8/20/10

                                                                    Trash Talk

     Trash Talk are an old-yet-new sounding thrash/punk/metal crew from New Jersey.  Their first two releases are interesting and solid, but their newest, the incendiary (and cryptically titled) Eyes and Nines (self released on the Trash Talk Collective label, very punk/D.I.Y.) is a different beast altogether.  This is the sound of a band finding and expressing a more coherent identity and a newfound confidence, which translates to a greater power, ferocity and impact on the recording.  The production is excellent, managing to sound big and forceful even on a small boombox or a big rig; the vocals are astonishing, biting, harsh, terse and mean sounding in the Kurt Brecht (D.R.I.) vein.  The truly amazing opening blast of churning, coiled mid-tempo fury is the all-too-brief (54 seconds!) tune Vultures which is like, totally my new favorite song right now.  It is a perfect song--so quick it leaves you dying for more--listen to the drumming, dude, that guy sounds pissed off and WOUND UP.  Explosive little fills and violent moments of emphasis everywhere--hearing it winds me up, but good.

8/13/10

                                                                                                                                                YOBLOG

     Attention Doom fanatics!  YOB is back!  Anyone reading this is sternly instructed to go forth and immediately purchase their latest cd (also available as a super-deluxo lp with bonus tracks) entitled The Great Cessation (Profound Lore).  It is the heaviest thing I have heard or even heard OF in a long long time.  It is monstrously, severely, mega ultra incredo mondo crazy stupid heavy.  Light itself cannot escape from the overwhelming gravity this recording generates as a field emanating in all directions.  The crushing weight and density and pure DOOM of this masterpiece will leave you helpless, dazed and (in my case at least) grateful.  Middian is dead; long live the YOB.

7/30/10

                   Struck by Black Lightning

     Wow.   I mean just...wow.  Sorry on the no show last week, omg, it took me a full week to recover from the metal madness that occurred at the Triple Rock last Thursday.  My hangover was borderline lethal.  My headbanging-related neck pain was severe and long-lasting.  My ears did not function properly for several days afterward.  In other words...I had a great time at a super-fun show!  Black Cobra was headlining and of course they totally killed.  But the night was full of interesting surprises, as opening act after opening act, often entities to be endured/waited out, not enjoyed, kept bringing it with more and more and MORE intense rock-metal!!  It was sweet--talk about getting your money's worth--FOUR awesome bands, no waiting! 

First up and the most surprising of all was Minneapolis' own Blue Ox who blasted some fierce bare-footed metalcore, offered up some hilarious stage chatter and were extremely nice fellows to chat with to boot!  Who are these guys?!  Where did they come from?  I never even heard tell of them before that night.  I'm keeping an ear peeled for the forthcoming cd, boys...next up was Struck by Lightning (not sure where they're from, but the "leader" I know used to be in drone-meisters Mouth of the Architect) and they played a highly energized and focused set of teeth-chatteringly fast arty/crazy metal hugely bolstered by some incredible drumming...the guy was doing stuff with his hands that other drummers do with their feet, who knows what his feet were up to--it all sure sounded ah, convincing.  Next up was Howl from Rhode Island (whom I had also never heard of before! Sheesh.) who were more in the simplified Mastodon vein, with a generous dose of Kylesa thrown in (chaotic, angry hippy sort of vibe).  They were good, but perhaps should have preceded Struck by Lightning who were more accomplished/professional in my opinion. 

They were assisted stage presence-wise by the inclusion of a cute female guitarist sporting a very old-school Godflesh shirt which is inherently appealing.  Then Black Cobra came out and punched numerous holes in the space-time continuum with their sheer violence and creative heaviness--the kind that asks for no mercy and offers none--and I was thusly inspired to offer up a "front row rager" clinic for the youngsters you know, to show 'em how it's done.  Good times.

7/16/10

          Art Metal Haiku

                     Yakuza CD 
       New, Of Seismic Consequence
            Vast, heavy, and great.

7/6/10

            Various Unrelated Facts and Opinions

     1. There is a new Yakuza (Chi-town art/metal masters) recording out entitled Of Seismic Consequence (Profound Lore) but I haven't heard it yet because our distributor-who-shall-remain-nameless ran out more or less instantly...I am working on it. 

     2. My shifty co-worker Chris nabbed up the only copy of long-forgotten D.C. hardcore legends Beefeaters' VERY out of print/impossible to find split cd Plays for Lovers/House Burning Down that our stupid store has ever seen or will ever see for $4.95...it sells for $60 on Amazon.  I hate him now.

     3. This blogs' favorite sons, Dysrhythmia, will be back to Saint Paul at (blech) Station 4 on July 30th opening for prog-metal fiends Cynic (who, along with Athiest, practically invented prog-metal way back in the early nineties before it was common/cool.)

     4. Another show of note is July 8th at the Hexagon bar in Minneapolis (R.I.P. Bob...).  Local weirdos Guzzlemug (speaking of prog) are playing with Chicago's avant super-weirdos Cheer-Accident for an evening of guaranteed pure high-quality mayhem and extreme strangeness.

     5. The new cd by Black Breath (Portland Oregon, on Southern Lord, entitled Heavy Breathing) is AWESOME and super heavy.  Great recording (sort of amazingly both really clear and yet really raw and abrasive sounding) excellent writing and balls-out, fiercely committed playing highlight this exceptional album.  There were very high expectations for it after the bands' crazed-sounding debut e.p. (Razor to Oblivion also Southern Lord) but it definitely measures up, with a surprising emphasis on the death metal component of their sound and a reduction of the hardcore/punk side of things (just a bit)...they borrow "heavily" (haw) from Entombed's patented Swedish-style "death n' roll" approach and that is okay with me.  Come to our store(s) and buy it.

6/14/10

Grindcore Haiku II

I feel you should know
"new" live Carcass bootleg disc
has terrible sound.

6/4/10

                                     Beer City Crosses Over

                     Smallish punkish indie record label Beer City (based in Milwaukee WI duh) has just reissued the last of the "significant" older D.R.I. albums on remastered cd, the seminal Crossover.  That recording marked the transition of the band (way back in the late 80's!) from "...a hardcore punk band with metal influences, to a metal band with hardcore punk roots."  to quote guitarist/founding member Spike.  This was not without controversy--many punk loyalists/purists felt this release was too commercial and a sell-out by pandering to the more-numerous metal hordes out there in 80's suburbia.  Whatever.  It is a good album that has aged well, features hooky, rockin' tunes, still sounds fast and just cool.  

Vocalist Kurt Brecht always could "turn a phrase" and the lyrics are a good combination of funny, direct and meaningful.  I just acquired it yesterday so I can only hope the remaster job opens up the soundfield a little and lets the various sonic elements 'breathe' a bit, without losing that nice compressed and punchy late 80's/Bill Metoyer/Metal Blade sound.  Maybe not as essential a release as the towering classic Dealing With It, its' immediate predecessor, but I certainly have a soft spot for Crossover, as a long-time self-described "crossover" guy...hell I used to wear big black high-top sneakers because the 'big black high top' part represented my punk side (like combat boots) while the 'giant sneaker' component represented my metal-ness...yikes.  That questionable fashion 'statement' went on for years...!  Metal's precision, power and riff-tastic-ness plus Punk's humor, intelligence, aggression, chaos (and let's not forget sneering nihilism tempered with moral outrage) equals "Ethan like!"

05/28/10

     Misery Salad/Potato Index

     I recently experienced a fairly shocking "i'm old/my life is different" sort of epiphany the other day.  I was busily throwing together a gigantic six-pound batch of potato salad on monday to take to a school pot-luck wing ding for my kid at her school.  This was a time consuming process and it essentially prevented me from going to see one of my favorite 'modern' bands, Misery Index, who were playing at The Rock that same evening.  Not very long ago, this would have been unthinkable--I would have done whatever it would have required to shirk any other duties/responsibilities I might have had and just gone and rocked out.  This time, at 40 and with my potato salad obligation, I stayed home and fulfilled my domestic parenting duty and actually wasn't very bummed out about it--I A. love my little one more than i can describe and B. am old enough to know that missing even a very good show is not the end of the world. 

     M.I. may be back (and hopefully at a better club, another factor in my punting on it) and if not, oh well the potato salad turned out really well and was eagerly devoured at the spring concert dinner.  It was just weird to stand there in my kitchen peeling and chopping and stirring and realize 'I could being watching Misery Index kill my face right now'.  I am officially old/lame...it is not so bad and my daughter is more than worth such minor sacrifices. 

     Misery Index are touring behind a brand new release called Heirs to Thievery (Relapse) and off course it is amazingly good and a worthy addition to their growing catalog of sonic (and lyrical) extremity.  Pick it up and enjoy your kids (if you have 'em) and the family stuff that goes along with them...there is,  in fact,  more to life than metal, even if that statement makes my qualifications or commitment to write this blog suspect...meh, I won't lose any sleep over it.  Cheers/til next week, bye.

05/20/10

                                         Extreme Conditions                     Demand Extreme Responses

     Way back in 1992,  grind legends Brutal Truth dropped the equivalent of a high-yield thermonuclear weapon onto the burgeoning death metal/underground punk scene in the form of their now-classic and incendiary, brain-melting debut, entitled Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses (Earache/Relativity).  Does this sound hyperbolic?  It isn't.  That recording is easily one of my top five all-time greatest, and it (almost) unilaterally unleashed the concept of grindcore onto largely unsuspecting American ears.

Out of print for years,  Extreme...has finally been re-issued for it's 18th anniversary and it still utterly annihilates 99.9999% of all other attempts to purvey this form of art.  To quote Ashe, the evil android in Alien, "Its' structural perfection is matched only by its' hostility."  Well put. Way, WAY ahead of its' time,  this cd features a nearly perfect synergy of raging death metal and spastic grindcore, with smatterings of hardcore punk sensibilities (and lyrical awareness) and arty noise-terrorism all thrown in for added depth and good measure.  The band worships weed like hippies, but blare art so furious it would detonate any Phish fans' head at fifty meters--they had the vision, intelligence and moral compassion to pen the brilliant ode to tolerance Anti-homophobe years before Rob Halford's coming out made that more acceptable; yet Kevin Sharpes' absolutely unhinged and deranged vocal delivery strikes a fascinatingly violent counter-point to this message.  B.T. has covered the Melvins, (successfully) and has in turn been covered in loving homage by Misery Index, an unholy trinity of quality and respect, if you will.   The production on Extreme... was handled by Colin Richardson (Carcass, Napalm Death and others) and while a little compressed, it is a well-sorted job that has aged well, if not quite as well as the inspired and furious playing and writing it documents.  The opening salvo from one of my favorite (and most respected) bands--b.t.w. bassist Danny Lilker now lives in Rochester (N.Y.), my home town! (Well the houses are nice and cheap.)  Essential.

05/14/10

                                                    The Crinn

In a satisfying example of local dudes making it "big" (well being signed to a major label at least), Twin Cities prog-metal maniacs The Crinn have released a full length cd on Nuclear Blast called Dreaming Saturn.  And it's very good.  The Crinn play blazing fast, ultra-complicated prog/death/grind-style brainiac mega-metal and they execute that style as well as any band in our local scene.  Frontman/vocalist John Nelson has excellent stage presence, a good metal/punk bark, and is a very nice fellow to talk to as well--chat with him at one of their shows and you will see what I mean.  If you likes your metal fierce, fast and really "busy" you will dig these guys.  Keep an eye out for their live show, they often play out with also-local like-minded progsters Guzzlemug, and they have opened for the frequently-mentioned-in-this-blog band Dysrhythmia the last two times I saw them.  

05/7/10

                            Graveyard Classics III

     Every few years, American death/groove metal stalwarts Six Feet Under (featuring uber metal-dude Chris Barnes, former Cannibal Corpse vocalist) cough up a hilarious yet heartfelt album of all metal cover tunes--and usually NOT death metal.  This gives the band a chance to stretch out stylistically a bit and to try their hand at tempos, moods and song structures quite divergent from their own "usual" approach to songcraft.  They just released the third installment of this series (entitled Graveyard Classics III--Metal Blade) and it may be the best yet.  Some cover choices show the band wallowing in somewhat obscure, overlooked (or previously considered uncool) older metal gems, some sort of forgotten in the mists of metal time.  My faves this time out include interesting/funny/weird versions (all super deathed-out of course) of Prong's Snap your Fingers Snap your Neck (nice!), Metallica's Frayed Ends of Sanity, and also Slayer's "best vampire song EVER" At Dawn they Sleep.  For the record, let me tell you that you haven't really heard AC/DC's Givin' the Dog a Bone in all it's lurid, offensive glory until you hear Mr. Barnes and Co. belt it out like horned-out zombie freaks...(that track is on either vol. I or II, I forget, but you should buy 'em all.)  Break any of these out at your next metal gathering and have fun trying to identify the tunes and bands of origin and also laugh yourself silly at the sheer deranged fun of the whole project.  Recommended.

04/30/10

Blog Breath

     This will be the third time Seattle quartet Black Breath has been mentioned/"covered" in this blog.  The first time I mentioned them I was describing how their debut e.p. (Razor to Oblivion) rose above the crowd of junk I was sampling that day to be that listening sessions' only winner/keeper (also I believe I erroneously stated that they were from Portland Oregon...my bad.)  Later I included them in a list of bands who have Tolkien-derived band names.  Now I will let you know that A. they have a new cd out called Heavy Breathing (on Southern Lord...of course) and it rocks; and B. that they will be playing here live this weekend (Sunday May 2nd) at Eclipse Records on University Avenue in Saint Paul with a slew of other like-minded bands.  Eclipse has a good "rock room" with plenty of space, decent sound and fun extras like lots of old video games, but be aware it is all ages (or at least 18+) so no booze--you older, drinking types will have to wander up the street to the Turf Club or Big V's to satisfy that particular need.  

Maybe I'll see you there.

04/23/10

                                                Mordor Metal

      I wonder what J.R.R. Tolkien would think of the monumental impact his work (namely The Lord of the Rings trilogy) had had on rock music over the years...i'm sure he would have found it amusing and more than a little puzzling.  Aside from obvious big-time out-of-the-closet Tolkien nerds like Led Zeppelin who wrote a surprising number of songs packed with Tolkien-sourced imagery, there is a long list of band names derived from the L.O.T.R. in an even more overt display of nerdly Tolkien worship--most of which are black metal bands, who seem to really flip out over this stuff (well they are the biggest nerds in all of metaldom so it makes sense).  So here in no particular order are a bunch of Hobbit rockin' band names, all real bands mind you: 

Morgoth
Burzum (formerly Uruk-Hai, also a Tolkien name)
Gorgoroth
Flotsam and Jetsam(the phrase of course pre-dates Tolkien, but it is a chapter title from The Two Towers and I think it is no coincidence)
Cirith Ungol
Bombadil(actually not sure what genre)
Amon Amarth
Cirith Gorgor
Shadowfax (not metal, actually lame jazz/fusion/new age nonsense)
Gandalf (x2! also both not metal)
Sauron
Isengard
Nazgul
Black Breath(a form of magical halitosis the Nazgul/Black Riders emit to poison their enemies)

and there MUST be lots more...dude somebody should totally name a band Balrog, that would be awesome.  Shelob would be good too.  Or some lame celtic/new-age group could go with Galadriel...man I could do this all day!

04/16/10

                            Important Imports

              While executing a large-ish metal restock order for our store it came to my attention that several excellent and previously hard to find recordings are now available again, albeit in somewhat expensive, imported form.  They are: 1. Bathory/Under the Sign of the Black Mark (perhaps the only Black Metal album that matters and certainly the one that started it all); 2. Terrorizer/World Downfall (a seminal ultra-classic that launched/inspired a million bands); 3. Dark Angel/Leave Scars (forgotten L.A. Death Metallers who gave the world drumming master Gene Hoglan of Death and Dethklok and lots of other important projects); and 4. two Nuclear Assault releases, Game Over (which also has The Plague on it) and Handle with Care (essential early New York thrash metal featuring grind nerd par excellence Danny Lilker). 

Thank the English for rescuing/re-offering all of these--you will pay extra for them but all are worth it in my humble opinion.

04/09/10

                                                          Blog Cobra

     Whoa...it took me two weeks just to recover sufficiently from the High on Fire show I witnessed to blog about it.  My eardrums and liver may never be the same...all I can say is be careful when you schmooze the merch table folks, for if you drop the right band names you might get handed fistfuls of band-level drink tickets in reward for your coolness and that can be deadly.  It was a lot of fun.  H.O.F. was, of course,  great and about as loud and heavy-sounding as I have ever heard them; but the real surprise factor was provided by the many awesome opening bands(Bison B.C. and Priestess), particularly the amazing Black Cobra who just killed.  

I got to talk with Jason Landrian, Black Cobra's guitarist (ex-Cavity!! I am not worthy!!) and he and drummer Raphael Martinez (Acid King, 16) were both super cool and nice to me and I would like to thank them for that here--thanks guys.   More importantly their set just blew my mind--it was ratty, gritty, scary, mean, brutal, deft, punishing, sharp, crazed...it was freaking close to perfect.  For a two piece, the sound they generate is amazing--deceptively "thin" (no bass guitar) but just raging, original, and totally crushing.  Buy Chronomega (Southern Lord) by them NOW.  (Prior release Bestial on At A Loss records is good too.)  

Also of interest is that local metal luminary Eric Fratzke of Zebulon Pike had the honor bestowed upon him of having H.O.F.'s Matt Pike (no relation) come to the Turf Club the night before the show to watch Zebulon Pike play!!  Pretty cool Eric..."praise from Caesar" and all that.  

3/26/10

        Spazzcore Haiku

                                                    Let me tell you that
                      New Dillinger Escape Plan
                            is most excellent.

3/19/10

                                                      High On Fire

     The great Matt Pike (formerly of stoner legends Sleep)-led battle-metal killing machine known as High On Fire have emerged from the darkness and a two-plus year period of recording inactivity to stave in the heads of metal heads everywhere with their new album Snakes for the Divine.  Oddly enough, it is on the re-branded Koch label which is now called E1 Entertainment...that isn't as cool or as metal-sounding as Relapse or Nuclear Blast, but whatever.  Many aspects of all H.O.F. releases are consistent across the board: they are always really good; really heavy, crushing etc. with insane instrument sounds; silly-yet-awesome and sort of vague nonsense-metal lyrics; they tend to feature tempos that are sort of a collision of Pikes' former band Sleep with their signature ultra-slow drone and crawl with speedier/more rockin' mid-tempo or even sort of thrashy stuff like Celtic Frost or Mototrhead, two big obvious influences (nothing wrong with that!).  The only thing that isn't consistent from release to release from these Oakland metal warriors is production--it has veered around wildly in approach over the course of five cds, with different and very iconic and sonically distinct knob-twiddlers calling the shots at the sounboard each time out.  This time around it is Greg Fidelman in that capacity, and that is interesting and a little controversial--Mr. Fidelman worked on the not-sonically-well-liked latest Metallica effort Death Magnetic and his presence, manifested in the form of a very clean, dry, very well-sorted and clear sound probably heralds the band's intent to break through to a (slightly) wider audience by rendering themselves more coherent and "user friendly" in their sonic attack.  Certainly the magnificent and colossal sludge-fest of the Surrounded by Thieves era has passed, somewhat to the band's detriment, in my opinion.  Steve Albini did one (Blessed Black Wings) which sounded jarringly excellent (dirty and clean all at once, HUGE room sound) as did Seattle mastermind Jack Endino (Death is this Communion) which came out with extra-rich instrumental timbres and textures...Snakes' production vibe is perfectly o.k./adequate in this context, but not as identity-enhancing and successful as Mr. Fidelmans' work on the latest Slayer record, for example, (World Painted Blood) where his approach really furthered and served the bands' interests.  No matter--High on Fire are still out there killing it and that is enough--go check 'em out live (the preferred environment to get squashed by them) at the Triple Rock on March 31st with openers Bison and Black Cobra (featuring a former Cavity member!!)...dude that is going to be some heavy s#@t.

3/12/10

                                               Book Learnin'

     For todays' lesson I should like to bring to your attention the work of author/editor/Decibel magazine head honcho Albert Mudrian, as manifested in two books he has written for the benefit of the metal true believers.  I just inhaled the second of the two over the last two days, called Precious Metal: Decibel presents the stories behind 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces.  An amazing read.  It exhaustively explores the times, thoughts, conflicts, procedures, influences, motivations, obstacles etc. behind the scenes of writing, recording and releasing such masterworks as The Dillinger Escape Plans' Calculating Infinity, Kyuss' Sky Valley, Celtic Frosts' Morbid Tales, Slayers' Reign In Blood and many more.  Of course you will quibble with why some records are selected and others omitted, but that is half the fun--make your own list of 25 he missed if you want, who is going to stop you?  I found the 25 choices quite well balanced, covering the extreme spectrum from hippy/stoner stuff, grindcore, black metal, speed/death/thrash...it is a well-considered list with smaller-but-important names like Botch and Converge nestled in among giants like Entombed, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse (who are much less idiotic than I had previously assumed).  I found it on Amazon for like two bucks used--sweet.  A few years earlier Mr. Mudrian wrote the equally fascinating Choosing Death: the Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore and I just as strongly recommend that too if you seriously want to get your "metal dork" on...and who doesn't?!  Literate metal nerds unite!

3/05/10

Marston Attacks!

     Colin Marston and Mick Barr (from Dysrhythmia and Orthrelm, respectively) have collaborated once again on their ultra-technical black metal side project, Krallice.  The latest Krallice offering (number two of two, I believe) is called Dimensional Bleedthrough (on Profound Lore Records) and it is really good and I strongly recommend it, even if you're not really "into" black metal, which usually I am not.  There are no white corpse face paint-related trappings of silliness here though, just mind-blowing playing and conceptually crazed writing that makes for challenging but entertaining listening.  These guys approach the material with nerdly intensity (tracks are "initiated" rather than written according to the liner notes) and avoid the folky and operatic excesses that weigh down a lot of this sort of thing in other less skillful or subtle hands...check it out, pick it up and blast away.

2/26/10

Again With the Dysrhythmia/I'm Famous!

(in the Warholian sense)

     My fifteen nano-seconds of fame (other than these illustrious blog postings of course) have arrived--I was casting about on Dysrhythmias' blog pages describing in delightful detail their exploits this last fall tour '09 (google "Dysrythmia explains it all" to check it out for yourself, written by the bands' guitarist Kevin H.).  They break it down show by show (with many amusing photos and anecdotes that simultaneously make me pity and envy all touring rock bands with limited financial support) and review the many varieties and quality levels of the huevos rancheros they consume along the way (Hard Times in Mpls scores second best! Not bad.).  Toward the end of the tour was a show I attended at Big V's in St. Paul and I was delighted to read that the band was very pleased with their performance there--I rabidly agree, it was one of the best shows I have ever seen!  Then I discovered that someone who was standing RIGHT behind me had shot video of the set! And it is posted to You-Tube! And you can clearly see me in it (and hear my whoops of rock-joy) rockin' out old school Judas Priest video style right up front banging my head in glee and ecstasy!  The link is right there on the Dysrhythmia posting--there is also some good stuff concerning local dudes Guzzlemug who played the show and put Dysrhythmia up for the night (they seemed impressed by Guzzlemug's possession of an operational Moog in their basement).  So watch it to feel like you were there if you missed it (you probably did); the sound quality is actually not awful and you can make fun of me too as a bonus for being such a fan-boy!  It's win-win.

2/19/10

              A Band Called Horse

     
     I first became aware of HORSE the band after stumbling across a video of them on Headbanger's Ball and was impressed with their weirdness...they are indeed very weird and it is a lovely non-pretentious organic kind of severe weirdness...and I usually respond well to that.  The band is from California and their sound is self-described as "Nintendo-core" due to the element of synth-derived electronic noises that punctuate and permeate their songs.  The synth stuff is not an assaultive squall such as noise-terrorists the Locust unleash on unwary listeners; it instead consists of odd beeps and boops and even quick melodic snippets that are indeed suggestive of older video game sounds--this approach bears some resemblance to certain Boredoms recordings, but HORSE the band are quite unique and successfully resist easy comparisons or indeed glib categorization by music nerds such as myself, to their credit.  The electronic aspect of their sound is well-balanced by a surprising ferocity and heaviness that manifests consistently in their songs but often in unexpected or unpredictable bursts--imagine an unusually odd Weezer track colliding messily with Napalm Death-style eruptions of whirlwind blasting and you are beginning to get the idea.  So pop, art-damaged excess and furious metalcore all commingle with these guys and if that sounds appealing (it should) then I certainly recommend checking out their latest disc, 2009 release Desperate Living (on Vagrant).  A spoken/sample between-song highlight features some guy ranting about how "infinite" he is...he goes on to claim that he is so infinite, he "makes infinity look like...4."  That is awesome.

2/5/10

    "I Will Keelhaul Him"

     A co-worker drew my attention to a band, Ohio's Keelhaul, a band I had been vaguely aware of but had never really checked out--wow, thanks, Chris, because they RULE!  During a big day-off listening session Keelhaul's reissued 1998 release Keelhaul's Triumphant Return to Obscurity (Hydrahead--proving yet again that I basically love anything that came out on that label) was the only worthwhile thing I heard, immediately leaping out of the speakers and pummeling me into a grateful and dazzled pulp.  What is cool and interesting about the band is their surprising and uneasy/unusual/unlikely mixture of proggy-art-damaged weirdness (well-executed unpredictable math-rock, in other words) and super-heavy knuckle-dragging impact...in this sense they remind me a bit of my beloved Breather Resist but with a looser, sloppier, slightly less frenetic feel.  They are "almost" instrumental in that vocals only emerge from the sonic vortex sporadically and infrequently, and to my ears that approach works for them by causing the whole project to sound more random and bizarre.  Speaking of bizarre, check the song titles, a hilarious winner being Everything's a Napkin.  That title kind of sums up their whole approach to their art.  Highly recommended (and available at Cheapo!).

1/29/10

    Everything New is Not Old Again

     A quick rant today to underscore the weirdness of and my negative reaction to a strange "new" phenomena manifesting these days in our beloved metal/punk/heavy music scene--the appearance of bands who claim allegiance to and who are highly imitative of old "thrash" bands of the 80's, particularly the west coast/California bands of that era. 

Granted, that was a great time and a great scene that did produce many remarkable bands, i.e. Sacred Reich, Attitude Adjustment, Exodus, Cryptic Slaughter, Sacrilege, Poison Idea, Accused, and on and on.  But I take issue with these modern followers who are more than just influenced by the aforementioned bands, they seek to recreate the "vibe" or something that surrounded what is, it must be acknowledged, a by-gone era.  Not only is this not very creative, some of the bands I have in mind just aren't very successful at the "re-creation" and wind up with music/art that sort of goes nowhere fast (ha ha) and falls flat.  To name names I will point the finger at California's Warbringer and Municipal Waste specifically, probably the two biggest and most egregious offenders--they don't totally suck, mind you, but their approach does raise the question, "why?" 

 An exception might be found in Seattle's Black Breath, who mine the old-school sounds and ideas with more respect and add more of their own "thing" than others and have created an excellent release in 2009 offering Razor To Oblivion (Southern Lord), a vicious blast of howling dementedness that is ultra raw sounding and quite convincing in its ferocious convictions...now that's old-school.