This split totally had to thank the second track from Livstid, Frihet Far Du Aldri, for me to have checked it out. On a whim, while swimming through the myriad of promos flooding my desk and computer, I just started playing Frihet Far Du Aldri and stood completely aback. Destroying everything in its double bass pummeling wake, Frihet Far Du Aldri finds an absolute genius touch in piping in that cleaner gang chorus as if yelling atop their lungs that everything is going to be fine despite shit falling all around. Maybe I'm wrong in my interpretation of the mood, but that is what I felt like at the end of 2015, a newfound optimism not based on anything specific but a simple hopeful belief.

From there I just let my imagination fly and absorb the music. Not sure if Spanish crusty blackened team Khmer intended it this way, but their opening sequence on Himno a las Llamas had me seeing apocalyptic scenes of devastation from which a Mad Max cavalcade emerges. After a 3' punky blackness with the vocalist screaming fire, Khmer journey switches to the landscape of tarry fields full of emptiness and dead soul voices. As if this introspective moment makes the band more serious, they all of a sudden become more pensive and even remotely progressive, touching on Enslaved. The 10 min long track allows the punk abandon to return Khmer riding eventually away not to be seen again beyond the glowing horizon.

When Kapitalist comes on at first I wasn't sure what unites Khmer and Norwegian Livstid to be on the same split. Sure enough Khmer has some crust punk in them, but Livstid is truly hardcore in that department just bulldozing everything in its path with its double bass, d-beating maniacal intensity. But then maybe the tie up is the youth rebellion theme which Livstid has in droves? Every 2 min track on their side of the split is a mini explosion, but they all have their distinct personalities. Livslogn is utter descend into madness, Motkult is heroic and even tragic a bit, Daukjott opens up with a more deliberate hardcore riff before total chaos ensues, No Kan Vi Glemme Dei is sounding an alarm, letting the voice travel in front of the riffs, while Atombomba and Stein for Stein feature prominent easy on the ears melodies.

A brutal ripping experience, no doubt, the release has plenty of catchy factor, and you would not even have to work hard to find it.