The Pop Group - For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?

The Pop Group's second album has always been overshadowed by Y, and this is no surprise considering Y is fucking amazing, but it doesn't help that For How Much Longer... is also shorter and sounds a bit more abrasive than their first. while i'm apathetic towards the political aspects of the album, it has some great songs that will unfortunately always be compared to the ones on Y. sadly, they aren't amazing enough and so despite being well worth listening to this will pretty much always be remembered as 'that other album by The Pop Group'.

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Malady - Malady

Malady were comprised of members from pg.99 and City of Caterpillar, but personally i would consider their music more along the lines of something like Daïtro. there is definitely some post-rock influence here. very energetic but also beautiful, with The World Is A Tomb in particular an absolute classic. sadly this self titled album was all they produced, as they formed in 2004 and broke up in 2005. oh well

oh man check out that file name i am SO clever (MP3 V0)

NOISM - Plusminus

this is the only album NOISM have released and it's safe to say that they live up to their name. Plusminus makes most cybergrind bands sound like synthpop, producing a mixture of programmed drums and insanely technical death metal. this shit is loud and chaotic, and you're barely able to process any sort of melody before the guitarist moves on to something else. which is the entire appeal of the music.

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XBXRX - Sixth In Sixes

XBXRX's fourth album of six consists of 19 songs that are over in 25 minutes. very fast and very noisy punk music that is almost comparable to The Blood Brothers. aside from the basics this is actually kind of difficult to describe.

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Pygmy Lush - Old Friends

wow this was released a year ago and i did not know it existed until today. anyway this is Pygmy Lush's third album and with it they seem to have completely ditched the screamo tracks for good, with this being their second album consisting of solely folk songs. this album feels somewhat uplifting and happier in comparison to Mount Hope (granted it's been a while since i listened to it) and some of the stuff here seems more influenced by post-rock than their previous albums. despite this, Old Friends is just as melancholy as their older material.

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Atooishinjuu - The Death Imprint

fairly unknown side project of the late Kris Angylus from The Angelic Process. as is to be expected, this is not a quiet album. this is probably a love-it-or-hate-it album, as i've read some complaints about the vocals and the guitars, which have been described as similar to Tool... personally though i don't see the problem with them.

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Hosome - Jakamashi Jazz

one band that i have repeatedly tried to like but haven't been able to is deerhoof. these guys are pretty much what i expected deerhoof to sound like before i had listened to them. crazy mix of amen breaks and noisy guitars that still manages to sound poppy, and with no songs over 3 minutes, the band switches to something new before you get the chance to get sick of them.

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Slaraffenland - Private Cinema

"Slaraffenland are a Copenhagen, Denmark based band. Their sound is a mixture of many different styles, including post rock, experimental rock, alternative, noise, and freeform-jazz, combined in a unique process that is half composition and half improvisation."

after reading this on their last.fm page i thought this was going to be some mindblowing album so i was a bit disappointed... it's good though. lots of interesting instrumentation and i like the drums a lot.

http://slaraffenland.bandcamp.com/album/private-cinema
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Sol Invictus - Lex Talionis

Sol Invictus' debut album. i'm gonna be lazy and copy-paste part of a review i found of the album.

"Much of this album could just be described in terms of post-punk with folk influences, from the opening track Blood And Wine which is based on a simple, repeating pattern of piano notes (which comes back as a reprise in closer Wine and Blood) and the title track which follows it becomes evident that this is going to be an album based around plenty of gloomy, repetitive bass hooks. These appear in many of the songs and anchor the rest of the compositions well, which include some electronic noise influences, luscious acoustic guitars, thumping drum machines, basically what you would expect from a new wave group jamming with some guy on an acoustic guitar."

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Picastro - Whore Luck

sombre slowcore / folk, if you're into Nadja you probably downloaded Fool, Redeemer which was a split between these guys and the aforementioned drone doom band. obviously that saw Picastro moving more into drone territory, but this album is more along the lines of what they've made previously. check out Become Secret if you like this one or vice versa, they're both good albums.

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Rowland S. Howard - Teenage Snuff Film

solo album by the guitarist from the birthday party. post-punk, released almost 20 years after they broke up so while the guitarwork is great don't expect anything quite as noisy as what you may have heard from TBP. the guitars still have an edge to them, especially on tracks like Breakdown (And Then...), and while the lyrics are rather depressing i find this album to be pretty chill overall.

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Satanicpornocultshop - Takusan no Ohanasan

another album by these dudes, similar to .Aiff Skull which i personally think is better but whatever, this is still quality. the track titles confuse me but apparently most of this is comprised of remixes? they sound original enough so who cares. the songs Catherine Ferroyer Blanchard sings on (or the songs of hers they remixed....???) are probably my favourites, love her voice.

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Satanicpornocultshop - .Aiff Skull EP

mediafire's sayin my account was suspended (though the links seem to work fine?) and presumably this is the reason why my uploads keep failing so back to bayfiles for now! sorry if this shit makes you wait for a couple minutes to get your files, i don't know what causes the change in waiting time.

anyone familiar with Satanicpornocultshop (or anyone who looks at the band name) should know that they make some strange music, and this hour-long "EP" is no different. in terms of its genre, it's electronic music, that's about all i can say. this album features vocals in japanese, english and french, loads of samples and an MC Hammer cover. it's just bizarre, fun shit.

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Killdozer - Uncompromising War On Art Under The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat / Burl

damn that is one long album title. 17 plodding noise rock songs that are, unsurprisingly, political in nature (there are a bunch of scans included which elaborate on this better than i ever could), though there's a humorous side to it, mostly thanks to the vocalist's "really low silly growl" which is absolutely ridiculous. the whole thing kind of reminds me of the Melvins, if you like them you'll probably dig this.

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Portrait - Complete Discography

too many bands named portrait. these guys are a screamo band (also not to be confused with Portraits of Past) that have unfortunately been outshined by the HEAVY METAL band with the same name. the main draw for this band is the addition of the viola, which probably inspired bands like I Would Set Myself On Fire For You. granted, the music on this album is a lot rawer.

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Astrobrite - Whitenoise Superstar

anyone familiar with the shoegaze band Lovesliescrushing - a duo who play shoegaze with almost solely guitars, with the result being drone-like - probably know Astrobrite, led by the LLC guitarist. Astrobrite's albums seem to lean more towards noise pop than drone, but Whitenoise Superstar is definitely more noise than pop. this album is LOUD AS SHIT in a way that can only be expressed through use of the caps lock key, with ethereal vocals and strange electronic beats alongside crushing guitars.

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Aussitôt Mort - Nagykanizsa

post-rock / screamo band with slight sludge elements from france, one of my favourite french vocalists alongside the one from Daïtro.

seems Spreading Neurotoxins already got this up oh well. check that blog out it's rad

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The Chinese Stars - Listen To Your Left Brain

after Six Finger Satellite and Arab on Radar both went on hiatus in the late 90s and early 00s respectively, The Chinese Stars popped up, sporting a bunch of members from AOR and SFS' drummer. Listen To Your Left Brain, while not coming close to the noisy shit commonly found on albums from the members' past bands, will still quench your thirst for weird-ass noise rock, with vocalist Eric Paul standing out in particular.

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The Men - Open Your Heart

these dudes came out of nowhere with their 2011 album Leave Home, which was a roaring mixture of noise rock, punk and sludge. OYH tones it down a bit though and while the guitars are still as loud as ever, it's a bit more of a traditional rock and roll album. still, anyone who liked Leave Home probably won't be disappointed with this.

MP3 320 (not my upload but not a transcode.)

Angel'in Heavy Syrup - III

chilled-out, dreamy psychedelic rock from a japanese all-girl band. could even say there's some dream pop / shoegaze influence. really nice stuff.

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The Angelic Process - Solipsistic

for those who have never listened to The Angelic Process: shoegaze / drone / doom mixture. don't listen to this, go get Weighing Souls With Sand or something

for those who have: released unreleased material!! obviously it's going to be a bit worse than their actual albums but who cares

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The Ex + Tom Cora - Scrabbling at the Lock / And The Weathermen...

(post-)punk + a cellist? hell yes. Scrabbling at the Lock is the first of the two, while And The Weathermen Shrug Their Shoulders was released two years after. the latter has shorter songs and is longer while the former has State of Shock. both are fucking amazing.

Scrabbling
Weathermen

both are v0, not my links though

Cerberus Shoal - An Ongoing Ding

being most well known for the transcendental The Land We All Believe In, Cerberus Shoal's follow-up album, released two years ago, is their latest (and possibly last as the band members are all doing other shit). unfortunately, anyone who listens to this expecting a mindblowing masterpiece will probably be disappointed. An Ongoing Ding is for the most part light-hearted and whimsical freak folk that's only 40 minutes long. while it really can't compare with some of the band's other releases, it's still a fun album and worth listening to.

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The Ex - Pokkeherrie

The Ex are an experimental punk band that, judging by the number of albums they have released, are ridiculously underrated on the internet. from their 20ish albums released, i've only heard 5, and so far Pokkeherrie, released 6 years after the band formed, has been the noisiest. the album opens with a song that would not be out of place on a no wave album, with the relentless guitars barely letting up throughout the album.

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Oren Ambarchi - Audience Of One

another australian artist. Oren Ambarchi's most recent 2012 release is one of my favourites for this year. he typically makes ambient / drone music, though the inclusion of vocals on the first track and acoustic guitar mixed with soft beats on the last may win over those with little experience in the genre (as it should sound gorgeous regardless of how much you know about the genre). the massive 33 minute track Knots is the true masterpiece of the album, though.

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Dirty Three - Dirty Three

i know from experience that there are a lot of bad australian bands. Dirty Three are not one of them. the guitar/drums/violin lineup allows the band to go from producing beautiful, sombre tunes to cacophonous rock music. from what i've heard, their earlier albums tend to be the noisier ones, and as the very first they've released their self-titled does not disappoint in that regard. those who have heard Horse Stories would most certainly love this (and vice versa).

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