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Hails to Finland. Sweden is over rated. YES I said it. Let us not forget Sweden is responsible for both Slaughter of The Soul AND Wolverine Blues, the two biggest poxes on death metal forever after. While many of the Finland mighty did fall to the Death ‘n Roll curse, I can’t hold them responsible for the bad idea that Entombed started. So many Finnish bands go overlooked from the dawn of the death metal craze, well I hope to at least set a few people on the right path.

Belial (who by the way did unfortunately go death ‘n roll eventually), had a great little run for a couple years with a demo, a 7″ and a mlp. That 7″, “Gods Of The Pit Part II” was one of the first releases on the at the time newly minted Moribund label. Things bust out with a completely savage guitar charge on the opening track The Invocation and never let up. The old Finnish bands had a certain atmosphere that the Swedish ones never quite matched. Along with Belial, the early releases by bands like Disgrace, Necropsy, Abhorrence, and a lot more were able to bring a sort of mystical sombre feel to their metal. It makes me feel almost the same way some of the early Norwegian black metal does, although sound-wise it’s completely death metal. Swedish bands also seemed to often have some melodic underpinnings whereas more often than not Finnish bands of the same era were just dealing in full on brutality. Absolutely forgotten classic this one is.

Really, one of the biggest mistakes that Greg Ginn has made in his 30+ years of SST, is ever letting The Dicks “Kill From The Heart” go out of print. This is not only one of the best releases the label ever saw, but one of the best rock lps ever to come from Texas. It’s got that drunk sweaty swagger that riffers like ZZ Top had, or pscyhe punks like the 13th Floor Elevators could show off, but it has its own context. So while the sun-baked twang of “Pigs Run Wild” is Texan in tradition, it took a bunch of left leaning, queer punks to play it just like this. For the record, they play the fuck out of it. It’s criminal this album isn’t available to the masses ON ANY FORMAT, and that it isn’t mentioned nearly as much as other greats of the day, many of which it outclasses.When the album opens with Anti Klan Pt. 1, there’s echoes of “You’re Gonna Miss Me” surging through it, but with a completely new sentiment in the lyrics. Disgust at their surroundings. Dicks vs. The World. This record is great cruising tunes (and I mean that both if you’re just out for a springtime drive, or you know… if you’re cruising). I caught the Dicks in Austin in 2006 and they were still pretty great.Peep the sweet condition this copy is in. For whatever reason, whenever you can find this lp it’s always hammered with ring wear and bashed corners. A copy in sweet condition like this with shrink still covering most of it is pretty rare.

What to say… a collection of invoices… more Brainwashed Youth songs than Integrity… the autographs and photos. Hilarious.

Disclose was a band that will probably be remembered more for their fetishizing of aesthetic and sound than any tunes they actually wrote. They really defined the modern noize-beat style along with Gloom and others that so many misguided myspace crusters try to emulate now. Their records celebrated genre conventions and the way they could define a band. Each new release (and there were more than I care to count) took influences from spikey jacket message heavy hardcore/punk that came from the UK, Sweden, Finland, Brazil, Japan, and then shot it through the meat grinder of founding member Kawakami’s hellish guitar sound and growled vocals.Someone, like maybe Stuart Schrader, could write a term paper on what Disclose means in the grand scheme of punk, the way their releases were in a way DISposable… the way they were paying tribute to the most minute details but at the same time putting their own stamp on everything… it might be post modern. Like Quentin Tarantino. But I’m not totally qualified for that kind of a write up, and that’s okay.Whatever the relative ups and downs of the Disclose legacy, Nightmare or Reality to me is their most essential release, or at least the best introduction to them. Mainly because it’s extremely high energy and heavy. There’s good song variety, that sizzling guitar sound, and pounding meaty drums. It opens with Fear of the Nuclear Age exactly like you expect, sounding structurally like an outtake from Why? but with a lot of added fuzz and Kawaikami’s very Japanese delivery. For a “rawpunk” band this record actually has a highly layered sound. There are at least 3 guitar tracks, possibly more, the drums are well recorded and not at all pots and pans sounding, the bass manages to actually have its own sound in the mix, and the solos are either double tracked, or played through an octave pedal. They manage to cut through in a very unique and somehow more over the top way than almost any other solos I’ve heard on this sort of record. Check out the solos after the break in Future Extinction. Sounds like it could be an octave pedal and doubled solos there. Wild stuff.Kawakami died in his sleep almost two years ago, and I know for a lot of people there’s still a gaping hole left in his absence.

I’m backdating this as a Metal Monday posting but it’s really like Thursday here…

I found a nice bunch of death metal demos here. A couple of serious classic status.  I just finished recording a death metal record for my friend and so I’ve been really brutally oriented lately. Anyway here’s a list of the good shit; alphabetically:

• Crematory “Wrath From The Unknown” cs (1991):
  • Crematory were a lesser band in the Swedish cannon, managing one mlp and a few demo tapes over a couple years, Wrath From the Unknown being the 3rd of 4 demos. They never quite distinguished themselves from some of the bigger bands, but they played the Swedish style of DM quite well and some of them went on to be in lineups of Regurgitate, Afflicted, and Nasum.  I generally feel like this is their best release, outclassing the Denial mlp a bit and being the best of their demos as well.
• Dismember “Reborn in Blasphemy” cs (1990):
  • Ah Dismember, my favorite of the Swedes. Their simple brutality colored with dark melodies is fully-formed for the first time on this tape which basically serves as a teaser for their debut lp “Like An Ever-Flowing Stream”. Their two previous demos, though good, don’t really show the Dismember sound as many of those songs sort of became shared songs with Carnage. So when this demo kicks off with the band’s theme song Dismembered, it must have shocked a few people. It’s a beautiful and sinister melody that plays over the detuned chords. An instant classic.
• Morpheus - “Accelerated Decrepitude” cs 1991:
  • The only non-Swedes on the list here, Morpheus (later becoming Morpheus Descends) were a brutal New York based band, that still haven’t quite got their due (IMO). This is their first demo, which was also issued as a double 7″ on Seraphic Decay under a different title (”Adipocere”). I’ve heard these dudes were serious about their drug consumption, and took to smoking dust in graveyards while listening to Soulside Journey on a boombox. That should give you an idea what to expect from this musically.
• Nihilist - “Only Shreds Remain” cs (1989):
  • As you might know, Nihilist is the band that eventually became Entombed, and about half the songs on Entombed’s debut lp “Left Hand Path” come from Nihilist’s demo recordings. Only Shreds remain contains two songs later to be re-recorded for this album (”Abnormally Deceased” and “Revel In Flesh), as well as the exclusive “True Face Of Evil”. Similar to Reborn In Blasphemy, this is the first Nihilist tape to really have the full formed Nihilist/Entombed sound. Their previous tape almost sounded like a more detuned Kreator, but here is the first appearance of LG Petrov’s signature death growl.

Mecht Mensch - “Acceptance” 7″

Here’s some ripshit, 2nd rate but still GREAT early 80’s USHC.  I’ve always dug this 7″ and sadly didn’t buy a copy when it wasn’t worth nothing to nobody. Mecht Mensch released a demo or two (one is a split with the Tar Babies) before they unleashed this little slab. It strikes me as a less severe take on the Die Kruezen lp. Still this is totally psychotic stuff for the early 80s, right up there with United Mutation and the like.

Opening with the title track, you hear stings of a dissonant guitar chord which continues through the song, almost reminding me of No Trend, but also a lot like Die Kruezen. The drums hammer along in classic hardcore fashion and the singer spits it like it’s ‘82 and he’s just waiting for his big chance to open the local Necros show which gives everything a nice tension. It’s not a totally smooth gelling between guitarist and singer, but that makes it better. When the chorus hits things get mean with some really guttural screaming for ‘82/’83, the guitar here takes a descending Ginn style pattern as the drums get a little slower before charging ahead again. “Grinder” starts with a creepy open chord section that kind of makes me think of zombies in a slam pit. The hardcore part comes next, but the slow zombie mosh part is what I like, and what you as a listener remember. When it kicks back in there’s a great reverbed dive-bomb that sounds like a motorcycle engine. Total creep jamming. Land of the Brave has a Dischargy flavor especially with the drummer taking it in the “No TV Sketch” direction. A bit standard compared to the first two songs but a good way to close the side.

Funny I mentioned zombies already because side b opens with a classic 80’s style dirge, entitled “Zombie”. This one’s got all the shit you expect: a crawling pace, tasty reverb effects, growling and moaning. I’ve always thought this was a great one and it’s my favorite cut on the record. Total teenage obnoxiousness proto-noise rock. Speaking of noise-rock… the producer/engineer on this record is none other than Butch Vig. Maybe you’ve heard his band Garbage? Or perhaps you know his work on the albums Nevermind and Siamese Dream. Jimmy Chamberlains drumming notwithstanding, I like this 7″ better than either of those. 

“Whats Right” finishes the record, a bit more standard hardcore, with a little bit of rock soloing even (but just a little). Maybe they should have closed with Zombie, still this is a cool track, the looseness and bad recording almost make it Venom-ish, but not quite. 

Anyway if someone wants to trade this EP, look my way because I actually would really like a copy.  

PS - I’m selling some (mostly) newer records on ebay, you can probably pick something up cheap that you missed the first time around. Lots of BARGAINS.

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Rikk Agnew is the Orange County Hardcore’s original journeyman guitar player, doing time on key recordings by The Adolescents, D.I., Christian Death, and Social Distortion (I think this was brief). The 80’s beachpunk sound owes more to him than arguably anybody else, and at his peak in the early 80’s he tried going solo, cutting the album “All By Myself”.

The opening cut “OC Life” was later re-recorded by D.I. when Agnew was playing with them, but to me this is the superior version, and one of the great Socal punk lp openers. The song is a condemnation of the yuppie culture surrounding the lower portions of California in the early 80s, with the chorus “OC life is not the life for me/stupid little girls/and egotistical boys” set to Agnew’s patented mid-paced surf punk riffs and overlaid with major-key harmonies. Agnew delivers a clean, mostly on-key, vocal that sounds like a more grown up/mature Tony Cadena from the original Adolescents lp. There’s some smooth backing keyboards to accent things as well, and its clear that even though it’s a punk lp Agnew wasn’t afraid to focus his pop sensibilities more than ever before. When the second song, “10″ kicks in with its prominent keyboard stings, it cements what OC Life had already suggested. However, despite the new wave coloring in some passages most of the riffs could fit in with the early Adolescents material, they’ve just had a couple extra coats of sheen applied here; and why not? At the core of most of Agnew’s songs there is a simple Beach Boys type pop-sensibility, it make sense to emphasize it on his solo debut. What are solo records for, if not self indulgence?

How poppy does it get? Check out the song “Everyday” a sugar coated love song, that despite the ridiculously bad love song lyrics, has a great little chorus. With a different kind of production and a publicist I think it could have charted in the 80s. Maybe it could have been sold to a different singer?

I have to admit, I’m personally fascinated and drawn to solo works by people who are previously known as ensemble players. I think there’s something special about hearing what someone can do entirely on their own, especially when they’re used to relying on others. What they focus on in the song writing, what mistakes they make, and what off the wall triumphs come out of their experiments. All By Myself, like most solo lps is uneven to be sure, but it’s a great look into one man’s interests and tastes at a certain point in time. Here those happen to be epic skate punk ragers with echos of Phil Spector style bombast, and a hint of the darkness.

All By Myself has gone in and out of print over the years on Frontier records, but the best way to tell an original pressing is to look for the lyric insert, and to check that the back of the sleeve doesn’t have a printed barcode. This one seems to fit that criteria so bid away.