Thursday, April 29, 2010

Eat Rust - The Rusting City

My lust for crust most gross,
Regardless of my host, grows close.
I choose to booze away the blues,
But you chose to pose and now it shows.
Just between us,
You missed the bus,
Despite the fuss.
Brush away the dust
Inhale the musk
You must eat from the busted husk
The lust for justice won't be trussed
Lo! Eat the Rust

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Knockabouts - On Suffering Remembered

Conceivably the first punk band in Alabama, The Knockabouts cover the usual topics that early hardcore bands concerned themselves with: Nuclear War, Reaganomics, alienation, boredom, etc., with a justifiable focus on the terrible redneck hellhole they grew up in as evidenced by a reworking of a certain popular ditty as "Shit Home Alabama." Surprisingly eloquent lyrics filled with distinct imagery and poetic detail elevate this from the vast number of 7 inch records around this time, as do a willingness to eschew hardcore lockstep for more chaotic song structures and tempo changes. Still, there is something very punk about an eight-song record that plays in less time than it takes to type a paragraph describing it.
"Help me, I'm trapped in a human body."

Monday, April 26, 2010

Merzbow - Frog+

Legendary Japanese noisemonger takes the croaking and guttural exhortations of the humble toad and crafts them into an album of pure flesh-searing skronk. The polar opposite of Soothing Sounds of Nature tapes, this is designed to perforate your eardrums and shred your psyche into thin slivers. Audibly gleeful in its ugliness.
Ribbit

Sunday, April 25, 2010

The Cult of Cthulhu

Presenting a 3-cd compilation of various Lovecraftian metal songs, seemingly originating from one of several Spanish-language metal sites concerned with this sort of thing. Contains tracks by Metallica, Celtic Frost, Rage, Nile, Dimmu Borgir, Entombed, Mercyful Fate, and many more. Quite an excellent selection and obviously a labor of love produced by sick and tormented minds.
F'tagn

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Bazöoka - Toxic Warriors

War, death, pestilence, plague: Bazöoka's got all the bases covered on this album. Taiwanese thrash/death revovling around some sort of apocalyptic variation on the Vietnam War with zombies, what's not to like? Song titles: "Airborne Troops of Dead," "Raw Noise Attack," "Combat Warfare," etc. A must for all fans of ESL evil.
Boom!

Friday, April 23, 2010

Yog Sothoth - Appalachian Cult

Well, loathsome ones, we've finally become a real blog! Our first threatening letter has arrived today from the presumably corpse-painted team of lawyers representing Bal-Sagoth, demanding the removal of their album from the Swamp. In humble acquiescence I have closed that portal, only to have another orifice open further south, deep in the mountains of Appalachia. In the long tradition of isolated hillbillies stumbling drunkenly upon things too large and abstract for their own comprehension, Yog Sothoth, the foul and primitive squealings of one mysterious individual, creeps forth and drunkenly splays itself on the shore for baffled fishermen to puzzle over. Devoid of shape and squawking in alien tongues, this monstrosity is surely too crusty and maddened to bother with a lawsuit.
The line is drawn, and snorted.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Lurking Fear - Songs in the Key of Lovecraft

Rudimentary Peni's Cacophony is widely regarded as the most important Lovecraftian punk album, but few seem aware of this forgotten 80's gem by Missouri punkers Lurking Fear, who claim to be inspired by not only H.P.L. but by Poe, Ambrose Bierce, and Alan Moore. This last manifests itself in the the song "Swamp Thing," which morphs from a crazed hardcore stomper into a spacey death-rock groove with Moore's words recited over it, and then bizarrely shifts into the "Wild Thing"-styled theme from the 80's cartoon. Other tracks include "Born in Fear", "Werewolf" in the which the singer howls wildly, and "Innsmouth Bay." The sounds range from caveman pounding to moody, swirly goth, played at the far fringes of competence and traditional notions of what constitutes a song.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Bal-Sagoth - The Chthonic Chronicles

A well-worn classic of the Lovecraftian genre, the Chthonic Chronicles is the third entry into Bal-Sagoth's Mythos trilogy, presented here in defiance of traditional Euclidean mathematics and conventional notions of chronological coherence. For those unfamiliar with the works of Bal-Sagoth, they perform bombastic, baroque, and mind-altering pretentious Black Metal backed by a symphony and choir, with traces of T.S. Eliot's inspired gibberish in the lyrics. This is the total opposite of one's homemade one-man black metal music, obscure in both meaning and origin. Bal-Sagoth lays every note and whisper bare with its razor-sharp crystalline production and elaborate self-created mythology. Nonetheless, this remains an imminently likable and charming album, seemingly unaware of its own ridiculousness and therefore free of artifice and sneering irony.
Link removed pending lawsuit...

Monday, April 19, 2010

Plasmatics - Maggots The Record

Have you been feeling alienated from society lately? Are you baffled by the downaward-trending oxygen-to-nitrogen ratio, the increasingly unpredictable weather, and the staggering variety of things beyond your ken? Do you grow furious at the upswing in phonies, posers, and worm-food milling around you, making small talk? Have you ever dreamed of hijacking a school bus and steering through a wall of televisions only to be rescued by a helicopter mere moments before impact?
No? Well then, you're doomed.
Good Riddance.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Born Against - Live At Gilman 02-19-93

Apologies for my abruptness, but once again time is of the essence. In lieu of my usual loquaciousness I suggest listening to this live set from the punk rock combo Born Against, as their front man tends to similarly be of the verbose variety. Much humor and pathos to be had here, oh yes.
Aaaaaaaaaaughbghgbghghbghbghbghbthppppbbthhh!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Smohalla - Nova Persei

Mysterious levitating black metal seemingly of the intentionally inscrutable school, but recorded clearly enough so that it is not just a mad spiral of sound. These songs and the instruments playing them are separate and distinct - whether or not this is a desirable effect depends upon the tenderness of one's ears. Your humble host is not too jaded to enjoy lo-fi squall or pompous hubris, and this contains veins of both. My limited French helps none in translating these distant howls, but the subject matter is maddeningly apparent.
Aux Premières Eternités

Monday, April 12, 2010

Acid Mothers Temple - Recurring Dream and Apocalypse Of Darkness

In anticipation of my journey towards this cosmic Japanese spacerock collective in the near future, here is the thematically appropriate long form album Recurring Dream and Apocalypse Of Darkness. Two massive half-hours slabs of triple-heavy astral projection through strange and swirling planes of existence. Travel sideways in time and outwards into the void.
Eternal Incantation or Perpetual Nightmare?

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Hyperborea

No music today, deaf and dumb ones, but another variety of morbid treat awaits you, burbling up from the depths. This is a picture-book adaptation of Clark Ashton Smith's short story Hyperborea, featuring the first appearance of the Mythos's loathsome toad god Tsathoggua. Apparently this was printed in a very small run and thus remains below the threshold of public consciousness, making prime material for the Swamp.
Burble...

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Roky Erickson - Don't Slander Me


Lest the reader question the appropriateness of inclusion of this album in the collection, I would point out that "The Damn(ed) Thing" was inspired by Ambrose Bierce's similarly-titled horrific short story. That said, this should already be familiar to most lurkers in the Swamp; if not, by all means, ignore my blather and get it! This album also includes the borderline-Lovecraftian "Bermuda," exploring the mysteries of the titular triangle, and "Burn the Flame," famous for its inclusion on a certain zombie film's soundtrack. Enough exposition, though, I need not justify my actions to the world.
"And, God help me! the Damned Thing is of such a colour!"

Friday, April 9, 2010

Fungoid Stream - Celaenus Fragments

Thanks to the attentions of my scholarly colleague Shelby Cobras, I was recently informed that Fungoid Stream, esoteric Argentinian cinematic doom explorers, have released a new album.
This is not it.
In its wake, and at Mr. Cobras' not-so-subtle prodding, I present you with the group's first major work, based on the suitably suppressed Celaenus Fragments, relics barely decipherable even to one such as myself already waist-deep in esoterica, with runes and equations twirling around my increasingly fragile mind like the plankton and flotsam eddying just in and out of my swaying grasp. Subtle connexions can be made between this work and the infamous Dream Cycle Mythos, seemingly predating most of the research pertaining to the Old Ones, with the notable exceptions of "The Fungi From Yuggoth" and its uncoccooned form, "The Whisperer in the Darkness." I must confess I am intrigued with the slow but perceptible influence of Nyarlathotep-related material in flux this past fortnight, exemplified both by yesterday's post here and certain personal conundrums as yet unrevealed.
I shall buy the new album, and you shall tremble in its terrible shadow. But in the meantime...

Thursday, April 8, 2010

David McCallum - The Haunter of the Dark

The rarest of three Lovecraftian LPs narrated by veteran Scottish genre actor David McCallum, fittingly a story (the middle part of a trilogy) dealing with the power of the number three. A personal favorite here in the Swamp, at three in the morning.
Open The Shining Trapezohedron.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Flower Travellin' Band - Made in Japan


Time is short today, true believer, so here's what you need to know: This is the best album by the first Japanese heavy metal band. Shrill psychedelic samurai cleave your brain neatly in two.
Go!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Angel Rot - Unlistenable Hymns of Indulgent Damnage

Any album with two multi-syllabic adjectives in the title automatically peaks my interest, but few are as truly malevolent and purposefully ugly as this beast. Recorded in 1993 but unreleased until years later, this forward thinking monstrosity predated the wave of strange, angsty, nihilistic heavy metal that gained some momentum in the nineties before splintering into horrid rap hybrids, numerous forms of "industial music," slack-jawed crossover fodder, et cetera. In all honesty I cannot say that I love this record in the way that I do my other children but I certainly do listen to it often at the end of a long black day.
Perhaps today.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Bone Awl - All Has Red


Bone Awl nods its thousand heads in the direction of Alhazred, and the mad Arab nods his head in return. Genuinely unnerving, primitively played, hoarsely rasped, and hypnotic in its hideousness. Stand in awe at the most malignant music of the stillborn millennium. This is a testament to the last five days of my life, which remain absent from my memory.
I will pull the teeth from your skull.

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