Welp kids, we've finally made it to the the real dregs. The dreaded "noise" category. Even those with already low expectations should give this post a second thought. First question on everybody's lips should be: "why did I download all of this in the first place?" Who the fuck knows. Most likely a quality blog post or recommendation; I do happen to like some pretty dull, dirgy shit and can deal with noise on a certain level (look at my undying love for Anal Cunt - especially the old stuff). But that's a pretty small window and my tolerance for harsh shit just for the sake of being harsh is rather minimal. But I digress, let's jump into a mini-synopsis of today's trash bin folly:
Contrepoison The Serpent Carries Him Into Paradise (split with Vatican Shadow): not so much typical "noise" as just really terrible Brian Eno-esque distorted (as fuck) synth pop with cheesy Brit vocals on top of it. A tough five minutes.
Deche-Charge 574 Tracks (split with Anal Massaker): The least talented floater in the storm drain. Just a bulldozer of roaring, yelling and nonsense. For only the most forgiving.
Destroy 2 We Are Voice And Rhythm Only: Yeah, I know having this one up is probably heresy to many simply because it is the union of two living legends, EYE (Boredoms, Z-Rock Hawaii) and Chew (Corrupted) but I just cannot get into the endless 20-second bursts of "YahYahYahYahYaaaaaah!" It's clearly interesting and "daring" to the zealous live audience but count me out.
Meat Slave (肉奴隷) split with Corrupted: If you dig harsh, chalkboard-scratching onslaughts of high decibel screeching you will cream in your jeans when your ears are pierced by this one. Amazingly it seems to be recorded live.
Morgue Fuck The Title: I actually had high hopes for this one, the cover and title seemed to smack of a healthy dose of self-depreciation. I figured wrong - ten indiscernible untitled tracks of painful blasting drumbeats, feedback and gurgling.
Penis Geyser split with Lotus Fucker: This almost made it into the "blur" category but gave me just too much of a headache to elevate it to that status. 1-2-3+blast of noise... 1-2-3+blast of noise... 1-2-3+blast of noise... You get the idea. 6 long minutes.
Prurient Many Jewels Surround The Crown: Not terrible, just not something I would ever really listen to. Somewhat blackened noise highlighted with ambient notes in the background punctuated by strange, rambling vocals. Mixed well and pretty listenable - almost seems like an amalgamation of the Blade Runner and Terminator soundtracks. You'll hear what I mean. Almost made the cut and upon revisitation... still almost made the cut.
Raging Retards Bring On The Gaffs... (split with Sloth): Wow, another really unpleasant band to happen upon when shuffling songs on the iPod. Sloth is one of those noisy bands which can usually get it right - Raging Retards are not. Endless blown-amp blasts of chaos with an occasional (electronic) guitar chord thrown in to give it some woeful legitimacy. At times it almost sounds like your NES is on the fritz. Miserable stuff.
Reaching. Collaboration (split with Wolverine Carcass): After a minute or so worth of random noise, prolific one-man anti-orchestra Reaching. offers two 11-minute tracks ranging from a sort of miserable, suicidal ambient dirge to a quieter, white noise wall of fuzz and feedback. Happy to hear they spawn from Richmond but just a bit too avant for my tastes.
RxAxPxE Anti-Female Orchestra (split with Intestinal Disgorge): Not really sure what the acronym stands for, what I do know is that RxAxPxE offers harsh gorenoise with a strangely techno sort of vibe to it. Enough blastbeats, horror flick samples and effect-laden gurgles and screams to make you dive for the "skip" button.
Shit And Shine Ladybird, Cunts With Roses, and Küss Mich, Mein Liebe: Who knows what I had going on the day I decided to spend my time downloading these three albums. London-based Shit And Shine have a impressively prolific back catalog but I gotta admit, most of their stuff sounds exactly the same. Industrial-ish thundering drumbeats looped over and over again with an occasional vocal here and there thrown in for fun. Makes me think these are what some of Ministry's tracks originally sounded like in their 30-minute LSD-soaked versions before Al whittled them down to album length. Not terrible and not offensive, just too repetitive to be interesting.
Stupid Babies Go Mad Damaged (split with Boris): I've listened to this several times and still can't figure out if it has anything to do with Black Flag's "Damaged" tunes. To be honest, this is less purposeless noise then just really, really noisy punk and while it does ooze a manic Japanese charm, I just ain't havin' it. Next.
Vatican Shadow The Serpent Carries Him Into Paradise (split with Contrepoison): Another strangely new wave noise effort, this 5-minute ambient instrumental track is less irritating than simply dull.
Wolverine Carcass Collaboration (split with Reaching.): More or less what I would consider typical "noise," WxCx assault the listener with 34 twenty-second blasts of song title screaming pandemonium, followed by a final 5-minute track of chaotic audio hatred. Based in upstate New York, this solo unit is manned by one half of the drone/doom duo Wicked King Wicker, a personal fave. I was excited to check out some of their alternate material, unfortunately the noisier side of the band didn't grab me.
Look, I don't feel like getting into the whole "I'm not knocking you personally, I respect all forms of creativity..." blah blah so let's just say I've given this shit a good try and just cannot get into it for more than 30 seconds. Those who like what you hear above (and I know you're out there) should spend a few hours checking out Bleak Bliss - the ultimate website out there for purveyors of "beautiful music." Adios gritónes.
Currently watching: Forced Entry
Currently listening to: Eminem The Slim Shady LP
2 comments:
As a noise enthusiast myself, I can totally understand why there are SO GODDAMN MANY clunkers in this heap. When rolling the dice based on names and artwork alone, there are typically more misses than hits.
In regards to Prurient and Vatican Shadow (a Prurient side project, in case you were unaware): it's amazing how many good reviews that guy gets. While I enjoyed Many Jewels Surround The Crown, the vocals were mostly unnecessary and some even seemed rather forced. As far as Vatican Shadow is concerned, can't say as I've ever dipped into that Kool-Aid.
Japanese stuff is, for the most part, pretty fucking boring. There's the occasional killer, but overall, it just kind of exists. It's whatever to me.
All that aside, Meat Slave and Reaching sound like I might possibly like them, so thanks, I think?
Meat Slave is definitely an acquired taste - kind of the audio version of lutefisk. If you're looking to end the party and empty a room you can't go wrong.
I actually kinda dug Reaching for what its worth, if you found Prurient enjoyable then I'm sure you'd dig it.
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