It’s been a while since the last installment on this series. That’s because the pressure of handling all the workload on Deaf Sparrow is getting heavier by the month. This is the type of article that lets me blow some steam. Anyway, I was talking to someone who works at my local record store. He tells me that they are surviving because of vinyl sales. Let’s hope they start stocking on more extreme metal albums and that they start putting some of those in the cutout bin. These are my latest bargain finds. Read on and spread the word!

I wanted to cover this record before, but for no reason in particular it just wasn’t possible. I bought Ikara Colt’s Chat and Business (Epitaph, 2002) over a year ago for about $2.99 and very much like the Stiffs, Inc’s Nix Nought Nothing, it has slowly become a favorite record of mine. Ikara Colt (pictured above) was a co ed London based quartet that during its five year lifespan was able to dish out two criminally overlooked full-lengths and one EP. Chat and Business is their debut and it presents and indie punk sound that can be directly linked to the guitar playing of Sonic Youth and to the vocal delivery of Mark E Smith from The Fall. The tones are near perfect in this recording produced by Loucas Antoniades. The bass in particular has a great low bottom, the guitars are totally jagged and the vocals are rather crude with very convenient alternation between male and female. Ikara Colt broke up because they did not want to become an ‘old, tired and jaded outfit’. Too bad there are no news of their individual whereabouts. This is an excellent record.

One man satanic band Wrest is by far one of the hardest working man in the satanic underground. Since his first foray into this dark realm as Leviathan (Wrest has also collaborated with Sunno))), is a member of Twilight and has another project under the moniker Lurker of Chalice), he has managed to pump out a steady flow of recordings almost on a yearly basis. More importantly, Leviathan is one of the few minds in the US doing things with invention and true individuality. Following about fifteen demos in the span of five years and one split with Polish black experimental duo Iuvenes, came The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide (Moribund, 2003), his first full-length. It didn’t take him that long to get here for no reason. The disturbing experimental ambience that has become more prevalent in his latter works is already audible in this album (“Sardoniscron”, for instance) and his leanings towards obscure extreme experimentalisms are ever present. But those always seeking the typical black metallisms (blast beat filled drumming, shrieky and ghostly vocals, slaying riffage) have in The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide also several reasons to acquire it.

I recently discovered a pretty nice record store close to my new job. They don’t have a $0.99 bin, but offer thousands of records for prices that vary between $2.99 and $6.99. Lucky for me, they stock lots of hard to find underground music.  I try to hit the store about once every three weeks. Enough time for them to replenish their bins with some affordable finds. Amongst the new ones was Defecation’s Intention Surpassed. (Nuclear Blast, 2003) Some may remember Defecation as Napalm Death’s Mitch Harris late 80’s project. Defecation issued a pretty well-known album called Purity Dilution back in 1989 with the collaboration of bandmate Mick Harris, but the project then laid dormant for fourteen years. Intention Surpassed isn’t a half-assed recording by any means. Sure, I am bothered by the drum machine sounds that pound about every nano second of this album (where is Mick when you need him?), but the guitars move effortlessly between absurdly fast and absurdly faster while Harris vocals sound totally phantasmagoric. It almost sounds like un-melodic speed death metal, or clean sounding and quite polished grindcore, which should not even exist, but it’s a OK.

In that very same store I was lucky enough to find a pretty mint copy of the Subhumans first LP The Day the Country Died. (Spiderleg, 1983) My copy is actually the re-release by the band’s very own imprint Bluurg Records, but I see no year of reissue anywhere in my copy. Regardless, this is a great find by these kings of the British anarcho punk movement. As most punk albums that came out around that time, The Day the Country Died boasts a pretty thin sound with wafer width guitar sound and very tacit drums, but that’s not an issue. The Subhumans here in all their glory display great ability not only for speed but for naked aggression, clever lyrics (the album is inspired by George Orwell’s 1984), and witty melodies. Yes, I said witty when describing the Subhumans.  A classic if there ever was one.

This next one I bought because of the nice looking slipcase it came in. Antiproduct’s The Ep’s of AP (Tribal War, 2002) was so obviously hard I had to get it. It also comes with a very nice booklet laying down the band’s politics. And that is no politics of course. This troupe of socially conscious anarchists formed in 1995 and called it a day in 2002, enough time to leave a legacy that is well-worth checking out. The Ep’s of AP compiles the band’s 7 inches, compilation songs and a never released EP. As most crusty punk bands do, Antiproduct’s music is straight up fast with a few breakdowns and one tempo change here and another one there. The guitars are super fuzzy and the female/male vocal attack works charms in combination with the straight forward nature of the music.

Yeah, the Diamond Nights. I remember when they came to town and started acting up like smart asses at the local community radio station. But that’s good. If only their music was as good as their sense of humor. Or their hair and hipster fame. But that’s collateral shit that shouldn’t count. What counts is the music included in their first full-length Popsicle (Kemado, 2005) which ranges from the somewhat lame Thin Lizzy worshipping to the somewhat OK Thin Lizzy worshipping. Vocalist Morgan Phalen is certainly as skilled as Phil Lynnot at the mike. I bullshit you not. No one can deny how classic seventies rock he sounds. And the diamonds behind him ain’t all that bad. With the exception that there is no Gary Moore, Brian Robertson of Scott Gorham in sight, of course. The songs included in Popsicle are quite catchy, which is where the pop in their title comes from and reveals a talented bunch that’s taken the music of a great Irish band and has simplified it to the plainest possible music. Some of it rocks though.

You’ve got to know where to find them. I almost missed this one because every time I look into the $0.99 bin I assume is all shit. Times have changed, you know? And as I have documented before in my quest for the cheapest of the cheap, the $0.99 bin in my local record store has shrunk from a few hundreds to about five dozen records. Thank god for my brand new contacts. Tusk is an extremely extreme experimental metal band that includes three quarter of Pelican in its ranks.  And by extremely experimental I mean there is plenty of everything going on here. Sure, Tusk don’t go all death metal on us, and they don’t pull any boogey riffs, or even wear cowboy hats, but there are several passages of turgid doom, pieces of nasty sludge and blocks of hardcorian derangement, angular pieces that give way to distorted grindcore, and the likes. Tree of No Return (Tortuga, 2004), surely makes for an interesting listen. Hard not to hear the humor here.

A couple of weeks after I bought it I saw a small review article of Trigger Point’s debut A Silent Protest (Corporate Punishment, 2005) on Decibel Magazine and I kinda concurred. On this recording this Los Angeles based band displays some real aptitude and a bit of talent. Unfortunately, about eighty percent of the record stinks like the worst of asses. Particularly horrible and embarrassing is the title track with its generic nu metal overtones and those melodic cum angry vocals. It’s almost pathetic.  It’s nothing we hadn’t heard before about a thousand times by June 1999. In other words, Trigger Point sounds dated as all hell. A Silent Protest was produced by ex Machine Head’s guitarist Logan Mader and comes in a nice digipack, which is partially justified by the OK songs placed on the last half of the record. I see on their MySpace page that they have just independently released a follow up. They must have stepped up their game, otherwise, this quartet will be dead on the water.