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CRUELSTER - Nuclear World
Cruelster - Bricktown - April 2024
STRANDED IN CLEVELAND, OHIO
This was originally an optional addition to Stitches in my Head Fanzine #9, and was sent as a love letter to Distort fanzine in 2015 by Christina of Blow Blood Records. I’m so happy it’s finally up online! This was around the time that I was going to shows like every day, working at shitty whole foods, and drinking way too much with my friends. A wonderful time to be alive in Cleveland, OH!
This mix made me realize just how much i miss some of these bands. Rubbermate was definitely my favorite at the time (I even commemorated my love for them with a RUBBER stick n poke). The second half of this mix are bands that are related to Blow Blood but aren’t specifically cleveland bands, although I guess it was the other way around on the original release. Christina has amazing taste in pretty much everything and this whole tape is a barn burner to say the least! Listen/download/support the homies during these insane days we’re living in.
Listen/purchase: potatoe boys LP by cruelster
Found these weirdos recently and I really love them. Give them a listen if you like fast, weird, aggressive punk from Ohio.
Cruelster, Riot Boys (Lumpy, 2018)
Wherever you come from, whatever your culture is, there’s a strain of dumb in there somewhere. We all have that stupid gene, both personally and as communities. But there’s only one culture that elevated idiocy to an art form, and that’s the culture of the United States of America. Nobody is as good and fun and entertaining at being complete fucking morons as the Americans. Cruelster is a punk band from Cleveland, Ohio and with Riot Boys they distilled a perfect ode to American stupidity.
The album opens with a cold open, like a comedy show, with somebody reading a very detailed and disturbing death threat to the editor of a Captain America comic book. And then the circus starts. 18 minutes of perfect Cleveland punk, whose heritage can definitely be traced back to stalwarts of the Clevo sound like the Homostupids, the Darvocets, or Brainwashed Youth. But Cruelster aren’t just the latest band carrying on the tradition, they’re really giving it a personal spin.
Musically, they’re just fun as fuck. Sounding like a bunch of big macho hardcore guys trying to play spazzy art-punk, they often alternate childish singsong exploits with driving, grotesquely pissed-off KBD-style explosions. But the really interesting part is the lyrics. Using English in creatively basic, ignorant way, they paint little vignettes where stupidity travels to the verge of cruelty.
Far right enthusiasts, soldiers, conspiracy theorists, politicians and local radio nuts pop up on this record in an endless parade of nitwits, it’s like American Gladiators meets Black Mirror—but there’s no sense of superiority in these grooves, this ain’t no American Idiot. The butt of the joke, ultimately, is the heartless, ruthless system. This is like Crass or the Dead Kennedys, but in a world that has to deal with the existence of Alex Jones. Use Riot Boys as a seance to summon your inner dumbfuck through laughter and fight together against the powers that be.
Click here to listen to Riot Boys on YouTube.
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https://totalpunkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/like-a-buzz-7
knowso like a buzz 7”
CRUELSTER, 2018