26 Years of Nothing

Disfear
Misanthropic Generation
2003

Disfear bassist Henrik Frykman passed away last week after a battle with cancer. If you're not familiar with Disfear, they play crushing d-beat punk and feature among the current lineup former At the Gates and The Crown vocalist Thomas Lindberg and former Entombed guitarist and bassist Uffe Cederlund on guitar. So take those bands and imagine them playing Motorhead covers and you get a general idea of what you're up against here. Fucking great. Rest in peace, Henrik.

Misanthropic Generation

Birthday Party of Madness

Burger King Diamond
Upon The Red Wings of Phallic Delusion
2005

Swedish metal gods Burger King Diamond are all but unknown in the US, but in their native Sweden they headline festivals and sell out arenas, preaching the gospel of old school heavy metal with a hot beef injection of black metal imagery and King Diamond worship. Also most of their songs are about fast food. Frontman Sven Hellhammer has been struggling with the current state of the music business, but both this album and their follow up Kiss The Goat: The Anthology are available on iTunes. Hear the blazing leads from dueling guitarists Christofer Bartlett and Nocturno Frost, the thundering bass work from Culto Kathaarian, and of course the competent drumming of one Ásbjörn. HAIL!

Upon The Red Wings of Phallic Delusion

George Walker Bush, Texas Ranger

Sadville
Make Ready The Cross
2007

Ok everyone, I'm back in action over here at Casa de Muck. Let's do this.

Sadville hailed from Tennessee, from Knoxville or Cookeville, depending on which band member you ask. Their style should be familiar to many readers of this blog: crushing, crusty metal with a healthy dose of sludge and grind. A little His Hero is Gone, a little Thou, you know the deal. You won't be disappointed.

Rumor is there's been idle chatter about the band reforming, but don't say you heard it from me. Or do, I guess. See if I care.

Make Ready The Cross

Tear You Down Build Me Up

Ocelot
The Quiet Storm
2002

Ocelot might've been a year or two too early. The kicked a shit-ton of ass around Atlanta in the early aughts, but broke up before they really made a splash on a national level. I saw them in 2002 headline a show with Maserati and Explosions in the Sky as the openers. That's balls, right?

But anyway, this is a great instrumental rock record. These guys knew what they were doing. Drummer Alex Lambert has been in a handful of Atlanta bands, though imo none as good as Ocelot. I don't really know what the rest of the guys have done. Like 7 years ago I used to see bassist Brian Harris working at a pizza joint in Atlanta. Guiarist Kenyon Tavares was (maybe still is) the bartender at The Local, one of the better bars in Atlanta. Also there was a stretch where I saw him at literally every single show I went to, even the first Pitchfork Festival, way the fuck up in Chicago. Speaking of which, if you google "ocelot the quiet storm" the first result is a fairly badly written review I wrote of this record way back for Pitchfork. I can't really write for shit now, but back then I really couldn't write for shit.

At any rate, this is a little different than the usual crap I post, but it comes highly recommended.

The Quiet Storm

I Turned Into A Martian

The Undead
12 Hits From Hell Uncovered
2007

You know that The Undead is early Misfits guitarist Bobby Steele's long-running project. The Misfits famously lambasted Steele on a widely circulated bootleg by changing the lyrics to "I Turned Into A Martian" to "Bobby Steele's an asshole/fucking cunt," and "Bobby Steele, The Undead suck/they fucking suck!" etc. I wonder if The Misfits had become the biggest band on the planet (like, say, Metallica), would Bobby Steele be super bitter and bring them up in every single interview and still refer to them as "my old band" like 30 years later (like, say Dave Mustaine). But I digress.

The Undead were never that good, but they weren't that bad either. Steele named a live album Live Slayer, which is pretty funny. You gotta give him credit for that, right? But he also always felt it necessary to remind everyone that he was in The Misfits, which is why, I guess, in 2007 he yanked out a full-album cover of The Misits' never-released 12 Hits From Hell album, the only full-length of theirs that he appeared on. It's not very good, but that should not stop you from listening to it. I mean, honestly, if I didn't listen to things just because they kind of sucked, I'd only have like 4 albums on my hard drive.

12 Hits From Hell Uncovered

Hell's Motel

MD.45
The Craving
1996/2004

In 1996, Dave Mustaine wanted to do something that sounded different from Megadeth, so he grabbed Lee Ving and Kelly LeMieux from Fear and Jimmy Degrasso from Suicidal Tendencies and slapped down this record. Nevermind the fact that in 1996, Megadeth didn't even sound like Megadeth, but whatevski.

Then, in 2004, as he was remastering the old Megadeth records, Mustaine decided to remaster this one too. Only, lord have mercy, the vocal and harmonica tracks Ving laid down were now mysteriously missing! How could such a thing have happened!? What in the world is a narcissistic, myopic, megalomaniac to do? Why re-record the vocals himself of course. So now it sort of sounds like a lost Megadeth record, or a record of songs cut from mid-90s Megadeth records or something.

None of this is to say that the record is bad, or that the 04 version is better or worse than the 96 version. The riffs are at times kind of bluesy, which suits Ving's "I can't really sing, but I'm too drunk to care" vocal style. But the remastered version is much beefier, and Mustaine's voice suits some of the more straightforward metal songs a little better.

At any rate, here's both versions.

The Craving

Science and Trucking

Textbook
A Garden to Tear Apart
unreleased

Shameless self promotion alert!

Textbook started back in 2003 or so, with an original lineup featuring three former members of Flux Capacitor (Jeremy Spake, Shane Secor, and Brian Crow) and some other dude on drums. Eventually that other dude was replaced by Gregory Case. Around this time, Brian was playing with me in a band called Atlantic (with another former member of Flux Capacitor, incidentally). He jumped ship to focus on Textbook exclusively, and eventually Atlantic folded. Fast-forward a year or so and Shane and Textbook decided to part ways amicably, and lo and behold, I get called up as his replacement.

I was in Textbook for roughly 1 year before we went on hiatus due to a great career opportunity for Jeremy. That 8-month hiatus turned into a year-long hiatus, then a year-and-a-half, and long story short, we never reformed. So here is our never-released full-length debut. Being in the band for only a short time, I'm in a bit of a unique position. I play on 2 of these 9 songs; the rest were recorded with Shane before I joined. So I'm really coming to you as a fan of this record, not just a dude promoting his own shit. If you like heavy post-punk, somewhere between Jawbox and Deadguy, then I think you'll dig this record. I do, anyway.

Oh, and btw, Shane Secor is in a pretty good newer style punk band called 40 Hells, which initially featured both Brian Crow and Gregory Case in its ranks. And yes, I'm aware of the humor in my band going on hiatus and two of the guys making a new band with an old-member and not me. It's really funny. Ha ha.

A Garden to Tear Apart

Misanthropy for Beginners

This is just a little mix I threw together for a friend, but I figured I'd go ahead and post it here, even though it doesn't really fit my usual format here. I didn't make a cover for it or anything. But it's a few doom metal songs and a bunch of American black metal. Enjoy.

Misanthropy for Beginners: A Doom and Black Metal Mix
1. Suma- Let The Churches Burn
2. Lurker of Chalice- Granite
3. Wolves in the Throne Room- Behold The Vastness and Sorrow
4. Thou- I Was Ignored, And Judged, And Cast Down
5. Krieg- II
6. Krallice- Timehusk
7. Skepticism- The Rising Of The Flames
8. Nachtmystium- Life Of Fire
9. Weakling- This Entire Fucking Battlefield

Misanthropy for Beginners

Realm of Death

Evil Army
Evil Army
2006

Vacation's over, time to get back to stuffing your earholes with tunes. Evil Army's self-titled record is a little more recent than most of the stuff I post, but it's really fantastic, so I'm posting it anyway. Think of a cross between GBH and SOD and you get the general idea. Thrashed out punk with blazing solos; lo-fi death rock played at lightening speeds; however you want to describe it, it's worthy of a headbang.

Evil Army

Pray For Rock

Ché
Sounds of Liberation
2000

Ché featured two ex-members of Kyuss; Drummer Brant Bjork handled guitar and vocals, while other drummer Alfredo Hernández handled drums. Bass was covered by Unida bassist Dave Dinsmore. If you're at all familiar w/ Bjork's solo work, then you already basically know what Ché sounds like. I think a bunch of these songs have been folded into the Brant Bjork and the Bros canon anyway and are played live by them frequently, which makes sense. We're talking groovy, straightforward, weed-smoke-clouded desert rock. At 2 instrumentals and 5 vocalized tracks, this is a quick 35-minute affair, but that just means it's ok to listen twice in a row. Standout tracks are "Adelante" and "The Day the Pirate Retired", but there's not a clunker in the bunch.

Oh, and my cd version of this has the cover and back reversed, with the band photo and upc side on the front and the logo and title on the back, so I've kept it that way. Just so you know.

Sounds of Liberation