Warning! Self-promotional post! I just wanna take a post to tell you all about my new grindcore band The Judas Cradle (google the definition for epic luls and potential cringing). Formed out of the ashes of Newport death metal crew O.A.P., The Judas Cradle became a real thing in September of last year. We’ve have been rehearsing pretty much weekly since, and we recorded our debut EP in our rehearsal space. It was released in December online, and we had physical copies made up in January, which were all put together lovingly by our guitarist Will. We have about a 100 of them to go around at shows and shit, but this EP is available to be spread far and wide on the net. So give it a download, rate it or hate it. If by some astronomical odds you fancy a copy you can get one off my Discogs page! Grind it!
It’s easy to write off a band like Deafheaven as pure hipster fodder, but looking past that probably media-perpetuated stereotype (I’m contributing in my own little way by even mentioning it) you will find an extremely talented band with really awesome music. Sunbather opens up to me sounding like the bastard lovechild of post rock and black metal, with “Dream House” punishing you not only in the feels with the melody, but in the face with the brutality. And the album continues in this vein. It is a perplexing marriage of styles, granted, but sticking with it if you find it a bit weird at first will reward you handsomely. The title track brings those soaring guitars from the opening moments back in again, and all is well with the world. Well, with my world. For now. The guitar sound is almost depthless; distorted yet possessing a clarity required for those sailing melodies. Closer “The Peacan Tree” opens with a riff nodding towards more traditional black metal, which is only cemented further with the use of flat-out blastbeating on the drums. Seriously give this a go if metal has been tiring you lately, or if you like your black metal with a little artsy twist.
I’ve always been a bit hit and miss when it comes to black metal. I think it’s because black metal is easily one of the most over-saturated genres of music out there. There seems to be an endless stream of black metal projects the world over, constantly vying for grimness and struggling to flog their shitty limited run cassette-release demos. In all honesty, I only ended up checking out Lifelover because of the extremely interesting (and quite ironic) band name. If they were called Sataniiik Invokkkor Ov Frostbitten Warbeasts or something equally as hammy I would have been much less inclined to bother listening to them. I’m just not kvlt enough. Lifelover however, are (or were) grim as fuck. They are (or were) lumped in by pedantic metalheads into the ridiculous sub-genre called Depressive Suicidal Black Metal, or DSBM for short. Now, whiney self-loathing bullshit cried out by well-off Europeans living in countries with phenomenally high quality of life (90s Norway scene, I’m looking at you!) usually drives me up the wall, but there’s something really creepy about Lifelover’s folky, morose approach to black metal that feels so genuine. At first, compared to powerhouse black metallers like Marduk or 1349, Lifelover’s music can seem a little lazy, but as it unfolds and you adjust to the guitar playing style you come to realise that whoever is strumming that thing is in fact very, very tired with life. Lifelover glorify death, self-harm, suicide, murder and all sorts of other horribly depressing shit. But, it’s delivered with such authenticity and worrying sombreness that it really gets to me. It does not surprise me at all in the slightest, that four albums later, Lifelover’s main songwriter (known only as B) winds up offing himself, effectively ending the band. This was a very, very serious reminder that Lifelover were not joking or simply looking to shock with their music. None of the other Lifelover albums hold the same haunting, nihilistic self-loathing that Pulver does. It’s a difficult listen, but well worth it if you’ve got the stones for it.
How does one approach a review of a revered classic that spawned a genre? There are various debates about whether Scum was the first grindcore record, but there can be no argument that it was the first one that blew up on any particular scale. It was the album that cemented this weird sounding “grindcore” as a real thing. It also put Earache on the map, and seeded the entire worldwide scene that would follow. That’s a pretty big achievement if you ask me. The most hilarious thing about Scum is Napalm Death’s ridiculously OTT revolving door line up, with the only thing Sides A and B both have in common is drummer Mick Harris. I think personally I prefer Side A as it has a much better sound, but in reality the real grindy stuff happens on Side B, with track after track after track of pummeling punk goodness. Obviously Side A has “The Kill”, “Scum”, “Siege Of Power” and the classic “You Suffer” but Side B just churns out a gauntlet of really similar sounding tracks – not that there isn’t any decent tunage here too (“Life?”, “Deceiver”, “Conservative Shithead”, “Divine Death” and “Dragnet” to name a few). It’s because of the disjointed “is it a record / isn’t it a record?” argument that I think most people prefer the follow up, From Enslavement To Obliteration, which is a lot more solid and expands upon the sounds on Side B of Scum (with the same line up, no less) and also comes across as more of a full album rather than two separate studio sessions crammed together on one disc. Scum is, in all honesty, a bit shaky, and isn’t something that I listen to on a regular basis. But you gotta know your roots. I spend most of my time in grind and its freakish sub genres, so it’s only right that now and then the granddaddy of grindcore albums gets a spin. Hey, I own it three times, so it can’t be that bad!
This has gotta be one of my favourite rap/hip hop discoveries of the past year or so. Granted, this came out in 2011 but I’m not exactly crawling all over the modern rap scene (because as Eminem so eloquently put it – it’s a landfill). I heard enough episodes of Charlie Sloth on Radio 1 whilst at work to convince myself that hip hop was welllllll and truly dead and anything post-2000 was not even worth farting at (play that “German Whip” song ONE MORE FUCKING TIME and I might end myself). The main question about modern hip hop for me isn’t “Who is the most vomit-inducing wigger spacktard; Charlie Sloth or Tim Westwood?”, it’s more along the lines of why do hip hop fans stand for the dump trucks of shit piling into their favourite genre? To paraphrase Immortal Technique, each new song that comes out is another “candy ass nigga with a candy ass beat”. But then again we are looking at the same type of people who idolize Lil Wayne but hate Death Grips, and that says it all really. With that mind set it’s easier to appreciate why top rappers like Tyler The Creator tend to stay in a semi-underground world; as the man himself professes, he’s selling out shows but sleeping on couches afterward. Goblin is a dark record too, and I guess that appeals to me even more, because I don’t want no “candy ass beats” in my raps, yo. All throughout Goblin Tyler struggles with (possibly fictional or otherwise) several recurring characters and alter egos, which makes the whole thing quite confusing on the first listen, but you get used to it. I’m still not entirely sure who or what Tron Cat is, but I’m digging it. “Yonkers” is now one of my favourite rap songs ever. “Transylvania” falls dangerously close to the stylings of the horrorcore genre, despite protests from Tyler that he has nothing to do with the genre. But any song that starts it’s chorus with “I’m Dracula, bitch / Ain’t got a problem smackin’ a bitch” is a rap classic in my books. Hip hop seems to be the only genre of music (other than slam death metal) that can keep getting away with extreme misogyny, even in today’s namby pampy “you can’t say that” world. Frank Ocean pops up a few times (most notably on “She”), which is great, because I like the guy in small doses. To me he seems like the Nate Dogg of the Odd Future crowd, adding a well needed sung chorus now and then to Tyler’s dark and puzzling world. All in all though, and I know I’ve kinda gone off topic a bit on this one, but Goblin is a brilliant rap record that I would recommend to anyone who likes rap music and who has an ounce of common sense. Kanye fucking West this is not.
With the recent release of Voices’ second album London, I realised that I hadn’t written anything on the group’s astoundingly perplexing debut (if you’re a frequent reader you’ll begin to notice that this happens quite a lot haha). Voices are a band formed out of the ashes of the amazing and forever-mourned Akercocke, with all members bar one of the final Akercocke line up fleshing out Voices, along with new bassist Dan Abela, who played with Sarah Jezebel Deva’s solo project at some point. For me, Voices brings Akercocke’s enormously intricate brand of blackened death metal into a cold, clinical, grey new world; creating a stylish, almost artsy fartsy yet mechanically precise blend of noise that is just bloody brilliant. I’ll admit it took me a while to get used to David Gray’s unusual drum sound here. Granted, he has chosen some very unusual sounds in the past but this ultra-triggered set up kinda makes him sound like a drum machine. But hey, this is David Gray, he could be playing the fucking maracas for all I care, and it would still sound awesome. Opener “Dnepropetrovsk” throws you right into Voices’ confusing yet beautiful sound, but for me the album really begins with “Eyes Become Black”; a slightly more stomach-able blast with equal parts brutality and fragility. My favourite track on the entire thing is the bizarre “Sexual Isolation”, which is a twisting, writhing mass of post-modern metal de blaque. Another highlight is the closing track “Endless”, which melds almost post-rock style soaring riffage with ferocious blastbeats. And then it’s over. And then I remember that London came out recently, and the world doesn’t seem so grey anymore.
I forgot just how absolutely huge this album sounds. When it first came out I didn’t like it because it marked a notable difference in direction from the super-blast-n-bombast I expected and loved from Dimmu Borgir. In Sorte Diaboli showcased a much more streamlined, death metal type of direction for the band, and on initial listens, Abrahadabra seemed like a tame follow up, with too much chuggy chuggy boring passages borrowed from the immensely popular deathcore styles of the time. But time heals all wounds, and once I grew up and realised that not everything the band makes is going to sound like Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, I began to slowly love this album. Because, after all, it’s Dimmu fucking Borgir for fuck sake. Despite Abrahadabra not ranking too high in the album scales, “Gateways” is probably one of my favourite (if not my absolute favourite) Dimmu Borgir songs of all time. Granted, it starts a bit like some deathcore band with an orchestra thrown over the top of it, but from the first chorus onwards it just continues to unfold in ferocity and epicness until it just explodes into this second chorus-y part at the end which is just absolutely glorious with the backing female vocals. The message in this track is also pretty damn good, and surprisingly positive compared to Dimmu’s usual subject matter (“Tormentor of Christian Souls” anyone?). I’m surprised it’s taken the group this long to actually make a song called “Dimmu Borgir”, but this marching, orchestral-driven anthem should be a staple of the band’s live set for many moons to come. “A Jewel Traced Through Coal” is a slightly hammy romp that harkens back to early Cradle Of Filth’s gothic romancing, before blasting head on into some greatly welcomed blastbeat craziness and Therion-grade operatics. Are you the giver or the undertaker (whatever that means)?
A recurring theme in my posting to Lines In Wax is my reluctance to approach my absolute favourite bands. I eventually get to it with most of them (look how many Agoraphobic Nosebleed posts I’ve done!) but with Swans I always hit that wall. How in the fuck am I supposed to describe this album in only so many words? I was still getting my head around The Seer when To Be Kind was announced. In a press release, Michael Gira stated something along the lines that this new album will be as long as it needs to be, and with live versions of “The Seer” mashed up with “Bring The Sun” and “Toussaint L’ouverture” reaching nearly an hour in length, I was expecting To Be Kind to be a bigger, badder, mind-boggling big brother to The Seer. But it wasn’t. Instead, what I believe we have here, is the much calmer and more refined sequel to The Seer. A gentle, elegant older sister, rather than a snarling big brother. It’s actually a little bit shorter than it’s predecessor. I’m not saying that it lacks at all in what Swans do best (total sonic transcendence / annihilation), you just need to spin the unfathomable epic “Bring The Sun” to confirm that; it’s a track that builds and builds (and builds and builds) with maddening repetition to ride a crest of an all-consuming musical orgasm. Personally, I feel sorry for the drummer(s), and slightly more long term – my ears. But, man it’s good. No, what differentiates To Be Kind from The Seer is the aching passages of calm moments in between the sheer walls of aural bliss, accentuated and kept plodding mostly by a much more prominent presence of the bass guitar. The bass playing on this album is absolutely fucking phenomenal (check “Oxygen”), and the songs seem to be built more around bass grooves rather than repetitive guitar leads. My favourite tracks are “Just A Little Boy” (which takes a while to get going but has the most epic ending sequence ever), the previously mentioned “Bring The Sun / Toussant L’ouverture” (the 34 minute centerpiece to this circus of insanity), the maddening bass verses brass frenzy of “Oxygen” and the ultimate duality of the title track, with it’s love/hate, hot/cold, creation/destruction kinda vibe as it folds from sheets of sheer bliss into cataclysmic free form noise and destruction. Like I said, words can only describe so much. Play this as loud as you possibly can.
Auerbach is one of a gazillion projects by Merthyr Tydfilian / Aberdare-ian (yeah, I can make up my own words now) Kristian Cole. I sit next to this cunt most days in work placement so I might come across a bit biased as I review one of his creations, but I say with all the honesty in my blackened heart that this is a seriously harsh aural assault of the senses. He goes by many names and guises, but I believe that Auerbach is one of the original aliases he came up with. She’s Worth It is a puzzling, perhaps worrying exercise in harsh noise; ear-splitting distortion meets feral soundscapes and brooding noise collages. Definitely one for the more seasoned noise aficionado, She’s Worth It may reduce less experienced noise mongers down to nothing more than a bubbling pile of mysterious goo that may or may not look like semen with acid in it. Yeah.
C.A.R.N.E. are a porno-influenced groovy grindcore band from the lubed-up lower bowels of Mexico. The Taste Of Latex, despite splits with Oxidised Razor and Fucksaw, is the band’s only full length release to date. Although dirgy as fuck, it is a really groovy album loaded with tupa tupa rhythms and slow, sludgy pornogrind. The vocals are the only let down; when not croaking and spluttering through the genre-defining pitchshifter muck, they are replaced by a slightly lacklustre farmyard of sound effects, which is a bit of a shame but a given in this genre! But who could deny such classics as “Monster Dicks” and “Command Garcez 6ick 6ick 6ick” (whatever the hell that means)? I know I can’t deny them their ridiculous porno groove. It just is what it is; you either love it or hate it. I for one, love it. Just don’t take it so seriously – not the like the slam dudes of the s00per br00tal death metal elite, at least porngrind or pornogrind (whatever) pretty much begs you not to take it seriously.
Every now and then it’s great to hear a rapper who doesn’t rely heavily on endless taboo subject matter to fill his verses. Granted, perhaps I was a little burnt out on the excess of hip hop, as I was listening to Necro’s The Sexorcist a lot alongside Doris, and I’m not exactly saying that this Odd Future member’s solo outfit is clean like a Will Smith album, but it is admittedly refreshing all the same. Doris, being produced by Tyler the Creator, sounds pretty fuckin’ good. Earl Sweatshirt’s tracks seem to hold a stoned elegance to them, particularly “Hive” which is like what gangsta rap would have sounded like if it was invented in an Amsterdam coffeeshop. “Sunday” is also a great ode somewhat in part to weed smoking, even if Frank Ocean’s contributions aren’t the greatest. Vocal contributions from Tyler the Producer (see what I did there?) on “Sasquatch” are always welcome, and RZA from Wu Tang guesting on the excellent “Molasses” is a nice little surprise towards the end of the record.
What a trip! What a dream! I was busting to write about this a few months ago – on my first listen I absolutely fell in love with this smorgasbord of musical tomfoolery, but after every subsequent listen I’ve not been able to replicate my interest for it. That was until I realised that you have to give this album your complete attention; it works as background music but to truly appreciate what it is that’s going on here you really must give it everything. Take an hour out of your day (medicinal cigarette optional) and really wrap your head around this. Some people say that Mr. Bungle got softer with every passing album, and whilst this is true – sonically the recording is nowhere near as aurally terrifying as the self-titled or earlier demos – California possesses as much as or if not more creativity than the band did during their jazzy circus-vibe funk metal days. I feel as though I am slowly losing my mind in Vegas as “Sweet Charity” opens up this boggling musical journey. My favourite track though is “Pink Cigarette”, which aches (perhaps ironically) of love lost over a strained and lounged-out big band bombast. Give it time. All it asks in return is your sanity.
If Pantera and Rompeprop had a baby it would sound like this. I shit you not. In what is possibly one of the most under-rated goregrind (gore ‘ n’ roll? Gore metal?) releases of all time, Splatter Whore burst onto the unsuspecting underground like a full colostomy bag hitting the pavement after being thrown from the roof of a multi-storey car park. It’s wet as fuck and extremely hard hitting. Lol. Metallic riffage and more traditional song structures meet the watery bowels of grind; the sloshing gore vocals, the disturbing samples and the repugnant subject matter. I think I’m getting a semi. A gang-vocal chanted chorus of “Online Underage Gangbang” literally makes me howl with laughter every time I hear it. “Foul Stench From The Vents” is ridiculously catchy, as is “Rohypnol Power Hour” and “Golden Shower Glory Hole”. The opening track, “Triple X Malpractice” remains one of my favourite things ever in the history of time. The fact that this was the release that birthed Rotten Roll Rex cements it’s coolness and absolute essentiality in the goregrind underworld. And the fact that the album art was supplied by a genuine Splatter Whore fan who relieved herself in her panties and took some pictures is… worrying…exciting? Nah, I’m not German enough to be into piss.
There’s a lot of Jesu stuff out there now – I think this project ended up being much more productive than even Justin Broadrick could have anticipated when he first started lurching out the aching melancholic drones of Jesu. Silver however, simply has to be some of the best material recorded under this moniker. It fights for the top spot against Lifeline, which was the first Jesu release I heard and therefore I have an immense soft spot for. I think Lifeline is probably more solid overall, but Silver might just take the crown simply because of the title track alone. “Star” and “Wolves” are also two fantastic Jesu songs ranking high up there, but “Silver” itself is something else. It has the components of any other great Jesu track; the droning, distorted guitars and bass creating a wall of sound, a basic drumming backbone and a bright, melodic synth to carry the whole thing. It’s a brilliant song but it’s not until the middle of the track that all these components come together so beautifully that it sends shivers up my spine every single time I hear it. The band chug through their heartbroken metal whilst that synth just fucking soars and unfolds and goes on and on and on…Then the vocal kicks back in; “Silver’s just another gold…” repeated over and over and over. I’m not sure of the intended message in this song but I get feelings of reassurance and comfort, as if it’s saying “things aren’t the best, but they could be a lot worse. Look on the bright side, pal!” The only time I’ve ever taken anything I shouldn’t have was the day that Jesu played Roadburn 2012 and the experience, although mild, peaked during the band’s set. I was able to intricately study the music and dissect it in my head, really get behind every aspect of it, and hearing “Friends Are Evil” and “Silver” in that way nearly brought me to tears. It was a powerful moment I’ll never forget and definitely brought me a lot closer to Jesu’s music.
