It’s time! I recently did a video review of my cassette of this which you can see at this link. Undeath keep their momentum up with their second record. The production is slightly different, but the riffs are chonky as fuck and the band are clearly on a roll so hey, let’s let them keep rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ (I’m sorry). “Necrobionics” is probably my favourite song, if I’m honest. I love the Doom video that goes with it. The drums seem a bit more roomy than Lesions… but everything else feels beefed up and more spectacular, which is a weird duality. But hey, it’s still solid, skull crushing death metal. Get on it.
I opened this review to start writing before the 5″ started, and it will no doubt end before I am finished. You gotta love 5″ records. They are ultimately pointless, but are so perfect – never has a format been more fitting to an individual genre, in this case grindcore. I’m not sure if this was recorded before or after the stuff on the MITB split, but this, whilst a lo-fi affair, is much more like the Locust of later years, with intense electronic fuckery coursing through the grind assault. I ordered this split years ago from a mail order but it never showed up. So its today then, that I finally get to check out a micro blast from Jenny Piccolo, who play in a classic hardcore/powerviolence kind of style. Sharp riffs underpin these microblasts of carnage, intersected with bizarre noise/guitar effects.
(Excuse the crappy thumbnail on this one. This release seems to have fallen through the cracks of time into perma-obscurity. I can’t find my copy of this CDr anywhere, so the shitty thumb it is (oo er), apologies folks) I got sent this CDr by the dudes in the band, because we worked together briefly when I ran a label. They appeared on a compilation 7″ I did (where does a multiple split end and a compilation begin?), and I remember like, didn’t they used to build their own guitars or something crazy? Either way, I always thought Urophagia were a solid and under-rated goregrind band, even in the MySpace “scene”. Urine Consumption, whilst more or less lost to time now, is a testament to such. Its chonky, well-produced, gory as all fuck and most importantly – stuffed full of good songs.
Cold, harrowing black metal from the UK. This one has been on the to-do list for a while (I wonder how many times I’ve written than exact sentence out?), but I’m glad I finally got around to it because its everything that the cover art promised and much more. The production is a little hollow, leaning heavily into treble territory with buzzsaw guitars and percussion that is drenched in reverb, but the songwriting is superb. I’m unsure which of the two members is doing the vocals on this but they are perfect and mixed into the cauldron of foggy chaos just perfectly.
For all the farmyard variety in death metal and grindcore vocals from around the globe and across modern history (lol), few are as animalistic and primal and disgusting as John Tardy. Your man here sounds like Taz on bath salts with one leg stuck in a bear trap. The art is a bit pants, but it is a classic after all so that can be forgiven (no shade at the artist, I’m just not sure what it is I’m looking at). Musically, the balance of the instrumentation is perfect. One for the books.
The final release from the seemingly defunct Intrepid Corpse. More intense mincecore stomping goodness, in the vein of Haggus, Hyperemesis or earlier Agathocles. I remember the first release from this project and how it had that mince element underpinning it, but here, this is all-out stomp. Love it! The perfect soundtrack to blasting heads off on Doom. 2022 edit: This, along with Intrepid Corpse in general, appears to have disappeared off the internet without trace.
Honestly, I don’t know why I do it to myself. With the absolute meltdown that is I No She Hot She No I’m Rich 5, I believe my time with Viper has come to an end. I just cannot invest any more time in listening to this absolute dreck. It was fun when it lasted. Like… this is so fucking bad, with absolutely zero endearing qualities. Plus it’s 1 hour and 40 minutes long. The soundtrack to a slow and painful death, is this.
Clandestine Blaze is the one man (I believe) black metal project of Mikko Aspa. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, then its probably a good thing. Mikko is linked to all sorts of unsavoury right wing garbage, and Clandestine Blaze is also linked to this kind of ideology. Its something I usually avoid and don’t tend to cover all that often, as it’s not something I agree with or like to shine a light on. This bloke however, is incredibly prolific, and is behind a fair number of projects that I have either already covered or do intend to cover in the future. So with the horse out of the barn door as it were, I decided to fire up a Clandestine Blaze record. I’m not surprised to find that this is actually pretty fucking excellent. Its almost as like, going in, I know that I would never be in the same room as this guy, and that gives me an expecting that it must be shite because of the politics involved. But, of course, as I should have learned from some of my favourite artists (in the form of Burzum or Death In June), this isn’t always the case. This isn’t Skrewdriver, folks. This is genuinely interesting and well-crafted black metal. Aspa’s riffs are mesmerising and fold over on themselves, becoming hypnotic hymns of wasp-like savagery. The vocals and drums are fitting to the atmosphere and the decent run time provides a stunning journey into the frozen unknown. I don’t think I will listen to any more Clandestine Blaze, as there are many other projects out there deserving attention, but this is a great black metal record. To say its not because I think its creator is a bootlicking swine would simply be a lie.
I got this tape from Roel back when it came out, and I have absolutely fucking no idea what I’ve done with it over the years. Thankfully, some kind soul has uploaded this to YouTube so I can remind myself of how it sounds. I can’t decide if the best thing about Anal Penetration (what a sentence) is the drum programming or the guitar work. Both are intensely good. Like, seriously, seriously good. For such a nonsense project, Roel really brings the heat, especially on this 9 minute EP. This is heavy as fuck.
Serenades is another one of those records that I have heard probably hundreds of times. In my teens it quickly became one of my favourite doom metal records, and I remember going to watch Anathema in 2007 at a festival without having any idea they had changed into the whole indie / post-rock thing. What a shock I had haha Anyways, I love this. I’ve made the point on several other record blogs now, that this shares a closeness in production to Cradle Of Filth’s Principle Of Evil Made Flesh, My Dying Bride’s Turn Loose The Swans, amongst others. What is unique however, is the brothers Cavanagh and their mesmerising, weeping riffage, accompanied by Darren White’s guttural, forlorn voice. The band would become a pillar of this British approach to doom metal, before of course abandoning it completely. Oh, and “Sleepless” is one of the greatest songs ever written.
I loved Sikfuk when I was a teenager. It’s death metal, but silly as fuck and also technical as shit! What a duality! Much in the same vein here does the carnage continue, but with a whole slew of additional sounds added to the one man’s already chock-full barnyard of vocal styles. There are now punk rock / powerviolence shouts and grunts to go alongside the usual gurgles and gargles. There is also a catchiness to proceedings, whereas previous releases see the technicality and brutality dialled all the way up. Demented Retarded bring a more bludgeoning sound. They are, of course, a part of the Czech goregrind family and immediately possess that same groove as their peers in the same area. I also get Cunt Grinder and Clit Eater vibes from these guys.
Ah, Oxygène, one of the greats of the chill-out electronic genre, no? Before everything chilled out became house hi hats and moody loops, the genre was more attributed to “Mike Oldfield shit” – by which I mean huge 4 or 5 CD box sets of wishy washy hippy synthesizer music. You could guarantee a radio edit of Oxygène would be included on any one of those compilations worth its salt. I am of course doing Monsieur Jarre a disservice, as I’m painting wide brush strokes with my own personal experience. The man is a genius of sorts, a composer for the modern age of synthesizer music. If you took what Tangerine Dream did and split it down into digestible chunks that have a little melody to them – and could be played at dinner parties – you’d be on the right track with regards to how Oxygène sounds. It’s spacey, but it’s grounded enough to impress your bougie friends. I mean this endearingly, of course. Lol.
Dahmer are a fuckin’ great grindcore act. I snoozed on this band for years think I only really checked them out for the first time in 2016. Anyways, the two tracks here are slightly longer than the usual grindcore fare, but suffer not in terms of pacing or ferocity. Throat shredding vocals, razor sharp yet dense riffs and bonkers drums – it’s all here.
This is a lengthy split from 20 years ago (damn, son) (23 years for the original cassette before this CD version). If you know what Ahumado Granujo are about then this will not disappoint. There are less techno passages and more groovy finger-pointy goregrind, but hey, I’m not complaining about that. Production is good as always, and a few Gut covers towards the end (and a cover of Impetigo’s “Boneyard” but much faster!) are the icing on the cake. There’s a long techno song too for those who may be pining for such in the absence of the usual interludes. Utopia are a new experience for me. These guys are fast, fast, fast! Grindcore in a much more traditional sense that their sludgy, groovy split-mates. Expect the usual flurries of intense hammering blastbeats, razor sharp guitar riffery and of course, manic, yelped, screamed vocals of rabid intensity. A nice bit of ying and yang really, across the full record. Tidy darts.
Vulnus play intense, well-produced death metal. Despite this, there is a quality remaining of the feel of an underground demo, but the band’s overall tightness and professional sound does wonders for their crisp, precise carnage. As I listened to the split for ISOYF, discovering Vulnus was a pleasant surprise. ISOYF have thusfar failed to ever disappoint me. One could say that the band are not very adventurous with their sound, whilst another could then counteract that and say that they are a consistent band. I suppose its kinda like Lymphatic Phlegm. You know what you are gonna get. Its not necessarily gonna sound a bazillion miles away from their previous release, but you know at least that its gonna be fuckin’ great. ISOYF seem to fall into the same category; their intense, dust-bin lid snare and fuzz-pocalypse bass underpin an almost identical production to the previous records I’ve encountered, rendering the guitars almost inaudible in parts. The constant barrage of pig squeal vocals sign, seal and deliver this one across the boundary into the category of ‘tidy feckin’ goregrind, lads’.
I’d like to think, that back in 1993, it was almost unimaginable that a band like Anal Cunt would do a full-length album. I mean, they crammed 5000+ “songs” onto a 7″ in one way or another, so who could comprehend a full-length? Similarly, with such an abrasive and intense sound, the formats of short, sharp shocks to the head worked perfectly. Who in their right mind would want to endure that in a full length format? But, history dictates that Anal Cunt would release multiple full length studio records, and even become “musical” in their own way, contradicting the original intention of the band. But hey, I’m getting ahead of myself. I love the sound on this thing. It is so dirgy and miserable. Seth sounds absolutely insane and rabid, as if he is foaming at the mouth. The inclusion of some deathly-slow, sludgy numbers really breaks up the pace of the seemingly endless 1 minute noisecore offerings. I bet this thing sounds absolutely enormous on vinyl (never been able to get it) due to the analogue nature of the recording. If you’ve somehow never heard Anal Cunt before and don’t give a stuff about the offensive song titles they are famous for (there aren’t really any here), then this is probably the best place to start.
This has to be one of, if not the most, random thing in my entire CD collection. I got it off the Relapse webstore back in the late 00s when it always seemed to be filled with the most random shit. This is a CD full of Duncan’s stand up, which is, to be fair, not that great. The material’s link to heavy metal is also tenuous at best. There is absolutely no merit to listening to this, or ever owning this. I think I paid like a dollar or something for it, and I only ever bought it because of the price. Yeah. I don’t really know what to say about this. Duncan is / was apparently involved in running labels or production / promotion companies in the US for hardcore bands, which is pretty cool.
This is what I’m talking about. Forced Expression do not fuck around. This 7″ of blistering hardcore intensity takes us firmly into classic powerviolence territory. Bouncy riffs meet pummelling drums and intense vocals, just what the doctor ordered in regards to total sonic annihilation. Tidy!
Oh fuck, this is great. I’ve always avoided later Morbid Angel because I wrongly assumed it would be total rubbish. I had this in mp3 format when I was a teenager and it had all the “lavas” with it (like a bonus disc of guitar solos or something), and that along with the multiple ambient/intermission tracks here really distracted me away from the meat of the project. Thankfully, all these years later I decided to return to Formulas Fatal To The Flesh as its an absolute monster of an album. Steve Tucker seems to be a shot in the arm for the band after Dave Vincent’s departure. There seems to have been an informed decision made to ramp everything up to hyperspeed. This is my favourite Pete Sandoval performance on a record. You can really hear the intensity of his playing here. No triggers, no masters.
Noise noise noise noise! All Dutch and Belgian bands here (or just Belgian maybe – I could be wrong). Permanent Death have always eluded me. I’ve always wanted to check them out because they have had both Tony from AGx (RIP) and Isaac from Fromtheashes and Leng T’che (and a bloody good bloke) on drums. Nonsensical noisecore is the order of the day here, as is much the case for LSD Mossel and De Madeliefjes. Great stuff.
I love Bastard Noise (or anything Eric Wood) but my experiences with his discography are few and far between. This is a fairly haunting session, where each band on the split sound fairly similar, but there’s a bit more dreadful atmosphere to the Bastard Noise stuff. L’Idiot Du Village (lol) is a bit more abrupt with the “song” lengths, but offers as equally pleasing a contribution of horrible noise. Tidy split!
Totes brutes death metal is the order of the day, with a chunky digital production holding everything in a surprising state of clarity. The drums pierce the mix brilliantly, whilst the riffs are fully distuishable underneath the vocals, despite their technical complexity. All in all, sounds good, and doesn’t fuck around on the savagery scale.
Another one of those dusty old 80s gems that I have absolutely no idea where I got the recommendation from. There is no way I would have stumbled upon this on my own, but here it is. A mystery! Anyway, this thing fuckin’ rules, if I could be so direct. I love the warm, analog production, and really wish that more stuff was recorded this way. That being said Medieval Kills! does sound pretty ancient for 1987, but that is really part of its charm.
I just love how confusing the Man Is The Bastard (Noise) AKA Charred Remains discography is. So… is this Man Is The Bastard? Or is it Bastard Noise? Discogs has Man Is The Bastard Noise looping back to Man Is The Bastard, but this record is clearly a noise release. Perhaps I’m just thinking too much into it. LOL. Either way, it is the crushing power electronics headfuck you can expect from these guys, with (assuming lol) Wood’s intense lyrical spewings. The Locust, or just Locust, on the other hand, sound a lot different to how they would turn out. The scatterbrain, melting electronics and jazzy grindcore that would come later is not quite fully formed yet. Instead, intense hardcore-tinged grind is here instead. The most startling difference for later-day fans such as myself, is the difference in vocal styles.
It’s crazy to think how long this band have been going and how many eras they have had to their sound. These days, with the huge popularity and of course, striking appearance of Alissa White-Gluz, its hard to imagine Arch Enemy being fronted by anyone else. Angela Gossow abso kills it on this thing, however. Its an album I’ve heard many times in my youth, but I never really fell in love with the band. Nevertheless, this is a great album. Its in the Carcass’ Heartwork school of metal, and is a super polished affair.
I have absolutely zero clue where I picked this recommendation up, but its been on the to-do list for a few years. Viscous Attack is an excercise in mid-80s thrash, I guess where the genre was finally coming into its own away from the speed metal tag. I’m no metal scholar, but that’s where I place this stuff anyway. Honestly, I figured this was out of Brazil or something (it really gives me that vibe) but these guys are from LA. Viscous Attack is a solid metal record though. I’m not super into the vocals myself, but thats not to say the guy has no talent. That’s just my view on it. Oh, and putting a Motorhead cover slap bang in the middle of the track list kinda cheapens the whole thing. A bizarre choice.
The Stiffs Are Looking Lively (what a name!) is a colossal compilation record of all (I believe ‘all’ at least) the Savage Man Savage Beast demo stuff and unreleased tracks. The runtime is massive, but if you’re down for 60+ tracks of one man drum machine grindcore (leaning towards the gore), then by all means pull up a chair, you’re gonna be here a while. Despite being culled from I think 5 or 6 different sessions there is an effortless air of cohesion to The Stiffs Are Looking Lively, and I must admit that even though this is actually my first time interacting with this project, I heavily and thoroughly enjoyed the listen.
What an absolute beauty of an EP. I first marked this down for LIW’ing in 2020, so it was a pleasure to come back and check it out for this review. I absolutely love the mix of jazz, noise and I suppose, even grindcore. There are muted electronic passages that invoke the realms of vaporwave and 80s nostalgia, before the madness comes back and smacks you upside the head. A topsy turvy listen, for sure.
The Doom II Master Levels is a mixed bag. One of the most irritating things about it, is that whilst a lot of the files occupy map slot 01, you get the same soundtrack over and over and over as you play. Thank any metaphorical heavens then, for the Doom community. Megasphere has popped up a few times in regards to soundtracking WADs, but this was my first encounter with his work. Honestly, he puts the MIDI format to shame, these sound absolutely massive, and I’m sure there is an element of which sound font / card / driver is used (surely a more modern one on the YT uploads from the man himself?), but wow – way to push the boundaries of a sound format! If by some strange and crazy coincidence you are going to spin up the Doom II Master Levels in 2021, then this new musical accompaniment is an essential addition.
