Free Flush Vol 17
Hey Melinda here, welcome back to the Free Flush, it’s all emo violence and antifascist extreme metal as usual. I’m being spoiled for choice this year when it comes to those two exact things. Free Flush? more like Free Speech Flush. I am sorry, but not enough to stop. We don’t even have free speech in Australia, ask anyone who has leaked information here ever. I take a huge amount of minutes to curate these articles and maintain the Free Bandcamp Wiki 2022 so if you could all share this I’d appreciate it.
Just tell them a girl wrote it, I need some damn claps today alright? Hell, you can even tell them a trans girl wrote it if you want, I’m not the one who has to moderate the comments on this site (phew!). I am in the middle of quitting cigs so my energy is just fucked today. I might just start using this section of the article as journal from now on, who even reads it? Do you guys actually like emo violence or am I just doing it all for me at this point? The answer doesn’t matter because my behavior won’t change either way. What are they going to do? Edit me? I could make this 4 paragraphs long like trying to read any simple cooking recipe online. 17 Volumes? Jesus Christ, I’ve been doing this longer than I was ever employed at any of the work places I’ve endured.
Vol 1 – Vol 2 – Vol 3 – Vol 4 – Vol 5 – Vol 6 – Vol 7 – Vol 8 – Vol 9 – Vol 10 – Vol 11 – Vol 12 – Vol 13 – Vol 14 – Vol 15 – Vol 16
atameo – it sure is sad to hope for the best while expecting the worst
EMO VIOLENCE. It’s like power violence but the screams are sadder and the themes are abysmally introspective. atameo has come out of nowhere with some of the heaviest noise-laden emo music to come out since Birds In Row. It’s not all self-defeating doom and gloom however, as the band occasionally takes the time to hurl a rock at religious concepts, which considering the band is from Israel, no doubt plays a major role in their day-to day-lives. Tracks like “marble” appear to address the oppressive high-tech destructive nature of the state of Israel and how it’s othered an entire people and divided their own. There are no occasional fancy clean singing moments on here, no respite, just the persistent rattling of a mind slowly loosening each screw until nothing even matters anymore. “Pointing our fingers at each other/The smoke stands still as the fire grows/Blurring the landscape/No one will take a step forward/Why would they?/Observing from far away and taking no risk/Making sure they won’t get hurt/And I stand there as well/Catching a glimpse of the mess we made.”
Yarostan – II
French post hardcore/screamo. I call that atmospheric EMO VIOLENCE. The drumming is super punchy, which you’ll notice easily towards the end of the first track when they have a couple of quiet moments to thump in. I don’t know what they do but the tone of the percussion pierces like a blade through the brain. The post-metal guitars combined with tortured screaming are sure to raise some hairs like on the track “Les mains vides”. Overall it’s a very bright sounding album for how depressing it is. It’s like a struggle, wherein there is difficulty but also the potential for triumph, if you can bring yourself to believe in that sort of thing in the moment. Which I think Yarostan does believe, as they not only discuss being poor, but also emphasize the need for mutual aid for communities of people in need.
Syndrome 81 – prisons imaginaires
More hardcore from France, but further in the realm of good ol’ hardcore punk, Syndrome 81 have been stalwarts in the DIY scene over there. It’s a straight bop from the get-go with energetic guitars and speedy drumming. Even with the lyrics being sung in French and myself only understanding English, the tone and rhythm of the voice still penetrates well and is super catchy. Hell, if I keep listening to this I might end up singing in French somehow. I did manage to find a cool interview with the band that had a decent English translation available below the main article and they don’t appear to be fond of far right politics at all and believe that punk should be political music for self-education and activation. An attitude I have observed a lot in the hardcore scene of France over the last few years as musicians find themselves writing in the midst of a rise in nationalism. As depressing as the lyrical content can be, of all the items on this list, this one makes me dance the most.
Method Of Freedom – The Tape Sessions
Experimental electronic/noise from QLD, my general local area. I know one of the members of this and they are a good friend who is also in a solo RABM project Fire To The Prisons. This is an interesting one; after you traverse the opening sequence that doubles as a deep brain massage, you will find yourself in a strange world of swirling bass and jaunty little taps and beeps. It’s music you can FEEL, and I don’t mean emotionally, I mean like a presence wrapping around my head. Like my headphones are malfunctioning and trying to strangle me. The medium of choice is cassette and they’ve clearly considered the format deeply when factoring in the sounds they are making and how they are produced. I feel like there’s a variety of influences but my mind keeps lingering somewhere between Twin Peaks audio design and The Fragile instrumental tracks by NIN.
Washboard Vomit – Draining of Aryan Blood
Every now and then you stumble across a project that is incredibly violent, often towards specific groups of people and you wonder, “Is this some NSBM shit?” and then maybe NSBM chuds see the aesthetic or imagery and think “oh here’s a kindred spirit!”, which is somewhat what happened to Washboard Vomit so they decided to make a very decisive statement that clears up any ambiguity, and this LP is that statement. A massive fuck you to neo nazis, the NSBM scene and just racism and homophobia in general. Real aggressive blood-soaked shit. Low fantasy catharsis with tracks like “Aryan Crusher(Draining of Aryan Blood)” and “Homophobes and Racists Laid Out and Beaten” you can be sure that Washboard Vomit, is not NSBM—they just have a history of violently hating religion and use misanthropic aesthetics, which is a staple of black metal of many stripes, not just NS crap. Musically it’s a fucked barrage of blackened noise, a fatal fever of hate.
Wolven Daughter – Wolven Daughter
An anarchist black metal project solely operated by my good friend Erin who is always investigating her musical approach and experimenting with new ideas and unlikely influence, and generally being one of the good black metal posters on Twitter. The attitude of Wolven Daughter can be summed up nicely by their previous song release for charity, “It’s Time to Get High and Burn the Confederate Flag”. Queer anarchist stoner action. The production is raw but in the good way, like sashimi and somehow it carries both a groove and a dirge without being mutually exclusive. Looooove the artwork.
Disoviet – Lessons In Dialectics
More like Lessons In D-beat, get ready to throw limbs to this rip-roaring bit of music but also, organize unions. A decidedly socialist band, specifically stating NOT Stalinists (good) and NOT anarchists, the latter of which I will forgive them for this time because this goes so hard musically. Thrashy and hectic. Self described as two crusty Marxists (who probably smell worse than an anarchist). Sorry, I guess I didn’t forgive after all. Socialist, anarchist, either way unionizing is important. Fun fact, unions are going to be the only real way to push for a meaningful inclusion of transgender people in the average work place—this is just one angle of why someone might organize for a union out of many personal angles—it can be a very impactful thing for change. I find this tends to be overlooked as a kind of boring administration thing not everyone understands, or knowledge obscured by employers deliberately, so it’s great that there’s a band specifically covering that topic when it comes to leftist organizing.
GIL CERRONE – Coronach
E M O V I O L E N C E, but this time make it harsh and lofi and Australian. The beauty and elegance is still there amongst the blistering anger and suffering, but unlike the previous entries GIL CERRONE aren’t afraid to coat it all in mud and ghosts. If you like raw black metal but have never experienced emo violence then honestly this kind of sound could be a good entry for you, it’s less “hipster” than a lot of blackened screamo and more of a crusty DIY punk/hardcore scene vibe than the more post-hardcore leaning stuff. This label (Tomb Tree Tapes) also has a bunch of other raw emo violence for free digital worth checking out. As much as I’d love to see them live, I just know this country is too big and our underground bands can’t even travel to other states so I doubt they’ll make their way to Brisbane from Melbourne any time soon. BUT IF THEY DO, I’m going to be frowning and moshing.
