V/A - "21 Years Of Doom, Death & Darkness" (2008)

Peaceville celebrates their 21st birthday by releasing this label sampler with choice cuts of some of their best and most well-known bands.

In a backwards chronologic kind of way. Which is neat. Not every song here is a slamdunk (Madder Mortem is fucking hideous) but I include all the tracks anyway, just for the sake of it.

The older stuff, especially Doom and Electro Hippies are pure gold, children. I bet some of you weren't even born back when they produced aural mayhem that bands today are still trying to recreate.

1. Bloodbath - Blasting the virginborn (2008) (buy)
2. Novembre - Anaemia (2007) (buy)
3. Gallhammer - World to be ashes (2007) (buy)
4. Madder Mortem - My name is silence (2006) (buy)
5. Aura Noir - Condor (2004) (buy)
6. Katatonia - Dispossession (2001) (buy)
7. Opeth - Face of Melinda (1999) (buy)
8. Anathema - Fragile dreams (1998) (buy)
9. My Dying Bride - Like gods of the sun (1996) (buy)
10. At The Gates - The swarm (1994) (buy)
11. Pentagram - When the screams come (1993) (buy)
12. Darkthrone - In the shadows of the horns (1992) (buy)
13. Paradise Lost - Gothic (1991) (buy)
14. Autopsy - Severed survival (1989) (buy)
15. Axegrinder - Life chain (1989) (buy)
16. Electro Hippies - Scum (1988) (buy)
17. Doom - Slave to convention (1988) (buy)
18. Deviated Instinct - Cancer spreading (1987) (buy)

(zip) Celebrating 21 Years Of Peaceville Records (70 mb)

Raggarballe med svängdörr och extra halka

Alright boys and girls, strap yourselves in. This massive compilation right here is very close to my heart, so pay attention.

I made it in 2003 and it consists of demos I ordered from various bands around 2000-2002, back in the days where not every band and their groupie had a website. Hell, some didn't even have an email address.

You'd the write the band a letter (with stamps and shit, remember those?), enclosed some cash, and a few weeks later a CD-R of their demo would arrive in your mailbox. A bit cumbersome, but it had its charms.

There's not an awful lot I can tell you about these six bands, mainly because I've forgotten most of the little information I had to begin with. It's been a while. And I'm too lazy to sit here and google these people all night (it's Friday, I have drinking to do), so I don't even know if these bands are still around.

I know Truckers and Crowpath have released "real" records after these demos, so they may still exist. If you wanna know more, have a look around the web. Who knows, some of them might even be on MySpace or some shit.

This collection is pure quality from beginning to end. From the heavy-as-a-burly-sumo-wrestler hardcore of Bombklan, the raging cowboy punk of Campfire Killers, the "Dillinger Escape Plan on crystal meth and steroids" chaos of Crowpath, to the nu metal-ish/thrash-ish/whatever antics of Mindfall and the distorted-as-a-motherfucker anarchist punk rock of Truckers, this is nothing but premium goodness.

A few samples sprinkled through-out with a zip link at the bottom:

1. Bombklan - Black soul
2. Bombklan - Dark
3. Bombklan - Tripwire
4. Bombklan - TV sketch (Black Flag cover)
5. Bombklan - Wall of depression

6. Campfire Killers - High plains drifter
7. Campfire Killers - Tribute to a bad man
8. Campfire Killers - Only hell has a country songs
9. Campfire Killers - Don't take your guns to town (Johnny Cash cover)
10. Campfire Killers - Can't keep an evil man down
11. Campfire Killers - Evil amigo

12. Chimeara - Hammer and what...
13. Chimeara - Over and over again
14. Chimeara - Society whore

15. Crowpath - The arsonist
16. Crowpath - We all missed the first episode
17. Crowpath - 20 years delayed abortion
18. Crowpath - Among cards and pawns

19. Mindfall - Tides of flesh
20. Mindfall - Burns like summer
21. Mindfall - Desolate
22. Mindfall - The white

23. Truckers - R.I.O.T. (Revolution In Our Time)
24. Truckers - Gutter
25. Truckers - Ökknen
26. Truckers - Truckstop queen
27. Truckers - Kalashnikov

(zip) Metal Bastard's Demo Compilation

Poison Idea - "Just To Get Away" (1990)

Can a rotten punk rock song move you to tears? It sure can.

If that punk rock song perfectly expresses all the dreams of everyone who's ever felt cornered, trapped or stuck in a rut. If you've ever reached that point where you can't put up with your life one more second and just want to hit the road and never look back.

I read a brilliant review of Poison Idea's magnum opus Feel The Darkness in Close-Up Magazine a few years ago when the album was given a re-elease. The review astutely pointed out how Just To Get Away in two and a half minutes basically sums up everything Bruce Springsteen has been trying to convey in his whole career: a girl, a highway, and hope for a better life somewhere else. Anywhere else.

But since this is Poison Idea, the protagonist of the song has a gun and he ain't driving that car sober. Not mention that his girl is only sixteen.

I guess why the song hits home with me is simply because it feels so genuine and from the heart. Poison Idea was perhaps the most depraved band ever - alcohol, drugs (and lots of em), violence, living on the streets, morbid obesity, depressions, undignified deaths in the gutter... These dudes had done it all. The biggest bunch of nihilists you'd ever see.

So when Jerry A. hollers "Sick of this motherfucking goddamn shit/There's a road/Beyond it lies/I don't know/I just gotta run/I just gotta go" you can feel the desperation in his voice. He fucking means it, and it chokes me up every time. Hell, it chokes me up just writing those lines. It's pathetic, I know. But it's so fucking beautiful, man.

Unlike Springsteen. I like him and all, but you can tell he's a poser. What did he ever have to whine about? What reasons did he have to write songs about escape and decades of pent up frustration? Daddy never hugged you? Well boo fucking hoo. Man up, you little bitch.

Quit my job, told my boss to stand aside
Grabbed a gun, a fifth of booze, jumped in my ride
I got my girl, she's sixteen and she's really special
I can't slow down, got a date with the devil

Two tons of steel, a hundred miles an hour
No looking back, grooving on the power

Responsibility made me quit
Sick of this motherfucking goddamn shit
There's a road, beyond it lies, I don't know
I just gotta run
I just gotta go

Two tons of steel, a hundred miles an hour

I never sang a love song
I never owned a car
But I've never met a machine that would drive me this far

Not gonna listen to a word you say
Leaving in the morning
Just to get away
Can't stand myself for another day
Leaving in the morning
Just to get away


(mp3) Poison Idea - Just to get away (do I even need to say it's highly recommended...?)

Buy Feel The Darkness @ Amazon.com.

Songs That Get My Juices Flowing #30

Update #1: The bandwidth for these files has been exceeded. Check back later today or tomorrow and they'll be back.

Update #2: Now they're back up! Much sooner than expected. Very nice.

(mp3) Metallica - Dirty window
Available on St. Anger (2003)

(mp3) In Flames - December flower
Available on The Jester Race (1996)

(mp3) Refused - Hate breeds hate
Available on The E.P. Compilation (1997)

(mp3) The Haunted - The medusa
Available on The Dead Eye (2006)

(mp3) Watain - The serpent's chalice
Available on Sworn To The Dark (2007)

Skid Row - "Slave To The Grind" (1991)

There was a time before VH1's Supergroup, or whatever it was called. There was a time when Sebastian Bach was cool. Pretty long time ago, I know. But still. There was a time when Skid Row was a good band. This moment only lasted a few months or so. But still.

My older sister had a black and white poster of Sebastian so enormous it didn't fit on the wall, she had to fold parts of it.

This was Skid Row's only good album, and before it they only released two good songs, Youth Gone Wild and 18 And Life. Don't argue with me, you know it's true. Look within yourself and you'll see.

The title track here was easily Skid Row's heaviest track ever and even today, 17 years later, it doesn't fail to get me pumped up. It's fucking awesome, no two ways about it. In addition to that, In A Darkened Room is the best rock ballad of all time. And that's final, not debatable.

Amazing album, you need to hear, it's amazing, I'm a little drunk, every song here is super, get downloading. Dammit.

(mp3) Skid Row - Slave to the grind
(mp3) Skid Row - Riot act
(mp3) Skid Row - In a darkened room (highly recommended!)

Buy Slave To The Grind @ Amazon.com.

The video for In A Darkened Room:

Strapping Young Lad - "No Sleep 'Til Bedtime" (live, 1998)

Now in the hall of the necro lord,
Flash of fear when he sees my sword,
Raped his women, smoked his bone,
Leave a booger underneath his throne!


(mp3) Strapping Young Lad - Far beyond metal (highly recommended!)
(mp3) Strapping Young Lad - Japan

Buy No Sleep 'Til Bedtime @ Amazon.com.

Metallica - "Live in San Diego" (1992)

Still recovering from being beaten to a pulp by Death Magnetic (utterly brilliant album), I went through my entire Metallica VHS collection. Yes, VHS.

Somewhere around part two of A Year And A Half In The Life Of Metallica I started getting serious flashes of Black Album nostalgia. It reminded me of just how amazing Metallica were during this era, and subsequently I spent the entire day watching the Live Shit: Binge & Purge box set.

The San Diego shows from 1992 are just pure sex, so I had to share some. This set is nearly three hours long and I decided to make this high quality for a change, instead of them pesky 128 files I usually post. So this took me fucking ages to upload. I started the upload, then went for a walk. When I came home three and a half hours later, it was still going.

But anything for you, my darlings.

1. The Ecstasy of Gold/Enter Sandman
2. Creeping Death
3. Harvester of Sorrow
4. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
5. Sad But True
6. Wherever I May Roam
7. Through the Never
8. The Unforgiven
9. ...And Justice For All Medley
10. The Four Horsemen
11. For Whom the Bell Tolls
12. Fade to Black
13. Whiplash
14. Master of Puppets
15. Seek & Destroy
16. One
17. Last Caress
18. Am I Evil?
19. Battery
20. Stone Cold Crazy

(zip) Part 1
(zip) Part 2
(zip) Part 3

Buy Live Shit: Binge & Purge @ Amazon.com.

Songs That Get My Juices Flowing #29

(mp3) God Bullies - Join Satan's army
Available on Join Satan's Army (single, 1990)

(mp3) Amon Amarth - Twilight of the thunder god
Available on Twilight Of The Thunder God (2008)

(mp3) Shihad - My mind's sedate
Available on The General Electric (1999)

(mp3) Banderas - That full moon feeling
Available on Beast Sounds And Parlour Tricks (2008)

(mp3) The Misfits - Hybrid moments
Available on Static Age (1978)

Mike Patton - "A Perfect Place" (soundtrack, 2008)

Is there any doubt what so ever that Mike Patton is the most versatile and talented (not to mention strangest) musician active today? I didn't think so. This soundtrack is just another proof. From ballroom stuff to Tom Waits-y stuff to opera. The man is a lunatic.

By the way, my bandwidth has almost run out, so if you can't download these tracks, try again tomorrow when the bandwidth's been restored.

(mp3) Mike Patton - A perfect twist (highly recommended!)

(mp3) Mike Patton - A dream of roses

(mp3) Mike Patton - Il cupo dolore

Buy A Perfect Place @ Amazon.com.

Cute, funny or scary?

Perhaps all three?

You be the judge. I'm leaning towards scary.

The Business - "Live" (1998)

Here you go, from all of us to all you, a live album with the best punk/oi! band ever. I'm not gonna get into the history of The Business, that's what Wikipedia is for.

The reason The Business are, or perhaps were (I confess to not having heard anything they've done since 1997, apart from an amazing split single with Dropkick Murphys), the best oi! band in the world is very simple: They got great songs. Sounds obvious, but just think about how many bands within punk and its many subgenres don't put much effort into writing memorable songs.

They know how to play fast and make a hell of a racket, they might even know how to put on an entertaining stage show. But they don't have a single song you remember ten minutes later. No songs you can put your fists in the air and sing along to. Which of course is the trademark of oi! punk: The sing-a-long-ability. I've heard people refer to it as "soccer hooligan punk", which hits the nail on the head.

Or perhaps "football hooligan punk" is more fitting. This is an English phenomenon after all.

This here live album, inventively titled Live, was released in 1998 by Catfish Records and is a compilation of live recordings from 1980 to 1988. Recently it was rereleased with a greatest hits disc to make a very buy-able double cd package.

Every song here is a classic, an anthem, a call to arms, a total hit song (in a perfect world, that is). You might as well downloaded it now that you're here. You won't regret it. In fact, you'll thank yourself for it.

Go on, my son. 45 minutes of premium raw punk with hooks and catchy melodies any pop band would kill to have in their canon.

1. Mortgage Mentality
2. Suburban Rebels
3. Product
4. Out In The Cold
5. Do A Runner
6. Welcome To The Real World
7. Drinking And Driving
8. Hurry Up Harry (Sham 69 cover)
9. Harry May
10. H-Bomb
11. Blind Justice
12. Loud Proud & Punk
13. Sabotage The Hunt
14. Smash The Discos
15. Do They Owe Us A Living (Crass cover)
16. Pretty Vacant (Sex Pistols cover)

(zip) The Business - Live

Buy all things Business @ Amazon.com.

Sir Ben Kingsley joins Minor Threat

Say what now?

(mp3) Peace, Love And Pitbulls - War in my livin' room
Available on Red Sonic Underwear (1994)

(mp3) Led Zeppelin - Rock and roll
Available on IV (1971)

(mp3) Metallica - Harvester of sorrow
Available on ...And Justice For All (1988)

Queens Of The Stone Age - "Era Vulgaris" (the non-album tracks) (2007)

A little something to cheer myself up on this cloudy, miserable day.

A few tracks recorded during the Era Vulgaris sessions that were left off the album. Damn good stuff this, especially the title track with Trent Reznor (how they could leave that off the album is beyond me).

There was also a Brian Eno cover recorded, but I haven't been able to find it. Anyone got it and feel like sharing?

(mp3) QOTSA - White wedding (Billy Idol cover)

(mp3) QOTSA - Running joke

(mp3) QOTSA - The fun machine took a shit and died

(mp3) QOTSA - Era vulgaris (feat. Trent Reznor)

(mp3) QOTSA - Christian brothers (Elliott Smith cover)

(mp3) QOTSA - Goin' out west (Tom Waits cover)

Buy all things Queens Of The Stone Age @ Amazon.com.

Songs That Get My Juices Flowing #28

(mp3) Gojira - To Sirius
Available on From Mars To Sirius (2005)

(mp3) The Dillinger Escape Plan - Black bubblegum
Available on Ire Works (2007)

(mp3) Deftones - Be quiet and drive (far away) (acoustic)
Available on B-Sides & Rarities (2005)

(mp3) The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Crosstown traffic
Available on Electric Ladyland (1968)

(mp3) Eagles Of Death Metal - Kiss the devil
Available on Peace, Love, Death Metal (2004)

A Classic From The Metal Bastard Archives - Peace Love And Pitbulls - "Red Sonic Underwear" (1994)

How many of you were reading this blog back in January? That's right, none of you.

So here's a wee reprise - just for you! A little something I wrote on this seminal, disgustingly overlooked and underrated album on January 11th.

This is truly one of the best heavy albums of all time, one that deserves to be heard by as many people at possible. Fourteen years after its release it's still as mind boggling, heavy, extreme, brutal and amazing as it was the day it was released.

And keep in mind that industrial metal albums never age very well - they date and grow old faster than an open carton of milk on a hot day. But ask the risk of sounding repetative, Red Sonic Underwear is as fresh and crushing as it ever was.

Do yourself a favor, citizen. Download these three tracks from the album (and a super rare b-side from the Animals single) and revel in their amazingness. Crank it way up - this is music meant to play loudly.

All four of these are ridiculously highly recommended.

(mp3) PLP - Warzaw

(mp3) PLP - Animals

(mp3) PLP - Pig machine

Bonus track:

(mp3) PLP - On/Off

Buy Red Sonic Underwear @ Amazon.com.

Hearse - "Armageddon Mon Amour" (2004)

Are you also one of the sensible ones who think Arch Enemy turned to shit when they got some German bimbo to sing for them?

Well, today is your lucky day.

This is the second album by Hearse, the trio fronted by former Arch Enemy singer Johan Liiva. Damn good stuff, this. Imagine early Arch Enemy's melodic death metal harmonies mixed with Entombed and perhaps a little Dismember.

At times the production sounds so much like classic early 90's Swedish death metal that I had to check the booklet to see if it was recorded at Sunlight Studios. But it wasn't.

(mp3) Hearse - Tools (highly recommended!)

(mp3) Hearse - Cambodia

(mp3) Hearse - Play without rules

Buy @ CD Universe.

Help needed! Who's performing this track?

I never agreed with all the hate St. Anger got. There are songs on it I really really like. Hell, the next Juices Flowing post will even include a track from it.

GASP! SHOCK! HORROR! Well, just deal with it.

Still, this home made pisstake has been cracking me up for five years. It appeared on the net only days after St. Anger leaked, and all the reactions to Lars Ulrich's tinny pots & pans snare drum sound started coming in.

I've completely forgotten where I downloaded it, and I'm not sure I ever caught the name(s) of the person(s) who made.

Do you have any idea?

(mp3) Unknown Performer - St Anger parody

And please, no comments on how St. Anger is a disgrace, the biggest piece of shit ever, worst crap I've ever heard blah blah blah.

Save it for someone who gives a shit.

Songs That Get My Juices Flowing #27

(mp3) Botch - Saint Matthew returns to the womb
Available on We Are The Romans (2000)

(mp3) Die Krupps - Isolation
Available on III: Odyssey Of The Mind (1995)

(mp3) LOK - Bedragaren i Murmansk
Available on Sunk 500 (2000)

(mp3) Mad Cow Disease - White dove
Available on Tantric Sex Disco (1997)

(mp3) Orange Goblin - Round up the horses
Available on Thieving From The House Of God (2004)

King Crimson - "In The Court Of The Crimson King" (1969)

The best prog rock album ever, in yet another joint Metal Bastard/Monkey Bastard venture! Cleverless, awesomeness or just laziness? You be the judge.

From Rolling Stones' 1969 review:

The album begins by setting the scene with "21st Century Schizoid Man." The song is grinding and chaotic, and the transition into the melodic flute which opens "I Talk to the Wind" is abrupt and breathtaking. Each song on this album is a new movement of the same work, and King Crimson's favorite trick is to move suddenly and forcefully from thought to thought. "Epitaph" speaks for itself: "The wall on which the prophets wrote/Is cracking at the seams ... Confusion will be my epitaph."

"Moonchild" opens the second side, and this is the only weak song on the album. Most of its twelve minutes is taken up with short statements by one or several instruments. More judicious editing would have heightened their impact; as it is, you're likely to lose interest. But the band grabs you right back when it booms into the majestic, symphonic theme of "The Court of the Crimson King." This song is the album's grand climax; it summarizes everything that has gone before it: "The yellow jester does not play/But gently pulls the strings/And smiles as the puppets dance / In the court of the Crimson King."

This set was an ambitious project, to say the least. King Crimson will probably be condemned by some for pompousness, but that criticism isn't really valid. They have combined aspects of many musical forms to create a surreal work of force and originality.

Couldn't have said it better myself, so I didn't.

Here it is, in its full glory. You may rejoice now. Woohoo!

The purple piper plays his tune!
The choir softly sing!
Three lullabies in an ancient tongue!
FOR THE COURT OF TEH CRIMSON KIIIIING!!!!!!!!!!

1. 21st Century Schizoid Man (7:20)
2. I Talk To The Wind (6:05)
3. Epitaph (8:47)
4. Moonchild (12.11)
5. The Court Of The Crimson King (9.22)

(zip) King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King

Buy all things King Crimson @ Amazon.com.

Nasum - "Shift" (outtakes, 2004)

Your wish is my command! Well, maybe not. But sorta. Sometimes.

A few of you (mainly Nathan...) have requested certain bands and certain songs, and I'm more than happy to oblige.

So keep the requests coming! Anything in particular you'd want me to post? Just let me know, either by leaving a comment or mailing me at monkey_bastard at hotmail dot com.

After posting some old Nasum tracks (at the request of Nathan) a reader by the name of Paris requested some newer Nasum stuff.

So for Paris and anyone else who might care, here's four outtakes from Nasum's last (and in my opinion best) album, Shift from 2004.

(zip) Nasum - Outtakes from Shift

Buy all things Nasum @ Amazon.com.

Union Carbide Productions - "Only The Best" (2003)

I wasn't sure whether to post this in Metal Bastard or Monkey Bastard, since it kinda fits in both.

So I'm posting it in both.

Union Carbide Production was a hellraising group of young men from Gothenburg, Sweden who quickly became known as the roudiest bunch in town, both for the chaotic live shows, but also for their arrogant attitude.

Early U.C.P. may have sounded a lot like The Stooges, but these were no thugs, junkies and petty criminals from Ann Arbor. These were snotty upper class kids with money to burn, straight outta da fancy suburban neighbourhoods. They talk in interviews about how much they loved playing tennis, driving expensive cars their parents bought for them, and chilling in the tanning bed. And how the only played rock 'n' roll because their decadent lives were boring.

Throughout the gigs, frontman Ebbot Lundberg would insult the audience, especially during shows in America where he would spend more time talking about how fat and disgusting everyone was than actually singing. Wherever they went they got on everybody's nerve, just as intended.

It's interesting how punk rock was supposed to be provocative and against the grain, but once you provoke the punks and the rockers themselves and go against their grain, they hate you for it. When they really should appreciate it. When punk and its aesthetics become generic and evolve into little more than rules you must follow in order to be punk... That's the moment the polar opposite becomes punk.

That's when you need spoiled rich kids telling crusty drunks with a mohawk living in a dumpster just how fucking filthy they are. Those who don't get that, don't know what punk was supposed to be in the first place.

U.C.P. knew this however, and stopped playing raunchy Stooges rock the moment they realised that's what people expected them to do. Instead they mellowed out and adopted darker and more psychedelic influences on the 2nd album, and by the third one they were downright folksy and Rolling Stones-y.

After recording their fourth album in Chicago with Steve Albini (during which time they got a fan letter from Kurt Cobain), U.C.P. called it quits in 1993. Several members, including Ebbot Lundberg, would go on to form The Soundtrack Of Our Lives. Everything you need to know about TSOOL, as well as fifteen mp3s from their entire career can be accessed at my old Monkey Bastard blog.

In 2003 I whipped up this little compilation of my favorite U.C.P. songs.

(zip) Union Carbide Productions - Only The Best

1. Ring My Bell (3:33)
2. Summer Holiday Camp (3:29)
3. Cartoon Animal (3:47)
4. So Long (4:08)
5. Born In The 60's (3:32)
6. Down On The Farm (6:03)
7. Maximum Dogbreath (4:42)
8. Career Opportunities (7:32)
9. Be Myself Again (3:33)
10. Golden Age (4:43)
11. Baritone Street (5:27)
12. Can't Slow Down (2:31)
13. Coda (8:19)
14. Mr. Untitled (3:31)
15. Right Phase (3:40)
16. Chameleon Ride (5:16)
17. Turn Off The Blues (4:00)

Tracks 1-4 from In The Air Tonight (1987)
Tracks 5-8 from Financially Dissatisfied, Philosophically Trying (1989)
Tracks 9-13 from From Influence To Ignorance (1991)
Tracks 14-17 from Swing (1992)

Buy all things UCP @ Amazon.com.

Nathan gets lippy

Nathan writes:

"hit us with some oldschool Nasum if you feel like it :)"

Is that a dare or a double dare?

Perhaps Domedagen, their first demo from 1994, is old school enough for your acquired and most particular tastes, O benign King Nathan? Huh? Is it?

Or do I have to go get the Agathocles split from 1993? Beause the pleasure would surely be all mine, it really would, yes sir, kind sir, just ring the bell sir, thank you sir.

Anything else I can help you with while you have my attention? A foot rub perhaps? A warm towel? The treasure of the Sierra Madre?

(zip) Nasum - Domedagen

Pantera - "Vulgar Display Of Power" (1992)

Three long days without an update from Metal Bastard. How ever did you cope? You're almost suicidal right now, aren't you? Well thank god I'm here to cut that noose around your neck with a sharp piece of METHUL!!! \m/

Is there really anything to say about Vulgar Display Of Power that someone else hasn't already said? I'm not sure. It's a great album, that's about all. Pantera's second after deciding they should stop making wuss music for wussies. It's not their best though, both Far Beyond Driven (1994) and The Great Southern Trendkill (1996) top this one for me.

But more on them some other day.

It's definitely the most important metal album in my collection though: without this album opening the door for me, I would probably still think Metallica's black album is the most brutal shit evar!

(mp3) Pantera - A new level

(mp3) Pantera - Fucking hostile

(mp3) Pantera - Rise (highly recommended!)

Buy Vulgar Display Of Power @ Amazon.com.