28 Years Ago: REPULSION live at Schoolkids Records, Ann Arbor

Daily Noise - / 2019

28 Years Ago: REPULSION live at Schoolkids Records, Ann Arbor

Ear-splitting In-store... Friday September 6th

REPULSION played live at Schoolkids Records in Ann Arbor, Michigan on this day in 1991. Schoolkids' was an independent music store which supported local bands, including the death metal masters REPULSION from nearby Flint.

Earlier in 1991 the band had reformed, recorded a demo and signed to the newly-formed Relapse Records. Relapse reissued Horrified and put out REPULSION's first new material since the original Necrosis/Earache 1989 edition. The delayed Excruciation b/w Helga (Lost Her Head) single - both songs taken from their January 1991 demo - was released a week or so after this gig.

The motivation to reform at that time? I guess I was hanging around with Aaron a lot and Matt was in the service, he came home and we decided to do that show, we just thought it was something that everyone wanted to do. I don't remember exactly why we got back together but it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

Scott Carlson / Repulsion interview, Voices from the Darkside

Excruciation was their last release, but Scott and Matt are still playing live, and their masterpiece Horrified remains in print.

I think it's like you said, mid paced, and generally not as intense and brutal as the old stuff and that was the reason why later on I didn't want to do it anymore, I always held everything that we did up against "Horrified" and there wasn't one song that I thought was as strong as anything on the "Horrified" record so I just didn't see make sense to keep going on. The songwriting at that point was still spread around because Matt would come home and jam with us when he could. So like 'Rebirth', if you listen closely there's a couple of riffs out of 'Satan's Whore' and 'Armies...' that got recycled in there cos I always liked those riffs but didn't necessarily want them used in entire songs, not that 'Rebirth' is any good either so.... 'Excruciation' is a so-so Death Metal song mid paced, 'Helga' is a real good song, Aaron wrote the music for that and I wrote the lyrics based on Dave's grave robbing experiences.

Scott Carlson / Repulsion interview, Voices from the Darkside