Crystal Methodist – “Walls Become Cages”
(split with Fed Ash)
Crystal Methodist is a New Hampshire hardcore band that we’ve been aware of now for quite a few years.
When I first knew them I was a drunk, nonsensical punk writer who enjoyed them very well.
Since that time they’ve become more cutting edge, a more abrasive power violence sounding band. Releasing some great material and becoming, at least to my ears, one of the best, most innovative and exciting bands we cover.
And as far as for me- You know, it hasn’t turned out as well.
I seem to have become more drunk, more nonsensical. It looks like life will be washing me down the sewer soon. You know, those drains you see at the bottom of your streets?
But as I descend down into the gutter, at least I’ll take with me, this really great recording, the best I’ve heard this year.
Let’s turn our eyes away from my sad spectacle and listen to this music, instead:
“Wretch” starts with a discordant, dissonant clash of feedback and noise that sounds, pristine and soothingly, gentle to my savaged ears and mind. Then a machine gun drum riff leads us into a pounding, jackhammer rhythm while violently intense vocals spew forth. “We can’t help ourselves, we can’t help each other. I am a poison. Never give up. Never get better. Sick, sinking, waste away.” I look at this as a bright, cheerful song urging us to to see things in a more, hopeful, happy way. Though, I must admit, I might have misconstrued this bands intentions. Then there’s some ringing guitars, remorseful screams and some powerful drum beats. That ends it all, gloriously.
“No Future” erupts in a d-beat, fast fashion but soon moves into a slightly, slower, awesome rockin’ groove. “I don’t fucking want it, futile aspirations. A world run by pigs.” A slow, headbanging part alternates with the very fast hardcore one until the feedback pokes in, along with a spoken world sample. This song is kind of like six great songs stitched together.
“Hysteria” bounces out of the stable with some thrashing guitars and a kick ass, rockin’ beat. Soon it moves into a double time hardcore rhythm with guitars slashing like a machete wielding psycho. The beat slows a bit but still hits brutal and hard, leading finally into a headbanging pace that slows, once more, into an intense foreboding sorrow. “An insignificant speck in a sandstorm, helpless to the wind, I’m a part of it, eclipse the sun.” Great tune.
“Stunted” starts with feedback that is soon roped into an awesome, sounding classic metal guitar riff. The drums come in with a d-beat wallop, one hit to the beat like nails being pounded into the side of your head, but in the most pleasant of ways. “Saw myself in a child’s face. Two lives cut short. Normalcy is a pipe dream.” Halfway though the song, the rhythm comes punching out, like left and right jabs to the body, while the vocals spit out passionate epitaphs. The beat becomes staggered and ominous as feedback erupts like exploding mountains, like The Velvet Underground, like Jimi Hendrix, like Iggy & The Stooges once did. My favorite tune on this release.
I know I could be accused and brought to trial as the traditional punk guy. Who’s stuck in ’77, perhaps, vicariously reliving his youth.
I cop to that charge and will go, unresisting arrest. But I would suggest that the best punk created now is not by those who try to duplicate the sound, but those who have the same essence, envelope the same emotions, that cause the same feelings to be recognized by me.
I love a lot of the power violence, grindcore and d-beat music- bands who are as brutal and metal and hardcore as can be.
But they fully contain the spark, the DNA of punk to me.
Crystal Methodist, Goolagoon and D-Sagawa are some of my favorite bands and they do these styles, as well.
Their music is uncompromising and real. It rails against society and its’ lies. It’s full of anger, full of passion and full of energy, desire and truth.
It’s aggressive, abrasive, minimal, sparse and seems to express the very core of being, of life, of art.
Crystal Methodist does this wonderfully, I think. And if you examine the last lines that I wrote, I think you can see, that they could easily pertain to my descriptions of punk.
That suggests to me, that these types of music are the same, are synonymous with punk.
Yes.
(Slimedog)
