Festival Review - Damnation Festival 2017

It's been ages since I've gotten off my arse and gone to a festival - even just a one dayer - so I wanted to take the time to bore you all to the sweet release of death with my opinions on the bands that I caught at this year's Damnation Festival. I would quickly like to note that whilst this is my 8th Damnation-related event, I have had a break from attending for 4 years. In that time the festival has become significantly more popular, which caused some serious issues due to the layout of the festival and the opportunity to see certain bands was significantly reduced due to overcrowding. But, that is my only gripe, and now that is out of the way.

I haven't been to Leeds for ages so it was nice to go up the night before and have a few local brews. On a hipster-related note, I finally got to try Beavertown's Neck Oil on draught, purely by chance (Ratebeer will be hearing about this!) in some shitey indie bar called The Shed. If you like your Wheatus back to back with The Smiths, and your Jack n cokes approximately 8 quid each, then I would recommend this place. Otherwise I would not. On a similar yet slightly more positive note, I would like to shine some light on the Cosmopolitan Hotel, which was brilliant, the Six restaurant on Wellington street, which was also brilliant, and to all of the Uber drivers I encountered on my hazed meanderings across the city throughout the day.

On with the show...

Having a hangover is a pretty bleak way to start a festival but hey, I've only myself to blame. The day starts for me with the "progressive" doom of PALLBEARER (3/5) on the main stage. The sound takes a bit of time to level out properly, but I am struck by how much more lively these American fellows sound in real life. After a few sludgy numbers it is off to the 3rd (or 4th? I don't even know anymore) stage to have a goosey at LENG T'CHE (4/5) who are always worth a watch; their deathly-tinged grindcore is bursting with energy and the performance of their drummer is always astoundingly brilliant. 

What follows is a trip to the 4th (or is it the 3rd? Hah) stage to catch a bit of PSYCHEDELIC WITCHCRAFT (4/5) who remind me of what Blues Pills could have turned into if they hadn't instead morphed into weak, arrogant rockstar dickheads. P.W. are, simply, the perfect band to watch whilst drinking a Brooklyn Scorcher, and really kick the whole 1000% done female-fronted-yet-sound-like-Sabbath thing right up the ass.

MYRKUR (3/5) would have been better suited to one of the smaller stages, but their (edit: her) popularity seems to have soared as of late. Standing at the back of the crowd, I am disengaged from any "magic" that those at the front might be privy to, but it is nice to hear some of the tunes off the M record, which was pretty cool. Unfortunately, it falls a bit flat and the keyboard parts and vocal backups, which are clumsily piped through the PA are far, far too loud (I recall watching Sigh live, who crammed a whole orchestra through the PA to disastrous effect).

DRAGGED INTO SUNLIGHT (4/5) never fail to entertain but the room is so, so fucking full that I literally cannot be bothered to endure the claustrophobic hell that is the Terrorizer stage for longer than a few tracks. I have seen DIS live 7 or 8 times and the quality, consistency and the intensity of their live performances will always remain unquestioned, but this stage can fuck off.

This gives me some chance to grab a breather outside before WARNING (5/5) take the main stage. I've never been the biggest fan of Warning, much preferring the musical stylings of 40 Watt Sun, but I was excited to catch them live, especially due to 40 Watt dropping all of the fuzz. I secure myself a decent spot, and watch the misery roll over me. As a Warning tourist, I hear exactly what it is I come here to see, the title track from "Watching From A Distance" and the crushing "Footprints", both of which are executed perfectly. Patrick Walker is the loveliest man ever to have appeared in a KitKat advert and his between-song banter is charming and humbling. Also, somebody got engaged during the set, which metalheads apparently love to see.

NAILS (?/5) can fester in the claustro-hell that is the Terrorizer stage; fuck that for a laugh. Reports from fellow veterans on the smoking terrace confirmed that attempting to get in to see Nails proved futile. These perplexing powerviolence-turned-Pantera-clones prove to be immensely popular.

I take a massive break from proceedings and spend a couple of hours in Leeds centrum before returning just in the nick of time for SODOM (3/5); I am lucky enough to catch a few of their songs but unlucky enough to watch the last pint pulled from the barrel of porter at the main stage bar and given to the customer served before me in the queue. C'est la vie.

I decide to leave early to get a good space for AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED (5/5) who are easily the band of the day, even though I may be slightly biased in this regard. At first there are some worrying developments with the band's drum machine amp stack, which does not seem to be outputting any bass (the horror!), but this is nipped in the bud before the band rip into a chaotic intro of "Engineering a Pill Frenzy" / "Bitch's Handbag Full of Money". The set is very much the same as the last time I saw them, which would have been in the Netherlands Death Fest of 2016, with the exception of the notable addition of "Not A Daughter", the lead track off the latest EP, Arc. Songs off the more obscure EPs and splits, such as "Anti-Christian" and "Self Detonate" seem to get a slightly less rabid crowd reaction, but I for one are more than happy with ANb really getting stuck into their discography. Another notable mention would be the treat that was the extended live version of "Mosquito Holding Human Cattle Prod".

On that high note, I shared some drinks with friends before Ubering back to my furnace of a hotel, waking up in the morning to find that Leeds had shut down for the day due to some fucking marathon, or some shit. We headed home via a detour to Manchester for dinner at Refuge, because I'm a trendy hipster fuck like that. Got to get a pint of Gamma Ray on tap, though, so it was well worth the journey.

Cheers for reading! Normal posting resumes tomorrow.

Next up on the festival radar: Dreadfest 2017 and Obscene Extreme 20th Anniversary.

A brief PS: One of the only thing that pains me about the fact that ANb are now doing live shows is that Randall does not perform live with them. Seeing Kat and Rich, who are both phenomenal vocalists, performs his parts and lyrics is pretty cool for an ANB nerd, but I can't help but feel the nihilistic heart of the band is missing. So, to cap off, here's "Self Detonate" with the original vocals by Randall. 

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Honky Reduction

This has to be the benchmark to which all drum machine grindcore is judged. ANb's first full length record is far cry from anything that has followed it (even the lightening fast pharmaceutical headfuck of Frozen Corpse... is a million miles away from this); the production is bassy, fat and bludgeoning, the guitars almost sludgy, and the shrieked, yelped vocals are almost drowned out by the cacophony of the strings and machine. And that harsh noise at the end... Jesus fuck, that's some moody shit which truly encompasses the meaning of the words "power electronics".

Can't really say much more other than just point out a few of my favourite tracks, "Die And Get The Fuck Out Of The Way", "Vexed", "Hat Full Of Shit".... the list, she goes on! Essential! 

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Arc

(Words by Gumpy, Doomfinder General)

Agoraphobic Nosebleed return faster than ever, this time managing to squeeze 27 songs into only 3 minutes.... Wait a second, there's only 3 songs and one of them is 12 minutes long? It's a sludge album? What the hell is going on?

Shit talking aside there is a very good reason for this drastic change in direction; instead of just making another album, Agoraphobic Nosebleed decided to make 4 because... why not? Each one is being written by a different member of the band, and the first of these - Arc - is Katherine Katz's one. However how does it hold up? Agoraphobic Nosebleed may have dabbled with slow in the past but they are predominantly a fast-as-absolute-fuck band.

It's amazing, of course it's amazing. Agoraphobic Nosebleed could make a power metal album and it would still kick the shit out of every other power metal album (that's not a challenge by the way).  Kat's vocals, which if I'm being honest I thought were a bit off on Agorapocalypse, are perfect here. The slower pace gives them a bit more room to breathe and they sound better for it. There are massive riffs flying about everywhere, and the programmed drums sound meaty and must have some sludge drummers worried about their jobs. It might not be Agoraphobic Nosebleed as we know it, but when the music is this good who cares? (I still want more weird ultra fast grind, though.)

Japanese Torture Comedy Hour - Dolphin Meat

Japanese Torture Comedy Hour was a noise project that revolved around Scott Hull, J Randall and other related musicians, and eventually became a solo project for Randall in it's own right. Dolphin Meat is an hour-long improvised live performance (entitled "日本の拷問コメディアワー - EP#62") created entirely out of feedback loops and recorded to VHS tape (because, fuck it, why not?). I tried doing something similar about five or six years ago; bleeding feedback from mic to speaker in an infinite loop in an attempt to create effortless, endless manipulatable distortion, but I failed catastrophically, so there's a little bit of respect here to Randall for getting all of this out of a simple feedback loop (I just suck at noise, really).

All things considered however, I guess this falls more under the power electronics umbrella and isn't at all that harsh - for a bunch of batshit crazy improvised feedback loops it's actually quite listenable. You can stream the entire thing at Randall's label page Grindcore Karaoke, or even download it if noise is yer thing, like.

Agoraphobic Nosebleed / Halo - Split 7"

I think this is probably the hardest thing in the ANb discography to get a hold of. Sure, the Insect Warfare split and the Converge split can fetch rather hefty prices, and Tentacles of Destruction is fairly limited, but for sheer difficulty in regards to unoptainability (is that even a word? *edit - no, it's not), the split EP with Halo currently holds the crown (seeing as I don't have all the ANb shit yet, I won't say for definite, but I'd be surprised if anything else is more difficult to obtain).

The three original ANb tunes are from the Altered States era (they have that sound/feel, at least), and they are the typical old-school ANb stock of uber-fast drum-machine grindcore punishment. What I didn't see coming however, was the Slayer cover that takes up most of their side. "The Antichrist" definitely sounds a lot better with Richard Johnson on vocals, but I was never the biggest fan of Slayer, so I could take or leave this cover version.

Halo are the polar-opposites to ANb, in the speed stakes, at least. Deathly slow drumming and horrendous guitar feedback and low-end vibes make up the main "songs", where sparse but abrasive vocals howl over the top of it all, creating a rather unsettling yet interesting listen. Despite it's snail-like pace, the track doesn't last that long and I am left contemplating whether to search for more Halo material or not...

This was released on Relapse Records a while ago now, and was part of some subscription series. That's probably why it is so bloody difficult to come by. I'm glad I've finally gotten a hold of it though, as it goes towards the inevitable completion of my ANb collection, and it also contains ANb material that isn't available anywhere else, as far as I can tell.

Trivia - did any of you eagle-eyed ANb fans notice that track one is titled "Street Magician" on the cover but the same track is named "Ghetto Wizard" on the inner sleeve? 

Agoraphobic Nosebleed / Apartment 213 - Split 12"

Apartment 213 are fantastic, muddy as hell powerviolence-fused grindcore. This is all well and good, but they are annihilated here by the material on the ANb side. We all know splits aren't competitions, but sometimes one band will just totally outweigh the other. Sorry guys! It is with a small irony then that Apartment 213's vocalist guests on all the songs on the ANb side.

 

The Agoraphobic stuff here is unlike anything else in their catalogue. From what I can tell, the sound seems to be stripped down to just bass and drum machines? I'm not entirely sure if Hull's guitars are tuned excessively low or it is just basses in use here, but shit, it sounds amazing! Enough fuzz and groove to give Om a wake up call, and enough heaviness to compare with Filth-era Swans; this is bass music at it's finest! The only ANb long-timer to appear here is Randall, performing (as usual) with an enormous amount of venom. Coupled with Steve 213's powerviolence grunts, the songs on offer here really are as angry as you can get.

 

I love all the songs, but "Unwelcome Remarks" is probably my favourite out of the three, containing some of the greatest ANb lyrics ever; "I've never known a cokehead to forget a line", "I'd rather piss on my own hand than shake yours" and "Simon says 'watch your fucking mouth around the other fucking adults'" all of which sound a bit unusual when isolated but make up one of the angriest songs ever made. Holy shit! Out on Relapse Records

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Pig Destroyer / Isis - Split 7"

This is one my favourite splits ever! Limited to 2000 copies thanks to Relapse Records. There is the usual Relapse 100 clear, 100 on orange, a bizarre 50 on white, and the remaining 1750 on black. I was lucky to get a black copy at a fairly decent price, but be wary that the white and orange pressings can fetch hefty price tags on record collector websites.

 

Classic Pig Destroyer are on top form, covering the goregrind legend that is (or was) Carcass. There is simply not a better version of "Genital Grinder / Regurgitation of Giblets" in existence. "Exhume to Consume" leaves a bit to be desired vocal-wise, but for the most part is an ultra-tight, lightening-fast zip through a classic track from the genre.

 

Isis on the other hand, opt for something a lot more slow and dirgy. With Agoraphobic Nosebleed's Jay Randall in tow they sucessfully create their own very unique version of the legendary Godflesh song "Streetcleaner". Not as sprawling in production as the original, but is almost suffocating with claustrophobia.

Agoraphobic Nosebleed / Armegeddon Nuclear System - Split 5"

To celebrate the recent "fixing" of my record player so that it now plays records smaller than 6", here is another 5" review! Where can one possibly go wrong with a 5" full of Gang Green covers? ANb's cover of "Alcohol" is punchy and bouncy, and is virtually flawless with Randall back on the mic. That'll do Hull, that'll do. I am unfamiliar at this point with Armageddon Nuclear System (more commonly known as ANS) but they do a damn fine version of "Let's Drink Some Beer", and also contribute a short original song to the proceedings, which is a bit odd but I'm cool with. Out on a smorgasbord of colours thanks to Tank Crimes.

 

 

Stream the whole thing below.

Scott Hull - Audiofilm I

After the incredible journey that was Requiem, I was terribly disappointed with the first Audiofilm installment. When I finally got over the fact that this 3" CD wasn't going to be more of the same of what was displayed on Scott's debut, I gave it another chance and now I really like it. I can't really say much about it as it's fairly short and entirely atmospheric, so you'll have to hear it for yourself to form an opinion on it. My words can't really do much here, although I will say that I am now hunting for a copy of Audiofilm II. This was put out on Crucial Blast and limited to 1000 copies, so check out the link below and pick this up now!

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Altered States of America

I remember back in the day when I first heard of this album. I remember how ridiculously excited I was to hear something so musically challenging. 100 songs? Less than 20 minutes? Bitch please, you must be trippin'! And trippin' I was when I first got this record in it's original 3" CD package from some crazy-mainstream outlet like Virgin Megastore or Zavvi (I forget which). I now own this testament to insanity three times; on the original 3" CD, the double shaped/blank CD package featuring ANbRX II (which is a fuckton of Delta Nine remixes) and on white 10" vinyl. All pressed by Relapse, of course. The vinyl version conveniently plays track 0 for you right at the start, which was always a nightmare to hear on the CD version because you had to rewind from 00:00 as soon as the first song started. If you wound back too far it'd just fucking cut out, which was a pain in the ass. Agorapocalypse also has this cool but rather annoying gimmick with it's first track too.

 

 

When I first heard this at 15 years old I expected 100 micro-grind blasts to the face and was initially disappointed with the electronic passages. I felt like I was being robbed of precious grindcore, ha ha! Although I still think it's a bit shit that the electronics are cut up into little pieces and passed off as songs, I have grown to like these just as much as the grind on display here. Some of the samples here are absolutely timeless when blended with such harsh noise (there is a lot taken from the film Holy Mountain). I always thought that the 12 Days of Sodom section in the middle of the record would be excellent as an EP in it's own right, as something crazy like a 4" or something.

 

Which CD is cooler, the original pressing or the reissue?

The CD reissue comes with this nifty remix disc by Delta Nine. 

So yeah, I'll go ahead and cut this off now before I ramble for seven thousand paragraphs about every single micro-song on this record. I've kinda fizzled myself out on grind these days but Agoraphobic Nosebleed remain one of my favourite bands of all time and this record stands in the halls of awesome grind as proof that such sonically mindfucking music can exist. 

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Agoraphobic Nosebleed

 

Some of my most favourite ANb stuff ever! What a mess! There are like 28 songs on this 7", all of them micro-blasts of pure grinding hell. For those of you that have Bestial Machinery, these tracks are on disc 2, so you've probably heard them before. I can waffle on about like I can with any other ANb release but this really just has to be heard. It's been out since 1996 on Bovine Records and it's still essential today. If you're into grind you've more than likely heard this once but if not; get it down you, boyo!

 

There is no link to this on Youtube, however they do have disc 2 of Bestial Machinery uploaded. If you can figure out when track 25 starts (hahaha) then you can listen to the demo from there. It's worth a go? ;)

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Merry Crystmeth

Welcome to part 2 of my Christmas Day double post! Not sure how many of you will actually be reading this on Christmas but I hope the festivities have progressed satisfactorily for you all. I for one will be no doubt smashed off my face by now on my parent's free beer. Can't beat the Christmas visit!

This year's Decibel Christmas flexi is a follow up to last years cracking ANb EP, A Joyful Noise. This year however, the full modern ANb crew are utilized, sadly pushing Mr. Randall into the background again. Luckily then, the song is as fucking heavy as a protein rich turkey shitlog you can't quite squeeze out on Boxing Day. It seems a long time since I've heard the beautiful screeching demon Katherine Katz, and her throat-shredding, tonsil-raping cries are a welcoming sound. A Joyful Noise grinded and blasted, but Merry Crystmeth chugs and clanks like a motherfucker. It's a lethally angry song, pushed forward by Rich Johnson's (and to a lesser extent Randall's) livid vocals.

Merry Crystmeth falls firmly back into the territory that a lot of old ANb fans dislike, but I for one (and I'm sure a lot of others, too) absolutely love this white piece of wax that has the consistency of cling film. Imported from Californ-i-a by the legendary Gumpytron 6000.

Merry Christmas, you fucks!

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - A Joyful Noise

Ho ho ho! Merry fucking Christmas! Hope your having a good one and that plenty of turkey and grog is consumed. In line with the festivities, I have planned a double post for today, showcasing both the Agoraphobic Nosebleed flexis put out by Decibel magazine. I'll start with my favorite - the former of the two; last year's A Joyful Noise on square transparent red. These flexis are an absolute bastard to get in the UK at a decent price, and I thank eternally my long-haul loving friend Gumpy for bringing me back a set from California. Your an absolute legend!

I always defend "new" Agoraphobic Nosebleed from the viscous attacks of old school grinders but then when ANb come out with something like this it does make me think; "shit, why can't we just go back to this all the time?". A Joyful Noise was an epic Christmas 2011 gift to the more demanding grind fans, with Scott Hull stripping ANb back to the microblast carnage of old; a simple recipe of harsh noise and fast as fuck drum machine grindcore, with longtime and not-currently-used-enough vocalist/mastermind J. Randall snarling all over the top of it like a deranged lunatic.

A treat for us fans of old ANb, but it really does make you think that it should be this way all of the time! Ha ha (No offence to the excellent Kat and Rich Johnson of course, I'm just pining for more fuckin' crazy digigrind)

Anyways, here is the whole thing streaming. Blast it and have a great day. Don't say I don't give you anything. 

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - PCP Torpedo 6"

This here really needs no introduction, but I'm gonna stick with the layout of the blog and give it one anyway! This is the legendary PCP Torpedo by Agoraphobic Nosebleed, released in 1998 on Hydra Head Records. This is one of the "clear" black / red mixed coloured discs limited to 541 copies. Other pressings include 490 pressed on a red / orange mix and 1100 on plain black. The test pressings (limited to 5) were bizarrely pressed on 7", not 6". You can see photos of that over on Discogs.

I once read Agoraphobic Nosebleed described as a "snarling, digital nightmare", and when that may be true in many, many ways, that description lends itself to this release perfectly. I was introduced to PCP Torpedo through the (just as epic) CD reissue, that my 17-year-old self thought was a new Agoraphobic Nosebleed album. I rushed out to the nearest city and scooped up a copy at HMV, and when I found out it was six minutes long I nearly blew a fucking gasket.

But honestly, it doesn't need to be any longer (also with the reissue CD the remixes make up for it). It's a blistering fuck of a 45, and can be fully appreciated more in it's original form. When I began seriously collecting records this was one of the first I hunted down. I know I'm continually brown-nosing ANb on this blog but this must be heard, it's still vital grind in today's music world. Get to it!