Artist: Zudas Krust / Parötid
Title: Desire of Destruction Split EP
Release: EP / Digital
Year: 2020
Label: Not Enough, Phobia Records, Doombringer, Rawmantic Disasters, Delusion of Terror, Seija, SPHC, Azadghei
A pair of South East Asian bands team up for this brutal slab of raw d-beat crust released by eight international labels in the true cooperative spirit of DIY punk.
Jakarta’s long running d-beat powerhouse Zudas Krust blaze through with three raw blasts of vicious, distortion-till-deafness tracks taking cues from classic Scandinavian mangel sound. Think of a crustier version of Anti-Cimex, Mob 47 and Shitlickers, complete with an infernal amount of SE Asian anger and ferocity. These raw punk veterans have been doing this for almost 13 years, and it’s safe to say they have a considerable amount of experience in this field. Their extensive discography consists of a fair amount of splits, including joint releases with bigger names like Minneapolis’ Geiger Counter and Tokyo’s LIFE.
Parötid is a bass and drum duo hailing from the city of Perlis in Malaysia. The raw d-beat crust you crave is all here, with their own take on it, making it stripped down to its most essential elements. The reverb-heavy vocals carry you through a field of landmines as the thumping, distorted bass ignites the shells through a cacophony of frenetic d-beats.
On the lyrical front, Zudas Krust sing in bahasa Indonesia, the official language of their huge country with over 700 regional languages. Reading through the English translations, I found even more to draw me into these songs. Parötid, on the other hand, are not so successful in spreading their message. While the band is Malay, their lyrics are all in broken English, and, unfortunately, not without the use of triggering and ableist words in a bid to highlight their frustrations. We can give a free pass to all those Japanese bands of the ’80s, but please don’t do this ever again! It’s a good record, anyway. Huge thanks to all those DIY labels making SE Asian bands available on vinyl.
