Never mind nothing, on with the music and what we said last time or last week or last year, you’ve read all this already, never mind the damn editorial, never mind the biscuits or the dogfish and this time five msuic things of a heavy nature…
1: The Crotals – Conjure (Argonauta Records) – They’re from Lausanne, Switzerland, they’re dishing out a rather colourful stew of very heavy rather alternative sludge-flavoured noise, they;re at their best when they step away from the cookie monster vocals and take a more individual approach, they’ve got some strong harmonic in there and that horn that comes in there, horn, trumpet, whatever it is, adds so much and right now on Silver Lake, they’re almost getting doomish and Frosty. Actually they sound like they have two vocalists and they’re at their best when they’re both singing, no, hang on, they’ve got several guest vocalists on different tracks, yeah, I know, I really should take the time to read the press releases that come with these things, whatever is going on , this is a damn fine album, especially when the trumpet adds an extra layer, it is a trumpet, i have read some of the press release now. And when they throw the layers of trumpets, the growls, the doom, the sludge, the kitchen sink and the whole damn kitchen in there for the six and a half minutes of Taenia The Crotals sound massive, they need that trumpet on more than jsut the two ttracks…
2: Coliseum or is it C.L.S.M? – The Stranger is from Coliseum’s album, ‘C.L.S.M. Infinity Shit,’ available now via Bandcamp althought last time we covered them a couple of months ago they had reformed as C.L.S.A rather thier original name of Coliseum (a name that has been used many times). The new album from the born again band is a more than welcome healthy return their raw blistering hardcore early days wwhich is why the different name for the reformed band makes perfect sense, Don’t ask us, they might be called Colleum or they might be called C.L.S.M depending upon if beleive the press release or the Equal Vision Records You Tube, whatever they’re called they sounding good and here’s another track (and indeed video) from the album that came out late last year. here’s te links you need and here’s the Facebook for the band with two names
3: Rise And Strike could be from many places, they’re doing that blistering throat ripping metal-edged brutal hardcore thing that so many other have already done. Crucial thing here is that Rise And Strike do it very very well and really Hardcore is all about the moment rather than the e evelution, about the now, the being right there and keeping it all going, the picking it all up and running with the spirit and the legacy of it all. They could be from Essex, they could be from Hamburg, it is a universal thing, they are actually from Modesto, California, here’s their links and their Bandcamp and yes, they do have a little bit of a fingerprint of thwir own in there….
4: Weasel Walter / Rick Eye / Adios From Everywhere – What is Weasel doing this week, it doesn’t sound like endless pain to me, it kind of sounds soothing, warm, calm, inviting. You’d love to have Weasel as a next door neighbour, he of Flying Luttenbachers and a thousand other things, his mates constantly dropping around to make sure your lawn never grows properly (like Motorhead’s old West London neighbours) , This week Weasel Walter is doingthinhtgs with Rick Eye and ADIOS From Everwhere, he explains it himself just down there. There’s been pages and pages written about Weasel around here, as well as those glorious Luttenbachers
“I was supposed to come down to Texas a few years ago and perform at a festival. For this occasion, it was specifically requested that I DO NOT play the drum set. The programmer wanted something along the lines of my 2016 nightmare-scape “Curses”, i.e. my electroacoustic percussion and electronics bag. Fine! When it came time, I met up with my Vomitatrix bandmate and peer, Rick Eye down in Denton, and we had some fun doing gigs as Destiny Fuck (with Reece McLean) and I wound up sitting in with Flesh Narc, since neither of their two drummers could make it.
One lazy afternoon, me and Rick set up our respective rigs and went nuts. The audio here documents our uncensored psychic vomit, me on my arcane sundries, and him processing his guitar through a synthesizer in real time. I did the gig and flew home. I forgot about this recording (as I forget lots of things these days), but saw a lot of potential when I revisited it. It is a vile, sluggish horrorscape of irritating dark mass. It’s hard to tell what’s what, but I assure you it’s all very primitive and done in real time. That’s just how we roll.
I was finishing up the mix in January 2024, when all of a sudden, someone under the moniker “Adios From Everywhere” approached me and asked if in wanted to collaborate on some multimedia? When I saw the samples, I was sold, and I knew exactly what to propose. The blisteringly terrifying images you see on the album artwork, as well as the accompanying video work are a perfect match. If I could externalize the music we made, this is exactly how it would look and feel. I feel lucky that AFE took the chance to reach out, and that I got first dibs. The images push this project straight over the edge of the cliff, straight down into oblivion.
Viva la muerte!!!!”
– Weasel Walter, Chicago, January 31, 2024
5: And here’s a Ensanguinate video, the old school death metal band from Ljubljana, Slovenia have jsut announced tour date in mainland Europe. The link you just passed well take you to their rather full bodied 2022 album Eldritch Anatomy. See their Facebook page for gig updates.
And while we’re here, this has to be peak heavy metal, properly proper old svhool no messing Heavy Metal, a classic release from 1980…
THE ORGAN 