Archive for October 2019

Well isn’t this just delightful? Saint Pepsi got that fantastic chilled out vapor vibe to their sound, where Luxury Elite brings a bit more of a stomp to the 90s infomercial style. This split album was recently banned from YouTube over some shit about the album cover, but I’m glad to see its back, as its a fucking great piece of work. 

Well shit, who gots da funk, I hear you cry? Prophets Of Rage gots da funk, I’ll tell you that. I’ve definitely been sleeping on checking this project out, it is brilliant in every way. “Drones” is probably my stand out track. (2020 edit: What track are you talking about, pal? Haha!)

This is one of the those rare pornogrind records where none of the components can be faulted. Everything is absolutely on point. Admittedly, Anal Penetration borrow more from Mortician than they do, say, Libido Airbag, but it’s rare to find something so flawless flying under the pornogrind banner.

Canada’s Quatuor Molinari perform some challenging John Zorn compositions, bringing the terrifying hand that penned such musical atrocities as Naked City’s Torture Garden into the classical world. The menacing soundscapes of freeform jazz translate incredibly well onto the stringed instruments, resulting in a performance that is at times mournful and restrained, and at others, purely fucking unholy in every sense of the word.

I remember my parents had this album on cassette. When I had a bunch of money given to me on my 18th to contribute to my tattoo sleeve, they put the cash inside this cassette case and wrapped it up. Haha! As far as the record goes, its a bridging gap between the Stones’ world famous earlier work and the more divisive mid-to-late career outputs of the 80s and 90s. You can sense the changes…

This record was my first foray into the crazy world of Mr. Bungle. While the true craziness and musical tomfoolery would mostly came later on, this self titled offering is a slightly disturbing trek through ska-meets-metal, with a cheeky undercurrent. I’d love to know what inspired the guys in Mr. Bungle to come together and make music like this. Truly, there is no band like Mr. Bungle, not even with other experimental / avant-garde jazzy…

Well, if there was ever a disgusting ode to a capitalist society and a pointless existence of mindless consumerism, Herby has that all nailed in track one alone. She has really strong flows, some of which are incredibly impressive. As far as substance goes though, this is pretty weak. Come on, girl. 

A bit mid-paced, but very well recorded and catchy. Dare I say this is dad punk at its best? Haha! Either way, Bad Religion are what they are, and this is a good offering. The message is always worth diving into. 

Hi everyone and welcome to the 1000th Lines In Wax post! It’s only taken me over 8 years of inconsistent posting (haha), but we got there in the end. I’m nowhere near completing the list on the A-Z page, and the site has gone through various identity crisis’ in its time, but we are still here, and we are still posting. Nowadays, Lines In Wax is basically a nice archive of the stuff that I’ve…

John Zorn’s maddening orchestrations are brought to life by the massively talented three piece, Simulacrum. The compositions are almost operatic in a space rock / prog kinda way, taking the metal band template to strange new worlds. A glorious journey, but one, that for me at least, doesn’t quite invoke the horrors of the Gilles De Rais story. 

Hit and miss goregrind project from Italy. I love the swampy blur of the drum machine, but in all honesty the vocals and riffs are incredibly uninspired. All the pieces fall into place and at first listen it sounds great, but as soon as you start to dissect (lol) what it is that is going on, it is incredibly repetitive and monotonous. I traded this away a year or so ago, but took some pictures…

Pummelling assault of grinding fury from now legendary outfit, Blockheads. I guess I never really appreciated these guys until I caught them live at NDF 2016 and they absolutely fucking blew me away. Solid record.

Corrupt Fucking System was one of the last records I bough on 12″ vinyl (we’re going back now, mind). I picked it up from the band themselves during their appearance at Temples Festival 2014, so quite some time has past since I bought this! Doom do what they do and they do it well. Crust punk for everyone!

I love all this fucking mental vaporwave / nostalgia stuff. If I was a billionaire I’d buy a townhouse in Amsterdam and spend my days building a library of rare vinyl pressings of stuff like this, along with a sub-basement full of dodgy goregrind tapes. One Hundred Mornings is glorious, chilled-out, laid-back, takes-you-way-back brilliance. I’ll be running out of ways to describe vaporwave soon, but this shit is fantastic. Sold out as fuck on vinyl,…

Its funny, well, not funny, but fuckin’ great to see, how massive Pathology have become over the years. I remember this starting out as some low key project with disgusting zombie art, and that guy from The Locust on the drums. Not that it was bad then, but Pathology has morphed into this project that drops brutal death metal epics. The later efforts, such as Lords Of Rephaim, are much more polished and grandiose, even….

Timeless breakthrough record from one of the more consistent industrial metal bands (early 2000s aside, but that’s an era in music which almost everyone succumbed to). Crisp, clear production – mechanical, precise playing. Heavy as shit. Massive, massive Godflesh vibes vocally, especially on the single “Replica”. The Head Of David cover, “Dog Day Sunrise” is absolutely glorious, and is one of my favourite tracks – and covers – ever made.

A prostitute with a mouth fulla sass gets sent to a woman’s prison work camp where it turns out the guards are sadistic and the camp leader is “experimenting” on the women that work there. Queue all sorts of half-naked debauchery as the girls fight back and give the babyfaced freakazoid Dr. John (yes!) the runaround, with an absolutely insane ending. I haven’t personally for over half a decade, but it might be worth blazing…

Butcher MD are the greatest so it is always awesome to hear more gore from these guys. Distrophy, on the other hand, who I am not too familiar with, offer a much more rustic approach to proceedings. Soupy, Mortician-grade riffed mud and ants-in-your-pants drumming is the order of the day.  Tape now long sold out on Cadaveric Dissolution Records.

A heavy dose of savagery. A lot of death metal influences, but not bogged down in the tropes of that genre. A promising earlier offering from a now well established name in heavy music.

Glorious, regal, underground British doom metal. Think My Dying Bride, earlier Anathema or even 40 Watt Sun. “Rivers” is one of the greatest songs ever recorded.

If you had to distill the sound of the The Streets down into its most marketable and easily consumable form, The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living would be the best way to do it. The record is short, sharp and to the point. It works well with the cocaine fuelled tales of Skinner’s new found fame, and there are some decent bangers here, although this is far from the greatest Streets album ever…

One thing that always strikes me about this record is how short it is. Not that it matters, as it’s packed full of soulful tunes. I love the production; it has that classic warmth of jazz and blues. Winehouse was another one gone too soon, but what are you gonna do?

On the surface of it, The Room is yet another really bad movie about failed romance. There are plenty of them out there, I’m sure. However, what makes The Room so alluring is its creator and star, Tommy Wiseau. I am obviously not alone in this fascination, as the film has enjoyed a cult status for many years and has recently seem a mocku-docu-drama-whatever insight released with James Franco at the helm. As ridiculous as…

Maybe this kinda production style on late 2000s / early 2010s powerviolence and hardcore hasn’t aged all that well, but the music of Weekend Nachos surely has. The group have been quiet for a while now, but 2011’s Worthless stands the test of time, as far as heavy music goes. 

When people think of Dutch exports they think of cheese, clogs and maybe Heineken. In the groovy goregrind world however, Rompeprop puts NL on the map. This gore and watery poo-soaked metallic blast of ridiculousness really needs no introduction. However, if you are new to this kind of thing, I implore you to zip up your wet suit, and put a peg on your nose. It’s going to get messy! 

The pre-Swans outfit that Gira was part of after moving from LA to New York. The history of this man and his revolving door of cohorts is absolutely fascinating and this rare EP is a gross little window into this bizarre world. I’ve heard Circus Mort described as Joy Division featuring Michael Gira. I think that is a pretty apt description. I also get Big Black vibes from this, though. I wonder if Mr. Albini…

Just what the doctor ordered for a nostalgia trip! Never been the biggest fan of this band but their sound has always intrigued me. Cracking percussion and bass playing. And the vocals? Unique to say the least. A great little trip down memory lane. Also, I forgot how much I love the album art for this one.

This was one of the first records I ever heard, and is probably responsible for my life-long interest in hip hop maintaining even as I spent most of my teenage years wallowing in the pits of grindcore. I remember being ten years old, over my friends house (who was the son of my primary school headmaster (that’s elementary principal to you yanks)) roaring with laughter at the contents of “Public Service Announcement 2000” blaring out…

An intoxicating combination of ambient atmospherics and mangled vaporwave. A giant infomercial for relaxation of the mind, body and soul. Fetches a pretty penny on vinyl, and has been repressed in some very tasty looking packages.

Ughhhhhh! Voïvod is like a cigar; when you come across it, it tastes like complete shit. After a while though, you start to realize how fucking brilliant and nuanced they can be. These days I look on Voïvod in a whole new light. Dimension Hatröss is one of the best records in their large repertoire.

Incredibly awful Stephen King story that should have just stayed as a novel. With your active imagination filling the gaps, this might just work. Otherwise, it really hasn’t aged well (and no, I won’t be watching the remake!). I always wondered what happened to Tasha Yar from Star Trek, though.