Music review: Witch’s Oath (EP) by Mindkult: A Lament to Socialist Ideology

Get EP here: https://mindkult.bandcamp.com/album/witchs-oath-3


Evil sells itself as collective strength over individual weakness, of belonging to something that is greater than little you and little me. It is a lie, and no, I am not talking religion here. I am talking its modern, western replacement. I am talking about liberal collectivism as sold to the masses by the political establishment that is the left. I am talking about politicians and I am talking about western civilisation in 2016. I am talking about the ideological consensus that permeates our media, academia and body politic. I am talking about the weakness of the left and how it is destroying everything that has been built up through centuries of struggle. I am talking about that box in the corner of my room that lies to me. I am talking about the people who appear on it. I am talking about the salesmen who still cling to the ideology of old as their entire building collapses around them.

I have always sensed a strong undercurrent of vulnerability and weakness in the salesman of the left. Today the desperation is plain for all to see, a pleading softness, prostrating itself for an ideologically cursed master of collective deception. The left is the establishment and the establishment is beginning to Brexit collapse.

In Witch’s Oath by Mindkult I hear the soft cult hive mind of the left. The seductive power is in the rhythmic guitar blasts of false hope, with quantitative easing falsity that promises rejuvenation, but sludges to a crawl as the decay of leftist reality and bread line communist queues kicks in. Death hangs in the air like an omnipresent cloud, taking the followers one by one, yet when they look to the sky of reality the QE guitar kicks in again and a false rush of adrenaline distraction compels their heads downwards, back to the sludge, cult of personality collectivism.

The unhappy lamenting despair pleading coming from the voice of the singer is uniquely defeated. He is socialist ideology, the sad-eyed, crazy weak and ultimately compromised Bernie Sanders, the self-defeating power hungry Jeremy Corbyn or one of the numerous EU leftist politicians calling for open border policies as Islamic massacres happen on their very doorsteps. Lyrically the voice calls for obedience to the ideological promises of old, yet the delivery is cut through with a melancholic and diseased slow paced, whispered sadness. There is an awful sense of defeat in the voice, a sense that the game is up, that nobody wants what he is selling. Life is coming to an end in a tired, sick, Hillary Clinton style collapse where the lies of the past build up into a tidal wave of karmic retribution that will destroy us all.

I hear the modern left in all four songs of beautiful collapse that are offered here. There is a melancholic beauty in seeing everything fall apart. You set up your deckchair amidst the ruins of western civilisation and sing a sad lament. You sing to the ideological purity of Karl Marx, pleading to his departed adherents to return to the fold where we are just another revolution away from creating the perfect socialist paradise. You sing in hope, but the sound turns into a mournful truth of resignation as you realise deep inside yourself that a socialist paradise can and never will exist and that you have been sold a lie from the very beginning.

Rating: 10/10 (Loud it up)

Extreme Metal- REVIEW- Aphotic, by Jupiterian: Will You Follow the Dark Collective?

Genre: Doom/Black/Death/Heavy Metal

Released: 14th August 2015

Label: Caligari Records

Listen here:
https://caligarirecords.bandcamp.com/album/aphotic

Purchase here:
http://caligarirecords.storenvy.com/collections/277955-all-products/products/14066142-jupiterian-aphotic-cal-037



Aphotic is a call to join the Dark Collective where five songs of dense, sludgy, snarling, guttural, melodic, slow, terrible beauty lead you through a life spent lost in sweet, honey dripped poison.

Opening track ‘Permanent Grey’ introduces the Phantom Piper, the Happy Ghost of the Dark Collective. He takes your hand and welcomes you into the land of swamp thick dust and dreams where absinthe slick, hypnotic, seductive groves of sweet, sweet poison deliciously choke the air.

It’s dense here, very dense, the fog is almost impregnable, but the poison is so honey sweet, and it leads you through the darkness, seducing you into an awakened slumber. It feels safe here, so warm, so carefree, and you allow yourself to follow, to follow, to follow, and to be lost within the dream. You are entranced now, and the Piper no longer has to take you by the hand. You want to follow, you need to follow, and he leads you laughing, dancing, and skipping merrily into the Dark Collective.

‘Daylight’ shows the dawn, the light of truth. You wake, startled by the Sun, your eyes squint, but the poison honey, it’s still there, and you turn from the aggressive solar blast of the day, and back to the sweet coo of the Piper. You walk onwards, following, the trance still compels, and the journey continues.

Onto ‘Proclamation’ where the energy of the Sun is dampened, the fog descends, and the march onwards continues. Light struggles to emerge now. Energy is sapped, heads are low, and it’s turning funereal.

The Piper no longer laughs, no longer plays, no longer skips, his flute is a weapon now, he waves his followers on, threateningly, you’ve gone too far, and to stop would be to be lost in the dark, vulnerable to what hides in the fog. You follow not because of the sweetness in the air, but because fear compels, because you no longer have a choice. The time for seduction has passed. The bride is in chains now, and all that is left is the onwards, inevitable march of time.

The eternal child that is within begins to cry. Why is the Piper not smiling anymore? He used to dance, he used to play, he used to sing, but now all he does is point, and order, and scowl. You are scared. The Dark Collective no longer sings in sweet, hypnotic joy. They look at the ground. Together, individualism has been defeated. Low guttural sounds of terror, self- pity, surrender and despair has become their discordant song now. They sing it alone, walking side by side, but strangers all.

The Piper looks your way, reads your mind, and he smiles. You see his teeth now, and they are black stumps, worms crawl through the decay, sweetness has rotten away what once was pure, sweetness has destroyed the purity that came from God. The light of the Sun was there, offered, but rejected. Replaced by sweetness, you devil, the self-inflicted rot of prosperity, of a dulled, idle decadent complacency, sweet hypnotic rot, you will kill us all.

‘Aphotic’ is the end of life, the end of all hope. It’s a grinding halt, a STOP sign. You stare at the nothingness, the damp soil, lines and lines of defeated lost souls. You see shovels, and the Piper barks his last words. They are orders, and you must obey. Hands grasp handles, digging, digging, and digging. The air still fogged, sweetened not with honey, but with sod, the mud of the ground, from dust we became, from dust we shall return, wetted with damp soil, eaten by worms, we prepare our future, entranced by sweetness, defeated by prosperity, we dig our own eternities.

‘Drag Me to My Grave’ is the final plea, not for mercy, but for the end, for the nothingness that is to come. A life spent following the Piper, from the seduction of our senses, chasing the sweetness, joining the Dark Collective. We have allowed ourselves to be marched to the Graveyard, to the mud, to the shovel. Why do we chose to be lost in the fog, to follow the sweet, poison embrace of the Dark Collective, to lose ourselves, to stumble into fear, into routine, and so quickly into decay? We dig our own graves, and hypnotically, silently, jump into forever.



Rating: 10/10 (The sweet, terrifying choices that we make, the choices that lead to eternity)

Extreme Music (Review): Drag Me to My Grave (Single) by Jupiterian

Genre: Doom/sludge/metal.

Released: 1st April 2015

Check out the song here:
https://jupiterian.bandcamp.com/album/drag-me-to-my-grave-single




Heavy and dense as a recurrent nightmare, the voice calls to me, taunting, insistent and relentless. There is a damp, dirty, mossy spot, underneath a yew tree, in the little village graveyard, and it’s waiting, just for me.

I speed up as the gates expand and become all that I see. They tempt, they beckon, but I accelerate away, the voice howls, screaming that I cannot run forever. Yes, I’ll be in your arms one day, rotting away to nothing, within the dank embrace of your wormy, cold, wet, clay thick muddy chamber, but not today.

Defeated, the voice is angry. I’ve escaped the despairing, defeated call of the other world. I scream at the tempter voice, you lose again, a clay thick gurgle is the response, a defiant animalistic rumble, and a reminder that the war will continue. Not today, you call me to my grave, but I keep on running. Your call is tempting, but I’m getting faster, faster, faster.

You beg, you plead, you howl, you throw out your thorny arms, the beautiful end of pain that is eternity, but all you catch is air, the trace of what I no longer am.

I keep running, not tiring, there’s no slowing down, not yet, your call entices, but your bed of eternity can wait. My race continues, at least for a while, as the rain sweeps down, drenching the soil, keeping it fresh, keen in anticipation for the inevitable feast of flesh that will surely, one day, come.


Song rating: 10/10 (Sludge, doom and decay, the relentless call of the grave)

Song & Video review: Resistant Hearts - Turn This Ship Around- Wake Up Young Man

Group Name: Resistant Hearts
Song title: Turn This Ship Around 
Members: Monte Pierre & John Brandon
Genres: Pop
Formed: 2014
Record Label: Silvertrain Records

Band website:
http://www.silvertrain.biz/resistanthearts/




If you think that drinking and smoking weed to excess is a cool thing to do, then watch this video, listen to the song, and prepare yourself for a much-needed slap around the face.

There’s nothing rebellious, cool, sexy or smart about hiding away and having a lone drink and smoke party. It’s bloody sad, a depressing waste of your time, and it accomplishes nothing except making you feel even crappier about yourself than you already did.

‘Turn This Ship Around’ by Resistant Hearts is a song (and video) that encapsulates a mind-set of useless self-destruction. Here is wallowing in pointless self-pity in all of its non-glory, nobody gives a crap about you reality.

Sitting on your bed, listening to sad music, smoke up kid, life is so tough, you are so tormented, but stand-up, look in the mirror, and what do you see?

Rough seas, but it's never too late to rescue yourself

A self-indulgent pathetic loser, that’s what you see. Do you really want to stay in your room puffing away your life? You are rotting, dying, and when your heart finally stops bothering to even pump blood around your body who will miss you?   No girl, that’s for sure, if you had one she’ll have a new boyfriend by the time your poorly attended funeral takes place at the local conveyor belt crematorium.

So stop drinking and stop smoking cool weed. The professional liars in stoner movies and the fakers in the music industry are paid to pretend that it’s cool to be stoned, but it’s not, and you know it’s not.

Turn this ship around, because at the moment it’s heading towards an iceberg. You are the only passenger on your little boat, and when it hits, and sinks to the bottom of a shallow pool of dull, lukewarm dirty dishwater, your pity party comes to an end, and the world will respond with shoulder shrugging apathy and 'What's on TV tonight' indifference.

You die, and it will be like you never existed at all.

'Turn This Ship Around' is a wake-up call to somebody stuck in a smoke and drink pacified rut. It’s a sad voiced reminder that the world might suck, but your reaction to it, hiding in smoke, is even worse.

You’ve wussed out, you’ve chosen to be a loser, you’ve chosen to be pathetic, you’ve chosen to take yourself out and not fight like the man that you are supposed to be.

If you recognise yourself in anything that I’ve said here, click on the YouTube link at the top of this review. Watch the video, do to it, again and again, throw some water over your face, and stop it, just stop it. Stop beating yourself up, look in the mirror, recognise what you have become and just stop it, please. That’s the message of the song, video, and in my own small way, this review as well.



Rating: 8/10 (Wake up, recognise, change, start living)

‘Drones’ by Muse- Review- Is Anybody Listening?

Released: 5th June 2015

Official Site:
http://muse.mu/home.htm


Our freedom’s just a loan
Run by machines and drones
They’ve got us locked into their sights
Soon they’ll control what’s left inside

Don’t try to hide it, don’t tell me it’s not there

You’ve got strength
You’ve got soul
You’ve felt pain
You’ve felt love
You can grow (you can grow)
You can grow (you can grow)
You can make this world what you want
You can revolt
You can revolt
You can revolt.’ (Revolt)


Matt Bellamy is being very direct in what he is saying here. I don't need to interpret it. I don't need to spin it. I don't need to analyse it. Just read the lyrics.

Go to YouTube, find the song, and check out the comments. What are the Muse fans saying about it? Here are some random examples:

‘F****** awesome. Full of energy and spirit, got a real nice queen vibe. All the hipsters/haters can fuck off back down their mum’s basement.’

‘I'm having nightmares about Matt chasing me while singing this silly chorus D:’

‘I looooove this song!!  But I need help, there's a part in the chorus that reminds me of and very famous old song (like in the 60s or something), but I cannot remember which one! Has anyone any idea? It's the part when he says "You can grow (you can grow!), You can grow (you can grow!) at 1:13 thanks!’

Take this one song, the message, and then the entire ‘Drones’ album as a whole, and Muse fans reaction to it, and it’s pretty much the same. They go straight into fanboy/girl mode, defending the songs, attacking ‘haters’ and then detailing why the song is good because it reminds them of something else that is also good.

That’s okay. I agree with them, the songs are good, and they remind me of other good songs too.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE THINGS HE IS ACTUALLY SINGING ABOUT????

There’s no discussion going on about that, and when it is brought up, it’s dismissed like his actual words and thoughts are completely irrelevant, even though these people are supposed to be passionate, loyal fans of his band.

So why aren’t the fans discussing what their favourite band are actually singing about?

Before I give my opinions on that, here’s a quick break-down of some of the best songs on the album, and what they are actually about.

1- Dead Inside- A good guy is turned into a selfish, cold-hearted person through his contact with a person who is ‘dead inside.’ At the end of the song the protagonist is ready to serve the system of human enslavement, death and war. He is ready to become a drone pilot.

2- Psycho- About the army indoctrination cult training process that prepares soldiers for mass slaughter and obeying orders (Nazi style).

3- Mercy- The song’s protagonist looks for forgiveness, explaining that he was trying to infiltrate the system, to change it from the inside, but has seen that this is impossible. He now wants out of it, and forgiveness for what he has done whilst serving the system.

4- Defector- The song’s protagonist loudly declares that he is a free man, unable to be brainwashed and manipulated by the anti-human control system, or ‘society’ as a whole.

Meaty stuff, don’t you think? So, again, what do the fans make of it? Go again to YouTube, pick any video and tell me what you are reading. I’ll do it now. I’ll pick one song at random, and type out the first comment that I see. Here we go:

Psycho (first comment, 24 likes):

I love the music...
Matt says: I gonna break you. 
Lol.... 
He is intense... 


So, why no discussion? Why aren’t the fans discussing the song lyrics, at all? Their hero is belting out his heart and soul, and telling them what is happening in the world NOW, and their reaction is largely banality and LOL jokes. What is going on here?

Here’s my opinion:

Muse fans are not stupid. They love the band, but they are mainstream people. They watch television, they vote, they go to school and college, they work, they have children, they like cool music, they want to rock out to a catchy tune.

In other words, they are normal, everyday people. They are not rebellious, and they don’t want to think about horrible things that are happening in the world around them. They are stuck in ‘little-me’ mode. They want a good job, friends, relationships and to be happy, and if they have to become a Drone pilot to do this, then that’s just fine, they’ll do it.

They’ll pay their taxes, support the latest wars and believe what their betters tell them to believe. They love Muse, but they are just a band, nothing more than that. They are entertainment, you don’t have to listen to what he is saying, just enjoy the cool tunes, high notes and guitar parts.

This is the attitude not just of a Muse fan, but of an indoctrinated mainstream media programmed slave, a person that will not rebel, not because s/he is stupid, but because s/he has chosen to live a life of DELIBERATE IGNORANCE. It’s a choice to accept slavery and to try to make the best of it. It’s a choice to not care about anybody in the world beside themselves, their families and any friends that they are particularly fond of this week. It’s the mindset pushed by the corporate whore mainstream media, pushed because it maintains the status quo, pushed because it turns people into mindless animals, easily controlled, and easily culled when the time comes.

‘Drones’ by Muse, is an anti New World order/globalist/neo-liberal/corporate hegemony concept album. I was always going to appreciate the lyrics, but there’s passion, defiance, fight, emotion and a lot of really good tunes in there as well. The album, tells a story, even though Muse fans are unwilling or unable to hear it at the moment, so to get the best out of it, put on your headphones and listen to the entire thing from beginning to end. This is how you will get the most out of it, and that’s what Muse fans should do as well.

Your rock God hero is trying to tell you something about truth, morality, the human experience and the world as it is today. He is telling you that all of that wacky ‘conspiracy’ stuff is real, and that you are a part of it, and that you help it move along with your quiet acquiescence and feelings of weakness and learnt helplessness. He’s telling you to wake up, telling you that you are stronger than you think, telling you to fight against the new world order beast, but only by recognising that it exists at all will the true fight begin. That’s where most Muse fans are right now. They don’t want to look under their own beds, because they fear what they WILL find there. Matt is yelling, but how many people really want to hear what he is so loudly, passionately, eloquently and beautifully saying?


Rating: 10/10 (Are you turning into a human drone?)

REVIEW: THE MOODY BLUES: 2015 UK TIMELESS FLIGHT TOUR- COLSTON HALL, BRISTOL

Venue: Colston Hall, Bristol.
Date: Tuesday 9th June 2015
UK Tour Dates:
http://www.moodybluestoday.com/tour/



I’m not a fan of the Moody Blues, probably because their peak in terms of chart popularity missed that moment in my teenage life when I was looking for ‘cool’ bands to latch onto, and let’s face it, the Moody Blues aren’t exactly cool anyway, are they?

I went to the concert because my parents asked me, and because my curiosity was piqued due to my own lack of awareness of the band and it’s songs. I expected soft rock hippie nostalgia with songs about leprechauns playing leapfrog with toadstools, but what I actually got was a wonderfully entertaining night of hard rocking, guitar chugging rock n roll.

The concert started an hour late (due to a fire on the M4 that delayed the band) but the time was filled by a young guitar genius named Mike Dawes, who effortlessly entertaining the crowd with his virtuoso talents. The hour delay wasn’t really a delay at all, it was a bonus for the crowd, and we loved every second of it.

When the Blues finally did arrive on stage they got loud, and rocked the place out like a passionate young rock band. The songs were catchy, the guitars were chugging with hard rock riffs and the concert as a whole had all of the excitement, passion and urgency that I stupidly assumed that it would lack.

What happened? I thought that this was supposed to be a soft rock nostalgia thing? Not for the first time, I assumed wrongly, turned up, witnessed an event for myself, and was totally blown away by it.

Justin Hayward (the lead singer and guitarist) is so unassuming. He’s just a bloke, a bloke who has none of the arrogance or attitude that you would expect of a man with his unbelievable talents. There he was, standing in front of me with his comfortable slacks, white shirt and slip-on shoes and his guitar is wailing and riffing away like a hardrock monster. And then he sings, and the passion, the intensity, the range, it’s all there. This man looks like an average guy, but there’s nothing average about him at all. He’s not just good, he’s fllippin amazing, and is a reminder to us all that appearances can be deceptive, and that the most rock n roll bloke in the room might also be the most unassuming looking bloke in the room as well.

Three songs will stick in my mind. ‘I’m Just a Siinger in a Rock n roll Band’ was guitar heaven. ‘I Know You’re Out There Somewhere,’ was sublime catchy pop, and ‘Knights In White Satin,’ was transcendentally beautiful musical poetry.

If you go and see the Moody Blues in 2015 you are going to witness an adrenaline packed night of hard rock action sprinkled with emotional ballads and beautiful pop songs. This isn’t nostalgia, forget that notion, nostalgia is redundant, and this night never felt redundant, not for a single second. I had a great time. I experienced rock music played by a super tight, super talented, pumped up and passionate rock n roll band. Forget cool, forget what you are told to enjoy, just go out and see these guys and girls for yourself. If you like rock music at all then you’ll get a huge kick out of seeing them. They were great, they really were.


Rating: 9/10 (Not cool, but very, very good)

Black Metal Review- Split 12" with Hessian (The abyss stares back # 2) by Primitive Man- Unable

-Of the feelings unleashed through listening to 09:33 of extreme music. Make of it, what you will-

Get the song here:
https://primitivemandoom.bandcamp.com/album/split-12-with-hessian-the-abyss-stares-back-2

Primitive Man on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/primitivemandoom

Primitive Man on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/primitivemane


You think that morality is an abstract concept, that it’s not at all relevant in your life, a word as meaningless as a political slogan, an advertising campaign for a new, healthier margarine/butter concept? There is no God, there is no meaning, there is no point to anything, so let us all enjoy family time in a cocoon, post it on a government surveillance platform, an idealised mawkish memory for when the tears won’t come anymore. What you do has no meaning, so why don’t you just buy into the nothingness? Get this, that, the other. Cut through in-line, suckers everywhere. I’m going to get my own before somebody beats me to the punch, but where is the pat on the head? I need to convince myself that the lie is real. Charity mate, begins at home, and ends there. Nothingness begins to fill up with cancerous worms, you look for a lie, give me a lie so I can feel secure in my own emptiness. Not the void, there is no void, there is no nothing, though nothing is nothing. To give money to a collection box, somebody retiring at work for a plaque, nobody cares, nobody minds, they all buy in. Will a quid salve the rotten maw of my avaricious fawning, mourning conscience? And the collective, for there is a collective, ROTS. Oh, how it rots, maggots and flies everywhere as the mass collects in little tribal groups, feeling good, but only about themselves, only about their own, not caring, not really caring about what is going on around them, but only, only, only if inconvenience slights. Lives lived in routines of empty, selfish nothingness, there is no pit, I won’t look, don’t want to see, till one day. Routine broken, turn around, face what was there all along, no longer a concept, now as real as your boring traffic jam. The pit, the abyss stares back, will no longer be denied. A life wasted, you are dragged into what was always there, a pit of reality, and the eternal resting-place for your carrion prey urine blanched soul.

Rating: 10/10 (Don’t stare, don’t ignore, acknowledge, change, speak truth)

Song review: Face Down, by Killer Be Killed- Brutal call to arms

Face Down-Lyrics:

Fraud, you're not a friend to me, a drag on society
A tool of bureaucracy and I can barely tolerate you fuckers around me
Nightstick to the fucking face, how does that shit fucking taste?
Just to survive is never enough, we need to call the bluff

Disarray in the nation, disarray degradation

Face down, face down, face down to the ground

Brutality against brutality, the real face of the enemy
Keep them pigs away from me, abuse of power and authority
Blacklisted calamity, forceful rape entity
Devils in uniform, you'll wish you were never born

Menace to society
Cop shoot cop mentality
A cancer of a broken land
Traitor to the common man
Invaders of your privacy
Nothing is sacred reality

Kill or be killed

Wrong it is, where this started
Wrong it is, from the beginning

Bleed from the eyes, rot from the inside out
Inverted skies hide in the underground


Band: Killer Be Killed
Song title: Face Down
Album: Killer Be Killed
Released: May 9th 2014
Label: Nuclear Blast

Youtube video. Listen to the song here. PLAY LOUD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHLeyF8lj2o

Wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_Be_Killed_(album)




Inverted skies do indeed hide in the background, as everything that should be good, was good, has become bad. A cancerous mainstream promoting vice as virtue, congratulating themselves as they pocket dirty cash, stolen from the carcass of the poor, of the dispossessed, of the cheated, of the never had a chance. Rage is what we need. Spit it in their faces. You are uniformed traitors to mankind. Morals do not disappear; they do not count for nothing. Everything done under law, under power of uniform and the gun will come back on you as your time of reckoning is at hand. No order following pigs. No abuse of state sanctioned authority. No hiding in fat, lazy, stuffed, bloated cowardly bureaucracy. Face down in the ground, the masses rise as one, in knowledge, in righteous anger, taking back what was stolen from them, by you. You, the corporate face of crime, you the career whore, you the happily assimilated, happily lazy, happily indifferent, happily ignorant. Face down, face down, face down to the ground. We are waking from our vaccinated slumber, and it’s time to kill or be killed.

Song rating: 10/10 (Let’s kick this revolution off with righteous, passionate angry music)

Black Metal Music Review: Temple of Daevas, by ‘From The Vastland’- Iranian passion

Band: From the Vastland
Album: Temple of Daevas
Release Date: October 6, 2014
Genre: Black Metal
Band Members:
* "Sina" - Composer, Guitars, Vocals.
* Guest Members: "Vyl" (Keep of Kalessin/Gorgoroth) - Drums.
* "Tjalve" (Den Saakaldte/Pantheon I/Horizon Ablaze/1349) - Bass.
Hometown: Tehran, Iran
Record Label: Non Serviam Records (The Netherlands) Indie Recordings (Norway)

Website: (Listen and buy album here)
http://www.fromthevastland.com/main.html

Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/fromthevastland/timeline



I have an innate need for a rasping, snarling, roaring, deviant, aggressive, powerful dose of spite in my black metal vocalisations, and that’s exactly what I get in ’Temple of Daevas’ by ‘From the Vastland.’

I noticed the immense power of the vocalist early on, but as I continued to listen I couldn’t help but recognise that it’s the rhythm section of the band that is holding everything together. There’s a pounding, relentless chugging beat about it, and it’s catchy as hell, repeating, repeating, repeating until it’s stuck in your head like a shot of heroin, addictive, delightful dangerous and compelling.

Click link at top of review to get this special deal

You feel your head nodding, your energy levels go through the roof and before long you are in fight or flight mode. That’s adrenaline pumping through your veins, and the snarling bite of the vocals are there all the time, kicking you, growling, demanding you pay attention.

I love the energy of this album, it's workout magic, keeping me going when I want to stop, the screaming, tearing defiance of it all is pure magic, and it has a sense of majesty, of immense size and scope.

This isn’t small insular music, it's big, bombastic blast your eardrums out stuff, and the creativity on display from track to track is extremely apparent when you listen to the full album in one sitting. It exudes muscular energy, determination, urgency, aggression and passion. This is music fit for a revolution. I absolutely adore it. It’s impossible to play it quietly. It screams at me, whips me upside the head demanding I play it louder, louder, louder, louder, and who am I to deny such an elemental force of nature?

This is my kind of music, if you have anything about you at all, any sense of rebellion, any passion, any deep soul aching need for independence, for freedom from the invisible chains of our age then you’ll want to get into this one immediately. I have no criticisms. I love this stuff, volume to max, play louder than loud, my adrenaline spikes to unprecedented levels. I’m pumped beyond all human endurance, and ready for anything.

Rating: 10/10

Music album review: Futurama by Manic Street Preachers- Hooky world-view reassessment

Released: July 2014

Amazon page (to purchase album):
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00JK4K07A?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Youtube video of ‘The Next Jet to Leave Moscow’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU_kKnmKsuU



I’ve listened to this album so many times now that it’s starting to get a bit old to me, so it’s probably a good time to knock out a review and detail the best tunes, the most interesting lyrics, and the overall themes, and lasting impressions made by the album.

My own association with the Manics goes back to their prime years in the 1990’s when they were producing fiercely intellectual polemics against everything and everybody. This culminated in their nihilistic, screaming into the abyss nightmare/masterpiece ‘The Holy Bible.’

In 1994 Richly Edwards, their intellectual, philosophical, moral, political, lyrical leader disappeared, and everything changed.

The lads

From that point on it has been a slow slide into compromise and middle class/suburban sadness and nostalgia for the remaining Manics. ‘Everything Must Go’ gave them their big success, but to me it was a deeply depressing album, a resignation from the extremism, an acknowledgement that they could never go that far again. From there it has been hit and miss, a carefully crafted career rather than a suicide mission.

The band used up some remaining Richey Edwards lyrics in the Holy Bible retread album (and correctly titled) ‘Journal For Plague Lovers,’ which briefly brought me back to them, but since then I have paid less and less attention to the Manics.

Futurama shouldn’t have interested me at all, but the excellent reviews caught my eye, so I took a chance, and purchased the album, not expecting much, but hoping for the best. I’ve spent a couple of weeks with the album now, listening to it a lot more than I thought that I would, and I’m ready to share a few thoughts about it.

First off, the tunes are excellent. They are exploding with creativity, vibrancy and (most importantly) sing-along hooks. This album feels like it took some time to produce, and it really does have some memorably hooky moments that will stay in your head all day long. There’s probably too many of those moments to mention here, they really are that frequent, but one of my favourites was the self-lacerating chorus (Yes, I realise how appropriate that phrase is in the context of a Manics review) ‘The next Jet to Moscow,’ with lyricist Nick Wire mocking his own socialist failings, compromises, contradictions and hypocrisies.

That theme of recognising that your life long held political ideology has been tested and shown to be false is a central theme of the album as a whole.

This is the Manics album where Nicky Wire admits that all of that Marxist stuff of his youth was total and utter bullshit. It’s taken him some time to get there, but the old left wing feminist liberal drip is finally waking up to the reality of the collectivised new world order supporting liberalism that has defined his socio-political life, and the lyrical themes of his band.

Nicky Wire (left, obviously) has a few things to think about.

Futurama, at least to this reviewer, is the album where Nick Wire admits that he was wrong, and that he needs to batten down the hatches, read, read, read and reassess his worldview. Because of this it’s the next Manics album that’ll probably be worth listening to, at least from a lyrical viewpoint. This album unfortunately still has a lot of that champagne socialist whining quality that comes across like a rich man complaining about digging his own luxurious pit of self indulgent ennui, in the safe suburbs, and surrounded by high tech security systems (to keep out the bothersome proletariat) obviously.

So yes, its still full of Nicky Wire complaining (as he does on every other Manics album post Richey) about feeling isolated and depressed behind his wall of luxury, but with that hint of change, that hint about further study and world view reassesement ringing throughout the lyrical themes, I can put up with it this time, and it leaves me looking forward to the next album, something that I haven’t done in a long, long time now.

Get 'Futurology' for the fresh sounding tunes, and a promise of a world-view reassessment by ‘Jaded old Commie’ Nicky Wire. The Manics sound rested up and full of vigour in this one. It’s jacked to the gills with catchy, sing-along hooks, it has variety and creativity in the individual songs, and you’re guaranteed to get at least a month’s worth of listening pleasure out of it.

Nicky Wire is still moaning about being a rich socialist, but this is a very good collection of songs. If you’ve ever taken an interest in the Manics then you’ll get a lot out of this one, and just like me you’ll find yourselves humming the songs in your head all day long.

Rating: 9/10

Militant, Grinding, Hardcore Music review: Ultramantis Black by Ultramantis Black: Stabbing, jagged, electric, energising protest music

Label: Relapse records

Released: 8th July 2014

Bandcamp page (listen to, and purchase album here): 
http://ultramantisblack.bandcamp.com/

Check out this awesome official video to the song ‘Bio-monster DNA’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C882d7NfR2U



This album sounds sweaty, and youthful, and righteous, and like it’s being played in a small club with (organic, alcohol free) beer flying through the air that is covering the collected shirtless mass in a sticky wave of good old healthy protest song anger.

What the heck do I know about this kind of music? Nothing, nothing at all, that’s what I know about it. Oh, that’s not true, I do know that it’s called ‘hardcore,’ so I know that. It’s a good adjective to use, as it certainly isn’t softcore, that’s for sure.

It’s punchy, stabby even, and everything is blasting away at a furious pace, the guitar, drums, screamed vocals and the song lengths themselves.

This EP has nine songs on it, and it lasts about thirteen minutes, yet I didn’t feel ripped off, and when I read the lyric sheet I had even more appreciation for it. Themes include the danger of pharmacological drugs, animal cruelty, pollution and the horror that is genetically modified food. Important issues there, real issues, not just the trendy feminist liberal ones, and it’s all shouted out with the anger that you need in rock protest songs.

I purchased this EP because I’m a Chikara pro wrestling fan and the man responsible for this music is one of their wrestlers. I was not disappointed. He rants/sing-screams about important issues, the music is suitably frenetic and having this blaring away in the background at a top volume as I knock out this review gives me that good feeling of energised rebellion that every good protest song should contain. Good stuff Mr Ultramantis Black. This English bloke who knows nothing whatsoever about hardcore music is very impressed with what you have done here on your debut music EP.

Rating: 9/10

Myrkur, by Myrkur- Album review- Elemental feminine black metal

Bandcamp page:
https://myrkur.bandcamp.com/

Music video (Watch it NOW): 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32KB0epn21E



I’ve been listening to this album for a few weeks now, but for some reason I’ve been delaying my review. That’s not like me at all. Anybody who has had a brief chat with me will know that I am a very opinionated man, a man who doesn’t really care if expressing his opinions is going to damage him in a social setting. I just don’t care. Take your bland niceness and stick it. We ain’t here forever, so let’s talk about interesting things, things that actually matter.

If I have something to say, I say it. Hence, this blog. An outlet for my overly opinionated rants about everything under the sun, all done under the ‘review’ platform, where I can launch into discussing whatever the hell I like.

So why the delay in reviewing this album?

A very talented lady

It’s not because it leaves me feeling indifferent, because it doesn’t do that at all. If I were indifferent about it then I’d listen to it for a couple of days, give it a scathing review, and then never listen to it ever again. Myrkur has been burning its way into my consciousness for weeks now and I can’t get enough of it. I love it. It’s the number one album on my car stereo as I navigate my way through the traffic jams of school run, keep my head down, support the troops, vote for slavery repeaters all around me.

So why have I been purposefully delaying this review? The truth of the matter is that I know that it’s going to be difficult for me to succinctly capture the feel of the album in just a few words on my rant happy blog. Go to the top of this little review now and click on the YouTube link, listen to the song and hopefully you’ll get what I’m trying to say here.

Myrkur has been labelled as ‘Black metal’ and it kind of is, but not really. There are screams, blast beat drums and furiously riffing guitars, but there’s a lot more going on here. There is a feminine feel to it all that’s new to me. It’s not the old beauty and beast thing, with male and female vocals contrasting with each other to create an effect, instead it is pure femininity, with choir like vocals, screams and anger, but not the tear you apart anger that Black metal usually consists of. It’s self-contained, yet expansive. A lone female voice crying out to the mountains. You can feel an elemental, eternal longing in the music, but there is no despair. It feels strong, yet soft, powerful, confident, alone but not alone, all that you need is within, and that within is connected to what is outside.

The standout track is ‘Nattens Barn’ the song I’ve linked to at the top of the review. It starts with the female choir, then progresses through a labyrinth of soundscapes that represent the feel of the album very well as a whole. Listen to it, if you like it buy the album. I also want to mention Dybt/Skoven, a track that is a trip to somewhere strange, but so beautiful, mesmerising and elemental, as I mentioned above.

I’m not sure that I did the music credit here, but that’s why I was delaying the review. I can’t capture it in words; the music is beyond that. I’m a huge Black metal fan, but this is music that transcends that limited genre categorisation. This is a debut album, and there’s more to come. How fantastic is that? Something is beginning here, jump on board and let’s see where the ride takes us.

Rating: 10/10

Dyatlov Pass Incident- concept album: 1959 by Ellorsith

'1959' by Ellorsith

Released: 26th July 2014

Released by: Caligari records
http://caligarirecords.storenvy.com/collections/277955-all-products/products/9611893-ellorsith-1959-cal-015

Get album (you can download it for next to nothing) here:
https://ellorsith.bandcamp.com/releases



I’m a big proponent of hunting down (and paying for) cool, original, independently produced music that is free from the tyranny of corporate mainstream media control and editorial manipulation, but even I have problems sifting through the hundreds and hundreds of bands and labels that are out there.

It’s difficult to know where to start, even when like myself you are basically only looking within the death/black metal genres. Sometimes I check out the desperately lame corporate metal magazines, but aside from a free CD on the front cover I get little of worth from them, especially when their take on rebellion is to have a go at Jesus and to drink yourself into liver disease. They are lame, tame and almost completely useless when it comes to seeking out original, cool bands, especially bands that actually want to say something that has contemporary socio-political relevance.

So what I end up doing is going on the Internet, normally on bandcamp, and take a lucky dip. I’ll listen to a couple of minutes of a band’s stuff, and pay for a cassette/CD and digital download. If you want to get the attention of somebody like me, somebody who will pay for your stuff, and do a quick review of it on his blog, here are a couple of things that would help me out, and make it more likely that I would check out your stuff.

1- Make your song titles/lyrics have contemporary relevance to the fascist new-world-order tyranny that is being constructed around us right now.
2- Have a really cool album cover/artwork.
3- Do an interesting concept album on something cool, occult, creepy, paranormal, historical, philosophical or socio-politically relevant.

Yeah, I know. Asking bands to discuss important issues rather than having a go at easy targets like Christianity and Fox News is probably asking for a bit too much at the moment. I understand. We have all gone through the same system of educational/mainstream media brainwashing since birth, so breaking out of the matrix is bloody difficult. Most people don’t do it because they don’t even see the matrix in the first place. But having a cool cover on your album is something that a band can easily do, as is an interesting concept album. That’s what led me to check out ‘1959’ by Ellorsith. The cover works, but it’s the concept that intrigued me.

Here's the team at the beginning of their expedition

I vaguely knew about the concept they were taking on.  A team of Russian mountaineers goes missing in suspicious circumstances right in the middle of the phoney US/USSR ‘cold-war period.’ A search party eventually finds their bodies, and it all looks very weird, and absolutely terrifying. If you want more details then click on the links at the end of this review.

In short, nobody is quite sure of exactly what happened, and how an experienced team of mountaineers all died in such bizarre and mysterious circumstances. Was it an avalanche? A military testing site? A Yeti? A UFO?  A Russian snow goblin? You get the picture, anyway the point is that something like this would make a great concept album for a shouty, screamy metal band, and that’s exactly what 1959 by Ellorsith is. They’ve done what should have been done bloody ages ago and made an album based on it. So, to the obvious question, is it any good?

Yeah mate, it’s bloody brilliant. Twenty seven minutes of howling winds, guttural despairing wails, growls, screams, pleading for mercy (in Russian) and the overall feeling of sheer unadulterated freezing cold terror. If you didn’t know this album was about some poor kids being scared sh**less, then one listen will fill you in very quickly, no context needed.

Here they are at the middle, just kids really.

It starts slowly, with a voice that sounds like a young mountaineer recording a voice message before the disastrous, final trek. The background music is already foreboding, menacing, the calm, but bloody creepy as heck calm, before the world falls onto their heads.

What follows is screaming terror, a cacophony, wall of sound snowblast of noise with what sounds like a supernatural beast screaming about what it's going to do to the poor mountaineers. It’s unrelenting, brutal, horrific and intense as anything you can possibly imagine. This is music with a purpose, and that purpose is to invoke a feeling of terror. It does this, extremely well.

The album closes with a track called, ‘Compelling natural force’ which is the phrase used by official investigators of the incident, basically admitting that they didn’t have a clue about what happened, other than it was violent, inexplicable and that everybody died. This track sounds like men lost in a forest, running from something, they are exhausted with nowhere left to run, they stop, cry to their mother’s, and wait for their inevitable death.

If you are planning on a hiking expedition then you’ll want to give this one a miss, especially now in these winter months when the darkness is creeping around us from dawn to dusk. It’s a pretty bloody terrifying listen, creating an atmosphere of constant dread, fear and oh crap, I guess that time has finally ran out for me terror.

The remains of their tents, ripped open from the inside.

We’ll probably never know what happened on the Dyatlov Pass, but this album does a horrifically fantastic job of describing the awful emotions that were running through the minds of the poor kids who went through it all.

I’m very much looking forward to Halloween this year, as I always do, but Halloween is always Scooby Doo horror to me. It’s funny, silly old Farmer Jones in a daft mask getting exposed by the stoner Dog and his buddies. 1959 is not Scooby Doo horror; it’s real horror. The kind of horror you feel when all hope is lost and you are running barefooted in the snow with some unknown monstrosity stalking your every frost-bitten footstep.

Some of the mountaineers died of exposure and hypothermia, but some of them died due to blunt force trauma. The injuries were described as being supernatural, coming from something that was not human. One of the female climbers had her tongue missing. That ain’t Scooby Doo, that’s bloody terrifying, and so is this album.


Rating: 10/10 (great concept, even better album)


Click here for more info on the Dyatlov Pass incident:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident

Youtube video on the incident:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVHFHIP9eWk

Black metal music review: Guthmers Hahl, by White Medal: Black metal call to action

TRACKLISTING:
1. Return of Pagan Yorkshire
2. Guthmers Hehl
3. Us Tiem Ut Bitter Folk
4. Ar Deeard Moor
5. Skratje's Gate
6. Afeeard Ut Setting Sun

Released: August 2013

I have some black metal albums in my collection that reek of disease and decay. Warped by the evils of the world they sound defeated, isolated and their screams are of torment, despair and gargling death. Guthmers Haul by White Noise is not one of those albums.

This is music with drive, passion, aggression and an iron willed determination to take the world by the scruff of the neck and shake the evils from it’s scrawny body as it cacks it’s pants in terrified realisation that we have something with life here, something that is not defeated, something with masculinity, testosterone, drive, strength and determination.

I don’t want to wallow in sickness. Give me something with will. Give me something that’s not going to go down without a HELL of a fight. Give me the angry snarls, the jagged and aggressive guitars, the whipping marching beat percussion, the euphoric rise of the chorus, the punch in the face determination to wake the people of England from their sleepwalk into new world order totalitarianism.

This is music to wake up the dead. Switch off your television mind control programming and inject some life into your veins. Guthmers Hahl gives England a much-needed kick in the nuts.  I love it, love it, love it.

Rating: 10/10

Click link below to listen/purchase a hard copy of the album:
 https://legion-blotan.bandcamp.com/album/guthmers-hahl

Death metal review: Sluggard, by Sluggard: Ten minute Aussie head snapping growl-fest

Listen to the album for free by clicking here- http://abysmalsounds.bandcamp.com/album/sluggard-2

Two words to describe this three-track album. Sludgy and thumping. The vocals are harsh, growled, but the lyrics are easy to decipher. From what I can gather they are direct accounts of what I presume to be early (and disastrous) missionary expeditions, probably to Australia, as this is where the music comes from. To my ears the vocal style is reminiscent of the aggressive, snapping, snarling growl that you get from a death metal band like Carcass. The sound has that toe-tapping quality as well where you bang your head, get pumped up and head off down the gym.

Brent, the talented man behind Sluggard

The album is just over ten minutes long, and I’ve included a link at the top of the review so you can listen to it for yourself. I liked it, so ordered a tape cassette. That cassette comes with a digital download and is about as expensive as buying a sandwich. To say it’s worth the paltry sum I spent on it is a gross understatement.

If you want a good ten minutes of clenching your teeth, snapping your head back and forth and tapping your toes, click on the link above and listen to the music for yourself. Then if you want to show your appreciation for some great new music buy yourself a hard, or digital copy. We have to support independent music. Do you really want to live in a world where the only music on offer is corporate swill that is pushed down our throats by the same multi-national corporations that are trying to enslave us all? I certainly don't, and that's why I support great new bands like Sluggard. Just give it a listen. It's great stuff. Fast, angry, and with a thumping passionate beat that gives it all a real sense of urgency that demands you pay attention.

Rating: 9/10

Morrissey- World Peace Is None of Your Business- Album review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEbve574h7c

http://pitchfork.com/news/55510-morrissey-performs-new-song-kick-the-bride-down-the-aisle-live/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Peace_Is_None_of_Your_Business

Album released: 15th July 2014

The problem with listening to Morrissey is that although he’s undoubtedly a bit of a poet, he’s also a bit of a pessimist as well. His view on human nature can be summed up by the following lyric from his new album, World Peace is None of Your Business.’ That lyric is from the nihilistic ‘Mountjoy.’

‘What those in power do to you reminds us at a glance how humans hate each others guts and show it given the chance.’

I would strongly argue that this is really not the case. Sure there are a minority of sociopathic and psychopathic personality types that gravitate towards positions of power and authority just so they can satisfy their need to abuse people, all done in an official capacity of course, but these people are not the majority, they are a very sick minority. The problem with humanity is that we allow this sick minority to have power over us because we vote to give them that power. The first track on this album illustrates that point with its refrain, 'Each time you vote, you support the process.’ That’s the problem with humanity, not that we hate each other, but that we give our power away to officially commissioned sociopaths who get together and call themselves ‘Government.’

Morrissey is getting there, but pessimism still dominates his work. Here are a couple of examples of that pessimism. In ‘Staircase at the University’ a girl throws herself down some stairs because she fails to get the three ‘A’ grades that her uncaring family and boyfriend demand of her. This observation is not exactly insightful, and it rings hollow as well. Do her family not care about her at all? This case is an exception, as most families care about each other, a lot. Why shine a spotlight on a depressing aberration?

‘Oboe Concerto’ looks bleakly at the failure of the dying generation that came before him, with a conclusion that his generation is also going to fail. I really don’t see how this helps anyone, as it’s looking on the unhappy side of life, telling people not to bother trying to change anything because it’s all hopeless and we’re all doomed anyway. Do you know who loves that kind of attitude? The control system known as ‘Government.’

Morrissey needs to concentrate more on the socio-political side of his lyrics and stop being gloomy just for the sake of being gloomy. There are some valuable insights into human nature and relationship dynamics on this album that say a lot about life without telling you that it’s probably best if you don’t bother getting up out of bed in the morning. The best example of this is in the song ‘Kick the Bride Down the Aisle’ where he shines a cutting beam upon a woman who picks a man not for love, but because she wants her own personal house slave who will do all of the hard work for her.

‘She just wants a slave to break his back in pursuit of a living wage so that she can laze and graze for the rest of her days write down every word I say.’

And yes, I will write it down, because that’s insightful and I agree with what you are saying here Moz. There are lots of people in the UK today who are exactly like the woman you are describing. So why knock out a song with the title ‘Earth is the Loneliest Planet?’ It’s a good tune for sure, but boy is it depressing, and you know what? It’s not even true. The last line of the song is, ‘And there is nothing anyone can do.’ I disagree; there’s a lot you can do. Learnt helplessness is something that the elite’s love, so stop indulging in it yourself Moz.

A quick wrap up of the best tunes then, although for long-time Morrissey fans you know what you’re getting here. Lyrics that seem forced because the content is more important to Moz than the flow of that lyric (‘Wolf down, wolf down T-bone steak, cancer of the prostate’), and songs that don’t quite work (‘Neal Cassady Drops Dead’ has very oddly compacted lyrics with Morriseey coming perilously close to rapping). There are a lot of musically interesting jingles and jangles on the album as well, so there’s some musical creativity going on, although let’s be honest, it’s the lyrics we’re buying this album for, not the musicianship.

The best song on the album is the title track, ‘World Peace is None of Your Business,’ both lyrically and musically this song just works. A lot of the other songs are ‘growers.’ The one’s with the most potential being the jaunty ‘Istanbul and the ‘Vauxhall and I’ reminiscent ‘Kick the Bride Down the Aisle.’

It seems like a strange thing to say, but Morrissey is almost getting there. He’s still a pessimist, but I see some light in his lyrics now. ‘World Peace Is None of Your Business’ is an excellent song that really captures the zeitgeist of our times in a way that is missed by the vast majority of contemporary pop songs that still obsess over teenage anxieties and bad boyfriend issues. The album as a whole has buckets of pessimism, but there’s wisdom there as well, littered amongst the nihilism of course. One of the most enjoyable things about the album is to discover the nuggets of gold amongst the black crumbly rock dust. I’ll begin to wrap up this review with one of those nuggets. You’re not quite there yet Moz, but you are well on your way.

‘World peace is none of your business, you must not tamper with arrangements. Work hard and sweetly pay your taxes, never asking “what for?”

People are starting to ask that question, and real change is coming. And after all this time it’s nice to see that good old uncle Morrissey is coming along for the ride.
Rating: 8/10

Black Metal Album Review: Abhorrence of Light by 13th Moon

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/13th-Moon/553037841387465?sk=timeline

Bandcamp Page: http://13thmoon.bandcamp.com/

Black metal should be dirty, cavernous and angry. It shouldn’t pretend. Put the corpse paint away lads, it’s not needed. You are not playing at being evil. If you want to be evil get a job at the BBC. Everyday one of their presenters gets arrested on child-abuse charges, and today a long time fixture on British television, Rolf Harris, was exposed as a decades spanning paedophile who used the status gained to him through working on television to sexual abuse little girls, for decade, after decade, after decade. That is evil. That is real evil.

Black metal is not evil. It is music, and when done well it taps into something else, not of this realm of consciousness, but something floating in the ether, a parallel dimension, as real as our own, no scratch that, a dimension far more alive and vital than our own dulled prison planet. To me, and this is a subjective thing, it is a realm of otherworldly defiance. It is realm that spits on the paedophile rings at the BBC. It brings into existence realms that will take those smiling charity working paedophile presenters to one side and give them a good bloody kicking. That’s my black metal. That’s what Black metal is to me, so don’t talk about Satanism and corpse paint, and any surface nonsense. Black metal should create something that transcends the everyday bullshit of this reality, and that’s what The Abhorrence of Light by 13th Moon does for me.

I’m not a bloody music reviewer. I’m not even a comic book reviewer, though that’s what I mostly do on my blog. I’m just an unpopular guy who has an opinion about everything, and although most people don’t want to hear it, I put it out there anyway.

My opinion on this black metal album is that it’s bloody good. There are only three proper songs, the other two tracks are atmosphere setting little interludes, a bridge of calm before more black metal fury. These interludes intensify the feeling of the album as a whole though, so don’t confuse them as being an exercise in time wasting, because they’re not. They are the backgrounds that define the whole. They are Dracula’s empty, lonely castle, high on the hills, falling apart, a relic of a bygone time that represents the lost, moribund, out of time character of the Count himself.

The three full tracks have furious blast beat percussion and bass and guitar riffs that are there to soothe you through the passage of angry noise. The vocals are demonic. A man tapping into the other realms, finding inspiration there and spitting it back in your face. There is testosterone and strength there. This is not a defeated soul. This is an angry sound, full of life, passion, blood and thunder.

The best track is the first. ‘The Rite as Sinister as Old’ defines the album. Brutal, it sounds like it was recorded in a cave by a troupe of pumped up, channelling souls who want to rip through the temporal realm that some mistakenly believe is all there is, and wake up the living dead that still insist on watching BBC paedophile facilitating programming like they are a good person, like the BBC is a channel for good people so they must rightfully sit like zombies in front of it as their life force rots away as they are patronised by the latest paedophile presenter employed in the land of the sick.

Get this album if you want to hear anger, passion, creative belligerence and the channelling of other realms through artistic endeavour. Or you can watch Animal Hospital with a soundtrack performed by the Lost Prophets. Who loves evil? Who is evil? Your television mate, it’s your television, not this stuff. This is angry and defiant, the complete antithesis to the real evil emanating from your television sets. Rating: 9/10

Black metal review: Searing Fires and Lucid Visions by Adustum

Website: http://users.telenet.be/teo/xxiii/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/adustumofficial

I have to say a few words about this music, as I’ve been listening to it pretty much non-stop for a month now, blasting out my car speakers as I go through the monotony of day to day routine, navigating through the indifferent masses, as they go to work, pick up the kids, go back to work, do the supermarket shopping, drop off the kids, go back to work, drop off the kids and so on and on, forever and ever in mind numbing, pointless, selfish, apathetic eternity.

You need something with passion when all you are surrounded by is faceless apathy and suburban cowardice and conformity. It’s enough to make you scream, make you want to dive back into the past, a past of passion and tribal identity where you knew who you were, what you were doing, and where you were going to. Not endless consumerism, routine, work to pay the interest repayments, all to private banks, who don’t exist because that’s a ‘conspiracy theory.’

Oh, how sick the world is today and how dumbed down the television numbed masses. The newer generations dumber than the last, spiralling down until there is no knowledge, no wisdom, just selfish career obsession and haircuts.

Where is the passion? Where is the life? There is none where I live, and so I dive into music. But the music is dead. Where is the passion in corporate music that pushes materialism and emptiness to those same masses I pass by in my car, blank faces thinking about work and relationship problems? So boring, so empty, and so I look for music out of the ordinary. Music that transcends the mainstream mind programming emptiness. But how to find it? I don’t know, you just look, and look, and look, and look, and occasionally you find something like this.

Adustum- Searing Fires and Lucid Visions http://adustum.bandcamp.com/album/searing-fires-and-lucid-visions

The entire album is just over 30 minutes long, but that’s all you need. It begins with a cry to the otherwordly, and it already transcends the banal. The drum pumps a beat of blood, and the guitars wail in anger. A guttural, powerful, urgent voice cries out to the daemon it will conjure through the gates of Hell, whether that daemon likes it or not. This is no request; it’s a demand. It’s a cry of life, of red-blooded male passion and testosterone in a world of oestrogen apathy and guilt tripping liberal feminist politically correct tolerance where nobody has an opinion, nobody has a personality, and nobody has any sense of life about them. Oh, we shall offend. This will offend. Turn it up, spray the suburbs red with blood sound noise of life. Click the links, buy it now. Rating: 10/10

The Ways Of Yore, by Burzum: Album Review

Tracklist: 
God from the Machine
The Portal
Heill Odinn
Lady in the Lake
The Coming of Ettins
The Reckoning of Man
Heil Freyja
The Ways of Yore
Ek Fellr (I am falling)
Hall of the Fallen
Autumn Leaves
Emptiness
To Hel and Back again

Released: 2nd June 2014

Website: http://www.burzum.org/eng/news.shtml

Review:

The feminised liberal elite’s who run their banker funded operations through public relations companies, mainstream media outlets, universities, think tanks and NGO’s hate it when you question their orthodox, highly deceptive version of reality. They have a number of ways of dealing with dissent. They start off with ignoring it, and then insist that their views are the consensus, and that the argument is already over. This is what they keep trying to do with the man-made global warming debate. When that doesn’t work they use ridicule and name calling that is designed to label anybody with opposing views as a crazy, tin-foil hate wearing ‘conspiracy theorist’ that shouldn’t be taken seriously. Their next phase of attack is to use their big guns, the four destroyers of all debates. So if you go against their agenda you are either ‘racist,’ ‘sexist,’ ‘homophobic,’ or ‘anti-Semitic.’ Have you noticed that yet? It’s bloody annoying isn’t it? And that’s what they do with the one-man musical project called Burzum.

I can already tell you what other reviews of this album will read like. Most mainstream music commentators will ignore it, and the few metal magazines that do give it a review will start off their reviews by telling their readers not to buy it because it’s 'racist.’ They’ll then go on to say that it’s boring and not as good as the other albums they are reviewing that month. Most of these albums will be praising Satan and growling and screeching about how bad Christianity is. You know that stuff that really upset people in the 1980's? Well, they're pretending that it's still cutting edge and rebellious in 2014. The days of biting a head off a bat are long gone, but you wouldn't know that if you are a regular reader of one of today's politically correct metal magazines.

They’re so rebellious those metal magazines. So evil, so hardcore, so anti-establishment, except, err, actually no, they’re not, at all. Your typical metal magazine is about as anti-authority as a party political broadcast for the Labour/Conservative party, so don’t listen to their corporate nonsense and fake rebellion. They criticise Christianity because they are allowed to, it’s as simple as that. They are stuck on the corporate plantation, and quite happy to even be allowed there.

‘The Ways of Yore,’ is not a ‘black metal’ album, so don’t purchase it if that’s what you want. There are no blast beat drums, no guttural wails, and no screeching guitars and walls of violent, aggressive percussion. This album is by a man who has left such things behind, in his youth, where they rightfully belong. You are not supposed to live your life in a perpetual state of stunted, anguished teenage confusion, anger and misanthropy. Life is about stages of experience, where you learn, grow, develop and change. Varg Vikernes (the man behind Burzum) has made a soothing, relaxing, contented, spiritual, and erudite album that is part hymn to the past, part summoning of the days of yore, and part recognition of the state of balance that we all need to live a fulfilling and contented life.

The album has two standout tracks. The first is the hook laden and catchy ‘Heill Odinn,’ which has a refrain that'll be stuck in your head for weeks after listening to it. The second standout track is ‘The Reckoning of man,’ where a spoken word Varg takes us through what has been lost, but what has also been remembered. It’s a call for a re-evaluation of our past, and if you can get over the deceptive ‘racist’ tag used to stop you looking into these things then it’s something I highly recommend you look into for yourself. Where do you start? I’ll include a link to Varg Vikernes’ YouTube page at the end of this review, as he can explain our current predicament far better than I can.

I found ‘The Ways of Yore’ to be a calm, relaxing, almost hypnotic slice of contemplative, introspective poetry, laden with care for the listener and sprinkled with little nuggets of musical gold that will delight your ears. You need patience to enjoy it, patience and the ability to transcend the corrupt corporate mainstream’s name calling tactics that are designed to stop you from even exploring the areas of genealogical research that people like Varg Vikernes are brave enough to be bringing into the public arena. Putting ideological and political matters aside though, this is a rewarding work of music that will put you in a warm place. There are no screams of torment here. This is music coming from a man who knows exactly who he is, what he is doing and where he wants to be. It’s music from a man with peace of mind and happiness in his heart, and I fully recommend that you get off the corporate reservation and give it an hour or two of your time. Rating: 9/10

The link below is to Varg Vikernes’s YouTube page. Please check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHcro74fYGY