Beyond Rage
Ragum, Hase
Presented by Fear of Missing Out Concerts, Venster99, Vienna, Austria 20250909
After last year’s closure that left Venster99 out of the circuit for some time, I was looking forward to attending the venue since it reopened this January. It was, in fact, one of the very few remaining small Viennese music locations I had yet to discover. So when I saw the poster announcing that the Palestinian band Ragum would be playing in Vienna, I said to myself: “Now is the time”. The group, formed in Haifa by members with Jewish, Arab and African roots, defines itself as a grindcore band with influences from old school extreme metal. On their Instagram page, they also use labels such as Cha3biGrind, Maghrebcore and Diasporic Berberic Death Metal. Their lyrics, sung (or rather shouted) in Hebrew, are based on personal experiences, ranging from police brutality to military occupation and the fight against racism, nationalism, and colonialism. In fact, Ragum belongs to a group of punk and metal bands that had been cancelled by the Israeli local music press and communities, as the web journal DIY Conspiracy reports.
Upon arriving at Venster99, I was confronted with a huge attendance considering the limited capacity of the place. This promised an intense and crowded night of fast rhythms. It was then that I found out that the concert was sold out. After ordering my drink under the “freie Spende” system, I approached the stage for the first act of the night, the Viennese/Graz band Hase. After 21:00, the band started at full throttle and the packed room filled with dancing and intense pogo-pits from the very first track. As a fan of Doom Metal and its lethargic tempos, I have to confess that this is not exactly my cup of tea. But the complicity between the band and the audience was complete.
To date, Hase has released one demo and two albums of frankly excellent hardcore punk, characterised by frequent of changes in rhythm and tempo and, as is typical in the genre, very short songs of less than 30 seconds. It is also interesting, both in their recordings and live, that the three members of the band sing along with playing their instruments, which adds a more than exciting vocal variety. Also interesting to note is that on two occasions, friends of the band joined Hase on stage to sing with them.
At 22:10, Ragum‘s show started. This time, I strategically positioned myself as far forward and to the side as possible, thus avoiding the middle of the pit while also giving myself a privileged view of the band and particularly of the extremely meticulous and creative work of the drummer, Theo. In fact, as the band’s main songwriter, Adi Ouaknin, explains in an interview, “after scaring most potential drummers with the BPM of the songs, Theo came in and just played everything at twice the speed, adding sick, unique parts that made everything better than I imagined”. However, besides the frenetic rhythms dominating the show, there were also some slower death metal (maybe sludgy) sections, such as the end of “Efes Sentiment”. These segments triggered by far the most intense mosh pits of the entire night.
The exact 28-minute length of the show reminds us that Ragum has been around for less than three years and has only released one album so far, Beyouv, which literally means “sewage” in Hebrew. But the band’s excellent quality invites us to stay tuned for their second album, which Ragum is already working on. Once the show was over, the classic encore was replaced by a Palestinian track, to which both on- and off-stage people began to dance the dabke. For my part, after greeting the band and purchasing some merchandise, I left the venue and made my way through the rain.