On My Turntable: Witch Mountain, The Smashing Pumpkins, El-P and Decoder Ring…

Spot the hilarious joke….

Don’t be fooled, while there’s not much metal on this list, I’m not going soft. I’ve been hammering MDG favourites Book of Black Earth and Balaclava this past week.

*Masculinity assured, he stops swinging it around and slips back where it belongs*

Yet there’s been plenty of time for non d-beat at MDG Towers. I know. Shit’s craycray, huh?

I have also created a Spotify playlist so you bastards can have a listen. Not that you’ll bother, you James Blunts (that’s cockney rhyming slang my beloved American readers… you work it out).

Live in London: Kylesa and KEN Mode

All my pics were rubbish, so I "borrowed" this one from an earlier show on the tour.

Confession time: it had been 20 years since I last went to a metal show.

Metallica 1992 to Kylesa 2012. That’s one helluva wait between drinks. In fact there were no drinks in ’92 as I was barely a teenager and my laughable attempts to buy cider were in vain.

So I was a little apprehensive as the sun set on the day of the gig at the Academy in Islington, London.

Was I too old? Too normal-looking? Could I handle it? Would it be depressing going to a gig on my own? (Answers at the bottom of the post).

On My Turntable: Vreid, The KLF, Snares, YOB, Tombs

London winters are shitty

Amid the murky gloom of the grisly London winter, I warm myself by raking through the dying embers of the musical year just gone.

I love pecking like a vulture on the carcass of year-end lists, yanking out the gems I missed like so many scraps of bloody intestine .

Of course that’s in the very limited time I have left after doing my best to suck every last drop of pleasure from Trap Them’s Darker Handcraft and the Balaclava record.

I am seriously addicted. Darker Handcraft is utterly narcotic in its intensity: blissed out on buzzsaw guitar.

Anyway. On my (metaphorical) turntable this week are Vreid, The KLF, Snares, YOB and Tombs.

New That Fucking Tank Album – TFT

You need to listen to That Fucking Tank. Go on, get.

Man, oh, man do I love me some That Fucking Tank.

Their 2009 Tanknology is an absolute blast of a record.

Full of vim, vigour and mutant rock riffs with a real neck-snapping groove.

So much ballsy noise from just two guys armed with drums, guitar, an array of FX pedals and a dry sense of humour that shines through despite being an instrumental duo.