To Drum with the Air

Let it be known I enjoy air drumming. Oh sure I've played on a kit before, but you just don't get the same thrill as flailing your arms into the vast wide open, doing those pantomime double strokes tom tom rolls 280 bpm blasts and mach 5 double beaters. Plus your neighbors don't hate you nearly as much (sure they still hate you but at least not because of a fucking loud snare drum). So, here are my fav songs to rock out to...

....and of course, the motherlode

Paralysis - Architecture Of The Imagination

Dark, progressive and technical as hell...Paralysis certainly went out on a high note.

Architecture Of The Imagination

Physical Fitness Is Important

Just ask Steve Asheim...the man whose lat's have their own lats.

Paralysis - Visions

The Dutch were very very good at technothrash. Paralysis is just one of many...Mystrez --- Imperium --- Osiris --- Rhadamantys --- I could go on (and I will, don't worry). Their debut ep Arctic Sleep was a stunner and Visions ain't no slouch. Same vocalist, so you know there is some obtuse caterwaulin' goin' down. The song "Escape From Yesterday" absolutely has to be heard to be believed.

Visions

Dyoxen - First Among Equals

Just remembered it's Canada Day, so to celebrate our neighbors to the north I'm posting some impossibly obscure technothrash from Montreal's own Dyoxen. Now if there is one thing that Canadians (specifically Quebecois) do well, it is left-of-center, incredibly progressive thrash...think Voivod, think Obliveon, think DBC, and well then just keeep thinking man cuz this is thinking man's metal...not for the weak of mind, or weak of heart.

First Among Equals

Sortilege - Metamorphose

Some more AMAZING cover artwork and AMAZING tunes courtesy of French bastards Sortilege. Metamorphose was their debut album from way back in 1984 and is nothing but pure class through and through...stinging powerful vox and riffs to bang your head for days. Probably the best French export since Courvoisier.

Metamorphose

Shinjuku Thief - The Witch Haven

Bombastic ambiance that borders on martial industrial at times, but retains just enough of the drone influence to keep everybody happy. I've been cranking this when I've been doing P90X...strangely good workout musick.

The Witch Haven

Magma - Udu Wudu

My fav Magma release featuring one of the greatest songs of all time....behold the Zeuhls of grandeur!!

Udu Wudu

Buddy Rich & Gene Krupa - The Drum Battle At JATP

Two legends do battle...the victor? I'll let you be the judge.

The Drum Battle

RALF Projekt III - Projekt: Kill

A lo-fi/no-fi descent into the deepest depths of depravity...go ahead and take a long stride into the abyss.

Projekt: Kill

Mystrez - The Indictment

Cold mechanical riffing of Pestilence Spheres, vox of a Doty + Russell Andersson (beyond excellent)...in parts baroque exercises in staccato ride cymbal athleticism in part break your neck thrash. The confusional song structures make for what should be a strange and alienating experience, but to the credit of these Dutch gentleman, they played with fire and came out with nary a singe on their aquanet encrusted pompadours. What are u fighting for?

The Indictment

Peter Evans Quintet - Ghosts

Been listening to this awesome jazz on a fairly regular basis since I found out about it. Swings hard with lots of skrees and skronks, bleeps and blops. Evans is a fairly young guy too. Hope to hear alot more from him and this quintet.

Ghosts

Lykathea Aflame - Elvenefris

A further development on the tenderness v. strength proposition that was developed in their Appalling Spawn daze, but this time featuring upstart drum superstar Tomas Corn...so the percussion is much tighter and adventurous this time around. I'm actually not as high on Elvenefris as a lot of people seem to be...it is long-winded at an hour and some change (honestly, most tech-death albums wear out their welcome after about 30 minutes), but there are truly breathtaking moments sprinkled throughout (To Give and Flowering Entities springing instantly to mind); not a perfect album but brilliant in it's own audaciousness.

Elvenefris

Spiral Architect - A Sceptic's Universe

How many metal albums can you name where the bass is the lead fucking instrument?  Norberg absolutely KILLS on this one!!
The absolute be all and end all of tech metal!!!

A Sceptic's Universe

Atrocity - Hallucinations

Atrocity are an oddity of a band; starting life as an unorthodox technical death metal beast, they morphed into a, well...atrocious goth metal band - complete with whinnying chick vocals. So suffice to say I don't care much for nowadays Atrocity albums, but Hallucinations is a horse of a very different color.

Released in that halcyon of death metal years 1990, Hallucinations tells the story of a drug addict's descent into hell, and the schizophrenic nature of the music certainly paints a vivd portrait. Leads come out of nowhere, bass breaks put you in the mood of jazz...the kind played in a jazzhole that is dank and degenerate, full of junkies looking to score that next fix. The songs are so inexorably fucked that I have to believe someone in the band was listening to Zappa or Beefheart. Many of the riffs are so bizarrely phrased as to be completely out of the death metal lexicon, especially for 1990!  

The amazing thing about Hallucinations is despite it's bizarreness, it carries some serious catchy hooks. Take the main introductory riff to the title track. That'll stick to ya like peanut butter.  There are only a few other death metal albums of that time that possess these unique characteristics of other-worldy eerieness and charming memorability (Nespithe, Soulside Journey, In Pains if you must know). A definitive classick of the weird-ass branch of old school death metal.

Hallucinations

Barry Miles - Magic Theater

In the vein of RTF and Weather Report and all that is hot...that's all ya really need to know.

Silver Bullet

Weather Report - Sweetnighter

You have to be good to play jazz, especially hot jazz.  And with jazz (in fact with anything) the hotter the better. Now if you aren't in the know as to the origins of hot jazz, this album is one of the best primers in da world. Uptempo licks coming at you from all angles, Shorter horn blasts and Vitous bass grooves ringing in ya ears. Some may call this fusion, which it is, but it's also red hot music to get that ass shakin' and fingers snappin'.
If you listen to just one song, make it Boogie Woogie Waltz. That is a piece of sublime transcendence beauty.

Sweetnighter

Sieges Even - Lifecycle

Awesome technical thrash from Germany with vocals that are a bit hard to handle. Take a little pain with your pleasure.

Lifecycle

Commando: OST

Rhythms from the musky jungle floor rise like steam through a pounding onslaught of steel drums, saxophone, and the most terrifyingly violent synths this side of a Throbbing Gristle album.
Listening to this will make you want to commit bodily harm against mall security cops, flip porsches right side up, feed wild doe, and get in knife fights with Freddie Mercury chain-mail wearing mutherfuckers all night long.

Commando

Anapparatus - Through The Eyes Of Assailants

Anapparatus are a hardcore outfit based out of Indianapolis that released this ep way back in 2004.  Definitely a furious chaotic exercise in dense math grind athleticism. No matter how wired things get, the boys sprinkle in hooks and melodies galore to make you keep hitting the repeat button again and again.  In fact, I had the Inner Workings of Jealousy on repeat for a good hour at work the other day, and am afraid I made quite the fool of myself with my air double bass drumming and air pencil blastbeating!  A great fun little record.

Through The Eyes Of Assailants