Holidays in the sun

It's been a while with no updates. I've been on sort of a holiday now for a week and the absence of new shit will continue for let's say something like two weeks. I'm currently out of town and after i get back home thursday, i'm off to London next week and next weekend there's Neurosis at Ruisrock Festival on friday in Turku and Kindom with local supports (Eye For All, Get Stitches!, Lives At Risk) in Helsinki on saturday. So theres lot places to go and shit to do, that leaves pretty much no time for writing stuff. Also i'm currently working on finishing new lyrics for new Ill Omen songs, plus the wheels of the 7" release should be starting to turn soon. Lots of good stuff coming thought when i get back from this "holiday", Trapped Under Ice -interview, (hopefully) Borrowed Time -interview + few other interview planned, review of In One Piece / Sink Or Swim -Split 7" and No Heroes 7", just to name few things. Meanwhile, check out the archives, there's lots and lots of good stuff.

Playlist:
Kickback - No Surrender
Neurosis -Everything
Morrissey -Everything
Perkele - Längtan
Blitz - Best Of... and Tribute Album(?)
Ill Omen -new songs
.45 Stainless

New St. Hood songs up!

Go check out two brand new songs off St. Hood's upcoming album For The Dead. Witness the Finnish hardcore juggernaut gone heavy fucking metal with songs; Control and title track, For The Dead. I can't fucking wait, its going to be damn amazing album! Out 12.8. on Combat Rock Industry as a vinyl lp and cd.

St. Hood -Myspace
St. Hood -Website
Combat Rock Industry -Myspace
Combat Rock Industry -Website

Alley Gods 7"

God damn, it's about fucking time and i have to add, it's fucking awesome. I'm talking here of course about long awaited 7" of Turku City Hard Core boys, Alley Gods. Poolside Records has released this crucial piece of vinyl and it's truly amazing to see and hold the vinyl after all the years it took to get it out, they had their share of trouble on the way, but it's definitely worth it. Originally this 7" was supposed to be a split 7" between another Turku band, Unloyal (of whose demo i wrote long time ago), but since everything never goes like it should, problems emerged, Unloyal broke up and Alley Gods needed to write good bunch of new songs and record also the b-side of what would on that point be their Self-Titled 7". "The Split" was supposed to come out roughly 3 years ago, bit less maybe, but sometimes these things take time and things tend to change, but good things are always worth the wait, right?

Alley Gods 7" contains total of nine songs, four on A-side and 5 on B-side. First off is Food For The Guns, it tells about some beef, that some local football clubs have or something, Oskari, the singer never really explained it to me properly. But in any case, that one has some Pitboss 2000 -thing going on just like another song on the A-side, Beers & Queers, on witch, name might explain enough, but anyway, it's also classic oldschool hardcore influenced with PB2K -styled modern touch. On the A-side you can found also songs 20360, that is strictly for Turku City; "This is the motherfucking Turku style" and their title song, Alley Gods is re-recorded from their demo and it shows well where the band has gotten their influences, since there's somehow familiar sound to classic Dischord -era hardcore punk bands like Minor Threat and S.O.A. etc. It's actually funny, even i've been a friend of these guys for long time, i'm not 100% sure if their song came together by purpose or just by accident. Many might not know, but Alley Gods used to be called Alley Breams before Oskari joined the band to sing and that previous form of the band played pretty much skatepunk, witch is also heard on their material.

B-side contains more newer material, since it's less than year since they recorded it. Once Again starts the b-side and shows increase on melodic touch on the guitar riffs, it's a tight short song an works well. Next track Face Off is pretty good as well, moshpart brings on again more melodic riffs. Ratrace features vocals from Pirkka Poolside / Reckless Crew, trading verses sounds good on two vocalist. Only song that hasn't really hit me yet is Passion and the lack of lyrics is really only point that i'm thinking when figuring out minuses on the whole package. Last song on B-side is Going Strong, another gang-shout anthem that should ignite anyone who's into fast hardcore and it ends on really damn cool instrumental part. So if you are into old school hardcore, you very probably like also Alley Gods. It's a great record with great songs and most notably it's first release of Poolside Records, who got lots of really fucking good thing coming, like fellow Turku band, Get Stitches!'s first 7".Support independent hardcore and all the other bands members of Alley Gods are in such as: Get Stitches!, Reckless Crew and Ill Omen. Pick the 7" up straight from Poolside Records myspace or Alley Gods myspace, all instructions are found on their sites, it's only 4€'s!

Alley Gods - Once Again 7"//2009//Poolside Records

Alley Gods - Face Off 7"//2009//Poolside Records

Alley Gods - Alley Gods 7"//2009//Poolside Records


Alley Gods -Myspace
Poolside Records -Myspace

New Ill Omen shirts

Order new Ill Omen shirts: illomenhc@gmail.com
Or send a message through myspace. Ill Omen -Myspace
Here's little bigger photos.

Brown t-shirt 10e + shipping
Sizes: S-XL

Navy longsleeve t-shirt 15e + shipping
Sizes: M-XL

Secrets Of The World... are yours to take

So this is it motherfuckers, get your weak internet browsers into Merchnow to pre-order quite awesome packages of the new Trapped Under Ice -album, Secrets Of The World right fucking now! There's two different t-shirt option bundles, everything separate (but not the shirts) and unbelievable mega-bundle, that contains everything. LP's are exclusive (400 pcs) to merchnow, on red vinyl so don't sleep on it. Pick your poison, this'll be the hardcore record of the this year, hands down. Now go shopping. Support Reaper Records, they're doing really fucking great job for hardcore in every way possible.

Trapped Under Ice
Secrets Of The World -pre-order on Merchnow
Reaper Records

No One Watching Over Us / Nemesis

Finally we got the results of the studio session we did over a month ago. After the first pre-mix taste of Nemesis (feat. Jaakko Your Time Ends), i'm excited to tell you that now we've uploaded final version of that very song and with it a brand new one; No One Watching Over Us. There's a 7" coming out, slowly but firmly, we're now scouting out about what will happen on the release process and all. I hope everything will work out fine, so if anyone is interested on helping us out in any way possibly, please contact us. And also please, leave us a comment on what you think about the songs, either here or in Myspace. Thank you.

Ill Omen -Myspace //Songs: Nemesis, No One Watching Over Us

Photography: Metalliaurinko 6

30.05.09 Metalliaurinko 6: Breamgod, Another One Dead, Cold Inside, End Begins, Alley Gods, St. Hood, Bolt, Cutdown

What a great weekend for sure. I didn't have enough time and battery-life to shoot every single band, so here's some of the bands that we're performing at the fest. I'll put in also some of pre-show photos from Pori, Baarikaappi later today when i get through 'em, plus something from few other shows that have been recently.

EDIT:

I also added photos from the pre-show of Metalliaurinko to the flickr page, so go and check 'em out straight from the link above.

Avoid Eye Contact

It's been a long time since i started to look out for this demo from Turku & surrounding areas -based hardcore band, Avoid Eye Contact. If someone remembers, i wrote up about their live-set from Beatdown By The Laituri 2002, but even before that i've been trying to find a copy of their Demo cassette. Luck seemed to turn in my favor since some time ago when i bought off some records (including that Crawlspace mcd) from Jukka, who used to sing in Avoid Eye Contact, he told me that he'd found a couple of these original cassette demos and promised to hand me one. After small problems i got my tape player working and more problems with finding right kinda cord, i got the tape ripped to computer.

Avoid Eye Contact's Demo 2001 contains 4 songs, three original and one cover. I was also told that there is cd-r version of the demo, but have never seen one. Sound is really rough, since pretty much everything they recorded for this demo was recorded live at their rehearsal space and then mixed by Jukka at his home. I tried to work out if i could clean the sound a bit, but lacked the skill to do that. Fear The Fist is first song on the demo, it features also an intro, that's loaning a bit from Ozzy's song Bloodbath In Paradise, but the song itself is really good, pummeling heavy riffs and two vocalists make it all sound damn tight, my man Daniel is shouting some serious shit and Jukka's voice is also pretty damn hard sounding. It's all in all a pretty damn good song, this is some classic Turku style hardcore for sure, i think that TKU Blindside are pretty close if you think of comparing Avoid Eye Contact, but TBS had more of that Blood For Blood -type vibe going on when AEC brings mind Death Threat, with harsher sounding vocals. Second song is Face To Face, it's originally Falling In Cycle -song, Jukka's previous band in witch also Avoid's guitarist Mikko and drummer Pyssy did play too and i think AEC is putting their very own touch on it as well. On the B-side, there's song Bobbitt, that was inspired by of course John Bobbitt, whose wife cut his dick off and when you read through the lyrics it makes quickly sense what about the song was written, chorus sounds to me always really cool because of switchign vocals and arrangements. Last song is cover of Never Again by Death Threat, they played it also on BDBTL'02 live-set and even the sounds are little bit rough, it's a great cover on realyl fucking good song. Better know your history, but this is just another small piece of Turku City Hardcore legacy and i myself am always enthuastic to hear and learn more as well from this city and it's past hardcore scene. Now check out Avoid Eye Contact Demo 2001 and grab that Beatdown By The Laituri 2002 -live as well.


Avoid Eye Contact - Demo 2001 CS//2001//D.I.Y.

The Secrets Of The World are coming...

http://www.myspace.com/underdaice
http://www.reaper-records.com

Don't Get Mad... Get Even

This is in a way reprise since Ben did write about Belgium's Crawlspace back in '07 when he was doing his own blog No Need To Belong . I bought this mcd while ago from a mate who also provided me some other excellent more rarer releases, witch of some you can read more about later.This mcd is an demonstration of pure tough guy beatdown mayhem and is delivering the original sound that Crawlspace had, before they ventured more and more into death metal direction on their (fucking awesome) full-length lp, Don't Get Mad... Get EvenEnter The Realm Of Chaos.

Don't Get Mad... Get Even features six songs of pummeling heaviness, that of the band has always been known of. You can still hear that sound on their lp very clearly, but this mcd is very much more straightforward material. The Chapter starts up quitly from it's intro into very heavy Bulldoze sounding crusher. Lyrically Crawlspace writes about basic tough guy stuff, "fuck with me and i'll fuck you up" -vein shit, but what the fuck about they should sing when playing this kind of heavy hardcore. Vocalist Brecht has always been pretty impressive singer doing he's deep grunting shouts and when you listen to Crawlspace a lot, you should know what band nowdays sound pretty much exactly like them after Enter The Realm Of Chaos, yeah you guessed right, it's Nasty. I'm not surprised that Crawspace has influenced a lot of band in Europe, since they very really good at what they were doing and when you listen to the next song on this mcd, Digging The Grave, there's those shrieking vocals alonside their "basic" growling before devastating breakdows at the end of the song. Creation Of Hate could really sound like a Broken Ties, Spoken Lies -era Shattered Realm song, but with bit different style vocals, so it's a killer tune also. Way Out is yet another example of heavy beatdown done well, nothing to complain, got those heavy beats and driving, slightly death metal styled guitars on the verse parts. Title track Don't Get Mad... Get Even demonstrates well how this mcd has become some kind of classic in the European hardcore scene, it's all good stuff that many didn't get their hand on back in the days it came out. Nowdays it's so hard to try to cop a copy from Ebay because of ridiculous prices, but again if you really want it, then pay for it. I'm strongly recommending everyone to pick this up, heavy, heavy shit that has similar sounds with classic beatdown ala Next Step Up, One Second Thought and Bulldoze, but with a sligtly more metallic touch on it.

Crawlspace - Don't Get Mad... Get Even MCD//1998//R.P.P Records

Crawlspace -Myspace