Worldwide Genocide

Another solid banger from the Hygiene Records catalog. A cassette run of the newest EP from the young Florida band Vatican Massacre, their 2nd overall release. "Worldwide Genocide", on red cassettes, limited to 100.

Very solid seven song EP from this band. Short, sweet, heavy, and to the point. Definitely leaning hard in the modern powerviolence side, with a big heaping dose of early Shitstorm distortion and raw delivery. Parts of this take me right back to the Magrudergrind/Shitstorm split, and I adore it. Throw in a couple slowww mosh chugs and you got a winner in my opinion.

Pro-job on this batch of tapes. My pictures might make it seem like they're fuzzier then they are. Comes with a big fold-out insert with lyrics.

Copies are still available at the Hygiene Records store. 

~VII

New Orleans Is A Hole

I think most of us at one point tried to keep up with the tyrannical musical output of Thou and buy all of their records. I did around the time I saw them in 2011 or so. Gathering up modern essentials such as "Summit" and some of the various splits they've done. Recently, mostly thanks to their collaboration with The Body, my interest in the band has been rekindled, and have made the bastard insane decision of hounding for their records again. Their output in 2014 already has my savings on it's knees begging for mercy. Will I realistically pick up most of these records? I do hope so, "Heathen" already seems to be a little elusive. Thankfully I at least managed to pick up this excellent 12" EP, "The Sacrifice". I believe it's their 3rd EP for Robotic Empire, who have done an amazing job yet again. Clear vinyl, 45 RPM.

I wouldn't be surprised if this lands in my top 10 EP's of the year. This is a mammoth record in sound, and packaging. We get three new songs, a guitar drone, and as is standard now, a Nirvana cover. These songs sound massive, earth-stomping. This is by far one of Thou's most consistently heavy records yet. Going for very little melody and relying more of the thicker strings for the majority of the time here. "The Pill" is a real highlight, opening with a fantastic sludgy tromp and a memorable lyric that I hope to scream out at a live show someday ("VACANT EYES MEET VACANT EYES"!) Thou decide to cover Nirvana's classic "I Hate Myself And I Want To Die", putting the expect Thou flavor on it. Great vocal work too, pretty different stuff for the band.

Wonderful packaging job from Robotic Empire as usual. That label really treats these guys well. Thick, wrap-around, tip-on jacket with a glossy matte finish. Kind of too tight for the record, but it looks beautiful. Lyrics and all credits are on the back. There's no spine labeling though, which is a real bummer for me.

All records on on extremely clear vinyl, I am unsure how many were pressed. A cassette with different artwork was also released by Robotic Empire. I'm still after their collab with The Body, and would love to get the 3xLP split collection that was put out.

~VII

Toyota Has Nothing To Do With Hardcore

Obacha has been a favorite of mine from the catalog of amazing Canadian bands. A three-piece at the time of this recording, and onward, they made some of my favorite lo-fi fastcore ever. This split with Chetwrecker originally came out on a self-released cassette, which I've had for a while, and I finally got the 7" vinyl last month. Released by Mullet Death and Black Banana Records, 45 RPM, red marble vinyl.

This one of the lowest of fi records I've heard in a long time. You gotta crank this thing to get to that exciting, loud level. Never the less, Obacha's side is some of my favorite in their discography. This is one of their most manic sessions ever. Pulverizing stop and start fastcore, the kind where everything is brought to absurd, freakish, Japanese-level insanity. Chetwrecker is a lo-fi grindy violence band from the west coast with members of Misanthropic Noise. They bring some solid grind tunage to the table, a good mix of Despise You/Lack Of Interest style powerviolence and mid-west manic rawness. There's some good grooves and some creative enough slow parts to keep my interest, and peep the new 7" on Opaques Records that I'm pretty keen on getting.

DIY packaging; a photocopied cover sleeve and insert. Not far off-looking from the tapes packaging actually, except for the artwork. It fits.

The only Obacha record I need is the Stillbirth 7". And that damn split with Slave, who I swear are a ghost band by this point. I haven't seen their releases anywhere.' Obacha have split up at the tail end of last year, but a couple member kept going with an absurdely good project called Throat Slitter. Who's one demo is hands down one of my favorite releases of 2014. I still need to get that one too. 

~VII

Insect Politics

The twin sibling follow-up EP to "Coping", "Adjusting", is a record that I've admittedly only recently added to the collection. It always seemed to just avoid my eyes for the longest time, until just a few months ago. This EP was self-released by the band, all on black vinyl, 45 RPM.

"Adjusting" was recorded in the same session that "Coping" was, so the sound is basically on the same level. And it's an amazing companion to it's predecessor, arguably even better. This is definitely the more ruthless of the two, the band really saved their most savage and weirder songs for this one. Opening up with a lone bass and drum intro that plays this mosh-stomping riff for the first half of "Dear Life", going straight into noting but relentless blasts for the last duration and into the next track. They manage to sound even angrier and angsty then on "Coping", which is astounding, and a bit more metal as well. "Swallowing" and "Gag Order" both ride these almost Mammoth Grinder/Kyuss riffs, and the B-side is filled with these very tasteful and disgusting dissonant riffs, pulling from some more noise rock/weirdo-metal influences. It's a pretty varied EP, and as usual, it's over before you can catch up. Brilliance.

Near identical presentation and package to "Coping". Down to basically everything except the images and white center labels. No idea why they decided to release it themselves but you can barely tell there's any difference at all.

Purity Control have unfortunately broken up, which is a real shame. But they left us with a near perfect discography, and one I hope to obtain all of. I'm fiending for those demo tapes.

Fun tip: play this at 33 for some murkey icelanding death metal with a 400 pound bald man roaring over it.

Holy Hell

Hard to believe that I haven't done any posts yet about Purity Control, especially about their brilliant vinyl debut, "Coping". I'm pretty sure I got this last year, after hearing some choice words about them by Sean over at SKULLFUCKED (look at the side bar to read his excellent posts and gorgeous pictures). One of Canada's most overlooked and sadly short lived bands in recent years. Their output was small, but they left a big impact on me, this particular EP eventually becoming one of my favorite 7" records. This is the larger black vinyl version, a more limited white vinyl version was released but I sadly missed the boat on that one. 45 RPM.

For the sake of ease, I'll call Purity Control a powerviolence band, but they always stuck out of the crowd for me with their own little unique touches. Coming out of an almost pure noisey hardcore style they had on their demo tapes. The jangely tone of the instruments is still there, but with an obvious improvement to the recording and performance. This sounds like a completely focused and inspired session, and each song displays it's own moments of fantastic song writing. The sharp left turn the breakdown in the first track, "Holy Hell", being a personal favorite.  Or the way they stick to and develop the groove the track "Bedrooms Eyes". What a fantastic record, and it's short! Each side will barely give you 3 minutes of stuff, but it gives me everything I need in it's small tidy package.

Very similar layout and presentation to the EP they put out themselves a few weeks after this one in 2012. Grim, hateful, loathing aesthetic. Youth Attack! should have snagged these guys up.

Fun tip: play this record at 33, it's some seriously disgusting sludgecore.

~VII

Failure Addict

Priapus's first vinyl release on another label! I've always been so curious why these guys have never been scooped up by some big money support. Great guys and tremendous musicians, always delivering tech grind of the highest quality. This is their split 7" with Intheshit, released by Give Praise Records a few months ago. All copies are on black vinyl, 33 RPM.

Intheshit take up the A-side with 3 new tracks. These guys have been around for a few years, I have a tape of theirs that DIY Noise put out a while ago, but haven't kept up with them much since. I believe their's been some line-up changes and what not. The have a very different sound now then from what I remember. Much more chaotic and frantic, bordering on noisegrind honestly. Reminds me a lot of most of Last Days of Humanity's recordings; waves of low end distortion and gun shot snare hits gutting through the thick mess. But with a rough sounding hardcore vocalist instead of gurgles. It's not bad, it's actually better the more I play it. Priapus give us 2 new tracks of finely crafted, spotless, guitar player jizz flowing grindcore. Absolutely flooring stuff, definitely their heaviest recording. These two songs are some of their best tracks so far as well. Tons of archs, power slamming grooves and ridiculous fretwork exercising blast riffs. This is how you do technical grindcore. If you like bands such as Malignancy, Maruta or Noisear, check this band out.

Good packaging on this one. The cover sleeve is printed on very thick paper, it kind of has a hard time folding flat, but man is it sturdy. Very clean black and white printing too.

 Buy this!! Intheshit put out another EP this year as far as I know, and Priapus are recording for another split or EP.

~VII

Flight Of Icarus

It's pretty much a given rule that if you see some Iron Maiden wax, you have to at least strongly consider picking it up. And I, being a total sucker for anything involving their first 5 albums, couldn't pass this pretty looking single up. "Flight of Icarus", off of the album "Piece of Mind". Not one of my favorite Maiden songs, it has some particularly goopy, cheesy parts that I can't help but smirk at. It's a typical mid-paced ballad from the band. I've wanted a picture sleeve single for a while too. The B-side is a cover of Montrose's "I've Got The Fire". It's a bluesy, hard rocking song, sounds pretty Deep Purpley, not bad.

I know Maiden collectors like to get super nerdy about variants and imports and all that, so I'll indulge a little bit. This is just a regular American Capitol records pressing. Nothing special, could find it pretty easily.

~VII