Some Sick Powerviolence Albums I've Been Checking Out Recently
With my newfound love of grindcore has come an even newer appreciation for powerviolence. I'm still a serious PV n00b, but these albums are swiftly educating me...
Nails - Unsilent Death (2010)
I'm sure anyone with even a passing knowledge of powerviolence has heard this album, and it was probably the first for me. Pretty sure I found out about it while checking out the grindcore chart on RYM, and it ****ing blew me away. Just totally brutal, blindingly fast, with sludgy breakdowns that crush harder than 99% of doom metal bands. And that thick, abrasive, actually professional production gives them an edge over many of their lo-fi brethren.
Magrudergrind - Magrudergrind (2009)
Another band I've known about for a while, for some odd reason this is my most listened to album according to Last.FM. I mean, I've listened to it a whole lot, but I guess I must have fallen asleep one night with it on repeat. With seventeen tracks playing for five or six hours, over and over again, that'd do it I guess.
Anyways, this is yet another brutal-as-**** ****fest of speed and sludge riffs, with a bit more of a punk edge than Nails, making it a bit more fun, if a smidge less intense -- of course, if you don't like this kind of music then you probably won't be able to tell the difference. The short samples between several of the songs add some breathing room, while being pretty cool in their own right, "Repeat it after me, bitch! I come in the name of Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit! God Almighty, you know, ruler of Heaven, and Earth, and every God damn thing in-between!"
Just a bitchin' album all around.
Charles Bronson - Youth Attack! (1998)
Yeah, no surprises yet, but Charles Bronson rule, so **** you. They're a lot more punk sounding than the more modern bands, or even the 1st wave bands, and so they're not the most brutal PV band, but they are a spastic assault of hardcore insanity. They're not pissed off about politics like the newer bands, or about how much life personally sucks like the older ones; these guys are just out to have a laugh by playing so fast that all but .1% of the population would likely scratch their heads in profound confusion as to why Charles Bronson would want to.
They're just ****ing fun. And the production sucks **** unless you've got the volume to really blow out your speakers. Then it's awesome.
Despise You - West Side Horizons (1999)
These dudes are OG powerviolence, back when it was about sketchy weirdos hating life, the universe, and everything, rather than self-consciously political, social activist-wannabe punks hating the government because that's just what punks do. These bands were generally too self-destructive and tweaked out on meth to last long enough to record more than a few singles and maybe an EP or two, but for some strange reason they all seem to have at least one career-spanning compilation album.
Such is this "album", clocking in at over forty-four minutes of songs that pretty much all sound the same, making it a bit of a slog after a while, but as it's a compilation it doesn't really matter if you can listen to it as whole, does it? For as long as you can stand them Despise You will obliterate your *******. They're closer to hardcore than Nails or Magrudergrind, but probably one of the most brutal of their mid-nineties contemporaries, and still miles away from the fun of Charles Bronson. These dudes were dead serious about telling everyone else to go **** themselves.
Don't know why they have what sounds like a thirteen-year-old girl providing backing vocals, though.
Yacøpsæ - Tanz, Grosny, Tanz (2007)
Believe it or not, these guys are German. You'd never know, right? They also just might be the most intense PV band I've ever heard, even edging out Nails. And being the most brutal powerviolence band kind of makes you the most brutal band in general, doesn't it? Don't know, but it's worth looking into.
God damn is this **** fast.
I also just rec'ed this to Trollheart in the Torture Chamber thread. Mwahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!
God damn does this sound like **** on Youtube. Just like Charles Bronson. Listen to this **** somewhere else, but until then...
Bucket Full of Teeth - IV (2005)
Following in the weirdo experimental vein of powerviolence that for some reason exists is this ****ing band, who rule. A lot. Like, totally. They combine PV with oddball sections of what I take to be post-metal (I don't give two ****s about post-metal, so I'm just guessing, but I still think I'm right). At times they use post-metal to add strange textures to their insanely fast riffs, but at others they actually delve into ambient territory.
But while many heavy music artists who incorporate experimental weirdness into music do so at the cost of intensity. Not so Bucket Full of Teeth. They're easily in the same league of brutality as Nails or Yacøpsæ, they just do other stuff too. The chainsaw guitar tone helps.