Friday 25 January 2013

Heil - Demo II (2012)

The term "blackened" is thrown around far too often these days ( God knows, I have used it myself on occasion ) and its applied to pretty much all forms of extreme music to describe the influence of black metal in a bands sound. Usually its pretty far off the mark and applied to any band that uses lo-fi recording and ultra hissy distortion to create their sound.
Heil certainly have that element present in their noisy take on punk. Its a superbly over blown guitar sound and rancid, rasping vocal that make up the majority of this demo. The drums occasionally pick up pace but for the majority of this record work best when banging along at a stomping pace. You know "Nothing Left Inside" by the almighty Black Flag? Well imagine Darkthrone having a crack at that and your pretty close to Heil's sound. Its pretty sweet.




Wednesday 23 January 2013

Herbie Hancock - Death Wish (1974)


RIP Micheal Winner. A big man that said what he thought oblivious to how it would be construed. He made quite a few stinkers when it came to movies but also some pretty solid fare as well. The Mechanic, The Sentinel and the urban revenge classic Death Wish. Below is the score by Herbie Hancock. A fine example of Hancock's electric style showing restraint and being applied to tense, dramatic scoring.




Wednesday 16 January 2013

Black Mass - Of First And Last Things (2013)


Bit of shameless self promotion here. We (Black Mass) have been sat on this for some time now. Its a compilation of all the material the band had previously released. After myself and our two guitarists had joined we started building up our own recording rig and this compilation is the result of those forays into home recording. Its come out pretty good if I do say so myself. We have now dropped most of this from the setlist as well, so we saw this release as a good sign off for the first period of the bands life. For now, we have released it on Bandcamp for free. If it doesn't work then use the Mediafire link under, we only get so many free downloads a month. A physical version should be available from Witchunter Records in March.