Crucifix (band)

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Crucifix was a hardcore punk band in the 1980s from Berkeley, California. They were among the most popular acts in the prolific San Francisco Hardcore scene of the early 80's.

Crucifix was preceded by the short-lived band Subsidize Mess, featuring Sothira on bass, Matt Borusso on guitar, and Christopher Douglas on vocals.

Crucifix was founded in 1980 and fronted by Cambodian-born singer Sothira Pheng, whose family had fled the country when the brutal Khmer Rouge seized power. The band's self titled EP debuted on Universal Records of Berkeley in '81 and was followed by the "1984" single distributed on Freak Records in '82. The band's second full length "Dehumanization" on Corpus Christi Records (an offshoot of Crass Records) which showcased their extremely fast and overdriven sound, reminiscent of early Discharge, is widely considered to be their definitive work. Around this time guitarist Drew Bernstein (founder of Lip Service Clothing) formally of America's Hardcore joined the band. The band split up after a lengthy tour of US/Canada/Europe on July 13 1984. A posthumous compilation album of singles and live tracks entitled "Exhibit A" was released on Kustomized Records in 1997.

Matt Borruso and Christopher Douglas later reemerged in Loudspeaker, a New York-based noise rock group. The band included guitarist Kurt Wolf (of Pussy Galore) and bassist Jens Jürgensen (of Boss Hog). They released several recordings between 1990 and 1996.

Sothira Pheng (bass and vocals) and Jimmy Crucifix (guitar) now play with Proudflesh, a San Francisco-based "Hard Punk Rock 'n' Roll" band with drummer Erik Lannon (Mordred/The Bay City Rollers). Proudflesh released their first album in March 2006 on Wired Gnome Records.

Samples from the opening track of Dehumanization, "Annihilation" was used by Orbital on the song "Choice" and was recently recorded in 2004 by A Perfect Circle for the Emotive album. Sepultura covered it as well as a bonus track on the album Nation (2001).