DERELICS – ‘GUILTY OF BEING YOUNG’

Three tracks of truly fukken righteous heavy psych from London weirdos Derelics. Known about town for their wigged-out jamming, this EP takes more of a structured approach while retaining the spontaneity of their live shows. Each of these tunes is just brimming with beauty, power and melodic heft. It’s easy to deduce that they’re big fans of 70s riff rock, but not once does their sound seem like a mere imitation of things past; their delivery is just too smart for that. The playing is unreal, as a group they’re tight as hell and the EP is loaded with big, thick riffs that bounce around all over the gaff whilst alternating with shimmering lead work, the driving drum chops are really slick and those high-register power vocals just knock me out every time. You can tell that this is a record that’s had great care and attention poured into it, and the results are phenomenal. Hands down one of the best releases to come out of the British stoner/doom scene in the last decade. A joy.

Bandcamp

SAHARA / MEPHISTOFELES SPLIT

2 tracks of dread Rock n Roll and frightful Stoner Doom from Argentina. Sahara’s Booze n Roll sounds like militia tanks rolling into town, Desert Rock and Doom from the flaming heart of a fucking warzone, miserable and drunk out of necessity as pain relief coping mechanism. Lumbering and massive, dry and sandblasted, with slow paced trudge rhythm, resin tone Guitars rolling out a brazenly simple earworm riff slowly, and topped off with half spoken croaking death Vocal. Then Mephistofeles conjure a shadow demon on heroin, with gnarly wah groove riffs, wailing Slippie murderer vocal blues, fucking foul Bass tone rumble, plenty of swing in the Drums, decrepit and base Rock in living rot, putrefied and mummified, fuzztone Doom dripping with slime and corpse effluvia. Mephisteofeles really know how to kick it with the cadaveric decadence, and I’ll be checking out Sahara’s other material on the strength of this track. Get high and wallow in the bad, bad vibes.

Bandcamp

BLASTING CONCEPT SELF TITLED

Blasting Concept’s self titled LP is a scuzzy manic Hardcore Punk / swampy 70’s Hard Rock bastard hybrid. Think Bl’Ast (duh), Black Flag (duh) and pre-Eagles Joe Walsh sharing a chopper with hooded death in the fukken sidecar, with barn-burning Blues riffs and leads, mid to fast paced biker Punk Rockers for burnouts with killer yelled vocal keeping things on the Punk side of Hard Rock, snotty and swampy, bluesy and pissed up. Totally loaded with catchy hooks and leads, a heaving desperate rhythm section, very nasty, burned up production – reminds me also of Zeke, but with slightly less obsession with pure speed. This is a seriously great little record! Sounds like a mad bomber ride into enemy territory. Don’t sleep.

Bandcamp

PAIN JERK – ‘FROM NOTHING TO NOTHINGNESS’

Crushing, cold electronic Harsh Noise from Pain Jerk. Deaf defying volumes, intense sound structures dislocating the ego and creating much difficulty in cerebral processing. There’s lots of cuts and chaos, throbbing pulses of recycled sound ephemera and some loops, throwing source after maligned source through the distortion field, choked high pitches writhing in spastic forms capable of rupturing feeble speaker cones, but Gomi-sama is also totally comfortable working in longer form, allowing sections of speculum high end scrape and cement mixer low end rumble to battle for dominance over longer tracks, with troughs in density and sparing volume reductions allowing for trance-like states to develop. Recorded in ’95 and released in ’96, this is a crucial piece of Japanese Harsh Noise from one of the absolute grand masters. It really reminds me of one of Pain Jerk’s earliest cassette release ‘ペイン・ジャーク’, and his notorious ‘Trashware’ CD on Pure, with it’s real lo-fi early ’90’s sound quality and pre-generic codification death static minimalism. Fucking brilliant.

Hospital Productions

DECIMATION OF AUTHORITY – ‘NOISECORE HOLOCAUST’

One man anarchist Noisecore from the States. True old school as hell bedroom Shitcore, Noise and Noisecore, simplistic and fucking furious, with a distinct lack of blast beats. Much of this material is mid paced and creates an almost sort of rudimentary industrial sound, in a stompin’ sort of way. Lots of punk parts, like old Sore Throat style Noisecore with a little of the South American Style, too, just without the blast beats. Insane throaty babbling vocal, grinding Guitar noise, amazingly rudimentary and brilliantly basic drum machine sounds. Seriously, the drum sounds are just too reedy, thin and great! Recorded quietly on tape, as it should be. This has a sense of the Tardcore about it, too. Lo-fi, weird, unique and fucking excellent.

MuteAnt Sounds

BLOOD OF CHINNAMASTIKA – ‘WRONGED ANIMAL’

Gonzo sample Noise from Blood of Chinnamastika, foul and confusing Harsh Noise cut ups drawn from vocal samples, preachers babbling about secretions and christ, laser pulse Noises abstracted from maligned sampling and a sort of appropriation of Musiqie Concrete – exploding Hot Pots, dear God – strange music sample manipulations with an esoteric Shitnoise vibe, loops and layers and loops and layers, sample cutting, analogue tape man-handled and coerced.  ‘Mystical Poetry of mind-death’. Weird and great! Mirrormelt still has tapes, too.

Mirrormelt Records

SISSY SPACEK – ‘DISFATHOM’

Grindcore cassette release from Sissy Spacek. I quote – “HELLISH UNRELENTING GRINDCORE
NO SLOW PARTS—NO MIDTEMPO—NO BREAKDOWNS”. Accurate. When Spacek get into these more pure expressions of Grindcore, the results are absolutey exhilarating. An unending, post modernist stand up comedy routine of blast beats, low/high caveman vocal tradeoff and fractured, damaged Bass kicking out ruptured riff and chord, and Electronic Harsh Noise born of unfathomable, inexpressible dissociative states of distortion. Grindcore and Noisegrind in the vein of  ‘Ways of Confusion’ or ‘Lead Their Exit’, with a sound similar to good-era Fear of God or WORLD. Hellish. Unrelenting. Grindcore. Disfathom yourself. Get a tape while you still can!

Bandcamp

TETRAGRAMMACIDE – ‘THIRD WORLD ESOTERRORISM’

Collection of early demo tracks from international and interdimensional entity Tetragrammacide, varying in sonic quality but cohesive in it’s esoteric godkilling intent. Noisecore ritual barbaric war Noise Metal of Death. ‘Authentic Kalikshetra Metal of Death, dedicated to all diseases, plagues, genocides, rapes, murders and murderers!’ – Kalishektra Sadhu cosmic malignancy – maniacal possession glossolalia vocal wipeouts, lazercannon Guitar/Bass third eye decimation, chasmic blast beats and waves and waves of destroyed electronic Noise, distant rehearsal room amplifier explosions, total chaotic nuclear devastation – conjuring a deity-killing blow of savage War/Black Metal, Power Electronics and Noise born of deicidal intent and apocalyptic Armageddon esoterrorism. Smash the Tetragrammaton.

Bandcamp

JAH EXCRETION – ‘MEDITATION’ EP

Paradise noise frequencies, Buddhist dhyāna and OM inducing signal spiral sequence. Jah Excretion switches gears from the extremely loud Harsh Noise of his early works and begins to deviate towards more Ambient intonation, a sort of eschewing of the Harsh Noise of his earlier works like ‘Legalize It, Seriously!‘ and ‘Noise For Light‘ in favor of a more uniquely psychedelic sound. These meditation EP’s maintain Jah Excretion’s interest in the aesthetic and sounds of Dub, and include some very high pitched piques of Noise, but adds eastern mysticism and delayed ambient sound loops to create a very hypnotic and easy sound. Layers of distorted gongs or cymbals, shimmering wave samples, wooden fish percussive hits, ranging pulses of sound. Meditative indeed. Trip.

Bandcamp

STRIATIONS – ‘VIETNAMIZATION’

Striation’s ‘Vietnamization’ is an obsessive compulsive document of interest in the Vietnam war, originally released on cassette by New Forces in 2018 and reissued on Old Captain with a wealth of extra material. A masterwork of obsession and prurience, history and horror. Throbbing pulses of terrifying synthesizer sputter and warble, rhythmic and menacing, stitched with pieces of intensely disturbing and fascinating samples of marines corps members full of PTSD, trigger finger itch and sweaty militaria tactics, dense Industrial rhythms, Harsh Noise cacophony, samples from films, newsreels and more obscure sources. Violent outbreaks of distorted vocal, enemies torn to pieces by tracer fire, politicians of the war cabinet, the dread process of ‘vietnamization’ – A piece of true revulsion, resolve and morbid fascination. Narrative driven, documenter-oriented and comprehensive in scope, yet masterfully plays with the concept of story-telling and untrustworthy narration, in a way that reminds of Deathpile’s much lauded LP ‘G.R.’ An absolutely vicious, masterful and dire work of Power Electronics mastery and Industrial Synthesizer jungle combat. Special Officer Mike Finklea has also curated a blog page full of accompanying collages, propaganda and other images, offering the listener a further level of immersion in his obsessive research and unhealthy interest. The reissue is interesting in that it features three more long tracks; I’m not sure that the further three tracks add anything in terms of the artistic intent of the work, yet I’m unsure I’d want to hear this album without them anymore. They really feel like ‘Vietnamization -Part II’, and work almost as their own statement, less Power Electronics-focused and closer to Musique Concrete or Ambient Noise, adding further neurotic layers of meaning to this already dense, besetting and yet measured work. Essential. Get a copy, cherry.

Old Captain

Eibon Records

New Forces

A Virtual Compendium

YABBY YOU & KING TUBBY – ‘WALLS OF JERUSALEM’

Archaic Roots & Culture from Yabby You and King Tubby, a legendary pairing, released in 1976 and here reissued with extra tracks and unreleased pieces on the excellent UK label Pressure Sounds. Vital Roots Reggae and Ancient Dub, driving mystical heaving earth rhythms and parched soundscape Dub, shimmer and wobble Guitar melodies, crackin’ lightning Rastafari vocal/chant – devotional Dub, melodious and powerful Reggae. Amazingly deep Bass lines, echo beats and expressive drumming, in reverence to Selasssie I – This is an essential LP. The liner notes included in the digital blurb for the record on the Bandcamp page are well worth a read through, too. I enjoy having a little piece of historical context to read through while I’m listening, and I’m always particularly grateful when said context is included in digital liner notes, not just physical ones. Twist one and burn it in the name of the Almighty.

Pressure Sounds

PRAIRIE SMOKE – ‘HUMANOID’

Sun baked, acid corroded Psychedelia and stoned to hell Garage Rock cabinet melters from Prairie Smoke. Bad vibes Slippie cult killers, amplifiers on fire, LSD destroyed guitar tones and switch hitting rhythms, recorded in the red, chanted shaman David Yow-ish vocal – it’s doomed, decadent and fukken dope! The album shifts from slow lysergic desert jam sesh to driving space-faring Thee Oh Sees style Punk rock, across heavy trip Doom sections and impassioned Garage freak-outs, all emblazoned with some Am Rep Pigfuck edge and blazing black sun psychedelic pinched lead work, and Bass heavy slow groove workouts. Spacious and spaced out, pleasingly distorted and Grunge encrusted Psychedelic/Garage/Noise Rock. Fukk yeah.

Bandcamp

SUPPRESSION – ‘RATS IN THE CONTROL ROOM’

Noisy as Fukk Grindcore/Noisecore from the always excellent Suppression, recorded and released in 2015. An explosive cocktail of regressive Noisegrind brutality; insane pedal delayed, pitch shifted vocal delirium and Bass guitar chord annihilation, overdriven Punk blast beats, Noisecore explosion freakouts with little moments of hammer-on Noise Rock riffage and Harsh Noise melt, off-reservation, effects-destroyed Grindcore of an irrepressible and absurdly hostile nature. Uniquely freaky and wild. Loud burning tape recording quality. Suppression’s wide-eyed worldview of corrupted reality is the soundtrack to absolute existence on fire. Essential. Check out The Roach Motel for a physical copy or a shirt.

C.N.P. 

VINNUM SABBATHI – ‘GRAVITY WORKS’

Vinnum Sabathi from Mexico, with their first album ‘Gravity Works’. Bong implosions from the inner space. Instrumental Post Doom/Stoner Rock with an emphasis on repetition progression and passage of riff, cosmic driving rhythms and spaced the fuck out NASA samples. Riff haze, imagined bong coughs, samples from the futuristic ’60s of yesterday’s tomorrow, relentlessly slow groovin’ rhythms, odysseys of head banging, endless space faring dope rock! The album moves from section to section at a doomed pace, with astral droning elements and gentle guitar lines swelling between movements, very ponderous and introverse in it’s black hole stoner grooves and space exploration Rock. Vinum Sabbathi really know how to slowly build heat and density in their songs. Meteors that seemed so far away are now bearing down on mother earth. For enjoyers or perusers of Post Rock, Stoner Rock and Doom, this one’s highly recommended.

Bandcamp