Crust songs warning of the apocalypse are a dime a dozen, but there’s never been one like “Arcadia” by Hellbastard. As much as it is a warning, it’s also a welcoming. The welcoming doesn’t come from the usual “I told you so” to those that didn’t conserve the environment, although that is a component, but from the rage and pain that comes from personal tragedy. Opening in the traditional manner (“These blackened skies, our darkest years”) the lyrics move on to horrific imagery (“Man will eat the flesh of irradiated man”) and then to a joyous acceptance (“We can ride hot rods to hell”) and finally an explanation, a list of losses and their uselessness and unfairness (“My brother starved and died in ‘07, and you shouldn’t be living”) that is so truly and mercilessly human—so much more so than the standard holier-than-thou “This is what you get for using too much oil” bullshit—that it really leaves you shaken and, more importantly, thinking. This record is worth whatever piddly amount it costs for that song alone. The fact that it also comes with two more Hellbastard tunes and a side full of the always-crushing Dresden is just a bonus. –MP Johnson
–mp (beercity.com)