Behexen- By The Blessing Of Satan (2004)

I know I'm in a slump when my queue of albums to listen to balloons to over 300...it's well beyond that right now. Time to get my ass in gear and listen to some new music, but first here's one from the archives.

This album sounds like shit. It's one of the least dynamic albums I've ever heard. Everything is ridiculously loud and pushed to the front of the "mix." It's super abrasive and over the course of it's 47 minutes, this album will fatigue your ears. I think that's  one of the reasons why I rank it among the best black metal albums of the 2000's.

The other reason why I rank it so highly is that it's an absolute blasterpiece and a total riff-fest. The production perfectly compliments the music in this case, it's slightly over three quarters of an hour of unchecked aggression and this aggression will stand, man. It's got tremolo picked riffs and blastbeats until the cows come home and gnarly high pitched wails abound. Behexen aren't really interested subtlety or mood-setting on this record. No, they're more interested in grabbing you by the hair and holding your face to a belt sander whirring at 3400 rotations per minute until the air is filled with a fine mist of blood and bone dust. If that sounds like the type of thing you would enjoy, you should definitely check this record out (I'm looking at you, James).

Oh, and bonus points for one of the best black metal album covers ever.

Try it.

This album is out of print, but you can pick up a copies from Discogs:

CD (Discogs)

Vinyl (Discogs)

Psudoku- Space Grind (2011)

Rob keeps telling me that a) he's not dead and b) he's going to post something eventually. I don't believe him on either account.

Trondheim, Norway's Psudoku is the brainchild of Papirmøllen, who is also the man behind the anarcho-grindcore assault that is Parlamentarisk Sodomi (who happen to have cartoon dicks on most of their record covers, but I digress). However, unlike the hardcore-rooted Parlamentarisk Sodomi, Psudoku isn't so much rooted in anything, more like blasting through intergalactic space at a pace approaching the speed of light. There's only one thing I've ever heard that sounds even remotely similar to Space Grind and that is East West Blast Test. Yeah, when I compare a band to one featuring two of my musical idols (Dave Witte and Chris Dodge) that's a pretty gnarly endorsement. If you've heard the East West Blast Test records you should have some idea what to expect, completely weird, avant-garde, perhaps even jazz-influence grindcore. But, no offence to two of my favorite musicians, this album blows both of theirs out of the water. Why? The goddamn riffs. I don't want to call the guitar work on this album "riffage" or "shredding" as either would be an insult. The guitar work on this album is riff-craft. It's a fucking work of art. It's some of the most precise grindcore riffing I've heard since The Inalienable Dreamless. Oh, and Scott Hull should watch out, because Papirmøllen is looking to usurp the throne as the best drum programmer in grind.

One of my favorite grindcore records ever. Don't sleep on it.

SNORT SPACE DUST

Buy it here:
Digital (Amazon)
LP

Meneguar- I Was Born At Night (2005)

In my opinion, Meneguar was one of the most unsung bands of the last decade. While not necessarily a devotee, I listen to my fair share of indie rock and I've never heard another band that played said style of music with such unbridled passion. I'm not talking about in a live setting, unfortunately I never had the pleasure of seeing a Meneguar show. I'm talking about on tape. To me a show will always be the preferred way to experience music and albums should strive to capture the electricity that makes seeing music live so exciting. That is exactly why I consider I Was Born At Night to be a masterpiece, it sounds like the band was having just as much fun tracking these songs as they did when playing them live. This EP was initially released by Magic Bullet and was one of the label's early forays into music outside of the extreme. It's odd to think that if I weren't a fan of Majority Rule and Texbook Traitors I never would have heard this band.

Trying to encapsulate Meneguar in a paragraph or two is a pretty daunting task. I think that's due to the fact that they manage to remind me of the best aspects of a number of bands while not actually sounding anything like those bands. Take Weezer for instance. The Blue Album is littered with wonderful sing-along choruses. Menegar take it a step further. The chorus to every single song on this album demands that you sing-along. Give it two listens and try your hardest not to, I dare you. Their rhythm section pounds like Weezer did every now and again, but really that's where the comparison ends. The energy and enthusiasm with which they play reminds me of pop punk in the vein of The Ramones or Dillinger Four and the plentiful booty shakin' bass lines are reminiscent of the latter in particular. However, Meneguar isn't a pop punk band. I hear the Chuck Berry influenced garage rock of Hot Snakes. I can spot the dancy indie beat of Q and Not U. I hear the echoes of jangly guitar-driven indie rock bands from the 90's like Jawbox. While that last one might be the best overall comparison, the hammer is still pretty fucking far from the nail's head.

Whatever they sounded like, I was always nonplussed as to why Meneguar never attained the status of a band like Minus The Bear, who, while Menegar were producing two of the best indie rock releases of the decade, were beginning a backslide that sent them down into the mire with a million other terrible indie bands (there was a brief pause with Planet of Ice). Please come back Meneguar, I miss you.

Try it
(Listen to it LOUD)

Buy it:

Physical (LP)

Digital