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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
1995 saw the release of this album, probably one of the most well known and commercially successful offshoots of the Wu-Tang empire. From then onwards, its creator, Ol' Dirty Bastard ( Tyrone Russell Jones to his mother) went on to have a fair few adventures :
Around this time, Jones gained notoriety when, as he was being profiled for an MTV biography, he took two of his thirteen children bylimousine to a New York State welfare office to pick up his welfare check; his latest album was still in the top ten of the US charts. The entire incident was filmed by an MTV camera crew and was broadcast nationwide.
In February 1998, Jones witnessed a car accident from the window of his Brooklyn recording studio. He and a friend ran to the accident scene and organized about a dozen onlookers who assisted in lifting the 1996 Ford Mustang—rescuing a 4-year-old girl from the wreckage. She was taken to a hospital with first and second degree burns. Using a false name, Jones visited the girl in the hospital frequently until he was spotted by members of the media
The evening following the traffic accident, Jones rushed on-stage unexpectedly as Shawn Colvin took the stage to give her acceptance speech for Song of the Year at the 1998 Grammy Awards, and announced that he had recently purchased expensive clothes in anticipation of winning the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album that he lost to Puff Daddy. As Colvin took the stage to a round of applause, he asked of the audience, "Please calm down, the music and everything. It's nice that I went and bought me an outfit today that costed a lot of money, you know what I mean? 'Cause I figured that Wu-Tang was gonna win. I don't know how you all see it, but when it comes to the children, Wu-Tang is for the children. We teach the children. You know what I mean? Puffy is good, but Wu-Tang is the best, Okay? I want you all to know that this is ODB, and I love you all. Peace!" This incident was widely covered in the mainstream media.
In February 1999, he was arrested for driving without a license and for being a convicted felon wearing a bulletproof vest (the first person arrested for this infraction under a new California law). Back in New York weeks later, he was arrested for drug possession of crack cocaine and for traffic offences. With multiple cases in the past and present, he was arrested with marijuana and 20 vials of crack. After his arrest, Ol' Dirty Bastard reportedly asked the police to "make the rocks disappear". During a court hearing, he once called a female prosecutor a "sperm donor."
Its a top class album. It has that East Coast dissonance that RZA's production always lends. Alongside Liquid Swords its my favourite Wu offshoot.
Its been a while since I last posted on here, I've been busy. End of. We all know the recent events that are going to impact the world of blogging, so lets just enjoy what we do for the time being.
Today's post is the awesome 1981 album by the golden touch, liquid smooth vocal rapists Daryl Hall & John Oates, otherwise known as Hall & Oates. Private Eyes features their best selection of songs in my opinion. Every track is sure fire gold, assimilating R&B, soul, jazz and rock into simple, radio friendly bursts of pop. "Head Above Water" is the best unused pump-up/montage track as well.
In other news I have recently took up posting over at the might Illogical Contraption. If you dig death metal, conspiracy theories, awesome stuff and futuristic shit then its well worth a read.
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.
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.
Another RIP post. Sad news when it reached me. Kevin Mahony passed on recently. Kevin, along with his band mates in Siege basically defined the parameters and direction of hardcore punk back in the 80's.
If it wasn't for Kevin and Siege I wouldn't be doing what I do now. Here is the only release they ever managed. Drop Dead compromises the 6 track demo recorded back in '84 and 3 more tracks that came to light on Pushead's Cleanse The Bacteria compilation in 1985.
Basically the foundations of any band, musically and lyrically, that parades under the banner of fastcore/grindcore/power violence/hardcore whether your aware of it or not.
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.
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?
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.
Larry Graham has got a fair few decent things going for him. He was a key member of Sly & The Family Stone, he is often credited with pioneering the slap technique applied to electric bass and he also worked with Betty Davis, Tower of Power's horn section and The Pointer Sisters. Amongst all this, he found time to form Graham Central Station back in 1973 with various musicians picked out of Jefferson Airplane, Santana and Hot Tuna. Mirror show cases this collectives combined playing skills on many levels. Some of the tightest and most energetic playing you are likely to hear.
Its no secret of my love for Company Flow ( search the archives on here), but up until a few years ago I never really dug into what DJ Mr Len did after the trail blazing Brooklyn trio called it quits back in 2001. I followed El-P pretty obsessively across all his solo works and spent some time absorbing Bigg Jus's Black Mamba Serums but Len seemed pass me by.
Mr Len, Leonard "Lenny" Smythe to his friends, followed the break up with this very album. Acting as a sort of mixtape, it showcases a sound you have come to expect from one of the guys behind the dark Funcrusher Plus album but also leans way more towards standard structures. Sort of like trying to jam a huge, dark, nasty creature into a presentable glass box for people to stare at. That makes sense right?
His choice of vocalists on here is pretty spot on. Each track obviously playing to that lyricists talents and vibe. Jean Grae stands out on her contribution "Taco Day", that's pretty intense in its narrative. Mass Influence, Lord Sear and Chubb Rock all provide pretty solid accompaniment. The only lull in the albums running is the collaboration with metalcore chumps Agents Of Man. Which is just lame. Despite that, Pity The Fool makes a pretty sweet mixtape for random journeys and in my experience household cleaning.
