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- Wolves In The Throne Room: bloody hippies
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Jesus fucking Christ, deliver me from bands with a cause.
You ever get that? You’re enjoying a band and suddenly one of them opens their fucking mouth between songs to “just briefly talk about the government/big business/my aunt’s chemo/eco feminism”. Christ, those guys are boring.
And now we’re at Earth Day. And what the fuck is that supposed to be about anyway? Cue a sea of self-righteous platitudes from musicians I care even less about than “saving the planet, yeah”. These guys are just no fun – Earth-core like Wolves In The Throne Room is exactly “what I listen to when I have a boner that won’t go away”, to quote seminal cultural watchdogs Beavis and Butthead.
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Maybe these bands have an inferiority complex ‘cos they play metal so think their existence is automatically invalid and must rectify that by singing about dying dolphins or corporations or something, or maybe they’re just fucking idiots – a strong argument for WITTR and their radical environmentalism. Either way, you can’t get excited for preaching.
Anyway, I don’t know if you’re aware of some surfer brah-core band from Australia called Parkway Drive (mygod, I’m gonna have to do a separate piece just on that name alone). When they’re not singing about catching gnarly waves and getting dumped by their women, they like to throw heavy-handed, pandering and condescending messages around about the environment, or something. Those crazy surfer kids! Check THIS video out – it resembles so closely what Al Gore used to fantasise about before shooting his horrid load inside his horrid wife that it’s mind-blowing (PS. – Al, sorry to hear about you and Tipper, really didn’t see that one coming!). I don’t know if he thinks about the bits with Parkway Drive jumping around trying to be serious and concerned, but whatever.
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I’m not gonna sit here and tell you how necessary it is to actively not care about the environment and its myriad ‘problems’ because any attempts would be impotent after our lord and saviour (He WILL return) George Carlin put it INFINITELY more eloquent than I ever could. However, I will sum up his idea up with this mantra: the planet is fine, it’s the people who are fucked. This sentiment is captured perfectly in the chest-beating self-importance of cocksuckers like Parkway Drive.
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To put it another way, a simple equation: Anal Cunt, who had no cause, are way more relevant than Napalm Death because, despite their puerile lyrics, AxCx’s persistence at pushing the boundaries of pissing people off is way more important than the inherent evil of McDonalds. Besides, chicken nuggets are the shit. Anal Cunt are also important because whenever you’re bombarded by one of these band-wagon-hopping hacks trying to sell their concern for something, you can repeatedly scream at them: “ALL I GIVE A FUCK ABOUT IS SEX!”
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There is a serious side to this though, unfortunately. It’s not just lame bands that care. Decent bands are also plagued by this handicap. Take Doom, one of the best crust bands of all time. Did you see the ludicrous LINK to an anarchist organisation’s article they posted after the London riots of 2011? I can’t paraphrase pseudo-hippie-bullshit but the article talked about how looting plasma screen TVs is “a form of economic redistribution” and, the real cracker, that the organisation “will not condemn or condone those we don’t know for taking back some of the wealth they have been denied all their lives”. GIVE ME A FUCKIN’ BREAK! How can you believe something like that and keep a straight face? Haven’t they heard of SOMALIA? OF RUSSIA? Y’know, countries with actual fucking problems?! Doom didn’t write the article of course, but they posted the link to it, without comment, and seem to at least implicitly agree with it, which is just bizarre.
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Similarly, you have the Cro-Mags, one of the greatest hardcore bands to have ever existed. Ton of respect for frontman John Joseph and if you can say something about him and his beliefs it’s that he has at least LIVED enough to choose his lifestyle. The same can’t be said for some 17-year old from Hull who is ‘straight-edge-4-life’. But, it’s also a little hard to swallow STATEMENTS by Joseph, like “We’re in this world together and we can fix what’s broken if we all try. Look, the science is in: we can save the planet, the animals and our rapidly decreasing health if we just switch to a whole-food, plant-based diet.” I’m no scientist or whatever but I’m pretty sure eating plants or some shit will have very little impact towards saving the planet. And, if meat really is for pussies John, then I’m a big pink cunt.
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Don’t these ‘activist’ bands realise that the world would actually be a much better place if we just shut the fuck up (says I, embarking on a series of shit-talking columns – what of it?!) from time to time? Less talk, more riffs and all.
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Anyway, have a crappy Earth Day, Vegan Emancipation Day, Women’s Awareness Day, or whatever other ’cause’ that helps you cope with the grinding futility and mechanical oppression that is modern life. I’m going to the bar.
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‘The opinions of Daragh MORBID Markham are often TOO EXTREME but are his own and not necessarily those of ZT, who he bangs HARDCORE RADIKULT for.’
