I don’t know what it’s like in your neck of the woods, but down here, in Aotearoa New Zealand, there’s often been a reluctance from fringe music-makers and DIY labels to celebrate their creative successes.
Shouting about your own genius isn’t as uncommon as it once was, especially as social media rewards shameless self-promotion. Still, an uneasiness about raising your head above the parapet is very on-brand for New Zealand and patting yourself on the back in public is still seen (by many) as smug and self-congratulatory.
For outsiders, that might look like a weird cultural hang-up to cling to. After all, chest-beating confidence and self-appointed exceptionalism are king in other parts of the world. However, for good or ill, maintaining an unassuming posture is woven into New Zealand’s sociocultural narrative. Backing yourself is totally fine. But applauding yourself can attract mockery and derision. (Ask anyone who’s spent a microsecond on a New Zealand punk or metal forum to tell you how savage and sadistic that mockery can get.)
In punk rock terms, a hesitancy or unwillingness to publicly toast your artistic success makes a little more sense. At least, it does in the underground, where those DIY labels and bands we all love reside. Obviously, the ‘underground’ is not a homogeneous domain. These days, many bands and labels are fully plugged into the ego-driven ouroboros of social media. But I’m not here to talk about folks campaigning for more virtual-wanks.
I’m here to talk about the underground participants for whom remaining humble and/or keeping it real still matters. I’m talking about bands and labels that don’t brag about their successes or spread conceited propaganda. For those artists, the work is the reward, and an aversion to self-aggrandisement is baked into the role. (It’s about us, etc. Not me, me, me.)
All of which brings me to New Zealand label Razored Raw, which sticks fairly closely to the down-to-earth, DIY manifesto. Based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington), Aotearoa’s mildew-infested capital city, Razored Raw was founded by multi-instrumentalist and Portastudio whizz, Matai Szwed. Matai has recorded most of Razored Raw’s releases and granted many bands their first opportunity to release their music. (Matai’s also played in plenty of different punk and raw hardcore bands, too.) Razored Raw’s been pumping out sewage-raw releases since 2017, and I’ve written about many of those releases. Mainly, because I’ve always admired Razored Raw’s dedicated mahi (i.e. work).
Not everything Razored Raw has released has hit home for me personally. Some has been too undercooked, or it’s fallen outside my sphere of interest. Even so, what’s always impressed me about the label is that Razored Raw has focused on releasing aggressive music with zero regard for any hollow, shallow, or ephemeral rewards.
I’m sure the label cares about satisfying its fans, and I’d definitely consider myself a Razored Raw aficionado. But also – fuck the hyperbolic musings of bloggers like me! None of that bullshit matters to Razored Raw. The overall mission, not brief applause, is the label’s raison d’être.
(Razored Raw isn’t the only Aotearoa-based DIY label that isn’t interested in hype or puffery. See also, Hairy Palm, Wrought Material, United Blasphemy, Limbless Records, Real Vegan Cult, and Always Never Fun.)
Razored Raw’s catalogue covers a range of noisy terrain, including lo-fi punk, noise punk, rawcore, gutter hardcore, grindcore, death metal, stenchcore, crust punk, and various strains of gnashing and thrashing metalpunk. Several Razored Raw releases – see, for example, Piggery’s self-titled LP or No Sector’s Mercury Poisoning 7”– have caught the ear of listeners and critics far offshore. Razored Raw has also co-released vinyl and cassette recordings with like-minded overseas labels, including Australia’s Feral Dog Records and Italian raw punk label, Sistema Mortal Tapes.
Creatively, Razored Raw’s story reads like a success. But, obviously, helming a niche label at the ass-end of the world is a financial struggle and, no doubt, mentally taxing, too. New Zealand’s geographic isolation is also a logistical nightmare that every homegrown DIY label has to contend with. It’s tough out there, for sure. But there’s no denying that Razored Raw’s releases have been celebrated at home and overseas, with sold-out EPs and LPs to prove it.
At this point, you may be wondering where this article is heading. That’s fair enough. The title of this post does mention a couple of bands – Maced and Postnatal Abortion – and they’ve yet to enter the fray.
The truth is, this post was initially going to be a brief write-up about Maced and Postnatal Abortion’s recent split cassette (released by Razored Raw). But then I thought it might be fun to run through some of Razored Raw’s other releases, too, so here we are.
The label has released dozens of recordings thus far, but as much as I love Razored Raw’s vibe, I’m not going to unpack every one of those releases right here. Instead, below is a brief primer, which features some older (but still raging) releases, a couple of recent rippers from Toilet and Human Pieces, and the aforementioned Maced and Postnatal Abortion split. (I wrote about recent Razored Raw releases from Nullpolitik and No Sector a few weeks ago, so they’re not included below.) Fingers crossed, something will catch your ear and encourage you to dig deeper into Razored Raw’s catalogue.
Piggery – S/T
Piggery’s self-titled 2019 debut was a subterranean triumph. The album’s bulldozing tracks featured blown-out stenchcore – or fetid deathcrust à la Stormcrow or Sanctum, if you prefer – that stank to high heaven. With a line-up of seasoned Wellington punks on board, Piggery delivered big riffs, crashing drums, and monstrous vocals; perfect heavyweight punk. Piggery’s debut was a certified Southern Hemicrust classic.
See also: Indiscriminate’s Demo 2020, which was recorded at the band’s rehearsal space and mastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air. Crust, d-beat, and raw punk were chundered into a bucket of festering noise. Yum.
Stress Ghetto – S/T
Razored Raw has released several recordings by the powerviolence/caustic hardcore trio Stress Ghetto. The band’s savage self-titled EP was smashed out – i.e recorded extremely live – in a day. Stress Ghetto are rougher than a bolt-gun mishap, rawer than a kidney infection, and the band sound about as rotten as a gangrenous toe. Stress Ghetto deliver split-second shockwaves of putrid powerviolence, so if that’s your kink, dig in.
See also: check out Stress Ghetto’s run of splits with US powerviolence groups World Peace and Heckdorlan; Indonesian fastcore crew Get it Today; and my fav, Japanese outfit Leech.
Corpse Rat – S/T
Corpse Rat are one of a million promising Wellington bands that burnt brightly for a few seconds before disappearing into the mists of time. Corpse Rat’s self-titled cassette was fast, venomous, and as ugly as a stabbing. The band mixed rawcore and blackened crust with the grottiest strains of Japanese noise punk. Corpse Rat sounded utterly hideous in the best possible way – lo-fi or F.O.A.D. being the band’s mantra.
See also: Corpse Rat’s 7” split with Nelson, New Zealand d-beat band Feral Blood. Expect more grisly vocals and gut-wound-raw instrumentation from both bands.
Bowel Rupture / Pvnisher – Split 7”
Here are two New Zealand bands that ended their runs way too soon. (Or did they? Some bands die for good reasons, I guess.) One thing’s for sure, Bowel Rupture sounded like they were on the cusp of something significant before the band imploded. The group’s 7” split with fellow Wellington outfit Pvnisher featured Bowel Rupture’s heaviest and most nihilistic tracks, with the band fusing pitch-black death metal with nightmarish punk. Pvnisher also served up misanthropic music, mixing lo-fi black metal with feedbacking crust and crashing percussion. Bowel Rupture and Pvnisher both invested heavily in Neanderthal noise.
See also: Pvnisher’s Discography cassette, which features the band’s raw demos, EPs, and 7” releases in a handy “bootleg-friendly” collection. Tune in for more hostility, barbarity and vile music-making.
Gutter Killer – Metal Enema Demo
Razored Raw’s catalogue features several ‘what could have been’ releases, and Gutter Killer’s demo definitely falls into that category. The band’s Metal Enema demo featured crusty crossover thrash that ripped and raged like the grittiest sub-basement metal. A feast for fans of early-80s thrash demos – à la No Life ‘Til Leather, Death Cult, or Death to Posers – Gutter Killer’s songs were raw and ragged but showed pummeling promise. Old school or new school, fans of metallic hardcore and primordial thrash will lap this sonic sewage up.
See also: Retaliator’s excellent 2025 demo, which features ex-members from speed metal outfit Total Violation as well as former members of Gutter Killer. A thrashin’ good time is guaranteed.
Soul Void / Brainwave – Horrifying New Form
Horrifying New Form is a split cassette featuring metallic hardcore band Brainwave and like-minded death metal outfit Soul Void. Soul Void’s bone-chilling contributions mixed soul-scouring vocals with the fetid groove of Obituary and Dismember’s killer focus. Brainwave’s contributions were also super-heavy, with the band’s buzzsaw riffs, pounding percussion, and caustic vocals levelling all and sundry. An excellent match-up from two of NZ’s most promising heavyweights.
See also: NYC death metal outfit Infandus’ Lithium-6 Demo, which Razored Raw released back in 2021 – disgusting death metal with an inexorable groove.
Putrid Future – Nightmare Reality
Razored Raw co-released Wellington trio Putrid Future’s Nightmare Reality cassette with Italian label Sistema Mortal. Putrid Future make a nihilistic racket, but it was genuinely heart-warming to see two like-minded labels from two different hemispheres joining forces to release Putrid Future’s abrasive noise. Nightmare Reality hammered d-beaten nails into bleeding-raw hardcore, and every track on Nightmare Reality was packed to the gunwales with eviscerating noise.
See also: Putrid Future’s Distopia 2020demo, the band’s gut-churning split with Australian råpunk duo Szkło, or Szkło’s Without A Resurrection Of Hope EP; all feature mangled d-beat and bulldozing crasher crust.
Rungus Among Us – Wellington Hardcore Punk 2019
Three of the 13 bands featured on Razored Raw’s 2019 compilation, Rungus Among Us: Wellington Hardcore Punk, are still with us in 2025. The birth-and-death cycle of bands in Wellington is a constant: one band dies, and another is born, often with a line-up featuring many of the same names. As Rungus Among Us highlights, sometimes, Wellington’s punk scene is fucking thriving. Bands like Piggery, Bordger, Pvnisher, Bowel Rupture, Unsanitary Napkin, Ayn Randy, DAHTM, Stress Ghetto, and more deliver a wide range of punk, from stenchcore to anarcho-punk, deathcrust to d-beat, crusty hardcore to primitive punk, and powerviolence to sludgy noise. Rungus Among Us is replete with knuckle-dragging cacophonies, but the comp also features a couple of poppier/shinier moments, too.
See also: Razored Raw’s NO NZ comp from 2017. Another step back in time, and another brace of DIY bands who wandered into the wilderness, never to return. “Raw spewings from every shithole in the country worth playing a show in!” is how Razored Raw accurately summed NO NZ up.
Skitkrimes – Sudden Death
Skitkrimes’ Sudden Death EP was a co-release between Razored Raw and Limbless Music (another stalwart Wellington label well worth paying attention to). The founders of Razored Raw and Limbless Music feature in Skitkrimes’ ranks, with Razored Raw’s Skitmat handling the instrumentation, music, and all the recording details, and Limbless Music’s Skitsimon handling Skitkrimes’ vocals and lyrics. Obviously, there’s a Skit-heavy theme here, and Skitkrimes duly deal in music inspired by Japanese råpunk legends Skitklass. Skitkrimes go hard and fast, and the band’s blown-out assault is all the better for its sheer primitiveness.
See also: Manic Aggression’s demo, which saw the project’s singer and lyricist, Benny Mathews (Noxo, Knifed, publisher of Caveman Noise zine, etc), joining Razored Raw’s head honcho Matai on a battery-acid-raw Hairy Palm/ Razored Raw co-release.
Human Pieces – Vestigial Caveman
Human Pieces’ Vestigial Caveman EP featured a putrid pile of utter-primitive death-crust. Razored Raw stalwart Matai handled the performance side, while Benny Mathews, founder of the always-interesting Aotearoa label, Hairy Palm, provided lyrical input. Vestigial Caveman‘s four songs were all disgusting cavern-crawlers filled with troglodyte growls and lo-fi belches. Brutal death metal – slathered in a thick layer of maggoty crust – roiled in a stew of intestinal gurgles, which was seasoned with unfathomably guttural vocals. Pure fucking evil. Pure putrescence. Antediluvian upchuck + Australopithecus detritus. Perfect for freaks, weirdos, and filth-hounds alike.
See also: Indiscriminate’s ear-piercing demo, Indiscriminate Takes Your Life. Recorded live at the crust/noise punk outfit’s jam room, Indiscriminate’s live demo also features indiscernible blasts of undiluted pandemonium.
Toilet – Annoying Noise
Toilet’s lineup features Caroline (from No Sector) and Razored Raw gaffer Matai (see also No Sector, Putrid Future, Human Pieces above, and more). The duo tipped their respective hats to Japanese legend Confuse on Toilet’s thoroughly dissonant and utterly disagreeable debut, Annoying Noise. The ol’ Tascam Portstudio rawness was in full effect, with Toilet’s fittingly shitnoise sound featuring an unintelligible screed of clangour, clatter, and blown-out, indecipherable chaos – absolute head-splitting gunk. Highly recommended, of course.
See also: Bipolar’s The Great D-Beat Raw Punk Swindle. One of the prolific raw punk outfit Bipolar’s many piss-and-vinegar releases, The Great D-Beat Raw Punk Swindle pays tribute to a similar set of obnoxious and strident influences as Toilet.
Maced // Postnatal Abortion – Split
It wasn’t that long ago that I was writing about one of 2025’s best grindcore releases – the self-titled debut from New Zealand band Forced Starvation. Maced and Postnatal Abortion’s 13-song split cassette (co-released by Razored Raw and HBHC) is pitched to a similar audience, with both bands channelling grim-toned grindcore through different – albeit somewhat analogous – filters.
It’ll come as no surprise, given their moniker, to discover that the Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand-based Postnatal Abortion are a deathgrind band, with all the entails/entrails. Wellington four-piece Maced, on the other hand, dice, chop, and pulverise a bunch of different (but equally ear-fucking) sub-genres on their scorched-earth tracks. Several members of Maced have played in numerous other Razored Raw-related projects. Not least, Maced’s drummer, Matai, who, as mentioned, founded Razored Raw in the first place.
Obviously, some grind bands approach the sub-genre from a punk angle, while others engage grindcore from a metal perspective. Maced follow the punk rock route, howling about highly charged political and social issues, and bringing plenty of unhygienic hardcore and even grottier powerviolence along for the ride.
Maced provide the bulk of the songs here – 10 of ‘em in total, including a cover of “You Suffer” – while Postnatal Abortion drop three manky nuggets into the mix. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how to sum up Maced’s contributions. The band’s breakneck songs are intense— skin-flaying, emotionally raw, and filthy as a fatberg. However, like every other band smashing micro-genres together at top speed, the list of Maced’s potential influences is huge.
Who knows who or what inspired Maced’s torrents of high-pressure grind? The appalling state of the world clearly informs the band’s lyrics. But musically, it could be anyone. Napalm Death, of course, but why not Unholy Grave, Extreme Noise Terror, Sore Throat, Yacøpsæ, Excruciating Terror, P.L.F., Sete Star Sept, Assück, or Internal Rot? Any (or all) of those bands could have fuelled Maced’s creative engine. But then, Maced also remind me a lot of cult Canadian noisegrind outfit Kuroi Jukai.
Point being, Maced’s tracks are all whirlwind skirmishes of battering riffs, incomprehensible growls, and nail-gun percussion. It’s a brutal blend, and also sludgier than dumpster slop. There’s a lot of concussive grindcore for fans to sink their teeth into, and Maced’s tracks will likely hit home for fans of Forced Starvation’s year-best grind. (Clearly, there’s something extra-filthy in the water down under at present.)
If Maced’s urgent, punk-fuelled lyrics aren’t your thing, don’t panic, Postnatal Abortion are here to shout about diseased goats and maggots hatching under your skin. I don’t want to do the band a disservice, but is there much point unpacking Postnatal Abortion’s contributions? I’m only being half-serious, but the band’s name obviously does a lot of work for them. You know what you’re getting before you even press play.
Postnatal Abortion released their first demo, Scum, in February this year. The band followed that up with a live recording, Live at The Boneshed, which confirmed that Postnatal Abortion had no problem reproducing their rotten deathgrind live on stage. The band’s three songs here – “S.B.T.W.F.”, “Diseases Of The Goat” and “Slappucino” – are all feral and fugly, as you’d expect. Like Maced, Postnatal Abortion blend a bunch of über-guttural influences: Assück, Brutal Truth, P.L.F., Disgorge…I won’t repeat another long list of guesses – you get the point. Postnatal Abortion’s sound is bludgeoning, and their songs feature repulsive vocals, viscera-strewn riffs, and plenty of gruesome oomph. Deathgrind 101: gross grunts galore.
“Auditory warfare collaboration of the season” is the banner headline for Maced and Postnatal Abortion’s split. I mean, love the confidence and all, but have you heard that Internal Rot / Mutilated Cop split? That’s the grind collaboration of the season, my friends. But that takes nothing away from Maced and Postnatal Abortion’s blast-beaten tracks, which are all delivered with a ton of belligerence. Admittedly, Maced’s tracks are more to my taste; they hit harder, sound hulkier, and are more abrasive, production-wise. That said, all the high-speed music here is a solid display of underground noise from Aotearoa’s far-flung shores.
Maced and Postnatal Abortion’s split sees the two grotesque-sounding bands spewing out rank noise from the Southern Hemisphere’s sewers. Expect filth (✓), sickness (✓), disgustingness (✓), and abundant obnoxiousness (✓): all the required checks and balances to satisfy basement-dwelling teeth-grinders, Ritalin-snorters, and bum-flapped dumpster divers. Sit back, spark whatever, and watch the world burn.
P.S.: If you enjoyed that Maced/Postnatal Abortion split (or Forced Starvation’s self-titled LP), then I can happily recommend more grinding noise from Aotearoa’s shores. Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) band Knifed’s Management Platitudes cassette, released earlier this year, is a blast-beaten onslaught of pure negativity. Released by Tāmaki Makaurau label Hairy Palm, who are aligned with Razored Raw in many ways, Knifed’s final release is the perfect soundtrack to your most misanthropic days.
