BEST OF 2010 (part 8)

VON GOAT
Septic Illumination
(Nuclear War Now!)

I'm not entirely sure what happened at Armageddon Fest but reliable accounts agree that the Von lineup was confusing and their underwhelming performance a stain upon the band's otherwise untouchable legacy. Of course that's the risk inherent in all reunions, reformations, remakes, re-imaginings and re-recordings. Such endeavors almost always cater to the lowest common denominator and tend to leave the distinctly bad taste of nostalgia in one's mouth (this year's triumphant Autopsy reunion being one notable exception to the rule). I was so ashamed when I heard Let There Be Blood that I immediately sold my original pressing of Bonded By Blood and don't need to hear Exodus again for a long time. Historical revisionism is tricky business. So after the disaster in London I was cautious to approach S. Von Goat's new project, a further exploration along the strange Von continuum, for fear that it would somehow diminish my adoration or sully my memory. Eventually I got over myself after blasting Sixx for most of the year and decided I had to give this a try. Occasionally bold curiosity is rewarded with perverse arcane knowledge, pilgrims. What the fuck is this that stands before me? Cryptic poetry swirls through waves of thick distortion like a bloated pig corpse drifting through the pestilent sewage of some dark ancient river. Subliminal commands, wet skulls, oxidized chains and bacterial spiders ooze from the speakers like terrible and incurable blood-borne pathogens. Impenetrable lyrics elude to the hallucinatory madness of addiction, but the symbolism is left ambiguous enough to allow the listener to draw their own conclusions into the soiled syringe. For some reason the combined disorienting atmosphere of Wrest's drums with the sickly vocals and inverted melodies recalls early Godflesh and Scatology-era Coil, but I wouldn't want to mislead readers who might therefore expect some sort of industrial experimentalism. This is metal even as it skirts the edges of the unknown and unknowable. Worth repeated listens at high volume. Stare long into the septic abyss!

Honorable Mention:

BASTARD PRIEST
Under The Hammer Of Destruction

(Blood Harvest)

VICTIMS OF A RAPED GRAVE! Caveman death crust from...where else?...SWEDEN! I'm a sucker for this shit. On the Richter scale this falls somewhere between Sodom and Anti Cimex or maybe Onslaught at 45 rpm's and amplified through the bowels of a dead priest. The vocals are all bloody echoes, the drums are thermonuclear warhead explosions and the guitar sounds like wonky Misfits solos played on a broken sitar at the Battle of Meggido. If Discharge scored a horror flick it might sound like this. I guess this LP is mostly re-recordings of their previous demos but since I'm apparently the last to hear about everything I have no idea what those demos sounded like so it's all new to me. Blood Harvest Records has become a reliable beacon of quality and these dudes will stomp you into the fucking dirt along with the rest of their impressive roster. TOTAL ZOMBIE WAR!!!!!

This billboard from my neighborhood has nothing to do with Bastard Priest. Or does it???