Archive for October 2017

Man Bites Dog is a bizarre “noir-mockumentary” in which a young film crew follow a charismatic and disturbingly chipper serial killer who goes by the name of Ben. Black humour is served by the truckload as we document Ben as he kills victims, eats mussels, visits his gran and generally waxes lyrically on subjects of his choosing. At first, the violence is jarring, but as we enter Ben’s world, it starts to become more and…

My recent Sehnsucht review reminded me that I have to touch upon Grand Declaration Of War by Mayhem. Contrary to a lot of Mayhem fans, Grand Declaration is my favourite album from the group. The clinical execution, insane song structures and bizarre techno passages are a hundred thousand million miles away from Deathcrush and the like; the fact that this is even the same band (to a degree) is startling. Maniac is not my favourite…

Pylon is the latest (at time of writing) in a long line of consistently excellent contributions from the legendary Killing Joke. It would be rather cheap of me to say the ol’ “if it ain’t broke…” thing that I always say, but that is somewhat true here: Pylon offers nothing new to the Killing Joke palate of sounds, but that is absolutely not to say that it doesn’t offer a whole new menu of phenomenal…

I can’t tell you how rare it is that I come across the perfect album, and I mean that in the sense of when on a record every single song is flawless; each piece contributing not only to the overall experience, but able to stand its own ground without just being needless filler. Faithless are not a band that I spin all that often anymore, but if I’m in the mood for this style of…

Kilslug are a sludgy band from the USA fronted by the mysterious Larry Lifeless, who initially comes across as a mix between Eyehategod’s Mike Williams, Scott Walker and err, Crank Sturgeon or something like that. Kilslug have been around for yeeears, and the Limited Appeal (what a label!) pressing of Sin, Tricks and Lies is so awesome it makes me want to start collecting vinyl again. I mean, just mosy on over to Discogs and…

Simply put, nobody does dream sequences or dream worlds like David Lynch, and considering this entire film blurs the lines between dream and reality from beginning to end, this is the ultimate expression of that art form. The budget is minuscule, but you will be left questioning what is real, and what it is that really matters, if anything. Laura Dern is excellent, as usual, and there is a pure-Lynchian (sorry to use that term!)…

Dense, thick, industrial beat loops is the order of the day, from the excellent JK Flesh project. Nothing Is Free seems to have dropped completely the guitar elements that so heavily caressed the beatwork on recordings such as Posthuman, in favour of bringing the beat entirely to the centre-stage. Nothing Is Free is not dissimilar to the work produced by Mick Harris in some of the more transitional and experimental eras of his excellent project…

With all the recent hubbub around the It remake I thought it would be worth finally checking out the original. What I didn’t know what that this was essentially two TV movies glued back to back, so I found watching the whole thing in one go was a bit much, especially as the second half kinda wanes and gets lost a bit. I don’t know what it is about Stephen King stories, but they are…

Oh man this is some sick shit! Welcome to the world of dental-based Hungarian mincing goregrind, friends. Imagine the drill has slipped, and now it is just boring into your gums at full pelt, all the while the dentist is blasting some Agathocles on the stereo in the background; hopefully that will give you some idea of what we are dealing with here. We played/caught two shows with these guys on the Dzhumagaliev tour; once…

When I first saw this as a kid it frightened the absolute living shit out of me, and re-watching it 20 years later, I can still see why. Perhaps it is the echo of that fear I developed in my youth, but there is something incredibly unsettling about Event Horizon. Yes, the sci-fi side of things doesn’t really add up, causing enormous continuity errors and goofs, and resulting in this half lost in space adventure…

Well, now I know what Grand Declaration of War would have sounded like if Maniac was given full creative control! I’m kidding of course; the Richter-like artistic meandering here would be far too much to take for an intolerant little man like Hellhammer (2023 edit: handbags away please, ladies). But, as per always, I digress. Sehnsucht is the experimental / power electronics project between Maniac and his wife Vivian Slaughter, who also plays in Gallhammer….

Ahhh, the twisted and wonderful world of Vektor; coming across like a mix between Voivod and Dragonforce, and packing a vocalist that sounds like Chuck Schuldiner on crystal meth. I’m not really into this breed of hyper-thrash, but the sci-fi elements and the incredible density to the proceedings really adds a whole new edge to things. This is incredibly precise, dream-like yet lightening-fast metal, as if Devin Townsend drank too much coffee and smoked heroin…

Oh my days, what a film! Haha! This is absolute, total trash, in the best possible way, and my first introduction to the world of J-sploitation (surely Japsploitation would be better?). As the title might suggest, the film focuses on a deadly carnivorous parasite that nests inside the vagina of its female human host. It also seems to be able to possess control of whoever it is currently inhabiting. It is never clarified whether or…

I’ve never been much of a fan of Lamb of God. I’ve seen them live multiple times, but they never really connected with me. Their fans, and the whole “southern” metal thing really just turned me off. I’m not entirely sure what it was that made me add New American Gospel to my Spotify to-do list, but I finally got around to listening to it all the same. The best thing about Lamb of God…

Groove masters from Germany meet  French goregrind legends on this excellent split CD. SxRxOxMx take it slow and steady as per usual; churning out their snail-paced gore with menacing aplomb. “Wandering Flesh” stands out, with unusually catchy riffage, and terrifying pitchshifter gurgles. Pulmonary Fibrosis open things up sounding like Odour Of Torture-era GUT meeting Creeping! Crawling!-era Plasma, which is a tasty feast for any goregrind nerd. It isn’t the longest split in the world, but…

I primarily checked out The Astro-Zombies because of The Misfits track which shares the same (or very similar) title. This film is, in a word, terrible. The pacing is excruciating, and when anything does happen, it is so badly acted out that it is just laughable, and not in a good way. The plot is paper thin, and the “Astro-Zombie” scenes are incredibly hammy. The titular “Zombie” is just some dude in a plastic mask….

Towards The Megalith is a bludgeoning epic in explosive, doom-laden, monolithic (or is that megalithic?) death metal. I’ve gotta be honest, I had never heard of these guys until they were announced for – and then controversially dropped from – the first edition of Netherlands Death Fest, due to accusations that the vocalist is involved in some national socialist noise project. Whether he is or not, I couldn’t really give a fuck (that style of…

Welcome to the first LIW film post! In the seemingly endless recent downtime I have been thinking of ways to expand on and better this site and incorporating TV/film-speak into the goings on here seemed like the next logical step. LIW started in 2011 as a vinyl-only blog and initially grew to cover CD and cassettes. In 2014, it became “format free”, covering music regardless of format or whether I owned a physical copy of…

Crazy Clown Time is, for the most part, a journey through rusted Americana with treated, dense beats. Repetition is God, repetition is key! Lynch has openly admitted that he is neither a singer nor a guitar player, but it only seems right that the all-encompassing artist releases his own music as well, and it does not disappoint me in the slightest. I mean, I kinda half-braced myself for some Mr. Bungle / John Zorn style…