KEN mode - Venerable (2011)

This album starts off with a monstrous throbbing

bass and then just blasts off into a massive mix

of Sludge/Noise-Rock and Post-Hardcore.

With Kurt Ballou of Converge on production,

KEN mode pummel your brain with feedback,

killer distorted riffs and dynamics that keep

everything heavy and threatening.

Rather than just keep to one tempo - they go from

fast aggression to slow menace, giving the tunes an

identity which makes a change from an album that

just blurs into one song played 10 times!

Amongst the faster, bone braking songs, sits the 8

minute "Never Was". It starts off with feedback

and droned guitar strings and then a heavy riff

starts playing over and over which builds up in

intensity until the shuddering climax which has

"No god, never was" screamed over the top.

If you were slightly let down when "Modern Bodies"

by Chickenhawk came out last year, you could do worse

than to give this a listen. This will be going into my

album of the year list.

Buy from Bandcamp

Band Info

Pure Hell - Noise Addiction (1978)

I saw these guys in '78, brought the single "These

Boots Are Made For Walking" and then they went

back to the USA and slipped of my radar.

They should of been huge - great stage presence,

catchy as fuck songs, a guitar player who buzz-sawed

riffs and solos all over the place and a sneery vocalist

who could of sung for the Dead Boys.

Back in 2005, this CD came out with tracks I had never

seen before. they had recorded an album worths of

material in '78 but only now had it been released.

If you wanna hear a cross between the Damned & Dead Boys,

give this a listen.

Curtis Knight - the guy who hired Hendrix to play as a backing

guitarist, produced the single!

Band Info

Awake In Sleep - Awake In Sleep EP (2011)

This is a request from the band "Awake In Sleep"

The album is a massive, epic slab of Sludge/Post-metal

and it demands to be played loud.

Although very heavy throughout, the production

ensures that nothing gets lost in the mix, giving

the atmospheric passages a real sense of foreboding,

setting the scene for the explosive climaxes.

Distorted guitars riff away with the pounding rhythm

section and the throaty vocals - which switch now and

then to clean - will please any Cult of Luna fan.

For a 1st release, this is powerful stuff and along with

"Alaskan", this band are are the new wave of Post-metal

bands that are not just copying their idols but forging

ahead with their own sound, bringing an almost Hardcore

feel to things.

Recommended.

Download the album free from Bandcamp - Here

Seditius - Album Update

I reviewed this album a couple of months ago -

the band sent me the album and some tracks to stream

but now all the whole songs are available as a free

download from their website - Here

and here is the review I posted:

Got this as a request from an Italian DIY record label -

Rancore Records.

Seditius play some great hardcore - think Coliseum but

with some rock/stoner influenced riffing going on.

Rather than just trashing out chords, they throw in

fantastic varied tunes - guitar runs, clean breaks, solos

along with a bass sound that would not sound out of place

on the 1st Motorhead album.

This is good shit!

Electric Wizard - High Voltage review 2011

Electric Wizard were stuck in

Oslo and could not turn up ...

much like this review!

Good Rock Music - Compilation

This is a collection of tracks I felt like putting together. No agenda or

real theme, just some songs that flow together well and have a vague

footing in the world of rock music.

So - are you listening? - just footstomping rock music that I like,

nothing new or 'core or post anything.

Track Listing:

Doctor Doctor - UFO

Eight Miles High - Husker Du

Safe European Home - The Clash

Sick of You - The Stooges

Vital Hours - The Outsiders

Bullet with Butterfly Wings - Smashing Pumpkins

Crazy Horses - The Osmonds

Heads Explode - Monster Magnet

God of Thunder - Kiss

It's Not Funny Anymore - Husker Du

Touch Too Much - AC/DC

Goodbuy T'Jane - Slade

Keep Us On The Road - Motorhead

Toiler On The Sea - The Stranglers

Eighties - Killing Joke

Sound of Destruction - The Cult

Religious Wars - The Subhumans

Youth Youth Youth - Generation X

Ashes to Ashes - Faith No More

Moon Over Marin - Dead Kennedys

dead link

Brain Donor - Wasted Fuzz Excessive (2009)

Sound effects of rain and wind start up over which

some spoken words drift through. A heavy, simple

bass starts to riff 2 notes over and over, to be joined

with sparse drumming.

Distorted solos start to play, sporadic at first and

then louder and longer - it's a full fuzz sound, proto-

metal crossed with acid blues, full of atonal notes

like a wigged out VU solo.

The drums are starting up - full on beats and the bass

is now playing a complicated fill and everything is

really pounding along when it drops down to a mellatron

drone, very lush and spiritual, slow guitar picking, very early

floyd, ghostly vocals start that get more manic that fade away

to the sparse motif that started this tune.

............... and this is only the first song!

Brain Donor is a band fronted by Julian Cope and seems

only to exist so he can just fucking rock out. The High Drude

plays krautrock joined with the MC5 and Sabbath.

Oh yeah and a cover of the New York Dolls classic "Frankenstein"

Some '60's feel keyboards but mainly if you want to hear

acid drenched guitar rock workouts - dead link.

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Moanin' (1958)

Hard Bop from drummer Art Blakey and his collective

of jazz hungry band members.

You don't come here for a lecture on Blue Note

recordings - you need a fix of guitars and shouting

but maybe this description will stop you from going

to an inferior blog - see, my faithful download monkeys,

how I look after you.

This is groovy, swinging cool shit - imagine an early '60s

gritty detective film - black and white of course - with

say, Steve McQueen wearing a black polo necked sweater,

posing in an open topped, impossibly desirable muscle car,

having just offed the bad dudes, on his way to see his chic but

sexy girlfriend where they will smoke cigarettes in such a way

that you will want to start smoking yourself.

This would be the soundtrack.

Band Info

Botch - 061502 (2006)

This is a recording of the last ever Botch

gig - it came out as a DVD/CD set and this

is the CD part of that.

The bands that emerged from the ashes

were: These Arms Are Snakes, Minus the

Bear, Narrows and Russian Circles, which

give you an idea of how influential Botch

became.

With hardcore heaviness, they tore apart

song structures and time signatures and

are certainly to be credited with turning

people onto math-rock with lashings 0f

thoughtful metal.

But beating at the heart of this wonderful,

twisted monster was hardcore/ punk +

whatever "post" prefix you wish to attach.

This boasts a "best of set list" and the live

recording is pretty good.

Band Info

Kiss - Destroyer (1976)

How is a "Classic" album defined?

My blog - my rules, so:

Every track should be fantastic, no fillers and

certainly no points at which the flow begins to

meander or lose impetus.

Everything is perfect from the artwork

to the order the tracks are in.

The album will never lose its place in your

musical heart - you may not play it for a year

or so but when you do, it is like a friend who

will never let you down ..... how unlike life!

And most importantly, it should be able to transport

your emotions to a different place - as soon as the 1st

track starts, it will calm you down, get you ready to go

out, prepare you for a fight, make you drive like a lunatic,

help you to take off the electronic tag and go stalking again -

whatever you need to do, the classic album is there in times

of need.

In the mid seventies, Bob Erzin produced three albums, that

for me, I consider to be classics.

They are:

Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies

Lou Reed - Berlin

and todays offering - "Destroyer" by Kiss.

Orthodox - Baal (2011)

Being pretty new to this sort of genre, I can only

describe as I see it and if the descriptions are not

proper like, complain to Sludge Swamp when they

get up on-line again!

Experimentalish Doom? That's what I am going with.

Lots of tribal drumming, shit loads of heavy riffs

and some drones which I think are coming from the bass.

The tracks feel very free flowing but never turn into

aimless jamming - the distorted guitar helps to pin

down the song which the thundering rhythm section

pummel into submission.

This album is only five tracks long, giving them time

to get almost trance like with the riffs circling around

a spiral of textured, fuzzed-out, slightly psychedelic

mantras but don't worry, the powerful vocals stop any

thoughts of hippy-dippy shit spoiling your day.

Band Info

The Danger of Being Bored at Work

Across the road from where I work, there is a Community

Notice Board. I glued these posters up early in the morning

over the course of several days and sat back to watch peoples

reactions from the safety of my window.

The CCTV poster had some people trying to smash the camera

above their heads - of course they were not being monitored

- it was just a Speed Trap camera pointing about 250 feet

from where they were!

The Drunk Bus Driver poster had the police and about 15

blokes from London Transport scraping the poster off the

board + 3 buses that would not move until it was gone! I

promise that I was not responsible for the RMT going on

strike last month!

The Slag Alert Poster worked beyond my wildest dreams.

It had a crowd of about 11 youths all reading it when one

teenager on a bike went fucking nuts!

He started to scream "Who did THIS"! over and over again,

followed by "No one does this to me", took out a knife and

started to attack the poster - stabbing and cutting the paper

to shreds, not noticing that it was pasted onto glass with the

inevitable results of then being showered with shards of wreckage!

I think it took about 3 days for me to stop laughing - was it something I said?

Aaaaaah - happy days!

Rabbits - Lower Forms (2011)

Rabbits like their music raw and crunchy with a

sludge undertone.

Aggressive and heavy, elements of doom are

mixed up with a pleasing amount of hardcore.

Plenty of distortion and pounding drums give

a tribal feel to the songs but there is still a lot

of atmosphere to be had, especially when the

slow passages kick in.

Murky and dirty riffs crawl their way out of

the mire and like The Melvins output, worm

their way into tunes that never stop being

uber-powerful.

Band Info

Wayne Kramer - The Hard Stuff (1995)

Brother Wayne keeps the spirit of the MC5 alive

and kicking with this album that is packed with

full on punk rock'n'roll.

His quite rightly revered guitar playing is at full

throttle here, powerful and solid, no fancy fretboard

wankery, just heavy grooves that pack a punch.

He handles all the vocals with passion and gives

a spoken word performance on "Incident on Stock

Island" over fantastic guitar that could of been quite

boring in other hands but is delivered with humour

and style, making you live the story he is telling.

Most songs are short, solid slabs of hard edged rock

but with a gritty punk feel which show that this veteran

of the Detroit sonic scene is far from rolling over and

becoming a byline in musical history.

Anyone with an interest in the MC5 should give this a listen.

A Storm of Light - As The Valley of Death Becomes Us, Our Silver Memories Fade (2011)

A Storm of Light have always threatened to break

out of the post-rock genre and with this album,

have blown it out of the water.

With songs that do not just rely on loud/soft

passages, this brings in Sludge/Doom, experimental

ambient and big doses of metallic heaviness.

Bringing in Kim Thayli from Soundgarden to wail

his trademark riffing over some of the tracks gives

an almost traditional rock feel to them, stopping the

meandering that can bog down so many post-rock songs.

Don't get me wrong, the tracks are still long but much

more focused and intense.

Josh Graham's distintive vocals are very much evident

and the drumming from Billy Graves approaches epic

proportions.

The overall feel to the album is of controlled menace

with shuddering bursts of power.

If you like this band, be prepared to like them even more.

If you have never really got into this sort of stuff, give it

a listen as I cannot see anyone else coming up with something

to better this until the long awaited new Neurosis comes out.

Band Info