Music: Indian - "Rhetoric of No"

Ready for a little punishment? Indian have set up shop at Relapse Records and are preparing to release their second album on the label, From All Purity. To help whet your appetite, they have released a tune from the release, “Rhetoric of No.” It is a pretty crushing slab of kicking, screaming delight. Snipped from the press release: Hoping to lurch you into a full-blown, noise-strewn, holiday sound orgy, today Chicago blackened doom deviants, INDIAN, offer up a taste of their soon-to-be detonated From All Purity full-length.Recorded at Electrical Audio and Soma Studios in Chicago with engineer/co-producer Sanford Parker (Minsk, Nachtmystium, Yob, Samothrace), From All Purity places the band's notorious audio belligerence in an entirely new dimension with six ear-spearing tracks of harsh, psychologically acerbic hymns of hatred, disease and despair. From All Purity is the true antithesis of easy listening.

Music Review: Rabbits - Lower Forms

I do not think I will ever be amazed by how many bands there are that I know little to nothing about. So many of the bands I have written about only came to my attention because I was writing about them. I would like to saw that I would have come across a few of them had I not started this site so many years ago but I cannot say of that would have happened or not. On the other hand there are bands that I wish I had not come across. Rabbits is one of those bands. Ugh. Listening to them helps me appreciate the pretty things I life.

Music Review: Dragged Into Sunlight - Hatred for Mankind

A lot of people seem to love this album, but if I said I did, I would be lying. I don't think its terrible and it may just be a great album as many seem to think. I think it is a good album, it is one that will definitely get under the skin, but there is something about it that just doesn't click. I cannot say that I care for the sporadic use of sampled audio clips throughout, they just stood out like a sore thumb and ruined the flow.

Music Review: Dukatalon - Saved by Fear

Israeli sludge metal. I can honestly say I did not ever expect to come across something like this. Of course I never really thought about it either. Either way Dukatalon is a surprise, a pleasant one. Frankly, I do not believe I have encountered much music, much less metal music, hailing from Israel or anywhere in the Middle East. It is not a part of the world I expect is a hot bed of metallic activity, but it is there. I know it exists having seen the documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad. I am glad that it exists and perhaps I should pay closer attention to the far reaching metal world. For the moment I will just be happy that this has passed my desk.

Music Review: Cough - Ritual Abuse

Cough. Yes, that is the name of the band, not what my throat is begging me to do right now. Seeing a band name like this makes me wonder if all the good ones have been used. Cough. Really? I guess it doesn't really matter if he music is good, right? In the case of Cough it is good, really good, but I think it will take a certain sensibility to listen to it. It is a genre I have always been intrigued by but have never gotten very deep into. Perhaps I should change that. What genre is it? You can call it doom metal, you can call it sludge metal, just don't ask it to pick up the pace.