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Ratos De Porão: Anarkophobia
17/09/09 || Habakuk
I have the impression everyone in Brazil, but no-one outside of Brazil knows this band, except for the select few that have read their name on one of Max Cavalera’s shirts on some vintage Sepultura footage or those who really enjoyed Sepultura’s cover of “Crucificados pelo sistema” on “Blood-rooted”. Like me. So when a friend of mine moved to Brazil for a year, I told him to bring back any R.D.P. CD he could find, and among other stuff he picked up this shitty re-release double-CD with “Brasil” and “Anarkophobia” that doesn’t even have a booklet. Didn’t matter so much to me because he also brought an original, non-re-release version of “Dawn of possession”, and I salute him for that because he’s not even into metal, really, and had no idea what a perfect purchase that was. So, very well done. And R.D.P. are the shit, too. Or are you more comfortable with RxDxPx? I’m not. Fuck x’s.
So, what is this? Anticapitalist punk rock in Portuguese? Anticapitalist yes, punk rock no – on Anarkophobia, it’s more like punk-infused thrash metal. Portuguese yes. They used to be more or less full-on punk in their early days (see the aforementioned cover song), but obviously their influence on Sepultura kind of reversed and they introduced a healthy dose of thrash metal into their repertoire sometime around 1989/“Brasil” themselves, giving their material a sound that resembles D.R.I.-style crossover thrash in the best way possible and with songs now mostly reaching 3 to 4 minutes length. Some time after this phase, they turned towards a more hardcore sound by the way, but a very good one. Anyway, let’s stay with “Anarkophobia” for the time being, which doesn’t hide the fact that it was released one short year after “Thrashzone”.
The singer is more on the deep throaty bellowing Max Cavalera side of things than that annoying higher-pitched yelling commonly found in crossover thrash bands, and that gives R.D.P. a little edge over their US forerunners in my book. Nothing beats this sort of vocals in combination with Spanish or Portuguese lyrics. If you speak Portuguese, the lyrics are clearly comprehensible, but I don’t get much more than “Revoluçao”, “educaçao”, “ascençao”, “mundo capitalista” etc. Still, that’s probably the better option over dodgily translated lyrics. “Mad society” is the only song in English, and I have to say I enjoy the Portuguese lyrics a lot more. Apparently, there’s a Roadrunner version of this album in English, too, but I’m in the comfortable position to enjoy the real deal. With a bit of Latin knowledge it’s actually not too hard to get what the lyrics are about (well, not in my lyric-less “booklet”, but there’s always the Internet).
Also, there are instruments!
The guitars and drums are what gives “Anarkophobia” the strong D.R.I. vibe with catchy riffs that mix palm-muted thrashing and some open punk playing backed up by flawless but pretty generic drumming (with a tad bit of double-bass thrown in for good measure), which has the typical hollow Harris Johns-production drum sound, but Johns was probably the one to go if you wanted to sound thrashy back then. And the album doesn’t sound bad by any means, better than “Thrashzone” for sure. It could use some more punch, but oh well. The guitars make up for it with a pretty dry and crunchy sound and considerable low-end as well as piercing high notes. And they’re competently played at that, with fun half-time riffs and a couple punky outbursts. Downside? Almost no bass, really, and when you get to hear it, it has a rather dull sound to it. Poor Jabá. You have to get new R.D.P. to hear bass (lots of it), but by then, Jabá wasn’t in the band anymore but had supposedly moved to his distant relative on Tatooine.
Other than that, the band is still alive, kicking ass and branding swastika-suit wearing corporation cut-throats with anarchy logos, though they have evolved a bit from where they were in 1990. This album is great for anyone that’s a sucker for old school (crossover) thrash and enjoys non-English vocals.
- Information
- Released: 1990
- Label: Eldorado/Roadracer
- Website: Ratos de Porão MySpace
- Band
- João Francisco Benedan “João Gordo”: vocals
- João Carlos Molina Esteves “Jão”: guitar
- Jarbas Alves “Jabá”: bass
- Nelson Evangelista Jr. “Spaghetti”: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Contando os mortos
- 02. Morte ao rei
- 03. Sofrer
- 04. Ascensão e queda
- 05. Mad society
- 06. Ódio
- 07. Anarkophobia
- 08. Igreja universal
- 09. Commando
- 10. Escravo da TV
