Article Nine (Sweden) begins with some absolutely crushing crust punk with totally burly vocal barks and a straightforward delivery made up of heavy, basic chord progressions, moderately fast tempos, and a couple of lightly melodic runs or solos on rare occasion. "The Red and the Black" is a bit more melodic and energetic, but "The Rebel Girl" is also pretty solid in its own right. It's nothing new, but I haven't heard a band of this exact nature in a few years really, so this is a nice surprise. The recording is raw but works out great thanks to a fairly strong mix, so the only slightly messy element is the rough edge of the guitar distortion, but I think it sounds good. The bass and drums are alright, and the vocals definitely stand out properly. The lyrics to one track are lashing out against racism, while the other set of lyrics are taken from an old Joe Hill song about working class women. Skullkrusher (Indiana) plays a similar brand of crust punk (sans any melody), but their recording isn't as heavy, so some of the drive falls short. I think it's mainly the guitar tone that suffers, as the drums aren't so bad, the bass is there, and the guttural vocal shouts work out fine, it's just that the guitars are kind of flimsy is all. "War on Terror" drops the lower vocals in favor of flat out yelling/screaming, but for the most part the three tracks sound similar to one another across the board. All three songs are basically about war and political corruption, it's pretty typical material. "Burned charred corpses litter the ground, Flamethrower death, No hope to be found." The 7" comes in a black and white sleeve with artwork and lyrics for each band, and the presentation is the biggest setback here, because the artwork (especially on Article Nine's side) is way pixilated and sloppy, and some of the text is blurry and hard to read. In all honesty it looks pretty shitty, and I'd never look twice at this split if I saw it in a distro box or anything. I'd like to hear more from both bands, especially Article Nine, but Skullkrusher needs a more powerful recording, and both bands need to rethink their visual aesthetics.
[TDBL]
Running time - 10:00 (approximately), Tracks: 5
[Notable tracks: The Red and the Black, War on Terror]
Article Nine - http://www.articlenine.g2gm.com
