lechuck - fragments of hysteria

LeChuck is an Israeli trio comprised of two abundant guitar players and an octopus-like jazz trained drummer. Their debut album "Fragment of Hysteria" was recorded live, all one-takes, with no overdubs. This straight to the point and in-yer-face recording fully captures the raw spirit of their live shows and their angular rock latitudes, crossing over between slanted noise rock to metallic math-rock in feedback heaven, overpowered by the stoner-blues yelps 'n' burps, in a Gibberish manner, by vocalist David Blau.

This debut album is as heavy, bare-boned, merciless, and imaginative as noisy math rock should be and is recommended for you to check out if you're into Hella, Don Caballero, Shellac, Laughing Hyenas, Keelhaul, Racebannon, Drive like Jehu and Jesus Lizard.

hysterically fragmented

king fire goat

One-off all-star sludge / noise project that only released a live album called "Live May 13th 2002" on Shifty Records.

king fire goat - live may 13th 2002

son of jor-el - s-t 2-song ep

This is a side-project by members of various sludge bands (fistula, 16, ultralord, scumchrist, rue, king fire goat, accept death, etc) playing sludge metal with strong thrash/hardcore accents. Many members of the sludge scene of Ohio appear as guests on their first LP.

son of jor-el

sexual harris - obvious

Experimental modern instrumental groove-based jazzish electric rock textures.

Eclectic & solid rhythm selections combined with spacey electric guitar melodies & complementing tuneful bass lines give Sexual Harris a unique sound & direction.

There are no vocals here, the acoustic drums, guitar & bass do all of the talking.

Occasional analog synth layers with tight & bold electric instrumentation give "Obvious" a sound unlike any other in your music collection.

It's OK to say you like it.

obviously

tenebre - in everything give thanks

The first Full Length album from Tenebre, In Everything Give Thanks is a monument to all instrumental projects.

Featuring stand up bass and other strings throughout, the songs give you mood and feelings while leaving you to want more. Finger tapping rules these beautiful tracks with many interlude type songs in between.

for fans of Don Caballero, the Owls & Explosions in the Sky!!

give in thanking everything

silencio - dead kings

Silencio (from Columbus, OH) combine many different styles including hardcore, noise, metal, jazz and others to craft very precise and explosive songs.

Silencio shares some common ground with the Flying Luttenbachers (longer, more composition oriented racket), Naked City (genre switching, mind boggling, manic intensity), and late Iceburn (unbelievably good musicianship used to make totally innovative music).

Silencio are truly forging new ground in music.

"a righteously catchy pop/grind/jazz/avant/prog/salsa/death epic !" -Crucial Blast

RIYL: Mr Bungle/Fantomas, Naked City, Flying Luttenbachers, Coptic Light, Samuel Jackson 5, Ruins, King Crimson, Don Cab, Battles, Coltrane, Iceburn, Kayo Dot

dead kings

minus - dark lit

On their long-awaited new album, Dark Lit, local power trio Minus does much to negate the assertion that the classic rock of the '60s, '70s and '80s left the guitar without further avenues of exploration."

"Mark France coaxes tones both subtle and overt out of his customized Frankenstein of a guitar. He demonstrates in the process how much of the rock canon has been excluded over the years by rejecting the influences that progressive rock, fusion and the avant-garde sought to incorporate"

This is music all-consuming in its beauty and power, and not to be missed either as studio product or live shenanigens.

Hailing from the small Oregon based label New & Improv, Minus is an improvisational "power trio" with something of a dark, menacing style. Those familiar with Bozzio Levin Stevens or Attention Deficit wouldn't be surprised with what they find here. Dark Lit is noisy guitar/bass/drums improv rock, occasionally augmented with some synths, loops, and a little turntable work from label mate DJ Scratch 'n Sniff.

The use of programmed loops and other electronics adds a small extra dimension to Minus' sound, separating them from some of their improv rock colleagues. Don't expect electronica, however, as this is still first and foremost guitar-led rock - just with a sprinkle of dub.

Technically, they might not be as crisp as a Bozzio Levin Stevens, but they display maturity and avoid falling into the "let's turbo-jam!" pit trap of other projects like this. They occasionally get a bit jerky and spastic, and sometimes get locked into one riff for a bit too long. Fortunately, this is the exception rather than the rule.

"Acidflesh", easily the highlight of the album, demonstrates the strength of the band: the guitar and drums run circles around a steady looped melody and synth moans.

Minus are intriguing and entertaining improv rock. There really isn't anything that's completely mind-blowing, but Dark Lit has enough high points to recommend to fans of the style.

darkly lit

the islands & the sea

Producing a right bloody racket which can be heard all the way from Texas, USA is The Islands And The Sea, an instrumental trio who kick the living shit out of guitars, bass and drums to create devastating waves of noise and dense, sludgy soundscapes.

... a wondrous cacophony of noise that blasts out of the speakers with devastating ferocity. Immensely powerful, domineering and huge in sound and presence are six tracks, running for a combined time of almost 50 minutes, which will push you as far as you can be pushed by instrumental music, without making the noise and textured collages of sounds they produce too overpowering in such a way that they become unlistenable or overly confrontational. In fact on occasion, whilst not exactly softening their sound, the music they produce takes on a melodic quality, awash with captivatingly descriptive presence, but still nestled together with thunderous percussions, bass and guitar.

Now, whilst there may be a lot of bands that inhabit the instrumental post-rock/post-metal genre, not everyone is going to throw something original or fresh-sounding into the pot. It's all too easy for bands to just blur into one another, without making any real effort to stand out from the crowd. Yet this ability to offer up something slightly different from the norm is one of the strengths that I feel The Islands And The Sea deliver throughout their debut album. As opposed to going headfirst into a frenzy of noise, or making thickly claustrophobic cinematic-styled aural structures, this trio have extracted the important and precise elements from both of these styles, and amalgamated them with a sound and atmosphere that is very much theirs alone. This fluctuates from almost dark ambient soundscapes to massive walls of drones, to distorted feedback that isn't a million miles away from the sounds of harsh industrial noise to delicate yet ready-to-erupt crescendos of tactile composition, building to monumental levels of descriptive beauty and emotive power.

Featuring James from the phenomenal The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, it's easy to see why these two bands make great bedfellows. If you've been knocked sideways by the power of TGLH, then TIATS serve as a welcome journey into similar yet still different territories. 'Return' is definitely a must for those of you who love your instrumental music loud and in your face, yet still maintaining enough dignity to be intelligently presented and well worthy of your time and investment." (review from judaskissmagazine.co.uk).

return

brutally handsome gentlemen

Pummeling staccato and hopeful melodies from this young and handsome two-piece spazz core duo.

The Brutally Handsome Gentlemen are yet another one of the emerging mathrock/spazz-core two-pieces akin to Hella, Orthrelm and Lightning Bolt. 10 tracks of instrumental rock genius as well as some tracks showcasing Spencer's knack for experimental electronica.

Well-chiseled musicianship combined with glorious soaring melodies and pummeling intricate rhythms, all of which are channeled through shifting time and space changes and then EQed to rock

bhg vs a computer

jail bait - the soundtrack

If "The Wall" had been recorded by Stoner Rocker's in Joshua Tree, California.

The Jail Bait Soundtrack is a concept album that came about while scoring music for the independent film Jail Bait at the Rancho De La Luna in Joshua Tree, California. The film is about a "Troubled teen who falls in love with the dwarf fisherman who found her as a baby in a dumpster."

While writing the screenplay I was introduced, thru my producer Dana Lee Anderson, to a bunch of great bands from the Desert and Alternative Rock scene: Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age, the Earthlings?, Fatso Jetson, Pigmy Love Circus, Ween ect... The music blended perfectly with the story I was writing and I now can't think of one without the other. Full Album is forthcoming.

This single features Scott Reeder (Kyuss, Unida) on vocals and bass and lead guitar. Dana Lee Anderson and Barry Connely from The Aliens on Guitar and Buchla, Dean Chamberlain on Guitar (Code Blue, the Motels) and John X (producer extraordinaire) on drums and piano.

jail bait

the owl watches - ghost of a train

This project had its beginnings while I was playing in another band, the eccelctic Tony Island based out of Boston MA. While we were working on a Tony Island CD in 2000, I started to do The OWL WATCHES simultaneously. Inspired by working with a multi-faceted artist like Tony gave me tons of impetus to try something of my own, which he wholeheartedly supported and encouraged. I gradually constructed it at my home studio in Boston MA where I lived at the time and finally unleashed it in May of 2002 in the form of "Tales From The Inflatable Forest". It was me (Phil McKenna) playing ALL instruments (guitars, bass, keyboards/fake Mellotron, drum programs) and wrote the whole thing. I self-produced it and sold/marketed it online. Even though doing everything on it, I am primarily a guitarist who doubles on bass.

I would consider my strongest influences to be Miles Davis, King Crimson, Jimi Hendrix, Cream and composers like Ravel, Stravinsky and Debussy. My musical background included private lessons and being self-taught (or rather a self-inflicted musical miseducation so to speak). I played with fusion, art-rock, folk, blues and rock & roll bands of varying descriptions. When home recording technology became more and more sophisticated and affordable, I felt a clear calling to seek out my muse. I do however plan to put together a live Owl Watches band, still, nothing beats playing in front of an audience.

After having relocated to Atlanta GA in early 2004 and re-equipped myself for digital music production, I set to work on my new disc, "Ghost Of A Train", this time utilizing the contributions of live drummers and others. I sought to convey a loose theme/vibe of the long-gone steam age and the remnants it left behind.

"Ghost Of A Train" is a dark, fiery and complex disc of instrumetal progressive rock best experienced at night with candles and your favorite pair of headphones or good speakers.

toast of a grain

massick - discography

... rippin' genre-skipping grind-pop-punk ...

Massick are a band that, much like Le Scrawl, at first glance appear to be a crusty grindcore outfit, but then they start to toss in all kinds of musical styles into their songs, one second playing goofy, super-catchy garage rock and Misfits style pop punk, the next tossing bits of ska, funk, f**ked up noise rock, surf rock, keyboard heavy Reggie And the Full Effect-esque pop, polka, trumpets, and jangly indie rock into a ferocious grindcore assault.

Perplexing, sure, but these guys are so catchy and energetic that it's tough not to get swept up in their schizophrenic genre hopping. It's like a Teutonic punk band heard Naked City and tried to apply that kind of cut-and-paste songwriting style to their fast paced, goofy melodic thrash, turning into a tightly constructed schizo hybrid of Napalm Death, Samiam, Melt Banana, Mr. Bungle, and Swedish melodic avant-crusties G-ANX.

Fans of genre-splicing grind and avant outfits like CSSO, Le Scrawl, Naked City, Cibo will love this disc, which includes Massick's self-titled 10", the 7", compilation tracks, and unreleased stuff, 19 tracks total which mostly date from the late 90's. -crucial blast

massick - discography