Godflesh

For a big chunk of the 90s Godflesh was one of those bands that I knew I was supposed to like, but it took me ages to get around to sticking any of it in my ear.  This probably worked out best for me, as I reckon I prefer the later records; the relentless industrial dirge is still very much relentless, industrial and dirge-y, but with a bit more variety and texture.

Godflesh disintegrated around the early 2000's, and frontman Broadrick (once in Napalm Death) went on to form Jesu.  Cut from the same drum-machines-and-vast-slabs-of-distorted-guitar cloth as his former outfit, Jesu is generally a bit more uplifting - occasionally overlapping with some of the more doomy shoegaze bits of Godflesh.  Doomgaze?  I dunno.  Well worth checking out though.

But I'm a gloomy bastard at heart; and since Godflesh reformed for a few shows a couple of years ago and maybe are perhaps writing some new material possibly, I'll take a fat slice of caustic mechanical trudging this week please.







Website: http://justinkbroadrick.blogspot.com
Myspace: http://nz.myspace.com/godsflesh
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Godflesh/11374368195
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godflesh

Charger

Having temporarily relocated to the other side of the world, leaving all my precious CDs far behind me, I've been experiencing sinister foreign radio stations as I've pootled about in a variety of terrible cars with no ipod connectivity.  This has brought me to the same conclusion I reached many years ago in my homeland; radio is what you listen to when you don't really like music enough to care what you listen to.

I do like music enough to care what I listen to, even if it might occasionally seem to the casual observer to be an earful of foetid shit.  So I've spent the past few weeks burning shiny round mixtapes on my laptop, trying to put together some (relatively) coherent playlists.  In doing so I have discovered that a) I can put together some pretty fine easy listening compilations, b) I don't own nearly enough jazz funk, and c) there are certain bands that I struggle with when it comes to making shiny round mixtapes.  Charger are one such band.  The problem I have is that when I try to pick the best Charger songs to put onto the shiny round mixtape, I eventually come to the conclusion that the best Charger song is ALL OF THE CHARGER SONGS.

The extent to which they clearly don't give a single fuck about anything is evident both in the violently uncaring sludgtality of their vaguely musical output, and also in the way in which they have deftly avoided any sort of tangible success or recognition in the ten years or so that they have been retching up their completely inhuman racket.

They are the perfect antidote to the sort of musical apathy that makes commercial radio a viable proposition; because no matter how little you like music, Charger like you even less.

Fuzzbastards.







Website: http://www.fuzzbastards.com/
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/charger
Facebook: nope
Wikipedia: nope

Intronaut

To be honest I haven't been listening to an awful lot of anything this week, for reasons mostly relating to travel through time and space.  But back when I was all about Animals As Leaders, I also went through a brief (basically an afternoon) but intense Intronaut phase.

They kind of tick the same boxes as Animals As Leaders - fiddly guitar lines, proggy rambling song structures, occasional crazed jazz freakouts - but tend more towards the shouty end of the scale.  It's like a jazz funk bassist was being held against his will by a brutal metal band who refused to release him until his thumbs fell off.

Admittedly, it's not very much like that; but I'm not that great at creative writing, so that's what your stuck with.  Fuckers.

Now go and listen to some Intronaut.







Website: http://blogronaut.blogspot.co.nz/
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/intronaut
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Intronaut
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intronaut

Animals As Leaders

I met Animals As Leaders frontchap Tosin Abasi a few years ago, when he was manning the merch stand at a gig in Aldershot's glamorous West End Centre - the knackered urinal of the UK toilet circuit.  At the time Tosin was playing lead guitar for the very fine but short lived metalcore outfit Reflux, playing support for the very fine but short lived metal outfit Eden Maine.  I mainly remember it for the weird stand-off we shared, where I was pretty sure but not certain that he was the guitarist for Reflux, and he seemed pretty sure that I might know he was the guitarist for Reflux but wasn't certain that I knew that.

According to the great bastion of truth and enlightenment that is Wikipedia, it would have been around this time that his band's record label approached him with the idea of a solo record - an idea that he dismissed at the time as "egotistical and unnecessary".

Fast forward to earlier this year; Reflux went kaput some years ago, Tosin has taken up his label's offer and released two albums under the moniker Animals As Leaders, and I am in the crowd to see them play support to the mighty Meshuggah.  I mainly remember this gig for the three stitches I needed in my eyebrow after colliding violently with some other chap in the pit; but also for the Animals As Leaders set, which was one of the finest displays of virtuoso fretboard wankery I have seen since... well, since Reflux played the West End Centre in Aldershot.

Its taken me until a few weeks ago to get around to picking up anything by them; but now that I have (their self-titled debut), I'll be damned if I can stop listening to it.  It's a little self indulgent in places, sure; but the twiddlyness never detracts from the overall groove of the record.  As such it manages to be one of those most rare things; a guitar-based instrumental record with some fucking soul.

Seriously, these guys are the best 8-string progressive jazz metal band you'll ever hear.  And I appreciate that it's not an especially crowded genre, but you should check them out anyway.







Website: http://prostheticrecords.com/?p=499
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/animalsasleaders
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/animalsasleaders
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animals_as_Leaders

Baroness

Saw these guys play the Fleece last week.  Which turned out to be quite good timing, as the very next day they managed to drive their tour bus off a 30ft viaduct in the next town over.

So we can say with some confidence that they play music better than they park.  What else do we know about Baroness?

They are from Savannah, Georgia.  Frontman John Baizley also produces some very fine artwork, and has something of the ghost pirate aspect about him - in a certain light his head appears to be a skull with a beard.  Which is cool.  They play awesome metal which frequently spirals off on proggy tangents, without ever seeming like moronic headbangers or tedious beardstrokers.  And they like that twin guitar thing that Thin Lizzy and Mastodon seem to like so much.

Baroness are the greatest band in the world ever.  Also the most hospitalised band in the world.

Get well soon chaps.  Thanks for the mindblowing gig, and sorry our fine weather, road networks and local geography all conspired to try and kill you.







Website: http://baronessmusic.com/
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/yourbaroness
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YourBaroness
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroness_(band)

Swarm Of The Lotus

They sound like the sort of band that would be fronted by Blackout, the badass Decepticon that transforms into a helicopter and totally fucks up a US military base in the movie.  This is not least because the double-bass drumming on their first record sounds like the blades of a Sikorsky Pave Low helicopter ploughing through a field filled with fat people.


Which is all just another way of saying that I don't know a single useful fact about this band, reducing this whole blog-farce to an exercise in stringing together words and phrases like bludgeoning, throat shredding, mammoth riffpocalypse, filthy grind bastards and ploughing through a field filled with fat people.


Yeah, I reckon that'll do it.











Website: nope
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/swarmofthelotus
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Swarm-of-the-Lotus/318795770789
Wikipedia: nope

Hyatari

I've only ever listened to the first record by these guys (they released a second a few years back while I wasn't paying any attention), but it's a fucking doom drone masterpiece.


Of course, the standard reference point for all things drone is the mighty Sunn O))).  Hyatari plough a less grimm furrow, a little more up tempo and tuneful - as if Sunn O))) acquired some pop sensibilities and decided to make an album full of cheery summer fun.  Except that because it's Sunn O))), that still sounds like a colossal lead casket filled with tar floating through space and annihilating the stars.


Crushing.











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

Zozobra

Zozobra is basically the one-man-band side project of Cave In bassist Caleb Scofield.


Sonically there are a few similarities, most notably the expansive space rock vibe; but with Zozobra Scofield gets to indulge his metal side a bit more by pouring over a thick layer of sludge, turning the Orange amps up to 11 and smashing out some big fucking riffs.


Which is just grand.











Website: nope
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/zozobra505
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/ZOZOBRA/315231314384
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zozobra_(band)

Strapping Young Lad

Back before there was an internet to kill music with, we used to have to do our bit by trading cassettes; and this is how I first heard Strapping Young Lad, when a grubby TDK90 was shoved into my hand by a tall, excitable and wafro'd chum from a former life.  Side A had SYL's debut Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing on it; side B was full of odd 70's psych-prog.


That tape got rewound a lot.


I'm generally quite wary of metal bands that use keyboards.  SYL get away with it for a number of reasons, the main one being that they are fucking righteous.











Website: nope
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/strappingyounglad
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Strapping-Young-Lad/29338818912
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strapping_Young_Lad

Cult Of Luna

I first got into these guys about ten years ago, as part of some colossal pretentious post-metal binge that also involved the likes of Isis, Jesu and Pelican.


They pull most of the usual post-metal moves; rambling non-conformist song structures, repetitive ethereal melodies, crushing walls of noise, songs that last three days...


But Cult of Luna do it all with roughly twice as many band members, a smidge more Swedidh doom and a metric fuckton of reverb.


Best.  Post metal.  Band.  Ever.  This week.











Website: http://cultofluna.com/
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/cultofluna
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cult-of-Luna/14897083390
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_luna

Ted Maul

A little while back my good friend Smith was asking about bands that combined metal with drum 'n' bass.  I thought about it for a short while, and then dug out some mid-nineties Pitchshifter and Earache's Hellspawn compilation.  It was only a couple of weeks later that I remembered about Ted Maul, the London band that takes their name from a fictional news reporter and whose entire USP is that they play drum 'n' bass 'n' death metal.


There's generally a lot more death metal than drum 'n' bass going on, so it's perhaps not as foolish an omission as it might at first seem.  The electronic element is definitely there, but is frequently drowned out by noisy metal bastards with exploding guitars and a throat full of evil.


Except for on 200dbs Down, which is a full-on drum 'n' bass bludgeon with a fuckload of shredding.


Ted Maul disturbs.











Website: nope
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/tedmaul666
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/TED-MAUL/6782749959
Wikipedia: nope

MAKE

I only just got into these guys, so there's not an awful lot I can say about them without simply rehashing recent press releases. Which frankly still seems like a lot of effort to me. Fuck it, if you're that interested you can Google it all for yourself.

The important thing is that their debut full length Trephine (available here) manages to combine huge sludgey stoner riffs with psychedelic ambience and creeping end-of-the-world doom, sounding at any given time like early High On Fire, Black Math Horseman, Mouth Of The Architect and This Will Destroy You at their most ethereally swirly. It sounds as though it should make for a slightly confused and inconsistent mess; but in practice it creates depth and variety, and prevents the record from getting turgid and samey.

It's awesome. Go and dedicate your life to it.

Website: http://thebandmake.blogspot.co.uk/

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

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

Wikipedia: nope

Decapitated

Generally speaking, I don't like death metal that much. Partly because it tends to be a bit samey, but mainly because it's just silly.

And yet.

On the strength of one song I heard on a label sampler some nine or ten years ago, I decided to buy a ticket to see Decapitated play last week. And it was fucking brutal. I awoke the next morning with many aches and pains and bruises and an unshakeable need to listen to Decapitated all the time for ever.

Being a only a very recent convert, pretty much everything I know about this band I learned from a random stranger at the gig. Decapitated are from Poland; they are one of the most renowned and respected technical death metal bands in the world; they reformed a few years ago with a new drummer and singer, their former drummer and singer having respectively been put into a coma and killed when their tour bus crashed towards the end of 2007; and the current line-up was in a plane crash last year.

Maybe that's why they sound so fucking angry about everything.

Website: http://www.decapitatedband.net/

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

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

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

Twin Zero

A little while back, the very excellent earthtone9 announced that they reforming to play some shows and put out a record and stuff.

And there was much rejoicing.

Sadly, before they could reform it was necessary for them to split up. This made me very sad, and for a while the world was a bleak and uninviting place. The only slight glimmers of hope came in the form of the various other musical projects that kicked off featuring members of earthtone9; but by and large these could all be filed under the heading "Not earthtone9". It's not that they were particularly bad; it was just hard to listen to stuff that sounded a bit like earthtone9 and not want to be listening to earthtone9 instead.

Twin Zero were the one exception. Even though frontman Karl Middleton's distinctive vocal was an obvious reminder of the earthtone9 glory days, the twin drummer twiddly guitar sprawling space prog of Twin Zero was quite a different proposition.

Twin Zero are apparently still a going concern, although little has been heard of them since the release of the epic The Tomb To Every Hope almost six years ago; and if there's one downside to earthtone9 reforming, it's that it may take even longer for new Twin Zero material to appear.

Website: nope

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

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

Napalm Death

I'll admit, there have been times when I have questioned why I need more than one Napalm Death record on my shelf. I mean, it's not like they all sound identical; but they do all achieve much the same thing. They reduce your skull to fucking ash. Which is nice.

But that's not the point. The point is, I saw these guys play last week and they were awesome. After a somewhat slightly stressful week at work, the brain flush effect of having every conscious thought eradicated by getting smashed about by like minded thugs whilst savage Brummie death grind comes blasting out of the speakers at around a bazillion dB was really just the ticket.

I don't care that it mostly all sounds the same. I don't care that, like the Sugababes, Napalm Death is band that contains none of its original founder members. I don't care that Napalm Death are, much like myself, old enough to know better.

Napalm Death rule.

Website: http://www.napalmdeath.org/

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

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

Slipknot

Yes, I know...

They are my guiltiest pleasure. Almost.

Here's the thing. To me, listening to Slipknot is a lot like wanking. It satisfies a very basic need; but it's not as good as the real thing, and you wouldn't want any of your mates to catch you doing it. You'll feel good for a bit... and then just ashamed.

Subsequently, the phrase "listening to Slipknot" has a whole different meaning in my house.

Go on... have a quick listen...

Website: http://www.slipknot1.com/

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

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

Melvins

I've mentioned before that I dislike repeating myself here.

Hence the delay. I kind of hoped that something else would pop up and rock my entire world.

But in a week where I saw the Melvins play to a sold out Thekla, there was only going to be one greatest band in the world ever.

Website: http://www.melvins.com/

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

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

Iron Monkey

I popped into my local second hand record shop the other day. I only went in to pick up an old Sonic Youth record I spotted the previous weekend, but figured that since I was there I might as well have a bit of a poke around...

A few hours later I left with the Sonic Youth record, plus nine others - one of which was the eponymous debut from these guys.

I now find myself wondering how the hell I managed for so long without such unutterable filth in my life. I knew of Iron Monkey by reputation; and much like the mighty Botch, I think I first heard of them when I read mournful articles about their dissolution.

They are now of course long defunct; and having only recently popped my Iron Monkey cherry, there's not a whole lot I can tell you about them. It's all very raw, very sludgy and very noisy; and the world is probably a far safer place without it.

Website: http://www.earache.com/bands/iron_monkey/iron_monkey.html

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

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

Manatees

Mostly I'm still moist with anticipation at the prospect of seeing the Melvins in November. But the all-Melvins-all-the-time playlist was interrupted the other day when I dug out the most recent effort by these Manatees fellows.

It comes with quite charming handmade packaging, was bundled in free with a Humanfly record I ordered, and is cumbersomely entitled We Are Going To Track Down And Kill Vintage Claytahh The Beard Burning Bastard.

It is of course very excellent indeed.

"The Pulp Cut" is a standout track. Which is odd, because it's not really representative of the rest of their output. The vocals are all by Eugene Robinson of Oxbow, for a start. It's one of those songs that manages to be heavy without being bowel-shatteringly loud.

Everything else by Manatees is, however, bowel-shatteringly loud.

It is of course very excellent indeed.

Website: http://sunclimber.tumblr.com/

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

Wikipedia: nope

Melvins

I made a very conscious decision to leave my mp3 player behind when I went on holiday. Partly because it's just another thing to lose/break/drop into my fruity cocktail; but mainly because if I had taken it with me I would have spent the entire time time listening to the Melvins, to the complete exclusion of all other activities. Including sleeping, eating and washing. And it would be shame to go all the way to the Greek Islands without trying out their leading brand of shower gel at least once.

A few days before I left, my good friend Smith gave me a heads up that they would be playing in my favourite shipwreck in November; I immediately squealed with delight, bought a pair of tickets and ordered two more records for good measure. Nine days later, and I am still giddy with anticipation. The next two months are going to be hard to get through.

Plenty of other people have tried before me to explain how fucking great this band is; and as much as I'm in favour of plagiarising the best bits and standing on the shoulders of giants, I fear that this will merely provide me with a better view when I too run out of superlatives. You'll just have to take my word for it that the Melvins are way better than your favourite band, and probably have twice as many drummers too.

Website: http://www.melvins.com/

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

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