Lines In Wax

TWELVE YEARS OF UNWANTED OPINION

Month: July 2023

Jerry Only – Anti-Hero (2022)
punk & hardcore

Jerry Only – Anti-Hero (2022)

Oohhh hooo ohhhhh Illuminataeeee. Imagine my face when this dropped, as a hater of Devil’s Rain! Fortunately, on repeated listens I am very happy to report that this has much more go in it then Devil’s Rain, and I’m actually very excited that Jerry Only has launched a solo career (or at least put out a solo record). Realistically, and respectfully to Jerry and co. having the right to tour all those years as Misfits, Devil’s Rain should have been released this way, under the Only banner. Hey, the tracks here are more catchy than they have any right to be. I don’t doubt for a second there’s some studio trickery going down, especially in regards to Jerry’s voice, but I am very much surprised that I can play this all the way through, and have repeat listens, without wanting to cut off my ears. It’s no De.A.D. Alive! but it’s still pretty funny. It’ll be interesting to see where Jerry goes from here.

Nailbomb – Point Blank (1994)
metal

Nailbomb – Point Blank (1994)

Where has this shit been all my life? Now this is how you do 90s industrial properly! Goddamn. It’s like if someone took Pure / Selfless era Godflesh and turned it into a design document, fed that into the machine from The Fly along with a few Sepultura CDs. Fuckin’ sound on this is perfect – amazing production and balance, which really allows those riffs to hit home hard. It’s a shame this is the only full length record this project produced. Really cool stuff.

Assassination – Circles Within Circles (2019)
black metal rock

Assassination – Circles Within Circles (2019)

Annnnd this mushroom is for you! Chomp chomp, motherfucker. What do we call this genre? Surely it’s not BlackMagickSScore? Either way, it’s fucking great. Assassination’s full length isn’t the strongest offering from this scene but that’s not to mean that Circles Within Circles does not have its moments. I can’t escape the fact that the drums sound very fake, like it’s an out of the box VSTi, but all of the other instruments (and vocals) are great.

Agoraphobic Nosebleed / Insect Warfare – Split 5″ (2008)
grindcore

Agoraphobic Nosebleed / Insect Warfare – Split 5″ (2008)

Agoraphobic Nosebleed mix it up a bit there. There’s a bit of groove, a bit of swaggering riffage, a bit of actual melody (if not melody in the gruff, distorted sense of the word). Parts 1 and 3 are really cool – very out there in the message it’s trying to get across – but very, very catchy for what this is. Insect Warfare here are just absolutely fucking unstoppable. This whole side of the 5″ is a lesson is how to do uncompromising, relentless grindcore. Unbelievably good.

OPM – Heaven Is A Half-Pipe (2001)
pop rock

OPM – Heaven Is A Half-Pipe (2001)

Expanding on my recent comment, I figured I’d do a review as I owned the CD – This gets a 3 star because it was one of the first CD singles I ever bought. I wanted the album, because I knew a lot of OPM stuff had swears in it, and as an 11 year old, that was just the coolest shit ever. However, there was something about the absolute dogshit artwork on the album that stopped me from buying it, and I’ve never heard it, even to this day. Heaven Is A Half Pipe was EVERYWHERE in the UK. Realistically, its not that great of a song, but damn was it catchy. I remember buying this CD, putting it into my Walkman, and having my mind blown by the skating sounds going from left to right, right to left, like there was someone skating a pipe inside my head. That shit was cash. I listened to this track for the first time this month in 22 years. It really hasn’t aged well. For some reason the band re-recorded it in 2011, and this is much, much worse than the original. Weird.

Gorillaz – 19 / 2000 (2001)
electronic rock

Gorillaz – 19 / 2000 (2001)

I had this CD single as a kid. I thought that the artwork was absolutely killer and way better than the actual album. I don’t really know why I bought this, as I already had the full album and I didn’t really like the sped-up remix by Soulchild. Still, I played this thing to death over the 2001 summer holidays and Left Hand Suzuki Method is still burned into my brain 22 years later. I’ve no idea where this CD is now, but it will also be important to me in memory.

Ice – Bad Blood (1998)
electronic hip hop

Ice – Bad Blood (1998)

Personally, I really didn’t feel the second Ice record. I probably need to listen to it a few more times, but the dreamy, moody dub-like atmosphere of the first release is long gone, instead replaced with big stinky beats (not a bad thing) and a ton of guest vocalists ranging from Blixa Bargeld to EL-P, which makes this worth listening to if only for the strange cross-section of styles and voices. Bad Blood almost feels like a completely different project / band than Under The Skin, but fretting over which moniker Martin / Broadrick release their stuff under is pointless. I won’t call this a miss, but it’s not for me.

Sunami – Sunami (2023)
punk & hardcore

Sunami – Sunami (2023)

I’m fairly new to Sunami so perhaps that’s why I don’t get the “more of the same” feeling that many other reviews reference. Off the bat though, the S/T LP (a stretch, at 17 minutes lol) doesn’t hit quite as hard as earlier shit like the S/T EP or the split with Gulch, but is still pretty entertaining. The production has a bit of a step up in quality, which is nice, but generally, I still find myself going back to the older stuff for my Sunami fix. That art is cool as fuck, though.

Black Magick SS – Rainbow Nights (2020)
black metal electronic rock

Black Magick SS – Rainbow Nights (2020)

I’ve been struggling to find the words to review this one for a while. It is also worth mentioning that Rainbow Nights has been in my regular rotation for a while now as well. There is just something so perfect about the balance of sounds here. I’ve never really been one much for 60s/70s rock or the recent occult rock revival movement, but this thing builds off of those two elements brilliantly, as well as adding lots of 80s style synthesizers and hard rock / hair metal style melodies. Add that to the usual Black Magick SS roots of psychedelic black metal and all of this on paper should be a complete disaster, but honestly, this is slowly becoming one of my favourite albums. I love all of the songs, but the title track’s chorus is a highlight of the record, as is the track “Mother’s Lullaby” which really comes out of left-field and ups the electronic elements in such a bizarre and also rather moving way. The production on Rainbow Nights is also a considerable step up from the previous works from the band, and some listeners may not be too happy with the stripping back of the “black metal” elements, there are less growly vocals here than ever before, for example. As for the elephant in the room, we’re not exactly dealing with NSBM here but there is an element to the esotericism that BMSS put forward that has an obvious undertone to it that may not exactly enthuse some people. I’m still developing my thoughts on it, having only recently deciding in the last year or so to always listen to something objectively regardless of its political / personal alignments – keeping that switch on would have caused me to miss out on this beautiful music – but if you have somehow missed the subtle nods inside BMSS’ music and artwork, just be aware of what lurks just below the surface.

Black Sabbath – Live at Last (1980)
doom metal

Black Sabbath – Live at Last (1980)

I love the spacey vibe of the artwork for this thing. Also, the sound is crystal clear. I can sit here for hours opining on how great Sabbath were in the early days, or about the logistics of this thing being released and whether it was official or a bootleg. But, all that matters is, that this is a decent window into how the guys sounded back then. Most folk will no doubt have heard this material these days on the Past Lives double CD.

Ancestors – In Dreams and Time (2012)
doom metal

Ancestors – In Dreams and Time (2012)

Fantastic production, and a lovely heavy guitar tone. First impressions have me feeling that this is like a cross between Anathema and Neurosis, but unfortunately nowhere near as interesting as either of those bands. I can only echo sentiments that have already been declared by others: this doesn’t really go anywhere and is more of a task to sit through than a trip you can get lost in – which is a real shame because, as I said, this has been written and recorded to a very high standard.

Ensemble Kluster – Klopfzeichen (1970)
avant-garde

Ensemble Kluster – Klopfzeichen (1970)

Spooky, plinky-plonky noises fed through tape loops and other analogue methods of shaking you to your very core. Nowhere near as good as later Cluster and I appreciate the name change. Nevertheless, Klopfzeichen is very unsettling background noise and would work perfectly as the soundtrack to some sort of sci-fi / horror movie. As for active, engaging music – this is not it, but if you’re awake at 3am and want to feel something other than boredom give this one a go.

Daft Punk – Discovery (2001)
electronic

Daft Punk – Discovery (2001)

I’m not an expert on this kind of music so it’s hard to find the right words to describe it. In these cases I tend to just leave the review but I find myself coming back to Daft Punk over and over so I have to give it a go. It is also hard for me to not view this album through the lense of nostalgia. I was a kid when “One More Time” dropped, and whilst I didn’t really understand the style of music, I loved the music video and I loved how the plot of the video continued over the following singles. “Aerodynamic” is one of the first songs that got me into guitar music. Admittedly I do fall off towards the end of the album. I don’t think Discovery is perfect, but it is pretty fucking impressive in general. The final track, “Too Long”, sums up my feelings towards the final third of this project, to be honest, but I do find myself spinning Discovery a lot when I’m working; when I need to be in the zone for an hour or so. Oh, and “Crescendolls” is far catchy than it deserves to be. The first time I heard it I was irritated by the melody but now it just gets stuck in my head for days at a time. Either way, with the ups and downs, Discovery has gotta be a solid 4/5 from me.

Miasmic Ooze – Terrain Of Inflamed Pustules (2021)
death metal

Miasmic Ooze – Terrain Of Inflamed Pustules (2021)

With a band name like this, and a cover art design and logo in a similar vein, you’d expect Miasmic Ooze to be the most brutal, gory thing on the planet. Instead, the band show immense restraint, playing an old school death metal sound without being afraid to strike us with a little melody now and then. It’s a shame that this thing is only 4 tracks long, as I really like the recipe that these guys had for their stuff.

Brujeria – ¡Machetazos! (1992)
death metal grindcore

Brujeria – ¡Machetazos! (1992)

Early Brujeria is some ugly, scary shit. Like, the band did kinda become a parody of themselves. I know it was always a joke in some way, but fuck if the early shit wasn’t some of the nastiest stuff around. The horrors on the record sleeves only helped strike this brutality home, like a err, machete chop. This thing revolves into weird angular bizarre noisy stuff rather than anything grind or death metal in parts, but it makes the listen all the more interesting. Great shit.

Hate Eternal – King Of All Kings (2002)
death metal

Hate Eternal – King Of All Kings (2002)

I hope you like blastbeats, because otherwise you’re fucked out of luck with this album. Rutan’s Hate Eternal had always escaped me for some reason, so I was very happy to give King Of All Kings a few spins. The album has a big production, which gives the weight of the strings and the blizzard of the drums both room to breathe. Brutal, yet also very well made and technical. Lovely riffs lads, I’ll give you that.

Necropsy Odor – Tales From The Tepid Cavity (2021)
grindcore

Necropsy Odor – Tales From The Tepid Cavity (2021)

With a bludgeoning production that possesses an unforgiving high-end but with a mule kick of a bass punch to go with it, Tales From The Tepid Cavity is the type of goregrind that gets right in your face and tries to shred it off. Down-tuned, dismal and err, cooking in vomit (their words, not mine), Necropsy Odor are a project for those with a penchant for the sicker side of life.

Fret – Only For The Weak (2022)
electronic

Fret – Only For The Weak (2022)

Pulsing, throbbing (Oo er), constantly changing and endlessly brutal, Only For The Weak is the second full length from the Mick Harris project Fret. Experimental, hard-hitting techno is the order of the day, with less than a brutalising industrial slant than its predecessor. Only For The Weak moves around a bit more, and therefore more hypnotic and involving, rather than blunt and caustic. I thought the cover art was a pile of bullets, until I had a good look at it online and realised that it was fish. How did I not see that coming?