"The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide" Review

Nine months ago, Noisey, a music-based imprint of Vice magazine, released a three part documentary entitled "One Man Black Metal." The film focused on three one-man black metal bands- Xasthur (real name Scott Conner), Striborg ( First Name Russel), and Leviathan (Jef Whitehead), and the profound sense of isolation that inspires them to create their bleak, emotional music.

The documentary is earnest, and the subjects are fascinating. Leviathan, in particular, struck me. While Russel  shows his emotional discontent by screaming in a cave while wearing makeup, and Scott is too encumbered by his own childish misanthropy to leave his apartment, Jef, the only one with a steady job and an ability to  explain his malaise in a  dignified manner. He shows the interviewer the house in which he lived with his  girlfriend who killed herself after a bout with cancer, he attempted to take his own life, and he recorded this album, "The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide."

With a backstory like that, I had to give the album a listen. I was not disappointed. This is one hour and eleven minutes of dark,anguished depressive black metal.The songwriting  sounds similar to other USBM bands like Twilight or Absu but it differentiates itself in several ways. The production, although very necro sounding, is still quality enough to detect each individual instrument in the mix. This is a nice touch as Jef is clearly very technically proficient and it shows in several parts of the album. The minimalist bass break in "The Bitter Emblem of Dissolve" and the guitar work in "The Idiot Sun" are good examples.

The vocals also stand out. Jef is a fantastic vocalist who utilizes both typical black metal screaches and throaty, horrifying yells. It really emphasizes the tortured, depressed aspect of the music.

Problems are few and far between. I will say that this album is slightly too long. I'm all for long form pieces (Miles Davis is one of my favorite mucisians) but when the theme of an album is so consistent, I loose focus.

Despite this, "The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide" is a great album and a great introduction to the USBM scene.

8/10

Busted Bearings/Bully split review

Powerviolence, as a genre, took me a while to get in to. I enjoyed the gruff vocals, the breakdowns, and the stop and start frantic energy of the faster passages, but something about the bass-heavy mix turned me off. I've always enjoyed music with raw production (Burzum, The Germs, early Johnny Cash,etc), but the thick, sludgy bass tone employed by most powerviolence bands manages to drown out the guitar.   Now, I am the kind of person who believes that there is good music in every genre, so I decided to give myself a crash course on powerviolence.

To Live a Lie Records, an excellent, Raleigh based powerviolence, grindcore, and hardcore label, offers multiple packaged deals on their website. I bought the deal that offered 10 7 inch ep's for $10. I received the book thick stack of records about four days later. This split was at the top of the stack and it immediately caught my eye. The absurdity of the cover, the skate themed band name, the slick red vinyl- I knew I had to slap it on the turntable immediately.

Side A contains seven songs from the skate-obsessed powerviolence act Busted Bearings. As my first introduction to the genre, Busted Bearings prove to be an impressive forward. They play breakdown heavy, incredibly fast powerviolence with nasty, nihilist lyrics. I actually enjoyed the thickness of the bass in the production. I found that the low end actually manages to increase the heaviness. Topics covered in their songs include cruelty to animals (Spare Any Change), The absurdity of punk fashion (King of Punxxx), and mental illness (Losing My Mind). Some of these lyrics are truly brutal. For example, "Sledge to the face/break your grin/brag about/ your rage within" is violent but I also detect a lot of humor. It comes across as very tongue in cheek.

The second band on the split, Bully are not nearly as unique. They play pretty standard hardcore with whiny, angsty lyrics in the vein of Converge without the musical depth or instrumental talent. I have no problem with emotional turmoil as subject matter, but when the words are as juvenile as "I'm trapped on the inside/ judging eyes are on the outside/ I've been disguising how I feel" I can't help but laugh. It comes across as more 13 year old girl with a live journal than emotionally sincere lyricist.

Overall, this split is decent. The A side offers a great introduction to powerviolence, humorous, violent lyrics and crushing breakdowns included. Unfortunately, side B drags the whole split down.

5/10

To live a lie package!

Hey, guys. Today my mailbox was graced with several slabs of wax from the, always killer, to live a lie records. They sell grab bags with 10 7 inches for 10 dollars. I couldn't resist!

Contained in the, roughly book sized, cardboard box was:

Rusted Bearings- Bully

Dissect- Codettista Codettisuutta

Cokskar/Tu Sufres- s/t split

Supository/Sicfofe Terror- s/t split. Picture disk.

Death First- Trapped

I hate this- s/t

Driller Killer/Simptose- s/t split

Roskopp/Doubled Over- s/t split

Human Error- 10 reasons to Kill Your Boss And Destroy The Whole World

Nothing is Over/Negative Fucking Energy- s/t split. 

Sunn o))) The Black One Review.

Sunn o))) is not an original band. This does not make them bad, a musician is only good as good as his/her record collection, it just means that their influences are readily apparent.

On Black One, Sunn add second wave Black Metal to their droney, sludgey sound, creating a more concise, riff based sound  that should appeal to both fans of Sunn's pure-drone work and black-metallers curious about the guest spots from Xasthur's Malefic and Leviathan's Wrest. One only needs to look inside the CD booklet to see the influence black metal had on this album. It is nothing but pages of black paper, with one page devoted to dark, satanic texts. It adds to the dark, creeping, otherworldly tone of the record.

The album is very bottom heavy. The first two tracks only reach 7:75 minutes in total. It is not until the third track, a cover of Immortal's Cursed Realms (Of the Winterdemons) that a track breaks the ten minute mark. This is not a cover in the traditional sense. The song is rapidly altered, replacing black metal riffing with  thick layers of feedback and sampled sounds of glacial mountaintop winds. The vocals, courtesy of Malefic, are smothered by wooshy, snow covered mix. I can almost picture a lonely mountain traveler succumbing to the ice and snow, bellowing vengeful epithets to the gods above.

"Orthodox Caveman"  returns to the classic Sunn sound, Earth worship and all. The drums, provided by Australian Avante Garde artist,  "Oren Ambarchii", lend a huge tribal, violent element that fits the track name.

"CandleGoat"  features the repeated phrase, "The eternity opens- The cemetery lights up again." A line taken from "Freezing Moon" by Mayhem. Musically, "CandleGoat" contains buried hints of "Freezing Moon." The soft-lit, ambient melody combined with the gruff vocals of Stephen O'Malley give the piece a much softer tone.

Although each track is of merit, 16-minute album closer "Bathory Erzébet" is the true highlight. Recorded as a tribute to late Bathory frontman Thomas Forsberg, "Bathory Erzébet" is a sprawling, thick, beast of a track. Vocals were provided by Malefic who, legend has it, recorded them while locked in a casket to give them a raw, terrified edge. Whether or not this is true, the vocals are brutal, depressive, and overall top notch. The instrumentation is equally powerful, "The Count" plays something only referred to as "The virus." This should give you a glimpse of exactly how intense this track is.

When I listen to this album, I can't help but think of an interview Mayhem guitarist Euronymous gave in 1991. He stated that Black Metal could be "Ordinary Heavy Metal or just Noise. What's important is that it's Satanic, that's what makes it Black Metal."  Sunn seem to have revived that idea, crafting an album of progressive drone heavily indebted to the early second wave of black metal and it's Satanic ideals. 
10/10
 

Tied Down!

Hi there. While browsing bandcamp I came across a great hardcore band entitled "Tied Down." Hailing from the great white north, they play discordant, noisy hardcore with the occasional slow passage. The vocals and production totally rule.

These guys are no longer around but the three songs on their band camp, "Small Town", "What would Audre Lorde Do", and "Polyagony", are available for download.

Link: http://tiedxdown.bandcamp.com/album/unreleased-tracks