Nostalgia can be a dangerous indulgence.  We can take refuge in valorising the past over dealing with the realities of the present.  Yet, if harnessed positively, it can also be a hugely valuable exercise to draw on the lessons and achievements of the past to better animate our hopes for the future.

This is certainly true of music, where we can be become obsessed with what went before, and fail to appreciate what is happening right now.  But by deepening our understanding of the history of hardcore punk, we can ensure a continuity of understanding that helps anchor its evolution, both musically and politically.

And this week, we have two reissues that have just been repressed that perfectly illustrate this dynamic. Firstly, the career spanning discography of Los Crudos, Discografía Completa, on La Vida Es Un Mus Discos, and then the self-titled 1992 debut album from Post Regiment on Refuse Records.

Los Crudos (The Hungover in Spanish slang, which alluded to the raw exhaustion of life) were a hardcore band from Chicago.  They were renowned for both their politically charged music and resolutely DIY ethics and were active from 1991 to 1998.  At the time of the band’s emergence, the Chicago hardcore scene primarily resided in the city’s largely white, middle-class suburbs.  In contrast, Los Crudos were a product of the inner-city neighbourhood of Pilsen that was predominantly working-class and Mexican heritage in character.

‘Rompen nuestros sindicatos, colectivos, y moviementos, para la prosperidad de su capitalism, su farsa de democracia, sus planes de austeridad, nos deja todos mas pobre, mas rotos’ (Déjanos En Paz) / ‘Destroying our unions, collectives and movements, so that capitalism may prosper, your fake democracy and austerity measures, leave us poorer and helpless’ (Leave Us In Peace)

Sonically, Los Crudos delivered laceratingly fast classic hardcore – short, sharp, aggressive, and bristling with conviction. Lyrically, the band’s concerns were rooted in addressing the issues that confronted their own local community – worker exploitation, rentier greed, day-to-day racism, police violence – and placed them in the context of the wider political environment, particularly centred around themes of anti-immigration politics, violence against women, and state sanctioned terror.

‘Quieren que nos dividamos, entra nacionalidad, color de piel, entre las clases y también el sexo, que alguien se piense major que el resto del mundo’ (Unidad Prohibida) / ‘They want us to be divided, by nationality and skin colour, by class as well as gender, same old stupidity where someone thinks, they are superior to all’ (Forbidden Unity)

The band’s outspoken promotion of these issues at their shows produced a defensive reaction in some quarters, one that Los Crudos refused to bow to.  It did, however, provoke the band to write their only English language song – ‘That’s Right, We’re That Spic Band’ – that confronted the bigotry involved head-on.  It serves to remind us that no matter how welcoming we like to think that the hardcore community is, it often remains the case that bands who bring new perspectives and experiences must often wrestle for acceptance, while being accused of being overly aggressive in claiming their right to be heard.

‘Prawda jest nienawisicią, fabryka klamstw, Czy wierzysz w ich światio, kiedy jeden z nich, Wmawia ci, źe milość to strach, To twoje światio’ (Religia) / ‘Truth is hate, a factory of lies, Do you believe their light when one of them, tells you that love is fear, That is your light’ (Religion)

Of course, in the 1990s, the US at least gave the impression of being comfortable with a contestation of ideas.  For those living under the totalitarian shroud of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, to be a punk carried with it an even more visceral political component.  We often think of Poland as, perhaps, having escaped the worst excesses of the police state.  Yet it is estimated that over 20,000 people were either murdered or disappeared by the state between 1947 and 1989, and the threat of further Soviet intervention always implicitly lurked.

‘Kolejny pusty dzień z kolejką pustych ośob, W ich obcych oczach dokladnie widzę się’ (Slowa O…) / ‘Another empty day with a queue of empty people, In their unfamiliar eyes I see myself precisely’ (Words About…)

It was in this environment that Warsaw’s Post Regiment first formed in 1986.  It was not until after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 that the band was able to record their self-titled debut album, which was released in 1992.  It brims with intensely melodic hardcore punk, upbeat in tempo, yet melancholic in temperament, fuelled by vibrantly virtuosic Polish vocals.

In contrast to the straight-up combativeness of Los Crudos, Post Regiment’s lyrics are more poetically allegorical.  They seek to grapple with the relief of Poland emerging from Soviet control to the uncertainty of the country being plunged into the wild west capitalism that was unleashed across the post-Communist states, and that benefitted no one but the oligarchal class and Western financiers.  The band released three further albums and were active until 2001.  Throughout, they remained passionately committed to the DIY ethics that shaped the formative Polish hardcore punk scene.

So, two bands who both powerfully demonstrated the political impact that DIY hardcore punk can achieve.  And, equally, these reissues remind us of the power of great music to stand the test of time.

The Los Crudos discography was first released in 2015, and this represents its fourth pressing.  It includes the band’s entire recorded output, spanning some 66 tracks, across four full-lengths, five EPs, and a myriad of compilation releases.  It includes a gatefold cover and a forty-page booklet with lyrics and flyers.  The band have made occasional live forays since they called it a day, and members of the band have gone on to play in Canal Irreal, Charles Bronson, and Limp Wrist.

This is the second press of the remastered self-titled debut album from Post Regiment, which was originally reissued in 2024.  It includes a gatefold cover and a 20-page 30cmx30cm colour booklet, which includes lyrics, live photos, and flyers.  Members went on to play in Morus and Ye.stem.