Slavic Black Metal Attack no. 2

Watching a blackness spin before me - cyclical altar, cylinder sorcery rituals

Flowing of victims' (((speakers))) blood unto my sonic tissues

Audio-entrancement meditation

Occult fantasy, mysterious woods

Of the mind, darkened catacomb of the soul

Dream wanderings through obscured landscapes

Ancient spells resonate lost walls, instruments possessed by evil winds

Deviant dirges of time immemorial wed with symphonic sacrament

Arias to haunt the graves of your thoughts

A winding way

POWER

All you do is talk, you never act

Hyprocrite, and that's a fact

Visions of unity seem so nice

When I see a fight, I think twice

When I go to shows, see the stupidity

All I can think is "where's the unity?"

VIOLENCE

GET ON YOUR KNEES AND WORSHIP, WORSHIP, WORSHIP

Don't let some philosophizing USBM bull-shit artist sweet talk their way into your studded leathers with their false second-wave Scandinavian scholasticism. Don't be fooled when they expound about how their band's bloated drumming, ooey gooey choclate-chip guitar tone and cookie-cutter shrieks are really some existential distillation of "true Norwegian black metal". Don't let them get away with idiotically professing "De Mysteriis Dom Satanas is the best thing Attila ever did". Instead put this on and watch them cringe at the acoustic intros, the keyboard bridges and major-scale riffs played over top thrashing proto-blast gallops in fluctuating tempos. Then watch the stupid blank look they get when they ask "who is this?" and you tell them it's Tormentor, Attila's first band, and their 1988 debut Anno Domini. It is the only CD Mayhem sold on their 2007 North American tour when you had yourself entranced by the dark master himself, hypnotizing you with a noose from the stage and convincing you that any evil command he made of you, you would follow. Apparently Mayhem are on tour again. Go see them, if not for the aforementioned experience then at least to get yourself a physical copy of this under-praised masterpiece of first wave black metal. This is beyond transcendence, this is perfection.

Beyond

Canadian Metal Classics Pt. 3

Alright, so it would seem that much more metal is in order this month as we didn't get to cover that much in the past while and I'm sure many of you have catching up to do, especially when it comes to the underappreciated and essential contributions that my country made to the international scene in the '80s. Today we have a hacked up corpse of cross-genre mutilation a la Sacrifice and their 1985 debut Torment In Fire. This is probably one of the most porgressive releases of its day, managing to seamlessly weave together the unhinged chaos of later speed metal, the caveman destruction of early death metal and frenetic thrash metal riffing, all together with an HC-informed "we don't give a fuck" approach. Sacrifice's sheer disregard for metal's growing conformity to subgenre stereotypes at the time makes them indispensible in the carving of the jagged void from which later death metal and second wave black metal would spew forth. In many senses this is to me one of the very first Black/Thrash/Death records as it so liberally blurs it's wide range of influences. One facet that literally screams this are Urbinati's completely ludicrous vocals. Along with an audible Tom Araya in his raspy rapid-fire verse delivery, we can hear one of the first death growls developing in some songs (such as 'Burned at the Stake') while it is his high-pitched shreiks that clearly place Rob in a far darker universe from us. Perhaps the most provocatively morbid sounds suggested on this record are those of the cacophonous rhythm section who not only bring a scraping and frantic punk feel to the performances but also seem to foreshadow the militaristic rhythms found in later Canadian 'War metal' acts like Revenge and Conqueror. See the openings to songs such as "Homicidal Breath" and "Infernal Visions" or the bridge of "Necronomicon" for examples of this. While these are only suggestions of the blackened insanity that my country would unleash unto the world in the coming decades, you will see the aesthetic even further developed in a later post of this retrospective series. But for now, dim the lights, draw the pentagram in chalk on the floor, grab a beer and bang your head as you're possessed by this piece of killer-canuck carnage!
  

 TURN IN YOUR GRAVE

Rocktober's over: The Final Curtain Call

Here are the last three essential records turning 30 this year, not to say there aren't more but these are the ones that really matter to me at the moment. Feel free to complain in the comments section about my oversights. The first two of these I held off posting because I couldn't easily find download links, but then I thought you know what, everyone needs to own these. If you don't already know easily the most legendary hardcore release of the 80s or the most popular interpreter of Berlin-era Bowie/Iggy then you have plenty of research to do.
The Raincoats are a different case, what an underrated band! I had my first exposure to them at their POP Montreal performance this year which, while it only came close to blowing my mind but was undeniably badass and got me really excited to dive in to their back-catalogue. This record in particular is so far beyond most of the rest of the 'radical' music coming out of England at the time. For all those that assumed (like I did) the Raincoats to be another '77 retro punk outfit whose novelty was being composed of lady punkers you're way off. This record somehow manages to bridge the gaps between mid to late 70s avant-rock experimentalists like Fred Frith and Henry Cow with the progressive pop sensibilities of a Robert Wyatt and a dry, generally guitar-driven post-punk recording aesthetic. On top of it all these gals endow the performances here with effortless displays of 20th-century-classical training and involved knowledge of exotic idioms which gives an early world music edge to the compositions. Combined with the heart-on-their-record-sleeve politics, this album is one that requires far more championing than its got.

Odyshape