REVIEW: GHOUL 'TRANSMISSION ZERO' (TANKCRIMES)

If you ever needed one glorious reason why Ghoul are a notch higher than the vast majority of bands dully lacing their sub-par Jungle Rot stodge metal with horror samples, you get it seconds into 'Transmission Zero' - a static burst of horror movie synth, instantly bringing to mind Goblin's work on the 'Dawn Of The Dead' soundtrack or Dennis Michael Tenney's 'Night Of The Demons' intro, and some stark blood red titles in your mind's eye. That it's followed up by some lacklustre DVD menu screen riffing saps some of the momentum from its shambling zombie movie lurch, but it's an effective statement nonetheless. It says, 'Hey dickhead, we're the real thing'.

Well, about as 'real' as you can be when you wear sacks on your head, in that they're committed to their theme, which elevates it above a mere gimmick and into foam-phallus territory, where looking stupid is a full-blown lifestyle choice and you feel shitty for making fun of it.

Their fourth album, and their first since 2006's ambitiously daft 'Splatterthrash' made them a definite cult band, a sort of Misfits-like awesome party squad for death metal fans unafraid to express an enthusiasm for more than one type of music (so roughly five of them), 'Transmission Zero' doesn't really drive their music off road and into any terrifying new directions. 'Splatterthrash' did the hard work of parking them thoroughly in thrash territory following their more conventional death metal origins, but if you were expecting progression, maybe thrash metal isn't really for you because this is superbly anachronistic stuff - all fist-pumpingly punkish, up-tempo grinding crossover thrash, with Carcass-bothering high vocals and Massacre-like slab-battering lows, as befitting a line-up culled from lead-Carcass botherers Impaled. Possibly their entrenched status in the extreme metal ghetto, as well as sporadic levels of activity thanks to having other bands and (un)lives are what has denied them the sort of crossover appeal-slash-hype-laden oversaturation that bands of a similar sound and vintage have experienced.

Maybe this'll change with Tankcrimes being an obvious boutique brand of quality for fans of luminous shorts, because frankly, and thankfully, it's the only thing that will, and they deserve a change to upgrade their circlepit of grinning loons to a bigger circlepit of grinning loons.

REVIEW: LET IT DIE 'DEMO' (SELF RELEASED)

Too much time is spent blaming magazines for the path they're leading music down, at the end of which is a shed where they'll be tied to a post, buggered and then dismembered. Truth is so much of the blame belongs with the readers who choose to abandon all reasoning and submit wholly to the coded newspeak of bullshit music hackery.

A staggering number of people armed with functioning sight orbs can't even read anymore, they can asertain the meaning of invidual words, but sentences ellude so totally that they have to cling to the window dressing of review writing like a set of rosary beads over the projectile vomiting demon baby of literacy. Everything sounds like something else, but if one were to say "Kettering straightedge crust unit Let It Die sound like a heads-down Cursed or a less knuckledragging Tragedy, all feedback laced aggro tooth-spitting, and powerviolence dirges" the aforementioned illiterate would be confused, because in the magazines they read, bands only ever sound like other bands when they're bad. And when they're good, they sound like other bands being raped by a third band, or a fourth band on acid, or nothing to do with music at all, but a film or an object.

To merely sound like another band is A Bad Review, but to sound like another band with a flimsy qualifier is A Good Review, consequently they prefer: "Let It Die sound like Cursed forcing apart the bumcheeks of Tragedy and sozzling them with a mixture of blood and semen." Somehow that's better. That has become A Good Review despite not actually telling you anything more about the music than the first statement, and carrying with it unwanted images of anal rape. Or perhaps wanted, I don't judge. "Let It Die sound like the scene in Evil Dead where Ash is being dragged through the forest by the feet" - man alive, that is A Very Good Review Indeed, not only that but I came away completely unburdened by knowledge!

Marks play a part too, they're the lifebelt that the ignorant cling to in the swirling sea of words, and anything 7 or less is A Bad Review, regardless of the reasoning behind it. Our friends are unable to wrap their minds around the simple, irrefutable fact that if nothing is perfect (10), and 9 represents albums that are near perfection - Black Flag's 'My War', Napalm Death's 'From Enslavement To Obliteration', Aqua's 'Aquarium', Avril Lavigne's 'Let Go' - then there's no possible way that Let It Die are an 8, and it's highly unlikely they're a 7. But 6 is unforgiveable, 6 isn't only A Bad Review, it might even be A Shit Review and to them, there's no worse crime.

Well, other than pretending to throw a ball but actually keeping it in your hand.

REVIEW: LITTLE SISTER 'REPERCUSSIONS' (TAPE HAUS/BIG PURPLE)

Little Sister is some scary shit. Little girls in horror usually are, nothing good every comes of a set of pigtails, Regan in the Exorcist, Karen in Night Of The Living Dead, and the twins in The Shining - it's the classic horror trope of innocence subverted. If you can't trust little girls, well, who can you trust? Heavy stuff, eh? 

I've already pissed away a good 80 or so words appearing to make some sort of profound statement about Cleveland blackened hardcore five-piece Little Sister, yet without saying anything at all. You may feel as though this is going somewhere, but it really isn't - and to think you pay about £4.40 for this kind of horsecrap on a monthly basis for whichever mainstream metal rag you throw your lot in with. You really are fantastically stupid.

In fact, go ahead and print out this page and insert your own list here: [




                                                                                       ] because the more of that bullshit I pad this review out with, the less I need to say about the music.

Containing members of Masakari, a reference point we're never too far from in this four-track blast of blackened Motörcrust in the same vague ballpark as Cursed or Antimelodix, Little Sister's 'Repercussions' cassette is limited to 100 (distributed in Europe by Witch Hunter) and streamable below, and seems to be locked in an arm-wrestle with its own vocals, a True Norwegian rasp like a tin of beans being opened.

At odds with the buzzsaw punk and tinny, melodic noodling of the opening track, the awkwardness of the meeting is faintly reminiscent of those sludgier, blackened hardcore bands that Himsa's John Pettibone threw his lot in with when the aforementioned failed to become the new Bleeding Through. It finds its equilibrium in the last few seconds, feeding into the far superior and effortlessly menacing 'Young Invincible' which struts and swaggers through those frost-caked woods, like they're no scarier than the haunted house at Alton Towers.

What with varied combinations of black metal and crust punk being one of the watercress and chocolate flavours of the month in the boutique end of underground music (you know, where people screen print zines in silver ink and 'curate black masses' rather than 'put on shows') it's nice to actually see those chunks of Swedish crust and coppery black metal guitar tone being beaten white hot and forced together over four tracks until the seam is no longer visible in the glare and sparks from the anvil.

So what if it starts gracelessly? Beating metal with a hammer isn't exactly a ballet.

REVIEW: ALTAR OF GIALLO/BRAIN CORROSION 'SPLIT' (ROTTENPYOSIS)

Leading dealers in disposable splatter, there's no possible capacity for surprise with Spanish three-piece Altar Of Giallo - they delivery chugging, gurgling practice studio goregrind, only dissimilar from Gruesome Stuff Relish - with whom their share vocalist/guitarist Noel Kemper - in that they don't sound quite so much like 'Reek Of Putrefaction' being played back on a Fisher Price cassette player. Opening up their side of the split with the ominous, six-minute-plus 'Zombie Reign' and a sample of '80s incidental music that could come from pretty much any bongwater stained VHS in their collection, Altar Of Giallo write trudging, Impetigo-like death that can be played with either the leprous digits of the song's subject matter, or a complete lack of skill, talent and decent equipment - but that's goregrind for you.

'They Need Flesh' picks up the pace like that first cadaver bashing on the car window in 'Night Of The Living Dead' before it shatters under his fists, giving way to Taiwanese trio Brain Corrosion - who misleadingly share their name with a Dead Infection album. In actuality, Brain Corrosion have far more in common with the skin-lashing death metal chug of Cannibal Corpse or Necrophagia, and a hefty dose of punkish grindcore swagger, that makes Brain Corrosion's four tracks instantly stand out over that of their more experienced and better known disc-mates, rounding off proceedings in suitably gastric fashion with a cover of 'Bleeding Peptic Ulcer' by Swedish gorelords Regurgitate.

Altar Of Giallo lurch, Brain Corrosion strut - making this split 1985's zombies versus punks splatterfest Return Of The Living Dead. So then, somebody's going to have to die.

REVIEW: BRUTAL TRUTH 'END TIME' (RELAPSE)

Brutal Truth are not Napalm Death.

Hurrr durr indeed, but while Napalm Death have simply rearranged the same set of core influences across three decades, and are capable of producing fantastic albums and mediocre ones both - all carefully stitched together by the same twine - Brutal Truth have never been so predictable. The vastly disparate set of backgrounds and influences - vocalist Kevin Sharp's 7" cough syrup punk rock, bassist Dan Lilker's horns-aloft mullet metal, drummer Rich Hoak's nutso free jazz and guitarist Erik Burke's octopus mathcore - resulting in a far more unpredictable and nomadic canon. The point is that what we'd accept from Napalm Death (who've produced a fair bit of filler over the years, along with some solid gold), we wouldn't accept from Brutal Truth, like a precocious A student whose grades suddenly slip and need a good talking to.

Why this is relevant is that 'End Time' sounds, at its most basic, like 'Need To Control', and any other points of reference - Swans or Boredoms for example - all link back to 'Need To Control' either by sounding like it or influencing it. Opening track 'Malice' even has a similar brand of same bell-tolling, feedback-laden disease as 'Collapse', albeit passed through the frantic immediacy filter of their post-'Sounds Of The Animal Kingdom' output (ignoring how oddly reminiscent  '.58 Caliber' is to a Killswitch Engage intro because there's absolutely no way they found themselves influenced by that), with an impenetrable wall of sonic whitewash around the mid-section that recalls 'Kill Trend Suicide'.

Brutal Truth albums though, have always referenced other Brutal Truth albums. Their canon may be unpredictable, but like a Zeppelin in a thunderstorm they remain tethered to the landing platform. Said Zeppelin may be tortured by lightning tempos and hailstorm drumming, buffeted like a dead dog on an escalator by the whimsy of the elements, but its arc of chaos is checked by the steel cables that represent this pure, Platonic force of just what it is that Brutal Truth are. Order amid chaos, familiarity and unfamiliarity, spittle flecked statements of intent and hair-tearing, flesh rending sludge dirges - play loud and give up trying to understand.

THE HYPOCRISY LOOP OF ENGLISH HERITAGE BLACK METAL

“Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is also — since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself — unshakeably certain of being in the right.”

So said George Orwell in one of a series of fascinating essays designed to separate patriotism – which he defines as a love of your country as it is, as it constantly changes and evolves – and nationalism – the longing for an imagined country rooted in the past. They're a brilliant read, especially in the current climate – beyond music, obviously – where a right wing conspiracy theory about a liberal agenda steadily chipping away at 'Britishness' insidiously enforces a dichotomy between patriotism and liberalism that's all too easy to buy into.

Against this backdrop, the rise of English Heritage Black Metal as a homegrown metal media darling has become a vehicle for the sort of views that would be vigorously questioned were they coming from any other band, from any other background. There's obviously an inherent regressive component to English Heritage Black Metal – which is based upon a yearning for some anachronistic set of imagined values, usually associated with Anglo-Saxon Britain. Comparable to any number of 'Viking' bands, it'd be a horrendous libel to suggest that all of these po-faced beat combos were effectively marching bands for the English Defence League, because they're not – they're merely using history as another theme to explore like zombies, pirates and infantile sadism – but there are bands with a right wing agenda, and with it comes an endless feedback loop of hypocrisy and opinion policing from all corners –  the labels want to keep their bands in magazines, magazines want to keep their support from labels, and the bands want to be popular, and simultaneously keep their message alive.

Part of the problem is that black metal thrives on subjects seen as taboo and many completely apolitical bands won't actually come out and unequivocally confirm or deny their beliefs – preferring to leave plenty of fertile ground for speculation and interpretation in case it kills off their mystique and they have to come out as just being dysfunctional manchildren like the rest of us. Again the genuinely right wing will frequently out themselves far more clearly in doing this, complaining about “cultural Marxism” in the media, the old phantom of “political correctness”, and any other combinations of frothing BNP forum screed.

The arbitrary cherrypicking of history, and their inflexibility in discussing it is the most direct proof of Orwell's patriotism/nationalism divide. English Heritage Black Metal bands most likely to be giving allegory to their ethnonationalism will focus on one specific era of English history, usually Anglo-Saxon Britain as the birth of all that is English, and the exclusion of all that came later – it's sometimes as clean cut as the bands who focus on nature having no obvious politics, and the bands who focus on history – or at least their distorted edition of it – being very much the opposite. Aside from the irony of using an wedge of immigrant communities (these Angles, Saxons, Jutes and the like were loosely related, but disparate and divided into numerous kingdoms and tribes)  that displaced the indigenous Britons and Celts, brought its own faiths, cultural traditions and funny smelling cooking, as a thinly veiled metaphor for criticising the imagined threat those noble Anglo-Saxon descendants face from the evils 20th and 21st Century immigration with their own faiths, cultural traditions and funny smelling cooking, it's the very dictionary definition of Orwell's unchanging, unflinching fantasy view of a nation.

Lyrically you don't have to go too far to find evidence of xeno/Islamaphobia, one band promise “Children of the Crescent moon, your desert god isn't welcome here” (the claim it's aimed at all monotheistic religions is a pretty weak defence when it refers to only one, Islam, by name) and another pledge to “defend the land from the thieving hands of the infidel” (their defence is that it's a historical verse, but so is the Horst-Wessel-Lied and still they made the choice to have that song say something about them). Aside from the aforementioned cringing attempts to dismiss the issue, the most often uttered protestation is to point out how many black metal bands are allowed to criticise Christianity, and surely, they reason, isn't it fair for us to critise other faiths? While there's no doubt that's a more than played out trope in extreme metal, Britain is nominally a culturally Christian society - not an Islamic one as the Daily Express would have you believe - one which it's fair to assume the various band members are a product of, and it's no way the moral equivalent to target Islam in such unflinching, militant terms, just as it would be if these predominantly white, heterosexual bands were to write songs about saving Britain from gay people, black people or gypsies.

The biggest indicator of any sort of extreme agenda lurking beneath these tales of swords thwacking on shield is in how much they're prepared to have a dialogue about it, and what they say in that dialogue. Nobody wants to be branded a Nazi, but the genuinely far right ethnonationalists want to balance maintaining that cosy relationship with the people who'll ensure they get their 9/10 reviews, and remaining honest about their beliefs (because as Orwell observed they're utterly convinced of being in the “right”). That tightrope walk between denial and confession leads to some amazingly transparent statements that all parties can project their own meanings onto, and can be easily be deciphered.

One of the best “I'm not racist, but...” statements is “You use the words 'blood and soil' in a sentence and people instantly assume you're one of the Nazi brigade”, which was even flagged up as a pullquote in a mainsteam metal magazine. Anyone looking to instantly dismiss the whole thing can just go, 'Look, they said they're not Nazis – you're just over-reacting', an act of deliberate, wilful ignorance given it's almost a provocation to see just how much of a brazen Sieg Heil they can sneak into their own defence. Of course using the words 'blood and soil' in a sentence makes you look like a Nazi, 'blood and soil' was a Nazi theory, and is shorthand for ethnonationalism. It's almost like a little shout-out to the Far Right following they've claimed to have no control over.

It's not what they believe that's the problem – people are more than welcome to believe whatever they like, its people's reluctance to confront it, engage with it, talk about it and debate it. And this is true for every medium, how many more interviews have you seen with fantasy author China Mivéille being probed on his left-wing beliefs compared to Frank Miller's right-wing libertarian ones? Similarly music magazines are more than happy to probe bands on their Christianity, their evangelical vegan straight edge, or their socialism, but a sniff of ambiguous nationalism and they start to sweat. It's fine if a band go so far as to actually come out as pantomime Nazis, like Varg Vikernes of played out woodland elevator music outfit Burzum, because there's no sweeping that under the carpet and no danger of inadvertently opening up some unwanted controversy, but when it comes down to either advertising bucks and a quiet life, or good journalism that provides readers with a genuine service, the former always wins.

If you really believe you're right and that you're free hold whatever beliefs you like, why not share them? And if you really believe you're any sort of journalist, why not ask the questions and hold up bullshit for what it is?