A short sharp shock of slamming shlock from this excellent death metal project. The songs are tight and the sound is fantastic. I’m still trying to figure out the inspiration behind this band. Either way, it works for me. It’s hardly a reinvention of the wheel, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s brutal and heavy, and that’s all that matters here. 0.00 Apocalypse by 7 H.Target

Are you ready for a bleeping blooping analogue party? Of course you are. What can I even say about this? AFX is nothing short of legendary and this second entry into the Analord series is entirely a reason as to why that is the case. Press play, marvel at the genius at work.

What a journey this took me on. I can’t remember exactly where I picked up on Cluster’s music, but the idea of two men more-or-less battling with analogue synthesizers was right up my alley. This self titled record from 1971 is an incredibly forward thinking journey; a textual treat for those electronically-inclined. The tracks are long and sprawling, possibly even improvised, and I enjoyed every last second (admittedly with a good book and a cigar…

This is, traditionally, in the days before I decided to go through the entire discography, where my Sabbath listening would end. There would be many insults thrown at this album during drinking sessions “back in the day” (and a few defences bandied about too). The main sticking point would be about how high Ozzy is singing on some of the tracks here. Don’t get me wrong, he can get shrill at the best of times,…

Here we have Ellie Goulding’s fourth studio album, the number one selling Brightest Blue. So, I believe the premise of this record is that it is split into two sides; two parts – one being the very sort of sound we started seeing Ellie creep into around the time of her Halcyon record and the latter part a series of collabs with various sort of EDM artists (all of which I’d never heard of prior…

I vividly remember not being very impressed with Fuckin’ A upon its release. I was baying like a crazed hound for more nasty noisecore, but instead we got this nonsense. However, I can thankfully say that in my old age I have grown to appreciate this bizarre album. Like, its Anal Cunt but doing hair metal rock and/or roll tracks, of course it sounds awful! But y’know, considering the band in question, the songs are…

Spiders is a relatively short EP from Czech technical grinding madmen, Pigsty. Whilst not as Voivod-y as the full length Planet Of The Pigs, Spiders is still a clanking nightmare in the brutal style of grindcore that almost borders on death metal (deathgrind doesn’t really feel like the right word here, though). Perhaps most surprisingly of all on this EP, is the cover of Rage Against The Machine’s “Wake Up”, which despite best efforts from…

On Jesu’s debut we are faced with 8 monumental tracks of shoegazy goodness. Granted, this self-titled record is not as astral as records that would quickly follow, but Jesu instead relies on the intense weight and pressure of the riffs, coupled with the dark, drab and dare I say somewhat depressing nature of the songs themselves. On Jesu it seems that all hope is gone, and the morose synths gilding the tracks accentuates this feel….

Årabrot play an interesting blend of rock and metal; from the noisy to the soothing, the chaotic to the serene. Their history is long and intriguing, but I start here today with The Gospel, which comes on a bit like Great Annihilator-era Swans through a twisted, modernised and European lens. That trite description of course does them no justice, but I thoroughly enjoyed the record and look forward to listening to more.

Analord is another one of those series that I have given up hope on ever owning in a physical format. Thank heavens then, for the internet and for the lovely people who upload rare and hard to find gems for the rest of us to get a listen to. AFX is one of my favourite electronic producers in the world. I think I may even prefer it to Aphex Twin, but we are splitting hairs…

Well then, its been a good year or so for pure LDOH-worship goregrind. However, please do not write off First Days Of Humanity – they aren’t as typical sounding as you would expect. Yes, of course, it is heavy Last Days Of Humanity worship, but there is so much grinding goodness here. People (read: experts) on the internet profess that Pixel Death is far from the project’s best release. Considering how much I love this,…

Destroyer is a little cunt of a record, to put it politely. Imagine the most distilled form of harsh, disgusting black metal, but remove none of the spooky atmosphere that the relentless stuff usually loses out on, and you’ve got a rough idea of what is going on here. There’s a mixed bag of vibes, with the vocal duties being shared out over a fair number of contributors (including, for the first time with Gorgorogth,…

Released right in the heart of national shutdown, I can honestly say this has without doubt been the soundtrack to my entire 2020 lockdown listening wise. This is the second full length release from Bryde, and a very welcome one at that; a wonderful selection of songs from catchy big chorus numbers like one of the albums singles “The Trouble Is” to the track “Flies”, with its big yet dark and haunting sound, and of…

There are many elements to Tom Waits’ records that are odd or abstract, but The Black Rider seems to take this formula one step further. As far as aural textures go, tonally it is not a million miles away from Real Gone. The difference in this particular little pudding is the songwriting; the tracks are almost vignettes, little insights into bizarre microcosms that are weaved for our aural enjoyment.

The more recently released full session recordings of In A Silent Way are, for me, intensely more exciting than the original release. In a seemingly endless array of “songs”, Davis et al soar through incredible jams and moods. The muted, peacefully restrained final result is far cry from many of the cuts here, making this a super interesting- and frankly, essential – peek behind the curtain.

Here we have the latest and 3rd album from the Haim sisters. A straight up sixteen track offering too which is quite rare to often see. Certainly delivering the content here. The album kicks off with the laid back smooth jazz sound of “Los Angeles”. It’s difficult to quite label but it has a certain kind of smooth groove to it, with the horn/brass sounds that introduces the record, and with that really nice under-groove…

Turning point is the only real full length from Secret Stairways (unless you count his first release – I guess that could be an album too, for some reason though I just don’t see it that way) and marks a slight departure from the heavier fantasy themes from before. Sure, they are still there (just look at the cover art) but the introspective, pensive and droning synth work seems to be the order of the…

Random Access Memories is absolutely deserving of its Grammy win – not that I put much stock in such accolades, but it does show that “the system” sat up and clapped its collective hands. There was also a small backlash from certain long time Daft Punk fans at the time due to the direction of the record. This week marks the first time I’ve actually sat down and listened to the whole thing in one…

The whole concept of Caretaker’s Everywhere At The End Of Time series was something I found incredibly interesting. The six parts of this series are supposed to document the mind’s decline into the unknowing hell and fear of being consumed by dementia. Stage 1 here, gets things off to an eery but jaunty start; swinging tunes that I’m led to believe are original compositions of The Caretaker himself, but easily sound pre-WW2. Things loop around…

TT is a guise – or pseudonym if you will – of musician Theresa Wayman, who is known for being a member of the band Warpaint. I’ll first off admit that I discovered this album on the off chance of a bit of a CD browse and haul; a sort of musical gamble I suppose, having not heard any material from the album or the artist. I decided to take a chance on it, and…

If you think dungeon synth is cheesy then walk away now, because this early side project from dungeon master Mortiis is just that. A far cry from the endless unfolding single-track monstrosities which birthed his synthesizer career, Fata Morgana is instead more wondrous, more celestial, and dipped in a healthy coating of a sticky, melted yellow substance that you would usually find on burgers and hotdogs. That said, this is a stunning record, and the…

Laura Marling returns with her Mercury Prize nominated seventh studio album, “Song For Our Daughter”. This is a really nice album. It has a lot of soul to it; some beautiful melodies, harmonies and an overall big warm sound, and is a really good album to just pure chill out to, with it’s strong summer-esque, lazy day vibes and the odd sombre moments. There is fabulous songwriting and a captivating performance throughout that just takes…

I decided to start at the beginning with NxVx, so back I went. I had my PayPal password ready to go, thinking I may need to purchase some obscure tapes off Discogs, but alas some kind and wicked soul has uploaded this rare catch to YouTube for my perverted perusal. I’m unsure why this release is marked as Untitled? Surely it’s just a self-titled EP / demo? Either way, It showcases an early template the…

Hocus Pocus is not a film that I particularly enjoy all that much but one that gets played traditionally every Halloween at our house. My girlfriend absolutely loves it. Admittedly, it brings back a lot of nostalgia from when I saw it when I was a kid, but as an adult I take nothing new from it (how fucking hot is Sarah Jessica Parker here, though?).

Well this came from fucking nowhere! After 14 years of mostly inactivity (in the studio, at least), Gut crawl out of the gore swamp once again with the completely unexpected Disciples Of Smut. This record is the sound of a band re-energised. Gut bring their trademark downtuned pornogrind mush to a whole new gamut of influences, from black metal to elements of death and doom.  Honestly, it is fucking astounding that this is the same…

Ut Strepitus play slow, evolving soundscapes of noise and dense atmospheric ambience. The shtick is a heavily Latin-based BDSM theme, something of course which has been seen in noise and power electronics worlds before, but not so much maybe in the atmospheric, ambient or synthesiser worlds. The moods and tones shift from paranoia and dread, to small moments of wonder and contemplation, before oppressing drones of collapsing atmosphere suffocate you under its weight. There is…

What is this that stands before me? What indeed. Imagine hearing this, in the early days of 1970 – I’d love to have a time machine to see how things really went down. I suppose us modern-day hipsters will just have to contend for crackly old vinyl copies of this and be done with it. Whether you think Sabbath invented heavy metal or not, they absolutely took that downering, bluesy sound to the mainstream. I…

Slipknot is one of those albums that I have absolutely played into the ground. My introduction to – and infatuation with – Slipknot began with the follow-up record; 2001’s impossibly heavy Iowa album, something which I do not take for granted. The impact that such a record would have had on a 12 year old me cannot be put into words. I have tried and tried and tried to listen to Iowa again, imagining that…

To my knowledge, this 12″ is where it all began for The Berzerker. Heavily pre-dating the grinding mush of the Earache days, this record is pure speedcore armageddon, and I have to admit that Luke Kenny has serious chops in that department. Some of the sampling is a bit silly but this isn’t a genre that takes itself too seriously afterall. The beats however are sick as fuck and are absolutely pumping. Top notch stuff….

If there is one band that excellently captures the ridiculous side of slam death metal, then its these guys. Many try (too hard), and therefore many fail. But, if its tin-can snare drums and earth-shattering brutality you want, then truly it is hard to go far wrong with these guys, this sophomore record is further proof of that.  If there’s one thing that grinds my gears it’s the fucking artificial bass drops. I can’t stand…

Its incredible what chopping 15 minutes off your average runtime will do to a film, especially one of this calibre. Maybe I’m getting bored of watching low budget horrors, but for me a lot of them just suffer with horrendous pacing. Chopping Mall’s plot is direct to the point and doesn’t drag at all.  As for the movie, a gang of young and sexy party goers are trapped in a mall overnight and are pursued…

Ah, fantastic; it’s time it seems, for another record from Sackhead, Tightshead, Dr. Snore and… Millie from Craniation (here’s hoping I’ve spelt that right). BTK are one of the more consistent and generally well rounded and solid offerings of the British extreme metal underground, and this is despite various line up changes over the years. Lessons In Murder is great, following on in the style of There’s Something About Beryl, albeit with a more natural…

Beautiful, yet somewhat samey ambient black metal from Lustre. Things kinda get lost in the mix for me, there is so much treble floating about that it is unreal. Sure, the synths sound great but the drums are almost non existent and the floating, dream-like nature is more grating than it is enjoyable. Which of course, is a massive shame, as the compositions appear to be of a very high quality.

Despite not really being interested in the band’s output for many years, Jeff Hatrix’s departure from Mushroomhead felt like a gut punch, and to me, even with J Mann back in the band, this particular gut punch felt like the final nail in the coffin for a band that was long past their prime. I had little to no hope for A Wonderful Life, and I even considered if I should bother listening at all,…

Slam is a genre that I dabble with now and then, and Abominable Putridity is a band that I have written about in the past. Anomalies… however, takes me by surprise; its lightening fast tunes and chugging breakdowns are reminiscent more of hardcore and deathcore than your average group of tin-can snared brutality dealers.

So, honestly, I only watched this film because I’d Googled ‘films about dachshunds’ with my girlfriend. Seeing that it was on Amazon Prime, we settled down on the couch with our two miniatures and watched away. Man, not even DeVito could save this festering pile of shit. It has this dreamy, faux-Lynchian aesthetic that tries to hold up piss-thin film studies 101 tropes in a series of completely unconnected stories. The shocking ending is also…

2 Minuta Dreka are incredibly hit and miss for such a high quality band. Thankfully, on this split with Pulmonary Fibrosis, the Italian noise masters swing and hit it out of the park. Noisy, rehearsal-room-feel gore, coupled with noisecore-style song approaches and length, make this a tasty slab of underground grind (undergrind?) that makes you moist between the legs. Pulmonary Fibrosis on the other side are just as good, even with the music leaning in…

Archie Campbell is an oddly-titled early offering from The Berzerker, back when the project was one man with a penchant for gabber techno. It appears to be available online only, and was never released on a physical format, to my knowledge. Its a puzzling release, if your experience lies with the full band death metal Berzerker, but what we have on display here is some head-splitting hardcore gabber, which can be just what the doctor…

When I threw this on, I was expecting the usual low-brow pornogrind bedroom-grade electronic mush. That was what I was signing up for, of course – a brief spell in perversion to send me back to the MySpace days. However, PxOxRxNxOx does things a little differently, at least on this release here. Guitars are virtually nonexistent. The music instead focuses entirely on an electronic aspect, which is entirely typical of this kinda stuff but at…

Chop, slice, wank, repeat. Yeah. London’s finest death metallers expand on their first EP/demo with a longer, more impressive repertoire of songs. Grisly death, macabre subjects, and flaying guitar solos are used in abundance. Killing with class, smashing with… sass? Chopping dat… ass? Yeah. Whatever. I’ve run out of steam fairly quickly on this review. Shit is good. That’s all you need to know.  

Bathory…. Bathory….. Bathory. What can I say about a record that is so influential to the black metal worlds? Copies of this have sold on Discogs for up to £1600, which should say a lot for its influence and historical value. However, how does Bathory’s self titled sound? This is proto black metal through and through. It’s not as NWOBHM as say, Venom, whose album helped cement the term ‘Black Metal’, but aurally, this is…

This is so awful that in some ways it is rather genius, if I can say so myself. Recorded all the way back in 2014 and put out online by noise label Red Venice, the aim of Panties was to create a pornogrind imitation that was entirely synthetic. Electrotribalistic Pornitorium, for better or worse, achieves this, being an entirely synthetic record that I recorded on my Sony Xperia Z1 phone. Vocals? Nah fam, that’s just…

Like A Lamb To The Slaughter was the short-lived original direction of my Panties project. It had such a simple name that I couldn’t get out of my head, I had to try and make some noise that was oppressive and fetishistic (is that a word?) to accompany and suit the name. I’m sure others who revel in the pits of noise music have these same itches right? Like, the name comes first, and then…

Chainsaw Dismemberment almost seems like a “part 2” to the legendary Hacked Up For BBQ record. It has almost identical production, and even a very similar set of samples and vibes (there are some samples from the same movies, although I am not an expert in this department and cannot really clarify all that further). It would perhaps do Mortician an injustice if I was to say that there was more of the same on…

Once again it is giallo o’clock here at Lines In Wax. The Case Of The Bloody Iris is a slightly awkward and clumsy romp through the sexually-charged early 70s as our titular heroine Jennifer is hunted by a madman living in a block of flats. There lot’s of skin and artsy murder mystery stylings that you would expect from such a title. The pacing is a little off, but overall it is fairly strong and…

XX was the record that began my love affair with the bizarre world of Mushroomhead. It may be a re-issue of older material, which is presented here in various forms of remixed, remastered and completely re-recorded states, but to most if not all Mushroomhead fans outside of the USA, this was the first encounter. My favourite band was Slipknot, so when I was 12 years old, surely you can understand why I gravitated towards bands…

Going back to Brutally Mutilated after all these years, the first thing that I notice is how bright and tight the guitar tone is. Say what you want about Mortician, whether you love them or loathe them, their music is mostly a garbled mush of intense death brutality. Here, the songs almost sparkle in comparison! Haha! It’s a nice change of pace and a breath of fresh air. The drums almost sound real, but I…

If you watch the Scum Story documentary from the 20th anniversary disc (sigh) – which should have really been called the Mick Harris story – and can still muster up enough interest in proceedings after listening to a bunch of talking heads verbally excreting endless fucking shite for 50 minutes, you’ll have noticed that Mick categorically says that Scum should not be fucked with. I wonder then, what he would make not only of the…

Ridin’ across the planes on a mincehorse, right? I always assumed the name was some sort of word play for heroin, but who knows? This record slays, and that’s all that matters. Archagathus have a strong output ethic, and this full length is a solid milestone in their catalog; 20 odd minutes of stomping mince, blasting grind and slurry gore vokillz.

The End Of All Things To Come was released around the time that nu-metal began to tank in the mainstream, so although I enjoyed the single off of this, I totally snoozed on the record as a whole. Let’s be honest too, as much as I loved LD.50, I was far too immature at 12 years old to really dig (geddit?) what Mudvayne was doing at the time. Mudvayne have always had a serious musical…

If there’s a bummer to Mortician’s discography, then it has to be Zombie Apocalypse. It’s not that the songs are particularly bad – in all honesty they sound pretty much like every other session (lol) – it’s actually to do with the production. On Zombie Apocalypse, it seems like the bass police visited the studio during mixing and sucked all fucking low end out of this thing. All the gruesome pieces are in the right…

Metal Pussy is a 20-minute or so EP from French (I think?) techno project Popof. I wouldn’t say that the record is particularly ground breaking, but the warm sound of the vinyl press works well with the project’s slightly distorted and over-driven (unintentional, I’d say) techno beats. Don’t ask me what that artwork and name is about, though. 

Nowadays, thanks to the wonders of technology, if you want to see Jane Fonda’s tits you can just do a quick Google search. Unfortunately for folk back in the 60s, it meant having to sit through absolute garbage like Barbarella. I’ve tried hard to find some merit in this low budget, camp as hell sci-fi romp. Truly, I have. Sure, its better than OG Star Trek, and watching Barbarella sleep her way across the galaxy…

Who’d have thought a sleazy sci-fi b-movie would include cast members that would go on to be in shit like Coronation Street? Yes! Welcome to the world of Inseminoid, a terribly low budget sci-fi horror where a female…. astronaut? Scientist? Whatever!? – Anyway she gets inseminated by alien semen and goes berzerk. Plot! The best thing about Inseminoid however is the acting, or lack thereof. The entire cast showcases a unified level of ineptitude that…

The ironic thing is that a doc about a genre that relies so heavily on speed turned out to be the slowest production in the history of time. Fuck, I have been waiting absolutely years for this thing to come out. So much so in fact, that I had completely forgotten that the whole fucking thing existed. Roll on to the COVID crisis of 2020, and the film maker has been an absolute legend and…

As influential and praised that Assück are, they’ve never really struck a chord with me. That of course is not to say that Misery Index isn’t a ripping sonic tornado of a record (is it a full length at 15 minutes in length?), I’ve just never really resonated with Assück on a level that I do with a lot of other grindcore.

By the time Beautiful Stories dropped in 2010 I’d lost most if not all interest in what was once my favourite band. I remember my mate Pip played it in his car and it seemed like more of the same badly mixed, lazy, phoned in redneck metal with keyboards. However, I’m not sure if it’s because the band has fallen even further into a pit of absolute cess in recent times, but I can now…

This was a random spin for me, but I gotta be honest, I absolutely loved it. My limited experience with Prong had them pegged as a hardcore/thrash kinda crossover with industrial tones. Power Of The Damager however, is a hard hitting metal release through and through. Its all about the dry, bludgeoning riffs, and macho delivery. Its very 101, but its a super heavy record.

I am fairly unfamiliar with Prong, only having heard the name being dropped in every now and then. Force Fed kinda sounds to me like DRI crossed with a very subtle industrial bent; that driving, slightly rigid approach to metal counter acting the hardcore / trash style jams. I didn’t fall in love with this but I enjoyed it all the same.

Dragontown was the Alice record that was out when I first got into him. My dad had been a fan for donkey’s years, but when we finally went to see my first ever live show together (the 2002 UK arena version of Monsters Of Rock), Alice was touting Dragontown. I had fond memories, but I was expecting this to suck. It doesn’t. Sure, there are some absolute floaters here – fillers than curse any hard…

If you thought Toxie 2 was bad, I’d stay the fuck away from this. Patched together from footage taken in the same sessions as Part II, Part III makes no effort to conceal the fact that a lot of its plot makes absolutely zero narrative sense after the conclusion of the second movie. But hey, this is Troma, it is what it is. Toxie gets a job with the organisation he destroys in part 2…

You’d think things couldn’t get much worse than the original Toxie right? Ha! I am infinitely impressed by how low the bar has been set by this first sequel (I cannot begin to imagine 3 and 4) but nevertheless some odd part of me wants me to soldier on through. Apparently Troma acquired a bunch of funding from Japan so set this film there to appease those backers, which makes for some amusing scenarios (plus…

A pointless but massively entertaining 7” that came out alongside From Enslavement To Obliteration. In fact, these tracks ended up on the Scum + FETO two albums on one CD release. The opening track seems to be a variation on the track “Evolved As One”, but the record is worth listening to for “Musclehead”, “Dead” and the “Morbid Deceiver” tracks alone.

This is an absolutely stunning giallo movie (if one can use such a way to describe a movie of this nature), where the best tropes of the sleazy Italian genre are taken to create a sexy bright-red-blood fest of unexplainable deaths. The plot? Very, very sexy ladies are getting butchered by a mysterious masked assailant clad in leather. I won’t spoil the ending, but what a journey. Aesthetically mesmerizing, but plays out like a gory…

God is a fucking mad trip, mate. Kevin Martin (The Bug), JK Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu) team up with a whole host of other musicians (I’m sorry for not listing them all!) to create an absolute mindfuck of a record. Possession was my first brush with God (what a sentence), after meaning to check them out for donkey’s years. On first impressions it comes across like a blend of earlier, dubbed-out industrial Scorn records and something…

I caught Swans on their final tour and was very disappointed to find that they had run out of copies of this hand made gem before the date I attended. Since then, I have been slowly but surely telling myself “one day, one day” but lets be honest, I’m never going to pay Discogs collectors prices to silly pricks who are just tryna scalp me. So, I’m afraid, I have gone against Gira’ wishes and…

I did have some big brain review of this written up where I explained that The Sciences was like a theme park version of Sleep’s music, how they’ve become almost derivative of their own work and that The Sciences, whilst on the surface is a well written, performed and produced record, it could have been made by anyone, and lacks any unique charm or statement. Unfortunately however, for the first time in Lines In Wax…

As much as I absolutely adore Olidous Operettas I cannot stomach the earlier County Medical Examiners stuff. This final stab at Medleys was my last ditch attempt to get into it, but I just can’t do it. All in all, of course, my problems would not lie with such excellent Carcass puppetry, but there are some vocals which sound as if they have been shifted up, rather than down, and it just sounds fucking atrocious…

2000s and beyond ND records – those produced by Russ Russell – sometimes catch criticism for being bricked out walls of white noise. Smear Campaign falls into that category, but despite the tinnitus inducing production, it is by far the most accessible out of what I call the Colours Trifecta (Times Waits For No Slave being yellow-ish, Smear Campaign being blue-ish and The Code Is Red being, well… red-ish). “When All Is Said And Done”,…

Didgeridoo was one of the first Aphex Twin records I ever heard when downloading his stuff off Limewire or Kazaa (as damaging as record labels saw file sharing to be, it absolutely opened my world a thousand fold in my earlier teenage years). When I was younger I remember the title track of this release to be seemingly endless. In my old age (lol) that’s not quite the case, and the record seems to fly…

Early Aphex Twin 12”s have a youthful immaturity to them, in such a way that if anything invokes a further charm from these gems of the electronic genre. Songs about tampons aside, Xylem Tube is a stunning window in the mind of one of music’s most innovative creators. 

Diatribes is probably the most accessible Napalm Death record of the lot. It is the cleanest, most commercial sounding the band would ever get. Whether or not that sits well with me depends what day of the week it is, or which way the wind is currently blowing. If I strip away the name and legacy of Napalm Death and enjoy this record as a metal album produced by four incredibly talented individuals, I can…

Mentally murdered was the final recording with the arguably definitive classic lineup of Dorrian, Harris, Steer and Embury. The tracks here are more long-form but retain the nastiness and savagery of the FETO sound. On another note, the guitar tone is almost identical to the one Bill Steer uses on the Carcass record Symphonies Of Sickness – this here was a good year for music! Available in a confusing array of 7”, 12”, CD and…

I caught these guys supporting Mortiis all the way back in – I think – 2004. It was whenever he was touring The Grudge. Anyway, I remember absolutely nothing of the set as I was 14 and mainly there to have a goose at Mortiis’ show, but I stumbled upon the band’s only full length recently so decided to give it a spin. Expect angry industrial. And when I say industrial, expect the NIN-vein of…

A nasty little EP which went on to appear alongside a bunch of others on the Death By Manipulation compilation. There’s some interesting takes here, most notable is the “death metalled” re-recording of “Unchallenged Hate” and “Social Sterility” from FETO, but with Barney on vokills, although it sounds like the higher vocals are left in from the earlier session. I think this was also one of the last recordings the band done with Mick Harris….

Merciless is a stunning record from the almost flawless Godflesh project. Nearly every part of me wishes that this EP was a bit longer and more of a full length experience. I love the feelings that Merciless invokes; deep melancholic passages are underpinned by guttural bass and clanking industrial rhythms. Imagine the fragility of what would come later with Jesu but set to a glowing apocalyptic rumble. A stunning EP and a true vision of…

I’ve seen so much! Indeed. This little release was a companion of sorts to the Selfless record. Back when Godflesh was on Columbia (through Earache) it seemed like they attempted to release some singles commercially, so this and “Crush My Soul” got the single treatment, which included some edits or dub remixes but not much else. The dub is a decent listen and is worth the goosey alone if you’re a massive Godflesh fan. 

This is a super short demo tape from mincing goregrind outfit Gabara. It’s barely a few minutes in length but it sounds so fuckin’ good that I just had to share it with you guys. Basically it takes everything that is good about early Agathocles and mashes in a bit of goregrind sound. Slap some weirdly-fitting Godzilla-looking artwork on the cover and you can just conjure up visions of this beast smashing cities to bits…

Enemy Of The Music Business is a tremendous return to form after a period of stagnation for Napalm Death. I often try to look for positives in the mid to late 90s output (I recently saw someone online comparing the Greed Killing / Diatribes era to Fear Factory which made me look at it in a different light) but when you compare all those records to this one… it’s hard to be positive about them….

Inside The Torn Apart is the piggy in the middle of “those three Napalm Death records” some people like to pretend don’t exist (the groove metal trifecta!) I too in all my years of spinning ND records have been guilty of neglecting some of these discs and it is – on the surface of it – easy to see why. This is simply not grindcore. If you’re going to have a problem with that, then…

Oo er, phone the fucking doctor would you, lad? We’ve got a serious case of rib-shaking drum machine goregrind goodness on the cards, and we need a truckload of sexploitation Blu-rays and a jar of edibles, stat! Think Lymphatic Phlegm meets Mortician at a Catasexual Urge Motivation gig and you’ve got a good idea of what is going on here. Top stuff! Twitch of the Death Nerve by Blue Holocaust

Where does one begin with a record that is as life changing for me as Streetcleaner? Sandwiched in somewhere between my obsessions with grindcore and early Swans, Streetcleaner took me to places I didn’t know exist. I’m trying to remember where I first heard this album. I think I downloaded it off some dodgy Russian mp3 site, after my sixth form teacher mentioned Godflesh multiple times in class. I liked it, but I didn’t really…

Expect a flurry of a grinding whirlwind as latter-Mick-Harris era Napalm Death trample through tracks off Scum, FETO, Mentally Murdered and Harmony Corruption. A few tracks of Utopia Banished are showcased here too, even though I don’t believe the album had been released yet. I’ve yet to see the live video that goes with the set, but the audio is heavily enjoyable and a decent quality. There is also some interesting banter with the crowd.

Maybe they should have called it Mick Harris Banished, amirite??? LOL – Whilst it was indeed a sad moment in musical history when Harris and Napalm finally parted ways, it did give us the Scorn project full time, and that is a worthy exchange. Utopia Banished builds on the muddy chaos of Harmony Corruption, led instead now by crazed sticksman Danny Herrera, who is still with Napalm to this day (fair play!). Instantly it is…

Harmony Corruption marked Napalm Death’s first full length descent into the world of death metal. It’s hard to imagine now, but death metal was big bucks back then, so whilst this move was met with legions of new fans, it was also met with an interesting mix of emotions from the band’s longer running fan base. Harmony Corrupton is a statement; a muddy, catatonic statement gargled out from beneath a thick layer of grime and…

Foreshadowing Our Demise is the first record that Skinless released after signing with Relapse Records. It was the start of a fruitful and long-running partnership, and what a brutal, unforgiving start it was! Noticeably more unpolished that the records that would follow, but all the more brutal for it, Skinless are as sick as their logo on this release, with songs such as “Tug Of War Intestines” and the hilariously-titled “Pool Of Stool”.

Today I stumbled upon an old UK-based industrial metal band that blends “crust punk” into the sound. If by “blend” they simply mean “have Phil Vane from ENT on vocals”, then they have achieved something, at least. Not wanting to diss underground music unless absolutely necessary, it is with a heavy heart that I must inform you, dear reader, that this fucking blows. It wheels out every tired trope of the industrial genre (or what…

Us And Them is probably the least popular of the original run of Godflesh full-length records. When I first bought this (from the Earache stall at Damnation Deathfest festival 2009) it was before I was on Discogs or anything like that, so I thought it was some sort of weird bootleg or remix album. I remember finding the heavy drum and bass parts infuriating, before turning it off and throwing it into a pile. It…

I first became familiar with Swarrrm after checking out their split with Embalming Theatre. Black Bong is a puzzling affair, adding all sorts of bizarre tomfoolery to the grindcore template. It isn’t exactly Naked City, but there is a flair for the adventurous here, which I can heavily respect. Kinda reminds of Bathtub Shitter, only without the death metal elements, and presumably also the douche-bag attitudes.

What in the absolute holy fuck is this? Dogpile appear to be a gay porn focused industrial metal band (yes you read that right) from the 90s. They had a few short releases and that was that. This is… what is this, exactly? Musically, the tracks are rather tight; mechanical industrial drum machine tropes up against riffs upon riffs upon riffs. The production is a little flat, but nothing unforgivable. And then, you have the…

I initially passed this up upon its release, partly because of a personal malaise I was experiencing with death metal at the time and partly because of the fecking uncanny similarities between this and Vaginal Necrosis’ Fornicating In Sewage. It was as if someone in Devourment had seen this tiny little release from a UK bedroom goregrind project and altered it for their own use, art concept and all. I’m not saying that’s what happened,…

It was only with the release of Godflesh’s new full-length album A World Lit Only By Fire that I realised that I hadn’t even done a post for their comeback EP, Decline & Fall. I suppose it’s because it dropped when Lines In Wax was taking a bit of a break earlier in the year, and I did most of my listening for Decline & fall lying on beaches on exotic Thai islands (a strange…

More Blooping, bleeping electronic goodness from everyone’s favourite king of the new flesh. New Horizon sees the JK Flesh project move even further away from its dirtier roots, this time even eschewing a lot of the more noisier elements of the music. Granted, the tracks on New Horizon are still hypnotic and dark variations of techno beats repeating into your skull, but gone are the claustrophobic, distorted bad acid trip vibes. New Horizon is just…

SIMM plays big moody beats in the vein of dark wobble pioneers and fellow collaborator: Scorn. Sinister, dirty synth works and samples mangle in alongside stonking beats, creating an incredible vibe. This is my first run in with the project of SIMM, and I will be on the lookout for more.

Lull is another project of Scorn / Napalm Death mad genius Mick Harris, focusing this time on dense ambient passages and atmospherics. I am reminded immediately of Lustmord, but push that aside to instead focus on the single, hour-plus unfolding track. Honestly, it’s fucking great. It’s not as dread-inducing as some of the shorter Scorn ambient pieces (see Deliverance or the arse-end of Vae Solis) but instead meanders through thick, all-encompassing clouds of atmospheric blackness….

I’ve always avoided this compilation because I’ve been collecting all the early Napalm Death stuff separately, but I have indeed been missing the fuck out. There is something about the track order on this thing, but it’s just back to back bangers and a dream Napalm line up of tunes. Most tracks are from the muddy early-death metal days of the band, but the final tracks veer off into the stinking grindcore sound the band…

This early Jesu release is a daunting one to approach, knowing how crushingly heavy the songs are and of course how long there are. Couple that with the fact that the whole thing is quite depressing and you’ve got a brief description of the Jesu self titled in a nutshell. Only, once you finally crack open this beast, you can lose yourself inside a  shuddering, monstrously heavy beast. Morose synths soar, Justin groans and the…

My first taste of Tzusing began with 東方不敗 (Invincible East in English). At first I wasn’t sure if this was for me, but a few tracks in, and the true unique style of production has completely unwoven around me. Yes, it’s techno – dark, heavy techno – with eastern influences and sounds, but don’t write this off like some cheap psytrance bullshit. The tracks here are meticulously designed, and are a refreshing ride. 

Wellity wellity wellity, this just fucking came out of nowhere didn’t it? There is always room in the world for more Godflesh so thank the heavens that Justin & Mr. Green have decided to bleed more of that sweet, sweet crushing goodness out into the world. Post Self might be one of the best Godflesh records ever. That is a sweepingly bold statement I know, but the band have expanded on their previous release with…

Godflesh’s return was one of the most exciting things ever. I traveled to France in 2010 to catch their first ever live appearance since splitting up years before, and then I fanged it over to Roadburn the following year in order to catch them slamming out Streetcleaner in it’s entirety. I unfortunately missed the performance of Pure live at Roadburn two years later but after catching a few more live appearances around the UK I…