Friday 29 July 2011

KEN mode - Venerable (2011)



This album starts off with a monstrous throbbing
bass and then just blasts off into a massive mix
of Sludge/Noise-Rock and Post-Hardcore.

With Kurt Ballou of Converge on production,
KEN mode pummel your brain with feedback,
killer distorted riffs and dynamics that keep
everything heavy and threatening.

Rather than just keep to one tempo - they go from
fast aggression to slow menace, giving the tunes an
identity which makes a change from an album that
just blurs into one song played 10 times!

Amongst the faster, bone braking songs, sits the 8
minute "Never Was". It starts off with feedback
and droned guitar strings and then a heavy riff
starts playing over and over which builds up in
intensity until the shuddering climax which has
"No god, never was" screamed over the top.

If you were slightly let down when "Modern Bodies"
by Chickenhawk came out last year, you could do worse
than to give this a listen. This will be going into my
album of the year list.

Wednesday 27 July 2011

Pure Hell - Noise Addiction (1978)



I saw these guys in '78, brought the single "These
Boots Are Made For Walking" and then they went
back to the USA and slipped of my radar.

They should of been huge - great stage presence,
catchy as fuck songs, a guitar player who buzz-sawed
riffs and solos all over the place and a sneery vocalist
who could of sung for the Dead Boys.

Back in 2005, this CD came out with tracks I had never
seen before. they had recorded an album worths of
material in '78 but only now had it been released.

If you wanna hear a cross between the Damned & Dead Boys,
give this a listen.

Curtis Knight - the guy who hired Hendrix to play as a backing
guitarist, produced the single!

Tuesday 26 July 2011

Awake In Sleep - Awake In Sleep EP (2011)



This is a request from the band "Awake In Sleep"

The album is a massive, epic slab of Sludge/Post-metal
and it demands to be played loud.

Although very heavy throughout, the production
ensures that nothing gets lost in the mix, giving
the atmospheric passages a real sense of foreboding,
setting the scene for the explosive climaxes.

Distorted guitars riff away with the pounding rhythm
section and the throaty vocals - which switch now and
then to clean - will please any Cult of Luna fan.

For a 1st release, this is powerful stuff and along with
"Alaskan", this band are are the new wave of Post-metal
bands that are not just copying their idols but forging
ahead with their own sound, bringing an almost Hardcore
feel to things.

Recommended.

Download the album free from Bandcamp - Here

Monday 25 July 2011

Seditius - Album Update



I reviewed this album a couple of months ago -
the band sent me the album and some tracks to stream
but now all the whole songs are available as a free
download from their website - Here

and here is the review I posted:

Got this as a request from an Italian DIY record label -
Rancore Records.

Seditius play some great hardcore - think Coliseum but
with some rock/stoner influenced riffing going on.

Rather than just trashing out chords, they throw in
fantastic varied tunes - guitar runs, clean breaks, solos
along with a bass sound that would not sound out of place
on the 1st Motorhead album.

This is good shit!

Electric Wizard - High Voltage review 2011



Electric Wizard were stuck in
Oslo and could not turn up ...
much like this review!

Wednesday 20 July 2011

Good Rock Music - Compilation



This is a collection of tracks I felt like putting together. No agenda or
real theme, just some songs that flow together well and have a vague
footing in the world of rock music.

So - are you listening? - just footstomping rock music that I like,
nothing new or 'core or post anything.

Track Listing:

Doctor Doctor - UFO
Eight Miles High - Husker Du
Safe European Home - The Clash
Sick of You - The Stooges
Vital Hours - The Outsiders
Bullet with Butterfly Wings - Smashing Pumpkins
Crazy Horses - The Osmonds
Heads Explode - Monster Magnet
God of Thunder - Kiss
It's Not Funny Anymore - Husker Du
Touch Too Much - AC/DC
Goodbuy T'Jane - Slade
Keep Us On The Road - Motorhead
Toiler On The Sea - The Stranglers
Eighties - Killing Joke
Sound of Destruction - The Cult
Religious Wars - The Subhumans
Youth Youth Youth - Generation X
Ashes to Ashes - Faith No More
Moon Over Marin - Dead Kennedys

dead link

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Brain Donor - Wasted Fuzz Excessive (2009)



Sound effects of rain and wind start up over which
some spoken words drift through. A heavy, simple
bass starts to riff 2 notes over and over, to be joined
with sparse drumming.

Distorted solos start to play, sporadic at first and
then louder and longer - it's a full fuzz sound, proto-
metal crossed with acid blues, full of atonal notes
like a wigged out VU solo.

The drums are starting up - full on beats and the bass
is now playing a complicated fill and everything is
really pounding along when it drops down to a mellatron
drone, very lush and spiritual, slow guitar picking, very early
floyd, ghostly vocals start that get more manic that fade away
to the sparse motif that started this tune.

............... and this is only the first song!

Brain Donor is a band fronted by Julian Cope and seems
only to exist so he can just fucking rock out. The High Drude
plays krautrock joined with the MC5 and Sabbath.

Oh yeah and a cover of the New York Dolls classic "Frankenstein"

Some '60's feel keyboards but mainly if you want to hear
acid drenched guitar rock workouts - dead link.

Monday 18 July 2011

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Moanin' (1958)



Hard Bop from drummer Art Blakey and his collective
of jazz hungry band members.

You don't come here for a lecture on Blue Note
recordings - you need a fix of guitars and shouting
but maybe this description will stop you from going
to an inferior blog - see, my faithful download monkeys,
how I look after you.

This is groovy, swinging cool shit - imagine an early '60s
gritty detective film - black and white of course - with
say, Steve McQueen wearing a black polo necked sweater,
posing in an open topped, impossibly desirable muscle car,
having just offed the bad dudes, on his way to see his chic but
sexy girlfriend where they will smoke cigarettes in such a way
that you will want to start smoking yourself.

This would be the soundtrack.


Friday 15 July 2011

Botch - 061502 (2006)


This is a recording of the last ever Botch
gig - it came out as a DVD/CD set and this
is the CD part of that.

The bands that emerged from the ashes
were: These Arms Are Snakes, Minus the
Bear, Narrows and Russian Circles, which
give you an idea of how influential Botch
became.

With hardcore heaviness, they tore apart
song structures and time signatures and
are certainly to be credited with turning
people onto math-rock with lashings 0f
thoughtful metal.

But beating at the heart of this wonderful,
twisted monster was hardcore/ punk +
whatever "post" prefix you wish to attach.

This boasts a "best of set list" and the live
recording is pretty good.


Thursday 14 July 2011

Kiss - Destroyer (1976)



How is a "Classic" album defined?

My blog - my rules, so:

Every track should be fantastic, no fillers and
certainly no points at which the flow begins to
meander or lose impetus.

Everything is perfect from the artwork
to the order the tracks are in.

The album will never lose its place in your
musical heart - you may not play it for a year
or so but when you do, it is like a friend who
will never let you down ..... how unlike life!

And most importantly, it should be able to transport
your emotions to a different place - as soon as the 1st
track starts, it will calm you down, get you ready to go
out, prepare you for a fight, make you drive like a lunatic,
help you to take off the electronic tag and go stalking again -
whatever you need to do, the classic album is there in times
of need.

In the mid seventies, Bob Erzin produced three albums, that
for me, I consider to be classics.

They are:

Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies
Lou Reed - Berlin
and todays offering - "Destroyer" by Kiss.


Tuesday 12 July 2011

Orthodox - Baal (2011)



Being pretty new to this sort of genre, I can only
describe as I see it and if the descriptions are not
proper like, complain to Sludge Swamp when they
get up on-line again!

Experimentalish Doom? That's what I am going with.

Lots of tribal drumming, shit loads of heavy riffs
and some drones which I think are coming from the bass.

The tracks feel very free flowing but never turn into
aimless jamming - the distorted guitar helps to pin
down the song which the thundering rhythm section
pummel into submission.

This album is only five tracks long, giving them time
to get almost trance like with the riffs circling around
a spiral of textured, fuzzed-out, slightly psychedelic
mantras but don't worry, the powerful vocals stop any
thoughts of hippy-dippy shit spoiling your day.

Monday 11 July 2011

The Danger of Being Bored at Work





Across the road from where I work, there is a Community
Notice Board. I glued these posters up early in the morning
over the course of several days and sat back to watch peoples
reactions from the safety of my window.

The CCTV poster had some people trying to smash the camera
above their heads - of course they were not being monitored
- it was just a Speed Trap camera pointing about 250 feet
from where they were!

The Drunk Bus Driver poster had the police and about 15
blokes from London Transport scraping the poster off the
board + 3 buses that would not move until it was gone! I
promise that I was not responsible for the RMT going on
strike last month!

The Slag Alert Poster worked beyond my wildest dreams.
It had a crowd of about 11 youths all reading it when one
teenager on a bike went fucking nuts!

He started to scream "Who did THIS"! over and over again,
followed by "No one does this to me", took out a knife and
started to attack the poster - stabbing and cutting the paper
to shreds, not noticing that it was pasted onto glass with the
inevitable results of then being showered with shards of wreckage!

I think it took about 3 days for me to stop laughing - was it something I said?

Aaaaaah - happy days!

Friday 8 July 2011

Rabbits - Lower Forms (2011)



Rabbits like their music raw and crunchy with a
sludge undertone.

Aggressive and heavy, elements of doom are
mixed up with a pleasing amount of hardcore.

Plenty of distortion and pounding drums give
a tribal feel to the songs but there is still a lot
of atmosphere to be had, especially when the
slow passages kick in.

Murky and dirty riffs crawl their way out of
the mire and like The Melvins output, worm
their way into tunes that never stop being
uber-powerful.

Wednesday 6 July 2011

Wayne Kramer - The Hard Stuff (1995)



Brother Wayne keeps the spirit of the MC5 alive
and kicking with this album that is packed with
full on punk rock'n'roll.

His quite rightly revered guitar playing is at full
throttle here, powerful and solid, no fancy fretboard
wankery, just heavy grooves that pack a punch.

He handles all the vocals with passion and gives
a spoken word performance on "Incident on Stock
Island" over fantastic guitar that could of been quite
boring in other hands but is delivered with humour
and style, making you live the story he is telling.

Most songs are short, solid slabs of hard edged rock
but with a gritty punk feel which show that this veteran
of the Detroit sonic scene is far from rolling over and
becoming a byline in musical history.

Anyone with an interest in the MC5 should give this a listen.

Tuesday 5 July 2011

A Storm of Light - As The Valley of Death Becomes Us, Our Silver Memories Fade (2011)



A Storm of Light have always threatened to break
out of the post-rock genre and with this album,
have blown it out of the water.

With songs that do not just rely on loud/soft
passages, this brings in Sludge/Doom, experimental
ambient and big doses of metallic heaviness.

Bringing in Kim Thayli from Soundgarden to wail
his trademark riffing over some of the tracks gives
an almost traditional rock feel to them, stopping the
meandering that can bog down so many post-rock songs.

Don't get me wrong, the tracks are still long but much
more focused and intense.

Josh Graham's distintive vocals are very much evident
and the drumming from Billy Graves approaches epic
proportions.

The overall feel to the album is of controlled menace
with shuddering bursts of power.

If you like this band, be prepared to like them even more.

If you have never really got into this sort of stuff, give it
a listen as I cannot see anyone else coming up with something
to better this until the long awaited new Neurosis comes out.