Stenchcore 101

In recent years crust has become some sort of a buzzword within the hardcore and metal fanbase to describe multitude of styles of music that really isn't crust. You've seen it here at least when people slapped the term on metalcore, grindcore and deathcore bands that used an HM-2 tone (mid-later Rotten Sound, Nails, Trap Them, Fuming Mouth), to faux-neocrust/”blackened crust” bands that in actuality are metalcore (All Pigs Must Die, early Oathbreaker, The Secret, Ravage Ritual). Some people also lumped d-beat bands into crust that, while wrong, is still understandable given both genres have an interesting history with each other – more on that later.

Before we get started, I should mention that crust punk has three major styles that are very distinct to each other and thus each will be explained into three different parts: stenchcore, crustcore and neocrust, in that order. (There's more of course like crasher crust and blackened crust but that would be messy and I don't think they're big enough when compared. Besides, I already wrote a blog on crasher crust.) First on the list is stenchcore. The others will be posted soon if I'm not lazy enough.

What is "stenchcore"? The term sounds ridiculous.

I'm not making this stuff up, stenchcore is a legitimate term used by crust fans to describe the original style of crust punk. Digging through forums and whatnot it's easy to see that fans use it. Stenchcore is primarily metal influenced, to the point I would argue that most if not all bands under the term are actually metal. The term came from Deviated Instinct's 1987 demo "Terminal Filth Stenchcore." Why "stenchcore" you may ask? Well, it is most likely a reference to the questionable hygiene of peace-punks. Again, not making this stuff up.

Anyway, while Deviated Instinct was the first to use "stenchcore" to denote the style, Hellbastard coined the term "crust" a year earlier with their "Ripper Crust" demo. (It is also possible that "crust" may have the same reference as "stenchcore" does.)

Okay okay, now I know why it's called "stenchcore" or crust punk but I still don't know what is.

Stenchcore (or crust punk) has its roots from the anarcho-punk/peace punk movement, which itself originated in the UK. Crass is a massively influential band. They came after '77 punk dwindled down. Their experimental, noisy post-punk style intertwined with leftist radical politics sparked the movement, inspiring local bands like DIRT, Conflict, Zounds, and Rudimentary Peni. Shortly after Crass established a record label in 1979 fittingly called Crass Records, signing such bands. As a result, the label is a main focal point for anarcho-punk.

Of course, these anarcho-punk bands aren't crust to begin with as they are again basically experimental, noisy post-punk. (Though, crossovers with hardcore punk do exist as in the case for Rudimentary Peni, Icons of Filth, Conflict etc.) However, they are still influential regardless as anarcho-punk is the forerunner of crust.

Now, by the time crust came around in the mid '80s, extreme punk (hardcore) and metal got a lot of traction in the underground. Venom shook everyone in the early '80s and as such they remain to be massively influential on the genre. Discharge with their barrage of d-beat released the very influential album "Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing" in 1982. Slayer and Hellhammer – the latter who were notably influenced by Discharge – released their influential stuff shortly after in circa '82 - '83. Afterwards, Celtic Frost and Bathory did the same in '84, while Motörhead kept it true playing speed metal since the late '70s. Bands and fans traded tapes worldwide so it's not surprising to see that Hellbastard, Antisect, Sacrilege, and Amebix mentioned these bands as their primary influences, and you can easily hear them.

In other words, crust punk originally came around in the '80s ('82/'83-ish, possibly starting with Amebix's "Who's the Enemy" but the genre didn't gain a lot of presence until '85/'86) when bands inspired by anarcho-punk and '80s extreme metal (first wave of black metal, speed metal, thrash metal, and even death metal to some extent for later-ish bands) began to fuse the two, thus creating this metal-leaning fusion with the occasional experimental flair. The first wave of crust is stenchcore, and it is heavy, filthy and apocalyptic, and it is a stark contrast to what you would conventionally expect in both punk and metal of that era.

So wait, crust punk is a metal-leaning fusion? There's "punk" in the name so it can't be, right?

Kinda. A lot of stenchcore bands can be considered as metal because, like I said, their primary influences are '80s extreme metal. If stripped down, you can discern massive Motörhead, Exciter, Celtic Frost, Venom, Slayer and Hellhammer influences in their riffs. Crustcore is usually where I draw the line because that's when crust-influenced bands infused Swedish hardcore and d-beat, effectively pushing the whole thing closer towards hardcore punk. This is why fans and even bands decided to use stenchcore to denote the traditional sound: Hellshock, Lifeless Dark, Fatum, Zygome and Axebastard notably did this when there was a recent revival. (Typically these stenchcore revival bands kinda took from crustcore/d-beat, but somehow with an even stronger metal influence.)

Part of the reason why some people are understandably reluctant to point to this stuff out is likely because stenchcore bands are typically (and still correctly) associated with crust "punk." These are indeed punk bands if you go by their ethos, imagery and such but musically speaking these are metal bands too. It would be a disservice to simply lump them exclusively with punk seeing there is an obvious crossover (which is interesting as it coincided with the era of mid-'80s crossover thrash as a whole).

Still don't believe me? I'll drop some demos for you to compare:

Assuming your ears are good there are obvious similarities with these two demos. "Ripper Crust" is literally Hellhammer worship from the riffs, drums, and vocal style. The only difference that separated the two musically is the occasional speed metal riffs.

The same thing can almost be said for Deviated Instinct. Now there's stronger Crass influences in terms of drumming and vocal delivery, but there are still Hellhammer-inspired riffs. Other than Hellhammer, Motörhead is a big influence on crust as well and you can hear it in Amebix.

Of course, that's one of the few heavily Motörhead-inspired songs from the band. Nevertheless, you can still hear it across their albums.

Alright, I got it. When's the next part gonna come out?

I don't know. The next part will be about crustcore and of course Swedish hardcore and d-beat. In the meantime try to familiarize yourself with these legendary stenchcore bands.

Amebix

Rob Miller: “A lot of people do heap a lot of praise upon us, but I read an American review of ‘Arise’ the other day and the guy was pretty much spot-on. He didn’t go, ‘Amebix are progenitors of this and that,’ and all the rest of it… he actually said, ‘These guys wear their influences on their sleeves. You can hear Joy Division, you can hear Killing Joke, you can hear Black Sabbath and Motörhead…’ But he was quite disparaging at the end, adding, ‘It’s just a shame that they didn’t leave us anything half as good as these other bands!’ Which is fine, y’know? It’s his opinion, and good on him, because we did wear our influences on our sleeves in many ways."

Yeah, speaking of that "progenitors" part it's kinda hard not to say that because Amebix is the quintessential crust band that essentially raised the standards of the genre and yes, even on stenchcore. Amebix was formed in 1978 and very briefly the band played Crass worship before moving on to a post-punk influenced stench style. "Who's the Enemy" (1982) and "No Sanctuary" (1983) are the only two most notable records prior their most well-known album "Arise!" (1985) was released. They were really consistent but willing to throw you off every now and then. This is most obvious in their last album Sonic Mass (2011) before their disbandment, where they straight up embraced their Killing Joke influences. Cold, nihilistic, and of course apocalyptic. Crust as it should be. Sucks that Miller became wack in the end though.

Antisect

Pete Lyons: "At the time, to be honest, we were probably more into Motörhead and stuff than a lot of the newer punk bands that were out there, and I never really felt the second wave of punk was that inspiring. There were bands like Killing Joke, who, despite being to this day one of the most powerful live bands I’ve ever seen, were just so obviously fucking mad that, although the music was awesome, it was kind of hard to truly relate to them. When Crass came along, it was kind of the other way round; we thought the politics were great, but felt that for the most part the music was just a bit too tinny and shit-sounding…”

Antisect's debut album is very different than what you would typically expect in stench. In fact, I would dare say it's almost like proto-crustcore, or at least closer towards anarcho-hardcore. "In Darkness, There is No Choice" (1983) mostly sounds like if Crass meets the raging guitar attack of Conflict and Discharge to some extent, even including these brief interludes of samples and whatnot that aren't far off from Crass' albums. However, there are notable parts where the band is actually stenchcore. Songs like "Tortured and Abuse" and "In Darkness" are almost similar to what you can find in Amebix and contemporaries. It wasn't until their "Out from the Void" EP (1985) was released that they really embraced their Motörhead influences, and finally turned into their true form as stench gods. The band disbanded at some point but eventually reformed, releasing their latest "The Rising of the Lights" (2017) which in my opinion could be better, but the brickwalled production is absolute shite. (The groovy riffs are kinda cool though.)

Deviated Instinct

Rob "Mid" Middleton: "As we said in a trillion interviews and seven back in the day we came up with the 'stenchcore' tag on our demo as a kind of a joke as there were so many ridiculous 'cores' going about at the time and people used to comment on our general dishevelment. We never imagined it would be taken so seriously and become some sort of sub-genre of its own."

Thank you Deviated Instinct for coming up that term. At least it's better than what In/Humanity did with "emoviolence" years later and subsequently became a misnomer for aggro-skramz bands. Anyway, Deviated Instinct is really what you would expect in old-ass stenchcore: Venom/Hellhammer meets Crass with horrendous production and sloppier playing. This band has grown on me because back then I couldn't appreciate what they were doing. Compared to Amebix, Deviated Instinct is shittier. However, for some bizarre reason they got a lot of charm for me than most modern crust bands, which is hella weird. "Terminal Filth Stenchcore" (1986), "Welcome to the Orgy (1987) and "Rock 'n' Roll Conformity" (1988) are all basically shitty, gritty stench, and whether that's a good thing or not depends on you. Personally, I love it. They also had this weird, anarcho-folk phase in "Tip of the Iceberg" (1985).

Hellbastard

Hellbastard: "We came from punk rock but also enjoyed the heaviness of other bands like Venom, Hellhammer, Discharge and Slayer."

Fuckin' Hellbastard. They apparently hate getting pigeonholed into crust or metal (going as far as saying they are "anti-genre" and tried to distance themselves away from the very thing they helped pioneering) but it's whatever. Their music is nevertheless crust, well as far as their early material goes anyway. Their demo stuff is almost a carbon copy of Hellhammer plus some Motörhead before they went straight up becoming a dope thrash metal band. "Ripper Crust" (1986) is an essential piece of crust history, same goes to "Hate Militia" (1987). After "Heading for Internal Darkness" (1988) was released the band opted for a thrash metal direction. "They Brought Death" (1989) is a faithful combination of thrash and stench, with strong speed metal riffing á la Kill 'Em All Metallica. They ultimately ended up under the legendary Earcache records and subsequently released their first (and still really dope) full thrash album, "Natural Order" (1990). All of their other material is thrash since.

Sacrilege

Andy Baker: "Slayer was a very big influence on the band and also Metallica and Exodus when you bear in mind myself, Damian, Tony and Lynda had come from a background musically of punk listening for years to the likes of Discharge to all of the Crass related bands and suddenly there were all these metal bands playing fast 100mph songs all of them wearing Discharge and GBH t-shirts appearing on the scene, so yes a big influence on the band. At this point in the band's history Damian and Tony had started to listen a lot to Trouble, who also influenced Damian's song writing in a big way."

Tony May: "Yes, Slayer, Venom, Metallica etc. were all big influences on the band musically, but we still listened to our punk roots as well, but when we heard Candlemass and Trouble their music was a great inspiration, as Damian was getting slightly tired of the thrash scene by then, so the intention with the band was always to slow down and get as heavy as possible, even though we have always mixed up the tempo of our songs with faster and slower paced material. Tam at that time still loved her punk music and I think the biggest band that inspired her was still Crass."

Sacrilege is a rather peculiar band for initially playing this heavy stenchcore sound with "Behind the Realm of Madness" (1985), then stenchy doomy thrash with "Within the Prophecy" (1987) and then finally turning into a weird-ass doom band with "Turn Back Trilobite" (1989). While I do respect them for changing their stuff I couldn't get into the last two records. However, their debut album is an absolute gem. "Behind the Realm of Madness" is literally Venom meets Slayer with strong groove under an anarcho lens. It's crunchy, filthy and really good. So good in fact that Bolt Thrower cited Sacrilege as a massive influence to their sound, and you can totally hear the similarities with that record and "In Battle There is No Law!" (which is in my opinion one of the best stenchdeath albums along Prophecy of Doom's "Acknowledgement of the Confusion Master".)

Axegrinder

Trey: "We formed Tyrants of Hate out of the ashes of those two bands [Stone the Crowz and The Proudhons] so it wasn’t a conscious effort to go in a metal-edged direction. TOH was basically a very noisy punk band with very little metal influences. At that point, we just wanted to make some noise that didn’t sound anything like our first bands. The only criticism I got was from the drummer of Stone The Crowz, who quite rightly fronted me about splitting up Crowz because we were going in a metal direction, and then I end up in a band called Axegrinder! Antisect, Amebix, Hellbastard, Deviated Instinct and Anti System were already doing the metal thing when we came along, so we didn’t get any real hassle. We have always listened to a wide spectrum of music, everything from anarcho punk through to Kate Bush. Influence-wise, it was probably Hellbastard and Antisect in the early days."

Axegrinder was formed around 1985/86 from the ashes of Stone the Crowz (Crass worship/anarcho-punk) and the Proudhons (couldn't find anything about them). Like most stench bands their musical direction is pretty interesting. Roughly a year or two the band released their debut album "Grind the Enemy" (1987) which was like "Out From the Void" era Antisect with a stronger Hellhammer influence, complete with slow, doomy riffs and dirty production. This continued with "The Squat Tape" (1988), but this is where the Amebix (plus likely some Venom) influence starts to seep in. Upon releasing that tape the band was signed under Peaceville and subsequently recorded their most well-known effort "The Rise of the Serpent Men" (1989) and becoming a full-blown Amebix worship. They disbanded in 1991 but reformed somewhat recently and released this weird, groove metalcore-ish crust record "Satori" (2018). Their best stuff? Those demo tapes and TROTSM.

• More Stenchcore •

i. Generic - …For a Free and Liberated South Africa (1986)
ii. Saw Throat - Inde$troy (1989)
iii. Misery - Childen of War (1990)
iv. S.D.S / Misery - The Future Stay in the Darkness Fog. / Pain in Suffering (1992)
v. Χαοτικό Τέλος - Μπροστά στην παράνοια (1993)
vi. Extinction of Mankind - Baptised in Shit (1995)
vii. Counterblast - Balance of Pain (1996)
viii. Πανικός - Όλα για το χρήμα / Πότε θα μάθουμε (1995)
ix. AGE - Inside Darkness (1997)
x. Effigy - Evil Fragments (1999)
xi. Life - The World Lies Across Them (1999)
xii. Misery / Extinction of Mankind - Apocalyptic Crust Split (2001)
xiii. Acrostix - (A Chain of) Hatred (2007)
xiv. Lifeless Dark - Who Will Be the Victims (2018)

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/Luriakh/crust-punk-stenchcore/

The link above will redirect you to a list that I made on Rate Your Music. It consists of all stenchcore bands I could find.

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/Goregaze/crust-punk-and-its-subgenres/

This one on the other hand is where my crust madness came from. Obviously it's not mine, it was made by a friend.

Sources

Glasper, I. (2012). The Day the Country Died: A History of Anarcho Punk 1980 to 1984. Cherry Red Books.

Lundgren, R. (2014, September 15). Interview with Hellbastard. Retrieved August 15, 2019, from https://ghgumman.blogg.se/2014/september/interview-with-hellbastard.html

Deviated Instinct interview from 30/7/07. (2012, June 17). Retrieved from http://3prq.blogspot.com/2012/06/strap-on-your-wellies-deviated-instinct.html

Stöver, F. (n.d.). Sacrilege. Retrieved August 15, 2019, from https://www.voicesfromthedarkside.de/Interviews/SACRILEGE-UK--7083.html 

Fitzgerald, S. (2015, March 11). Exclusive CVLT Nation Interviews Axegrinder. Retrieved August 15, 2019, from https://www.cvltnation.com/cvlt-nation-exclusive-interview-axegrinder/

*Yes, I'm fully aware the majority of citations here are blogs but keep in mind in the context of punk, zines are big and part of the scene. When the internet came around and made physical zines almost obsolete, most turned to digital media. All of the quotes in this blog, with the exception of Amebix and Antisect, are taken from those blogs.