Archive for 2014

Insane Clown Posse are a band that get incredible amounts of ridicule the world over. Luckily for me, here in little ol’ Wales, ICP and their seemingly endless armies of redneck juggalo “fans” aren’t really a subject for ridicule, as they don’t really exist. When I was big into ICP as a teenager, I didn’t know a creeping shit about any of this juggalo crap. I’m not claiming ignorance as an excuse; I knew that…

Salute To The Sun are a death metal band that sent me their demo many moons ago, when I was trying (and failing) at running a record label full time. Out of the tons of shit I got sent to me, this is one of the very few things that stayed with me and didn’t get lost in moves, clear outs etc., probably because of it’s professional looking cover and not just some shitty xeroxed…

Welcome to another post about another album that I have put off buying for nearly a decade. You can thank the wondrous Amazon marketplace for these posts that should have rightly been made a long time ago; their CD prices are sometimes so goddamn obscene that I cannot resist buying a whole bunch of new CDs every week. This one cost me a little more than the usual 1p, but it was still a criminal sum for a…

Holy mother of fuck this is some fast fucking grindcore. This shit puts shame upon a whole world of bands claiming on “fast” and “brutal”; Töt is a short, sharp explosion of anger, distortion and all the blastbeats left in Holland. I guess it helps that the production is proper high-end and crystal clear, giving Jesus Cröst all the professional space they need to fully unfold their maelstrom of football-themed fastcore fuckery. Soccergrind? Maybe not,…

According to the ever-reliable source for information that is the internet, Top 40 Hits is considered a bit of a disappointment in the worldwide circles of AxCx fans (or at least it was upon it’s initial release date back in 1994). But, you know me, I don’t give a fuck about what the internet says (lawls, hardcore) because for me, Top 40 Hits shows AxCx at their messiest, blurriest best. Granted, this record is missing…

This was one of my first proper tastes of goregrind. I’d discovered the genre online, but this was one of the first records I actually owned, so it holds a special place in my heart (hahaha). Goreblast is an absolute festering mess of piccolo snares, shifted vokills and all the fuzz in Germany (or is that Goremany?). Imagine Putrefaction In Progress-era LDOH but slowed down to a doom metal pace and with actual song structure….

While most grind leans towards hardcore and hardcore punk, some of it leans more into the death metal and thrash territory. P.L.F., on this release at least (to date, the only thing I’ve heard by them), play some chuggy, metal-heavy grindcore. The production is huge, the drums sound amazing, and the vocals are low and rumbly like the good ol’ death metal stock. The riffs though, are much more thrashy, yet retain that nasty, venomous…

This is my first experience with Mesrine, although it’s been a long-time coming; another one of those bands that always escapes checking out! After seeing Entrails Massacre in OEF I decided to buy some of their shit and I got this split, which introduced me (finally) to the wonders of Mesrine. Boasting a no-nonsense approach to the world of grind, Mesrine seem to form some sort of heavy hitting bastard child of traditional grindcore and…

I think that Watchmaker are one of the most under-rated grindcore bands ever, which is weird considering this record was put out on Earache (through some deal that they had with Willowtip). In grind circles I never see people wearing a Watchmaker t-shirt, in fact I don’t think I’ve even ever seen one for sale. I never hear people talking about Watchmaker, or recommending Watchmaker; and this goes for online as well as in the flesh. It’s weird…

This simple little CD housed in a tray insert can sell for up to £140 on Discogs, which is, in all honestly, absolutely fucking retarded. I’d always had it marked down as another piece of Michael Gira discography that I could never get because of silly hipsters with too much time and money on/in their hands. I could have kissed the merch guy at the recent Jarboe gig in Bristol when I saw this little…

Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself of the growing pool of talent in my local area. Zonderhoof were another local band that I’d somehow spent my entire life avoiding; that was until Terrorizer magazine gave their album away for free with an issue of their magazine, and at their stall in Damnation Festival 2011 (which is where I kindly received my copy). Even then, I only gave it a quick listen, and I…

Back in the Myspace days, Splattered Entrails set the bar on how to sound if you were a bedroom death metal or grindcore producer. I’ve never been too keen on their, how should I put it…typical death metal vocal style, but music-wise Splattered Entrails is the shit. This guy blew most of the other bedroom musicians out of the water. I think Splattered Entrails is still active, but it isn’t really as “dank” as it…