Zine Review: Crash-Test #9

Belgium’s Crash-Test’s September 2025 issue (#9, French, 56 pages) takes the “No futur” message of the early punx and turns it upside down to discuss “No(s) futur(s)” [Our futures]. Broadening the perspectives of the French, then Belgian attempts to bloc the entire countries’ economies earlier in the autumn, it brings a few very “classic” anarcho-punk subjects with a good writing style and an accessible layout. Readers of anarcho-punk zines will understand.

As I wasn’t familiar with the zine when this review was asked of me (as a French reader and anarcho-punk enthusiast), I really appreciated how grounded the zine was: the contributions on perspectives on the future, some in handwritten format, and the more “international” articles, such as translations from Seth Tobocman or Alfredo Bonanno, are met with local preoccupations, reproducing calls for demonstrations from Brussels to Bure (where people still resist the creation of a radioactive-waste disposal site), and a “militant agenda” with the various open hours of Brussels’ radical spaces. This suggests it’s serving local informational purposes and kind of opens up foreign readers such as myself to the Brussels underground, which I knew nothing about before opening this zine.

There’s an introduction to the works of Marxist writer Mark Fisher, an interview with Japan-based noisy solo project REZEKI MUZIK, a text about death in English, and one in Flemish I couldn’t read. Most of the contributions fit the broader topic of “the future,” and if there’s a review section, it’s one page long and kept tidy.

Really the only thing not to appreciate is how the suggested playlist for reading this zine was made as a QR code, though I did imply earlier that it was keeping up with its time as much as a zine could, so yeah…

Get in touch at mag-a-zinne(a)proton.me or visit their website (all issues are available for free download and print-it-yourself) for further information!