Posts by SeanO)))

Oh boy. Easily contender for one of the best albums of 2020. Undeath, as presented by their earlier demo / EP play the old school death metal that you always wanted to hear. Yeah, old school death deals a lot with the realms of fantasy rather than gore, and a lot of it – the big guns at least – had “that” dry horrible production. But, take that fantasy focus and twist it and make…

Well this is just absolutely ridiculous. But, would you expect any less from Spermswamp? Absolute digigrind idiocy prevails, and that is perfectly ok with me. On the flipside (it’s a CD so actually I need to shut up), Rigor Mortis practise the divine art of Mortician worship, with a decent Carcass cover thrown in. All in all, a good clean fun listen for the whole family.

Drawn in by the incredible sleeve art and the madness of debut The Key, I am surprised to find an almost impenetrable mush of sludgy death metal. Everything is fighting for air and the mix is incredibly dingy. I almost gave up, but after a few tracks you kinda get used to it. An interesting album, if nothing else. Some decent death metal and some lovely sci-fi themes and keyboard work. You just have to…

Did anyone ask for something heavy? Whether Conjurer are still the darlings of the British heavy music underworld is not really my concern, but there is no arguing that with records such as Mire under their belts whether or not they lack the chops in the long game. Mire shows a sound honed and perfected, and a band who are now masters of their craft.

Time Waits For No Slave is the all singing, all dancing highpoint to the 2000s era Napalm Death revival. I think The Code Is Red… is probably my favourite in regards to having songs that I love, but Times Waits is a monument to grindcore and the many genres and styles that Napalm can mix into it. The most recent release by the band, the Throes… album, has been hailed as some sort of experimental…

Like its predecessor The Eternal Idol, this more or less builds on the failure that was Seventh Star, although not in the same level of success as Eternal Idol, which is much more polished. Nevertheless, I am wholly enjoying these Tony Martin records for the first time.

Probably my least favourite of the Dio & Sabbath original era. Don’t get me wrong, this era isn’t exactly my favourite to begin with, but I’m working through Sabbath’s stuff chronologically, and returned to Heaven and Hell in full. I mean no disrespect to Dio, but the swords and sorcery approach to Sabbath doesn’t really do anything for me. Fortunately, this is still an excellently put together record, and its an enjoyable listen all the…

When I was a nipper, Filosofem was the hardest Burzum release for me to get into. The super harsh, wasp-like quality of the guitars and vocals, coupled with the deathly pace of the tracks in general, put it low on my list. Of course, as a fully mature adult, one can now appreciate this for the black metal masterpiece that it is. A lot of atmospheric, “transcendental” and one-man DSBM projects owe a great deal…

Mythic Dawn is a small single from Burzum that showcases the man’s skill at the synthesizer style of music. Honestly, outsiding of existing Burzum fans, there is nothing of value here, its super and short and to the point, kind of acting a sampler to what we would get in the very later extremes of the project’s life.

Building on the strong debut of Kill ‘Em All, Metallica, ahem, electrify their sound with new found depth and songwriting chops. The compositions on Ride The Lightening are, for the most part, dense and experimental (for thrash at least), and possess a new level of maturity. This is a sound that Metallica would arguably perfect on Master Of Puppets, but Ride has it’s own set of incredible tracks. “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, “The Call…

The Sleeping Green is a “lost” Lunar Womb release from back in the 90s. There’s not much to say except that this is a stunning collection of synthesiser compositions. Lunar Womb excels in the dungeon synth style, but the music is much more one with nature than it is with some made up dungeon full of goblins. I enjoyed.

Oi oi, savloy! Donkey Rhubarb is a short but interesting listen, and includes some mad Philip Glass orchestrated reworking of “Icct Hedral”, which is worth the price of admission alone. “Pancake Lizard” is also a favourite of mine. Short but sweet!

Is it possible for a soundtrack to be OP? Like, there’s a mood for every occasion here. Are you exploring the wilderness, a dungeon, a desert, or a quaint village? Daggerfall got a tune for that, yo. My post on the game of Daggerfall will follow at some point, where I will go more in depth into what I think is the philosophy one needs to apply when playing a 24 year old RPG. But…

My favourite of the Sabbath 80s output. Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan is a bizarre choice to succeed Dio, and whilst these two worlds collide awkwardly, it results in the most interesting post-Ozzy album I’ve heard thusfar. There are no stand-out tracks for me, per se, but rather Iommi’s guitars have real weight to them once again, and Gillan’s warble adds a quality that has been missing since Ozzy. I’m not an Ozzy fanboy at all,…

What a lush series of compositions! I got this cassette for literally pennies and was surprised to find out how much of a good condition it was in. The analogue depth lends itself infinitely to Mike Oldfield’s bizarre, arty, synth-led compositions. Admittedly, it gets a bit shit towards the end but up until that point I found myself lost inside these dense soundscapes.

Welcome to hell. Another series of 4 20-minute-plus slabs of terrifying ambient noise from The Caretaker marks the next step into the hell of dementia. Stage 5 is easily the most aggressive, opening with what is more or less harsh noise; the musical memories from earlier stages are now mangled into nightmarish visions that bear zero resemblance to their original form, instead present themselves as a collage of frightening… shit. It’s just noise, and its…

Cattle Decapitation have definitely morphed into their own entire league in the last few years or so. There are no bands that come close to imitating the group’s lightening fast death metal blend. For me, they stand unique amongst a sea of endless death metal artists. This, on the previous few records, has been a shining plus point. On Death Atlas however, I can’t help but feel that Cat-Decap are becoming somewhat formulaic. Death Atlas…

Haircuts For Men is one of my favourite “vaporwave” producers and 壊滅悲しみ is of no exception. Despite the title, the vibes are not quite so downbeat or depressing as some of the other records, but in general this is a morose and chilled out journey through some fantastic electronic music.

My first – and long overdue – foray into the genre of sovietwave. Can’t say I’m really sold on it just yet, but eery ambient electronics is the order of the day, sounds from the past representing a future that was promised.

Celestial, dense, wandering black metal comes down from the astral planes above and enchants your ears with a rabid yet sophisticated racket that can only be done so much justice by words. Expect almost impenetrable atmospheres. Best listened to with headphones plugged in.

Dio fans will most definitely disagree with me on this one, but Live Evil is the most interesting recording from the original 80s Dio era of Black Sabbath. That’s not to shit on the two studio albums that they did together, but this live album is an incredible window how the band operated in those times of change, blending their original legacy whilst creating a new one. Hey, let’s be honest, Dio singing Ozzy-era Sabbath…

How fucking savage is Blood Will Be Shed? Dodgy band name aside, this is lightening fast, savage metal at its absolute best. Zyklon B leans towards the black metal end of the spectrum, but I hear influence from both the death metal and industrial worlds. Shit name, shit cover art, incredible record.

Spooky, authentically exotic ambient music from this well constructed side project. I recently played the Daggerfall OST through and honestly some parts are eerily similar. All in all though, if you like your synthesizer soundscapes to have an ominous Eastern lean to them, I would heavily recommend you Call To The Deep.

Admittedly, I’m no aficionado when it comes to this kind of depressing, jangly acoustic business. My knowledge of the existence of Mr Cohen only came from Godflesh’s many title-stealing tributes to his work. Songs of Love and Hate is gorgeous however. The opener, “Avalanche’, is purely phenomenal. There is a lot of variety, but the overall theme, to me at least, appears to be rather morose. All in all, this was well worth the listen…

Mongrel was the only full length record that we did as the Judas Cradle. It kinda turned out to be our Chinese Democracy, even though it was a combination of reworked tracks off our earlier EP or splits alongside a whole bunch of newer thrashier kinda tracks (Agathocles the 2nd over here). Mongrel then went through a protracted period of mixing, and by the time it came out, we had all but broken up, which…

Bitter Suites For Succubi is a strange stop-gap EP / mini album between the release of Midian and the band’s epic Damnation And The Day. I’m not entirely sure of the reasons why they decided to release this as it is, but I expect it was something to keep the fans happy and busy when the band were no doubt in the long negotiating phase of being signed to Sony records. I loved Bitter Suites……

Downward Spiral has never come across to me as an organised, coherent album. Sure, I’m not saying that it sounds like a series of disconnected tracks thrown together for a buck, or anything like that. There was obviously a deliberate creation process behind all of this. But, what I’m trying to say is, is that I’ve never found that Downward Spiral flows. At all. Now, I’m not an expert on NIN. Maybe this is intentional,…

Well this was depressing. Admittedly I’m out of my comfort zone when in the worlds of post punk and its infinite variations of weirdness, but Protomartyr just didn’t gel with me at all. I’ll leave it at that.

Now this is what dungeon synth is all about, if you ask me. Maybe the warbling audio hiss of the tape rip has got me all nostalgic and teary eyed, but Eternal Fear’s 1995 offering is a beautiful journey through misty mountains and unknown chasms. Shit, any dungeon synth that makes me wanna break out Daggerfall is good in my books. Also, its an absolute pleasure to find OG 90s work that I haven’t heard…

I stumbled upon the second part of this collaboration at the beginning of the year so it was high time to go back and hear the genesis of it. Atsusaku is stacked, 2 huge back to back slabs of droning and sparkling industrial noise to cleanse not only your aural palette but also portions of your brain. Its impossible to tell who is doing what here, but this is a solid noise release if I’ve…

Wowzers! This is a dirty one. Intense, well produced grindcore from French Polynesia with a cheeky mincecore stomp to it. A short EP, but one to watch, for fans on the grindy side of life.

I never realised how truly rare Remix 2000 was until recently. Fuck knows where my copy is, probably buried under some junk in the attic. Anyway, Remix 2000 builds on the original Remix CD that came out in 1997, and features – how did you guess? – remixes of Mushroomhead tracks from the first two records. There’s probably nothing of value here if you’re not a huge Mushroomhead fan, but its worth noting that the…

Never Say Die is the final and somewhat lacklustre album the band did with Ozzy, before 13 came out a few years back. Sabbath (read: Iommi) can be accused of phoning it in at multiple times in their career, but this is the first time the band well and truly jumped the shark. Never Say Die isn’t awful, it just doesn’t really do anything or go anywhere. Ozzy had already left the band by this…

Baptized… is yet another re-release of the band’s first two demos. That initially sounds impressive, and necessary, but when you realise that the bands first album Knee Deep In Her Pussy is literally just these two demos stapled together with no changes, this re-release becomes infinitely more pointless. Knee Deep… already has a CD release and a (granted, now very expensive) vinyl re-issue, but still. I digress. I’ve included this release on Lines In Wax…

Spermswamp is one of those bands that sets the gold standard for how ridiculous pornogrind should sound. For example, if fellow genre-mates S.M.E.S. is the equivilent to one of those automatic fucking machines solemnly pounding away at a low level, humming mechanically as it bores methodically into your orifice of choice, then Spermswamp is one of those machines but fused to some mecha-octopus technical fuckmonster. What I’m trying and probaby failing to convey is this:…

The perhaps excellently titled Lust For Feculant Orgasm is the first (and still rather low key) released album from goregrind mainstays Spasm. The album itself is very well put together, the tone of the bass (acting here as a lead guitar) is so crunchy and sick. This dirty little three piece has more weight to it than more fully fleshed out bands. What makes this record so long is the inclusion of the Spasmatic Secretion…

Real Life Death was the low-key death rattle final release from infamous Shredded Wheat loving death metal band, Waking The Cadaver. As chonky as both Real Life Death and its predecessor, Beyond Cops Beyond God, both are, the charm of the band for me was lost on both of these recordings. Gone are the abysmal, gore-drenched slams of old. I’m not saying WTC were just another slam band; their first album was absolutely manking in…

I’d never really bothered with XXX until a work colleague of mine implored me to check out some tracks from this album, but I ended up listening to the whole thing. There’s a lot to unpack here; the opening track acts as fair warning, as trumpet blowing as it is (“my genius!”). I wouldn’t necessarily say you need an open mind to digest a weird mish-mash of hip hop and screamo or acoustic songs, but…

This is, objectively, one of the worst things that I have ever heard. Its been saved on my Spotify albums list since 2014, where I was recommended it by some absolute arseclown it seems. So what we have here is beatdown music with techno elements. Everything about that sentence makes me want to die inside, but the techno elements are actually pretty good. As far as beatdowns and slams go, well, this isn’t dirty enough…

The downward spiral continues with Leprechaun 4, where the quality descends even further still, but to the point where the plot is now so goddamn ridiculous it almost gets a pass. In this 4th offering, the Leprechaun makes it into space, where there is scantily clad princesses, trigger happy marines, Nazi scientists and terrible CGI spacecraft. A huuuuge drop in quality and budget from the 2nd and 3rd entry in the franchise, but incredibly entertaining…

Leprechaun 3 has none of the endearing characters present in the first two movies. Everyone is pretty awful, or drastically flawed in some way, to the point where you don’t really give a suit about what happens to any of them. Luckily then, that the Leprechaun has conjured some creative ways to dispose of the cast, before culminating in yet another awful conclusion. It is what it is, but Leprechaun 3 is pretty shit.

Leprechaun 2 is probably my favourite of the original 90s run of movies. A loveable simpleton and his on/off girlfriend incur the wrath of the Leprechaun who of course, fancies her for his bride as she some direct descendant of some poor sap that crossed the Leprechaun in the past. Anyway, it has a creative set of kills and situations, before a fairly useless showdown in the Leprechaun’s lair. It ends on a bum note…

There is a lot to address with the original mix of Cradle’s Cruelty And The Beast record. The real question however, is whether or not this recent remaster attempt brings out the best of a frequently misunderstood (yet still critically acclaimed classic) record. I have reviewed the music itself in the previous post, so will focus entirely on the remastered elements here in this post. The first thing I expect everyone is going to notice…

I haven’t listened to Cruelty… in donkey’s years. In fact, I didn’t even know there had been (finally!) a remaster of it either, so I decided to listen to both back to back for the purposes of commiting the records finally the vaults of Lines In Wax. What surprised me however, was that I heavily preferred the first mix to the remaster, despite the heavy shortcomings of this original release. But anyways, I’ll get to…

The mob ruuuuullllllleeessssssss! Or, so I’m told. Not an awful album by any stretch, and is given an injection of new energy what with Bill Ward bowing out and Vinnie Appice coming on board for the drumming role. I just can’t buy into the Dio ham factor. Other than that, to me, the uninitiated Dio listener, Mob Rules is more or less a continuation of the themes on Heaven and Hell.

Blacks and the crackers! Brothers and the whities! Everyone has heard “Move On Up” but I only got into this record after falling in love with the opening track after it was used as the theme for season 1 of HBO’s The Deuce. Honestly, my knowledge in this era and in these genres is severely lacking so I’m probably going to struggle describing this record, but it sounds fantastic. It’s funky, soulful and pumping with…

I’ve been a fan of the hyperblasting froguencies of Phyllomedusa for some time now, so it was excellent news all around when I found out they would be doing a split with the lovely chaps in Catastrophic Blunt Force etc. etc. etc.  The Phyllo stuff is harsh and perfect for inner skull excoriating or some such horrendous practice. I may be biased in regards to my relationship with CBFx, but they offer something different to…

It’s nice to see something that bridges the gap between industrial, power electronics and harsh noise so perfectly. Often these terms are bandied about wantonly, with several terms being used to describe the same thing in a pedantic circle jerk of an already restrictive genre. Whilst I still don’t quite know what the fuck Witch House is supposed to be, I can literally feel the industrial vibe pouring out of this record, like steel girders…

I added this record to my to do list when Young And In The Way were announced for Temples Fest, easily over 5 years ago, maybe even 6. Either way, I never got around to listening to this until now, and was blown away by the mix of hardcore and black metal, which admittedly isn’t a mix I’m all too familiar with hearing. The production is quite typical of things in this trendy corner of…

(2020 edit: This review was written several years ago, I just dug it out from the lost drafts on my old Blogger account). And the award for quickest maturing member of Odd Future goes to Earl fucking Sweatshirt. Doris has always stood apart from most of the other Odd Future stuff I’ve heard, and now this… well, this is something truly special. On the strength of “Faucet” alone, this record is fucking outstanding. The beats…

Machine Violence is a breath of fresh air. Don’t get me wrong, if I wanted to be a cunt I could say that Realize sound like a mix of Decline & Fall era Godflesh, and something like Static X, but this is industrial metal folks, and it’s pretty difficult to not be derivative. When I say a breath of fresh air – I mean, when was the last time an industrial record was pushed by…

The fact that three of the four tracks on Stage 4 of this excellent examination of aural dementia are called “Post Awareness Confusions” should tell you a lot about where this project is going. I mean, I suppose we all know where this is going, its just we don’t know how its going to be interpreted into sound. This is one of the main things which has made this entire journey so exciting yet equally…

Stormblast 2005 has to be one of the most pointless and unneccessary re-recordings ever made. I’m not too clear on the band’s intention or reasoning, and to be honest, I don’t really care. The end product is vastly inferior to the original, even with Dimmu’s more modern, lightening fast and heavily over-produced symphonic pomp. There is a magic and density that is missing still, however, in this somewhat soulless rehashing of the black metal classic.

The original Stormblast record (stolen keyboard compositions or otherwise) is a stunning work of ‘symphonic’ black metal. I write ‘symphonic’ like that becuase this doesn’t sound like metal with a fat orchestral section dumped on top, the keys and atmospherics are instead an extension of the existing tone and vibe; kinda like how Nocturnus put keyboards effortlessly into death metal. Each track is a gem, and the mix – which has its detractors I’m sure…

Rotten Sound is truly god tier grindcore. Grindcore perhaps even, for people who don’t listen to much grindcore. Cursed is super tight and ultra polished, with even the crusty d-beat passages hitting with lightening precision. A blisteringly fast performance from start to finish, with dat Entombed-core crunch, yo.

This is just so gloriously sexy. Maybe that isn’t the word you’d usually use to describe Mortician-tinged glacial pace death metal, but Undergang’s Misantropologi record is just so beautifully nasty. Somehow, through the mire of sludge the drums sparkle, the vocals croak, and the guitars crackle with fire and crispness. If I was in Coffins, I’d be keeping my eye on these guys.

I mean… where do I begin? Dusk… is probably the benchmark for measuring all Cradle albums, and whilst yes, there are some issues with the production, these aren’t anywhere near as glaring as those which plagued the follow-up record, and if anything, these gremlins add to the atmospheric whole, rather than detract from the experience at all. If I was to make one gripe about the production, its that sometimes the drums are almost totally…

The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh, is, simply put, one of my favourite albums of all time. Of course, I did not start with this as a teenager, and I got into Cradle through Bitter Suites… and Damnation And A Day, but I eventually worked my way backwards, where Principle… and Vempire became my favourite works of gothic horror. A lot of people say that The Principle Of Evil… is where Cradle Of Filth came…

More nastiness from the Welsh death metal masters. Process… had my favourite drum sound of any of the band’s records, and the nuances of Mic’s style are much more prominent, rather than just provided a lightening fast backbone for the brutality. This record contains the bangin’ set staple “Bacterial Breakdown” as well as a couple of mega-disgusting guesties from Amputated / Crepitation vocalist Mark Pearce. Closer “Gravewax” is also a total fucking gem.

Smooth, cool as all manner of fuck and with a flow to boot, Del’s 4th record is an execution in true hip hop genius. I mean, Del is surely self aware of the fact – but not rubbing it in people’s faces or boasting about some of the same old shit most rappers get caught up in is one of the best charms about this man and his glorious body of work. This was also…

Its not often I get to say this with much conviction, but this album is a bloody weird one. Bogus Blimp are strrraaange as fuck, with Cords.Wires taking you on a meandering trip through all sorts of vibes and audio collages. Its not all vignette-style aural wandering however, there does appear to be a smattering of fully-formed, more traditionally structured songs thrown in too, but for the most part, this is a bizarre journey. I…

And just like that, its like the hiatus never happened. System’s sound doesn’t really appear to have aged a day, as these two tracks showcase. “Protect The Land” harks back to the Hypnotise era, where the much more mental and crazy “Genocidal Humanoids” brings back that SOAD-grade madness that we all love so much. Here’s hoping another album follows this little release.

Unsettling and disturbing as always, SJ embark on yet another plunge into the depths of humanity’s darkness. For all the storytelling that makes you feel like you want to take a shower, Offal is actually quite a pleasant listen. The noise on offer is clearly harrowing in its origin; it feels like there is a prolonged screaming suffering mangled through the tracks, but in such a way that it is delivered almost like a purifying…

On my journey through the excellent world of the Analord series, 05 is probably the trippiest one yet. Sure, the point of this shit isn’t really to be “trippy” or “weird”, but from the opening effects on the acid bath that is “Reunion 2”, through to the laid back futuristic sprawl of “Cilonen” (and the additional bonus material), there’s just something about Analord 05 that seems to be in a whole other world.

Bro, like, bruh, you’ll never like, be one of us, bro. Bruh. LOL for all the quality memes that this hideously bad album title spawned, one must look past the elitist attitude and the penchant for performing powerviolence in leather jackets (totes veegs bro), and see that beneath the layers of masculine posturing and internet ridicule, Nails’ third offering is actually a vicious assault on the senses. Heavy, dirty drums and Entombed-core riffage is the…

Even for a movie in the giallo style, Deep Red (or Profundo Rosso) has a fairly unusual plot. That aside, the production seems stark and eerily sparse, the exact opposite of say, Susperia (except for maybe that bit where the dog goes for the guy’s throat in that wide open city square). Honestly, Profundo Rosso is the detective story of your nightmares, with only the twists and turns your dreamworld can conjure up. The pacing…

Well isn’t this just awful? Hahaha – I mean, I expected it to be, truly I did, but off the back of how terrible yet entertaining They Live was, I fell into this with my expectations set far too high. If there were any illusions of Roddy Piper being able to act, Hell Comes To Frogtown will shatter those illusions forever. Giant lizards in fantastically entertaining makeup, and the odd bare breasted machine gun toting…

The prices that this thing fetches on sites such as Discogs absolutely boggles the mind, but I suppose if anything, it shows the influence that Negative Approach had on hardcore punk. NA have always kinda simmered beneath the surface, being that awesome band that always kinda stayed underground, if I can say something so stupid. Anyway, the self-titled EP is a part of punk history now, and is a savage little beast. Well worth a…

Wow. This has to be the absolute low point thus far in my Sabbath journey. Surely it cannot get any worse than this? I mean, for a large portion of their (read: Iommi’s career) the band have peddled awful rock and or roll with that inescapable 80s feel. Surprisingly this varies in flavour and in quality from album to album, with Seventh Star being the absolute lowest point utter dogshit rock bottom that is nothing…

Jesus Christ this is absolutely savage. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Mayhem can go hard, this is an established fact, but on Chimera the band expand upon the festering viciousness present on Wolf’s Lair Abyss and dial that up into a full length. All the usual elements are here, being the razor sharp and dexterous riffing, and the insanely fast drummer of Hellhammer, but on this Maniac-fronted offering, the band hold back on the…

WOMAN! I hope you are ready for Danzig’s dark and evil moooosak to pour all over you? Wolves, wine, satan, leather and enormous belt buckles are the order of the day here. But, in all seriousness, this is a genuinely enjoyable romp through Danzig’s unique charge of rock and or roll. Listen loud, and enjoy.

Mayhem have been on something of a streak in recent years, with consistent and quality releases being dropped. Daemon is of no exception, and whilst it doesn’t exactly extend leaps and bounds away from the work presented on Esoteric Warfare, it does present a growth and maturity which is easily noticeable and a pleasure to identify in the songwriting process. I mean, Mayhem are now the gold standard of intricate yet deadly metal. Hellhammer, for…

Quite possibly the perfect record to sit in an old city centre pub with, drinking strong ale and watching the revellers go about their business. Truly I suppose, Tom Waits’ music is probably more suited to smashing back an Old Fashioned in a dusty, smoky hole of a piano bar, but I’ll work with what I’ve got here in little ol’ Wales. Whilst not as macabre or as experimental as later offerings, records like Swordfishtrombones…

Retro gaming is an absolute gold mine for decent tunes, and the original Streets Of Rage soundtrack is a fucking banger, and probably one of the best places to start. It’s basically everything you could ever want from music in this style; it captures a time and a place, yet is also quite futuristic and exciting. Top stuff. The OST finally got the treatment it deserves with an official release in 2015, making Yuzo Koshiro…

In regards to the title of this record: what more could you possibly want? TFD are clusterfuck made flesh. Their super dense, almost impenetrable, jazzy grindcore is an acquired taste, but one that is not easily replicated. Zen… is bolstered by a series of acoustic reworkings of TFD classics, my favourite being “Kill The Jocks And Eat Their Brains”. Top stuff.

Crisper than a freshly deep fried corpse! If you like your misogyny dressed up in hardcore-tinged death metal, then look no further than Abusing Dismembered Beauties, a poor effort at an album title, even in this disgusting world of slam death metal. Despite my sarcasm, I must say this is brutal as fuck. The sound is fresh, and as I’ve already mentioned, crisp as fook. The sampling is a bit tacky (par for the course…

The first Selected Ambient Works record was the album that introduced Aphex Twin to the wider world. If you’ve not heard it, it’s not a collection of ambient tracks per se, but more of a collection of chilled musical electronic workings. There are plenty of beats and “actual songs” here, unlike Vol. 2 which went more full on into the introspective, meandering ambient soundscapes. Here, Aphex Twin takes the sound perfected on his EPs and…

Ignoring Lost Corridors’ segmentation into tracks, one finds that it works better as one whole piece. Echoic, dense, reverb-heavy atmospheric scores are the order of the day. The name Lost Corridors is very apt; I feel like I’ve wandered into a crack in the earth’s surface and am descending into the pits of Agartha.

Necro Deathmort are an incredibly underrated band. Music Of Bleak Origin is – I think – the band’s own origin, and they have come leaps and bounds since then. The records since this one float away in a dreamy yet claustrophobic hell of electronic and industrial music, but this debut album has more in common with Godflesh than it does to say, something like Scorn. There is an electronic backbone to this nightmarish journey, but…

Ahh, Too Large For Digestive Capacity lives up to its name by almost being just that; an undigestible mess of different sessions and chunks from around the Tumour world. Presented in seemingly no particular order at all, this “full length” captures songs recorded between 2001 and 2005, with zero cohesion or visible plan. There’s even a 10 minute or so live session thrown in, but more studio tracks follow it before the record finishes. Yes,…

Dreamy, otherworldly pop, which for all its ethereal atmosphere, is a touch devoid of originality. Once one track is done, I feel like I’ve scoped the vibe for the entire album. Every track is delivered with the same pace; that same valiumed-up-to-my-eyeballs vocal delivery, regardless of who is behind the mic. That being said there are some solid tunes here, including a great version of “Shadow” (in the online version) and the various iterations of…

Well isn’t this just awful. I was reading about Halford’s 90s musical excursions when I discovered he’d collaborated with John 5 on an industrial project. ‘What was all this then?’ I thought innocently to myself, but it was not long before the shitty, studded metal dildo that is 90s industrial fucked me once again. Like, this is not industrial music. The tag is used far too loosely. You can’t just get some heavy snare sounds,…

I’ve been digging this album since I caught Witch at one of the two Roadburns I went to (can’t remember if it’s 2011 or the 2012 off the top of my head). I love their blend of stoner rock, it really works quite well. The guitars are crackling like fire over lazy, swaggering rock, and the vocals are energised and sultry.

The first Tangerine Dream full length is a fairly short affair and set the presidence for what the band would expand on in the coming albums over the early 70s. Don’t get me wrong, Electronic Meditation is great (how cool is that album name?) but there are much better examples of the band’s stunning synthesizer explorations that can be found in the same time period.

Coursing along on the pulse of the explosion of electronic and dance music in the 90s, Daft Punk introduce the wider world to their slick, sexy, and dare I say French approach to composing dance music. You hipster fucks can give this any ridiculous genre name you can care to pull out of your collective arses, but yes – this is dance music.

Megadeth’s first record is full of vitriol, hate and boundless energy. Its quite sad that Mustaine’s entire career has been a case of trying to one-up Metallica, but off the mark with Killing Is My Business…, it certainly shows that there are far worse motivations than this kind of thing. The album is fast and fairly heavy. I can’t get my head around the Megadeth “version” of “The Four Horsemen” but that’s a small price…

Say what you want about Korn but the early records are dismal affairs of grubby downtuned heaviness and generally unsavoury vocal topics. The self titled is a dark journey in itself, but Life Is Peachy sounds heavier, more drab and scruffy, and generally is a very nasty record from start to finish. The nu metal stylings may not have aged well, but the creepy, messed up vibe of this thing lives on even today. This…

Skeletal are a solid death metal band from Finland, playing a mix of influences in the old school style but with a modern twist, and a clear, ripping modern production. Some of the guitar work has creeping elements of melody, which is refreshing for someone like myself who stays mostly glued in the mire of brutal. Also, can we talk about that absolutely sick as fuck cover art for a moment? Mad props to whoever…

Tyler has come a long way from Goblin, that much can be said. Igor didn’t exactly blow me away, but it is a decent collection of tracks. I’ve always seen Tyler as a producer first and a vocalist second, and now that rapping as been almost completely removed from his repertoire, that opinion is even more tilted. This record is glorious, and the beats have bells on, but that’s about it.

When I was a teenager this record used to make want to go out and punch cars. Nowadays, I just like to sit and bask in the sheer audacity of the audio mindfuckery on offer. Like, this * shouldn’t * work, but it is just perfect. The way the synths and guitars just feed off each other in some bonkers loop, before you even get to the drumming and the hydra-headed vocal attack. If you…

This record is often at the top of – or at least included in – many album lists of patrician listeners from around the globe, and I can see why. What Psychic lacks in immediate urgency it makes up for in the detail. It is, after all, the little things in life which give us the most pleasure. Best enjoyed when equipped with headphones,  Darkside takes you on a mesmerising journey that defies to be…

From the opening chords I am always hooked into the perfectly orchestrated chaos of Gorguts’ world. Obscura is at first impossibly dense to comprehend,  but once you have aligned yourself to the distilled insanity that is on display here, then truly there is nothing like it. Perplexing technical death metal for the thinking gentleman or woman.

There is often a thin line between black metal and dungeon synth, but None manages to blur that line even further. Imagine the dense atmospheres of the synth worlds, but driven by drums and harsh vocals. Life is definitely damp and chilly, especially for a Welshman such as myself, at this time of the year, but None step things up a notch even more so.

Heavy, dense, multi-layered, dark and moody metal. All you could ever want, right? Ulcerate has a technical edge, as shown in the artwork and the interesting, almost jagged approach to songwriting.

Ugh! Is it thrash? Is it death? Is it thrashing death? Who cares? It’s fast, it’s ugly and it’s brutal. Elements of black metal are present but are dialled back a bit. The production is solid, and the sound not too over-compressed. A decent metal record. No more to really say.

Aiiiiiiieeeee!!!!! I fuckin’ love Impaled Nazarene. Not only are they – in my eyes – criminally underrated, but they bridge the gap between grindcore, black metal and the more tongue in cheek elements of war metal. Sure, a lot of these genres kinda feed into each other, but Latex Cult is a perfect example of attuned balance in regards to such, if I could speak so free. Plug in, my karmakeddon warriors.

Wow, this is all over the place! Oxidized Razor are fucking incredible when they are on point, but unfortunately in regards to this MCD, that is about only half of the time. Dirgy, stinking guitars and warm, pots and pans drums are led by some of the most savage, shrieked gore-style vocals ever. It just seems that the tracks here are cobbled together from a series of different sessions, some of which are definitely lacking…

Those that know me in person surely no doubt know my undying love for the worlds of the Elder Scrolls, in particular parts 2 and 3, Daggerfall and Morrowind. The creative community around these game worlds is alive and kicking today, and Tamriel Rebuilt is a 18 year old mod (yes) that still continues to add swathes of new lands and adventures into TES III: Morrowind, arguably the best open world RPG in its vanilla…

Hrmmmm. Without wanting to sound mean, this has to be one of the most stereotypical rock and or roll / metal records that I have ever heard in my entire worthless life. Every possible trope is dragged out kicking and screaming, and it almost makes metal a parody of itself. Yes, this is symptomatic of the trends at the time, but Jesus, this is awful. “Mr. Tinkertrain” is one of the nonciest things I’ve ever…

I love a shot of pornogrind now and then, especially when it’s done well. Cuntshots session here is pretty lo fi, but all the bits are in the right places and cohesion is an art form when it comes to this junky genre. However, there’s still a soft core of my heart (lol) that enjoys such sleazy entertainment, and off the back of this EP, I will be keeping my eyes peeled for more Cuntshots…