I started this section of Deaf Sparrow Zine as a way to fill space and content.  About seven and a half month’s into the site’s existence, I’ve come to realize that this is perhaps the most enjoyable section of the bunch. The least read perhaps, but from my perspective, the most informative, fast-paced and easy on the brain. Needless to say, I continue with my weekly visits to  my local record store in search for $0.99 gems. Sometimes I am lucky, sometimes I walk out empty handed. These are the newest finds for a few weeks between March and April 2007.

I knew nothing about this band and bought this based on three very important factors; the name of the band; Sick Things, the label; Au-Go-Go, which told me they hailed from Australia, and the black and white cover artwork featuring four people in a car, one of which is vomiting out the window. The record is called The Sounds of Silence (1997) and no, this ain't no Simon & Garfunkel. Sick Things play basic furious hardcore punk the way it was meant to be played back in the day. As it reads on the back panel, ‘All tracks on this record were recorded in various household kitchens, bedroom parties and lounge rooms somewhere, sometime between 1980-1981 in the Melbourne metropolitan area. Some tracks were on a Sony reel to reel and others on some shit cassette player. Again we warn Sick Things are not responsible for anything that might or might not happen’. So warned you are. The record sounds like shit, with a super fuzzy guitar tone, disheveled vocal delivery, drums that are way low on the mix and bass that’s about the only instrument that sounds like it should, - but is played like our mate didn’t know shit - this record is as good as it looks. And it looks great.  This is truly classic Australian punk hardcore.

The following band I knew from their latest release A Pyramid For the Living, which came out in 2006 and was in my opinion one of the most overlooked instrumental/post rock records of that year. Speak It Not Aloud dates back to 2001 and I am sad to inform that is not nearly as good. Del Rey is a Chicago based band by way of Ukraine that has been together since 1997. Their latest material has gelled deliciously but in Speak It Not Aloud the band certainly sounds like it’s trying very hard to create sonic emotion.  Some of the arrangements come off a bit awkward, like opening cut “Jet Above Water” with busy drums, textured and feeble guitars and a bass that only brings the recording to a more awkward corner. They all seem to be heading in different directions. A Pyramid for the Living gets boring pretty quickly.

This one I got because of the label, Some. For those that dug Walter Shreifels’ (Quicksand, Rival Schools) Walking Concert release Run to Be Born (soon to be the subject of a Lost & Found feature), it came out on Some records, which is the same label of Innaway’s Rise EP and self-titled debut (2005). The band hails from California and makes some really sweet sounding groove-laden psychedelic rock. Good thing is these guys don’t go crazy on the psychedelic aspect and focus on writing nice melodies, layered instrumentation, and play down the whole druggy gimmick.  Some of it is very obvious Pink Floyd-esque, but still, Innaway retains certain soothing qualities that are perfect for Sundays.

I had been eyeing a few black and death metal releases on the $3.99 to $4.99 section for a few weeks. Still, it was a bit too hard to part with the cash. A lot of the black metal stuff is cool to have but gets old quite quickly, so $0.99 is more than enough for something that basically goes straight into the CD archive. One Thursday after work I hit the store and a few of the metal releases, the black and death metal ones included, had been demoted to the $0.99 section. This was the first one I found; Gorement was a Swedish death metal band that existed from 1990 to 1996. They were first called Sanguinary and played thrash metal but apparently as the music got harder so did their taste for a gorier moniker. Necroharmonic Records, out of New Jersey, issued Darkness of the Dead in 2004 and it compiles material from demos, full-lengths, promo tapes and 7”s. Gorement sounds primitive because they were primitive; with a subterranean guttural voice vocalist Jimmy Karlsson led this band. The recording is actually quite good and some of the melancholic melodies the band adds gives them a somewhat distinct edge from the Unleashed’s and Entombed’s of the time.

Two CD’s by all-girl bands are next. L7’s MySpace page has them listed as an alternative band, but I’d like to think of them as a metal band. Maybe grunge is a more fitting term. Who cares? I mean they sounded nothing like Pearl Jam or Tad and Bricks Are Heavy (Slash, 1992) has a wonderful guitar tone courtesy of producer Butch Vig and a handful of heavy songs courtesy of the band. This is considered their classic record and is inarguably their best recording. L7 was the real thing. No doubt about it, too bad that some of their on stage antics over-shadowed their music. In 1992 during the Reading Festival, guitarist/vocalist Donita Sparks in protest for the projectiles that were being launched from the public pulled out her tampon and threw it to the audience. A few years later, during a live show in London in 2000 the band raffled a one night stand with drummer Dee Plakas. No wonder their music got a bit upstaged.

This one caught my eye right away because I remembered reading about them on the pages of Rip Magazine way back in the mid 90’s.  The quartet 7 Year Bitch existed for a prophetic period of seven years, 90-97 and released three records. El Gato Negro (Atlantic, 1996) is their third and last release and the only one that would come out on a major label. Their first two releases, Sick ‘Em and Viva Zapata! came out on C/Z Records, the label out of Seattle that in 1985 issued the Deep Six compilation, which included a bunch of great bands like Soundgarden, Skin Yard, The Melvins and Green River among others. Tacitly produced by Billy Anderson (whose resume now reads like a who’s who of underground metal. i.e. Brutal Truth, Neurosis, Crisis, El Dopa, High On Fire, Mr. Bungle and countless others) El Gato Negro is one of those dirty punk rock records that perfectly represents the good side of grunge. By that I mean that the lumping of this band within the grunge genre is well-deserved only if by grunge we mean rough sounding combos like the other all-girl act L7, and early works by Soundgarden and Green River. 7 Year Bitch is a rough sounding band but there is certainly good songwriting within the simple construction of El Gato Negro.  

I was very excited about my next find, Scorn’s Colossus (Earache, 1994). I knew this band from way back in the motherland but at the time I was a bit hermetic to music of this type. As any grindcore fan should know Scorn is the one-man industrial/ambient band of former Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris. Formed in 1991, initially Scorn also included ND’s alumni Nic Bullen until 1995. Colossus is their second release after their 1992 debut Vae Solis and was released the same year as Evanescense.  It basically consists of simple mid-tempo beats, deep bass lines, tons of ethereal ambience, trippy/tortured/psyche vocals, and an all around encompassing sense of musicality that’s both intriguing and eerie.  Considering the advancements of technology and the effects that these have had in the evolution of electronic music, Colossus has aged quite gracefully and the fact that it doesn’t sound dated says a lot about Harris’ clever use of programming and samples.

And a stoner rock fan must have been in search for some weed money because next up I found two releases by two bands that included sub-genre's demigod Wino Weinrich. First is Spirit Caravan’s second release Elusive Truth, (Tolotta, 2001) which features the typical stoner doom rock Weinrich is so known for.  Well-played with a crunchy and ultra electric tone and that commanding vocal tone so distinctive of him Elusive Truth sounds like the natural progression after Weinrich disbanded The Obsessed, which is exactly what it is.  Last but not least is Place of Skull’s With Vision (Southern Lord, 2003); this is a much more dynamic unit. Still falling under the stoner category Place of Skulls moves at a more agile pace and features Weinrich as a guitarist/vocalist, both activities also performed by leader and ex-Pentagram guitarist Victor Griffin. Needless to say this is a guitar driven record, a fact that can be evidenced by the cardboard box-like sound of the drums.

Tales From the Cutout Bin IV