Nocturne - Guide to Extinction (2005)

Cost: around $1 (bought as part of a lot)
This CD is available for trade.

Not metal.  The band/album name and album art might indicate the possibility of metal, but as soon as I saw the band logo, I suspected it would be industrial or electronica (which is vaguely true).  

Most of the CD's first half sounds like female-fronted '90s alternative rock, with relatively minimal industrial and gothic influences tacked on.  In the later songs, they lose the overly sweet vocals and increase the industrial influences a bit, and it comes off like a mix of Bile, White Zombie, Hole, and a little bit of Marilyn Manson.   No thanks.

7000 Dying Rats - Fanning the Flames of Fire (1998)

Cost $1.00

Make no mistake, this album is first and foremost a delivery system for humorous and ironic songtitles. In many cases, they even surpass Anal Cunt at it. I was pleasantly surprised because while I expected a comedic novelty listen, which this certainly is, a couple of the straightforward parts are pretty good grindcore. The pure grind stuff is broken up by all sorts of strange and humorous material, and the CD just gets weirder and weirder as it goes on. The album as a whole is much less monotonous than old Agoraphobic Nosebleed, most AxCx (they're generally not as noisecore-sounding, although there are obvious influences and a tribute track called--what else--"Anal Cunt is Gay"), and Meat Shits (they're not as reliant on samples, although there are plenty--and I actually wish they had included more) material.  

Just some comments about the end of the disc..."Ozzy Looked like Bea Arthur on the Ultimate Sin Tour" is one of the greatest songtitles ever, and at just over 13 min. long I had high hopes. Unfortunately it's a much-too-short cover medley of Sabbath's "It's Alright" and "Back Street Kids" with some Ozzy stage banter samples, and then 10 minutes of silence. There are several untitled 4 and 5 second tracks--most of these are dedicated to studio foolery inspired by the lyrics to Venom's "Sacrifice," and later on Gus Backus' '60s hit "Der Mann Im Mond" is sampled. Disappointingly, since the last track is listed as "99) Luft Balloons" (a play on its tracklisting position), I was hoping for the actual Nena cover, but it's just a short audio clip of some hockey commentators bookended by silence.

Worth the buck just for the Sabbath renditions and the vintage pic of Bruce Dickinson in his silly feathered "Powerslave" mask on top of the disc.

Heavy Metal Killers compilation (2009)

Cost: 99¢

Yep, another Earache compilation from the same store where I got the Thrashing Like a Maniac disc last month.  I'd say this is the far superior CD since even discounting the genre difference, it's a much stronger roster and less uneven musically.  But as with Thrashing..., it's somewhat disappointing there are so few demo/rare tracks.

Initially I thought Hospital of Death was a very out-of-place inclusion, since I think of them as a much thrashier band, but their track has enough traditional HM and power metal influences to fit in well.  The Cauldron track actually stands out rather negatively among the songs due to the noticeably slicker style.  Speaking of Cauldron, it finally hit me when listening who their nasal vocal style reminds me of so much--Halloween.

Forgive me for passing on doing a full track-by-track review, but there are only so many ways one can indicate "this song is pretty good" before the 'ol writing creativity dries up.

Old Grandad - The Last Upper (1999)

Cost: 99¢

This CD is available for trade.

Very old find I'm just getting around to.  This came from a store that gave metal/punk/HC its own separate clearance section, so it may have been a totally blind purchase, but I think I may have seen an ad/review in Pit or similar. I certainly did not know at the time that it was Erik Moggridge's post-Epidemic band.

Weird stuff for sure...to summarize the music, I think it's easiest to break it down into two general parts--there are noisier punk/HC/grind/speedcore elements, and then there are Sabbath-influenced groovy/stoner/sludge elements. These parts are arranged and mixed in various ways, but aside from the mellow final track, there's nothing that really deviates from those elements musically.   Vocals are all over the place--I'd say the most used are distorted punkish vox, but there are also various kinds of clean vocals, very Seth Putnam sounding vocals on the opening track, and even some guttural death metal vocals.

The humorous attitude and somewhat schizophrenic fusion of various styles reminds me of a more musically extreme version of what many of the so-called "alternative metal" bands were trying to do when mixing genres, though thankfully there's no funk crap here.  There are also some minor similarities to some of the more avant-garde grindcore and sludge bands which came later, although this seems more spontaneously silly and less consciously artsy.

Interesting CD as a listening experience, although the only tracks I came away liking to any extent were the last two--"Daly City Crackhouse" is spastic hardcore (those vocals at 2:15 crack me up), and aforementioned closer "Zero Sky" is kinda doomy and surprisingly contemplative.

Brother Von Doom - Relentless (2008)

Cost: 99¢

Silly band name, but better than I expected.  There are too many Slaughter of the Soul-inspired bands out there, but at least this isn't metalcore/deathcore masquerading as melodeath; the band largely--but not completely--avoids those kinds of sounds.  There's no clean singing of any kind, just high and guttural low vocals, but the vox seem quite forced, which don't doesn't mesh with the music all that well (sadly, they are somewhat reminiscent of -core bands).  The band is pretty generous with decent guitar harmonies, but things feel quite one-dimensional from song to song, and the disc lacks distinctive material (aside from the cool power metallish/"Mars, the Bringer of War"-esque intro).

Bloodsoaked - Religious Apocalypse (2014)

Cost: 99¢

This CD is available for trade. 

 

EP with some new tracks, a pair of covers, and some live tracks.  The new stuff is okay for nowadays death metal--it's not old-school by any stretch, but there's definitely some '90s Floridian influence in the riffs.  But I'm not a big fan of the blastbeating, and it's disappointing that there are no guitar solos (especially considering that Peter's guitar playing on the covers is very good).  The live stuff is just space filler so I'm not going to bother talking about it. 

That leaves the Cinderella and Ratt covers which are of course the main point of interest on the disc.  Other than the downtuning and DM vocals, both are played pretty faithfully, with the solos and lead work being especially well done.  Being the less metallic of the two songs, "Shake Me" doesn't translate as well, and the chorus sounds goofy with extreme vocals.  "You're in Love" isn't the first Ratt cover I would have thought of for a death metal cover (obviously "Round and Round" for the notoriety, or maybe one of the heavier cuts from the first EP like "Sweet Cheater") but the Bloodsoaked version works surprisingly well.

Taraxacum - Rainmaker (2003)

Cost: 99¢

Disappointing for the most part--I was expecting power metal (especially based on the pedigree of the band members), but this is melodic hard rock, with relatively minor metal influences here and there.