Cripple Bastards / Comrades 7″

This EP came from Paolo SOA’s hazardous idea to mock the Italian scene and make a perfect clone of the legendary Wretched / Indigesti split 7″, one of Italy’s most wanted ’80s Punk/HC records, rare as fuck and supreme in its musical contents. Due to the italian scene turning so vintage in worshipping models from the past, CB and Comrades wanted to exorcize the whole shit by doing this joke-cover-ep.

CB chose to do it with a very unusual line-up (exclusive for this release) which consisted of Entropia + GTB on vocals. We decided to take Wretched’s side and spend a couple months practicing hard, trying to capture any kind of detail from the original… the guitar tuning, the type of production (or the lack of!), even the many mistakes you can hear on the original ’82 work. GTB got mega disappointed after listening to Comrades’ side because they covered Indigesti in their own style screwing up the basic intent of the record, and this gave birth to some quarrels between CB and SOA. Besides the musical thing, GTB was asked to write a mega-offensive insert against the @narconformist italian scene, we expected Comrades to do the same – but they ended publishing a few lines that weren’t crucial at all.

The end result of this record didn’t leave us a good feeling, it sounded too much “take it easy” from the Comrades’ side, and the whole weight of fighting back the scene after reading the insert’s content ended on GTB; as always. Anyway, if you enjoy early italian HC and our previous “Frammenti di vita” cover EP, this is your cup of tea.

To point out a voice from the other side, here’s how SOA introduced the CB tracks (that were later featured on the “Old days nostalgia” 3 x CD):

“The Bastards could easily carry the HATED & PROUD banner, even better than Iron Cross. SOA and the band crossed their existence for a couple of compilations (Pasta Power Violence 1&2) and for this split. The idea of re-making the glorious Indigesti / Wretched EP to mark the stagnancy of Punk-HC was hot, so I just picked a couple of veteran bands. The EP was almost totally similar to the original from 1982, but I doubt some of you have ever seen it, haha. The message inside was pretty strong and direct, especially for the Italian readers whom the Bastards lashed out at violently. The making of the EP caused me some ups & downs with C.B. but in the end it came out in a good way and the relationship with them is still OK. Less than 1000 copies in a couple of different pressings were made and each one had to be stamped 4 different times… the Wretched side covered by CB is almost the same as the original.”