(Review: ACxDC, Mangum Force & Sex Prisoner, 3 Way 2013)

The following review is written by Jay Nesbit, purveyor of harsh cacophonies every tuesday 8pm EST over at Core of Destruction Radio.

If you've ever wondered what it would feel like to get brutally beaten by a gang of prisoners itching to collect their debt you never repayed for those cigarettes, honey buns, and Ramen noodles you got them to front you, this split is your answer.  It would fit in perfectly as background music in some shitty delapidated theater on opening night of a Batman premier/ mass murder.  This split brings together three of the sickest bands in the scene today, and trust me, they do not disappoint.  Just over 10 minutes of song after song, deliver what is sure to be one of the best releases of this year, a true must have if you're even slightly intereted in this scene.

The legendary Los Angeles based powerviolence band ACxDC kick things off.  Clocking in at under 4 minutes, these 5 songs really get things going and let you know what's in store for you.  Some of the best material ever written by the band is present on here.  Crux is without a doubt one of the best songs they've ever done.  I dare you to try and not start moving in one way, shape, or form when that catchy riff kicks in around 18 seconds after the song starts.

Magnum Force was the true surprise for me with this release.  Being familiar with the other two bands prior to this release, I was interested in seeing what MF brought to the table.  They do not disappoint in the slightest.  Only 3 songs that clock in at under 3 minutes, this band pulls off what many have tried and failed over the years.  This Tuscan based 5-piece flawlessly pulls off a genre which is often imitated but never sounding original yet still following the formula created many years ago.

Sex Prisoner are back with more of what made you love them on their S/T.  These guys can do no wrong.  It's kind of hard for a band to make the songs stand out that much when they all seem kind of similar but they make it work.  I love what they did on this split, but feel like their next release will be when they pull it all together and start doing something really special.  Easily one of the best bands around today and only showing signs of improvement.  The perfect ending to what will hands down be one of the top splits of the year.

ACxDC / Magnum Force / Sex Prisoner

To Live A Lie

Fleeting Fatality (Review: Fatal Nunchaku / xKATExMOSHx 7", 2013)

(Take two, since it decided to eat all but the last word of my post and I made no back up eurrgh #firstworldbloggerproblems)

Hey kids do you like Powerviolence? Of course you do, why else would you be giving this bottom of the barrel blog your patronage? However the genre-idolatry of the likes of Fatal Nunchaku and xKATExMoshx would suggest the band are the types who would have I <3 Powerviolence bumper stickers and wear to court a No Comment t-shirt without the slightest hint of irony to address their numerous noise complaints. What I am trying to get at is that both bands know Powerviolence like the back of their hand, and have the musical twitch to prove it. 

First up is French underground powerviolence veterans and one half of a well documented euro tour with the now defunct Ocksen: Fatal Nunchaku. Fatal Nunchaku thrash around with the utmost tomfoolery, adjoining caustic riffs with curt tempo swaps and employing a completely irrational vocal attack, contrasting rabid yapping with Spazz like bellows; the yapping identical in form to what one might expect from a hyperactive choleric chihuahua - and I use that comparison as a term of endearment. Its a lively, absurd musically sarcastic splurge of adrenaline, sweat and laughs; somewhere in the vicinity of kinsmen Sylvester Staline, although which of the two is the more loony remains to be determined. 

As if made to measure the Charles Bronson-esque Lindsay Lohan/ white popstar burnout syndrome parody band xKATExMOSHx occupy the b-side. Continuing from their well received ST 7" , they continue to beat their extreme case of ADHD afflicted punk as if it were competing at the Grand National; who likes slow music anyway? Its the devils medium for old age pensioners and doom metal fans, and if you ain't hitting above the 180 bpm mark you are pretty much wasting everybody's time. The band are full tilt the moment the needle comes to contact with the wax, offering a 4 minute somersault of hit the ground running and don't look back type bpm therapy. It exemplifies that xKATExMOSHx need a full length, given there is no graceful let down only high octane shenanigans by the time the release ends you are mid stage dive, the bore of reality crashing in as you as your face collides with your chest of drawers 

Powerviolence on the whole is going wonderful if opposing directions, we have a new vanguared of cimmerian tinged powerviolence in balaclava types like Water Torture, Sex Prisoner, False Light (to whom Dead Chemists Records is gracing use with a long overdue physical medium) and Disciples of Christ tunneling into dark corners, whilst bands like Fatal Nunchaku and xKATExMOSHx showing us its still a dependable fun and lively genre. 

Fatal Nunchaku / xKATExMOSHx

EveryDayHate (Poland)

Aim Down Sight Records (Germany)
Bad Feeling Records (Italy)
Cimurro D.I.Y. (Italy)
Dead Chemists Records (UK)
Dickhead Records (Italy)
Eatshitbuydie Distro/Records (Netherlands)
Ebruitez Records (France)
Farce Attack Records (France)
Fondation Weinberg
Get Syro (Italy)
HYGIENE RECORDS (Usa)
No Bread! (Russia)
No Way Asso (France)
Wee Wee Records (France)
You’re Next Records (Israel)

A Space Odyssey

Space: the final frontier - for science maybe, but the adventure and fantastical possibilities of the cosmos has been a theme traversed and exploited by the most enlightened of artists. Meet the cosmusicians. 

Kusari Gama Kill - Space Travel EP

Kusari Gama Kill - Space Travel Ep

Kinetic danish harsh noise duo Kusari Gama Kill, usually opt for the neutron bomb treatment when delivering their highly textured harsh noise crackling, but the Space Travel EP reins in the sonic fallout and offers a perplexing tapestry of enriched space themed noise exploration. Its an unpredictable digital crawl full of diluted shudders and twisting quantum states, capturing the vastness and bewilderment of the unknown, dark matter spiraling through its veins in quasi-mystical and mathematical sweeps, making for a highly curios yet tangible noise open-mindedness.  As the release progresses so does its grip on the listener, fascination ever on the rise, but in the shadows something obscure hidden among the immenseness of size and force begins to come into motion, the release peaking at its very end. 

Necro Deathmort - The Colonial Script

Necro Deathmort - The Colonial Script

The Colonial Script; for me at least, has to be the most enthralling and visionary piece of music I have come across, and in terms of atmospheric mass, attention to detail and ingenuity of form I can think of no equal. The Colonial Script is an aphotic soundscape  bleached in ominous ambience, crucially rich in captivating transcendent detail suspending our innate materiality by blurring the real with the surreal; its a genre-free tapestry  that has woven in eloquence all that is nebulous and enrapturing about the universe. The depression of space and time into one overlapping and all consuming black hole feel all to real, as feint glimmers of stars are drawn to feed this mushrooming of nothingness, yet on the horizon fantastical astral events take form, a flicker of intrigue before falling lost to the immensity of the other big nothingness: the universe.

Psudoku - Space Grind

Psudoku - Space Grind

This one should scarce need an introduction pretty much dominating every end of year lists back in 2010, but to the uninitiated Psudoku is Parlamentarisk Sodomi with distortion thrown in the mix; and for reasons still beyond my comprehension also feels highly relateable in form to Bologna Violenta's ST LP. The general arch is just total overdrive of John Zorn inspired grind nonesense; perfectly summarised by Torture Garden Picture Company as "Debut CD of demented Norwegian progressive space grind fusion. Plays like DISCORDANCE AXIS downloading YES albums while teleconferencing with NETJAJEV SS and Stephen Hawking." - can't get a more accurate depiction than that.

Gigantic Brain - I Swallow 16 Red Planets 

Gigantic Brain - I Swallow 16 Red Planets

Ambient Grind? Yes that is such a thing, and what a wondrous thing it is; laying waste to serene soundscapes through blast beats and demonic vocals sounds just the ticket. Gigantic Brain a solo meta-physical venture by John Brown represents some of the most out the box stratagems of grind-fusion, yet even so his work does not represent one static framework of grind to ambiance ratio, but rather an evolutive one with a continuing arch of moderate experimentation. First release The Invasion Discography represents pre-Agorapocalypse era Agoraphobic Nosebleed in a collection of Star Trek plots, following release Betelgeuse showcased the ambient half of his skill sets, going on to peak at I Swallow 16 Red Planets soldering the trademark grind and ambient synergy, from there on in saturating the more atmospheric components at the expense of the fiercer moments, weakening the dualism of beauty and harshness, in releases World and They Did this to Me, even still both remain amazing releases.  With Gigantic Brains forthcoming reincarnation as a two piece project, heres hoping they reach the stars once again.

The Bastard Noise - Rogue Astronaut

The Bastard Noise - Rogue Astronaut

I am utterly convinced that Man is the Bastard & The Bastard Noise are one of those few bands that even two thousand years from now will still be listened to, their music represents something which I can only describe as being timeless. Skulldozer has sort of bridged the difference between the two projects by reincarnating Man is the Bastard into the Bastard Noise, the last of a number of steps effectively bringing Bastard Noise back to its origins of disjointed yet progressively inclined jazzy noise-rock afflicted powerviolence. Yet at their peak of their Power Electronics era (See Our Earth's Blood IV 5 CD boxset for the definitive release of the genre) I feel the band were at their most creative, Rogue Astronaut sounds like it was made to measure for 2001: A Space Odyssey; and is one of the most stimulating electronically induced listening experiences on offer.  

Discord of Design (Review: Facialmess / Seal Team 666, Human is as Stupid does 2013)

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”

— Albert Einstein

Facialmess / Seal Team 666 - Human is as Stupid does

Projecting shards of piercing static, miasmatic white noise, ferrous scathes and oscillating thorns of obtuse sonic curtains through abandoned corridors, disrupting the blanket of silence in segmented aural afflictions Facialmess brings one of the more disruptive harsh noise propagations to mind. There is a rinse and repeat pattern in the inner workings to the crudely soldered array of distortion pedals and effects;  a binary patterning of harsh noise to filler back and forth, that forbids comfort or familiarity to set in, each half at a minimum to achieve maximum confusion. The process for track one Hands and Knees  simply uses moments of silence to break up the endless seemingly unconnected uniquely manifested screeches of noise, whereas following track Extension Self Defence decides to replace the silence with some ominous possibly romantic/reflectionist inner monologue with mood mirroring piano, but the prickly noise remains the same, both ranging a length of under 8 minutes. Track 3 No Intrinsic Value remains in this school of though, but opts to reduce the abridging moments to a stuttering fraction of a second of silence, letting the noise consume you. 

Seal Team 666; J.Randall's personal power electronics project has a more mathematical edge to it and thematic end game. Listening to the alien shrills and unraveling arithmetic progression of wavelengths brings a vivid image of a creatively absurd pulp-magazines portrayal of a futurist Huxleyian dystopia; where substance and voltage abuse go hand in hand, and first chapter era The Bastard Noise are worshiped in a cult like fashion. All hail the toking skull!

First track Sabre 666 / Hot Shot sounds like inter-galactic war being raged on a space station, words and emotions redundant and all necessary communication and details relayed in morse-code like packets of harsh noise. Second track Auto-corpse may only be described as pneumatic like shoving Altered States of America drum machine patterns through a dozen piece long set of distortion and marred with WAV file corruption. The last track Segregation by Species, rangier than the two previous tracks combined hitting a run time of 11 minutes runs somewhat more wild, and at times bares its scintillating teeth in computational anxiety, but only to deepen the dystopian immersion. 

Facialmess / Seal Team 666

Grindviolence Forever (Review: Rabies / Chulo 7", 2012)

Rabies / Chulo

I don't think I have ever seen such a large collaboration of labels centred on one release, discogs lists no less than 23 labels involved in the release, the logistics must of been an absolute nightmare for the go to, let alone postage costs; even so the pairing proves to be one well worth all the hassle.

First up we have Rabies from the Czech Republic; a country which pretty much permeates quality grindcore as if the entire countries very survival was dependent on it; needless to say Rabies fit the national paradigm. This is my first exposure to the band, and all I have to say is that if they play as hard on every other release as they do on this one I am disgusted with myself for not having heard of them earlier. It’s undeniably adrenaline-junkie type fastcore, deep in Hellnation territory in content, but somewhere in the middle of Lärm and Hellnation in texture, and operating on a higher register. Its wholly invigorating and crisp in delivery, the moderate production values give a nice simmering overlay, the right amount of punk to noise ratio for simultaneous heart and ear drum rupture!

Colombia’s Finest Chulo muscle in on the other half, their incensed grindviolence composite still as callous as ever. I was particular fond of the “easter egg” type nods in their work, opening track No futuro is their equivalent to the opening sequence of Spazz’s Let’s Fucking Go, sampling the same phrase from a variety of bands and performances into one singular piece to which the band have struck no note or screamed no indignation, yet gives an incredible starting momentum. The second instance would be in the track title Hey Rot, a mincecore practice of Hey – (Insert Band)  I believe first started by Archagathus in Hey Agathocles , a sort of shout out to a band, usually one that has been influential musically on the performing band; here are a few other examples ( 1 , 2, 3 ). Musically though they continue their blunt delivery of low-bred feral punk: clanging drum work, ricochet riffs and vulgar screams remain constants, and continue the lead set in Hombre Vs Tombo infusing snippets of the Afternoon Gentlemen, and offering better production values compared to their more rudimentary, but equally crucial back catalogue. Chulo might be becoming more cultured in identity, but they are by no means any less fierce. 

Chulo / Rabies

List of Labels