Hiatus, "Brain"

This weekend, Vintage Vinyl is having a buy 2, get 1 free sale on our $3.99 used compact discs.

To celebrate, we'll be skimming the bins and posting about some of the gems to be found.

Up now is Brain by the crusty punks Hiatus.

On Anarcho-Punk, Crusty Beckham said:

Here you have Hiatus' last two recordings on one cd, namely "The Brain" from 1996 and "El Sueño" from 1995. Hiatus was one of the very best European bands of the 90's as far as good and powerful crust punk is concerned. They started out in the late 80's as a Doom/Sore Throat/Discard band but had the great taste to add some Antisect influence in the mix. To be honest, Hiatus didn't put out a bad or even an average record.

The first 8 songs of the cd are from the last 10" and they may surprise some with their melodic, almost emocore undertones in the guitar and the drumming (you can hear that Unhinged wasn't too far away by then) while keeping a distinctive crust backbone. The remaining songs are all from the 2nd Lp and here we are in traditional Hiatus territory: fast, potent, catchy crustcore, the way the genre was meant to be played. The vocals are awesome and the drum is just pummelling its way through crusty greatness. Lyrically, Hiatus really wrote their best lyrics on these last two records. Gone are the dischargey haikus and instead you have political songs from a personal point of view, and by this I mean from actual experiences, from the guts, they are stories one can easily relate to.