Album of the day: V/A Cry Now, Cry Later Vol 2

While the 90’s Bay Area grind/”power violence” scene has (deservedly) gotten a decent amount of attention lately via things like Decibel inducting my homies SPAZZ into their Hall of Fame, I feel like their LA counterparts haven’t gotten quite as much love. While the 90’s Bay Area scene is and was near and dear to my heart, there is something really special about the LA scene’s grimier and decidedly more metal take on “power violence.”

And when it comes to that era/scene, there is no better snapshot of it than the 1994 compilation Cry Now Cry Later Vol 2. It was originally released on two 7″s on Pessimiser/Theologian (an imprint label founded by Chris Elder of DESPISE YOU), later reissued on CD, and in my personal opinion is probably the single best release of the entire “power violence” scene– a true fucking classic in every sense of the word.

I want to take a moment to give huge props to Chris for actually putting this thing together, because a) basically nobody else (besides Chris Dodge) gave a fuck about any of these bands back then, and if he didn’t put this comp out then a lot of them would probably never have seen the light of day and b) they were mostly a bunch of marginal fuckups and it must have been a huge pain in the ass to do it. I also really appreciate how much time and attention went into the packaging and presentation– the CD reissue doesn’t do it justice, but you can see scans of the whole thing on Discogs. And last but not least, thanks to him for being cool to me when I was an annoying high school kid who wrote him letters back in the day.

Anyway, with the slurping of Chris’ balls out of the way, here are my favorite tracks from the comp:

“Sangre De Ninos,” my single favorite FEAR FACTORY song (under the code name “FACTORIA DE MIEDO”).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JHEhwHPGm4

EXCRUCIATING TERROR were legends of the 90s LA backyard party grindcore scene, and imo this is the best thing they ever recorded. It’s the perfect level of filthiness and this song absolutely destroys– it’s as brutal as you can get without just turning into noise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNoKZ5HfVUw

One of Dave Witte’s (MUNICIPAL WASTE, HUMAN REMAINS, DISCORDANCE AXIS, etc) least-known projects is IABHORHER. As far as I know they only recorded 3 songs: this one and the two that ended up on their Slap-A-Ham 7″ which is fucking impossible to find. Very crushing, groovy death metal like if early INCANTATION was actually catchy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqt0qSCjFow

I’m happy to see that a fair amount of Kids These Days seem to be aware of DYSTOPIA, and this is the song that got me into them back in the day. So catchy! BTW, anyone know what Mauz is up to these days? He was also really nice to me when I was an annoying high school kid.

And last but definitely not least we have this crusher from DESPISE YOU. This band can basically do no wrong in my eyes, and are probably tied with NO COMMENT as the best band of the era. If you haven’t tracked down their “West Side Horizons” CD, you’re fucking up– one of my top 5 hardcore releases of all time, easily.