I'd kill myself for you...I'd kill you for myself

 I have no idea what KVLT means or why so many indie dorks are into Black Metal...but have a crappy Valentine's day everyone.

Vio-lence "Bodies on Bodies" (Dylan's Dumb iPod #10)

Vio-lence gets seriously overlooked in the scheme of thrash metal. I guess it comes from arriving "late" (1986?) to the party and for essentially being second/third tier carbon clones (competent ones mind you) without much to distinguish themselves. Then again, I don't get the impression that they were trying to start a thrash revolution. I think they just wanted to mosh...and I'll never NOT get excited about jocks who sing in falsetto and play thrash metal in swimming trunks. Regardless of historical oversights, Eternal Nightmare (1988 debut), is full of stellar moments ("Kill on Command" and "Serial Killer" immediately come to mind...along with an album cover that features a dude falling into a toothy Sarlacc pit) replete with the Cap'n crunchiest of guitar production and Sean Killian's charmingly clumsy screeching, it might be one of the last gasps of thrash freshness before the genre wheezed out in the nineties. See, 'Lence (just why in the hell did they hyphenate their name?) took the route of raw aggression (a'la Exodus) instead of getting bogged down in technicality (a'la Death Angel), enthusiastically waving the flag of bay-area thrash. 

 Eternal Nightmare's biggest shortcoming tends to be Killian's vocals. The dude doesn't have much range, he sounds like a damn muppet bird and he tends to stumble over his lyrics...but the limited abilities give everything a ragged soul (Paul Baloff anyone?) that's endearing to me. Also, it comes off a lil' "samey" as every single song is about death (I know, I know), but it doesn't really detract from the aural experience. "Bodies on Bodies" keeps the "songs about people killing people" theme of the album sporting vocal gems like "laughing at you loudly as you die/your wounds bleed profusely as you die" and "Come with me child, I'll do you no harm/as I violently am clenching her arm." Oof. I do like the part about "a gasoline injection into the vein." Creepy! I bet Dylan Klebold's journal read much the same way. 

The song's most triumphant high points are the throaty call-and-response gang vocals ("KILLING! HE JUST KEEPS KILLING!/BLEEDING THEY JUST KEEP BLEEDING!") A'la Anthrax, S.O.D and a host of other NYHC bands. Also, the circle-pit part rules, and the drumming is top-notch. Ultimately, a great song that's freely indicative of the rest of the album. Hordes of metalheads swear by this album, and it's absolutely crucial, if for nothing more than presenting an exuberant embodiment of Bay Area Thrash.

AC/DC - "Touch too Much" (Dylan's Dumb iPod #9)

My Dad used to have a copy of Back in Black, but he threw it out because in some weird phase of his he wanted to set a good example to his kids by not having satanic music in the home. All it really did was nurture a special hatred towards all authority figures, to stop shaving my barely pubescent moutsache and to glom onto Highway to Hell with all the tard fervor of an abandoned zoo-chimp clinging to the shards of a discarded peanut.
Bon Scott is the crappiest AC/DC vocalist, but somehow still the best. Also, he has terrible, prison-style forearm tattoos, none of that "I'm-19-and-already-covered-like-a-Yakuza-crime-boss" hardcore kid crap. I speak about him in the present tense because he still lives within me, and I sustain him and his phlegmy vocal chords by ingesting a thimble full of model airplane glue daily.


Girlfriends are weird and I'm pretty sure this track is about a batty bird. Some girls make bonkers requests like ask you to say you "love" them, to call them to talk about color combinations or to stop hanging out in their high school parking lot, listening to Bolt Thrower tapes at full blast. Not into that scene man. I'll just hole up and listen to Hawkwind. Can. Spacemen 3. Black Sabbath. Pentagram. Manilla Road. AC/DC if I've ingested enough airplane glue.

You were never this cool

Not Dead...Just Asleep

Not quite dead. Just staying at my parents house. Don't kill youself. More core, inky fanzine nuggets and dump iPods to come soon.