Virgin Witch - s/t 7" (Review)

Here we have a cool Hardcore item on a small label I unfortunatly haven’t heard about until now, Free Cake Records. In Virgin Witch, Dom from Pulling Teeth is filling on the bass and guitar duties, so I knew beforehand that this shit’s gonna rule. So what music can you expect from a one sided 7“ with two songs, the flip side of the record with a silk screened pentagramm on it, and a cover artwork that has everything what’s good (boobs, skulls, devil horns)? Let me say it like this, if the number of the Os in the word doom correlates with the slowness of the music, the first track is definetely a dooooooooooooom song. Sludgy, with nice twin guitar harmonies here and there, and realy slow, mean vocals, you know the deal. Nothing to bring you into an happy mood, though, like Grief when they had a really bad day. The second song is faster, not really super fast but a solid midtempo, a good Hardcore song in the vein of Pulling Teeth (sorry for the unoriginal comparison), and the solo is one of the best Dom has done so far. It could very well be on one of the earyl Angel Witch recordings as well. I love Angel Witch’s solos. Virgin Witch is probably only one of Dom’s many side projects, but a very good one and I hope that there will be more tunes of that band sometime soon.

Virgin Witch on myspace

Free Cake Records

Nails - Unsilent Death (Review)

Does anybody remember the movie 28 Days Later? In that film humans get infected by a virus, that is basically like to pure rage and turns its victims into some kind of zombies („some kind of“ because they are able to run and climb, something a normal zombie doesn’t). Why am I mentioning this? The first time I’ve listened to this LP, I thought that this record was pure rage pressed on vinyl. And I still think it is. At first I wanted to make the usual Dropdead-meets-early-Terror-comparison, and it still would describe pretty good what’s going on here, but this morning, on my way to the bus, I suddenly knew of what band Nails, especially the new record, reminds me. I think Nails are like a Hardcore-interpretation of Terrorizer (speaking of Terrorizer I only speak about their masterpiece „World Downfall“ of course, I never even listened to the second record because everybody kept telling me how shitty it was). Nails have the same „all go no slow“ meets unseen brutality attitude, a lot of blastbeats, typical Hardcore-rythm parts, with 20 Boss Heavy Metal pedals between instruments and amps, add the hardest moshparts since Hatebreed's "Satisfaction..." record, there you are. The angriest vocals on earth screaming some of the most pissed off lyrics in Hardcore's short but angry history: "Bow to no man, no pig, no book of myths/tolerate no deception, no ignorance/I'm not your fucking servant" ("No Servant") or "Show your true self/Your loyality runs thin/You want to be liked by everyone/Two-faced faker, fucking traitor/Your feet are firmly planted/On both sides of the drawn line/Coward" (Traitor). A lot of "me against the world"-attitude, which is cool if it's authentic like in Nails' case. Now I probably should write about who’s playing in this band, but I don’t think Nails really need that. This thing was recorded at Kurt Ballou’s Godcity Studios, but don’t expect something rather slick like the Carry On full length (no diss towards Carry On, I love that record), the production is really noisy and dirty, still super heavy and, well, brutal. What more can I say... this is one of THE Hardcore records in 2010, if you’re into bands like [namedropping mode on] early Terror or Hatebreed, Terrorizer, Mind Eraser, Dropdead, Entombed or Napalm Death [namedropping mode off] you’ll be blown away by Nails.

www.sixfeetunderrecords.com

Keept It Real #9 (Review)

Maybe you remember this post from March - I finally found the time to read this whole thing and write a review about it. First of all, the guy who's doing this zine, Apostolis from Athens, Greece, seems to be a very nice dude, so I didn't buy only one zine but six, so if you're from Germany and want to have one of those babies, drop me a line. Price is three Euros plus shipping haha. But back to the review. First thing you realize when you pick this up is of course the artwork, and this one looks really cool, as you can see on the picture to the left. It was done by a guy named Peio. Second, the paper is quite thick, especially the cover, but the normal pages as well, so reading this thing is also a haptic experience, which is cool. Zines that are made of this super thin paper (like MRR for example) always tend to annoy me after a while, because the pages get ripped up quite fast. No diss towards MRR intended by the way. Content-wise, this zine offers a good mixture of bands, and from a subjective point of view, of bands I can relate to. I especially enjoyed the interviews with Pulling Teeth, Poison The Well, Vitamin X (I didn't know Wolfi of Tangled Lines fame is drumming in that band now, I did an interview with him like five years ago) and above all (and to my own surprise) Greg Bennick of Trial. He has a lot of interesting things to say, and manages to do it in an entertaining way. The let downer is IMO the Lewd Acts interview, due to the LA-guy's laziness to come up with a little bit more interesting answers. The questions in all interviews are above the average you usually get to read, although I wish that Apostolis would have pressed on certain topics a little bit more. Then there's an article about Krishna consciousness, not something groundbreaking new, but on the other hand, 90 percent of today's Hardcore kids surely don't know about the connection between Hardcore and Krishna anymore. Personally, I always thought it was kinda strange, and this not only due to the fact that Krishna also involves some kind of organised religion, and with that, religious leaders, something that doesn't go to well hand in hand with Hardcore in my book. The other side of the coin is that I'm still siked about hanging out with the guys from 108, especially Vic, three years ago or something when we had the chance to play with them. Vic is cool, and for sure wouldn't be the person he is without all that Krishna-rave. But back to the Keep It Real zine, well, there's not much left to tell you, there's also a photo report from last years Fluff Fest, I never understood what's so great about festivals, because this is not what keeps Hardcore alive, but I can understand that a lot of people appriciate the chance to see a lot of good bands in a very short time. In addition to this content there are a couple of record reviews as well, I know people who only read the record reviews in zines. Whatever, to bring this to an end, this printzine is definetely worth your money, all in all it's nice to read, looks great and seems to be the perfect match with a hot summerday by the swimming pool, hanging out, drinking ice tea, and reading a zine. 

For info, orders, trades etc. pp.:

myspace.com/keepitrealhc

And like I said, I also have a few copies flying around, if you're interested, let me know!

New layout

Today I had an interview for a pretty cool internship, I can't really say how it was. I mean, it was a pretty nice talk, but I think I talked too much bullshit all the time haha. We will see. Hopefully I get the job and hopefully it'll help me to find some kind of direction after my studies. Anyway, afterwards I felt some kind of motivation, so I decided to "relaunch" the layout of LIS, looks pretty cool IMO, I guess all the woodcut stuff is a little bit worn out since every jack ass-wanna be-holy terror band, and not even those, every Hardcore band that tries to be "dark", uses woodcuts. Whatever. I have a bunch of stuff planned in the near future, stay tuned for that, until then:

chill.

Morning Again reunion

You've probably heard about that: Morning Again will reunite for a bunch of shows in the US and Europe. I probably won't go haha, but it would quite rad to see them playing songs like "God framed me" or "Martyr"


Info found on xStuck in the pastx.

Keep It Real Fanzine Issue No. 9 out now

My friend Apostolis from Greece asked me to do a post about the newest issue of his print-zine, because it just got released. Well, I don't know a lot about it now, because I haven't read it yet, but since I ordered a few copies I will review the zine later on. 

For now I can tell you what's inside: Interviews with Greg Bennick of Trial, Birds Of A Feather, Lewd Acts, Confronto, Vitamin X, To Kill, Pulling Teeth, Poison The Well and Despite Everything. Especially the combination of Pulling Teeth and Poison The Well is fucking rad, I wouldn't have thought that somebody except me likes both bands haha. Besides that you'll get a six pages photo report of Fluff fest '09, a thought provoking article concerning Krishna Hardcore Consciousness and the usual reviews. 

There will be 500 copies, Din A4, price for this baby is 3 Euros plus shipping. You can contact Apostolis at hxf_prodaxionz@yahoo.com (also for wholesale and what not).

Are we still alive?

Uh, sorry for not posting anything for like, months. I'm quite busy at the moment with writing my thesis, and listing to harsh Black Metal like early Mayhem, or to sorrowful tunes like Slowdive. Sounds weird? Well, welcome to my world. 

Destroyer|Borderlines is about to be released in two days, and for the last few weeks a lot of reviews came in. It's funny to see that either people seem to really like it, or think it really sucks. Only very few reviews are in between those two poles. That really makes we wonder how things like "taste" work. I mean, how is it possible that two persons, listening to same same record, come to totally different conclusions? 

One thing that seems to be important is, of course, the scene or subculture the listener feels hisself connected to. Like, there was this one review from this dude whose favourite bands are Children of Bodom and Blind Guardian. The "commercial metal" kind of guy. Of course he didn't like our record. He said something in the meaning of ambitious, but not executed. Other people, who I'd say also came to our shows before and in general belong to same sub-scene or hardcore like we do, like the record. Of course. They understand the different influences, the whole concept behind the album, and they don't expect us to sound like Lamb Of God or something. Then you'll find a lot of reviews written by people, who, sorry for that, don't seem to know A SHIT about music at all. Not necesserilly Hardcore, or extreme Metal. Just no clue at all. One review said "Old School Hardcore with youthcrew melodies" or crap like that. Come on, we might sound like a lot, but Old School Hardcore?! What's that anyway? It's just like names like "Indie" or "Heavy Rock". It sais SHIT about the music, it doesn't mean anything. And "youthcrew melodies", fuck, that's even worse. When I think about youth crew I think of bands like Youth Of Today or Chain Of Strength, Gorilla Buscuits, you name it. And even though those bands are kinda melodic, it's definetly a different kind of melodies than we do. When I read the review I knew what the kid who wrote it looked like: White flesh tunnels in his ears, red, checked shirt above a Go It Alone t-shirt, tight jeans, New Era Vans. Am I right? I'm sure I am. How do I know the Go It Alone shirt? Because that was the only band he compared us to. None of us ever listened to that band. The only effect reviews like that have is that the reader realizes that the writer doesn't know shit. 

One guy thinks the production is bullshit, everybody else thinks it's good. Weird. Even though the cultural studies tell me that every media reception is linked to cultural influences, I don't understand how it works. Maybe the wide range of reviews tells at least one thing: Destroyer|Borderlines is a record that is not just black or white, but releases different feelings in everybody who listens to it (unlike records like "Reign In Blood" everybody loves haha), and call me pathetic: that's the only thing you can hope to achieve by playing music. 

On the other hand: Do I really give a shit? Reviews mean rating music, and that doesn't make a lot of sense anyway, it's just a part of music business. I mean, when I write a review, I want to support the band (that is why you only find good ones on this blog). But a lot of reviews are written because some guy writing for some zine/blog gets it and has to review it, because he's part of the whole music-consume-machinery. Although he's writing for nothing but fame for some non-profit blog. I don't exactly know what I want to tell you haha. Just make up your own mind, listen to what you want, fuck everybody who want's to tell you what to listen to, including me. Culture belongs to you, so use it the way you want it.