BUBONIX (D)

BUBONIX from Limburg are back. Dynamic, fresh, and reflective. While their look has changed since the departure of Nenad Grbavac and Sara de Castro, the idea and the music have remained the same. A fresh start has been made with guitarist Sascha Bonnemann of Toxoplasma.

Old street dog wisdom: The best parties are always the ones you’re not invited to. You don’t have to worry about what to wear, you have nothing in your hand that could serve as a souvenir except a half-full, stale beer, yet you help yourself to the host’s liquor shelf with absolute confidence, leave a stick of Mittelstrahl in your toothbrush cup as a surprise for the next day, and, above all, dance on every table possible so that you always end up headfirst in the wedding punch. After all, the audience should be able to remember this wonderful evening.
BUBONIX, to view the wedding-crasher process outlined above through subculture scene 3D glasses with a bag of popcorn in hand, have been doing it like this for years.
This band-turned-voodoo ceremony of punk and hardcore around singer and model wild boar Thorsten Polomski has always made the biggest impression at every party, even though (or perhaps precisely because) it never really fit in anywhere.
Negative approach, something? Did someone over there call Misfits? Am I hearing Black Flag? 7 Seconds, dear listeners? Darkest Hour? Minor Threat? Old Anthrax? Hammerhead Shark? Or even pig-rock influences like Gluecifer, The Bronx, or Zeke?
Their latest release, “Through The Eyes,” by Kurt Ebelhäuser and Michel Wern, impressively captures BUBONIX’s live power, giving the old-school walls a modern makeover, only to tear them down again immediately afterward.
What Markus Klees, Sascha Bonneman, Oliver Kunz, Hermann Weier, and Thorsten Polomski are practicing—no, celebrating!—here is so damn compelling and good that it’s only logical that BUBONIX have found the perfect label for this album with Alex of Pascow and Jürgen Schattner, aka Kidnap Music/Rookie Records.
Lyrically, BUBONIX are people who have no problem packing up and getting their unwashed hands even dirtier. According to their own statement, punk doesn’t HAVE to do anything, but it can do a whole lot. And the sociopolitical DIY attitude has always been: Clenched fists don’t belong in pockets, and palaces, altars, and borders are torn down so that you have bricks to throw or raw materials with which to build meaningful homes for those in need. Everything for everyone. Love for every person. Regardless of their disposition. Except for Nazis, conservatives, and backward-looking traditionalists.
Welcome back, BUBONIX… oh no: FUCK LOVE, DO VIOLENCE TO ASSHOLES!
(Ingo Donot)