Disuse Records is a new DIY label from Leeds, UK, which is releasing their first release, an EP called “No Future 2020” by anarcho hardcore punks FASTIX from Harrogate, UK. The band’s frenzied no-bullshit delivery grabs by the throat and possesses all the qualities of harsh, raw, political punk and ferociousness of hardcore.
We caught up with the band’s vocalist Ethan Treason for the full track by track commentary below.
“We tried on this EP to really capture the landscape we believe the U.K.’s in right now, having been written just prior to the last general election. In the past few years there’s been an increase in knife crime and austerity, and climate change is a massive issue. The album’s written to be angry but hopeful that a difference real can be made if we all try hard enough.” – FASTIX for New Noise Magazine
A Path Paved Perdition was the first song written for the record. I had written that high riff in the intro during a jam session for a different band I was in a few years ago. I always really liked it because it reminded me of something you’d hear on Chuck by Sum 41, but for one reason or another it never got used in anything, until writing for this EP began. The riff that comes in halfway through the breakdown is also an old one that’d been laying around for a years, I’d always wanted to include it but it never seemed to fit in anything until we starting writing this track. Lyrically, the song’s about climate change and everything that can happen if we don’t take care of the planet, and it’s probably more relevant now than it was when it was written because of all the fires that are destroying Australia at the moment.
The second track is Red-Stained Packages, which I think is the most experimental song the band’s done thus far. The verse uses a chord shape that I learnt from a Darkthrone song, which adds a melancholic vibe that isn’t on any other songs we’ve done, and the idea of the bridge having layered guitars with different effects combined with theatrical vocals was intended to sound like a mix of Rage Against the Machine and early Chumbawamba. The song’s kind of about the 2019 general election here in the U.K., but the record was finished before the actual vote took place. There’s a few different topics covered within it, like how the country recently lurched very far to the right politically, how there hasn’t been a proper left-wing party in power in about forty years and how avoidable the Grenfell Tower fire was. The title’s also in reference to a stage direction from the play A Streetcar Named Desire.
Next is Slaughterhouse Apathy which is about the meat industry. Obviously vegetarianism is a pretty prominent thing in hardcore and has been for a long time, but in this song I tried not to focus as much on the whole “meat is murder” cliché. It’s more than anything about the treatment of most animals while ready for slaughter and how just because we ate meat in the wild, doesn’t mean we need to now. The “Seeing red, already dead” refrain that comes up a few times throughout the song is a reference to two songs by two of the band’s biggest influences, Minor Threat and Rage Against the Machine, as those individual lines are used in the hooks for Seeing Red and Tire Me, respectively.
No Gatekeeping is by far the most simplistic song on the record, it’s 42 seconds long. It’s just a fast, fun hardcore songs. It’s about scene unity and not discriminating against someone just because they don’t have the “right” hairstyle or aren’t wearing the “right” band’s shirt.
Lead Painted Gold is the last track on the EP and is pretty much based around only two different guitar parts. One’s a single string open note riff, and the other is a power chord progression that’s played in four different ways throughout the track: the regular progression, a palm muted version, a sustained chord version and one that’s kind of like an Anthrax or D.R.I. style riff. We decided to put it as the last track because of the way it encompasses the sound of the rest of the EP. The lyrics are about the way that other people’s opinions are pushed onto you through no choice of your own, whether that be because of authoritarian regimes or unspoken rules in society.
