Lane Limited – Lane 1Q

by Brett Stevens on June 17, 2015

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Scandinavian Tobacco Group sells more pipe tobacco than any other firm on earth, and by repute their Lane Limited 1Q variety sells more than any other. It is easy to see why: this mellow blend leaves a warm vanilla smell in the room, burns slowly and tastes sweet. Almost no one will object to it; most people will agree that it, indeed, is pipe tobacco and thinking no further than that, will enjoy it because it has an inoffensive and easily liked flavor and strikes no dischordant notes. The argument that this tobacco should be sold with all new pipes is a solid one not for the above reasons but because it represents a perfect middle of the road plus extra sugar, and it teaches us what to like — and to what to dislike.

As the helpful introduction to pipe tobacco page at STG explains, pipe tobacco comes from many varieties and pseudo-varieties of the same plant. Varieties consist of genetically separated members of the family, and pseudo-varieties rely on differences in cultivation, seasoning and curing to create different flavors. 1Q comes from the aromatic family, combining Virginia and oriental varieties with vanilla flavoring, for a low-to-medium nicotine dose and extremely sweet, mellow flavor with excellent “room note” or the smell left behind after smoking. The latter part is clearly true; for a mix that wives and coworkers will not mind and in fact enjoy, like a non-dramatic incense, 1Q fills the role.

On the downside, this is the Big Mac of tobacco. Low in nicotine, it is also low in strong flavors, which means that vanilla takes over from the tobacco frequently. It has some bite, mainly because its optimal burning speed is very slow. It is meant to be sipped all day like a hip flask, and yet often pipe smoking varies with the speed of conversation or intensity of thought, so this seems like a poor design idea. It delivers the classic barbershop tobacco smell and is almost impossible to screw up, being resistant to long storage periods as well as inept packing and burning, but the consequence is a character undivinable because it represents every trait of tobacco balancing every other, then obscured by the aforementioned vanilla flavoring.

The average smoker can burn this all day, in part because the nicotine and burn speed are so low that it is more like staying in a room where someone else is smoking a pipe. While it is clearly well-executed by competent people, it also loses character and connection to the nicotiana itself, and fits into that category of neither hating it nor loving it, and only regretting its loss in the absence of other tobaccos. The popularity of this tobacco fits mainly within the nexus between social inoffensiveness and personal caving to the convenient, in this case a sweet vanilla taste, like most human evils. At the same time, it is enjoyable if the low nicotine content and sweetened mass-produkt nature does not alienate you.

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Interview: Blood Urn

by Brett Stevens on June 15, 2015

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I discovered the music of Blood Urn through the recommendation of a friend. Like most of what I listen to now, it is music that upholds the spirit of older underground metal, the earliest prog rock, and early metal bands like Black Sabbath: a desire to look past the official one-dimensional categorical narrative and uncover the organic life beneath, and through that, to avoid the manipulation of the mass culture around us and discover personal truths that also correspond to tendencies in reality itself. In the style of the oldest death metal bands, Blood Urn knits together riffs into a complex narrative that continually reinvents itself, creating a roller coaster through a labyrinth effect that incorporates both the progressive and psychedelic ancestry of metal. Fortunately, I was able to have brief speaks with the founder and composer of Blood Urn…

When did Blood Urn form and who are the members? What have you released so far?

The name was given to the project in 2010, but a vague idea already existed for several years before, slowly becoming a definite force. We are not a band. I write and record all the music, a friend records the vocals and some allies contribute small parts. We have released two demos on tape: “Unchain the Abhorrent” (2011) and “…of Gory Sorcery and Death” (2014).

What inspirations and influences helped propel you into starting Blood Urn?

A deep love for darkness and metal music. My influences are mostly the music that I listen to. But of course I also cherish certain occult literature, splatter movies, mythology, paintings… What I like about making (death) metal is that one can incorporate all these influences in such a naive way; there is no need for huge systematic concepts, but a lot of space for instinct and eclectic working. It never looses it’s reckless teenage approach but also provides a sense of depth and seriousness.

A riff has to make sense in the context of a song and it has to serve the song, that is what’s most important to me.

You say: “My influences are mostly the music that I listen to. But of course I also cherish certain occult literature, splatter movies, mythology, paintings…” Can you list your musical influences, especially when you started out with Blood Urn, in addition to literature, movies, mythology and paintings? I think people are fascinated by this kind of stuff because it often reveals a lot about what you value.

Things that are a continuous influence for my work with Blood Urn (and sometimes beyond):

MUSIC
Absu (death metal era, especially the first album and earlier stuff)
Nile (especially the first album)
Cryptopsy (first two albums)
Morbid Angel (old)
Archgoat (old)

LITERATURE
Occult stuff like Peter J. Carrol, Aleister Crowley, Austin Osman Spare, but not so much recently.
Philosophy like Nietzsche, Camus, Evola, poetic works from Baudelaire, works on religion and spirituality like Mircea Eliade.

MOVIES
Stupid splatter movies, horror movies like Evil Dead, Hellraiser, experimental stuff like Begotten.

MYTHOLOGY
Only Norse and celtic mythology when it comes to Blood Urn.

PAINTINGS / ART
I don’t have vast knowledge when it comes to art, but I know what I like when I see it. Rubens’ “Medusa”, Hieronymus Bosch, old woodcuts illustrating death, plague and the devil. VERY much old anatomic illustrations, for example by Andreas Vesalius. Specific Austrian art: Viennese actionism, Hermann Nitsch,… everybody should check this out!

Why did you choose an older style, when newer styles are more likely to get you record contracts, interviews and fame?

If cared about that, I would make different music. But I don’t even think that I would be able to make other music than this kind of metal in a decent way… For example, I am into prog/folk rock and would love to play that style as well, but it just ends up horrible every time I try it.

On the other hand, I am doing an interview right now and people have been responding better to my creative output than I could have ever wished for, so. I am pleased about all the feedback the way it is. If there is something like an underground metal “scene,” then I have to compliment it for being very responsive.

What is it that appeals to you about these older styles? Do you think they are still relevant? How do we measure “relevant”?

Right now, being traditional, backward-looking and a little bit nostalgic is a strength of the black and death metal scene since it spawned a lot of interesting bands that adhere to these ideals. I think tradition will always be relevant for metal music and I am extremely enthusiastic about its complexity. But that is no excuse to replace artistic vision by mere reproduction of the characteristics of a certain style/era… that is a danger for creative potential and I am a little skeptical about the way things are. I don’t know how to measure relevance, but I sure see the danger of becoming trivial. Especially after all the buzz about old death metal vanishes again… which of the records that we bought in the last five years will stand the test of time? Blood Urn? I don’t have the highest hopes, to be honest. And I don’t really care.

A good part of the songwriting may be jamming around and stringing riffs together, but most of the time I have an abstract concept for a song structure and then try to find fitting riffs.

I could not identify a single dominant influence to Blood Urn. This makes the band stand out as different from retro/revivalist bands which seem to target a specific sound from the past. How did you find your own artistic voice in your music?

Thank you, I appreciate that observation very much! I think I like re-arranging elements from different scenes / bands / eras, sometimes by intuition and sometimes intentional. But that is not a main aspect of my songwriting. Maybe it adds a little character. For “Unchain the Abhorrent” I had a vision of a bastard descending from stuff like Archgoat and old Suffocation, I can’t really say if it worked out (there definitely is room for improvement and refinement). For “… of Gory Sorcery and Death” I went for rather pure death metal.

Are there any plans to release an album? Are there advantages to releasing demos first?

“Unchain the Abhorrent” was purely a demo. It came together spontaneously, I did not care too much for sound issues, I just wanted to get something done. But after that, I have to say that I put a lot of work into “…of Gory Sorcery and Death” and it feels like the best I can do at the moment. So maybe I should have put it out as an album; I don’t know where to draw the line to be honest.

Do you listen to any current metal acts? Can you list them, if so?

I do listen to a lot of new metal. Dead Congreagation, Karnarium, Katharsis, Deathspell Omega, Triumphant,… I don’t buy every demo ever released, but I think a lot of worthwhile stuff has been going on in the last years. I also listen to other musical genres, like 70s rock, folk, hardcore punk, grindcore, ambient, noise and so on.

How do you compose your songs? Are they riff-based, melody-based or idea-based?

I would say the emphasis is on ideas! A good part of the songwriting may be jamming around and stringing riffs together, but most of the time I have an abstract concept for a song structure and then try to find fitting riffs.

I think tradition will always be relevant for metal music and I am extremely enthusiastic about its complexity. But that is no excuse to replace artistic vision by mere reproduction of the characteristics of a certain style/era.

How do you determine what riffs, songs, parts, etc. to keep and what to reject?

I write a lot of riffs and it is hard for me to reject any of them. I know, there may be a few filler-sounding riffs on my demos, but I don’t mind that too much. It gives certain other parts a climax-like effect and I like that, because it adds structure to the songs. I know a good riff when I stumble upon it, but I sometimes have hard times with parts that don’t click the first time. I tend to keep all the material I write as placeholder for better parts, but sometimes I familiarize with it after a while. A riff has to make sense in the context of a song and it has to serve the song, that is what’s most important to me.

If people like what you have been doing, where should they go next to learn more? Any upcoming news you can share?

Blood Urn does not have a website or facebook page, but feel free to contact me at nhsh218@yahoo.de. There are plans for a re-release of “…of Gory Sorcery and Death” on Vinyl as well as a new 7″. I haven’t been working on Blood Urn for the last few months, but there will be something new this year.

“Unchain the Abhorrent” (2011)

“…of Gory Sorcery and Death” (2014)

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Codex Obscurum – Issue Seven

by Brett Stevens on June 15, 2015

Having watched this zine grow from humble origins to the reliable source of underground metal feature stories that it is today, the metalheads who comprise the underground — including death metal, black metal, grindcore, and some speed metal and doom metal — now expect high-quality on-point content from this zine, and Issue Seven delivers with style. Now possessing the journalistic weight and audience to command high-profile bands, Codex Obscurum returns with wide-ranging interviews, reviews, features and editorials with adventurous literary fiction as well.

Interviews have always pushed this zine above the rest because of their conversational nature but tendency to explore the thinking behind the musical decisions made by the band, with little attention spent on the surface fluff, but some questions that bring out the personalities of the musicians and explain their connection to the art. In this issue, the biggest name in interviews is Deceased, but perhaps the most powerful interview belongs to Thanatos. Covering both Hail of Bullets and Thanatos, this interview with Stephan Gebedi is as detailed and congenial as death metal interviews get, and covers a lot of history. The Deceased interview will strike most as idiosyncratic because it covers much of King Fowley personally and recent news, with less emphasis on background, but this reflects the general abundance of Deceased interviews on the early days. This updates us on the status of the band including information new to most sources. Other interviews with Wastelander, Drug Honkey, FaithXTractor, Crypt Sermon, Magic Circle, Dawn of Demise, Untergang, Slaughtbath and Blood Incantation follow similar patterns of compiling biographical details and consulting on musical intent, with the Untergang and Crypt Sermon being most compelling. All of these are well-executed and constitute the backbone of this zine.

Issue Seven contains a number of features, one of which takes the form of an interview. Artist Tony Cosgrove gives his points of view in a story which interweaves his images with his words, creating the sensation of being a museum exhibit with slightly longer detail cards. A feature on asymmetrical board games offers a glimpse into a world that overlaps with metal but is too nerdly for the mainstream tuffguy websites to cover. A lengthy write-up of the Kill-Town death fest in Denmark follows, which captures much of the atmosphere without excessive detail, but also skimps on a few vital points and may be the least powerful part of the zine. Then again, fest writeups are nearly impossible because everyone is tired and/or drunk (and stoned) so what remains are hazy recollections and the ability to look through the heaps of scored merch. Possibly my favorite features lurks at the rear of the zine, which is a malevolent and tongue-in-cheek editorial about the nature of battle jackets and how they should be worn. This piece reminds me of the 1980s text-files that hackers used to pass around: it has an off-the-cuff feel to the writing, but the thinking seems refined over time, which creates an interesting casual intensity. One intriguing feature, to my knowledge unique among current zines, comes in the form of a short story. Like a condensed zombie sci-fi horror movie, “Evil Seed” (named for the Morbid Angel tune?) efficiently whips through a haunting mystery of an experience with a powerful organic metaphor. This story not only adds to the zine, but its placement dead in the middle creates a break like that when flipping over a vinyl album to hear side two.

Toward the rear of the zine festers another important section: reviews. For metalheads without much time to wade through the mountains of spurious and often spiteful opinions in online comments, or the completely idiotic sales jobs that mainstream zines and web sites put out in place of reviews, where every release is the greatest ever and will tear your head off or make you look intellectual to the girlies, zine reviews offer peace of mind in purchasing by offering better than even chances that a given release will be a match. This occurs both through qualitative assessment, and quantitative description, both of which are featured here. These take a conversational tone but know when to drop the one or two lines of most vital description, and then an assessment, separating observations from judgments enough that the reader can shop by the relative distance between the taste of the reviewer and their own. In this issue, the selection of reviews is a lot more strategic and covers all of the vital ground for what was released during the press period of this issue.

As Codex Obscurum has grown, so has its proficiency in layout. This is the most readable issue yet, generally sticking a band logo at the start of an interview and then being sparse with other images and keeping the text high-contrast usually of a light grey on black variety. This format works well and the use of distinctly shaped fonts also keeps this from falling into the trap of the illegible muddy blur of a xerox disaster that many zines are. Reviews are black text on grey background for added readability, and whether from rush or deliberation, the black-on-white table of contents is if nothing else clear as a bell. Writing standards have inched upward, too, with tightly edited pieces and almost no typos and spelling errors. All of the above make it easy to pick up this zine, which at half-page size can be handily carried anywhere you would take a paperback, and to relax and absorb the content. It would not be surprising to see someone whip this out at a university library, transhumanist rally or on the international space station, because it has that kind of density of information and yet casual enjoyment factor. It is good to see this zine getting the recognition it deserves and its growth both in size and technique for an intensely professional and yet familiar metal reading experience.

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Skyforger – Senprusija (2015)

by Brett Stevens on June 14, 2015

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This Latvian band represents what happens when all of the correct elements are assembled, but the aesthetic takes precedence over songwriting, and so the latter is filled in with random elements to fit the vision of the former. This shows the limits of vision because this framework imprisons musicality within aesthetics, in the converse of technical bands who come up with cool riffs and back-invent a purpose to them. Skyforger combines black metal, speed metal and nascent death metal into something a lot like the early works from Dodheimsgard: compelling rhythm, but a lack of internal connection creates a sense of genericism that clashes with the aesthetic and leaves the listener with a vision of lost objective.

Bouncy speed metal riffs collide with black metal and ripping early death metal style riffs to support the vocals, which apparently say something significant, but owing to the need for vocal predominance force songs into a verse-chorus format that reduces riffs to background sound, which in turn limits their role to bouncing around and providing some contrast to that, but never taking the lead in song development. As a result, Senprusija feels like a platform for the vocals and what stands out most is its speed/death metal roots, which are composed of what is essentially straightforward rhythm riffing partnered with melodic hooks. This makes for a pleasant listen, but one too disunified to stand the test of repetition.

Taking a page from the book of fast speed/death bands like Merciless, Skyforger keep the melodic hook as the center of the song but pair it German speed metal style with a chanted and rhythmically catchy chorus which quickly dominate the rest of the song. The constant chugging riffing, as happened on later Vader and Slayer albums, reduces focus from the interaction between riffs and fails to suspend disbelief because this style fits too easily into the rock framework which requires constant competing internal distractions to advance the song. As a result, consciousness is lost and songs subdivide into parts. There are many good riffs on this album, but the whole does not add up.

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Dunhill – London Mixture (2015)

by Brett Stevens on June 14, 2015

dunhill_-_london_mixture

Pipe tobaccos navigate a narrow path between twin evils: too sweet and too raw. On one hand, there are cute boutique flavors that would be more appropriate for church potpurri, and on the other bland or unbalanced smokes that taste like tobacco clearcut fires. Dunhill has for years provided a number of a varieties of tinned tobacco which have drawn their defenders and critics. For the casual smoker, London Mixture offers a mixture for comfortable consumption in about any situation. With a reasonable wallop of nicotine, but not an excessive one, and a classic room note — the scent it leaves in the air after being smoked — it goes straight down the middle of the road but does so with a careful nose for what smokers need for an everyday, casual smoke with quality and elegance.

Formed of mixed Virginia, oriental and Latakia tobaccos, London Mixture balances the light earthiness of the Virginia against the sweetness of the oriental and the darkness of the latakia. In the mix, individual shreds of each can be distinguished, but when burned together the result is a gentle mellowness with undertones of more exotic flavors. This Virginia tobacco is not as sweet as others, and this completes the harmony within the blend, allowing each flavor to blend with the others into a single tone from which undertones emerge as the burn continues. Of moderate nicotine, the mix provides a solid smoke but avoids the jumpiness of more ramped up recipes. With a slightly bitter taste forming just as the first smoke twists above the pipe, this aggregate provides enough depth of texture to the smoke to avoid falling into the boredom trap of most medium mixes.

Dunhill built its reputation on providing tobacco for daily use, but generally splinters its blends into specific purposes. The London Mixture bridges the gap for someone who wants to keep a pipe around and fill it with something that avoids extremes but also eschews boredom, and the cantilevered flavors provide that richness and leave a lingering smell that might remind you of Grandad but also draws ladies with daddy issues as well as gardeners who love its earthy undertone. A dry tobacco that burns thoroughly, it provides a good kicking around smoke like an Ibanez is the perfect guitar for ripping out a few riffs or idling away an afternoon with aimless leads and homemade root beer. While this might be pricier than most bulk blends, it provides quality and moderation for the everyday smoker, which is why many people grab this tin rather than mucking about in the world of overly-sweet or -harsh “adventurous” blends.

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American Laundromat Records – A Tribute to Repo Man

by Brett Stevens on June 13, 2015

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Many of you know how I consider this one of the finest movies ever made because it accurately nails the desolate and isolated conditions that thinking people found themselves in when the world when crazy in the 1980s. “Cult movie” does not describe a work of cinematic art that scoops up the narrative, shakes it out and shows its holes, then re-organizes it according to a broader and more realistic principle through which the artistry of the movie can make beauty out of dysfunction. To all of those who found themselves stranded in popular culture, caught between miserable careers and a constant crime wave of social collapse, hoping for some ray of light that could make sense or even comedy of it all, Repo Man delivered the goods.

Now, a dozen bands take on the original sound track, which back in the day featured bands as varied as Black Flag, Iggy Pop, Fear, Suicidal Tendencies and The Circle Jerks. That is a hard act to follow, especially since many of these songs went on to become classics in their own right, but American Laundromat Records assembled brave voyagers to give it a shot, and were gracious in providing us with this promotional release. With a release this varied, only a track by track view will work…

  1. Those Darlins – “Repo Man” (Iggy Pop): This track differs from the original mostly through the vocals, which take a candy-rock approach with ironic, saucy and sometimes surly female lead vocals that transform this song from the growly original into a more sinister take that approaches with soft sounds and turns into an acid monster.
  2. Polar Bear Club – “TV Party” (Black Flag): A faithful cover with overtones of punk nerd, this take on the well-known Black Flag anthem gives it a slightly faster tempo and more proficient guitars, but inserts vocals that sound like The Descendants back from a prison bash, capturing the surly of the original. Of note are the riot vocals which are both faithful and gleefully pure tribute.
  3. Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra – “Institutionalized” (Suicidal Tendencies): Most of this song is spoken word, which is modified here to be more about peer pressure than parents, and now gets stitched over a skacore take on the Suicidal Tendencies light thrash original. That creates a kind of lounge environment which shows off the vocal performance more, and Palmer accelerates her performance to Shakespeare-in-the-Park levels, which makes this track more unnerving but also somewhat overstates what was originally more subtle. This works less well on the thrash parts of the vocals, which become more whiny than the desperate violence unleashed of the original.
  4. New York Rivals – “Coup d’Etat” (The Cirle Jerks): As if giving the Morrisey treatment to this punk rock classic, New York Rivals drop in a male crooner vocal taken to Diamanda Galas extremes, then treat the guitars more like a late 80s synth/industrial band, complete with blatant drum machine. The result is compelling as a pure sonic treatment.
  5. Black Francis & Spanish for Hitchhiking – “El Clavo Y La Cruz” (The Plugz): A covertly jazz-infused take on this atmospheric tune, this cover remains faithful while often unrecognizable with more of a Tejano sound designed to capture a live recording or at least the feel of one. Additional guitar texture gives this added power, but the more dramatic internal rhythmic shifts do less for it, although they do handily distinguish this version from the original.
  6. The Tellers – “Pablo Picasso” (Burning Sensations): An electro-lounge take on this crowd favorite proves enjoyable but puts too much emphasis on the vocal performance, which reduces the effectiveness of the song as a mad rush of insanity and makes it sound more like background music that fades into the indie-rock milieu. That aside, this song is well-executed and could easily introduce a new generation to this song without them even knowing it. Interesting rhythm guitar playing.
  7. Mike Watt & The Secondmen – “Let’s Have a War” (Fear): This approach reminds me of the style of Cop Shoot Cop or Big Black, executed by The Minutemen’s Mike Watt and unnamed musicians. The pounding keyboards and synthetic sounds make this song even more disturbing, as does Watt’s megaphone-styled vocals which sound like an apocalyptic news announcement more than a pop song.
  8. The Suicide Dolls – “When The Shit Hits the Fan” (The Circle Jerks): Playing this song on guitars more like a straight later hardcore-influenced punk rock song, and then doubling male and female vocals, The Suicide Dolls give this song a different life. It becomes more disaffected and less ironically humorous, also picking up the rhythms and pacing of underground after-hours clubs. The increased guitar presence makes this a more enjoyable listen than the original.
  9. Matthew Sweet – “Hombre Secreto (Secret Agent Man)” (The Plugz): Nothing wrong with this energetic and fluid take on the original song, but it loses the unique feel of it and may not replace it with anything more than a sense of disinterested passion for life. The vocals dominate the song, and a more precise take on its rhythms makes it more forceful.
  10. Moses Coltrane – “Bad Man” (Juicy Bananas): Essentially a spoken word piece over some background music, this song paralleled the rants by the character Lite as he introduced Otto to the rougher side of automobile repossession, as contrasted to the overly optimistic and detached screeds from Bud. This new cover introduces more aggressive guitars and voice-over quality vocals, causing this song to pick up momentum instead of being merely background noise.
  11. Weekend – “Reel Ten” (The Plugz): Whole swathes of Generation X still get misty-eyed when this song comes on, and no challenge is greater than taking on an emotional classic. This industrial-tinged take on the song keeps the mystery, sounding like a hybrid between Erasure and Sisters of Mercy with an eye for the epic, complete with Tangerine Dream styled space effects. Well done.

It would have been easy to botch this album or make it cute. Instead, whoever organized this took the time to seek out musicians who would make interesting contributions. In my view, the weakest tracks are the Amanda Palmer and Matthew Sweet, but none are incompetent. Taken as a whole, Tribute to Repo Man renovates these songs in a language that newer listeners and older fans alike can appreciate, creating new angles of approach to one of the more idiosyncratic and yet purposeful soundtracks ever created. Whoever these American Laundromat guys are, I hope they do more like this.

http://www.alr-music.com/main.php?content=shop&no=alr-0028

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Slayer retrospective

by Brett Stevens on June 13, 2015

UNITED STATES - JANUARY 01: Photo of SLAYER (Photo by Ebet Roberts/Redferns)

UNITED STATES – JANUARY 01: Photo of SLAYER (Photo by Ebet Roberts/Redferns)

Some people find it odd that Slayer attracts such fanatical devotion from its fans, even 27 years after the last album most people consider classic from the band, South of Heaven. The answer for me is that Slayer stands for something: not just what metal should always be — unsociable, powerful, intense and pushing beyond all boundaries — but what metal should do, which is tell the truth in a realistic but mythological way. Almost all people fear truth and spend most of their time distracting us from it. Slayer turns it into a battleground which inspires the listener to want to get in there and fight it out.

I rank Slayer up there with other heroes like William S. Burroughs, early James Joyce, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Fred Nietzsche, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Michel Houellebecq, Plato, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, William Blake and other absolute saviors who brought some clarity to a life that started enmeshed in lies and that had to gradually claw its way toward clarity. These people gave much of their lives so that humanity has a shot at survival. (Note present tense). Like those literary warriors, Slayer took a look at the world of human denial and shattered it, grasping instead the raw currency of nature: power, conflict and predation. Their goal was not solely to become popular, but to do so by telling the truth that people suppress every day.

For those like me who grew up in a time of denial, such an approach was not only refreshing but became clear it was the only approach worth tolerating. Back in those days, what really scared us was the Cold War and the threat of possible if not probable nuclear annihilation. Humanity finally had enough missiles to do itself in, and had wired those to increasingly hair-trigger decisions which would decide the fate of not just us, but the future. 30,000 years of nuclear winter and death by radiation seemed very final. In addition, our society was torn apart, with the Reaganite big hair Christians on one side and the spaced-out, gibberish-spewing 1968 hippies on the other.

Most importantly however Slayer was what everyone always felt heavy metal should become. Heavy metal is music that rejects social pleasantries for a study of power itself, including the awesome power of nature manifested in death, disease, predation and violence. Slayer sounds like mechanized warfare with the patterns of a summer hurricane. They threw out all the rules and started making heavy metal like punks, with no reliance on traditional song structures, and expanded its vocabulary infinitely. On top of that, Slayer never backed down from being the ultimate hard line of reality. When people started talking about Jesus or how peace would save us (maaaaan), Slayer was the antidote. It drowned out the insanity and replaced it with cold, hard reality.

Walking through the years of classic Slayer:

1983

Show No Mercy corrected the previous fifteen years of metal by summarizing it and turning it up to 11. Using the techniques of hardcore punk and a Wagnerian sense of riff structure, this album took heavy metal from the looping song structures of the late 1970s back to the experimental, prog-style outlook of Black Sabbath. This reduced the rock influence, and brought primacy back to the riff from where it had been languishing with the voice in glam and later NWOBHM. The term “heavy metal” means two things: the genre as a whole, and the sub-genre of music which is still roughly blues influenced (itself passing down the English and Germanic popular music in a form the music industry invented to sell more records). While still the second type of heavy metal, this album showed Slayer developing the techniques that they would later use to — along with Hellhammer, Sodom and Bathory — invent death metal from the ashes of speed metal which died as soon as it was born.

1984

Haunting the Chapel was the weird little EP that came along with the other Slayer albums I bought when I could find them. I put it on and heard “Chemical Warfare” and thought, this sounds exactly like society and why I hate it: the pain of tedium, the sure destination in collapse and self-destruction, the ignorant removal of nature, and the misery of all trapped within it. Other heavy metal tried to be apocalyptic, but this song showed an actual destruction of humanity by our own hand, which was and still is the most likely scenario. Like “War Pigs,” it contrasted a mythology of demons and wizards with the motivations of people in real life, which were every bit as good/evil as the epics of Tolkien. As a high school kid, I was thankful some adult finally told me the truth about something — and it was Slayer!

Although this was a live in studio album designed to promote the band, it has many beauties. It is the ultimate 4 AM after a profound night waiting for the sunrise music. A friend of mine refers to it as his “day drinking” album, but I have never heard a more ridiculous term than day drinking. Alcoholism knows no clock.

https://youtu.be/U94mkCBSsCc

1985

Back in high school, some friends of mine and I would cut class and sneak off to the woods to smoke cigarettes and talk about metal. We used to refer to Hell Awaits as LLEH STIAWA to disguise our communication from authority figures, when passing notes in class. This was where Slayer really began, for me. They refined the aesthetics on the first album and changed song structure from the rock/blues/folk origins to the free-form style of hardcore punk bands, which let the riffs take over and guide the development of the song, a compositional technique which is the basis of death metal. Ornette Coleman, who recently died, once said, “I think one day music will be a lot freer. Then the pattern for a tune, for instance, will be forgotten and the tune itself will be the pattern, and won’t have to be forced into conventional patterns.” Slayer was the first pattern-oriented heavy metal band and discovered what free jazz tuned into, but took it to the next level. Thinking about the difference between this album and the first Slayer album started my career as a music writer (such as it is).

https://youtu.be/lBf7gSwzVnk

1986

I started out as a hardcore kid, cranking more Amebix, DRI, Cro-Mags and the Exploited than heavy metal. All of that changed when I discovered Slayer. Reign in Blood showed me hardcore taken to its logical conclusions: a society ridden by a deep spiritual disease, corrupted and scapegoating as it spirals toward collapse. Facing the emptiness and literality of reality is our only hope, but even that requires a mythos of some form. Not only was Reign in Blood written on the most hardcore topics ever, except put through the mythological filter of metal, but it was written like hardcore if the bands decided to be good at their instruments and compose epic opera-style clashes between good and evil instead of Songs To Hate The Man From Your Squat. Sandwiched between two epic tracks that called to mind the intensity of black metal that came later, this album roars through atonal masterpieces of pure rhythm and structure, using the power of the musical phrase to create metaphorical associations in the mind of the listener. Some bands sing about things; Slayer made music that sounded like those things, come to life as demonic meth-driven zombies created by humans and now returned to destroy them. This album took that sound to the furthest extreme, and nothing since has topped it.

1987

1988

This album first made me fall in love with Slayer. I was blown away by the other material, but here Slayer added a layer of dark poetic sensation like they had on the bookend tracks on the previous album, but they let the whole album carry that vibe. The result is the first really nocturnal album in metal: a meditation on nothingness, a howl of the Steppenwolf, from within a lonely darkness where to avoid the lies is to see the truth that puts the individual on a collision course with society. When your civilization denies reality, your own choice — if you have what my old gym coach called “intestinal fortitude” a.k.a. “the guts” to do so — is to oppose the fantasy with hardcore reality, but like a good heavy metal band to make it epic by turning it into a mythology of itself. South of Heaven did that in an inventive album which sounded like night raids on a dying world. Poetic, dark, apocalyptic and yet it makes you want to strive. Healing and motivational.

https://youtu.be/NbGqPRFyHtg

1989

I remember Slayer being in Thrasher magazine as a big event this year. At that time, music was still divided between the big labels and the type of music they would promote, which were the big decade-long trends that were sort of like genres, except they were musically very much the same as everything else. Mainstream magazines simply did not mention Slayer and barely would cover Metallica because they disliked the threat to their power. You could find Slayer in the record stores, which were either mainstream like Sound Warehouse or independents that barely made it by, and maybe in zines but otherwise the media kept mum on this new threat, just like they did at first with hardcore punk (as opposed to punk rock). I think I saw Slayer several times over this year and the past, and almost died on a few occasions but that failed to diminish my enthusiasm.

http://www.thrashermagazine.com/articles/magazine/march-1989/

1990

I remember Seasons in the Abyss coming to record stores on the same day as Megadeth Rust in Piece, and sneaking out of school every period to go to the local Sound Warehouse to see if they had it on the shelves yet. Finally an employee pointed me to a cart with new albums not yet stocked, and I saw my prizes and seized them, paid (and was carded — these were the PMRC days! — also the days of low-cost “novelty” Missouri DLs) and got out of dodge. This was where Slayer and I began to part ways, because Slayer actually headed back toward rock music on this: the vocals led the songs, they were more verse/chorus, and the focus was on harmony rather than clashing riff patterns. Much of this material continued where South of Heaven left off but added the more powerful vocals and the confining necessity of certain basic harmonies that always shifts songs back toward the sound of three-chord rock. While the transition never completely occurred, the sensation remained. Still some great material on this LP however.

https://youtu.be/PEHzU3iRl9Y

1991

Finally, Slayer hit some big time and what did it was computers. In the late 1980s, the Macintosh made desktop publishing very easy because it had a built-in graphical interface. More zines started popping up, and the big music magazines felt the heat. I first heard the term “niche genre” at this point, and realized the new strategy was to sell something different to everyone at all times, kind of like postmodernism is an attempt to see any object from all angles. Although Decade of Aggression includes the slower and more emotional Seasons in the Abyss songs, it was a great time for Slayer to release a live album using the production values and performance standards of Reign in Blood on their older material as well. They decided to have very clear production for this live album, and to pan the guitars to opposite extremes so wannabe shredders could tab all the stuff out at home. The result is one of my favorite albums to listen to for outdoor activity and other trying times. I have probably fixed 100,000 machines to this album and, where I can enjoy the Seasons in the Abyss material, it is on this two-CD set.

Slayer: One of the few people who gave me a vision of reality and yet added to it a layer of inspiration in metaphor. You lived ten lifetimes in the one you endured here, like all greats. Slayer also brought heavy metal back to the table after it wimped out and then took a false step with speed metal, which while great in its own right, was not far enough from the herd to gain its own voice and quickly got assimilated (1992). Slayer lived on by birthing much of the underground metal to follow, and being an influence on virtually all of it. As long as I live, you will not be forgotten, and then others will carry on the magic of what you did…

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No God Only Pain Joy of Suffering (2015)

by Brett Stevens on June 13, 2015

no_god_only_pain_-_joy_of_suffering

Combining rough and rowdy energetic chaos music with the type of black metal staging and melody that proved effective on the first two Gorgoroth and Burzum albums, No God Only Pain could properly be described as a black metal-influenced attempt to create an atmospheric genre out of the fusion between underground metal and a hardcore punk take on more roadhouse material like Motorhead. No God Only Pain retains the gravitas of the underground while giving it the energy and flexibility of the wider metal world, using the black metal theatrical-style song structures to introduce a mixture of speed, death, punk and heavy metal riffs.

No God Only Pain start their songs with a simple progression, usually in a minor melodic scale, and build onto it with texture of drums, bass and vocals and through the use of similar riffs in opposition, forcing the progression to mutate into different forms of the same riff. Eventually the song reaches a point of conflict, and then launches off in another direction, eventually bringing it to culmination and returning to the original theme. Riffs are noisy and simple but widely varied within their chosen styles and appropriate to each part of the song, without the randomness that 99% of metal bands seem to adore intruding; the sensibility of this album emphasizes continuity through conflict, and this comes out songs that alternate between immensely gratifying dark sounds and energetic droning counter-themes.

It sells short Joy of Suffering to refer to it as black metal, as it is more like a thematically-nuanced form of doom metal sped up to Motorhead speeds with the aggression of GBH. Each song has a powerful melodic hook and yet never shirks on the sawing high-intensity riffs, which propel the song forward so that it may continue to be both simple and variegated. Bonus cover of the Ramones “Pet Semetary” shows this style applied to familiar pop-punk and in the process making it more vicious. As metal searches for new outlets, this style may help grease the wheels by escaping expectations and unleashing a wider metal style to absorb the cult and hard-rocking impulses alike, forcing them to forge a voice worthy of the darkness in metal.

http://nogodonlypain.bandcamp.com/releases

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National Day of Slayer

by Brett Stevens on June 6, 2015

UNITED STATES - JANUARY 01: Photo of SLAYER (Photo by Ebet Roberts/Redferns)

UNITED STATES – JANUARY 01: Photo of SLAYER (Photo by Ebet Roberts/Redferns)

The International Day of Slayer (IDOS) began in 2006 when a group of Slayer fans decided to commemorate the spirit of metal through Slayer, and to make that compete with other ad hoc and natural cultures, groups and tribes demanding attention in our modern plural society. In their view, each group was claiming social real estate by advocating itself as a cause, and metalheads should do the same through the band that defined what it was to be metal: beyond all rules, too intense for normals, combining both hard literal truths and mythological apocalypticism.

“The original idea of the National Day of Slayer, as it was called back then, was to address the ‘National Day of Prayer’ that was popular among Christians,” said Dag Hansen, publicist for the group. “If they get their day, we get our day. Every other group gets a holiday for their religion, history, ethnic group, or culture. The Irish have St. Patty’s Day, there are days for the birth of Martin Luther King and Jesus Christ, and it seems that every other possible group is declaring unofficial holidays for its cause. It is time metalheads do the same. Firmly, loudly and with the horns thrown high.”

The first National Day of Slayer was marked by loud celebrations, church desecrations, and much blasting of Slayer. In the intervening years, the band have nodded to the holiday by releasing videos and statements commemorating the event. With the death of Slayer founder and guitarist Jeff Hanneman in 2013, the holiday has taken on a sense of preservation of his memory through keeping an active legacy alive. “Hanneman lives through his music, especially the founding years of Slayer from 1983-1991,” said Hansen. “Our goal is to ensure that appreciation and enjoyment of his music is renewed, preferably at 110db.”

This year, fans are encouraged to celebrate Slayer through a year-by-year retrospective of Slayer during its most formative period, and MP3 downloads of live Slayer recordings from 1985. The organizers have created an event page for people to comment on their own participation. But mainly, as the site has encouraged for nearly a decade now, “Listen to Slayer at full blast in any public place you prefer.”

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Interview with Mike Browning 05-30-15

by Brett Stevens on June 4, 2015

morbid_angel_-_demon_logo

As mentioned in our first article on the topic, the “first album” from Morbid Angel remains a vague category because the band recorded two first albums, each given a name starting with the letter A which fits into the alphabetical sequence to which their albums have conformed to this day. We took a few moments to speak to original drummer/vocalist Mike Browning (Nocturnus, After Death) about Abominations of Desolation versus Altars of Madness as the true first album of this essential band…

You were one of the original players on Morbid Angel’s Abominations of Desolation (referred to as AOD), which was released before most of the publicly acknowledged death metal classics. What was the band lineup for AOD? How does it feel to have participated in such a historic and musically intense recording?

The line-­up on the AOD album was:

  • Mike Browning -­‐ drums and vocals
  • Trey Azagthoth -­‐ guitar
  • Richard Brunelle -­‐ guitar
  • John Ortega -­‐ bass

At the time back in 1986 everything was just still called metal and it didn’t matter if you were more on the death or power metal side, it was still all considered Metal and the Metal crowd was unified and everyone got along for the most part, so to us back then we were just recording another new metal album and we weren’t concerned with being the fastest or the heaviest, we just did our own thing and kept it as original as possible. Back then the main thing was to be real and not fake in what we were doing.

Was it intended to be the first Morbid Angel album? How do you know? Was this fact …inconvenient… for anyone?

It still amazes me that this is even questionable, but here is the thing, we were offered a RECORD CONTRACT to record an ALBUM under the name MORBID ANGEL by Goreque Records, a label owned by  David Vincent and his partner Mark Anderson. We signed the contract and Bill Metoyer of Metal Blade  producer/engineer that recorded and mixed more albums than I can even think of, was hired to  engineer the album.

So Goreque Records rented us a UHaul truck and we packed up our gear and went  to a studio in Charlotte, North Carolina. We were furnished with hotel rooms and I met David Vincent and Mark Anderson for the first time face to face and the next day we started to record the album, after  about 5 or 6 days there we were finished with the recording and David Vincent sent all of us but Trey back to Tampa and kept Trey there by himself for the mixdown, little did the rest of us know that the whole time David Vincent was really brainwashing Trey and telling him how bad the album was and that  he should quit the band and come join his band. When Trey came back from the mixing, he acted like a  completely different person and everything went downhill from there.

What was the reaction to its release at the time (1986) and five years later in 1991?

Well that is the thing, the album never got released because I ended up catching Trey with my girlfriend and I beat him up for it and that was the end of me being in Morbid Angel because Trey and Richard moved from Tampa to Charlotte and did get in a band with David and his drummer Wayne Hartsell. I know that John Ortega had a copy of a rough mix that we had at the point that we all left to go back to Tampa, so when Trey got back he said that David Vincent told him that the bass playing was so bad on the album that we had to fire John Ortega if we wanted the album to still come out on his label and replace him with Sterling Scarborough, we didn’t even know who Sterling was, but again it was David’s idea for us to replace Johnny with Sterling, so Trey did it and the band only lasted a couple months once this happened.

When [AOD] came out in 1991 I think it confused a lot of people as to what it was because there was no information or pictures as to who was actually playing on the album, except for a couple of  lines in the front right corner of the cover that said it was AN ALBUM that was recorded in 1986, but never released, so even on the Earache version it says that it was an unreleased album, not a demo, it just also didn’t give any info on who was on it!

When did Morbid Angel decide to record Altars of Madness (referred to as AOM), and what were the changes between songs on that album and AOD?

I guess about two years later, so they had two years to actually work on most of those same songs and make them tighter and faster, they only changed a few words here and there to most of them and a lot of the drum parts were similar only faster.

When Earache released AOD, did they make any changes to the original recording?

I really don’t think they did, of course it never really got released back in 1986, so there is nothing to compare it to except the rough mix that John Ortega had and released as a bootleg.

Who is Sterling von Scarborough?

John Sterling Scarborough was his real name, but he went by Sterling Von Scarborough. He was a bass player from Atlanta that had a band called Incubus and David Vincent knew him and told Trey that we had to replace John Ortega, so he recommended Sterling and so Sterling came to Tampa and tried out for us and became our bass player. He was never on the AOD recording and he joined the band after we recorded the AOD album. We only did one live show with him at a place called The Volley Club in 1986 and Ammon (now Deicide) opened for us that night. Unfortunately that show was never recorded and it was the last show I ever played with Morbid Angel as well.

Why do you think Earache released AOD in 1991, five years after it was originally recorded? Why do you think they chose to claim AOM as the first album instead of AOD?

From what I heard was that they released AOD in 1991 to stop all the bootleg versions of it that were being made, from that one tape that Ortega had, all the bootlegs of it were made from that, so generation after generation they got sounding worse and worse. Earache and David and Trey made a deal to release the AOD album because David had the master reels, so he sold them to Earache and they gave Trey some money as well and they released it to stop the bootlegging.

Funny thing was I was on Earache Records at the time in Nocturnus and they never even told me that they were putting it out, I didn’t even find out about it until after it was already out and in the stores. That album has, guitar, bass, drums and vocals and I am doing 2 of those 4 things and I was never even told that it was gonna be released!

Did Morbid Angel take a different  compositional (choice of notes, not production or vocals) direction with AOM versus AOD? Why did they do that? What did the original direction offer that the new one did not?

Well it was a couple years later that they had quite a bit of time to work on those songs and a few more and with everything but the guitar being new, of course it was going to have a new and different sound, especially when you change vocalists. And if you notice, David tries to sing a lot more like me, but he gave that up and went for a completely different style on Blessed Are The Sick. They also had a big budget and recorded the album in Morrisound which is a studio known for Metal, that studio that we recorded AOD in was actually some kind of a country music recording studio, so the guys that ran that place had never even had any type of metal band even in there before, so of course you are gonna have a huge difference in the production because of those things alone.

Rumor has it that you formed a band named “Ice” with Trey Azagthoth, pre-­Morbid Angel. Wow… a moment in death metal history! What did you want to do with that band, and what was inspiring you at that moment?

Trey and I met in high school back in 1981 and I even remember his mom buying him his first guitar, a wood colored Gibson SG and we started jamming together in my mom’s back room of my house, so we put a little high school band together and even played the high school talent show. It was literally the beginning of what would become Morbid Angel.

I find that musical “inspiration” extends beyond other albums, but includes them. Were there any non‐musical experiences, books, ideas, plays, movies, thoughts, etc. that influenced you, and how did they parallel what you found in the music that influenced you?

Both Trey and I were into the occult, so when he moved into my area of Tampa and started going to school at my school and we met and started talking about what we were both into and we both were musicians that liked the occult and most especially we were both into a book called The Necronomicon and we really believed every bit of that book was true and real, so we decide to put a band together that was based on music that would please these Sumerian Gods that were in The Necronomicon. We were totally serious about what we were doing and the whole purpose of the band was to make music that would bring forth these Ancient Ones back to the Earth.

Did you and other members of Morbid Angel meet in high school, as is the rumor? Where was that? What was it like (hell?) and how did that help you bond?

It was only Trey and I as far as that ended up in Morbid Angel that knew each other in high school. Morbid Angel itself started around 1984 with me, Trey and Dallas Ward on bass.

The High School we went to was called HB Plant High school and it still is in South Tampa, there was an area where all the cool cigarette smokers and hippy type people hung out at the high school called The Alley and everyone would hang out there before school and at lunch and we met there and would always talk about music and The Necronomicon.

As “Ice,” what kind of material did you play? What songs did you cover? How did they mold your style? What was your practice schedule like? Did this influence how Morbid Angel did things later?

We really only played cover songs at first, like Judas Priest and Scorpions and Black Sabbath, because there was no Slayer or Celtic Frost or even Hellhammer yet back then. We did start messing around with some original stuff, but when I graduated from high school, Trey moved again at that time to the North end of Tampa, so for probably a good 6 months I didn’t even see him, so I started jamming with some other guys playing metal covers and Trey met Dallas and Charles, a singer and they had a drummer that was older than all of them and he lived in another town north of Tampa and he only came into town on some weekends to jam with them, so when I started talking to Trey again I decided to quit the cover band and start playing with Trey and these new guys Dallas and Charles and they already had a name for the band and it was called Death Watch. The singer got arrested and went to jail, so that is when we became a three-piece and Dallas was singing and we called the band Heretic, but we quickly found out that there was already another Heretic, so that’s when we finally became Morbid Angel.

How do you conceptualize death metal? Was progressive rock an influence? What about classical or  jazz?

I don’t really think most of the music I have done was only considered to be death metal, because it had a lot of different elements to it, especially with Nocturnus. But I would say that death metal is a very heavy, fast and aggressive type of music with lyrics mainly focused on death, gore and a lot of anti-Christian themes. For me progressive rock has always been an influence, I really liked Rush when I was in high school and they were about as progressive as you could get back then. I also liked classical because I had been in the school band, from grades 6-­‐10 playing percussion, so I learned to play all kinds of percussion like tympanis and bells playing classical and marching band music. I never really got into the jazz style of music, although I wish I had now, because jazz has some of the most amazing drummers and really off timing drum parts.

Your musical style is both highly proficient and idiosyncratic. How did you learn to play? What deepened your understanding of music? How important was the rising death metal scene in changing how you understood music?

It started even before that though because my mom had a 70s rock band that she sang for and they used to practice in the same back room that Trey and I ended up practicing in and I was only about 9 or 10, so I used to sit back there and watch them rehearse and I always liked watching the drummer play the most, so when they offered band when I got in 6th grade I wanted to take the drums of course!

Playing that style of music like marching band and classical stuff and also seeing my mom play in a band really gave me the early understanding of what it was like to play music and be in a band. I was into bands like Led Zeppelin and Styx when I first started and then I got into heavier stuff like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple and then Judas Priest and Iron Maiden and from there I discovered Slayer, Venom Mercyful Fate, Hellhammer and I wanted to be in a band like that, but I also wanted to be different, I have never been into copying anyones style and being like someone else, so I guess why even today I still kind of just do my own thing whether it makes money or not has never been a concern to me, I only play music because I get enjoyment out of it and if other people like what I do, then that is awesome to me!

How was AOD recorded? It sounds rough but preserves the texture of the instruments, instead of trading detail for loudness and polished sound like AOM. What made you choose to record it this way?

Back when we recorded AOD in 1986, we really didn’t know much about recording or what equipment was best for recording, so even though we went into a real professional 24 track studio, we still weren’t that prepared to do a well polished album. I had only been singing a couple months and some of the songs were just put together and we were also under a time constraint because we were in another state recording in an unfamiliar place and we only had so much studio time to get it all done.

If we had better equipment and more knowledge on recording, it probably would have sounded much better, but we were just a bunch of crazy kids with a record contract! I was also never included in the mixdown of the music, so all I got to hear was pretty much the raw unmixed tracks until Trey came back with the album mixed and finished. At least the album has a certain energy to it that was still able to come through, even with all the problems that we did have.

Can you tell us about your current projects, such as (but not limited to!) Afer Death 666? How are these efforts different from typical death metal, AOD and AOM? If people want to find out more about what you’re up to these days, where should they go?

Right now I have 2 bands with the same members in both bands, one is Nocturnus AD, which is a continuation of what I wanted to do with Nocturnus after we recorded The Key in 1990, it is much more technical sci-­fi stuff than what is on AOD and it has keyboards and it is tuned in E-flat which is what Nocturnus was tuned in back in 1987­‐1992 and the other band is just called After Death and as I mentioned it does have the same members, but After Death is a little heavier on the occult side of things and the music is less technical and more atmospheric and tuned in D.

The thing I keep up with most is my Facebook page, which is just under Mike Browning and it has the most up to date info on it, but we also have Facebook pages for Nocturnus AD and After Death and we also have a website www.afterdeath666.com , which has info for both bands on the site.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2EAo90fGzE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mfvSSl9L9M

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