Wednesday, October 5: Despair, “Freedom Now”
Despair turned out to be an unusual farm team: drummer Markus Freiwald eventually joined Sodom, and guitarist Waldemar Sorychta would not only end up forming and joining a ton of bands, including the mighty Grip Inc. with Dave Lombardo, but garner significant acclaim and success as a producer, while frontman Robert Kampf’s primary claim to notoriety was founding Century Media. As it happened, History of Hate was one of the label’s first releases, and the only Despair record Kampf sang on. Nonetheless, “Freedom Now” was indicative of both the band’s and label’s output at the time: Sorychta’s riffing and Freiwald’s drumming were beyond frantic, while Kampf shouted lyrics that were likely meant to be politically charged, but actually didn’t make a ton of sense. The song was thrash taken to its technical extreme, with Sorychta in particular stuffing in more notes than any American thrash guitarist would even consider. “Freedom Now” was certainly intense, and remains every bit as relentless as anything released in the last 5 years, but this sort of sound couldn’t sustain itself, and ultimately didn’t, as Despair managed only two more records before disbanding and spreading out to much greener pastures.
