ACXDC - He Had It Coming

I'm on a "KUH-RAY-ZEE" powerviolence trip right now (as someone I would dislike might say) since I'm trying to slap together a nice lil' introductory zine. If you come here for the pop-punk, I apologize, but its delivery will be a bit diluted for the time being. Ha, what am I saying, you don't "come here".

I wonder how long it'll be before the intentional self-deprecating humor will be called out as narcissistic.

This might be one of the stupidest band names I've ever encountered or one of the gutsiest. ACXDC (aka Anti-Christ Demon-Core) are a 4-piece from Southern California who did an initial run from '03-'05, called it quits after a reunion show in '06, and then reformed in 2010 much to my loins' approval. Covering their first EP right after Neanderthal was kind of a last second decision, as I had originally intended to do the genre history lesson in semi-chronological order. Unfortunately, this here came up and changed my plans:

http://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/2012/02/powerviolence_acxdc_benefit_sh.php

So hey, it's topical AND heartrending. Of course, it should go without saying that ACXDC are a great band and the guilt trip I'm imploring you to land in is just circumstantial. Anywho, He Had It Coming is some super intense stuff, floating in the beautiful medium betwixt grindcore and powerviolence. For a glorious 10 minutes, you get mercilessly cockstomped by a wall of high velocity riffing, shrieking, and blasting. Does comparing the listening experience to genital mutilation make you want to listen to this? A lot of reviewers of this sort of music seem to think so, and I am incapable of differentiating myself from them. Bullshit aside, this is a ton of fun. The vocals are utterly unintelligible, inhuman shrieks punctuated tastefully with rumbling death/grind growls that fly at you near constantly ala Rupture. Musically, you get a surprisingly tight and well-produced blast of tight, varied drumming, riffs alternating between chaotic shredding and mid-t0-sludge paced interludes, and even a brief nod to Star Wars. It's the kind of shit best listened to in an empty bedroom without a lot of breakables for you to collide with.
This is currently OOP, but you can still support these guys with merch and whatnot. For example, I would buy the shit out of that skate deck with the Darth Vader heads if I could actually stand on a board without immediately concussing.

http://www.mediafire.com/?wqbv2lyfjki
http://acxdc.bigcartel.com/

As a totally irrelevant sidenote, Sylvester Staline is terrible. I just rediscovered this courtesy of youtube. I made the mistake of picking up their lame-as-fuck-but-amusingly-titled Gonna Spread Hard Drugs To Your Stupid Kids With The Royalties Generated By This CD album back in high school. This is the kind of shit people dismiss powerviolence over: sloppy playing, terrible vocals, and way too many lame inside jokes.
Oh, hey, and here's another pro-tip for starting a powerviolence group: don't name your band Duke Nukem Forever.

The Menzingers - Chamberlain Waits

Before I begin:
I'm turning this blog into a zine. It'll be a mash up of music reviews, my comics, personal/political pieces, assorted artwork, and New Yawk scene stuff. I'm also doing a zine covering the history of powerviolence, as well, consisting of interviews, a "best of" list with reviews, and other goodies. I have no idea when this will come to fruition, but you can count on the former seeing the light of day in the not so distant future.

Admittedly, it's been a long-ass time since I had any desire to give the The Menzingers' debut LP a listen. In fact, it wasn't long after completing last year's review that the album's luster wore off and it faded from my priorities list. I guess it would've made sense for me to have rectified this change of heart via an update or something, but well, it's a miracle that I write anything at all, sometimes. Fortunately, the same can't be said about their follow-up, Chamberlain Waits, as it has been percolating in my ears long enough that I feel confident in giving it props. You see, its actually a fantastic concept album detailing the fictional life of Tom Waits' older, seafaring brother, Chamberlain, as he comes to grips with his m,Kkgvd9u2

Ugh, I'm admittedly out of practice with this record review stuff.

Chamberlain Waits features a far more clean and dynamic sound than their debut, and features 10 great-to-fantastic tracks of heartfelt, melodic, folk-tinged "orgcore", and 2 comparative duds. This time around, the band put a greater focus on vocal melody and less on really dated sounding dual scream-singing, and it pays off in spades. If you don't have the right ear for it, I can see Tom May's emotive crooning coming across as a bit overstated at times, but for whatever reason, I love the shit out of even his more warbly moments. With hindsight given by a listen to their new single, I now hear this album as a vaguely transitional one. It seems like the band had grown a bit tired of the gruffer pop-punk sound of the debut and followup EP, and were just beginning to inject more aspects of indie-folk/alternative rock into their repertoire. The results are a fairly smooth mash up of the two halves, and I'd even rate the first 8 tracks here by the arbitrary and mindlessly personal scale of "almost perfect"... well, excepting that cheesy screaming section of "Home Outgrown". Holy dicks are "Times Tables" and "Male Call" great songs, though, both lyrically and musically. I'd hate to pull that boring-as-fuck "worth the price of admission alone" cliche here, but well, if you spank it to the altar of punk news idols, these are two tracks you'd be wise to track down. Okay, here's one:

In reference to a major flaw in the first disc, this one fortunately features no short fuses like "A Lesson In The Abuse Of Information Technology" and "Even For An Eggshell", both of which I listed as standouts in the previous review. Their appeal is about as short lived as how fast they get stuck in your head. There are really only two tracks I don't particularly care for here: "No We Didn't" sounds like that yucky opener on A Lesson... reduced to a more merciful brevity, and "Come Here Often?" is sort of marred by grating/dull vocal patterns. I suppose they're not unlistenable, though, and do in fact vary up the disc's prevailing mood... but so would covers of "ALL!" and "No, ALL!". Does that go without saying? I'm tired since I had to rewrite half this fucking review due to blogspot's inability to consistently save my progress.

Yes, that's why my writing sucks. Because of blogspot.

http://www.mediafire.com/?nk0uwjewzmj

So it seems like my opinion of this album is about the same as my initial thoughts regarding the debut - THIS TIME WITH MORE CONVICTION. Although, wouldn't it be just a chuckle riot if I totally denounced everything I said here in a future review of the band? Ho HO.

Neanderthal - Fighting Music

This will probably end up being a really short review since I'm still on the road, but well... I guess circumstances could be more inappropriate for a band whose discography clocks in at 10 minutes.

"Oh yeah, I'm traveling right now. I don't know if I mentioned that before, but its why I haven't updated lately. Expect more regular posts come mid-March!", he typed excitedly, unaware of the irrelevance of his words. It seemed the internet had turned its back on him a long time ago; like the light from a collapsed star, the dissolution of his audience would take a lifetime to become apparent.

Neanderthal's lone EP is the stuff of legends: incredibly influential, hopelessly un-dated, and incomprehensibly expensive on ebay. Consisting of a pre-Man Is The Bastard Eric Wood and Matt Domino of Infest, Neanderthal was an extremely short lived project that single handedly kicked off (and coined) powerviolence as a genre. At this point, Infest had existed for several years, and No Comment had already put out their first EP, Common Senseless, but this is really where it begins stylistically. As such, Fighting Music is about as pure as you're gonna get, and contains all the scuzz, filth, and heaviness the genre provided before the great emo/90's hardcore gentrification struck.
As the name might make you think, the sound this band produces is primitive, brutal, and mammoth spearing as fuck. Imagine the speed and tantrum-like, bellowing rage of Infest mashed up with creepy, Rorschach-esque riffs and the tremendous grit and intricate basslines of Man Is The Bastard. It's about as rad as that descriptor might lead you to believe, and fits snuggly alongside a number of EPs I've raved about in the past - a short, but really fulfilling listen.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ilzmnzu2mqt

I've never been able to confirm this, but I've heard that Joel Connell of MITB (then of Shrimper label weirdos, Refrigerator) was somehow involved with this band. Does anyone know if Neanderthal performed live shows? If they did, I gotta conclude that Joel filled in on either drums or guitar. Matt Domino is listed in the liner notes as handling both in this EP's liner notes, but I kinda doubt he was doing that Happy Flowers thing where he'd slide his foot around the strings while drumming.

Maybe that was too obscure of a reference.