Leng Tch'e - Too Stupid To Live

Riff mark: It's not really that long

"Blaahhhh blaahhhh blahhhh blah
Blaahhhh blaahhhh blahhhh blah
Blaahhhh blaahhhh blahhhh blah
Blaahhhh blaahhhh blahhhh blah"

There's your lyric sheet. 

Dat Haiku Tho: Nailbomb - Vai Toma No Cu

Nineteen ninety eight

You should have gone back to this

Max Cavalera

Listen to "Point Blank" on YouTube

John Zorn's Naked City - Torture Garden

0:00 mark (just take all in).

In 1988, avante garde jazz composer John Zorn was living in Japan and decided he wanted to "test the limitations of a rock band format". This led to the formation of Naked City, a band that actually tests the limits of the human ears instead. Most of the players on Naked City's records are John Zorn's usual go-to guys, except for singer/screamer/psychotic wailer Yamantaka Eye, at the time of Japanese noise/performance art band, Hanatarash(i) and later of the Boredoms.

Eye is notorious in Japan for his wild stage antics and general insanity such as having sawed a dead cat in half on stage, strapping a circular saw to his back and almost severing his leg and even partially destroying a venue by driving a bulldozer through a rear wall and onto the stage. His performances with Naked City are no less strange vocally, although his disregard for public safety had dissipated. The vocals on these records are some of the most ear splitting caterwauling heard this side of a burning NICU. Drummer Joey Baron is also notable as being fast as lightning and despite playing mostly jazz, his blast beats put most drummers from that and any era to shame.

The music, is equivalent to driving down a New York City sidewalk, with all the windows down at high speed during mid day rush hour. An amalgamation of jazz, grind, surf, lounge music and numerous other genres thrown into a blender. Dropping the needle on this one is like opening the lid to that blender while it is still running, spraying its contents all over the room. 

All of their output is different, yet shares similarities and is of course aurally challenging. But Naked City's influence is clear once you make it half way through the record, as you can hear the foreshadowing of bands such as The Dillinger Escape Plan in the short less than one minute blasts. Mike Patton was so influenced by the band that he fronted the band for several shows in 1991 and 2003 in addition to guesting on Naked City and Painkiller (another Zorn band) records and forming a side project called Hemophiliac with Zorn.

If you are able to make it through Torture Garden, try out some of these.

Listen to "Leng T'che" on YouTube

Listen to "Radio" on YouTube

Also, Here's a slide show of Hanatarash(i)'s bulldozer gig as a bonus.

Dat Haiku Tho: Magrudergrind - 211

Three dudes who grind

What a weird name for a band

Steel Reserve is gross

Magrudergrind - 62 Trax of Thrash 2002-2005

In Spirit of 3/11 Day

AxCx - Morbid Florist...all of it

 Riff mark - oh man

Boy. Positives first: it’s very likely the loudest album of 1992. It has slightly better recording values than Scum. Also, it’s not John Zorn. Negatives: eighteen minutes of sixty-minute noise. Blast beats over distorted guitars, played with sugar-and-Steel-Reserve attention spans mirroring those of vocalist Seth Putnam, a post-GG inverted artist who thrives on inside jokes and bigotry. I don’t know what he’s getting at, he just squeals indiscernibly all the fucking time on Morbid Florist, in what could debatably be the greatest (I use this adjective loosely) vocal performance in this subcategory of metal, or something like metal and hardcore and grindcore (whatever, they’re signed to Earache). These are troubled kids not giving a flip. Monotony + general disdain for fan base = these gems for song titles: Some Songs, Even More Songs, Some More Songs, Song #5, Song #6, Slow Song from Split 7”. I think one of those stretches five minutes and the rest are less than one. Fine, it’s a blur that starts and stops, then the track number on my CD changer bumps a digit. Laughed at the EMF and Eddy Grant covers, if you can call them that. God, I’ve written too much about this stuff and now unify with a niche that spends more time analyzing the band than the band does tapping creative veins. AxCx is an irregular triad of grindcore, performance art, and comedy. Music by a thread; as long as it holds sticks, strings, and microphones, it requires expectations.

Today is the Day - Honor

 Riff mark: 0:00

Probably Today is the Day’s most accessible album, thanks in part to Steve Austin’s best rhythm section ever in bassist Bill Kelliher and stellar drummer Brann Dailor (later anchors to dem boys in Mastodon).  Still, In the Eyes of God is way beyond progressive, a carcinogenic void of music where noises from throats and strings fuse curiously to Keith Moon-like drum fills. Austin (his band, his recording, his production) writes half his riffs with the puzzling aggression of carnival music, the other half falling through the gratings below to Bill and Brann to salvage and make into the better moments of Eyes. So, even when it doesn’t work, it’s still acceptable as genius, and personalities are really working in Austin’s favor this time around. Ultimately, another one of those label-defying companion pieces to Pig Destroyer’s Prowler in the Yard and Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s Frozen Corpse Stuffed with Dope. Twenty tracks, pieced intricately and linearly, creative and aware, threatening respect, gracious for it all the same. The early 2000’s were full of grind-ish-core albums from this niche. Not complaining. Icky album cover by Paul Booth (who else?)

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - North American Corpse Desecration

Riff mark: 00:23

The immediate problem with Frozen Corpse Stuffed With Dope can be identified in less than 45 seconds, in which everything humanly possible is crammed in song as quickly as possible. Scott Hull (Pig Destroyer, Anal Cunt, everything) is 16^th-noting like he’s systematically punching away at calculator keys, the drum machines are programmed at such a ridiculous speed its robotic nature is amplified, and the vocals…well, I believe there are four people behind them? It's like a Greek chorus of grindcore pain. Not sure which kingly saint to slap over politically-incorrect lyrics such as “you’re real gay about pussy” and “all I’m buying a bitch is a bag of shit to choke on.” (I’ll exclude bassist Richard Johnson, an old friend and pen pal from the grind scene, from being a culprit) Whatever the point may be, agoraphobic, claustrophobic, xenophobic, pentaphobic (to quote Lucy Van Pelt), Frozen Corpse is scared of everything and addresses everything by playing everything. And, as a doctrine to the altered states of America (more on that later, if you have the right tray in your CD player), it’s a brilliant record, a tortured newscaster turned apocalyptic prophet not unlike Peter Finch in Network (weird film parallel). But sadly, the riffs ain’t there, and it’s more concept than album. ANB proves to be Scott’s drug addicted infant, and Pig Destroyer remains his honor-role child. Too many Holy Mountain (movie, not Sleep album) samples. Too many samples, period.

Napalm Death - You Suffer

Riff mark: uhh

Jeez, I dunno. I guess your perception of Scum is reliant on roots and beliefs. If you played or attended shows with lots of crust/grind/power-violence bands growing up and subscribed to the DIY punk-rock ethic, then this is your grail, your crucifix to ward nay-sayers, and arguably the single most important album by which your standards mimic. Otherwise (and here comes the flood of great criticism), Scum is an unrelatable, alienating work of anti-genius, made by geniuses who would springboard to greater, influential rockers, such as Godflesh, Carcass, Cathedral, and (huzzah!) a more improved Napalm Death. Side One and Side Two swap all members but drummer Mick Harris (fun trivia: no original members exist in the band in 2015). Most crust-kids prefer Side Two to One, but I prefer side One for these reasons: I slightly like Nicholas Bullen’s vocals over Lee Dorrian’s (apples to oranges), and after 10 minutes of Side One, I’m too exhausted to  bother with a second half. So, what does Scum sound like? I don’t know. Tell me. Skip to early 90’s for better Napalm Death, and add Terrorizer’s World Downfall and Brutal Truth’s Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses for supplemental (easier) listening.

Pig Destroyer - Hyperviolet

Just listen to the whole damned thing

Upon writing this review I stopped referring to Prowler In The Yard as an album, and used the word realm in its omission. A sickeningly hateful, unashamed realm, blanketing nothing, leaving the bloodied toolshed unaltered for the forensics team. No forced Cannibal Corpse or Broken Hope or Devourment album has ever felt like a point-a-to-point-b visual transcript of a chainsaw massacre. Everything, from the freakish, grisly front cover (courtesy of super-talented Paul Booth, the tattooist with a waitlist longer than a Sleep album), to the surreal, drugged intro and outro, and the unshakeable nightmare sandwiched in between, is unsettling and feverish. Lyricist/vocalist/obvious-creative-writing-major J.R. Hayes envisions this realm through shivers of ghastly images, captured through bulbs of flash photography, screams bursting into white blindness. Scott Hull, the sole guitarist (no bass) is the deceiver, wrapping his large, barbed-wire guitar strings around the ears many times, audibly resulting in what sounds like a trio of axes. Rounding out the trio with spastic, hyperblasting drummer Brian Harvey, Piggy D defies not only the conventions of death metal and grindcore (I still don’t know what to call this realm), but defies the logic of how many and how and a band should work. Twenty-two tracks on this realm and I can’t tell when the first eighteen start and stop, which is very intentional, as sometimes, a good story should remain unpredictable, all while Hull’s riffs, its actors, are too convincing. One thumb down for song Trojan Whore, a too-close-for-comfort rip-off of Honey Bucket by The Melvins, an obscurity only those who nitpick will despise. Favorite track: Hyperviolet, a perfect, abbreviated summation of said realm, for those both squeamish and in a rush.