THIN LIZZY- BLACK ROSE

This is a fucking great record. If you like guitars then you'll dig this... if you don't like guitars, go to a different blog.

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HUSKER DU- METAL CIRCUS

Just a classic EP for this fine Monday. As a whole, I like this one way more than Zen Arcade, but that's just my shitty opinion so whatever.


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BLACK FLAG- LIVE 84'

If later Flag still makes you scratch your head then look no further. This is what later Flag is all about right here. Just before Kira left and Greg Ginn had his bong fused to his lips. If you don't like this, then you don't like late Flag... Hey! don't worry about it man!


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OLD POSTS

I've been lazy and since I don't upload any of these albums myself, most of them seem to have been taken down from mediafire. I was just going to discreetly re-up all of them... but the number kept getting bigger and I don't want to sit at my computer all day. So I'm just going to leave this here and let people comment if they want something re-upped that has been taken down.

p.s. google it first! someone else probably uploaded it!

BAD BRAINS- S/T

I know this album doesn't need to be discussed among people who already love hardcore but there are people that aren't crazy about hardcore who probably haven't heard this. Some say this is the best hardcore album ever recorded. Some say this is the best album ever recorded!

If you play guitar, bass or drums and you haven't listened to this album before, then you need to right now. These guys were one of the few hardcore bands that actually PLAYED. They didn't just show up, plug in, count to four and hope for the best. The consensus among hardcore fans from the early 80's seems to be that The Bad Brains were right up there with Black Flag as the best live band on the planet in their heyday and the few early live videos don't indicate otherwise. You seriously need to listen to this if you never have because it may change the way you think about punk, your instrument or technical-proficiency in music. Also, it just fucking slays. Even the reggae tracks are A+


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MY DAD IS DEAD- THE TALLER YOU ARE, THE SHORTER YOU GET

This is good. 80's home-recording project with a drum machine. Layers of awesome guitar playing, super depressing lyrics, vocals that kind of sound like early REM and really good songwriting. If you like anything lo-fi, indie-rock, kind of weird or depressing then this is a little gem of a record for you. Oh yeah, this was on Homestead, so you know it's some 80's indie goodness.

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NEW ORDER- BROTHERHOOD

Yes, everyone likes Joy Division and most music-obsessed people will tell you that New Order is nowhere near as good as Joy Division... those people also voted for Bush in his second term. Seriously.

This album is where New Order finally gelled as a BAND while simultaneously discovering that they had GUITARS! Obviously synths still colour every song on this album but for the first time there is a discernible guitar or bass-hook on every track. Not to mention that it has several gems that seem to fall out of "classic" status come compilation time. If you've never dug the band or synth-pop but want to give it a serious shot, this is as good a starting place as any.

Unfortunately, this seems to have been taken down from any reputable file-sharer so all I can give you is this track:

DEATH- LEPROSY

Death. Not the Detroit proto-punk band that recently had all their material from the mid-70's reissued but the Florida band from the late 80's that really, if they didn't invent it, gave the genre of death-metal it's name. The argument over who was the first real death-metal band rages on and always will: Possessed, Death Strike, Sadus, Morbid Saint... but with all of those bands there was still a clear allegiance to the tendencies of thrash. Obviously Death couldn't have made the music they did without those bands or all of thrash metal's innovations but there was something mysterious on those first two Death LP's that just sounded so much heavier than everyone else making metal in the late 80's.

This, their second LP, is my favourite metal album of all time. It's not hailed as a masterpiece in most circles and it's usually near the bottom on most people's Death depth-chart but it's their last LP before the more progressive tendencies (which I also love) started to show up. This is raw, heavy, evil and masterfully composed death-metal. The riffs are crushing, the drum sound is amazingly heavy while still sounding raw in the way early death-metal should and this is the only Death album with second guitarist Rick Rozz. For those who know, Rozz was a notoriously lazy guitarist who was sacked from the band for his refusal to help write more progressive material but his playing style works in perfect harmony with main man Chuck Schuldiner on these songs. Chuck is an amazing soloist who has a flair for finding the melody within the dissonance of his compositions, turning his solos into their own internal compositions. Rozz is a thug with a floyd-rose who's solos consist of an endless barrage of dive-bombs, ascending legato-runs with no real purpose and they all end with a big dive or a big pull. Having these two styles on the record is what makes it for me. It really is the perfect mix of first-wave death-metal and what would become progressive death-metal.

If you play guitar, like, or are even curious about death metal then you owe it to yourself to check out this band.


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BIG BLACK- RICH MAN'S EIGHT TRACK TAPE

If you are like me and came of age in the late 90's or early 2000's then you no doubt bought CD's when shopping for music. Why wouldn't you? They were fairly cheap (depending on how dedicated you were to buying music and looking for good deals) and basically the only way to obtain the majority of releases. I never gave much thought about why CD's had replaced vinyl or cassettes and my naive little brain was quick to assume that it must be because CD's sounded better than vinyl!

So fast forward to about 2005: I was finding that a lot of music I wanted to buy was either not available unless I got it specially ordered and if it was available, it was really expensive. Black Sabbath CD's were only $7.99 but other bands' albums (like Big Black's) were as much as $20... I bought the Rich Man's Eight Track Tape on CD for $22.99 because I had only heard Jordan Minnesota and knew this was a band I needed to know inside-out. Keep in mind, this was before I could just go online and find a download of any album in about two minutes. When I got home and removed the shrink wrap and the annoying-as-fuck security stickers Touch-and-Go loved to put on their jewel cases I popped it into my stereo and was instantly pleased. I began reading the love-letter to CD's Steve Albini had penned inside the insert:

"THIS COMPACT DISC, COMPILED TO EXPLOIT THOSE OF YOU GULLIBLE ENOUGH TO OWN THE BASTARDLY FIRST-GENERATION DIGITAL HOME MUSIC SYSTEM, CONTAINS ALL-ANALOG MASTERS. COMPACT DISCS ARE QUITE DURABLE, THIS BEING THEIR ONLY ADVANTAGE OVER REAL MUSIC MEDIA, YOU SHOULD TAKE EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO SCRATCH THEM, FINGERPRINT THEM AND EAT EGG AND BACON SANDWICHES OFF THEM. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THEIR LONGEVITY AS PHILLIPS WILL PRONOUNCE THEM OBSOLETE WHEN THE NEXT PHASE OF THE MARKET-SQUEEZING TECHNOLOGY BONANZA BEGINS."

All analog? Real music media? By now I was not only interested in the mind behind this writing but what he was getting at. I was introduced to the mind and music of Steve Albini from there on. Needless to say, it changed the way I viewed the music industry, music production and obviously, music media. And oh yeah, the music was punishing, fucked up and really catchy.

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NO TREND- TEEN LOVE 7"

No Trend are my preferred proponents of that ugly, arty branch of 80's hardcore. This 7" is so fucking weird and so fucking angry but not in a macho way. More in a school shooting way. Apparently the band were very weird kids and basically hated everything... I dig.


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WITCHFINDER GENERAL- DEATH PENALTY

File this band under Party-Doom, a genre that doesn't exist but chances are you totally get what that would imply if you enjoy Pentagram's faster numbers. Bitchin' riffs, solos that pierce the haze, stupid lyrics about drinking shroom tea and oh yeah, the implied rape of the album cover because... well, they were moronic thugs who, when it comes down to it, are the Venom of doom in terms of musicianship. Dig it if you dare...

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VON- SATANIC BLOOD

About two years ago I was single and feeling especially desperate so I made a habit of looking for ads that piqued my interest in the singles section of my local craigslist. One night when browsing through the ads I found a twenty-something who's ad essentially read like this:

" Looking for someone who wants to come over, get stoned, turn of the lights and listen to VON really loud "

Obviously I was interested, only because it wasn't like the hundreds of other ads I'd read in self-defeating disappointment. I paused and considered the possibilities but ultimately thought " This is a pothead satanist who wants to fuck someone while slitting the throat of a hog-tied goat"

I never replied to the ad, but I still listen to Satanic Blood and imagine what could have been.

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CONFLICT- THE UNGOVERNABLE FORCE

 

Poor Conflict. No doubt there are thousands of punks out there right now with a Conflict patch on their vest or maybe a copy of one of their records but in comparison to CRASS and Discharge, Conflict are sort of an afterthought to most people. However, I think Conflict are musically so much better than both of those bands. They combine the tendencies of CRASS's avant-garde fixations with Discharge's rawness without forgetting that they're a punk-rock band. Every Conflict recording I've heard has been pretty damn good, ESPECIALLY the Serenade is Dead EP, but in terms of meaty full lengths, this is the one to hear!

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THE FREEZE- GUILTY FACE

Just some vintage midwest hardcore. Super fast and snotty but in typical midwest fashion, there are vocals that sound like your highschool gym teacher trying to scream while being choked to death.


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DANZIG- S/T

Before being a washed-up goth dad, an overly cocky tough-guy, a prima donna rockstar with demands of french onion soup and all the other hilariously pathetic stories we'll probably never hear, Danzig was fucking rad. Obviously he was in the fucking Misfits when they were actually good but he was also asked by Lyle Preslar and Brian Baker of fucking MINOR THREAT to start a band after both bands had called it quits. As if that wasn't enough to convince you this guy was fucking cool, there he is on the cover of fucking Thrasher in 86' when it was probably the coolest fucking magazine in existence. Gradually his ego was fed and well... shit happens. Some people just end up shitty and I guess Ziggy is one of them but hey, he was cranking out decent shit from 78' to 92', which is not a bad run if you ask most people. Scoff all you want but this, his first solo LP, is the fucking jam.

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DAVE MARKEY- REALITY 86'd

Reality 86'd is the fabled and hard to find documentary of Black Flag's last ever tour which ultimately led to the band's dissolution. Featuring the flag, Painted Willie (Markey's band) and Ginn's new instrumental project Gone. It's weird to watch knowing about the tension between Ginn and Rollins, the fact that one of the greatest bands of all time was on its last legs and that the landscape of hardcore and independent music had changed so drastically around them but still they were soldering on in the van just like they had hundreds of times before... People talk shit about the late-period flag but honestly, the music is still killer and they were obviously still a monstrous live band. It's a shame it had to end but hey, at least we have a document of it.

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SELECTED AMBIENT WORKS 85-92 - APHEX TWIN

YO, YOU EVER BEEN TO SPACE? I HEARD IT'S SOME INSANE SHIT, I HEARD THAT OLD SPICE LOOKING DUDE RICHARD BRANSON, WHO PROBABLY SMELLS LIKE ZZ TOP'S "ROUGH BOY", IS WORKING ON MAKING SPACE TRAVEL A REALITY, WELL FOR THOSE OF YOU PULLING KANYE WEIGHT THAT IS. ANYWAYS IF THEY EVER MAKE IT AFFORDABLE TO PLEEBS LIKE YOURS TRUELY I WANT TO CALL UP RICHARD .D JAMES' CREEPY ASS MUG AND SOME OF THOSE CHICKS WITH HIS FACE AND PLAY THE SHIT OUT OF THIS WHILE WE CRUISE THROUGH THE ATMOSPHERE. THIS RECORD IS NOT AS ESOTERIC AND WEIRD LIKE SELECTED AMBIENT TRACKS VOL II BUT IF YOU'RE A DUDE WHO LIKES DUDES WHO MAKE INTELLIGENT ELECTRONIC MUSIC THAT ISN'T A GLITCHY IDM NIGHTMARE THEN GET ON BOARD THE MINDFUCK EXPRESS TO CHILLOUT TOWN AND LET ME KNOW HOW THE MOON LOOKS.

XTAL


YO

SAXON- WHEELS OF STEEL

I'm just listening to this record for the first time... HOLY SHIT! This rules so hard! you and your lame attitude don't even know. Saxon are always counted among the more important NWOBHM bands but clearly these guys are less interested in their contemporaries and more interested in sounding like a biker-obsessed version of the Scorpions trying really hard to sound like Van Halen! So good. If I had parties, I would play this record all night.

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INFEST

Infest are one of my favourite bands and even before I really knew much about them or had heard more than one song, there was this mysterious pull they had. The ultra-gritty xeroxed covers, the howling singer who sounded like John Brannon with the rage-knob on eleven and the fact that a punk band was willing to play such agonizingly slow breakdowns. Once I heard Slave, I knew I'd finally found the hardcore band I had been fantasizing about! Of course this band is insanely popular and I'm sure for most punk fans it's hard to hear something like this and see it as any different from the countless other bands that played this way... but that's beside the point!

Infest did this first. Siege? Sure, they were playing this fast in 84' but not with this precision, intensity or conviction. As far as I'm concerned, Infest were the final death rattle of american hardcore. After them there is nothing truly innovative or genre defining (maybe Feel the Darkness). There are countless great hardcore bands from the 90's and beyond but game-changing, they are not. This is where hardcore terminated. Infest killed it and they did so in the most glorious way possible. I hope I haven't set the bar too high but if you've never experienced Infest, you must do so ASAP. I've included links to my favourites of their catalog.

p.s. Don't talk to me about Fucked Up because I don't care

SLAVE LP

MANKIND 7"

NO MAN'S SLAVE LP

PAILHEAD- TRAIT

Cold saturday, sitting at home watching playoff football after walking to the gym with my dad only to realize it closes at four on saturday. Somehow along the way, the intro to Pailhead's "I Will Refuse" got stuck in my head, probably because I've watched Misled Youth about a million times... and musically speaking, the coldness of that song matched how my body felt while wearing shorts in three-degree weather

For those who don't know, Pailhead was a one-off collaboration between Ian Mackaye and Al Jourgensen... but do not fear, this isn't any of that "Jesus Built My Hotrod" bullshit Jourgensen is known for. This sounds more like Ministry's "Stigmata" with Ian Mackaye and a lot of reverb. Six songs and it's done so even if you hate it (which is likely) you won't feel like you could have spent your precious minutes listening to some Japanese hardcore or some shitty garage-rock.

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