HAUST: Backwoods Blackened Oslo Punks Drop Third LP Via Fysisk Format

Three years since their previous album, HAUST are back with their most raw and primitive release to date. A tirade of oxymorons in musical form, in the nine short tracks of NO the listener is pulled back into a time where rock and punk were synonymous with rawness and vulnerability; a worship of total humiliation, of the pleasure in realizing one’s own limitations. Like all outsider music, HAUST celebrates those who walk their own paths; who run away from Sunday School to go berserk in the woods.

The guys in HAUST grew up in Notodden in the hills of Norway, in the shadows of hotrod hicks and the black metal crowd surrounding Emperor. HAUST were never a part of these groups, but were inevitably infected by the mix of white trash and black metal. After HAUST moved to Oslo they were quickly picked up by Tiger Record’s newly started label Fysisk Format. Ride the Relapse was the first album the label released in 1998, and with songs like “White Trash Extravaganza” and “Ugly Fucking Oslo” the band became a focal point and defining reference for like-minded people in Oslo. The follow-up release Powers of Horror from 2010 is a more complex record, the band’s visibility grew internationally, the band scoring a tour with Rotten Sound and Trap Them. Their “Anti-Reproductive” agenda spread and the band ironically became the source of a load of new bands: the milieu that quickly was named “Black Hole Crew” spewed out shady bands like Okkultokrati, Dark Times and Blackest Woods. All these bands had two things in common: Primarily disgust for the choking chummery in Oslo’s music scene, and secondarily, they all featured members or production help from HAUST.

After two records and splits with Okkultokrati and Next Life, HAUST were on the verge of decay and dissolve. The deliverance that led to NO came in the form of two new drummer Øystein Wyller Odden (Uniforms & Dropouts) and bassist Henrik Myrvold (Evolve, Raging Fugitives). An old friend Jørn Tore Egseth was brought in to play keyboard and mix the record with guitarist and riffmaestro Pål Bredrup, and Dark Times’ Ann Kristin Traaen provides vocals on the title track and “Into The Night”. Full of new ideas and drive, NO was created in two short weeks full of arguing, distrust and rehearsal. When the time for the actual recording session, the studio technician at Malabar in Oslo barely had time to put on the coffee before the band were done: In one hour, everything was put to tape. That was all it took for the record to be, in the words of the opening track, “Trashy and tasteful. Pure and hateful. Raw rudimentary rage”.

NO was mastered by Dave Eck at Lucky Lacquers and features artwork by Esben Titland. The video for the album’s title track features HAUST guitarist Pål Bredrup (also of Okkultokrati) and was directed by vocalist Vebjørn, who states about the song: “NO is about loving the world that exploits you and wanting to die because of it.”

NO Track Listing:
1. Raw Material
2. Swells
3. Let It Die
4. No
5. Into The Night
6. Night
7. Mantra
8. Death Drive
9. Dead of Night

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http://www.fysiskformat.no
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