Originally published in ‘zine issue #42, 2011
I played J.R. some records. Here are his first impressions of each.
Linea 77 Available for Propaganda
(Earache)
There’s kind of a Helmet groove to this song a little bit. This isn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be … Alright, now they lost me. I dunno. It sounds like they’re going for pop punk harmonies or something. This is like some fuckin’ broke-ass Faith No More. I mean, where do you even begin? I don’t know if I can overcome my prejudice for this band, ‘cause I didn’t like this band before I heard this, so maybe I just really wanna hate on it or something. It’s really sad that I’ve heard worse than this, you know what I mean? This reminds me of that whole ‘90s Blink 182—OK, Earache needs to have their asses whipped for putting this out, first of all. If that’s not a Blink 182 breakdown, then I don’t know what is. I don’t know how old these guys are, but they’re pretending like they’re 14, and we need to turn this off. ■
The Handshake Murders Usurper
(Goodfellow)
This is pretty cool. Sounds like … the first thing that came to my mind was old Coalesce, but, I mean, there’s a million other bands that have the same kind of vibe. They prob’ly like Meshuggah. Got that stop-start, chugga-chugga hardcore, pinched harmonics, burly vocals. Doesn’t really stand out as being unique. Kind of like middle-of-the-road, technical, metallic hardcore. Maybe if you like Converge or something like that, you could get down with this, I guess. I like when bands write really technical hardcore that just sounds dumb, you know, when they just sound like a bunch of apes. It’s alright. It’s been done. Decent band, decent recording. I could get down with it. Prob’ly fun live. That’s all I’ve got to say about this band. ■
Rabid Rabbit 2009 album
(Interloper)
Alright, this sounds like a band warming up. This is the point in a record where I start wondering if there’s ever going to be a singer, you know? It gets this far into the first song, and then I’m like, “OK, maybe there’s no singer,” which kind of worries me sometimes, ‘cause I’m not really that into instrumental stuff a lot of times. This kind of reminds me of some of the extended intros like Shellac would do. Sometimes one of their songs goes on for a while before the vocals come in. I dunno. We’re at the halfway point of the song now, and I’m not really convinced that this song’s gone anywhere yet. I like the beat, but if they stopped here and then they just went into a completely different thing—but if it’s just two more minutes of this … See, the drums and the bass are locked down, and sounds like something that I would like normally, but he’s just off doing this real abstract kind of Greg Ginn solo guitar, and I’m just waitin’ for the guitar to lock down and do a riff, you know what I mean? But it’s just not happenin’. The guitar’s all loose and noisy, and it’s kind of a jam, I guess. I’m kind of torn, because I like that it’s noisy and that it’s abstract, ‘cause I like some noisy, abstract stuff, but this doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere to me. I mean, if I gotta put up with nine more minutes of this shit, then these guys are not going to survive Musical Darwinism. Some of it reminds me of Steel Pole Bathtub, which is a band I really like, but even the old noise rock bands had real solid songs. These guys have good bass riffs and a drummer who likes toms a lot, but I hate it when it sounds like a dude’s learnin’ how to play guitar on a record. Maybe he thinks he’s the dude from The Jesus Lizard, but he’s not. Nobody’s that cool. The rhythm section needs to find something else to do. I like the rhythm section. I thought I heard a singer; is he off getting something out of the Coke machine right now? What is he doin’ while all this is goin’ on? ■
Guilty As Sin Led to the Slaughter
So what we have here is some really bush league-sounding drums—kick drums just sound terrible, all artificial and shit—you’ve got some stale thrash guitar goin’ on, standard intro where you start wonderin’, “Is this band the new Metallica?” and then you realize, no, they’re not. But where’s the vocalist again? Is he at the Coke machine again? Is he getting a Ginger Ale? I mean, what the fuck is this shit? Where the fuck is their singer? Who the fuck starts a goddamn thrash band without a singer? So, what do they have, a mute singer? Just run around on stage with a mic? This is fucking stupid. I wanna go on record as saying this record is fucking stupid. Who the fuck wants a bunch of stale-ass thrash riffs with no singer on it? This is dumb. I wanna know who these people are.
D.U.: They’re Guilty As Sin.
J.R.: You’re goddamn right they are! ■
Amputee 2009 demo
I might be biased towards them, ‘cause I actually think Chainsaw to the Face [with whom they share members] is pretty cool. Kinda like goregrind without the slop, you know what I mean? It’s not super sloppy. Nothing really in the music for me. Guitar tone is kinda muddy, like “blah.” Kinda reminds me of Last Days of Humanity. This isn’t bad; it’s not doing anything for me. I don’t wanna take a shit on ‘em. ■
Minsk The Ritual Fires of Abandonment
(Relapse)
I’ve heard this album before. I’m sure these guys are nice dudes, but, OK, you know how Enemy of the Sun is, epic and shit? Well, when other bands try to do that, it just sounds long-winded. It doesn’t sound heavy. I’ve heard at least two of these guys’ albums, and I’m not sure how many they have now, but they’re a good band and they’re recorded really well, and they got the atmospheric thing, you know, but when it comes time to deliver the big, monolithic riffs, it’s not there. I love Neurosis as much as anybody does, but I never really got off on most of the bands that try to do what they do, you know? And maybe I’m pigeonholing these guys, but I’ve never gotten Isis; they’ve never really made any sense to me. It’s not my thing. ■
Phantom Glue 2010 album
(Teenage Disco Bloodbath)
All right, I’ll drink a little bit of this Kool-Aid. Got a little bit of that Unsane vibe goin’ on, you know. I dig this band. ■
Resurrecturis Non Voglio Morire
(Casket Productions)
Definitely black metal-type riffs, but then they mix it in with some dirty, crusty riffs, but most importantly, it sounds pissed as fuck. It’s pretty cool. … I hope they don’t bust in with some really lame vocals. That would bum me out so hard. Like the dude from Creed, “with arms wide open.” Is that a talk box? You know, the Peter Frampton—wow. I don’t know how you go from death grind to this, but now are they gonna go back to the grindcore again? What the hell is going on? Well, they went into this little Halloween piano breakdown. The vocals kind of remind me of Mille from Kreator a little bit, you know what I’m saying? I dunno if this band works for me or not, but I’m definitely intrigued by them. Like, I’d want to check it out again. Maybe this [song] is their “Fade to Black.” I mean, I don’t know what my expectations were for whatever the fuck this band’s name is, but I guess I was wrong. Do you remember how on the Nembrionic record, Psycho 100, they just kind of do it all? They got the song that sounds like Motörhead, and then they got the grindcore, and then they got the melodic instrumental? Maybe that’s how this band is rollin’, cause, I mean, honestly, if you had skipped those songs and not told me it was the same band, I could’ve told you it was two different bands. It’s either ambitious or it’s incredibly stupid. You know what I mean? This is the sort of thing where either people think it’s the greatest thing ever, or it falls flat on its face; people just don’t get it at all. They’re trying to make everybody happy …
Alright, never mind. Everything I said about this band. No. There is no excuse for a metal band to have vocals—I mean, what the fuck was that? This is where me and this band, we kiss and we part ways forever. You know what? Fuck this band. Honestly, if I owned this album, and I knew that those vocals were in my record collection, I would never be able to sleep at night. See, they had me for a minute, but now I went soft. I’m flaccid. As soon as I hear those “aaaah” vocals—I don’t know. It’s the sort of thing that might even work in the right context, but you’re not heavy anymore when that sort of shit starts happening on your album. All of a sudden you’ve turned really, really lame, and I don’t care how many showers you take, you can’t get the lame off you. They’re ambitious, but they need to be ambitious somewhere away from me. ■
