Couch Slut - My Life as a Woman

By Matt Hinch. Pardon my French, but My Life as a Woman by NYC’s Couch Slut is one batshit fucking crazy album. And as I tend to feed off the music’s energy as I write, pardon the rest of my French in advance. his is also the part where I kick myself

By Matt Hinch.


Pardon my French, but My Life as a Woman by NYC’s Couch Slut is one batshit fucking crazy album. And as I tend to feed off the music’s energy as I write, pardon the rest of my French in advance. This is also the part where I kick myself in the (soiled) ass for not getting wise to the album until long after I should have. Probably had something to do with that super provocative cover. I believe my wife said something along the lines of “Jesus fuck! Don’t let the kids see that!” It might be a while before I let my girls listen to it too. Such things lead to nightmares.

Couch Slut grab you by the fucking balls (or whatever body part is deemed most painful) and toy with your sense of normalcy like a killer whale tossing around a seal in a steel cage with psychoses wrapped in razor wire laying all over the place. By the time it’s over sanity is but a fleeting memory and your body is left just as broken.

Musically you can’t really pin it down, or hold it down for that matter as it’s a sickening, squirming beast of feral hardcore, sludge and disorienting noise. As if that weren’t enough, Megan O’s horrific screams explode with intensity, often breaking under the pressure.

Every track is worthy of mention as each has the capacity to blow your goddamn mind. But breaking them down like that would be far too structured for this mindfuck of an album. You’ll hear huge breakdowns with the band crushing on one plane while one guitar tattoos the spine with sharp tremolos on another, or repeated, heavy-handed haymakers battling with nerve-wracking, squealing feedback. Just to start.

Elsewhere you get sludgy plodding or wicked mid-paced stomping, raucous cacophonies of aggression and fancy, and Megan’s pseudo-rambling adding to her screams of total and absolute catharsis. You’re subject to painful rawness and shifting momentum throughout, from heavy post-hardcore to sludge to all out noise. The whole time Megan’s territorial pissings frighten away the weak and fragile.

It’s all over the map. It’s weird and uncontrolled. Melody meets distorted reality. Freestyle sax shows up. Doom casts a dark shadow and unpredictability is par for the course. It’s angular, noisy, discordant and seriously fucking mental in all the best ways.

My personal favourite and perhaps the most straightforward track is “Replacement Addiction”. It’s got this speed-punk freakout leading to a highway groove that smashes through walls of insanity in slow motion, eventually breaking into some killer hardcore with Megan tearing out her own lungs because who needs to breathe anyway?

My Life as a Woman is definitely the stuff of nightmares. Not fantastic ones though, real life nightmares. Ones that break down the mind and reform it in twisted new configurations. It’s desperate, unsettling, and wholly physical on one level while mentally scrambling on the other. It’s an exhausting album bound to affect you in indescribable ways.

Crank it up, break some shit and let its insanity become your insanity.

Fuck me, I need a drink.

Giveaway - Extremity Retained: Notes from the Death Metal Underground

The giveaway is over. See who won at the bottom of the post.

Metal Bandcamp has reached 1.000.000 pageviews. Not the most important thing about the blog, but damn, that is a nice big number isn't it? And I'll admit that I probably stare more at these pageview numbers than I should (if you're curious have a look here). So let's celebrate shall we: Enter the first Metal Bandcamp giveaway and you may win a copy of Jason Netherton's book Extremity Retained: Notes From the Death Metal Underground.

Art by Matt "Putrid Gore" Carr,

Quoting the press material the book is "an exhaustive 480 page contribution to the oral history of death metal music and culture. Comprised entirely of first-hand stories, anecdotes and memories, the book reflects on such diverse areas as the early fanzine and tape trading culture, regional 'scene' reports, death metal performance and technique, the recording process, as well as life on tour". Read more (including the long, long list of contributors) on Handshake Inc.'s webshop page. Also check out Craig Hayes review for Hellbound.ca in which he calls it

"an overdose of geek heaven (or hell, take your pick). The book is a hugely enjoyable account of death metal’s history, and Netherton knows a thing or two about that world himself, being a founding member of Misery Index, and instrumental in getting Dying Fetus off the ground too".

For a chance to win simply write a comment to this post and include your email address. Please obfuscate it a little, like "yourname AT gmail DOT com" (or similar), to prevent spammers from picking it up. Anyone (except for Metal Bandcamp contributors) can enter. And should. I mean, you do want to know how this encounter between Travis Ryan (Cattle Decapitation) and Glen Benton ends, right?


The giveaway is over. Thanks to all who entered, and for all the nice comments. I'm giving away an extra copy of the book. The randomly selected winners are:

HD - skingraph4u (@) hotmail dot com
akubar the seer - Orkishmetal AT hotmail DOT es

The books have now been sent to Shane from Canada and Pablo from Spain. Congratulations to both of you!

Gridlink - Longhena

Written by Matt Hinch.


Grind is spelled G-R-I-D-L-I-N-K.

2009 was a very troubled year for me. The Dark Days as I call them. Late that year I took an anger management class. Not because of a court order or anything, or violent outbursts so much. No, I took it because I could feel it inside me. I wanted to stop it. The class itself was a bunch of hooey but one "assignment" was cool. Bring in a song that describes how you feel about yourself. I took in a track from Gridlink's Amber Gray. I still don't know what the lyrics were, but how Gridlink "feel" was how I felt. An intense ball of negative energy; frantic and unstable, teetering on the brink of annihilation through either collapse or explosion. While Buddhist practices calmed this savage beast, Gridlink raged on with Orphan and now sadly, the monster that is Jon Chang and company is being put to rest as well. But not without one final detonation of devastation in Longhena.

For the band's swansong they take their sweet time. Relatively speaking. On previous records the longest tracks were 1:20 and 1:27 respectively. On Longhena there are SIX (of 14) tracks eclipsing the 1:27 mark, three of which are over two minutes and the final track clocks in at a Tolkien-esque 3:11. It appears Gridlink are leaving nothing behind but shattered eardrums.

Chang (vocals) and his Hayaino Daisuke cohorts Takafumi Matsubara (guitars) and Teddy Patterson III (bass) along with drummer Bryan Fajardo end Gridlink's legacy in typical fashion. (It does not appear guitarist Steve Procopio appears on this release.) They smash through barriers with boundless energy and a complete disregard for the rules of physics. Lightspeed is for sissies. As Chang does his level best to give Melissa Cross nightmares, the rest of the band does the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.

Their balls-out intensity is on display right from the get-go on "Constant Autumn" with the requisite subtleties that make Gridlink so good. The end of the track features some strings that foreshadow the third track "Thirst Watcher". Are you sitting down? It's an instrumental. Nothing but violins (Joey Molinaro) and gentle strummed and finger-picked guitar that wouldn't sound out of place on a Monster Magnet album. Strange. Good, but strange.

Much of the rest of Longhena consists of the sort of blitzkrieg intensity we've come to know and love. The frenzied, face-smashing riffs in "Taibas", the tremulous melodies of "The Dodonpachi", the jangliness, discordance and mournfulness of "Island Sun", the dirty-as-fuck nimbleness of "Black Prairie", the list goes on of flat-out grind awesomeness. The way Gridlink are able to craft powerfully violent songs and still remain infectiously catchy is a skill few are able to master.

On "The Last Raven" we hear Chang step out of character and growl like a demon. Paul Pavlovich of Assuck also lends his beastly roar on "Chalk Maple". These forays into the lower registers serve an effective counter to Chang's piercing screech. When it comes right down to it, a break from Chang's usual voice isn't something the listener yearns for but it's pretty cool to hear anyway.

Whether Gridlink are dragging your bloody body behind a car at 100mph, getting all mind-fuck skronky, or working their way up the frets as a device for climax they do it all with such force and intensity. Some or all of them are going completely off the rails at all times but with total control. Matsubara and Patterson's speed and dexterity, Fajardo's inhumanity and Chang's pure, primal, cathartic release are knotted so tightly and so perfectly that Gridlink's demise is a tragic loss for grindkind.

Now, earlier I referenced a negative ball of energy. That is not to say Gridlink are a negative entity. Far from it. Personally, and I'm probably not alone, I see Gridlink as an entirely positive band. The way the band fires up the adrenaline and provides an outlet for the release of pent up aggression through screaming or moshing or whatever (like the incessant kitchen counter drumming of the past few days) is a wholly positive experience. Listening to Longhena and all of Gridlink's catalog is a way to let go. Let it out in a good way. It's freedom.

As Chang's final Gridlinkian scream dies away at the end of "Look to Winward", all that's left to say is "Glorious. Just fucking glorious."

Thank you, Gridlink.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

Laser Flames on the Great Big News - Lambs to the Slaughter

Artwork "Lambs" by Stephenie Bailey

Laser Flames on the Great Big News - Lambs to the Slaughter is available on the Handshake Inc. Bandcamp. This is metallic southern rock with lovely male-female harmony vocals, solos and viola. But wait there's more; tracks veer into progressive hardcore territory adding angular riffing and screamo vocals to the mix, and then back to a Cat Powers doing southern rock vibe with thunderous riffing, more viola and soloing. Great stuff, check it out. Here's a review from Gun Shy Assassin.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]

((Thorlock)) - S/T

By Natalie Zina Walschots. This is the debut, self-titled album from ((Thorlock)), who hail from Cape Girardeau, MO. Another band that produced and released their record, ((Thorlock)) was then picked up by upstart indie label Handshake Inc.

By Natalie Zina Walschots. Originally published by Exclaim.


This is the debut, self-titled album from ((Thorlock)), who hail from Cape Girardeau, MO. Another band that produced and released their record, ((Thorlock)) was then picked up by upstart indie label Handshake Inc. for a more comprehensive re-release and promo campaign. There's a little Weedeater influence heard in the spare, thumping drums and buzz-y, reverb-heavy guitar tone, especially in the circular structured "Mississippi Wheelwash." ((Thorlock)), however, are sharper than a lot of their tar-thick compatriots; they have created a Southern rock sludge monster with a skeleton of barbed wire.

This is particularly clear on "Triceratops" ― there's sharpness to their vocal performance, the occasional bright whip-crack of a crash cymbal that keeps you on your toes and prevents the listener from falling into a La Brea Tar Pits sludge coma. This can't be classified as stoner rock because of this bright quality; ((Thorlock)) keep their wits honed to a sharp edge. If you're looking to swallow some doom with the occasional razor blade amidst the thick, congealing feedback, this album is a fine auditory meal.

Biipiigwan - Nibaak

By Natalie Zina Walschots. Based in Ottawa, ON, Biipiigwan's new EP, Nibaak, follows up their full-length, God's Hooks, released in March 2010. Nibaak was recorded, mixed and mastered by Topon Das, of Juno-nominated Canadian grindcore act Fuck The Facts

By Natalie Zina Walschots. Originally published by Exclaim.


Based in Ottawa, ON, Biipiigwan's new EP, Nibaak, follows up their full-length, God's Hooks, released in March 2010. Nibaak was recorded, mixed and mastered by Topon Das, of Juno-nominated Canadian grindcore act Fuck The Facts, and is composed of three five-minute songs.

The EP serves as a kind of tapas menu for noisy Canadian metal: toothsome, flavourful dishes that are too spare to constitute a full meal, but make up for their brevity with powerful flavours and a heady kick of spice. Lots of words are tossed around to describe Biipiigwan, usually with the prefix "post" and suffix "core." They fall somewhere between nimble, thoughtful sludge and orderly noise, tempered by a good, deep buzz.

"Nibaak" means "they sleep" in Ojibway, but there's far too much of a racket here to be in any way restful. "Kingmaker" is a clamouring, clawing piece, bashing itself against the walls of its musical cage. "Rodentia" evokes the chittering misery of a rat chewing its leg free from a trap, where the titular "Nibaak" is the most agonized of all, wailing like a grizzly with its paw in a bear trap. Biipiigwan play with limitations and constraints, and the sonic agony inherent in cruelly imposed limits. Nibaak is a surprisingly neat and tidy exploration of pain.

Biipiigwan - God's Hooks

Biipigwan - God's Hooks from 2010 was added to the Handshake Inc. Bandcamp. This Canadian band plays a riff heavy and hardcore-esque brand of sludge and doom metal. The album has a nice chunky-but-roomy production by Topan Das of Fuck The Facts fame.

Biipigwan - God's Hooks from 2010 was added to the Handshake Inc. Bandcamp. This Canadian band plays a riff heavy and hardcore-esque brand of sludge and doom metal. The album has a nice chunky-but-roomy production by Topan Das of Fuck The Facts fame. No reviews but fans of Neurosis, Yob, and Unsane might want to check it out.

Biipiigwan blogged about touring around the time of God's Hooks release, and one entry in particular accurately described the exciting life on the road:

Shows are good. Interesting things happen at them sometimes. People are awesome. Sometimes we don't shower for a while, then we shower and it's good. We drive places and sometimes it's far and sometimes it's not and sometimes interesting things happen at these times too.