IMPLΛNT, more commonly known I’m sure as the full project name Infected Manipulation Parasite Last Λbstract Noise Terror is a fairly prolific speedcore artist. Most of his (?) stuff has been released through the Bulgarian netlabel Глисти, but some releases (like this one) have been put out by Legs Akimbo Records, amongst others. Forgive me if I’m a little off here, as I’m still kinda finding my way with this type of stuff, but I believe this falls into what people call splittercore, with its immensely quick, almost blurry drum programming. Imagine speedcore fed through a thick, sticky DMT trip. Equally bizarre, punishing and somehow relaxing.
Blacklands is the second album from female-fronted occult metallers, Castle (who have, quite possibly, one of the simplest yet coolest band names ever). Blacklands is more towards the rockier side of doom, rather than falling off the edge into the void of sludge. The cover art here is very striking, and I find myself drawn to it. Despite its quasi-surrealism, it is fairly simplistic, however every time I study it, I pick out little extra details that I did not notice before. The same can pretty much be said about Castle’s doomy occult rock. Throughout the catchiness of the riffs and vocals can be found nuanced little touches that really make all the difference. Female-fronted occult rock was overdone for a while, but this is definitely a stand out band in respect to that.
The Amazing Jeckel Brothers is easily the weakest of the original set of joker’s cards. In fact, I really don’t have that much to say about this album at all. It has a few stand out tracks, but for the most part it is just irritating filler and a bunch of shit that just goes on way, waaayyy too long (“I Want My Shit” being a prime example). There’s a terrible selection of “metal” songs too, and all the guest appearances from “big name stars” such as ODB and Snoop Dogg do absolutely nothing to buy this record any credit. In fact, the contributions seem almost stock in nature, especially from Mr. Dogg, and cheapen the entire experience further. “I Stab People” and “Mad Professor” are the only tracks worth noting, as is the instrumentation of both of the Jeckel tracks, and that’s literally all, folks. This was terrible in 1999 and it’s still terrible now. You probably don’t need me to tell you that, unless you have twisted hair and a penchant for Monster energy drinks. Avoid.
Spermanys Most Wanted (surely there should be an apostrophe on Spermany’s?) is the first 7″ EP / demo from now-legendary groovy grindcore band Gut. Technically, Drowning In Female Excrements came first as a hand-made cassette released by the band, but this 1992 EP was the first from the band on a label. Gut are credited with inventing the pornogrind sound, which is in its most primitive and infantile form here. Due to the production on this thing, it almost sounds like a black metal record. If not for, of course, the trademark Gut gurgles and the sampling work holding it firmly in the dodgy world of grindcore. A few of the songs here would eventually go on to appear on the band’s debut album Odour Of Torture, including a Gut favourite of mine, “Consequence”. Once upon a time I had this gem on vinyl, but alas I sold it (along with almost everything else) to live a less materialistic lifestyle. If I recall, the Gut EPs I had were some of the first things to be snapped up by collectors.
Clitorape are a groovy goregrind band from France. Gynaecological Apocalypse is the group’s very sexy debut release, boasting a super-downtuned sound and dual-headed pitchshifted vocal approach, because y’know, one pitchshifter is never enough. Expect styles perfected by Rompeprop, GUT et al plunged to new depths; new lows, new brutality and most importantly, new grooves. Stand out tracks include the smooth jazz and nu-metal tomfoolery of the hilariously-titled “Bubble Butt Blues”, the blast happy “Natural Porn Killers” and the gooey, gargling “Smegmageddon”. In addition, at the end of the record there is a bunch of tracks featuring collaborations with fellow goregrinders 5 Stabbed 4 Corpses and Ass Deep Tongued (come on, what a band name hahaha). The whole thing is rounded off nicely with covers of Ultimo Mondo Cannibale and Satan’s Revenge On Mankind (the SROM cover being particularly tasty, no pun intended). It was also a pleasure to catch the band at the 2016 edition of Forced System Festival. (2021 edit: unsurprisingly, and to add much to the bad name that pornogrind already has, some very shady accusations were levelled at members of this band.)
(words by dance, Gareth, dance!) I decided to say a few words on this album after seeing the band perform live a week or so ago, where I was actually lucky enough to see all 3 versions that have been of the band perform since all current and ex-vocalists were present as part of the band’s 10 year anniversary tour. So, here we have Mothership, the latest release from the Tilian Pearson era of the band, and a damn good record at that! This is great; all the catchy guitars, tight drumming, and high energy, highly vocaled frenzy I could possibly want. Such a good energy and vibe from this stuff. Highlights include: “Young Robot” (possibly my favourite track on the album), “Deception” and “Betrayed By The Game”. Since the band are now on their 3rd vocalist in 10 years I guess there are probably some divides with fans over which era of the band they prefer, but whatever that may be there’s no denying that this is a great Dance Gavin Dance album, whatever the case may be. A really fun album.
Hymns was the final album by Godflesh before they originally broke up in 2002. It seems to apply the no-nonsense aesthetic from records such as Pure and Slavestate to the band’s later, more “nu metal” kinda sound as found on Songs Of Love And Hate and even parts of Us & Them. What’s also quite nice to note is that Ted Parsons, who drummed for Swans on a fair number of their seminal recordings, is the drummer here. This is also the second, and final, Godflesh studio album to feature a real live drummer, and their first after being released from Earache. I find Hymns is often overlooked. There are many Godflesh gems here, such as the opening belter “Defeated”, which slows to a groaning crawl that really drags out the agonizing pinched harmonics. “Voidhead” is a painful listen (in a good way), taking the repetition of industrial into the nu-metal world kicking and screaming. Then, towards the end you’ve got the hat-trick of the venomous “Vampires”, the ridiculously heavy “Antihuman” and the soaring “Regal” soothing you just before the skull-bashing closer, “Jesu”. Being a Godflesh record, there was a 50/50 chance that the cover art was going to be fucking shite. It kinda looks like it was just pulled off a Google image search, and the booklet doesn’t really elaborate much either. The End Records and Music On Vinyl also did everybody a solid and put this out on vinyl in 2013, leaving Us & Them as the only Godflesh album not available on wax. Surely drum and bass belongs on vinyl, right? If I ever win the lottery I’ll finance the repress myself, if Digby lets me buy the rights. Anyway, I’m rambling. I’ll fuck off now. Listen to this!
Big Grams is an extremely refreshing mash up of synth-drenched electronica pop and hip hop. Initially, I had a reaction of “holy shit, this sounds like Lorde collaborating with Run The Jewels!”, and rather ironically, considering how ridiculous that comparison is, Run The Jewels pop up on track six here. Anyway, Big Grams is actually New York dream pop duo Phantogram but fronted by Outkast nutter Big Boi. And, not to mince words, its fucking fantastic. First off, its decent pop music, before Big Boi is even involved. I need to get Phantogram wrapped around these ‘ere lugholes. But, with the super slick flow piled on top like thick honey over a perfect set of pancakes and bacon (yeah, I went there fam) the balance of rap and pop is achieved. It is almost the zen of collaborations in this style, and it shits on every single worthless chart-topper than throws a rapper in as nothing more than just something to make the middle eight pass a bit faster. The only real let down is the final track, which has fairly uninspired contributions from Skrillex, a project that really should have stayed in 2012.
This has to be one of my favourite releases ever, and the best thing is that it is completely out of the ballpark in regards to the music I usually find myself listening to. Despite my best efforts to listen to everything, and as much as I love dub reggae, it isn’t something I find myself listening to all that often, anymore at least. This insanely legendary collaboration between a few greats of the genre; the band (Rockers Uptown in this case, one can only guess?), the producer King Tubby and the melodica playing shaman himself, Augustus Pablo, is surely one of the best places to start in the seemingly endless, incestuous world of dub reggae (let me dub that third hand remix in a rub-a-dub style, fam). Everything I love about dub is evident here. Take reggae music and strip it to the core, and if possible, remove as many vocal lines as possible. The bass must be deep. The guitars must be spacey as fuck. And the drums…well this is where Mr. Tub-A-Wub-A-Dub-Dub (I’m so sorry) excels the most. It really has to be heard to be believed. For me, it takes me back to my first trip to Amsterdam as a 20 year old wastoid, and all the sights and sounds of the coffeeshop scene and the freedom of the people involved in such (before shops started getting shot up and closed down by the government). It’s hard to pick a stand out track because the whole thing kinda flows as one for me. It is music to get lost in, and often enough the entire record ends before you are anywhere near finished absorbing the vibe it gives. If I had to pick out favourites, I’d start with track 7, the title track, “Satta Dub” rounds the performance off with a bit of a menacing beat, and I guess I’d have to pick the opener too, “Keep On Dubbing” as it is the stuff of legend.
This is the brand new album from a recharged Sum 41 and the first with guitarist Dave Baksh back in the group. My initial impression upon listening was “Oh it’s darker, keep this theme going please and we may have a good record here,” and I wasn’t too far off with such a request; its a lot darker, especially to those that may only know Sum 41 for “In Too Deep” or “Fat Lip”, as its definitely not the happy, bouncy pop punk as reflected in such earlier hits. Big riffs! Some lovely guitar playing on this record actually – throughout in fact; riff after riff, with loads going on. This is a very strong album here; a really solid set of songs with a lot more aggressive vocal approach, and very mature to boot. Highlights include the single “Fake My Own Death”, “There Will Be Blood”, the anthemic “Twisted By Design” and the title track “13 Voices”, but seriously, this album is cracking throughout, so I won’t go into too much singling out any in particular, just song-after-song great! For anyone that has wrote them off, only knows Sum 41 for the career-breaking singles, or hasn’t really kept up to speed with the band, this really is a fantastic re-introduction, and well worth a listen!
When Blues Pills first came about it was a refreshing, very accessible take on the done-to-death blues rock template. With the resurgence of both stoner and occult rock, Blues Pills offered a simpler route without any of the ridiculous satanic pomp and edgy marijuana references. When Bliss was released in 2012, I fell in love with the band’s dusty, authentic rock and roll music. Blues Pills inevitably got signed to a big label, and it all went downhill from there. This album has been out for two years and I haven’t been able to bring myself to write about it because of how disappointing it is. I’ve tried and tried and tried, and now I finally give up and present this negative review. It is as if the band have had all the life and soul sucked out of them. Sure, better production value is to be expected with a big budget debut, but any magic that the band had previously has well and truly been washed away in the studio polish. Most tragically, even the vocals, once crackling with bluesy lust, energy and fever, are now flat, compressed and devoid of any real emotion or interest. Having several tracks from Bliss re-recorded here does nothing but cement this fact. This debut is nothing more than a 10-tracked, convenient 40-minuter designed to shift units. Bitterly, bitterly disappointing. How to go from alternative music’s new hope to boring dad-rock 101, courtesy of Nuclear Blast.
(Words by Burra, who recently gave back Wednesday) I really like this album. Overall, it feels so much more alive with energy than any of the more recent releases; maybe with a slight return to their classic sound at times. Although nothing they do will ever be as good as Tell All Your Friends or Where You Want To Be, unfortunately thats just how it is! So anything they do always lives in the shadow of those albums, I guess (feel free to disagree, mind). However, that is not to say they don’t come close at times on this record at re-capturing some of that magic. It stands its ground well. That aside, here is a band that has obviously aged and grown up into a more mature sound over the years, and why would they want to just keep releasing the same record over and over again? I haven’t caught the band playing anything off this album live yet, but some tracks on here I can imagine go down really well in a live setting, especially the opening track “Death Wolf”; one of my favourites off the album, and a cracking introduction and welcome return. If you’re already a fan and have followed the bands rise since the mic swinging “emo” pioneers they were, then I’m sure you’ll enjoy this just as much as anything else they’ve done. Lots of energy as well as the odd slow moment. A great record! Highlights: “I Felt It Too”, “Death Wolf”.
(2021 edit: there have been some very sketchy accusations that have come out against the guy in this project. Instead of deleting my review because of someone else’s actions, please find the original 2016 piece below unedited. Consider it a historical document, or whatever. To be absolutely clear: LIW unequivocally condemns any acts of sexual abuse, violence or manipulation.) Anal Floss Is Boss is an hilariously-titled goregrind project from Carmarthen of all places (although currently based in the crapital city of Wales, Cardiff), which has been sporadically active for over 9 years, originally starting as a side project. Despite this unusual life-span for a drum machine goregrind project, You Gott’a Grin… is the debut EP under the moniker, self-released by the band’s mastermind Des (or is that mastergrind? I’ll show myself out…) on a run of 100 copies. The sleeve art of Bonnie Rotten looking like she is embalmed in nuru gel should give you some idea of what to expect here. The whole thing opens with a porno sample before launching into “Analphilia”, which I guess counts as the “lead single” here (see the video below). Thick, groovy guitars are held together by realistically programmed drums (got a really sludgy Hymen Holocaust kinda sound going on here). My favourite song though has to be the closing number, “Hacked, Spewed, Used For Food”, and not only because it contains samples from Peep Show, but because it holds the perfect balance between riffing and chuggy, slower parts. Production by Fan (Octohead / ex-Necrocest) gives the EP a meaty punch that a lot of DIY projects lack, and really is the icing on the shit / vomit / semen smeared cake. Bon appétit!
Voices is the really, really, reaaalllly long-awaited return of Malaysian grindcore machine, Wormrot. When you think that the last thing we heard from these guys was the Noise EP, that is surely a crime against extreme music in itself. This hiatus has spanned for longer than most grindcore band’s careers, but nevertheless, they are finally back, and most people would probably agree that it has been worth the wait. Voices marks a massive departure from the usual Wormrot sound. Gone is the rough-around-the-edges production, and gone (literally!) is the original drummer, who has been replaced by who can only be described as the human equivalent of a gale-force wind, playing a technical yet thoroughly “grindcore” style that reminds me of Mick Harris circa 1990 and Pig Destroyer / Misery Index blastmaster Adam Jarvis. Eagle-eared listeners and long time fans will also note the totally unexpected creepings of melody working its way into a few tracks. A specific example of this would have to be the phenomenally excellent “Compassion Is Dead”, which reeks potently of 2000s era Nasum; the chorus riff literally weeps and it is absolutely incredible. Fingers crossed for catching the band live this year!
Fantastic heavy stoner rock from Italy. Think Samsara Blues Experiment but heading off in a more straight-forward, Kyuss-themed direction, rather than becoming lost in endless songs. The psych here is well controlled and reigned in, but do not fret – there is plenty of “woah!”, “man!,” and “duuuude!” moments here to keep perpetuating the frrrreakah enough to space these bluesy numbers out into the stoner territory. Hey, there’s even a Peter Frampton-style wah part towards the end. What more do you need? Also, as a strange off-note, sometimes the vocalist gets really into these heavy redneck American stylings, it almost sounds like ex-Mushroomhead frontman Waylon Reavis. Honestly though, it’s all a bit typical of this kind of thing and brings absolutely nothing new to the table. That isn’t to say that this isn’t an enjoyable listen, just don’t expect Gorilla Pulp to re-invent the wheel. All the tropes are in place; the beautiful crunching guitars, the (probably) hand-painted 60s tits on the record sleeve, and the song titles such as “Magic Mushroom”, “Witch Boogie” and “Electric Woman”. It’s time to shake the dust off those bell bottoms and scrap all the crap out of your bong.
Lahar is a thrashy, hardcore-tinged band from the Czech Republic (I believe thrashcore is the preferred term) and Umění Strachu is their second album (third if you count the original demo, which has a fair amount of songs on it). It kinda has a skate-punk feel to it, which mixes oddly with soaring melodies and more traditional metal parts to form an unique brew of styles. Considering I saw these guys as Obscene Extreme, this record isn’t particularly speedy, but lacks no energy or punch because of this. Doomentia Records put this out in 2013 on CD and vinyl which is still readily available. 150 copies of the coloured vinyl release came with extra heavy packaging and a record player slipmat, which is pretty cool.
Everyone knows World Downfall, right? Right!? To be honest, getting onto World Downfall was one of the last things I did in familiarising myself with the history of grind, purely because every other Terrorizer record is so…well….not weak, but just….bland as fuck. World Downfall however, sounds like Morbid Angel on methamphetamine, and this 87′ demo sounds like the same thing but fed through a fucking meat grinder first. Whilst I do appreciate the analogue warmth to the “big” studio sound of the band’s most famous record, there is just something about this demo which adds to proceedings in a way that the studio recording can’t. I must be coming across like a more-kvlt-than-kvlt black metaller or something (“only the first demo is reeeaaal!”), but I am not trying to insist that things simply have to be recorded shittily to sound crusty or anything like that, and it’s not even as if these recordings are particularly “necro” or unlistenable either. It’s just here, or rather – there, back in 1987, there was magic in the air. Crackling. This entire thing is pulsing and overflowing with excitement and energy. Something that everything else Terrorizer has released since these recordings has been sorely missing.
Holy shit this is intense! Whoever imagined the murky worlds of goregrind and “dark hardcore” meeting? This is the closest thing to mixing powerviolence savagery with nasty, nasty goregrind since I heard the excellent UxDxSx a few years ago. I mean, this isn’t to say that Vermin Womb are a goregrind band, but you need to press play on this beast and get your head around those vocals. There is something Lovecraftian about the sheer magnitude of the roars emanating from this record. Effected or otherwise, I am seriously impressed. They give this death metal-tinged hardcore a massive, massive edge. There is another band that are a bit more well known that share this vocalist, and that band is Primitive Man. I’ve wanted to do a review for Scorn since I heard it last year but I am a lazy useless asshole so I still haven’t done it. Anyways, I feel I need to go back and dig that record out, because this right here is intense as fuck. It’s heavier than the goddamn fucking sun, fam. It’s like Neurosis decided to do death metal or something.Very, very impressed.
This thing has been in Spotify “to do” list for absolutely fucking aeons, and every time I open it I am reminded why. It is if my brain, in some mad coping mechanism, blacks out all memory of ever hearing this album. Usually the human mind reserves this sort of thing for deeply traumatic events in life, like for instance, a car accident or a horrifying sexual assault. But, Reduced To A Limbless Sex Slave is so nauseatingly, traumatically, unbelievably awful that my brain seems to class the experience of listening to it as a horrific life event. I mean, I listen to gorenoise for fucks sake. There must be like, what, two hundred people on the entire planet who like that shit. Despite it’s tiring tropes, I am also partial to slam and brutal death metal. But this….this is something else. Whoever sat down and thought “yeah, this is a perfectly acceptable sound for a professionally released album” needs their head checked. The absolute crying shame of it all is that I don’t think Artery Eruption are all that bad, I just want to know who decided to release an album that sounds like it was recorded inside a decommissioned industrial oven on a Windows 95 laptop with a £5 webcam microphone. Pass. For the love of God, pass.
I’ve been meaning to write about this since it came out but I’m a useless moron. Even seeing the band live twice in the summer kinda booted me up the arse to get it done, but then I let it slide. Anyways, there’s no time like the present! Cattle Decapitation have come such a long way and it’s both a pleasure and a shame to see them fall into their own entirely unique sound. I say that because Cat Decap have always been one of my favourite death metal bands; their murky, disgusting take on gore-drenched music has always been fascinating to me, and when more melodic elements crept into their work I found myself distancing from the band. Karma.Bloody.Karma was the last record I paid any real attention to, and the two that followed it didn’t really do anything for me, although the Monolith Of Humanity record had a few stand-out tracks. Along comes the mouthful that is The Anthropocene Extinction, taking the template laid on Monolith Of Humanity to incredible new heights. Such savage, clinically-executed brutality that doesn’t seem to lose any grime considering the quality of the production job and the immense triggering of the drums; even the melody sears along a razor’s edge. Those vocals; Jesus H Christ! Entirely in a league of their own, if not at first a bit bewildering. This sounds more to me like a hungry debut record from a band born to conquer the world of extreme metal, rather than album number eight from well-established scene legends. I mean, talk about re-inventing yourself… Obviously Cattle Decapitation aren’t the same band as they were in 1996. But this is incredible.
(I found this review after salvaging a HDD from an old laptop. It was originally written in 2013) Ahh, the simpler things in life…the laptop open browsing the world wide web, a beer next to my right hand (and several more chilling in a washing up bowl full of ice), and my latest Agathocles LP purchase spinning on the platter. I’ve said it before, but you really don’t need to fix what is broken. Agathocles have been peddling the same unique brand of grind for a good while now, and This Is Not A Threat…. is one of the more recent long-playing offerings in mincing chaos. I think that the band definitely lost their way through the late 90s, but came full circle back into the perfect grinding sound of mincecore fury. This “perfected” AGx sound is what the band pretty much use as a template for everything these days, and This Is Not A Threat… is no exception. Expect the usual blasting grind assault from Belgian’s finest purveyors of the art form. And like I said above, why expect anything else?
(words by Burra; eater of worlds, rustler of Jimmies) Here we have the band’s latest 11 track release: Integrity Blues; a beautiful sounding record from start to finish, and one that definitely shows off the slower, softer side to the band (which I love) with lots of atmosphere and lots of emotion. Haunting, soothing and yet, at times, harder hitting. It’s very difficult to pick any stand-out tracks from this album, simply as this is a band that when I choose to listen to them, I can listen to the album in its entirety, rather than single out any specific tracks. I feel that is the type of band that Jimmy Eat World are. For arguments sake however, I do really enjoy “Get Right”, with it’s dark, driving riff and big chorus; one of the somewhat heavier tracks actually from this little bunch. “Sure and Certain” too, for that big, happy-sounding chorus alone. I also enjoy the soft yet moody “Pretty Grids”, as well as “Pass The Baby”, which builds and builds slowly until out of nowhere in comes those surprising riffs to lead the song out. But, as the entire thing all flows so well I won’t delve any further into picking the tracks apart! In a nutshell, this is just a really nice sounding record, and there’s always something about Jimmy Eat World’s music that gets me lost inside it. I’ll admit that Clarity, their 1999 release, is one of my favourite albums ever, so it was of no surprise to me that I really enjoyed this release. Haven’t really got a bad word to say about this, if you’re a fan no doubt you’ll enjoy, and if your new to them I still recommend a listen.
