So here I am again, completing a draft post from the previous month (February) to fill an self-installed quota of 10 posts per month. Kinda cheating at this point, but well... it was arbitrary and is subject to no more criticism than what I personally deliver. On with the show...Anti-Product were an awesome crust-punk band from NY who released two EPs, an LP, and a bunch of compilation tracks from '95 to '02. Apparently they were at the ends of their respective ropes when they set up the tour Please Inform The Captain This Is A Hijack and Submission Hold, 'cause only a week in, they split with a final show at 924 Gilman. They swapped line-ups a few times over the course of their existence, and as such, their sound morphed from a completely ripping, start-stop, vocal-interplay driven crust/hardcore band to the darker more melodic entity seen on their sole LP, The Deafening Silence of Grinding Gears. According to wikipedia, they apparently enlisted a cello player towards the end of their run, but I'm not entirely sure they recorded anything with her. To be honest, I've never even listened to any of their compilation tracks or even their unreleased 3rd EP, which I guess was tacked onto their EPs Of AP compilation years back. I realize a crust punk unit with a cello sounds like an odd proposition, but with hindsight (and assumptions) as my guide - namely supplied by the awesome Seattle crusties, Oroku similar timbre - I can give you the unfounded promise that it's pretty cool.
Anyway, though, this is Anti-Product's first EP, and as far as I'm concerned, their best. Like most things I've posted, these guys were pretty influential on me (as well as one the first few bands in the style I checked out) and something of a floodgate-opener into the more visceral world of punk rock. And that's just what this is - visceral. This EP could be described a bunch of relatively standard, grinding crust punk songs with a couple maniacs set loose on it; the intensity and rate of delivery of their voices often overtaking the riffs and cracking the continuity through brute force. To drain that statement of all colorfulness, the prosody and hooks here are fleshed out primarily through on-the-dime dead halts and re-starts. The band speeds along under a chaotic-yet-tight mess of screaming vocal interplay, with Taína Asili's youthful shriek contrasting the insane aggression and total lack of lyrical clarity of the other vocalist(s)*. The result is one of the most infectious, aggressive, and energizing pieces of music I can think of. There may be crust bands with similar (or excelling) levels of aggression, but I have yet to find one with the same balance of raw power and catchiness that this incarnation of Anti-Product offered. It's short, raw, and powerful, and even if you visit this blog primarily for the pop-punk shit, I'd still urge you to check this out.
(I'll post it later)The band's second EP is almost as good and in the same style, but their full length is an entirely different beast. On The Deafening Silence... they melded the dark, melodic angst of the more impenetrable 90's emo bands with the crust foundation to great effect. Like most of the painfully unhappy sounding emotional hardcore bands of yore, it doesn't really grip me like it used to, but I'd still recommend it to those interested. Maybe I just lack the correct levels of self-loathing these days...
*I'm not sure whether there were two or three people contributing vocals on this EP. It sure sounds like 3, but there's not much info on the band circa '96. Anyone have the original EP?
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