Big noise and t-shirts

This week I have experienced genuine brutality. Not in a water boarded, call Amnesty International sense, more in the sense that I have become exposed to Revilement.

Revilement's debut album Pillars of Balance is undoubtedly the heaviest thing I've heard this year. Hailing from Taiwan, Revilement are more than just a flurry of blasts and pig-squealin' vocals (although both feature extensively). There are some genuinely killer riffs throughout that don't rely solely on breakneck speed; slow, sludgey breaks give Pillars of Hope plenty of meat to get your teeth into. Fans of Cannibal Corpse would be mentally deficient not to embrace this band, particularly wth song titles such as Human Vivisection and Raping the Comatose. If you like your music thoroughly unpleasant, check this out immediately - there's a link in the Cool Shit list, as usual.

Psycroptic, from Australia, and their spectacularly titled The Inherited Repression arrived with Metal Harmony this week too. Whilst by no means the same level of savagery as Revilement, this album is right up my alley. There's a real technical edge, clean guitars over apocalyptic double-kick, and Jason Peppiatt's vocal style is a merry mix of thrash and Children of Bodom-esque melodic death. Fluff aside, The Inherited Repression is a proper fucking headbanger.

On a less brutal note, I strongly urge you lot to head over to Si Mitchell's site here. Si's a pal of mine who happens to be an excellent artist, and his new range of stuff is bang on the money for any skate punks out there. I would also heartily recommend The Breakfast Club range of T-shirts, as their limited run merch is shit hot.

Right, see you same time next week. Unless my wife goes into labour, which is looking very likely.

M
\m/

Getting a motor running

This year, Bro Dude and I are taking part in a charity car rally which sees us driving a very cheap, very crap car to Barcelona and back. The charity in question is the Martha Trust, an organisation that does sterling work with individuals suffering from profound learning and physical disabilities.

The rules stipulate that the car can't cost more than £200, so we bought ourselves a beautiful 26-year-old Nissan Micra, resplendent in mint green. Our chariot for this 1,700-mile round trip has no tape deck, let alone a CD player. Which leads us on the a phenomenally important question; what albums should we take? With this in mind and taking into consideration the variance in mine and Bro Dude's musical taste, I have compiled  today's 5 Albums Wot You Should Take on a Massive Long Charity Drive in a Shit Car:

Fat Wreck Chords - Survival of the Fattest
Big lazy to put a compilation album in I know but for pure enjoyment this is almost certainly my personal favourite of all time. High Standard's legendary cover of California Dreamin', daft supergroup Me First and the Gimme Gimmes version of Country Roads, Lagwagon, NOFX; what an absolute SoCal skatepunktastic belter.

Machine Head - The Blackening
I'll have to work on Bro Dude a bit with this one but the idea of belting through France with Halo cranked up through whatever sound system we can get organised? Fucking yes. The only downside is that as an album, it has massive potential to cause road rage.

N.W.A - Straight Outta Compton
I don't profess to be a hip hop expert but Straight Outta Compton is a bloody marvellous piece of work. Aside from the fact that all the tracks are classics, the image of two 30-something Englishmen driving a rickety old Nissan whilst rapping along with Fuck Tha Police is rather amusing.

Metallica - S&M
Let's face it; its going to impossible to keep the conversation flowing non-stop for the duration of the rally so an epic album with tonnes of depth will be essential. With this monumental album the long, boring motorways will be eaten up in no time, and the frankly perfect Fuel will cause a heavy right foot to push our war machine well up to a mind boggling 62mph.

The Prodigy - Experience
We're 300 miles in, the car is rattling, its impossible to get above 60mph, the testosterone levels created by two men in a small metal box is causing tensions to rise; Out of Space comes on and all becomes right with the world. Pure dancealong perfection guaranteed to keep spirits up.

If you want to keep abreast of our progress with the motor, see our stupid sponsorship stunts and generally be a good egg, your 'likes' would be appreciated here. To find out more about the rally and the Martha Trust, go here.

Adieu
M
\m/