Rest assured, there’s plenty of light-hearted, tender fare floating around the music world these days, what with your Beach Houses and Coldplays and so on, but for those of you who like the idea of being thrown down the stairs while being buried alive, here’s some choice cuts to get you going.
1. The Secret
The Italians marauders are currently on tour around the UK with Deaf Heaven. Signed to Southern Lord, their latest release is Agnus Dei, a blackened, paint-stripping firestorm of a record. Fans of Discharge, Nasum, Darkthrone and Eyehategod will find much to love in this whirlwind of butchery.
2. The Body
Life-crushing Providence duo The Body have just released a new record. Master, We Perish picks up from where And All The Waters Of The Earth Shall Turn To Blood and their collaborative EP with Braveyoung left off, in a rough-hewn pillar of darkness. I’d recommend checking out their whole back catalogue, but this is a great place to start.
3. Brutal Truth
Existing at the fertile tributary of a place called grind, Kevin Sharpe’s band of savages has comprised personnel from such folky balladeers as Nuclear Assault, Lethargy, Venomous Concept and Total Fucking Destruction, and in their time done a great deal to change the face and texture of modern grindcore. Two great jump-off points are Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses and Evolution Through Revolution, but this fey, winsome number will get you going.
4. Warhorse
A landmark in this writer’s evolution of musical gravity, Warhorse’s only record, As Heaven Turns To Ash, is an extremely slow, lysergic mass of an album. Not to be confused with the equally excellent(but radically different) Warhorse who emerged from Britain in the 70’s, this is a wonderful first nudge into the world of doom, should your introduction so far have been limited to Master Of Reality.
5. Portal
In no way for anyone with a heart condition, or who knows anyone currently pregnant, Portal are, so far in my musical travels, the most extreme band I’ve encountered. Unfathomably opaque and impossibly dark, the Adelaide nightstalkers birthed a new record recently, Vexovoid, which followed the black terror of Swarth. Below is Curtain from the former album, unquestionably the most ‘pop’ in their lexicon, which gives you an idea of what you’re in for.
6. Watchmaker
Utterly punishing and seemingly without mercy, Watchmaker are incapable of doing anything other than battering you within an inch of your life. Setting out their stall in 2005 with Kill. Crush. Destroy, the Massachusetts terror brigade made it their sole purpose to remove the listeners’ eyes using their own bottom through the medium of grinding metallic warfare. In such heady company as Angelcorpse and Mortician in the speed stakes, this is one of those records that makes you wonder what sort of enjoyment is to be gleaned from such material.
http://www.last.fm/music/Watchmaker/Kill.Crush.Destroy
7. Khanate
Borderline masochism for those who found Burning Witch too relaxing, the monument to agony known as Khanate released a number of records, all of which were resolutely undanceable. While one can hardly imagine them being terribly concerned about such matters, their legacy is one of truly piercing feedback, vocals wrung from Hell’s upper management and a guitar sound that could re-distribute your organs. So loud that a friend of mine felt his ribcage expand when their set finished. See also Sunn O))), OLD, Atomsmasher, Gnaw and Thorr’s Hammer.
8. Oxbow
Heavy in a completely different way to the others on this list, the San Fran natives have been making the world uneasy since 1989. Though The Narcotic Story made Rock A Rolla’s 2007 top albums list, its predecessors and successors are an abject study in how to make music as disquieting as human nature. Described as ‘stumbling across a sex crime against humanity’, An Evil Heat remains, to many, a pinnacle of their work. Less accessible than the magnificent …Story, less abstract than King Of The Jews, …Heat is a swim in another man’s head, with all that that entails.
9. Primitive Man
Signed to Throatruiner Records, and hailing from across the pond, the January release of Scorn was one of this years’ early ‘this is just ridiculous’ competition entries. Pitilessly mangling from beginning to end, the trio of blackened doom enthusiasts take the bottomless, grimy bile of Unearthly Trance(circa Season Of Seance, Science Of Silence) and prevent it from sleeping until, stripped of its humanity, it lashes out in the dark, unable to control its rage. One for the office party.
http://primitivemandoom.bandcamp.com/album/scorn
10. Rotten Sound
Formed in ’93 and still positively crushing, Rotten Sound ride the fine line between grind, seismic hardcore and balls out metal. Hilariously intense to the point of being suffocating, the drum sound alone is monstrously extreme. Spin this on your way to work and watch the world go weak.
By no means a definitive list, this is but a whistle-stop tour of ten bands from a pantheon of thousands who have no interest in the girl who broke your heart, or in taking pictures of their lunch. Investigate, and find your own nightmare. Enjoy!