Sweet and Sound

Update

2006-02-28T12:22:00.000-05:00

Hey y'all. I know it's been a little while, but I do want to get back to posting on at least a semi-regular basis. I don't have time to do a regular mp3 post today, but expect one by next weekend.

In the meantime, check out what I've been up to in the last couple of months ... or the last year, really:

Take this City by Nightfall

If you like your metal fast and furious, this is for you. Let me know what you think and if you live in the tri-state area, come see us play and say hi. More soon ...

2005-09-13T15:59:00.000-04:00

[Sorry for the current lack of updates. Been busy with my new band (more on that in the not-too-distant future) and CMJ is coming up this week, but I'll post again next weekend. In the meantime, swing by the Red Cross and make a donation, if you haven't done so yet.]

Picture this: Kiss it Goodbye

2005-09-03T11:18:00.000-04:00

Math metal for the converted

2005-09-01T10:19:00.000-04:00

Back to Canada, and another mainstay in mid to late-nineties hardcore. There are relatively few bands whose records I’ve come back to consistently over the years, but Ire is definitely one of them. They challenged and re-invented themselves with every record, sparse as their output was, at the same time peppering many of their songs with sometimes-controversial political messages. But whether you agree or disagree with the content, much of it has lost none of its current relevance and the music itself has stood the test of time.

Ire’s first two releases were a split 12” with Seized (on Spineless and Fetus) and a self-titled 7” on Schema Records, both recorded in 1996. Those two were later re-issued on CD by Ellington Records as Adversity into Triumph. It was the first song on the 7”, ‘Atfal al-hejara,’ that sparked some controversy due the overt pro-Intifada lyrics by singer Radwan Moumneh, delivered in Arabic. It is also the strongest song on the 7”, delivering Ire's intricate songwriting and time-changes in the most compact and powerful form of all the songs from that record.

With I discern an overtone of tragedy in your voice …, recorded at different times in ’97 and ’98 and released on The Mountain Cooperative (the label that also brought you the I can’t live without it compilation, including Botch’s ‘Closure’), Ire tried to build on the more complex elements in their writing. I think it was in a review of this record that I first read the description “math metal” in reference to any hardcore band. But unlike many later bands that received the “math” descriptor, Ire didn’t focus so much on speed and frantic changes as on slow build-ups and sound progressions, noodling through oodles of mini-riffs before arriving at an absolutely searing breakdown. I’m not a big fan of the production on this record – it’s tinny and the vocals are shrill and mixed too high – but the music still rips.

What seed, what root, Ire’s last record, was released posthumously on CrimethInc. and Scorched Earth Policy. After I discern one might have expected an even more mathy offering, but the big surprise here is that this record totally rocks. Lo and behold, there are more traditional song structures, straight-forward beats and climaxes, though with enough leftover noodling and deviations from the standard verse-chorus-verse format to keep the listener guessing. Lyrically, it’s as political as ever. The text accompanying the lyrics concludes: “Terrorism. They hate us because we are the freedom fighters of the world.” This was 1999, mind you. I’m not sure that I can agree that living on this continent makes me automatically complicit in governmental evildoing, but I respect the sentiment.

Three of Ire’s members went on to form The Black Hand, which I also recommend you check out. They, in turn, also disbanded and apparently Radwan plays guitar in Cursed now. Other members went on to play in Saturation and Cobra Noir (thanks Fabrice!). Originally I was just going to post the songs from the 7”, but instead I’ll give you a cross-section of their output, in hopes that you are going to pick up those records, all of which are relatively easy to come by, at least on CD. ‘Percept’ is the second song off I discern and ‘The number on the calendar’ is from What seed.

Ire – Atfal al-hejara
Ire – Percept
Ire – The number on the calendar

187 L.A. trademark

2005-08-27T11:35:00.000-04:00

It always pisses me off when I hear certain hardcore elitists at shows or on message boards making fun of fifteen-year-old kids at shows wearing nu-metal shirts. Now, I’m no friend of the nu-metal, or whatever you want to call it, but I remember being fifteen. And few are those among us who got into hardcore directly by listening to Minor Threat or Youth of Today.

I was introduced to heavy music primarily through two bands – Downset and Sick of it All. It was 1994 and up until then my blossoming teenage self had been content to live on an MTV-prescribed musical diet, mostly your usual grunge and indie rock suspects. I had read about hardcore and noticed the ubiquitous presence of SOIA T-shirts in my high school, but had no idea what any of those bands sounded like. But in my little German town there was one club close to my house that frequently hosted larger parties and shows. One night we ended up at a party sponsored by a well-known alternative music magazine. I walked in right as Downset’s ‘Anger’ started playing and was floored. A few days later I picked up their record, along with Scratch the Surface, and somehow I knew that this would change everything for me as far as my musical preferences were concerned. I began to pay more attention to the bands that were coming through town, and thus ended up going to my first hardcore show a few months later.

It was a weeknight and the club was almost empty. I was getting ready for a big disappointment, but to the headliner of the night it didn’t seem to matter that a mere twenty or so people were in attendance. The singer stomped and screamed and flung around the mic stand as if to ward off throngs of stage-diving kids. They completely owned the stage and it was impossible not to be captured by the power of their performance. That band was called Warzone.

After that, I started going to as many hardcore shows as I could. But if it wouldn’t have been for Downset and SOIA, I might never have ended up checking out any other hardcore bands. Long story short, everyone has to start somewhere. So next time you see a kid wearing a Linkin Park shirt at a show, be glad he or she is there. A few years hence, that kid might be standing on stage screaming his heart out for your entertainment.

Where was I going with that? Oh, right. Downset had their roots in the LA hardcore scene. Before starting Downset, singer Rey Anthony Oropeza fronted a band called Social Justice. It’s straight up old school hardcore, with a mix of positive and personal lyrics, sing-alongs and raised hands with X’s on the record cover. Not terribly original, but fun stuff nonetheless. As far as I know they only recorded this one 7”, entitled I refuse to lose and released on Green Records in 1992. For a comparison, I guess you could say that Social Justice was to Downset what Hard Stance and later Inside Out were to Rage against the Machine. (The proximity doesn’t end there – note the cover of Inside Out’s ‘Burning Fight.’)

Social Justice – I refuse to lose
Social Justice – Hear the cries
Social Justice – Spiritual soul
Social Justice – Promise to God
Social Justice – Burning fight

Ashes of the living

2005-08-23T19:47:00.000-04:00

Before Lamb of God, there was Burn the Priest. Originally formed in 1990, the band began to come into its own with the 1997 release of a pair of split 7”s, with Agents of Satan (Deaf American) and Zed (Goatboy Farms), followed by a self-titled full-length on Legion Records that was produced by the omnipresent Steve Austin. I remember seeing them at CBGB’s around that time and being seriously impressed with their heaviness and the singer’s vocal range, especially since he looked like a stick with a baseball cap and glasses.

Listening to these records now, it seems fairly easy to trace the continuum in their musical development. There are still lots of fast grind parts on the full-length, accompanied by shrieking screams. The second song, ‘Dimera,’ echoes the chopped up beats and vocals of ‘Ruiner’ from the split with Zed, as do several other songs. Those parts are still among my favorites and you can still hear some of that in Lamb of God as well, I think. Aside from that, considering that Lamb of God are supposed to be representing “new heaviness” in music, it’s amazing how they sound more like old Metallica and Slayer with every release. But that’s probably not necessarily a bad thing and they definitely mix things up enough to keep it interesting – without run-of-the-mill singing parts, thank you very much.

According to their website, the songs from the splits as well as a few others were released as a collection on mp3.com a few years back which is no longer available anywhere. I missed that, so if anyone could hook me up with those mp3s I’d greatly appreciate it. Meanwhile, here are the songs from the splits as I have them. Also check out the Burn the Priest full-length, reissued in March of this year.

Burn the Priest – Suffering Bastard
Burn the Priest – Preaching to the Converted
Burn the Priest – Ruiner
Burn the Priest – The Ballad of Kansas City

Time to give thanks

2005-08-21T13:19:00.000-04:00

In the summer of ’97 I returned to Germany for my year of compulsory social work. I was on a tight schedule – I had to work a lot of double shifts and weekends to make sure I could get done with the social work, in the intensive care unit of a nursing home, in time to leave for college in the U.S. the following year. But somehow I also managed to start a band and weasel my way into another as a bassist.

Sermon existed only for that one year, though we played one re-union in early ’99. We never had a permanent bass player, we only played a handful of shows and gave out less than a hundred copies total of the two demos we recorded. So that happened, we thought. Frank (vocals) and Thorsten (drums) went on to form the Kinetic Crash Cooperation and it was years until I played in a band again.

However, two years or so ago, Kunal from Superfi Records stumbled upon our demo mp3s online and liked them enough to offer to release them as a 7” – pretty gutsy, considering how long ago we had broken up and that we’d never tour or record again. So, the purpose of this post is primarily to give a shout out and big Thank You to Kunal. I believe he has a few copies of the record left (on orange vinyl, I might add), so hop over to Superfi and check out this and his other fine releases. (I have a few copies left as well, so if you live stateside and want one just write me).

As you’ll be able to tell, we were listening to a lot of Converge, Coalesce and His Hero Is Gone back then. See Aversionline for a review.

Sermon – Schwach
Sermon – A Traitor to the Human Race
Sermon – Masslos
Sermon – Tiefschlaf
Sermon – T-Shirt Game

While I’m at it, I’d also like to thank all of you for visiting, checking out the music on here and giving me feedback (hint: if you haven’t, leave comments and let me know what you’d like to hear more or less of)!

Picture this: Burnt by the Sun

2005-08-18T07:29:00.000-04:00

If angels could scream

2005-08-15T11:13:00.000-04:00

I’m not sure when I fist started listening to this band, but Barrit’s Smiles upon the stroke that murders me continues to be among my favorite albums from its genre. I should clarify what I mean by genre, though, because Barrit were really all over the place, which resulted in a very unique amalgam of sounds – melodic riffing, occasional quiet parts and noise interludes, stomping transitions in place of run-of-the-mill breakdowns and some black metal thrown in for good measure. As a result, Barrit ended up with songs that consisted of tons of little parts and transitions and a fair amount of rhythmic variation, but they always managed to weave together a compelling musical narrative. Smiles feels very complete – it’s one of those records that are best listened to as a whole. The lyrics don’t really do it for me, but, well, it’s not like you can actually make them out anyway.

Something else that always stood out to me and that significantly adds to the flow of Barrit’s music is the vocal layering. While the main vocals are fairly brash, at least two of the other band members (I’m not sure who; I couldn’t figure out who exactly plays what) contribute background vocals, which are more on the high-pitched, screamy end and add to the sense of desperation and malady the music attempts to convey. For a comparison, think of the vocal layering in Neurosis’s 'To crawl under one's skin’ on Souls at Zero or the previously discussed Akephal.

Smiles was recorded in 1998 (and, by the way, produced by Steve Austin) and released by Ellington Records. Prior to that, Ellington also released Barrit’s 7”, recorded in 1996, which features the songs ‘Godless Disease’ and ‘Transient,’ though only the latter one was re-recorded for their full-length. There is a notable difference in the quality of the songwriting between these two songs. ‘Godless disease’ is much more disjointed – I can’t even tell whether that last longer part actually belongs to the song or is just a shorter bonus song they tacked on to fill up that side of the record – while ‘Transient’’ features all of the elements that made Smiles such a good listen: the very effective dual vocals, the transitions from heavier riffing to quieter and more melodic parts etc. But hear for yourself.

Barrit – Godless Disease
Barrit – Transient

As you may know, in March of 2002, Steve Neale, drummer of Barrit and later Ink Cartridge Funeral and father of two, died in a car accident. Visit the Team Neale Scholarship Fund to make a donation and to learn more about the fund.

"A" is for Arson

2005-08-13T13:25:00.000-04:00

I had been waiting for the train for what seemed like at least three or four days. The platform was empty; no one else was there except for me and a large number of rats. Occasionally I heard a faint whistle or made out a whiff of cool air on my cheeks that appeared to signal the coming of the train, but I was mistaken and, after a moment of confusion and dismay, slumped back on the lone bench, my eyes fixed on the tracks in front of me.

After a while I went to look for a schedule or a map, but there was none. I began to grew weary of waiting; after all, I hadn’t eaten or slept in days and, in fact, had lost all sense of day and night. Pinching the skin on my arms, I found that I had grown notably thinner and weaker. I resolved that this wait would have to come to an end.

I got up from the bench and walked to the end of the platform, searching for the exit, but the stairs I remembered climbing down were nowhere to be found. Assuming that I must have walked to the wrong end, I turned around and tried the other one. It took me a while to get there, 3,756 steps, to be precise, but yet again I was disappointed – there was no exit. So I sat back down, determined not to let this setback affect my good spirit.

Meanwhile, the rats had gotten used to my presence, enough to trust me and come near me without fear. As I sat and waited, one of them, a big white one, cautiously approached me and sat down in front of me, a mere three or four feet away. As an offering, it had brought a glistening candy wrapper, which I gratefully accepted.

“What are you waiting for?” it asked me, its voice raspy, like that of someone who has smoked all his life.
“I’m waiting for the train,” I replied, unsure at first at the sound of my own voice, which I had not heard in a long time.
“When will your train come?” it continued to question me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Listen, you seem to know the tunnels well – what would I find if I followed them?”
The rat tilted its head, squinted and gave me a puzzled look.
“Why, another station, and another, and another, each with people just like you,” it finally said.

With that it disappeared and I continued to wait, reassured of my fate.

Converge – Look back
Converge – Open your eyes

Run your little finger along your eyebrows

2005-08-10T21:56:00.000-04:00

Here’s a band that was so influential that I don’t even know how to start describing their sound without sounding completely redundant, so I am going to let others do the talking. As Ebullition puts it, the music of Uranus represented “chaos, fury, emotional strife, and a paranoid fear of a technocratic future all blended with a musical delivery that is equivalent to total sonic insanity.” According to Collective Zine, Uranus sounded “like crawling through a sewer pipe on your belly, elbow deep in shit and muck while hungry rats the size of small dogs brood all around you, chattering among themselves while staving off the kill.”

Very well, but for all of you who, like me, have never crawled through a sewer pipe, Paranoid Android offers a more analytic description. After branding the beginning of ‘Panacea’ a “heavy up-tempo verse that marries the locked groove of metallic hardcore with the floating, frantic feeling of Gravtiy Records-style chaotic emo,” the writer continues: “This is all good enough, but then something amazing happens. The drummer shifts his eighth-note accept pattern to the beginning of the measure [and] the second guitar responds with a riff of hollow chords and high octave jumps. At this point even though I've heard this song 100+ times my jaw always drops. It's a revolution in sound, as if the song and all he troubles that inspire it have been crushed under its/their own weight and something new is ready to bust out of the rubble, wounded but soaring, aware of its origins yet ready to look beyond them. The song eventually settles down into a closing riff, but for a few seconds it shows the promise of a world full of new possibilities, which is all one can ask of art.”

Derrida, may his white halo of hair rest in piece, couldn’t have put it any better (though he would almost certainly have been much more verbose).

For a comparison, Delusions of Adequacy suggests that “if you like bands such as Orchid, Majority Rule, Kaospilot, Shikari, or His Hero Is Gone, do yourself a favor and go buy this right now. You won’t be disappointed. Uranus will tear your ears to shreds […] I suggest that if you are prone to heart attacks, you don’t go anywhere near this record, because it will fucking kill you.”

All I can add to this are the facts: Uranus were from Canada, their entire output was recorded in 1993 and 1994 and consisted of the Disaster by Design double 7”, from which the two songs below are taken, the split LP with His Hero Is Gone, a split 7” with Immortal Squad and a Negative Approach cover. While the vinyl is going to set you back a fairly large amount of money, if you can find it at all, all of their music has been conveniently re-issued on one CD by Feral Ward (formerly called Great American Steak Religion) and Stonehenge Records. I suggest you pick up a copy while they’re still available, if you haven’t done so yet.

Uranus – Face Value
Uranus – Panacea

Picture this: Sick of it All

2005-08-08T12:03:00.000-04:00

At the RCKCNDY in Seattle, WA, ca. 1996.

Silence is a funny fellow

2005-08-06T11:19:00.000-04:00

Someone requested that I post the Vade side of the split 12” with Jough Dawn Baker, so here it finally is. As I said before, these songs are every bit as good as the JDB side, especially considering that the average age of the band members at the time they recorded this, in 1997, was around fifteen or sixteen. The music is not as chaotic as JDB's, with more drawn-out arrangements and build-ups leading to grandiose-sounding choruses, but I distinctly remember seeing these guys play for the first time, not knowing what to expect, and my jaw literally dropping thirty seconds into their set.

The lyrics also merit a mention. Lines like “Expectation always steals the upper hand. Swoop down, crush, like a tiger” (‘Brigitte Bardot’) or “only the willows will weep softly to themselves, blowing in the winds of desire” (‘Winter Recovery System’) are a nice departure from the whiny heartbroken emo-lyricism that was prevalent in those days and that, over the last few years, has migrated to the heavier music of certain bands whose members wear too much make-up. But to each their own. “Since these days are all just paintings, I can no longer tell.”

Aside from this batch of songs, Vade also released a demo cassette and a 7”, Saturn, on World of Hurt and Edema Records. The last song below, ‘Baltimore,’ is from that record. You’ll notice it’s a lot quieter and also features vocal contributions from Hannah, Vade’s drummer. As such, it’s generally indicative of where they went with their sound, or where they would have taken it, had this not been their last release. It’s, well, very Northwest.

Members of Vade went on to play in the Blood Brothers, among others. Go to Excursion for more info.

Vade – Brigitte Bardot
Vade – Jupiter, beyond the infinite
Vade – Winter Recovery System
Vade – Baltimore

A twisted generation

2005-08-04T10:18:00.000-04:00

I didn’t even realize how many records from the Czech label Day After Records I have in my collection until I went to their website looking for more information on Kevorkian. Among its stable of artists are Four Walls Falling, Reiziger, Sunshine, The Robocop Kraus, Milemarker and 400 Years, to name just a few. I had picked up Kevorkian's 7”, Who is who, years ago from a German distro after reading a review about it in HeartattaCk, and I was not disappointed. If anything, it’s too bad that this was also the last sign of life from this band, to the best of my knowledge.

Day After describes Kevorkian’s sound as “fast and intense HC like early Born Against mixed up with some harsh parts” reminiscent of “Florida emo/violence bands.” That’s pretty accurate. I’m also hearing some Swing Kids and perhaps even a little Dead Guy in there, though I have to say the band it reminded me of the most when I listened to this again for the first time in a few years was actually the St. James Infirmary, particularly the driving, bass-heavy guitar riffs that function a bit like breakdowns in the middle of both ‘Magic Box’ and ‘Pink Panther.’ The vocals are definitely more on the screamy side and the songs are mostly made up of faster, more chaotic parts. But the music has a very rocked out feel to it; a rarity among bands that were going with the whole screamo thing at the time this was recorded, at the end of 1999.

Prior to Who is who, Kevorkian released another 7”, The Abyss, and a split LP with a band called Albion on Minority Records, though I have never seen either of these records anywhere and haven’t been able to find a distro that still sells them. If anyone has any info on that, please leave a comment.

Kevorkian – Who is Who
Kevorkian – The Magic Box
Kevorkian – Pink Panther
Kevorkian – Untitled

Moving backwards to progress

2005-08-02T20:38:00.000-04:00

Here are a few songs by The Van Pelt. Some of you may recognize the first, ‘The Speeding Train,’ from the second The Lapse full-length, Heaven Ain’t Happening, which featured a re-recorded version of the song. That should not come as a surprise, since the two bands shared their core members – Chris Leo (ex-Native Nod) on guitar and vocals and Toko Yasuda (ex-Blonde Redhead) on bass and vocals. As The Van Pelt, they released two full-length records, Stealing From Our Favorite Thieves and Sultans of Sentiment, both out on Gern Blandsten, the label run by former Rorschach singer Charles Maggio.

The most obvious constant between The Van Pelt and The Lapse were Leo’s half-spoken vocals, along with his insightful lyrics. But with The Lapse’s Betrayal!, also on Gern Blandsten, Yasuda's timidly rich voice began to make more frequent appearances, leaving her on equal footing with Leo by the time they recorded the aforementioned Heaven Ain’t Happening (Southern). This was also their last record together. Leo recorded one more record under the name The Lapse, In Truth Loved, which I could never really get into, while Yasuda went on to play with Enon.

Go here for an interview with The Van Pelt. You’ll also find a few more mp3s on the Southern site. If you want to check out The Lapse, listen to a song from Betrayal! on Epitonic. The songs below were released as a 7" on Art Monk Construction. If anyone of you knows about other EP releases by The Van Pelt, please let me know about them.

The Van Pelt – The Speeding Train
The Van Pelt – Evil High
The Van Pelt – The Democratic Teacher’s Union

Picture this: Meatjack

2005-07-30T09:28:00.000-04:00

At CBGB's, New York, NY, ca. 2000. Save CBGB.

These ain't no blue suede shoes

2005-07-27T21:51:00.000-04:00

This here bunch of young men was one of a group of bands, mostly from the Southwestern U.S., whose sound was defined by various parts grind and metal with a healthy bit of a southern sludge influence. Enewetak, much like Unruh and Suicide Nation (about both of whom I’ll probably write more in the future), was fairly well known for a while, but didn’t achieve quite the lasting notoriety of other hardcore bands that were active in the mid to late nineties. However, Enewetak’s only CD full-length release, Onward to Valhalla, is still around and with a bit of patience you might also be able to find some of their EPs.

Now, I googled the hell out of these guys without really being able to come up with much in the way of solid information, so I’m mostly relying on record inserts. Those lead me to believe that Enewetak was around from ca. 1995 to probably 1998, give or take a year or two, during which they released two 12”s, three 7”s (including a split with Unruh on Feast and Famine) and the aforementioned CD.

What I like about Enewetak is that their sound is unapologetically dirty and fierce. Unlike bands like Kilara, Cavity - or Eyehategod, for that matter - they don’t rely quite as much on long sludgy jams (they had no problem getting their point across in under a minute) and the slow parts they did use were frequently interspersed with grind attacks and more angular metal riffing.

The name and appearance of their 1996 7” The Easyrider Sessions Vol. I (and there never was more than a Vol. I) on Buk Buk Records might lead you to assume that this a little disc chock full of southern rock, but really it’s a big ol’ tribute to Black Sabbath (whose members they thank individually in the insert). ‘The Accident’ and ‘Armageddon’ are the most obvious examples in that regard, but you also get bits and pieces in some of the other songs. The Easyrider Sessions Vol. I is thus not entirely representative of what Enewetak did on their other releases, but it’s every bit as enjoyable as any of them (though Guns. Elvis loved them. probably takes the cake for best title).

Members of Enewetak went on to be in Hot Pursuit, The Mistake and Tafkata. I haven’t heard any of these bands, so if you have an opinion on them feel free to comment.

Enewetak – The Accident
Enewetak – Deathbed
Enewetak – Supercrust
Enewetak – Armageddon
Enewetak – It’s a small world after all
Enewetak – Cease to exist

Outliving a foregone conclusion

2005-07-24T12:35:00.000-04:00

I’ve been looking for an excuse to write about how great I think Darkest Hour’s new record is. Well, here it is – two older songs from split releases with Ground Zero and Dawncore.

Anyway, did I mention how much I like Undoing Ruin? Like, when the chorus kicks in for the second time in song one, when the beat slows down to a heavier crunch? It almost feels wrong to listen to this in the middle of the summer; it’s rainy day music. Walking through the rain, an overcast sky, and then right into the next song, ‘Convalescence’ – “nothing thrills me, nothing kills me” – and that great guitar melody that borders on cheesy, but it’s not; just a little sad. Those hooks are all over the record, of course, and I can’t get enough of it. It’s not power metal, there’s less method and more raw feeling, yet it’s very controlled and well-structured throughout. In Flames and Soilwork can’t touch this. And yet there are plenty of places to raise your fists in the air and climb onto the persons sitting next to you on the subway for a metal pyramid.

There’s that thrash attack that starts off ‘This will outlive us’ that leads into the more standard hardcore-leaning riffing and the song’s quasi chorus – “My life is a blank piece of paper, staring back at me.” Yes, more of that! Instead, we get a slow breakdown of sorts to wrap up the song. ‘Low’ is just a full-on feel-good blast, while ‘These fevered times’ bares more than a fleeting resembles to ‘The fevered circle’ and the rest of Terminal Spirit Disease – but, by no means a rip-off, it sounds more like an expression of musical brotherhood, of the shared experience of the eerie melodrama of life. I could go on and on, but the record’s been reviewed better than I could do in plenty of places already, so let me just say that, even if it’s not a metal milestone, this is one very fucking solid release and a lot of fun to listen to.

Darkest Hour’s split with Ground Zero was released in 1999 on East Coast Empire. ‘Faith like suicide’ fits right in with the songs on Mark of the Judas and, to me, serves as the earliest indication of what this band was really capable of doing. At over six minutes, it’s a pretty long song, and the recording is pretty muddy, but the riffing and dynamic changes that made Mark of the Judas such a good record are all there. ‘With friends like these,’ released in 2001 as a CD single by Join the Team Player Records, has more of a rocked out feel to it. It’s really built around a single riff, but it’s short enough to feed off that riff without losing any steam. Both of these, by the way, were recorded by Ken Olden.

The split with Dawncore is still available (e.g. at Interpunk) – even more easily so if you live in Europe – and the split with Ground Zero shouldn’t be too hard to find either, so I encourage you to keep an eye out for both. Go visit Darkest Hour for more info, tabs and merch and come out to see these guys play when you have a chance, if you haven’t yet. They’re a hell of a live band.

Darkest Hour – Faith like suicide
Darkest Hour – With friends like these …

Rejoice in nothing

2005-07-23T13:54:00.000-04:00

It’s pretty hard to miss the presence of Christian bands in the hardcore scene, at least in the U.S. (curiously, I am not aware of any Christian hardcore bands outside of this country, though I would assume there must be at least a handful). Then there was Krishna-core, with bands like Shelter and 108, which are slated to reunite for this year’s Hellfest. (For some reason there was more of an export market for Krishna-core in its heyday, with imitators and vegan Krishna soup kitchens popping up in various places all over Europe. Someone should look into this; might make for a good dissertation.) And of course we all remember the burgeoning Jewish hardcore scene.

Say what?

Alright, it wasn’t so much a scene as just one band, and you wouldn’t even know it if their name hadn’t given it away – Sons of Abraham. The only place where they talk about their Jewish heritage is in the insert to their first release, a split 7” with Indecision on the long-defunct Wreck-Age imprint Exit Records, which also released their only full-length. The short text talks about the millennia-old attempts to extinguish the Jewish “heritage, culture and faith.”

But they also write that “the crass vandalism of reichskristallnacht is no match for the sophisticated seduction of the american media” and American consumerism that have turned Christmas into a truly all-consuming experience for people of all faiths, the “spirit of giving” thinly veiling the all-pervasive dictum You Are What You Buy. Their response, rendered in song, is: “no presents for christmas, no thanksgiving feasts/ no presents for christmas, no drunken new year’s eves/ you took your christ out of christmas and tried selling him to us instead.”

That song, here simply called ‘song #2,’ reappeared as the title track of Sons of Abraham’s full-length, Termites in his smile, which they recorded in late 1997. But references to religion are scant in the rest of the songs on this record (though ‘Dos Equis’ is about two-faced straight edgers, if that counts). Similarly, the insert text accompanying this release merely talks about what is arguably the essence of hardcore – finding beauty in new places and making new friends – and the lyrics are generally of a more personal nature.

As you’ll be able to tell from the songs below, what you get here musically is extremely well-written metallic hardcore, mixing rhythmic guitar leads with crunchy riffs and the occasional breakdown. Some of it actually does remind me of Songs of Separation-era 108, while the use of guitar overtones is reminiscent of Snapcase. Amazon sells new copies of this little beast of a record, but you can probably also find it used somewhere for a few dollars. As you may know, members of Sons of Abraham went on to play in, among others, Glassjaw and This Year’s Model.

Sons of Abraham – What brings May flowers
Sons of Abraham – Nowhere circles around a plastic toy
Sons of Abraham – Termites in his smile

On a different note, ever wondered which former members of [insert name of xSEx band] lost their edge? Go to How’s your edge and find out!

Picture this: Ink & Dagger

2005-07-21T00:02:00.000-04:00

At the Velvet Elvis in Seattle, WA, ca. 1996.

A common cause for the common good

2005-07-20T23:53:00.000-04:00

This is going to be another easy one, and by that I mean that I know very little about this band, but want to share the music with you anyway. What I could find out is this: Fall into the Sear and Yellow Leaf were from Tyler, TX, and released a 7“ on Watership Records sometime in the mid-nineties. The songs on the EP are numbered four through eight, so perhaps there was an earlier demo recording, but I don’t think they put out any other records after this one.

The first thing you see when you open the inside cover is an illustration of bunnies, squirrels and the like with the heartwarming caption “The giddy forest animals celebrate the end of the human race.” But that by no means sums up what this band stood for, which I can tell you a little more about because they also provided extensive explanations for the lyrical content of all of the songs. One deals with hardcore kids preaching to the choir, another with getting bullied by corporate America. Song #5 pits peaceful resistance against mindless molotov-cocktail-throwing and #7 espouses the ‘virtues’ of the military industrial complex and its recruiting methods. This may sound like run-of-the-mill radical rhetoric, but the actual lyrics always seek, and frequently touch upon, a more personal angle that keeps them from being overly preachy or contrived.

Singer Matt delivers the lyrics in throaty screams that are nothing out of the ordinary, but that fit nicely with the music – pounding mid-paced hardcore weighted toward the low end, yet with enough variation and drive to keep the songs interesting. Groundwork comes to mind as a comparison.

Two members of Fall into the Sear and Yellow Leaf resurfaced in other bands – drummer Kevin in Quien’ es Boom! and Matt in Pop Unknown, along with former members of Mineral.

Fall into the Sear and Yellow Leaf – #6
Fall into the Sear and Yellow Leaf – #4
Fall into the Sear and Yellow Leaf – #5
Fall into the Sear and Yellow Leaf – #7

Dining alone in Minnesota

2005-07-15T00:46:00.000-04:00

1995 was not a bad year for hardcore and metal. In the distant reaches of the far north, something was brewing. And, no, I’m not talking about the release of Slaughter of the Soul – while the Swedes were redefining thrash, a quintet in Minneapolis was going the opposite route by slowing things way down and thus doing their part in the evolution of hardcore, at the same time alienating metal purists all over the known universe. They were called Disembodied.

In 1996, after their first EP on Furface Records, Disembodied released another EP, The Confession, on Moo Cow, their first properly distributed record, which I picked up that same year somewhere in Germany, probably because I read somewhere that they were at least partly a straight edge band, yet didn’t feel the need to be preachy, instead opting to go for a much more dismal level of expression. So I was curious, and I instantly got hooked on what they were doing.

Fast forward to the Winter of 2004. My brother and I are driving along an empty road on our way to see friends of ours at their practice space and we’re trying to decide what music to put on in the car. I hadn’t really listened to Disembodied in years, but for some reason the dial stopped at Heretic, their final full-length release on Edison. We turned up the volume and about a minute later we both kind of looked at each other, stunned upon the realization how powerful this band really was. Then we turned up the volume some more.

By then, Disembodied had long broken up, its members having moved on to form Martyr a.d. as well as Pelican. But they left behind a solid number of recordings, from their first EPs as well as Diablerie and its follow-up If God only knew the rest were dead, both out on Ferret, to Heretic and Oxymoron, their split with Brother’s Keeper on Trustkill that also featured a cover of Quicksand’s ‘Dine alone.’ The latter is notable for its faithfulness to the original, yet it retained every bit of Disembodied’s distinct heaviness. But their earlier records certainly don't lack in that regard either. I’ve seen Diablerie compared to Roots-era Sepultura and I can’t entirely disagree with that, although Disembodied whittled down the grooves to their bare elements and ultimately went for a sound that was both more stripped down and more guttural, paired with throaty vocals that represented the most tangible connection to their own roots in the hardcore scene.

To the best of my information, there were a total of 2,200 copies of the Confession 7” and it was never re-released on CD, and although the recording and songwriting is not as tight as on Disembodied’s later releases, the EP’s three songs are well worth a listen. So here ya go.

By the way, while looking for information on both Countdown to Oblivion and Disembodied I repeatedly came across Blood Sisters, a website dedicated to female musicians in hardcore and metal bands. I’m not sure whether it’s still being updated, but it’s still a good resource and a good reminder for how much ass girls in bands have kicked over the years. FYI – your girlfriend is not a coat rack! So check it out and, of course, find and buy all of Disembodied’s records.

Disembodied - Feel
Disembodied - Confession
Disembodied - Expressionless

Picture this: Today is the Day

2005-07-10T23:19:00.000-04:00

To our friends in the Great White North

2005-07-10T14:45:00.000-04:00

Cursed is on tour again and has been getting a lot of good reviews for Two, their second full-length. Arguably, at least half of what makes them stand out as a band is Chris Colohan’s distinct vocals, the musical red threat holding their songs together, as much as in any previous band he has been in.

Colohan first got attention as a vocalist when he joined three former members of Chokehold to form Left for Dead. Following that was, of course, The Swarm, a band that was matched in intensity only by the likes of Catharsis, Ire and His Hero Is Gone. Both Left for Dead and The Swarm have discography CDs out, which, if you haven’t already, I urge you to check out.

As you may know, aside from Cursed, Colohan is also a member of Ruination. However, what you may not know is that from 1998-2000, he also sang in Toronto’s Countdown to Oblivion, sharing vocal duties with Stephe Perry. Over the course of those two years, they recorded a demo, a 7” entitled Brain surgery for beginners (Deranged), a split 7” with They Live (Ugly Pop) and a handful of compilation tracks. Notably, the band also included former members of Anti-Flag and Holocron, among many others.

Now, here’s the thing: Countdown to Oblivion’s music is every bit as powerful as anything by Colohan’s other bands. It’s fast and angry and the riffing is decidedly on the metal side, dual guitar harmonies and all, but with a hardcore feel to it, in no small part thanks to the vocals. Best of all, with a little luck you should easily be able to find copies of the EPs and, believe me, they’re worth a bit of digging. (And speaking of digging, if anyone could help me get a hold of any of the compilation songs, I would greatly appreciate it.)

To wet your beak, here are two songs off Brain surgery and one of the songs from the split. For more detailed information on the band, check out Ugly Pop.

Countdown to Oblivion – The way it is
Countdown to Oblivion – Take it apart
Countdown to Oblivion – Poster children for family values

Yeah, they could definitely hurt a fly

2005-07-09T01:13:00.000-04:00

I had a few other things lined up for the next few updates, but I’m feeling kinda, um, emotional tonight, so I decided to depart from the general vibe of the last handful of bands on here. Alright, I’m not doing Kill Holiday any justice by labeling them as emo, and I am sure as hell not going to get into any discussion about what is and isn’t emo. Lines like “Can I rest my head on your cold shoulder” speak for themselves.

One fine day, I’ll tell you about all the times I didn’t get to see Unbroken for one reason or another. My only consolation consisted of seeing Kill Holiday later on. Granted, two bands could hardly sound more different, but at least I had the opportunity to see Andrew Steven Miller and Todd Beattie play. This is fanboy stuff, I know, but bear with me, because Kill Holiday were actually a pretty good band in their own right.

Their sound changed quite a bit from release to release. Their first EP, Monitor Dependency (New Age, 1995) was still a little rough around the edges, with more distortion and over-the-top whiny vocal harmonies. For their next record, a split 7” with Dempsey on Indecision, they seemed to look more to the East Coast for inspiration, particularly Quicksand. The whininess would never fully abate, but the songwriting became more focused, at the same time introducing a more danceable restlessness on the rhythmic side.

That shake-your-booty element became even more palpable with the 7” Kill Holiday released on Simba Records in 1997, on the occasion of their European tour. You have to remember, this was also the heyday of the ‘50s meets ‘80s revival – gelled-back hair, gas station attendant shirts, Doc Martens, the whole shebang – and you can sort of hear that in these songs as well, especially in ‘Meant to let you down.’ Simply speaking, it rocks, though it seems the ghost of Walter Schreifels was back in the studio when they recorded the B-side, ‘One more time for me please (then I’ll go).”

If you’re into Brit Pop, you might also want to check out the full length Kill Holiday subsequently released on Revelation. Personally, I’m not.

Kill Holiday - Agenda
Kill Holiday - Sugar rush
Kill Holiday - Meant to let you down
Kill Holiday - One more time for me please (then I’ll go)

Write of me what you will

2005-07-05T23:20:00.000-04:00

I wasn’t going to post any more Damnation a.d. yet, but I’m having some problems with my audio set-up, so I have to work with what I have. No loss to you, though.

Initially, Damnation a.d. was just Ken Olden of Battery (and later Better than a Thousand), who more or less single-handedly recorded the songs ‘Damnation’ and ‘On a pale horse,’ released as a 7” on Tidal in 1994. He was later joined by Mike McTernan, brother of Battery singer and recording engineer Brian McTernan, on vocals, and Hillel Holloway, Greg Merchlinsky and Dave Ward on guitar, bass and drums, respectively.

Following this release were a 7” on the infamous Lost & Found label (‘The Hangman’ b/w ‘Sleep’), a split 7” with Walleye on Jade Tree (‘In the flesh’) and a split 7” with Dead Beat on Stillborn that featured a cover of The Cure’s ‘Cold.’ Except for the songs from the splits, all others were later re-recorded or released as live songs on No more dreams of happy endings, Misericordia (Jade Tree) and their Revelation Records debut Kingdom of Lost souls.

Lyrically, as you might expect, ‘Damnation’ is sort of a theme song, while its B-side ruminates on the loss of meaning in the face of adversity and lies. Here, as in many of their later lyrics, they take a minimalist and very personal approach to the writing, which can consequently be interpreted in any way you please:

Lost your job/ girlfriend/ winning lottery ticket? “All I want is to understand/ why everything good melts like ice in my hand.”

Tired of other people taking advantage of your rolodex/ math homework/ Samaritan instincts? “I’m your drug I’m what you need to survive/ abuse me, when you’re done throw me aside.”

Your friends/ baseball heroes/ financial adviser disappointed you? “Everyone seemed so perfect/ but they all fell down.”

No one understands you? “My words are spit back at me.”

So life’s never going to get any easier? “Eternity is forever.”

Okay, Shakespearean ‘tis not. But in the context of the re-emergence of Straight Edge and its militant outgrowths in the early and mid nineties, you could also look at Damnation as a reality check for ‘the kids,’ i.e. the burgeoning hardcore scene. As such, it represents the flip-side to Battery’s go-getter posi-core – if they were dates, you would want Battery to be the one to introduce to your parents, while secretly hooking up with Damnation for hot sex and knife play.

That goes for the music as much as for the lyrics – they don’t try to please, but instead use simple building blocks and compositional arcs to arrive at a narrative whole. The result is brooding, contemplative music, with a consistent pulse but internal fractures that repeatedly threaten to cause the music to fall apart. “Throw in the towel or continue to suffer.” Continue they did, but it wasn’t until Misericordia and especially Kingdom that they more fully embraced Rock’n’Roll elements in their songs, giving them the coherence they often lacked before, but also sacrificing that elementary sense of desperation in the songwriting. As they say, I like their old stuff better. However, you should of course find and buy all of it.

Damnation a.d. - Damnation
Damnation a.d. – On a pale horse
Damnation a.d. – In the flesh
Damnation a.d. - Sleep
Damnation a.d. - Cold

Sharpen your knife

2005-06-30T16:30:00.000-04:00

It must have been sometime in the fall of '97. We were hanging out at my friend Thorsten's house, who was the drummer of our band. I was flipping through his record collection - the nerd equivalent to comparing our dick sizes - when I came across a record by a band whose name sounded vaguely familar to me.

"Oh, Starkweather," he said. "That's a really good record. You have to hear this!"
"Yes," our friend Sven chimed in, "it's amazing!"

I remembered that I had indeed heard them before. A song of theirs, Hushabye and Goodnight, was on the Definitely Not the Majors compilation, out on Bush League Records, that I had picked up sometime earlier that year in Seattle. It was one of the songs, along with contributions by Bloodlet and Coalesce, that had particularly stood out to me. It was pure heaviness all the way through, with searing guitar solos and tortured vocals that ran the gamut from screaming and growling to snarls, as the singer alternately intoned them while breathing in and pushing the air back out of his lungs, especially toward the drawn-out end of the song. Their full-length, Into the Wire, was out on Edison, so it was probably at least okay, I figured.

Did it blow my socks off? No. I liked it, but it was one of those records that only grew on me over time. But I keep going back to it and I probably listen to it more now than I ever have. I've long been convinced, though, that Thorsten and Sven were right. Into the Wire is a great record, full of dramatic ups and downs, moments of pensiveness and bursts of aggression, though always in a very well thought-out, controlled manner, with every note and beat exactly where they need to be. You've probably read about other bands, like Converge, quoting Starkweather as one of their influences. It's not always apparent from the sound, but there is something about the, for lack of a better word, atmospheric density in Starkweather's music that is at least as inspiring as it was ahead of their time when Into the Wire first came out in 1995.

As you probably know, they're back, with a new bass player, a new record, Croatoan, to be released sometime soon on Second Nature (Hypertension will handle the vinyl) and a tour in Europe this Summer. For more info as well as a complete discography and a whole bunch of interviews, check out their site. Below are my three favorite songs from Into the Wire. They're largish files, but you will not be disappointed ... I'm tempted to keep rambling on about specific parts in those songs, but really, you should hear for yourself.

Starkweather - Shroud
Starkweather - Murder in Technicolor
Starkweather - Into the Wire

The next two are "newer" songs. 'Taming Leeches with Fire' was never properly released, while 'Hushabye' was on the abovementioned compilation. New versions of both songs will be featured on Croatoan.

Starkweather - Taming Leeches with Fire
Starkweather - Hushabye and Goodnight

Potential friends

2005-06-27T10:45:00.000-04:00

I was just about to put up a mix of songs by another one of my favorite long-disbanded bands from the Northwest, State Route 522, when I saw that Status is putting out a retrospective CD with all of their recorded material. So go check out the mp3 posted on their site and buy the CD; I promise it's going to be worth every penny of your money.

We're going to stay in the Northwest for this update, though. In 1997, photographer and zinester Carrie Whitney put out an amazing compilation CD called All About Friends. Lovingly put together, the record features original material and cover songs from almost all of the most prominent bands from the area at the time as well as some other bands she was friends with. By the way, Carrie also appears in Dave Larson's movie Edge of Quarrel. I don't know what she is up to these days, but hey, if you're reading this, I hope you're well and thanks for all the rides!

The CD is long out of print - there were a thousand hand-numbered copies, packaged in a beautiful stapled cardboard cover with a 30+ page booklet - but you might still be able to get it from some distros. At least half of the songs - among the exceptions are Botch's Rock Lobster, a B-52's cover, CR's Moss and Indecision's Slave - were not re-released in any other format, to the best of my knowledge. That still leaves us with a great pool of material, and what the hell, I'm going to put up the Botch song, too, because you need to hear this.

Botch are easily one of my favorite bands ever. If you haven't, you need to buy all of their records, because they were one of the most original and innovative hardcore bands this country has seen, period. This cover song provides ample testimony; it's a great example for a band taking music that has already stood the test of time and turning it into something utterly new and unpredictable. Botch were masters at their craft in that respect - just listen to their covers of Carl Orff's O Fortuna or the Sabbath cover they did for Hydra Head and you'll know what I mean.

Below, you'll also find an original song by San Diego's Impel, my favorite of theirs, as well as a song by Seattle's Screwjack, Dave Larson's band that I'm pretty sure broke up by now, though they did release an LP on Excursion a year or two ago, as well as Trial's cover of Iron Cross's Crucified - with a straight edge twist.

Botch - Rock Lobster
Impel - Call it what you will
Screwjack - Artifact
Trial - Crucified

Scorn in Japan

2005-06-20T13:48:00.000-04:00

If you're into hardcore or metal, the U.S. is probably not one of the best countries to be if you also like to see bands perform live. Why? Because bands from Europe or Asia come here far less frequently than bands from here go overseas. Now, I live in a big city, so I can hardly complain about a lack of shows to attend, but I can definitely think of a number of bands from other countries that I wish I would have had a chance to see play or that I would love to see again.

One of them is Hellchild from Japan. Okay, so I did actually see them once, at the 2000 Loud as Fuck at CB's, but as far as I know they broke up not too long after that. You probably know Hellchild from their split with Converge, but if you haven't heard them before, their two last full-length records, Circulating Contradiction and Bareskin (released in the U.S. by Ritual's Howling Bull imprint), on which they also recycled a number of songs from their EP releases, are a good place to start. I also remember seeing the split 7" with Bongzilla around in stores not too long ago, so you might still be able to find that and some of their other EPs at tolerable prices. Here is an overview of their releases, and this unofficial site has a fairly extensive bio and a short interview.

The three songs below are from the split 7" with Gomorrha (Per Koro/ Bastardizer) and the split 10" with Kilara (Rhetoric).

Hellchild - Soul of purity
Hellchild - Kill yourself
Hellchild - The change and the unchangeable

On a different note, I know the sound quality of some of the mp3s on here isn't particularly good. I've been using Final Vinyl to rip music, and it gets the job done, but if you have any recommendations of other programs to use or what else to watch out for, please let me know. I'm not much of a technophile, so I'd appreciate any advice.

Something wicked

2005-06-18T13:13:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the recent lack of updates. Been busy, and I'll probably have to keep the updates shorter and more infrequent in the near future as well.

I really don't know anything about the band featured in today's update - Mayday. I picked up their 10" in Germany probably about seven or eight years ago. I don't know whether they ever put out anything else and I have absolutely no idea what became of them. All I have is this record, a four-song EP. It has the lyrics and a VA contact address printed on the back of the cover, so I assume that's where they were from (though if I remember correctly there is/was also a band with that name from somewhere in Scandinavia). Anyway, this is pretty brutal stuff. Think late-nineties Florida metal-core, a little like Ascension. Enjoy.

Mayday - Staplegun
Mayday - Vienna promises
Mayday - F(h)ollow
Mayday - Rust away

Let's hear it!

2005-05-14T10:42:00.000-04:00

So, you guys aren't very good when it comes to leaving comments. What's the matter with you? Speak up!

Let me know what you like and what you want to hear more of; it helps me trying to decide what to put up next.

Battery - Say it!

A bundle of joy

2005-05-13T09:14:00.000-04:00

Did y'all catch that story in the New York Times about how Linkin Park wants to get out of their contract with Warner Music (also see here)? Usually I wouldn't even pay much attention to something like this, but it amuses me to no end how these people are willing to embarrass themselves. They're concerned about their marketing budget after Warner Music's IPO? Please, that's just ridiculous. They're already shoveling cash up your asses, you made it into the select group of, um, artists who earn money for their record company; what on earth are you going to do with fifty million dollars? Buy yourselves a week's worth of programming on MTV? Even worse if they actually believe what they're saying. It shouldn't have taken them that long to realize that they are working for a corporation. Worst of all, though, is the fact that these guys are described as "the biggest rock band in the world." I don't care how many records they sell, their style is generic and redundant and they give a bad name to heavy music. Fucking clowns.

To let off some steam, I went to see Mastodon last night and was happy to know that they still do what they've always done, despite the bigger venue. Now here's a band that doesn't compromise its integrity even as it attracts larger crowds. I loved every minute of it. Also, you should buy all of Cult of Luna's records.

Today's update features a band from Southern California called Stickfigurecarousel. Their total output consists of little more than a dozen songs, but all of it is very listenable and well executed. Though their sound changed somewhat from release to release, beginning with their first 7" on dim mak, the cover of which was designed and packaged by Steve Aoki himself and which was more on the fast and chaotic side. A self-titled 7" on Schema followed a similar pattern, while they put a greater emphasis on songwriting with their 7" and CDep on Nothing Left. It's loud and bombastic; walls of guitars with frequent hints of melody and occasional singing. Think early Will Haven meets early Kill Holiday. Their last release was a split 7" with Germany's Linsay, also on dim mak.

Below, you'll find the first three songs of the ep, which kind of form a thematic whole - at least that's what it sounds like - and which are also all on the 7" version of this release. Some distros probably still have all or some of the above records, particularly the Nothing Left ep. Find them and buy them. Members of Stickfigurecarousel went on to play in, among others, Adamantium and Give Until Gone.

Stickfigurecarousel - Facade
Stickfigurecarousel - Penumbra
Stickfigurecarousel - A Bundle of Sticks

The day pigs flew and hell froze over

2005-05-07T19:15:00.000-04:00

In German, akephal is a little-used scientific term, an adjective that describes a form of archaic social organization. Specifically, it refers to the ability of nomadic tribes to function without central leadership, instead arriving at decisions through the discourse of the elders. Not unlike certain terrorist organizations, nomadic societies were thus able to survive as autonomous cells.

It strikes me that this description of autonomy as an organizational principle is not unlike what many DIY bands preach, and some practice. Stateside, CrimethInc comes to mind as the premiere example of a collective that puts quality of life first and just so happens to use music as a creative outlet. Whenever they get around to it, that is - Catharsis, the band that is probably closest to the nucleus of the collective, hasn't released any records since their split LP with Timebomb in 2001, which featured just one fifteen-minute song of theirs, 'Arsonist's Prayer.' Then there's the hactivist collective, another group of free-spirited young intellectuals, better known for the music they released as Creation is Crucifixion. Their last release is now also three or four years old and consisted of only three 'real' songs, though the CD also came with software by the Carbon Defense League and a ca. 100-page booklet with instructions for programming your own culturally-subversive Game Boy games, including strippers and prostitutes (unionized, I'm sure).

While laudable and deserving of respect, these groups are only the most extreme manifestations of an idea that I think is present throughout the DIY and larger independent music culture in its basic tenets, despite the widespread appropriation of the tools and principles of market capitalism. Under this model, indie bands are single-cell contractors whose largest assets are word-of-mouth (now aided by the Internet), tour vans and the music itself. It's by no means a recipe for success, but, given a minimum of dedication and talent, it works and has proven to be an artistically and economically sustainable approach for many bands.

In fact, it has been so successful that it has increasingly been adopted by the social, economic and political culture at large. How many times in the last two years have you heard political figures talking about 'reaching the base with grassroots campaigns'? Then, there is the much-debated democratization of the Internet itself, where groups of one persuasion or another (or musical taste, for that matter) cluster around indvidual blogs and sites, including this one. Who knows, even the knuckleheads in the executive suites of the Big Four labels and their A&R flame-outs might wake up to this new reality at some point. Ultimately, it would mean that music groups under contract with the big labels would no longer represent an investment with a 90% chance of negative return, but independent franchises that retain much of the control of their marketing and output while living off the road, leaving the labels with a low but also low-risk margin from online and hardcopy sales.

However, chances are that if you're young and bursting at the seams with creative energy and adolescent angst, your response is going to be something like "I don't give a shit, I just wanna play!" Point well taken. It's also exactly what the band whose music I want to share with you today and who inspired the above rant did.

Akephal, who hailed from Husum in the far North of Germany, are another case of music shrouded in mystery, just how I like 'em. The only release of theirs I am aware of is a seven-song 12" EP on 180-gram vinyl on Lund Castle Core Records, recorded in 1997 at Bremen's infamous Kuschelrock studios, birthplace of many fine records by hardcore luminaries like Moerser, Systral, Acme and Loxiran. Their exact political leanings are anyone's guess, but the lyrics provide a pretty good hint at where these guys were coming from.

"As long as propaganda turns cries of death into tales of heroic feats/ and as long as domestic security finds ways to justify all of its torture methods/ shit will pass for gold," they scream in 'So Lange' (note: my translation). File under current affairs - the critique of the unchecked powers of government has lost none of its relevance. They get more personal in songs like 'Zeitgefuehl': "We are getting lost in our own fear - escape attempts - self-deceit/ [attempts to] do away with boundaries, that you have created yourself/ Never will you overcome your own nothingness." It seems clear that the 'you' that is addressed here is really the singer himself, who, in other places, repeatedly bemoans his "passivity," inaction, and fear thereof; statements that appear trite in writing, but carry a very powerful momentum when bundled with Akephal's music. Their sound is brash and heavy; the closest comparisons that I can think of are Uranus, the layered vocals of Barrit and perhaps a more sinister Unruh. I also have to commend them on their effective use of samples. Coupled with screams and wailing guitars, they serve to add an additional layer of hauntedness, even if you don't understand German.

As always, if you can tell me anything about other releases by these guys or their present musical whereabouts, please get in touch with me. Below are songs three through five from the EP. I got my copy from X-mist six or seven years ago, but I wouldn't be surprised if they still have some left over.

Akephal - Zeitgefühl
Akephal - Feuer und Flamme
Akephal - Kaleidoskop

How not to die a bitter death

2005-05-05T23:04:00.000-04:00

Two things happened since my last post: First, work and life got crazy busy, and second, I received two e-mails, one from Stefan, former guitarist of June's Tragic Drive, and one from Marc, former bassist of Jough Dawn Baker. Both gave me updates on what they have been up to after the break-up of their respective band, which I'm going to take the liberty to share with you.

Stefan writes that after playing in Cheerleaders of the Apocalypse, he was in Borigor, a more metallic version of CotA. They broke up as well. Nowadays, he plays in a "stoner, psychedelic, sort-of rockish" band called Calahan as well as in an instrumental project called Blackwaves with Frank, also the singer of the Kinetic Crash Cooperation and former singer of Sermon, and Tomek, former drummer of the Lovesongcompany, that he describes as "a mixture of Pleasure Forever and Neurosis."

The e-mail from Marc came totally out of the blue. He is now playing the guitar in a band called Run Away From The Humans, outta Philly, a new-wave inflected indie/ electro project which I recommend you check out.

They also shared some thoughts on old times. Stefan says that he wishes he could "revive the old days. That music was such an extremely important part of our lives for me and the others." Marc says "Jough Dawn Baker was a fun band to be in." As for the blue guitar I mentioned below, it's "a charvel surfcaster ... to this day I have no idea how Joe got that thing so heavy sounding ... it was a semi hollowbody single coil pick up guitar ... crazy." Word.

What do we learn from that, kids? Don't squander your youth - turn off the televison and get off your fucking couch! Now, that isn't exactly a new idea; it's been at the core of what many bands have expressed lyrically. It's what DIY is all about. That brings me to today's update. Few bands have expressed this beautifully naive, but truly powerful sentiment, couched in a bed of sinister apprehension, better than Morning Again, particularly in their very last release, a two-song 7" on Immigrant Sun that I believe was recorded and released sometime in '98/'99, entitled 'To Die a Bitter Death.'

As the title would suggest, these guys aren't into the whole goody-goody posicore thing, but the point is, they're trying to make a difference for themselves. As they state in the liner notes, "hardcore helped all of us in the band realize that we didn't want to be like everyone who surrounds us each day." Of course, there is already an implied judgment in who the "we" and who the "everyone" is - but that's precisely what makes underground movements and music exciting. Alienation leads to extreme forms of expression, which ideally generate a new understanding of our collective and inidividual identity and allow us to create something that ultimately brings us closer to the miserly rest of humanity again, because we might just not be so different after all. Wrap those sentiments in music to do spin kicks by, and you got yourself a Morning Again record.

I'm not going to mouth off much more about this band, because the odds are you aready know them and are familiar with their output. Instead, I'm just going to be lame and say that I like their old stuff better - with the exception of the aforementioned 7" - because it's more in-your-face. That includes the first record with Damien Moyal, who later went on to sing for Culture and As Friends Rust. However you feel about this band, I think they deserve credit for their part in popularizing metal elements in hardcore early on, along with bands like Unbroken, Earth Crisis and Chokehold, as well as introducing very personal elements in the lyrics.

So here's some Morning Again, old and new. Make of it what you will. Just, you know, "live each day as your last." Piece o'cake.

Morning Again - Family ties
Morning Again - To die a bitter death
Morning Again - Noteworthy instruction

A disappearing act

2005-04-25T12:00:00.000-04:00

One thing that also always impressed me about the hardcore scene in the Northwest, at least back when I was living in that area, was its integrity and willingness to give new bands a shot and reach across musical genres to make shows happen and bring people together. There used to be frequent ‘unity showcases’ with half hardcore and half punk bands (their success was another issue, but hey, at least they tried) and of course there’s Dave Larson’s feature-length epic “Edge of Quarrel,” a hilarious rendition of the West Side Story that substituted straight edge and punk kids for the Jets and the Sharks, featuring appearances by Trial, Botch and the Murder City Devils. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend getting a hold of it.

Unlike the aforementioned bands, however, there were a few that never quite achieved their wide acclaim, among them Jough Dawn Baker and Vade, who teamed up for a split 12” ep on Henry’s Finest Recordings in or around ’96. After that, members of Vade went on to play in the Blood Brothers, but I have no idea what happened to the guys in Jough Dawn Baker. Here’s all I know: They were from Bellingham, WA, they put out a self-titled seven inch previous to the split with Vade (also on Henry's Finest) and one of the guitarists played an instrument that I think was baby-blue and looked like it was built from scratch. The intensity of the sound that came out of that guitar and from the rest of the band was immense. Why they disappeared is a mystery to me, but I don’t think it was for lack of support or creative impulse.

There were only 1,000 copies of the 12”, packed in a beautiful fold-over cardboard cover with the names of the bands on the front. Excursion still has it listed in its distro section (there’s also a review that sums up pretty well what the bands sound like), though I’m not sure how dated that listing is. If you see it anywhere, buy it. (Excursion also still sells “Edge of Quarrel” and a few other movies you should see.) Vade’s blend of thoughtful melody and explosive climaxes is every bit as good as the JDB side and I may post them at some later point. If you can tell me anything about the musical whereabouts of JDB’s members post-break-up, please let me know.

JDB – Mannequin 2-On the Move
JDB – Boise Cascade
JDB – Let off some steam, Bennitt

Damlet!

2005-04-19T20:46:00.000-04:00

You know how new bands are frequently described as "a mixture of thisband and thatband," when in fact newband sounds little like thisband or thatband, because they're really ripping off otherband? As writers trying to get across what we think we are hearing in music, we have a fairly limited assortment of semantic tools at our disposal, particularly when it comes to heavy music. Over time, adjectives became outdated, overused, meaningless, and comparisons become stale. As a consequence, writers have been playing with all sorts of evasive techniques, sometimes circling around the music like hungry wolves, acting aloof, but tearing into it as soon as they have established their dominance, sometimes probing it with a long pole, only to retreat when it threatens to overwhelm them. Sometimes it's all trial and sometimes all error, passionate at best, perfunctory at worst. I'm sure you all have read reviews or articles that provided next to no information about what the artist in question actually sounds like, as well as pieces of writing oozing with so much admiration that you were inclined to categorically disbelief the writer.

I'll admit it, I like name-dropping. I hope to one day figure out a way to be able to organize my records as if they were a map of associations, because that's what it looks like when I think about the different sounds bands create, because sound is more enduring than adjectives. In the end, though, you're best off trusting your own ears.

Now that we've established that, here's an absolute exception - a band that sounds exactly like a mixture of thisband and thatband and it's a total treat to boot. Take equal parts Bloodlet and Damnation a.d. and what you get is Bloodnation, a one time only collaboration of the core members of the two bands - two vocalists, two guitarists, two bassists and drums. As far as I know they recorded only one song, 'Flesh of Another,' released in 1995 on the Squirrel comp. 7" out on Level Records. As you will hear, it really sounds like they just split the writing duties down the middle in the studio. Also featured on the comp. are songs by Tuscadero, Chisel and Frodus, but none are as memorable as this one. If you've never really listened to either of these bands, I highly recommend that you get a hold of Bloodlet's Eclectic and Entheogen records (on Victory) and Damnation a.d.'s No more dreams of happy endings (on Jade Tree) and then work your way forward from there. Perhaps I'll post some more out-of-print Damnation a.d. stuff at some later time, but for now, here's Bloodnation!

Bloodnation - Flesh of Another

Misery seeks tragedy

2005-04-16T20:42:00.000-04:00

To begin with, a word on how this thing looks: Barren. I know. And, well, that's not going to change anytime soon. I know y'all like the pictures and y'all like the links, but right now I don't really have the time to worry about that. You're just goint to have to do with the music for now.

Which brings me to today's update. For a while in the late nineties, bands from the San Diego area had a pretty big influence on what kids in ol' Germany where doing; the looks, the artwork and also the music, as sort of a lead-in to the even more stylized screamo-ish music that started to get popular shortly thereafter. Kids were all over bands like Swing Kids, The Crimson Curse, Festival of Dead Dear, the mighty Unbroken and of course The Locust, resulting in many imitators and a few bands that tried to expand on the SoCal sound. Unlike bands like The Coleman Quintet, who went more with the swing angle, June's Tragic Drive were one of the bands that picked up on the more serene and stripped down aspects of what the San Diego bands were doing. If you like the last two Unbroken eps, you're probably going to be into what June's Tragic Drive did in their prime.

June's Tragic Drive consisted mostly of former members of Steadfast, who changed their name after one of the members died in a car accident. Perhaps owing in part to this private strategy, both their sound and lyrics took a definite dive for the bleak, with lines like "sometimes loneliness just won't leave you alone" ('Goodbye January') or the mixture of humility and self-deprecation in 'Sunday Evening Thoughts' that culminates in the gut-wrenching lines of the chorus, "this is today and tomorrow is a lie." It's naked misery reaching for the bottom and, once that bottom is found, stomping on it, trying to hold on to these moments "because tomorrow they are gone." Some damn fine post-break-up music, I tell ya.

The recording history of June's Tragic Drive was sporadic and not very long-lived. Below you will find one pretty old and simple, but yet fairly powerful song called 'emptyman' that appeared on the Rhythm, Rhyme and Reason 7" comp on makahannya haramita shingyo as well as both songs from a split they did with Enfold, out on Tomte Tumme Tott. Those two songs, also quoted above, represent the height of their creative realization for me. It's raw, no question about that, but heavy as fuck. The only later recordings I am aware of are a self-titled 7", also on Tomte Tumme Tott (with an awesome handmade cover) and one song on the About Life... full-length comp on React with Protest. While good recordings in their own right, they started to draw on other influences (the s/t record sounds a lot like a more rocked out The Swarm - i.e. Cursed, before Cursed existed as a band) and I think they could have been fantastic records if the material was just a tad more cohesive and the recording better. Good stuff and worth checking out nonetheless. In fact, I think you might still be able to get many of these records from smaller European distros. Members of June's also went on to play in the much more grindy Cheerleaders of the Apocalypse, who put out a discography LP not too long ago, also on React with Protest, that should be fairly easy to find.

June's Tragic Drive - emptyman
June's Tragic Drive - Goodbye January
June's Tragic Drive - Sunday Evening Thoughts

This is a first

2005-04-16T14:32:00.000-04:00

Alright, here is my inaugural post. First, I'd like to give myself a little slap on the back for figuring out how to work my server space and ftp account, after being holed up in my livingroom half the day while outside the sun is shining, the birds are chirping and kids are setting off car alarms all over the neighborhood. I hope the download links will work fine for everyone. They worked when I tried them, but please do let me know if you encounter any problems.

But enough about my lack of tech-competence and on to the music.

I first picked up Saint James Infirmary's four-song demo cassette at a Harkonen show in Redmond, WA, ca. 96/97. They had been playing a few shows together up and down the West Coast, though unfortunately I missed those. But I was immediatelly hooked to the music. What you get here isn't really straight-up hardcore or emo, it's more of a mixture of the visceral energy of hardcore with more basic rock'n'roll elements, wrapped up in tight arrangements with a nice discordant edge. Unfortunately, I don't really know much about what happened to these guys. They were from the Bay area and, to the best of my knowledge, only ever released two eps (the demo and another three-song 7" on Alternative Tentacles) and one full length, on Allied/ Frenetic. In my opinion the eps have more of an edge to them, though I enjoy the full length as well. Apparently one or several of the members went on to play in The Pattern. You can find a well-written, though outdated, bio and a number of reviews here. The two songs below are from the demo ep.

Saint James Infirmary - bsadd
Saint James Infirmary - Fucking American

A kind of mission statement

2005-04-09T11:10:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while, i sit down by myself in my living room and start pulling out seven inches that I haven't listened to in years only to be blown away by how powerful the music is. this usually turns into a night-long pump-up-the-volume and dance-on-the-couch extravaganza. and it always leaves me wondering whether i am the only one who still listens to those records or how many other people there are out there who do the exact same thing - or who would do the exact same thing, had they ever had a chance to hear some of this music.

So that's where this blog comes in. I just recently saw some pretty cool mp3 blogs, but they didn't seem to be covering quite the same types of music that I would consider indispensible in my collection. So I thought, hey, maybe I can do this, too. At this point I should say that I am completely ignorant of the art of blogging. I'm not sure how well this is going to work. But I'd be thrilled if there are just one or two people out there who will hear some of this stuff and dig it.

Disclaimer: All music featured hereon will consist of out-of-print, never-reissued material. I'll allert you to the bands' in-print releases or where you might be able to find the vinyl. If anyone has a problem with me posting their music, it shall be removed immediately.

Support your scene and consume music responsibly!

\m/

ray