Archive for April 2019

Blind River is a release going back a few years from the absolutely savage grindcore band Cloud Rat. This release is a compilation of sorts, and I’ve heard parts of it before on the split 7″ with Orgullo Primitivo. I don’t want to water down Cloud Rat’s entire thing into one descriptive passage (edit: I have wrote about Cloud Rat in more detail before), but imagine a female-fronted Pig Destroyer and you wouldn’t be a…

I think my girlfriend saved this record to my Spotify playlist, because I can’t remember ever showing any interest in listening to it. But, in the interest of enjoying artists like Grimes or Nicole Dollenganger, I thought fuck it, let’s give Lana a spin. My first impression is that this is some kinda Adele with manic depression shit, but it soon clicked with me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wouldn’t call myself a fan,…

This haunting classic still sounds fresh and relevant today. Jazzy, snazzy and well, just a bit creepy, if I’m honest; it is easy to see the influence of Roxy Music on a large majority of bands that I love. The stand-out tracks for me are the droning “In Every Dream Home A Heartache” and the funkier-than-thou “Bogus Man”.

Death Side are a Japanese crust punk band that hark back to the glory days of Discharge / Exploited era crossover, thrown together with some of the grimier aspects of the more upbeat skate punk kinda sound. This results in lightening fast thrashing riffs and a metallic hardness meeting a chaotic blend of hardcore and catchy sensibility that comes from the other genres. Some of the messier bits really bring Hellbastard to mind. It is…

Surely this is the benchmark by which all gorenoise is measured? In our bizarre and unfair world, I remember this thing getting some heat when it first came out. “Since when were LDOH a noisecore band?” etc. etc. – true, the ‘groove’ which permeated earlier slabs of noise is well and truly buried in the ground, but like… who gives a shit? There is plenty of moronic groovy gore out there (not that I would…

Once you’ve heard Necrocannabilistic Vomitorium once, you’ve heard them a thousand times. Their noise is consistent. Sure, some sessions are tighter than others and some sessions are studio-clear whilst others are just abysmal. On this tape, more bowel-churning bass-driven porno groove is the order of the day. The OG vocalist for this band was 10/10. Damage Digital on the other hand… well I can’t make head nor tail of this, I’ll be honest. Their side…

This dropped fairly recently to masses of hype. Personally I was not too impressed on the first go around, I found Kamikaze to be more of the “hey, look how fast I can say absolutely nothing at all” deal that MM has been working with on his last few records. But, of course, when he’s not wasting his time chasing after fucking mongoloids like Machine Gun Kelly, Eminem is an enormously talented rapper capable of…

I’ll admit that I didn’t have high hopes going in to this; its a 90s industrial / hip hop style pop album that isn’t exactly concocted out of the best elements of the era, but after the first few tracks I really found myself getting into it. The penultimate song, “RSVP” was the theme to the horrendously gruesome 1995 shoot ’em up PlayStation game Loaded, I remember absolutely loving the song at the time, even…

I can’t really remember what possessed me to buy this record as a teenager. I was never really into grungy / desert shit, but I really found myself digging Blues For The Red Sun. It is easy to overlook just how heavy this record is. The band were still finding their feet, I think, but some of the heavier bits just grind out perfectly. Some beginning of an era shit right here. Best track: “Yeah”.

Arctic Thunder is the latest (edit: it’s 2019 now…) release from crusty black metal behemoths Darkthrone, which marks a colossal (and as if  “as one” with the cover art, an entirely warming) return to form from the Norwegian legends. I understand that a lot of people enjoyed The Underground Resistance, but the overuse of the King Diamond worship turned the whole thing into a bit of a parody, for me at least. There is a…

There’s something desperate about guitars in rap music that reminds me of the late 90s / early 00s. Unfortunately that means we don’t get off to the hottest start with this quick 2015 offering from the legendary Esham. Honestly, all in all, its a very mixed bag of styles that is over very quickly, with nothing that really stands out (also, of note, there is zero dubstep here, after many of his releases before this…

If you compare this stuff to the Christian Death of old, it comes across as a total fucking mess. Granted, that is part of what makes it so great. Female vocals (from the demonic Maitri) really work well with Christian Death’s macabre, sexy approach to industrial and gothic rock. Tracks are filled with punk venom but are delivered with metal velocity and a splattering of electronic sleaziness. Equally sprawling and ambitious as it is puerile…

One of the last recordings we did. This was originally supposed to be a split with Gorgonized Dorks on an 8″ lathe, but it fell through, mainly due to our ineptitude. I love the artwork, as terrible as it is. Above is the original 8″ version, below is the tape version. Neither came out, so its on Bandcamp now. Endless failure! I love the twin guitar sound on this, even though it is (purposefully) horrendously…

This record was my first experience with Converge. It introduced me to their melancholic brand of progressive hardcore (for a lack of a better way of putting it) and whilst it didn’t really resonate that much with me when I bought this CD in a record shop in Padstow when I was 15, I have grown to fully appreciate what is going on here, how it fits into the overall Converge canon, and the importance…

Like, who the fuck actually listens to this shit? I love Lee Perry, but this compilation is a fucking bag of shit. Rushed, thrown together jumble of half-assed dubs is the order of the day. Absolutely, definitely, totally, utterly, AVOID at all costs pointlessness. (PS – I read on Discogs that this isn’t actually Scratch Perry at all… who knows what the fuck is going on with this B.S.). I would also like to quickly…

‘Best Of’ compilations suck 99% of the time, so I’ll skip straight to the remix disc in this case. I guess I should also offer the disclaimer that remix albums are often also just a steaming pile of shit (some people just never learn though – I’m looking at you, Mortiis), but Made In Germany has some solid contributions from some decent names in the biz. Clawfinger’s go on “Sonne” is the first track to…

This is something I have putting off listening to. I was involved in forums online with the majority of these guys and over time was slated to help release some of their other projects, which were, honestly, infinitely better. As much as I want to revel in memories of the good ol’ MySpace days, this album is, just, well, weak. Can’t really sum it up in any other way; the drums and guitars are enormously…

I used to use the 45rpm track off Musique De L’Indifférence during my brief foray into daily meditation; I found that HNW was a distilled account of “I find peace listening to chaotic shit like death metal”, and therefore perfect for shutting off your mind and resetting your aural palate, as it were. Musique De L’Indifférence as a whole though, might be a test of patience for those even into the worlds of noise and…

What a beauty! Pulsating electronics and dark industrial vibrations meet enormous, explosive beats, all led by hypnotising female vocals. I have no idea how I found this, but I suspect it was through the Twin Peaks-inspired track “Sometimes My Arms Bend Back”, but I have walked into a whole new world of modern, fresh, exhilarating electronic music. She The Throne walk the line between a multitude of genres and somewhat defy definition, but I have…

Now this is a heavy one! I sold this record today (at the time of writing) so in honour of departing with one of my most cherished possessions (honestly, it deserves a better home where it will be played / appreciated and not just shoved in a box somewhere) I gave this one a play through for the first time in years. It is easy to under-estimate how skull-rattlingly heavy the tracks on this record…

Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned always stood out like a sore thumb for me in The Prodigy’s history. I was in comp (high school for all y’all Yanks out there) when this came out and I remember in the press / build up to it that there was some sort of uneasy feeling that everyone had because Keith and Maxim weren’t going to be in tow as vocalists (I think Maxim sneaks in on “Spitfire” in…

From The Cradle To Enslave is a weird stop-gap EP that came before the Midian album. At this point the band was in a serious state of flux, shedding members like a snake with alopecia. I think there’s something like 15 different drummers performing on this EP. It’s a bit of an odds’n’ends collection, but every track is a corker, except maybe the “Pervert’s Church” remix tune, which is just shite. The cover songs are…

Considering this album was made with a fucking washing machine it is really, really good. The sampling and beat creation using the harvested noises is simply second to none, propelling what would usually lull around in experimental music, found sounds or even noise, out into genuinely listenable music. No small feat. This is the 30* rinse your brain needed. 

(Disclaimer: my version isn’t signed, I just bumped these pictures off Discogs. Sue me.) Before Kroh got a female vocalist and walked down the path that they are on now, they sounded like this. I got a whole extra-morose Goatsnake kinda vibe off of this, but always found it jarring how the super heavy Entombed-core guitars jarred with the melodic vocals and almost poppy song structures. Maybe it is just the production, IDK. I love…

Deathcrush is a special part of the Mayhem discography. It is a dank-ass, stank-ass, sloppy, mungin’ tape demo kinda deal; far cry from the band’s lightening fast black metal misery that they would go on to become infamous for. The band might sound like a bunch of teenagers in a garage (which they were, basically) but Maniac is on-point here. The vocals are absolutely mental, and lend a unhinged edge to the atmosphere, as do…

What a trip! Laid back, seriousllllly heavy dub vibes. It is nice to come across some King Tubby shit that hasn’t been rehashed into some piece of shit compilation.  King At The Control actually flows, like a real album (despite the nature of dub), and whilst there is a similarity between the tracks, especially in the first half or 2/3, it doesn’t get tired or boring. I absolutely love dub music, but the genre is…

I’m not really sure what it is about Mac Lethal. I really enjoyed the first record, but since then… I don’t know what it is, I can’t put my finger on it, because this guy can rap, that much is quite obvious…. but, I just hate this shit. I think its the lyrics more than anything. On one track he’s just ripping on Tool for seemingly no reason whatsoever. “Make Out Bandit” sounds like it…

Way back when ICP stood for Inner City Posse, the group dropped their demo cassette, Bass-Ment Cuts (yeah I know I’ve credited them as Insane Clowns in the post title, but what you gonna do?). Before the group “found” their horrorcore style (read: decided to imitate Esham lol) they had a much more gangsta rap style on the go. All things considered this isn’t a million miles away from Carnival Of Carnage, minus the whole…

Heinous return with more slimy goregrind / mince for you to get yourself all wrapped up in. This throws me off a bit actually, because of the title and the fact that there are five tracks on the EP, not four. All in all, subterranean muddy goodness at its very best.