Wow. This is pretty typical D-beat material from Malaysia, but it's fucking great. Take Discharge as well as a major early Swedish hardcore influence and you've got a pretty formulaic approach with consistent tempos, driving rhythms, lots of quick little lead breaks, and higher-end shouting vocals with a few gruffer backups. However, the songwriting is really fucking memorable somehow. I don't know what it is, perhaps that the energy level is pretty forceful and the songs are all right around a minute each with no bullshit, but there's some really strong material here. The vocals being higher than average also lends a different appeal, and I like that. The first eight tracks are from the "Raw System" 7" (with a cover of Moderat Likvidation's "Nitad"), with the remaining six off of the "?p?r?t Hardcore" 7" (including two more covers: "Tuomittu Epauskon Sortoon" by Rajoitus and "Spracta Snutskallar" by the Shitlickers). Some tracks are a little faster and possess more of that punk flare, while a few get slightly heavier, but the era that they're drawing influences from was early enough to where there's no actual metal involved, so... that's actually refreshing. Of course the recording is really fucking raw, at times inconsistent in the mix, but I don't mind it. There's a little added noise, but it's tolerable. The drums could definitely use more of a low-end presence, and the bass sort of gets lost, but I like the cohesiveness and the live sort of sound. It works well, and certainly doesn't detract from their songwriting in the least. In traditional hardcore/punk fashion the artwork is mainly black, white, and red with high contrast imagery and plenty of skulls and studs. The lyrics are brief as hell and certainly deal with the usual topics of war, greed, corruption, power, the media, etc. Hell, they even have a song called "War... We Write About It!" I wish this wasn't so damn short, but screw it, that keeps things quick with no time for growing bored. This is definitely worth checking out, I had no idea it was going to be so cool. Good stuff. I wonder if there's more of this going on in Malaysia?
[Disarmament]
Running time - 14:16, Tracks: 14
[Notable tracks: Nitad, Arm Your State, The Owner of the Biggest Arse Around, God System Slavery]
Disarmament Records - http://www.disarmtohell.tk
