Early 2015 some youngsters came together with the idea of starting a band. It had to be really fast, gnarly and straight in your face raw hardcore punk. In March 2015 they played their first show as TRAVØLTA. Four split records were released throughout the years evolving from West Coast powerviolence mixed with d-beat towards a more metallic sounding powerhouse, without ever losing the punk attitude.
TRAVØLTA‘s first full length was released on July 12, 2019 and it’s high time we give it a proper nod, recommend it to your noise resistant ears and give you this full track by track commentary below.
TRAVØLTA has shared the stage with Despise You, ACxDC, Magrudergrind, Primitive Man, Coke Bust, Gadget, Implore, MDC, Agathocles, Infest, Seein’ Red, Marxbros and many more. They
Power-violence Grindcore Insanity for fans of Napalm Death, Rotten Sound, The Kill, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Assuck, Maruta, Eaten, Population Control, Brutal Truth, Disuse, Mumakil, Slund, Coldworker – John Chaos Alexander, Bandcamp
1. Heultje bores me to death
The album starts of with a mid-tempo death metallic Bolt Thrower kind of introduction. We don’t like being comformists and you can definitely hear that in our first full length album. The few words on this intro handle about growing up in a small town where little to nothing happens. The only way to cope is making some extremely fast and gnarly hardcore punk with a portion of death metal and grind.
2. Bleed me Dry
This might be one of our longer songs raging just over one minute. It has a lot of thrashing grind, a sniff of d-beat and a heavy break at the end. That’s the anger we feel when the government bleeds you dry by asking such high taxes and again cut deep into the pockets of the social vulnerable. There is always money for huge army toys, but homeless shelter or decent healthcare is off limits it seems. It’s an economical crisis, that’s exactly what they want you to believe. Arrrghhhhhh!!!!
3. No Crew
You thought it started of with Ray Cappo singing ‘Me, You, Youth Crew’, right? Well… we played the intro with Lemmy from Gewoon Fucking Raggen and Sick of Stupidity on vocals singing ‘Me, You, No Crew’! This is all about non-conformity, making your own choices and being the black sheep. The song starts pretty slowly, has a weird break before a black metallish kind of riff starts off broken down by a Merauder worship riff… to end in ultimate powerviolence forever.
4. Hippie Cultus
Drugs to escape daily life, really!? Sitting in activist environments because people are open minded, but in fact some people are just here for the easy score or the free accommodation. Go ahead… enjoy, but leave your fucked up attitude out of here. Our answer is simple: sludge to break it down slowly, blastbeats to tear the place down and some hardcore vibes meant for dancing together. Get active again, drink Club Mate or coffee, put on your dancing shoes, dance the night away, kick some fascist’s ass and listen to high energy HC/Punk for getting you into trance. Did anyone already say: this lyric could be from a 90’s straight edge band.
5. Demolition Crew
Not only meant for breaking down walls between man-made boundaries, but also your stupid rockstar walls of death. This is the most mid-tempo song we wrote. Integrity’s vocal test and Merauder’s Master Killer album are the best options to guide us.
6. Retirement is King
Retirment, probably the biggest hoax in the capitalist economic system. Work, make a carreer, have a three week holiday, work and repeat… And, at the end of your carreer you can’t do the things you always wanted to do. And when you retire… your most flourishing years are over. This ‘live life now’ message is packed in this 42 seconds of pure raging hardcore punk mixed with d-beat and powerviolence.
Continued below…
7. I See Things People Shouldn’t See
The song title says it all. We chose to keep this song rather mysterious, like the way governments hide stuff from their inhabitants. Based on a devastating sliding bass riff that’s sharp as a knife to make the hearts of the 1% bleed.
8. King of the Jungle
Definitely one of the favourites. Total Hellnation worship on this one! The song obviously contains blastbeats but this time mixed with some punky vibes. The lyrics contain some serious anti-right wing beefcake subjects with a Nancy Sinatra feel to it, ending with the best sing-a-long ever OE! OE! OE! OE! OI!
9. In Tinnitus We Crust
Half way through our album we have the title track inspired by ‘In Grind We Crust’, but we renamed it. Perhaps one of the most chaotic songs written by Travølta starting off with a heavy introduction, continuing into a thrashing part ending in a melodic blastbeat part mixed with d-beat. This one is dedicated to sound engineers who ask to put the volume down!
10. For Racist Flanders & Mawda
Mix an asocial society with some creative democratic youngsters and you get a furiously raging song like this. The biggest inspiration to write this is Ode to Death by Bloody Phoenix (If you not know this, you have to check it out). This song is made to destroy the idea to have it out for migrating war victims. As a consequence of the Middle Eastern war against ISIS people fled the area from all sorts of misconduct, into our so-called ‘superior’ western world. This is a normal human reaction and people in the west did the same during the First and Second World War. Sad but true, some people in Flanders don’t want refugees stepping on their ‘Flemish soil’. Since educating these ignorant people in a proper way is nearly impossible, it’s better to just blast beat the shit out of them.
11. Saturday Fight Fever
Two sides on this small grinding power-violence story: Firstly, soccer in our opinion is the most stupid sports ever. Nowadays soccer is not even about sports anymore, but money, to stir up people, to fight, to run amok, to hail hitler and to call names to anyone else, … Secondly, domestic violence and the connection of miserable football jocks who run shitty lives of weekend violence and domestic violence. Dedicated to bald white screaming twats wearing poloshirts and soccer flags. To end with a quote from our drummer: “The only good thing about football is the band: Jesus Crøst”.
12. Karma is a bitch
A true story about a “nice” guy who got enough of irritant new age shit -In the background death metallic grindcore playing- Cheers!
13. Havin’ a Ball with the Travølta Crew
Since history is repeating itself, it was time to write a: heart-under-the-belt anthem for everyone involved in anti-fascist action worldwide.
14. Like Jan Said
So we started with this sample where Jan from Agathocles says in an interview that grindcore should be political and reflective rather than about gore and porn. Then the metallic sounding intro creates a mysterious atmosphere followed by some hoompa sounding mince-core followed by a climax of blastbeats. I just had to copy the lyrics because they fit in so well: Like Jan from Agathocles said: Grind Is Protest and else it is crap.. You’re into grind, porn and gore. Your lyrical intellect goes from blood, fetus to whore. Here’s some inspiration for your pathetic band. Come on boys bukake for all, Yammi!
15. Lets’s Dig a Grave
The most crust song on the album about disappointment in mankind! For fans of Disgust a.k.a. the singer with the nicest “He-Man, Master Of the Universe” mullet ever!
16. Less Violence More Dancing
Fuck those tough guys standing at the side of the pit or tearing it down in the pit trying to impress, but in the end not supporting the scene. This song is for those who just want to have fun. The fastest song on the record! Pure blastbeat galore broken down with a a little breakdown… ergh I mean breakdance!
17. Hypocriet
The last song on the album is Hypocriet. A song to piss off the Flemish nationalists to make sure they get Nico’s message. He wrote the song in Dutch so they can understand what we feel like about their small minded thinking. The song starts of pretty punky and hooks into a gnarly d-beat riff followed by… yes: BLASTBEATS! To end with a long and slow breakdown is put in place to tear the record down as Merauder would do it. However, don’t turn off your stereo… There is a little surprise waiting for all you old punks and metalheads.
Though Travølta’s new release In Tinnitus We Crust will have any die-hard fan of d-beat, crust, fastcore, grindcore, and powerviolence drumming their steering wheel into oncoming traffic, this release shows them as worthy bearers of the mincecore torch, originally lit by their Belgian forebears, Agathocles. The production is no-nonsense. Raw. Honest. You hear every instrument in its real form, giving this LP an intimate, live feel, as if you’re a fly on the wall of the band’s rehearsal space. Travølta manages to find that rare balance of fun and fury by clearly loving what they do and by having a legitimate bone to pick with the world at large. Pissed off and unafraid to piss others off, they wear their politics on their sleeves, speaking out against prejudice in all its forms and doing so with Nico’s genuine, screaming rage.
Along with cleverly placed samples (including one from Doug Stanhope, which made this Arizona boy proud), Travølta’s tempo changes bring the violence to this record, and they are perfectly calibrated for a street riot. Rik’s blast-beat clashes give way to the persistent, intentional rhythm of slow marching, and then to the explosions of bricks through windows. The punchiness of Kevin’s bass sounds like early punk, like The Stooges, Minutemen, or The Clash if they had to keep at pace with Niels’ furious right hand, which alternates between fast-picked riffing and chunky, punch-a-hole-in-your-local-racist power chords. / CVLT Nation
