Iskra

Iskra is a Canadian blackened crust band founded in Victoria, British Columbia in 2002. Their name means "spark" in Slovak (iskra), Slovenian (iskra), Czech (jiskra), Croatian (iskra), Polish (iskra), Serbian (искра/iskra), Ukrainian (іскра), Russian (искра), and Bulgarian (искра). Iskra performs and contributes to the anarchist underground musical tradition, which emerged via anarcho-punk in the late 1970s and 1980s with bands like Crass, Amebix, Antisect, and Conflict. By blending elements of crust punk and black metal, Iskra say they have created their own subgenre: "blackened crust".Iskra includes former members of the crust band Black Kronstadt, who in the 1990s also described their music as "blackened crust", thus coining the phrase.Lyrically, Iskra's material generally follows in the anarchist punk tradition, with topics including criticism of government, war, economics, social issues such as homophobia, sexism, racism, and the struggles of indigenous peoples. The effects of political organization (both right and left wing) is also a common theme. Some songs discuss the global effects of capitalist institutions such as the World Trade Organization, World Bank, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Independent Task Force on North America.