3 Teeth – 3 Teeth (2014)

3TEETH - 3TEETH (2014)

3TEETH - 3TEETH (2014) “Industrial mayhem” – it describes perfectly the essence of 3 Teeth. In a world of boring and predictable EDM, these old fashioned Ministry flavored music it’s refreshing and intense enough to tear you apart.
Actually that intensity, the simplicity, the hard hitting noises and several simple, but wicked, bone cutter guitar riffs are the aces from the sleeves of this L.A. based band. I love this album, it makes me wanna scream (again), kick me out of my chair and make me bang like a maniac. And honestly, I’m kind of old and rusty for that, but these guys managed to bring out (or back? 🙂 ) the animal from me. And that’s pretty cool because that’s all what this music it’s about after all, isn’t it? Read more 3 Teeth – 3 Teeth (2014)

Venetian Snares – My Love Is A Bulldozer (2014)

Venetian Snares – My Love Is A Bulldozer (2014) Aaron Funk, better known as Venetian Snares had reinvented breakcore and set the stage for many other artists such as UndaCova, Xanopticon, Enduser and Datach’i.
He debuted on a record label in 1999 with the EP “Greg Hates Car Culture” released on History of the Future. Prior to this, he self-released material on cassette tapes as early as 1992. Funk was quite prolific, releasing sometimes up to eight recordings per year, for different labels including: History of the Future, Isolate/DySLeXiC ResPonSe, Addict, Zod, Distort, Sublight, Low-Res, Planet Mu and Hymen.
He is making electronic music often in odd and numbered time signatures (mostly 7/4) and combining different sounds and styles from IDM to trip-hop and dark ambient with twisted off, intense breakcore beats. Read more Venetian Snares – My Love Is A Bulldozer (2014)

MegaDrive – 198XAD (2014)

Mega Drive - 198XAD MegaDrive lead us back to the electronic music of the 80’s with nowadays sound make-up. If you’re too lazy to dig up classics like Klaus Schulze (and Tangerine Dream), Vangelis, Jean Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk and so on, MegaDrive will introduce you to their fabulous world. It’s called retro revival and it’s definitively a pleasant and an alternative option. And well, if you’re old or wise enough to listen all those wonderful and creative artists of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s already, MegaDrive it’s still a quite nice option to fill up your ears and feed your brain with damaged sound waves.
Also recommended for fans of Power Glove, LazerHawk, Pertubator, Mitch Murder, etc.
198XAD, the new album from Mega Drive, pulses with dark, technological Read more MegaDrive – 198XAD (2014)

4star – Nothing Changed (2014)

4star - Nothing Changed (2014)

4star - Nothing Changed (2014) It’s no secret, I’m a huge fan of the guys from 4star. That perfect mixture of Eminem style hip hop rapping of Adam and that dense and contorted, drum’n’bass and dubstep flavored instrumentals of Peter with a taste of Subsource/Black Futures and roots back to Reznor and NIN, simply nailed me. While 99.9% of the current mainstream electronic/EDM scene it’s nothing but a (bad) joke and the underground it’s not allowed to surface, these guys fined a pretty cool breach of their own, they are dumb enough to play their own music and not to follow the trends.
While their debut album – Daylight (2011) – was taking to laugh most of the issues which bothered Adam, this time his approach it’s considerably darker and the whole set-up it’s more experimental, psychedelic here and there and… darker. Although I hate to use the “dark” label because I consider it inconsistent. But this second installment of 4star it’s less edgy and more gloomy then the debut album. Adam’s not joking anymore and he’s lyrics this time are more serious and tense. This album it’s not dark, but honest.
If there would be really free and alternative media, 4star would become stars. But there isn’t. And it’s a shame! This whole word is and honestly we can do anything about it. But as these guys have enjoyed tracking these songs, I have the luxury to enjoy their release. I feel lucky and so can you. Buy their stuff and help independent artists to stay on the scene. Or don’t and enjoy the 374th posthumous Michael Jackson album and the next 50 Cent release which it’s pretty much the same s*it with the previous and the following one, only the song titles are changed. Eventually.
Even if we might feel like it’s getting worst, they say: nothing changed. This is bad? This is good? Let’s hear it!! Read more 4star – Nothing Changed (2014)

Trophy Scars – Holy Vacants (2014)

Trophy Scars – Holy Vacants (2014)

Trophy Scars – Holy Vacants (2014) Four years ago Trophy Scars and their fabulous “Darkness, Oh Hell” rocked my world. Literally. That hypnotic mixture of punk fueled post-hardcore, indie-psychedelic rock, jazz, blues and funk was fresh and powerful, totally addictive.
Meanwhile they lost a little bit their punk edge, but not their intensity and “Holy Vacants” it’s an excicting and charming, throughout enjoyable album. Actually they know how to get slowly under your skin and once you get “infected”, you can’t get rid of them anymore. Must mention this, they released an album entitled “Never Born, Never Dead” in 2011, but somehow I missed that.
“Holy Vacants” is Trophy Scars’ fourth album and was two years in the making. It was also intended as their last, not because of any cataclysmic upset in the band, but because the four – Jerry Jones (vocals), John Ferrara (guitarist), Andy Farrel (bass player), Brian Ferrara (drummer) and Gray Reinhard (keys, vocals) – felt that after eight years, it had run its course. Read more Trophy Scars – Holy Vacants (2014)

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult – Spooky Tricks (2014)

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult Spooky Tricks (2014)

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult Spooky Tricks (2014) My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult rose to fame at the end of the 80’s by their hard beats, distorted vocals, dense and contorted instruments and bizarre film samples. It was something burlesque and something wicked about their music, something genuine. It was the troubled age of post-new wave and the dawn of the hard-industrial revolution and Franke Nardiello (aka Groovie Mann) with Marston Daley (aka Buzz McCoy) managed to merge efficiently the disco bass with the rocking wah-wah guitars and dabbling in some big bad burlesque brass. Some say that they are met over a few drinks in a bar in Chicago and soon find themselves touring with the band Ministry.
They crafted a shocking and lurid film concept, “My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult”. Inspired by a shared love of tabloid tales of sex and Satan, kitschy horror and exploitation films in the style of Russ Myers, the concept came naturally. The name was ripped straight from a British headline Nardiello had noted while living in London. With limited experience and resources the film was scrapped, but work on its accompanying soundtrack continued. Legendary Chicago record label Wax Trax! Records was impressed by their sound and signed them without hesitation. They released a three song EP in 1988 and the full–length album entitled “I See Good Spirits and I See Bad Spirits”, followed quickly in the same year. Read more My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult – Spooky Tricks (2014)

Nanowar of Steel – A Knight at the Opera (2014)

Nanowar of Steel - A Knight at the Opera (2014)

Nanowar of Steel -  A Knight at the Opera (2014) I have written about this Italian band long-long time ago, true in a different language, can find that article here. Their brand new – and third – album it’s the same brilliant and hilarious. Putting metal and gay in the same sentence would be blasphemy and an unforgettable sin some years ago, but since Rob Halford publicly came out as gay in 1998, things are changed… We’ve got gay metal ever since! 😆
How much true gay flavor or how much deep irony it is in Nanowar, it’s impossible to see clearly from this distance, but actually it doesn’t really matter while the outcome it’s so brilliant.
Formed in 2003, called simply Nanowar at first, the band added “of Steel” to their name to parody fellow Italian band Rhapsody’s name change to Rhapsody of Fire. So, here we go, their third album recall the classic 1975’s Queen album title, “A Night at the Opera” and it’s called in the Manowar’s heroic-epic manner “A Knight at the Opera”. Released on 23 February 2014 , and the album features some old tracks re-recorded and some new ones. It is sold as a CD + DVD, including Nanowar’s live performance at the True As Steel festival in Buelach, Switzerland, October 2007. Read more Nanowar of Steel – A Knight at the Opera (2014)

Animals As Leaders – The Joy Of Motion (2014)

Animals As Leaders - The Joy Of Motion (2014) It is the third album by instrumental progressive (metal) group Animals as Leaders, introducing new drummer Matt Garstka along guitarists Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes. Three years after “Weightless” the band sound fresh and feels explosive. Wicked riffs, complex rhythmic structures and build-up, nice harmonic breakdowns and surprising turns are all part of their arsenal. Although I like jazz and instrumental jazz albums, I generally don’t like instrumental rock albums. Animals As Leaders have the creativity and intensity to capture my attention and it’s always a pleasure to take the ride through their albums. Song by song they build-up vivid, unexpected spaces and the mixture of sounds and styles their perform it’s outside the box, above genres. Between the subtle shades of “Air Chrysalis” and the heavy tones of “Tooth And Claw”, Animals As Leaders mix and merge Read more Animals As Leaders – The Joy Of Motion (2014)

Combichrist – We Love You (2014)

Combichrist - We Love You (2014)

Combichrist - We Love You (2014) While the post-dubstep mainstream EDM scene is populated exclusively by plastic dolls, posers and annoyingly boring “copies of imitations”, it’s quite refreshing to listen to something powerful, modern, but still attached to the classic values and to the classic sense of the values such as “We Love You”, the 7th and probably the deadliest album by Andy LaPlegua, the one man army and the master mind behind the Combichrist machinery. Although the Ministry parallels are still there, Combichrist it’s definitively one of the best and most intense EDM bands from the scene and their Aggrotech aggression it’s always meaningful and genuine each time.
Without reinventing the EDM, without doing anything revolutionary, they managed to sound fresh and refreshing, modern without becoming predictable and boring as most of the other bands and artists from the EDM scene are sounding. There is life and music after drops and wobbling s*its after all! Read more Combichrist – We Love You (2014)

Random Being – World Without Memory (2014)

Random Being World Without Memory 2014

Random Being World Without Memory 2014 In a world of predictability, of products and fakes, art became a sub-product and a merchandise. It’s more important to lock-up on a large target and sell your stuff, then do something special. Tits are more important then talent and well, ass-kissing it’s more productive then any original idea. I only and always can quote Jello Biafra and his bitter-prophetic “Chickenshit Conformist” (“Ideas don’t matter it’s who you know. If the music’s gotten boring it’s because of the people who want everyone to sound the same…)
Pop music – a term that originally derives from an abbreviation of “popular” – it’s a generic genre which originated in its modern form in the 1950s, deriving from rock and roll. Rock and roll lost its sense, meaning and consistence, became a cliche while popularity last less then 15 minutes and with proper media support anybody can be a star nowadays where few people are still playing rock and roll (generically speaking) because they feel the need to play, very few people are doing music for the love of music or because they feel the need to express themselves, to communicate, to have fun doing it or – eventually -to find another path, to reveal a previously unexplored universe.
Random Being it’s an on-line creative collective and their collaboration bring to the surface a magical-mystery world of sounds and emotions, grooves and emulations. Self label it “avant-pop”, their universe it’s a melting pot of different genres and flavors, it’s a place of psychedelia, space and progressive rock, fever-burned rhythmics, contorted samplers and sound manipulations, jazz grooves and tango fueled passions. It might be post-pop as well – while post became the new (fashionable) porn. Think of David Bowie, P.I.L., Peter Gabriel and Pink Floyd jamming in the same room. Read more Random Being – World Without Memory (2014)