Shit & Shine - Cunts With Roses (2007)

Monstrous noise from people that where part of Todd and Hammerhead at one point. So being two of my favourite bands means this rules. Got sent it to review when it came out originally. The cover art really makes the noise inside all the more frightening. Released as a 12" on the quality Noisestar label. Its one track from a rehearsal for a support slot with Laibach.
Nothing left to say about it really.

Shit & Shine - Cunts With Roses

Neurosis - Children Of The Grave (1999)

Today has been shit. This is what its about. Taken from the split 7" with Soilent Green. Hydra Head put out a series of them. Each band covering a Sabbath track, later to be released as a compilation. Now out of print. This tune towered above everything else on it.

Neurosis - Children Of The Grave

Get involved.

In Cold Blood - Hell On Earth (1997)

We ain't had any Clevo appreciation yet on the blog. So instead of posting my favourite Integrity albums ( which I more than likely will at some point) like everyone else does I thought it more interesting to leave you this one. Integrity off shoot, In Cold Blood.
I came across this originally on a Victory Records comp in a record store in Orange County, CA about 10/11 years ago. They had the song "Lost In Doubt", which kicks in after an acoustic refrain with a shredding guitar solo before the bellowing and doom laden guitars start crushing. It made quite an impression on me. I heard this before I was aware of Integrity ( who where also on that comp) or any of the Clevo sound.
You can read all about the history of this band at other places on the Internet so I won't bother, suffice to say if you dig Integrity then you will like this. Its all part of the same sound really. Maybe ICB have a more old school approach to hardcore than Integrity did but still with plenty of lead heavy, metallic muscle to back it all up.

In Cold Blood - Hell On Earth

Its all over with inside of 25 minutes. Plenty of solos and fierce breakdowns that put to shame most stuff these days and it ends with a nuclear explosion. Holy Terror lives.

New Jack City - OST (1991)

Once upon a time this was the baddest film about drug dealers. I first saw this when at primary school. Having to pause it or turn it off every time my parents came in the room. Looking back its not really that bad. its still a great film. Wesley Snipes, Ice-T, Mario Van Peebles, Judd Nelson and a young Chris Rock are all pretty good in it. I really think it has a lot more in common with Blaxploitation than any sort of social commentary. You could draw a very definite line from this right back to Van Peebles father and his cinematic achievements.
Still the soundtrack has some good stuff on it. All that sort of late 80's hip-hop/R&B stuff where they have tons of jazz and double bass, midi keyboards and lots and lots of smooth vocals.
Plus it has Flavour Flav in it as well.

New Jack City OST

Deep Cover OST (1992)

Gaz reminded me how good this film is. This was the period when Larry Fishburne ruled. This, King Of New York, Boyz N The Hood, Red Heat and What's Love Got To Do With It also rule.

Deep Cover - OST

Olivers favourite......

Christopher Walken moments :

At Close Range - Awesome, true life story of a small time crime boss. Sean and Chris Penn are both pretty good in this but its Walken who towers above everything.


King Of New York - Great film, great cast. Walken wins with his dancing, sudden bursts of controlled violence and his "love of money".


Suicidal Tendencies albums : 

Classic skate/thrash/crossover/punk/metal from opposite ends of the ST discography. Both albums in one link

Suicidal Tendencies - Join The Army / The Art Of...

Favourite film snack : 

Jonnys Bacon Tasties.....

(Wipes the floor with Frazzles every time.)

This is what tonight is all about I reckon. These 3 things ( 5 actually). Be as cool as me. But don't like them as much as me.

Harvey Lawrence Pekar October 8, 1939 – July 12, 2010 RIP

For someone who hated life he had a very good time I reckon. Do yourself a favour and start reading American Splendour, then Our Cancer Year and watch the film adaptation.
He's probably complaining to god about storage for his records in heaven right now.

RIP Harvey

The Bellrays - Meet The Bellrays ( 2002 )

Final post for this weekend. The super greasy, sleazy and sexy tones of LA's The Bellrays.
This came out at a time when there was a huge interest in that garage rock sound. The White Stripes and The Hives where in the big leagues and lots of labels where looking for bands to latch onto that success, or who at least had "the" before there name. The record shop I used to work at stocked this album. My friend Jason was big time into this Detroit sounding garage rock revival and ordered in lots of albums that had a buzz about them. One of those was "Meet The Bellrays". Of course once the drums-falling-down-a-flight-of-stairs and feedback intro crashed out of the shops speakers we got busted by management and told to turn it off. So we kept listening to it when we could and we realised that they where a million miles away from those other bands. The Bellrays had balls. Big, angry, loud balls that listened to The Stooges, MC5 and old soul and Motown. They had this huge voiced black woman called Lisa Kekaula ( who according to Jason was terrifying when he saw them live ) who sounds like she is channeling Tina Turner and Iggy at the same time.
Better than most bands that mine this vein of music. The Bellrays kick ass.

The Bellrays - Meet The Bellrays

Triac - Splits Comp ( 2003 - 2005 )

Once again the archives have been raided. This was the haul. Some fine, fine grinding from Baltimore courtesy of Triac.
I came into possession of this CD when my old band toured with Pig Destroyer. They had a merch guy called Blake, who at the time was the vocalist in Triac ( and, coincidently enough now plays in PD doing noise and electronics). We would talk each night, sat behind the merch table while we tried to sell our wares about music and stuff. This usually boiled down to talking about Conan The Barbarian, Mad Max and old Carcass. Blake surprised me one night by handing me this CD and telling me it was his grind band. He had made a small number of them, compromising of tracks from the 7" splits they had with Medic and The Karma Payment Plan, to hand out to folk in the UK. So when I got home it was the first thing I listened to and it blew me away.
Triac are a very dynamic and chaotic take on grind influenced hardcore. I know for a fact the wide ranging influences they pull from and they do manage to fit them all in here somewhere. They swing from frenzied blasting ( check the opening track The Worm That Gnaws ) to slug slow discordance and into thrashin fastcore effortlessly. Turning-on-a-penny dynamics and vocal acrobatics abound. Plus, any band that references Mad Max is fine with me.

Triac - Splits Comp

I do believe they have had some line up changes since this. They followed it up with an album called Dead House Dreaming which is pretty good. Give them a go.

The National Acrobat - For All Practical Purposes Is Dead (2000)

Any in the know hardcore kid nowadays could easily reel of love for Coliseum. Easily. Maybe some would mention Black Cross, Lords, Breather Resist (very soon) and Christiansen.  But not many could recall or claim to have heard of the very band that spawned all these musicians and laid the foundations for the rulers of the current Louisville, Kentucky indie scene. Criminally under appreciated by most hardcore kids during there far to short life span and still passing under the radar of most folk nowadays. Here we have a very important album for me, For All Practical Purposes Is Dead by The National Acrobat.

I remember hearing the name mentioned in a few magazines years and years ago when there second Ep, Can't Stop Caspar Adams was released. I really liked the description and stuff I was hearing about this band but could not for the life of me get hold of a copy. Obviously this was before the Internet was as wide spread as it is nowadays. None of the mail order distro's stocked it so I consigned myself to putting it on the list of bands I would never get to hear ( that was a mighty big list back then). Then browsing through Manchester's Vinyl Exchange one day a year or so later and to my barely contained surprise this Ep popped up for 6 sheets. That is what started my love for The National Acrobat.

I could waffle on for ages about the intricacy of the guitar work and forward thinking song structures. How its a nearly perfect fusion of DC math rock, snotty mid west punk and burly east coast muscle. How vocalist Caspar Adams voice draws a line across your opinion or even how cohesive while still pulling in every direction each track is. It would be doing a great disservice to them. You just need to hear it.

The National Acrobat - For Practical Purposes Is Dead

Besides the Ep's they released a couple of 7"'s and appeared on a few comps. Initial Records did put out a complete discography some years ago that as far as I know is still available. Its worth the tracking down.

Haystack - Slave Me ( 1998 )

A quick Sunday night post. Been listening to this album all weekend during many long hours of driving. Back in the late 90's Entombed guitarist Uffe Cederlund loved noisy, American rock. So much so that he started a band to play this sort of music that he couldn't write into his day job. he recruited a Backyard Baby and some dude from A-Bombs and Haystack was born. I don't really like the first album Right At You (1996) but this one really does it for me. The obvious love for skronky, Am-Rep worship is so blatantly clear that its not worth trying to defend it. They guy loves The Jesus Lizard, Melvins, The Cows and Unsane. Especially Unsane. There are times when you could be listening to a lost Unsane album during Slave Me's rotation on the player. Not original in the slightest but as I have seen it described " I would rather listen to a good copy album than a bad, original album". I wholly agree with that statement.

Haystack - Slave Me

YOU WILL LIKE IT.

Amplifier Worship

From the recent recording sessions for my band, The Ergon Carousel's album. Pretty excited to get this finished. Feel a lot more pride and accomplishment with this than nearly all my other recording ventures. Mixing coming up then sending it off for mastering. Available from the ace folk at Holy Roar Records later on this year.