Genre/s: Grindcore, Mincecore For fans of: Warsore, Agathocles, Unholy Grave, Violent Gorge, Dahmer, Pizza Hi-Five For my next few reviews, I am going to feature my own series of bands to come out of Newcastle in NSW, simply called Fucked By Newcastle. Newcastle is a city that's two hours north up the coast from Sydney. It's a peculiar town, in that being the second most populous area in the state, it's been a ghost town most of the times I've been there. Most small-to-medium sized bands, both local and international, make the stop at Newcastle, and it has its own thriving and lucrative underground music scene that has music from all over the spectrum, including primitive noise acts that usually keep to themselves and who seldom put music online except through live bootlegs. Hacked To Chunks are a grindy/mincecore Newcastle band that features members from a wide variety of musical projects (including a few insestual ones that will probably feature again in this series) including Obat Batuk, Disintegrator, Cock Safari and Amateur Drunks. Musically, I'd probably say they have more in relation to bands like Void and Jerry's Kids than any of the above bands though (a band like Warsore could be mentioned, but would be an exception) because as far as grindcore goes, this is unhinged and primitive with members constantly trying to outplay each other as fast as possible. Hardcore this is not though. This is pure mincey grind with riffs that are as simple as they come but very chunky (sigh) and completely devastating. The drums are also doing what they do best, delivering these songs from break neck speeds to break every-single-bone-in-your-puny-body speeds, but the vocals are what I think make this really interesting. It's not like the usual deep monster growl, nor the high pitched eagle screams we've come to expect from grindcore. It's more like a disgruntled and drugged out Skeletor doing his best black metal impressions. The only band I can think of that does this style of vocals and does it well is Witch Cult. This review is an F.B.N. exclusive. There is almost no music of Hacked To Chunks available online bar a few YouTube videos, so I got permission to rip my copy of the demo tape here, since the only way to get this tape is to see them live, given their lack of online presence. It's a bit hissy but otherwise it's audible. The other side of the tape features a live set at a sweet DIY venue in Newcastle called The Pharmacy (got to see Space Bong there once at 1am in the morning) that features more or less the same songs (for you non-Aussie people, the date on the live track reads DD/MM/YY). There isn't really anything to fault here. If you like your grind as berserk as it can get, then Hacked To Chunks are your new best friends. TRACKLISTING: 1. His Hero Is Bong 2. Eastern Wisdom 3. Two Hits 4. No More Wine 5. Cut It Off 6. Captain Planet 7. Otter 8. Live @ The Pharmacy 29/12/13
We're no strangers to Wave Crashing Piano Chord's brand of musical(??) nihilism on FBN, having interviewedSean himselfand reviewedhis stuff previously. If by chance you have not acquainted yourself with WCPC's material, you can usually expect sharp arcs of feedback and coarse, barked vocals detailing deviancy, perversion and violence.
On Childhood, however, such is not the case. Gone are the vocals of previous releases, replaced entirely by piercing microphone feedback and sparse samples. That's not to say it lacks the intensity of the previous releases - if anything it's more unrelenting and dangerously unhinged than WCPC's other material, as Sean's only goal on this is to warp and mold feedback into increasingly frenzied sonic attacks. Much like Dom Fernow's early Prurient work, there's an element of control and progression exhibited over the feedback, tones are held back and then unleashed in an extremely gratifying flurry of aural violence. There's definitely an element of atmosphere and ambience, but it's so loud and piercing it often crosses the pain threshold - right on into 'harsh' territory. Childhood again showcases WCPC's primitavist ethics and minimalist method in creating noise, but channels it into something that comes off a less brutal, and more clinical and premeditated. An intriguing and welcome change of pace if you ask me.
Genre/s: Noise Rock, Alternative For Fans Of: The Jesus Lizard, Future Of The Left, Cherubs, Death From Above 1979, Melvins
Sex Snobs are a three piece outfit hailing from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma who play a mixture of alternative and noise rock. Taking inspiration from the likes of Am Rep and Touch And Go's scuzzier side and filtering it through the cleaner sounds of modern alternative rock to create something that's equally as abrasive as it is toe tappingly catchy. Lonely presents you with 7 tracks of this heavily riff driven take on the genre - and while the tends to stick to a fairly straightforward approach in terms of verse/chorus/verse dynamics, they throw in the occasional curveball with wailing guitar noise, strained vocals or plain old feedback. The guitar certainly represents a fair portion of Sex Snob's sonic output, but its the tight rhythm section that holds it all together. The overdriven muddy bass guitar cuts a swathe through the power chords whilst the drums provide a suitably bombastic, energetic backing for the band. Lonely, Sex Snob's new EP Ugly and their demo are all available for download at their bandcamp (pay-what-you-want).
TRACKLISTING:
1. Sick as a Dog
2. The Idiot Room
3. Lonely
4. The Other Room
5. Pissin' the Bed
6. King of the Jungle
7. Prologue
Brandon Elkins, known variously as B., Auditor, Iron Forest,
or A Crown of Amaranth.Professionally
I’m a pixel pusher and musically I do a little bit of everything that mostly
involves staring at a monitor with headphones on.
FBN:Thoughts on the
underground music scene as of right now?
Depends on which “underground” we’re talking about.I spend a lot of time digging through
BandCamp looking for new projects.There
are tons of great ideas coming out of some very “underground” black metal and
noise projects like Emanation and Venowl but the more I’m involved with
actually talking about either the metal or noise scenes, the more I see a sort
of puritanical, closed-off kind of thinking.The “holier-than-though” attitudes and self-serving ego stroking are
what will end up choking off and invalidating any sense of experimentation the
underground might have.That’s sad to
me.
Having said that, there are still a lot of really great
people that I’ve met that are doing solid work in creating, writing about, or
releasing what I think will go down as a sort of revival in truly experimental
music.
FBN:What bands or
projects are you listening to?
At any given time I’m all over the map with what I’m
listening to.I get to sit at a desk all
day with headphones on so I get 40+ hours of time to listen to music each
week.In the last few days I’ve been
listening to Emanation, Brobdingnagian, Phobonoid, Cara Neir, Axis of Advance, REVENGE,
the new Earth and YOB albums, new Pallbearer, INVDRS, A Pregnant Light, Dead
Congregation, Cyanotic, the new Venowl/Highgate split, and (believe it or not)
a lot of Chief Keef, Young Thug, 2 Chainz, Migos, and A$AP Ferg.
FBN:How did you come up
with the sound for Auditor?
I pull pretty equally from heavy industrial like Frontline
Assembly, Skinny Puppy, Bile, and Author and Punisher along with harsh noise
and wall noise, death industrial (SHP, Theologian, Navicon, Gruntsplatter),
doom (Khanate, Sunn0))), MOSS), and black metal.Anything that fits that punishing, bleak mold
gets thrown in the pot and stirred around.
FBN:What are your musical
influences?
I’m influenced by everything I hear.Complete willingness to be open to new sounds
is my only rule.
FBN:Do you draw any
influences from movie scores?
I don’t, but I do
envy people that can work like that.I
do try to lend a bit of “cinematic” or narrative flow to not only individual
pieces but whole albums.
FBN:What is your favorite
ice cream flavor, if any?
The last truly amazing ice cream I had was at the Green
Goddess in New Orleans and it was a Bacon Sundae.Yeah, you read that right.Coffee pecan brittle ice cream, bacon caramel
sauce, Himalayan pink and black salts, bits of applewood smoked bacon, topped
with whipped cream.
I think I achieve official “Fat Kid” status by saying I
think about it far more often than I should.
FBN: Any future plans for Auditor,
or for you in general?
I’m working on a couple different collaboration projects
that I won’t reveal too early but, suffice to say, they should be pretty
cool.I’m also digging into a remix for
Jason Walton’s (Agalloch) Self Spiller project, so that’s exciting.
In addition to that, Danvers State Recordings will be doing
a tape release of the collaboration that I did with Crowhurst last earlier this
year.I’m also working on an album that
will see vinyl release on Die Song probably early to middle of 2015 that I’m
really excited about.Early in 2015 I’ll
also be hitting the road providing live ambience/noise for the absolutely
insane ÆVANGELIST and maybe playing an Auditor set here and there.I always stay busy.
FBN:Any shout outs or
last words you would like to say?
I’d like to give big love to Leech from Theologian/Annihilvs
Power Electronics, Derek Rush, Andy Grant, James from Die Song, ][ // and ::
from Venowl, Ryan from IxDx/TTADA, and my lovely wife.All of them have helped push me forward.
FBN:Thank you for your
time.
Thanks for having me, it was a pleasure typing
Auditor is the brainchild of the
ambient-industrial project of Brendon Elkins, who is based in Chicago, Ill.
Brendon was very kind and sent me a copy of “Form Destroyer”.
The depression started off with the opening track
“Protocol 1”.From the opening of the
track I was thrown down into a pit and buried alive from the oppressive nature
of the audio that was filling my ears with ambient waves of dirt. I felt as if
I was dying, the sample, or what I think was a sample, “I am not sorry for what
I did” mixed with background screams of agony further dug my grave of audio
suicide.
The
second track politely titled “And Vomit As You Devour Them”, this track
features a very solid drum track that hits you in the chest like a rubber
bullet from ignorant cop.The shortest
track on the album, it is hard hitting and keeps your attention long enough to
cum on your face.Id say this industrial
sludge fest is my favorite on the record.
Next
up is “Flea On A Dead Dog”, like the track before, it features a very
industrial beat that is reminiscent of Godflesh in the best of ways. When I
first listened to this, I instantly was taken to a boiler room. The oppressive
nature of the ambient sounds mixed with the paranoia that something bad is
going to happen crushed me. This track is slow, mind numbing. It will consume
you.
“Betrayer
Of Sleep”, is death. Pure death. ThIs track made me feel helpless. The slow
droning experience drowns you in its massive riff. Taking everything you have and
making it, and you obsolete. This song is heroine. This song is a slow
hypodermic needle injecting nothing but black slime into your veins.Some serious SunnO))) worship on this track.
The
final track on this record is “I Can Never Be Far Enough From You”, reminds me
of the project “Stalaggh” with its ambient overtones and creepy haunting
chanting vocals in the background. This track is the longest on the record at
over 14 minutes. This track will leave your mind in pain, and aching for some
sort of relieve. But there is none. Only mind numbing ambient brutality.
Overall
this record is nothing shy of a religious experience and needs to be listened
to at high volumes to get the full effect of what Brendon is doing here. The
abrasive and dark nature of each song leaves the mind in a warped sense of
detachment from what is healthy and good for you.
Genre/s: Blackened Punk, Noise, Hardcore Punk For Fans Of: Sump, Devil's Dung, Sexdrome, Raspberry Bulbs, Jackman, Bible Thumper
I don't know about anyone else reading this, but a while back after Brayden posted the debut EP of Norway's Witchface; called "Skada for Livet", I became completely obsessed with it, and still kind of am. It was short but sweet and was overall one of the best couplings of black metal and hardcore punk I had (and still have) ever heard, and I couldn't wait to see what would be next for Witchface. Well, my (and possibly your) wait is over as "Skrekk & Gru" has been released- and was well worth the wait. It begins with a distorted and chaotic intro of noise and quickly transitions into the grimy, lo-fi experience I remembered from Skada for Livet, but has been built on a lot which is great to see. The catchiness and strange comfortability of Witchface's music is still there but has risen out of Skada's bare-bones sense of the lo-fi and gained many more layers of depth ripe for analysis, and more importantly enjoyment. Witchface's talent for variety has also made a comeback as the tracks power through aggressive screams and instrumentation akin to hardcore, then clashed against tortured wails and instrumentation akin to black metal- making for the perfect marriage between the two genres- or again, one of the best I've ever heard myself. Skrekk & Gru is easily one of my favourite releases of 2014.
Tracklisting:
1. Intro
2. Nattekryp
3. Sex/Dop
4. Blodspor
5. Grusomme Syner
6. Kunsten Å Glemme
7. Underhund
8. Redusert Til Skit
9. Et Siste Stikk
Genre/s: Death Industrial, Harsh Noise, Power Electronics For Fans Of: Pharmakon, IRM, Disgust, Grunt, Deathpile
Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, Dead Boomers are a duo that perform an incredibly dense, atmospheric mixture of death industrial and harsh noise. The Pig In The Python pairs percussion with pulsating electronic noise, the result of which are apocalyptic industrial dirges punctuated by absolutely gigantic rhythms and heavily distorted vocals. For the most part, Dead Boomers keep their tracks harsh and focus purely on pummeling you senseless with deliciously warped static swells - but on tracks such as Leave Flowers Now present are much more subdued and atmospheric side, albeit sinister as fuck. Each track is deliberated composed (meaning they can be recreated in a live setting) and if there's any improvisation it fits right in with the measured clangs, thumps and feedback screeches.
There's not a great abundance of noise projects in Australia, and certainly none as monolithic as this one - you'd be wise to check it out.
TRACKLISTING:
1. The Pig In The Python
2. Vintage Summa Cum Laude
3. The Hammer
4. Send Flirts and Modify Your Profile
5. A New Altamont
6. Leave Flowers Now
7. The New Scarlet Letter
8. One in Eighty Five
9. Synthetic Entheogen Private Party
10. Sundowning
11. Burden
12. The Golden Boomers
'Axis Flowers' and 'Split With Waves Crashing Piano Chords'
Funeral Parlor/Waves Crashing Piano Chords
2014
Review by Brayden Bagnall
Genre/s: Synth Pop, Darkwave, Ambient, Noise, Power Electronics For Fans Of: Croatian Amor, Prurient, Christian Cosmos, Lust For Youth, Whitehouse
Josh Doughty (whom I've interview previously on the blog here) is the man behind downer synth outfit, Funeral Parlor.
Funeral Parlor mixes airy synth and subtle, ambient noise to create sad, melancholic music with a heavy focus on atmospherics, both airy and bleak. Axis Flowers is a fully realized evolution of Funeral Parlor's previous work, with its four tracks delivering a much more pop-oriented vibe, whilst still remaining true to its dark, depressing roots. Vocals are used sparsely, from Access Flower's opening monologue, to the pained scream in Morning Due and melt into the mix as an eerie companion to the synth and background ambiance.
Funeral Parlor's split with one man feedback tantrum Waves Crashing Piano Chords, on the other hand sees the haunting synth melodies juxtaposed with blistering power electronics on a split 7".
Side A presents two live tracks from Waves Crashing Piano Chords, I Hope I Get AIDS which then leads into ...Or Is It Me. The recording really captures the ferocity and full brunt of the microphone feedback, essentially frog marching you into the live performance and forcing your head right up against an amplifier.
Side B is a single Funeral Parlor track, Sway Away. Recorded in the same session as Axis Flowers, its despondent atmosphere and rising tides of synth and background static may not posses the sheer brute force of WCPC's side, but certainly make up for it by leaving you emotionally drained and just a tad bit sad.
Both releases are available for your listening pleasure below, both via bandcamp (where you can find a multitude of other Funeral Parlor releases available as well) and download. While you're at it, hit up Dumpster Noise Records to nab yourself a Funeral Parlor tee, and other related noise project tapes. Also keep an eye out for the physical release of the WCPC split (due November) on the H8-Track Stereo site.
Genre/s: Ambient, Drone, Electronic, Hip Hop, Experimental For Fans Of: Tim Hecker, Gas, Brian Eno, Stars Of The Lid, OFWGKTA,12 Oz Mouse
Yo. So i've been AWOL for the past six or so months because its kind of hard to write reviews when you dont have a computer. Here is a review i started ages ago but never finished till now.
Just like how it first grabbed my attention when I was given this cassette in a tape trade with my pal Max who runs White House Records (The Sufferjets, The Nugs, Whitney Houston's Crypt) I can say that the album cover itself has immobilized your mouse wheel from scrolling down in a state of disarray. A paper mache mask of Milhouse in a pink shirt beside a well-crafted rubber mask of Homer Simpson? What is this absurdity?
As it turns out its not even the weirdest thing about it, this is a soundtrack for an obscure webseries called Hommer Simpson (not a typo). Curiosity got the best of me and I can't be ever more thankful because its truly an amazing piece of morbid dadaist comedy. It is pretty much The Simpsons given the 12 Oz Mouse and Dumbland treatment, even more so the former because it starts out the same way with crudely drawn animation with wafer thin plots seemingly give way to a contrived and deliberately confusing conspiracy story but this is with characters you've come to know and love put through the ringer and warped, wrecked and molested in true black comedy scenarios. It even has its own in-show series called Seinbleuth, a crossover of Seinfeld and Arrested Development that also descends into chaos and a plethora of Australian television references of last decade (kinda like another aussie absurd animation called The Big Lez Show). It starts as crap animation but as the series progresses it goes beyond parody and becomes self spiteful art.
The soundtrack for this series is just as weird.. It starts off conventional enough with an extended jam of a "Live From News" theme but then listening to it in one go is a weird ordeal in itself because most of the songs consists of all the collected music from one episode. So here you are listening to lounge music, cheesy but epic hip hop to butchered up versions of original Simpsons songs and then there are the songs that cannot even be described without your brain going to a blithering mess (Homm Grimm) but without realizing it a mood swing comes about and it transforms into these minimal swells to wondrous and lush drones that gradually wash into each other. All of a sudden it doesn't feel like you are listening to a soundtrack from an absurd black comedy animation anymore. Going into "Hommer Simpson 5" it really starts to become haunting but between the drones there are these little moments that are truly unique; a lone gradual electronic beat pulsating in and out, harmonious strings and piano crescendoing up to a pinnacle and really dark moments of crying children and maniacal laughter cutting through static and phasing with some intense industrial drums and synths. There are too many of these unique moments to mention here because what makes this release stand out from other ambient releases is that it seldoms stays on the one theme for a long period of time because its all based on a webseries, so you can say its a soundtrack that likes to toy with you. Enjoying these sombre and deep soundscapes? Fuck you take this destroyed version of the Stonecutters song. Even if you don't end up watching the series its still a truly unique release thats there for the kind of music fan that likes it when artists and albums don't pay by the rules.
TRACKLISTING: 1. Live From News (Extended Mix) 2. Hommer Simpson 3 Suite 3. Cletus And Glick - Thuggin' In Springfield 4. Homm Grumm 5. Hommer Simpson 4 Suite 6. Hommer Simpson 5 Suite 7. Seinbleuth 2 Suite 8. Hommer Simpson 6 Suite 9. Cletus And Glick - The Lard Lad Hustle 10. Marge Karaoke - Sanitarium (Welcome Home) 11. Hommer Fixes Dulk (Hommer 6 Deleted Scene)
Genre/s: Punk, Noise Rock, Post Punk For Fans Of: Grong Grong, Lubricated Goat, Fungus Brains, Cuntz, Feedtime
Venom P. Stinger sound like the lovechild of a bad drug tip and a hangover, that have just crawled out of a pub two days after they entered - not that's a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. Australian punk has thrived on scuzzy, pub rock gone awry since the Scientist started doing their thang and in keeping with this noble tradition, the boys in Venom P. Stinger cranked out some of the most deranged, drug fucked tunes to ever grace this fine nation.
Picking apart Venom P. Stinger's music, you'll find hints of post punk, rockabilly and jazz (the latter two demonstrated superbly by Jim White's tight, but free flowing drum rolls) all of which have been thrown into the gutter out the front and had their teeth kicked in. Meanwhile Mick Turner's energetic, incredibly loose but rhythmically conscious guitar playing goes from power chords to screeching feedback and atonal noise solos, putting some of the aforementioned genres through the proverbial meatgrinder. Vocalist Dugald McKenzie (RIP) on the other hand, yelps and whines about drug abuse, urban decay, depression and all things nice backed by the sounds of a band veering off the rails of simple chord progressions into free form noise punk. If ever your descent into poverty and mental illness needed a soundtrack, this'd be the band to do it.
This compilation collects a fair portion of the band's material, bar a live album, their 1994 EP 'Thickskin' and their 1996 LP 'Tearbucketer' (all of which were recorded with new vocalist Nick Palmer). I really could prattle on for hours about this band, but I won't - I will however say that you'll be hard pressed to find another band this good, that sounds so woefully sloppy, and unashamedly Australian.
TRACKLISTING:
1. P.C.P. Crazy / Jaws
2. Hold Me Closer
3. And Suddenly
4. Going Nowhere
5. Flourish Wish
6. Untitled
7. Precious Little Time
8. Jaws II
9. Venom P. Stinger
10. Walking About
11. 26 Milligrams
12. Those Shakes
13. Before You Open My Eyes
14. Hell Street
15. My Hole
16. The Quiet One
17. Impressions
18. Home Sweet Home
19. Lethargy
20. Dear God
21 .Unused
22. Day Will Come
23. Greystones
24. What's Yours Is Mine
25. Pressure Inside
26. Inside The Waiting Room
27. I Try, I Really Try
28. Turning Green
29. In Love
Genres: Hardcore For Fans Of: No, The Flex, Perspex Flesh, The Mob, Warthog
DiE released a corker of a 7" last year with their debut EP, and it seems they're on something of a winning streak with EP number 2, Vexed.
The UK band play hardcore that has a faint, blue collar streak to it that recalls denim, black boots and shaved heads but drowns all that nonsense out with massive, stompy riffs, noisy guitar solos and ferocious vocals.
Paying homage to classic and contemporary UKHC bands is one thing, but ramping it up to dizzying, blistering levels the way that DiE do on Vexed shows that these lads have some serious chops when it comes to writing and playing straight-to-the-point hardcore.
This 8 track EP, plus the band's debut are available to download as a pay-what-you want purchase on the bands bandcamp. Keep an eye out for physical copies!
TRACKLISTING:
1. B.T.K.
2. Monotony
3. Dark
4. Pressure
5. Fight
6. Ready To Rot
7. Life Sentence
8. Exterminate
'My Friend The Pit'
Impact Unit
1989 (Recorded in 1983)
Review by Brayden Bagnall
Genre/s: Hardcore For Fans Of: DYS, SS Decontrol, Jerry's Kid, Negative Approach
I could do this review properly. I could tell you about how these demos are probably the best of 1980s Boston hardcore, and some of the meanest hardcore tunes recorded in that decade. I could go on-and-on-and-on about the gruff vocals, breakneck guitar and unrivaled aggression.
Furthermore I could say this is a classic, no hardcore fan should go without hearing this at least once. Perhaps I could even mention that Crossed Out did a ripper cover of one of their songs. I could do that.
Or
Yeah, this is the hardcore band that singer from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones used to be in. It's pretty different.
Ain't that a knock on wood.
TRACKLISTING:
1. Nightstalker
2. Complain
3. My Friends & The Pit
4. I'd Eat Your Shit
5. Dead Meat
Genre/s: Black metal, Blackened Death Metal, Experimental black metal For Fans Of: Revenge, Ogdru Jahad, Von, Blasphemy, Portal
Listening to Sect Pig's debut release (and only, currently), you can't help but wonder if maybe you've stumbled onto the aural equivalent of a HP Lovecraft creature. This thing is so weird, unnatural and vile it feels like you're violating your moral obligations as a decent human being by just listening to it. The words 'bad', 'acid' and 'trip' keep coming to mind - and rightly so.
The faceless musicians behind Sect Pig play what is essentially psychedelic blackened death metal, with a very, very definite tendency towards experimentation and dissonance. So instead of that plain old blastbeat and tremolo diet you've been sustaining yourself on, you get phased and pitch-shifted grunts (think goregrind meets space rock), eerie, distorted samples and disorienting tempo changes. There is NOTHING on this release that resembles the sounds that could possibly come out of an un-corrupted, organic entity.
I'm no astrophysicist, but I can deduce that if you were to ever enter a black hole, it'd more than likely sound like this. Save yourself the strain of space travel and melt your brain with this instead.
'Demo Tape'
