Contropotere: Il seme della devianza (Skuld, 1991)

A grim, filthy, monster-heavy post-hardcore maelstrom, often on the brink of thrash metal (even doom metal at times). The songs are long, tortuous and convulsive: an everchanging flow of guitar stabs, upsetting vocal howls which reminds more of a black magic rite than of an ordinary hardcore punk record. A constant hail of blast beats, broken by apocalyptic sludge riffs and chainsaw intrusions (or offhand King Crimson quotes) even seem to mark the entrance to the chaotic realm of Today Is the Day, Neurosis or Flying Luttembachers. The frightening frame is completed by an aggressive anti-capitalist stance, a devious, cyberpunk version of the anarcho-punk attitude of Franti or The Ex.

"Il seme della devianza" isn't really an accomplished record: it's awfully recorded and the unravelling of the tracks is clumsy and unmemorable. But it's daring, utterly original, and it almost gives the shivers.

Contropotere were a band from Naples, founded in 1985 and disbanded ten years later. "Il seme della devianza" is their second LP, and it was followed just by two other EPs.

Tracklist:

1. La chiave del tempo
2. Templum desertii
3. Clonazione
4. Baghdad: la morte in diretta
5. Urragan
6. U.S.P. (Uniformità Sociale Precostituita)

Download (192 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:

Franti: Non classificato (1987)

Taras Bul'ba: Incisione (Wallace, 2005)

Kina: Se ho vinto se ho perso (Blu bus, 1989)

"Se ho vinto se ho perso" is hardcore getting adult without losing the ingenuity of youth and, most of all, its propensity for dreams and utopias. The songs in this album are very far from the usual Italian hardcore style: there's no anger, no destructiveness, no nihilism in them; on the contrary, they deal with decisions, illusions and growing up with a constant search for lyricism and - somehow - even a subliminal sense of spirituality. Hüsker Dü being the most evident model, the music borrows triumphant melodic structures, vocal harmonies (a bit out of tune, it must be told) and guitar figures from Sixties pop (The Byrds mostly), while the instrumental interplay, if tight and impetuous, is convoluted and features slight psychedelic accents.

Kina were founded in Aosta in 1982 and this is their third LP. They disbanded in 1997, then some of the members formed the band Frontiera, which is still active.


Tracklist:

1. Musica kaos / Sfogliando i miei giorni
2. Camminando di notte
3. Intermezzo / Cosa farete
4. Improvvisando in studio
5. Questi anni
6. Intro
7. Quanto vale
8. Occhi sbarrati
9. Occupazione (5° braccio)
10. La forza del sogno
11. Occhi di rana
12. Non credere / Gong

Download (160 kbps)