Mütiilation – "Satanist Styrken" (Self-Released) 1994

If you thought Darkthrone were the epitome of Zero-Fi Black Metal,then you......understandably....haven't heard Mütiilation. A French(!!?) Black Metal outfit who released a bunch of cassettes in the mid nineties,until they were fished from the muddied pond and honored with a release of  one of their many unreleased albums on Vinyl and CD. It still sounded as if it was recorded in an oil drum rolling between lanes on the M25 london orbital,but you could charge money for this!....a career beckoned until,band leader, Meyhna'ch.....as he called himself, probably Cedric Arnaud or something equally as bland in real life.....until Cedric, declared himself Dead, and the group ended.

He wasn't really Dead of course, so this led to the re-animation of Mütiilation, as a solo project for Meyhna'ch in 2001.

Tracklist:

A1 Skoger Av Onde Drom
A2 My Last Night Among Those Times
A3 Eternal Empire Of Majesty Death
A4 Infernal Holocaust In The Mourning Dawn

DOWNLOAD from a french musical hell even worse than french reggae HERE!

Darkthrone – "Land Of Frost" (Self-Released) 1988

 

Whereas someone like,...say...Jandek,has a vision of life as a grim pointless reality; our Norwegian buddies in all those Death/Black metal groups,live in a fantasyworld almost as life unaffirming and silly as a Christian UFO Death Cult....but with better music. Especially when its as lo-fi as this jolly jaunt into the permafrost of the arctic Tundra of  Metal.

They think they're frightening us but their ,frankly, daft, game of thrones world is nowhere near as Horrific as the life as portrayed in any Jandek recording.

That Scot Walker album with Sunn(((o is probably the way to go for these growly long-hairs. A Jandek Death Metal collaboration would go a long way to lessen the silliness somewhat.

Not unlike that Metal collaboration album with Mark.E Smith (Mutation?), who continued to frighten the crap out of a bunch of very muscular Metalheads for the duration of his appearance.

Nevertheless, I do like a bit of Ferric-oxide cassette based Black Metal,with the production values of Danny and the Dressmakers.

I could listen to that all day as long as they don't do that growly barking thing they have a tendency to stoop to from time to time. Keep the vocals deep in the background please boys,and no suicides or murders please....not big, not clever.

Tracklist:

A1 Land Of Frost 3:57
A2 Winds Of Triton 1:53
A3 Forest Of Darkness 4:32
A4 Odyssey Of Freedom 3:26
A5 Day Of The Dead 5:23

DOWNLOAD frosty the headbanger HERE!

Melvins – "A Tribute To Roxy Music" (Amphetamine Reptile Records – Scale 141) 2013

Jello Biafra joins in on the fun reinterpreting Roxy's classic "In Every Dream Home a Heartache",which is a love song to a sex doll from what I can make out.

Alas, Jello changes the transition hook from "She Blew My Mind" to,inexplicably, "I Blew Up Your Body"? Thus removing any irony from the picture.

However, Jello does a fine Brian Ferry impression for the first half, before the characteristic Biafra warble cuts in for the the rocking part.

A classic experimental glam tune that, again is safe in anyone's hands.

Seems that Buzzo had a perchant for British Glam,unlike most of America,save Davie Bowie.Roxy Music never broke through in the USA until the reformed 80's Armani suited version of the band,sans Eno.

Amusingly Brian Ferry came from the same town as Venom (Newcastle upon Tyne).....i'm guessing that Venom never went to Art School,like The Jam,but Brian certainly did,as did the majority of Roxy (I'm guessing NOT the drummer?).The phenomenon of Art Rock begins here,and was the group most name dropped by the ensuing UK Punk Rock initiators.

 

Tracklist:

A. In Every Dream Home a Heartache

DOWNLOAD to not pay the ferry man HERE!

Melvins – "A Tribute To Venom" (Amphetamine Reptile Records – Scale 143) 2013

One of the more predictable influences on The Melvins would have to be everyone's favourite Geordie Black Metal band,not that there were more than one in Newcastle (uk),Venom*. As with most American groups ,the Melvins are far better musicians than their British counter-parts.Although Venom's over-riding influence on the world of Metal cannot be understated,ironically aided by their poundshop Motorhead level of competence,aided and abetted by a fine line in ridiculous Satanic lyrics;something that Lemmy would avoid like the plague.

It sounds like The Melvins doing covers of Venom tracks amazingly enough!?

*Not Black Metal exactly, but from Newcastle,so maybe, Tygers Of Pan Tang counts?

Tracklist:

A Warhead

B In League With Satan

DOWNLOAD from hell HERE!

Melvins – "A Tribute To The Jam" (Amphetamine Reptile Records – Scale 137) 2015

A Sludge Metal tribute to punky mod-revivalists,The Jam,from the days when they were rather good....ie 1977.

Fertile ground for American Sludgers to marvel at the British ability to say the word 'Fuck' and frighten the pure living shite out of ya.

Buzz Melvin has obviously studied the culture of the British Hooligan to a level where he,and fellow Melvins, can Satirise this alien Yob rock to a point that would convince any american,and most members of Rancid, that they were listening to some unknown versions by The Cockney Rejects.Oi!Oi!

Of course its merely an impression,rather than a facsimile of Paul Wellers' thuggish threesome,and pulled off with not a small amount of fahkin humour.

The Jam, not previously known for infiltrating any part of the United States,must have leeched through the intransigence and miscomprehension onto the young Buzz's record player at some formative stage of the young Osbourne's musical miseducation.And one must agree that the Jam's Debut,"In The City",was particularly brutal,and was not too far removed from experiencing and receiving a damn good kicking from rival gangs of "Bovver Boys" and skin'eads after a relaxing saturday afternoon's violence on the crumbling football terraces of crumbling seventies Britain....as portrayed  in the medium of song.

Just like pop music,it took the rest of the world decades to catch up with Bovver Culture,long after it had died in the motherland.

Ahhh! the fear crackled and fizzed in the charged atmosphere like rogue power cables twisting like Fahkin Eels in the winter evening sky. Without the malevolent influence of English Association Football,British Bovver-Rock would never have put the boot into the staid music factory of the early seventies,and give us the most over-looked roots of yer Punk Rock.....no Footy, No Slade,...No Slade...No Ramones and No Jam....No Jam, No Melvins?????....maybe not, but, as it seems...Maybe?

No football in Woking,birthplace of the Modfather himself, though,so Weller must have got it all from watching Match of the Day and News at Ten?

This single is but one of nine released under the name of "Thee 9 Clowns Of The Apocalypse" series of tribute singles,which included many of their and our own fav groups of yesteryear, such as Queen, Roxy Music and, oh no not them again!... Throbbing Gristle.

One of the better covers collection one might say?...Oi!


Tracklist:

A1 Art School

B1 Modern World
B2 Batman

DOWNLOAD a toast to the jam on toast HERE!

Nadja – "When I See The Sun Always Shines On TV" (The End Records – TE134) 2009

As it says on the sticker on the front......"Toronto ambient/shoegaze/drone duo NADJA illustrate their diverse roots by covering some of their favorite artists: My Bloody Valentine, The Cure, A-ha, The Swans, Codeine, Slayer, Elliot Smith and Kids In The Hall. This album contains eight carefully-selected covers re-imagined through NADJA's unique sonic blueprint." 

Oh How they try....I love this sentence from the promo sticker..."carefully-selected covers re-imagined".Right. 

When a musician has lost their Mojo,and are scrambling for ideas,they either steal them from lesser mortals and claim them as products of their undoubted genius, or they stoop to the 'Covers Album' reset mode and claim they are paying a humble tribute to the artists who inspired them in their formative years. David Bowie is one of the few artists who have done both in their lauded career,always being seen around where the action is before releasing another album in the series before the person he stole from,and even having them in the band,which made it easier.He also made "Pin Ups",his covers album,when he was devoid of ideas, and use his star power to cajole any gullible chums to nick the odd riff off;with no credit of course.

They've all done it those genius's, even the magnificent Duran Duran,with their sickeningly disingenuous "Thank You". Voted the worst album of all time by the equally sickening "Q" magazine,which included the famously cloth-eared recording of "911 is a joke" as made by  millionaire white guys making a joke out of the rap classic about systemic racism.Don't you just love 'em.....I do and I ain't joking.

Last years bogie man Nick Cave ,when failing to find a way to not sound like every solo album he's ever made, tried to show us ignorants his impeccable taste by predictably recording tastefully selected forgotten country classics and crooning blues dirges;but also joining Duran Duran in fucking over a Velvet Underground number......that at least deserves some respect......not a lot....but some?

Elvis Costello did a drearily dreadful album of Country classics did he not? Another burk in the impeccable good taste club.

An accusation  we can not repeat about Metallica whose consummately terrible taste, is responsible for wiping their arses on classics from Killing Joke, Motorhead and Black Sabbath? No clever reconstrustions of  non-rock tunes done with a splash of humour like The Melvins' borderline 'good' "Everybody Loves Sausages" from 2013, when Buzz must have hit a creative wall.Notable high spots were a Throbbing Gristle Cover which is not actually a cover but an "interpretation", and a not to be missed version of 1st album Jam's "Art School",where the boys show off their finely honed English 'Oi' accents......I don't remember Dick Van Dyke being in The Jam,but apparently he was? I suppose I should name a cover versions collection that doesn't suck balls in any way whatsoever hadn't I,or you might think me a right cynical ol'Bastard twat Cunt?......The answer is not a musical version of 42, even though it certainly is.....i'm gonna have to say that "For Ladies Only" by the beyond great Killdozer is indeed the best covers album ever made.....go on,change my mind!.

It's all just a bit of fun innit,we all wanna make a covers album don't we?......here's one for the boys.....what would you put on your covers album? 12 tracks limit, answers on a postcard,entries arrive no later than the moment Putin's successor activates the Nuclear codes.

Although I could write about cover albums by narcissists 'til the cows come home, we are being distracted from the subject of this post,about the Covers album by Canadian Dreamsludge duo Nadja.

A duo whose sub-genre definition falls between many stools,but on this occasion, maybe just Shoegaze is appropriate,and cleansing in its simplicity.Especially as it opens with a crawling "My Bloody Valentine" cover dowsed in treacle played at 16rpm (why do these modern record players no longer have 16 or 78 as an option?).In fact if there is one criticism, it's that it's not slow enough.

Underrated Norwegian Pop Trio, A-Ha, get dragged through the sludge to great effect, as,predictably,does Swans.Maybe a Swans cover played in the style of The Wedding Present would have been a better idea methinks.....we know very well they're influenced by Michael Gira's slothful combo,and we know what they sound like too.

I had to look up Elliot Smith(track 6)......a dead bloke,who plays fragile minimal acoustic numbers. I suppose it makes a change from Syd Barratt?.......although one would have loved to hear a Dreamsludge version of "Dark Globe" one must admit.

Alas, as with all these cover albums, one,as the listener, is rapidly titillated at what these crazy katz are gonna do with your favourite songs,that it very quickly fizzles out then fades away,and we return to the original versions with a new vigor,'cus cover version are crap aren't they?

So as 'pop' music becomes the new Classical,and we all run out of tunes and new ideas, and music returns to the art of Interpretation only, as it has been in the Classical music world for the last two hundred or so years. No-one can berate the ol' Ludwig Van for having no new material anymore, except via those in the medium community of rip-off merchants and exploiters,who regularly channel new Beethoven pieces from the spirit world......even though some Pop Stars,musicians and their like, evidently think that they ARE Beethoven reborn.

Still waiting for that 10th Symphony Lud.......if possible an Ambient Doom version please Vielen Danke in advance.

Tracklist:

1. Only Shallow 6:35
2. Pea 4:09
3. No Cure For The Lonely 6:56
4. Dead Skin Mask 10:06
5. The Sun Always Shines On TV 6:01
6. Needle In The Hay 4:45
7. Long Dark Twenties 6:35
8. Faith 12:47

DOWNLOAD the sun shines out of their arses on TV HERE!

Nadja – "Radiance Of Shadows" - (Alien8 Recordings – ALIENCD72) 2007

One day we will look back at the CD era with fond affection for the times we selected a CD from the endless racks in HMV or Virgin megastores ,endured the minuscule text,and proceeded to listen to an hour and twenty minutes of whomsoever the lucky band were,but pressing stop on the remote at around the  40 minutes mark whilst stifling yawns .....ironically, the length of two sides of a vinyl LP. A natural ending point for any album in the modern age of pop.

There was a compulsion for artists raised in the Vinyl era to put as much material as possible on this new extended format,even if it was the shite usually reserved for the 'Bonus Disc' of  an anniversary remaster.

So what we have here is an artist determined to fill up every nano-second of memory space provided by the aforementioned Digital Compact Disc format,rather than just satisfying the ever shortening Human attention span. Mine is currently about twenty minutes max of anything.A limit I have always adhered to in the live arena. Twenty minutes, then its off to the bar.

First wave Ambient Doom originators Nadja, are very typical of the CD age .Releasing a dumpster full of very similar sounding drone metal versions of wonky airport noises that very rarely clock in at less than twenty minutes a track,like a fuzzy Tangerine Dream fed through a cheap Flanger.

One of  those unfortunate groups who sadly fall between several stools of the 'Metal' category,so frequently get labeled as any one of the following: Doom Metal.,Ambient Metal,(my personal favourite) Dreamsludge (?), ambient-doom, and shoegaze-metal.

Sounding more like My Bloody Valentine rather than Sunn O))) , the Metal label is becoming a more and more tenuous a description for any experimental Rock band,but if it contains any hint of a 'Heavy' riff it's 'Metal',filtered through a barrage of pro-nouns ,prefix's and suffix's.

Topical Oppenheimer references aside, It has it's quiet moments,so Ambient Doom is arguably the most accurate sub-genre of the available choices? Not a large section in your resurgent vinyl store, but I'm sure it exists somewhere?

Am I getting too mainstream?

Tracklist:

1 Now I Am Become Death, The Destroyer Of Worlds (23:26)
2 I Have Tasted The Fire Inside Your Mouth (27:26)
3 Radiance Of Shadows (28:59)

DOWNLOAD and become not death metal but a destroyer of sub-genres HERE!

Mephistofeles – "Satan Sex Ceremonies" (Stoner Witch Records – SWR013) 2020

Mephistofeles are Argentinians ("Argies",the Sun 1982). They describe themselves as Proto-Doom/heavy psych rock. played by..... Gabriel Ravera (guitarra & voz) Ismael Dimenza (bajo) Iván Sacharczuk (batería)....I think that's right,unless Ivan plays Bacteria, and Ismael plays the Banjo??...They don't seem to have normal Argentinian Names.like Adolf, Heinrich and Ulrich at all? Especially strange is that they play what they admit to being 'Proto-Doom'? This is the kind of Honesty sadly missing with many groups who claim to be originals,and the others are ripping them off.,the New Originals, like The Ramones are always moaning about,in denial of their Proto-Punk status.

Mephistofeles are are also unashamed to wear their Black Sabbath cred on their sleeves.They even have one of those Tony Iommi acoustic numbers on the LP,the ones that we (they) always used to skip over whilst playing a B Sabbath LP back in the days of  NWOBHM .

As Doomy as  would be the imaginary Proto-Doom Band that played on the deck of the General Belgrano as it slipped below the waves of the Falklands exclusion Zone,again back in the days of  NWOBHM.

Rock'n'the Roll is largely dead, apart from the odd gig by Blur or Arctic monkeys,and an enormous Savannah plain of migrating heavy metal Wildebeests  trampling all that block their path under a storm of thundering cloven hooves. Metal,with all its mutations are the only survivors of the great extinction that positively flourished after the Acid House asteroid hit ground Zero back in '88. Nowadays the only new guitar bass and drums based music that exists is......yep.....Heavy Metal and its illegitimate children. All things Rock have collapsed into the black leather hole of Spinal Tarp derivatives.

The cover seems to feature the corpse of a very Ex-Model,with tits like last christmas's balloons.The censored nipples is an interesting addition, but these Argie Sabbath Clones fail to compete with the rest of the Smell The Glove brotherhood for decent chicks for those malodorous smeg hording malcontents to masturbate to.

They'll be singing along to this stuff way into the 22nd and a half century,long after This Heat are forgotten.Depending on the outcome of collective Human Stupidity on the current climate crisis that no-body...repeat....nobody, is doing anything useful about???

It's 21st century folk music at its best,played by a bunch of losers with dubious Germanic family trees.Still relevant for the time in the near future when that massive ocean of crude oil under The Falkland Islands is being exploited to the max by BP,who will then rule the world, and we all live in underground cities.....,which does indeed make Nuclear conflict possible again.

I'll say it again "Collective Human Stupidity"!?

Tracklist:

A1 Cerimone Sessuali Di Satana 15:09
A2 Profanazione 3:30
A3 Di Nuovo In Basso 4:15
B1 Overdose 3:12
B2 Siringa 6:13
B3 La Maledizione Del Coltello 5:20
B4 Catene Di Agonia 9:59

DOWNLOAD something that assumes Sex to still be a thing in the afterlife HERE!

Devil's Witches – "Velvet Magic" (Cursed Tongue Records – CTR-002) 2017

I'm supposed to be doing some obscure Doom Metal aren't I? So....
Devil's Witches from the UK, combines the melodic doomy grooves of carnality and worshiping at the altar of the female?.....it says here!?

They have pictures of ladies Muffs on the cover (a doom obligation),living cheek to jowl with drowned pre-raphaelite nudes floating gracefully in a very clean looking Vietnamese river while Napalm strikes bloom like flowers in My Lai as a backdrop.

They certainly do seem to worship that mysterious creature.....The Lady....yet the music has me questioning the true definition of what Doom Metal actually is,and what it ain't.

No-one is pretending for a minute that 'Devil's Witches'consider themselves a proponent of the Doom idiom at all, but there are undeniable aspects present throughout this Pornadelic....,their words, vintage 70's sounding Stoner metal.....i only got it because of the cover,and it was in the Doom section.It's got a Goat and a saucy temptress facing front as the principle image to draw in the acne scarred artisans of this young male only genre.It in fact looks like one of those cheapo 'Top Of The Pops' albums so popular in Woolworths that nobody were ever seen purchasing one.Pictures of Nudie ladies sell records...Fact.

Parts of it do sound like a soundtrack for the chase or love-making scenes in an Italian gore-nasty video only release from 1981;but there are some worthy Doom elements,and scores high on the entertainment Beaufort scale, and a fair few points on the metal Bristol scale....look that one up.

'Velvet Magic' does indeed sound rather like the name of a mid-range brand of Toilet paper after all?

Tracklist:

1 Apache Snow
2 Motorpsycho
3 Black Cauldron
4 Pornodelic Opium Dreams
5 Voodoo Woman
6 Mountain Of The Devil's Witch
7 Jupiter Kush
8 Velvet Magic
9 Requiem Pour Un Vampire

DOWNLOAD and wipe your ears with some velvet magic HERE!

Electric Wizard – "Live Maryland Deathfest 2012" (Creep Purple – CPR-006) 2018

I used to have a Girlfriend like that, who would walk around bollock naked shouting, unshaven haven, and talked to a skull. Sounds exciting don't it?....well it fucking ain't. 

Ok, so I made the skull bit up, but it was symbollock of my actual skull that was in danger of being severed whenever she was drunk,or worse. Wild women (or just Women) aren't worth it.

You think I'm crazy? You'll understand after you've had a wank.

The previous post referenced the phenomenon that was the Video Nasty, so here are some audio nasties to make you grovel to the fallen Satanic angel of your choice.Therefore here's Electric Wizard in a live setting,whose line-up contained one of the 'Wild Women Of Wongo' that I warned you to steer clear of. A friend of mine committed suicide once upon a time,and the only picture i found on his laptop was one of that Bird from Electric Wizard.It seems that this music could seriously damage your health,direct  from Hell.......er.......not exactly in fact, but straight outta Dorset,nestled  in the quiet lazy rolling hills of the English southern coast countryside.And very nice it is too.

This reminds me of that gangster grime Rap posse, you know ...the Rap Singers.....you've seen 'em,at the shopping arcade,on the Top Of The Pops,doing a little dance........cripes, i'm being drawn into doing that Stuart Lee routine again......y'know?....The Rap Singers?

But the Rap singers I'm alluding to is number one act 'So Solid Crew', that urban city dwelling bunch of gangster boys,who turned out to be from the Hood in the  idyllic Dorset countryside.....via stage school rather than old Skool. Awwwww,makes you larf don't it?

I would never accuse Electric Wizard of going to stage school however,as it seems they are very much in touch with Satan. Full of Wild Women is Hell, an eternity of being annoyed and pissed off is some kind of Hell I would do anything to avoid.....short of joining the Jehovah Witnesses;but if Hell really is like Dorset, I'd happily haunt the country Pubs and hiking trails beyond the limits of infinity, forever...I assume 'beyond Infinity' is the same as forever?

Isn't Maryland where that doddering crumbly President,and professional (non)Irishman, Joe Biden lives?

I'm guessing he wasn't at this gig. But it seems he missed out on its endless crushing riffage,here captured in early Sabbath-esque lo-fidelity. The sonic ambition of this doom laden metal monster is rather too large for the bandwidth of a humble cassette,but that's how I like it with all the crisp edges blunted in the peripheral fog.

As for So Solid Crew, I'd like to flush them down the nearest peripheral BOG!

Tracklist:

A1 Supercoven
A2 Satanic Rites Of Drugula
A3 Dopethrone
A4 Witchcult Today
B1 Black Mass
B2 Return Trip
B3 The Chosen Few
B4 Funeralopolis

DOWNLOAD the sound of modern dorset HERE!

Zeni Geva – "Vast Impotentz" (Nux Organization – NUX - 15) 1988

What Heavy Metal should sound like is often a pointless discussion involving many an unresolvable parable about 'What went Wrong'? Another topical question seems to be why do the  Japanese have an almost effortless grasp of what Heavy Metal should have sounded like PS (Post Sabbath).

They are aided by not having any slave trade guilt,and as a result not being exposed to The Blues brought over from Africa on the slave ships.They ahve to make do with boring Chinese slaves,who weren't Funky in the remotest definition of the word. 

The first thing one notices with Japanese Rock,is the total lack of the Blues held withing the melting walls of Nippon's pop obsession. No-doubt I am just misinformed, but there are no examples of a Jap Amy Winehouse doing impressions of Billie Holiday,exposing her Black soul after fulfilling her obligations to the government funded Rock'n'Pop school that taught her Da Blues concept. Like the Brit-Schooled Amy Winehouse, she never skipped a single class on Traditional Rock'n'Roll drugs abuse,and died an early death before she was even born.As a result we get café au Lait Amy Winehouse and they got raw as sushi Fushitsusha.

The Brit Academy of the 'popular arts' way be reprehensible,but the UK don't have this cancer as bad as Sweden...or is it Norway?...that not only school the kids in Rock,but also buy them sparkling new equipment and bung 'em subsides to spread the message to the world.

Have Scandinavians got Da Blues?......of course they ain't,but they do have those Led Zeppelin records to dissect and truly discover da blooz anglais who have long since studied those Muddy Waters records until their ears ran red with soul in the key of 'R'...or at least sound like they did.

It was all downhill from there,but to muddy the waters further, Black Sabbath did a splendid job in removing ,mainly due to incompetence,almost all the Blues from their doomy dirges, save for Iommi's guitar solo's and Ozbournes regular "Yeah Baby alrights",spoiling the party. There were others who were pure anglo-saxon metal, after-all, thats where it was invented. Of course,Motorhead ('not metal' said Lemmy),Saxon(?),first two album Iron Maiden(?),and,not forgetting our American pals....TAD?

Japan, however, never had this problem,being naturally sadistic, soul-less and borderline insane.Metal competence,it seems, is down to genetics.There's a reason Britain and Japan both drive on the correct side of the road.

Zeni Geva is,for me, Japanese metal,and they understand this,without thinking about it.Or had they just been listening to Swans in 1984?

Who is this Zeni Geva,you might ask? I dunno, and i doubt they do either,but one of the Acid Mothers Temple is in it.

Delightfully lo-fi, slooooow, and brutal.Turn it up and expect police interest.

Tracklist:

1 I Want You (3:22)
2 War Pig (7:30)
3 Dead Car, Sun Crash (6:47)
4 Slam King (9:18)
5 Godkill/Killsonic (30:21)

DOWNLOAD to discover what the (?) after the word metal really means HERE!

Shit And Shine – "Shit And Shine" (Judgement Dispenser – JD#003) 2009

 As 'Industrial' music goes,it's hard to distinguish which 21st century acts display an acceptable face of product development as opposed to a bunch of Metalheads who heard Second annual report and a whitehouse LP,and mistook them for the new Sunn(((((0 album.

You can't blame 'em i suppose,as Metal inhabits the same musical dead-end as  Industrial musik does, and almost the same preponderance to invent as many sub-genres as possible to counter the valid accusations that it all sounds the fucking same!? 

The source of much of the problem is a wanton lack of a sense of humour, in both genres and their related,and very very silly, Sub-generic kissin' cousins .

Basically there's also so fucking much of this stuff, especially within the Industrial bracket,as its i actually a lot easier to make than almost any other form of Rock'n'Roll and its derivatives.You do actually have to have some basic skills to make a Doom Metal record,whereas in the grey Industrial hinterland, you need nothing except a lap top these days.In the old Skool tapes, that consisted of a double cassette deck, an echo box,a mike, and a distortion pedal, which actually looked better perched on a couple of Milk crates than the now standard two twats and a laptop,

Can't really think of any Metal bands with a sense of humour actually,but there are a few Industrial derived combo's who show this admirable trait, even if it is lost in the diaspora of uncountable generic Industrial MP3 files that are threatening the existence of any musical maldives out there in this too much of everything world we are saddled with for the near to mid-term future...if you can call it a 'Future'.

I can think of Smell and Quim and various offshoots, and this multi-drummer drone-psych-noise unit similarly tongue in cheek combo from the UK, Shit'n'Shine.

It could have been the name of a seventies cleaning product were it not for the naughty word,like a power electronics version of the Shake'n'Vac song.

The first side of this C-40 treats us to a unifying blend of Doom Metal as it should sound,and soul-crushing noise. Side B, is more yer power Electronics, but without the fucking silly murder stuff.Its brutal,and doesn't take prisoners or itself too seriously.Sadly,my only criticism is that this combo do that 21st century thing of releasing too many records, and they are on the great diluter site of Band-fucking-Camp. You can get dozens of the same thing here if you're so inclined.....it's all good,but not allllll good if you get what I'm sayin'?

Industrial culture has been watered down so much there's nothing left to cancel,and the product description is verging on the illegal.I wager even yer bank manager has invested in an original Leather Nun cassette,and a few VOD Sutcliffe Jugend box sets.Its all about as subversive as a Jeffrey Archer novel.

Recorded live in Belgium I gather?

Tracklist:

Side A (20:01)

Side B (20:08)

DOWNLOAD to do the shit'n'Shine to put the odour back HERE!

Witchfinder General – "Friends Of Hell" (Heavy Metal Records – HMR LP 13) 1983

Here's another one of those 'guess what I was doing today' posts.

Can't wait, can you,to know what inane pointless activity someone you've never met was doing today? I've saved you the humiliation of looking at a selfie of me sucking in my cheeks while I indulge in this aforementioned vacuous attempt to live a fulfilling life experience.

I went to a Vide-Grenier (Boot Sale)in a small town (Lodeve) in southern France near where I live......amazing huh?

I rifled through endless platters of Claude Francois, a bloke called Renaud, and what seemed like hundreds of copies of French Nouvelle Vague band,the terminally awful 'Telephone';when I saw an album cover that makes Spinal Tap's 'Smell The Glove' seem woke.

That was clearly an English Church on the cover,with three or four long-haired chaps in 17th century outfits bullying a few scantily clad maidens wearing some very un-17th century stockings and suspenders,while a couple of dodgy monks look on stood in the graveyard.This must be good...and it got better.

On the reverse of the sleeve, the 20th century Police have turned up and proceed to arrest all and sundry,making sure we all get a good look at the ladies underwear as they are carted off in the paddy wagon.

"C'est Combien?" I asked the kind long haired gentleman casually chatting with another modern long-haired gentleman.

"Cinq" he said rather dismissively,to which I crossed his palm with gold and sloped off with my booty to a waiting car and sped homewards to discover the rare delights that may be hidden inside this hilariously good bad album cover.

Of course this was the second album by New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM)cult favourites, Witchfinder General,...who are also, inexplicably,considered an early example of Doom Metal(?).

There ain't much Doom Metal about this record, I discovered.Rather than sounding like 'Spinal Tap',they had the production values of UK comic strip equivalents 'Bad News'.And rather than a 16 rpm version of Black Sabbath's Volume 4, we get a Poundshop Diamond head.

NWOBHM kind of passed me by,so I was blissfully unaware of Witchfinder General,and many of their cohorts;but I understand that however silly most Metal records were around 1975 to 1988,the new wave of UK bands sub-consciously absorbed the 'Punk' influence to speed things up and add some much needed intensity and relevance to actual real life.Most Punk bands were virtually Heavy Metal anyway,just without the show-offy parts.

Ugh! Those bloody offensive guitar solo's remained for the much part,but slowly edited themselves out by the time Metal got darker and experimental at the end of the 80's.Now it's virtually the only form of the Rock idiom that survives,albeit in a veritable cornucopia of styles and sub-genres.

Is there any group out there called 'Bitchfinder General' by any chance,which seems a more appropriate combo for the cover art on this museum piece.It really is something from another time and maybe even another planet.Forget the past and we will be doomed to repeat it....now where's that cockamamie History Eraser Button?

Tracklist:

Love On Smack 4:10
Last Chance 3:50
Music 3:05
Friends Of Hell 6:12
Requiem For Youth 4:35
Shadowed Images 4:15
I Lost You 2:55
Quietus 6:20
Reprise 0:35

DOWNLOAD a new friend from hell HERE! 

EyeHateGod – "In The Name Of Suffering"(Intellectual Convulsion – SPASM 3) 1990

With artwork like it was plucked out of a British Medical Journal from the fifties, 'Misanthropic' is a popular adjective used once confronted with the works of surly sludge metal protagonists 'Eyehategod'.

Of course, with a band name such as this they had little chance of releasing an LP with the American Taliban in town.So their debut album had to be unleashed in a free,more secular state.....i was tempted to say Iran,but....In this case it's that much maligned paragon of freedom....France? Where some dumbass teacher caught displaying a crucifix on a chain can risk being booted out of the building and sacked on the spot.Way to go France!

The land(USA) that generously gave the world Rock and Roll.....nooo it wasn't God,Argent(!).....had to wait three years before this wholesome bi-product of that great land was easily available for the intelligent 19% to annoy their indoctrinated fellow citizens,or, the 81% of Americans who still believe stone-age superstitions in the 21st century.

Naturally, some Charlie Manson soundbites inevitably crop up, who seems to be some kind of God to sludge metalers everywhere, or,in the words of the creepy hippie himself...the Son of Man.

The music is Sloooooow,brutal, and refreshingly lacking in Metal cliché with more emphasis on the Doom rather than Satan worship. Although the very word Eyehategod tends to suggest a belief in the hereafter.Presumably If you can 'Hate a God', that means there's probably a devil character too,or maybe they represent the same entity?

There's little mention of a Devil in the Bible (File under Fiction),but what there is of their God is beyond Horrific,maybe even Evil? This could be why Christian Metal is so frightening....or is that because it's just frighteningly CRAP!

Tracklist:

1 Depress
2 Man Is Too Ignorant To Exist
3 Shinobi
4 Pigs
5 Run It Into The Ground
6 Godsong
7 Children Of God
8 Left To Starve
9 Hostility Dose
10 Hit A Girl

DOWNLOAD in the name of suffering HERE!