Bomberna Faller Fanzine

At first I thought the band name was a variant of lager, the beer style. Turns out it comes from "the obsolete Afrikaans word 'lager', which in turn comes from the German word 'Lager' and the Dutch 'leger' which also gives English 'leaguer' ("military camp")". Basically it's a defensive formation made up by wagons in a circle (which made me interpret Darkthrone's 'Circle the wagons' in a whole new way, I'm sure everyone else understood it right away but me, haha).

Laager is a Canadian band that plays "crust metal punk". They released a self-titled 11 track EP (Remember when an EP was more than four songs? Good times...) back in 2019, which I mostly ignored because it was leaning too heavily into metal for me - it didn't sound like punk with metal influences but metal with punk influences. This time, however, it's the other way around. 'Total Paranoia' is punk sprinkled with metal (heavy metal I guess, I'm not a metalhead so I don't know how to distinguish different styles that well, but it's melodic and a bit slower than what I imagine "just metal" is). I think I like when punk incorporates pieces of heavy metal more than when they do death metal, actually. I guess my father would be proud (he tried to feed me hard rock during my younger years but I found a Stiff Little Fingers tape in his collection and that was that).

Someone said 'Total Paranoia' reminded them of Nausea, and another that they heard a bit of Amebix. As far as the vocals go, that is. I can see what they mean, I'd want to throw "a faster Tragedy" in there as well, but only certain tracks (and only one of the singers). On paper it also looked like something fans of Inepsy might enjoy, but it's much more aggressive. And some tracks ('Parasites' and 'Northern Terror' mostly) made me think of Kontrovers as they sounded on their last album, 'När Spelreglerna Ändras'. Anyway, enough with the "bands you know of"-comparisons.

Out of the seven tracks there's not a single one that strays of course, they keep at it for the duration of the release and as usual I appreciate that. Especially when they've found a good balance, if you ask me, between melody and speed. There's no lyrics accompanying the files (I have no idea if this is also a physical release, but it's a free download on bandcamp and no mentions of any label or distro) so I have to go only on the sound and the song titles when picking favorite tracks, and those would be 'Aftershock', 'Destroy Reality' and 'Total Paranoia'. Come to think of it, those three are probably the ones mostly resembling "traditional" d-beat crust (plus the added heavy metal), not sure if I'm conservative in my music taste or what but yeah, those are my favorites.

The artwork is done by JawshhNeedSin (warning: instagram (which is owned by Meta) link) and it's... okay! JawshhNeedSin's other work is really fucking cool, it's like a mix of acid art, trolls/goblins and punk. But I guess Laager had specific wishes so the personality is more toned down on the cover.

I really like 'Total Paranoia', as long as I'm in the mood for something a bit more melodic. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes the bands previously mentioned, and if I find this on a tape, vinyl or CD in the future I'll definitely pick it up!

LAAGER - TOTAL PARANOIA