Waco Fuck – Record review

Waco Fuck

Paranoia is Total Awareness

Anger is a gift, at least when making music. Some really manic but great recordings have been borne out of huge amounts of frustration and anger. Waco Fuck are one seriously angry sounding band. Spend enough time listening to this and you will realize just how much. The album is called Paranoia is Total Awareness and the record label is some small obscurity called Life’s a Rape. It doesn’t get more disillusioned and furious at the state of the world than this piece of plastic.

Paranoia is Total Awareness consists of twenty-three songs, one full-length album put together with their Slow Decay and No Child Left Behind EP’s from 2006 and 2004 respectively.

The music here is an amalgamation of classic grindcore perfected by stalwarts like Napalm Death and Siege along with destructive old school 80’s hardcore in the vein of Negative Approach and Infest to really let the extremity and fury shine through. To top everything of, Waco Fuck are not averse to throwing in some thrash metal bits that are just tangible enough but also subtle enough not to take over from the main focus of their music. Listen to the breakdown and the guitar shredding in “Narcotic Fuckup” for proof.

Strange as it may sound when this kind of music is described, it is a varied album. It is at least varied enough to keep your attention, which is a vital attribute when you have just unleashed a hardcore album consisting of more than twenty songs, especially since many hardcore combos tend to fall on the listener losing interest halfway. I can sincerely say that in the case of this collection, it did not have a detrimental effect. There is enough to keep my interest going all the way.

Many songs do deal completely in grind or power violence, being full of hyper speed drumming and shrieking vocals but some have slow breakdowns or are more based on a beat that really puts the East Coast influence on display. All of them absolutely destroy.

This is a record that completely fills you with energy. These guys may live this but for us working stiffs it’s enough to hear the violent assault of “Mob Mentality” or “Eulogy” and fantasize about being subversive and protesting and it certainly does a sufficient job in getting the heart jumping.

Buy it and get paranoid.

This is a review that I sent over late last week, to Scenepointblank.

I believe that it was posted on the site yesterday but I was too busy to write a blog post and link to it. I’d never heard of these guys before and to be honest still don’t know much more. They have a Myspace page but it’s not exactly stacked with information, they don’t have a we site and their record label is so small that there is no web site to it either. The music, however is quite fantastic. I love hardcore and punk and these guys play that but mix it up with some grindcore which we all know is descendant from punk anyway. East coast hardcore influences like Battalion of saints, Infest and a bit of classic Siege in the mix makes this a great release. I really wish I could catch Waco Fuck live but, living in the UK and these guys being virtually unknow means that I’ll probably have to wait a considerable amount of time. Maybe next time I visit the Us.

In the meantime, go to Scenepointblank to read the review.

Woven Hand – Ten Stones

Here is a theory that may be disregarded but that seems more plausible the more time is spent thinking about it; Truly good artists, musicians and bands can be recognised by how many people and other artists, from completely opposite spheres of music are their firmest admirer. Truly good artists span genres and can gain followings from the most unexpected of places. This theory came from the following facts: David Eugene Edwards plays dark but mellow rock with distinct folk and classic American overtones and gothic tendencies, is a deeply devout Christian which comes through in his lyrics, among many other places. Yet I have heard of so many rockers and metal lovers, read a few record collector pieces in extreme metal magazines, where his bands have been mentioned, with the fondest of love, by black and death metal musicians with a south-of-heaven type of approach to religion.

This can make you believe that Wovenhand are something special before you have even heard the music. Luckily, upon hearing any of the albums you will find the music very captivating. Edward’s voice also adds emotion. It is, at the same time husky but trembling which makes the music sound even more dark and poignant.

“The beautiful axe” starts of very slow burning before going into more heavy rock territory with pounding drums and an a chorus that even verges on the anthemic. It is a more straight forward rock song and it isn’t until the second track, “Horsetail” that Wovenhand’s folk and traditional influences make themselves known. The stark and bleak lyrical imagery is, on the other hand, present throughout.

Ten Stones is an affecting listen. Listen with the utmost concentration you will almost see a film playing from inside your eyelids. It’s a film where a man sits alone in a dark room, an empty gaze vivid on his face, as he tries to figure out how his life went so horribly wrong. This image is at its strongest point during the heart-rending “Cohawkin Road” and “Iron feather”.

It isn’t an intention to make this sound like a thoroughly depressing experience because it isn’t and Ten Stones certainly does not lack variation. The heavy stomp and rhythm of “White Knuckle Grip” will get pulses raised and suggests that, along with the lounge-like bossanova of “Quiet Night of Quiet Stars” there is a lightness and sense of fun in this band.

No matter what style is purveyed on Ten Stones one thing is always certain; the power of the songs. This is a truly great album. There are only a few months left of the year, before that annual list of the best albums is compiled but here is one recording that will at least make it to the top five.

This was published yesterday on Blogcritics. The album is absolutely amazing, as is probably quite obvious from the review. Check it out on the site and by all means read the comment below. The guy mentions that just because you play extreme metal then it doesn’t mean that you can’t be influenced by artists from vastly different genres, which of course was my point as well. Maybe it isn’t clear enough in the actual review but I suppose that it’s such a normal point of view that it doesn’t need to be mentioned. Hell, I’m in all ways mostly a fan of extreme metal and hardcore yet I find the utmost satisfaction in calm and mellow music and some of my favourite artists play music that is as far away from black/ death metal as you can get.

My point was that many openly satanic musicians are very candidly expressing their admiration for David Eugene Edwards and his bands and he is deeply religious. This may not be so strange to everyone (I find the cultural spanning highly encouraging) but most of the black metal musicians are not exactly known to have an open mind about these things. In hindsight maybe I expressed my self clumsily in the review and it doesn’t come across very clear but it’ll have to be this way for now.

Still and mesmerizing record, mind you.

New review, new site to write for

I have just started writing for a new site; Jersey Beat Magazine. It’s an American site, based in New Jersey, as you already might have guessed, brilliant citizens that you all are.

Anyway, it’s a pretty cool website and it definitely deserves to be checked out. There is some good reading to be done and great bands to discover there. My first review published there is of the new Toxic Holocaust album “An overdose of death” which was rip-roaringly brilliant. I love thrash metal and it was a real pleasure to review this, after the slightly painful experience of having to listen to power metal last week (see previous post).

A few more pieces of writing are to come quite soon, possibly before the end of the week.

Here is the Toxic Holocaust review in all its lifechanging glory. Check it out on Jersey Beat as well and have a browse around the site.

Toxic Holocaust – An Overdose of Death (Relapse)

by Mirza Gazic

There are a few modern thrash metal bands that need to be mentioned when the recent revival of that classic scene is discussed. These bands have undeniably spearheaded the new wave and are at the forefront of it these days. Municipal Waste is on of them. Brazil’s Violator is another group of young musicians taking it to the next level.

Boston’s one man show Toxic Holocaust also belongs in the upper echelon. Young Joel Grind has already earned plenty of underground credibility through his previous two recordings, which were raw and visceral creations. He now has the backing of Relapse records, Jack Endino has produced, and Donny Paycheck from legendary loonies Zeke is playing the drums on An Overdose of Death.

It’s an exhilarating listen from start to finish. “Wild dogs” instantly gets the blood rushing with its fast tempo and solid drive. The barbed wire vocals also add more menace to an album that is already steeped in evil vibes. This is not complicated music but relies on pure energy and riffs that are, for lack of a better word, catchy. This is not meant in a soft, poppy way but simply means that they are instantly memorable and made to be experienced live.

The reason that Toxic Holocaust is so good can be traced to one simple premise; that all good metal has a solid punk backbone. This is unmistakeably thrash metal but the energy and the pace here belongs in old hardcore punk and rock’n roll. “Future shock” and “The lord of the wasteland” are two tunes that even sound more like Motorhead than they themselves have done for the past decade.

An Overdose of Death is a brilliant metal album and shows that thrash is in safe hands for some time to come.