Shameless self-promotion...

Ugh, I can barely stomach myself for listing these poor excuses for music up here. But fuck it, thanks to the mighty Bandcamp even the worst of the worst have their own pathetic pocket on the internet. As you may have noticed from the somewhat-new "Plugs" blurb on the right, I thought I'd give a sorry shout out to a few of the bands I'm involved in these days since no one else will bother to review them. Starting off with Bong Ludes, a 3-piece that I've played with for almost ten years. The band has lived through several incarnations, band names and band members but has finally chiseled down to a solid lineup. Plays self-deprecating punkish hardcore with the occasional groove thrown in here and there. Tuesday Nights At The Whorehouse (reviewed by the 'Genocide back in May 2011) is a homage to the indomitable Abominable Iron Sloth - a screaming pounding sludgecore duo that makes absolutely no sense other than an excuse to be as offensive as possible. Finally there's the red-headed stepchild Zero Trench. A worthless solo project that I revisit occasionally whenever I can't get one of my other "real" bands to invest time in a song idea I like. Call it my selfish noisecore/hardcore outlet. Regardless, hopefully you will find something to enjoy in the above efforts, if not then you can just go ahead and suck my balls...

Currently watching: The Descent 2

Currently listening to: Human Cull Human Cull

The Oxygen Destroyer must not be used!

An amazing compilation fittingly released on the 35th anniversary of Godzilla: King Of The Monsters, Destroysall is a colossal tribute album showcasing a slew of sludge genre legends as well as some hardcore bands to keep it somewhat upbeat. Mammoth opens the CD with an almost ambient track followed by a nearly prog-metal entry by Cleveland's Terminal Lovers. Ohio noise purveyors Sloth offer a sample-heavy slab of noise metal, next up is Hangnail's "Invasion of the Neptune Men" - a tight 90 seconds of japcore followed by the suitably named Gigantasaurus! and their 8-minute marathon entry of sludge. Leon Grizzard plays a cool stoner style jam, Fistula churns out an epic track of screaming doom sludge, dot(.) follows with a similarly plodding, thunderous style while Negative Reaction's entry (easily the coolest song on the album) blurs the line between sludge and stoner for another 8 minutes. Awesome stuff. Rounding out the album are Rwake, Patheticism and Leviathan A.D. with more miserable sludge, Third Degree Burnout spits out some sludgecore which borders on grunge while the Crunky Kids (yeah - another Ohio band!) offer one more spastic slab of hardcore before the cool closer by Solace - an instrumental noise rock jam that flows in and out of psychedelia until the trickling finale. A fitting album to get you to revisit that dusty DVD box set in your collection. Enjoy.

Hedorah

 
Currently watching: Rampage

Currently listening to: Sloth Herder Sluggard

Re-Re-Revisted

Don't ask why but I've been listening to a bit of old-school Metallica lately. And by old-school I mean pre-1991 Black Album Metallica. I've never really heard anything they've released since that era, I'm one of the many who found their gigantic crossover album really dry and dull; I was getting more into death metal at the time and just tapped out of being a Metallica fan. I remember the excitement leading up to the "Enter Sandman" video premiere on MTV and it was... just kinda... OK. As was the album. "Sad But True" wasn't too bad (but upon revisiting it - phew - that is one boring song) and I kinda liked "Don't Tread On Me" but all in all a real letdown. So why am I whining about it 20 years later? Well, it brings me to the Metallica album I liked the most - 1987's Garage Days Re-Revisited. In case you've been living in a cave on Mars with your fingers in your ears for the past two decades, Re-Revisited is a tight 5-song EP of the band covering some of their favorite New Wave Of British Heavy Metal tunes (along with a couple Misfits tracks to boot); but for all intents and purposes I've pretty much considered the obscure songs Metallica originals (in the same way "Hey Joe" is an original Jimi Hendrix tune - any Leaves fans out there can kiss my ass). I know such a statement will raise the ire of the two or three Budgie enthusiasts lurking throughout the Welsh countryside but there's not much I can say to appease other than that Metallica is the sole reason anyone still acknowledges them or most of the other bands named below (much thanks to the internet as well). With that being said, I thought I'd throw together a compilation of all those original songs for nothing else but to have something a little different to listen to. Included are "Helpless" by Diamond Head, "The Small Hours" by Holocaust (my favorite track), "The Wait" by Killing Joke, "Crash Course In Brain Surgery" by Budgie, "Last Caress" and "Green Hell" by the good ol' Misfits and "Run To The Hills" by Iron Maiden. Along with that I compiled the originals of a bunch of other popular Metallica covers - all before the godawful Garage, Inc. abomination in the mid-90's. "Turn The Page"? Excuse me while I fucking vomit. Here's Diamond Head doing "Am I Evil?" and Blitzkrieg with "Blitzkrieg" (both bonus tracks on the Kill 'Em All CD), Diamond Head (again) with "The Prince" (found on the B-side of my "One" cassette single), "Breadfan" by Budgie (B-side on the "Eye Of The Beholder" cassete single), Queen's "Stone Cold Crazy" (Metallica's contribution to 1990's Rubáiyát: Elektra's 40th Anniversary double CD) and Anti-Nowhere League's "So What..." from the "Sad But True" cassette single (thanks to the sadly defunct Colostomy Grab-Bag for the album cover idea). And with that purchase came the end of my Metallica fandom. I've tracked down some pretty fine quality tracks, I think completists will be pleased. Enjoy.

$5.98                         $6.66

 
Currently watching: The Night Porter

Currently listening to: Queen A Night At The Opera

Meeses

I'm probably not the only one out there who still mourns last year's passing of the incredible Sludge Swamp. A part of me still occasionally stops by their sadly dry Facebook page in hopes it will someday re-emerge as the music juggernaut it once was but with the lack of any regular posts it just seems like an ever-dwindling pipe dream. I can't tell you how many bands (100? 200?) I am now a fan of thanks to the guys (and gal) who ran that shit. Actually, if I could come up with one complaint about the site (and this is being ridiculously petty) it was the incredible amount of volume that was uploaded. Before you even had a chance to finish checking out one band another would appear. And since a lot of it was dedicated to the sludge genre, a lot of these tunes pushed into the 10-minute mark - not quick (or easy) listens to determine whether you were into a band or not. Fortunately the blog held frequent compilation contests, one of my favorite being the Heavy Like The Moose volumes. Doom, drone, prog rock, stoner, sludge, psychedelic, and just bare bones metal, these five compilations will easily cover you for your next 12-hour road trip. Quality varies somewhat but most is pretty good, enjoy and thanks for the memories 'Swamp.

I II III IV V

Currently watching: Weasels Rip My Flesh

Currently listening to: Macabre Dahmer

Get Liquified...

Late 2000, Roadrunner Records was sitting on a cash cow with Slipknot, so they quickly jumped on the bandwagon by signing any band which could be pigeonholed into the reigning nü metal/rapcore fad. Helloooooo Phoenix, AZ locals Disclocated Styles. Having just released an uneven, self-produced LP entitled Elevator Music (rather rap-heavy in a Quarishi type of way), the boys jumped onto the majors and recorded Pin The Tail On The Honkey within six weeks, rehashing a half-dozen tunes from their debut along with some new material. So what's the vedict? Well... let's just say I was expecting something a tad more... uh... heavy. It's not that Honkey is bad at all, it's just that I guess I had Slipknot or Sepultura on the brain when I bought it. Looking back at the album title now the goofiness doesn't surprise me in the least, but back then I wasn't so miserably jaded about every band I've never heard of. Anyways, in a nutshell, Dislocated Styles pretty much sounds like a more sophomoric Phunk Junkeez or Zebrahead; doing research for this post I discovered that Honkey's producer cut a few albums with Zebrahead so there ya go! It's all pretty upbeat and listenable - the music really isn't  the problem, it's the song subject matter. It is just... so... how do I say this... fucking retarded! I'm sure it was all conceived in fun but some of the songs seem like they were written by (and for) fucking 10-year olds. "Online Virus"? I mean really? And "Liquified" sounds like the kind of shit pre-alcoholic highschoolers would brag to each other after a weekend kegger. And of course there's the token porno-worship song "Wet Video". It goes on and on. Fun? Yeah, but be warned, this is some stupid ass shit.

Show Me Love

 
Currently watching: I Spit On Your Corpse, I Piss On Your Grave!

Currently listening to: Sev Sunflower