Living Market/Bullshit Room

Here's a tape that I got from the good person who runs and operates the Pop Miasma label, who coincidentally happens to be a member of the band Living Room! I've seen some fellow peers bring up their name here and there, and I was definitely interested in hearing what Living Room were all about. So naturally, I was thrilled when they wanted to send in copies of their new splits for review! Here's the Bullshit Market/Living Room split cassette, not sure how many copies were made.

This is the first tape I've got that has recordings from the newest Bullshit Market line-up. Now a duo, and pretty much sticking to straight-up noisecore at least for now. This recordings is lo-fi, nasty and fast as fuck thanks to the always ridiculous drumming from Aaron. Drums and bass with some super murky, pitch shifted vocals that kind of remind me of Ops-Psf, but without the cut up sound and styles. The bass doesn't even really sound like a bass, lots of pedal manipulation and weird feedback. This session is a nice and solid batch of short, untitled, noisecore bursts, with some entertaining little bits of in between banter/dialogue and hip-hop samples in between the blasts to keep it lively. Fun shit, I'm excited to hear more from this line-up.

Alright, so now I'm finally hearing Living Room, and I gotta say I wasn't quite expecting this kind of stuff, but I'm really really digging it. That cut-up style/editing that I mentioned up above is here in spades. This shit is a wonderful collage of various sounds! I'd only really call it noisecore because sometimes there are longer bits where you can hear traditional stringed instruments and drums. But mostly, this side sounds like a quick cut, sharp and nasty harsh noise session. I can pick up lots of various tape manipulations and recording speeds fucked with in real time. I'm unsure whether this is all sourced from recordings they did as a band, or from different members separate contributions. Not a lot of vocals or what I would traditionally call noisecore, but there's definitely enough of that rapid energy to keep the roots apparent. As a fan of crazy cut-up noises, I dig this. Think Penis Geyser's side of their split 7" with Sete Star Sept. Awesome project!

 I can tell Pop Miasma is nailing down that consistent aesthetic. The packaging is a simple, double sided J-card, but I dig the layout a lot. The tape sounds awesome too!

I got another Living Room split to write about in the next couple posts.

~VII

Another Song About Dicks

This tape came out back near the end of 2016, when Sedem Minut Strachu really started propelling into their solid status as one of the best noisecore bands doing their thing. I was really happy to find it out in the wild this past April while I was on tour. At the very excellent Torn Light Records in Kentucky. Trashfuck Records is responsible for putting this tape out, not sure how many were made.

Sedem Minut Strachu as you all should be aware have been pretty much dominating noisecore over the course of several years. Consistently putting out true, ugly, proper noisecore from tape to record to tape again. And of course constantly releasing splits with many amazing and fascinating bands from all over the world. Their side here is a 163 track effort, so there's plenty of short bursts and stops on this one. Jan is really blasting hard. It sounds like one of their practice room recordings, so the bass isn't that blown out and more in the background. Not as much ping in the snare as I normally like either, it actually sounds like a real snare drum here. Pretty awesome stuff, as usual.

Bullshit Market is a long going, genre bending band from Detroit. Patrick, one half of BsM, also runs Trashfuck Records. This is some seriously whacked out noisecore fuckery. Super fast and tight blasting, harsh noise in the vein of Nikudorei, and some left in band member banter with very tight cut up/editing. The vocals too, I love how they sound on here! Not so much screaming, more like loud moaning and grunting, but with some SUPER heavy delay or echo on them in a way I don't hear very often. There's also an amazing part in the middle where there's a reverse playback of the band chatting, and then this reversed cymbal decay just starts rising up, until there's a sharp stop into harsh fucking noise blasting. This side is just great, I really really like this a lot. 

We got a proper, old school style, whole folded sheet of paper for the cassette art. Including an iamge of the poster from when Sedem Minut Strachu and Bullshit Market played together on the American 7MS tour. The tape dub sounds superb and crispy too.

This tape is long since sold out. But if you manage to luckily find it in the wild like I did you definitely should buy it. Both sides are winners!

  ~VII

Human Garbage Disposal

I was after the Sulfuric Cautery/Suppression split for longer than I wanted to be. Every day that I didn't have this tape in my hands I died a little more inside. It's hard for an east coast boy like me to find releases from bands like this in the wild. I haven't been able to find any of the recordings on the internet too which made my interest in it all the more extreme. Now I finally have it, I was able to pick it up when I saw Suppression in Detroit, and it's a thing of beauty. 

Sulfuric Cautery are probably underground grindcore's most beloved band right now, and for good reason. They really do take speed and brutality to a whole other level. Some of the craziest shit I've heard in years. I think their side is one of the first that had Trashy from Pizza Hi Five in the line-up. It's fucking great, obviously; noisy, brutal, the perfect fix for a blast beat junkie. Trashy and Ryan spew their respective vocals constantly in a wash of chaotic roars. Issac does what Issac does, the most insane blasting you've ever heard. It's a total slaughter fest from the beginning, to the ending batch of noisecore songs. Sulfuric's mix of complete chaos and precise song structure is in a league of it's own, and this side is a great example of all their strengths. 

Suppression are the supreme lords of their craft right now, a fucked up and lo-fi noisecore/powerviolence/noise rock hybrid. I have no idea how they are able to write this many songs at such a rapid pace, but they do, and here we get 16 total bangers. Legitimate, composed songs with lyrics, each one distinguishable from the last. From full on noisecore, to riffy, fuming stompers. What other band can put pitch-shifted vocals over a twisted Minutemen/Lightning bolt style bass riff and a blast beat and have it be amazing? Another real stand-out is the track "Art in Death"; I adore how the drum rhythm matches up with the delayed and looped bass hits. Seeing how perfectly they pulled the track off live only cements their perfection. It also ends with a wonderful 2 second track, a wonderful final hit.

I love the cover art on this. A wonderful Pettibon style/"The Burning" mash-up. This tape was a joint release by Chaotic Noise Productions, Feel Good Grind, Blast Addict, and Grindfather for the overseas crowd. I suspect Jason from CNP/Suppression had the biggest part in assembling them, as the general layout and packaging is pretty familiar. I also love the groovy, textured boarder on the cassette itself. Little details like that help make releases stand out to me.

In closing, you should already know.

~VII

Organic Refuse

A couple weeks ago while I was on tour, my buddy Ben slipped me a copy of this here tape that he helped release on his label Craniophagus Parasiticus Records. Later on the trek, while we were all chilling in Chicago, this tape was put on in the background. Amongst the clatter, hilarious conversations, and heavy intoxication, the music on here went straight to my ears like a heat seeking missile and I was blown away. Now officially released (also by Septic Brain Tapes and Misanthropic Ignorance), here's the Cystgurgle/Vomitoma split tape.

This split is wet, brutal, hyper blasting gore to the limit! Everything I love about ridiculous goregrind is on this tape, it's all just so good! Cystgurgle, a drum/bass duo from Thailand, are up first for a crushing A-side. This was my first exposure to them and DAMN, this shit is boiling lava hot. This is that supremely fast, super tight, Inopexia/LDOH-style goregrind right here. The drummer is absolutely insane (yes, these are real drums), everything is just impossibly fast. This is one of those rare times where a professional recording actually made this sound a lot better than it would have otherwise. The kick drum and snare hits are pulverising! Same with the vocals and bass, there's obviously credit due there. The bass is a little whishy/washy sounding, I would have liked it a little more pronounced, but when Cystgurgle are blasting away I don't really have a complaint at all. I could listen to this every day!

Vomitoma should need no introduction to people who know gorenoise/grind. Now on it's 10th year, the Vomitoma project has no signs of slowing down, and apparently will only release recordings with real drums now! On this split, the drums were supplied by Adrian from Putrefuck, who does a pretty great/appropriately sloppy job. This whole side is just disgusting, as anyone would expect. Jen's toilet water vocals are some of the best in the game, it literally sounds like the noises melted, human viscera would make going down a rusty drain. WHile the impactful speed and viciousness of the Cystgurgle side isn't quite matched here, the dirty/medical atmosphere on Vomitoma's half is on another level. This is that kind of gorenoise you want to listen to when you want to watch sketchy internet dissection videos, just fabulous!

Everything about this tape was done 100% pro, and it completely looks and sounds that way! The dub is crispy, loud, and certifiably dank. I'm super happy for Ben for helping put out such a beauty!

Any of the labels I linked above should have this available. Don't skip on this, it's my favorite tape of the year so far!

~VII

Smashing My Faith

I recently made a purchase that I never thought I would be able to make. It's a big one, I've been after this tape ever since I got into Seven Minutes of Nausea. The legendary split cassette with the Brazilian grindcore band Necrose. Released on Sem Nome Tapes in the mid 90's. They're all hand numbered, I'm not sure how limited this was.

This was one of the very first 7MON recordings that I got to hear, thanks to good ol' Youtube. It was pretty instantaneous love for me, it's everything I was looking for in fast music at that time. The drumming, the way the drums sounded and the no-fi fidelity of the whole thing was intoxicating. I still can't figure out how the drums are really being hit, to this day. It's like a Crass drum roll mixed with a blast beat. The way every song was just a sudden, sharply edited burst of noise with the gnarled vocals of Mick. This recording is a definite stand-out in their discography.It's up there with the true classics like "Thrashbora" and the Sound Pollution split. Just a constant, raw and crushing blast of short song brilliance. One of the last really, really, really great ones for a while.  I just really wish this came with lyrics. None of the 301 tracks have titles or lyrics, which is unusual for them. Regardless, it's a ripper, total perfection.

 Necrose was a fairly prolific grind band in the mid to late 90's. I'm honestly not very familiar with their material outside of this tape, but the 26 tracks on here (three of which are covers) are very nice and gross. Primitive, raw riffs and playing, but it's just so damn pure and earnest. There's a big Celtic Frost tinge to the riffing, definitely lots of good ol' metal influence here. The drummer is just slamming away as fast as he can, you can feel how hard the snare is getting hit. The vocals are totally putrid and gargled, the mic was cupped for sure!! This is the kind of raw grindcore that's easy to make, but hard to pull off in a captivating way. The urgency and punk as fuck attitude this band has make the songs a lot more powerful. I definitely find myself going towards the Seven Minutes of Nausea side, but that's not to say Necrose's side should be ignored. This is quality primitive grindcore!!!

Great layout on this, doubled sided with a very tasteful blue tint. Again, I just wish there was a 7MON lyric sheet.

If anyone one else has this release, I'd like to know what your cassettes look like. Both sides are dubbed quite well, I got to say.

Who knows when I'll ever be able to find another 7MON cassette split. This thing rules, having it makes my life a little more fulfilled.

~VII

Traumatic Haematomyella

I bought this tape solely off the Sulfuric Cautery side. I've been pretty slack at getting their releases, but I'm gradually getting around to picking things up here and there. They're definitely one of the more exciting grind bands to come out in the past few years, and hearing about their hyper intense live shows makes me hope I catch them live soon. I had only heard Metastasis and Butcher M.D. by name, but many people with tastes I trust have recommended them in the past so I figured I couldn't go wrong with this tape. Released back in 2015 by Campaign For Musical Destruction, every band is on one side, limited to 50 copies.

Metastasis is up first; a one person goregrind band that gives us some pretty solid tunes overall, but it didn't blow me away here. The recording is super raw, the snare pops out rather loudly, but the cymbals and guitar have that windy/washy sound that sounds like it was recorded on a bad tape machine. The guitars do have a thick tone sometimes, and the drums are performed pretty well, just nothing spectacular.

Butcher M.D., a duo drum machine goregrind band featuring Erwin from Last Days Of Humanity, comes up next and instantly won me over. The better recording quality and rapid blasting was like a gunshot after Metastasis. They are actually probably my favorite band on this tape. The drums sound quite good and are programmed really well, with a nice balance of blasts and mid-tempo sections. Super chunky guitar and bass too, it definitely has an early LDOH sound. Super brutal and crushing in all the right ways, I dig it a lot.

Going right back to blasting raw fidelity, Sulfuric Cautery close the tape out with 4 originals and a Gore Beyond Necropsy cover. I'm heavily fascinated by just how extreme these dudes take grind, the speeds these two reach is just massively impressive and exhilarating. Their songs are almost exhausting, but catchy at the same time. At this point, S.C. wasn't even really doing that much with the gravity blast/hyperspeed blasting like on more recent recordings, and it's still fast as fuck. The guitars are a noisy, blurring mess, but there is obviously a structure to every song. A rad batch of gore/noisecore blasting craziness, can't wait to hear more.

The J card is a photocopied and multi-paneled, the layout looks nice and rough. The tape sounds really good too, all the tape his or washed sounds only comes from the bands own recordings.

~VII

Obsessed With Cruelty

Here's a split that I'm sure most people in the noisecore world are pretty hip to already. Obviously, I just got around to getting it in my grubby mitts. The incredibly mysterious and aesthetically pleasing group, Facepalm Death, have been floating around for the past couple years. I always see friends posting tapes that they've released. Actually, FpDth mastermind Colton Pickles assembled maybe the most impressive noisecore compilation from last year, simply called "Pieces". Still haven't gotten that either. This is the split with Mental Abortion, released on Perverse Taste Tapes and Breathing Problem Productions last year.

Mental Abortion is a band that I actually really like a lot. They're definitely one of the more impressive and focused noisecore bands (yes, a full band) that has come out in the last several years. Hyper sexual, titillating, and extreme in their subject matter and imagery. Basically what you would get if a bunch of serious power electronics/harsh noise people started making grind, which is what Mental Abortion is. Their side is all recorded from a live show, and it plays out how a standard noisecore set does. Short bursts of blasting and screaming with pauses in between, sometimes so they can say the tracks title, recorded super lo-fi of course. By far the least exciting stuff I've heard from Mental Abortion, but it's serviceable.

The Facepalm Death side fucking rules! I heavily dug this side a lot; tons of variation in "song" structure and lots of different sounds and tones. Like a mix of Ops-Psf, Traci Lords Loves Noise and Nihilist Commando. Sometimes there's lyrics, mostly for the shorter songs, samples from exploitation movies, and impossibly fast programmed drums that are simple but effective. Noisecore that sort of play's like a mixtape made by someone who lives in a warehouse full of fucked up instruments. Definitely the winning side on this split for me.

The aesthetic of this tape is on point too. Mental Abortion's sexually obscene imagery takes up a little too much space, but the lay-out and look of everything is super nice. Really good sounding tape too, crispy as hell.

~VII

Slowly Melting Away

A beautiful, large haul of great tapes landed in my mailbox today. Finally got my hands on some pieces I've been after for a while. This split in particular is one I was looking forward to getting the most. My appreciation for both of these brutal bands has been written on this site in the past. Here is the Deterioration/Gastroptosis split cassette, released on yellow tapes by Shattered Dreams Productions in 2016. Probably in a run of 100, give or take.

This is some of my favorite Deterioration material, all killer no filler. Kind of "duh obviously" description for their side, but the 4 songs they contribute are a smidge more ear-wormy than most of their split material. Brutal, hyper blasts with tons of catchy cymbal accents. It sounds ruthless and rageful, like someone threw an extra bit of pepper in the sauce. I love the riff at the end of "Fucked Up Device" that progressively gets slower and chuggier. Great stuff all around, Deterioration always keeps it crispy. I'm pretty happy that they did a split with one of Chris Tapo's endless amounts of goregrind bands.

Speaking of which, lets move on to Gastroptosis. One of my very favorite projects from Arizona gore master Chris Tapo. Anything involving Gastroptosis, I'm instantly on board. Genuinely angry sounding and gargantuan goregrind. No one can program some brutal drums or roar into a pitch shifted microphone like this guy. These tracks were made pretty shortly after this project started releasing stuff if I remember correctly. Nothing but quality sounds on their side too. One of the best crafters of goregrind/gorenoise doing stuff right now.

As can be expected with all Shattered Dreams Production releases, this tape is all pro. A wonderfully vibrant yellow cassette with padded logo's on each side. The J-card is full color and sturdy, and the cassette case is even in a nice, seafoam blue color.  

This also was released as a 3" CD-r, but good luck finding that one. I think there was only 28 copies made. I'm definitely keen on snagging that too, haha. It's a sickness what can I say. Anyway, this is a great split and I recommend it, duh.

~VII

Found In The Mud

Real quick post about another devestating goregrind/noise tape released by some very quality labels. The Arizonian, 1-man, goretank project that is Gastroptosis, and Japan's Oniku. Another excellent 1-man band. This sweet little split tape was released in a total run of 75 copies by Ill Faith Records, Fermented Bile Vomit Records, and Craniophagius Parasiticus Records. I got my copy from Ben of CPR when I was in Toronto last month, it is a single sided tape.

Gastroptosis is yet another stupidly good goregrind/noise project created by Chris Tapo (most notably of Oozing Pus fame), and I love pretty much every new band he starts. Gastroptosis has been one of the more active projects in his roster and one of my personal favorites as well. We get 5 new tracks on here, featuring the usual traits of what makes great goregrind; hard hitting, to the point riffs, thundering drums, horror movie samples and absolutely monstrous, wet vocals. Chris is a master at programming good drums, and while the drums here are a bit buried under the gunky guitars and vocals, their power is undeniable. Great, raw, angry and savage goregrind, so good.

Oniku is a band that I really have not given many listens to (outside of this tape), but every time I do I realize I need to get more of their releases. Five tracks of very solid goregrind, also featuring programmed drums. These songs actually sound very well developed, like some real time was spent writing these riffs and compositions. Strong obvious influences are bands like Active Stenosis, Blue Holocaust and Regurgitate, very chunky groovy riffs with a lot more variety than Gastroptosis's side previously. The recording is a heck of a lot cleaner than the average 1-man goregrind band, it has a real 90's sound to it. There isn't any noise influence at all. While this recording may lack the savage, blown out fidelity I usually like, the quality of this material is undeniable.

Very loud and crisp sounding dub, both bands are one one side as previously mentioned. I'm not sure if the other label's releases are also single sided. 

~VII

Neither Powerful Nor Violent

Here's another great split that was recently released by Chaotic Noise Productions, and another spotlight on an excellent up and coming grindcore band from the Midwest; the mighty Landfill. A band with a promising reign of noise ahead of them, I'm very happy that they were able to do a split with the classic Suppression. It's well deserved and it's a savage pairing. Not sure how limited this is.

Landfill started as a solo project by Will Olter (ex-Faction Disaster, Methlab Explosion), and has since then evolved into a sort of band with a revolving cast. This particular session has Will on all instruments, and Andy from Captain Three Leg on vocals. Nine tracks of totally legit, brutal grindcore. Ruthless blasting, cued in with those wonderful count-in snare hits. I really like the drum sound on this recording. The guitars and bass are a pleasantly disgusting wash of frantic riffs, don't expect any slow parts, you karate moshing neanderthals. The inclusion of Andy worked perfectly, and gave this recording a little more of a personality than the typical gutteral grind vocals would do. The rapid pace of the lyrics and gruffness of them give the songs a little Shitstorm/Despise You flavor, which I definitely appreciate. This is serious grindcore, be on the look out for this bands stuff in the future. 

Suppression have really been blowing me away over the past few years, and have had an interesting progression over their existence. Starting with a raw, sort of unhinged powerviolence sound, turning into an experimental/noise rock band. Now they have come to form as one of the most exciting and impressive noisecore bands currently active! They really go all over the place over the ten tracks they've put here. There's a few more lengthy (as in 30 seconds to a minute), riff centric tracks, with splashes of noisecore microsongs interluding between them. Heavy amounts of bloopy noises and lots of vocal effects. The amount of diversity keeps the whole side sounding exciting, there's always a knew sonic idea popping up. Masters of their craft and amazingly loyal to the underground, an amazing band. 

Another wonderful layout and presentation from CNP, with all the info you would want to know about the release. Another perfectly dubbed tape as well.

Listen to the split here, a link to buy it is above. 

~VII