Jack Rhys-Burgess

Music Shorts Draft

This is a section dedicated to smaller/less detailed/less structured reviews, any music I want to give thoughts on but don’t to dedicate a full post-worthy review. They’ll largely range from a few lines to a few paragraphs and x/5 rating (OR placeholder “preview”/“pending” rated on a rougher GOOD/MEH/BAD scale to be completed at a later date.)

This page will be a big list of reviews, alphabetised using the artists’ name (or surname), with each album review being a subsection under it, sorted by release date. Mainly will entail album reviews but will note the occasional EP, demo or compilation.

Update

0-9

The 150 Murderous Passions

Loud, rough and noisy - just what you would expect a William Bennett + Steven Stapleton crossover album to sound like in noise/industrial’s infancy. Needs a relisten, but can’t imagine its all that distinguishable from other albums in a similar vein.

A

Agoraphobic Nosebleed

Some straightforward and trademark AnB drum machine grindcore insanity, although certainly far more bass-orientated and overwhelmingly violent and heavy, with vicious vocals often drowned out by the noise generated from the few instruments present. Perhaps a little repetitive and an exhausting listen (as most albums of this vein are, despite meagre length), but the few tempo variations here and there and aforementioned production keep this from being a footnote in AnB’s discography of sonic aural assaults.

Best tracks: The House of Feasting, Lives Ruined Through Sex (For Anita), Her Despair Reeks of Alcohol

Another helping of sonic aural terrorism, with the drum machine being the upfront presence and leader, not only blasting away but enveloping each song with non-repeating beats, fills and variations. It doesn’t always work, but when it does complement the riffs and vocals well, and even in the shortest of blasts, there’s plenty distinguishing one song from another is examined close enough.

There’s also the various handful of experimental tracks, and these are great at splitting up the monotony of the cyber/grind/core, ranging from a simple slowdown into sludginess (Doctored Results, Organ Donor), noise/ambience (Hungry Homeless Handjob, Chalking the Temporal God Module), and whatever the hell Machine Gun and Fuckmaker is.

Perhaps a little long for something this harsh and abrasive, but certainly is a worthwhile complement as the relatively ‘saner’ album vs. the subsequent Altered States of America.

Best Tracks: Bitch’s Handbag Full of Money, Kill Theme for American Apeshit, Doctored Results, Machine Gun, Time Vs. Necessity, Hungry Homeless Handjob, Organ Donor

The trademark AnB taken to its most logical, anarchic, comical sound - a veritable machine gun blast/burst of firecrackers in audio form. It suffers from novelty overload and that there’s only so many ways to make 100 ‘You Suffer’s’ tracks interesting and distinct - and yet I can’t quite help myself from revisiting from time to time, mainly down the utterly irreverent attitude the album has, melding aforementioned blasts of noise with abrupt swerves into samples and other lyrical nonsense/topics. An exercise in comic maximalism.

Best Tracks: lol

AnB show off a different side of themselves here, going for a more technically minded grindcore sound. Its still loud, abrasive and chaotic as usual, but instead of blasts of insanity, instead we get fully-fledged, and supremely catchy, songs.

The amazingly polished production also allows each instrument and the trio of vocalists (which itself feels like a nod to powerviolence) present to really show off and have their own space in the mix, with Katherine Katz’ vocals being a particular highlight here.

A definite highlight in AnB’s discography, as you can get all the loudness and abrasiveness in something well-produced, well-written with the same AnB humour (see the track titles/lyrics as an obvious example) - only slightly more straightforward and digestible compared to the more unhinged cybergrind works earlier released.

Best Tracks: Agorapocalypse Now, Dick to Mouth Resuscitation, Question of Integrity, Timelord Two (Paradoxical Reaction)

AIR

An extremely comfortable, relaxing and effortlessly cool album with timeless retro-future, space-age sounds. Very frontloaded and very much stumbles to the end, but the initial string of tracks is fantastic - everyone should experience the beautiful lush tranquility of La femme d’argent at least once.

Best tracks: La femme d’argent, Sexy Boy, All I Need (feat. Beth Hirsch), Kelly Watch the Stars, Talisman, Ce matin-là

Alberich

obscenely long (a smidge under 4 hours!), very repetitive, and one of the few albums I’d recommend sampling tracks from but the ones that hit really hit, and there are plenty of them, both early on, and later on perhaps a bit flabby in the middle, which doesn’t surprise me but I do like the, while cliche, narrative laced through the album of the “tedium” of the endless grind of war - and once you get into a track, the endless endless repetition pounds you into calm submission

there does exist a cut-down/abridged version, and I do complain about the length, but I’d rather have the extra length on the tracks I like and personally sample it down into a somewhat manageable album, or just pick a few tracks from it.

Review pending

a much more manageable and condensed version of NATO-uniformen, and almost as good

Alien Ant Farm

The Nu-Metal cover of Smooth Criminal in my (probably unpopular) opinion is pretty good, but the rest of it is rather forgettable and substandard, sadly.

Analepsy

Slam is, quite frankly, an odd genre and be quite often be rather indistinguishable - this is certainly one of those albums

Animals as Leaders

Instrumental progressive metal definitely feels like a marmite genre - one can either appreciate the technical excellence and virtuosity of the performers (in this case, Tosin Abasi’s guitar), or dismiss it as pure soulless wankery, which plenty do.

For me, this album has enough energy, enthusiasm and excellent guitar hooks and riffs all throughout this album forms its own emotional core for me to cling on and enjoy, even if the production is a little wonky at times.

Best tracks: Tempting Time, The Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing, CAFO, Song of Solomon

AAL is as technical as ever here, in fact too technical for me. It feels cold, impersonal and just too djenty for me. Music like this is a marmite genre in my opinion, and while I like the albums before and after this by AAL, this album never clicked with me.

Best tracks: Do Not Go Gently

For my money, the best AAL album by far. It has energy and bounce in spades throughout, complemented with both djent and subdued jazzy sections at times - allowing the band to be far more expansive and varied in the songwriting unlike previous albums. Sometimes pure technical self-indulgence is good.

Best tracks: Kas$cade, Lippincott, Physical Education, Tooth and Claw The Future That Awaited Me, Para Mexer

Nowhere near as fun, unfortunately, and the overreliance on the Djent riffs and a lack of musical variety makes this album suffer as a whole listening experience outside a few ‘obvious’ highlights. Its still demonstrably AaL, but it feels written solely for the performers themselves and themselves alone, by and large. The opener Arithmophobia is a really energetic opener and (almost) closer The Brain Dance is astonishingly good, really beautiful and evocative in a way most AaL songs aren’t.

Just a shame the rest of the album really doesn’t put it all together.

Best tracks: Arithmophobia, The Brain Dance

I seem to have an up-down-up opinion on every AaL album, and this is no exception - I find this much more enjoyable and a definite way forward at what felt like a rut in The Madness of Many, with the songwriting and performance having a good jazz influence/leaning once again, and a stronger emphasis on interesting, engaging rhythms and patterns that blend much better with the electronic synths used throughout this album in contrast to any other AaL album. At “just” 36 minutes, the album also flies by and really keeps it fresh on each relisten, a feat AaL have only really replicated on The Joy of Motion.

Best tracks: Conflict Cartography, Red Miso, Gestaltzerfall, Asahi, The Problem of Other Minds, Micro-Aggressions

Aphex Twin

wow, amazing, brain-expanding ambient music not perfect, but the presence of Xtal truly is amazingly good

Come to Daddy is the main feature here, in all its terrifying glory, but the rest of the EP is very eclectic, varied and very very good.

A pretty defining song for Aphex Twin, and extremely good and fun

I have not delved too deep into the Aphex Twin (and his a million pseudonyms) discograph(ies), but even his new releases are still extremely enjoyable and cerebral

Apocalyptica & The MDR Symphony Orchestra

classical symphonies mixed with metal is neat and its a nice easy listen, if a little gimmicky

Aqua

Pop made to Scandinavian precision, every song is infectiously catchy, which is great when its great (Barbie Girl, Turn Back Time, Doctor Jones) but absolutely unbearable otherwise

A very specific sound for a very specific mood

Artificial Brain

well, its brutal, and dissonant, and death metal, but I didn’t find it all that memorable and the production somewhat buries it

Arzachel

A short-lived project from the members of the Psych Rock/Canterbury Scene project Egg (plus Steve Hillage!), and the result is a bluesier and harder take, rather unexpectedly heavy for both the time and for the genres its built from. Extremely atmospheric with the Hammond Organ being the star of the show, switching seamlessly between lead rhythms and noisy soundscapes.

The album itself is split into two, side A featuring the more conventional, if still highly eclectic, psychedelic progressive rock. Garden of Earthly Delights sets the tone well, demonstrating the mix of sounds present on the album by starting upbeat but back-ending itself with some mean guitar licks over a haunting soundscape. Azatoth is sinister and occultic, Queen St. Gang is, uh, proto-trip-hop (?!), and Leg closes out side A on a loud, driving and highly energetic note.

Side B features two highly sprawling and very psychedelic jams, both with a similar atmosphere. If being critical, these can feel a little aimless in comparison? But who really cares, you’re along for the ride regardless, and both are satisfying are in their own right.

Best tracks: Garden of Earthly Delights, Azatoth, Queen St. Gang, Clean Innocent Fun

Sean Ashe

innocent instrumental prog rock/metal with jazz flavourings, typical but nothing super exciting

Assück

review pending

Asterisk*

review pending

明日の叙景 [Asunojokei]

a pretty unique combination of an album, has trappings of black metal and screamed vocals yet enjoyable, poppy and upbeat

Atheist

Atheist totally hit the ground running with their debut Piece of Time, a mission to twist Thrash and Death Metal in unique ways and really push the genres down some crazy progressive and technical avenues.

This album specifically leans quite heavily on Thrash as the baseline for songwriting, riffage and energy, but features both a harsh edge tribbed from Death Metal, and enough technical flourishes, guitar solos and chaotic jazzy drumming to really push that aforementioned progressive angle, interwoven throughout. It all becomes a whirlwind, a veritable maelstrom of chaos - and while it can be quite easy to be lost in said chaos, each relisten is always greatly rewarded in getting closer to deciphering the methods from the madness.

Atheist’s entire output, including this album, really needs to be heard to be believed and its quite astonishing the way they’d top this with Unquestionable Presence just a year later.

Best tracks: Piece of Time, Unholy War, Room with a View, I Deny, Why Bother?

A truly incredible album, taking the first as a blueprint and upping the creative, technical, jazzy ante. Its incredibly maximalist in its approach, each small chunk of music dizzying in its complexity, yet everything threads together perfectly and no note, solo, bass lick, complex rhythm feels unnecessary or excessive despite the extreme compression Atheist perform by having no song last more than 5 minutes here.

RIP Roger Patterson, gone too soon.

Best tracks: Mother Man, Unquestionable Presence, Enthralled in Essence, An Incarnation’s Dream, The Formative Years, And the Psychic Saw

The final of the 90s Atheist trilogy, tragically cut short by the death of Roger Patterson, and an album, written, performed and produced in 40 days, wholly out of contract obligation.

It does unfortunately show, mainly in the production and mixing being very muddy, blunt and blurry - but beneath that is a pretty solid Atheist album nonetheless, with a lot more jazz elements/accents scattered throughout. It unfortunately doesn’t sound quite as coherent as an album, with some experimental whiffs and some nice-sounding but ultimately pointless interludes - and missing a drummer with the ability of Steven Flynn will always hurt no matter who you draft as a replacement. Given the many circumstances surrounding this album, its still a testament to the members that this album is as good as it is, and yet I can’t help but wonder what we potentially missed out on…

Best Tracks: Green, Air, Mineral, Elements

Atheist returns, a whopping 17-years later, and yet don’t sound like they really missed a beat, still boasting razor sharp Technical Death tendencies, and all the complexities and flourishes that made Atheist so good and so fun to listen to - yet not feeling like a pointless retread and instead still having new fresh ideas here and there to offer.

I had initially written this off as a fine album but strictly inferior to earlier material, as that’s the case with an awful lot of band comebacks, especially comebacks after such a long hiatus - and while I still somewhat hold that opinion, I’ve certainly become a lot more favourable and softer towards this album as a whole. Its relentless aggression featured throughout never impedes any of the progressive creativity which is an impressive feat, and that gives it a unique edge amongst the other few Atheist albums, even if I have production and songwriting nitpicks here and there.

Best Tracks: Second to Sun, Fraudulent Cloth, Faux King Christ

Atrax Morgue

sick, grisly, surgically clinical power electronics horrible but beautiful, if a bit repetitive

Autonoesis

review pending

Sithu Aye

review pending

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used to listen to this guy a lot during my phase of enjoying instrumental progressive metal with some light jazz elements, most albums have fallen off my radar and memories have faded, but this album remains in my rotation, which must be worth something!

review pending

B

Baalsebub

One more album to add to the pile of evidence that pingy, tin-can snares are fantastic (St. Anger aside!)

Danny Baranowsky

Reviewing OSTs written for other pieces of media is extra difficult to me, not often do I listen to them individually without their associated media and there’s always the question of whether you review them with or without that context.

This album was certainly good enough to keep me from going entirely insane while 106%‘ing Super Meat Boy, so for that I can at least commend it.

Beck

not my standard wheelhouse, but beck is a well known 90s rock guy, and this is definitely an enjoyable album, although I don’t remember it much. Loser is pretty good at least.

Beherit

A damn solid low-fi Black Metal album unlike no other. It initially sounds goofy and extremely amateur in almost every sense, but look beyond the rather basic musicianship and you’ll find an excellent album dripping in atmosphere and hitting the sweet spot of silly cheesy fun and a legitimately ominous listen. The more instrumental/ambient passages are a bit of a miss (clearly covering from an aforementioned lack of musical proficiency), but its a minor miracle this album works as well as its does, giving an extremely unique charm.

Best tracks: Salomon’s Gate, Noctural Evil, Sadomatic Rites, The Gate Of Nanna

A drastic change in sound, mainly due to the founder moving, not being able to reform his band and subsequently losing interest in metal music altogether. Apparently this album is comprised mainly of unfinished/tweaked samples, and it certainly sounds like it.

The album is obviously not good, comprising of whatever sounds were present on a cheap Casio keyboard, combined with similarly cheap vocal layering and processing on top - thus sounding like a soundtrack for an obscure 90s video game that doesn’t exist developed on a shoestring budget. Just bizarre enough to be interesting despite itself.

Best tracks: Emotional Ecstasy

Could definitely be described as H418ov21.C part 2, but that would be an understatement. Electric Doom Synthesis is a much more cohesive, realised vision of a ambient album imbued with metal sensibilities and attitude, done entirely within the sterile and clean electronic production rather than black metal’s usual grim sloppiness - no mean feat. I still don’t think I’m personally the target audience (and believe the overlap between this and Drawing Down the Moon to be… rather small) but I can certainly appreciate a few of the tracks here, Dead Inside is a personal highlight in how ominous and ritualistically tribal it sounds.

Best tracks: Dead Inside, Drawing Down the Moon

Bell Witch

review pending

Between the Buried and Me

Completely wanky, theatrical, self-indulgant crap. And I love it for it.

BiS 階段 [BiS Kaidan]

Legendary Japanese noise artists Hijokaidan collaborating with the BiS (Brand-new idol Society) idol girl group.

I love this concept, and the idea of “harsh noise” pop in general, but the noise is not really well implemented here, and thats a shame. Also features Junko for extra chaos, but doesn’t do a lot for me.

Same idea/formula performed just a little better here, and a little more refined.

Blarf

A Plunherphonics record released by Eric Andre, of all people. Its goofy, fun and doesn’t take itself too seriously, and that’s all it really needed to be. Badass…, Hella Rhymes and Boom Ba are just really fun stuff, and while viewed as a serious project its a bit scant, with some unfinished song and a needless 12-minute noise piece half-way through thats not really very good - but the main appeal is who made it, and there’s enough to keep listening beyond that intial hook.

The samples used here are also really really obviously recognised at points, which means extra fun recognising where it was originally sourced.

Blood

Well, they had fun with goofy vocal pitch-shifting, but outside of that the music is straightforward and leans towards the punky side of the traditional Hardcore-Punk-and-Death-Metal Grindcore formula, and has lo-fi and grimy production to boot. One of those albums that’s perfectly satisfactory for those looking for this specific formula, but pretty underwhelming otherwise.

Best Tracks: Necromancer

Blood Duster

review pending

Blood Incantation

fun goofy sci-fi themed death metal intricately constructed songs that seem like big epics, but it still remains fun!

Bolt Thrower

goddamn, Bolt Thrower are a primary DM band, but their first album is extremely punky, fast and utterly relentless, sounding extremely influenced by early grindcore bands like Napalm Death. And its utterly fantastic if an exhausting listen.

Bongripper

Hail, Satan, Worship, Doom

A 53 minute brick of doom metal, and while relatively simple, it sounds absolutely massive! and its great for it.

review pending

Brainbombs

a big slab of revolting punk rock, with lyrical themes enough to put you off your dinner (well, if the delivery wasn’t so comical and so swedish). its ugly, violent, disgusting and yet completely goofy sounding and thus great absurdist comedy.

I do like the horns in the few songs it turns up, and the raggedy drums simultaneously hold everything together but keep the “just barely not falling apart” sound - although the repition in each song and the album as a whole is a little much? but thats a minor nitpick

one of the few albums where I’d categorize hating this as hating fun or taking things too seriously - how could you ever take something like seriously? How?

Brighter Death Now

review pending

Brodequin

Sounds exactly what a Brutal Death Metal album should be, a fuzzy wall of guitar noise punctuated by incomprehensible gutturals and relentless (if a little quiet and flat) death metal drumming. Its ultra-repetitive and unsurprisingly brutal to a comic degree, but said repetitive nature and wall of noise approach makes this ironically quite a comfortable and relaxing album to listen to.

Best tracks: Spinning in Agony, Ambrosia, Duke of Exeter, Infested with Worms, Strappado

Sonically similar to their first album with a few evolutions sprinkled here and there, namely the pingy snare, more intense riffing and a general rougher abrasiveness in the production throughout… and yet I just don’t click with the album anywhere near as much as Instruments of Torture, for reasons I just cannot put my finger on.

Best tracks: Mazzatello, Judas Cradle, Torches of Nero

Brodequin certainly haven’t changed much, have they (Methods of Execution’s ambient intro aside)? Still plugging away at their trademark sound, blasting away with their usual abandon - and yet the album is completely hampered by the production. It does seem like an attempt to return to the drier Instruments of Torture, with the drums being fairly quiet in the mix with the guitars and vocals neatly layered over, but ends up taking the indecipherable smudginess that Festival of Death had with it… and ends up a worst of both worlds. All that good musicianship pretty much goes to waste. Oh well.

Best tracks: Durance Vile

Brodequin are back after 20 years! Given a lick of paint in the production department, but still sounding exactly as you’d expect, with all the Brodequin trademarks and BDM tropes. The aforementioned production job is the main distinguishing factor - giving the album a really rich, warm and full sound in contrast to the band’s previous albums typically being dry or smudgy. It perhaps loses a little in atmosphere despite being so good on a pure technical level, but makes listening to it remarkably easy in a casual setting, and the samples are woven into the music expertly here (e.g. Theresiana, Harbinger Of Woe) to get some of that lost atmosphere back.

Musically, its not reinventing the wheel, and perhaps to a fault as after 4 albums the formula does feel to be wearing a little thin personally, especially given the lack of variation where several tracks whizz by without much distinguishing them - but there’s still enough here on the tracks that do vary it up a little to make a worthwhile listen, and a good entry point for Brodequin as a whole.

I do miss the pingy snare.

Best tracks: Theresiana, Of Pillars And Trees, Vredens Dag, Harbinger Of Woe

The Peter Brotzmann Octet

sounds like the jazz equivalent of a machine, load, chaotic, more noise than jazz. extremely off the wall, and well, hard to describe, but no off-the-wall it doesn’t every so often coalesce into triumphant harmonious musicality, but only for a short time after falling apart into chaos again

Brujeria

Beneath the package of the band members posing as Mexican cartel drug lords, is a solid slab of bludeoning, heavy and filthy grindcore with some beefy low-end throughout. Threads the needle between goofy fun/pisstaking (go read through those lyrics, no way can you take them seriously) and serious edge (that decapitated head on the cover art is 100% real). Outside of the gimmick and a few songs however, it just remains averagely competent and somewhat pedestrian.

Best tracks: Leyes narcos, Matando güeros, Molestando ninos muertos

Buckethead

An acoustic new age-y sounding album, calming and ambient in quality but didn’t really hit much for me. Certainly unique-ish considering you think of Buckethead as a pure guitar shredder virtuoso, but this definitely goes other places.

Man shreds, shreds a lot, for like 30 minutes. Its technically very impressive, but very very exhausting. If I was into Buckethead more, I’d like this a lot I think, but I’m not so I don’t.

Burial

an album designed to fit the ambience of walking around a busy city at 3 in the morning - no other album does it quite like this, strong themes of loneliness, isolation and the cold of the night.

Burzum

definitely a rough beginning, but has some charm of its own

what did that church do to you? a bit boring unfortunately, the album cover story is more interesting than the music contained inside

Raw as Hell, and amazing for it. The perfect album to get lost in the dark of the frozen woodland.

One note to make is the distinct lack of drums on the back half of the album, and the extremely long ambient piece of Rundgang - sometimes I just want to listen to the first half (well, dunkelheit and Jesus’ Tod), but the entire album in a single sitting is certainly a transcendent experience.

Butthole Surfers

Bizarre stuff, clearly made in good fun, embarking to take the piss and insult the entire world.

Keep Austin weird?

C

Camel

prog rock is my lady fantasy

Carcass

I have a full best-to-worst on this band, go read that for reviews on the mainline albums.

Listed here is essentially anything else that doesn’t fall under the artists’ main discography e.g. EPs, Singles, Compilations etc.

A bit of a mish-mash of an EP, featuring a track already on a mainline album (Incarnated Solvent Abuse), one re-recorded (Pyosified (Still Rotten to the Gore) off of debut Reek of Putrefaction), one taken from a V/A compilation (Hepatic Tissue Fermentation II) and finally, one wholly original song (the title track, Tools of the Trade).

However, anything recorded around this era is going to be damn stellar, and this is no exception. I already knew that Incarnated Solvent Abuse was good, but honestly all the songs present have the same Necroticism formula applied and its exactly as fantastic, a great straddling between Carcass’ Grindcore roots and straightforward, heavy Death Metal.

Best tracks: Pysoified (Still Rotten to the Gore)

Released after/not to be confused with the Heartwork album, this is a short little EP that follows a similar formula to all Carcass EP’s in this vein, 1 track taken from a mainline album plus a few bonus-like tracks recorded in the same recording session.

Heartwork is still as catchy as ever, but both unreleased tracks here are better a good few of the actual album tracks, especially Rot ‘N’ Roll.

Best tracks: Rot ‘N’ Roll.

A few extra “leftover” tracks written in a similar vein to the original Surgical Steel album which this is complementary to. Nothing groundbreaking, but the quality of these tracks certainly do rival Surgical Steel’s at points (especially Intensive Battery Brooding!), and so sit exactly where the band has them sitting - maybe not good enough to be on the main album, but also worth releasing regardless as a bonus rather than having it rot on the cutting room floor.

Best tracks: Intensive Battery Brooding

I didn’t chalk myself up as the biggest fan of modern Carcass, but begrudgingly chalked myself up as a fan of them regardless, in the sense of them being very “workmanlike and functional”. This EP appear to have been the songs cast off from Torn Arteries (outside of Under the Scalpel Blade which appears on both), or at the very least it sounds like it.

The 3 songs that don’t appear on Torn Arteries are quite pedestrian and honestly directionless - Under the Scalpel Blade is tight and energetic in comparison.

I’m no fan, although Torn Arteries is still a good effort in retrospect.

Best tracks: Under the Scalpel Blade Worst tracks: The Long and Winding Bier Road

Casiopea

A great slab of jazz rock fusion that threads the needle of both being an incredible display of technical ability whilst also producing extremely catchy and funky rhythms, segueing between pure, upbeat fun and cute, evocative ballads.

Best tracks: Time Limit, Tears of the Star, Midnight Rendezvous, Swallow, Black Joke

A very solid follow up to Casiopea’s amazing debut, and almost as good. Does a lot of what the debut did right, with a great blend of upbeat fun and some chiller and laid-back tracks. It does drop some of the rock influence for disco, leading to the bass and keyboard to take a much more prominent role in the instrumentation, extra synths and even some brass appearing in Mighty Mouse - the highs match the highs of the debut but there are some more dated elements, mainly the vocoder sections (it makes I Love New York far too cheesy for its own good). Another worthwhile listen regardless, and there’s more to Casiopea than their debut.

Best tracks: Take Me, Flying, Asayake, Magic Ray, Mighty Mouse

another another helping, diminishing returns however?

Catasexual Urge Motivation

a truly bizarre, deranged album. yet somewhat boring also, somehow?

Cattle Decapitation

review pending

Charles Bronson

Ludicrously fast, ludicrously chaotic, ludicrously goofy, ludicrously fun. Nuff said.

Best tracks: Marriage Can Suck It, Youth Attack, Too Much Of A Good Thing, Stock Footage, Deaf And Dumb, Red And Green Make Yellow, Wastoid On The Celluloid, Punch Drunk, The Tears Of A Clone

Chat Pile

its fine? but not the biggest fan, outside of grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg.

Chepang

review pending

Ted Chippington

How good can a standup comedian be if he only has one joke with a flat, monotone, West Midland accented delivery?

Top comedian good.

Choking Victim

Heavily crack focused ska punk. Yeah, i dunno either, but it was fun while it was on

Chthe’ilist

review pending

Chumbawamba

i love this album, in all its cheesy dance glory if I was to be a british communist/anarchist revolutionary, Tubthumper would be my permanent soundtrack

a biting satire at all what chumbawamba saw in the brief moments of fame fantastic in its own way

Cloud Rat

fantastic screamo-inspired grindcore, with great aggressive female vocals and musicianship to boot

Code Error

An EP from a Wormrot side project - another excellent if short and somewhat derivative project, although I like the more punky, d-beat influences compared to standard Wormrot material

Coil

wow odd occult-y industrial album, and a nice introduction to some of the utter weirdness that industrial music offers

Combatwoundedveteran

music at its most emotional and primal state, abrasive as hell, violent as shit, intense as fuck, utterly cathartic

Consumer Electronics

pieces from an extremely young Philip Best (circa 14?), surprisingly good

two cool noise pieces, not really PE to say. ominous, although there certainly would be better to come.

jesus christ, this is angry as all fuck. I wish I could feel any emotion about anything in the same way philip best is angry at the world like this.

another extremely angry album, although the backing noise/electronics are less wall of noise like early and more bleepy and bloopy

not my favourite PW record, but it has a few highlights. not sure Philip’s wife Sarah Froelich fits, but I’d be lying if I thought Philip Best didn’t work for be before and now think he’s a great angry PE vocalist.

Final transition from straight screaming over static to screaming over bleep bloops. I’m glad people enjoy the transition, and admire the development of a pretty straightforward, static genre that is generally screaming over static, but I’ll be honest, I prefer the static.

sorry Philip, its not you, its me.

Contrastic

one of my favourite albums of all time super electic deathgrind metal - something was in the czech water supply in 2000

review pending

Controlled Bleeding

a harsh slab of PE released in the early Broken Flag label days, relentlessly loud and genuinely sounds like power tools were used at points

has a history of actually being a mistaken release (the actual intended Distress Signals, dubbed Distress Signals II) but is in fact a quality release in its own right, even if it sounds very similar in sound to Knees & Bones (even using the same samples and sounding similar in being just a big slab of harsh PE)

worthwhile checking out regardless

review pending

logical evolution from distress signals, even more harsh and dense

an album composed of, well, “samples”, ranging from ambient to extremely harsh noise, and everything inbetween. definitely varied and so worthwhile listen, even if inconsistent at points

review pending

review pending

the “proper” Distress signals, finally released 32 years later. Sounds similar to Distress Signals, just a little better

Corpo-Mente

review pending

The County Medical Examiers

There’s a whole subsubgenre of bands worshipping/ripping off (delete as appropriate) Symponies/Necroticism-era Carcass, and while one could question the artistic merit of such imitation, I’ll eschew that debate - sometimes you want comfort, the same thing with modernised packaging (and the production is positively fantastic here), and you sure aren’t getting it from modern day Carcass themselves.

Best Tracks: Casper’s Dictum, Morgagnic Anatomics, Nectroic Apologues, Maturing Decompositional Gas

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown

great classic psychedelic rock fuelled by oodles of drugs, a lot of fun

Cut Hands

review pending

Cystgurgle

pingy snare insanity akin to LDOH’s Putrefaction in Progress and Sulfuric Cautery’s Chainsaws Clogged… and I absolutely love it - the use of bass over guitar gives it a unique sound also, deranged insanity in a good way

D

Datsustora

review pending

The Day Everything Became Nothing

review pending

D-Clone

one of the loudest “rock” albums ever put to tape, good lord, unbelievably aggressive

Dead

an infamous album, mainly known outside of its obscurity in music nerd circles for being very very funny in its total lack of production quality (even by Death Metal cassette standards, so the standard is already non-existent) - essentially a novelty record that was not meant to be one

Dead Infection

brutal, full of noise and fury, like any goregrind album should be - although the drums sound way too close to a toy drum set

Death Grips

review pending

review pending

Deathpile

genres as extreme and aggressive as Power Electronics often ride the very thin line between genuinely interesting exploration of humans at their very worst, or just juvenile, silly and in poor taste - despite the cool noise going on, its definite far too goofy and in poor taste to take seriously as an album

Death Toll 80k

Very solid modern grindcore with razor sharp riffs and licks all around, a constant assault punctuated with some brief levity in the form of the more groovy thrash metal sections - which go a long way to keep a pretty standard genre feel completely fresh over a 25-minute runtime. Not an essential album by any means, but still worth a listen every now and then.

Also featuring one of the most out-of-place vocal performances ever put to record. Vocals are rarely make-or-break in this genre, but this is also an album that really tries to buck that trend, which is a shame given just how good the other instrumental performances really are.

Best tracks: Nothing In Common, Control, No Escape, Cycle of Misery, Maskmen, Civilian Targets

Delusional Parasitosis

review pending

Demolition Hammer

A demo mainly notable for album-tier production, and arguably better production than the album this would evolve into on Tortured Existence. I actually prefer this demo’s production, more of a straightforward, raw thrash sound - but honestly the songs here are just plain good, and the package does little to affect their good-ness. Definitely notable that Demolition Hammer had their heavy Death-influenced Thrash all figured out even at this relatively early stage.

Best tracks: Crippling Velocity, Infectious Hospital Waste

Some good, if unspectacular thrash, somewhat hampered by the Scott Burns sound unfortunately (the too-loud kick drum and the too-quiet snare really makes this Thrash sound very pedestrian at points), given the actual performances are as rock solid, if not better than on Necrology. The vocals are razor-sharp and super aggressive, and the guitar-work carries (or at least, tries to!) an awful lot of the sonic thrash aggression.

The album is also somewhat one-dimensional, so it doesn’t quite carry its own weight throughout an entire album, but .44 Caliber Brain Surgery is still a fantastic opener.

What happened to the production of Crippling Velocity? Are we sure this isn’t the demo?

Best Tracks: .44 Caliber Brain Surgery, Gelid Remains, Infectious Hospital Waste

Demolition Hammer’s super aggressive, unhinged and heavy Thrash sound perfected for 39 minutes and 48 seconds. Makes you want to commit unspeakable violent acts, which is the real mark of quality in an album.

Best Tracks: Skull Fracturing Nightmare, Pyroclastic Annihilation, Carnivorous Obsession, Omnivore, Aborticide

The passage of time and fickle human tastes can quickly shift what’s perceived as “cool” and “uncool”, and the new hotness of Groove in the mid-90s made the pressure for Thrash bands to change with the times or face irrelevancy. However, musical change is quite often traumatic and for the few bands that successfully navigate a changing music scene, many more crash, burn or slide into mediocrity. Demolition Hammer didn’t even want this released under their name at first, so clearly knew where they stood.

The single-minded violent, aggressive mindset is still present here, however without the Thrash energy all we get are the mundane midtempo sections, and simply not enough interesting rhythmic ideas to keep it from stagnating into mediocre, if well produced, sludge. Except Mongoloid. Mongoloid is absolutely terrible.

Best tracks: Mindrot, Time Bomb

Discharge

a hardcore d-beat classic, not my personal favourite but I find it hard to denigrate the classics

Discordance Axis

review pending

review pending

one of the best grindcore albums ever released, and quite different to a lot of the other grindcore albums in the top-tier pantheon - much more instrospective lyrically and production/sound is a little different, much more clear

DJ Shadow

plunderphonics, when done right, is so so fun

Dream Theater

Dream Theater’s rather unassuming start to their long and varied career, and an interesting snapshot of time when DT were still in their larval stage. Its demonstrably clear that there’s great musical ability and some fun musicianship at this early stage.

On the other hand, the different frontman in Dominici (who’s not bad but doesn’t quite fit here, LaBrie being so definitively the voice of DT makes it hard to mentally adapt) and the production is both very 80s and not very good, a significant barrier to the songs contained within that many, like myself, cannot cross for large stretches of this album.

Whilst I still see it as somewhat unfairly overlooked, I can’t quite recommend it outside of a curiosity.

Best Tracks: Ytse Jam, Afterlife

RIP Charlie Dominici :(

For most, this is where Dream Theater really come into their own. The production, songwriting and performances all take a big leap forward, and so much more punchy and confident, at least where the metal is concerned. There’s also some extremely cheesy ballads that are quite out of place and too-sickly-sweet for my tastes (see Another Day with the sax) - but here the cheesiness/corniness/kitschiness (pick whatever fits best in your eyes) is wholly earnest and sincere, and its totally endearing.

Best Tracks: Pull Me Under, Take the Time, Metropolis - Part 1: “The Miracle and the Sleeper”

Dream Theater take the Images & Words formula but with a noticeable added metallic edge and heaviness combined with a darker atmosphere and attitude, and come out with another very good entry in their discography. The ballads here are also stellar, they’ll never write something as good as Space Dye Vest again.

Best Tracks: Caught in a Web, Erotomania, The Silent Man, The Mirror, Scarred, Space-Dye Vest

review pending

An oddball of an album in the grand scheme of Dream Theaters discography, partially due to being stuck between the acclaimed/quintessential DT albums, but also for being quite straightforward hard rock. That approach would be short-lived.

Its not a successful experiment nor direction. To put aside the arguments on the artistic ambition to stick or twist and the reasons to do so - mainly because the album is frankly neither good nor bad in an interesting or experimental way, its just overwhelmingly dull and un-memorable.

To be fair, its not all doom and gloom, the back-half of the album is a little more interesting and varied. I’m still not sure if any of the tracks really work - Lines in the Sand & Just Let Me Breathe are goofy/comical in their own way but at least have some energy and passion going for them, and Take Away My Pain isn’t totally dull for a ballad (in comparison to Anna Lee, which is snore-inducing). The real bright spot, however, is the 13-minute closer Trial of Tears, a bona-fide prog rock epic - what such a good song is doing buried at the end of the album I have no idea, but after slogging through for an hour this last track is welcome respite.

A shame, we’ve all had those moments thinking that DT were being overindulgent and would like something more simple, but alas this is what we got instead.

Best tracks: Lines In the Sand, Trial of Tears

A progressive metal opera, about as cheesetastic as it gets.

review pending

dream theater go heavy, heavier than ever before and since, nerds pose as tough guys and LaBrie even says some bad words here - but it works? Much better than you’d think! Although the solo’ing, even for DT standards, is overly ridiculous and pointless.

I do enjoy tracks such as Panic Attack and Octavarium, but man does this album not pull it together

this is where they start falling off a bit here, methinks

a victory lap, a really really bad self-indulgent, self-cannibalising victory lap

Portnoy out, Mangini in - still doesn’t make this album not suck

releasing a self-titled album this late into your career is bold, especially when it sounds like other bands ripped off by DT

astonishingly bad (zing) - seriously though, one of the worst albums I’ve heard

a return to form? at least a return to actual tolerable songs, if very by-the-numbers

review pending

Kevin Drumm

sheer hellish miasma indeed, an apt name - much improved with the bonus “Impotent Hummer” track

E

Earth

drone definitely existed before this album, but drone metal was a new innovation pioneered by this album, applying its minimalism to the guitar/amplifier duo

perhaps more worthwhile as a artistic and cultural artifact than just a mere album you listen to casually - but when it hits (given a good state of being and mood), it really hits.

Egg

a cute slice of canterbury scene prog rock, with all its whimsical nature and trappings

Einstürzende Neubauten

Industrial in quite a literal fashion at times given what was used - not much to latch onto beyond that however

Electric Wizard

unbelievably crushingly heavy, and its fantastic for that

Emerson, Lake & Palmer

ELP have a few albums like this, an excellent suite paired with some basically throwaway tracks, its not unique to ELP (think Rush’s 2112) but it is a problem

tarkus is a great track, the B sides are… blah

Karn Evil 9, a suite so long it doesn’t even fit on one side of vinyl, and its pretty good (welcome back my friends to the show that never ends) - and then there’s a bunch of filler

Harry Enfield

a track so 80s it feels like a parody of the 80s, a perfect novelty track (although needs the music video paired with it!)

Excruciating Terror

good, if not great, straightforward crusty late 90s grind - akin to Napalm Death’s 90s stuff

again, good solid grind, but not special

Exhorder

review pending

Extreme Noise Terror

review pending

F

The Faceless

review pending

review pending

Failure

amazing, if a little backloaded, melancholic-tinged alt rock album with hints of grunge - very much worth a listen

Fear Factory

review pending

FesterDecay

another release in the burgeoning subsubgenre canon of ripping off the early Carcass sound, and another hailing from Japan

its solid, if not all that interesting to me - there are better ripoffs out there like Pharmacist, County Medical Examiners etc.

Fleshgod Apocalypse

overblown to all hell and relentless in a tiring way, but Deceit/Violation is still a hype

Fuck on the Beach

review pending

Full of Hell

review pending

Full of Hell & Merzbow

what a crossover

G

The Galactic Symposium

true punk rock, in that basically no-one knows how to play their instruments - what a fantastically fun single

Anna Gardeck

pretty death industrial, and quite soft all things considered

Gendo Ikari

review pending

review pending

Genocide Organ

loud, abrasive, but also rather rhythmically heavy PE album, with your standard WWII aesthetic draped over the top to tie it all together.

review pending

The Gerogerigegege

a somewhat odd introduction to the world at large for the infamous Gerogerigegege, simply because they’re known for their many antics - and while its no pop record, its a fairly straightforward, typically casette/low-fi noise album

yep, this is where the Gerogerigegege find their musical entity, fusing intense noise, distorted guitar, thumping drums with a now-trademark staple - the sounds of senzuri, and more broadly exploring the furthest and deepest depths derived from the mission statement of “anything can be music”

that said, its just too muddy and rough for me, and I think this sound and style would be better done on Senzuri Power Up

the most accessible release in Gerogerigegege’s weird discography, and really a straightforward punk rock EP, presumably inspired by their punk rock influences (e.g. the Ramones)

the title track is pretty good, the rest are kinda throwaway, either being mediocre punk or an uncomfortable/unlishenable prank call

a pop song base with heavily processed, harsh vocals and screams layered on top - extremely cathartic in the right mood

another one of those “wacky” gerogerigegege releases, in the sense that its not even them at all, and instead two unknown Cambodian Pop tunes, totally unaltered albeit stripped of all metadata or info

how do you rate an unfamiliar genre from an unfamiliar genre, released by an artist in-name-only? no idea

75 tracks and 34 minutes of just pure utter noisecore nonsense, a huge slab of just pummelling drums, incomprehensible shouted vocals and some number of guitars with an incredible amount of feedback - due to not knowing Japanese, the sole life-raft is the shouted “ONE TWO THREE FOUR” introducing each separate “song”.

Its relentless and exhausting, but also very very amusing - nothing makes me smile more than the “soundcheck” intro turning into just a blast of noise, and the few “covers” sprinkled in get the same treatment as all the other songs.

I’d say that Instruments Disorder that was released afterwards does this formula the best (its rougher, harsher and even more chaotic, if you can believe that!), but this is always funnier to me.

A direct sequel to Senzuri Champion, and a marked improvement, even if the formula is somewhat the same. The production, while still harsh, is much better, and it really ties the chaos together much better. It’s more cathartic this way.

review pending

an ep featuring the typical “ONE TWO THREE FOUR” blasts of noisecore - fine, but not spectacular

a release dedicated solely to take the piss out of William Bennett and Whitehouse, featuring a goofy title, goofy album cover and a rendition of early Whitehouse PE sound, with the Wasp synth noise and crazy vocals. funny at least

an ep in the same vein of the “ONE TWO THREE FOUR”, only much shorter and each track name is in fact audible (and all begin with the letter G, because why not)

the blasts are so extreme and short (and honestly indecipherable) that isn’t not one of their better ones, but hey, its fun while it lasts

the endgame and intersection of both rock and noise music, unbelievably harsh and chaotic and furnished with what can only be described as “utter shithouse” production

extremely exhausting, but really entertaining to listen to, even if to hear the drummer, Yoshida Tatsuya, utterly thrashing and bashing his drumkit to an absurd extent.

it again uses the “ONE TWO THREE FOUR” and vocalising the title track, but good fucking luck actually trying to decipher what they’re saying.

the Gerogerigegege ethos of releasing whatever they feel like can be fruitful, but not in this case.

there’s quite a few of these tarademark noisecore releases, surprisingly - and most of the EPs are not amazing

The Gerogerigegege / Bastard Noise

review pending

G.I.S.M / God in the Schizoid Mind

Japanese Hardcore Punk with a few strange twists, namely the extremely raw, production thats comical on first listen (esp the super scratchy guitar), and the gruff deranged vocalist definitely adds some flavour.

there’s a Relapse re-release with bonus tracks, and I actually prefer those as they’re not so crudely produced, but the album is certainly a fun romp regardless.

too messy and all over the place for me to personally enjoy

Godflesh

grimy, disgusting, misanthropic industrial metal, utterly fantastic

Godspeed You Black Emperor! / Godspeed You! Black Emperor

the car is on fire, and there’s no one at the wheel - stellar atmosphere

review pending

my general introduction to GY!BE and post-rock/crescendo-core - and what a fantastic introduction it was!

underrated, the last of the initial run before the breakup of GY!BE, and a great way to finish up

GY!BE returned after a 10 year hiatus, and with a solid album, featuring a soon-to-be common theme of a 2/2 split, 2 long post-rock tracks paired with 2 drone tracks

Mladic is fantastic

review pending

review pending

Go-Zen

only really worth seeking out for the album cover, melding anime girls with goregrind gore aesthetics - the vocals are also notably atrocious

Grenadier

review pending

Jon Chang can do no wrong

Grim

review pending

review pending

H

Haken

review pending

review pending

review pending

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Hawkwind

review pending

review pending

Heathen Beast

review pending

The Helix Nebula

30 minutes of some pretty technical instrumental progressive metal, yet there’s enough energy and variation to keep it devolving from becoming a pure djent technical showoff. Nothing super spectacular for those not already interested in this style but still enjoyed revisiting it years long after my instrumental prog metal phase, and am quite sad to see there’s been nothing but radio silence from the band ever since.

Best tracks: Sea of Suns, Crystal Plains

Houkago Grind Time

review pending

unbelievably good for what it is, even it is just a) pure gimmick and b) feels like written specifically for about 3 people in the world, one of whom is me

review pending

review pending

Houkago Grind Time / Archaganini

review pending

放課後ティータイム [Hokago Tea Time]

review pending

Human Remains

review pending

Hunting Lodge

one of those early industrial albums, and appropriately cold, icy, sinister and hits a lot of those early industrial sounding beats - yet also shows glimpses of further extremity to come - Icepick Method is terrifying, and Banishing Dirge is a weighty, evil closer.

I

Igorrr

review pending

review pending

well, inconsistent, but when its good its goooood

review pending

review pending

review pending

Imperial Circus Dead Decadence

review pending

Imperial Triumphant

review pending

Impetigo

review pending

稲葉曇 [inabakumori]

Fun vocaloid pop rock with plenty of energy and yet clearly not all sunshine and rainbows due to the very deadpan vocaloid singing and similarly artificial instrumentation. Its pop music for the melancholic needing a pick-me-up, and the energy is infectious… up to a point where it instead grates due to a little lack of variation despite the songs being pretty constantly catchy. Better in small doses.

Best tracks: Anticyclone (アンチサイクロン), Lost Umbrella (ロストアンブレラ), Pascal Beats (パスカルビーツ), Loop Spinner (ループスピナ), An image in the making (ツクリカケノ心象), Floating Moonlight City (浮遊月光街)

more of the same?

Insult

review pending

Internal Rot

straight, heavy, crushing and brutal grindcore - not reinventing the wheel, but doesn’t need to! - and really really good production, which carries it a long long way!

IRM

review pending

Isen Torr

too mighty and superior to release anything other than two killer songs :(

J

Jethro Tull

review pending

Jig-Ai

review pending

K

Kaya

direct, aggressive, to the point grindcore, 5 whole minute of killer

Khan

wondrous, dreamy, lush, everything a prog lover should love it contains

King Crimson

review pending - but its a classic for a reason

ItCotCK part 2, and while its a lesser album, its no crime to be a slight lesser revisit of one of the all-time great albums

King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard

editor note: i will never catch up!

review pending

review pending

Kleistwahr

one of Gary Mundy’s side projects, most famous for Ramleh’s Hole in the Heart, a fantastic project. This is the brighter, more warm, more positive version of this, and what a fantastic parallel it is.

Knoll

review pending

Kraftwerk

review pending

review pending

Nikita Kryukov

pretty good, if short - do enjoy the bleepy bloopiness, but really the sequel game and its related soundtrack would be a great leap forward

oh yeah, this is the good stuff, one of the very few video game OSTs I listen to detached from its video game accompanying piece

黒い樹海 [Kuroi Jukai]

review pending

L

Lack of Interest

pretty fun, pissed-off PV, with a burly sarge as vocalist - i wish the drums had far more punch than they do, they sound very weak and non-threatening, very out of step with the record

Last Days of Humanity

review pending, although notable for having a truly disgusting cover, even by extreme metal standards

the ep predecessor to the madness that is Putrefaction in Progress, and its almost as good

This is the album that made me fall in love with comically pingy snare drums, as a way to augment and accentuate the “primordial soup” approach to recording. The most logical and extreme conclusion to an already extreme genre, in all of its uncomfortably slimy and sickeningly wet goodness. Yet the album itself feels contradictory, the absolutely relentless drumming; amorphous slabs of guitar; an overwhelming lack of structure, leads this towards noise territory (an achievement itself!) which is relaxing in the same way a bed of nails is. Instead this just makes me feel as sick and as uncomfortable as whatever horrible afflictions the vocalist must be suffering from.

I appreciate it exists in all of its goofy extremity, but avoiding feeling genuinely nauseously ill is generally preferable.

Best tracks: Covered with Faeces as Decoration, Sexually Imminent Perverted Deviant, Infinitive Putrefaction in Progress, Equal Pleasures in the Realms of Dehumanisation, Fragrant Facial Purulence, A Divine Proclamation of Finishing the Present Existence

review pending

Lightning Bolt

the seminal lightning bolt album, and a promising start to noise rock sonic assaults, if not an amazing album

Lightning Bolt writing constructed songs with all noise rock fun, and hi-fi enough to hear and explore all the nooks, crannies and cracks within said sonic assault - i love Dream Genie

catchy and accessible without any of the sacrifice of noise and energy, glorious

Limp Bizkit

like to define myself as a limp bizkit apologist, this album still sucks ass

would classify this as a guilty pleasure, and while its too long, its surprisingly very listenable, even at its worst, which is certainly admirable

review pending

very uncohesive, and very uneven - when its good its good but when its bad its utterly abysmal :(

Lingua Ignota

review pending

review pending

Liquid Tension Experiment

you listen to this to realise how “restrained” dream theater is - although tbh, hearing these obviously talented peeps just have fun is a joy when they’re having fun with it themselves (e.g. Paradigm Shift)

review pending

Lock Up

very samey and pretty derivative, but it does its basic job well, and I like the vocalist Tomas Lindberg here

M

Marduk

well its relentless, and a slog. also one of the few albums where you can feel your brain itself being pulverized into the ground, and im not sure its a good thing in that instance…

Takafumi Matsubara

review pending

review pending

Melt-Banana

definition of pure fun and joy, despite the nosie and abrasiveness

Merzbow

review pending, harsh even by harsh noise standards iirc

review pending

loud ofc, but with a fair amount of rhythm to cling to, and being a relatively short 50 minutes makes this more enjoyable to me than other Merzbow records made in this style/in this era

really good, less focus on pure noise, more on the texture, beats and jazz samples undercutting the whole thing

maybe makes it less of a pure noise album, but it makes it far more enjoyable to me

review

more ambient than most of the Merzbow album’s I’ve listened, more abstract, more mechanical (appropriate given the use of digital over Merzbow’s earlier analogue work), but not entirely a fan?

but its not amazing /shrug

Meshuggah

the weird, not-really-talked about debut of Meshuggah

and yet, is it really that different? maybe, but I don’t think you could state with confidence that it doesn’t have some of the, if primitive, Meshuggah-isms already here. It’s not quite the hyper-technical, djent sound, but its pretty close already with the technical, mid-ish-tempo, thrash metal thats presented here that would continue to evolve in future.

review pending

review pending

Metallica

I have a full best-to-worst on this band, go read that!

Miasmatic Necrosis

fun, bouncy, and groovy for goregrind at least

Robyn Miller

review pending

Mindly Rotten

one of the few albums I really enjoyed in my brief dive into the weird and wonderful scene of Colombian Brutal Death Metal - crazy, extremely fast BDM, and very “unique”

Ministry

a fine, fun, irreverant and amusingly immature album - not every song is a winner, and the back half is a bit weak, but I really can’t put down an album containing “Jesus Built My Hotrod”

Mo・Te

this isn’t peaceful at all what the hell

Mr. Bungle

review pending

Christian Muenzner

fun, if samey and not exactly super innovative/unique instrumental metal

N

Naked City

crazy grindcore, feat John Zorn’s saxophone (there’s the jazz influence) and a crazy vocal peformance by Yamatsuka Eye (a la Mike Patton at his craziest and most unhinged)

a bad trip of an album, in the best possible way

Napalm Death

before evolving into defining Grindcore, Napalm Death had a fairly long stint of existing beforehand and being more pure Crust Punk, some metal influence sure, but the need for extreme speed and volume would come just a little later.

Not my favourite (the sound quality is naturally terrible, but its a self-released demo casette released by amateurs, its not surprising), but is certainly worth exploring for its historical value and a “what could have been” if Napalm Death stayed in this direction. Alas, they did not.

hard to imagine what the world would be without this album, and yet I find it difficult to rate this album too highly on a personal enjoyment level

there are classic tracks here, namely Instinct of Surival, Scum, Siege of Power and You Suffer, but this the weird nature of this release (side A and side B are recorded by mainly different members, with different production etc.) - means there’s always a half of the album you prefer, and half you sort of disregard.

For me, the punkier side A is better, and side B is the weaker side mainly because the sound is done more justice on FETO

but regardless, its still a fantastic grindcore album, one of the landmarks even if its not… that… great? And yet, even saying that, the difference between this and FETO, and the Peel sessions are not great, really just the production, and so to correctly synthesise a winning formula on the first proper release is worthy of respect.

side B of Scum, with 10% better production and the same amount of insanity - turns out that’s all you needed to add to produce one of the best grindcore albums ever made

One of the best grindcore albums of all time, and certainly the best Napalm Death material ever recorded. Eschews the crust punk/death metal influences and goes straight for the jugular in a brutal aural assault spanning 20 chaotic minutes. It would be beyond perfect if it had Siege of Power, but alas we have to settle for mere perfection.

Best tracks: The Kill, Prison Without Walls, Dead, Blind to the Truth, Negative Approach, Life?, You Suffer Pt. 2, Multinational Corporations, Instinct of Survival, Parasites, M.A.D., C.S., Control, Walls

review pending

Napalm Death goes into Death Metal, and introduces their now longtime frontman Barney Greenway - its a fine album, like almost all ND albums are, but I’m not a fan of the Scott Burns trademark sound here, and the whole album feels just a little weak?

a continuation of the Harmony Corruption sound… its fine?

mid-to-late 90s Napalm Death is likely my least favourite run of ND, and yet its still not a bad album.

ND add some groove metal influences into their death metal album - its not my favourite - but Greed Killing is good enough to be worth checking this album out, at least once.

review pending

review pending

perhaps not quite as good as I’ve seen others rate it, but certainly marks the end of some meh groove experimentation and the start of some remarkable consistent run of good or at least consistently fine? albums, mainly due to their shift back towards incorporating Grindcore into Death Metal rather than the groove stuff of the 90s

review pending

review pending

newest release from ND, and its pretty damn good - yes is trademark death metal, but goddamn I love the industrial influences within it, and the fact a metal band is releasing albums this good this deep into their career (both in terms of time and number of albums released) is extremely impressive - not every ND album is a winner, but I’d struggle to say they’ve released a bad album, 17 albums and counting

Nasum

review pending

Native Construct

its overwrought and overly theatrical, but I also admire the absolute audacity to pile all these influences, cliches and wonky overdone drum programming - its not great no, but it flips around to being amusingly funny and entertaining

Negativeland

review pending

amazing album, if really only elevated by the numerous bizarre circumstances it was produced in

personally, their magnum opus - warping commercialism into incredible anti-commercial statements is an art in itself, and these guys are experts

review pending

Neutral Milk Hotel

review pending

Nile

review pending

Noism

The pitched concept of this album sounds amazing to me, taking musical ideas and stretching them to their limit, and seeing what comes out of the other side - and here we’re taking Grindcore/Death Metal, with the speed and technicality cranked up to ludicrous levels. It sounds comically extreme (and in many ways it is), but the atonal, arrhythmic chaotic mess that is the drum machine and single guitar leads to exhausting boredom rather than excitement. I admire the experiment, and am happier knowing that an album out there of this nature exists, but it doesn’t mean I want to listen to it.

Best tracks: ???

No One Knows What the Dead Think

review pending

Noothgrush

review pending

Nurse With Wound

the sound of industrial dadaist carpenters bashing away at some instruments, and a very early peek at the joys of tape manipulation

the story behind this album creation, while likely fake, is still somewhat plausible given the musical contents inside

I enjoy the first song quite a bit, in a “tune it out and everything blends together, even the ‘commercial guitar pasted over the top’ into something coherent despite obviously not being so”

review pending

review pending

O

Oasis

I love Oasis’s first album, its loud, noisy and shoegaze-y pop, and its just so comforting to sink and let the sound envelop you, like sitting in a big bean bag - I think this is the better album, over What’s The Story?, but they’ll still sit the in the same space to me, a pair of great britpop albums

great for all the same reasons that the first is really

this album has a bad rep, and there’s a good reason why - it has obvious problems, and yet I can’t help but enjoy its issues

its overblown even by oasis standards, brick-walled to hell, absurdly self-confident despite obvious shortcomings, and is the product of a lot of cocaine - but it still hits for me largely, just a wall of sound to be enveloped in /shrug

Mike Oldfield

review pending

Operation Cleansweep

fine, foreboding PE about americans being angry. fine, but not spectacular

Opeth

review pending

Oranges & Lemons

one of the greatest anime OP/ED’s ever made

Owane

fun little instrumental prog rock ep

review pending

review pending

P

PainKiller

another John Zorn project in the same vein as Naked City, but a bit more serious and unfortunately a little weaker as a result?

偏執症者 [Paranoid]

some fun swedish d-beat

The Alan Parsons Project

review pending

Pathologist

review pending

review pending

Pedestrian Deposit

review pending

John Petrucci

review pending

Pharmacist

a band ripping off Pathologist who were ripping off Carcass - rip-offs all the way down, and yet the music is really good

review pending

review pending

The Physics House Band

some neat stuff, even if rough around the edges

good stuff, just wish it was longer - also stewart lee!

a big fat album from them! usually pretty sparse in their release schedule, 1 hour of music is pretty good

need a relisten, much more jazzy iirc

Pig Destroyer

one of the best grindcore albums ever released - threading a narrow tightrope of being abrasive, ugly, disgusting and yet highly poetic (seriously, read the lyrics!) in its abrasive disgusting ugliness - and yet its not necessary to enjoy this record, Hayes’ shrieks and yells are wild.

small comment about original remix vs. remaster: I like both for different reasons, I do prefer the overall rickety-ness of the original, and the remaster makes things a little less punchy but more balanced with the vocal mixing etc. - really its a good enough album that it shines through regardless

always have overshadowed this mentally with Prowler, but this is still good right? yeah

heh, I got into Pig Destroyer around about 2018, and so ended up listening to this a ton despite imo thinking its not very good - well, not for a Pig Destroyer album at least /shrug

utterly useless release

Planet X

damn, another fun DT side project featuring super jazzy and super technical instrumental rock

Plini

really cute jazzy little EP

another cute jazzy ep

3rd solo EP from Plini, and a bit more metal, and my personal favourite?

review pending

Plini / Sithu Aye

needs a relisten

Porcupine Tree

Porcupine Tree’s first full album? and its definitely an odd one, but there’s some value here

a pretty nice slab of very psychedelic progressive rock

Portal

crazy dissonant tech death, extremely murky though and hard to appreciate

Post-School Tea Time

sometimes you listen to an album simply due to finding albums that are truly weird - this is an album combining Godspeed You! Black Emperor titles with K-ON references plus album cover, and has the feel that it was made for just a few people in the world

unfortunately its not great, but I’m glad it exists

Primitive Man

A big, almost too-long slab of suffocatingly slow, sludgy, doomy, dense metal. Its loud, abrasive, asphyxiatingly slow at points, and while good… it wears out its welcome

basically Caustic part 2, except 1/2 the length

Propergol

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flying anxiety simulator, but seriously good!

Pure

an early PE record, that’s super cheap and rough even by early 1980s PE standards, and not in a good way

Also known as Foetor released by Total nowadays for whatever reason - much better than the first Pure album, but still not amazing

Q

Queens of the Stone Age

album to listen to speeding down a desert highway!

R

Radiohead

the debut and black sheep of the Radiohead discography, and sits in a weird section - its neither bad or good? on its own, but its obviously weak compared to the amazingly good discography of Radiohead, ts unfairly maligned but also really easy to overcorrect on this

also I do, hand-on-heart, really like Creep

people see this as a giant step up from Pablo Honey, and I’m not sure I see it? its still good but eh

transcendental Alt Rock album, truly one of the best

straight rock wouldn’t cut it anymore, and Radiohead ventured into more experimental stuff, and it hits you straight away with “Everything in Its Right Place”

still very very good, although a rare case where the title track is likely the worst song on the album

castoffs from Kid A recording session, and a big step down unfortunately, despite liking some of the ideas here

abstract and utterly disorganised in a bad way

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Ramleh

wow, what a record, amazing to see something so beautiful and melancholic derived from such an intentionally extreme and ugly genre

listen to the streaming/bonus tracks one, which fleshes it out, but the initial 4 track casette version is definitely the best

Red Sparowes

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Regurgitate

alright goregrind, nothing too special, but man that cover!

Repulsion

the fact this was recorded in 1986 is insane to me, truly a seminal grindcore record, even if its not my favourite to listen to, its just objectively perfect!

Rings of Saturn

utterly goofy, overly technical, stupid deathcore

stupid x2

Marty Robbins

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Rotten Sound

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Rush

the first Rush album and their most primitive in terms of finding their own sound, taking a lot from the Hard and Blues Rock of the day (e.g. people compare a lot to Led Zeppelin), and the one album they had before legendary drummer Neil Peart (RIP) joined

Is it an amazing album? no not really, but its certainly still has its moments, and Working Man still kicks ass

ah, this is the Rush we start to know and love in the 70s - not their best, but its certainly an honourable beginning and sign of things to come into showing off some of my favourite prog rock of this era

the black sheep of the Prog rock era for Rush, its doesn’t really work, but I’m glad they pushed on

wow, this is great, and has been copied multiple times by bands and done much worse than them

are the non-2112 tracks just ok? sure, but who cares, 2112 is amazing

another excellent prog rock album, in a string of amazing albums

another excellent prog rock album! Cygnus rocks, as does the intensely indulgant La Villa Strangiato

oh no, not the 80s!

actually this is pretty good, if more restrained on the progressive side, it just doesn’t hold up as well as the predecessors to me

this is actually incredibly good though, the 80s influence put to good use!

another great album, wow - subdivisions truly is up there in one of the best Rush songs ever made

S

Sacred Son

nothing but average, but the cover is very very funny

Dan Salvato

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Anup Sastry

kinda fine, if generic djenty metal

Manfred Schoof

the noisier, more chaotic and more abrasive jazz is, bordering on noise and pure improv, the more I enjoy it apparently, and this is no exception

Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel a.k.a Foetus

editor note: just file under Foetus?

idk, if Disney made a villain-centric rickety industrial rock musical

insane, but very fun, if potentially cringy like any musical can be

Sex Prisoner

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Shobaleader One

huh, neat, even if im sure being aware of the actual Squarepusher tracks might make me sour on this

Siege

Sort of unbelievable that such an aggressive and influential punk band (paving the way for grindcore e.g. Napalm Death) was just a bunch of kids from the east coast of the USA, in a musical package totalling all of 17 minutes. 10 of this are unparalleled (for the time) bursts of high energy noise and aggression, with a grand, scuzzy and sludgy closer in the form of Grim Reaper, which is secretly the best song on the album point blank. A notable historical artefact in hardcore punk’s history that’s still a complete romp all these years later.

Best tracks: Drop Dead, Conform, Starvation, Grim Reaper

Sissy Spacek

ow my ears

Skanktral Ska Hotel

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Slayer

thrash at its most direct

Sleep

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Slint

review pending

Slugdge

review pending

SPAZZ

review pending

S.P.I.T.E

a little early PE obscure release - nothing too special, but it exists

SPK

review pending

The Stalin

pretty good/alright japanese punk rock

Sulfuric Cautery

wowie - the natural-ish? evolution? or re-imagining of Last Days’ of Humanity’s Putrefaction of Progress, replete with trash can/oil barrel/milk churn snare being front-and-centre, and an absolute cacophony of vocals/guitar backing it.

Its also, despite all this, not completely verging on just anti-music or noise, there is some semblance of song structure etc. here

its also, thankfully, “just” under 20 minutes, and thats good because this is relentlessly tiring to listen to

Sunn O)))

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Lord Sutch

its not super bad, but its not good and fronted by a man who cannot sing, and the star studded cast can’t really help out given the rough production

kind of an odd footnote given I mostly know “Screaming” Lord Sutch is the founder of the main satirical political party of the UK (Raving Monster Looney Party) and the main reason why I checked this out.

Sutcliffe Jugend / Sutcliffe Jügend

loud 80s abrasive PE, didn’t really enamour me, but maybe needs a relisten? 80s PE is kinda just hard to listen to and enjoy unless your in a very particular type of mood

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eh, not my fav - although Carnage and Fall of Utopia was good

4 track slab of great PE

Sweet Trip

a really really good odd pop album

Symphony X

review pending

System of a Down

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System Planning Korporation

editor note: just file this under SPK

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T

Terrorizer

an appropriately manic, angry, rebellious album, like all good grind-related albums should be

perhaps a little long and songs do blend together a bit (36 minutes is a long time in grind terms), but the musicianship (esp the drumming) is insane, and really good produced point blank, let alone its release date

review

Test Dept.

a really beat driven, and heavily poltical-samples driven album, fun stuff

Thank You Scientist

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Think Again

review pending

Throbbing Gristle

truly an evil album (made by some pretty awful people) - some standout tracks here, but overall generally? solid and very sinister, if not the tracks themselves but the atmosphere

if this was a competition for best album cover this would be #1, perhaps not as consistently abrasive, but certainly has its highlights

Throne of Iron

well, the commitment to the joke it admirable, a mix of D&D and Manilla Road, but I’d rather either play D&D or listen to Manilla Road

Time Machines

editor note: coil side project, maybe file it under coil?

review pending

!T.O.O.H.!

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Tool

hyped to the absolute moon, and with good reason given TOOL reputation, but another case of massive overhype sadly

Toska

review pending

T.R.A.M

review pending

Trepaneringsritualen

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tricot

japanese math rock done really really well

Robert Turman

insane, rhythmically and aesthetically super industrial but also surprisingly nice to listen to

Type O Negative

one of the angriest and most hateful albums ever made, unconfortable at times but uh, it made some really good music

and sometimes the anger is just very very funny and hard to take seriously

Mr. Steele has stopped being angry, largely, and is instead extremely horny most of the time - still plays well, perhaps overlong however

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the bands magnum opus, and the most doomy and depressing album

unfortunately, likely their weakest album - the earlier divisions of serious/humour was good, the serious only was better, the humour only kinda sucks

review pending

U

Uneven Structure

review pending

Unsane

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Unseen Terror

A grindcore record released right at its inception as an actual genre, still in its larval stage and taking any and all sorts of sounds and influences of the day - thrash metal, death metal, hardcore punk and anything inbetween. Anything goes here, and that extends to both the musicianship, production and themes - sloppy but more than made up with passion and energy, all featuring one hell of a crunchy guitar. A neat historical curiosity, at least.

And how could I forget the Garfield tracks - again, anything goes! No idea what anyone’s supposed to make of them, but sure, Garfield for President indeed.

Best tracks: Winds of Pestilence, Beyond Eternity

V

Vektor

thrash given a new lease of progressive life

Venetian Snares

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Venemous Concept

straightforward punky grindcore

Vermin Womb

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Viscera Infest

wow, this is insanely fast and insanely brutal

Vital Remains

Can a Death Metal band be a one-hit wonder? Why is Dechristianize so good compared to everything else? Why does every other track recycle Dechristianize so badly? Why is every track over 5 minutes? Why is the album an hour long? Why is there so much repetition? Why is the intro like that? Why does the snare sound like that? Why?

Best Tracks: Dechristianize Worst Tracks: literally everything else

Angel Vivaldi

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Various Artists

one of the best compilations of all time!

W

Jeff Wayne

bloated, overlong, dated, cheesy as all hell, but man is it enjoyable!

Weezer

just extremely good, extremely catchy poppy alt-rock

White Hospital

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Whitehouse

the very first PE record ever released onto the world, and what an odd, strange record it is

it (of course) hasn’t aged well, what was scary in 1980 simply isn’t scary now, but there are some interesting sonic sounds and noises here compared to your typical 80s slab of PE - namely the guitar feedback play in Rock and Roll (rather inappropriately named!), and hey, there’s always some credit to being first, even if PE is as a whole a rather unpleasant and niche genre - its definitely worth ranking above some of the other 80s releases Whitehouse/William Bennett would put out in this early PE era, simply due to it being an oddity

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likely the first “good” Whitehouse release - and really it is a step up in sound quality and recording - the fuzzy incomprehensibleness gets old after a while - the noise here is refreshingly uncomfortably clinical and clean, while the vocal performance is fantastically offputting, coming off like a uncomfortably-old cigar-chomping old-skool pornography director/playboy owner

its not spectacular (well, the bonus track on the special edition is!) but its imo the “easiest” to listen to and “enjoy” (I use those terms very loosely for a genre like PE) from the band’s initial 80’s run.

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this period of whitehouse sees them build on their early formula, rather than going for outright aggression, more sinister like in earlier works see (Birthdeath, Total Sex), just with better quality sounds and production - its not amazing but it functions

akin to prev record, only compressed to fewer, longer tracks - Torture Chamber is one the best tracks ever released by Whitehouse.

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more of a “precursor” to Bird Seed, although the AMSR track is certainly a unique point in their career

would make a case for this one of the best tracks ever recorded, at the very least one of the most cathartic, akin to a cold shower

one of the best Whitehouse albums - the Sotos collage knocks it down a bit, as it will always do, but the individual noise tracks are all winners here

another fine entry, and no awful Sotos collages

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Wolf Eyes

review

Wormrot

short and unapologetically great grindcore

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arena grindcore? really good grindcore produced extremely well, somewhat of a rarity, and enough seasoning/sprinkling of a few different cool things e.g. the violin, some of the screamo elements, the few times it slows down for a bit - it keeps it unbelievably fresh and wanting more, and I’d wager that’s no mean feat for a 30 minute grindcore record.

it also really builds on Voices and makes it better in almost every way

Y

Yello

maybe inconsistent, but its catchy pop coming from a super weird industrial/tape-manipulation angle.

Yes

Indulgent, but fantastically indulgent

this is peak prog rock yes, and peak yes point-blank

Yuu Miyake

one of the best video game ost’s of all time - and extremely (appropriately) wacky and japanese for one of the wackiest (and japanesiest) game series, and it really elevates it!