Switchblade - Switchblade (2009)

"Be loud, be slow, as the march of celestial time."

This is a hard record to write about. Damn, it even is a hard record to listen to. But then again, what do you expect from a band that releases five self-titled records in ten years, and doesn't even have song titles? A fucking top ten radio hit?!

I am not too fond of the new wave of "drone" or "funeral doom", because let's face it: most the time it's nothing but completely talentless hippies who can't play good enough to keep beat releasing overpriced limited edition bullshit. Fortunately, Switchblade don't seem to be hippies. They're ex-punks. They didn't mellow out with age, they didn't try to come up with any "artistic statements", they did not "experiment with new frequencies", they just created record after record and got better and better. And totally unlike most of their peers in the world of slow music, Switchblade don't fuck around with bombastic arrangements. Everything about this record is so pure and simple it almost hurts.

Their fellow Swedes Abruptum have often been hailed as "the audial essence of pure black evil", and every second fat Black Metal chick believed it and bought their incredibly awful records to shock their parents just because some douchebag told them to. I can only imagine what Switchblade would do to them... just a notch above Sunn O))) when it comes to "beats", this band demands a lot from the listener. What might seem scary at first (or, as Jawbreaker said, "funny like a funeral") is in fact breathtakingly beautiful. Because... well, true beauty lies in darkness. Pain is not bad per se. All things must end. A black t-shirt is cooler than a white one. And so on and so fucking further, ad infinitum and ad nauseam. It's a useless task tyring to describe this music, or trying to convince you to buy this record - because it's either you do, or you don't. If you're straight edge, you probably won't like Bukwoski. If you think that Cradle of Filth is evil black metal, you can go get fucked. And that, my friends, is the point I am trying to make.

This album is one of the best and most intense records of the year. The album cover is aboslutely stellar. They're only a trio, but they make a shitload of noise. Turn off the lights, motherfucker.

www.switchblade.se
www.trustnoonerecordings.com

The Spits - The Spits IV

Fuck you. I hate this record.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? The temperature has dropped, it gets dark way too soon, it's cold like my beer should be, and I'd usually listen to Darkthrone at this time of the year. Or Winter. Or Bathory. But oh no, the fucking Spits have nothing better to do than release a new record. Fuck you. I want to be miserable, hate the world, and not leave the apartment. I certainly don't want to sit on my couch with a big grin and tap my feet because this album is SO AMAZING. I hate the Spits for recording this, and I hate Recess for putting this out.

That said, it's a textbook example of a punk rock record. Ten songs in less than 16 minutes, dumb as shit and smart at the same time, and it even sounds like shit. If I'd go to a record store and the person behind the counter would tell me that it's some long lost proto punk band from let's say 1979, I'd believe them, buy the record, and tell all my friends about it to make me seem cooler than I actually am. (Of course, I would bust my ass trying to look up their early EPs on the internet, and not find anything, but this is how us music nerds usually spend our evenings.)

While I was typing these three paragraphs, I have listened to this record twice. It's only 16 minutes. And since it sounds even cooler if you pitch it up a notch, it might have been only 12 minutes. Faster is better.

www.thespits.com
www.recessrecords.com