Kalistani Major History

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Kaliburg Punk Scene takes a decidedly non-Pop turn
Critics are already calling Speed crossover variant "Thrasher Metal"
Kaliburg, Ananto
September 18, 5063


Kaliburg Punk Scene, exemplified by the band Alternica adopts denim, long hair as a reaction to poppunk

The bloom is off the poppunk movement of last decade, which reached its zenith at the most recent GanJam in Yoshimi. Dana-affiliated bands have moved on to making more adult oriented records as their audiences begin to enter middle age. Meanwhile, the punk movement, which many proper music critics had hoped would be driven back underground, is slowly re-emerging with a much more gritty sound.

This riff-driven, punk inflected form of hard rock takes elements of metal, hardcore punk, and to some degree protest music, and blends them into a new sound, which is currently being called "speed" by those who play it, but which is derided in the press as "thrasher metal". Most notorious "thrashers" who use the sound are the strongly anti-war speed band Alternica, who formed in Suldanor, but relocated to Kaliburg as they began playing shows, because they preferred the harder edged Kaliburg scene, the Port Swedes speed act Pneumonia, and their brother act Liberal Fascists of Deth, which actually has two members of Pneumonia in it, as well as Kaliburg's MegaDoom and Sulari's speed skatepunk Thrashers. All major speed bands now call Kaliburg their base of operations, regardless of where they began.

"The thing about Speed," said Dave Crewes, lead singer and rhythm guitarist of Alternica, "is that its basically skatepunk just sped up and played with metal tuning. Its like metal you can mosh to, which we know our fans really dig, can you feel me?" In fact, Speed is the new sound in Kaliburg clubs, and dance floors are often raucous affairs where people of all size and disposition slam dance and run into and bounce off of one another. The most common dance move, especially performed by long haired fans of Thrasher Punk is the "headbang" which resembles long haired young men and women banging their heads into an invisible table repeatedly, while their hair follows a split second. It is not uncommon for moshers to end up bloody in the pits of some of these shows.

While most of the content takes a strong ly anti-authoritarian tilt which tends to align politically with the Socialist Party of Kalistan, the topics of songs vary from a criticism of organized religion--a feature of Thrasher's lyrics, for example-- to Alternica's very strongly and explicitly anti-war message. Pneumonia sings primarily about social unity, and stopping those who seek to promote divisions in society, reserving most of their recent fire for the increasingly right wing Kalistani Party, while Liberal Fascists of Deth mock political correctness and social custom that requires individuals to censor themselves. "MegaDoom is apocalyptic," said lead singer Colm Ross. "We really are waiting for it all to just burn down, and things are about to get a lot worse if these nutjobs that are currently in government remain there."

To gage the popularity of Speed, the band Alternica recently signed with KMI to a three record deal. "They said, if we don't hit by the end of three records," said Crewes in August, "then we're free to record with another label. But if we do hit, there's room at this table for all the Speed bands. We're bringing everyone."

With the rise of this harder, more metal infused music in Kalistan, the days of poppunk seem in the past, and another chapter of popular Kalistani Music is opened.