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The
jolly folks over at Life’s a Rape have released the
complete works of San Diego’s hardcore band Crime
Desire. Issued basically as a self titled release, this
album includes a 2007 eleven song recording and tags
along the 2007 EP In Lucifer’s Grip, along with 2006’s
full-length Id Music to Combat the Superego. Also
included are two unreleased compilation tracks. The
difference in sound between recordings is minimal. The
sound of the band is abrasive from beginning to end. No
evolution and that may just be fine.
I have often
voiced my discomfort with the chunky sounds of meat-headed
hardcore music. Breakdown here and there, a dude with a fat
voice bitching about betrayal and brotherhood. Well, Crime Desire
do have a different sound that is not based in heaviness. Some
of the guitar patterns are inherently hardcore, but perhaps what
differentiates Crime Desire from the rest if the thinness of
their sound. Let me clarify; that’s not to say, that their music
is light. On the contrary, even though there is a lack of fat
bottomed sounds, it is evident that their music blisters in just
the right way and on the most sore spots.
The first
eleven songs recorded in the fall of 2007 show a band with a
deft use of guitars. There is no chugga chugga riffage here. Instead a more controlled mid-to-fast tempo
pattern reigns supreme.
There is also an emphasis between the girth of the strings; at
times they are heavy, others the arrangements are more nuanced.
The same with the drum work; is all very natural. No double
bass belligerence. The vocals are by far the hysterical aspect
of Crime Desire. Typically, the vocalist screams with a nail on
a chalkboard effect. Atypically, he also speaks his lines (“Your
Perdition”) to unsettling results. This reveals Crime Desire as
a band on their own. Hardcore, unlike the vast majority. Their
sound is morbid, viscous and uncomfortable.
The songs of
In Lucifer’s Grip EP are faster and meaner by all accounts.
Crime Desire sounds frantic. The title track is a scorcher and
“Alpha Male” , which follows it, has jagged arrangements and
incredibly in your face vocals. The addition of a guitar solo in
“St. De Sade” is a great touch. As an EP, In Lucifer’s Grip has
everything a hardcore head and even a metalhead desires.
Vocalist M
Colin Tappe handled vocal duties in Id Music to Combat the
Superego. His vocals are like those of a man falling into an
abyss, his ambiguous notes get drowned mid-syllable. They are
unique and atonal though. The songs of this LP are more direct
than those of the previous two recordings, with melodic passages,
constant speed and a fuzzy backbone. Good stuff, but it doesn’t
rival the ferocity of In Lucifer’s Grip.
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