I first came across Cistamatic through their live performance on Spinäl Täp Sessions, and I was instantly taken by that sound: distorted, grimy, and somehow still sharply put together in a way that works in their favour. When I decided to review this trio from Cape Town, South Africa, I realised I had two options. One was to go back through their still-small discography to track how the ideas evolved, from the early singles to the debut Now That’s What I Call Cistamatic. The other was to take Fear Is the Weapon at face value and judge it on its own terms.
The Nirvana comparisons started the first time I wrote about Cistamatic, and I suspect they’re not going away. Which is also why the second option came with a risk: ending up holding In Utero without knowing whether the album before it was Nevermind or Bleach. Anyone who knows that now-trio-now-quartet from Seattle as well as I do will understand exactly what I mean.
I went with the second route, not out of laziness (even if the cover art for “Teeth” – a woman shown from the waist down holding a card that reads “I am alive in a place where women die” – gave me an almost irresistible urge to do the opposite and follow every thread), but because I’m still not ready to let go of how brilliant Fear Is the Weapon is.
Some people argue that the world hasn’t seen a truly significant musical eruption since the nu-metal era, although Ghost and the glossy heavy metal revival, or the sheer lived experience of seeing Turnstile live, can challenge that idea. Anyone who holds that view has clearly failed to listen to Africa.
So how do you describe Cistamatic without leaning on comparisons that might narrow your curiosity before you hit play on the video linked at the end of this review? They’re like an infection that spreads through your neural pathways, crosses synapses, lodges somewhere in the limbic system, and refuses to leave. You hear them when you fall asleep and when you wake up. You know they’re in there, and if we’re being honest, no medication is convincing enough to make you want to fight them off.
There’s punk in abundance on “Cop Car”, building and building in a way that takes me straight to “Aneurysm” (damn it, I said I wouldn’t do this again), but with a musical follow-through that’s as combative as the message in the lyrics. Then “Gutter” lands and the first line sticks immediately: “Want you so bad, I want you so bad, I can’t get you off my mind.” Suddenly, it’s a completely different Cistamatic. The frenzy of the opener disappears, and what’s left is one of the best melodies and choruses I’ve heard in years. And realising they can pull this off live without a second guitarist, with that kind of weight and commitment, is genuinely inspiring.
“Yappin” slows things down even further and nudges the record into more experimental territory. Because Cistamatic aren’t fully a punk band. The attitude is there, absolutely, but there are enough progressive and alternative elements to deserve a fuller label. At moments it feels like a trip back to the dawn of rock, like The Beatles with a genetic modification for groove and distortion. The same identity that drives “Cop Car” returns in “Psycho Bitch”, as if that car that wants to move at the speed that suits it only stopped to refuel before ploughing straight ahead again.
On “Apprehension”, you really hear the power and value of Gabbi le Roux’s voice, in a progressive, almost ritualistic journey that only works because the instrumental backing is so strong. Then the switch flips again with “Invisible Beast”, which throws me back to my Rage Against the Machine days. The lyrics hit hard, the delivery is direct, and nothing prepares you for the moment that this sweet, tuned voice turns into a socio-political projectile.
I won’t spend too long on “Judgement”, not because it’s one to avoid or skip – not at all. It’s just that “Forgiveness is a Dove” comes right after, and I love hearing it immediately after “Invisible Beast”. Yes, I reshuffled the track order slightly to suit my own tastes. Don’t skip “Judgement”, though, or you’ll miss yet another example of how this band can pivot and sound different while working with the same guitar and bass effects. And yes, I’m circling back to Nirvana again (sorry, but in my book it’s the best compliment I can give them, and no, Cistamatic aren’t a copy): like Kurt Cobain, they can use noise to carve out melody.
But “Forgiveness is a Dove” is one of the best album closers I’ve ever heard. Not every band wants to save the best for last, especially now, when so many people don’t even play a full-length front to back. Here, it feels like the culmination of something powerful and complete: the sound, the reading of the state of the world, and the message they carve into it. I’m not big on spoilers, so I’ll keep it simple: it ends with Gabbi repeating the song’s title with no music underneath, a protest voice that’s going to echo in your head for a long time.
I’ll go as far as saying Fear Is the Weapon is one of the best records of its style to come out not just of South Africa, but anywhere in the world – and nothing is going to change my mind about that. Fear is a weapon. And in the right hands, so is music.
