Battle Of Wolf 359 – Tour Demo

Arthur Cayzer: I guess I could have picked any of their records, although they didn’t have that many. This is the one that I bought the first time I saw them play at Ramparts in Whitechapel, which was a squat venue. It was a time when I was starting to get very disaffected with the more mainstream hardcore scene, and listening to stuff that was more in the range [of Battle Of Wolf 359], which was skramz, for want of a better word. I hate genre names; people even refer to this band as emo violence, the worst genre name ever. But anyway, I was completely blown away seeing them, I still remember that night more than most gigs I’ve seen. I went in with that disaffection for heavier in music in general, feeling like I was just hearing the same thing over and over again, but then being blown away by the raw power and emotion of their performance. They played this one track and I bought their demo, really hoping it would be on there, and it was. I wish that the production was a bit better because it’s very, very raw, but musically it’s so good.

The London hardcore scene at that time was not super big, and as a result, it kind of had to cater to all tastes, basically. And the big taste was this really beat down hardcore that was never really my thing. I was more into the US straight edge bands. I was also getting into dance music at that time in quite a big way, so I guess I felt jaded with stuff. But this band really kind of changed things for me, at least momentarily.