SISSY SPACEK – ‘L/L’

Three longer tracks of Musique Concrete experimentation and shuffling Noise from Sissy Spacek – found sounds and samples stitched together in a serrated and dangerous arrangement, scuffed instrumentation ‘hits’, percussive impacts as unintended, hands on the guitar strings, little pieces of almost cohesive beats and drum phrasing, sort of Free Jazz influences, extremely weird but listenable, Ornette Coleman or Cecil Taylor fans might find something to enjoy here. A great example of the kind of contrasts in sound that exist within Sissy Spacek’s discography. I’ve returned to this one several times.

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ASID – ‘PATHETIC FLESH’

Raging Hardcore Punk from the UK drenched in eye-melting alkaline – the guitars and bass sounds form a melted, overdriven and deformed sheen of noise through which mutant Hardcore riff strains can be observed,  pure irreverent hate vocal and stormin’ drum work, ripping caustic Bass – furious and lugubrious, ungovernable and full of piss and vinegar. 8 tracks in about 15 minutes. Taking musical cues from UK82 stomp and the noisy blitzkrieg of Swedish and Finnish Hardcore, Asid have here delivered a weird and beautiful mutant Hardcore Punk baby into a world of shite. Catchy, noisy and fucking violent. Unmissable.

La Vida Es Un Mus Discos

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SPATHIC – ‘DEAD ANALOGUE//DEVIL MAGICKS’

Decayed, cursed beatworks from Spathic. Slowly mounting flat beat patterns, winding crunchy line distortion and vacuuming Bass together, ushering in rushes of manic beat patterns, breakbeat parts and noise parts, phased and gated, cave dwelling and remote isolation Noise and Electronic music. Shimmering and dismal, dingy and driving breakbeat (brokebeat) deterioration, fading signals and drum samples cranked up to 11, blaring alarm system sounds pushed to their limits – experimental, minimal and intoxicating, introverse and unknowable. Pulsing, noisy, blunted. It’s like homemade brew, sickly sweet and raw, and could very well make you go blind. Imbibe the breaks.

GK#466

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TOLERANCE – ‘WHAT’S YOUR TOLERANCE?’ DEMO

Short demo of contaminated Goregrind carnage from Finland’s Tolerance. Groovin’ schlocky Zombi music intros and outros a demo full of sloppy grinding drum machine Goregrind and Grindcore mayhem, echo laden insane gore spew vocal, cybergrinding pong snare blast beats with lots of killer fills and ‘bouncy’ parts, noisy as fuck Guitar sounds with lots of micro riffs and a foul, gross sound and repugnant atmosphere. Politicised, socially conscious subject matter and presumably lyrical content grounds this work in the earliest traditional framework of Grindcore, but you’d have to read the song titles in the description to notice, probably. Tolerance, indeed. Overdriven, obscure, putrid bedroom Gore and Grindcore perfection.

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CHUBBY THUNDEROUS BAD KUSH MASTERS – ‘COME AND CHUTNEY’

Seismic gutpunch of greasy riffs and even greasier tones from London’s tie-dye-and-corpse-paint brigade. Taking the phrase “power trio” an an absolute extreme, the sound presented here is monstrous; it’ll make your speaker cones flap wildly, shake the plaster from your walls and compel your neighbours to beg for mercy. Seriously, this album boasts more grunt than a field full of feral hogs. Major props given to the masterfully swingin’ rhythm section, they keep the whole thing grooving along while the thoroughly grimy guitars mash your bones into a calcified paste. As if the sound isn’t cholesterol-laden enough, the band’s fondness for fatty foods rears its head thematically over the course of the record and I must say, it’s really refreshing to hear a stoner/doom band with a sense of humour. Something else that sets Bad Kush apart from a lot of bands on the scene is that they haven’t forgotten that punk rock exists and was vital in the development of the stoner rock genre. This results in some ripping tempos on occasion and a gnarly, pissed off attitude throughout. If you want to define the word “rad”, this is a good place to start.

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NEIL YOUNG – ‘HOMEGROWN’

It’s 2020 and the whole world is feeling shitty. As good luck would have it, Uncle Neil is here to ransack his archive and share with us just how shitty he was feeling in 1974. Shelved for 46 years on account of it being too personal (“it scared me,” said Young once in an interview) and deeply coveted by rabid fans during that time, “Homegrown” finally sees the light of day. Once described as “the missing link between ‘Harvest’, ‘Comes A Time’ and ‘Harvest Moon’” by the man himself, that formula leaves out one key element: it was recorded during Neil’s legendary “Ditch Trilogy” phase of ‘73-‘75, so it sure-as-shit ain’t a warm and welcoming affair like those three records. This is straight up melancholia delivered by way of country-fried bongsmoke balladeering, gorgeously recorded with sparse instrumentation. There’s not much relief here, only the silly goodtime bounce of the title track and the bizarre feedback and spoken word story “Florida” offer up any kind of escape from Neil’s forlorn ruminations. Naturally, his backing band is ace and there are guest spots from Emmylou Harris, Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson scattered throughout, though the real sideman star is Ben Keith, who plays some of his sweetest sounding pedal steel guitar to date. Having said that, I’m tempted to say the best tracks are the ones where Neil supports himself. “Mexico”, for example, is as bleak and beautiful as anything from “On The Beach”, and there’s no doubting his emotional rawness in any of the other solo cuts. Dammit, this album is fuggin’ excellent. But then, it’s Neil fucking Young, depressed, stoned-as-frig and at the height of his songwriting powers, so of course it’s going to be. I guess it’s the “Ditch Quadrilogy” now?

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SISSY SPACEK – ‘LEAD THEIR EXIT’

As I understand it, this release is meant as a coda to Sissy Spacek’s live set – presumeably these songs form the basis or framework of their live shows. A streamlined and concise set of Grindcore songs, lots of quick transitionary parts with spasmodic Bass hammer riffs, single footed purity blast beat drumming and largely high-end screeching death vocal. Harsh Arsedestroying Noisegrind/Grindcore bulldozer, grey, vehement and pure. More on the Core side than the Noise side of their sound, ‘Lead Their Exit’ does still feature a couple of moments of minimalist Voice’n’Noize intermezzo, as you’d expect, and there’s a handful of breathing-space moments and micro-slow parts on the instrumentation in the final tracks, too – Short songs in quick fire succession, something which I have read that Sissy Spacek prize in the construction of their recorded releases – fuck gaps! Obviously excellent.

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SWORDWIELDER – ‘GRIM VISIONS OF BATTLE’

Swordwielder’s ‘Grim Visions of Battle’ LP is an epic of master-crafted Stenchcore of the highest order – muscular and primitive, violent and absolutely fucking miserable Metallic Punk ruin. Perfectly evokes the best elements of this ancient sound, harnessing the overt musical influences and doomed vibes of Axegrinder and Deviated Instinct. Rarely picking up pace beyond a gallop, these largely mid-paced crushers are dense with morose, crushed metallic riffs full of downtrodden melody and moments of droning Synths, sword-swinging powerful rhythms, vocal born of crumpled fury and rain soaked desperation and a totally bleak, fucked post-civilisation ambiance. There’s little of your more impassioned or positive Crust polemic here – just tears shed for the end of a wretched world. No hope, only Stench! Bleak and anthemic, dark and desolate. CRUST!

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BRODEQUIN – ‘FESTIVAL OF DEATH’

Bludgeoning Brutal Death Metal of a wildly primitive, absolutely barbarous nature. Torturous, violent and ravaging Death Metal with a fearsome temperament and a penchant for gravity blast endurance ardours. Brodequin keeps things completely barbaric and merciless here, with riffs designed to smash your limbs and drumming intent on quartering your useless frame, and vocals so low and putrid you can practically feel them. A lot of Brutal Death Metal leans more towards an either slamming or technical sensibility – Brodequin sits in a kind of unique place sonically, with artists like Artery Eruption and Disgorge (Mex), in that they exult aggression and lo-fi fury, with lots of the actual riffs (which are actually pretty groovin’, and of which there are a shit tonne) obscured by the noisy and super raw 90’s production, rather than relying on clarity to accent said riffing. It’s noisy, gory, demented and completely fucked up sounding, and although it’s replete with riffs, the way they’re buried in the mix might make this sound more appealing to fans of Grindcore or Goregrind. In many ways this record sounds far closer to LDOH than Devourment, for example (at least to my mouldy ears). I think ‘Instruments of Torture‘ is probably Brodequin’s best offering, but damnit if I can’t get enough of this one too. This record will flay you alive without remorse and leave you as a skinless pile of red shit.

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ALBERT TROSS, LEADER OF THE DEMONS – ‘TRANSITION TO PAIN’

Albert Tross, Leader of the Demons presents to you, the lucky listener, a bloody horrible migraine. Sample looped, Musique Concrete, outsider Noise. Lurching, slowly spiralling samples de-escalate and embark on a downward journey into motion sickness and migraine relieving beta blockers. Vomit flecked and nausea inducing, simplistic and dreadful in it’s intent to make you feel not so fresh. The gurning voices in the loops, the thudding of meat, the slow howls of pain, the inexplicable smell of bile, the inability to sleep, the stress of waiting for the painkillers to take effect, the shimmering aura. Little moments of looped melody phase in and out on the final track, ending in a sampled dog mauling your imagined recovery. Albert Tross is a concern – I’m often reminded of Killer BOB when listening to this stuff, terrified I will be confronted with the sight of a normal-ish looking ‘man’ shape in denim lurking at the foot of my bed whilst enveloped in the headache noises. Lie down and listen calmly.

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SPIRIT POSSESSION 2020 DEMO

Spirit Possession’s 2020 demo, 2 songs with an intro and an outro. Maniacal, phantasm-possessed Black Heavy Metal with a fuckload of hysteria inducing Speed Metal sound. Braying, howling, wolfish OUGH vocals, riffs born of a hatred for the holy spirit laden with misshapen, unorthodox trill hooks that stick to your ribs and powerful, blown out drums from the netherworlds. Haunting lunar occult madness and portentious summoning of demons, wild-eyed and rockin’ like a motherfucker. The all-too-short intro and outro tracks are properly bubbling and nasty sounding, enveloping these two rippers in a murderously wyrd aura. Effects laden, ghastly, echoing necro Metal, driving like a flaming hearse through a black cosmos. Fucking killer demo.

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HAIL CONJURER – ‘EROTIC HELL’

Morose ritual Satanism and morbid Black Metal from darkest Finland, star-gazing, moribund and esoteric. Musically this is very raw, ritualistic and primitive, with varying tempos and a penchant for repetition – barking, hollering vocal of death, heavy Bass rumbling with simple and excellent entrancing riffs, simplistic primal drumming with heavy hands and some influence taken from the rawer spectrum of Punk, and moments of Synthesizer melody haunting the fringes of riffs. These Synths appear between tracks too, adding further to the ancient evil vibes. Everything feels very obscured and incensed, hideously erect and astrally fertile. Parts of these songs are absolutely fuckin’ rockin’ in their repetitive minimalism and devotion to the dark one. In some ways this reminds me of old Necromantia, in it’s largely Bass-driven sound and archaic aura. Shambling, droning, hypnotised and primordially aroused. Fuck yeah.

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KUROI JUKAI – ‘黒い樹海’

Kuroi Jukai’s single 7″ offering surfaced from obscurity in 2015 and left a bit of a dent; a densely woven work of system failure Harsh Noise, tightly wound razorwire Power Violence and asbestos dust Grindcore furnace heat, speed and density, with less of the Hardcore breakdown element prevelant in a lot of the ‘Power Violence’ bands of the 2010’s. Short, acerbic songs full of multi-headed Chimera flamethrower vocal, concussive power chord ripcord crush, a lot of blast beats and swinging Hardcore stomp, brutal cement mixer Bass grind, and a host of Industrial influence in the beeping alert haywire death-rattle electronic intermezzos, furiously noisy and destructive. Intense, maximalist, berzerking Power Violence Noisegrind rampage and electronic meltdown. Reminds me a little of bands like Disciples of Christ or Column of Heaven. A great little 7″!

Sentient Ruin Laboratories

SWALLOWED – ‘LUNARTERIAL’

Lunar sickness lysergic Death Metal lucidity, formless madness portending Doom! Spiralling chaos portal disruption, howling at the yellow moon, gibbering in the braying darkness, overdosed and alone. Nightmarish Death Metal from beyond the fucking chasm! Weird evocations of the occult – dismal dissonance and lurid atmospheric, inverted Death Metal necromancy. Not especially riff-centric, particularly compared to their previous work – They have that otherworldly aura that the best of the Funeral/Death Doom underground achieve, like Skepticism or Disembowelment, but with a delirious drugged conscious and a ravenous appetite for the deranged. Insanely good drumming, very free form and fluid and yet devastatingly heavy at times, rapturous Guitar sounds, vocal expulsions and incantations of the insane. Blast beats summoned and then subsumed into toppling Doom arrangements. Warping solos rending the flesh of the mind, third eye torn asunder. The last track, in particular, is completely mental in it’s free associative Metal of Death profundity-in-momentary-worship and spontaneity. Swallowed’s previous demos and their EP each have an element of workmanlike Death Metal to them; this one nearly entirely abandons such inspirations in favour of disassociation and enshrined ego blood sacrifice. Real death black magic. Get a copy from Black Phlegm right here.

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DIPLODOCUS – ‘SLOW AND HEAVY’ – SIDES A & B

Synthesizer stomp from the US. Conjuring images of terrible and tyrannic lizards from older yellowed reference books, the Valley of Gwanji and stop motion thunderlizard animations. Steaming Triassic jungles, ancient and dangerous flora, terribly inaccurate depictions of pterodactyl. Sauropod Dungeon Synth with a unique and fascinating intent and an impressively conjured atmosphere. I’ve seen quite a lot of interest surrounding this project online, and it’s evident why. Listen to ’em back to back.

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PURIFICATION – ‘DESTRUCTION OF THE WICKED’

Two piece Doom band from Portland Oregon. Traditional, devotional Doom metal with a uniquely blazing, heretical fuzz Bass tone. Serious Heavy Metal-leaning traditionalism and a penchant for the occult – furiously catchy infidel destroying riffs, with lead parts played on Guitar, Bass and Organ, driving rhythms mandating ritual headbanging, soaring cheeze/throat burn vocal poser death and an unrepentingly sinful vibe. Crusader Doom with a lot more noise and fuzz in the production than you might be expecting for a sound so traditionally minded. Anti-religious ear worm hooks and mind-bending mercilless riffs are the order of the day here, heretic. Sulphurous and cruel, fist-banging Doom for witch burners! Crucial listening.

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SISSY SPACEK – ‘CRYPTO-TERMINATION’

Recent two track EP release from LA’s finest Noise absurdists Sissy Spacek. Carbonised Harsh Noisecore explosives and Ambient death corrosives. Two short tracks to cleanse and re-infect – ‘Crypto-Termination’ features cut-up approach grinding Noisecore, battering, concussive, dense and chaotic blasts with shrapnel cuts of agonizingly distorted vocal and desperate drums bleeding through the dense kaleidoscopic feedback. Gritted teeth Noisecore seizure bite. Then ‘Predator Capitalist’ changes tack and brings an unsettling palette of bleeping, shimmering dissonance, lower in volume but intensely aggressive, with blunted out low vocal incursion baiting and spectral frequencies moving in long circles. Ambien overdose, rubbing alcohol poisoning. Disquieting and weaponised. A really cool pairing of tracks from a band that never fails to upset.

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SISSY SPACEK – ‘WAYS OF CONFUSION’

LP on Nuclear War Now. Sissy Spacek streamline their Grindcore/Noisegrind/Musique Concrete/Harsh Noise forms into a tempered steel cattlegun of unrelenting Grindcore purity. Brutalist single-footed blast beats with insane fills, extremely pained grunt low/shriek high/godless gurgle vocal eruptions, scraping fucked up Bass gristle noise and various broken electronic sound sources pushed into the bleeding red, structured in intent and therefor all the more constricting, confusing and non-negotiable. Caustic, loud production. Pauses between tracks make for your only moment to pause and reflect. Non-metal, first person shooter Grindcore – assault rifle sonic discharge, rapid fire ammo expenditure with zero chance of slowing or breaking anything down, track after track just pulverising your senses. A merciless salvo of unrelenting Grindcore with nothing to hold on to and nothing to prevent each high calibre round from passing through your soft, fleshy mass. It’s like sprinting a marathon.

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CLUMPS OF FLESH – ‘DISMEMBERMENT CULT’

4 tracks of rancid Goregrind and Death Metal from Bobby Maggard, one man Gore machine extraordinare. A hideous and very home-made shrine to fucked up and perverse Deathgrind from the sticks – lots of crushing mid paced chugging, corpse croak vocal morgue huffing, deathly riffs dripping with infected pus. Brutal rolling double bass drums, killer grinding Bass sounds, murderous atmosphere. There’s lots of blasting but also plenty of tempo drops and slow as hell Bass-lead chug and stomp. Degenerate, deranged Death Metal and demented Goregrind, serial killer sounds played by a maniac of pure Gore devotion. Bobby fuckin rules!!

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LARVAE 4-TRACK PROMO TAPE 2020

Gore splattered Doom/Death Metal from Bucharest. Larvae presents a foul-oudered and morbidly corpulent set of 4 tracks for this demo. Croaky Impetigo-ish style vocal retch, gruesome slime riffs with a very rotten sound, plodding mid rhythms and an overall putrefying, dank and obscure atmosphere. Gory and fatally doomed, hideously shambolic and festering Death Metal. It’s the sound of a huge, horrific pupae devouring the juicy fermenting eyeball from a corpse’s putrefied eyesocket – slow, nasty and vile. This one’s getting a rerun by Stygian Black Hand, so check ’em out if you want a tape. Cool demo.

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