Archive for 2022

I got this tape from Roel back when it came out, and I have absolutely fucking no idea what I’ve done with it over the years. Thankfully, some kind soul has uploaded this to YouTube so I can remind myself of how it sounds. I can’t decide if the best thing about Anal Penetration (what a sentence) is the drum programming or the guitar work. Both are intensely good. Like, seriously, seriously good. For such…

Serenades is another one of those records that I have heard probably hundreds of times. In my teens it quickly became one of my favourite doom metal records, and I remember going to watch Anathema in 2007 at a festival without having any idea they had changed into the whole indie / post-rock thing. What a shock I had haha Anyways, I love this. I’ve made the point on several other record blogs now, that…

I loved Sikfuk when I was a teenager. It’s death metal, but silly as fuck and also technical as shit! What a duality! Much in the same vein here does the carnage continue, but with a whole slew of additional sounds added to the one man’s already chock-full barnyard of vocal styles. There are now punk rock / powerviolence shouts and grunts to go alongside the usual gurgles and gargles. There is also a catchiness…

Ah, Oxygène, one of the greats of the chill-out electronic genre, no? Before everything chilled out became house hi hats and moody loops, the genre was more attributed to “Mike Oldfield shit” – by which I mean huge 4 or 5 CD box sets of wishy washy hippy synthesizer music. You could guarantee a radio edit of Oxygène would be included on any one of those compilations worth its salt. I am of course doing…

Dahmer are a fuckin’ great grindcore act. I snoozed on this band for years think I only really checked them out for the first time in 2016. Anyways, the two tracks here are slightly longer than the usual grindcore fare, but suffer not in terms of pacing or ferocity. Throat shredding vocals, razor sharp yet dense riffs and bonkers drums – it’s all here.

This is a lengthy split from 20 years ago (damn, son) (23 years for the original cassette before this CD version). If you know what Ahumado Granujo are about then this will not disappoint. There are less techno passages and more groovy finger-pointy goregrind, but hey, I’m not complaining about that. Production is good as always, and a few Gut covers towards the end (and a cover of Impetigo’s “Boneyard” but much faster!) are the…

Vulnus play intense, well-produced death metal. Despite this, there is a quality remaining of the feel of an underground demo, but the band’s overall tightness and professional sound does wonders for their crisp, precise carnage. As I listened to the split for ISOYF, discovering Vulnus was a pleasant surprise. ISOYF have thusfar failed to ever disappoint me. One could say that the band are not very adventurous with their sound, whilst another could then counteract…

I’d like to think, that back in 1993, it was almost unimaginable that a band like Anal Cunt would do a full-length album. I mean, they crammed 5000+ “songs” onto a 7″ in one way or another, so who could comprehend a full-length? Similarly, with such an abrasive and intense sound, the formats of short, sharp shocks to the head worked perfectly. Who in their right mind would want to endure that in a full…

This has to be one of, if not the most, random thing in my entire CD collection. I got it off the Relapse webstore back in the late 00s when it always seemed to be filled with the most random shit. This is a CD full of Duncan’s stand up, which is, to be fair, not that great. The material’s link to heavy metal is also tenuous at best. There is absolutely no merit to…

This is what I’m talking about. Forced Expression do not fuck around. This 7″ of blistering hardcore intensity takes us firmly into classic powerviolence territory. Bouncy riffs meet pummelling drums and intense vocals, just what the doctor ordered in regards to total sonic annihilation. Tidy!

Oh fuck, this is great. I’ve always avoided later Morbid Angel because I wrongly assumed it would be total rubbish. I had this in mp3 format when I was a teenager and it had all the “lavas” with it (like a bonus disc of guitar solos or something), and that along with the multiple ambient/intermission tracks here really distracted me away from the meat of the project. Thankfully, all these years later I decided to…

Noise noise noise noise! All Dutch and Belgian bands here (or just Belgian maybe – I could be wrong). Permanent Death have always eluded me. I’ve always wanted to check them out because they have had both Tony from AGx (RIP) and Isaac from Fromtheashes and Leng T’che (and a bloody good bloke) on drums. Nonsensical noisecore is the order of the day here, as is much the case for LSD Mossel and De Madeliefjes….

I love Bastard Noise (or anything Eric Wood) but my experiences with his discography are few and far between. This is a fairly haunting session, where each band on the split sound fairly similar, but there’s a bit more dreadful atmosphere to the Bastard Noise stuff. L’Idiot Du Village (lol) is a bit more abrupt with the “song” lengths, but offers as equally pleasing a contribution of horrible noise. Tidy split!

Totes brutes death metal is the order of the day, with a chunky digital production holding everything in a surprising state of clarity. The drums pierce the mix brilliantly, whilst the riffs are fully distuishable underneath the vocals, despite their technical complexity. All in all, sounds good, and doesn’t fuck around on the savagery scale.

Another one of those dusty old 80s gems that I have absolutely no idea where I got the recommendation from. There is no way I would have stumbled upon this on my own, but here it is. A mystery! Anyway, this thing fuckin’ rules, if I could be so direct. I love the warm, analog production, and really wish that more stuff was recorded this way. That being said Medieval Kills! does sound pretty ancient…

I just love how confusing the Man Is The Bastard (Noise) AKA Charred Remains discography is. So… is this Man Is The Bastard? Or is it Bastard Noise? Discogs has Man Is The Bastard Noise looping back to Man Is The Bastard, but this record is clearly a noise release. Perhaps I’m just thinking too much into it. LOL. Either way, it is the crushing power electronics headfuck you can expect from these guys, with…

It’s crazy to think how long this band have been going and how many eras they have had to their sound. These days, with the huge popularity and of course, striking appearance of Alissa White-Gluz, its hard to imagine Arch Enemy being fronted by anyone else. Angela Gossow abso kills it on this thing, however. Its an album I’ve heard many times in my youth, but I never really fell in love with the band….

I have absolutely zero clue where I picked this recommendation up, but its been on the to-do list for a few years. Viscous Attack is an excercise in mid-80s thrash, I guess where the genre was finally coming into its own away from the speed metal tag. I’m no metal scholar, but that’s where I place this stuff anyway. Honestly, I figured this was out of Brazil or something (it really gives me that vibe)…

The Stiffs Are Looking Lively (what a name!) is a colossal compilation record of all (I believe ‘all’ at least) the Savage Man Savage Beast demo stuff and unreleased tracks. The runtime is massive, but if you’re down for 60+ tracks of one man drum machine grindcore (leaning towards the gore), then by all means pull up a chair, you’re gonna be here a while. Despite being culled from I think 5 or 6 different…

What an absolute beauty of an EP. I first marked this down for LIW’ing in 2020, so it was a pleasure to come back and check it out for this review. I absolutely love the mix of jazz, noise and I suppose, even grindcore. There are muted electronic passages that invoke the realms of vaporwave and 80s nostalgia, before the madness comes back and smacks you upside the head. A topsy turvy listen, for sure.

The Doom II Master Levels is a mixed bag. One of the most irritating things about it, is that whilst a lot of the files occupy map slot 01, you get the same soundtrack over and over and over as you play. Thank any metaphorical heavens then, for the Doom community. Megasphere has popped up a few times in regards to soundtracking WADs, but this was my first encounter with his work. Honestly, he puts…

The Final Countdown is the title of this album, of course also the single, and its also the title of the band’s ‘best of’ album too. For a group that apparently doesn’t like to milk their biggest hit, that’s a bad look. I understand there’s probably a ton of label meddling in these decisions, but still. I’ve always loved the title track, since I was a wee lad studying music in school. So I figured…

Oh boy. So. I’d never actually listened to this all the way through before. Sure, we all know those tracks that people hate so much, and I saw the band live during this tour cycle and witnessed a lot of the death metal songs here sounding pretty impressive, I won’t lie. How do I even tackle this? This record is considered one of the most universally reviled metal albums of all time. Playing it through…

Nile’s debut album (not counting the demo, even though that feels long enough to be an album) is a blocky and solid affair that introduces the world to the band’s unique take on combining ancient Egypt with death metal. This is far from the polish of Annihilation Of The Wicked or In Their Darkened Shrines, but its great to see where the band’s musical journey truly started to begin and flourish. At a first listen,…

I have to say off the bat that I find Democracy underwhelming. I’ve listened to it twice now, and it just doesn’t jump out at me. It’s not bad, but it’s just very uneventful. The mix is very wishy washy and everything gets lost and buried. Kinda like the shoegaze hoover effect, but not in desired way. Democracy, unfortunately, sees Killing Joke on auto-pilot. This is a crying shame after the return to form thay…

Hater is now 11 years old. Damn, son. Anyways, this little fucker is probably my favourite TFD stuff, outside of the sessions that appeared on the Slimewave splits (I absolutely love the drum sound on those sessions). Here Rich Hoak and chums perfect their spastic, jazzy grind down to the very last blast or chug. The songs are just brilliant. From “Weaponization Of The Mega-Self”, “Everything You Need But Nothing You Want”, “It’s Only Attitude”…

Thecorpseinthecrawlspace is one of the more “musical” things that Bobby Maggard and chums were involved in. In fact, I can’t remember if this was actually a solo project or if it had other members (some of the main-line bands on Stoma Stew had some other people involved, I’m sure). Anyways, blasting goregrind is the order of the day, only here we are happily engulfed in riffs and some excellent drum programming, rather than the endless…

This was a project that I put together in late 2013. I’d decided that I wanted to do some gorenoise, but with the genre feeling rather saturated, I initially figured I’d fire up some “pornoise” shtick but eventually settled on using a bong for long, watery vocal effects. In fact, this was a ton easier than using actual pitch-shifted vocals. The bong is run through the same kind of effects that you would use on…

I’m no jazz expert, as I’m sure I’ve declared numerous times already. With that in mind, I sometimes struggle to review jazz records, even in this micro-format of a short paragraph or two. This is great, old-fashioned and busy jazz; just what the doctor ordered if something of the more classic variety is what you were after. If you want spacey 25-minute fusion epics, you’re looking in the wrong place.

I’ve heard the name Jah Wobble many, many times, but have never had the pleasure of partaking in any of his music. Thank the dub heavens then, for this collab with the legendary Bill Laswell. A Dub Transmission takes you on an hour of ticking, chill-out beats underpinned by intense, fat sub-bass. It won’t blow a hole in your speaker cone, but you can definitely feel its presence, which is fantastic. A bit later on,…

I’m going to have to address Douglas P’s politics at some point. Probably in the form of a YouTube video so nothing is lost through hard text. That is an unfortunate reality I am faced with have now covered several Death In June records here. I love Death In June. There is no other band that sounds quite like them, despite them being a highly imitated pillar of the neo folk movement. In the early…

This is a long overdue listen for me. Dogg Pound, is perhaps, quite famously, a duo comprising of Kurupt and Daz Dillinger, who you may know from Dr. Dre’s albums or Snoop Dogg’s legendary Doggystyle album. These are the two guys that fill out a good chunk of guest spots on some high profile releases in the hip hop world during the 90s and it was high time (lol) that I checked out their debut…

Intestinal Disgorge’s first album is as fuckin’ batshit crazy as you’d expect to be. By this point, the band have a long and surprisingly varied career (who saw that coming?), so its nice to go back and check out the very sordid beginnings. In fact, Intestinal Disgorge got seedier and more brutal as they progressed into the 2000s (Depravity is probably one of the sickest and most unrelenting things ever recorded, at 60 tracks long)….

Hrmmmm. This is a rare misstep for Burial. Let me preface this by saying that the music here isn’t bad, nor is its production inferior. Everything is above board. I’m just…. confused by the vibes. The name Rival Dealer of course conjures the usual Burial magic of urban grit filtered through fractured and almost ambient dance/dub sound pieces. All of them are unique yet united as a whole. On Rival Dealer however, which contains some…

Juicer are a sonic force to be reckoned with. Calling All Cars shows their all-encompassing sound in its infancy, from sweet, lullaby-esque vocal pieces to stomping grunge and or sludge bangers. The duo would get heavier, more experimental and more extreme as time went on, but their debut is a sunny slice of all the things that makes this project so brilliant.

Very angery. Straight up heavy as shit, balls out powerviolence. I love the aesthetic, I love the production, and I love the rabid vocals and unstoppable instrumentation. As with most compositions in this style, it doesn’t last forever, but it doesn’t need to. Highly recommended.

Burial is a dissapointing transition between The Guilty Have No Pride and the absolute classic that is Nada!. What we do get in the way of genuine new material is fantastic, I personally enjoy “Sons Of Europe” and “Death In The West”, even the seemingly hated “Black Radio” sound collage. Unfortunately side B is crammed with nothing more than a shitty live recording, so to call Burial a second album by this band is really…

A live split EP which actually sounds pretty clear. The AGx stuff crawls a bit, rather than being from their selection of mincing microblasts. Quality is usually any issue that I have with splits from these Belgian legends, repeated songs aside. And that’s all OK here. The Nyctophobic side isn’t bad either. Is this an essential underground gem? Perhaps not, but it’s not bad either.

Atrocities has to be one of, if not the best, First Days recordings. Their slushy drum machine gore is perfected here, with interesting themes and perfect shifted vocals. The vocals in of themselves are something that need to be heard to be believed. Fast, brutal, savage. That’s all I need to say here, I think.

The Real Thing blew Faith No More up. Angel Dust, which followed, seemed to weird a lot of mainstream media and fans out, if what I read on the Internet is true. I can kinda see this, as Angel Dust can get quite obtuse in moments. Songs like “Jizzlobber” and “RV” are of course going to hit a bit on the nose, but fans of Patton et al will of course no doubt instead revel…

On first impressions, VHS Logos’ legendary Mantra record fits right in alongside the other early greats of the vaporwave genre. However, give it chance to develop and you are treated to a smattering of beats and vibes in the hip hop and funk styles too. Everything is wrapped in that warm, fuzzy 90s analogue sound that we all love vaporwave so much for, and I’m sure there’s plenty of re-worked samples and songs going on…

It’s really cool to look back at the beginnings of this band, who are now one of the biggest names in modern death metal. This cavernous debut is probably the most “different” sounding to all their other stuff, where they found their true style and their feet. That isn’t to say this demo is shaky, far from it in fact, its just the style of death metal on display is a little different, and the…

Cannibal Corpse’s second record with Corpsegrinder on vocals certainly hits home a bit harder for me than Vile did. Not to shit on Vile at all, but I just prefer this one. The album art features a woman who has perhaps the longest torso in the entire world, and whilst its not one of the best pieces Vince Locke has ever done, it fits the sound here perfectly. Opening track “I Will Kill You” is…

This has been my jam recently. To say that I have overlooked Morbid Angel would be a lie, but I’ve definitely been a dismisser of their “later” discography, starting with Domination. More fool me, however, as this has probably become my favourite Morbid Angel record (for the time being, at least). Domination marks Erik Rutan’s addition to the band (the producer legend, also of Hate Eternal and currently the recent incarnation of Cannibal Corpse). Domination…

John Tardy has to have one of the most distinctive death metal vocal sounds. He reminds me of the gnolls from the Forgotten Realms computer RPG Baldur’s Gate. Your man here literally sounds like a feral beast let loose to scream over these sludgy, lurching death metal tunes. Do I love this as much as Autopsy? Probably not, but it’s still a legendary lesson (lesion?) in doing slow death metal just right. I love the…

Abruptum’s initial legacy ended in the mid 2000s, but after a few years hiatus, the member known as “Evil” returned without founding member “IT” (Information Tech? – these fuckin’ names, man) and released new material under the Abruptum name, even though, realistically, this should have been called something else entirely. However. This is fucking great. Potestates Apocalypsis (you know its grim and evil if the name is in fuckin’ Latin) is actually really, really good….

This is the second and final album from The Blood Divine, the band featuring several members of Principle-era COF, as well as Darren White from Anathema. Mystica is a refreshing journey, actually. The first album is a solid and fine lesson in 90s British doom (arguably the best doom?), but Mystica goes off in several unpredictable directions. There are a lot of rock and blues parts, and the keyboard playing is absolutely excellent in this…

The Blood stuff here is great. Its raw, its nasty, and it really shows the styles that the band flirted with, bridging elements of death and grind with even black or war metal stylings. Love it. Unfortunately for me, I’ve heard the Impetigo side a thousand times because I got the Giallo / Antefatto complication CD through a trade when I was a teenager and these songs are already on there. Plus, the version of…

I’ve approached The Epic multiple times since release and have struggled to find the words to do it justice. Therefore, I’ve decided after another recent listen through at the beginning of the year, to throw all pretense of “doing it justice” to the wolves and just commit this monster of an album to the site. Is it too overblown for me to state that The Epic is the Bitches Brew of our generation? Possibly. Bitches…

I snoozed on this when it came out, and I snoozed once more when the 3XM side was re-released on 12″ vinyl. In fact, why did the vinyl re-release only include the 3XM stuff? Seems a bit shitty. Anyway, I digress. This is a pretty solid effort from 3XM, which farts hyperspeed drum machine grindcore over you in their “original” full length style – i.e. the production is decent, the vocals are weird and the…

How is this 9 years old? The time, she flies! I used to trade a lot with the Fuck The Industry label from Japan, who at the time were putting out some of the highest quality home made releases I’d seen. It goes to show how much difference can be made by investing in a decent printer (lol) – all of FTI’s stuff looked the part, both on CDr and cassette. Video Nasty (not to…

I’m not sure why Voices’ output fell off the radar in the mid 2010s, after the quickfire one-two of albums in 2013 and 2014, but I’d have to assume that it had a lot to do with Akercocke becoming a functioning entity again. In a running theme with a lot of the posts that I have made here recently, I completely missed this record around the time of its release, finally catching up with it…

I’ve never really been able to get into Watain. It’s not that I don’t like a bit sneaky melody living beneath the frosted, barren landscapes of my black metal. Nor is it that I find any of their music to be boring or badly made. Lawless Darkness is a intense slab of blackened metal tomfoolery, which admittedly doesn’t quite live up to the savage evilness promised by the title and the cover art, but is…

It seems almost pointless to write a blog post about a download-only single. But hey, I’ve listened to this thing a ridiculous amount of times so its probably a good idea to go ahead and commit it here to the archive of forever. This is unreasonably catchy. For someone who enjoys both vaporwave and TES III: Morrowind, this is a match made in heaven. Hey, April 1st seems a good a day as any to…

I have a spotty relationship with Wheelchair x4. Granted, its mostly my fault, having organised a failed compilation featuring 69 bands around the time everyone was leaving MySpace en-masse and it took a year or so to get everyone’s money back. Anyway, that’s water under the bridge. I got this in 2013 along with the Elastic Death split and I really enjoyed it, despite the animosity the guys seem to have against me. Maybe its…

Dense, brutal death metal is the order of the day. In the old school style of course, as I’m sure you can tell by the artwork. The resurgence of this kinda shit is still flowing freely from an unblocked sewer, and for now, I’m OK with that (no doubt saturation point will be reached at some point in the near future). Insurrection Or Submission isn’t a particularly long affair, nor, dare I say, is it…

Vile is the first Cannibal Corpse record without Chris Barnes on vocals. Fortunately, the history of metal has been kind to us, and metalheads will surely know that this means that Vile is the first record with the now-legendary George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher. This tidbit aside, it is unfortunately difficult not to compare this to what came before, especially considering Barnes left the band on such a fucking high, with the final record being The Bleeding….

Abigail has always danced at the corners of my musical peripheral vision (lol); the odd festival appearance here, the odd logo shirt there. But never had i submitted myself to their sleazy thrashing blackened metal until now. Think Nunslaughter, but throw in some more d-beat and make all the songs about “sluts” instead of goats, and you’re on the right track. Imagine if Midnight were a band full of horny teenage boys, and you’d maybe…

Ah! Classic old school Agathocles EP right here. Guitars down-tuned to non-existence, shifted vokills and drums that are all over the place – what more could you possibly want? I love this primordial soup stuff, way back before mincecore was defined by stomps, d-beats and those riffs. Not that I hate any of that stuff, no no, but I do have a soft spot for the more grinding death metal sound to Agathocles had at…

This is fucking great. I heard about this as it was mentioned in passing by Stuart Anstis; during a very long interview he mentioned that Robin (the original COF bass player) had a project called December Moon. I don’t think Stu had anything to do with this, but he led me down this path at the least. Honestly, this is awesome. It’s showing its age, in some regards, but that’s OK. The production is great,…

2 sick tracks from early muddy Brujeria? What more could you possibly want? I love this band’s unique mix of hardcore, grindcore and death metal, all with their unique spin and immediately recognisable vocal. Production is a bit primitive here, but that’s absolutely fine by me.

Wow. There’s something humbling about listening back to old noisecore stuff. There always seems to be an element of fun involved with just getting into a room, or switching on your board setup, and giving everyone’s ears hell. When I listen to raw rehearsal recordings, which is the case here with the Final Exit stuff, I feel like I’m given an unique window, a fly-on-the-wall look into a rehearsal room full of friends messing about…

Doom The Way id Did is a community WAD pack that intends to pay homage to the original “classic” Doom mapping trio of Romero, Tom Hall and Sandy Peterson, by emulating their design philosophies and – literally – make a new Doom campaign, but the way id did. The problem I have with this is that outside of pigeonholing Romero into his now-famous, tech-base-based (lol) design criteria (you just need to look at Sigil to…

I was turned onto Havohej by the Punk Rock MBA YouTube channel, of all places. I love how fucking weird some of this shit gets, but in the grand scheme of things, Dethrone The Son Of God is pretty straightforward as far as black metal goes. The vocals are fantastic, and so are the riffs and drums to be honest, and the whole thing comes together nicely and the production isn’t too abrasive. If you’ve…

Well then. Wild card listen of the week award goes to this…. record? Honestly, it’s a stretch to even call it that. Baphometal is almost indecipherable, whatever thrashy blackened metal we should be enjoying here is buried beneath decades of grime and dust. It truly must be one of the most unlistenable and barely audible tape demos that I have ever heard. And hey, trust me when I say folks, after over 20 years in…

Is there any type of death metal that is as bland and as boring and disinteresting as this? The answer is no. Fuck, these guys suck. Fuck them and their fucking bullshit music. Just gonna stop this here before I go off on one, but I listened to it so its on the site, thems the rules. Lowest common denominator trash, weak even for Sevared Records (and they’ve released some absolute shite over the years).

This is arguably the catalyst for the initial destruction of the original run of the band in the 80s. I’ve seen it called a band unravelling, a misled attempt at a solo project, or also the work of intense vanity from certain members of the group. But how does it sound? To my knowledge, Geordie and Jaz go it alone on this effort, with a hired band of session musicians. It sounds… like a really…

Covenant sees another slight shift in the Morbid Angel sound. The blistering death metal is of course still here, but the sound is warmer and the subject matter is more on-the-nose in regards to the occult. I mean, just look at that album sleeve! Altars… was echoic and cavernous, Blessed… was dry and brutal, Covenant seems like a tidy mix of both of these things actually, with some slower, sludgier elements thrown in for good…

I’m not the biggest club guy, Londoner or even electronic music enthusiast (although that does grow over time, judging by the burgeoning ‘electronic’ tag here on this site), but Untrue has to be one of the greatest albums ever made, all the same. I’ve read many stories about its inception, but the general one I like the most is that Burial is trying to pay tribute to the sounds and atmospheres he grew up in….

You gotta love 7MON. In fact, one time, their addition to the OEF 2015 line up swayed me to buy a ticket and make a solo trip from the UK to the Czech Republic. Whilst I was watching this band play their ridiculous noisecore on stage, I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d travelled 100s of miles to watch a band dick about for an hour haha Noisecore, I know, isn’t everyone’s bag. Personally, I love…

Across the decade of the 80s, a period of the latter years saw a thawing of the Killing Joke tribal post punk sound into a more accessible, new romantic or synth pop direction. The pinnacle of this was Outside The Gate, which seemed to alienate a lot of fans. The icing on that cake was the spoken word album that followed it, and Killing Joke almost seemed like a band that no longer knew its…

Wow, I can immediately see what the hype is for this record. It topped a lot of lists last year, and the artwork is quite striking. Aurally, Pale Swordsman is an exercise is raw black metal, but mixing elements of DSBM (I’m in particular drawn to the slow piano overlays that remind me of Lifelover) with more traditional, unholy trinity era Darkthrone (in regards to both the riffs and the production). It also manages to…

The Lengthening Shadow is the debut full length record from North Wales black metal project Defod, which follows the EP/demo cassette the project released through the FHED record label. What was good then has now been honed to become great; it is here where the shadow does indeed lengthen – the title is very apt! The songs are lengthy, intricately woven and very well produced (especially for black metal!). I’m reminded of certain aspects of…

I am very much late to the party here. I saw Sigh in I think 2010 at a French music festival. Before that, my only real experience with the group was seeing their albums advertised inside my copy of Principle Of Evil Made Flesh (I think they may have been on the same label as Cradle Of Filth at one point). Anyways, I wasn’t blown away by the live show (particularly how they piped a…

Wow, I slept on this fucker. I thought this was a new record! D’oh! Opening track “Breath Grease” is one of my favourite MW thrashers – it bolts straight out the gate and lets you know what you are in for. If you’ve heard these guys before then you surely know whats coming here. That’s not to say this is rehashed or boring, I’m just prepping you in regards to: expect some of the best…

These guys are like the Audioslave of the mid 90s doom scene. When the Principle Of Evil Made Flesh lineup of Cradle Of Filth left en-mass, they teamed up with the ex-Anathema vocalist Darren White to produce what (I thought) was initially a very similar, sombre doom metal outfit. Joined by a new bass and drum section, the six piece wasted no time in dropping two albums a year apart. The first, Awaken, is an…

Strong, dense industrial combining the more harrowing elements of the genre with something altogether more classic (that being the pummelling heave-ho motion and delivery of early Swans). It uses such as a backbone to create seemingly lawless noise, which is often allowed to run rampant and unstructured with abandon, but here it is pinned down like a worm on a dissection plate and we are able to peer into it. You’ll surely remember what Nietzsche…

The Bleeding is the final Cannibal Corpse record with the uhh… legendary (I guess that word is still applicable despite everything lol) Chris Barnes. When I was a young’un, making my way through the brutal mires of Cannibal’s discography, I would often give up around The Bleeding, never making into the Corpsegrinder territory. I don’t really know why this was the case, because The Bleeding is just as good, if not better, than the albums…

I saw Uiutna supporting Jarboe on one of her solo tours, I think back in 2013. I picked up this cassette because the dude’s set was really cool. Splitting here with Druss, both artists present something in the form of long-winding, experimental electronic fuckery. Not quite as out-there as say, Tangerine Dream, but allowing the same sort of droning electronica to morph and shape in its own unique, dark way. I think the Druss side…

Gore Beyond Necropsy have this wacky edge to their tunes. I can’t really put my finger on it, but it doesn’t make it silly like, idk Sloth and stuff like that. If anything it just adds to the angular weirdness that is GBN’s early grind output. On the other side, “legendary” pornogrind outfit Gut pummel us with some dirging filth. I have a soft spot for Gut even though pornogrind is somewhat ridiculous. The sleaziness…

Voïvod have a special place in my heart. They’ve slowly grown from the Lost In Space of thrash to idk, the 2001: A Space Odyssey of thrash. Ha! Is it derivative at this point to pull together a bunch of purposefully dissonant riffs and awkward tempo changes and call it sci-fi thrash? The answer is, of course, fuck no. Especially if you’re Voïvod. For me, I feel the band have been on something of a…

D.O.C. can fuckin blast! Production is thick and chunky and the drums are probably triggered (legit kudos if they aren’t because they sound clear as day). Aural carnage is of course the order of the day, with several tracks of frenetic, chaotic grindcore to liven up your day. On the contrary, Agathocles offer something slow and disgusting, which is an interesting angle for these kings of mincecore. Despite the drop in production quality compared to…

Okay, so – before I begin, how tf is this 10 years old? Damn! The time, she flies! The Money Store is the record that brought Death Grips into the mainstream, introducing the band to a new generation of music rabid fans, who no doubt lapped up the aural carnage and abrasive experimental hip hop like rabid dogs. I find a lot of the later Death Grips records get a little too obtuse, but here…

One of my favourite elements of Agoraphobic Nosebleed is Richard Johnson’s vocal contributions. Why then, has it taken me so long to check out Drugs Of Faith? The only answer – and this is a recurring solution – is that I am an idiot. Anyways, I picked up the 12″ of the band’s debut and off we go, spinning that grind on the platter! It’s grindcore alright (would you expect anything else?) but there is…

You’d think the market was already saturated when it comes to ancient Egyptian themed death metal? However this interestingly named project show us that there is room for more than one leviathan obsessed with said subject matter. Ruins Of Gubla is a dusty, down-tuned tape demo style approach to gloriously muddy death doom. The riffs are absolutely huge and are of course the centrepiece of this 4 track work. Imagine if Disembowelment and Nile had…

Another excellent band/project I have had the pleasure of recently unearthing, Offermose offer the most (lol) stunning mixture of Tangerine Dream style Berlin School synth meandering, punctuated with vibes and call backs to the dungeon synth movement of the 90s, with shimmering, moving passages and spooky, almost black metal style vocals. Stilhedens Tårn presents a cold and morose atmosphere, but one that is peaceful and beautiful in its own way. One in which you can…

Very old school, early-days style vaporwave, but which didn’t come out until 2019. It’s nice to see folk still making good shit in this vein and not have it become derivative or what have you. That being said, Gateway 2000 is intensely treacle-like in its pace and runtime, and I find myself nodding off or drifting away, even in the middle of the day whilst working from home and drinking black coffee. Unsure if that…

I love this shit. I can’t believe I’ve not already written about it. Some things just slip through the cracks I guess. Anyways. This predates the 2nd wave of black metal, but is considered a classic and a grounding for the bestial / war metal movements. I guess as it predates the 2nd wave, the influences these guys were taking in surely must have been a mix of death metal and shit like Venom. There’s…

Well then. This is certainly on the fringes of the bizarre. Not your typical noisecore, the uhh, lovely-named Abortion Breath instead employs electronic elements in their noise. I knew this before hand, thanks to Choppin’ Headz zine, and I expected some sort of Gorgonized Dorks approach to pummelling your senses, but this is totally, completely different. Pulsing, headache inducing electronic beats are used as “songs”, often accompanied by short bursts of anguished vocal barks. File…

Pirate Doom has to be one of the most ridiculous yet ambitious custom Doom WADs that I have played. It comes across more of a total conversion than a level set, with a complete overhaul of the entire game to feature pirate-based landscapes and levelling, weapons and most hilariously, demons. Fighting the swashbuckling hordes genuinely had me in stitches at points, especially when a new monster was introduced. Some of the new game mechanics are…

Considered a classic of the vaporwave genre, I was surprised to find the original version of this “album” is only 19 minutes long. North Point Mall falls under the initial, original arm of vaporwave, where 80s classics are warped and moulded into reimagined versions of themselves. North Point Mall, I believe, is from one of the Grand Theft Auto video games, which is a perfect vibe for this kinda shit that’s going on here. There’s…

Ah, more lovely electronic weirdness, just what the doctor ordered. I love this thing. It’s a strange mixed bag of vibes, with some being pleasant and others being a bit more disturbing, which is par for the course considering who is involved. The production is an absolute marvel to listen to however and the sound leaps out best whilst listening on headphones. It’s a bit strange, but it’s worth sticking with, consumed as a whole…

Revelations Of The Black Flame is an unusual entry into the 1349 discography. The band are no strangers to atmosphere and eeriness, as this often permeates their blasting, unstoppable black metal. However, the usual carnage takes a back seat here. Granted, its still here, just in less quantities. When it rips, it rips hard, but for the most part, this album is filled with unusual sonic atmospheres and haunting, cavernous ambience. The sonics crawl more…

This is just simply fantastic. Two of jazz’s greatest musicians, from two different eras even, converging on one record, with a cohort of additional excellent players, of course. The first and last tracks are probably the prime examples of how Coltrane’s sax and Ellington’s piano play off each other so brilliantly. The drumming here is also particularly of note. Great album. Need to get it on 12″, I think.

Gorgeously spooky, amazing, fantastically composed old school dungeon synth from 1997. Coming across like a mix between the instrumentals you’d get on early Cradle Of Filth records and something altogether more Age Of Empires II, Mordenheim is a stunning journey through synthesised orchestration. I find it wholly bizarre that this (and the following Grabesmond record) were never released on cassette. This stuff belongs on an analogue format. Brilliant.

As my Iron Maiden journey continues for the first time, Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son has quickly cemented itself as a contender for favourite album, alongside of course the legendary Powerslave. There’s just something about the vibe, the feel, the general pace here that’s a bit different than what came before. I can’t really verbalise what it is exactly, but it’s a little bit special. Like lightening in a bottle, as they say. Production…

Do I really need to explain what’s going on with an album title and sleeve art like this? For a band with such a terrible name, Funeral Rape have a fantastic logo. A Chainsaw To The Cunt wins no awards for originality but you can’t deny the band are not wearing their colours honestly here. Brutal death metal with gore/porn grind tinges is what the doctor ordered. You’ll either love it or hate it.

You can always count on Waco Jesus to produce solid slabs of brutal, bludgeoning death metal. Mayhem Doctrine also probably has the best attempt at the sado-sexual artwork the band always strives to attain; there is always some sort of nude woman on their record sleeves and this picture works quite well. It’s understated, unlike some of the others. Seriously though, whilst maybe they will not win any awards for originality, they make up for…

Spooky, dark yet somewhat blissful and meandering ambient tunes are the order of the day. To say they don’t really go anywhere would possibly be a low blow – this is ambient music after all – but I can’t get rid of the nagging feeling that I’m listening to a boatload of build-up and then not much else. This is despite the mixed bag of different vibes and textures that Rapoon throws at us. However,…

Regurgitate fandom often seems split into two camps; that of the old, grimy, demo-tape quality goregrind, and that of the well-produced, Relapse-backed, d-beat and buzzsaw guitars goregrind. Personally, I prefer the former, but I will of course never turn my nose up to any record that bears the mark of Regurgitate. Deviant is a 2003 full length effort from the band, where – as mentioned above – the band’s dusty demo-tape d-beat reaches new heights…