V/A – Oi! Ain’t Dead 7
Rebellion Records
After an all-American and an all-British edition, the (already!) seventh installment in Rebellion Records’ “Oi! Ain’t Dead”-series is taking us to… The Netherlands! Reminding me of the early days when the label’s roster nearly existed out of Dutch bands, like Badlands, Knockdown, Banner Of Thugs, Get Out and – of course – Razorblade, “Oi! Ain’t Dead 7” delivers the new wave of Holland’s close shave with four killer bands!
Surprising friend and foe with last year’s “Trench Warfare” 12”, Savage Beat has been taking over turntables around the world by storm! With their Chiswick guitars and – indeed – savage beats, the lads from Amsterdam deliver an unreleased track from the “Trench Warfare”-session (“Stop Trying”), “Revenge” from that very same 12” and an unreleased Filth cover – “Don’t Hide Your Hate”! Excellent, though I didn’t expect anything less from this ‘77/pub/proto-Oi! outfit!
Up next is one of my favorite bands of the moment – the Dutch-American war machine Live By The Sword! The band’s full-length debut is currently in the works and it would probably take an apocalypse to make sure that it won’t be my favorite record of 2019, but for now I’ll have to settle with the all new “Fire”, a cover of The Templars’ “Pawns In Their Game” and a re-recorded, even more brutal sounding, version of “Rats And Snakes”. Sick!
Fan of early Perkele, The Veros or The Janitors? Then it’s time to check out The Reapers! Though their full-length debut “Rip It Up” is being finalized as we speak, this exciting new band managed to squeeze out three more scorchers, exclusively for “Oi! Ain’t Dead 7”! Clean guitars, barking vocals, massive sing-alongs and 100% aggro - killer stuff with “I’ve Had Enough”, “Self-Destruction” and – I’ve must have heard this song a 100 times already – “Thought Control”!
The last to deliver three songs is Complaint, who – based on the tracklist of releases – have released the most songs of the four. To this list we can now add two new ones, namely “That’s No Punk” and “Leave Me Alone”, while “Take A Stand” was previously released on the same-titled CD in 2016. With a crude and straight forward hybrid of Oi! and hardcore, the boys from Tilburg stamp and stomp their way through their quarter of “Oi! Ain’t Dead 7” with “Leave Me Alone” being my favorite – great sing-along!
Yet another killer compilation in the “Oi! Ain’t Dead”-series! Now go and get it, because aside of the above, “Oi! Ain’t Dead 7” also features an unreleased – yet familiar – Razorblade cut as a bonus! I can see the signs of a new dawn rising…
