Archive for February 2021

In anticipation of the release of the newer Carcass stuff I revisited some of my least favourite albums by the band. Yes, I am one of the grubby losers that thinks Symphonies… and Reek… are the pinnacle of Carcass’ sonic output, and yes I’m damn proud of that, even if the band aren’t. Onwards onto Heartwork proper then, the record that sang the melodic death of my favourite bands (and sounds) of all time. Leaving…

Not the first album that I have heard by this legendary Dutch band, but when listening to it, and doing my research, I realised how confused and in the dark I was about the band’s complicated discography. Embrace The Death sits a few albums in, but was recorded towards the start? Or something like that? Despite all of this, Asphyx has this unmistakable mournful approach to the slower side of death metal; a melodic depth…

Mullah Said is my first taste of the prolific and highly revered sound art of Muslimgauze. I find something about this deeply unsettling; dark, meandering soundscapes are the order of the day, steeped and drenched and plunged over and over into dense Eastern weavery and instrumentation. I shall be returning to this project, that is for sure.

Chrome Hoof have been on the to-do list for longer than I would ever care to admit. How blown away was I when I finally checked them out? Well, read on! LOL. Beyond Zade is one of those awkward releases that kinda sits somewhere between an EP and an album, but either way, that doesn’t really matter, what matters is the musical content, of which I can safely report is absolutely bonkers in all of…

Without looking back it is sometimes easy to forget just how brutish and blunt a weapon early Voïvod was. Before the trademark dissonance and progressive science took over the band’s mesmerising songwriting, the band purveyed an interesting blend of unforgiving thrash metal. Sure, compared to some other efforts, the production is somewhat lacking, but I find that the unpolished, rugged edges to War And Pain add to the aural assault on the senses, much in…

I fell in love with Priest’s debut single, “The Pit”, and the album which followed it. Unfortunately, the kinship with their cold and awkward techno pop ends there. 2020’s sophomore effort lacks in just about every attribute that made the original so interesting, which is a true shame. I hear there may have been line up changes in the band? Either way, this is pretty disappointing, truth be told.

Dusty, hiss-filled dungeon synth compositions of lost lands and endless dark imaginations. Like, this is so fucking good its not even funny. Some of the vocal performances on the latter track(s) leave a little to be desired, but this a golden gem of dark dungeon music.

Blind listen of the day award goes to the madfolk in Psudoku, which despite the slightly silly name live up to the head-scratching promise of their moniker with this epic cataclysm of mathematic chaos. Owing more to certain experimental metallic genres than anything too far into the grindcore camp, Space Grind is however an excellent and perplexing listen. If you like your metal absolutely bonkers, then come one come all.

An absolute classic of the thrash genre, but it is also so much more! Voivod are the Swiss army knife of the thrash metal world, and Killing Technology pinpoints the turning point, where Voivod’s primitive, brutal thrash morphed significantly into something far wider and more experimental in scope.

The Thought Gang moniker has cropped up here or there on Twin Peaks soundtrack records (and the show itself, lets not forget). From the bizarre, softly spoken offerings on the FWWM OST, to the frenetic jazz given to The Return, it was awesome to finally listen to an album’s worth of material from this Lynch / Badalamenti collaberation project. As perhaps predicted, this is a mixed bag of tunes, more of a collection than a…

Pink Flag is one of those albums that holds its own kind of mysterious cult status. On the surface of it, Wire is not a particularly groundbreaking group, but on repeat listens one can appreciate some of the more subtle undertones to the music. At first it appears to be an interesting approach to the punk rock template but then when you realise the song structures are based entirely in repetition, almost to the point…

A mammoth of a record, pulling from a myriad of styles and influences. Can’t say I’ve ever been massive on BTBAM but I heavily enjoyed this album.

I was very sad to hear that Cookie Monsta passed away. Whilst not so much a part of the original gestation of the dubstep sound, he was part of the original wave of artists pioneering this new, dirty style. This early EP, on Circus Records, is a perfect example of that. Cookie’s bass work is massive and interfering, and thats how it should be. Great stuff.

Another record that is vying for the place of first ever death metal record. Whether it wins or not, Seven Churches is a classic record, one deserving the attention of any metalhead, and not just for its historical status. On Seven Churches, Possessed end up mixing styles of proto-death metal with thrash and something that’s a bit more reminiscent of what Repulsion would do on Horrified. Take all this, and give it an almost blackened…

Make my shit The Chronic! I love this album. I hadn’t listened to it in so many years, so went back to it for the purposes of this entry. In hindsight, its weird how so close together in time The Chronic and its follow-up, 2001 (released in 1999 lol) are. When I was younger, these two eras of rap felt like worlds apart, with The Chronic in particular sounding absolutely ancient in comparison. I wouldn’t…

Terria was my first taste of Devin’s up and down world of solo work. I vaguely remember Syncestra (is that spelt correctly?) coming out, but this goes back even further. I’m not sure what it was about Terria that made it stand out amongst some of the others, but its a bizarre, airy trip through some long and dense tracks. If I had one criticism of Terria it would be that it doesn’t really go…

Booming Words From Hell is the sprung as fuck debut from everyone’s favourite bogeyman, Esham. Our man here bolted out the gate with an amateur yet now legendary record. All the tropes and themes that Esham would continue to explore over the course of his legendary original acid rap / horrorcore run of records begin here, but Booming… also contains a more “street” or gangsta rap sensibility to it. Either way, if you like abrasive…

I’ve had good experiences with ExCx in the past, but here the rehearsal room feel is a little too rustic. The riffs sound fuckin’ great – when the rest of the din stops and you can hear them. But hey, this is sloppy goregrind, can I really complain? Biological Monstrosity are the most solid band on this split by a country mile. They play extra dirty, lightening fast goregrind topped with disgusting watery vocals. They…

Admittedly I had never even heard of this EP until recently, so I went back and had a very good goose, expecting to find the dusty origins of the intricate death metal that Nile is so revered for. Unfortunately, this 1994 cassette showcases a band of completely different stripes. It isn’t bad per se, but Karl Sanders’ glorious personal guitar tone is missing, as is the stunning Egyptian atmospheres. I would say that this is…

Nasty Face are one of my favourite goregrind projects of the last 5 years or so. Playing in the crusty / old school style rather than the tupa-tupa OEF-fodder style, Nasty Face is garlging sickness down the very core. Expect, of course, pustulent pitchshifters, shredding guitars, and barely audible drums at practice room quality. I would have it no other way.

HKE’s HK record lies somewhere on the more spaced out, introspective end of vaporwave. Few and far between are the tropes of nostalgia and the repurposing of 80s and 90s music (at least, any that is immediately recognisable). Instead we have swathes of crushing ethereal ambience; soundscapes that seem to live their own life with analogue flutter. Its deep, moving stuff, and a listen that I would strongly recommend.

Possibly a hallmark of the industrial genre? Do I even need to prefix that sentence with “possibly”? I read online that someone called this a “random tapestry of sound”. That particular review wasn’t a good one, but the phrase stuck with me. At first, 1/2 Mensch can no doubt seem random, but what this is is a carefully constructed monolith of industrial noise, encompassing all the atonal and rhythmic duality that comes with such a…

Easily, hands down, zero argument: the best Sabbath album with Dio. Released seemingly randomly between the band’s albums with Tony Martin on vocals, Iommi rather unceremoniously sacked off that entire line up to reform with Geezer and Dio to reignite the Mob Rules line up. There seems to be a lot of shit online about Dio’s lyrics on here, but I genuinely don’t think they are particular awful, especially on the usual Dio cheese to…

Khost are a dark, heavy, miserable band and Needles In The Ground is a fantastic record. Expect a few subtle flourishes from Mr. Broadrick. Unsure why he hasn’t just used his own name on this rather than the Godflesh tag? Maybe GC Green was in on this? Hey, maybe it just helps sell records.

Cross Purposes is yet another Sabbath album in the seemingly endlessly bland Tony Martin era. I don’t blame Martin for this per se, but every album he fronts just happens to be some different variation on the theme of boring stadium rock. That being said, Cross Purposes is definitely the heaviest output to feature this line up thus far (not counting Forbidden) and notably includes Geezer Butler back on bass, even though he was not…

Expanding on the epic doomery of the previous material, Nightfall enters new territories of pomp, cheese and theatre. To me, the addition of Messiah on vocals steers this almost into the realm of power metal, but is held into more trad or doom classifications by the songwriting and perhaps more importantly, the pacing.

Volume 1 is another one of those records that got played to death in my teenage years. Listening again as an adult, it seems almost like a jumble of different sessions stitched together rather than a cohesive album, but that isn’t too much of an issue when the songs are of this quality. From the instant mega hit of the opening track, the abstract heaviness of “Rio Bravo” or “Lost In A Contraption”, or the…

Its hard to embody the spirit of the early Mortiis releases without completely ripping them off. This is done with varying degrees of success, but Elffor’s Dra Sad III, my first encounter with the project, manages to weave the vibes of those early 90s dungeon synth masterpieces into tapestries of their own. Dra Sad III, with the full title of Beneath The Uplands Of Doom, evoke longform, dense ambient soundscapes, with the right balance of…

The debut from Priest is far removed from a lot of the band’s later albums, from any of their eras. In fact, Rocka Rolla is a snapshot in time of a band that may not have ever moved into the world of heavy metal. Its not for me, but I’m glad I started from the beginning.

Another stomping entry from the ever excellent Haggus. It is literally impossible to fault this stuff. Totally, utterly insane and on point, crusty, grindy, mincecore. Golem Of Gore are new to me, but make a good impression. I look forward to crisscrossing into their crazy world in the future as I meander through the grindcore underworld.

This record haunted me. There’s a reoccurring motif that I just couldn’t place. It hit me after a while, it was a sample used by Gorillaz for the track “M1 A1” on the self titled record, which was the first album I really spent any decent amount of time with when I was a kid. I’ve also seen the Day Of The Dead film so I have no idea how didn’t put this together before….

Brilliant, meandering, dusty old world rock and roll with proggy elements. Considering such, the tracks are actually surprisingly short, but either way, I feel like I’ve cracked open a forgotten time capsule. Not my usual cup of tea, but a great listen none the less.

I’ve had this on my to-do list for donkeys years, but finally got to listening to it after hearing a recent Earache post from Al explaining a bit of the goings on. I chose the Full Dynamic Range reissue, which was a solid re-release. I’ve not heard the original, but even on a flat monitor signal through some IEMs I absolutely could not fuck with any bass, which is a shame. Would it be lazy…

It took me quite by surprise when I turned on Radio 1 one day whilst in the work van, and was treated to a single from the up and coming new record from long-time heavies, Mastodon. Wait, like, they play this shit on the radio now? Since when? But I digress. I’ve been meaning to check out some “later” Mastodon stuff for a while, and the cover art for this thing stood out to me…

Oh, she’s a depressing one! Dialling back a bit from the slightly more sparkly offering of October Rust (an album made to attract female fans), Pete’s doomy wrecking krew instead hit us with tales of death, depression and drug abuse. How cheery! Of course, that wicked Type O humour is there, but as a whole this is back in the Bloody Kisses realm of misery. Good stuff gents!

Keyboards in death metal is usually a something of a turn off for me. Even in black metal, it works probably about 50% of the time. Nocturnus however, are something of an exception to that narrow minded rule of mine. The debut record from this excellent band, The Key, is not as muddy or confusing as its follow up, but is still a maddening and punishing descent into some glorious sci-fi tinged metal ov death….

Undeath is one of the more heavily hyped death metal bands around right now, and its easy to see why. Sentient Autolysis is a perfect showcase of the sickness that was to come on the Lesions… record. Dirty, horrible, disgusting death metal, the way it should be.

This is my first foray into the world of Pestilence. Right off the bat, everything sounds fantastic, with tbe exception of the drums, which sound flat and horrible. I’m sure there’s a grainy and decent analogue recording buried somewhere in there. Perhaps one for the remaster treatment?

Satyricon gets a lot of shit. Personally, I would say most of it is completely undeserved. I suppose that is the nature of the beast that is black metal; anyone who transitions or meanders out of it (or blends it with something else) is unavoidably going to catch flak from genre purists. Brass tacks: Deep… offers very little in anything new, but is another solid offering in the bands now almost two decade long vein…

Plasma’s second album is a lesson in how to take goregrind influenced metal seriously. Punctuated by disturbing samples about body snatching (and reminding me of The Berzerker’s Reawakening album in the process, if that album had just been any good eh), Dreadful Desecration is a solid and well made production that doesn’t stray too far from its sloppy gore roots.

Jim Kirkwood is something of a father to the dungeon synth world. His compositions bridge the gap between electronic soundtrack music and even – dare I say the buzz word – Berlin school kinda synth fuckery, but its the Tolkien inspired backdrop to these fantastical compositions that really is the icing on the cake. Middle Earth is a long album. I took it out with me and walked a few miles with my dog, burnt…

This is… different. I appreciate the sentiment and meaning behind it, but after two tracks I’m sick to death of it. Dungeon synth or any fantasy based electronic music is niche enough as it is, at this point it seems almost like a joke to narrow it down to “comfy” RPG interior music. I’m sure there’s an audience for this, but I’m not in that audience.