Woah! Francais Metal de Proto!!! Dunno if y'all remember a cd-r mix that was floating around a few years ago, featuring such obscure & amazing early '70s French proto-metal, heavy psych acts as Docdail, Les Variations, Chico Magnetic Band, Quo Vadis, Zoo, and this band, Rotomagus. It caused a bit of sensation 'round these parts. Seriously, there was some incredible, ahead-of-its-time heaviness on there. So whenever we track something down by any of those bands we get pretty dang excited. And this is the best reissue related to that to come along yet, an anthology of the complete recorded works of this group, responsible for the raucous, more proto-punk than proto-metal really track "Fighting Cock" on that comp, which also featured Rotomagus' equally radical singles tracks "Eros" and "Madame Wanda". Those are all here, of course, as well as five more tracks from 45s, and entirety of the band's even more maniacal final unreleased 1971 demo session, which includes rawer versions of "Fighting Cock" and a few of the other singles cuts too... 17 tracks in all. Quite a treasure trove!
Now, as we've previously discussed, a LOT of awesome music came out in 1971. But very little if any of it was quite as freaked out and fucking punk as "Fighting Cock"! Elsewhere, among the tracks here, there ARE some poppier, melodic moments, which only make the aggro acid rock explosions of most of the rest of the disc seem even more insane. Certainly the two flowery tracks from the band's debut 1969 single, lush and la-la-la filled, don't provide any warning of how crazed Rotomagus would sound just a year or two later. Too bad the band never got to record a proper album, but presumably the record company heard the full-length demo found here and, shocked, pulled the plug on Rotomagus's career, robbing the world of an early entree into a realm of Raw Power that it would take Iggy & the Stooges another couple years to achieve... Seriously, this stuff is proof that Rotomagus belong in the annals of the "early heavy", high energy division, alongside the likes of the Stooges, MC5, Sir Lord Baltimore, Jerusalem, Night Sun, Crushed Butler, Colored Balls, Cerebrum, May Blitz, and Detroit's Death.
So, if you want a disc full of distorted stomp, wailing wah-wah'd out geetar, and wild vocals, look no further! There's fuzz and FX a-plenty, plus schizoid proggery and other weirdness (like the chipmunk vocals of the single version of "Laureline"). The Hendrix-y title cut is almost tame by comparison to some of the rest of this stuff, which comes off like the Pink Fairies at their most punk... It's funny, France turned out some bands in the late '70s who sounded like the Stooges (Angel Face, Soggy) but who knew they had one this early too?
As with all Lion reissues, nicely appointed, with a 32 page booklet full of liner notes, in both English and French, including the (practically frothing with amazement and disbelief) review of the "Fighting Cock" single that the Seth Man originally scribed for Julian Cope's Head Heritage website a few years ago...
FYI there is also a double lp vinyl version of this planned for release sometime this fall.
In 2002, Rotten Sound released what will undoubtedly go down as one of the absolute highlights of the grindcore genre, the unsurpassable Murderworks. Topping the relentless speed and complexity (and yet catchiness as well) of that monumental album seemed a futile effort but these fearsome Finns have come damn close with this equally punishing new record. There is a clinical precision to the playing on this disc that should impress even the most non-metally inclined amongst you, in particular the near inhuman drum skills of Kai Hahto, who turns in yet another tour de force. Each new album finds Hahto somehow increasing the dial of his internal metronome a few notches faster but it's the technicality of the breaks he throws in at will amongst the fury that is truly stunning. OK, yes we are major drum nerds, but seriously you gotta hear this guy play! The rest of the band fills in more than ably, with some seriously vicious vocal attacks plus that classically huge buzzing Scandinavian death/grind guitar sound a la Entombed and Nasum -- the late Mieszko Talarczyk of Nasum even recorded this. Definitely a necessity for fans of Napalm Death, Terrorizer, Discordance Axis, Pig Destroyer, anything on Relapse and anything insanely fast!
I had this friend in high school named Davey. He was one of my first weird 'punk' friends. He eventually got expelled for distributing a very funny anti-faculty newsletter, and eventually drifted off and disappeared. But one of the first things he did after we met was to was make me a tape, with Red Lorry Yellow Lorry on one side, and Rudimentary Peni on the other. At the time, I remember being a bit underwhelemed since at the time my taste was still definitely safely in the top 40. But eventually Rudimentary Peni would become a favorite (especially after discovering the manaically precise artwork of head Peni Nick Blinko that graced all of their album covers) and open me up to all sorts of metal and punk and crust. So here we are 20 years later, and Rudimentary Peni are still plugging away, as dark and crusty as ever, and maybe even a bit heavier to boot. This 12 track EP is a creepy, claustrophobic missive of fuzzy guitar, hypnotic and repetitive riffing, gloomy atmosphere, pounding rhythms, cryptic and ultra personal lyrics, and of course Blinko's immediately recognizable artwork. Always worth the several years wait between albums. Probably takes Blinko that long to just draw the covers!
We're slowly working our way through the Rudimentary Peni catalog, as all of their confusingly brilliant releases gets reissued, and as much as we love all of em, Cacophony is one of our faves, a super bizarre concept record originally released in 1989, not really sure exactly what the concept is, but it must be something demented, cuz as weird as the other RP records are, this might be the weirdest, sonically, it's got all the warped death rock weirdness and twisted post punk crush we love, sinewy basslines, jagged angular guitars, the super distinctive caterwaul of frontman Nick Blinko, but it seems like even the most straight ahead songs eventually devolve into total WTF weirdness.
"Nightgaunts" is less than a minute, but fuses garbled deep voiced speaking in tongues with frantic almost metal guitars, burbly basslines, and some frantic hyper punk rock pound, while "the Horrors In the Museum" starts off with a weird spoken word bit, before launching into one of the poppiest RP jams ever, bass driven and super melodic, peppered with some creepy crawly vocals and a noisy psychedelic sort-of-bridge, only to break down about half way through, into a free form noisescape, clouds of crumbling guitar distortion, disembodied riffage, noodly bass runs, and a wild tangle of bizarre voices, sung and spoken, high and low, a demonic choir of sorts, the song continuing to devolve to the very end. And so it goes, some tracks are snarly and swaggery and mean as fuck ("The Only Child"), others are wild and psychedelic and oozing all sorts of wild warped guitar noise, as well as still more bizarre vox ("Architectonic And Dominant"), and others are classic UK post punk, all Joy Division bass and rad angular guitar crunch ("The Evil Clergymen"), we could go on but just trust us, this is 30 tracks, 43 minutes of genius outsider creepy downer death rock noise punk that's equal parts drug addled what-the-fuck weirdness, impossibly hook filled poppiness, twisted over the top art-rock, metallic riffing, punk rock pound, and just tons of confusing non-musical sounds, including lots of voices, to the point where it sounds like a play is going on while RP perform, the production pretty twisted as well, it's not hard to imagine Cacophony as some sort of death rock musical, being performed at a creepy abandoned theater, the full moon lighting the stage through the crumbling remains of the roof, the band garishly costumed and performing for a crowd of ghosts and shadows, wraiths and demons. Total art damaged post punk genius! And as always, adorned with Nick Blinko's maniacally intricate hand drawn artwork.
Easily one of our favorite post punk / death rock groups EVER. Tense and angular, angry and ominous, sinister and sinuous, dark and gothic, every song here a stone cold gloom punk classic, the bass thick and almost new wavey, the guitars jagged, fuzzy and distorted, raw riffage and driving drum pound, all in support of the twisted vocals of Nick Blinko, whose distinctive vocals are only rivaled by his even more distinctive artwork, which adorns the cover (and the cover of all their records), a dizzyingly meticulous black and white horrorscape, that perfectly captures the world of nightmarish, anxiety ridden terror that lurks within the grooves of Death Church, and presumably within Blinko's mind as well, which is probably what resulted in several stints in mental institutions.
Even all these years later, Rudimentary Peni sound so good, their music so relevant, and whether consciously or not, aped by far too many modern bands to count, powerful and personal, depressive and kicking-against-the-pricks pissed off, and catchy as fuck, this record has lost none of its twisted black energy in the nearly twenty years since it was first released.
Let's just start by saying WE LOVE RUDIMENTARY PENI. Easily one of our favorite punk rock groups EVER. Murky and muddy and furious and freaked out. If you somehow don't already own Death Church or Cacophony, you must go try to track them down immediately. Those two records are as near flawless as something fucked up and punk rock and gloomy and demented can actually get without ceasing to be all those things.
Much has been written about Peni frontman Nick Blinko, who has spent most of his adult life in and out of asylums, and who is responsible for the band's super striking album covers, super intricate pen and ink drawings, which must take forever, and could only have been drawn by someone either truly inspired, truly demented or both. And somehow, those drawings perfectly and impossibly reflect the music on the inside. Where the drawings are incredibly detailed and complex to the point of mania, the music is stripped down and repetitive, often with just one or two parts, the vocals often just a few lines repeated over and over.
Listening to No More Pain, the first RP record in almost 4 years, we were struck by how much all of the super raw and stripped down primitive black metal sounds like Rudimentary Peni. Akitsa, Bone Awl, Ancestors, Ildjarn, plenty of D-beat stuff, slow it down to a more garagey punk rock pound and it's uncanny. In fact, the mind boggles at a black metal Peni, imagining these tracks sped up and blackened, wow.
Anyway, this is classic Peni, 10 songs, less than 20 minutes, simple, stomping riff heavy crusty punk, the drums pounding away, the riffs repetitive and mesmerizing, the vocals growled and howled and crooned, the lyrics mantra-like, the songs weirdly catchy too, almost poppy, but just 'off' enough to remain dark and mysterious and intense.
The only true weirdness is a very unexpected cover of Pachelbel's Canon, which to be honest, sounds pretty good, the guitars all warped and twisted, but it almost sounds too happy, but everything is slightly off enough, and just a little bit cracked that is manages to sound just a bit demented, which we can only suppose is the point.
As we mentioned in our review of Rudimentary Peni's recent Death Church, RP are maybe one of our favorite death rock outfits ever, and we were psyched to discover that their whole catalog is getting reissued, on vinyl, and apparently again on cd. We raved about Death Church a little while back, the group's 1983 debut, but now we leap all the way to the end, at least the end of the first era to the oddly named Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric, the group's final full length from 1995, a concept record conceived of while singer/guitarist Nick Blinko was in a mental hospital, the title, and the concept based on Blinko's delusions of being the titular pope. And while all the RP records are pretty twisted, this one definitely feels like the most warped, not just the music, which is often weirdly carnivalesque (check out opener "Pogo Pope", with its woozy riff, and mush mouthed nonsense vocalizing), but there's also a loop of Blinko muttering something in Latin (we think) which starts off the record, and plays continuously throughout, so you can hear it between songs, during all the quiet parts, and even during lots of the more rocking sections. It adds a pretty weird almost psychedelic vibe to the already twisted proceedings. And while that first that track sets the bar pretty high, it doesn't get any less weird. The core sound remains similar to past records, low slung bass, jagged slashing guitars, wild chaotic drumming, and of course Blinko's distinctive vocals, even more unhinged here than usual, the songs too, some definitely look back to past records, but a lot are bouncier, and more repetitive sounding, and the vocals follow suit, often repeating the same phrase over and over, or holding notes for ages, droning out in some weird ritualistic incantation.
That said, for all its weirdness, maybe BECAUSE of it, Pope Adrian still rules, and remains an all time favorite, as does everything in RP's catalog, all of which will eventually be getting reissued again. Fuck yeah!
What would you think if someone described a band to you, as sounding like a mix of Butthole Surfers, Black Flag, the Brainbombs and black metal? Want if they went on to describe the band's sound in more detail, and they came up with something like "thick oozing ultra distorted, totally chaotic, drone drenched, drugged out, noisy as fuck, weirdly hypnotic, punishing and pulverizing, scuzz drenched doomic plod"? Well your first thought, if you were anything like us, would be "could such a band actually exist?" It does sound too good to be true. Your next thought might be "well okay, if a band like that did exist, not only would they be scary as shit, they'd also probably be my favorite band EVER."
Thus we have Rusted Shut. Going on 20 years now, these Texan noisemakers have somehow only managed two proper records and a single or two, each one of those jammed to overflowing with the abovementioned thick oozing ultra distorted, totally chaotic, pulverizing scuzz drenched plod. When we reviewed their Hot Sex ep, we alluded to the fact that if said ep wasn't an ep, wasn't vinyl only, wasn't over a decade old, and wasn't WAY too fucked up for most normal ears, it would have not only been out Record Of The Week, but our Record Of The YEAR. Of our EVER! Well, it's as if whatever God enjoys inflicting sonic torture on his children heard our prayers and conjured up this festering bit of blackened noise punk brilliance from whatever pit these guys call home.
It's rare that a band 20+ years old makes a record on the tail end of 20 years even half as good as the record that started it all, but we're tempted to say, this just might be the heaviest, freakiest, most brutally brilliant thing we've heard from these guys so far. Which is indeed saying a whole hell of a lot.
The opener "Home", is 5 minutes of blown out punk-drone, the guitars unwinding in thick gnarled tangles, moaning and rumbling and howling, a dense undulating layered swell of roiling sonic filth, fragmented riffs, squiggly downtuned Greg Ginn-ish guitar scrabble, the drums skittery and abstract clouds of cymbal sizzle, bursts of free rock splatter, while over the top, some sort of harsh, whiskey soaked punk rock testifying, spouting all sorts of misanthropic misinformation, like a post punk noise rock gutter scum Whitehouse. The music grows more and more frantic, faster, more freaked out, the various streaks of sound coalescing into riffs, that blur into still more smears of sound, the song an exercise in droned out filth caked tension.
Then there's "Heart Of Hell", total old school punk rock, but filtered through a sort of washed out lo-fi Brainbombs dirginess, the main riff, total classic punk rock, but locked and looped, and played over and over and over and over, totally trancelike, the vocals just as sneeringly scowly as on the first track, but once they drop out, the song locks into a total droned out punked up krautrock groove, that sounds a bit like Circle covering the Brainbombs, albeit doused in crumbling distortion and blurred reverb and delay.
Then comes "Intellect", 15 minutes of total blown out garage dirge bliss, the sound so in the red, that every time a cymbal hits, it swallows up the rest of the sound, the vocals so loud it sounds like the singer grabbed you by the head and locked his lips around your ears, you can feel his hot hellish breath and the spray of spittle. But all the while the music underneath, grows more and more distorted and somehow more and more hypnotic, so damaged and fractured that it sounds like the song might crumble into pieces at any moment. But that's just the first few minutes. Soon the band switch gear and the bass EXPLODES, like suddenly while the band was playing, the bass player went out to his truck and got 3 or 4 more amps and just let fucking loose, low end overload, everything acid drenched and psychedelic, the sound of speakers frying, of headphones melting, the vocals garbled like speaking in tongues, the bass unleashing a sludgey doomy groove, the song an endless noise rock blown out druggy musical brawl that makes the Butthole Surfers at their fiercest sound practically tame.
This song more than anything here reminds us of our first live run in with these weirdos. At SXSW this year, they played an instore, everyone was waiting to see the Mayyors, but Rusted Shut were just destroying the place, super noisy and scuzzy and awesome, and they just NEVER STOPPED PLAYING. The homeless-looking singer/guitarist guy kept getting shocked by the mic, so eventually he simply walked outside, after leaning his guitar up against his amp... some punk dude in the audience then picked up the mic, and freestyled some "I hate SXSW" lyrics... when he was done and threw the mic down, it seemed like the drummer and bassist would wrap it up, but instead they kept on jamming... and jamming... and jamming� then the guitarist came back in after being outside for what felt like (and pretty much WAS) ages, picked up his guitar, and then it seemed like, OK, this must be the grande finale... but that was only the beginning!! They literally kept on playing for another half hour at least. After a while, most of the crowd had gone outside to wait for the Mayyors, driven away by the bands wall of harsh vibes and skull stomping crush, and someone even joked that they should shut the doors of the shop and lock Rusted Shut inside...
These guys are lifers, they're insane, a total mess, which is the only way a piece of glorious sonic filth like this could ever happen. This is not music made by nice guys slumming it, by punk rockers getting their hands dirty, no, this is the sound of old guys pissed and insane, hell bent on punishing the rest of the world, a furious plod and pound fueled by hate, and misery, and drugs. Lots and lots and LOTS of drugs. And that instore, for all of it's confusional chaos, is pretty much the exact same vibe captured here. That is what this band is all about. About relentless endless riffing, hypnotic crustpunk dirges, wild damaged Neanderthal noise rock. The sick sick energy of Rusted Shut is an anomaly. This is not music, this is the sound these guys conjure up from their dead souls and black hearts, a fucked up noise drenched hardcore psychedelic space sludge whathtefuck that's just about the greatest thing we've ever heard.
Only in Texas. Any state that can produce the Butthole Surfers, Stickmen With Rayguns, Scratch Acid, and of course George W. Bush, must have something weird going on. The heat? The drugs? Whatever it is, we wouldn't trade it for the world (well except maybe for the Bush part). How Rusted Shut managed to remain so obscure is a mystery for the ages. The horrible grinding noise these guys can muster up out of a plain old rock band is mind boggling. It's downright harrowing listening to this disc. They've been around since 1986 (and part of this disc was released as a cd-r in 2003), but this is their first official release. A massive, pulverizing crush of simple, plodding, gritty, grimy, filthy, scuzzy, dirge-y sludge that is just obscenely heavy and the grinding buzz that permeates and suffocates every second of this disc has to be THE most distorted guitar sound ever. Sounds like the riffs are crumbling to jagged little pieces the second they emerge from the speakers, a Marshall stack and a suitcase full of distortion pedals run through a meat grinder and then flung at you like white hot shards of jagged metal. Like the sickest most doped up, deliriously deviant noise punk free-rock outfit, but all wrapped up in a fuzzy, sick black cloak of grim black metal buzz. Sometimes this sounds like the Buttholes meets the Brainbombs, sometimes like Celtic Frost meets Today Is The Day fronted by Cronos from Venom, sometimes like the Lightning Bolt dipped in hot tar with a heavy metal Captain Beefheart on vocals. So whether Rusted Shut sound to you like black metal, or dirge punk, or sludgecore, or all out noise, pretty sure after getting an earful of this you won't be able to hear much of anything else. At least until the ringing stops and the bleeding lets up a little.
From the same label that brought is the amazing Starfuckers collection Ordine, and the My Violent Ego ep collection of blissed out shoegaze, comes this strange collection of home recorded 4 track artpunk gloompop noiserock from Paolo Miceli, a one time member of abovementioned shoegazers My Violent Ego, but as the title of this collection makes clear, this stuff was recorded back when he was 21 (circa 1998-2000), channeling the spirit of, as the label suggests, "Distorted Pony, My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, Christian Death, Unsane and The Cure", which is indeed a motley lot, but does definitely hint at the nineties vibe and twenty something sonic angst on display here. More modern references would most definitely be Total Control, Night Control, Pink Noise, and if RVK were around today, there's a good chance they'd end up on Sacred Bones or Captured Tracks.
The guitars are buzzy and blurry, chugging and churning, sometime warm and washed out, other times super sharp and jagged, the basslines are woozy and wandery, a definitely gloomy Joy Division vibe, the drum machine is buried way down in the mix, more a pulse and pound than a proper rhythm, and the vocals, they're pretty down in the mix as well, a sort of nineties sad boy croon, the songs themselves, slipping easily from crunchy propulsive rockers to more midtempo almost dirges, the production gloriously blown out and in the red, the first few tracks are ultra lo-fi and murky, but somewhere around track 5, something happens, and the guitars get HUGE, the sound is essentially the same, a sort of shoegazey post punk gloom rock, but the guitars are thick slashes of fuzz and buzz, almost Dinosaur Jr style, but more minor key and blurry.
The record drifts all over the place, occasionally slipping into drugged out slo-mo psychedelic drift, or locking into some seriously propulsive chugging hypnorock, or some epic metallic guitarscapery, or even some murky buzzy tangled guitar dirge. But as the record progresses, chronologically we're guessing, the sound seems to shift from angry punky gothy to something more blissed out and poppy, maybe foreshadowing his eventual tenure in My Violent Ego, and as the sound gets glossier, his home studio skills improve markedly, so alongside these hazy dream pop jams, are plenty of twisted sonic experiments, drones and drifts and glimmery guitarscapes, this fuzzy blissed out second half perfectly balancing the low slung dirgey gloomy first half.
30 songs in 58 minutes, a collection of fleeting super short brief blasts of gloomy fuzzpop shoegaze postpunk noiserock, and within all these bursts of buzz and jangle and crunch, lurk plenty of hooks, and loads of melody, RVK displaying a surprisingly sweet pop sensibility, that informs even the least poppy jams here.
Killer stuff, and totally recommended for anyone into loner psych, bedroom post punk or fuzz drenched shoegaze gloom pop...
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!
You gotta love this band. First off, best band name EVER. Really. Except for the fact that it could get 'em confused with the British rapper The Streets, this band's acronymic moniker S.T.R.E.E.T.S., which stands for Skateboarding Totally Rules, Everything Else Totally Sucks, can't really be beat as a band name. The album title is pretty good too, as is the skeletal skater carvin' in the prog parody cover art complete with faux Roger Dean logo. Or at least that's what we think, and we don't even skate! Too bad they broke up (members went on to Bison B.C. and Children, the latter of whom were possibly named after one of the songs here). But at least this, their third and final album, originally released in 2005, is again available, now reissued in a digipack with 5 bonus tracks! Keep the dream alive!!
The disc starts off with a skit, yes about aliens invading from the Planet Gnars... there's pretty piano, sci-fi warfare sound FX, and a portentous voice-over... before the face-melting retro-trash skatecore riffage of track two "Keep The Dream Alive" kicks in and the band goes off. Spiralling guitar frenzies, chugga chugga riffs, throat ripped vocals, gang shouts, pick squeals, adrenalized hook in mouth songwriting stylez. We're hearing many parts Megadeth, Iron Maiden too (the wooahh-ooaha-ooohs!" of "Peace On Earth" ferinstance, and some galloping action elsewhere), some D.R.I. crossover of course, a touch of Motorhead, and maybe even we're catching a hint of Heart's "Barracuda" in here someplace. Sweet. But whoops, then when you've got 'em pegged as whirlwind skankin' skate party thrash metal, they'll do somethin' like suddenly slow it down and get all moody and post rock there for a minute, like right in that very first song in fact. So S.T.R.E.E.T.S. has some twists, obviously a sense of humor ("Armageddon Wasted" is a song title here... geddit?), and most importantly, they totally rip. Simply bad ass and infectiously grin-inducing, surprisingly melodic mosh fodder.
The ironic thing is that the S.T.R.E.E.T.S. motto that forms their name is proven to be untrue, by the band themselves. Cause they couldn't possibly be skating and playing this music at the same time, and this disc definitely falls into the Rules, as opposed to Sucks category. Basically there's NOTHING that's not ruling about this. They're even Canadian (from Vancouver). It'd be stupid not to have this in your collection, since you're gonna wanna be spinning it all the time, and looking at that cool skeleton on the cover. Equally recommended to fans of 3 Inches Of Blood, and Annihilation Time...
S.Y.P.H. was a German punk quartet who originally released this album in 1980 and sound as if late 70s Gang of Four / Mekons were covering Malaria's angular and certainly Teutonic new wave.
Now this was a surprise. Two former members of Bay Area stoner sludge metal heroes Sleep (not the guy who's now in High On Fire) venture back into the rock n' roll arena with a new band called The Sabians that we have to admit we really hadn't heard many good things about (we'd been told they were terrible live). And, upon hearing this, their debut album, I can kinda understand the naysayers... Number 1, this sure *doesn't* sound like Sleep (it IS heavy, but very different -- High On Fire sounds MUCH more like Sleep for sure) and number 2, it's, well, weird. Just read the sticker on the album cover: "the Sabians' sound is a combination of punk, folk, metal, and chant." What? So we were a bit apprehensive ourselves. But, the truth is, this is kinda cool, and, yeah, weird! Stoner/Sleep fans will have to admit that even track one has its moments of Sabbathian rifferama but it also reminds us of The Pogues! (That's the folk bit.) As the album progesses, it remains dark and dynamic and different, with the sounds of acoustic strum, metal guitar, and even falling rain welded together into earnest, anthemic songs with polished production courtesy Alex Newport. Definitely the one thing you have to get used to is the vocals (a clearly-enunciating Michael Stipe? no, that's not it. A wimpier James Hetfield with a fake European accent?) but if you do, you might really like this. Really, one of the weirdest things about this band is how melodic they are! They actually kinda sound like a hypothetical catchy, radio-friendly Neurosis -- or an art-rock Metallica. But if Tool could get big (another band these guys remind us of) then maybe The Sabians will someday be heard on Live105 too. Anyway, kudos to these guys for trying to do something different and original, and more-or-less succeeding.
"Welcome to darkness!!" It's a red letter DOOM day here at Aquarius, with the arrival of this long awaited reissue! For some reason, SST had never before released these essential Saint Vitus records on compact disc. Now they're here, officially together on one cd, the LA doom legends' 2nd full length album Hallow's Victim and subsequent 12" ep The Walking Dead, both first unleashed back in 1985! Plus, a bonus track!!
There were other great underground metal bands in the '80s who practiced what doom messiahs Black Sabbath preached: Trouble, Candlemass, Witchfinder General, Pentagram... But it was LA's Saint Vitus who took the Sabbath sound to even further extremes. They were heavier, slower, doomier than anyone else. Psychedelic, wasted, DOOM. Both of these essential doom documents boast the unique vocal presence of Vitus' original singer, Scott Reagers. As we've no doubt mentioned in other reviews, it's been a subject of some debate 'round here about who was the best Vitus vocalist, Reagers or his replacement, Scott "Wino" Weinrich. Whatever your preference, we'd hope you agree that Reagers was pretty AMAZING, his dynamic, dramatic banshee wailings somehow like an unholy hybrid of both Ozzy and Dio! But way more twisted, wretched, and over the top than even that would sound. And although the recent Vitus reunion lineup is with Wino, when we saw 'em, Wino made a point of paying tribute to Reagers, talking about how awed he was to have to try and fill his shoes back in the day. (Man, we wished we'd been at the show in LA, where Reagers did show up on stage to sing a few songs!).
Containing classic tracks like "White Stallions", "War Is Our Destiny", and "Mystic Lady", we can't recommend disc this highly enough to any traditional doom fan who doesn't have this stuff! Druggy frizzy fuzzy punk rock burn out Black Sabbath worship doesn't get much better (maybe Vitus's self-titled debut from '84 edges this out). While guitarist Dave Chandler is technically a mess, he sure had a knack for writing a riff, and his demented wah-happy soloing makes up in sheer psychedelic chutzpah what it lacks in chops. Drummer Armando Acosta and bassist Scott Adams revel in the slow and low, respectively (though Vitus do crank up the speed at plenty of spots on this disc, actually). And then there's the mournful cries of Reagers on the mic, delivering the goods, proving that a scuzzy band of stoners from LA playing the '80s hardcore punk rock circuit might just have had the best metal vocalist of all time EVER... well that's what some of us here think, anyway. Hear for yourself.
The bonus track happens to one of our favorite songs in the Vitus catalog, "Look Behind You". This is the original recording of that tune, as sung by Reagers, taken from SST's 1986 Blasting Concept Vol.II compilation (it was later redone with Wino on the Thirsty And Miserable ep in '87).
The band with history's most intriguing combination of band name and genre tag returns! Yes, it's Seattle's self proclaimed "deep space power violence" two-piece Same Sex Dictator, rearing its hideous two heads once more to inflict maximum eye-bulging agony and crushing, rib-splitting suffocation upon feeble fleshbags the world over! Open The Coffin is an album length cassette bursting with ideas - heaving and bubbling over with punishing d-beat hardcore aggression, lurching scorch-earth doom, rank agonized vocal howls, and lush alien synthesizers. The ritual pummel of tribal toms roll into a swaying drug-haze of a jam. Throbbing John Carpenter ambience gives way to grinding uptempo blackened punk. The martial shuffle of a militaristic snare crumbles under the weight of a limping minimal nausea-groove which builds into a riotous double bass flurry. And all the while, whether at their most furious or most ominously minimal, there is a constant undercurrent of murky dread, like the shadow of a leviathan beneath the waters, not to mention a wholly unhealthy dose of violent misanthropy. And with song titles like "Obviously Dead", "God Is Not Here" and "Run Into Knives" would you expect/want any less?? Of course not. Highly recommended for musical masochists everywhere.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Finally available again, but for now only in box set form.
Everyone knows Samhain were cool, and that at least the first 3 records are essential (and they are of course included here) so we will focus on the other stuff. The box also includes the "Final Descent" cd as well as an unreleased double live cd. Also included is a pretty cool live video and the Samhain comic book (although it seems more like a comic pamphlet, being all of 8 pages). So far, if you don't have these records, it all seems like a pretty sweet deal. Except...all of the cds are packaged in simple cardboard, promo-style sleeves. No jewel cases or booklets. Kind of shoddy. And for some reason, this all comes packaged in a HUGE box, most of which is taken up by some sort of plastic 'space-taker-upper' and not actual stuff, which means it takes up extra, valuable space in our cramped apartments. Suitable for Danzig's ego, not our shelves. So aside from the lame packaging, if you do not have these records already, we say, go for it.
Following up their recent split with Oakland's Stormcrow, this warlike Seattle-based crew of crusties drop their full-length for 20 Buck Spin. And it's the sound of a whole lotta new ones being torn! Angry, crushing metallic mayhem. Guttural vox over churning, deathly guitars n' battery. Inspired by the likes of Bolt Thrower, Unleashed, Extreme Noise Terror and Amebix, they do their influences proud, carrying the banner of "War Crust" high, following their own marching orders into the meatgrinding artillery barrage and resulting bloody red mist that their music creates.
Packaged in a nice cardboard mini-LP-style gatefold sleeve, adorned with black and grey grim graphics. We count AT LEAST twenty-three obvious skulls and/or severed heads on stakes in the artwork. The disc also includes seven bonus tracks taken from two earlier vinyl ep releases.
C'mon, how can a record called Hard Blood Shock NOT be good? Especially when it's a collection of crazy punk rock music from the former Yugoslavia, all by this guy, a singer with the stage name of Satan Panonski (aka Ivica Culjak), who was about as alternative & subversive & punk rock as you can get, particularly in a communist dictatorship: a self-mutilating body artist, avowed homosexual, underground poet, painter, and asylum/prison inmate (he'd killed a man in a fight in self-defense and wound up in a state mental hospital for criminals for nearly a decade). Apparently, though, they'd let him out on weekends, so he could continue his punk rock career, playing live and recording several cassettes and lps with Croatia's top punk musicians.
Unfortunately for him, perhaps the only conventional thing he ever did was to join the army to fight against the Serbs when they invaded Croatia during the break up of Yugoslavia in the early '90s, that's how he died in 1992 at the age of 32, a victim of the Balkan Wars.
This lp-only release on S-S (no cd, no download) is a 'best of' this tragic Croatian punk legend, drawn from his rare late '80s/early '90s releases, transferred from original tapes. And as you might expect, it's hard, bloody, and shocking. Of the 18 tracks, only a few have titles in English, including one called "Kiss My Cock", which might give one an idea of the attitude on display. Satan Panonski's music blends snarling old school punk (a la Sex Pistols) with some ethnic Croatian folk bits and noisy, experimental weirdness. It's pretty wild and rockin'. A rager.
Included is a 16 page booklet with biographical essay, translated lyrics, drawings, photos, etc. Anyone with an interest in Eastern European punk ought to check this out.
Wow! Classic UK punk from 1977, and how! Satan's Rats came out of Evesham, Worcester, and among their claims to fame -- playing some of the earliest punk festivals -- they opened for the Sex Pistols and were so well received the audience demanded and encore (no small feat for a band playing for finnicky young punks waiting to see the genre's defining act.) This anthology, compiled by founding member / guitarist Steve Eagles includes everything the band ever recorded: six songs off their three singles and 14 demo tracks recorded between 1977 and 1979. The final four demo tracks are true gems, primitively recorded in a basement studio which had decayed so far by the time they were preserved in the digital realm they were riddled with drop outs. Damn, if there's nothing greater than those anomalies of analog recording indelibly archived in the digital world! I don't know why, but I always love hearing that. As far as the music of the Rats goes, it's just plain good old fashioned punk rock n' roll. Both the music and vocals sound a bit like Generation X, but maybe with the stick pulled out of Billy Idols ass a bit, or maybe a little like The Buzzcocks but pitched an octave or so down. On the six demos (never before released?) the band was working on in 1979 before vocalist Paul Rencher split the group (Steve Eagles went on to form The Photos aftwerwards) you can hear the Rats working towards extended rock jams -- like Ulster rockers Stiff Little Fingers -- with guitarist Eagles spreading his wings (pun maybe intended) and showing his guitar prowess. Includes repros of the original 7" sleeves, publicity photos of the group and a brief bio of all the important moments of the group's career penned by Eagles. Oh, and they do an irreverent cover of "Lady Is A Tramp"! What more can we say? Highly fucking recommended and shit!
We've been trying to get the full length from these Virginia biker doom garage punks for ages now with no luck. So we were super psyched when this new single popped up, featuring Satans Satyrs teamed up with aQ pals Ohmwar. For those new to SS, the opening track is about all you need to know, starting out with a Black Flag cover, transformed into a massive blast of churning, metallic psychedelic biker doom, which quickly explodes into some snarly, swaggery metalpunk, all gristly guitars, and yowled vox, feedback galore, loose, wild and freaked out big time. The second track on the SS side is weirdly poppy, lots of jangle, almost sounding like a Kids In The Hall style theme song to some obscure cult TV show, minus the crazed tangle of blown out psych guitar squiggle, which is AMAZING. Man, we need to get that full length.
Ohmwar make a good match for SS, kicking out the classic post punk noise rock, with some fierce glass gargling vocals over some surprisingly melodic guitar lines, and sampled thunder and rain, minus the vocals, the sound would be more like Husker Du or the Nils, albeit, with a slightly more metalpunk bent, but the vox transform in into something way more aggro. The second track finds Ohmwar tackling their own Black Flag cover, "Nervous Breakdown" this time, given a sort of hyperkinetic punk pop makeover, with the cool addition of wild squiggly guitar shred and some awesomely mush mouthed vocals...
Do you ever wish classic hardcore was more, well, you know... Satanic? Well, then this is for you. A tribute/homage to legendary straight edge hardcore heroes Minor Threat, with those short/sharp paeans to punk purity reimagined as something much more sinister, transformed into blasts of blurred sonic blasphemy, but really, as usual, we were sold before we heard a single note. The original black sheep / Out Of Step cover art, here features the black sheep as an evil black ram with glowing red eyes, retitled In To Hell, with a printed sticker price of $6.66 (of course), and song titles like "Guilty Of Hating Christ" (original: "Guilty Of Being White"), "Satanic Threat", "Small God, Big Cross" (original: "Small Man, Big Mouth"), "Cursing At The Cross" (original: "Screaming At A Wall"), you get the drift.
The back cover is also adorned with a super metal looking Jesus, tongue out, flashing the devil horns, upside down cross in hand, stigmata dripping blood, what's not to love? But don't be expecting super metallized version of hardcore songs, other than the new lyrics, the sound here is straight up old school hardcore, furious and frenzied pissed off and punk as fuck, yowled vox over blasting, galloping hardcore heaviness, just way less positive, and WAY MORE EVIL! The super short album proper is filled out by a live show, with mostly the same songs, this time including ST's version of "Steppin' Stone" (which Monor Threat also famously covered), as well as some pretty hilarious stage banter, and plenty of excellent heckling!
Whoo-hoo! SDD #2!! Well, in "zine time" getting 2 issues done in as many years isn't that bad. At least, at last, it's here: the 2nd issue of Savage Damage Digest, a 'zine that with but one issue became one of our faves in the realm of enthusiastic dead-tree rock n' roll writin'. As good as the first issue was, this one's maybe even better, it's got great stuff about a wide variety of long-lost legends... '60s UK popsyke geniuses July, '60 NZ garage gods Chants R&B, '70s pub rockers Ducks Deluxe, and more... The cover story, especially interesting for those of us located in the Bay Area, is about '70s San Francisco proto-punks La Rue. No, never heard 'em, but boy do we want to now.
What we love about SDD is that it's the sort of thing that really puts the FAN in fanzine. We mean, they even devote two pages to some non-musical fandom - about the special San Francisco ice cream sandwich known as an It's It! And, most amazingly, there's pages and pages about guitarist Ross The Boss and his various bands over the years: The Dictators, Shakin' Street, Manitoba's Wild Kingdom, and... Manowar!! The Manowar stuff, especially, makes this issue required reading. We just tend to think that a lot of "typical" SDD readers and AQ customers might not already be Manowar fans, but this is the sort of thing that just might covert 'em (you?).
And, this issue comes with a free button, bearing the Vertigo records label swirl design! With accompanying label appreciation essay for anyone not already aware of just how cool UK '70s prog imprint Vertigo was.
Hopefully it won't be another 2 years before issue 3 of Savage Damage Digest comes out, though we won't be holding our breath. But we will be looking forward to it. And, let's say, the highest form of praise we can give a 'zine like SDD is that it makes us want to get to work on our own 'zines, like some of us used to do back in the day.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Tony Molina from pop heroes the Ovens returns again, with yet another new band. And that hardcore obsession that popped up in the Ovens all the time, whether it was shout outs to obscure NYHC bands on stage or weird straight edge covers, an obsession that first truly became flesh in his hardcore combo Caged Animal, surfaces once again in the form of Scalped, yet another HC outfit, and another one featuring Molina and at least one other Oven. There's no secret poppiness or any of that bullshit, this is some seriously pummeling, punishing old school style metallic hardcore, and metallic it is, with fierce fucking riffs, bellowed throat shredding vox, four songs in less than 6 minutes, a furious onslaught that will no doubt get that pit spinning. Ovens fans seem to be an obsessive bunch, snapping up Caged Animal singles along with Ovens singles, so odds are, you Ovens nerds might want one of these too, but really, this one is strictly for the hardcore kids. And yeah, probably super limited to boot!
This is the most recent issue of this NYC zine, the first one we've carried, but it's a great one to start with. This issue is entirely about the making of the very first proper Black Flag full length album, 1981's Damaged. And while it may be in zine form, all photocopied, hand written, cut and pasted old school style, the writing is fantastic, super smart, and the research extensive, with interviews with all the key players, there's even footnotes, that are expanded upon in the back. It's as much about the band and the record, as the scene at the time, and the political and social climate that contributed to the energy and anger of that record, that band, and that scene - including a lot about chief of the LAPD at the time Daryl Gates, the Rodney King riots, and the polcie versus punks mentality that was prevalent at the time. In many ways the mag reads like an excerpt from a bigger, more comprehensive book, and yeah, we know there's been much written about Black Flag and this era, but Scam mainman Erick Lyle does a fantastic job of condensing it all down to a very readable, 50 or so pages. Lots of photos and flyers, as well as a cool introduction by Lyle about why this record means so much to him. All in all an awesome read, and definitely has us wanting to check out the other eight issues we missed...
Besides drumming for grind gods Spazz (as well as loads of other grind / fastcore band that found themselves in need of a kick ass drummer) and being one of the nicest guys ever, Mr. Max Ward somehow found time to go to school, run a record label (the awesome 625!) and front this band of well read uber-nerds! Scholastic Deth wasn't just a name for these punks, it was a way of life. All four members are or were or are about to be in grad school and don't hesitate to tackle serious subject matter in their lyrics and in between song banter. But it's not preachy or Fugazi-like. These guys are funny and dorky and engaging as well as being smart! And as you might then imagine, the HUGE book of liner notes is an awesome read, with the stories and anecdotes behind each song often stretching significantly farther than the three of four lines of lyrics. In fact, the record will be long over by the time you plow through the emminently readable liner notes. The Deth spit out brief, blinding explosions of pummelling punk rock fury, 50 tracks in 43 minutes of buzzing lightning fast riffing, chaotic, confusional drumming and Max's earnest shouted vocals. While there -are- metallic moments, this is more punk than metal, more grind than thrash, but heavy and noisy and fun as fuck. Also includes a video collection of various live performances playable on your computer. The whole package is nicely designed like punk rock Cliff's notes too!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Holy crap, this long circulated bootleg, originally released in the early eighties as a crazy limited unofficial cassette, has now been remastered and reissued as a super deluxe double lp. Capturing a classic period in the early years of these Aussie post punks, four sides of swaggery, snarly, swampy garage punk action, the sound delivered in varying degrees of fidelity, it was bootleg after all, but all the tracks here rule, loose and ramshackle, sloppy and wild, unhinged and fuzzed out and catchy as hell, a bunch of cool covers too, Alex Chilton, Chuck Berry, the Troggs, some rarities but also some Scientists classics. All recorded between the late seventies and early eighties, and sounding way better than any of the versions you might have dug up on some blog.
Pressed on 150 gram vinyl, housed in a thick full color gatefold sleeve (with printed innersleeves), featuring lots of rare photos, and extensive liner notes from various Scientists, all telling wild tales of back in the day!
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!!!
Finally got more of these back in! Now in a jewel case with a few extra photos. Still super limited, so we're not sure how long we'll have these in stock. If you want one, don't dawdle. Amazing seminal punk group the Screamers hailed from Seattle/LA and,
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Much like the equally amazing Cramps Live At Napa State Mental Hospital video, for years this live footage of the Screamers' seminal synth-punk action has been circulating in increasingly grainy, on the verge of disintegrating VHS copies. Not anymore! This must-see legendary video document has finally been dvd'd! Hallelujah! Hell yeah!
We first heard the Scrotum Poles on one of those Messthetics collections, and obviously we were intrigued by the name, though weirdly enough, their sound didn't live up the puerile promise (threat?) of their band name, instead the 'Poles trafficked in some seriously hooky punkish pop, way more pop than punk, similar to say the Television Personalities or even the Go-Betweens at times. This long in the works reissue compiles a load of unreleased home and studio recordings from these Scottish punks, and they're pretty fantastic, catchy, hooky, stumbly, the sound ultra lo-fi, murky and muddy, but the dodgy recording suits the songs, which range from solo acoustic rave ups to pounding punkish jams, pure power pop to sloppy super rocking indie jangle, and several shades in between. After only a handful of listens we've been finding ourselves with lot of these tracks firmly lodged in our heads, which pretty much says it all.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Packed with photos and lyrics and liner notes, and housed in a thick fold out sleeve.
Wish we had more of these, apparently it's out of print already (until they repress, c'mon) and we only have a couple...
It's been raining Ty Segall the last few weeks with a slew of rad vinyl offerings that have flown out the door. This new split LP with Black Time finds Ty at his most raw and rocking! Seven brand new songs including a smoking cover of The Dwarves "Be A Caveman" from back in their total garage punk days. Black Time were new to our ears and they definitely prove that London can get raw and fuzzy with the best of them, as their way lo-fi and in-the-red sound make them a perfect match for Segall. Maybe a bit more punk in sound and aesthetic then TS while still totally tapping into the more damaged and distorted side of primitive garage punk. Such a good time to be a fan of raw and impassioned garage rock cause folks like Ty and Black Time are totally coming correct.
"We Don't Care" The Sex Pistols in San Francisco Jan 14, 1978 a one hour special with highlights from the winterland concert (their final date) plus the KSAN Radio interview.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Yet another conceptual series, this time it's heavy, metalcore bands covering the godfathers of Bay Area thrash. The first installment is Boy Sets Fire and Shai Hulud doing 'Fade To Black' and 'Damage Inc.' respectively.
But man, the packaging. I'm not sure how to explain it. it's very minimal, die cut so it's like a jagged sash, just barely covering the 7", and unfolded it's like a big fish hook/lightning bolt. weird and cool
Some of you who were living in San Francisco a while back, might just remember these guys. Sharkbait. It's been a long time since we'd heard, or even really thought about these guys. The way we remember it, was they were a sort of industrial post punk rock band, maybe like a West Coast version of Cop Shoot Cop, all junkyard percussion, howled vocals, crunchy guitars, skeletal, noisy and slightly funky. And the truth is pretty close to that.
So a customer of ours discovered a box of Sharkbait tapes, still sealed, stashed and covered in dust, and thought that since folks were digging cassettes so much lately around here, and that Sharkbait were a seminal eighties SF outfit, that he would bequeath them to us, so we could disseminate them to hungry ears that might want a little taste of what the SF scene was like back in 1988. For some of us, it was all about funk metal, bands like Mordred tearing it up, or thrash, but there was a whole 'nother thing going on in the underground. Bands like Bomb, Tragic Mulatto, the Skatenigs, and of course Sharkbait. And Sharkbait were indeed a sort of proto industrial punk rock band. Lots of samples. Lots of tribal percussion, some Cash Worship going on here and there, throbbing basslines, crunchy guitars, and howled sloganeering vocals, sort of political, definitely punk rock. It sounds dated sure, but it still sounds pretty cool. There's some art of Noise percussion, some weird spoken word, slabs of feedback, droning ambience, but all wrapped up in a pounding churning post punk caterwaul.
Look out, it's another ugly onslaught from this hardcore Midwestern pigfuck punksludge wrecking machine, who oddly enough record for our pal Jussi from Circle's Ektro/Full Contact label, though they sound more like they belong on AmRep back in the day! From St. Louis, but far from saintly, Shaved Women (nice name, guys) bring the noise, the chaos, the feedback, the bashing drums, the barking vocal gargle, the all-around bad attitude. If you dig bands like Pissed Jeans, Rusted Shut and Cuntz, then you will be perfectly happy to bang heads and break bottles to this record too.
Black vinyl, limited to 350 copies. Includes 24" x 24" two-sided poster insert.
PS we still have their earlier, self-titled Ektro cd release in stock as well if you missed it, which includes a Die Kreuzen cover...
Jussi Lethisalo can never be accused of not following his weird and warped muse. Whether it's in his band Circle, who while remaining rooted to a particular sound, have offered up pretty much every iteration / permutation of that sound imaginable, or in any of his many other groups, whether it be Pharaoh Overlord, Doktor Kettu, Steel Mammoth, Ektroverde, Grumbling Fur, Lehitsalofamily (a group he formed with his parents!), Split Cranium, Ratto Ja Lehtisalo, we could go on, but you get the drift. And Jussi's Ektro label is no different, while mainly focused on releasing records by any/all of the above mentioned bands, Ektro also released records by legendary Finnish punks Death Trip, weirdo Finnish experimentalist Keuhkot, legendary krautrockers Faust, '80s LA metallers Jesters Of Destiny, '70s Finnish prog rockers Haikara, Argentinean stoner rock outfit Los Natas, weirdo Japanese metal outfit Quest For Blood, Finnish heavy metallers Solitaire, legendary hard rocking muscleman Thor and now the oddly named Shaved Women, a noise rock / dirge punk outfit from St. Louis, who definitely channel classic pig fuck heaviness though Black Flag punk and AmRep noise rock. The bass is thick and corrosive, the caveman riffing is caustic and blown out, the drumming loose limbed and chaotic, the vocals a throat shredding bark, feedback everywhere, the band wild and unhinged, the sound shifting from downtuned dirgery to frantic punk pound, the label namedrop Jesus Lizard and Drunks With Guns, the latter seeming much more applicable, but definitely the sort of noisy filth that would appeal to fans (like us!) of Violent Students, Twin Stumps, Drunkdriver, Rusted Shut. Eight songs in seventeen minutes, chaotic hardcore infused punksludge that KILLS. Also included are five bonus live tracks, that make the band sound even more gloriously blown out and noise drenched.
When we first heard / heard about Shit And Shine, a mysterious noise rock collective from the UK, they definitely seemed custom made for aQ, multiple drummers, multiple bass players, someone playing lawnmower, a sound equal parts vintage Butthole Surfers, classic Hawkwind, and modern kraut-psych-drone-rock a la Circle and Pharaoh Overlord and Cave and the like, not to mention the garish, sometimes offensive album, art, the hilarious and usually offensive song titles, we were sold, smitten, totally obsessed. And thankfully, in the several years since that very first 12", very little has changed, almost all of the aforementioned essentials are still part and parcel of the Shit And Shine experience (minus the lawnmowers, but then the more we've come to understand these jokers, the more we realize that probably a lot of the 'facts' circulating about S&S is total bullshit, so odds are there never was any lawnmowers, sigh), and if anything, they've managed the impossible, getting tighter and more polished, more rocking, with better and somewhat proper 'songs', while simultaneously getting more and more fucked up and far out, taking super minimal elements and combining them into something massive and bewitching and baffling and heavy as fuck, but sounding literally unlike anything we've ever heard. Sure there are elements of plenty of stuff we love, but the way these guys twist those elements and cram them into whatever shape THIS is, just blows our minds, and eardrums.
So yeah, garish pink on white cover, masked lady with one of her breasts out on the front, a weird long necked headless super hero lady on the back, inside an awesome scary photo of two little girls, long hair obscuring their faces, standing hand in hand in front of a massive wall of amps, and song titles: "Have You Really Thought About Your Presentation?", "Goodbye And Good Gardening", "Girls Against Shit", "20 Years Of Caring For The Nations Eyes", "The Cusp Of Innocence, Prettily", "I'm Making My Lunch", " People Like You... REALLY!" and on and on, but none of that would mean shit if there wasn't a head spinning gut churning din to back it up, and holy shit do these guys bring the noise this time around.
The opening track, "Have Your Really Thought About Your Presentation" is equal parts Brainbombs and last list's Record Of The Weekers Rusted Shut, but with a little bit of krautish hypnorock mixed in, so what you get is a crushing, super distorted mega main RIFF, a pounding mesmerizing drum beat, everything super hot and blown out and in the red, looped and locked and pounding away over and over and over and over, but with some weird stuff going on, buried vocals, strange bits of glitch and crunch, and the weirdest part of all, seems impossible to play, but every few measures, it sounds like the band skips a beat, almost like the record skips, but it's super subtle, like a weird stutter step, that just makes it all the more weird, but no less trancelike and heavy, and it only gets weirder from there on out.
All the songs here are based on rhythms, which comes with the territory when you have multiple drummers, the second track begins all skittery, an almost drum machine sounding shuffle, which slips into a looped dubbed out pound, while all around the rhythms is buffeted by swirling FX, jagged shards of jangle guitar, and super distorted wild over-saturated leads and weird voices buried in the mix. The next track explodes in a tangle of twisted string buzz and fractured electronics, before those sounds coalesce into a crazy noise drenched rock racket, rife with angular guitars and layer upon layer of drones and voices and feedback and sonic chaos. "USA / Mexico" is some Buttholes gone black metal weirdness, super murky muddy riffage, pounding blast beats, start stop rhythms, bizarre vokills and crazy electronics all over the place.
The crushing stop start chug of "The Cusp Of Innocence, Prettily", almost makes the record for us, with a killer main riff, and an increasingly distorted guitar tone, until a sample of some cheesy European sounding folk song comes in, and like magic, the crunch and chug and pound lock in and fit perfectly with that lilting little ditty, turning it into something nasty and scary and AWESOME. It's only a second, but it's sooooo good.
The abstract dub of the title track, the main rhythm made out of what sounds like someone writing on a chalkboard, some super effected tripped out dubby bursts, random spoken words, thick sheets of warm washed out guitars, until the track gets all Circle-y, but filtered through some fractured nineties industrial, like Pharaoh Overlord jamming Meat Beat Manifesto, but with strangled metal guitars and vrooming motorcycle sounds. There's some dance-y almost house sounding throb and pulse, but it's butted up right against a twisted angular noise rock / electro mashup, that is so distorted it's dabbling in Merzbow territory.
The other looooong track "Roberts Church Problem" sounds like it was recorded live, ad thus sounds like vintage S&S in full on unhinged Buttholes mode, multiple pounding drummers, wall of buzz, fuzzed out heaviness, repetitive and looped and seemingly never ending (we wish!). "Friseur Nelson is another good one, all very Circle, distorted and murky, a killer tribal rhythm, crumbling fuzz bass, and a muted chugging low end, some weird haunting chiming minor key melodies, another one that could have been stretched out to the end of the record and we would have been perfectly happy.
We could go on and on and on (even more than we already have), but why bother? Every song here rules, they're all super strange and heavy and hooky and groovy and noisy, and somehow, for being so disparate, they all manage to sound like part of a proper record. Well, certainly not a PROPER record, but you know what we mean. And while the rest of the songs are just as tripped out, and what-the-fuck and holy shit! as the ones we already described, odds are by now you probably got the feel for whether this is your cup of blown out rhythmic heaviness or not.
The sound of Shit And Shine is like some constantly twisting and transforming, bloody and mangled wreckage, equal parts This Heat, Aluk Todolo, Geronimo, Butthole Surfers, Rusted Shut, Brainbombs, Merzbow, Terminal Cheesecake, Strangulated Beatoffs, Faust, Laddio Bollocko, all pulled apart and reassembled into some damaged Frankenhooker noiserock drum circle spacejam. And odds are if you like any or all of those bands, you're gonna LOVE this...
The first time we heard from the UK's bass and drum (not to be confused with drum and bass) ensemble Shit And Shine, we were already predisposed to love them. Seeing as they featured multiple bass players, a stage full of drummers, and most importantly, at least to us, several lawnmowers. Fuck. Yeah.
Over the course of the last three or four years, these guys have continually pummeled us within an inch of our lives, with their throbbing tribal Butthole Surfers style onslaught, a furious blown out in the red drug drenched psych rock, but only the loosest approximation of rock. More like some sort of government drug experiment, where various deviants and ne'er do wells, criminals and sociopaths, were incarcerated, dosed with all manner of experimental psychotropics, then let loose in a concrete bunker filled with drums and amps and busted up old bass guitars, everything recorded for posterity, until someone started leaking the tapes, code name: SHIT AND SHINE.
This was the most wacked shit we'd heard since Terminal Cheesecake or the Strangulate Beatoffs. And every record drifted further and further out, as the band became more and more unhinged, and now there's this, Cherry, a massive double lp that while still demonstrating the kind of physical and psychic damage Shit And Shine can do, also reveals a whole new world of fucked up sound these guys have tapped into. In fact, when we first threw this on, we weren't even sure it was the same band.
The record opens with a simple percussive drum jam, all toms, sort of tribal, beneath a series of samples, and film clips, a little weird, reminiscent of old industrial, until the next track obliterates the first with a blast of awesome processed metallic riffing, almost like some heavily FX-ed Iron Maiden leads, draped over some shitty shiney sludge, then suddenly guitars flip backwards, the sound becoming some freaked out psych damage, lurching into some killer stop / start dynamics, a churning what-the-fuck sort-of metal jam. Oh yeah, there's also a long long track of old school proto disco, groovy, druggy dancefloor shit, unexpected, but it sort of works in S+S's tweaked sound world. And all of that stuff is peppered with brief super short tracks of classic Shit And Shine tribal drugpsych pummel, but it always slips back into something� curious.
Side three is a single side long track, a gorgeous chunk of layered drone, guitars buzz and rumble, basses throb and pulse, there are probably some synths in there too, the various layers churning and shifting, drifting and shimmering, super hypnotic but still subtly fucked up and creepy.
And finally, for those folks who were put off by all this weirdness, meaning even more weirdness than normal, all of side 4 is taken up by a full on, head crushing Shit And Shine blow out. Doped up and spaced out, huge loping rhythms, pounding multiple drumkits, the basses and guitars a chaotic tangle of crumbling riffs and throbbing distortion, everything locked into relentless looped churning crush. So completely filthy and crusty and damaged that it sounds constantly on the verge of falling to pieces, but it's this continuous chaos and impending doom, that makes S+S's freaky jams so intense and so fucking awesome!
Need we say, TRES RECOMMENDED!
More totally and hilariously garish cover art. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES! We got a bunch but AQ folks seem especially partial to Shit -AND- Shine, so these will probably go pretty quick. You have been warned.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We thought UK noiseniks Shit & Shine couldn't get any more brutal or abrasive or, well, noisy, but of course we were dead wrong�
This two track monstrosity lets us hear us two very different sides of the multi headed S+S beast. The A side finds the band kicking up an absolutely ear shredding din, so noisy and blown out that it's almost impossible to hear the actual band. There are multiple drummers, and multiple bass players, but here it sounds like they're all armed with white noise machines and sine wave generators. Layers of in-the-red buzz and high end hiss, super distorted vocals and a murky rhythmic throb. It almost sounds like what we wished Merzbow sounded like, a fierce super dynamic heavy as fuck white noise juggernaut.
But then there's the unexpected B side, which is downright tranquil, a carnivalesque loop warbling beneath children's voices, tons of delay and reverb, a dizzying blur of funhouse ambience. Weird as fuck, but somehow a good balance for the chaotic skree on the flipside.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Each one hand numbered.
Originally released on the Rock Is Hell label as a super limited triple lp, this twisted chunk of sprawling rhythmic whatthefuck weirdness from these Texas-by-way-of-the-UK-by-way-of-Texas-again multiple drummer-ed noiseniks is now finally available on cd, also super limited, originally only orderable direct from the label, we're the only store in the US to have these, and they won't last long, so grab one before they're gone...
Le Grand Larance Prix just might be Shit And Shine's most ambitious and most over the top record yet, which is saying a lot, considering pretty much everything these guys do pretty goddamn over the top. But this one really takes the cake, pushing their sound in a whole different direction. We might have imagined them going even noiser, more drum heavy, but no, instead, $&$ offer up a bunch of epic jams, looped out and tranced out, that tend toward the super minimal, the mesmerizingly rhythmic, ultra repetitive and hypnotic, but not in the usual bombastic heavy $&$ way, no these are like alternative universe minimal dancefloor chillout jams. Or something. Probably best to just go through em one at a time...
"Flirtations At A Cocktail Party", pretty much sets the template, looped tribal drumming, a revving engine, loping low slung bassline, all blurred and looped into a sort of abstract rhythmic mesmer, laced with strange robotic vox, like some sort of alien lo-fi electro, the track gradually growing more and more blown out, finally becoming extra melodic and dense right near the end. That's the most typically Shit & Shine track of the bunch, cuz the next one, "Frankies Theme" dials everything back, loopy and minimal, with muted melodies, a sort of circular slow motion groove, motorik and locked in, while around it sounds swirl and shimmer, distant melodic swells ebb and flow, it's sidelong but it's the sort of thing that sounds like it could have gone on forever.
"Switching 2 Nite Mode" definitely lives up to its title by swiping the main part of the Rolling Stones' "Emotional Rescue" and looping it into a jumbled psychedelic freakout, adding swirls of processed vox (even some sliced and diced Jagger falsetto), dubbed out production, some deep ominous vocals all slowed down, before the song transforms into a slo-mo creep, all weirdly muted and creepily sexy. Which leads right into "Frenchys Automotive", another super minimal loop-jam, a main melody repeated rhythmically, pulsing hypnotically, the vibe almost kosmische, but more sort of murky and mesmerizing, that main figure looped and looped, while all around it, random sounds swirl and shimmer druggily.
The home stretch starts off with "How To Rattle A White Tailed Buck", which unfurls a brittle looped melody, peppered with occasional rib cage rattling boomin' system low end bass thumps, the whole thing sort of blurpy and lumbering, a stuttery groove that shuffles through clouds of staticky hiss, which bleeds right into the final track, "Klipp", which is most definitely the most high fidelity of the bunch, super heavy, repetitive, Circle like hypno-rock, but a bit more minimal, the main guitar riff and shuffling rhythm totally in sync, while all around it sounds swirl and decay, shards of melodies and and crumbling FX, processed vocals and constantly shifting layers wreathe the hypno-rock in a buzzy, blurry, noisy gauze. Fuck yeah. The cd version comes in a green minimal digipak style sleeve that sort of apes the original lp packaging. And as mentioned above, SUPER limited, we have about 25 copies, and then that's probably IT!!
Packaged in a 6 panel hand screened triple gatefold jacket!
Back in print/stock, now in a red sleeve with black printing, these came in the mail slightly damaged, so anal record nerds steer clear, but for everyone else, these are seriously discounted, so if slightly bumped corners and less than perfect sleeves don't bug you, snap one of these up before they're gone...
Latest sprawling rhythmic whatthefuck epic from these Texas-by-way-of-the-UK-by-way-of-Texas-again multiple drummer-ed weirdos, and it's maybe their most ambitious and most over the top yet, which is saying a lot, considering pretty much everything these guys do pretty goddamn over the top. But this triple lp takes their sound in a whole different direction. We might have imagined them going even noiser, more drum heavy, but no, instead, $&$ offer up six sidelong jams, looped out and tranced out, that tend toward the super minimal, the mesmerizingly rhythmic, ultra repetitive and hypnotic, but not in the usual bombastic heavy $&$ way, no these are like alternative universe minimal dancefloor chillout jams. Or something. Probably best to just go through em one at a time...
Side A, "Flirtations At A Cocktail Party", pretty much sets the template, looped tribal drumming, a revving engine, loping low slung bassline, all blurred and looped into a sort of abstract rhythmic mesmer, laced with strange robotic vox, like some sort of alien lo-fi electro, the track gradually growing more and more blown out, finally becoming extra melodic and dense right near the end. That's the most typically Shit & Shine track of the bunch, cuz the next one, "Frankies Theme" dials everything back, loopy and minimal, with muted melodies, a sort of circular slow motion groove, motorik and locked in, while around it sounds swirl and shimmer, distant melodic swells ebb and flow, it's sidelong but it's the sort of thing that sounds like it could have gone on forever.
The second lp starts with "Switching 2 Nite Mode", which lives up to its title by swiping the main part of the Rolling Stones' "Emotional Rescue" and looping it into a jumbled psychedelic freakout, adding swirls of processed vox (even some sliced and diced Jagger falsetto), dubbed out production, some deep ominous vocals all slowed down, before the song transforms into a slo-mo creep, all weirdly muted and creepily sexy. The flipside, "Frenchys Automotive", is another super minimal loop-jam, a main melody repeated rhythmically, pulsing hypnotically, the vibe almost kosmische, but more sort of murky and mesmerizing, that main figure looped and looped, while all around it, random sounds swirl and shimmer druggily.
The final lp starts off with "How To Rattle A White Tailed Buck", which unfurls a brittle looped melody, peppered with occasional rib cage rattling boomin' system low end bass thumps, the whole thing sort of blurpy and lumbering, a stuttery groove that shuffles through clouds of staticky hiss, which finally leads to the final side / track, "Klipp", which is most definitely the most high fidelity of the bunch, super heavy, repetitive, Circle like hypno-rock, but a bit more minimal, the main guitar riff and shuffling rhythm totally in sync, while all around it sounds swirl and decay, shards of melodies and and crumbling FX, processed vocals and constantly shifting layers wreathe the hypno-rock in a buzzy, blurry, noisy gauze.
Packaged in a 6 panel hand screened triple gatefold jacket!
Last year's aQuarius / WFMU South By Southwest showcase was pretty tough to beat, if we do say so ourselves. An entire night of aQ faves, every single one kicking huge amounts of ass, and basically blowing us away over and over again. Just check out the lineup: Speedwolf, Iron Man, Moon Duo, Pierced Arrows, Dengue Fever, Epileptinomicon, Todd, True Widow, Sonny & The Sunsets, Headdress, Home Blitz, Drunkdriver, and Shit And Shine. We'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite set of the night, but lots of folks, ourselves included, might find ourselves leaning toward the rhythmic chaotic cacophony of Shit And Shine, a UK based multi-drummer drone-psych-noise unit who once called Texas home. And who, besides kicking up a glorious drum heavy racket, managed to keep the crowd riveted for their whole set, the members clad in strange costumes, a bunny suit, creepy plastic masks, furry animal heads, all while manning multiple drumkits and constantly switching instruments, and creating a glorious wall of pulsing, pounding, hypnotic sound. Luckily, the whole thing was captured on tape. And while maybe something is lost without the visuals, the music holds up surprisingly well on its own, the group's single song set spread out over two sides, right out of the gate, the band lock into a rhythm and don't let up.
The sound is blown out and in the red, helping make it sound exactly like being there (and like you forgot your earplugs), the legion of drummers, pounding out a rhythm in perfect unison, while the rest of the $+$ crew do their thing, their thing in this case being super distorted fuzzed out bass, processed alien vocals, blasts of screeching feedback, squalls of psychedelic white noise buzz, a sound that is basically krautrock writ NOISY and BLOWN OUT and HEAD CAVINGLY LOUD!
By the time the second half (side) rolls around, the buzz and pound are interrupted by thick shards of almost poppy melody, streaks of almost shogazey looped fragmented noise, until finally the jam switches gears, just a bit, and we get the $+$ version of 'bringing it down', a churning Circle like sludgekraut hypnorock groove that plays out until the record settles into a locked groove, which if you're not paying attention, will have you listening to that single groove for EVER, before realizing something is up. And hell, we actually listened to it for 5 or 6 minutes, and probably would have let it keep on playing... (and the first side ends with a locked groove too, so be prepared to be mesmerized, endlessly there too!)...
Heavy and hypnotic, the perfect sonic souvenir if you were there, an even more perfect slab of crushing corrosive rhythmic noise rock weirdness if you weren't.
Housed in a full color sleeve, an Austin backyard on one side, one of the $+$-ers on the other. Includes a Xeroxed insert, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered. ----* ----* Highlights : ----*
Our pals at Conspiracy Records, a label/distro based in Belgium, who in the past have brought us records by Boris, Jesu, Shora and more, are this year celebrating their 10 year anniversary. A decade of amazing music. From a bedroom based punk rock label, to one of Europe's most important and influential labels and distros, all we can say is HURRAY! And HUZZAH! It's always so exciting, when a bunch of folks get together to spread the word about great music, great WEIRD music, and survive, even thrive. Such is the case with Conspiracy. And as if that weren't already enough, just knowing that some great people were selling some amazing music, those sweeties at Conspiracy have decided to share the love with us. And you.
To celebrate their 10th anniversary, they've decided to do a super limited subscription series, 12 records over 12 months, each limited to somewhere between 200-500 copies, ONLY available to series subscribers. EXCEPT, they've decided to let AQ have 20 copies of each, we're the only store with copies of these subscriber only lps, and for a brief moment, we can offer them to you, our loyal AQ customers. Needless to say we are thrilled, as the series lineup reads like a who's who of AQ faves, as well as including a handful of lesser knowns. All pressed on super thick vinyl, and packaged in killer hand screened original art sleeves. But be warned, we only got 20 of each, and we will run out fast and we will not be able to get more. When we do run out, there is a chance you can still get one from Conspiracy direct, but what that means is act fast and prepare to leave empty handed.
We sure do love Shit And Shine. Every record we get by this UK sort-of-collective is weirder, noisier and more fucked up than the last. With a massive lineup featuring multiple guitarists, multiple drummers as well as various unorthodox, non-musical noise makers, these guys manage to make beautiful sounds ugly, and ugly sounds beautiful. It's confusing actually. Their sound is so chaotic and harsh, but so totally captivating and hypnotic, this 12" is no different. Two epic, massive sidelong tracks. The first, an endless rhythmic jam, with ultra blown out drums, sounding a bit like some Butthole Surfers / Laddio Bolocko hybrid, albeit WAY more distorted and damaged. The sound is completely fried, the whole record sounding like it's crumbling through your speakers, strangled vocals drift amidst the tribal pummel, as do weird alien sounding squiggly leads that squirm and slither from speaker to speaker giving the whole track a super disorienting affect.
The second side is a bit more subdued, but only a bit. An in-the-red tribal workout, like a more metallic and way more distorted and druggy No Neck Blues Band. Thick pulses of low end drift beneath streaks of super distorted amp damage, all very krautrock sounding, but filtered through a bank of effects pedals, all broken or with dying batteries. Definitely blissed out and mesmerizing, but so ominous and creepy. A side of this stuff is not nearly enough. Set it to repeat, drink a bottle of Nyquil and let yourself get sucked under.
Cool silkscreened 'bug' cover and some amazingly problematic song titles!
Another super obscure New Zealand post punk rarity dug up by the fine folks at Siltbreeze, this one from a band most folks had never heard, or even heard of, and we mean even folks who fancy themselves New Zealand underground rock experts, hell even the NZ obsessives around here who have pretty much every Flying Nun and Xpressway record, had never heard these guys (and gal) before, which maybe makes sense, when you consider the fact that they only ever recorded one 7" in 1981, and this is actually a live recording, which was discovered in the possession of famed NZ archivist Bob Sutton (although the 4 tracks from that 7" are included on the digital download, or we can order you the 7", which Siltbreeze also just reissued, just ask!). But based on this live recording, these guys were a pretty fierce proposition, propulsive frenetic drumming, angular, guitar crunch and scrape, snarly snotty vox, the songs twisty and tangly, lurching from tribal churn, to super poppy and melodic, to mathy and punky and back again, the vibe a bit gloomy and a little gothy too, a few of the tracks are stripped down and minimal, but for the most part the sound is frantic and jittery, and the sound blown our and vicious, reminds us a bit of 100 Flowers or the Urinals, the Fall too, but with a distinctly NZ bent, we'd heard them compared to pre Bailter Space outfit the Gordons, which is pretty close, but we also hear a lot of Aussie post punk like the Scientists, Celibate Rifles, etc. Really though, these guys are their own special thing, noisy and hooky, jangly, angular and pretty goddamn wild, and listening to this live set, we can't help but wonder why these guys didn't get as big as some of their countrymen, cuz this is fast becoming one of our favorite archival NZ discoveries!!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, includes the above mentioned download code, complete with the bonus tracks from the original 7"!
