- In Dog Years You're Dead is the first full length album from Sydney hardcore band Canine. They have, mind you, been around for a while. They've put out a couple of split 7"s, as well as demo release back in 2013. They are also familiar faces from Australia's DIY punk community - singer Tara-Jayne for a long time fronted hardcore band Circuits but also has run the record labels Yellow Ghost and One Brick Today. Guitarist Tristan also plays in much-loved doom-crust band Thorax, while drummer John has been in so many bands I doubt he could even keep count.
One thing that's notable about In Dog Years You're Dead compared to those earlier releases is that while their artwork had been that classic crust-punk aesthetic of black and white line drawings, this album cover features the band members all dressed in black, but having a tea party with photoshopped dog heads. The title also reflects a sense of humour present in the album.
There is something inherently humourous about crust-punk - it's rock music taken to the absolute extremes of heaviness. Played at ridiculous speed, volume and dropped tunings; vocals communicated through unintelligble growls. It's like it's taking the piss out of traditional ideas of musicality. Yet it's a style that is hardly known for it's light-heartedness - all that dark imagery and songs about the apocalypse not leaving much room for smiles.
Canine might be a bit of an exception. A lot of those crust characteristics are still there, but they are mixed in with a love of cheesy classic rock riffs, solos and wah-wah pedals - a bit of a winking acknowledgement that you can be a hardcore punk and still love those classic rock tropes.
It's funny then, in still another way, that on this record that element of Canine's sound seems to have been toned down a bit. It's more of a straightforward crust sound of relentless breakneck hardcore. There are still a few guitar hero moments - the riffs of Broken and Laying In Wait being good examples. The breakdown in Rain could almost be described as surf rock. The album opens with slow and theatrical riffs and similarly closes with the doom of Hush before fading into minimal piano chords.
Maybe in toning down the solos Canine have lost a bit of what made them distinctive. But In Dog Years You're Dead is a very enjoyable twenty minutes of brutal and sludgy crust punk, as you would expect from pups of this pedigree.
- Andy Paine.