!T.O.O.H.! (!TOTAL OBLITERATION OF HUMANITY!) Order And Punishment (Earache) cd 15.98
Tooh? Tee-oh-oh-ech!!? What's that? Oh, TOTAL OBLITERATION OF HUMANITY! Nice. Of course, they're one of those mean and blasting grindcore bands, and a really good one, on the weirder side of the genre -- or genres, in their case, since the Czech Republic's misanthropic !T.O.O.H.! tend to blenderize metal, punk, jazz, and other elements in their music.
We've actually been fans of these freaks for a long time, and were pleased to see 'em get a release on big time extreme metal label Earache, especially as we'd never been able to stock their cds regularly before, since they were all hard-to-come-by Middle European imports. Now we can get Order And Punishment anytime we want to spank all y'all with. And a sonic spanking it is, an utterly spastic spanking of technical death grind insanity. Ripping rollercoaster songcraft, full of widdly neo-classical guitar, vehement vocals in Czech (about what, we don't know), dizzying changes, and some valiantly thrashing riffs... it's really those "classic" metal elements that turn this into a headbanger's ball for us, and make Order And Punishment a worthy repeat listen. What a bunch of nutters.
MPEG Stream: "Abu-Hassan"
MPEG Stream: "Padaji, Piskaji"

3 INCHES OF BLOOD Fire Up The Blades (Roadrunner) cd 14.98
Right from the majestic, martial instrumental intro of "Through The Horned Gate" that begins this album, it's clear that the return of 3 Inches Of Blood is also the return of true, speedy, spikes n' leather metal in an updated '80s vein, hypercharged with aggressive modern metalcore technology. It's all about relentless shrieking, Maidenesque guitar frenzies, and song titles like "Night Marauders" and "Demon's Blade". Total galloping speed metal mayhem, and then some. It's like Judas Priest's Painkiller as performed by Converge!
Of course, 3 Inches Of Blood aren't the only band these days looking back to the glory days of the '80s for (ironic?) metal inspiration. But this Vancouver sextet is one of the best, most wholehearted, and surprisingly successful sales-wise (among North American bands anyway -- and this is way cooler than Dragonforce) and also have their own unique approach to this sound, which can be ascribed both to their hardcore heritage and to the presence of two vocalists (that's all they do!) in the band, doubling up on the mics, one a long-haired, raspy-but-melodic high-end falsetto specialist, the other short-haired one dealing in growlier throat abuse. And they kinda need two singers/screamers to compete with all the dual guitar fireworks going off around them.
Fire Up The Blades is a fine follow up to their breakthrough second album Advance and Vanquish, and is also already a definite headbanging AQ fave. We're into what seems to be an extra dose of, uh, rock n' roll riffage here -- there's some cowbell happenin' too. But it's still all pretty much rockin' at 150mph, pedal to the metal. This is one fierce, energetic album! For fans of everything from Accept to Children Of Bodom to Laaz Rockit to Darkest Hour to Lizzie Borden to Mastodon to Metal Church... gotta highlight this, as the FUN, fist-in-the-air quotient compared to some of the grim black metal we're always recommending is extremely high.
MPEG Stream: "The Great Hall Of Feasting"
MPEG Stream: "Trial Of Champions"

324 Rebelgrind (HG Fact) cd 11.98
Latest and definitely greatest from these old school Japanese grind thrashers. Noisy, heavy, brutal, punishing, and weirdly catchy.

400 BLOWS Angel's Trumpets and Devil's Trombones (GSL) cd 13.98
No genuine angels nor devils are to be found in the ranks of 400 Blows nor is there anything remotely resembling a brass instrument. This L.A. trio is made up of mere mortals, three angry hardcore boys equipped with the punk rock basics. No superhuman strength, no kid gloves, but with just electric guitar, bass, drums and a mean set of vocal chords these guys churn out some ultra lean aggro sounds. In fact these eleven songs just might leave you more than a little bristly, bare fisted and bloody nosed.
MPEG Stream: "The Beauty Of Internal Darkness"
MPEG Stream: "Love You To Death"

400 BLOWS Black Rainbow (Tone Capsule) cd 11.98
Been hearing about this band for a while now. And I have to admit I was a bit skeptical. But this record pretty much erases all doubt from my mind. Crushing, pummelling low-fi math metal with lots of super complex arrangements, some serious riffage and some almost-catchy songs! Another band with the pointless guitar/drums/vocals/NO BASS lineup, but they manage to overcome the handicap of being a BASS-less heavy-rock band and whip up a minimal, spastic, sludgy and brutally lowend masterpiece.
RealAudio clip: "The Root of Our Nature"
RealAudio clip: "The World's Largest Miniature"
RealAudio clip: "The Long Wait For Nothing"
RealAudio clip: "The Wrong Song"

A FASHIONABLE DISEASE s/t (My Pet Goat) 7" 4.50
Totally ass kicking and weirdly fucked brutality fills this little 7" from Santa Cruz's own, A Fashionable Disease! Another one of those what the fuck, seemingly impossible combinations of influences, synthesized in such a unique and successful way, that makes us kind of scratch our heads and lament that we haven't been turned on sooner. How do you describe this? Maybe filthyfreejazzcrustyfiedsatanicdamagedgrindpunkavantskronk? Or maybe just Crass meets Ayler meets Pig Destroyer meets Sun Ra meets Schoenberg meets Anal Cunt meets Mahavishnu. We don't fucking know, but it rules! Super demented, ultra damaged grind-jazz, complete with horn section! Putrid angular metallic guitar discordance, feculent terrorist manifesto screeched vocals, growling horns, blasting drums. The first cut, "Veal Medallions" starts with a blast of feedback before hurling into a psychotically chromatic guitar and piano line, ending up in a blasting tumult of throat tearing vocals and frenetically crazed drumming! Some of the lyrics from this number kind of sum up what these fellas are about... "skulls converge ruins/ rainbows ejaculate onto your face/ quiet in the piss-stained evening/ spring wind blows perfume of 1,000 rotting carcasses...". Fuck yes. The rest of the 7" is just as killer. Totally fucked and totally great! For fans of Zorn, Bathtub Shitter, Rudimentary Peni, Crass, Coltrane, Dystopia, Cecil Taylor, or anything filthy, proggy, grindy, avant-jazzy, and totally shredding! Recommended!

A SCANNER DARKLY s/t (Gilead Media) cd ep 10.98
This Philip K. Dick obsessed band's debut offers six tracks of heavy, raging, artful metalcore. Named after one of PKD's paranoid sci-fi novels (soon to be a major motion picture directed by Richard Linklater!) these guys specialize in unleashed terror in the form of low-end dirge, screaming vocals and guitars, and battering drums. It's kinda like a post-rock band that's REALLY REALLY UPSET about something, combining the atmosphere of an imaginary, scary sci-fi soundtrack ('specially on the mostly ambient track six) with loud, fast, crushing 'core. For fans of Coalesce, Neurosis, Old Man Gloom, Discordance Axis, Isis, Knut and the whole Hydra Head scene.
MPEG Stream: "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?"
MPEG Stream: "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said"

AAN Ajaton Vie (PseudoArcana) cd-r 15.98
Anyone familiar with the name Aan? Well howabout Uton? Right, Uton, one of our favorite Finnish exports (among many!), and one of the least prolific, who somehow survive without releasing a cd-r every two weeks. In fact a new Uton record is a cause to celebrate around here. So we were equally excited to discover this latest release from Uton Satellite Aan, who take Uton's already blissed out tribal drift, and spaces it out even more, turning it into some gorgeous cloud of foresty drone, a gentle assemblage of various vibrating strings, and simple muffled percussion, fragmented melodies, fluttering birdlike trills, bits of acoustic guitar, bleating horns, distant droning swells, all tenuously held together, the various parts allowed to drift off, and then later resurface from amidst a cloud of glistening distant siren like wails.
Another band that definitely sounds like they're channeling legendary Japanese drone collective Taj Mahal Travellers, and one of the few who seem like they understand the spirit behind that sort of soundmaking. Music as an organic entity. As a spirit, that can not be captured, only guided. The members of Aan are shamen, coaxing the spirits from their instruments, then shaping them, guiding them, arranging them into dark dronelike shapes, capturing their essence on tape, and then letting the sounds drift apart and return to whence they came. So lovely. Another fantastic chunk of dreamy meditative forest bliss.
Beautifully packaged too, and oversized full color booklet, filled with striking tripped out black and white images, the cd housed in a pouch affixed to the inside back cover.
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"

ADRENALIN O.D. Humungousfungusamongus (Relapse) cd 14.98
This was one of my favorite records when I (Andee) was in high school, not sure why exactly. I wasn't all that into punk rock at the time. I remembered it being funny and goofy and dumb. And it sort of is, but what I didn't remember was how totally weird and heavy it was. Totally awesome, thrashing and chaotic metallic punk rock. AOD careen wildly through two dozen short sharp blasts of goofy punkrock metal in a buzzing blur of sloppy metallic intensity. Songs like "AOD Vs. Godzilla", "Youth Blimp", "Masterpiece" (a cover of the theme from Masterpiece Theater!), "Fuck The Nieghbors", "Surfin' Jew" and tons more. Heavy and noisy and so so good. Includes a bunch of silly bonus tracks, covers of the theme from Spiderman and the Jeffersons theme, a Bay City Rollers cover, a Kiss cover, A Dead Boys cover and a Sex Pistols cover!
MPEG Stream: "AOD Vs. Son Of Godzilla"
MPEG Stream: "Office Buildings"
MPEG Stream: "Yuppie"
MPEG Stream: "Answer"

AFFLICTED MAN The Complete Recordings (Senseless Whale) 2cd 22.00
A while back we remember running across a bootleg-looking vinyl reissue of an LP called Get Stoned Ezy by some British band from the early '80s called High Speed and The Afflicted Man. This obscurity was supposed to be an unknown precursor to the blown-out psychedelic speed freaks sound of Japan's High Rise -- in other words, a holy grail of wah and fuzz. Tom Lax wrote a review of it on his Siltblog that said it sounded like Saint Vitus covering Les Rallizes Denudes! Can anything live up to that? Heck, if Get Stoned Ezy even just remotely came close to living up to its excellent title we'd be curious. Are you curious too?
Well that LP is long gone, but all the tracks from that and more are to be found on this new double cd collection of everything ever recorded by guitarist Steve Hall's DIY punk-psych outfit Afflicted Man (aka Afflicted, aka High Speed and The Afflicted Man). Ramshackle, lo-fi, outsider guitar blurt that reminds us of everything from The Heads to the Stooges to Human Instinct to Michael Yonkers to Zippo Zetterlink to Baby Grandmothers to Acid Mothers Temple and the Pink Ladies Blues. It's psychedelic hard rock done "Messthetics" style.
There's over two hours of music here. Disc one features Afflicted Man's three Bonk label 7" singles, and their The Afflicted Man's Musical Bag LP (which dates from "probably 1979"). The songs from the 7"s are all fairly rockin' punkers, while the Musical Bag LP is weirder and more damaged, with tracks like "Hippy Punk" and "Hippy Skin" (that's what these guys were?), the downer blues of "Glue Sniffing", and the krautrockish "Musically Insane", a track that's really a reinterpretation of their first single "I'm Afflicted", extended to eight minutes and buried amidst shimmering piano and freeform FX. It's what that song would sound like if it was covered by Moolah!
Disc two is where the really fuzz really hits the fan, comprising both the I'm Off Me 'ead LP (1981) and the aforementioned Get Stoned Ezy (1982). On both records, Hendrix and Hawkwind are obvious references, playfully roughed up by these punks n' skins. The three long tracks of Get Stoned Ezy, especially, take that hippy psych sound into a back alley and fuck it up, but all in good weird fun.
While this reish features interesting liner notes from an Aussie fan, we're not really told what happened to the Afflicted Mr. Hall after Get Stoned Ezy. At least he went out at the end of his highest and heaviest half-hour ever!
MPEG Stream: "Get Stoned Ezy"
MPEG Stream: "I'm Afflicted"
MPEG Stream: "Dustbins"
MPEG Stream: "Zip 'Ead"

AGENTS OF ABHORRENCE Character Dissection (Numerical Thief) lp 15.98
This brutal blast of glorious grind from down under is finally available on vinyl. One sided, the other side etched and it looks AMAZING! All new art, gatefold sleeve. So killer.
Here's what we had to say about the cd when we first got it in:
Not sure what it is about the number 9 but it somehow figures heavily into the mythos of these mysterious grindlords from Australia. Their first release was a super limited 9". This latest disc, another blown out blast of pummeling technical grind, is 9 songs packed into 9 ultradense minutes. Hmmm. 9. 9. 9. Upside down is... 6. 6. 6. Ahem, anyway... As with all great grind, these guys pack more riffs and parts into 9 minutes than most bands can manage in an hour! 9 mini epics, each a dizzying squall of whirlwind riffs, shrieking vocals, chaotic drum splatter and a wall of low end that hits you like a block of concrete to the sternum. The guys in Whitehorse hipped us to these guys so you can get an idea of the sort of heaviness we're talking here. But where Whitehorse destroy with glacial malevolence, AoA annihilate with frenzied fury! Awesome.
MPEG Stream: "Dead End"
MPEG Stream: "Heart(less)"
MPEG Stream: "Sleepwalker"

AGENTS OF ABHORRENCE Character Dissection (Numerical Thief) 3" cd-r 11.98
Not sure what it is about the number 9 but it somehow figures heavily into the mythos of these mysterious grindlords from Australia. Their first release was a super limited 9". This latest disc, another blown out blast of pummeling technical grind, is 9 songs packed into 9 ultradense minutes. Hmmm. 9. 9. 9. Upside down is... 6. 6. 6. Ahem, anyway... As with all great grind, these guys pack more riffs and parts into 9 minutes than most bands can manage in an hour! 9 mini epics, each a dizzying squall of whirlwind riffs, shrieking vocals, chaotic drum splatter and a wall of low end that hits you like a block of concrete to the sternum. The guys in Whitehorse hipped us to these guys so you can get an idea of the sort of heaviness we're talking here. But where Whitehorse destroy with glacial malevolence, AoA annihilate with frenzied fury! Awesome.
Cool little 3" cd-r packaged in a deluxe oversized slim DVD case, with full color insert.
MPEG Stream: "Dead End"
MPEG Stream: "Heart(less)"
MPEG Stream: "Sleepwalker"

AGENTS OF ABHORRENCE Covert Lobotomy (Missing Link) 9" 14.98
How can you not love a band called Agents of Abhorrence? Or a record called Covert Lobotomy? Well, with names like those you can probably guess what sort of business these agents get up to. A thrashing grinding buzz of epic proportions. Swarms of bombinating riffs and spastically thrashing drums, howled vocals and ultraprecise ultracomplex song structures. Massive and masterful grind! Pete from the mighty Whitehorse hipped us to these guys and he was right on the money. Clear vinyl packaged in a gorgeous cut-away sleeve, hard to describe but really, really cool looking. Beautiful and of course VERY LIMITED!!

AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED PCP Torpedo / ANBRX (Hydra Head) 2cd 14.98
"All records should be six minutes long!! I just listened to this whole record, and it was awesome!"
- Me (Andee) ranting when I threw this on the first time.
By now, it takes a whole lot for us to give a shit about a 'remix' record. Pretty strange that one of the first remix records in ages to totally kick our asses would come from grindlords Agoraphobic Nosebleed and avant post metal label Hydra Head. But remixes aside for the moment, metalheads and grindfreaks should be thanking their lucky stars that AnB's legendary PCP Torpedo 6" has finally been released on cd. All SIX minutes of it. One of the most perfect slabs of mechanized grind metal EVER. Dense, convoluted, heavy, ridiculous, scary, blazing fast, buzzing and snarling, short and sweet. PERFECT GRIND! So it would almost be worth it for PCP on cd alone (okay, maybe $15 for 6 minutes is a bit steep, but it's soooo good!). Thankfully, PCP's 6 minutes gets rounded out by an hour long bonus disc of remixes from folks like Justin Broadrick (Jesu, Godflesh, etc.), James Plotkin (Khanate, Phantomsmasher), DJ Speedranch, Merzbow, Jansky Noise, Vinda Obmana, and a bunch more. From Plotkin's timestretched, ultradistorted industrial freakout mix, to the Godfleshy sludge and pummel of Broadrick's mix, to the skittery acid fried IDM Dev/Null mix, to Vinda Obmana's bleak wasted industrial soundscape mix, it's all totally weird and wonderful, most of it very very noisy. But what would you expect when the source material is the violent and vitriolic hate fueled fury of Agoraphobic Nosebleed?!
And then there's the packaging! HOLY SHIT. Totally deluxe double disc digipak, all in vivid yellows and reds and oranges, the front some sort of factory, with multicolored flames licking the sky as pills rain from the heavens. The inside is a dizzying blur of pills and capsules, each disc covered in tiny little flames, the six minute PCP disc a little black 3" cd embedded in a 5" plastic disc, all flickering little blue flames, the remix a 5" black disc with red flames, so completely and overwhelmingly gorgeous. Includes a black and white insert with all the liner notes and lyrics confusingly tucked amidst and within a litany of pharmecutical jargon, suggestions for dosages, various health warnings and lists of side effects. Awesome!
MPEG Stream: "Thanksgiving Day"
MPEG Stream: "Thinning The Herd"
MPEG Stream: "James Plotkin - Phantomsmasher Mix"
MPEG Stream: "Justin Broadrick - Flesh Of Jesu Mix"

AIR CONDITIONING Dead Rails (Load) cd 14.98
Dead Rails is the second full-length from Air Conditioning, now quite at home on Load after a debut disc on Level Plane. They're from the same Allentown, PA scene as Pissed Jeans, and even (much more, whoah) noisier than those guys! They also were on a 4-way split LP we listed last time, the Tiger Tongue Pussy Cactus: Terminal Fantasies For Malefic Youth on Hospital Productions. Regarding that, we said Air Conditioning sounded like a supercharged noise rock Tim Hecker, all blown out buzz and buried melodies, and this follows suit.
Air Conditioning combine vacuum cleaner guitars with industrial-strength drum pummel for a noise rock delight, stress on the noise. Sheets of feedback shriek accompany indecipherable angst ridden punk hollers, all subsumed far below a tsunami of rumbling distortion. Although Dead Rails has its quiet, dare we say pretty side too, on the more ambient droning likes of "I Run Low". But when on the disc's final, 16+ minute track, Air Conditioning ask us to "Accept Your Paralysis", they've probably also caused said paralysis with their amped to the max geetar STATIC and mind-numbing rhythmic throb. Here, their noise rock gets almost psychedelic, like one of them Japanese bands, maybe Up-Tight or LSD-march, veering into Hijokaidan territory!
MPEG Stream: "Where To Litter / Trash Burning"
MPEG Stream: "Accept Your Paralysis / Cephalexin"

AIR CONDITIONING / VEGAS MARTYRS / COUGHS / THE NEW FLESH Tiger Tongue Pussy Cactus: Terminal Fantasies For Malefic Youth (Hospital Productions) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
An awesome 4 band pile up, the state of modern black noise, or blackened noise rock, or whatever the fuck you want to call it. This stuff is fierce and heavy and demented and so great. From the same label that brought us the primitive black metal of Malkuth (reviewed elsewhere on this list), the raw black fury of Bone Awl, those killer Akitsa reissues and a recent MB reissue, comes this killer 4 band anvil to the head. Up first is the Vegas Martyrs, featuring Hospital head honcho and Prurient mastermind Dom Fernow, and just like the recently reviewed lp, it's another gloriously blown out and beautiful slab of blackened pop flecked noise rock. In the red and on the verge of destroying your speakers, VM offer up a killer Maiden-like riff over super distorted drums, garbled FX drenched vocals, super hypnotic and repetitive, all wrapped up in a crumbling stereo killing production, finishing off with several minutes of glitchy grinding murky noise...
Up next is Air Conditioning, who sculpt their noise into something sorta pretty, huge swaths of blown out buzz over blurred buried melodies, layer upon layer upon layer, all shifting and shimmering, it almost sounds like a super charged noiserock Tim Hecker. Abrasive but surprisingly lovely. Up third is The New Flesh, show kick out the jams, ultra lo-fi style, a noisy practice space sounding garage rock sludge jam, all downtuned guitars, distorted trash can drums, and a weirdly deep voiced vocalist, who occasionally let's loose with a glass gargling screech. Dirgey, grimey, almost like some long lost Swans rehearsal tape. Finally, finishing things up are the Coughs, who weave some strange drone-y dirge with skronky sax and buzzy bass, fuzz guitar, all in short sharp bursts, creating a weirdly spacious plod, looped and cyclical, until the wild female vocals come in, and suddenly the Coughs sound like they're channeling old school Riot Grrl through new school noise. Out of nowhere comes a blast of spastic drum freakout before returning to that gorgeously relentless sludge-y pulse...
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES. Packaged in a thick black on green paper sleeve, printed inside and out, pressed on clear green vinyl.

AKIMBO Navigating The Bronze (Alternative Tentacles) cd 13.98
There's a certain breed of rock band that just rocks. Or RAWKS. They're not punk or metal, emo or indie, they just kick boatloads of ass, destroy live, are fun and funny, wild, over the top, and their rock tends to transcend scene politics or genres. Cuz who doesn't love a rock band that RAWKS, right? Karp were probably the ultimate example. A band that were legendary, and rightfully so. A Karp show would be packed to the rafters with punks and metalheads and indie nerds, and white belted emo kids, and goths. It didn't matter, you could hole up in your bedroom and listen to whatever you wanted to the rest of the time, but Saturday night, when it was time to go out and get wild, Karp was the soundtrack. 
There have been a few bands since, who managed the same sort of RAWK magic, but none so deftly as perfectly as Akimbo. In the past, we played down the Karp comparisons with Akimbo, cuz they tended to be WAY heavier, and much more of an actual metal band, channeling Neurosis as much as if not significantly more than Karp, but on this latest slab of rock and roll fury, Akimbo have stripped down and rocked up, sounding less metal and more like some supercharged AC/DC, and it sounds fucking awesome. 
From top to bottom this is pure rock, a tour van with horns on the hood and a mast and sail mounted to the top, plowing through stormy seas on the cover, song titles like "Wizard Van Wizard", "Dungeon Bastard" and "Huge Muscles", but it's what inside that really counts (just like your mother always told you) and inside are some mega huge ultra shredding riffs, wild howled vocals, crazy catchy hooks, and some of the most bad ass drumming ever, just check out the proggy drum solo intro to "Wizard Van Wizard"! Holy Shit. We have been rocking this disc like crazy since it came in. And for those of us who have seen them live, they most definitely deliver the goods there too. Maybe even more so. 
So for those of you who need your ROCK FIX, this is exactly what the 'doctor' ordered!
MPEG Stream: "You Can Smell The Honey"
MPEG Stream: "Wizard Van Wizard"
MPEG Stream: "Dungeon Bastard"

ALU Autismenschen (C.I.P.) cd 11.98
A few months back we bellowed loudly about the impressive Berlin Super 80 DVD / CD compilation, which presented the parallel activities of the nascent German DIY film community and the incendiary musical scene which collectively qualified themselves as The Ingenious Dilletantes in the late '70s and early '80s, after a huge arts festival co-curated by Einsturzende Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld. Exasperated by the pressure cooked environment, the members of this very loose community which also included painters, performance artists, actors, etc. embraced an aesthetic of bleak nihilism often tinged with post-ironic absurdity. While not being featured on the musical program of Berlin Super 80, Alu was one of many bands mentioned in passing in that document, having played alongside the likes of Sprung Aus Den Wolken, Neubauten, and Malaria back in the day. Like many of those terminally obscure but often exceptional electro/post-punk projects that Vinyl-On-Demand has reissued in recent years, Alu set forth Frankensteinian, synth-punk and monotone grooves, upon which they chanted dead-pan German vocals sounding not too far from early SPK, Throbbing Gristle, or even Suicide. What's curious about Alu is not the fantastic sound of this, their only studio recording Autimenschen (which actually never saw the light of day back in the '80s, and only now has been discovered and released by the good people at C.I.P.), but in the fact that the two members of Alu also hailed from the obscure '70s Krautrock trio Sand. The morose hallucinations and sprawling psychedelia of Sand are a far cry from the tense, motorized bleakness of Alu; but nonetheless both Alu and Sand stand out as magnificent discoveries from their respective genres.
MPEG Stream: "Halt Dich Fest"
MPEG Stream: "Bitte Warten Sie!"
MPEG Stream: "Sie Kriegt Alles Was Sie Will"

AMEBIX Arise! (Alternative Tentacles) cd 12.98
Awesome reissue of this seminal crust classic. Heavy and noisy and brilliant. Includes 2 bonus tracks!

AN ALBATROSS Blessphemy (Of The Peace-Beast Feastgiver And The Bear Warp Kumite) (Ace Fu) cd 14.98
The Pitchfork blurb on the sticker proclaims this record to be "the trippiest record in the history of the world". While that might be a wee bit of an exaggeration, this most certainly is one of the weirdest wildest psychedelic spazz prog grind pop records EVER (C'mon, Pitchfork, at least when we spew some ridiculous hyperbole, it's absolutely true!! Haha)!! Not that there have been a whole lot of psychedelic spazz prog grind pop records, but there's a reason for that. This shit is NUTS. So freaked out and dense and complex and hard to pull of. Anyone can crank their keyboards and channel an inferior version of the Locust, but An Albatross seem to have some real link to classic prog, although it's filtered through some impossibly skewed, cracked and demented postpunk, grindcore sensibility. 18 songs, 26 minutes. One's even a three part epic clocking in at a whopping 4 minutes. Keyboards wiggle and slither, whipping wildly like a garden hose turned on full blast and let loose to swing like a mad cobra dosed with angel dust, striking at everyone within reach, drums are spastic, and hyperkinetic, like BB's fired from a cannon, a dizzying splatter, guitars grind and churn, melodic one second, harsh and screeching the next. ALl of these elements tangled up into hyper complex, ultra obtuse knots of super complicated, multi part mini grindprog epics, stop / starts, blazing bursts of hyper blast, brief stretches of serene acoustic dreaminess, warm washes of thick synth whir, blissed out drones and crunchy bouncy blasts of new wave, even some horns find their way into the chaos. Above it all, the vocalist screeches and growls, diving and twisting and turning, dodging and ducking, offering shrieked unintelligible platitudes tucked between jagged shards of post punk stutter and epic convoluted prog. This is like a spazzy, grindy, confusional 21st century Magma, mixed up with bits of Locusts and Lightning Bolts maybe, but with a truly unique sound, due perhaps to their prog rock heart of gold. One of our favorite new records. Furious and freaked out, fast and fucked up but still so goddamn catchy and listenable. And so so so great!!!
MPEG Stream: "In The Court Of The Bear King"
MPEG Stream: "Lysergically Yours, My Psychedelic Bride"
MPEG Stream: "Dimensional Gymnastics"
MPEG Stream: "Trust The Sun, The Symphonic Sunrise"

AN ALBATROSS Blessphemy (Of The Peace-Beast Feastgiver And The Bear Warp Kumite) (GSL) lp 13.98
The Pitchfork blurb on the sticker proclaims this record to be "the trippiest record in the history of the world". While that might be a wee bit of an exaggeration, this most certainly is one of the weirdest wildest psychedelic spazz prog grind pop records EVER (C'mon, Pitchfork, at least when we spew some ridiculous hyperbole, it's absolutely true!! Haha)!! Not that there have been a whole lot of psychedelic spazz prog grind pop records, but there's a reason for that. This shit is NUTS. So freaked out and dense and complex and hard to pull of. Anyone can crank their keyboards and channel an inferior version of the Locust, but An Albatross seem to have some real link to classic prog, although it's filtered through some impossibly skewed, cracked and demented postpunk, grindcore sensibility. 18 songs, 26 minutes. One's even a three part epic clocking in at a whopping 4 minutes. Keyboards wiggle and slither, whipping wildly like a garden hose turned on full blast and let loose to swing like a mad cobra dosed with angel dust, striking at everyone within reach, drums are spastic, and hyperkinetic, like BB's fired from a cannon, a dizzying splatter, guitars grind and churn, melodic one second, harsh and screeching the next. ALl of these elements tangled up into hyper complex, ultra obtuse knots of super complicated, multi part mini grindprog epics, stop / starts, blazing bursts of hyper blast, brief stretches of serene acoustic dreaminess, warm washes of thick synth whir, blissed out drones and crunchy bouncy blasts of new wave, even some horns find their way into the chaos. Above it all, the vocalist screeches and growls, diving and twisting and turning, dodging and ducking, offering shrieked unintelligible platitudes tucked between jagged shards of post punk stutter and epic convoluted prog. This is like a spazzy, grindy, confusional 21st century Magma, mixed up with bits of Locusts and Lightning Bolts maybe, but with a truly unique sound, due perhaps to their prog rock heart of gold. One of our favorite new records. Furious and freaked out, fast and fucked up but still so goddamn catchy and listenable. And so so so great!!!
MPEG Stream: "In The Court Of The Bear King"
MPEG Stream: "Lysergically Yours, My Psychedelic Bride"
MPEG Stream: "Dimensional Gymnastics"
MPEG Stream: "Trust The Sun, The Symphonic Sunrise"

ANAL CUNT (A.C.) The Early Years: 1988-1991 (NG Records) 2cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Previously released as two seperate, hard to find cds ("Old Stuff Part 1" and "Old Stuff Part II") on two different labels. Now some crazy person at NG Records has gone and released this new version, compiling (as it says) the early works (i.e. demos, singles, and compilation appearances) of this notorious blurr-core, noise-metal, very un-pc band from Boston. Over 7000 "songs" to be found here, spread over two cds. That's mainly thanks to the presence here of the tracks from the infamous "5,643 Song EP"... Now for most reviews of A.C. discs, we'd simply pick the best song titles and leave it at that, 'cause offensive & funny song titles are what A.C. does best. But the material on here dates from back when A.C. didn't supply titles (or lyrics for that matter) for their "compositions". So that leaves us to make a case for the musical rather than humorous value (or musically humorous value) of these tracks. Oh boy...well for all you experimental jokers out there, the aforementioned "5,643 Song EP" features the songs playing at the same time! There's actually three hours of material compressed onto the original 7", and it took twenty hours for them to record it! Compares favorably to the Francisco Lopez disc we made record of the week last list... Then there's the "Unplugged EP" tracks, where A.C. takes their screaming metal chaos into the acoustic realm for some unique results. And, any fan of John Zorn or Masonna should really check out A.C. as well, on general principles... truly a classic band, American outsider improv "genius". If not musical genius, then comedy genius. Sure, you or I could have recorded more or less the same stuff on your parents' stereo much like these guys did for their first demo (disc one, track one), but you have to admit that you'd never record so much of it, for so many years, or play such crazy shows. We (Allan and Andee anyway--in fact, A.C. was the first interview Allan ever did for his old 'zine) love this band. For you collectors, note that there's material on these cds not found on the original singles and such. And for novices, we also recommend A.C.'s "Morbid Florist" ep and "Everyone Must Be Killed" album to start with... The cd booklet includes detailed liner notes about each track/release written by A.C. mastermind Seth Putnam. All hail!

ANGEL EYES Something To Do With Death (Underground Communique) cd 9.98
Angel Eyes are another band ready to make their mark in the blossoming post rock / sludge metal scene, and manage to do just that with Something To Do With Death, making -that- sound completely their own. So much so that upon hearing this disc we freaked out and immediately got in touch with the label and got a bunch of copies for the store. The general vibe is one we've come to love, the slow building brooding moodiness, a creeping post rock slow burn, minor key guitar, distant droney shimmer, simple martial percussion, building in intensity, the opening track could be Mogwai or Godspeed, with its understated majesty and about-to-explode urgency. Track two, the awesomely titled "By The Time He Was My Age, Orson Welles Had Made Citizen Kane", starts off with more loping post rockiness, but quickly lurches into some seriously fierce Neurosisy sludge, but within the roiling churning downtuned brutality, lurks plenty of mournful melody and subtle sonic shadings. Making this more than just heavy, more a an emotionally loaded ferocity. In fact each song is a expansive and beautifully convoluted journey, from massive pummel, to dreamy shuffle, to tribal ambience, to blown out guitarnoise and back again. So fucking good. Obviously, anyone who digs Isis, Pelican, Godspeed, Tides, Conifer, Minsk, Mouth Of The Architect, Rosetta, Minsk or any of the current crop of postrockmetal outfits NEEDS THIS NOW!
MPEG Stream: "Two Too Many"
MPEG Stream: "By The Time He Was My Age, Orson Welles Had Made Citizen Kane"

ANIMALS & MEN Revel In The Static (Hyped To Death) cd 13.98
Here's one of the full-lengths mentioned in our review of the Messthetics Greatest Hits compilation last list, and it's also quite recommended. We first heard Animals & Men (named for an early Adam & The Ants Song) on one of the old Messthetics cd-r comps. Later Hyped To Death released a 21-song cd-r collection of pretty much everything that this band ever recorded both under the name Animals & Men and in their later incarnation Terraplanes. That disc has now been revamped, retitled, and reissued on cd, with four extra tracks tacked on! Plus a mpeg video clip of a live performance of "Evil Going On" as a bonus.
What're they all about? Female-fronted DIY art/blues/punk from rural England, totally charming and catchy and homemade, comparable to Kleenex/LiLiPUT, Delta 5 and the Vaselines. And that's right, their wide array of influences included black American blues...and the novels of J.G. Ballard, which would explain "Car Crash Blues".
The cd booklet features in-depth liner notes detailing the band's saga as New Wave coulda-woulda beens, with patrons like John Peel and their long-time pal Adam Ant. Obscure though they remained, that should definitely not inhibit but rather enhance your enjoyment of this collection, for lack of commercial success allowed wonderful idiosyncrasies to flourish in their songwriting.
PS. what's a Terraplane you might be wondering? It's an American automobile from the '30s, immortalized in Robert Johnson's "Terraplane Blues". And Animals & Men's "Terraplane Fixation".
MPEG Stream: "Terraplane Fixation"
MPEG Stream: "Evil Going On"

ANODYNE The Outer Dark (Escape Artist) cd 14.98
Thrashy noisy hardcore GONE METAL?! Woo Hoo! Seems like all those punk kids have GONE METAL. But who am I to complain? I mean, I -do- like metal more than punk. And this -is- good, just not terribly groundbreaking. Think equal parts, Coalesce, Converge, Dillinger Escape Plan with a HUGE helping of Neurosis! Definitely for fans of the above.
RealAudio clip: "Lucky Sky Diamond"

ANTISEEN 15 Minutes of Fame, 15 Years of Infamy (Steel Cage) cd 13.98
Rarely does a band make it to its third or fourth record, especially when the band plays sloppy, trashy, violent, totally uncommercial punk rock. But here it is, the year 2000, and Antiseen are still carving their messy, bloody swath across the punk underground, 15 years and counting. Especially amazing considering that frontman Jeff Clayton has been abusing his body in true rock and roll style, ending every show in a bloody disheveled heap on the floor. This is a collection of 7"s, compilation tracks, weird out of print stuff and some unreleased songs, as well as a bunch of covers (Roky Erickson, Screaming Lord Sutch, Troggs, Stooges) showcasing Antiseen at their trashy, fucked up, southern-fried best.

AQUARIUS BUTTONS 2 x 1" buttons 1.00
Spread the word! Show the world your true aQ colors! COOL COOL COOL aQ buttons, in 5 different colors. TWO FOR $1!!! Colors are random, but buy enough and you'll be guaranteed to get 'em all! All 5 feature our spiffy James Gang style logo!!

ARKANSAW MAN s/t (Radium / Table Of The Elements) cd ep 11.98
An amazing lost artpunk artifact from the early eighties San Francisco punk rock scene, and we're talking really lost, as no one we know had even heard of these guys, but from the very first note we were smitten.
The opener is a super spare and spacious bit of post punk dub, subtly groovy, a throbbing new wave bass line, sounding like Gang Of Four or Interpol slowed waaaaaaaaay down, a simple krautrock beat peppered with handclaps, some dissonant guitar clang and a bit of moody post rock strum and jangle, with the occasional huge dissonant wash of atonal horns. Dark and creepy and almost danceable at times, that is if your dance of choice is some sort of zombie shuffle.
The other three tracks are not nearly as spare, but have the same sort of angular clang and low slung groove, the vocals sort of sung spoken, the rhythms loping and tribal, guitar harmonics ringing out, bits of angular riffage, vocals very reminiscent of Slint actually, laconic and buried way down in the mix. Stumblingly propulsive, the mix occasionally engulfed by some weird low end swell and some damaged electronics, the whole thing lurching and lumbering amidst a swirl of off kilter guitars and dubbed out ambience, it's sort of like Gang Of Four mixed with Slint mixed with This Heat. Which, we hardly need to tell you, is a very good thing indeed.
MPEG Stream: "The Ballroom"
MPEG Stream: "Angels / Aliens"

ARTIMUS PYLE Civil Dead (Prank) cd 10.98
First off, let me just say that Artimus Pyle is one of the best person's-name-as-band-name ever, second only to Lynyrd Skynyrd (and oddly enough, the real Artimus Pyle just happened to be a member of L.S.). Pounding furious crusty grind from this Bay Area super group (featuring members of What Happens Next?, Fuckface, Los Rudiments...). This posthumous cd collects most if not all of their of their recorded output.

AS MERCENARIAS O Comeco Do Fim Do Mundo (The Beginning Of The End Of The World): Brasilian Post-Punk 1982-88 (Soul Jazz) cd 21.00
As Mercenarias were one of the highlights of the Soul Jazz compilation The Sexual Life Of The Savages, which alongside the superior Nao Wave compilation introduced us to the Brazilian post-punk scene of the '80s. Like plenty of their contemporaries around the globe, this all-women quartet wore their influences on their sleeves, especially early Gang of Four, Nina Hagen, The Dead Kennedies, and Liliput. Not surprisingly, As Mercenarias dabble throughout the broad spectrum of what punk could mean, one track exploding as a taut pogo punk anthem then the next might be a sinewy art-rock tune sounding like a less dubby Slits track with a hell of a lot more fury behind the spidery guitar work and serpentine basslines. Where Soul Jazz sort of dropped the ball on The Sexual Life Of The Savages comp was choosing to include some of late '80s tracks drenched in studio production slickness, but they the mark in uncovering the spittle and contempt of As Mercenarias. Far from being novelty album, O Comeco Do Fim Do Mundo is actually a pretty amazing document from one of the nearly forgotten chapters of punk.
MPEG Stream: "Me Perco"
MPEG Stream: "Inimigo"
MPEG Stream: "Loucos Sentimentos"

AS MERCENARIAS O Comeco Do Fim Do Mundo (The Beginning Of The End Of The World): Brasilian Post-Punk 1982-88 (Soul Jazz) lp 24.00
As Mercenarias were one of the highlights of the Soul Jazz compilation The Sexual Life Of The Savages, which alongside the superior Nao Wave compilation introduced us to the Brazilian post-punk scene of the '80s. Like plenty of their contemporaries around the globe, this all-women quartet wore their influences on their sleeves, especially early Gang of Four, Nina Hagen, The Dead Kennedies, and Liliput. Not surprisingly, As Mercenarias dabble throughout the broad spectrum of what punk could mean, one track exploding as a taut pogo punk anthem then the next might be a sinewy art-rock tune sounding like a less dubby Slits track with a hell of a lot more fury behind the spidery guitar work and serpentine basslines. Where Soul Jazz sort of dropped the ball on The Sexual Life Of The Savages comp was choosing to include some of late '80s tracks drenched in studio production slickness, but they the mark in uncovering the spittle and contempt of As Mercenarias. Far from being novelty album, O Comeco Do Fim Do Mundo is actually a pretty amazing document from one of the nearly forgotten chapters of punk.
MPEG Stream: "Me Perco"
MPEG Stream: "Inimigo"
MPEG Stream: "Loucos Sentimentos"

ASBESTOSDEATH Unclean / Dejection (Southern Lord) 10" 10.98
Now available on vinyl! Here's our review from when we first listed the cd...
Thanks to AQ pal Matt for the low down on this slab of pre-Sleep heaviness, long out of print singles finally available again, collected on a single cd:
We used to see Asbestosdeath in the very early '90s around the Bay Area, at the East Bay punk institution 924 Gilman and various punk rock parties. They released two singles, the latter on the Minneapolis label of anarcho-punk stalwarts, Profane Existence. The band that evolved into Sleep -- who fans would like to think of as a "doom" or "stoner" band today -- was actually more akin to the then crust-influenced Neurosis, Christ on Parade and various UK anarcho and post-Discharge bands.
Slowed waaay down, of course. At the time, liking Asbestosdeath was a seriously guilty pleasure. Their worship of Neurosis and Melvins was obvious. If you liked the sound of those bands -- and lots of people did -- this band was not all that surprising. Highly enjoyable, but not groundbreaking.
Upon re-recording slower and more polished versions of these tracks for Sleep's debut album "Volume 1," they officially entered the arena of the world's slowest, heaviest bands... a field then dominated by the Melvins and perhaps Drunks with Guns but soon to be populated by the likes of Eyehategod, Grief, Buzzov-en and Earth, among many. Over time, they definitely got better. Their songs got more interesting. And they added wizards. And doobies. And the rest is history.
Sonically, these tracks belong squarely alongside Neurosis' The Word As Law and Melvins recordings up to Bullhead. They're gritty and more aggressive than what you'd expect. But they still sound fresh, and the arrangements have a sparse, atmospheric quality that typifies the aesthetic of most of the bands on Southern Lord today.
MPEG Stream: "Nail"
MPEG Stream: "Scourge"

ASSACRE Fantastic Illusions Worth Dying For cd-r 5.98

AT THE DRIVE-IN Relationship Of Command (Grand Royal) cd 9.99
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
These emo punk heroes go big time with the release of "Relationship of Command" on Grand Royal, the Beastie Boys' label. Produced by Ross Robinson of Korn fame! (But don't let that dissuade you.) Sounds amazing, of course -- that's what Andee thinks cos he's already a big fan. For those new to At The Drive-In, these El Paso, Texas, kids are underground wunderkinds, having toured with Rage Against the Machine and honed their Texas-punk-via-DC-influenced sound. Fans of Fugazi and Nation of Ulysses will love this record. Totally aggro, definitely pop, so energizing it's amazing that the disc doesn't explode when you open the package.
RealAudio clip: "Arcarsenal"

AT THE DRIVE-IN This Station Is Non-Operational - Anthology (Fearless) cd + dvd 15.98
Okay so now that a few years have passed and things have sorta flipped around -- i.e, kids are more likely checking out At The Drive In because they dig The Mars Volta (or Sparta for that matter) as opposed to vice versa (which was certainly the case shortly after ATDI disbanded in 2001) -- here's a comprehensive collection of the songs to get the kids up to speed on the ferocious firepower of Omar and Cedric's former emo-punk band.
There's loads of rare material to thrill their fans, both old and new! The cd features 18 tracks total compiled from a bunch of their early releases on the Offtime and Fearless labels, some split 7"s, their Grand Royal album Relationship Of Command such as "One Armed Scissor", as well as one previously unreleased song (a cover of The Smiths' "This Night Has Opened My Eyes"). This Station Is Non-Operational closes with another cover, this one is of Pink Floyd's "Take Up They Stethoscope and Walk".
The dvd includes videos for "Metronome Arthritis", "One Armed Scissor" and "Invalid Litter Dept.", an "Operations Manual" (aka an electronic presskit), their full discography, and some cd-rom extras.
The insert booklet lets the pictures do the talking, jam-packed with tour and live photos, and precious little in the way of liner notes.
MPEG Stream: "One Armed Scissor"
MPEG Stream: "This Night Has Opened My Eyes"

AVENGED SEVENFOLD City Of Evil (Warner) cd 14.98
The major label debut (after three AQ-recommended indie label releases) for these "you've got your emo chocolate in my heavy metal peanut butter" punk rock kids from SoCal. With their capable and practically seamless blend of soaring, melodic emo-styled vocal choruses, Sunset Strip cock rock swagger, slayin' metalcore breakdowns, and Maidenesque gallop (all flawlessly executed with tons of energy), Avenged Sevenfold certainly have their fans here at Aquarius! To be sure, we might have to lump 'em into the guilty pleasure catagory, 'specially with City Of Evil's big-leagues production polish. But if you're not afraid of a band whose vocalist unleashes a few heartfelt (if whiny) "Whoa-oh-oh-ohs" per song, then this album gets our recommendation for best Bad Religion-meets-Helloween record of the year, so far, for sure! Or is it Anthrax-meets-Faith No More? Or the Get Up Kids-meets-Bang Tango-meets-Metallica-meets-Alice In Chains-meets-The Offspring-meets-Yngwie Malmsteen-meets-Poison The Well-meets-Skid Row? Heck it's all of that and more. And even though they make it really easy to play games of "what's that part remind me of? and that part?" within each track, what's amazing is that their songs remain so dang catchy and definitely Avenged Sevenfold's when all's said and done. Reactions to A7X's cheese-to-crunch ratio (a lot of both, really, each drawn equally from their metal and punk influences, and that's ok with us) will assuredly vary according to one's individual taste -- we say yum!
MPEG Stream: "Beast And The Harlot"
MPEG Stream: "Bat Country"

AVENGED SEVENFOLD Sounding the Seventh Trumpet (Goodlife) cd 13.98
We were totally blown away by this band when we got the ep precurser to this record and we've been super anxious for the full length and it's finally here. Avenged Sevenfold are kids from Southern California who play some of the most explosive metallic hardcore (heavy on the metal) we've heard, but with crazy emo parts, 3 part harmonies and Get Up Kids-style sad boy vocals. And on that earlier ep there was even a straight up ballad (it shows up again here, as does most of that ep), complete with acoustic guitar and totally emotional outro. The cdep even came with a totally cheesy cd-rom video of this track, with a sad girl wandering the mean city streets. You know the type. Well, not much has changed for the full length, with ultra-complex metal-core, weird pop-punk, and some of the most insane double kick drumming we have *ever* heard still totally in effect. Somewhere between Coalesce, Slayer, Bad Religion, Guns n' Roses, and the Get Up Kids! A weird combination but it's kind of irresistible. You can't make it through a song without them throwing some sort of curve at you, whether it's a super catchy pop breakdown, a shrieking emo crescendo, a howling banshee female guest vocalist or just some insanely complex drum part or monstrous riff. Allan and Andee are *so* into this band -- but Allan's the only one who seems to have that ballad lodged in his brain (Andee's caught him singing it to himself!). Or at least Allan's the only one willing to admit it... Another record that definitely qualifies as 'fucked.'
RealAudio clip: "To End The Rapture"
RealAudio clip: "The Art Of Subconscious Illusion"
RealAudio clip: "We Come Out At Night"

AVENGED SEVENFOLD Waking The Fallen (Hopeless) cd 13.98
We eagerly anticipated this second full-length from SoCal's Avenged Sevenfold, and now that it's here, it proves to be equally as impressive as their AQ-fave debut. If you haven't heard 'em before, these kids are sick experts at blenderizing LA metal/emo/hardcore/pop-punk into something that shouldn't really work but does. It's like Jimmy Eat World meets Iron Maiden meets Pantera meets Get Up Kids. Their blender is friggin' clogged with chunky, chugging guitar riffs, emo vocal choruses, Euro-bright leads, punishing drumming, lush piano interludes, Zakk Wylde pick squeals, Phil Anselmo growls, and MTV-ready pop hooks. It's a total you-got-your-peanut butter-in-my-chocolate kind of thing, and it totally works, crushing you with metallic brutality one moment, lifting you up and wringing your heart with vocal melody the next, bridging the gap between the two with soaring '80s metal guitar harmonies... Avenged Sevenfold might not appeal to people stuck at either extreme end of that spectrum, but the rest of us are lovin' it. There's other hardcore bands attempting to mix these genres, but we think Avenged Sevenfold are the most traditionally metal AND one of the most poppy. Oh, is it at all ironic? Let's just say you can enjoy it on many levels. Maybe they were being fun and ironic before, but now they've realized the commerical potential of their approach. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Chapter Four"
MPEG Stream: "I Won't See You Tonight part 1"

AVULSION Prince of a Thousand Enemies (Impatience or Indifference) 7" 3.50
Eight brand new tracks of pummelling blasting grind from these Buffalo thrashers (not actual thrashers of buffalos, but thrashers -from- Buffalo). Insane blast beats with a dual vocal attack (one bark, and one growl, the growl being maybe one of the best cookie monster vocalists we've heard!). On cool local label Impatience Or Indifference!

BACKSTABBERS INCORPORATED Kamikaze Missions (Trash Art!) cd 12.98
There aren't a whole lot of badass bands from New Hampshire. Hell, there aren't a whole lot of any kind of bands from New Hampshire. But if Backstabbers Incorporated are any indication of the kind of unrestrained metallic fury that lurks just below the surface of their seemingly placid New England home state, then we'll give New Hampshire a much wider berth in our future travels.
Furious downtuned metallic punk rock crossover, with grinding riffs, thrashing drums, throbbing low end, howled vocals, but all packed into incredibly chaotic and head spinning arrangements, with plenty of plodding doomy breakdowns, and full on near-noise blow outs. Super intense and emotional. Way too metal for most punk rockers, this is fucking brutal and heavy and utterly pummeling. Think old Neurosis, Converge, Drop Dead, SSD and the like. Awesome.
MPEG Stream: "We Attack At Dusk"
MPEG Stream: "Voorhees, Krueger, Myers And Bush"
MPEG Stream: "Like Virgin Vinyl... In Bed"

BAD ACID Tab 6 dvd / cd-r / magazine 29.00
Okay drug rock freeks, space rock explorers, doomlords, sludge demons, prog obsessives, metal maniacs, stoner dudes, noise nerds, and basically most of the other folks who read this here aQ list, Bad Acid is the magazine for you. And calling Bad Acid a magazine is a bit of a misnomer. It's more of a multimedia spacemetaldoomprogsludgenoise experience. You think we're exaggerating? A seventy minute dvd, an ELEVEN HOUR mp3 audio disc, a nearly two hour long label sampler, AND a 60 page booklet/magazine packed with liner notes, articles and interviews.
Packed with SO many aQ favorites, but just as many new bands we'd never heard, a bunch who could very well turn into new favorites. We've barely scratched the surface, since if we spent 14 hours on each review, the list would be, oh, about 5 items long. But from what we've heard / seen / watched so far, this latest issue of Bad Acid is pretty essential.
The dvd first, a series of music videos, film excerpts and slide shows, we were mostly excited about the scenes from an Antonius Rex movie, Antonius Rex being the dude from JACULA!! Tripped out and satanic and appropriately what-the-fuck. Some killer live footage of doom mongers Ogre, a killer art gallery slide show from the Malleus artist collective, featuring an awesome soundtrack from Morkobot, a Northwinds video, and then some more obscure stuff, Manatees tour video, Wicked Minds video, King Suffy Generator video, Lento live footage and tons more. All woven together by some super creepy animated menus.
Then there's the cd-r, featuring 11 hours of mp3's from Moss, Danava, White Hills, Barbara, Hey Colossus, Orange Sunshine, Capricorns, Khlyst, Acid King, Heresi, Raw Radar War, Fire Witch, Taint, Orange Goblin, Shinjuku Thief, Litmus and those are just the bands we know and already dig. 57 bands total, 102 tracks, tons of new bands to check out and discover. Also included is a label sampler focusing on the Bone Structure cd-r label, whose releases run the gamut from raw black metal, to buzzing industrial noise, to black ambient to grinding industrial weirdness. We actually have some BS stuff on the way, to be reviewed on the list soon, but this is a killer way to check out tons of stuff on the label.
And then there's the actual magazine component, with notes on each of the bands on the cd-r, a feature on each of the bands on the dvd, tons of info about Bone Structure and the bands on the label, as well as interviews with Fire Witch, Taint, Orange Goblin, and probably most exciting of all Alan Dubin, formerly of Khanate, talking about his new band Gnaw, which features folks from Burning Witch, Thorr's Hammer, Atavist, Enos Slaughter and Ike Yard(!). Man, we can't wait to hear that.
All of the above packaged in a standard dvd style case, with killer cover art from the Malleus Rock Art Lab. A bit pricey due to the weak dollar and the expensive overseas shipping, but pretty well worth it.

BAD BRAINS Build A Nation (Oscilloscope) cd 14.98
We really didn't have very expectations for this one as most big time punk reunion records have been pretty dismal and depressing. But we're happy to report that this is not bad at all, in fact it's pretty damn good! With the original lineup together and Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys on production duties, Build A Nation was recorded like the good old days, right to tape. Of course nothing Bad Brains could do will ever replicate the fire and intensity of their legendary ROIR debut, but this is for sure better then any of their releases in the '90s. Going back to their roots the record finds a nice balance of punk rock songs and HR's love of roots reggae and offers up a much less metallic slant then their last several discs. You can tell that Adam Yauch put a lot of love and care into recording his heroes and he really was able to get a sound from the band that represents so much of the best parts of who they are. Any self-respecting punk/punk-lover knows that Bad Brains are one of the most important bands in the history of American Hardcore so it's very nice to hear a new record from them that kicks serious ass...
MPEG Stream: "Build A Nation"
MPEG Stream: "Jah Love"

BAD BRAINS I Against I (SST) cd 16.98

BAD BRAINS Live At CBGB 1982 (MVD Visuals) dvd 16.98
Bad Brains were (are?) arguably the greatest hardcore band of all time, and this collection of killer footage from three consecutive nights of shows way back in 1982 definitively demonstrate what a powerhouse they were. 1982 was indeed a good year for H.R. and the boys for sure, and by the looks of the crowd bounding all over the stage -at times it's hard pick out the actual band members -- they can do no wrong.
The dreads may still short at this stage, and yes, there are a few Rasta soliloquies here and there, but for the most part, the mosh level stays high. Frontman H.R. is always in command, staking out his little portion of the stage, and while axeman Dr. Know is still developing his craft, even back then, he was already blowing minds. And it sure is pretty weird to see the bald white kids skanking around to the stony-Jah riddums... But that's part of what made Bad Brains so bad ass. It's a very racially diverse crowd and everyone seems to be there to mosh or skank and not to fight or fuck shit up. Which is pretty cool.
The footage itself has a wonderful quality to it, especially for the era, the audio is good and it seems as though the video was compiled using the best songs from each of the three nights at CBGB. You can't go wrong with this, and we'd be hard pressed not to recommend this as CRUCIAL to your '80s hardcore video archive.

BAD BRAINS Quickness (SST) cd 12.98

BAD BRAINS Rock For Light (SST) cd 12.98

BAD RELIGION The Empire Strikes First (Epitaph) cd 14.98

BAD RELIGION The New America (Atlantic) cd 16.98
The newest offering from this 'intelligent' punk band. And while not their best record, certainly their best sounding (thanks to a sparkling and fairly creative Todd Rundgren production). They still remain head and shoulders above most pop punk bands. Catchy songs, hooks, and occasionally hyper-literate lyrics. It must suck to have helped define a genre, and then wake up one day, fifteen years later, opening for Blink 182. They deserve better.

BALBOA / ROSETTA Project Mercury (Level Plane) cd 13.98
As we've no doubt mentioned before, metallic post rock seems to be its own little cottage industry, spawning more bands that it's possible to keep up with, and causing lots of bands to suddenly shift their sound, to be either more metal (for the post rock bands), or more post rock (for the metal bands). But as we've also mentioned before, it's tough to complain about a sound that combines two of our favorite musics. Metal, heavy and crushing, doomy and massive, and post rock, with its mathy rhythms, moody melodies, and soaring arrangements.
One of our favorite purveyors of this sound is Rosetta, from Philadelphia, who gave us one of our favorite postrockmetal records a few years back in the form of The Galilean Satellites. The approach for that release was unique, in that one disc was song based, with all the requisite crushing riffs and mathy metallic crush, while the second disc was all ambient, long tracks of swirl and shimmer, drone and rumble.
With the postrockmetal feeding frenzy, we were sure Rosetta were on the fast track to being big names in the scene, but they seem to still remain just below the spotlights, which seems to have done them no harm in terms of new music, their half of this split destroys. Albeit beautifully and dramatically. Two tracks, both topping 10 minutes. Both beginning with plenty of soaring jangle and Godspeed like cinematic build. Guitars chime and ring out, the drums are simple, perfectly supporting the rest of the instruments as they drift skyward. The first track builds and builds in intensity, only becoming truly metallic near the end, when the chiming high end guitars drift off leaving a churning downtuned riff, but even that riff is wrapped in effervescent streaks of glistening far away guitar harmonics, and strange vocal snippets, and rumbling whirring low end drones.
The second track follows a similar pattern, but the heavy parts STAY heavy, with howled guttural vocals, and a very Neurosis-y riff, but again, still surrounded by all sorts of incandescent guitars and dense swirls of ambient buzz.
Rosetta are teamed up with fellow Philly noisemakers Balboa, who also do their own version of the metal math rock, but theirs has a foot firmly planted in punk rock, hardcore to be exact. The first track starts off like a super charged nineties math rock jam, with angular guitars and BIG drums, vocals that are sort of sad boy, but build into full on howls, when all of a sudden, the band lurches into an almost blast beat, a furious punk rock blast, that shifts gears again, into a seriously hooky hardcore groove, sounds like a weird mix, but it sounds amazing. And a perfect foil to the languid expansiveness of Rosetta. The other two songs, don't get as punk rock as the opener, instead, mining more of that nineties math rock sound, Polvo, Dazzling Killmen, Hoover, the songs are loping stretched out grooves, the bass and guitar locked in tight, the drums almost tribal, everything crashing together in huge bursts of metallic emo fury. Pretty great.
And as if that weren't enough, the two bands combine forces for the closer, the title track, which to be honest sounds like it could be either band, as easy as both, BUT, it's amazing, a seriously gorgeously executed, heavy and hooky chunk of mathy metallic rock. From the beginning, a propulsive, almost krautrock jam, that slowly and steadily builds into a seriously thick bout of massive roiling guitars, and chaotic drumming, all downtuned and dripping with distortion, the only hint that this is actually two bands is about three quarters of the way through, when the drummers engage in a relentless double kick dual, over which ALL the guitarists spit out spidery glistening guitar lines, a huge glimmering tangle of melodies that sparkles and shimmers, and as you might expect is quickly sucked under another crushing wave of grinding growling guitar. Awesome stuff. Fans of the usual suspects (Isis, Baroness, Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, Pelican, Tides, Conifer, Minsk, etc..) most definitely NEED this.
MPEG Stream: BALBOA "Kaddish"
MPEG Stream: ROSETTA "Tma-1"