AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED – ‘PCP TORPEDO / ANBRX’

The product of an exceptionally fertile period for ANb Pharma, and their only Hydra Head release – the PCP Torpedo 6″ contains an insanely psychedelic, esoteric blast of hyper detailed kaleidoscopic micro Grind, multitudinously gnarly riffs and angular Voivodian Guitar moves forced squealing through a process of hyper pressure hammerstorm drum machine blast beat consolidation, grinding tar Bass overdrive, extro-noise Guitar tone brutal clamor, and lurid reactionary horrid Dadaist lyrics recited in 12 voices from both sides of the goddamn mouth, spiraling vortex of utterly unknowable narcotic intro-perspective stand up comedy made Grindcore, inferenced cataclysmic drug abuse on an industrial scale, repudiated identities brandishing future-weapons, a forced lobotomy at the behest of a begging subconscious. An absolute, dissolute fury of a record, a drugged ID lashing out at hallucinated captors like a fucking ketamine tiger. One of my all time favourites. Now, take a deep breath/toke… Disc two of the luxuriously pils-and-prescription adorned reissue, entitled ‘ANbrx’, lead me drugged and naïve toward extreme electronics, Speedcore and Randall’s then labels BlastBeat (who released the original remix 7″) and Speedboat – It was a heavy, heavy intro to a trip I’m still joyously experiencing. The combinative elements of Gabber, Speedcore, Hardcore, Industrial and Harsh Noise across these remixes was overwhelmingly intoxicating and exciting to me, the removal of scales from the idiot ears of a 15 year old Punk/Metal & Hip Hop freak, with little exposure to extreme electronics beyond Harsh Noise and Aphex Twin. Deranged remixes by James Plotkin, Justin Broadrick, Xanopticon, Merzbow and more each bring uniquely battering and bleary-eyed perspective to ANb’s ID provocation, with some like Drokz and Hellz Army presenting me a world of extremity I had yet to encounter, but would come to know and cherish. From hence, electronic music would forever be forwardly present in my audial junk consumption. An important and vastly potent inoculation against inertia.

Hydra Head

PERIHELION GNOSIS – ‘SYZYGIAL SUMMONING’

Cavernous, pitch-black Lovecraftian Death Metal from one man cult Perihelion Gnosis. Stygian doom-laden riffs trawled from a black anti-cosmos and channeled in tectonic, megalithic Death Metal magnificence with crepuscular atmosphere, stargazing to the dominion of the timeless ones in chugging, churning doomed death ritual – foul necromancer low vocal, miserable leads dripping with prideful despair, grand rhythm arrangements accenting plummeting tempo shifts, conjured astral daemons – super simple and streamlined, considered and magisterial, cultish and doomed! Early Adramelech, Blood Incantation and Burial Invocation may guide your wretched path. I love the wicked rudimentary illustrated demo cover, too. Killer.

Caligari Records

TSALAL – ‘INCARNATION OF EVIL’

TSALAL offers a screed of lifeless blood spat upon the altar of total absolute death in the form of their first full length record. The dullest dismal sword against every throat at once, a black hole void of dynamics and the opprobrium of angels slaughtered in the material realm beyond the sensory experiences of the mortal, exceptionally one-dimensional minimal/maximal waring Black Metal treading far beyond the Rubicon of styles, fervently simplistic in it’s dead-tongued, abstruse supereon Noisecore barrage – dynamically dead transmission of furious blast tumult and resolute torrent of strings with black lightning eruption warped Guitar solo strike and hammered-flat vocal of the dead soul, sealed in a tomb of comatose primitive audio, killed dynamism of entire violence against reality and demise of fukking self forever, oblique and obtuse among Tsalal’s already unapproachable esoteric recorded arsenal – an obsidian and edgeless blade of nullifying, ecstatic, perversely singular Black Noise Metal to annihilate the quivering real and fold the fucking Godhead in half.

War Vellum

BISHOP SELF TITLED

Sludge is viewed by many as the runt of extreme metal’s litter, an ostensible hybrid of hardcore punk and doom that too often manifests in by-rote reiterations of the loud/quiet fast/slow dynamic that’s been dallying with the hackneyed for at least the last two decades. A never more opportune time then for the incursion from far left field of shadowy French quartet Bishop, whose nightmarish debut full-length keel-hauls sludge to death then reanimates its gore-slathered cadaver as a pitiless, soul-harvesting avatar. Closer to the claustrophobic cacophony of Swans circa ‘Raping A Slave’ than Eyehategod and Buzzov*en, ‘Bishop’ isn’t greyscale, it’s blackscale, a Stygian sphere of compacted wretchedness so colossally dense, your limbs run the risk of being torn from their sockets should you stray so much as a millimetre too close to its event horizon. Precipitous waves of prime-evil riff distortion, girder-fracturing bass and psychotically unhinged drum derangement merge into a morass of suffocating noise made all the more harrowing by the tormented shrieks of pain and rage that permeate it. Seemingly birthed from a slough of incalculable despond and cataclysmic enough to trigger a gravitational wave event, ‘Bishop’ joins Divide And Dissolve’s ‘Gas Lit’ as one of 2021’s most original and exacting sludge metal records. Get anointed.

No Good To Anyone

FLOWDAN X SNOWMAN BABY – ‘BLACK RAIN’

Dilettantes may quibble, but no-one is more deserving of the ‘godfather’ epithet than Flowdan, a relentless trailblazer whose unmistakable baritone has been a crucial fixture of Britain’s grime scene since the days of Pay As U Go Cartel and the legendary Roll Deep collective. More widely known in recent years for his dubstep-adjacent collaborations with celebrated bass antagonist The Bug, he nonetheless continues to propel his primary genre forwards, teaming up here with ascendant MC and Aftershock alumnus Snowman Baby for a jolting journey into the tenebrous nether reaches of grime’s zone of disquiet. Both protagonists are on imperious form here, Flowdan’s menacing rasp the perfect counterpoint to his cohort’s steel-reinforced bluster, salvos of razor-edged bars flashing through the gloom like ninja stars. With only the occasional glimmer of sardonic humour to lighten its unremitting bleakness, ‘Black Rain’ brings an icy chill back to grime at a time when so many of its once-vital exponents are content to ply their trade from the lukewarm waters of the mainstream. Let it drench you.

Spentshell