CATASTROPHE Cries From The Gutter – Vinyl LP (black)

Pressing info : First pressing on black vinyl LP.

“Generation of people always sitting in silence, Feeding off hate, division and violence, Complacent in their atrocities, Silence is a privileged man’s disease” (No Remorse)

The social alienation of the 1980s continues to cast its spectral shadow across our lives. A crumbling public realm. Collapsing living standards. Youth unemployment soaring and work ever more precarious. Alongside a spiralling, reckless militarism. While the privileged few stoke distrust of those already most marginalised to disguise their own self-serving complicity.

So, it seems only fitting then that we mine that same decade musically. This Catastrophe do with undisguised relish as they draw on the first waves of UK anarcho-punk – flares of Cress, flashes of Amebix – before firing them through with a fierce lacing of more contemporary metallic crust. The darkly surging, dissonantly fuzzed riffage is punctuated with searing solos and propelled by a powerfully limber rhythm section. Meanwhile, the gutturally barked vocals confront a society mired in institutionalised greed and fear of the other.

This is the debut album from the London band, who feature current members of Scab and Traidora, and the follow up to their 2024 demo, Dead On Arrival. The highlights come thick and fast. The savagely martial drumming that fuels the bruising title track. The soaring solo that erupts with majestic abandon amid the venomously escalating Decline. The bass versus guitar joust that kicks off Love Is Love. All culminating in the crushing climax that is World In Decay. Cries From The Gutter these may be. Yet each burns with a defiant clarity of intent.
(Scott / Foundation Vinyl)

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