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More Japancore annihilation for you today. Warhead - Drive It In Your Headis probably their most hard to find release, at least stateside. It’s also not necessarily as well liked as their first 2 7″s which are much more high speed and thrashy. Drive It In Your Head works a much more mid paced rockin’ tempo through the tunes but, with the same power drill guitar sound and screaming bloody hell vocals.

Getsuka bursts open with a machine gun style drum fill that starts to lock into a kind of groove back and forth across the toms. Even though it’s a break from the high speed stuff they’d done up to this point, the drumming itself is still actually quite fast, it just doesn’t take the form of a straight beat. Bass and then guitar start to swell over it and then you get the psychotic vocals. They pretty much sound the way the singer of Warhead looked when I saw them in the US in 2006. He had a mohawk, no teeth, and the same clothes at all the shows I saw them at (these were a few weeks apart). A serious lifer. His vocals shred with a kind of highish rasp, some hardcore singers really just end up talking in a scary voice, but this dude is belting it the fuck out. Every muscle on his body has got to be tightening up and as for his actual vocal chords, I can only imagine they look ravaged by machine-gun fire.

Face Crisis [???] continues with the pattern set up on the first song, throbbing bass, heavy drums, and guitars and vocals spiraling close to the edge of total collapse. In some ways I guess this all sounds more modern Japanese than the earlier Warhead stuff, but it’s still too unpredictable and wild to blend in with the crowd over there (like some of the lesser Burning Spirits style groups).

The last track Nichitai is basically some kind of noise-scape built on a cascading drum swell, random blasts of feedback and string noise from the guitars, screeching mic feedback, and wordless screams. This is probably the kind of thing you’d expect from some harsh noisers and at first it does seem like a bit of a throw-away, but it still holds onto the same intensity and broken up chaos of the two more traditional “song” offerings. All around a good way to punctuate the first two songs.

Love the cover on this one with the fighting wolves too. Very noble.

Wondering the best way to tell me happy Valentines day? Buy this and send it to me. Also in a seperate box send a couple of those Resses peanut butter hearts. I think there’s a between a 6 and 24 tests of all the first year of Dischord 7″s. Quad digits on this one or I’ll eat my hat. My favorite HC 7″ ever pretty much.

Amebix - Winter

The Amebix are playing in Providence RI this weekend. I’m pretty psyched although I’m bummed I can’t attend with my pal DFJ. When I say the Amebix are playing, what I mean is the singer (THE BARON!)  and a bunch of scabs, but I think they will actually be pretty cool. Reviews so far have been positive so far, and the setlist reports are promising.

The other night we were driving around listening to the Amebix singles/eps collection and remarking how utterly bizarre of a band they are. I’ve posted about this before, but I guess I’m just getting amped up for the gig on Friday… You see their patches and shirts adorning teens, but there’s nothing straight forward about their sound, it’s not terribly accessible. They’re not ever very fast (which is generally what one would expect from a ‘landmark’ punk band). They employ prominent keyboards at times, and often work a lot of industrial and metal textures into their sound. In short they’re extremely atypical for any style, but especially for beginner level punk.

So, despite being beloved by spiked punkers the world around, the two bands I’m most reminded of on the Winter single are Joy Division and Killing Joke. In the title track, the circular, tribal sounding rhythms, clash with the cold, white noise guitar, and the propulsive, high note bass guitar. It really suggests nothing so much as a monstrous jam between Stephen Morris, Peter Hook, Geordie Walker, and some kind of transiant maniac on the vocals. Winter is a beautiful song in how bleak and churning it is, and well titled at that. It’s hypnotic and highly atmospheric, in some ways because of this, and the contrast of the harsh rasping style vocals, it prefigures a lot of 90’s/00’s black metal. Don’t be mistaken though, The Amebix, no matter how many bands they inspired are their own island to me.

The B-Side, The Beginning of the End, opens with a riff that’s basically Killing Joke’s “The Wait”, transposed in a lower key. Actually the whole song isn’t much more than a variation on “The Wait”, but with your standard anarcho shouts. Honestly, I wish half the bands that name the Amebix as a major influence could get in the ball park of how good this one is. Never mind that it’s barely even their song, they make it an Amebix song by the way they play it and the way it’s mixed. The drums are pushed back into the distance like rolls of thunder, the guitars are little more than sheets of steel grinding against each other, and the vocals come from a place of dark desperation.  Some of the best apocalypse rock ever made.

 The sleeve is a nice fold out that matches the vibe of the music so well, and it’s of course on Spiderleg recs (SDL 010).

Dropdead/Crossed Out split ep. One of the gasps of greatness from the original power violence wave, and one to foreshadow awful 2nd wave trends. For one this is a 5″. The funniest looking, worst sounding format there is. For another it’s a three-way label split. YIKES.

Regardless this is some of the finest material by both bands. Actually in the case of Crossed Out its some of the ONLY material. Kind of a mind melter, but the Crossed Out 7″ was recorded in September of ‘91, this split in February of ‘92, and their second split in October of ‘92. In other words the output of one of the most influential bands in extreme music was all laid to tape at various intervals over about 400 days (unless you count the demo where they’re not really full formed yet). One of the more striking aspects of this Crossed Out material is that it’s much more muddy and lofi than their previous 7″. It’s full of tape hiss, and has almost no treble whatsoever. The vocals are high in the mix and distorted as hell, with the guitar and bass making a thick wall of mud, and the drums sounding like a cave man beating on animal skins. 

Dropdead has been a little more prolific but I’m pretty sure their tracks on here are still in the live set. About 2 minutes and change of high speed, lo-fi crusty grind core… or power violence, or whatever, and it sounds pretty much how they’ve sounded ever since. A blitzkrieg of simple speedy riffs, shrieking throat ripping vocals, and a collision of d-beatish parts, and SSD at double speed. It’s great how much the original hardcore paradigm is just simplified and compacted into the simplest most streamlined form here. Yea there’s bands that have taken it further or gone more extreme, but this is still fully recognizable as hardcore, even though every track runs like 15 or 20 seconds. Only thing that’s kind of annoying - it’s impossible for me to play this side without it starting a couple seconds into the first song, but I’m sure people have been griping about that since it came out.  

Brian if you’re reading this please post about smoking pot and playing sonic the hedgehog with Crossed Out on tour w/ Dropdead. That would be sweet. Only 1000 made ever, and a handful of 7″ versions in the form of test pressings.  

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Awww jeez - another leave of absence. Here we are again though ready to roll out this hits in the frozen hellish tundra of Boston MA. Today - feast upon Slaughter’s blasphemous “Strappado” lp. If you are a poser you might confuse this fine album with the work of that late 80’s hair metal band of the same name. I’ll save you the embarrassment dude. Canada’s Slaughter were one of the earlier metal bands to really push some of their tempos to the extreme. Proto-death metal, etc. Honestly they’re a little tame by our standards today, kind of in the same way Venom can be for the uninitiated, a little more cartoony, a little less serious, and with rudimentary recording and playing.

For me this makes Slaughter all the better. When the yell of “make way for the Incinerator” hits, and the worlds stupidest drum beat kicks in, it’s impossible not to laugh a little, but as you may know, I’m of the belief that primitive delivery often suits metal better than the more well known approach of precision and technical proficiency. Slaughter actually has kind of a punky vibe, and this song is a perfect example. Basic riffs, basic drumming, and simple lyrics, but they come together for the kind of low brow fun I love. Slaughter kind of sounds like a less grinding Repulsion to me, maybe less Slayer and more Venom in the mix. Although a lot of these songs were several years old and had been on a number of demos, Strappado didn’t actually hit the street til ‘87 on Diabolic Force Records. A little late in the game for songs like Fuck Of Death, or Tales Of The Macabre. By that I only mean that the metal masses had already moved onto stuff that was more extreme and over the top, I just think the timing was wrong for a big breakthrough.

 That said this is one of the greats, and the only album Slaughter actually managed in their time, though I highly recommend you download all of their demos too.

State - No Illusions

I mentioned this one last week in the Ron Asheton post, and now here it is for sale. The State - “No Illusions” 7″ on their own Statement Records. This is definitely one of the 10 best USHC 7″s from ‘80-’83 in my book. State were from Ann Arbor Michigan, not quite the hotbed for loud fast noize that Detroit is known to be, Ann Arbor was still the town The Stooges called home, and as such at least has a place in the formative history of punk and all rock music thereafter.

No Illusions opens with a blast of over-driven guitar muscle and plays like a more rocked out, but no less hardcore version of Discharge’s “State Control” (the song State took their name from, and which they were also known to cover). The vocals are delivered in a hard rasping style that reminds me of Rollins circa the SOA 7″, all throaty snarling. The guitar playing is fast as any hardcore band of the day, but works in the kind of loose ragged leads that the Stooges helped to pioneer, and plenty of other Michigan based groups fleshed out. Esentially that’s what makes this work. Hear Nothing era Discharge with thuggish American rock n’ roll undertones. New Right is a speedy Reagan era protest, while Attention has a pretty good call response thing going on and seems to focus on the military. Hardline, which closes out the a-side is one of the earlier instances of militant straight edge type sentiments, although these guys didn’t really stick to it in the end (no surprise).

The title track, which is the most rock out on the whole record opens up side b, and it has a pretty standard anti-religion message, which is well summed up in its title. Police State is another fast one, with a catchy breakdown. The lyrics are pretty self explanatory. Girl Violence closes the second side with a tale of getting beat up by a girl. There’s a really loose slow part that gets followed by a good thrash part in this one.

As far as USHC circa ‘83, you could totally sum it up with this record. It’s a perfect archetype. Muscular, lean, thuggish, and ut of control. Everything you need. This is a sharp looking copy too, with the fold out insert and a clean looking sleeve. Absolutely worth your money. By the way if you want to get the bargain version, there’s an ace reissue on Havoc Records that has a slightly modified sleeve, and a minorly different mix (seriously hardly noticeable, it’s not a shitty modern sounding remix). You can pick these up for a whopping $5 almost anywhere, and if you’ve never heard this record I absolutely demand you make the effort.

State started playing again a few years ago and has actually issued several records recently that are pretty solidly in the tradition of No Illusions. They did one lp in ‘86 that was a brief reunion attempt but despite its cool looking cover, it’s mostly weak goth tunes. There’s also a CD on the shitty Grand Theft Audio that you should download containing No Illusions, a demo session circa ‘83, an earlier demo session featuring Ron Asheton on guitar, and song live cuts. I actually played on the same bill as the State a couple years ago in Boston and they were relentless and awesome. Totally worth it if you get the chance.

A couple years ago I was flipping through the 7″ bins at Amoeba on Haight st. and yanked out Ice 9’s 1979 KBD shocker, “Out Out Out” b/w “Revolting Mess” // “27.3″. Marked at $5 it was clear that someone had screwed up and thought they were pricing a record by the mid-90s Rorschach influenced band (of “split-with-Charles-Bronson” fame). Ice 9 were a pretty good rockin’ punk band imortalized (ha!) on one of the KBD comps (was it 9? 11?) from Portland OR. One of the members, Count Vertigo, also had a solo record I think. I’m not a huge KBD’r and so I fuck up on some info like this. Because there’s a number of variations of the record, I ended up emailing the people at Discourage records, Portland’s main squeeze for rare punk/HC/garage/rock and/or roll/etc. The following is excerpts from 3 emails that I got from Abe, one of the dudes who keeps Discourage running smooth.

Hey Chris,

There are 3-5 variations(depending on how you count them) of original circa 1979-80 band made picture sleeves that we know of.

1st edition were screen printed on white paper.  We’ve seen blue ink, green ink, and a blue-green ink.  When they either ran out of or got tired of screening these they had a print shop run more off (several hundred i’m sure).  These 2nd edition are litho printed, not silk screen, and are done with black print on green paper or yellow paper.  We’ve seen green more than yellow.  About ten years ago when we got in touch with the band we got i guess 25-45(?) 2nd ed. green picture sleeves and perhaps 5-10 yellow sleeves. 

We also got maybe 50(?) sleeveless copies for which we xeroxed new sleeves in the fashion of the 2nd edition (green, yellow, and also blue paper i think).  These are new xerox made copies and have always been sold as so (for about 1/3 the price of the sleeved copies).  You can tell the difference because xerox ink sits on the surface of the paper.  It makes a crack line when folded and the ink doesn’t bleed through the paper (isn’t really visible from the blank side).  If yours is a white paper screen printed copy you are a lucky guy.  If you think it is a 2nd edition and you don’t want to crease it to find out then you can try scratching a little of the black ink.  If any flakes off then it is one of our xerox made covers.  If not then lucky you again. Also look on the back and see if some of the printed ink has bleed through the paper.  Finally, most re-issue sleeve copies also either have our rubber-stamp or some hand writing stating that they are a xerox on the back.  Hope that helps.  Just out of curiosity please let me know what you found.  -Abe

After a little bit of clarifying we determined that I’d picked up one of the 2nd edition copies from the original batch circa 1980. This also seems to be what’s for sale here. Out Out Out is a great A-side cut, super nervy the way they all sing “Out Out Out” together. As if to prove my affinity for juvenile hardcore though, I ended up trading this record for a copy of the Together comp w/ all the inserts. I’m sure I’d get kicked right off the bus to the collector scum convention, but that’s just how I roll.

“How many Mondays that serve me with evil, I know not. / My empires has no limits.”

Metal Monday vol. 45

I’m trying to get back to numbering these posts, and though “I know not” for sure, I’m pretty sure we’re on 45 here.

Today, an Earache classic: Godflesh’s - Street Cleaner. You probably know this album even if you’re not much of a metal fan, because it’s been adopted by hardcore, indie rock, and post rock, fans alike as an acceptable piece of kill your mother type music on a label best known for being the original home of bands like Napalm Death, Entombed, and Carcass. Unlike those groups though, Godflesh is a band beloved by idiots who think a record can only have artistic merit if it involves brooding things like… questioning oneself and other such difficult ruminations on humanity. This is no fault of Godflesh (on this album Justin Broadrick and GC Green, with some additional contributions from Paul Neville), but it gets kind of rough when one record is appropriated by so many bespectacled dorks and hateful mortains. Of course to make up for it, my roommate who spends 2-3 hours of the day at the gym, and wakes up everyday at 6 AM, wears a Godflesh sweatshirt while he watches the discovery channel and eats chicken. So yea, there are cool people that like this cool band too. But enough about that. What’s the appeal?

Street Cleaner is basically a post death metal version of Big Black “Songs About Fucking” +  Swans “Cop”. Mechanical drum machine smashing, guitars that sound like a steel mill, deep dark reverb drenching everything, and bleak, miserable lyrics. The vocal approach is deep and guttural, and that, combined with Broaderick’s ex-Napalm Death status, was enough to get them a featured player status on some of the major Earache tours of the time (I think the US version of the Grindcrusher tour). Maybe because of that, Godflesh never made another album like Streetcleaner, preferring to experiment with, ahem, “electronica”, “shoegaze” and “dub” elements on most of their subsequent recordings. Here though they’re all monolithic, monochromatic focus. Each track works a slow crawling tempo against a wall of guitars. Sometimes there’s notes, and sometimes there’s just feedback and scraping noises. It’s oppressive, and harsh, like a prison planet run by robots in the horrible and inevitable future. For all the metal bands that refer to themselves as harsh or cold, I don’t think there’s any colder than Godflesh on this lp. They’re a lifeless, emotionless void that will envelope you. It’s a simple formula, but it can’t be stated enough how perfectly they do it here.

• YOUTH OF TODAY - Live In Buffalo from Larry Ransom via Double Cross.
• CC probably craps on this record, but I always had a soft spot for these two Circle Storm songs via 7 Inch Punk.*
• http://killfromtheheart.com has seen its first update in like 3 or 4 years. This has been an invaluable HC resource on the web since it appeared in 2001. Chris (the guy who maintains it) needs help working out some web issues, if anyone out there is able to lend a hand they really should.
• Zen and the Art of Face Punching has a good piece on the Another Wall 7″, and digs up an unreleased track from the session.

* = a note from CC: I actually like the Circle Storm 7″ better than the 2nd Chain 7″, I think due in part to the fact the songs were written/recorded before the 2nd Chain 7″. The vocals aren’t great but I do have this on my ipod. Also yesterday I realized I have the Statue “Something to Say” demo on my ipod. Not sure why? The Circle Storm 12″ sucks though (for the record). Unlistenable.

Early in my hardcore career I heard Infest’s classic Slave and Mankind records and of course fell in love. It was soon thereafter that I heard the legend of the lost Infest lp that was supposedly recorded in 1995, and had languished, unfinished, and unreleased ever-since. It seemed to good too be true, but there was a real-audio file (HA!) of one song from it (Nazi Killer) posted on the Deep Six website for ages. Still nothing could prepare me for the fateful week in August of 2002 when an album titled “Infest - No Man’s Slave” showed up in the weekly Ebullition distro update. When I finally got my paws on No Mans Slave I couldn’t even believe it. The wait was over.

I remember there were copies at a show in New Jersey (courtesy the Dead Alive Distro - Jon Collins R.I.P.) that Think I Care was playing (back when they had some Infest in their sound) and I found the whole band standing in a circle with a copy of the lp. I bought one and took it home to my parent’s empty house in Virginia the next day, cued up my Dad’s stereo, and blasted it about 6 times straight through, which wasn’t too hard, because the running time is less than 15 minutes. No Man’s Slave is a funny record in some ways. Like the other Infest records it has a picture on the cover that’s been used on other records before, and after. The live photos in it are all of a late 80’s/early 90’s vintage (Joe Denunzio decked out in a sick Larm shirt). Most of the songs have 2 different titles. One on the back cover, and a different one in the lyric sheet. I still haven’t figured out the reason for any of this other than, “it’s Infest”. But that aside, this is simply one of the best “comeback” lps ever made in hardcore, or otherwise.

In the Infest cannon it has its own place too. For one the production sound is updated a bit, but doesn’t lose what made the band great to begin with. It still uses just one guitar and one bass track (like the Mankind 7″), presumably run direct, accounting for how saturated they sound. They’re a bit crisper than earlier recordings, but it gives the record a certain sharpness that Infest never had before. Gone is the original rhythm section, with Visual Discrimination journeyman R.D. Davies holding down the drums quite swimmingly, and founder Matt Domino doing the bass tracks Dale Nixon style. Joe Denunzio returns essentially the same, although some of his lyrics like “Sick Man” and “Contact” get into darker waters than previous releases. Many of the songs are the shortest, most direct numbers Infest ever dreamed up, in some ways answering the extremities other bands had gone to since they dissolved.

All of this is part of what makes No Man’s Slave its own unique entity. While it’s true to the classic Infest releases, it keeps its own flavor which helps it to be more than just a reunion record, and of course has kept it in my rotation since it dropped 7 years back (well 6 and a half). Some of these tracks have even become, ehh I guess you could say, fan favorites. I’ve seen cover renditions of Cold Inside and  Peace Test more than once in recent years. Even heard of some band named after the album. Of course I don’t think you could dispute the finest track being My World My Way. Originally it was played as a slow Melvins/Gore style instrumental on Infest’s 1991 KXLU radio appearance (later released as a live lp on Deep 6), but it takes on a new level of power on No Man’s Slave, with Denunzio adding a touch of lyrical accompaniment. This is probably the longest Infest song ever, and the perfect way to end their final record. 5 minutes of crunching sludge, and long sustained notes.

When this record came out there were supposedly 100 copies on blue for mailorder and 100 band only copies on yellow. I’ve never seen a yellow one, but I’ve been assured they exist. Anyway this thing has been getting more and more expensive over the years. Glad I have one.