As much as it pains me, I decided to censor this album cover because I realized it might not be a good idea to have the original image featured on my social media ( view the uncensored version here ) I thought it might be interesting to review another foreign band this week. You might remember that I reviewed the Russian band, Молчат Дома, last week (be sure to check out that post if you haven't yet). This week, I am reviewing an album by a German band, Einstürzende Neubauten.  Einstürzende Neubauten (translates to "Collapsing New Builds") is a industrial band from West Berlin, formed in 1980. Industrial was really big in Germany, and Einstürzende Neubauten was one of the bands at the front of the scene, even playing concerts with Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle fame at ICA London ( check out my review of Throbbing Gristle - The Second Annual Report here ). Unlike Throbbing Gristle, Einstürzende Neubauten doesn't stick to pure experimentation and noise in their...

From just looking at the cover, this album might not seem like much. I mean, just look at it! It looks like some kind of lazy bootleg, or the cover to some official document. However, despite its looks, this is one of the most important albums ever made. This is because this is the debut album of the first ever industrial band, Throbbing Gristle. Without this album or band, more famous industrial bands and groups such as Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Marilyn Manson, and Death Grips would never of been created! Old photo in front of TG's lightning bolt logo When you first look at the track list of this album, the first thing you might notice is that there are a lot of repeated songs. In fact, out of the 9 tracks on the album, there are 3 tracks called Slug Bait and 4 called Maggot Death. This is because almost all of these repeated tracks are live recordings from different shows. Despite this, all of the repeated tracks sound ...

  Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted on this blog, mostly because of a lack of motivation on my part. However, I really want to start posting more, and writing the blog for Pvrth has brought me some newfound motivation ( read the blog I'm writing for Pvrth here! ). Therefore, I'm going to try to post at least once a month. Anyway, I'd like to introduce you to a fantastic band that I've been listening to recently, Boris! Boris is an experimental noise/ drone metal band from Japan. I can't understand what they're saying, but that doesn't take away from the spiritual experience that is listening to one of their albums. Boris is also named after a song of the same name by one of my favorite bands, the Melvins. You may remember my review of the album Lysol by the Melvins ( if not, read my Melvins - Lysol review here ). Lysol's first two tracks "Hung Bunny" and "Roman Dog Bird" are slow and powerful drone tracks which rely...

        Since I just reviewed Big Black (see my review of Big Black - Atomizer here ), I thought it would be appropriate to review another highly influential noise rock band, The Jesus Lizard. The Jesus Lizard is strongly influenced by Big Black, especially because Steve Albini, the ex frontman of Big Black, is their recording engineer. I think "recording engineer" is a title Albini made up, but it's basically the same thing as a producer. According to him, the difference is recording engineers solve problems in capturing sound, while letting the artist have complete control; on the other hand producers will often take control and ruin records. The Jesus Lizard's music often features a mix of low rolling guitars and bass, harsh shrieking guitars, slow drums, and weird shouted muffled vocals.         It's kind of hard to tell, but the cover of Goat is a naked woman with some image projected on her. To be honest, I'm ...

        Ok, here's Atomizer by Big Black. Big Black was a very influential band in the 80s, fronted by Steve Albini. This is a very hard band to put in any specific category, but I've seen the band called noise punk or post-hardcore. The band's music is fast, abrasive and tackles politically and culturally loaded topics like murder, rape, arson, child abuse, pedophilia, racism, and misogyny. The lyrics were written by Albini to purposely be controversial, but also to serve as commentary and criticism. These controversial themes were very unusual and shocking for the time, and had a huge influence on the lyrical themes of punk and similar bands of the time. Big black and Steve Albini also hated the rock bands and corporations of the mainstream music industry, and worked to separate themselves from it by playing their unique sound and by keeping complete control over all aspects of the band (refusing to sign contracts, paying for their own records, plann...

Ok, so this is going to be a weird one. Last Sunday, I attended a Crank Sturgeon noise show (basically a concert with experimental bands instead of conventional ones) and decided to put off the other bands on my schedule to review Crank Sturgeon and his show. I was actually lucky to be able to see Crank Sturgeon at this concert because he said it would be his last ever in the East Coast since he is moving to California! A short biography of Crank Sturgeon*: When he was younger, Crank got interested in dada and futurism which according to him "was way cooler than being in a punk band." He also started writing cutup poetry, inspired by these interests. In the late 80s, Crank went to art school where he started doing video art, performance art, and got into multi-media projects. It was also at this time that he started getting into experimental noise music, "I went to art school because I didn’t want to go to music school; I wanted to make noise, but I was a terribl...