Cult Ritual - S/T LP (2009)

 

Despite the meagre number of followers on here, I can pretty much garuantee that most of you have a pretty good knowledge of music and know something good when you hear it. Of those I pesonally know, sorry, I can pretty much wager that you are going to like this post.
I missed this album first time round, not suprising really, part of the Youth Attack Records stable, limited vinyl release, talked up across the boards and copies fetching upto 200 sheets on Ebay ( Christ!). Despite all this, its done the rounds online and across the blog networks and reached quite a few more people than anyone (including the band) probably intended.
To cut a long story short, Cult Ritual have pretty much found the perfect middle ground between AmRep noise rock, Sub Pop whistle and screech and good old hardcore punk and fashioned an immensly noisy and enthralling album that doesn't hold back in its screaming feedback and broken glass guitar sound while never compromising dynamics or forward thinking. Essental doesn't really do this justice but its far more venomous and angry than a million identikit chugging hardcore bands and posseses more energy and chaos than any number of so called punk rock clones. Cult Ritual are a pretty good definition of genuine hardcore thinking.

Cult Ritual - S/T LP

Basil Poledouris - Conan The Barbarian (1982)

A true classic of cinema scoring. In fact, in my opinion, the best orchestral score to any film ever. Mr Poledouris is responsible for quite a few great film scores but I always come back to his awe inspiring composition for Conan The Barbarian. Utilizing a 90 piece orchestra and 24 member choir alongside the unheard of the, then new, Musync editing software. A truly majestic and triumphant body of music and the last ever film score to be recorded in mono for a major motion picture. Its a manly listen for sure.

 

Basil Poledouris - Conan The Barbarian

The Time - Ice Cream Castle (1984)

A prime slice of 80's pop infused funk rock. The Time, assembled by Prince due to some legal billing in his contract and fronted by his long time friend Morris Day, had a string of minor hits in the 80's and made appearances in the movie's Purple Rain and Graffiti Bridge.
Pretty sweet eh? The long hidden truth was that The Time never played any of the recorded songs whatsoever. Prince recorded all the music himself, bar the vocals, but Morris Day had to follow Prince's note by note guide. This often caused much friction between the two acts. The Time would then attempt to upstage Prince every night on tour in a similar situation to how Prince and his band used to try and upstage Rick James when they acted as his opening/backing band.
Anyway, enough chatter, what time is it?

Morris Day & The Time - Ice Cream Castle

Dial - S/T EP (2010)

Noise rock.  As much as I hate genre classification and pigeon holing ( despite my some what convoluted way of describing some of the bands featured on this blog), the term noise rock does a wonderful job I think, of describing to people aware of this awesome area of music just what to expect.

New Zealand's Dial are what I would call noise rock. Big, dirty, distorted guitar noise, wild screaming and huge pounding drums. I didn't realise its all just one guitar making this racket. This is a demo they put out themselves ( or they didn't) and the quality control board at Robotic Empire decided it was more than worth banging out on a CD. So go there to buy an actual copy, if I had Paypal myself I would.

Dial - S/T EP

Just listen to this song below while it downloads. You won't regret it.