So they successfully got back together and produced some damn good rockin’ tunes that show they’ve still got it in ‘em.
The ever eclectic Instagon take a left turn at jazz, or more accurately, jazz-fusion, on this 20th anniversary release that documents recordings made throughout 2012 with a multitude of musicians.
Where Children of the Vortex, their previous effort for Love Earth Music, was the noise equivalent of an ’80s hardcore punk record, Adrenalflag Cirrosismantis Livormortis seems to have more in common with black metal.
While this is certainly Instagon’s darkest release to date, it is also one of their most powerful – a raw, spontaneous outburst of twisted psyche.
Over-modulated static twists and morphs, creating a wave of horrifying squelch intent on crushing everything in its path.
Recorded live on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the USS Titanic, this extremely limited cassette release shows the improvisationally inclined Instagon in a sparse, but powerful, lineup that successfully tackles one of history’s greatest failures.
Now on the fourth EP generated from his Children of the Bomb franchise, Matteo delivers yet another superb collection of remixes, reboots and brand new tracks guaranteed to drive all cyber knights out of their coffins and into the glowing neon sprawl.
High Expectations is about as lo-fi as you can get, sounding like it was recorded on a cassette 4-track in a living room.
While the guitar/drums duo thing is tired, passé and generally a bore, Pairs, comprised of drummer/vocalist Xiao Zhong, aka Rhys, and guitarist F have somehow hit the nail on the head.
The girl’s got pipes. I mean, she can really sing.
Summoning the spirit GLITCH is serious business, as it takes patience, precision and perfection to perform such a feat.
The music of Faz Waltz is firmly rooted in early ’70s glitter.
While there is a sailing motif to the band, it doesn’t impact the music which is firmly rooted in the road rock of Radio Birdman.
Q: When is a saxophone not a saxophone?
A: When it’s handled by John Butcher.
Decent shows are slim pickings when your days off are Tuesday and Wednesday.
This brilliant four disc box set compiles all of Zs’ releases through their first five years as a sextet consisting of saxophonists Sam Hillmer and Alex Mincek, percussionists Alex Hoskins and Brad Wentworth and electric guitarists Charlie Looker and Matthew Hough.
Sometimes it’s necessary to get away from all the noise and grit of the city and retreat into a paradise of soothing sonic waves.
The Italian/Spanish White Zoo Records continues its obsession with Killed By Death-style punk with this raging slab of darkness.
This is one of those rare moments when I kneel down and genuflect in humble admiration for a contemporary hero.
Now firmly within the grasp of bandleader Josh Dobbs, The RunnAmuckS have produced their finest album to date, an epic reflection on aging, relationships and punk rock frustration that is as honest as it is succinct.
The first question that comes to mind when listening to a new Neorev release is, “How in the hell does Michael Matteo keep getting better?”
While not really a black metal band per se, York, PA’s Night successfully conjure the dark atmospheric quality of the genre, creating post-rock atmospheric tracks that draw as much from Mogwai as they do from Burzum.
So what happens when you have a wife, a kid, a house in the suburbs, a steady job, you’re living the American dream, but still full of the angst that drew you to punk rock when you were young?
With Fuck Faced Failures, leader Steve Davis delivers an album so quietly frightening that nightmares seem preferable.
Being an outsider in a Norman Rockell-esque town would certainly lead to psychosis, channeled here in musical form by three unbalanced individuals whose true calling was probably a circus sideshow.
Brutal Poodle are incomprehensible.
Just when you though noise was getting all wussy, Medicine Cabinet’s Marc Schneider releases his second album in a successful effort to make your ears bleed.
On this rare 12” outing, Merzbow joins forces with San Pedro’s premier black-grind-noisemongers for an epic release that will be a worthy addition to any noise fan’s collection.
While it contains elements of harsh noise, Conscious Summary’s 7” effectively departs from the mold, bringing more music than power electronics.
After a couple cassette EPs, founding Zs member, Sam Hillmer, finally delivers his solo album, an introspective journey that successfully expresses Hillmer’s starkly unique vision.
Once again, Neorev returns with music so astonishingly excellent that one truly has to wonder why Michael Matteo isn’t one of the top electronic producers of the moment.
Thee mighty World War IX have weathered yet another lineup change and, honestly, have truly hit their stride with the absolute best grouping to date.
This is ’70s debauchery at its best. Forget retro, this is the real thing.
It’s the kind of music that makes you want to guzzle beer amongst friends in your favorite scummy punk rock dive while the band plays a most awesome set that makes the hangover the next day totally worth it.
Where the majority of contemporary punk rock tends to be tired, lacking in imagination and incredibly boring, Silver Cocks possess the beautiful spark that ignited their heroes so long ago.
This third record from Transex is the first from Southern Italy’s, White Zoo Records and a strong debut from a label devoted to bringing us the best Italian KBD punk.
This is true punk rock – the sound of alienated individuals venting their innermost feelings in an attempt to connect with anyone who will listen.
It’s a bit like slowly scanning the dial of a shortwave radio, trying to reach that transmission, but just missing it every time.
In the late ’80s/early ’90s, Stephen Svanholm played guitar in UK thrash-funk-metal band, Ignorance, releasing two albums on Metal Blade before settling down to study music seriously and become a full-fledged opera singer.
This is garage punk of the highest order, which makes sense considering the band contains members of The Radio Reelers, The Complaints and The Trust Fund Babies.
With this collection of rare early releases and previously unreleased live and rehearsal recordings from Brazil’s black/death/thrash barbarians, Metalhit.com finalizes its most recent trilogy of South American extreme metal.
This is furious rage in its purest form, unapologetic, unsympathetic, uncompromising, uninhibited animalistic fury that attacks only to kill.
The music of Bestial Holocaust falls somewhere between Sarcófago’s first two albums, INRI and The Laws of Scourge.
Where many death metal bands look to the Swedish scene of technical proficiency and high-end equipment for inspiration, Deathronation take a more old school, analog approach.
For those who prefer a bit of melody with their metal, there’s Britain’s Forefather.
With full-production and epic sound-quality, Consummatum Est is a solid statement of razor-sharp black metal with a death metal edge.
With this collection of tracks, Neorev proves to be a solid force in underground electronic music.
Straight out of a after-hours basement cabaret, Amour Obscur give us a glimpse into their upcoming Vic Thrill-produced full-length.
Pink Eye showcases the true eclecticism of Instagon, compiling fully improvised noise and music from 1998, 2007 and 2011.
Children of the Bomb is a bona fide electronic classic composed with integrity and produced without pretension.
In a genre as rife with clichés as stoner/doom metal, it’s nice to hear a band who actually get it.
Moot Point perfectly encapsulates the experience of LA life for the outsiders who don’t buy into the fairy tale.
This is absolutely one of the best metal releases I’ve ever heard, and one that deserves to be heard by anybody who appreciates metal in any way.
The music on Terrorstorm is perhaps best summed up by the album’s third track, “Black Thrash Assault,” where grooving thrash metal riffage converges with grim black metal vocals and tight blast beats.
Death metal isn’t exactly the type of music I seek out but, for the most part, when it’s handed to me for review, I give it a fair listen and usually really enjoy what I hear, as on this filthy slab of vomit.
Immolith may not be pushing boundaries with their Scandinavian-style black metal but, with solid songs and a genuine affection for the genre, they make a worthy adversary to the masses.
Somewhere in Chicago, an angry man is venting his frustrations into a Zoom hand recorder.
Chopstick’s second release for the label is a powerful masterpiece that deserves attention, not only from the noise contingent, but from the modern classical and ambient electronic corners as well.
Northern California’s Liver Cancer deliver something that’s almost more an old hardcore punk record than a typical noise album.
Here, two bands from different extreme metal genres from different parts of the globe collaborate by supplying each other with percussion tracks.
After whetting my appetite with the strong Great Britain 7“EP, The London Diehards have delivered a full-length that displays their brute strength in all its boot-kicking glory.
Some people like their punk rock to look a certain way and sound a certain way. That’s fine, don’t waste your time here.
Applying old-school business sense to the modern music market, this EP is available as a free downloadable single of sorts through Eleventh Key to promote Wrath of Typhon’s full-length, Speak from the Fire.
Rather than pigeonhole themselves with boring clichés, Canada’s Brains are more a punk rock band with a rockabilly edge.
Public Disgrace compiles three intense live recordings from a stellar lineup.
On what is perhaps their first “official,” i.e., non-CDr or cassette, release, Viodre have assembled a collage of negativity that is at once disturbing, meditative and demanding, an unapologetic aural assault akin to those nightmares that just won’t let you wake up.
LA’s premiere noise supergroup pick up where Frustration Music left off, continuing the saga of lost, forlorn emotion channeled through electronics and distortion.
This is absolutely one of the most painful slabs of vinyl I’ve ever endured.
Perhaps the best thing about of these songs is how much they could pass for tracks on a Killed By Death comp.
The German Apparat’s entry in !K7’s DJ-Kicks series is a mellower affair than previous offerings, focusing more on sonic textures, atmospheres and patterns than floor-thumping house or techno music.
Sure, there’s nothing really new or original about these two songs, but that doesn’t mean they’re not any good.
Streetwise New York songstress Lani Ford has lain her hard rock band Stark to rest and reemerged with a new sound, a new look and new songs that focus on her quiet side while retaining the intense personality that always shone through her music.
Former members of Shiv created a band that is simultaneously art rock and arena rock, two styles of music shouldn’t work well together, but somehow do.
Fortunately, Kill Everyone was well worth the wait, showing the band evolving even further in their expanded four-piece lineup.
Hopefully, a television producer will hear this and use a song and Korb can make tens of thousands of dollars from it.
With this combination book/CD, Instagon delivers a self-described “noise opera” about the seedy dark underbelly of urbanity.
The Spanish Donkey are a prime example of everything that can be wrong with improvisational music.
Whether, as I was, you’re wary of the dubstep thing, or you’re completely new to the genre and need a good place to start, this compilation is for you.
These songs are downright sleazy blasts of orgiastic frenzy packed with B-movie samples, grinding rhythms and blasphemous lyrics.
Their music could almost be called no wave, as it consists of improvised punk rock explosions and noise, but instead of looking to the past, Ultrabunny are about the present tense, here and now.
Simply put, this is noise at its absolute best and a perfect starting point for anybody who’s been curious about the genre but too afraid to ask.
If you’re out record-hunting and you come across this little ditty, pick it up. It’s well worth a few of the bucks in your pocket.
Well, the cover art is pretty cool. If only the music matched…
For his first digital-only release, head Barbarellatone Robbie Quine presents what is quite possibly his best album to date.
This is powerful music that is as much Damaged-era Black Flag, early Doom and Gauze as it is Gang Green and Jerry’s Kids.
This album may be more a collection of tracks from the past five years than a cohesive unit, but it maintains a consistency that proves CB have no plans to call it quits anytime soon.
Quite honestly, this entire EP sounds like a Bad Company LP being played at 45 rpm, and since I’ve never been much of a fan of Bad Company, I’m not much of a fan of this record.
It’s one thing to use Stereolab as a reference/influence, but to just swipe chord-change for chord-change is simply unforgivable.
Sure it’s a lot of self-indulgent uber-musicianship that seems to glorify dexterity over song-craft at times, but it’s also a lot of fun if you have a sense of humor that allows you to appreciate cheesy music like Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
London Diehards are more what you’d expect from a skinhead oi punk band. The songs are solid, catchy and melodic, with tough British vocals and football chant choruses.
This French self-titled debut blends elements of house music, old techno and classic disco with an overall italo feel to produce engaging, intelligent electronic dance music that goes beyond the typical 4/4 club banality.
Featuring Kelly Halliburton – drummer of the post-*Dead Moon* Pierced Arrows – on bass and original Poison Idea drummer, Dean Johnson, this is a powerful blast of rock’n‘roll fury that few bands are actually capable of achieving.
An inverted Kraftwerk, the classically trained trio of Daniel Brandt, Jan Brauer and Paul Frick compose music that is at once avant-garde classical and thumping club music.
To say that Ami Dang’s music is indescribable would be an understatement.
Never known to be predictable, +DOG+ follow their antisocial masterpiece, Bliss, with a less harsh, but extremely misanthropic album.
Sure it has all the hallmarks of a ’90s-ish noise rock classic, but for the most part, it reminded me of an unlikely combination of Karp and post-In on the Killtaker Fugazi.
Moving away from the blues-based Rolling Stones influence and more into the ’60s girl pop sound, Italy’s Miss Chain and company have managed to craft an album that is as contemporary as it is retro.