HEMDALE - Rad Jackson
i only really know this band from their split w/ EXHUMED. my gore metal game has always been a bit off. loving the dirge on "Pus Filled Carcass". it's been a while since i did one of these. i dunno, they were fun, but also a bit draining. i figured though; it's Saturday, it's Halloween, and i have no life, no friends, no one wants to fuck me, everyone's too busy to jam, i just sadsacked out at the local record store and found some horror-ish albums, so here we are. caught the premiere of "Ash vs. Evil Dead" last night. i dunno... it was cute i guess. kinda hope it goes beyond servicing the easy-to-please horror convention attendees who still think "This is my Boomstick" is the funniest thing ever. the first film still holds up, but looking past nostalgia, the rest of the movies/media, while amusing, just do little for me. i'm gonna stick with the show, cause it was enjoyable and fuck it, it's television, but if it's ten hours of slapfights, dorky one-liners, and zoom-cuts it's gonna get real old real fast. i guess i just never cared too much if they did another Evil Dead film. i mean, there's already 3, why do people get so hard up for more of the same, especially when it's been like 25 years and so much other amazing shit has been created, discovered, reappraised, etc?. anyway, back to the tunes. that mid-riff on "Are You Pornophoric?" is some putridity right there. "Demented Surgical Incest" has it all. it's like a perfect example of an underground metal song. putting this one in the "dream cover" list. 'Licking Mental Patients' Cum Off The Sheets". there's no joke or anecdote with that one, just mentioning the title. i should wear a cum stained sheet for Halloween and greet children at the door as "The Ghost Who Haunts the Motel Room Your Dad Visits". so this release is part of the Relapse Underground Series, which has become my favorite thing about Relapse. they've been bit on the rebound (so pun intended) in the last few years i guess. know it's not cool to say, but fuck it, i'm not gonna pass up good music because some posturing ninnies on some far flung corner of the internet think Relapse is too "corporate"... the kind of pube gardeners who use MRR back issues for punk house insulation (actually that's about all they're good for. sthnap). anyway, the Underground Series rules. "Demented Surgical Incest" is such a good song that they got it on here twice. i just took a shit that makes me feel like i came. is shitting the old man's orgasm? i can deal. the Disgust split tracks are heavy as septuagenarian cum turds. "Impaled and Dead" also just made the dream cover list. last track is called "Tribute to Anal Cunt Cause We Think They're Cool". my noise handle Tunnel Nun recorded a track for an AxCx tribute. i did "Benchpressing the Effects on Kevin Sharp's Vocals".
KHLYST - Chaos Is My Name
this is Runhild from Thorr's Hammer and James Plotkin from pretty much anything cool and shrieky playing improvisational brain damaged rape ghost noise. this is also the album that may have gotten us blacklisted from Decibel. here's the gag: in 2006 Decibel did their year end list and they called this release "the Comedy Album of the Year" and it just rubbed me the wrong way; the snarky dismissiveness i saw creeping into the underground scene (which hasn't really left, but whatever), so i wrote a big tirade about it on the old blog. i don't remember what i said exactly, maybe something about how all these pop punk ska types who used to give me endless shit about my interests were now all in on 'extreme metal", but they were still the same cutesy cutesy over-extroverted smart ass mother fuckers that made mocking belch-sounds at me in an attempt to impress a bunch of 14 year old New Found Glory fans. you know something like that. one of the Decibel writers we knew, Chip (a really cool guy who actually did put one of our demos on his in print Playlist) confronted Lee about it at a show. it was nothing nasty or anything, but it was a bit of a wake up call.. i wasn't in the best place back then (unlike now hyuckhyuck) and i used to use our Myspace/Blog to vent my opinions on the music scene. no one in the band ever called me on it directly, but i began to sense that maybe i should chill out on the "opinionated front man" thing until at least we were more established, or maybe that it'd be better to chat up what we liked rather than what made us sick. there's really no excuse for it; i was 23 years old, excited about being in what i saw as a cool band, and arrogant about it. i thought maybe starting beefs would get attention, but me being a dumbass i didn't realize that it's not like you start a beef, people go "yeah bro we're with you fuck those guys" and your imagined adversary just sheepishly backs off while you go on to bigger stages. most of the time it's them who's got the support and backing and you just end up being this cocky prick ruining everyone else's good time. sometimes i think we still owe reparations for that, that people really do have long memories and aren't going to let message board bullshit from 10 years ago die, but i'm also probably a mild schizophrenic so i dunno. anyway, the album. i almost forgot has twisted and awesome Runhild's voice is. i used to listen to that Thorr's Hammer album all the time. "IV" reminds of Diamanda Galas. i was listening to her almost every day back then. 05-06 was when i really started getting more into experimental noise/power electronics. i was a fan of the 80s New York noise rock stuff; Teenage Jesus, Swans, Suicide (70s actually), Foetus, Cop Shoot Cop (90s i guess), Missing Foundation, but wanted to go farther, not live in the past too much. it's a bit easier to get your hands on that stuff now, but even in the mid-2000s you couldn't find that shit just anywhere. i think that's when Hospital Records opened up in Manhattan, when it was just this small (though impeccably curated) basement in a Reggae Record store, and that was the place for obscure power electronic and sub-subterranean black metal releases. i finally had hard copies of albums by Prurient, Deathpile, Sickness, etc. to replace all my message board hodge podge CDRs. that really mapped out the aesthetic direction we wanted for us; stark and disturbing but not in a metal or grind way... something more minimal, hermetic, and genuinely surrealist. not just in the artwork, but in the vocals, lyrics, arrangements, vibe, etc. not just be a mostly orthodox grind band who writes about and plays same as any other Napalm Death wannabe, but throws in a little blast of static and says "we listened to most of a Merzbow track once and here's what we took from that. now more watered down anarchist posturing and soup can blasts".
THE RAVENOUS - Assembled in Blasphemy
it's funny that i found this cause i just finished Dan Lilker's book "Perpetual Conversion" and when i got to the section about the Ravenous i got mad at myself for sleeping on them. if you don't know, the Ravenous was Lilker, Killjoy from Necrophagia, and Chris Reifert from Autopsy/Abscess. it sounds exactly like you think it's gonna sound. i'm an Autopsy fanboy and always dug Killjoy's vocals and near-fetishistic admiration of gory Italian horror films, so it's cool. Lilker's book is, too; lot of good photos, some insights on how both the mainstream and the underground work. i recommend it. "Orgy in Dog's Blood' is an early favorite, especially for all the Van Bebber's Manson Family samples. "Keep My Grave Open" is pretty sinister too. Necrophagia's Legacy of Horror, Gore, and Sickness is sort of overlooked. just great vile metal. way cooler than the Anselmo years (though those releases have their moments). i'm also probably the only person in the history of the universe who kind of like Viking Crown (at least the album Innocence from Hell, which Killjoy is on). it's totally haphazard and makes no sense, but neither do a lot of Italian horror films, and it seems like they wanted to make the Black Metal version of a Lucio Film film; non-linear, image dependent, and fucking disgusting. i think what also attracts me about it is that it's a very exclusionary record; Black Metal fans won't like it cause of the Pantera connection, and Pantera fans won't like it cause they still think Vulgar Display of Power is the best shit ever. there's no appeal, so there's no worry, and i've always loved shit like that. Mike Pattons's Adult Themes for Voice is in a similar boat; FMN fans are like "ah this is just noise i can't bounce to this" and noise people are like "fuck that buttrocker tryin be cool like us noise people". that's always bugged me out; how fucking in love with ourselves we can be when it comes to being fans of marginal music, as if these big time globe trotting film scoring platinum selling superstars feel inadequate cause they don't have the approval of some chatroom dingleberries masturbating to Beherit albums (or Masonna albums, depending). i hate everyone.
ELLIOT SMITH - s/t
it's Halloween, and nothing's scarier then your girlfriend exploiting your depression-fueled creativity to falsify evidence of self-inflicted trauma and cover up her more-than-likely part in your demise. you'll have to excuse me for having a Tiny Rick moment here. i don't care if you don't get that. if you don't know Elliot Smith, basically he's that guy that every punk rock creeper imitates when they try their hand at self pitying balladeering, only you know, Smith is actually honest and actually a good player and actually a strong lyricist whose music is brimming with raw emotion, existential complexity, and modest charisma. let's hear that obese pedophile in Front Porch Step write something as captivating as "Christian Brothers" or "Coming Up Roses", assuming he can pull himself out of his routine of crying at texts to a 12 year old girl that have yet to garner a response because it's Pep Rally time and she's got shit to do, you gap toothed sucked cunt. this might only be the third or fourth Elliot Smith write-up that contained the phrase "gap-toothed sucked cunt". just saying. alright i'm tired of writing. enjoy the veal.
