This is the sound of mortar shells exploding on a Sunday morning. Virginia’s Pig Destroyer is painful, brutal grindcore for the Nietzschean set: literate, brooding, fucked, and absolutely anti-humanist. What sets Pig Destroyer apart from their peers and predecessors is how they deftly incorporate a variety of styles under one destructive umbrella. Most grindcore sticks to formula - 15 seconds of blast beats with growled vocals, then onto the next track, and on and on at a clip of 5-10 songs a minute. This band comprises members of veteran bands Agoraphobic Nosebleed and Enemy Soil, but extends beyond simple cut and dry grind, melding Slayer-like metal chugging with the vocal howling of early American hardcore bands like Negative Approach and SSD. Add in some intelligent audio sampling, and a Stooges cover, and you have one of the most eclectic, urgent, and intense grindcore releases of the past decade.

Artwork for the 7″ picture disc release contributed by respected artist/photographer Carlos Batts, whose work has graced numerous album covers, appeared on the walls of American and European galleries, and filled the glossy pages of porn and fashion magazines from Leg World to Taboo. Brilliant, twisted, fucked, right through the heart of the timid. The image on “Prowler In The Yard” was created by world famous tattoo artist, Paul Booth. Prowler was released on CD by Relapse Records.

Pig Destroyer “Prowler In The Yard Picture Disc” REP067

TRACK LISTING: Cheerleader Corpses Scatology Homework Trojan Whore Ghost Of A Bullet Heart And Crossbones Strangled With A Halo Intimate Slavery Mapplethorpe Grey Evacuating Heaven Tickets To The Car Crash Naked Trees Sheet Metal Girl Preacher Crawling Pornographic Memory Murder Blossom Body Scout Snuff Film At Eleven Hyperviolet Starbelly Junkyard God Piss Angel

Pig Destroyer “Pig Destroyer Picture Disc 7″” REP048

TRACK LISTING: Blonde Prostitute Patterns of Failure Rejection Fetish Dark Satellites Purity Undone Forgotten Child White Sand Painter of Dead Girls Down on the Street (Stooges)

This is #2 in the Reptilian Grindcore Picture Disc Series, all of which feature the photographic artwork of Carlos Batts. Performers with releases in this series are Daybreak, Pig Destroyer, Mastodon, and Swarm of the Lotus.

Tags: Uncategorized by Noel
No Comments »

Remember the days when bands such as the Dwarves would roll into town in some sad excuse for a van, drink all of your alcohol, steal your drugs, break a bunch of things, play for about 15 minutes tops, break some more things, drink, fuck your girlfriend, then split town - or end up at the local police station or hospital? Well, if that’s a fond memory for you, then Phoenix Thunderstone should raise your debauched spirits. Blend some Cramps, a little Gun Club, and some Dwarves and you’ll start to get a feel for this band.Sure, the Dwarves are still around, but the baton of mayhem has obviously been passed on to worthy heirs Phoenix Thunderstone who, of course, also boast Dwarves drummer Vadge Moore. The band has released several CDs and singles, and followed up each release with an ass-load of touring, recently doing gigs with FEAR, the New Wave Hookers, and the reformed T.S.O.L.. Many broken teeth, empty bottles, concussions, and trashed stages later, here’s a document of the live show….. Two tightly arranged rockers performed in the classic tradition: fast, fucked up, melodic, catchy, and trashy, with of course, the attendant threat of violence and damage at the club. Not to mention nudity and lewd behavior. Can’t forget the glam quotient, either. What did you think this was, the Offspring? Christ.

Phoenix Thunderstone “Phoenix Thunderstone” REP044

TRACK LISTING: Hairy Carrie (Live) Secret (Live)

Tags: Uncategorized by Noel
No Comments »

Like getting an ‘A’ on an algebra test while crankin’ some AC/DC, OXES work to make tone poems and musical compositions using and re-contextualizing the cliches (i.e. song structures, riffage, and timbre) of hard rock that have been run into the ground by such pioneering artists as Led Zepplin and Metallica. Ex-members of Haberdasher and I.S.I. Toured the Northeast and Mid-west playing with such luminaries as Don Caballero, Trans Am, Neutrino, U.S. Maple and others. Featuring ex-Haberdasher member.
The Oxes have CDs on Monitor Records.

The Oxes “Kaz Hayashi/Panda Strong” REP042

TRACK LISTING: Kaz Hayashi Panda Strong

Tags: Uncategorized by Noel
No Comments »

NEUTRINO’S full-length debut delivers a powerful, dynamic display of melodic precision and understated aggression. These Chicago players are masters of that high-strung, post-Albini abrasiveness that so many less talented bands in their area code are famous for. A stunning live show not to be missed - NEUTRINO has performed with the likes of Delta 72, Mount Shasta, Monorchid, Ativin, Kepone, Clawhammer, etc, etc, etc… NEUTRINO is: Brian Wnukowski (drummer, ex Big’n), Carl Saff (guitarist, ex Pencil), Dave Bychowski (bassist, ex Lustre King).

Neutrino “Improved Hearing Through Amplification” REP033

TRACK LISTING: Planar Protocol Grand Figure 4v Highway Builders Broked Winterized Theme from the Year 2000 Kick it Apart Scam Cardinals and Tulip Trees Defenseless Against Missile Terror Andrew Lyne Figure 5

Tags: Uncategorized by Noel
No Comments »

Of all the late 70s-early 80s punk bands, nobody was angrier or nastier than the kingpins of the Detroit hardcore scene, Negative Approach Their attitude could best be summed up by singer John Brannon’s intro to “Friend or Foe,” from the `81 live show on their new CD - “Here’s another song about assholes!” Ready To Fight contains fifty songs clocking in at little more than an hour, consisting of the band’s earliest ‘81 demos, a well-recorded ‘81 live show from Hamtramck, MI, ‘83 demos from their Tied Down album (their only studio LP, and an all-time punk classic), and another decent show from ‘83, this one from Detroit. The chronological order of material on this CD clearly demonstrates the evolution (and improvement) of the band over their first two years, with the earlier stuff containing a lot of what I like to call “dog barkings”- hardcore rantings where the singer spits out as many words as possible in as tuneless a way as he can, and usually in less than a minute. These songs remind me of a big dog barking non-stop for a minute…. and they usually make as much sense, unless, of course, the lyrics are available. The live and later material here also adds a bunch of killer punk songs (”Chaos,” “Nothing,” “Negative Approach,” “Can’t Tell No One,” and others) that makes this collection worthwhile to me although it’s kinda hard to tell that Brannon later became an excellent rock & roll singer (in the Laughing Hyenas and Easy Action): An excellent companion to “Total Recall,” released on Touch & Go in the mid-90s, which includes the aforementioned Tied Down LP. To quote Mr. X’s press release, Ready To Fight sounds like “a nail bomb exploding in a disco.”
-John Oliver, Brutarian

Tags: Uncategorized by Noel
No Comments »

This is a gut-stomper. From the epicenter of the rust belt’s drain-spiraling unemployment pit, Ohio’s Murder Your Darlings kick this one out the door with unsmiling venom. It’s the kinda rock best served through the one functioning speaker in the car with one headlight still working on the way to another place where you will not, cannot, and never will, find work. Fifteen tracks corralling the darkness of the downtrodden working man and an entire generation of southern rockers, then skronks it up with northern hardcore punk nihilism, and a ladeling of mid-west noise-rock buzzsaw gravy. Murder Your Darlings churns out the brand of twangy metallic rock favored by Down, Surgery, Nebula, Alabama Thunderpussy, and Ironboss. With two guitars harmonizing note-for-note throughout this debut, the boys have come to play, slay, and prey. This may be the first you’ve heard from ‘em, but damn sure will not be the last. Murder Your Darlings weighs in heavily, thunderously, unflinchingly. Get in and ride.

Murder Your Darlings “Murder Your Darlings” REP089

TRACK LISTING: Fucked Up and Broke House of Paranoia Going to Hell Murder Country Waiting For Drugs Too Much Seething (Through Complacent Eyes) Ground Now You Are Yeah, Babe When in Rome Lead Foot Business as Usual Ode to Jim Too Old to Die Young

“The raw power behind these songs hint at not only the talent behind them, but that certain something that Ann Arbor had in the sixties and Minneapolis in the ninties - a sleazy, aggressive, blood-drenched fury wholly lacking from most music today.” Rick Allen from Plus et Moins

Tags: Uncategorized by Noel
No Comments »

About as easy to pin down as a flying hornet – and about as spastic as an enraged hive, Philadelphia’s Midiron Blast Shaft mix a full-tilt cocktail of styles. From the intricate guitar interplay, dynamic shifts, and peculiar time signatures of math rock, the intensely passionate, screamed lyrics of emo-core, the angular noise reminiscent of the AmRep scene, to the cryptic deconstructivism of the lyrics, Midiron Blast Shaft kill, kill, kill in a loud, hip, intelligent manner.

Midiron Blast Shaft “Starts Fires in Your Pants” REP051

TRACK LISTING: dropping feathers on your head libertyville with a fine tooth comb-over A1 to make it to midnight climb the coke machine humb bounce (i like the crotch on you II) toeless shoes make me want to puke unlock my stars and bars don’t think twice

On their first album since moving to Reptilian Records, the band tightly showcase the rock. Though they cite influences as far ranging as Minor Threat, Shellac, AC/DC, Mule, and Born Against, they transcend the genre-specific sound of each, and end up with something as familiar sounding as it is unique and warped. Recorded masterfully by Adam Cooke at the indie-rock stronghold ACR Studios in Baltimore, Starts Fires In Your Pants may just burn your stereo down as well. This young quartet is indeed on fire, and hellbent to continue fucking up your hearing. Midiron Blast Shaft tour constantly, check em out.

Tags: Uncategorized by Noel
No Comments »

Factory stamped in the battered hull of America’s rust belt, this Columbus, Ohio quartet weigh in with the percussive sway and jagged gift-bearing capacity of a piñata brimming with nails. Community Horse, the band’s second album, and first for Reptilian, ups the abrasive ante from the previous full length, “Vil/Viol”, pours acid on the bated hooks, and in the noise-rock sea it goes for a twenty-six minute thrashing swim. These twelve explosive tracks reel in a gilled, hybrid monster flailing with barely contained skronky Stooges wildness, the straight-faced, had-it-up-to-here noise-rock deconstructionism of Amphetamine Reptile’s finest troops, and more rock than the proverbial garage can handle.

The black and white, bare-boned artwork speaks volumes of the stripped down, fucked up musical approach on the album itself. The guitars screech and howl, but always serving a particular point, and always with the song, not against it, or around it, or whatever the sexless, post-post-post rock nerd set is doing these days. Lockstep rhythm section, and vocals like John Brannon’s** kid brother up for a week on speed. Relentless in its sonic bombast, Community Horse is shatteringly loud and screamy from the starting gate all the way to the infirmary at the end. In between, songs are LSD-blessed with absurd sound bites culled from bizarre sources - good luck figuring them out. It’s 2003, and sometimes rock actually DOES rock. The Means prove that.

The Means “Community Horse” REP072

TRACK LISTING: Community Horse .S.M.C. The Last Days (C.T.) Take The Hit Gimp, II Die Hard (It’s X-Mas) Summer Breeze Beautiful Mothers Honeymoon Rag Bordon Grote Mai Mai

Tags: Uncategorized by Noel
No Comments »

San Francisco’s Matterhorn formed in January of 1999, and began knifing a direct path through the heart of the hardcore influenced modern American underground. “Set to Rise” is a culmination of that unrelenting sonic path, and it showcases the power and dynamic range of this hungry quartet. Working with a rhythmic template similar to, say, Scratch Acid or Rye Coalition and the overloaded guitar work of Karp or Dead and Gone, Matterhorn finds home in slashing high-end guitar, and impassioned vocals. But dynamics and orchestration are the key to “Set to Rise”, and these nine tracks shift radically from charging, trebled romps to unexpected drops into eerie atmospherics. “Set to Rise” is as tight as anything ever recorded by Helmet, and as and painful and gut-wrenching as a high-speed car crash after getting fired from work. Vocalist Scott Carter served time with both Glazeride and the acclaimed St. James Infirmary, and his passion and commitment to the dark side of human emotion and thought is abundantly clear on this release. His vocal style is like a gun that shoots bullets, whispered threats, and riddles. Bass player Matt Zwicker formerly played with La Pistola, while Rob Kimball and Eddy Dishart played guitar and drums respectively in Hetch Hetchy, a San Francisco monster rock band. Matterhorn are Set to Rise: as powerful, moving, and sturdy as the Alpine mountain itself.

Matterhorn “Set to Rise” REP049

TRACK LISTING: Knives Never Could Sit Still Sight Seen Pre-K Light Weight Hot Collar Beer Hunter Tulips and Rohypnol Costeau

Tags: Uncategorized by Noel
No Comments »

Very, very few musicians can play like this. Especially not with such crippling velocity, violence, fury, and granite-solid heaviness. The full charge of Mastodon far exceeds what is expected of a group of human beings equipped with a bass, drums, guitar, and a mic. An Atlanta-based quartet boasting drummer extraordinaire Brann Dailor and razor-sharp guitarist Bill Kelliher (both from the In the Eyes of God line-up of Today is the Day), and Brent and Troy from 4 Hour Fogger on Guitar and bass respectively, Mastodon spent the better portion of 2000-2001 in the van and onstage, touring endlessly through the United States and Canada, and wasting no time recording their mind-shearing debut CD-EP with Relapse Records, Lifesblood. With a full length on the way, also on Relapse, Mastodon have in the mean time unloaded this sonic weapons manual on Reptilian, boasting tortured picture disk art from acclaimed photographer Carlos Batts. Welding the most exceptional elements of grindcore, death metal, mathematically precise hardcore, and the frothing intensity of early American punk rock together into a titanium-strength grade of forward-thinking metal, Mastodon has clearly raised the bar for musical accomplishment in the underground. The lesson most bands should accept from listening to this one: quit now!

Mastodon “Slick Leg” REP059

TRACK LISTING: Slick Leg Thank You For This Deep Sea Creature

Tags: Uncategorized by Noel
No Comments »