Review Summary: Plastika’s debut is pissed-off, paranoid punk panika at it’s best.
There comes a time in every amateur hobbyist reviewer’s life when they must push themselves creatively. Challenge themselves. Just to see if they can do it. Ignoring the ceaseless, nagging voice in their head that questions whether they actually should do it. We reviewers all have our personal summits to climb. For some, it’s writing without using a certain word. For others, writing a succinct, one paragraph summary review. My own mountain, in comparison, might seem ridiculous to some. But let it be known: the fear is very, very real. I’ve stared up the summit multiple times, each time walking away with my tail between my legs. But not this time. No, this time I climb. I may stumble, bumble, fumble, and bungle all the way up, but I’m doing it.
Today’s the day I review a modern, 15-minute hardcore punk album.
Now, some of you (none of you) may be asking yourself: “how in the hell has he not done that yet?” Yes, I’ve reviewed punk releases before, and yes, I spend almost all of what little free time I have searching up punk music that sounds like it was recorded in one take (thank you for noticing). But never one like this. One made up of short, 1-minute songs about politics in the present day. Why? Because I usually have nothing to say. Hardcore punk is probably one of my favorite genres, because it has all of the things that I like. And Croatian band Plastika’s debut record has all of the things I like. It feeds and thrives off of pissed-off energy and speed. Music with a message that’s blunter than a baseball bat. Justified, righteous anger that gives you contact-anger just by listening to it. Lyrics (even when I have to translate it from a language I don’t speak) that cut like a knife. A vocalist whose yells and screams work with the subject matter, instead of against it. Without a solid musical backing, hardcore punk can be a frustrating listen; feeling more like listening to a sermon than music. But Plastika avoids that pitfall by being damn good musicians first and foremost. Amateurish and simple at times, yes. But all great punk should be at least a little messy.
The problem with reviewing a hardcore punk album is that there’s basically nothing I can extrapolate that someone reading the lyrics couldn’t decipher themselves. This is an album explicitly about war and paranoia. A review doesn’t do them justice. I could copy-paste a phrase like “za vrstu što kolje jer ne želi bolje” (“...a species that slaughters because it doesn’t want better”) or “ne mogu letjet sa željeznim krilom, pa ostat ću ovdje i trunut sa stilom” (“I can't fly with an iron wing, so I'll stay here and rot in style”), but the music surrounding it is what makes it click into place and makes you want to hear more. That last line in particular is bolstered later on by the title track “Plastika,” where those with the means are “building rockets to escape from the ozone,” while the rest (i.e. us) are left to deal with the consequences of those people’s pollutant actions. Like a dystopian novel come to life.
Another problem with reviewing a hardcore punk album is trying to end said review. Because, again: what is there to say? Anyone that likes hardcore punk will not be disappointed by Plastika’s s/t. And anyone that doesn’t like it probably didn’t get this far into the review. If anyone that’s read what I’ve wrote here, likes what they see, and hasn’t already gone and grabbed a “name your price” copy on https://plastikazghc.bandcamp.com, then that’s on them. No skin of my nose. I’m just an amateur hobbyist reviewer that reached the top of a mountain.
