FILMMAKER – ‘VLAD TAPES’

Filmmaker has been lurking at the edges of ebm and affiliated sounds for two or three years, with a sonically varied yet aesthetically cohesive discography of outlandish, dreadful ebm and crimson minimal wave electronics. ‘Vlad Tapes’ is 4 long, lo-fi mixes of different darksynth tracks, a grimoire of castle-dwelling, clammy synthesized Noise beats, a recontextualistaion of repetitious videogame music loops and lobit vampiric aesthetics to a techno bloodrave praxis – Impaling Synth drillers, funky as fuck (which is a real plus), grave and gruesome, decaying and changing, minimalist and crude, stitched together as long beatworks for blooddrinking solo. This shit is heavy and weird, referential to old school Techno and second wave Industrial, head music for fucking basehead freak vampires!

BODY MUSICK

METHLAB EXPLOSION – ‘NOISECORE TERRORIST’

Methlab Explosion is Ohioan Grind and Noise freak Will Olter’s solo project, here featuring the inimitable blasts of Isaac Blast Addict. 41 tracks of punishing intense Noisegrind blur in just over 17 minutes. This shit is full-on furious Noisecore acrimony, screaming unrelenting hell vocal atop dense and battering Bass and Guitar noise opprobrium, snare ping ultra blast beats with noise cymbal earscrape, deluge pulverising, impressively aggressive mental Noisegrind indignation – amazingly damaged and distorted, dense and hyperactive with stop start details, low Bass obliteration and scalpel-to-eyesocket treble attack, shock-and-awe guerilla combat actions against music. Crucial. Nuclear Alcoholocaust Records in France did the tape release, snag a copy if you’re able!

Bandcamp

BACTERIUM – ‘SUNT LACRYMAE RERUM’

Torturous fungal Death Funeral Doom from Ireland, featuring members of the excellent Wreck of the Hesperus, with a weird solemnity and scarred to fuck with dismal noise effects. Miserable shambling moss creatures, mouldy apparitions of unknown death – Thergothon-style Guitar riffs and tones, with a shimmer of nasty synths, roaring, perversely prideful vocal of the ancient king, crisp yet distant drums of death, there’s a crepuscular necrosis and moonswept tape dissonance present here, distorting and shifting the misty lysergic Doom, a mildewed miasma of slow Death. Venemous, warped and psycho-actively malevolent.

Bandcamp

Fuck Yoga

ABSURD SS SELF TITLED

Absurd SS features members from Giftgasattack, Warvictims, Final Slum War and other killer Crust and D-beat bands from all over, and I think they’ve been around since at least 2015. Full throttle Noize concussive Crasher Crust with a wicked sick Bass sound to crush the fukken pose and put a toothless cider smile on your face – heavily influenced by Swedish D-beat and Japanese Noizecore, properly howling old tape sound, mercilessly fast strangling chord shuffle with short fireblues leads, tight as fuck Bass and violent tom heavy Drums, impassioned echo-effected vocal grunt and roar, heaps of blasting and D-beats with straight ahead mid paced pissed up Anarcho tracks, too – noisy, dissonant and destructive, brutal shockwave Crust Punk. Get a copy from Burning Anger or Phobia Records. Kängpunk as fukk!

Bandcamp

MACROBACILLUS – ‘TERTIARY SYPHILIS’

Crushing lows and murderous loops from Harsh Noise artist Macrobacillus, a name that may well be referencing legendary projects Macronympha and Bacillus, of whom I’m sure Macrobacillus has taken some influence. 6 tracks long-ish tracks of rampant, diseased richter scale crunch, feedback and indiscernible sound sources (some Music?) in loops, squalling channels of vocalisation cast down through various distortion brackets, volume terrors, tremulant and piss-scary, pathological, psychotic and psychedelic American Harsh Noise with some early Power Electronics sensibilities and wounded animal vocal. There’s dynamic cutting too among the layers of sound, though these tracks mostly unfurl at a momentum gathering pace, Industrial style, rather than baffling with all out cut-attack. Sounds like human consciousness and primary brain functions melting amid uncontrollable syphilitic catatonia. Gruesome!

Bizarre Shampoo

ACHONDROGENESIS / GANGRENE DISCHARGE SPLIT – ‘BACTERIAL MACERATION OF AN ULCERATED CADAVER’

Cadaverous, repulsive Goregrind from beyond taste and to be immediately reproached. Achondrogenesis is a newer project with a couple of releases, doing old school pathological Goregrind with live drums – Gangrene Discharge is a recently re-animated drum machine Crust Goregrind project of Gore hooligan Bobby Maggard. Putrid crusty ear-bleeding bludgeoning Goregrind from both bands with noisy, poorly recorded Guitar and Bass, nice dynamic songs and tape hiss ambience and gurgling, screaming vocal hell, D Beats and crushing bulldozering tempo transitions erupting vocal throat pus, horrific and totally degenerate, absurdly base and formulaic in the devotional, outsider and largely unwanted, yet irrepressible prurient Punk Goregrind mutant underworld. Great split. Fucking disgusting artwork, too. That shit is eyewatering.

Achondrogenesis Bandcamp

Gangrene Discharge Bandcamp

ANCIENT DAYS – ‘THE END’

Ancient Day’s first release. Trad Doom ala Candlemass with a penchant for spooky throwback Hard Rock psychedelia, Italian-Style like something by Paul Chain, or more recently the excellent Python, sombre Occultism, solemn and yet far out as fuck, blues licks and very lo-fi production accents stoic and mournful Doom – killer languid solos, syrupy bass working through mind wreckingly simple and awesome grooves, cheeze vocal excellence. Stargazing, lo-fi Traditional Doom with a high possibility of psychoactive engagement. A foul, hypnotizing sesh jam. Groovy.

Bandcamp

ARACHNAD – ‘913 CUPS OF KOOLAID’

Nauseous Noise and evil fucked up death ambient soundscapes from deep in the Jonestown compound – venture past the barbed wire of the perimeter encampment… Deep-state mind alterations! PSY-OPS kill teams! The 4 tracks that make up the original and infamous ‘913 Cups of Kool-Aid’ cassette are the standout tracks here, but the bonus rare tracks are additionally alienating and upsetting. Seasick narcosis Musique Concrete nausea and socially inducted vomits and headache, mindless drone and mangled interview tapes slowed to oblivion, howling winds…loops of mutant beats, Harsh Noise and dissonance, tape mutilations, horrible and disconcerting. Arachnad represents a high(low) bar of maligned intelligence sound design and reeling psychosis psychedelia, pill crazed and paranoiac to the point of total social reclusivity.

It’ll Fetus Records

BRAIN DEAD / ROT IN HELL SPLIT – ‘MILLENNIAL PSYCHOSIS’

Split 7″ of scathing Hardcore Punk from Feast Of Tentacles. Rot In Hell’s tracks exude apocalyptic crustiness, mid paced Holy Terror hubris, crusading and conquering, overwhelmingly angry and destined to end our doomed civilisation! Wailing fear-mongering leads atop rabid vocal maul, cruising incendiary Guitar and wicked Bass lines, loaded with swaggering breakdowns from hell. Ruthless and incorrigible with a terminal mindset. Brain Dead features members of the awesome Perspex Flesh, serving up a bit faster PV/Fastcore type sound like Lack Of Interest, Voorhees or Manpig, surging dismal Hardcore rage, lots of tempo variation and wreckin’ stomping parts, some metallic riffs thrown into the gambit and killer strangling Bass sound. Supremely powerfully violent. A brief glut of contemptuous fury.

Feast Of Tentacles

NEOANDERTALS – ‘NEANDERTHALS WERE MASTER BUTCHERS’

Neoandertals emerges from Estonia sometime in the late Pleistocene Epoch, wielding primitive instruments and harboring early intelligence bloodlusts. Neolithic Brutal Death Metal via Fusion Jazz. Bass and Drums interlocked in furiously complex rhythms, shuffling and slobbering in bizarre arcane structures, dry concrete Bass whiplashing, super low vocal grunting describes the defleshing processes of Neanderthal cannibal consumption practices. Mud and blood flecked, erecting intellects and horrifyingly heavy and obtuse – little moments of more traditional riff arrangement and sort of slammer parts are all the more impactful and intoxicating for having surfaced from beneath such an obfuscate quagmire of audial brutality. These two barbarous pseudoscientists are doing something very weird and special indeed.

Bandcamp

WHITE DENIM – ‘IN PERSON’

If you are looking for a great example of “rebirth”, look no further than the current incarnation of White Denim. I was bummed out a couple of years after the release of “Corsicana Lemonade” to learn that original sticksman Josh Block and new lead stringslinger Austin Jenkins had left the band. They’d just made their best record and I didn’t think they’d top it, especially after losing two seemingly crucial members. I was proved wrong with the release of “Performance” and was made to feel like an absolute cretin for doubting them after Blastbeatjunkie and myself caught them play a London club show in the summer of 2019. Total. Fucking. Vitality. The new and hopefully long-lasting lineup of the band (drummist Greg Clifford and keypuncher Mike Hunter joining founders Jim Petralli and Steve Terebecki) seems to be imbued with virgin’s blood or some hoodoo curse, such is their sheer fukken rock POWER. This live set of theirs from autumn 2019 shows them playing their crazy mix of psychedelic southern garage rock with such intensity that they make many a metal band look like simpering, pencil-necked milquetoasts. It’s a huge, career-spanning setlist that displays not only their staggering technical abilities but also their rich sonic diversity; there are parts of this that made me imagine Stevie Wonder playing Minutemen songs with Yes as his backing band. Just insane. 23 tracks of glowing musical dexterity that comes right from the soul. Careful how you handle this one – it’s red fuckin’ hot.

Radio Milk Records

TYRANNUS – ‘FLAMES OF TYRANNY’

Outsider Symphonic Black Metal recorded on a burning 4-track, singular blazing hot synths lines smoking speaker cones, simplistic kick-snare drum machine combo underpins sheet metal blizzard of buzzing minimal riffs, folkish pristine melodies and insanely noisy vocal screeching, scratchily atmospheric and yet noisy as fucking hell. Tyrannus walks a line between all out noise and smoky atmospheres, masterfully lo-fi and DIY, full of internal concepts unknown to the listener. Raw as fuck, blazing hot like white phosphorus, absolutely miserably infernal. Amazing stolen artwork, too.

Pagoda Mast

ANTEDILUVIAN – ‘UNDER WING OF ASAEL’

Ancient Death Metal from Canada’s Antediluvian – archaic primitive arrangements, perplexing and riddling base Metal riffs, drenched in an ancient aura of weird sepulchral darkness, heavy as fuck, intonated in strange heaving forms of moldy Death Metal, expressing primeval disgust and howling humanity, encased in wretched flesh! The first two tracks of this EP, in particular, are among my favourite I’ve heard from Antediluvian. Toxic and cascading, plummeting Death Metal riffs, upheaving primitive drums, vocal grunt and roar, skull exalted and smeared in mud and animal blood – the rite is done! Fossilized evil Metal from the Stygia. Check out their label and distro Serpents Head Reprisal.

Bandcamp

OH SEES – ‘PROTEAN THREAT’

Recent LP from the mindscape of John Dwyer and his magical marvelous Oh Sees (or OC’s, or Thee Oh Sees…) A shattered kaleidoscopic squirt of noisy acid Kraut Garage Rock, adorned in liquid metal mirrorsuit and ready to launch into orbit. Crumpled Bass distortion, psychedelic surfin’ Guitar leads, squealing effects and synths in hyperactivity, catching incessant melodies and riding them down to a nub – a multitude of strange singing, whispers and chatters amidst the driving and driven Spacewar Punk Rock, dancing and swinging, buzzing Bass lines run the gauntlet, unwinding speed blast Space Rock-ish, sci fi synths and mad earwomy shit, grooves forever. Rocking and chilling, freaking out and grooving too – ‘Protean Threat’ is Krautrock squared, taking the Motorik mesmerism of Can or Neu!, and melting it down into a pool of psychedelic Punk Rock contamination. Predictably wonderful.

Bandcamp

CONCRETE WINDS – ‘PRIMITIVE FORCE’

Possessed Death Metal from Concrete Winds, born from the corpse of the also excellent Vorum. Deranged Thrash-influenced merciless Death Metal of ancient evil, face crushing, trend denouncing raw mid production with insanely aggressive psychotic divebomb solos from hell, injurious and impish screaming vocal, fukked up riffs of the meanest, most demented order and skin meltingly intense drumming – streamlined and annihilating, a basis of Thrashing Death Metal perverse, mean and obscene, with a cruel and bloodlusting blitzkrieg vibe usually found at the sharper edges of Black Thrash. The album doesn’t rely purely on blasting either, also reminding of the corrupted dynamism and sheer rhythmic power of Order From Chaos, with lots of unexpected mid-paced groovers and offense-accented slower parts. This record is a total fucking firestorm.

Bandcamp

HOVERKRAFT – ‘MUSIK FÜR STARPORTS’

Kosmonaut Paul Riedl of Blood Incantation, Spectral Voice and lots of other cool projects, here creating a work of ambient soundscape. Komishche cryo-sound chambers and minimal melody, Krautrock-adjacent exploratory missions, blissful electronics sprawl of time, measured influence of Popol Vuh and Tangerine Dream, astral projections and spacefaring, dream time ambience from the Stars. Great exploratory listens here. Mysterious and hypnotising cosmos sound. Check out a whole host of Paul’s other projects, from across Metal and Ambient music, at his YT channel Klangwald Produktionen.

Bandcamp

TSALAL – ‘TRANSMUTATION WAR’

TSALAL again descends upon the aural domain to wreak total fukking havok! Noise War Metal, tumultuous upheaval of esoterorrist sonic mindflay, in-the-red blasphemies against reality – Black/Death Noise Metal walls of blast beats, squealing discord guitars pealing out endlessly bizarre notes and demonic vocal incantation and ululation to disturb and pervert the illusion, murky and muddy rehearsal room vibe, demo quality, recorded and blasphemed in a dank and foul place stinking of profaned meat, with their trademark summoning of gibbering lightning bolt guitar solos. 4 tracks form presumably two sessions, a grinding cacophony of slight different styles, the opening and closing tracks hewing closer to a Black/Noise/Grind paradigm of discordant Guitar abuses and wailing venomous leads, warped dissonant blasting and extra-dimensional vocal affront, whereas track 2 and 3 feature a very slightly less noisy, Beherit-like mid range sound, Black/Death Metal incursion with absolutely furious possessed drums, blunt force ripping demented riffs with reversed solos and howling torn throat vocal. Bearing an enchanted and mystic primitive quality very few can match, an oddity spawned form the darkest, most blasphemous and inverted dimensions. Lalast Laih! Buy a tape.

War Vellum

NEIL MERRYWEATHER & THE SPACE RANGERS SELF-TITLED

Regain Records dust off a long-forgotten heavy psych/prog masterpiece for reissue. Blastbeatjunkie tipped me off to this one and I’m surprised I hadn’t come across it already, considering my snout is often buried in obscure riff-rock of yore. This here is something special. Sometimes with lost 70s releases, there can be an element which gives you a clue as to why they never took off – maybe the band’s chops aren’t quite up to scratch, perhaps they’re a bit short on good melodies, the riffs could be derivative, or even that it just plain sucks. The Space Rangers’ debut LP suffers none of these flaws. The fucking scope of this thing! Starting out with the gorgeous Beatles/Bowie/”Lamb”-era Genesis/Klaatu anthem “Hollywood Blvd.”, the record then veers between white-hot cosmic rock, sleazeball P-Funk style grooves, folky prog hymns and more besides. It’s crammed with excellent, hook-laden songs, plus the band itself totally fukken smokes! Screaming fuzz axe madness colliding with thick-as-crunchy-peanut-butter basstones, bare-chested drum savagery and lashings of sweet, sweet Mellotron (okay, it’s a Chamberlin, hair-splitters). There’s just so much here to enjoy. The production is fairly lo-fi for a 70s prog release, but it’s really cool to hear some extra grit considering how cleanly recorded most of their contemporaries were. Sounds like a gnarly rock band with lofty intentions. The furious interpretation of The Byrds’ “Eight Miles High” has got to be worth entry price alone, replete with jacked-up tempo and Hillage-meets-Coltrane spasmodic leads fit to make your head spin. Intoxicating stuff. Ideal for nocturnal, head nodding, hashishian lava lamp meditations. Willing psychonauts, climb aboard the mothership!

Regain Records

VORVADOSS – ‘A PULSE FROM THE SHIMMERING BEYOND’ EP

4 tracks of crackly, shimmering Dungeon Synth and magisterial mystical Syntheziser sounds from the faceless one, with occasional martial percussion elements and chanting intonations and incantations from beneath the hoods of the apprentices – unknown dimensions and dread horrors, cultist priests summon the ancient uncanny folkish melodies through arcane rites with militarist drumming, layers of synthesized ambience and shamanist prophecy. Darkly dreadful and forboding, singularly adventurous, solemn and cosmically imperious. Battle the ancient gods and ascend!

Bandcamp

VRIL AND RØDHÅD – ‘OUT OF PLACE ARTEFACTS’

Vril & Rødhåd from Germany here collaborate on an ancient cosmic ambient ode to the unknown mysteries of Enki and Enlil et al, rendered in minimalist metronomic soundscapes. Spartan electronics, microtextutal radar blip Techno, sound collage rhythms and incremental beats, comedown/downer intronautical sound, tripping on interplanetary alignments and ancient aliens, no doubt. Cocoon of audial modular synth haze, sequencer flutter, headphones required. Mesmerizing, textural electronic music with strange intent and austere vibe. WSNWG is collectively producing some weird and mulitfluent sounds, indeed. Contaminate your mind with the knowledge unknown.

WSNWG005