Finally. More than four years after their amazingly rocking final show, and after nearly four years of recording, presumably smoking tons of weed, mastering, finishing art, and more weed, Dystopia’s second and final full-length is due out in January. Yes, I know Life Is Abuse’s website has been reporting the album’s imminent release for the past two years, but I’m inclined to believe it this time: There is now a listing in the COMING SOON section of the label’s website, with a picture of the album (the cover art is classic Dystopia; I love Bush with his chainsaw!), and it now has a name (self-titled) and number (040). This is very exciting. Dystopia are one of my most favorite bands. They’re the band that, many years back, launched my love of crust and all that is heavy. I was sad to see them go, and I’ve been anticipating this record for years.

The album has six new tracks plus a Carcinogen cover (Dino’s former band), and it comes with a 16-page booklet. Two of the tracks are available on Dystopia’s MySpace page. They’re both solid, of course. I mean, Dystopia can do no wrong.

Life Is Abuse’s website says this: “This record is the last chapter of Dystopia’s existence writing bleak and heavy doom-ridden punk.” Okay, but does this mean they’ll play some shows? I’m sure if they did play a couple shows to go along with the record, they’d be in the Bay Area. Did Dystopia ever play up here? I’ve seen Dystopia lots of times, so I’m pretty satisfied, but my poor boyfriend—he missed the live Dystopia boat. I’d love for him to see them; their live shows are simply electrifying.

And while I was on Life Is Abuse’s website, they had this to say in their news section:

As you may have noticed, things at Life Is Abuse have slowed down considerably. This is due to many reasons… the biggest being time and money. There’s a good chance we might be closing doors sometime next year. We’ll see what happens. In the meantime, we have decided not to repress many of our titles that have been out of print or commit to any new releases for the time being, aside from the few plans we’ve made (which may or may not happen).

Ouch. That’s bad news. I won’t hold my breath for a repress of that Dystopia/Skaven split.