Spont Ar Stad – Devomp An Harzoù Hag All Hag All

A few years ago, I published the fourth issue of my print zine, which included a great Brittany, France scene report written by Manu of Litovsk and Senseless Acts of Anger label. To this day, it remains one of my favorite scene reports I’ve read. Not only because there are some really great bands coming from that region, but also because of how much it opened up the cultural uniqueness, folk music traditions, and punk activity in towns and villages I hadn’t even heard of before reading it.

Spont Ar Stad is a newer anarcho-punk band from Brittany with no real online presence or publicity, but they recently released their debut LP through a bunch of great DIY imprints across France, the UK, and Europe. The band’s name translates from Breton, one of the few remaining Celtic languages, as “State Terror,” which already gives a hint of the record’s political content. On the band’s page, the LP is titled Devomp An Harzoù Hag All Hag All, which roughly translates as “Let’s Burn the Borders and Everything Else,” though the involved labels simply refer to it as an untitled LP.

As with every good anarcho-punk release, the lyrics and message are upfront here. It’s also worth stressing that singing in Breton is not that common for local bands, as most seem to sing in either French or English, and I imagine not many people speak the language anymore. For francophone readers, all Breton lyrics come with French translations. “Ur Bed Kri” opens with lyrics about everyday violence, anarchist comrades beaten in the street, families evicted from their homes, children abused, women assaulted, while fascists and aggressors remain unpunished. Instead of falling into pacifist dogma, Spont Ar Stad respond with a call for community self-defense.

“An Amzer” is one of the most lyrically interesting songs here, attacking the capitalist conception of time and the way work drains the possibility to understand, feel, build, and live properly. If you are slow, tired, or unable to keep up, the system marks you as weak or worthless. “Nathalie Lemel” is a tribute to revolutionary women erased from history, especially Nathalie Lemel of the Paris Commune. It rejects kings, castles, and paternalistic protection, insisting that women do not need to be saved, they already know how to defend themselves.

“An Arnev” means “The Storm” and is based on a poem by Breton poet Anjela Duval. It turns two storm clouds into drunken, furious bodies colliding, fighting, thundering, and finally releasing rain. It reads like a natural metaphor for anger breaking open and feeding the earth. “Polis Peplec’h // Justis Neblec’h” is the Breton translation of the popular protest slogan “Police Everywhere, Justice Nowhere” and is one of the record’s most direct songs, aimed at surveillance, prison, police violence, and the criminalization of dissent.

“Massive” follows with a song about institutional failure, probably medical neglect, where trained professionals with status, salaries, and contempt fail someone who desperately needed help. It makes clear that the person is not the problem, the system is. “Hurle Brûle” gives the record its title line. It is an anti-border, anti-state, anti-racist call to burn detention centers, flags, fascists, laws, and the whole machinery that produces exclusion and violence. “Da Reuz” closes things with anger as the necessary force for survival, especially against gendered violence that keeps repeating everywhere, by the same men, through the same patterns.

Musically, the record follows the drum patterns and bass lines typical of the golden era of British anarcho and peace punk, tracing a lineage to Crass, Poison Girls, Zounds, and some of the more experimental and post-punk acts around that orbit. The labels’ press text mentions a nod to the early ’80s pre-Chumbawamba band Passion Killers, which I haven’t really listened to, but Spont Ar Stad remind me more of obscure ’90s anarcho-punk bands from places like the Netherlands and Switzerland, bands that never really made it into the canon of influential names. There are some really cool bass lines here and interesting songwriting in basically every track, including some subtle folk motives. The production is totally DIY, recorded, mixed, and mastered by the band, which gives the LP a really organic feel. It’s one of those bands whose live sound is almost the same as on record.

Overall, this is a political punk record built from accumulated rage. Not vague punk anger, but the kind that comes from seeing the same violence repeat until naming it becomes an act of defense.