Released almost exactly a year to the day from the Coronavirus outbreak being officially declared a global pandemic, Louisiana sludge merchants Eyehategod take the last twelve painful months and turn them into a forty-minute outburst of depressive rage and explosive nihilistic aggression.Continue reading
SoCal Hardcore Supergroup Dead Cross featuring Dave Lombardo (Slayer, Suicidal Tendencies, Misfits), Mike Patton (Faith No More, Tomahawk), Justin Pearson (The Locust, Retox), and Michael Crain (Retox, Festival Of Dead Deer), has shared a new video for “Skin Of A Redneck”. The track is taken from their self-titled EP, which was released in 2018 via Ipecac Recordings. Watch it below. The band previously released a cover of Black Flag’s “Rise Above” in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement last summer. The band is said to be working in new music for a release soon. Continue reading
Dead Cross (Faith No More, ex Slayer, The Locust, Retox members) has been working on a new album for release at some point in 2020, but today they shared a cover as a new single. Black Flag’s searing ‘Rise Above’ has been covered by the band in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. The band shared a video and a mission statement for the track you can see here.
Dead Cross – Rise Above (Black Flag cover) created in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and staunchly opposing police brutality and systemic racism. As such, the track opens with a recording of a Los Angeles resident voicing his displeasure with the LAPD during a public comment period from a regularly scheduled LA police commission meeting.
The video for “Rise Above” was edited by Displaced/Replaced. Filmed by Dave Lombardo, The Lonely Rager, and Becky DiGiglio. Track mixed by Jim Goodwin.
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Returning from an extended self-imposed hiatus, My Ruin celebrated Valentine’s Day by releasing a new covers album Rock Love & Red Lipstick. Released as a free download on Bandcamp, the covers range from Black Flag, PJ Harvey, Eric B and Rakim, KISS, Plasmatics, Van Halen, AC/DC, Soft Cell, Frank Sinatra, and many more. My Ruin went on hiatus when it’s main conspirators Tairrie B (Manhole, Tura Satana), and Mick Murphy (Heavy Seventies, Chevy Metal, Teenage Timekillers) moved from Los Angeles to Nashville. My Ruin’s last release was 2012’s The Sacred Mood. Tairrie has been busy of late releasing her out of print albums with other bands to Bandcamp, writing her highly-anticipated memoirs, and pursuing future musical projects, photography and video directing. Watch the Tairrie directed video for their cover of ‘My Way’.
Punk, a new documentary series made its debut on the EPIX channel tonight. Produced by Iggy Pop and designer and music mogul John Varvatos, Punk is a four-part series that explores the birth of Punk Rock. A huge assemblage of stars has come together including Pop, Varvatos, John Lydon (Sex Pistols, Public Image Ltd), Henry Rollins (Black Flag), Marky Ramone (Ramones), Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters/Nirvana), Duff McKagan (Guns n’ Roses), Donita Sparks (L7),director Penelope Spheeris (The Decline of Western Civilization), Joan Jett, Danny Fields, Legs McNeil, Wayne County, Keith Morris (Black Flag/Circle Jerks/OFF), Debbie Harry and Chris Stein (Blondie), Wayne County, Flea and many more. It may become a recurring series since the listing on EPIX refers to it as “Season 1”. You can watch the trailer below and click the link to sign up for a free trial to watch episode 1 on your phone on the EPIX NOW app or mobile device if your cable provider doesn’t feature the channel. Continue reading
There was once a fabled war between Punk and Metal. It seems hard to believe today with the two being so often deeply entrenched both musically and ideologically these days, but alleged reports of intense violence at cross-genre shows are a thing of legend. A sort of peace deal was brokered with the advent of Crossover Thrash, Grindcore and Hardcore, particularly the Metallic Hardcore subgenre. It’s here in the grey area of what is Punk and what is Metal we find Endorphins Lost, a Hardcore/Powerviolence outfit straight out of the Pacific Northwest with Seclusions (From The Head Of Zeus).Continue reading
Not even a whole year after the release of their debut self-titled album, the extreme metal mob, Bitch Hawk are back at it again with their latest full release Joy (Adrian Recordings). The short time span has no effect on the quality of the music whatsoever. With a diverse range of musical backgrounds in the band, from Ska bands to writing for Charli XCX, this mixed bag of influences and sounds come together to create this unforgettable album.Continue reading
How do you put to bed any doubts about your band? Come hurtling out the traps with an opener as neck-snappingly, riff-chunkingly awesome as ‘Gatekeeper’, and follow it up with a slew of hits steeped in the ultimate Black’s (Flag and Sabbath).Continue reading
Iced Earth recently announced a new North American headlining tour with Sanctuary and Kill Ritual, and to help get fans more excited for those upcoming dates, they’ve released a brand new video off of Incorruptible. Continue reading
After the death of Ministry bandmate Mike Scaccia in 2012, the band’s frontman and former walking heroin and alcohol repository Al Jourgensen came to the decision that, after one last release, it was time he retired the Ministry name from active recording duty, keeping the band alive solely as a touring entity.
So, after the release of final studio album ‘From Beer To Eternity’ (AFM, 13th Planet), and with the aid of engineer Sam D’Ambruoso, work began on a brand new project. The eponymously titled début, Surgical Meth Machine’(Nuclear Blast) is the result, and anyone foolish enough to wonder if age or recent events might possibly have led to Uncle Al calming down or mellowing out is going to be in for quite a rude awakening.
Listening to Surgical Meth Machine is like having an aggressive, urine-soaked vagrant grabbing you by the collar and shrieking random shards of broken-toothed, spittle-flecked abuse into your face through cracked, vomit encrusted lips for forty horrifyingly disorienting minutes.
The ranting begins with ‘I’m Sensitive’, which, after a sarcastic opening monologue, bursts into life with all the actual sensitivity of a breeze block as Al screams ‘I DON’T FUCKING CARE!!’ at the top of his lungs. The jagged tirades continue with the Ministry-esque ‘Tragic Alert’ which climaxes with some stupidly fast electronic beats, and things continue in the same vein with ‘I Want More’ as the drum machine really starts to panic.
More bile is spewed as Jourgensen demands ‘Rich People Problems”, and although he clearly doesn’t need any help getting his feelings across, he enlists the help of an equally irritated Jello Biafra on ‘I Don’t Wanna’. “Blah blah blah blah blah!” barks Al on ‘Smash and Grab’ and by now, you really want him to leave you alone.
Things get seriously demented with the aptly titled ‘Unlistenable’ as the poor drum machine finally suffers a complete nervous breakdown and goes to sit in the corner and cry before the boisterous punk of ‘Gates of Steel’ bounces its way into the room like Andrew WK covering Black Flag‘s ‘TV Party’.
Things taper off sharply with ‘Spudnik’ and ‘Just Go Home’, all widdly guitars, drum machines and samples, but with all the impact of a rambling alcoholic losing his way halfway through a sentence. ‘I’m Invisible’ rounds things off. A very different, trippy, but strangely compelling track which sounds like a 3am drive with Timothy Leary and Hunter S Thompson.
With both feet still planted firmly in Ministry territory, Jourgensen shows no real interest in wanting to change or update his sound. If you enjoyed his particular brand of fast, obnoxious, Industrial noise before, then the chances are that this will float your boat just as much. If you want growth or innovation, then you’re probably going to be disappointed. But something tells me Uncle Al doesn’t give one single, solitary fuck about that.
7.0/10
GARY ALCOCK
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