[ aquarius records — Rock Pop Punk Hardcore ]

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Killer compilation of pretty much everything ever recorded by these infamous LA punks, including a bunch of demos, alternate takes and rehearsals! The Bags were originally conceived after a failed audition for Venus And The Razorblades, Kim Fowley's next big thing after the Runaways. Named for the fact that the group would wear paper bags on their heads at early shows (Darby Crash of the Germs once infamously jumped on stage and tore off lead vocalist Alice Bag's bag!), the group would become infamous for wild shows, that would culminate in fights and damaged equipment, the group consequently getting banned from many of the popular clubs in Los Angeles. Sonically, while definitely punk, like lots of seventies punk rock their sound had a heavy Yellow Pills power pop vibe, the songs fuzzy and jangly, and crazy catchy, with cool, snarly, swaggery female vox, fuzzed out guitars, the songs laced with wild squiggly leads, and catchy like crazy. Listening to this now, it seems impossible that the Bags weren't more popular. Raw and emotional, passionate and rocking and hooky as hell, definitely another essential punk rock artifact, and one that anyone who's been digging that recent Avengers reissue should check out for sure! Includes a massive insert with extensive liner notes by punk rock impresario Brendan Mullen and tons of photos!

As we've no doubt mentioned before, metallic post rock seems to be its own little cottage industry, spawning more bands that it's possible to keep up with, and causing lots of bands to suddenly shift their sound, to be either more metal (for the post rock bands), or more post rock (for the metal bands). But as we've also mentioned before, it's tough to complain about a sound that combines two of our favorite musics. Metal, heavy and crushing, doomy and massive, and post rock, with its mathy rhythms, moody melodies, and soaring arrangements. One of our favorite purveyors of this sound is Rosetta, from Philadelphia, who gave us one of our favorite postrockmetal records a few years back in the form of The Galilean Satellites. The approach for that release was unique, in that one disc was song based, with all the requisite crushing riffs and mathy metallic crush, while the second disc was all ambient, long tracks of swirl and shimmer, drone and rumble. With the postrockmetal feeding frenzy, we were sure Rosetta were on the fast track to being big names in the scene, but they seem to still remain just below the spotlights, which seems to have done them no harm in terms of new music, their half of this split destroys. Albeit beautifully and dramatically. Two tracks, both topping 10 minutes. Both beginning with plenty of soaring jangle and Godspeed like cinematic build. Guitars chime and ring out, the drums are simple, perfectly supporting the rest of the instruments as they drift skyward. The first track builds and builds in intensity, only becoming truly metallic near the end, when the chiming high end guitars drift off leaving a churning downtuned riff, but even that riff is wrapped in effervescent streaks of glistening far away guitar harmonics, and strange vocal snippets, and rumbling whirring low end drones. The second track follows a similar pattern, but the heavy parts STAY heavy, with howled guttural vocals, and a very Neurosis-y riff, but again, still surrounded by all sorts of incandescent guitars and dense swirls of ambient buzz. Rosetta are teamed up with fellow Philly noisemakers Balboa, who also do their own version of the metal math rock, but theirs has a foot firmly planted in punk rock, hardcore to be exact. The first track starts off like a super charged nineties math rock jam, with angular guitars and BIG drums, vocals that are sort of sad boy, but build into full on howls, when all of a sudden, the band lurches into an almost blast beat, a furious punk rock blast, that shifts gears again, into a seriously hooky hardcore groove, sounds like a weird mix, but it sounds amazing. And a perfect foil to the languid expansiveness of Rosetta. The other two songs, don't get as punk rock as the opener, instead, mining more of that nineties math rock sound, Polvo, Dazzling Killmen, Hoover, the songs are loping stretched out grooves, the bass and guitar locked in tight, the drums almost tribal, everything crashing together in huge bursts of metallic emo fury. Pretty great. And as if that weren't enough, the two bands combine forces for the closer, the title track, which to be honest sounds like it could be either band, as easy as both, BUT, it's amazing, a seriously gorgeously executed, heavy and hooky chunk of mathy metallic rock. From the beginning, a propulsive, almost krautrock jam, that slowly and steadily builds into a seriously thick bout of massive roiling guitars, and chaotic drumming, all downtuned and dripping with distortion, the only hint that this is actually two bands is about three quarters of the way through, when the drummers engage in a relentless double kick dual, over which ALL the guitarists spit out spidery glistening guitar lines, a huge glimmering tangle of melodies that sparkles and shimmers, and as you might expect is quickly sucked under another crushing wave of grinding growling guitar. Awesome stuff. Fans of the usual suspects (Isis, Baroness, Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, Pelican, Tides, Conifer, Minsk, etc..) most definitely NEED this.

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Longtime readers of the aQ list and followers of Andee's tUMULt label are no doubt familiar with Pyha, whose Haunted House album still ranks as one of our favorite black metal records ever, made even more noteworthy by the fact it was created by a Korean teenager! It was a personal and intimate study (by a teenager) on loss and death, focusing on Korea's wars, the music bleak and blown out, weirdly atmospheric and hypnotic, any black metalheads out there who have yet to check it out, do yourself a favor. SO what the heck does that have to do with this new full length from Korean punk/grind duo Bamseom Pirates? Well, Mr. Pyha is all grown up, he's been in and out of the military (it's compulsory in Korea), he's engaged to be married, and he's still politically active, but his protests now come in the form of short sharp blasts of grinding punk rock. Granted, the Pyha connection might be a bit of a tenuous connection to convince metalheads to pick this up, and really, unless you're into punk rock and grindcore, odds are you're not gonna dig this. That said, there are plenty of metallic moments, and some of the grinding is wicked fierce, and as metal as anything else out there, but there's definitely a serious sense of humor running through the proceedings, and the more metallic grind numbers are outnumbered by the punk rock jams, so metalheads you have been warned, everyone else, this is pretty fucking ruling. Just bass and drums, the bass super distorted to the point that it basically sounds like a guitar, the vocals are yelped and howled and grunted and squealed, we're reminded of legendary power violence jokers Spazz as well as Japanese grinders Bathtub Shitter, all the lyrics in Korean, the booklet too, so much of the lyrical content, and any of the politics are definitely lost on non-Korean speakers, but if you're after some wild pounding punk and some seriously furious grind, with some twisted weirdness and a little bit of goofiness mixed in, this will definitely hit the spot. And if you're like us and CRAZY obsessed with Pyha to boot, well then even more reason to grab one.

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We love Matthew Melton, we love his Band Snake Flower 2, and we love these guys, Bare Wires. Melton is a master of pop songs, no matter how they're presented, whether as the druggy heavy Hawkwind / Monster Magnet space rock of Snake Flower 2, or the classic sixties garage jangle of Bare Wires, every song is perfectly crafted, melodic, catchy as fuck, super rocking. Even totally stripped down the songs get lodged in your head like crazy. So here's the latest from Bare Wires, and Melton and Co.'s influences are even more obviously on display this time around, the Kinks, the Who, the Flamin' Groovies, classic seventies power pop, the Shoes, the Nerves, the Diodes, all bands we've referenced before with Melton, but considering how many modern retro garage rock outfits there are, it's a little fascinating that so many rely more on sound and production and attitude and vibe, than on songcraft, so when someone is approaching garage rock with impeccable songcraft, well, it doesn't take much to leave the rest of those bands in the dust, which these guys most certainly do. On Seeking love, not only are the songs great, but the sound and the production seem totally vintage, if you played this for some garage rock collector and told them this was some lost 7" from some unknown group in the seventies, they would absolutely buy it. And the thing is, the sound suits the song. Sure, someone could have recorded these songs on a boombox, and run the whole thing through a million distortion boxes, and buried the vocals in reverb, and mastered it so all the levels were WAY in the red, and the legions of modern warped garage pop obsessive would be flipping their lids, but at the risk of sounding like your mother, why go to such lengths to disguise a fantastic song, and fuck all that noise, any on can spit out some generic by the numbers rock and roll, and fuck it up enough that it sounds twisted and far out and innovative, and probably people won't notice the lack of songs, but with a batch of songs this catchy, and groovy and jangly and goddamn great, well nothing to do but strap on the headphones and rock the fuck out!

MPEG stream: Seeking Love
MPEG stream: Young Love
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We first got a glimpse of the newly invigorated, and newly METAL-ized Bastard Noise on the recent split with The Endless Blockade, with BN sounding like the second coming of Man Is The Bastard, all heavy and noisy and bassy, but still rife with noise and electronics, incorporating our favorite elements of Bastard Noise offshoot Geronimo into a dizzying hybrid, that hit the spot like crazy. So with this new full length, Bastard Noise have pushed that sound even further. Opening with a brief spoken word monologue, the band explode in an electronic flecked bass heavy crush, the bass and drums locked tight, a lumbering lurching dirge, proggy and intricate, and weirdly melodic, with some of the SICKEST vocals ever, alternating death metal growls and throat shredding shrieks, and all over the place, thick shards of damaged electronics and fractured effects, careening wildly until finally locking into a groove that just won't quit, chaotic drumming, low slung bass buzz, the heaviest, most bad ass thing we've heard in ages. "Me And Hitler" is another blast of Man Is The Bastard style bass driven powerviolence, but with the addition of those shrieked almost black metal vocals, and still more caveman electronics... and when the band again get all proggy and intricate and heavy and groovy, they almost sound like Nomeansno, if NmN were WAY meaner and brutal and caustic, which is in NO way a bad thing. The whole record is a crushing downtuned post-punk avant prog powerviolence electronic kraut-dirge motherfucker, the songs lurch and swing and grind and blast and pound and pummel, bursts of double kick underpin shards of crackling electronic glitchery and analog skree, there are some really strange stretches of almost jazzy drift, crooned reverbed ambience, operatic abstraction, spaced out dronemusic and moody instrumental skitter, but those brief moments only serve to balance the otherwise insanely and genius-ly brutal heaviness. Fuck, this totally rules!

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The return of long running Man Is The Bastard offshoot Bastard Noise, who now have a body of work that dwarfs their previous group's comparatively tiny catalog, but who took a long time to win us over. Not sure if it was the disappointment of no more MITB or that suddenly Bastard Noise seemed to release a million records, or that our heart belonged to Amps For Christ. Whatever the reason, it took a few years, but we learned to love BN, even more so lately as they've seemed to have become a real band, a real HEAVY band. Gone are the days of harsh noisescapes and power electronics, the band are now a serious sonic forces to be reckoned with, in BAND form, and on their latest, they continue on the path set forth on A Culture Of Monsters, melding tripped out psychedelic ambience, to lurching lumbering doom, the rhythm section as tight as MITB ever was, the shrieked vox seriously harrowing, a good foil for the monstrous guttural growls, and as we mentioned in our Record Of The Week review of A Culture Of Monsters, the bass tone, and the overall bass driven heaviness, had us not only thinking of the legendary Nomeansno, but also another MITB offshoot, former Record Of The Week-ers Geronimo, whose krautrock like rhythmic mesmer seems to have found its way into BN's new sound. The opening title track might be the most epic thing BN has ever recorded, a creeping ambient drone/dirge, that finds the band churning and chugging, howling and pounding over a hazy shimmery smear, their metallic crush augmented by some hushed ethereal flutter, the sound almost Native American, it's a strange combo, but it works, weirdly, the track easing up partway through its 13+ minutes, the band unfurling a kosmische sci-fi shimmerscape, before lurching and lumbering back into action, and pounding out the last couple minutes. Much of Skulldozer actually seems to have the band channeling their former group, with short bursts of jagged punkish power violence, but then the band slip right into their other incarnation, the other side of the band we love, their abstract psychedelic space drift ambience, last heard in full bloom on their awesome Rogue Astronaut record, and so goes the rest of Skulldozer, lurching from churning powerviolence crush, to glitched out abstract sci-fi drift, to experimental ambience, to blackened metallic pound and back again. Totally ruling, and most definitely a new favorite!

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MPEG stream: 50 Million Light Years From...
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Sixty-two more minutes of wonderfully harsh, grinding noise from John Wiese and Eric Wood of Man Is The Bastard. Features two long ass tracks previously available, one on a really limited Japanese tour 3" cd-r, the other on a one sided 12" that we've had

RealAudio clip: Denied Psychotic Human Pt. 2

We love Man Is The Bastard. Always have. So we wanted to love Bastard Noise as well. And we did, once in a while, but we might as well fess up, the thing that kept us from truly embracing Bastard Noise, was in fact, the NOISE. Allan may be into his speaker shredding Japanoise, and Jim definitely loves his minimal grind and glitch, but for the most part, noise music has generally left us a bit cold. That's not to say there haven't been exceptions, there most definitely have, and those exceptions tend to be when the noise is less 'noisy' and more drone-y or textural or dynamic or all three. Our favorite Merzbow records tend to be the ones where Masami Akita isn't just spewing a face full of hot white noise. Our favorite noise records to tend toward the dronier more ambient side of the noise spectrum. So there have definitely been some Bastard Noise jams that have totally hit the spot, Descent To Mimas was one, released on Ground Fault, and Rogue Astronaut is definitely another, just out on Gravity. Rogue Astronaut seems to be sonically and thematically a sort of continuation of Descent To Mimas. Another noise opera of sorts, a tale of post apocalyptic space travel, of dead satellites and a withered Earth, of floating alone through space, of the endless expanse and the soul shearing loneliness of the Rogue Astronaut. Much like Mimas, and our favorite noise records, the sounds on Rogue Astronaut are less harsh and heavy, and more atmospheric and textural, the ten minute opener, even features haunting falsetto vocals set amidst an expansive drift of analog buzz and electronic squelch, layered drone, and a symphony of upper register tones, the sounds are noticeably Bastard like, raw and corrosive and analog and lo-fi, but deftly arranged into epic sweeping dronescapes and noisescapes, slipping from minimal buzz and glitch to full on fuzzed out malfunctioning electronic roar. Track two, "Ryobi Party" sounds a bit like another post Bastard project, Geronimo, only with the drums stripped away, and the addition of gurgling demonic vokills. The twenty minute title track is gorgeous and space-y, the tones and sounds and textures allowed to sprawl and spread out, set amidst a lush backdrop of reverbed black shimmer, and deep ominous drones, the squelches and glitches like lost radio broadcasts, drifting aimlessly through the inky blackness of space. Sheets of feedback are muted into layered high end whirs, the 'noise' is allowed to hover and float and change shapes and transform, the track is almost like some strange beast made out of sound, captured so we can observe it in captivity, watching as it morphs before our very eyes, a sonic representation of what lies beyond. The track is less about noise, and more about ambience, and mood, and it does create an intense and ominous and super evocative cinematic soundworld. The last three tracks cycle through the various shades of noise and space, highlighted by the darkly delicate "Moonpool Team", which begins as a hushed ultra minimal drift, before it transforms into a groovy, moody, reverby almost Eastern sounding bit of abstract soundtrack music, like it could have come from some crazy lost sixties space epic, gorgeous soaring vocals, the grinding electronics muted and smeared into almost melodies, peppered with the occasional violent squall, but for the most part, a gorgeous languid landscape of deep bell like tones and swirling space-y noise flecked shimmer. Gorgeous packaging too. Metal foil stamped booklet that folds out into a poster, with full color inserts/cards as well as a sticker.

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Here's a band that far outshone most of their contempories but somehow managed to slip through the cracks and become more known as a footnote of the bands that came after than the rock legends they truly were. Ever wonder where David Grubbs spent his time after Squirrelbait and before Gastr Del Sol? Ever wonder what Bundy Brown did before Tortoise? Ever wonder what John McEntire did before he was in Tortoise and the Sea & Cake and started producing Stereolab Records? Did you ever wonder what band featured members who would go on to play in bands like Slint, Evergreen, King Kong, The For Carnation and more? Well, if you did, the answer is a resounding BASTRO! This live release was supposed to coincide with the two proper Bastro lps finally released together on a single cd, but there seems to be some weird legal hang up, presumably with Bastro's old label Homestead, but for now we have this glorious live record, from one of the most amazing bands of the late eighties / early nineties. If you're already a fan, this record is Holy Grail type shit, all songs that were never recorded, caaptured live right before the band broke up. Some of these songs morphed into Gastr Del Sol songs, but a whole new record of never-before-heard Bastro songs should have your jaw around your ankles. And for those of you new to the whole Bastro experience, these songs will definitely whet your appetite for more. Bastro are really hard to descibe, which could be why maybe they ended up going over a lot of people's heads. They incorporated lots of elements of other post hardcore / college rock bands but in perfectly obtuse, totally unlikely ways. You can hear bits and pieces of Jesus Lizard, Big Black, Rapeman, Scratch Acid, Drive Like Jehu and Don Caballero. They started out as a sort-of-industrial-noise rock band a la Big Black, turned into a pumelling noise rock combo, and eventually morphed into a dense, complex avant-math-rock outfit, which is where this live recording catches them, live in 1991, in Chicago and Germany. Super serpentine guitar lines, extended convoluted song structures, impossibly mathy drumming (resident AQ drummer Andee spent ages learning and then playing along to Bastro songs, and considered McEntire one of his favorite drummers back then) all in a dense tangle of fragmented pop, mathy post rock and obtuse musical chaos. So incredible. As much as we love the bands that came after, Bastro still hold a special place in our heart, their music somehow transcending the music of almost all of their contemporaries, melodic, heavy, bizarre, beautiful. We're dying for the reissue of the albums proper, but for now we'll just listen to Antlers, over and over and over and over and over..... Also includes two live Quicktime videos of Bastro live in Germany and Holland!!!

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When it rains, it pours. Especially when we're talking about, um... shit? Bathtub shitter that is. Now that the world has discovered the joys of Bathtub Shitter and the 'Shitter are no longer just an underground grindcore secret, the band have systematically been re-releasing their long out of print (and unbelievably kick ass) early seven inch singles. Bathtub Shitter were pretty dang prolific with more than a dozen singles and even more compilation tracks under their belts before they finally released a proper full length. So here we have the Angels Save Us 7" from 2002 and the Mark A Muck 7" from 2001, as well as a bonus track from a long out of print grindcore compilation. So if you're new to Bathtub Shitter, here is as good a place to start as anywhere. Imagine a grindcore band that incorporates bits of Zeppelin, and surf rock, and metal into their grind, occasionally veer off on questionable tangents and explore truly bizarre musical flights of fancy the way Japanese bands are often wont to do. But as with most bands, it's the vocals that -make- the band, but most bands probably don't have a skinny Japanese vocalist who bellows like an overwight demon with indigestion one minute, and screeches and squeals like an hysterical teenage girl the next. Sounds weird? It is. Really weird. But so funny and cool. A completey unpredicatable and super fun blast of chaotic grinding metallic rock and roll weirdness. Limited to 1000 copies and hand numbered!

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Every kid dreads finding a lump of coal in their stocking come Christmas morning, so much so that many spend the weeks or months before the big day doing their very best to ensure their spot on Santa's 'Nice' list. No more teasing the siblings, no more grousing about yardwork, cheerfully doing all their chores, eating all their vegetables, doing all their homework. Whatever it takes. But this year kids have something else entirely to worry about. Sure finding a lump of coal is a drag, but how about finding your stocking full of shit!! Well around here, that's something to be excited about. Because this is the year that Brown Santa comes to town. And who better to fill our hearts with Christmas cheer and regale us with tales of Brown Santa than Japan's shit obsessed grind lords Bathtub Shitter? That's right, it's a Bathtub Shitter Christmas. Record! Forget your Nat King Cole, and Perry Como, and Bing Crosby, and Barbara Striesand, this is the only Christmas record you need! And it's conveniently stocking sized, a cute lil' 3" cd, jam packed with furious grind, howling pummeling brutality, and lots and lots of shit. For those of you new to the wonderful world of Bathtub Shitter, let's refer to a past review that perfectly and succinctly describes the Bathtub Shitter Experience: Imagine some strange mix of Drop Dead, the Boredoms, Brutal Truth, CSSO, death metal, grindcore, and well....um...shit! Crunchy riffs swing from almost-surf rock, to Zeppelin groove to metallic crunch, but spend most of their time in grind mode, splattered and speeding out of control. Crazy drumming, farting bass and some wicked guitar noodling add to the sick sonic stew. But the vocals are where things get really weird. The main vocals are of the burping, grunting, cookie monster death metal variety, belching out indecipherable tales of shit and shitting, but their foil is a squealing, squeaking little girl of a man voice, sounding either like a babblingly hysterical middle age housewife shrieking at the top of her lungs or a horror movie cheerleader being evicerated, screaming in that terrified way only dying cheerleaders in horror movies do. The two vocal styles swing and switch and battle and butt heads like some sort of bastard grindcore Beastie Boys. Or imagine Chuck D as Chris Barnes in his Cannibal Corpse days and Flavor Flav as the aforementioned shrieking dead cheerleader. With the everpresent S1Ws made up of members of S.O.D. and Angelcorpse. Other sorts of vocals are occasionally introduced like the 'dog barking underwater' and the 'asthmatic yodel'. The truly strange part is that all of the various vocals come from the very same guy! Speaking of vocals, our Bathtub Shitter Xmas starts off with the a cappella "Brown Santa", a confusing and brilliantly bizarre series of shrieks and gurgles, grunts and wheezes. This guy could very well give Jaap Blonk a run for his money. Track two is the reverential hymn "Holy Shit", a grinding blast of Japanoise flecked surf-sludge-grind-rock, with insane squiggly guitars, chugging downtuned riffs, blasting octopoidal drumming and of course the 'Shitter hi / lo, shriek / growl vocal battle is in full effect. And finally, what better way to finish things off, than with a classic holiday chestnut, this time roasted over roaring hellfire!! WOOOAHHHAAAA. "Little Drummer Boy" turned into a sludgy slab of slow motion drone metal, huge churning guitars, the only glimpse of the original being the martial snare drum rat a tat tat-ing beneath all that sludge and of course the impossibly guttural growling cookie monster vocals spweing out a barely recognizable "parumpapumpum". Wow! Now if that doesn't sound like something everyone would want to find in their stocking or under the tree Christmas morning then we don't know does! "We're dreaming of a... Brown Christmas!"

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Holy shit!!! A brand new record from our favorite Japanese stoner grind sludge punk rock group. Possesor of quite possibly the best band name ever. And most appropriate too, as the band seems strangely pre-occupied with shit (although not bathtubs so much). It's been raining 'Shitter reissues as the band works through their considerable back catalog of singles and split eps, so we ordered this thinking it was another reissue, but lo and behold, it's a whole disc of brand spanking new Bathtub Shitter. For those of you new to the world of Bathtub Shitter, imagine the bastard spawn of Brutal Truth, the Boredoms, Celtic Frost, Black Sabbath, and Dick Dale. Stoner grooves collide with buzzing goregrind, surf rock licks sit unexpectedly amidst sludge metal riffs and lightning fast blast beats. A glorious goofy grinding metallic mess as only the Japanese can do it. But the star of any Bathtub Shitter is Masato Henmarer Morimoto, the owner of quite possibly the most ridiculous and breathtaking set of vocal chords ever. On first listen, we were convinced that BS must have had at least two vocalists, maybe more, but it's all the work of one man, Masato. Once you hear it you'll understand why it's so hard to believe. There is of course the requisite goregrind gurgle, a rumbling, phlegm spewing demonic growl, then there's the sort of punk rock yelp, that balances the first voice a bit, but it's the third distinct voice that blows the mind. A piercing, falsetto, damsel in distress, horror movie massacre, cheerleader / housewife shriek. It's so crazy, but sounds so great, especially when engaged with the aforementioned growl in a sort of unholy duet, like a grindcore Beastie Boys, but battling atop a swirling squirmy mass of downtuned guitars, rumbling bowel loosening bass and blasting splattery drumming. WE LOVE BATHTUB SHITTER. Packaged like the last few BS releases in an oversized 7"style sleeve with really cool and creepy cover art!

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If you've been hanging out with me (Andee) much lately, you've undoubtedly heard me singing the praises of Bathtub Shitter. In fact before I had even heard them, I knew Bathtub Shitter had the potential to be my favorite band. C'mon, they're Japanese, they are called Bathtub Shitter, oh and did I mention they only sing about shit? For a while I was fantasizing about releasing a split with the two best bands in the world (as determined at the time solely by monicker as I had yet to hear either) Bathtub Shitter and Fuck I'm Dead. I'm still thinking about it, but while I ruminate, we're lucky to have this, the first full length Bathtub Shitter record and their only cd. We spent a good long while tracking down 7"s, but since the world leans heavily in the digital direction we had to wait until this beautiful shiny shit-obsessed marvel fell into our hands! What's it sound like you're probably wondering by now. Well, imagine some strange mix of Drop Dead, the Boredoms, Brutal Truth, CSSO, death metal, grindcore, and well....um...shit! Crunchy riffs swing from almost-surf rock, to Zeppelin groove to metallic crunch, but spend most of their time in grind mode, splattered and speeding out of control. Crazy drumming, farting bass and some wicked guitar noodling add to the sick sonic stew. But the vocals are where things get really weird. The main vocals are of the burping, grunting, cookie monster death metal variety, belching out indecipherable tales of shit and shitting, but their foil is a squealing, squeaking little girl of a man voice, sounding either like a babblingly hysterical middle age housewife shrieking at the top of her lungs or a horror movie cheerleader being evicerated, screaming in that terrified way only dying cheerleaders in horror movies do. The two vocal styles swing and switch and battle and butt heads like some sort of bastard grindcore Beastie Boys. Or imagine Chuck D as Chris Barnes in his Cannibal Corpse days and Flavor Flav as the aforementioned shrieking dead cheerleader. With the everpresent S1Ws made up of members of S.O.D. and Angelcorpse. Other sorts of vocals are occasionally introduced like the 'dog barking underwater' and the 'asthmatic yodel' but I don't want to give away too much. It's better if you just let the Bathtub Shitter unfold before you like a beautiful, shit-filled flower.

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What else to say about Bathtub Shitter at this point? We've gushed and gushed in review after review. If you're a loyal AQ list reader, you probably know all there is to know about these guys. But for those of you who have somehow missed out on the goofy grind glory that is Bathtub Shitter, check the AQ website to read all about Japan's masters of shitgrind! But in a nutshell, BS are a whirling blast of super technical downtuned metallic grind, with plenty of groove and surf rock (!) and any other weird musical bits they choose to incorporate. Fast and furious and sometimes funny. A buzzing blasting metallic maelstrom, topped with some of the coolest, weirdest vocals EVER! A grunting guttural death metal growl, gurgling and demonic, but that in the blink of an eye, can suddenly switch into hysterical falsetto, like a screeching cheerleader, or a yapping lap dog. So weird, but somehow so goddamn perfect too. They are Japanese after all, and seemingly any idea that sounds too ridiculous or dumb, can be pulled off by a Japanese band without even breaking a sweat. Shitter At Salzgitter was recorded in Germany back in 2004 and features tons of BS 'hits': "War Of World Is Words", "Bathtub Shitter", "Fuck Hip Raper" and the brilliantly titled "Everybody Has The Wet"! Nothing dramatically different, just some alternate versions of your Shitter faves as well as a handful of killer tunes you probably haven't heard. Between song banter is always the best part of a live record, and while BS keep it to a minimum, it's cool to hear the songs introduced in either haltingly polite English or raspy monster growls, sometimes both!! Rumor is these guys will make it over here this year so we can experience this stuff LIVE!! We can't wait. ALL HAIL THE 'SHITTER!!!

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MPEG stream: Bathtub Shitter
MPEG stream: Everybody Has The Wet

OK. By now any avid reader of the AQ list doesn't need to know anything more than this: NEW BATHTUB SHITTER. If you're like us, that's more than enough to send a tingle down your insane Japanese grind metal lovin' record nerd spine. But if that's somehow not enough. How about 5" vinyl ep? SO much cooler than a boring old 7". Still not enough? Okay, this has to do it, the lyric sheet is printed in shit brown ink on a PIECE OF TOILET PAPER!!! So just do it. You know you want it. NEED it. But just in case you need more, or this whole 'Shitter business is new to you, let's go back to an old review where we summed up the whole Bathtub Shitter experience as perfectly as we'll ever be able to: "Imagine some strange mix of Drop Dead, the Boredoms, Brutal Truth, CSSO, death metal, grindcore, and well....um...shit! Crunchy riffs swing from almost-surf rock, to Zeppelin groove to metallic crunch, but spend most of their time in grind mode, splattered and speeding out of control. Crazy drumming, farting bass and some wicked guitar noodling add to the sick sonic stew. But the vocals are where things get really weird. The main vocals are of the burping, grunting, cookie monster death metal variety, belching out indecipherable tales of shit and shitting, but their foil is a squealing, squeaking little girl of a man voice, sounding either like a babblingly hysterical middle age housewife shrieking at the top of her lungs or a horror movie cheerleader being evicerated, screaming in that terrified way only dying cheerleaders in horror movies do. The two vocal styles swing and switch and battle and butt heads like some sort of bastard grindcore Beastie Boys. Or imagine Chuck D as Chris Barnes in his Cannibal Corpse days and Flavor Flav as the aforementioned shrieking dead cheerleader. With the everpresent S1Ws made up of members of S.O.D. and Angelcorpse. Other sorts of vocals are occasionally introduced like the 'dog barking underwater' and the 'asthmatic yodel'. The truly strange part is that all of the various vocals come from the very same guy!" Yeah, we know it seems lazy to just crib that description from an old review, but that's EXACTLY what they sound like. Not sure we could describe it any better than that first time we discovered Bathtub Shitter. In fact, just reading that again gets us all excited about the 'Shitter all over again!! Packaged in a striking full color mini lp style sleeve, with aforementioned toilet paper lyric sheet, and as with most things like this, very very limited!

We won't go into too much gushing detail about our obsession with Bathtub Shitter. For more on that, check the review of their debut Lifetime Shitlist. Needless to say, Bathtub Shitter are the greatest band ever. And definitely have the best band name ever! Okay, so hyperbole aside, the Shitter are the kind of band only Japan seems capable of producing, a chaotic, pounding grind metal juggernaut, with a lead vocalist who switches from demonic gurgling growl, to shrieking hysterical old lady squeal, often within the same verse, and an unhealthy obsession with all things shit. Yep, Japan is amazing. And so is Bathtub Shitter. Heavy enough to please metalheads and grind freaks, but weird enough for everyone else! This is a reissue of their out of print 10", on cd for the first time and with bonus tracks!

MPEG stream: Wall Of World Is Words
MPEG stream: Fuck You

This week, we've got two recently released cds from Jussi of Circle's Ektro label. They couldn't be more different (though both are cool). One of 'em, Leviticus, is a reissue of a melodic '80s Swedish Christian heavy metal artifact. Then there's this, Baxter Stockman (not person, a band). Out of the present-day Finnish underground, Baxter Stockman are a trio making damaged (and damaging) artpunk that's harsh but regimented, a disciplined noiserock attack whose pounding rhythms and vicious guitar skree should cause a pleasant ringing in your ears, during and after. Ektro references Rapeman, Swans, and G.G. Allin in describing this. Dunno about the latter (we haven't seen or smelled 'em live) but the first two make sense; there's definitely something very Albini about this for sure, also ugly '80s downtown NYC pigfuckery, yeah. With relentless battery, ranting vokills, throbbing bass, cameo "junkelectronix", and monomaniacal riffs worthy of KK Null's Zeni Geva, this is quite a compelling, claustrophobic debut from a band that must rank amongst Helsinki's sickest (and not just 'cause they came up with the clever song title "Poltergeist Pussy").

MPEG stream: Punter
MPEG stream: Labour
MPEG stream: Ten Rock

Kinda lost hope of ever seeing this special box set after the bazillionth time a new release date came and went. But holy hopscotch, here it is! "The final word on Beat Happening!" or so the sticker on the front proclaims. Was it really worth the wait? Well, for devoted fans of Calvin, Heather and Bret after all these years, who couldn't resist the appeal of a box set from their fearless K Punk faves all nicely compact and neatly designed? I'm sure that goes without saying, but for the rest, let's see... Music-wise, you get all five albums (heck, these should already be a part of any self-respecting Beat Happening fan's library!) all uniformly presented in digipaks: the primal beat and often atonal singing of the self-titled debut and Jamboree, the more sing-song pretty Black Candy and Dreamy and the final You Turn Me On (produced in part by former Young Marble Giant Stuart Moxham). As well, you're also treated to a disc titled "Music To Climb The Apple Tree By" packed full of all the non-album previously released bells and whistles (which once again I have to say, any true blue B.H. devotee should already own!), that means all of their 7"s, compilation tracks and the 12" EP they did with the Screaming Trees. Other stuff? An exclusive cd/cd-rom collecting together music from the B.H./Vaselines split cassette and assorted early videos (including ones for "Hot Chocolate Boy" and "Pine Box Derby" as well as live footage of "Black Candy" on Olympia tv, "Cake Walk" from the International Pop Underground Convention '91 and "Cry For A Shadow" at a record store in Memphis). And for your reading enjoyment, queen of the Olympia/K Punk scene Ms Lois Maffeo has assembled a concise 92-page book filled with B.H. archives, personal recollections, grainy photos, interviews, etc. So is this the final word from the beloved Oly trio who were an immeasurable inspiration to indie kids everywhere and a d.i.y. force to be reckoned with back in the day? Who truly knows for sure? But it is without question the most comprehensive and lovingly assembled Beat Happening retrospective you'll ever find... and yes, it was worth the wait!

RealAudio clip: Indian Summer
RealAudio clip: Cast A Shadow
RealAudio clip: Fortune Cookie Prize
RealAudio clip: Tiger Trap
RealAudio clip: Tales Of A Brave Aphrodite

MPEG stream: Metal Dreams
MPEG stream: Wasteful Hours
MPEG stream: Surrender (demo)

Back in stock! This 1996 release by BTPNLSL -- featuring members of Mukilteo Fairies, Noggin and Tight Bros From Way Back When -- still rocks hard as fuck in 2004. An ear-splitting cacophony - 20+ short, fast bursts of frenetic hardcore (average song length being about 45 seconds) combined with a thick wall-of-noise punctuated by evil violin scree, and unlike much modern noise / metal / whatever, completely sans irony. This stuff rocks hard. Seriously hard. While their namesake may have been a Deicide song, their music comes from the '90s school of chaotic, complex punk / grind that has given birth to bands like Heroin, The Locust, Antioch Arrow, Clickitat Ikatowi, although the vocals are way less growly and demonic and more wildly gutteral stuck-pig squeal. Aside from having their own string section (in the form of the violinist from Northwestern free noise mavens Noggin) they also manage to pull off the best hardcore-and-saxophone combination ("Zero Zero Night Vision") since Siege's '84 dirge "Grim Reaper." Brutal and unrelenting like the best of them, yet smart too... underneath the neo-satanic stylings you can see their twisted Olympia-style humor (campy metal interludes lifted from Ted Nugent and "Heavy Metal Parking Lot") as well as lyrics with political themes and references to gay sex. Hardcore fans, noise-rock enthusiasts, metal warriors, homopunk faithfuls -- all will gratefully bow before the mighty Prophet!

MPEG stream: The Apocalypse Through Sound
MPEG stream: Sacrifice On The Altar Of Convenience
MPEG stream: Adam Faith

They had us at DOOM BAND, NO STRINGS. Just drums, sax, and TUBA. That's IT. FUCKING tuba and sax, seriously, no guitar, no bass, just two horns and a drum kit, and these guys kick up a sound that dwarfs plenty of bands with axes to spare. Bellows is the perfect name for these guys, cuz the lungs on these guys must be like bellows, the horns moan and howl, the sax especially, the lead instrument, is wrapped in effects, and essential lays down some wailing, FX drenched, leads, that squeal and howl, the bands lock into killer lurching groove, the tuba, letting loose with an elephant roar low end, the sax just as often laying down a weird sheet of hiss or washed out drone, sometimes so effected it sounds like some fucked up synthesizer. And the drums, heavy and chaotic and mathy, the band locked into lurching lumbering dirges, post rocky workouts, and full on noise rock freakouts. It's a little like a marching band gone over to the darkside, some sinister assembly held in the deepest recesses of hell. The vocals are also bellowed, distorted and growled, venomous and malevolent, giving the sound a distinctly nineties East Coast noise rock Cop Shoot Cop sort of vibe. There's always a groove, but it's typically a woozy doomic one, the drums driving the sound big time, but those horns are just insane, some of the sounds they get out of 'em, on "Haunts" it's all drums and tuba, while the sax unfurls a creepy minor key melody, over and over, so hypnotic, before the track breaks down, and the low end is transformed into what sounds like a choir of throat singers, while the sax bleats and trills, and the drums just bludgeon. There are moments, where the sound borders on jazzy, it's sort of unavoidable, but we're talking face melting Brotzmann style jazz, and that jazziness is inevitably all filtered through some crusty, creepy, blown out super distorted space doom filter, that makes these guys sound absolutely like no one else, and just as often as it gets jazzy, it gets something else, "Story Of A Giant" is all spaced out and almost waltzy, and there's no way you could tell the instrumentation, the sax unfurling shimmery psychedelic clouds of tangled melody, the tuba a thick bass throb, all wrapped in a druggy haze, and on the record closer, "Half-Life", the sax is super processed and becomes some fractured angular noisemaking machine, leading the group into an extended drone-out, all long tones, chanted vocals, swirling effects, total psych drone trip out, before finally slipping into a woozy jazzy outro, and finally a crushing chugging closing burst of ultra distorted crunch. Fuck yeah. Came close to making this a fourth Record Of The Week!

MPEG stream: Haunt
MPEG stream: Scratching The Wrong Itch
MPEG stream: Story Of A Giant

MPEG stream: The Surface
MPEG stream: Society's Disposable Son
MPEG stream: The System's Failure

In the same way that the Melvins' last collaboration (Melvins + Lustmord) was more a Melvins than Lustmord sounding affair, this team-up with former Dead Kennedys singer Jello Biafra sounds more like Jello's record...but it's punk rock, not spoken word, don'tcha worry. As his back-up band, the Melvins rock out righteously, and of course there's nothing like unstable times to stoke the flames of the irrepressible, razor-tongued Jello Biafra. He's sure got plenty of material to work with these days. This actually nears the Biafra fury of old DK days. As usual, plenty of easy targets get clobbered (fer instance, the anti-SUV song "Yuppie Cadillac", perhaps a sequel of sorts to the DK's "Winnebago Warriors") and it's a lot of fun -- as long as you're not a Jello-hater. Anyone with a soft spot for the DKs ought to enjoy this though! Maybe less so for Melvins fans (who were better served with that Lustmord collab disc) but the punkier among you will like both the Melvins-penned cuts and the slightly goofier-sounding Biafra written tunes. Definitely the best Biafra in a while, that's for sure. And in the vast Melvins canon, not nearly as difficult or wacky as, say, Crybaby or Prick!

MPEG stream: Plethysmograph
MPEG stream: Yuppie Cadillac

The team-up of former Dead Kennedys singer / pissed-off political humorist Jello Biafra and underground heavy rock gods the Melvins on last year's Never Breathe What You Can't See album was probably the best Jello record in years, definitely bringing back memories of the DK's heyday. And it sure brought out the punk side of the Melvins. Well, this new album from the Biafra/Melvins conglom should be of interest to anyone who really got off on that last one, consisting as it does of more anti-Yuppie, anti-corporate, anti-Reagan (whoops, I mean Bush) sonic rants recorded during the Never Breathe sessions. Also included: a live track and remixes from Dalek, Melvins's drummer Dale Crover, and Ministry's Al Jourgensen (who collaborated with Biafra some years back in Lard).

MPEG stream: Halo Of Flies
MPEG stream: The Lighter Side Of Global Terrorism (extended space-melt version)

Like Zebulon Pike last list, here's another band recommended to us by our pals Hammers Of Misfortune, who played with 'em when on tour this past summer. Mike from Hammers lent me their new cd, and I agreed with him that it rocked and immediately wanted one and figured a few of you might want one too...so here it is! Chicago's Bible Of The Devil are a ass-kickin' garage-metal outfit, cranking out raw guitar riffage with raucous vocals. Influences probably include AC/DC, Alice Cooper and the NWOBHM. Both really heavy and kinda punk, these greasy long-hairs know what they're doing that's for sure. You don't possess a profanity-laced screech like their singer or engage in the twin axe action with which Bible Of The Devil's guitarists are adept without payin' some dues. Should stoke all the same urges as Motley Crue and Motorhead...we'd also cite the Hellacopters, Turbonegro, the Necros, and SF locals Night After Night and Drunkhorse as like minded acts whose fans ought to do some 'Bible study'.

MPEG stream: Ball Deep, Mountain High
MPEG stream: Sexual Dry Gulch

Fans of the late great beer guzzling, punk rock, riff slinging metalheads Karp must now rejoice, as Big Business are a dead ringer for those metal miscreants, which of course makes plenty of sense as the CEO of this particular Big Business is none other than Karp frontman Jared! So if you loved Karp, you're obviously gonna love this. And if you don't know Jared / Karp / Big Business, think relentless riffing, powerhouse drumming, shouted vocals, goofy but sort of brilliant lyrics, a supercharged AC/DC filtered through a beer soaked haze, a mild obsession with Judas Priest and a desire to kick much ass. Not hard to imagine legions of white belted, tight pants-ed irony-metal bands being rounded up by the true metal police and beaten into submission while protesting the true rock of Big Business which threatens to make their joke metal obsolete, all beneath the towering Marshall stack shapped monolith of Big Business, while Jared and his board of directors sit in their penthouse, twenty stories above hurling riff after riff after motherfucking riff at the cowering crowd below, laughing maniacally and rocking relentlessly!

MPEG stream: O.G.
MPEG stream: Focus Pocus

Big Business had always sounded a bit like the Melvins, which made perfect sense, as the drums and bass duo also function as 2nd bass and 2nd drums in the Melvins. But they always had their own thing going on, a sound that while still heavy and obtuse, was weirdly melodic, a sort of metallicized fractured pop. We meant to review last year's Here Comes The Waterworks, a totally classic chunk of hooky heaviness, equal parts heaving metallic heft, and twisted melodicism, but somehow it slipped through the review-writing cracks here, whoops. We were mostly expecting more of the same on Mind The Drift, but holy shit, it's even better than Waterworks. Way more epic and sprawling and proggy, showtunes is probably not the best word to use to describe the songs here, but that was definitely our first thought, not cheesy showtunes like your parents made you listen to in the car on long trips, no, BB's tunes could be the soundtrack to to some otherworldly Broadway musical jam packed with twisted carnivalesque epic songsmithery, smoke and streamers and flames and leering demonic faces, twisted shapes, colors psychedelic and kaleidoscopic, but more than anything, the songs are incredibly catchy, the vocals soaring and dramatic, a huge development from the punk rock howl of their earlier recordings, the instrumentation is lush, fleshed out by a guitarist, and the arrangements are impossibly complex, lots of stop / starts, amazing vocal interplay, some of the most incredibly irresistible melodies ever, all woven into super tight, dense mini-epics. It's not metal, it's not punk, it's not post rock, it's bits and pieces of all of those, but cobbled together into something completely jaw droppingly over the top, but not ostentatious, the songs might feel grand and majestic, but it also feels like these guys could just reel off a new song at the drop of a hat and it would sound as good as any of these. The band do get rough and raw, and rock out a bit, but they shine on those aforementioned numbers, where they kick out the sprawling dramatic soundtracky post punk show tune jams, like some impossibly rad mix of the Melvins and Meat Loaf (circa Bat Out Of Hell). Our favorite track is probably "Gold And Final" (although it seems like every time we listen to this we discover a new favorite), with its super tense brooding verse, the little looped effected stutter before a devastating chorus, and an insane hook. We've been humming this song nonstop since we got this. Just listen to the sound sample, totally timeless, like some classic rock jam transported forward in time several decades, but picking up all sorts of detritus in the process and growing gradually slightly more warped and twisted. So good. Could be a contender for record of the year. Really. Incredible packaging too, done up like found vintage postcards, the song titles and credits worked into mysterious missives, all the images washed out, complete with a Big Business post mark and everything.

MPEG stream: Found Art
MPEG stream: Gold And Final
MPEG stream: Cats, Mice.

As any solid Marxist-feminist will tell you, a girl's gotta own the means of production, right? Well, the influential and groundbreaking riot grrrl band Bikini Kill finally went and started their own record label. In honor of the 20th anniversary of their self-titled 1992 release, the band are reissuing their entire catalogue on cd and vinyl (plus downloads) - the eponymous debut record being the first. We know you riot grrl OG's out there already have the entire Bikini Kill catalog, but in case you partied too hard with your original releases (and you should have, because this record rawks), you might need a replacement by now. Also, you should know that the lp comes packed with a 34" x 21" poster (just like the White Album!) that includes snippets from drummer Tobi Vail's famed feminist 'zine, Jigsaw, photos, interviews with the likes of album producer and Minor Threat/Fugazi member Ian MacKaye, and other goodies. For those who have not heard this album, a) why the heck not? and b) it's sixteen minutes of pure punk rock heaven. The only way to explain it is to listen to it really, really loud - preferably while wearing a slip and tube socks (boys, that means you, too) and screaming along with Kathleen Hanna's defiant wail at the top of your lungs. For all the haters out there, look: You don't have to have an abusive father to protest patriarchal control over women's sexuality, as does Hanna in "Suck My Left One." Bikini Kill weren't man-haters, they just wanted to start the revolution grrrl-style. It's not too late to join them!

A killer cd compilation from Spain-via-New-York noise rocker and audio experimentalist Billy Bao, whose May 08 lp we made Record Of The Week, and whose Dialectics Of Shit we reviewed recently as well. This cd collects that Dialectics lp, as well as a handful of earlier releases. The whole thing is packaged in a jewel case, then wrapped in sandpaper and sealed shut with duct tape. Here's a review of the Dialectics lp, now cd, and after that we'll give a quick rundown of the other stuff compiled here. So first up is the wonderfully titled Dialectics Of Shit, and we're happy to report, that while the horns that were all ovr May 08 seem to be M.I.A here, everything else is present and accounted for, BIG TIME. A gloriously filthy, in-the-red, sludge fueled noise drenched monster. Weirdly produced, super chaotic, rife with sharp angular skree, pounding Neanderthal drums and a growled phlegmy vocal that seethes maniacally. All that stuff is locked around single, KILLER riffs, each track, a looped hypnotic crush, that riff pounded out over and over and over and over, while the various other elements swirl and careen all around it. Insane bursts of grinding crunch, thick sheets of Merzbowian hiss, long stretches of brittle jangle and thump that will suddenly get swallowed up by a blown out wave of sub sonic low end, or a cloud of white noise will well up obliterating everything in its path, all the while the bass and drums 'groove' churns away, often emerging from one of those disruptions a whole different beats, a sort of muted murky bit of surf guitar, some weird twang, everything off kilter and woozy and noisy and INTENSE. The guitars are sharp and jagged and rough edged, slippery and warped, the riffs seem to be melting, or crumbling to pieces before your ears, the whole record a stumbling, lurching, blackened dirge noise behemoth. All the while, little hooks, and insanely catchy flourishes surface here and there, keeping the record weirdly catchy, and almost poppy occasionally, the sound is schizophrenic, about faces all over the place, sudden edits, overlapping sounds that don't seem to fit (but somehow do), voices all tangled up in guitar melodies tripping over struggling drum pound, everything on the very edge of total collapse, somehow held together in one massive speaker destroying chunk of tweaked and twisted heaviness. The weird thing when you finally see these tracks in your cd player, is that all the songs are of an exact length, almost all the songs on Dialectics are 3:00 long, the two songs from the ep are exactly 10:00 each, and all ten of the tracks from the 7" are exactly 1:00 long. Weird. ANyway, the Fuck Separation ep from 2007 is two ten minute long jams, the whole thing, all twenty minutes made up of the same riff, a killer for sure, looped and locked and pounded out over and over and over, while the vocals howl, the sound shifts from sharp and jagged to murky and muddy, only near the end, does it begin to unravel and fall apart in a glorious pile of broken beats shrieking feedback, the riff never letting up until the very very end. The Accumulation 7", also from 2007, follows a similar pattern, locking into a single sludgey garage-y Brainbombs style groove, while the vocals howl and mewl, and the sound gets more and more brittle and noise and fucked up until it devolves into a blonw out nearly white noise damaged psych free-for-all. Incredible stuff. Heavy and heady, fucked up and freaked out and damaged and demented, and some of the best shit we've heard in forEVER.

MPEG stream: I Am Billy Bao, Right Here Right Now!
MPEG stream: Tight Ass Bleeds
MPEG stream: I Am A Mirror / Putrefied Egos
MPEG stream: Borders Of Mass Deception
MPEG stream: 1
MPEG stream: 2

All right, a new Billy bao, a crazy expensive fancy pants lp, sorry about that, not sure why it's so expensive, it's super limited, imported from overseas, original artwork by HENRY FLYNT!, cool silkscreened plastic sleeves, all that stuff probably contributed to the crazy price, but for the noise obsessed, and specifically BB obsessed among you, it'll take more than $36 to keep you away from another slab of damaged, caustic noise punk weirdness from this demented noisenik. And demented this stuff is, beginning with a loooooong stretch of barely there hushed crawl, voices, drones, all way down in the mix, played in the store it almost sounds silent, but don't crank the volume, cuz soon from the silence explodes a monstrous chunk of downtuned dirgery, wrapped in swirls of warped buzz and woozy layered crunch, a simple caveman beat pounding away, weirdly hypnotic, like some sort of kraut-noise-rock, which gives way to stuttery staticky stop and start rhythmic hiss, spitting out an almost martial sounding rhythm, underpinned by strange mumbled vox and peppered with shards of feedback and deep tectonic rumbles. After still more near silence, BB and co. spew some seriously Merzbowian thud rock, all wrapped in jagged squalls of white noise and grinding feedback, stumbling rhythms, that sound like they were made out of distorted voices. Soon after comes maybe the coolest part of the record, a twisted bit of skipping stuttering skittery free jazz, almost like some drunk turntablist spinning dusty old Coltrane records, at the wrong speed, while some nervous footed punter continually kicks the plug out of the wall only to plug it right back in again, dizzying and almost carnivalesque. After still more whispered drift, another bout of pounding feedback drenched noiserock, culminating in a final stretch of near silence, punctuated by sharp bursts of caustic blown out crunch and fucked up grinding howl, rhythmic and dementedly mesmerizing. Woah. Some serious outsider noiserock damage for sure. Definitely headphone listening, but headphones WITH earplugs! As mentioned above, super swank packaging, pressed on 140 gram vinyl, housed in a jacket with original artwork by Henry Flynt, in a cool hand screened sleeve, imported and limited, and thus the hefty price tag...

Obscure but awesome, ugly yet catchy, crusty underground noiserock here! We gotta thank our pals in Megaton Leviathan for hepping us to this now defunct band (2000-2006). In fact, one of Megaton dudes put this disc out on his own label a while back, and we just got a handful direct from them at a bargain price. Not sure if there was ever any membership connection between the two bands or not, could be, but we do know the Billy Dirt Cult started off in Anchorage, Alaska, eking out a DIY punkrock existence up there in the frozen north for several years before migrating down to the relatively milder climes of Portland, Oregon, and then subsequently morphing into another band called Theda Bara whom we're also now curious to hear, after getting into this document of BDC's particular brooding darkness. With the Megaton Leviathan endorsement, you'd expect Billy Dirt Cult to be heavy, and they are. But while Megaton Leviathan traffic in what might be called "soft doom" or "doomgaze", Billy Dirt Cult is a much nastier beast, though like we said, quite catchy, and in their way quite artful, and political. This disc collects a 2001 demo, their half of a split lp with some fellow Alaskans called Eu Vusahm, and unreleased tracks, 12 cuts in all. Rife with caustic vocals, rumbling guitars, pounding drums, feedback, all that good stuff. Gets more and more distorted and crusty as it goes along, it seems, culminating though in the disc's surprising grand finale, an instrumental epic called "February", kind of a post-rock apocalypse, all shades of light and dark in one gripping, gnarled, blown-out fuzzfest whose only flaw is that it eventually fades out instead of going on forever. Worth the price of admission right there for that one, but we are diggin' on the whole thing, whether BDC be in driving scuzzpunk mode or doing the plodding crashing doomic stuff, or both.

MPEG stream: Darkness
MPEG stream: T.V. Wars
MPEG stream: February

Finally! The return of our favorite parrot fronted grind metal outfit, Hatebeak! And as if realizing that a bird squawking along to death metal might be a one trick pony, the band has gone and mixed things up, turning their jokey avian death metal into something way more weird and damaged and in the long run, an even better (and more musically complex) joke. It's still high concept: Waldo the parrot is lead vocalist for the band Hatebeak, a play on the band Hatebreed we can only assume. This time, the cover is some horrible creature (Cthulhu we presume) with a parrot perched on its shoulder. Titled "The Thing That Should Not Beak" coupled with the track "Hellbent For Feathers" (Metallica and Judas Priest jokes respectively for the metallically dim out there) and the Hatebeak logo is done in the style of the Relapse Records logo... it's all very funny, metal nerd inside jokes, but the thing is, as a band, Hatebeak totally shred! The two tracks are bookended by what ends up being a parrot prank call, but in between it's raging, complex, super technical grinding death metal. Another one of those bands that had they ditched the whole bird on vocals angle, could probably be huge! And this time it's not just regular old bird squawks and squeaks, Waldo's 'vocals' are bizarre, obviously overdubbed, they go from strange almost talking, to screeches, to weird guttural almost death metal vocals, all tangled up amidst insanely brutal, super stop start grinding metal mayhem. Awesome! On the B side are Swedish goof grinders Birdflesh, chosen for their monicker as much as their sound we'd assume, but sonically, they are the perfect match, a whole bunch of songs crammed onto their side, fast and furious, technical and brutal, and just a little bit goofy, like their bizarre, costumed band photos on the cover. Pressed on swirled lime green vinyl and as with most things like this, extremely limited!

We've got pretty much an AQ-fave shoo-in here, this strange Japanese band combining crusty, doooooomy heaviness with wyrd folk ritual, like Corrupted (with whom they have some membership connection) combined with Ghost. This 40 minute album, featuring three tracks (a two minute into and then two much longer pieces), starts by building up the ancient, Asian folky ambience, adorned with mysterious Scooby Doo meets Ol' Dirty Bastard kung fu mumble, all of it very much darkly psychedelic, before it gets HEAVY at about 5 minutes into the 20+ minute track two, Birushanah suddenly kicking out the lurching, kinetic riffs/rhythms along with much more wretched, raspy vokills in the Khanate vein. Tricky tribalistic percussion conspires with sinuous, strangled guitars, stopping and starting and coming down hard, on the bizarre bulk of this creepy and crushing album. One whose eerie eccentricities, rooted in traditional Japanese music, we figure should appeal to a lot of you who dug that Quest For Blood release we made Record Of The Week recently!

MPEG stream: "Akai Yama
MPEG stream: "Akai Yama

Most female fronted, angry rock bands probably get tired of getting tagged Riot Grrl, especially since for all intents and purposes, Riot Grrl ceased to be relevant years ago, maybe even ceased to exist entirely. BUT, if anyone was hoping to spawn a revival, Black Bug would be the band to make it happen. The A side of this 7", "I Don't Like You" is a mother fucking ANTHEM. The main riff totally distorted and so in-the-red it threatens to just fall to pieces, but then the chorus kicks in, and another guitar, EVEN MORE distorted and heavy and high in the mix, lurches into action, and lays waste to EVERYTHING. The drums are a mere pitter pat when faced with such blown out riffage, but it doesn't even matter. The vocals, though, seal the deal, distorted, wrapped in effects, howled with haughty pissed intensity, as loud and corrosive as the guitars it snarls around. And the hook, shit, if you gussied it up and got rid of some of the guitars and re-recorded it in a real studio we're talking something like the Breeders' "Cannonball", but instead, as is, it's a fierce fucked up, filthy fucking ANTHEM! Like the Raveonettes if they were 13 years old, obsessed with Turbonegro, and SO pissed at their shit for brains boyfriend. Or maybe Daisy Chainsaw, but with a singer who is less waifish and sexy, and more bad ass and scary as shit. Reminds us a bit of Monarch punk rock alter ego Rainbow Of Death. The flipside is not quite the ANTHEM as the A side, but it still slays, processed synthy buzz, tons of effects, this one more groovy and almost dance-y, in a sort of robotic way, more sassy pissed girl vocals. It's not hard to imagine Black Bug waiting outside some dance club and then kicking the living shit out of Uffie. Hellz Yeah!! Cool thick black and blue sleeve, pressed on coke bottle clear vinyl.

The first 7" by this dynamic duo, was a serious blast of synth drenched post riot grrl fury, all new wave garage stomp and ass kicking punk rock genius! Record number two dials back the synth and new wave elements and ups the swaggery garage vibe, with these two new tracks. The A side features the boy half of this duo on lead vocals, shouting out a staccato invective over a groovy swinging garage jam, sounding a bit like a more upbeat Brainbombs, which is NEVER bad, simple, stripped down Pussy Galore / Royal Trux style RAWK. The flipside finds Lily back on the mic, lamenting about how she knows she's not the prettiest girl but she doesn't need to hear that from YOU, all over another bad ass garage blues jam, some serious riot grrl revamped, a KILLER main riff, an amazing hook, all murky and muddy and blown out, fierce throaty, angry girl vox, if only the White Stripes were this bad ass.

NYC art-punk noise terrorists return with two new tracks on San Diego's Three.One.G. Comes with a deluxe forty page booklet of collage art and photos by drummer Hisham.

DVD version of "the only available" Black Flag video, captured live in 1984 on their UK tour, in Bradford, England. It's well shot (w/ multiple cameras), with much of the attention, unsurprisingly, on frontman Henry Rollins. The sound is ok, but the vocals are

Meanwhile, Back In The States... is the second release from The Black Furies, and it reveals a bit of a shift in direction. Tighter and punchier, their new sound borders on the cock rock party action of The Hives, The Hellacopters or even Turbonegro. Gooood times! So, the news that the band has recently signed to Gearhead Records makes total sense... much more so than if we'd heard the news following their last cd which was more of a straight forward punk rawk rally. They've sharpened their pop hooks, Turtle-waxed their guitars to a super gleam, and put a bit more imagination into their packaging to boot.

MPEG stream: Blacklist
MPEG stream: No Money Down

We had never heard of this eighties art punk / weirdo industrial SF outfit, but HOLY SHIT, this is some seriously fucked up psychedelic noise drenched punk weirdness/radness. Initially released in a run of 1000 lps, each one hand painted with thick gobs of paint and whatever the band members could find around the house (feathers, dirt, trash, flyers, etc.), it's now been reissued by a new local label Superior Viaduct, and what a record to announce your arrival, a creeping, dirgey, occasionally drum machine driven collection of noisy chaotic stumbling ferocity, with loping low slung basslines, jagged, crumbling guitars, a vocalist whose caterwaul is a dead ringer for Kurt Kobain at his most ravaged, his feral yowl tortured and anguished, everything tangled up into a head spinning barrage of post punk stomps, gloomy industrial lumbers, moody murky creeps, dizzying spoken word freakouts and tripped out collaged whatthefuck weirdness. Just check out the opener, "Undancing In The Dirt", a lumbering creep, gloomy and harrowing, the guitars in a constant state of chaos, the drum machine and woozy bass locked tight beneath a death march pound, not to mention the weird break in the middle with the sound of tolling bells and what sounds like some sort of machinery, the rest of the record careens wildly between similarly woozy outsider industrial creeps and more frenetic artpunk mouth breathing thudrock, most definitely beholden to other local groups of the time like Flipper and Factrix, but also displaying hints of what was going on in Cleveland at the time (Electric Eels, the Pagans, etc.). And on top of that, peppered throughout are some seriously unhinged experiments, weird tape manipulation, free noise fuckery, chaotic clatter and dark droned out minimalism, culminating in "KILL THEM!!!" an almost Negativland worthy mash up of spoken word sloganeering, a serious message presented as some conservative / poseur button pushing, super intense and bizarre, funny and fucked up. Love God - Love One Another is a seriously twisted slab of SF punk rock history, and easily one of our favorite reissues in recent memory! Packaged with the original unused cover art, a super striking image of Ronald Reagan holding a cross in front of an American flag with swastikas where the stars normally are, the inside also adorned with a swastika made out of crutches. Comes with two inserts, including new liner notes, the original lp liner notes (explaining the charge imagery and the inspiration for each song), and the Maximum Rock N Roll review that first got them noticed, as well as offending some of the more sensitive punks, one of which has their angry letter reprinted here, along with the response from the original reviewer, in defense of said review.

MPEG stream: Undancing In The Dirt
MPEG stream: I Should've Let Him DIE!!!
MPEG stream: KILL THEM!!!