Lo-fi lovers unite...

As raw as they come these days, the Kent, UK three-piece calling themselves Sorg stumbled late into my bandcamp search results long after I had expected to discover anything worthwhile. Vaguely reminding me of the Fuckheads and/or any other bunch of pissed-off guys projecting their pent-up rage towards the world/job/girlfriend/parent/whatever via a musical instrument, the shit is pissed off and groovy to listen to. The band claims to play a mixture of black metal/sludge/powerviolence/hardcore and I'd agree with genres 2 and 4 - I'm bereft to to find the black metal connection here and I still don't really know what the fuck "powerviolence" is. My favorite song is easily "Sludge Cunt" (Yes! The best song name in the world!), a tune that totally reminds me of Loinen or Usko or some weird black Finnish sludgecore band. Am I digressing? Absolutely worth a listen. 

The Fall

Grrrrrr...

There's that part of me who can't help but chuckle when I come upon some of the more contrived black metal names. And what's the allure of the whole goat thing? Yeah, I get it's a Sabbatic Goat/Baphomet reference but let's be slightly more original guys. Black Goat, Goat Anus, Black Anal Goat Vomit, Goatwhore, Goateatgod, blah blah bluh. Which brings us to Oregon's Weregoat and their verbose debut EP Unholy Exaltation Of Fullmoon Perversity. I just don't get it. Who sits around a kitchen table and comes up with the name Weregoat? Were they in the middle of playing Dungeons & Dragons? Save for the few lupophobics out there it doesn't come off as anything but cheesy. Which is a real shame because this trio is no joke when it comes to their sound and image. Clad in Slayer-esque rusty-nail armbands as well as necklaces of raw meat, they play a solid hybrid of black metal and grindcore recorded in wonderfully scratchy lo-fi. All members (both past and present) are true veterans of the Northwest metal scene with dozens of bands under their belt (the drummer owns Parasitic Records as well) and their experience shows. Blistering fast blastbeats and wicked guitar work - effortless switching from thrash grooves to heavy riffage. There are a few intros that drag on a little too long at times but my only real complaint is the muddy background echo effect on the lyrics. Yeah, I know it's kind of a black metal standard but I wish they were a bit cleaner, angrier and up front. Still, a great introduction to a band still churning out records - keep up with 'em here.

Invoke The Black Oblivion

Local plug...

Chompin' on my Tel-Star burrito the other week at a personal fave mexi-cali joint I was intrigued by a flyer promoting a weekday show by some cooly-monikered band called Hoboknife. Unfortunately the gig was cancelled the day it was supposed to happen but my slightly piqued interest was enough for me to search out their bandcamp page. Amazingly it was worth the visit. A weird death/heavy/black metal amalgam that sounds fresh from the late 90's, Hoboknife play "drunken black-and-roll straight off the rails" (per their facebook bio) and while it's nothing I'd ever kill for it was nice to hear an active RVA band that isn't metalcore. Enjoy.

Straight off the Greyhound

I Can Easily Destroy All the Things I Have Created!

Hailing from the Hellenic Reuplic of Greece, Dodsferd began as a somewhat typical one-man black metal outfit, eventually (inevitably?) expanding into a 3-piece by 2008's Death Set The Beginning Of My Journey. A welcome change from the tinny Burzum-esque guitar/drum machine loops of their earlier material, Dodsferd really matured into a legitimate band on this LP. While some of the songs drag on a few measures too long there are enough ample riffs stuffed into each of the six anthems to keep it interesting. "Suicide Was Created..." is my fave track - while never really letting up its rabid pace it manages some pretty cool breakdowns in the midst of the chaos. Vocalist (and founder) Wrath has a pretty good range - he's a bit screechy at times but all in all a solid howler - overdubbing his vocals in a cool crustcore style. My only complaint with the record is my neurotic gripe with black metal itself, the "trying to sound evil" vibe of the whole thing kinda comes off more silly than scary. But that's just me. Enjoy.

Hypocritic Shitfuckers Still Breathing

Miracle

A fucking insane mix of blistering Ministry-esque industrial (Psalm 69-era) with brutally misanthropic Middle Eastern black metal, Ayat's debut full-length absolutely blows away anything Al Jourgensen has created over the last decade and has quite possibly become my favorite black metal album ever. Steering away from the funeral doom influence on the "necro" black metal hailed by Anaal Nathrath and their ilk, Ayat sounds much more like a "real" studio band. Moments of Six Years Of Dormant Hatred are very reminiscent of Lard, Bile and Godflesh, it's interesting to imagine what bands the silly-pseudonymed band members were actually influenced by. Sadly they've never played live and are little more than musical pariahs in their home turf of Lebanon. They announced a follow-up LP in 2010 but since have remained silent...

Reverend Filthy Fuck

Where Cold Winds Blow

I just got finished watching the 2008 documentary Until The Light Takes Us and decided to revisit a few of the albums that got the whole Black Metal Inner Circle shitstorm going. Listening to Darkthrone's seminal sophomore release I was surprised how good it sounds two decades later. A lo-fi mishmash of death and black metal, Northern Sky is far less cheesy than Burzum's debut and significantly darker than Mayhem's Deathcrush. Of course there are a few cringe-inducing vocal cues here and there but all in all a solid 40 minutes of angry bleakness. Drummer Fenriz came off as an interesting guy throughout the Light Takes Us documentary. At times defensive, at times unnecessarily aggressive and somewhat egotistical, he generally offers up a good sense of humor throughout it all; his opinions and recollections regarding this LP made for an even more interesting listen as well (evidently there is a 2CD re-release of this album with Fenriz offering that commentary on (or during?) all of the songs but this is just the basic Peaceville release). For even more in-depth material on the whole rise and fall of the Norwegian scene check out the amazing book Lords Of Chaos - essential shit. Enjoy.

NWOBHM

Reinforcing The Stereotype

I'll admit I'm a sucker for offensive shit, especially when it comes to music. Already a guilty fan of Vaginal Jesus and (to a lesser extent) Mudoven, I figured I'd give the off-color death metal outfit Arghoslent a try. While their older material isn't much to speak of (especially the shitty demo compilation album), I did find myself digging 2008's Hornets Of The Pogrom. Typical late-90's death metal with occasional Slayer-ish thrash influences, the band has gained some notoriety thanks to their racially-tinged lyrics. I was almost quasi-digging 'em until I read the LP liner notes proudly proclaiming the record was "recorded South of the Mason Dixon line." Ugh. It's probably not surprising to readers that I'm not a fan of Virginia. Fuck the fact that I've called it my state of residence for the last long-ass thirteen years; I am a hard-headed New Englandah by birth and simply cannot get over the fucking idiotic racist stereotype that so many Southern rednecks seem to embrace as a pitiful tribute to their historical roots. If Arghoslent were more tongue-in-cheek I would be way more forgiving, the fact that living in the Old Dominion seems to give them some legitimacy just makes me bitter. I gotta move...

Clint Z Hilton

Black Vomit

Quite possibly the bleakest thing ever recorded, this brutal 6-track demo from an intentionally nameless Portugal black band will absolutely blow you away. Blistering fast black metal punctuated by endless blastbeats and genre-typical unholy screams from the Abyss, this limited CDr comes with absolutely no information whatsoever save for the DIY black cardboard sleeve it's crudely packaged in. Released by ultra-indie label Latrina Do Chifrudo ("The Horned Latrine" - ha), even they don't know where this blasphemous 30-minute aural assault came from. Compared to some of the lo-fi black metal out there the demo is surprisingly legit - real songs (shit one of them runs almost 9 minutes) and a respectable sense of intention behind the whole thing. I was predicting an unlistenable wall of harsh "black" noise on my first guarded listen and was really surprised how good it fucking was. Enjoy.

"We simply don't care about protegonism (sic), self reference, identities other shit like that. Black Metal is a tool for something greater, it is a mere process and not a way for self gratification."

???????

Belgian Black Metal

Ridiculously heavy brutal black metal from Europe - this two-man outfit (the eponymous Pek on vox and guitar and Nefasto on drums) has released a handful of demos and random recordings, Preaching Evil is their only official full-length. A 30-minute assault of blast beats and sickening riffs spanning standard death metal (Incantation comes to mind) to Ministry-esque industrial loops, if it wasn't for the album cover (and typical frostbitten song titles) I would probably classify the band as brutal death. But nope, the spiked arm bands land ya in the black metal bin every time. While the band hasn't really done anything since 2010, there still exists a legitimate website you can order shirts and shit - check it here.

Invoke

Pre-Profanatica

Before we were blessed with Profanatica and Havohej, Paul Ledney got together with guitarist John Gelso and formed the death/black metal crossover Toten in 1987. They released 2 demo tapes, Dreary Proximity (usually called the Misery demo) in 1987 and Macabre in 1988 (Macabre also included bassist Alex Gabriel). While the original master recordings were lost, someone had the good sense to transfer their first-generation cassette copies to CDr and we can now forever relish the lo-fi glory of Toten's early recordings. Fans of Ledney's later work will get a kick out of hearing an embryonic version of "...Of Pestilence" - and "Macabre" is definite shades of Profanatica's "Scourging And Crowning." Wicked fast double bass blast beats behind a über-gained treble fuzz guitar and guttural black vomit vocals. While I'm at it, pretty much everything Toten did sounds like a song Profanatica would have made (or just did in some other form) - good rudimentary black metal from the frosty woods of New England to micturate a Bible to. Enjoy.

Blasphemy

Blood Clot

Manic fucking black grindcore from Italy - sounding like the guy from Converge screaming over the Anaal Nathrakh or some similar sounding apocalyptic-esque band. Blisteringly fast as fuck with a few breakdowns here and to catch your breath. Most of the tracks hover around the two-minute mark and suffer somewhat from sounding alike but there are a couple longer, feedback-laden, almost experimental-ish epics in there to keep the record fresh. Really amazing album to grind your teeth to. Enjoy.

Antitalian

Those crazy Nutmeggers

Here's a sold 16-minute live set from Connecticut black metallers Profanatica. Recorded at the defunct underground haven G. Willikers in Pennsauken, NJ, the band tears through five of their most blasphemous classics with typical Jesus-hating panache. I'm pretty sure this gig did not show up on their obscure Live CD from 2001 - I actually ripped it from some bootleg DVD I got of the band ages ago. Interestingly, the DVD also has a pretty thorough interview with Paul and his cronies that ends with Ledney pissing in a glass and gargling it while he torches a bible (and extinguishes it with said urine). Sorry to all but I unfortunately didn't have time to rip that as well. Next time... next time...

1991

Hard Drive Deadbeats: BLACK METAL

The overly-zealous Photoshopped cover should have been a clear fist to the face but I had heard some good things about the band and was enticed by the fact the album was based on Marquis de Sade (and I'm a sucker for sluts in PVC garter belts and biohazard masks). Unfortunately this is exactly the type of black metal I am not into - it's so over the top the "evilness" simply comes off silly, blastbeats get old fast, and the cheesy melodic stuff in the background just makes me want to gag. I'm sure there are legions of Belphegor disciples writhing in their corpsepaint as I write this blasphemy but it's just not my cup of black vomit. Enjoy.

Turd

 
Currently watching: Johnny Got His Gun

Currently listening to: Meat Shits Gorenography

All Togethah Now

Solid compilation CD released in 2000 by the mighty Fudgeworthy Records out of Woburn, MA; the brainchild of Charlie Infection whom you may know as the other half of the seminal Ax/ction Records and drummer for Bay State mainstays Psycho, Bulge, Gonkulator and Cancerous Growth. Admitting to the loss of all his master tapes in the liner notes, nearly everything on the comp is ripped directly from vinyl so don't expect any hi-tech digital remastering here. Scratches, cracks and pops abound which only add to the charm - there is some rare ass shit showcased here and is without a doubt some of the best transfers you'll find of this material. Included are a few batches of Anal Cunt songs, GG Allin's "Legalize Murder" from his Freaks, Faggots days, Bulge's "Fartmaster," some obscure Meat Shits tunes, fast Boston hardcore, black metal, grindcore, noise, etc. etc. ad nauseum. A bunch of great music from a great label. Enjoy.

If It Ain't Fudgeworthy... It Ain't Shit

 
Currently watching: The Rite
Currently listening to: KoЯn The Path Of Totality

Silly Satan

Oh man, I remember being so excited when I found this record at Princeton Record Exchange back in the 80's. I had heard of the band from something on TV, whether it was Geraldo or A Current Affair or some other generic "Satanic Bands On The Rampage" scare-show I'll never remember; whatever it was, Coven was being branded among its peers of Venom and Slayer as the absolute "worst of the worst." Seeing how I had never heard of the band (all the while thinking I was really down with what was going on in the underground metal world) my curiosity was definitely piqued. Sheesh, what a letdown! All the ranting I made about Northwinds' equally awful debut apply here - cheesy post-glam thrash with some of the lousiest Overkill-esque vocals I've ever heard. "6669", really? How more Beavis and Butthead can you get? And how many times can a band say "Satan" on a record - yo, we get it dudes. I'm sure there are some metal fans out there that would defend ol' Coven by pointing out the similarities to devil-music institutions Bathory and Venom - fine. All I can say is thank you Norway for reinventing black metal - if Blessed Is The Black is any indication of where it was going than Satan help us all. "Worst of the worst?" What a fucking laugh.

Hell Awaits

Currently watching: The Sasquatch Gang

Currently listening to: Wounds Of Christ Despising The Christian Race

Lowering the bar...

Paul Ledney really had a tough act to follow after 1993's amazing Dethrone The Son Of God. His 1994 The Black Mist 7" came closest to the aura DTSOG attained; sadly, excrable production and the typical imperfections of a vinyl-only release kept that one from being a real gem. 2000's Man And Jinn was heralded as a profane return to form - in my opinion it's anything but. I guess I just don't get black metal, why does sounding like absolute shit mean you have the edge on being unholy? It's one thing when Abruptum are ad-libbing as more of a performance art thing - it's another when Ledney, who's proven he's a talented musician takes the easy way out with the typical grinding blastbeat wall of noise punctuated by a vocoded "aaaaaahhhhhhh" every now and then. The cover of Impaled Nazarene's "Goat Perversion" is really the only reason this EP made it onto the blog - and that's just because it's a great song in it's own right. Jehovah fo nruter eht rof gnitiaw llits.

Burn

 
Currently watching: The Freakmaker 
Currently listening to: Sister Souljah 360 Degrees Of Power

IT + All + Ext + Evil = Abruptum

Much has been written (and speculated) about Sweden's most infamous contribution to the black metal scene. Spewing forth in 1990 and eventually reaching pioneering kult status within the Satanic Black Circle whilst becaming mainstays on Euronymous' Deathlike Silence label (the late Mayhem guitarist calling them nothing less than "the audial essence of pure black evil"); Abruptum stand out from most tired black metal acts simply for the fact that they sound like a screaming noisecore band rather then the usual necrowizard dreck. Supposedly recorded live and unrehearsed while they were self-mutilating, their first two demos (1990's Hextum Galæm Zeloq!!! and The Satanist Tunes) and 1991's Evil 7" are compiled on 2007's incredible Evil Genius CD. Remastered, they sound incredible when compared to their cassette-hiss original releases. Booming, chanting drums thunder through the echo chamber while IT rambles off his Latin musings. Who knows what anyone is doing with the guitar or what actually separates one song from another but that's part of the ritualistic bliss. Interestingly, IT responded in 2006 to the bevy of internet claims about his old band...

"Hate & worship...

In all honesty perhaps the latter is a somewhat more frequent manifestation of the feelings people all around this world experience, tuning into the odd experience of listening to Abruptum. An artist is a seeker, relentlessly emerging and expressing assorted parts of him or herself through a materialistic point of view, be it poetry, painting, music or any other ways to reveal our “inner beings” to this flesh.

Some 17 years ago I was in a unfathomable hunt for certain parts, veiled within the foundation of myself, prying ever deeper to conjure up my personal anguish, hate, desire and the gloomy, spiteful darkness, lurking profound within my corporeal shell. For me, this journey was an essential component of my own evolution, one of the paths to discover what some people may call “utter hell”. Recording this pursuit was a task I chose, not for the somewhat more ordinary causes of recording and album, but purely as a purpose to alter into and transmit this energy right back to myself, thus being able to mirror the matter, reaching even further along this dark road.

In a sense “inquisitiveness” was a trigger not only to investigate deeper into the substance, but also one of the reasons why I chose the share these journeys with other persons, for in a search it is wise to be capable viewing things from a wider perception, thus consulting our “neighboring” energies of their opinions and experiences with this matter.

In sense Abruptum has distorted from a personal quest to “seek for the unholy grail”, to stories manifold, practiced and told to me in letter, mails or in personal conversations that I’ve had with people through all these years. It has been a precious tool for the many, looking for whatever they used the substance for, be it a pure session of listening, for religious ceremonies, a soundtrack for lust and sex, for self torture and self mutilation…

When first Psychoslaughter Records, and later my friend Euronymous and his Deathlike Silence Productions, offered to release some parts of these Journeys, it was not in my consideration to share as in a regular sense of musicianship. In fact, though this is an obvious fact for the majority, Abruptum is NOT in any ways music, something that for reasons I never grasped, I have had to point out time yet time again.

“The essence of pure black evil” may be a way to illustrate it, as Euronymous formerly put it, but for me these recordings are journals of certain journeys of whatever has been my individual and personal “evil”. With Abruptum I have toiled to conjure up and beckon my wrathful demons, befriend them and compose them to an utterly natural element of myself.

To the mass consumer, facts as “IT tortured himself in the studio” or “these are sessions of occult rituals, forbidden mysterious arts recorded” may be ways of selling points, but the sincerely curious mind will unearth that the quintessence of this experience lies in the individual quest one might practice throughout the sinister voids of Abruptum.

Last time this material was released, compiled in the form of a CD titled Evil Genius, it bore a sticker on the cover saying “Includes Razorblade, KILL YOURSELF” and within the booklet one could locate such a device. This exhortation could be simple as this, get rid of your physical structure, but also in a more poetic sense we can decipher this to the cutting and killing of that which was “you” previous to listening to it.

Why the “Latin only” lyrics? Unquestionably for the plain reason that the composition and atmosphere fuses to the form in the only way viable for me, and because we find this language been used in occult practices of a fairly near past. In any case, this is the legacy of something that has become legendary and cult, something that will indisputably never cease to bring us more questions than answers, even so for myself because of the “surreal” states of energy I traveled upon has left numerous blank spaces within my recollection.

This is blood, chaos, fornication and various acts beyond where most will ever dare to venture. The only thing truly within my power is to bid you welcome, take a step ahead and plunge yourself into this abyss. Keep in mind that you do so at your own peril, we take no responsibility for any actions that may spring from this source of utter obscurity.

May you be Gods of creation, not creations of stagnation.

Darkness IT will be, 

IT, November 2006

Post Scriptum: Our self image, identity and control of ourselves, points out the sole factual face of the enemy within us…"

Well, that about sums it up. Check out the hate. 

10/6/14 update: Great new rip of the original Hellspawn Records CD release just in time for the Day Of Bad Omens (Dies Ater for those still speaking Latin folk out there). Try to enjoy... 

Black Retch

I Vomit On God's Child

While I've never been wicked (ha!) into black metal, the band Profanatica was one of those rare diamonds in the rough and I was pretty disappointed when they broke up before ever really getting it together. In comes Paul Ledney's one-man band Havohej to fill the void; Profanatica's ex-drummer/singer re-recorded many of the band's tracks with production A LOT better then most black metal albums (later Havohej releases included). Yep, there's no annoying analog tape/drum machine/whatever hiss throughout the recording, it's clean, tight and evil; a great album chock full of brilliant blasphemy. Profanatica has since reformed, Havohej has gone on to release other albums but I gotta say Ledney was at his peak in 1993.

daolnwoD