Oppressor - As Blood Flows (1993)

Since this piece on Oppressor was recently posted here on IllCon a couple weeks back, I feel that the band doesn't necessarily warrant an introduction at this point. As Cobras pointed out, it is true that members went on to form the crap band Soil with Shaun Glass of Broken Hope fame. Why they did this, still puzzles me to this day. Even Metal Archives refuses to list Soil as a band, so go figure.

Regardless, I give Cobras superior kudos for posting that piece since Solstice of Oppression happens to be one of my all time favorite albums! I actually had to unearth it from my cavernous collection of CDs just to make sure I still had a copy (damn burglars are always sneaking away with my precious)! Oppressor were technical and brutal with just the right amount of experimentation thrown in the mix. They stood out among their peers but unfortunately are often overlooked. As a way of saying thanks for that previous post, I wanted to offer up this tasty morsel for y'all!

As Blood Flows came out in 1993, a year prior to their debut. This was not the first demo Oppressor put out though. Their first demo was titled World Abomination and released in 1991. While the As Blood Flows demo has most of the same songs that are also featured on Solstice of Oppression with exception of one, the demo still offers a unique glimpse into the beginning of the band. The production is similar to its successor, albeit a little less polished and rough around the edges, but is a fine listen nonetheless! This is more for the die-hard fans of the band or those who are fiends for this kind of shit, such as myself.

As an added bonus, I am also including Elements of Corrosion, which is their third offering prior to disbanding. I would offer you their second full-length, titled Agony, but that would just be too easy now wouldn't it?!

As Blood Flows

Elements of Corrosion

DISGRACE - GREY MISERY (1992)

Turku, Finland's DISGRACE were way too goddamn good to be so little known--perhaps the fact that they inexplicably "gave up" dark, depressing death metal and took up "positive" punk rock in EXACTLY (???) 1994 explains why the DM lexicon has all but forgotten them. The idea that these dudes hopped off the "metal" bandwagon right when it stopped being cool and hopped on the "punk" bandwagon right when Dookie dropped could lead to some ugly insinuation about where Disgrace's allegiance truly lays, but I prefer to avoid such harsh judgment. The quality of Grey Misery itself insists that this band receive the benefit of the doubt, as it is chock full of some of the ugliest, dirtiest, and most brutal Finnish sludge this side of Rippikoulu.
Shambling forth from the mists in a gurgling haze of sloppy blastbeats, Demilichian burp-grunting, overdriven-to-the-point-of-being-indecipherable guitars, and weird, effects-coated spoken/sung parts, Grey Misery commands the attention of even the most jaded Hessian amongst us, and I might add that the two demos (Beyond the Immortalized Existence and Inside the Labyrinth of Depression) and one EP (Debts of God) that preceded it ain't too shabby either. How very strange, then, that they jumped ship from the genre so abruptly and so completely--even to the point that they recorded a fully-metal follow-up full-length in 1993 which never saw the light of day. An odd beast indeed, this "Disgrace". I recommend giving them your immediate attention forthwith.

Download HERE
Purchase HERE

Metallum/Last.FM

Mefisto - The Truth (1999)

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a die-hard thrash fan. I come complete with the stereotypical falling-apart, tattered and patched, beer-stained denim vest that is often associated with the average hesher, even though I don't wear it nearly as often as I should and I no longer smoke pot. The roots of this obsession with thrash metal began at the ripe age of 13 thanks to my older brother. It began respectively with Megadeth, Metallica, Testament, Exodus, and interestingly enough, Poison Idea. Having grown up on a healthy, yet arguably obsessive diet of thrash metal including the "essentials" as they're often called, I always strive to dig up the more obscure bands and albums to keep this interest of mine going - just like a hedgehog, I'll root 'em out of hiding. It could have the worst vocals but as long as it has killer riffing, shredding solos and pummeling percussion, I'm game! OK, so my foraging skills need some refinement but still... cut me some slack here, will ya?!

Now, those who know me know that I'm a huge fan of black metal also. Not all black metal but most of it. I plunged into that abyss years ago upon my first listen of Emperor, Satyricon, Enslaved, and Dissection... As a result, I have a sweet tooth of sorts for blackened-thrash, black/thrash, blackened-death/thrash (however you want to call it), and when I discover a band that executes it well... hmm... well, let's just say that I get a similar feeling as when you open up a present! Wait, never mind. That was a bad example. I never get presents... OK if you count that porno-mag that was given to me for my birthday a couple months back, I guess I do.


Anyways, so I have this penchant for black/thrash and I occasionally find myself striking lucky upon discovering new or obscure albums of the sort. On one such occasion, it happened to be an odd day in late summer of 2002 when I found myself with a day off from work and randomly at Rasputin Music off Bascom Ave., in Campbell, CA. I was supposed to meet a bro of mine there but they never showed, which sucked because I crossed most of San Jose on the VTA just to get there - the bastard! After an hour of perusing the isles of CDs and records and finally realizing the dude wasn't showing up, I decided to make the most of my trip and actually purchase something despite being broke at the time, plus the staff there began to pester me. I had pulled a couple albums I was interested in and started to make my way towards the check-out line. At the last minute I stopped, still in the throes of deciding whether to put one of the CDs I had found back, when I glanced over at the "M" section again and saw this...

Ka-pow! I don't know where this popped up from! Perhaps some magical Metal-gnome came and placed it there when I wasn't looking for it wasn't there the first time I had looked. Normally I try to refrain from buying unheard of music and I rarely ever pick up an album on a whim unless there are tell-tale signs of its worthiness or I have heard otherwise. But there was something about that cover - it drew me to it. The cover looked evil enough with the jewel-case entirely in black and the main image embossed in gold but upon further inspection, I discovered that the CD itself was hand-numbered! That was it, curiosity had caught the cat. So I returned one of the CDs I had been contemplating buying and grabbed this. I knew that this was a rare find but I didn't know how rare it really was. Upon first listen when I got home I was taken aback! Wowza! This definitely was some obscure shit! And it shredded to boot! It had elements of Hellhammer, Venom, and Bathory but also something different, something unique to it that I had heard before but couldn't place my finger on it. The vocals stood out as did the guitar-work, which had a definitive quality to it; even the overall production was above par for the time it had been produced. It was dark, primitive, and rough but also intricate and well executed. It was blackened, it was thrashy, and it was awesome! I was impressed!

OK. OK. I agree, enough of my ranting. Time to get into the meat of the pudding shall we?

Mefisto were one of those bands, similar to Hellhammer, Sarcofago, and Tormentor, that are more or less legend. Mefisto formed in Stockholm in 1984 and were a big influence on the Swedish Death Metal scene (in particular Nihilist). Not too many people have heard of Mefisto seemingly and not much information is out there on them either - at least from what I could find. The underlying sound could be considered more speed metal rather than thrash metal but the early trappings of the newly budding black metal scene can be heard here also. The Truth is a compilation of their only two recordings, the two demos titled Megalomania (1986) and The Puzzle (1986) respectively, and was released in 1999 in a limited number (500 copies only I believe) by Blooddawn Productions through Regain Records. I personally prefer The Puzzle over Megalomania as it is a bit heavier, darker, and more focused in my opinion, but both demos are one of a kind and show the beginnings of a genre that would soon quickly take the world by storm. There was potential here. Why the band broke up or what became of the members? I do not know. However it is evident that this band never received its due in credit. This is probably one of Sweden's best kept secrets! If you're a fan of the old-school, the obscure, and the black/thrash sound this is definitely worth the listen!

Prost!

Killarmy

I dont have to tell you what Wu-Tang did for Rap. Everyone has their own personal favorite member and/or spinoff group and I am no different. One of the ones that most people seem to miss also happens to be among my favorites is Killarmy. Besides my personal opinion on these albums, I'll let the great open-source arbiter of reality do the talking about Killarmy since that is where I would have gotten all of my information anyway.

Their 1997 debut album Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars has a lot going for it, including a bit of production by Rza. The majority of the album though is produced by 4th Element, but the sound still closely resembles that of the Clan with some different theme to the lyrics.

Buy some Silent Weapons

Silent Weapons for Silent Wars

Dirty Weaponry was my intro to Killarmy and to the idea of Nation of Gods and Earths ideology and Black Islamic Hip-Hop. Coincidentally it's also in Dirty Weaponry that the group displays their own sound, different from, but still associated with the Wu Family. Dirty Weaponry samples a number of old war and science fiction movies including Turkey Shoot. The last song has some bizarre vocal sample that I still find creepy every time I hear it. I'll send you a buck if you can tell me what it's from.

Buy some Dirty Weaponry

Dirty Weaponry

Like lots of groups, Hip-Hop and otherwise, Killarmy's last album is probably their weakest. That does not mean that they went out with a whimper. Merely, it means that there is nothing really innovative and new about Fear Love and War, and in that sense it feels like a continuation of Dirty Weaponry which is fine considering that was a great record. While a bit less militant, it still features the strong production from 4th Element and Mathematics that made the previous albums so damn good.

Buy some Fear Love and War

Fear, Love and War

Horn of Valere - Blood of the Heathen Ancients

I'm a USBM booster. You got heavyweights like Xasthur, Inquisition (yuh i no they're Colombian but I'm countin em), Absu, Agalloch, Leviathan, Averse Sefira, Weakling...You also got your upstarts Petrychor, Fell Voices, Falls of Rauros, those Black Twilight Circle bands (which are shutting shit down at the moment) and dozens more I'm forgetting. Even adjusted for some of the more lulzy outfits (WITTR, Liturgy, Nachtmystium), USBM has a pretty impressive body of work. WTG USA!

Horn of Valere are a Rhode Island concern who flex their kvltitude with a blurry metal-archives photo, are they/aren't they NSBM song titles (e.g. ...of Pure Blood), and a band name based on Robert Jordan novels.

In spite of being on Deathgasm which, notwithstanding Blaspherian, suffers from the chronic inability to release anything remotely resembling good music, Horn of Valere's Blood of the Heathen Ancients is an entry in USBM's back catalog worthy of your consideration.

HOV's read of BM is of the Darkthrone/Bathory variety with a strong punk undercurrent throughout. Heavy on melody, light on bass, full of galloping passages meant to evoke battles of yore or whatever, this record would sit comfortably alongside Transylvanian Hunger and maybe Black Thrash Attack.

Listening to Blood of the Heathen Ancients a few years back, I remember the drumming in particular jumping out at me. They sound like they've got access to too many splash cymbals and decent hardware to be certified-authentic-BM but it works here, providing color to songs that might otherwise be tedious.


Speaking of tedious, several songs feature what sound like placeholders where the band meant to stick a guitar solo overdub but ran out of studio time. I'm not talking about the Burzum-hypnosis effect; these are just mid-tempo retreads of 4-5 power chords. If you're like me, you'll find this charming. Then, on track 5 when they do remember the solo, you get a completely woozy effort intended to build tension via the e-bow (I think) which has no place in metal unless you're While Heaven Wept.


Apparently back in 05 HOV was set to play a show with Inquisition and Bloodstorm in Philly but some rumors of NSBM connections (HOV opened for Grom at some point) led the venue to cancel. Reportedly, this was a total bummer. Does anyone know if that show was really gonna happen? Where the fuck was I? My last big night out was Outback Steakhouse and Moneyball with my old man.

Blood of the Heathen Ancients is a study in dichotomy, with moments of technical precision via bulls-eye drumming embedded in an overall unpolished punk M.O. (see feedback-squall-and-drumstick-countdown-intros). FULL SUPPORT.

I think that's a Darkthrone logo tee over on the far right there, which makes sense.
The guy next to him def. over-dressed for the photo shoot.

GET FAMILIAR

DOES NOSEBLOOD RECORDS CARRY NEOFOLK?

REAL TALK. Is it metal blogger suicide to declare one's love for neofolk in only one's second post? Probably, huh.

INTRO: Last month, I read this Decibel feature on neofolk which got me thinking a little more about the genre. It's always just kind of been accepted (if not necessarily embraced) as part of the metal canon but how did it get there? Was it because a handful of black metal bands went puss in 1996-1997 and picked up acoustics? Is it like when Michael Jordan played baseball for those couple years but he'll always be a basketball player? (no, it's not even remotely like that). Or is it that there is an inherent symbiosis in the DNA of Heavy Metal and that of neofolk? Sure, both dig dark ambiance, medieval music, the occasional bow chugging sesh, and totalitarian semiotics (wolves and shit), but there's got to be more to the relationship between these strange bedfellows than that.

Hypothesis: I call bullshit on the Neofolk-as-metal-genre phenomenon. How can you have a genre simultaneously rooted in and inextricably linked to industrial, classical, Northern-Eastern Europe indigenous folk music, and heavy metal? Aren't these mutually exclusive to a degree? Don't get me wrong, I've got as much of this stuff clogging up my shelves and iPod as the next guy. I'm man enough to admit I've got love for Amber Asylum. But what I don't get is why they crop up in the metal dialogue in the same breath as Agalloch, say. Just cos they got cellos and covered 'Kneel to the Cross'? Can someone enlighten me?

Let's look at the data.

From my analysis, you've got three main food neofolk food groups, none of which sound like they have anything to do with one another or with metal. Maybe there is more to this taxonomy, but writing this blog is a voluntary thing and Revenge is on tonight.

ENCHANTED FOREST NEOFOLK

Here we have Musk Ox, that one album by Ulver, and dozens of other dudes who can completely shred the classical axe. This is my go-to stuff for dinner time or showing my 11-month-old how to whittle a wolf totem. Musk Ox has been garnering attention for a couple of years through endorsements by some heavy hitters, like members of the aforementioned Agalloch. He plays unambiguously beautiful guitar accented by piano, chants, and some atmospherics. Of all the bands in this post, Ulver is perhaps the most varied in that they went from raw black metal, to straight-laced nylon string guitar folk, to Shadows of the Sun, which boasts a theremin, a string quartet, and a cameo by Fennesz of all people. We could spend all day debating how deftly they made these transitions.

I'm going to lump Wardruna and their ilk into the Enchanted Forest neofolk group too. Bands who draw inspiration from traditional folks songs of pagan tribes, vikings, gypsies, that sort of thing. Wardruna is the guy from Gorgoroth playing didgeridoo, chanting, and using all sorts of shit to lead the listener through a musical journey about runes, according to Wikipedia and the record sleeve. I'm feeling it. Everyone knows runes are metal as fvck. Hate Forest had Battlefields which co-opted ostensibly Ukrainian folk traditions (I say ostensibly because I can't begin to imagine what real Ukrainian folk music would sound like) and welded it onto a black metal template. Drudkh did the same thing on Autumn Aurora. These are both pretty boring records in spite of Drudkh's almost unimpeachable discography.

Some 'Enchanted Forest' bands get shoehorned into metal via the 'dark ambient' tag. Amber Asylum, for instance. They (she) sound like a newborn fawn drinking dew from the paw of a benevolent giant. But a newborn fawn with a choice contact list as evidenced by callabos from John Cobbet, Steve Von Till et. al. Sometimes Amber Asylum sounds like Enya only more miserable but that is the risk you run dabbling in neofolk. Once we're in the 'Dark Ambient' farthing, we're treading dangerously goth-y territory. In a few short moves via Dead Can Dance and Fields of the Nephilim we're at My Dying Bride and Anathema. NO ONE WANTS TO BE THERE.

RENN FAIRE NEOFOLK

It seems unfair to only have Empyrium and Hekate in this category since they're both German, but that's just how the data sorts out. Empyrium followed a decidedly Ulverian trajectory by releasing a couple folk-inflected metal records before going all in on elaborate coiffuture and singing in rounds. Neun Welten is another one; basically the same thing as Empyrium without the vocals. They too are German.

Hekate is some of the most ridiculous shit you've ever heard. Seriously, one time I listened to them mowing my lawn in the middle of the hot ass day while half drunk and I just had to sleep off the whole experience. It was too much. It's almost completely unlistenable. I'm not talking about Gnaw Their Tongues or Blue Sabbath Black Cheer unlistenable, this is a completely different dimension of unlistenable. On their latest album (Die Welt something or other), Hekate covers Sol Invictus's 'In my Garden,' basically taking a perfectly lovely, somber folk tune and running it through some kind of Johnny Depp-as-Willy Wonka everlasting gobstopper ring modulator or something. I mean, I'm exaggerating but you get the idea. When Hekate are at their most subdued, they sound like some of that hyper-melodic, panglobal music you hear when you're copping a falafel from the Middle Eastern takeout.

STARBUCKS NEOFOLK

This is your Death in June, your Sol Invictus and what have you. Lots of people say Death in June/Sol Invictus invented neofolk but I'm not buying it. They usually sound like Billy Bragg on ludes after reading a bunch of William Blake. With that awful electro-acoustic guitar tone where the brightness is up too high and you're in a coffee shop and it smells like pachoulli farts and someone is singing about dandelion wine. I'm not complaining that they are in the metal club. It means I can listen to them with a clear conscience. But who decided to let them in?

CONCLUSION: Data inconclusive. This exercise has been a complete waste of my time and yours. It has answered exactly zero of my questions. And so I turn to you, consumers, to guide me. Help me understand. Lest we fall down the 'trve metal vs. untrve' rhetorical wormhole, let's keep the question to 'Who put all this flute in my metal and why am I OK with it?'

To get you started, here is a four pack of my favorite neofolk records. I realize all these are pretty safe picks but they encompass most of what I discussed here for the uninitiated. As a bonus at no extra charge I'm throwing in that Hekate album you just need to hear to believe.

PEEP GAME.

Download SOL INVICTUS - Lex Talionis

Download MUSK OX - Musk Ox

Download WARDRUNA - Runaljod-gap var Ginnunga

Download AMBER ASYLUM - Frozen in Amber

Download HEKATE - Die Welt Der Dunklen Garten

SIRIUS 1973 = AIWASS 1904?

I'm sure I don't need to tell you guys a whole Hell of a lot about Aleister Crowley, right? We all know the dude was tuned into some majorly next level shit, that he obtained the highest levels in about a bazillion secret societies, mystic lodges, and occult brotherhoods, that he was considered to be, at different times and by different folks, to be The Antichrist, a Magus, a Wizard, a miscreant, a drug addict, and a God. There are few, if any, occult figures across the span of human history who have reached Crowley's level of acclaim, disdain, honor, or ill repute, and even the most skeptical minds often waffle on whether or not he did open some strange, mystical portals during his time on this planet. Crowley was a record-holding mountaineer, a master of chess and poetry, a pioneering force in the field of altered conciousness and psychedelia, a loving father, and an acclaimed author. He died a heroin addict.

This book rules.

I've become more interested in the life and times of Aleister Crowley in the past week, as I've been ripping through a copy of Robert Anton Wilson's Everything Is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-Ups, in which much of the content applies, in one way or another, to the life of the man. Crowley's high-level involvement with Thelemic philosophy, The Order of the Golden Dawn, and the Freemasons practically guarantee him a spot in the pantheon of cultic greats, and Wilson's book, in tying all the loose ends together, passes over the Great Beast's exploits repeatedly. Any discussion about modern shamanism/occultism will eventually lead back to Crowley somehow, which is exactly what will happen in today's post.
But first a word from the author.

Robert Anton Wilson on A.C.:


Part 2, 3, 4.

Also: an hour-long doc discussing A.C.'s influence on and connections to "Hollywood occultist" Jack Parsons--which also reveal his surprising contributions to the birth of NASA...


2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

OK great. But let's talk specifically about Crowley and his wife Rose's trip to Egypt, way back in 1904 (the same year he climbed 23,000 feet up K2 without oxygen tanks, a record he still holds).

Via that bastion of truth and reason, Wikipedia:

"... According to Crowley's own account, Rose, who was pregnant, had become somewhat delusional while in the country, regularly informing him that "they are waiting for you", but not providing him with any further information as to who "they" were. It was on 18 March, after Crowley sought the aid of the Egyptian god Thoth in a magical rite, that she actually revealed who "they" were – the ancient Egyptian god Horus and his alleged messenger. She then led him to a nearby museum in Cairo where she showed him a seventh century BCE mortuary stele known as the Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu (it later came to be revered in Thelema as the "Stele of Revealing"); Crowley was astounded for the exhibit's number was 666, the number of the beast in Christian mythology. Crowley took this all to be a sign from a divine entity and on 20 March began performing ritual invocations of the god Horus in his rented room. It was after this invocation that Rose, or as he now referred to her, Ouarda the Seeress, informed him that "the Equinox of the Gods had come"."

The medium's sketch of AIWASS. Look familiar?

... "It was on 8 April, when the couple were still staying in Cairo, that Crowley first heard a disembodied voice talking to him, claiming that it was coming from a being known as Aiwass, the true nature of whom Crowley never understood. Crowley's disciple and later secretary Israel Regardie believed that this voice came from Crowley's subconscious, but opinions among Thelemites differ widely. Aiwass claimed to be a messenger from the god Horus, who was also referred to by him as Hoor-Paar-Kraat. Crowley wrote down everything the voice told him over the course of the next three days, and subsequently titled it Liber AL vel Legis or The Book of the Law. The god's commands explained that a new Aeon for mankind had begun, and that Crowley would serve as its prophet. As a supreme moral law, it declared "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law", and that people should learn to live in tune with their "True Will"."

BONUS: Liber AL, The Book of The Law PDF

Aiwass, eh? Interdimensional/interplanetary messages? This is starting to sound familiar, and that big old white dome on Aiwass is ringing a couple bells too.
But let's add another ingredient into the mix--THE FACT THAT CROWLEY CLAIMED THESE COSMIC MESSAGES WERE ORIGINATING FROM THE SIRIUS SYSTEM.

Fuck. Did I just blow your mind?
No? That's OK, there's more.

PS: If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you should go back and read THIS and THIS.

"Aiwass/Aeon", by 1349:



"social Darwinism
to the extreme
weed out the weak
and soon the liberation will come
Pitiful humans did you believe,
The aeon of Aiwass was for you?"

Touche, 1349. Touche.



So let's go down the list real quick. Robert Anton Wilson and Philip K. Dick claimed contact with ultradimensional beings from Sirius in 1973 and 1974, as did their psychedelic colleagues Timothy Leary and Terence McKenna. According to an anonymous commentator on my previous Sirius post, David Tibet from Current 93 and comic book writer Alan Moore (Watchmen, V For Vendetta) have also had some Sirius issues, and while I haven't actually gone to the trouble of researching said claims, I think it's safe to assume that anonymous comments are always true. OK? OK.
The main impetus behind my previous writings on Sirius, though, was the uncanny coincidence between the ceremonies of the Dogon people of Mali (whose religious beliefs center on Sirius, the "Dog Star"), and their sigui ritual, which happens only every 60-65 years--coinciding almost perfectly with Wilson, Dick, Leary, and McKenna's extradimensional experiences in the early 70's. The sigui lasts several years, and that particular ritual started in 1967. Any math wizards out there?



Let's see--1967... Minus 60-65 years... Would have the previous Dogon sigui beginning somewhere around 1902-1907. What year did Aleister Crowley travel to Africa and have his mystical communication with Aiwass from Sirius?
Oh yeah, 1904.

Hm.

Closing comment from The Book of The Law, via Aiwass, as channeled by Crowley:

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
The study of this Book is forbidden. It is wise to destroy this copy after the first reading.
Whosoever disregards this does so at his own risk and peril. These are most dire.
Those who discuss the contents of this Book are to be shunned by all, as centres of pestilence.
All questions of the Law are to be decided only by appeal to my writings, each for himself.
There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.
Love is the law, love under will.

Wicked Innocence- Omnipotence (1995)

Seems that everybody else is doing a thing on mid-90's DM post so I figured I oughta hop on the bandwagon. And I gotta quit the dolphins: the gayest cetaceans known to man. Plus my metal was challenged. I give you Salt Lake City, Utah's Wicked Innocence.





They are one of the first bands to inject a special kind of weird to their music, and not just regular weird, like say, Atheist or even Demilich do but the kind of abstract, bizarrist weird that Cephalic Carnage or Dripping would come to do.



The foundation is 90's death metal: Suffocation, bits of Atheist and hints of what Brutal Truth was doing then. But what they do with the influences is what makes them so weird. They don't rely on extraneous effects or carnival music. It's all songwriting, arranging the riffs in such a way as to give the whole thing a surrealist vibe:

Slam riffs give way to lurchy tech-ish parts then to melodic solos then to lilting twisted blasts. Riffs stop and start then start again. Sometimes they never go anywhere. This is all put together for maximum unpredictability and top awesomeness. Abstract bits of clean, droning vocals, jazzy fills, and spoken word are mixed in to keep it even weirder. Sometimes it becomes unwieldy, buy they always redeem themselves quickly. Atmospheric Death Metal this ain't. Unless the atmosphere is Suffocation peaking on mushrooms. If that's what these guys were going for they got it right on the mark.

This all combines for a masterpiece of surrealist brutal death, so hop on the crazy train. Here's their second Album, 1995s Omnipotence:

Where do you buy acid in Utah?

BONUS:

Wicked Innocence-Worship

Tonight on Illogical Contraption Radio 10pm-MIDNIGHT PST on FCCFREERADIO.com

How did a 5 foot tall, 100 pound Latvian immigrant lift, carve and engineer stones that weighed over 30 tons to create one of the most astoundingly beautiful and mysterious feats of mankind? Coral Castle, located north of Homestead, Florida, is an incredible stone structure that one tiny little Ed Leedskalnin single-handedly built over a period of 30 years, finally opening to the public in 1923. Leedskalnin would only work at night in pitch blackness and when asked how he could lift such huge objects by himself he would cryptically answer, “I have figured out how the Egyptians built the pyramids.” Witnesses to the creation of stone structure would claim to see huge boulders “floating” and “flying” in mid-air. Tonight we talk to expert Matt Emery of Leedskalnin.com to clear the air about this still unsolved mystery. Was it supernatural or scientific? Why did Billy Idol write a song about it? All this and more will be answered tonight!

After that it’s balls out, siqq ass, shit fuckingly awesome open lines so give us a call!

415-829-2980

Listen live in Studio 1A on FCCFREERADIO.com

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Send us an email! illconradio@gmail.com

Parabellum - Sacrilegio (1987) / Mutacion Por Radiacion (1988)

This may seem like too much of a blanket statement, but a large number – the majority even - of metalheads worldwide have a pretty easy life. If some Norwegian dude singed his hair burning down a church or stubbed his toe kicking over a tombstone, he could go to the doctor gratis. If some long-hair from Tampa, stumbling out of a Morbid Angel show at three in the morning, finds his or her stomach churning from the dizzying mixture of headbanging and Colt 45, that individual can likely find a convenience store where Pepto Bismol can soothe the viscera and taquitos can calm the soul. But it's not like that everywhere, and some of the most bracing and relevant entries into metal's canon have originated in areas that were decidedly disadvantaged. One could call to mind Black Sabbath and Napalm Death's emergence from under the smog of Birmingham's heavy industry or the military dictatorship overseeing Brazil when Sarcofago and Sepultura first began making noise. More recent examples of metal bands springing up amongst the Middle East's theocracies bear the point out further. But few areas of the world were as harsh and unforgiving as Medellín , Colombia in the 1980s. As one of the primary centers for the international cocaine trade, at various points Medellín enjoyed the dubious distinction of being known as the world's most violent city. Cartels, most notably the one headed by Pablo Escobar, battled the police, paramilitary forces, and each other, turning the city into a warzone for much of that period.

But among the chaos, a small but dedicated metal scene arose, one that produced bands of striking consistency and consistent idiosyncrasy. I've written elsewhere about the background on this group of musicians and delved into the back catalogs of a handful, but there is one band in particular whose essence is difficult to really capture. I had heard this band referred to as the most extreme band ever recorded, a tag I had seen applied time and time again over the nearly two decades I've been into the heavier side of music. It's the type of description that would make most metal fans roll their eyes, both because of how overused the idea is and how subjective it is, but after giving this band a listen, it's difficult for me to say that the assessment is wholly incorrect. I'll spare the hyperbole of endorsing the idea that this band was the most extreme ever, but the music speaks for itself. In a nutshell (and again, hyperbole aside), it's a brooding, nihilistic slab of barbaric anti-music that channels the destruction and chaos of the band's surroundings into a destructive whirlwind of sound that makes Hellhammer sound like Pat Boone (and not metal-covering Pat Boone either). That band was Parabellum.

Parabellum has the distinction of being one of the earliest Central American metal bands, especially within the style of music they played. Formed in 1981, the band didn't actually record anything until 1987, but this six-year divide did little to smooth their writing process or refine their aesthetic. Theirs is a blunt, frantic approach where bilious vocals overlay music that can seem almost alien at times - caveman drumming, tinny practice amp guitar tone, solos that burst out over top of everything with no regard to key or metre like something Kerry King would come up with in the middle of a PCP binge, songs stop and start seemingly without rhyme or reason leaving queasy, detuned passages to bridge the gaps. It's music as pure negation, a whole-hearted attempt to reject everything that Western Civilization has ingrained in our collective mind regarding what constitutes tonality and structure. It's metal that would make most listeners scratch, rather than bang, their heads.

I do understand that descriptions like that make the thing seem like it's going to sound like some art school noise band, but the music speaks for itself. While so many artists attempted to seem edgy, crazy, or to fulfill some other socially-constructed role of rebellious other, Parabellum just sounds insane. I've played music for a long time and I really cannot figure out what their writing process must have entailed. My initial impression was that everything in their music seems to happen at random like some deranged heavy metal take on free jazz (years before John Zorn did it) but further listens reveal that the members are actually playing at least somewhat together. And this is the point I found most unsettling. People actually sat down and wrote this. While it sounds like the type of band Morlocks or C.H.U.Ds would start after hearing a warped Possessed cassette that fell down a storm drain and was washed down underground rivers into their hidden lair, this was all intricately plotted out by people that you might well walk by on the street.

Earnestness isn't always the first trait praised in heavy metal, a style that often leans towards larger-than-life themes and personalities, but it's a characteristic of Parabellum's music that has rendered it far more compelling than many other bands who have operated on the periphery of what most people would think of as music. It's like a black metal Shaggs trying to approximate the sound of a hydrogen bomb detonation, but for all the over-the-top discordance, there is a sense of vitality at the core that cannot be falsified, the sound of people playing because they have no other choice. If the extremity of an aesthetic statement could be measured by an artist's ability to channel dire circumstances into a creative outlet, the idea of Parabellum as heavy metal's apogee is not as bold a statement as it might initially seem and remains a lasting testament to the ability to transcend the worst of surroundings through the least likely of means.

Parabellum - Sacrilegio

Parabellum - Mutacion Por Radiacion

Wow, a bold entrance from our newest writer, Virginia's own purplerainingblood. I can't say I'd ever heard of Parabellum before, color me face-melted.
For those of you keeping track, that's four new additions to The Team in four days, with yet more on the way. I'm definitely looking forward to hearing more from all of these guys. Hell, I might even write something myself sooner or later...

- Cobras