WIGOROTH // UNHOLY ASCENSION

 

Two mysterious California raw black metal sewer dwellars combine for one absolutely excruciating Split Assault. WIGOROTH are the most primal and damaged example of lo-fi USBM I have heard in ages, harsh snarls and tinny indiscernible guitars driven my a monotonous and drum machine lacking any nuance or emotion. The sound itself is soulless, and that's exactly what WIGOROTH are going for. Not to be outdone, UNHOLY ASCENSION fill their side of the cassette with more sinister raw blasts that appear to use the very same drum machine. Slightly more nuance (though you wouldn't say that if you weren't still recovering from WIGOROTH) and no low end in sight, UNHOLY ASCENSION blast through seven pieces of damaged raw punk riffs presented as black metal and to simply say that it "works" would be a very (very) severe understatement. I don't know where these sounds come from (I'm talking emotion here, not geography), but it appears to be a place with very little life and/or hope. Let's go there. 

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SPLIT ASSAULT

SZEMÉT ALAKOK

Total stunner here, offered with the highest recommendation for folks who dig on outsider hip-hop and collections that defy compartmentalization. A first side (almost) overflowing with dark razor sharp rap tunes from the likes of LORD IVAN LIVAH, SHADOW WARRIORS, NUDUM and NEMAZAJ gives way to a raw and derivative DBeat churn from TERMINATOR! and you start to wonder what more this tape can possibly offer....so you flip that shit. After a 24 minute live ambient/noise piece from LEV TOYSTORE & ERNOMINIMAL recorded in 2023, the listener is treated to a short punk burner from KOPROLIT and closes with VARDI TERROR CAFE delivering a damaged piece given the industrial new beat treatment by LORD HUMMUNGUS. And the listener is left wondering how to wrap their minds around what just happened to them.

SZEMÉT ALAKOK COMP 1: Rocket To Russia (b/w) HUI

THIRD RAIL

 

Maybe you feel like some early '90s Bay Area heavy alt? I got you, friends. I have always got you. 
You're welcome.

OCTOBER 1992

REJECT

 

While you presumably celebrate the start of a new year by making promises to yourself that you will surely break and reminiscing about all of the things that are gonna be better (or worse) about the next twelve months....I'm sitting in Fresno surrounded by cats wondering how the fuck these Indonesian kids could have dropped such monstrous ferocity on the world twenty-five years ago and wondering why no one fukkn cares. In line with DROPDEAD, DISRUPT and contemporaries, with an assault so furious it'll make you weep a little bit...because this is the urgency that we need. Today is the first of 365 days in 2025, and if you give REJECT fifteen minutes of your day then REJECT will give you hope. This shit is real, and you can't fake real.

REJECT