The History of Crust Punk

The initial inspiration for the crust punk scene came from the anarcho-punk scene which included bands such as Crass and Flux of pink indians (both of Crass Records)The. City genres structure then pulled inspiration from D-beat, of which bands included Discharge from the english wave of the genre,the sound was then fused with Anti Cimex,Mob 47 and Rattus' sound of the swedish wave of D-Beat and extreme metal bands included celtic frost and venom.
Amebix a band of the English City Bristol, also brought in influences from various post-punk bands, including Public Image Ltd., Bauhaus, Joy Division, and especially Killing Joke. The doom metal sound of Black Sabbath and Motörhead was also a big influence on both Amebix and Antisect. Amebix to this day are noted as the originators of the crust sound, with there 1985 release Arise they laid the foundations of the genre with atmospheric undertones.
Antisect from Daventry in Northamptonshire , quickly added to said foundations that Amebix laid out , almost in homage to Amebix's release with their single entitled Out from the Void. Antisect added to the foundation with a quicker pace guitars but moving away from lyrical themes of bleakness and tragedy to subjects consisting of animal rights and social justice.nuclear war, militarism, animal rights, police, personal grievances, oppressive states and fascism are among other subjects covered by most crust punk bands.
CRUST WAS COINED
The term "crust" was coined by Hellbastard on their 1986 Ripper Crust demo.

It was widely regarded as the first time the word 'crust' was used in the punk context, and hence the specific starting point of the whole crust-core genre, although some would attribute that accolade to the likes of Disorder, Chaos UK, and Amebix several years earlier.

Upon the term being coined by Hellbastard, in an interview

vocalist and guitarist of the group,Malcolm "Scruff" Lewty commented,

A lot of people say we started the crust-punk genre, but whatever. If they wanna say that, I don't mind, but I'm certainly no Malcolm McLaren, saying I invented something I didn't.

Personally I still contend that Doom, Excrement of War, Electro Hippies and Extreme Noise Terror were among the first bands to have the traditional UK "crust" sound.

Sub-genres

A number of sub-genres began to develop in the 80's as people took crust in as there own as moved the foundations slightly. a fantastic example of this would be Stenchcore, a term started by Deviated Instinct from Bradford , bringing both the look and the sound of crust to a even heavier and dirtier level .They decided to add influence from metal bands, which from a band who started out as an anarcho band seemed odd to say the least.

Vocalist Julian 'Leggo' Kilsby said this was the reason for change ;

We were very much a part of the anarcho scene, to start with, very politically motivated... all the way through the band's existence, really, although it got less obvious as time went by. But I never really liked the straightforward 'War is bad...' lyrics that were so prevalent at the time, so as my writing skills improved I wanted to add more depth to our lyrics and make them more metaphorical; I'd always been into horror films, so that started to manifest itself in the imagery I was using.

Other sub genres of crust punk include blackened crust which was a term coined by japanese band Gallhammer and other acts include canadian band Iskra.

Clothing

Crust punk also has an associated DIY-oriented branch of punk garb. Similar to anarcho-punk, most clothing is black in color. Denim jackets and hooded sweatshirts with sewn-on patches, or vests covered in studs, spikes and band patches are characteristic elements of the crust punk style of dress. or pants covered in band patches. Crusties sometimes wear dreadlocks.