It's been a while since I wrote something here last time... Various travels plus me being lazy didn't really helped, I must admit. But whatever, here I go again now, and that's the only thing that count I guess.
To celebrate the coming of the summer let's move from Scandinavia (even if the nordic summer is just perfect to me) and go to Spain. Those who know me probably know that I am not (and never was) a big fan of spanish Oi! (I actually think their language sounds a bit like a german or danish version of latin-rooted languages, and that's not a compliment). The last spanish band I liked was probably Mercancias (which shares the same song topic - the guillotine- as the band we're going to talk about), and their last release was something like 3 years ago. Since that, nothing, or mainly things that didn't leave a strong impression on me. But things change, hopefully, and once again I have found a spanish band (and a real one, no Barcelona/Basque Country/whatever other separatist region you like the best) that sounds actually pretty good, namely KnockOut from Madrid. I bought that record last weekend, more or less without knowing what it was (I heard about the band but never listened to it before).
This 7" is the band's first release (on the young french/spanish label Crom Records then, working along with Bandworm's Sound of the Streets), and that's a pretty good start ! First of all, these guys actually sing in their mother tongue and NOT IN FUCKING ENGLISH (face it Spain, you mostly suck at english), so no strange accent involved. They sound pretty melodical but tough at the same time. In that way they fit pretty good in what you could call the "Mediterranean Oi! mould" (that would be Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece, I actually now pretty much nothing about the scene in the ex-Yougoslavian countries, so I won't include them in). Think Decibellos, Zakkarak, to quote some of their great spanish ancesters, or Banda del Rione, Bull Brigade, Bootstroke to quote some recent southern european bands. Compared to the recent spanish bands that the most of you know (that would be Ultimo Asalto and Glory Boys I guess), they sound less "tough", less Oi!-core maybe, which is just perfect to me.
So the guys from Knockout offer us four songs on this fine Que Silbe La Guillotina (you could translate that by "let the guillotine swing" I guess) 7", 3 original songs ("Guillotina", "Golpes" and "Viejas Costumbres") and a cover (in spanish) of "Wasted Lives" ("Vidas Perdidas"), originally from the canadian band Emergency.
As often with the southern european Oi! bands, the lyrics are filled with social claims, stories of everyday's life and the problems that goes with it, class pride and all (those of you who have an interest in the spanish/italian scene know well that politics is a huge part of it there) - I actually talked about this (by taking the example of the italian scene during reviews about italian bands) in my previous webzine, Vengeance. It's in french only unfortunatly, but I will probably try to translate this in english here) The lyrics are rather well written, the rythmic part is pretty melodic and strong (especially the bass, well done here !), solos are nicely done and pretty efficient, and the singing is full of rage, but without falling into bad metal vocal, hopefully.
"Golpes", the best song on this strong 7"
I actually like every songs in that 7", but my favourite one is surely "Golpes". Extremly good energy in it, and great guitars and lyrics, my least favourite would be the Emergency cover (still a pretty good version, but it would have been really hard to do better than the original).
The whole thing comes with a nice artwork (like medieval etching of an execution, illustrating the title of the 7" pretty well) on the front and a band picture on the back. Lyrics are included, and even translated in english. Now that's a proper packaging work, the production here is really good ! Great work done by the labels !
250 copies of that record were printed (150 in red and 150 in clear white), but I was released not so long ago, so it shouldn't be too hard to find.
A great surprise then, that actually make me a little more friendly to the spanish Oi! scene. I will probably try to get to know more about the nowadays scene there, if everything is as good as KnockOut that's fine to me ! So you'll probably here a bit more about Spain here in the future.
Oh, and before I forget, the band actually released this 7" on the internet for free, so don't hesitate too download it here, listen to it and buy it if you like it !
Edit : the record is actually not so easy to buy, was I just told, try to order it direct from Crom Records (or at cromrecords@gmail.com), they still have some copies left. Support them and keep the scene alive !
