Conduit - Drowning World

Label: Kitschy Spirit
Year: 2018

Continuing on with some selections I have been collecting over the past year in consideration for "Best Of" status, but who, for whatever fickle pettiness of mine, are not in the running anymore. Even though they are good records...good enough that upon listening to them I thought, "damn, that's a real good record".
Which is where Conduit fit in.
This is a really good album. Real nasty in with a blues damage backend buried under a whole lot of rumbling bass, thick guitar pounding, caveman drums, and eye bulging bellows. There's a couple  members of Twin Stumps here, and if you were familiar with Twin Stumps...well, that'll tell you something. Egregiously glorious pandemonium of collapsing animosity. Super mean.
The more I listen, the more I wonder why this is being edged off my stupid list.

DL

Obnox - Templo del Sonido

Label: Monofonus / Astral
Year: 2018

Here's a true confession: I keep a running list on my phone of records released during the year, categorized as either "Yes", "Maybe", or "No". Meaning, when December rolls around and I try and pull a Best Of list out of my (sweet, sweet) ass, then I have notes to refer to. I'll have less of a chance to forget something that came out in January that I listened to nonstop for three months, but haven't revisited for a minute.
Pretty smart, huh?
Or sad.
This Obnox record has been on the "Maybe" list for a good minute, but I'm pretty certain it's not going to make the final cut. Lots of competition this year folks. And, while it's a really cool album, it's not one that I crave to hear. My ears are not sophisticated enough I suppose. This one is free jazz as performed by someone who hates jazz (not sure if Lamont Thomas hates jazz or not...but I'm trying to set a scene here), and who has some "stuff" they need to "work out" at a "high volume".
Not for the faint of heart.

DL

Hyena - Demo II

Label: Scavenger Of Death
Year: 2018

Last year we were grace with "Demo" from Hyena, which charged and flailed about much more wildly than we were expecting. So this year, as we embark upon "Demo II", we should all be adequately prepared for full throated hardcore attack that yields for no one, or no one thing.
Which, at this point in our collective lives, we are either in it to win it, or you're waiting patiently on another Vampire Weekend album to come out.
I fucking hate Vampire Weekend.
I fucking love hardcore.
This demo rips. And is maybe going to be released as a 12" at some point soon.

DL

American Heritage / Foe / Art Of Burning Water - The Combined Stupidity Of Spiteful Men

Label: House Of Stairs
Year: 2003

Fair warning, this one is orbiting in a metal adjacency that could credibly be called "straight up metal", and it would be hard to argue. Or at least pointless to argue (more so than you average argument about music...which is already pretty fucking tedious to begin with). So, armed with that knowledge, plan the rest of you day accordingly.
American Heritage, who we have posted before, come out of the gates with a knotted, mathy take on big, lumbering Mastodon styled unrelenting pounding. If you put your ear to the seashell you can hear some Craw/Keelhaul, some KEN Mode, some Neurosis, and some Knut. Essentially a beefier take on the early Hydra Head roster, and with added pinch harmonics. Burly.
Foe, who we have not posted before, keep us rolling with a single hefty ten minute slab of riff sausage. Chunky riffs, angular riffs, grooving riffs, serpentine riffs....all the riffs. All Frankenstein'd together into an instrumental ramble that drags you, pushes you, and taunts you. It shifts so frequently that you can't get bored, but I do wish that they maybe edited it into two or three separate tracks, and let the really good parts settle down for a minute and breathe before being jettisoned for the inevitable next riff.
Art Of Burning Water, who we have posted before, and who should be noted are veterans of the split release format (not Agathocles level, but at least nine in a sixteen record discography), bring it back to a more economical mathy punishment. Not at all unlike American Heritage, but more streamlined. Still an ugly proposition that sways violently before falling backwards off their bar stool, and taking swings at random guests as security drags them out the door and unceremoniously tosses them into a profanity riddled headlong heap on the sidewalk. They will ask you for a lift back to their apartment, but don't do it. They will extinguish a cigarette in your cloth seat (even though you told them at least three times not to smoke in your car) in order clear the way for a hot spray of Mr. Boston's induced vomit across the entirety of your dashboard. I'm telling you. Every time.

DL

Part Chimp - Cheap Thriller

Label: Chart Pimp
Year: 2018

I'm sorry, did you just say there was a new Part Chimp album out?
Yes?
Ok, then I gotta go.

So do you.

Also: spoiler alert...I'm from the future, and this record goddamn rules. The songs aren't "new", in that they have been chillin' for a bit, or are different versions of songs that wound up on previous albums. But they are "new", in that you and I had not heard them until now.

DL

Theory Of Ruin - Counter Culture Nosebleed

Label: Escape Artist
Year: 2002

Alex Newport spent the first part of the 1990's plying a thick noise sludge that flirted ever so slightly around the edges of "alternative rock", with his band Fudge Tunnel. You probably heard them at some point or another. Or, at least you should have heard them. Still could if you wanted.
Then, in the middle of the 1990's he hooked up (not in a Biblical sense...I don't think) with Sepultura mainman Max Cavalera to create a metallic, grinding, grooving, hardcore, industrial-adjacent monster with Nailbomb. They had one proper album that is a legit classic of the genre(s), which again, I feel like you've no doubt heard it. Still out there for you to hear in the off chance you were born too late (Saint Vitus ref!).
So after the relative success of Nailbomb Mr. Newport dives headlong into production for the last half of the 1990s, with no real new musical output of his own to speak of. Now this is just my own hypothesis, but, this is also just my own blog at this point, so it's kind of a lawless place where unchecked hypothesis can just go flying around willy-nilly with nary a ramification or consequence. Liberating. But anyway, it's my guess that while producing the underrated S.F. band Totimoshi, Alex Newport gets a jolt of inspiration to strap on his guitar again and rattle off a handful of noise rock inspired rippers. Some of the old Fudge Tunnel grime is still there. Some of the old alternative rock tendencies are still there. And there's a scant whiff of the old Nailbomb "Earache-cum-Alternative Tentacles-cum-Wax Trax" all out assault.
But mostly it's an urgent, beefy, take on the noise rock touchstones you know and love, as filtered through a post hardcore lens. Two great tastes?

Lest I make it sound like a solo act, rest assured the rhythm section of Theory Of Ruin most definitelty holds is down. Ches Smith, who played with The Secret Chiefs 3, John Zorn, Trevor Dunn, Xiu Xiu, and Elliot Sharp (and a million others), is on drums. David Link, who cut his teeth in the weirdly heavy Boston noise rock scene of the early 90's in Claymore, and then went on to play with Slapshot(?!) and Give, is on bass.

DL

Logh - The Contractor and The Assassin

Label: Bad Taste
Year: 2003

Following up on that Mogwai post down there (i'm pointing with my index finger towards the floor [of my house]), here's another European post-rock early Nineties release for you to have on in the background as you prepare your family a hearty and delicious One Pot Vegan White Bean Shakshuka (here's the recipe..it's delicious, but I would recommend adjusting the spice to taste, i.e. adding more), or decompress from a day at the office and contemplate a crisp glass of the local lager of your choice (just kidding, I meant to say "as you shotgun your third Coors Light of the evening").
Difference between this band and Mogwai is that Logh incorporates more vocals, and does not punctuate their song dynamics with the "big riff". Instead, they opt for a more organically composed slow build that gets to "indie rock speed" and settles in. Sometimes it simmers and takes on a slow shimmering expansive tremolo, but mostly it ebbs and flows in a natural sense.
The first track has a very Retribution Gospel Choir feel to it. If that means anything to you.
Other bands you may or may not hear in the mix are; Aereogramme, Explosions In The Sky, Tortoise, and the aforementioned Mogwai.
One member spent time in heavy duty crushers Cult Of Luna, which is how they originally came across my radar.

DL

Capricorns - Ruder Forms Survive

Label: Rise Above
Year: 2005

Why let some barking dog get in the way of your good (bad) time? Capricorns don't fuck with no damn dogs, and they seem positively optimistic.
Truth be told, Capricorns will, on occasion "fuck with a damn dog" and allow some vocals into the mix, as evidenced on the third track here, which features a top dog, Eugene Robinson(of Oxbow). So, I just wanted you to be aware.
Dogs aside, Capricorns specialize in a real real potent version of instrumental heavy wallop, that works on wave after wave of gross sludgy riff after gross sludgy riff, with a math-y kind of aftertaste, set off by the occasional quiet interlude. I mean, your mom is going to say, "turn off that heavy metal". But you're mom is probably a cunt who couldn't tell the difference between American Heritage and Old Man Gloom (no offense to your mom), so she should respectfully shut the fuck up about what's going on in the sanctity of your bedroom (ever consider moving out though? For real?).

If you want something heavy, that isn't stupid, this is a good one.

DL

Mogwai - Mr. Beast

Label: [PIAS] Recordings
Year: 2006

It's all the Mogwai you want. The slow, epic, swelling builds. The regal, post rock towering riff dynamics. The pastoral longview across time and space. That famous Scottish optimism.
Sorry, I misspelled "dour self-deprecation", my mistake.
The guy from Envy sings on one of the songs. Which, by the way, is anyone else here old enough to remember when Envy was a hardcore band? Hell, how about when they were called Blind Justice? Cause, no joke, I knew them as this kinda straight edge hardcore band, and I didn't realize they had morphed into some sort of post rock something or other, but by the time they did I had checked out on Envy (super open minded guy that I am), and missed that whole thing. I would go back now and look into it...but...pretty sure there's an episode of COPS on television that I've only seen 8 times.

DL

Full Color Dream - What Do I Owe You

Label: self released
Year: 2018

Second quick hit of the evening.
This band is a three piece from Oklahoma, but beyond that, I have no clue who or what or when or why.
Four songs here that draw from post hardcore, shoegaze, and fuzzy indie rock. Three great tastes that go great together.
I do not believe the title of this ep is a question.
I'm giving it two thumbs up.
My own thumbs, mind you.

DL

Sunstroke - Second Floor

Label: self released
Year: 2018

Look, I'm sorry that I've been gone the last couple of weeks but I "had a headache" when it comes to blogging. Or maybe it was my time of the month?
I don't really know, and let's be honest with each other, I don't really know that you care.

Alas though. Here I be.
And here be a couple quick hitters to ease back into it.

First up today, a three song promo from this Philadelphia band to herald the impending release of their next full length. To wet the proverbial whistle. As it were. As you are.
Now, the moisture level of your...um, whistle, in this instance will be relative to your appreciation of Rites Of Spring styled post hardcore propulsive melodies, as funneled through a Verbal Assault-cum- Swiz bit of muscle. It's very distinctly got a 1987 D.C. edge (pun not intended), but maintains a vital contemporary energy that keeps this out of the "historical reenactment| trip.

Count this whistle as one of the wetter ones you'll encounter on this day. I'm ready!

DL