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Despite the fact that I just wrote up the Ringworm lp last week, I’m doing an Integrity entry today, which may do much to further erode my credibility, but seriously fuck it. This one’s rare and also, I love it. Integrity and Ringworm being arguably the only cool “metal-core” bands ever (despite certain members of the former), in a court of law, this might be exhibit-A. Humanity Is The Devil (on pink vinyl). Despite all the baggage that this band carries, all the bad blood and ripped off mail orders, it all washes away when you play this.

At certain times I’ve felt this was the best Integrity record, which is funny because it’s a 10″, and we all know it’s one of the stupidest formats known to man. But here it is adorned with one of the only legitimately good Pushead covers of the 90’s (man I wish this was a 12″ EP so bad) and featuring a lean 6 songs with crisp production, each delivering maximum payload. It opens with what some have termed the best 1-2-punch of the 90’s.  “Vocal Test” into “Hollow”.  I’m sure many will disagree. Well if you do, to paraphrase Raybeez, this mic is your mic, this stage is your stage… and thus implicitly, this blog is your blog. Vocal Test is one of the most absurd intros ever. Literally it’s just a hard riff with wordless screams laid over it. It sounds so stupid when describing it, but whether you’re 16 or 27 it’s a fist-pumper when you’re hearing it. The segue into “Hollow” is a distorted bass line reminiscent of the Cro-Mags glory days before a snare roll leads the charge for the rest of the band. As the riff descends the vocal delivery builds to an urgent chorus which features guest vocals by Ringworm’s Human Furnace, who has never sounded better than this. When the break down comes, it’s huge. Stadium huge, which is only emphasized by Aaron Melnick’s vintage Hammett-style soloing. It pulls on you from inside your chest and lifts you up, or maybe pulls your down depending on how you’re looking at things. There are a few riffs/parts in songs that have given me goose bumps every time. For years this has been one.

Psychological Warfare brings back the slow crawl of Those Who Fear Tomorrow complete with “Micha” style plucky bass intro. It fits well after the up tempo openers. I think it (as well as the track Abraxas Annihilation) was written by Frank Novinec (formerly of Ringworm), and I also think these were his first creative contribution to the band. Both bring to mind the older Integrity sound but with more precision and less meandering.The lp closes with “Jagged Visions Of My True Destiny…” a contemplative hardcore approximation of Metallica’s “Fade To Black” that works the same kind of clean guitar intro and then builds it into a thick wall of anger and melancholy with of course, liberal guitar soloing. It may not be for everyone, but it’s definitely for me.

Copies of this record on pink vinyl are supposedly limited to less than 100 as it was a mis-press, however, I’ve seen a considerable amount in my life and would guess there’s at least 200. Nonetheless it’s the version of “Humanity” to have. The insert inside it has a photo of the band from their brief lineup with Bob Zeiger as drummer. He’s wearing an SDS shirt which is kind of cool, and Integrity were definitely making reference to various Japanese hardcore bands in interview material and whatnot at this point. Somewhere I have an ad for a G.I.S.M. tribute that Dwid was going go put out, hmmm. Tomorrow I promise not to write about a record from 1990’s Cleveland.

A killer. A crusher. The Worm… The Promise. This is one of the most classic records of the 90’s, standing the test of time twice over as far as I’m concerned. Ringworm’s debut lp “The Promise” is also quite notorious for sounding like total crap. The fact that it has overcome that infamy and is known firstly as just a great metallic hardcore album is quite a feat.

Ringworm released their demo in ‘91 (I think), and it has quite a bit to offer as basically a hybrid of Entombed, Cro Mags, Raw Deal, and Slayer. It’s pretty thick sounding not to mention one of the first recordings of its kind, and it prompted a “deal” and a little bit of cash from Incision Records to do an lp. According to liner notes in the reissue, the first day was spent dicking off, drunk as hell, and the next day the band realized they had nothing usable recorded. A couple days and a rush job later they had The Promise. There’s nothing wrong with it really, but it’s kind of thin sounding, and some of the rerecorded songs sound tighter on their demo. This is also part of the charm, it’s a punk band playing metal loose and simple and if it was different it wouldn’t quite be the same.

The Promise opens with a soundbite of some dude saying “There is no God” and then a quick guitar rev into the “Numb” intro. If Warzone were evil instead of good, maybe this is what their intro would have sounded like. It has some speedy tremolo picking and then eventually goes into a double bass-heavy chugging part. When the intro ends the band rip into Blind To Faith, a pretty straight forward anti-religion number and an all time classic. It cuts with a choppy crunch and thud like Raw Deal’s Tell Tale but again with more of an evil death metal type riffing style. The vocals come with an instantly recognizable and unique style and delivery, I’d expect nothing less from a singer known as The Human Furnace (seriously), and he really proves why he has that name because he spits straight FIRE. The album works its way through a few more tracks peppering the attack with some blast beats and single note tremolo stuff to enhance the death metal vibe, before coming to the title track and centerpiece of the album.

The Promise (the song) works a heavy minor key progression that almost borders on an actual melody. Vocals get some additional echo treatment which is surprisingly sparse for an album that’s this “metal”. A positively murderous breakdown ties this one up nice and neat with a good skank beat. The B-side takes off with Death Do Us Part which opens with a bass line worthy of a Breakdown demo but within about 20 seconds finds itself in Repulsion territory although the blasting isn’t quite as fast. Consumed is a 5 second jam which there’s also a version of on one of the Bleaurgh comps. It goes right into 13 Knots, a Ringworm fan fav. If you weren’t sure where the band stand on religion, I believe the proclamation in this song of “I have touched the face of God/and it is cold and it is dead” should help you along in figuring it out.

The original pressing of this record is on Orange vinyl as seen here, probably out of 1,000. I have seen a couple of black copies, and I recollect that the band seemed to not know about these existing. My guess would be there was an overrun of a couple hundred covers and the label pressed the black vinyl later to fill the covers out and sent them to distributors.

One of the most claustrophobic, suffocating records I’ve ever heard is Rorschach’s “Protestant” lp. This is the one they really left the biggest mark with. It influenced a whole slew of post-metal hardcore and post hardcore bands in the 90’s. Most were bad that missed the point I think. It’s a feel bad kind of record, you don’t really throw it on when you’re going for a Saturday drive to the beach or in the morning when you’re cooking breakfast. The music here takes cues from Black Flag circa my war but filters them through 10 subsequent years of thrash and death metal leading to tremolo-picked progressions and staccato breaks that follow the same kind of putrid atonal patterns as Swingin’ Man or Forever Time. Other times find them getting slower and more contemplative. Various write-ups of the band try to liken these moments to being influenced by The Swans, I find it to be a bit of a stretch. I think maybe the more out there moments on some Melvins recordings might be a better point of reference, although the overall atmosphere of the Swans might not be a bad point of reference. This atmosphere is one of anomie and alienation in the shadow of early 90’s NYC. A feeling of overall aloneness and aimlessness. The feeling of being a small piece of an immeasurably large machine. Like I said before, Protestant is a feel bad record, and if your spirits are not already sunk, this album can do the job.

One of the most effective tools used in conveying the oppressive mood here are the screams of vocalist Charles Maggio. The tale goes that he was having serious voice problems (I assume as a result of singing in this band) at the time of the recording, and thus his voice changed drastically from the way it was on previous Rorschach releases. Here it sounds higher, less intelligible, at times even screechy. In fact if not for it being such a perfect fit to the music I can’t picture myself really liking it much at all, but I think in context it’s a perfect fit. It sounds like someone who is isolated, someone who’s sick and suffocated. The grey smog and garbage smell of New York, New York looms over this whole recording in some way that I can’t quite put my finger on. Mabye I’m projecting my own ideas onto it, but I feel like the vocal delivery is a product of that environment. It’s like hearing someone choke on the exhaust fume air and cigarette butt ground.

Protestant is dense and affecting. For such an isolated and isolating record, it also was taken to heart by a great many people in the 90’s. Pretty much the entire subsequent output of the country of Germany in that decade owes itself to this album. And of course there’s Converge, Metallica to Rorschach’s Diamondhead (save your protests, it’s an analogy). Mr. Bannon’s primary vocal attack owes as much as their guitar attack to the blueprints found in the grooves of this vinyl, and they’ve at least repaid insofar as name-checking interview moments are concerned. Still, Protestant is one of the rarest of records where the bands it influences never can have the same feel, it’s isolated even from would-be peers.

The last song on the album is Ornaments. One of the all-time best closers on any record. It creeps along with a slow picked clean guitar playing like the background music to the moment of realization in a movie. Maggio’s screams are pushed deep down into the mix so that they’re barely audible, more isolated and claustrophobic than before. The song builds to a lumbering mournful crunch, slow and deliberate, and then abruptly the tape slows down, playing at half speed for the last unsettling 20 seconds. It’s the perfect ending. Like you’re hearing the record die.

VOID LIVE @ THE 930 CLUB BOOT
So anyways, if you’ve hung around hardcore for even a minute you’ve probably heard someone expound on the virtues of Void. Void are on of the first true originals of the hardcore era. Unlike say, Black Flag or the Bad Brains, they didn’t originate via the aftershocks of 70’s punk/wave/whatever. They were influenced by the bands that came from those aftershocks, and as much by the aforementioned punk bands, as by more rock/metal acts like the ever popular Motorhead and Venom (how often do I ref these 2 on here…). They began sometime in 1981, as this is when their first demo (basically a 20+ song live in studio slop-fest), is dated, but they didn’t rise to prominence until arguably the height of the HC era, 1982/83. This prominence came via a handful of appearances on comps like Flex Your Head and Charred Remains, and of course their split LP with fellow DC area band The Faith. But part of their infamy back in their day was the result of their now legendary live performances, which are sadly in this day and age, very under represented on tape and video trade lists.

I wouldn’t argue that Void’s studio material is irrelevant. On the contrary their split with The Faith is one of the most important documents of its time. With so many bands in DC and surrounding areas content to mimic the Minor Threat formula, and mining the same few records for inspiration, Void were obviously one of the few to find their own way. Singer John Weifenbach growls, screams, and grunts his way through esoteric adolescent gore fantasies and LSD-magnified rage-outs. The rhythm section of Chris Stover and Sean Finnigan (R.I.P.) wobbles and swerves its way in and out of the tempos that anyone else would play with pedestrian indifference. Guitar player Bubba Dupree mangles his chorus tinged metal influenced playing with violent abandon. His amp bleeds high squealing feedback, strings bend disgustingly out of tune, and the sounds bash and crash together in and out of time to produce a sound that never had an equal then or now. Everyone knows this though. All that’s been written of Void has said as much, and now more than ever they get their due from people outside the punk scene as well as in it. But what frequently is hard to account for is the live shows discussed in various hardcore oral histories, which are said to be the very same qualities amplified a hundred times over. More chaos. More feedback. More hard-core.

There’s only one live Void live bootleg that I know of: this is it. I have a tape and video of 2 other late period live sets, but this one seems to be from their peak. After the 12″ had come out, but when they had just started testing out new songs for their misunderstood “Potion For Bad Dreams” lp. While there are no Potion songs on this bootleg, I happen to own a tape of the complete show that night, and they did play a couple. That aside though, if you’ve ever read about Void shows and wondered if it’s really as good as everyone says it was, well this answers the question. It’s obviously, a resounding yes.

Opening with the classic Who Are You it becomes obvious what the audience was in store for that night. Dupree’s guitar sounds cavernous and gigantic. Thick, saturated… like there’s an actual physical weight to the sound waves. The opening crashes of cymbal and bass accents against the guitar hit recklessly before the group hurtles into the verse. Already they’re dogging in and out of time, frantic and out of control. Feedback from the mics and instruments washes in and out, the vocals fight against any natural rhythm, and the guitar still bears down on everything fighting for total supremacy. There’s something about the live performances of some bands that just can’t be caught in the studio. It’s a different frame of mind, a different experience,  a completely different kind of energy, and for a band like Void, it’s a world of difference. When they play Ask Them Why in this set the beginning collapses into an almost formless mix of sounds before emerging back into focus at the start of the verse. Part of the mess is the sound of the music’s sound, being displaced by the movement of the band members and the audience (no doubt they’re crowding the stage). Strums and hits and squeaks move out of phase for a quarter of a second and it conveys to the listener a sense of movement and kinetic energy that I don’t think could be accurately duplicated in a recording studio, outside of essentially filling the room with a rabid audience.

Everything that makes Void a special band is amplified in these songs. I think it could actually be the definitive Void document in its unabridged form. I understand the gravity of that statement, and it’s not meant to diminish their other work in any way, but rather to emphasize how insane and out of control this performance actually sounds.

Saint Vitus - s/t lp  -  Saint Vitus - Hallow’s Victim lp  -  Saint Vitus - Walking Dead E.P.

Metal monday vol. 29:   Phase one of Saint Vitus’ career (1979-1985) will probably always be overshadowed by their second phase, the Scott “Wino” Weinrich lps (1986-1990) as he’s become something like the godfather of doom-metal and stoner-rock in his aged state. But for me the band’s original lineup has something all their own, and is worth spending just as much time and money on.

Saint Vitus began originally under the name Tyrant with the following lineup: Scott Reagers - Vocals, Dave Chandler - Guitar, Mark Adams - Bass, Armando Acosta - Drums. It’s somewhat significant that they were (I assume) named after a 70’s era Judas Priest song because I think at this point in their career Saint Vitus/Tyrant owe as much of their sound to them as they do to Black Sabbath. The only known recording under the Tyrant name is a rehearsal tape from 1979 and after that the group was silent release-wise until 1984, well after the Saint Vitus name change. Saint Vitus’ s/t lp is actually kind of weird because it’s a metal/rock album released on, at the time, one of the world’s biggest punk/hardcore labels: Greg Ginn’s SST. Of course it was released in 1984, the same year that Black Flag started stretching out their songs, and Husker Du and the Minutemen released 2XLP concept albums, so maybe it wasn’t that weird. Either way this record set up the template that their Walking Dead 12″ E.P. and Hallows Victim lp would basically follow to a T the next year.

Scott Reager’s vocals immediately stand out from the rush of thick and hazy riffing. He has a soulful, clear, mid-range delivery that instantly brings to mind the vocals of Sean Harris the vocalist on Diamond Head’s classic Lightning to the Nations lp. It’s also not far off say, Zeeb Parkes of Witchfinder General. In other words it’s a clean singing style, but you’re not going to hear Halford or Dickenson style high-notes. Some people are bothered by this unabashedly classic metal style of singing, but I think it makes a great contrast for the rough and raw music it accompanies.

Where Saint Vitus is probably most known for their later period of lumbering, slow motion tracks like Born Too Late, I Bleed Black, and their insanely down-tempo take on Black Flag’s Thirsty and Miserable, Reagers era Vitus actually plays at a pretty fast clip, again betraying their Judas Priest influence. What makes them unique is that they’re obviously influenced by the fledgling punk movement of the time, and that they’re obviously a self taught band. They break as many classic rock rules as they follow. On the song Saint Vitus, they pile on hardcore type back-up shouts for the chorus. On the title track of Hallow’s Victim, Armando Acosta utilizes a mix of straight ahead punk drumming, and the kind of choppy, broken up beats that Fear drummer Spit Stix was known to employ.

The level of wah-wah abuse realized on these recordings by guitarist Dave Chandler is completely over the top, unhinged, and psychotic. When he goes into one of these fits it’s a total deconstruction of the typical “metal solo” where precision and masturbatory skill tend to be the order of the day. Instead you get sheets of phase shifting noise and washes of fuzz as his fingers grate against the frets and strings. It sounds like a man at war with his instrument. I might even go so far as to argue that Chandler could give Greg Ginn a run for his money, at least as far as sheer brutality goes.

On the whole then, these Reagers era Vitus records play like punked out classic rock, but as played by a band that were rockers first, and let punk sounds seep into their delivery, as opposed to the other way around (which I would say is more common).

Be sure to watch out for bootlegs of all of this stuff as unscrupulous jerks from Europe continue to exploit the Saint Vitus back catalog. Easy to tell an original press of their first lp because it has embossed letters. Beyond that look for blurry and dull looking sleeves, and be wary of sealed copies.

PS. I got a bunch of good auctions ending tonight, please check them out.

Found this Die Kreuzen s/t 12″ on red vinyl. I think the red ones are a mid-80’s pressing but they’re definitely hard to come by, and of course T&G has since deleted the vinyl from their catalog.

Die Kreuzen’s s/t 12″ was a life changer for me. I hadn’t really heard a hardcore album that had so much unsettling atmosphere and creepiness, and found the tightness of everything rather disarming too. The vocals are an unearthly shriek, later copied on the first Rorschach lp, although not really with the same level of all out ferocity. The drumming rhythmic and churning, often staccato resulting in a more precise interplay between the drumming and the guitars than was common in hardcore in 1984, at others, getting lost in vengeful hardcore freak outs. The guitars buzz and ring with liberal amounts of chorus and echo applied so that they’re left sounding alien and disharmonious. It’s almost mechanical the way the band is locked into eachother. I think this is the kind of syncronized experience Ginn always strived for with Black Flag, but never quite picked the right people to execute. Not to say this is a Black Flag clone, although maybe it is the alienated small town midwest issolation version of their seedy Hollywood creepy crawl.

The sound of Die Kreuzen is just an unhealthy one. It’s feel-bad. It’s kind of the sound of someone who’s thinking too much put to music. Your mind races and spirals around and around and then gets stuck in slow motion for a minute before spiraling down again. You feel slow and stupid, suddenly you’re manic, you feel hot and dizzy and sweat, then it turns cold and your chest feels tight. It’s hard to breathe, you feel nauseous and your surroundings look dim.  They’re paranoid and intense, unearthly and almost hyper real. It’s a fever dream sucked into a chorus pedal.

Today reader I give you an original 1983 pressing of the long forgot Malefice “Overboard” E.P. You’d be forgiven for not knowing who Malefice are, though if you ask the right people, you’re sure to hear about their wild live performances and formidable stage presence when they had occasion to play the DC area in the early 80’s.

I first discovered them a few thanksgivings back, perusing the used 7″s at a store near my parent’s house in Northern Virginia. The cover had a skeleton in the DRI-guy pose, the back, had the same skeleton (who wears a leather jacket), playing from an evil looking organ (note: there is no organ on the actual record), while a few dozen other punk rock skeletons mosh and stage dive together below him. The label, DSI, I knew for releasing both United Mutation 7″s, and the pentagrams drawn various places on the release had me pretty sure this record could not suck. I must say I have wonderful instincts.

Malefice came from the ashes of another Northern Virgina band, Media Disease, who were a straight forward thrash group that often gigged with United Mutation in their formative days. Malefice took their place as partners in gigging and they played house parties and clubs together for a couple years,  at one point even sharing a drummer.  If you’ve ever heard the unreleased Void lp this is not too far from it. If you’ve ever disparaged said lp: fuck you.

Malefice isn’t quite as metallic as Void’s lost Potion of Bad Dreams, but they’re drinking from the same well. They’re a bit speedier, and the vocals are a little more unhinged, but the guitar work is also a little less flashy and more tame. You won’t find the lost Void record by picking up the Malefice 7″, but if you’re a fan of the 80’s pscyho-core style, you should dig this. If I had to pinpoint this I’d say take some Void, some UM, and a bit of Venom or maybe 7″ era Obsessed and you’re pretty close to what this sounds like.

Side A features the track Carrion which opens up with one of those chorus-drenched feedback messes that devil-punk bands like so much (see Void, Die Kreuzen, The Scam). Eventually things congeal for a slow crawling intro and then launch into the main riff, a buzzy speed metal type part with dive bombs and scrappy solos added as seasoning. The lyrics concern some vaguely occultish stuff, but the vocals are delivered total hardcore style which sounds cool and raw.  You get a pretty gratuitous solo about 3/4ths of the way through that sounds a little more wild because there’s no second guitar to back it, just the bass.

Side B has 2 tracks the first of which is Lost Sheep. Lost Sheep opens up with another tremolo style metal riff and then breaks out with a little more rockin’ type lick as the main riff, comparable to something you might hear on the first Bathory album like Necromancy or Sacrifice, again the vocals are what keeps it footed in the hardcore realm. The last song “Overboard” is the best I think. It has a pretty good descending metal-punk riff and probably the best vocal performance of the 3. The singer just does his best to totally let loose, especially in the choruses “I’m at the edge/and outta breath”. Some pretty smoking solos get laid down in this one too.

There’s 2 pressings of this 7″. This is the original 1983 edition in a folded sleeve that has lyrics on the inside. It should also have an Amoeba Man 1 page comic that advertises other releases on DSI including the ELUSIVE “Mutopia” tape comp — IF ANYONE HAS THIS TO DUB OR AN ORIGINAL TO TRADE PLEASE CONTACT ME I WILL MAKE YOU A GOOD DEAL. The second pressing comes in a glued sleeve and all copies are on blue vinyl. It’s also got an extra song from this session added to it and is much easier to find. In fact it’s not uncommon for unplayed-stock copies to turn up here and there.

After this Malefice never had another record but they did record several sessions which were comped onto an lp called Lotus Blossom in 1990 by the infamous Lost and Found. It’s packaged to look like a singular album, but it actually spans ‘82-’85  (as I recall) and is pretty similar to this E.P. Stock copies of this are findable on ebay from time to time, and are recommended. Interest in Malefice is growing so now is the time to track this  record down as it still can be had for under $30.

Malefice “Overboard” E.P.

Today’s posting comes from the induplicable M. Colin Tappe of Life’s A Rape fanzine/label, and the rock band Crime Desire (who have a new lp you should check out). Read below:In an age when all the top shelf late 80’s UK crust monsters (Sacrilege, Amebix, Axegrinder, Hellbastard, etc.) teeter around $60, I’ve been really prompted to dig deeper and check out some of the oft ignored 2nd tier bands you don’t really hear too much about as a casual OG crust enthusiast. And I stress the “casual” angle, as I’ve only really cared about this stuff for a few years now, an important point to clarify when I’m in league with such guest posters and experts in their field as Stuart Schrader, Cooch, Rettman and Westbrook. But if you’re like me and are a bit new to the UK crust game, the two auctions I’ve plucked today might be the gateway drugs which motivate you to go beyond the most notorious groups (with the hardest to find records) in that scene.

First up is the Cerebral Fix “Life Sucks and Then You Die” LP. The Accused style cover art and the board shorts might have you believe this is some wankin’ crossover, and uh, maybe it is to some extent, but if you ever wanted a way less heavy Bolt Thrower without double bass and deathmetal vox, then this here LP’s your ticket. The band gets into that just-about-to-fall-apart-but-in-a-good-way area when they go into the quasi-blastbeat fast parts, which is pretty typical of bands who played this fast at the time (1987), and the mosh parts are as solid as they are plentiful. There’s definitely some great riffs lurking on this one if you give it the chance. Of course with most of this stuff at some point you have to ask if it should really be talked about as a crust record, or if the band has more to do with crossover or thrash, and since this is more a question of aesthetics than anything, I should note that the band had political lyrics and a thanks list filled with UK crust staples like Doom, Deviated Instinct, etc. but I think it’s that arbitrary distinction between genres that makes the records from that time so interesting. Bands like Hellbastard and Sheer Terror, who we now have categorized into two distinct and ideologically opposed sub-genres, at the time were basically just taking blind stabs at incorporating metal with the hopes of just turning out some intense and hard shit, and thankfully our record collections are a lot more interesting because they succeeded in the ways they did. Which isn’t to say there’s anything as interesting on this Cerebral Fix record as you’ll find on any of the aforementioned bands’ records, but that’s kind of the point, that if you take the time to dig deeper you’ll find that the main bands who we credit as the masters of pushing hardcore into more intense territories through the use of metal weren’t alone, and some of the peripheral bands whose records go for under $20 and you never see on a patch or shirt can still hit the spot in a pinch. I lagged on this write up, so the auction will probably be over by the time this gets posted, but add it to your saved searches, it shows up about once every two months or so.

I’ll admit that the Cerebral Fix record isn’t really my favorite style of crust, and I tend to go more for the melodramatic Killing Joke infused chugging of Amebix and the like than the stenchy blur of Bolt Thrower/ENT/etc. If you share my sentiment, then this Deformed EPis a must own for sure. Really the only reason I’m mentioning this in the context of late 80’s crust (this ep did come out in 1983, after all) is due to the fact that Deformed share the approach Amebix took on their early eps, which is to say borrowing the repetitive, tom-heavy rhythms of Batcave/Killing Joke records and adding the chugging distortion of the anarcho punk music they were perhaps more familiar with. It’s a deadly combination, as any Amebix fan can tell you, and I think Deformed might even have their shit a bit more together than Amebix had on the “Whose The Enemy?” Ep (but not quite as cohesive as “Winter”). Of course what I LOVE about this record is all the overt Satanic imagery, which was kind of a bold move for the time. There’s a pretty short list of punk bands in the early 80’s who were really pushing the Satanic/horror imagery (Screaming Dead, Criminal Justice, 45 Grave, and to a lesser extent Uproar and Void), outside of the Misfits and their fold, and thankfully Deformed hold nothing back, just littering their 6 panel foldout poster sleeve with drawings of skeletons, pentagrams, upside down crosses, goats, etc. Plus peep the song titles: “Ritual,” “Crypt,” and “From the Grave.” That has to rival the first Bathory record in terms of most straight forward collection of evil sounding song titles ever. One of the worst things you can do in hardcore is hold back, and thankfully Deformed didn’t hesitate for a second and think that maybe taking a group photo in front of an altar of candles and a plastic skull might be “cheesy,” or that putting a pentagram on the center label might be a bit much. They went all the way, and it’s that conviction, both sonically and aesthetically, that makes this record so convincing. The group has a myspace page with a fairly comprehensive bio, and a 2xCD on Poland’s Trujaca Fala label (they only had one other 7” and a song on one of the Bullshit Detector comps as far as vinyl goes) if you need more info.

The Crumbsuckers were one of the first NYHC bands to really take on a full crossover sound that seemed to appeal pretty equally to hardcore and metal audiences in the 80’s. Agnostic Front tried with their second lp Cause For Alarm, which, like the Crumbsuckers’ classic LIFE OF DREAMS, was adorned with full color tripped out cartoon art by Sean Taggert (at his artistic peak), but doesn’t really command the same respect today among metalheads. For AF, the vocals were weak, the songs got long, the riff-theft was obvious, and things weren’t really as tight as they should have been. Life Of Dreams is no doubt the kind of record they were aspiring to make, or at least should have made, and as far as Combat Core releases from that time period, there is none finer than it.Musically the way the Crumbsuckers work, and what makes them a success is that they can play with 80’s metal chops, busting out tight double bass drum licks, start-stop poly-rhythms, and full on thrashing, neck shredding solos, but they keep the economical song lengths and structures of classic hardcore/punk. Take for instance the topical “Super Tuesday” a song about, what else, the election process in the USA. At only a minute, it works off a standard start-stop vs/ch/vs/mosh structure hundreds of hardcore songs have used before and after it. But when you listen to how tight the chops are in the speedy paddle beats, hear the ringing of the chrous effect on the guitars, and the excess of reverb drenching on everything, it’s pretty obvious these guys were not purists. Despite the fact that tons of hardcore bands tried to perform a similar balancing act with their songwriting, few really executed it as well as the Crumbsuckers. Oh and how could I wait til now to mention Chris Notaro’s command of the mic. Seriously this guy is one of the best ever. Not a hint of any kind of actual singing. Without naming names, there were an awful lot of NYHC bands that, when it came time to make a big-time lp on a metal label, delivered vocals that attempted to be more accessible, complete with singy/clean vocals and attempts to stay on key, like bargain bin Anthrax vocals. Obviously that stuff is not cool. Fear not then, because Notaro’s delivery has the kind of glass-gargled, rabid freakouts that are in the same class as Victim In Pain, Thou Shalt Not Kill, et. al. Every song he delivers his gurgling pissed-off fury perfectly, always on time, always clear, and always hard.What more can you ask for? You even get one of the weirdest lp covers ever. I have no idea what’s going on and I’m just going to assume it was conceived on drugs.

Technically I should be listing this on a metal designated day, but somehow there’s never any copies for sale on Mondays, and I think a case can be made that Repulsion’s “Horrified” is basically an accidental hardcore record anyway. Repulsion were a band of metal heads in the wrong time and the wrong damn place - early 80’s Flint Michigan.  I really can’t think of a worse place to be in the USA then. These guys were born and bred metal heads, but they had punk and Hardcore sympathies so while they were following the progression of bands like Slayer, Possessed, Death, and Celtic Frost, they were also catching onto the extreme sounds of Discharge, Siege, C.O.C., NYC Mayhem,  and D.R.I., as well as the tasteless shock punk of G.G. Allin. Repulsion were ahead of their time because they could make the connection between something like Siege and something like Possessed. That the brutality and delivery were different, but still similar, and related to each other.

When they recorded their Horrified lp it was actually supposed to a be a demo called, Slaughter Of The Innocent. The idea was they would produce the best possible sounding demo they could with their entire current set list, and then use the recording to secure a record deal. Apparently tension ran high with the band and the studio engineer who not surprisingly, found their punk metal hybrid to be trash, and gave very little attention to detail during the session, but in the end I think that may help make this recording what it is (godly). The 2 guitars are panned hard right and hard left, the vocals are shouted hoarse and without any echo or sign of overdubbing, the drums are a blasting racket, and the bass… whata bass sound. Apparently there was some screw up when they were recording forcing the band to record a second track of bass over top of the other one which was too faint on most of the tracks, so it was decided it would be run direct into the board through a fuzz pedal. Easy on the ears it’s not. Saturated, blown out, and fucked up it certainly is, and it helps to cement the entire thing as a distorted “shit-fi” whirlwind of a recording. The style of recording alone sounds more hardcore than basically any of the bands Repulsion was influenced by. It’s abrasive even by today’s standards. The songs themselves are possibly the fastest recorded up to that point in time in metal, and are stripped to the bone for maximum speed potential. Only 3 even break the 2 minute mark and there’s not a high note or attempt at singing in sight. Repulsion may not have intended to be, but for all intents and purposes they were as hardcore as anyone else in 1985, or now.

Sadly, and not surprisingly this demo wasn’t exactly a hit with any labels. The band say they sent it everywhere, hoping to get some money to record what they saw as a proper album, and at best they were told, send a copy of the next demo. No one got it because they were all looking for another Slayer. The band dejected, depressed, and out of steam, fizzled later in the year. But like the zombies that adorned the very flyers they were billed on, Repulsion was soon exhumed from their own coffin… well kind of. Less than a year later Napalm Death had recorded their debut lp, and it became a novelty success in the UK. John Peel loved it, parents hated it, kids had to have it, and everyone was asking “where did you come up with this shit”. Pretty much the whole band credited Repulsion as one of their main influences and suddenly people were busy tracking down copies of their demos (some of which were issued under their previous name Genocide). When Carcass exploded onto the fledgling grind-core scene soon after there was no stopping things. Soon Carcass front man Jeff Walker had his own imprint subsidiary on Earache (who released Napalm Death and Carcass’ albums), and his first project was basically remixing the Slaughter of the Innocent demo and releasing it as the 18 song Horrified lp. Retribution. It was strictly for the diehard, but finally the planet had caught up to where Repulsion had been, and grind-core mania was on.So this is that original pressing released in ‘89 that I’ve linked. Since then its been issued a few different times. Most recently with a bonus lp containing most of the band’s other demos on Southern Lord that’s worth every cent if you’re unfamiliar.