Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses

Now here's something I have listened the absolute fucking death out of during the last few months. I've always been a casual Type O Negative fan but I've always put off buying their albums, because I'm lazy as fuck like that. Anyways, I stumbled upon a free copy of this when I worked clearing out unwanted crap from charity shops, and for the next couple of hours in the van I became baptised in the awesome world of Type O Negative. Man, why didn't anyone tell me about this shit before? Mix equal parts doom metal and hardcore punk with hammy keyboards, then dress the whole thing up to take the piss out of a subculture that takes itself far too seriously, and bam - you've got the perfect recipe! 

The opening tracks (20 minutes on their own) "Christian Woman" and "Black No. 1" are stone-cold goth metal classics. Taking the piss or no, Pete Steele & Chums churned out more promise and epicness in two fucking tracks than in the entire discographies of Sisters Of Mercy and HIM combined. "Kill All The White People" marries hardcore punk and Sabbath-worship riffage in a puzzling yet amazing duality. "Summer Breeze" sounds as the title promises, and "We Hate Everyone" pulverises the listener with more hardcore punk-influenced terror before the sheer epic of "Bloody Kisses" kicks in. Nearly 11 minutes long, the title track is a mammoth depressing beast. Shit sends fucking shivers up my spine, yo - especially during the piano solo (hahaha). Joking or otherwise, it's a seriously heavy track and boasts a fucking wicked chorus. "Too Late: Frozen" is another favourite of mine, starting off fast as fuck and slowing down to a doomy pace for the remainder.

I'd absolutely love to see these play live, but I'll never get that chance as Pete Steele sadly died before I developed any real respect for the band. I consider this album to be an absolute staple in my list of legendary metal records. I have only shame and regret for not discovering this total gem of a band any sooner. They have fecking stacks of good songs, but none of the albums live up to the sheer back-to-back quality of tracks on Bloody Kisses, which might just be the definitive goth-related record for me. 

Crank this up and crack out the black nail polish.

Small Fortunes - Say What You See

Ho ho! Now this is something that I have watched grow from a silly one-minute-something demo into a full-blown project of epic proportions. Introducing my good ol' pal Gareth B, whom is a fellow band-mate with me in Merthyr Tydfilian based rap metal (yes!) group Start! Start!. Mr. B is always grooving our tunes up with his mad bass skills, but he doesn't get much chance to shine on the mic. That's where Small Fortunes comes in; Gareth B shows us his unique view on the world with this swanky and professional-as-fuck four track EP.

 

Lamenting us through the medium of auto-tune like some bastard lovechild of Ke$ha and Nate Dogg, Small Fortunes takes us into four real life scenarios told through the exciting method of songwriting. "Baldman Beatdown" tells us how Mr. B mashed up a cider-swilling lout at his local bar, "Mr. Sunday Night" is the hilarious tale of a bloke that he met in the local chippy who didn't know what day it was, "Crows Nest" is a backlash reaction to some over-enthusiastic music critic, and "A Birthday To Remember" shares the toilet-rattling tale of getting the shits after his birthday meal. I was present for that one, and boy it was ugly!

Despite the enormously sexy artwork, this EP is burned onto CDr, although you'd never guess because Gareth B has put so much love into this little package. The CDrs are styled like lil' 5" vinyls, which is right up my street, and the production on the songs by Downtown Studios' Uncle Richard is very polished and modern. The cartoony artwork by Lauren Orrells is the finishing touch here. These motherfuckers are limited to 50 copies, so act fast and get one from Small Fortunes whilst the going is good! I also have the first Small Fortunes promo single "Caution! Wet Floor!" download card free with every Pointless Records order, so get in!

Schnauzer / Punching Moses - Split 7"

Since my first Schnauzer post on here a short while ago I have realized that I don't own anything else by the band and I have gone about picking up some more of their stuff. This here is their split with Punching Moses, which I got off the guy from Last Days of Humanity's distro stall on the Cemetery Rapist UK tour last year (I forget his name - D'oh!). This split is a collaboration effort between Rescued From Life Records, Shifty Records, Give Praise Records and Haunted Hotel.

 

Punching Moses are quite punky in their approach to metal; the sound is warm and well put together and the tunes are pretty awesome. They have this whole "we are physco" thing going on with the very colourful sleeve art and the inners which are written on psychiatric report papers. Schnauzer are fucking livid as usual, the first track "Facts of Life" is typical Schnauzer hilarity, although track 2 is with a different vocalist and sounds a lot thrashier. I don't really understand the concept with their third track but it's just some audio of some guy arguing with his girlfriend. On the sleeve art it reads: "An attempt to record a third track was made, but was subsequently cut short by a nagging girlfriend", so there's obviously a running joke here.

 

Both the purple and regular black versions are still available dirt cheap - the black is currently selling for under £2 on the Discogs website. Although, I will say this is definitely for enthusiastic fans only.

No links on Youtube for this one sorry guys, so enjoy this live vid of Punching Moses instead.

Bizarre - Hannicap Circus

In my many years of D12 / Eminem fandom it never occurred to me that other members of the group might have solo projects. After giving myself the ultimate facepalm, I began hunting down those records. I started with Bizarre, who is by far my favourite member of D12. He's like the Frankie Boyle of rap music. A lot of rappers say shit that gets them shot; Bizarre is so offensive he goes beyond that and just confuses everyone so much that they don't know whether to laugh at him or pop a cap in his ass. (I mean this all in good humour guys...rappers please don't shoot me!)

Despite it's rather inviting title, Hannicap Circus is as nowhere near as offensive as I thought it would be. Sure, the underlying themes of worshipping ganja, taking pills, raping down syndrome girls and having HIV remain, but as a whole Hannicap Circus really didn't offend me. It seems to open up a bit harsh, but then it falls into all the usual ruts and themes of a solo rap record. There the song (or six) about weed, a song about fucking, about love, about someone close who has died, a parody ("Today Was A Bad Day", which is much better than the original-opposite Ice Cube idea) and one or two bangers to finish off with. There is even a song about missing his kids on tour, which for all the arse-rape and sexual innuendo that usually comes with Bizarre, is downright worrying.

To be fair, this is a good hip hop CD. I just know that Bizarre can do a whole lot better than telling me how fat and disgusting his bitch's ass is. Step it up a level, man!

Schnauzer / Crossface - Split 7"

Crossface aren't particularly bad for your average hardcore band. I don't understand hardcore at all so I'll skirt over this before I say something to embarrass myself and bring down a sea of X-marked fists upon my head. Schnauzer on the other hand is one of my favourite things ever. Why is it then, that it has taken me so long to finally write a post for this, one of my all time favourite 7"s? Why is it then, I have never bothered to check out Schnauzer, ever? Why is it that I have only, since hearing this, bought one other Schnauzer split 7" to date? I suspect the answer is because I am a fucking idiot, but nevertheless things like this really bug me. How can I be so stupid as to constantly forget this bands existence?

 

Schnauzer hold the perfect blend between musical quality and comedy. The songs here are tight, heavy and loosely centered around grindcore and metal, yet at the same time they are riotously funny as fuck. "Total Lunatic" is one of the best songs ever recorded in the history of the entire universe, ever, and closer "Blasted Beyond Belief" really is the icing on the cake. I won't waffle any longer, but I'll just link you some Schnauzer shit and be done with it. Pressed on a combination of black and orange records by Rescued from Life and Shifty Records.

 

PS if that's not J Mann from Mushroomhead at the end of "Blasted..." then my name is Colonel Cuntsandwich. 

GIMME THE KEYS TO THE GYM, AND YOU WON'T HAVE ANY FUCKIN' PROBLEMS!

Also for those of you currently wrapped up in being milked by Western cultures and practices; happy fucking Valentine's Day. 

Anal Cunt - Picnic of Love

In my last Anal Cunt post I mention briefly that Limited Appeal Records put out some fantastic records, and this here slab of ridiculousness is a prime example. Regardless what you might think of Anal Cunt's Picnic of Love record, the pressing itself is a labour of love; the front has whole new artwork from the original, each one is hand numbered (I have 13 out of 311), the art and text on the labels is hand done; and there is a huge printed booklet with hand written lyrics! This is DIY as fuck, if you look passed the fact that the record itself was pressed by a machine (ha ha). I have one of the absurdly rare coloured versions (numbered to 55 copies) that I scored for a small fortune on Ebay.

 

Musically, Picnic of Love is a test of patience; somewhat unusually pleasant but equally or more so grating on the nerves as time goes on. Saying that, I wish I had manned the fuck up at 17 and made the trip to Newcastle when AxCx did a Picnic set at the first ever Blastonbury Festival. I imagine it was very entertaining live! If you don't know the history of the Picnic record, it's probably not the best place to start in the extensive AxCx catalogue, if I'm entirely honest. Check out the track below and play it to your lover / girlfriend / wife / object of affection; I guarantee it will get you laid.  

Start! Start! - The Only Way is Merthyr

This here post is a very special one for me, because this D.I.Y. lathe cut piece was commissioned by myself last year. It contains music I made with a bunch of people that is slightly out of my normal comfort zone, but it was (and still is, in fact) a ripping good laugh to be involved in.

The Start! Start! band/project came about entirely by accident. It came about in 2009 when I decided to take my noise/grind project Fart Wank into a professional studio to record some proper tracks. On our shitty hand made releases I had played every single instrument, but to make it cost efficient I needed a full band to record live as a unit, thus saving hundreds of thousands in studio costs. Studio time isn't cheap, as I'm sure some of you are aware.

It was only myself and Tom (vocals) in Fart Wank at the time, so we enlisted two musicians that Tom had played with previously - Rich and Burra, who gladly agreed to help us out on guitar and bass duties respectively. On the day, the grind/punk nonsense was cut short as the beer flowed and the usual dickery that can only happen during expensive, precious studio time reared it's ugly head. It also turned out that we had failed to rehearse / decide on more than one song to record, so we turned to the bands Myspace page for our more listened-to Fart Wank tunes. 

At the top of the playlist was a demo we had done a few nights previously called "Lady GaGa: I Would Do You". Tom had played bass on this, and it lurched horribly but rather funkily. The studio owner / producer, Chris, jokingly said something about producing a full blown dance remix of this song. Some time and autotuned vocals later, "Transexual Healing" was born. It recieved far more attention than any of the Fart Wank studio tracks and people started asking about who had made the song. Reluctant to tarnish Fart Wank's "grind" sound with such a poppy tune, we decided instead to continue in this new electronic vien and create a new group featuring the four of us as full time members. And thus, Start! Start! was born. Yes, it was all my fault.

 

Anyways, this here package is decievingly more than just a 7", it is a full on EP, as nestled within the hand assembled artwork is a CD entitled The Contents of Uncle Richard's Hard Drive, which is a bunch of tracks that won't be appearing on our up and coming, yet untitled album. The first two songs on the CD are both sides of the 7". The real purpose of the 7" is to act as a collectable, being a hand cut and all. The sound is cut in mono and is a lot lower in fidelity to that of regular vinyl, but I can't help but love the ultra-D.I.Y. aspect of it. Although, if I am honest, there are genres out there better suited to the sound lathe cut records can offer. 

The 20 copies of this record were made in America by the simply-named Corporate Records, a very interesting project by Adam from Fuck Fuck. If you're well into your D.I.Y. shit, it would do you no harm to check out this website. Some of the records they offer are simply mind boggling, like a metal record, for instance, or concentric records; vinyl that splits into three parts. Play one part, two parts, or all parts. Sell them seperately and milk your fans dry! What boggles my mind the most that they can cut onto the underside of CDrs, taking the secret track concept to a whole new level.

 

As for Start! Start!'s music I can't really speak of it in the way I normally speak of other music on here, purely because I am involved in it. I do think that the b-side "Scene it all Before" is a bit weak, but for all your Welsh rap laced nu-metal needs, you cannot go wrong with side A and the CD!*

*Not a guarantee.