Culture Shaping Violence - Echoes from the Dark CS

To paraphrase a punk meme that I no longer seem to be able to locate, but which immediately came to mind on listening to CULTURE SHAPING VIOLENCE:

I don’t like metal-punk
I see you are afraid of riffs and beautiful women

While the above should certainly tell you exactly what to expect from CULTURE SHAPING VIOLENCE, it also raises the questions: is ‘metal-punk’ a real genre? And if so, if this meme accurately reflects the genre, is it also a clever sleight of hand that avoids the taboo “female-fronted” tag whilst simultaneously signalling the intersectional representational politics that ‘metal-punk’ embodies?

If this line of thought is as exhausting for you reading it as it is for me writing it, please be assured that CULTURE SHAPING VIOLENCE are anything but tedious. While they name NAUSEA, ANTISECT and DEVIATED INSTINCT as influences, the similarities between CULTURE SHAPING VIOLENCE and SACRILEGE (perhaps the platonic ideal of ‘metal-punk’), AYUCABA, LIFELESS DARK and PAROXYS are too obvious not to highlight.

The murky production gives this demo a primitive edge, ala HELLHAMMER, while the dual male and female vocals nod to the likes of AUS-ROTTEN. Whatever genre you decide to file CULTURE SHAPING VIOLENCE under, this recent release from RIP PEACE (DISTORTED SEDITION in the US) is a timely reminder that some tenets of crust aren’t the flogged deceased equines you may think. -Oli