TRUCHŁO STRZYGI – Pora Umierać (Polish Death Smash Punk)

Finally some punk I can legitimately review without feeling like I’m forcing it so this site seems diverse. Leave it to the Polish underground for it to happen, as typical punk submissions are too oiboi for me. Yes, there are also oigirls, but the term doesn’t have the rhyme pattern my exquisite reviewing skills demand, so we’ll consider the other one a collective noun. This Polish punk slam society also works well for me because I can now brag I know Polish, so the cultural background, which is deep in my blood, is not something I missed. The good thing, though, is there’s no requirement here to understand what the hell they’re yelling about and you don’t even need to translate the titles. This is because, like any good punkers, TRUCHŁO STRZYGI realized they needed to deliver only one thing. Harsh, misanthropic assault. Screw politics, screw meaning, this is about the smash, and it’s about the smash in Polish. See that cover by Julia Yousif? It looks punk, but yet…

  

Pora Umierać translates to “Time to Die,” which for hardcore or blackened punk is pretty standard, best to say trite actually. In fact the general theme of the album seems clearly exhausted, and for that you’d barely notice it. Some gas masks and such? So what? But wait, notice that Catholic cross there. Can you feel the punk but yet sense something different about it not entirely evident at first? This is something different fools. Where TRUCHŁO STRZYGI differs is their complex melding of culture, style, and sound. There are elements here a fan of any genre, subgenre, and subsubSTFUgenre can instantly use to carve a new tat into the skin over the name of the last boy/girlfriend. What’s surprising is that instead of a mess the sound is largely something of its own. Pora Umierać is blackened and crusted until inedible, yet still delicious. They scream, they violate their throats, the bass rings out like a rock tumbling from the Carpathians, and the presence, the presence mixes a native, Polish foundation with the expected patterns, but with unexpected development. It’s entirely itself without fully investing in any one type of punk. What’s great is you don’t need to know anything about Poland to get TRUCHŁO STRZYGI, but yet you will realize there’s something to it you’ve never heard before. They’ve presented a slab of Polish sickness so dense with discreetly innovative usages of old style it defies even itself. It’s one of those listens that sounds novel every time, its only downside being only a few riffs that stick for good. But that doesn’t matter, because, here, truly, Polish punk has finally become a genre. Polski punk na zawsze!

TRUCHŁO STRZYGI Need Not Facebook

Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls

TRUCHŁO STRZYGI – Pora Umierać
Godz ov War Productions
4.1 / 5