Beastly

Holy fuck, are you ready to fall in love with an obscure bit of punkified metal from the bullshit state of New Jersey? This gem was released in 1983 on the great Mutha Records, the concern that brought the world the brilliant Chronic Sick EP Cutest Band In Hardcore. The Beast were often associated with the Metal scene due to their contributions to the early Megaforce comp Born to Metalize, and while The Beast's material on that record are decent enough, they are by no means as awesome as the four blazing tracks on this EP. In fact, this isn't too far from what Chronic Sick were laying down. The opening track "The Beast" is the band's mission statement, it establishes The Beast as a no bullshit crew of leather jacket wrapped Jersey toughs who simply don't give a fuck, but can still lay down the hooks. This becomes more and more evident over the course of the next three songs. The secret weapons here are the absolutely charm slathered vocals of Scott Ruth. The guy is Danzig without the fanboy horror nerdisms, Rollins without the Manson/Jim Morrison affectations, but still remains Scott Ruth, Long Branch badass wise guy. Seriously, my words can't do this justice. This is one of those rare records that almost makes you ache this band didn't record more material. The amazing Devil Dick over at The Devil's Music Blog wrote a great and informative piece on The Beast and Mutha Records here, I'm going to shut up now, my ramblings shouldn't keep you from this bit of genius any longer.

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Last Rights

Here's a bit of youthful anger that may have eluded you the first time around in the 1980s. Perhaps you weren't born yet, perhaps you (like me) avoided the bulk of seemingly meat-headed Boston hardcore bands. Anyhoo, Last Rights was the short lived band of Jack "Choke" Kelly after the ridiculously awesome Negative FX and before the ridiculous Slapshot. Not as frantic as NFX and nothing about sports as was the case with Slapshot. The sound here is pretty standard Boston, reminding me of DYS. The B-side, "So Ends Our Night" even tells a typically Boston HC story of hanging out with your asshole buddies and beating someone up. Interesting factoid: some band called Dinosaur JR. covered "Chunks" on their album You're Living All Over Me.

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Deathrune

Yonkers, New York, a bullshit town known mostly for giving the world Anthrax (the band, not the disease,) Gene Krupa, and the morbid florist himself, Will Rahmer. Not really surprising that such a place would churn out some pretty sick metal in the early '90s. Deathrune spent this fertile time cranking out decent enough demos but never managed to get anything widely released before their demise in 1995. Guitarist Mike Saez would go on to play with Incantation, just like anyone else into Death Metal in the area. Beneath the Cypress Groves is the band's second demo, and it offers up a solid half hour of solid American Death Metal. Not as crushing as the Swedes, not as adept as those rednecks down in Florida, but still packing enough putrid riffage and atmosphere to be a keeper.

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Iscariot

Iscariot were a gaggle of Heavy Metal hopefuls from Portland, Oregon. A bullshit town known mostly for  craft beer and rain. In 1985 the band cranked out one cassette demo and it's not bad, not bad at all. Traditional Heavy Metal is served here with tinges of classic Doom. Dragons, kings, and demons provide lyrical inspiration and keep the proceedings fairly orthodox in the approach. I have asked a few Portlanders I know if they have any info on Iscariot, what became of them?  But, alas, the info is as scarce as the eye teeth of a unicorn.

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Stay True Or Die!!!

THIS BLOG IS NOT DEAD!!! Okay with that out of the way allow me to introduce you to a band I recently stumbled across who just blew me away with a youthful vigor and unyielding love for real Heavy Metal. No retro cool, no ironic facial hair, no tattoos, just five baby faced bangers from Daly City calling themselves Hell Fire. These duders are just barely out of high school and already outplaying many of the seasoned Shreddy Roosevelts out there, and doing it on some right crappy gear no less. Kind of sounding like the classic German bands Grave Digger and Helloween, Hell Fire also inject a bit of Bay Area dirt head thrash in their trip. They were cool enough to flow me this cool CDR demo with a the humble caveat that this is a bit outdated and may not be the best representation of the band. I tend to agree, the drums are a bit "suspicious" sounding and this piece of plastic can in no way truly convey the sheer joy of playing and charm Hell Fire overflow with in the live setting. Seriously, support these kids, they absolutely deserve it. 

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