Extreme Music Portal

Album Reviews Online!

2009-03-16T10:28:00.001-07:00

what's up, people?

you can read my review of Lamb of God's Wrath album at the kosmoblog.

Also, my paid review of FossilEyes by lesser-known prog heads The Red Masque is up at Squid's Ear.

sadly i'
ve been kicked off the WFMU blog, but my post there can be seen here and here.

also, in a month of so my Cynic/Meshuggah/The Faceless concert experience will be made available through The Brooklyn Rail.

we're bringing it back here soon, so stay tuned.

-Joseph

We're Moving!

2009-02-20T09:44:00.000-08:00

i am pleased to announce that the extreme music portal blog has beena dopted by Radio WFMU's (in)famous Beware of the Blog! from now on i'll be posting the main music articles there, and leaving more personal things on here. everything will be cross listed, so just bear with me during the transition.

in the meantime, check the reast of WFMU out at:
http://blog.wfmu.org/

Extreme Album of the Week; Demanufacture by Fear Factory

2009-02-16T11:34:00.000-08:00

Extreme Album of the Week #4 Demanufacture by Fear Factory, (1995, Roadrunner)

Extreme Album of the week is a feature where I will be giving thoughts and impressions on an extreme music classic that I have not heard at length. I will research these albums heavily as I listen, and attempt to educate as well as reflect on the nature of these albums. Last week I listened to Carcass’ Necroticism. This week, I follow that album’s producer Colin Richardson, who has had a very prolific career in metal, to his work with Fear Factory on Demanufacture their most popular album.

All the previous Albums of the Week have been successes in terms of their acclaim within the metal underground and the legacy they left behind. Demanufacture is a step away from that—it was not only a popular album on its release, but from the get-go is obviously aimed at a more commercial audience. The riffs are huge, crisp, angular, and performed in a groovy fashion. Most of the guitar parts border on oversimplified, but excel in the kind of exacting brutality that modern deathcore bands are trying to emulate. Keep in mind this album was released in Pantera’s heyday, when this style of metal was making bundles of cash with disaffected teenagers. Add Industrial sound effects, keyboard passages, and effect-laden clean vocals to that mix and the result is a fairly mainstream metal disc, despite its inspired guitars. Fear Factory’s sound is a clear influence and precursor to the work of Static-X and Linkin Park, who piloted similar sounds to MTV success.

For what it’s worth I’ll take Fear Factory over Linkin Park any day.

Fear Factory never achieved the same level of notoriety outside metal circles, possibly due to the weaknesses of vocalist Burton C. Bell. He has a perfectly workable throat growl—always intense but never indecipherable—that takes a few pages from Max Cavalera’s style guide. They work best when nearly emulating Motorhead on “New Breed.” His clean singing passages however leave something to be desired. They try to emulate the droning baritone growls of gothic and post-punk artists like Andrew Eldtritch (The Sisters of Mercy) and Ian Curtis (Joy Division), but tend to fall flat. This weakness was clearly known to the band and producer; the vocals are often supersaturated with studio effects that never really address Bell’s limitations. The lone exception to this trend is Fear Factory’s genuinely good (if a bit uninspired) cover of “Dog Day Sunrise” originally by Head of David (another side project of Justin Broadrick).

More impressive, but still suspect, is the precision drumming of Raymond Herrera. All of his parts are clinical, cold, and absolutely ruthless in their employ of rapid double-bass drumming, which suits the music’s Industrial sound quite well. Hererra used both live drums and an electronic kit to cue percussion effects to great effects on tracks like “Body Hammer.” Unfortunately Herrera is not Gene Hoglan (Death, Strapping Young Lad) and cannot use the double bass at breakneck speed without numerous drum triggers. This causes some truly monotonous and tinny drum passages that more often than not end up sounding like a click track. A few more snazzy fills and bouts of odd meter would have granted the otherwise strong instrumental parts some vitality.

The lyrics as well leave a bit to be desired. Wikipedia and various forum threads would have you believe Demanufacture is a concept album, inspired by the movie Terminator of all things, about a lone man’s struggle against a machine government. The thought goes that this lyrical theme comments on the nature of the music itself and vice-versa, making for a more intense listening experience. There’s little support for this claim in the lyrics. The references to technology come secondary to diatribes about self loathing and misanthropy, and the only real references to Terminator are on the track “H-K (Hunter-Killer).” These themes of conflict with technology have been covered more intelligently by Meshuggah over the course of several albums, but it’s interesting to hear the subject taken in a more personal, less intellectual fashion.

Demanufacture is more than anything a product of its time, the gray days of metal in the 1990’s that produced a few genuine masterpieces and a whole lot of rubbish. Fear Factory’s mix of Pantera and Ministry sounds dated now, possibly because Ministry themselves mastered the style a few years ago. But the group’s unflinching devotion to fusing brutality and a melodic sensibility pays off in moments. Demanufacture begs to be loved for its faults, not in spite of them, and never falls completely flat. Fear Factory have spent their career since this album attempting to refine its formula, but none of their subsequent albums have become as well reviewed as this one. Demanufacture is polished and professionally crafted, but flawed; in short a conversation piece.

Ironically enough that polished quality was one of the biggest conflicts making the album. Producer Monte Connor originally mixed the disc, but his mix did not satisfy the band. Colin Richardson ended up producing the final mix of Demanufacture, but Monte Connor also had a successful career as a metal producer. Next week I will look at another work of his, Sepultura’s Beneath the Remains.

Extreme Album of the Week; Necroticism, by Carcass

2009-02-08T14:19:00.000-08:00

Extreme Album of the Week #3 Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious by Carcass, (1991, Earache)

Extreme Album of the week is a feature where I will be giving thoughts and impressions on an extreme music classic that I have not heard at length. I will research these albums heavily as I listen, and attempt to educate as well as reflect on the nature of these albums. Last week I listened to Napalm Death’s debut, Scum. This week I followed guitarist Bill Steer from that band to his equally seminal project Carcass, pioneers of grindcore and melodic death metal .

So the last two albums of the week have been debuts, and the previous debut was a grindcore release. When I picked this album I thought it was time to change things up a little bit: Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious is the third album by Carcass. While it’s arguably not as influential as their first two discs or Heartwork, it has a reputation of quality. Carcass were never really a band to repeat themselves: each of their albums is distinct in style and sound.

Necroticism is the band’s only “straightforward” death metal album. Some notable features are that it deals almost exclusively with longform death metal (the shortest song is four minutes, most exceed five, the longest is over seven) at a time when death metal was still rooted in short songs for the most part. In the same vein, Necroticism is rife with complex time signature changes and multi-part songs. Combine these factors and the album’s almost-conceptual nature—every song follows the theme of creative ways to dispose of body parts—and the album seems almost progressive if it weren’t so damn brutal. Just a cursory listen to album opener “Inpropagation” offers insight into where modern bands like Between the Buried & Me get ideas for their off-the-cuff time shifting.

The album is uniquely Carcass, with all of the band’s trademarks. Least easily recognized but maybe most important are Carcass’ infamous lyrics, all of which are culled from research into clinical pathology journals and require the presence of a professional coroner, or at least a med school textbook, to understand. All of this wonderful imagery is added to with voice clips of medical professionals describing gruesome murders during the intro of every song. Yes it’s ssentially the same slut-maiming that Cannibal Corpse does, but the vocabulary at least gives it an illusion of intelligence, as well as adds another layer of mystique to the music that begs further inquiry and study. All these lyrics are of course handled wonderfully courtesy of Bill Steer’s vomitous growls, and particularly Jeff Walker’s shrieks. This vocal duo is capable, creatively used, and obviously a huge influence on modern extreme metal bands.

Another standout feature of the album is its use of solos; the band had recently added second guitarist Michael Ammott to the lineup, allowing Steer to cut loose with a few truly blistering leads (“Incarnated Solvent Abuse”). At times the two of them will unite their sound in a style very reminiscent of early-80’s Iron Maiden, octave harmony and all. People say Heartwork was really the ignition-point for the melodic death metal phase, but I really see a great deal of melody in the lead work. There’s even a near-accoustic passage toward the end of “Pedigree Butchery.” In many ways, with all these touches and a focus on big, meaty riffs, this death metal album feels a lot like the great late-80’s thrash giant records. The intro to “Incarnated Solvent Abuse” is as pit-friendly as Reign in Blood ever was.

But one very important thing separates it from those amazing records: Necroticism gets boring. A lot. The album is literally so stuffed full of riffs and solos that for every slab of molten gold there’s three you could do without. The album’s only eight tracks long, but nearly lasts a whole hour. An editor’s scalpel should most definitely have been added to Carcass’s surgery toolkit. I realize the kind of ambition the band had for even attempting this album was groundbreaking at the time, but people have clearly learned from Carcass and improved upon parts of the design. To be fair, the last three songs on the record are just about perfect, but even the great achievement that is “Inpropagation” could stand to cut some of the fat. None of this discounts the record from being good—as a matter of fact it is very good, but for every step toward brilliance there’s a sloppy moment or two that seem all the worse in comparison to the shining achievements here. For being such a unique album—full of brutal, prog, grind, death, and thrash—it really does feel quite generic for a huge stretch of time.

Still I think every metal musician, particularly any death metal guitarist, should give Necroticism a spin or two. It seems like the kind of record that is more fun to play along with than listen to. It’s the kind of record that inspires ideas and arrangements, but just like the medical textbooks that obviously went into its creation, can get a bit dry.

Next week I’m going to follow Carcass’ producer, metal legend Colin Richardson to a later album, this one a breakthrough hit for a band constantly poison on mainstream success that just could never attain it. Next week is Fear Factory’s Demanufacture.
-Joseph Schafer

Concert Impressions: Anthrax

2009-02-07T10:48:00.000-08:00

Concert Impressions: Anthrax,
February 5, 2009. East River Park, New York, NY

There are articles that take a long time, that take hours of reflection and pages of writing to get a truly great impression of.

This is not one of them.

This event was terrible, mostly for reasons completely outside the band’s hands.

The event was the Red Bull Snow Scrapers competition, which is basically just a silly way of saying: red bull paying snowboarders to make asses of themselves in public. regardless of my personal dislike for snowboarders, i was impressed by the massive artificial ramps constructed for the boarders.

Anthrax was scheduled to play right when the snowboarders finished their runs at nine. It was pretty quickly apparent this would not happen. The boarders had gone on far too long. Eventually, at around nine thirty, an excited crowd cheered when one of the finalists fell off the ramp, before sinking into near-violence when the judges decided to give the young athlete another shot.

I’m sorry, but if a professional poker player were to tip his hand on national television, he would be disqualified. If this kid were a professional, he would have walked away and demanded to be treated like an adult.

Regardless, Anthrax finally manages to take the stage a full fifty minutes late. This was not so much of a problem, because the band announced before taking the stage that they would be joined onstage by Chuck D of Public Enemy, for a live rendition of “Bring the Noise.” This was great news.

For those uninformed: Anthrax and Public Enemy’s joint production of “Bring the Noise” was the first real rap-metal fusion song ever, and essentially birthed the entire trend by itself. The bands toured behind the single together in the early nineties and have only sporadically played it since, making it something of a legendary song. Also worth noting is that it may be the best piece of music either band has ever recorded, the song truly slays.

The sound was poorly mixed from the get-go, sacrificing subtlety for volume (unnecessary, the crowd was pretty damn tiny anyway) and putting ridiculously low emphasis on the vocal mic. I was a bit excited to see new Anthrax singer Dan Nelson, who must be eager to prove to fans how well he can fill the shoes of previous lead singers John Bush and Joe Belladonna. Unfortunately all the stage presence in the world adds up to twat when you’ve been muted and neutered by sound men who work for fifteen-year-olds that strap pieces of wood to their shoes and hurtle themselves down mountains.

Anthrax’s set was, taken by itself, alright. They stormed through renditions of “What Doesn't Die” and “Among the Living” with little gusto, but no difficulty, before an actually impressive run-through of “Madhouse.” Overall, the set list thus far was a tad bit disappointing. I have over four hours of Anthrax music I would have rather heard than the first two songs. “Madhouse” is a good choice, but come on, no “Indians”?!

By then it was painfully clear that this would be a short set, and to thunderous applause Anthrax Welcomed Chuck D to the stage who barely managed to bellow a full lyric from “Bring the Noise” before…

… The power was cut.

Obviously nobody onstage could tell, we were still hearing scant volume from the monitors and amps. In fact some people kept moshing anyway, but Chuck was both completely mute and apparently very confused as to why a crowd of loyal new Yorkers were throwing bottles and snowballs as they pointed frantically to their ears. At this point the irony of a mute band playing a song whose chorus is “turn it up, bring the noise” was not lost on me, but was probably what sent the angry mob into riot mode.

After this travesty the crowd turned their anger on the sound man, who very pointedly reminded us that there is a noise ordinance and the shenanigans were the NYPD’s doing.

So here I am, unable to tell you a conclusive thing about an Anthrax show except to quote another early nineties rap group:

Fuck the police.

Concert Reflections; Amebix, Kylesa, Thought Crime, Atakke.

2009-02-04T17:15:00.000-08:00

Concert Reflections; Amebix, Kylesa, Thought Crime, Atakke.
January 29, 2009, Bowery Ballroom, New York NY

The scent of sweat and cigarettes was already heavy in the still air when I walked into the Bowery Balroom for the first time. The venue, which I had read about on a few lists of excellent concert venues and heard rave reviews of from friends in the area, was completely packed with patrons young and old. Some of these people, like myself, were relative extreme music larva, may of them still in high school. Others were the grizzled, bearded and dyed veterans of the first wave of New York hardcore. Io even heard two gentlemen at the bar discussing their ‘old friend’ DeeDee Ramone while I purchased a plastic cup of cool brew. There was a fair amount of hipsters and metalheads in the audience, though most had girl jeans and none wore corpse paint. The joint was hopping; my compatriot and I got the very last tickets, and the website read sold out days in advance.

The gig, as I soon realized, was something of a love note to dyed-in-the-wool punks in honor of returning heroes Amebix, originators of crust punk. All I had heard of Amebix prior was on various playlists, radio programs, and mixtapes/CDs, most of them honoring old school black metal. The only songs that stuck with me (“Largactyl,” “Axemen,” “Winter”) were thick with NWOBHM drums and ancient, decayed atmosphere of the best sort, so even as a relative crust punk virgin I was excited to see them.

The venue was all that was promised; the atmosphere both classy and just run-down enough to be comfortable, not unlike the Overlook Hotel, and the acoustics were superb. Drinks were affordable, but not as cheap as your average night out in Manhattan. The personnel was on the whole cordial and efficient, never distracting but pleasant enough to buy from. Most importantly, the venue was sold out but never too crowded or uncomfortable, just intimate enough to get a feel for the people around me. In short, all you can ask from a venue.

The first group, Attake (pronounced with a somewhat obnoxious French accent), are native to Brooklyn and play a sickening blend of crossov er thrash, hardcore punk, and death metal. Their myspace page shows they’re fans of Toxic Holocaust and Bolt Thrower, but their sound was quite reminiscent of Lamb of God’s brutal Burn The Priest days. There were a few metalcore breakdowns, but overall a high-speed cocktail of post-slayer riffs and alternately screeched and vomited vocals courtesy of their singer, a lovely young lady named “Puke.” She rarely addressed the audience, but one memorable interaction went something like:

“I’d like to thank all you old punks who turned me on” ((Crowd cheers riotously, someone yells for her to disrobe)) “…Turned me on to punk music in high school…”

Overall a fine, but short and largely same-y set. There’s always a fine line to be walked with a female singer in the extreme music “Man’s World,” and Atakke seemed to have a few issues with it. Fortune ately an hour or two later a certain band showed them the ropes in that regard. They are talented though, and with any luck they’ll learn to break out of the opening band/girl singer/ three man circle pit twilight zone.

Their followup, Thought Crime, really got the place jumping in earnest. Playing a riot-inducing mixture of Sex Pistols nihilistic speedpunk, Clash/Dead Kennedys leftist political literacy, and S.O.D. breakneck speed, the group got the people nursing drinks at the bar during Attake frothing at the mouth. Their great strength is lead singer Simon, a handgrenade of an old school punk whose gnarled and wrinkled features, shimmering eyes, and peroxide liberty spikes make for a menacing but charming appearance. He’s everything you’d want to see in an old timer belting out violent diatribes like “All Landlords are Scum!” With charisma bleeding out over the audience, they started numerous circle pits and a healthy amount of stage-diving, all the while keeping the sound clearly audible.

Admittedly, the next band, Kylesa, was who I was really excited to see. After one track on their Last.FM page I was hooked to their blasting southern sludge. Sounding like a happy median between the crushing power of Remisson-era Mastodon and the bright melancholy of Baroness, they kept things slow and emotional, but the crowd violence only escalated… a good sign. I later found out that they share a guitarist with Baroness, and have three lead vocalists, but front and center is their beautiful rhythm guitarist Laura Pleasants. She was reserved, but forceful, with a clear and thunderous bellow coupled with glasslike clean sections. The low end was definitely factor 5, with tight and thick grooves by bassist Corey Barhorst and the interlocking precussion of two polyrhythmic drummers.

Their set was long and heavy, inciting fits of fist raising and aireal headbanging. At times the sheer depth and texture of the music started to play tricks on my mind bordering on hallucination—the music is that good. The youngsters and indie kids came out in full force for this band, which is a good market to hit. I see them playing side stages at Bonnaroo in under five years.

Then came Amebix, thundering onto the stage to the near-black metal gloom of “Winter.”

The crowd involvement at this point was reaching critical mass—quite the opposite of the notoriously standstill crowds New York has a reputation for. Rather than a single pit the flesh and sweat of the viewers became an ocean maelstrom with wavecrests of leather, spikes and dyed hair. The gang-shouts during most of the songs was deafening.

As for the band themselves, they played every song at least well enough that even songs I was unfamiliar with sounded great. They were mostly stationary, relying on the crushing power of their rotten sound to speak for itself without any machismo or posturing. It didn’t hurt that at this time members of Atakke and Through Crime joined the three piece onstage, pulling folks from the audience onstage for brief moments of punk-metal glory before throwing them back into the pit.

The light show was dark, with moments of stroboscopic violence to punctuate a particularly thrashy part of the set , relying on a pallet of greens and blues to play off smoke and set the frostbitten mood.

Vocalist Rob “The Baron” Miller dressed in simple black with an iron cross necklace, used his brooding height to terrorize the audience into action, while driving the songs simply. His voice has gotten better with age: more depth of tone and rage, but a clear focus on the grinding lows more commonly associated with death metal. Still, every lyric was intelligible.

Overall an amazing first extreme music concert experience in New York. Amebix’s reunion leaves the music world as a whole, and everyone in attendance, richer. I recommend seeing all of these bands, and I especially recommend attending the Bowery Ballroom. The sound was orgiastic. I’ll be returning there very soon to see more gigs, although anyone topping Kylesa in the next few weeks seems unlikely.

What do we mean by "Extreme"?

2009-02-02T18:33:00.000-08:00

One of the first viewers of the blog, a dear friend who is not a follower of the music underground asked me what precisely I mean by ‘extreme.’ After all, it’s in the title of the damn blog. Here’s an attempt at nailing down ‘extreme’ in a musical context.

Extreme

The word extreme conjures to mind something taken to its ultimate degree, something by definition outside the ordinary, and has been used in recent years--particularly by Terrorizer magazine but also others—to describe the established and growing phenomenon of counterculture music, including most forms of heavy metal, industrial, and punk, as well as certain forms of rock, experimental Jazz, and electronica. The sounds used by artists as different as Merzbow and Metallica defy comparison, but what ties these artists together under the umbrella of ‘extreme’ is an abstract concept: a philosophy of music.

Think of it as contemporary music’s response to Emily Dickenson’s call to “Tell the truth—but tell it slant.” Extreme music is about developing an intense meaningful relationship with its listeners by creating intense, challenging musical experiences that ‘weed out’ (or perhaps” Seek and Destroy”?) anyone unwilling to give the music their full, undivided attention. Extreme music is, rather than inclusive, exclusive.

This idea has been around longer than people think, and executed in varied ways. metalheads turned up the volume and distortion until only the truly dedicated could physically listen to it. prog-rockers created atypical, labyrinthine song structures to counteract the typical three chord pop verse-chorus verse, while punks went the opposite way and stripped their songs down even further—the grindcore bands stripped them down so far they made songs that barely last a second. industrial musicians used the alienating power of the studio to achieve the extreme effect, while so-called Stoner rockers and black metal musicians used the most low-fi technology possible to remove any and all sense of gloss. Some musicians even unplugged their guitars, or abandoned western instruments altogether. Their genres are varied, but they all appeal to a particular mindset—one that, like pop music itself, can be traced to the sixties.

Origins

The easiest starting point to find for the extreme metal music is Black Sabbath’s eponymous debut, which is almost universally hailed as the origins of heavy metal as a complete genre. While the album makes a significant contribution to the hippie-rock scene of the time and makes sense as a logical evolution of that mentality, it made serious departures from the comfort zone of ‘listener-friendly’ with its use of Diabolous In Musica and (for the time) advanced electronics in the title track. Keep in mind, Sabbath have frequently stated that their primary influence was in fact The Beatles. Some people might argue that the first metal song, with its dissonant guitars and extended structure, is actually The Beatles’ “I Want You (She’s so Heavy).”That particular accusation is hard to swallow, but if “I Want You” is the first metal song then Black Sabbath is the first fully metal album. The standby answer of Black Sabbath as the originator of all heavy (and by extension extreme) music has been restated by many respected metal historians, including Author Ian Christe and Documentary Filmmaker Sam Dunn.

However, there are other roots of extreme music that predate Black Sabbath Black Sabbath including (but not limited to) the early work of Captain Beefheart, which dealt almost exclusively with controlled chaos. That Beefheart’s controlled chaos is focused through primarily a Jazz lens as opposed to a strictly rock lens could mean that albums like Safe as Milk, Strictly Personal, and Trout Mask Replica have as much bearing on the origins of Athiest and Cynic as Black Sabbath does. This could also mean such not-metal artists as Miles Davis during his electric period have had a profound impact on extreme music, even if these waves are only really being felt recently. Miles Davis has been a particularly strong influence on modern spazzcore band The Mars Volta, whose skewering of musical genre at rapid speed has recently helped spawn a whole family of bands such as The Fall of Troy and Protest the Hero.
Also around this time, bands like Kiss and Alice Cooper were experimenting with the combination of loud guitar and makeup to create a highly marketable grimness to their music. This use of atmosphere and makeup was later co-opted by black metal bands to make their music less and less marketable.

But what about punk? Although punk is relatively younger than metal (commonly referenced as originating in 1977, as opposed to 1969), it is arguably at least, if not more, prolific in terms of albums and followers. Punk’s roots as well can be traced to the British Invasion: The Who, always the most hard-hitting of the british boy bands, are also frequently cited as a major influence on the first wave punks. Perhaps the stuttering of Roger Daltry in “My Generation” is a precursor to the lose-tongued fast-shouted punk vocal style. The heavily distorted bass of John Entwhistle and the seemingly orgiastic drum fills of Kieth Moon are still emulated by extreme bands of all sorts.

However, The Who, and even Black Sabbath to an extent, did not confine themselves to any sort of counterculture philosophy or opt toward audience exclusion in any serious way. They pioneered the genetic sound, but not the philosophy. That distinct honor goes to Lou Reed and The Velvet Undergound. The band’s love of experimentation and chronic nihilism is the germinating seed for both the private apocalypses of crust punk and Industrial’s often revolutionary rhetoric. Also worth mentioning is that through their sonic drug-addled haze has not been emulated by many extreme bands until fairly recently, it may represent the first actively extreme wall-of-sound.

The Avant-Garde

It should come as no surprise that The Velvet Underground’s excluding image was the product of their intellectual godfather, Andy Worhol. Extreme music could only have come into existence with the presence of the avant-garde in the art world to prime the intellects of young people and apply those ideas to popular music. While the description of punk and metal bands as avant-garde has not become common language in most circles, the very concept of extreme music is inherently avant-garde.

At its heart, the concept of avant-garde is one of challenging established relationships between people and communication, which has kinship with the philosophy of extreme music, because all extreme music by definition seeks an altercation or combat with its listeners. This view does not expressly fit in with modern avant-garde media artists who are often said to “create art for art’s sake,” but draws intellectual genesis from the early movements of the modernist vanguard.

Poggioli attempted to split the avant-garde into four categories: the Futurists, the Decadence, the Agonists, and the Nihilists.

The Futurists celebrated youth and violence. After all, Kant said violence is festive. They would likely feel quite at home with the “live fast, die hard” mentality common at punk shows, and the gore-tastic lyrics of grindcore and death metal, particularly the common subliminal obsession with sexuality and fornication within those contexts. That the Futurists are often considered precursors to 20th century Fascism does not seem to fit the common anti-authoritarian sentiments of extreme musicians, but becomes eerily appropriate when we remember extreme musicians with similar tendencies such as Varg Vikernes.

The Dada-ists specialized in the acquisition of bits and pieces of other art, and a focus on dry black humor. The black humor especially pervades much of punk music as well as some more intellectual metal bands (E.G: Meshuggah’s “New Millenium Cyanide Christ” video). However, the use of collage and art ‘theft’ is parallel to the samplepedia works of many extreme electronic artists, as well as many Industrial bands.

Agonists often theorize that conflict is both unavoidable and necessary. Anyone who has even taken part in and enjoyed a mosh pit likely agrees. This philosophy is rampant in most forms of metal, notably Thrash. Take a second look at the lyrics to Metallica’s “Seek and Destroy”: Scanning the scene/in the city tonight/ We're looking for you/ to start up a fight/ There's an evil feeling in our brains/ But it's nothing new/ you know it drives us insane. To Metallica, an outspoken anti-war band, this personal violence is to be sought out and celebrated (remember Kant).

The celebration of decadence and nihilism in extreme music is completely self-explanatory.

With any luck this will provide a good base for what I mean by ‘extreme’ music. In the future I’m going to be expanding on this idea and exploring how it interacts with other prominent ideas in music and other spheres, such as politics.

Extreme Album of the Week; Scum, by Napalm Death

2009-02-01T18:00:00.000-08:00

Extreme album of the Week #2 Scum by Napalm Death, (1987, Earache)

Extreme Album of the week is a feature where I will be giving thoughts and impressions on an extreme music classic that I have not heard at length. I will research these albums heavily as I listen, and attempt to educate as well as reflect on the nature of these albums.

Supposedly recorded for 50 Pounds in 1986, Scum is the first release by british Grindcore legends Napalm Death. After a yearlong delay Scum dropped with multicolored covers, and the worlds of both punk and metal would never be the same. The album doesn’t hide its secrets at all; a cursory glance at a tracklist reveals almost everything to write home about. The whole album is a scant 33 minutes, barely longer than Slayer’s Reign in Blood, but has a total of 28 songs, many of which do not last a minute, one of which barely lasts a second.

The Napalm Death, and by extension Grindcore recipe is a simple one: metal + punk + copious amounts of speed = success. Even by today’s standards the record has quick drums. As a matter of fact drummer Mick Harris invented the term ‘blast-beat’ to describe the high speed precision assault contained on the album.

Harris is the only consistent member of the band on the record, the different sides feature a revolving door of different guitarists bassists and vocalists; highlights include Godflesh/Jesu wunderkind Justin Broadrick, and Carcass stringslinger Bill Steer. The album has an impressive pedigree, but the songs are incredibly rough, simple things (other than the speed, of course). The motto of the band, and by extension Grindcore seems to be “we are excellent musicians… now hear us suck!” that sort of bleak, tongue-in-cheek humor that really makes the album. Simultaneously punk as fuck and metal as hell, the disc practically oozes character and charm.
This is not, of course, to say that the album is without merit, quite the opposite. As a matter of fact there are some great riffs here, many of them remarkably catchy. The title track in particular is excellent, as are “Human Garbage” and “Siege of Power” (which, at four minutes, is the longest track on the damn thing). Also worth noting, as it has become somewhat nascent in Grindcore as a whole, is the occasional peppering of mood. While most of the tracks are straightforward aggression, the interludes of guitar fuzz and odd time, such as on”Multinational Corporations” and “Divine Death” offer moments of reflection and elbow room.

The sound of the record is wonderfully low-fi and fuzzy as a ZZ-Top beard, which gives everything a warm and organic feel, but at no point do the instruments become unintelligible. Even the sublime guitar squeals and pinched harmonics of “Control” come through loud and clear. The tone, however does tend to hop as instruments and vocalists are swapped out. Personally I found the first half a bit more enjoyable for its memorable riffs, but the second half has the more dexterous drum work (see “Negative Approach”) and on the whole is more chaotic and indicative of Grindcore as I understand it. In particular the Black Metal styled screeches add something, even if they do sound studio augmented.

Also notable are the lyrics and their focus on social issues. A cursory glance at the titles of the songs shows the presence of a mean, possibly anarchist streak. All the better as far as I am concerned, but the issues aren’t really pertinent in any way. Instead they just vaguely echo the “fuck the world” ethos popularized the Sex Pistols, but with a more metal bite.

I feel the album has its definite strengths, and a remarkable commitment to its comically disgusting aesthetic. If this album were a movie, Sam Raimi would have directed it. However, there seems to be a slight case of style over substance going on. As a whole the album has serious character, but individual songs fail to stand out, and often bleed together. Overall I respect the historic quality of Scum, and love a few of the songs, but feel the debut is more influential than it is quality.

Next week I will follow Bill Steer to the band that made him a metal legend: Carcass. Instead of another grindcore disc, or their more hotly debated Heartwork I’m going tolook at what many fans consider their ‘lost’ album Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious. The album was notorious not only for its intricate compositions, but also for its concept: an examination of how to remove corpses.

-Joseph Schafer

Extreme Album of the Week; Streetcleaner by Godflesh

2009-01-25T17:49:00.000-08:00

Extreme Album of the Week #1: Streetcleaner(ReIssue) by Godflesh, (1990, Earache Records)

Extreme Album of the week is a feature where I will be giving thoughts and impressions on an extreme music classic that I have not heard at length. I will research these albums heavily as I listen, and attempt to educate as well as reflect on the nature of these albums.

In 1989, a British two-piece band known as Godflesh released a little album called Streetcleaner that would go on to be name-dropped to magazines and websites in the extreme music scene for years to come. Godflesh was made up of Bassist G. Christian Greene, and creative mastermind Justin Broadrick, now known for his work with Jarboe and Jesu. Broadrick had just recently recorded the first side of Napalm Death’s Scum, which had become a classic in its own right. Godflesh had released one self-titled EP prior, and had recorded a follow-up EP called Tiny Tears that was tacked onto the end of the Streetcleaner reissue.

Godflesh, and Streetcleaner specifically would later go on to be quite influential in the then-blossoming Industrial Metal scene, as well as (somewhat dubiously) the late-90’s New Urban Metal boom. This album was once said by genre whipping-boy Fred Durst to be a personal favorite. Don’t be too intimidated, the album has only superficial similarities to anything on top-40 radio, rather Streetcleaner is an exercise in testing the listener’s patience to the core.

The sound of the album actually matches the title quite well, as a whole it is a slow, extremely dissonant piece that has moments of stomp and groove, but isn’t afraid to languish or ferment in its own atonal atmosphere (‘Head Dirt, to name a single track). The drums were all programmed by Broadrick, and are deceptively simple, being both the first and last things audible on the album. Greene’s Bass is incredibly low, but still fairly high in the mix with an almost percussive sound to it, which allows it to anchor almost the entire briefly aforementioned groove. The hypnotic drums provide a much-needed skeleton to the amorphous dissonant guitar, which at times sounds more like an orchestra of cheap power tools than musical instruments, which in this case is a very good thing.

What choruses exist on the album are rare, but the four tracks from Tiny Tears are a bit more accessible, with clearer, more catchy vocals and a more classic guitar sound that at times has traces of Led Zeppelin between common bouts of noisy chaos. In fact, the song ‘Tiny Tears’ even has a pinch-harmonic hook and an uptempo beat. Broadrick’s vocals are not quite guttural, but are more moaned, in keeping with the surprisingly bleak atmosphere of the album. From the hellish cover (a screen-grab from the movie Altered States) to the use of samples (especially in the title track), the album borrows from other sources to create a aesthetic that is simultaneously spacious and claustrophobic. In some ways the album does more to sound sacrilegious than many of the contemporary black, death and thrash metal bands of the time screaming about satan.

Indeed, the album’s dedication to isolating and alienating the listener is almost ‘kvlt’-er than anything by Darkthrone. And yet there is a zen to the chaos in Streetcleaner, which may account for its near-constant praise when few bands actually openly borrow or copy anything from the music itself. The most direct influence of the music, however, can be found in the work of bands like Neurosis: the simple and nihilistic lyrics are chanted repeatedly over undulating music to create what in the end is an almost meditative effect.

But, much like Neurosis, the music here seems to have more aspects that are interesting, rather than entertaining. It’s very easy to lose one’s place in the music, which can be frustrating considering the album’s long length, but perhaps that’s entirely the point. This is an album that invites—nay, demands—that the audience get lost within it, that is its magic and the source of its musical value. After finishing the album I felt as though my head had been dunked underwater for some time. Streetcleaner literally leaves the listener out of breath.

Next week I’ll be following Justin Broadrick and looking at Napalm Death’s debut album Scum, often considered the grandfather of Grindcore, coincidentally the album with the honor of being in the Guiness Book of World records for shortest song.
-Joseph Schafer