Cancer Clan/Desteufels - "Cancer Clan/Desteufels split" (7Degrees Records/Merciless Records, 2019)

Bands: Cancer Clan/Desteufels
Title: Cancer Clan/Desteufels
Genre: Grindcore/Crust Punk/D-Beat
Time: 25.13 min
Release date: 13th December 2019
Vote: 73/100

In these last days I worked very little for the ‘zine for various reasons, so I’m behind on the stuff I have to publish. In consequence of this, I must be a bit fast, for a while, with the new articles. One of them is the review of today that is about a split, released by 7Degrees Records and Merciless Records and that I received from Anubi Press, between two German bands belonging to the hardcore punk spectrum: Cancer Clan and Desteufels.

The split starts with the side of Cancer Clan, an experienced band since they were formed in the now far 2005. They love to dub their style as “Blastpunk”. More specifically, they show through their three new tracks (plus a cover) a very violent grindcore with various influences coming from crust punk, death metal and thrash metal (you can hear these last two ones especially in the song “The Dot”). Very different from the other songs is the cover “Alles Ist Grau” (it was even featured in a rare 1982 compilation with also acts of the calibre of Black Flag and Bad Brains!) that, originally played by Chaos-Z, is a d-beat track à la Discharge made more violent by the grindcore nature of the Cancer Clan.

The following side belongs to Desteufels. As strongly exemplified by their five tracks featured in the split, they play a crust punk/d-beat with growling and bestial vocals that I love so much, many metal influences, some rock’n’roll tunes à la Motörhead (“Das Wiesen Um Den Tod”), and also a good melodic taste even regarding the (few) solos here and there. Plus, the Desteufels’ songs are longer if compared with the ones played by Cancer Clan, that in the springtime of 2019 toured in Europe just with Desteufels.

Now, this split is very good and deserves a nice consideration from the grindcore/crust punk maniacs out there and, between the two bands, I must say I prefer a little more the Desteufels because of their raw attitude and of their skills to create amazing riffs (listen for example to “Inmittig Ingrimm”). The only shame is that the Cancer Clan’s side lasts very little compared to the Desteufels’ side, so I think that the first band deserved more space. Anyway, this split kicks a lot of fuckin’ asses!

Tracklist:

1 – Follow your Führer
2 – Options Exzess
3 – The Dot
4 – Alles Ist Grau (Chaos-Z cover)
5 - Raubtiergezücht
6 – Das Wissen Um Den Tod
7 - Madenmensch
8 – Allen Anfangs Ende
9 – Inmittig Ingrimm

Line-up:

Cancer Clan:

Karsten – vocals
Sebi – guitars
Winny – bass
Loffi – drums

Desteufels:

Hannes – vocals/guitars
Torsten – vocals/bass
Hendrik – drums

Cancer Clan: https://www.facebook.com/CancerClan666/
Desteufels: https://www.facebook.com/desteufelsofficial/
7Degrees Records: https://www.facebook.com/7DegreesRecords/