DRUCK

 

Describing DRUCK makes me feel like an amateur sommelier talking about a bottle of cabernet. You're going to hear hints of MERCURY REV and SPACEMEN 3 floating around a base of Kraut Rock and THE BIRTHDAY PARTY. Notes of '90s Neil Young color the instrumental title track before you let the twelve minute B-side "Sonnenleiche" envelop you with waves of PHARAOH OVERLORD-esque dark synth driven repetition. This is truly a gorgeous release, and I offer it to you with the highest recommendation. 

AAA

JAN GARBAREK

 

I went to see The Hole Truth And Nothing Butt tonight, and it hit fucking hard. It's not just that BUTTHOLE SURFERS are truly a generational band (they are), it's the way the film interacted with the people and observed the was they interacted with one another (or didn't). I was planning to listen to some punk, drink some beers and hang out with my cat when I got home but honestly I feel like skipping the punk and beers and focusing on the cat while I think passion and instability and danger and loss and friendship and love and how close so many come to not quite making it. Smooth Norwegian outsider jazz is good for those nights, and honestly the cat kinda prefers it. 

PLACES

KILLED BY GERD

 

It's Friday, so here's another collection of songs from bands that I had never heard of before I popped Killed By Gerd in the deck for the first time a few weeks ago. Death rock (PELTERAS), new wave/college alt (THE NORTHPALM, MALARIE), driving shoegaze (DENIAL), dreamy twee/indie new wave (CLOSURE), tracks that sound like a bridge between JOY DIVISION and INTERPOL (LELAKIDIVJVNGTANDVK, THE PORNO), angular post punk (MEGATRVTH, HIGHWAY)...you get the general idea. Most of these tracks would be just as at home on a mix of late '80s college rock with DINOSAUR and MBV or a collection anchored by WAX IDOLS and DIIV. According to the sub/title, this is the first volume in a series - where are the others?!?!

KILLED BY GERD VOL #1
A Mixtapes Bootleg Series

DESECRATE A.D. // BABIRUSA

 

Look at the cover and look at the logos....then look at the photos that are placed beneath this text. You fukkn know what you're going to get here and these two Indonesian crossover thrash acts are still going to lay you the fukk out. BABIRUSA hit like VIOLATOR with heavier mosh parts, while DESECRATE A.D. are more like some unearthed, unfinished and unhinged EXODUS demos you didn't know you needed. Both bands have clearly followed the punk ----> metal trajectory, and both bands breathe fresh air into these lungs. 

DESECRATE A.D. // BABIRUSA

VITAMADE

 

Finding cool things I've never heard of is cool, but sometimes finding cool things I've never heard of but I feel like I should have heard of is sometimes even cooler. VITAMADE rose from the remnants of FLIES ON FIRE existed for one single and one full length (a CD release with a cassette promo, because this was the '90s) and as a standalone document it's a perfect document of the in-between eras. You can hear these sounds mingling with SUPERCHUNK, DRIVIN 'N CRYIN', MUDHONEY, DIDJITS, DRIVE LIKE JEHU and the like/s, but then you learn that the band formed from the ashes of FLIES ON FIRE - a would-be Sunset Strip band who came a few years too late and got ignored by their label (possibly because they were boring as fukk). Think about it like that and you can hear the "Rape Me" energy in "Self Inflicted" and maybe contextualize the furiously frustrated blast beats in "Golden Boy" a little differently (everything about this song deserves further analysis, by the way). Overthinking this recording would be easy and I find myself asking a lot of questions.....then I stop, take a breath and recognize that "Smug" is what would the world would be if FOO FIGHTERS had written a genuinely great song instead of thirty years of effective commercial ear worms and appreciate the accomplishment a twenty minute full length packed with genuine bangers. I'll never know if the transformation was organic or calculated (Everything You Need didn't come out until 1996, when the butt rock ---> grunge/commercial alt transition was more than complete), but the aforementioned tracks along with "Better Of Playing Dead," "Glad You Made It" and "Forgive Me" and legit. The context and the questions just makes it easier for me to write some words, but a world where "Last Believer" was never a radio hit* is a world I don't want to live in. 

EVERYTHING YOU NEED
* HINT: It's this world. 

DYAD

 

I write these words on the evening of August 24th (composing tomorrow's post tonight...I do this sometimes). Sitting with Murder The (Internet) Cat on my left demanding attention and my mind demanding an escape from the day. It was an awful day - life be like that sometimes. And tonight as I write words that a couple of thousand random humans and countless LLMs will digest tomorrow, it seems that Colorado's DYAD are providing precisely the escape I'm craving. See what I did there? Sometimes DIY ambient minimal synth driven fixes everything....for a few minutes. 

CYBERIA

CRYSTAL ANTIPATHIES

 

Sometimes things feel bad and you want to hear something that sounds destructive. You want to listen to something that feels bad. CRYSTAL ANTIPATHIES sound destructive....CRYSTAL ANTIPATHIES feel dangerous. This music makes me feel like I felt before I pressed play - that's not repetition, that's validation. MINISTRY, VENOM, BOTCH. It's all here and sounds like the embodiment of sonic nihilism. 

CRYSTAL ANTIPATHIES