FUCKED BY NOISE'S BEST OF 2015 - Brayden's Picks (LPs)

It's that time of year where I feel comfortable organising the music I enjoyed in the previous twelve months into some kind of list and share my opinions on them with the general public. What follows are ten LPs I found to be rather enjoyable, and while it was pretty gosh darn difficult sorting through the multitude of excellent releases from 2015, I think I've got a pretty solid selection.
Stay tuned for a second post of my favourite demos and EPs of the year, and make sure to check out the links I've included for each release.


'As A Four Piece Band' Cured Pink
Cured Pink are a wickedly inventive and odd hybrid of post-punk, industrial, no wave and noise channeled into a jarring and unique collage of sound. Tracks like 'I'm Swimming' will see you bopping around like an idiot with it's infectiously catchy groove; whereas tracks like 'Live in Sydney' or 'Rosetta' will have you scratching your head and going back to understand what exactly it was you just listened to. I'm always hesitant to have an actual AOTY, but 'As A For Piece Band' is more than deserving of this title. Please, oh please, check it out if you haven't already.

Choice track: 'I'm Swimming'


'I Am A Problem: Mind In Pieces' Wolf Eyes
October saw everyone's favourite 'trip metal' band, Wolf Eyes, unleash this particularly desolate and hallucinogenic collection of sounds onto the general populace. Drones, clicks, squelching synths, sputters, guitar freakouts and saxophone all make a very welcome appearance on these 6 tracks culminating in what sounds like the soundtrack to a dying man crawling across a desert in search of peyote. Hopelessly bleak but with Wolf Eye's trademark catchiness running beneath the doom and gloom.

Choice track: 'Catching The Rich Train'



'Force The Zone' Cuntz
Once the tinny, distorted guitar kicks in on opening track 'Cooked', 'Force The Zone' bludgeons its way through a wonderfully sardonic assortment of punk jammers. Existing as both an ode to middle class Australiana and an outright piss take, Cuntz take the pummeling repetition and grunt from the likes of Cosmic Psychos, and turn it into a much more apathetic and uglier monster with the addition of noisier and slower instrumentation and gruff, yelped vocals.

Choice Track: 'Tanning'

'Excluded' Total Abuse
One of my most anticipated releases of this year was Total Abuse's 'Excluded', and boy oh boy the wait was worth it. A veritable ode to all things transgressive, this album packs its scummy subject matter into dirty, frenzied bursts of hardcore and leaves you to mop up the suspicious stains it left on the floor. As always Total Abuse aren't afraid to show off their more noisy, free-form tendencies (see 'Watching The Paint Dry' for your delirious, noise rock fix) and when combined with the pure grunt of their faster tracks it makes for a excellent time indeed.

Choice Track: 'DNA Evidence'

'The Body & Thou' You Whom I've Always Hated
I'm not gonna lie, I slept on this for aaaaaaaaages and was only roused into listening it upon finding out about the Nine Inch Nails cover on it.
I learned that, a) Terrible Lie works excellently as a sludge metal song, and b) this was in fact an amazing collaboration between two of heavy music's best bands right now.Absolutely earth shaking and soul destroying music with a very healthy amount of experimentation, noise and distortion cranked into the mix. I will not complain at all if these two bands collab again.

Choice Track: 'Terrible Lie'

'Circular Time'Ramleh
A fairly late entry into this year's list, but after thrashing the preview track released earlier this year (album closer 'Never Returner') and hyping myself up for this release and had to include it. 'Circular Time' is Ramleh in extremely heavy psychedelic rock mode, with plenty of noise rock, drone, prog and krautrock influences. Running at roughly two hours this a gargantuan collection of crushingly nihilistic, yet soaring music. If you can set aside a sizeable block of your time to devour this in its entirety, you will not be let down.

Choice Track: 'Never Returner'

'Self Titled' No Form
Good news! If you ever wanted a hardcore band that sounded like an actual descent into madness and/or oblivion, No Form exist to fulfill this niche desire. Sounding like a collision between Siege and a noisy free jazz ensemble (some marvelously skronky trumpet playing makes a very welcome appearance on 'Side B'), No Form are a band that can pull off frenzied hyper-speed hardcore as well as sludgy, atonal goop. Catch me waiting feverishly for more music from these guys.

Choice Track: 'Side B'

'Negative Feedback Resistor' Destruction Unit
The musical equivalent of the sunglasses emoji, aka Destruction Unit, are frighteningly adept at molding walls of fuzzed out guitar and psychedelic noise into ridiculously catchy music, and 'Negative Feedback Resistor' is affirmation of this.  If you like your riffs smothered in at least three layers of delay pedals and your amp stacks blown to smithereens I'd wager that you'd probably enjoy this album. Hey, I know I did.

Choice Track: 'Chemical Reaction/Chemical Delight'

'High' Royal Headache
'High' is something of an anomaly on this list, in that I could use words like 'bright' and 'happy' to describe the music contained within. Uncharacteristically positive connotations aside, this album is absolutely brimming with energy and has excellently written garage rock tunes to boot. Tracks such as 'My Own Fantasy' and 'Another World' show of Royal Headache's punchy punk side perfectly, while 'Carolina' and 'Wouldn't You Know' slow things right down and provide some much welcome, soulful relief. Oh, and the organ. So good.

Choice Track: 'Another World'

'Behold. Total. Rejection' Revenge
I'll close this list on a much more nihilistic and brutal note with Revenge's latest LP. The Canadian band have never really been ones for subtlety or finesse, choosing the much more noble path of beating your ears senseless with their concoction of death metal, grindcore and black metal. 'Behold. Total. Rejection.' begins immediately with pummeling blast beats, inhuman grunts and growls and plenty of Kerry King-esque divebomb solos and does not let up. At all. I worry sometimes about the toll this kind of music must have on the musicians playing it - but at the same time I'm so glad there are people out their plumbing the depths of the musical abyss and producing this kind of filth.

Choice Track: 'Silent Enemy'


Honorable Mentions:
The Body & Krieg - Self Titled
Koufar - Lebanon For Lebanese
Lightning Bolt - Fantasy Empire
Ghastly Spats - Spinozism Excorcism
Helta Skelta - Beyond The Black Stump
Soma Coma - Dust
Blanck Mass - Dumb Flesh
Follakzoid - III
Oneohtrix Point Never - Garden of Delete
Broken Prayer - Misanthropocentric AKA Droid's Blood
L.O.T.I.O.N -  Digital Control And Man's Obsolescence
Kitchen's Floor - Battle Of Brisbane
Prurient - Frozen Niagra Falls
Sunn - Kannon
Health - Death Magic
Battles - La Di Da Di
Thee Oh Sees - Mutilator Defeated At Last
White Walls - Afterthoughts In Limbo
Pissgrave - Suicide Euphoria
Special mention also goes to No Zodiac's 'Eternal Misery' for being the guiltiest pleasure of 2015.

!FUCKED BY NOISE MID-YEAR ROUND-UP! - Brayden's Picks

So I've been without a dedicated computer for a fair portion of this year, hence I'm a little behind on this year's releases - but I'm gonna pretend like I haven't just been exclusively listening to cloud rap and shitty beatdown and give this a shot. Here goes nothing:

'Afterthoughts In Limbo'
White Walls

Shoegaze is such a woefully underdone and over saturated genre you'd be forgiven for overlooking this band - but also, don't - you dummy. White Walls are a suuuuuuuuuper heavy 'gaze band from Melbourne who pair their walls of fuzz and feedback with ethereal vocals and lush melodies. For three guys they make and ungodly amount of noise. This double LP's been on my watchlist for a while and it did not disappoint. Do check it out.




'Antipodean Sickness' - Tanned Christ

I kinda sorta maybe wrote this band off as a shameless 'Farewell All Joy' era Idylls clone initially, but this new LP has totally swayed my opinion. While's there's some definite similarities to the aforementioned band, tanned Christ warp their tinny, mathy grind into their own gnarly, fucked up creation. Angular, noisy and pretty scary to boot.

'Preservation Measures' - Gay Kiss

Arizona once again pulls another fucking rager out of the hat, thanks to Gay Kiss. It may have taken its sweet time to get here, but Preservation Measures delivers the goods in the form of manic, unrelenting hardcore. If you're on the prowl for some obtuse, angular guitar work and raspy vocals look no more - hell even if you're not, give it a listen anyway.

'Slurping At The Cosmos Spine' - Dawn Of Humans

Up until this LP dropped, I was certain that Dawn Of Humans could never really translate their trademark weirdness to record without sounding too forced or contrived. There's no sign of this on Slurping... however - just an array of bizarre vocal performances, caveman-like rhythms and stompy punk riffs. A winning combination of catchy and disorienting slime.

'Fantasy Empire' - Lightning Bolt

Rhode Island's loudest two piece churn out even more fuzz drenched goodness on album number seven. The grooves are monstrous, the drumming is utterly insane and the bass guitar manages to sound like just about everything other than a bass guitar. I've been on a huge Lightning Bolt fix this year, and a new album has made it just that much better.

'Wingwalker/Prayer To God' - Great Falls/Thou

90's style angular post hardcore meets a sludge cover of actual 90's post hardcore on this gargantuan sounding split. Great Falls bring the dissonance with metallic crunch and yelping vocals while Thou cover a beloved Shellac song and FUCKING KILL IT. In a good way, I mean.

'終焉' - Gentlemen

Gentlemen are easily one of my favourite punk bands in Australia at the moment, so naturally I was stoked when I head they were dropping TWO 7"s earlier this year. 終焉 sees the Melbourne band trying their hand at both dirgey post punk and hyperactive, Siege-esque hardcore across three tracks. If you dug the filthy, raw self titled EP from last year, you'll definitely dig this one.








'Autism Vision/Auto Warfare' - Brando's Island

When you're dealing with a band that has members of Pathetic Human, Velvet Whip and serial pests The Zingers, you know you're in full a wild ride. Brando's Island are a four piece art punk/new wave band that play jarring tunes by way of vibraphone and synthesizer. No guitars, no bass - just a very stripped down version of a school big band. The deadpan vocal delivery and unusual instrumentation are a winning combo.

'Cult Of The Technocrat' - Coffin Birth

Coffin Birth get better every time I see them live, and not surprisingly this translates to their releases too. Absolutely manic, riff laden grindcore a la Insect with a healthy dose of noise and death metal grunt. This stuff will make you want to neck domestos and run through brick walls. Also holy shit I hope these guys record their cover of 'Fluids' by Neanderthal at some point.





'War.Fire.Death' - Ripped Off

Brisbane band Ripped Off finally got around to releasing some music this year, and boy am I glad I did. Imagine Scandinavian, Japanese and noisy US hardcore thrown into a blender and played through really nice amps and you'll have a pretty good idea of what this is like. It's like the apocalypse, but with more d-beats.






HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Prurient - Frozen Niagra Falls
Thou/The Body - You Whom I've Always Hated
Sumac - The Deal
Rectal Hygienics - Ultimate Purity
Foot Hair - Self Titled
Soma Coma - Dust
Rule Of Thirds - Self Titled LP
John Carpenter - Lost Themes

Gentlemen - Pro Famine
No - Treating People Like They Don't Exist 12"
Sadist - The Shadow Of The Swastika EP
Ho99o9 - The Horror Of 1999 EP
The Coneheads - Selected Ringtones Tape 3
Triac/Sacridose - Split
Disciples of Christ - 2015 Demo
Faceless Burial - Demo
Nervous Habit - Demo
Avian Terror - Demo

ANTICIPATED RELEASES:
Destruction Unit - Negative Feedback Resistor (!!!HYPED!!!)
Burlap - LP
Last Chaos - LP
Head Wound City - LP
New Daughters LP?? (I hope??)
NASA Space Universe - LP (RIP you beautiful band)
CØNDITIØN - Actual Hell 12"

Various Artists - ADK Omnibus Vol.1

'ADK Omnibus Vol.1'
Various Artists
1983

Review by Joey

Genre/s: Hardcore Punk, Post-Punk, New Wave, Noise Rock
For Fans Of: Discharge, SS, Gang Of Four, The Contortions

This compilation is essential for fans of Japanese punk. I can geek out over a lot of this stuff as those of you who saw my megapost of early 80s Japanese punk already know. And why not? Many of these bands put bands like 7 Seconds to shame (then again, it's not that hard to make 7 Seconds look more mediocre than they already are). So, let's actually talk about the bands.

The first band, Sodom, is clearly a direct result of Discharge's "Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing" which predated this compilation by one year. Don't write them off as being a clone though, their tracks on here are faster, more blown out, and more vicious than Discharge. If you want hyper aggressive, stripped down hardcore punk, you're going to love Sodom.

Next up is Sekinin Tenka. At their core, they're reminiscent of bands like SS and The Stalin; however, they rely on weird, atonal guitar work like something you'd hear from Saccharine Trust. This makes for a sinister sound befitting of one of today's hip young ~mysterio man~ hardcore bands except it predates them by about 25 years.

Okay, so Cain, the third band, is somewhat of an oddity. They play disco influenced post-punk/new wave similar to Gang Of Four but way poppier. Their material feels out of place, but at the same time works well to showcase how fucked up the other bands are.

Lastly is Gaddess, who remind me of New York no wave bands like The Contortions and Teenage Jesus. Their songs are all bizarre and atonal, often feeling as if they are falling apart, but still somehow managing to remain catchy in places. After Cain's pop sensibilities, Gaddess feels even more disturbing than they might have at another place in the compilation.

This is the only rip you'll find with individually split tracks, all of the others are divided by band. I'm not sure what else I should have to say to convince you to check this out, so get downloading.

Tracklisting:
1. ソドム [Sodom] - ソドミズム
2. ソドム [Sodom] - スペルマ爆弾
3. ソドム [Sodom] - L.S.D
4. ソドム [Sodom] - 自殺 / パブリック
5. ソドム [Sodom] - カンゴフK
6. ソドム [Sodom] - 夜姦菌孤
7. 責任転嫁 [Sekinin Tenka] - Fuck
8. 責任転嫁 [Sekinin Tenka] - 春と修羅
9.責任転嫁 [Sekinin Tenka] - Worm
10.責任転嫁 [Sekinin Tenka] - 慕情
11. カイン [Cain] - さつき病
12. カイン [Cain] - すてきなビート (Beat Generation)
13. ガディス [Gaddess] - Bun-Bun-Bun
14. ガディス [Gaddess] - 新宿　-闇のカーニバル-
15. ガディス [Gaddess] - 薬　-Yaku-
16. ガディス [Gaddess] - あたいの.....
17. ガディス [Gaddess] - ケダモノ
18. ガディス [Gaddess] - キ・チ・ガ・イ

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