Converge

Twee.  Amateurish.  Family friendly.


None of these are words commonly used to describe the mighty Converge.  However, they are words that might be used to describe the grotesquely pleasant afternoon of "light entertainment" that I found myself choking on last weekend.  It played out like an extended two-hour version of a Halifax advert, with an interval during which cream teas were served.


Listening to Converge is commonly described (by me, mostly) as like being punched in the face.


And many times during that afternoon of light entertainment I found myself wanting to listen to Converge.  Repeatedly, and very hard.











Website: http://www.convergecult.com/
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/converge
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/converge?ref=ts
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Converge_(band)

Beastie Boys

I realise this may seem a bit bandwagon-jumpy; since the sad passing of Adam Yauch earlier this month there's been no shortage of tributes to the Beastie Boys.  Which is fair enough, they were pretty great.


Here's the thing.  It's probably not the most popular opinion, but I think the Beastie Boys were kind of overrated as a hip-hop act.  Not bad, just not that great.


But as a hardcore, jazz and funk outfit, they were awesome.


AWESOME.











Website; http://www.beastieboys.com/
Myspace; http://www.myspace.com/beastieboys
Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/beastieboys
Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beastie_Boys

Nine Days To No One

Another week, another spiffing band that I know next to nothing about.  My extensive research (clicking on the first result of a Google search) informs that they are/were from Kent...


...and that's about it, really.  They managed to release two EPs before going kaput; some people liked them, some people hated them, but the overwhelming majority of people either didn't hear them or didn't care.


Which is a great shame really, because I really liked them.  They sort of occupied the same throat-shredding-screamo-riff-death-hardcore-fury ground as Will Haven, I guess; but they swapped out the atmospheric wall-of-noise guitar parts for more acerbic, apocalyptic shredding.  It's a good thing.





And Then Came The Floods - And Then Came The Floods


Sangreal - Sangreal


Website: nope
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/ninedaystonoone/music
Facebook: nope
Wikipedia: nope

Every Time I Die

Partly because their songwriting is so good that it has almost convinced the Pixie that Southern fried hardcore could be worth listening to.

To illustrate this point (and because I'm far to lazy to produce any words of my own), here are the lyrics to early hit song The Logic of Crocodiles.

i am a very important person.
i've acquired a genetically altered handshake capable of speeds up to 30 mph.
hair arranged by the most advanced landscape surveillance operators our
company can afford.
i have a very expensive pen.
i use big words quite often in substitution for semantically equivalent words.
i attribute this success to my professional demeanor and my strong stock
portfolio.
though it may not appear so, i am quite comfortable in my surroundings.
i have everything, let me show you around.
smile you fucker, it's not often you get this chance.
love is just an exchange of corporate documents.
i've reviewed your rapport and i feel you're a prospect for mechanical
salvation.
this is a joint venture that will be mutually advantageous to both parties
involved.
technically this is just a business merger.
a consolidation of liquid assets.
we are respectively geared towards customer service.
there is a great possibility for corporate sponsorship if you're willing,
i am sure we could synchronize agendas.
swift, and efficient satisfaction.
through innovative planning,
we could form a strong strategic partnership capable of overcoming sensitive
and adverse predicaments which will be discussed at the next goals assessment
meeting.
promotion possibility and additional benefits are diagrammed in my
preliminary objective outline.
raises are granted based on performance.

But the main reason that ETID are the greatest band in the world ever is that the new record Ex Lives is so good it might cure cancer. It's got a banjo in it, for fucks sake.

Website: http://everytimeidie.net/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/everytimeidie

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/everytimeidie

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_Time_I_Die

Bastions

Thanks to my appalling short attention span, the Greatest Band in the World Ever is frequently chosen based on whoever I might have seen play live most recently. Thing is, I've seen a lot of bands in the last week or so; so picking one was always going to be a bit tricky.

Or maybe not. On Tuesday I met up with an old friend and caught an evening of chest-beating hardcore-by-numbers. The stench of testosterone hung heavy in the air, and kids with suspiciously clean trainers charged about the place to the tune of breakdown after breakdown after breakdown.

I've nothing against a bit of mindless thuggery from time to time. But with all the posing and posturing and demands for the crowd to go crazy and start circle pits, it felt more than a little forced; and I frequently found myself wishing for something with a little more honesty, more integrity, more passion... and I started thinking back to the previous night, when I had seen Bastions (along with No Omega, BatsAboutBats and The Break Out - all very freaking excellent too) play to a handful of people in the grubby little front room of The Croft.

And they just fucking killed it.

Website: http://bastions.tumblr.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/bstns

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bstns

Wikipedia: nope

Down I Go

I have been accused from time to time of being a "hipster".

I am of course far too cool to know exactly what this means, but from what I understand "hipsters" are the modern equivalent of what in my day were known as "arseholes". A key trait of the hipster - and the reason why such outrageous and baseless accusations of arseholery are levelled at me - is a love of bands that no-one else has ever heard of.

Exhibit A: Down I Go.

But listen. If I was actually a proper hipster/arsehole, I would have been into these guys from day one. I would then have loudly proclaimed them to be sell-outs as soon as they released a record, and banged on about how I liked them back before they started writing and playing songs, when they were just some sort of amorphous concept with a cool beard but you could tell they weren't trying to be cool and that's why it wasn't cool. Which is cool.

Instead, I am only just discovering their abrasive brand of educational hardcore at pretty much the precise moment that they go kaput. Which is a shame, because they're ace. They leave behind them a smattering of recorded material, which generally walks a very narrow line between intellectual and batshit mental.

Mostly I'm enjoying learning about Greek mythology, the world's most horrifying tyrants and history's greatest disasters (including the Great Boston Molasses Tragedy) through the medium of some bloke screaming over the noise made by a hardcore band falling down a very long and steep flight of stairs.

And if you want to know why these mighty heroes are calling it quits, click here for a noisy explanation.

Website: http://www.downigo.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/downigo

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/downigo

Wikipedia: nope

All Pigs Must Die

All Pigs Must Die are a band composed of fellows that play in other bands. The traditional term for such an outfit is supergroup.

The trouble with this term is that it kind of has an all-stars vibe to it; there is an implication that each of the aforementioned fellows is already a world famous virtuoso in his own right, and their combining of talents is the kind of earth-shattering event foretold in Sumatran prophecies and heralded by the death of planets.

Which is almost bang on, except that pretty much no-one has ever heard of the bands that these guys usually play in (Converge, The Hope Conspiracy and Bloodhorse). So supergroup perhaps isn't quite right...

But mundanegroup makes them sound kinda boring, splendidgroup sounds sarcastic and prettycoolgroup is a bit non-committal.

I'm going to go with fuckingsavagefacepeelinghardcoremergeforthekillgroup.

Website: http://shirtsanddestroy.com/all_pigs_must_die

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/allpigsmustdie

Wikipedia: nope

Norma Jean

It's taken me quite a while to get around to giving this lot a proper listen. I've had a few tracks lurking about in the murky depths of my iPod for some time now, but only recently picked up the snappily titled Birds and Microscopes and Bottles of Elixirs and Raw Steak and a Bunch of Songs, a compilation of their first three records.

Which is pretty fucking super, as it happens.

All the usual hardcore elements are present and correct; the chugging guitars, pummelling drums, harsh vocals and more than a few punishing beatdowns. But that's about as close as Norma Jean get to the tedious hardcore-by-numbers pedalled by so many other chest-beating drop-D thug charlatans with wicked sick myspace pages. They're unafraid of straying from traditional templates and formulae, allowing songs to unfurl and grow in an almost organic fashion. A few tracks even exceed the ten minute mark.

Okay, so they're still not what you'd call prog-hardcore titans (possibly because you wouldn't be so pretentious as to even think of calling anyone prog-hardcore titans), and Every Time I Die are still the undisputed kings of hardcore; but it's nice to hear someone doing something a bit different for a change.

Website: http://normajeannoise.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/normajean

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_Jean_(band)

Raging Speedhorn

I saw these guys three times.

The first time was when they were supporting Biohazard, back in 2000. A spot of rain and a stiff breeze had crippled all transport networks in the south of the UK, so they took to the stage late and announced themselves as "you should all know who we are by now." They then spent the next half hour aurally beating everyone into submission. We actually had no idea who they were, but sussed it out by carefully examining the merch table. I bought a T-shirt that bore the band logo on the front and the slogan "SNIFF GLUE WORSHIP SATAN" on the back.*

The second time was a year or so later, when they co-headlined the Astoria 2 with Clutch. Earlier that day, as a special birthday treat, my friend Tim (who used to make a living selling gay porn to paratroopers) had taken me to the biggest charity shop in North Camp. We each bought a suit for £10, which we wore to the gig that night. Mine was dark green, 2-3 sizes too big, and worn with a bright yellow shirt. Tim's was a shade of metallic plum, as I recall. We threw some powerful funk moves that night. Every so often someone would tell us that we looked awesome; and we would look at their greying Slayer T-shirt and dirty jeans and tell them that they looked a shambles.

The third and final time was in 2008, on what turned out to be Raging Speedhorn's farewell tour. They finished as they started, playing grotty toilet circuit venues where you can get close enough to the band that they can hit you in the head with a guitar. They were awesome. For this final tour, their record label SPV had decided to wring as much money out of the band as they could and were charging the band in inordinate sum of money for copies of their record to sell at the merch stand. Raging Speedhorn were faced with the choice of either absorbing the cost themselves and therefore making no/negative money, or passing the cost onto the fans and therefore making no/negative money and pissing everyone off too. Raging Speedhorn chose a third way; they sold bootlegs of their own record for a fiver.

Legends.

Website: nope

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/ragingspeedhorn

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raging_Speedhorn

*The third best T-shirt slogan of all time. Second best is Charger's "VOLUME OVER TALENT"; top prize goes to defunct Scottish hardcore types Co-Exist, who instead of T-shirts sold white wife-beater vests bearing the slogan "KILL EVERY CUNT."

Botch

The first I heard of Botch was when they decided to quit being a band. A number of people seemed very upset about this; but having never heard anything by them, I found it hard to understand why...

Still, they seemed to be held in high enough regard to be worth checking out at some point; so when I found a copy of Unifying Themes Redux lurking in the murky depths of a second hand record shop, I grabbed it.

It turned out to be a collection of early releases and a few live tracks, and it was (and still is) quite splendid. Phrases like "jagged" and "angular" get thrown around quite a lot when discussing this kind of jagged and angular hardcore, but I don't like to use them because a) it's derivative and predictable, and b) those words don't really mean anything when applied to music. That said, Botch's jagged and angular hardcore is both jagged and angular. And pleasingly unpredictable.

And noisy.

Website: http://americannervoso.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/botch

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botch_(band)

Knut

Switzerland is renowned for many things; delicious confectionery, fancy timepieces, tricksy pocket knives, secret bank accounts, a heart full of neutrality. Not so well known for progressive mathcore.

Which is a shame, because that's exactly what Knut do. The mathcore bit, not any of the other stuff.

Earlier records were very mathcore - at times sounding like a hardcore band in a metallic drum clattering down some steps. Third album Terraformer saw them get a bit more groove on; all the insane timing changes, atomic drum fills and fretboard gymnastics were still present, but measured out with more thick slabs of dense riffing and atmospheric electronica, with vocals taking more of a back seat - almost a third of the record was completely instrumental. It was like Knut had become masters of their rage, controlling rather than being controlled by it.

Fuck cuckoo clocks. This is the best thing to ever come out of Switzerland.

Closely followed by Toblerones.

Website: http://www.hydrahead.com/knut/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/unknut

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knut_(band)

Die! Chihuahua Die!

Just who the hell are these guys? Are they a force of good? Evil? A force of nature? Is their name German for "The Chihuahua The"? No-one who speaks German could be evil...

I like his sideburns.

D!CD! sound a bit like Every Time I Die; only instead of swaggering into a redneck bar with angry screaming hard-ons, they turn up drunk, throw up in the ashtray and start breaking furniture.

The only footage I can find on the Youtubes is crap. You need to find their record and listen to it. Now.

Website: http://diechihuahuadie.blogspot.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/diechihuahuadie

Wikipedia: nope

The Dillinger Escape Plan

Once you exclude all of the "Dillinger who?" and "What is that, some kind of plan?" people (which is admittedly the vast majority of people), you're left with two distinct emperor's new clothes-esque groups.

There are those for whom The Dillinger Escape Plan are inspired and genre-smashing virtuosos draped in robes of the finest silk.

And then there are those for whom they are a bunch of naked shouting jackasses that can't agree on what tune they should be playing; or even if they should be playing a tune at all.

This week I have been listening to their most recent effort Option Paralysis, and find myself firmly in the "hey, those guys are pretty snappy dressers" group. It's just fantastic; like being beaten around the skull by a screaming brick shithouse of a man with LOVE written on one set of knuckles and JAZZ on the other in a grimy trance club, only with weirder time signatures. But in a good way.

Website: nope

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/dillingerescapeplan

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dillinger_Escape_Plan

Trash Talk

I don't normally go for punk that much, but these four jerks from Sacramento have completely taken a hold of me.

It's raw, urgent, violent and chaotic; and it's pretty much all I'm listening to at the moment.

This one's off their new record Eyes & Nines; it's called Explode. I think it's about stuff exploding.

Website: http://trashtalkhc.com/eyesandnines/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/trashtalkfu

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trash_Talk_(band)

I Hate Sally

If the quality of life in Canada is so good, then why are these guys so fucking angry at everything?

Perhaps that's why they split up; they could no longer reconcile their abundance of stunning scenery, clean cities, low crime rate and high technology with the acerbic sludge-tinged hardcore racket they were cranking out.

There's not much I can say about I Hate Sally, because I don't know much about them myself. I first heard the song Iscah's Life on a Rock Sound CD a few years back, instantly loved it and copied it onto my MP3 player, and promptly forgot all about it. Then a year or so later my MP3 player decided to randomly force it back into my ear, and I instantly loved it all over again; so I bought the album, copied it to my MP3 player; and promptly forgot all about it. Then a week or so ago my MP3 player decidedly to randomly force it back into my ear, and I instantly loved it all over again.

I'm sure that in a few days time I will have forgotten all about it again, but for now I am very much digging I Hate Sally's brand of sometimes thrashy, sometimes sludgy, always crushing hardcore dirge.

Website: nope

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/ihatesally

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Hate_Sally

Johnny Truant

This now defunct (why do I have such a fondness for bands that I can never see live again?) mob from sunny Brighton are most frequently pigeonholed as "metalcore".

As the name implies, this is the bastard hybrid of metal and hardcore. The trouble I have with the label is that as much as I like this sort of music, I only ever imagine metalcore as being the sum of the worst parts of metal and hardcore; those respectively being desperately twiddly guitar solos and embarrassing lyrics about doing chicks and rockin' all night long delivered in a piercing falsetto, and mindless chugging beatdown after beatdown after beatdown while a tattooed skinhead barks about solidarity and brotherhood and fighting people that stand in your way.

Naturally Johnny Truant offer none of these things, instead opting to take the better parts of each. And if that's all they did, then they would be a perfectly adequate band; metal without the pomposity, hardcore without the thuggishness.

But there's a little more to them than that, a sense of melody and progression that creeps through and entwines itself with all the savagery, making you realise that they're not just a hardcore band that spent time learning how to play their instruments instead of bench pressing. This is quite amply demonstrated in Foglights and The Weeping, Wailing And Gnashing Of Teeth, the two songs that close their very excellent final record No Tears For The Creatures.

They can still dish out a bludgeoning when they feel like it, though.

They were only around for a relatively short time (2002-2008), and whilst it seems unlikely that anyone else will consider them pioneers of the scene, I very much doubt we will see their likes again.

Website: http://johnnytruantband.wordpress.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/johnnytruant

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Truant

Curl Up And Die

These guys are/were from Las Vegas, and the fear and loathing kind of shows through.

The first thing that strikes you about their music (and by strike, I do mean like with a blunt heavy object) is the sheer unrelenting savagery of it. And in the early days, this was arguably the only real move they had; they were just another math/metalcore band, with a sound somewhere between Botch and Converge.

Wind forward a few years, and at first it seems like little has changed; the face-peeling brutality is still very much in evidence.

But there's an added dimension to the music. Slow bits, the occasional melody. And reading the lyrics (because there's no way you can understand the vocals) reveals the misanthropy, despair, depression and isolation at the heart of everything they do. And you realise that its been there all along, hidden behind a façade of guttural screams, chainsaw riffs, and funny song titles that make you think it's all just a bit of fun.

Or maybe it is all a bit of fun, and they really are just a hardcore band from Nevada. Here's a rough-as-fuck video of one of their last performances.

Come on. We're waving the white flag.

Come on. We're calling in sick.

I don't want to be a part of anything.

That ever feels like this.

Website: http://www.revelationrecords.com/bands/show/87

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/curlupanddie

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curl_Up_and_Die

Million Dead

The alternative music press was making lots of good noises about these guys a few years ago; but every time I heard something by them I was left feeling distinctly underwhelmed. Then they split up, almost certainly as a reaction to my continuing apathy.

Thanks then to James (a fellow wage-slave from The Big Gay Department Store), who encouraged me to give them another go by copying both their albums for me in exchange for a copy of the majority of the Fugazi back catalogue. I like tape-swapping, even if it is done using those shiny round disc-like tapes.

Turns out that the songs I'd heard were just a bit lame, and the rest of the time they sound more like this.

Frontman Frank Turner is now a well established and relatively successful solo folk-punk troubadour; drummer Ben Dawson plays in the mighty Palehorse (as he did whilst in Million Dead, in fact). Actually, he plays drums for a lot of bands. The other two are doing other stuff, presumably.

Website: http://www.milliondead.org/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/amilliondead

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_dead

3 stages of pain

These northern noisemongers weren't around for too long. They formed in 2001, and by 2005 they had gone out in a blaze of apathy.

The two records they made in that time were bloody brilliant if you like that sort of thing; which presumably most people didn't. But if you like savage hardcore sprinkled with a bit of melody, the occasional prog-ish tendency and some almighty grooves, then click below for choice cuts from each of their releases; debut effort With Chaos In Her Wake...

Conflict Of Self Interest

Southern Bullet

Forget The Lies, This Is How We Operate

18 Wheeler

...and follow up Black Heart Blues.

Dirty White Shoes

Black Heart Blues

Jesus Gonna Make My Dyin' Bed

Am An Yeller

Website: http://www.undergroove.co.uk/bands/3sp.aspx

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/3stagesofpain

Wikipedia: ain't none

Every Time I Die

When I first heard these guys (once more courtesy of a rocksound cover CD), they were kind of a frantic hardcore band, in the vein of Botch or early Dillinger Escape Plan. Behold! The Logic of Crocodiles, from first album "Last Night in Town".



The sound evolved a little more for their second effort, "Hot Damn!", getting harder and more groovy, and sounding slightly less like a rock band falling down twelve flights of stairs. Here's timeless classic and live favourite Floater.



Since then they've become even groovier, and dare I say it... fun. And why the fuck not? The hardcore now has a thick and throbbing southern rock vein running through it. Nice.



Their fifth full length "New Junk Aesthetic" has been out for a few weeks now. Go and buy it.

Then buy everything else they've ever done.

And see them live.

'Cos they're awesome.

Website: doesn't work
Myspace: www.myspace.com/everytimeidie
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_Time_I_Die