War//Plague – The Rot Thickens

The gloom of war and capitalism, the tragic victims who feed the brutal, oppressive machine with blood and fuel, are fundamental components of the aesthetics of crust punk. The leading bands in the history of the genre have always had the cursed talent, with distortion, dirty riffs, and relentless d-beats, to compose sonic havoc that transmits, as much as possible, obviously, the emotions they deal with. Veterans War//Plague, from the crust-loving Minneapolis, also one of the most important groups in the subgenre of the last 15 years, return with their 13th release, which serves as a reaction to what is happening worldwide.

Three years after the seminal Manifest Ruination, War//Plague unleash a new sonic assault with their new full-length, The Rot Thickens. I hope that the album’s name, at this point, has also reminded you of The Plot Sickens by His Hero Is Gone. As in Carrion (2016), Into the Depths (2018), as well as its predecessor, the new album traces a familiar sonic trajectory. The riffs remain impressively sharp, the guitar leads sound so calculated that when they appear within the chaos, they are highly functional. The rhythms are consistently up-tempo, but always with the right fluctuations so that, for 27 minutes, you never lose interest.

War//Plague, masters of their craft, know how to maintain tension while their songs are never lacking in substance. The crustcore lineage of their sound and scene harnesses the inspirations of the four-piece, and thus the opening “Reckoning” sounds as voluminous and dramatic as but a few thrash moments of today’s music. If there is one characteristic that slightly differentiates The Rot Thickens from its predecessors, it is its stench-ier approach at times, as indicated by tracks such as “Sacrifice.” The band’s metal punk extensions return on the haunted “Stench,” but at no time do the Minneapolis band lose their identity. The eight tracks on the album are ideally combined; their homogeneity is a fundamental component of the band’s aesthetic, while any detailed differentiations emerge organically. The flattening that comes from the speakers is as noisy as required, thanks to the excellent production and mixing.

The Rot Thickens doesn’t waste a single second. War//Plague once again combine inspiration, love, and experience, imbuing them into tracks that, upon first listen, make it clear they came from the rage, the indignation, the reaction, the ability, but most of all the sincerity and honesty, that characterize a relentless dedication to the values and holistic approach of DIY punk music. As the titanic “Regurgitate” plays, with its reaping guitars tearing down everything in their path, I remember this slogan: “Punk is protest.”

With the world decaying in fire, missiles, deportations, fascism, and blind violence, despair and cynicism are spreading like a pandemic. In this social climate, it is vital that the radical punk underground continues to create, communicate, converse, and fight back against romantic or pragmatic depictions of a self-destructive world. It is crucial that punk remains a beacon of light against the darkness of false narratives, post-truth, and social cannibalism. The Rot Thickens carries with it the timeless politicized momentum of crustcore, and nothing can stop it. War//Plague are still the best crust band on the other side of the Atlantic, and The Rot Thickens is one of the releases of the year in sound.

A Greek version of the review was published in Rocking.gr.