MAXIMO VOLUMEN: inyecciones por el bul.

If you're from Spain, you'll listen to Eskorbuto and La Polla Records around the age of 12 or so, even if that's all the contact you'll ever make with punk rock, they're kind of an institution here, even my mom throws the name 'Eskorbuto' around when she wants a cliché band name to describe the shit her son is into.
It's also pretty usual that you eventually end up neglecting those bands when you get into American hardcore. So all the interest that classic Spanish punk has been getting in the past few years from the scenester elite is pretty baffling to say the least. The funny part is seeing people jock stuff like Cocadictos or Morticia Y Los Decrepitos which was never that good to begin with and would never warrant any interest if it wasn't for their 'classic third world rare punk status', the actually FUN part is seeing that classic style being picked up by bands like Peligro Social or Deskonocidos and done very very well.
Anyway, it's pretty amazing that with all the interest in the genre, when even the super rare (and RAW!!) Delirium Tremens demo has been repressed, the hordes of MRR-worshipping youngsters STILL don't name drop the MAXIMO VOLUMEN demo like it's going out of style. Very little is known about this band, and their only recorded output seems to be this mysterious 1987 demo (there's rumours about an unreleased 7", but nothing is confirmed), which showcases their crazy, over the top manic energy, totally under the influence of then contemporary American (esp. early C.O.C., Septic Death and the Venice Beach scene) and Italian hardcore, specially when it comes to singer Riski's ripping vocals, which definitely bring to mind Negazione. According to my sources, the band was formed by ex-members of other bands from Girona like Exterminio, Diskordia, Vomitos Clandestinos, Kritenio or ADR/Atake De Ruido, and later morphed into Hugger Mugger when Riski quit the band.



Even though the crude recording adds a layer of sloppyness to the whole tape, the band is a lot tighter than earlier Spanish hardcore bands (i.e. Antidogmatikss, L'Odi Social..), and even manage to construct songs that go a bit beyond the verse-chorus-verse,and seem to have a thing for slower intros, constant tempo shifts, and lengthy songs (all but one of the 11 songs are over 2 minutes long).



Lyrically, they are pretty much what you'd expect from a mid 80's hardcore band: blatant socio-political statements, often viewed from a deeply dark and twisted philosophical perspective (another aspect shared with Italian hc), bloating everyday situations into grandiose horror stories. This reaches it's maximum expression in "El mas pequeño" a traumatic childhood experience narrated in over 5 minutes of slow, dark, brooding hardcore. which could very well be the Spanish equivalent of Jerry's Kids 'raise the curtain'. It's not, however the top hit of the tape, this being "Transportes públicos" a raging, vicious attack on the local transport authorities, which extorts the listener to avoid fare whenever possible, making it seem like the most epic of ordeals:

Don't pay, they're ours.
They're ours, they're a public service.
If no one payed, the train conductor wouldn't dare step in,
and then, we would have won the final battle,
our battle.

I hate it when people spoil movies for me, so I won't give you a song-by-song rundown of this, since I don't want to ruin the discovery of the wonderful world of love and rage contained within, but I feel I must quote one of the songs' ('Discordia') lyrics to give you a little tidbit that will help you understand better what to expect from this demo and, what the hell, from life itself:

Fuck the system, fuck it good,
it's a goddamn discordance.


Besides the band itself, singer Risky later fronted the band Youth Spirit, which apparently played instrumental Slapshot covers (?) and also ran Anaconda Records, a small extreme music label/distro, which gave birth to countless rumours and anecdotes throughout the 1990's about his legendary persona (including him cooking Youth Of Today some paella) and the insane reviews in his mailorder catalogs, and then disappeared from the scene. A few years ago, I was working at a record shop and while processing a credit card payment I noticed the name...yes, it was Risky himself. I had been brought up in the scene hearing about this man, and now there he was, in front of me, wearing a Judge longsleeve and looking after his baby daughter. I shivered, introduced myself and mentioned how much me and my friends worshipped his band. He smiled shyly, as if he was embarrassed of having been involved in this piece of history, and said that "that was too long ago, I barely remember myself", but still thanked me for the praise. I told him he should reissue the demo, and he laughed while waving goodbye.


Maximo Volumen - demo 1987


Also, 90s hc nerds will remember E150 covered Maximo Volumen's "Locura de guerra" on their 1996 split with Ivich.

Believe the hype.



Note: this post would have never been the same without the wealth of information and images passed on to me by Edu from One Chord. Thanks!!