Tag: crust punk
Habak Find Beauty In The Horrors Of Humanity At The Roxy
Rob Shepyer
December 5, 2025
The Habak show at the Roxy on November 29th, presented by Viva! was more than your typical winter punk rock invading West Hollywood. I first heard of Habak after seeing Lagrimas open for Soul Glo at Zebulon in 2022 and then following the band until their Teragram takeover with Habak- I knew Los Angeles was witnessing the formation of a new scene, subgenre, and phenomenon in punk music. Both Habak and Lagrimas represent a style known as melodic crust. related: Earth’s Crust- CY Fest 2024 at Belasco Sonically akin to a lovechild between Deafheaven and Doom, Habak represents the emotional interior of anarchism. With so much political activity both in underground and mainstream circles, we often get exposed to the surface of rebellion but never the glacier of emotionality underlying the action. We see the rallies, the chanting, the rioting, the rhetoric, but when anarchists go home, we rarely see the pain to empathize with. Habak gives the world a sonic synthesis of that pain so we don’t have to venture into every anarchist’s home to see it for ourselves. How does that pain feel? Like suffered screaming over the most beautiful, dissociative harmony. related: Avant Garde Headbanging w/ The
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Before ANTIFA, There Was Crust: Doom Celebrates Dirty 30 At The Regent
Rob Shepyer
August 26, 2017
Anarchism and Anti-Fascism seem to have found a new seat, front and far-left-of-center, in the public forum. That seat is occupied by the political movement that has adopted those principals in the fight against Donald Trump known as ANTIFA. Their highly publicized clashes with the far-right might be what’s making news these days but if you know their ideology, one has to see its parallels with Crust Punk. The value system professed by many of ANTIFA’s members are rooted in the deconstruction of the “male dominator system” that is the basis of civilization as we know it. Monogamy, capitalism, binary gender, racial hierarchy, monotheism (especially in the Christ variety), and more, traditions most baby anarchists are born into, are all part of the “male dominator system”. Breaking away from the values you are born into is often a violent experience and what’s left of you after the fact, might just be a person damaged enough to become a crust punk. If you accept your crusthood, the proper thing to do is drop out (of life), never shower, and hop on the next train going nowhere. So what’s the difference between ANTIFA and crust punk culture? On the surface, it’s really
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1Fest-Los Angeles at Los Globos: Noise As Music As Force Is Farce
Rob Shepyer
July 8, 2017
In my quest for mind expansion through live musical experience, I’ve been fortunate enough to write about festivals that I might not have cared to attend If I was just a casual music fan. This was the case for Berserktown, 8BitLA, and now 1Fest: Los Angeles. I’ve learned that taking a risk and just diving into a genre of music without prior knowledge usually only reaps joyful reward. Absorbing too much musical diversity has its drawbacks, though. The mind can expand so much that the brain might start pressing against the inside of the skull and adapt by developing a sort of exo-skeleton, a crust. Brain crust. related content: The Most Complete Sound And Fury 2017 Review On Earth Crust punk and Grindcore- Two genres birthed out of the aesthetics of British Anarchist punk OG’s Crass. Grindcore was first conceptualized by Napalm Death as half political dissidence and half musical farce, with songs that only lasted seconds and little care for actually singing the lyrics live. Grindcore, although as separate from mainstream heavy music as possible, is still thriving and alive because Grindcore is not simply a musical genre but a challenge. It is a challenge to any band to see
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