Cephalotripsy

Don't call it a comeback, but I'm making a bit of a comeback. A laziness-inspired hiatus has been kicked into touch by a friend who my ego says got bored of waiting for me to write something and went hunting filth himself. Well he succeeded and I'm going to use the first band he mentioned as today's subject. If getting me to write again required a bit of effort that's nothing compared with having to crush the head of a foetus in order to effect delivery. Nice name, Cephalotripsy!

Oh, the vocals are fucking dirty. There's a tiny bit in "Sanguinary Misogynistic Execration" where the pitch heightens and you might even be able to make out a word or two, but mostly the three songs on their myspace profile are just full of proper low-frequency guttural porkage.

As the name and one song title mentioned so far should give away, they're in yer Carcass / Autopsy mode. There's a song called "Aesthetic Upholstery of Molested Dead Flesh" mentioned in some spiel they've written, and I'm slightly disappointed that my first interpretation of those words -- that there's a band called Molested Dead Flesh and one of them calls themselves "Aesthetic Upholstery" -- is untrue. Not to worry though.

Oh christ. I just had a look at their record label's myspace page too, and spotted a band named Leukorrhea. Do I want to know? I think I do. [type type click click] OK, I just looked it up -- turns out I didn't want to know after all. Who'd have thought?

• myspace.com/cephalotripsy
• amputatedvein.com - their record label

Annotations of an Autopsy

Oops. Failed to write anything yesterday. I'll keep this short and sweet while trying to find someone for today: Annotations Of An Autopsy's song Gore Gore Gadget is astonishing. Superb death metal with lots of genuine oinking and squealing going on. I listened to it bloody loads of times in preparation for seeing them live, only to be disappointed by the gig not actually being on. Ah well.

• myspace.com/annotationsofanautopsy
• aoaa.blogspot.com

Gig "review": Brutal Truth, Narcosis, and Total Fucking Destruction

I say gig "review" because this is going to be about as useless as most things I write; yes, I went to see these bands last night, but I was almost entirely unfamiilar with their songs so I won't be giving any decent insights into their set lists or owt like that.

Total Fucking Destruction's drummer had the sparsest kit imaginable. 4 cymbals, one snare, one bass drum, that was it. No toms, nowt else. Still made a fucking racket though. Not exactly in-keeping with their name, but noisy and great nonetheless. Being on so early the crowd was still pretty sparse too, but one bloke was doing his best to make himself unpopular by being totally pissed up and running into everyone. Nice one mate. The music though was pretty insane. I guess it was grindcore, but I'm convinced half their songs were covers of stuff. Not really sure tbh. The drummer did most of the singing and stage presence wasn't a strength; they had a shitload of 3 and 5 second songs between which the gap was only long enough for him to tap his sticks together 4 times; and they were fucking great.

Narcosis are MENTAL. Properly so. Their music's the most difficult thing to listen to this side of the avant-jazz nonsense 6music plays on a Sunday evening. It's very stop-start, occasionally a riff'll seep through but they put a stop to it quite soon, most of the time. I bought their CD, "Romance", off the bass player once he made it to the merchandise stall after their set. Had a proper chuckle at the song titles on the way home. They're miserable northern bastards, basically like Fall Out Boy on PCP -- "Ode To A Worthless Fucking Piece Of Shit", "If Being A Cunt Was People, You'd Be China", and "From Your Hate Filled Heart To My Shit Filled Life" are particular favourites. Fucking great stuff, and a fucking great show. How the fuck that bass player can play it all with his fingers rather than a pick is beyond me.

Brutal Truth were fucking brutal. 35 or so songs, no encores ("encores are for bands who don't know how to finish a fucking set properly" -- not that that stopped people in the crowd shouting for more. Idiots). Not pure grindcore, but then with Lilker about I think the odd bit of thrash is to be expected. Same drummer as TFD though, he must have been fucked by the end of the night, especially since he had a few more drums to hit in this set. Mosh pit nearly sucked my compadre in but we just about stayed safe. It did get a bit fucking hectic in there though and if I was a bit younger I might have gone in meself. Mosh pits don't seem to have really got more violent through the years. Don't really remember many song titles but one that did stick was "I See Red". Tune.

I've got videos! On youtube (where else?), here we go: Total Fucking Destruction, Narcosis, and Brutal Truth. No, I've no idea what songs are being performed in these clips and no, I don't for one moment make any claim that they're decent sound or video quality.

• myspace.com/brutalfuckingtruth and brutaltruth.com
• myspace.com/narcosisgrind
• myspace.com/totalfuckingdestruction
  

Gore Beyond Necropsy

I love Japan and the Japanese. They're mental. I'm not entirely sure why that popped into my head today but it did, so I ended up doing a search for Japanese death metal. That didn't come up with much, so changed it to Japanese grindcore and came across Gore Beyond Necropsy.

Whenever there's a "look at how the funny foreigners don't have a perfect grasp of English" TV show or photo section in a magazine or whatever, the Japanese always seem to feature prominently. That's because their economy's so strong they don't need to attract the English or Americans, as tourists or businessmen, to help them. They don't have to whore themselves out to our almighty sterling or dollar just to keep up 'cos thanks to that pacifist constitution we foisted upon 'em after WWII they went proper introvert and did pretty well for 'emselves ta very much.

Genuine socio-economic reasoning aside, the real point is that when the Japanese try and talk English it can sometimes be really fucking funny to a native English-speaker, such as wot I is one of innit. This is especially true when the Japanese in question are a death metal/grindcore band fitting in with the genre's traditions of song and album titleage. Here's a few of GBN's:

• Shitter Than Shit
• Steaming Bubbling Cadaverous Odor
• Gurgling Spiral Repulsion
• Horrendously Analdrilled
• Filth Sounds Of Hatred
• Rectal Anarchy

Oh, I so could go on, but fuck it, just go read them for yourselves. "Rectal Anarchy" made me involuntarily laugh out loud at my desk when I found it.

I don't think I'm even going to bother talking about the music. It's crazy Japanese grindcore, their album "Noise-a-go-go" has 55 tracks on it and lasts 25 minutes, they don't have a website or a myspace profile. Mental.

• interview with Gore Beyond Necropsy (includes links to two mp3s)
• Relapse Record page about them

Avulsed

According to dictionary.com, avulsion is "the forcible tearing away of a body part by trauma or surgery". Nice. I wonder which body part Avulsed are on about?

Spanish pigs today. A proper proper band as it goes, been around for yonks and all that. Not that I'd heard of them before this year, but we already established that I was rubbish at keeping up with death metal for years (my contention that death metal itself was rubbish in the late 90s and early 00s has been dealt with in private; colour me chastised). Anyway, yeah, Avulsed seem to have been around for yonks, with a bunch of splits and CDs under their belt, some decent gore-inspired Autopsy-style artwork and song titles -- I particularly like Stabwound Orgasm lads -- but best of all their lead singer's name is Dave Rotten.

Oink! I really liked all four songs I just listened to on myspace as it goes. And having headed over to their official site for more it's all gone a bit wrong. Not musically, at least not in what I'm hearing, but in what I'm reading. Yes, they've done an instrumental. What is it with (death) metal instrumentals? They're almost always bollocks, and certainly not something this blog's interested in. Where's the oinkage and squealage? Sigh. Anyway, I've also just learnt that their taste for song titles sometimes goes a bit awry. "Burnt But Not Carbonized"? Nice. "Eat Foetal Mush"? Well played. "Cadaver Decapitado"? Good effort. "Homeless Necrophile"? Like it, like a lot. "Addicted To Red Bull"? Err.... "Powered Fish"? Please please tell me that's meant to be "Powdered Fish" -- although even then, uh, what the fuck? Hmm, that said, those last two do appear to be from some kind of remixes album, so perhaps they were just having a little bit of fun...

Anyway. Avulsed are great. They're playing with Fleshrot and all them other bands at the deathfest on June 16th in London too. Mint.

• myspace.com/avulsed


• avulsed.com

Inhuman Dissiliency

There's not really many subjects death metal bands seem to tackle. Irreligiousness, gore/horror, fantasy/sci-fi, and the occasional bit of political awareness, I think that's really the lot. Some bands like to carve a niche out of one subject, a prime example being the sex-horror-gore-core of yesterday's mob. Inhuman Dissiliency are your straight out gore merchants, with a guttural bastard of a vocalist who doesn't seem to need to stop for a breath very often.

Two reasons I picked this lot to be today's oinkers and squealers. One, I didn't want to spend hours and hours at work getting lost in myspace (it's not Friday afternoon, for fucks sake) so I stopped hunting pretty soon; two, I liked the word "dissiliency" because I was totally unfamiliar with it. According to dictionary.com it means "The act of leaping or starting asunder", or more likely the act of bursting apart. Either way the band name impresses me through its use of language, and much like a great many bands (did this trend start with Carcass?) they carry it on into their song titles. For example "Necrocannibalistic infest", "Vomiting decayed fecal matter", "Mutilation of self-extracted entrails", ... you get the idea.

The all important vocals are at a frequency so low I reckon if I saw them live there'd be a loose motion or two. Most amazingly he hardly ever seems to come up for air. There's loads of bits where he just emits this crazy growl that goes on for fucking ages. Surely some circular breathing going on. The sound on NecroCannibalistic... on myspace is pretty bad, proper demo-quality, but hey, it starts with a quote from Evil Dead. Win!

Can't really work out the status of this band. Their official website seems to imply they've done very little since January 2006, but on myspace they've logged on recently and even have a gig lined up in March.

• myspace.com/inhumandissiliency
• inhumandissiliency.com

Lividity

I get the distinct feeling that the members of today's band, Lividity, are a bunch of wankers, so before I say anything more about them I'm going to engage in a bit of self-indulgence myself. I'm all chuffed and stuff about my myspace prowess. I realise it's not actually that impressive to get people adding you as friends, or commenting on your profile, but I don't care: I think it's fucking ace that Massacre added me, and I'm all chuffed that Blasphtized left a positive comment on my profile. In a distinctly un-myspace-like fashion, I'm not just harvesting contacts on there to up my numbers, preferring the lower key approach of just sending an add request to each band I chat about (and like; Thus Defiled didn't get one *cough*). That's it as far as promoting this blog goes, and it's really pleasing when it gets noticed. Anyway, back to Lividity.

So, I said they're probably a bunch of wankers. I don't mean that they're unpleasant people, I really do mean they're probably furious masturbators. They seem a little single-minded in their subject matter, right off the bat describing themselves as "Cum soaked torture grind". Not exactly yer romantic types, perhaps I should have waited until February 14th to write about them but, in homage to a song called "No Time For Lube" I figure being premature could work.

Of course, birds love a bit of rough, so it's feasible perhaps that the members of Lividity pull all the time. I for one can't say for certain I'd be that interested in a bird who isn't at least slightly turned off by, say, the picture that comes up on myspace's player when listening to the song "Pussy Lover". Or, say, the lyrics to any of their songs. That said, I'm not here to slag these guys off. I'm here to praise them, in fact. I think the music's actually pretty fucking good and, aptly enough for this blog, there's definitely some proper squealage going on. As well as, I dunno, not so much oinking as perhaps the sound of pigs hunting for truffles (as I type this I'm listening to the aforementioned "No Time For Lube". At work. Heh.)

Anyway, yes. I'm not slagging Lividity off; but I am genuinely amazed. I'm well aware that an awful lot of death metal bands are involved in a race to the bottom where taste, offensiveness, and overall decency are concerned. I remember GWAR getting banned from playing in at least one London borough, and may even have thought back in the early 90s Cannibal Corpse genuinely reached it. But I was young and naive. No more. So even here in 2007 (which, I discovered just this morning, is -- I kid you not -- YEAR OF THE PIG) with so many other bands on my list to go check out I can't say for sure that Lividity have reached the bottom (based purely on their name I reckon Stump Fucking may already be closer) but, so far as the subject of sex goes, they're surely strong contenders.

• myspace.com/lividity
• lividity.info

Massacre

I'm going OLD SKOOL today. It's not an oink, it's not a squeal, it's a death grunt apparently, and this fella Kam Lee is supposed to have pretty much invented it. He doesn't do vocals, he does "vokills", and on the one album by the one band I've heard of him he's fucking great. I wish I still had my long-sleeved Massacre t-shirt :-(

Time was a band like Massacre could release one album on Earache and get a headline slot at the Astoria. The Astoria! I mean, it wasn't full, but nonetheless... can't remember who supported them but I think I reviewed the gig for the rubbishy student newspaper at 6th form college, heh. Crikey. Anyway, From Beyond is one of my favourite death metal albums of all time. I love the vocals, I love the tunes (Dawn Of Eternity, in particular, is mint) and I love Rick Rozz's inability to play a solo that isn't just him having a load of whammy-bar fun. He made me think, briefly, that perhaps I could do lead guitar after all ;-)

Hmm. The urge to shout SYMBOLIC IMMORTALITY!!!! out at my desk is strong. I must resist. And bloody hell, blow me down with a feather, one of the songs on their myspace profile claims to be a demo recorded in 2006. Does this mean there might be a reunion on the cards? Come on lads, plenty of other bands are getting back together for some filthy lucre, there's no shame in it... get on tour with, I dunno, Sadus? Exhorder?

• myspace.com/massacrefrombeyond

Blasphtized

So, it's Sunday. That means it's about doing very little, and about religion. Accordingly I'm taking the opportunity to write not very much at all about the irreligious, and fantastically awkward-to-pronounce, Blasphtized.

Wow. In the course of digging out their logo I just found out it was done by one of the guys from Fleshrot. That probably explains why it's so fucking unreadably superb. Or is that superbly unreadable? Either way, I heard of Blasphtized courtesy of Hans from the once-mighty (ie, when they existed) Dark Heresy. They're a couple of lads taking time out from their day jobs in Days Of Perversion -- who sound to me like a mixture of death, thrash and black metal all in one -- to create some drum-machine backed pork-powered utter filth. They do a fucking great job too. I would love to see them live, although that doesn't appear to be a prospect at the moment. Actually even more than that I think I'd love to buy a t-shirt. But most importantly, for me, I'd love to hear a load more songs.

• myspace.com/blasphtized
  

Mumakil

The Swiss, eh? What have they got to complain about? With their great railways and all that cheese and Nazi loot and other shady banking nonsense and army knives and mountains and stuff you'd think they'd be pretty happy. I guess being in a neutral country's a bit of a pisser if you've got some aggression to get out, mind. Maybe that explains why they can produce a band like Mumakil.

I fucking love grindcore. Thing is I honestly didn't know until about 18 months ago that there was a whole grindcore scene, or to be honest more than about 5 bands in the world. Really fucked off I missed Nasum's entire career by not hearing about them until after one of them died :-( but to me grindcore meant early Napalm Death and Brutal Truth and, uh, that was about it. What a rubbish scratch-the-surface-that'll-do fan I was! Well there'll be no more of that, fuck no.

Only came across this mob yesterday. Once again thanks to Terrorizer, on the cover disc, this song gave me goosebumps. It's that good. Looked them up on myspace and their own site and, holy shit, there's oinkage -- but not only oinkage -- there's songs about pigs! Check it out, on their official website you can download a demo from 2005 and there's mp3s called Nailed Pig, Running Pig, Pate, Viande (that's "meat"), how fucking cool is that? Nice and short too. Proper. Superb vocals and amazing riffs. Happy riffs, but never overdone. This lot understand that just because a riff's great there's no need to play it more than 4 or 6 times. I'm so fucking stoked that they're playing in London later this month. Holy fuck! With 9 other bands! A fucking all-dayer, the day after Thus Defiled's bash! What a find. (Yes, I'm thinking of going to Thus Defiled's gig just because there's actually loads of bands on and I want to give 'em a chance live. And it's cheap and there'll probably be a lot of CDs on sale by all kinds of bands)

Oh, fuck, I just realisd I was listening to an mp3 AND the background music from their website at the same time. It sounded fucking great though, heh. Grindcore FOR THE WIN.

• myspace.com/mumakil
• mumakil.ch
  

Job For A Cowboy

I've got a mate who slags me off for reading music magazines. Well, I guess he doesn't/didn't slag me off, but was just slagging off magazines in general for being a waste of time and money. He's wrong, of course, and I put him right with a quite vicious tirade of abuse at the time. I shan't be doing that again in a hurry, but I know he reads this and I'm going to point out that Job For A Cowboy were chosen based on reading their name in the issue of Terrrorizer I bought this morning.

Not actually an article about this lot, they were just mentioned in passing in a piece about Diskreet. The reason they caught my eye was because it said they were "pig-squeal hypesters". Certainly sounded like a band for me, innit.

As it goes the first song I heard had no squealing in it. Not that it was rubbish, in fact all 4 songs on their myspace profile are great, but the song that came on first was most un-porcine. Definitely a bunch of squealage going on in the others though. Great stuff. I'm really liking this. Reminds me of a whole slew of other stuff but not in a "oh, same old crap again" way... but that could be because I've never held much truck with originality for the sake of it. If you can take a style and write a shitload of decent riffs and vocals and stuff in that style, go for it. The problem with, say, Trivium, isn't so much that they sound like an amalgam of Metallica and Sacred Reich and Pantera and a load of other bands -- those bands were all great -- the problem with Trivium is that their drummer's fucking shit.

Job For A Cowboy are touring Europe, including a few gigs in England, in -- shock horror! -- March. If the other bands (Unearth/Despised Icon/Daath) are half decent I reckon I'll head along to that.

• myspace.com/jobforacowboy
• jfacmetal.com
• metalblade.com -- their record label
  

Underneath The Gun

Thought I'd go for someone new today. By that I mean someone I'd never heard of before. With the gift of myspace I thought I'd just browse around until finding a band who sound half decent. On the one hand I get to listen to something completely new and chat shit about it, on the other it gives me an excuse to not write very much because I've been busy today and not had a lot of time on me hands.

Underneath The Gun are a little confused. On their myspace profile they claim that underneaththegun.com is their website, when clearly it isn't. Not to worry, but it would have been nice to read a little more about them than their profile provides. In particular I wanted to know whether I really am listening to a Christian death metal band or not. Not being the rabid irreligious sacreligious type I couldn't actually give a monkeys about whether they've got faith or not, I'm just interested to know whether I've finally found an example of Christian death metal that isn't fucking shite. And, actually, Wikipedia says I have.

Not much oinking or squealing going on here though. I can make out what he's saying half the time, for crying out loud. Mind you I can make out the words on old Deicide and stuff these days, whereas in 1990-91 I thought it was the most ridiculously impossible to comprehend stuff I'd ever heard (Napalm Death and "lyricless wonders" [© Kerrang] Obituary notwithstanding).

Thankfully the music's pretty easy to get on with. It's death metal but there's quite a bit of thrash about this lot. I did think it was going to be really bad at one point though -- after listening to a song on their record label's myspace page I was impressed enough to see the band's page, but somehow I managed also to open Seraph Impaled's page at the same time. Soon enough a song started up in both windows and it just sounded fucking appalling, until I noticed what I'd done and sorted it. No accidental glorious metal mashup discovery for me.

Underneath The Gun are playing in England in a few months time. In Hull. Guess I won't be seeing them then.

• myspace.com/utg
• myspace.com/thecityisburningrecordsuk -- their UK record label