Mike Oldfield – Discovery (1984)
https://www.discogs.com/Mike-Oldfield-Discovery/release/96973
Mike Oldfield – Discovery (1984)
This was as far as I recall one of the first records by Mike Oldfield I heard, the first song I listened to by him was Moonlight Shadow. And thus Crisis would be the first lp by him I laid ears on.
Discovery (or as a local DJ used to pronounce it: Disco Very (sic)), is not my favourite lp by Oldfield, but not the worst either. Personally I guess my eternal # 1 is Ommadawn. What I think about the songs here are as follows:
SIDE A:
To France: Obviously an attempt to make Moonlight Shadow 2, and not a bad attempt either. I love the way the lyrics weave around the melody, and Maggie Reilly’s voice is sweet as ever. The guitar solos (both acoustic and electric) also works well for me.
Poison Arrows: This has been ruined for me by the Zombies re-make made a few years back. Still an ok song, I imagine it’s a return to the mood Oldfield had when he made Shadow on the Wall. There is some of the same gloomy-ness. The delay/phaser effect on the drums are supercool. Even the faux werewolf howl in the end comes out not too tacky.
Crystal Gazing: Here we are in Family Man territory, again a return to earlier moods and recipies from Gordon Mikefield. This is not the most exciting song. A bit gumpetung, and too repetitive without being hypnotizing (and me likes monotony when done properly).
Tricks of the Light: Is a song I don’t really like.
Discovery: Again a bit of a Shadow on the Wall feel here. I remember liking this song a lot back when the lp came out, but I was a sucker for powerballads then. Not as much now
SIDE B:
Talk About Your Life: I love this song, easily the best song on the record, the vocals are majestic and all comes together in a higher synthesis. It still speaks to me as powerfully as it did in 1984.
Saved by a Bell: A bit of a Disney-banger here. A universe-themed grandiose epic 70’s style rock-ballad. That works!! Much better than the title track. Love it!
The Lake: The final song and the only instrumental on the lp. Starts off with faux pan flutes in delay loop. Urgh, It sucks. Sorry to say, but if I was randomly shuffling through this lp I would never listen to the entire song. And then the progressive stuff comes in. Not good, I really don’t like this. Gumpetungt and uninspired. Western guitar??
My final verdict is that this isn’t Oldfield’s finest hour, but still an ok record to put on once in a while.
Autopsy – Mental Funeral
I quite vividly remember when this lp was released. I already knew Autopsy’s first lp Severed Survival, and liked it. So it was with great enthusiasm I put this lp on my record player. I think it was my friend Morten Lose who bought it and brought it to my tiny flat in Hundegade in Ribe. So there we were, in a house built in 1588, listening to what seemed like a brand new form of death metal. I wasn’t prepared for a sound so filthy and uncompromising. The song Dead is still among my eternal favorites. The song structures are strange and twisted compared to the death metal that preceded it. This is for me still the ultimate soundtrack for a trip to the deepest pits of Hell. Dirty!! DIRTY!!!!
I have lost count of (never had it, really) how many times I’ve listened to this. But it wasn’t until 2003 I got around to buy it, so I could lay my dubbed cassette to rest. At that point I bought it on cd, but hooray! Today I finally got it on lp. And it’s an absolute pleasure to listen to.
The lp: https://www.discogs.com/Autopsy-Mental-Funeral/release/9845487
The cd: https://www.discogs.com/Autopsy-Mental-Funeral/release/739946
Sedem Minút Strachu – General Fucking (2017)
This is a record you want, if you are at all into noisy stuff. Sedem Minút Strachu – or Seven Minutes of Fear – is the shit for me these days.
This 12″ will no doubt be a classic of the genre.
Listen here: https://sedemminutstrachu.bandcamp.com/album/general-fucking-12lp
And buy it here: http://www.atwarwithfalsenoise.com
https://www.discogs.com/Sedem-Minút-Strachu-General-Fucking/release/9679652
Lärm – Straight On View (LP 1986)
Fuck… Where do I even begin… I think I heard about Lärm back in 1987, and bought the lp by mail order from Rock Uglen that same year. Unfortunately the record had suffered in the mail and had cracked from the center to the edge, so I had to record it to cassette before it was totally destroyed. So for many years I lived with a cassette with a noticable crack every time the lp had revolved. I had the iconic cover pinned to my wall.
I think it was through Napalm Death interviews that I learned about Lärm. Their speedy hardcore was hyped by many a band at that time, and since I was heavily into fast bands like Wehrmacht and Cryptic Slaughter I was rather stoked to hear Lärm. And I wasn’t disappointed!
Their fast punk music has followed me throughout the years, first on that shitty cassette, then on the discographic cd Extreme Noise which unfortunately omitted the live tracks from side B of the Straight On View lp.
And now. Finally. 30 years after the release, and 29 years after I received my broken lp in the mail, I have gotten my hands on another copy.
My old band Sardonic Death wrote a song called Terror Lärm in homage to Lärm, and my current band Kusari Gama Kill has released an EP with the same title.
https://www.discogs.com/L%C3%A4rm-Straight-On-View/release/1832030
Deep Purple – Deep Purple (LP, 1969)
I love this record. A lot.
I first heard it sometime around 1988, when my old pal Kenneth gave me a cassette with it on one side. I remember listening to it while lying in bed, and drifting in and out of sleep.
I almost slept when Lalena began, and Rod Evans’ voice startled me, sounding as if he was in the room with me.
I accidentally sold my lp, but have recently repurchased it – this time a 1976 re-issue with a cool German hype sticker on it.
If you aren’t familiar with this gem, you should give yourself the pleasure of listening to it whenever you’re ready to.
https://www.discogs.com/Deep-Purple-Deep-Purple/release/5903490
Sissy Spacek – Disfathom (LP)
Catchy dirty grindcore from Sissy Spacek, I know very little of this band, which serves to prove my ignorance of all things worth knowing. I know I like this record though, and that’s something I guess. Musically I’m reminded of Gridlink, but this is a bit darker and dirtier. The lp comes with a fat wad of xeroxed concert posters and postcards.
https://www.discogs.com/Sissy-Spacek-Disfathom/release/8338909
The Body – No One Deserves Happiness
I first learned of The Body when they released All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood in 2010, I was intrigued but not convinced. This has changed with the release of No One Deserves Happiness. I read this article: 5 Electronic Albums That Taught the Body How to Make Noise-Metal. I took a listen. And one more. And I was hooked. It dawned on me how conservative metal, punk and grindcore has become. If you stray from the formula, you’re scorned and ridiculed. But for fuck’s sake. There is no evil in bringing studio musicians, guest singers and studio wizardry into the creation of your music. Even if you are doing extreme metal/noise. It’s a common belief among metalheads, grindfreaks and punks that they are progressive and open minded, but it is nothing more than a (false) self image.
Now go, have a listen, and let The Body blow your mind!!
https://www.discogs.com/The-Body-No-One-Deserves-Happiness/release/8260496
Cows – Cunning Stunts
I honestly can’t tell how and when I discovered this album. But recently I stumbled upon a Spotify playlist I made with it, and I have listened rather much to it since.
The opening slap and crying child, is a instant attention-getter, and the following 39 minutes is catchy rocky bliss.
I rather quickly decided to obtain this album, and luckily at has just been rereleased, so it was a nobrainer getting it.
I really dig the cover, and I have a very soft spot for extensive liner notes.
https://www.discogs.com/Cows-Cunning-Stunts/release/7986638
I have stolen the images for this blog post from the discogs entry, as I’m writing this away from my own copy of the record.
Iron Maiden – Iron Maiden
Oh how I love this lp. It came out when I was 9 years old, and I had no clue… But when I got turned to on to heavy metal in 1984, Iron Maiden was the very first band I openly admitted to liking (I secretly liked Destruction earlier, but only accepted myself as being a heavy freak after listen to Iron Maiden’s Flash of the Blade from Powerslave in late ’84).
Much debate has gone on through the years about who is the better singer for Iron Maiden – Paul Di’Anno or Bruce Dickinson, I personally have no grudge against either.
I hope you’ll enjoy this, as much as I do.
http://www.discogs.com/Iron-Maiden-Iron-Maiden/release/6191359
Last Days Of Humanity – Putrefaction In Progress
A Divine Proclamtion Of Finishing The Present Existence!!!
This record stands alongside Napalm Death’s Scum and a few others, as a life changing experience for me. Just as I thought I had heard it all, this epileptic seizure came along and pushed my concept of what is possible sonically, to a higher level. I will give the word to the user Noktorn on rateyourmusic.com, as he has summed up all the qualities of this lp far better than I ever could:
“And here… we… go.
If there was anything accessible about previous Last Days Of Humanity releases, it’s been violently stripped away here. This didn’t necessarily ‘invent’ gorenoise; the primordial workings of that style stretch back to the mid-’90s. But this and the new projects of Last Days Of Humanity members after that band’s dissolution absolutely canonized the basic elements of the style: insane speed, insane distortion, and almost nothing replicating actual ‘music’ as we know it. This is Last Days Of Humanity’s masterpiece, and it makes sense that the band broke up after its release; I mean, what the fuck would top this?
When examining this album, you can’t really critique it as you would anything in the typical extreme metal or goregrind field; that’s all piteously mainstream and gentle compared to this beast. What you’re in for is the most violent and extreme material of earlier Last Days Of Humanity taken to a wholly new level. The vocals don’t just roar, they scream from the very gut of Erwin De Groot, and they’d be horrible enough alone, but the band feels the need to process it through every level of pitch-shifting and distortion known to man, putting them out the other side of the mike as something almost unrecognizable as coming from a human throat.
Guitars? Are there guitars here, or just fifty distorted basses all playing something completely different? There’s no memorable riffs here; the distortion is so massive all you hear is a wash of insane, ultra-fast, occasionally undulating noise in the background to the point where the very idea of doing a cover of one of these songs is laughable. The riffs are so fast and probably so technical that they’re not even a melodic instrument anymore. You forget that guitars are supposed to play notes and chords and that sort of thing on this album. And the drums? Well, the drumming performance on this album might be the most extreme I’ve ever heard provided entirely by a human; it sounds completely untriggered and perhaps the most consistently fast and brutal performance I’ve ever heard not supplied by a machine. To say this album is one long blast beat punctuated by fills and the occasional pausing snare hit would be entirely accurate; the very fact that the drummer doesn’t pass out halfway through ‘A Divine Proclamation Of Finishing The Present Existence’ is a testament to human endurance.
You don’t listen to this album as much as you undergo it; the songs are almost randomly structured, with long strings of tremolo riffs and blasting suddenly stopping, two solitary snare hits echoing out of the speakers before the band dives back into the madness, not even giving the listener a chance to collect his or her (but really, his) thoughts before erupting into another insane blast of noise. Despite how crazy and seemingly improvised this music is, you can tell it’s very carefully structured: everything seems to be perfectly on time, the sudden rhythms stops and starts are very precise, with single chiming ride cymbal strikes and suddenly muted chords coming out just too perfectly to be on the fly. Because of this, it might be one of goregrind’s most complex releases; hell, I can barely call it goregrind or gorenoise since this sort of thing really seems more the purview of John Zorn than anyone in a Gut t-shirt.
This is of course barely music; I mean, occasionally a track will come around like ‘The Beauty Of Perfection In Sensible Cruelty’ which seems to hearken back to ‘The Sound Of Rancid Juices Sloshing Around Your Coffin’, but I don’t think that will comfort those bearing all the other tracks, which are nothing more than maelstroms of complete blood-drenched chaos. That being said, there’s clearly a method to the madness; you almost wonder WHY this music is so careful and precise given its nature- I mean, would anyone notice the difference? Perhaps not, but therein lies the genius: the complete nerve and single-mindedness and terrifying certainty it takes to make ‘music’ like this is a representation of what extreme music SHOULD be: wholly uncompromising, entirely insane, and very far beyond anything we’d call ‘human’.”
(from http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/last_days_of_humanity/putrefaction_in_progress/)
http://www.discogs.com/Last-Days-Of-Humanity-Putrefaction-in-Progress/release/6797398
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