Hytest - "Dishing Out The Good Times" CD

Aussie stoner/punk wiseguys Hytest have been active for 6 years, and this debut full-lengther shows them firing on all cylinders. Opening with the raucous "9 Volt", Hytest's speedy, take-no-prisoners approach borrows the raw, loose-nut qualities from punk (think Black Flag), and a dirty, downtuned sludge-rock vibe from precursors like Kyuss. In fact, it seems Hytest have impressed Nick Oliveri (Kyuss/Queens Of The Stone Age/Mondo Generator) well enough to get themselves invited to tour with him, both as opening act and backing band. So that should seal the deal for fans of the aforementioned. The rest of you?

It's like this. "Girl In Black" is a under 2-minutes of blisteringly fierce heaviness with a melody that gets under the skin. "Goodbye" begins with a rockabilly-style riff before launching into another blistering speed attack. Yet the melody underneath the thick-as-molasses guitars is undeniably pop-oriented, and in a good way. "Abolisher" begins as a ramshackle spitball of immense riffage and high-octane speed riot vocal throttling, and doesn't let go at all. It's just massive. "Dishing Out The Good Times" is jammed with smoking heavy rock sounds with plenty of good times indeed. My only complaint is that these 11 songs are over within 28 minutes. Kick-ass heavy rock for speed freaks, this! I like. (Impedance Records)

Hy-Testspace

Shonen Knife - "Live At Mohawk Place 2009" DVD

Possibly the best-known (and most beloved) Japanese rock act on these shores, this Osaka-based trio have, for 25 years now, cornered the market on cute garage pop-punk. Yes, the 3 ladies of Shonen Knife sing songs about jellybeans, giant kitties, banana chips, and how much they love chocobars. It may sound silly, but it's somehow endearing, and not forced or childish. And as cute as Shonen Knife may be, they prove that they have the musical chops to match. Imagine a collision of the Ramones with the Monkees, add some Hello Kitty, and you shouldn't be far off the mark. Shonen Knife's catchy, melodic, and energetic tunes are full of spunkiness and upbeat vibes. They are simply adorable, and their heavier songs kick ass, too. This live DVD was filmed in Buffalo on the band's 2009 tour, and shows a small but enthusiastic audience soaking in Osaka's favorite daughters' energy and infectious charm. It's well-filmed, the band were on fire, and this one should please just about anyone. I am left more a fan now than before, if that tells you anything!
(Good Charamel Recordsvia MVD Visual)


Shonen Knife site

"Inbred Redneck Vampires (aka "Bloodsucking Redneck Vampires")" DVD (director: Joe Sherlock)

This ultra low-budget horror-comedy is, thankfully, as tongue-in-cheek as the title blatantly proclaims. It won't go down as a classic in anyone's book, but it is chock-full of tacky dialogue, snappy one-liners, flat acting, and tasteless redneck jokes. Yes, there are bean-eating fart contests, window peeping, tripe-eating, beer drinking, strip pokering, cat-shit eating, and shotgun-toting moments strewn throughout this one, alongside the usual genre staples (extravagantly over-the-top gore and some rampant breastiness). The storyline, you ask? Well, I say, "Does it matter"? Let's just say that a sexy vampiress mistakenly chooses a deep-Southern hillbilly backwoods town called Backwash to start a vampire colony. Soon, the kinfolk are infected, and all manner of wacky hijinks ensue, as you can imagine. Bad accents, bad vampire teeth, and buckets of blood.

I admire the tenacity it took to realize this film, but it seems to go on far too long. Maybe more editing would've made this one a mite more palatable. Kudos to the diminutive Cletus (played by Bill Bradford), who steals the show and is easily the most convincing and charismatic of the actors. If good, ultra-trashy B-movie fun is your thing, look into "Inbred Redneck Vampires". I'll stick with "Redneck Zombies" myself. (SRS Cinema
via MVD Visual)

A Forest Of Stars - "Opportunistic Thieves Of Spring" CD

This English quintet get really liberal with their black metal inspirations, and they are gifted a rare treasure missing in at least 99% of the scene -- a sense of humor! The band's website is a beautifully artistic recreation of a 19th century "Gentleman's Club", complete with books the visitor can "leaf" though, moveable desk props, and Daguerreotypes of the band members as they "were" in 1890. Certainly refreshing in a sea of "too dark for thou" corpse-painted po-faces.

That said, musically, A Forest Of Stars don't refer to that era at all. They exhibit the screeching speed riffs and unintelligible vocal roar of the usual black metal, but the addition of flutes, strings, and symphonic elements is a welcome addition. "Sorrow's Impetus" opens with a maelstrom of harsh black metal and swirling psychedelia - a mix that works quite well. "Summertide's Approach" could be a medieval Tool or Isis, even, if either of those bands utilized violins or flutes in their respective lexicons. "Thunder's Cannonade" churns with a doomy seriousness, and the moody "Starfire's Memory" falls away to reveal a darkened soundtrack of thunder and cavernous noises. The closer, "Delay's Progression", begins as a light synthesizer soundtrack before sharpening the blade and ramping it up to a 16-minute progressive-metal epic. Solid and bewildering work here, melding genres almost as wildly as a Mike Patton-related project. (Transcendental Creations)

A Forest Of Stars site

A Forestspace

Watain - "Lawless Darkness" CD

Sweden's Watain have quickly ascended to a leading position within the insulated and stagnating black metal scene. "Lawless Darkness", their 4th album, further cements the band's malevolent throne. Watain aim exponentially higher (or is it lower?) than their brethren, and "Visible Darkness" is a masterpiece of terror and unrelenting darkness. It's a charred, fiery blast furnace of bleak and impenetrable heaviness that may end up redefining the genre.

Purists have criticized "Lawless Darkness" for sounding like traditional metal ala Motorhead (maybe true somewhat on tracks like "Reaping Death" or "Total Funeral"), therefore bastardizing the sacred "black metal" genre. I say hogwash. On the contrary, Watain have singlehandedly advanced the scene with their melding of classic metal inspirations (just listen to some of the guitar solos here), furious cut-throat aggression, dark mood and melody, and, last but not least, a crisp, punchy, and thunderous production (sorely lacking in a lot of the genre's stalwarts).

The intensity never wanes, from the opener, "Death's Cold Dark", through the bold instrumental title cut, and all the way to the stunning end. The surprise guest vocal cameo on the closer, "Waters Of Ain", by Carl McCoy of occult-rock act Fields Of The Nephilim is mostly token, but it does emblazon Watain's sincerity and genre-crossing fearlessness. Vocalist Erik Danielsson has stated that this contemplative 14+ minute finale is the soundtrack to his own demise. And true to black metal tradition, this rollercoaster of emotive texture, quiet contemplation, and enraged bombast is wholly appropriate. There are elements of intense sorrow, poetic depth, and fiery resolution. It's a powerful and truly magnificent tour-de-force.

Limited editions of the album include a bonus track, a furious cover of the Death SS song, "Chains Of Death". It's a worthy addition to the album, and brings it all to a brilliantly epic 80 minutes. "Lawless Darkness" is essential to any fan of modern metal, and may well bring the essence of black metal to a whole new audience. (Season Of Mist)

Temple Of Watain site

M.I.A. with Suicide's Martin Rev!

This is too cool...so M.I.A.'s new album, "/\/\/\ Y/\" features a song, "Born Free", that liberally borrows from Suicide's legendary "Ghost Rider" from 1977. That's fine and all. So she has good taste. Now, for her performance of said track on the Letterman show, she's enlisted Martin Rev himself to handle keyboards. Respect. Check this before the network has it pulled or some such nonsense.

"Gold - Before Woodstock. Beyond Reality" DVD (director: Bob Levis and Bill Desloge)

Filmed in 1968, and inexplicably "lost" for 40 years, this indulgent film will make some inevitably feel if it were "lost" for a reason. In the midst of the hippie generation, the filmmakers set out to videotape a large band of young idealists (heretofore referred to as "hippies") as they, well, basically, party! It seems there were plenty of drugs and alcohol on the set, as some of these people (on camera) are obviously quite wasted.

The film's premise is a shallow one, with a vague outline of a plot concerning the youth overturning the backward laws of the "establishment", man. On one hand, it does succeed in presenting the seemingly revolutionary mindset of a generation, as blanked as they were here. The film's part comedy, part parody, part Western, part nudie (more on that later), and really pretty haphazardly put-together. It's messy, sloppy, and likely unscripted, so stretches of "Gold" are almost unwatchable.

A saving grace? The fetching lasses who use every opportunity to expose themselves. And the soundtrack includes several otherwise unreleased tracks by the MC5...so there is some historical value here.
As a time capsule of a time long passed, "Gold" may be of marginal interest, but to anyone seeking further enlightenment, it's simply not here. (Wild Eye/MVD Visual)