclectic mix of Skramz, Post-Hardcore, Crust Punk and Black Metal I get confused. On paper, this thing is something the Metal scene would definitely hate.

Somebody has the guts to take my precious Metal and dip it into cauldron of different subcultures that have a bad track record in doing so?

Yes, the Metal scene is very much like Gollum. But if you were to take all those bias tendencies and open up your mind a little, you would find this record is amazing. After all, would you have found Metal if your mind was weld shut in the first place?

Obligatory forest photo. You need them for proper Trvepoints^TM . For Kvltpoints^TM, get a Candelabra and xerox your photos 10X instead.

Cara Neir is band that is really hard to pigeonhole a genre onto. Aptly, enough, the band stays away from cornering themselves into one by just calling their music "Experimental Black Metal" if that makes sense to you. The band refuses to stay into the norm set by musicians of yesteryears and changes their sound from one record to another.

Their 1st album has a Post-Rock/Doom Metal/Black Metal mix while their EP right after this album I am reviewing plays Black Metal that has strong Post-Hardcore influence, and has Sludgy moments, all rolled into one short Grindcore-length micro-song. (It's called The Overwatch and you can buy it here)

So this album takes a different route and decided to go for a crossover appeal. To say that this is merely a Skramz influenced Black Metal album is an oversimplification. This is more than that.

The way this album starts isn't exactly how you would imagine a Metal album should. The first few notes could easily get a Metalhead question whether they got the wrong record. The distortion was light, and the chords were more in an uplifting manner, rather than the usual bitter sounds of a frostbitten Black Metal band.


Now from those words, the first thing that many would imagine is the band Deafheaven, that has combined Shoegaze, Skramz, Post-Hardcore and Black Metal into polarizing effects. Where Deafhaven sounds like a bunch of Shoegazers trying to play Black Metal, Cara Neir sounds more like a Black Metal band trying to play Skramz.


It's like an immigrant who settles into another country and learn their language, no matter how well they know their grammar or phrases, there would be a sense of discordance while they speak in those first few years. They retain their accent, and remain distinct in the community.


If Deafheaven was a Shoegaze immigrant who planted their flag into Black Metal country, Cara Neir sounds like a Black Metal band who has a PR status in Skramz country. Even in the vocals show the difference between the "accents."


The vocal style from the Punk spectrum, when they try to scream in their more metallic genres, has a degree of melody that is still in the throat, not allowing a full shriek to occur. Cara Neir does the opposite by trying to add melody in that shriek but mostly retaining a harsh vocal sound in their throat.


It is exactly how you are not sure whether the album cover belongs to a Skramz band or not as the leanings are much more closer to Metal instead. Now the PR status may conjure images of that person returning to his homeland once in a while, despite adopting a new home. Well, that is what happens in this record.


Every time the guitars decideds to take a break from the blasting and the well programmed drums, enter a drum transition, the distortion gets heavier and the tremolo becomes more of a common feature. By the time the track Red Moon Foreboding rolls in, the Skramz is kept to a minimum.


Now even though the tracks becomes "Blackened" as many journalists may say, this album is not influenced by the Marduk branch of Black Metal but more like the artsy side of it, like Ulver or even Enslaved. As if being foreshadowed by the record title, the music does go to darker pastures. In fact, towards the 2nd half of the record, instead of having the vocals being shriek over,


Death Metal-esque low growls take the center stage while also showing off the vocal range of vocalist Chris Francis. The last track, 3380 Pounds, carries on a Doom-laden vibe, and at times teasing you with sounds that could easily accompany the more Doom influenced Agalloch songs. At points, the guitar starts to drift to folk influenced riffs that you would associate more with the more melodic Scandinavian bands instead.

The artsy side of Punk has not only influenced their music. Their lyric-writing, takes into a pseudo-philosophical approach, filtered through the eyes of life in the suburbs.


I have to admit, most of the lyrics here has a very poetic-sounding touch, that can only be written if someone were exposed to modern depressive poetry that at times can make no sense at all. Below is taken from the track Forlorn Love (even this sounds like a cheesy Skramz title)

The stupid cupids grant your wish and summon sister's laws and cheat your way in
Henry murdered Karen and the spoiled son too, he knew this spider had spun a past vile

The band may have something hidden under it, but I'm not getting the message here. Now older, Skramz bands also have the same philosophical approach but I'm am not well versed in it so whatever references that have made here, goes over my head.

To wrap it all up, while if you were to allow your Black Metal to gain a bit of influence from here and there, you might enjoy it. I definitely do, but I have a wider range of music than the average person has. A regular Black Metal fan who wants to keep it pure, as I can imagine will definitely hate it.

In fact, I would call this Deafheaven without the the Post-Rock parts that come off as pretentious and has well avoided the constant blasting, and allow the drummer (or in the case the computer drums) to go the Amebix route, and drum like a Crust band instead.

This is a rough experimentation on the crossover appeal to the artsier side of Punk and from the artsier side of Black Metal. It's Circle Takes the Square blended with early Ulver. One day, when this genre becomes an established trope, I'm sure many would trace back roots to this album.

PS/ I enjoyed this more than Sunbather. Come get me hipsters.
PS2/ I used the term Skramz instead of Screamo so that people don't get confused with the modern usage by shitty modern "Screamo" bands


Bandcamp: http://caraneir.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/caraneir


I'm not putting out a youtube video this time because it's unfair for the band to be judged from one track alone. The whole album needs to be listened as one for that gradual change in tone throughout the album.

Terence A. Anthony commutes between Kuala Lumpur and Kuching. Co-Founder of Aural Chaos. He also writes for Greater Malaysia and Opinions Unleashed.