Silly Satan

Oh man, I remember being so excited when I found this record at Princeton Record Exchange back in the 80's. I had heard of the band from something on TV, whether it was Geraldo or A Current Affair or some other generic "Satanic Bands On The Rampage" scare-show I'll never remember; whatever it was, Coven was being branded among its peers of Venom and Slayer as the absolute "worst of the worst." Seeing how I had never heard of the band (all the while thinking I was really down with what was going on in the underground metal world) my curiosity was definitely piqued. Sheesh, what a letdown! All the ranting I made about Northwinds' equally awful debut apply here - cheesy post-glam thrash with some of the lousiest Overkill-esque vocals I've ever heard. "6669", really? How more Beavis and Butthead can you get? And how many times can a band say "Satan" on a record - yo, we get it dudes. I'm sure there are some metal fans out there that would defend ol' Coven by pointing out the similarities to devil-music institutions Bathory and Venom - fine. All I can say is thank you Norway for reinventing black metal - if Blessed Is The Black is any indication of where it was going than Satan help us all. "Worst of the worst?" What a fucking laugh.

Hell Awaits

Currently watching: The Sasquatch Gang

Currently listening to: Wounds Of Christ Despising The Christian Race

Prepare To Lower Your Expectations...

I don't know why I feel like getting on this rant again, it's my typical porngrind bitching about delicious song titles/band names that trick you into 20 seconds of a crappy VHS horror-movie sample followed by an over-amplified minute of under-produced drum machine "grind" punctuated by over-processed gurgles and oinks. So with that being said, what's left to add about Honker Heaven? As far as samplers go (hell it was only $5) it's not too bad; evidently showcasing some of the better bands in the genre which ain't saying much but is at least a start. Obese's two tracks are nicely slamming, Tumour seem pretty competent as cybergrind legends, Methadone Abortion Clinic appear well-produced (just lose the fucking drum machine!) and good ol' Anal Penetration rocks out pretty well for a one-man show. I even kinda dug the Uterus tracks. As for the other "bands," Necrofuckinglicious is a rather worthless entrant and Pregnant Fetus' unoriginal tunes just go on waaaay too long (at over two minutes you're asking a LOT guys). MDK and Carnival Of Carnage both emerge as dull, low-rent filler while Succulent Torso and Mucopurulence Excretor are exactly the bands I whined about earlier; completely indistinguishable from nearly everything else in the genre. Yet again I ask myself what else was I supposed to anticipate on a sampler from Fart Out The Cum Productions? I guess not much - just hoping someone will someday put together some porno-cyber-gore-whatever-grind that really lives up to the name.

Scrape Scrape Scrape

 
Currently watching: Pandorum

Currently listening to: Too Legit For The Pit: Hardcore Takes The Rap

Back For Some Air...

Wow... it's been like two months since my last post and nothing to show for it. Yard still looks rough and my laundry list of home improvement projects hasn't even had the dust blown off it. Oh well - still got all summer to catch up I guess. Anyways, regardless of my failures as a suburban homeowner, I've found myself revisiting this great CD during my hours of (apparently useless) lawn mowing and mulching. Flashback 1992: Driving home through the night to New England from spring break in Fort Lauderdale (a fun 16 hours of munching mini-thins and Diet Pepsis), my college pals and I ended up on some oldie station which had us deliriously singing along to some fun tunes including Mungo Jerry's "In The Summertime" and Jerry Reed's "Amos Moses". Once back at school my roommate was obsessed with finding "that 'Summertime' song" on a single so we blindly hit some of the downtown record holes. Man, how was shit accomplished without the internet back then? We didn't know the artist, the song's real name or even remember how it really went (give us a break, there was a week's worth of alcohol poisoning eating away at our short term memories) yet through a stroke of luck we found some old store owner who knew exactly what we were talking about and presented this CD. Interestingly, we didn't just find Mungo Jerry's one-hit wonder on the album, we found the entire setlist of the radio show we heard. I guess enthusiasm for the job waned around 3AM on that South Carolina oldie station and the DJ simply pressed play on the CD and ran (or slept). The songs are still great 20 years later (and shit, they were already 20 years old back then) and get me chuckling nearly every time I hear 'em, partially from the absolute schlock of it all but there's also a bit of nostalgia. R. Dean Taylor's "Indiana Wants Me," Jerry Reed's aforementioned "Amos Moses" and, yes, even Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You" are my faves - a perfect snapshot of 70's kitsch. And if you can take another boring anecdote, this CD actually kept an old girlfriend and I together through the throes of our 54th or so breakup - Bobby Sherman's über cheesy "Julie, Do Ya Love Me" happened to come on random play right as we were slamming doors to go our own way... "Honey you cried the day I left you, even though we knew I couldn't stay" boomed in the background and yes, our love saw the light. We finally broke up two years later, effectively ending one of the worst (and longest) relationships in my life, but that's beside the point.

C'mon Get Happy

 
Currently watching: Barton Fink

Currently listening to: Ween Chocolate And Cheese