The Cold Outside Lays Waste To Life

70's crush

2007-09-16T09:39:00.001-07:00

Sonja Kristina from 70's prog psychonauts Curved Air, in case you didn't know. Amazing band, amazing vocals, amazing picture.

An oral history of powerviolence

2007-09-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

Gepikt van Decibel Magazine.

Annoying autobio: Late last year outside a Radio Birdman show, I met a zinester who had been the subject of a song by Black Army Jacket, one of NYC’s few contributions to the mostly regional sorta-subgenre known as powerviolence. I told him that I was planning to write this article. “Really?” he responded. “Who still cares?”

I still care, goddammit. So by extension, Decibel cares for the next few pages. And there are a few excellent reasons why you should care. The most important one is that plenty of the records that came out of powerviolence still rule. Another is that some of these bands were incorporating noise, negative-BPM sludge and prog tendencies more than a decade before those things were commonplace and cool. Some of the people who were involved in powerviolence went on to be part of relatively big-time bands (Pig Destroyer, Municipal Waste), while others are making some of the most extreme and experimental music around in acts such as Bastard Noise and Drugs of Faith. Then there’s the new generation of bands inspired by powerviolence—Magrudergrind, the Endless Blockade, Warzone Womyn—who are putting out great fast-as-fuck hardcore records today. Plus it’s the story of a small local scene with bands that supported each other, with a minimum of drama and factional scene bullshit. How can you not care about that?

WHERE’S THE UNITY?
Virtually everyone cites Infest, from Valencia, CA, as the primary influence on the sound that would become known as powerviolence. Infest fused the youth crew-styled hardcore of the time (1986) and the proto-grind fastcore of Siege, Impact Unit (with a pre-Mighty Mighty Bosstones Dicky Barrett), Holland’s Pandemonium and Vancouver’s Neos into short, undeniably violent-sounding bursts. Towards the end of Infest, guitarist Matt Domino started playing with Eric Wood of Pissed Happy Children in Neanderthal, the band that would first coin the term “powerviolence.”

Eric Wood (PHC, Neanderthal, Man Is the Bastard, Bastard Noise): Living in southern California, I was lucky to get to see [Infest] tons of times. They were fucking blitzing power. Their first demo was a primitive recording but you could feel that everything was there, the emotion and the speed. They were a great band; everyone loved them. It’s a shame they didn’t stay together.

Chris Dodge (Spazz, Despise You, Slap a Ham Records): I saw Infest for the first time around 1988. Nobody knew who they were and I think a lot of people were confused by them. They were harsher and faster than most bands, even in ’88. I really liked them, and tracked down their demo soon after.

Wood: Me and Matt Domino kinda came from different backgrounds. I’m a little older than Matt and I was raised on things like Mahavishnu Orchestra, Yes, early Alice Cooper, then I was into Raw Power, Zero Boys, Toxic Reasons, then Infest. In Neanderthal, we didn’t take a lot of direct influence; we just tried to vibe it. We tried to be freaks in our minds and develop our own thing. I was right out of PHC and he was still in Infest; at the same time I was doing an instrumental bass and drums thing called Cyclops. There were a lot of influences in what we were doing at the time and in what we grew up with.

Parts of Neanderthal’s “Fighting Music” 7-inch hit grindcore tempos and song lengths (“Built for Brutality,” 16 seconds), but without the overt metal influence of the Earache grind bands. The fast stuff owed more to hardcore punk, while metal influenced the sludgy breakdowns and progressive flourishes.

Evan Garner (Burned Up Bled Dry): I think that powerviolence represented the DIY punk side of grindcore, bands like us that grew up listening to Black Flag, old D.R.I., old C.O.C., things like that, while grindcore represented a more death metal, Napalm Death side of the coin—not that Scum isn’t one of my favorite records ever! I think it goes deeper to intent and lyrics and such. More of a punk approach than a metal one: basement shows, DIY ethics, less than perfect records.

Wood: I was never anti-metal. I really liked early Prong, Primitive Origins and Force Fed. Early Obituary is fantastic. Even something like Bathory, him being a one-piece was fascinating to me because he was not being suppressed by anything, including a lack of personnel. I would put things like the Crumbsuckers from New York City. Actually, the Liberty and Justice-era of Agnostic Front, to me, was the most progressive era of their writing, and it was when they had moved into a metal-ish environment. They were written off as being followers but that fuckin’ record has phenomenal composition. That was a big influence on me.

Chris Dodge, formerly in Berkeley funny-punks Stikky, started up a DIY label, Slap a Ham, after leaving the melodic hardcore band No Use for a Name in 1989. Records from the Melvins and Fu Manchu were among early Slap a Ham releases, along with Wood’s PHC and Neanderthal. Soon, Slap a Ham was putting out records from almost all of the bands associated with the burgeoning powerviolence movement.

Dodge: I started the label to help out bands that I liked who I didn’t think were getting the recognition they deserved. NUFAN was one of them. When I put out their 7-inch, at that point I was out of the band but I still wanted to help them because I thought they were great. They didn’t have any interest from other labels at all. Same with the Melvins; I became friends with them when they moved to San Francisco from Washington. Besides Boner [Records], there wasn’t a whole lot of interest; they played a lot of crappy local shows to a handful of people. My primary focus became what turned into the powerviolence scene. I loved the music and the people in the bands, but again, there wasn’t really anyone else interested in working with them at the time. Some of the bands, like Capitalist Casualties and No Comment, were around for at least five years without any label interest before I put out their records. I couldn’t believe how great these bands were and I was stunned that they couldn’t get anyone to help them release anything.

Wood: The Kubby Hole in Pomona, CA, where Neanderthal practiced, was where “powerviolence” was said for the first time in late 1989. I must give Matt Domino 100% of the credit. We were talking like, “We need to come up with our own trip. We don’t want to be lumped into hardcore, punk, any subgenre.” We wanted to come up with our own description of our sound, and out of the blue he just said “fuckin’ powerviolence.” Then it was “west coast powerviolence.” We were trying to give it a sense of humor, like “our geographical location is better than yours,” and give it a serious brutality.

Neanderthal eventually morphed into Man Is the Bastard, a massive conglomeration of multiple bassist and vocalists, electronic noise, iconographic imagery and slogans, and a radical pro-animal, pro-nature, pro-female platform.

Wood: It was a fluke that I met [Henry] Barnes [MITB noise/electronics]; we worked different shifts at this same bakery. I remember going to his house and seeing these boxes, which were the caveman electronics, and as soon as I heard them and he told me how he was attempting to simulate nature or bird sounds with them, I was like “you’re fuckin’ in our band, dude. This shit is sick.” I had to steal him from anyone who would ever hear these boxes. Luckily no one seemed to understand it. Our whole thing was like: mellow human, ultra-megaton brutal music. Progressive brutality.

Professor Cantaloupe (Gasp): MITB had an artful take on the dichotomy of powerviolence, in that they embraced peace, love, equality and respect to all living creatures as priority number one while belting out burly, complex prog-punk in an I’m-gonna-kick-your-ass kind of way. They encouraged the blurring of gender roles and generalizations of all kinds—I mean, teenage boys all across the globe were turned on to sticky sweet Hello Kitty imagery. How righteous is that?

Goretex (Non-Phixion): MITB are one of those bands like Crass or Black Flag to me, not only for how brutal they were—you really felt like they believed what they were talking about. They were all about getting free. Whether they were talking about an elephant on a rampage or San Salvadorian drug dealers getting a thumbs-up from the President, they delivered the goods.

“H.S.M.P.” (“Hispanic small man power”), from a split with Aunt Mary, recounted the events of MITB’s first-ever show and officially name-checked powerviolence as a movement.

Wood: That night, there was a lot of shit-talking and fighting going on in one area of the crowd. This little Hispanic man, this little Ranchero dude at the bar, totally mellow, stood up and walked into the crowd and said “Please! Please! We must all be friends!” He reached out to this violent air in the room in an attempt to calm it, and actually did. He really dropped the tension in the room by being an outsider inserting himself into a foreign group and spreading goodwill. When [Aaron] Kenyon witnessed that, he completely tripped out. On that track, Kenyon cites the premiere powerviolence quintet that shaped that movement: Crossed Out, No Comment, Manpig, Capitalist Casualties, Man Is the Bastard. Those were the bands that existed that were powerviolence.

LET’S KILL FUCKIN’ EVERYBODY
Through the early ’90s, new labels like Six Weeks, Pessimizer and Sound Pollution joined Slap a Ham in putting out records from new bands that were inspired by the first wave of powerviolence, including Dodge’s own contribution, Spazz. Slap a Ham released several of the classics of the genre, including No Comment’s vicious “Downsided” 7-inch, the truly bizarre Drome Triler of Puzzle Zoo People by Gasp, and the Bllleeeeaaauuurr-rrgghhh! series of compilations that crammed 70+ bands onto one 7-inch record.

Dodge: [No Comment] were an enigma. I think they started around ’87 or so. I got their demo by chance and it was one of my favorites, but I figured they had broken up. Several years later I was reviewing stuff for Maximumrocknroll and a copy of their self-released first 7-inch came in. I couldn’t believe they were still playing, so I wrote to them immediately because I wanted to help them put out more. “Downsided” was supposed to be an LP, but they only ended up writing six minutes of material, so it became a 7-inch instead. It’s one of my all-time favorite releases. Andy [Beattie] was later in MITB. He’s been involved in a few post-MITB projects, but I haven’t seen any of them in maybe five years.

Professor Cantaloupe: It was interesting watching the cross-pollination of genres at the time. Emo was merging with hardcore punk, folk with noise; Men’s Recovery Project were twisting the perceptions of Born Against fans. And we were just exploring stuff that was exciting to us. Now flash forward nine years and you’ve got all kinds of crazy hybrid subgenres with more than just a few bands operating in each. I mean, in 1998 would you have predicted such a huge acceptance of noise like we have today? It makes me wonder what would have happened if we had done another full-length with the material we were working on just before our demise. That stuff was pretty far out and varied and didn’t get recorded. In early 2006 we made an attempt at picking up where we left off in 1999, but those creative differences reared their ugly heads and pretty much closed the book for good.

Dodge: [Drome Triler was] another unappreciated album when it came out. It seems like people are just now showing an interest posthumously. Their early stuff was more straightforward grind, and they eventually progressed into whacked-out psychedelic noise. They broke up soon after the LP was released. Cynthia, who was the original Gasp bass player, is doing vocals for Despise You now.

The first of six annual Fiesta Grande fests took place on January 2, 1993, with a lineup of Assück, Man Is the Bastard, No Comment, Crossed Out, Capitalist Casualties and Plutocracy. Subsequent lineups would include straight-up grindcore (Phobia, Discordance Axis) and sludge (Cavity, Noothgrush), but always featured powerviolence bands. MITB played the first four; Capitalist Casualties played all of them.

Dodge: Most of the powerviolence bands didn’t really have places to play and were usually out of place on a lot of other punk shows. I think Capitalist Casualties played with Green Day a few times, if that gives you an idea of what the climate of the punk scene was like at the time. Assück was touring and Ken Sanderson was booking Gilman at the time. I was talking to him about getting some of the SoCal powerviolence bands up to play with them, and I think he was the one who suggested making it a Slap a Ham label showcase of sorts. It was the first time all of those bands had played together, and they were all finally starting to create their own scene.

Wood: The first one stands out in my mind because it was the first, it was a new concept, and I don’t believe there was ever a better lineup. I had to pull double duty with MITB and Crossed Out on the first one, but it was the most pleasurable double duty I’ve ever had.

Richard Johnson (Enemy Soil): Fiesta Grande #5 was the first show we played with the new bass player that we had at the time. When we confirmed with Chris that we would play the fest, we hadn’t practiced even once with the new lineup, but there was no way we would have said, “Thanks, but we’re not ready to play a show of that magnitude.” Fuck that! We had recently been fortunate enough to discover Excruciating Terror and we were obsessed with their Expression of Pain album. We were as excited about playing on the same day as Excruciating Terror as we were about playing the fest at all. In Berkeley, as we made our way on foot from the last BART stop to Gilman Street, someone unexpectedly walked out of his house into his driveway as we passed and gave us directions to the club. It turned out to be none other than [Dead Kennedys bassist] Klaus Flouride. This was after we ran into Slight Slappers from Japan at an earlier subway station. We exchanged band stickers, I opened my guitar case and slapped a Slight Slappers sticker on my axe, and the Japanese all clapped in approval. We hadn’t even gotten to Gilman yet that night and were already having the time of our lives!

Finally, we banged through our set as best we could and hoped that we were at least half-decent in the eyes of the attendees and especially the other bands, not the least of which Spazz. We didn’t want to look like a bunch of chumps in front of them, or Discordance Axis, or anybody else that took their grindcore seriously that night. We saw how much of a coming together Fiesta Grande was. I ran into a troupe of French-Canadian punks there; Bill Yurkiewicz, who at the time hailed from Relapse and Exit-13, was there filming. On the way back home, we met the guys from Hellnation during an airport layover. I could go on. A lot of good came out of that fest for us. Whatever you want to label the music on offer at Fiesta Grande, if nothing else it was a magnet that helped pull together a community.

Dodge: I’d been wanting to start another thrash band forever, but didn’t know anyone who was free to start one until after the first Fiesta Grande. Max [Ward] from Plutocracy had mentioned a fastcore band he was starting with Dan [Lactose] from Sheep Squeeze, and he said they needed a bass player. Max and Dan had already written 10 songs, so we practiced once, recorded them, and put it out as our first 7-inch. A bit premature, but oh well. We were originally called Gash, but decided to change it. I suggested Spasm, but there was already an east coast band called Spasm, so I suggested Spazz, and it fit.

Spazz were every bit as brutal as any of the other powerviolence bands, but instead of MITB’s politics or Crossed Out’s personal rage, they loaded their records with references to kung-fu movies and skateboarding, cameos from Kool Keith and a banjo player, and tons of inside jokes.

Dodge: The fact that my label was called Slap a Ham is proof of what a goofball I am. When I was starting my label, I remember thinking how funny it would be if some of the world’s most brutal bands all wanted to be on a label with a ridiculous, non-brutal name. A lot of the humor in Spazz was the result of boredom. We were pretty sick of how generic everything was in the scene, so a lot of our lyrics were pop-culture references and jokes about our friends and came out sounding like gibberish because no one but us had any clue what we were talking about.

As Spazz became popular and Fiesta Grande became a yearly event, powerviolence bands began to appear in other parts of the country and, eventually, other parts of the world.

Garner: The west coast powerviolence bands weren’t as much of an overt influence as they were sort of kindred souls—like, “Oh, other folks who love the first D.R.I. record.” We thought that we played hardcore punk, just like all the bands that were part of the scene that we were a part of: Man Is the Bastard, Capitalist Casualties, Copout, Los Crudos and all the other bands that we enjoyed.

Steve Makita (Apartment 213): You always hear these stories like, “Oh, Cleveland, those guys are all mean and terrible.” If you come to Cleveland for 15 minutes, you’ll know why we’re mean and terrible. I can’t believe we don’t have the highest suicide rate in the country. It’s the most mundane, boring, backwards city. It’s home and we make the best of it, but it makes us angry so we write songs about it. Our good friend Chris Pellow, who was in Ringworm and was in Apartment 213 for a while, turned me on to PHC, MITB, No Comment, and I was like, “This is it.” I liked that it could be noisy and sloppy, it wasn’t like, “Hey, let’s tighten it up and try to get on Victory.” Keep it loose and go nuts. When we started 213, it was to kill the boredom that comes from Cleveland.

Andrew Orlando (Black Army Jacket, Monkeybite zine): Our original influences were more towards early Napalm Death, Discharge, Septic Death, Infest and NYHC. Once we started touring a little on the west coast, we got heavily influenced by [west coast powerviolence]. Just meeting some of the amazing bands and people like Spazz, Benumb, Noothgrush and Man Is the Bastard had a strong influence on all of us as people. We got to play many shows with great Japanese bands: Slight Slappers, Senseless Apocalypse, Corrupted, Hellchild. It was cool to see underground hardcore music blossoming in all corners of the earth. Gary from Noothgrush and I started Monkeybite to document this scene of bands that we felt were ignored by some of the more “established” zines at the time like MRR.

SWEATIN’ TO THE OLDIES
If a movement that wasn’t really a movement and only officially had a handful of bands can come to an end, then powerviolence came to an end in the late ’90s. Man Is the Bastard broke up in 1997. The next year marked the final Fiesta Grande, the final Slap a Ham release (Otophobia’s Malignant), and Spazz’s final show. Gasp, Black Army Jacket and countless other bands broke up around the same time. Post-Spazz, Chris Dodge has been making experimental music, collaborating with Dave Witte in East West Blast Test, and recently joined reformed grinders Despise You. Eric Wood plays in Bastard Noise with Henry Barnes and Bill Nelson.

Dodge: Spazz called it quits officially once I knew I was going to move to L.A. The timing was good; I think if we had kept going, we would have just released the same-sounding record year after year. Everyone wasn’t quite sick of us yet, so I think it’s best that we quit while we were ahead, instead of having everyone think, “Oh my god, finally!” The same with Slap a Ham. I couldn’t afford to run the label any more. It was close to bankrupting me, and I had gotten so far in debt I had to stop. But at the same time, I had started the label to help out all of these bands who weren’t getting the recognition they deserved, and by the time I quit the label there were more than enough grind/thrash/hardcore/powerviolence labels out there who were competing to release stuff, so clearly Slap a Ham wasn’t needed like in the early days, and it had served its purpose. I don’t miss it at all, so that tells me it’s good that I stopped when I did.

Wood: A lot of bands that think they are [powerviolence] today—they fucking are not. The two that exist today, because they get the psychological aspect of it, are Apartment 213 from Cleveland and the Endless Blockade from Toronto. They totally get it. That is powerviolence. And that’s where I draw the line.

Andy Nolan (The Endless Blockade): [Powerviolence is] the music that really drew me in during that early- to mid-’90s black spot of DIY hardcore, when faux humanism, tolerance for morons, celebrations of inadequacies and screen printed manila envelopes were de rigueur. It cut through the bullshit and laid waste to everything in its path; it synthesized Heresy, Neos, Ripcord, Larm, Impact Unit and many other greats perfectly, updating them for a new era and always keeping an eye on the roots that grew before. As for being aligned with powerviolence, I’d say we’re a powerviolence-influenced band, or a neo-powerviolence band. My favorite record of the era is definitely No Comment’s “Downsided.” You can’t fake that despondent rage.

Beau Beasley (Insect Warfare): Of all the first wave powerviolence bands, No Comment has had the biggest impact on me. They took all the things I loved about D.R.I. and then completely blasted them into lightspeed. Of the big four they are the least discussed, but they will always be my favorite. Well, them and Crossed Out, of course. Crossed Out are the dark lords of powerviolence.

Wood: The title “Fighting Music” says it all. It was about musical fighting. Treacherous examinations of humans defacing themselves or injuring their psyches. Powerviolence was hyper-driven violent signals with human freak subject matter. Powerviolence is up to the determination of those who listen to it, but those who have an intellectual interest will understand it more easily than those who don’t look at lyric sheets. In “Fighting Music,” the insert wasn’t actually the lyrics; there were statements or descriptions concerning the tracks which tried to force you to listen to the lyrics. In Neanderthal’s case, and maybe the early stages of MITB, we were about humans desecrating their very Garden of Eden through psychological torture of themselves. Powerviolence is kind of a weird moniker. I believe there was power in the documents that we recorded, and we did kind of get off on the violent hypothetical-ness of it. Power with hypothetically violent subjects.

Playlist Juli - 2007

2007-07-22T06:45:00.000-07:00

Bathory - Under The Sign Of The Black Mark CD
Bestial Mockery - Unholy Trinity CD
Bilskirnir - Wotansvolk CD
Blasphemy - Fallen Angel Of Doom CD
Candlemass - King Of The Grey Islands CD
Crowned In Semen / Typhus - Split 7 inch
Cut throat - Rape, Rape, Rape CD
Deathspell Omega - Fas Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum
Destruction - Sentence Of Death / Infernal Overkill CD
Disgust - Brutality Of War CD
Doom - Police Bastard 7 inch
Electric Wizard - Come My Fanatics CD
Electric Wizard - Dopethrone CD
Emperor / Enslaved - Split CD
Framtid - 8 Track EP MP3 (fxcking amazing!)
Gault - Even As All Before Us CD
Gospel Of The Horns - Realm Of The Damned CD
Gospel Of The Horns - Sinners / Monuments Of Impurity CD
Haemorrhage - The Kill Sessions CD
Heresy / Concrete Sox – Split LP
Katatonia - Dance Of December Souls CD
Lord Weird Slough Feg - Twilight Of The Idols CD
Masochist - History 2xCD
Mellow Candle - Paddling Songs CD
Moss - Chtonic Rites CD
Nunslaughter - Nordic Nightmare Tour 2007 7 inch
Obsessed - Lunar Womb CD
Pagan Altar - The Lords of Hypocrisy CD
Reverend Bizarre - So Long Suckers! PROMO
Reverend Bizarre - Teutonic Witch CD
Satanic Warmaster - Black Metal Massacre Live LP
Serpent Cult - Trident Not Fire CD
Slayer - Decade Of Aggression 2xCD
Sodom - Obsessed By Cruelty / In The Sign Of Evil CD
State Of Fear - Discography CD
Varathron - His Majesty At The Swamp CD
War - We Are... Total War CD
Yacopsae - Tanz, Grosny, Tanz CD

Playlist Mei - 2007

2007-05-17T09:46:00.000-07:00

Watain - Sworn To The Dark CD
Tu Carne - Culto A La Muerte CD
Anal Vomit - Depravation (Advance) CD-R
Rotting Christ - Thy Mighty Contract CD
Acheron - Tribute To The Devil's Music CD
Impious Havoc - Manifestations Of Plague And War CD
Impious Havoc - Maleficium CD
Goat Semen / Sabbat (JAPAN) - Sabbatical Goat Semen Split CD
Bestial Warlust - Vengeance War 'till Death CD
Nuctemeron - Procreator Of Sin CD
Asphyx - The Rack / Last One On Earth CD's
Officium Triste - Giving Yourself Away CD
Impetigo - Horror Of The Zombies Reissue CD
Hacavitz / Zygoatsis - Apocalyptik Blasphemy Of The Revolutionists Split CD
Cianide - Hell's Rebirth / Divide And Conquer CD's
Godless Rising - Rising Hatred CD
Bedemon - Child Of Darkness CD
Extinction Of Mankind - Ale To England CD
Black Widow - III CD
Twisted Tower Dire - Crest Of The Martyrs CD
Black Witchery - Desecration Of The Holy Kingdom CD
Manticore - Ritual Cleansing Of The Whore CD
Bestial Summoning - The Dark War Continues CD
Impulse Manslaughter - Logical End CD
Von - Satanic Blood Angel CD
Autopsy - Severed Survival CD
Angelcorpse - Exterminate CD
Fleshpress / Budjunkees - Split CD
7 Minutes Of Nausea - Cancelled 7 inch
7 Minutes Of Nausea - XX 7 inch
Agathocles / Psycho - Split 7 inch
Masskontroll / Heartline - Split 7 inch
Nunslaughter / Dr. Shrinker - Split 7 inch
Iron Butter / Irritate - Split 7 inch
Arsedestroyer / Confusion - Split 7 inch
Magrudergrind - Rehashed LP

My Name Is Hopkins

2007-05-04T12:04:00.000-07:00

Echtpaar op de brandstapel wegens hekserij.

AMSTERDAM - In Zuid-India is een ouder echtpaar donderdag door een woedende menigte op een brandstapel geplaatst en levend verbrand omdat de man en vrouw een vloek zouden hebben uitgesproken over de dochter van een familielid, waarna ze ziek werd. Dat heeft de politie vrijdag gemeld. De tragedie had plaats in het dorp Upputimmayapalli, 150 kilometer ten noorden van de stad Hyderabad, in de deelstaat Andhra Pradesh.

De 70-jarige Sayilu Pandla en zijn 65-jarige vrouw Pochamma werden uit hun hut gesleurd, geslagen en in brand gestoken door enkele tientallen dorpelingen, onder wie familieleden. De vader van het zieke meisje, die de menigte had aangespoord, is samen met anderen op verdenking van moord gearresteerd, aldus de politie.

Hoewel grote Indiase steden zoals Hyderabad zeer modern kunnen zijn, is op het aangrenzende platteland bijgeloof nog aan de orde van de dag.

Playlist April - 2007

2007-04-29T02:07:00.000-07:00

Solstice - Halycon reissue CD
Solstice - Lamentations reissue CD
Solstice - New dark age reissue CD
Rigor Mortis - S/T CD
Impetigo - Horror Of The Zombies reissue CD
Holy Martyr - Still At War CD
Unsane - Total Destruction CD
Angelcorpse - Of Lucifer And Lightning CD
Cobra - Warriors Of The Dead / Back From The Dead CD
Inhume - Chaos, Dissection, Order CD
Extreme Noise Terror / Chaos UK - Split CD
Various - Distortion To Hell CD (Warcollapse, Sauna, Asocial, Arsedestroyer...etc)
Legend - From The Fjords CD
Melvins - Gluey Porch Treatments CD
Confusion - Demoslition CD
Deathpeed (pre-Unholy Grave) - The Day of Doom CD
Tangerine Dream - Zeit CD
Warcry.US (Paul Speckman) - Forbidden Evil CD
Pagan Altar - Mythical & Magical CD
Heavy Load - Death Or Glory CD
Heavy Load - Stronger Than Evil CD
Cathedral - Statik Majik CD
Viimeinen Kolonna - Austien Juhlaa CD
Striborg - Nocturnal Emissions + Nyctophobia reissue CD
Striborg - Spiritual Catharsis reissue CD
Officium Triste - Giving Yourself Away CD
Extreme Noise Terror / Chaos UK - Split LP
Extreme Noise Terror - Retro-bution LP
Hiatus - s/t LP
Psycho - Hosebags From Hell LP
Psycho - You Love Us... You Hate Us LP
Germs - (GI) LP
Electro Hippies - Peel Sessions LP
Hellkrusher - Wasteland LP
Black Sabbath - Live In Paris 20/12/1970 LP

Playlist Maart - 2007

2007-03-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

Unsane - Visqueen CD
Black Widow - Sacrifice CD
Ripcord - Live At Parkhof, Alkmaar CD
Impetigo - Ultimo Mondo Cannibale CD
Evil Angel - Unholy Fight For Metal CD
Assassin - The Upcoming Terror 2xCD
Mortualia - Mortualia CD
Arsedestroyer - s/t MCD
Penance - The Road Revisited CD
Final Conflict - Ashes To Ashes CD
Lugubrum - De Ware Hond CD
Sathanas - Flesh For The Devil CD
Vital Remains - Icons Of Evil PROMO CD
Urgehal - Eternal Eclipse CD
Tangerine Dream - Stratosfear / Exit CD
Saint Vitus - Born Too Late CD
Earth - Hibernaculum CD
Acid Ape - Fleshspa CD
Wreck Of The Hesperus - The Sunken Threshold CD
Goatlord - Reflections Of The Solstice CD
Trouble - Psalm 9 / The Skull reissue CD's
Grand Belial's Key - Kosherat & Mocking The Philanthropist CD's
Moho - 20 Unas CD
Minotauri - s/t CD
Sabbat (UK) - Dreamweaver & History Of A Time To Come reissue CD's
Mirror Of Deception - Shards CD
Pagan Altar - Volume 1 CD
Man Is The Bastard - D.I.Y.C.D. CD
D.R.I. - 22 Song EP 7 inch (fanclub editie)
Satanic Warmaster / Aryan Blood - Split 7 inch
Bone Awl - Meaningless Leaningless LP
Hellish Crossfire - Slaves Of The Burning Pentagram LP
Ox - Aftermath LP

Oudere recensies

2007-02-10T07:48:00.000-08:00

Hieronder een aantal recensies van voornamelijk oudere releases. Een aantal stonden al reeds gepubliceerd op een webzine dat op het moment van schrijven al enkele maanden uit de lucht is. Voor het archief, dus. Excuses voor de layout, het is wederom een snelle cut/paste handeling. Quick and dirty.

Satanic Warmaster - Carvelian Satanist Madness
Satanic warmaster is al enige jaren bezig zich te ontwikkelen tot een leidende kracht in het Finse underground blackmetal gebeuren. De band had altijd al een streepje voor op de concurrentie, overigens niet zozeer vanwege superieure speeltechniek of dramatisch nieuwe invalshoeken. Satanic tyrant werewolf, het enige officiele bandlid, bezit simpelweg een goed oor voor het neerzetten van een gitzwarte sfeer met vrij minimale middelen. Op deze laatste CD komt alles samen wat ik zo tof vind aan deze band. Het naargeestige, vrij melodieuze en bij vlagen super agressieve geluid wat we al van Satanic warmaster kenden is wederom present. Ditmaal is alles echter perfect uitgewerkt en gedoseerd in puntige songs met een duidelijke kop en staart. De agressieve en meer melancholische aspecten zijn met wiskundige precisie verdeeld over de verschillende songs waardoor die allen een compleet eigen smoelwerk krijgen. Het titelnummer en “My dreams of 8” doen bijvoorbeeld vrij episch aan terwijl een chaotisch nummer als “Eaten by rats” een alles verschroeiende razernij laat horen. Door het telkens terugkeren van bepaalde melodieen en riffs, die overigens lekker in het gehoor liggen, is de CD over het geheel genomen zelfs vrij catchy en toegankelijk te noemen. De superieure underground productie maakt alles af. De gitaren zijn werkelijk doordrenkt met distortion waardoor de iewat zacht ingemixte zang naar de achtergrond word gedrukt. Het (h)eerlijke snaredrum geluid maakt alles af. De vele momenten waarop er geswitched wordt van een gejaagde blastbeat naar een opgefokt polka ritme zorgen bij ondergetekende voor kippenvel. De enige twee nadelen die ik aan deze plaat heb kunnen ontdekken is het iewat flauwe laatste nummer (bestaat enkel uit een orgel en zang, beetje een anti-climax) en de soms niet al te frisse teksten. Dit is zeker geen grensverleggende kost, maar eerder een ruwe blackmetal parel die alles in zich heeft om uit te groeien tot een ware klassieker.

Bolt thrower - For Those Once Loyal
Bolt thrower staat al sinds jaar en dag bekend als een instituut waar je op kan bouwen. Toch vond ik de band de laatste jaren niet meer zo overtuigen op hun studiowerk als voorheen. Mercenary had zeker zijn momenten maar ik vond Honour, Valour, Pride een zwakke plaat die maar niet wou klikken. De bezieling en agressie waren ver te bespeuren en het geheel kwam over als een band die op routine zijn ding deed. Het nieuwe album is al een tijdje uit en de kritieken zijn over het algemeen zeer positief te noemen. Ik deel deze mening echter totaal niet en vind het wederom een grote teleurstelling wat de jongens en meisje hier ons voorschotelen. De songs zijn op zich typisch Bolt thrower te noemen. Meestal midtempo van aard met loodzware riffs die zich maar blijven voortslepen, dit alles uiteraard ondersteund door rappe dubbele bassdrum partijen. De Cenotaph rif is ook weer van de partij evenals het (nog steeds erg toffe) oorlogsconcept. Enkel, ik vind het gros van de nummers erg saai en gewoontjes uitgevallen. Komt ook nog eens bij dat het geluid veel te clean is. Toegeven, ik ken weinig deathmetal platen waar je de bassgitaar zo goed kan onderscheiden, maar het gaat hier tenslotte om het totaal geluid en dat is gewoon veel te netjes geworden. De band is ook wat melodieuzer geworden hier en daar waardoor het allemaal wat braafjes op mij overkomt. Ik mis simpelweg de bezieling van Warmaster, de agressie van For victory en het vette geluid van 4^th crusade. Op de planken staat Bolt thrower nog steeds garant voor een overweldigende ervaring en zelfs de nummers van deze plaat kwamen erg overtuigend over in die setting. Toch kan ik me totaal niet vinden in For Those Once Loyal, hoe graag ik het ook zou willen. De eerste twee nummers zijn top (op de irritante en overbodige intro na dan) maar daarna zakt de boel gewoon inelkaar en blijft er weinig over dan wat gebakken lucht met af en toe een kleine opleving. De band staat bij mij nog steeds hoog aangeschreven vanwege de koppige houding en totale toewijding naar het zeer eigen geluid, maar ze moeten toch echt met wat sterkers komen voor het volgende album anders haak ik finaal af.

Realized - 21^st Century Terminal World
De meeste grindcore fanaten kijken al sinds jaren naar het verre oosten voor hun dagelijkse fix aan godvergeten klereherrie. Het aantal mega brute bands dat daar rond loopt te razen is gewoonweg om eng van te worden. Namen als Grudge, D.I.E, Gore beyond necropsy en natuurlijk Unholy grave doen het voorhoofd van menig echte lawaai freak flink klam worden. Het eveneens uit Japan afkomstige Realized loopt sinds 1999 rond te stampen en levert met deze plaat eindelijk zijn volwaardige debuut af. Ik kende de band al via wat eerder uitgebrachte split EP's en hoewel ik het altijd wel aardig vond wat ze lieten horen blazen ze me met deze CD pas echt helemaal van mijn stoel. Ter vergelijking, stel je gewoon een super opgefokte versie voor van oude Extreme noise terror, compleet met hysterische dubbele zang, maar uiteraard met meer metal invloeden en alles verwoestende blastbeats. De band gaat regelmatig op de bekende Discharge toer, klassieke punk riffs zijn veelvuldig te vinden, alvorens weer hard toe te slaan met pure gecontroleerde chaos. Als geheel is de boel strak ingespeeld, maar met genoeg passie gebracht zodat alles energiek en intens de speakers uit komt knallen. Het is enkel niet alleen simpel recht toe recht aan gebeuk wat je hier krijgt. Een nummer als “Sweet hammerheart” heeft een onvervalste punky Motorhead sfeer, compleet met smerig rockende leads, terwijl “Natural born mummies” wat verrassende breaks heeft die licht aan het latere Nasum doen denken. Realized brengt echter weinig echt nieuws onder de zon. Maar vanwege de perfecte benadering en de nodige variatie op de bekende thema's komt de band weldegelijk fris op mij over waardoor het uitzitten van dit 24 minuten durende festijn totaal geen probleem zou moeten zijn. Het enige puntje van kritiek heb ik op de productie, die had wel wat smeriger gemogen, maar daarmee is ook alles gezegd. Gewoon een hele vette, intense en loeihard opgenomen plaat die Realized in 1 oorverdovende klap ferm op de kaart zet.

Needful Things - Dead Points
Persoonlijk heb ik een broertje dood aan die langdradige intro's die je tegenwoordig veelvuldig op allerlei platen aantreft. Voor Needful things gelukkig niks van dat alles, vanaf de eerste tel gaat meteen het gas erop en schiet men hard uit de bocht met hun loodzware grind. Belangrijkste invloeden hier zijn overduidelijk het latere Napalm death en Nasum. Ik zou zelfs durven stellen dat, met het heengaan van de laatst genoemde, Needful things een prima alternatief aandraagt met deze debuut plaat. Het zou overigens wel eens verdomde tijd worden, de band is namelijk al zo'n kleine 10 jaar bezig. Het duurde dus even maar het resultaat staat dan ook als een huis. Tenminste, als je je kan vinden in grind met een flinke scheut moderne metal. Liefhebbers van het ruwere oldschool geluid zullen dit ongetwijfeld minder vet vinden. Dat de plaat makkelijk weghapt komt in de eerste plaats door de zeer brute productie. De snare klinkt een beetje lullig maar de overdonderende gitaarmuur is werkelijk indrukwekkend te noemen. De zang ligt netjes in het midden, alles is gewoon prima verzorgd. Het klinkt simpelweg alsof er veel hard werk ingezeten heeft. Qua stijl doet de band niet moeilijk en gaat men te werk met een ferme 'beuk de luisteraar finaal murw' idealogie. Een beetje ademruimte is praktisch niet te vinden. Op een handjevol nummers horen we trouwens nog een dame meeschreeuwen, dit doet de variatie meteen ten goede dus ik zou voorstellen om haar een permanente positie binnen de band te geven. Dit klinkt tot nu toe allemaal vrij positief maar toch leun ik een beetje op twee gedachten. Het klinkt allemaal wel extreem en intens, maar echt intimiderend kan ik het niet noemen. Typisch zo'n plaat die je opzet en op dat moment kan waarderen, maar een permanente plek in de playlist der groten zal niet gehaald worden. Het is allemaal net wat te eenzijdig en gladjes, we hebben het allemaal al vaker gehoord. Het vakmanschap van de band staat buiten discussie en over hun goeie bedoelingen bestaat al helemaal geen twijfel. Ik weet zeker dat fans van bijvoorbeeld Rotten sound of Kill the client deze band meer op waarde kunnen inschatten dan ik. Overigens sluit de CD af met een vette cover van Napalm Death's “Low point”, wat toch wel een originele keuze genoemd mag worden.

Malveillance - Insignifiance
Deze release markeert mijn eerste kennismaking met Malveillance, een obscuur zooitje ongeregeld uit Canada. Het gaat hier om een demo uit 2004 die voor het gemak op CD is gezet. Diverse bronnen stipten al aan dat deze band niet helemaal zuiver op de graat zou zijn. Het artwork en de teksten laten veel aan de verbeelding over dus ik heb feitelijk geen idee in hoeverre dit allemaal klopt. Als je als band zo'n zwaar op de maag liggende brok ellende hebt uitgekost dan kan het me ook allemaal aan me derrière roesten. Malveillance is namelijk super heftig en totaal van deze wereld, echt iets radicaal anders voor een keer. Na een pure harsh noise intro krijg je namelijk een lading rauwe blackmetal met pure crustcore invloeden voor je kiezen. Bands als Impaled nazarene en Darkthrone waren altijd al niet vies van wat ouwe stinkpunk, maar Malveillance pakt de zaken net wat smeriger aan. De basis bestaat uit rauwe en vrij simpele blackmetal. Repetieve gitaarpartijen, de treble op hoog, distortion tot je speakers het opgeven en bezeten zang die regelrecht uit een vochtige kelder lijkt te komen. Niets bijzonders, toch? Echter, al dit fraaie wordt voor het grootste gedeelte ondersteund door onvervalste d-beat drumpartijen. Voor een leek misschien niet significant te noemen, maar voor iemand die van meerdere muzikale walletjes snoept een ware traktatie. Het is godverdomme bijna alsof Atrocious Madness een oud Darkthrone nummer door de mangel haalt terwijl Merzbow de spaarzame gaatjes opvult. Dat er nauwelijks variatie te bespeuren valt tussen de verschillende nummers door doet in dit geval ook helemaal niet ter zake. Er wordt ook weinig waarde gehecht aan songstructuur, elk nummer wordt op een gegeven moment abrupt afgekapt om plaats te maken voor de volgende. Als bonus zijn er nog wat onuitgebrachte nummers toegevoegd waarop de band veel anoniemer voor de dag komt. Ik zou deze plaat zeker niet aan iedereen aanraden, bij twijfel eerst dus even luisteren voor aanschaf. Voor mij is het echter een absolute knaller en ik kan bijna niet wachten op het nieuwe album dat later dit jaar zou moeten verschijnen.

Favoriete luistervoer van 2006

2007-02-04T05:14:00.000-08:00

Omdat ik het toch ergens kwijt moet, hier mijn weloverwogen top 10 der wansmaak van 2006.

1. Tragedy - Nerve Damage
2. Coffins - Other Side Of Blasphemy
3. Clandestine Blaze - Church Of Atrocity
4. Manticore - For Rats And Plague
5. Impious Havoc - Dawn Of Nothing
6. Archgoat - Whore Of Bethlehem
7. Katharsis - World Without End
8. Malveillance - Just Fuck Off
9. Lifelover - Pulver
10. Proclamation - Advent Of The Black Omen

Recensie: Archgoat - Whore Of Bethlehem

2007-02-04T04:10:00.000-08:00

Archgoat - Whore Of Bethlehem
Hammer Of Hate
Als een donderslag bij heldere hemel hebben we viertien jaar na het demo debuut zowaar het eerste volledige Archgoat album te pakken. Nadat de Franse band in 1993 uitelkaar ging werd de draad weer opgepakt omstreeks 2004. Ondanks de forse hiatus is men er in geslaagd een album uit te brengen dat hun cultstatus dik onderstreept. Muzikaal kan je Archgoat plaatsen tussen bands als Blasphemy, Sarcofago, Black Witchery en in mindere mate Bestial Warlust. Enkel doet Archgoat er nog een tandje bovenop als het gaat om algemene bruut- en boosaardigheid. Het predikaat death/black is hier dan ook van toepassing. De volle, haast verstikkende productie en de grommende lage zang zorgen voor de death invloeden terwijl het uitgesproken satanische imago menig blackmetal fanaat zal aanspreken. Vanwege het vrijwel ontbreken aan melodie, de dikke maar gruizige gitaarmuur en de moordende tempo's komt het geheel over als een laag brommend blok graniet waarin weinig echte afwisseling is te ontwaren. Af en toe komen er wel wat pakkende mid-tempo stukken om de hoek kijken, incidenteel bijgestaan door keyboards. Denk nu niet aan leeghoofdige melodietjes of kitscherige tierlantijntjes maar eerder wat extra sfeerbeelden in de vorm van kerkklokken en duistere strijkakkoorden. De intensiteit druipt daadwerkelijk van het materiaal af, zo verbeten gaat Archgoat hier tekeer. Kwalitatief hoogstaand en bikkelhard werk dus.

PS: Bij deze geef ik hem 666 schedels.

Je weet dat je het wilt

2007-02-03T07:50:00.000-08:00