Reconquesta - Recupera El Que Et Pertany (Disco Nightmare/See You - 2015)

Last week end I had the chance to see Reconquesta (we already talked about them here, remember ?) live in Stockholm and get my hands on their newly released LP.

And well, it does not disappoint ! Still the same english/french 80's/90's inspired melodic sound, always in their own native language, even though I got little more Retaliator-like vibes on this on than on their previous single. Probably because of the sound and the solo guitar sometimes (pretty fucking well done I have to say !), especially on the intro.

So let's get down to it. Recupera El Que Et Pertany ("Take Back What is Yours") gives us eleven songs (plus the intro), one of them already being in the last 7" ("Reconquesta") and two covers : "Skinheads Catalans" -an adaptation of Skinkorps' "Skinkorps Mécanique"- and a cover of Frontpilsen's -an early 90's Barcelona Oi! band- "El Final de la Nit" ("The End of the Night"). There's also an instrumental ballad called "D.E.P." ("Rest In Peace") dedicated to an ex-band member that passed away (if I understood well ?). The rest is, as I said, melodic but angry Oi! with great rythm section, solo guitars and vocals/choirs. You'll be singing along these songs after 2 seconds, even if you don't speak catalan ! My personal favourites songs are "Hereus de la Conquesta" ("Heirs of the Conquest"), "Morint Dempeus" ("Die Standing") and "Oi! Per Catalunya".

Oh, and before I forget, the songs on this LP are REALLY REALLY patriotic. Fuck, these lads love Catalonia. I understand that they're fighting for their independence and all that, but I can't imagine a "non-political" (by that I mean non-RAC/WP) band doing that in Sweden ! Not that it's a problem for me, the texts are really good and powerful, it's just funny to see what is ok somewhere in the world while it's not ok somewhere else. But anyway, brilliant lyrics full of pride, glory and love for their piece of land. Once again a great record !

All that comes in a nice drawn cover, delivered with a nice poster-like lyrics sheet (the gothic font is sometimes a little hard to read, but that's just me complaining for the sake of it I guess) plus an extra white paper sheet with the lyrics translated in english (really nice initiative !). Excellent production, both musically as in terms of packaging. Plus, I'm in the thanklist (something that I didn't know, thanks guys by the way !), always nice ! Do yourself a favour and get that LP. Marvelous from the beginning to the end. Please note that a CD version is due to be out soon on Sweden's Pretty Shitty Town Records (a matter of weeks now I guess ?). Best fucking southern-european going on right now, period !

Reconquesta - S/T 7" (Disco Nightmare/See You - 2014)

The only european country which is not from Northern Europe present on this blog so far is Spain, and it's not gonna change. Well actually it might change, because Reconquesta (do yourself a favour if you look for the band on internet and write their name right, if you write it Reconquista you will only find a shitty spanish WP band, and by shitty I mean that this made me want to burn a paella plate, yep, it was that bad) are from Catalonia, and I know that catalonians are pretty touchy about their own national identity. So let's say it's not Spain.

These guys were, as a matter of fact, more or less uknown to me, I bought their 7" (which is also their first vinyl release, even though they seem to have started the band in 2012) pretty much randomly, given that I only had heard some demo songs on youtube before.

Well, that was a good random purchase if you want my point of view. Now those who know me (and those who have read the KnockOut review) know that spanish Oi! is not really my cup of tea, even if the catalonian scene is kind of an exception given that one of my favourite record of 2012 (and probably my favourite iberian band) is Secret Army's Crush the Remains. But anyway, I'm open to new bands, and giving a chance to Reconquesta was everything but a mistake. These guys are playing a melodic but still hard hitting Oi!, with great bass and solo guitar all the way, topped by  equaly melodic but still in your face vocals. Through and through it is really strong.  From what I can read on their Facebook page, they list their influences as english, french and american Oi! from the 80's/90's. Well, you can't go wrong with these (especially with the french one), but to me they sound actually much more modern than this, even if you can obviously hear these influences in the two songs on this single.

For some reason Blogspot decided to be a piece of shit and couldn't find the studio version of their song "Gloria". But look for it in Youtube. Believe me, it's worth it.

These two songs, to name them, are "Gloria" and "Reconquesta". I must admit that I am actually not familiar at all with the catalonian language, but reading the lyrics of "Gloria" on internet (they were clever enough to write them in the description of the song) helped a lot, since catalonian is pretty close to french (more than I thought actually). So basically, this song urges you to be proud and to never look down. The lyrics are not going to change your vision of the world, but is that what you expect Oi! to do ? Probably not. Instead they make you feel proud, strong and free (to quote Stars and Stripes), which is, to me, pretty much all I want to hear. Their second song, "Reconquesta", is not as melodical as the first one, maybe more straight forward, but is still great. It actually gives you a balanced single, with a melodical song and a more in-your-face one.

All that comes with a great artwork, which is the logo of the band (a feather and a sword) in a shield with a dragon in some kind of parchment style (it's the brown tone of it all that gives me this feeling I guess). The only thing I regret is that there's no insert but that's only a little disappointement given the quality of this release. Note that this record comes with a big central hole, which is kind of unusual nowaday I guess given that the only records I have like that are from the 70's to the 90's. 300 copies of that record were released, 100 in black, 100 n brown and 100 with a different cover. My advice is that you should buy this record, because by doing that you will not only get 2 great songs, but you will also support a young band which deserves it. So you know what you have to do !

Edit : you can now listen to both songs of the 7" on the band's bandcamp and download them (as a name your price download) ! 

KnockOut - Que Silbe La Guillotina (Crom Records/Sound of the Streets - 2014)

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 !