Rock On!

There evolved, in the mid 1980s in England, a particular type or form of music. It was influenced by, had mostly a fusion of, Hardcore Punk, Extreme Metal and Anarcho Punk. This style was called “Crust” or ‘crust punk’. The crust punk songs had dark, pessimistic and gothic lyrics criticizing the political and social ‘diseases’ plaguing the society.

Most critics define this type of punk as being both dirty and having too much of bass. They are regarded as, just simply, ‘noise’ by many. The instruments are often too loud and the vocals have to be guttural to keep up. The vocalists generally growl and scream, so there is no actual musical singing involved and more than often the lyrics are hard to decipher amidst the chaos. Crust punk bands as Doom, Antisect, Nausea, Amebix, Hellbastard etc were influenced by anarcho punk bands as Discharge, Crass andVEnom.

Crust is basically a derivative type of a fusion of hardcore, metal riffs and anarcho punk. The songs are played at a fast tempo. The pace, however, comes short of thrashcore or grindcore. However, even with the fast tempos most songs have small and slow sections. The drummer and the guitarists literally are pushed to their limits in terms of play speed. Even so, crust has remained an underground form of music.

The lyrics of the song are shouted and shrieked by two or more vocals. If you want to go to a crust punk concert to listen to some musical singing then I would advise you to stay home and watch “Exorcist” as it would be far less torturing and horrifying! But for the adrenaline junkie these concerts are heaven. The lyrics of the songs revolve around fascism, nuclear war, military, government, love, oppression and so on. Mysticism has also been a subject, though used rarely.

The fashion of Crust Punk is Do-It-Yourself type of punk fashion. Most of the clothing is black in color, including the makeup. Dreadlocks are a distinguishable feature of this fashion. Hooded sweatshirts and denim sweatshirts have sewn on band patches on them. Vests are often covered with studs and spikes.

Crust punk in recent days has fused with other musical forms to evolve and give birth to new forms. The types include- Industrial, Grind core, Power Violence, and Black Metal. However, it continues to maintain its originality.