This was about the time I kinda moved on from Death Grips so I missed this record when it initially dropped. In hindsight, it’s now easily identifiable as the beginning of the band’s rockier, more abrasive sounds. Sure, DG have always been noisy and abstract, but there is a more distorted edge beginning with The Powers That B that permeated every release going forward. 

I’ll admit, I’ve never seen the movie Koyaanisqatsi. It has been on my to-do list for seemingly ages, but I am familiar with some of these tracks from the Watchmen movie that came out in 2009 or whatever. I find these songs hauntingly beautiful, bridging that perfect gap between the worlds of ambient and melody. The soothing leads are rich, sparkling and dense. Vocal reinforcement works in an almost orchestral way, and while none of…

Absolutely solid! Gaahl’s track record is pretty consistent and the new group entitled Gaahl’s Wyrd is no different. Mystical, hypnotic riffs balance somewhere between metal brutality and a freezing atmospheric fog; filling the audible palate with a rich, all-encompassing sound. The drums range from the slightly disappointing “buried-by-the-other-sounds” level blastbeats through to complex tribal rhythms that remind me of the works of Frost. The vocals are commanding, stunning, and contribute excellent finishing touches to this…

Christ, could this be any more metal? Some of the song titles are cringe-inducing levels of 00ber-br00tal1ty but I will say that I am very glad that I went ahead and pressed on. The production is thick and chunky, the band are tight as fuck (the drummer is absolutely spot on, old chum(s)) and the songs are highly enjoyable heavy slabs of brutal death savagery. Maybe not what the doctor ordered, but he’s bringing it…

Well, where on earth has this been all of my life? I absolutely snoozed on this one. Later-era Celtic Frost doesn’t have the greatest reputation, but this is phenomenally heavy. I guess, creating the proto-roots for the Triptykon project in the process. The lyrics are a bit corn-ball, but the delivery is exceptional, the production is dry and on point, and the songs have the weight of a thousand anvils drenched in the blood of…

Homogenic is possibly the most consistent of all Björk records (perhaps the clue is in the name). After the meandering madness of styles on Post, our formidable musical heroine sticks to a classic electronic backbone for her songs on this album. The beats in particular are absolutely outstanding. The synth lines are stunning. The production possesses a clarity that could bring you to tears. I don’t have to tell you about Björk’s vocal performances. Every…

I’ve been looking back recently at a few things that I remember from the nu-metal era, and I have to admit that this is one of the more interesting things that I’ve come across. With the opening track’s first lyrics of “shakaka-pow!” (or some such nonsense), you’d never think this was a mature and well constructed record, which has more in common with  post-hardcore than nu-metal, if I’m honest. I thoroughly enjoyed this one, especially…

The Left Hand Path is one that is admittedly less taken for myself, but you really can’t beat a bit of early Entombed. It really is no wonder that this sound was – and is to this day – so often imitated the world over. That guitar tone is unreal, but lets not let that detract from the stunning bass performance, the fantastic drummer and of course, the vocals. Make what you will of their…

Under The Heptagram is a short, sharp scoot through three fuzz-drenched tracks of d-beat and Entombed worship. It is all over within a matter of minutes, but it is well worth a listen. I’ll be hunting down more of Blind To Faith’s material. 

I broke this out after the news of Keith Flint’s death began to trick into the media. The Prodigy, or more specifically “Firestarter”, was one of the first things I ever truly remember hearing or enjoying as a child. I never fully immersed myself in their music, but once this “best of” came out in 2005 it entered into a regular rotation. I regrettably never got to see The Prodigy live. 

A limited, 1000 copies release of a split between two greats of the Nordic black metal scene. The crunchy fuzz on Mayhem’s studio cut here is outstanding, and lends itself more to the murky depths of death metal rather than the coldness of the blackened variety. Zyklon-B is much more refined and ultra-fast, showcasing the pure breed of industrial black metal (a strange crossover genre in itself, which either works mesmerisingly well or falls flat…

I remember this coming out when I was a wee lad. Back then, I couldn’t really appreciate what was going on, although I thoroughly enjoyed the track “Black History Month”, which I think was the second single off of this album. Since then however, I’ve been able to go back and appreciate what Death From Above 1979 were doing. For a two piece, the band really concocted some all-encompassing compositions and have made some interesting…

Where there is gore, surely grind is not far away. Enter stage right the goregrind / downtuned demo-tape quality death metal masters, Impetigo. The grinding slab that we have here is an EP from 1991, that has been re-released a whole bunch of times, most notably on murky blue/purple vinyl and on a picture disk. This is some pretty savage old school shit, so if you like your metal recorded on a shoestring budget, with…

I find that dungeon synth is often my muse, and mostly accompanies me on my writing. I must extend my thanks then, to artists such as Cernunnos Woods, for providing us with such splendours as Tears Of The Weeping Willow, the magic ambient tapestries of which have accompanied into long introspective forays as I reach that place, that well from which ideas flow. Beautiful stuff.

My God, the drums! The unholy drumming! When will it stop? Never, of course. They sound as thin as a wafer thin mint (just the one!), but blast and rattle us through 35 minutes of brutalising death metal. Dying Fetus are one of the stronger brutal death metal bands. Stop At Nothing seems to incorporate elements of hardcore into the festering mire, as well as a whole bunch of ripping solos. Metal on steroids, tbh.

There is something just so inherently evil about Akercocke’s early work, particularly on the first two records. Perhaps its the air of elegance that the band bring to a genre that is often delivered with the subtly of a war hammer to the face, or perhaps its the smattering of terrifying noises and soundscapes that the band use to decorate their macabre, sexually-charged satanic hymns. Rape… is a dirty, dismal maw, taking heavy inspiration from…

For a long time, M3 was the only OG Mushroomhead album that I didn’t own. Hunting down an OG MRH INC Records version proved nearly impossible before the days of Discogs, and when they did crop up, the discs went for a pretty penny. I ended up getting the 2002 re-issue with the massively improved artwork (this being said I would prefer the OG purely because its the OG, guess I’m a sucker for that…

I remember downloading this when I was a teenager and absolutely fucking hating it, so it was nice coming back 13 years later with a bit more appreciation for anything that isn’t Napalm Death. I was reading a Wikipedia article about Tolkien’s The Silmarillion (night shifts for you) and that eventually led me to this concept album. I can’t say I’m much of a fan of those vocals (to be fair power metal isn’t my…

How I Loved You is beautiful, stunning, eery and lush. A cut of morose sadness dashes the otherwise bright and sun-kissed veins of sparkling instrumentation and twinkling percussion. This was the album that made me fall in love with Angels Of Light; after a few unsuccessful listens elsewhere, everything clicked. “Evangeline” and “New York Girls” have to be two of the greatest songs ever written.

I was inspired to listen to this by my mate Gareth, who has recently caught the group live in concert. Honestly, this record was way better than I expected. Some of the synth sounds are very unique, and the bass sound is fantastic. It is a bit poppy for my taste, but has a dark streak running through it. All in all, a decent listen.

The vibe and theme of this record pretty much sums up the whole knuckle-dragging tupa tupa bullshit of the last two decades or so. Nevertheless, the production is smooth and the riffs are massive, which make for a fun if not entirely and completely unoriginal listen.

There is just something so very special about the music of Patrick Walker. Whilst less metallic in its heaviness than his previous work with Warning, 40 Watt Sun’s debut album possesses its own kind of dense, head-melting fuzz. The way it wraps around the bare bones songs, weaving its way into all of the gaps between the glacial riffs and sparse drumming, is absolutely sublime. On top of all this, the vocals and songwriting are…

It has been a good while since a record has instilled such a physical level of claustrophobic distress within me. Sitting, writing, in a fucking Asda cafe of all places (I was waiting for my car to be MOT’ed), Dark Ages’ ominous journeys through a plague-riddled world crept up and wrapped me in a blanket of suffocating dread. Yeah. Sounds a bit much, but it was fucking great. By the time I decided to get…

Jarboe is just a treasure, having offered so much to Swans in countering the sheer terrifying impact of their music with her lush and iconic vocals and keyboard melodies. In light of this, I suppose, I’ve also found the unhinged lunacy of her solo stuff a bit intimidating in comparison. Anhedoniac is a meandering, hour long trip through hell. It begins with these fantastic Middle Eastern elements to the first few tracks, and trials off…

This is probably the best Rolling Stones record to come out in known modern history. For a band that constantly re-hashes ‘best of’s over and over and over, hearing an album full of blues covers was very unexpected, for me at least. The record lurches into life, and at first seems a bit clumsy, with the Stones showing their age in comparison to the energy of their earlier efforts. After the initial adjustment however, the…

This is a sonic whirlwind of ripping grindcore savagery, to be honest. One of the early purveyors of the powerviolence tag, Dropdead manage to retain that unhinged edge that a lot of later, more polished powerviolence productions miss completely. Pissed off, venomous grind for the thinking man. 

I’m a cynical bastard so its easy for me to see why people complain that ENT isn’t really ENT these days, but the real talk should be about the records that they are releasing and the shows that they are performing. Both of which, I’m glad to confirm (give or take a Dean mishap or six), are still fucking outstanding. This is absolutely savage, like.

Every so often I just gotta come back to early Anathema. Most often, it used to be to Serenades, but as time has gone on, I find myself revisiting this compilation rather than the debut album. Despite the engine of pure brilliance that modern Anathema has become, I do genuinely miss the old doomy Anathema. Honestly, this comp always gets looked over by me, but lets be frank here: as awesome as Serenades is, the…

Man, I absolutely fucking love dungeon synth. If anything makes me wanna re-download TES:III plus a fuckton of custom mods, or start writing a 220,000 word fantasy epic, then one suspects that this is the exact record. Fief is particularly magic, employing a range of instruments that seem authentic to the olde worlde. Yeah, it might be VSTs (or maybe not, I dunno haha), but it sounds absolutely fantastic. There is so much dungeon synth…

More Than Life play that kinda hardcore that has so much youthful energy coursing through its veins. Throw in a splash of something altogether more emo or post- and you should get a good idea of where we’re coming from. The riffs are something else; channeling all sorts of influences (even sounds a bit like black metal in parts) into these morose yet rabid tunes. Love Let Me Go is the band’s debut record from…

Drive Me To Kill You is a fun hardcore punk tinged journey through the sloppy pits of grindcore, brought to you by the guy who runs agzdaredz.blogspot.com, which I got a shitload of noise / grind stuff from back in the day, so kudos to you, my friend. The best part is that I have no fucking clue where I got this CD from, no doubt in one of my trips north, but I’m usually…

There is something unusually uplifting about the rock band / synthesizer combination this record. I guess this is also what makes the album so enduring; the physical – or analog – world meeting the clinical and mechanical world of computers. Couple this with Numan’s bizarre but now trademark delivery and you have an all-round winning combination, that in all realities and existences, needs no introduction.  

(June 2019 edit: this should have been posted years ago, so please excuse the promotional tone in which it is written!) Okay, so here it is, the first release on the new Lines In Wax “label”, the glorious split EP between thrashing Newport grinders and Hereford powerviolence trio Fetus Christ. We’ve been toying with the idea of doing a split for quite some time, so it fit perfectly with the intention to start my label,…

Merzxiu is two back to back 20-minute slabs of experimental noise (are you surprised?) from two of the most experimental and well-respected artists in the entire left field of music. Merzbow, by now surely, needs no introduction. Xiu Xiu on the other hand, play a very unusual blend of styles, but have forayed into the noise world in the past. The two tracks here, simply titled “A” and “B”, are slow, brooding, bubbling, crackling atmospheric…

So, Korn invented dubstep. Oh, didn’t you hear? I wasn’t informed either, but its okay, there hasn’t been any great cultural upheaval; the only thing that the world has missed out on is several more crappy albums like this, where straight-outta-the-box Native Instruments Massive oscillating bass riffs jar awkwardly with mediocre Korn tracks. Y’know what, sometimes…. just sometimes…. it works, but most of the time it really, really doesn’t. Fieldy’s low-hanging bass strings clank horribly…

The filthiest, blasting gore. Sounds more like two sessions back to back (could easily be a split or something) than a gen-up album, but both sessions are highly enjoyable. For fans of disgusting, bloated goregrind. Get it down ‘ew feckin’ gullet, son!

Take it from Agathocles, my friends; grind is indeed protest. Well, not all of it is, maybe just some of it. The protest against over-produced, tired, non-DIY methods seems to come from the punk / crust side of the coin, and that is, perhaps not at all coincidentally, the side of the “Grind Coin” (I might Trademark that) from which the revered Agathocles hail. This is more of what is to be expected of our…

Sextrash play raunchy, messy thrash metal that verges on the edges of insanity. Think Sacrilege, or Hirax, with the “attitude” of Motley Crue and the production approach of a 90s death metal cassette demo. It is honestly, a weird mix. It is almost as if the style of music does not match the cover art that the band have chosen, which I cannot decide is either one of the coolest sleeves I’ve seen or one…

I’ve always found this record to be much gentler than the other Death In June offerings that I’ve heard. That sub-level of sinister atmosphere seems almost completely devoid from these glistening neo-folk hymns. For once, it almost seems like positivity and hope undercuts the morose songwriting, rather than echoes of pestilence, death and sadness. Yes, some of the lyrics allude to some darkness, but generally the vibe is much more twinkly than happy that I…

Through Chasm, Caves and Titan Woods stands apart, for me at least, from the rest of the Carpathian Forest catalog, which is generally a bit more filthy and with a blackened punk vibe. This though… this is wondrous, haunting, mysterious and hypnotically beautiful; not a million miles away from the “magic spell” days of Burzum, back when black metal was transcendental yet didn’t need to declare itself as such, back when it was atmospheric and…

I’d be lying if I said I was anywhere near as enthusiastic about post-OG run Joker’s Cards ICP stuff than I was about everything up until that point. Sure, they had the odd album that was y’know, a bit crap, but after the original saga was complete it almost felt for a while that ICP were trundling forward without a purpose (I’ll get to this in my Tempest review). Furious Fred Fury though (the FIFTH…

Ship Of Fools is a name that I’ve seen thrown about here and there, but I had absolutely no idea that they were an instrumental prog band. Their links to the likes of Cradle Of Filth and Anathema had me thinking that they would be some sort of doomy keyboard offering, but Close Your Eyes (Forget The World) is a cerebral trip through the meandering yet blissful sea of keyboard-driven prog. Some of the tracks…

There is a lot of hype around this lass right now, but spinning this up I can see that all of it is totally deserved. There is something incredibly special about this record. I guess, the genius starts with the production, which is done entirely by her brother, Finneas O’Connell. The songs really pop out of the speakers, the crisp, in your face tracks duck and dive from style to style, led by Billie’s pure…

Two young girls are snatched for a high-paying maniac who is in love with life-sized dolls. A shady biker gang, who is at first a bit skeptical of the idea, soon warms to the $10,000 asking price for the girls, and they quickly kidnap two young hotties from the city. However, despite the premise for all sorts of debauchery, nothing really happens. At all. There is a bit of back and forth between the bikers…

Alternative 4 marked the biggest departure for Anathema from their original doom metal sound. Sure, the melody had continued to creep in on both The Silent Enigma and Eternity, but Alternative 4 jumped ship from metal completely, laying the blueprint for the alternative (lol) rock sound that the band would continue to expand on throughout the rest of the nineties. The production is a little flat, but there are some Anathema classics here. Also, what…

After an exciting but slightly shaky debut, the quick follow-up that was Superbuick really started to show off Mushroomhead’s songwriting chops. Gone are the filler tracks, and the album seems shorter than its predecessor, but the record is only leaner for it. The songs are far more complex and engaging. I listened the absolute fuck out of this album when I was a teenager. My dad bought an original copy of it for me from…

I love Phillip Glass, but he’s probably one of the least-played artists that I turn to. The time was ripe then, for me to finally check out this album with Bang On A Can All-Stars (who I am absolutely not familiar with). What unfolds is two pulse-quickening instrumentals which is basically the same loop going over and over and over but with slight variances. It is tense, yet somewhat relaxing. Kinda like being cranked on…

I recently added “This Corrison” to a whopping playlist that I was working on, so was inspired to finally go back and check out the album that it came from. Some of the other tracks don’t seem to hold up so well compared to it, but “Lucretia My Reflection” and “Driven Like The Snow” are brooding goth classics. The drum sounds on “Never Land – A Fragment” are stunning too. I love the mysterious simplicity…

I remember seeing these play in Abertillery (?) to like, 5 people, which was an interesting experience. I find stuff like this always translates better in a live setting, but Gambling For Gore has a solid sound. There is an interesting edge to the drumming, which adds another dimension to the usual saucepans ‘n’ triggers approach. Make what you will of the pig squeal / grunt kinda vocals (they have both draw backs and entertaining…

Imagine Meshuggah meeting Venetian Snares on a shit virtual reality show. Yeah. I don’t really know where that last bit came from, but I’ve written it now so it is staying in. Quality journalism*, folks! Cut up metal samples meet batshit song structures and a farmyard of vocals. I would expect no less from something found on Grindcore Karaoke. *I use the term very loosely.

Well then, this is just as bad as (if not worse than) I thought it would be. I absolutely love bad movies, as I’m sure frequent readers are fully aware, but I’m more of a creature-FX, fake blood and lots of tits kinda guy, rather than an a Z-list-celeb-loaded, computer generated “we’ll fix it in post” kinda guy, y’know? When it comes to awful CGI rain and/or sharks though, I feel as though there isn’t…

Ahh, tupa tupa death-tinged goregrind, done in the Czech style! There really is nothing else quite like it, for better or worse. It has an interesting tone as it is led entirely by bass a la Necrocannibalistic Vomitorium or Spasm, but don’t expect anything original from Slup’s Mimo Mísu, but if you are here to party, then you are indeed on the right track, traveller.

A gorgeous, lush mass of soundscapes. Think haunting ambient synthesisers suspended unnaturally over atmospheric backgrounds and busy yet unobtrusive samples. Surely the perfect music for reading, perhaps with something futuristic yet densely terrifying, like something by Aldous Huxley.

Dub War, for those that don’t know, were the group that more or less became Skindred. In the 90s they released two or three albums of increasingly diverse ragga/dub infused rock, and whilst – to Earache Records at least – they ended up on the Wrong Side Of Successful, they are still highly regarded. Sure, it all sounds a bit dated now (but so does the first Skindred album), but in a cool way this…

I’ve held onto this little bastard for a very long time…. I’m thinking either one of the editions of Leeds Deathfest (so that’d be 2009 or 2010), where I picked it up for like a quid or something. Obviously, in that time, Cancerous Womb have come a very long way indeed (they have, in fact, unfortunately also expired as a band).

Read aloud, the title of the record sounds like it is something altogether more poultry-based (or is that poultry baste?) but being signed to Amputated Vein of course means that this is a turgid slab of putrid slamming death metal. You know exactly what is gonna come farting out of the speakers, so either press play, or don’t. It’s fucking great, though. (Can you call this an album review? 2019 Ed: sure you can!)

MF Doom’s flows are absolutely unreal. MM.. Food is a short album but every single track is an absolute banger, even the ones which are just shed loads of samples over sick beats. Reminds me to check out the Special Herbs beats series. Its easy to dip in and out of Madvillainy and ignore the rest of the discography, but MF Doom has to be one of the most consistently excellent MCs ever, and MM…..

The Bug is fuckin’ great. I can think of few artists who jump from style to style so seamlessly and pull it all off – with fireworks – at every turn. This record, as with the previous one, could just have easily been a jarring, unstructured mess, but its just a searing work of bloody genius. The jungle / garage kinda vibes are kinda dialled back compared to London Zoo, but this allows the sonic…

Year of the Snitch sounds like the logical development from Bottomless Pit; more of the now somewhat refined chaotic electronic surges meet bizarre blasting cut-up metal pieces, all the while MC Ride lords over proceeding with a cheeky rasp and knowing scorn. Death Grips have always been abrasive, but if some of the “noisier” elements of Bottomless Pit put you off, I’d probably avoid this one too. 

It is easy to dismiss Necro as just churning out pure filth and dropping heavy metal references just for the sake of it, but I Need Drugs has reminded me that this guy’s flow is just absolutely fucking unreal. Mix that with some dingy subject matter and the odd clever sample and you have a bona fide hip hop classic. This is Necro in his OG rawest form. Top marks from me. 

Falling into the ‘shit dance music for goths’ subcategory of industrial, the album Burning In Water, Drowning In Flame does very little to tickle the right parts of my brain (although I must admit the synchronising of machine gun sounds with the drumming is very entertaining). Skrew come across as a mix of latter-era Christian Death, Alice Cooper, Godflesh and Ministry, without being a fraction as good as any of them. However, if you ever…

Blind River is a release going back a few years from the absolutely savage grindcore band Cloud Rat. This release is a compilation of sorts, and I’ve heard parts of it before on the split 7″ with Orgullo Primitivo. I don’t want to water down Cloud Rat’s entire thing into one descriptive passage (edit: I have wrote about Cloud Rat in more detail before), but imagine a female-fronted Pig Destroyer and you wouldn’t be a…

I think my girlfriend saved this record to my Spotify playlist, because I can’t remember ever showing any interest in listening to it. But, in the interest of enjoying artists like Grimes or Nicole Dollenganger, I thought fuck it, let’s give Lana a spin. My first impression is that this is some kinda Adele with manic depression shit, but it soon clicked with me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wouldn’t call myself a fan,…

This haunting classic still sounds fresh and relevant today. Jazzy, snazzy and well, just a bit creepy, if I’m honest; it is easy to see the influence of Roxy Music on a large majority of bands that I love. The stand-out tracks for me are the droning “In Every Dream Home A Heartache” and the funkier-than-thou “Bogus Man”.

Death Side are a Japanese crust punk band that hark back to the glory days of Discharge / Exploited era crossover, thrown together with some of the grimier aspects of the more upbeat skate punk kinda sound. This results in lightening fast thrashing riffs and a metallic hardness meeting a chaotic blend of hardcore and catchy sensibility that comes from the other genres. Some of the messier bits really bring Hellbastard to mind. It is…

Surely this is the benchmark by which all gorenoise is measured? In our bizarre and unfair world, I remember this thing getting some heat when it first came out. “Since when were LDOH a noisecore band?” etc. etc. – true, the ‘groove’ which permeated earlier slabs of noise is well and truly buried in the ground, but like… who gives a shit? There is plenty of moronic groovy gore out there (not that I would…

Once you’ve heard Necrocannabilistic Vomitorium once, you’ve heard them a thousand times. Their noise is consistent. Sure, some sessions are tighter than others and some sessions are studio-clear whilst others are just abysmal. On this tape, more bowel-churning bass-driven porno groove is the order of the day. The OG vocalist for this band was 10/10. Damage Digital on the other hand… well I can’t make head nor tail of this, I’ll be honest. Their side…

This dropped fairly recently to masses of hype. Personally I was not too impressed on the first go around, I found Kamikaze to be more of the “hey, look how fast I can say absolutely nothing at all” deal that MM has been working with on his last few records. But, of course, when he’s not wasting his time chasing after fucking mongoloids like Machine Gun Kelly, Eminem is an enormously talented rapper capable of…

I’ll admit that I didn’t have high hopes going in to this; its a 90s industrial / hip hop style pop album that isn’t exactly concocted out of the best elements of the era, but after the first few tracks I really found myself getting into it. The penultimate song, “RSVP” was the theme to the horrendously gruesome 1995 shoot ’em up PlayStation game Loaded, I remember absolutely loving the song at the time, even…

I can’t really remember what possessed me to buy this record as a teenager. I was never really into grungy / desert shit, but I really found myself digging Blues For The Red Sun. It is easy to overlook just how heavy this record is. The band were still finding their feet, I think, but some of the heavier bits just grind out perfectly. Some beginning of an era shit right here. Best track: “Yeah”.

Arctic Thunder is the latest (edit: it’s 2019 now…) release from crusty black metal behemoths Darkthrone, which marks a colossal (and as if  “as one” with the cover art, an entirely warming) return to form from the Norwegian legends. I understand that a lot of people enjoyed The Underground Resistance, but the overuse of the King Diamond worship turned the whole thing into a bit of a parody, for me at least. There is a…

There’s something desperate about guitars in rap music that reminds me of the late 90s / early 00s. Unfortunately that means we don’t get off to the hottest start with this quick 2015 offering from the legendary Esham. Honestly, all in all, its a very mixed bag of styles that is over very quickly, with nothing that really stands out (also, of note, there is zero dubstep here, after many of his releases before this…

If you compare this stuff to the Christian Death of old, it comes across as a total fucking mess. Granted, that is part of what makes it so great. Female vocals (from the demonic Maitri) really work well with Christian Death’s macabre, sexy approach to industrial and gothic rock. Tracks are filled with punk venom but are delivered with metal velocity and a splattering of electronic sleaziness. Equally sprawling and ambitious as it is puerile…

One of the last recordings we did. This was originally supposed to be a split with Gorgonized Dorks on an 8″ lathe, but it fell through, mainly due to our ineptitude. I love the artwork, as terrible as it is. Above is the original 8″ version, below is the tape version. Neither came out, so its on Bandcamp now. Endless failure! I love the twin guitar sound on this, even though it is (purposefully) horrendously…

This record was my first experience with Converge. It introduced me to their melancholic brand of progressive hardcore (for a lack of a better way of putting it) and whilst it didn’t really resonate that much with me when I bought this CD in a record shop in Padstow when I was 15, I have grown to fully appreciate what is going on here, how it fits into the overall Converge canon, and the importance…

Like, who the fuck actually listens to this shit? I love Lee Perry, but this compilation is a fucking bag of shit. Rushed, thrown together jumble of half-assed dubs is the order of the day. Absolutely, definitely, totally, utterly, AVOID at all costs pointlessness. (PS – I read on Discogs that this isn’t actually Scratch Perry at all… who knows what the fuck is going on with this B.S.). I would also like to quickly…

‘Best Of’ compilations suck 99% of the time, so I’ll skip straight to the remix disc in this case. I guess I should also offer the disclaimer that remix albums are often also just a steaming pile of shit (some people just never learn though – I’m looking at you, Mortiis), but Made In Germany has some solid contributions from some decent names in the biz. Clawfinger’s go on “Sonne” is the first track to…

This is something I have putting off listening to. I was involved in forums online with the majority of these guys and over time was slated to help release some of their other projects, which were, honestly, infinitely better. As much as I want to revel in memories of the good ol’ MySpace days, this album is, just, well, weak. Can’t really sum it up in any other way; the drums and guitars are enormously…

I used to use the 45rpm track off Musique De L’Indifférence during my brief foray into daily meditation; I found that HNW was a distilled account of “I find peace listening to chaotic shit like death metal”, and therefore perfect for shutting off your mind and resetting your aural palate, as it were. Musique De L’Indifférence as a whole though, might be a test of patience for those even into the worlds of noise and…

What a beauty! Pulsating electronics and dark industrial vibrations meet enormous, explosive beats, all led by hypnotising female vocals. I have no idea how I found this, but I suspect it was through the Twin Peaks-inspired track “Sometimes My Arms Bend Back”, but I have walked into a whole new world of modern, fresh, exhilarating electronic music. She The Throne walk the line between a multitude of genres and somewhat defy definition, but I have…

Now this is a heavy one! I sold this record today (at the time of writing) so in honour of departing with one of my most cherished possessions (honestly, it deserves a better home where it will be played / appreciated and not just shoved in a box somewhere) I gave this one a play through for the first time in years. It is easy to under-estimate how skull-rattlingly heavy the tracks on this record…

Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned always stood out like a sore thumb for me in The Prodigy’s history. I was in comp (high school for all y’all Yanks out there) when this came out and I remember in the press / build up to it that there was some sort of uneasy feeling that everyone had because Keith and Maxim weren’t going to be in tow as vocalists (I think Maxim sneaks in on “Spitfire” in…

From The Cradle To Enslave is a weird stop-gap EP that came before the Midian album. At this point the band was in a serious state of flux, shedding members like a snake with alopecia. I think there’s something like 15 different drummers performing on this EP. It’s a bit of an odds’n’ends collection, but every track is a corker, except maybe the “Pervert’s Church” remix tune, which is just shite. The cover songs are…

Considering this album was made with a fucking washing machine it is really, really good. The sampling and beat creation using the harvested noises is simply second to none, propelling what would usually lull around in experimental music, found sounds or even noise, out into genuinely listenable music. No small feat. This is the 30* rinse your brain needed. 

(Disclaimer: my version isn’t signed, I just bumped these pictures off Discogs. Sue me.) Before Kroh got a female vocalist and walked down the path that they are on now, they sounded like this. I got a whole extra-morose Goatsnake kinda vibe off of this, but always found it jarring how the super heavy Entombed-core guitars jarred with the melodic vocals and almost poppy song structures. Maybe it is just the production, IDK. I love…

Deathcrush is a special part of the Mayhem discography. It is a dank-ass, stank-ass, sloppy, mungin’ tape demo kinda deal; far cry from the band’s lightening fast black metal misery that they would go on to become infamous for. The band might sound like a bunch of teenagers in a garage (which they were, basically) but Maniac is on-point here. The vocals are absolutely mental, and lend a unhinged edge to the atmosphere, as do…

What a trip! Laid back, seriousllllly heavy dub vibes. It is nice to come across some King Tubby shit that hasn’t been rehashed into some piece of shit compilation.  King At The Control actually flows, like a real album (despite the nature of dub), and whilst there is a similarity between the tracks, especially in the first half or 2/3, it doesn’t get tired or boring. I absolutely love dub music, but the genre is…

I’m not really sure what it is about Mac Lethal. I really enjoyed the first record, but since then… I don’t know what it is, I can’t put my finger on it, because this guy can rap, that much is quite obvious…. but, I just hate this shit. I think its the lyrics more than anything. On one track he’s just ripping on Tool for seemingly no reason whatsoever. “Make Out Bandit” sounds like it…

Way back when ICP stood for Inner City Posse, the group dropped their demo cassette, Bass-Ment Cuts (yeah I know I’ve credited them as Insane Clowns in the post title, but what you gonna do?). Before the group “found” their horrorcore style (read: decided to imitate Esham lol) they had a much more gangsta rap style on the go. All things considered this isn’t a million miles away from Carnival Of Carnage, minus the whole…

Heinous return with more slimy goregrind / mince for you to get yourself all wrapped up in. This throws me off a bit actually, because of the title and the fact that there are five tracks on the EP, not four. All in all, subterranean muddy goodness at its very best.

I’m not entirely sure what it is about Die Antwoord’s music that draws me to it. It embodies mostly everything that I hate, but it appears to be done in such a DIY and genuine way that I cannot help but be drawn to it. It may also be because its perfect music for the gym, or because Yolandi Visser is mint as fuck, but who knows. Ten$ion isn’t my favourite record but there are…

Stunning dark soundscapes and atmospheric drones that wouldn’t be out of place in movie soundtracks. Blazed through this on a nightshift. Impressed, and will be looking out for Husere Grav in the future.

Reek is really a turgid bowl of ulcerated offal. Plotting Carcass’ trajectory from this all the way through to Swansong is absolutely bonkers when you stop to think about it. In celebration of finding out that the 12″ vinyl I own of this is actually a fucking bootleg, I decided to spin it up and give it  the Lines In Wax treatment. In a modern era of fucking endless tupa tupa garbage (although I am…

Moody atmospherics and dense guitar-driven passages of almost melodic drone from the lovely lady Sarah Lipstate. Apparently she is also a filmmaker; judging by the quality of the soundtrack on offer here, I should be checking out some of her films too.

I caught these guys live at OEF a few years ago, and found that they were really great; brutal, chunky grindcore, with flairs of inspiration from both the death metal and hardcore worlds (or in the case of some riffs, even black metal). 908 is pretty obscure name, but thanks to the wonders of the internet, I was able to track these down.

This self-titled release is a massive leap forward in the evolution of Satyricon. To say the band had become stale would be unfair, but to deny that they have stuck to a tried-and-tested formula for the last few albums would just be an outright lie. Don’t get me wrong, if something isn’t broken, then it doesn’t always need fixing (Darkthrone I’m looking at you here) but the steps forward on this recording made by Satyr…

This is probably one of the more forgettable records in Napalm Death’s “groovy” 90s era. It isn’t awful, but likewise nothing in particular really jumps out and grabs my attention. Without wanting to sound too unfair it really does seem like this was just a bunch of leftovers from the previous studio album. I highly doubt that, being Napalm Death, but this is absolutely a low point in their usually highly regarded career.

Dreamy synth passages and morose piano pieces meld together into just over half hour of relaxed yet somewhat melancholy music; the perfect soundtrack for looking inwards, if there was ever such a thing. There are also a few dungeon synth vibes, if that is your thing. This particular version is a re-release of an earlier tape, coupled with another tape full of extra tracks. You can get it from Vienna Press.

Bizarre yet massive-sounding dungeon synth that invokes mixed memories of all manner of fantasy PC games, Mortal Kombat 3, and those interludes off earlier Cradle Of Filth albums. I can imagine battling Kangaxx to this shit. 10/10.

….And that was it; November 2016 marked a turning point into my journeys through metal – November is the month when I finally *got* Voïvod. (March 2019 edit: shows how long it takes for me to get around to posting half of these reviews, eh?) I don’t know where this random enlightenment spawned from, but asides from the records they did in the 90s with Eric Forrest as frontman, I have always struggled to digest…