After having been fairly disconnected from the Crust (Classic Crust, NeoCrust, Dark Hardcore...) music scene for several years, my visit to Berlin last year (where unlike other times I found a lot of posters of Crust concerts by new German bands like Unquiet...) restored my interest in Crust.
Back at home I did some myspace research and learnt about the new German (Neo)Crust scene, formed by bands like Unquiet, Alpinist, Finisterre... and then some great memories came to my mind about one the best German Crust records I had never listened, a record that sounded in my now defunct turntable innumerable times in 2002, Jeniger's self titled Lp. I got the Lp from one shelf (where it had remained untouched since I moved away from HardCore, Crust... years ago) I tasted again the magical-awful design, that so well matches the depressive, anguished lyrics...
I tried to find the record to download, but, believe it or not, it was nowhere...
I discovered on the way some great Crust-Hardcore download blogs with some very hard to find records, I found all sort of Jeniger 7 inches (some of them I was absolutely unaware of, other ones were part of my collection, like their first, raw, primitive, delicious, "Disrupt's first rehearsals like" "Drink your tea") but this fucking Lp seemed to have been banished from the digital world.
Today, for some reason, I decided to try again, and YES!!! google (well, the nice guys of Ruin Nation, one of the labels that released the record back in 2002) made my day.
I've been listening to it as I read those incredible lyrics, and it's so great, it brings me great (not so) distant memories that I can combine in my head with things I've learnt since then, and that makes me realize of how we evolve, how past and present embrace each other so that we can dream of the future...
This record is as good as I renembered it. Dark Crust, influenced by His Hero is Gone and the likes, but not too much, it sounds more punk than those bands. Vocals are some of the best I can think of, spitting those dramatic lyrics just in the right place with the right strength. Lyrics are really important for me in this record, they transmit a feeling of desolation, loneliness and despair like few other bands have managed to convey. They absolutely match the music (or viceversa), creating such a gloomy, depressive atmosphere...
FOR THIS TIME
the same old thoughts come to my head when I'm standing at the cliff
always the same question: commit suicide or live
for what it's worth to live in a state of compromise
not doing the things you really want to do
not being able to show your real thoughts and feelings
hold back by your own fears and your surrounding
castrating your personality day by day
wasting time by living in the past and dreaming of tomorrow
the same old thoughts come to my head when I'm standing at the cliff
always the same question: commit suicide or live
suicide or live
the sun is going down
the stars begin to shine
the sea is rolling on
and so do I for this time
but I really don't know why
That song is striking, a punch direct to your face from someone so fucked up to undress his soul so deeply on a paper and then with strength enough to carry on with his life, with his band...
Living an unhappy life in a city you hate, in a society that rejects you as much as you despise her... Feelings of a wasted life from which you try to escape but that seems to walk towards asylum or suicide...
Yes, these topics are fucked, and make me feel bad as they remind me of some of my own miseries, but at the same time are terribly vital, cause if a bunch of angry people that seem so disenchanted with everything are able to create such a piece of pure beauty like this record, then things are much better than we think, and some hope still exists...
Something that had called my attention at the time and has done it again is that they have a lyric that sort of deals with a broken relationship (well, maybe there's some extra metaphor here), that is rather new to me in a crust band:
FOR NO-ONE
where we've lost each other we will never meet again
just starring at each other with bounded hands
sweet melody of death in my ears again
just echos of the past whose sources faded away
I will send you kisses from a foreign land
I will send you kisses with a black rose in my hand
I'm missing an Apfelschorle now.
I've added below a pic with the complete lyrics:
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