NOT DEAD

Well, I have been super busy/broke/tired over the last year and basically decided to give up on this blog. I've been writing mainly about baseball at tenthinning.wordpress.com and I think I'll leave the baseball related stuff there and try to keep up with this one again. I'll change the format a bit, though. I am going to use this both as a personal blog/show review/album review/journal type of thing and as an avenue to upload and discuss (mostly out of print/hard to find) albums that I love and think should be shared. If for some reason I upload an album of a band that is still active or whose records are still being distributed and you don't want it posted, please just let me know and I'll take it down ASAP.

I've finally got a pretty steady job and I can basically afford to live, which is a huge relief. BALACLAVA is doing pretty well. After an awesome 3 week tour this summer we've got some new recorded material that I think turned out pretty well. I know they are big .wav files and not zipped but whatever, get it HERE

I'll start off the uploads by posting an album that I honestly can't get enough of and that will probably set the tone for most of what gets upped on here. I'm sure you'll notice a heavy Japanese and Scandinavian slant because, well, that's just generally where a lot of my favorite punk/hardcore gets made. I'll try to post some out-of-print or forgotten USHC as well, but for now Japan gets the spotlight.

FRAMTID are an unstoppable force of noise-washed discharged crusty fucking d-beat destruction. They set the standard for Japanese d-beat in the aughts and no one has come close. This album, "Under the Ashes," is a life ruiner. I have friends who can't get into the low-fi production of a lot of raw punk/crasher crust type stuff, but the production on this album should be a mandatory lesson for every new raw punk/d-beat band. These songs are raw in all the right ways, they make your ears feel the way the ferocity of the songs make your gut feel. There is a balance. You can tell under the noise that this is actually a heavy production, it's not just all piercing high-end. Basically, it's a perfect record and I will never trust anyone who hears it and doesn't want to throw a brick at something. Plenty of words have been written about this record, so I'll just stop and upload the damn thing. 2003 Japanese Raw D-Beat Chaos! Consuming Shit and Mind Pollution!



FRAMTID - Under the Ashes

Finally, there's an awesome show coming to Strange Matter on October 27th featuring A.G.E. (from Japan!), HELLSHOCK (crusty punk/metal from PDX) and PARASYTIC (local punk/metal with new ripping songs). A.G.E. (ARMED GOVERNMENT'S ERROR) play a form of dark, truly crusty metal inspired punk that's strongly reminiscent of AMEBIX and ANTISECT's Out from the Void EP. They are somewhat comparable to countrymen CROW, but I think they tend more to the metal/crust side of things and stray somewhat from the J-Beat formula. Listen to their first LP and do not miss:


A.G.E. - Four Wings