Hot Hot Heat and Much Linkage

Music review of an awesome new band and another weeks worth of material in the form of a very long list of links which I'll try to group depending on subject matter, mostly about the war I have little or no idea what is going on in Britain only on Friday did the Sky News ticker have information on something other than the war.

Hot Hot Heat - Coming from the record label that gave the world Nirvana, Mudhoney, Tad and The Melvin's this quartet of floppy haired Canadians have seemingly been extracted from the 80's New Wave punk scene without the plasticity and synthesisers (Although there is an organ in there, somewhere) that plagued most of 1980's music. With all the energy and rock meanderings of every good 'The' band to be vomited onto the music scene in addition to a vocal styling like The Cures Robert Smith if he was born happy, and on a mixture of Prozac, Valium and speed make for a refreshing combination. If the album 'Make up the Breakdown' doesn't leave you with a smile on your face nothing ever will.

Musical Mentionables - Musicians have come to the aid of the 00's antiwar protesters with their own anthems including Zack de la Roche and DJ Shadow's 'March of Death', Public Enemy's 'Son of a Bush', System of a Down's Michael Moore directed 'Boom' and the not so impressive Beastie Boy's with 'In A World Gone Mad' don't download the last one unless your prepared to go into cringe position.

Other mentions are needed for the new Deftones clips here expect the album end of May, I can hardly contain myself. Also at the end of May Motograter are unleashed upon the world for the uninitiated among you the 'Motograter' is a four foot long steel behemoth consiting of a stand created form an old childs swingset with the sound being produced by two stretched screen doors that are played with a drumstick and the pitch controlled in a similar way to a fretless bass guitar, I shit you not.

Those anarchists of good taste Dog Fashion Disco return with a new album on May 5th entitled 'Committed to a Bright Future', if you've never heard of DFD before then here is my little summation they are sponsored by a strange green bottled alcoholic liquid Jagermeister, the two MP3's from the new album available for download are named 'Dr. Piranha' and 'A Worm in a Dog's Heart' but the cherry on the cake is the record company Press Release. With the first pragraph reading...

"What would you do if you were in a band and you were performing on stage and there standing in front of you was 700 angry white juggalos (Insane Clown Posse fans) that are tossing bottles, lit cigarettes and other various foreign objects in your direction. Would you (a) continue to play through and wait for your set to be over (b) stop playing and run for cover or (c) pull down your pants, take a nice healthy shit and toss it into the crowd infuriating them even more and causing such an outbreak that the place was shut down and the riot police were called in. If you are Dog Fashion Disco the answer would be C."

Mass linkage tomorrow as it appears I've waffled on about music for too long.

War Ensemble (By Slayer)

Propaganda death ensemble
Burial to be
Corpses rotting through the night
In blood laced misery
Scorched earth the policy
The reason for the singe
The pendulum it shaves the blade
The strafing air blood raid Infiltration push reserves
Encircle the front lines
Supreme art of strategy
Playing on the minds
Bombard till submission
Take all to their graves
Indication of triumph
The number that are dead

Chorus

Sport the war, war support
The sport is war, total war
When victory's a massacre
The final swing is not a drill
Its how many people I can kill

Chorus

Be dead friend from above
When darkness falls
Descend into my sights
Your fallen walls
Spearhead break through the lines
Flanked all around
Soldiers of attrition
Forward their ground
Regime prophetic age
Old in its time
Flowing veins run on through
Deep in the Rhine
Centre of the web
All battles scored
What is our war crimes?
(Era forever more...war)

Propaganda war ensemble
Burial to be
Bones shining in the night
In blood laced misery
Campaign of elimination
Twisted psychology
When victory is to survive
And death is defeat

Chorus

Sport the war, war support
The sport is total war
When victory's a massacre
When victory is survival
When this end is a slaughter
The final swing is not a drill
Its how many people I can kill

The Mad Capsule Markets

For the self confessed Akira freak that I am finding enjoyment from the chaos that is the music of The Mad Capsule Markets should come as no surprise. Hailing from Japan and boasting one of the greatest names in rock (I think it might have been inspired by Akira and Dragon Ball Z's Capsule Corporation) these three lunatics have been spewing out their own special brew of ear pollution since 1990, culminating in this their tenth album and second western release.

Not being restricted to the standard thoroughfare of rock these boys manage to rip the heart out of metal while slapping on some damn fine techno beats and whistles creating a sound so disturbingly powerful it manages to kick its way out of the speakers. One of the tunes sounds like the Proclaimers on crack, Rock Sound describes 'Chaos Step' as a 'racy Tetsuo-march' (I couldn't resist), the rest is the bastard child of a sloppy night of passion between The Prodigy (Where the fuck is their new album?) and Soulfly. If you are looking for a British equivalent look no further than Pitchshifter but for all my years of trying I've never really like the vocals.

If like me you have a fetish for the macabre then the Iraq Body Count will be for you, they have some wonderful web counters for your respective sites so download, inform and distribute.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

I first heard the name back in 'Nam in early '02, a plucky young cadet who coincidently owns iamantonym (Shameless plug) along with a bunch of other names that I wrote down on my helmet which is around here somewhere. A year later and the war still going on I visited the local Virgin bunker those poor bastards all music, video games and various other entertainment wares but no Goddamn ammo anyway they were having a clearout and said I could have Black Rebel Motorcycle Club for £7.99, I threw them some beers, an old porno and a packet of smokes and we called it even...

... Musically speaking it is a mix of The Doors and the Stones most bluesy riffs, but down tuned and distorted thrown in a cement mixer and vomited back. The bricks for this musical wall of sound are supplied by a vocal styling reminiscent of Spiritualized, as lazily monochromatic as Ian Brown with a pinch of John Lennon's most stoned moments. Makes a proud wall for any fallen war dead, long live rock 'n' roll...

The About Fucking Time Award Goes to...

Hell is for Heroes have finally after much titillation and strife released their hotly anticipated album 'Neon Handshake' and boy has it been worth the wait. They first grabbed my attention with a very cheap looking video for 'I can climb mountains' at some God awful hour of the morning on MTV 2 last January or February time an eclectic little ditty and an odd jittery looking guitarist it screamed energy in an impressive slice of rock cutting through the already over populated nu-metal shite (at the time) and into a genre all on its own. Album dates came and went postponement after postponement and approximately a year later with more money and better production HiFH have spewed forth one of the most impressive debut albums since The Cooper Temple Clause's 'See Through This and Leave'. I expect these guys to be huge, the future of music is looking bright, the future of music is British.

Fertiliser for the Senses

The music reviews (more like recommendations) that I tentatively intended on doing last week but way too much was going on so it was postponed until now, I'm sure tomorrow will all be about the State of the Union address by Bush and how he intends on making the use of nukes more of a reality than ever before. Just don't remind him the hypocrisy of hinting at using nukes when your crusade is against the proliferation of nukes, bio and chemical weapons.

One underlying element apparent in each of the following musical offerings is emotion, and I do not mean the forced screams of InMe's twelve year old lead singer with his stolen Nirvana chords and lyrics akin to a goths online poetry book. Come to think of it next time you see an InMe music video just watch his little face before his half broken voice gives out a yelp, he looks like he's physically in pain.

Mudvayne - 'The End of all Things to Come' - Quite possibly the least well known band to take musical influences from Aleister Crowley but are probably the only ones who are full fledged members of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. This album has had less than a lukewarm reception by the musical press who were probably expecting a carbon copy of LD-50, thankfully this has definitely placed Mudvayne outside the 'nu metal' category and onto a planet all of their own. Gut wrenching riffs, schizophrenic vocals, hyperactive bass lines and drum beats to crack skulls too, overall making this the heaviest and softest metal album that I've heard for a while which is difficult to imagine but needs hearing to be believed.

Next is three bands that have been thrown into the Emo genre, which I'm informed is the new name for indie either way it is professional punk. Well structured guitars, decent voices and the occasional scream but always well timed and never over done. Don't be perturbed by my liking of Mudvayne these two are completely different.

Thursday - 'Waiting' - Hailing from the same state as Glassjaw but with a more stripped down sound with less down tuning and generally not as heavy overall with dreamy winding intricacies similar to early Smashing Pumpkins, there’s even a few violins thrown in for good measure. (MP3's don' t just take my word for it)

Taking Back Sunday - 'Tell all Yours Friends' - Where to start? They will probably be huge, it is incredibly uplifting music, duel vocals like some inbred hicks with banjos (I mean that in the best possible way), neatly packaged 3:30 average length songs ready made for relentless airplay. Cynicism aside it's really fucking good and would make anyones music collection feel more complete. Think of very good version of Hundred Reasons. (MP3)

Danger, Danger, Ad Nausea!

When it first arrived M2 was a beacon of basic Democracy, people could send in their personal one hour play lists for the pleasure of the viewing audience. No sooner had this refreshing music channel cemented itself as the bomb shelter from the shit storm of pop it changed its named and transferred over Zain Lowe to add 'commentary'. The sheer insult of the name 'gonzo' for his vomitous, bowl splashing, televisual brain tumour, would have Hunter S. Thompson calling Lowe a pig fucker for his lack of journalistic integrity. Bring back Temple-Morris I don't know what you did to get fired but all is forgiven. If you can't get MTV 2 or you just don't watch it I shall save you the bother and reveal the 11 music videos that get played approximately once an hour 23 hours a day (the 24th is usually taken up by faecal filler programmes).

Electric 6 - Danger, High Voltage!
Nirvana - You Know You're Right
Death in Vegas (Ft Liam Gallagher) - Scorpio Rising
Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Zephyr Song
Liam Lynch - United States of Whatever
Eminem - Lose Yourself
Audioslave - Cochise
Coldplay - The Scientist
Feeder - Just the Way I'm Feeling
Foo Fighters - All my Life
Kelly Osbourne - Shut up

Received the Distillers 'Sing, Sing, Death House' this morning, already listened to it (not hard considering its only 28 minutes in duration). Its one mighty adrenaline soaked, anthemed, three chord madness of an album, Brody Armstrong tears through each song with a guttural drunken Courtney Love-esque wail (trust me that is a good thing). It'll have the most conservative listener tapping their feet and bobbing their head, it may even inspire a few to grow a Mohawk and go out to spit at old people.