HERIDA PROFUNDA / HELLO BASTARDS

Split (7")

783 Punx Records - 8 €

Herida Profunda is a strongly antifascist grindcore band that resides between Poland and England. They’ve already established themselves as a serious name in the political DIY scene with an intense self-titled record and a split LP with the UK crust pioneers Hellbastard. Well, they surely have some sense of British humour and here we have another collaboration, this time it is between them and Hell-o-Bastard-s.

In this 7″ Herida Profunda brings three more grinding onslaughts on their side. The highlight of the record is the opening track “Refugees Welcome” tackling down the issue of asylum seeking in Europe, specifically how nationalists in Poland use religious bigotry to spread their lies and hatred among the common people. However, the remaining two songs are not that much political but actually covers. First we have Herida Profunda’s own interpretation of Terrorizer’s “Need To Live”, that they call “Need To Grind”, continuing with the blistering “Grind You in the Back”, a grinding uptake on Motörhead’s “Shoot You in the Back”!

The international vegan straight edge brigade called Hello Bastards is a familiar band to me. They are now a three piece, they don’t have a bass guitar, and they still play incredibly pissed-off, political hardcore punk. These guys are fast and furious with their delivery—some of the songs on their side blast in about 4 seconds, 6 seconds, or 36 seconds long!

Hello Bastards’ side starts with an intro taken by an Indonesian music collective active in their local community to fight bloody capitalist exploitation, continues with a furious anticapitalist rage against the sweatshop system across the world, and goes completely nuts with “Making Hardcore, Punk Again!”, “Productive Criticism”, and “Zapatistas!” (all these three songs clock in under a minute in total), to finish with the call for “Equality”—against gender norms, inequality and to end all oppression!

If you like your hardcore punk fast and political, this is a good one.