Lazy People Must Die

Continuing Hades Mining Co.'s reign of terror through this blog, comes their split 7" with Canada's genital stain on the music world, Cum Sock. Guys, this one is truly for the heads. I mean this one's rough, real rough. I need a cup of coffee, an upper, and a shower after I get through listening to this piece of wax. Limited to 100 copies on this rather nice looking green marble vinyl, 33 RPM. As always, released by Continuum Records.

I'll just get Cum Sock's side out of the way first, because it is truly and honestly horrible. Aside from the actually decent guitar sound that they miraculously achieve, I can't say a single decent thing about this. If you ever wanted to hear a guy junkie-snarl the words "ASIAN PUKE PORN" into a peaking microphone over the sloppiest thrashcore you heard in your life, get a friend. Also you may just like this record, maybe. Uninteresting, and schlocky noisecore that overstayed its welcome and only bugged me. Not even the charm of it's sloppiness won me over here.

Hades Mining Co. side is another live recording, most likely the full set of that night. The main chunk of their half is another sludge rock opus, entitled "The Return Of Shock Puss". The charm that's lost on Cum Sock's side is thankfully returned on here. But not in huge amounts, as I never really preferred any of HMC's slow stuff to their total noisecore. The sheer audacity of everything this track is admirably fun though. Riding a 70's stoner bass riff and guitar solo freakouts. Literally, imagine the worst 2 AM rock n' roll bar band you ever saw, it's this. The second and last track is a simple, farted out noiscore track. Leaving the crowd in an empty void of awkward applause.

Real good, cut n' paste style printed sleeve with a classic image from the freakier side of internet on the cover. It also comes with a stick of the whole cover, which is now considered packaging and thus cannot be placed anywhere.

Recommended if you like bad music.

~VII

It Burns When I Pee

Another addition of the Hades Mining Co. vinyl split series. Noisecore truly is living and breathing healthy on Built To Blast this year. How could it not though with so many "amazing" artists releasing new and interesting records every day. The scene around the world is truly at a fantastic peak right now. One of my personal favorite noisey bands I've noticed from afar is Deathwank from the UK. A ski-mask wearing collective that do a great job at creating an intense buzz of grind. This was one of the records I was most excited to check out from the bunch of HMC. splits. Black vinyl out of 144 copies, 33 RPM.

The Hades Mining Co. side is just awesome. All post-irony aside, this is one of my favorite recordings that they've done. HMC. really are at their best when they're just a straight noisecore band. Operating on traits that I think are what makes the genre great. It's over the top, goofy, and aware of itself and exactly what it's trying to do. Ghoulish, cartoony, bellowing vocals intro the first couple of songs, grunting and belching out the titles among other gibberish. Then they slam into some excellent slop blasts. Nice, bassy recording on this one. The instruments have a real nice crunch to them. The second half is a smattering of nonsense band noise and bizarre samples. There are awkwardly edited samples all over the place, it's great. Where does a song end? When does it start up again? It was a wonderful mess of a session, I had a blast.

Deathwank have been on a very good roll lately with some of their most recent releases (like THIS ONE). I think they have some members from Sufferinfuck, remember them? On here they give us 16 tracks of some hard free grind, with touches of PV influence. The musicians on here are definitely fantastic improvisors, constantly switching through riffs and breaks on a dime. A lot of it actually sounds pretty tight for how free and structureless it is. I can't really call this noisecore per se, since I can actually make out real notes a lot of the time. It reminds me of the old jamming sessions I occasionally have with various people. Just hard riffing and having fun. Not the best recording I've heard from them, but a solid as fuck second half.

I'm a big fan of the cover art. 

This record is still available from CONTINUUM. I recommend it.

~VII

Adult Diseases

Sometimes in my self-appointed roll as a music critique, I am generously and randomly send wonderful packages from bands or labels in return for me to review their records or tapes on this blog. And given that I rarely buy grind albums anymore because of my severe lack of frivolous online spending, these instances really help keep things going. Even if I do feel undeserving of all the kindness sometimes (gifts are kinda sorta hard for me to accept). The next batch of posts will be regarding the longtime Rochester, NY band Hades Mining Co. and their Father label Continuum Records. Gotta give a big thanks to Continuum operator and HMC member Dave, for very generously supplying me with some of these pretty limited releases. So, thank you Dave.
I figured I'd start with a post about this record. Given it's been obvious how much I enjoy records by our favorite Japanese duo Sete Star Sept. Any new SSS record is welcome into my home, and this one is definitely one of their more interesting 7" splits. Black vinyl, limited to 149 copies on black wax (the rest were on color), 33 RPM.

I've always had my eye on the latest batch of Hades Mining Co. splits. Even though I wasn't that initially impressed with them in brief streams online, they've been working with some cool bands. They're definitely one of those noisecore bands. They're totally oldschool sounding, genre fucking, completely free slopcore noise. One that you could write off as absolute talentless shit for their obvious wankery and fuck-you to actually "writing a song". Or a band you can take in with that great, sort of B-movie experience. Enjoying it for all it's flaws and just having some fun. And you're both right. Because goddamn this is shit, but I definitely do dig it. Four tracks make up Hades Mining Co.'s half. Opening up with a slow as molasses, drumless, doomy bass riff driven opus. Industrial, hissing guitar feedback and occasional soloing are a constant too. Basically sounding like the worst Sunn O))) cover band you've ever heard. HMC have embraced going totally slow and sludgy, which I think helps set them apart. It works better sometimes (definitely in this case) then others. The rest of their side goes more into standard noisecore territory. The second song even features a saxophone (standing ovation), and the band just proceeds to clusterfuck the crap out of anything resembling music. The last track is so lo-fi it literally sounds like a recording, of a recording, recorded and played through a cassette Walkmen.

Sete Star Sept's side was a very interesting and fulfilling listen to me. I love it when SSS record stuff that's a little stranger, more adventurous and creative then the standard noisecore fare. Unfortunately these are usually kept for their VERY limited cassette splits and don't see much vinyl treatment. This batch of songs is definitely in the spirit of this side of the band. The massive opener (taking up more then half the side) consisting of almost riffless bass feedback, with sporadic drum hits from Kiyasu. Sort of reminds me of the last track from their split with Lung Cancer, the feedback almost works as a power electronics instrumental. The next 4 tracks, entitled "Square Root A"-through-"D" are quick instrumental noise bursts, ending with a track that consists solely of Kiyasu's drums and some cartoonish grunts. I've never heard the band be this bizarre and different on any of their 7"s. So that right there says something It's a wild ride, and is one of the more unusual vinyl splits from them that I own.

I always saw the black and white, fold-over cover packaging that Continuum gave their releases and was not impressed. But only because it just looked like photocopied covers on printer paper with low pixel count artwork. But actually no, these are professionally done, sturdy and glossy sleeves. I was very pleasantly surprised! Hades Mining Co. certainly keeps a consistent aesthetic, and I like that a lot.

There were two 7"x7" inserts included for each band. Each one displaying an eye-bleedingly high amount of color in contrast to all this black and white. I kinda honestly wish these were the images for the sleeve, but it's a cool bonus. The test pressings were all adorned with these covers I believe.

This split is still available from the LABEL, and I've started to see it pop up on Discogs. If you feel up to it, dive into this slop. For true noise freaks only.

~VII