Monolithically heavy UK prog/ sludge. Equal parts Melvins, Iron Monkey, and Buzzov*en with some definite nods in the direction of The Jesus Lizard, Unsane, King Crimson, and, if I can make what is sure to be the most bafflingly obscure reference you've probably ever heard: Jumbo's Killcrane.
Killer vocals on this album too, for whatever that's worth to anyone.
Truly warped slab of outsider ambient/ industrial from eccentric christian doom maestro Paul Chain. I've been low level obsessed with this dude's music for about twenty-seven years now and this album might just be my favorite thing he's ever done, mostly because it makes me feel like I'm melting into the fucking floor.
Picture Tangerine Dream, Goblin, Bruce Haack, and Maurizio Bianchi teaming up to compose a soundtrack to an imaginary reboot of Cosmos that reconfigures the Carl Sagan classic into a pitch black nightmare of Lovecraftian cosmic-horror and you've got a reasonable idea of what's happening here.
What the fuck? Why am I only just now finding out that the later Fucked Up albums sound like "Don't Know How To Party" era Mighty Mighty Bosstones without the horns? This song absolutely fucking rules.
Insane sci-fi album title, album cover that looks like it was painted by a death metal Bill Sienkiewicz, and music that sounds like a four way ladder-match between Gigan, Gorguts, Cryptopsy, and Premonitions of War... Christ, how the fuck did I miss this? Oh yeah, it came out in 2020, the world was ending.
Imagine a significantly faster, slightly more melodic take on Withered or Immolation garnished with a sprig of Slugdge and a few drops of the swirling dissonant terror that Ulcerate brought to the table on "Stare Into Death and Be Still" and you've got a pretty good general idea of what Hath are doing... This is hands down my favorite DM release of the past couple months.
Woke up in the mood for the most corroded, planet devouring, harsh noise I could possibly find. Thus, I present to you: Dead Body Love... An old favorite from within the realms of noise and the full-on audio equivalent of the charred crumbling devastation in the aftermath of a nuclear strike.
Christ, has it been a whole week already? Guess that means it’s time for another roundup. If you don’t know the deal already, this is just a real quick rundown of various things I’ve been into since the last one.
-
Muzak:
Crawlspace
All Out War
Starkweather
Femeheim
Urdog
Neptune
God is War
Einsturzende Neubauten
Pigface
Phamakon
Utopie
Regurgitate
The Bug
-
Video Games:
King of Fighters XV
Elden Ring
-
Reading:
Inhumanoids by Barton M Nunnelly
-
Movies:
Conquest
Nightmare City
Message From Space
The Beyond
Messiah of Evil
Werewolves on Wheels
-
Droning tribal psych rock from Providence RI... I became a huge fan of this band when I saw them by accident back in the early 00's but I still have an absolute bastard of a time describing their music. Kind of like a witchy version of This Heat maybe? Or a spaced out Neptune? Or like Rakta but earlier and with different instrumentation? Something like that?
I dunno... Suffice it to say they're pretty great to space out to.
If Godflesh had recorded Streetcleaner after listening to a ton of bargain-basement goregrind (and while completely fucked up on Lean) it might have sounded a bit like this diseased slab of one man mecha-death-sludge.
Seriously, this album remains one of the most fucked up sounding things I've ever heard even like eleven years since I first laid ears on it.
Super raw and completely fucking zonked (yet somehow still haunting and melodic) black metal from Japan. I remember being pretty stoked on this band back around 2010, but I honestly hadn't listened to them in almost a decade before I pulled this CD out on a whim the other day.
Musically "The Past And Sorrow" kinda feels like the album someone like Nagelfar or The Ruins of Beverast would have recorded after a Nic Blinko/ Syd Barrett style LSD-fueled break from reality, and that's something I'm pretty much always in the mood to hear.
Terrifying metallic crust from Japan. Real dark. Killer vocals. Cool album cover. Don't have a whole lot else to say about this one, but if you like your crust apocalyptic you should really fucking dig this.
Rip-roaring grindy hardcore with some of the hoarsest vocals I've ever fucking heard. Definitely has a bit of an Infest/ Crossed Out vibe which I guess means kids these days would probably call this stuff powerviolence? I dunno man, I'm fucking old and back in my day we just called it hardcore.
At any rate, getting to see these guys live a bunch of times back when I was a teenager was one of the cooler parts of growing up in middle-of-nowhere MA.
Icy, sexy, yet strangely ominous and distorted goth/ post punk/ darkwave from Pittsburgh PA. Kinda reminds me of a meaner/ grimier, version of Kaelan Mikla? Something like that anyway. The other thing they remind me of is this short-lived Canadian band called Security, but that's a reference so completely fucking obscure that I apologize for even making it.
Either way, this rules.
Ok, I initially shied away from the idea of doing a weekly roundup on this new site, but then I figured I would give it a try and see if it sticks... The plan is that this will be a real quick "birds eye view" of the various books, movies, music, and video games that helped keep me sane(ish) over the course of any given week.
I don’t know if I’m gonna bother with much of a preamble anymore (uh, after this one I mean), but at this point it's too early to say. Maybe I'll chime in here and there if I feel chatty?
That said, what I'm definitely not gonna bother with anymore is sinking like twelve hours per week into writing descriptions for all this shit then scraping together a ton of links like I used to do with the old roundups... As far as I'm concerned, if you're curious about any of this stuff you can be a big boy and fucking google it yourself.
-
Muzak:
The Horrors
Bloody Knives
R.A. the Rugged Man
Straight Panic
Coumadin
Anhedonic Renaissance
Bailter Space
Meatpacker
Femeheim
Wormrot
Spectres
Kaelan Mikla
Paul Chain
GGGOLDDD
Mortician
Skullflower
Yrrkoon
Alice Cooper
KISS
-
Video Games:
Elden Ring
SophStar
King of Fighters XV
-
Reading:
Elric of Melnibone by Michael Moorcock
-
Tube:
A bunch of stupid ghost hunting shows, most notably Ghost Adventures, which I find absolutely fucking hysterical because the host seems to believe that not only are ghosts real, but they're haunting like 9/10 of the buildings on earth, and they want to fight him 100% of the time.
The Keep
Wolfen
Fear City
Maniac Cop 2
Pounding industrial rock/ metal that, weirdly enough, kinda made me think of Godflesh, Primitive Knot (which makes sense since this is the Primitive Knot guy and another guy), The Young Gods, and Evil Mothers all at the same time.
If I'm being 100% honest the vocals on this thing sat really fucking weird with me at first because they definitely pack a lot of that sleazy mid-90's industrial rock swagger and that was not at all what I was expecting based on the opening riff, but they've been growing on me steadily since I grabbed the download the other day and now I think they're pretty cool... Dude sounds almost like the gothed-up spawn of Alan Vega and Iggy Pop.
I dunno... Your mileage may definitely vary on this one, but if you don't hate the idea of getting some greasy alterna-rock shoved into your industrial metal this shit is actually really cool.
Since I just mentioned them in that Clockwork post here's some Overdose to hopefully help you limp your tired ass across that Friday-afternoon finish line and home to whatever couch/ TV/ internet configuration you plan to cancel plans from this weekend... I have been singing the praises of this band in general, and this album in particular for the past 25 years, but no one ever seems to give a fuck.
Oh well, your loss.
Seriously though, this is an absolutely killer and sorely fucking underrated slab of mid 90's tribal thrash with an edge of punch-press industrial groove and a whole lot of energy and style.
Equal parts Coroner, Clockwork, and later era Cyclone Temple. Hard to fucking argue with that. And yeah, I guess you could even sorta compare this to Sepultura "Roots"... Well, except for the fact that "Progress of Decadence" came out almost three full years earlier.
The relentless chunking groove of late era Coroner reconfigured into a clockwork precise (see what I did there?) industrial-thrash killing machine. If you dig Prong, Nailbomb, Overdose, Monster Voodoo Machine, and the later Coroner albums you'll probably fucking love this.
Imagine the scuzzy mechanized sneer of the first Suicide album welded to the excessive noise/ amp destroying feedback side of shoegaze and that's pretty much what's happening here. I think this band released a couple of other albums, but as far as I know none are quite as fucked up sounding as this first EP (and thus none are anywhere near as enjoyable).
Skeletal drum clatter ala This Heat or Finsternis era Aluk Todolo trudging its lonely way through a wasteland of carcinogenic industrial-ambience and scouring eruptions of cold grey noise.
Took me a minute to figure out how because I'm an absolute technological moron, but I just messed around with some settings and this site should work much better on mobile devices now.
Six tracks of monstrous scrap metal derived harsh noise from this long running Canadian sound artist. If you've ever heard Knurl before I'm sure you already know what to expect... If not, imagine the sounds that might be produced by running a contact mic attached to the actual inside of your skull out through a battery of DOD Death Metal pedals while someone takes a circular saw to your fucking forehead.
That Simply Saucer post kinda put me in the mood for more noisy psych rock and this Paik stuff scratches that itch nicely. Think Grey Daturas meets "Bad Moon Rising" era Sonic Youth (minus SY's annoying vocals) and you're in the right musical neighborhood.
Stuff like this always makes me think of walking around a big city in the rain.
Here's one for those of you who have ever wondered what it might have sounded like if Jimi Hendrix had joined up with Hijokaidan or C.C.C.C. and swapped his guitar out for a piece of glass that he played mostly with his mouth.
Oh yeah, real quick warning for the squeamish... There's a fair amount of real-life blood starting toward the midway point of this video so if you can't hang, don't.
Ok. Back in the saddle after being sick with an absolutely hideous stomach thing… It was no fun whatsoever and neither is this album of totally fukked war-metal dissonance that comes roaring out the speakers like a cross between Voivod, Nuclear Death, and Sadistik Exekution.
"Surprise.... I feel like shit again today."
No really, I woke up feeling like crap today. Back in a day or two hopefully.
I'm a nerdy white dude from the suburbs of Massachusetts (by way of rural Texas and about a zillion shitty small towns in between) so I don't have a whole lot to say about this album, but it's the mood I'm in right now so it's what's on the stereo.
Fragmentary transmissions of creepazoid death industrial/ powerelectronics from the guy behind Masonna... Think Atrax Morgue with severe ADHD and you've got a pretty good general idea of where this stuff is coming from. I honestly find myself really enjoying this tape, even if I wish some of the snippets went on just a little bit longer.
Two brutally concise tracks of power-electronic corrosion. Overall vibe here sorta reminds me of "Rogue Astronaut" era Bastard Noise with the mix tweaked somewhat in favor of gut-rumbling lows over ear-piercing highs. Pretty fucking gnarly, and definitely worth a look if you enjoy the style.
Primitive Knot... Probably my favorite "band" going right now. Trance-inducing industrial/ punk/ thrash pummel equal parts Bathory, Venom, Circle, Hawkwind, and Godflesh.
Still on a wicked Teargas & Plateglass kick after posting about them yesterday... Perfect soundtrack for an excursion into the dark heart of some long abandoned city.
Slow crawling boom-bap rhythms meets creepazoid ambient synth and a palpable feeling of impending doom. Well worth digging into if you enjoy the darker, more ominous, side of hip hop.
