As much as I absolutely adore Olidous Operettas I cannot stomach the earlier County Medical Examiners stuff. This final stab at Medleys was my last ditch attempt to get into it, but I just can’t do it. All in all, of course, my problems would not lie with such excellent Carcass puppetry, but there are some vocals which sound as if they have been shifted up, rather than down, and it just sounds fucking atrocious (edit: it might be the vocal contributions of original bassist Michelle Hayes, either way it fucking sucks ass). Like, it’s a really really bad and irritating sound that totally ruins the rest of the record for me, unfortunately.
2000s and beyond ND records – those produced by Russ Russell – sometimes catch criticism for being bricked out walls of white noise. Smear Campaign falls into that category, but despite the tinnitus inducing production, it is by far the most accessible out of what I call the Colours Trifecta (Times Waits For No Slave being yellow-ish, Smear Campaign being blue-ish and The Code Is Red being, well… red-ish). “When All Is Said And Done”, “Weltschmertz”, “Fatalist”, “Sink Fast Let Go” which are all admittedly at the front end of the record – are all fist pumping, catchy, savage grinding beasties, and whilst I can’t name drop the tracks on the latter half off the top of my head, rest assured Smear Campaign is a solid entry into the Napalm discography.
Didgeridoo was one of the first Aphex Twin records I ever heard when downloading his stuff off Limewire or Kazaa (as damaging as record labels saw file sharing to be, it absolutely opened my world a thousand fold in my earlier teenage years). When I was younger I remember the title track of this release to be seemingly endless. In my old age (lol) that’s not quite the case, and the record seems to fly by too quickly if anything.
Early Aphex Twin 12”s have a youthful immaturity to them, in such a way that if anything invokes a further charm from these gems of the electronic genre. Songs about tampons aside, Xylem Tube is a stunning window in the mind of one of music’s most innovative creators.
Diatribes is probably the most accessible Napalm Death record of the lot. It is the cleanest, most commercial sounding the band would ever get. Whether or not that sits well with me depends what day of the week it is, or which way the wind is currently blowing. If I strip away the name and legacy of Napalm Death and enjoy this record as a metal album produced by four incredibly talented individuals, I can – and do – massively enjoy Diatribes. The problems begin however when I stack this up against Napalm’s legendary, historical discography. From the early 90s onwards there seemed to be a slow downwards trajectory in the band’s releases that I just can’t shake. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Diatribes. I’d just rather be listening to Scum.
Mentally murdered was the final recording with the arguably definitive classic lineup of Dorrian, Harris, Steer and Embury. The tracks here are more long-form but retain the nastiness and savagery of the FETO sound. On another note, the guitar tone is almost identical to the one Bill Steer uses on the Carcass record Symphonies Of Sickness – this here was a good year for music! Available in a confusing array of 7”, 12”, CD and compilation repackages (just fuck all that off and get Death By Manipulation) but the important thing is that this seminal record is heard.
I caught these guys supporting Mortiis all the way back in – I think – 2004. It was whenever he was touring The Grudge. Anyway, I remember absolutely nothing of the set as I was 14 and mainly there to have a goose at Mortiis’ show, but I stumbled upon the band’s only full length recently so decided to give it a spin. Expect angry industrial. And when I say industrial, expect the NIN-vein of industrial, which is often hit or miss, with the upmost respect. A lot of mediocre goth / industrial stuff hides between cheap, tinny veneers of distortion, but Panic DHH throw tons of anger and adrenaline into this record. I am reminded in parts of Alec Empire, which is funny because when I looked this up on Discogs I noticed it had been released on Empire’s Digital Hardcore label.
A nasty little EP which went on to appear alongside a bunch of others on the Death By Manipulation compilation. There’s some interesting takes here, most notable is the “death metalled” re-recording of “Unchallenged Hate” and “Social Sterility” from FETO, but with Barney on vokills, although it sounds like the higher vocals are left in from the earlier session. I think this was also one of the last recordings the band done with Mick Harris. All in all the recordings are crisp and well produced with a fat low end, even though some of Mick’s cymbal sounds come across like fucking maracas because they are so compressed haha
Merciless is a stunning record from the almost flawless Godflesh project. Nearly every part of me wishes that this EP was a bit longer and more of a full length experience. I love the feelings that Merciless invokes; deep melancholic passages are underpinned by guttural bass and clanking industrial rhythms. Imagine the fragility of what would come later with Jesu but set to a glowing apocalyptic rumble. A stunning EP and a true vision of how beautiful this harrowing kind of music can sometimes be.
I’ve seen so much! Indeed. This little release was a companion of sorts to the Selfless record. Back when Godflesh was on Columbia (through Earache) it seemed like they attempted to release some singles commercially, so this and “Crush My Soul” got the single treatment, which included some edits or dub remixes but not much else. The dub is a decent listen and is worth the goosey alone if you’re a massive Godflesh fan.
This is a super short demo tape from mincing goregrind outfit Gabara. It’s barely a few minutes in length but it sounds so fuckin’ good that I just had to share it with you guys. Basically it takes everything that is good about early Agathocles and mashes in a bit of goregrind sound. Slap some weirdly-fitting Godzilla-looking artwork on the cover and you can just conjure up visions of this beast smashing cities to bits with this tape playing as the soundtrack. I can’t really say more because it’s so short so I’ll just leave a link to stream this motherfucker right here for you, and be on my merry way. 20,000 TONS OF MINCE by GABARA
Enemy Of The Music Business is a tremendous return to form after a period of stagnation for Napalm Death. I often try to look for positives in the mid to late 90s output (I recently saw someone online comparing the Greed Killing / Diatribes era to Fear Factory which made me look at it in a different light) but when you compare all those records to this one… it’s hard to be positive about them. This is a 180 turn back to what made Napalm Death so fucking awesome in the first place. Taking inspiration no doubt from a new generation of savage grindcore acts, Napalm sharpen old tools when looking how it is best to proceed forward (rather than “downward!!!” – geddit?) and the result was this manic little fucker of an album. It definitely set the bar for the records which would follow.
Inside The Torn Apart is the piggy in the middle of “those three Napalm Death records” some people like to pretend don’t exist (the groove metal trifecta!) I too in all my years of spinning ND records have been guilty of neglecting some of these discs and it is – on the surface of it – easy to see why. This is simply not grindcore. If you’re going to have a problem with that, then I wouldn’t bother listening. But I have too much respect for Napalm Death and the journey that they took to heap too much shit onto what they were trying to do. Many parts of me get it, and whilst I do enjoy the sludgy, almost clinical in some ways sound of this record, it isn’t something that I reach for very often.
Oo er, phone the fucking doctor would you, lad? We’ve got a serious case of rib-shaking drum machine goregrind goodness on the cards, and we need a truckload of sexploitation Blu-rays and a jar of edibles, stat! Think Lymphatic Phlegm meets Mortician at a Catasexual Urge Motivation gig and you’ve got a good idea of what is going on here. Top stuff! Twitch of the Death Nerve by Blue Holocaust
Where does one begin with a record that is as life changing for me as Streetcleaner? Sandwiched in somewhere between my obsessions with grindcore and early Swans, Streetcleaner took me to places I didn’t know exist. I’m trying to remember where I first heard this album. I think I downloaded it off some dodgy Russian mp3 site, after my sixth form teacher mentioned Godflesh multiple times in class. I liked it, but I didn’t really get it. It wasn’t until a few years later that it all started to make sense. I couldn’t fathom how such seemingly simple combinations of guitars, bass and drum machines could create a sound that was suspended in a duality of being suffocating and catastrophically heavy on one hand, yet paint the aural equivalent of a shuddering, heaving industrial landscape on the other. Tracks like “Like Rats” and “Christbait Rising” were more direct and heavy, where the entire midsection of the record devolves into this pulsing mass of grinding noise and crushing atmospheres (after “Pulp” drives you into the ground, of course). The title track, “Life Is Easy” and “Locust Furnace” are three of my favourite tracks of all time. I cannot fathom how much “Locust Furnace” blew me away when I first listened to it properly. Incredible stuff. The additional Tiny Tears tracks I’ve never been that fussed on, I’ll be honest. They always felt like an unnecessary afterthought to the record, and I always preferred my original 12” pressing of Streetcleaner over the repress (and even this remaster, as fucking great as it is) because it kept the record in its original format. This hefty little pack that was released sometime in 2010 features a handful of Godflesh goodies for the die hard fan. We are treated to excessive linear notes, some which put Streetcleaner on a pedestal and offer a great historical insight, and others – by Broadrick himself – offer unique insights to some of the bonuses on offer. It is particularly awesome to hear original mixes for several tracks off Streetcleaner, as well as some of their live debuts from the same era. Easily one of, if not (depending on the day of the week haha) my favourite, album of all time.
Expect a flurry of a grinding whirlwind as latter-Mick-Harris era Napalm Death trample through tracks off Scum, FETO, Mentally Murdered and Harmony Corruption. A few tracks of Utopia Banished are showcased here too, even though I don’t believe the album had been released yet. I’ve yet to see the live video that goes with the set, but the audio is heavily enjoyable and a decent quality. There is also some interesting banter with the crowd.
Maybe they should have called it Mick Harris Banished, amirite??? LOL – Whilst it was indeed a sad moment in musical history when Harris and Napalm finally parted ways, it did give us the Scorn project full time, and that is a worthy exchange. Utopia Banished builds on the muddy chaos of Harmony Corruption, led instead now by crazed sticksman Danny Herrera, who is still with Napalm to this day (fair play!). Instantly it is noticable as a more frenetic record, but is not entirely dissimilar to its predecessor. Many Napalm classics are contained within. Enjoy!
Harmony Corruption marked Napalm Death’s first full length descent into the world of death metal. It’s hard to imagine now, but death metal was big bucks back then, so whilst this move was met with legions of new fans, it was also met with an interesting mix of emotions from the band’s longer running fan base. Harmony Corrupton is a statement; a muddy, catatonic statement gargled out from beneath a thick layer of grime and a bubbling put of leaden tar. Somehow, the production makes one of the fastest bands of the time sound a lot slower. Nevertheless, this album is now considered a death metal classic, and with good reason. Taking it standing alone, it is a wallop of a record, and over and done with in a fairly short run time. Well worth a listen.
Foreshadowing Our Demise is the first record that Skinless released after signing with Relapse Records. It was the start of a fruitful and long-running partnership, and what a brutal, unforgiving start it was! Noticeably more unpolished that the records that would follow, but all the more brutal for it, Skinless are as sick as their logo on this release, with songs such as “Tug Of War Intestines” and the hilariously-titled “Pool Of Stool”.
Today I stumbled upon an old UK-based industrial metal band that blends “crust punk” into the sound. If by “blend” they simply mean “have Phil Vane from ENT on vocals”, then they have achieved something, at least. Not wanting to diss underground music unless absolutely necessary, it is with a heavy heart that I must inform you, dear reader, that this fucking blows. It wheels out every tired trope of the industrial genre (or what industrial would become in the 90s, more like) and fails to improve or innovate one iota upon any nuance of the music’s construction. In English then, it’s just super fucking boring and predictable. I never turns off a record before its done, but this is an hour long, and 40 minutes is more than enough of my life wasted listening to this bland shite.
Us And Them is probably the least popular of the original run of Godflesh full-length records. When I first bought this (from the Earache stall at Damnation Deathfest festival 2009) it was before I was on Discogs or anything like that, so I thought it was some sort of weird bootleg or remix album. I remember finding the heavy drum and bass parts infuriating, before turning it off and throwing it into a pile. It was some years later that I came back to Us And Them. I was delivering kebabs for a living and rinsing my CD collection in the process. I gave Us And Them another chance and it grew on me. Yes, it is angsty, raw and a bit clumsy, but there are some absolute bangers here, not to mention diamonds in the rough, like the closing few tracks and “Bittersweet” more towards the middle. Justin has not spoken highly of this this record in hindsight, but it was an interesting experiment and I heavily enjoy it. I replayed it recently and found I enjoyed it more than ever. Apparently, there was a cancelled Us And Them In Dub record which was to follow (two tracks of which are on the In All Languages compilation) – I would absolutely love to hear that album.
I first became familiar with Swarrrm after checking out their split with Embalming Theatre. Black Bong is a puzzling affair, adding all sorts of bizarre tomfoolery to the grindcore template. It isn’t exactly Naked City, but there is a flair for the adventurous here, which I can heavily respect. Kinda reminds of Bathtub Shitter, only without the death metal elements, and presumably also the douche-bag attitudes.
What in the absolute holy fuck is this? Dogpile appear to be a gay porn focused industrial metal band (yes you read that right) from the 90s. They had a few short releases and that was that. This is… what is this, exactly? Musically, the tracks are rather tight; mechanical industrial drum machine tropes up against riffs upon riffs upon riffs. The production is a little flat, but nothing unforgivable. And then, you have the vocals. It sounds as if someone has let a madman loose into the studio and allowed him to record over the top of the tracks. Kinda like Metallica did with Lou Reed. This record is in that same ballpark of awful.
I initially passed this up upon its release, partly because of a personal malaise I was experiencing with death metal at the time and partly because of the fecking uncanny similarities between this and Vaginal Necrosis’ Fornicating In Sewage. It was as if someone in Devourment had seen this tiny little release from a UK bedroom goregrind project and altered it for their own use, art concept and all. I’m not saying that’s what happened, but the title and sleeve art are very, very similar. Concieved In Sewage brought a fresh level of heaviness to the band’s sound; gone were more of the slammier (lol), more hardcore-style riffs, and what we had was Unleash The Carnivore dialled up to 11. Not necessarily a bad thing, but Concieved In Sewage continues to be the one release in the Devourment discography that I continue to snooze on.
It was only with the release of Godflesh’s new full-length album A World Lit Only By Fire that I realised that I hadn’t even done a post for their comeback EP, Decline & Fall. I suppose it’s because it dropped when Lines In Wax was taking a bit of a break earlier in the year, and I did most of my listening for Decline & fall lying on beaches on exotic Thai islands (a strange way to aurally ingest the ‘Flesh, I’ll be honest). If I had to sum this review up in a single line, I would tell you that Decline & Fall sounds so much like Godflesh that it hurts. But it also sounds like nothing they have done before. All the parts are there, but the massive break that this band has taken has obviously allowed them to re-look at the Godflesh template with fresh eyes (and ears). There is only so much you can do with a sound as limiting as Godflesh’s punishing drum-machine metal attack, but I’d call this a successful comeback. It is a mirage of all the band’s previous styles (“Dogbite” sounds like it could have easily been on Us & Them) funneled through the excess heaviness of an 8 string guitar. I will also say that the music world has missed Ben Green’s bass. He’s an understated dude; the quiet back-end of Godflesh’s raw power, but shiiiiiit it’s good to hear that cheesegrater bass guitar again. It’s so simple but once you hear it again you can’t imagine heavy music without it. Expect a more in-depth look of the new album soon. Until then, all hail the new ‘Flesh! – 08/10/2014 2020 Update – Japanese dubs: Decline & Fall probably has some of the best special release re-dubs for the Japanese market. Both “Playing With Fire” and “Ringer” get a dub work over, turning their already hip-to-the-hoppity beats into more drawn out, head-nodding affairs. Godflesh and dub remixes go hand and hand and these tracks do not just feel like some half-arsed extras tacked on for the foreign market bonuses. Well worth a hunt down if you are feeling it. – 26/04/2020
More Blooping, bleeping electronic goodness from everyone’s favourite king of the new flesh. New Horizon sees the JK Flesh project move even further away from its dirtier roots, this time even eschewing a lot of the more noisier elements of the music. Granted, the tracks on New Horizon are still hypnotic and dark variations of techno beats repeating into your skull, but gone are the claustrophobic, distorted bad acid trip vibes. New Horizon is just that; a new, clearer path on the which this fantastic is taking its incredible journey. I look forward to seeing past this Horizon and onto the next.
SIMM plays big moody beats in the vein of dark wobble pioneers and fellow collaborator: Scorn. Sinister, dirty synth works and samples mangle in alongside stonking beats, creating an incredible vibe. This is my first run in with the project of SIMM, and I will be on the lookout for more.
Lull is another project of Scorn / Napalm Death mad genius Mick Harris, focusing this time on dense ambient passages and atmospherics. I am reminded immediately of Lustmord, but push that aside to instead focus on the single, hour-plus unfolding track. Honestly, it’s fucking great. It’s not as dread-inducing as some of the shorter Scorn ambient pieces (see Deliverance or the arse-end of Vae Solis) but instead meanders through thick, all-encompassing clouds of atmospheric blackness. It doesn’t stay still for long enough to conjure any urgency or paranoia, but the hour flies by all the same.
I’ve always avoided this compilation because I’ve been collecting all the early Napalm Death stuff separately, but I have indeed been missing the fuck out. There is something about the track order on this thing, but it’s just back to back bangers and a dream Napalm line up of tunes. Most tracks are from the muddy early-death metal days of the band, but the final tracks veer off into the stinking grindcore sound the band had so much perfected in the late 80s. A brilliant compilation of stuff.
This early Jesu release is a daunting one to approach, knowing how crushingly heavy the songs are and of course how long there are. Couple that with the fact that the whole thing is quite depressing and you’ve got a brief description of the Jesu self titled in a nutshell. Only, once you finally crack open this beast, you can lose yourself inside a shuddering, monstrously heavy beast. Morose synths soar, Justin groans and the music clanks. It’s hard to put into words. A brilliant record, and the bonus LP of Dethroned, re-released as a double package in 2010 isn’t too shabby either.
My first taste of Tzusing began with 東方不敗 (Invincible East in English). At first I wasn’t sure if this was for me, but a few tracks in, and the true unique style of production has completely unwoven around me. Yes, it’s techno – dark, heavy techno – with eastern influences and sounds, but don’t write this off like some cheap psytrance bullshit. The tracks here are meticulously designed, and are a refreshing ride.
Wellity wellity wellity, this just fucking came out of nowhere didn’t it? There is always room in the world for more Godflesh so thank the heavens that Justin & Mr. Green have decided to bleed more of that sweet, sweet crushing goodness out into the world. Post Self might be one of the best Godflesh records ever. That is a sweepingly bold statement I know, but the band have expanded on their previous release with all of the experimental freakery that made them so brilliant in the first place. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love the brutal simplicity of A World Lit Only By Fire, but what Post Self lacks in hammering riffs it makes up for tenfold in crushing atmosphere. Plus, the fucking hip hop beats are back, fam – 10/10! This type of thing was hinted at with “Dogbite”, but then scaled back for the previous album itself. “Post Self”, “Parasite”, and “Mortality Sorrow” are three examples of how fucking stunning hip hop and break-style beats can sound in Godflesh’s music, whilst songs like “Be God” and even more so “Pre Self” are something altogether more 80s Swans than Godflesh has ever attained to, even in their primitive beginnings. All in all, Post Self sounds everything like Godflesh but also sounds nothing like anything Godflesh have done before. A phenomenal progression, and a glistening, holy yet unholy, head-noddingly good step in the right direction. Knocked it out of the fucking park! A contender for one of my favourite releases this year, without a doubt. – 06/12/2017 UPDATE: Japanese dubs: Out of all the dubs added to the Japanese versions of the later Godflesh records, the Post Self ones are probably the least exciting. I’m unsure if that is because of the high bar that was set with the album itself, but there we go. Not bad, but not particularly exciting either. – 21/04/2020
Godflesh’s return was one of the most exciting things ever. I traveled to France in 2010 to catch their first ever live appearance since splitting up years before, and then I fanged it over to Roadburn the following year in order to catch them slamming out Streetcleaner in it’s entirety. I unfortunately missed the performance of Pure live at Roadburn two years later but after catching a few more live appearances around the UK I was like a baying hound for new Godflesh material. The Decline & Fall EP appeared; a bizarre mix harking back to not only the glory days, but the Us and Them era, but this was only 4 tracks. So when A World Lit Only By Fire dropped, I wrapped my head around it the day it was released and listened to about nothing else for about a week straight. Unsurprisingly, I was quite burned out on Godflesh at this point so I shagged off writing a post about it for a while. That “while” became well over a year, so it’s about time I finally face up to this. What came with A World… was more of the dirgy 8-string compositions from Decline & Fall, but with less hip hop beat and more industrial devastation. It is a modern day, fine-tuned crushing machine in the form of industrialized drum machine metal. “New Dark Ages” features a riff that would cause the downfall of many a boring nu-metal act; chugga-chugga-chugga it goes, over and over and over, with an almost unhealthy disdain for every other string and note available from the guitar. But here, under the guidance of Godflesh’s punishing simplicity, it works like a sledgehammer to the face. “Shut Me Down” and the excellent “Life Giver, Life Taker” stand out to me from the digitized bog, as well as the sinister “Carrion”, which boasts the rarely-used but pant-shittingly heavy pitchshifted vocal style that popped up now and then in the early days. Don’t get me wrong, this ain’t no Streetcleaner, no Pure or Slavestate – but it’s pretty fucking heavy. It’s a sad reality that when bands have such a titanic back-catalogue (I’m talking life-changing, genre-defining records), the “new shit” is always going to pale in comparison, but that shouldn’t detract from the fact that this shits on most of the stuff that came out in 2014.
I was not familair with the Fret project until I stumbled upon this release, but hey, guess what – I now have even more Mick Harris stuff to go back through and listen to! What more could you possibly want? A quick note: Fret originally surfaced in the 90s but has gone largely unused until recently. This dropped in 2017, two years before the Scorn comeback record. Nearly all of Mick’s projects draw parallels with Scorn, some more than others. Fret’s Over Depth however, is like big-beats-nasty-bass-era Scorn on steroids and acid at the same time (yeah, I actually just wrote that out, deal with it lol). This is Scorn dialed up to 11 on the paranoia-meter; spirit crushing bass and mind-melting drum beats pound you into the ground, turning your innards to a mush of gangrenous paste. Sounds good, right? Its not too dissimilar to some of the stuff Mr. Broderick has been doing with the JK Flesh project. Truly, this record escalates quickly from “blimey, he’s going a bit hard by here!” to deep, ponderous introspective mind-wanderings about where techno ends and where industrial or even pure noise begins. Scorn has always muddied these worlds. Fret not only toes the line, it kicks sand (or coke dust) all over the line in disgust. Fucking brilliant. Over Depth by FRET
Before Godflesh, there was Fall Of Because, from what I can tell a fairly short lived project when members were also involved in Napalm Death or Head Of David. Featuring a trio of which would collaborate freely in the coming years, Fall Of Because plays bare bones industrial rock, where the incredibly influential noise from New York’s Swans had been trickled through Brum’s own industrial culture. It’s not quite Godflesh yet; think early Swans meets early Killing Joke at a Napalm Death / Joy Division double headline show (there’s plenty of death growls for those who fear the melodic). Also it’s not a million miles away from what Scorn would gestate with on Vae Solis before going off on their own dubby path. The best thing about Fall Of Because is hearing a bunch of proto-Godflesh tunes. Early versions of several tunes will be present here, and the eagle-eared Flesh fan would be in for a treat if this has not been heard before (I’m pretty certain Justin is drumming the beat to “Pulp” over one of the live tracks at the end!). The live recordings tacked onto the remastered version are a bit hit and miss but what you’ve got is a collection of pretty much every Fall Of Because recording (save for a remix of “Grind” by Broderick, which appears on a compilation somewhere). A good find.
This is another promotional vinyl that came out around the time of Ellipsis, which follows after the Earache pressing of “Silver Rain Fell” and its subsequent remix onto a DJ-usable 12″. This particular disc however was put out by Mick’s own Scorn Recordings (a short-lived label he seemed to run with “marketing” done by Earache), containing the Ellipsis remixes of Falling and The End. Check out the full Ellipsis review on Lines In Wax!
This is a promotional DJ-only 12″ from Earache, pairing both the original version of the track from the Evanescence record, and the Meat Beat Manifesto remix of it from the Ellipsis record. As both those releases have been reviewed already on Lines In Wax, I’ll keep it brief here. I’ve included this as I want to be a completist and review the entire Scorn discography.
With 500 pressed on clear wax, this was a fairly limited run on Record Label Records in 2009. It is only 12 minutes long, but contains two of the best Scorn tracks; the title track and the absolute floorshaker that is “Pin Down”. “Pin Down” is up there as a contender for my favourite Scorn track from this era. All in all, this is probably the best place to start with later Scorn stuff. Phenomenal beats.
If Super Mantis is a powerful shotgun blast, then Gravel Bed is a lurching mechnical monster come to life, heaving into industrial motion, in order to fire said shotgun. It’s a shambler, dragging and stumbling. A corker. The Bracket (RIP) remix on the flipside is just as good, providing an alternative window into the mind of this dark, twisted dub beast. Gravel Bed by Scorn, Bracket
Combat records did a whole series of remixes off the back of Super Mantis. The two on this 12″ are from Elemental and Threnody. Threnody provides a more sprawling, soaring remix, with sharp, sparkling leads pulling the heavy weight of the Scorn beat through a 7 minuter of electro genius. Elemental’s mix is fucking glorious. All that seems to remain from the Scorn original is the bass growler, reworked into a trippy, busy breakbeat shuffle. Now this is how you do a remix! Super Mantis further remixes 1 by Scorn, Elemental, Threnody
Super Mantis (I think) was the first Scorn record I ever bought on vinyl, back in 2010 or 2011. It absolutely blew me away how massive this thing sounded. It felt like it was a hundred times louder than the next 12″, and “Super Mantis” was the perfect track to showcase such power. On the flipside, the Blackmass Plastics remix draws the the track out to a crawl, allowing the bass to growl like a fuckin’ animal. Yeah.
UGH! (BASS COMMENCES!) – Governor, whilst probably not my favourite, is definitely my most played Scorn release. I had this on my iPod when I was back working kitchens, and would often fart this out through the horrible aux connection we had to the stereo kept on top of the microwave. It was released on Germany’s Hymen label in 2002 as the EP which came around the same time as the Plan B record. It’s worth the price of admission alone for opener “Hedrake” and the version of “Boss” that’s on here. governor by scorn
Plan B was the follow-up record to the Greetings… early 2000s era, where big beats and bigger, dirtier bass was the order of the day. In such terms, Plan B does absolutely not fuck around. Whatever Plan A was, well I’m simply not interested my friend, this will do very nicely right here. Words can only do later Scorn releases so much justice. For something that is so “less is more” when it comes to beats and bass, it is a project that really stands unique, even as it has morphed into different forms over the years. Highly recommended listening, from myself.
List Of Takers is a strange one, in that it presents a bunch of his tracks as one new hour and ten minute mix. It melds these all together into one big flowing experimental dub session. It’s an interesting variation and an interesting choice to release as a full length, originally being broadcast by the Break FM station, but it seems to be a canonical Scorn record. It’s great to chuck this on and leave it play through, and its perfect soundtrack for working from home, as I’ve found during these COVID19 times LOL. The whole thing is fractured into different parts on Youtube, so I won’t link it here. For the full experience, I guess you’d have to hunt down a copy of the original CD.
Whistle For It is a one-off 10″ picture disc released in France back in 2007, featuring the title track and the weirdly titled “Born A Fielda Die A Fielda” on the flipside. The record is pretty rare, being a pressing of 500 and coming with a bunch of stickers and shit. It clocks in about £20 on Discogs and admittedly I don’t actually own it at the moment. As for the tracks, they are, of course, fucking banging. They are quite long and showcase the lurching beatwork that was prevalent in the era of Scorn, which would only become heavier and more industrial and claustrophobic on Gravel Bed and Super Mantis, which came out not long after.
Leave It Out was a sneaky little four track 12″ EP dropped by Mick’s Possible Records in 1996. I suppose it could be seen as a companion piece to Logghi, as it has that same dirty beats-to-the-wall focus, where the ambient low-key beatwork of the Gyral era is smashed up to 11 on the beat-o-meter. Leave It Out isn’t particularly easy to get a hold of, but its going for about £13 on Discogs at the moment, or you can be a cheap fuck like me and check it out on Youtube below.
Lick Forever Dog was a little single (?) / EP that came out in 1991. It had a crappy edit of the full-length track off of Vae Solis, but was accompanied by some stunning re-dubalubs of “On Ice” and “Heavy Blood”, which are some of my favourite tunes off the accompanying Vae Solis record. The original 12″ version isn’t worth hunting down unless you are a collector of Scorn records, as all the tracks here ended up smashed onto the end of the CD re-issue of White Irises Blind some years later.
Quiot is another (phew!) alias of Mick Harris, known primarily of course from drumming for Napalm Death and the dubby Scorn project. Quoit’s Lounge record sees more of those awkward, unsettling synth atmospherics from Scorn meet a more drum and bass inspired beatwork. There are breakbeats and busy drumming aplenty, and enough going on here to keep even the most ants-in-your-pants electronics fan busy for quite some time. Maybe you always appreciated Scorn but found the beats too slow or claustrophobic? Then I raise you this banger. Enjoy!
I believe the duo here collaborated somewhat also on Eraldo’s SIMM project which is more in line with Mick’s Scorn sounds, but the second record in the line of this particular collab series expands on the d’n’b / breakbeat (kinda?) template of the first record and brings in more atmospheric or moody soundscapes. Couple that with the addition of Eraldo’s guitar work on a few tracks and this is a nice mix of styles and textures, and all in all a much more enjoyable record than their first, IMO. Cheers!
A cracking little collaboration, showcasing a more drum and bass style than what I’ve heard so far from Mick Harris. The rhythms and tracks in general are erratic and constantly moving, but not to the point where it would be considered “fast” or chaotic. I’m not much in the know about Eraldo Bernocchi, but this has been a great little introduction.
Boom! This particular release that I’m looking at is a reissue of two tapes released originally on Hospital Recordings. It brings JK Flesh deeper into techno territory, far from the guitar-laden chugfests which began the project. Each release has been kept fresh and interesting, and Suicide Estate is not different. If you like dark, heavy beats that get inside your head and never leave, then I would recommend you give this a go.
Well this is a noisy little badger. A completists item though, most definitely. “Lament” is a disturbing wall of noise recorded in Italy, and “Soliel Noire” is some sort of live or early version of “Black Sun Rising” (I should have seen it coming, with that song title) or one of its seemingly endless Deliverance variants. All in all, nothing new, but it’s nice to hear these tracks all noisy and grimy.
Ah son, this is fucking class. Greetings From Birmingham, Governor, Plan B etc. etc. leading up to Stealth was a fucking stonking time for Scorn. Man, these beats, THAT BASS! It’s enough to make you lose your mind. It is so simple, yet so genius and perfect. The brooding may be dialed back a bit on this release, but the bass; that fat, greasy, wobbly STONK is dialed right up. Fantastic stuff.
Like an upbeat, punch-packing version of Greetings From Birmingham. Some of the beats here are surprisingly quick, which is a rarity for Scorn. Being the associated EP for the Greetings… era though, Imaginaria Award has fucking moosive woppity woppity bass wobbles and stonking beats. It seems almost derivative for me to describe a Scorn EP in such a way yet again, but it is what it is! BIG BEATS GET HIGH ALL THE TIME! imaginaria award by scorn
Zander is fucking great, to put it simply. It’s the little things that count: digging deep and paying attention will bring this album to a whole new level. There is a meticulous level of detail beneath the seemingly repetitive bass and beats; variations and fills and… fake outs? Whatever the technical term is, Zander keeps you thinking, keeps you on your toes, and keeps you stimulated. Another brilliant record from a timeless project.
Whine is a live album covering the Zander era of the Scorn project. Imagine tracks from that era (Zander is brilliant) but mashed up a little; the beats holding together a structure for additional sampling, noise forms and synth moods to unfold. Not an essential album, but one for the Scorn deep divers.
RGTE are one of those bands that steer away from the death metal side of goregrind. Instead, lightening fast blasts and gargling shifted vocals are accompanied by dark, sharp hardcore riffs and fast-paced, rabid d-beat drums. Carnivorous Erection is a must if you are new to the world of goregrind, as is pretty much any Regurgitate release. However, this is probably the creme de la creme of the group’s discography. There is no better place to start with this genre.
Gyral was Scorn’s first studio album without Mr. Bullen on bass and vocals. If you are listening chronologically, it becomes wholly apparent that he is missing; there is a vocal-shaped hole in the music after a while. Scorn have never been lyrically dense, but those washed out, tired, effect-laden bars were just as much a part of the early works as the big beats. That doesn’t make Gyral boring however. The record is sparse and minimal (not as stripped back as the record which would follow it) but still sparkling and alive, with ticking beats and meandering synth loops and samples. Coupled with the old, vintage looking artwork, and Gyral seems melancholic, nostalgic almost; its as if it is holding a fractured mirror up at the Scorn of the past, where through the cracks in said mirror, the Scorn of the future is beating its way through. Things would start to change more drastically after this.
This was one of the first pieces of Scorn vinyl I picked up way back in either 2011 or 2012. It is the special release of “Stairway” I think for the Gyral release party. It’s a nice collector’s edition, but is just the one track on the one side of the record. It’s cool to own. A quick note however – the picture above is not my own. Mine is carefully stored away in the attic. This one was taken from Discogs.
Ellipsis sees some of Scorn’s peers come into the fold to remix a few of their tracks. The result is a bit hit and miss, but there are stand-out contributions from Coil, Bill Laswell, and Autechre. If you’re into vinyl, there is a box set of this available, which looks absolutely glorious. You could say Scorn belongs on vinyl.
Evanescence is probably the most popular and well received of the early Scorn records. It featured James Plotkin on guitar duties, and was to be the last album to feature Nicholas Bullen on bass and vocals. From the opener you’ll notice a few things are different here. Hip hop or drum n bass style beats are now starting to trickle into the band’s full lengths, but be fooled not; Evanescence is still a dark, moody, haunt of a record. “Days Passed” is as poppy as Scorn would ever get. The tempo is surprisingly quick for a record wallowing in dub, and “Automata” is probably one of my favourite songs of all time. That beat is so fucking sick. “Dreamspace” is a definitive Scorn track, and closers “The End” and “Slumber” are mesmerising, dark and dense. I feel like I’m repeating myself, so I’d just say listen to it, instead of reading me ramble!
Colossus is a trip. In only a year since their debut, this record showcases the sheer progression that Scorn was making as a project. It would perhaps be lazy of me to say that Colossus continues in the vien of the moody, dubby second half of Vae Solis, but truly it is something much more sparse, harrowing and desperate. The songs are length trips, spaced-out and drums are drenched often in reverb. The feel is dense and paranoid, even though the songs are rather minimal. What is worth noting however is where the future releases would go further into beatwork from drum n bass or even hip hop styles, Colossus stays in rather rigid terrority in regards to its framework, despite the sprawling and experimental nature of the songs in general. There are also a smattering of crushing noisy ambient passages here, that are like Harris’ other project Lull, but on a bad acid trip. I’ve often over-looked Colossus in the Scorn catalog, but I’m glad I took the time to come back to it and give it a going through once more.
This EP has all of the infernal noise fuckery that I’ve come to know and love from earlier Venetian Snares records. Is it rude? Yes. Is it loud? Yes. Is it like Aphex Twin on methamphetamine? Double yes. It is hard to pick a stand out track per se, but the mind-melting beats are in abundance here. Groovy! SHITFUCKERS!!! by Venetian Snares
After the release of their album Vae Solis earlier in 1992, Scorn quickly followed up with the Deliverance…. EP? I mean, I call it an EP but its long as fuck. I see the Deliverance sessions as one long sprawling track, more than individual segments. The way the the song titles flow kinda encourage this too; “Deliverance Through Dub”, “Delivered”, “To High Heaven”. At first it seems repetitive and annoying, but you eventually get used to it. Very deep, introspective, murky, horrible dub. There’s a few sparks of guitar, but this is a massive step off the deep end from what the band experimented with on the second half of Vae Solis. The Earache CD reissue also includes three Sabres Of Paradise remixes of the track Exodus, which originally appeared on 1994’s Scorn full length. This takes the “EP” length to nearly an hour. The remixes are more ambient, with more uplifting and gazing synth work than the deep, dark mires of Deliverance.
White Irises Blind has the same kinda lifespan as Deliverance. It started life as a (once again, very long) EP before a reissue by Earache several years later turned it into a ten-track compilation of dubs and remixes. The title track is a bizarre mix of haunting and groovy. The minimal mix that follows only serves to cement this feeling. “Black Ash Dub” and “Drained” are more abstract, and “Host Of Scorpions” is just terrifying, to be honest. As far as the additional compilation tracks go, there are some fucking outstanding remixes of “Heavy Blood” and “On Ice”. The downsides are a terribly executed remix of “Stairway” and an absolutely pointless cut version of “Lick Forever Dog” thrown in. This is not to be sniffed at, however. There are some fantastic tracks on this release.
Vae Solis the record that introduced me to the Scorn project. It took a few years, but Scorn became one of my favourite musical ventures, and was a massive influence on myself and my own musical production (not that it really matters), whether that was from the older, industrial full-band records like Vae Solis or the beat-led solo stuff that would come later. Vae Solis sees the Side A line up of Napalm Death’s Scum re-united for a downbeat and drab dirge through meaty industrial music. Think early Swans, Godflesh or even Skin Chamber (lol), with that trademark Broadrick wailing guitar, that Bullen drawl, and Mick Harris…. well this guy is just a damn genius, full stop. The record opens up with a spate of industrial metal tracks. The band is tight and the music is robotic and deathly lifeless and muddy. Things start to change around “Lick Forever Dog” which spreads open, and the tracks become gradually more and more sparse, bizarre, dubby and experimental as the record goes on. It is almost like two records stapled together. “On Ice”, “Heavy Blood” and the whole ending-third of the album is some of my favourite music of all time. It took me way longer than I would like to admit to notice that “Scum After Death (Dub)” was a dubbed reworking of ND’s “Scum”, but then again I’m an idiot.
Quite possibly my favourite Skinless record. I love how clean the production is, and of course, how crushingly heavy the fucking thing is. The riffs have a slam-tinge to them, and anyone who knows Skinless will know that they live up to their gruesome name. A classic. Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead by Skinless
In 2013, Sigur Rós dropped Kveikur, a much rockier and noiser affair than some of the earlier records. Sigur Rós are not a band that I would expect to sit still and stagnate with each passing record, and Kviekur harks back to memories of bands such as Muse or Radiohead, but with that unique Icelandic feel. Worth a goosey! Kveikur by Sigur Rós
If you wander the path of dungeon synth then you shall of course know the name Old Sorcery. I recently got through a bunch of records when up late playing Morrowind, unable to sleep alongside my girlfriend as I had been working nights. Old Sorcery, and in particular the Strange And Eternal record, helped massively in that regard. A fantastic record, sometimes the compositions hark back to more legendary synthesizer composers such as Jean-Michel Jarre or Mike Oldfield, rather than to earlier Mortiis or Burzum. Strange and Eternal by Old Sorcery
I’ve been on a bit of Prurient kick recently, enjoying a few of his records. Cocaine Death however is one that has been saved in my Spotify list for years now. I’m not sure what it is, but I really love the aching melody that creeps below the surface of harsher noises. Cocaine Death toes the line between sonic destruction and ambient beauty.
What a putrid pile of perceptively perverse punishingly pummeling porno explosions! From the (f)artwork right down the audible carnage of the vokills, drums and grinding guitars, Septicopyemia have the brutality dialed in and the supreme art of slamming carnage locked down. Expect disgust from start to finish, and a dust-bin lid for a snare drum.
After being drawn in by the lush album art and the slowly building intro, I am unfortunately having to report that I found this Forest Of Yore record to be incredibly disappointing. Why, you ask? The synths, if not a little slow (which is usually fine, if building such a dense and incredible atmosphere), are jarring horribly alongside sounds of nature. I can’t tell if its sampled or looped or genuine bird song, but Jesus fucking Christ it’s absolutely mind-numbingly irritating. Not only is it a completely unnecessary addition cluttering up the sound stage, it absolutely ruins what would otherwise be a very meditative and drawn out dungeon synth experience. A real shame. Nature and Solitude by Forest of Yore
Reverence was Emperor’s comeback EP before they dropped their new full length in 1997. Honestly, this is a pretty bizarre release, and kinda pointless. Emperor mad lads will no doubt notice the slightly different mix on “Reverence”, but other than that, this is entirely a completists item and should be treated as such.
Now this is more like it! Four tracks of…. of…. what exactly? Breakbeat / breakcore nonsense meets narcotic-fuelled experimentation. If you can hunt down the CD version, there’s a whole bunch of additional remixes thrown on from various peers of the speedy breaky game, my favourite of which has to be the project named Duran Duran Duran.
This has been on my to-do list for donkey’s years. Bong-Ra has a long and rich musical history (lol) so going back and taking a sniff at the earlier records has been something I’ve been meaning to do for some time. There’s a series of mixed vibes here. A heavy junglist theme carries the majority of the tracks, some more chaotic than others with veins of breakbeat and drum and bass stylings. There’s a bunch of guest vocal performances (including Dirty Dred a.k.a. Benji Webbe representing Wales) and some hilarious song titles (“Miss Strap On USA” anyone?). Bikini Bandits, Kill! Kill! Kill! by Bong-Ra
The artwork on the front of Ágætis Byrjun is very apt; here we can see the gestation of Sigur Rós as they develop their bizarre yet gorgeous brand of unique music first presented to the world on Von. The music is growing; the post-rock moments are starting the sprawl and these tracks are beautiful and progressive. I’m not the world’s biggest expert on Sigur Rós but this is a beautiful release. Ágaetis byrjun by Sigur Rós
This album is so good that I ripped it and imported it into my game files for TES III: Morrowind. Hliðskjálf builds on the gloomy MIDI-keyboard fantasy realms of Dauði Baldrs, sprawling into more moody and atmospheric keyboard work, which all at once conjure memories of very early Cradle Of Filth, fantasy table-top roleplaying, of course the misty mysteries of Morrowind, and even something altogether more Angelo Badalamenti. I consider the two Burzum prison albums absolute stone cold classics of the dungeon synth genre. It really is difficult to beat this.
Theatric Symbolisation Of Life is a weird one, doubling both as a full length album and a collection of splits. Some of this stuff I’ve already reviewed under other releases (such is the massive pain in the ass that AGx releases can be) but all in all this is a solid record. It is really long at 1hr and 13 mins in length, but if you’ve never heard Agathocles before, its probably a pretty good place to start.
What can be said about this classic of the genre? We can pretend that later Terrorizer doesn’t exist if that makes you feel any better! Ha! Y’know how people always say that grindcore is a mixture between the craziest parts of hardcore punk and metal? Well, World Downfall really perfected the metallic side of grindcore for me. Each song is a ripper, but not in the looser, chaotic ways displayed by stalwarts Napalm Death – Terrorizer’s record is much more disciplined and streamlined. It’s more precise. A deadly record, no doubt.
This is a mixed bag for me, as far as Bong-Ra is concerned. Monolith generally seems to be critically well received, but I am more of a fan of the breakbeat stuff than I am of the dubstep with rapping over it. This rap stuff isn’t a million miles away from what Esham is doing on the Venus Flytrap or DMT records, and the stuff here (featuring Sole mainly) isn’t awful, it’s just when the breakbeat kicks in, things are a thousand times better.
A death metal tinged, blackened thrash exodus of the oldest school variety. Have I included enough buzz words in this review? Fuck yes! Chapel Of Disease runs the gauntlet of extreme metal tropes and distills them into a heavily enjoyable product, one to which you can bang your head and enjoy. A great record.
I recently did a post where I said I was sad that Burzum hadn’t released anything for a while, and BOOM out of the murky waters comes this absolute gem of a double album! Dodgy Thule shit aside (make of that what you will) Burzum conjures the most unique and beautiful of dungeon synth atmospheres. He has his detractors, of course, but I am not in league with them. This could just be a tired ploy to sell copies of his new RPG, but fuck it, this is a glorious work and I will always welcome more Burzum, even if the black metal side of the project is long dead. If you enjoy beautiful synth work then I can not recommend this enough.
This dropped a few months before the new Burzum record. I listened to them back to back, so I may be getting my head wrapped incorrectly around things, but the two records definitely share a number of tracks. It seems that this is a prototype for the album that eventually came, which was longer and with a different layout and track list. If Thulean Mysteries never came, then Thule would be an intriguing listen. Today however, it appears to have been rendered completely redundant.
AxPx are absolutely killing it on this tape. Channelling the energy of mincecore legends such as Agathocles into their own drum-machine-led barrage of sonic annihilation. I did a show once in Hungary (drumming for DZH) with Chappa’ai, and they are just as mental and noisy here as they were live then. “Z’Tarc Programming Device” is the single track; a long dirge of bleeping noise and harsh vocals. Sad to hear the band is currently no more! The Sete Star Sept session here is a distorted mess. I mean, it is supposed to be, right? But fuck, this sounds like one of my rehearsals recorded on a cheap mobile phone. Gorgonized Dorks has that cool meld of noisecore and weird synths. Always a pleasure. Mankurt has some interesting black metal vibes but grinds pretty hard regardless. A good band to close out this trip through noise and hell. Cheers!
There is something relaxing about earlier Burial recordings, despite the morose atmosphere and melodies which are obscured beneath a layer of urban grit. South London Burroughs is not a long record, but it’s 20 minutes or so of fantastic beat work and atmospherics.
Well, this is a little classic, isn’t it? Stumbled upon it almost by accident, but this is a gem in the earlier to mid Agx split 7″ gamut. Agathocles have some pounding mince stomps here, even the live tracks at the end are glorious. The title track just makes me wanna drink cheap Belgian beer and dance around like a muppet. Carcass Grinder are fucking solid too, bringing 4 tracks of lightening fast grindcore to the table. A great split in a sea of mediocre ones.
A band that rolls in the filth of exploitation film? That’s gotta be a good thing right? Perhaps it is, once I set aside the expectation for every band that write about horror movies to sound like Mortician. Video Nasties have a lot more going on that I ever would have expected. I came for lo-fi splatter death metal, and I left with a new band to keep an eye on. Video Nasties are razor sharp. Their unique brand of metal is rabid yet groovy, and the odd synth passage in the true sci-fi / horror style is heavily welcomed. Ones to keep an eye on going forward. Dominion by Video Nasties
Prurient exists in his own class within the noise world. That sounds a bit up his arse, but the project toes a fine line between beauty and chaos, between the fragile and the concrete. This balance of opposites is as clear on Frozen Niagara Falls as it is in any of Prurient’s other work (that I’ve heard), and at an hour and a half in length, it is a mammoth double album journey through ice cold shards of noise, and gorgeous synthesizer passages.
Glorious, glorious, fucking glorious dungeon synth music. Immediately you will notice the classic video game bent to this, not only in the artwork but in the tone and style of the synth patches used. Kobold conjures memories of old school RPG’ing. If I close my eyes I am in the deepest, darkest dungeons. Absolutely fucking beautiful. HDK 02 † The cave of the lost talisman by KOBOLD
This is one of those records that just makes me feel good, so I’m really glad that I checked it out. Honestly, I’ve heard of Mr. Costello but hadn’t ever heard his music until a track from this record was used as the theme song for the second season of HBO’s stunning The Deuce. This Year’s Model is a feel good (mostly!) romp through new-age rock and roll, tinged with the snot of the American post-punk movement. I’m unsure how historically accurate the application of these terms is, but that is what I am getting in my head whilst this spins. An atmosphere the early 80s conjures, where analogue and digital begin to blur (this record predates that slightly however).
Incredibly impressive on first impressions! We are dropped into the carnage with absolutely no warning; opener “A Virulent Strain of Retaliation” holds nothing back in brutality. I love how downtuned and mushy this deathly slamming sludge is. Obscene Majesty, as a whole, harks back to the earlier Knupp-led days of Devourment, with pit-opening slam riffs and grooves. Honestly, the riffs on this thing are fucking outrageous. Outrageous I tell you! My only complaint is a wider complaint about slam in general – artificial bass drops! Fuck that shit! I mean, I know a lot of slam-based acts don’t take themselves seriously, but this record is on another level of intense brutality, and I find if anything the bass drops just take away from proceedings, rather than add anything of worth. But hey, that’s just me. Obscene Majesty by Devourment
Today was a good day, for today was the day I decided to sit down and play through the entire Demilich discography. Thankfully, these days the entire task has been made painfully easy thanks to the release entitled 20th Adversary of Emptiness, which not only remasters the essential Nespithe record, but the entire gamut of demos too. I first heard of Demilich when they were announced for Netherlands Death Fest in 2016 (I missed them at the fest itself because I’m an idiot), but at the time I had no idea how amazing their only full length album was. Nespithe is a glorious and puzzlingly morbid foray into the infinite bowels of creature feature death metal. Imagine Bill Steer joining Disembowelment instead of Carcass. There is something meaty and terrifying about the noises that Nespithe conjures up, and the fairly recent remaster from the original tape makes the record sound alive. 3m9t2ness Of Van2s1ing and V34ish6ng Of Emptiness are two records that then bring together the rest of Demilich’s original tape demos. There are 5 sessions here, of which you can go onto Discogs and obsess over the original formats, but the sessions vary in length and in quality and often songs will show up on more than one session. In the case of the remaster, the quality tends to degrade as the listen progresses, leaving the more hard to find unpolished stuff right at the end. 20th Adversary Of Emptiness by Demilich
Savagery is Skinless’ first record since 2015’s Only The Ruthless Remain, which in itself was something of a departure from the bands more slam-orientated roots. Savagery however, strays further from that path into slower, sludgier riffing and a muddier sound, coming across more like Obituary than anything Dying Fetus. It’s still heavy, it’s still fantastic death metal, but forgive me if I feel like spinning Trample The Weak… instead. Savagery by Skinless
After an 8 or 9 year break, it was great to see Skinless back with another record. I love the approach of lesser songs but with longer track lengths, which was refreshing. The album art leaves a little bit to be desired but everything else is massively on point and Skinless absolutely kill it on this album. Only The Ruthless Remain by Skinless
Wake have come a long way since I last heard them. I think I first came across them when they were announced for OEF during my first trip back in 2013. The band have perhaps unsurprisingly come in leaps and bounds since then, having developed and matured over several records into a monstrous unit of metallic destruction. Think Corrupt Moral Altar or U.K. doomers Conjurer, but mashed into the deepest mires of grindcore and even black metal. Think ultimate brutality but married also with a melancholic sense of beauty and melody. Devouring Ruin is a stunning album and I cannot recommend it enough. Devouring Ruin by WAKE
Checked this out on the back of the group’s split with the infamous Cuntgrinder. Raped, Butchered and Eaten will not win any awards for originality, especially with an album title like that, but let’s not forget which genre of music we are currently wallowing in. All in all, massive misogynistic overtones aside (make of those what you will), Cuntemonium present to us a slow and groovy, yet not so easily digestible slab of groovy gore and or pornogrind. Production wise the best thing I could compare this to would be early Satan’s Revenge On Mankind (sans dustbin snare). A solid album in the groovy style.
Part of what made Blade Runner such a magical experience for me was how all the visuals and audio meld together to create the (almost) perfect dystopian sci fi feast. A large part of that is, of course, the musical soundtrack – a glorious, epic yet electronic and futuristic exploration by the severely underrated composer Vangelis. Nothing quite conjures the mass industrial, uber-capitalist wastelands that we call cities now like this score does. For when you absolutely have to go searching for attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, throw on this score. (Trivia: the score released alongside the film and the only one available until 1993 was a re-recording, and not the original Vangelis score. This wasn’t released until 1993. Bizarre!)
And here we have the scratchy beginnings of one of the most entertaining dungeon synth projects of all time. Local Portal is a local demo for local wizards, and yes, whilst the scale of production is much humbler here so it’s the overall tone and sense of daring adventure.
I was surprised to see that Cuntgrinder (Cunt Grinder? Which is it?) was still going, so happily tucked into this little split CD. That infamous bludgeoning metallic pornogrind attack takes me right back to their earlier records, complete with hideous sampling and gruff shifted vocals. Cuntemonium have such a shit name. Come on! Haha! But, the band are fucking savage, and honestly, put Cuntgrinder to shame. Cuntemonium play in the same sludgy / groovy style, but the riffs are better, the production is much clearer, and the toilet bowl vokills are some of the best I’ve heard in a while. In fact, one of the best groovy gore / pornogrind bands I’ve heard for some time.
