Better Not Born – Downfall

This Finnish five piece makes some heavy, dirty and sludgy music. The band from Helsinki has released this 7″ with some clear political messages attached to the item. Better Not Born is the kind of angry band people warn you about one could say and they have plenty of stuff to tell you about. Luckily, depending on your outlook, this format kind of limits them.

The band has been around for two years now and has only released a demo before. ‘Downfall’ is their first ‘real’ record and they are rather proud of it. Not without reason I’d say, since this is what early Mayhem can be compared to and ofcourse tons of other crust bands currently active. There’s not that much information to be found about this band and apart from the fact that Finland does have a rich underground scene, I can’t say too much about them. They played some shows with the likes of Death With A Dagger, Dead In The Water and Cigarette Crossfire.

The sound is pretty dark but clearly tends to a punk side. Not surprisingly it sounds dark and dirty, having been recorded at the Filthy Rat Studios (what’s in a name). Singer Sampo Lipasti sounds like he could sound a lot worse (in a good sense) on both ‘Tyrants’ and ‘Birth, Work, Death’. Both chaotic and crusty sounding tracks that lyrically deal with the capitalist world we live in and the conformism of society. Something these guys with their Antifa associations clearly don’t have a high regard of. The aggavated howling vocals combined with the rabid drums and the gritty recordings

Side II opens with a wild shriek that reminds me of the early Burzum work where punk and black metal merge into that angry dark sound. The band slows down on ‘No-one’ and becomes more atmospheric. Even more so we find this on the track ‘Freefall’, which sounds very primitive with lyrics like ‘Loyalty follows thru the very end/ W’re not weak we just have to bend’.

It’s rather surprising how the band moved on from their clean sounding demo that seems to have more Satanic Surfers inspiration (a track called Satanic Surfer put me up to this comparison) than this crude crust sound. Now they sound like something in between Doom and Darkthrone. Not that this is something bad at all as long as it doesn’t sound confused, which these guys don’t.

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