Reviews by markjazz

I like the insert of this album because it was interesting to read about what the band thought of themselves before making this album. This is my first taste of the group and I think I started with the right album. I wanted to rate it higher but overall it's not the best stuff I heard but it's still damn awesome at times. The tracks Death in Fire, Where Silent Gods Stand Guard and Thousand Years of Oppression have me hooked to this band. Those two songs are some of the best melodic death metal songs I've heard. Having the bonus live disc is great too because it gives the songs a different sound and I'm going to be getting another double album the next time I purchase one from these guys. Truely good stuff and I can't wait to hear more from them.

The only thing really annoying about any of this album is the live disc. Why do Germans feel the need to do their soccer chant at the start of every song? Sometimes they do it slow and sometimes fast...but it gets really old!

This is a very dreaming EP that has my mind swimming in lovely sounds. This is one of those breakthough legendary type records simply because nothing sounded like this in 1991. The title track Analougue Bubblebath 1 is one of the most beautiful IDM tracks ever written and gets stuck in your head very easily. It does have a great ambient feel to it as well, like most of AFX earily material. Isopropophlex has a bit more of a harsher feel to it with a pounding drum pattern but there's still the ambient waves being layered across the track and the acid is raise up in this track more too. A thing to note on this track is there's some children singing and it's the same sample RDJ would use on the Windowlicker. Entrance to Exit has more of a drum'n bass quality to it and samples some odd strings too. It's my least favorite track on this EP simply because it doesn't seem to fit on here. It's sampled fairly well and has a cool beat but it just gets a bit tired after a while. AFX 2 contains some distored drums with some slightly high pitched sounds plugged in over the beat. It has some excellent progression as well and gets better as the minutes tick by. Overall this is a fairly well done EP, especially for 1991 and if you like his Polygon Window project you'd most likely enjoy this material.

I bought this tape when I was a young lad in high school and this was also one of my first purchases I bought simply to show my respect to the artist. 311 were only paid to make 10 or 11 tracks on this album and they ended up putting out 21, just for the fans. There's not a whole lot of crap on here either. I'm not much into this type of music but I still like this album for it's variation of tunes. To me, this was a landmark album for this genre and all the skater's I hung out with at the time. Everyone had this album. The vocals were good and I think Color is still an awesome instrumental track.

Horror noise is something I’m a fan of and it’s not just the artwork that has to appeal to me but the sounds also have to evoke a horrific emotion as well. The new 16 Bitch Pile-Up disc does exactly that. When I saw the artwork, which I’ll explain a bit later, I had to own this. Listening to the sounds when I got the disc was something else. The artwork put me in the frame of mind I needed to be in and after hearing the experimental tones on the CD I was enthralled and ready to rate this as the best release of the year.

There’s a good mix of track lengths in this release. Ranging from 7 seconds to 18 minutes, all untitled and they all flow together well. The first track grabs you right away as a good introductory piece. Slow moving scraping sounds with muffled vocal hisses. If you’re a fan of Woman of the SS it’ll appeal to you for sure. Track #2 is probably my favorite and the one that sets the tone of this disc to a "T". It’s an 18 minute slow moving tonal synth piece. Not much variation but it’s a track to listen to with the lights off at the witching hour. I listened to it at noon with the Sun in my face and I was still creeped out! Track #3 is footsteps with a creaking door and SLAM! Seeing as how this disc is telling a story, this tracks fits well. Track #4 starts off with sounds of racing bikes and engines mix with tonal bass tabs. I see the inspiration in these bitches’ eyes while making this disc. The track is not what I call normal noise that I’m use to but again, it fits well with the rest of the disc. The track features more bike sounds however than noise, which some may get turned off from after 11 minutes of it. Track #5 is a 8 minute experimental sound piece with sounds of rubbing things together it sounds like, not sure what. Maybe symbolizing a poor boys torment? Who knows. After a minute more noises creep in. Echo sounds that sound like muffled vocals again. More of what we heard in the first track with more variation. Alarms ring and a nice heart beat pound to finish it off. Track #6 begins with a louder pounding of a heartbeat with pokes of metal sounding noises slowly finding it’s way in. The track then begins to more in a double heat beat with a bass loop. Started to shake my wall unit. There’s a great electrical sound in the track too that sounds like it’s right out of an old Frankenstein movie. A good 4 minute piece overall. Track #7, at 7 seconds, is pretty much a 1 second clip of a huff. Then track #8 hits you like a punch in the face. Wall noise of screaming to the extreme. Ear blistering vocals from the bitches’ come at you show you what it’s like to fucking die!!! Damn, they can sound good getting murdered. After almost 2 minutes of yelling a cheap ass happy tune plays in. Not sure where it’s from but it says, "This one’s for you" a few times so I think I get why they placed in on the CD. My second favorite track on the disc. The disc ends with a short 23 piece of a banged loop that fades out with a high pitched tone. Overall this disc was just grand in its performance, now, let’s talk about the artwork.

The layout, done by Damion Romero, is like something from a 80’s horror flick. Electric font in purple and little ads in print stating "from the band that brought you…They Went Extinct Because They Became Invisible…" and "The beaches were covered in blood…and so were the bitches!" Just love it and again, it sets this disc apart from 99% of the others out there. The photography, which features the cast of bitches murdered all blooded, was done by none other than David Lim of Tralphaz. Didn’t know he could take such good pictures and after seeing this release he’ll probably do some more. There’s three ladies, Sarah Bernat, Sarah Cathers, Shannon Walter and each of them gets sprawled out and left for dead on the beach. One, featured on the cover, is on a sacrificial rock. Poor girl. The insert even folds out to a poster. If you get one disc this year make sure it’s this one. I know there’s a lot of horror fans in noise and this one sets your mood 100%. Pure and perfect.

This was easily my favorite NES game growing up as a kid. I loved the music, still do, and the game play was very unique to me at the time. I remember it taking me ages to finally pass this game too but I still played the hell out of it afterwards. I liked the idea of this game so much I even drew up my own Worlds for it... such a dorky thing to do but I was young and I still have those drawings too. Ahhh, memories.

At the time this was one of my favorite sports games. I played the season mode at least a dozen times and what I remember most about it was the progression level during the season, as if it was a RPG or something. No matter who you were or what team you played your season as it was always harder to hit homeruns the last couple months. I'd still end up with over 80 HR's a season though...lol. "It's showtime. Call, Call, Call me Jr."

This is an amazing debut solo album from this guy. There's a large mix of genre's all cramed into one disc. Songs like Hampi, Pleasures Gained, Getting Old and Stay Clean follow an ambient eastern folk type style with guitar and an echoed voice that is very dreamy. Then you have tracks like Poison and Flashback that are kind of ambient noise. There's also a techno element tossed in with tracks like Maruti, Kent the Fly and Mourning. Mourning happens to be just a long version of the track Purple Passion from the album Music for Grass Bars when he was working with Plateau. Overall there's nothing I skip on this album and it flows very nicely and I believe you need to be high when listening to it but I pretty get high just off the music from this guy so who needs drugs.

Out of all the Twilight Circus Dub Sound System albums I own this one has to be the oddest, or shall I say inconsistent. I don't mean odd in a bad way but the tracks seem far more muscial and there's more guitar featured than what I'm use to. All the tracks are still instrumental, which is good, but the album as a whole seems to be less dub than the others, past or present. What is cool about this disc is the artwork and how Ryan Moore has added his own personal touch to each CD, making them all unique in some way. Mine has a sparkly triangle on in the middle and I've seen some with stars glued on as well at HMV. Overall this is a good dub CD but I wouldn't start here if your new to the artist.

One of the best early-electro-industrial albums to date. Tear Garden was the project of cEvin Key and Edward Ka-Spel, both great artist in their own right, so when the two came together I knew I had to buy this record. All the tracks have a great quality to them and there isn't one on here that I don't like. The album could probably relate close to 'Skinny Puppys' album 'Bites' for two reasons. 1) The sound is the same. Rhythmic drums, strange lyrics and great piano work. 2) The track 'The Center Bullet' was featured on 'Bites' as an instrumental. This time on this album it has lyrics by Ka-Spel. A lot better version with the lyrics I think. 'You And Me And Rainbows' is a great epic track that's broken up into 6 parts, some weird sounding and some melodic and I would love to have this release with those parts broken up. The album as a whole seems very goth too. Lots of sad emotions with love and loss in most of the lyrics. A great start for Tear Garden!

This is such an awesome album and I can't believe it took me this long to actually hear it, and buy it, because I'm such a huge fan of Canadian industrial music. These guys are right up there with FLA and Skinny Puppy and although I can't give this a 5/5 it's getting a lot of play. The tracks Shithammer and Headcrash are my two favourite on here and I love this group just mixes in a shit load of experimental sounds and there's even three experimental tracks too. They kind of slow the album down a bit but it's still cool to hear. So yeah, one of the best industrial albums for sure and I'm definatly gonna hunt for more Numb!