Archive for July 2020

Hocus Pocus is not a film that I particularly enjoy all that much but one that gets played traditionally every Halloween at our house. My girlfriend absolutely loves it. Admittedly, it brings back a lot of nostalgia from when I saw it when I was a kid, but as an adult I take nothing new from it (how fucking hot is Sarah Jessica Parker here, though?).

Well this came from fucking nowhere! After 14 years of mostly inactivity (in the studio, at least), Gut crawl out of the gore swamp once again with the completely unexpected Disciples Of Smut. This record is the sound of a band re-energised. Gut bring their trademark downtuned pornogrind mush to a whole new gamut of influences, from black metal to elements of death and doom.  Honestly, it is fucking astounding that this is the same…

Ut Strepitus play slow, evolving soundscapes of noise and dense atmospheric ambience. The shtick is a heavily Latin-based BDSM theme, something of course which has been seen in noise and power electronics worlds before, but not so much maybe in the atmospheric, ambient or synthesiser worlds. The moods and tones shift from paranoia and dread, to small moments of wonder and contemplation, before oppressing drones of collapsing atmosphere suffocate you under its weight. There is…

What is this that stands before me? What indeed. Imagine hearing this, in the early days of 1970 – I’d love to have a time machine to see how things really went down. I suppose us modern-day hipsters will just have to contend for crackly old vinyl copies of this and be done with it. Whether you think Sabbath invented heavy metal or not, they absolutely took that downering, bluesy sound to the mainstream. I…

Slipknot is one of those albums that I have absolutely played into the ground. My introduction to – and infatuation with – Slipknot began with the follow-up record; 2001’s impossibly heavy Iowa album, something which I do not take for granted. The impact that such a record would have had on a 12 year old me cannot be put into words. I have tried and tried and tried to listen to Iowa again, imagining that…

To my knowledge, this 12″ is where it all began for The Berzerker. Heavily pre-dating the grinding mush of the Earache days, this record is pure speedcore armageddon, and I have to admit that Luke Kenny has serious chops in that department. Some of the sampling is a bit silly but this isn’t a genre that takes itself too seriously afterall. The beats however are sick as fuck and are absolutely pumping. Top notch stuff….

If there is one band that excellently captures the ridiculous side of slam death metal, then its these guys. Many try (too hard), and therefore many fail. But, if its tin-can snare drums and earth-shattering brutality you want, then truly it is hard to go far wrong with these guys, this sophomore record is further proof of that.  If there’s one thing that grinds my gears it’s the fucking artificial bass drops. I can’t stand…

Its incredible what chopping 15 minutes off your average runtime will do to a film, especially one of this calibre. Maybe I’m getting bored of watching low budget horrors, but for me a lot of them just suffer with horrendous pacing. Chopping Mall’s plot is direct to the point and doesn’t drag at all.  As for the movie, a gang of young and sexy party goers are trapped in a mall overnight and are pursued…

Ah, fantastic; it’s time it seems, for another record from Sackhead, Tightshead, Dr. Snore and… Millie from Craniation (here’s hoping I’ve spelt that right). BTK are one of the more consistent and generally well rounded and solid offerings of the British extreme metal underground, and this is despite various line up changes over the years. Lessons In Murder is great, following on in the style of There’s Something About Beryl, albeit with a more natural…

Beautiful, yet somewhat samey ambient black metal from Lustre. Things kinda get lost in the mix for me, there is so much treble floating about that it is unreal. Sure, the synths sound great but the drums are almost non existent and the floating, dream-like nature is more grating than it is enjoyable. Which of course, is a massive shame, as the compositions appear to be of a very high quality.

Despite not really being interested in the band’s output for many years, Jeff Hatrix’s departure from Mushroomhead felt like a gut punch, and to me, even with J Mann back in the band, this particular gut punch felt like the final nail in the coffin for a band that was long past their prime. I had little to no hope for A Wonderful Life, and I even considered if I should bother listening at all,…

Slam is a genre that I dabble with now and then, and Abominable Putridity is a band that I have written about in the past. Anomalies… however, takes me by surprise; its lightening fast tunes and chugging breakdowns are reminiscent more of hardcore and deathcore than your average group of tin-can snared brutality dealers.

So, honestly, I only watched this film because I’d Googled ‘films about dachshunds’ with my girlfriend. Seeing that it was on Amazon Prime, we settled down on the couch with our two miniatures and watched away. Man, not even DeVito could save this festering pile of shit. It has this dreamy, faux-Lynchian aesthetic that tries to hold up piss-thin film studies 101 tropes in a series of completely unconnected stories. The shocking ending is also…