Boulder - Ripping Christ

This is a best of compilation of a band called Boulder. To be honest, I don't know very much about this band when it comes down to basic facts. Metal Archives tells me that this band played "Heavy Metal", was formed in 1991 and had a shitload of releases. But I've heard that there is a connection between members of Boulder and the early to mid nineties Cleveland Hardcore scene, but again: no hard facts. Musicwise this band has way more in common with Hardcore bands like Iron Age or War Hungry than with your average Heavy Metal band. I mean the vocals are heavily distorted (not unlike Eyehategod) and screamed, and you have tons of grooving parts, and the songwriting is in general more Punk than Metal, means short songs, and most of the time simple structured. The tracks on this compilation that have been originally released on their later records are even a little bit chaotic, maybe like a stoner version of Coalesce. Or something like that. So no more blabla, if you dig bands like the above mentioned and have a certain affinity to Sludgecore in general, you can't go wrong with Boulder.

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.

Black Sabbath - Radio One Session (1970)

I guess everybody who ever listened to any kind of "rock music" knows about Black Sabbath. Everybody who listens to any kind of Metal has to worship them, and even every Hardcore kid should at least accept the fact that some of the greatest Hardcore bands were heavily influenced by Black Sabbath, for example Black Flag, Void or Integrity. Although I love most of the stuff they did with Ozzy, and like some of the stuff they did with Dio, I can understand that, especially people with a Hardcore backround, don't like the stuff with the latter, because of his voice. Well, Heaven & Hell is much better than some of the later recordings with Ozzy, but that's just my opinion.
What I uploaded here is a Radio session Black Sabbath (with the classic line-up Osbourne/Iommi/Butler/Ward) played at April 26th 1970 for John Peel's "Sunday Show" on Radio 1. The songs are "Black Sabbath", "Walpurgis", "Faries wear boots" and "Behind the wall of sleep". "Black Sabbath" lasts 9:25 minutes, is played a little bit different and slower than the album version, and way heavier. Especially when Ozzy says "oh no please god help me", I mean it's already quite frightening on the LP, but here you really see Satan sitting behind the desk, and not John Peel. Ozzy's vocals are great throughout the whole recording, by the way. "Walpurgis", the "pre-Warpigs", comes up with slightly different lyrics, one of the best Sabbath songs anyway. With "Faries wear boots" one of the "lesser" known songs is also there, probably everybody knows it anyway, but you know, it's not exactly "Paranoid". "Behind the wall of sleep" is faster than on the LP, and the arrangements are a little bit different as well. Fuck I love Black Sabbath. The sound of the recording is bit "dusty" but I think it fits the mood perfectly, very necro and heavy.

Annihilation Time will disband

Just read that on the AT-homepage, some of you probably already know:

"First of all, we have to thank everyone who made Chaos in Tejas possible/fun. TImmy H., Dan Moore , C-Vok, Alicon and Emily, Amber (for putting up with us for a whole week!), Emo's and AMEBIX and EYEHATEGOD (for Slaying). Killer fucking time and if you missed it you're fucking bummed cuz as you may have heard, those shows were our last US shows for possibly ever! The rumors are true, Jimmy is leaving us and were putting the band to rest. BUT, the rest of us are sticking together to start something else with a new singer. We just don't know who... were still waitng to hear back from David Coverdale.

Anyhow... we're headin' out to Europe for a couple of weeks to play on a boat in Sweden with the Misfits. Sounds....interesting. That will also probably be our last shows in Europe for maybe ever, so catch us if you can.

-chris (5-29-09)"

What a fucking bummer, I only hope to see them when they're here in Europe the last time.

Official Annihilation Time site
Annihilation Time on myspace.com