BLOODCLAAT GANGSTA YOUTH – Kill Or Be Killed
Fetish-packaged in a flimsy white paper sleeve with mock-reggae 7″ label (and a jukebox hole!), this is in fact DJ Scud, one of the newer signings to the reputedly stale Digital Hardcore roster. Stale isn’t the word that springs to mind playing “Kill Or Be Killed”, though ‘pointless’ might do. But that’s not a bad thing, sometimes. Scud gets to indulge a few Yardie fantasies with a lot of violent patois talkover, and then the ‘beat’, a monstrous and slow metallic hammering, comes in. The rest is noise. It’s great, violent, cheap, posturing, bad boy stuff, and the version, with less of the chat and a sludgeful stalking bassline, is better still.
My guess is that DHR lost its touch when it started concentrating on full-length albums. Much as I liked the odd Atari Teenage Riot track, I still don’t think I’ve played Sixty Second Wipe Out once all the way through. On a 7″, though, the label’s particularly crass noise aesthetic works perfectly, and their increasingly destructured approach sounds way thrilling. If like me you’re a muscle-free speccy whiteboy crit who fancies a nice wallow in ersatz fucked-up aggro, Bloodclaat Gangsta Youth will sort you out nicely.