Proletar - Back to Hatevolution (Discography)
55 tracks in 74 minutes! Gotta love those grindcore discographies – see Nasum’s Grind Finale (2 discs, 152 tracks) or Yacopsae’s Discoregraphy (2 discs, 149 tracks). Admittedly, this thing is a little hard to digest. Who sits down and goes, “I will now listen to 55 tracks of grind”? (If you do, whatever you’re smoking, keep it the hell away from me.)
The ArrogantA Design for DestructionWar Against the New World1…2…3…Let’s Rock
Back to Hatevolution (To Live a Lie, 2007) collects everything recorded to date (demos, splits, tapes, EP’s) by Indonesian grinders Proletar. Hailing from Jakarta, they unleash straight-up, old-school grind a la early Napalm Death or Assück. The tracks are one-minute floggings with barreling bass drums, clattering blastbeats, and “papa bear, little bear” low/high vocals. No surprises, just bulldozing, down-tuned argh. With six recording sessions represented, the production quality varies throughout; the live cuts sound like they were recorded from inside the venue’s bathroom. Yet the lo-fi sound only enhances the sense of seethingly pissed-off-ness.
The packaging is phenomenal, oddly housing a CD inside an embossed 7″ sleeve. The sleeve has lyrics and a neat little flap that folds out to show pictures of all the band members, past and present. Lyrically, this is left-wing grindcore (is there any other kind? “Right-wing grindcore” seems as oxymoronic as, say, “posi black metal” or “straightedge thrash”), with diatribes against imperialists, colonialists, “George War Bush,” and so on. The English is a little fractured (“The Broken of Your State Like My Broken Songs”), but that makes it even better. After listening to this, my ears feel like they’ve lost a layer of skin – exactly what grind should do.
Back to Hatevolution is available from To Live a Lie and Interpunk.
