Hipsters Fetishize Cassettes

by Daniel Maarat on January 14, 2017

Compact cassette music sales rose 140% over last year. Wow, noise, and flutter! How quaint. Hipsters have declared their love for a format that, unlike the vinyl LP, does not even sound particularly good. The most commonplace Dolby noise reduction systems in most cassette decks cause immense loss of high end detail. Most hipsters collecting cassettes can’t even find a player with a properly aligned tape head. Most will probably be using ghetto blasters or Talkboys as they were six in 1992 when Home Alone 2 came out.

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Memoriam Snore Through “Reduced to Zero”

by Daniel Maarat on January 13, 2017

Memoriam posted the first track and track list for their upcoming death ‘n’ roll album For the Fallen. Hear Karl Willets sound tired and rip off himself on “Reduced to Zero” over riffs that make Benediction‘s The Grand Leveller sound like a peak of death metal in comparison. I’m so excited! Let’s find out what this single sounds like!

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Gorefest – Mindloss (1991)

by Johan Pettersson on January 12, 2017

Before lapsing into embryonic death ’n’ roll on their second LP False (1992), Gorefest were among the earliest Dutch proponents of solid bread-and-butter death metal with a sense of melodic contour joining the many rhythm riffs into coherent songs which reach a point of focus in their cycles, forcing re-interpretation of its parts. The early style more or less complete on their demo recordings was brought to a fuller and more refined form on the 1991 debut album Mindloss.

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Upcoming Abhorrence Live Album

by Daniel Maarat on January 12, 2017

Finnish death metal band Abhorrence are releasing a live album of their comeback performance at the 2013 Tuska Open Air Festival. Totally Vulgar – Live at Tuska Open Air 2013 is coming out February 10th on Svart Records. Svart released an earlier anthology of the band, Completely Vulgar, that was some of The Best Underground Metal of 2012.

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Autechre – elseq 1–5 (2016)

by Staff on January 12, 2017


Article by Lance Viggiano.

Autechre‘s elseq 1-5 is a four hour anthology consisting of five individual EPs, each compiled together loosely upon conceptual coherence between the constituent tracks. elseq 1-5 is an exercise in release format rather than just content; the artists behind Autechre seek to utilize the immediacy of the digital age, releasing tracks “as they go” without traditional limitations imposed by the “album.” Granted of course this collection appeared as a hulking and impenetrable dump rather than a sequence. This point bears worth remembering as this overview proceeds as the temptation to view elseq 1-5 as a complete work, or works, is ingrained in popular habits.

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