Bl'ast!

Hello,

This is the other half of Tim's brain. The left side. He's been pretty busy lately with work deadlines so he hasn't had much time to think about anything musical. He also is leaving for Seattle tomorrow to be the best man in one of his greatest friends weddings. He will be gone for four days so in the meantime he thought it would be an opportune time to drop a little Bl'ast! on you. He was reading something on Lo-Res Viscera about skateboarding in the 80's and listening to Bl'ast! so he did just that, except the skating took place in his mind. You know those silly right brain types, always fussing with things that arent real, day dreaming, ideas, etc. etc. I am the side of the brain that is more concerned with real things. This writing business isn't for me.

Well, the sonic assault of California's Bl'ast! is pretty real. Theres no doubt about that. A few spins and you will know just how real it is. They say that Bl'ast! was more Black Flag than Black Flag, or the later parts at least, so I hear, but thats a load of conjecture. All I care for is hard facts. And its a hard fact that Bl'ast! rules.

Tim's capricious Right Brain will be floating back this way sometime next week, when hes done partying in Seattle and drawing silly little elephants on surfboards back at the office.

For now, feel the realness.

This has been a message from Tim's Left Brain, Bl'ast! and the letter 'B'


Bl'ast! - The Power Of Expression (1986)


Bl'ast! - It's In My Blood (1987)


PS! - Check out the links on the right. We added some new ones and I even made sure Mr. Right Brain spelled everything correctly. I also made him alphabetize it. Silly guy, what would he do without me?

Barrit 7" (1997)

I dont know much about this band. In fact I didnt even know they had a full length out. I can be pretty disconnected at times and in fact spent much of the time from 1998 - 2004 not even concerned with music. Thats no so important really, other than the resurgence of listening to music and finding new music and hunting down things I used to like added up to me liking music way more than before and eventually starting this blog to share all the musical discoveries that have helped me along in life.

Right about the time I left Vermont to move to NYC is when I acquired this 7". My friend Brendan, always an ultimate resource for all things hardcore and metal, had showed me this and the two songs instantly grabbed me. I threw it on a tape and jammed it in my ride (my awesome 1989 Honda Accord) and probably drove way to fast as a result. I used to make it from NYC to Vermont in record times. "They" always say it takes about 6 hours, give or take, to get from NYC to VT. Fuck that, it should take 5 (give or take) but I used to make that drive in just over 4 hours. I drove like a lunatic for years and subsequently lost my license around 9 years ago. I have never gotten another license. My penance for all the people I most likely scared the shit out of.. Anyway, they were good times. Surely hardcore mustve had something to do with this... and maybe the fact that my father flew jets in the Air Force.

So, I leave school and my favorite tape to listen to in the ride was this one. It was an old tape that had Converge's Halo In A Haystack on one side. That dates the cassette to around 1994 or 1995. Along the way I put the Channel 7" with Fairy Tale on the other side and the Jesuit 7". Sometime later I added a 7" by another New England metallic hardcore band called Corrin and then eventually made it to VT where I added the Barrit 7" you have here and the Execute demo (Super heavy hardcore from VT with the same drummer from Seven Years War).

Needless to say, that tape ruled. In fact, it still rules. I still have it and all of the things on it are nearly impossible to find. Its one of 3 tapes I still own along with Sick of It All's Blood, Sweat and No Tears.

This 7" is great. You will have to listen to it to find out what it is like, though I can say it did fit on that cassette really well alongside those other bands.

If anyone has the LP I would love to hear it as I mustve dropped off the map not long after this 7" graced my life.


EDIT:

So I was looking up some stuff about Barrit and was pleasantly surprised to find a very old Tripod page for Barrit. It turns out they were from Worcester, Mass and existed for maybe 4-5 years tops. I also found the cover to the LP that Dan dropped in the comments. Go check it out, though as Brendan says, I dont think it is as good as the 7". Mainly because of the voice. The vocals are shredded on the 7" and they are far more polished and lower end in the album. I personally love the shredded scream, Carcass style.

Friday Is A Good Day For Grind...

ASSÜCK - MISERY INDEX (1996)




PRESTO? - ODIO PURO CONCENTRADO (2002)




I thought I'd switch things up a bit and give you a double dose on top. Seeing as how A) I missed last weeks crucial death metal post and B) both of these records together are just over 30 minutes long, then it behooves me to drop two whole tons of furious political grindcore on your unsuspecting heads.

Being that Grindcore shares many things in common with Death Metal it doesnt seem too far a stretch that these are served up to you today. In fact, Grindcore is the monogloid inbred cousin of both Death Metal and Hardcore. You all know this.

Lets dig into the goods. Assück. First of all, Umlauts... or just one in this case. Can anyone make the correlation? That's right. Motley Crüe. If the Crüe were to meet up with Assück in an alley, it would be a blood bath, with hair flying everywhere, torn pleather and lipstick smears all over the concrete. Assück can literally liquify the entrails of lesser metal bands.

What sticks out to me about this release is the amount of catchy riffs that exist within the one minute framework of brain blasting grind elegance. Sure they drop the blast beats like Dresden circa 1945, but they lock into some serious grooves that could almost have you genuflecting to the mighty Riff if you werent literally (or metaphorically) stomping every innocent thing in your path. The cookie monster vocals are in full effect for maximum misanthropy with all the intelligible lyrics spouting angry anti-capitalist agendas... When all is said and done a breakdown sounds a million times more powerful when book ended with spastic bursts of hellish noise and thus revolution sounds that much closer to realization.

Presto? are something similar yet also quite different. For the sake of putting two things together for the sheer fun of the image in my mind, Presto? sounds like the bastardized child of Los Crudos and Eyehategod, or maybe some of the doomier Enewetak, seeing as how the longest song on this album is 1:11. They use a far lower end of the spectrum to bludgeon their point right into your head. You may get hives from listening to this record

Zen friend and one time contributor Destroyer dropped this on me a ways back and it is a "go to" for pure grind on grind action. Presto? are a Brazillian band who sing in Portuguese. Despite the language barrier, if this doesnt want to make you overthrow governments, and I mean plural, like, all of them, then youre just not getting it or youre in the wrong building altogether. Presto? drops ridiculous riffs within a 30 second period, going from full on blast beats to awesome punk hardcore and then unleashing an atonal doom riff that makes your spleen pump 12 times more blood. If you made it through Assück then youre adrenaline is already maxed and your heart is straining to put up with the extra stress. By the time you get to Presto? your heart is actually doing a circle pit inside your chest.

The title means Pure Concentrated Hate and that is pretty much what you get here. Its nothing but smiles for these guys as they generously start off the record with dirt caked bass riff that is slowed down. Its a land speed record of grinding atonality from there on out. One amazing highlight is Potencial Pra Nada which starts off like a Crudos song veering into absurd blast beats and choppy breakdowns before shearing off all sense of hope and light with stupendous riff that would make many doom bands want to put down the bong and start writing doomy grind core. There are many of these moments on this record.

Many people know of the mighty Assück. Fewer people know of Presto? I strongly urge you to check out both of them. If you like one then you are guaranteed (a one time Zen and the Art of Face Punching Guarantee!!) to like the other. Listen to them back to back and try not to hurt anyone in the general vicinity.

Also, Happy Birthday to Nick over at Damn Those Bloodsuckers. He posted the other two Assück records, Anticapital and Blindspot, so you should make sure to go get those and wish him a Happy B-day.

That is all. Play nice.

Into Another - s/t (1991)

It may or may not be a surprise that Into Another is one of my most favorite bands. I believe we covered my love for Metal in middle school and how it led me down a path which leaves me here now, sitting in front of this computer, talking about why this or that mean this or that.

My intro to Into Another came at a time when my hardcore education came from ordering everything off the Revelation Records mail order list. Of course Sick of It All already owned my head and it wasnt long after that when I was able to obtain copies of Start Today and Break Down the Walls. So it goes, picture me, young and goofy, sitting on the floor of my bedroom thinking of how best to waste whatever meager pay I earned from the Royal Bookstore, circling just about everything in the catalog that I didnt own already (except for some reason the Slipknot 7" and the Warzone stuff). I ordered Supertouch, Bold, Chain of Strength, the self titled GB, Youth of Today's Disengage EP, and this (Not all at once, mind you). I was unfamiliar with Underdog despite knowing of them, but I knew the name Ritchie Birkenhead from the liner notes to Break Down the Walls, and I knew Drew Thomas as the drummer for Bold. So naturally, despite the strange description, I thought it would be hardcore.

Hardcore this is not. I am not even sure I have the touchstones to bring up when talking about this kind of music. It is clearly metal. And even though I enjoyed my share of Poison and the Crüe and Bon Jovi I cant veritably say that this has any relation to that. I cant even compare this to the heavier metal that I grew to love. In fact, the only touchstone I can think of is remembering my first impression of Overlord and thinking that it sounded like an early Ozzy Osbourne song. Aside from some love for Mr. Crowley and the opening bars of Crazy Train I can take or leave a good portion of his catalog (It's a different story with Black Sabbath. They ruled at what they did). Somehow, some way, this was everything that my 15 yr old brain wanted to hear.

Peter Moses had some of the best guitar style ever. His picture in the booklet was amazing. He looked like Steven Tyler circa Dream On, but he was wailing these awesome guitar lines that were at once glammy, sludgy, dark and brooding. Into Another were an anomaly and the best thing that couldve happened at the time. Not long after I ended up buying Ignaurus and Creepy Eepy and realized that these guys had mad skills. Tony Bono in particular sticks out to me often as his bass playing was amazing. And of course, Ritchie has pipes that can only be compared to the range of Axl Rose or Robert Plant. Dude can bust some notes. Thats all im sayin.

The Castlevania like guitar leads in While I Die, the hokey as hell lyrics in Dare Me (complete with an "Unh!") the sick bass lines in Splinters and the awesome breakdown in As It Were... I could wax poetic about every little nuance in every little song. The only thing that could do this justice is for you to relieve yourself of all pretense and listen. Loudly.

Threadbare 7"

So, I guess it was 1995, and this hardcore girl that I knew, she called herself Hahdcore Girlie or something like that. I dont know, It's on the tape at home. Anyway, she and I met at the Tune Inn and New Haven, CT, but she was from Pleasantville or something... haha!! real spot-on with the facts right now. The point I am attempting to reach is that she and I traded mix-tapes of our hardcore favorites. I believe mine consisted of Unbroken, Mouthpiece, Outspoken (all that New Age stuff ruled) and probably Native Nod and Frail and stuff like that. She gave me a tape that for the most part was good. It got me into Slugfest long after they were gone. It had a xCornerstonex song (which I would love to have that album again) on it which was awesome and various other goodies. Most of it I was familiar with and loved accordingly. Threadbare was the thing that stuck out the most.

Two songs, from a 7" that I instantly went on the hunt for. Two amazing songs. Well as it turned out a friend had bought it. This is the same friend that bought every good record and then sold them all (ahem! Crud is a Cult, Converge - Halo In a Haystack, etc.) He bought this one and of course I was all "where'd you get it!?!". Him: "oh, Trash. They only had one left". I couldve ordered it, but I didnt, I had it on tape, so I waited and ended up never purchasing it. But the songs never left my head. As it turns out, its only one song that never left my head. Ignition.

Ignition is one of the best hardcore songs ever. And personally Threadbare raised the bar so high with this one song that they never ever lived up to it again. I know some people get all saucy over them, but they never did it for me. I just wanted to listen to Ignition over and over, which is what I am doing right now.

The song reminds of Ressurection, but way crunchier and harder. Like Despair with Rob Fish on vocals. Ignition has certain parts that make me want to freak out. It is such a tense song. When he says "Under all these layers of filth, under all these layers of decay, HERE IT IS!!" Wow. I want to do a backflip. "Harvesting Misery, Crack, Cracking!!!!... Cracking the Facade, Ignition. CRACKING!!!!!!"... and then the tension really goes up a few notches as they lay into this darkened section... "Are we really in control, do we really know? I look around and cant help but thinking NOOOOOOOT! Fill the gap in my heart!" The bass work in this part is eerie and wonderful. The rhythm pulses underneath the screams and the low end and then explodes. You think this would be the ultimate end to the story, but they have another thing coming. One of the fiercest breakdowns, with shredded vocals screaming "Cracking the facade! Ignition!".