(Here’s a review by DGR of an album by the northern California crust band Arüspex, which was released in January by the band and later in the year on tape by Fiadh Productions.)

Crust-punk group Arüspex have had one of the longer tenures on the “to review” list that we are slowly working our way through now. While I can’t claim that I was there on the ground floor with the Sierra Nevada punks, for what little it is worth at the very least I’ve been digging into their newest release The Death Instinct since the end of March. Small potatoes when you consider that The Death Instinct came out in the middle of January, but what would we be if we didn’t have releases in our queue that we’ve missed the bus on so bad that the local municipalities have had time to defund the public transit system and replace the bus stops with lame “scenic” pottery and more lanes for cars?

Arüspex, like many groups, lie in an in-between realm within a couple of different genres lines, making them semi-difficult to define and an exciting listen because they’re equally somewhat hard to predict. Genre definitions themselves being for fools like us who build mood-playlists. Why do that when the whole album is a proverbial mood? The group’s core is very much that of a crust punk band, and the low-end-driven riff work and equally voracious thud on the drumkit no doubt fortifies that, but again, like many bands, a handful of other influences are also comfortably seated on the fringe of The Death Instinct that politely move it beyond mere sub-genrefication and into something vicious on its own terms. Continue reading »