Welcome to Reality: CD
I finally had the chance to see this band a couple of months ago. I was excited to see Tony Militia's latest music endeavor. People from the early 80s East L.A. scene might remember Resistant Milita (Jimmy?). Seeing a person from that far back that you know is always welcome. They put on a great performance. On recording, they are equally as exciting. Dis-crust meets metal. Self described as hardcore meets tribal grind, they pack a powerful punch with a message. On this recording, there is the addition of Jesse Pintado (Terrorizer/Napalm Death) as a second guitarist that was not present when I saw the band live. There was no loss though as main guitarist Katina held her own. Masterful and technical is the drummer Ben, who I believe played in the band Axiom in the past. Put all the parts together with bassist Ralph and they are one powerful unit. They also pay homage to Discharge by covering Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing. Metal fans and crust fans should find this appealing. I heard in the works is a new album by Tony Militia and Jesse Pintado resurrecting Terrorizer. I am excited to hear the results of that project. If you never heard Terrorizer's World Downfall LP, you are not a true grind fan. –Donofthedead (Seventh Generation)


At first this could have been just another anarcho-crust/grind-band, with metal influences by acts such as Dimmu Borgir, or something alike. But after a few tracks into the record, L.A. based Resistant Culture shows us what they're made of. With melodic leads, indigenous instrumental harmonics weaved into the music, sampled sounds, spoken words and native Indian singing; all this combined with the dark pulsating punk/grind. The main doomy-vocals vary from deep growling to aggressive scream-ish singing. Always staying on the edge, the lyrics really sets off the music and are all very thought through. RS treats some serious topics on this record, and as stated about the record on their website: "This record reflects the state of humanity, the anxieties of a world where industrial civilization has penetrated, infected and devastated every sphere of life"; they really have some important things to say. The thing that impressed me the most was all the details in the background of the music, the more you listen to it, the more interesting it gets. I'd definitely recommend all of you out there to look this band up!


RESISTANT CULTURE - WELCOME TO REALITY (SPIRAL RECORDS)
website

These L.A. based anarcho-crust standard bearers are masters of the darker metal punk pioneered by Amebix, Antisect and Discharge. Their grindcore assault, augmented by occasional nods to their native American roots helps the five piece produce a pulverizing sonic blast of sound that turns "Welcome To Reality" into a thing of awesome, menacing beauty. The downbeat melodies, doomy vocals and machine like drive propels things along with song titles like "Ecocide", "The Struggle Continues", "Forced Conformity" and "Civilized Aggression" telling their own story. Their fusion of anti-statist themes and the monumental searing power of the music make for superb bedfellows. When they also pull off with ease, a distinctive and memorable reworking of Discharge's "Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing" it becomes strikingly clear that this talented crew are purveyors of possibly the most consistently effective grinding anarcho-crust punk you're likely to hear today.
5 out of 5
Review by Sean McGhee


On their homepage at www.resistantculture.com Resistant Culture writes, "With the world in a state of disorder as a result of the cancerous growth of industrial domination, we are perched at the brink of either great destruction or great transformation. Resistant Culture confronts this critical moment in history with sonic offerings rooted in the resilience of the human spirit."

Prior to becoming a fan of Metal I was heavily into Punk Rock. Bands like Discharge, Dead Kennedy's, Bad Religion, and Minor Threat have always had a profound influence on my thinking process due to their lyrics. When Punk Rock died in the middle to late 80's (Depending on who you debate) I had already began to make a crossover into Metal and early Grindcore with bands like Napalm Death, Metallica, Slayer, Exodus, Vio-lence, Death Angel, Death, Hallows Eve, and Carcass among a ton of other bands from Iron Maiden to Venom. Still, the lyrics to Punk Rock music always rang true for me, especially from Bad Religion. I carried a sort of recognized naive altruism, for I identified myself as a human living in a world of multinational corporation destruction, government oppression, war, famine, religious brainwashing, environmental pogrom, and I thought I could fix the world. Then at about the age of 24 I woke up and said, "Fuck it." Now I'm a misanthrope who detests everyone around me and I especially despise anthropocentric fuckers.

Now what the fuck does the personal paragraph above have to do with Resistant Culture and their album "Welcome to Reality?" From a lyrical perspective it puts me in a position to hate people, politics, religion, and environmental annihilation more than ever. From a musical and poetic standpoint it takes me back to my days of old when I thought my plastic protests and rebellion could make an oil tycoon into a philanthropist. Where I in a pit listening to these guys on stage with their blistering guitars, shouting vocals, and freaked out drums I'd swing away with more malice than if I was watching Chuck Shuldiner reincarnated before me playing tracks off of "Leprosy." I'd pummel fuckers in the pit knowing them for more than likely being stupid forms of carbon based wastage good for further intoxicating and polluting what is left of earth despite the petty trendy rebellion that finds them at the show… I might actually kill someone in a Resistant Culture pit.

Other killer things about the music from these guys is that it mixes indigenous music with Grindcore, Punk, and Hardcore. One moment the music is full of unreal fast riffs, then you socked in the sternum by a groovy tempo change or a native tribal chant! Totally awesome. Vocally the listener is subject to pure RAGE, and the drummer has enough speed and moves to make a top ranked welter weight boxer feel intimidated. As a group these guys work in great cohesion and have taken a genre of music filled with clones to another level of uniqueness with their injections of indigenous music.

They also have some damned twisted sound samples. The beginning to "Misery" is an excellent example. The song begins with a guy in a crowd yelling, "How many times have they kept one.. one promise! one promise! one promise they kept. They promised to take all of our land, and they're doing it." Samples of this kind are far more "heavy" to me than anything about porn, killing, gore, rape, or horror that seems to populate much of Grindcore music today. The reason is that theft of land encompasses REAL horrors like famine, racial cleansing, enslavement, torture, rape, homicide, religious indoctrination, democracy, and capitalism. Ask any indigenous person to north or south Americana for their perspective on land theft if you disagree with my brief assessment.

Yeah, listening to Resistant Culture gives me that youthful exuberance that screams, "I can make a difference." In some ways when I hear songs off this disc like "Elder Wisdom" the fire in me is rekindled, but then I think about the wastefulness of humans. Bottom line: This disc is an splendid amalgamation of Grindcore with Hardcore, Thrash, and indigenous music that is enhanced by profound lyrics where the emotions of the singer bleed into your brain and heart. I give these guys a lot of credit for being optimistic, angry, and frustrated about a potential humanity that some way may find a method for living in harmony between races, genders, and the earth. But the reality is that for every one person transformed into an intelligent citizen I can find ten thousand that would rather be little money grubbing George W. Bush style reprobates. Humans will be better off as index fossils buried in their own debris, but you can still crank up Resistant Culture and daydream about positive insurrection.








RESISTANT CULTURE

at the Knitting Factory, December 10

The spike-haired underground insurgents were out on the floor in their black stealth outfits: T-shirts, jeans, beat-up Vans, hooded sweatshirts with every imaginable local punk logo sewn on them. First to serve were Against Empire, a straight-up 1-2-3-4 crust-metal/punk band. The lyrics sounded really hard, if you could decipher them in the midst of the fierce pit that welled up. Next, Armistice changed up the look with lead singer-guitarist Norman in a Winnie-the-Pooh outfit and bassist Patricia in her Tigger, too. No Disney tales, though, just Wilmington refinery politics on "Ecocide," and social consciousness on "Mankind" and "Manufactured by the System."

Before Resistant Culture's tribal grind came a Native American blessing: Ofelia Rivas, an O'odham (Pima) tribal elder, spoke passionately on how the U.S. government is militarizing her people's Arizona/Sonora land by building a metal barrier "twice the size of the Berlin Wall" an appropriate introduction to Resistant Culture's "Land Keeper," a powerful instrumental with lead singer Anthony on indigenous flute. Then the Little Bighorn assault was mounted; on "It's Not Too Late," Anthony spat, "We're the past, we're the future/We're your nightmare in my dream/Your heroes are my enemies/Your philosophy wants us dead!" The set peaked with the battle cry "Man Against the Machine" as Katina scrubbed her guitar, a sweat-dripping Rafa banged bass, and Ben hurled himself into sick, mathematical double-kick drumming” it was a warrior unit that hit you, bam!, over the head with a tomahawk. The energy was so intense, for an instant it felt like we were all in the Badlands, riding with Crazy Horse.

-Ben Quiñones