Void - Potion For Bad Dreams

Many times you'll read about Void that they were ahead of their time with their Metal influenced Hardcore-Punk, but I'd rather say, they were completely out of everything. Their "Condensed Flesh" demo and their side of the Void/Faith split is just so far beyond everything any other band has ever done, it's no surprise that Void became one of the real cult bands of the early 80ies Hardcore movement. The screams, the wild, chaotic lead guitar, the insane speed, for sure a must-know for everybody who listens to Hardcore. But what's that I've found quite some time ago in the depth of the internet? The demos of the unreleased second Void LP (or first LP, depending on if you'd say the split is a real LP) "Potion For Bad Dreams". To be honest, it's not that great haha, I mean Void went the same way a lot of bands went from that era: slowing down, more rock, less punk. Of course you still can tell it's Void, the vocals are still quite crazy, and all the rock leads where there before as well, but now they are played cleaner (and, if you want, a little bit better). Somehow this sounds like Void trying to play Mötley Crüe songs, and in a way it's cool (because it's Void) but really, basically it's the demo for a average rock album. So don't expect too much, but listen to it anyway, you know, for the record. Some of the songs break off suddenly, the sound itself is pretty good, I guess they were recorded in a proper studio.

Vader - Necropolis (Review)

Fuck all Deathcoreposerbullshit, fuck breakdowns and girlpants, fuck everything. This is the new Vader record and if you don't start to bang your head with the first note of the first song, you're not worth reading this blog one minute longer hahaha. Seriously, this piece of vinyl (of course there's a CD version as well) is so brilliant, it's the best Deathmetal record that got released 2009 so far. I mean, Vader are into this nearly as long as I live, so they know how to do it. But in difference to other bands that are "in the game" for that long which perhaps start to experiment with other influences and stuff like that, Vader just kill. I mean, just kill. The vocals sound so fucking mean, like a witch-priest or something like that. The music's just the perfect. Hard. And fast. And heavy. And dark. And heavy and heavy and heavy. Did I mention the perfect vocals? Nobody sounds like that. Except Satan himself maybe. My favourite song is probably "Impure". It makes me want to thrash myself, my room, my neighbours, their families and friends. I can't fucking wait to get to see Vader live by the end of September, it's gonna be so good. I'm blown away.

Ignorance Is Strength Fanzine (Review)

This is the first issue of this new printed zine (A4), done by Wouter from the Netherlands. As far as I've read in the introduction it's not the first fanzine he's doing, and you can definetly see that. A few general things about it: All the questions to every single band are really good, well prepared and you realize that Wouter put a lot of thought in them. Now one could say, well, that's what someone who's doing a zine is expected to do, and that's probably right, but it's surely not happening in most interviews you'll read in hardcore fanzines, or on websites about that topic. Very often it's all like "what do you think about Have Heart, what shoes do you wear, when will your new record be released blablabla". But I'm getting off topic. Like I said, the questions are good, it's not your standardized small talk bullshit, and on the other hand Wouter's not trying to talk about issues that are too far off the track, something that sucks most of the time as well. Another thing he did very well is the artwork. It's all cut and paste, but good structured and in a great layout, so it's easy to read and looks cool, and that just how it should be.
To the content, basically you'll get two kinds of: interviews and some kind of columns in which various people write about certain song lyrics that have a special meaning to them, which is a great idea since most people tend to write so much boring bullshit in columns if they get to write about whatever they want. But first about the interviews, you'll get: Black Breath, Blind To Faith, Cold Snap, Cornered, Feed, Foundation, Goldust, Keep It Clear, Mindset, New Lows, Oathbreaker and Vivian Girls. The ones I enjoyed the most were Black Breath, Cold Snap, Cornered and the one with my own band haha, just because it's so cool to have interview over more than one page in a zine like this. I'm not really into the Youth Crew type of bands, it's just not my cup of tea. But to be fair, without bands like these and people who support them there would be even less printed zines, so that's totally fine. While reading the interviews with Blind To Faith and Vivian Girls I kinda asked myself what's the point about agreeing in doing an interview if every answer is shorter than the question, I mean, if I don't want to say anything why am I doing an interview? Quite strange, but ok. As much as I like Blind To Faith's music, all they say is that Hardcore sucks and Gehenna and Iron Monkey are cool. I mean, although they might be right at some terms, it seems to be quite a lot of "we know bands way too underground for you". Ah whatever, it's not that I'm never doing this.
When it comes to the columns, I have to give special prominence to two of them: the one of Aram, where he talks about 108's "Killer of the soul". To be honest, I didn't know the lyrics until now, but the aggressivness and words really gave me goosebumbs, I think they are some of the best pro-vegetarian/vegan lyrics I've ever read. "Killer of the animal, only a demon could dine on the flesh of the dead". That's so hard. Awesome. And how Aram writes about how this song touched him, although he was vegetarian for a few years when discovering the lyrics, is great, because I kinda felt the same now.
The second column is by Arne, who's doing arguably Germany's best zine: the Dawk Fanzine. The song he choose is Supertramp's "It's raining again". It's not that I can connect to his thoughts and feelings about this song as good as with Aram's, but I simply love his writing. If he'd write a book, I'd buy it.
Besides those two there are some people writing about Youth Of Today (pretty generic stuff if you ask me), Cap'n Jazz, Modern Life Is War and what not. Good mixture of people and bands and lyrics. I like stuff like that, because it always makes me think about what song I would have choosen to write about and why and what I'd say about it.
So what can I say? If you're hungry for a good fanzine (completely in English btw.) better get a copy of this one by dropping Wouter a line at ignoranceisstrengthzine@gmail.com.

Johnny Angel - They Have Lift Off

So, today I've decided to upload a rather obscure record. That means, not that obscure, but at least obscure enough that not everyone who should know it knows it. The most valuable fact about this band that will make you read further (or stop reading at this very moment) is that this was the band Dave Claiburn of Unbroken played in after their break-up, and I've heard that he played guitar in Johnny Angel. But I've also heard that he sang, but I don't really know, the vocals don't sound like him at all, so I guess I prefer the guitar-playing version.This record was released on CD by Bloodlink Records, and I have a 10" vinyl version here that was released on a German label called SNC Empire, but I guess there also exist a US pressing. That's all the basic facts I know. When it comes down to the music, one band has to come to your mind, especially when you know in band what Eric Allen played in after Unbroken: the Swing Kids. The music of Johnny Angel is, at the first hearing, so much like the Swing Kids that they could be easily mistaken for them. Of course, after listening to this a few times more you can hear some slight differences, Johnny Angel is a little bit more aggressive, maybe a little bit more punk, and a little less jazzy than the Swing Kids. But sound-wise, especially vocal-wise, it's really similar to the Swing Kids. So if you like the them, you'll most definetly like Johnny Angel, if you get turned off by spastic 90's screamo, you probably won't like it. I love it.

Toxic Revolution/Magnicide split 12" (Review)

The first vinyl appearance of Toxic Revolution, and just how I expected it to be: awesome. Their side of the split 12" (released on TVG Records) is named "Short - Fast - Loud", and that sums it up pretty good, even though it may sound cliché to some people. But clichés are clichés because they work, and like I said, these eight songs ARE short, fast, and loud. This is really great stuff, written under the influence of Powerviolence, Grindcore and Hardcore bands like In Disgust, Spazz, Infest, early Napalm Death and so on, you name it. What's so great about these songs is that Toxic Revolution manages to bring in loads of own ideas and an own style (music wise), so that the result sounds really unique. You can hear their passion and love for extreme music throughout every chord and drumbeat. Of course this stuff is played good, the production's perfect (not too basement, not too clean) and the artwork shows a bunch of zombies. You just can't go wrong with zombies. Oh and there a quite lot of samples in between the songs, but they really match the atmosphere of the music, so that's cool as well.
On the flip side you'll get Magnicide's songs, nine in total. Although the music from these Singapore grindheads is located in the same genre like Toxic Revolution, it's different, not as varying, a little less inspiring. But if you dig music like that you're probably not searching for diversity anyway. For damn sure this is brutal and fast as well, fans of the genre won't be disappointed for a second. So if you like your Hardcore fast and raw, and worship MOSH 8, get this record.

In rememberance to "Deutschlands beschissenste Skateparks"

I hope some of you remember the Boardstein Magazine, the only German skateboard mag you could read without getting turned off by glossy, money grabbing, high end-styled poser bullshit. After the demise of the mag they continued to do a website at least, which is cool. Whatever, in the mag there always was a short rubric called "Deutschlands beschisstenste Skateparks" ("Germany's most fucked up skateparks") where readers could send pictures of really misbuilt, misplanned, totally fucked up skateparks. I always planned to send some pictures of the "skatepark" from the village where I grew up (they built it a few years after I left), because it's literally a fucking joke. I mean... look at the picture! It just doesn't make any sense! Since I always forgot to take the picture when Boardstein was still running, here you are:
No, this ain't a fucking joke, this is basically all there is, except some kind of a curbbox, which is pretty impossible to skate anyway.
So if you ever survive a plane crash in the middle of nowhere (means: Lower Bavaria), and strand in a village called Triftern, you could check it out by yourself. But you probably wouldn't want to. LOL.