Malefaction

Malefaction are one of Canada's best-kept metal secrets, and Crush the Dream is the result of a very impressive ten years of extreme grind/hardcore. Even though the band, hailing from Winnipeg, has released two albums and a few seven-inch singles prior to this, this album is the first to combine good production with good looks and good songs. "It's better than anything we've done, and the packaging looks legit," explains vocalist Travis Tomchuk. "We've had a lot of DIY stuff before; photocopies or just stickers put on sleeves. It's kind of interesting to have an actual CD." Even though the band's ruthless style of mixing grindcore, hardcore and crust together into short bursts of aural chaos would appeal to any discerning metal listener, the band has always been more involved with the underground hardcore circuit. "The nature of the lyrics being political and socially slanted opened a door to doing the DIY circuit," states Tomchuk. "It's a lot easier to deal with somebody who's doing a show in a basement or a hall than to worry about bar people, I find." The aforementioned political lyrics have always been a large part of Malefaction, but is it possible that the political lyrics might alienate most metal types? "I've met tons of people that were totally metal and had a lot of ideas about politics, so I would hope that the lyrics wouldn't alienate. Maybe some people might find them a little too politically aware and that might offend them, but maybe there are some people that might get thinking about things that they hadn't previously. If I'm singing a song, the lyrics have to mean something to me." Crush the Dream is the band's first album on Winnipeg's collectively run activist record label G7 Welcoming Committee, which should finally bring Malefaction's music to a larger audience. "I'm really glad to be on G7, I'm proud of it, it means a lot to me to be on that label," comments Tomchuk. Crush the Dream is easily a contender for grind album of the year, and will hopefully put Malefaction at the forefront of Canadian metal, where they belong.