Issues – Black Diamonds


Today’s review will constitute the first part of a comparison of two different records. The reason I’m doing this is because today’s record features several ex-members of the band I’m going to review next week, mainly the two former lead singers. So, let’s start, shall we?

Issues was formed in mid 2012 and quickly decided to release an EP called Black Diamonds in order to show their fans that they’re still alive and full of inspiration. An endeavor that, in my opinion, definitely succeeded.

After an electronic-dubsteppy intro, which they could have left aside, you are treated to the absolutely phenomenal King Of Amarillo: a song that has managed to cause quite a stir in the metalcore community because it’s an open diss of the main member from the singers’ former band. It starts off heavy and switches into a chorus that is dominated by very soulful clean vocals followed by a hip-hop influenced part that, oddly enough, fits perfectly into the ensemble.

The rest of the six songs follows a similar formula but each song has its own recognition value, which is something I appreciate a lot since it is virtually impossible to get bored even after the umpteenth listening session. But the, hands-down, best song among these twenty-two minutes is the fifth one: Love. Sex. Riot.. Not only does it have a catchy as hell melody but is also enhanced by guest vocals of the Attila singer, Chris Fronzack, who adds a special flavor with his fast and brutal vocals.

On an instrumental level the album has a very modern sound to it with a couple of “aha” moments such as sporadic use of turntables. Guitar- and drumwork are rather groove orientated and complement the two singers perfectly. To round things off there is a hidden track which is as close to hip-hop as the EP gets, with guest vocals of Snow Tha Product.

All in all, I can only say that this first release by Issues is a great start and I’m excited for what they can bring to the table in the future, because the only thing that’s “bad” about Black Diamonds is the length. Be sure to check back next weekend for part two of my comparison and in the meantime, check out the band’s Facebook page and the video below.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VuPEdTg7_k]

G.I.S.M. – Detestation


I’d like to start this review by thanking Luc for introducing me to the band. I had heard of G.I.S.M. before but I am the type of guy who does not listen to mp3s. I just do not care for files on a computer. I like to buy a Cd or vinyl and sit down, read through the booklet, look at the cover, check online for information on the band/release. I like to be busy with the music, digest it and be part of it.

I first heard of the band when reading an interview with Lee Dorian on his early influences. He mentioned Sakevi being an influence on creating his vocal style for Napalm Death. This must have been sometime in the mid 90s and, like with many other Cds back then, it was just impossible to get ahold of G.I.S.M.. So I pretty much forgot about it until recently when I decided to look for more D-beat/crust/anarcho/hardcore bands similar to Discharge. Luc mentioned G.I.S.M. and sent me a youtube link to check out and I just fell in love with the weirdness of it all.

Savage, fast, weird, melodic, brutal…these and many more adjectives describe what goes on in the mere 20 minutes of the first G.I.S.M. album. To pinpoint a certain song as “typical” is impossible as they are barely 2 minutes long and differ quite a lot. Endless Blockades for the Pussyfooter and Nih Nightmare are considered classics, and rightly so, but I find those songs to be more melodic and tame when compared to A.B.C Weapons or Nuclear Armed Hogs.

The band plays somewhere between (early) Discharge and early Iron Maiden. The aggression and hardcore of D-beat mixed with the melody and solos of heavy metal, and it works perfectly.

Sakevi sings in a style close to death metal and grindcore bands that came half a decade later. Randy is an unsung guitar hero (like many Japanese guitarists) never sounding cheesy, always on the edge and ready to riff off your face or put Randy Rhoads to shame. The album cover screams grindcore!

Sadly the albums are nearly impossible to get. I paid a lot for the unique official Cd press of DETESTation and SoniCRIME Therapy. However there are quite a lot of bootlegs out there, most include the whole Detestation album and the compilation tracks. Many of those bootlegs also sell for a lot.

I would recommend getting the Detestation bootleg vinyl that is being sold on eBay for around 20 euros. That is the cheapest way to own Detestation. The only official Cd press sells for over 100 bucks on eBay, the vinyl is on eBay right now for 400 bucks. Either way, this is a must have!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BYOnhN4HoE]

PS: Yes those are Swastikas and Hitler on the cover. The band used those to shock and are not Neo-Nazis.

Slaughtered Vomit Dolls


Most of the reviews I do are some kind of publicity, bad or good one, combined with personal thoughts I want to share. This one nevertheless is simply a warning! DO NOT WATCH Slaughtered Vomit Dolls (2006). However the movie got your attention, do me a favour and watch the trailer. I rarely recommend trailers but for Slaughtered Vomit Dolls it is absolutely legitimate because the movie IS the trailer except that it lasts for 70 minutes. I even thought about not reviewing it at all because I do not want people wasting their time or even make it interesting for underage people but in the end I find it important to take a firm stand.

First of all I want to tell you something about the plot and therefore am going to quote IMDB user Glock 22:

Someone wrote in the plot that it is about “psychological manifestations of a nineteen year old bulimic runaway stripper”. Well, I have no idea where that fella got this from but I can as well say that it’s about “a group of ex-Russian intelligence agents being hunted down and poisoned with polonium” or “an Olympic volleyball team on the eve of a steroids test trying to get rid of their stomach contents”. You can also write your own plot and nothing would be wrong with it because that thing has no plot what so ever.

Director Lucifer Valentine 666 (what the fuck man, you are not a pubescent sixteen year old child anymore) on the other hand claims in an interview that:

I wuz on vacation in America, standing outside Kurt Cobain’s house in Seattle Washington, thinking about how horrible his Death wuz, when my girlfriend at the time, Ameara LaVey called me on my cel phone. I told her, “We are going to make a movie about a dimension of the parapsychological synchronistic events that took place during the Last Six Days of Kurt Cobain’s Life.” Ameara said that sounded like fun, and so we went about shooting SLAUGHTERED VOMIT DOLLS as the depiction of the Death of a girl named Angela Aberdeen, and what led up to her suicide during the EXACT SAME time period as Kurt Cobain’s Suicide.

Even though I am aware of the nineteen year old bulimic runaway stripper and stuff, I am going with Glock 22 because in the end all I see is an incoherent, un-erotic, pseudo-experimental rape flick, which tries to fit into the hardcore horror genre but most of the time is simply boring. Self proclaimed Satanist, Lucifer Valiente considers Slaughtered Vomit Dolls as vomit gore and yeah…the gore scenes are most of the time pretty lame and I never really got the whole vomit stuff but I suppose it should shock.

If this is not enough the weird editing, the slowed down and distorted Sound Fx nearly made me throw up too and turn this “movie” off after the first 6 minutes. Do you know the Fuck Frankie track on Manson’s Smells like children record? Well, just listen to this song for 70 minutes and you got what the audio of the movie sounds like. If you do not know the track, here it is:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPgwpkdDLP8]

I have no problems with directors jumping on horror sub-genre bandwagons like the ultra-modern violent porn or found footage stuff (yes, Mr. Valentine, that’s exactly what you did, nothing more, nothing less). But I have a problem with movies which just want to provoke and disturb for the sake of it. Please do not call every dull bullshit hardcore horror movie “experimental”. Slaughtered Vomit Dolls is a first class  excremental movie.

To finish the whole story here is the worst part: SVD is the first movie of a trilogy with ReGOREgitated Sacrifice (2009) and Slow Torture Puke Chamber (2010) completing it. Any positive things about the flick(s)? Yes, I quite like the cover artworks…

Motionless In White – Infamous


Imagine this: before there was the internet and YouTube, people who bought music had to rely solely on written reviews or just their gut feeling when buying a new record. If the album I’m reviewing today had come out back then, I’m sure that most buyers would have wondered if they were the victim of a mix-up. The reason for this is that Infamous, the second album, by Motionless In White sounds a lot different than its predecessor Creatures, which was released in 2010.

Let me elaborate: the band’s first record was “typical” metalcore with a few minor influences from other genres, which added just what it needed to differentiate itself from the vast mass of competitors. Their newest endeavor however is heavily eclectic, in the way that it is influenced by a wide range of “older” (note: music released in the early 2000s) styles. I won’t get into what bands it sounds like because I’m pretty sure you will recognize several of them yourselves, but I’ll say that you can find a lot of industrial elements and some that are reminiscent of black metal.

On the instrumental front you can clearly distinguish between two tunings: the “classic” one and the “industrial” one; when you reach the third song you will know what I mean by this. This difference is something I thoroughly enjoy since it adds an extra bit of variation to the whole mix.

But what makes this album, for me, are the vocals: the singer was already quite experimental on the debut record but here it’s literally an avalanche of singing styles that are thrown at you. On top of that you have, for the most part, great lyrics that are no longer about horror themed stuff but about more socio-critical topics. And to round it all off, you have three guest appearances by the singers of Vampires Everywhere, Soilwork and Bleeding Through: Michael Vampire, Bjorn Speed Strid and Brandan Schieppati, respectively.

I’m convinced that the rather radical change off direction might piss of some of the early fans but I for one greatly welcome the risk they took with this record. If you are not too stubborn when it comes to how you want to have your metalcore served, I strongly recommend that you give Infamous a spin, or two. You can find more information about the band on their Facebook page and you can get an impression of their new style through the track below. And last but not least, if you like what you hear be sure to head to Kulturfabrik on the 8th of February 2013, where Motionless In White will be supporting Asking Alexandria.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKyji3uXqOY]

Wo Fat – The Black Code


Wo who you might ask now? Well, to be honest, I’ve never heard of them before, although they already brought out 3 albums in the last years. The Black Code is number 4. And number 4 is so damn huge that its force and agility left the author a bit speechless in the beginning, and his language may still be too limited to describe what he’s hearing here.

The year 2012 has nearly reached its end when one more stoner tsunami rolls over the world, making the Mayan prophecy again a bit more realistic. 5 songs, 46 minutes, no boredom, and more to discover than you ever have thought stoner rock could potentially give away. I’m damn serious; they even integrated some samba-like parts during this journey to a wasted red planet. The concept of The Black Code is about a space traveler landing on a strange planet. The sound is brachial, not just warm but burning, and it makes the whole story appear pretty secondary to be honest.

Coming back to the vast numbers of influences, the listener might sometimes be comfortably overwhelmed by what he’s about to witness. From doomy parts to stoner riffs, from progressive jam battles to classic riffs, from jazz to samba (again, I’m not kidding!), from blues to metal, from psychedelic to tearing straight forward, and besides, this is so desert that the Chihuahua desert actually decided to change its name into Wo Fat. I know I’m getting too enthusiastic, but just calling them riff-masters is way too understated. They don’t reinvent the stoner rock genre though, but they add a lot of different input to it.

The guitars and the rhythm section sound just the way they have to, totally stereotypically, which in fact is all they have to sound in a first place. It’s all about the arrangements and the playfulness which can make stoner rock far more flexible. Some breaks are so badass that you wish to be right there at the rehearsal or the concert for that moment in order to totally go nuts.

When it comes to the vocals, the lead singer, although he’s one of those typical stoner singers, might appear a bit too gently, which doesn’t really have to be a big negative point; it probably is to be ascribed to the hugeness of Wo Fat‘s all-embracing sound. However, one might not be patient enough to endure the lengthened (blues or psychedelic) parts before the next riff starts off, but this is depending on the hearer’s preferences.

This is something for rockers, dancers, rhythm lovers, head bangers, or whosoever, and certainly a must try for stoners.

Recommendations: songs 1 to 5.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hboz_3m-LJg]

Trash Monday XLIV


Ok, I had a pretty good video at first but than a friend of mine (thank you Laurence, for the eye-and ear-cancer) showed me PONPONPON by the Japanese blogger and model Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. I am absolutely not sure what I have witnessed here but PONPONPON confirms my suspicion that the Japanese government must have contaminated the groundwater with liquid extasy, there simply is no other explanation!!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzC4hFK5P3g]

Zombie Zombie clip “Driving This Road until Death Sets You Free” from Simon Gesrel and Xavier Ehretsmann


Ok, let me tell you something. Today, I decided to review something different as the typical trash movie stuff you can find here every friday. Why? Well, there are a few reasons. First of all, I started reviewing 3 different movies but wasn’t satisfied with the results. At some point I remembered this really beautiful video, Daniel Carneiro showed me a week ago in Berlin. I decided to rewatch it and to write a few lines because the guys definitely deserve it. Believe me, you are not going to be disappointed. And last but not least, Driving This Road until Death Sets You Free (2008) is movie related nonetheless.

First some facts. The video you are about to see is the first clip made for the French electro-pop band Zombie Zombie aka Etienne Jaumet and Cosmic Neman.  Directed by Simon Gesrel and Xavier Ehretsmann (check out this interview) this non-official video clip is a beautiful masterpiece of modern stop-motion and a mind-blowing hommage to the great movie allrounder John Carpenter and his masterpiece: THE THING.

The great attention to detail (have a look what they used normal hot glue sticks for, a miniature vodka bottle, other vegetables and lots of G.I. Joe characters and other toys), the incredibly dedicated elaboration of  stop-motion art combined with the wonderful filming and the after effect work  still make me speechless. Do not miss this, watch it here:

Zombie Zombie clip “Driving This Road until Death Sets You Free” from Simon Gesrel on Vimeo.

Basement – Colourmeinkindness


I think it’s time for a little variation, which is why I’ve decided to review the British band Basement and their new release Colourmeinkindness. Let me start by giving you a little back story: in 2011 I saw the band at a hardcore show here in Luxembourg and I was immediately amazed by them because, not only did they stick out with their style but they also laid down a killer performance. Needless to say I went home and bought their back then freshly released EP Songs About The Weather which I still listen to every now and then because of the raw and honest feel it has to it. A bit more than year later I saw that the band had released a new full length album, so I bought it without even thinking about it: a wise choice.

The album has a different feel to it than the previously mentioned EP, in the way that it feels more mature and also more diverse. But it has also become a bit softer in the process, which doesn’t bother me all that much since the songs have gained a lot in structure and recognition value.

The guitars will surprise you with catchy riffs that might sound familiar at first, but more of that later. The same goes for the drums: a clean, organic sound with catchy beats and interesting fills. The vocals range from clean to slightly screamed and perfectly fit the ensemble since they add the right amount of melancholy to the whole thing.

The thing that stands out the most, to me at least, is that I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve loved this album before I even knew it was released. The reason for this is that I’ve encountered a lot of elements that remind me of bands that I used to listen to ten or more years ago and still listen to from time to time. I’m going to go out on a limb here and just say that it sounds like Nirvana‘s In Utero meets Foo Fighters‘ Colour And The Shape meets Bush‘s Golden State and a touch of Pixies thrown in for good measure. I’m aware that I might get death threats for that statement but that’s my honest impression and that is also the reason why I was so awed by this release. It just struck a little nostalgic nerve in me and sucked me in.

But instead of trying to explain it to you, you should just check it out for yourself. Especially since the ten tracks can be legally downloaded for only 5 bucks on Basement‘s Bandcamp page. For more info you can check their Facebook page and I strongly urge you to listen to the song below and tell me if you think my description was accurate.

Wintersun – Time I


It’s about time…or 10 steps to “overhype” a record. This could be the title for Wintersun‘s latest (sounds a little excessive if you take a closer look at their discography) record, if it was a book. But the fact that I don’t read books shows us…well nothing.

Back to the facts: I totally love Wintersun‘s self-titled masterpiece from Anno 2004. It was epic, majestic, a perfect fusion of Symphony and Destruction. If you are a faithful reader of the yearly calendar, created by our Lord Jesus Christ, you will have noticed that Wintersun (the record) is now 8 years old and maybe you ask yourself: what happened? Well dear reader, in 90% of the cases I would tell you now that there were lots of lineup changes or the singer got pregnant or died because of Babushkaphobia…but no: the lineup is still the same, men can’t get pregnant and everything is fine with dear little grand ma. The stumbling stone was technology: Jari Mäenpää’s personal computer was simply too weak to handle the sheer epicness of the arrangements, choirs, riffs and other stuff you need to create a Wintersun-thing.

So after gathering some money for a new PC by playing gigs (true story bro), a massive but tiresome hypestorm on Facebook, and…oh yeah: 8 years, Wintersun had raised my expectations in Time I on “over9000”…and fail. The record goes hand in hand with Diablo 3, Chinese Democracy and Duke Nukem Forever. Usually I would admit now, that it’s my proper mistake cause I had too high expectations in Time I, but it was Jari himself who put the bar onto a height he could never reach, by posting dozens of outtakes from reviews written by euphoric journalists, which had the luck to pre-listen the record before release date.

All right, to be fair, until now, this review is more like a speech against overdone self-advertising, so let’s try to write some objective criticism. First of all, the length of the tracks is the worst choice the band could make. There are just too few climaxes and highlights on Land of Snow and Sorrow and Time (the song) to justify a length of about 10 Minutes. None of those two songs really finds a way to entertain me over the whole time.

So what about the other 3 Songs? Yes, Sons of Winter and Stars kicks asses; it is interesting and ambitious songwriting at its best, but it also ensures that I don’t give a fart about the rest of the record. At last, When Time fades away and Darkness and Frost are two instrumental interludes which try to hide the sobering fact that Time I only has 3 real songs, and two of them are too weak in comparison with the amazing predecessor-record. Sorry Jari, but I didn’t wait 8 years to get only 35 minutes of metal…

Funny Fact 1: The production (arrangements, sound-mix…) is so complex, that most of the listener will never hear all the details, Jari invested to create this audible heavyweight.

Funny Fact 2: Yes I know there will be a Time II in early 2013…but why? It just makes no sense to me…Only time can tell.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alo7A0NLmxU]

This review was written by our freelancer Sven.