In this second part of Paul Schwarz's ongoing series, "ZZ Frost" and "DUB" of Dutch underground extreme metal screw-arounds The Sodomised Abortions continue to listen -- alongside the pesky Englisher, no less -- through their collective music haul from Germany's Rock Hard festival (see Gigs for write-up, still coming soon). 'The List' (see below) will be featured in each episode of this rant 'series'. Ratings will appear only in the body text of any given 'episode': you'll have to piece them together if you're thinking 'music library block labelling ahoy!' Me, I've still got hockey to catch up on, so I'll leave you in the capable hands of two (probably) hockey-haired Hollanders -- and one clearly over-tired hack.

Series One: In Ede and Extreme

Written, edited, transcribed and paraphrased by: Paul Schwarz

A campsite in Ede, a relatively modest collective haul of CDs and DVDs, a computer with a Yahoo Messenger program that won't go away and the opinions of others at the touch of a button. What a perfect recipe for a 'rant' which no one had to think too much about to write, eh?

The List (cheapest to dearest; min €5.00, max €16.00)

1. In Blackest Velvet - _Insuisight_ (self-released CD, 6 tracks, 2006 - free) [SEE BELOW]

2. Deceased - _Up the Tombstones Live 2000_ (CD, 10 tracks, 2000 - bought)

3. Nevermore _The Politics of Ecstacy_ (CD, 10 tracks, 1996 original - bought)

4. Venom - _Hell at Hammersmith (Live in London)_ (DVD, 60 mins stated run-time, "powered by Rock Hard", 15 tracks including "bass solo", recorded live 1985, original line-up - bought)

5. Unsane - _Blood Run_ (CD, 11 tracks, 2005 - bought)

6. The Chasm - _Conjuration of the Spectral Empire_ (CD, 11 tracks, 2003 - bought)

7. Forbidden - _Raw Evil Live at the Dynamo_ (CD, 4 tracks, 1998 re-release of 1989 live recording)

8. Faith No More - _The Real Thing_ (CD, 1989, 11 tracks - bought) [SEE BELOW]

9. Hypocrisy - _Abducted_ (CD, digipack, 13 tracks, 1996 album - bought) [SEE MFSG #1]

10. Extreme Noise Terror - _Damage 381_ (CD, 10 tracks, 1997 - bought)

11. Nattefrost - _Terrorist (Necronaut PT.1)_ (CD, digipak, 13 tracks - bought) [SEE MFSG #1]

12. Immortal - _Damned in Black_ (CD, 7 tracks, 2000 - bought) [SEE MFSG #1]

13. Immortal _Blizzard Beasts_ (CD, 8 tracks, 1997 - bought) [SEE MFSG #1]

14. Necrophagia - _Necrotorture Sickness_ (DVD, 120 mins stated run-time, 16-track show inclusive of "credits" and "young burial", no booklet, 'extras' may be lengthy, RS is allegedly the label so it is allegedly legit - bought) [SEE BELOW]

15. Darkthrone - _Panzerfaust_ (CD, 7 tracks, 1995 - bought) [SEE MFSG #1]

16. Kroda - _Toward the Firmaments Verge of Life_ (CD, 9 tracks, 2005 - bought) [SEE MFSG #1]

17. Nocturnus - _A Farewell to Planet Earth_ (bootleg DVD, 17 tracks, no booklet, 'released' 2004, recorded '91-'97 - bought) [SEE MFSG #1]

18. Crux (Cz) - _Rev Smrti - Scream of Death_ (CD, 11 tracks including 4 marked as "bonus", 2006/7 release for tracks recorded from '90-'06 - bought)

19. DHG - _Supervillian Outcast_ (CD, 15 tracks, 2007 - bought)

20. The Crown - _14 Years of No Tomorrow_ (3-DVD, 2005 - bought) [SEE BELOW]

21. Dead Kennedys - _The Early Years_ (DVD, 9 tracks, no booklet, 30 mins stated and actual total run-time - bought)

22. Extreme Noise Terror - _From One Extreme to Another_ (probably bootleg DVD, 2002, 11 tracks and interview extra, no booklet - bought)

[Marking scheme: * to ***** or 'one to five', often with vague classification. Editor's discretion, ultimately.]

Episode Two: Vulvats of Ents Phage Into a No Tomorrow

It's 05:33 and the birds are again noisily wonderful to take in. A heron just made a spectacular visit. But what is this that comes from a speaker? Why it's IN BLACKEST VELVET, apparently. Now, we know what you're thinking and what you're going to ask, so we'll deal with these matters first in a strict priority order incorporating numerals. Don't you feel special? No, you feel like the amount of time-wasting going into this introduction, the only logical conclusion is that CoC contributors get paid by the word. And since we wouldn't want you to believe such lies, we'll stop flibbling. I) 'Who the fuck are they?'. German. Like At the Gates more than a little, copy Soilwork's songstructuring and cyber-light visual aesthetetic rather effectively but come off sounding like a band from the second "Star Wars" prequel even as the first note is played. II) 'How did an unpaid CoC contributor resist the temptation to go all Nazi book-burner on In Blackest Velvet's collective asses? (Say that name five times more if you like; but don't coming suing to us for any allegedly related increases in your overall stress levels. We won't write it into the article again, so whether you're ever exposed to its heinousness again is none of our business. Got it?) But to continue the answer to your second question: a) we're not into destroying music we haven't even heard here at CoC, but more importantly b) DUB says that the guy from whom ZZ obtained this was cute. ZZ says he looked like Bjorn "Speed" Strid, with sunglasses obscuring his eyes and a pate as bald as a baby's bum. "He was so in awe when you told him who you wrote for", says DUB. "He was like, 'You won't have time for me!'" But he was wrong -- ZZ finds time for everyone, apparently. We gave his six-tracker a spin and now here you are reading about it. Stardom awaits, surely! But enough of the Stan Lee bit; all is fair in both love (actually maybe we should take this opportunity to question that old 'love and war' maxim -- rape, for example, or forcing a person by the application of physical restraint to watch every "Buffy" TVS-associated televisual 'delight' on earth would not be considered a 'fair' thing to do in either love or war, though the former of the former might be an inevitability in the latter of the latter) and peddling your band to anyone at a festival whom you hear talking like he knows his heavy metals [ask Gino about the catalogues we've been sent here at CoC HQ! -Paul]. That's what they make boring Paradise Lost performances -for-, isn't it: so band-pimps can scope the scene? "Well, it's defintely not terrible", offers DUB after a few tracks, hitting nail on head. _Insuisight_ (oww, that hurt!) has all the At the Gates, Arch Enemy, Soilwork and In Flames seasonings you'd expect; it's based on a widely-available, market-savvy form of highly maleable 'living mud' -- available on the cheap in Germany these days, we overheard in a backroom brothel in Bochum, via a secret listening device forged by the Gods. This 'living mud' can form itself into any shape it sees elsewhere. It cannot create, but don't be surprised if fate weaves its web such that In Blackest Velvet do procreate. Even idiots can fuck, after all. Nice guy though: hope the next 'project' he is involved with is more musically driven and less a Motley Crue [sic] of melodic death metal-lovers. That's ZZ's essential summation, anyway. Oh no, there's more. Apparently, being a star isn't all it's cracked up to be, some say. And anyway, calling your band In Blackest Velvet isn't going to do you any favours in six months -- by which time, the likes of In This Moment, In the Disaster, A Love Ends Suicide and In My Lover's Sphincter will all start looking like the plastic tossers they are. At least, that's ZZ's theory. Personally, I feel 'Sphincter rather hold up a smelly mirror [It's stolen, but I won't tell you where from -Paul] to the whole metalcore scene a squeeze one out... But anyway, let's finish this thing. If you hear from any of the well-groomed guys who made this again, it'll be under another name. Bet on it. [Tentative average rating after one full listen: ** (it was more, then we got round to putting the real bandname and release title into the spot where the placeholders used to be. Also, the badguys really came from Cobra-La, ZZ is telling me. No, I don't believe him either, dear. DUB remains silent.)]

It is truly amazing how much musicians and aspiring musicians alike can talk about crap bands who are liable to make no impact on the world when you compare how little they sometimes have to say about albums that purportedly started whole new genres. Yup, it's time to tackle the FAITH NO MORE album which often divides metalheads who accessed the band via _Angel Dust_ from, well, the rest of the world of 'pop journalism'. That's only crudely true, but anyway: we're talking _The Real Thing_! Easily underrated, claims ZZ. In extreme metal circles, anyways. 'It's like, _Angel Dust_ is much nuttier and somehow, maybe because of the titles of songs like "Crack Hitler", people got to think that it is extreme, whereas maybe because of the "Epic" single and the slightly more accessible groove of this album, this one gets lumped in the "not brutal" pile.' Something to that effect anyway. This fucker's like bloody Castro at times! Now do you get why we paraphrase him? "I'm enjoying", DUB offers, shuffling a patience deck and sipping coffee. [Tentative average rating after one listen: ****]

"Now I think the butcher should slaughter the lamb", paraphrases DUB with a cackle, apeing the menacing dwarf with the mangled larynx who snarls through American footballer eyes and corpse-whitened cheeks at us from our vidscreens. Yup, it's that time again: time to assess yet -another- NECROPHAGIA DVD. The best yet to our mind, _Necrotorture & Sickness_ evidences Killjoy's groovily grinding gore metal troupe putting on an excellent live performance as its 'main feature' -- homemade horror movies and 'valuable' candid footage this time sensibly being relegated to b-picture status: they're in the 'extras' folder. We're all in agreement: watch the show, or possibly just rip it to audio if you don't have a high tolerance for straight-faced high-camp 'gore and sickness'. Don't even waste your time with the rest. ZZ drones on about how they'll be at Neurotic but he can't go because work won't give him the time off; it's like everyone else at the pretty straight-laced, huge office building in which he works are secretely death metal fans or are perhaps just secretely going to Neurotic to taunt him, apparently. "Is he just dedicating a song to Euronymous so we think he's more necro or what?" DUB scoffs -- whether rightly or wrongly, it's not our place to judge. Maybe if someone thinks it would be a good idea we'll quiz Killjoy about it sometime. If someone asks us to, and we can be bothered -- and, indeed, he can be reached. Addendum: Necrophagia didn't play the Neurotic Deathfest, in the end, but the following rating was in no way prejudiced by that amusingly-almost-unnoticed-at-the-event disappointment. [Average rating taking into consideration that scanning the extras for good bits was a futile waste of far too much time -- add a point if you're just going to watch the show: ***]

"Hello Wacken! We are THE CROWN from Sweden! Let the Hammering begin!" The way Wolverine -- sorry, Johan Lindstrand... Actually, wait! Remind me which one was born in a 1970s Hulk comic and possibly constructed from ideas sneakily lifted from Jack Kirby's purloined sketchbooks? That was Johan Lindstrand? Right. So anyway, the way Wolverine smacks his microphone after speaking of hammering makes us all think of porn -- and for some reason, we all also agree that this totally enhances the experience of watching Sweden's "Gothenthrashnroll" (copyright ZZ Frost, 2008) gods destroy Wacken. Indeed, after testing the waters of the ludicrously long Crown documentary -- whose narrative appears, sadly, only in subtitles and which covers all of the first of this three disc set -- we retreat to watching this same thirty-minute reel of live gold again. And after a brief skim through the two other purchased festival performances and DVD of historical bootleg material, guess what we did again? Watched the Wacken performance. Paul insisted on it -- he was there, you know. Hey, ZZ, stop that. I'm going to leave this in as I type it but don't hack my keyboard, um, yo! But the picture is clearer now, isn't it, so thanks ZZ and on to something else we go before I fall asleep right here as I type. [Average rating for buyers guide purposes, to which a point or two might be added if you aren't paying (much) for it, as that one live performace is, we are agreed, pure fucking gold, and not just 'cause at least one of use thinks they spotted themselves in the crowd: **]

Report #2 ends...

[Copyright from SODOMISED ABORTION PRODUCTIONS, 2008]

[Featuring the music and words of The Crown, Faith No More, In Blackest Velvet and Necrophagia; or it would have, if we were offering podcasts or FREE... <click here to learn about how to get podcasts not for free>]