Archive for May 2016

As far as doom metal goes, Cathedral have always been one of my favourites. They were the band that introduced me to the genre in my youth, and therefore have always occupied a soft-spot in my blackened heart. Heading up to London Forum to catch the band’s final show was something that will stick with me forever. The disbanded warriors of gloom have a varied and interesting back catalogue ranging from the downright heavy to…

This double CD package brings together a bunch of old splits and demos from the prolific, blackened grinding thrashers Nunslaughter, as well as a bevvy of live tracks. The splits and demos are fantastic, and I will surely review them on their own with the material from the respective splitting bands, but I just want to cast some light on this little package as I got my hands on a copy recently. Do you love…

I was recommended this band to check out, and having known literally nothing about them I was interested to hear what was going on. The LaFontaines are a very difficult band to pigeonhole; I’m finding myself presented with rapping, smooth sounding vocals, riffs, indie guitar licks, lovely guitar tones amongst really big sounding anthems. What a mental combination! On paper this shouldn’t work, it really shouldn’t… however these guys have seemed to pull it off…

The Jesus Lizard are one of those bands that I had been meaning to check out for all eternity but never seem to get around to listening to (until now, obviously). I picked their Goat record to try out at random, simply because the art looked kinda cool and abstract so I just dove in and went for it. Anyway, I’m not sure if it’s just because I’ve taken so long to jump onto this…

Just quickly gonna put dibs on a review of this seeing as there’s three of us writing now (four if Kristian gets off his ass and follows up with more). Darkthrone’s The Cult Is Alive marked a turning point in the band’s career; effectively buffeting their sails with a healthy second wind that easily saw them extending their legacy by another ten years or so. Let’s face it, by the late 90s / early 2000s,…

I’d never heard of Gnaw Their Tongues until I saw them live at Roadburn and I was almost instantly blown away by them (I say them – it’s just one guy making so much horrible music from his basement). A mix of black metal and noise would probably be the best way to describe this but then again so would two people screaming at you when the sound of the world ending at million miles…

Closed Casket is surely the definitive Esham record – I love absolutely everything about it; the sound, the lyrics, the samples, even the artwork (for some reason). Closed Casket captures a slice of Detroit “suicidalist” lifestyle in the smog of the early 90s, during that perfect period when Esham was still dank as fuck but not dropping references to the man down below every 20 seconds. I tend to categorise Esham into two categories –…

I’ll admit this was actually my first time listening to a full ELO studio album, having only really been familiar with the singles (i.e. the greatest hits) of the ELO brand, but I’ve been meaning to check this lot out for a while. This is a really great sounding album, it sounds like I’m listening to a big, iconic classic rock record despite this being a moderately new release – it just has that kind…

Enema Shower are a groovy goregrind/porngrind (yadda yadda) band from Slovakia, playing in a slow but funky style of danceable filth. The vocals are low, thick ‘n’ heavy (see what I did there, y’know, because it’s porno grind!), the guitar work is like razorwire despite the slow speed and the drums possess the satisfying piccolo ping that one expects from musical circles such as this. These three guys (and one girl) seem to have a…

I need more stuff like this in my life! I stumbled across this little hardcore punk gem last month, and haven’t been able to get enough of it. It’s not exactly aeons long with six tracks clocking in at just over eight minutes, but it’s a dirty ride, with a proper old-school production style. The bass drum is so fat, and whilst the guitars have Dead Kennedys written all over them, the riffs are busy…

I went into this release not sure what to expect, but what a fun record! Opener “Double Trouble” immediately sets the mood with John Lydon’s spoken intro; a catchy number with a catchy, repetitive bass line and an indie pop guitar sound. There is a similar vibe and sound throughout the whole record, instrument-wise, mixed in with angst-ridden yet humorous vocals and lyrics from Mr Lydon. I think what really draws me in to this…

I know these are bootlegs but fuck, the sound quality absolutely fuckin’ sucks. It sounds like a bunch of low quality mp3s jingling their wateriness all over the place. That being said, it is great to hear all these Psychopathic Records affiliated artists all in one place, and kinda reminds me of an extended Dark Lotus, more than anything. The Twiztid guys really bring it on this record, and the odd contribution from Esham is…

Bloodlung were a sludge band from South Wales who called it a day a year or so ago. As a result, free copies of their Roach album filtered out and I got given one at band practice when Judas Cradle used to rehearse at One Louder studios in Newport. I don’t usually listen to metal stuff in the car on the way home because a.) I’m usually sick of hearing guitars by that point and…

Considering how much I listen to goregrind I always seem to let to the big ‘uns slide right on by….*sigh*. Anyway, this fucking amazing goregrind record was released last year by Bizarre Leprous and is a new project of Ex-LODH/SMES vokill puke bucket Erwin De Groot and one Kirill Maestro, who – according to Discogs – played guitars and programming in a band called Jaga-Jaga Massacre (who I’ll definitely be keeping an eye open for…

(Words by Burra, Porth’s last hope for redemption) I’ll be honest, I went into this album not expecting a great deal, and with the mindset it would never be another Mechanical Animals (for me Marilyn Manson’s finest hour). However, I was actually quite surprised by this record; it holds itself up quite well as an album. I think it is definitely the best thing to come out of the Marilyn Manson camp, in recent years…

It’s a word that gets thrown around a lot these days but fuck, Cult Of Occult are heavy. From the crushing guitar to the viscous vocals and the pounding drums it’s almost too much at times but it never stops being amazing albeit in a thoroughly unpleasant way. Five Degrees Of Insanity (as can you see from the album cover) is about a man slowly losing his mind – which is a pretty good description…

So today (“today” being a month or so before you all see this post) I was casually browsing through The Graveyard (what I call iTunes on my PC since Spotify came along) and I stumbled across this forgotten relic; it had completely slipped my mind that Sleep had done a $neaky little EP for Adult Swim, and top it off, I find out this shit came out in 2014! 2014!!?? Holy fuck… Anyways, on with…