I am truly shocked by how many Dinosaur Jr fans there are that know little of the true origins of the band. Dinosaur on SST was not the first music of J Mascis and Lou Barlow nor was it the first good music they had put out. Prior to forming Dinosaur Jr. with drummer Murph, Mascis and Barlow's hardcore unit Deep Wound released one really amazing 7", foreshadowing the brilliance of Dinosaur Jr who are a band I've never been able to get enough of.
Just like so many other SST artists, Dinosaur Jr were musicians who were once key players in the hardcore scene and helped initiate the outgrowth of hardcore to alt-rock in their formation following Deep Wound's breakup. But Deep Wound is more than just the band Mascis and Barlow were in before Dinosaur Jr . This is a truly seminal hardcore record that deserves more attention. Hard to believe just a few years later they'd be playing the eclectic material of 1984's Dinosaur. To truly appreciate and understand Dinosaur Jr's music get your hands on Deep Wound's self titled 7" or a comp of their material, you'll definitely do more than satisfy curiosity.
Holy shit. This is THE most unutterably morbid and HEAVY shit out there. Intensely crushing at a mindfucking slow pace, Corrupted and Noothgrush defy any subgenre classification like doom and transcend heavy music in general. Corrupted I think are in a league of their own and this record provides plenty of evidence why the Japanese band is considered an essential sludge group. Noothgrush from California whom I've also always enjoyed is only a notch down and contribute an excellent couple of dirging tracks on the flipside of this split from 1997. For those unfamiliar, Corrupted's stomach churning growls of political injustice are also surprisingly usually in Spanish despite being a Japanese band. The band also do not allow press photographs. Thankfully the band do on occasion drop in from Japan to the states and play a few shows at venues like Northern California's 924 Gilman St. For truly boundary pushing, jaw dropping slowwwwwww brutality look no further than this split.
After leaving New York No Wave band DNA, keyboardist Robin Crutchfield soldiered on and formed his own outfit Dark Day. For those who listen to DNA's early recordings on the No New York compilation and wonder what happened to the keyboards afterward, listen to the incredibly unappreciated genius of Dark Day's Exterminating Angel (1980). The music is definitely not as free form or minimalist as DNA but is equally as challenging, taking the chilling electronics of Suicide and Tuxedomoon more than free jazz or Captain Beefheart.
The few people I've met who have heard this unreleased album have conflicting views. I myself had not heard this until recently when I stumbled upon a copy online. As amazing as the split with the Faith and the Condensed Flesh 7" recordings are, they definitely leave a desire for more Void so I was eager to give the album a listen and also satisfy my curiosity as to why it wasn't released. Most of the critics of this album allege that it sounds like mediocre heavy metal. It's important to look at the direction alot of hardcore was taking at the time when this was recorded which I think helps put the album in perspective. These songs might initially shock Void fans expecting the pure hardcore of Condensed Flesh and Void/Faith. Indeed they show Void moving in a heavily metal-influenced direction, but I think it's obvious to anyone who looks at this era of hardcore it's understandable why. Everyone from Gang Green to SSD to Discharge were all moving in a metallic direction whether it be slowing down or taking on a full thrash metal sound which had been influenced by hardcore to begin with. If you're also a fan of metal this didn't necessarily equate bad material, but some hardcore bands did undeniably suffer going in this direction. By the 90s the metallic influence on hardcore and crossover was full blown, but that's another discussion entirely. I think the reason why Potion for Bad Dreams met such strong backlash was that a metallic turn in sound was least expected from a band on a label like Dischord or a band that so perfectly embodied hardcore as Void. This 'metallic' version of Void I find to be actually quite good, and I find it to actually be more akin to Rudimentary Peni than any 'butt metal.' As a matter of fact, it's hypocrisy for this album to be unreleased when Dischord put Scream's later albums out which sound alot more 'butt metal' than anything on Potion of Bad Dreams. There's definitely some shredding going on but a song like "Bloodlust" is right up there with "Organized Sports" or "Who Are You?" as far as I'm concerned. Maybe if Void had released a proper full length hardcore LP of their signature sound fans would be more satisfied and be open to the different sound of this album. Either way I'm possibly in the minority on this one but I'd reccomend this album if you can find a copy!
It seems that the best black metal tends to revel in obscurity. Why else would they want their logos to be so unreadable? Kidding aside, a better way of putting is that usually quality black metal tends to have the same feeling that only so-called ''outsider music" tends to capture. If it's going to be fulfilling musical pretensions and rival GG Allin or Man is the Bastard for the top spot in the scariest-music-ever category, it certainly doesn't hurt to sound like a bunch of murderers with a four track. That may sound like image over music, but the reality is that the musical quality tends to go hand in hand with the crafted or un-crafted mystery of the bands. It's a fiercely uncompromising genre when its at its best and that goes for the music as well as the image. San Francisco's Weakling followed in the footsteps of the second-wave Scandinavian bands in terms of being totally uncompromising did without the corpse paint, church burnings and fascism. With Weakling its about music and music alone in the purest sense and Dead as Dreams is wonderfully frightening music indeed. In fact, they opted for not having an image at all, much like Japan's equally punk doom-metallers Corrupted. Fenriz of Darkthrone would argue at the heart of black metal is punk ethics, anyway. The band even supposedly got their name from a song by the Swans. Weakling unfortunately vanished very quickly, but not before releasing one album of utterly harrowing metallic brutality. Much more than a black metal band, Weakling were a crossover hybrid of hardcore and black metal, and with Nation of Ulysses's Tim Green at the mixing board helm it certainly enhanced that element of their music. Very subtle traces of arty-hardcore is definitely in Weakling's incredibly dense and sprawling compositions, which is sure to please fans of the Gravity and Dischord rosters. Perhaps more directly they take the keyboard atmospherics of Emperor but ditch In the Nightside Eclipse's 'clean' production in favor of the less produced aesthetics of black metal classics like Transilvanian Hunger, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, and Filosofem. There is also certainly elements of droning doom metal, and one of the band's members later even surfaced in the band Asunder. Dead as Dreams came out in 2000 (recorded in '98) and far under the radar, at a time when cheesy bands like Cradle of Filth were getting put on the Ozzfest tour and the meaning of black metal to the mainstream music consciousness became a mall-goth mutation. Amongst the metal scene there is plenty of overproduced formulaic crap that gets passed as 'true black metal.' But in the early 90s this genre meant something different in Norway, and ten years before that it meant the punk and Motorhead influenced Venom and Celtic Frost. Weakling to a certain extent contribute to keeping that "outsider music" element of black metal alive, certainly along with Darkthrone who don't even tour (Weakling never did either). Furthermore, the epic progressive element to their black metal with 20 minute songs certainly takes a queue from Burzum and Ulver in that regard. John Gossard's anguishing screams over the shredding and blast beats sound like his soul is being ripped out of him, Thankfully, for those of you who listen and still want more of this, there are excellant bands like Wolves in the Throne Room that got ahold of this sound and have expanded on it, creating a whole legion of proggy ambient lo-fi black metal bands. However it's unlikely any of them willl be able to truly recapture the frightening beauty of this groundbreaking album, released on Tumult Records (2000).
Thirty years after the release of their self titled debut and its equally good follow-up What's This For, despite being cited as an influence by everyone from Big Black to (old) Metallica, most would associate post-punk band Killing Joke and the influence they had being most prominently traceable in industrial rock acts. However in the mid to late eighties two excellent bands from vastly disparate genres took Killing Joke's aesthetic to new places, Legendary crust punks Amebix and psychedelic shoegazers Loop were musically worlds apart in the eighties and probably weren't even aware of each others existence but they definitely would've been able to share some records, namely Killing Joke's excellent first two albums.
San Diego experimental hardcore legends The Locust have just made available their Peel Sessions recorded in 2001 and are available for free download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?0yg2yanyyrz
This is the Locust at their peak in my opinion and these recordings are very interesting versions of their best material, including "Moth-Eaten Deer Head", "Get Off the Cross the Wood is Needed", etc. This release will definitely please their avid fanbase who have been awaiting new material amid the band's hiatus and will also remind them of how good the band were especially during this period.
These two early American grindcore acts have more in common besides remaining in the historical shadows of their British genre counterparts Napalm Death and Carcass. Sadly, the discographies from both Repulsion and Terrorizer in their heyday are limited to one LP each as they both drifted into obscurity and met similar fate before the grindcore/death metal wave really took off. Back when grindcore still had an emphasis on CORE, its roots in hardcore punk and old school thrash, these bands produced some of the most viscerally brutal recordings ever. Terrorizer is more in the vein of Napalm Death, complete with the politically charged lyrics and apocalyptic imagery while Repulsion is a progenitor of the gorey Carcass fare. Repulsion vocalist Scott Carlson doesn't cookie monster growl, instead opting for a possessed snarl akin to Slowly We Rot-era Obituary. If you're looking for blast beats sans any drum triggers, thrashy tremolo riffs, and raw production then look no further than picking up Repulsion's Horrified and Terrorizer's World Downfall, both released in 1989.
Simply Saucer is a criminally overlooked Canadian proto-punk band from the early-1970s. Their sole post-humously released recording, Cyborgs Revisited, didn't see the light of day until over a decade after their demise. The record is not really a proper album, as it is mostly made up of cuts from their brief recording session with a young Daniel Lanois (yes, that Daniel Lanois) and a recorded live show. These recordings deserve to be held in as high a regard as Modern Lovers s/t, Easter Everywhere and Funhouse and the more I listen to them I realize how much of a shame it is I stumbled upon this band long after playing those albums to death. Simply Saucer's brand of blistering garage rock is like a more ambitious 13th Floor Elevators and shifts from passages of extended metal-tinged psychedelic jamming to flashes of new-wave weirdness. Somewhere in between that lies "Bullet Proof Nothing", where the band calms down a bit for a cynical ballad of sorts. The song's sardonic lyrics and vocal delivery heavily resonates Jonathan Richman or "Who Loves the Sun?" and leaves one scratching their head about the lack of success of the band. And yes, echoing those revered icons can be said about an infinite number of bands, except Simply Saucer were doing it in the same era as a band like the Modern Lovers and never got much credit for it. Despite considerable retrospective acclaim of this album amongst a devoted underground, I still find quite a few people who are still playing their Stooges Dictators and Roky Erickson albums repeatedly and have not heard of Simply Saucer. I urge you, do not pass on this gem.
