Into Another - Ignaurus

You know how I know when an album I own and love doesn't get enough love on the internet? When the best image you can find to gank for your own hot-air-review based blog is a shitty, grainy scan from the record label that released it like 15 years ago. This is the first request I have ever had for Mediocrity. My friend, Scott Sheridan asked for me to write it up and I am glad he did because my blog was lacking in things that weren't extreme metal.

By the time I had graduated high school (1995), I had drifted pretty far from metal. I was listening to a bunch of crazy stuff. Mostly arty punk and no wave stuff like the Minutemen, and the Swans, Lots of 80's "deathrock" like Sisters Of Mercy, Bauhaus and Siouxsie. There was still a pretty healthy addiction to Sabbath, but I was totally convinced that metal and I were just done. This was to change in the next 5 years, but first, metal needed to flirt with me again. Metal's first re-flirtations with me were through Snapcase, Strife, Harvest and the early metalcore bands. Eventually, I was to hear Converge's "Petitioning The Empty Sky" which sent me running headfirst to the closet to dig out my warped cassette copies of "Clandestine" and "Necroticism," but that was still some years off. I played in a hardcore band for a few months right out of school, but shortly fell out of favor with those guys. In the meantime, I was discovering the "emotional" post-punk sounds. I cringe to use the term that was first used for bands like Sunny Day Real Estate, Texas Is The Reason and Sensefield, but that was what we called it. They had inherited the mantle from the primarily DC based "emo" punk scenes of the late 80's/early 90's, smoothed the rougher edges, and expanded the melodic possibilities of the form to create a style that was part Smiths, part Supertramp, and part spastic temper tantrum.

You could draw a line directly between the sounds of most of those musics I just mentioned (sans the extreme metal.) using the music of Into Another, so they were like tailor made for me to get into. They were clearly heavy metal influenced, but melodically experimental. They each had an obvious restrained virtuosity to their playing, but they were given to dropping in a Sabbath sized throb on occasion to spice things up. Richie Birkenhead's choir-boy range was emotive, but not in the OTT "crying with his back to the crowd" kinda way. There was no equipment destruction at the end of their performances, but they were obviously talented enough, that should they have decided to do so, they would have stayed in key while doing it. They could somehow be both uplifting like the lead off songs to the first two Boston albums, but still be as dark as any goth band out there. So many people just didn't get it. I remember some clueless assclown journalist comparing their first album to Motley Crüe. Into Another set out to do a number of very different and progressive things with their songs, and accomplished every single one of their goals in flying colors, but in a very tasteful and thought provoking manner. Peter Moses is still one of my favorite guitarists to ever walk the earth. Listen to the first 80 seconds of Ignaurus to find out why. Tony Bono opens with one of the most memorable basslines I know of, and Moses lays a modal, quasi-legato solo over the top of it that was slightly flashy, but introduced any who heard it to one of the few guitar players of the 90's that could solo with a unique style and still be a respectable player at the end of it. Moses never sounded masturbatory or self indulgent and his jazz-hippie-metal canoodling was as integral to the Into Another sound as Ritchie's voice.

I was sold from there. Tony Bono is John Entwistle cool in my book. He would literally MAKE the song for me a lot of times. Ritchie has mad pipes, and Peter Moses plays the aforementioned guitar hero/anti-hero swimmingly, but Bono provides the hook more often than not. All involved could outplay anyone in the scene at the time, but they always seemed to take the high road, or at least, if someone WAS getting notey and noodly, it never seemed like it.

Into Another had their fair share of media exposure at the time, but they had terrible marketing. No one was interested in a couple of ex-NYHC straight edge guys and two long haired metal players who all dressed like hippies and played arty, spiritual, mature progressive rock. They didn't wear oversized chinos, or have a rapper, or dreadlocks, or a political agenda, or played 7 string guitars, or gang choruses, or any of those tired cliches (even at that time) that record labels were flogging to drum up sales. The band just didn't have a very good visual hook and they made the mistake of going for the gold and signing to the major disguised as an indie with no obvious marketing savior-faire when it came to any kind of highbrow music (clearly the territory of the indie labels.) For some ungodly reason, Into Another were basically marketed as a metal band, when they were merely metal influenced, and when provoked, only displayed the most thoughtful and well mannered aggression on album. Would they have had a shot had they been marketed differently? Perhaps to a more Soundgarden crowd (I always think of Peter Moses and Kim Thayil as musically kin.) I dunno. It didn't work for Voivod. They lost almost all their early fans by the time they released Angel Rat and were clearly gunning for the flannel crowd. (Moses could also beg a strong comparison to Piggy's playing of that era.) They got a video or two on Headbanger's Ball I think, and were featured numerous times in Metal Maniacs (which is where I first heard of them.) but that was about it. The internet was still in it's infancy at this point and the label was eventually swallowed up in the "great conglomeration" of record labels in the mid 90's and they were one of the bands to get the axe. The record industry were clamoring for the next Nirvana in the wake of the Cobain suicide and had no time for anything they could not hang a sign THEY could be comfortable hanging. It was not for trying though. Into Another got a damned healthy promotional push for a time, during that nebulous time of the 120 minutes "BuzzBin" which I don't believe they ever got featured on.

They split up in 1996. There was no farewell tour, and probably not even an official final show. In 1995 they released "Seemless," which is basically an extension of this album with some smoother edges. I like them both about equal for different reasons. Seemless has some really great moments and is as equally worth tracking down (yr likely to find it in a dollar bin somewhere.) It's as much a work of genius as Ignaurus, but Ignaurus is the darker horse of the two. There was an unreleased album as well.  I heard it, it sounded unfinished.  There were alot of electronics involved, not much guitar, and it was pretty unclear what they were focusing on.  Into Another were shelved by whatever record label absorbed Hollywood Records and they just sort of quietly disappeared.

In 2002, Tony Bono sadly passed away unexpectedly, shocking the metal, punk, hardcore and emo worlds that this band straddled so effortlessly and equally. His work in Into Another influenced my own bass playing heavily. I read in an interview with Ritchie was that the last time anyone knew of Peter Moses's whereabouts was at Tony's funeral. Moses did not keep in touch with Ritchie and Drew after the band dissolved. In this age of "legendary" and underappreciated reforming and playing for the crowds that they never had when they were initially active ("Kyuss Lives?" Without Josh Homme? c'mon.) it's especially heartbreaking to know that this is one act that will never play again.

Ocean - Monument/Fork Lashing Eye 2004 CDR demo

You know something that is sweet about demos? They are short. Sometimes, albums just go on too long and don't have enough to say. Some of my favorite albums are victims of this. "And Justice For All" really could have done without the 9 minute songs. Demos are graceful and quick to upload and download. No splitting of the archive, or timeouts on the server. Wanna know something that is a fucking DRAG about demos? They are SHORT. I have a 20 minute drive to work and that is not enough time to get into the meat of a good album. No "Forest Of Equilibrium" for me in the morning. I'm a third of the way in by the time I am through the intro. If you are listening to something, you almost want it to be something you are not that interested in, or something that can pert-near complete itself within the time frame granted. So the What The Fuck?!? demo posted a few posts back leaves me driving 75mph on the interstate and rather unsafely removing my eyes from the road while trying to find something else in my iPod to listen to that will interest me for the next seven and a half minutes. ("You know, and I know, I can't live without my radio")

Maine's Ocean really felt the need to write ten (twenty... thirty) minute songs. On their self released 2004 demo, they had it right. Two songs, 25 minutes long. Perfect drive-to-work length. It's before they had figured out how to be molasses slow too, so it's not like it puts me to sleep on the way (another good reason not to listen to "Forest Of Equilibrium" while driving I guess.) Playing tectonically slow really takes some tweaking on the groups's part. It takes a keen sense of time amongst all involved for everyone to stay together.

My old band played with Ocean in Cleveland some years ago. At that time, the only thing they had released was this 2 song demo. It was not terribly indicative of their live sound, but it was crushing nonetheless. They had just re-recorded their entire debut album after being entirely unhappy with what they had recorded with Sanford Parker in Chicago. I don't know how that can be possible, but their reasons I think had more to do with their own performances and they just ran out of time to get it the way they wanted it. (Something about it not being slow enough.) Ocean are obviously perfectionists in many regards. Their second album, "Pantheon Of The Lesser" is an utter fucking sludge/doom masterpiece, probably the last sludge/doom masterpiece that was ever recorded. The second song (Of The Lesser) is like 37 minutes long, it's super super slow and it STILL rules from beginning to end. It's REALLY hard for something super super slow to be able to do that. It took them 2 years of writing to get it right apparently, and when they did, it was a doozie. It doesn't get boring, and I highly recommend you get it if you like it slow. Then again, if you already like it slow, you probably already own it.

You may NOT however, own their highly sought after "Monument/Fork Lashing Eye" 2 song, self released CDR demo. Weep no more, for I do. I finally got around to scanning the cover as well. Ocean were some of the most solid guys I have ever met. They gave me my pick of T shirts, but I was grabby and not thinking and grabbed a small. Sold it some years ago. Still kicking myself. I should have at least made it into a back patch or something cuz I REALLY love this band. They released this on a limited 500 copy run of 12" vinyl with sick, handmade packaging a few years ago. Doubtless, it sold out. Here is your chance to at least have it in some form if you so desire.

Gutted - self titled, self released final album.

Oh SHIT!!! Lo Res Viscera beat me to it. He always posts about HIS hometown bands, and I like to post about mine. His blog is one of the reasons I do a blog. He does it for the right reasons, not just to spread a zillion files around the internet, or be the first to leak something. His posts mean something to him and his blog is a labor of love. Albums I post usually have some personal reason to them as to why I have posted them, and I am verbose in imparting some inkling of my personal connection to such-and-such album or demo. I was happy to see that SOMEONE knows about Gutted other than the 450 or so Midwesterners that gave a shit about them in 1993, even though I think he was a midwesterner in 1993, which I guess would make him one of the 450. Either way, I am glad he is spreading the good word.

LRV posted the long lost classic "Bleed For Us To Live," which in all honesty didn't make too strong an impression on me after the REALLY classic "Disease" demo. They were brutal enough without a lead guitarist. Gutted was all we had in Toledo. There were no other death metal bands at the time and these guys either opened, or in most cases HEADLINED every extreme metal show in the area. They were the most extreme it got around here, and all without a single blastbeat ever written or played. There was one other band at the time, but they were very openly aryan supremacist (and boring as shit, musically) so I won't even discuss them. You get a bit of that around these parts.

There was a metal show that myself and some friends attended, and the Ditch brothers pulled up in a rusty Chevette. Their band at the time was called Demigod, but because of the Finnish band, were changing their name. (There was a Toledo band named Athiest too, they had to change their name to Corruption. They practiced 2 doors down from me.) Mark Ditch pulled out a little pad of paper with some band name possibilities written on it and asked us to pick one. I don't remember the others, but I voted against "Gutted." It DID make a striking logo in the end. I was never friends with them. They were in their 20's and I was like 14 or 15 and would sneak into shows and not talk to anyone for fear of getting thrown out even though I wasn't drinking and usually tried to pay cover.

The last time I saw them live, it was opening for Napalm Death on the Fear, Emptiness, Despair tour in the basement of The Asylum in downtown Toledo. Sheer Terror played that show too (and ruled!) Gutted was playing their new post-Bleed material on this show, and it crushed. They had returned to their original three piece lineup. There were some new amps onstage too. It was a nastier guitar tone, and overdriven bass and it was gnarly as hell. Unfortunately, death metal was no longer the flavor of the week as it was about 1994 at that point and "alterna-metal" was starting to crown. The only problem with Bleed For Us To Live was that it was released 2 years too late. They would have been kings had they been anywhere but here. Sadly, they had to settle for being kings... here.

I dunno why LRV was worried about them being considered Slam Death. Waking The Cadaver these guys are not. They WERE alot more creative in their rhythmic approach to things than alot of other bands. Gutted hardly ever got beyond "mid paced." What they DID write were hooks. A lost art if you ask me. A car could blow out a tire in some of the pockets they would write. Death metal bands don't play anything resembling a pocket anymore. The later material has a grit to it that was closer kin to Incantation and some of the other "dark" death metal that was busy being forgotten at the time as well. Gutted still kept that midpaced, evil vibe going on, like Asphyx. The keening, whining guitar solos that really weren't much more than moody, reverbed out string bends. The throat lacerating vocals (NOT cookie monster!) Chunky, simple double kick and filthy bass that complimented the guitar tones. Some years after they "broke up" (became permanently inactive? retired? closed the family practice?) This limited released platter came out. It has awful, throwaway cover artwork, bad layout with a crappy font, and they could not have printed up more than 500 or 1000. Total homebrew job, but it has their final recordings on it (including a dope cover of Manitou that I like more than Venom!) The first five songs were the referenced later material they recorded. To make it complete, though, they included their 4 song "Disease" demo at the end of the album. I wore out two copies of that cassette. I never got a chance to buy this CD, so I only have this downloaded copy of it that I have re-upped. I think I got it from one of those Russian sites and I just happened to run across it. I probably still get porn popups from going to that site too.

I kinda doubt if Gutted toured much or played too far out of town. Maybe some East Coast dates. They released Bleed For Us To Live at a point when death metal show attendance was at an all time low ebb. I know they played the Michigan Deathfest more than once and were tight with the Epitaph Magazine people. I vaguely remember them getting a good review in Metal Maniacs, but that never guaranteed anyone any widespread recognition (Shit, one of MY bands had a one page feature done on them! Never even got me recognized on the street!)

I can't find a better pic of the cover than the one from the Metallum, so that is all you get. In all honesty, it's really all you need.

Top Nine of 2009

This year was a little weak on the new music tip. The good releases were REALLY good thankfully. Even Megadeth released a kick ass record. That fact tickles me especially because I rediscovered them this year. Megadeth was actually the first metal T shirt I ever owned and I wore it to threads. Within 4 years of first hearing them, I was ashamed to own it, though, as the 5 or 6 follow-up albums to Rust In Peace hardly "followed" it at all. (If anyone is selling the "Contaminated" shirt, let me know, I would love to get my hands on another one in good condition.)

I wanted to make this post all fancy with hotlinks and stuff, but we are lucky I got around to putting little pictures next to the entries. Go out and buy these at your favorite local mom and pop record store. They are still out there. I am lucky to live in a city where there are like 6 or 8 record stores and I spend some loot at more than one of them every week. There really is nothing quite like holding the product in your hand and thumbing through the packaging. Vinyl, cassette or CD, it doesn't really matter what format you dig, just don't be one of those clowns with 75,000 MP3s and no physical music collection. Those guys like dogshit like Waking The Cadaver and gave Soulja Boy a career. I quit smoking 6 years ago this January and my vow back then was that I would transfer whatever money I spent on cigarettes to a weekly music budget. I smoked about a carton of cigarettes a week, and as the price of a carton has risen, my music budget has risen as well. Good for music. It is a vice I am happy to support for myself. I can't say I could ever remember being able to rate the cigarettes I smoked in a year, or enjoyed talking about my habit with other geeks. Music is awesome, even if my best of 2009 list is almost exclusively metal this year. I wish something else would have impressed me, but most indie rock has gone up it's own ass and exists only to sell VW's and MP3 players. I would rather listen to the new Nile album (which was surprisingly good) than the new Decemberists (which was a horrifying disappointment.) Hip Hop did exactly nothing this year either, short of that new Raekwon album, and when people tell me about a really great hip hop album they just heard, it usually was recorded 5 years ago. Most of my music purchases this year were catalog purchases, or reissues of awesome shit like Siouxsie And The Banshees, or Discharge. I ordered a ton of shit off eBay too (getting solid copies of stuff I discovered through downloading.)

The best shows I saw were bands that reformed and were doing one more go-round. (Sunny Day Real Estate, Carcass, Jesus Lizard.) The only show that I was really excited about that was NOT some band I was into ten years ago was Dungen, who toured with Fleet Foxes (barf) but played a one off date in my town for about a hundred people. It was amazing and beyond kick ass to see one of the only existing 'non metal' bands I enjoy playing 4 feet in front of me. Sadly, there were only about 30 people from my town at the show, and the majority of the audience was made up of people who drove several hours to see them in a small club setting. The Bone Awl/Volahn/Ashdautas tour was sweet though. I saw that in Detroit and then Cleveland a few nights later. Several of my best of picks, I saw at the Templars Of Doom 3 festival in Indianapolis, which was most assuredly a highlight of my year. I should really make it a point to try and make it to one metal festival a year. Unfortunately, I work and make most of my money on most weekends. I had plans for MDF, but had to cancel for that reason.

I need to move on to the list as this is becoming more stream-of-consciousness blogging, and it really shouldn't be.

I'll spare the mystery and just start at the number one:

1. Iron Age - The Sleeping Eye
Wow... fucking, wow. The first time I heard this was at the record store. The guy sez "You'll love this" and I promptly didn't for whatever reason. It just wasn't the day for it for me. A few months later, a friend of mine tells me they are playing in Cleveland as their only midwest date, with Nukkehammer as support. I went to see Nukkehammer and am glad I did as they crushed. I really didn't care about Iron Age, but they were one of the most pummelling bands I have ever seen live. They were tight and energetic, even after having driven 25 hours straight from Austin to play... really late. Their album has equal parts of Integrity's Cleveland stomp, with Venom's forward thrust in the fast parts. The songs have all the class of Entombed's Clandestine though. Expansive, almost epic qualities meshing seamlessly with expert songcraft. "The Sleeping Eye" is some serious next level shit for me. I got the same vibe from Catharsis' 1-2 punch of Samsara and Passion in the late 90's I wish more bands like that existed. Epic, but getting to the point so their songs weren't 37 minutes long.


2. Argus - s/t
I drove four hours to see these guys. Got there just in time too. They were still tuning up when I arrived. Argus were the second band on day 2 of the Templars Of Doom festival in Indianapolis. Frustratingly enough, they were a month away from having boxes of copies of their albums to sell. One of my old bands played with them some years ago. It must have been their 4th or 5th show with their new vocalist at the time, Butch, who got us on the bill as he was friends with our drummer. Butch has a wall shaking tenor that got him attention as vocalist for the 90's doom metal outfit, Penance. They were "Butch's new band" to us. He was still pretty new to the band though and was not feeling the best about his performance, but it knocked my socks off and I have been waiting for years for a full length to come out. They had just started recording their demo at the time. 3-4 years later and I finally have my hands on their absolutely un-fuck-withable debut self titled full length. Their superior songcraft stood them far ahead of some of the other acts of the weekend. Their twin guitar work compares to ANY twin guitar team in the business. We're talking Roth/Schenker good. We're talking Wartell/Franklin good. If you don't know who those guitar teams are, get googling. Argus are not exactly true doom metal, but add a healthy dose of Witchfinder General and that is probably the closest one could get to pigeonholing them. They are downtuned classic metal I guess. I'm excited to hopefully get to Cleveland in a few weeks to see them play with Pentagram and Gates Of Slumber.

3. Krallice - Dimensional Bleedthrough
Epic, sweeping, cold black metal, played by a bunch of guys from other bands that all live in NYC. They are better at it than most. This record is the shit. I saw them play this entire album from beginning to end just before they joined up with Wolves In The Throne Room for a US tour. It was so loud it was stupid. Everyone was playing through a full stack. I had earplugs in and my ears were still ringing afterwards. I loved the first album and they didn't play a note of it live. I don't know why I latched onto these guys, but I really REALLY like them. I kinda feel that these guys are the torchbearers for good, pure USBM at this point. Great stuff, and they aren't pretentious about it. WITTR strike as the pretentious torchbearers of 'hipster black metal' that they are made out to be. Living in the woods and all that shit. Krallice live in Brooklyn and probably take the subway to band practice. They have no designs on being kvlt by concealing their identities or wearing face paint (a practice that I feel USBM acts have no claim to.) I still like Wolves... and Black Cascade would be in my honorable mentions, probably more because everyone is naming them in their top ten and I think Krallice is gonna get the short end of it by releasing their album later in the year.


4. Deathspell Omega - Diaboli Veritas In Aeturnum: Chaining The Katechon
Unlike Krallice, this band is TOTALLY pretentious about everything. I guess they has every right to be. I find this band to be completely incredible. The way dissonance is used to make melodies that are totally anti-melodic, yet still catchy is like catnip to me and I wish I could do it as well. This is one 22 minute song that actually keeps my attention for 22 minutes without me needing to do something else. I will actually listen to this and stare off into space for 22 minutes WITHOUT cleaning my room or reading a book or reorganizing my music collection or anything. Listening to Deathspell Omega in headphones is one of the most disorienting experiences one can have with music, next to maybe trying to figure out what Portal are doing, which just gets tedious to me after awhile.


5. Keelhaul's Triumphant Return To Obscurity
One of the best bands... ever. They finally put out a new album this year. Caught these guys live too, by total accident. I used to love seeing them back in the early 00's. They ruled everything as far as I am concerned. They made all those Botch clones sound like a bunch of chumps. They made all the tech metal assholes sound like clowns. They still do as far as I am concerned. Thankfully, the Botch worship bands kinda fell away, but there is still lots of Psyopus and Ion Dissonance garbage out there that needs to be shown the door. Keelhaul are totally unapologetic in their delivery. Their insistence on the rhythm is entrancing to me. Somehow, they don't get lost. It's spooky how well they play together too. Judging by the album title, they are hanging it up again for at least another few years after this, so if you didn't get to see them on their tour last September, then shame on you.

6. Zebulon Pike - Intranscience
I hate Pelican, ISIS and Russian Sparrows. It's boring and unoriginal. Neurosis did it when I was in high school. I've seen these guys compared to those bands because they are instrumental and heavy and proggy. That's really sad. I think this is a self released album, and therefore I may be posting it on here before too long because it is pretty effing amazing. I saw them at the Templars fest too. Someone told me they were like Pelican and that made me want to go hang outside (or hang myself) where there were people I didn't know doing things I didn't approve of. I decided to chance it with the band playing music I didn't approve of. I listened for about 20 seconds before deciding that I approved. Enough to buy this album and a T shirt. I wish I would have bought another album from them too. They had all of them for sale. I fucked up. They knocked my socks off. If the guitarists played any tighter, they would have been spooning.


7. Coke Bust - Lines In The Sand
The best hardcore band I have heard in years. This is their new 12". It's fast. I saw these guys live this year and they were intense and tight. I was impressed with how the live feel of this band was captured on recording. Their Fuck Bar Culture 7" was one of the best hardcore releases of the last decade. I felt and this full length is not too far behind. I think it's only drawback is the fact that it IS a full length and the impact of 6 brutal minutes of feedback drenched, but still super-tight thrashcore has been stretched out to 18 or 20 minutes.


8. YOB - The Great Cessation
If YOB releases an album, it is in my top ten for the year. The Great Cessation is no exception. YOB does doom metal like only YOB can. Mike Scheidt twists and distorts his voice and guitar tones in ways that no one will EVER be able to do again, without begging a direct comparison. My girlfriend took me to Chicago for my birthday dinner. I wanted to go to Kuma's Corner. I ordered the YOB. I will never eat another burger again... update, since writing this the first time, my girlfriend has decided to go vegan, which directly affects my culinary decision making and the YOB may very well be THEE last burger I ever eat. I really hope this is not the last YOB album Mike Scheidt decides to do though. YOB reminds me that all that is sacred and holy in doom metal is still important to some, and it isn't all about playing one drone for 65 minutes.


9. Teitanblood - Seven Chalices
I had my doubts about this release the first few spins I gave it. After about a dozen or so spins, it really started to grow on me. I don't spend enough time on the internet to stay up on every noisy, muddy neo "dark death metal" band, but I have a few friends that do. One of them, it's his job to keep up on this stuff. He's a writer and publicist. I ask him about three times a year to hip me to what I am missing by not frequenting the message boards and forums. He sets me on the left hand path pretty successfully, and often. This was his early entry for album of the year. I can't say that is it the best thing I have heard all year, but it is a murky, epic masterpiece in a market share that is getting more and more glutted with one dimensional Blasphemy worship. Seven Challices comes stocked with dark and freaky intros and outros, and a ridiculous guitar tone that creates an oppressive atmosphere. Impolite and evil.




Box Set: MAGMA - Studio Zünd
I don't feel the need to own many box sets as there are very few bands that maintain a level of quality throughout their career. When I caught wind of this being released, I waited a bit before ordering it. I finally grew some sack and dropped the loot over the summer, used off eBay. I totally lucked out and got it for $90. It quickly went out of print shortly after that and is now selling for more than twice that. I can't say it is anything I am ever going to sell though. My copy of MDK cost me $18 6 or 8 years ago. I bought it in NYC too. This is the entire studio output of Magma and it would be worth the $200 just to have all of them together. There is only one musical misstep and that would be 1982's 'Merci,' which is awful. If you ever wanted to hear Magma doing their own personal take on Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" go for it. Aside from that, it is cover to cover genius. The only REAL drawback to it is the assembly of the separate packages themselves. The plenty thick booklets don't fit the packages very well. Still, it took me like 3 days to read all the liner notes. This was a fantastic effort. The only other box set I could see myself owning is maybe the 1970-1976 Genesis box, which I can get at Barnes and Noble. Where am I ever going to see something like this ever again?

Best reissue: Vulcano - Bloody Vengeance
My last blog post pretty much spelled out my complete and total admiration for this recording. Were it not for file sharing, this album would never have been heard by me and I would not have spent the money on it once I found it. I walked into Magnolia Thunderpussy in Columbus with EVERY hope of finding this, but no expectations. I almost squealed like a schoolgirl when I did. eBay and direct purchases from labels are cool, but I know when I enter "Darkthrone T Shirt" into the search function, I am going to see 18 different Tshirts of varying dubiousness come up. I pay the money and it shows up on my doorstep after a few days. It's a sure bet. The true rush of discovery only occurred when I found a faded Darkthrone logo shirt for $3 at the Salvation Army (true story BTW, it doesn't fit me now that I have a belly, so my girl wears it) I enter with the hopes of finding a true gem, and I kinda say to myself "I really hope I find XX item" but rarely do. I actually did NOT say anything to myself about hoping to find a Darkthrone shirt when I did, I just did and that was sweet. When I walked into Magnolia, I actually was thinking "Maybe they will have the reissue of Bloody Vengeance" and they DID. It was weird. The packaging is so-so. There isn't like useful liner notes or really kick ass biography of the band or anything. Just some fun, old photos and lyrics, but the fact that it exists (and I physically own a copy) rules everything. I will forego putting a little picture next to this since it was my last blog post.


Best Demo: Coffinworm - Great Bringer Of Night
I have gotten to be pretty tight friends with a couple of the guys in this band. That has no bearing on my feelings about this demo. I am a doom metal junkie and this album hits all the bases when it comes to doing modern doom metal right. I already posted this a few months back cuz it blew me away. Download it with all due haste. I've heard an unmastered final mix of the full length due out on Profound Lore in the coming months, and when it is released, I would recommend purchasing it with all due haste as well.


Best compilation: Demented Anthem Harcore Assemblage
Nightbringer has a track on this comp, which is why I got it. This is the only compilation I have purchased this year cuz I usually hate them. This one is sweet though. Every band puts a sick track on it. If you want to hear the best of American and Japanese hardcore, get this. I think Burai Core distro still has a few copies for order. Some crafty googling will achieve you results.

Honorable mentions:
Marduk - Wormwood (almost made it. Edged out by Seven Challices. Marduk didn't hit their stride until Plague Angel)
Beherit - Engram (Nuclear fukkin Holocausto!!! please tour!!!)
Wolves In The Throne Room - Black Cascade
Megadeth - Endgame (just for putting out a record that stands up to the early catalog)
Nile - Those Whom The Gods Detest (FAR better than expected)
Proclamation - Execration Of Cruel Bestiality (what the hell does that even mean?)
Diephago - Filipino Antichrist (roughest shit EVER)
Converge - Axe To Fall
Obscura - Cosmogenesis (I hate tech metal, but damned if this ain't a good listen, fantastic solos and a sense of melody and structure, while still being brutal as hell)
Impetuous Ritual - Relentless Execution of Ceremonial Excrescence (what the hell does THAT mean too?)

Onward to the year we made contact.

Vulcano - Bloody Vengeance

Happy 25th of December. If you are celebrating something, good for you. If not, I hope you find something to do. I don't have to work today, and everyone I know is doing their thing, so I'm blogging for a change. I went to work on my entry for top ten of 2009, but Vulcano's 1986 masterpiece Bloody Vengeance was playing on my stereo and I couldn't adjust my focus to anything released in 2009. Following my muse:

The 'bestial' thrash of 80's Brazil sounds like they got ONE shipment of metal LP's in 1986 and no instructions for operation. There were copies of the first Bathory album, Obsessed By Cruelty, Pleasure To Kill, Apocalyptic Raids, Welcome To Hell, Dealing With It, Fuckin' Death and Infernal Overkill. Maybe some copies of Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing. The cardinal rule of "When one guy plays fast, everybody else play JUST AS FAST" was completely ignored in music class, as was tuning or the concept of tempered notes at all. Brazil was too pissed to be worried about any of that silly shit. They just HAD to spew forth profane blasphemies in broken English, and they had to do it faster amd meaner than Pleasure To Kill. The oft-blogged-about "Ultimate Bestial Thrash Album" of all time is obviously INRI from Sarcofago, and for good reason. It's nasty. It's REALLY nasty and amazing and amateurish it foresaw just about everything taking place 25 years later with frightening accuracy. Vulcano was nastier. The production was nastier, the lyrics were nastier, the cover makes Exhorder's Slaugher In The Vatican (which was banned in the US for some years) look downright pious. It's a 23 minute long "full length" with 7 proper songs that carelessly and drunkenly careen towards the old nun hobbling across the street with a carriage full of crippled orphan babies. The 7th track is one of those awesome satanic demon ritual chant interludes (or Brazilian kids playing with vocal filters and effects in the studio) and the final title track is the closest they have to a slow jam on the entire album. Bloody Vengeance probably ISN'T as blasphemous as INRI, but I think it sounds a good bit more evil. INRI is almost cartoonish in it's over-the-top hatred of Jesus and all that is good and holy. Venom never sang "Fuck you, Fuck you, Fuck you Jesus Christ!!!!" Morbid Visions was the warning. INRI was the shock and awe campaign... Bloody Vengeance was the full-on attack. BV was much more direct in it's delivery. There is no "Nightmare" to choke the pace after 3 songs. BV does not relent until the last song, where the tempo slacks a bit and some groove comes out for a scant few minutes before the album is over. It's pretty poorly sequenced actually. The first six songs are blistering and one dimensional. They jump the rails immediately and don't allow you to regain your composure for their 19 minute duration. If there was any more of it, the songs would run together as they all have the same raging tempo and rhythm. They may have no rival in intensity from this decade. Maybe Revenge or Deiphago. I would not hesitate to say that it is one of the most violent albums released in the 80's, Brazilian or otherwise. I ripped this from the 2009 Cogumelo reissue with a DVD live show from 1985 I found a few weeks ago in Columbus. It sounds like it has been remastered, but alot of the noise issues inherent in even the best 320kbps vinyl rips I downloaded are still gladly there, and it is NO cleaner, maybe just a little louder.

I bought Beneath The Remains in 1990. I was probably 13. It was kindof a revelation to me that there was such an active scene in South America. I saw "The Emerald Forest" and it wasn't metal. I figured most of South America had never even worn a proper pair of pants or had ever been in air conditioning. It seemed dense, hot, sweaty and humid. It probably still is. It's probably as gross as I could ever imagine it being to try and play intensely fast death metal in an equatorial nation. There are probably giant bugs that bite people, and drug murders occurring every few minutes just outside the rehearsal room in the kind of neighborhoods I would have come from were I birthed to some family down there. I can only imagine that these conditions are what they fed on to make the music as sick as was coming out of the region in 1985-86. I will tell you what I know for a fact though, I PORED over every thanks list from every tape I bought from 1989 to 1992 and got familiar with an awful lot of names of bands that I only ever got to read about back then. Sepultura and Ratos De Porao was all we got from Brazil up here, and aside from thanking each other and a number of Florida death metal bands I already knew, there were bands who got Portuguese shout out's and a number of names that were not familiar. Chakal, Sex Trash, Overdose and Vulcano come to mind immediately. Sarcofago may have gotten some love, but I don't know since Sepultura didn't reprint their thanks lists in the reissues they put out a few years ago (dicks.) Those names were the real deal.

Hundreds of bands currently go to great lengths to make sure their albums sounds are cloaked in bestial mush and filthy fairy dust to try and get that early 80's mystery that made Venom's Welcome To Hell such a punch to the gut when it came out. Never mind that it was a total pisstake. In my own youthful naivete, I was convinced that Welcome To Hell contained codes and secrets in its murk. I thought it was WILLFULLY recorded like that to mask and disguise the keys to Satan's own kingdom, only available to true Venom fans who were hip and got the decoder rings at a gig or something. Some heads in Norway had the decoder ring in the early 90's and kicked up some hellish dust. Cats in mid 80's Brazil never got the decoder ring. Satan knew they couldn't afford to get to see Venom if they ever made it down there, so he hooked them up personally. They went straight for THEE DUST and snorted deep, straight from the baggie. I'm convinced of this.

click that shit and breathe deep.

What The Fuck?!? - demo

I'll make this one short and sweet as well just to get this demo out there. I already gushed about how ripping they were live. Unlike the Deadmen demo, which is a fine example of the bands songs, but does not represent their crushing presence live, the WTF demo is pretty representative of the live presentation. Noisy and thrashy as hell, except live, they are noisier and thrashier. I guess an easy comparison (because I am too lazy to bother writing an extensive review) would be Haymaker or DS-13... maybe Citizens Arrest? Pissed, hateful, "no slow-all go" hardcore by guys your girlfriend would not be interested in cuddling with. This is right up my alley. Raw and angry with no metalcore, Youth Crew, NYHC, posi, or power violence references. No showoff full sleeve tattoos they got done all at once, no matching lettermen jackets, minimal gang choruses, no bland '77 throwback, no circle pits, but there IS a Dwarves cover. They just start raging and fourteen minutes later, you don't want them to be done raging. This is the most pissed off thing I have posted in a long time. More proof that Indianapolis have some awesome shit going on right now.

too bro, too slow

Deadmen - 2009 Demo

I'll put the quickness on this one just to get it out there. Out of something like 12 bands that I saw last weekend out with Disconnected, Deadmen probably impressed everyone in the van most. The laundry list of current and ex members of bands the members of Deadmen have occupied seats in is long. Seriously, it's worse than Dimmu Borgir's biography. Coffinworm (one of my favorite bands of the moment right now), Lair Of The Minotaur, Demiricous, Angelville, Suicide Note... Some creative googling/wiki-ing even turned up a stint in Birthright by one of the members. You can do your own creative googling if you really want to connect the dots. This demo does not do any justice to what they come off like live. Opening song "Been There Still There" opens with a shameless bite of "Snakes Of Christ" from Danzig, but when the drums come back, it gets driven into the dirt with an EYEHATEGOD/Crowbar groove. Nate's vocals are pure acid. It's obvious the members of Deadmen know their way around writing a good song and have done it many times as they adeptly engineer the song through pacier double kick parts and a few twists and turns, right back into another 2 ton groove. Both the other two songs, "Whiskey Vs. Wine" and "These Gods Have No Eyes" open with horns-down ramming speed Venom-like abandon while going forward to dismantle and reconstruct further sludge, NWOBHM and Celtic Frost reference points, even a few tastefully under-used twin guitar volleys for spice.

The Deadmen demo is regretfully short, and the songs are constructed in such a manner that compel the listener to follow it through to the end. None of them take very long to say what they need to say and a full length of anything more than 35 or 36 minutes is probably all that will be needed to make a properly devestating debut, should they choose to move forward in that direction. This band needs to be felt live though. This is a great start, but after seeing them live, the demo is merely a souveneir to tide me over to the next time I get to see them. Indianapolis has always had a mid sized, but potent and well developed metal/punk scene that has never really gotten it's fair due. Carl and Garrett have a monster here as well as in the mighty Coffinworm. I should be so lucky to be in ONE band this good before I die. Spread this one far and wide.

Off probation and on vacation

...was the unofficial title of the weekend in honor of Disconnected's vocalist, Patrick, finally clearing his probationary period of 3 years. He got in some trouble some time ago. He's better now.

After releasing the split 7" and actually printing up T shirts (you'd think we were a real band or something) we were itching to get out on the road. Will335 has been booking DIY punk/hardcore shows sporadically over the past 2 years. They are donation only shows and usually do pretty well for the scene and for the touring bands. Usually it is ONLY to support a touring band and the first couple of shows required some 'gentle coaxing' of the crowd, who needed to be reminded that 'donation' does not mean free. Back in July or August, plans for Will to call in a few favors and get us out on the road began to be laid. Karma paid back in spades this past weekend when Disconnected hit the road with Under Anchor for three days.

Originally it was to be ourselves and Nightbringer galvanting our way out to Cedar Falls, IA where both bands had some connections. Some of the members of NB had some obligations to fulfill and could not afford the time or the money to do it. That trip will be for another weekend I guess. Damned shame, because NB is Disconnected's favorite band pretty much. They are as close as you can get to being near Motörhead, while still being able to maintain your lawn. The righteous vegan brothers in Under Anchor heeded the call though, and we made the weekend with them. We did the bookings footwork, they provided the van, we secured the trailer, Rorik drove, I navigated, Will335 harrassed everyone and mashed up the van when I played World Burns To Death. The UA guys suffered untold miseries. DJ, the drummer had broken his hand the day before and was told by the doctor that he was NOT playing drums this weekend. Of course, being like 20, he told the doctor to eat fuck and played like a MONSTER all weekend. He was pretty swollen by the end of the weekend. Derrick and Jimmy were both sick (and got everyone else sick by the end of the weekend). Rorik twisted his ankle and had some pain from being gored and skinned by a piece of machinery at work a few months back, so he was limping after every set and by Chicago, was NOT stoked to walk very far for anything. By the end of the weekend, Jimmy was REALLY sick and would not get out of the cargo area where they had prepared a futon mattress. Somehow, they still played like monsters every night.


Thursday, we all met at Will's house about 7pm and loaded the trailer. We headed out for the hour and a half drive to the Leathershop in Lima and got there later than we thought was prudent. Thankfully the show hadn't started. The Leathershop is probably one of the best DIY spots to catch a hardcore show in Ohio. The Lima crew are dirty, crude and violent, but any one of them would probably give you the shirt off their back, if you feel like wearing an unlaundered and slept in Coke Bust shirt that is. They are all about getting a good show together, or failing that, gorging themselves on vegan food and driving a hundred miles or so to wherever a good show IS happening. The show that was put together that we played on contained 4 out of town bands and 2 Lima bands. Of the 2 Lima bands, there were a total of 5 members. Of them, I think 3 of them lived at, and curated the Leathershop. I don't know who is responsible for the abundance of hardcore pornography that wallpapers most of the rooms, but it is pretty surreal and gives the place that 'Gummo' vibe that any DIY spot in the middle of Ohio would do well to cultivate. They had us on top billing, headlining the show. We found this odd since we had so far hardly ever played out of Toledo, but we also remembered that a good number of Lima kids had trekked up to see shows that had us on the bill and maybe (just MAYBE) a few people were stoked that we were playing. Coincidentally, the first picture included is the first Disconnected patch sighting. It's one of the guys from Trontor, who broke up this past year. I was kinda stoked about that and trailed the kid for a good 15 seconds unbeknownst to him to get a clear pic. At least someone was stoked. William refused to take his ski mask off the entire night. He made it about 3 songs into our set before he had to do something. I played the first two songs in my gasmask for fun, but I was hoping I could do it for the whole set because kids in Lima smoke PACKS of cigarettes at a time. It was thick. I didn't make it past the 2nd song of our set before I thought I was going to pass out because a gasmask is hard to breathe in to begin with. The lineup was Domestic Dispute, Pizza Hi Five (the locals) Iron Minds from Cleveland, Karloff from Columbus, UA and us. The house was pretty well packed for all on the bill and kids were all rad and friendly. Everyone got the crowd to dance at least a few times. Kids lost their minds for Iron Minds and Karloff. I won't bore anyone with a blow by blow of the live sets. Everyone was solid. If you want to know what the bands sound like, I give you my hearty endorsement to go catch a live show and dig what you hear. Everyone was fast when they weren't playing slow and if their gear was on, they were loud. This is a blog, not a zine. Never confuse the two.

Under Anchor, Iron Minds and ourselves all stayed at the Leathershop. I think people were up partying until 6 or 7 in the morning. I was in the backroom on a futon mattress on the floor. I couldn't sleep for a damn. Two people in the room were making out and stuff. It didn't get very far past that. I was grateful. I had turned my ipod up so if they did decide to take it to that other level of intimacy, I would hopefully be asleep already. When I woke up, I was on track 35 of 43 of my Leviathan collection and I couldn't hear ANYTHING in the midrange. Anyone who has listened to Leviathan, knows what I am talking about. Leviathan rules everything. His albums are all like 58-70 minutes long, so my hearing was completely whitewashed by morning.



We aren't self conscious about our sound PERSÉ, but we are pretty certain we don't sound like many bands on any bills ever. We're not serious enough for metal shows, and we do not blast. We are a little too aggressive for most punk bills, and we aren't posi or crucial. Hardcore bands are a little too clean for us, and we don't have any breakdowns to tell anyone when to bring the sick mosh. Crusties would love our sound, but we are not in the least bit conformist to their strict guidelines, nor are we are not political at all. We play no anthems and do not print our lyrics, so it's rare that there is a singalong. Aside from speed, abusive volume and an inconsiderate use of feedback, there is very little for kids who are used to the usual happenings and flow of most live sets to grasp. If there ever was a bill that we were tailor cut for, it was probably the Indianapolis show. I had my buddy Dave from Coffinworm/Worldeater put his feelers out for a show that weekend. Boy, did he come through. There was already a show happening at the 1511 House, and he was going to try and get us on it rather than book a competing show somewhere else. SMART!!! The night was originally Adam's idea for debuting his new band Kata Sarka. Adam had been a friend of mine some years ago when he played in the USBM band FOG, but we fell out of touch. I was hoping to run into him the last time I was in Indy, but I did not. I went to a doom metal fest and he was stuck working all weekend. I DID hang with guys who worked with him and knew him and got my information to him to put us back in touch. Dave asked him if we could make it a stop as well. Agreements were struck and HOLY SHIT was it a good show. I'm going to continue to keep it diplomatic and reserve the 'live review' since it has been a week and my memory is not very long. I do know that Garrett gave me demo of his band, Deadmen, and it is sick. They were incredible. One of the best bands of the weekend and some awesome guys. They are kind of a supergroup. Members and former members of Coffinworm, Suicide Note, Angelville, Lair Of The Minotaur and who knows what else. Uploading their demo right now. Expect a post dedicated to them shortly. The sick fellas all crashed early in the van. The rest of us wandered over to Adam's house for some late night hang. He gifted me with a disc of MP3's that have been ruling my Ipod for a week (especially the unreleased FOG material and the Ignivomous stuff) 5 of us (and Adam) crammed into his 80's Toyota hatchback so we could get something to eat. We went to Qdoba in Broad Ripple, which is douchebag city on a Friday night. We ate and left and I wasn't even done throwing my drink out (after getting that last final pull on it) before Rorik damn near gets in a fight with some popped collar chachi-boys right outside the door. I think he did something to them to provoke them. We slept and got up early the next day. Pat had no voice so he was up at like 7:30 making tea for his throat. The rest of us got up pretty soon after that. I grabbed a quick shower and we were on the road by 9:30 for Chicago.

I wore the battery down on my iPhone using the Google Maps app to get us to Chicago and routing us through it to get to Soul Vegetarian and Metal Haven. I think we all got giant heaping plates of vegan protein in one form or another for lunch. The fried BBQ seitan was pretty good, but it was WAAAAAY better after the show. I wasn't impressed with the twist sandwich I got and regretted my decision. I had to order that in place of the much more interesting sounding Marcus Garvey burger, which they were out of. There were also vegan tamales on the menu, which intrigued me, they were out of them too.

After that, we went to Metal Haven. I had heard much about this store, but had obviously never been there. It made me want to move in next door. We only put an hour in the parking meter, so I had to cram, but even with giving the racks a cursory pass through, I still bought 6 or 7 CD's. Dead Congregation full length, the new Cremation demos compilation on NWN, Odal - Zornes Heimat (totally underrated raw pagan black metal without the silly folk influence), Midnight - Total Fucking Midnight, which I could have lived without, but it was there. Cobalt - Eater Of Birds... I downloaded this ages ago and loved it, but no one could get it in stock for me around here. Black Witchery/Conqueror split Hellstorm Of Evil Vengeance... probably the greatest split of all time. Black Witchery - Desecration Of The Holy Kingdom, which I had just been outbid for on Ebay. It sold on CD for $29, I got it for $13. Up your ass high bidder: j****p.

After that, we went to the Chicago Diner so the vegans could pay like $8 for vegan milkshakes or something. It was in boystown, which is the gay area of Chicago. I figured if they were gonna be there for a few minutes, I could sneak off to a coffeehouse and called my girlfriend. I did just that. It took me a few minutes to find a place. She was stressed and it made me feel bad that I couldn't be there for her. I wandered for a few minutes and saw some rather interesting costume shops on the way back.


We went to the Albion house where we were playing with Picked Clean and What The Fuck from Indiana, and Poison Planet and Boiling Over from Chicago. Every band pretty much played a sick set. Under Anchor somehow pulled through injury and illness to play their tightest set of the weekend. We played our third incident free set of the weekend. (how?) I missed most of Picked Clean because they only played for ten minutes and we were loading out due to it being in a tiny basement. What The Fuck decimated everyone all weekend though I thought. I got a demo from them and have uploaded it for posting in the next few weeks, whenever I can get the time to write it up. Poison Planet ruled when I saw them at the Tower in Cleveland some months back. They were a little rough from being on hiatus for some months, but they still killed. Boiling Over were as tight as they were when they played in Toledo. We were the odd band out again. Most of the bands on the bill were of the straight edge fastcore variety. What The Fuck even played a song called "Fuck Metal" which prior to playing it, the guy had something to say about there being other things to sing about than dragons and vikings. I can agree with that. It's just when metal bands try and sing about things that aren't fantasy, partying or satan, it just comes off as preachy and people throw things at them. When hardcore bands do it, kids just ignore them. We don't know what Pat sings about. We know some of his lyrics and they are pretty abstract and/or depraved. When we were loading up, Jas tried to blow a snot rocket or something and it became an epic (and blogworthy) booger.

People didn't leave when we played. There were alot of people in the room. They danced hard (surprisingly) We were pretty stoked about the reaction we got because Chicago is a notoriously tough crowd. They are the largest city in the midwest and have probably the most active and strongest hardcore scene not on a coast. Chicago bands are seriously together when we see them in our hometown and when you play their town, you are up against a very spoiled crowd. They have some of the best bands, and anyone else who is awesome in the US is trying to get shows put together like four nights a week in Chicago. If your band is not on top of their game, the crowd will be outside bullshitting with each other. We didn't have this problem. It was the last night of the weekend and we knew we had to rip faces off from beginning to end. We held our own. We know a good number of kids came up from Indy because of the Indianapolis bands, and a few of them were really stoked on us because we were in top form the night before, but I can't say that ALL the kids dancing were from Indy. The show ended, everyone went home. We got arrangements made for where we were staying and I started punching in coordinates on the iPhone.

We headed out to find food. I think I hit the wrong button on or something, because google maps took us to the OTHER end of Clark St. looking for the Pick Me Up Cafe. We turned around like 4 times, then I hit the right button and it got us there, but it was like 5 miles south and we didn't know it was across the street from Wrigley Field... on a Saturday night... at midnight. It was douche city. They were hailing cabs, their cabs were cutting us off. There was no parking. They were wandering drunkenly and vomiting in front of the van when we were at stop lights. It was bad news and we were getting in a seriously bad mood as a result. The sick guys in UA were giving up the ghost at this point. Jimmy was driving, but he was hitting the wall hard in the H1N1 department. Rorik had driven all weekend and was trying to get a break. It was a bad idea. Once we let Jimmy out amongst the population, it was all over and we all woke up the next day with our sinuses full of cement and our throats full of cobwebs. We said fuck it and found where we were staying. Hopes were high that there would be something open at night that we could walk too. Maybe there would be vegan options? FAIL. Pat, Jas and I headed out to find Burger King, which was the only thing open in the admittedly "yuppie" area we were in. Will came along too so he could get some fries. I avoid fast food for the most part, and when I am stuck, I try and get something reasonable. The other band I play in make fun of me for my "fag food" selections but I really can't eat greasy foods anymore without risking losing a day to illness. We were so hungry though, and the dining room was closed. I walked up to the drive through to see if the lady would let us order something. There was already a guy standing there behind a car. We got behind him. There was no menu board there, and the only thing I could remember that BK served was Whoppers... and it was the best damned Whopper I had eaten in my entire life. I love me some vegan food, but damn, I was stoked to eat some actual meat for a change. We couldn't figure out where the place was. We accosted some fixed gear bicyclist to see what their snob/swine answer would be to our enquiry as to where the taco bell and/or burger king was. They refused to tell us and pedaled off saying "We don't know!!! We don't eat DOG!!!" I thought William was going piss his pants laughing. He's been a strict vegan for 17 years and these snarky pitchforkers were looking down their noses at him. Here's a picture of Will with an axe by which he will split the wigs of false vegans.

Lord only knows when Disconnected is going to get out and do this again. Sooner rather than later we hope. It was fun and we proved a point to ourselves kinda validating what we do. Dunno if we will be able to take it for more than a few days at a time, but hopefully, things keep moving forward.

I've been writing this in little bursts all week, more for myself than anyone else. My memory is not long and before I start forgetting things, I wanted to have a document of what happened, and how the band feels about things just at this moment rather than looking back in time and thinking about events in hindsight. Currently, it is one week after we got home and Disconnected just played a rather disappointing set to a surprisingly good sized hometown crowd. Things didn't go our way and we were not in top form. I guess we deserved a little humbling after having such a great weekend. We'll get it back with some practice. A heap of thanks to Jimmy, Derrick, DJ and Rorik from Under Anchor for providing the van. Rorik in particular for driving nearly every last mile of the weekend without complaint. Thanks to Trashy and Mike at the Leathershop for the rad show, the floorspace and the vegan burritos the next day. Thanks to Dave and Adam for the show, Adam specifically for putting us up. Carl, Garrett and Mike for being in the front row and being stoked on us in Indy, and Mike rolling up to Chicago with the Indy bands. Thanks to the dudes in Boiling Over for getting us on the Chicago show, Mike Banks for hosting the show and graciously having us on the bill. Thanks to the guy in Chicago who put us up... Eric? I forgot his name. He was a good guy and we probably stressed he and his roommates out cuz we are verbally abusive, inconsiderate and thankless fucks who make fun of everything and wrecked his neighbors rock gardens.

Death to false bullet belts.

Disconnected Live footage

This is my band. Pretty wretched sound and dark video, but you get the idea. We have a split 7" out on Idoneum Bello Records with a power violence band from New Zealand called Wasteland. The last song we play is on the split. The split is for sale from Interpunk in the US. The rest of the world can get it from the Per Koro distro. We'll have copies at our next few gigs, maybe through the end of the year depending on how many more gigs we play. We still have a FEW copies of the cassette demo left from last winter. Like, maybe less than ten. The first song we play in the video is off the cassette. The long song in the middle is getting recorded right now. We're getting our shit together to put out a split 12" with a hardcore band from Lansing, MI called Under Anchor. They rip in all the best ways that mid-90's HC bands could rip. Catchy riffs, decent breakdowns (no super slow mallcore style) and a few hooks. I dunno if we are all going to pony up loot for it or if we are going to talk to labels. There may be a forthcoming split 7" with Nightbringer as well.

Disconnected will be playing a weekend November 19th, 20th and 21st with Under Anchor. I still don't have all the details. We may have T shirts by then.

November 19th Lima OH @ The Leathershop (w/Iron Minds and a few other bands)
November 20th Indianapolis IN @ 1511 House (house show with Medusa, Kata Sarka, Deadmen)
November 21st Chicago, IL @ another house show (with 2 of our favorite Chicago bands of the moment: Boiling Over, Poison Planet and 2 other out of towners aside from us and UA.)
November 29th @ Ramalama records, Toledo OH with Expire and one other band (Free show!! 2pm Sunday matinee)

Nightmare mega post

By no means can I claim to have been any kind of "old schooler" when it comes to the Japanese hardcore. I wasn't hip to it when it was available to me and 90% of the people who claim some sort of OG cred concerning it are full of shit. If they are under 30, they are absolutely bullshitting. I saw Lee Dorrian and Danny Lilker wearing S.O.B. shirts, so I knew of it's existence at a younger age than most. I read interviews where they talked about how great it was. It wasn't until I started leeching from blogs that I actually got to HEAR any of it.

Some time ago, I found uploads of both the Eye Of The Thrash Guerilla and Starving Dog Eats Master compilations. I can't remember where. They both had tracks from bands I was familiar with on them. I figured they would be a good place to start to check out some of the lesser known Japanese bands. Despite all the hype, cult appeal and fetishism the record collectors (see: pretentious assholes) subscribe to when spending $300 on OG Zouo vinyl, Japanese HC is just like any other scene. There are good bands and there are bad bands. It all depends on your tastes. My tastes run to the more aggressive and fast paced side of things. I've scratched the surface and I know what I like. I can't say I like it all, including some very popular and influential acts that I am just not into. I won't start any arguments about who sucks or who rules. One thing pretty much everyone can agree on is that Nightmare is one of the best. They were featured on BOTH the compilations I downloaded and I had to hear more. I dug a little deeper into their legacy and saw how respected the "Give Notice Of Nightmare" LP was on the internet. I couldn't find uploads of it ANYWHERE aside from the defunct "Fight Against The Plutocrats" blog (R.I.P. Dirk, you are one of the reasons I started a blog) where it had long since expired due to inactivity.

I have since purchased these two compilations that pretty much make up their early 90's output, sans their first 7" which they omitted from their discography for whatever reason. The recordings have been remastered and sound fucking awesome. They were SO full of piss and vinegar. They are still together today, but I have heard varying opinions on their more recent stuff. Few bands in ANY scene maintain this kind of energy track after track. Where Deathside fiddled with OTT guitar arrangements and superior song structure (to great effect,) GISM destroyed clubs with flamethrowers and bulldozers, and Disclose buried their Discharge worship in heaps of white noise and feedback (to lesser effect IMHO,)

Nightmare's schtick was to go straight for the throat. I don't think there is one weak song on either of these collections. Nightmare, along with Bastard, Gauze and Lip Cream are what I always imagined Japanese HC to be like. Fast as fuck, consistently tight and absolutely feral in their delivery.

One think you have to love about the Japanese is their penchant for experimentalism. The tracks for the 'Footprints In the Wind' single on the Bloodsucker Years feature a John Zorn-like freakout saxophone player who plays almost constantly over every track. Of the two, I think I prefer the Early Years compilation a little more. It contains the aforementioned Give Notice Of Nightmare recording as well as the tracks from both the compilations I named. No screwball Peter Brötzmann saxophone, just total thrash from beginning to end.

Bloodsucker
Early Years

Blood Of Christ - Demos 1991 - 1993

When I was a kid and wasn't old enough to get into clubs or had an income or an allowance that would facilitate ordering things from Relapse, I would dream about being in Florida or Stockholm or some other hotbed of death metal and getting to go to shows and stuff. Blood Of Christ were in the Relapse catalog and were from Ohio and that made them basically rock stars to me.  I think they had actually broken up before I ever even heard of them.  I didn't actually get to hear any of this material until I won this CDR on eBay.  When I finally heard them, I was pleased to find that Blood Of Christ were as good as I always hoped they would be. It sounds like early 90's death metal.  Heavy, but not tuned to drop A or anything silly like that.  They also do not play at 300 bpm either, which is why I find Nile and Hate Eternal albums completely boring.  "Usual suspects" influences like Morbid Angel, Malevolent Creation and Deicide come to mind, and maybe even a little Rotting Christ-styled bombast in a few places.  Good riffs, good arrangement, good energy. I really like these recordings ALOT and find it pretty criminal that the only true release these guys ever had was their sole "INRI" 7" released in 92, a dribble in the deluge of trend-hopping death metal releases from that year.  Had they released anything, it would have been forgotten among a hundred other releases that didn't sound too different from this stuff, even if it was superior to Deteriorate, Excruciating Pain or Morpheus Descends.

This contains all the material ever recorded by the band and it was prepared for a 2007 memorial concert for the lead singer who died some years back.  According to Encyclopedia Metallum, this is supposed to be released on vinyl someday, but it hasn't happened yet.  In the meantime, you get to download it and spread some early 90's Cleveland death metal gospel.

Blood Of Christ

Tracks 1-4 Taken from 1993 promo tape
Tracks 5-7 Taken from I.N.R.I. 7"
Tracks 8-9 previously unreleased
Tracks 10-14 Taken from 1991 demo

Cease & Desist!

Holy shit! I got my first cease and desist order in the mail today! I couldn't help but wonder what jackass decided to report me, and WHY of all things. I don't see any reason in posting any current releases from anyone. Most current releases suck anyways. Why should I give a shit about Animal Collective or a John Legend album enough to want to post it? General rule, if you can buy it at Best Buy, someone has their eye on the internet to try and stop dirtbags who want to be the first to leak it. I try and keep this blog centered on stuff you are not likely to find easily...try mind you (like it's hard work or something) Rare shit, demos, and of course the occasional rant (like now). It's my blog. I can post as irregularly as I want and post dumb shit on occasion.

So I'm at a Dungen concert tonight and I get a call from my Dad saying "there is a letter sitting on the thing in the room at home that has something to do with file sharing or something." I get red behind the ears. I fucked everything up and we are both going to broadband prison or something. I know Dad is pissed cuz he doesn't know what the hell any of this means, it's just his son and that confounded internet of his. Dad has his own computer. I am sure it is a porno machine for the most part though. He can't do much else other than check his email and find titties. He has no idea how any of this P2P file sharing stuff works or what I have gotten him tangled into. So I get home from the show and immediately seek out this letter sitting on the thing in the room. It's from the cable company saying that they refuse to disclose any information to the DMCA, unless they are court ordered to do so, but it has been brought to their attention that our IP address has been sharing information of a copywritten nature (Nukkehammer - Pigs All The Time? Death Side? Il Balletto Di Bronzo? The suspense is killing me.) I scan to the bottom of the page and in red it says that the file had to do with "Flash Of Genius" What song is that? It's nowhere in my computer. I get on the horn with a savvy friend and he just says "google it!" So I do and immediately it comes up that it was a movie that came out in 2008 about a stolen windshield wiper or something.

...what the fuck?

I don't even KNOW how to download a movie. I don't even know how to use a torrent for that matter.

Apparently, I don't know how to secure the wireless network at my house as well as I thought I did. My bad.

Coffinworm - Great Bringer Of Night (2009 demo)

I haven't had time to post anything in over a month. It's been a very busy and sad month for me. As you can see, my dog had to be put down a few weeks ago. That was the sad. On to the busy. A few weeks ago, I went to the 3rd and final Templars Of Doom festival in Indianapolis and made friends with these guys who kindly let me post their demo. I had just missed them at the festival, but wound up bullshitting with their guitarist and drummer and decided to buy a T shirt and their demo sound-unheard based on the fact that they were nice guys, the shirt looked sweet, I was at a fest and planned on hemmorhaging money anyways. Thankfully, the demo rips and I got to see them the day AFTER the fest as I learned that Krallice was playing a show and Coffinworm was opening that show as well. I made sure to get there early where they were the best band of the night. Had I seen them at the festival, they probably would have surpassed all the other bands on the bill At the Krallice show, I wound up bonding with the lead singer of Coffinworm over old death metal cassette demos, of which he owns an extensive collection. It was like an episode of Sesame Street, with everyone being friends and shit.

Pinning Coffinworm's sound with a few words has proven pretty evasive, as evidenced by the fact that I have deleted this very paragraph in it's entirity no less than four times now. Describing their sound would probably just be unfair in general. General overview of the music... It's Heavy Metal. It's closest musical alignment would be doom metal, but they have a pretty healthy love of midpaced death metal and crusty punk. Maybe a dash of late 80's/early 90's noise rock ala Amphetamine Reptile records or T&G records. I'm going to cop out on the rest of this because I have to get ready for work now and have been just trying to get this link POSTED so people hear it. I keep getting hung up on the "review" because I have had writers block. Download it and listen to it and if you think I am wrong, go to hell because I don't care about you or your tastes.

Great Bringer Of Night was recorded with Bob Fouts, drummer of Gates Of Slumber, who slipped a copy to the owner of Profound Lore records just because he thought he would like it. Not only did he like it, but before the demo was even mixed, Coffinworm was offered the opportunity to put out a full length with Profound Lore. They were instructed to complete a full lengths worth of songs and report to Volume Studios before the end of the year for recording with Sanford Parker. They will settle in nicely with the rest of the Profound Lore catalog of well thought-out wierdness. CW thankfully lack the pretention of alot of that label's output. Hopefully, they are able to maintain the raw attitude that this material possesses, and are able to BETTER capture what I saw live, which was ten times as mammoth as this demo.

Permission has been granted to usurp vocalist Dave's own bandwidth and post the link he gave me to a 320 rip of the tracks here, 3 songs in 22 minutes.

Grover 1998 - 2009

Happily jumping into endless fetid cesspools eternally. The shadows of angels have something to fear.

Best thing I have seen so far this year.

I couldn't believe this when I saw it at the record store. Shane, my friend who works at the store just gave it to me because I found it so ridiculous. It was in the dollar bin. Someone had to have had a sense of humor when they did this. Pardon the crappy camera phone pic. The vinyl inside is the Simple Minds album from 1979 "Life In A Day."

Reminds me of that Liars EP where they used the Einsturzende Neubauten artwork, but scribbled over it. Comedy gold right there people.

Coolest thing I have heard so far this year:

I'm not uploading this album because it just came out a few months ago. The way I see it, music is music and if it is out there, listen to it. If it is available, buy it. There is nothing worse than a chump that has a a fat Ipod and like 22 CD's that they only still own because they couldn't get more than a few cents for them on amazon. I downloaded this a week ago from Ongakubaka after someone got me hip to it and found it at the record store today so I PURCHASED IT like a good little consumer. Death were a three piece from Detroit in the 70's. You can find their bio all over the net, and plenty of download links I am sure. This is a record that was shelved in 1974 because they were doing it for a big label who wanted them to change their name. Death took a hike and the tapes were shelved until February 2009. So I'll add my insignificant freight car to the hype train. I am going to gush about this one to anyone who will listen. Short of a few quieter bits, this record is raging and feral from beginning to end in true 1970's Detroit/Creem Magazine style. Hearing this for the first time brings back hearing Search & Destroy for the first time at age 18, thinking I knew it all and realizing that I still didn't know shit. I have never been a very big punk fan. The Sex Pistols were overrated and Black Flag sucked more than they were good. All the 'proto punk' stuff gets my blood going though. This album belongs in the same pantheon with The Sonics, The Stooges, The MC5 and The Monks like all the critics are saying and are going to say in the coming months. Expect to hear a piece on these guys on NPR at some point.

What's a big drag is that everyone is going to make a big deal about these guys being black and playing hard rock in the 70's. That's a bullshit reason to talk about these recordings. That's about as lame and sorry as saying "She's a great drummer for a GIRL" or something nearly as bogus. What's remarkable about this mini-album (26 minutes!) is that the SONGS are remarkable. Excellent songwriting, propellant, energetic playing, interesting arrangements. The reason to talk about these recordings and this band is that this is some harsh shit! Whether it was MEANT to be this harsh as a final product is not to be known. Columbia would have liked to have polished this up to a high shine and it would have been about as hairy and scary as any Tony Orlando & Dawn album by the time they were done with it. Major labels always have been, and continue to be the scourge of music. Sadly, the members of the band missed their shot at the brass ring, but had the album been polished and released, would it be seen as such a special thing now? Would it be as raw and amazing sounding? Would the label have watered down what they did, or fuzzed it up and made them into heavy metal 'also-rans'? Or would the label have done what they tried to do with everything back then and tried to make it into disco or something to try and market it to the 'niche' they doubtlessly would have tried to market it to based on skin color? The upshot is, these guys were righteous and stuck to their guns and what happened happened and now we all have the bounty of discovering this, the musical equivalent of finding a $20 bill left in the dryer at the laundromat.

Thank you Drag City for unearthing this undeniable gem. Thank you to the Hackney brothers for not just sitting on these tapes, dragging them out for show and tell every couple of years for family members who may or may not give a damn (I know my family doesn't care much about all the dumb albums I have recorded) I know I have given a damn at least a few times a day for the past 2 weeks or so. I wish they would have finished a few more tracks before getting on Clive Davis's shitlist. This is still the best 26 minutes of music released so far in 2009, I just wish it were more like 40 some-odd minutes.

Visit Death's official blog here, then buy the album online, or at your local independent record store with all due haste.

Mammoth Volume - ...a single book of songs

pardon the janky pic I posted of this album cover. It's really not that interesting anyways, but that is part of the appeal of the album. I need to scan it myself and post a good jpg, and maybe I will at some point. Promises promises. This album is rather personal to me as Daniel Gustafsson, the guitarist has become quite a good friend over the years over email. When this album came out in 2001, I was pretty stunned. My drummer at the time owned a record store and played me the promo. We couldn't figure out if they were trying to be stoner rock, prog or emo. I guess it was all three really. This album came out some months before "Songs For The Deaf" from QOTSA, at least a year before that kind of stuff became the "it" sound for a hot minute. There is a lot of Kyuss in Jorgen's vocals, and alot of King Crimson and Canterbury prog when the band gets to show it (which is often) and an equal helping of Fu Manchu/MC5 when they open up and rock. There is a healthy dose of folk prog and a proliferation of mellotrons, organs, glockenspiels and flutes when the band deems it necessary, and apparently they deem it necessary in the strangest spots sometimes. We couldn't figure out what they were trying to go for, and the band seems none too focused at some points as well, but the results were pretty jaw dropping. They get one of the most natural sounding recordings I have ever heard. It's all room sounds and mic placement (Kalle Berlin gets a bass sound I would trade my eyeballs for.) It's not nearly as self consciously "retro" sounding as fellow Swede travellers Dungen, but it sounds sufficiently 'dusty.' I can't tell if that was willful, or if it was out of necessity, but man, this record sounds unique and GOOD! I have most of Dungen's recordings, and I have most of MV's recordings, and MV recordings would go with me to a desert island first. This album is definitely a slept on classic. Why overhyped, mediocre boogie metal like Alabama Thunderpussy and Orange Goblin got all the attention escapes me. For my money, Mammoth Volume were making interesting, well recorded hard rock and most of the rest of the stoner genre was just so much tepid rehash.

Back when I was absolutely obsessed with this album, I went on the bands website and hit the bios of the individual members. The other three guys had rather dry lists of their gear and maybe a sentence or two about their lives, and general things like "I like beer" or something. Daniel's was an exhaustive and detailed list of the gear he used on the recording of the album and a rambling thesis on what he listened to and how it influenced what he wrote for the album. (btw, he wrote my favorite song on the album: "What Happened In Antioch including A Myriad Of Sounds" [song within a song, how Crimson.] How about a parentheses inside a parentheses?) I hadn't heard of SHIT he had named, entire progressive rock genres like RIO, Zeuhl, and Canterbury and I had no idea what I was in for. I emailed him out of the blue and asked for more recommendations. From that, we started a pan-atlantic freundschaft that endures to this day. At some point over the next couple of months, I ran across a copy of the very Henry Cow album I posted some time back - Leg End. I heard it and flipped and from there started ordering his recommendations. I went a little nuts, and I still do whenever I find something from Univers Zero or Thinking Plague, two bands I discovered from his emails and love to no end.

After 6 or 7 years of sparse and sporadic activity, MV decided to finally put it to bed this past year, to the disappointment of probably a few hundred die-hards like myself. They never even completed an LP's worth of material for a suitable follow up and only released a 5 song collection of MP3's from their website over the last year. It's all good stuff, they never released anything that was terrible and it's all worth purchasing, but "...a single book of songs" is a crowning achievement. It's one of those albums that you either have to BETTER with your next album, or spend the rest of your career trying to recreate the magic. This one would be awfully hard to better. It's an epic wad-blow that was obviously painstakingly crafted from beginning to end. I've never gotten to make an album like that. I DO know how hard it is to make an album of tepid stoner rehash be even remotely well received, and I know how draining it was to get THAT much finished, let alone something that a vast amount of thought, time and creativity went into.

I play the bass

Gently caressing my beloved Rickenbacker. This is footage of one of my bands called The Retrospectres. We play 70's rock songs. I met these guys all about 11 years ago (1998? I'm terrible at math) We feel no need to bother holing up and writing music or anything, so we just play songs that we want to play. If we did take it that seriously, we would probably start to hate each other, so we get together every couple of years and pick another few songs and go out and play some shows. This is the last minute of a Captain Beyond song called "Raging River Of Fear". The ending is very involved and confusing and took us about a month of rehearsals to get it right. Lots of fun to do and a nice sense of accomplishment when we do get it right. This is pretty much the first footage that has ever involved me on YouTube. It would be nice to get an entire song up there though. Our guitarist posted some footage his wife took. If you look for this on Youtube, there are a few other clips. I think one is a Deep Purple song we do, and one is a portion of a Tommy Bolin song we do.