Fugazi - Live 04-04-95 - Irving Plaza, NYC

Label: bootleg
Year: 1995

I am off on vacation in about two hours, so the posting here will go from a slow trickle to absolutely zero for the next week. I hope you all survive in my absence, and I'll see you on the other side.

Since I'll be gone, I do feel obligated to leave on a high note, and what higher note is there than Fugazi at the top of their game ripping through over an hour of water tight, fully loaded, high caliber Fugazi music? There isn't anything much higher, that's what.
If you own the Instrument video then you've seen some of this performance as it's featured there. For good reason...it rips.
So, for the next week, please enjoy this and we will reconvene soon. Unless I am taken to a watery grave in the mouth of a man-eating shark...which is entirely plausible, and my absolute worst nightmare. Pray for me.

DL

Overkill - Overkill 7"

Label: SST
Year: 1982

It should go without saying that a 7" released in 1982 on SST Records is going to be pure, unadulterated gold. Shouldn't even have to say it. But, maybe this one slipped through the cracks in the wake of Black Flag and Minutemen and Husker Du and everything, so maybe you missed it. Somehow.
It's basically DOA styled first wave US hardcore (and yes, I am aware that DOA are Canadian), with the beginning tinges of heavy metal creeping in. Metal like Motorhead, not Iron Maiden. The opening track "Hell's Getting Hotter" is an all time favorite of me personally, so I can only assume it's a favorite of you too.
Members were: Ron Cordy of Bitch, Kurt Markham of DC3, Merill Ward of SWA and the Nig Heist, and Jeff Dimick, who apparently had enough after Overkill.

DL

Gallows - Orchestra Of Wolves

Label: In At The Deep End
Year: 2006

How are you feeling about that Refused reunion? What about the Planes Mistaken For Stars one? Cause that might have a bearing on how you will feel about hearing this record again. Or for the first time, I don't know.
There was a brief window of time when post-Refused hardcore bands were taking the vigor and venom of the genre and injecting both the Nation Of Ulysses-isms (even if they didn't realize that's what it was) that Refused had borrowed, and the Botch-isms of the start/stop noisecore world and layering a rock-n-roll swagger atop the whole mess (again, Refused had flirted with that as well). Cancer Bats was one of those bands. The Bronx did some of that. Every Time I Die evolved into something of that ilk. And Planes Mistaken For Stars morphed from scream basement hardcore into something along those lines (and predated Gallows by a good 5-6 years).
If you can handle it, it's fun. If the occasional chugga chugga turns you off, and that's ok if it does, then you might not go for it. I suppose it was just another milepost in the evolution of hardcore, so your predilection towards the genre will certainly make or break your desire to get into it.
Personally, I can dig it.

DL

Identified - I

Label: self released
Year: 2007

Lots of instrumental music lately, which is weird since I don't often listen to music sans vocals (the simpleton in me), but here we are again. This time a band from Boston who have taken some of the mathiness (not a word, but should be) of Don Cabellero, some of the swelling epicness (also not a word, but also should be) of Kinski, some of the subtleties of Explosions In The Sky, and  mixed them into eight songs that easily can play as one long composition. There are moments of spaced out openness, and moments of dense, highly charged driving riffs, which ebb and flow together as good instrumental music of this ilk should.
Quality.

DL

Hey Colossus / Dot(.) - Split ep

Label: Shifty / Blind Date / Jonson Family
Year: 2006

Two songs, one from each band, total length: 37.2 minutes. 'Nuff said?
Slow building dense heaviness from Hey Colossus, a band championed in these pages for their ability to rock out in myriad ways. Love them, love this jam.
Dot(.) come correct with the over saturated doom blow out that they do. Everything is distorted and drenched in a thick coating of grime. Hopefully you have no problems with that.

*originally posted 11.23.11, reposted 06.22.15

DL

Collapsar - Integers

Label: Escape Artist
Year: 2007

Knotted, dense, instrumental metal and post rock combination. That's the short version.
Slightly longer version is, two guys from Icepick Revival hook up with another guy and proceed to write a complex strain of math-metal in the bowels of Louisiana, but with zero of the sludgy dirt of their southern kinfolk. Taking cues from gut punching metallic hardcore, post rock, math rock, and a dash of prog rock and you get weirdness that has elements of: American Heritage, Keelhaul, Pelican, Locrian, Cauldron, and The Fucking Champs. Big, sprawling songs that twist and turn and then twist and turn back onto themselves, and conceivably you, the listener.
If you like to get weird with a mechanical pencil, then by all means, get weird with this.

DL

Thug / Greenmachine - Split 7"

Label: Bovine
Year:1997

Speaking of unheralded and unabashed...let's listen to Thug,ok?
The Bovine Records house band, they managed to sound heavier an uglier than almost anybody else at the time deploying thick bursts of feedback-soaked hatred. Everything about it was recorded in the red. Just gross. Thug also knew their way around a little grind and metal, which they sounded like a noise rock band flirting with powerviolence...which is fine by me.
Greenmachine was posted a couple months back on this very blog, and I believe I described them as "the Japanese Eyehategod", which, was pretty right-on. Sabbath riffs overdriven with venomous spite and rage...pretty much like Eyehategod. Not a thing the matter with that.

Can't express how much the Bovine label is missed.

DL

Mama Tick - Action City 7"

Label: Three Little Girls
Year: 1994

Previously posted some years back as part of a Mama Tick discography, but I was listening to the 7" and thought it deserved it's own day in the sun. Plus, that discography link has long since been deleted (the great Mediafire purge of 2011 [or whenever]).
Two songs, one of which is a cover of Motley Crue's 'Shout At The Devil'. But it's Mama Tick, and Mama Tick are one of those "best band you never heard of" kind of bands, up there with La Gritona, Craw, and probably a bunch of bands I never heard of. And now maybe this record isn't as monumentally punishing as their 'Horsedoctor' 7", but it's still a gloriously messy, noisy, raw slab of destructo-rock. It's a great, great 7".

DL

The Clarke Nova - Highway Star

Label: Man's Ruin
Year: 1996

Another Man's Ruin lost relic. Two songs, one being a pretty faithful (albeit dirty and slightly punked out) version of the Deep Purple hit 'Highway Star', the other being a dirty and punked up original.
Not exactly rocket science, but a good time will be had.
If you like the more rocknroll side of the Man's Ruin roster then you'll be alright.

DL

Surgery - Shimmer

Label: Atlantic

Year: 1994

Ah yes, the "sellout" album. Like every card carrying member of the Church Of Tim Yohannon, I too was not willing to allow my heroes a chance at financial stability. So when Surgery decided to jump from Amphetamine Reptile to Atlantic Records...well, that just wouldn't do. It was an outrageous, treasonous act that surely marked the coming Apocalypse, and could not be tolerated. I called for an all-out boycott.

Until a copy of the album showed up at the radio station I was working in...

It wouldn't hurt to take it home and give it a covert listen under the cover of dark right? I mean, Steve Albini couldn't be everywhere at once could he? No one would be the wiser. And hey, it's not like I supported the corporate death machine by purchasing the record now did I (and no, the irony of it being posted here is not lost on me)?

So the bottom line...it sounded like Surgery 75% of the time, and sounded like 90's alternative rock the other 25%. I shelved it, and did not check back in on "Shimmer" for many years to come.

I am retarded.

This is a good record. Not great, but still really good. Surgery is a great band who had a knack for catchy songs that were heavy and dirty. This record is mostly that sound, in fact there's even a version of their classic jam "D-Nice" on here. I will say there are a couple songs that aren't too hot, but mostly, this is well worth your time. Especially if you ever liked Surgery in the first place. 

So at the risk of losing your entry to the Maximum Rocknroll Old Folks Home, give this one a shot.

*Originally posted 03-10-09, re-up'd 03-16-13, reposted (for the last time) 06-12-15

DL

Cop Shoot Cop - White Noise

Label: Big Cat
Year: 1991

Mid-career industrial/noise/heavy/damage from Cop Shoot Cop, on an album released only in England, or by an English label anyway, which spelled "import" prices when trying to acquire this record here in the New World. A quaint concern now, but a real deal-breaker when saving lawn-mowing money to make the weekly trip to the record store.
Musically we've been dealt No Wave New York disconcerting weirdness meets Head Of David proto industrial grind meets Scratch Acid bite meets sardonic paranoia begets Cop Shoot Cop circa 1991. Lethal delivery, and some of the best lyrics this side of Steve Albini's spiteful rants, craft a sound uniquely of this era. This oft-missed era.

*originally posted 11-23-13, reposted 06-12-15

DL

Arsenal - Factory Smog Is A Sign Of Progress

Label: Touch And Go

Year: 1990

Two thirds of Big Black (Santiago Durango and Mr. Roland) reunite to continue that band's legacy, whilst adding keyboards to the mix, thus making a more accessible, and somehow industrial feeling record. Bass on this 12" is handled by Naked Raygun's Pierre Kezdy, who had written some of these tracks while in previous bands Strike Under and Trial By Fire. 

The cd version also includes the bands other, and first ep, "Manipulator", which is a little less focused than "Factory Smog...". 

If they were giving trophies for Best Post-Big Black album by former members of Big Black, it would certainly go to Rapeman, but Arsenal ain't nothing to slouch about. 

Also, as soon as I go to find a cover image for this post I realize Sister Hell had already posted this months ago. Those motherfuckers beat me to everything! I guess that says something about the quality of their shit versus the quality of mine huh?

*originally posted 12-23-09, reposted 06-12-15

DL

V/A - Loud and Ugly vols. 1 + 2

Label: Bovine

Year: 1993, 1995

Bovine Records spent a couple years being completely unfuckable-with, everything that label shit out was a pure gold steamer with little diamond corn kernels in it. Pure perfection.

So it's of no surprise that these two compilation 7"s they released were also big ole piles of hot bullion as well. Solid flaxen poo.

Volume One is a battle royale between the rock megalopolis' of Madison and DeKalb, Wisconsin, which, yeah, is pretty much Holmes and Ali of Wisconsin towns, so you know you're in for a real treat. The bands are:

Festering Rinyanyons - best described as "Midwestern noise rock", like a Sicbay or something

Mercury Players - twangy slabs of pig fuck, kinda Cows meets Surgery meets Crows

Pachinko - underrated band, Unsane by way of Johnboy, super good

Thug - the label owner's band, brutal noisy hardcore that's as ugly as it is spiteful

Volume Two doesn't let up in the least, in fact it pretty much drops the hammer. Drops it square in the middle of your face. The bands are:

Eyehategod - my personal favorite of their jams probably because it's relatively short and upbeat by their standards, I actually stole the verse riff in an old band I was in (full disclosure; I actually also stole the main riff to the song "Blank" for another song in the same band...I was pretty heavy into Eyehategod for a minute).

Floor - they have never released a bad song, and this crawling hatred is no exception

Despise You - some power violence to cleanse the Southern fried sludge out of your ears

Apartment 213 - and more power violence, this time with that serial killa lean.

Thug - I guess if you put out the records you can put your band on as many of these as you fucking want. That being said, this is the best Thug song ever, and might be the best song on this whole collection. Creeping death with added harmonics! P.S. enjoy that lock groove at the end of the song.

So there you go, the Loud And Ugly compilations, bowel movements of the most prized mintage.

*Originally posted 01-27-10, reposted 06-04-13, re-reposted (for the last time) 06-10-15

DL

Wrong - Stop Giving

Label: Robotic Empire
Year: 2014

This write up could begin and end with; "total and unabashed Helmet worship", and that would basically be what you needed to know. Sure, I could get slightly more specific and tell you that it's total Helmet worship of the "Born Annoying", "Strap it On" era, but that's semantics really.
Maybe, just maybe, you will hear a does of 16 as well, but again, semantics.
The reality though is that this four song ep of total Helmet worship slays incredibly hard, the exact same way Helmet slays (ummm...."slayed"...sorry). Bulldozer rhythms, jackhammer riffs, and the drill sergeant bark vocals. Nothing wrong with that.
The band itself are no slouches at making loud music. The Miami based band has connections to Capsule, Shitstorm, House Of Lightning, Wastelands, Torche, Kylesa, Trilobite, Father Bloopy, and Corrosion of Conformity. Loud shit. Good shit.

DL

V/A - There Is No Fucking Future

Label: Ghettoblasters and Switchblades
Year: 2014

Because there really isn't a fucking future is there?
But we have a past, and it's now. Here.
Thirty-five classic US hardcore blasts that you had better fucking committed to memory by now. And by "now", I mean by the time you were thirteen. No archeology dig here, just straight up ripping bangers from the big dogs of the first wave. Only complaint on my end is, "where the fuck is Corrosion of Conformity up in this piece?".

This compilation was assembled (lovingly, one would assume) by the good folks at Ghettoblasters and Switchblades blog, here. They should be applauded for a job well done.

No need to list the bands right?

DL

Hive Bent - Dyatlov

Label: New Day Rising
Year: 2014

Two years ago, almost exactly two years ago to the day, we sang the praises of Hive Bent and their volatile mix of all the best noise rock elements all coming together at once inside your head until your head can no longer accept any more elements of any kind, at which time it collapses in on itself under the sheer mass of Hive Bent. We said that. Sorta.
Well now, here we are, older, wiser, fatter, and still regaling all within earshot of Hive Bent and how they are making our hearts swell to the joyful noise. Sorta.
Five songs this time. Still just two people making all the racket this time. A more pronounced Enemymine vibe this time. Still ruthless this time and it would appear every other time into the foreseeable future.
A personal favorite.

DL

Desafinado - Sunset Commision Remasters

Label: Sunset Commission
Year: 2015

Brought to our attention (thankfully) by bassist Tony Bice, this collection represents the full output of this short-lived Austin band as resurrected and transferred to digital by drummer Paul Stautinger. That includes a song off the Cinco Anos compilation, one song off the split 7" with Windsor For The Derby, and two songs not previously released(?). Maybe we can get a verification on that?

The personnel of the band includes the aforementioned Tony Bice who was in Johnboy, the aforementioned Paul Stautinger who was in Sweet Pea and Lord High Fixers, Barry Stone also of Johnboy,  and David Jones, Barry Jones, and Aaron Winslow who were I'm sure in other bands somewhere at some point. But, it's important that you not go into this thinking that you're going to get some bombastic noise rock a la Johnboy or Sweet Pea. Not the case. What you will get are four incredibly well composed post rock swells that play off the mathy time signatures of noise rock and incorporate some later period Fugazi kind of feels, but minus the distortion (mostly) and snarling and all that. Not to say there isn't a particularly menacing tone to Desafinado, because there is, and it does "rock" if that's a concern. It's a valid concern, so I understand. Just know that you won't be disappointed with these four songs, so long as you go in with an open mind. Trust us.

DL

Bad Drugs - Raw Powder

Label: Rotted Tooth
Year: 2011

I like a good play on words as much as the next guy, so going with "Raw Powder" as your album title already has you endearing yourself to me. Calling a song "Chilling In The Name Of" only further cements it.
But (let's talk about your big butt), you gotta back it up with some substance right? Some cajones, or something. So, Bad Drugs choose to back it up with a brand of noise rock that blisters paint, sands it down, and then snorts that lead-based shit right back up their noses. Not approved for old people. They hail from Chicago, but you would be excused if you thought they were another product of the Rhode Island School of Design. They bury lots and lots of elements deep inside a thick blanket of noise and skuzz, creating a legitimate cacophony of  swirling sounds. No demented noise is left off the menu here.
Vinyl is limited to 300 copies, so if you hurry, or know "somebody" there could be one or two left?

DL