Mental - "Complete Mental" CD/DVD 2009

1989 adrenalin burnout Japanese thrashcore that busts S.O.B.-speed blasts and riffing (on occasion, mostly I wanna say it's like an early anthemic Poison Idea on...adrenalin burnout). I think it's their semi-simplicity that draws me in like the tentacles of one of their country's rapetopus'. There's precision playing and plenty of energized changeups, it's just not the usual tech/mosh race that their peers at the time were pro-filming fucking cockrock concert videos of. Great clear but DIY (?) production on both the eps (one unrl until now/then). Demo is a decently placed boombox, while the rest of the disc is littered with comp and live tracks (none needless, band was consistent in song craft). They totally rip off Septic Death's "Daymare" with their own track "Drive To Death" haha! Oh yeah, this is just the music, I'm not uploading the dvd portion for you lazy fucks too (just buy one on Discogs, Christ everybody acts like they've never heard of it).

Master - Reh '85, Live '90 Aalst, "The Final Word" Demo '95

Well Fuckin' A yo, if this doesn't rock your balls off...that's okay, normal people don't care. First wave proto death-thrash that is incredibly (i-n-c-r-e-d-i-b-l-y) neanderthalic in composition, yet performed with surprising professionalism. If Venom was simpler and heavier (and faster) is probably the cheapest descriptor. Terrorizer named themselves after one of Master's tracks (and sped up Master's own style of riffs). I'm enticing niggaz here. Master had a deeeeeep influence in the underground, with their style (and occasional guitar & bass tones) payed noticeable homage by bands such as Disharmonic Orchestra, Defecation, and even Napalm Death.

As for the tapes: Sound across each recording is tolerable, with trebly definition (and tape hiss) on the higher end. I don't think this is a ripper's error, just a nuance of very old cassette tapes. This is ubiquitous, even for the cleanly recorded "The Final Word" demo, which the title track is just...it's just sick as hell nigga, sick as hell. Pic (and tape/s) isn't mine, I don't front!

Excruciating Terror - "Legacy Of Hate" 7" 1991 & Interview w/Victor 2013

...or 2012. O.G. 2nd-wave ultra-hater grind from Los Angeles. All the stories are true, and if you question them you'll become a story too! :0 This band was basically the philosophical continuation of Terrorizer, but still took a majority of cues from ENT's song structures. You get some legit triggerless blasts and inhuman cupped-mic vokes (the shrieks can get close to Mick Harris wipeouts too, always a welcome aural accoutrement ), though they could write a doom song that would destroy you. This was a thing in L.A. for awhile, where everybody worshipped Godflesh as much as Napalm Death, so they mustered their best to fuse that Swans-inspired sound into their own bands. It always came off as "doom" though. Dirty sound, hard to deduce the ineptness of the studio, but it's still somehow "professional". The ENT influence (in riff segmentation) became more striking the further the band went. I'll eventually upload the demo and live KXLU set. For now, this is my rip because AS USUAL I couldn't stand the other rip out there. I also edited Victor's interview to where it's just his actual interview and not hours worth of hair metal or Municipal Waste played between each question.

Hyperstoic 1-5

I scanned the German bootlegs, and here we are. These are an in-depth look at Pushead's art (and some of his homie's art too!) covering every era of his work up until that time. Given the context of the series' run (hipster artbooks), it still feels like an unfinished document (he just has so much MORE art out there!). Until the man decides to conjure a Taschen-style Interdimensional Definitive God-Edition that's actually retail friendly, these will do generically "okay". The same with Septic Death too, what the fuck BRIAN! L-A-G-G-E-R! Anyway...I've always liked this image here. I'm lazily seeing it working for Fear Of God.

Imagen - '87-'89 7" & Demos

T-O-T-A-L T-H-R-A-S-H!!! I could say this is the South American R.D.R., with a Cool Whip dollop of Larm's slop or Rapt's blubbery bursts...though plenty of Imagen's peers were abusing that scrapier end of hardcore simultaneously. All those late 80s Colombian bands kicked culos, but tonight we're focusing our electron microscopes on Imagen...

From the demos to the lone EP, the band maintains a confusing stylistic consistency. One song will be thrashcore, or an efficient Psycho Sin, or a s-i-m-p-l-i-s-t-i-c 1-2 punker to get you dolphin flippin'. Production values are a mystery. It's not boombox...but if it's studio, it's the kind of studio available to late night public access TV shows of the early 80s (there's still decent mixing and reverb). The EP sounds the most (noticeably) plugged-into-the-console of all the recordings, yet ironically has the sharpest clarity. None of these are black marks, the recordings are resourceful and charmingly fitting to a band of Imagen's ilk. Why they never received an authorized discography is beyond me. 

Maho Neitsyt - "1981-1989" (EPs and Demo)

Brutish, repulsive, and mean-drunk MEAN, Maho Nietsyt has always anthropomorphized the specific type of surly nihilism I enjoy in Finnish punk. There's something so...ugly about the presentation to their music. It's very well played, with a noted simplicity and repetitive nature throughout their discography as a whole (studio sound is always good, though low-budget). Kinda like a rapunk Ramones...but shittier. Singer Petri is one of my favorite voices within punk or hardcore. As a very young man on these records, he had the most piss-raw and hateful delivery, like a 45 year old chain smoker who gargled the modeling glue he was supposed to be huffing. He sounds amazing, just take my word for it. The band was so consistent throughout their discography, choosing a favorite EP might be by your own production preferences (it can swing distinctly per release), and not by quality of tracks (they're all sick in their own VERY snotty fashion). My all time fave is off the demo, the track "Ydinasse".

https://www.mediafire.com/?k94aa1m1937yan9

Tranquilizer - "History '85-'87"

Fuck a poser, NO ONE knew of this band until ancient (but godly) as fuck 7inchpunk blog posted it (good rip too!). So ya know something? Let's all stand up out of our computer chairs and applaud enthusiastically to 7inchpunk's memory? Okay?

Not as Chaos U.K. as one may be led to believe, Tranquilizer is almost thrashy, yet 1-2 enough to remain chaos-punk. They're not completely noisecore either (minus the shittily boomboxed demos), the guitars buzz as traditionally as their historical brethren in Yugoslavia or all those other fucked up Orwellian type countries. Songs can be abruptly short too, with noticeably shorter sharp shocks pleasing the Larm-admiring areas of my brain. They change it up somewhat. The second flexi costs 1/4 to 1/2 of what the first flexi commands on the wizard hat market, if that's any indicator to how drastically they switch genres (or competency). If you want my dead honest opinion, they were probably barely out of high school doing this, probably their first band, and as such projects usually go they just sonically vomited out whatever was on their little kid minds. In places wild and enthusiastic, but not mindblowingly essential. Ehhh...I'd still nerd the fuck out and wear a shirt, why lie? Oh, I'm not buying the "date" on the cdr discography, freaks fucking lie and fuck around too much with the Japcore scene.

Innocents - "Masho + 25 Tracks" CD 2009

Sovie-Homie Paul's second bday gift (wow, how sad, mp3s as gifts :p )!

One of the few bands I can hang with in the "traditional" Japcore style (anything that isn't influenced by Chaos U.K.). Clug-chunk early Agnostic Front up-tempo tough guy hardcore meets hard rock...that all of a sudden busts straight into blastbeats (band was around in '88, S.O.B. beat them out a few years prior). Don't get too excited, those moments are relegated to their demo. But still, there's that typical melodramatic sing-along vibe that the Japanese mastered at birth, and everyone else goes nuts for. Not essential, but fun nonetheless. Fave track: "Mammy". No one else ever noticed the O.G. Nintendo on the cover? No one?

http://www.mediafire.com/download/sl2g8a9dk6258cb/innocents-masho_plus_25_tracks-jp-2009-gen.zip

Blackhouse - "5 Minutes After I Die" Cassette 1986

I don't think one needs much exploration into Blackhouse beyond this particular tape. They had a few preceding releases, and a slow trailing ooze (up until 2015) on other formats, but "5 Minutes..." seems to have caught one of their more continuously engaging sessions of weirdtronics. The first tape easily delved into Broken Flag's style of brutish noise (in places), with most other releases (including this one) exploring a Throbbing Gristle inspired softer side (they're nowhere near as sloppy as TG, but that quaint creepy ambiance still lingers).

"5 Minutes After I die" does contain buzzing rhythmic pulses, but nothing ear-dissolving. There's plenty of found sounds, and looped sounds, and scraping in metal barrels and other pretentiously-named stuff, but Blackhouse has a talent for precision and a near compositional feel to the tracks. Basically, there's no improv cheater bullshit here masquerading as "art". I have to prop them for their production and design ideas too. The tapes all look clean...um, Broken Flag in feel to the layouts (I'd swear up and down they had access to one of the earliest desktop publishing programs...that or they were O.C.D. as fuck with a Letraset sticker sheet). Just all the usual visual cues that tell one "industrial", but "in the cool way". As for the noise, I have no clue the type of equipment they use to make OR record, but through the mild tape hiss it's sharply defined and...kinda pleasantly...mixed with attention to detail.

This is the first of two posts celebrating the Sovie-Homie Paul's birthday. I don't want him to be the only one who clicks that lonely link...

Magus - "Ruminations Of Debauchery" Demo & 7" 1992

I never let go of this demo/ep, they survived decades of purges! Eeeaaarly 90's pre-Absu grinding death and FUNERAL DOOM. Seriously, screw Absu, Magus could have been a straight up FORCE (the dark side of it) in the death metal scene. But no, we have to suffer with boring ol' Absu :p. Onward: Inherently grotty sound, the band went to a real studio but there's a muddiness I'm having trouble pinpointing (mastering? master tape? it doesn't feel like it's coming from the mix). The performances are outstanding. As far as the songs, it's typical fused death/grind of the time, but intensely played with an experienced ear for composition. The tuning and distortion (and deep room ambiance) is just beyond heavy, it's in megaton territory for me. They then 180 the fuck out of you with mindblowingly majestic doom! Black hole darkness nigga, synths 'n 'lins yo! They were so equally skilled in both genres, it woulda been the craziest ride to follow as a fan...if they didn't break up very soon after. The ep is just 3/4 of the demo, but is included here both for redundancy and the vaguely clearer sound.

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