BENDERHEADS

Right out of the gate, Illusion Dweller is a fucking haymaker - a barebones, full throttle primitive DBeat assault that sounds close enough to touch. Everything is pegged, creating pulsations within and apart from the beats and sounds, and I find my brain migrating to the repetition of those pulses...a a tortured techno record hidden inside a piece of blown out raw hardcore. This one is real simple on paper, but it's tough to really unpack the the dupa dupa crush of "Reflect" or how "Who's Watching The NSA?" feels like ripping an adhesive bandage off of your hairy shin. Destruction is your friend. 

ILLUSION DWELLER

THE ABNORMAL

Nice under the radar street punk ripper from Mid Glomorgan, Wales. Stand Together seems to be the only offering from THE ABNORMAL, featuring quintessentially gruff Isle vocals, a mid paced stomp and an occasional TRANSISTORS tinge to the guitar. The mellow crooner "Bridget Riley" seems a bit out of place, but they follow it up with the slip shod knuckle dragger "Out On The Streets" and it feels like the Earth is back on its axis. Style and proficiency are a bit all over the place (the extra guitar on "Neighbours," for example) which is part of the charm (of course). Two uncredited tracks, which only adds to the mystery...and the fun. 

 STAND TOGETHER

VI

Tape traders. Fucking love 'em. This is from the same tape as the WAR OF DESTRUCTION that appeared here a few weeks back, a screaming recording of tracks from the underrated The Triumph Of Death EP. Worth noting that you can still snag the record for a few bucks...and you should. 

(EP DEMO)

WARTHOLE//GRUDGEGRIND

Indonesian grind attack: Activate. Three slammers from WARTHOLE; erratic and fierce downtuned grind with oppressive blasts followed by an evil, guttural noise track. GRUDGEGRIND offer five doses of piercing brutality that come off even sharper after the low end assault on the A side. Both bands are fukkn nasty.

LIFELESS BY REALITY

SPLITTING HEADS

It's less than six minutes long, but you'll be gasping for breath when it's over. Chicago maniacs SPLITTING HEADS deliver a blistering dose of raw hardcore that lands somewhere between NEON CHRIST and NK6 with a NYHC snarl on the vocals just for good measure. The riffs ("Heroism," for example) will make your head spin, and the pace (opening bass break in "Effort," for example) just makes me shake my head. This one is a true killer.

SPLITTING HEADS

...yeah dude, I have heard worse...

HARSH R

HARSH R take me back to dingy late '80s dancefloors. 3am, truly believing that what you were doing was dangerous, and the feeling that filled you was the feeling of freedom...all you had to do was sneak back into the house before dawn. Heavy synth wave/s, fierce distorted barks and manipulated artificial percussion, The Year Of The Dog is full immersion that makes my eyes dart towards cEvin's arsenal on the shelf to my immediate left as I type. Choice cut: "Even Keel" with the mooged out synth just oppressing the chorus riff. So sick. 

THE YEAR OF THE DOG

FURDIDURKE

Recordings from the early days of the CW black metal circle from the Pacific Northwest. FURDIDURKE leans (very) heavily on single note tremolo and primitive melodies that fit uncomfortably into the minor box. The drums are noteworthy; almost always slide into either a slower 3/4 or a standard hard driving punk beat while, and sometimes fading into an afterthought in a sea of sound lacking any fidelity whatsoever. Demos recordings from several sources, many instrumental, it's also worth noting that the source tape was hopelessly fukkd, resulting in some analog remixes near the end of the first side...a truly unique and consuming listening experience. 

 RECORDED 2005-2006

SUCIA

Four NYC bangers from 2015. Blown out, menacing, makes you want to dance...makes you want to kill. I like the way "Todos Las Dias" kinda seems like it just falls apart right before the last riff, and I like the opening raw motörpunk riff that starts the song even more. I like the demented guitar solo/s in "Crisis Mental." I like the uncredited death march final cut...I just generally like this tape.

 MIERDA MIERDA MIERDA

BLASPHEMY

Mostly, I'm just wondering how much patience you have. How curious you are are. How determined you are. And how much you really want to know...because there's a lot of data here. 28 tracks of data. 90 minutes of research. I have to be honest here: I don't think you can do it. Prove me wrong. Take it all in. 

 IGNORANCE IS BLISS...ALL HAIL KING BUSH!

NARCOLEPTICS

There are three EPs that came after this 2013 demo. I'm not going to be that guy who says the demo is better just to be contrary (actually, the second slab on Warthog Speak is my favorite of the bunch), but their 2013 offering certainly set the stage (well) for the onslaughts that were to follow. Manic, fast as fukk high distortion hardcore. That DBeat noise you like so much, but cranked up really really fast, and with a perfect Italian tupa-tupa drum sound. If you properly put in the nine minute required to experience this cassette, you'll be exhausted - choice track is the closer "Paroxysm," but don't skip forward. That's cheating. 

NARCOLEPTICS

MEGA METAL MIXTAPE EXCHANGE

More spoils from the Mega Metal Mixtape Exchange, and this one is fukkn filthy. Making mixtpaes is almost therapeutic, and receiving them is pure joy - but receiving a curated tape from a complete stranger is something completely different. Lots of disgusting death on here, but I think NVRVO's "Oberohe" is the choice cut for my ears...which one do you like, stranger?

MxMxMxEx 06/20

MOLLOT

Fuck I wish I had seen this band. VOID level dysphunction (sic) corrupting seriously sinister modern NAHC riffs (and delivery). Image wanting to smash the very sounds that are making you want to smash your entire surroundings. Also, the jewel case is fucking bedazzled....what the actual fuck is that? "Filth/Q" on repeat all day, wrapping 8 minutes of annihilation.

MOLLOT

LASH OUT

Hats off to the wise motherfucker who copied (most of) LASH OUT's 1993 The Darkest Hour 12" onto this repurposed chrome tape. These four tracks leave me speechless - I was never a floor puncher, not really much of a dog piler either, but uggggh the churn of "Weak" makes my fucking heart beat a little too fast and the power in simplicity of "Darkened Sight" kinda slacks my jaw. The reaction I have listening to this is visceral, physical, because the music feels real.  

LASH OUT

PEOPLE

A dose of (much needed?) improvisational cacophony from two people known only as PEOPLE. Collections of sound communicate as missives, (accidental?) influences from the Sahel, damaged guitars and an approach to the presentation of sound that is enviable. There are clearly no rules, and we listen to the two PEOPLE bang and clang and wail through four short doses of drunken (I've got a tape recorder, let's record something?") audio babble bookended by twenty minutes of Epic Soundtracks by way of Arkestra (brilliant?) dissonance.  PEPLE feel...real. And in a time when reality itself is up for serious debate, that's worth a lot. 

AND THE HORSES RODE IN ON US

NERVVRAK

Uuuuugggghhhhh, so simple and so impossible at the same time. Just pure Swedish rage. Destroy Destroy Destroy: Fuck Off. Ten songs in ten minutes, and one of the songs is called "You Are So Fucking Stupid." How do they make this shit sound so easy?

DON'T NEED THIS SHIT

DURESS

I could probably spend a month hitting overlooked Midwest '00s hardcore bands (I won't), so let's roll from Chicago over to NW Indiana and blast DURESS. There's a hollow fire to the way this 2008 is recorded - drums resonate with an early '90s SoCal power (yeah, that kind of power), distant and in your face at the same time, and that forms the foundation for the way the rest of this motherfukkr hits. Which is so say: hard. There's only like five minutes of music on this monster, plenty of chances to savage everything around you and clench both fists while screaming at the ceiling. And breakdowns? And breakdowns. Check the opening 19 seconds of "Guilt" and tell me you don't want more from life. 

DEMO 12-26-08

STRANGERS

In case you missed it when it exploded a few years ago, here's the second tape from Chicago's  STRANGERS.  "Another Fucking Social Gathering" hits especially hard right about now, and I'm trying to figure out why this one didn't knock me on my ass the first time around...a product of too many things to try to digest I suppose. 

STRANGERS

PLEADING FOR PEACE

Guessing the sole release from Bloody Monkers Tapes came out in 1982? Seven UK rippers and a poem about killers, all delivered with dubious fidelity. Pleading For Peace is clearly the product of a fan - the cover is colored in by hand and I'm sure they were dubbed one at a time, hopefully in a teenager's bedroom. LAST RITES and BROKEN BONES each offer four snappy UK82 bangers, live versions of SUBHUMANS' "Pisshead" and "Apathy" from a raucous set previously available on an earlier Bluurg release. The mercurial (and prolific) anarcho solo project STATEMENT makes an appearance, and the tape rounds out with MUTED EXISTENCE, THE DISTURBED and AWOL (speaking of low fidelity - yeesh!). The AWOL tracks are perhaps the most interesting - one of the members ran Bloody Monkers Tapes and three of their songs are unlistenable to all but the most curious, top notch mid-paced UK punk buried in 40p cheap cassette bliss, but then the studio cut "Someone In Control" throws off the blanket of hiss to expose a should-be-classic-but-totally-unknown banger that inspired me to go back and check "Died In Action" and yearn for a clean versions of all of their material (also inspired me to drop a postcard in the mail to the label address because...well, I like a nice fruitless adventure). An hour of sound curated nearly 40 years ago, hopefully by an eager teenager who used their creation to network with other enthusiastic and disenfranchised kids. Quality definitely suffers generally (and particularly with the aforementioned replication fidelity for AWOL and some tape speed issues during a couple of LAST RITES tunes), but it settles in pretty nicely and takes you back to a completely different time - a new dawn in a small company town in southern England. 

PLEADING FOR PEACE

WAR OF DESTRUCTION

Unearthed a scorching collection of tracks on a relic from the '80s trading circuit earlier this week. Denmark's WAR OF DESTRUCTION should be well known to most readers, and by 1986 they had honed in on some of the hooks that they only hinted at on the earlier recordings. Three of these made it onto the Sauerkraut + Smørrebrød comp (which can still be snagged for a relatively reasonable sum), and the entire recording was unearthed in the early '00s on a GTA bootleg with an atrocious cover. Somehow this band still kinda flies under the radar, this recording is just one of the many reasons that makes no sense.

DEMO 86

 Noteworthy: "Åh, Hvor er Jeg Hvid" sounds like a bridge between Scandinavian hardcore and fucking ECONOCHRIST. 

LESLIE DUKE

Considering the state of current society, considering the state of the world, considering the underlying and terminal fear that forms the foundation of the overarching, pervasive, down your throat fear that dominates most waking moments, considering that so many of us exist a reality filled with uncertainty and contempt even in the face of the love and joy (that might be) present in our personal lives...considering all of these things and so many more, I think that there are many people who might need a break. This break comes in the form of independent would-be child star LESLIE DUKE from the heart of the Sonoran desert.

LESLIE DUKE

Not sure about your copy, but mine is autographed. 

HALFMAST

Md-90s emotive straight edge hardcore from upstate New York. Honest. Earnest. This shit seriously rules.

SUNRISE

AMMO

 

Center yourself before you press play, because AMMO are going to put you through it. Eight tracks in ten minutes, screaming USHC with the kind of pre-crossover metal punk breakdowns that make my teeth hurt (I'm really talking "Known Unknown" here - likely the best single moment on a tape filled with best moments). Brutally fast, a guitar that's crunchy and tweaked with a hint of flange, just pure power from every piece of this short slab. Picture DIE KREUZEN from NYC...or remember the way you felt the first time heard the first SICKOIDS 12". Volume and intensity. 

AMMO

BEE MASK

Yet another from the Chondritic Sound vaults. The aptly named BEE MASK create forty minutes of gorgeously disorienting sonic swarms that calm - or lull - the listener. When I dip my toes into pools of noise and electronic manipulations, I often feel like a kid who is just discovering CRUDITY. Like, everyone has heard ANTI-CIMEX and you know it's killer, but then it sinks in that there is so much more, so much deeper you can go, and you aren't sure whether you should dive or quickly pull your foot back because you know you'll drown if you go any deeper. My journey has, for the most part, been one of quick dips, but that will change. Eventually. And you may never see me again. 

VERSAILLES IS NOT TOO LARGE...OR INFINITY TOO LONG