Kangrena

The band got started in Barcelona in 1981 with Johnny Sex on bass, Kike on guitar, and Manolo on drums. Their singer, Quoque, joined a bit later in a pretty unusual way: he basically jumped on stage uninvited during a show that December and sang “My Way” with them. The band liked his attitude enough to offer him the vocalist spot right after. They chose the name “Kangrena” (a misspelling of the Spanish word for “gangrene”) because they wanted something that felt connected to what they were doing -at least that’s what they said in an interview with the Spanish fanzine "Melodías Destructoras".

 
As for influences, they described their sound as the Sex Pistols sped up, with lyrics inspired by Crass and The Exploited. Listening to their 7-inch, those might not be the first comparisons that come to mind, but that’s how they saw it. Their music is definitely rougher and more unhinged than that description suggests. Locally, they mentioned liking bands like Último Resorte, Decibelios, R.I.P., Attak, Frenopaticss, and some early Siniestro Total, while saying they weren’t into anything coming out of Madrid. 

They kept playing roughly once a month until 1983, when their debut EP, 'Terrorismo Sonoro', came out on the Anarki label. With its five tracks of raw, abrasive punk, the EP leans heavily toward early hardcore. Their appearance on the 'P.E.A.C.E.' compilation -which probably came about thanks to a show MDC played with Kangrena and Último Resorte in Barcelona during their European tour- helped place them firmly within the evolving European hardcore scene. In 1984 they put out a 17-track cassette called 'Estoc de Pus', and followed it a year later with another tape, 'El Cubo de la Basura', before eventually breaking up.