Totalitär: Vi Är Eliten 12"

Totalitär: Vi Är Eliten 12"


Tags: · 00s · D-beat · hardcore · hcpmf · sweden · swedish
Vendor
Prank Records
Regular price
$25.00
Sale price
$25.00

NOTE: All of our copies are on orange vinyl.

Re-press of the 2007 Final Album by TOTALITÄR, repressed on Three different colors of Vinyl ( Orange, Red and white) in a stoughton Gatefold Tip-on Sleeve, pressed at RTI. Mailorder copies come with a Totalitar button and Promo poster.


Rampaging D-beat hardcore punk, Stockholm’s TOTALITÄR are one of the longest running and most renowned classic Swedish hardcore bands from the 1980’s, with almost twenty releases since their beginnings in 1985. Respected for their challenging political lyrics, Integrity and continual inventive spins on a brutal and straightforward formula of rock-driven, blasting hardcore.

After a series of Farewell shows in Sweden and in the U.S. in 2003, TOTALITÄR decided to do one final recording and album- Vi Ar Eliten (We are the Elite) which features seventeen rock-hard tracks. A combustive steamroller of their trademark desperate angry vocals, pounding rhythm section and searing guitar leads, their third full length album is one of their finest. From the original Metal work , Mastered at Fantasy Studios by George Horn.



Our take: My favorite Totalitär record tends to be the one I’m listening to at the moment, but the band’s final album, 2007’s Vi Ar Eliten, holds a special place in my heart. It’s the first — really, the only—Totalitär record I got to digest as it came out. While Totalitär was well known in 2007, Vi Ar Eliten still felt like a bit of a secret. Most bands who I thought of as Totalitär’s at the time (bands like Wolfbrigade, Victims, and Skitsystem) were playing more polished and/or metallic music, but beneath the head-scratching cover art was perhaps Totalitär’s best music. First of all, the production on Vi Ar Eliten is incredible… the drums are pummeling, the tones on everything else are biting yet full and present, and the mix is just perfect, raw and ripping yet crystal clear. It’s what a hardcore record should sound like to me. Wrapped in that production are a heap of tracks that find Totalitär doing their usual thing with the usual great results: a mix of full-throttle rippers, super catchy mid-paced songs, in-between songs like “En Av Dom Som Dom Skämtar Om” that are the best of both worlds, and a couple of unexpected moments like the rocked-out intro to “Overtid, Overflöd Mot För Tidig Död.” One thing that seems unique to me about Vi Ar Eliten, though, is how much lead guitar we hear. At least half the tracks find the guitarist Lanchy taking center stage, sometimes during the traditional solo section (oh man, the Buzzcocks-inspired two-note solo on “Nej Vi Ska Inte Ha Nåt…” FUCK!), and sometimes at unexpected moments, like the weird little lead break in the title track that starts the record, a moment that always make the hair on my neck stand up. There’s just so much to love with Vi Ar Eliten, and even after listening to it for 15 years it’s nowhere near getting stale. I’m pleased Prank has brought it back into print, and as usual they’ve done an incredible job, with meticulous detail to the record’s visual and sonic presentation and some subtle upgrades that still feel true to the original. This is one of those records that I just don’t want to imagine life without.