Amphist - "Eschaton" (DIY Co-production, 2020)

Band: Amphist

Title: Eschaton

Genre: Crust Punk/D-Beat

Time: 35.58 min

Release date: 21st September 2020

Vote: 85/100

Hey crust punk maniacs,

our beloved Francesco Bazzurri, after Culto del Cargo, reviews today another album in the sign of the crust punk/d-beat: "Eschaton" by Amphist.

A quintet coming from Naples, in Southern Italy, Amphist were featured in "Come on, burn my ears! #12" after I was received their album from Calimocho DIY, one of the labels that released it (they are too many to be all mentionable but some of them are Bologna Punx and Pirate Crew Records, already known on these putrid pages).

There is also to say that Amphist are a well-known band in the Italian hardcore punk underground, and it isn't a case if they played also in my Rome 2 years ago, in a night full of interesting acts like Ira, Fuoco (RIP) and Greve. Unfortunately, I didn't attend that gig.

And now, let's start to read this awesome review by Francesco!

Post-apocalyptic movies always fascinate me, in particular some italian works like "Bronx Warriors" or "The New Barbarians", both directed by the great Enzo. G. Castellari. Dark and raw stories speaking about a violent and degraded human race, telling a future without hope and a total destruction of entire civilization. If I must choose the right soundtrack for this film genre, the album “Eschaton” from Amphist band would be the right choice. Directly from southern Italy these guys play a solid crust punk/d-beat with death metal and post-metal influences, telling the ruins of a world where Void triumphs, directly brought by the long wave of chaos and where civilization is only a pale memory while night of reason moves toward a battered earth. Ten well performed tracks making completely the idea of a strange eschatology.

Skulld - "Reinventing Darkness" (DIY co-production, 2020)

Band: Skulld

Title: Reinventing Darkness

Genre: Death Metal with Crust Punk influences

Time: 20.57 min

Release Date: 20th February 2020

Vote: 76/100

In March of 2020, so in full quarantine times, a video about an Italian metalhead covering the Slayer's "Raining Blood", that he dedicated to an old woman owning a famous kiosk in her small town (Bertinoro), became literally viral. I remember I had a lot of fun to watch that very short video! But only in these days I realized that that metalhead effectively plays the guitar in a death metal band. That band is called Skulld (after Skuld, a Norn in the Norse mythology that, along with other two Norns, has the power to decide the fate of the people), a quintet coming from two Italian regions, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, that published so far two releases since their foundation in 2018: a demo and the EP "Reinventing Darkness", both in 2019. Well, I received this last one from a friend of mine running the amazing webzine Blog Thrower (shame that it's on hold since June 2020!), that produced "Reinventing Darkness" in a DIY co-production with other 12 metal and punk labels. They are too much to be all listed but some of them were already featured on these pages such as Italian Extreme Underground, Hecatombe Records, Pirate Crew Records (I met his owner during the Marci su Roma 2 Fest) and SFA Records. This connection with the punk world isn't a case because every member of the Skulld comes just from hardcore punk since, for example, the aforementioned video star, Enrico, plays also in bands like NoWhiteRag, the drummer Teo in the Contrasto while the other guitarplayer, Rappo, is into even in a great black/death metal act of the calibre of Hierophant. And don't forget that we are in presence of a band with fantastic values such as antifascism and antisexism. All this is fukken awesome... but is also "fukken awesome" "Reinventing Darkness" in its entirety? FUCK YEAAAAH!