destroyed human

Mutant Video

2012-01-20T01:49:00.000-08:00

MUTANT VIDEO has been soundtracking my life for the last while, via headphone accompanied strolls through rainy suburban strolls, tedious commutes, and nights staring at the ceiling struggling with insomnia. Reminiscent of some lost 80's video nasty score (presumably this is what inspired the name), it's just the right level of creepy - not overly theatrical about it, just tense, dreary bass-lead music that builds up atmosphere through repetition and subtle shifts.

MUTANT VIDEO - PARKING LOT from john lukeman on Vimeo.

It's not for everyone, but then again the best stuff never is.You can download the tape here or try contacting Mutant Video directly here to see if any copies of the tape are still available here

Rats Blood demo preview

2012-01-14T03:15:00.001-08:00

Ah here..as if to prove my point about Alan Doyle being overly prolific, no sooner had I finished posting about Feral Torch (see below) when these two track from RATS BLOOD, one of his (many) other bands showed up.

Expect a full tape soon as a co-release between DEATHBITER records and HEADWRECKER records. Fans of old US Midwest and Swedish hardcore get into it.
Rats Blood by AD.AD

A Destroyed Human Public Service Announcement.

2012-01-11T11:02:00.000-08:00

Goes without saying - project all your good thoughts to the Riffmaster General.

Apart from the fact he's obviously the man most responsible for the music we all love, I know from seeing first hand how horrible cancer is, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

Feral Torch

2012-01-11T05:16:00.000-08:00

Feral Torch - VI from Albion on Vimeo.

My friend Alan Doyle is very, very busy man.
He's best know for being in a bunch of local hardcore bands for starters - This Tongue Is Poison, Contort, Rat's Blood, Wolfbait, Disguise..I'm probably forgetting a bunch of others right now. All these bands gig regularly, have recordings either out or coming out, and most importantly are all excellent. Then on top of that he's a prolific artist whose warped pen and ink drawings have recently started gracing tape and record covers for mainly local bands (Prison Chapel,Sickener and the upcoming Crows/Drainland split all feature his instantly recognisable style, more examples of which you can see here), as well as having been exhibited in Into The Void here in Dublin a few months ago. Not to mention he also recently put out one half of the excellent "Blod" double zine set produced with the equally prolific Eric. He's involved in the Karate Klub rehearsal space, he helps out with Suburban Mayhem records..he's just in general a bit of a force of nature in the local punk/hc scene.

Parallel to his punk rawk exploits however, AD has also been involved to an increasing degree in various experimental/noise/drone projects over the last couple of years. He was part of various incarnations of the short lived Over with yours truly, went on to participate in the currently dormant Cloudeater, and more recently has been playing as part of a duo called Flowers of Dissonance with Aonghus McEvoy (Drainland/Unitd Bible Studies).

Inevitably however, some form of solo project was eventually going to rear its' head. And lo behold, just before the end of 2011 the first recordings of his newest project Feral Torch reared their mutated heads. The man himself describes it as "blackened synth punk". No, he doesn't mean "blackened" as in "black metal" like you think he does (the "punk" bit, he means it as in "dark". "Charred" even perhaps, because some of this sounds like he set a mini-moog on fire or something). It's essentially a series of short, sharp electric shocks delivered via damaged sounding keys and effects, that might well get you hot around the crotch if early SPK, Men's Recovery Project, Mutant Video or 80s straight to VHS horr film soundtracks appeal to you in any way shape or form. Stream and download below.
Feral Torch by AD.AD

Personal Propaganda: 2012 edition

2012-01-11T04:28:00.000-08:00

So in terms of my own shite, here's what I'm at for the next few months:

Solar Temple by Drainland
DRAINLAND are essentially going into hiding for an extended period of time to write an album and let everyone else get on with other things they want to do. There are a couple of split 7"s out with Enabler and Crows shortly (I'll post ordering details for both shortly), and one planned with Column of Heaven, but otherwise it'll probably be the end of this year at earliest before the album emerges. There may be some local shows in March with Crows, otherwise no gigs are planned for the year, and touring is extremely unlikely in any capacity until 2013.

PRISON: Glutton by shamelesscrimes
PRISON will have two tapes out hopefully before summer that I'm surrently working on:"Shortcuts to Nowhere" and "Internal Audit". More details about these when I have them finished. No gigs ever.

PRISON CHAPEL are about to break cover. This won't be a regular occurence. 3/4 Drainland, 1/4 Zom, if you're asking. Possible split release later in the year. If we decide to write more songs. And by "write more songs" I mean "rip off more Deep Wound and Siege riffs".

pull the blinds by jamie grimes
Solo stuff is always ongoing, and is becoming of increasing focus to me (partially because I've been enjoying it most of my various musical endeavours, and partially because it's easier to work on music alone from my living room obviously) . I've felt more of a compulsion to do this than any of the other bands/projects I'm involved in over the last while, and am happy enough with the results to properly let other people hear it I guess. I've started organising it into little "chapters" via the bandcamp thing, so there's an album, an ep, and a track from a split cd-r with Cloudeater that's due out at some point this year. A short run tape version of "Prayers" will be out in March/April with some extra tracks. Another album-length tape is in the pipeline for summer. As uncomfortable as I am with playing live, I'm considering giving it another try this spring.Though not til I'm fully prepared and am 100% sure my gear won't crap out on me like last time. So in the unlikely event that anyone fancies having me show up with a guitar and some pedals and play some noodly bollocks for 15 minutes or so , hit me up at pentagrimes@gmail.com

In other news,I've also been providing source recordings for something involving Brian Conniffe, so something may come of that soon. And there is a vague plan involving participating in a project with some good friends in the UK. I should probably start looking at flights and sort that out.

Zom Demo online

2012-01-03T03:41:00.000-08:00

In my aforementioned role as occasional Cvltnation contributor incidentally, I sorted a stream of the new (and apparently already sold out) demo by ZOM. Zom is ex Crowd Control and sounds a hell of a lot like the old Death/Massacre/Slaughter Lord demos to me. Which, obviously ,is no bad thing.
Get it here

see if Invictus have any left here

A Lesson in (Psychic) Violence

2012-01-03T03:32:00.001-08:00

And the hits keep coming. The mysterious entity that is CEREBRATE announce themselves this morning via a sample from an upcoming demo to be distributed via the Psychic Violence label (run by Kyle from Ash Borer) in the not too distant future. Can I rave about them being the saviours of US death metal?Well, no I can't, because I've only heard as much as you have, but it's a solid enough start that makes me intrigued to hear the whole thing. There's a hint of Sweden circa 1990 in there, but it comes through a Rottrevore filter to these ears - there's a swampy edge to the guitars but it's still precise and coherent.
I by cerebratedeath

Speaking of Psychic Violence, at some point during 2012 I believe there's a RUIN LUST 7" scheduled to come out via the label later in the year. I'm in the prcoess of interviewing Michael from RL for CvltNation at the moment which will be up shortly and sheds a bit more light and that and the band in general, but if you missed out on that band's utterly bestial demo that surfaced in the latter half of last year, you missed out on a gem and should be keeping your eyes and ears peeled for their future releases. The aural equivalent of a typhoon in a graveyard, it tapped into a level of instinctive violence that several of the war metal cvlt elite could learn from - no studs or spikes, just sheer animal force.

Cds fo'sale

2012-01-02T09:47:00.001-08:00

paypal only,postage not included. get in touch via pentagrimes@gmail.com

all these are €5:
Across Tundras "Dark Songs from the Prairie"
After The Bombs "Relentless Onslaught"
Aldebaran "Dwellers in Twilight"
Baroness "Red Album"
Benumb "Withering Strands of Hope"
Blasphemophager "Nuclear Empire"
Blut Aus Nord "Thematic Emanation.."
Caina "Some People Fall"
Caina s/t (Universal Tongue)
Capitalist Casualties "discography"
Confessor "Unravelled
Earth "Sunn Amps and Smashed Guitars"ON HOLD
Fuck the Facts "Stigmata High Five"
Genghis Tron "Cloak of Love"
Genghis Tron "Board up the House"
Genghis Tron "Dead Mountain Mouth"
Haive "Mili Massaa"
Hypothermia "Kold"
Impaled "Death After Life"ON HOLD
Impaled "Medical Waste"ON HOLD
Incantation "Mortal Thron of the Nazerene"ON HOLD
Kayo Dot "Blue Lmbency Downward"
Kayo Dot "Dowsing Anenome..."
Kill The Client "Set for Extinction"
Leviathan/Crebain split
Magrudergrind/Shitstorm split
Midnight "Complete and Total Fucking Midnight"ON HOLD
Morbosidad "Cojete Dios.."
Mouth of the Architect "Time & Withering"
Nastrond "Conquering the Ages"
Necroccultus "Encircling the Mystic Revelation"
Salute "Above The Law"
Sarcofago "Lust for Death" (demos on cd)ON HOLD
Sentenced "North From Here"
SKepticism "Aes"ON HOLD
Toadliquor "the Hortator's Lament"
Today is the Day "Kiss the Pig"ON HOLD
Ulver "Shadows of the Sun"
Weekend Nachos "Punish & Destroy"
Wehrmacht "Shark Attack"
Winterblut "Grund Gelenkust"
Witchrist "Beheaded Oroborous"ON HOLD
ZZ Top "Tres Hombres"
324 "Rebelgrind Extravaganza"

and these are €3:

AMSG "The Principleof Evil.."
Bann "Antiocha"
Bekihira "L'elu du Mal"
Black September "Tides of Storm"
Bloodhammer "Passion of the Devil"
Commit Suicide "Synthetics"
Destruktor "Nuklear Storm"ON HOLD
Inarborat s/t
Krohm "Return of the Ancients"
Lesbian "Power Hor"
Machetazo "Maggot Sesions"
Malcuidant "L'hymne De La Ghilde"
Morphosis "Rise of the Bastard Deities"
Nephridium "the Great Wave"
Overoth "Death Personified"
Trench Hell "Southern Cross Ripper"ON HOLD
Sinister Demise "Nullify"

2012

2012-01-02T05:08:00.001-08:00

Two days into the new year and shit is already, as they say, getting real. Get these into you.
CHAO - Behind Shadows by TERRATVR POSSESSIONS
CHAO are from Iceland, and along with their countrymen in SVARTIDAUDI will have a debut album this year out via Terratur Possesions. Both of these albums are going to be solid as fuck. Mark my words.

Promethean Age by Fuil Na Seanchoille
The FUIL NA SEANCHOILLE full length, "Hunger", has just come out on Tour De Garde.The two previous demos are being released on vinyl via Me Saco Uno Ojo any minute now. This and the upcoming SODB demo that's due out in the next month or so are proof that Irish people can actually do black metal properly, thanks. Also keeping it local, the ZOM demo is out (and nearly sold out) via Invictus but more about that later.

Over in Portugal, the Discipline sub label of Bubonic Productions have just unleashed this bevy of utter degradation:
I"
New cds by SATANIZE and BLACK HOWLING, two SVARTRIT tapes, a MONS VENERIS/DECREPITUDE split 7", and a new issue of INVOCATIO zine. I'm still wading through the batch they put out before Xmas (which featured lps by CRIPTA OCCULTA and BLACK CILICE),but I'm moderately obsessed with this label right now, so expect more about D's releases in the near future.

Finally for now,the new S.T.A.B ELECTRONICS lp is out today. "The Non-Alliant II"'s Jamie Gillis obsessed power electronic filth presumably picks up where last year's "The Non-Alliant I" left off. It works because it genuinely is unsettling. Proceed with caution. Ordering via Unsound

I don't have any plans for any kind of "best of 2011" list - partially because I always forget stuff, partially because there was a lot of good records but not a lot of great ones, and partially because..well,I posted fuck all on here in 2011 due to other activities sapping most of my free time, so who really cares what I think?

Destroyed Human Podcast #2: Jamie vs. Wereworms

2011-11-29T13:00:00.000-08:00

A short and sweet episode this time , ahead of an epic upcoming two parter Death Metal special with Darragh of Invictus Productions that will make up episodes 3 & 4.

This time around I'm talking to Karen, Phil and Kevin of Wereworms, a Dublin based art collective whose love of comics, punk rock, metal, horror movies and what have you blend seemlessly in the comics, artwork and assorted crafty goods they've been making since they popped up earlier this year. Be it gig posters or doing a stall at gigs, they're pretty much a constant fixture at local shows now too. Check them out here and here. Fourth Wereworm Jane wasn't interviewed, but that was her talking to me about the Masonic Hall in episode one.

Music this episode:
Flight "Turn to Blood"
Lost Sounds "I'm Not A Machine"
Wizards of Firetop Mountain "Dollar Hips" (this is Karen Wereworm's band incidentally)

2011-11-19T06:03:00.000-08:00

Hey - just a quick note as I've had a spate of them weirdly enough this week - please note I really don't want submissions for the blog.There's no point wasting your time sending me your music, because I already have a backlog.

Enter FORT EVIL FRUIT

2011-11-04T04:01:00.000-07:00

I don't generally just recycle press releases or what have you here at Destroyed Human, but I'll make the exception for this as I want to help spread the word , and I believe it's an enterprise more than worthy of your time. The newly established FORT EVIL FRUIT tape label has just released it's first two tapes, just in time to add a little magick to your cold winter nights.

RAISING HOLY SPARKS - Beyond the Unnamed Bay

David Colohan has operated under the name Agitated Radio Pilot since
1993. The development of a new approach based on field-recordings, shapenote singing, loops and synths, and coloured by an interest in Hasidic mysticism, prompted the winding up of that project and the adoption of a new identity: Raising Holy Sparks.

The debut release 'Beyond the Unnamed Bay' features a pair of side-long suites made up of songs and instrumentals. The well-crafted balladry of Here Begins Our Lasting Joy will be familiar to fans of ARP's World Winding Down album, while the lengthy The Depths of Bailey Point follows on from the abstract and atmospheric works found on The Lunar Arcane and The Days and Hills Grown Old. However the synth-pop stylings of As Far As We Can Go presents Colohan's songwriting in an unexpected new context.

The album draws together the strands of Colohan's earlier music into a more cohesive whole and a richer sonic palette, aided by Vicky Langan
(Wölflinge, United Bible Studies) and Declan Q Kelly, with guest appearances including Stefan Neville (Pumice), Richard Moult and Audrey Ryan. The cassette includes a download code, and the cover art features the RHS logo designed by Oscar Strik.

You can stream the whole thing (and download two tracks) here:
Beyond The Unnamed Bay by Raising Holy Sparks

The Dreamlike States of UNITED BIBLE STUDIES

Having been asked to play at the seventh Terrastock Festival in Louisville, Kentucky, United Bible Studies embarked on a three-week tour of the USA alongside Oxford-based folk singer Sharron Kraus. This cassette is compiled from recordings of those 2008 shows.

This is arguably the most comprehensive UBS release to date, representing both the psychedelic, improvisatory side of the band as well as their roots in traditional song, along with some surprises, such as an ethereal version of John Dowland's Flow My Tears. It's also unique due to the prominent presence of the aforementioned Kraus, and marks the first UBS appearances from Michael Tanner (Plinth, Mark Fry) who has gone on to become a key member of the band. David Colohan, Richard Moult, Áine O'Dwyer, Gavin Prior, and Tuula Voutilainen complete the core lineup, and guests include Jesse Poe and members of Khouetek and Talbam. The album ends with sax colossus Paul Flaherty being coaxed onto a New Haven stage for a visceral 14-minute blowout.

This eclectic, sprawling, ragged album works as a reflection of the tour in microcosm. It contains 16 tracks in 83 minutes, and includes a download code (including extra artwork). Cover art by AntimonyMedia.

United Bible Studies - Lowlands Of Holland (Band) by desertedvillage

Contort Yourself

2011-11-04T02:58:00.000-07:00

Contort's "Endless Myopic Bastards" tape is still pretty much fresh out of the box, and a strong contender for my favourite local release of the year. Opening with the title track, it begins with an almost space rock style motorik pound that accelerates into their usual uber noisy Japanese inspired hardcore. Honestly, this may backfire on me here, but on first listen when I put the tape on I just thought "jesus, someone's been listening to Hawkwind". It's unintentional (I think), but it works perfectly, and in my head all I can think of is some giant black space rocket preparing to blast off into the strosphere. Actually the likes of "Black Dog" harness this at other points as well.

What Contort do best is two things: Firstly, they strike the balance between out and out noise havoc and catchy songwriting. It's energising to listen to them, makes you want to get up and smash shit up, staple the front page of an issue of "Class War" to a politicians head, grab some petrol and matches and set fire to a police car/church/school/public toilet. In that respect they achieve far more for me than most other bands in this raw punk style, bar possibly Deathcage and Kromosom (whose albums I really should post about on here if I haven't already). I can't really pick a favourite song, as it seems to change every day.Today,it's "Death Dealing Breath of the Gods". Tomorrow it could be "Nail the Beast" or something else.

Contort from Ben Fordree on Vimeo.

Secondly, and this is what really does it for me, they have a grasp of atmosphere that a lot of their peers lack, an atmosphere that comes from this use of noise and pacing, but also from the lyrics and vocals of Ed in particular. His vocals lie trapped but audible this pulsating mass of guitar rubble, as he cries out lyrics of despair and disappointment in himself and the rest of humanity with a kind of paralysed dread in his voice. It's the voice of someone who observes horror on a daily basis but know they're powerless to do anything about it. Even when the music is at its' fastest or most frenetic, his delivery lends an air of the apocalyptic to proceedings. Contort genuinely sound like music made by people trapped in some nuclear fall out bunker with musical instruments trying to report on what's happening in the wastelands outside.

This time around, instead of recording in a practice room with some dickhead (aahem..that would be yours truly), they've opted to go to a real studio and record with Jeeg at The Hive - has this cleaned up their sound? Dear lord no, nothing of the sort. But it makes a huge difference in terms of sound quality, adding a clearer and punchier sound without sacrificing the "chainsaw in a wind tunnel" effect in any way shape or form. Available from the band, and co released by Distroy and Headwrecker.

Black Dog by CONTORT
.
What with the Dublin scene at this point being essentially different combinations of the same people playing in different bands, it's perhaps also necessary here that I sneak in a mention of Rat's Blood while I'm talking about Contort, as it features two of the same members (Eric and Al) playing a less chaotic but actually rampaging form of hardcore, more inspired by old Swedish stuff or even a little old DC than Contort. They've played a couple of blinder gigs recently, and I believe a demo is coming shortly - keep an eye and ear out for that.

Drainland/Trenches lp

2011-10-26T01:22:00.000-07:00

I play in a band. We're called Drainland. We did this split lp with a band from Galway called Trenches. Our side ended up being a three-song short story.It was literally a complete headache to get this together, but it's finally done, came out last week, and will be available from us and Trenches and assorted local shops/distros this weekend, just in time for Halloween. It looks like this.

Anyway, a nice man in America called Fred who writes for great website called BrooklynVegan has organised for the split lp to be streamed in its' entirety on the site. That's pretty nice of him. Cheers Fred. You're nice.

Listen here

If you want to buy one have a look here in a day or two.

So, Column of Heaven played a gig

2011-10-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

..which I obviously didn't attend, and much like Blockade I'll probably only ever get to see them live via youtube videos like this one. But yeah.I'm excited.

A Nightmare On Eustace St

2011-10-25T07:52:00.000-07:00

Yay, Horrorthon kicks off this weekend running from Thursday October 27th to Monday Oct 31st at the IFI in Dublin - another year, another bunch of films I'd like to see but probably won't actually get to this weekend.. but such is the curse of parenthood which ethically, morally, and let's be fair legally prevents me from bringing my 7 year old to see the likes of "Chillerama" and "The Wicker Tree". Oh well. So the line up is the usual mixed bag of goodies and complete shit this year, and I'm not sure how much I'll actually get to but so far the "The Exterminator/Maniac Cop" late night double bill on Friday and "The Theatre Bizarre" are the only two I'm definitely making it to;, though the two films I mentioned a few lines ago are the two I really wanted to see as well. A quick glance over the listing which you can see here yields other potential goodies in the form of a screening of "Blow Out", "Cathnafolla","The Divide", "Snowtown" (which I may talk about on here next week anyhow) and "The Hunt" and of course the traditional "Trailer Trash" instalment on the Monday. I'd make an educated guess that "Human Centipede 2" stands a good chance of being the mystery film on Sunday this year, but that could be wishful thinking. I'd been thinking it might be "The Woman", but that came out on DVD this week here, so it's unlikely. I'm probably wrong with both guesses either way, and it'll probably end up being that remake of "The Woman in Black" with Harry Potter in it, or "Hellraiser 6" or summat equally naff. Whatever. Horrorthon is always good fun regardless of what films are shown, and the organisers always get props from Destroyed Human for doing it every year..long may they continue.

One film that's showing on Friday that I know I won't make it to unfortunately, because I'd like to see it on a big screen, is Adam Wingard's " A Horrible Way to Die". It's not exactly one that's been setting tongues wagging whenever I've gotten into conversations with anyone about Horrorthon recently, but it's one hopefully people will take a risk on seeing. I've seen it twice now already and very much enjoyed it, though its' slow pacing and subtlety might not be to everyone's tastes.

"A Horrible Way To Die" is basically more of a thriller than a straight up horror movie first of all, which possibly explains why the IFI booklet goes on about it supposedly bringing a "mumblecore" approach to horror - a pretty terrible description as far as I'm concerned which makes it sound like some badly shot improv bullshit, which it very clearly isn't. The fact that there's more of a focus on themes of betrayal and failed relationships at work than a concern for how high the body count is doesn't automatically make it a better or more valid movie than any of the others showing this week in the way using the term "mumblecore" suggests (nor, luckily, does it make it more pretentious). It just makes it a different kind of movie.

The basic plot synopsis runs thusly: girl who is coming to terms with the fact that her ex boyfriend was a serial killer, who she turned in to the police on discovering some of his handiwork, is in a 12 step programme. After a couple of meeting, she begins a new relationship with another participant in the same group she has been attending. Meanwhile, her boyfriend has escaped from prison and is making his way back to her. I'll say no more other than as you might imagine their paths inevitably intersect with explosive consequences. I can't really say more without ruining the various twists in the film. But basically the movie switches between how the two situations develop sympathetically, and as we see her and her new beau become closer with time, we also see how desperate her ex is to get to her. Both stories play out slowly but with an increasing sense of hope (hers) and anxiety (his) which contrasts nicely so that while you know eventually something bad is going to happen you've been drawn into everything enough for it to have a real impact.

Sure, so far so stereotypical American Indie Flick you're probably thinking, but there are plenty of horrible moments and some well timed gory bits if that's what you're looking for that will make it very obvious that this isn't just "Before Sunset" with a serial killer running around in the background. And certainly the latter section of the film is the point where it moves squarely into official "this is a horror movie" territory with a pretty solid payoff. It's a bleak film - not as much as, say. Simon Rumsley's recent "Red White & Blue" (a film I saw around the same time and seriously cannot recommend enough.. I might come back to this at a later stage) with whom I feel it sort of shares the idea of doomed romance and the nightmarish fallout of such a thing, but the fact that it has a slightly more emotional core to it than the usual horror film means there's a tension something like "Zombie Undead" or whatever isn't going to give you this weekend. That's what makes it worthwhile, that's what made me want to watch it a second time, and that's why I'll probably watch it again. It's a story invested with horror aspects rather than a splatfest hanging on a barebones premise. I kind of think if this was showing independent of a horror festival, it would reach an audience who normally might not go to see a horror-based movie like this.

Incidentally, I've seen two other Adam Wingard films I can recommend, but both were completely different: "Homesick" is more of a sick pleasure, being more of a straight ahead (if odd) gorefest compared to the other one of his I've seen "Pop Skull", which is more of a ..well, it's more of a surreal arthouse drama about slackers and drugs (though it s a lot better than that sounds, trust me). His next one, "You're Next" is apparently a traditional big budget home invasion horror movie which seems like a different thing again than " AHWD", so I'm interested to see what he does with that. It has apparently been picked up by Lionsgate recently for distribution, so I expect it'll be hitting the big cinema chains shortly.

Holy shit..come to think of it..what if "You're Next" is the secret film this year?

John Peel Day

2011-10-25T06:21:00.000-07:00

I can't not talk about John Peel today.

John Peel, in my teens, was possibly the greatest education in music I could ever have asked for, not only because he played a bunch of bands I like and exposed me to similar ones, but also because he exposed me to a bunch of other music I would never have heard otherwise. I listened religiously through a shitty AM radio reception and recorded random tracks off his show, initally made aware of him by the fact I'd read that all these new fangled death metal bands I liked such as Carcass and Bolt Thrower would actually get played on his show - these bands weren't even getting played on the other BBC show I listened to, Tommy Vance's "Friday Rock Show", which Ireland being deprived of a national metal radio show in the late 80s/early 90s was pretty much my only way to hear new bands when I was a kid.

So my initial listen to Peel was confusing - he'd be playing jangly indie music I'd never heard before, the occasional bit of what I suppose we can broadly refer to as "world music" (translation: he played the Bhundu Boys on what felt like every show in the late 80s/early 90s) and other random assorted shite that I's tolerate only because I knew at some point he'd play something off "Realm of Chaos" or whatever. By the time I was 13 I was a regular listener, and was starting to come round to this non-metal shit he was playing - the initial thing that clicked with me was has championing of Japanese hardcore compilations like "Starving Dog Eats Master" and "Get Back the Discharged Arrow". The nearest I'd come to hardcore in my life at this point was DRI's "Dealing With It" and a tape of "Legacy of Brutality" some older kid in school had made me, so when I heard stuff like D.O.N D.O.N, Idora and Mad Conflux for the first time I was absolutely floored. The death/grind stuff he was playing was getting more obscure too, and the search for stuff he'd play like Darth Vader's Church, Gibbed, or Rottrevore was what lead me towards tapetrading.

Of course in addition to that, I started warming to the bits of techno, hip hop and straight up indie (particularly the stuff he'd play on the Community 3 and then budding Sub Pop labels) he'd play for the bulk of the show, areas I'd really not explored and to be honest not have had I not sat through them a couple of nights a week on his show. Never did warm to the Bhundu Boys though.

I listened to him on the reg up until his death,Weirdly enough it would be more for a chance to hear some new Panacea or Somatic Responses track, or for a repeat of the Melt Banana session moreso than the hardcore and metal I waited for as a kid. I was genuinely very,very sad when I'd heard of his death this day 7 years ago. I never knew the man, never met or spoke to him in real life, but his voice and his speech mannerisms were as familiar to me as my own parents', and he had a huge place in my life as weird as that will sound - I'm sure there are plenty of other folks out there who'll know exactly what I mean though. I feel sad for folks that never had the chance to listen to his shows, even though there are plenty of similar ones that have come in his wake. Speaking of which, his son Tom Ravenscroft carries the family baton with his show on BBC6 music which I've only started listening to recently - it's pretty good. He's as likely to play Iron Lung or Prurient at any given time as he is Zola Jesus or James Blake. Hell, he even had Brainoil curate an hour long mix for his show recently. The old man would be proud.

Peel really was a groundbreaker, and a huge influence. So raise a toast to the man.I'm gonna bust out some old Jap compilations in his honor tonight at home.

Look at my mask..it's golden..

2011-10-25T03:43:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of the ceaseless championing by the dynamic duo of Karl and Sean who do the excellent hiphop/pop culture centred Them's The Vagaries podcast (who just had me on as a guest for their Halloween episode to talk about metal and horror movies recently incidentally, so subscribe to that shit right now), I have become vaguely obsessed with the enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a big bag of weed that is NoEmotion recently.

A gold-mask wearing randomer who enunciates bizarre, seemingly unconnected and often hilarious lines in what sounds like a slightly pitch-shifted voice, he's just odd enough to be right up my street. My understanding is that the guy is considered to be little more than a post OddFuture inspired pisstake by many in the hip hop scene, but personally on first listen he immediately put me in mind of Kool Keith by virtue of the sheer absurdity involved. It's ridiculous, and surreal, and possibly the workings of someone who's done a little bit too much acid.

Not being a huge modern rap guy, I'm certainly not about to get into any discussion of his technical abilites here - the common complaints I've seen (and that you can read some of in the comments in some of the videos below) get into the fact that a lot of his stuff is basically punched in. So I guess a lot of people will just argue that the guy can't rap for shit. But hey, if I want to listen to a craftsman I'll go dig out some El P or someone. This is more about the wordplay than it is delivery or precision and when he gets into full flow his surreal stream of conciousness a joy to immerse yourself in. Some of it is total juvenile brainfart, some of it is straight up amazing. Judge for yourself from the videos below - the low budget silliness of which reflect the guy's sonics perfectly.

pronounced "Mun-eeerk"

2011-10-24T07:51:00.001-07:00

Return of the shitty camphone footage - yes, I know your lives have been empty without it. Saw/played with Monarch here in Dublin last night and in an attempt to appease my beloved who couldn't make it (and who's a big Monarch fan), I captured a segment of their set while precariously balance on a chair behind their merch table*. I'm a casual Monarch fan - I enjoy the records but don't listen to them regularly enough to tell you what they were actually playing last night, but they were thoroughly enjoyable and VERY VERY LOUD. My attention wandered toward the end due to a combination of tiredness and booze, but what I saw was intense enough to keep me focussed longer than a band playing a song whose minute legth goes into double figures normally would - something ony Corrupted and Khanate have done previously.

This is the thing with doom/sludge bands I've noticed over the years: there's a dilemma at play whereby this music generally makes more sense live owing to its' physical nature - bottom end and volume really only achieve the desired effect in a live setting where you're in front of a stack of amps. But the brutal truth is that a bunch of guys or girls playing barely changing chords over a prolonged space of time becomes very boring very quickly in the live environment most of the time. Even bands I like who do this kind of thing I generally find myself leaving the room for nowadays after a couple of minutes. obviously, years of seeing hardcore bands playing short sets has ruined my attention span for live shows by any band that stretch over 20 minutes, but that's not the only reason. As background music, or as headphone listening, I have all the time in the world for it if its' done well, but live not so much.

I tend to value movement (both literally and figuratively) in a live band, the sense their set is leading somewhere. Monarch nearly pulled that off for me, in that while the bedrock of their sound is that wall of guitar, the sheer force of the drumming (supplied on this trek by Ron from Yob/Dark Castle) and the unpredictable nature of Emily's manipulated vocals kept things progressing. They get, basically, that just standing there playing the same big hanging chords space far enough apart for the listener to grow a beard isn't really enough, so they employ one of the hardest hitting drummers I've seen in years to add extra power and accentuation - this means the guitars don't seem like they're just hanging there pointless churning out shite. Some will argue the effects on the vocals are a gimmick, but I couldn't disagree more. They're a guide through the dark maze the guitars create and offered plenty in the way of light and shade throughout. Sure, she can scream (and does so), but she also sings and vocalises in a less harsh manner, and manipulates and layers it in ways that can be dreamlike or terrifying as necessary. Haven't got a clue what the fuck she was on about, but the tone of her voice was a narrative tool all on its' own.

So yeah, Monarch, good live, didn't bore me to tears, handy with effects pedals, blah blah blah. It's Wolvserpent's turn to do the slow and low droney thing here this week opening for Wolves in the Throneroom in Whelans this Thursday night coming. Their more meditative approach could either be hypnotic and transfixing much like the way the records are if I listen to them in the right mindset, or they could just be boring as fuck. I'm hoping for the former. They better be good, because I'm missing a one time screening of "The Wicker Tree" at Horrorthon for them.

Kevin Mahoney R.I.P.

2011-10-17T10:09:00.000-07:00

Just heard Kevin, singer for the mighty Siege passed away last Friday.Rest in Peace.

2011-10-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm living proof that the idea that downloading music affects sales isn't true. To be honest, had I not actually sneakily checked out the new INVIDIOUS ep thing on a whim via some generous soul's uploading of it a week or so ago, I very much doubt I'd have bothered going out and buying a copy, because my previous experiences with them via some rehearsal tracks on their myspace a year or so ago had lead me to believe they basically sucked. Along with the rest of their Upsalla Metal of Death colleagues Degial and Graveless. However, about half way through the opening track "Black Blood", I realised I was horribly,horribly wrong.

The lack of imagination I'd been troubled by on earlier listens seemed to have evaporated and lo,within a week, here I am sitting on my couch with this dirty litle black vinyl four songer blaring in the background much to the chagrin of my cat. I won't lie,it's still not something I'd regard as top of the death metal pile by any stretch, and still smacks more of a band trying to copy their predecessors (there's a notable demo era Grotesque vibe at work), but every now and then a little riff or off kilter part pops up and you think "wow, I actually haven't heard this done 100 times before". I'm increasingly tired of this newer wave of Swedish death metal (does the world really need Bastard Priest or Maim?), but these guys and Morbus Chron are the two bands of recent years I thought sucked most and both have released records this year (MC's "Sleepers in the Rift" being an unexpected treat after a hugely mediocre demo and 7")that I've enjoyed very much. So gee, guess I'm not always right after all.

I'm pretty confident I've mentioned Ominosity on here before, and I'd somewhat incorrectly pegged them as some kind of doom/death thing. I was pretty excited about the prospect of a then forthcoming demo, which I subsequently heard nothing about and the band slipped my mind..until funnily enough, while rifling through the tape section in Into The Void looking for something to spend the change from the Invidious mlp on, I spotted a newly arrived copy of their "Altar of the Black Sun" demo at long last. I'm more than pleased to report that it lived up to my expectations.

This is pure death metal moreso than any kind of doom/death thing, in the same way that bands like Mythic or Autopsy were/are - the focus is on mood and heaviness first and foremost more than it is just speeding along in an attempt to be the most brutal band ever. Actually, Mythic are a pretty handy comparison, as might be(very) early Disembowelment or the late lamented Ceremonium. These are long songs, and are paced perfectly so that when they reach for the speed there's an impact that bands who overdo it lack.Songs like "More Molten Than Man" build and progress along at their own pace so that you can't be sure what's going to happen next. Not something I can say about a lot of demo bands. This has the authentic feel of the kind of stuff I was getting excited about on tapetrading lists back in the early 90s, without feeling entirely just like a tribute. It's just good, underground death metal, written and played from the heart rather than from some set of imagined parameters of what is or isn't brutal enough. More power to them.

Destroyed Human: The Podcast

2011-10-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

Destroyed Human podcast #1 by Suburban Mayhem

Consider this an experiment, done today to defeat boredom while stuck in bed at home with an ear and throat infection.A couple of weeks ago I bought a handheld recorder and the day I bought it I ended up recording random shite to test it out. And now,I present to you some of the salvage from those recordings.
In this half hour of randomly assembled nonsense, myself and Jane Lives went to visit the Dublin Freemason's Hall and then recorded ourselves taking shite about it in the pub after wards. Brian Conniffe continues the thread and briefly talks about magic, and then to end things I play a word association game with Sickener in a toilet.

Yes, I will do more of these, and no, I won't be as drunk next time (you can probably tell I'm progressively more hammered with each interview, and by the time it gets to the end..well).This one is pretty much a bit of fun, so don't take it massively seriously. Also, this was partially done as practice for my contributions to the Metalireland podcast, who I interviewed Zom for in a forthcoming episode.

I also threw on some music by Angel Olson,The Haunting Presence, and Stereotype& Soothsayer.

Winter is a comin'

2011-09-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

I've not been listening to a whole lot in the way of metal or hardcore recently. I go through phases of being burned out on particular areas of music every once in a while, as I'm sure do many of you, where I just have no interest in listening to specific sounds; of late anything invovling downtuned riffs, pummeling drumming and some lad(y) yelling like a constipated bear has been on the "avoid" list for the last two or three months mostly.

The two records in that area that have defied that however have been the most recent Wreck of the Hesperus record "Light Rotting Out", and the self titled debut by Atriarch. Both have been compelling listening for me for similar reasons. Both bands are basically coming at the slower, lengthier end of the doom/sludge/whatever spectrum from a more personal and slightly more left field angle, though in neither case does it seem forced or in any way contrived. They're basically both really good, really creepy records.

The WOTH one is probably my favouirite local record this year so far. It sounds like it was recorded in some kind of abandoned building or something. There's a coldness and distance to the sound of it - it's a very raw recording, but there's so many odd little elements in there that make it feel like it's from another world entirely at the same time..completely enveloping stuff. It's recognisably metal but at the same time if you listen carefully to how each instrument is being played it really shouldn't be: Andy's guitar often has more in common with the clang and clatter of Norm Westerberg on those early Swans records than it does some dunderheaded riffhound with a stack and a Burning Witch album, Cathal's bass is weirdly angular at times, and Ray's drums are like a boat being battered around on the sea during a storm. Fuck,I'm making this sound like a nowave record or something - it's not,obviously,and has more in common with "Mental Funeral" than "Confusion is Sex", but at times it honestly puts me in mind of what some massively slowed down doom metal version of parts of the latter might sound like. "The Holy Rheum", which takes up the bulk of it and features Albert Witchfinder doing a guest vocal in one section, is probably their finest hour. I like how this record is geuninely unhinged sounding.

The Atriarch album "Forever The End" is only slightly more traditional I guess, perhaps not that surprising once you consider they have an ex Graves At Sea member on bass, but it's still got its' own little quirks. If the WOTH album is all insanity, this is more of a depressed and gothic affair. But moreso in a suffocating, all-negating depression rather than the theatrical, slightly noncey My Dying Bride "woe is me" type deal my use of the word "gothic" might suggest.it's a whole lot less grandiose than that.There's this huge bass sound, and equally massive pounding drums, but the guitarist plays in a way that filters the Cure and Christian Death's chorused out gloom in amongst the more straightforward riffing. The vocals are a distant, ghostly moan. This gives me the same feeling I had the first time I heard Disembowelment's "Dusk" ep years ago - the bedrock of the sound is slow, crawling doomy metal but there's a shimmery clean guitar that rears its' head sometimes and adds a whole lot of atmosphere and character and raises the whole thing above just mere bludgeon...this is pretty different though insofar as Disembowlement were coming from a Death Metal angle, and Atriarch are coming more from the Sludge end of things. It's basically perfect music for the encroaching winter nights that will be on us any minute now.4 long(ish) songs but at no point does it feel overly drawn out.

Shadows by Atriarch

Thantifaxath

2011-08-12T13:43:00.000-07:00

It's almost like Mare (the Toronto one, not the Norwegian one)were reincarnated as a black metal band.

Austrian Assault

2011-07-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

Is it bad taste if I make the "most evil thing out of Austria since Hitler/Fritzl/Falco" joke?

Anyway, quick post, it's Monday, I'm tired, and I'm about to go to bed. But while pissing around half answering mail, I stumbled across this band BLOOD URN from Austria who've just released a demo which you can hear in its' entirety on soundcloud. Sounds pretty great. Here's a track.
Blood Urn - Immolate their Cadavers by BloodUrn

This in turn also reminded me that their countrymen ABHORROT released a pretty fantastic 7" recently that you should check out. Again, here's a track from that. To say it's an improvement over the utter drivel of their demo is an understatement.
Morbid Flesh Sacrifice by A B H O R R O T

In both cases,the obvious early Pungent Stench/Miasma influences are apparent,which is perhaps unsurprising considering those are the only two decent death metal bands the country ever produced (at the risk of offending a couple of you, I'll also go on record as saying Disharmonic Orchestra were fantastic but I'd hardly call them death metal), but both stand on their own. Sloppy, raw endearing but not in anyway ironic or pisstakey. Nice one Austria. About fucking time.

Host demo

2011-07-09T07:58:00.000-07:00

A year or so ago we played with a band called Manuscripts in Nottingham. They were young (like they seemed about 15 - I'm pretty sure one of them had his dad with him). Christie, the guitarist and vocalist was a nice kid, and they were pretty good in a Converge-y kind of way, maybe a little darker and heavier than most other bands doing that kinda thing. I think we even briefly discussed doing a split, but we kind of lost touch after a while.

Anyhow, a while ago this demo by this band called HOST from Leeds started popping up on tumblr, various blogs and facebook. A couple of friends raved about them. I took one look at the use of a still "Begotten" in their artwork, noted they were from Leeds, presumed they were another one of these fucking dreadful Thirty Days of Night Records pseudo metal "occult hardcore"/Holy Terror Muppet Baby bullshit bands and didn't bother. Then someone else blabbed on to me about them at a gig in London when we played there two weeks ago and I finally got around to giving it a listen yesterday. It's pretty great. Three songs of murky metallic hardcore, with a guitar tone that so filthy it could smother an elephant and some very strong songwriting. Which shouldn't have surprised me because, as fate would have it, it's Christie from Manuscripts' new band.

The middle song on this, "Dissidence", makes it worth a listen alone, though the other two are solid enough. It's the one I keep coming back to, and weirdly makes me think of some sort of cross breed of Fleshpress and the deceased UK band Frightener. Will appeal equally I imagine to fans of both the A389 set and those like myself whose tastes lean towards the rawer end of things.

Very early days for this band. Very early. I've no idea what their plan is next other than some vague mention on their web page that they've recorded a split of some kind. One would hope that although there is a genuinely macabre tone to this music that most bands attempting this kinda thing fail miserably at, they won't cheapen it by sticking fucking pentagrams, one of the LaVeys or woodcuts on their record sleeves and shirts as a number of their contemporaries seem to be doing (there's a whole post about this coming up so I'll curtail the ranting for now). They have an identity approaching their own musically, I'd like to see them extended that to their visual approach too.

grab it here

Meanwhile, Down Under..

2011-07-08T14:14:00.000-07:00

Aussies do - from my limited knowledge - pissed off better than most other countries.Maybe it's the convict blood, maybe it's the psychic spawn of Rupture, I don't know, but anytime I've come across an Australian band playing the harsher end of hardcore punk, they really up[ the harshness stakes. It's a scene I'm constantly trying to find out more about, be it through zines or blogs or whatever I can. A couple of demos have come to my attention lately that I just wanted to mention real quick.

You've got to love a band from Australia, a place most of us rain-hogging Irish fucks take it is the land of eternal sunshine and heat,calling themselves SHIT WEATHER. Cheeky fucks. But yeah, this is the sound of a storm inside someone's head which probably goes some way to explaining it. Grittily recorded but still clear sounding demo from this band that showcases some of the bleakest fast music (angry is easy to do at high speeds, bleak not so much) I've heard in a while.Too early for me to pick a favourite but it's alll pretty good. You can download it from bandcamp and I reccomend you do so asap.They aren't fucking around.

My friend Sean who runs the excellent Downsided zine and Skullfucked blog forwarded me on a demo he helped put out by DOWNPOUR(again with the meteorological sarcasm) which is less murky and tuned down, and more in the Infest/Extortion kinda vein. Not the most mindblowing thing I've ever head but I've enjoyed it more and more with each listen.I like the fact that the singer actually sounds pissed off, and it comes off as venomous rather than meatheaded. Definitely worth a listen. "Axe to The Head" is my favourite of the bunch here. Again hit up their bandcamp or try grabbing one here, though I know Sean is travelling around a bit at the moment so you may have to wait for a response.

Also,while I'm talking about Australia, I'm just gonna leave this here:

Only seen three episodes of the US version and I love it - I'm about to watch the original Australian version which I believe is darker and more mean spirited. Which means I'll probably like that even more.

Scream?Reunion?Wha?

2011-07-06T06:02:00.000-07:00

When the fuck did this happen?There's a new ep coming out soon apparently that picks up from where the last few Scream records left off. Which I presume means it just sounds like Wool. Which is fine with me thanks.

No Faith

2011-07-06T03:45:00.000-07:00

I like Vaccine and everything, but they're not exactly top of the pile when I want something fast and angry to listen to. This new Vaccine side project NO FAITH seems like something I will be reaching for regularly when the rage sets in however. Posted on a message board by vocalist Matthew, it's him, Will Killingsworth (his Vaccine band mate and member of several other bands), the drummer from Vaccine/Think I Care and some lad that was in Hoax. If that line up suggests some kind of Youth Attack "mysterious guy hardcore" bollocks you'll be pleasantly surprised to hear it's pretty much the most blatant Bovine records/Suppression/Gasp worship in years - lots of noise thrown into the mix too watch makes it nice and harsh.

It's a one off band I believe, and an lp is on the way, that's supposedly 15 song in about 16 minutes. Side One has been posted by the band online, so I've no qualms reposting it for you here.

The song "Predator" is excellent. Curious to hear the entire thing.

Church Whip

2011-07-05T06:48:00.000-07:00

Arising from the ashes of the infamous Divisions, Church Whip are the essence of the humanity's basest instincts in musical form. The just released "demo 1" cassette" is their first transmission from the cold, jagged cave I like to think that they live in - there's no w ay music this feral could be produced by folks who live in normal homes right?

I get burned out on hardcore sometimes. I get tired of the feeling that the anger and rage it's supposed to convey is being faked or forced, and of feeling that instead of it being a vehicle for people who feel far removed from the the average joe it's actually just a fucking youth clique in different clothes. Then once in a while a band like Church Whip will come along and kick all my doubt aside in a big shit-stained pair of hobnail boots. This feels right to me, it feels like an honest expression of desperation and barely contained violence. It feels like this music was just floating around like some black vapour somewhere and has just found human hosts to allow it to burst forth.

I can't stop listening to it basically. It's nothing you haven't heard before, but it's delivered with sheer conviction.It feels like a razor being scraped across my brain. See if you can get one from here.

Sunday Morning DEATH METAL

2011-06-19T05:55:00.001-07:00

I'm off on tour.Here's a video from Fortress's first show. Ex Crowd Control.Death Metal.Yeah.

2011-06-18T07:58:00.001-07:00

If you're in Dublin tonight , come to this.

2011-06-14T03:52:00.001-07:00

Column of Heaven tapes go out tomorrow, having arrived this morning. I'm not accepting any further mailorders. Drainland will have a batch on tour next week.. I am to all intents and purposes sold out right now.

Distros/shops who shouldl be stocking them in the next week or so:

Into The Void (Dublin)
At War With False Noise(Scotland)
Super Fi (UK)
Parade of Spectres (UK)
Bis Auf Messer (Germany)
Graanrepubliek (Holland)

The Sea of Shit 7" will be available in July.
Prison Chapel " Shame Spiral " tape at some stage before the end of the year

SMR vol3

2011-06-12T07:09:00.000-07:00

This was on a comp lp I had when I was a kid called "Time to Rock".It's awesome.End of.

Bank Holiday Monday RAWK

2011-06-06T12:27:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I left out last week's Sunday Morning Rawk. Sorry y'all. I had a three day hangover last weekend after attending a friend's wedding out of town, and having consumed probably more alcohol than I ever have in my life by the time I'd been roused from my slumber on Sunday morning the last thing on my mind was posting shite online. And yesterday, I was in a rush to practice and missed out completely. To make up for it though, I'm giving you a double dose tonight.

When I was about 8, Queen were my favourite band in the world. I saw their Live Aid set on tv and it fried my tiny brain. I kind of forgot about them as I got older but there was an excellent two part BBC documentary about them earlier this week which has sent me off through their back catalogue for the first time and years, and I pretty much had to pick a Queen song this way as a means of sharing the joy of rediscovery. It was a hard one, and possibly a controversial choice, but I'm going with this belter, one of their last truly great full on rockers. In spite of the fact that I can actually play guitar now, at least partially as a result of this song, this tunes till makes me want to strap on a tennis racket and unleash some tasty air guitar licks.

Remember Vinnie Vincent? No, of course you fucking don't. He was in Kiss for five minutes back in the 80s - I can't remember which albums he was on, and I can't be fuckered trying to look it up, because as far as I'm concerned all Kiss records weren't actually played by human beings, but by massive life sized cartoon characters. Anyhow, this guy popped up in the news out of nowhere this week after (allegedly) assaulting his wife and keeping dead dogs on his property. Which in turn triggered memories of this "classic" from his world famous post-Kiss band Vinnie Vincent's Invasion, whose debut album I'm sure you all have. I'm sure it sold millions, just not on this planet. From 3:41 on is solid fucking gold.

New Young Shields video

2011-06-01T15:42:00.000-07:00

Is there anything David Balfe can't do?Written, played, recorded, filmed and edited by the man himself.

2011-05-31T13:43:00.000-07:00

Column of Heaven tapes can now be ordered for €5 ppd.
Ireland/Uk/Europe only. Wholesale is doable, trades are not.Tapes should be back in approx 10 days.

payments to cesspoolrecords@gmail.com

PLEASE put your address and "COH tape" in the notes.

Sunday Morning RAWK vol.3

2011-05-22T04:17:00.001-07:00

I am excruciatingly hungover.

He's a Whore

2011-05-18T13:59:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so, normally I'd spin some nonsense about "demonic whirlwinds" or "immersive audio occultism" to try and describe death metal done good, but really the context it's worked best in for me today has been as a balm against being stuck in a city with no way in or out for a couple of hours,arguing with cops, public transport staff, the woman I live with, and some dumb gangsta kid over the course of a three hour journey home (it should take 45 minutes), and being at a level of such apoplectic rage with everyone and everything around me that I honestly want to smash every window in the city.

This Whore (the new Swedish band, as opposed to the old US band) demo on repeat soundtracked that and their frenzied Incubus/Usurper/Grotesque/Slaughter Lord style death metal is better than Necros Christos or Morbus Chron or whatever other shitty boring death metal the NWN crowd are jizzing all over this week.

Download from these guys because the band apparently can't be arsed making more

The Bastard Noise/Actuary lp is cooling my blood further, but more about that later.

Dude, where's my COH?

2011-05-18T04:44:00.000-07:00

Do I have Column of Heaven tapes for sale yet?No, I don't yet but I should do first week of June.

I'd prefer you didn't but if you absolutely must order one right now , or if you want some wholesale for distro then please email pentagrimes@gmail.com and I'll talk to you about payment details for preordering one later today. I'm only accepting Euro/UK/Irish orders currently.

Oh, I think I'm going to have a relatively positive update on the Sea of Shit 7" before week's end too, once I've updated the band.

Sunday Morning Rawk vol.2

2011-05-15T02:36:00.000-07:00

Look at the fucking head on Udo Dirkschneider. He's like a camouflage wearing bond villain. What a legend.
Still,killer song, headache inducing video aside. Perfect for killing time while waiting for the coffe pot to come to the boil I think you'll agree.

In other news, I've just interviewed Galway sludge mob Rites over here

She Wolfe Of The Damned

2011-05-13T13:53:00.000-07:00

I'm a sucker for slightly ethereal female singers. It's probably the end result of repeated listens to Kate Bush and Fleetwood Mac as a kid and too much Cocteau Twins and Bjork in my teens, but I can't get enough of it. I'll tolerate a level of pretentiousness and austerity in female artists that makes me retch when carried on with by men. I'm sure Freud would have a field day. It's obviously some sort of musical succubus thing of summat, I dunno, and I'm not going to over analyse it, but when I want to listen to something chilled out nowadays, it's more likely going to be something like Grouper or Zola Jesus rather than fucking, I dunno.. Mogwai or whatever.But yeah, girls who sing rule my world. Lads with acoustic guitars can fuck off and take their "sensitive male" bullshit with them.

It seems strange that the first place I came across the name Chelsea Wolfe was on the Grace Board (which for those of you who don't know is the Holy Terror records message board/online Integrity fanboy circlejerk). Sure, there's some vague occult-type sigil on the sleeve of "The Grime and The Glow", and there's an element of what I saw referred to somewhere as the "witchy woman rock" archtype to her both in terms of music and image, but the music lives up to it I think. It's ghostly and slightly eerie but not in some over the top way. It's autumnal music I think, or music for one your house is empty and it's shitty weather outside. The fact it was self recorded on an 8 track adds to that vibe somewhat- it's a more natural, intimate sound. Anyway, the songs are really good, quietly intense in places, more raucous and loose in others. If I had to pick a favourite, the closing "Widow" is a fine piece of dark musical hypnotism and "The Whys" is a raw howl at the campfire moon.But really my favourite song changes everyday. She has a 10" called "Apokalypsis" out shortly which is slightly more hi-fi and polished, but just as good.

Incidentally,let's get this out of the way: it's not on this album, but she covers "Black Spell of Destruction" by Burzum.Yes, I know, a female singer/songwriter covering Burzum sounds like some sort of horrible, horrible ironic hipster gimmick. Chelsea Wole possibly is an ironic hipster, I don't know, but I'm in the rare position of being one of the few black metal fans on earth who couldn't give a fuck about Burzum - and to be honest, I'd rather listen to Wolfe's drowsy, fuzzed out version than the original. It sounds convincingly enough like a nightmare (bar some horrible drums that sound like a car door being banged with a shovel) that I can enjoy it on its' own merits and feel like she makes it her own.

Speaking of female artists incidentally, I just saw there's a Katie Kim/Laura Sheeran spit 7" coming out soon which is fucking tremendous news - Both have released excellent albums in their own right. Plus KK's from my hometown, and is probably the best musical export from there in fuck knows how long, so I have to big up the Deise in the rare chance I get to do so.

Just call me "Mixmaster J"

2011-05-10T12:15:00.000-07:00

Because I don't have enough going on , I've recently started writing for a new US based website called Cvltnation. My first official act as a staff member was to submit this mixtape of all Irish bands for the site, if you;d care to check it out. There were a bunch of songs I either didn't get in time or forgot to include, so an appendix will appear here on DH later this week.

Andreas Marschall's "MASKS"

2011-05-10T02:35:00.000-07:00

Oh the ever twining strands that are horror and heavy metal, what a tangled web they sometimes weave.

I came across this here trailer for the movie "Masks" online on Sunday night and thought it looked pretty interesting - definitely a throwback to the Giallo era but with a more blatant gore element that suggests it's more of an update than a simple tribute to the style (such as Helene Cattet's "Amer" last year - a movie I still can't decide if I really liked or not). The trailer definitely had me interested.

Anyway, the name Andreas Marschall attached to it sounded vagueley familiar, and a quick flick through Google confirmed that yes, I had seen one of the guy's movies before in the shape of "Tears of Kali",an enjoyable and grizzly enough little flick based on three tales of horror based around the central concept of a therapy group called the Taylor-Eriksson group whose weird methods end up having horrific consequences for their patients.

Then, my curiosity about the guy momentarily satisfied,it dawned on me there was another reason the name Andreas Marschall sounded familiar. And that reason is this:

Yep, the cover for Immolation's "Dawn of Possession" was painted by no less than the very same Andreas Marschall. The same guy who made both "Tears of Kali" and "Masks". He's also painted covers for the likes of Obituary, Kreator, Sodom, Annihlator, Blind Guardian, In Flames and a ton of other bands. I can't believe I didn't twig it straight away.

It's always interesting to see something like this - having grown up with a bunch of his paintings adorning record sleeves, it's interesting to see him work in the movie medium.Admittedly I don't see much parallel between his album art and his movie work, and I'm sure he probably wants it that way, but it's clear he's just as talented behind the camera as he is behind the paintbrush.

"Masks" is still in production but I believe it's due for relase later this year. I'm hoping it shows up in time for "Horrorthon" this October so I can see it on a big screen.

Sunday Morning Rawk.Part 1.

2011-05-08T02:31:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so we have this weird ritual in our house on Sunday mornings. I get up, make breakfast for my daughter and turn on the pc to do the usual morning email check. So while my better half has a lie in, and I rushedly lash together some pancakes for the wee 'un before legging it out to band practice,I fire up a playlist full of vaguely cheesy 70's/80's rock and metal to blare in the background. My kid, being vaguely obsessed with the movie "School of Rock" has a keen interest in the classics that I'm guessing most 7 year olds don't,which generally results in her pulling some serious Jack Black style air guitar action to whatever's on which is pretty hilarious but..yeah,basically, Sunday Mornings are now The Morning Of Rock. So now you too can reenact my riff-fuelled panic every morning via this here "SUNDAY MORNING RAWK" feature.

So I'm gonna post one of these every Sunday morning. It's the breakfast of champions. Honestly, bad haired stadium metal gets you set up for the day like nothing else on earth.

To kick start this nonsense,here's my daughter's current favourite, and the best reason in the world that bands shouldn't try and act in their videos..sing along now

Barn Owl / Jefre Cantu-Ledesma

2011-04-29T12:50:00.000-07:00

Though I've only been there twice, I can safely say I like the Joinery. It's essentially a gutted shop front that's an art gallery on a side street on the North Side of Dublin, where in addition to the usual exhibitions and the like it occasionally plays host to small gigs. It fits maybe..I dunno, I'd guess 60 people or so, and it's BYOB. I saw an amazing Toymonger/Family Battle Snake/Sudden Infant show there last year, and last night I was there for Eamonn Bailey/Jefre Cantu Ledesma/Barn Owl.

I'm very much a casual listener when it comes to all things droney, and I won't pretend otherwise - my prior knowledge of all three performers is limited and has before last night consisted of the odd track here or there streamed from the Aquarius and Root Strata websites and related blogs. A lot of times (with the exception of Ben Frost, Grouper and SunnO)) ) live performances based more on tones and drones don't do it for me live - it's generally headphone listening for me and gets tedious in a gig setting I find. Environment has a lot to do with how I enjoy music. So if this gig had, say, happened in Whelans or The Lower Deck or wherever, I'd imagine the effect would have been very different. But in a small space like the Joinery, it was perfect.

Eamonn Bailey opens proceedings, and what he's doing musically is enjoyable, as it was when he opened for Nadja in the Twisted Pepper a year or so ago, but unfortunately as sweet a sound it is he embodies why this doesn't work for me live.For one thing, he's the dreaded "guy with a laptop" - there's no engagement between the performer and his equipment, no trace of emotion (nb: I'm not singling Eamonn out for this,it's true of anyone I've seen who does laptop sets... Oh, hi there Merzbow, how's it going?), and though he employs projections in an effort to compensate I'm afraid I can't really feel there's any connection between the sound I'm hearing and what I'm seeing. Musicaly it's all very nice but he seems to go on a bit long and I can only take so much of it after a while - I realise this is not the time or the place for me to try and check his tuneage. I'll certainly listen to what he's doing again for sure, but live..it just kind of washes over me.

It's not like Jefre Cantu-Ledesma is Freddie Mercury in the stage presence thing either of course, but there at the top of the chain of flickering pedal lights and effects racks, is still a man with wrestling with an instrument, rocking back and forth eyes closed - and immediately in spite of the processes being used to create the sound, the human element makes his performance more engaging. He's joined by a scarf-headed female vocalist (I presume this is Lisa McGee who provides vocals on his album, please correct me if I'm wrong)who faces him, cooing through effects sweetly throughout. It's sugary, fuzzy shoegaze that should be mildly irritating but instead is total bliss, and feels like it's over in no time. Still, more of a late night record than an evening ata venue, but a good set nonetheless.

Barn Owl are the highlight though. Again, wasn't hugely familiar with them so when the opening of their set is one of them indulging in some quasi-religious wailing, I'm prepared for the worst. What follows however is a tide of guitars that shifts just when you need it to but flows steadily. The dynamics and control thereof are amazing. And again, the human element adds a lot - two guys communing intensely with their guitars and managing to get both whispers and screams out of them. It's fairly mellow but weirdly tense, and builds to some amazing low end riffage and rumble halfway through. It's hypnotic as fuck, and the volume in such a small room when it hits hardest really does cause the music to make the hairs stand on end. So much dynamic and exploration at work when they do this live - I picked up a bunch of records which I have yet to delve into, but this was really an example of how this kind of performance can and should work.It's evocative and physical at the same time. Amazing stuff.

Ecstatically Embracing All That We Habitually Suppress

2011-04-29T12:45:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note as it's been mentioned elsewhere, so I should clarify: in spite of having recently officially retired from doing a label, I will shortly (ie:within the next three or four weeks) have copies of the COLUMN OF HEAVEN demo tape to distribute. Folks in the US go to 20 Buck Spin, and in Canada you can get them from Just Say No, I'll cover orders from Ireland, the UK and Europe. No crazy limitation and I'll keep it in print as long as the band are happy to let me.

For those who don't know, COLUMN OF HEAVEN are essentially the follow on of the ENDLESS BLOCKADE. The demo is made up of six songs, which I've been listening to constantly since I got them. COH feels like a more feral, destructive version of EB to me. Obviously, if you liked Blockade you'll very much enjoy this. "Binge and Purge" is audible here if you'd like to listen.

When tapes arrive and are ready to go out I'll post here to let everyone know. If anyone who runs a distro is looking to get some from me, drop me a line at drainlandband@gmail.com but please bear in mind I don't do a distro/mailorder anymore and therefore don't trade, so it'll be wholesale only (which will be whatever the cost price of the tape is, so it should be cheap enough)

No Sleep til Tilburg

2011-04-20T13:14:00.000-07:00

Oooh, it's been an awful long time.
Here's some of what I did last weekend.

2011-02-23T12:19:00.000-08:00

Terrible news. I'll write about how ENT were partially responsible for changing my life shortly.

The ones that got away pt.1

2011-01-02T09:25:00.001-08:00

I have absolutely no intention of doing any kind of "best of 2011" type list. My choices would probably be very obvious (ie: Swans)and my urge to edit and re-edit the list would result in an endless series of updates which would render it an incomprehensible mess. But if there's one batch of releases I'd like to highlight from 2011, it's the few that came out in the final month or two of the year and sneaked under most people's radars.

The obvious place to start is with the seemingly out of nowhere arrival of a new FOETUS record, "Hide" which I first heard of when a friend mentioned he'd recieved a copy for review back in late November/early December. I wasn't massively keen on "Love", it's predecessor (well, if you discount remix albums and collections of older/reworked material)but J.G.Thirlwell is someone whose work I've always held in high regard. This new record is definitely one I'm glad I picked up, as it's a stormer.

More downbeat than previous work, but broader in scope and wider in ambition, it takes more of a turn towards his soundtrack/Manorexia work in places but delivers the more pop based stuff as well. "Paper Slippers" is a touching piano led highlight early on,"You're Trying to Break Me" and "Stood Up" come from the more rock based angle, but it's the operatic nightmare of the opening "Cosmetics" and it's brief counterpart "Fortitudine Vincemus" that really get the hair standing on end.I could go through this track by track but we'd be here all day, but's it's all there - the gutter Elvisism, the Sergio Leone waywardness, bursts of music concrete, the apocalyptic torch songs..each one of these is winner and it's a fine addition to the Foetus catalog. Well worth picking up and I'm a little saddened by the seeming lack of coverage it's recieved. Order and check samples here

I'm lumping the next two in together for convenience - they're both death metal releases, and to be honest I've not had either a huge amount of time yet but first impressions are boding well that they'll be receiving repeated plays over the coming months.

GRAVE RITUAL released a great demo on the now sadly defunct (I think)Skeleton Plague tape label a while back, and the debut LP "Euphoric Hymns from the Altar of Death" builds on the promise of that strongly. Fetid, Autopsy and Necrophagia-esque death metal that's played with a sense of conviction and focus.Pretty fast and brutal for the most part but not afraid to slow down when needs be, and with the sense of horror and dread necessary for this music to work attained and kept up pretty well throughout. I'd definitely suggest picking this up if you can,from the fine folks over at Dark Descent Records

Speedwise,the inverse of this is the next record I want to mention, which is DRUID LORD's "Hymns for the Wicked"LP which crawled out of the sewers in early December in a fine, Putrid Art packaged vinyl pressing. Consisting primarily of some ex Acheron/Equinox folks, this trio are unsurprisingly old school in sound but opt for the slower to mid paced approach, and spread the lurking fear quite nicely thank you with this horror movie themed set. This could have come out in 1991 to be honest, reminding me more of bands like Mythic, Winter, and even what a more / brutal Dream Death might have sounded like than most current death metal revivalists. I kind of picked this up on a whim and out of curiosity but it's been a definite keeper, and a record more people should know about. Order via Witches Tone records, and if Anna has any of the fancy Die Hard version left, grab one of those.

Prank? Records

2011-01-01T02:39:00.000-08:00

I knew it seemed to good to be true. This morning I spotted online word of a new release, seemingly from out of nowhere, by the legendary and long defunct Bovine Records - the seminal 90s sludge/noise rock/powerviolence label that for me pretty much was an era definier, releasing as it did stuff by the likes of Eyehategod, Thug, Grief, Suppression, Boris, Charles Bronson, Turbonegro, and many more -not to mention the "Loud & Ugly" comp (a personal milestone to yours truly).

I'd briefly been in touch with Sean Wipfli by email a year or so ago and he certainly hadn't mentioned resurrecting the label then.Conveniently enough, it would appear that J Randall of Agoraphobic Nosebleed has done it for him.

According to a blogpost from him this morning:
"Sean we have jacked your label and are holding it hostage until you come out of hiding, seclusion, jail and turn over to us the complete Thug discography for release. We do this out of love Sean and because we truly miss you. Sorry your sacred cow is now being lead to slaughter but burgers just haven't tasted the same since you closed up shop and we need that Bovine quality beef."

Hence the arrival online of the downloadable "Grindcore Lu'au" by the legendary WADGE over at Bovine Records 2.0 on a bandcamp page.

Wether this is a one off prank or a serious attempt to get the label going again I don't know, but if it's the latter one would hope they'd keep the same level of quality and put this shit out on vinyl. And a THUG discography would be great too.

Update:Shortly afterwards, this open letter to J Randall surfaced on the To Live A Lie Board

"Dear J.,
Have fun with Bovine 2.0. I could give a shit less what you do. The chances of you doing a label half as good as the old Bovine are nil. Bovine will never be resurrected, cuz it's done and in the past.

There will be no Thug discography. The idea of putting one out is completely retarded. Just like you, Mr. pro-Relapse, anti-Scion. Thank you for making me laugh at you once this year tho. It had been a long time.

I'm not hiding - I post here all the time, Richard Johnson has my e-mail address. I prefer seclusion, I'm not in jail, and the love you feel is not mutual.

Neat facto: I'm working on starting a new label. Was working on it in 2010, but never got the right combo of steam and cash. I've refrained from making any statements about it cuz I remain on the fence about it. It will mostly be noise and noisecore releases, all of them very limited DIY CD-R releases.

Happy New Year,
Sean"

Mental.

ASCENSION "Consolamentum"

2010-12-25T04:40:00.000-08:00

You gotta love a band releasing their album Christmas Eve.

Sample here.

DH will be back in action as normal as of next week.

Lethiferous

2010-10-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

To be truthful there is a possibility I'm conferring on Lethiferous a higher level of praise than they might really be worthy of.

Certainly, the man behind the project (and sole member on this demo) Iain Andrew seems to think so. But context is often a great swayer of opinion, and taken in the context of the current Irish underground being utterly deprived of this style of raw, unholy death metal in favour of a dull majority adapting a more sterile and "brutal" (yeah, right) Suffocation/Unique Leader strain, Lethiferous are manna from hell. A rough, amateurish blend of Beherit/Demoncy bestiality, and the crude but atmospheric spirit of demo era Autopsy or Immolation, it's absolutely nothing you haven't heard before. But as an example of sheer musical atavism it's unlike anything to emerge from the sewers of Ireland in fuck knows how long. The intention with Lethiferous doesn't appear to be to superficially repeat the past or recreate what's already been done, it seems like an honest attempt at channeling the essence of early death metal in a modern, personal context. This isn't nostalgia, nor is it homage, it's just a younger branch of an old tree sprouting for the first time.

Recorded analog style and released in a tiny (approx 30) home dubbed run, this demo was intially made purely for his own enjoyment and to be passed out amongst friends. The response locally from folks into this style has been such that thankfully Lethiferous is becoming a full time band, and I think currently all that's missing is a drummer to complete this line up. The intial run is all gone I believe and Iain is hoping to find someone to do a larger pressing, so any interested parties should hit him up withoutdelay at lethiferouswar@hotmail.com to help him spread the word. Fingers crossed we won't have to wait too long for the full line up to start gigging and recording, but in the meantime, and with the permission of the man himself, here's a rip of the demo. It's crude and

A quick caveat about the quality here - owing to the ropey home dubbed quality of the tape and the overall shitness of my computer, this is pretty bad quality overall, about on a par with a home copied 3rd generation demo you might have recieved via tape trading back in the day. So while that probably adds to the whole atmosphere, it wasn't intentional and I don't have the necessary equipment to provide a higher quality version. Get over it.

here

UPDATE: Full reissue of the demo coming soon via WARCOMMAND records

2010-10-17T05:33:00.001-07:00

DHC is boring as hell. Apart from the Blind, Frustration and these guys.Listen here.

Interview with Chrissy boy very soon.

The damage is done, baby

2010-10-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

It's mouse season in our house. As soon as the temperature drops below a certain point, and the evenings and mornings go back to being dark as they do around this time every year, our little rodent friends find their way up through the walls and into our kitchen, leading to much panic from the female members of the family and much "oh for fuck's sake..hide all the food" type talk from me. Usually we try and use one of these sonic blaster things to get rid of them and they're gone after a bit, but the frequency emitter thing that normally sends them packing is broken.

As I sat in my living room last night listening to the closing, looped feedback screech that closes Tile's one sided "Welcome to ditchyourfriendsville" LP, I couldn't help but notice one of the little furry intruders scurry off across the floor back to the relative safety of wherever he came from, and I wondered if maybe I'd found a replacement for the now delapidated Audio Rodent Removal Device. Certainly I'd wager at the correct volume Tile probably have sent bigger creatures than mice fleeing for their lives. Hell, at the right volume the one note, skull collapsing riff of the album's brutal final track "I Run The Show" might even have me running for cover.

My introduction to Tile, in fact the first and only place I'd heard of them until recently was when infamous Finnish riff stable Kult of Nihilow announce the release of a 7" by the band. Not having heard the name but automatically being curious about anything KON has a hand in, I clicked on a link to their website and after a bit of poking around was checking out samples from various points of their discography thus far. A track or two of their early Floor by way of AmRep pummel and I was pretty much instantly hooked, and ordered the 7" and a copy of the aforementioned lp from the KON distro. Best fucking whim purchase I've made this year. Easily.

The reason nerds like me write blogs like this are manifold, but generally revolve around the dual needs of doing something remotely contructive with what little spare time we have, and somehow letting the world know about music we like that we think everyone else should like too. We're not tastemakers really, perhaps we all might like to think we are as we huddle over our laptops and extol the virtues of whatever obscure bands we've been listening to, kidding ourselves our "enlightened" opinions are important enough that some randomer somewhere will check out some music we're talking about. Ultimately it's a futile, self serving gesture and an act of vanity.Having said that, I don't think I've really felt the same need to get up and go tell it on the proverbial mountain about a band with the same urge as I do right now, with these guys.

They're the kind of band I wish I had spare money to buy extra copies of the records by to just give to people I think will enjoy their music. Tile are very much of a dying breed I feel - while there world is certainly not wanting at the moment for downtuned sludge or distorted noise rock, Tile inhabit the rare intersection of those two where the lowtuned guitars are as much of a percussive element as the drums, and where the production is less about noise for noise sake and more about clarity allowing blunt force to be portrayed. In that sense while most current noise rock lurches back into the overly distorted guts of the Brainbombs or Pussy galore at their most in the red, Tile are a more precise mutant offspring of Unsane or early Harvey Milk at their absolute heaviest.

Theirs is the world of Albini-esque lyrical vistas where sociopaths vent the frustrations of their dead end commuter and domestic lifetyles onto themselves and others. Theirs is the world where the bottom two strings of a guitar emit the same stomach churn of a bass drum or bass guitar, where repeated riffs that moan like an aircraft coming down are counterpointed by controlled jabs of feedback. The front of the 7" sleeve is a perfect synthesis of the sounds contained in the grooves, and their music in general - the weight of the beasts, the violence of their fall, yet there's strange, surreal beauty to the whole thing.

There's assorted snippets of Tile's aural car crash here and here. I thoroughly recommend picking up whatever you can by them as soon as possible if you like what you hear. As well as being a bit of work to locate their material comes out in perhaps unsurprisingly low pressings. I assure you it's worth whatever you have to go through to get it though.

As mentioned earlier though, your first stop if you;re in Europe/Ireland/The UK should probably be Kult of Nihilow's mailorder, as I'd imagine will have plenty of the 7" and maybe even a couple spare copies of the lp knocking around. If pick up the excellent new MKRL tape he's just put out, and keep your eyes peeled for the upcoming Throat 7" on the same label - operating in a similar neck of the woods to Tile, this Finnish mob are sort of like a Hammerhead to their Unsane.

Shadows of the Past

2010-10-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

Obviously I'm the five bazillionth blogger this week to write about Swedish Occult Rock prodigies Ghost - crack out the streamers, trumpets and balloons and give me my prize already. Yeah well, shut up and just be glad I've managed to curtail the urge every fibre in my body has right now to write yet another post about Swans or Autopsy. Though that'll probably happen next week again anyway. Quelle surprise.

Growing up in Waterford in the mid to late 80s one of the things that in hindsight I realise now had a huge impact on certain interests I have was the arrival of free cable television in the area - specifically the fact that in addition to the usual BBC/ITV/RTE domestic channels, we recieved pre-Murdoch Sky Television as part of the basic Cablelink package, along with Super Channel, a similar euro-based enterprise and early MTV.

MTV obviously still showed a wide variety of music at the time, but was only available late at night so I didn't see it that much, but Sky in particular was my 9 or 10 year old suburban television wet dream; it was home of the Fun Factory and the DJ Kat show, both of which pumped out hours of puppet and cartoon based children's programmes that made Saturday mornings (in the case of the former) and after school viewing (the latter) a wonderland of "Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors", "Mask", "Transformers, and - fuck it -"Jem and the Misfits". The classics, basically.

My pre pubescent self was also thrown into rapture with three other aspects of their scheduling . One of these was the arrival in my living room on a Saturday morning of WWF Wrestling, circa the golden era of Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Roddy Piper, The Macho Man Randy Savage and their seemingly endless legions of equally cretinous yet superhuman counterparts. The other two, which are specifically what I now define as taste-shaping formative viewing, were the one two knockout of "The Deadly Earnest Horror Show" and Mick Wall's "Monsters of Rock" metal video programme. My brother and I would sneak into my mum's bedroom every Friday noght to watch bits of these while she was downstairs, or vice versa if she was already in bed after a hard day of single parenting it up. (Note: Before some infinitely crabby nerd who remembers this dynamic duo points out that they were on different days or something, I should posibly clarify that nostalgia has literally bundled them together when they possibly weren't, but we're talking 20 plus years ago now like, so, y'know, fuck off.)

Anyhow, these two cathode deathrays splattered my mind into a thousand pieces, and were really my first introduction to my two biggest artistic loves - terrible cheaply made B grade Horror Movies and the more extreme elements of Heavy Metal; I can go even more specific here and telling you that seeing part of "Deranged" and live footage of Slayer's "Hell Awaits" for the first time as a result of these shows were the exact points in my life where I realised, even at that early age, that I felt an extraordinary attraction to things that (at that age) scared the absolute shit out of me.

To look back at this opening sequence of the" Deadly Earnest Horror Show" now, it's obvious that even at the time it was a nostalgic throwback to the American late night TV horror movie tradition - it's not scary at all with its' shitty graphics, styrofoam graveyard, camp vampire host and busty blonde sidekick dispensing terrible Christmas Cracker quality jokes. But there was still a sort of underlying eeriness to it, and it always set the mood for whatever Hammer classic or monster movie (or as noted above occasionally less novel feature) would follow. Bear in mind I was like 9 years old as I say, a point in your life where you're still not 100% that ghosts and monsters don't exist, so my naievety was really what allowed this to hold such power over me.

Slayer with their menacing, hellish deathmarch of an intro breaking into and eruption of utter aggression were a more serious proposition though. I liked the Iron Maiden and Judas Priest videos (I was taking my first steps to playing guitar at this age, so these guys and their twin leads were gods in my eyes) scattered amongst the hair metal debris, and I sort of knew Anthrax and Metallica, but this music was unlike anything else I'd ever heard by this time. It seemed like these guys were actually monsters, that this might really be "the devil's music" the way that the media at the time made it out to be. I thought demons might fly out of the TV speaker and drag me to hell, but this sound was so exciting at the same time to me that I wasn't necessarily going to resist if this actually happened.

Both this music and these movies stirred simaltaneous feelings of awe and fright in me at a crucial early point in my life. They both seemed like transmissions from some haunted parallel universe where fear and joy were one and the same. They made me skin crawl and I liked it. They seemed like a direct gateway to a neverending Halloween somewhere, that I desperately wanted to be part of.

What the hell does this have to do with Ghost you wonder?

It's simple.

The feeling that I get whenever I listen to the three song promo only Ghost demo that's been doing the rounds online for the last while is exactly the same mixture of the thrilling and the genuinely eerie that I felt those many years ago when this was all new to me and I was stumbling baby step style into the caverns of darker culture for the first time early on - they capture that same sense of wonder for me that those shows and their contents did. In short, their sound feels like a revenant voice calling out from a time when my own personal abyss was opening .

The attention to detail is pure magic with this band, just look at the fucking band photo for fuck's sake; it's like a visual statement of what their music conveys combining as it does the theatrical and knowingly nostalgic horror surface with a darker element hidden in the background. There's a familiarity in their sound certainly as it reminds me alternately of the likes of Pentagram, Blue Oyster Cult, even a little Roky Erikson but weirdly they also remind me of classic Hammer/Tigon movies both in their imagery (artwork, lyrics, that photo) and the mastefully creepy atmosphere.

How they pull this off musically is by countering this over the top visual aspect with a surprising subtlety in the music. Listen carefully to the guitars and you realise a lot of the time they're muted or dampened sounding as opposed to the kind of full on power chord bashing peddled by their (admittedly great) countrymen and peers in bands like In Solitude or Portrait . Take note of the production - sure it's a little weedy maybe compared to the aforementioned peers, but the slightly dated and dull edge to it works beautifully in creating that nostalgic haunted house feeling. And the vocals..oh the vocals.

The voice of Ghost is clear and calm, staying in a medium register and free of histrionics, allowing every word to be clearly audible in telling its' stories of satanic rites with a restraint that's actually kind of chilling. It's seductive, in the way that darkness is supposed to be, inviting you to listen closely and lose yourself in what it's saying.. Even when crooning lines so utterly cheese as to virtually reek of Gorgonzola, the delivery has a strange almost detached quality to it that's genuinely sinister. The unexpected chord changes, the suddenly melodic choruses following moody riffs..there's some seriously classic songwriting going on here.

Style over substance? Yeah. Maybe. Do I care? Not in this case, no. Personally "Prime Mover" is the gem of the three for me but each song is pure fucking brilliance. The essence of what makes the dark side of music, of movies, of creativity in general hasn't been this expertly captured in recent memory and if that's due to a calculated formula then so be it.

LISTEN HERE

DIOCLETIAN/WITCHRIST in Dublin

2010-10-08T03:13:00.001-07:00

Just fucking GO

ebay shite

2010-10-02T08:27:00.000-07:00

yeah, I'm broke - tapes by ASH POOL,BONE AWL, NOMINON,NACHTMYSTIUM, ANCESTORS, some vinyl and some shorts (PULLING TEETH, SIX FIX,WEREWOLF JERUSALEM) up on ebay here, more in the coming days:

National Fanboy Week

2010-09-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

Oh who am I kidding with this "I should be studying" lark.It clearly ain't gonna happen.

So this week is the most important musical week of the year for me for three reasons - namely the release (and in one case re-release) of new records by three of my favourite bands ever have officially dropped in the last 7 days. Allow me to get all fanboy-ish even more so than normal here as I talk you through this (un)holy trinity of audial manna from heaven

1) SWANS have returned after a 13 year absence with "My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky".

Now, those of you who know me in real life will know that Swans returning was to me not dissimilar to how the pope might feel if he had official confirmation that Jesus had risen from the dead again - the same mixture of shock, nervousness and utter joy. This band have affected me more than most, both as a listener and in terms of my approach to playing music. Heck, my own band's name comes from a Swans-releated project so you can do the math yourself as far as how much I adore this band. Having nabbed a copy of the "I Am Not Insane" cd set Mr Gira put out to raise funds for this album as soonas it came out, I'd grown accustomed to the acoustic demos on that intended for this new Swans record, and was expecting something more like "Love of Life" or an Angels of Light album - both of which would have been fine. But this full band version delivers a record that is absolute, categorically Swans and Swans alone, summoning up the all enveloping sound that the band has perfected, and which I felt AOL was missing.

This has the blend of calm, filmic moments I expected, but to my utter delight it also delivers a couple of moments of skullcrushing rythmic power that I honestly didn't expect: the opening "No Words/No Thoughts" kicks off with the kind of density "Children of God" had, "Eden Prison" recalls the weight of "All Lined Up" from "Soundtracks for the Blind", and the second half of "You Fucking People Make Me Sick" is absolutely terrifying. Sure, the likes of "Reeling The Liars In" are worthy moments in Swans history, but for a fan of the old stuff, this record's brief hints of that old time density and slave ship grind are unexpected treasure. This record somehow manages to reference their various previous incarnations without repeating anything they've done thus far, and presents a new and revitalised chapter that I'm excited to see progress.To come back after such a long time with such a great record (because nostalgia aside, this really is a great record by anyone's standards) is no mean feat, and to deliver on the statement that this is not some sort of reunion or nostalgia trip is a total revelation. Probably the best comeback album ever, and the simaltaneous ability to both tug at the heartstrings and pummel the gut is still second to none.

I cannot wait to see this band live when they play the Button factory on October 22nd - I've been listening to them for almost 20 years now, and never thought I'd ever get the chance - they broke up just as I was old enough to start going to gigs. Based on talk online and this fucking stunner of a video, they will deliver.

2) As if that wasn't enough, AUTOPSY's new "The Tomb Within" mini lp arrived in the mail earlier this week.

Much like Swans, this is a band I grew up on, have loved dearly from my adolescence through to now, and never expected to surface again after their breakup never mind return with such a belting record. The 7" from last year was a welcome return, and I'd have been happy enough if that was their swansong, but this new five tracker goes a huge way to providing tangible evidence that there is more than enough new blood coursing through the old corpse to make this return something special. Reminsicent most of the faster bits of "Mental Funeral" and particularly the "Fiend For Blood" ep (probably their most underrated record to me), they rip through these tunes like men on a mission. Hearing the dynamic duo of Cutler and Coralles twist those guitar lines like it was 1991 on the title track is an absolute joy.

Part of the reason that Autopsy hold such a special place in my heart is their superior ability to capture in music a similar feeling that my favourite horror films do, or more accurately did when I saw them for the first time - that rare combination of black humoured mischief and genuine menace. There are very few other bands I can think of who manage to make me smile and feel slightly creeped out at the same time, and the pacing of their songs is a large part of the reason why. Autopsy set horror stories to music that give them the feel of being the audio equivalent of an issue of "Tales from the Crypt", and if you view their canon from that point of view the title track to this is a particulary fine example with the music and lyrics builiding in tandem to a heartstopping ending. This is a fucking masterclass that everyone should be subjected to. Also, the sleeve art is A1.

3) Finally, and without much fanfare, I got these three beauties in the mail on Tuesday

BRAINBOMBS are the logical progression..actually, fuck that, regression that was destined to happen as soon as The Stooges released their first album. Brainbombs are the neanderthal musical embodiment of the basic human urges to both fuck and fight (or perhaps to do both at the same time), the sound of Eros and Thanatos crashing to earth after some kind of celestial bar brawl. If you don't already know, I'm not going to explain further. I'll just add that I'm delighted to finally have these on vinyl after years of crappy burned cds."Ass Fucking Murder" sounds even more depraved with surface noise. Load records released "Urge to Kill" and "Singles", the "Burning Hell" reissue is from Skrammel. The ultimate in Exploitation Rock technology

2010-09-24T15:47:00.000-07:00

Exams are currently ruling my life as they have done for much of this year, so I'll have to make this brief - but rest assured if I pass this final exam, I pretty much get my spare time back again. Fingers crossed.

Just wanted to make something clear again, as it would seem that people have missed the (very clearly delineated) point of what I'm trying to do with this blog, so I'm just going to be blunt about it here: PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL ME ASKING TO REVIEW/PROMOTE/MENTION STUFF. This applies to my friends and bands I already like as much as it does the random, uninteresting labels who have added me to their mailing lists about whatever shitty "Post Sludge" and "New School Powerviolence" cds they have coming out. If I want to interview a band I will approach them myself, and if I want to review a release it will be one I've bought myself. This is basically an online fanzine, and not an online edition of Rock Sound, and I'm very

Anyway, a quick word about some local shiznit I've been listening to lately.

Them Martyrs from Galway have uploaded a new ep online over at their bandcamp page called "French Extremity". I think, and I'm sure if they'll correct me if I'm wrong, that this is the first release they've done under this new and far superior band name (they were called Les Christpunchers for a while, a name which never suited them and proved my point about why using Simpsons references as band names is a terrible idea), and I think it's also the last to feature guitarist Gavin. To go with the new name, the sound seems a little different to what I remember too, and again it's a change for the better - as with Only Fumes and Corpses who I reviewed a little while ago this was always a band where I liked the people involved more than the music they put out, but this release is definitely something I've enjoyed a lot more. There's a darker mood here than I remember from before, maybe a little more of a Breach/Amen Ra type gloominess I don't remember them having in the past, and this darker mood suits them. They still pick up the pace once in a while, so it's not like they've gone all doom metal or anything, but it's very distinct from their past work to these ears anyway. Worth investigating. Fills the void left by Revolution of a Sun's apparentl non-existence nicely, even if it's not quite that intense.

I'm sort of biased because I recorded it I guess, but Contort's upcoming demo is going to absolutely fucking blow minds - the sample tracks are already getting mixed reactions, and it's going to be a pretty good means of weeding out the people who don't get it - anything that divides people who are active in hardcore or punk as an alternative from normal society from kids who see hardcore as a slightly more underground version of the mainstream music business is more than welcome in my book, because quite frankly I've had enough of sterile, self-important Get Along Gang Hardcore and Mtv2 friendly "pop-punk" for one lifetime. This is 8 songs of raw, hissy, trebley recorded DIY primal scream therapy. It is noisy, and hard to listen to, and blatantly rips off a bunch of old Japanese hardcore. All of which is good news for cynical old farts like me who value volume and aggro over breakdowns. Ireland needs more of this raw, untamed filth. And by the way, let's make this very fucking clear - this is not crust.

Crowd Control's album still isn't out, but it's still the best irish record since My Name Is Satan's "Refuse to Kneel". It has more in common with early death metal than it does hardcore. I don't really have an awful lot more to say about it other than much like Contort, I appreciate the fact this band are by design not trying to appeal to everyone, and are essentially an excercise in thinning the herd. I don't even think their audience realise how much of an active dislike some of the band members have for them, and for the scene they're part of. Angry, isolated music for angry isolated people. Listen to this fucking mammoth of a record here.

Eric from Contort is in Easpa Measa of course, who are playing this beauty in a couple of weeks. At which I will be celebrating being done with exams (hopefully). So come down and hang out.

In terms of metal locally, Invictus has been kicking out the jams big time - the new Witchrist and Blood Revolt are out, the Negative Plane and Diocletian records will follow shortly and are absolutely killer, and Dar is putting on this blinder of a gig on October 8th. I guess you can understand why he hasn't had much of a chance to finish part two of the interview yet ;)

Fuil Na Seanchoille has a 12" compiling the first two demos out in the near future on the excellent UK based label Me Saco Uno Ojo (who've just released a bunch of amazing shit including a 7" of the long lost recording by pre-Furbowl Swedes Devourment, and a couple of other coreleases with Detest records). The first one i'm still not crazy about, but the second one with its' slower moments and overall increase in cold, hypnotic atmosphere is a gem. A third demo is apparently going to be released at the same time. If I can drag him away from being a travelling superstar for long enough, expect some kind of article on FNS before long.

Rites from Galway finally got around to recording too, which is fine news for fans of Electric Wizard, Sourvein and the like. Big sludgy riffs, Keiran belting it out in his usual aggravated manner. This is definitely solid stuff, and the couple of samples up on their myspace leave me hankering to hear the full ep, which I believe is launched November 12th in Galway.

In other news I'm delighted to hear that Wound Upon Wound have found a new vocalist. I'm hopefully going to get around to interviewing Leigh soon, so expect more info when that goes up.

Kudos to Mark and all involved in Dublin Doom Day 2010 incidentally. I made it in late on Saturday after getting back from tour and only watched Griftegard and Hour of 13, but there was a superb atmosphere, and I believe the whole weekend was a roaring success. From what I hear, De Novissimis were particularly crushing.

Very quickly in non local stuff, here's a playlist of sorts. Some of these bands will appear in upcoming features over the next month or so once I get my life and spare time back

Pig Heart Transplant - "They Eat What We Eat" 7"
Anhedonist - "The Drear" demo
Gas Chamber - s/t lp
Hexis - demo tracks
Frailty of Angels - s/t cdr
Starve - "Wasteland" lp
Love Potion - "Intimacy" 7"
Dodesengel - "Arkaik" tape
Skin Graft "Depresion PAralysis" tape
Fell Voices/Ash Borer - split tape
Moon - "Caduceus Chalice" tape
Gravehammer - 7"
Troublemaker - "Moratorium" adv. tape
Witchrist - "Beheaded Orobourous"
Ghost (Swe) - demo 2010 & "Elizabeth" 7"

Mindless "Human Conditioning"

2010-08-14T05:37:00.000-07:00

I think the greatest compliment I can pay any hardcore band at this point is saying that I would be keen to hear a full length album by them. Generally speaking the form works best in demo or 7" form, maybe a split album, but I can probably count on 2 hands the amount of current bands in the genre who can pull off anything longer than about 15 minutes worth of music that keeps my interest.

I'm pretty confident that MINDLESS have it in them to be one of those bands should they ever get to the full length stage, something I hope they will do eventually if they can keep it together long enough - in fact the band that precursed them, Faithealer, put out an LP a couple of years back which isn't 100 miles away from this band's work and I still play that on a regular enough basis, so I know a Mindless full length would more than likely have some degree of staying power.

Mindless have a secret weapon, a trick they do multiple times and do very well, whereby they shift gears of a song that will have a relatively fast pace throughout the main body into a slower section with a huge, evil sounding riff. Obviously, this is the oldest trick in the book so it seems odd that I mention this as a defining feature - but it's the sure catchiness of those slower riffs that flags them as a killer band, reminding me as these sections do of a punk version of "Symphonies" era Carcass and even Necrony . Opener "Live Burial" provides a perfect example, all blazing speed until a head-caving closing riff that would make Despise You proud rears its' malformed head.

Much will be made of the fact that this band feature a now former member of Hatred Surge (vocalist Faiza, who has since been replaced by former Insect Warfare vocalist Rahi), but they stand entirely on their own merits and shouldn't be seen as just some"ex members" band by any means.The demo ripped, this rips, pick it up. Fingers crossed there'll be an interview with these folks here soon if I get around to it. Order the "Human Conditioning" 7" from RSR

ONLY FUMES & CORPSES "Who Really Cares, What Really Lasts"

2010-08-14T05:23:00.000-07:00

I've struggled with completing this review for a couple of weeks now, partially due to the ususal tornado of "other shit" whirling through my life and destroying any free time I have to write, and partially because basically, the cd was buried under a pile of other stuff in the "to listen to" pile, arriving is it did just after I'd been out of town for a while.

OFAC have always been one of those bands I've really wanted to like moreso than I've actually liked, if that makes sense. The people involved in the band are good folks. I have a lot of time for them, and a huge amount of respect for guitarist Dan in particular both as someone who's worked really fucking hard towards building a stronger punk and hardcore scene in this country, and just as a general good dude all round. Unfortunately, fine people as they are, their music has just never really grabbed me by the throat in the way I've wanted it to before now. Live, sure, they ripped, but the recordings unfortunately revealed a saminess in the material that just never really held my interest for repeat listens, always seemed that little bit too clean, lacking any real kind of fire They always just sounded like a Bridge 9 band covering From Ashes Rise to my ears, not a mixture I had a huge interest in.

When original drummer Tom and bassist Connor went off a year or so ago to form the colossus that is Bacchus, it kind of seemed like it was sink or swim time for OFAC. Would they split up?Would they just get new members and continue plowing the same monotonous furrow? Or would they use this as a chance to reinvigorate themselves and step up their proverbial game? Well, on the evidence of this full length, it seems very much like the latter.

While still keeping the fast anthemic hardcore of their earlier days firmly to the fore, OFAC have extended their remit far beyond my expectations and, I'd wager, their own. Wether it's the new line up or what I don't know, but this record erases the memory of anything they've done before - it's a revitalised, dynamic maelstrom of a record that melds a whole bunch of elements together to produce something that sounds remarkably fresh and most importantly has its' own identity. I don't listen to this type of hardcore generally, so maybe I'm fooling myself here, but I genuinely don't hear anything here that makes me thing "oh, this sounds a bit like x". That's not something I can say about most other punk or hardcore records I've heard recently, particularly those from this country.

The stylistic diversity here also feels seamless, a convergence of influences from various strains of the punk and hc spectrum. The danger with adding new and seemingly disparate influences to an already established sound is that the end result will sound contrived - there's really only one point on the album this happens, and I'll come to that in a sec.

OFAC manage catchy singalong parts with as much care and subtlety as they do the occasional blast beat that breaks through, and the pacing of these songs (the area I'd always felt them lacking in most, as their prior work seemed to be more about concentrated speed, which often suffocated any sense of subtlety) is expert, lending a flow and control they haven't always had.Songs like "The Colour Purple" and "I Need To Get Out More" are total craftsmanship in action. I can even forgive them for the reggae breakdown (generally always the worst thing a punk rock band can do in my book) on "X Marks the Cross", for the simple fact that it actually fits the song perfectly. Although when they pull out the same trick on "Wreck" later however it seems completely gratituous; it's easily the obvious low point on the album, and feels like they're taking the piss.

If I'm honest, it shares the same problem as a lot of the current wave of hardcore in this country, in that overall it still feels a little too polite and too..I dunno.. tame for my snooty powerviolence-loving, scene-hating tastes. It's still not anywhere as explosive as I need this kind of music to be, still not loud enough, still not fast enough. But as someone who doesn't generally listen to a lot of this more modern and polished type of hardcore, even I can hear and see that this band are excellent at what they do, and I have absolutely no hesitation prescribing it both for fanatical hardcore kids and those who are occasional dabblers. This is the record they needed to make at this point, and they've delivered the proverbial goods.

Fuck Lockjaw records, BUY IRISH

Invictus Productions interview pt 1

2010-08-07T05:12:00.000-07:00

I've known Darragh, the man behind INVICTUS PRODUCTIONS since I was about 15 years old. That's well over half my adult life at this point.I've watched him go from a tape trading buddy to someone who has pulled off the seemingly impossible task for someone in Ireland of building an independent metal label from a local concern into an ever expanding, world beating empire. 2010 sees Invictus enter the big leagues, so now seemed as good a time as any to fire a few questions at Mitcheltown's finest. This is gonna be an epic; there's a lot of ground to cover, and Dar has plenty to say for himself so this is just part one.

So you're in your eleventh year of labeldom now, and this year seems to be your biggest and busiest yet - did you ever in think when you were a wee lad in Mitchelstown getting into tapetrading that the journey would bring you this far? Did you always have that drive to be more than merely a fan?

- It's been quite the journey alright, that's for sure. Much surreality but a lot of reward. I suppose in a logical sense it follows on from beginning tape trading that I would do a label but it wasn't linear like that. As I'm sure you can attest to, being a kid in a small town swapping tapes with other people all the time became an incredibly exciting thing. It opened up you to an endless list of new bands and sounds whether they were 100th generation copies of demos or rehearsals, it was always great to hear because in 1991 or 1992, seeing bands like Morbid Angel seemed an impossibility. So every little glimpse into the world of these bands you got became an obsession. As soon as I knew I could, I began trying to do a fanzine and then when the time came I started establishing Invictus slowly but surely. I always wanted to participate on a more direct level, even as a teenager but I suppose that only came to be apparent when I established Invictus in 99.

Going back to the very early days of the label now - you were saying somewhere that when you decide to start up Invictus, you went to the Citizen's Advice people for info on how to start a business and were kind of laughed out of it. How hard was it to set up the label initially? Did you actually have anything in the way of a helping hand to show you the ropes? And how hard did you find it to establish yourself globally over the first few years?

- Setting the entire thing up initially seemed easy, or so I thought but in reality I didn't think long and hard about the logistics involved or the money needed so once all that became apparent, I realised that this was a hell of a lot more daunting than I expected but I wasn't going to give in like. For me, doing it was natural. It felt right to do it regardless of difficulties. To me, Ireland is a cultural vacuum that has no comprehension of creative diversity. Unless you're some indie band or a rubbish Louis Walsh approved pop clone there seems to be no give for alternative means of expression in Ireland. People here don't want to know because they "don't see the point". Granted the music I release is considered 'extreme' but I consider mainstream society 'extremely mediocre' and people are afraid to push in case the rock their mediocre boats. For an island lauded as being the exponent of such great art, we sure are an absurdly conservative bunch.

Initially I did have someone helping me out, giving me advice but it was all horse shit and didn't help one iota in the end because this is Ireland and not continental Europe where things are radically different. I learned everything myself by making mistakes, wasting money etc.

Spreading the wings globally was actually relatively easy because I was always dealing with bands on an international level anyway from writing to them so when time came to put out the Slaughter Lord LP, I had people writing to me asking for it etc. so the name was there. Building the name internationally was a lot easier than starting the actual label!

One of the things you've got coming up is the Blood Revolt cd which is kind of a big deal both due to the personell and the effort involved - you're one of three labels involved in it, working in partnership with Profound Lore and Metal Blade.Obviously from the label point of view this must be the kind of release many labels would kill to be putting out. because of the scale involved, you must have high expectations for it?

I'm very pleased and honoured to be a part of the Blood Revolt album. I still feel, from time to time, like the kid in my parents opening up a package of cassettes I got in the mail and hearing Incubus, Morbid Angel and Massacre demos for the first time and this is one of those sort of things. I do expect it to do well but it is an underground release and I expect its impact will resonate over a longer time, which is much better than it being a darling album for a month and then forgotten about.

I suppose I always just see things from the point of view of "ah yeah, sure my mate Darragh runs a label" and I don't think about how Invictus is percieved outside of locally, or even from the point of view of it being a business really, and what's always struck me is that you seem entirely motivated by that kind of pure enthusiasm and passion for the bands you do stuff with that you had for bands whose demos you would have been getting demos by years back - I can't imagine any of your releases being motivated by something like "oh, putting this band out would be a good move for the label", and you seem to have very close friendships with a lot of the bands you put out - would I be right in saying that sort of personal connection is integral to the label's existence? Do you think that's something that maybe other labels overlook nowadays?

- Having an accord with the bands is essential. Some of the time it's not possible to build up a good rapport with bands because of varying factors but 90% of the time I am good, close friends with the people I work with. I've met a lot of interesting characters over the years and forged great friendships with people. As a person who runs a label, I'm always available and I'm generally at continental, underground shows so people know my name/face. I'm not some label guy hiding away in the shadows operating through the impersonal medium of email. I'm quite a social person, enjoy engaging with others and I'm sorry people I like to enjoy myself and have a good time. I don't buy into Black Metal character construction whatsoever. I can't speak specifically for other labels because I don't know how they operate but I generally tend to believe that if you have a working relationship with a band you should be available to discuss everything with them, take heat from them if they're not happy and also explain your way of working. It's not that difficult. Invictus couldn't be what it is without the bands. It's that simple. So why would I fuck around with people and make things awkward. If there are mistakes, and there have been, I accept full responsibility because I'm overseeing how an album is being manufactured so I need to push everything to be right. If it's not, the buck stops with me. Some people only do labels purely for financial gain and don't give a flying fuck about the artists paying their wages. I'm not a businessman, I'm a person who simply worships Metal and is honoured to be a part of the international underground scene, releasing what I consider top quality Metal.

Kind of a spin off of that last question I suppose but do you feel there's an Invictus "sound" or a shared musical/ideological quality between the bands?Or more accurately, is there a particular sound/ideology you look for?

- I don't think there's a specific sound as such but the bands I generally tend to work with are of a, I suppose, 'militant' nature sound wise. I'm thinking of Diocletian, Allfather and Spearhead here specifically, Blood Revolt too to a degree. There's no specific ideological paradigm that influences me either. I find the varying hues and colours of lyrical philosophy quite interesting of course but nothing that is definitively specific to make me choose a band. Sound wise I like the more intense, underground, brutal (not in the Yankee Death Metal sense) and as I said 'militant' bands. I find that sort of thing more exciting, personally.

Unusually I suppose for someone based in Ireland, you seem to have close ties with the Australian/New Zealand scene, and you're almost like a European ambassador for some of that stuff. Obviously you've done the Slaughter Lord, but also you've worked extensively with the likes of Vomitor, GOTH, Diocletian, and Witchrist. I seem to remember you telling me GOTH were one of the very first bands you ever wrote to, and I believe you've spent time in Oz as well - what is it that draws you to that particular neck of the woods?

- I suppose what really prompted it was both Steve Hughes, from Slaughter Lord, and Simon, from Destroyer 666/Assaulter, both living here in 1999. That pretty much impacted on my whole exposure to Australia music wise. Obviously I knew Mortal Sin, Armoured Angel, Sadistik Exekution and it was your good self that copied me the Slaughter Lord demo in the early 90s when we tape traded back then. I'd also bought the first Gospel of the Horns demo second hand in a record store in Cork shortly after it came out. But when Simon was here he has a cassette of the second Gospel demo, the Razor of Occam demo and various other Aussie goodness like Destroyer 666.

At a time when the Metal scene in Ireland was pretty much useless, here were two people from across the globe living with us and trading old stories about Metal etc. Hughes was great with his tales of buying Sodom and Bathory LP's when they came out and it just got to my 23 year old head! Then I began writing to the Aussies, getting their demos, selling their LP's and then I brought Gospel to Dublin n July 2000 for a show and we became fast friends more or less because our humour is identical. The Irish and Australians just gel together. Silly bastards we all are. So that pretty much solidifed my connection with the Aussies. Having been in Australia, I love their way of life and Aussie culture. A great place to be for sure.

Having spent time there, and having toured with bands around Europe and so forth in the past, I'm curious have you ever come close to leaving Ireland for pastures greener?I know you've said to me in the past that it would to some degree be easier to do the label if youwere in mainland Europe - what keeps you here in Ireland?

- Definitely. I would like to emigrate, eventually. Australia being my number one choice of destination if I do get off this rock. The main reason I am still here is, essentially, personal. My girlfriend and life is here for now. I'm in university, the label is doing really well and I have other commitments here so moving abroad isn't an option currently. Looking back to when I was younger I tried moving to the Netherlands and that lasted all of two months before I was back. An unmitigated disaster but a major learning curve it has to be said. Germany would be the best place to be location wise as it's the largest Metal market but I've made good inroads into the German scene from being there a lot and have a lot of support and help from there from people, which is great.

huh?

2010-07-27T11:46:00.000-07:00

Let's get the questions out of the way then:

"Where have you been?"
I've been busy. I've had the usual family/ work stuff going on, assorted other writing (metalireland and Lurker's Path if you're asking) and musical endeavors that have had to be given priority and I've been working on a print version of this blog which will be available at the end of August. Also, as you're about to see, I've been in the process of doing an interview with Darragh who runs Invictus Productions, the first part of which I'll post here later in the week.

I've also been spending an inordinate amount of time trying to work out wether or not I like the new Witchrist, Integrity and Dishammer records. The former is great, but I'm still not 100% sure in either of the latter two cases. But a lengthier account of my love/hate relationship with Dwid and his band of merry hired men will follow at another time. And I might try and convince my girlfriend to write about Dishammer, just so the world can share in her pisstaking of them for putting a topless woman on the cover.

"Why have you changed the name?"
Because Dead Man's Headphones was a shit name. Let's be honest. A terrible, terrible name.

"Wait, go back there a second - did you say you've been working on a print zine?"
Yep. A one off for now - I'd planned to have it ready for the upcoming Life and Death Fest in Dublin this weekend, and it was going to basically be a zine focussing on the kind of hardcore I like, which is pretty different to the kind on display at the fest (Crowd Control being the notable exception). Anyway, as I started doing it, the ideas started coming and the interviews started getting longer, so rather than rush it for Friday, I'll put it out when it's ready. Interviews with Pollution (yep, the one I posted here), Glyn Smith, Crowd Control, Rot In Hell, Putrefaction, Sea of Shit and a couple more hopefully - there's one or two other people I want to talk to yet if I can convince them.

I'll possibly post some of the interviews here when it's done, but some of them are definitely more suited to the printed page due to their length. I do like the ease and accesibility of doing a blog like this, particularly the fact that it doesn't cost anything and is pretty much in date most of the time. Definitely figuring how little spare time I have it's for the most part the easiest option for me. But having said that, I'm definitely one of the school of folks who prefer to be able to sit down and read a physical copy, as apart from anything else, I don't fancy having to drag a laptop around on the bus the whole time, and I have a much shorter attention span for online reading than I do that of printed matter. It's sad that with the exception of Loserdom which is grand but doesn't really appeal to my interests, and Ed Hannon's excellent and far too sporadic Devil on 45 , there are really no music zines locally any more. I've heard talk of a few on the way -a new Jake's Wrath which I have a feeling Liadain will probably be in her thirties before finishing, something by Chris from In Time which I would imagine will be mostly straight edge orientated, and one or two others. It would be nice to see them become a reality, but in the meantime, I'm taking it upon myself to fill the gap even if it is only a temporary solution. Which segues nicely into the next bit.

"But you don't like hardcore Jamie".

Oh fuck off. Let me put this in terms that will explain it for you:

Say we're talking about cheese, and you tell me it's your favourite kind of food.

I agree that I too like a nice bit of cheese from time to time, but I mention that I'm picky about it and don't particularly like Gorgonzola. I tell you then that I don't enjoy Wensleydale either, and that I have a similar distaste for Gouda, Feta, Provalone, Goat's Cheese or many others. You like all these, but understand why I wouldn't, as they're all acquired tastes.

Then, I tell you I'm relatively indifferent to Cheddar even though I know everyone else loves it.

On hearing this you're shocked, and tell me Cheddar is your favourite type of cheese and you can't believe I don't like it as much as you do. You go on to tell me it's a definitive cheese with a wide ranging appeal. To discount it would suggest that I have missed out on what cheese is all about.

I explain that the one Cheddar I really like is the Applewood Smoked Cheddar that my local supermarket sells, and that my personal preference is a for a nice bit of Brie, Emmenthal or Haloumi. These are all cheeses you find hard to digest. In the end you've only taken away from our exchange that I don't like the same things as you and prefer different things you don't like, rather than noting there is an occasional crossover in our tastes even if it is a relatively small one. You conclude therefore, that I obviously just don't like cheese at all, or am only liking certain cheeses to be awkward or pretentious. That I am a cheese poser.

After our conversation, you go off down the cheese mongers for the night for a cheese tasting, and when you get home you decide to write a zine about what Cheddar means to you before a quick snack of Kilmeaden and crackers. I go home and eat a curry with Paneer in it, watch a movie and have a beer - three activities I'm particularly fond of. Only one of which features cheese in any capacity.

Ridiculous analogy? No more so than the original statement.
Fuck, I'm really hungry. Dinner first, then I'm gonna ramble on about some grindcore.

Pollution interview

2010-07-10T15:29:00.000-07:00

Pollution genuinely makes me want to smash somebody's face in. The minute those rolling drums and that ugly, sheet metal dischordant guitar comes in like Piggy jamming with Negative Approach, it literally just makes me want to hit something. Not a pretty response, but ultimately, what to some extent punk or hardcore really should make you do. Pollution have become one of my favourite bands in the last year or two, precisely because they inspire this response in me. Very few other hardcore bands do. Every single thing this band has done has been fucking amazing and the new, debut lp "®smut" is no exception. This is music for the outsiders, particularly those who are outsiders in the "scene", whatever the fuck that entails nowadays. This music is intimidating, confusing, and completely born of a sense of otherness. Bassist/vocalist Ryan was kind enough to answer my inane questions.

With Pollution, the lyrics, music and artwork all seem to compliment each other perfectly, and have done from pretty much day one - I was wondering was the concept (for want of a better word) there before the band was formed, or did it come later? Like did you have a definite idea of what you wanted to do with the band?

Ryan: The core of Pollution was formed before I joined. They had defined ideas and worked on structure and parts extensively before I even came down. I think the band works as a vehicle for our guitarist Seans creative ideas. He always seems to have them! When I joined I was like the missing piece to the puzzle. They had no singer and no bassist. I originally came down JUST to sing but I told them there is no way I’m playing in a band with no bassist. haha We all bring down musical ideas, but at the end, the music goes through Seans “light” filter and that is the essence of Pollution. I like being in the supportive role as it allows me to do things I don’t normally do as a “band leader” in my other bands. From day one we spoke of using this specific artwork of Seans friend Greg. We wanted to have short precise songs, short live sets with no talking. From the onset we have been constantly tweaking riffs, arrangement and beats. We fuck with some of our songs right up until they are recorded. The concept became fully realized when I started flowing with the lyrics. I really like the freedom of writing under and abstract flag. Confusion combined with direct message is a key element for me for sure. We are fucking with people just a little. It’s our way!

There was a point in musical history where punk and hc was very much for outsiders as to the safe little polished community it is now, and I get the sense that Pollution are definitely doing your bit to preserve that whole vibe of it being music for outsiders. Like it seems very much to be a band that challenges the audience, and the listener is kind of required to put some work into it. Would that be safe to say?

R: Yes you absolutely hit the nail on the head. If hardcore music is in a stale state, then there HAS to be bands that shake it up or challenge the standard format. Pollution truly are outsiders. I was unaware we were even a “hardcore band” until we started playing shows. Haha I think we’ve come from way outside the box - to some how fitting into an ancient mold of punk. Sean and Elsner [drummer] are older than me and experienced the 1980’s punk and hardcore scenes in separate places. Elsner [as well as our former 2nd guitarist Pat] was on the west coast in California and Sean in Raliegh NC on the east coast. Pollutions sound is at the very least unique. We like to challenge the audience and often laugh at people trying to dance to our fucked up weird timing cut up parts. But usually if people do anything at our shows, and its rare, they usually just try tearing the entire place down like rabid animals. Its like some people just cross their arms and politely clap and others become enraged beasts to the point where we are protecting our own necks from the crazy crowd. That’s fun, but varying degrees of response is perplexing! haha

Following on from that, do you think that hardcore/punk actually has become too safe generally?Is it still relevant or has it just become another comfortable little pigeon hole of its' participants to fit in to?

R: Yes it has and but I see the evidence of this in the US of bands shattering this safe attitude. When I see a hc/punk band that play the same rehashed riffs it actually reminds me of the doom/stoner scene where these assholes are playing rip-off riffs for the 111th time with their expensive fancy colored amps over and over again. Every scene has a huge amount of this. But over here it seems the young hc/punks are into doing DIY stuff again. House shows/DIY venues, self recording, self releases – this is and always be the future of punk music. The way a small segment of hardcore is now in the US reminds me of how the NOISE scene was in the early 2000. Lots of people excited and cool little pockets of creativity popping up. Doom/Sludge/Drone wank however is totally dead and tired. So many bands need a cease and desist order!

The "smut" LP that's out now - it kinda seems like you just sneaked that out without any of the ususal "yeah, so we're recording our new record right now" type hype that bands usually go on with nowadays:I just kinda saw it was out one day while looking at the thread on Doomedforever. I was wondering was there any significance in you guys putting this out on vinyl this time around rather than the usual tape format?

R: We originally did tapes because it was the only cost efficient way to put out our recordings. Also we had a very small limited audience. SO it made sense to us. We never considered them “demos” but we also had no expectations or aspirations to get on labels. The vinyl’s of the first two recordings were released and were a pleasant effect of our self-released tapes. So this time around, we wanted to go straight to vinyl now that we have a little of a name going for ourselves. Meaning we thought it could stand on its own. I also think its our best recording. Hnoestly there was no real reason and it all just happened really quick! We kept the release of ®SMUT low key as Sean who runs C6 Recordings was hoping the record would be done from the plant in time for our tour with White Lung. So they were ready 2 days before tour and here we are and it is out now! Super quick turn around as he did the actual records locally in Brooklyn. I like the surprise element of this release.

Obviously, I know the other two were reissued on vinyl after selling out, but was this a way of delineating some difference between the others just being "demos" and this being a "real" album or was it just a case of "ok, let's do vinyl this time"? Also, this was self-released right? Do you see much of a benefit or difference in self-releasing over working with other labels now that you;ve done both?

R: I like both. But there is something that is truly rewarding about having a recording that was recorded by myself and released by our guitarist! DIY is the future. I see it in a strange way as a survival mechanism. If he can make the money back and is able to put out the next future recording, than that is true success!

How, if it all, do you feel Pollution fits in with or compliments your other bands (Unearthly Trance and The Howling Wind)? I know I've read interviews with UT where you've mentioned you're interested in magick and the occult, and I can kind of see an element of that within Pollution - the use of language and the artwork always make me think of Austin Osman Spare and the automatic writing thing - so is this band driven by that in the way the others are?

RL: Yes the magickal process of automatic writing and “cut-up” methods are enthusiastically employed in pollutions creative process for certain!

Do your physical surroundings influence Pollution much?And similarly, I know you guys are all in your thirties - do you think being a little older has given you much in the way of a different perspective on what you're doing (and how you do it) than younger bands?

R: Yeah totally. We are strictly playing music we like: Die Kruezen vs High Times era Black Flag meets the Melvins boxing Born Against on speed and beer bongs at the Bingo Hall.

Right,finally, let's talk about covers - you've done Black Flag, Lush (my favourite!) and Honor Role, and I'm guessing you have a lot of fun doing them. Are there any other ones we can expect in the future?

R:We spoke of a Samhain cover, but im sure there are few more left field ideas to come from our fucked up brains. Rumor has it the next recording will be our “experimental” one! Aha ®Smut was our “straight-forward” one.

Seriously, if you ignore every other band I ever write about on this blog, please, please check this band out. Go order "Smut" from them here and listen to them here. Best band in hardcore. Fact.

Wound Upon Wound "Grievance"

2010-07-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

There's a nagging sense of begrudgery within people of a certain generation (myself among them) in the metal scene whenever a new band's first release is an "EP" or full length rather than a plain old demo. That stems undoubtedly back to our time serving in the great tape-trading trenches of the late 80s and early 90s where such a thing was unheard of - you had to have at least two badly recorded 3 songers with shitty hand drawn covers under your belt before progressing up to the more professional CD release. Of course waving the "back in my day" banner publicly now makes me sound like some sort of irritating underground Victor Meldrew, but privately I always feel a little vindicated when the majority of the inevitable straight-to-cd black or death metal bands invariably turn out to be a load of uncrafted, disposable bollocks. Every once in a while though you do come across a situation where a band releasing an "official" cd on a label without a demo do actually justify their quantum leap onto, and on the evidence of this 6 tracker, WOUND UPON WOUND might be one of them.

"Burial" opens proceedings in a focussed burst of blackened fury. Well structured, tightly produced, and exuding authority, there's a clear Mayhem/Dissection influence on show for this track and the following "Grievance". Third track "Decadence" continues the Norse influence, albeit at a less frantic pace, allowing space for the riff to remain in your head after it finishes.

It's in the latter stages of the cd however, when they slow down and focus on setting a mood that this really clicks with me. Particularly on the final two tracks, "Last Breath" and "Reflection", both capture a feeling similar to (without, I should add, sounding like, I should stress)demo era Katatonia or particularly Ved Buenes Ende. This more morose, stark element allows a looser approach that's easier to absorb and get lost in then the walls of ice presented by the opening songs.

My gut instinct here is that while WUW make a fine, straight ahead black metal band when they urge takes them, that's not really where their future or their interests lie. As fine a song as "Burial" may be, I can hear in the latter half of this cd a band letting go of the stylistic burdens they've imposed on themselves, and it's here where their own personality shines through. I'd wager those two openers were probably amongst the first songs they wrote, and in a weird way it seems the sequencing of the songs reflects them getting further away from that initial point of entry. It's worth noting that generally the band seem to pay particular care to structure within the music, and I would imagine the sequencing of the tracks was laboured over with equal attention.

Certainly, my favourite WUW song is one they've been playing live to open sets with, which Leigh tells me is a new song, and which points to a definite and more intriguing shift in style to come. A year from now I'd say this band will sound very different, and I'm certain if they focus themseleves on that more atmospheric side, the results to be yielded will be excellent. But for now, a fine beginning worthy of your time and money.Which, incidentally, you can spend on a copy of this beautifully packaged 5 tracker by dropping the band themselves a line at wounduponwound@hotmail.com , and address you might also want to take note of if you;re a vocalist as apparently the guys are looking for a new singer

Shirt clear out

2010-07-10T13:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, times are hard, funds are low.I have a bunch of shirts for sale (or possibly trade if you have any death/black/doom/noise shirts to get rid of). Some are killing me to part with but they either just don't fit or I rarely wear them, some I bought at shows while drunk and just thought "why did I buy this" next day. Pics and sizes below. Anything you're interested in email pentagrimes@gmail.com with offers:

FURNACE (L)black
WORLDS (M)beige
TRASH TALK (L) black
BLESSURE GRAVE (L) black

HARVEY MILK (L) black
GORE BEYOND NECROPSY (M) black two sided

BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER (M) black
WARLOGHE (L) black

SUPERSONIC FESTIVAL 2009 (M) Black Justin Bartlett design - limited job with sleeve print
MOLESTED (M) black - side print and back print

INTEGRITY (L) "Let the Night Roar" longsleeve with backprint and sleeve print
HARD TO SWALLOW (M) green

Dawn of the Dead movie (M) black
LESBIAN (L)black logo
MAN IS THE BASTARD (M)white skull GONE
KARP (L) black

FELL VOICES (M)black
DEATHCAGE (L) black w/backprint
LIKE DRONE RAZORS THROUGH FLESH SPHERE (L)black w/backprint

NOT PICTURED:

AUTOPSY (L) HOODIE black two sided Mental Funeral cover on back with Logo on front
WORMROT (L)black on black skull design from recent UK tour
SKELETONWITCH (L) black with beer skull

TRADE ONLY - preferably for different shirts by the same bands (ie DROWNED "Sigil" design or SWALLOWED 7" design in LARGE)

DROWNED (L) "Viscera Terrae" weird beige/gray colour
SWALLOWED (L)white

Thou/Moloch- THE MOVIE

2010-07-08T16:09:00.000-07:00

Thou/Moloch Tour from Mitch Wells on Vimeo.

Quick little visual document of th recent Moloch/Thou US tour. Not a lot of music, but fun to watch.

SKELETON PLAGUE records interview

2010-06-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

SKELETON PLAGUE has in a short time become one of the labels whose every release I genuinely look forward to before I've often heard the bands in some cases. A cassette only operation (so far), Brandon just seems to have a great ear for finding excellent new horror filled filthy death metal,and the standard of his releases so far gives me no reason to distrust his taste in future. Mortuous, Grave Ritual, Burial Invocation, and The Wakedead Gathering have all become recent favourites and I was eager to speak to label owner Brandon to find out more. Support this guy's efforts in keeping the old coffin spirit undead.

Hey Brandon - what motivated you to start a tape label in the first place?

It was simply a drive to do something more than just listen to the music. I wanted to spread it as well. I knew I could put out quality releases, so with nothing more than a free website from Google and 2 items in my distro that is what I set out to do. But even from day one I never intended to only do tapes, I had always planned to move into other formats as well. I do enjoy doing tapes too, so that is something that SPR will keep doing.

You release demos, essentially the very first releases for many of the bands; for labels putting out vinyl or CD they usually work with bands who've already put a demo out at least- how do you end up hooking up with newer bands who haven't publicly released anything yet? Do you seek out the bands yourself or do they come to you?

For the most part I like to try and find things myself. I’ve been contacted by some bands, and close friends have dropped me hints on things, so all in all it’s a conglomeration of different channels. I really enjoy releasing demos, it’s incredibly satisfying to put something out and then see the band get attention and end up with full length deals.

Right, to give us a bit of background - can you remember how you got into death metal initially?

I grew up on classic bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. From there I came across bands like The Melvins and St. Vitus, and that was really the catalyst for me in terms of getting into metal. A friend of mine at the time gave me a copy of “Master of Puppets”, and this was really what spurred me on to keep seeking out more stuff, and for me it was always a search for anything heavier. I don’t recall any initial band or scene that got me into death metal, it was just somewhere along the way I started to make the shift from doom and thrash into other sub-genres like death and black metal. Now I love all these different aspects of the metal scene.

The stuff you release is very much old school sounding, and a lot of it sounds like the kinda thing that could have been on a C90 I'd have traded for back in the early 90s, so I have to ask are you/were you involved in tape trading? Any particular bands from that era of death metal that you feel are sort of "lost" or maybe overlooked?

In the early 90’s I was still listening to a lot of the stuff I mentioned above, so I wasn’t really aware that such a large underground scene existed at that time. I used to mailorder things from ads I would see in music magazines but that was basically the extent of it. Now of course I am involved in all sorts of trades at any given time. I think there is a lot of stuff out there that is lost or overlooked, but with labels like The Crypt, gradually we are seeing a good portion of that stuff come to light, and not only that but the quality is there as well. It has never been my intention to do a lot of re-releases, but there are some things out there that I certainly think deserve to be heard again, and I will be handling some projects like that in the near future.

Similarly, there's a strong argument that death metal belongs on analog formats - tapes, vinyl, in the pages of xeroxed zines etc. Do you think that's valid or is the whole avoiding of CD’s/downloads etc., counterproductive? Should this kind of music be kept solely in the hands of the "diehards", and if so why do you think that's such an important thing?

Like many others I think that analog is superior to digital formats and I think that death metal demos certainly deserve to be supported through cassette. That being said, I have no problem with CD’s or downloads either, I tend to stay more in the middle on this particular argument. I’ve spent too much time on forums arguing in circles with people about different formats, defending tapes and trying to understand why the emphasis is put on format these days and many people seem to forget about the music. I personally could give a fuck what format something is on, I own all formats in my personal collection, and I buy and trade for things that I want to listen to, regardless of how it was released. I have a hard time understanding why people act like the underground should be composed of some elitist, esoteric faction that should dictate how things are to be done. It’s pointless and laden in fallacy, and that aspect of it certainly is counterproductive.

I like to see the music get out there in any way possible. Whether it be tape, CD, vinyl, download, whatever the fuck it is, the important thing is that it’s out there for people to hear. That’s how I’ve run my label since day one, and I have no intention of changing my opinion or how I do things. The point of a release is music, that’s it. With regards to Skeleton Plague, I do releases that offer quality and music all in one package, because I think that good music deserves to be backed up by more than a xeroxed cover and a dubbed tape. These bands are out there putting a TON of time and effort into writing and recording, and as a label I like the fact that I can offer quality output with solid distribution channels.

Sort of related - I know a few things you've released have ended up on blogs for download - how do you feel about that happening?

Really I think it’s great. Its more exposure for the bands and for Skeleton Plague, and ultimately it leads more people to check out my site, and leads to more purchases of the physical releases. I’m open to all channels that get the word out. I don’t see why anyone would want to limit exposure, but some people think that they are simply more “underground” than others, and in my eyes that is an unfortunate way to think.

Do you have a favorite of the tapes you've released so far, or is there one release you're particularly proud of?

Well, I am proud of everything I have done up to this point, but I think that the HORRENDOUS release that just came out is probably my favorite at this point. It had the right amount of everything in my eyes. The layout and art came out perfect, as a whole package the release just looks fantastic, and of course the music is fucking top-notch death metal that just slays. It probably my favorite demo of 2010, and I was honored to have the opportunity to work on that release. The guys are really cool as well, great dudes to work with, and myself and Matt over at Dark Descent look to be set to handle a full-length sometime early next year.

I know at the time of writing this the next two releases you have coming up are the HORRENDOUS and DECAPITATION - can you tell us a little about these?

These are out now!

HORRENDOUS is from the US and this is probably the best demo I have heard all year. They play death metal with some touches of thrash here and there, with sick, guttural vocals. This is a band to keep an eye on for sure. DECAPITATION hails from Sweden and play in the old style, but they create a sound all their own at the same time. Both releases are getting great reviews, and I expect to see these get repressed quickly. Also of mention is the pro tape version of the first full-length effort from THE WAKEDEAD GATHERING. Drew really pushed the limits on this first album and it is a haunting piece of work. All three of these are available from Skeleton Plague and Dark Descent.

Do you ever see Skeleton Plague moving into doing vinyl or is it intentionally going to stay with tapes?

Even as I type this SPR has made the foray into other formats. My first CD effort will be out in a matter of weeks, and is a co-release with Dark Descent Records. It is the first full-length from BEYOND HELL, and it is going to crush! I had anticipated being a part of the LP release of the first GRAVE RITUAL album, but unfortunately due to budget constraints at this time it doesn’t look likely. That is being handled by my good friend Matt at Dark Descent. 2011 should see my first vinyl releases if all goes according to plan. There are a few surprises being planned even now.

Finally, any last words? What's next after the Horrendous/Decapitation tapes?

The next projects for SPR will be the re-release of the AMONG THE MORTALS demo, and a release of the newest LACERATION EP on pro tape. There are some other things in the pipeline as well. Anyone interested on staying up on the news should visit the site and sign up for our mailing list.

SKELETON PLAGUE HOMEPAGE

Hexxed "The Synapse Collision"

2010-06-24T12:05:00.001-07:00

I have the seemingly unique advantage going into Hexxed's "The Synapse Collision" of being barely familiar with their previous work, bar their 7" of a couple of years ago.

I know they've been around a while, l I know there were demos, I saw the early line up live at least once at Warzone fest years ago and they killed it; but their recorded work is completely unkown territory to me for the most part, and while I know the general area their previous incarnation operated in (latter day Death/Pestilence/Gorguts style technical death metal from what I recall), I can't claim to have an intimate knowledge of it. Perhaps I should rectify that. However, for now as I say this would prove to be an advantage in so far as I therefore don't have a whole lot of preconceptions about their band and can approach this new recording, their first without former guitarist/vocalist Ciaran Tracey, with a mind relatively free from preconception. Going on discussion of this on the Metalireland forum (run by CT ironically enough), those who were fans before seem to generally love or hate this new incarnation. And that's putting it mildly.

I'm going to tell you right now, straight up that I thought this was an absolute stinker on first listen. And on second listen for that matter. By the third it was starting to sound okay. After two days using it as a commuting soundtrack, it had lodged itsself firmly into the "it's okay but it would be so much better if..." camp, and that's where it currently resides.

For the most part it retains some of the elements I vaguely emember from my limited exposure to them in their past life - the aforementioned Death influence is still very present and yields some fine Schuldinerian guitar melodies that could have appeared on "Spiritual Healing" or "Human". There are also some clear hints of Carcass around the time of "Heartwork", but the band that come most to mind listening to "The Synapse Collision" is their Dublin based forerunner The Fifth Dominion (a name that will have the few non-Irish readers among you sighing a baffled "who they fuck are they?" at your monitor). It's heavy on the double-bass drive and Hexxed in 2010 seem far more interested in headbanging, memorable riffage as they proceed along through the album at a fair to middling pace, never returning to the warp factor this genre usually resorts to. Their use of that undefinable entity we can only call "the groove" is, in that regard unparalleled locally right now. In places it would be easy to picture some of these songs blaring across the ether at a Hellfest or even Download style event, the crowd tossing their manes in unison in a field somewhere while waiting for a bigger opening act. Having said that, I'm fairly certain a big muddy field full of cider swilling metal kids is the last place Hexxed would deem suitable for their music, given as it is to more ambitious and esoteric leanings.

But while they may have those catchy riffs and a sense of tight rythmic propulsion in full effect, there are other elements of this that have repeatedly set off that weirdy, farty sounding "NUH UHHH" claxon inside my head that sounds like the noise you hear when someone gets something drastically wrong on an episode of "Family Fortunes". The most offensive thing to my delicate, eaily annoyed little ears on this recording, and hence the one to be dispatched firstly, are the vocals.

According to the sleeve notes, there are three vocalists on this record. I can't for the life of me tell you who's who, which fortuitously prevents me from singling out any one in particular for abuse, but boy, the vocals on this are weak. I'm referring especially here to harsh vocals believe it or not - there sounds very much like there are two people alternating these, and to be honest neither of them possess the strength or nastiness in delivery that it feels like they should have.

The clean vocals which show up from time to time are nice, but the dude's jarring Layne Staleyisms on "Critical Mass" actually make me genuinely angry to the point where I could punch someone. Ever stood in a crappy club watching the local bog metal band attempting to cover "Man in the Box"? You have? Okay, know the way the singer in that band feels compelled to throw in those "Heeeeeeeeey yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhh aaaaaaawwwwwwwlriiiiiiiiiiight" style interjections in some sort of confused belief that he is actually Layne Stayley ? Yeah, well the start of this song sounds like the rest of the Hexxed lads were jamming away when that guy just burst into the studio and decided to join in unsolicited. I realise I'm totally making a mountain out of a molehill here as the appearance of this is fleeting, but I seriously cannot fucking bear it.

Going back a sentence or two though, you'll notice I use the word "fragment" instead of "song" here, and that leads me to a caveat I should point out with regard to this recording. While I realise there's a heavy, Magic themed concept at work here and a story to be told, the music is formatted into these fragmented short pieces or movements seemingly arranged around the lyrics - not a bad idea per se but to be honest it feels at times like the lyrics may have taken precendence over the music. Prime example? Musically, the instinct is to ask was there really any need for "Rewire", "Unearth" and "Channels" to be listed as three seperate songs? It sounds very much to me like it's one piece of music, not three. For a band who open with a song entitled "Engaging The Flow" (which establish the main themes reused later in the "Perceptions Derailed"/ "The Aetheric Plane" which again feels very much like one song split needlessly into two individual parts), Hexxed might seem on first glance to be aiming to disrupt their own flow in this way.. but I'm presuming the arrangement of tracks into these smaller fragments is to denote them more as subsections of one work rather than individual songs - sort of pins in a map if you will.

I am, true to form, reading too much into minor flaws and perhaps overemphasising negatives of course. In the long run the sum of "The Synapse Collison" is pretty much greater than the parts I'm breaking it down into, and on my latter point I'm merely making an observation with regard to my own perception of the work rather than the bands' own. This is definitely a good record. This is probably a record I will still be listening to in 2 or 3 years time, even if I do skip a track or two. I don't necessarily think musically however, that this is a "challenging" as some have made it out to be - the two sample/noise based pieces ("The Electric Mind Pts 1&2)" and the occasional drift into quieter or more melodic fare in some sections aside, it's really the layout of the music rather than the actual sounds that's the challenge to the listener, and the more death metal inspired parts that make up much of it aren't really all that groundbreaking to these ears. I appreciate and respect overall this shift in gears for Hexxed, and this sense of adventure - but I wish they would apply this need to challenge themselves to the more balls out metal elements too as it's the one aspect that's noticeably rigid in their otherwise increasingly wide armoury.

Available from the band direct or UNDERGROUND MOVEMENT All artwork by Glyn Scrawled

Circle of the Tyrants?

2010-06-21T13:00:00.001-07:00

Right.Let's talk symbolism shall we? On the old, now deleted "Objection" blog I used to do, one of the last things I wrote (and one of the few, let's be honest, that was worth a read)was about the adoption by hardcore bands of the Process Church "four Ps" cross.I may go into this in the not too distant future, what with the Sabbath Assembly cd due to drop through my letter box any minute now, but the general gist of it was that I kind of felt like these bands were using it primarily as a way of showing how much they like Integrity, and thus were mutating the ideology behind it (to what, I concluded, I wasn't quite sure - nor did I feel were many of the bands using it)

This time around let's talk about this baby:

Seeing as A)it seems to be popping up all over the place recently and B)the local PC brigade seem to think regardless of it's context, it indicates some sort of involvement in the far right.

Now, obviously the symbol above is a variant on the Black Sun/Sol Invictus idea, the sunwheel, and that carries a whole lot of history and different meanings which I won't attempt to catalogue badly here, and will just direct you to this page for a thorough account of it's history and uses. Obviously though, it's strongly associated with the Third Reich. So accordingly for better or for worse, to some people, that's all it will ever be associated with, in the same way as the swastika. It would follow therefore that surely there's a link between bands using this symbol and the far right then? Wrong.

The logo above was created purely as a marketing gimmick for the Canadian metal label Banzai Records by a graphic artist called Gunther Woshank who worked for the label's mother company Polygram.

The "Speed Metal Swirl" was used on a series of (mostly) thrash and speed metal albums that were released by the label, many of which were licenced from European labels (most noteably Noise records) for release in Canada through the imprint- the swirl instead generally denoting that a record was part of this series. No more, no less. Albums by Bathory, Celtic Frost, Kreator, Living Death, Destruction, Iron Angel and Cryptic Slaughter (the latter of whom of course were still very much a punk band and had the accompanying right on lyrics - so surely such a symbol being on their record is proof of its' non-political status) among others bore the mark, and resultingly the logo is now a relic from that era denoting a certain elite class of Thrashmeisters from days gone by.

Why the wheel though? To be honest, that I can't tell you for certain. There is a suggestion that the wheel being a source of constant motion, it denotes the sense of speed and kinetic energy the bands in question generated. And to be honest, it just looks cool with the phrase "SPEED METAL" emblazoned across the top. We're talking metal here folks - a genre in which contrary to popular belief aesthetic trappings rarely have any meaning. The key identifier of the "Speed Metal Wheel" versus the Sonnenrad here, should you need a handy rule for working out wether or not the band are omgloikeooobviouslythefash is the fact this thing has 6 arms.

Of course, with the resurgence in latter years of thrash metal influenced by exactly the kind of bands whose records bore the brand in the first place, it was only a matter of time before the retro studs and spike brigade resurrected it, and I've probably seen this used by more bands in the last 2 or 3 years than there were bands who used it at the time. Nuclear War Now have used it on a bunch of early reissues of Canadian bands (Witches Hammer and Procreation I think, along with a couple more), and Italy's Children of Technology to name but one have pretty much made a cottage industry out of it.

Sadly though, in the wake of the tidal wave of horseshit that is NSBM, we're now at a point in the development of metal culture where there is a presumption by outsiders that the symbol now has a more sinister connotation when used by a band. Is it naive for bands to use it in this day and age? Perhaps. No more naive I would posit, than it is to automatically presume it denotes a band with it emblazoning their artwork (which will also invariably feature one of the following: skull-face demons,some sort of post armageddon nuclear mushroom cloud,a mutant or two, someone or something weilding either a stiletto knife or hammer, and at least one topless woman) are using it for any purpose more than nostalgia at best or shock value at worst. Sometimes, there aren't actually any lines to read between.

Ov doom....

2010-06-06T10:11:00.000-07:00

SO much stuff to post about lately, please forgive the brevity of recent posts - they've been more about me forcing myself to occasionally check in so as to keep some degree of self-discipline with regard to regular posting, but I've been somewhat swamped since I returned from tour, owing to the usual work/family combo, and also due to increased band-related activities what with our record having arrived from the plant in the last few days. I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of putting lyric sheets into 300 records and packing/weighing them before, but I assure you, it's a joy. Really.

I stated something in an earlier post about reviewing every record I bought/acquired this year but realistically there aren't enough hours in the day - I'm behind even in terms of listening to recent purchases at the moment - but the interview idea will definitely be taking charge in the next few weeks.I've also introducing the first in a series of pieces about old forgotten bands, all will be revealed in the next few days. There's plenty of great new music around, but I'm a nerd for old bands, so this will hopefully get a few younger folks to take note of bands they may have missed. Anyhow, in the meantime, I wanted to just talk a little about some stuff I've come across online recently (and don't have physical copies of) that I've been enjoying, as my record-packing antics were mostly soundtracked by random Myspace finds last night. First up, let's talk doom:

ANHEDONIST are, for a band so glum, an absolute joy to listen to. I first became aware of them courtesy of a post on the foreverdoomed board a couple of days ago, and a bit of internet research has revealed very little bar they're playing a couple of shows in the States with my mate Henry's band in the coming weeks - so I'm hoping he'll be able to fill in a few blanks for me shortly - and that they're from Seattle, Washington. Certainly, the Ceremonium comparison they recieved in that initial board post isn't entirely far off the mark - though their forthcoming tourmates Oak are a similarly handy reference. Anhedonist have a little more of the classic doom/death vibe of maybe the first Paradise Lost record though. This excellently written and played, truly draws you in with an equal measure of melancholy and sheer bludgeoning heaviness, and they speed up on occasion rather than simply wallowing in the slow lane.I expect a release from these guys soon, and I expect it to be amazing

OMINOSITY from Alberta, Canada are equally impressive in the doom/death stakes, and again like Anhedonist don't seem to have any kind of physical release available right now, just some myspace tracks - again, something I hope to see them rectify shortly.Again, I get a Ceremonium/old Peaceville thing here - though with the same sense that it's more death metal that's primarily slow than doom with occasional fast bits (if that makes sense), but this is definitely rawer and more primal than Anhedonist. I can even here a bit of a dbeat influence when they momentarily speed up on "The Frozen Throne" - perhaps unsurprising as I believe they share a member with the hardcore band Sigil.

PALLBEARER appear to be attracting a degree of hype - though in fairness it's deserved because this demo is fucking excellent. Clean, emotion laden vocals over some absolutely monstrous doom riffing - no death metal edge here, this is like a head on collision between Burning Witch and "The Skull" era Trouble, and seriously, the songwriting is so good..haven't been able to stop listening to this. Good news is they've signed to Shadow Kingdom records, so I guess a record is on the way

Finally to round off this piece, I have a senaking suspicion that Portland based ATRIARCH contain an ex member of Graves At Sea. That's pretty much all many of you will need to know to go sneaking of for a listen, and yes, they are really fucking good. Again, no releases yet. Why the fuck will these bands not put shit out?dammit! Anyway, genuinely miserable stuff with a slightly psychedelic feel here. Recommended.

Necroschizma discog lp

2010-06-05T04:23:00.000-07:00

NECROSCHIZMA on vinyl at last!One of the great lost bands to my mind - dark, creepy blackened doom from the early 90s that were doing the Hellhammer worship thing long before that was a subgenre to itsself.Not up on the site yet, but you can get it here. One would hope this comes in a sturdier sleeve than the Rotting Christ reissue done by the same label..

Bodycop tape

2010-06-04T15:12:00.000-07:00

The long awaited (by me anyhow) BODYCOP tape is finally out on July 13th via Fan Death records - the track "Don't Move" is up there for listening purposes now. One of my most anticipated releases this year.

I wonder what Michael Gira would make of these?

The Trolls

2010-06-02T15:02:00.001-07:00

THE BASTARD NOISE "Through Modern Times" (MARCH OF THE TROLLS) from J. Randall on Vimeo.

BASTARD NOISE have a new record just out entitled "A Culture of Monsters", and have posted this pretty fucking fantastic video for the track "Through Modern Times" on their equally mindblowing website.LP Available soon from your distros everywhere and CD from Housepig.
Consistent supremacy over all other sound. Probably likely to be my album of the year.

The Elliot Mess

2010-06-02T13:59:00.000-07:00

Right, I should perhaps not post these here, but because they're so good, and because I'm hoping it will spur him into doing this band/project full time, I'm posting a link to two instrumental songs by THE ELLIOT MESS - a project by a dude from Waterford called Steve who is my oldest, dearest friend on earth. This was originally a band he was doin, or supposed to do after the break up of our old teen punk band Brooder, but it never happened, what with life, kids and weddings getting in the way. In sending me a link to something else though, I saw he'd posted these two instrumental demos for the project, which I'm presuming (or more accurately hoping) he's ressurecting in some capacity. These two instrumental tracks are excellent, kind of like a moodier Knapsack or Seam to my ears. Let's hope this grows into something beyond some demos on soundcloud.

listen here

Steve's also done some great electronic stuff under the name Mexican Vader which is linked from that page.
why the picture of Boba Fett is being posted is neither here nor there.

Robbing the Grave

2010-06-02T13:12:00.000-07:00

"Greetings, sickos. We need to inform you that Abscess has officially broken up. The reason for this is that Clint Bower has left the band for personal reasons and out of respect to him and to all who have supported us for these 16 years, we have decided to call it a day. Without Clint Bower, there can be no Abscess so we won't even try to cheat anyone with something that is not the real thing. 'Dawn of Inhumanity' has become our final statement and we feel that it is the perfect way to close the Abscess chapter since we must do so. Thanks to all of you who were and still are proud to call yourselves Abscess Freaks!

"The other side of this statement is to announce that Autopsy is officially active again. With the line up of Eric Cutler and Danny Coralles on guitars, Chris Reifert on drums/vocals and Joe Trevisano (formerly Allen) on bass, Autopsy is now the full time focus. Longtime friend and bass destroyer Dan Lilker has performed with Autopsy at Maryland Death Fest VIII and will also do so at the upcoming Party San and Hole in the Sky festivals in August of this year before Joe Trevisano takes over full time on bass. A new Autopsy E.P. and full length album are in the works and will be released on Peaceville records along with an upcoming documentary dvd. Also in the works is a new official Autopsy website, so keep your eyes open for that. Any other Autopsy sites or pages out there are fan sites and not run by the band. Again, thanks to all. All we can do is offer more brutality."

SHIT MOLESTOR "Symphonies of Shitness"

2010-05-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

Second demo of the mysterious (cough) Dublin "Shit Grind" band Shit Molestor. Rough four track recording.5 songs. Two minutes. Ridiculous.
Here you go

this is in WAV format, just so you know

DRUNK IN HELL

2010-05-30T04:45:00.000-07:00

We played with a lot of great bands (and some not so great) on tour in the UK a week or two ago, but along with Jovian, these guys were my favourite. Drunk In Hell are from Middlesborough, and I think it's pretty safe to say if you enjoy stuff like Brainbombs or Drunks With Guns, you will immediately fall in love with them. Heavy, damaged,distorto rock at its' absolute finest. Their set was like being beaten around the head for half an hour,and the intensity (and the heat in the room admittedly) eventually drove me out into the street just before their last song to seek some much needed fresh air.I believe there are records on the way at some point, but in the meantime their demo is here

Forgive the crappy quality, I filmed this from the back of the room on my camera.

MUERTOS!!!

2010-05-27T13:30:00.000-07:00

Back in the good old bad old days of the late 80s and early 90s, there was a strain of death metal that came out of Mexico in the late 80s/early 90s that captured a sense of almost Lovecraftian darkness and chaos moreso than that being produced by coexisting scenes in other parts of the world. And yes, I am including the bulk of the Swedish pantheon - bar perhaps Grotesque's "Incantation" - in that statement. To listen to the likes of Shub Niggurath, the Cenotaph 7"s or unsung demo heros such as Pyphomgertum, or Noctambulism was to enter a kind of swirling abyss of low end rumble, twisted structres and unearthly vocals that could have come from the mouth of Cthulu himself.

A legacy of badly recorded but genuinely (perhaps unintentionally) evocative underground releases from the era remains, which I still regard with some conviction as being some of the definitive recordings of what death metal should be about sonically, regardless of wether or not the bands in question broke any new ground or went on to further notoriety. These bands were basically the shit to me as a tape trading teenager desperate for an escape from my boring adolescent secondary school existence, and their exotic location just added to the excitement, the sense of otherworldliness to me. Being a 13 or 14 year old boy in Waterford, having barely travelled and basically knowing fuck all about the world, I chose to picture these guys less as bands and more like some sort of desert dwelling Satanic cults.

Essentially a melding of post "Reek of Putrefaction" musical nausea - the blast beats, ultra low guitar tunings, bowel churning vocals and negligent production values - with the structural insanity and occult atmospheres of "Altars of Madness" or even their Brazillian cousins in Sepultura or Necrofago - but with all those elements amplified times ten - the Mexican bands left their mark on me. The nearest spiritual kin we had in Europe to these necro obssessed Aztec hordes would have been their Finnish counterparts at the time - I'm thinking here of the early demos of bands like Demigod, Funebre, Demilich, Disgrace who similarly gave themselves over to downtuned rumble and an atmosphere of bloodfreezing eeriness. Of course the number of bands who reached the ears of the world was somewhat limited and the "Mexican Sound" if there ever was one developed on from its' early path as bands began to progress, adding the black/doom elements and keyboards that generally marked out the death of a band in those days.

Curiously, while being geared more towards the kind of gore core I usually despise, the recent work of DISGORGE was the nearest I'd found to those old days of "Tenebrous Apparitions" or "Unknown Adorer". There were of course those who restructured and built anew though from those early emanations, and have carved a noble figurehead for the area's resurgent Death Metal scene in the last decade or so. Conveniently, I just grabbed two vinyl additions of recent albums of Mexican DM bands which are absolute scorchers, which is what all this amateur history and preamble is leading you to.

DENIAL's "Catacombs of the Grotesque" is the direct spawn of those early days I mention, and is the living embodiment of both the Lovecraft elements and Finnish similarites I mention in my earlier passages. Behold the beautifully chaotic cover art (covers like this are the reason 12" vinyl is the superior format for metal records), think about that title - both are statements about the contents, not mere posturing. Sitting perfectly on the line between Cenotaph and Demigod, this record teems with guitars that sound like tombs sliding open,those godless bellowing vocals I mentioned above directing the living dead towards the surface over a barrage of riffs that seem channeled from back in the day. Thunderous bursts of percussion. A genuine sense of foreboding. If you've ever read "The Statement of Randolph Carter ", you might understand what I say when I tell you that this sounds like musical equivalent of whatever unseen force it was that was in that underground temple. Denial have truly created horror music here - a fantastic, phantasmagoric nightmare of sound that's an absolute thrill to dive into for 40 minutes or so. Order from Blood Harvest for the vinyl and Asphyxiate for the cd (Irish folks, my boy Darragh over at Invictus has the cd in his webstore right now)

Blood Harvest have also recently given the vinyl treatment to the excellent new record by Tijuana's long running INFINITUM OBSCURE, "Sub Atris Caelis". Housed in a Timo Ketola sleeve (a mark of quality if ever there was one), this latest release sees the band slimmed to a trio and perfecting the sound of the horsemen of the apocalypse approaching. For a band from such a hot climate this is a remarkably icy album, that's more of a parade of aural ghosts than it is the kind of grotesque lair of Chaos found on the Denial album. IO are rooted more in the early sounds of Celtic Frost, Possessed and Sodom than the ultra bruatality mentioned up to now, but traces of early Morbid Angel, Dissection and "North from Here" era Sentenced have clearly found their way into the mix. That's of course not to say they're unoriginal, or a throw back - far from it,but their music carries a clear hint of the early days of the genre, managing still to make it sound fresh and modern. Control is key here also - they know a steady pace is often more effective than outright violence, but they know exactly when to turn on the speed. I've loved everything I've heard by this band so far, and this is no different.

a word from our sponsor..

2010-05-16T07:23:00.000-07:00

I'm off on tour for a week, but expect a backlog of stuff to surface here on my return.IN the meantime, this is roughly what I'll be doing every night next week

A Small Turn of Human Kindness

2010-05-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

Huge late pass here, but as you may or may not know, Harvey Milk are one of the greatest bands ever. They have a new album out soon called "A Small Turn of Human Kindness" out soon which they're streaming in its' entirety right here. I'm about halfway through, and it seems very much to be them at their slowest and heaviest so far.

Of course, if you're familiar with them, you'll know this isn't a bad thing. Far from it. In fact, I'd be willing to say this is the best thing they've done since reforming. Think "Courtesy and Good Will.." but with better songs and less messing. It's a hugely sad, occasionally depressing, but weirdly beautiful album. When Harvey Milk do heavy, they mean it in terms of emotion instead of just riffs. "I Know This is No Place For You" is a bona fide heartbreaker.This is pretty much a break up record for metal kids. Amazing record. Seriously. Amazing.

ENABLER interview

2010-05-09T12:12:00.000-07:00

I made reference to ENABLER's "Eden Sank To Grief" tape on here a few days ago,and as I mentioned initially it's a release that has been getting repeated plays with me over the last week or so since I recieved it. The 8 tunes on this recording are based around a very basic blend of hardcore punk and brutal metal - there's no technical wanking, experimentation or attempt to redefine the mix sure, but this band just have an incredible knack for writing songs. It's a crushing display of rage, conviction and adrenalin that makes the hairs on the back of the neck stand up. Having played the absolute bejaysus out of the tape since I got it, I wanted to know more, So I got in contact with Jeff from the band and fired a couple of questions his way. Pick up the tape here if it's not already sold out.

1)Tell me a bit about the formation of Enabler - some of you guys had been in Abbadon right?

Brian, Bubba, and Tom had all been playing in Abaddon together. The original version of this band started around 2008 right after my old band Harlots broke up. I've always been an extremely productive person musically, and I had a ton of new material written on guitar but I couldn't find a drummer to work with. A few of my friends and I started up Savior for a Fallen Hero and I was playing drums. I signed on to drum for Trap them for about 6 months, and SFAFH fell apart, but I continued to write. A few months later Abaddon broke up and Brian and I started jamming. It was very exciting for me to not be drumming and actually get to play guitar and sing. Eventually Bubba and Tom started playing with us, and we changed the name to Enabler.

2)Was there any particular intention or either musically or otherwise with Enabler when you formed, or was it just a "let's get to together and see what happens" type of deal?

Like I said earlier, I had been working on this material for a while before we started playing together. I write everything with a drum machine first, and then record demos and show it to the guys. I think it's great to work like this because we can actually listen to the songs and make sure we like them before we play them as a band. With the drums, I program the drum machine sort of how I would play it, and then Brian takes that and does his thing with it. I feel like it makes the drums end up way better, because essentially we have 2 drummers working on that end of things. As far as writing goes, I've never been one to write in a particular style. I've always like elements of Hardcore, Metal, Punk, and Grind, as well as post rock stuff, and I've always wanted to be able to be myself as a musician.

3)You've put out a tape now via Halo of Flies, which I know is coming out on vinyl at some point too. This is your first release right? Was there any particular reason why you opted for tape first rather than go straight to vinyl - like was this intially a demo and the vinyl happened after, or did you se the recording as being an album from day one.

Well, I grew up on 90's hardcore, and they didn't have cd-r demos, they had fucking tapes man! I wanted to recreate that, and when I looked into it tapes were extremely cheap to make, so we said let's go all out. The fact that we have a shrink-wrapped tape has blown a lot of DIY kids away, which I think is funny. When I started showing my friends the recording, they all said "this is way too good to be on tape only". Andy Hurley (yeah, the guy from Fall Out Boy) heard the tape and loved it, so his label Fuck City is going to be putting out the vinyl in June of 2010. These were the first 8 songs we had as a band, everything just kind of fell together.

4)Right, there's no lyrics on the tape, so I'm wondering if you could maybe talk me briefly through some of the lyrical ideas going on in the tape?

We really wanted to put lyrics in the tape, but the Jcard would have been to expensive. My lyrics are based on personal experiences, but I write them in a way that anyone can relate with them. A lot of lyrics are about how disgusted I am with what has been going on in the underground music scene. Bands and booking agents using DIY kids as stepping stone and just trying to make a buck off of this, and then acting like that shit never mattered. Kids that do underground punk and hardcore shows do this for the love of the music, and I think it's bullshit to walk all over the people who go to work everyday and this is their release from everyday life. The song "Eden Sank to Grief" is about the hypocrisy of every day life. We're all so afraid to die, but yet we drive cars which run on fossil fuels, and most humans eat meat. Life feeds off of death, and I think it's something a lot of people are afraid to face. The apocalypse already happened 65 million years ago with dinosaurs, and life found a way. It will happen again, and life will find a way.

5)For something that's essentially a DIY hardcore release, the production on the tape is MASSIVE. How quickly was the recording done? It sounds like you spent ages on it.

We recorded it with our friend Shane Hotchstetler in about 4 days, and most of it was done live. I love the way it turned out, it sounds like our band, not like some fucking computer program with shitty edited drums and stupid vocal effects.

6)Let's talk about metal - there's a pretty huge metal influence going on here, particularly in the little twin guitar bursts - over here at the moment, because it's such a small country, there's a group of bands who basically operate within the DIY framework but are essentially metal bands - do you think that kind of merging of the scenes is something that you're seeing happen Stateside as well?

Well, it's always been going on. Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, etc. Sure those guys are metal, but they loved punk. That's how we are. We love shit like Hate Eternal, Nasum, Rotten Sound, Napalm Death, but we also love punk like Propagandhi, Bad Religion, Pennywise, etc. For me, I grew up in late 90s hardcore scene, which was a crossover scene in itself. Earth Crisis, Integrity, Strife, all that shit was hardcore, but they had metal riffs. We definately see it at some shows though, we're too metal for the hardcore/punk kids, but too much hardcore/punk for the metal kids. Also, being a Metal/Punk/Hardcore crossover band is different than being a shitty metalcore band.

7)I know I've seen mentioned that you guys tagged as being "Ex members of Trap Them and Today Is The Day" by people on boards and stuff - do you think that association has helped you or given any kind of head start moreso than if this was everyone's first band?

Well I paid my dues playing drums in all of those bands. A lot of people know me from playing in those bands, and I want them to be able to find out about Enabler. The scene is so oversaturated right now that if that gives us a head start why not? I also am really proud to have been able to play a part in bands like Today is the Day, Trap Them, Shai Hulud, Harlots, etc. Sure, sometimes things don't end on the best of notes, but I had some really great times with all of those bands and I respect the musical talent of all of those bands. Today is the Day's record "In the Eyes of God" was probably my biggest influences on drums prior to me joining the band.

8)Can you tell us a little bit about the Milwaukee scene?Any other bands we shouuld check out?

Milwaukee has a lot of really good bands. Most of them share members with each other in one way or another. Protestant, Northless, Get Rad, Half Gorilla, Burning Empires, etc. are all fucking bad ass. I love all of them equally as people and as musicians. I wish there were more people that were interested in coming to shows sometimes, but that's how it is. This music is not for everyone.

9)Okay, guess that's about it - what's next for you guys?Are we going to see you in Europe/UK/Ireland some day?

We're going to be recording a 7 inch for Volatile Recordings in June, getting as many shows in as humanly possible, and eventually working on a proper full length. I've got a few ideas already, so we'll see what happens. I really hope we have the chance to come play in Europe/UK/Ireland, wherever. I've toured Europe once with Today is the Day and it was one of the best experiences of my life, so hopefully I get to do it again. I really appreciate how the audiences differ overseas. In the states, kids are fucking spoiled and you're either about to blow up or you're yesterdays news. A lot of the "internet" generation here doesn't respect the fact that we're not trying to get big, we just love playing music. I feel like other countries have a lot bigger respect for art and music than the states. So yeah, hopefully we see you guys soon!

STIRLING SAYS "Balboa"

2010-05-05T15:16:00.001-07:00

Stirling Says are an awesome indie rock band from San Francicso who're just having their "Balboa" lp issued in Europe via Adagio 830 shortly. Think Superchunk, J Church,Meat Puppets, Dinosaur Jr, sunny days and behaving like a teenager.This is really not te kind of thing I listen to but it has a ragged charm that sucked me right in and made me feel like it was the summer I finished my Leaving Cert or something equally adolescent and nostalgic. It's the kind of thing that would have popped up on John Peel about 18 years ago between Teenage Fanclub and The Wedding Present. When you're finished listening, you can preorder it here.

PINK COFFINS demo

2010-05-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

I checked this out because it's ex Kill The Man Who Questions, a band I used to really like in my younger years. Nothing groundbreaking here,but I'm definitely pro hardcore being played by older dudes. This kind of makes me think of an American version of Boxed In if that makes sense.

The band have made it available for download here and you can find out more here

JUDAS "Dictator" 7"

2010-05-05T14:41:00.000-07:00

The band have put this up for download themselves here and you can order it here. More info on the band here. It's been three years since tis band released anything. About time.

EXPLODING BIRDS interview

2010-05-04T14:34:00.000-07:00

Semi-legendary long running Dublin grind kids EXPLODING BIRDS telling it like it is.Fuck intros... let's go.Pics by Moose.

1) To start with.. give us a brief potted history of Exploding Birds - it seems like you'd been talked about for literally years before you actually starting playing live,so how come it took so long to get up and running? Is the line up now the same as it was initially?

Emmett: I think when we initially came up with the idea but it was probably around 2003 or so. We wanted to just have a heavy, intense, noisy hardcore/grind type band. We had a full line up but never got around to practicing really. Myself, Derry and Damo are the only people that are still in the line up. The other guys were people from Carlow/Athy but they've since moved away for college and work. Other than that all of us being in other bands, tours, holidays, work and generally bad timing has been the reason for us taking this long to get it together.

Damo: You forgot the drug and alcohol addictions which kept us from organising anything coherent for years.

2) You've got a three song tape coming out right? Tell us about it - where was it recorded, and did you only do the three songs or is there more?And also, with it being a short run on tape, are you looking forward to the endless stream of "can you send me the mp3s" type requests from people or are you going to make it downloadable anyway?

Emmett: Yeah, three songs on the tape. We only recorded the three songs for the tape. Once we sell a few copies of the tape it'll be available on mediafire for download. It was recorded with Tommy from Estel.

3) Obviously most of you are in other bands that are pretty busy a lot of the time - I'm curious as to how Exploding Birds operates in relation to them because it seems like EB doesn't do as much. Like do you set aside specific time to focus on particular bands or do they all pretty much co-exist together? Is EB a sort of an "occasional" band? Like do you see it being a long term thing or is it just whenever you feel like it? And do you ever find yourselves coming up with riffs or song ideas for one band and thinking "hmm..maybe I might keep this for the other band"?

Emmett: It's only now really that we're trying to make practice more regular and get things together for EB, like I said before we are just unlucky with timing. Someone is away and then when they get back someone else is away on tour and so on. I'd prefer for all the bands to co-exist together and it's only recently that that's been working out properly. I hope it'll be a long term thing. As for riffs, when I sit down to try write stuff, it's usually for a specific band, I don't think I've ever swapped around. It helps that CC and EB are in different tunings too.

4) I suppose this is kind of related to the last question, but with the tape coming out now, do you think you;ll be playing live more? Are there long term plans for EB in terms of doing more gigs or releases or is this a kind of one off?

Emmett: Nah, we want to play more gigs, definitely. We should be recording more songs again soon in the next two months and hopefully again before the end of summer.

Damo: Should we beg for work here, or would that sound too desperate. Ha ha.

5) Musically you're one of the more(for want of a better word) extreme bands in the hardcore scene here. I've always thought Ireland was way behind the rest of the world when it came to how punk/hardcore has developed and it kind of seems like it's only now in the last 3 or 4 years there's a small group of really good bands doing the , for want of a better word, "darker" thing (ie: still based in hardcore but leaning more towards a more grind/sludge/metal influenced sound) here, whereas there's always been a big interest in that elsewhere. I'd definitely include you in that little bracket, and I'm curious - why do you think the heavier end of things hasn't really caught on here til recently?

Emmett: I'm not sure really. I think some people just have a greater interest in certain types of music. Types of music that have a very specific sound which wouldn't always leave space to incorporate the sort of grind/sludge/metal influences, you mentioned.

Damo: ...and everyone else in this country is shit apart from about 100 people.

6) Famously, someone referred to EB on a message board a while ago as "Chick Destroyer" - Would it be fair to say Pig Destroyer have been an influence? When you were starting, did you have a clear idea of what you wanted to sound like or did it just come about naturally

Emmett: Definitely an influence on me anyway. Apart from Napalm Death and Nasum, they were one of the first grind bands I really got into. We we started we wanted to mix all the elements of the heavy music we liked into one band but still be a hardcore/grind band. We had a clear idea of what we wanted to sound like but it's changed over time while still being the same aesthetic we always had.

7) Possibly one for Jillers here, but talk to me about the lyrics. "Panic" is about a real life incident right? I'm curious about this with a lot of singers - obviously if you're playing aggresive music, there's gotta be an element of anger in the lyrics too surely..so I'm curious - the six million dollar question here: is it easier to play these songs if you're in a bad mood? And particularly with the vocals, is there an element of venting to it?

Jill: Yeah, it was a really shitty thing that happened to me a couple of years ago. I was locked in a taxi with a creep who grabbed me. Thankfully I got out alright. It was my first experience of a panic attack though and that affected me a lot. I found that the music for that song was reminiscent of the feelings of a panic attack so I thought it suited. Of course, I was extremely angry about what happened, still am to a degree. Generally speaking, I'm not a particularly angry person so I'm not often in a bad mood when we play. But I do think about what I'm screaming when I'm screaming, so anger boils up inside of me, which can be good for me personally as I find it quite cathartic to scream it out of me.

I don't necessarily think that lyrics have to reflect the harshness or aggression of the music but I do think that's what works best.

8) Last question: where the fuck did the name Exploding Birds come from? And what's next for EB?

Emmett: There's an urban legend that says if you feed rice to birds it expands in their stomach making their stomach pop. It's doesn't actually happen but it's how we came up with the name. What's next? Hopefully more gigs, more recordings and hopefully release something on vinyl next.

3

2010-05-04T11:42:00.000-07:00

There will always be an element of "I've heard this before" with hardcore records - it's a rigid template and to be fair while there are many subgenres each tends to have their own even more rigid set of rules. Is this a bad thing?No. You don't hear people complaining about blues singers not progressing, right? They key to making a good hardcore record isn't necesarily reinventing the wheel, it's adding your own personality to it. TOTAL ABUSE's "Mutt" takes the time honoured Deep Wound/Siege template, stirs in a dash of Flipper and sweetens with a hint of Broken Flag style noise from time to time. It's enjoyably rabid, but at the same time, I'd be hard pushed to pick out an individual favourite song if you know what I mean.

Similarly on the " thoroughly enjoyable on the whole but nothing's leaping out at me right now" tip the SURROUNDINGS lp on Free Cake takes the increasingly standard post-Tragedy/Cursed stance, with its' roar of downtuned guitars and clear production. It's a fair battering around the head for the most part, alternating speed and stomp in equal measures, but with a little flair of their own that I can't quite put my finger on just yet but which will definitely have me coming back to listen to this over many other similar bands.They wisely break up all the punding with some slower, more tense sounding riff driven slabs from time to time. I'd have liked the lyrics, but that's a minor gripe. Nice cover art too, that weirdly makes me think of Monty Python.That's it up the top there.

I got the ENABLER tape but I'm interviewing them soon so I'll talk in detail about more about it then.They're absolutely incredible and I urge you in the meantime to go here and order the tape before it sells out. Ex-Trap Them, in that ball park but heavier and more feral, with occasional blasts of Thin Lizzy/Mastodon twin guitar that I can't get enough of.

REPTILE BRAIN are completely different from all the above, no hardcore here, just some striking synth work from a member of the Boys Of Summer stable (again, someone I'll be covering in depth very soon). This is a little more sinister in places than BOS' more blissful sound, but it has the same immersive effect and dreamlike quality. Synths here are a little more volcanic - by turns bubbling and oozing out of the speakers. I can really only liken this to some kind of soundtrack for a movie - I could very easily imagine watching "Solaris" or even "Silent Running" with this as a sountrack. Beautiful stuff, which you can order via the consistently excellent Munitions Family.

Finally, the strikingly packaged WRECK OF THE HESPERUS/ MOURNING BELOVETH split 10" gets a spin. MB cover "The Weeping Song" by Nick Cave, and the results are something of a clunkyerto be honest. I appreciate them keeping the sung vocals intact, but the moaned Blixa responses are annoying as fuck. WOTH cover "Misery is the River of the World" by Tom Waits. Well, they pretty much just write their own tune and use Tim Wait's lyrics. So I guess if you like WOTH, you'll like this. Nice little idea, and kudos to both bands for stepping outside their comfort zones, but in both cases I prefer the originals. Pick one up from Sentinel.

SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION

2010-04-28T12:16:00.000-07:00

My band are having a release show in Dublin tomorrow night, please come down.We're opening for WORMROT in the pint on Saturday too (see below).

Normal service will resume after this weekend.I have LOTS to write about.

LET ME OUT. JUST LET ME GO.

2010-04-26T13:00:00.001-07:00

After a seemingly endless wait,Dublin's EXPLODING BIRDS have recorded a demo."Panic" genuinely makes me want to inflict bodily harm on someone. Interview to follow here very soon.

And now..a word from out sponsor

2010-04-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

vol2

2010-04-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

Perhaps unsurprisingly,I am enjoying the NEIFENBACH "Reason Will Falter" cd. 6(and a half..cough) soungs of stompy metalcore goodness that as I mentioned earlier comes across like Kylesa going on the lash with "Arise" era Sepultura. They blur the hardcore/metal horizon to the point where it's just at the perfect central point to both. Of the songs here only "A.F.R" failed to get the blood boiling, and kinda seems like it was made up of the riffs they'd left out of the other tunes, but that's a minor complaint. "House of Lies", "30 05 04" and "Rats In the Walls" are the ones I dig most here, and while it's still early days for them there's plenty of directions they could go and it will be interesting to chart their development. Nice screened cover too..see if you can figure out what it is. One of the best bands in the country methinks,and if this doesn't quite capture the live power it comes pretty close.

I'm in the seemingly tiny minority of people in Ireland who see "math rock" as a pointless load of showy-offy bollocks played by people who want to be percieved as "crazy" but end up looking "whacky". All the pedals and technical ability in the world are great, but don't excuse you from,you know, having to write a song. Along with Adebisi Shank's last record,THE CONTINUOUS BATTLE OF ORDER are kind of the exception to my anti-wankcore stance because while they're heavy on the math, the rock gets an equal if not bigger look in. The songs on their "Pttrn Skrs" cd are like little controlled explosions - imagine a fighter jet spiralling earthwards after being hit by a missile, only to straighten up and make a perfect landing. That's what comes to mind listening to these tunes. It's a little samey in places admittedly, and it's definitely not going to be getting daily plays but it's a welcome headrush in the right places. Track 6 where Hornby's guitar weaves a solo web of sadness is my favourite, and breaks things up nicely. And they have the common sense not to overstay their welcome, managing 8 tunes in half an hour.

I'm pretty sure the record that has become the one sided "Eternal Return" 12" by MOSS was at some point, years back, going to be a split 7" with a band I used to be in. I could be wrong. Either way, it seems like this has taken literally years to put out, although I believe the tune was on the cd version of the "Blind Dead" record they put out last year. This, regardless, is worth picking up for the fucking stunning packaging alone, courtesy of my good bud Elaine "Sgraffito" Cooney. The music's not bad either,being the usual snail-paced catacomb of Lovecraftian dread via huge amplification. It's a curio, sure, I mean LOOK AT THE FUCKING PACKAGING, but's still a good listen in the right mood. Moss never let me down. I have absolutely no idea where to get this, I have a couple of copies locally, but other than that I believe it sold out.

The Record Diaries: vol 1

2010-04-21T11:15:00.000-07:00

I'm going to conduct an experiment on this here blog. As someone who buys a lot of records, I'm going to keep a diary of everything I buy or trade or acquire a physical copy of by any other means for the next year,with a quick paragraph on each.Essentially, this is a record of first impressions, as most of these will be written after a first or second listening so as to keep them up to date, fresh in the ears, and prevent me procrastinating on posting them. Click on band names for more info, and I'll include ordering details at the end of each post. So to kick off, yesterday's mail yielded these beauties:

Originally released on cd by the Utech label, HORSEBACK's "The Invisible Mountain" gets the vinyl treatment from the UK's always impressive Aurora Borealis label. Packaged in a beautiful cover on clear vinyl, Horseback is primarily the work of dronemonger Jenks Miller with contributors assisting on drums and additional guitars.This record supplies the same heavy hypnotic vibe of what little of that early work I've heard, but applies it to a straight up rock band setting. It's a grower this one - more listens reveal more detail and draw you further in. Sonically, if the likes of latter day Earth or AB labelmates Journey to Ixtlan are your thing you'll find much to enjoy here, as this has that same western-soundtrack-gone rock vibe as those bands, albeit a less leisurely take on it. The music is definitely evocative of stuff like "El Topo" or "Dead Man", and parts in particular make me think of it being not unlike a hugely amped up cousin of the latter's soundtrack. The riffs on Side A's three songs are subtle but insistent, and take pole position over vocals that sound like a dying man in a desert gasping for water. Side B's "Hatecloud Dissolving into Nothing"is a more spacious, dreamlike affair. Good record and as I mentioned, the cover artwork is amazing. I think you cd buyer types can possible still pick it up direct from the wonderful Utech records - do that rather than waiting for the upcoming Relapse version.

LOCRIAN similarly have their roots in more drone based fare, and I've been a big fan of their previous full lengths. New one "Territories" however is easily the best thing they've done so far and already a strong contender for album of the year. And I'm saying that after only one listen, so I imagine a week from now when I've spent more time with it I'll probably be even more impressed, but you get the idea - this record is a big deal. The Chicago duo expand to include further musicians (including members of Bloodyminded, Yakuza, Nachtmystium and Velnias). The scope and variety on display marks it apart from their earlier work, and the fact they can integrate so many styles without it sounding like a different band on each song speaks clearly about their control over what they're doing. Veering from their usual volcanic drones to subtle melancholy ambient, post punk/industrial synths, black metal, and shards of Broken Flag style power electronics over the course of the six songs (and they really are songs here, not just directionless burst of tone and noise), it's a machine based album that triumphs in reflecting human emotion. Fucking incredible record. If you want to pick this up, and I really urge you to do so, get it direct from Al over at At War With False Noise, who is what I can only describe as a top dude.

WORMROT in Dublin

2010-04-20T14:23:00.000-07:00

Chuckie's revenge

2010-04-20T13:10:00.000-07:00

A genuine "HOLY FUCKING SHIT" moment, no?

Neifenbach

2010-04-14T13:38:00.000-07:00

Neifenbach are from Galway, and play a brand of metallic hardcore that sounds like screaming lovechild of a three way between "Arise" era Sepultura, Kylesa and the less dumb end of mid 90s H800 hardcore. This interview weas conducted via email a little over a week ago and was intended as groundwork for an upcoming article on the band I'm writing for Metalireland. However, as the tour I mention in the first question is already over, and the cd is now out, it's already slightly out of date so the MI article is being redone. I didn't want this interview to go to waste though, as they have plenty to say for themselves. Plus, they're straight up fucking rocking and you need to check them out. They play every five minutes, so if you;ve not seen them already, you will do soon. All photos were robbed from their Myspace, and were taken by Lorraine Cryan. I don't know who Lorraine Cryan is, so if you;re reading, sorry for stealing your photos lady.Anyway..onward..

1)You have a tour opening for The Ocean. How did that come about?

Daniel -- Well basically The Ocean were supposed to come over last October but whoever was organizing the tour stopped mailing the band with updates etc so they canceled it. IMP were looking after the original tour and I was setting up the Galway gig. I had noticed that was very poor organization going on so I had mailed the band personally and when the tour was called off I told them to just mail me if they wanted to come over again. They basically booked this tour themselves with a little help from me. They needed help with back line and driver so I said I'd help em out with that and they agreed that we could play all the dates with them too. We are not really established enough to do our own headline tour around Ireland I think so this is a great opportunity for us to play to some people that would otherwise probably never ever see us. When the tour was confirmed we decided that this would be the perfect time for us to release something so we got our shit together and recorded.

Liadain – The Ocean were meant to be coming over for a few dates late last year, but that fell through after the I.M.P. debacle.. Dan worked his magic I believe and together with a couple of other promoters around the country got them back over for four dates again. It worked out pretty well for us because we were only going to be doing the Galway gig last time round, but Dan is driving them this time so we ended up on the bills of all four gigs. The only downside is that that means I have to drive us the rest of us separately and I am a much grumpier driver than Dan..! He has a remarkable tolerance for drunk people making a hames of his van.

2)Tell us about the ep - I know there's 6 songs on it and it was recorded in Mayo but that's about it. This is self released right? Will
Neifenbach be sticking with the more DIY route in future releases or is hooking up with a bigger label something you'd consider?

Nicola - I'd love to be successful while maintaining D.I.Y. Ideally in the future being able to release on a friend's label or a label I really love while making enough money to get by would be amazing. As for hooking up with a bigger label, honestly if it was the right label and a label I really respected which let us have all of creative control I would consider it.

Daniel -- There are actually 7 songs on the CD. The first 3 songs were written with the old lineup...well just with a different drummer (Cian), The other 4 are the newer stuff which is the stuff that we did since Benny joined in October. It was recorded by Peadar Carney who plays in Galway band Blasterbra. Yeah, it is completely self financed/released. It cost us a good bit I guess but we all put in some cash. As it is our first recording and we are a new band we can't really expect anyone to release it for us. As for sticking to the DIY route I dunno... we'll probably have no choice in that matter...haha. If's not like we are that mainstream or anything. I personally would have no problem with someone giving us money to release our music though. The whole DIY scene is not all that cool as it seems to be in my opinion... but lets leave that for another time maybe.

Liadain -- Yep self released, recorded in Abhaile Studios in Mayo with Peadar from Blasterbra who is a saint! By far the most enjoyable recording experience I've ever had. I wish we'd been organised enough to have had more time for mixing but we wanted to have it done in time for the Ocean tour so we just had to do the best we could in the time we had. The recording was also notable for me producing a lovely Excel spreadsheet with all the vocal issues that needed fixing, sortable according to whether they were high-, medium- or low-priority.. the world of software development is rubbing off on me. Nobody else appreciated my lovely spreadsheet. It even had custom error messages that said 'Your ma' if you tried to enter any song title other than one of ours.

As far as labels, yeah I wouldn't mind having some financial and logistical support in the future. I took care of a lot of the arranging and accounting on this one and it was great but pretty draining. The old software business pays well enough that cashflow wasn't really an issue but I wouldn't say no to having some external support in future! Probably only small labels and co-released type things though, I'm too much of a control freak to go handing over much responsibility to anyone else..
Oh and there's six tracks but seven songs.. make of that what you will.

3)You describe yourselves as "Punks playing metal or metallers playing punk" and pretty much seem equally at ease playing within both the metal scene and punk/hc scene - how do you view the difference between the two scenes, and which (if any) do you feel more comfortable with? Also it seems like there a bunch of bands who are generally viewed as or are attached primarily to the DIY/Hardcore scene that metallers are paying more attention to (I'm thinking the likes of you, Drainland, Bacchus,Crowd Control, Putrefaction, Trenches, Revolution of a Sun) - why do
you think metal folks are becoming more interested in the hardcore scene?

Nicola - I hate the word scene.

Daniel -- I think we are more of a metal band being played by hardcore people anyway. The only punk thing about us is Liadain's zine writing/past band involvement and my DIY organizing and playing in some other more punk bands. We want to play to all types of people. I have not played to that many metal crowds around the country which with this band I now have more of a chance of doing I guess. There is a pretty big difference between the scenes of course.... you see people discussing this stuff on the main internet forums all the time. Some of the stuff that some local/Irish metal bands expect is outrageously funny. Riders, back stage rooms, 3k PAs, picking their own support bands, drum risers etc for gigs in the back arse of nowhere where no one has ever even heard of them. Then you get the punks who arrive with no gear (no wonder all the bands sound the same when everyone is using the same guitar heads etc), play for no money at all (another daft thing) and then spend most of the time drinking cans outside while the other bands are playing. Both scenes are shit As for the bands you mentioned Putrefaction are the only ones without a myspace... enough said ;) I think over the last 10 years or so more heavy bands have developed in the Irish punk scene so it was only a matter of time before fans of heavy music started paying more attention to them. Before then I really don't think there was any hc/punk/diy stuff going on outside of Dublin and Belfast. As far as I know there were a good few punkish bands around the country but most of these would have been very far musically from what the DIY scene is known for now.

Liadain – well for one we have NEVER used the word 'punk' to describe ourselves. Hardcore-influenced metal or metal-influenced hardcore is the description you're thinking of I think. I'm starting to think of those kind of bands that you've listed off there as some kind of mini-scene in our own right at this stage – not hardcore in the moshspace sense (though we had an amazing Madball-style riff before that never made it out of the practice room because it was supposedly too cheesy..it was amazing though, we missed a basketball vest-wearing trick there) and not metal in the patch jacket sense, but drawing influences from various corners of hardcore, metal, doom, sludge, crust and so on. And those kinds of bills (Trenches/Drainland/People of the Monolith in Galway is the most recent one that springs to mind) are the lineups I personally am most comfortable on. We've had great support from the metal end of things all things considered though and I'm not actually sure why that is. Maybe we're a bit different in that we don't comfortably fit into one genre or another and maybe some people find that interesting. Or maybe we just have the best riffs going!

4)Dan - you've been quite vocal in condemning the apolitical/right wing element that comes along with the metal scene locally
(particularly on the MI forum) - has this caused the band any friction when you've played with metal bands? Has anyone from that side of the fence ever confronted you in person? Why do you think metal kids are more tolerant of dodgy politics?

Daniel -- It hasn't caused any friction no. Fascists are cowards and rarely have the balls to actually confront you in person. At a metal festival a couple of years ago some young lad with a load of dodgy black metal patches threatened to have me stabbed alright... There is one venue in the country I don't think I'll ever play again due to some shit happening there. I really am far from PC and I get jokes etc but when someone can't come out and say that they have a problem with someone glorifying that shit I don't want anything to do with them. Neither should anyone else. That kinda shit would not be tolerated anywhere else. People are getting killed all the time all over the world due to this crap and over here racism is pretty much ignored.

Liadain – just going to weigh in on this briefly – most of the metallers I know don't really pay much attention to the politics associated with music as far as I can see. I think it was fairly well summed up by a conversation I had the other day where I was going on about how if Varg Vikernes had been from Finglas and worn a tracksuit, the chances of him still being on the covers of magazines and any major critical attention being paid to his work in or after prison would be pretty slim (which is simplifying the issue a bit, but there are words for sane twenty-year-old kids who stab people and they're not usually complimentary), and the person I was talking to said that what was often forgotten in those kind of discussions was that Varg had a great ear for a tune. And if tunes are your main focus, that makes sense. It's funny though how even though most people wouldn't seem to bat an eyelid now at someone in a Burzum shirt, I'd say a Skrewdriver shirt wouldn't be long in attracting a few comments. People can get used to anything it seems.

5)Similarly - this one's for Lid and Nicola I guess, but while female musicians are relatively well represented in the punk scene locally,
there still seemd to be relatively few in the metal scene - do you find you're treated differently by metal folks than you are by punks?

Nicola - I was dreading this female musician question would come up. I honestly feel like I've never been treated differently.

Liadain – Differently in that they like us more! Is about as far as it goes.. there was an amusing incident at a gig in Cork once when some fella came up and introduced himself to the three lads and Nicola's boyfriend, as though the two of us were just some sort of window decoration. That practically never happens though. In the hc/punk scene, especially in Dublin, bands with girls in them are so common that no-one really passes comment that I've noticed, and that seems to be extending to metal as well.. not the girls in bands so much but the not passing comment. Maybe the girls themselves will follow! But women are pretty few and far between in the audiences of 'proper' metal gigs, so I wouldn't be expecting them to show up on stage in great numbers any time soon. In Galway there's about a million girls that go to gigs but none except the two of us are in heavy bands. I'm not really sure why that is..when I was growing up there was no question in my mind but that I was going to be in a band, music was what I lived for, and when I moved away from rural Cork for college it was the obvious thing to do. I might be looking back with equality-tinted glasses but I don't remember gender stereotyping ever being much of an issue for me. That said, I love being in a band with another girl, partly so we can talk about boys and dresses (though Dan is as much of a gossip and fashion critic as any lady I know, seriously) but mainly because when she's around, I know that any differences I have with the other four aren't gender-related but personality-related. I'm not explaining that very well.. like if I have one opinion on something and the other four have a different one, I don't feel like the odd one out and wonder if it's because I'm a girl, it's just a difference of opinion. That's pretty important to me. And it's probably contributes to my not wanting to be treated differently at all for being female. I've been involved in Ladyfest and suchlike in the past, but these days I really feel that women in bands have reached a level of saturation (quiet down the back) that there isn't a need for visibility-raising initiatives in the circles I move in any more. And yeah, in some ways there could be more ladies around, but I prefer to make the point that being a woman in a band shouldn't be a big deal by...being a woman in a band that isn't making a big deal out of it. I used to lift all the gear as well till I got diagnosed with a herniated disc in my back, now I leave it to Nicola..she can lift me so she's well able for everything else!

6)Lyrically there seems to be a pretty equal share of
personal stuff and things that come across as being more general or in some cases (perhaps I'm misreading them) scene based. Firstly, is the subject matter of a lyric dictated by the music it's going to go over or is it just a case of writing about whatever you have on your mind at a particular time; and secondly when you write do you write with an audience in mind (ie do you think about what people reading them are going think, or try and put a message across to them) or purely for your own reasons?

Liadain – yeah they are a mix of personal stuff and 'scene'-related things for want of a better word. Scene is a terrible word though.. I'm fascinated by cultural theory, and what I write is really more observation of and comment on the culture that I'm most involved with, than it is “stabbed in the back, but my bros got my back” type stuff. The personal and family-related stuff is usually pretty specific. The 'cultural observations' are more general, I never refer to particular people in those lyrics even though I use the second person an awful lot – the 'you' is always a composite character. I actually never write with an audience in mind even though it might seem as if I do.. most of my conscious thought processes and approaches to problem-solving take the form of conversations with particular people in my head, so I think that has seeped into my lyrics. I'm a product of no TV, no siblings and no childhood friends within walking distance, I guess.. I can live in my own head for ages but there are always other people in there with me. When I was a kid they were characters from books, now that I manage to get out and about a bit more they tend to be friends of mine. So in a way almost everything I write is actually directed at someone else, but that's not conscious at all, I'm not sitting down going “Here's the message I'm going to bring to the world today!”.. it's just how my thought process works. And yeah, it's whatever's on my mind gets written down and then gets fitted to the music somehow, the music doesn't dictate anything as far as content goes. I recently wrote lyrics for an entire song and then got on to Dan and told him I needed something epic to go with it, hopefully that will transpire!

7)Neifenbach seem to be very much a live band, having played a large amount of gigs in a small amount of time - however, with the live
circuit in Ireland being relatively small, do you plan on touring outside Ireland much?

Eamon--Yea,we played a good bit and it's made us way better more recently. I'd say play as many gigs as we can with this release, get the finger out and record again midsummer, hopefully play U.K. Shows, beef up the new songs and head over to Europe if we get the chance. Try and get rid of as many CDs and t-shirts out there as possible.
Nicola -- I reeeaaalllly want to tour outside Ireland, Europe and in the far off future the U.S have to be a must. Obviously times are tough money wise though so how feasible that is at the mo, I'm not sure :(

Daniel -- I guess with the slight crossover appeal we can play a few more gigs without completely overdoing it which is nice. We'd like to get abroad at some stage this year but that will depend firstly on if people actually like our stuff when our CD comes out and also time permitting. Some of us have full time jobs etc but I think a couple of gigs in the UK in the near future are a possibility.

Liadain – We played 23 gigs in our first year, that’s alright I suppose. It’s probably nearly as many gigs as I played in all my previous bands put together! I love hitting the road and making a hames of Dan’s van (only messing Dan! Dan has the patience of a saint by the way) and it seems every time we go back somewhere another handful of people start liking us afterwards, which makes the whole endeavour more rewarding.
Yeah we’d like to get over to the UK alright, ideally Europe too but we all have stuff going on. If we got to the UK this year, that’d be great.

8)To finish up with, what's the plan for the future, both immediate and not so immediate?

Nicola -- Getting the CD out is the main priority at the moment, I want to throw it to as many zines, magazines etc for review. Obviously want to get writing new material asap. Not so immediate, I'd love to do a split 7" and tour.
Daniel -- Immediate: Release our CD, get through our first Irish tour and then play some more gigs around the country in the next few months. Also, write a couple of more songs that will hopefully give the band a more steady sound. We are still experimenting a lot with different styles and we need to all agree on a more focused direction I think. I guess I have one vision for the band but everyone will have some different notions.
Not so immediate: Release a 7" (autumn) and/or start working on a full length (realistic time of arrival this time next year)

CLOUDEATER

2010-04-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

Full admission - Al and Oli are among my closest friends, and two of the best people I know. When I found out they were making music together, I was excited to hear it. When I found it the music in question was not the punk/hardcore they're both better known for playing, and knowing their collective taste for far out sounds and experimental music, I was even more excited. Cloudeater, the noise/drone duo that they've formed recently have just released a lengthy two track cdr which combines the ponderous and the arcane beautifully. I couldn't think of a better pair them to be the first band I interviewed for DMH, as I knew they'd have something interesting to say. IN the case of the answers that start with initials, OM is Oli, AD is al. Read on.

Explain the genesis of the Cloudeater project - how did it come about?
We had talked about jamming together for a while and when we finally did it came out as cloudeater. We wanted to document the jam, so we recorded everything we did that day. It was all improvised. When we listened back it we were both really happy with it and knew that we wanted to release it.

Did you have any specific agenda in mind in terms of what you were trying to create musically at the start? Or was it purely a spur of the moment/improvised thing? And is there any kind of recurring ideology or theme you're trying to explore behind the project?
Whenever we had talked about music we both expressed alot of on interest in creating something that offered unrestricted experimentation, to explore different tones and different instrumentation, to create sounds that invoke a sense of atmosphere and will always remain free and reflect our current state of mind.

It seems like it's primarily guitars and vocals but Oli was telling me there's some other instrumentation on there - tell us about you bells there Ol?
O.M - I had come by a collection of Tibetan meditation bells a while ago and had always been obsessed with the tones they created when played. The sound seemed to carry on forever and they seemed to suit the vast sound we were beginning to achieve with the recording, They were mostly played clean through microphones but later we started to experiment with them with adding effects (distortion, reverb etc).
Other instruments we used were a melodica and a thunder box/tube drum played through effects aswell.

There's one cdr out now, a split and another cdr on the way - did you set out to be so prolific or what?
We had no presumptions or set agenda to release anything when we started out but after listening back the resulting material from the recording sessions we decided it was something that we wanted to put out. The material from the second cdr we’re putting out felt different to us than the first tracks we had recorded so we wanted to release it as a separate thing. This goes back to what we were saying about where our heads are at when we’re recording, the end results have a certain ambiance and this led to it being a release of its own.

Obviously you're both better known from your involvement in local hardcore/punk bands - do you feel Cloudeater is part of that scene or is it something different entirely?
O.M - Personally I try not to maintain that there are any serious divisions in the musical “underground” and my ideals and philosophies have carried on whatever music I’ve been playing at the time but at the same time I definitely see this project allowing me to expand on these a little more which is to be expected from such a free-form medium but as I stated before I really dislike the idea there is any sort or divisions that would stop me from playing alongside bands/musicians with completely different sounds to that of our own.
A.D - I feel that Cloudeater is outside the punk/hardcore scene, but my interest in the punk/hardcore scene and the noise scene is related. DIY ethics are something I feel strongly about. Something I think should be a big part of both the noise and punk scenes. The way we approach Cloudeater is totally different from anyway I’ve approached playing in punk/hardcore bands. But at the end of the day, I love making music with friends and experimenting and DIY will always be a part of that whatever it is.

Punk/Hardcore seems very much a restrictive format musically. Do you think that's a fair comment?And do you impose any limits sonically therefore on Cloudeater? Do you think this project gives you more freedom that the usual guitar/bass/drums set up?
Punk/Hardcore can be restrictive, but we think there are a lot of different bands out there who identify as punk/hardcore but can sound completely different from one another. Examples can be found even as early as the recordings done by the iconic “punk” collective Crass who achieved something in their sound that went so far beyond the typical early punk sound but still managed to retain the ethics therein as heard on the “yes sir,i will” release. As far as Cloudeater is concerned we don’t impose any restrictions on ourselves or the sounds we create.
Theres certainly more freedom in playing something as freeform and improvised as Cloudeater as we don’t typically use the basic “band” setup but by no means do we limit ourselves to the equipment we used in previous recordings and look forward to experimenting with all kinds of instrument setups to achieve different sounds and create different layers onto what we have already done.

In terms of the pieces you've done so far - how much is predetermined when you start playing and how much is improvised? How do you record and do you intend to try and recreate the recorded stuff live or will that be an entirely different thing?
We generally start out with certain ideas, whether they be different tunings, sounds or effects. We may have a specific idea or ideas when approaching a song initially but the produced sounds usually take their own course from there. We use a rough set up of a digital 8 track and a laptop when recording, but there is very little post production on anything we record. When performing live there may be certain themes we refer back to from recordings but only to use them more as a continuation and something to build on from there. Generally our approach will be to create something new every time.

You;re obviously in this for the long run - and you;re playing live soon - how did the Tim Hecker show come about, and is playing live going to be a regular thing for you?
A.D - Basically I wrote to sugarwater who are putting that show on asking if we could support, I sent some material to john sugarwater and replied saying that we could definitely play. Thats pretty much how that came about.
As far other gigs are concerned we don’t have anything lined up. We would certainly be interested in playing live and hopefully collaborating with friends and other interesting artists. If anyone is interested in putting us on please get in touch via our myspace or directly through email.
www.myspace.com/cloundeater
thenoise000@gmail.com

Any final comments?
A.D - Our second cd should hopefully be out within the next month and hopefully the Cave Mouth / Cloudeater spilt will see the light of day in the not to distant future. Thanks for the interest!

O.M - Thanks very much for the interview jamie and thanks to anyone who has bought the release and taken time to read about us or shown support. For anyone interested I write a on a blog from time to time at Wyrdurth
STRENGTH//LOVE//WISDOM.

Charge

2010-04-09T12:18:00.000-07:00

Cloudeater interview up in the next few days.Hurrah!