Friday 5 February 2016

Litovsk - s/t Demo Tape


LITOVSK - S/T DEMO TAPE
 (April 1st, 2014, Symphony of Destruction)

Post punk isn’t a genre where you can say something new. It had it’s boom back in late 70s and ended in early 80s. Since 2000 we have a little revival going on but it’s definitely not the same. Now, post punk is pretty much dead. Some classic bands are still recording but slowly waning and waiting for things to end, young bands are nowhere to find... And in this post punk wasteland suddenly appears a new hope. Some Frenchmen from Brest definitely forgot about last three decades and they’re still thinking that post punk is great and alive... Their band is called Litovsk and they started their career back in 2014 with a self titled demo. I’m skeptical when it comes to resurrecting dead genres but when I heard that they are playing on a punk festival near me, I immediately checked out their demo. And I sank in...

   Let's make something clear - I'm not a fan of revival post punk. I like it but I don't feel these classic vibes in it. The revival is closer to brit pop rock. Post punk was meant to be agressive, avant-garde, a step forward from punk, but with many similarities. And this is the recipe for Litovsk music... They describe their music as anarcho post punk and I must agree. It's very pissed off music but without crossing the borders of post punk. We still have this characteristic guitar sound, deep rhytmic bass, and mechanical sound of percussions. With a slight help from great (for a demo) production and really fantastic songwriting skills we get eighteen minutes of great, primal, old school post punk. The demo is very cathcy, some of the songs were stuck in my head for a really long time.

   The best ones are "Negenst" and "Eindeloze Winter", but the whole album is very well done and it's pretty hard to find a bad moments in this music. The reason might be the lenght - eighteen minutes are long enough to show your best bits, but maybe not long enough to show your downsides. But I don't really care. What matters is that this Brest crew is doing surprisingly good post punk.

   Every band must begin their journey in some way. Litovsk's beginning is really, really good and I can't wait to see them live soon. And of course hear some new material. After a demo like this my hopes are quite high.

- Tomek

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