Infestation

Here's some bargain basement meth-lab Death Metal from Merced, California's Infestation. The band circulated this demo to score gigs. While it's nothing ground-breaking or terribly original, it is not without its charms. Not to mention that these dudes were really cool guys despite being from Merced, which is full of tiny-teethed tweaker scumbags who would rape your sister for a lottery ticket. Why do I hate Merced? Fuck, have you ever been there? Desperate, dusty and full of dicks. The kind of place you end up only because your car or your life decided to break down.

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The Landmark Case of Faith v. Void

Faith v. Void (1982), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that overturned mediocrity in hardcore splits. The justices ruled in favor of Void. Sandra Day O'Connor got a mohawk shortly after.

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Knuckle Noise

Perhaps one of the finest releases from one of my favorite labels, Fossbrenna Productions. Knokkelklang's 2008 cassette Kalk & Aske is a lumbering umber hulk of depressive, layered Black Metal. Not unlike the pensive post-rock leanings of Veil or Marblebog. Knokkelklang are more despondent than hateful, more dejected than misanthropic. Nice to hear some Norwegian bands that still understand the importance of mystery and obscurity in Black Metal.

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The Hanatarash And His EYE

Here is Hanatarash's 1992 EP titled The Hanatarash and his EYE. Wildness.

ナチの金属をサーフする酸

Skulduggery

Degenerate pirate Death Metal that has almost as much in common with later Black Flag as with Nunslaughter. Now I have your attention, good. Skulduggery is the first full-length from Australian horde Cauldron Black Ram. This record absolutely floored me with its equal parts primal gut-punch and musical competence. It's been almost five years since its release, I hope this band has more goat-headed stew brewing in their blackened pot. This is highly highly recommended.

Ahoy

Grave Mistake?

Like Bad Religion's Into The Unknown, Discharge's 1986 album Grave New World showcased an abrupt shift in style and was met with widespread derision and scorn. I'm sure everyone has heard about the disastrous tour where people booed them off stage and, in some cases, pelted them with trash, but has everyone heard this album, formulated an opinion on the record's own merits? Perhaps you have, I don't really know. Listen and reflect in the comments, or don't.

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First Spell

Gehenna's 1994 EP First Spell is a classic bit of second-wave Norwegian Black Metal. The use of archaic keyboard sounds over the top of the plodding mid tempo riffs sets this apart from the herd. The '60s church organs on opening track "The Shivering Voice Of The Ghost" are to die for (check the solo that begins roughly at 2:09). Sadly, Gehenna didn't really follow this path with their first full-length Seen Through the Veils of Darkness (The Second Spell), which is a decent enough album but fails to hold the magick and mystique of First Spell. This was when Norwegian black metal was new and exciting, before it was fully realized, when the deranged fumblings of pasty disenfranchised Scandi teens made for great art with depth and distance. Fall under its spell.

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German Oak

Nibelungenlied is the second (and far superior in my opinion) album by uberkult Krautrock underdogs German Oak. As the title suggests, inspiration came from the epic German poem The Song of the Nibelungs, the same poem that had inspired Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle one hundred years before. This recording is incredibly lo-fi, not unlike much of the black metal featured here on The Hearse. Recorded in 1976, Nibelungenlied may be the first kult black metal record ever made, sonically speaking. Primitive necro death psych to be listened to in the dark.

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Puzzling

Yamantaka Eye (Boredoms, Hanatarash, Naked City) and well-known visual artist and Juke/19 mastermind, Shinro Ohtake, launch a new genre they call "Puzzle Punk" by creating this fake compilation of 24 bands packaged in a stunning book of Ohtake's illustrations. All the tracks by puzzle punk bands with names like City Band, Do Good, Ha Ha Ha, Poo, Rapebeatles, Dr. Drugland, Wipe Out Shock Shoppers, and MC5 or 6, are in fact the work of Eye and Ohtake. Like the Hanatarash/Evil Moisture collaboration posted some time back, this is more like Hanatarash than anything else, but you also get Ohtake's weird collage/found object design/sound sense. If you are a fan of the stop-start, glitchcore sonic quilts of Juke/19 or Hanatarash you will find this interesting, all others will find this annoying and pointless. I'm willing to indulge Ohtake and Eye and tag this as a compilation.

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Riot

This seal-headed scorcher is the best bit of NWOBHM to come from The Big Rotten Apple, NYC!. Every minute of Fire Down Under is pure, uncut, tight white denim heaven, but the standout for me will always be "Swords and Tequila," a rager that bears a riff later co-opted by Maiden for their own "2 Minutes To Midnight." Lyrics that deal in what rock is about... gambling, broads, cars, outlaw desperadoes, blow, and the altar of the king, baby. Much has already been said about their utterly ridiculous choice of a mascot, a man (sometimes portrayed as morbidly obese) with a harp seal's head, so I'll refrain from saying any more, but seriously, what the fuck were they thinking? How did such a rocking band from New York City manage to create a package that looks so third world and goofy? Either way, this record is still a classic that is not to be missed.

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Keep This Bag Away From Babies

Here' compilation 7" which it rips; Using 4 of the real bands of Japan where my taste excessively is known. L.S.D., Gasmask, Zouo, and Headless. And art of the collage of the strange Dada of old-fashioned [shijiyuukara] titties and Zouo which loads the enormous hair. So sexual intercourse of the just you are surprised. As for these song everything band' So it appeared; The respective release here, so there is no material which is not audible. It works in nuclear sexual intercourse of the flat tire of the Japanese of 2nd layer fear as a still large primer, inhales the murder of rots and roll. FUCK.

耳の強姦

Slidhr

Slidhr is an excellent one-man band from Ireland that sounds a lot like Norway '93, which is a good thing. Some De Mysteriis-era Mayhem with some Celtic Frost via Darkthrone moments thrown in, an oasis in a desert of boring "depressive" one-man black metal bands releasing tapes. This was released on in a limited run of 300 in 2006 and it is high quality darkness. I want Slidhr to do a proper full-length, I'd buy the fuck out of that shit.

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Velvet Tinmine

The Velvet Tinmine compilation gives you some of the platform-shoed, shaggy-haired glitter rock hopefuls that never received the attention that The Sweet, Gary Glitter, or The Bay City Rollers got. Bands with such names as Iron Virgin, Crunch, Bearded Lady, and Tubthumper put forth their best boppy sing-a-long pop numbers with a kind of endearing pre-punk naiveté. I think many of these groups never released more than a single or two. Most of these bands sound very alike with a few subtle differences. Perhaps that is because I am so unfamiliar with the whole glitter rock scene, and while nothing here knocked me on my ass (the Stavely Makepeace track comes close,) as a total package Velvet Tinmine is a very fun listen.

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Ladies' Night

Don't you want to party with these dangerous broads? Yeah, I thought so. Jaded Lady arose like a phoenix from the ashes of Leather Angel (whom you've also never heard of). They were a popular LA club act and even appeared briefly in the documentary Decline of Western Civilization: The Metal Years. Their brand of chick-metal is perfect for a night on the strip with your best gal pals, drinking peppermint schnapps and being young. Sounds pretty fun until a gang of young toughs called The Scars nearly runs over your deaf mute sister. Then it's game on. You and your girls steal their ride and then leave it trashed for them to find. The Scars enact a terrible revenge...the rape of your innocent deaf mute sister. Oh, but it doesn't stop there. They also kill your best friend just days before she is to marry her high school sweetheart. But you aren't the type of girl to take this shit lying down and you come back on these motherfuckers like leatherclad, crossbow-wielding valkyrie. Wait, I think that's just the plotline to "Savage Streets", that '80s movie with Linda Blair and Linnea Quigley.

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Hostility

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War

Exterminate aren't fucking around. For the past ten years this war-obsessed gasmask and goatcum horde of Chilean blasphemers have been sticking it to all that is holy and pure with their filthy blackened/death/war metal. Exterminate are Nocturnal Profaner of Crypts & Sluts (bass & vocals,) Maguistellus 666 Commanding the Impure Birds (guitar & vocals,) and Butcher of Christ & God of Perversity (drums.) Here is their early (2001) demo rehearsal tape. Hard to imagine how with all the nocturnal profaning, impure bird commanding, and Christ butchering these guys found the time to unleash this pure nuklear earhole rape, but I for one am glad that they did.

Nuklear Christ Semen Goat Fuck Profanation

Ichi The Killer

Film critic TC Candler called Ichi The Killer "A Dreadful Film Made for the Lowest Common Denominator." Well, he also lists Counting Crows as one of his favorite bands so, as you can guess, Mr. Candler is a tool. Ichi The Killer is a blood red parable about a retarded killing machine and the well-dressed masochistic yakuza who desires only to be destroyed by him. What's not to love about that? Counting Crows didn't do the soundtrack, but The Boredoms did, and here it is...

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Reign

Cosmic Hearse reader and friend, Jay Harlow, was cool enough to share with us his old band Reign. Jay now operates the very excellent Black Metal band, Jabladav. I decided it best to let the man himself give you the lowdown on Reign . I'm taking the day off to catch up on some schoolwork. Thanks, Mr. Harlow, and if any other readers want to share their band with us send stuff (graphic included) to joinedattheass@hotmail.com. If it's to my liking it'll turn up here eventually, be patient. All submissions will be listened to in full.

Reign was based out of Winston-Salem NC and lasted from 92-94. NC was kind of a hotbed of its own at that time with COC blowing up and killer bands like Messiah/Confessor/Perpetual Iniquity and False Prophet to name a few.The internet basically didn't exist in our mindsets and everything was word of mouth and all the bands listed above were super competitive so it really was exciting to be part of that scene. No one tried to sound like anyone else and I think that was what put Reign apart from those other guys. With that being said, Wanting a band to sound like early Fates Warning/Queensryche wasn't a very in vogue thing to aspire to. We didn't really tour outside of the Carolinas due to our drummer was/is a professional photographer and wasn't really into cramming in a van and living off McDonalds. At this point Shane Puttman the vocalist starting sending out tapes to Confessor when Scott(Confessor) left to tryout for Watchtower! and Shane was also contacted by Kurdt Vanderhoof to tryout for his project. As you can imagine, finding a singer with Shane's range wasn't something you were going to find in the Carolinas. Things kinda feel apart after that with Gurnge blowing up and I wanted to tap backing into my punk roots. The bassist and I started a band called the Swinging Richards(not knowing the gay reference DOHH) we just thought of ourselves as dick-heads. That didn't last long and then I got into a jazz band called Branch Quartet. We recorded a demo at NC school of the arts and then the drummer and cellist moved to CA where Blake(drummer) teaches at Cal-arts now. During that time I was really into Mick Karn the bassist and me(JA) and the drummer(BLA) and guitar player(DAV) would jam when Gwen was gone and that was how the JABLADAV name came about. So that is it in a nutshell.

JH: guitar/backing vocals

Jon Pugh: guitar/vocals

Shane Puttman: lead vocals/keys

Jeff McMahan: bass/backing vocals

Dave Admundson: Drums

Live master DAT tape soundboard recorded at the now gone ZIGGY's Nightclub.

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Brutality

Here is a haiku I made up about a band I love.

This fucking planet

This broken caveman death jazz

Man Is The Bastard

Here is their first full length LP from 1991 titled Sum Of The Men "The Brutality Continues"

((((O))))

Void of Meaning

Here's some negatronic fucking hatewaves from Colorado's most noxious one-man Black Metal band, Blutvergiftung. Released in very limited numbers in 2005 (Metal Archives claims 13!!!), Void of Meaning is the band's third demo. It seethes with bilious disdain for all things nice and clean. Not for the casual gawkers or Black Metal hobbyists. This is fucked.

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Space Art

Sometimes I like to imagine that I am the protagonist in a very stylish but kind of boring early '70s sci-fi movie. Maybe like a mix between Logan's Run, Blue Sunshine, and THX 1138. Anyways, this album, Onyx, by the mysterious French entity known as Space Art, provides the perfect soundtrack to my future-of-the-past adventures.

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The Lab

The meth lab is more like it. These French dudes were high as fuck on something, probably not meth, but might as well be. The Lab is so far gorked, that while I can't call it "good," I can in good conscience, call it "fucking awesome." Rather amateurish Heavy Metal played with a great deal of joie de vivre, even if it lacks a raison d'être. If you have been following the Hearse you already know that talent isn't always the most important thing, and Axton Pryte's pedestrian noodlings best exemplify this axiom.

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JFA

I said pretty much all I can say about JFA here, but I might as well recap. JFA skated and played punk songs about girls and beer and skating. However, unlike other "skate bands," they played really well and their knowledge and appreciation for music of all kinds helped inform an eclectic sound all their own, topped with Brian Brannon's hoarse and desperate wail. This was their magnum opus and their second full-length LP, sometimes called Untitled, sometimes called JFA. It's a weirdly dark record to come from a bunch of sun-drenched skate rats from Scottsdale, Arizona. If you have never heard this or haven't in a while, I strongly urge you to. It's brilliant and I hope it won't be forgotten as it has yet to be reissued on any format. Why?

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Persona

Weird, lo-fi, Brazilian psychedelic interludes that never really develop into anything. Almost like jingles, or vignettes from a Zé do Caixão film. I know very little about this other than I love it. I guess the band was called Persona, the album was called Son and this was released in 1975.

Aqui

Bog Bodies

Bone Awl's third release, the cassette titled Bog Bodies, is inspired by the well preserved mummies of Iron Age men and women found in the wetlands of Europe. The remarkable preservation of the bog bodies is attributed to the peat in the bogs, the cold climate, and lack of oxygen. Many of the bog bodies were found to have been stabbed and bludgeoned. It would seem from the lyrics of the song "Lindow Man" that Bone Awl did their research: slumped into shoulders/a dark leather face /from the long slumber/in a grave of peat/beard stained red/sinews around neck/of ritual killing/ iron age execution. Seemingly appropriate subject matter to compliment Bone Awl's stark, primitive approach but also shows that Bone Awl are a bit more erudite than most black metal bands. This is the duality of Bone Awl and what makes them a most fascinating entity.

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Flower Girls

Dara Puspita (The Flower Girls) was Indonesia's premier all-girl garage psych band in the mid to late '60s. The group formed by sisters Titiek Adji Rachman (Titiek A.R.) on guitar and Lies Soetisnowati Adji Rachman (Lies A.R.) on bass, and their friends Susy Nander on drums and Ani Kusuma on rhythm guitar. In 1965 the ladies relocated to Jakarta from Surabaya in East Java to make it big in the dangerous world of Indonesian Rock Music. I say dangerous because, at the time, it wasn't uncommon for bands to be jailed for playing crazy rock and roll. However in '65 the political climate changed and rock and roll was back. Dara Puspita took full advantage of this and played their hearts out until 1972. Their reign of indomitable cuteness resulted in a number of fantastic albums that fetch ridiculous prices amongst collectors. Here is their best known and most heralded album, A Go Go for you to enjoy.

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Korova

First off, that cover just sucks and it's a shame because this record certainly does not. Perhaps you saw Korova's A Kiss In The Charnel Fields (come to think of it, the title sucks too) at your favorite record store back in '95 when it came out and glossed over it because of that dumb art and that dumb logo. Now might be a great time to overlook those unfortunate details and become acquainted with what should have been hailed as a classic of avant garde Austrian Death/Black goodness. Herky jerky, carnival chaotic histrionics meet techy tacky fuck all metal. Seriously, grab this.

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Music To Kill Brain Cells By

Back when I posted Broken Talent's Bloodslut EP I touched on the importance of the label they ran called TPOS (True Piece of Sound or True Piece of Shit depending on the mood of the band.) I mentioned how TPOS and Broken Talent created their own aesthetic within the Miami punk scene and released some really strange and wonderful tape compilations along the way. Here is a personal favorite called Music To Kill Brain Cells By that includes some later recordings by Broken Talent, the rickety home taped genius of The Pop Cruds, and some truly fucked up acid weirdness from the likes of Verbal Circus and Fonzie's Nephews. I believe this came out in 1983. Thanks to Jeff Hodapp for sending me a CDR of this. My copy is beyond playable.

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