Chunky industrialized noise rock/ metal welded to sledgehammer drum machine rhythms and super gnarly synth textures fronted by a kid who sounds like the singer of Uniform crossed with JR Hayes from Pig Destroyer.
They've got a bunch of other stuff out, but I think this might be my favorite of their releases because it sounds most like the album Chat Pile might make after listening to a ton of Pretty Hate Machine.
RIP uncle Mike. The first time I ever heard Black Sabbath was in your truck on the way to the hardware store. I absolutely fucking idolized you so they were instantaneously cool to me because you liked them. It was a tiny moment in your life that changed the trajectory of mine forever.
"Well I know its hard for you to know the reason whyBlah Blah:
Ok, first things first: I don't think this page is dying, at least not quite yet... I've just been insanely busy with recording and slogging my way through a bunch of "real life" stuff so my efforts toward posting have admittedly been a bit half-assed lately.
I had been hoping to get my shit together and start writing more starting this week but I just got word that my uncle Mike passed away and that really knocked the wind out of me so it's looking like it might be another couple days/ weeks before I'm fully "back in the saddle" as far as writing goes.
Here's a real quick roundup to hopefully tide you over while I search for more stable footing.
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Muzak:
Predatory Light - A bunch of the same dudes as that DM band Superstition operating in more of a black metal mode. Picked this up on a whim last night and find myself really enjoying it. Mid-paced and riffy with a really dark/ mysterious mood that makes me think Dissection/ Necromantia/ early Rotting Christ/ Mortuary Drape/ Master's Hammer.
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Cultic - Real talk, that video is pretty fucking silly. Like maybe to the point of being kind of a bad idea... but, at the end of the day it looks like the band is having fun and the music is full on Celtic Frost/ Amebix/ Winter style metallic punk dirge and you really can't argue with that.
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Hulder - It feels like every time I go "all in" and decide I like some new black metal band lately about two weeks later I find out they've got some shitty NSBM leanings so I'm kinda bracing for it, but maaaan I hope that doesn't happen with Hulder because I really fucking love this stuff. Melodic and fearsome in a way that reminds me of early Satyricon crossed with the first couple of Gehenna albums.
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Scattered Remnants - So, I guess Scattered Remnants played MDF last night? Fuck. If I had known I probably would have tried to go just to see them because "Procreating Mass Carnage" is still one of my absolute favorite death metal demos of all time.
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Darkened - If you're the type of war master who wakes up at first light to spearhead your day with those once loyal then this most recent offering from metal mercenaries Darkened will almost certainly fill your dead armor with honor valor and pride...
It sounds like Bolt Thrower is what I'm saying.
https://edgedcircleproductions.bandcamp.com/album/the-black-winter
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Desolate - I mentioned Scattered Remnants just now so I cant help but be reminded of 16 year old me's other favorite local band. Monstrous death metal with detours into creepazoid doom riffing and moments of completely "off the rails" blasting that border on war metal/ blackgrind chaos.
Desolate were insanely fucking heavy, especially for middle of nowhere Massachusetts circa '95.
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Beherit - Been on a wicked Beherit kick lately, especially the most recent album and this weird EP track from 2012 that kind of sounds like the beat from Folk Implosion's "Natural One" wrapped in a haze of fucked up black doom.
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Video Games:
Cotton Fantasy - Latest installment of this long running cutesy bullet-hell franchise. Pretty awesome even if I'm not particularly good at it yet. I think the character based on the ship from Psyvariar Delta is my favorite so far cos I'm pretty fond of the bullet grazing/ absorbing mechanic from that game.
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Drainus - Haven't jumped into this yet but it's next up after I finish with Cotton. Looks like R-Type crossed with Ikaruga? Extremely pretty graphics.
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Reading:
My attention span is absolute dog shit lately and any attempt to read anything longer than the occasional set of heavy metal lyrics has ended in pathetic failure.
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Tube:
Christ, have I even watched anything since last time? Uh, pretty much just an old El Santo movie and a couple episodes of Ghost Adventures. Like I said, I've been pretty fucking busy.
Just found out my uncle passed away. Too bummed to write anything coherent today. I'll be back eventually. Until then: Just listen to Beherit.
Surprisingly gritty Synthwave/ EBM from Texas. Listening to this as I drink my coffee this morning is making me wanna put together another Armed Memory album.
This late era Head of David album has a reputation for being terrible, and it definitely pales in comparison to the earlier one that had a young Justin Broadrick on drums, but at the same time it's a hell of a lot better than I gave it credit for back when I was 15.
Honestly, listening to this now I'm kinda wondering why I wasn't more into it back in the day 'cos it feels like a middle point between Cop Shoot Cop, The Young Gods circa "T.V. Sky", and "Gash" era Foetus and that was my shit back when I was in high school.
Put another way: If I ever got a chance to direct the insane 90's Tetsuo meets Hardware meets Project Metal Beast style sci-fi splatter flick that rattles around my head from time to time I would totally license a couple of these songs for the soundtrack. Sweetandlovingthing especially.
Blah Blah:
I had a whole big angry rant lined up for this week's preamble, but honestly, fuck it. No point in ruining my mood over some shit that doesn't really matter.
On the upside, we just picked up an Alesis SR-16 and a couple new pedals to mess around with and we're pretty stoked to get our industrial-goregind-shoegaze-doom on.
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Muzak:
Luminous Vault - Melodic black metal meets Godflesh? You know I'm way into this. Features dudes from Oneirogen and Artificial Brain for whatever that's worth to anyone.
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Grone - Monolithic industrialized death metal from suburban NJ... Think Godflesh or Dead World with an added splash of Immolation and a punishing sense of groove that has always kinda reminded me of Bulldoze (but that's probably just because I listened to a lot of really "tough" hardcore back when I first ran across this band).
https://grone.bandcamp.com/album/chucklepatch
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Alaric - We were just reminiscing about seeing these guys open for Savage Republic waaaay back in 2010 and I was reminded of how great this fucking song is.
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Cave In - I grew up in middle of nowhere MA and I've been a big Cave In fan since about 1997. Stoked on this new album, but goddamn it made me really homesick for some reason.
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Mossbreaker - Swervedriver wall of guitar meets Failure/ Quicksand songwriting? The music side of this is killer even if I'm not super into the vocals.
https://mossbreaker.bandcamp.com/album/between-the-noise-and-you
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Video Games:
Cotton Fantasy (Why the hell did they change the name in the US? Cotton Rock 'n' Roll is an objectively much better name. Cotton Fantasy just sounds like a hentai game.)
Andro Dunos II
Dodonpachi Resurrection
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Reading:
Haha nope.
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Tube:
Friday the 13th part III
Friday the 13th part VI
Whispering Corridors
To The Devil A Daughter
Blood on Satan's Claw
The Devil Rides Out
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Oddball sludge/ doom shot through with weird samples, cartoon SFX, and pulsating glorps of demented electronic noise... Imagine Fantômas "Suspended Animation" as reinterpreted by "Blotter" era Nightstick and you might have a vague approximation of just how terminally fucking weird this album is.
Ever wondered what it might sound like if "Downward is Heavenward" era HUM recorded a Godflesh track after listening to a ton of Digi-Grind? Cool. This band certainly has too.
I think it says a lot about just how completely spoiled for choice the average metal fan was back in 1997 that this absolute masterpiece kinda got lost in the sauce... Still one of my favorite melodic DM albums EVER, even all these years later.
Makes me wish it was November, and raining.
Yeah I'm in my 40's and totally just bought a TMNT shirt... Slash is one of those characters like Cable, The Maxx, and Cyberforce where you don't tend to see a lot of merch so I tend to pick up anything I find.
Foreign Bodies = Ugly lumbering robo-sludge from Croatia. This stuff seems to exist somewhere in the general ballpark of Godflesh or The Body but topped with layers of room shaking amp howl, caustic electronic/ noise textures, and unhinged, painful, "flathead screwdriver to the eye-socket" screeching that kinda reminds me of the guy who sings in Wallowing... Nasty, nasty stuff right here.
Briefly mentioned this album in (I think) the roundup before the most recent one, but just to recap: Savage Republic's "Tragic Figures" is of my absolute favorite records of all time. Equal parts punk, post punk, industrial, and apocalyptic tribal drumming. Sorta like Joy Division meets Einsturzende Neubauten maybe? Something like that anyway.
I had been looking to replace my totally chewed up copy for years now, and having pretty much zero luck finding one for a price I was willing to pay until, lo and behold, it just finally got reissued with a whole second disc of mostly unreleased material.... I'm stoked.
"I stand beside myself. And still I'm next to nothing."
Blah Blah:
Suicide has been on my mind a fucking lot lately... Not that I'm thinking of punching my own clock... I mean I do, pretty often, but I'm a stubborn motherfucker so I tend to fight through it and focus on other shit.-
Muzak:
Aeturnus
Bastard Noise
Light
Absu
Korperschwache
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Video Games:
Dodonpachi Resurrection - Holy crap I finally 1cc'd Dodonpachi! I had been grinding toward that clear for a long time and it feels really cool to finally cross the finish line. Yeah, yeah, I know, no one fucking cares...
Espgaluda II - More spastic Cave goodness. Is it weird that I find these completely over the top bullet-hell shmups strangely meditative?
Halo: The Master Chief Collection - Ok, I'm "with it" enough to know that the first three Halo games were a really defining thing for a whole generation of gamers, but, I never had an Xbox so unfortunately I kinda missed the boat on the whole franchise. Checking the remasters out now and I'm digging them so far. Have to play in small doses because FPS games kinda give me low-level motion sickness if I play for more than half an hour.
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Reading:
We're in the middle of recording an album so I haven't had a whole lot of time to read lately.
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Tube:
Friday the 13th Part VI
Hellraiser II
The Angry Red Planet
Bloody Pit of Horror
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TBDM were never my favorite band on earth, but, after many years of seeing them on shows with bands I liked and hearing their music mature with each new album I really started to dig them and came to respect their position as one of those bands that kinda "holds the door open" for younger folks taking their first steps into extreme music.
Sad to hear of their singer's passing, from all the accounts I've read over the past 24 hours it seems like he was a really good guy. The scene and the world need more people like that. RIP.
Not dead, just super fucking busy... Will be back when I'm less slammed, quite possibly with some pretty interesting band news. We'll see.
While all none of you await my triumphant return to obscurity please enjoy some utterly brain damaged noisecore/ grindnoise/ goregrind.
Referencing both Darkthrone and Lietterschpich in last night's roundup wound up reminding me of Barbara... A totally whacked-out Israeli Bass/ Drums dirge duo that kinda sounded like Man is the Bastard stomping their way through primitive ugly Scandinavian blackthrash.
Well, the good/ bad/ ugly this week is that our new noise boxes and the box of N95 masks we ordered showed up without a hitch, but the Mork Gryning CDs I ordered from Season of Mist got stolen off our porch... Bummer, but I guess I'd rather be out $45 worth of CDs rather than almost $400 worth of new gear.
Upside is that those new Electro Lobotomy boxes sound savage.
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Muzak:
Savage Republic - I've had my eye out for a copy of Tragic Figures for a couple years now and it turns out it just got reissued with a bonus disc of unreleased stuff from that same era. Stoked! "Next to Nothing" is one of my absolute favorite songs of all time. Gloomy punked-up scrap clatter equal parts Joy Division, Crash Worship, and Neubauten.
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Abigor - I'm pretty sure "Verwustung: Invoke the Dark Age" was the very first black metal album I ever heard and as such it still holds a special place in my heart. Raw early/ mid 90's savagery.
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Darkthrone - I've been meaning to replace my copy of Plaguewielder for a while now and finally just made it happen. Still probably my pound for pound favorite Darkthrone CD even though I kind of hate the cover art on the reissue.
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White Mice - Demented noiserock/ sludge destruction from a bunch of weirdos in blood splattered mouse costumes. Up there with Burmese, Lietterschpich, and early SWANS in terms of complete annihilating heaviness. I hope someday that one of our projects sounds even half as fucked up as "BLasssTPhlEgMEICE"
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Sex Gang Children - Every couple months I get this song stuck in my head. YMMV, but for me it brings back a lot of weird memories involving blacklight, crushed velvet, and friends who have been gone for a lot of years.
https://youtu.be/GTdSBWxU7bI
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Loop - I knew Loop had been playing shows again, but I had no idea they had a new album out until it was right in front of my face over at Long in the Tooth earlier today. Seriously, I was spaced out staring off into the middle distance for a minute and when my brain zoned back in I realized I was staring at a Loop CD I didn't recognize. Sounds pretty much exactly how you'd want it to.
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Video Games:
Dawn of the Monsters
Gynoug
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Reading:
Finally trying to sit down and plow through the Michael Moorcock "Elric" books that I've been meaning to read since I first got into Hawkwind almost three decades ago.
A bunch of weird articles about spooky Fortean/ Cryptid shit... Mostly sea monsters/ ghost ships and other oceanic weirdness this week.
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Tube:
Spongebob Squarepants - Goes down smooth when my brain is mush.
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War of the God Monsters - This was less a movie and more a fever dream.
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Creature - Abysmally low budget ALIEN/ The Thing ripoff circa 1985-ish that actually manages to be more enjoyable than Any of the ALIEN films barring the first two.
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Shocking Dark - Another low budget ALIEN knockoff. This one Italian and filmed in what appears to be a sewer.
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Screamers - Dorky 90's era mangling of a Philip K. Dick short story. I don't like Screamers quite as much as something like, say, Hardware, but I've always had kind of a soft spot for this flick.
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Pretty interesting combo of New Wave-y synth, and ultra blown out bedroom recorded black metal... Definitely recommended if you dig stuff like Lonesummer, Planning For Burial, Dunnock, etc. etc.
Highlight of the album for me was the third track that sounded almost like a 60's girl-pop group smashed through a bunch of those orange boss distortion pedals with dismal blackened wraith shrieks lurking in the background.
Truly weird and wonderful... Man, stuff like this always makes me really miss aQuarius RecOrds.
I never really kept up with Hypocrisy after their first two or three albums... Well, that is until today when I picked up a bunch of their later stuff and realized it's all pretty fucking great.
"A Taste of Extreme Divinity" especially is pure fucking gold from start to finish.
If I’m being honest this track kind of loses me when the vocal falls into that weird almost hip hop cadence at the end (it’s not even poorly done, it just feels super out of whack with the rest of the track), but up to that point this is pretty fucking phenomenal. Almost sounds like Chelsea Wolfe or the chick from Made out of Babies fronting a dubbed out SWANS. Looking forward to hearing how the full album plays out when it comes out tomorrow.
Just found out that two of my old friends passed away. One back in 2020 one in 2021. Hadn’t been in touch with either of them for 20+ years but it still feels pretty shitty. The passage of time is fucking weird man.
New thing from one of the guitar players of my favorite local band back when I was in high school... Sounds pretty much exactly how you'd want/ expect ie: A total riff-fest, equal parts Dismember, Seance, Nihilist, etc. With killer raspy vocals and melodies ala Sacrilege (SWE).
This will probably mean very little to anyone who grew up outside Massachusetts (and who isn't a huge fucking nerd), but I just found a piece of semi-lost media that I've been obsessively tracking down for almost 30 years now...
This video was a huge piece of my childhood and I'm sooooo stoked to finally see it again.
Blazing fast black metal filtered through screechy/ chaotic late 90's metallic hardcore and moments of monolithic riff-churn that bring to mind "Enemy of the Sun" era Neurosis.
Put another way: This sounds like the album Mork Gryning would have recorded after listening to a fuck-ton of Orchid, Shai Hulud, and Counterblast.
Killer stuff.
Damn, I guess Gabe Serbian died? Never met him, but I saw The Locust a ton of times between the late 90's and mid 00's... Huge favorite of mine when I was fresh out of high school and terminally pissed off at the entire fucking world.
Three new devices on their way to us right now. Can't wait to play around with these things.
