Discharge Forced to Reschedule US Tour and Cancel Appearance at Maryland Deathfest

discharge band 2016

Maryland Deathfest once again has visa troubles forcing the cancellation of a headliner. Sodom‘s visa troubles last year led to the cancellation of their headlining appearance on the main stage of the parking lot festival. Now, British hardcore legends Discharge (the originators of d-beat hardcore) get the short end of the stick from the Baltimore festival’s disorganization.

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The little doom factory – Interview with FUCK YOGA Records


Interview by Gent Mehmeti

A small distro portraying Skopje’s (Macedonia) gloominess and fucked up street reality through records and gigs since the early 2000s, FUCK YOGA has since grown into a label that makes obscure hardcore and metal gems somehow available to the few heterodox freaks roaming this city. Its presence has grown during the years. Today, it is home to some of the more obscure acts that seem to have acquired a cult following in the margins of hardcore and slow-paced metal. California’s Noothgrush and even Boston doomsters Grief have gone through FUCK YOGA.

We’ll dive inside and try to dissect everything up in an interview with Ivan Kocev, the man behind this freakish abomination.

1. Ivan, you seem to be heavily attached to gruesome acts of human abhorrence. Well, at least one’s first impression is similar, whilst viewing Fuck Yoga through the lenses of conventional societal pattern.

I accept it as part of nature’s condition, hidden behind the veil of social conventions. It is important to familiarize oneself with all aspects of existence in order to gain more knowledge and bring more truthful judgments further in life.

2. What’s up with you and yoga anyway? Why all the hate dude?

When we were plastering posters for shows, they were often being covered by a yoga class. What also contributed to choosing the name was the “instant enlightenment” vibe that radiated from these people… I also read that the purpose of yoga was “becoming one with the great power that you were never actually apart from” or something like that, which I found bullshit at that time. So over 10 years later, the name remained- it’s not something I actively live by.

3. You pretty much nailed it with a few issues lately. Apartment 213, Noothgrush, Grief…some pretty cult stuff right there. How did you manage lurking them into your lair? Isn’t there a shitload of labels, some highly reputable I might add, in these guys’ states?

I’m a big fan of the mid-90’s mutant hardcore. It might as well have been the final progressive effort of sonic alchemy in it’s respective genre- acknowledging the past, yet branching out into unorthodox forms. Of course-with varying degrees of success, but the general feeling of actual creation and boldness was highly inspiring to my younger self. The bands you mentioned would have no trouble finding a “bigger” label then FUCK YOGA to release their records, but standard scaling doesn’t necessarily apply in this world anyway. They might be considered “cult” nowadays, albeit most of their records were issued on labels strongly rooted in the underground. I cultivate the DIY spirit while providing a very decent representation of their body of work. I salute staying underground by choice, not by necessity.

4. I guess you’re exposed to much of the sensibility of this genre. You collaborate, tour and run a label. You’ve grown to understand the scene from within. Do you think it is an all inclusive club that has built itself upon an egalitarian belief of indisputable equality? Or has this been the distorted image that we have been served by potential pests? My question seeks to disclose if ubermen who breed elite ideas are still present within these circles.

It is up to the individual to choose on which of the many conflicting attributes it pays attention to. You don’t have to look hard to come upon hypocrisy and shallowness in the underground- why would it would be devoid of? I encourage self-sufficiency, yet it’s funny how the bigger picture you see, roles start morphing. It is important to learn from experience and stay alert.

5. What are some of the shittiest bands out there that have been bringing a lot heat lately? I’m all obsessed with negative lists and would really want to hear your opinion.

I am not following “the heat” really. As time becomes more precious for me, I have to spread it out as productive as possible.

6. How do we kill this whole revival trend that has been busting our balls? Resurrection is cool sometimes, but if every idiot is given the opportunity to bring stuff back to life, pretty soon we might even see Christian metal bands or some fucked up shit like that rocking the scene.

Simply judge for yourself instead being told what’s good for you. Easier said than done, I know… If your acceptance filter can handle a copy of a copy of a copy- who cares? I try not to focus on what I dislike, rather use my effort in directions that excite me. The underground will always survive through mutation- some will lose sight, interest or power- but it implodes forever.

7. Are you a fan of population reduction? I am. Who do you think is doing the job well in aiding the process?

It’s difficult to imagine oneself as a 1/7 billionth part of a system. I try not to get too global, it feels depowering. I believe in eye-to-eye centrifugal action, as a real change needs a strong core. Much more efficient then just poking all over the place.

8. What’s on your schedule with Fuck Yoga?

Any day now (late November `15) I’m releasing a new batch of records; GRIEF s/t 12” and “dismal” LP/CD, MOSS “sinister history vol.1” (the first in the series of several records spanning the early, obscure years of the band), DESPISE YOU “west side horizons” LP, and BILLY BAO “communisation” LP. Next would be a NEW WORLD 3”/4” record, SETE STAR SEPT “vinyl collection” CD and HERPES “medellin” 7” repress. 2016 will see records by BASTARD NOISE, DAZD, GOLI DECA…

9. Do you think we’re battling an inside war against our own when facing the fury of SJWs who are censoring us with their PC crap? Fucking hipster pieces of trash!

I will have to disappoint you again with my detachment from cliques. I do not practice any organized political belief- It takes a lot of skill and practice to become independent. I can’t completely deny my social presence, and I am continually learning how to minimize compromise in favor of saving energy for the long run.

10. Briefly explain everything I missed out due to this interview being conducted by me in my utmost hung-over state. I didn’t ask you anything about Fuck Yoga’s roots, plans, presence etc. Neither did I ask you about the 3-4 bands you’re currently in (there’s at least one of them that I dig). Hell, you run a bizarre label somewhere in Southeastern Europe, where such things are true rarities and I didn’t ask you anything the domestic situation – that’s pretty lame of me; I bet it’s fun to hear some bone chilling stories of Balkan underground. Plus you’re organizing this festival in December and I totally skipped that. Preach the gospel!

Here’s what bands I’m currently involved in: GOLI DECA – the music is slow, but not “doom”- it’s devoid of the traditional rock/metal attributes- along the lines of what SWANS were doing on the first few records. VKOZUREN is musically comparable to early BURZUM- primitive and escapist.

The longest running, yet still unnamed band is somewhat a continuation of my previous band, POTOP- only more feral and surreal. I have used musical influences from WINTER, DISEMBOWELMENT, (early) MORBID ANGEL, EARTH 2, (early) DEAD CAN DANCE. Another unnamed, featuring Oleg Chunihin also of the band above and GOLI DECA, is trance-like bass-driven micro-compositions- think HELLHAMMER, BARATHRUM… There are a couple of rehearsal clips online, studio recordings and eventual releases are planned for 2016. MILITANT ZAZA is the name of the mini-fest we’re organizing for the first time this year, with exclusive performances by VERMAPYRE (nightmarish horror soundtracks), REGLER (the new project of BRAINBOMBS/ BILLY BAO personnel), PROPOVED (amazing ancient heavy doom from Serbia) and GOLI DECA. The idea was to organize an event covering different points of the extreme music specter, focusing on the fringes. Thank you for your interest and effort, it’s much appreciated.

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Personal Device – En Puerto (2015)

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Like the band with whom it shares members, Cóndor, the hardcore/thrash band Personal Device — the name refers to “antipersonnel devices,” not Fleshlights — makes music with a lot of promise that sells itself short by demonstrating theory instead of creating experiences.

Art contains ideas as much as any essay, and those who deny that are morons, but it is encoded through the sensual, emotional and intellectual experience of appreciating something of great beauty and power. This is how metal makes beauty out of ugliness and reveals to us the forgotten ideas of ancient history in a form we can now recognize. It is also why Christian, Nazi and SJW music falls short, because it is preaching and illustrating theory more than it is taking us on a magic ride through the world of its ideas in application.

Personal Device thrives when the band members get in touch with their inner rebellious but sensible youth. They bash out hardcore-based tunes with metal riff framing, sounding like Emperor covering Iggy Pop or G.G. Allin sometimes, and put these in songs with some breathing room a lot like early Suicidal Tendencies. Riff quality is very good. So is their ability to know when to bring on the power and when to let a rhythm ride to its natural conclusion. Moments on this album, like on Cóndor’s works, are so good they burst with potential and make you think you have discovered a new classic.

It is interrupted however by a tendency to demonstrate. Either they show how they can fit in a blues part, use an unnecessary spoken word piece, or expand song structures to include the non-relevant for the point of making a point, but it breaks the flow of the album and adulterates the good stuff. This also blighted Cóndor Duin: theory is only good when put into practice, in a way that converts the cerebral into the existential and experiential. At the risk of ruining this review by doing the same, I will step off that soap box and summarize.

This is a great album within another album. Many good ideas ooze from the fabric of En Puerto. Their first album however had more of a feeling of a garage project designed just to be music that the musicians — enlightened as they are by theory, and their theoretical background is known to me and quite substantial — found themselves liking, not just in “body” (how it feels and sounds) but in “mind” (what it delivers) and possibly in “soul” (how it makes poetic the condition of life). The best albums do all three, and their first was closer because it was less obsessively engineered in the front-brain and more unleashed from within. Moments of En Puerto do the same, and if they cut the rest out, they’d have an album on par with DRI’s Four of a Kind or Cryptic Slaughter Money Talks. Here’s hoping for album three.

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Amok – Necrospiritual Deathcore (2015)

Tagged as a death/thrash sort of cross-over band, Amok, at least in the present album, sounds much closer to hardcore stemming from the tradition of Discharge Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing and filtered along the line of Amebix Arise!. Some gestures of 80s heavy metal show up but only briefly and not prominently enough to turn this into one of the many kinds of  so-called “melodic death” bands out there. In Necrospiritual Deathcore a healthy, coherent mixture of different punk and metal expressions collide to form an enjoyable album.

Like any hardcore album worth its salt, we find fragments of speech taken from television or radio, snippets of urban audio, coughing, among the rough scream-barks of the vocalist. All this, combined with the great pains to which Amok goes to give this album musical variety despite the fact that the music is primarily percussive (and simple in its percussion). Commendable are the smooth tempo changes in the album that are never abrupt even though they change the music drastically. Voice and instruments conspire so that the “line” is never broken when going from a faster speed to a slower one. When it comes to accelerating, though, the punks show themselves.

On the other hand, given the simplicity (and I mean real simplicity) of each song and the fact that the album is a song-collection (rather than a concept album, or a greater work, or a set of variations), the staying power of this kind of record is very limited. Sounding like a more single-minded, less flexible Amebix, Amok Necrospiritual Deathcore will please and entertain, but there is little reason to continue listening to it when there are albums like Arise! lying around. All in all, it is a refreshing hardcore album with heavy and death metal colors done by expert musicians.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBosT9rPRPk

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Survival – Shayda (2015)

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Hardcore punk band Survival offer us a humble release that although meager can give us a lesson on several album-writing guidelines that any metal band should follow. Shayda is a good example that riffs that are usually attributed to this or that subgenre of metal can be used in different contexts to different effects and reach. These Californians also show us the value of self-control, avoiding self-indulgence in favor of a juvenile honesty that is only fitting for a band in their genre.

There are a few moments in Shayda where one will recognize the predominance of an influence from 1908s hardcore punk bands , but then one will stumble over a happy punk riff, and then one or two brief moments that will flash by with the taste of deathcore breakdowns and even a little 90s hard rock. These are encased at very specific points and are only used extremely measuredly to push the song forward or twist it for a moment with a different taste only to warp back into focus. Their are also a few samples from a movie or a narration that are used as introductions or interludes in the middle of the album with incredibly effective results.

A major highlight of the album from the songwriting point of view is how aware these guys are of the “useful life” of an idea in the context of a style. According to its nature, punk is a genre of simple, direct and clear expression which does not lend itself to infinite variations of the pseudo-mathematical Bachean type. To remain fresh yet not start diverging, the length of the songs is necessarily short. Each of them gives the listener a very clear and single-minded idea. But as a whole Shayda provides a multifaceted experience that remains both consistent and coherent.

Like big brothers Blood, Survival dominate their tools of choice in their genre and work well within their limitations, creating a memorable and musically solid work that can and should be appreciated regardless of taste.

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Obliterations Expands North American Tour

obliterations

Punk/hardcore band, Obliterations, have announced additional dates to their previously-announced impending Eastern North American tour with While Lung, including a set at this year’s ultra massive NXNE Festival. Additional Obliterations shows are being added to the routing to be announced as the tour begins, at which time the band will also release their next official video from Poison Everything, being finalized for the track Scapegoat.

Obliterations Tour Dates:

6/06/2015 The Studio At Webster Hall – New York, NY

6/08/2015 DC9 – Washington DC w/ White Lung

6/09/2015 Rumba Café – Columbus, OH w/ White Lung

6/10/2015 The Demo – St. Louis, MO w/ White Lung

6/11/2015 7th Street Entry – Minneapolis, MN w/ White Lung

6/12/2015 Underground Lounge – Chicago, IL

6/13/2015 PJ’s Lager House – Detroit, MI w/ White Lung

6/14/2015 Beachland Ballroom – Cleveland, OH w/ White Lung

6/15/2015 Mohawk Place – Buffalo, NY w/ White Lung

6/16/2015 Great Scott – Allston, MA w/ White Lung

6/17/2015 Bar Le Ritz PDB – Montreal, QC w/ White Lung

6/18/2015 Ottawa Explosion Weekend – Ottawa, ON w/ White Lung

6/20/2015 Lee’s Place – Toronto, ON @ NXNE w/ Girl Band, Mission Of Burma, California X, Grooms [info]

Obliterations released Poison Everything through Southern Lord in October 2014.

Stream and purchase Poison Everything HERE, and scope their video for “Mind Ain’t Right” at THIS LOCATION.

http://www.facebook.com/Obliterations

http://obliterations.bandcamp.com

http://twitter.com/obliterations_

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Extreme Noise Terror – A Holocaust in Your Head

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Avoiding the pitfalls of repetition that normally afflict later punk-derived albums, A Holocaust in Your Head is a fire spitting, unhinged, high speed high intensity crust album. That is, if you ignore the first and last tracks, which are a political statement not a song and an insult track to the band S.O.D., respectively.

Extreme Noise Terror rip thourgh hardcore punk and primordial death metal riffs with reckless abandon. Dual singers give some variety to the vocal patterns. Though the political rhetoric in the lyrics can be tiring on some tracks, the music speaks for itself, portraying something quite like the album title suggests: a droning of madness with explosive texture within suggesting a writhing, disturbed and out of control chain reaction just under the surface.

Admittedly none of the musicians here demonstrate great instrumental prowess, but the sheer force of the music and performance makes this entirely irrelevant. It’s as if these fellows channeled their entire frustrated essences into this album; most punk albums get boring half way through, but by sheer energy alone A Holocaust in Your Head remains intense throughout. For the most part this album uses simple song constructions, but interestingly enough there is deviation from verse-chorus-verse format in some songs, which is rare for punk music.

Bands following and contemporary to this group were heavily influenced by Extreme Noise Terror’s hyper speed crust, which became a primordial influence on the rising grindcore movement. Even years after that genre branching and the death of hardcore, A Holocaust in Your Head remains not just essential listening from a historical perspective, but a thoroughly enjoyable musical experience that reveals a world of insanity lurking all around us still.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLMfoj-DuZU

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Assück – Anticapital

assuck-anticapital

Grindcore requires some magic to pull off convincingly in the first place, but it’s doubly hard because 95% of grindcore bands confuse music and message in importance. Grindcore is music first, message second. When the message comes first, grindcore becomes an incoherent advertising campaign, not art.

Assück’s strength is that they do not let the messages of the songs (which are often from a leftist angle) eclipse the power of their music. The music is the most important thing here. The first album from Florida’s purveyors of supreme grindcore is also their definitive work.

Few are capable of mastering a distinct fusion of styles, fewer still are able to take that fusion and lay it out coherently. Assück are one of those few. Hardcore, crust, death metal, thrash, and grindcore all register as present here riff­wise. Riffcraft is dissonant, harsh, constantly shifting in tempo (sometimes irrespective of the drums), and at times even catchy. There’s a sort of looseness to the playing that sometimes reminds of jazz improvisation, but not nearly as random.

Though a cliché, this album does evoke an aura of “organized chaos.” Assück are also masters of building and releasing tension, not just in songs but throughout the whole album. There are three distinct climaxes, one being “Feasts of War,” the next being the last section of “Civilization Comes, Civilization Goes,” and the third being the final track.

Assück know precisely how much material to pack into an album, as the album maintains its exertion of power throughout the fifteen minute run time. Anticapital is in the upper echelon of grindcore and deserves the highest recommendations.

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Sadistic Metal Reviews 12-21-13

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What are Sadistic Metal Reviews? We think heavy metal has artistic value. Advertisers want heavy metal to be the token rebellion of future generations of consumers. We have truth and cruelty on our side, but they’ve got the money. Read between the screams for the rare non-failures…

ghost-if_you_have_ghostGhost – If You Have Ghost

Stop. When you hear the name Ghost (or Ghost B.C., since they got sued for unoriginality) don’t think “metal band.” Think hipster product. Ghost create yet another social status pandering musical widget for frappuccino enthusiasts to feel superior to the rest of us. If you go look at your local independent coffee haven, they are there raising their left fists above their foreheads whilst tilting a pinky finger outward and staring down their noses at the rest of us who aren’t as pop-culture savvy as their enlightened Adult Swim-watching kind are. Ghost added a Roky Erickson cover to have “street cred” amongst the garage/psych-rock crowd that hipsters associate with (because it’s rock music, but different…), but then play a series of pop songs from ABBA, Army of Lovers, and Depeche Mode to feign a sense of “open minded-ness” which reveals the true money-grubbing ways that motivate the constant churn of vapid media products. Sure to be a talking point amongst latte experts, this EP culminates in a live take of an original song which sounds like a bad excuse for carnival music.

crystal_age-far_beyond_divine_horizonsCrystal Age – Far Beyond Divine Horizon

With their seasoned membership which includes former Liers in Wait personnel, a Necrolord cover and an overblown concept, this “seems” like a death metal gem, but it isn’t. Coming off like Liers in Wait after hearing too much Yngwie Malmsteen and Nocturnus’ Thresholds, Crystal Age play an unfocused form of late 80s Forbidden style melodic speed metal with “extreme” updates in the form of raspy vocals, Egyptian themed tremolo riffs, and blast beats aplenty. Considering the scatter brained riff salad nature of these songs, it’s a surprise these guys would even have the aptitude for writing commercially viable AOR power metal later on in Hammerfall. Nothing too offensive, but at the same time random and uninspiring, this band could best be described as “spectacularly mundane.”

bat-primitive_ageBat – Primitive Age

This is a NWOBHM with the rhythms of an American punk band playing in honky tonks. Riffs are less ornate than most NWOBHM except for the fills which are classic early Iron Maiden and the like. It has a local band vibe and as a high-energy act fits more in a live bar setting than being heard on record. Songs vary between having the punk side win out and the metal side win out. On the whole, it’s above average quality with good energy, and songs that develop in very simple but not inept ways. Why is it here among the sadism, then? I like it, but I wouldn’t want to hear it often. It would be a great local bar band, A+. For listening in the world beyond, it’s not yet ready. Most reviewers won’t tell you this, because most reviewers go through a 2.5′ pile of CDs at three minutes each and like anything that they recognize as being like the other stuff they like.

ceremonial_age-the_book_of_truthCeremonial Oath – The Book of Truth

A Tampa death metal influenced project that made compromises to fit in better with the Gothenburg crowd of their scene at the time, Ceremonial Oath manage to wear their influences on their sleeves without living up to the promise of any one single influence, much less the hope that adding them together would make a better teen rebellion sonic product. There are some well developed counterpoint riffs and some of the tracks have interesting structures but, aside from the awesome artwork provided by former At the Gates guitarist Alf Svensson, this doesn’t hold up well over time or when compared to other releases from it’s era. Like a less worthwhile and stadium rock cheese infused Swedish counterpart to Shadows of the Past by Sentenced, but with more rhythm riffs, The Book of Truth is best judged by its cover and recycled early.

abramelin-transgressing_the_afterlifeAbramelin – Transgressing The Afterlife – The Complete Recordings 1988-2002

This box set, lovingly released by Century Media on 3 CDs or 5 LPs, is a boon — if you like Abramelin. I am totally divided on this band, since they have many great ideas for song construction, but can’t get over the hurdle of writing obvious and somewhat painfully blunt and directionless riffs, which leaves the end result as a lot of potential left in the hands of implements too crude to realize it. This seems to be a national characteristic of Australian metal which often has great ideas for songs but doesn’t have the technical power of the Americans or the melodic flair of the Europeans that enables it to reach those goals. The production on these restored demos, 7″ records, live tracks and album grooves is amazing and this set does great credit to Abramelin. I just can’t see myself listening to it again.

solefald-pills_against_the_ageless_illsSolefald – Pills Against the Ageless Ills

Let me tell you something about the term “avant-garde”: it works when other people use it to describe you. When you use it to describe yourself, it sounds like an excuse for low quality. Claiming to be “avant-garde”, Solefald play a style of black metal that uses the raspy vocals, thin guitar tone, and fast playing typical of the genre, but nothing else from black metal persists here. Especially not, you know, coherent songwriting, melodic development or atmosphere that isn’t a mile wide and an inch deep. Like Opeth, Solefald use “metal” sections in juxtaposition to “outside” elements in order to create “contrast” which is apparently the opposite of writing a song. This results in a compilation of new wave, rock, and synthpop elements superficially dressed up as black metal, but it’s like a bag of puppies and snakes fighting it, i.e. visible from a mile away as not being in any way unified. Listening to this, one can imagine Ulver, Enslaved, Opeth, and Dimmu Borgir sitting around a conference table and patting each other on the back to see how, like AIDS, their muzak has spread its “influence” which will ensure the ruining of metal beyond them. After us, nothing but pop brain-death, as far as the eye can see…

cadaver_inc-disciplineCadaver Inc. – Discipline

Discipline is not too bad for a late model black metal aesthetic-ized theatre of blasturbation. The problem is the songs are way too similar for their own good and it gets grating, not because of style, but because of monotonously linear songcraft. Considering guitarist Anders Odden’s (playing here under the “Neddo” alias) imaginative and exploratory playing on Cadaver’s In Pains album, Cadaver Inc. seems like a waste of talent as he tries to make a more popular style that is literally too simple for his brain to do well. The music is worthier than Marduk or Dark Funeral, more heavily favoring a grindcore heritage than throwing pop jingles under blasts. Still, this band will perhaps be remembered more for its bringing of underground cynicism and morbidity into the “.com” era in the form of a satirical website than its music.

arvas-into_the_realm_of_the_occultArvas – Into the Realm of the Occult.

Good riffs, random order. Combine Bathory Blood Fire Death with Ancient The Cainian Chronicle. The result is black metal with a heavy metal feel and while it can build atmosphere, it can’t develop it, thus feels incomplete and deflated like early Satyricon, both in melody and song structure. This is too bad because there are some quality riffs on here, nothing groundbreaking but clearly showing a fair amount of thought. There are also some borrowed riffs which when used too blatantly without being in a new context can crush the atmosphere achieved. Still, the feeling here is that this band has a huge amount of potential but needs an editor to put the riffs in the right order to develop the moods so adroitly evoked.

karmatik-humani-tKarmatik – Humani-T

When something gets trendy, like metal, everyone else starts trying to shoehorn their own genre into it. Karmatik is basically a lite progressive band that like guitary riffs, but has nothing in common with metal other than a few moments of speed metal riff before the band gets back to the real business, which is extended space jams. They do a good job of this, although its somewhat personal nature will probably appear a bit cheesy to a metalhead. The hard rock riffs here are, for all that this band likes to be progressive, of extremely well-known types and so there’s not much to listen to there. Like other bands who have become metal when they wanted to be prog, this band shines when they’re doing what they enjoy, which is the space jam parts. This should probably be referred to a prog-rock audience, but their criticism will probably be most severe for the metal parts as well, since they are the weakest link here.

bones-sons_of_sleazeBones – Sons of Sleaze

One of these comes along every few years. In the late 1990s, it was Driller Killer. Remember them? ME NEITHER. Bones is late-model grindcore set up to have the energy and listening appeal of a late hardcore band. The embrace of sleaze/perversity is almost always a red flag that a band has zero in terms of ideas about life, thus zero in terms of musical ideas that aren’t based on what another band did. In this case, it’s a crying shame because these guys are good songwriters who can pump out quality (but not groundbreaking) grinding riffs. These songs hold together, have emotional content and are memorable, for the most part. The problem is that like Hollywood stars they don’t connect to anything but themselves.

reverted-sputter_the_wormsReverted – Sputter the Worms

Despite attempts to appear otherwise, this is LA strip styled hair metal re-shaped with modern sludge/metalcore drumming and a few aesthetic touches such as an alt-rock influence in the vocals. However, it’s the hard rock riffs from the late 1970s with just enough groove to slide into the vocals and the decadent simplicity mated with period touches of guitar virtuosity, as if showing a once-vital civilization under the collapsed ruin. It’s not bad but there’s no real reason to listen to it either. I am always repulsed when bands try to disguise their inner nature, and also, when metal bands try to dumb it down to the point of appealing to a rock audience. Just be a damn rock band. And unleash that guitarist. There’s a lot of talent here in mating up these riffs, keeping up with the drums, and making the whole thing work. Unleash some solos, go Van Halen and play more of those epic riffs that sneak in toward the end of the songs. The vocalist is too dominant, as is the giddy slaphappy shuffle drumming, which detracts from any attention span the listener might have had. Then again, if you’re marketing to morons, that’s a good bet.

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Interview: Wan

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Swedish band Wan recently released Enjoy the Filth on Carnal Records, creating an album that’s most similar to 1998-faire like Impaled Nazarene Latex Cult and Disfear Soul Scars.

As Wan is trying to break in to the post-modern metal scene, where outside genres often get disguised as metal for the sake of riding the coattails of black metal’s 1990s notoriety, they are emphasizing their metal nature and associating with black metal.

We were fortunate to be able to catch a few words with Wan, who write to us from the darkened winter wilderness of Sweden.

When did Wan form, and what influenced you at the time?

As the song “Day of Reckoning” suggests, we formed in July 2009 with the aim to celebrate the oldschool metal scene. The influences are as obvious as they are filthy. Bands like Venom, Bathory, Celtic Frost have a deep impact in our minds and in our tunes.

Are the members of Wan metalheads of long standing, or is this a recent discovery?

We are four old bastards who have been breathing, eating and crapping metal for ages!

What other types of music do you or have you in the past listened to?

Some of us emerged from the early punk I guess. Personally I enjoyed different types of music as a youngster. Depeche Mode was a band that I liked a lot, and I still think some of their earlier stuff is great.

Coming from Sweden, which is a tiny country from which many important metal bands come, it seems it might be difficult to get known, like the bar is higher. How do you hope to overcome this?

As you say, there’s a lot of quality bands hailing from our dark regions. To be honest there’s even more shitty bands as well that, in my opinion, never should have been! So yeah, there’s quite a competition in the scene, but we’re not going to do anything other than to let our music speak for itself. Some people will enjoy our filth, some will be ignorant bastards.

Were the members of Wan active in other bands or artistic activities before Wan? Can you tell us about these?

We have all been in numerous bands and acts throughout the years. The list would be long and bore your readers out of their minds! It has been various styles anyway, but always metal or dark music in one way or another. Also at the present time we keep ourselves busy by playing in other bands. Not gonna ramble any names though… If you’re interested you’ll find out.

This is an awkward question, but I must ask: why do you classify Enjoy the Filth as black metal when it sounds more like late-period hardcore? Do you know of any other black metal releases that sound
like this, and how do you separate them from hardcore bands like Driller Killer, Disfear, etc?

Hmm… we obviously don’t share the same musical references. There’s a lot of punk influences within our music, but all in all I’d say that we sound a whole lot like Venom, classic Bathory and Darkthrone. Rock ‘n’ roll blackmetal that fuck bands like those you mention in the ass!

Enjoy the Filth inspired me because it seems very deliberate; there are no random riffs or bits out of place. How do you write songs, and what’s your “quality control” process?

The songwriting is more like a beerswinging metal process. We just meet up and create our songs more or less spontaneously. This is who we are and the kind of filth we have inside of us, so it comes rather naturally.

How does Enjoy the Filth differ from your earlier release, Wolves of the North?

It differs in the sense of production and that the drum-machine thankfully got a knee in the crotch, and Dimman did one hell of a job! Music and lyricwise it don’t alter that much.

Do you think as a practical matter that a black metal scene still exists, or has it been absorbed by other forms of music?

The underground scene as it once was doesn’t exist today. Still there’s a big metal scene in Sweden even if the focus lies elsewhere these days. The genuine music and minds involved will never be absorbed or replaced by any other forms, and will forever stand strong!

What’s next for Wan? Will you tour on Enjoy the Filth, and/or write more music?

We sure hope and aim to go out on some live performances. A few organizers has showed interest. And perhaps we’ll get together and spit out some new material in the inspiration of the approaching dark cold winter.

If someone wanted to understand Wan, what bands and albums would you recommend they understand first?

Early Venom, Bathory, Hellhammer, Celtic Frost as mentioned before. If you would prefer some more “up to date” bands, I’d recommend you to torture your ears with acts like Aura Noir and Styggelse.

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