SHADOW CUT – Pictures of Death From the cover this looks to be some seriously evil shit, and indeed from the very start Pictures of Death pours out some wickedly heavy grindcore with the deathly opener “Drug/Murder/Them.” Black doom pours out of the following “Throatcuts Nine,” there’s the burning death of “Hate” and a Forward Into Battle-era English Dogs sound to “Inter Arma.” Despite the brutal pounding delivered here the music does occasionally interject delicate strains of synth and string here and there, allowing them to drift through the tracks and provide a startling display of fragility in the face of the utter horror of the rest of it all. Fans of Moribund Cult would do well to keep an ear turned toward Firebox. * * * * Firebox Records – www.firebox.fi – Teollisuustie 19, 60100 Seinajoki, Finland

	THE SHEMPS – Spazz Out Lively garage punk that, well, is just good fun stuff. Although hailing from New York, The Shemps have a rowdy Northwest beat and a mean-spirited good cheer that shine out on tracks like “Count Me Out,” “King of Garage,” the “satanic sacrifice” of “Damn Shame,” and even brings joy to downer titles like “You Hate Me” and “That’s Great That Sucks.” “Gimmie Everything” is a hell of a party, “Deep Thinker” and “Treat Her Right” both have a particularly good hump to ‘em, and those who know what I’m talking about will be pleasantly mortified to hear “The Face.” This party package also came with a live Shemps disc, recorded on WFMU (although I don’t know if this will be included in the official Reservation Records release). These eleven tracks have the band sounding even more agitated than they do on Spazz Out (albeit with the same good humor), making them sure to be a great act to catch live. More likeable each and every time you play ‘em, it all makes you wanna shake your ass in someone’s face and rattle your beer can on the bar for another. * * * * Reservation Records – www.reservationrecords.com

	SIEBENBURGEN – Darker Designs & Images Underworldly screaming and groaning opens Darker Designs… on a note of Satanic drama as dark gothic metal pours forth, bringing with it the sound of vampiric, almost Luciferian gloating. Ragged in some portions, nearly angelic in others thanks to the succubal siren song of Erika Roos, this album is a tirade of bloody revelry as the hordes run rampant across tracks such as “Born Under a Black Sun” and “Harvest for the Devil,” picking up into an almost Reviled-style frenzy on “Of Blood and Magic.” (Although sorely missed is a cover as wicked and gleeful as that of WASP’s “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” found on their Delictum.) Ideal for fans of Cradle of Filth, Cadaveria and the like. * * * Napalm Records – www.napalmrecords.com – P.O. Box 1983, Port Townsend, WA, 98368

	SIOUX CITY PETE &THE BEGGARS – Necro Blues I was all the way behind this before even sliding it into my player; in a brief interview with Sioux City Pete Phillips provided on the promo sheet, Pete has this to say: “The catalyst to do this was hearing the White Stripes turn roots music into quaint garbage.” So we have one thing and one thing only to thank those unSympathetic little cocksuckers for; spawning the Necro Blues. This is pure hellfire revival that in a single song, “Goin’ to the Church,” for example, lays to waste all conception of the blues in the 21st Century. As the man says, “Necro blues is death blues,” and it’s all right here: the clawing on the coffin lid guitar scratch of “Pedophilia,” the lyrics of “Voodoo Motherfucker” (“Voodoo Motherfucker, baby, I’ll cut your head right off.”), and so much more. It’s all accomplished with a primeval guitar slide and stomp that is about as mean and low-down as most would care to go. The album is also filled with vintage samples from bygone days, everything from revivals to hindu rituals with unspeakable segments lurking in between. Even the CD booklet itself is a thing of wonder; adorned with the Goat of Mendes (which doesn’t properly show on my low-quality cover scan), it’s filled with imagery of pornography and savagery mixed with quotes from the likes of Carl Panzram, Louis Farrakhan and Georges Batailles, all of which, according to the promo sheet, “Proved to be incendiary enough that it was rejected – due to its ‘questionable content’ – by every pressing plant Steel Cage had worked with to date.” Spooky shit that, dare I say it, even outdoes Brujeria on the brutality scale. * * * * Steel Cage Records – www.steelcagerecords.com – P.O. Box 29247, Philadelphia, PA  19125

	SKEPTICISM – Farmakon Swelling organ strains and underworld groans (gurgling gothic and apparently drug-induced lyrics) open Farmakon on a darkly pleasing strain; this opener, “The Raven and the Backward Funeral,” is followed by the pleasingly subtle jam introducing the slow steady “Shred of Light, Pinch of Endless,” a lull in the storm that gradually swells into a black underground river of a piece; the untitled fourth track (indicated in the packaging simply as a drift of blue smoke) is an electrically sinister piece evolving from some unseen atavistic ordeal; “Nowhere” is a subtly atmospheric and elegiac soundtrack building to a dark majesty before tapering off into an unseen end; and the black aptly-titled “Nothing” serves as the album’s fitting epitaph, spectral moaning drifting through the bleak drive of its own finality. But it’s not quite over yet; the synthesized blares of the hidden track ring out like trumpet peals, heralding a resurrection of sorts, or at least the invitation to play the album once more. Throughout Farmakon tribal drumming lends a primal aspect to the organ-dominated pieces, while moody synthesizers provide apt accompaniment and balance. All of this, music and vocals alike, has that breathy underwater quality of heavy weightlessness so appropriate to drug music, carrying you drifting along half-submerged in places and crashing ecstatically over your head in others; in essence, a euphoric listening experience ideal for dim evenings spent in candle-lit chambers swathed in trails of opium smoke. * * * * Red Stream – www.redstream.org – P.O. Box 342, Camp Hill, PA, 17001-0342

	SKIN AREA – Journal Noir / Lithium Path            Discordantly ritualistic spoken word a la Sleep Chamber opens the Journal Noir half of SKIN AREA’s double CD release, a harsh and unkind hour-long dreamscape. Patterns of electrostatic test patterns lead straight into pure noise territory in parts, while other areas level off into expectant drones. In between we find more spoken word, Middle Eastern chanting, random sounds and more, with the final track, “Choose Art Not Life,” being perhaps the most intriguing as a rising Sixties cult jam. Interesting, but not fully arresting.             The Lithium Path disc begins as a soundtrack haunted by discordance that segues into a disturbing foreign soundbyte. “The Vivian Girls” sounds a bit like a Swans song, with dreamy instrumentation and a sexy female voice narrating the storyline, and then comes the spoken word drama we were treated to in the first disc, rather marring the atmosphere of curious engagement that had been mounting. The rest of the album moves back and forth between ambient and artistically overstated.             Not bad, but it could have been so much better. * * Cold Meat Industry – www.coldmeat.se – Villa Eko, 595 42 Mjolby, Sweden

	THE SOCIALLY RETARDED – As One Voice Political punk from the California desert, junkyard spawn The Socially Retarded are a powerful young trio who’ve literally sprung up from nowhere. Rock-solid rhythms and low-key lead vocals build into riveting choruses in the openers “To the End” and “Hangman,” a pair of the album’s strongest and most distinct pieces that are joined by the classic “Don’t Look Back.” Other tracks such as “All We’ve Got” and “Bombs to the Oval Office” are a little more emo and a little less satisfying, and I’d really hoped for a little more from “The Beer Song.” All that aside, this is a most promising (first?) release, one that’s sure to please fans of Dead Lazlo’s Place, The Hollowpoints and the A-F Records lineup. * * * Mental Records – www.mentalrecords.net – 2640 E. Barnett Rd., Suite E-331, Medford, OR  97504

	THE SPADES – Learnin' the Hard Way (Not to Fuck with The Spades) Let me save you some time here: don’t bother reading this review. Just go out and by this CD. Because it’s the best album you’ll hear for the next two years. What, you’re still here? You cheap shit, you… Well all right then, read on. Usually I review albums based upon the chronological order in which they’re received. But when I got this one in a package from Go-kart I had to lay it out and open it up right away. (Come on, and album by a band of big tattooed black guys, one of whom is a dead ringer for the black El Duce, calling themselves The Spades, playing songs about sex and violence on an album entitled “Learnin’ the Hard Way (Not to Fuck With the Spades)”? You’ve got to be intrigued.) And god damn if I wasn’t immediately rewarded with some seriously mean-ass punk metal unparalleled outside of anything being recorded by the Confederacy of Scum. A perfect mix of punk-fucking scumcore and Murder City metal, The Spades come off on record like a black Murder Junkies, something that’s as rare and hard to conceive of as a black chapter of the Hell’s Angels. Picking fights with and punking out the audience with tracks like “Hurt You Again,” “C’Mon Baby,” “Hit ‘n’ Run” and the anthemic “Random Violence,” The Spades are also capable of churning out music as vile as anything the filthcore/porn grind community can produce (“Gotta Get Some,” the all-out horror of “Gator Lane”). The drunken hustler’s saga “Twenty Years” is one of the best scumcore epics on record, you cannot deny the breakout just-out-of-prison wrecking ball “I’m Loose” or the last stand of “I Feel Alright,” and after The Spades are done wiping the floor with you for the entirety of their vicious thirteen-song set they go ahead on and lay out another four bonus tracks. These include the dirty glam piano of “You Had It Comin’” and the desperate getaway drive for “Sanctuary,” all produced by some big-name recording engineer. It’s all unspeakably fucking good, so much so that the CD has not left my player for nearly a month. Do yourself the favor, start Learnin’ the Hard Way. * * * * * Go-kart Records – www.GokartRecords.com – PO Box 20, New York, NY, 10012

	SPEEDEALER – Burned Alive Another slab of sonic barbecue from the almighty Speedealer, recorded live on the 4th of July no less. Straightaway the band lights up their Southern-fried metal and rips into “All the Things” and “You Lose, I Win,” lays down the heavy hand of “Gotterdammerung,” goes to hell and back for “Macchinations” and “Second Sight,” slaps the shit out of “CCCP,” stomps through “Kill Myself,” gives us the hard & sweet instrumental “Sasparilla,” the wild west sound of “On My Way,” and the vicious classic “Pigfucker,” then closes it all down with “Drink Me Dead.” All come at the uncompromisingly meteoric pace for which the band is renowned, and all are met with great roars of approval from the crowd. Packing songs from each of Speedealer’s four releases, Burned Alive will both impress the hell out of you and make you wonder why the fuck you didn’t travel to NYC for the show. * * * * Radical Records – www.radicalrecords.com – 77 Bleecker St., Suite C2-21, New York, NY, 10012

	STONEAGE HEARTS – Guilty as Sin Dreamy retro garage rock, sounding somewhat like the product of a much more cynical Sixties (“Your Greed,” “Sick of You”). Troubles in paradise abound for the Stoneage Hearts, and they croon through the lot of them with a sound that’s at once edgy and laid-back. A soundtrack suitable for trips both good and bad. * * * Alive Records – www.alive-totalenergy.com – P.O. Box 7112, Burbank, CA  91510

	STORMFAGEL – Den Nalkande Stormen Somber folk music with a sinister edge to its rhythm, Den Nalkande Stormen’s ten tracks embody the irony of a death march’s siren song. Vocals switch between female (Hungarian) and male (accented English), allowing the tracks to move between mournful hymns of battle and unknown fables, all against a subtly symphonic background. The resultant sound is akin to a wedding march across a killing field; seductive and imposing at the same time, the entire production carries an air of fatalism that isn’t entirely uninviting. * * * * Cold Meat Industry – www.coldmeat.se – Villa Eko, 595 42 Mjolby, Sweden

	STRYCHNINE – Born In a Bar Raspy punk metal in the Aggression/Poison Idea vein, presided over by a gravelly pro-wrestling delivery. “P.C.A.T.I.P.O.M.” is a great ripper about getting ripped, there’s a thirsty cover of their namesake tune and nearly a dozen others here, along with a surprising little bonus. Live, this six-man wrecking crew would no doubt be classic, especially on the same bill with the likes of Rancid Vat. * * * TKO Records – www.tkorecords.com – 8941 Atlanta Ave. #505, Huntington Beach, CA, 92646

	SUMMON – Fallen Unfettered black metal from right here in the USA. And despite the abundance of blast-beats, this is some mighty fine shit. “Upon Wings of Chaos” in particular charges in with a no-holds-barred thrash metal intro that keeps a steady violent pace throughout, one that, along with burners like “Of These Sins…” and “Sacred Nothing” will have fans of Usurper and Witchery rioting in appreciation. “Loud as Hell, Fast as Fuck” is an instantly classic thrash metal anthem, and Summon pulls out a few dead rabbits with surprising touches such as the chorus of black souls chiming in on “Dead Dreams” and the Golgotha atmospherics of the final “Beating of Christ.” Most impressive. * * * * Moribund Cult – www.moribundcult.com – 530-A 19th St., Port Townsend, WA, 98368

	SUPERHEAVYGOATASS – 60,000 Years Dope metal from the Kyuss side of life. There’s many a good groove to be had here in a sound that’s a little bit Brought Low, a little bit Ironboss and a little bit Grand Magus, a big sound all around that ought to rumble your bowls but good. “Best Friend” picks up the pace a little from the vast laid-back blues-metal stylings of most of the album, which could still be somewhat heavier and stonier for my tastes but which should generate no complaints from the sizeable stoner rock faction. * * * Arclight Records – www.arclightrecords.com – 1405 Rio Grande St., Austin, TX, 78701

	SYZSLAK – When Demons Ride Angels A brutal thrash/grind trio, Syzslak makes a hell of a noise. Kinda like D.R.I., with the addition of female backing vocals. Kinda tedious too, aside from a good groove every now and again (“W.W.J.B.”). I dunno, maybe they’re one of those bands that you’ve just gotta see live… * * Worldeater Records – www.worldeaterrecords.com – P.O. Box 42728, Philadelphia, PA  19101

	THE TELESCOPES – As Approved by the Committee Loud UK psych-fuck with male/female vocals going at it through a dense haze of feedback and auto-/audience immolation. As Approved . . . opens with the shake-your-head-off “I Fall She Screams,” pushing right into the freakout of “There Is No Floor,” while tracks like “Silent Water” and the coming-down “Please Before You Go” have that slow, heavy, mind-melting OD quality so valuable in certain circles. Arty shit to be sure, but loud and messy enough (and, in the case of “Suicide,” violent enough) to merit proper respect and attention. But not satisfied with projecting a one-note program of blare, The Telescopes wisely contrast these sonic abrasions with the heavenly drift of “Everso” and “Flying,” while on a completely otherworldly note choosing to incorporate the sonar cries of large wounded sea mammals in “Pure Sweetest Ocean.” And on the spookier and even farther-out end of the spectrum, “Never Learn Not to Love” sounds like retro hippy shit until you realize that it’s a Family favorite. It all ends on the mesmerizing jam of “Celestial.” And it’s all just fucking beautiful, baby. * * * * * BOMP - www.bomp.com - P.O. Box 7112, Burbank, CA, 91510

	TENSION WIRE – Rips, Punctures, Tears & Fractures A pair of lads making a fine racket playing indie punk along the lines of Filthy Thieving Bastards and Dead Lazlo’s Place. There’s an uplifting almost inspirational air conveyed with Rips…, with many of the tracks having the quality of honest outpourings unencumbered by the crybaby emo taint. There’s a punked-out honky tonk sound to “Goodbyes,” the duet-quality singalong of “Creaky Bones” is somewhat gentler than the rest of the album, and the disc comes to a close with the “Good god, god damn” of “Defeated.” Some really good material here, well worth checking out. * * * Tension Wire – www.tensionwire.com