A slightly late halloween post

Ok, I know Halloween was yesterday, but I'm doing this post today because shut up, that's why. This is the time of year when we like to be frightened, where we watch scary films and read ghost stories. But there's something missing there - where's the scary music? It often seems to me that, while people will happily watch a scary film or read a scary book, they tend to run a mile if you play them a scary peice of music. Why is that? I don;t know. There seems to be a tendency to think of music as something that should be tuneful, cheery, something to dance to and little else. When people hear anything discordant or dark, they tend to start bitching about how it's "depressing" or "not proper music". In the interests of redressing that balance, then, here are five of my favourite frightening songs.

Of course, I had to put this one in. "Frankie Teardrops" tops every list of scary songs, and for good reason. The subject matter's dark enough - murder, suicide, damnation - but it's the music that really makes this terrifying. The spare, pulsing electronics and the gibbering vocals are bound to send shivers up your spine. For maximum terror, listen to it alone, in the dark, on headphones.

"Birds / Birds / This is not a cornhusk doll / Dipped in blood in the moonlight / Like what happened in America" Possibly the scariest opening line of all time? You can always count on Scott Walker to provide some creepy shit, and this is one of his best tracks. A song about Mussolini's mistress, Clara Petacci, who was hanged alongside him, this song makes the perfect soundtrack to a night spent cowering in a corner in a pool of your own terror sweat.

Bob Dylan is the greatest folk singer of all time. When you listen to him, it's like listening to the voice of folk music itself, all the blod and gore and darkness and beauty of the old songs made manifest. And this is one of scariest folk songs of all - a story of a woman who is tricked into taking a ride with someone who might be the Devil, or the ghost of her dead husband. As you might predict, it doesn't end well for her. Dylan wrings every ounce of fear from this song, and it's genuinely chilling. You can hear my take on the song here.

I couldn't pick one song off this album, so I've just gone ahead and posted the whole thing. Still, at just over ten minutes, it's hsorter than two of the songs on here. Grindcore is a genre where words like "brutal," "harsh," etc have become cliches, but this is a band who genuinely deserve to be described in such terms. Even among this most extreme of music genres, they stand out as one of the most challenging and, yes, scary groups out there.

This is folk music at its finest - it's nasty, it's scary, it's bloodthirsty. Billy Bragg gives a standout performance on this spine-chilling meditation on the Falklands conflict.

Bonus track:

In honour of the late, great Lou Reed, who died on Sunday, here's an appropriate track from his album The Blue Mask:

Review - Besta

Besta
Herege


It's easy to forget, in our anglocentric culture, that other countries have great music as well. Take Besta, for example - this four-peice grindcore powerhouse from Portugal have put out what will almost certainly end up being one of my albums of the year. Blasting, grinding and howling their way through six songs (five originals and a Napalm Death cover) in just over seven minutes, these guys show yet again that, in the world of extreme music, less is more. What I really love about this EP is the texture - there's more to it than the standard play-fast-and-scream approach that most grind bands take. This is a grindcore EP (I refuse to call seven minutes of music an album) with layers, and that makes a refreshing change from all the bands out there who seem content to copy Scum ad infinitum (and ad nauseum). The production is what stops this from being just another decent grind record, and makes it something truly special. I don't quite know how to say it - there's just something truly inhuman about this band. The instruments mesh together perfectly, they combine the traditional low-end grind assault with higher, more abrasive tones, and those vocals sound like they come from the pit of Hell itself. If you're looking for great modern grind bands, then look no further.

Rating: 8/10

Review - Cloud Rat (!!!)

Cloud Rat
Moksha
Halo of Flies

Typical - just when I finally get together the money to buy this album, it's on Youtube. Ah, well, at least I found that out before buying it.

This is a record that I've been looking forward to for some time - their previous, self-titled album came out two years ago, and it was one hell of a record, so when Moksha came out I was itching to hear it. And, for once, the record lives up to my expectations.
 The lyrics are deeply personal, without ever slipping into self-pity - rather, this is a genuinely harrowing exploration of trauma; the vocalist sounds as if she's falling apart on record. Although the songs aren't as fast as some bands, nor as chaotic, and they don't have that low-end heaviness that makes a lot of grind bands so punishing, this is one intense listening experience . The abrasiveness here comes mainly from the vocalist. Her screams are truly intense - mid- to high-pitched, dripping with emotion and just scary as fuck. This makes her voice the perfect delivery system for the pain-wracked lyrics. At the end of stand-out track Infinity Chasm, that singing almost had me in tears - not something you often experience with a grindcore album.

The rest of the band kick some arse as well, of course.The guitarist and drummer lock in perfectly together, delivering mid-paced riffage that must make the crowd go wild when these folks play live. The guitar tone here is just perfect - heavy and distorted, but still clear enough that you can hear every note, which is important when the guitarist is as good as this. The drummer, also, can really play - he switches seemingly effortlessly from blast-beaten fury to slow, rolling passages that have the quality of those moments in a horror film when you know the monster is going to jump out at you, but you don;t quite know when or from what direction.

Another great thing about Cloud Rat is how they incorporate other styles of music into their work. For example, the crashing guitar and dreamy vocals on Infinity Chasm are reminiscent of nothing so much as Smashing Pumpkins - until Madison starts screaming like she's being disembowelled alive, that is. And, of course, there's the version The Needle and the Damage Done. There aren't many grindcore bands that could pull off a Neil Young cover - and, unfortunately, Cloud Rat aren't one of them. I'm not slagging off either Young or Cloud Rat here, but the two go together about as well as Lou Reed and Metallica.

The title track - which closes the album - is an atmospheric, seven-minute epic that leaves the listener floating, finally given respite from the twenty-two minutes of carnage that precede it.

Simply put, this is a stunning record. It may only be March, but I think we may have my album of the year right here.

Rating: 9/10

Review - The Great Mire

The Great Mire
All Is Vanity
Torn Flesh Records

Ok, for my next review, a solid EP from an astonishingly prolific American grind band (their Bandcamp page lists over twenty releases).

This is a perfectly enjoyable grind record - the vocals are gruesome, the drums sound like some hyperactive piece of industrial machinery and the overall atmosphere is genuinely creepy. The dirt-cheap production both helps and hinders this band. On the one hand, it's punk as fuck - a proper lo-fi grind record made on a shoestring. On the other, it sometimes gets in the way of the music; the guitar parts are too low down in the mix to make a real impact and the lack of clarity means that the songs sound rather too similar. Another downside to the low-budget sound is that the band sound restrained - these songs don't leap out and grab you by the throat like Pig Destroyer, but nor do they have the same low-end aggression as Discharge or early Napalm Death. Overall, the atmosphere is more creepy than in-your-face terrifying.

Which brings me to the samples. I've never been a fan of samples in grindcore, but now and then a band come along that make them work. The Great Mire are not one of those bands. Every time they get a really good piece of good old-fashioned grind going, they interrupt it with some unnecessary video-game sounds, or a piece of soothing electronica.

Even so, this band can still kick some arse when they put their minds to it. I would definitely recommend downloading this EP (especially as it's available for free). These guys obviously have potential, and I look forward to hearing more from them in the future.

Rating: 6/10

Review - Napalm Death

Napalm Death
Utilitarian
Century Media

Ok - second post. I know this album came out last year, so I'm a little late reviewing it, but this blog didn't exist last year, and I'm hardly going to not review a new Napalm release, especially when it's one of their best so far.

A lot has changed since Napalm Death released Scum, the album that gave birth to grindcore - back when that record came out, the Tories were in power, Britain was torn by inequality, and the Yanks were bombing anyone who looked at them funny...

Ok, so maybe not that much has changed.

In musical terms, though, things are very different. When ND released their first album, they were the undisputed kings of extremity; noone played faster, harder or heavier than them. Now, on the other hand, great grindcore bands are ten a penny. If Napalm were going to hold their own against the likes of Noisear, Pig Destroyer and thedowngoing, their new record would have to be something really special.

Mission accomplished.

Album opener Circumspect is a big, lumbering behemoth of a track, striding around swinging its fists like a silverback gorilla. Then the second track Errors in the Signals kicks in, and from there on in it's pure, straight-ahead grindcore. There are a few slower moments, and even some unnecessary and frankly irritating Gregorian chant, but basically this is a grindcore album, pure and simple, and what's wrong with that? The production is clean, but don;t think that that means this is a slick, toned-down version of Napalm Death; on the contrary, the clarity of the sound only means that every brutal, ear-punishing note is captured perfectly. There's some great vocal interplay between Barney's roars and guitarist Shane Embury's throat-ripping shrieks - at times, those two blokes sound like a lion and a wolverine fighting in a blender. Every track drips with righteous anger - while it's not always possible to tell what the band are singing about (even with the aid of a lyric sheet), it's clear that they aren't pleased.

There are negative aspects to the record, of course. First of all, it's bloody long, especially by grindcore standards - nine of the album's sixteen songs are over three minutes, which by the standards of the genre is practically epic. And those of you who (like myself) were excited by the news that John Zorn would be appearing will be sorely disappointed; he phones in a by-the-numbers sax-ual assault on one track, and that's all. But despite all this, Utilitarian is still a blistering set of songs - the length in this case merely means more of a good thing. This album just goes to show that, even more than twenty years after John Peel fell in love with them, Napalm Death are still the band to beat.

Rating: 9/10