As previously noted, we’ve been awaiting the arrival of the Afterboltxebike cassettes … well, the wait is over … tapes are in hand and we’re stoked! 8 tracks of anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-fascist punk rock …
Here’s a review of the cassette from Razorcake:
“Anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, anti-racist, and one hundred percent communist punk from Nuevo Leon, Mexico. The cover shows the band sitting in front of a table spread out with several classic punk records including Black Flag, Bad Religion, Operation Ivy, and Sick Of It All but their sound is more of the vein of street punk and at their toughest reminiscent of early Fucked Up. The lyrics are all in Spanish and are what you would expect from an anti-authoritarian band with subjects such as killing fascists, living in an exhausting working class society, and the importance of reading (“read to study, read to learn, read to liberate!”) As part of the proletariat, I identify with much of what they’re pissed about, particularly the lyrics in “No Pasaran”: “I’m sick of waking up at 4AM day after day, not to go running, not to eat, not even to watch TV… moonlighting not for fun but for necessity…” That’s me! Good stuff! –Juan Espinosa (Rebel Time)”
We were more than happy to host their 2018 8-song demo on our bandcamp page, and we’re happy to have been able to help ( in collaboration with Incendiario Zine ) to turn the demo into a re-mixed, re-mastered cassette.
The first song I ever heard from the band, « Pavlichenko » tells the story of famed Soviet sniper/nazi-hunter Liudmyla Mykhailivna Pavlychenko. In telling her story, Afterboltxebike also remind us that, in the struggle against fascism, we need to, figuratively and literally, constantly ‘adjust our sights and reload our weapons.’ The songs ends appropriately with a soundbite from Woody Guthrie’s song « Miss Pavilichenko » … « Fell by your gun, yes, Fell by your gun, For more than three hundred Nazis fell by your gun. »
The second song I heard, « De Que Lado Estas? » asks the simple, yet essential and all-important question, ‘Which Side Are You On?’ For Afterboltxebike, the answer (and the way / the path) is clear, you’re either with the bosses or with the oppressed and this band is on the side of the workers/the proletariat/the exploited. Afterboltxebike knows that class struggle is the motor of history.
