Final Run – Deceit EP

Borneo is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. Its territory is politically divided between three countries—Indonesia, Malaysia, and the small, sovereign state of Brunei.

When it comes to the DIY hardcore punk & crust scene in this part of the world, I already did an interview with Yuen, who used to be one of the main figures of the local scene and author of the now defunct BorneoDIYHCPunk blog. Today, you can still find some useful pages such as this one—about Touring Borneo—on his blog, but enough introduction and onto the actual review.

Final Run is a newer band from Sabah, Malaysia, located on the northern part of the Borneo Island. I know that both the band’s name and cover art for this release may not be the most attractive in the world, but these guys actually play some melodic crust that’s worth a listen.

On their first tape, they went for the straight up crustcore sound, raw and distorted as hell. Now, in March 2019, they come back with four new tracks that excel on the emotion, dramatic moments and tempo changes. Yes, that’s the sound that we often like to compare with Tragedy and call neo-crust. Final Run is just a three piece band—vocals, guitar and drums. They don’t have a bass player, but it seems totally fine to me. They have these growly vocals, melodic guitars and rhythmic d-beats that keep you hooked to the end.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not the world’s best kept neo-crust secret that you absolutely must listen to, but it’s rather an okay band from Malaysia that you might be curious to check out. The tape release of “Deceit” is coming soon through Dirty Dog Records. Support DIY!