Amebix - No Sanctuary

AMEBIX – NO SANCTUARY

From the Spiderleg label came a 7 track, 12” EP by Amebix entitled No Sanctuary, that in a way was far more suited to the general mood of the time due to it being very dark and bleak. With this record Amebix were finally discovering and revealing their own unique sound and in hindsight were actually on their way to creating a whole new musical genre, combining Punk and Heavy Metal to create Crust – a slow but very powerful and heavy form of Punk Rock plumbing sub-Black Sabbath areas of gloom, outrage and horror.

Like a tortured and distorted Discharge on bad drugs, Amebix were emitting an almighty howl of rage from the innermost core of their beings; racked with pain and sick with the state of the world: “And in our ignorance we let them take control, and in their wisdom they decreed that we should bow. When we put our lives into their hands, we put our hands into their chains,” from the track Control, and “They lead you to your slaughter like they lead a horse to water. They can't force you to drink – but you do,” from the track Progress.

Not that Amebix were without humour, however, as shown in such lines as “Roses are red, sometimes violets are blue but we're always puking on cider and glue,” from the track Sunshine Ward. Interestingly, their sense of humour was reminiscent of Disorder's as in “Vomiting green- haired Punks standing on the dole. No money, no clothes, no place left to go,” from Today's World on the Complete Disorder EP. This made sense, however, due to Amebix and Disorder sharing the same squats (and the same drugs) in Bristol.

Disorder were by this time well on their way to being an influence upon squat Punk bands throughout the world whilst Amebix's time was still to come though their influence would eventually turn out to be far greater.

Disorder

DISORDER

Punk was once again mutating and now with the added Discharge factor it was spawning a new breed of bands far noisier and far more ragged than any that had ever gone before, no better illustrated than in Disorder, from Bristol.

When first starting out, the Sex Pistols had been cast as 'Dickensian urchin types' and though Johnny Rotten had the demeanour to fit this description it shouldn't be forgotten that a lot of their clothes were being supplied from Malcolm McLaren's and Vivienne Westwood's clothes shop. Disorder, on the other hand, were feral youths dressed in greasy rags that in no way could even be described as 'Oxfam chic' because Oxfam would never have accepted these kind of clothes in the first place.

On their return from their first tour of America, The Clash had traded in their zips and bondage Punk clothes for dark suits and trilby hats; Joe Strummer declaring at the time: "We don't walk around with green hair and bondage trousers any more. We just like to look, sort of, flash these days."

Disorder were as far from 'flash' as a band could probably get, creating a sound to compliment their tramp-Punk style that was so seemingly simplistic yet so energised that they too would go on to influence a swathe of new bands themselves.

Their début EP, Complete Disorder, captured perfectly the spirit of the lifestyle that they and their friends were leading, revolving around squatting, drugs, gigs and protests. These were the first real steps towards adopting Punk as a sub-cultural way of life, grounded in poverty yet enthused by Punk as a vehicle into alternatives to the mainstream. The social make-up of this scene was as probably to be expected, pretty disparate; the main bond being a love of Punk Rock and a penchant for drugs, be it alcohol, glue, tuinol or even heroin.

Come the release of Disorder's second EP, Distortion To Deafness, the heights of Punk delirium were scaled with tumbling drums, thudding bass, screeching feedback and screaming; almost obliterating the lyrics within: "Come to the gigs and you have a fight, and that's fine until you're doing time. Anarchy means this: do what the fuck you want. If you wanna fight, then you're gonna fight. But there must be more than fights? Must be more than fights, must be more than fights..."

Over time, protest and creativity would become less important factors to the Bristol squat-Punk scene as (no doubt driven by the hardship of the lifestyle) drug abuse would become the raison d'etre and noise become a way of blocking out the world so as not to hear it. For a short moment at least, however, early Disorder gigs were wild celebrations of a pure freedom through screaming and sheer fuzzed-out noise, forging an almost proto Punk-nirvana experience, particularly when performing the Pistol's Anarchy In The UK in their inimitable Disorder manner.