N17 "Defy Everything" 1999💣💣💣

On November 17 1973 in Athens Greece, a tank demolished the main gate of the Polytechnic University. It was the fourth day of a student demonstration that had gradually morphed into a peaceful rebellion against the country's military dictatorship. In the end, the dictators brought in the tanks and proceeded to violently crush the resistance, murdering two dozen people in the process. When I was in high school, the day had become an (unofficial at first, official later) school holiday with emotional speeches against tyranny, while there was also a yearly protest march that, to this day, ends at the U.S. Embassy to denounce American support to the dictators. The right wing establishment of the time first denied that there were any dead, then blamed unnamed leftist insurgents, then -after the regime's fall- grudgingly accepted that army and police had murdered civilians. Today we've come full circle: the importance of the uprising is played-down and its protagonists portrayed as wily lefty politicos. Historical revisionism becomes easy when one only has to post "alternative facts" on one's website. No need to present real evidence, the public can just choose the version of history they prefer. Greek cabinet minister and vice president of the ruling conservative party Georgiadis, for example, has declared that there weren't any dead demonstrators, based on the fact that no bodies were reported found inside the campus itself.  Interesting note: the minister used to promote Holocaust-denial books and neo-nazi writers in his TV shows when he was with the extreme right-wing LAOS party. Getting a first taste of power in the brief period that LAOS became a minority partner in Government, he and a number of LAOS MP's hopped over to the mainstream "center-right" ND party. Just one apology to the Greek-Israelite council, and they weren't fascists anymore. Same with minister Voridis, once head of the EPEN Youth which recognized the (imprisoned since 1974) dictators as national heroes and its nominal leaders. Now they're both manufacturing hate against anyone challenging their rule: apparently the "real danger to democracy" isn't tanks but today's unruly students. Together of course with striking workers, squatters, protesters, immigrants, communists, human rights activists and so on. Oh, and the judges investigating them for corruption: they've vowed to bury them when they return to government, and sure enough now that they're back in power it's those judges who are under investigation for judicial misconduct.

What I wanted to explain before my long introduction was derailed, is that this band couldn't have chosen a more controversial name. The students taking part on the November 17 uprising were vilified as troublemakers, then worshiped as heroes, while now there's an attempt to write them up as frauds. To make matters worse, the name N(ovember)17 was co-opted by a leftist terrorist organization ("urban guerillas" to their friends) which was still at large at the time of this album's release - though safely behind bars now. I'm guessing that this Phoenix (AZ) metal band were inspired by the student uprising, rather than by a terrorist organisation that murdered U.S. citizens including a number of military officers and a CIA station chief. More probably they weren't aware of the specific connotations but liked how militant it all sounded. Their lyrics are a hazy call for defiance and rebellion against the Establishment in general, betraying a lack of political education. The album cover looks like a WW II-era communist poster, though the tools exhibited may also allude to the "industrial" nature of their music. Fortunately the music is more substantial: A non-stop barrage of industrial electronic beats and fast metallic riffs reminiscent of Rammstein or Ministry, raspy death metal vocals, and the occasional movie samples and hip hop scratching. Opener "Rust" is the perfect encapsulation of the band's sound. Apparently it was used in a Levi's jeans commercial - I tried to find it on youtube but had no luck. Other highlights include "Mirror", "Mute" (both include some nice electronic elements, while vocals alternate between whispers and growls), the gothic instrumental "Descent", and Sepultura-meets-System Of A Down-like "Suffering". "Waste"'s introduction with its electronics and movie samples reminds me of early Porcupine Tree before exploding with more heavy riffing. Towards the end of the CD the style remains the same but quality drops - either that or repetition starts to grate a bit. Thankfully, after the end of last track "Baal" there's a cool tribal drums instrumental that closes the album on a different note. This album is nothing if not intense and guaranteed to get the old adrenaline pumping. Highly recommended only if industrial metal is your kind of thing! Otherwise its relentless pace might wear you down.

UPDATE 2020: This year, the pandemic gave Greece's right wing government the perfect excuse to annul the November 17 memorials: By order of the Police, article 11 of the constitution (freedom of assembly) was suspended temporarily between 15 and 18 November, in order to block all events regarding the anniversary of the uprising. All public gatherings of 4 or more people were declared illegal for this period, despite the fact that buses continue to run full because "there is no money for more vehicles" and that workplaces are likewise crowded. Opposition parties vowed to keep all necessary public health measures (symbolic minimal representation, masks, distances) but were warned that they would get arrested if they violated the 4 person rule. To demonstrate the hypocrisy behind the rules, the 40 or so students who kept the Polytechnic open in order to allow people to pay their respect to the victims of the uprising were arrested -ostensibly to "protect them from the pandemic"- and stacked together in a tiny cage, with no regard to distances and other health safety precautions.

**** for Rust, Mirror, Mute, Waste

*** for Left, Cleanse, Descent, Suffer[Ring], Hidden Track

** for Brash, Minion, Baal