NUCLEAR SPRING DISCOGRAPHY

The complete discography of overlooked US snots Nuclear Spring, released on cassette by Doomtown. Members of this band played in and went on to join CREEM, Ajax, La Misma, NOMOS and others, their pedigree sound capturing a perfect nexus of influence between very early Punk Rock and US Hardcore that makes for irresistibly simple songcraft and burly, hard edged fury. Single note Guitar lines scramble for consonance, crusher chords minimalist and brimming with slashing power, Bass and Drums interlock and rock in march stepping, melodious haste, each mostly mid-paced song covered in dude croons, wails and yowls from one male/one female voice, both possessed of sophomoric rage and youthful enthusiasm. Virulently catchy, loud and vituperative, burning with life and incensed at unequal social outcome, and informed by scenes like UK82 and even a little streak of Oi, Nuclear Spring is positively ion charged with Punk Rock power. Rips beginning to end.

Doomtown Records

GROSS LOAD – ‘EXPOSED TO FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE’

A fat gelatinous wad of gore soaked Death/Gore/Grindcore from drum machinegunner Gross Load. Delirious with mongo-grooves and surging soupy gore riffs gushing bubbling liquid ichor, shockingly fluid and dynamic, sinew bound to the steaming drum machine beneath, hammering banging and slamming with rictus tight programmed blasts and tupa-tupa mince/thrash beat breakdowns, unwieldy and clattering, slathered with ultra brutal hamsandwich deth vocal. Deadly and megafast, groovy and girthy. ‘Exposed To Forbidden Knowledge’ reminds me of ANb’s ‘The Glue That Binds Us’ 7″, those tracks featuring a deathly flavour to the riffing and with that absurd and bizarre mondo vocal, an atmosphere of antisocial insanity and insalubrity that Gross Load shovels out here in sloppy, chuggy, gooey bucketfuls. Killer shit! I’ll be investigating their full length offerings next.

Bandcamp

DOPE PURPLE & BERSERK – ‘THIS IS THE HARSH TRIP FOR NEW PSYCHE’

A portentous cosmic collision between Dope Purple’s spaced out throwback Psychedelic Rock and Beserk’s fulminate alien Harsh Noise, released by the mercurial WV Sorcerer Productions label. Dope Purple ramps, stages and launches 5 tracks of motorik, tumbling Psychedelic Rock, crystalline brittle Guitars and longwinding louche Bass lines summit and plummet both gently and desperately, glistening with delay and reverb, beats treading a dusty caravan path of fulsome, feeling groove, echo-drenched dude vocal appears like the aural Sherpa up the mountain of the omnistoned. Bersek looms without like awesome cumulus cloud formation, allowing for Dope Purple’s spacious interplay and sonic oxygenations, gathering momentum and power before ejaculating his roiling, combustible Harsh Noise asunder, exploding in star destroying Guitar solo mimicry cascade of brutally loud audial magma, smothering the florid instrumentation beneath and sealing it’s essence within like the petrified humans of Pompeii. When Berserk truly lets rip to maul and malign Dope Purple’s intense, generative psychedelia their collaborative power is orgasmically revealed, rupturing the prone instrumentations at their seams and bursting their sweet juices and potent fluids all over the innerspace. This is an addictively harsh tapestry of delirious voluminous psychedelia. Heads & Hearts only.

WV Sorcerer Productions 巫唱片

CALCINATED – ‘MORGUE SERENITY’

Calcinated is a pathological Goregrind/Deathgrind project from Mexico, featuring members of a host of reprehensible Goregrind and Gorenoise bands including Putrefuck, Septic Autopsy and the reprehensibly disgusting Fetal Deformity to name just three.  Anatomical old school as fuck Goregrind pungent with the influence of very old death metal and early grindcore, replete with razor sharp metallic guitar elements and rife with ping snare and raw 00’s production, a diabolical combination of goregrind symptoms resultant in a truly cadaverous and memorable record. Rhythms veer from mid paced punk gore stomp to very fast and detailed deathgrinding blasting abandon, bizarre breakdowns and deathly double bass grooves abound, with complex lithe riffing besmirched by noisy production, howling pitch-shifted bleghs and creepy retching Carcass worshipping vocal, and flesh ripping sonorous lead guitars, littered with overwrought sampling (as dogma demands). Calcinated is at least a severed head above the competition here. Wretched!

Rectal Purulence

Bandcamp

THANATOPSIS – ‘DEFLESHED IN EXCREMENTS’

Thanatopsis’ 2010 demo/EP ‘Defleshed In Excrements’, an all-too-short gorging of ecstatically, hideously decayed Goregrind excellence. I first became aware of this international project reading through A. Ringdahl/Hyperemesis’s interview on the now deceased Braindead Zine, and seeking out their excellent split together. Properly putrefied and shambolic, caste of dread deadly Death and Grind riffing and brief blasting noisy song structure, clotted rictus drumming ridden with filth and stench, vocal of the decomposed roars and wretches with agonising pitch shifted putrefaction, each odious sound captured in obscure, gutterbloated 4 track-sounding tape. Exceptionally raw, filthy, punk as fuck Goregrind from corporeal degeneration and morbid biological disgust.  Aside from their massively overlooked full-length ‘Stages Of Decomposition’, this is my favourite Thanatopsis material. Exhume and consume, ghouls.

No Physical Productions

SIMIAN STEEL – ‘MISSING FUCKING LINK’

International ape unit Simian Steel’s first full length, a torment of mean-as-shit Sludge featuring members of Fistula and OG IxM guitarist (and current Bass player in their re-animated ranks) Steve Watson. A pitch black evocation of tar-thick criminal Sludge and Doom caste in cigarette smoke and diesel fumes. Groove-soaked, imposingly syrupy alcoholic riffs of forlorn self-loathing locked into metronomic, battering, pendulous rhythms, heavy handed and thunderous, adorned with extremely Morrow-summoning vocal exhortations, depressions and ululation, the work of under-evolved gruff bastards in thrall to the Iron masters. Caustic, thuggish and cruel.  A direct comparison to another band is about as lazy as it gets, but c’mon, they’re called Simian Steel for fuck’s sake. They’re dancing around an enormous Iron Monkey effigy like the inbred tribes of Kong on skull island! And theirs is a brute, foul worship, their Sludge idol made utterly fucking ugly in their creator’s fearsome image – hideously aggressive, hormonally enraged, teeth bared and feral! A feast of mean-spirits for the terminally unemployable. For my money, a far more appealing proposition than Iron Monkey’s comeback full length.

Black Mold Records