Archive for May 2019

After an exciting but slightly shaky debut, the quick follow-up that was Superbuick really started to show off Mushroomhead’s songwriting chops. Gone are the filler tracks, and the album seems shorter than its predecessor, but the record is only leaner for it. The songs are far more complex and engaging. I listened the absolute fuck out of this album when I was a teenager. My dad bought an original copy of it for me from…

I love Phillip Glass, but he’s probably one of the least-played artists that I turn to. The time was ripe then, for me to finally check out this album with Bang On A Can All-Stars (who I am absolutely not familiar with). What unfolds is two pulse-quickening instrumentals which is basically the same loop going over and over and over but with slight variances. It is tense, yet somewhat relaxing. Kinda like being cranked on…

I recently added “This Corrison” to a whopping playlist that I was working on, so was inspired to finally go back and check out the album that it came from. Some of the other tracks don’t seem to hold up so well compared to it, but “Lucretia My Reflection” and “Driven Like The Snow” are brooding goth classics. The drum sounds on “Never Land – A Fragment” are stunning too. I love the mysterious simplicity…

I remember seeing these play in Abertillery (?) to like, 5 people, which was an interesting experience. I find stuff like this always translates better in a live setting, but Gambling For Gore has a solid sound. There is an interesting edge to the drumming, which adds another dimension to the usual saucepans ‘n’ triggers approach. Make what you will of the pig squeal / grunt kinda vocals (they have both draw backs and entertaining…

Imagine Meshuggah meeting Venetian Snares on a shit virtual reality show. Yeah. I don’t really know where that last bit came from, but I’ve written it now so it is staying in. Quality journalism*, folks! Cut up metal samples meet batshit song structures and a farmyard of vocals. I would expect no less from something found on Grindcore Karaoke. *I use the term very loosely.

Well then, this is just as bad as (if not worse than) I thought it would be. I absolutely love bad movies, as I’m sure frequent readers are fully aware, but I’m more of a creature-FX, fake blood and lots of tits kinda guy, rather than an a Z-list-celeb-loaded, computer generated “we’ll fix it in post” kinda guy, y’know? When it comes to awful CGI rain and/or sharks though, I feel as though there isn’t…

Ahh, tupa tupa death-tinged goregrind, done in the Czech style! There really is nothing else quite like it, for better or worse. It has an interesting tone as it is led entirely by bass a la Necrocannibalistic Vomitorium or Spasm, but don’t expect anything original from Slup’s Mimo Mísu, but if you are here to party, then you are indeed on the right track, traveller.

A gorgeous, lush mass of soundscapes. Think haunting ambient synthesisers suspended unnaturally over atmospheric backgrounds and busy yet unobtrusive samples. Surely the perfect music for reading, perhaps with something futuristic yet densely terrifying, like something by Aldous Huxley.

Dub War, for those that don’t know, were the group that more or less became Skindred. In the 90s they released two or three albums of increasingly diverse ragga/dub infused rock, and whilst – to Earache Records at least – they ended up on the Wrong Side Of Successful, they are still highly regarded. Sure, it all sounds a bit dated now (but so does the first Skindred album), but in a cool way this…

I’ve held onto this little bastard for a very long time…. I’m thinking either one of the editions of Leeds Deathfest (so that’d be 2009 or 2010), where I picked it up for like a quid or something. Obviously, in that time, Cancerous Womb have come a very long way indeed (they have, in fact, unfortunately also expired as a band).

Read aloud, the title of the record sounds like it is something altogether more poultry-based (or is that poultry baste?) but being signed to Amputated Vein of course means that this is a turgid slab of putrid slamming death metal. You know exactly what is gonna come farting out of the speakers, so either press play, or don’t. It’s fucking great, though. (Can you call this an album review? 2019 Ed: sure you can!)

MF Doom’s flows are absolutely unreal. MM.. Food is a short album but every single track is an absolute banger, even the ones which are just shed loads of samples over sick beats. Reminds me to check out the Special Herbs beats series. Its easy to dip in and out of Madvillainy and ignore the rest of the discography, but MF Doom has to be one of the most consistently excellent MCs ever, and MM…..

The Bug is fuckin’ great. I can think of few artists who jump from style to style so seamlessly and pull it all off – with fireworks – at every turn. This record, as with the previous one, could just have easily been a jarring, unstructured mess, but its just a searing work of bloody genius. The jungle / garage kinda vibes are kinda dialled back compared to London Zoo, but this allows the sonic…

Year of the Snitch sounds like the logical development from Bottomless Pit; more of the now somewhat refined chaotic electronic surges meet bizarre blasting cut-up metal pieces, all the while MC Ride lords over proceeding with a cheeky rasp and knowing scorn. Death Grips have always been abrasive, but if some of the “noisier” elements of Bottomless Pit put you off, I’d probably avoid this one too. 

It is easy to dismiss Necro as just churning out pure filth and dropping heavy metal references just for the sake of it, but I Need Drugs has reminded me that this guy’s flow is just absolutely fucking unreal. Mix that with some dingy subject matter and the odd clever sample and you have a bona fide hip hop classic. This is Necro in his OG rawest form. Top marks from me. 

Falling into the ‘shit dance music for goths’ subcategory of industrial, the album Burning In Water, Drowning In Flame does very little to tickle the right parts of my brain (although I must admit the synchronising of machine gun sounds with the drumming is very entertaining). Skrew come across as a mix of latter-era Christian Death, Alice Cooper, Godflesh and Ministry, without being a fraction as good as any of them. However, if you ever…