No Through Road

Seeing as my last two reviews were unfavourable, to say the least, I figured I’d finally inject some positivity into my little corner of El Gore and prove that I don’t just hate everything on principle. So today I’d like to present No Through Road to you, an independent short film in the style of found footage that didn’t make me want to chug a bottle of bleach.

I would honour the makers with an in-depth, rave review of their creation, but it’s impossible to talk about a 9-minute flick without spoiling it in its entirety, so I’ll keep it brief and let you see for yourself. It’s not like there’s much to draw on anyway, thanks to these guys’ admirable dedication to passing the video off as actual found footage: after an extensive Google search, the El Gore team concluded that there’s no information about its production available on the Internet. We have no idea who made this film or who stars in it, which certainly adds to the subliminal creep factor.

No Through Road doesn’t bring anything new to the table in terms of plot line and structure. A group of lanky adolescents decide to go for a drive and film themselves horsing around; it’s all fun and games until they get lost. The acting is excellent, the conversation feels natural, the tension is palpable. It’s as good as it gets in the genre and medium.

I like the clips they added randomly throughout the film of the boys trying out Photo Booth effects, playing the guitar and just being regular teenagers at earlier points in time. At times the unrelated images appear so abruptly that it makes you jump a little, which I feel greatly enhances the eerie atmosphere. Same goes for the infinitely creepy record loop on the radio, which stems from the 2008 thriller The Strangers.

That’s all I’m willing to give away for now, as this spine-chilling short is definitely worth the 9 minutes of your day. It’s undoubtedly one of the best low-budget horror films I’ve seen. Check it out below.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08rj_ioKNSo]

Top 3 Movie Mashups

Sometimes when the power’s out and I’m bored I think about what interesting movie combinations there could be if people had a fucked-up mind like I do. Big thanks to Yannick and Laurent for helping me with this post. Enjoy!

1. Schindler’s List & Space Jam

Due to “unknown” circumstances a large community of people has to leave their homes. Schindler proposes a basketball match to Hitler. If the latter wins, he can use the people as slaves for his amusement park but if Schindler and his team win they are free to go back to their homes.
“It’s time to hit the showers” has never sounded so inappropriate.

2. Home Alone & Funny Games

Kevin is accidentally left behind while the family flies to Paris for Christmas. On Christmas Eve the 8 year old boy discovers two psychotic „burglars“ (Paul & Peter) who, for their own amusement, want to play sadistic games with him. Is Kevin fast enough to wire his house with home-made traps to stop the two and to bring them to justice?
A family “comedy” with Kevin, Peter & Paul.

3. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs & Human Centipede

In order to seek confidence of the 7 Dwarfs, Snow White makes up the story that her stepmother wanted her to be killed in a forest. The hunter who’s charged with the murder isn’t able to kill her and lets her go. She gets lost and it’s the animals who show her the house of the Dwarfs. This seems all logical to the little men and they accept her as a guest not knowing that Snow White is a young nazi Fräulein with the perverse phantasy of reassembling them into a new pet, a human centipede.
Eat shit! – Fräulein Snow White

Bonus:

Ex Drummer & De Grønne slagtere (The Green Butchers)

Koen de Geyter, Jan Verbeek, Ivan Van Dorpe; three handicapped losers and their drummer, a famous writer called Dries decide to end their unsuccessful punk band. Ivan and Jan mysteriously disappear. The remaining ones decide to start a butcher’s and become famous for their excellent meat quality.
Find out what happened to Ivan and Jan and why the “chickie-wickies” are so special?

You got some weird ideas too? Post your suggestions in the comment section below. I also want to see some posters of the movies!!

Werewolves In Siberia – The Rising

As your blog manages to get bigger and more popular, it happens that people request you to review their masterworks or how they like to call it. Which is a good thing, actually. Thanks to social media we get in touch with new artists and never despair to write new reviews as new material drops by on an almost daily basis. But at what price?

Werewolves in Siberia play, what they call, 70’s and 80’s inspired synth rock. As I never heard of them before, I did my obligatory online researches, checked their bandcamp and twitter profiles but couldn’t get any further informations. Last.fm confirmed my fears, as this band / collective / project only has 2 listeners and 14 scrobbles. Oh boy, what was I getting myself into?

If The Rising is supposed to be a horror soundtrack, it does not fail its task completely. The soundpalette is cheesy and well chosen at least. But that’s it. The opener Introduction to a nightmare and the last track Return to the nightmare could give you the impression that The Rising actually is a concept album, but no it’s not. It’s not that I do not like sterile soundscapes and repetitivity; that’s what made Kraftwerk the most recognized electronic band ever, but one has to put a lot of effort into creating his own sound and identity instead of selecting the most annoying and cheesy instrument in Magix Music Maker and calling it your own creation. It’s all about compromising!

The Rising is not catastrophic, the production is clean; there are even some pleasant moments in it, like Return to the nightmarewhich could sound colossal if only the artist had put more time into his composition and tried to implement real instruments into the track instead of going full MIDI. This album is supposed to be a horror soundtrack but plashes into insignificance and boredom. The only thing my mental cinema could imagine was a group of Ewoks hunting mushrooms in planet Gutter on a real bad Meth trip. And that’s not even as funny as it sounds. But if you’re still into this kind of music (why not?), get it on bandcamp.

Golden Tanks – R.D.H.B.

Ever heard of the band Every Time I Die? Like them? Read on then, because Golden Tanks will be right up your alley! The four guys from Reading recently released their EP R.D.H.B., which demonstrates hardcore punk at its best!

The guitars relentlessly throw riff after riff at you and leave you almost no chance to breathe, while the drums batter down everything in their way. The symbiosis between the two instruments is at an excellent level and it never sounds off when the faster parts kick in during the five tracks.

The thing that strikes me the most during the fourteen minutes though is definitely the vocalist, who sounds very similar to Keith Buckly of ETID in certain passages with his pitch-changing screams, with his flawlessly executed performance.

In conclusion I’d say that Golden Tanks do not reinvent the wheel but they keep it spinning at an extremely fast pace. And I’m positive that they will not be forgotten very quickly, if they keep up the same level! You can find more info on their Facebook page and to make things even better: you can download the entire EP for free on their Bandcamp below! Enjoy!

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens is an author’s film by Russ Meyer (R.I.P.) and was co-written by film critic Roger Ebert (R.I.P.). Furthermore, it was Meyer‘s last feature film and together with UP! probably the most sexually graphic one of his filmography. Ultra-Vixens, which can be labelled as a satirical sexploitation film, was released in 1979 and stars Meyers‘ big busted softcore porn sweethearts Uschi Digard and (ex-partner) Kitten Natividad.

Russ Meyer certainly wasn’t known for doing mainstream movies but Ultra-Vixens even goes beyond the typical campy, low-budget soft porn, exploitation stuff he was best known for. Summing up, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens focusses on women’s struggle for sexual satisfaction and men’s inability to fulfil the distorted male sexual role which is imposed by society. In a more simplified or superficial version this means that it is all about big breasted, hairy nymphomaniacs and a man who only gets sexual satisfaction by anally raping women. This of course is not enough to baffle me but rather makes me want to see more but beware: Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens drifts off into a weird world of preposterous sex slapstick!

On a cinematic level I desperately sought for a logical narrative structure, a tension build-up, and character development/progression. Furthermore it seems that Meyer forgot that Ebert and he wrote a plot together and only remembers it until the middle of the film. However, before even risking to follow it he has already abandoned the plan, strips to the buff and strings together one sex scene after an other and this for the last 30 minutes of the film. Ultra Vixens certainly is one of Meyer‘s more experimental films, containing a lot of gamy, curious but also remarkable and innovative camera angles and perspectives, like filming through bedsprings.

In the end, I have the stong feeling that Meyer wasn’t able to finish his film as there are too many repetitive and confusing images/scenes. Even though the review doesn’t sound quite positive, I really liked the film but I can’t tell you exactly why. I am not even sure if I should recommend Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens but who am I to tell you, do whatever you want.

Scarred – Gaia/Medea


I am very stoked about today’s review, because I have the great privilege to give you an online world premiere of one of the, if not the, most anticipated Luxembourgish metal records in recent times. As you have guessed by the cover, I’m talking about Scarred‘s new album Gaia/Medea. Let me just spoil one thing before I begin: it was very much worth the four year wait! So let’s start, shall we?

First things first: it’s a very thematic album, with the first and the last song building the general concept, so you’ll be able to enjoy a steady progression throughout the ten songs. Without giving away too much, it deals with the end of the world in all of its forms. In comparison to the predecessor New Filth Order, the lyrics are a lot more mature and you can definitely notice a vast improvement.

The guitars are on a whole new level as well, both sound- and technique-wise. Whereas they were already super well executed on album number one, this one puts it all to shame. The amount of ingenuity of the riffs, licks and especially solos is just overwhelming and you will not believe your ears, especially on your first listen-through.

I could almost copy-paste the paragraph about the guitars when it comes to the drums, but that would be a bit boring. The drums are still as much “in your face” as you’re used to, with the addition of an uncountable amount of fills in the most unexpected passages. The sound fits the ensemble perfectly, yet manages to stand out among the sound barrage.

The vocals, which in my opinion were kind of monotonous on NFO, have reached new heights and display a great variation in tone, speed and feature harmonies almost throughout all of the songs…something I dig a lot, personally, since it adds a completely new dimension to these sixty-two minutes.

Next up is something I usually don’t do, but since this is one of my personal highlights this year, I will do a song-by-song breakdown of the album. Don’t worry, it won’t be too long!

The opener, Gaia, starts off with an atmospheric intro before unleashing hell on your eardrums. Coupled with a rather melodic chorus, it’s the perfect prelude to what awaits you.

Next up is Cinder, which I predict to be the new headbang anthem at upcoming Scarred shows. This groove-laden masterpiece features one of my favorite riffs on the entire album, as well as one of the sing-along-friendliest choruses you will find. The drums stand out as well, since they’re filled with nasty little fills left and right. Trust me when I tell you that you won’t be able to restrain yourself from bopping your head to this one.

The Great Pan(dem)ic starts in a rather progressive vain, proceeds to simply go balls to the walls with almost no chance for breath and finishes you off with a groove invasion.

The next song, Psychogenesis, is the first one to show a very different side of the record. Even though the following statement isn’t exactly correct, it feels to me like a black metal song in some spots, with the chorus describing that feeling the best.

Low is probably the most straight-forward song, and there’s not much I can say about it except that the last minute is purely eargasmic, definitely listen to that one carefully.

Mosaic is the guitar-geek song, no doubt about that one. Riff after riff, solo after solo, lick after lick…there’s no end to this one’s potential for bloody fingers of people who want to play along.

Next comes Idiosyncrasy, the metal-duet featuring Boerdi of Kraton and Dreadnought. The guy’s become such an omnipresent figure in the Luxembourgish metal scene that I would have almost been pissed if they got someone else instead of him. The song starts off with a really crushing riff, that is among the heaviest of the record, and transcends into a more progressive vibe about half-way through and ends with a fading-in intro of the next song.

Said intro is just too much for me to put into words. Essentially it’s nothing super complicated but the guitar (yes) tone they achieved here is just so uplifting and the perfect preface to easily my favorite song on the record: The Knot. I won’t go too much into this one since I want you to make up your own mind about it and tell me if you share my enthusiasm. If you don’t, then there’s at least the phenomenal guest-solo of Atilla Vörös, of Nevermore, for you to enjoy.

The ninth song, Empire Of Dirt, is also part of the straight-forward camp but it features a lot of groove in several parts as well as super-fast solos.

The final song, Medea, is almost twelve minutes in length…yet not boring. There’s so much variation, starting with an almost “happy” part then going into sheer heaviness before ending with an instrumental reprise of the first notes of the album. Also noteworthy: this one wins the lyric trophy for its purely epic story.

This sums up my review of Gaia/Medea, and to keep things short I’ll just say: if you don’t have this masterpiece on your shelf when it comes out…you’re missing out big time. In my opinion, the Luxembourgish quintet has managed to put every local metal record that has been released in the past decade to shame. …I might be exaggerating slightly, but decide for yourself once you’ve heard it. You can keep up with the band’s future plans on their Facebook page and listen to the exclusive new song below. And most of all: do not miss the release party of the album, which will happen on June 1st at the Kulturfabrik in Esch!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F9eGUBemY8]

Volbeat – Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies


The year 2013 marks the year of the release of the fifth album Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies by Danish rockers Volbeat. Some people hate the band, some love them…one thing that can’t be argued about is that they constantly deliver amazing live performances. I myself had the chance of seeing them in both a festival and a club surrounding and I can guarantee that you will not be able to stand around still at one of their shows. But that isn’t what this review is about, so let’s get started.

I like to call Volbeat “the AC/DC of heavy metal”, since their sound never changes much but they never release a bad album per se. Repetitive? Sure, sometimes. But never bad. This record does not break that pattern and especially if this is your first time with the band, you will appreciate their rockabilly-metal fusion quite a lot.

For returning listeners I can definitely say that you will not have many “aha” moments, but you will notice a change in their guitar parts. This is due to the recruitment of a new guitarist, ex-Anthrax Rob Caggiano, who brings a new take on their usual riffs to the mix. The other thing you will notice is that there are (even) more songs that are quite clearly aimed towards crowd involvement at shows. Obviously this means that the band intends to get more radio play out of this album, but I for one don’t mind that too much since it still sounds like Volbeat.

This goes for the drums and the vocals as well, not much has changed here…which is meant in a good way. As on the predecessor, there are two guest vocalists again: King Diamond on Room 24 and Sarah Blackwood on Lonesome Rider. Especially the former song stands out quite a lot on the album since it features several guitar solos and the vocals just kick as, but what did you expect?

To be frank: the fourteen songs, which clock in at just under an hour, are nothing revolutionary but every fan of the band should at least give this record a listen or two. For newcomers this is as good as any previous release to get started. Check out the band’s Facebook page for possible tour dates and listen to the song below, which by the way is the softest one on the record.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlF3OY-FenY]

Motorpsycho – Still Life With Eggplant

Prog and Psych Rock veterans Motorpsycho are back with their new studio album Still Life With Eggplant. After a huge double album project in 2012, including cooperation with an orchestra and Ståle Storløkken, this release again is more like a back to basic or classic Motorpsycho album, although this kind of vocabulary doesn’t do justice to the Norwegians variety of styles.

Still Life With Eggplant is a very diversified and, for Motorpsycho standards, even a pretty accessible LP that reminds a litte of the 2010 release Heavy Metal Fruit. But unlike the space odyssey that was built back then, it seems that the band takes us to the countryside this time, producing even a kind of acoustic summer song with The Afterglow in the end. Let’s start with the beginning however. Hell, Part 1-3 is what I would call a typical Motorpsycho song (but be careful, I missed around two decades of this band’s history): progressive and strong riffs compared with hypnotizing vocals, not to forget a jazzy outro to end this nearly 10 minutes opener.

August starts threatening before the clouds are thrusted aside and a 60s Woodstock song made in Norway takes over. The thunderstorm takes over again however, and before you realise it the song is over and you’re left behind with wet clothes. Barleycorn again stands for the band’s talent to mix deep melancholic moments with moments of hope and awakening. This duo permanently goes hand in hand, musically and lyrically.

Ratcatcher is the obligatory 17 minute odyssey, trying to hypnotise you right from the beginning before taking you on a journey through dizzying drums, psychedelic vocals and capricious guitars. There aren’t many bands anymore that design so diverting 17 minutes songs.

Still Life With Eggplant is not as strong as the comparable Heavy Metal Fruit , but if you liked the 2010 release then this is surely something for you! Also very recommendable for Motorpsycho beginners.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NqmxF_GuGE]

Trash Monday LXV


Just read the title of the artist (you may or may not replace the R in that word by a U) and the song title, and you’ll know what awaits you. I don’t think I have to comment on any “qualities” of the video below.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPvNOGSZevM]