Fascists, regimes and state sponsored genocide and it isn’t even 1939. 2025 is currently in a scary place and it has been mentally draining for most of us that are watching this all going down. Music has been a salvation and politically charged tracks an anathema to throw our ire and rage into. SchkeuditzerKreuz have released the single “Sirens Of Death” from the new album Swan Grinder that drops at the end of August.
Photo by PHOTOYUNIST
Beware the dogs of war and if you don’t like harsh rhythms and screaming electronics, only matched by the vociferous bald man, KierenHills, then maybe sit this one out. The beats are the rattling of the machine guns and the klaxons herald in the injustice of conflict on huge scales. ‘We have always been at war‘ is the observation, which is carried through in the amazing video, that over the last hundred years the world has seen so much unrest and the cycle is continuing.
For those that say music should not be political, you can renounce any alternative ties you have and then fuck off with the Nazi scum. There is no middle ground and this world needs voices of dissent. Hills is one of those genuine people that feels everything and in true punk style, tells it like it is. Previous Schkeuditzer Kreuz music has been more like blunt force trauma, but this single is more like cold fuelled angst, funnelled into a controlled tsunami… powerful and undeniable in its fury. “Sirens Of Death” is the industrial synth d-beat we need and Schkeuditzer Kreuz delivers.
November has seen the release of the split single from SchkeuditzerKreuz (Aust) and DecideToday (USA), with the vinyl on Nambour label Bad Habit Records, in the wilds of the Sunshine Coast, North of Brisbane.
“Last year, mid-winter, I did a quick tour run up to Bellingen and Lismore (NSW, Australia). The Lismore gig was something we booked in a Hall out of town and was kind of a make-up gig for one that got scuttled by the plague a couple years earlier. On the bill was Sniffer Dog and Toecutter – someone I had met in Melbourne when he played with Dark Horse, and someone I was keen to make noise with again. At that gig he said to me “you have to meet my friend Robert – your music, your attitude, your touring all match each other so well” and he gave me the contact. So, I reached out and Robert jumped straight in.” – Kieren Hills/Schkeuditzer Kreuz
Schkeuditzer Kreuz
Decide Today
The one track from d-beat, synth-crust master, Schkeuditzer Kreuz, is the cloying “Choke,” and this slower track feels like the air is being dragged out of your lungs. It lurches zombie like at times, and then becomes full of rage and destructive conviction as Hills lets us into his head and what clinical depression can be like when it isn’t a good day.
Decide Today has two tracks, with the first being “Revolutionary Reason (WorldwideIntifada),” and you can smell the sweat in the swarming mosh pit as the beats come in thick and furious. The indignation is palpable with a whole bunch of cleverly cut sound clips strung together, culminating in the powerful hushed tones that the genocide of the Palestinian people is wrong. The second track “The Shit Punx Hate” hits you full throttle, making you start, and then you are serenaded by the list of things that punks dislike such as racism, authoritarians and Nazis, while the rhythms have nail bombed into your psyche and pierced your head.
“Toecutter must have met Kieren and insisted we start talking. Our common ground in music, and the culture surrounding it, was immediately evident. Earlier this year Kieren proposed the split 7” via Bad Habit, which of course I had to say yes to such circumstances, and I mentioned also wanting to get back to Australia at some point. The next day Kieren asked if I was for real, and started planning the tour. I am incredibly thankful to my new friend, Borg at Bad Habit, and Dave (Toecutter) for getting us connected.” – Robert Inhuman/Decide Today
Baron Von Borg is the bloke that runs Bad Habit Records, who is a punk, a punk musician and a connoisseur of music from the top of his head, to the tips of his toes and someone I have a lot of time for. It isn’t surprising that he is in the middle of this whirlwind.
This is a marriage of ferocious punk attitude, punching with a fist full of electronics.
Australian’s love claiming New Zealander’s as our own, and quite frankly, the talented KierenHills is no exception. His crust punk, crossed with industrial stylings with the project SchkeuditzerKreuz, is perched to release a new full length album on the 25th of August, named NoLifeLeft, and a packed tour of Europe, over this September and October (which is well worth every cent). For now, you are able to listen to “SecondLife,” the latest single off the album.
Photo by Jeremy Belinfante
Instantaneously, the pummelling, heavy as fuck rhythm grabs your ears, with a taste of black metal gloom, as the claustrophobic pall tries to suffocate the breath out of you. Hills snarls and growls lyrics such as ‘free to kill, free to take a life away’, a protest of the constant gun related killings in America, where the victims and families seem to have no voice. The loops and synths ooze discontent at the failing system.
“I’ve always had a policy of playing anywhere and everywhere with SK. I’ve played in a lot of weird and wonderful places in the last 3 years – in sheds and video stores, in the forest and in car parks, house shows, club shows, in-stores, and pub shows – under bridges and in skate parks. Anywhere at all. So, I wanted to do that for the video.
I found an alleyway choked with long-dead street bounty – sofas and white goods and old guitars, and pots and pans and cupboards and sheet metal, and building waste and everything that gets left behind when people move on or move up. All long left in the elements to degrade and die. So, I set up there and played to a few friends – interspersing my usual walls of sound with throwing stuff around and bashing on things in the pile, more or less rhythmically along with the music.‘ – KierenHills on the video for “SecondLife“
The video is beautifully shot/produced by Shaye at DMWCFilms, filmed in an alleyway in Sydney. This track hits hard, not only in the voluminous reams of auditory crush, but also the overwhelming disappointment in a society where guns mean more than people’s lives. The vinyl records for the album are already on pre-order from BadHabitRecords (AUS) and SorryStateRecords (USA)
Sometimes you are privileged enough to meet extraordinary people who are talented, make a difference in the world around them and most importantly are very human. Kieren Hills is definitely one of those rare humans. From Lawson, in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, he runs the label Dorfpunk, Dark Horse is his crust punk project, he has turned his hand to gothic fare with DeathChurch and has been involved in the music industry for a fair while. Schkeuditzer Kreuz is his one man industrial project and the first full length album, Isolated And Alone, was released on the 14th of December, which is a follow up to the EP, Give Me Nothing. I once described the music style as very Laibach and it still is but those harsh elements of industrial are very much present.
KIEREN HILLS -SCHKEUDITZER KREUZ
The song that kicks this off is the single “Broken“. From the start, you are going into Hills’ world with the warning that this is the representation of a brief psychotic episode. Massive reverb flies with the static, consuming your ears as the vocals savage your brain. It is the explanation of an episode where everything is over stimulating, you don’t want to die but the effort to actually live seems far too hard. The klaxons hail in “Warning” that has the drum machine pounding away as the music blares in.
All shall be reduced to the same particles of dust when the “Wraith” comes. The synths are almost ear bleeding in their pitch and give a sensation of dysphoria. All is lost as love and hope are wiped away to be replaced with fear and ultimately nothing. “State Violence State Control” has the blaring sirens of Australian emergencies services screaming in the background (so this is not the sort of song I will play in the car while driving because it always scares the crap out of me!!). If the title is familiar, that is because it is a cover of punk legends, Discharge, who are the godfathers of d-beat and this was also released on a split single but since then reworked and mastered for the album. It is every bit as angry as the original version, in electronic form, throwing two finger in the air to politicians, cronies and violent suppression of the masses.
Normally an interlude is a short piece to give the audience a break with some light music, that then soon gets back to the main entertainment or a bridge. “Interlude” is the interlude you are going to get and you better just hunker down and stick to the programme. It starts lightly enough with flowing synths before the rhythm picks up and Kieren informs you – It’s happened before It’s happened before And millions have died And millions have died And millions have died And millions of people have died. A warning that history is repeating itself because people either don’t want to see it or don’t educate themselves. The vocals bring forth visions of holocausts, military coups/enforcement, genocide and war.
Full of loathing and dark thoughts is “Disappointment” starting slowly and picks up speed as the those thoughts become a swirling overload. There is a beautiful synth line hidden within if one listens closely. It is like a veritable scream of fury into the aether, with the metallic beats. When someone refused to go to war because they were a conscientious objector, they were called cowards and “Traitors” to their country because they didn’t want to carry a gun and kill their own kind. Their is an urgency to this track like life itself depends on movement. Fittingly, the “Last Dance” is the final track and the track about finality. When the end comes will you have the last embracing waltz into the darkness? So I guess in a way though it sounds bleak there is a romantic side to it as well.
I am privileged to call this man a friend though I had seen him live before I had met him. In short his show blew us away. He is warm and charming, loves his family, music and pottering around in his garden because it brings him closer to nature. These things are also his sanctuary from the world and especially the last two years have been mentally difficult for many people.
100% of proceeds from digital sales will go to Transcend to help create a world where Trans, Gender Diverse and Non-Binary children are embraced and given every opportunity to thrive and flourish – the man has a beautiful heart and a keen ear.
Get in quick if you want the vinyl or cassette as they always go fast. Just to prove how hard core Schkeuditzer Kreuz truly are, the original pressings of the vinyl were done in China, finished and then confiscated after some complete and utter bastard had a listen, ending up in the whole batch being deemed subversive. That is so punker that thou. It’s an emotional roller-coaster but its well worth every moment and maybe you will find it as cathartic as Kieren Hills does because in the end we are not so Isolated And Alone.
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