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.

Birdflesh - Happy Fun Sumo Sandwich

The best thing about this tape is that I have no fucking idea how I ended up owning it. I cannot for the life of me remember where I got the thing from! Anyway, this is a transparent purple tape containing a live set of Birdflesh performing in Japan. The quality is fairly clear, and the band play all the hits, but it definitely remains at the level of being a completist item for Birdflesh fans; I doubt that anyone new to the group would find anything of merit here. Out on the fantastic Haunted Hotel Records.

There are no links available for this release, sorry!

Embalming Theatre / XXX Maniak - Split 7"

What we have here is the 2006 split release between 7" masters Embalming Theatre and the excellent yet short lived gore/porn/cybergrind maniacs XXX Maniak. This, along with the Birdflesh / Hatebeak split and the Bowel Stew / Tu Carne split, constituted my first vinyl purchases ever. Those were the days! This was put out by the excellent Haunted Hotel Records on a run of 1000 copies; 300 on grey and 700 on black. According to Discogs, the grey ones were only available through Haunted Hotel's mail order. Good tactic, sirs.

This is my favourite Embalming Theatre shit, probably because it was the first I had ever heard. "Rotten Corpses..." is usual Embalming Theatre fare, but "Sadistic Mom" and "Come to me and I eat Your Horny Flesh" (which is in the running for the award for stupidest song title ever) are mind-numbingly catchy for this type of music. Embalming Theatre growl'n'grind through 5 minutes like it was nobody's business, stopping only for eery, dated sounding samples to lend some extra atmosphere to all the doom and gloom.

What dicks me off about the XXX Maniak side is that it starts from the inside out; an excellently super wicked cool gimmick, until you get a record player with an auto-lift function. As soon as move the needle to the disc label and drop it for playing, the bastard just lifts back off again thinking the record has finished! Never mind, I've probably listened this record to death on my old player anyway. Also dropping in at the right moment is rather difficult, so most of the time you find you miss the sample to the first song (not exactly a bad thing).

I'm not sure if I prefer XXX Maniak as a one piece or a two piece. This was one of the last things recorded with the two piece line up, and is very similar in sound and design to their material from the split 7" with I Shit On Your Face that was to come shortly afterwards. "Gays Vs. Blacks" confusingly juggles itself between the boundaries of disturbing and extremely amusing, and remains one of my favourite grind songs of all time. Make what you will of the sample before it.

This fantastic testament of filth is still embarrassingly cheap to pick up online, including the grey version, so get out there and buy that bastard! If you like heavy music and haven't heard either of these bands then you need to change that right now!