Lines In Wax

TWELVE YEARS OF UNWANTED OPINION

Month: September 2012

Agathocles / シカバネ (Shikabane) – Split 7″ (1997)
grindcore

Agathocles / シカバネ (Shikabane) – Split 7″ (1997)

A quick note on looking back at this blog’s beginnings: I realise how harsh I was towards Agathocles in some posts. Whilst I do tire of them constantly re-hashing the same old stuff over and over in different shitty recordings, they are an excellent grindcore band (yes, grindcore!) and when they actually make original material it is usually very good. Not to mention they are fucking excellent live! I picked this 7″ up from Nic’s Bones Brigade stall on the Wormrot UK tour. It was staring me in the face and was the only thing in the 7″ pile that really tickled my fancy. I had a sneaky peek inside and didn’t recognise any of the tracks as being the usual 30 or so that are re-recorded again and again for splits so I took a risk and slung ol’ Nic three quid and went home. What I got was one of a 1000 repressed with a blue cover and a red disc. Original pressings (also 1000 pieces) have a black cover and a transparent orange vinyl. All versions were put out in 1997 by Keloid Records.  Shikabane are fucking excellent grindcore and I will be checking these guys out more when I get some time! Japanese hypergrind anyone? Think Carcass Grinder but not as awful. Think Unholy Grave but happier and less noisecore. It reminds me greatly actually of a band I was meant to split with before called Infiltro, but the project fell apart. Sounds very similar. Excellent grind anyway, and the drum sound is brilliant. Nice bright ping ping snares all round! Agathocles have original tracks here, so once I got over my minor heart attack I dropped the needle to the wax and enjoyed. Fucking bliss! Seriously guys, you should do this more often! Ha ha. All jokes aside, it’s nice and upbeat “mince” from AGx, but with Jan’s usual growls / shifts replaced with yelps and odd laughing sounds. Excellent and entertaining lyrics as usual. I will say that the AGx side is over way too quickly though. Nevermind! That means I’ll just have to collect more 7″s, right guys?

Post Mortem – Seasoned NoSalt Makes My Beef Stew Taste Like My Beef Stew (1991)
punk & hardcore

Post Mortem – Seasoned NoSalt Makes My Beef Stew Taste Like My Beef Stew (1991)

Post Mortem is another Seth Putnam band* from back in the day before Anal Cunt gained any particularly large international recognition. Although Seth is only on side A, he put this out on his own label; Wicked Sick Records (RIP). His vocals here show a whole different side to the guy so deeply associated with his usual shitty AxCx gargles and screams. Post Mortem themselves seem a bit lost musically, there is a whole lot of shit going on here although the main vein is slow heavy sludge mixed with more trad-doom stylings. The vocals are straining and harsh as per always but they are so so so good. If you think that Morbid Florist is the best Anal Cunt stuff then you will definitely love this. That is the most similar AxCx vocal style to this. Side B is a lot faster and with a different vocalist (the guitarist of the band), whilst he’s not quite Seth Putnam he’s still pretty awesome. Definitely a collector’s item, but if you want to hear a side to Seth other than Anal Cunt, this is always an interesting listen. *This is not strictly true. Post Mortem have a long and varied history without Seth. It’s just that for me (and probably a lot of other ignorant noise/grind fans lol) this was just another 7″ on the huge list of bands that Seth has participated in.

XXX Maniak / I Shit On Your Face – Split 7″ (2007)
grindcore

XXX Maniak / I Shit On Your Face – Split 7″ (2007)

The more I write about XXX Maniak the more I wish they would come back and make some more music, as a one piece or two piece; I’m easy. Just make more grind. Please! There are some XXX Maniak greats here, “I Must Fuck Everything” is just too catchy for it’s own good, as is “Slutty Vag, Tiny Tits” and “Unbridled Sex with Dead Animals”. It’s not their best sound ever though, it feels like there is an abundance of fluff built up under the needle but it is just the sound of these sessions. Their split with Embalming Theatre holds a similar feel. This was (I think) the last stuff recorded with Anthony on vocals, and it was released after his departure from the group. I Shit On Your Face are absolutely fucking amazing for a band with such a dodgy name. The sound here almost makes me want to go out and kill some hookers. That’s a socially acceptable reaction to death metal and grindcore, right? Holy fuck this is heavy! The bass proudly takes over much of the aural space, and the rest is hogged in equal parts by the piggy vocals and blasting drums. The guitars are almost an afterthought, but they are still full audible. The samples are fucking hilarious. I absolutely love the ridiculousness of goregrind, there simply isn’t another genre like it. Reading the back just makes me laugh so much. Check out this line, I think it sums up goregrind nicely; “These 5 fuckholes were cum-posed by Bowels & IxSxOxYxFx”. Epic! The band’s own label is even called The Hole. Zoom in and have a look at the logo. Naughty buggers. Limited to 500 copies on “shit brown”. PS – the video below credits this track to XXX Maniak although it is actually the first song off the IxSxOxYxFx side. 

Zeke – Tour 7″
doom metal

Zeke – Tour 7″

I never know what to make of Zeke. I picked this 7″ up purely because it was so cheap on Relapse a few years ago. I picture this band to be great live. I envision it as fast sludge. It is like rock’n’roll and hardcore punk mixed into a sludgy southern feel. There are a lot of traditional influences here, and it even sounds like something altogether more Black Label Society in parts. Hmm. Puzzling. This is pure rock and / or roll, so I’ll just shut the fuck up and let you enjoy the tunes! Bang your head and drink some fuckin’ whiskey, boy!  What I have here is the standard black pressing, limited to 1000 copies. A further 900 exist on transparent gold (looks orange more than anything) and the usual Relapse 100 on clear. Although this is out of print, it can still be picked up very cheap online, especially the standard black which is averaging around £3 on Discogs right now. 

Mixomatosis – Grind (2009)
grindcore

Mixomatosis – Grind (2009)

As with the other Mixomatosis 7″ I have, I have come to the conclusion that they seem desperate to squeeze as little as they can onto a record and call it an EP. Saying that, this is by far my favourite Mixomatosis minute or two; obscene goregrind obviously digitally remixed (shifted drums) melds awkwardly with (probably copyrighted) full orchestra music, before falling away and returning with more flanger-drenched horribleness. This is more noisecore than I ever thought Mixomatosis could get, which is rather ironic considering this basic package is called Grind. Another thing I don’t get: it’s fucking one-sided. I hate blank one-sided records! What a fucking waste! If you are gonna go blank, fucking etch something on there! Otherwise split with another band for fuck sake. What a waste of money. We are even spared the luxury of a sleeve and tracklist, just brilliant red vinyl and a shitty little piece of card. Good tunes, but not worth my money, let alone the time, effort and investment in pressing this in the first place.

Unholy Grave / Total Fucking Destruction – Split 7″ (2009)
grindcore

Unholy Grave / Total Fucking Destruction – Split 7″ (2009)

Alas Babylon! What we get here from the forever excellent and fantastico! crazy grinders TFD are demo versions / different recordings of songs that appear on the Hater record, mixed with a few others for good measure. The sound is big and biting as usual, the clusterfuck drums ahead of the winding guitars. It is a condensed version of some of their excellent tracks and a great place to start if you’ve never heard their mental-as-fuck grindcore but don’t want to commit to a full length record.  You’ve also got the excellent and ever-prolific Unholy Grave on side B like a Japanese Agathocles. Surprisingly catchy for noisier-than-thee grind. One complaint is that the drums drown out everything else, but hey, it is still pretty awesome. The vocals are rabid as feck. Limited to 200 copies on black and 200 copies on white, this pressing by Bones Brigade is almost certainly out of print! It also comes with a limited mega handy dandy TFD patch.

Urinal Shit – Something Isn’t Quite Right (2008)
grindcore noise & power electronics

Urinal Shit – Something Isn’t Quite Right (2008)

How nice it is to look back on something you’ve created! I’ve been involved in my fair share of shitty projects, and Urinal Shit was my solo noisecore/goregrind crossover. In the myspace days it (somehow) garnered small levels of interest, and I was even offered a realise by a D.I.Y. label, which really rocked my shit. The now rather extinct Mental Abuse records released my first and only EP under this name in mid to late 2007. It included 6 tracks of pummeling shitgrind accompanied with watery-as-piss pitchshifted vocals. If I ever stumble across the master disc I’ll upload this for all y’all but beware, it is nasty! The tape version (limited to 15 copies) featured different artwork and a bonus song that I recorded under the name A Concubine’s Diary. It is one of my favourite things I’ve ever recorded and it is sadly lost to time and confined only to this tape! The horrors of analogue formats!

Mixomatosis – Convento Infernal (2006)
grindcore

Mixomatosis – Convento Infernal (2006)

At first glance this 7″ looks awesome, but take a closer look at the artwork and you’ll notice it is actually badly drawn. Nevermind! Epic studio quality shits from Mixomatosis with hilarious vocals. Terrible samples aside, this music is well recorded and well put together, but side B’s live track is a bit shit, if I’m honest. Also, at 45rpm it is over in such a short time.  I wouldn’t know where to start with Mixomatosis’ rather extensive back catalogue as I kind of stumbled onto them by chance (worked with them on a 7″ compilation), but this does seem to be the best studio quality Mixo-stuff out there that I have heard. Perhaps I need more education in this crazy band’s work? Neuralgia records’ diatribe of pressing “ONLY TRUE UNDERGROUND, FRIEND” is tiring at best. That is all. I apologise for the massive overtones of negativity.

Mortiis – The Grudge (7″ Single) (2004)
electronic metal

Mortiis – The Grudge (7″ Single) (2004)

(2020 edit: I apologise for the shitty artwork on this one, Photobucket have laid a watermark over a photo that I took myself, but there we go) I wasn’t entirely fussed on Mortiis’ much more metal approach in 2004 but there are some cracking tunes on The Grudge, including the title track, packaged here whittled down to a club-size bite. I can’t blame Earache for wanting in on the electro-goth club scene audience that Mortiis so obviously appeals to, but the single edit is, in all honesty, fucking pointless. It takes a great song and makes it less great simply but cutting parts out of it. The Grudge as a song doesn’t quite fall awkwardly into horrible chugging like some tracks off the album but simply showcases a rougher (and ALOT angrier) side to Mortiis whilst retaining the excellent synth and bass sound of earlier efforts. On side B (or should I say AA) is “Decadent and Desperate”, the big Mortiis single (in my opinion). Not quite sure why this is here if it was later repressed as a single (twice) in it’s own right? Confusing move, Earache, I gotta be honest. “Decadent…” is muddy, riddled with angst only seen the ultra-bad part of nu-metal and is terribly mixed. It is far cry from anything off Smell of Rain. Mortiis is an excellent musician, not to mention performer, but this song is just hands down balls. Ironically, it was his best known song in the circles I hung around in at high school. People dug this song but shunned early Mortiis and even the album this was off! Moron fucking goths! Ha ha!

Godflesh – Slavestate Remixes (1991)
electronic metal

Godflesh – Slavestate Remixes (1991)

I initially thought this just a completists item, and being a total crazy fan I simply had to get a copy on my quest to own all Godflesh stuff. The “Radioslave” version carries the original off on a whole new tangent, keeping the opening 90s dance vibe as its leading beat rather than heading into the heaviness the original does. The sample of the lyric “Jesus!” blares continually. “Total State” batters “Slavestate” into an unrecognisable mess, and if the world has fallen apart, or the song had demonically re-arranged itself within the machine. Almost as if the computer has taken over the song. Nasty. “Perfect Skin Dub” on the other hand, is rather relaxing for a smoldering fuck of a drawn out remix. All hope that remained in the original has been squashed and crushed to fucking nothing. This original Earache package didn’t last very long, but surprisingly it isn’t very expensive. I guess people have to want something for it to be collectable. Horrible Godflesh self-remixes obviously weren’t the order of the day in 1991. But if horrible re-workings of usually clinically precise songs are your bag, get some of this.