FAVORITES

These are some of my all time favorite bands/artists. It's hard to choose all of my favorites, but these are all bands that I either constantly listen to or have had an outsized influence on the kind of music I like.

Dystopia

Dystopia is possibly my current favorite band. When I started getting into punk a few years ago, I was coming mainly from a background of old school death metal, so Dystopia's combination of hardcore punk and sludge metal really appealed to me and ultimately got me into crust punk. The band has really balanced pacing, flipping between heavy, sludgy sections and the thrashy climaxes they lead up to. I love it. The lyrics and samples are great too, and really build a feeling of social anger.

I was kind of disillusioned by metal when I first listened to Dystopia, because it was starting to feel like metal was often either same-old same-old, trying way too hard to be edgey, or being disgustingly racist. Dystopia showed me that you can get the metal sound and the punk groundedness at the same time.

System Of A Down

I love System of a Down. They've got riffs and melodies that are catchy enough to make it onto popular radio, lyrics that take an active and coherent political stance, and lots of nostalgia from me listening to them in middle school. Plus Toxicity is the type of album that I feel absolutely no need to skip through, all the songs are great. Even though Dystopia won out for my favorite, System of a Down comes close to tieing for it.

Death

Death is hands down my favorite death metal band, which makes sense given that they are one of the founding bands of the genre. They have so many good albums and all of them have unique riffs. One day I really want to pick up learning bass again, because I remember having a lot of fun trying to play along to 'Crystal Mountain'.

Skeletonwitch

Skeletonwitch was definitely my introduction to extreme music. I had listened to a lot of classic heavy metal and pop-punk in high school, but I was always kind of unsure if I liked more intense scream vocals. When I found Skeletonwitch in my last year of high school though, it totally opened me up to genres like death metal and grindcore. The melodic thrash metal energy makes the black-metal style vocals a lot more listenable to someone unfamiliar with extreme metal. On top of that, they have several really good albums, and 'Beyond the Permafrost' is pretty much no-skip all the way for me.

The Dead Kennedies

If Skeletonwitch got me into metal, the Dead Kennedies got me into punk. They bring this constant wittiness and fun to punk while also laying out the punk ideology super explicitly. 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off' and 'Chickenshit Conformist' together might as well be an intro punk manifesto, as far as something like that could exist. On top of all of that, my mom was an old school punk in the 80s so this band is something that a large chunk of my family loves to talk about and listen to.

TRANS BAND LIST

This is a list of crust, d-beat, and hardcore punk bands that are either majority trans or fronted by trans people. Trans visibility is not always great in a subculture thats as highly local and underground as punk is, so I felt like it was useful to try to make as detailed of a list as possible.

G.L.O.S.S

Besides Against me, G.L.O.S.S. is probably one of the most well known trans punk bands, and definitely a contender for the most well known trans band in the hardcore/crust vein. They got popular very quickly back in 2015-16 with their demo and 'Trans Day of Revenge' album. The band broke up pretty soon after though as, according to a statement given by the band on the fanzine webiste 'Maximum Rock and Roll',

"This band has become too large and unwieldy to feel sustainable or good anymore—the only thing growing at this point is the cult of personality surrounding us, which feels unhealthy. There is constant stress, and traveling all the time is damaging our home lives, keeping us from personal growth and active involvement in our communities. Being in the mainstream media, where total strangers have a say in something we’ve created for other queer people, is exhausting."

Physique

If you were sad about G.L.O.S.S. breaking up, then luckily for you Physique is made up of a lot of the same musicians as G.l.O.S.S. but now with a more explicitly crust/D-beat focus. They're noisey and awesome, and honestly remind me a lot of the British crust band Doom. Plus they're on a tour for their album 'Overcome By Pain' which they put out last December and wildly they even came within an hour of where I live in the south.

Traidora

Traidora might be my favorite band on this list. They're a Spanish crust band based in London led by their singer and songwriter Eva A. They dropped their album 'Un Cuerpo Trans Lleno De Odio' (A Trans Body Full Of Hate) in the middle of last year. I thought I had missed out on getting a cassette copy, but i got extremely lucky and got one when they randomly restocked a single cassette. Even better, when they shipped it to me they gave me a free copy of the 7" vinyl and a patch which I'm gonna put on some shorts. Even if you don't speak spanish the lyrics are super memorable. Catchy riffs and a chainsaw-like guitar tone make this band very much worth checking out.

Eteraz

Eteraz is a really cool crust band, who, coincidentally, are signed to the same label as Physique, Iron Lung Records (who also happen to have signed a lot of the ex-Crass Records anarcho punk bands like Flux of Pink Indians and Rudimentary Peni). Their lead singer is non-binary and sings in Farsi!

Cliterati

Cliterati is a great crust band signed to another crustpunk powerhouse label, Tank Crimes Records, who have Dystopia, Despise You, and Disfear all signed. They put out an album called 'Ugly Truths/Beautiful Lies' back in 2019, my favorite track from it is 'Trans Is Beautiful'.

Disphoria

Disphoria is another contender for my favorite on this list. They were a trans D-beat band from Canada that broke up in 2019, but despite their relatively short run put out a fair amount of albums including several split EPs. They had an aggressive crasher crust style that was reminiscent of Japanese bands like Zyanose. My favorite album from them is 'Killed By Noise Attack'.

Dopecopper

Dopecopper is an older band from 2014 with a trans man lead singer named Grey. They're also not active, but from what I understand Grey went on to play in Syringe, which was active just before the pandemic. Dopecopper isn't as explicitly trans in the lyrics as some of the other bands on this list are, but they're still a really awesome band. They have an almost melodic black metal kind of sound, but my favorite song 'Paralysis' from their main album 'Sadistic Intent' has a riff that really reminds me of 'Pet Cemetary' by the Ramones.

Mem//Brane

Mem//Brane is another trans crust/D-beat band that has been active recently (as of writing this). They just put out their EP 'Subcutaneous' last month in February of 2024. They sound great and they make awesome use of samples. Their new EP starts out with a reading from 'Close to the Knives' by the artist David Wojnarowicz who died of AIDS in 1992, which I thought was a really cool exposition.

Kampsport

Kampsport is a really cool hardcore/crust band from Malmö in southern Sweden. I actually found out about them through tumblr and ended up buying their demo tape and their album 'VÅLDSBEJAKANDE UNGDOM' (PRO-VIOLENCE YOUTH) as cassettes. My favorite song of theirs is definitely 'X PÅ NÄVEN'. It's incredibly catchy and has a great breakdown.

B.R.A.T.

B.R.A.T. is an awesome punk band I only found out about recently. They're from baltimore and have a really good bass tone and great vocals. I really like their 2020 album 'Dystroy', but they also released a promo recently last december.

Domesticatrix

Finally! A local trans artist!!! Domesticatrix is an industrial digital hardcore band from Birmingham, AL. I'm not very familiar with digital hardcore or industrial so I hadn't heard much about them until very recently when they released a split EP with B.O.R.N., an awesome d-beat band that is popular in the Alabama punk scene. I'm not sure of their pronouns, but they are a solo artist and sound great! I would describe their sound as something that seems like it should be on the soundtrack to some piece of cyberpunk media. It's very different from mainstream punk, but even with the synths and digital noise it still reads very punk. Either way its awesome! 'Downer' from the B.O.R.N. split is def my favorite song from them, but I really need to check out their other stuff as well.

Dollhouse

Dollhouse is a trans woman-fronted band that I've been aware of for a while, but hadn't sat down and properly listened to or checked out. I finally bought two of their albums "I Hate You Don't Leave Me" and "The First Day of Spring" and really liked it. I would describe Dollhouse's sound as hardcore or emocore (or some other more specific term I don't really know emo genres that well). Some of their songs almost veer towards a Moss Icon kind of energy, and all of them have a very emotional lyrical center. The themes of the lyrics definitely speak to the kind of isolation and social turmoil that a lot of trans women have to face. Dollhouse is super good and cathartic, definitely recommend checking them out and buying one of their albums or some of their awesome merch.

44.caliberloveletter

This is another band from the front-woman of Kampsport. They're a "straight-edge screamo/emoviolence band", according to discogs, and they are very good. Their album "A Hedgehog's Dilemma" is my favorite from them. Just like Kampsport, they have some great breakdowns especially in xEMOVIOLENCE CREWx.

SUBCULTURE

If you're trying to get started with punk subculture, the best advice is probably to make a friend who is already familiar with it and go to shows and festivals often. Even though most local shows are pretty inexpensive, sometimes this still might not be feasible if you live way out in the middle of nowhere with little money for travel or are disabled in a way that makes it difficult to get out. On top of that, in some cases the venues that punk and other extreme music genres perform at locally aren't official or easily found. This was the case in my hometown, and it took me a while of asking around and hunting down fliers to actually find it. So how do you start if you feel isolated from any obvious entry points into the subculture? Here's some things that I think can help for someone who is interested:

1. Learn about the history of punk! Before you get into it, you should know how punk started and what punk can mean. It's not common any more, but people have been beaten, jailed, and even killed due to stuff that was going on in and around the subculture, so this step is important for anyone. Plus, its important to know about the eras and subgenres of punk music when it comes to finding bands you enjoy listening to. I highly recommend watching the documentaries 'The Decline of Western Civilization I and III'. The third is the best and most informative about the modern punk scene in my opinion, but the first is also very good. Besides that, listen to punk music from different genres to get an understanding of how they fit together, but don't worry too much about making it into a science. It's especially important to know about how POC massively contributed to building the subculture, with rock developing out of multiple genres of African-American music like blues, and bands/artists like Los Crudos, Death, Poly Styrene from the X-Ray Spex, and Bad Brains all having major impacts on the development of punk music itself. You should also read about the history of influential bands like CRASS, Nausea, and the Dead Kennedies to learn about how punk intersected with and drove certain types of political activism.


2. Look for online gathering places for punk music and subculture to meet people and find new music. My two favorites for this are anarcho-punk.net and felopunk. Anarcho-punk is an old school forum for crust, d-beat, and anarcho-punk, or pretty much any political or anarchist genre of punk, its surprisingly active for what it is and has many full album downloads available. Felopunk is a youtube channel (though there is also a tumblr and an instagram) run by a guy who somehow seems to post every punk album that comes out, even from small localized bands. His youtube is incredible and I really recommend keeping tabs on it so you have a steady influx of new music to listen to. There is also hate5six, which is another youtube channel mainly for filming shows from hardcore bands.


3. Find out about your local or state-level scene. If you can, check out places like coffee shops and record stores to see if there are any fliers for punk or metal bands, as this can help you find local bands and venues. Light poles in high traffic downtown areas often have these, and sometimes even tattoo shops will have them on their windows. Searching directly on google for punk bands from your area can have varying results depending on where you live, so I recommend going on to bandcamp and looking up your town/city/state in the tag section, you'll probably be surprised at how many bands are from your area even if you feel far from any major cities.


4. Understand what makes a counter-culture a counter-culture. Punk was formed out of a desire to fight against the manipulation of music by capitalism and the culture of respectability that protects it. Generally, the idea behind extreme genres like punk or metal is to make music that does not align with the morals of the majority and is so localized that corporate co-optation of bands fails more often than it succeeds. For punk in particular, this strategy has changed over decades to align with working-class, anti-capitalist, and anti-racist ideals. This isn't really because punk started out as a leftist ideology, but more because of how the subculture developed historically among working-class people and then struggled (mostly successfully) against infiltration by abhorrent groups such as nazis. If you ever hear older punk bands talking about how much they hate hippies and metalheads, the reason for that is because those subcultures represent the two ends of counter-culture that punk found itself trying to avoid. Hippie culture eventually died because its particular brand of nonviolence failed to sufficiently challenge the status quo and its aesthetic was too easily commercialized. Metal, on the other hand, partially managed to stay underground but suffered both from the influence of large labels commercializing the music and from the influx of nazism and racism due to bands chasing edge without thinking critically. All this is to say that punk does not mean just being a leftist, or doing something slightly out of the norm, its a complicated historical social phenomenon that should never be easy to digest. If you hate yourself or want a more detailed analysis of counter-cultural music you should read this article by the theorist Theodore Adorno, you could also watch this much shorter clip of him explaining his critique. Take both of these with a large grain of salt, I am just including these as relevant critical perspectives.


5. Finally, know what the limits of punk are. While punk music and subculture are often gathering points for activists and drive protests and political movements, punk is not enough. Punk is ultimately about having fun listening to music, serious activism has to extend beyond just the sphere of recreation, aesthetic, or even identity. Additionally, be vigilant for racism within the community. The obvious version of this is to threaten the physical safety of nazi punks, nazi skinheads, and other fascists that try to show their faces at shows, but that is not the only types of racism that can appear in punk. CRASS, the Sex Pistols, the Exploited, NOFX, and Minor Threat are just a few examples of famous punk bands that have either written racist songs or done racist things. It is really important to not hold bands on a pedestal and to be willing and able to analyze racism when it is perpetrated. Also, don't be weird and racist about genres that were created and innovated upon by Black artists. Not liking ska and rap should not be something that you make into a personality trait. Especially within rap and hip hop, there are a lot of bands and subgenres with similar ideals and energies to punk, don't close your mind to them!

ACID BATH - PAEGAN TERRORISM TACTICS

Recently, I've been listening to Acid Bath again. It's been a very hot second since I actually listened to them, and the last/first time I did I was just listening to a few songs kind of casually. I listened to "When The Kite String Pops" all the way through while I was looking for new music for this website and ended up really enjoying it. I have no idea how I missed out on getting into them the first time I listened. I loved it, and I (wrongly) assumed that it would probably drop off a little when I listened to their other album "Paegan Terrorism Tactics".

This album is a lot slower and more melancholy in a way that veers towards Southern rock or blues. It's got a very diverse sound that's still extremely cohesive. You'd never get thrown off by it while you're listening, but when you try to identify what genre it sounds like it might be difficult to commit to an answer. The lyrics are also really poetic and have a lot of consistent themes across the tracks, mostly about the cycle of death and birth. "Bleed Me A River", "New Death Sensation", and "Venus Blue" are some of my favorite tracks from the album, but "Dead Girl" is also really good. Overall, this album is probably up near the top on my list of favorites now.

Hmm... It's interesting that they used an easter egg on the album cover...

ABUSE - DISCOGRAPHY

I recently found out about the band Abuse, which was active around Mississippi and NOLA in the late '90s until 2002. They're a sludge metal band that is often compared to Acid Bath due to their usage of a variety of vocal styles as well as their influence from blues. I've been listening to some of their discography including their two full length albums 'Knee Deep In The Negative' and 'A Sunday Morning Killing Spree' and some of their early demos. I definitely agree that they are one of the few bands that has a comparable style to that of Acid Bath, but I think they have a lot of differences that also sets them apart. First off, Abuse has a lot more of a death metal vibe in places, especially the early demos and their last album. Theres a lot more blast beats, pig squealing, and guitar chugging as opposed to Acid Bath's fairly constant riffing. The vocals also have a kind of metalcore quality to them. I'm not sure if that's the right way to describe them, but they're the type of vocals that almost feel intentionally strained or squeezed out. The non-scream vocals have a mix between Acid Bath's bluesy energy and Melvins/Nirvana grungy vibes.

I really like this band and I think my favorite album of theirs is currently 'A Sunday Morning Killing Spree'. To me it is the release that is closest stylistically to Acid Bath, which makes it pretty unique because not many bands can accomplish that well. It also just has a lot more of my favorite songs from them. Bastard and Whose Shame might be my two favorites, but I added four of my favorites from the album to the playlist. By the way, I don't know if I had mentioned this before, but I actually have a system for the playlist. Most bands get only 1 or 2 songs so the playlist doesn't get unbalanced. If it's a band I like a lot, it can get three. If it's a band I'm insane about or I genuinely cannot choose between their songs then they can get up to 5, pretty sure only Dystopia and Acid Bath have that many at the moment. Anyway, go check out Abuse for some southern/NOLA sludge!

SEOLHWA'S RECENT BAND/ALBUM PICKS #1 (september 27th, 2024)

I've been listening to a lot of new music lately since I've had a big backlog of albums, bands, and genres I wanted to listen to that I've been slowly working my way through. Here's some of my top picks from the last few months:

Dead Prez is an awesome radical hip hop group that put out most of their albums in the 2000s. 'Let's Get Free' is their debut album and my favorite that I've heard so far. Previously, I had heard "Propaganda", which is a track from the album, and really loved the lyrical message about how the capitalist imperialist state manufactures consent for its actions and existence through infiltrating culture and the media narratives about world events. It has a great chill, but serious, sound with an awesome and super catchy section where they rhythmically list out all of the agencies, organizations, and companies that are responsible for repressing society "FBI, CIA, ATF, KKK..." I finally got a chance to listen to the whole album and there's so many other incredible songs on it. The samples and beats are so creative, my favorites are from the song "psychology", it starts out with an unbacked vocal from "Tobacco road", a classic blues song, and then gets this crazy evil laugh beat going before the lyrics start. The whole album has a pretty marked east-coast New York sound, but I think also takes some west-coast influences, particularly from Tupac who Dead Prez even did some posthumous song releases with. I really liked "Be Healthy" because in the midst of a bunch of songs talking about the systemic nightmares of America, there's suddenly a song about taking care of yourself and eating things that are good for you. Also "Lentil soup is... mental fruit, and... ginger root is good for the yout's" is such a memorable line and perfect syncopated delivery. If you like New York hip hop and revolutionary Black Power messages, you should definitely listen to Dead Prez.

Gauze is a japanese hardcore band that I have always seen people talking about, but just never got around to listening to. I finally went and listened to their self titled album and one of their other albums "Equalizing Distort" and they are really good. They have a '90s hardcore sound that occasionally veers toward crustpunk or d-beat. "Crash the Pose" and "Low Charge" are my favorite songs from them. A lot of japanese punk, at least that I've listened to, has a kind of crasher crust or noise sound that is really fun, but can be a little unideal when you aren't in the mood for it. Gauze does not follow that trend for the most part, you can make out all the lyrics (not that I understand them since they're in Japanese lol) and there's plenty of catchy hardcore riffs and choruses that stick in your head.

Burning Spear is a classic reggae singer who I recently found out about. The first thing that drew me in about Burning Spear, particularly in his album "Marcus Garvey", is that he has an incredible voice. The album opens right away with him demonstrating how much control he has in his singing. The first track "Marcus Garvey" is also just such a banger, its insanely catchy, its got a good bassline and great mixing. The whole album has a very relaxing sound, but a lot of poignant and religious lyrical themes.

Turning in the complete opposite direction, Sunami is the type of hardcore that makes you feel violent. It is almost comically agressive and it is very difficult to not kind of scowl at how sick it is when you're listening to it. They have so many incredibly hard pre-breakdown lines: "1-8-7 on a pig", "I'm 'bout to turn off your nightlight, bitch". I used to be kind of skeptical of music with a lot of breakdowns because I got really burnt out on death metal that over-used them, but Sunami definitely renewed my appreciation for them. Watching footage of their shows, its absolutely insane how much energy their crowds have. I am like the most physically weak person in existence, but I desperately want to get into one of their pits and just get absolutely beaten to death by crowdkillers. Overall, "Contempt of Cop" and "Y.A.B." are probably my favorite songs from them.

Finally, Kino is a Soviet rock band that is kind of the Russian equivalent to Vietnam protest rock, but with Afghanistan instead. My favorite thing from them is technically from one of their lead singers, Viktor Tsoi, his "Acoustic Concert" album. I'm obsessed with Soviet/Eastern European protest/war music. The "Acoustic Concert" album is very good, "Последний герой" is one of my favorite songs from it. This is kind of a broader recommendation, but there's also just a lot of good folk music with this vibe from the soviet/post-soviet era like "dark is the night" and "don't tell mom I'm in afghanistan/chechniya/bakhmut". There's also a massive amount of post-punk that is also like this.