Winter Solstice Damnation III | Gigs I should have said something about at the time

There’s this thing that I do when I’m at gigs. I’m getting into it, enjoying the show, and then a few songs into a set I take a photo on my phone. I don’t take many photos, mind you, just a couple of quick shots in succession (because I’m not a homicide-inducing wanker who repeatedly blocks your view with a phone when I’m at a gig). A few seconds later, and with the shots finished, I approvingly assure myself that I’m totally going to blog about this night in the near future.

Except, life and all its tiredness and distractions and mundanity get in the way. Before I know it, I’m at another gig, taking more shots, telling myself the same thing. Then life gets in the way yet again. Eventually, I end up with a phone full of gig photos. And as everyone knows, if it’s not on the internet, it didn’t happen, right?

I do this so often that I finally decided to do something about it, so I started a series of posts very imaginatively called Gigs I should have said something about at the time. Mostly it’s me posting photos from a year or six ago or even more. So this time I’m going to post about a very recent gig — in fact, it took place just last Saturday. Hahaha, who am I kidding? That was when I wrote the draft. This was totally a month ago now.

That makes it one of those Gigs I should have said something about at the time — and totally did this time. Well, kind of. That gig was…

Winter Solstice Damnation III at The Tote, June 24, 2017

As the name implies Winter Solstice Damnation is an annual celebration of bands across the spectrum of black, death, blackened thrash, and other assortments of extreme heavy metal sounds lovingly described in terms like dark and putrid and frostbitten.

Held once a year near the Winter Solstice (like, just in case that part wasn’t clear), it draws in a marvellous assortment of local and interstate bands play this style of music.

Before I progress further, I must concede that I did not make it to the venue until quite late in the evening. Remember what I said about life and all its tiredness and distractions and mundanity getting in the way? So, regrettably, I only caught the last three performances.

Dead River Runs Dry

The first of these (the sixth on the bill) was Dead River Runs Dry, out of NSW. My first exposure to Dead River Runs Dry was a year or so earlier, via a rather good track, Skull Of The Wind, on a Terrorizer magazine CD compilation. It’s an excellent starting point from an outfit that plays what (for lack of a better description) might best be referred as something akin to orthodox black metal, with some soaring hooks and epic melodies thrown in.

Kudos also to their vocalist who played the whole set both shirtless and shoeless. As the “Winter Solstice” part of the festival’s name makes clear, this event occurs on the longest and darkest night of the year. This is Melbourne folks — to put things in perspective, I had to don my thick winter gloves just to actually be able to hold my pint in the beer garden. On the other hand, perhaps this was counteracted by the fact that all members of Dead River Runs Dry were blessed with beards? A good volume of facial hair no doubt helps contribute to maintaining core body temperature — and as a bonus, did you know it acts as a passive sun block?

• Dead River Runs Dry Bandcamp

AK-11

Melbourne’s AK-11 were next up — and they must surely get the award for best outfits. Words are likely inadequate to convey the effort that went into the attire and its stark effect, so the grainy still below (original video via CoveOfQueenSalma - check out some nice footage of the event).

Here was fast, nasty, vitriolic black metal that felt like it was played with a dose of snarly punk attitude, except that the name of the game was hatred and misanthropy.

But… those outfits… if I am not mistaken, that was an Austrian pattern, minus sleeves, matched with DIY corpse paint. Incredibly, the cammo pattern and corpse paint, not to mention front-man Valak’s impressive tattoo sleeves, blended in uncannily well.

• AK-11 Bandcamp

 Ignivomous

Finally it was the headliner’s turn: Ignivomous.

How to describe the bleak death metal darkness that is this band? What is the sound of a group that doesn’t even pretend to venture close to this thing that vanilla folks term “accessible”? If extreme music is meant to be unrelenting and merciless and uncompromisingly bleak and overwhelming in every way then Ignivomous tick every box.

Yet in that beer garden, before they got on stage, I witnessed one chap express his sincere joy and appreciation at finally being able to see Ignivomous live.

“I’ve been waiting 10 years to see you guys,” he said. It turns out he was a long-time fan who lived in the sticks so he’d never gotten around to seeing a live Ignivomous show.

From listening in to this conversation I was once more reminded that one should not judge someone’s character based purely on appearances. This chap wasn’t even wearing a black t-shirt — it was white! — yet here was quite possibly the most devout Ignivomous fan in the room.

A few tracks into the band’s barrage — yes, barrage is a term that gets thrown in far too often, but “set” underrated the aural blindness down the front, as I was — it was revealed that this gig would mark 10 years since Ignivomous formed — and that it would also be guitarist Matt’s last official show with the band. To mark the occasion they even dug into the very early demo days.

After, when it was all done, I was reminded that “ignivomous” is a no-longer-used term to describe the act of vomiting fire. If one had to pick a soundtrack to accompany such an indescribably extreme phenomenon, that would likely be it.

• Ignivomous Bandcamp on Nuclear War Now (note, the download and merch page links seem to be temporarily down).

A final word

No, the Tote was not packed to capacity that night, yet the turnout was Aussie-decent, given the prevailing winter conditions. Plus, it was reassuring to see the beer garden less than full during actual performances.

I will never cease to consider myself fortunate — and neither should you — for as long as this phenomenon we call the ‘scene’ continues to exist in Melbourne.

Every other week there is an event that involves usually (but not always) black-clad, usually (but not always) long-haired people getting up on stages and (yes, always) making one hell of a racket as they play dark, nasty, messed up noise.

Whatever the merits of individual bands, it is a privilege to know that the forces of darkness are not going away any time soon.

Hammer Smashed Faith: how underground sharing has changed (and yet remains the same)

Hammer Smashed Faith is a heavy metal compilation showcasing new, unknown, unsigned and unrefined artists. When released mid last year 2015 I promised the person who put it together that I’d write a review. After making said promise, I penned a few words and promptly sat on it until now. So after more than six months I’ve sheepishly come up with something. Sorry Richard.

A free release (more on this later), Hammer Smashed Faith made me think of how much this whole discovering-and-getting-into-new-music thing has changed since I were a lad. For reference, when I were a lad in my case refers to the ’90s onwards, when vinyl remained very uncool, cassette tapes were common, and CDs were always overpriced.

As a bonus for something to do with extreme metal, the font is in fact quite legible.

Blackened Death Records presents Hammer Smashed Faith

With a name like Hammer Smashed Faith (the title is a play on the famous Cannibal Corpse release in case you didn’t know), and with the artwork depicting Satan presiding over a bunch of huddled freaks from Francisco Goya’s famous Witches’ Sabbath painting, you can imagine what the tone on this compilation is. Most artists are unknown, the tracks are rooted in the extreme side of heavy metal, and the sound and production quality is generally demo-grade.

If there’s one thing lacking on this compilation, it’s a refined studio polish. Talent is not absent on many of the tracks here, so much so that I found myself thinking on several tracks how awesome it would sound if only some label put money behind it for a studio, production, sound, etc.

The person behind the Hammer Smashed Faith compilation is one Richards ‘Pope’ Weeks. A busy chap based in the UK, he’s publicly active in at least eight bands: Carnivorous Forest, The Meads Of Asphodel, Redacted, Sea Wolves Of The Atlantic, Ebonillumini, World Controller, The Higher Craft, and Suicide Wraith. He also hosts The Eucharist Assembly podcast, and at the time of writing it wasn’t all long ago that he’d gotten married too (so, that was a good six months ago when I should have published this).

I got to ‘know’ Richard through heavy metal via a mutual friend. Thanks to the internet, I've made this acquaintance, despite the fact that I've never met or spoken to him in person. It came about after I played some Tengger Cavalry (the greatest Mongolian throat singing folk metal band of all time) to a mate who in turn recommended it to Richard who, despite being in a different hemisphere, loved it and played it on his podcast.

Podcasting — the term was ‘invented’ by Apple and should really be called webcasting — is today one of a myriad of bog standard methods of getting to know new music. If you’re an independent artist steeped in extreme heavy metal, why wouldn’t the internet be your primary means of distribution (that is, unless you’re one of those kvlt wankers who makes a one-off run of 37 lo-fi black metal demo cassettes and then complains bitterly when Metal Archives brings unwanted attention to your band after someone creates a page for your one release — see the pic below from Metal Archives for proof that this is in fact an actual thing).

But would you believe, it wasn’t always that way.

Don’t want your heavy metal band to be mentioned on the internet? Here’s a tip. Don’t start a band!

While I might be showing my age, it’s disconcerting for a 30-something like me to come to terms with the fact that the vast majority of under-16s haven’t known any other way of ‘getting’ their music other than through digital.

10 years ago, physical media was still a dominant medium, albeit a sharply declining one. Sure, the writing was definitely drying on the wall, but Spotify and Bandcamp were yet to be founded, the iPhone hadn’t been invented, and YouTube was in its infancy.

The easiest and most appealing option for most people to find and freely listen to new music — if they weren’t willing or were unable to afford a CD — usually involved frequenting suspect illegal file downloading portals, or else, getting a ripped CD-R copy, traditionally accompanied by hastily written, illegible black script in thick permanent marker.

And hasn’t a great deal changed since physical media ceased to be the dominant medium?

Good versus evil in the nascent digital music age

What I find interesting about a compilation like Hammer Smashed Faith is that it’s indicative of just how far The Way Of Doing Things has progressed, yet staunchly does not sway from the same fine traditions that make heavy metal so great.

There’s a noble side to all this freely available digital music distribution, which would you believe, predates the digital age. That tradition is the same ideal that drove people to such great lengths to tape trade back in the ’80s, when heavy metal counter culture was an underground phenomenon that routinely battled for any exposure on popular media.

Heavy metal tape trading very much helped shape death metal and black metal in the ’80s and early ’90s. Look it up if you’re unfamiliar with it because the intercontinental lengths fans would go to just to discover and share new music was simply awesome.

The technology of today means the method and ease of sharing has changed drastically, but the spirit arguably remains. Despite the cynicism that comes with age, I’d like to believe that heavy metal fans today have just as much fire today as they did almost 50 years ago when it all started with Black Sabbath. What drove the passion of tape trading lives on today, with the fundamental difference being that there are now far fewer serious entry barriers.

You’ll find this on Hammer Smashed Faith. Originally envisaged as a freely available release for most of its pre-release life, the response apparently turned out to be so good that it was eventually offered as a physical item too. While the ambitious plan to put out a digipak was shelved on practical grounds, this formerly free-to-download compilation was nonetheless released in a slip case with a four-page colour booklet. Not that such a compilation could possibly hope to make vast sums of money, as the asking price to press, package and release an otherwise free compilation like this would barely cover the costs.

Nonetheless, while I believe everything turned out well in the end, my point is — if seen in purely financial terms — that releasing a free compilation and then carrying the financial risk of pressing a premium physical version is not what usually makes for a strong business case. Indeed, why would one pay anything when it is legitimately available for free? Financial gain was low on the list of motivations for promoting and distributing this because, as I said before, the love of music is at the heart of what makes heavy metal so great.

In this digital age, the discovery of new and amazing music is no longer confined to a community radio announcer’s personal inclination or on some dude from an unpronounceable Latin American city getting back to you after you wrote a letter to an illegible address from the back page of an obscure zine. Simply put, the mechanism has been revolutionised but the spirit and intent of heavy metal remains unchanged.

And yet, just as in the good ol’ days, so too have some of the less savoury aspects also remained unchanged.

There’s always someone, isn't there?

When you’re onto a good thing, there’s inevitably someone spoiling it for the rest of us, right? Someone who feels they can take advantage of it at everyone’s expense?

In the days of tape trading, the thing that kept people honest was an honour system. Those who did not reciprocate a shipment of cassettes would (hopefully) get a bad reputation, which would ideally get them shut out of the tape trading circuit. The honour system relied on transparency and word of mouth or pen at a time where messages travelled no faster than the postal system. Apparently it worked reasonably well, but the nature of the system still meant that new or ignorant traders constantly risked getting snared.

The advent of the digital music age has entirely removed that risk. What has not changed, however, is same mindset that drove people to be arses even 30 years ago. While the villain in the piece has traditionally been the maligned greedy record label (see Motörhead making the point in 1976 on the track Fools — ironically, on a release that was then cynically withheld by the record label for three years), there’s no shortage of lesser charlatans in the rock music game.

It’s a less than ideologically-pure point and it’s something Richards Weeks came across almost weekly ever since he started putting out music like Hammer Smashed Faith on his label, Blackened Death Records.

“Since I started the label I receive at least one email a week asking if I want to be on a free compilation album. All I have to do is pay 70 euros and I’m on it!” he says.

“A lot of bands — and good ones — will be on your comp for free,” he says — in reference to what is at best spam, at worst a scam — “asking obscure musicians for 70 euros to be on Polski Zatanik Virginzlaughter Comp Volume 425.”

And yet it continues to happen. Even with with obscure heavy metal bands who release free compilations that were never intended to profit in the first place.
As I said, many of us are not in it for the money.

So there you have it

The spirit of metal is as alive as it ever was since a young Ozzy Osbourne was heard to declare “what is this that stands before me?” on Friday 13^th 1970 on Black Sabbath’s debut album. His words gave birth to heavy metal as we know it, and for all its glory and fire, with it also came the same marginal cynicism that has afflicted, from the very beginning, this thing we call the music industry.

In the case of Hammer Smashed Faith, a feeble spam attempt is hardly the stuff of the most infamous record label rip-offs of all time. Nonetheless, the scummy practice illustrates how readily any wonderful new medium is misused. Remember what I said about removing entry barriers?
It’s unfortunate and it’s simply not confined to a specific era, for the same rip-off mentality that would try to do a number on you 25 years ago was called out as a bad tape trader.

Fortunately, Polski Zatanik Virginzlaughter Comp Volume 425 is the exception to the rule. There's a great heavy metal spirit out there and, for what it is, Hammer Smashed Faith is a promising compilation that showcases extreme heavy metal artists who are hopefully in the early take-off stage of their glorious trajectory.

To that end, I sincerely mean the following: I imagine Hammer Smashed Faith would have gone far, had it been released on cassette tape 25 years ago through the one true tape trading underground, copied from one cassette generation to another via scratchy, muffled, dubbed tape and accompanied by equally scratchy hand-drawn and photocopied artwork and liner notes.

As stated, I should have published this eight or so months ago. In fact, Hammer Smashed Faith II has since been released. Presumably I’ll get around to writing about it some time in 2022.

 ·         More info: Blackened Death Records presents: Hammer Smashed Faith

 ·         Download: right here

·         Favourite Hammer Smashed Faith tracks:

Ø  Wytchfilth: No Bliss

Ø  A perfect example of a demo track that shows tremendous promise. Dark, twisted black metal with a nasty industrial edge.

Ø  Redacted: Black Shuck

Ø  Way less on the berserk extreme side of the spectrum, but still another track with promise. Melodic, fast and somewhat furious metal with some occasional screetchy vocals.

Ø  Carnivorous Forest: Wendigo Psychosis

Ø  Don’t listen to this track. It will worm right into your brain.

Ø  Ebola Gush: It Itches

Ø  Filthy grind, silly and heavy.

Ø  Squirm: The Evil Dead

Ø  Short, sharp and eminently disgusting death metal with obvious horror movie samples. You get no points for guessing which horror movie by the way.

And did I mention it’s a free heavy metal compilation?

Ulcerate, Denouncement Pyre, Altars | Death metal at the Bendigo Hotel | June 27, 2015

“What are you doing for the weekend?” someone asked? “I’m going to see some wonderfully disgusting, filthy death metal at a wonderfully, disgusting, filthy venue,” I said.

Ok, so the Bendigo Hotel is actually not bad a venue, and is hardly disgusting and filthy. Indeed, if you’re a live rock music kind of person from Melbourne then you may be acquainted with the toilets just down the road at the famous Tote hotel. Now they’re pretty special!

The Bendigo Hotel is one of those venues that is brilliant by virtue of the fact that it puts on gigs and music that most other venues won’t touch, among them a high proportion of Australian death metal, black metal, punk, and rock gigs — music that gets people running and screaming. Plus, it’s got a nice beer garden.

The occasion to visit the Bendigo Hotel was to see an extreme metal band showcase, featuring two Australian death metal outfits (ok, one was technically blackend thrash for the kvlt purists; hands up all two of you), plus some well known gentlemen from New Zealand.

Altars are a local outfit I don’t know much about. I’d call them an underground Australian death metal act, playing thick, heavy and complex extreme music that Morbid Angel lovers may appreciate.

Denouncement Pyre are another Melbourne band, playing a fierce brand of what some like to refer to as blackened thrash. They’re on the Hells Headbangers record label and heavy metal shop and have a thing for playing tight, heavy, blackened death metal.

Ulcerate were the headliner and are arguably New Zealand’s best known extreme metal band right now. They play complex, technical, dark, thick, oppressive death metal; they have time changes and ever-changing murky guitar riffs; they all have short hair; and they’re on the well-known Relapse Records store and label that provides international distribution. Choice bro!

It all looked like it was going to be a good gig. But first, we had to get there! You see, public transport in Melbourne is fundamentally designed to get people into the city and out again. As we soon discovered — or perhaps we should have known better, seeing as we both live there — travelling through the inner city isn’t quite what as easy.

We had the audacity to visit a friend’s house beforehand in Richmond, which took a train and a tram to get there. From there it was another two trams plus an extensive walk through the back streets of Collingwood. We called it the scenic route. In winter. In the dark. That’s pretty metal, right?

Eventually we got there but before I go any further, I should get one or two things off my chest.

Denouncement Pyre at the Bendigo Hotel (pic: Bed)

Australian death metal

I always say — because it’s something I feel very strongly about — that people get way too obsessed about making it known just how rubbish a certain band was they didn’t like. The mere fact that you were there becomes all the more reason to cry even louder about it, even if the performance wasn’t actually that terrible and merely didn’t knock you off your socks. Indeed, if you want to know what real rubbish sounds like, just glance at this week’s iTunes charts or last year’s most streamed music.

I guess that’s my feeble excuse for disclosing that I didn’t see much of the first band, Altars. The tremendous amount of changing trams, the long walk, and the sheer enthralling scenery of the back street of Collingwood had thoroughly worn me out. I did say the Bendigo Hotel had a nice beer garden.

Denouncement Pyre

Denouncement Pyre live was the outfit I was most looking forward to. I could attempt to half-arsedly describe the Denouncement Pyre live set, but you’ve heard similar accounts a million times before, filled with terms like “brutal” and “heavy” and “savage”. It’s far more meaningful if I tell you that one person in our entourage who is not at all into black and death metal — but who still gets out plenty and is into some cool music — made a point of saying how much he liked it. When someone who doesn’t own or wear a bullet belt says how tight your death metal band is, then you’re onto a good thing.

Denouncement Pyre are a band going places – literally. They’re playing Maryland Deathfest 2016. Plus, a cover of Motörhead — Sacrifice near the end was a great way to close proceedings (also, everyone should listen to at least on Motörhead album every day).

My only real complaint was the conduct of one or two punters in the front row. Call me old and cranky, but — now that I’m no longer of that age where I can happily drink and party all night, grab two hours of sleep and still survive a shift at some shitty casual job, and then have enough spark to head out again that night — I’ve also grown noticeably less keen on copping beer showers.

Now, During Denouncement Pyre, there were one or two interesting characters near the front. One chap (not the dude shown below; he was having an awesome time), a rather rough looking gentleman, was clearly and very intensely into the music, which was a good thing. Much rage and blasphemy was evident in him, if the way he invoked the Elder Gods in the sky of the Bendigo Hotel band room ceiling was anything to go by. This too was a good thing.

Not so cool was the fact that all this skyward blaspheming evidently wasn’t enough to appease those dark deities and bring about the desired Apocalyptic Reckoning — those Elder Gods demand more, in this case in the form of a beer sacrifice (maybe he knew that Motörhead track was coming?). 

Denouncement Pyre put on a tight set. This guy (not the Beer Blasphemer) in the front was awesomely getting into the drumming.

Entire volumes could be written (and probably have) on correct behaviour at a heavy metal show, be it a pub, a festival or a squat. That unspoken line that dictates when it’s cool to be thrashing like a maniac and when you’re expected to mind your personal space is a silent code that blow-ins, onlookers and other non-metal types find hard to comprehend. Kind of like when foreigners try to comprehend Aussie rules footy.

For the uninitiated, all that good, friendly, violent fun at a heavy metal gig means learning a whole new etiquette, much of which can only be truly understood by being in the thick of it. And while the Rules of Metal abound with oddities, contradictions, and exceptions, the one thing everyone does agree on — whether you’re making a grim statement on the human condition by misanthropically crossing your arms in the front row, or running laps in a circle pit with 400 other human bumper cars — is this simple rule: don’t be a tool!

Now this gentleman wasn’t doing the right thing by his beer. Appearing somewhat tired and emotional, he had his arm outstretched and his beer at the end of it, swaying about, threatening to spill over at any moment. While there are those who may enjoy dousing themselves in beer, I personally prefer to go home dry. There were at least half a dozen of us and we all stepped back, resulting in a subtle but nonetheless unnatural gap near the front of the stage, a gap that should have been filled with banging heads and thrashing hair.

But here’s the odd thing.

As Beer Blasphemer did his thing there was suddenly some unexpected body contact with a fellow innebriator. It was hardly a collision, nor was it that dramatic, but it was definitely a close meeting of personal space.

Beer Blasphemer slowly raised his head and looked menacingly at the other chap.

“Here we go,” I thought, readying myself to retreat from something that looked like it could blow up — whereupon Beer Blasphemer promptly smothered the guy with a glorious man-hug, a warrior embrace that would make a Norse chieftain proud. It happened several times and they all had a great time.

No violence ensued and the Elder Gods were pleased.

Ulcerate

All this excitement was getting too much for an oldie like me, so once Denouncement Pyre finished we returned to the beer garden. Eventually I got back to the band room to catch the last three or four tracks of Ulcerate’s tar-like brand of complex, technical death metal.

It’s great to see a death metal band obviously enjoying the music they love. They must have worked hard for it throughout their discography and have some notable recognition by being on the well-known Relapse Records heavy metal record label. They took the time and effort to tour Australia, which cannot be cheap when coming from New Zealand.

I especially liked the ferocious vocals, and the rest of Ulcerate were exceedingly precise. It’s the first time I’ve seen a metal drummer — on a kit that must have occupied half the stage — play live with some large headphones, which, I was told later, was a click-track. His look of concentration could have stunned a small child, and the whole setup suggested that this was someone who was highly dedicated to their craft (although I heard at least one comment of “isn’t that cheating?”).

If only there’d been a momentary lull in the applause and cheering between songs. That way everyone could have heard me yell out “Choice bro!” I’d been hanging out all night to say that but all that crowd approval meant no one would get to hear me do it.

So I enjoyed Ulcerate but I concluded that it wasn’t quit my cup of tea, this dark and heavy music meandering a little too much for my liking. There were nonetheless many in the audience who evidently were far more into this brand of New Zealand death metal than I was.

And yes, I still bought Vermis, the fourth album in the Ulcerate discography, for $20, from the death metal merch table.

Ulcerate live. Yeah, I know it's a rubbish photo. Send me a better pic if you've got one.

Ulcerate: Vermis

There’s an old bit of conventional wisdom that says value equates to a dollar a wear. It’s the same with music, particularly if you collect a lot of physical media like I do.

A dollar a listen per track means a $10 album, once listened to 10 times in full, has paid for itself. This formula is great for a $5 CD, since you can probably bring yourself to listen to something at least five times if you want to be absolutely sure it’s not for you.

However, it can be a problem if you invest in a fancy box set that turns out to be disappointing. Imagine, having to listen to a mediocre album 50+ times just to get your money’s worth!

At the time of publication I’d listened to Vermis about six or so times. This means I’ve got another 14 full listens to go before I get proper value from it.

Maybe by then I will have become a full convert and Ulcerate’s death metal will have become my cup of tea?

Vader: Polish death metal available at all good Salvation Army shops

So I found Vader at my local Salvation Army op shop (non-Aussies: an op shop is a thrift store). And by Vader I mean the Impressions In Blood album by Vader, the Polish death metal band that’s been around for decades.

I was furiously stuffing VHS tapes into my bag when I happened to spot this gem from the Vader discography. The Salvos store was doing a “five for a dollar” VHS cassette tape special so naturally I couldn’t resist enriching my personal film collection with quality titles like Bruce Lee Fights Back From The Grave…, famously filmed well after Bruce Lee had well and truly died.

Anyway, this Vader album was behind the front counter, hiding among the fresh summer hits of the ’90s and Irish party jigs compilations normally populating the CD section at Salvos store. It was going for a bargainous $4, so I had to get it.

Vader: Impressions In Blood

The Impressions In Blood death metal album is release number eight for Vader. For those who can tell the difference, it marks something of a stylistic change from the thumping, blast-beat-driven death metal brutality of earlier Vader albums. The vocals are now comprehensible (but they’re not clean vocals by any stretch of the imagination); there are fast bits and there are slow bits; it has some atmospheric synths here and there; and there is even some creepy ‘experimental’ drumming (on the track Field Of Heads) for good measure. It has a bit less to do with death metal than previous efforts like De Profundis or Litany or Revelations. Instead, it borrows heavy duty head-banging riff inspiration from thrash metal.

If you know what kind of subject matter Vader’s lyrics tend to deal with, then you may find it amusing that a Vader album was for sale at a Salvation Army store. If not, then see below.

My copy actually has this cardboard cover on the CD jewel case. So far, nothing too shocking. It looks a bit menacing but then again so does the artwork for Bruce Lee Fights Back From The Grave…

Now here’s the actual Impressions In Blood album artwork.

“Hey, that looks like something from Giger,” said the guy serving me as he went to insert the CD disc. Well… not quite. Where are the biomechanical designs? But he left it at that. Because if he’d seen the album track names and lyrics…

  

... he may have seen that there’s a track called Helleluyah!!! (God Is Dead)! That’s some serious anti-religious, blasphemous death metal right there. The lyrics to the track As Heavens Collide… roll with lines like “Religion, as opium to mankind / Oppressed by myths and lies / All bibles, written by the human race / Institution for the sheeps (sic)” (Polish death metal bands are known more for their mastery of sonic fierceness than for their grasp of English grammar).

For me, the discovery of a Vader CD at this specific location is kind of amusing, given that… WARNING: RANT COMING UP… the Salvation Army is at its core a highly organised and militant religious lobby group backed by an exceptionally slick PR machine.

This isn’t to say that the salvos don’t do a whole lot of essential good for those who are most vulnerable. It’s just that their moral code — derived from an interpretation of documents that predate the invention of electricity or the realisation that the earth is in round — thinks of you as less if you happen to be gay. And by “less” I mean you don’t deserve to live if, for example, you’re a dude who prefers other dudes.

If your dinner-date is nice to you but for no reason is an arsehole to the waiter, then guess what: your date is still an arsehole.

And a charitable organisation that is generous and caring to the most disadvantaged but is intentionally cold and cruel to a selected minority is still cold and cruel.

So I’m glad I didn’t mention anything about those blasphemous lyrics when I purchased Vader’s Impressions In Blood. Had I opened my big mouth, I may not have left the store with such fine new acquisitions. Instead, I may have left with nothing except a copy of Bruce Lee Fights Back From The Grave.

Is this your (stolen) CD collection?

If you’ve visited this blog before then you may have heard the following story. Namely, a few years ago I purchased two 500-CD lots from independent record stores. On both occasions I thought I’d first enrich my music collection and then make a killing on eBay by flogging off those items I didn’t want — but it turns out I didn’t make very much at all by selling CDs for 99 cents each (also, there was a reason why all those CDs were selling so cheap in the first place).
So I promised myself I’d never do it again. I resisted. For a while anyway. Yet despite my best intentions I recently fell foul of temptation a third time, albeit on a smaller scale. This time it wasn’t a lot of CDs from a record store, but someone’s privately owned (and no doubt once highly cherished) heavy metal music collection.

I came across the below just the other day while having a sticky beak into what looked like a recently opened pawn shop. I walked in and sitting right there on the counter, amongst the overpriced audio-recording gear and sporting implements, was what you see here. It was labelled “heavy metal collection” and after a quick flick through I realised this was no ordinary run-of-the-mill heavy metal CD collection. No, this was someone’s classic death metal, black metal, grindcore and Australian heavy metal collection, painstakingly put together, I estimate, from some time in the mid to late 1990s up to the early 2000s. It was packed with classic items, most of which I don’t own, and it was for sale. Right there. On the shop counter.

A treasure? Or someone's stolen treasure.

I asked the pawn shop sellers how much for the lot and after agreeing on a price I picked it up the next day and proudly posted photos of it on Facebook.

I should mention that the pawn shop accepted cash only (“They want to charge me 17 per cent for EFTPOS,” one of them said). Then when I enquired as to how this collection came to be up for sale I was told something along the lines of the original owner passing it on to another family member, or somesuch, who in turn did not want his offspring to be exposed to “that kind of music”.

At the time it seemed like a vaguely plausible explanation, but after sharing photos of my find with my friends I got a little suspicious.

“Might be worth checking some forums to see if anyone had their collection stolen. Kinda odd it’s not been sorted and still in racks!” said one person, adding “I wouldn’t advertise it as some douche will probably try and claim it. But just scan to see?”

“There are pretty good laws in place that second-hand stores have to follow about cataloguing and holding onto things for a set time first. If the owner’s gone to the cops there is a paper trail,” said another. “Hmmm…” I thought.

As a heavy metal lover and passionate collector of CDs, vinyl, and gimmicky merch, I sincerely understand what a collection like this means — or at least meant at some point — to its owner. More to the point, I myself was burgled two or so years ago and while the stolen laptop and DJ CD decks were easily replaced, the bile-inducing anger that is the thought of someone breaking into your house was much harder to forget. Fact is, I would be mortified if I discovered I was in possession of someone’s stolen treasure.

WAS IT STOLEN?

There are a relatively small number of people in Melbourne who love the sort of music found in this collection: death, doom, black, grind and generally more heavy and extreme Aussie metal (Portal anyone?). It’s also quite probable that, if this were a stolen heavy metal music collection, the owner would have vented about it online and sought help.

So I’d be extraordinarily grateful if you could help me establish that it really isn’t stolen. Starting with this question: is this your stolen music collection? I hope it isn’t. Do you know anyone who has had their heavy metal collection stolen? Again, I hope not. But if you do, maybe ask them to have a look here.

Help me make sure it’s legit. And if it is stolen, nothing would make me happier to return it to its rightful owner.

Note: The size of the above photo has been deliberately reduced to make the titles on the CD spines harder to read. I’ve also added several “decoy” CDs — items from my personal collection which had no relationship to the original find. If this is a stolen music collection and the genuine owner can be identified, he or she will know exactly which items *don't* belong here. Sorry folks, but this is to ward off any scammers.

I love gimmicks

There are a couple of reasons why I bought this seven-inch from death metal old schoolers Morbid Angel, but none of them have anything to do with me liking Morbid Angel. I’m hardly a fan and I don’t own any of their albums.

The fact is, I love gimmicks in music, for the same reason that many people hate them. They’re one of the reasons I love industrial music, and by that I mean I love the way a generic electronic composition that’s indistinguishable from thousands like it can instantly become more interesting and noticeable (and in some cases a major dance floor hit) by the simple addition of cleverly placed samples. They’re the icing that makes generic tracks on an album stand out because of that kooky cover track, or the wooden CD case or leather record sleeve.

But neither of these qualities are present in this release. I bought it simply because it has a remix from one of my favourite electronic artists, Combichrist. In this case, a track titled Destructos vs The Earth.

Not their best work apparently.

Now Combichrist is best known for being quite a successful industrial duff artists. As far as the underground sees it, Combichrist is even considered relatively commercial — the Manowar of the industrial scene, I once saw him called.

Personally, I love Combichrist because the music is oh so fun, awesome to dance to, hard hitting — and kinda gimmicky. Keeping in mind of course, because sometimes it’s too easy to forget, that compared to mainstream music that still sells, it’s still considered unlistenable noise…

Anyway, the thing that grabbed me about this release was not the Morbid Angel connection. The album from which this single comes from, Illud Divinum Insanus, was panned when it came out and as I said, I’ve just never been much of a fan. It was the remix of the track and the accompanying fan-made video circulating on the web that first got me, if only because I thought the song was so fantastically awful. It was so bad, I thought, that it couldn’t possibly be a ‘serious’ (even by Combichrist tongue in cheek standards) kind of release. But it was.

In true interwebs fashion, the fan-made junk video was way funnier, better and weirdly accurate — certainly far more than anything a producer with a budget for such a relatively small artist would typically make.

And from there it grew on me. Considerably, in fact, until I ended up ordering it. Even so, the record came with a free Morbid Angel patch which I declined to sew onto my otherwise very full heavy metal battle jacket. I may like gimmicks but I draw the line somewhere and that line is an album like Illud Divinum Insanus.

Remember these things kids?