Archive for 2021

Well, this was pretty boring, I won’t lie to you. I don’t take pleasure in shitting on bands, especially new ones, but all the bits are in the right places as it were, but there’s just no soul or magic to Eructed (I’ve never heard that word before either, every day is a learning experience!). Very middle of the road and not very challenging. A shame.

This is a massive release, with around 90 minutes of epic dungeon synth fantasy music to take you off to far away lands. Originally this was dropped as 2 separate albums (volume one and two), but has been released together on physical formats such as CD and cassette. I was sold the minute I saw the name Quest Master, and had to check it out. Really good compositions, it’s a high rating from me.

(Please excuse the extra-shoddy picture of today’s post – I don’t actually own a physical copy of this and it was a nightmare getting a tidy shot of it) Oh boy! Somebody had been listening to Carcass a lot, eh? Despite the gore vibes however, this is a true death metal affair, rather than anything more goregrind related. The aesthetics may suggest otherwise, and you even have a meat grinder bass guitar on the go….

Checked this out because the dudes in Halitosis fucking kill it on their demo, so this was a long overdue follow up. Also caught these guys live in both Slovenia and Hungary when I was touring a few years ago. This is some great shit. Vomi Noir though, where the fuck have you been all my life? This is some crushing, crushing fucking grindcore. Outstanding split.

There’s something endearing about the cartoonish horror which adorns the average Gruesome album. It really pops out and represents Gruesome’s sound perfectly. Savage Land is I think the first full length record I’ve heard in entirety from these guys, and it’s a corker. Bright, old school death metal with a little thrashing influence too. Banging.

When my phone broke recently, the first port of call was to dig out some CDs for my commute. I found these old Inquisition records copied for me by once-LIW writer Griefmonger. Magnificent Glorification is a great black metal record. The drums and guitars are absolutely pitch perfect, and would work as an instrumental album alone. The vocals… I just still can’t get used to these. What is all the frog croaking about (and that’s…

An intense, brutal and unforgiving slab of grinding death metal. Everything about this is huge, from the production, to the riffs, to the overwhelming feeling you get playing this at full volume. This has been hyped quite a bit since its release and you can really see why. Expect a dense barrage of total sonic annihilation. If that’s your thing, get stuck in.

Bongripper are one of those special bands that can be heavily enjoyed whilst driving or playing games. The absence of vocals seems odd at first, even in such drawn out doomy compositions, but those mesmerising riffs are there to take you on journeys my friend, and on journeys you will go! Things are a bit shorter here than on say, Hippie Killer or Satan Worshipping Doom, but that’s not to say things are not just…

When Sol Invictus came out I struggled to accept it as a canonical FNM record, purely because it sounded so much like ‘X’ Mike Patton project, rather than a record from a band that I have come to know and love. But, I realised eventually (forgive me), that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? When has FNM ever done a record that wasn’t different from the last? I absolutely loved the lead single for this…

Fallout is a pre-Carnivore, pre-Type O Pete Steele project. I suppose it really is just proto-Carnivore, and lays a bunch of themes that would come from both bands (Carnivore in side B and Type O in side A). I love the art, I love the sound and I love the vibe. Perhaps most importantly, I love having the chance to look back at some stuff Pete was involved with “before he was famous”. Good shit!

Banger! As with most things grind-related, it barely lasts 10 minutes, but what’s here is gross, ultra-fast blasting mayhem from both parties. The Nak’ay side is slightly longer, but both bands absolutely kill it on this split cassette. Glad I got myself a copy. Originally released in 2015 on vinyl, and then 2016 on cassette.

I’m unsure why Stalaggh changed their name to Gulaggh. I should do a search and find out why, but I’m not really that interested. The main real difference is that the Gulaggh project, or Vorkuta at least, is far less focused on the noise aspect of the group’s sound, and more so on the screaming and wailing supposedly delivered by patients at a facility for mental health. Or whatever. We’ve all heard the story of…

It’s nice to see Scorn back again with yet another puzzlingly-sleeved record. What on earth is going on here? What a mixed bag of vibes! The art of course jarrs heavily with the intense and paranoid slow-mo beatscapes (is that a word?) that the wizard Mick Harris has cooked up for us this time. He’s back with his mixing-desk-as-a-weapon approach to dark electronic music, and of course I will always welcome more Scorn here on…

Sixth House Is Risen is a little experiment I made out of noise loops, synthesizer apps and a little box of fun called a Korg Monotron. Honestly, there’s hours of fun to be had with one of these, and Varken was a project born to release some of the noise I’ve made. It certainly helped whilst working from home in the original pandemic, where internet issues were rampant and I had a lot of downtime…

Labia Majora play blasting, satisfying goregrind in the old school style, but with the new school production sound. The blasts are fast and rabid, and the whole thing is over before you know it. Golem Of Gore are quickly establishing themselves as THE band to split with, and its easy to see why. Blasting, horrible, nasty shit all round. As always, I look forward to more sickness from these guys, off the back of this…

This was a random listen based off the name alone, and what a record it is. Morose, weeping riffs and moody keyboards – both ingredients you’d expect more in atmospheric black metal – are here employed wildly throughout this otherwise brutal and unforgiving concoction. The vocals are insane, the drums dense and drenched in reverb. One for you if you like it harsh and heavy but also melodic.

Super brutal, sick, guttural, you name the word, it’s probably applicable. If I can be so bold I will say that it all gets a bit much after a while, but I think more than anything that can be attributed to the incredibly dry and over-compressed production. Everything sounds really artificial and after several songs it really brings about some serious listening fatigue. If you are not a wimp like I apparently am, and you…

Never has “live in your living room” seemed so very fucking real. After adjusting to the initial dissapointment that the audio is overdubbed and not raw VHS death metal, one can settle in and enjoy this classic three-piece Undeath performance from the good old days, when only the hypest of death metal heads were bumping gums about this band. Now, rightly so, they are much, much more popular. Get in at the ground level, and…

Is it really time for another Black Midi album? Fuck, I’m old. The years, they fly! Anyways, the band have come a long way in a short space of time, shedding the rawness of Schlagenheim for a more refined, almost jazz approach to songwriting. Parallels to Disco Volante era Bungle are perhaps too easy to make, and also do this album somewhat of a disservice. Whilst it is no doubt complimentary to be compared to…

Due to the success of Doom, id quickly followed with the now legendary Doom II: Hell On Earth. Personally, I prefer the original, and I find some of the levels, especially in the middle, to have really bad designs, but you cannot deny that this not only expanded, but perfected the Doom world. How can I love a game where I think the levels are shit, I hear you ask? Well, for starters, and anyone…

Absolutely legendary but in reality, utter garbage noisecore from Japan’s infinitely-influential The Gerogerigegege. Tokyo Anal Dynamite is seemingly considered a stand-out release from this project (if there can be such a thing), but honestly, I’ve heard better. I suppose, realistically, in this kind of thing, the major difference between albums is the production used to record the carnage, rather than the “music” itself. There’s a fair chance I’m thinking way too much into things. This…

Even S.M.E.S.’s very first demo is not quite as putrid or disgusting as some of cybergrind’s turbid offerings, but there is something heavily endearing about this entirely synthetic band. Here on this first release however, we do get to witness the project in its rawest, most unfiltered form. Long live the abstract weird filth of S.M.E.S.

Classic, early demo from the Czech Republic death metal legends. All the hallmarks of a solid demo are here, and it’s actually quite exciting to explore this band’s primitive beginnings, after hearing later records and seeing them live twice. Good stuff!

Still not having checked out the latest Streets album/mixtape, I’ll have to make do with this chunker of a single. Only Skinner can make a song about the lockdown so fucking chipper, with the usual all-encompassing production and the clever little rhymes we all love so much. The second track’s a good ‘in too.

Earache put out this record so I decided to give it a go, unfortunately for me it’s pretty uninspiring and not very interesting. I’ve never really been the biggest fan of the alt or grunge movements of the nineties, and Fudge Tunnel (at least on Creep Diets) falls quite heavily into that category. I’m glad I gave it a go, but it’s not for me.

Vektor are onto some mad shit. If you’ve never heard ’em, imagine mixing Voïvod with latter Death and you are on the right track. Everything is super intense and technical, the vocal screeching and rabid. Finally, the maddening sci-fi edge just rounds the whole thing off nicely. Like a thrashy version of Cryptic Shift.

I was turned on Hirax after seeing them life at OEF and being blown away by their chaotic grinding thrash. Noise Chaos War is a fine example of this, being something of a compilation, and churning out absolute noise chaos for its entire duration. If the music wasn’t aggressive enough, the vocals take it over the edge, making these guys stand out from a ton of other thrash bands.

This is one of the bands that I ended up downloading off of KazaA or Limewire back in the day. I was presumably looking for Anal Cunt stuff if typing “anal” into a music search (or perhaps I didn’t clear the search box from before after looking for something else entirely haha). I had one song, and I think it had a Jim Carey sample on it. I’d read as 12 or 13 year old,…

Think disgusting, boggy riffs, think snare drums tighter than human skin stretched out as lampshades. Think farmyard vocals, which are a bit unusual in this boggy area of death metal, but are kinda Sanguisugabogg’s thang, as it were. Expanding on the sickness laid down on the Pornographic Seizures EP, the ‘Bogg treat us to a dose of sickness in full length format. Its a bit samey, I won’t lie, and it doesn’t really break any…

I won a copy of this cassette from Chopping Heads zine, so super ultra mega thanks are in order, definitely go and check out that zine, its a really good window into the sick underground world of noisy music and horror movies. My first impression of BTP – imagine goregrind but with a HM2 pedal. Entombed-gore? Haha! It’s a pretty savage blast, whatever you make of that particular distortion sound, with endless blasts and shifted…

When you wanna hark back and lose yourself in “that” 90s British doom metal sound, there are only a handful of albums that really hit the spot. Turn Loose The Swans is one of them, a drab, harrowing affair of doom-laden misery. Heavy riffs, downtrodden drumming, miserable vocals, morose synthesizers or pianos, and THAT dense, dry production with the middle sucked out of it. Chunky, low end guitars and percussion with sharp treble accents. It’s…

I’ve reviewed some sick shit on this site over the last ten years and I can’t help it but when I look at the art for Butchered At Birth I just cringe out. There’s something about death metal paintings that are so overdone anyway (don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of good ones) that when it stoops to mangling up kids and babies to be offensive I’m immediately zoning out. It’s like, on that…

Early Haemorrhage is up there with some of the best old school goregrind. Part Carcass puppetry, part Euro sleaze, Grume is a blasting attack that isn’t afraid to slow to a groove every now and then. The cover art leaves a little to be desired, but in the big picture this doesn’t matter as the record is so solid.

Exploitative Practices was the record that exposed me (oo er) to the dark and disgusting world of Fluids. The striking nature of the clearly legible logo, mixed with the Carcass-esque record sleeve sold me on a listen, and the Mortician worship pushed to 11 sealed the deal, and I was at that moment at one with the hype. This is some seriously brutal shit. If drum machines are your bag, or if you like your…

The dropping of the new FF record reminded me that I hadn’t reviewed this one yet. You gotta love Fear Factory, a band that is more metal than metal itself, that wears melodic vocals and electronic elements like a snazzy overcoat and yet somehow keep the purists happy. Genexus is no different, if only a little djenty compared to the classic stuff.

I love the art on this. The pencilled and photocopied (or even maybe pen and ink) scrawlings are done in such a way that remind me of early goregrind records by bands such as Regurgitate and the likes. Innards Decay however, are from Japan, and played a guttural, brutal approach to death metal. Much of what can be heard here can be found interpreted into the core of what the current wave of sick death…

Urrrgh! Been on a bit of a Gwar kick lately, and this is yet another quality offering from the bands 00s output. Its not as good as Beyond Hell (what an album) but its still got some absolute corkers on it. One of the highlights for me is the final track, which is a fitting tribute to the life of Cory Smoot. What makes it extra heartbreaking is that Dave Brockie would also pass on…

This has gotta be some of the murkiest shit ever, in the best way possible of course. Undergang play slow, sludgy death metal, somewhere between Mortician and Autopsy, but coursing in its veins is the new blood and disgusting sewery goodness of the current crop of new death metal bands. Of course, Undergang actually predate a lot of these new sewer dwellers, but the energy and vibe is the same. Think wet, loose and analogue…

Nothing Lasts…. has always been my least favourite Shpongle release. I’m not entirely sure where the decision was made to split the record into smaller tracks, but I don’t think it paid off. Sure, Nothing Lasts… flows like one giant session more than anything, but the small little fades between track switch overs only damages the timeless flow and feeling of most Shpongle tracks. That isn’t to say that this record is bad by any…

The OG Forgotten Freshness release combined the first two volumes, even though I guess its one release across two discs. I remember my Forgotten Freshness 4 having a second disk, but I think it was a bonus of some kind and not a legit FF inclusion. All in all, what you get out of these depends on your investment in ICP is. If you want out takes and alternative versions and “rare” tracks then get…

For the record, if the band names are not ridiculous enough for you, this 8 way digital split is called 8 Ways For Lesbians To Indulge In Coprophagic Ass Eating. Where does a split end and a compilation begin? Either way, some small and potentially permanently damaged part of me can’t turn down a listen to a MySpace-grade bedroom goregrind / cybergrind compilation or split. It reminds me I guess of better times. Anyway, musically,…

Unfortunately I had played the Plutonia WAD before I realised there was a glorious 90 minute fan-made OST for it. I thought at the time, “damn, why doesn’t this fucking WAD have its own OST like TNT did?”, and obviously I can’t have been the only Doomer to have thought this, otherwise this beautiful creation wouldn’t exist. There’s a mixed bag here, of styles more than quality, due to the number of composers on board,…

Was given a download link to this stormer of an album when I got some cassettes from Dissicated Productions. Taphos has a mankin’ logo, but the tunes are a bit more polished than the image. Well-rounded, death-inspired metal is the order of the day. There’s a small amount of pomp, but this is curtailed by a sprawling undercurrent of darkness to the writing and to the music itself. If you like your death metal a…

I found out about this Bristolian duo through the Instagram account @scvmrat. Turns out she had posed for this record cover and its voyeur / BDSM kinda vibe gave me industrial or power electronics vibes. I was even more curious when I found out the band played “dream pop”, and so added EW to my listen list. Dream pop is a pretty good way to describe this. The term generally makes me think of stuff…

I’ve never really been the biggest fan of Sabotage as a unified whole, but there are some good tracks on here. Things would get a bit muddier with the last two Ozzy-fronted Sabbath records, and you could argue that Sabotage is the last “good” Sabbath album, but I don’t think that is strictly true. The band is almost unrecognisable even at this point.

I’ve always wanted to like Ascension but I’ve always found the mix to be impenetrable. Outside of opening track “Fools” I’ve found the whole thing blurs together into one forgettable haze. I can’t be the only one who had thoughts similar to this, as a completely new mix has been released by the man himself, JK Broadrick. It’s called a remaster but they clearly went back to the drawing board on this one. I know…

I love me some Miles Davis and the 60s into 70s (seemingly) free-form experimentation phase was my absolute favourite era. Sorcerer however, seems a bit listless and lacking purpose. Sure, there are passages like this on some of the more out-there Davis records, but Sorcerer suffers from this ailment for most of its runtime. Couple that with the horrendous closing track which just kills the vibe, and you’ve got a contender for least favourite 60s…

I have no idea where I got this CD from, but the contact address is from South America. I can’t ever remember recieving any parcels from South America, so truly, fuck knows how I go this. The beauty of trading, eh. So, after fuck knows how many years in my possession, I finally span this CDr. Unfortunately, at 2:48, the thing obliterated itself inside my car stereo. How my car’s CD player is still working…

Miss Melanoma is probably the best stand-alone Libido Airbag release. It was the first time, I think, where they stepped away from murky sounds and production and went for a full studio-quality production. Honestly, this is fucking huge, and the electronics are so fucking nasty. The vocals… well, I guess those are up to the individual to decide on! Haha

I’ve had this split knocking about on the to-do list for a while. Initially, for some reason, I thought Blood Incantation were on it, possibly because of the spacey artwork, but I digress. Side A: Cryptic Shift kick things off with probably the most polished song of the four on display here. Progressive, impossibly technical death metal is the order of the day and the sound is crisp to convey such goings on. Replicant are…

Did anyone say Carcass worship? Mmhmmm that’s some tasty gore! Boasting a far cleaner and well produced sound than most medical grinders, Medical Etymology have more in common with The County Medical Examiners than they do with say, Pharmacist or Pathologist. On The Vitruvian Dissection, a warm, clean and sanitised sound is present as the practitioners allow us into their theatre for half hour or so.

Shpongle’s sophomore record is a lot more texturally rich than its beat-focussed debut, and would define how the group would go on to evolve in their subsequent recordings. The artwork is a bit crap on a scale of 0 to Shpongled-as-fuck, but in a way it kinda suits the chilled out psytrance on display here. In fact, calling Shpongle “psytrance” almost feels like forcing them into a narrow box into which they don’t really fit….

I’ve done a good run through the early Killing Joke records recently, and Fire Dances cements everything that I didn’t like about them into one tangible listening experience. Fire Dances was the first album with bassist Paul Raven, who is, from what I can tell, just as proficient as the legendary Youth, but the band pull a Metallica and mix the poor fucker incredibly low in the mix. It isn’t until later in the album…

I got turned onto XTC when the song “Making Plans For Nigel” was used in the Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch. I’d heard it before but something about hearing it again made it stick with me, and it wasn’t long before I got this album on the go. It’s a strange affair, a lot of mixed vibes and bizarre songs, the weirdest one has to be “Complicated Game”, which seems like a mix between Adam Ant…

Sodom are such a good fucking band. Agent Orange is probably their most well known album, and for good reason. Being one of the “big four” of the German thrash bands, Sodom have influenced countless metal musicians the world over. Their punky thrash is often imitated, but there’s no better example of it than here on this little blast of goodness.

What can I say about this? Its an absolute classic. Merging the stinking themes, sounds and lyrics of what was explored on Scream Bloody Gore into a more coherent package, Leprosy isn’t as blunt-force as its predecessor, but is still an essential death metal album. Too good for me to describe!

Crap name, crap artwork, crap vocals, but my god what an album otherwise hahaha – Lividity have been a bit hit and miss for me over the years (but slayed it live to be fair), and the weirdly dry production on Clitoral Decay works wonders for the drums and even for the riffs, but plays havoc with the vocals, which sound unnaturally loud in the mix. The “shouted” vocals in particular, rather than the gurgles/growls,…

Kudos to whoever put 2 pence in this guy and brought him forth kicking and screaming from the misty underground. This shit right here is like the second coming (or third, more like) of raw black metal. You don’t believe me? Would that cover art lie to you? Words can’t do this one justice. An absolute banger. Just give the first track, “Imperial Saison Noire” a listen if you are a black metal fan. I…

When I first heard Inquisition I just couldn’t get my head around those vocals. It seems to me, if say, Immortal is the stiff, erect cock of Satan, ready to fuck everything in its path, then Inquisition is that same cock, but flaccid and floundering; its possessor riddled with anxiety and dysfunction. All the parts are there, as it were, but they aren’t much use to anyone whilst swinging about with such half-arsed delivery. Musically,…

So, I finally confronted what is, in my opinion, the worst Cradle record. The band was reduced to a 3-piece at this point, and we’re more or less listening to the Paul Allender show. Cynically, I could suggest that Manticore (and lets not forget its various other horrors) is like listening to Thornography Part 2, but I think that would be an insult to even Thornography. Make of that album what you will, but at…

Iron Maiden’s debut is a class affair. The band were about for a good few years before this dropped so I guess they had plenty of time to hone their craft, but what a debut this is! That warm analogue sound is perfect, the bass pops from the word go, cementing Steve Harris as a legendary player from the very beginning. That isn’t to detract from the rest of the band however, all of which…

The fact that I listened to Mail Dominance within the last few weeks yet can remember absolutely nothing about it doesn’t exactly speak volumes about its quality. Musically, its not a million miles away from Gothom City, but isn’t as silly as that album. A solid mid-career effort from Esham, but it can’t beat the old shit.

Cold, echoic and dense death doom is the order of the day, with an intense gothic edge. Not gothic as in, say, My Dying Bride, but more so than your average doomy death metal act. Good stuff here from Spectral Voice, even if slightly outside of my usual enjoyment realm, as it were.

The uhh, subtly named Barrel Blow Job was the first Libido Airbag record that I heard, I think when I was 16 or 17. Honestly, it really spun me out, as it was like nothing I had ever heard before. Sure, I’d heard reams of crappy pornogrind / cybergrind on MySpace, stuff which I suppose ripped this kinda thing off but just really badly, but I’d never heard anything quite so dirgy and heavy, with…

When it first came out, it took me a while to get used to the sound on Black Masses. The entire thing sounds like it was recorded in a wind tunnel. It wasn’t until I heard a vinyl press over at a friend’s house, that it made a little more sense to me. Granted, it still sounds a bit hollow, even on IEM earpieces, but there are some great songs here. Try to listen to…

When I bought this, I was 15, and I didn’t realise that it was a live album. I bought it because it had 26 songs on it, and I figured it may even be a grindcore record! LOL – it was in 2005 and I was on holiday and didn’t have access to the internet. It certainly turned out to not be a grindcore record, but it was still a fucking great live album. I’ve…

Fuck, how good is this? Easily the best later Gwar record with Oderous on vocals, and thats tough competition. There really is so much more to Gwar than the gimmick and this record is the perfect example. Technical, concept-heavy thrash, with insane vocals and incredible instrumentation. One of the best thrash records I’ve heard in a while. RIP Oderous and Cory.

I remember this record coming out as if it was yesterday. It marked a turn in direction for Björk, who I understand was going through a lot of personal stuff at the time. Not only is the tone and content darker, the songs are impenetrable and sprawling. Björk has released plenty of difficult or challenging records, but this album is almost painful an experience when listening from start to finish. I guess in some regards…

There is no denying the sheer musicianship on display here, from Devin and all of his collaborators. Everything hangs perfect in the balance, and even the man’s famous wall-of-noise production style is dialled back to allow the songs to breathe a bit. However, if I had to describe Ki with one word, that word would be “listless”. Honestly, this is one of the longest listening hours of my life, and the fact that I’ve had…

Oddfellows is probably one of the tamest Mike Patton releases I’ve ever heard. Here the legend fronts an almost stonery outfit who play decently catchy numbers, mixing elements of punk rock, even grunge and a bit of classic rock. The record seems longer than 40 minutes, but it doesn’t drag. Its a decent set of tracks but not really my thing. If it wasn’t for Patton’s involvement I wouldn’t have ever listened to this.

Gross, obtuse, unforgiving and deafening noisecore is the order of the day, in what is a series of incredibly short blasts of noise. Honestly, its been a while since I’ve heard some noisecore as good as this, so its a rare treat. The final track, in stark contrast to the countless others, is 13 minutes or so of absolute carnage. 10/10.

Alpha Centauri is one of the records that caused me to fall in love with Tangerine Dream in the first place. Truly, what a magical performance of synth-work, one which I am sure I can do no justice. Phaedra is the early record that seems to get all the hype, but truly this is the god tier TD stuff. Hunt it down and have a goosey if you don’t believe me.

Interesting mid-career output from the legendary Voïvod. Not as harsh as their early 80s records, and not as bland / stonery as the 00s output, Outer Limits is a strong 90s offering from a band that is always unafraid to play about with its style and approach.

You can always count on Fluids to push the boundaries of what is acceptable. Not Dark Yet wheels out one of the most disturbing samples I’ve ever heard for its opening track, before collapsing headfirst into some intense downtuned death metal. Fluids are easily the Mortician of this generation, replacing horror movie samples with audible terror sourced from the real world. The instrumentation is sick as fuck, and there’s some super interesting flourishes in the…

Easily this has to be one of the most brutal things ever. Sure, there’s more offensive, more disgusting, probably even more technical stuff that has come since, but on None So Vile, Cryptopsy took a step up from what was happening in death metal at the time and really blew shit out of the water. Everything here is just damn crazy, yet the production is clear enough for you to make out every last brutal…

Lovely (if you can call it that) little EP from one of the most mental band names to come about recently. I’m not even gonna type it out, I’ll just fuck it up (and that my friends, is me being very, very lazy). Honestly, I don’t think I preferred this to the album they did recently, which just seemed way better and had a really good flow to it. That isn’t to say that Pornographic…

I wish all black metal would sound like this. But then, I would probably get bored of it. As a very well respected man (lol) once said, variety is the spice of live. Bestial Warlust, as you may be able to ascertain from the name, play intense war metal, or bestial black metal, the sub-genre of extreme intensity within an already extreme sub-genre of metal. I see war / bestial black as the grindcore of…

Frequent readers of the site may have noticed that I’ve started accumulating a few posts about Doom WADs. What became a nostalgic plan to replay the original Doom games in the recent version of Brutal Doom (Google it!) has now become a frequent past time for me. Its the perfect way for me to unwind from life, work, and the adult responsibilities of being a dad. For an hour or so every few nights, I…

Dog Beats is one of (if not the original?) ICP cassette EP back when they were known as the Inner City Posse. Actually, I think this came after Bass-ment Cuts, because it sounds a lot better, and I think even has some rudimentary Mike E Clarke production. All in all, this is a precursor to what would come with the Carnival Of Carnage record. The vibe (and some of the tracks) are the same, with…

Carnival Of Peculiarities is a new EP from the lovely people in Shpongle. Now that I stop and think about it, I’ve never come across a Shpongle EP before. The format seems almost as if it is not long-form enough for the group and the kind of trip/journey approach they take with their trance music. Nevertheless, here we are, and whilst this does end up feeling more like half an album rather than an EP,…

The sampling on the Kots Donor tracks is pure freakery; I wish I knew what the guy was saying! There definitely seems to be a whole lot of the Mortician thing going on (long sample, tiny track) but all in all this is quite enjoyable for mindless gory noisecore. VRV is, well, true to his sound, for lack of a better way of phrasing it. I love this shit; it is horrible, harsh and repetitive…

RxAxPxEx did this absurdly noisy split with Absurd God. I got given this years ago, so passed on the love and gave it away to a colleague who was collecting cassettes in my previous job. It had a lovely yellow colour to the cassette. Nowadays I’m back to collecting cassettes, so it sucks I gave this away, but what can you do? This is blocked on the Discogs website, which made me worry if someone…

Hossannas From The Basements Of Hell is the sound of latter-day Killing Joke pushed to the extreme. Everything about the band is pushed to 11 on this release, as the band explore meandering, deafening compositions which were recorded in some catacombs beneath the streets of Prague. As someone who has visited some of these interesting subterranean caverns, one can only imagine the intensity that unfurled as the band conjured their ungodly work. Killing Joke have…

Since I’ve started my foray into the world of horror and exploitation cinema, Herbert West the Re-Animator’s imagery has cropped up constantly. Before that, it was in the many reams of goregrind and death metal I listened to. I recently read the Lovecraft story on which this movie is based, which is actually a hundred thousand leagues away in tone and content. On the face of it, Re-Animator is a decent exploitation / B-movie flick,…

A Night Of Totes Broots Torture is probably the best example of the older lineup(s?) of BTK. It sounds like they have EZDrummer on the go, but asides from that, this is tight as absolute all shit. Sampling is used sparingly to set the tone, and the tracks themselves are dripping is bloodsoaked riffs and intense, disgusting vocals. Banging.

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Dissection, and have always brushed over them in my black metal listening. However, I’ve recently been filling some gaps in my history so Storm Of The Light’s Bane got another listen. You can’t argue that this isn’t iconic, and some of the riffs are pretty damn cold, but I genuinely can’t figure out what is supposed to be so great about this thing. What am I missing?

One of the most chilled out things in a while. Related somewhat to the vaporwave movement, Voyage Futur’s Secret Earth is a lush, celebral trip filled with all-encompassing compositions of dense electronic noises (which makes it sound like a power electronics record lol). I spent seemingly forever staring at the artwork as this washed over me. Great stuff.

For the longest time, I couldn’t abide King Diamond’s vocals. But, in the last year or so I’ve made a conscious effort to listen to metal that I have always overlooked or wouldn’t usually partake in, so I finally allowed myself to listen all the way through. I enjoyed the concept, and most of the music (the production is definitely of note), but as legendary as King Diamond’s vocals are, I just cannot get behind…

Asphyx are a weighty band. I’ve always appreciated their deathy doom approach, but after seeing them live in The Netherlands in (I think) early 2016 I really began to apprecaite their records more. Despite being self-titled, Asphyx was the band’s third (at least when canonically released) record.

Travels… is probably my favourite Future Of The Left album. Not only is it incredibly well produced (the rugged bass and guitar parts gelling beautifully with a fresh, organic drum sound), but its choc full of back to back bangers. My favourite tracks have to be “The House That Hope Built”. “You Need Satan More Than He Needs You” and the song which apparently is all about my youth, “Throwing Bricks At Trains”. Honestly, my…

There’s a special place in my heart for the early Wu Tang records, and the following solo albums that came after they blew up. GZA’s absolutely legendary Liquid Swords has gotta be up there as one of if not the best of the bunch, with absolutely dank as fuck and on point beats and production. All the usual suspects are out for the vocal contributions, and this is more like another classic Wu Tang album…

I first came across Kill The Client on their split with Agoraphobic Nosebleed. Checking out this 2010 full length then, has been a long, long time coming. Razor sharp grindcore is the order of the day, with a decent bit of polish to it, making it all very legible and presentable, despite the breakneck speeds and ferocity on show. The closing track has an almost black metal quality to the morose opening riff, but most…

No Life ‘Til Power is, I believe, some sort of bootleg or unofficial compilation of tracks taken from the early years of Metallica and shoe-horned into a fake full length album. I took a dive into this on the cover art alone, knowing next to nothing about pre-Kill ‘Em All Metallica. I guess some of these tracks are supposed to be on demos like Metal Up Your Ass and so on? (2021 edit: bro, it…

This is just how I like my black metal; chaotic, dissonant, and more towards the frostbitten, cold production style than the muddy and warmer styles attributed more to death metal. These two songs are over far too quickly, leaving me wanting to check out more Sort Sind almost immediately. I am not doing these tracks justice here. These are brilliant compositions, and some of the best black metal I’ve heard in some time.

Geek The Girl is a cool, somewhat twisted and impressively composed record from Lisa Germano. Granted it is the only Lisa Germano record that I have heard at the time of writing, as this was culled from some RYM greatest albums list (a good place for hipster dickheads like me to learn about new stuff). Lisa’s voice is fantastic and suits some of the slightly more unsettling subject matters addressed here. The instrumentation can sometimes…

God save me! I always considered myself an Ill Niño fan but somehow always passed up on this album when I was a nipper. Unfortunately, for me at least, Revolution hasn’t aged all that well, with the band’s smoothed-over nu metal sounding clumsy and over-produced. There’s a few stand out tracks, but for the most part, it’s an average listening experience. I bet these guys could still kill it live, mind you. (2021 edit: did…

A stunning, batshit-fast mid-career offering from the lunatics in Mayhem. I’m a sucker for anything Mayhem-related with Maniac on vocals, and Wolf’s Lair Abyss is absolutely no different. Expect carnage in the form of drums, intense, hyper-speed riffing and of course, fresh-from-the-asylum vocals from the man himself. Crackers!

Chunky, ridiculous gore and or porngrind is the order of the day, with swollen production and treacle-like back and forth riffs. There’s going to be no awards for originality won here, but if you know what you like and you like this brand of groovy heaviness (which is a million miles from any real grind lets be honest) then crack on, kid.

Arguably one of the most pointless splits in existence. Both bands are great, but this is so short and sweet it falls into novelty territory. Add to that the fact the ENT track here has already been released a bunch of times on other records and this little 7″ falls even further into pointlessness. A collectors item, most definitely.

Free Off Pain is a fairly polished affair which is a far cry from the Fleshless of old. Its a good record though, if a little too clear for my personal tastes (hey, there’s nothing inherently wrong with good production, folks!). I believe this was a split or something at one point, but digitally its tacked together with an earlier demo and released as a stand alone.