The Retro Afro Retrospective Reviews

Old retrospective features on ’90s stoner rock, doom, and death metal from 2003
(by THC ‘zine v01 and scrawlshop online)

Karma to Burn’s Almost Heathen (Spitfire Records) isn’t technically old enough to be in the retro afro report (at least 5 years old or older). this bastard was released back in 2001. but just to give you an overall view, this is considered the best record among the three they’ve released: the s/t (1997) and Wild Wonderful Purgatory (1999).

Wild Wonderful Purgatory like this one, has numbers for song titles, with a slamming rock and roll execution combined with southern rock riffs and playful changes and transitions.

Karma to Burn are an instrumental rock trio, but a great one at that – initial listens would kind of have you looking for vocals, but as the record plays on you’ll dig deeper in the music and almost forget that that you’ll need them. That’s the certain magic these guys seem to have.

The s/t did feature Nathan Limbaugh on vocals, just to fulfill a condition by their record co., Roadrunner Records, as well as proper uhh, song titles, such as “Twin Sisters and a Half a Bottle of Bourbon” and “Waltz of the Playboy Pallbearers”. But by the second one, they returned to the rock solid power trio and the numbers for song titles aesthetic, which of course worked a lot better for em.

In contrast, WWP and Almost Heathen are like their real proper albums, full of swaggering les paul grooves and a steady bass crawlin’ under tasty drumkit playing, no drone or spaceyness really, just active riffing. The slowdowns are more like jams and not any kind of spacey drones or whatever that you might expect because at times KTB have been lumped in and called stoner rock a few times – you could say their sound has this stoner rock side when it comes to the riffs and the fact that they’re an instrumental trio but sound complete and rocking – opens many possibilities under the influence.

Karma to Burn does and will present you images of long highways and and long truck rides wasting away with a bottle of scotch and swerving drunk but still remaining under control while bikers speed in coming from the right and left sides to most of Almost Heathen. Wild Wonderful Purgatory’s joyous, glorious tunes make you picture the unsettling atmosphere in a rowdy bar somewhere in tennessee, KTB playing behind a chicken wire screen as drunks and bikers throw cheap whiskey and beer bottles and some sort of riot has broken behind the pool table.

It’s this rowdy, reckless, almost festive mood that propels this band, add to that their power trio ensemble, but unlike other rocking power trios (anywhere from cream, blue cheer to sleep, high on fire, the atomic bitchwax, et. al.) these guys are pure rock and roll when you boil em down to their roots. Shuffling pure rocking fulla energy, they don’t trek the sabbathian, nor the acidic long jams or the huge mammoth fury of sludge doom or whatever, but they are basically rock and f’n roll, with a lot of clever swerves here and there from time to time. I guess if you like a less techie and less aggressive instrumental rock flavored Mastodon, The Atomic Bitchwax or old Monster Magnet on less drugs and more beer, this just might be right up your alley.

The Iceburn/Engine kid split CD/12″ from Revelation Records (1994) was once available at a local Tower recs. store for an amazing 500 f’n pesos. 5 songs for a CDEP. If you think that’s expensive why not try browsing through their other underground CD’s back in those days. Years later now, they started selling some of these titles at a sale – I got this for a cool 100 pesos as well as the Clutch s/t (see retro report somewhere here) for 150 pe$o$. I got the Natas – Ciudad (they’ve got tons of these and nobody is even buying em) as well as old Iceburn and the Deadguy CD and will review them here too.

Iceburn I’ve already heard prior to this and am a li’l bit familiar with their improv/jazz/noise hardcore stylings and epic song structures. They come through with two songs, “Danses” and “Rite” (but it says its also Danses, but an alternate take though). Both are based on Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”, but filtered through Iceburn eclectic sound and vision, via a stretched out instrumental that employs the tenor sax of Greg Nielsen throughout the whole song.

It’s a somber, almost calming song at first, with the sax going in out before they slowly build up thrusting chugging parts into the whole framework. They turn around and do a hypnotic trance like groove at the middle, peaking and going down with syncopated jazz rhythms, and the sax leading through the journey before they slowly fade and calm down… The second track is almost similar in execution but with Dan Day and Randy Herbert on drums and percussion. At a few points they peak and go down, as the guitars slowly come in with an almost psychedelic/jazz lick and a heavy outro part. Both tracks are good, although patience testing, it sounds a lot like a less noisy and less evil version of one of God’s songs from their CD Anatomy of Addiction.

Engine Kid steps in for three cuts: “Trailhead at Lake 22”, “Hiking the Circumference of the Mountaintop Lake” and “The Shing Path”. They feature trumpeter Tim Midgett for this recording as well, but more as a special guest appearance and not really as one of the major instrumentalists.

With a heavier guitar mix and more abstract, almost progressive approach, Engine Kid is just a little heavier but is almost in the same boat musically, at least here, with so less of the jazz/improv side, and with more involved drums and rhythms plus shorter songs. The closest they sound like to Iceburn’s style on the EP is their second song, “Hiking…” but that’s only in the first 3 minutes or so, before they cave in to the sudden surge of the Engine Kid collective – heavy riffs stuck to a stop and go framework while the trumpet does some discordant solos atop the demented, mid paced riffs.

The 3rd song has more space in between – from subtle to cacophony to mid paced sludgey stitching to slow almost ambient bridges, taking turns. These instrumentals are like sketches and studies – to some they might not sound complete, but there are enough musical ideas and improvisations to absorb and reflect on, as repeated listens are obviously demanded of the listeners who are adventurous enough to explore their realms. Of course we all know guitarist Greg Anderson would go on and form Goatsnake, as well as also play in such doom luminaries such as Burning Witch and the Mighty SUNN0))).

Clutch – s/t, 1995. When I first had my run-in with Clutch, it was in an old Metal Maniacs magazine review – the first era (when they had Barney Greenway, Alicia Morgan, Mike Williams, Kevin Sharp, Don Kaye, Ula Gehret, Tomas Pascual and the usual suspects) and of course Clutch came back in the second great era of the mag (when Maycock, Zahler, Wagner, Rutherford and etc. entered the picture) via a separate article and an interview. The first album was reportedly a Helmet rip off, I remember reading the review (by Don Kaye or Ula Gehret, I think) plus a guitar magazine article.

Years later, I received a Sony promo tape with 3 tracks – Slayer (Diabolus was about to come out), System of a Down and then, Clutch. Clutch was the best one on that sampler, with crazy rocking riffs and of course Neil Fallon’s weird and idiosyncratic vocal delivery. I heard tracks off “The Elephant Riders” and liked em.. maybe the first album was their finding-their-own-sound phase. I downloaded the highly acclaimed s/t just to make sure and I liked it, but kind of took time for them to sink in.

I had the chance to pick this up at a sale later, and now I get the full picture, but is there a method to Neil Fallon’s madness? References to Star Wars characters, Jonah coming out of the whale, the sasquatch, the mythical sisyphus, outer space/moon exploration, muscle cars, John Wilkes Booth, there could be but I don’t know. His weird, stream of consciousness lyrics and shifting vocal lines perfectly complement the groovy, almost 70’s rock grooves and slow jams of the band. Not too heavy, but still kick ass rock. They can’t be without the other – Neil delivering the whacked out personality of the band while the band itself providing the rocking backdrop for his amusing lyrics and stories, everything from the fucking stoner rhyming of “Texan Book of the Dead” to the outer space invitational trip of “Space Grass”. It’s a good solid, stoner groove rock recommended if you are already familiar with them but not sure really of the s/t.

By now most of the hesher readers are complaining. Where is the metal? hardcore?punk? All right here we go… we move across the seas and into the f’n UK. UK Doom.

It depends whether you like Paradise Lost or not, haha. That is if you were still into them by the time Draconian Times (Music for Nations, 1995) came out. Everybody knew who they were. Masters of slow, drowning pure doom metal with death metal vocals.

But their progression was on the upswing, slowly adding melancholic harmonies and clearer phrasings as each album came out, peaking with their Icon album, which served as the missing link between modern doom metal with traditional metal riffing styles. It was now well developed metallic but clearer sung vocals and their older doom metal style.

Draconian Times is their defining moment. That moment in time perfectly captured via the band standing on the edge of the canyon in the desert, Raybans and all-black clothing, looking over the horizon… fn cool. Everytime you listen to this, or that song from the next one on One Second, it just conjures up these images… I even envision a bad ass video to go with the infectious hard riffing, hard rocking tunes… from mournful dark disciples, Paradise Lost upped the heavy metal dosage into their oldschool death doom in this CD, without becoming a cheesy power metal band or a Manowar clone. Heavy Metal with the right amount of dark melodies and a driving, hard rocking aesthetic and classy vocal melodies. Traditional and heavy enough to be called heavy metal doom, but with a modern metallic edge, textural guitar playing and vocals that snarl and yell the right way, and sing clean in parts where they fit.

The imagery and artwork is also perfect, right down to the excellent paintings by Holly Warburton, which adorn the outer and inner sleeves as well as the photos of the band members giving off a grandiose, Dave Mckean-like treatment. When this came out I bought it the minute I saw it and tripped out hard for months.

Gone are most of the deathdoom hymns. But in place, Paradise Lost turned their backs on these sorrows with this “living is the best revenge” kind of vibe in here, with new heavy metal doom anthems to rock out more to. Not in the Cathedral – Ethereal Mirror way like some might think, but with well blended goth rock fused with heavy metal ’90s doom.

Excellent tracks? Almost the whole f’n CD. “Hallowed Land”, with a killer rocking chorus and a vocal melody that goes perfectly with it. “The Last Time” the band’s first video (which featured them playing in a dark area standing on water and a huge castle gate in the background), the hard rocking “Once Solemn” combining their heavy riffs and a more aggressive vocal style for vocalist Nick Holmes, “Shadowkings”, “Yearn for Change”… the whole CD is a keeper.

They do slow down and go more depressing towards the end in keeping with the doom tradition of course. This album remains a solid Paradise Lost classic that captures their peak 90s era. It will be their last “heavy” album for the meantime.

This is definitely one of the top best Paradise Lost albums. The version released here is fortunately, the Japanese one, so you get 3 bonus tracks: a great rendition of Sisters of Mercy’s “Walk Away”, “Laid to Waste” and “Master of Misrule” (which are all released in the “Last Time” CD single – don’t buy as an import unless you’re collecting).

This is what maybe Sisters of Mercy would sound like if they brought in some expensive wine and talked to James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett and did some jamming (no fn Lars Ulrich, ya heard me) with doom tones and harmonies (both guitars and vocals). Of course, after this excellent, solid outing, they’ll be hard pressed to follow it up with an album that will top this.

They came out with “One Second”, a Depeche Mode meets modern doom rock influenced album, with a lot of electronics and synths and new wave/electronic/postpunk vocal melodies, yet still retaining the rock in smaller doses. It’s actually a good release, it just wasn’t what PL fans were expecting. It was their biggest chart topper and brought them new fans and bigger sales. We will remember this UK Doom band for their heavy doom past and present, and their moment of shining brilliance best represented by Draconian Times…

Slow and crushing, but in a cold, mechanized way. Godflesh. Streetcleaner. 1989. Earache Records. we get things going and towards a heavier direction for Justin Broadrick and GC Green, without leaving the current turf of the UK.

Godflesh’s slow calculated beats and noise fuzz metallic distortion requires patience, focus and uhh, some well recommended inhalation of your homemade or specially customized bong for much clearer focus. Methodical and patience testing… but once it hits you, you’re done for.

We all know that Justin was part of the checkered past line up of Napalm Death on guitars – I believe he was on Scum and soon after left after recording most of the tracks. he came into the band via bassist Nick Bullen – who formed the band far back in 1982, extreme primal punk which is the real roots of Napalm Death… when he left he was involved with Fall of Because and Head of David (I believe he covered em in Godflesh if i’m not mistaken) so when he left both bands and formed Godflesh, the seeds of discordant, slow fucked up industrial metal were already there. The vocals (sometimes sounding like a colder prototype for Burton C. Bell of Fear Factory) processed like electronic signals coming to and fro the receivers, but with a cold, lifeless inhuman edge to them, propelled by that trusty drum machine, GC Green’s distorted bass and another guitarist doing the rhythms – Paul Neville (he was on the third session, as this album was done in 3). Godflesh never really worked as a trio – most of the material has always been GC and Justin, with extra members either for live situations only.

Godflesh mirrored the bleak, lifeless industrial city of Birmingham, though now he’s living in the countryside, the agonized screams and processed growls warn of a bleak, hopeless future of dead end lives and dead end jobs, and machines do their cold day to day duties in effect destroying the environment, leading up to a colder, greyer, deader world.

The environmental influences are so obvious in Godflesh. This isn’t slick industrial metal but more of an analog, lo-fi primal style, more like machines in an old factory grinding slowly, calculated, grey and rotten, as opposed to slick digital sampling and hi-fi studios. This is exactly the type of imagery one can possibly see with Godflesh’s mechanized grind. The human element plays a bigger role too but it is more of a monotonous voice, pain kept inside and masked by effects and filtering sometimes, giving out a darker and more brutal punishment for those who follow…

Originally 9 tracks, Earache released it with 4 extra tracks to make it a longer album (they were for an EP release that was subsequently scrapped later), for some good, others, well others don’t really can’t stand too much of Godflesh, the focus seems to get lost as the disc progresses, but ultimately those with a patient ear for sludgey rhythms (i.e. most prolly fans of Swans, Melvins, doom and sludgecore, etc. ) will have the patience to sit through and fully absorb their welcome industrial mechanized torture.

Broadrick also is partly responsible for sludge/industrial/improv/tribal/jazz kings, God, whom he also played guitars for, bringing in the familiar style while remaining a team player in the band’s big (at least 9 or 10?) line up of members. Soon after was Slavestate, a more beat-focused EP (but later releases had extra tracks, some are just remixes) which was more techno sided. a better album would be “Pure”, which sounded heavier and had more focus on the Godflesh aesthetic, as well as weird melodic rhythms, ambient parts and both the trudging, dragging drum machine and a few more techno beats but not as overused as on Slavestate.

From the UK / England area we jump right back in to the USofA. Boston. Disrupt (we reviewed this already but heck, this is killer sh*t). 1994‘s Deprived 7″, which would be later on included as well on the Unrest CD from Relapse. If you think of crust punk, you think of trad, dbeat or fast, rough stuff – Disrupt got them all together, threw them in the blender with fast paced thrashy riffing and speed metal drums and the disastrous pairing of two vocalists (and yes three especially on Unrest, done by their female vocalist Alyssa Murry) one heaving, angry growling, the other high pitched pissed off screaming and they went on and became the new kings of raging, destructive hardcore crustpunk annihilation.

Deprived (and most of Unrest) to me is their most perfect material that had the production and the very strong songs (8 in here), and lyrics about mindless jocks, the society we live in, anti capitalism and other social ills that are being neglected by America. From start to finish, they are unrelenting in their quest to fight for their voices to be heard, and they fucking ring clearly and loudly throughout in an obliterating crust punk rash of beatings. Total speed and stop and go riffs colliding with more surging fast fn riffs and a killer combination of the high spewing vocal bile and low gurgling anger – crusty vocal annihilation at its best. This is fast thrashy crust the way it oughta be. Vegans who could never have enough hate for mcdonalds can just play this up real load loaded on various alcoholic beverages and just fucking destroy when all other efforts fail! The soundtrack to real fucking riot.

We end our retro trip part 1 by going up north in the chilling lands of Canada, with our real metal retro report on Cryptopsy’s None so Vile. 1995. Displeased Records.

There must be something in the cold distant chilling region of Canada, because Cryptopsy’s cold blooded, murderous hyperblasting death metal just goes straight for the throat, killing for the sheer pleasure of watching victims die slowly choking on their own blood. Jon Levasseur’s surgically precise slicing riffs merge with the dark, deep and hyperfast rhythm section – one of the absolute best in the business, featuring hyperblast monster Flo Mounier in his middle era of development, with ultra fast yet careening off the deep end hyperblast sections – sure he doesn’t totally last in a few times the whole bar and adds the double bass action, but this hyperblasting to the death style just adds to the overall insanity. He further solidified it on Whisper Supremacy. His over the top, all out blasting coincides perfectly with bassist Eric Langlois, fast, tight solid with enough speed to inject lethal doses of fast solos and snapping string pulls to accentuate the rhythms with a spastic flow.

This all makes a perfect backdrop for Lord Worm who deliver almost poetic, psychotic lyrics of the unlight and the insane, as he delivers ultra low stretched out vocal mayhem, including his out of control screeching.

When Cryptopsy do groove it doesn’t sound like it would fit anything out of deathmetal – even if it’s a groove. It still fits the framework of the band’s murderous art doing more damage more than anything else, like continuously hacking through a corpse for nothing. Cryptopsy and Kataklysm are like brothers in hyperblast notoriety – they look at each other as allies, but of course deep down inside they know they rule in their own minds, with a friendly competition outlook but a I-shall-conquer-all attitude the further propels them to be faster and more brutal and tech each time out.

Those who liked Whisper Supremacy but didn’t get into the vocals because of Mike Disalvo (wtf? he has a great style on his own, give that album more spins) will totally get into the rawer and more primal style of Lord Worm (now working as a professor for Canadian immigrants – how fn cool it is to say your professor is Lord Worm, haha). Rough on the edges, production a li’l above average, but the intensity and insanity was captured the perfect way.

Agressor – Symposium of Rebirth (1994 Black Mark Productions)
They are considered the godfathers of French Death Metal, and I just recently discovered this French band thanks to my pal Joey “Thorrmentor” who unearthed this old CD. the main man behind the band has been one Alex Colin-Tocquaine (guitar/vocals), the only main member with a revolving line up, which sometimes featured them as a power trio or as a 4 piece. they’ve actually been around since as far back as 1986, sculpting their aural terror from thrashy rhythms to a more death metal/thrash combo.

Symposium is 13 tracks of sometimes thrash inspired madness, sometimes full on death metal mayhem, with the 13th track a cover of Terrorizer’s “After World Obliteration” with no less than Napalm Death’s Barney Greenway on guest vocals. Agressor’s style wasn’t the most original and ground breaking, but they had the riffs and the relentless energy, thanks to the power house line up of Steiphen Gwegwam on drums and two members alternating on bass on the tracks, Manu Ragot and Joel Guigou. it’s very precise, double bass driven death metal, but sometimes with a methodical, crawling approach. Solos are done fluidly and not too much saturated in the songs, and this is when Alex was still improving and getting better. in ’96 after their tour with Cradle of Filth, Alex became an official Ibanez guitars endorser and a classical guitar professor, and the band is still very much active in the scene, playing in numerous fests. Alex himself has done session work with bands such as: Bloodthorn, Loudblast (see feature on this same page), Crusher, Absu and a few others.


Loudblast – Sublime Dementia (1993 Futurist/Noise Records)
These guys are related to their fellow countrymen Agressor: of course they are from France too, they formed around the same time as Aggressor, they have put out a split with both of them on it, and Alex has done session work for them as well. They are on the same level as Agressor as being one of the oldest French death metal bands, but with a mid-90’s sound in terms of skill and direction.

But Loudblast’s style of death metal isn’t much like Agressor. Agressor uses thrash, grind elements; Loudblast play slower death metal with more eccentric riffs, sometimes with melodic elements, and also some classical flourishes. vocals are typical death metal but aren’t boring, but the music is actually pretty good, even if most of the material is slower. this is due in part to the good production and a good sense of dynamics and songwriting. nothing special, but well done. you could say that if Loudblast progressed more technically they could have been a heavier Cynic-like band from France. I thought this is their last CD to ever come out, but they managed to release more albums until 1999, and I honestly haven’t seen/heard anything further from them and would be very interested in hearing what kind of progression they made with their sound.

 
Sleep – Sleep’s Holy Mountain (1993 Earache) / Jerusalem (1997 Rise Above/TMC)
My first exposure to Sleep (formerly crustdoomongers Asbestos Death) was way back in 1993. I asked my uncle in VA to buy me some records from the Earache mailorder… some 7″ stuff from Godflesh, Brutal Truth, Napalm Death… and there was this intriguing band on their roster which I have been looking to check out since I saw their album being given away on a Metal Maniacs contest. Sleep. I couldn’t find any reviews nor could I find any descriptions, so as always I made a bet but I knew somehow it was gonna be killer.

The stuff arrived in the mail and (it was on cassette because I still didn’t have a CD player back then) I remember putting it on for the first time ever and realizing it wasn’t grind or death metal but massive, stoner doom / “stoner rock” (a term popularized with Kyuss and Monster Magnet) and within minutes I was instantly hooked. The iconic lineup reads on the sleeve: Matt Pike (now in the great High on Fire), Al Cisneros on bass/vocals and Chris Hakius on drums).

Praising the holy altar of Sabbath, Marijuana and almost Tolkienesque imagery and outer space, I discovered a whole new world. Their structures reminded me of Sabbathian doom, slowing down to that trademark bass solo break, with solo guitar interludes and building-up intros/choruses and the slowcrawl rhythms. The gibson les paul solos and lethargic but steady vocals filled the 9 track album that is revered by some, written off as a Sabbath rip-off by the others, but hell no one could question the authenticity of their influences and how they managed to recreate everything with Orange amps, analog production (by the master Billy Anderson) and massive, and I mean fn massive amounts of chronic weed. If Snoop Dogg and Cypress Hill are hip hop’s massive stoners in 1993, rock and roll has Sleep and I bet Sleep could easily outsmoke all of em way beyond human comprehension.

The next album had a really realy great story behind it. Being one of the main agents of the “stoner rock” cult Sleep set out to move mountains and shake the fn foundations of planet earth with their next release, the legendary “Jerusalem”, the 52 minute opus of massive gargantuan bong hits and the hashish-ian journey to find God and the holy grail of tetrahydrocannabinol.

Reportedly receiving a six figure advance for their record deal from London Records, they all invested it in music equipment and reportedly, massive amounts of marijuana/hash enough to choke the whole of San Jose, California’s stoner community. Reinforcing their very strong spiritual side and their dedication to their massive doom/sludge power, the result was this one track monument of stoner doom which the record label rejected. The album got shelved, but later, was officially released by Rise Above Records (and later released in its original mix and length as “Dopesmoker” with an unreleased track, Sonic Titan), leaving Sleep in the winning position and becoming legends in their own time, after which of course, they split up.

Matt Pike went on to form the equally great High on Fire (which I was scheduled to interview last issue but never materialized due to conflicts in the band’s busy schedules) and Chris Hakius formed The Sabians with former Sleep guitarist Justin Marler (who became an ordained monk). after a long absence from music, Al Cisneros teamed up with Chris to form the mighty OM, the next logical progression of Jerusalem styled drone with the minimalist set up of drums, bass and vocals. next issue: Sleep – Volume 1 and the related band, It is I plus their roots, Asbestos Death. (from ss zine retroafro series vol420)

Sadistik Exekution – K.A.O.S. (1997 Shock Records)
Formed back in 1986, the insane death/black chaos machine that makes Australia proud and infamously known – Sadistik Exekution was built upon, not only for their insane and debauchery filled live shows, but for their brand of raw, sick (sikk!) and primal audio terror as well.

Raw, uncompromising and threatening, K.A.O.S. is a sikkening hell ride into the very strange and twisted world of SadEx mainstays Rok (who does most of the cool fukkn artwork) on hell blazing vox and Dave Slave on bass, with Kriss on guitar and the crazy madman Sloth on drums for this wreckord.

Although reportedly breaking up in 2000, “Fukk” came out in 2002, so these insane bastards are still here and the threat still very much real, the reported break up nothing more than a publicity stunt. This chaos of an album is contained here in 16 songs, varying from an all out attack of depravity of noise and drugged out beatings to almost punkthrash mid paced horror disasterpieces. If Bethlehem are the suicidal dark masters, SadEx are their opposite polar twins, wild berzerkers out on a fukking rampage to destroy with almost the same insane intensity but in a different and blasphemikk raw form. Dave Slave even does a wild bass solo on (hehe) “Bastard Bass” with loud incoherent ramblings before launching the deadly attack of bass bombs and slaps. Totally unrelenting, this is for those who tread the sikk infested death metal realm but are tired of the straight up brutality of hammering blasts and grooves and would want a different kind of audio terror, with much more sikk, torturing and insane chemically enhanced visions of devastation on debauchery. This could be what you are looking for.

Swervedriver – Mezcal Head (1993 Creation/A&M)
Swervedriver’s Mezcal Head is a top choice shoegazing noise rock band with heavy doses of stoner, psycherock, and glorious lethargic heaviness and pensive melodies decorated with fuzz and heavy smokes. The recent 10 year anniversary of this killer album has prompted a reissue and remaster plus free downloads of the live version of the album all up on their website. Check out the live versions for the extra layers of noise, fuzz, and dirty psyche and stoner elements.

If you’re going to start with Swervedriver, this record is prolly the safest one to start with. It’s safe to say that this is one of their best releases, a good balance of heavy jaguar and mustang heavy shoegaze rock n roll battle with a smooth but steady rhythm section and cool and distant vocals by Adam. But the gaze tags probably end somewhere as Swervedriver has attitude and different moods. There’s more attitude with heavy good times.

The noise rock and faster elements are a great combination, perfect for driving, along with the slower tripping passages and easy on the ears vocals. They effortlessly combine good rocking rhythms with the school of Jesus and Mary Chain sprawling noise but more shaped and sometimes more melodic. Swervedriver’s Adam Franklin has a solo project, releasing under the name Toshack Highway, which is more on the acoustic side of things. Check out free full downloads here: http://swervedriver.com

Destroy – Burn this Racist System Down 7″ EP (1992 Havoc Records)
This is what crazy grind crust punk is all about, complete with the fast thrashing crusty punk rhythms, raw grind destruction and the all out nerve vein in the head popping, full on pissed off vocals spewing out lyrics against nuclear energy, the safe society in the urban world, the drug trade and the silent victims of it, and of course anti cop songs and even a song called “ode to ramen” (5 for a dollar in the US as it says in the song, but here, a dollar gets you a big bunch of those, since a package costs everywhere from 4 to 5 pesos, and $1=about 50+ pesos in 2000).

Formed in 1988, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Destroy embody their fn name and released three tapes (one demo, one live and one rough recording) before committing themselves to vinyl, releasing a couple, the first being a split with the mighty Disrupt and the second one being this, before a full length – Necropolis and one more 7″ split with Disturb. Destroy are not ashamed of having metal influences added in their sound, which in some crust/punk circles are not welcome, but Destroy fully utilize their collective influences and their attitude and raw sound to completely prove their point. One classic fn 7″ everyone into grind/crust/punk should have in their collection. Still in print on havocrex.com

Meanwhile – The Road to Hell (1995, We Bite Records)
Formerly known as Dischange (they even released Seeing, Feeling, Bleeding on Nuclear Blast), playing the field of Dis-core crust punk, Sweden’s Meanwhile decided to add a lil’ oomph and fast drunken swagger grooves to their overall sound, which by then was still basically Discharge style punk. This is now beefed up, and more pissed off with aggressive pogo-on-crack attacks with full on mayhemic intent. From the sudden dirty bass breaks, stampeding drums, fiery power riffs to the erupting wail lead guitar solos and the persistent pissed off verse chorus verse, it all kills.

Meanwhile’s all-out attack is fierced and fired up with much more pissed off attitude and snarling punk vocal bellows that are sure to create riots where punks defeat the pigs and attack their stations. Meanwhile try to mix things up once in a while with some variety to keep things interesting, such as oldschool punk gallop speeds and an incensed, Motorhead-like full speed-ahead rock and roll groove on meth, alcohol, and reckless violence. “The Road to Hell” is 1996’s dbeat/punk/metal/HC wreckord of the year, 14 tracks of anarchistic crust punk with snarling F sh*t up attitude for a riot to rough up cops and rich corrupt politicians. Buy or Die.

Faith No More – Angel Dust (1992 A&M)

Faith No More’s electicism on Angel Dust makes it both influential, and hard to listen to, in the sense that it’s not too weird or too noisy or whatever, but most won’t like it or find it too schizophrenic. But this crazy variety of killer tunes and fun experimentation in their track sequence is to create a tripped out album. I think they made it exactly that way, with no tracks sounding musically close to each other.

Like the first half for example – you open with “Land of Sunshine”, which plays some funk inspired riffs and syncopated beats then you have the anthemic “Caffeine” a more straightforward track followed by that fn pop hit (somewhat) “Midlife Crisis”, then the weird floating stoner country ballad, “R.V.” and then “Smaller and Smaller”, which features floating keyboards and Mike Patton’s vocal gymnastics, with spoken/clearly sung lyrics evolving into screams.

This is just the first five, because as the album progresses, Patton goes more weird and apeshit, losing it on “Malpractice”, “Jizzlober” (two of the more weird and twisted and more metallic cuts), while on tracks such as “Everything’s Ruined”, “Kindergarten” and “Crack Hitler (which sound like some sort of 80’s hybrid mutant funk/rock with a Mike doing crazy vocal styles)”, the focus is on the chemistry of keys (Roddy Bottum) , snap funk bass (Billy Gould) and the drums (Mike “Puffy” Bordin), with the rap parts appearing somewhere in the middle.

“A Small Victory” sounds like it might be another pop single for this, with it’s melodic riffing coupled by the keyboard hooks but it isn’t. Ending it is a feel good, chill out track instrumental, “Midnight Cowboy” I’m not sure if this is the same song from the movie of the same name, and on some versions – you also have “Easy” the Lionel Richie/Commodores hit, which also gave FNM their second chart fn hit, even spawning the “Easy” single, one version of which had two Rhinos “making teh sex” on the cover art. Faith no More toured extensively for this, after which they fired Jim Martin. So far I don’t have the other albums, other than this and The Real Thing, but they continued on their songwriting skills and electic style thoughout the following years, eventually splitting up in 1998.

Human Remains – Using Sickness as a Hero (1996 Relapse)
New Jersey electic jazz grind unit Human Remains’ posthumous collection, “Where Were You When” has been out now on Relapse, 2 CDs covering their entire career. This is an unfortunately short, but very punishing display of technical drum kit precision and full on machine gun blast battery grind. It’s formatted by some jazz structures using idiosyncratic out-there riffs and distorted heavy groove bass. Human Remains excel at this-this stop and go, kill breathe kill take a 2 second rest then all out kill attack style of forward looking grind that still remains underrated to this day.

This being their best work and best recorded, Human Remains stop at nothing, only for a few bass breaks and some hiccuping weird volume-swell on speed riffs and 7 string guitars that seem to dance with a lot of oddtime rhythms, all on going, and not particularly in stride with the drums all the time but somehow remaining tight, but spastic and caffeinated. Suddenly they’ll just blast blast and blast to surprise you and then shift to a slower or midpaced groove to let you examine the damage.

Dave Witte, a big jazz and prog rock styled drummer (not to mention also in the great Burnt by the Sun with original HR bassist Teddy P-well, you know this already) and also an in demand grinder, shows the real power of blast beats, and in one old interview he mentioned working on consistency rather than focusing on speed, which of course, makes his blastbeats more precise and smooth, as speed will come naturally later on. This is very much reflected on this and other albums where he appears on. Unfortunately they had to split up due to musical differences, and of course BBTS was born, while the other members went on and formed their side projects.

Hemdale/Exhumed – In the Name of Gore Split CD (1996 Visceral Productions)
This is one of the rawest total goregrind split classicks. The raw all out lo-fi grind of Hemdale teaming up with the gory reincarnation of Carcass, Exhumed. 13 for Hemdale, 10 for Exhumed.

Hemdale churns out a purer all out F everything goregrind style here, alternating screamed splatter vocals and low gurgle core vocals, with funny samples, low and I mean real low bass, going from grind to slow crawl doomy pace. That’s pretty much the menu and Hemdale stick to that, but they retain the sickness all throughout.

Equally insane death/goregrind bastards Exhumed live up to their fn name, raging out more out of control blasts and more precise death metal riffs and the wild fckng out of control wailing lead solo strangulation. Hemdale provide the creeping sickness doom and raw grind, Exhumed provide the full on push-the-button-for-kill-setting manic, insane deathgore hysteria, but both having that oldschool death metal feel as well, with decidedly raw but clear production for both bands. You fucking need this you’re into the goregrind side of things, a classic slab in time.