NO LIFE TILL

I dreamt that Robert Plant wanted me to be his boy toy for his summer tour. Those were his exact words: be my boy toy for the summer tour? I'd never really thought about Robert Plant that way - gayly - but concluded in the dream that he was pretty dreamy.


In real life, I fuckin' love bit torrents. Every few years there's another new downloady technology that comes along & blows everything else out of the water. Starting for me in 1999 with the original Napster. Concurrently I discovered usenet and began to prefer it for its completeness. Usenet was it for the longest time, then this torrent shit started for me about six months or so ago. Maybe nine months. I've downloaded so much incredible shit in that time. And I've also shared an insane amount of great stuff too. I love adding to the gene pool of DVDs.


FIRST IMPRESSIONS:

VADER
Art of War EP
Opens with a 90-sec orchestral thangamajig, just like they all do now. Only this one fades in all intense-like, with military snare drums. Then: "This is the Way" takes up the mantle from Metallica's "One". It's a deathly ghouly bang-your-head chugging open string riff. Tis fucking brutile but I'm guess you guessed that already. Yeah, the blastbeat kicks in and it's awesome. It's like ultra death metal but you can still hear keyboards. Fucking crap, the drums sound like a sprinkler. In a good way, obviously. Production is excellent & clear. All six trax run together, so you go on a nice little journey for a quarter of an hour. "Death in Silence" is FAST.



LAMPSHADE
Let's Get AWay
"Come Closer" is slow pokely jangly guitar indie rock with a young-sounding female vocalist, whose voice makes the chix in Mum sound like Marianne Faithfull did on that Metallica record. ie - high & twee & about five years old. The song = nice. Dude vox kick in on the chorus. "New Legs" starts with some noodly clean guitar riffing/chording, arrythmic drumming & the toddler-voiced chiock belting out the lyrics. I betcha she's about three foot one & holding a blankie. The last half of the song is jaunty & upbeat 80s retro fake disco bogus Joy Division action that everyone does now. Which is fine. "By and By I Come" starts off like the previous one. Tis mighty jaunty. "It's Okay" opens with furry fuzzy bass & drums and pokey delayed clean guitar. And that chix's voice. I'm not sure if I could get down with it for 48 minutes. But it's not assraping my ears either, so who knows. "Joy" is a bit uptempo, innit. File under listen again.


RICHARD JULIAN
Slow New York
What the fuck, did Leon Redbone come back as a young hipster? "Slow New York" = I hate to say it so soon, but: fake American Music Club. Right down to the all-over-the-place singing. It's almost kind of like Harry Connick covering Mark Eitzel. The good bits anyway. The bad bits remind me of Blues Traveller. I run away now. I forgot to mention Metallica.


DARKTHRONE
The Cult is Alive
What? I guess I assumed Darkthrone would sound like Dimmu Borgir, just like everyone else does. Fuck that shit, it sounds like the last album these guys listened to was Celtic Frost "Morbid Tales" in 1983/84. The riffs are brutile & ugly, and the vocals, oh the vocals are a bitchslap to the inner ear. The tempo of the first song is refreshingly middling. And then he says "come on you fuckers!!!" and they go into a thrashy bit. I think I'm in love. It's so raw and unpleasant sounding. Oh shit, and "Too Old Too Cold" is the greatest title ever. I almost don't care what it sounds like. But: it sounds like Venom. Old, great Venom. Sounds like they're calling out all the posers with this one. I heard him say "you call yourselves black". Ooh. "Atomic Coming" - Celtic Frost the song "Morbid Tales". They might've written down all the notes & just rearranged them, because. Yeah. "Graveyard Slut", damn, another great title. This is the gratest album eveur and I haven't even heard "Shut Up" yet! "Graveyard Slut" sounds like a different singer, who INSISTS on giving it the Tom G Warrior business. I can assure you, all this tribute-payment to the mighty Frost is not accidental. I think he just said something about a big rack. Metallica was never this cool. I mean, maybe for the first five minutes after the "Whiplash" EP came out.


BETH ORTON
Comfort of Strangers
Y'know, I think I got shnookered by her first album & the Chemical Bros tracks she did. I foolishly assumed she'd be interesting, unique, a solitary voice, an artist. Kind of thing. "She Cries Your Name" still gives me chills but everything she's done since then has been lackluster. At best. She's had time to accept the fact that the first album was a fluke. Damn it. So, no more electronix then, I assume. "Worms" immediately sounds like something from 1970s AM radio. In a bad way. Joni Mitchell or something. "Countenance" is the inevitable jab at alt-cuntree. Bleh. "Heartlandtruckstop", okay I've had enough. You proved your point.



DEATHSTARS
Termination Bliss
Oh, it's 1997 again and the burgeoning hybrid of heavy metal guitars & dance beats + synths hasn't played itself out yet. Or was it born played-out? Whatever. "Tongues", there's live drums + a loop, synths, downtuned metal guitar, and vocals that sound like Rammstein. Whatever you call that style. Kind of lower register almost speaking. But not rap. The songs would actually probably rock harder as simple synth pop. But, no. It's fucking 1997 innit. "Blitzkrieg" owes its existence to Ministry. Which is probably fine if you're into that sort of thing. "Motherzone" reminds me of Mortiis. Ghouly keys, biggish chorus. And a bunch more just like it.



BLOODTHORN
Genocide
"...for Those Whose Time Has Come" is the requisite intro track with the spoken-word action buried in the mix. Relatively slow, mournful meanderings for two minutes. Then "Blood and Iron", instant deathly dissection via heatfurnaceblastbeatcolonblow punctuated by more slow mournful meanderings. Back and forth, on and on. A bit prog too. "Forced Selfmutilation" = song title champ. I dunno, I think I blew my wad headbanging to Darkthrone.



BOO-YA TRIBE
Angry Samoans
Get it, because they're from Samoa? The same island as the old school wrestling stars The Samoans. And, you know those Girls Scout Cookies? They invented those too. Um. "No Free Ride (Intro)" just sounds like a metal band. "Skared for Lyfe" contineus the theme. I thought these guys were more hiphop than this. This shit is like Korn or Rage Against The Machine, which, who cares. I mean, I'm glad they can keep all the beats & tunes in-house to cut down on licensing samples and paying producers, but...heuughgh.