Stellar effort from Satanic Warmaster. I’m not sure what it is about this one that just hits so well compared to the others, but hit it does. As much as I appreciate Carelian Satanic Madness, I’ve not enjoyed a SW album as much as this since Strength & Honour. The production feels a little bit more lo-fi than usual, but this may just be how the drums have been recorded. The hat trick of “Warmaster Returns”, “One Shining Star” and “Bestial Darkness” is near unbeatable black metal.
It’s always a good day when Darkthrone release a new album. it’s something that can be consistently relied upon as something to look forward to, even if the result of each offering may vary slightly. Or in this case, perhaps not so much at all. It Beckons Us All is great, but it is very similar in production and approach to both Eternal Hails and Astral Fortress – whilst also reminding me of some of the doomier moments on Old Star a few years back. Mix all of this with a healthy does of Celtic Frost worship and you’ve got It Beckons Us All. Some may perhaps wish that Darkthrone would move on from this style, and whilst I do have some of my favourite Darkthrone tracks on Astral Fortress (“Impeccable Caverns Of Satan”, “Stalagmite Neckalce”), I feel like the band have truly taken this particular style to its apex here on this record. “Eon 3”, “The Bird People of Nordland” and opening number “Howling Primitive Colonies” are all world class examples of blackened doomery.
Easily the best of the three releases so far. It also has no guitars or drums, so go figure. “The Nature Of The Gods” is more akin to what we’ve heard on Thulean Mysteries or The Ways Of Yore. It is also far more stable and consistent, actually managing to conjure up an atmosphere. Perhaps not all hope is lost then? We shall see.
As bad as – if not worse than – the first single. The programmed drums are stepped up a notch but the production seems infinitely shittier, probably due to the guitar taking up so much of the track. Somehow the guitar manages to be hollow and lifeless yet also drowns out the drums and vocals too. Once again, the saving grace is that this is – hopefully – some sort of demo that will be polished up in time for the album. Failing that, if this is the finished product, things are not looking too clever.
I was checking out the latest Burzum tracks (sideshow.bob.steps.on.rake.sound.effect.mp3) when I realised I hadn’t ever written a little spot about the Aske EP. This was easily missed, I guess, what with Aske being bundled together as part of the self-titled releases on CD etc. since the early 90s. I think there was a stand-alone Aske recently, on cassette, as part of a bigger box set, but if you want an original stand-alone Aske, you’d best be prepared to spend the bigger bucks. Aske has an unfinished feel, to me at least. This may be because of the raw production coupled with the generally short length of the record as well as the fact that one of the songs, “Stemmen Fra Tarnet” (the best song, I might add), just cuts off unceremoniously at the end. Aske has a noticably warmer production than the frostbitten debut album, and has the notable inclusion of Samoth from Emperor on bass guitar, in what is I think the only time another musician has ever played on a Burzum release. It would be remiss of me to not mention the cover art for this EP, which is as legendary as the music itself – if not more so, to be honest. The church in question a site of arson from the creators of this music, boldly placed on the sleeve of the EP in an almost mocking tone. This is an essential black metal recording, but you probably don’t need me to tell you that.
When I heard there would be (NEW) Burzum music I was cautiously optimistic. Varg can be, after all, something of a music genius. He is responsible for some of the greatest albums of all time. This however, is bullshit. Man is just strumming a cheap guitar over a fucking GarageBand loop. It sounds like someone fed Umskiptar into one of those crappy AI music apps and instructed it to: “make this again, but as shit as possible”. I feel safe in my assumption that this was knocked together in two days because Varg documented it on fucking Twitter. This is the state of black metal in 2024, folks. If there’s going to be an album’s worth of this shit, then it needs a lot of work. Hopefully this is just a demo or something.
Solid. That much I can say: solid. Definitely one of the strongest records the band have done since 1990 onwards. I’m not super sure if a fat, overproduced modern sound really works for Judas Priest, what with the compression and the scooped mids and what have you, but there’s some bangeroonies here on Firepower. “Flame Thrower” is a bop, as is “Necromancer”, and these are probably my favourite tracks here. Firepower is a pretty long album, but not one that I find overstays its welcome.
A beautiful piece of neofolk, of which I’m happy to report blends effortlessly with other genres, such as displayed in some of the more electronic offerings found in the latter half of this album. Admittedly, I had not heard of Sonne Hagal until recently, and I feel that I am very late to the party. Glorious production reigns throughout, with twinkling guitars and instrumentation accenting the typical neofolk “low key” chilled yet anxious kind of songs. Highly recommended for any fans of neofolk music.
Powerful industrial music that sits somewhere between the greats like Godflesh or Throbbing Gristle and the more (dare I say) energetic styles of say, Youth Code. There’s only two tracks here but it gives you a perfect taste of what to expect in terms of theme, vibe and general sonic palette. Good stuff!
Excellent quality show. Even better than the perhaps more commended “When Death Called ‘89” from earlier in the same tour. Sure, there are a few audible artefacts on the recording, but it’s a small price to pay for what is an excellent line-up performing songs from all eras of Sabbath (Gillan and Hughes aside lol). As with other boots in this era, it’s a pleasure just to hear Cozy playing Ozzy and Dio era stuff. This Vienna set is one of the best for this tour though because of the variety and Tony Martin sounds on top form here. Well worth tracking down.
The best thing about this particular live recording is hearing Cozy Powell play with the band in the arena space; for his three albums with the band his time on the road with them was often fairly limited for various reasons. Hearing his super awesome interpretations of the fills on tracks like “War Pigs” is a real treat. Quality is pretty good here, although there is like a flutter effect that’s appeared on the tape, but what can you do. Considering it’s the Headless Cross tour the band don’t really bother all that much with songs from it, instead playing mainly Dio-era tunes and a few 70s classics. Martin sings mostly in a low register, which is a shame because he could still belt out the vocals back in 1989.
Is the album title spelt incorrectly on purpose? Discharge with Rat is probably my favourite incarnation of the band since the classic days. I’m probably biased there because this was the version of the band that I first started seeing live here or there around the UK when I was a young’un. Either way, Disensitise has a raw, demo-like quality without sounding like complete shit. Snare drum is the chef’s special of the day, with a side order of everything else in the band. Expect all the hallmarks of the classic sound recycled (thrashy guitars, listless solos, d-beat drum beats, yelped vocals) but in the most pleasing and entertaining way. Makes me want to open a circle pit in my living room.
Manson Child! Manson Child! Manson Child! Fucking hell, honestly… with that “epic” out of the way, Shootin’ Up The World isn’t too bad. Granted, the vocals, as per the two albums before this, are absolute fucking dogshit (with all due respect), but musically this is the strongest of the three Discharge “experiments” of the 80s and 90s. I still wouldn’t recommend checking it out unless you have a strong stomach for monotony.
As someone who found 13 to be rather tedious in both production and actual song content, it will be of no surprise that I find this little EP of left over tracks to be equally as uninspired and devoid of anything of worth. On top of that you have some of the most dogshit art the band have used in some time. It’s a no from me, Tony mate.
Wow, this get’s off to a shaky start! The drumming on “Black Sabbath” is so bad (not to mention Ozzy’s appalling singing) that I almost gave up before I started. I’m glad that I did stick with the whole record though, because I missed out on the Birmingham shows in person and felt like I had missed a momentous event in history. However, having consumed this entire live album several times, I don’t feel like I missed all that much. Many have commented on the heaviness here, especially of the low end and the percussion, and admittedly Geezer DOES sound incredible and the session drummer does pull it together nicely after the first song, I can’t shake the fact that Ozzy is well beyond his best and his performance here is painful, to be honest.
Judas Priest circa 2015 were a well oiled machine. This live album is tight as fuck. Some of the older classics sound a bit weird at first in such a modern form (I’m so used to them in their warm 70s analogue sound) but once that initial shock is out of the way, Battle Cry is a really fun listen. They went pretty heavy on the Redeemer Of Souls material too, which is a brave move for a band with a festival slot and a bazillion fan faves spanning (at the time) five decades.
Ancient Dreams feels like both a sequel to Nightfall and a spiritual successor to Epicus Doomicus. The trouble is, and I mean no disrespect as this is still a highly enjoyable record, is that Ancient Dreams is not quite as good as either of the two previously mentioned albums. Nevertheless, let the phenomenal cover art draw you into a world of powerful, epic doom metal like only Candlemass can so expertly craft. If you enjoyed Nightfall but the reverb-drenched bombast was just a little too much for you, then try this instead. Highlights for me include “Mirror Mirror”, “A Cry From The Crypt” and the title track.
Quite possibly one of – if not the – greatest live album that I have ever heard. The fact that I’ve been listening to Sabbath for over 20 years and have never stumbled upon this recording until this week is nothing short of embarrassing. I feel like I have unlocked some sort of secret. Anyway, the release itself is phenomenally good. The production, for a 1975 live recording, is absolutely fantastic. I’m not sure how much work has been done after the fact to clean it up, but either way, it sounds incredible. The entire band are firing on all cylinders – even Ozzy sounds brilliant – but Iommi’s riffs are just… I have no words. The version of “Symptom Of The Universe” here is off the chart. Forget Live At Last, Reunion and definitely put The End in the bin. This is THE live album for the classic lineup of Sabbath. This particular boot is from 1993 but this thing has been released on the black/grey market a million times.
Solid later effort from the legendary Priest. After the safe Angel Of Retribution and the uhhh “brave” (lmao) Nostradamus, Redeemer is a breath of fresh air. Long story short, here Priest stop fucking around and instead focus on doing what they do best. We all miss KK Downing, but honestly, like super honestly, at first I didn’t even notice he was missing. TLDR: not as good as some previous discography highs but a solid album nonetheless.
Seemingly pointless reworking of the original (pirate material lol!) classic. Don’t get me wrong, it’s lovely, but I’m not sure what purpose it serves. Does it need to serve a purpose? Dunno. I’m not going to get philosophical about it. It would be really cool to get more tracks from the first album reimagined like this, but on its own its ability to impress is limited.
This is what I’m talking about! Like being knocked off your feet after being hit by a bloody torso that’s been thrown through the air during a fucking hurricane. Absolute goregrind carnage! Septage pull no punches on this “full length” release. Blasting drums, bone crunching strings, subterranean vocals. Class.
Love this shit. Comparisons to Aphex Twin are lazy but apt, let’s be honest. A clanking, clattering collection of electronic madness that’s over way too soon. Production is fantastic, and really shines on tracks like “Kill Robok”. The Joy Division cover is pretty dumb but otherwise this is solid.
Rain Dogs comes in the middle of a trio of absolutely classic releases from Tom Waits. The man was, truly, on a roll with these studio albums. There’s something so magical and unique about these songs and the feelings that they conjure up. Rain Dogs is also a rare album where its remaster has caused me to appreciate it more, at least in regards to listening digitally. Such a brilliant album.
Stunning LP from St Vincent. I’m not much informed on her music other than Mass Education, but this random pick was fantastic. Sultry and sassy, with a nice dollop of funk in between the lush, low key vocal performances.
I’d originally written off Past Lives for being the “official” version of Live At Last but with a bunch of extra shit added onto the end. In some rather dim world views that is perhaps correct, but Past Lives is so much more than that, as I have recently found out. Yes, disc 1 is the same as the Live At Last album so if you’ve heard that, there’s no point in bothering with the first disc at all, really. The reward really comes with disc 2, which is a collection of live tracks that were previously only released in bootleg configurations. Whether those bootlegs have cooler art, release notes etc., I am not here to argue, but Past Lives collects these sessions together in one place and over its two-hour run time I suppose it could be argued that it makes a definitive “classic” Sabbath live album. Some of the sessions on the second disc are just incredible, such as the versions here of “Hole In The Sky”, “Symptom Of The Universe” and “Black Sabbath”. Great stuff.
I’ve thought quite long and hard (oo er) about how to rate this one, and half marks seems like the best idea. Musically, of course, Judas Priest are not to be sniffed it. It is however, the misguided energy of which they have thrown themselves into such a massive concept album that is perhaps worthy of criticism. I appreciate the concept, as well as the vision involved, but unfortunately, Nostradamus is a bloated corpse of mostly middling songs that do absolutely nothing for even the most die-hard Priest appreciator. Do not get me wrong, there is a baseline of excellent on which such mediocre ideas are built, but that is not enough to save Nostradamus from being one of the least entertaining records that ever got given the Priest name – nor for that matter is the presence of several tracks which are actually really good; they are drowned out in the sheer mass of everything else. A shame.
It’s very cool to see the Tony Martin era music start to get some of the attention it deserves. I’ve probably been a bit harsh on some of the material myself. But I gotta say the remaster of both the title track of Headless Cross as well as “Anno Mundi” from Tyr sounds absolutely great. This single has definitely raised my excitement for the rereleases of all of these albums. I’m not going to buy them all again as I spent plenty of time and money hunting down the originals (more fool me), but I’m hoping these remasters bring a new generation of fans to this forgotten era of Black Sabbath.
Forbidden’s vocalist Russ Anderson is cheesy as fuck but let’s not allow that to detract from the fact that this is an excellent thrash record with extremely good production, amazing riffs and solid-as-fuck drumming. I’m not familair with the people who produced this thing but truly it is a marvel of consistent yet punchy sound, delivered perfectly by the band in the first instance, then hammered home by the engineering team. As I eluded to, I’m not totally sold on the vocals here, but I’m sure they will grow on me with time.
Ah, isn’t it such a beautiful thing? Blasting goregrind to the point where the drums are tuned so high they are floating in outer space. The guitars are so fast that they have turned to a liquid, and possibily a little to gas also. The vocals are the dying (or birthing?) sounds of a creature (or creatures) flopping about in a vat of hideous bright blue liquid in a secret subterranean laboratory. Truly, this is glorious.
Hex is Earth reborn anew – the dawn of their “clean” period. It started here, reflected backwards with Hibernaculum, and was then arguably perfected on Bees Made Honey… but here is where it all began. Hex is probably one of my least listened to releases from Earth. I’m not really sure why, but the songs have never stuck with me. They are not necessarily bad in any way, in fact they are very much enjoyable, and the production is very well put together.
Fantastic cross section of busy, involved jazz, that also has the excellent duality of appearing as chilled and relaxed as it is complex and engaging. The production is subtle but all-encompassing with a wide sound stage. Great stuff!
Oh what hath we done to deserve the best part of 80 minutes of gargling goregrind? We are not worthy! We are not worthy! Lesser bands could no doubt have turned this same session into four separate “albums” or a lifetime’s supply of split material. Here however, Human Pancake treats us to a veritable buffet of 80s sci fi horror villain vokill-fronted, trashcan snare drum banging, guitars tuned so low they basically sound like bodily fluids sliding from corrupting gaseous corpses shredding mayhem. Yeah. Top shit.
An interesting set of remixes, which is more than I expected. Perhaps unsurprisingly, drone is the buzzword of the day, and whilst like any remix album the quality varies track to track, the general overall level of quality is pretty high. Legacy Of Dissolution presents us with a shockingly pleasant set of reinterpreted textures – one that was quite uplifting, despite its heaviness, to listen to on a Sunday morning with a black coffee, watching the sun come up through the valley. The Justin Broadrick remix of “Harvey” sounds like some extra spacey Jesu outtake.
Phase 3 has always been my least favourite of the early Earth releases. Moving away from the crushing drones of the earlier releases, Earth instead turned to shorter tracks of varying texture and feel. Whilst the band would refine this approach for the excellent Pentastar, Phase 3 is, frankly, a disjointed mess of ideas. Granted, a lot of these ideas are very pleasant and fun to listen to, but the album as a whole has a rushed, unfinished and “that’ll do” vibe to it. Is it bad? No. Does much better music come both immediately before and after it? Yes.
Rougher than what would come on the much more well-formed First Spell, but surprisingly more clarified than Ancestors… which soon followed. It is likely that most modern listeners will have heard these songs tacked onto the end of rereleases of First Spell, rather than have hunted down the demo itself, but these are still worth your time. There are some bizarre choices, such as the synth that opens “Angelwings and Ravenclaws” or the guitar that opens “Black Seared Heart”, but these are small niggles in the grand scheme of things.
This one easily falls between the cracks of the other early Gehenna releases. The production here is chunkier but we lose a lot of fidelity in the blunt trauma attack of the sound. Add to the fact that these are the same songs that appear on the debut and First Spell and that makes revisiting Ancestor a fairly pointless activity, unless for those who prefer these studio sessions to the other early recordings.
Glorious early second wave black metal with a fantastic, dark atmosphere. The keyboard usage is pretty heavy, but not so much in the orchestral, bombastic way. More so that it just adds another layer to the sound. The production is organic and balanced and the whole thing breathes, which is rare for black metal, and is also a refreshing change from some of the other earlier Gehenna stuff (none of which is super badly produced but First Spell is a clear improvement).
A good way to get all of the early Gehenna stuff in one place. At first I was pretty sure this included the Ancestor Of The Darkly Sky stuff as well, otherwise the track list literally makes zero sense, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. It’s the same stuff as Black Seared Heart, but when you do a side by side comparison, it’s a different session.
Solid fuckin effort from the legendary Deicide. For some reason I was always under the impression that this was where Deicide started to fall off, but the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. This shit slaps. Hell, even J-Dawg likes it! Darkness and evil, goddamnit, what’s not to love? I gotta level with you all – I think I prefer this to Serpents Of The Light. I may have had one too many knocks to the head but that’s how I’m feeling right now. Savage, savage shit.
Not sure if enjoy this soundtrack for what it is on its base electronic compositions, or whether because I played MK Trilogy religiously when I was a kid. The OST for the game, which shared a lot of tunes with MK3 and Ultimate MK3 if I’m not mistaken, hardly breaks new ground, but the dirty new urban sound the MK tunes got given for this era of the franchise seemed to really get the blood pumping, to really get the craving for a death match or six into your head. Whatever the reason for my occasional spin of this thing, the effect the soundtrack has for me is unmistakable. For that reason it will always hold a special place in my heart (lol). Tooooooasssstyyy
Nice collection of sounds. Not essential or anything, but pulls together some early Bathory goodness into one compilation. It’s a bit disjointed, and some of the tracks are pretty sloppy, but this is to be expected.
I used to think this was the shit, but honestly it’s pretty messy and disorganised. And it’s like, OK, you’re talking about raw underground grind / powerviolence here – what do you expect? Whilst there are plenty of barrages of blasting carnage to inflame the senses (lmao) its the “downtime” in between where SOV loses me; there is an irritating harshness to the cymbals which almost drowns out everything else, as well as a general sloppiness to anything thats not a blastbeat that gets a bit draining after a while. I’m sure this band sounded fucking insane live, but this 6 minute EP is more than enough whilst listening at home.
Amazing quality early demo from the legendary and unbeatable Autopsy. Am I biased? Of course, I fucking love Autopsy. But I mentioned something similar in a recent Immolation review; this demo is of such high quality that it comes off as more of an EP than an early demo. Without wanting to repeat myself as I did there, I can only say that this early offering is well, well worth exploring if you are after more of that early sick sound the band gave us. This session is hardly a long one, but every second is purely amazing.
I’m no scholar on the work of Chuck and Death / Mantis, but this noisy rehearsal demo featuring the now legendary line up of Chuck, Rick Rozz and Kam Lee, is nothing but an absolute pleasure to listen to. It is perhaps easy to put this up on a pedestal due to its historical significance, but it is, at the end of the day, a noisy thrash-becoming-death metal demo made by a bunch of very talented kids. Beneath the haze of the production you can hear the incredible riffs and strong song structures. If I had to compare to other / later bands, parts of this gives me Autopsy vibes whilst other bits are more in the school of Kreator. Good shit.
Immolation’s self-titled demo was nowhere near as dusty, shitty and low quality as I expected it to be. Instead, the band presented to us, in 1989, something which is more akin to an EP than a demo, such is the quality of the production and songwriting. Of course, all three of these songs go on to appear on the debut proper anyway, but this is worth checking out because the band were firing on all cylinders, even from the very early days.
My brothers in gore! If Reek Of Putrefaction wasn’t enough for you, or, inversely, it was too much for you (lmao), I implore all of you to work backwards to Carcass’ early demo offering, the aptly-titled Flesh Ripping Sonic Torment. Now, somehow magically sounding better than the band’s actual debut album, Flesh Ripping Sonic Torment is a foundation brick in the wobbly, fleshy building that we can call goregrind. Therefore, to silly idiots like me, it is a vital release. Thankfully, it is not an shaky, prototype kinda “vital” gem, yknow, the kind of ones that are historically important but you don’t listen to all that much because, well, they aren’t all that good. No – Flesh Ripping Sonic Torment is absolute aural carnage in its finest form and a total poser filter for those who claim to love “goregrind” (I’m looking at all you tupa-tupa OEF party goregrind listening fuckwads).
Calm Before The Storm marks the point where I first was bitterly disappointed with a Venom album. Gone is Mantis, replaced by “Jim and Mike”. It says a lot about a guitar player if it takes two separate people to replace you, I think. Anyway, Calm… still has Abaddon and most importantly in this regard Cronos, so it is not immediately indistinguishable as a Venom release. After a few minutes however you begin to get the feeling that something is off, and even though this is Venom in name and has Cronos barking all over it, there’s just something about it which feels false and hollow. The production is pretty bad but I’m not really bothered by that. I wasn’t a fan of this one. It feels half-arsed.
This has aged pretty terribly, like all nu metal, but of course with Limp Bizkit in general. There is no changing however, that I listened to the absolute fuck out of this record when I was a kid. I remember it as if it was yesterday, following along – or at least trying because the lyrics were so small in the booklet. I remember rumours of there being a hidden track with Eminem on it hidden between the tracks on the CD – I guess this spawned because Eminem is mentioned in the booklet (and shows up in the “Break Stuff” video). The truth of the matter is that Durst and Em recorded together, but the song didn’t appear on this album. Anyway, production-wise this is really solid. Terry Date is always a good choice when it comes to nu metal, and whilst he can produce albums that are too homogenous or “safe”, Significant Other still sounds amazing and fresh 25 years later, considering the contents. Some of the musical collabs are a bit wet (the album would be even better without Jon D from Korn, Aaron from Staind and Scott from Stone Temple Pilots crowding it) – you can leave Method Man where he is though, everything is automatically better when Method Man is involved. Oh, and I guess I’ll give this a bonus “half point” (lol) for having “Re-Arranged”, which is hands down the best song the band ever made.
I’m probably not qualified to talk about this in all that much detail, but what I can say is that Nail is a bizarre collection of sounds, sitting somewhere between Holy Money era Swans, Big Black, Test Dept., Mr. Bungle, The Cramps and Nine Inch Nails, whilst also having the honour of predating most of the bands in that list. It is an album that’s taken me multiple attempts to digest, not because I find it difficult, but because of how much is going on I’m unsure of what the message or intended vibe is. Either way, this is fucking great, and one hell of a sonic journey.
Wherever you stand on the political spectrum, there is absolutely no denying that Kaevum are one of the strongest black metal outfits around at the moment. Kultur takes place 12 years after Natur, but expands on the excellent sonic groundwork already laid in place on the debut. Don’t take my word for it, I implore you to give this a go instead of reading my shitty review.
Beautiful piece of work from Graveland. Memory and Destiny is not an album I see recommended all that much, but it’s a great example of the band’s shambling yet majestic sound. I’m pretty sure the guys had switched up drummers by this point but the percussion is still pretty shambolic. In this big, clear production it has nowhere to hide. Thankfully, the songwriting is outstanding on this record, and a bit of shakey drumming can be easily forgiven. A great album.
What a gem! I’m I randomly stumbled upon this one (thanks to Ken’s Death Metal Crypt). This demo / EP is incredibly good. Immediately I draw parallels between this and Akercocke, is it possible those gentle brits (lmao) took a lot of influence from this? The clanking bass and subterranean low vocal screams yes to me. An easier comparison would perhaps be Deicide, but the two bands don’t quite match up aurally. Anyway, my shitty comparisons aside, Within the Mind… is a diamond in the rough, and makes wading through countless hours of forgotten demos absolutely worth every single second.
Colour me surprised when I went back to this record to review it and found out it was now 7 years old this year (lmao). Like, we need a Wizard to fucking rewind time because that shit is fucking bizarre! This shit only came out last month, right? Right!? Anyway, Electric Wizard’s “latest” studio effort seemed to have been met with a resounding “meh” and whilst I initially wasn’t super into the pared back sound, on subsequent relistens I have found the agreeable runtime and the excellently catchy songs to work well in WBW’s favour. It may not be the best thing they’ve ever done, but it’s a solid album with some fantastic tracks (“Wicked Caresses” is up there with the Wizard greats).
The Sarcastic Terror material here is a bit clearer than their debut demo / EP, but I can’t say that they have evolved much musically in the 3 years between the 2 releases. I’m not knocking it though, their decrepit grinding death led with demonic pitchshifter vokills is well worth checking out. In-Quest are a new discovery for me, with this split, and they are a bit busier and more energetic than Sarcastic Terror. The music has a slightly more technical edge to it, the drummer is much busier, and the production in general is a bit lighter.
I’ve gotta give props to Choppin Headz zine for pointing me in the direction of Sarcastic Terror (I can’t remember which issue, sorry!). This is some true underground sickness right here; some proper off the beaten path shit. Sarcastic Terror toe the line between grind and death, with the muddy, chugging riffs of the latter meeting the sensibilities and pitchshifter vocals of the former. Take Fascination With Mutilation era Agathocles and throw them in a blender (sorry lads) with I dunno, Winter or something like that. Oh, and a random mid-90s dungeon synth artist too. The resulted mush, once committed to shaky, dusty ferric tape, should sound a little bit like this.
Don’t fuck with the Prehistoric War Cult. True derivative war metal served right up for your fuckin’ ears! Bashed about the head with clubs! Like a fuckin’ axe through your skull, lodged in your brain like dropping a knife in a stick of butter. Production where you can FEEL every hit of the drum, the rumble of the bass, the ear-shredding mess of the guitar. Truly uncompromising extreme metal, strongly fucking recommended.
Sado Grind Metal is an unofficial compilation bringing both the self titled EP and Moloch EP into one session. They are quite awkwardly jammed together, but it’s a good way to experience all the “ancillary” Naked Whipper releases with ease. You could do this album and Painstreaks in one single session and inhale the band’s entire discography in one sitting.
Probably the washiest Naked Whipper session but earns bonus points for lack of watery flanger bullshit. Straight up grimy cassette session ass “sado grind metal” to appeal to your most base and primal musical lusts. Look no further, come in and enjoy the carnality!
Sadistik fukken war metal that’s gonna whip your fanny off, if you give it half a chance. Production? Who cares! These tracks hit you in the face like a lead weight over and over and over again when a suited and booted dominatrix kicks you in the balls at the same time. Yeah.
Ugh! Wishy washy lo-fi fuggen war metal is the order of the day! Can I get a side of extra flange with that please, drive? Tidy! Because nothin’ more Satanic and fukken evil than sounding like you’re under water, boss, ya dig? Cosmic aqua terror incoming! Hold onto ya fuckin’ dickpipes lads!
This is one of those records which I have put off writing about for years and years. I think I could go as far as to say that this is a cult classic of the whole grindcore genre; once you’ve explored the recommended gems, and start to go off the beaten path, Nyctophobic’s first full length should be somewhere on your list of albums to check out. It’s easy to miss, and therefore it is a true underground gem, but it is well worth your time. The production reminds me of early 90s Brutal Truth or Agathocles, also in musical terms too these acts can be compared, more so the latter in regards to the use of blasting grind and pitchshifted vocals, and more to the former in regards to slowing down for a sick death metal riff or employing manic shrieks over the top of the aural carnage. Samples are used frequently but only to punctuate the main musical bulk and also to act as intros to some tracks. The decision to close on a sample of a news report signing off and then several minutes of static is an interesting one but after the litany of atrocities that Nyctophobic have displayed for us in the last 40 minutes it does feel like a fitting end. To recap: extremely good and well worth tracking down.
Dopesick was the first Eyehategod album that I bought, although I didn’t really get into them until I heard Take As Needed For Pain. There was much more groove there – painstaking and agonizing groove but groove nonetheless – whereas Dopesick just seemed tortured to me; drawn out, unpleasant. I also found the production to be rather muddy, which is OK for drug-addled sludge, but the 2007 remaster rather refreshingly opens up Dopesick without losing any of its grime or disgusting sound.
Barrington’s soundtrack for the original Broken Sword haunts me in my dreams, and the sequel is a continuation of that excellence. However, it should be said that the follow up is far more ethereal and atmospheric, with only a recurring leitmotif holding the whole thing together. Aside from that, breathy synths are the order of the day, with stabs of instrumental punctuation reserved for important plot or gameplay points. There’s a collection of “worldly” music as well as some tracks that were supposed to be diegetic sources in-game, but otherwise this near 2 hour experience flies by. One thing I will say, is that Barrington’s music is synonymous with the feeling that Broken Sword conjured up. Good times.
What a thoroughly charming and endearing set of songs. The beautiful, sun-drenched production (as in, it sounds like the tape was left in a Walkman which in turn was left out on a pavement outside the Black Ark studio for two whole days) provides a warm and comforting listen, with Perry’s homely and down to earth lyrics only reiterating this feeling. Truly, this is a pleasure to listen to on almost any occasion, and has to be up there with the very “best” reggae records (only downside is that there seems there is very little in the way of dub on this album – at least in instrumental form, mostly this is a vocal-led affair).
A beautiful and evocative debut. It took me a few listens to “get” the whispered vocal approach, which felt like a bit of a cop-out at first. Once I had gotten over this personal hurdle, the full impact of Nighttime Nightrhymes could be fully appreciated. For me, it is an embodiment of the perfect neofolk sound; that dark acoustic simplicity augmented by various other stringed or wind instruments helps develop a sound that is fresh yet also ancient at the same time, morose yet uplifting, sad yet affirming, like the worm ouroboros (or something like that).
Cozza Frenzy is a long-ass album. I didn’t really notice at first, listening with earphones at work, but when I went for a round two I found my attention slipping fairly easily. Frenzy has it’s highlights, but also a series of low points too. I guess you just gotta take the rough with the smooth. The production is huge, crystal clear and very, very tidy – to the point perhaps of being somewhat homogeneous, but I can’t fault someone for consistent and great production skills, that would just be idiotic, even for my rambling ass.
Starts off good but loses me towards the second half, which is stuffed with pointless filler and shitty remixes, taking this “EP” to over 45 minutes long. Timestretch, indeed, my dude(s). Taken on the first 4 tracks alone, or even just “Basshead” (by far the strongest here), this is pretty cool, but as I said the rest drags it down.
Not as fully realised as the album which would come roughly 1 year later but still well worth your time if sleazy, speedy black metal is your idea of a good time (it fucking should be).
Apathy: the album. The analogue production and the bubbling post-punk (to become “deathrock”) is fantastic but Rozz Williams delivers his vocals in such a way that he sounds like he is already done with this band before it has even begun. Yeah I get it, that’s part of the vibe, but things are delivered with such a nonchalance I’m left wondering why I should ever bother give my time in return to listen to it. Besides, the EP Deathwish, on which I’m sure a few of these songs reappear, sounds much more full of life and energy. IDK, maybe this just isn’t for me. It’s not bad, though.
I’ve thusfar defended Borgore releases on here but today that stops (lmao). Production is great but the songs are pretty poor tbh, with Borgore’s terrrribbbblllle rapping taking center stage. When the highlight of your record is a song about taking a girl who is so ugly to a gloryhole so you can happily fuck her face without worrying about her looks (but not in a sleazy way, in a cheeky chappy bro its a joke LOL kinda way, which is even worse tbh), well, then there’s problems. Lads lads lads brostep bullshit. If he OWNED the filth rather than just passing it off as a lads bants kinda vibe, at least there would be some integrity here. But without that this is just vapid, useless bullshit. The shtick is wearing so thin at this point that Borgore just comes across like that drunk asshole at a house party high on coke just talking about shit to anyone who will still listen. Yes mate, I know, you fuck supermodels, you’ve already said. Now go away.
I was into “Cyber Waste” when this first came out (“nothing you say matters to us”? – matters enough for you to write a whole fucking song and release it as the lead single to this album LOL) but otherwise I mostly snoozed on this album. I was 13 or 14 years old, and wasn’t really THAT into Fear Factory. Now, as a legit old cunt, one can return to the Fear Factory discography in retrospect and see the highs and the lows. For me, Archetype is a high. Oddly, its a record without Dino on it, someone whom I attribute the chuggalugga FF sound to as a personality, but here we are without him and we get one of the best Fear Factory record in ages, chronologically at least. Ray Herrera’s drumming is fucking class too.
This was my jam in 2010. Back when I first had Spotify (crazy to think I’ve had it for around 15 years now) I would make playlists of all the underground dubstep shit that I could find. Bratkilla’s “Methamphetamine” is not exactly the most inspired thing in the world, and the Family Guy samples are pretty cringe, but the bass on this is so fucking nasty I still play it fairly regularly 14 years after first discovering it (this also makes me feel old as fuck I won’t lie). The B-Side isn’t up to much, but the first track is one of my favourites in this style.
Uncompromising, unforgiving… uninspiring? I’ll be honest with you, it was the cover art that drew me in here, and whilst I stayed for the nearly 1hr runtime, I couldn’t help but think this album would have been much more effective if it was just a little shorter. I suppose you could draw parallels to Chimera-era(-era!) Mayhem or earlier 1349, but Through Thick Fog Til Death is nowhere near as good as either of those.
I haven’t heard Bratkilla since the Methamphetamine EP. I remember their tunes being pretty hard but I did not expect the project to go THIS hard. “Nefertitie” is a fucking bop, I’m sure the queen herself would approve. The “B-Side” is a banger too but that first track blew my dick off.
Can I get a reeeeee, a skreee and possibly a breeeee? EarDelete play glacial paced “grindcore” with silly vocals and party atmosphere, and in this case an overarching theme of the devil somehow being involved, for reasons beyond my comprehension. Production is good, but the best thing about this is the guitar; thick and chunky with a dark tone. Tidy.
Both bands absolutely kill it on this split. Talk about high energy! Both sessions have fresh takes on the grind template and the production is clear and punchy enough to let both of these projects really shine. Short, sharp and fucking chaotic.
A little rough around the edges considering the scope and depth of songwriting, but is so in a very endearing kind of way. I’m drawn in by the atmospheric / instrumental passages, and kept engaged by a combination of frantic carnage and shrieking vocals, which is backed with an urgent and triumphant sense of melody that does not let up throughout.
I’ve never been much of a fan of Johnny Cash but do enjoy a spin of the covers now and then. There is a morose feel to the whole record, which is known primarily for “Hurt” let’s be honest, but despite this, sadness and perhaps a weariness permeates every second of this thing. The production is simply gorgeous, allowing the rustic Americana of these interpretations to fully shine. A classic record, for sure.
I love the mix of crushing doom metal and more traditional instrumental passages, which use all manner of different sounds to build the atmosphere. Anyone who puts a church organ on a doom record is a genius in my book. The production is also fantastic and the length of this thing, seemingly impenetrable at first, opens up the album like some sort of sprawling journey or concept album. Granted, this type of death/doom at the core here is not particularly original and may put some people off due to its limited sound palette, but for those into such things you can’t really go wrong with this album.
Ah yes, THE Electric Wizard, everyone’s favourite dope smoking fuzz fiends. Not sure what inspired that brief name change, but I am glad they reverted back after this album. We Live! seems to be a transitional period for the band, with Jus moving the band away from their “classic” lineup and still – honestly – having not found their stride with the newer incarnation of the band. This would come in spades with Witchcult Today, but We Live! is still well worth your time. The production is fairly clear for a EW album (lol) and some of the songs are absolutely incredibly, such as the opening track as well as “Saturn’s Children”.
Dark, moody, slushy, obtuse “vaporwave” from one of the more immediately aesthetically recognisable projects in the genre. Imagine the kind of thing you’d usually hear on a dungeon synth record but chopped, sliced and obfuscated from you in a hazy cloud of what is essentially a blob of hypnagogic sound.
A catchy song but one that doesn’t really sound like Borgore, at least the Borgore I know from Ruined Dubstep etc – this little number is more in line with mainstream electronic music. I wouldn’t call it a club track. It sounds more like something you’d hear in the background of a gaming compilation video on YouTube or something.
You may recognise the name of this EP. Yes it is the name I “borrowed” for my blog, YouTube channel and eventual RYM profile. It also made SEO for the first two things on that list absolutely impossible lmao, but there we go, you live and learn. Lines In Wax is a four track EP that is stacked with bangers, in all fairness. I guess this falls into the whole brostep / dubstep thing, but tbh it just seems like bad dance music that belongs in the 2010s. I love it for what it is, but whether it will be remembered so fondly but the average electronic music is debatable.
Proclamation often get it in the neck for being “derivative” – but is it possible (at all) to not be derivative in the microgenre that is war metal? Either way, I don’t give too much of a shit personally, because Advent Of The Black Omen is fucking class. Expect muddy, downtuned guitars, endless spastic drumming and vokills to invoke the horn-ed one. Y’know, it sounds like war metal. Don’t forgot to break out your bullet belt(s) for this one.
Muddy, nasty, gory death metal a la Mortician, slightly underdone, more blue than rare, but still tasty all the same. I have a very (penetrable?) soft spot for Fluids despite calls that they are nought but a derivative copy. I think the success of their “rise” through the “world” of “modern death metal” and the number of vinyl and cassettes these guys have sold would perhaps indicate that the haters are indeed wrong (who would have thought?). I know you can’t measure artistic talent by number of albums sold, but in such a small and stifling world as this there are clearly a lot of people listening to Fluids and enjoying it. Anyway, Ignorance Exalted is pretty great – not perfect – and well worth a listen. If you had to do one track only I’d recommend “Capped”.
Like part 1, but improved. Again, lots of asinine lyrics but the programming has improved tenfold. Tracks like “Money” and the excellent “Broken Rulz” (with metal drumming, no less – do I smell a Drumkit From Hell VST plugin!? Ha!) are pretty fucking experimental, I’ll give the man his due. Despite this, Borgore seems universally hated and this EP will no doubt never win any lifetime awards, but Vol 2 (along with Vol 1) are important to me because of a time and a place in my life when this shit was the bomb.
This has aged pretty poorly, but I’m going to try and briefly review it from the mindset I had in 2010. The mainstream dubstep craze was in full effect. Radio 1 after 10pm was full of this shit. However, Borgore, who’d turned some heads with his unique “gorestep” style, dropped his first full EP proper with Borgore Ruins Dubstep Vol. 1. For the kind of stinky drops that we all listened to in my mate’s garage passaging tulip-sized joints, this seemed pretty fucking good at the time. I listened to it again recently at the gym (seemed fitting hahaha) and whilst the lyrics are purile I gotta admit I still enjoyed the beats and bass.
Behold.Total.Rejection. completes my descend into the murky world of Revenge full-lengths. Sometimes I can struggled to think of what to say for certain releases, and Revenge are a band that I’ve noticed this happening for multiple times. I guess once you know what Revenge are about, and you start coming back for more and more, you know exactly what you want and you know exactly what to expect. In that regard, BTR is another variation on a narrow template, however it is a template that the band execute with extreme savagery. This is very little that rivals the greatness of Revenge (Conqueror comes close), even in the world of war metal.
“She Is A Fire” sounds great, to be fair. Dani sounds amazing, the current / new version of the band is on the ball, and Martin is a machine on the drums. Regarding the live session, I’ll be honest, when I heard about this release of yet another Cradle live album I rolled my eyes, but I’d be lying to you if I didn’t say that the band are tight as fuck right now. Like, the performance here is seriously good from both the new blood as well as Dani. Cradle has always sounded like something of a car crash live, I’ve seen them many times over the years with different members and earlier live albums such as Live Bait For The Dead attest to this, but I was blown away by how good Dani’s voice sounds and how on-point the band is. The sound is fantastic, too. I don’t know how much massaging this has had in post-production but it sounds absolutely fantastic.
(Review of the 2012 expanded version) A tidy little record from Absurd, perhaps a little rough around the edges and not as catchy as the 00s period led by Wolf but still lots of great work here. Production is a little raw but complaining about that on a black metal release is just incredibly stupid. Lots of atmospheric intermissions and bombastic interludes cut the metal segments up nicely.
It might be the squeaky Despise You on helium vocals that put folks off after the first few songs but The End is Gallhammer at their most glacial and experimental. Worth listening to for the closing tracks alone, “Wander” and “108=7/T-NA”, the latter of which has what sounds like some sort of Zorn-like sax improvisation over it.
Yikes. I’m not sure which of these two songs is the worst. Not sure what I can offer here without descending into just purely ragging on Jerry Only. The production is nice, I guess.
Friday The 13th is one of the better things that Jerry’s Misfits put their hand to. Not that the bar was particularly high with the competition from other releases in this era, but Friday The 13th actually has sessions that sound like the band is trying. The songs fall somewhere between sounding like Devil’s Rain and Jerry’s recent solo outing. The production is also surprisingly rough, but IMO this works in the band’s favour. I never understood the desire to polish up the Misfits studio records so much. Let Jerry hide himself in the fog of that hideous bass tone! Maybe this was the start of a new album and that got shitcanned when Danzig rejoined?
Not sure what happened here, because Animatronic, whilst divisive, appeared to come off as a successful experiment. I guess what SETI does is double down on the style of that previous album, but maybe the band pushed too far with this one. SETI is like, what, 80 minutes long? 80 minutes of mediocre industrial metal is enough to drive anyone to absolute madness, regardless of quality, but SETI fails to deliver the instant satisfaction of Animatronic; none of the songs are remotely as memorable, there are no hooks or passages that stick with you, and the vocals are decidedly toned down too. The guitar and drums give way for the synthesizers to lead the songs, but when every time all they offer is the same formless bubbling techno stepper sounds, this gets old very fast. You could probably shave nearly half of the songs away from this thing and the album would just be stronger for it. Thankfully, the production is enormous (although there’s no saving that snare sound), and the album starts to correct its course from around the half-way point, with tracks like “Acid Theatre”, “The Perfect End”, “Pantomine” and “Industrial Twilight” really shining the most.
Batcave is up there with Belief… and the first demo as some of the best stuff Fukpig ever did. The production on this short EP is fucking MASSIVE, the guitar enveloping you like a giant wall of deadly force. The drums are also fantastic, especially the blastbeats on “One Of A Thousand Ways To Steal Your Liberty”.
This World Is Weakening is the “fixed” version of 3. You’ll find less wooly production, more balanced instrumentation and more audible vocals (which is nice, obviously). In comparison to the modern remaster of 3, This World Is Weakening seems like a bit of a pointless endeavour but trust me this album was a breath of fresh air into these songs back in 2014. Both versions still warrant investigation today, as Fukpig had truly developed their own unique sound by the time this album came around.
Like Misery Index on crack cocaine. Fukpig really hit the ground running and Depths Of Humanity is a masterpiece in my eyes. It is, truly, one of the most under rated and slept on grindcore / crust demos of any era. The band would go on to become something slightly different, but this first view into what they were about is incredibly good and well worth your time.
Bombs Of War takes the same (or very similar) set of songs from the band’s original demo The Depths Of Humanity and reimagines them somewhat. The differences are marginal, but the production is significantly different. I’m not sure if there was a big lineup change or what; I’m not sure what would warrant the rerecording of all of these songs into a second demo which is arguably not as good as first. If you do ever come across this though it is still well worth a listen, this early incarnation of Fukpig was fucking awesome.
Jerry really set himself up to fail here. In what world would a re-recording of the Graves-led tune “Descending Angel” ever be better than the original? In fact, I’m pretty sure “Descending Angel” is one of Graves’ own songs (he brought many to the Misfits) which rubs salt in the wound even more. But yeah, everything about this single is absolutely pointless, and pretty awful to be honest. The live version of the B-Side from DeA.D. Alive! is also much better than the studio version.
I was 22 when this came out. I was a vinyl-buying devotee of Devizes Records, and the very minute it was possible to do so, I ordered the 3 album on 12”. Spewings… was OK, but Belief… was fucking savage, and having seen the band live a few times I was now as pumped as I could be for the next Fukpig installment. 3 came and it was just… there. I can’t really remember thinking it was awful but I do remember a bit of a backlash to it sounding like arse. The band were also not happy with 3, and rereleased it in a corrected form as The World Is Weakening soon after. The trouble is, listening back now, I don’t even know what the fucking problem was. I’m not sure if the version online has been remastered or what, but 3 sounds huge. Listening to it is like asking AI to paint a picture of what it would look like to drown in a vat of HM2 distortion. I don’t know what the point of this little story was, but rest assured 3 is well worth your time. The digital version of 3 comes with a bunch of demos tacked on. I’ve already heard Depths Of Humanity and Bombs Of War, but sandwiched in between these two sessions are a few that I’ve never heard before. They sound far more modern than the latter, with the buzzsaw HM2 style guitar leading the way. The drums on this session are fucking fantastic; so fast, so tight. Excellent blasts. The whole session kinda sounds like Benediction but on steroids.