CEPHALOCHROMOSCOPE

Robocop (Maine, USA) - Robocop II (2011)

2012-02-03T18:02:00.008+01:00

Tracklist:
1. Intro
2. I Hope All Your Friends Die
3. Assassination Markets
4. Feminism Über Alles
5. Car Sex Crash
6. Fed to the Wolves
7. CBMP
8. Cut Up
9. You Suffer (Napalm Death, as if one man had wondered...)
10. Skramz
11. Maine is the Bastard
12. Aftermathematics
13. Outro

I did already mention how Maine's own Robocop "makes you wonder how no band already made claims of instant ejaculation upon Alexander James Murphy's cold, metallic touch, how no non-cyborg organically dreamt up Burroughs-style phallic flesh-guns, machine-gun-hands, the morning shaving ritual resulting with resistors & transistors on the rusty yet self-aware razor, pre- or post- Verhoeven or, uh, Shinya Tsukamoto." At least aesthetically, Robocop made a futuristic move for powerviolence, an inevitable act akin to what Discordance Axis did for grind's often faceless political, erm, face, and gave the genre some new colors, some more noise, all scary and bleak but more immediate and contemporary in the best senses of both words, if art does indeed imitate life. That said, I don't want to be repeating the words of a certain Mr. C as I am, more often than not, late to the party, althought there might be just as little sense in repeating how I am generally repeating myself in & out of this sentence. This is why I'll get to rambling as I often do when I see no future for any given text as an useful review anyway, especially as I've used up all my sexy adjectives in that post about their 2009 demo.

"This is the brave new world of hardcore," concluded Mr. C, and I like it. Concerning my own comment on Robocop establishing somewhat new concepts, if not riffs, within their respected line of PUNK, it might be nice to reflect on some newer happenings, releases, in this whole "extreme music" deal. For example, the frontman of that band Liturgy put out his "Transcendental Black Metal Manifesto" and I think this sort of content is an awesome novelty, although it might, actually, be a pretty damn retro thing to do, as most of us have at least heard about all those (predominantly avant-garde) manifestos throughout modern (art) history. So I find it interesting, even if I might consider the content pretentious, vain, shitty, etc. Did similar things myself, with my own crap, like 鞠螺千世, although the destructive/dadaist mode might give it a paradoxically anti-intellectual aesthetic, whereas the actual music, the sounds, are fairly naive beyond specifics like "the blastbeat" or some of the elements of actual composition, sample placement, whatever. No hypocrisy. We're all concerned with aesthetics. Page, too, in regard to Robocop (or Body Hammer). This is why we get to observe such nice artwork along with the album, with informative notes and Baudrillard quotes, and I might not even like this Baudrillard guy (or that Barthes guy, thus the song titled "Death of Roland Barthes") and his postmodernist complications of reality, although I might've lost not only Ockham's razor, but the usual razor, too, and shaving machines still look and act like Cronenberg fathered 'em. Alright, man, I've lost my train of thought by now... Merely recalling something about the difference between words & actions and a bunch of barely comprehensive bits against academia. So hey, just listen to "Maine is the Bastard" for a very effective Robocop experience - if it ain't powerviolence, I don't know what is - where each alienating chug is worthy of that ecstatic cyborg-gone-awry finale.

Get it over @ Randall's Grindcore Karaoke.

Sakatat, Archagathus (Turkey, Canada) - Ucuz Can Pazari, Slaughter-Extinction Split 7'' (2008)

2012-01-31T23:47:00.010+01:00

A whole load of minced riffs - a genre one might better call ''shish grind'' (or simply ''šiš pank'' in our upper Balkans here). 'Cause hey, ''mincecore''? Not much better, really. On the other hand, pretty much everybody has had a close encounter with a kebab by now, and some of you also with čevapćići, I am certain. Perhaps the bands here sing against this whole culture of shish (yet, wouldn't ''sakatat'' translate to something along the lines of ''offal'', anyhow? [or '' gut''?] / best name of all the mince-names, there). Perhaps, if I got to the point, I could sell you a few lines about Agathocles worship (as it is what the Archagathi generally profess, you know, in life + a Sakatat cover), about all this damn beautiful noise, wild things that make my heart sing, and so on, but you gotta feel informative to be informative, and this is music to men mincing their own flesh.

Shish ke-punk (Mediafire)

Šiš panker je onaj s istetoviranom jetrom. I see I messed up a few titles (like "Archagatus"), the year, etc., so type a few new letters there if you believe it matters. Was certainly on To Live A Lie. What else? Don't know. BUT, relevant to all the Sakatat, you can check out a one-question-interview on the one-and-only Grind & Punishment.

Sakatat, Matka Teresa (Turkey, Poland/Netherlands) - Devletin Terörü Kimi Koruyor? / No Justice No Peace Split 7'' (2011)

2012-01-31T23:43:00.011+01:00

Fastcore, grindcore, etc. What the Sakatat trio pulls of is comparable to a drill the size of a train merely doing its thing. Yup, they're naturals. And not only are they devastating by themselves, but they also do an Assück cover on this one (Wall of Shame). Matka Teresa, on the other hand, like the slow, filthy violence, but - of course - only in-between "lenghty" amounts of The Speed. Sure, they might sound like Mother Theresa, had she ever come to her senses, however, some sort of influence was obviously imposed upon Sakatat, here, as they also decomposed a few of their riffs into greasy slabs of sludge. But only a few. As for the distros, uh, there's a list here.

Suck at THAT, Mother Theresa! (Mediafire)

For some reason I immensely enjoy talking about Assück, a band with all the right notions, 'cause civilization comes, civilization goes... "Quarantined by the plague of government. Ideological barriers of ignorance. Lives changed by concrete. Suppressed by autocracies throughout the centuries." Lives changed by concrete, man.

Sakatat, Mesrine (Turkey, Canada) - Tahammül Etmek Kabul Etmek Demek, Christ Benoit/Modern Void Split 7'' (2011)

2012-01-31T23:26:00.007+01:00

Tracklist:
Mesrine
1. Christ Benoit
2. Modern Void
Sakatat
3. Meydanlar
4. Bu Duzen Hepimizi Bir Gecede Harcayabilir
5. Kayip
6. Truth Behind (Dropdead)
7. Tahammul Etmek Kabul Etmek Demek

Mesrine might be the slickest band in the following split-series, but worry not about lack of filth! Our blessed sewers are filthy as fuck, but they are also damn slick so all the cool crocodiles can have a nice time. It is this same line of thought that Mesrine employ while reflecting about you, their listener. As for Sakatat, I hope you've already received this Turkish gift... Contains blastbeats, and no goddamn bass - Ha! They've put out several split releases in 2011, some of which I'll post up right away, but I have a feeling that you'll be seeing more Sakatat in general on here. Damn good stuff, complemented by a Dropdead cover (a nice affinity of theirs / recording one cover for each release, including, for example, Sore Throat, Assück, Agathocles, as you'll see).

SAKAKAKA... (Mediafire)

Two main ones to get it at: To Live A Lie & Bucho Discos.

No Qualms (Florida, USA) - No, You Calm Down! (2011)

2012-01-31T23:14:00.007+01:00

Tracklist:
1. Thirst
2. Tied Down
3. Unimpressed
4. Power
5. First Cop
6. Own?
7. Church
8. Grenade
9. Scarred
10. Dark Clouds
11. No Qualms

My man Alex sent me this powerviolent as fuck mates' of his band a while ago (his link beneath; also, apparently members of Khann, Republicorpse, aaand...), and I've no qualms about my No Qualms experience. "A band of failed musicians lashing out at the society that won't listen to them," in short, but other than that, they keep on thrashing and that bass sometimes sounds like the one and only sweet shit for the soul, stuck in some Lovecraftian pit, recently buried alive, shoveled with shitloads of badly influential bands `a la Despise You, maybe even a little Man is the Bastard, and God knows what else there is as inappropriate on our Earth. Turns out, a whole load of stuff; e.g. The Police, The Police Academy (one to infinity), Robocop (not the band, but, you know, the REAL robot policeman), and the First Cop, to whom, I mean, into whom No Qualms pummel their bed-time / death-time song, all the while humming that theme from Pulp Fiction. But who is he, this First Cop? The Son of God? YOUR son? Either way, this guy, this organ, is certainly not innocent, otherwise No Qualms wouldn't have any qualms about the whole dreadful affair.

No, Despise You! (Mediafire)

Unimpressed first cop tied down scarred. Church power grenade. No qualms. Do the twist.

Shaken Baby (Belgium) - Phantasmagoria (2011)

2012-01-20T17:29:00.006+01:00

To be honest, I might've grown quite tired of d-beat a relatively long while ago, but Shaken Baby is certainly more than just another one of, you know, those. Both fast and swampy, barely dissonant, rhythmically often unpredictable, with a finely woven modern vibe `a la His Hero is Gone or some less obvious band like that, but if it ain't punk I don't know what it is + nice drumming courtesy of Jasper, who is also know as cover artist & brother of the man behind the guitar - Owen - whom you also probably remember for the at least as nice drumming in Kasatka. That is, if you know your fast bands. The final track is classic - a noise track - the worth of which depends on preference (I mean, I liked it), but hey, Shaken Baby is another awesome Belgian band projects to which I can ascribe the "awesome-", and leave out the ''post-'' prefix.

Time for hyperhyperhypersex. (Mediafire)

China Syndrome (Belgium) - Demo (2008)

2012-01-20T17:24:00.004+01:00

[anticover]

Tracklist:
1. Covered in Shit
2. Feast
3. Cancer
4. Nationwide Mindfuck
5. Black Clouds
6. Cut and Paste Reality

More d-beatery from the Owen (Kasatka) camp, still keeping it interesting. ''But how?'' you might ask. ''How does one keep a band heavy on the d-beat interesting?'' Blastbeats, what else. Yet, despite the addition of the mystical blastbeat, the greasy riffs and composition in-general make China Syndrome the most traditional of the bands in this series; I'm talking about Shaken Baby (one up), Days of Desolation, and Kasatka. Thinking about what else to say, I'm feeling a bit burned out, but it better be obvious that all the bands are well worth your while - if you enjoy the sort of sound described, naturally + what do you know about the Belgian scene beside the goddamn godly gods known as Agathocles, eh? Here's a nice 'n' easy 'n' quality chance for you to learn something new!

If the blastbeat = b-beat, then what = d-beat? (Mediafire)

Days of Desolation & The League of Mentalmen (Belgium) - Split 7" (2010?)

2012-01-20T17:06:00.005+01:00

So Belgium's got at least two very different bands. Days of Desolation deliver two gloomy, metallized chunks of d-beat driven determination, very tight in performance, all-out melodic or not at all, a bit epic in sound (can't quite pinpoint why, but track two, ''Malignancies'', reminded me of the excellent Suicide Nation from Arizona / might be the clean parts). The League of Mentalmen, on the other hand, sport a filthy as fuck guitar-distrotion that would make Dream Theater sound sloppy and/or cool. Nice shit violence that some predominantly Californian bastard children of music like the Agents of Satan might enjoy and/or do indecent things to. Things like making out, I guess...

You might have won the d-battle, but... (Mediafire)

Kasatka (Belgium) - Demo (2008)

2012-01-20T17:00:00.002+01:00

[anticover]

Tracklist:
1. Filth
2. Harbinger
3. False Gods
4. Depredation
5. Pastey White Lies (Machine Gun Romantics)

You better remember the first cephalappearance of Kasatka! If not, do click. So here's the two-thousand-and-eight demo, obviously, and it's a great thing for those who were left wanting more (thrashing, play-time, attention...) after the decisive piece of thrash that Scene Slaughter was. Yup, seems like I said most of it in the relevant post, but I'll throw some keywords for the new ones: thrash, fastcore, punk as fuck, nice drumming. Also, no bass guitar, but that bass drum sure sounds sticky.

Beating a dead snare. (Mediafire)

Owen sent me three more releases from the relevant family of bands, so I'll get to posting the rest up right about now.

C.S.S.O. [JPN] - Are You Excrements? [2001]

2011-12-02T17:06:00.004+01:00

my apologies for the lack of activity, in a perfect world, humans and deers would share highways in harmony, cellphones would have cords and not only popcorn would be free, but you would get paid to eat it.

living download a go go [mediafire].

Vipe, Downsided (USA) - Split tape (2011)

2011-11-20T07:08:00.008+01:00

Tracklist:
Vipe
1. Racist School 00:55
2. You're Wreckt 00:22
3. Sick 00:38
4. Extinction Mastiff II 00:35
5.Fucking Skunkbone Fortress 01:00
6. A Sworded Paw II 00:40
7. About A Girl (Nirvana) 01:05
8. Lake C.D.A. Wilderness Reggie Miller 02:41
Downsided
9. Spare Ribs 00:40
10. Quitter 00:35
11. Black Realm 01:00
12. Untitled 02:27
13. Re-enter the Womb 03:55

The split was only mentioned in the last post as it was uncomplete - Vipe side only. Keith was nice enough to take care of that, though, so now this one is also up in its entirety.

I've got my concrete reasons for liking Vipe. It is certain that they thrash away, but a lot of bands do. Vipe, on the other hand, is not as half-assed a band to pertain to some fairly defined restrictions in a scene with a well-established circle jerk fancy (this aspect certainly exists and I find it negative). While they do keep the unrelenting principle of the forementioned method, their approach makes for a fresh, recognizable sound, and showcases vitality somewhat reminiscent of, for example, Antioch Arrow. The main difference between this split here and the previous one is not as much a novelty as a greater conviction in thrashing, warranting an even faster endeavour. That said, their existentialist cover of Nirvana's "About a girl" is certain the best that I've ever heard!
Downsided, with the stench of sludge to their thrash, runs more along the well-trodded path of powerviolence, but everything might not be as familiar as it seems... The wonderful sort of band to haul greasy chunks of discontent at you with just as much conviction as their split-partners, but with disconcerting unease. The paradox makes the sound, and all of a sudden one faraway Idaho seems fucked up.

Harness the power of speed! (Bandcamp)

Vipe, Cat Massacre (USA) - Control Force SPLIT (2010)

2011-10-10T16:56:00.010+02:00

Tracklist:
Vipe
1. Impostor 01:00
2. Joey, Johnny, Tommy, Dee Dee, Joel-Peter 01:12
3. Extinction Mastiff 01:21
4. Shove the White Teen Lamanites 01:21
5. I Got Shoved 00:28
6. Wuss 01:20
7. A Sworded Paw 01:35
8. Die In Rathdrum, Fucker 01:04
9. Bloodmite 01:22
Cat Massacre
10. Cat Massacre 01:06
11. Scorpion Wins 01:25
12. Drink More Eat Less 00:24
13. Jay Pfiffer 01:14
14. Ass-Phyxiation 01:28
15. Georgie 00:10
16. Candle Lit Shit 00:42
17. CxDxBxSx 01:42

Vipe & Cat Massacre made me remember hardcore punk, made me feel how much I miss hardcore punk in recent life. 'Control Force' is their out of control split CDr where both bands get to thrashing the fuck away with the same willpower that makes Adrenaline O.D. immortal; two bands holding hands, singing "Ramma lamma, fa fa fa-" or, rather, "Rock 'n' roll gas station..."

The sound of blisters bursting from corpse-painted foreheads into a sunset out of Mad Max is what Cat Massacre strives toward (Candle Lit Shit is a blackened punk hit above anything that Teen Cthulhu ever did), whereas Vipe breaks out of the hardcore closet now and then by some sort of blazing post-punk extravaganza (pay attention to 'Wuss'?!), but let's just hope that they remain an awesome punk band, never to become a pretty good U2 cover band.

Just kidding - thanks for sending, dudes.

Pump gas, kick ass. (Bandcamp)

I'm not crazy. You're the one that's crazy. Vipe broke up, but you can check out their (faster, with blastbeats) side of the Vipe / Downsided split right here.

Syntax (USA) - DEMO (2009)

2011-10-09T18:17:00.002+02:00

Tracklist:
1. Expanded Universe
2. Rape Aesthetic
3. Elegy
4. Yinchorri Uprising
5. Evacuation Plan
6. Shattered Teeth (The Advantages of Disadvantage)
7. Empty Sky (Promise)
8. The Myth of Sisyphus
9. Throne (Instrumental)

Syntax, as a band of Discordance Axis worshipers and general noise & speed enthusiasts, is another band that ought to have been posted on cephscope much, much earlier. Had someone played me, for example, 'Elegy' without letting me know about what I'm listening to, I'd probably ask something along the lines of... "Has Chang unearthed some lost recordings or is DxAx back together?" Sounds like Asterisk performing in a space between Ulterior and Jouhou, all the way down to a perceivable "lack" of distortion on the guitar, and a thin, trashcan presence of the snare.

A part of me enjoys the shit out of the demo, and I heartily recommend it to any grind & Disco Axis fan, yet in the end I'd really, really like to hear something more from the band. It is also somewhat understandable if this is exactly what they want out of their sound, but I'd still ask of them to review the ranks of wondrous, wide-eyed DxAx worshippers that they've joined by the power of these recordings, e.g. Asterisk, White Eyes, Agents of Abhorrence, Jesus Egg...

BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL! (Mediafire)

That's what they're doing, there, investing their efforts by the power of a castle, while it is the castle that really contains the power. Build your own castle! And, "He-Man"?! How fucked up and suggestive is that, especially in certain other languages, where you'd pronounce He-Man and hymen the exactly same way... Andrew's similar thoughts are to be found on Grind & Punishment.

ATOMÇK, PAUCITIES (Newport/Bristol & Chicago) - SPLIT 7'' (2010)

2011-10-09T17:54:00.004+02:00

Tracklist:
ATOMÇK
1. Finite Crisis
2. Dark Prism Strategy
3. Difference Maker
4. Invincible Phoenix Discharge
5. Copyright Carnage
PAUCITIES
6: Tyrant Mania
7: Solitare (The tenth sub-level of mince-icide)

I'm running much too late on this, and many other releases to take note of that were sent my way, but by now I'd hope that "better late than never" is cool in regard to grindcore. For some release-info:

"ATOMÇK are based in Newport/Bristol- they began life as a ANb style diversion before aquiring the tub skills of Czech drummer Marzena (HIBAKUSHA, varous other Czech groups). This took the sound in more of a D'AXIS direction yadda yadda.
Chicago's PAUCITIES bring violent, raw mincecore that worships Agathocles and Unseen Terror. Featuring members of WINTERS IN OSAKA and SOCIALL RETARDED, this lot got together in 2009 to bring the grind."

ATOMÇK often break the Code of Speed either for a more technical, "controlled chaos" approach, or for a display of metallic dissonance, with the sound of double-bass bullets bitten by an all-fucked-up, very delinearised 4th dimension, whereas PAUCITIES, as mentioned, enjoy sucking on the disgusting ol' cysts of Agathocles and Repulsion.

The bands decided to put it all up for free (+ nicely packaged) over at archive.org, the rest depends on YOU.

V/A - This is the Life vol.7

2011-08-29T01:30:00.005+02:00

the last installment arrr have to offer, and a well-rounded one, can't all be hits, there wouldn't be tits without misuses, the hyundai and the slang, you see how shallow i'm taking this? zillions of zmobies!

kiss my kilobyte ass [mediafire]!

V/A - This is the Life vol.6 [2002]

2011-08-20T01:47:00.005+02:00

if gianni versace played bass for Disturd they wouldn't be any disputes over kashmir.

fihgt back [mediafire]!

V/A - This is the Life vol.5 [2001]

2011-08-09T01:50:00.005+02:00

strong volume here, still no grindcore but fairly enjoyable for any asian hardcore enthusiast.

cring [mediafire]!

V/A - THIS IS THE LIFE vol.4 [1999]

2011-07-31T06:10:00.007+02:00

to be honest, i didn't listen to those previous compilations in years, i'm spoiled, i need straightforward instant intellectually stimulating musical gratification and time is fickle, why haven't i heard of micro symphonies yet? thirty seconds is plenty of time to express an ample array of emotions. any-who, i sat through every entirenesses of vol.4 [only entertained the idea of skipping the In Dub track] and it features lots of youth hardcore-type of hardcores, although i use the word "youth" for no apparent logical reason, some bands faster and more memorable than others. only Scare Crow manages some cute kind of grindcore, nothing to warrant a tag, but hey, The Futures rock.

break down, load slow [mediafire].

V/A - THIS IS THE LIFE vol.3 [1999]

2011-07-26T19:05:00.004+02:00

It only takes one grindcore apple to spoil the hardcore barrel.

MPa [mediafire].

Blatant Self-Aggrandisement (Zalhietzli + Zugzwang Productions)

2011-07-22T17:24:00.000+02:00

Boy has it been a long time since my last post.

So today I'm going talk to to you about two things. The first one is my solo musical project Zalhietzli.

Zalhietzli is a personal project I had in mind for several years now, and I am happy to announce its first demo release, Sainte Rita.

Zalhietzli (or ZLTZ, for short) mixes noise, ambient, loops, feedback, soundscape & various sounds manipulations. This first release contains three tracks, for 24mn. You can hear the demo in its entirety on the Bandcamp page.

The demo will be released on tape in september.

The second thing I wanted to talk to you about (that should have been the first thing but I thought that Zalhietzli cover was cooler) is my music label I started in january, Zugzwang Productions.

Zugzwang is music label dedicated to extreme & alternative music. We* release records on limited editions (max. 100 copies) on CDr and tapes, with the focus of making all of these records a special object. For each release, we design and create a packaging that is completely handmade.

Just browse the blog, and you will find pictures of our previous releases.

Zalhietzli's first demo will be released by Zugzwang on september, for a limited of 20 copies on tape.

Feel free to spread the word about these two projects, and to purchase our products !

Thank you for your attention.

*Well, "I" actually, but saying "we" sounds more pro, know what I mean ?

V/A - THIS IS THE LIFE vol.2 [1997]

2011-07-18T04:09:00.007+02:00

Funny thing happened, I received a check from the canadian government addressed to my own succession and I have no recollections whatsoever of mistakenly attaching a death certificate to my taxation forms. Anywho, for you people who still await for an update, I hope you like rainbows and japanese hardcore.

THIS IS THE DOWNLOAD [mediafire].

News

2011-06-07T17:56:00.003+02:00

So hey, I guess I could've, maybe even should've written this one much earlier.

Long story short - Cephalochromoscope ain't dead. But my computer's been in a coma for a while now - as has Orfee's scanner - and I've been quite busy with whatever I've been busy with. Some of the machines are finally resurrecting, though, so new posts are to be expected soon. And - for all those who sent me emails - replies to you, too.

That's about it, really. ;)

.karlo

antiétat (Croatia) - symbolic destruction DEMO (2011)

2011-03-24T23:36:00.007+01:00

Rijeka, Croatia unpleasant grindviolence duo. The (new) name is a simplistic punk as fuck nod to common sense punk simplicity, while the sound is an ode to the Sound and the Fury and destruction in general. We're just restarting to play, so here's some older shit (presumably late 2009 to 2010) with a fairly extreme lo-fi anti-charm.

Smash the symbols! (Mediafire)

Flourishing (USA) - A Momentary Sense of the Immediate World EP (2010)

2011-03-24T23:11:00.004+01:00

Tracklist:
1. Harvesting
2. Fixture
3. Watching Sparrows
4. Feeling So At Ease
5. Snake Charmer
Total playing time 16:33

Concerning the last few posts, I sure hope I'm doing The Path Less Traveled Records a favor rather than reducing their sales. Actually, with two of them I'm already covered, but this whole area sure is gray. In any case, just looking at the label's band roster proved to be an exciting experience (e.g. Body Hammer, Humanity Falls, and Flourishing here), so downright props to the project. Read the blog, too, over here.

C/P TWO / A MOMENTARY SENSE OF THE IMMEDIATE WORLD:
I like the album title a whole lot - could it be said that it defines what might be called a stark contrast of present day, civilized perception, as in: man's animalistic / intuitive ability to sense the world all at once, as what is, rather than what it was, what it could, should, or might be, as hindered by interpretation in symbols, letters, language, art (sound familiar? I'll not be the one to namedrop any authors for several reasons, including the setting + concept of the blog). Flourishing consists of the classic three-man band set up, pretty tight and flowing. I've heard their death metal being described as under the influence of Discordance Axis, even, but I seriously don't know what that's all about - A Momentary Sense of the Immediate World is like Lykathea Aflame's Elvenfris pulled to the more established, darker side of death metal, so here's to the frequent namedropping of Immolation & Gorguts.

Flour-ishin' (Fire to the Media)

Humanity Falls (USA) - Ordaining the Apocalypse (2010)

2011-03-24T22:39:00.004+01:00

Tracklist:
1. No Room for Ingenuity
2. Prolonging the Inevitable
3. To Have or To Be?
4. The False Enmity
5. Denounced Manifestation
6. At the Temple of Everlasting Condemnation
7. Ordaining the Apocalypse
8. Immoral Abhorrence
9. Of Divine Nature
Total playing time 31:15

Sponsored by laziness, I bring you this post. Well, at least in part, 'cause Humanity Falls is definitely a damn cool band that deserves some more attention + the means of quality recording / mixing / mastering / whatever the fuck. And I don't know why I swear so much. You should hear me in Croatian/Serbian - it's even worse. Fucking fuck fuck fuck... ;D

*wink* *wink* Just yesterday I thought to myself, why not start winking at people in the streets? *wink* Irrelevantly, i.e. Ctrl + C, I'm rarely the one to whine about the production job, but whereas the Worlds 7" was kickass noise, Ordaining the Apocalypse sounds as if it was recorded with a few cheap mics in a badly isolated garage (simply put, the lack of bass is much too apparent). Nonetheless, we get to hear thirty-three minutes of very interesting death-grind falling somewhere in-between Discordance Axis and Immolation / Gorguts / good death metal - as such, it simply cannot be dubbed not-disgustingly-awesome by anyone sane. That goddamn drummer doesn't spend a moment slacking off and it sounds as if he could kick his own ass (is he sufficiently loud off-record, though?), but I hope that - in the future - the whole band manages to pull their approach together for a less cut 'n' paste sound. That said, Humanity Falls let go off so many lazy metal gimmicks with both their sound and lyrics pertaining to philosophy and such, yet they showcase classically old school death metal cover art that could fool just about anyone in regard to the level of the material within, a tracklist topped off with a Pattern Blue cover for fuck's sake! Keeping an eye on these guys.

Dr. Andrew also just put up a review over at Grind & Punishment, explaining how you can also download it at Deathgrindfreak's address with zero objections from the band. Do it.

Body Hammer (USA) - Jigoku (2009)

2011-03-23T15:43:00.007+01:00

Tracklist:
1. Severe Aural Torture
2. The Bystander Effect
3. Direct Digital Drive
4. Blue Eyed Assassin
5. MPD Psycho
6. No Fucking Way
7. The Principles and Practices of Nihilism
8. Inherent Agoraphobia
9. Greatknife
10. It's Not Even Human, Shove it Back In
11. Red Pyramid
12. 29 Second Stairway
13. 2 Minute Stairway
14. The Square Root of 964
15. Deeper Into The Abyss
16. Jigoku
17. When Mental Anguish Exceeds The Physical Capability for Pain
18. Untitled
Total playing time 34:28

A certain sort of sound may reflect off Japanese cyberpunk visuals, and it sure as hell ain't grunge. Jigoku is an aural reproduction of the scene where Tetsuo - the real Iron Man - exhibits his infamous drill-cock shenanigans, bent on making you reconsider your machine / cyborg sexual fetishism, i.e. Ryan Page wants YOU to be uncomfortable, thus he offers an elucidation regarding the emptiness inherent in the notion of "humanist technology". Including a monumental nod to Discordance Axis (MPD Psycho), Body Hammer is heavy on the atmosphere of several psychological disturbances, yet calling the project "ambiental" doesn't quite cut it as there is a definite rawness pertaining to its (hyper-)blastbeat-happy grind roots: a claustrophobic, steamy, tubular quality pervades all tracks, like light pollution and apathetic nihilism pervade what we call our cities, highly developed civilization, total lethargy made the equivalent of zen. Sure, I am but dealing in symbols, but it's all I've left anyhow if Page is anywhere near prophetic with his music.

Direct Digital Drive (Mediafire)

Get Jigoku from the very nice Path Less Traveled Records in a DVD case, at that.

Sila (Poland) - Demo Autumn 2009 (2009, eh?)

2011-03-20T15:19:00.007+01:00

Tracklist:
01. powietrze
02. maath-maa
03. krzycz
04. zmierzch odrodzenia
05. bydło
06. syn wisielca
Total playing time 16:48

Sila is a Polish "math rock / progressive grind" band. The description is utter nonsense seeing as the music doesn't have much to do with either genre, yet somehow it still remains pretty fucking awesome. Sufficiently retrospective, I'd think of Gorguts spread on the floor, but the math to Sila's dissonance is a fairly different deal, the best impressionist sound evaluation being certainly in regard to the Norwegian kings of dissonant death metal, Diskord. Depending on what they aim for, still seems like Sila have a long way to go, but they've already made their music a similar, beautifully disgusting thing, dragging itself on the floor, so my only complaint is more of a suggestions, really - less math, more improv, 'cause I could never enjoy Meshuggah.

Chords to the dis. (archive.org)

God Harvest (USA) - DEMO (2011)

2011-03-20T14:49:00.004+01:00

Tracklist:
1. Infidel
2. Feed Us
3. Crucifacial
4. Untitled
5. Human Holocaust
6. Genetic Death
Total playing time 11:36

God Harvest is another fresh, damn nice (fairly) grind band from Florida and this is their demo. Bass heavy, angry, catchy, metallic yet punk as fuck / bits of melody, bits of dissonance, these five dudes long for blastbeatitude by the Way of Nasum. If it means anything, they've been playing with ace bands, too; e.g. the mad Vaccine, a speed freakshow that Alex coincidentally posted some days ago over here. That said, the download includes the lyrics - cheers to that!

"We have subjected ourselves to a dying hive of unsustainable mindset and disillusion
man's blood
the last sacrifice to alleviate the pain."

O internet, hungry internet. (Mediafire)

Personally, I need more blastbeats.

Robocop (Maine, USA) - Demo (2009)

2011-02-22T13:38:00.010+01:00

Tracklist:
1. Intro / I Hope All Your Friends Die
2. Assasination Markets
3. Caucasian Big Man Power
4. Feminism Uberalles
5. Scram, Kidz!
6. Substitute Creature
7. Outro
Total playing time 12:03

Maine hybrid punx empowered by the Bastard violence, makes you wonder how no band already made claims of instant ejaculation upon Alexander James Murphy's cold, metallic touch, how no non-cyborg organically dreamt up Burroughs-style phallic flesh-guns, machine-gun-hands, the morning shaving ritual resulting with resistors & transistors on the rusty yet self-aware razor, pre- or post- Verhoeven or, uh, Shinya Tsukamoto. Anyone the least familiar with my person is also familiar with my powerless, ambivalent cyberpunk fetish, hence I cannot claim disinterest in Ryan Page's projections of allegedly rational, yet irrationally steamy sounds. Robocop is powerviolence done the old school way, but their trudgin' sludge - nervous, coarse punk juxtaposition echoes off of skyscraper windows and the blind, alienating surge of technology, despite the classic inside jokes ever-present in this vague genre.

You can get the demo here, but I also ought to mention how Randall (ANb) picked 'em up, "put out" their Robocop II full-length effort free for download over at Grindcore Karaoke + Childer's kickass review skills at Grind & Punishment.

0100 The year 2010 through a Cephalochromoscope (Part 1/4)

2011-02-02T22:01:00.007+01:00

I know I'm late. Can't travel back in time, anyhow. If I had to, I'd say that 2010 took the cake in the sludge / slower department in general; bands like Thou, Harvey Milk, Cough, The Body, the new, improved version of Bastard Noise, and much, much more (and sure, I've missed some potentially ace / probably metal ones, e.g. the new Immolation, but I don't really care to hear about it unless it's grind). Not to worry, though, 'cause I've suffered through a great lot of blastbeats anyhow. Deliberately ignoring a lot of titles like, uh, the new Rotten Sound EP, there was still a metric fuckton of boring, vapid, cliched material left to feed on my compulsive urges, so here's a belated New Year's Fuck You to myself. Before indulging into the humongous, cryptic pile of text below (an overview of 2010 releases without a rating system), stop idolizing and romanticizing whatever shit you like to listen to. If you wished to do so, you could download just about any of these releases by typing the band name, the title of the record, and the infamous "mediafire" into Google's indiscreet search bar. That said, on a personal note / in retrospect, the whole year seemed too fast for its own good, yet I've opaque imagery from France to Serbia to stand as its monument, with some old projects, some new ones, some finished (e.g. sketchgrind), some not, shitloads of books - and even more booze - behind, several notebooks still to transcribe, and many blastbeats scattered timelessly. Two thousand and ten, I'm gonna start with the fast shit and let it burn itself out!

INDEX

I. Haste 1.1

- shiny grind

- assück

- grind and powerviolence BFF

- czechoslovacore

- a-thrashin'

I. Haste 1.2

- emo

- non-grind blastbeats

- hardbone, uh, badcore, erm, hardcore?

- punk as fuck

- not punk as fuck

II. Slow down and die

- winning a sludge contest is like

- avant-garde, why so slow?

- manowar wannabes

- noisy boner for the stoner

- too slow for school

END.

0100 The year 2010 through a Cephalochromoscope (Part 2/4)

2011-02-02T21:59:00.006+01:00

HASTE 1.1

/shiny grind - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[downright first class stuff]

Kill The Client - Set For Extinction
Not as abrasive, intense, or catchy as Cleptocracy, but Kill The Client is certainly still among the top of grindcore today, so now's the time to decide whether they want to become another Phobia or broaden their area of destruction. Slow down, add some melody, etc.? Fuck no. And stop sludging it up. I'm just looking at bands like Noisear and GridLink trying to become the blastbeat. Bryan Fajardo, you grind my gears. As for Witte, I hear he's playing with Black Army Jacket again, so hey, I'm not the one to wait for things to happen, but it's cool if they do.

Defeatist - The Sixth Extinction
I don't know what's up, but it's the relatively same story with Defeatist's Sixth Extinction; not as harsh, not as piercing. I mean, fuck off with the nicer, tamer sounds. That said, We get to hear the same irrationally angry band with a sense for groove similar to older Kill The Client, but with much weirder shit going on once you give it a the deserved amount of attention. Speaking of which, what's up with the whole "Extinction" deal? I don't know, but I'm gonna let it pass in favor of non-stop thrashing with the odd, fearlessly Discordance Axis-reminiscing hook.

Parlamentarisk Sodomi, Blodsprut - Split
Papirmøllen is back, albeit with what is probably the final Parlamentarisk Sodomi material. Don't be too sad, 'cause Psudoku doesn't fall much behind in intensity, handing out free kicks in the balls to anyone who thought that his (not at all) irrational anger against the cockroach infestation known as the (or a, as in, any) Parlament could weaken the slightest bit. Vote for Norway Blackened Grind! Blodsprut, on the other hand, churns out short noisegrind pieces showing love without shame for the good shit (like Arsedestroyer, Final Exit).

Swarrrm, Atka - Split
You know a grind band's established its reputation as goddamn weird when Tsukasa Harakawa's breakdown vocals on the opening song, Maborosi, barely make anyone flinch anymore (the "term" "emogrind" is silly enough to describe them nicely / doesn't pertain to screamo). The song's melody / motif seems to be a Swarrrm classic, as a very similar track already exists in their catalog (Hallu, on the 10" split with Dimlaia; I know my Swarrrm better than the calendar date). Maboroshieeeeeaah! Japanese crazies aside, German madgrind Atka employ insane circular riffs to paint the gruesome evolution of grind, putting the genre where it hasn't quite been, and they do this in such a way that it makes you wonder, "Well, why not"? If you enjoyed that free 6 track EP of theirs, there's no way that their sweet, untitled 5min contribution to the split can disappoint.

I Abhor, Wormrot - Split
Fairly old-school sounding, yet dissonantly modern (a bit of the old Assück violence?), better write down I Abhor as pretty sweet Los Angeles grindcore with a beautiful tin trashcan sound to the snare. Such things frequently remind me of Damage Digital and everything that is not St. Anger. Wormrot, the Singaporean kings of grind, merely continue their reign. I don't even know where to start, but, considering Abuse, they don't step it down in the slightest, starting with Fit's insane drumming, continuing with the wide-ranged vocals, down to the dis-tuned guitar. Coming soon, the second full-length, Dirge.

Sakatat - Splits with Cut Your Throat, Dispepsiaa
More people are slowly getting to hear Sakatat's savage, despondent noise - a good thing, 'cause grind is at its rawest when fueled by misery. Simply put, their stuff is a lesson in ferocity to each and every band claiming to play this sort of music; shit, they even do covers of all the right bands (Sore Throat, S.O.B.), and most of the bands that they did splits with impressed me in a similar manner. Cheers to Sakatat!

White Eyes - Aneurysm EP
Insane, Discordance Axis-worshipping German grind / noisegrind, to an extent. Their debut full-length, Beastmode, was certainly one of the best grind releases in 2009, whereas this thing, with a playing time of 2:26, shows an even shorter, faster, noisier, more urgent side of White Eyes. Excellent band, abrasive as fuck!

/assück - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[now playing: plutocracy - suckass]

Cellgraft - Deception Schematic [posted]
Florida's young DIY grindcore enthusiasts put out another slab of proper blasting, topping it off with a sweet, sweet cover of Assück's Civilization Comes, Civilization Goes, albeit as sparse in length as any other of their offerings (seven and something min.). This one wasn't free for download (namely, it was released on 7" by No Reprieve Records), unlike:

Cellgraft - External Habitation [posted]
A mere three to four minutes longer, yet melting a far greater number of faces compared to Deception Schematic. Grind happens when you forget writing sensible music and just thrash away, speed tickets included. What meaning has your comprehension of my riff while we're thrashing, eh? But I love noise, y'know, and the Cellgraft guys love Assück, Insect Warfare, the Napalm Death eras that make you wonder how anything with a breakdown / aesthetically oriented metal in-general gets dubbed "grindcore".

Worlds - Unforeseen Paths 7" [posted]
One letter away from Japanese noisecore extravaganza "World", Worlds are almost as noisy within less than six and a half minutes of destructive motives made obvious, stepping out with the self-confidence of previous bands and a fairly brutal 56k modem sound sure to make many listeners whine their fucking heads off. Concerning the "previous bands" remark + continuing the series of Assück worshipping bands from Florida, here's one with an actual Assück member, apparently (pretty sure it's not Pavlovich, so... Heritage? I dunno; the growling's not that distinctive, regardless to the noise that the record realistically contains. Who's Spinach? A third guy?). Also, Asshole Parade, they say, but I don't know these things for sure.

Amputee - Demo [posted]
What's up with all the hairy, manly, silly and nonsexual love for Assück? Whatever it is, it does me well. A lot of raw, quality bands growing like some berserk form of mushroom, this time from the garden state, New Jersey. All of 'em like doing ending covers, too, but it seems like Amputee make a sort of punk statement by covering Infest's "Sick and Tired". Similar to Cellgraft, this DIY ethic and all? I can get behind that.

/grind and powerviolence BFF - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[and ever: the eternal circle of the blastbeat]

Plutocracy - Off the Pigs 12" EP (heh, heh)
Well, it's been a decade since Sniping Pigz, but Plutocracy's manic grindviolence sure hasn't changed much. I hope for your sake that you're more than familiar with the forementioned album, as well as their early nineties stuff, including the 1995 split with Discordance Axis. Off the Pigs brings back the excellent use of samples, a track by Bastard Noise's Eric Wood, a bunch of blastbeats, and even some guest vocals from Agents of Satan's own Lord Ballsack. Never stop sücking ass!

Phobia - Unrelenting EP
The title says it all, really. Phobia's a grind band that everyone knows & most people enjoy - the sort of band that hasn't slowed down since 1990, now (well, it's been a while) with Fajardo sitting behind their drumkit (spinning on the seat like a whirligig, I assume). I still like "Grind Your Fucking Head In" best, though, 'cause it's the one closest to its title (meaning that I prefer Fuck What You Think to If You Used To Be Punk, Then You Never Were). Blastbeats, man! Haven't heard that split with Gadget yet.

Quattro Stagioni - S/T EP
Their split with Iron Lung is how I originally got to hear Quattro Stagioni. The mere speed of the spazz behind the kit is enough to make the sturdiest, most experience fastcore enthusiast cringe in fucking terror - 'nuff said.

Magrudergrind - Crusher EP
Fuck Magrudergrind and their pathetic justification, a band now claiming never to have been political. Naturally, this is hypocritical bullshit. Does anybody still remember the all too recent full-length, with tracks named, for example, "Rejecting the Militant Promise"? Forget about that and have some lyrics from, what, 2003? "America on Alert" from Don’t Support Humanitary Aid That’s Led by the Church: "Anthrax up your nostrils / icon of power falls dead / no reason for innocent death / fuck profit off of patriotism." So if it’s never been political, it’s been purely decorative. How wonderful is that considering other just as nice lyrics, such as (back to 2009, the S/T once again): "...live with integrity, honesty / and then happiness will prevail / your reputation destroyed / by your own ignorant actions." How about applying this to yourselves, eh? Not doing so would imply disgusting double standards. Arrogantly reshaping reality in regard to their own musical purity or whatever you want to call it (as of 2010), Magrudegrind have become a hollow Willowtip / Rotten Sounding grind clone anyway (as of 2009), yet one not even nearly comparable to bands like Kill the Client (Ibid.). Records like the Owned EP are the definition of love thrash, but this nostalgia seems ripe for decapitation.

Nails - Unsilent Death
Thought about putting them in the (pretty vague) hardcore section, but fuck, this is some heavy & heavily metallized grind with a penchant for the chug of modern hardcore. When describing the sound that Nails vomit forth, their record label does a pretty good job of mentioning Swedish death metal celebrities Entombed!

Throats - S/T
Vaguely powerviolent, Throats is somewhat similar to Nails, albeit much more on the hardcore punk side of things. Six tracks of ravaging thrash averaging at about two minutes each, except for the almost seven minutes long bass-heavy closer, Oaken/Wait. Throats raged and raged and now they’re dead.

Unholy Grave - Immortal Grind Legion, Grind Hell, Grind Killers, Blast Mayhem...
These guys just don't know when to stop. Might be a good thing, too. Unholy Grave are known to kick ass when they want to, yet the uninspired mid-tempo albums make the band as interesting as a new Head & Shoulders commercial. What have I to argue here, anyway? Half-assedness? This is a band with over one hundred records, a trait shared with:

Agathocles - This is Not a Threat, It's a Promise
Just another Agathocles record. Yeah, I could've said that for the Unholy Grave part, too, but I admit that I might like the fervent "anti-terrorist" of Japan just a little bit more. But hey, Agathocles is Agathocles, a truthful statement in itself (if for no other reason than faster bands being influenced by them).

Attack of the Mad Axeman - Animals of the Music Business
Err... I've not yet heard this. Based mostly on their 2009 full-length, Scumdogs of the Forest, Animals of the Music Business is bound to be good, good death-grind, anyhow, so I figured I'd just put it in here for others to check out.

Circle of Dead Children - Psalm of the Grand Destroyer
As much as I never really appreciated this side of grindcore, I could never really dislike CoDC's ugly death-grind, covered in sludge more rusty than fat. A lot of the band's "appeal" is owed to Horvath's wide-ranged vocals and romantically bleak, gore-stained lyrics, and that's been the case since their very beginning. It's been a while since the last one (2005?), and Psalm of the Grand Destroyer is damn solid, but not nearly as unnerving as Human Harvest or The Genocide Machine. Something just happens when I hear things as malevolent as "We Wear the Gimp Mask", so here's to not becoming desensitized despite the... world.

Humanity Falls - Ordaining the Apocalypse
I'm rarely the one to whine about the production job, but whereas the Worlds 7" was kickass noise, Ordaining the Apocalypse sounds as if it was recorded with a few cheap mics in a badly isolated garage (simply put, the lack of bass is much too apparent). Nonetheless, we get to hear thirty-three minutes of very interesting death-grind falling somewhere in-between Discordance Axis and Immolation / Gorguts / good death metal - as such, it simply cannot be dubbed not-disgustingly-awesome by anyone sane. That goddamn drummer doesn't spend a moment slacking off and it sounds as if he could kick his own ass (is he sufficiently loud off-record, though?), but I hope that - in the future - the whole band manages to pull their approach together for a less cut 'n' paste sound. That said, Humanity Falls let go off so many lazy metal gimmicks with both their sound and lyrics pertaining to philosophy and such, yet they showcase classically old school death metal cover art that could fool just about anyone in regard to the level of the material within, a tracklist topped off with a Pattern Blue cover for fuck's sake! Keeping an eye on these guys.

Bastards - An End In And Of Itself
I've seen this band advertised on some last.fm shoutboxes and such, and, being a young grind band from Ohio, I thought "Why not?" There's a some sludge and dissonance created with harmonics and such, in the context of something like a fifty - fifty metal to punk ration; overall, a pretty fun listen, but not a band that I'd consider inside my context of grind. Couldn't stand that triggered double bass, songs not really mad beyond the aesthetic of merely sounding as such, not really going anywhere or anything, it sounds more like... they're having fun? This is serious business, goddamnit.

/czechoslovacore - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[new borders are as important as old
ones; might include Holland&Poland]

Lycanthrophy - Discography (1998 - 2009)
Bigass collection no. 1 from damn rabid hyperthrash know-hows in disregard to English grammar, Lycanthrophy. Gotta admit that I went a bit "whoa" as I wasn't really aware of their fairly long existence, so hey, get it if you're in for nearly seventy tracks of Phobia-grade relentlessness, kickass punk covers included.

Idiots Parade - Discography (2005 - 2009)
[Hey, I THINK that this one came out in 2010.] Idiots Parade got a quite a bit of attention on volume two of Scott Hull's compilation that doesn't really kill any fascists. And deservingly so, 'cause they're a kickass Slovakian grind band if there ever was one. We experience some very fine lo-fi thrash for the first fifteen tracks, wherefrom (track sixteen) some nicer sound production kicks in, showing what might already be called the classic strength of fast music from eastern Europe... well, uh, unrelenting speed. (I mean, d'oh!)

Suffering Mind - S/T
Same story as last year's debut full-length, At War With Mankind - nothing new, but the stuff sure is ferocious (and one could say the same for most Eastern Block fastcore and grindcore), including a well balanced female to male vocal balance. Suffering Mind's well alright!

Jesus Cröst - 010
Everyone in Europe knows that football (soccer? what's that?) is serious business. And I mean seriously serious when I say serious. Don't know what to make of Jesus Cröst's inclination toward hooliganism, but their grind absolutely kills, a fact even more awesome once you learn that they're a bassless two-piece. 010 brings a lot of shit to the table, but it boils down to great hooks, wide-sounding distortion one step away from Rotten Sound, and those disgusting, hoggish vocal exhibitions that get showcased every once in a while.

[no thoughts on Self Hate (Poland) / haven't heard the album]

/a-thrashin' - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[fast to the core - flower to the violence / or not]

Hayaino Daisuki - The Invincible Gate Mind of the Infernal Fire Hell, or Did You Mean Hawaii Daisuki EP
The intense meaning of speed in thrash metal! Jon Chang's demands are widely known as psychotic, maniacal, vampiric, and similar, but he's a guy without an ounce of tolerance for what might be considered music done half-assedly. This is why he fronted the crème de la crème of grindcore with Discordance Axis, still fronts the extracted essence of speed as in death-grind with GridLink, and thrash metal with Hayaino Daisuki, a manic exercise in melodic tremolo circles of hell that nobody could mistake for black metal.

Bloody Phoenix - Death To Everyone
A punk as fuck band very much appealing to the fastcore, powerviolence crowd. I remember the over the top, nervous speed of War, Hate, and Misery with a grin. If this is the context within which you observe Bloody Phoenix, Death To Everyone shouldn't disappoint, but here and there, it might try your patience. Not as ferocious, really. Is the anger fading with the decade? Stay angry, guys.

Kasatka - Scene Slaughter [posted]
Two Belgian dudes a-thrashin' really, really well contra "attention-seeking elitist clones" and such. Scene Slaughter contains four minutes and thirty-four seconds of no-joking-around lightning fast kick - snare alternation; thrashing, as effectively awesome as it gets. Something that I rarely care to mention: the excellent drum sound, crisp clear cymbal work, with a fat thump on the kick, and an old school plastic trash can vibe on the snare. Here's a big shout out to Owen, the drummer (I still think Man pulls music out of his ass, man!)!

ZaSKaE - Chikara [posted]
Heard 'em thanks to a radio show of Nigel's (Hipness as a Second Language)! ZaSKaE is a German non-stop blasting four-piece, with riffs akin to Hellnation doing a Commodore 64 SHMUP's fastcore soundtrack. The bandname is but an allusion to the name "Sasuke", the bandmembers remain anonymous, and Chikara (Japanese for "Power") is their short 'n' sweet debut, free for download at the To Live A Lie netlabel. Naturally, I enjoy their pretend-Japanese aesthetic - reminds me of what me and Orfee did with KiKurachiyo.

0100 The year 2010 through a Cephalochromoscope (Part 3/4)

2011-02-02T21:58:00.004+01:00

HASTE 1.2

/emo - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[to be honest, I’m not talking about the hairstyle]

Loma Prieta - Life/Less
The Life/Less 12" is a thrashin’ interpretation of screamo, preferring to crush, rather than take part in the bland, modern post-rock gimmick that many such bands settled into. But why are people calling this stuff chaotic as if bands like Orchid or Usurp Synapse never even existed. Sure, there are certainly many great bands today, but I’ve still not heard one able of holding a candle to what once was the Sound and the fucking Fury (and I hate nostalgia, goddamnit). Fuck the expensive equipment, the sterile sound and the Scene jury. Loma Prieta is alright, though.

Envy - Recitation
Yes, I expected much more, but Recitation is sweet, sweet Envy, regardless - if any band pulls off the whole post-rock screamo deal well, it’s them, with years and years of perfecting, with actual hardcore punk beginnings and the balls that come with it. Still, feels like Recitation might have worked better had it come before, rather than after the emo epic that is Insomniac Doze, yet I only regarded some sort of concrete progression as a realistic expectation specificaly because it’s Envy that I’m thinking of; that said, the album is damn nice, but their splits with Jesu and Thursday showcased much more interesting tracks, songs of the sort that they’ll hopefully explore in the future. To continue, a relevant Japanese band that has changed considerably:

Heaven in Her Arms - Paraselene
Paraselen (a false moon) is probably the scariest and heaviest screamo record that ever was. The question is, can we, that is, should we even consider it as such? A great amount of the time, this is downright drone-doom, post-sludge, goddamn progressive metal as far as the the drummer’s concerned, burgeoning forth in a morbid, deathly manner, like some sort of disease, the resurgence of the plague (re: Camus). I, for one, thank Heaven in Her Arms for fairly alienating listening experiences, one hour at a time.

Alcest - Écailles de lune
Neige's new album seems to lack the personality of Souvenirs d'un autre monde, but my enjoyment of it still depends on whether I'm in the right mind (i.e. hopeful, optimistic, not cynical, so as not to consider it pathetic). It's just not as fun or catchy, really, but not bad by any means. I mean, Neige's smooth, blissful singing on the last track (Sur l'océan couleur de fer) is certainly what I've been looking for in life. Erm, sorry. I actually enjoy Alcest, but I guess I don't really see his music as the heavenly pure passion that Neige's seemingly gigantic (and growing) fanbase professes as matter-of-fact with foam dripping down their chins. Stop acting like you've got the rabies, eh? Similar thoughts on the following band (that I also enjoy, incidentally):

Lantlôs - .neon
With the inclusion of Neige as the vocalist, Lantlôs became something between Alcest and Amesoeurs. How this happened, I don't even care. Being insufficiently bleak to reach what Amesoeurs did last year, the stuff's not even as whiny as the work of Alcest, yet somehow .neon manages to settle into a "golden" middle, at least if it's your sort of thing. I actually like Neige's vocals 'cause, while his rasp recalls guys like Johan Lindstrand (At the Gates, The Crown, Disfear), come track two (These Nights Were Ours) I was reminded of Envy's own Tetsuya Fukagawa (perhaps it was the timing?), although the reverb / delay quickly swept the feeling off. But the notions stayed - Lantlôs seems to have introduced modern, post-rock-heavy (scr)e(a)mo into black metal (perhaps unknowingly), so it's just too natural for armchair elitists to express their hate and fury all over the internet (righteous in regard to black metal), and ever more so considering how pretty, erm, overrated these bands (as in Alcest, Amesoeurs) are. I mean, sure, call it "post-black metal" if you want, but how much of it actually pertains to black metal? The term rings hollow as the music is more like an intertribal amalgamation of post-rockin' shoegaze, post-punk, and whatever else is considered very much not black metal, that's had some distortion, screaming, and blastbeats attached to its tail. "Post-black metal" makes me think of Deathspell Omega, Dreams of the Drowned, or whatever is more realistically avant-garde black metal, e.g. Ved Buens Ende.

/non-grind blastbeats - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[hilarious wizard-clowns in black & white 'n' such]

Deathspell Omega - Paracletus
DsO is what I'm talking about (in regard to the last few sentences above) - a band that evolved out of classic black metal exhibitionism (Infernal Battles), went through hell and, erm, stayed there, enveloped in metaphysical Satanic flames to this day, riding the sleazy-red-dude-with-a-goatee's horns to the finalization of a very interesting album trilogy, Paracletus being their Return of the King (let it be known that I'm just kidding considering how much ass the Lord of the Rings trilogy sucks). They've come to be so far removed as to make people reminisce of technical death metal in general, of the kind not played by macho wankers. For example, on Wings of Predation I immediately thought of Orgone from Pittsburgh (a very subjective association that also happened with Thou), although the probability that their Goliath debut was an influence seems pretty low / thinking more along the lines of Gorguts, really.

Wold - Working Together For Our Privacy
This Canadian duo is the duo to see for enthralling, ritualistic walls of noise to cast your black magic to. Reminding me of The Conet Project shortwave recordings or similarly creepy things, Wold shows just how goddamn frightening lo-fi can be.

Sigh - Scenes From Hell
Sigh from Japan kicks the ass of approx. all symphonic metal bands. Bring on the trumpets.

Ihsahn - After
In Ihsahn's case, it's more like bring on the saxophones. "After" doesn't have much to do with black metal, but it's Ihsahn that we're talking about so I'd rather not put him next to, I dunno, the Dillinger Escape Plan? It's a pretty cool, catchy, "progressive metal" album, but I found it too, I dunno, tame? So I dunno.

Dispirit - Rehearsal at Oboroten
John Gossard's new band - expansive, layered, deformed and doomish black metal. This demo is just a recording of Dispirit's rehearsal, being over half an hour of material well worth a listen for reasons other than the forementioned guitar player's former, now dead bands (e.g. Asunder or USBM celebrities Weakling [hey, there's even a band called Dead as Dreams]). As much as it is noisy and raw, it's very sophisticated, even progressive in structure, droning and much less metal / heavy than, say, Weakling. Similar - but also fairly heavy - qualities can be found in:

Fell Voices - Tour CDr, split with Ash Borer
I enjoy the newly emerged, so-called "Cascadian black metal" deal; bands like Wolves in the Throne Room, Skagos, Fauna, Ash Borer, and Fell Voices, the last of which I consider hottest, hands-down. Fell Voices pull off the whole ritualistic black metal approach with enthralling fury, jamming long, hypnotic, untitled tracks averaging at about 20min each, circular riffs flowing so goddamn well that I find myself utterly engaged, inevitably attentive to the sound, stoically accepting its waves like some cliff existentially caught up between the shore and the sea. Ash Borer could be called a similar band, but they’re more about riff progressions, and much less hypnotic. I’ve gotta admit that most of my enjoyment might stem from the beastly, raw drumming, really, but also the whole aesthetic of nature, and the symbolism, that is, non-symbolism in not giving your songs any names - the circle of life (and death) is what’s up, and these bands deliver a concrete fuck you to all those symbolic satans and similar fellas.

Panopticon - ...On the Subject of Mortality
If the whole black metal + post-rock deal can be done right, Lundr's definitely onto something with his professedly anarchist, vaguely propagandist black metal solo project (I'm lost on the effectiveness consider the subtlety of some lyrics, such as "There is no God! There is no God!" but this doesn't really feel like the place to discuss such things). Two full-lengths and a couple of splits in, Panopticon still sounds fresh, raw and underproduced in all the right ways when it comes to this sort of music, melodious, punk as fuck black metal reminiscing of the long gone Suicide Nation (Arizona), with fairly obvious 21st century influences found in instrumental, epically drawn-out bands like Mono.

Flourishing - A Momentary Sense of the Immediate World EP
I like the album title a whole lot - could it be said that it defines what might be called a stark contrast of present day, civilized perception, as in: man's animalistic ability to sense the world all at once, as what is, rather than what it was, what it could, should, or might be, as hindered by interpretation in symbols, letters, language, art (sound familiar? perhaps the notions also pertain to the one man project above). Flourishing consists of the classic three man band set up, pretty tight and flowing. I've heard their death metal being described as under the influence of Discordance Axis, even, but I seriously don't know what that's all about - A Momentary Sense of the Immediate World is like Lykathea Aflame's Elvenfris pulled to the more established, darker side of death metal, so here's to the frequent namedropping of Immolation & Gorguts.

Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit
I tried. I couldn't. I still find Agalloch boring and who gives a shit? It is how it is despite Aesop, their driving drummer (also the mother + father of Cosmic Hearse, the blog), who also drums for:

Ludicra - The Tenant
Bringing girl power to black metal with the ease of a butterfly's flight (not talking about hawk moths and similar winged beasts), Ludicra kicks ass all the same. Shit, if a band can sound upbeat and black metal at the same time, they probably kick ass and/or have a very capable drummer, but a great part of the deal-sealing is owed to Shanaman's (and Cather's) bewitching screeching. Watch live for added effect.

/hardbone, uh, badcore, erm, hardcore? - - - - - - -
[hard to the core, bad to the bone, said george
thorogood. p.s. he also said: "I drink alone"]

Kerouac - Cold and Distant, Not Loving EP [posted]
With a bandname like that, you better play some damn good bebop. Well, Kerouac’s a bit too heavy for such jazz, but I still like them. I’ll use this opportunity in order to take a dump into the genre pool; in an age where metalcore means utter shit like As I Lay Dying and Bring Me the Horizon (wait, the second one’s deathcore? no way! I insist that it’s less annoying stuff, e.g. Despised Icon), I’m supposed to call Converge "chaotic hardcore", but I'd rather not, 'cause I don't comprehend strictly set time signatures as chaotic. So hey, I say that Kerouac is a metalcore band, and this better assume hardcore as integral. We create, we render useless all these tags, symbols, that pertain purely to a current scene, but it's got jackshit to do with the music. Yet I gave Kerouac a listen specifically because of a symbol - their name - and I didn't regret it. Young and angry, and pretty fast considering how heavy. Pretty nice!

Bastions - Island Living EP
After hearing Kerouac, I decided to delve deeper into the whole modern UK hardcore deal, and I found Bastions, mid-tempo stuff with boring breakdowns behind an implication of passion. You can symbolize emotion as much as you want to, but that still won’t make it any more meaningful or "real" than the sweet feeling of taking a dump, but hey, it’s certainly the sort of aesthetic that’s currently popular. Of course, I might be wrong, but this whole blog deal makes me feel like I’m talking to myself, anyway.

Kvelertak - S/T
All in all, one of the most overrated records to come out in 2010, but still pretty solid, rockin' hardcore from Frozen Hell Norway with somewhat of a penchant for employment of vaguely black metal-esque tremolo leads. For fans of: Motörhead, AC/DC, and that silly new Darkthrone shit. Samo rokanje, rođaci.

Torch Runner - Locust Swarm
You see what happens, Larry, when you smash grind and sludge together so hard as to maximally dilute any of their standalone elements. Owing largely to the full-blown, heavy yet heavily grease-reverberated sound, Torch Runner crushes everything within their indefinite radius of explosion (called "splash damage" in regard to effect) as pedantically as a few planets colliding. There’s nothing old here - it’s a totally new destruction, a flower of predominantly hardcore, and that’s why: 1. I like it so, 2. it’s not in the sludge department further down.

Dillinger Escape Plan - Option Paralysis
Meh. I do feel weird thinking about how this is the band that released their first, awesome EP, Under the Running Boards, some twelve years ago, warranting the infamous debut full-length just a year later. But DEP, at the end of the day, you can take your choruses and shove them.

Daughters - S/T
What the Daughters seem to have lost in speed, they made up in other, fairly deranged areas. Including a fat, heavy sound, at that. Sure, I like it, but I’d be a liar if I said that I don’t miss the NOISE. Everybody knows that the Daughters became something like a weird post-hardcore band with a double bass-pedal, some sort of twisted, disgusting Fugazi with shit synths, somewhat appreciative of the Jesus... Lizard, so if I have to be nice, I’ll just call this one a logical (‘cause "natural" seems like the completely wrong word in all such instances) progression and...

/punk as fuck - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[noise and banjos!]

凛として時雨 - Still a Sigure Virgin?
...or Rin Toshite Shigure (and also Ling Tosite Sigure, but I don’t like that one) is a Japanese trio playing - vaguely - post-hardcore so energetically that I was tempted to put them in with the grind bands. So I don’t really know who to recommend this sort of thing to, but it’s got dual sex vocals and I just have to note the super-high-pitched adult male yelling courtesy of Toru Kitajima, a lot of things that the ear will gladly catch, and an adorable dose Engrish (e.g. the opener, "I Was Music").

AIDS Wolf - March to the Sea
Reviewing whatever is perceived as noise seems like a fairly hollow act no matter how sophisticated its creation might be. At best, one could attempt to describe it as accurately and objectively as possible, but I’m not much into that, or the drawing of a specific line between noise and music. It’s AIDS Wolf! You could call these sounds riffs, this yelling singing, etc., but hey, you either enjoy their spastic, beat-based music, or you don’t.

Pale Robin - Birth Rites Versus
Mars and C.P.N. make up for the lack of new (the two being members of) Blackbird Raum material in 2010 with a separate folk project. Compared to the downright punk approach of Raum (in accordance to their mad, joyous, hedonistic notions), Pale Robin displays rhythmically much simpler, minimalistic, perhaps more traditional folk songs; a bit melancholic, romantic, but in the end just as life-happy as the first band (see proof in songs like "Legs of Lead"). Geoff rides a pale horse!

Jimi Hendrix - Valleys of Neptune
There might be something creepy in posthumously released records (for example, are they all "death metal" by default or something, at least in the case of metal?), but I’d have no problem loving this stuff if zombie Hendrix somehow kept his level of his playing (of course, along with zombie Mitchell and zombie Redding) post-resurrection. That’s just fact, son.

/not punk as fuck - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[not even metal]

Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope Into the Sky
Swans still sound like Swans. I hear the band’s an ace thing to see live, so that’s what I’m gonna try to do in May or so. What’s the music like? Atmospherically encapsulating riffs and sounds, general weirdness, set to an almost militaristic beat, coupled with Gira’s old school, somewhat apathetic sort of singing that Curtis did better. Anyhow, I like it very much, but I’m much too into other things to judge in a more practical manner, and I certainly didn’t expect a title to replace White Light From the Mouth of Infinity. Speaking of which, Gang of Four’s "Content" came out about a week ago and it’s shit.

The Unwinding Hours - S/T
Naturally, the Aereogramme fan demographic is most susceptible to getting kicks out of The Unwinding Hours’ debut full-length, and that’s alright. Although I miss the downright unnerving aggression that Aereogramme sometimes employed, the album is heavy on absolutely sweet, noisily symphonic outbursts that might be considered a natural progression of the former band. Cute stuff.

Deftones - Diamond Eyes
Apparently an excellently produced album equals an excellent album.

0100 The year 2010 through a Cephalochromoscope (Part 4/4)

2011-02-02T21:57:00.006+01:00

SLOW DOWN AND DIE

/winning a sludge contest is like - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[making funny faces to adults / the ass-
holes might not appreciate your work]

Thou - Summit [posted]
Madly prolific, inimitable, apocalyptically hopeful Louisiana sludge. Summit may not be as heavily catchy as Tyrant, but I'd rather focus on how awesome it still is. Coupled with the lyrics, Thou's sludge might sound like ruby red lava creeping down bleak NOLA streets, cleansing the city of cop, dope, and man all-together; crystal clear progressions erupt into waves of distortion, sprout into monolithic trees spreading rich, emerald green branches - life - stubbornly rooted into asphalt, growing all the same. If I imagined a polar opposite to Thou, I'd think of Orgone, Pittsburgh's masters of tech-death - the latter fast, the first one slow - 'cause both bands let their music flow without elitist restrictions, naturally like blood, sweat, spit, cum, piss. How is it that these bands, showcasing remarkable sophistication in composition and lyricism, manage to bring forth such heartfelt, even raw sound? [Pretty sure I got into Thou thanks to Alex - thanks, man!]

The Body - All the Waters of the Earth will Turn to Blood
The Body is a band that goes a bit beyond, or simply avoids, writing catchy riffs, hooks, clichés in general. Except for crushing heaviness - they're fine with that. Opening with a downright heavenly, alleviating female choir build-up, made all the more eerie by the background crackle, the moment that the actual (two man) band kicks in sounds something like the apocalypse. Saw a live video somewhere; drummer Lee determinately smacking huge crashes, guitarist / singer Chip wailing into the microphone like a banshee, sticking his tongue out for added effect. The Body's concrete discord evoked in me an uneasy feeling of abandonment that I perceived as both beautiful and grotesque; shit, I even felt like watching the End of Evangelion again (what, four years already gone?). Big thanks to Nigel for introducing me to this one.

Harvey Milk - A Small Turn of Human Kindness
Taking their name from the first openly homosexual dude to be elected to Californian public office (whom Dan White assassinate back in 1978, along with San Francisco's mayor, George Moscone), Harvey Milk are certainly one of the least subtle bands that I ever heard. Each time I put them on I find myself freshly eager and patient to get crushed by some of the saddest, lowest, most depressive music without an ounce of cheap, pathetic melody to paint their sorrow with (similar to the Body in this regard). "Rich" is the last word I’d use when describing their sound, ‘cause it’s a crippled, painfully naked thing, like an elephant without its trunk, with the vast and blunt qualities of an earthquake. "But I, just me alone, by myself got up and left, yes, I alone got up and left the fire to check it out. I just seen the saddest thing I ever saw."

Bastard Noise - A Culture of Monsters
Smoke volcanic dope, love everyone, etc.? All great advice. On first listen it may seem like this weird new Bastard Noise simplified, even dumbed down the otherworldly, pure filth bass-framework set down by Man is the Bastard (the first being but a side project of the second, originally), but for fuck's sake, A Culture of Monsters recreated jazz in a powerviolent manner, the album being a clear testament to / masterwork of Man is the Bastard-born powerviolence extravaganza, including their image, the symbolism of the cover art, the song titles (Me and Hitler?) and such. Sure, it's all hardcore punk, and this may sound weird but, looking back, 2010 seems like one of the sweetest years for powerviolence as music, regarding its specific, unique sound and potential, since the year that Jesus died, following two releases included:

The Endless Blockade - Splits with Bastard Noise (The Red List), Unearthly Trance
The Endless Blockade doesn't have much to do with the cult of G.I.S.M. other than the band name. These jesters don't care much about the modern definition of powerviolence yet play what might be called its essence (despite ten to fifteen minutes long tracks on these splits), sounding something like a mix between Infest and Man is the Bastard, heavy on the sludge with pronounced tempo & noise acrobatics. Sadly, 2010 is also the year that the band claimed its own death, so let's put on that Noah Crecshevsky remix and weep. While you've got a relevant description of Bastard Noise above, Unearthly Trance ought to be a well established name in sludge by now considering all their splits (Minsk, Ramesses, Aldebaran, Suma), notwithstanding the massive, blackened atmosphere. (Speaking of Suma, saw them play a few years ago with one of my favorite sludge bands ever, brothers to Corrupted, Birushanah -)

Birushanah, Drain the Sky - Split [posted]
Birushanah is a folk sludge band if there ever was one. Also just about the fastest sludge band ever. Still, nobody in their right mind could call them anything other than just that - sludge. There's something frightening about the Japanese and their tradition, starting with the Emperor's noble samurai (see their code of conduct, Bushidō), declining inversely in parallel to industrialization, inevitably left on the backs of a few, just as "noble" madmen like Yukio Mishima (see his 1960 short story, Patriotism + the story of his life and suicide), but it goes on to this day, this (now) paradoxical devotion and excellence in art and cultural things in-general. Steeped in Japanese traditional music (most of all, rhythm), Birushanah provide but one song, Anagura, on first listen not insanely complex like their earlier works, but ultimately their most epic, exhilarating chapter in eighteen and a half minutes of a great catastrophe composed (relevantly, I wonder when Corrupted’s coming back?). Even if you don't care about extreme music or whatever, Sougyo's playing ought to fascinate any the slightest bit interesting bass player. The other half of the release pertains to Drain the Sky, a band hailing from the States, delivering four speedy, emotionally loaded, hardcore punk-born (e.g. His Hero Is Gone) post-sludge songs (refuse to use the brand of neocrust, although others might) without the build-up-inducing intensity of Osakan folk sludge, even much less atmospherically enthralling, although exactly atmosphere is what they seem to aim for very often, but take what I say with a grain of salt ‘cause I’m certainly biased toward Birushanah’s indisputable superiority over most of contemporary extreme music (based on composition, at least / yes, riffs). The split's a joy to listen to any way I choose to put it.

Dad They Broke Me - Rot EP
Ever since I heard the crushing nugget of gold that is their debut EP, Lack, I’ve been eagerly awaiting anything new, anything at all. Was supposed to find Rot in my mailbox ages ago, too, but that never happened (courtesy of the Croatian Post, probably). Anyway, for those who’ve never heard Dad They Broke Me - they took their name from a Pavement song’s lyrics and they play shamelessly destructive sludge, as noisy and as slow / fast as they like to, but it’s most definitely sludge at all times, even when it’s over a blastbeat. And what else could you expect from a song titled "Swine Filth Hate God", for example? In order to please my laziness, I’ll end this with a simple statement about how Dad They Broke Me is one of the most underrated bands of today, so take note as this is their last ever release ‘cause the drummer is moving to Japan! Fuck.

/avant-garde, why so slow? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[I mean the tempo / I mean, I miss Ruins (JPN),
Keiji Haino, and the rest of the psychiatric ward]

Ehnahre - Taming the Cannibals & Kayo Dot - Coyote / Stained Glass EP
[Decided for a combined sort of thing.]
Whereas Toby Drivers seems to have pulled Kayo Dot together into a harder, that is, less spastic form reminiscing of maudlin of the Well, Ehnahre, a band I fell in love with on first listen of their debut, The Man Closing up, sharing most of (what might be called) its key members with Kayo Dot, seems to have gone the exact opposite way (toward earlier Kayo Dot-type stuff, even). Driver's band (and work in-general) could be called dreamy (the usual continuation of his "music heard in dreams put to conscious use" approach, if we could call it that), and, sure, even unnerving at times ("Help me, I'm disappearing!"? that's one simple, matter-of-fact howl, sounding perfectly uncomfortable), but Ehnahre is a downright horrifying experiment in dark atmosphere, like stumbling down a filthy, pitch black hallway, searching for yourself, finding only an elephantine worm, manically convulsing on the floor, pale and dripping, eating away at itself... "Silvery, a childlike skeleton smashes on bleak wall." What both bands use excellently are time signatures deconstructed to the point of everything just left droning, or even silent, with their collective middle finger generally raised toward the classic, riff-enthusiastic metal crowd. Some review vaguely described Ehnahre as diSEMBOWELMENT / Gorguts, and that's alright with me!

/manowar wannabes - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[not wearing tigths is not fooling anyone]

Lair of the Minotaur - Evil Power
The Great Destroyer was a fat, crushing slab of chug. Their sludgy tendencies minimalized, you get Evil Power - a bunch of nicely produced, average metal riffs. A split with 3 Inches of Blood is the next logical step. This power ain't evil, it's just kistchy.

High on Fire - Snakes for the Divine
Same shit as above. High on Fire is kickass rock'n'roll, though, but my problem with them has always been the songs dragging on for much too long, and I'm supposed to suffer through all these long, annoying solos now as well.

The Lord Weird Slought Feg - The Animals Spirits
Not really slow, but I like referring to that Manowar part. I've been somewhat of a fan since I heard Down Among the Deadmen during some of those early highschool years. What's there not to like in heavy metal this fun? Instead of classic and annoying heavy / power metal clichés, Slough Feg go from Celtic folklore to trashy sci-fi operas, the first of which the following band still clings to:

Mael Mórdha - Manannán
About the whole epic doom thing, these lads never disappoint. With Ó Bogail yelling as resolutely as ever, the rest of the band abandoned some of that trademark melancholia (e.g. no more sad piano) seemingly as inherent to Irish metal (similar case with Primordial) as tasteless swords, suits of armor and angry old dragons are to Italian power metal, all of a sudden they make me wanna light a forty pound torch to beat policemen with. Manannán mac Lir seems like a solid guy, too.

/noisy boner for the stoner - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[a hundred blunts in, vulgarity keep-
s me sane! just kidding; i.e. I wish...]

Kylesa - Spiral Shadow
No objective reason for me to enjoy Kylesa's "prog-sludge" wankery more than any other sludge band's sloppy underperformance. It's still all about the riff and shit so what am I even talking about? "They're a pretty cool band, but I don't really find them interesting enough to follow their growth as a band," and similar ass-sentences. On the other hand, it's awesome that they don't care about set genres and all, 'cause they do sound like they're having fun. I've only joy after tracks like Hollow Severer, but hey, wrong album. Instead, Spiral Shadow provided me with psychedelic, mid-tempo grunge-reminiscing stuff that one might mistake for a Foo Fighters cover, as is the case with "Don't Look Back". For that sort of stuff, I'm still sticking with:

Torche - Songs for Singles (EP or whatever)
Cool stuff, Torche. I mean, if I ever grow tired of their catchy as hell brand of greasy stoner pop, I can always recede to Dove, Floor, Cavity, and such. Torche's cool, I say again. It's like the hyperactivelly grinning Melvins finally penetrated the walls of downtuned misanthropia, leaving behind the occultist Sabbath worshiping cross-hanging and hellish narcomania. Here's to surfing on one colossal, slow wave with beer in one hand, blunt in the other.

Melvins - The Bride Screamed Murder
Speaking of the Melvins, they're not stopping either. The opening track, The Water Glass, starts out with a heavy, dropping riff; turns out to be a rhythmically uplifting end of the decade sing-a-long à la 60s garage rock / the US army footsoldier department marching, yelling. Continuing with track two, Evil New War God, whereupon I found myself killed by riffs. Ladies and gentlemen - the goddamn Melvins.

Melvins, Isis - Split
Melvins-wise, not that much to hear here 'cause their tracks are but alternative versions of tracks 3 & 4 off The Bride Screamed Murder (Pig House, I'll Finish You Off). As for Isis, these are probably the last tracks of the band that we'll get to hear. Ever. Musically, they're on the level of Wavering Radiant's (not that) vague hints of prog-rock, with sweet, bubbly bass, heavy and flowin', a sound that nobody could mistake for any other band. But just like that, Isis is dead, so I'm glad I got to see them play once, even though the setlist didn't include The Beginning and the End (!?).

Fight Amp, Kowloon Walled City, Ladder Devils - Split
Some bands just want to watch the world enveloped in heavy, low, love, uh, I mean, noise, noise rock. Starting with Fight Amp, probably the most Unsane of the lot; continuing with Kowloon Walled City, too-heavy-for-its-own-good sludge with a noise rock backbone, whose free-for-download 2008 debut EP I "reviewed" after Evans kindly sent me the thing; ending with Ladder Devils, a four-piece enriching this whole ménage à trois with their punkish - rather than strictly heavy - approach. Nice!

/too slow for school - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[what's the opposite of supercollider? some-
thing akin to a turd slipping down the bowl]

Electric Wizard - Black Masses
Enough reviews, essays on this one and why it sucks. In reality, it's not bad at all, but the bias must be taken for granted considering Dopethrone. Black Masses is nowhere near. So what? I kinda dislike the sound of the drums, but I've no objections otherwise. The album's title speaks truthfully of its sound, each track being a black, fairly primitive ritual in itself - the atmosphere reminded me of Black Widow, and that's most definitely nice (occultist UK prog-rock / check out "Sacrifice", released 1970), and maybe completely inane, too.

Salome - Terminal
From the lyrics to the sound, everything about Salome is crushingly bleak. Terminal is "stoner" sludge stripped to its very core, an exercise in massive minimalism, the meaning of "less is more" defined very strangely in consideration of the genre - doom metal - by the exclusion of the bass guitar. Simplistic, concrete groove drumming, a guitar downtuned to fucking oblivion, and polarized growling & screeching recalling both Runhild (of Thorr’s Hammer-) and a bit of Edgy (-of Burning Witch, respectively), the vocalist being Kat, who also yelled on Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s 2009 effort, the very overrated Agoraphocalypse.

Bongripper - Satan Worshiping Doom
Bongripper are the stoned masters of the jam without a care in the world for anything other than the riff. Four tracks, fifty three minutes of post-Sleep sludge that might've been just as well pre-Sleep, devoid of vocals, devoid of Jesus.

Cough - Ritual Abuse
Some people believe that their true calling lies in tuning deep, deep down and attempting to invoke riffs directly from Satan, but what they usually get is the merry Ozzy Osbourne Orchestra, i.e. a Burning of a Witch luckily degenerated to the point of excellent sludge. This is what happened on Cough's Ritual Abuse, a damn slow Year in Suffering spent riding down the Crooked Spine of a Crippled Wizard (that is, a madman's Collapsed Mind, as there are no gods, no wizards, no witches, no Harry Potter, Hogwarts, and so on).

Fistula - Goat
Goat is no nonsense filth, a gallon of bleach, a horrendous mass of rotting meat lumbering through presumably America, occasionally collapsing into a barrel roll in honor of rock'n'roll as devised by Black Sabbath. But to be honest, it's barely recognizable. From the bandname to the music, I am utterly disgusted with Fistula's Goat - it's a treat for those who enjoy being covered in abysmal mountains of shit. Awesome! P.S. Set aside the goat's demonically square and you will comprehend its cuteness. But speaking of filth...

haarp - The Filth
"IT'S ME ..... AGAAAAAAIN!" is how haarp start it off. Those are some stupidly effective, funny as hell lyrics to begin with. The joyous thing about his downright demonic vocals is their comprehensibility. "WHY... DO, YOU... DO THIS... TO, MEEEEE?" Jesus fucking Christ, that’s just wonderful. In fact, almost too wonderful - too loud in the mix - it seeps the Power of the Riff (for its form, see Crowbar or similar). I assume that this is Anselmo’s fault as he was the producer. God bless NOLA sludge, anyhow...

END.

ZaSKaE (Germany) - Chikara (2010)

2011-02-02T21:10:00.005+01:00

Tracklist:
1. Yoku Irasshaimashita
2. Ikari
3. Tekii Ni Motodzuku Hanzai
4. Kiri
5. Inochi No Nai
Total playing time 03:15

Heard 'em thanks to a radio show of Nigel's (his blog being Hipness as a Second Language)! ZaSKaE is a German non-stop blasting four-piece, with riffs akin to Hellnation doing a Commodore 64 SHMUP's fastcore soundtrack. The bandname is but an allusion to the name "Sasuke", the bandmembers remain anonymous, and Chikara (Japanese for "Power") is their short 'n' sweet debut, free for download at the To Live A Lie netlabel (right here). Naturally, I enjoy their pretend-Japanese aesthetic - reminds me of what me and Orfee did with KiKurachiyo.

[Click on that link above, the "right here" one leading to To Live A Lie on archive.org, for the download.]

Kerouac (UK) - Cold and Distant, Not Loving EP (2010)

2011-02-02T03:34:00.004+01:00

Tracklist:
1. Heavy Hearted
2. Lay of the Landfill
3. Little Mountains We Move
4. Pale
5. Our Fathers Guns
6. A Bastard Behind the Eyes
7. A Sheep. A Well
Total playing time 16:45

With a bandname like that, you better play some damn good bebop. Well, Kerouac’s a bit too heavy for such jazz, but I still like them. I’ll use this opportunity in order to take a dump into the genre pool; in an age where metalcore means utter shit like As I Lay Dying and Bring Me the Horizon (wait, the second one’s deathcore? no way! I insist that it’s less annoying stuff, e.g. Despised Icon), I’m supposed to call Converge "chaotic hardcore", but I'd rather not, 'cause I don't comprehend strictly set time signatures as chaotic. So hey, I say that Kerouac is a metalcore band, and this better assume hardcore as integral. We create, we render useless all these tags, symbols, that pertain purely to a current scene, but it's got jackshit to do with the music. Yet I gave Kerouac a listen specifically because of a symbol - their name - and I didn't regret it. Young and angry, and pretty fast considering how heavy. Pretty nice! (Their stuff can be bought on Holy Roar.)

Instead of the c/p cover art, I suggest a beatnik aesthetic, too! (Mediafire)

Thou (USA) - Summit (2010)

2011-02-01T14:16:00.004+01:00

Tracklist:
1. By Endurance We Conquer
2. Grissecon
3. Prometheus
4. Another World is Inevitable
5. Summit Revisited
6. Voices In the Wilderness
Total playing time 51:08

"I must escape sentimentality; clear away these dusty, maudlin affections; turn my back on the corpse of the past; learn to accept the death of ideals. Everything has changed. Nothing has changed." - the lyrics that end "Prometheus"

Madly prolific, inimitable, apocalyptically hopeful Louisiana sludge. Summit may not be as heavily catchy as Tyrant, but I'd rather focus on how awesome it still is. Coupled with the lyrics, Thou's sludge might sound like ruby red lava creeping down bleak NOLA streets, cleansing the city of cop, dope, and man all-together; crystal clear progressions erupt into waves of distortion, sprout into monolithic trees spreading rich, emerald green branches - life - stubbornly rooted into asphalt, growing all the same. If I imagined a polar opposite to Thou, I'd think of Orgone, Pittsburgh's masters of tech-death - the latter fast, the first one slow - 'cause both bands let their music flow without elitist restrictions, naturally like blood, sweat, spit, cum, piss. How is it that these bands, showcasing remarkable sophistication in composition and lyricism, manage to bring forth such heartfelt, even raw sound? As in literature, approach has made all the difference, but it's still inseparable from the author's person.

Thou know their shit. (Mediafire)

I'm not sure how I heard about Thou in the first place. Probably from my man, Alex, who also posted some Thou - specifically, Through the Empires of Eternal Void and Tyrant - on his blawg.

Birushanah & Drain the Sky (Japan & USA) - Split (2010)

2011-01-31T01:07:00.003+01:00

Tracklist:
Birushanah
1. Anagura
Drain the Sky
2. Even
3. Prelude to the Pendulum Swing Back
4. Three Winds Spread the Ashes of Our Memories
5. Failure is an Orphan When Victory Has Many Fathers
Total playing time 36:34

Birushanah is a folk sludge band if there ever was one. Also just about the fastest sludge band ever. Still, nobody in their right mind could call them anything other than just that - sludge. There's something frightening about the Japanese and their tradition, starting with the Emperor's noble samurai (see their code of conduct, Bushidō), declining inversely in parallel to industrialization, inevitably left on the backs of a few, just as "noble" madmen like Yukio Mishima (see his 1960 short story, Patriotism + the story of his life and suicide), but it goes on to this day, this (now) paradoxical devotion and excellence in art and cultural things in-general. Steeped in Japanese traditional music (most of all, rhythm), Birushanah provide but one song, Anagura, on first listen not insanely complex like their earlier works, but ultimately their most epic, exhilarating chapter in eighteen and a half minutes of a great catastrophe composed (relevantly, I wonder when Corrupted’s coming back?). Even if you don't care about extreme music or whatever, Sougyo's playing ought to fascinate any the slightest bit interesting bass player.

The other half of the release pertains to Drain the Sky, a band hailing from the States, delivering four speedy, emotionally loaded, hardcore punk-born (e.g. His Hero Is Gone) post-sludge songs (refuse to use the brand of neocrust, although others might) without the build-up-inducing intensity of Osakan folk sludge, even much less atmospherically enthralling, although exactly atmosphere is what they seem to aim for very often, but take what I say with a grain of salt ‘cause I’m certainly biased toward Birushanah’s indisputable superiority over most of contemporary extreme music (based on composition, at least / yes, riffs). The split's a joy to listen to any way I choose to put it.

Kiku! (Mediafire)

Get it on CD (S.M.D.) or 12" vinyl (Destructure).

Worlds (USA) - Unforeseen Paths 7" (2010)

2011-01-26T22:52:00.007+01:00

Tracklist:
1. Ruition
2. Diadem Purge
3. Nomadic Exile
4. Exit Visions
5. I.M.O.H.C.
6. Hectacomb
7. Snub Survival
8. Life Design
9. Tomographic Incandescence
10. Anesthetic Crutch
11. Shrouded Evacuation
Total playing time 06:23

One letter away from Japanese noisecore extravaganza "World", Worlds are almost as noisy within less than six and a half minutes of destructive motives made obvious, stepping out with the self-confidence of previous bands and a fairly brutal 56k modem sound sure to make many listeners whine their fucking heads off. Concerning the "previous bands" remark + continuing the series of Assück worshipping bands from Florida, here's one with an actual Assück member, apparently (pretty sure it's not Pavlovich, so... Heritage? I dunno; the growling's not that distinctive, regardless to the noise that the record realistically contains. Who's Spinach? A third guy?). Also, Asshole Parade, they say, but I don't know these things for sure. The 7-inch can be acquired from Vinyl Rites. EDIT: Concrete info (thanks to "skinjob" in the comment section): "Jon from Asshole Parade on drums. Spinach sang for Assück briefly on a Euro tour. I think Paul came in to guest on the recording too if I heard correctly." Very nice!

How about that Tomographic Incadescence, eh? (Mediafire)

Amputee (USA) - Demo (2010)

2011-01-26T22:45:00.008+01:00

Tracklist:
1. Repetitions
2. Asshole Generation
3. Problem of Evil
4. Liar
5. Time
6. No Meaning
7. Nothing
8. Destroying Existence
9. Sick and Tired
Total playing time 05:54

What's up with all the hairy, manly, silly and nonsexual love for Assück? Whatever it is, it does me well. A lot of raw, quality bands growing like some berserk form of mushroom, this time from the garden state, New Jersey. All of 'em like doing ending covers, too, but it seems like Amputee make a sort of punk statement by covering Infest's "Sick and Tired". Similar to Cellgraft, this DIY ethic and all? I can get behind that.

Music to amputate to (Mediafire)

Supposed to be a demo - kills many, many grind albums. Check out the songtitles: No Meaning, Nothing, Destroying Existence... How's that for subtle nihilism? ;D

Cellgraft (USA) - Deception Schematic (2010)

2011-01-26T22:27:00.006+01:00

Tracklist:
1. Aphasia 00:48
2. Acquisition Of Axiom 00:44
3. Vortex Of Aversion 00:40
4. Horizontal Vision 00:32
5. Obsolescence 00:52
6. To Achieve The Lesser Stone 01:14
7. Gestalt Paroxysm 00:07
8. Noxious Deluge 00:43
9. Prevailing Corporeal Metamorphosis 00:40
10. Progression Disintegration 00:26
11. Civilization Comes, Civilization Goes (Assuck) 00:47
Total playing time 07:25

Florida's young DIY grindcore enthusiasts (Cellgraft, namely) put out another slab of proper blasting, topping it off with a sweet, sweet cover of Assück's Civilization Comes, Civilization Goes, albeit as sparse in length as any other of their offerings (seven and something min.). Technically, this one ain't free for download as it was released as 7" on No Reprieve Records. That said, "If you want a copy of the self-titled demo or 'External Habitation' then hit up Financial Ruin Records."

What I'm doing now is, I'm doing a series of Assück worshipping bands and shit, before the seriously goddamn belated 2010 overview post.

Deceptive download link (Mediafire)

Just kidding, here it is.

P.S. I like External Habitation a bit more, but don't tell anyone. Also: S/T. Revenge.

KRIEGSHOG- L/P 2010 Japan

2011-01-18T08:33:00.005+01:00

Well, I was getting amped up listening to Kriegshog since Timmy posted the Chaos In Tejas line up for 2011. A side note, if any of you may have happened to move to the Untied States in the last few months maybe June would be a good time to come to Asstown. Just sayin.

This shit is raw noize dbeat from Japan.

Check also "Hardcore Hell" its raw as fuck. This newer Lp isn't quite are blisterring but it still rips. The only downside is all the songs sound the same.

Kriegshog Lp 2010

Hardcore Hell 7inch

鞠螺千世 [kiKURAChiyo] (Canada/Croatia) - sketchgrind (2010)

2010-12-27T19:17:00.017+01:00

鞠螺千世 (KiKurachiyo) no. 2, much faster and noisier and goddamn sketchy (open the blue schematic above for the tracklist counting ten minutes & forty-four seconds). I can't promise that you'll like it, even if you liked Satan Samurai ¤REC Pirate Force, 'cause, while it's still punk as fuck, it has gone a bit into the abstract and came to be with a somewhat specific approach in the first place, one that we dubbed "sketchgrind" ('cause I'd rather use a term made-up a bit less predictably than post-grind, hahaha... just kidding). Specifically, what if one could play / act-out grind in stream of consciousness, much like writers such as Woolf, Kerouac, Faulkner attempted, or, perhaps much more similarly, what the alleged surrealist application of "automatism" claimed to apply (e.g. Breton). I mean - in regard of using a blank piece of paper, the page of some notebook, as the point upon which one can develop / form and develop expression - what if one's canvas was... the blastbeat?

How successful was the attempt? Well, can't do much but let others be the judges, albeit they inherently cannot do this objectively for reasons other than "music is subjective, d'oh!" 'cause these songs are egoistic, self-indulgent, pertaining completely to a feeling for a less decided, more free approach to grind, the realization of which does not necessarily happen in the finished product, but in the very process of becoming; i.e. it's a given that only me and Orfee can consider whether we've accomplished our grind-needs in accord to our expressive notions, like with any other self-reflecting band / project. And hey, the point of the whole thing was still expression, sincere and emotionally releasing and everything that I had found in the extremity that is grind in the first place. That said, there's a whole essay on sketchgrind inside.

Nah, that wasn't a joke. The final product that entailed the first KiKurachiyo had also contained a load of shit (the nicer, selected portion of which [sketchgrind] you see in the post) along with audio tracks, so let it be known that this one's even worse! So eh, we did what we did and we take full responsibility. The download link is at the bottom, anyhow. Not sure what I could say about the directed listener-base seeing as there is none, but certain Discordance Axis fans might like certain elements, and, uh, Swarrrm empathizers could feel similarly about the screaming and yelling 'cause those are the bands that have definitely and significantly influenced us two. I complicate unnecessarily; just don't expect nice(ly produced) music or black metal and you'll be fine. Also, no low volume listening! Bye~

download [grind-positive]

P.S. Have fun and all; I'll be back in the early days of January, 2011.
P.P.S. The front-cover-art is derived from the book cover of Tsuji Jun's 1920 translation of Max Stirner's "Der Einzige und sein Eigentum".
P.P.P.S. Any people / blogs / zines that want to review / criticize / do whatever they want to do with sketchgrind, are encouraged to do so if they, uh, feel like it.

His Hero Is Gone-"Monuments to Thieves"-USA1997

2010-12-26T20:44:00.007+01:00

What up folks , its been a minute since I done posted up. I saw that Wedge gave me a thumbs up on my 9shocks post so it inspired me to post something. uh, yea.

Ok, I don't think Ive posted this before, or I hope not. His Hero Is Gone were one my favorite bands ever and this is the album I like the best. These guys later became Tragedy, which I'm not into as much. What I liked about HHIG is that the combined elements of various "extreme music" styles into their punk rock, better than a lot of other bands who have tried. Their composition was technical but simple at the same time, its the perfect mix.

Seriously, I think the intro part of this album is still my favorite of all time. It's crushing when it drops, so bad ass.

The first download link is "Monuments to Thieves LP". Since it's a holiday I added "everything else" to one zip file. The bonus zip includes "15 counts of Arson LP", "Fools Gold EP", " The Plot Sickens LP" and " The Dead Of Night EP". So, other than those I think there is only comp tracks, split 12 w/ UoU and demos you will be missing.

DOWNLOAD HERO IS HERE

BONUS HOLIDAY DOWNLOAD

Mortalized (Japan) - Absolute Mortality EP [no. 1] (2003)

2010-12-24T21:53:00.007+01:00

Tracklist:
1. Destruction (Adagio)
2. Dark Side
3. Speed Satan
4. Rapture
Total running time 4:29

Notice how it's not absolute morality - it's mortality! Fuck Christmas, anyhow, and especially masses, be they white & holy or black & upside down. But Mortalized is certainly one of the best grind bands to ever exist, owing to the uncompromisingly disciplined approach building upon the concept of speed and Satan. If grind strives for over-the-top speed inside of a physical possibility (sticks in hands, I mean), the whole aspect of "displine" is merely realizing a berserk-to-go potential by theory put to practice over time, will, work. Also, I never signed up for some dude dying for me.

And I think that you guys who did might be assholes. (Mediafire)

Orfee recently posted Absolute Mortality #2 so I figured that this one would be at least as welcome.

Unholy Grave [JPN] - Crucified [1995]

2010-12-22T23:23:00.004+01:00

Here's to the real G&P's Grindcore Bracketology winners, because, if you are still unaware of this after so many hours have ellapsed, Andrew Childers a.k.a. Jon Chang used his direct connections to Dick Cheney and had him supply Diebold™ vote-counting machines for the bracketology event, then Andrew hacked the whole thing with his ATM card.

In other grindcore news, Dick Cheney is a big GridLink fan.

Mar of downloadation - [mediafire] -

Assück (USA) - Misery Index (1997)

2010-12-19T11:17:00.007+01:00

Tracklist:
1. QED
2. Salt Mine
3. Corners
4. Dataclast
5. Blight Of Element
6. Talon Of Dominion
7. Unrequited Blood
8. Wartorn
9. Sum And Substance
10. Riven
11. Reversing Denial
12. Lithographs
13. Intravenous
14. A Monument To Failure
Total running time 15:10

Assück is a band that pushed grind where it hadn't been, to places it didn't know how to reach, no matter how incredible it may seem today that people in the 90s didn't really comprehend that relentless blastbeating could get you, well, anywhere! The trademark thing about Assücking is - the groove? the rhythm? - the organically tight mass of sound that it spews, owing very much to Proctor's (who also played for Discordance Axis when Witte wasn't around) all-out drumming, clockwork snare fills & dissonant, sludgy sing-a-longs, which is why one of the often irreplaceable grind rules shows as clearly as possible without dabbling into noisecore: always the whole album before individual songs. But really, song-lengths considered, that certainly ought to be goddamn obvious from the start - irrelevant to Assück's perplexing yet bulletproof songwriting wrapped in a Morrisound sound (being more or less intertwined with the unmistakable Florida death metal scene) akin to a collapsing skyscraper - and I can't help but feel a general dislike to all the writers, reviewers, whatever, complaining about songs in grindcore being too short and destructive. I mean, go listen to kitschy rock'n'roll; quod erat demonstrandum (eh). The lyrics are cold, untouchable monuments to the machine-aspect of humanity that is civilization: desperate, existentially bleak, yet existing because of an irrational tinge of hope in the first place, the absurd, Sisyphal power of conscious Being, or, more likely, the last bit of animalism left in man - the will to live. Is the daily grind not the reason why we have such great grind albums?

Economics aside, this album is where the Misery Index from Baltimore took their name from, a band that I kind of like, but not really, 'cause I can't comprehend how ultimately generic metal without innovation, without destruction, with guitar solos, came to be under the influence of a band like Assück, the latter often given the already predictable, pretty vapid description of "hardcore kids playing death metal". For fuck's sake, they're not playing hardcore or death metal - they're playing GRIND, a genre with potential much too intense to be infinitely tangential to its mom & dad genres. Is it not obvious, even natural, that a violent uprooting of oneself happens toward emancipation? Assück, here, is one of these progressions.

"Only one sunrise will tell." (Mediafire)

You know, Plutocracy have a song titled "Suckass", possibly poking fun at their Assücking palls. Also, today my age counts twenty according to the Gregorian calendar, but to hell with time and all that shit. Along with general blastbeat enthusiasm, a few Cephscope staff releases will be posted before New Year's Eve, while the annual year-in-retrospect post might be expected a bit later (from me, at least).

V/A - The Virus That Would Not Die! [1997]

2010-12-18T19:55:00.005+01:00

You know what to expect from this kind of compilation, I got this solely for the Logical Nonsense track. Gotta love the artwork too and how interesting bovine excisions are.

The virus that will download [mediafire]!

Le Scrawl

2010-12-17T01:26:00.007+01:00

Although my copy of Converge's "Petitioning The Empty Sky" is practically scratchless, it's giving me glitches, my old G4 PPC couldn't even play it. Should I be using one of these CD cleaning kits?

In the meantime, as usual, I'm perusing G&P for inspiration so there you are. Le Scrawl are an interesting band, maybe too interesting [for some]. Personally, I find the vocals too monotonous and vocals make or kill. Also, this is a "discography" so it's not really that short, therefore rendering it with the possibility of being ignored.

Seth Putnam graces track # twelve [Quest] with his, euhm, being.

Download possible [mediafire].

Agathocles [BEL] - Mince Core History 1989-1993 [2001]

2010-12-11T20:15:00.006+01:00

Maybe you heard of these guys before, they have a split with "PRAPARATION H".

"At this point do you really need another Agathocles record? Of course you do, and this one may or may not disappoint."*

- Andrew Childers, Grind & Punishment.

*all quotes are fictional, any resemblance to living or dead quotes is purely coincidental.

The download stalls where man stops to think [mediafire].

Mortalized & Guilty Connector (Japan) - Concerto for Harsh Noise Grind #3 (2006)

2010-12-10T00:03:00.006+01:00

Tracklist:
1. Babylon, Burning
2. Parallel
3. A Planet
4. Work For Ever
5. Home, Sweet Home
6. Beer Can
7. Untitled
Total running time 7:51

I remember when Burek of Terror Noise Audio (& the stochastic Flying Teapot) told me all excited about how he found some Mortalized / Guilty Connector collaboration on soulseek. My reaction was the only possible reaction, i.e. "Fuck yes," and you can add an exclamation mark to that. So it's been posted over at TNA for a while now, but the repost of such a beauty can only create the opposite of hurt + this is a thing comprised of the fluffiest, nicest Japanoise and Nippongrind meaning that about 99% of Cephscope readers will appreciate its form with earblood, earsweat, and eartears. I mean, from my experience. This is, in fact, not Concerto for Harsh Noise Grind #1 (like the title on TNA says, 'cause that one's an older three-song tape / later 3" CD), but the Concerto for Harsh Noise Grind #3 MCD! It is not really a split release, but a full-blown collaboration akin to some those new powerviolence ones that so many of you like to drool over. But there are more blastbeats here, so you ought to know the winner.

And don't embarass me, son(s & daughters), 'cause there'll be a greater number of (cyber)demons a-growlin' than the member count of the entire Satanic Hell Choir of (Death and) Slaughter employed for this very Concerto, and next thing you know I'll be posting Colemans, Coletranes, Dolphies, Jamals, Hills and Minguses.

Takafumi Matsubara for World President (Medifaire)

Anybody up for some noisy emoviolenza and shit? Oh and hey, you know that Japanese screamo band that took their name from a Converge song, Heaven In Her Farts?

Forgive me, but I needed to write that down.

Parade of the Lifeless & Noisear (USA) - SPLIT 7" (1999)

2010-12-09T23:01:00.007+01:00

Tracklist:
Parade of the Lifeless
1. Doug Flutie Loves His Kiddie Porn
2. Myriad Mindset
Noisear
3. Surgeon General
4. Free to Maim
5. You Must Comply
6. Morrocan Hash Block
7. Shorty Shit Stain
Total running time 10:47

If this 7" ain't a match made in Heaven, I don't know what is. Or it could've been that, at least, if the Noisear side had, well, better quality recordings. That said, kickass grind is kickass grind. Parade of the Lifeless isn't anywhere near as insane as on the 2000 jazzgrind masterpiece The Anatomy of a People's Bondage, but they still deliver some top quality tech death-grind projecting a macabre fantasy of Doug Flutie's excessive (downright unbelievable) love for children, while Noisear bring the usual spazzbeats, beautiful noise and typographical errors.

Feed Ear Mire (Me Dia Fire)

Kiss It Goodbye [USA] - She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not... [1997]

2010-12-08T20:07:00.006+01:00

Did you read about Mr. Childers revealing his true identity? He's in fact a person named Jon Chang... I am not aware of Mr. Chang's whereabouts nor the nature of his motives but such a revelation is akin to learn your father is not your biological one, when you're 32 years old.

Close cover before downloading [mediafire].

Insect Warfare (Texas) - Gulf Coast Infestation DEMO (2004)

2010-12-07T23:35:00.004+01:00

Tracklist:
1. But Now You Die
2. Hurricane Death
3. Amphetamine Psychosis
4. Negative Appeal
5. Death To False Grind
6. At War With Grindcore
Total running time 10:25

The first Insect Warfare demo is but a recording of a rehearsal where Beau gives a lecture on how "haircuts make not a band grind". For the general idea (I do like impressionism), here are all the nice words from the songtitles:
1. Die
2. Death
3. Psychosis
4. Negative
5. Death
6. War

Keep Death to False Grind Alive! (Mediafire)

I've always had a thing for demos, and this one has blastbeats, riffs, noise... Sounds like grind.

Noism (Japan) - ± (2008)

2010-12-03T18:59:00.004+01:00

Tracklist:

1.	Man-I-C	02:03
2.	DTM	01:30
3.	Zaporojets	02:07
4.	Death-Meta-Logic	02:04
5.	BPM	01:31
6.	Noismetal	01:31
7.	No, Cuts and Drag	01:34
8.	Computer Illiterate	02:02
9.	Yesism	02:12
10.	I'm Not in a Band	01:03
11.	Noist	01:34
12.	Adhdhda	01:54

Total playing time 21:38

Crucial Blast infamously (re-)released this one in 2008 (so that's the new cover above), a very goddamn chaotic construct, a flurry of noise on the first of all listens. Well, unless you already heard it. Noism was already featured on Cephalochromoscope with one 2000 release, the other 2001. That aside, I talked to the guitarist of the duo sometimes around the release of this very album and an interview was agreed upon, so I sent in my start-up questions, but never got my answers...

WHY, YOSHIRO? WHYYYYYY?!

Just kidding. I got over it, I swear. Seriously. No, really. Anyway, here's Noism's absolutely insane debut full-length, extreme in every goddamn aspect, brutal to the fucking fuck, fuck, 'cause that's how brutal it is. Technically, it's breakcore + brutal death metal sped the fuck up; for what it's worth, it could probably be pigeonholed as one of the "best" cybergrind albums for the extremity that it is + full-on realization of the project's entire concept of, well, pushing the envelope of "brutality and complexity" (with speed, at that).

It's over 9000 BPM! (Mediafire)

V/A - Critical Pedagogy: A Compilation Of Teachers In Punk Bands [2000]

2010-12-02T21:52:00.007+01:00

Heille salut Péno! Tu m'as dis que t'avais plus de place sur ton téléphone? C'est pas très punk ça, un cellulaire joue vraiment mal sur une table tournante...

For those who don't care for personal french-canadian banter [I'd say most] but love to read about people writing about being in a punk band and teaching [I'd say few], this little compilation has a twenty-four page booklet. It's true, punk and learning go hands-in-hands... I mean, hand in hand, my punk is lacking as well.

I was an infant the first time I downloaded from [mediafire].

Rise Above & Machetazo (Japan & Spain) - Split 7" (2000)

2010-12-01T09:37:00.005+01:00

Tracklist:
Rise Above
1. Forward
2. Discord
3. Stand Point
4. Scientific Abuse
Machetazo
5. Abducción
6. Humillado y Descuartizado Por Mongólicos
7. La Flema
Total playing time 10:38

If a Japanese band called "Rise Above" doesn't ring a bell (i.e. instant grind-mind Napalm Death songtitle associations), let memories be refreshed! They released one of the goddamn best, noisiest, most destructive grind albums ever back in 2001 (as a 3" CD, at that), I Love To Relax. Orfee posted that one back in May of 2008, and he came back in September, 2010, with some older, more metal shit of theirs, Sound Systematic Grind. Cephalochromoscope's history with Rise Above summarized, here's a fairly shit rip of their 2000 split with Machetazo, the latter certainly being among the more prominent deathly, greasy grind bands ever to come from Spain, going since about 1994.

These Rise Above recordings are from 1999, explaining their less explosive, pre-I Love To Relax disposition toward grinding.

Backward (Mediafire)

Hellnation (USA) - Dynamite Up Your Ass 12" (2002)

2010-11-30T09:25:00.001+01:00

Tracklist:
1 Dynamite Up Your Ass 00:39
2 Martyr 00:26
3 Game of Death 00:59
4 No More Favors 00:25
5 Um Bando De Filhos da Puta 00:26
6 Not Smooth Jazz 00:46
7 I love Punk I love Thrash 00:41
8 Outsider 00:32
9 Cold Sweat 00:39
10 Drinking With Friends 01:01
11 Dengue's Mosquito 00:27
12 Army of God 00:52
13 Punk For Dummies 00:48
14 Signup 00:29
15 Easy Sell 01:10
16 When In Rome 00:18
17 Ride With Me 00:42
18 This is Progress ? 00:32
19 Best Behavior 00:18
20 Glory Days 01:12
21 Again and Again 00:50
Total playing time 14:12

Fastcore / thrashcore defined.

And deified.

Not smooth jazz. (Mediafire)

A band from Kentucky got me into thrashing. If you don't like it, better give up on fast music altogether.

Goatwhore [USA] - The Eclipse Of Ages Into Black [2000]

2010-11-28T18:24:00.005+01:00

Goatwhore is Acid Bath's guitarist Sammy Duet musical continuation and as you can see that album is a decade old. I watched a recent video of theirs here and well, if this is any indication of the current state of american blackened metal, leather and spikes leave me unimpressed but occult symbolism remains forever actual, listen with your eyes at least once.

Upon this download of cold [mediafire].

the Dreadful Eardrum Assault a.k.a. Teizoku Komaku Bohkoh [CAN] - Occultist for the Nullified [2007]

2010-11-25T01:11:00.000+01:00

After listening to this recently I'm considering changing my project's name to "the Playful Eardrum Assault a.k.a Yuugiteki Komaku Bohkoh" [PxExA] because for one, I'm not nearly as comfortable strutting around a DEA t-shirt anywhere in the united states as I was In Canada, it's just not happening.

Drawn of the download [mediafire].

Jesus Egg & Grimsby (USA) - Split CDr (Year Zero)

2010-11-23T19:39:00.009+01:00

Tracklist:
Jesus Egg, Tracks 1 - 12
Grimsby, Tracks 13 - 23
Total running time 16:25

Big thanks for the release go to Kunal of SuperFi Records, as he's the one that sent it in! That said, Kunal also awesomely put out the Swarrrm / Dimlaia split, a fact that takes me way, way back (well, alright, a year and some), when Sgt. Batguano of the excellent Fugitive Equilibrium ripped the 10" for me 'cause I hadn't yet heard it at that point.

Yeah, time is an asshole for so many reasons.

The actual asshole might be me, though. But fuck time, anyhow.

So anyway, more Jesus Egg?! Not really, 'cause what you get here are the twelve tracks from the two demos that I already posted (five from one, seven from the other, but set in reverse). Doesn't matter 'cause we haven't heard the eleven Grimsby tracks, have we? We most definitely haven't.

They're a band that might share / might have shared some band members with Jesus Egg, drama actors whom I will not name out of fear for a backlash of "real life drama on the internet." They also share their bandname with a port town in England, and another town on Lake Ontario, while they play nice 'n' fast as fuck hardcore, owing its charm / anti-charm one part to the recording quality (i.e. anti-quality), the other to cool sludge trudging & thrash-a-thrashing. Powerviolent, lovely, sweet. Bring on the angry unicorns. Or the even more dangerous tricorns. Or some goddamn rhinos in the middle of their mating season, if you can't take a joke.

But what in Jaysus' name is a "Grimsby"? (Mediafire)

Rhinos, you are sweet.

Nano Machine (Jap) - Gemini (2005)

2010-11-21T14:02:00.008+01:00

#1 - Spin

#2 - Floating
#3 - Fly

And one day we may buy it, but now it remains a download.

Barrington Levy [JAM] - Englishman / Robin Hood [1991]

2010-11-20T20:05:00.006+01:00

CD reissue of a dancehall oldies classic, let's mellow out for a second, like canaries would.

If you give to me [a download link on [mediafire]].

Kokeshidoll [JPN] - Kokeshism [2003]

2010-11-18T17:12:00.004+01:00

I don't know if exclusive japanese releases "reads" left to right as you would literature or manga, but I treated it so according to my intranets researches, regardless, you can rearrange the scanned files as you wish, it's a free Tibet afterall.

Bad tasting jokes aside, Kokeshidoll are a The Stalin "copy band", I also thought they were an all-girl band but not on this record, you should be all aware of this since 47% of this blog followers majored in neo-traditional oriental music.

I'm not sure if the last track "Light My Fire" is a The Doors cover but I'll go on and say it's the best "Light My fire" cover ever.

Kokeshidolload... meh, never[mindiafire].

Kasatka (Belgium) - Scene Slaughter Mini CD (2010)

2010-11-16T18:45:00.003+01:00

Tracklist:
1. Lemons
2. Cosmetic Pandemic
3. Empathy/Disability
4. Orifice
5. Surpassing the Boundaries
6. Proposition Jock Abolition
7. Scene Slaughter
Total running time 4:34

Belgium's own Kasatka start it off with a short Army of Darkness sample, a tidbit certain to make quite a few of you jump. Next thing you know, they blast the fuck away. I'll skip right to the point and point out that the band pretty much kicks (i.e. thrashes) all sorts of ass. They are, at once, a cute killer whale (known to display aggressive behavior toward humans), a Russian transport helicopter (erm, well, it's a goddamn military chopper, developed by Kamov at that, which is, coincidentally, the surname of apocalyptic prophet-poet Janko Polić Kamov of Rijeka, Croatia; oh, how I pity you for not knowing Balkan things!), and a relentless thrash band with a penchant for Japanese aesthetics.

"We are disgusted my main scene mentality, dress codes, ungrounded elitism, friendship politics and overall retardation and self-proclaimed punk attitude. Our influences range from Japanese thrashcore and Houston powerviolence to global fastcore, amongst other derivatives of the punk/hardcore spectrum, and from noise, to postrock and free jazz abroad," says Owen, the drummer.

They're a drum 'n' guitar duo, the one on drums being but eighteen still (major kudos for those blastbeats, my good man), with the guitarist some nine years older sawing off traffic lights with his guitar. Noise is nice! They both yell and they thrash in all the right ways and what else can I say!

But how can you play extreme music without super-nice haircuts? How? HOW? (Mediafire)

I just don't understand. But Owen also said: "Everything was done strictly DIY. We're aiming to build a home studio in order to piss off everyone that clings to the "music has to sound as if recorded by a tape recorder, otherwise it's not punk anymore"-concept. Front cover done by Jasper "Infested Art". Layout and stuffs by myself, no lyrics included. Limited to 50 self-produced copies," and that's cool, but watch out for becoming elitist anti-elitists! I kid, I kid... or do I? But he's definitely not joking about the DIY part, as their graphic artists and recorder (sic) Jasper, Owen's brother, is considered a bandmember judging by the info on their myspace.

Rat Corpse (USA) - S/T (2010)

2010-11-16T18:17:00.005+01:00

Tracklist:

1. Survival Of The Worst

2. Hope This Hate (Will Never Heal)

3. Jumbled

4. My Craft Is Crap

5. Living With Yeti

6. Dirty Frenzy

7. The Ballad...

8. PS I Hate You

9. Hate You Like A Hurricane

10. My Two Dads

Total running time 22:54

"For fans of The Locust, Melt-Banana, Butthole Surfers, Wolf Eyes, Boredoms, UFO Or Die, Big Black, Holy Molar, Man Is The Bastard, Fantomas, An Albatross, Arab On Radar."

I needn't really talk more, but since I like to write just so much...

I'd exchange the infamous three blind mice for three, erm, four deaf rats any day if this was their soundtrack. Some people like nightmarish things! Rat Corpse is a disgusting quartet, and not only soundwise. I mean, not even their mothers could love those costumes. And musically, well, what sense does it make to describe a noise band with an adjective like "musically"? I mean, they do have some instruments, like a bass guitar, some synths, and drums, but.... eh? Fuck me. Fuck Boston and its rat population. Fuck Rat Corpse. But... but why do I like them? What in God's name is wrong with me? Rat Corpse, I Hate You Like A Hurricane. You stamped all over my Dreams (you know, the Cranberries song).

"Noise is not music but noise." (Megaupload) OR (Mediafire)

I read that somewhere on these idiotic internets a long time ago and it still cracks me up. I mean, really?

P.S. I Hate You is my favorite.

Evance & ジャバラ [JPN & JPN] - Split CD [2000]

2010-11-12T19:11:00.004+01:00

Humpty Dumpty sat on a squall,

Humpty Dumpty thrashed through a wall,

punk rock mayhem, he wants more,

because Humpty is so hardcore.

固鬱狂行 [撃弾].

Deathpeed [JPN] - The Day Of Doom [2006]

2010-11-09T19:47:00.006+01:00

I didn't quite follow Grind and Punishment's Grindcore Bracketology but let me tell you, I'm very upset that Unhory Glave lost to Magnicide, where were they in 1988? Nowhere, they leaped that whole year, sheesh. Here's some protestation for you.

The day of download [mediafire].

Mortalized [JPN] - Absolute Mortality #2 [2004]

2010-11-06T18:22:00.004+01:00

I hear there's some funky good grindcore on this blog [some of the time], I also hear every single form of life in this galaxy think that MCDs are cute and it don't get any cuter than MCDs with pentagrams on them.

Absolute downliability [mediafire].

Urban Dance Squad [NED] - Mental Floss For The Globe [1990]

2010-11-04T16:38:00.003+01:00

Recently .karlo was raving about the eighties number one teen movie "Pump Up The Volume", which I saw, like most 80's classics, in a french from France dubbed version. Since there was a VHS copy lying around here, I decided to watch in its original form. Towards the ending, I heard the song "Fast Lane" by Netherlands's U.D.S., that doesn't feature on the official soundtrack so, here I am, rectifying. Happy nostalgia everyone [really?]!

Famous when you download [mediafire].

Motiveless [JPN] - Spread of hatreD [2007]

2010-10-31T01:42:00.006+02:00

We celebrate our third All Hallow's Eve at the 'scope, isn't it nice? It's a big thing in north america, kids get free candy if they're willing to do the legwork [not true, I've seen kids trick or treat in cars]. I thought I'd already share this with you .karlo but hey, you see what happens when I sling doors at your phalanges? I give you ear candy, merci BOOcoup!

Cephalochromoscope describes only abnormal mentality and downloads. But, we don't recommend those downloads [mediafire].

GWAR [USA] - Scumdogs Of The Universe [1994]

2010-10-28T00:12:00.002+02:00

Allo les céphalochromoscopeurs!

You may remember me from being the french canadian dude here, well, not quite so anymore. Last friday I rushed to anywhere, USA, activating my k1 visa in the process [with a two+ months unattended beard, mind you] because my sweetheart got into a fender bender in New Jersey, I had no other choice but to pull a Cindy Lauper [to hell and beyond, twice, with Céline Dion] on the state of New York.

The decomposing deer carcasses to shredded tires ratio riddling the sides of highways is the highest I ever witnessed.

So, this was supposed to be my last canadian post but as you can understand, circumstances dictated otherwise. Always faithful to messing with the blog's grindcore streaks, I bring you metal. Firstly, GWAR are from Richmond, VA, the state I reside in at the moment, secondly, for an inexplicable reason I was a huge GWAR head back in high school, I stopped being into them with "This Toilet Earth" though [that I own on cassette, giving you an idea of time frames]. I still like GWAR, maybe out of nostalgia but I still do, just keep it between you, me and the internets.

Cool place to download [mediafire].

Gods of Grind & Gate (Japan) - Split (2007)

2010-10-27T01:00:00.003+02:00

Having babbled far and wide about Gate (who provide their tracks as a duo on this particular split, Kobori + Otake) in the post of their three demos right here, I dedicate this post to Gods of Grind, a four-piece from Nagano doing it just right despite owning a somewhat pompous bandname. I found it most interesting how they have exactly one (!) mid-paced, thrash part (on "Scum Members) to these (in total) six tracks of music, the drummer (Sunohara) not really tending toward the whole thrashing part of the deal. What he does instead is simply blast the fuck away 90% of the time, sweet & short chugga-lugga breaks in-between. Microphone-wise, the growling (snarling?) man (Tamai) positively sounds like someone had him un-muzzled and un-caged purely 'cause Gods of Grind needed a vocalist. Makes you wonder how he hasn't killed the rest of the band during recording. I conclude that Japanese grind is to the rest of the world what the Heavens are to the Earth. Holy? Nonexistent? A cool place to chill at? Nothing short of a religious experience, that's for sure (making grind in itself the only true religion, putting in question how the Christian dudes in Rehumanize can even start explaining their whole "religion in a religion" thing, seeing as they obviously worship the God of Grind; I hope it's nothing similar to the tedious and immortal-like-Christopher-Lambert [there can be only one, and the one is certainly him] discussion about grind being a subgenre of punk, or even - God / Satan / Your Mom forbid - metal [Christianity is a subreligion to Grindcore? Someone needs to blastbeat those ideas out of you!]).

...And so Gate did an Impaled Nazarene impression, putting a frown on the face of every kid in the room. (Mediafire)

Alright well, I'm off to other corners of the Balkans for a bit. You people seem to appreciate your Gate so I posted this one (while it's openly downloadable elsewhere, too), but I'm pretty sure it's still in stock over at the most excellent Bloodbath Records (this particular CD being catalogued under "BIMI058"), so have no qualms about sending those ten bucks (or, erm, thousand yen bill) of yours that way. Also, a round of applause and a big Thank You to the guy(ette) who scanned this stuff, whoever and wherever you are, and may you be or, in case you're already there (don't wanna jinx it!), stay in the grace of our lord and savior, Bill Murray.

Ni dieu ni maître!

324 (Japan) - DEMO Tape (1997)

2010-10-25T19:59:00.005+02:00

Tracklist:
1. Lowest Level
2. New Rotation
3. MOC
4. Melting Way
5. Cobalt
6. Glenghost
Total running time 8:15

Continuing the War on Ignorance About Grind Demos™, here's 324's 1997 tape, a release just as excellent as anything that came later, really, a thing not that surprising considering the near-identical line-up. However, notice the info on the cover! Masao Yamamoto, certainly among the most continuously resolute vocalists in punk, did not only yell here, but also played bass. Rumor has it, though, that 324 lost one of their members, got a new one. Could anyone fill me in and all; precisely what is up? I only heard this from Mr. Childers and I do not read Decibel (or any other music magazine, for that matter), so I have no means of checking out the interview in question.

But they've been relentlessly blasting away to this very day! (Mediafire)

And how awesome is that cover art? I guess you really can't separate the people of Japan and gigantic mechas.

Gate (Japan) - This is Fuckin' Grind (2001) & Two More Demos

2010-10-23T15:22:00.015+02:00

Gate is a Japanese grind band. Plain fact considered, I understand that it is fairly questionable whether I should even continue writing, but humour me, or do this. The buzzsaw duo (currently, that is, being a guitarist / vocalist + blastbeater, although basses were known to be slapped) hails from somewhere in the Tochigi Prefecture of Japan, the proper place to go for shrines and temples, with a total population around half the population of Croatia (how's that for a bloody obscure country? I mean, I certainly wouldn't know).

Back in 2008, Orfee posted their "Soon To Be Sodomized" EP, soon after I posted the still goddamn excellent three-way "Crushing the Grindcore Trademark" split comprised of Hutt, Noisear, and Gate here. In the comment section of the split (as you can see for yourself), some cool anonymous dude(ette) commendably left a link with more Gate material. The upload in question has since ceased to be, so I decided to re-up the joyous demos that had graced it. All in all, there's three of them, and not one is half bad. To quote myself in a tad more eloquent fashion than two years ago: "If we chose to compare and pair, Noisear would be paired with Discordance Axis, while Gate would be paired with Assück. Yes, Gate's dissonant side does remind of early DxAx, but the overall sound is a wholly different, heavier, slower, simpler, pounding Japanese tremolo hell. That almost sounds like Corrupted or something, but Gate is grindcore, and grindcore is fast." That said, Ben from the tragically vanished blog Condensed Fresh (scanned setlists from gigs that took place in the land of the rising sun, all with relevant, awesome stories) mentioned how Gate bored his pants off in the comment section of that STBS EP post. I, on the other hand, would gladly shove Gate in place of, for example, the ever prolific Unholy Grave (ironically, a band that Gate covers on Demo no. 1, and a great band in its own right, numbering 21 relevant posts on Cephalochromoscope) in the very interesting Battle of the Grind Bands over at Grind & Punishment, but I sure as hell haven't seen 'em play live. Gate has been a grind band with a brutally strict blast-policy for quite some time now, so where's the first full-length release? Seriously.

Demo 1 (Mediafire)
Tracklist:
1. Collapsed
2. Scars Remember
3. Torso
4. Humiliation
5. Hewhoisasshole[cut]blahblah (jeez, Gate...)
6. Anti-Terrorism (Unholy Grave cover)
7. Crux of Flagellant
8. Fundamental Human Condition
Total running time 11:10

Demo 2 - This is Fuckin' Grind (2001) (Mediafire)

Tracklist:
1. Scars Remember
2. Torso
3. My Anger To Whom?
4. Humiliation
Total running time 4:02

Demo 3 (Mediafire)
Tracklist:
1. Radiant Arkham (Discordance Axis)
2. The Inalienable Dreamless (Discordance Axis)
3. Desperate
4. Fundamental Human Condition
5. Nadir
6. Emancipation of Yourself
Total running time 11:03

Check out the surf-grind on "Nadir" & the classically Gate way of covering "The Inalienable Dreamless."

Phone Home (USA) - S/T EP (2010)

2010-10-21T17:56:00.008+02:00

Tracklist:
1. Meds
2. Cozy Attack
3. Two is a Crew
4. Panda

Here's the super-nice, chill as fuck "debut of the Vallarelli brothers of suburban and urban New York." The Michael of the bros is on synths + keys, while the John is on the kit, and together they Phone Home and yell like a much bigger band. Seems like enjoying punk rawk is a requirement for all things Cephalochromoscope. They do that too, irrelevantly.

Fairly difficult to tag (/unnecessarily pigeonhole), contrasting the minimalist number of band members, the music (and Michael said this himself) is maximalist and (this say I: it is also) properly flowin'. "Rich piano harmonies, warm synth washes and relentlessly driving percussion," seals the whole descriptive part of the deal, really. Unlike shitloads upon shitloads of generic, cold, empty post-rock bands, these two dudes pull off a warmth that makes one want to roast a bunch of chestnuts and be extra nice to his/her mom for the rest of the evening. The non-threatening shouting (it's how it feels when friends yell greetings at you) on "Cozy Attack" reminds me of a most excellent French post-rock duo, John Makay (those two are more classically drums + guitar based, but just as awesome). Is there like an awesome band that pulls more of this sort of stuff (with determined yelling, howling, shouting) off that I've not yet heard of? Sweet stuff, really.

If that sounds up your alley, stuff's free and all right here.

Jesus Egg (USA) - Erm, some presumably newer stuff (around 2004)

2010-10-17T11:52:00.011+02:00

Tracklist:
1. Track 1
2. Track 2
3. Track 3
4. Track 4
5. Unorthodox Transaction
6. Track 6
7. Track 7
Total running time 4:02

I'm not really gonna say whether I enjoy this more than version 1.0, but it's some newer stuff and it is obvious that the band has tightened up heavily. If I must trace their grind / metal / punk lineage in order to define Jesus Egg's sound, bluntly put, both releases / demos come from Discordant Axis' orbit, yet, as they got older, the band tended to do things from a more Human Remains angle. A great thing, too, considering how well they found themselves in the whole abrasively austere stop-start riffin' business. Ever so lovingly and completely un-jokingly, ska-punk also makes an appearance in-between bursts of manic thrash. And that's it! Nico (Hypoptalasias) provided this one too, seven more tracks, 40 seconds less than the five-track version 1.0, and that's all I have. Regretfully, I just recorded the first utilisation of the dreadful "ska" tag, making the blog die a little on the inside. Just kidding, ha, ha... ha.

Not kidding. (Mediafire)

My compatriot (well, near enough) Thethirdchildren provided an excellent link with some Jesus Egg info! So here's their purevolume page (check out the Chang-as-fuck lyrics to "Censure"). The band is apparently composed of Jon Vinson, Cole Martinez, Ryan Wes(e?)ling, and Jamie Bibbs. They're - get this - "a 4 piece from cleveland, ohio blending death metal, grind, ska, and jazz into one." The description's heart is at the right place, but it misses "reggae".

Soilent Green [USA] - A String Of Lies [1998]

2010-10-16T18:18:00.000+02:00

"What happens in Nawlins, stays in Nawlins" as the saying goes, you crazy cajuns, you.

P.S.: This EP is Phil Anselmo-free.

Down load secrets [mediafire].

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1(Xbox 360)

2010-10-15T17:13:00.006+02:00

Hello, Ceph-chums. There now follows a review of this game, written by a man who grew up clutching a Megadrive. Indulge me, I'm extremely bitter.

I waited all morning, I did. I couldn't find any information on when Xbox Live Arcade updates the game catalogue, and vaguely remembered Rez being released around 8.30am, so I waited. Did some writing, drank a lot of tea, refreshed the Marketplace, repeated. As it turns out, they update at 12pm dead these days, so at 12.03 I had a lovely, pristine download of Sonic 4: Episode 1 booting up, presenting me with the legendary SEEE-GAAAAAA! sample, the Sonic Team logo, a title screen that hit every nail right on its excited little head and said to me maybe, just maybe, they got it right this time.

Illusions can be shattered quickly, readers. Very quickly indeed.

Imagine, if you will, a tennis game. Say, Virtua Tennis 3, a decent example of the genre; it looks like tennis, it plays like tennis, it sounds and feels and reacts in a tennis-y way. It's tennis, is what I'm trying to say. Not Sega Superstars Tennis, or any idiot novelty nonsense: TENNIS. Now imagine that the programmers forgot to put a ball in. Rather defeating the purpose, no? Completely destroying the mechanic that tennis is known for, like that Dredd game for the original Xbox that included a Lawgiver but no ammo for it, forcing the inimitable, epically-chinned Judge to rely on scavenged weaponry from fallen crims. Taking something known and expected, nay demanded, and removing it whilst preserving the notion, the hint that it should be there. That's Sonic 4.

It starts off well enough, the Splash Hill zone essentially being a shiny remake of Emerald Hill from Sonic 2 but this is clearly simply in order to spark the nostalgia glands of anyone playing the trial. from Act 2 onward, there is nothing but hateful design, vexing enemies, absurdly easy bosses and horrendous graphical problems. Much of the time, you'll be hit by an enemy you had no chance of spotting. Obviously, this has been placed in order to reward repeat playings; learn where the enemies are, and press the jump button before they appear. However, the experience of being repeatedly hit by something you couldn't conceivably know was there is such a joyless, frustrating task that you'd have to be an idiot to subject yourself to repetition. Shmups are based on this principle, replaying and memorisation, but the difference is that in for example Dodonpachi death is your fault. Rarely does enemy fire come at you off-screen, or appear from nowhere, or arbitrarily change its rules so your hitbox is larger for no reason. This consistency, this set of rules obeyed totally is what Sonic 4 lacks.

Sonic's physics have altered from the classic 2d games of the early 90's. In Sonic the Hedgehog, pressing the jump button whilst moving caused Sonic to describe a parabola in mid-air - you had a degree of control over his momentum, and could affect where he landed, but once you had leapt from a platform you were committed to whatever happened next. In Sonic 4 no matter how much momentum is carried into a jump, it can be cancelled and Sonic dropped straight downward by letting go of the directional button. Now, for someone used to skipping back from left to right to left to correct a trajectory, this is so jarring as to completely break the game; doing so results in a bizarre zig-zag of total direction changes. It's possible to leap outward from the edge of a platform, change direction in mid-air and land behind your original position, a manoeuvre dubbed 'the curly muffin' by Amiga Power and ridiculed in the early 90's.

The cave levels(don't remember the name, am blanking this from my mind) include an act where the main gimmick is darkness. Sandopolis did this well in Sonic 3 & Knuckles; the 'oh-no-there-are-ghosts' thing being the most enjoyable aspect of a tedious, badly designed level. Sonic 4's Stupid Cave Level reduces the player's vision to an area immediately surrounding the character, meaning any oncoming obstacles are not visible until bumped into due to the speed at which the player moves. It's one of the most frustrating things I've played since that bit in Halo 3 on Legendary in the corridor, and exemplifies the nature of this game entirely - it's for the 'hardcore', the savants that post speedruns, people that don't have anything else to do with their lives.

There are many other things; the card game level that grants insane numbers of extra lives(twenty-three on my first go), the bland, forgettable music, the incredibly easy bosses, the horrid special stages, the single save slot, the occasional frame rate problem - if I went on, it would be six times as much text as I have already written. Almost literally everything about this game is subtly, slightly wrong, resulting in mediocrity.

To me, that is the worst crime Sega could have committed with Sonic 4. Sorry, Sonic, but it's over. I've suffered at your hands long enough. It's time for us to part.

Jesus Egg (USA?) - version 1.0 (2003)

2010-10-15T12:52:00.010+02:00

Tracklist:
1. Track 1
2. Track 2
3. Bane of Avalon
4. Botato Pug
5. Bloodwork
Total running time 4:43

When cephalochromology is your line of business, you learn to be effective in scrolling the keyword-riddled internet speedways, finding and arresting disciples of Discordance Axis in order to plant them before the Infallible Court of Cephalochromoscope where they might be prosecuted for unworthiness and beaten by blasts forever on the steamy cyber-platforms, but what'll probably happen is a stream of praise for worshiping the right gods of grind, thereby achieving blastbeatitude; grind is heavy on the soul, and Jesus Egg is heavy on the Egg side of Jesus, 'cause theology doesn't know shit about the beginning, i.e. what came first - an egg, or a Jesus - whereas the answer is as obvious as Coltrane's sax skills: Discordance Axis came first, and Jesus Egg knows this.

After being but informed of its existence (thanks to Camille of Dreams of the Drowned, Smohalla & Stagnant Waters), I got this gem, blood diamond, or whatever it may be called, from the blastbeat-happy Nico (again, of Hypoptalasias), who acquired its ghastly form without even proper songtitles from the band itself. And it's a goddamn obscure band, it is. Asking the omniscient Google what the hell a Jesus Egg is will leave you wading through entries of The Flaming Lips' "Jesus Egg That Wept", searching for band info that doesn't fucking exist. This one's shrouded in dadaist mystery, true to a page on YTMND with Rosie O'Donnell having the best seizure of her life courtesy of "Bloodwork", the last track on version 1.0. For a long time, I thought that the band was French 'cause only Frenchmen seemed to even know about it, however(!), I found out that Ryan "Spicolli" Weseling, who played bass in Population Reduction, Raw Sewage, Kilgore Trout, and a shitload of other bands, actually was or is in the unfathomable phantasmagoria that is the fantastic, albeit presumably dead (/forever unhatched), Jesus Egg. If I'm even on the right track, that is.

EDIT: Seeing as an anonymous dude found the mention of Weseling offensive enough to rant about it in the comment section, I'll mention here that Weseling apparently didn't have much to do with the creative process of Jesus Egg. Check out this post for more actual band info, courtesy of Thethirdchildren's googling skills!

But fellow DxAx fanboys, you sure as hell shouldn't be giving a damn about all o' this right now 'cause this Egg is positively full of an unequivocal Rob Marton-impregnated beauty (is it safe to say that he is, in fact, the cock who conditioned the Egg's presence among us, even now?).

Bloody download this. (Mediafire)

I even wrote you a faux cover up there for the whole thing. Think it ought to land me some jobs in grind-cover-design?

Brume [FRA] - Normal [1998]

2010-10-13T03:55:00.005+02:00

Pronounced "bRhume", I lived at least eleven years on Lautrec street, get it, Lautrec? Toulouse Lautrec? Aah, nevermind!

Split confabulation download number 1 [mediafire].

John Coltrane (USA) - Olé (Coltrane) (1961)

2010-10-11T01:01:00.003+02:00

Tracklist:

1.		Liberia
2.		The Night Has A Thousand Eyes
3.		Equinox
4.		Olé
5.		Dahomey Dance
6.		Aisha
7.		Original Untitled Ballad (To Her Ladyship)

Total running time 1:07:44

While it certainly makes sense to proclaim how title tracks have little relevance to reviewing a jazz record (or doing about anything jazz-related), you'll forgive me 'cause I chiefly write nonsense anyway. However, might the intention count, at least? I try to blurt impressions, so how come it feels like the primeval act of farting? Hey, Dolphy got to play on this one, namely 'cause he "was able to circumvent contractual obligations to the Prestige label by using the 'George Lane' pseudonym." See, that's what you call a cool cat, doing it all for the Jazz.

So, how do you describe jazz? Well, here's a transcription of Freddie Hubbard's trumpet solo on "Aisha": Dee-dooo-dooo-dee-doo-doodoo-doodoooo-deedloo-dee-dee-doDEEEE-doo-doo-DOO-DOODOODEEDLY-DEEDLYDEEDLYDOO-dee-doodle-deedle-doodledoodledeedledeedoodeedledood-deedledoodledood-dee-doodoo-dee-dooo-deedoo-doo...

Enjoy the Coltrane, kids. (Mediafire)

I mean, he's dead anyway. This is from the presumably wonderful Heavyweight Champions 7CD collection, the one that encompasses all of Trane's recordings on Atlantic, which makes - I'm pretty sure - this Olé the Olé with the most tracks (7). Tracks 1 - 3 were recorded on October 26th, 1960, while tracks 4 to 7 (meaning the original Olé Coltrane) did the same on May 25th, 1961, both at Atlantic Studios, New York City. All of 'em written by John Coltrane, except for number two, "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes", by Buddy Bernier and Jerry Brainin.

Personnel for the original Olé, recorded May, 1961 (tracks 4 - 7):

John Coltrane – soprano sax "Olé", tenor sax on "Dahomey Dance" and "Aisha"
Eric Dolphy (credited as "George Lane") – flute on "Olé" and "To Her Ladyship", alto sax on "Dahomey Dance" and "Aisha"
Freddie Hubbard – trumpet
McCoy Tyner – piano
Reggie Workman – bass
Art Davis – bass on "Olé" and "Dahomey Dance"
Elvin Jones – drums

Hypoptalasias & Tekken (France) - Live at Mix'art Myrys 03-31-2003 SPLIT (2003)

2010-10-10T20:47:00.009+02:00

That's Tekken.

Tracklist:
Tekken
01. Rock'n'Roll
02. Monte Moi Dessus
03. Tep Kaos
04. I Can't Fall In Love
05. Fucking Bastard
06. All Gonna Die
07. D.I.Y. 666
08. What Can I Do
09. Pc Shoes
10. Shit Pants
11. B. Boys
12. Slave
13. Circle Pit
14. Crusty 2
15. I See Life
16. Reagan Youth
17. Hypoptalasias Is Gay
18. Back To The Roots
19. Noise
20. Trash Vs Numetal
21. Spazm
22. We Are Better Than You
23. Chaos
24. Fuck Away
25. Sickness Benefit (Hiatus Cover)
26. Don't Fuck Me Out
Hypoptalasias
27. Rabid Grannies
28. Unfortunate Carnage Of A Worldwide...
29. Burgaud Got Eyes
30. Hypopcrisie
31. Go To The Deal - Boxes - Box#7
32. urfing Moïse
33. Human God Flesh - Man Is Dead
34. The Kill (Napalm Death Cover)
35. Johan Holocaust
36. Frog Eyes - Stupid Cops
37. Kiss Da Beluga
38. Premutos
39. I8U - Pop & Korn - Ta Gueule
40. Titinus Hearing
41. My Head... My Computer...
42. P.M.R.C. Sucks
43. Pee On The Wall
Total running time 40:40

Awesomely named, Tekken play thrash to the core with the classic crow-guy on the vocals ("Grrrah, grrah, grrrraaah! Grrraaaah, grraaah!"). Grindviolenza done right. As for blastmasters Hypoptalasias, well, how much can a man talk about Hypoptalasias? Seriously, split with Denak + info here, split with Rot in Pieces here, and most of their tracks in general on their website. The thing with this one is, it's a live recording, making it just enough noisy for the majority to be unappreciative of the content (this includes the collective audience having multiple orgasms after each and every song). Not me, though, 'cause the Hypoptalasias recording displays an almost Pikadourei-level lo-fi wonderfulness. That said, I don't even know whether this one's an "official" release or what, but it sure is... there.

It is also here. (Mediafire)

Hypoptalasias, there.

Dissecting Table [JPN] - Human Breeding [1997]

2010-10-09T20:20:00.009+02:00

Since I'm using the "industrial" tag I'll come straight out and say those said industrial parts reminds me of Skinny Puppy, not that I know how Skinny Puppy sound like, not every canadian listen to or know about Skinny Puppy, alright? Only people living on the west coast do, crystal methodist folk music.

Mad human download markets [mediafire].

Hypoptalasias & Rot In Pieces (France & Canada) - SPLIT (2002)

2010-10-08T22:54:00.012+02:00

Tracklist:
Rot in Pieces

1. Les cons-damnés 00:47
2. 2 Die 4 your Con3 01:13
3. Crie la vérité sur les murs 02:36
4. Yan osborne 01:14
5. Afterlife Murder 03:21
6. Cormier 00:30
7. McDollars 01:03
8. Until Death do us in Parts 02:34
9. Dis-le pas à personne 00:30
10. La parole et l'acte 04:51
11. Langue perdue 00:35
12. Le Bièrier 00:50
13. Manipulations 04:28
14. The Kill [Napalm Death] 00:14
15. The Hillside Stranglers [Dahmer] 01:18
Hypoptalasias
16.Johan Holocaust(2:44)
17.Unfortunate carnage of the worldwide economic war(1:42)
18.PMRC(0:45)
19.Hypopcrésie(1:17)
20.Rabid grannies(1:50)
21.Reflekt(1:56)
22.Pee on the wall (live)(4:28)
23.Stupid cops (live)(0:29)
24.Perynnées manson (live)(0:22)
25.PMRC (live)(1:34)
26.Burgaud got eyes (live)(0:18)
27.Titinus hearing (live)(1:02)
28.Human god flesh-man is dead (live)(0:29)
29.Johan holocaust (live)(1:41)
30.Rabid grannies (live)(1:37)
Total running time 48:20

Quebequois quartet Rot In Pieces play grind with a grotesque death metal twist, in love with all things creepy and deformed, that ought to be familiar to everyone who dabbled in disgusting, quasi-experimental, disharmonic (Orchestra[l]) metal. This was their first (split) release, the second and last one being a split with Agathocles that came out one year later. It's a blast, with swinish pronunciation, topped off with a classic cover of Napalm Death's "The Kill" and a Dahmer one, suggesting (along with the general sound of the bad and that split with Agathocles) a love for mincecore.

Yet we have Hypoptalasias bringing the grindessential blasts, caught up between a horde of zombies kept animate purely on Discordance Axis shots and the Brutality of Truth and God knows what other sorts of socially perceived defects. Most wonderful is how they finish their studio-recorded side (tracks before the live recordings I mean): "Reflekt", a chuggathon to chug-along to, and perhaps even a nod to the frustratingly honest "A Leaden Stride to Nowhere" (sure sounds like it). I won't play the role of a barely comprehensible biographer here seeing as I already did it here, but I ought to comment that the sound on this one triumphs over that Hypoptalasias / Denak split, a very understandable thing once you take into account that this one was released on CD.

An unfortunate download for the worldwide copyright war! (Mediafire)

I repeat, you can get most Hypoptalasias tracks from their website. What's that... Why am I posting this shit then? Because I'm posting the whole releases, that's why, other bands included. Hypoptalasias don't spend any time talking 'bout bullshit. I mean, they really like zombies and shit, so they point it out sometimes, but that's that. Really.