VIOLENT HEADACHE interview 2008

Great interview with the long running spanish grinders Violent Headache. Best grind band that ever came outta Spain! Taken from Short, Fast & Loud 'zine #19 from 2008.

Terrorismo Musical

Recently I've finally knocked off from my want list a record that was on it for the longest time ever. 19 years, to be exactly. Nor an extremely rare one, neither a particularly expansive one. But for some reason this one eluded me for almost two decades! I'm talking about the Warsore/ Unholy Grave split ep that was released by Mink Records back in 1997. At first I couldn't find it from any distro. Then it got less and lesser priority and, over the years, I ended up not putting enough effort to get a copy of it. Recently I've decided that this year I will finally finish my Warsore collection. Checked online and, surprise surprise, price has risen a bit in the last few years. Sent an offer via discogs and managed to get a copy for a fair price. I was very excited when it arrived and I got an extra surprise when I discovered that I am on the Warsore thanx list for an interview I did with them around 1996. A great surprise that adds extra meaning to a record that I already love a lot. Not only Warsore has their best artwork ever here, but their material is solid as always. This band is grindcore perfection in my book and, even if this is not their best material when it comes to recording quality, it's still an excellent dose of their trademark brutal grindcore with some of the best vocals and guitar sound ever! On the other side, Unholy Grave. Honestly, I've never managed to understand the hype that surrounds this band. Over the years I've of course ended up listening to some of their numerous releases. Some were decent, most were not. But none left me an impression. And this ain't different. Badly recorded and boring music. Worth for the Warsore side only.    

Les Nerfs A Vif

If with their debut ep I've been super slow, this time it went differently. I've indeed been fast enough to secure a limited version of Rixe second ep "les nerfs a vif", again on LVEUM. This continues exactly where "coups et blessures" left.  Again four trax, again four perfectly assembled oi hymns. The perfect soundtrack for your drunken sing-alongs skinhead nights. Perhaps the production is a bit dirtier this time & I would have turned up a bit vocal's volume. But the truth is that I'm just being way too anal. Perfect record again and for sure we already got a candidate for one of the best eps of the year. Comes with a big fold-out insert that has a poster on one side and lyrics on the other. First press sold out in few days, good luck finding one! 

888 Metal

When it comes to colombian bands, I usually go for the original only. But in this rare case I gave up since the original has been eluding me for years and I didn't even own it in any other format. Since Nuclear War Now! Records recently reprinted Reencarnacion double lp discography (well, "kinda of" since all the demos are missing), I've decided that it was about time to get this while still looking for an orginal first press of the lp. And I must admit that I'm quite satisfied with it since they've done an excellent work as always at the NWW!HQ. Comes with a huge poster, a booklet full of pics, infos and interviews all housed in a beautiful gatefold cover with both lp & 7" artworks. If you're not familiar with them, here we are talking about a legendary band that had a huge role, along with their townmates Parabellum & Blasfemia, in shaping the ultra-metal medallo trademark sound. It's a primitive and raw mix of speed, trash & death metal with a huge hardcore vibe that could be considered proto-black metal. Euronymous itself cited Reencarnacion as a huge influence in creating Mayhem, just to give you a vague idea on how important this band is! First lp contains their "s/t" lp from 1988, their best work in my opinion. Second one has the "acompaname a la tumba" ep from the same year (where Piolin played all the instruments) which is a bit inferior compared to the full length and a live recording. The appeal of colombian metal is that they used satanic imaginary as the easiest way for frustrated teens to refuse the rules of the uber-catholic environment they grew up in (something I can totally relate to), not just as a mere shock factor to impress their audience. It's not indeed a sheer coincidence that, when this scene disbanded, they all had a huge role in creating the medellin hardcore scene and went to form bands like Restos De Tragedia, Herpes and few others.

Promo pics

In the 90s', I've always used to get promo material for the crappy zine I did back then. Yes, labels sent you free stuff to review even if you were a 16 years old kid who printed 30 copies only of your shitty zine. Ahhh, the good ol'days. Anyhow, these parcels often included promo pics for the bands. Here's some of my fave that I've found online.

 

RECKLESS AGGRESSION interview 2010

Another good one taken from Not Guilty 'zine #3 from 2010. Sent my copy of this zine back to its editor Beau since it ended up without a copy for himself. Before packing it, I've scanned this great interview with Meatdog of the mighty Reckless Aggression.

Into Darkness

I might have missed the whole 80s' scene because I was too young, but I'm old enough to have lived through the whole 90s'. They were my formative years and for sure a great period to get into extreme music. While in the last two decades we got nothing but legions of mere clones of the well known names from the glorious days, the 90s' have been the last decade where bands were trying to do something new and innovative just by pushing it to the extreme. Winter were a perfect example of this. Their were around for just three years but they spawned a new sub-genre. While everyone in the rising death metal scene was just trying to play faster than everyone else, Winter chose to follow the opposite path. They indeed decided to play it at the same speed tectonic plates collide with each other to create the most oppressive and gloomy music ever made. This is so dark, heavy and hopeless that could be just the sound of the world collapsing to its final destruction. They melted perfectly Celtic Frost midtempos with Amebix slowness but played it with a death metal sound. Even the artwork gives you a sense of alienation and no hope for the future. Of course at that time dumb metalheads weren't simply ready for something like this. This ain't stuff for slam-dancing! While being almost ignored there, they found their niche in the NY crust/hardcore scene of that time (Nausea, Rorschach ecc) which is not a surprise considering Winter's apocalyptic vision of the future.

I think I first listened to Winter "into darkness" lp around '93 or '94. I have a vivid memory of a picture of Kevin Sharp wearing a Winter shirt (band pics and thanx lists were a huge source of information in the pre-internet era) so, being a broken teenager always hungry for new music, I asked to a friend who had this to tape it to me. I was floored after the first listening. While I was all about grindcore and fast stuff, this had a huge impact on me and my friends. It was just the opposite side of the spectrum, but its sheer brutality was the slow equivalent of the fiercest grindcore band. I'm quite confident I still have that tape (of course with the logo and the title of the album roughly handmade on the j-card) in a box somewhere in my parent's garage. My policy back then was to invest the few money I had on new stuff, no matter how much I loved a record, so I kept listening to it on that tape. As the whole internet thing erupted, I slowly upgraded my whole tape collection to mp3s. Recently I've finally decided that I need a real copy of "into darkness". I scored this first press on Nuclear Blast for relatively cheap on discogs. If you know the pressing infos about this and the clear wax version, please drop a message or a comment. As soon as I saw the Nuclear Blast logo, I wished that I didn't sell my whole death/black metal collection back in 2002...

While the music is obviously metal, this insert explains perfectly why they were more popular among crusties and hardcore kids than metalheads...