Lines In Wax

TWELVE YEARS OF UNWANTED OPINION

Day: December 3, 2023

Devourment – Butcher The Weak (2005/2006)
death metal

Devourment – Butcher The Weak (2005/2006)

(Original:) Mmhhmmm de-fucking-licious brutal death metal with the mandatory slam passages that make you wanna beat your chest like a gorilla and throw some mad fucking shapes, dawg. The original mix of Butcher The Weak is much muddier than the remaster but it makes up for that in spades. Likewise the drums are lower in the mix here but I don’t know how it just somehow works far better. The guitars are walls of sludge. Sick as fuck. (Remix): Today on Unnecessary Remixes, we address Devourment’s fucking excellent Butcher The Weak. Now, it’s worth mentioning that I heard this newer version of BTW first. I have no idea how, guess I’m living under a rock because I’ve heard all the other Devourment albums but I mad fucking snoozed on this one. So there is the possibility I am biased with my appraisal of both mixes. Anyway, I don’t prefer one mix over the other. They both have their own merits. The drums are remixed and feel more triggered here, and definitely louder. I don’t know if “more triggered” is exactly the technical term to explain what they did here, but if you do a side by side comparison you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Other bits worth mentioning is that the balance between the guitars and the vocals seems different, probably to accommodate the fresher drum sound. The guitar sound is also a little clearer than the original. All in all, this set of songs slays whichever mix you listen to. It’s just weird that we have a choice. If you’re familiar with one version and not the other then I wouldn’t really say the other warrants a full listen through unless you are genuinely super curious about the differences.

Hawkwind – Hall Of The Mountain Grill (1974)
rock

Hawkwind – Hall Of The Mountain Grill (1974)

Rock music that sounds like it was recorded inside a wind tunnel. There we go, that’s my expert opinion. Nah, for real though, this is some chilled out shit. Beautiful old school production, well balanced and infinitely repeatable (just let the album play over and over!). A highlight for me is “You’d Better Believe It”. Great stuff.

Suffocation – Human Waste (1990)
death metal

Suffocation – Human Waste (1990)

This is my shit right here. The cover art is just *chef’s kiss*, and the tunes ain’t too bad either, you dig? Back when old school death metal was the new school, Suffo was hitting it out of the park with releases like this. Dry, but organic production holds the framework for rigid but punishing cases of songwriting.

Electric Wizard – Electric Wizard (1995)
doom metal

Electric Wizard – Electric Wizard (1995)

Markedly different from pretty much every Electric Wizard release that would follow, the self-titled walks a different path to the fuzz-laden doped up dirge that the rest of the discography plods along to. Nevertheless, the band’s debut is still unmistakably Electric Wizard, with riffs heavier than all the matter in the universe and of course Jus’s immediately recognisable vocal style.  Don’t be fooled by the Dave Patchett cover art (as awesome as it is), this shit is still heavy as fuck. “Stone Magnet”, “Black Butterfly” and “Electric Wizard / Wooden Pipe” are all up there with the greatest tunes from the Wizard.

Killing Joke – Pandemonium (1994)
metal

Killing Joke – Pandemonium (1994)

Make no mistake here, Pandemonium is a punishing listen. Doubling down on the rejuvinated sound of Extremities…, Killing Joke fall further into the world of industrial metal. Their sound is always unmistakably theirs, wherever they take it, but the industrial influences are hard to ignore. Geordie’s riffs are still dissonant, angular and strange, but there’s a repetitive chug to them in leui of the abstract post-punk approach on older records. Pandemonium finds a band which sounds a million miles away from Outside The Gate or …Thousand Suns. Yet, with the absense of a perma-drummer, the line up is only changed here by the prescence of Youth on bass. “Communion” sounds like “Invocation” from Hosannahs but from a forgotten age, and “Whiteout” is a contender for the best song on the album, for sure.

The Kill – Speed Freak Killer (2015)
grindcore

The Kill – Speed Freak Killer (2015)

The Kill play some fuckin’ meaty grindcore. All your desired grindcore traits are here, i.e. ferocious blasts, rabid vokills and harsh production, but daaaaamnnn The Kill also brings the riffs. Case in point being the end of “Digestion”, which breaks out a passage that fucking dares you to not throw down (if I had to do one of those cringe “try not to headbang challenge” videos to this song I’d headbutt my camera into a thousand pieces, throw my desk out my window and start swinging from the ceiling light).