TWELVE YEARS OF UNWANTED OPINION
Not gonna lie, Fief is fucking class. I feel like I’m inside a never-ending medieval fete inside my head. There’s not much that compels me to start a diet primarily of wild game, stale bread and staler beer, but Fief hits the mark. Very lovely instrumentals are the order of the daye, mayhaps not sparkly enough to win over thon young fine maidens, but beautiful enough to rouse the young men to arms. The joust is about to begin. Spectacular.
Beautiful, stunning, dusty and mysterious old school dungeon synth. Very wobbly, both in regards to the tape quality, and that of the timing of the two players – but if anything this just adds to the charm of the record. Feels a little bit long, especially with the lack of variation, but if you’re after a particular mood or sound, you can’t go wrong with this.
Every now and then I check in on Shpongle and am blown away that they are still making records. On top of that, the records are of the same consistent quality, with the same kind of brain-tweaking production. I don’t know how the duo continue to cook up such beautiful explorative compositions, but they have definitely found their place in the world of music and I really hope that they continue to release music. I always look forward to a new Shpongle recording.
Savage grindcore but with a bevy of interesting vocals, some even in the death metal or hardcore styles, and a lovely jubbly chuggy grindy chewy nasty fucking HM2 guitar sound to boot. Honestly for months I thought these guys were named after the Dead Infection album Brain Corrosion, but I’m an idiot. As the record develops it spreads its wings a little, more variety creeps into the songwriting, we get wider expanses where riffs can breathe and the whole thing ends on a strange electronic passage. I like it!
Very well produced for a stinky demo tape. Slow death metal is the order of the day, but not slow enough that you’re about to fall asleep in your pint. Great compositions. Vulgar as fuck. Lovely riffs. Final thoughts: is necrolatry even a word? Peace.
Weirdly unsettling stuff, with a backdrop of sexual menace. Imagine Big Black and Filth-era Swans fighting at a Ramones gig. I dig the retro art though, I really love those old sleazy vibes. I’m not sure if Pussies is for me but I’ve never really heard anything quite like this, so I’ll give them points for that!
Well fuck, isn’t this a collaboration of the grindcore elite? Your men Dorian Rainwater and Bryan Fajardo (both of 9000 different amazing bands), along with Rahi (Insect Warfare) on vokills, smash out a stunning set of spasmodic, intensely complex technical grindcore. With production by Scott Hull, art by Arif Rot and a complimentary noise piece by everyone’s favourite stoner madman Jay Randall, the fact that I have snoozed on this album for 12 years is nothing short of insulting. First impressions had me drawing comparisons with bands like Maruta and Evisorax, and of course associated acts like Kill The Client and more-so, Gridlink can also be heard within this. However, this record is greater than the sum of its parts and is elevated to its own unique form of total sonic chaos. It is 30 songs of insane audio terror, and something that I will forever be recommending in grind-related conversations for many moons to come. I need to check out some more Noisear.
Lividity have long been one of my favourite brutal death metal bands, from the swampy, down-tuned earlier stuff, to the well-produced sickness of the later days. Used, Abused… marks that initial departure away from the murkier side of things (at least in terms of studio albums), and instead ushers in a new era of mind-boggling speed and precision. The drumming on this record, by Jordan Varela is absolutely second-to-one. Like, this is seriously fucking fast. Lividity haven’t let up in the obscenity department however, with the sick humour carrying over regardless of death metal style. “Pussy Lover Pt 3” has one of the most hilarious samples that I have ever heard. All in all, you don’t get much better than this when it comes to brutal death metal.
I’ve never been a huge fan of Mastadon but I have always had a lot of respect for what they do. They lose me a bit when they go-off on their proggier elements (a sound that I never thought worked all that well with what they cemented into place here and on Remission). Anyway, I was but a wee lad when Leviathan came out. I remember checking out a few tracks on compilation CDs at the time because Mastodon were supporting Slipknot and Slayer on their UK run of the Unholy Alliance tour (man, those were the days! Outside of the excellent opening duo of “Blood and Thunder” and “I Am Ahab”, I never really dug further into this album until more recent times. The production on this thing, a co-op between Mastodon themselves and one Matt Bayles, it seems, is a glorious piece of work. Every instrument hangs perfectly in the mix, and the overall is heavy enough to really bring Mastodon’s weighty proggy metal home. The massive “Hearts Alive” was an eye-opener for me. I’m glad I went back and listened to this.
Exciting project (going off the name and the artwork) but one that unfortunately does not live up to its expectations. Nothing particularly wrong here, but falls a bit flat and isn’t very inspired. A shame.
Ah fuck I just absolutely love Nick Barker. I won’t say that he is hideously under-rated, because the people who like him love his work but generally, in the wider metal world, he is definitely snoozed on. This man can drum! Anyways, what do you get if you mix Nick with the string section of Napalm Death (RIP Jesse) and put Peter Tagtgren on vocals (he did some Bloodbath stuff but otherwise I am unawares of his work)? Well, you get Lock Up, of course. I’ve seen Lock Up a few times in a few different iterations, but I have never see them with this line-up (I was a bit too young), so Pleasures Pave Sewers is an excellent document of the band’s sound from that time. It would be rude of me to say that the riffing is derivative, but it is very similar to the Napalm Death stuff of the time, which is hardly surprising as it includes two of their players, but Nick’s insanely fast and spritely drumming really gives proceedings a good kick up the arse. Tagtgren can hold his own too; bellowing out vicious explosions of bile like the icing on a very grindy cake. Pleasures Pave Sewers doesn’t re-invent the wheel, but that’s OK.
Violent Reprisal is the first CD I got from Lock Up, and is a compilation of their first two albums. Personally, I prefer the albums in their original incarnations, as well as with the original art, but if you are looking for a marathon of Lock Up stuff in once place, you can’t really go wrong with this CD.
Brutal as all hell (those vocals just cutting through the mix are some of the sickest, most twisted pitch shifter groans ever!), but good gravy the quality on this is shambolic. I mean, what did I expect? Haha – but some of the studio LDOH stuff can be enough of a challenge in its own right, I don’t need to struggle through live versions too. Would be 1000% better if I was actually there, but alas.
Holy fuck shit Batman, this is a noisy one! By the 2000s, LDOH were a full-on gorenoise outfit, creating some of the most outlandishly disgusting audible sounds known to mankind. Their material on this split is in the same (severed) vein as their Putrefaction In Progress album or In Advanced Haemorrhaging Conditions EP. The general quality seems a bit lower here, with the bass farting out of the speakers and the treble albsolutely melting my head. Lymphatic Phlegm, dare I say, have a bit more musicality about them. There is at least an audible attempt at providing riffs, and the drum programming, whilst buried somewhat in the hideous mix, does show signs of being well thought out. Personally, I’d say this is a completists item for fans of either band, and if you are new to these disgusting entities there are many other records which you should probably start with first.
Winterfylleth are one of the UK’s most well-regarded and consistent black metal acts. For that reason, The Thrennody Of Triumph also suffers. There is not much of a fault in this per se, but for music that is so grandiose and epic and extremely well-crafted, it’s a bit of a shame that when listening, you feel like you can always guess its next move. I prefer The Ghost Of Heritage album, which was their debut (honestly I had to Google it, because every album has a lovely picturesque landscape on the front, and every album also starts with ‘The’), but by album number three (this), I am starting to tune out. Which shouldn’t happen, because this is great music.
This is a project that involves Andrea Meyer who performed mainly as Nebelhexe and also appeared on the first Cradle Of Filth record. Unfortunately, as I was really looking forward to this one, this is pretty boring to me. It kinda goes nowhere, and whilst there are a few moments of pizazz in this evil atmospheric pieces, most of the record’s run time does nothing for me. It works as cool spooky background music, but that’s about it. A shame! Nevertheless, RIP Andrea Meyer.
Devil Master’s Ecstasies Of Never Ending Night was recommended to me as black metal with a little hardcore twist to it. I’d say that was a pretty fair assumption of the sound, for sure. The production is big and solid, which is refreshing for a band of this nature. Every now and then things slow down and devolve into a nice stomping riff. Tidy!
Never been the biggest fan of these guys but Trevor has always been a bastion in the world of death metal, so spun this in his honour. Its pretty cool, and it pulls from all corners of metal, with I guess death metal being the main course. The production is enormous and this sounds very well made. It’s not my favourite thing in the world but I’m glad I listened. RIP Trevor Strnad.
Hyper mental fuckin’ electronics? Why not. Wlfgrl has seen a re-release that I’ve been meaning to look at for a long time, with an extended run time. Personally, I prefer the shorter, sharp jolt of the original but fans of this carnage will no doubt be happy with the extra material here.
I gotta be honest, this is a massively irritating recording from the otherwise legendary Masonna. If you’re looking for irritating noise loops through delay pedals with distorted vocals over the top, then look no further. Otherwise, put this in the bin.
I’ve been doing a bit of looking at NSBM recently. It’s something I’ve always totally avoided, give or take a band on a split or something that’s cropped up like that. Recently, I did a review for a Clandestine Blaze album and I’ve been looking into the controversy around Graveland a lot, so maybe thats why, but YouTube is nothing but insistent with suggesting me this album. I guess the same instincts that led me into gore and porno grind had me eventually clicking on this thing. Hey, guess what? It’s absolutely awful. There are moments of inspiration, and the vocals are pretty cool, but otherwise this is very uninspired and goes absolutely nowhere. The runtime, which makes listening to this thing feel like several hours instead of minutes, certainly does not help. But yeah. Add this to the pile of mediocre projects with a shocking name and nothing else to really back it up. Dreadful, hateful shit.
The Sepultura Bestial Devastation session is amazing. In fact, I would even perhaps go out on a limb and say that I prefer the sound here to that on offer on Morbid Visions. As far as proto-Sepultura goes, it doesn’t get any better than this. Old school evil thrash in all of it’s glory. As far as Overdose goes… I tried, I really tried. I didn’t want to be another one of those people who listens to the Sepultura stuff and leaving off the other band, but Overdose’s vocalist is, how can I say, an acquired taste. It’s not awful per se, and the music is fairly well put together, but it’s not for me. A piece of metal history this is, mind you.
7 H.Target are quickly becoming one of my favourite slam acts. The other records I’ve heard of theirs are very impressive so the logical step would be to go back to the first full length and see what that’s about. And what do we have? More razor-sharp slam with inssssaaane riffs and incredible drumming. Oh boy. The production is massive, crystal-clear and really gives the slams the absolute brute force that they need, without compromising on clarity. Shit, I found myself throwing hammers to this record in my living room whilst drinking coffee and working from home, so it got that outta me! Haha! If it can make me move then it must be good!
Probably my least favourite Maiden experience yet. There’s just something a bit “meh” about the whole thing, which I think is more to do with the greatness that has come before than to do with any genuine complaint about the sound itself. Oh well. On to the next Maiden entry.
Winterfylleth are a British black metal band that I constantly snooze on. I don’t know why, because I’ve seen them live and I love their record sleeves. I also love their brand of fairly grandiose black metal, which is displayed perfectly here on The Ghost Of Heritage. You could easily put a grim black and white photograph up front to represent this band, but the beauty of the sleeve is reflected in these songs. Awesome stuff.
There are few bands in life that hit as hard as Revenge, even in the murky and unforgiving world of war metal / bestial black metal this shit slaps at a whole other level. If black metal itself is akin to freezing your enemies with a deep penetrating fatal frost, then war metal is then the fire that comes to cook them alive and what we get here in this shambling, chaotic metal is the metaphorical flesh sloughing away from the bone. Honestly, everything sounds like it could fall apart at any second, but alas the barrage continues and we are smashed into the ground over and over and over by Revenge’s relentless assault. When I picked this up to play I was under the impression it was the band’s first EP, but instead I listened to the reissue / compilation version, which included a bunch of stuff from splits and the like from other the years. It was only on track 8, “Lamb”, that I felt that the session had changed and the sound was noticeably different, otherwise this comp flowed like an actual full length for me, which speaks volumes for the quality and consistency of Revenge’s output over the years. Brutal fucking stuff.
