Cryptic Slaughter are a band that attained classic status during their all to brief time putting out records, and had their legacy tarnished just a bit by one remaining member putting out a radically different kind of album after the heart and soul of the band had moved on. “Convicted” was their first official release and introduced the world to their genius mix of Thrashcore with good ole Punk Rock. This re-issue pulls together the 14 tracks from the original “Convicted” release, the 5 tracks from their “Life In A Grave” Demo from 1985, and four live tracks recorded in 1988. Combining a heavy driving rhythm section of pronounced drums and bass guitar and buzzing guitar distortion, Cryptic Slaughter were one of the fastest bands going during their day, and could still right great slower hooks, add to that the raw, grating vocals and political, social and personal lyrics, and it is a picturesque crater of pissed off, aggressive intensity. The material has been re-mastered for added punch, and the addition of the extra tracks make this a great resuscitation and introduction for a new generation that may have missed them the first time around. Cryptic Slaughter remains a favorite of mine all these years later, and having this stuff easily available so I no longer have to fear the death of my old cassettes is a grand thing. The demo material has a raw, but strong practice room sort of feel, and includes some tracks that never made the records. The live tracks feature a couple off “Convicted” and a couple off of “Money Talks” and were recorded in Houston. They sound live, but the energy is all there. In addition the lyrics for “Convicted” and historical liner notes are included in the extensive booklet. I’m So glad Relapse put the energy behind preserving Cryptic Slaughter for the ages. – Scott
RELAPSE
Cryptic Slaughter – Convicted
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a CommentCrowhead – Frozen
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a Comment
I hadn’t heard of this project before this, it’s a solid mix of Katatonia-ish doom with some of the better elements of the Darkwave scene… yet that still doesn’t seem quite right, I think largely because of the vocals. Simple distorted guitar riffing combines with cleaner melodic accents and build a morose and dreary wall. The writing is well structured for emotional effect, the cleaner instrument work is quite effective, bass, synths etc. The vocals are largely clean and sung, and for the most part I like them, but there are a couple parts where they get a little to… “rock ballad” for my taste, and I wish they were a smidge deeper. On the whole though they are quite listenable and work very well in the context . The track “Fire Eye (kill you)” shows off some growling vocals and he’s got a nice snarl that reminds me abit of Samael. “Frozen (2002)” and “My Angel (signal krem remix)” have a bit more electronic beat to them, even though the drums are programmed throughout, these tracks draw a bit more attention to it. But they aren’t overbearing or betray the overall feel of the record. “The Soul Is In The Darkside (Pt1) and (Pt2)” are pretty much straight forward EBM tracks and are actually remixes by Icon of Coil, members of Apoptygma Berzerk also make contributions to the record. I can see this record growing on me. It’s simple, yet sound. It incorporates a lot of quieter breaks, but doesn’t sell itself short when the distortion comes in and the album is all the heavier for it. The production is full and warm… enjoyable – Scott
MY KINGDOM MUSIC
Cripple Bastards – Desperately Insensitive
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a Comment
This long time Italian Grind/Punk entity is back again with 19 new raw and aggressive ditties. I haven’t heard a lot of their material, but this is better produced than most of what I have heard, raw but full production, that doesn’t betray the power of the music itself as some instances in the past have. This is simply put, energetic, contagious, Grind with it’s Punk influences out in the open. Including the instrument tones, it doesn’t have a bloated “metal” production, it’s instead ragged but potent. They mix up the timing, and still keep it largely fast, the drum playing has a real personality to it, the vocals vary from throat scarred shouts and goblin screams to guttural growls, and the playing is tight and full of heart. The tracks have their own character and stay interesting throughout. It’s a great listen, because the fun had in making it is obvious and there is so much adrenaline here. Also comes with a huge lyric foldout, that is pretty cool. Awesome. – Scott
DEATHVOMIT/NECROPOLIS
County Medical Examiners, The – Forensic Fugues And Medicolegal Medleys
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a Comment
The County Medical Examiners boast that they are in fact students of pathology, they are also students of Carcass styled Gore Grind. While I can’t speak for their dissection abilities, they do a good job picking up where “Symphonies of Sickness” left off. “Forensic Fugues…” carries a lot of the energy of the early Carcass work, and makes for a really enjoyable listen in homage to the great ones. Multiple processed vocals always keep the tracks interesting, ranging from decrepit gurgles to scathing Donald Duck screams and all the sticky bits in between. The music is a well done mix of Grind and mid paced riffs with some memorable progressions. Lyrically they don’t require the same massive dictionary that Carcass wrote from, but are still rather academic, and likely more authentic. This disc is just a fun listen, it’s shows a true passion and appreciation for what they are doing, and thanks Carcass right in the liner notes for being their reason for existence. And it’s not as derivative as all of that might suggest, heavily influenced yes, but TCME can write a catchy, energetic, emotive Grind track better than many out there, and the vocals in all their forms are a real highlight. – Scott
RAZORBACK RECORDS
Cordell Klier – Blessed Be The Authoritarians
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a Comment
This is a CDR release, that doesn’t have a track listing, but there are 7 tracks here. The disc opens with a minimalistic synth drone that essentially holds the same tone throughout. Understated glitches and hums surface intermittently over the course of the 10 minute duration. This combination of tonal drones and glitches squirming in the froth make up the bulk of the release. Swelling and shifting foundation beneath the click and glitter of the electronics, and the rare growl of something more sinister as on track four. It is overall a sparse listen, rather simple in construction, but sticks with the premise through out and makes for a unified atmosphere of dreariness and diligent insects. – Scott
SNIP-SNIP
Conversations About The Light – An Unfinished Poem For January Second
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a CommentThis is a 3 song self released 3″ CDR. “Inhale April” opens the disc with a metallic kind of drone ambience, that is eventually met with sputtering, jagged electronics. This ultimately all drops away and sub base tones, abstract melody, and crackling distortions rise in the place that that which came before. “It’s Because of You that I Cannot Watch The Stendahl Syndrome” is up next, a much more violent piece, saturated textures, distorted vocals, and buzzing low end drive the track, but there are some ambient sweeps mixed in to lend it some steadiness and build an atmosphere. A nice sounds selection and movement make this a powerful track. “Exhale April” is the finale, returning to more ambient ground, this has a mournful quality to it. An ethereal melody is accented with an eroding sort of low end pulse, this all bleeds into static soaked distortions eventually, and swelling deep textures with a horrific feel to them. Like some deep earth penitentiary roaring its contempt at the surface. CATL has a nice knack for the evolution of its tracks, building on atmospheres and shifting directions in a dramatic but coherent way, I look forward to hearing more from the project as the sound develops even more. – Scott
Conversations About The Light – This Is Not My Home
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a CommentThis release consists of two “business card” CDR’s, packaged in a little plastic box with an insert. Disc One, features two tracks “Beginning” which is a 16 second burst of snarled electronics, and “This Is Not My Home I.” This piece begins quietly, with staticy tones and deep ambient textures gradually swelling. It’s a rather quiet piece, built around the slow shifts of those textures and tones, but has a well developed feel. Disc Two begins with “This Is Not My Home II,” a piece more dense that the previous one. Heavy low end and snaking higher frequencies introduce the track, it drops to near silence and then erupts dramatically with a throbbing almost orchestral rhythmic crush, and fluid grinding textures and haunted tones, and even some violin it seems. There are a lot of layers and details in this piece and the atmospheres create with the density of the construction give it a huge presence. “End” rounds it out and is again a very brief piece, this time of distant ambient. I really enjoyed this, and look forward to seeing something lengthier in the future. – Scott
Conure – After They’re Gone
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a Comment
This is a 4 song CDR, pretty stripped down in that the disc just looks like a disc you’d buy, but the label sort of has a packaging motif they stick to for the covers of their releases and that doesn’t look too bad. The title track is first up, it’s a dense bit of drone that tends to cycle between ambient and more distorted waves within this voices and more subtle textures swell and recede with the overall feel being more on the abrasive side. “Confused Again”, clocking in at just over 13 minutes. It begins quietly, with flickering static and deep tonal drifts, it meanders down this path for several minutes with pulses coming in and out and gradually building a slow intensity. An abrupt disjointed semi-rhythmic attack shatters the relative stillness and for me kind of kills what was being built up. The rhythmic feel is not rhythmic enough if that’s the trail they are after, and the over all sound lacks a real depth, it just kind of sounds like a distorted malfunctioning drum machine. “Pachyderm” is next and is a nice bit of layered noise ambient, lots of sounds mingling with each other and yet maintaining a spaciousness, and an underlying rhythmic drive that is very subtle. Rounding out the release is “Learning Curve” this is rooted on a heavy bass pulse, that is then interrupted with distorted beat interjections. This track sounds like it was recorded at a different time, the quality of the sounds is different, the production is different. I wish this track showed some of the same layering that was present on “Pachyderm” it is a bit too straight forward, and doesn’t evolve enough, but I do like the quality of the tones and distortions on it. All of this comes in at right around 30 minutes or so. – Scott
SNIP-SNIP
Control – The Cleansing
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a Comment
This is a re-issue CD of sorts pulling together material from various out of print releases. Included are tracks from the original “The Cleansing” 3″ on Frozen Empire Media, the tracks from the “Praying to Bleed” 7″ on LSDO, two tracks from the “Field Tales” compilation on Hospital Prod., and one track from the “Bitmapping” compilation on Objective-Subjective for a total of 9 tracks all together. Everything on the CD has been re-mastered and comes in a snazzy slip sleeve. If you aren’t familiar with Control yet this might be a good taster since it pulls material from different time periods together, if you are there may be some rarities here you weren’t able to track down. It seems like I say this a lot, but I really feel Control is a project that should be seen as the measuring stick to judge other Power Electronics projects by because it is consistently stellar material. The detail in the music, the clarity of the production, the originality in the sound design, tasteful use of sampling and the fury in the vocals all build something denser, more evocative and genuinely powerful than what many are accustomed to hearing from this genre. – Scott
PAC REC
Control – Natural Selection
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a Comment
Control is a project that genuinely gets better with each release, beginning as a somewhat straight forward but layered Power Electronics entity with the self titled releases on Malignant/Black Plagve each subsequent CD has developed the sound, incorporating a pummeling pseudo structure at the foundation and tightly weaving unique and distinct sounds though out that ominous root work. “Natural Selection” is the most recent evolution in the metamorphosis. Heavy low end cycles and grinds away beneath these tracks with a hypnotic crush, and the elaborate abrasions splash and scrape atop it. Added to this mix are impassioned vocals filtered through diverging effects palettes so as not to become redundant in their attack. Having listened to as much of this kind of music as I have this is a project that never ceases to give me pause and wonder what the hell is wrong with so many others. It is densely layered and finitely pieced together with some of the most intriguing sounds going to create a Frankenstein’s monster of hulking dread and contempt. So much of Power Electronics is about the vocals where as Control never sacrifices the music or the emotional weight at the alter of rhetoric. “Natural Selection” is bloated with the best the Death Industrial and Power Electronics scenes have to offer in craftsmanship and is produced with crystalline detail so nothing that went into it goes overlooked. Exceptional. – Scott
EIBON
Control – Misanthrope
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a Comment
Control is a Power Electronics project that shames so many other Power Electronics projects. The material is so meticulously constructed and detailed, so conscious of creating mood and atmosphere, that it almost defies the genre that it caters to. The music is woven tightly with layers of diverse frequency, grating loops, catacombal drift, throbbing analog, absolutely trenchant vocals and not just simply tantruming over simplistic noise and feedback like so many bedraggled PE projects that get far more respect. Control transcends the pure rage associated with the genre and reveals the darker, more infectious and sinister emotions that build that rage. The hurt and contemplation and introspection that swells between the fingers of a life losing perspective on it’s way to detonation. These elements are all found smeared and drowning in the musical din, the occasionally rhythmic pulses, the cacophonous stabs. The corrosive vocals slice through the swells, but are placed in the mix as much like another instrument as anything else. It is not all about the “message” as so many PE acts have been in the past. It is about arousing the listener with atmosphere and creating a sonic environment where nothing good seems possible for people who might inhabit it. With each release Control has expanded it’s sound and honed it’s vision, and “Misanthrope” is a clear example that Power Electronics need not be a one dimensional endeavor. In fact that it’s true power, and exploring the perversions of the mind as so many PE projects do, is better revealed when explored through their many layers and not simply as the ravings of a derelict. – Scott
L. WHITE RECORDS
Contagious Orgasm – From The Irresponsible Country Sounds
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a Comment
This is a two track MCD from this outstanding Japanese project who along with Dissecting Table and K2 have long represented the best of what comes out of the Japanese Noise scene. “The World Of The Pillaged Sound” is the first piece, coming in at nearly twelve and a half minutes. It combines a number of elements you don’t immediately associate with Contagious Orgasm. It has an elusive structure to it, that brings together strange beats, rue melody, environmental recordings, found sounds, cut up and as well as noise textures and sampling. This all morphs rather fluidly and makes for a completely intriguing track full of oddity and an uncomfortable curiosity. Despite the different elements there is a cinematic quality to it in a strange way. Almost is if a full length feature had been edited down to this twelve minutes and then made slightly more coherent with overlapping textures to bind it all together. The second piece is “Ill-Treatment Endlessly” comes in at over ten and a half minutes. This continues down the same peculiar path as the first track bringing additional components, and pushing different things too and away from the foreground. The production is also noteworthy as everything sounds immaculate. It’s so clear and distinct, that every sound stands firmly on its own in the delusional haze they have mustered. Really an excellent piece of work, and while it might initially confound the average noise fan, it really is a great listen for those who still appreciate some experimentation in their Experimental music. – Scott
PAC REC
Condanna – S/T
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a Comment
Five untitled tracks from project out of Italy grace this CD. This disc opens with a nearly 16 minutes track of low key synth ambient at the foundation and then fleshed out with solitary pulsing tones, clicks, static, sparse electro beats and snips of weird little electronics. The next track comes in just under four minutes and is similar in foundation with a greater emphasis on fluttering foreground electronics, and rapid analog twitches to where they almost come across as alarm type sounds against the airy backdrop. The next one is another epic track at 14 and a half minutes. It is made of what sounds like synthy, violin melody, but volume swelled in a jerky fashion for the initial 3 minutes or so (too long in my opinion) before some additional sounds rise. Something that almost sounds like flies panning back and forth, but I know isn’t, reverberant choral and bass synth tones, and a smattering of fried and squealing electronics. This balance of simplistic synth foundation and laboratory electronics is carried through the remaining two tracks, one of which even ads some distant vocals to the mix. Condanna are spacious and relatively minimal with an almost celestial New Age feel incorporating a dark edge to it, but not a particularly emotional edge. Moments of this I liked, but it can get a little long winded at times, maybe if I wasn’t concentrating on it specifically for review those would seem less obvious as it is a rather passive listen. This isn’t really in a style I feel particularly compelled by, that doesn’t make it bad by any stretch. I just wonder where the audience hides for these kind of releases since I have yet to really have something like this recommended to me. Condanna I think have achieved what they set out to do, but it may fall on deaf ears. – Scott
AVANGUARDIA DELL’ANIMA
Concrete Violin – Predator
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a Comment
Three tracks of gritty noise on this 3″ CDR. Lots of scratchy, scraping, harsher textures in the opening track, “Ciudad Juarez,” with a piercing high element that could almost be a distorted drill or something to that effect. “Road Kills” has a machinating rhythmic foundation, distant abrasions move around this chugging core. The final track, “Issaquah,” begins with some really nice low end distortions before coming to full bloom with a more monolithic surge. The low end is met with mid-range saturations and mixed with a slight hand so that the deep tones come back to the forefront slowly from time to time ultimately ending the disc on its harshest foot. – Scott
CYBER-BLAST RECORDS
Cock E.S.P/Origami Genitalia – Split
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a Comment
This is a split cassette, in an oversized clear plastic shell. The release features 10 tracks from Cock E.S.P., all of which include the word “cock” in the title, and Origami Genitalia’s side just features one long track called “Folk Music Of The Penis.” Strap yourself in for an intelligent ride… Cock E.S.P. combine blasts of harsh noise with room ambience samples, a little kid peeing and rambling on, snippets of dance music, loops, ambient drifts, pitch tweaked vocals etc. The Harsh Noise moments are vicious snarls of heavy distortions, feedback and vocal noise with a somewhat muffled production, and not really anything distinct among harsh noise. The other elements come off rather pointless. I have never bothered to follow this band, and this hasn’t convinced me that I missed out on anything. If you already like them than knock yourself out, but this felt pretty half assed all around to me. Origami Genitalia I hadn’t heard of, but it appears to contain one member of Cock E.S.P. along with a partner. This track uses random percussives, and a junk noise sort of feel in a largely reserved way. There are lots of clanking and rummaging types of sounds, with simple electronic tones drifting beneath them. There are moments when it builds in density, but it’s spacious for the most part, with the sounds all being fairly distinct. They also add some distorted guitar chording that sweeps through from time to time, but doesn’t establish itself as a focal point of the track the way the jumbled percussion does, it is purely decorative. The Origami Genitalia side is more interesting, and while the sounds are rather consistent, its randomly rhythmic nature keeps it moving. – Scott
FALLING DEBRIS, DEMOLITION, EXPLOSION RECORDS
Cock E.S.P – Greatest Dicks 3
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a Comment
Sub-titled as “The Best And Worst of Cock E.S.P., 2001-2003,” this is a 3″ CD with 40 tracks on it. “Greatest Dicks 3” includes some additional sounds from the likes of Crank Sturgeon, Prairiepusher, Eugenics Council, Rotten Piece, Newton and Panicsville as well a remix by Burning Star Core. The final track is a 6 and a half minute interview, which should give you some idea how short many of these tracks are, many never breach the 20 second mark. It is a mix of harsh noise elements, gritty electronics, quirky beats, and sampling (particularly of little kids). There are some pretty cool sounds here, with a nice fried quality. The use of feedback is done well, there is quite a bit going on in many of them even though they are so brief. The sound quality is good etc. I wish some of the tracks were longer because they do have an interesting feel, light hearted but seriously executed it would seem. I thought the last thing submitted by this project was pretty half hearted, and never felt compelled to check them out over their long presence in the Noise scene, but I quite enjoyed this. – Scott
BREATHMINT/DEADLINE/LITTLE MAFIA/SUNSHIP
Cleanse – Dazed
•January 4, 2009 • Leave a CommentThis is a single track business card CDR, and that single track happens to be an Intrinsic Action cover song by this collaborative project featuring members of Redrot and Black Sand Dessert. Analog synth heavy Power Electronics with pristine production. The vocals are delivered in a distorted speaking tone, that builds in urgency at certain points. I can’t recall exactly if I’ve heard the original version or not, if I have it has been awhile and I don’t really recall what it sounds like. This version is definitely in the spirit of Intrinsic Action and sounds great all around. The clarity on the music is fantastic, and the sounds themselves have a lot of presence. Short but effective. – Scott
PACREC
Worm Gear 