Cops - Demo (2012)

On the surface, Cops are a bunch of hardcore punks who enjoy Crossed Out and Suppression as much as the next guy and their band certainly reflects that. But scratch beneath the surface and it begins to show a much nastier side. Squelching little synths and electronics underpin the breakneck guitars and drums giving away a knowing nod to power electronics and noise. Maybe not really anything new in the world of power violence and grind but certainly integrated far better into the Cops sound than most. I have included both demo's in the link below. I don't know if they have anything else available, what little there is is well worth your time. I came across this on the always awesome Terminal Escape.

Cops - Demo I and II 

Jackman - Bad Intentions (2012)

More sexually repressed, lo-fi black noise from the Danish mystery that is Jackman and the folk at Posh Isolation. Following on from the example set by the S/T demo I posted back here ( nearly two years ago!) Bad Intentions seems to have ramped up the Brainbombs influence that was struggling to be heard amongst the filth and dirt of that first release. Pulling back on the noise and black metal elements, though it is still noisy as hell, and concentrating more on simple punk songs. A nasty little listen.

Jackman - Bad Intentions

Wives Of Seth - Demo (2003)

Wives Of Seth a.k.a. Ray Reardon Youth. Snooker violence. A short lived blast of noisy, aggro hardcore from Bloody Kev ( Hard To Swallow, Raging Speedhorn, Regimes and far too many others to mention) and various London folk. We played with them at a very drunken, very sweaty gig in 2004 at a Jamaican pub called The Swan. Dancehall playing in one room and a load of sweaty kids smashing up the other room to loud punk rock. It was superb.
Here's the 2003, Sexy beast sampling demo...............

Wives Of Seth - Demo 2003

You can learn all about this band and nearly everything else Kev has been involved in over at his blog Keep It In The Family.

Satanic Threat - In To Hell (2008)

We all have a love for the head banging fury that masters like Nunslaughter and the mighty Midnight obviously rule at. Now take members of both those mentioned acts and let them loose on some 80's hardcore records and you have this EP by Satanic Threat. Solid, US, 80's hardcore. Think Uniform Choice, Minor Threat, SSD and Youth of Today if they wrote songs about hating Christ and blaspheming. Solid, evil stuff.

Satanic Threat - In To Hell

Jay Z - The Purple Album (2004)

+

=   ?

Look at the above images. What do you think this is all about? What would you get if you combined these two giants of popular music? Not hard to work out.

If you guessed correctly and worked out that this is the vocal track from Jay-Z's The Black Album laid over the musical tracks from Purple Rain by Prince then download it, give yourself a pat on the back and a gold star.

If you guessed incorrectly then you should probably go and sit in the middle of the road somewhere. You don't really deserve to listen to this album or really live amongst normal folk. Idiots.

 

Jay Z -The Purple Album

Acid Reign - The Fear (1989)

A prime slice of British thrash metal for you tonight. I will admit I wasn't sold on Acid Reign first time around. In fact, until I picked this album up in a charity shop some years ago I never really gave them much of a chance. Shame on me I know. Here's a full live set from 1989 in London......

...and here's the album.....

Acid Reign - The Fear

John Holmes - El Louso Suavo (1999)

I wrote about John Holmes and posted up their final album a while back here, so I am not going to patter on about this awesome bands legacy and lineage again. All you need to know is that El Louso Suavo is a monster of an album. A ugly, crust influenced monstrosity of hardcore smashing its way through Deadguy and The Jesus Lizard style noise rock with a suitably British sense of nihilism.

John Holmes - El Louso Suavo

This originally came out on Flat Earth Records who have recently put their entire back catalogue up for free download. This is a label that introduced John Holmes, Hard To Swallow, Manfat, Ebola, Sawn Off Drop Dead, Witchknot and tons more to my young ears. They made an impression on my musical education.

Flat Earth Records

Kiss It Goodbye and all the other good things.

By now you will have probably heard the news, despite being only half the original line-up, Kiss it Goodbye have reformed for some select US shows. The band responsible for one of the most important albums to my musical growth as a youngster. Even now, over 10 years since I first heard it I still get a buzz every time I listen to it. In honour of this and my love for the melodramatic howl of vocalist Tim Singer, I have posted up some choice cuts from the dudes discography.
She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not is still, to this day, one of the angriest hardcore records I have ever heard. Tim Singer sounds like he is going through a complete mental breakdown, his vocals a mixture of mumblings, shrieks and roars complemented by the berserk, twisted instrumentation. I still struggle to get my head around some of the ideas and riffs on this album. You can draw a definite line from Black Flag to the KIG, sonically and lyrically they both possess a crazy, wild anger that not many bands achieve. Stone cold classic.

Kiss It Goodbye - She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not

Prior to KIG Singer and guitarist Keith Huckins where part of the Deadguy line up responsible for Fixation On A Co-Worker in 1995. The New Jersey group, along with Bloodlet where the black sheep of the Victory Records roster. A superb album in its own right. Combining noise rock, hardcore and a ton of negative attitude.

Deadguy - Fixation On A Co-Worker

After KIG, the other members took part in Playing Enemy and Nineironspitfire. The demo below surfaced about 1999/2000 and whetted a lot of appetites for a future that never came. Family Man was KIG without Huckins and sounds for all intents and purposes like Black Flag smashing into Unsane's practise room. Sadly these two songs are all that ever seemed to exist.

Family Man - Demo

There was talk of other recordings over the years, internet gossip and so forth but nothing has come out yet.

P.S. My Mediafire account is on the fritz so the links on this page are courtesy of the awesome folk over at The Living Doorway and Counts Of Arson. Sweet stuff.

Mayhem - Deathcrush (1987)

I really don't know why I am posting this. Its so obvious and known. I recently got a bit nostalgic and went digging through some old tapes and found a few demo's from some very early bands I was involved in. One of them used to cover the track "Deathcrush" and it got me wanting to listen to this record again.

Simply put, you should know this record by now. Its been around some time. Raw, noisy, evil infected black metal made by a bunch of kids who thought they had no future. Shame it panned out so well for them.

Mayhem - Deathcrush

Claw Hammer - Q:Are We Not Men? A:We Are Not Devo (1991)

We all should like Devo. Its a basic fact. In California, there was a noise rock band called Claw Hammer who really did love Devo.

These guys love.......

...these guys. Lots.

 They loved them so much they recorded Devo's 1978 debut album Are We Not Men? We Are Devo in its entirety, in track order and released it under the title Q: Are We Not men? A: We Are Not Devo in 1991.
In a very similar vein to Pussy Galore and the Exile On Main Street cassette back in '86, what you get is those well known new wave jams being smashed through by some noisy punk rock kids who would go onto be Wayne Kramer's backing band.

Claw Hammer - Q:Are We Not Men? A:We Are Not Devo

Maybe I could wax on about this some more but its very simple. You like Devo, you like noise rock and punk, you will like this.

Nihilist - Demo Collection (2005)

Not the actual Nihilist

The actual Nihilist

Before Entombed and Unleashed, there was Nihilist. These guys never recorded anything other than a few demos and a 7" single before calling it quits in 89 ( or they disbanded and reformed under the name Entombed due to not liking Johnny Hedlund, leaving him to form Unleashed). Thankfully someone decided to knock this compilation out in 2005 which compiles all the demos and recordings the band managed to produce. Included within is a Repulsion cover as well as Entombed's original demo. Bathe in the sweet, rough hewn, barbaric, late 80's death metal storm.

Nihilist - Demo Collection

Mutant Video - Head Scan (2011)

MUTANT VIDEO - PARKING LOT from john lukeman on Vimeo.

Been digging this lots recently. Lo-fi, dark synth sounds for a film that John Carpenter needs to make. Pretty sure its some people involved with the mighty Iron Lung that are also involved in this. Information is pretty scarce but I like that. This has been soundtracking my dark, early morning rides to work.

Mutant Video - Head Scan

I acquired this at the always awesome Terminal Escape. Its a treasure trove of awesome underground rumblings and well worth a browse.

Fabio Frizzi - City Of The Living Dead/The Beyond Soundtrack mixtape (1980/81)

Everyone knows Goblin. Of course you do. Goblin are awesome. They are generally the first name when you think of 70's/80's Italian cinema's defining composers. Just behind Goblin ( and in no way inferior) though was the one man genius of Fabio Frizzi.

As a frequent collaborator of Lucio Fulci he is responsible, in my opinion, for a lot of the atmosphere Fulci had in his films. The theme from Zombie Flesh Eaters set to the shot of the undead shambling across the bridge into Manhattan was a pretty important image from my youth. From there, I began investigating the world of Italian cinema and horror. The first call, via the patronage of Necrophagia, was The Beyond. Closely followed by The City Of The Dead. I can safely say I have never looked back since. So to celebrate the awesomeness of Frizzi's work here are both these soundtracks zipped up. I would highly recommend the films themselves. Alongside other Fulci gems like Manhattan Baby and the afar mentioned Zombie Flesh Eaters.

Fabio Frizzi - The Beyond/City Of The Living Dead OST Mix

more RAM - S/T (1996)

A brief but beautiful little burst of noise. Post-Hammerhead, Paul S knocked out this 7" with fellow noise traveller Matt Entsminger. The four tracks contained revel in their stripped down. clanging, noise rock glory. Its basically a given that if you like any of the guys previous bands ( once again I don't trust anyone who doesn't like Hammerhead or Janitor Joe) you will dig this long lost treat.

more RAM - S/T

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

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.

War - Total War (1997)

Bank holiday blasphemy. All out, hate filled, bestial black metal war machine War, and the first EP "Total War" released back in the hazy late 90's on Necropolis Records.

Settle down Tony..I mean IT.

War was the result of a drunken night deep within the Abyss studios, home of Peter Tagtgren. His friends from Abruptum and Dark Funeral spent the night ranting about how they should pay to have Varg killed. They would make a album of primitive, hateful Black Metal with any profits going to The True Satanic Horde ( a hobby of IT's) and to finance the murder of Vikernes.
So if you like hateful, angry BM with lyrics about Satan, war and Satan ( plus some questionable, PC baiting lyrics in the track "I Am Elite") then this should be right up your alley. I like it for its single minded hatred and refusal to slow down. I think that's a fair reason.

War - Total War

Helmet - Wilma's Rainbow EP (1994)

Page and his lads doing what they did best back in the 90's. The second single from "Betty" just hammered home the Helmet sound to all those pricks watching MTV. You can argue all you want about its influence and its fault for various other "genres" but you can't deny the groove.
The EP is backed up with a few decent quality live tracks including "Just Another Victim", the collaboration they did with House Of Pain. Which funnily enough both groups tend to play live, but separately.

Helmet - Wilma's Rainbow EP

Smoke And Smoke - Love Suffers Long (2004)

You like Godheadsilo and Enemymine? You like The Murder City Devils? Now, a combination of those worlds would be a pretty good thing to listen to wouldn't it? Well your in luck, such a thing does exist. Created by these three salty dudes below, the awesome, bass heavy, fuzzed out, misanthropy rife rock out that goes by the name Smoke And Smoke and an album called "Love Suffers Long".

Combining the unstoppable rhythm section of Mike Kunka and Dan Haugh and the acidic croon of Spencer Moody, Smoke And Smoke differs from Godheadsilo/Enemymine/Dead Low Tide in its stripped down structures and more to the point force. The bass is monstrous on here. Kunka always knew a thing or two about creating a wall of sound with one instrument but the levels of distortion and range of sounds he whips up from one fretboard and some pedals is pretty mind boggling. You don't really hear it as a bass, more as this wall of distortion/synth devastation washing over everything.
The vocal side is some of Spencer Moody's best work I do believe, far more unhinged than his work in The Murder City Devils. His lyrics seem to switch from finger pointing aggro to stream of consciousness absurdity and nihilistic abandon from line to line.
Now, that's either going to sound like the biggest load of rubbish or the best thing ever, but as they claim on here.... " You're gravely mistaken if you think for a second that Smoke and Smoke give a fuck-fuck-fuck!" Awesome band.

Smoke And Smoke - Love Suffers Long

Godstopper - Demo (2010)

Seriously, I can't stop listening to this at the moment. Its grimy hooks are buried in my brain, yanking away, screaming for me to listen. Godstopper exist in a strange realm where Swans had a love child with Ween and this demo is the outcome of that sordid night. The weird, mid range sludge of the guitars seems at odds with the very melodic "rock" of the vocals at times but in this world they work perfectly together. The suffocating, claustrophobic, lo-fi production only adds to the general air of grime and filth which in turn makes the vocal patterns leap out from the mix. I really have struggled at trying to describe this to people so I will just leave it here for your to understand yourselves..

Godstopper - Demo 2010

Here is the video for the best song on here, seriously. I love this so much.