Exeunt Albumnes 2018 part 1

so far this year has been little more than time spent on maintaining resentments both past and current, mining their spite for writing and grind albums that, with every passing day, seem less and less likely to exist outside the broken brains of my overreaching imagination. in between all that, i managed to pile on more ephemera for the archives that will either bury me or be buried by me. i figured i should start putting together the lists now so i'll have less to remember at the proper year's end. on with the shiv:

ABJECTION RITUAL - Soul of Ruin, Body of Filth 

AR swaps out there deranged industrial horror for equally deranged sludge metal that further breathes anti-life into their private universe.

FFO: Lord Mantis

BLESSED BLOOD VULVA & GUILTY C - The Third Slaughter 

pure as fuckmurder.

FFO Jesus of Nazareth.

CAUSTIC WOUND - Grinding Terror 

adjectives are futile. it's fucking grindcore, dummy.

FFO: anything that isn't Nails.

HIDE - Castration Anxiety 

tucked away in one of the more neglected compartments of my mind is the desire to be a death-rock DJ, but one that realizes that there's music beyond the fading 1988-98 scope they depend upon. this release would no doubt be a cornerstone in my DJ set.

FFO: Youth Code

KNELT ROTE - Alterity 

not really sure why i never checked this band out before, as they are no doubt right up my alley; that schizophrenic mid-point between spiteful grindcore savagery and morose black metal experimentation.

FFO: making your favorite French Black Metal album go kissy kissy with your favorite Australian Grindcore album.

SECT PIG - Crooked Backs 

like going through a surgical procedure to become a mutant pig.

FFO: sleep paralysis panic breaths

SLEEPWALKER - Ichi-go Ichi-e

melodious nightmare metal.

FFO: Endon, Ehnahre, Maudlin of the Well

SOFT KILL - Savior 

touch more aggressive than the previous releases.

FFO: Fields of the Nephilim, the Church, Alvvays, Grave Babies

STARKWEATHER/CONCEALMENT - split 

the few that know me have more than likely grown malignant in their irritance with regards to my unending fascination and admiration for the brand of ugly progressive metal put forth by Starkweather, so i'll ease up on the praise and say something a little different; i know Starkweather has been sitting on the track for a long time (their last one with Todd Forkin on guitar, who left the band in 2013). it's tough to explain the feeling to those who haven't experienced it; the frustration of working hard on a releases, doing your best to be prompt in the studio so as not to run up a bill, getting it mastered until it sounds appropriate enough for semi-public consumption, only to have it run through a gauntlet of delays. Communion experienced it on a number of occasions. when it finally sees the light of day after what can be sometimes years of setbacks, the feeling is one of anti-climatic relief; everyone and everything having moved beyond the wait that kept you tethered to an abandoned ship. periodicals take one look at the date which the tracks were recorded, dub it "too old", and go back to hyping up the latest bilious sparkle core from the likes of Deafheaven or whatever. i've been writing for almost 1/2 the length of Starkweather's side. time to speed it up with...

WAKE - Misery Rites

played with these guys a few years back at the Acheron, where they knocked me on my ass with their brand of thoughtfully vicious grind. happy to see they kept at it and were able to attract enough attention to get the kind of exposure they deserve. sometimes the good guys win.

FFO: Vermin Womb, Noisear, Mother Brain 

see also:
AEVITERNE - Sireless, ANNA VON HAUSSWOLFF - Dead Magic, BUNUEL - The Easy Way Out, BLOOMING CARRIONS - Necrosis Twilight, BUSHPIG SCAT BUTCHER - The Art of Gore, GENOCIDE PACT - Order of Torment, HARM'S WAY - Posthuman, JENNY HVAL - the Long Sleep, MANY BLESSINGS - Ripe Earth, MOTHER BRAIN - Demo 2018, OF FEATHER AND BONE - Bestial Hymns of Perversion,  OKSENNUS - Kolme Toista,  OUR PLACE OF WORSHIP IS SILENCE - With Inexorable Suffering, PORTAL - Ion, RAWHEAD - Spineless Pigs, RITES OF THY DEGRINGOLADE - The Blade Philosophical, SEPTIC ROT - Cult of Grief, SHE SPREAD SORROW - Midori, SLUGDGE - Esoteric Malacology, SUICIDEFORCE - Demo 2018,

Exeunt Albumnes 2017

in a year of cratered expectations, mental isolation, and internalized anxiety fraying patience down to fizzing strands of fucked-raw nerves, here's all the zounds that made it mildly less soul-coring:

VULTURE - The Guillotine

there are fewer genres more pregnant with groaners than "Retro-Thrash", but this German export eases my weaponized cynicism toward that class of bands by jettisoning all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pizza Party bullshit and sharply going for the throat with black-gloved hands. 

THOUGHTS OF IONESCO - Skar Cymbals 

reemerging from the bitter ether of 90s hardcore obscurity, every bit the deadly curio as ever. 

SCATMOTHER - Vaniticism 

remarkably unpleasant / unpleasantly remarkable PE 

PSUDOKU - Deep Space Psudokument 

if this isn't your band, then fucking quit. 

OvO - Creatura

freakish industrial metal horror.

IRON MONKEY - 9-13

most of you won't be with me on this one, but i don't care; this fucking obliterates the last 15 years of Eyehategod's output. 

ENDON - Through the Mirror

this band became a fast favorite late last year, and their newest release only solidified there spot in my current top band list. it's not as weird as previous releases, thus serving as a perfect induction for the shrewd-but-curious metal types. 

COUCH SLUT - Contempt  

and speaking of Fast Favorites, here's the undisputed rulers of NY Noise-Metal (look it up) back with an even more screamingly vicious slab of i'm-nowhere-near-cool-enough-to-like-this extremity. 

CHEPANG - Dadhelo: A Tale of Wildfire

every grindcore band (that isn't from Australia) should copy this record. no nerd-jury would convict you. 

ALVVAYS - Antisocialites 

no year end list would be complete without something pretty that made me feel like an even more unappealing window licker than i already do. 

and the rest:

ABATTOIR & SATORI - Aether, AFTERBIRTH - The Time Traveler's Dilemma, ANNIHILUST/CEASE TO EXIST split, AOSOTH - V: The Inside Scriptures, BLOOD - Inferno, BLOOMING CARRIONS - Sparkling Rotten Dreams,  BROKEN HOPE - Mutilated and Assimilated, BUCKSHOT FACELIFT - Ulcer Island, CASAS - s/t, CEMETERIES - Filth Ritual, CHARLI XCX - Number 1 Angel, COMA CLUSTER VOID - Thoughts from a Stone, COMITY - A Long, Eternal Fall , CONCRETE MASCARA - Lunar Hunger, CRYSTAL FAIRY - s/t, PAN DAIJING - Lack, DALEK - Endangered Philosophies, DEAD CROSS - s/t, DEPHOSPHORUS - Impossible Orbits, FRET - Over Depth,  FRIENDSHIP - Hatred, FUCK YOU PAY ME - Dumbed Down, FULL OF HELL - Trumpeting Ecstasy, CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG - Rest, GAS CHAMBER/D.O.C. split, GNAW - Cutting Pieces, GNAWED/LIGATURE IMPRESSION split, GRAVETEMPLE - Impassable Fears, INTESTINAL DISGORGE - Life Sucks and I Blame You, INTENSIVE CARE - Voyeurism, KEVORKIANESQUE - Future Suicides, LINGUA IGNOTA - All Bitches Die, LOCK UP - Demonization, LOCUS MORTIS - Funeral Hymn, LONGPIG - Shrine of the Longpig, LOOKING FOR AN ANSWER - Dios Carne, OBSCENE - Sermon to the Snake, OOZEPUS - Your Limit, OPENING BELL/NYCTERENT - split, OXBOW - The Thin Black Duke, PERVERTED CEREMONY - Sabbat of Behezael,  PINK MASS - Necrosexual, POISON BLOOD - s/t, PRIMITIVE MAN - Caustic, PYRRHON - What Passes For Survival, RUDE - Remnants, RUSTEATER - Demo III: Plastic Shopping Bag Full Of Human Ashes, SEA OF SHIT/RADIATION BLACKBODY - split, SHIFT - Abandon, SHROUD OF VULTURE - Valium 1, SIRE - Evocation of the Serpent, SKINCAGE - Unimagined Space, SPITEFUL WOMB - Final Pageant, STIMULANT - s/t, TETRAGRAMMACIDE - Primal Incinerators of Moral Matrix, THAETAS/HAAGENTI split, THEOLOGIAN - Forced Utopia, TREPANERINGSRITUALEN - Kainskult, UNDERGANG - Misantropologi, UNEARTHLY TRANCE - Stalking the Ghost, UNIFORM - Wake In Fright, WET NURSE./TEN THOUSAND MILES OF ARTERIES split, CHELSEA WOLFE - Hiss Spun, WORM - Evocation of the Black Marsh, YELLOW EYES - Immersion Trench Reverie, ZOLA JESUS - Okovi, 

These days, trying to have civil discourse—especially in the realm of metal—is like attempting to force feed a newborn an entire watermelon. I’m sure it can be done, if cartoons taught me anything, but the baby will just bitch that it wasn’t in season. You have one side that takes things incredibly seriously and another that’s so laid back about things they might as well be asleep. Neither one wants to listen to the other unless it means they have a few seconds to gather their next witty slap. It’s just a gathering of people talking at each other and our united ability to actually listen to what the other person is saying is no longer considered a virtue but a liability. Trying to understand where someone is coming from almost seems to be discouraged, especially in today’s climate where you’re just able to label someone a “communist” or “fascist” without even realizing why you’re saying it, only that you know it ends arguments (and starts new ones).

The same kind of people who will look down on you for thinking something like this is a bad mockery of something you find special are the same ones who lose their shit when their own tastes are called into question. Tell someone you don’t like Myrkur because you think the music is boring and you’ll be persecuted for crimes against humanity. But say you think someone’s vacation photo record cover sucks and you’re the asshole. It’s the devaluation of opinion. It’s an endless race to last place.

- Neil Jameson 

The Devaluation of Opinion in Metal

everything i was on in 2016

CRISIS ACTOR


  MOUTH OF MAGGOTS BASTARD NOISE / THE COMMUNION - SPLIT 7" $6.00 TUNNEL NUN as part of the Male Choir for the Buttress's clip "Brutus"

Bandcamps of 2016

CONVICTIONS - Demo

vicious punk rock with sneering UK Power Electronics vocals.

CUTWORM - Spoil

"darkwave" that's actually dark.

DEATHKIN - Kohti Kotiani Kaaosta

murderously melodic black/death with Sakevi-esque vocals.

FETTERS - s/t

a must for fans of Cold Meat Industry and Cold Spring style industrial death.

INTENSIVE CARE - This Is Exactly Who You Are

starting at Endless Blockade ----> Column of Heaven---- now here.

REEKING CROSS - all the splits

deconstructionist filth from the gents in Triac.

SCUM COUCH - Weak Existence 

if Self Defense Family decided they were going to be Brainbombs now.

SLEEPWALKERS - 5772

FFO Starkweather, Enhare, Endon

THAETAS - Demo

mid-period Broken Hope style tech-slam-death. part of the new wave of Long Island Metal (see also Locus Mortis, Forced)

THOSE DARN GNOMES - The Zodiac

another heaping helping of broken-brain.

Exeunt Albumnes 2016

ANTAEUS - Condemnation

the sharpened minimalist counterpoint to the sprawling progressions of their BM countrymen Deathspell Omega.

ANTICHILDLEAGUE - Holy Ghost

if Pharmakon is the rage of the cornered, and Puce Mary is the poison of the seducer, then Antichildleague is the mania that transcends them all.

BLOOD INCANTATION - Starspawn

each song feels like it's own mini-LP. so much imagination while never becoming overwrought.

CONCRETE MASCARA - Perennial Disappointment  

goes where most pretend they've been.

HELMS ALEE - Stillicide 

a leaner piece than their previous record (one of my favorites of 2014), but still loaded up with that 90s AmRep charm while not sounding like a callow throwback.

IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT - Inceste

truly ones after my heel-chewed heart.

MODORRA/BODYBAG - Split 12"

delicious trash.

NOISEAR - Utopian Armageddon Omega Aftermath 

not mediocre poser violence with a phony tough false-pessimist stance like that other "record of the year" you'll be seeing on every kindergrinder's list. could watch them play for days.

RECLUSE - Stillbirth in Bethlehem

hypnotically ugly. ruthlessly impenetrable. callously unconscionable. charbroiled and phlegm marinated. oh yeah... pornographically problematic.

TEN THOUSAND MILES OF ARTERIES - Even Spilled Seed Crawls Toward The Womb

equal parts Gnaw / Gnaw Their Tongues / Gnawed.

......

"Some of the few conservatives i associate with told me this was going to happen. "You don't realize how many people who want what trump wants are out there," they said, "not saying anything now, and waiting to show up at the ballot." And i laughed in their faces. I ridiculed them. Right up until the tide swung last night sometime around 830 pm, where as my fiancé and i sat on the sofa watching in increasing horror, i believed it couldn't actually be like that, not to that extent, not like they were saying; how a country masquerading christian values (lol) upholds the opposite, a self-driven, me-first mentality, afraid of its own shadow, at the cost of all who don't harbor their true feelings only behind closed doors. I honestly can't imagine how people who feel like that live through day in day out. It seems like a kind of sadness i can't imagine wanting to have to live to carry around, and in seeing it plainer even than i'd ever now, i am thankful i don't feel it in me. There's that at least. That's not my blood. And there are plenty of others who don't have that blood either. A different love. But so now, yes, the real face of what america is has been revealed. The skin is off now. The meat is ripe and nasty and ready to fester right in all of our fool faces. It's not like living amidst open rot is anything new. I'm just not sure i can ever look certain people in the eye again. It's going to take a different kind of effort to remember how to smile and carry on. It's going to take a kind of person perhaps almost like who jesus is purported to have been." - Blake Butler