BAND OF THE DAY: OBSESSOR

Painted in definite shades of Relapse's hair-teased anime Bathory worshippers Toxic Holocaust, Obsessor is one man - Brandon Farrell, ex of Direct Control, Government Warning, Wasted Time and Municipal Waste, and full-time record store owner. People surrounded by music tend to craft really detailed love letters to the things that excite them - they tend to act out on whims and, hurf, obsessions, like train spotters retreating back to their damp, dark basement to add another tiny tree to the scaled down embankment facing Wakefield Westgate railway station, its passengers permentantly trapped in amber disembarking from the 12.03 Trans-Pennine Express.

Obsessor is full on dork music. We should all stop pretending these kind of guys are cool, goat-worshipping babe-magnets, because the whole business of expertly crafted retro metal - especially retro metal that taps into a very specific, tunnel vision aesthetic like metalpunk - clearly draws on the same part of the brain that makes Angel/Spike slash fiction happen, and convinces fat girls to cosplay characters from Tokyo Mew Mew.

With that caveat delivered, Obsessor's absolutely great fun. Two tracks from the debut Tankcrimes EP are up for your downloading pleasure and to return to the opening comparison, it don't feel nearly as claustrophobic and generic as Toxic Holocaust, despite the similarly reduced line-up and reference points (English Dogs, Venom, Sodom, Bathory, Onslaught, and so on). Production is suitably biscuit tin bad and cavernous, like a rehearsal in a crypt, but it's rousing and rifftacular, begging you to cut off your sleeves and bellow along.

Metalpunk ended up like every other micro movement about six minutes after its genesis - boring and predictable. The latter is a given, but that doesn't mean the former is unavoidable, and we have Obsessor as proof.

BENEDICTION'S RIDER: "NO FIZZY WATER, THE BAND ARE NOT FRENCH"

Frank Healy, bassist, gardener, and swashbuckling death metal adventurer with Brummie filth-pigs Benediction, posted the band's rider on Facebook. It's a good read, despite being ALL CAPS:

THE BAND WILL LAND AT THE AIRPORT AND WITH ANY LUCK YOU WILL HAVE ARRANGED FOR THEM TO BE PICKED UP AND SHUTTLED TO THE HOTEL/SHOW. PLEASE MAKE SURE THE SAID VEHICLE HAS AT LEAST ONE CRATE OF LAGER IN IT AS THE BAND ARE GOING TO NEED IT AFTER PUTTING UP WITH THE CLOSE PROXIMITY OF NORMAL PEOPLE ON THEIR FLIGHT OUT TO YOU.SUPPLYING A CRATE OF LAGER WILL IMMEDIATELY MAKE THE BAND AND DRIVER BESTEST FRIENDS FOR THE DURATION OF THE JOURNEY.THE SAME WILL BE REQUIRED FOR WHEN THEIR BESTEST FRIEND THE DRIVER PICKS THEM UP ON THE RETURN JOURNEY TO THE AIRPORT TO FUCK THEM OFF BACK TO ENGLAND AGAIN.

I’M SURE ALL THE CATERING SHIT IS ALREADY SORTED BY YOU BUT PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THAT THE BASS PLAYER FRANK HAS AN ALLERGY TO KIDNEY BEANS SO NONE OF THAT HIPPY FOOD FOR HIM PLEASE.

BEFORE,DURING AND AFTER THE SHOW PERFORMED BY THE BEAT COMBO KNOWN AS BENEDICTION:

A LOT OF LAGER, BY A LOT OF LAGER WE MEAN MORE LAGER THAN THE AVERAGE HUMAN CAN DRINK AND KEEP DOWN.WE WANT A LOT OF IT AND WOULD LIKE A “NAME” BRAND AND NOT SOME PISS WEAK CRAP FROM A SUPERMARKET BARGAIN AISLE. JUST REMEMBER THAT WE WANT A LOT OF LAGER. LOTS OF IT,IN PLENTIFUL SUPPLY AND LOTS OF IT.

IF POSSIBLE SOME CIDER FOR OUR VOCALIST WHO HATES LAGER BUT DON’T WORRY AS THE REST OF THE BAND AND CREW WILL DRINK HIS LAGER AS WE LIKE LOTS OF IT SO PRETEND THAT DAVE WANTS LAGER AS WELL AS CIDER.

6 TOWELS ,HANG ON, MAKE IT 7 AS NICK THE DRUMMER IS A BIG FAT BASTARD WITH MORE BODY AREA TO DRY OFF THAN THE REST OF THE BAND PUT TOGETHER,OR SHOULD IT BE 8 ?,WHAT DO YOU THINK ? WOULD NICK BE UPSET WHEN WE HAND HIM 4 TOWELS AND WE ONLY HAVE ONE EACH ? MAYBE HE IS SENSITIVE ABOUT HIS SIZE,I DUNNO,MAYBE WE SHOULD ASK HIM…NO THAT WOULD MAKE IT WORSE WOULDN’T IT.OK, LET’S STICK WITH 7 TOWELS.

A LOT OF LAGER

SOME ICE.

SOFT DRINKS.

A LOT OF SUGAR FREE CANS OF COCA COLA/PEPSI FOR THE MOANING DRUMMER.

SOME SNACKS OF SOME SORT.

PLENTY OF BOTTLES OF STILL WATER,NOT THAT FIZZY SHIT,THEY HATE THAT FIZZY SHIT,THE BAND ARE NOT FRENCH SO THE FIZZY SHIT WILL LITERALLY BE FUCKED OUT THE NEAREST WINDOW ALONG WITH ANY SHIT SUPERMARKET LAGER THAT YOU MAY RISK SNEAKING INTO THEIR ROOM.LOTS OF LAGER PLEASE.

SOMEONE TO ASK “WHERE IS OUR FUCKING NAME BRAND LAGER”
I THINK THAT MAY BE IT FOR THE UP TO THE SHOW BIT BUT IF IT ISN’T THEN WE WILL ASK THE SOMEONE TO ASK PERSON ON THE DAY.

FIVE MINUTES BEFORE SHOWTIME REQUIREMENTS:

PLEASE ADHERE TO THE FIVE MINUTES BEFORE SHOWTIME THING AS LETTING THESE ENGLISH FUCKING ANIMALS HAVE THE FOLLOWING ANY EARLIER MAKES THEM THINK THEY HAVE ALREADY PLAYED THE SHOW AND WILL CELEBRATE BY DRINKING THE FUCKING LOT AND YOU WILL END UP LISTENING TO THEM PLAYING SOME MAD FREEFORM DEATH METAL JAZZ SHIT COVERED IN EACHOTHERS FAECES.

ONE MAN SIZED BOTTLE OF JACK DANIELS OR JIM BEAM (TO BE HANDED TO THEIR STAGE MANAGER KIEREN OR BASSIST FRANK OR GUITARIST DARREN AS THEY ARE THE GREEDY ONES)

LOTS OF ICE

A LARGE BOTTLE OF COCA COLA/PEPSI. AGAIN NONE OF THAT VILE SUGAR DRENCHED BARGAIN SHITE.

ONE MAN SIZED BOTTLE OF VODKA.

ONE BOTTLE OF HALF DECENT RED/WHITE WINE AS PETER THE GUITARIST LIKES TO SIT THERE LIKE A PONCE THINKING HE IS CULTURED AND BETTER THAN THE REST OF BAND.

AT THIS POINT WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE FOR A SPARE PAIR OF UNDERPANTS AS WELL BECAUSE PETER THE GUITARIST TENDS TO WET HIMSELF AFTER SAID WINE THUS PROVING THAT HE IS NOT CULTURED OR BETTER THAN THE REST OF THE BAND.

AT THIS POINT SOME MORE LAGER WOULD BE NICE.

I THINK THAT MAY BE ABOUT IT.

DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE LAGER OK? VERY IMPORTANT THE LAGER BIT IS.

THANK YOU,

LOVE AND KISSES, BENEDICTION.

Make sure you check them out at Obscene Extreme, to see what you get for your 18 crates of pilsner and seven towels.

BAND OF THE DAY: POWERCUP

DIY in the literal sense of the word, Canada's Powercup may book their own tours, screenprint their own shirts and press their own tofu etc, but they're also slavishly devoted to the cult of the power tool and 'Home Improvement's wisdom dispensing, blue collar patriarch Tim Allen.

The gimmick isn't all that impressive in itself - we live in a world with Attack of the Mad Axemen dressing as woodland creatures after all - but 2010's brilliantly named 'Renovate At All Costs', the Montreal trio's debut full-length, is a ferocious blast of rough hewn, lo-fi grind that tells its own story: dirty chugging powerviolence with plenty of gurgling low end, powered by a outside diesel generator and played on a circular saw.

And they're playing Obscene Extreme, so check them out there and fill in the gaps left by their scarce online presence.

BAND OF THE DAY: DEATH TOLL 80K

It may be bordering on self-parody, but there's a lot to love about bands who wear their Death Toll 80k – that's pure '80s nuclear terror for a start – manage to tick so many boxes on the two pieces of art for their new full-length 'Harsh Realities' – another solid crust title – that you'll have decided they're your new favourite band before even hearing a note. The vinyl version has a black and white photo of a soldier and an emaciated child, and the CD version – both are available of FDA Rekotz and downloadable for free – has a picture of a baby sitting and crying in the rubble of some post-bombardment urban ruin.

Nobody likes style over substance, especially not grindcore fans – but style and substance? Hellz yeah, that shit's the holy grail of rumbling crust grind.

Forming in 2005 in Lappeenranta, Finland, by 2008 this youthful, fresh-faced four-piece had already toured Germany, Sweden, the Czech Republic and played the mighty Obscene Extreme (they're returning this year), following this up with a European tour with Turkish blastmasters Sakatat, and a Finnish tour with the much hyped Bloody Phoenix. Death Toll 80k have proved themselves every bit the relentless brutalists their name, and sound - all Agathocles, early Napalm Death, Fear of God, Insect Warfare, Lycanthropy, etc etc - suggests. 

If they were American, they'd be on 625 Thrash, and that's as high as praise possibly gets.

BAND OF THE DAY: БУТ/BUT

Forming in July 2009, Czech newcomers But, preferring their name in Cyrillic as the far more evocative БУТ, may feature the former drummer of gurgling death/grind blastmasters Ingrowing, but the band have earned a place at this year's Obscene Extreme, as well as a forthcoming debut album on Bizarre Leprous through sheer clattering grindcore chaos alone.

Battering out the same brand of unrelenting, wind tunnel grindcore as modern Napalm Death and Brutal Truth, a less d-beat driven Phobia and French grind commandos Blockheads, it doesn't matter how old they are, or who makes up the roster – БУТ have already shared stages with General Surgery, Poppy Seed Grinder, Pigsty, Needful Things, Cripple Bastards, Afgrund, Rotting Christ and Pestilence, and like a proud parent we're going to watch them come of age, teach them to shave with a tear in our eye, and let them out into the world.

SETH PUTNAM DIES AT 43: WE SING 'YOU'RE A CORPSE'

Famous and infamous noisecore pioneer Seth Putnam died of a heart attack yesterday, Saturday June 11, 2011, aged 43.

Frankly it's a miracle he lasted this long, having overdosed himself into a coma in 2004, and not exactly having been a paragon of carrot juice guzzling fitness and health.

No other figure incites such mixed feelings from grindcore fans, on the one hand he contributed hugely to the evolution of the genre, charged down the walls of acceptable behaviour and outraged music's moral guardians. On the other hand he seemed so institutionalised by his own image that he was an unrepentant, uncomprehending racist homophobe. But you all knew that, and already have an opinion.

Thoughts go to his friends and family, especially Dan from PATAC Records who galvanised him into action over the last few years and handled the vast majority of the press for the last Anal Cunt release, hustling coverage in Bizarre in the UK at the very least. The Bizarre piece was pretty funny just because they really didn't understand what they were getting and chopped about half of it out for being homophobic and racist, which is like pulling a Jeff Walker interview because it's too bitter.

REVIEW: ORIGIN 'ENTITY' (NUCLEAR BLAST)

Some of the most intriguing technical death metal bands for the last half a decade now suffer from a too familiar syndrome – that of the crippling melody overdose. Even if we accept that it was the only path possible for musicians like Obscura, whose classical training made it impossible to remain in the doldrums of mere 'brutality', many followed the example of Decrepit Birth, sacrificing the unbearable heaviness only to focus on meaningless 'progressive' structures (or Wagnerian influences). It's worrying that bands now taking their first steps into the subgenre will immediately associate it with neo-classical solos and keyboard fills, instead of blastbeats and headcrushing, stereo-melting riffs and really start to run before they can stagger.

Sure, there are people who celebrate this and the bands whose input backs it up; they say it’s wonderful for extreme metal to expand in new directions and, to some extent they're right, or at least entitled to believe they're right. Origin, however, must not do it. Sorry, they're just not allowed. No argument brooked.

Fortunately, the Kansas-based band also share this opinion and three years after the seismic ‘Antithesis’, they  demonstrate their brand of inhuman technical precision once again. When this death metal machine erupted from nothing in 2008, ready to shoot off directly into outer space in search of extreme revolution after a few absolutely underrated releases, there appeared to be defects in space-time continuum and they reached the limit that physics would allow. That’s why there was no sense that Origin were able to beat their previous opus; expectations gravitated more around the optimistic wish that they keep the level steady. Programmed to create a chaotic eruption of cosmic might, after two minutes of shooting blindly with ‘Expulsion of Fury’, the quartet start their journey to perfection. Not that ‘Entity’ is a giant step forward, it just finds its creators doing better with more concentrated songwriting. This is well documented on the insanely brutal ‘Swarm’, which spews enormous riffs like machine gun. If you deem it necessary to find evolution through this genre, the discovery comes from the Voivodian saw-mill of ‘Commited’ while ‘Saliga’ could easily send Origin blasting, full thrust onto the cover of a sci-fi magazine. Indicative of the quality of ‘Entity’ is the fact that a composition with grindcore length (and even some elements of the genre), ‘Banishing Illusion’, has more to prove than a seven-minute Obscura number.

When it comes to atmosphere, ‘Consequence of Solution’ is coloured with a dense and unnerving emotional palette, close to Ripley’s reaction at her first meeting with the Alien. Armed with the most dangerous riffs and most inspiring ideas, Origin are more than just an excellent tech death band, they’ve reached unknown territories in the Universe.

REVIEW: TOMBS 'PATH OF TOTALITY' (RELAPSE)

A plateful of fuck awaits anyone who denies the continued relevance of Relapse Records - they entered this world to churn out quality underground metal, and they slavishly continue along those lines. However the diversification of the label, most notably the rise and departure of Atlanta, Georgia's thick-necked mountain wizards Mastodon, left an groove so huge in the tiles of the Clever Bands Room that any other guitar-and-drum unit placed there inevitably slides towards it, slowly and gradually. And before anyone really notices, they've released a whole album of 'Remissions' cast-offs that'll earn them fawning reviews in shit magazines and circlejerk package tours with three identical sounding bands also being hyped to the heavens despite being indistinguishable from each other.

Like Baroness before them, New York's Tombs have aligned themselves in the direction of constipated bellowing and epic soundscapes over their last couple of releases. The urban filth that infused 2009's 'Winterhours' with its thick, groove rock crunch has been scattered somewhat in the breeze of their new, sweeping panoramas, but their idiosyncratic mix of influences and references tethers their musical identity like tangled shoelaces. A glorious, driving black metal deathmarch (check out the blasting on the title-track) has taken it upon itself to lead their disparate components through this new landscape, where Kylesa and Baroness long since lost sight of the trail, these Dark Medieval Riffs power their pulsing, throbbing mix of post-punk, hardcore - 'Vermillion' sounds like its been yanked from Today Is The Day's seminal 'Temple Of The Morning Star' - and semi-industrial through any doubt, leaving them free to cook up a thunderous broth in the cast iron cauldron of their own crystallised self-image.

Dense and apocalyptic, and thoroughly Mastodonic, 'Path Of Totality' is totally Tombs.

BAND OF THE DAY: PRISONBITCH

There's a special circle of hell reserved for "music journalists" with so little to say that they feel compelled to make sweeping generalisations about a band's location and what they means for their music, but AusGrind have observed a certain sense of '90s hopelessness to Adelaide, the other side of the burgeoning consumer paradise where the side effect of everything's price is nothing's value.

Channelling the alcoholic rage at the keg party that every other cunt seems so fucking delighted to be at, a vibe which united dispensers of uncaged punk-powered fury as dislocated and atypical as Infest, Eyehategod, Integrity and Ringworm, brilliantly named the Prisonbitch wed groove, riffs and snotty voxed venom on their fourteen-track 'Brain Raped' full-length.

The reference points rush by so forcefully, not necessarily quickly, there's a sense of mean, purposeful pacing, that you struggle to process them - like trying to remember the eyecolour of the pock-marked meathead who yanked you skyward by your collar to slur beery, spittled obscenities into your face. There're fleeting moments of pure, thoroughbred grindcore, and of groove-laden powerviolence, and some furious, intoxicating point between like Magrudergrind and Weekend Nachos. Then long sludge-inspired dirges of riff-led hardcore, the chest-poundingly cathartic variety where broken nailed vitriol is more important than brotherhood and unity.

There's a 2010 tour tape and apparently another album coming soon, so bind your knuckles for the inevitable 'Damaged' mirror-punch.

REVIEW: MORBID ANGEL 'ILLUD DIVINUM INSANUS' (SEASON OF MIST)

So Floridian death metal "mystics" Morbid Angel have made a duff album, is anyone really all that surprised? It's been nearly a decade since their last disc, 2003's 'Heretic', and longer still since rubber-clad frontman David Vincent was involved in anything other than glowstick-swallowing industrial nobodies Genitorturers. Even then they've always been utterly, fanatically convinced that whatever they did was a special, somehow magical little snowflake glittering on the slopes of hell.

It's not a deliberate attempt to make a shit album, it's just the type of thing that old dudes do when they get old. They mistake things that were cool last time they stepped into a record shop as being cool now, and the older you get, the longer that gap between hearing new music or seeing a band that you haven't seen a million times before as you stroll up to the festival you're headlining 40 minutes before you're due to go on stage, the more likely you are to remain convinced that Burton C Bell is still king of the world. Now we're all living in space age 2011, true death metal horror can only really be represented by a drum sound generated by a Casio keyboard and lyrics need to be a bit more... a bit more... oh, the mind just goes the older I get, er, Trey, who was it that played just before us at Ohio Beatdown Brodown? Lamb of God? Devildriver? Man, that shit is hard. Excuse me one moment, I need to sponge down the rubber - there's been some leakage.

We have good Morbid Angel albums, those exist and they're not going anywhere. So just keep eye contact, smile reassuringly and try and get the front door closed on them as you would a family member you haven't seen for years, one who suddenly appeared at the door all scabby, dribbling and piss-streaked, shuffling around inside his trousers like a man throttling a ferret.

What's far more interesting than this excreta-flecked blast of groove metal, industrial metal and delusional pomposity are the internal acrobatics that magazines are doubtless going through as they come up with reasons to give it a good review, so invested both emotionally and fiscally are they in the idea of a new Morbid Angel album. Covers have been planned, outside back cover ads with Season Of Mist have been booked and exclusive cover CD tracks, pictures and interviews have been negotiated for with all the feverish intensity of someone trying to secure the release of his children from furry paedophile ring, and they can't allow reality to undermine that and blow their big chance.

So have a good old flick through the press, and watch as Morbid Angel and Record Label Newsletter Monthly sustain each other's delusions, willingly ignorant of the fact that listeners/readers are dropping out on both in their legion.

REVIEW: AUTOPSY 'MACABRE ETERNAL' (PEACEVILLE)

Calling an Autopsy release ‘new’ is a bit like defining two-week-old human corpse as ‘fresh’, but short verification in the calendar proves that ‘Macabre Eternal’ truly is the new Autopsy album. These twelve rotting songs that scatter miasmas all upon us serve as fat bits of unexhumed flesh in the graveyard from one of the strongest death metal institutions on the planet. But to what extend are they needed in 2011? Ever since Chris Reifert brought about the end of his most influential and successful band after 1995’s prematurely born ‘Shitfun’, concentrating on Abscess, The Ravenous (and sometimes Eat My Fuk), the genre underwent many transformations and sometimes even changed it’s malformed face to be completely unrecognisable. As it is, we’re in the year of the old school, when death is raw and direct like cleaver in the face, Sweden is in the skeletal grip of another renaissance and the puritans have found their redemption.

It’s always good to have the old masters back, especially when they start torturing listeners’ eardrums with an opening duo like ‘Hand of Darkness’and ‘Dirty Gore Whore’, the first being an exploration of horror through some of the best riffs the band has ever created, while the second track twists into disgustingly ugly cannibal dance. ‘Macabre Eternal’ is not a jocular album; it has nothing to do with money-driven goals and most importantly – sounds as terrifying as it would 20 years ago. The production is dry and cold like the toothy smile of a skull staring into eternity, perfectly fitting a masterpiece of gore like ‘Sadistic Gratification’, which gathers strong Incantation atmosphere with the classic Autopsy cumshot altogether to spectacular effect. Driven by aggression and bathed in blood, death metal’s hairy primates are back from their cave and boy, they won’t leave without some fresh (human) meat!