LINES IN WAX HAS MOVED!

HELLO EVERYONE!

After 9 years of shit-talking, I have decided to move to a self-hosted website. You can find me from now on over at:

WWW.LINESINWAX.COM

Yeah, it's hand-made CSS / HTML bullshit, but its a place for me to keep track of all my record reviews. I hope that you check out the site. I'm currently in the process of porting all the reviews here across (9 years worth of work, let me tell you!) but any new posts are going straight onto the new website. Thanks so much for reading over the years!

Napalm Death - Utilitarian

Utilitarian is a solid later-career effort from Napalm Death, with experimental variations on the group’s usual ferocious grindcore template. We’ve got clean singing (I’m getting an 80s industrial vibe) and a saxophonist guesting on one track, which is just all kinds of horrible and lovely at the same time.

Lifelover - Sjukdom

As much as I yearn for the raw beginnings of Lifelover’s sound, I also love how it developed and matured over the band’s later albums. The anguish is more restrained and doled out across tracks that almost sparkle with their own morose beauty.

Venetian Snares - Meathole

Ohhh that’s a nasty sound! Meathole presents all that is well and good about V Snares’ mad scientist breakcore meltdowns. Unsure if I should be getting up to dance, or whether I should just bash my head into the table until it starts to feel good. Why not both, I hear you ask? Let’s spin this again and find out.

Satyricon - The Age Of Nero

After Now, Diabolical the Age Of Nero feels like Satyricon’s “if it ain’t broke...” moment. Which is fine, in all honesty, as the album is fucking super solid, if not a little predictable. The songs are tight as fuck, from Frost’s drumming to the razor sharp guitars, this is the perfect balance of rock n roll swagger and lethal black metal precision. There’s too many good tracks to list them all, but “Black Crow On A Tombstone” is probably my favourite.

Age Of Consent (1969)

Agent Of Consent is a beautiful film from the arse-end of the 60s which I am so so glad I took a chance on. The plot is a bit wet, following an artist who lost his muse as he returns to the wilderness of a desert island, where he meets a young and nubile Helen Mirren. She becomes his model, and their relationship develops, but the problem is, is that he is a man in his 50s or whatever, and she is underage. Its a tricky one to navigate, but its beautifully done. The overall tone, setting, cinematography and (frankly) the tasteful nudity far outweigh the somewhat daft plot.

Cathedral - Statik Majik

I’m unsure if anyone has ever used Times New Roman on a record sleeve and gotten away with it like Cathedral have here. Honestly, it seems like the guys were stoned as fuck when they signed off on that artwork, and the same goes for the EP itself.

This is a gloriously mad little thing, which reeks of early Cathedral vibes, but hints at the psychedelic madness that would come on later records. “Cosmic Funeral” is one of my all time favourite songs, and the closing track, the 22 minuter “Voyage Of The Homeless Sapien” really needs to be heard to be believed.

Burzum - The Ways Of Yore

It seems a lot of people think that this is a bit of a bummer for Burzum to go out on. I’ve only listened to it a couple of times since it was released and whilst it is an easy listen, my first impressions - which have stuck with me until now - were that it was a cheap imitation of the earlier synth work from the same project. Sure, he’d upgraded from horrendous analogue sounding patches to the glossiest VSTs, but so what? There’s so much fucking great dungeon synth out there now. 

And then I listened again with headphones. I mean, fuck, talk about a U turn! I remember reading somewhere about Burzum music supposedly working like a spell. That is the perfect way to describe this. When its just me and the music, it is enchanting, enrapturing, magical. I’m sucked into this olde world of Yore! RIP Burzum (for now?)

Shrinebuilder - Shrinebuilder

Shrinebuilder was the only studio record by the band of the same name, which was a super group consisting of Dale from the Melvins, Al from Om and Sleep, Wino from Saint Vitus, and Scott from Neurosis. It is a fairly polished affair, which is a solid listen, with most of the guys sharing vocal duties. Some of the tracks are quite monolithic, but standing up to all the other projects that these guys have been involved in, most of which will go down in metal history, Shrinebuilder unfortunately pales in comparison. That is not to say that the record is bad, it just stands in the shadow of those greater than it.

Daughters - Hell Songs

What a treat for the ears! Honestly, this one has been on the to do list for LIW for years and years - it’s embarrassing. Daughters are now much more, a complete whole other beast, but this album will always hold a place in my heart haha! Coming on like a garage rock band breaking out into some DEP style meltdowns during a recording session, Hell Songs possesses a beautiful blend of violence, intricacy and clarity. Cheers, pricks.

Tonight She Comes (2016)

What in the holy mother of fuck did I just watch? Like, this is a mess. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I honestly don’t know. What starts as a slasher setting quickly devolves into a clusterfuck of Satanic rituals and insane plot twists. The plot can literally go fuck itself, but I have to commend this film on its gore, it’s cast (eyes are now firmly back in skull) and its production style. The film is well made. I’m just not sure if it’s a good film. Either way, be warned, this shit gets hella fuckin’ wild.

Lingua Ignota - Caligula

There’s a lot of buzz and hype around this woman right now, so I was afraid of being disappointed. I can happily (is that the right word?) confirm however, that this is a dark and disturbing listen. I’m getting heavy Gnaw Their Tongues vibes off this, but the blend of dark atmospheric noise and classical music, along with multilayered vocals, it’s pretty unique.

My one complaint is that the album is top heavy, and trails off towards the end. Hype train or no, this is a solid and raw entry into a genre that lurks mostly in the shadows, and I can only hope that the level of exposure this artist is getting for her intense performances (she was in Kerrang! magazine for fuck sake) brings a lot of new fans to the noise and power electronics underworlds.

TLDR: imagine Jarboe and Pharmakon having a fight in a mine shaft.

System Of A Down - Toxicity

Arguably, Toxicity is the record that blew up System Of A Down. “Chop Suey” (or “Suicide” as it should be called) and the title track might be hideously overplayed, fodder to both TV music channels and the flaccid rotations at crappy rock bars,, but the album as a whole is a work of bloody genius. SOAD retain the chaos present in their debut recording but bolster that with more solid song structuring, flourishes of different instrumentation, and a super polished production job and mastering.

Street Sects - End Position

What is this? Sounds like Marilyn Manson and Big Black fucking (on steroids) whilst at an Einstürzende Neubauten show. Is that an obtuse discription? Why, yes it is! But, End Position is a dense and disorientating trip through an industrial hell. Pretty nice, if I’m honest.

Sunn O))) - Pyroclasts

I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said that Pyroclasts blew my mind. It’s the group’s second record in a fairly short period of time, so I wasn’t expecting the world when going in to this, but Pyroclasts showcases enormous slabs of drone rituals, each one as massive and totem-like as the last. The tones are stunning; avalanches of folding sounds and gargantuan waves of distortion.

Ulver - Perdition City

Creeping, brooding, claustrophobic. Yet, somehow beautiful, delicate and sprawling. Perdition City came earlier in the band’s discography, as they veered away from black metal to making these contemporary and what I can only describe as urban soundscapes. Glorious stuff.

Basement Torture Killings - The First Cumming

The First Cumming, is (in perhaps a fairly explanatory manner) the debut record from Laaahdahn surgically precise butchers of death metal, Basement Torture Killings, featuring six tracks of gore-drenched brutality packaged in a DVD case.  Weirdly, I can't find a link to this anywhere except on Spotify, so if you've got an account on there, fire it up and have a stream. 

Class Of Nuke 'Em High (1986)

I can’t decide whether the abnormality that is Class Of Nuke ‘Em High is either genius or hideously hideously bad. The plot suffers some pacing issues, for me I found it hard to stay focussed during the first act (yes, even with all those nude “teens” lol) but the payoff comes towards the end.

This is a Troma classic so I won’t go into the story itself, but it’s worth saying that the effects are top notch, and are everything you should expect from a Troma release, if not in smaller doses than I expected. What truly surprised me was the camera work, and dare I say, cinematography. This piece sings beautifully on old grimy film, and the editing and aesthetic choices are glorious.

Weather Report - Heavy Weather

Forecast today is jazzy with a sprinkling of funk, my dudes. This is perfect sitting on the train going out for the day kinda tunes. Fresh, massive dollops of inspiration are heaped on top of good vibes and enough edge of your seat moments to keep things interesting.

Pungent Stench - Ampeauty

LOL this record is all kinds of sleazy. In parts, that comes across as pretty evil and sinister, other times just infantile. Nevertheless, the riffs are great, the production is perfectly balanced (that bass hums through the mix), making Ampeauty a nasty metal record for those who like to stroll on the sicker side of life.

Happy valentines day from us here at Lines In Wax!