METAL-SPLOITATION SIX-PACK

Two posts ago (Killer Fox), I made passing reference to the utterly baffling Metal Enterprises label out of Germany, in particular their brief run in the late 80's and early 90's releasing some of the most absurd, disturbing "heavy metal" ever known to makind. Founded by the young entrepeneur (?) Ingo Nowotny (who also played on several of ME's most notorious releases), the label was a true study in anomalous high weirdness, at worst a scam and exercise in the worst type of consumer fraud, at best a Kaufman-esque excursion into highbrow art via insult comedy. I linked to THIS excellent article regarding the Metal Enterprises phenomena over at The Corroseum the other day, and I highly recommend checking it out if you haven't already. Author Dan Edman is a seeming expert in all things 'ME', including Mr. Nowotny's heinous practice of releasing "fake" albums by established bands, i.e. recording an album under another band's name with no original members involved, slapping the Metal Enterprises label on it, and sending it off to stores, copyright infringement be damned. This petty theft would be unremarkable at best, had several of these albums not been in all actuality quite superior to the originals! I mean, yes, they're all pretty awful, but Jesus Christ, there are some seriously captivating, off-the-wall ideas at work here.
More from Mr. Edman:

"The finest/worst examples of this very special "ME-sound" are to be found on their infamous Fake Follow-ups. They contain what is probably the most retarded music ever released under the banner of Heavy Metal (which doesn't necessarily mean that the music itself is Metal.) They never bare (sic) any resemblance to the original bands or projects, but are pretty similar in-between themselves, especially the "2nd" KILLER FOX, GODZILLA, THRASH QUEEN, KALASCHNIKOV and FUCKER albums, and could very well have been recorded on the same occasion. It's really hard to describe the sound on these abominations. If you've ever experienced how comedy-shows on TV or radio sometimes can parody Metal music it will give you a faint idea idea of what we're talking about here. It's the music of someone who might have heard a few minutes of Metal at one point in their life and years later trying to recreate it with gleeful intent. Drum-machines, ultra-generic riffing, strange vocal effects and/or improvised singing. Any dumber than dumb idea you can think of and more, it's in there. Like the sudden burst into whistling in the intro of KALASCHNIKOV's "Czarewitch". A venture so terrible and eerie it honestly made me jump out of my chair in terror the first time I heard it. Or the improvised, operatic wailing/screaming, atonal female vocals with a heavy French accent on THRASH QUEEN's "Ashes To Ashes". Or the haunting robot-voices on many a KILLER FOX-cut, or etc etc... On several records they fill up space with strange, lengthy experimental pieces and sound-collages, often sounding like cock-eyed, hapless versions of CELTIC FROST's old cult-pieces of weirdness, "Danse Macabre" and "Tears in a Prophet's Dream". Listening to these specific tracks you get the impression that these guys didn't find it enough to lure innocent people into buying crap music, they really had to rub salt in their wounds by exposing them to pure, torturous noise. Evil, evil men be the men of Metal Enterprises."

So here we go...

First off, we have Kalaschnikov:


Kalaschnikov was a German band basically composed of two members, one Simon Sobkowiak on guitar and one Patrice "T-Bass" Jones on bass and vocals. While they have their charming moments (Jones' voice is unique and pleasing in a weird sort of way), Kalaschnikov are mostly interesting due to the fact that they were one of few bands still playing generic, rehashed NWOBHM in 1988 (for fuck's sake!), when just about everyone else had moved on to thrash, black, or even death metal. In spite of the cool haircuts, there just ain't much to love about this band... That is, until Nowotny stole their name and put out Desert Storm. Don't get me wrong: the "fake" Kalaschnikov album is still fucking terrible. The songs are waaaay too long (4 out of 6 jams surpass the 8-minute mark), the production value is ASS, and the cover art... Well, have a look at it.
But the whistling. Why, Mr. Nowotny, WHY?!?!!?

REAL:
THE TORTURE NEVER STOPS (1988)


Download HERE

FAKE:

DESERT STORM (1990)


Download HERE


Next up, we have Thrash Queen.

Billed as the "first all-female thrash metal band" and hailing from the uber-metal realms of suburban New England, Thrash Queen were no credit to their gender, as the lackluster, primitive Motorhead worship present on Manslayer will prove. If you're into bedroom demos recorded on broken microphones by brain-damaged 8-year-olds, this might be just your cup of tea. But really, this band is awful. Just awful.
Enter Nowotny's Thrash Queen revival Ashes To Ashes, which arrived six years after their sole release. Edman summed it up nicely in his write-up, which I agree with for the most part. The music on the "fake" Thrash Queen album is undoubtedly superior to the clumsy fumbling on Manslayer, but man, the vocals! Seriously, they sound almost exactly like this:



REAL:
MANSLAYER (1984)


Download HERE

FAKE:
ASHES TO ASHES (1990)

Exposed tit: insult to injury?

Download HERE


Lastly, we have Godzilla. Fronted by the infamous (?) Gary Wheeler (also from such well-known German acts as Blind Petition, Break Point, Blowin Free, Stahlhammer, Lady, Stalynn, Simon, and Oliviera), Godzilla' self-titled debut album, like Kalaschnikov, is naught but born-too-late NWOBHM leftovers, from the Iron Maiden-biting intro riff to the final notes of the last track. It's listenable, yes, and not much more--another completely disposable 80's "hard rock" album which has its moments, but not many.

But HOLY SHIT, the "fake" Godzilla. I don't even know where to start: the kabuki-esque New Wave space prog of "Cinderella Rockefella"? The Dread Zeppelin-ed out psychedelic shred-reggae of "I Followed The Zombie"? How 'bout the heartfelt ballad "Ass of The Prophet" or the too-long cover abomination of "Helter Skelter"? There are no words. If you take nothing else away from this post, please at least download Godzilla II, and expose yourself to some classic Metal Enterprises brain molestation. But be careful, madness lies therein...

REAL:
GODZILLA (1989)

Best album cover EVER?

Download HERE

FAKE:
II (1990)


Download HERE


I apologize in advance for everything you're about to hear.

IC DISAPPROVES

You guys are really blowing it.

I'm not gonna reveal how many entries I've received so far for the THIRD ANNUAL ILLCON COLORING CONTEST, but I'll say one thing: it ain't very many. The ones I have received thus far are great, sure. REALLY great. But I can count them on (less than) one hand. Come on, fuckers. Let's flex that big, sexy Creativity Muscle, eh? Do you really need to watch that Jersey Shore rerun for a fourth time? We all know what happens: Sammy and Ronnie break up. Sammy and Ronnie get back together. Snookie acts like a whore. Episode over.
Turn off your TV. Bust out the crayons. MAKE SOME ART. You know what? I'm such a Bro, I ain't even gonna put it all on YOU. I'm willing to entertain the idea that it's MY fault you guys are being douchey, that maybe MY coloring designs weren't up to snuff this year. So I actually went out and created a half dozen MORE designs, and the process of doing which took no less than a full 24-hour day (maybe).

Here they are.

Shit's due on APRIL FOOL'S DAY. Allow me to repeat: THE WINNER WILL RECEIVE AN ACTUAL, PHYSICAL, AWESOME PRIZE.

KILLER FOX - ORGASM OF DEATH (1990)

Oh man, do I have a treat for you guys today.
Killer Fox (also known as Killer Foxx) are an enigma trapped within an anomaly enshrouded within a vortex of mystery--a mindfuckingly awful yet compellingly listenable experimental/techno/death metal trainwreck replete with Vocoded narration, frenzied screaming, drum machines, extended acoustic guitar passages, and a confusing medieval (above)-meets-Motley Crue (below) visual aesthetic. Quite simply, Killer Fox defy any sort of tidy categorization, existing in the esoteric realm of Outsider Metal, where they rule as undisputed Kings.
Although it's exceedingly difficult to extract any sort of coherent storyline from the Killer Fox continuum, it does appear that they released an impossible-to-find debut album entitled Going Under (also known by the titles All You Can Eat and The Night) in 1986, at which point half of the band (Vivian Fox and KK Fox) promptly died in a car accident, leaving the surviving members (guitarist Mick Stryker and drummer John Deacon) to create the absolutely baffling Orgasm of Death in 1990 before evaporating into complete obscurity.
Attempting to quantify exactly how much of this album is a joke and how much is quote unquote serious is a futile endeavor, as just about anyone could discern after 30 seconds of listening. There is simply no way to put adjectives to the Killer Fox experience, although one reviewer described it as "... nonsensical, never-ending songs, 'vocals' like a ranting old hag and weird and totally unmotivated sound effects. Like if THE RESIDENTS had made a Sci-fi concept Metal album." YES. The Residents meet... Old Lady Drivers? Fuck. I don't know.
Orgasm of Death was released by the mysterious and obscure Metal Enterprises label out of Germany, who also boasted (?) a "White Power Oi-Metal" band fronted by a black dude (FUCKER), history's only "Grind-sploitation" band (EXREME NAPALM TERROR--see yesterday's non-mixtape), and the terrible Steely Dan+reggae+German thrash abomination GODZILLA. I promise to explore the Metal Enterprises back catalog in greater detail very soon.
Meanwhile, let Killer Fox fuck you in your ear-pussy.

Download HERE

Metallum/Last.FM

Check out a succinct yet very thorough history of the Metal Enterprises Chamber of Horrors via The Corroseum HERE.

SPRING NON-MIXTAPE 2011

This cover art took me FOREVER to put together.

So yeah, I try to do one of these "anti-mixtapes"on the first day of each new season, but I somehow missed the first day of Spring 2011 through a horrendous barrage of wind and near-freezing rain. So you guys are getting this one a week late (which is better than never). It's a pretty hefty mix this time around (over two hours of tunes), custom-made (as always) to play in order when dropped into an iTunes playlist.

I tried to challenge myself by playing a little word game with this one. I'm sure you guys can figure it out (please note that the first band is POWER Quest and the last band is POWERmad).

Enjoy!

1. POWER QUEST "Far Away"

2. QUEST FOR BLOOD "Noise"

3. PAGAN BLOOD "The Call of Gods"

4. PAGAN ALTAR "Flight of the Witch Queen"

5. BLACK ALTAR "The Revelation of Scourge"

6. BLACK DEATH "Night of the Living Death"

7. NAPALM DEATH "Nazi Punks Fuck Off"

8. EXTREME NAPALM TERROR "Part 5"

9. SLEEP TERROR "Ascetic Meditation"

10. ETERNAL SLEEP "... To The End"

11. HATE ETERNAL "Praise of the Almighty"

12. HATE FOREST "With Fire And Iron"

13. FOREST OF FOG "Die Klage des Windes"

14. FOG OF WAR "M.O.S.H."

15. INVOCATION WAR "Infinite Power"

16. BURIAL INVOCATION "Desecration Remains"

17. BURIAL CHAMBER TRIO "Untitled"

18. SKIN CHAMBER "On A Drunk"

19. SKIN INFECTION "Locust Swarm"

20. DEAD INFECTION "Autophagia"

21. DEAD CONGREGATION "Voices"

22. MOURNFUL CONGREGATION "As I Drown In Loveless Rain"

23. MOURNFUL NIGHT "Rain of Razors"

24. RAVEN BLACK NIGHT "Morbid Gladiator"

25. BLACK HAWK "First Attack"

26. KILLERHAWK "Wish Me Well"

27. MANIAC KILLER "Hypnotic Gore"

28. MANIAC BUTCHER "Barbarians"

29. MAD BUTCHER "Mad Butcher"

30. POWERMAD "Slaughterhouse"

DOWNLOAD

2:11:15, 204.5 MB

ILL JAMS BRO

INSANITY - DEATH AFTER DEATH (1994)

I mentioned this show the other day, a headbanging deathfest coming up on April 16th which is being headlined by none other than San Francisco's own INSANITY. This band has been ripping it up around the Bay since 1985 (!), maintaining a relatively low profile and releasing only two full-lengths in their 26+ year career, this little gem and 2008's Visions of Apocalypse. Sole founding member Dave Gorsuch (vox, guitar) has burned through no less than 6 axe-slingers, 7 bassists, 2 singers, and 6 drummers during the course of Insanity's existence, and their sound has indeed morphed accordingly. Though their later material is grinding mayhem par excellence, the jams on Death After Death sport a distinctly thrash-informed sensibility, replete with lengthy acoustic intros and squealing solos. But fear not, Hessians--the DEATH is strong in this one as well.

Download HERE
Purchase HERE

Insanity Metallum

THE THIRD ANNUAL ILLOGICAL CONTRAPTION COLORING CONTEST

You guys better goddamn well know the routine by now: HERE ARE HALF A DOZEN PICTURES. COLOR ONE OR MORE. SEND THEM BACK TO ILLOGICALCONTRAPTION@YAHOO.COM.

We received one (1) entry in 2009's coloring contest. We received ten (10) entries in last year's competition. Hence, logic dictates that we should receive no less than one hundred (100) entries this year.

ALL FUCKING ENTRIES WILL BE PUBLISHED. The winner will get an EXTRA SUPER AWESOME PRIZE.

You have a week.

GEINOH YAMASHIROGUMI - CHI NO HIBIKI HIGASHI YUROPPU WO UTAU (1976)

Hopefully, a couple of you pulled your fucking heads out of your asses long enough to take a chance on Geinoh Yamashirogumi's Akira OST, as well as their amazing 1976 and 1986 releases Osorezan/Dounokenbai and Ecophony Rinne, respectively. Most of you probably didn't, though, because you were too busy jerking off to the new Rabbit! and Marshmallow Overcoat albums. And that's OK. Music this weird and mind-blowing isn't meant for mass consumption, or even micro-mass consumption.
If you need any explanation regarding the Geinoh Yamashirogumi experimental music collective, please click either of the previous links. I'll expend no further energy doing that here.
Chi no Hibiki Higashi Yuroppu wo Utau was their second release, coming out the same year as their much more psychedelic debut, Osorezan. This is no hippie-dippy daydream, rather it is a choral excursion/exploration into the deepest realms of Eastern European folk chanting. Yeah, wrap your head around that one, buddy.
The other three of you that might have downloaded and/or enjoyed that Hildegard von Bingen stuff would do well to check this shit out. It is fucking beautiful in a way that the tiny gaijin mind cannot fathom.

Download HERE
Geinoh Wiki/Last.FM

PS: Japan is fucked. Go give some money to the Red Cross, you cheap heartless fucks.

I HATE YOU, MISTER HEAVENLY

Allow me to take you on a trip back through the Illogical Archives for a moment, all the way back here, where I ranted about "indie rock" and hipsters, and fake rock, and THE UNICORNS, a band who (thankfully) no longer exist, but who inspire rage in me nonetheless, a band who I described as such:

"... The Unicorns might be my LEAST favorite band (musically speaking) of all time. Their twee, pathetic little quote unquote pop songs are the antithesis of ROCK, the ultimate soundtrack to a life of of self-conscious self-absorption and resulting FAILURE. FUCK, I HATE THEM SO MUCH."

Well yeah, it's true--my spiteful anger has not diminished at all since writing this stuff last year... If anything, it's grown: you try living in a city where fixed-gear bikes and skinny jeans outnumber Sodom patches and bullet belts 10 to 1, a city where the Noise Pop Festival (ugh) reigns supreme, where the constant need to be "cool" by being "uncool" has turned the entire Mission District into a Mobius Strip of ironic detachment. Don't get me wrong, I love this city. But the "cool kids", man...
Anyhow, I digress.
Lets get back to The Unicorns. Namely the, uh, "creative"(?) force behind the band, one "Nick Diamonds" (below), who also went on to play in the equally-despicable Islands.

Go ahead, take a minute to let this picture FULLY sink in.

So apparently, "Nick Diamonds" has formed a new indie rock band with ironic-moustache enthusiast "Honus Honus" (left), who is pianist, songwriter, and vocalist for the terribly-named "Man Man". Reason enough to be worried, am I correct? No good could possibly come out of this particular pairing. I mean, to be fair, I'm not really familiar with the work of "Honus Honus", but something about him is giving me a bad taste in my mouth already... Look at the guy.

And I've never actually heard "Man Man", but check out their band photo:

... I think it's safe to assume that their music sucks and that they're all bad people.

So yeah, this new Diamonds/Honus project (I heard there's someone from Modest Mouse in there too--OMG INDIE ROCK SURGROUP!) is called "Mister Heavenly", and they've been making the rounds at South By Southwest or whatever, and everyone who loves bad music seems to have a huge boner for them right now. OK, great.
So why do I even bother talking shit? Why even acknowledge the existence of this sad abomination? Just ignore it, right? There's so much negativity in the world already, why dwell on bad art made by misguided turds?

Well, it's not quite that simple...

I consider my own hatred for pretension an unimpeachable personality trait, which might sound conceited, but I'm pretty sure there are worse ways to expend your frustration. Just back off, OK? This is healthy.

Here's where it gets SERIOUSLY FUCKED.

If there's one thing I hate MORE than the twee indie-pop of Nick Diamonds, it is the filmography and onscreen persona of Mr. Michael Cera (right). Something about the guy just drives me absolutely FUCKING NUTS: the nervous stuttering, the falsetto non-sequitirs, the forced "nerd charm"--sure, Arrested Development was pretty sweet, but everything he's been in since seems to be custom made to give me rage-induced aneurysms.
Morbid curiosity drove me to watch Juno (below), and as Sweet Baby Jay can attest to, I left the theater that night white-knuckled with murderous anger. And part of me must enjoy the feeling, because I watched Scott Pilgrim a couple weeks ago too, with quite the same result.

Sort of off-the-subject here, but Scott Pilgrim seemed to be a pretty polarizing film: people either loved it or hated it. I've heard several people rant about how great it was (Doug Benson and Asa, to name a few), but to me, that movie was the summation of everything wrong with modern cinema--all flash, no heart. Big stupid special effects. The "rom-com" banality. Ugh.
And the whole "indie rock" subplot? Don't get me started...

And here, my friends, is where our topics converge:

MICHAEL FUCKING CERA (left) HAS JOINED MISTER HEAVENLY.

Which is actually kind of amazing. Imagine: all of my most reviled pet peeves in one place! One-stop shopping for the spiteful Hessian! A singular object, a tangible THING to encompass every negative, ugly, malicious fiber in my being!

Michael Cera is in Mister Heavenly.

Wow.

He went from "pretending" to be a shitty, sniveling wuss-bag indie-rock bassist in Scott Pilgrim to being an ACTUAL sniveling wuss-bag indie-rock bassist in Mister Heavenly. There's kind of a poetic justice to it. Now Nick Diamonds and Michael Cera can dry their tears of unrequited love together, possibly even upon the enormous moustache of Bonus Honus!

More LULZ from Mister Heavenly's Last.FM page:

"Spurred on by a mutual appreciation for doo-wop and doomed love songs (aka doom-wop), Nick Diamonds (Islands/Unicorns) and Honus Honus (Man Man) set out to record a one-off instrumental 7” but soon found, within a span of a few late-night sessions, themselves writing an entire album." (more on DOOM-WOP HERE)

Last.FM also calls them "similar to bands such as: Rabbit!, Oh Jollity, and Marshmallow Overcoat."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Yes, I certainly do hate you, Mister Heavenly. But I also kind of love you, for proving one thing: THE CHASM OF FOULNESS THAT THE HUMAN SPIRIT CAN ACHIEVE, WHEN CHALLENGED, IS INFINITE--JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU'VE FOUND ITS ABSOLUTE BOTTOM, THAT BOTTOM FALLS OUT, REVEALING AND EVER-EXPANDING PIT OF DESPAIR BELOW. THERE IS NO GOD AND NO REDEMPTION. WE ARE ALONE IN THIS LIFE, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US. BUT AS LONG AS WE CAN LOOK INTO THAT PIT--TO FACE THAT SICK HORROR AND SPIT IN ITS FACE--WE ARE CHAMPIONS.

GZA/GENIUS - LIQUID SWORDS (1995) (+Bonus!)

Was there ever a better Wu-Tang spin-off album? It could be argued that ODB's 36 Chambers is in the running, but even "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" couldn't hold a candle to "4th Chamber" OR this album's title track, hook-wise. Cuban Linx? Nah. Liquid Swords wins, hands down.

This shit was the soundtrack to life when I moved into my first "real" apartment circa 1996, and the cover art is particularly pleasing as well. I mean, come on. Homeboy-ninjas decapitating each other on a chess board in space? What could be better?
Part of me wonders if this space-chess board is the same one featured on the cover of Broken Hope's Swamped In Gore (right). Hmmm....

Download HERE
Purchase HERE

GZA/Last.FM


BONUS!

WORDS FROM THE GENIUS (1991)

IllCon Hip-Hop Trivia Corner: GZA's debut album (released when he was still known as Genius) holds the distinction of being the only record created by a Wu-Tang member before Wu-Tang formed. And it kicks ass.

Download HERE
Purchase HERE (re-issue version)


Look at the mountains, trees, the seven seas
And everything chilling underwater, please
Hot lava, snow, rain and fog
Long neck giraffes, and pet cats and dogs.

I seen a caterpillar turn into a butterfly
Miracles ain't nothing to lie
Shaggy's little boys look just like Shaggy
And my little boy looks just like daddy.

Pure magic is the birth of my kids
I've seen shit that'll shock your eyelids
The sun and the moon, and even Mars
The Milky Way and fucking shooting stars
UFOs, a river flows
Plant a little seed and nature grows.

This world is yours for you to explore
There's nothing but miracles beyond your door
The Dark Carnival is your invitation
To witness them without explanation
Take a look at this fine creation
And enjoy it better with appreciation
Crows, ghosts, the midnight coast
The wonders of the world, mysteries, the most.