Releases by crowforce

CROWFORCE were a band from Dorset, England, formed in 1987. At a time when the over-populated ‘cock rock’ scene of the late 80’s was being battered by funk-rock and then grunge, CROWFORCE emerged, with a vision to turn the perception of the rock/metal scene on it’s head, by combining the sounds of New Order and Slayer! A sound that some would come to describe as ‘Dancecore’. The band consisted of: GRIFF: Lead Vocals THE COUNT: Guitars and death grunts! MARK: Bass NICK: Keyboards The band had no drummer, preferring to use sequenced beats and samples to create their post apocalyptic ‘cyber’ sound. In 1989, shortly before the release of the first NINE INCH NAILS album ‘Pretty Hate Machine’ the band offered their first demo tape for free to anyone interested. The tape simply titled ‘CROWFORCE’ contained 4 songs: Showtime White King Eaten By Dogs Candytown. It was produced by the band and Peter Dale. From the outset the sound on this tape was unlike anything heard before. Dance beats clashed with heavy riffing guitars, while Griff’s lead vocals contrasted with the Counts death metal grunted backing vocals. Samples from movies such as Batman, Robocop, Apocalypse Now and more from the likes of Public Enemy and even former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher peppered the songs giving it a cyberpunk feel. Of the four tracks on offer here none defined the CROWFORCE sound better than ‘White King’. The first demo was followed by Limited Edition ‘live rehearsal’ tape made available to fans from a recording made at ‘Comics’ Westbourne, UK on 18/12/90, and engineered and recorded by Kevan Giles. Initial copies of this tape were numbered, signed by the band and marked with a ‘Crow’ seal. The track listing for this was: Intro Chinese Whisper Possession White King Judas Kiss Showtime Eaten By Dogs The set began with a sample of the prayer from ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ followed by some sequenced beats before The Count's staccato riffing began to build the intensity. Over this more movie samples looped creating a crescendo of white noise until a line from ‘Robocop’ led into first song proper ‘Chinese Whisper’. Although the quality of this recording is raw there is an undeniable sense of excitement in the music; A sense that you don’t know what might happen next, but that whatever does...it’s likely to be brutal! ‘Judas Kiss’ used samples from President Nixon and ‘Star Wars’ but the lasting impression of this live demo was the closing of ‘Eaten By Dogs’ which utilised the death of Roy Batty sample from the end of ‘Blade Runner’ to great effect. Somehow the sample counterpointed the sound perfectly and gave a ‘euphoric’ feel after the intensity of the performance which had just preceded. You can almost smell the dry ice and visualise the lazers. By this time the industry was taking notice of CROWFORCE and a deal with Music For Nations was struck. Two years of working with different producers and mixers delayed the release of the eventual debut album. During this time the band issued a white label 12” single of dance mixes under the name C-Force, of a song which would later become the lead off single from the album; The idea being to show the diversity of the band by appealing to both dance music fans, as well as metal fans with the album. ‘Crowforce’ was the first album released in 1992 on Devotion, a new imprint of MFN created exclusively for the new 'industrial revolution', with the catalogue No. DVN1. In fact, the album had been preceded by a single of the song ‘Don’t Look Down’/White King’, which had a completely different mix from that on the final album. A video was made for the single. The album was moderately well received by the music press at the time but the two year delay had seen the impetus lost and in the meantime NIN and a host of other industrial acts had ascended while CROWFORCE had been inactive during the recording process. In addition, with so many different people contributing to the recording of the album, the spirit of the original demo had been lost, and for many the mix on the single was stronger than the final mix of the album. The band toured as support act to Killing Joke/Ministry spin off Murder Inc in support of the album; Their first and only full tour of the UK. All went very quiet from the band following this period until another self-titled 5 track homemade demo tape emerged, very much in the style of the original demo. The tracklisting for this was: Crush Landslide Mr. Mystic Crushed Big Slippers The next the band appeared was in 1994 on a sampler tape for OODA LOOP Records. The sampler contained all CROWFORCE music, but under 3 different guises: Slipstream – Crowforce Dreamtime (Farmers Fish Trousers Dub) – Crowforce The Morning Walk – Ultrapure In Order To Know Life – Dogburster Pure War – Dogburster Number One – Ultrapure ‘Slipstream’ was top quality CROWFORCE and boded well for a second album proper, while the Ultrapure songs were more trance orientated. Dogburster was The Count’s guitar heavy industrial take on things. Sadly however no more was heard from the band following this. The Count released a demo under the name DOGBURSTER, written and produced by himself: ControlMe/Release Me Destroy Bleed For Greed Isolator The CROWFORCE story is one of how the music industry sometimes strangles its own. They were a band poised to become something very special indeed. Handled differently the members of CROWFORCE might be as well known today as Trent Reznor. One journalist seeing them supporting FFW in London wrote “the sound from CROWFORCE was bordering on awesome”. The album can still be found, but to really hear the excitement and intensity of CROWFORCE at their peak track down the ‘Live 1990’ tape. Chris Ward April 2008 *Note – This is a fan written bio. Apologies for any inaccuracies. Please feel free to add any more information. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.