“Like a friend and a new lover” is shrieked with all the manic energy Justin Hill can muster. Honestly, this mutant must have walked right out of the recording booth for the 1981 production of The Lord Of The Rings and taken another step onto 2006’s Death Of A Dead Day. The quote opening this worship is of course from “Summer Rain”; never has my head been banged so aggressively (voluntarily of course… A few Curl Up And Die shows would attest otherwise) and fascinatingly without the aid of palm mutes. This breakdown is all high string devastation, and yet what metallic fury it is. Second vocalist Mikee Goodman haemorrhages his adam’s apple backing up Hill, solidifying the radioactive team that they are.

It is no wonder their departure inevitably led this band down the premature dissolve. Honestly, I cared more about that break up than my parent’s divorce. Therefore, in many ways this week’s entry is a bitter one. Remembering this band and this album is gut wrenchingly brutal, and yet what remains is an untouchable duo of albums. I was originally going to focus on their debut The Trees Are Dead And Dried Out, Wait For Something Wild, but I was having some difficulty… I got way into “2003 was a great year… Short haired metal… Emo Tech!?” but with all my high and mighty nostalgia, Dan Weller, Pin, Loord, James Leech, Mikee, and Justin were not getting recognition for their masterful swan song (album). These Englishmen are all nutters, and yet possess so much heart and tenderness on Death Of A Dead Day. TENDERNESS. YEAH, IT IS THERE. s mi d. Spin “In This Light” and behold the fever dream finger picking that chords away like BTBAM’s “Mordecai”, then erupting into metal’s.greatest.solo.ever. Beautiful song, and one of a full twelve. This album will always be remembered, and mostly for its achievement as a self contained work. While their break up smarts like herpes of the soul, this album has no trace of “potential”. Their genius is fully realized, expressed and utilized here, not succumbing to providing trace hints of their ability. The first four tracks are a tech metal frenzy, where off-the-wall riffage and bass drum fanaticisms roam like Giganotosaurus in the late Cretaceous.

“In This Light” once again comes into play, shamelessly summoning all the estrogen in your body and then stamping it out with a three toad lizard foot. “Mermaid Slur” continues what was left on “When Will The Forest Speak”, a spoken word waxing beat poetics. “Sanguine Seas Of Bigotry” bids farewell (for now) to the rib slamming math madness and heralds three ballads that mesh cerebral liquefying solos with some of the most triumphant conclusions put to binary. The half chaotic/ half composed nature of this album is what adds to its gravitas; the songs are all undeniably SiKth and yet eke out every possible mode of composition at their disposal. “Another Sinking Ship” is a menagerie of blast beats and a tribal breakdown that makes it difficult to produce living sperm for hours to come. Closer “As The Earth Spins Round” fades out after a tour of polyrhythmic  concentration and groove induced splash. The earth continues to spin without this band but is lesser for it; Alas nothing stops us from revisiting these complete works, so sit down, press that play button on “Part Of The Friction” and cry with me.

- Alec

Frankly put, Surfer Rosa is deeply important by it’s sheer fact of being a hub of influence to many major musicians of the 1990’s.  Nirvana’s Nevermind would never have been made were it not inspired by the sonic qualities “Surfer Rosa” exhibited.  Billy Corgan lauded this Pixies album’s fine drum components and professed to study quite methodically to learn all he could from it.  PJ Harvey even could not pull herself away from it.

The album itself is versatile, proving itself to be wide in range on both a sonic level, as well as a thematic level.  “Break My Body”’s heavy and dirty guitar work is some of the earliest of it’s kind.  Tracks such as “Gigantic,” “Bone Machine”, and the anthemic “Where is My Mind?” paint lyrical pictures of impressive surreality.  And it’s these same lyrics that help the album to stand further out than it would have with sound alone, as the variety of subject matter allows it to.  Voyeurism, mutilation, and undersea exploration all serve as potent subject matters on this record that has proven itself to be influential to the rock-alternative bands of the 1990s that many claim to be the more influential musicians of the time.  In a record collection that prides itself on displaying a certain evolution of music of recent times, Surfer Rosa has an all-too-important need to be a stepping stone in this study.

- Gab

When’s the last time you listened to a 100 song, 3-inch mini-CD that lasted nineteen minutes? Well, Agoraphobic Nosebleed can help you there. In 2003 the band released Altered States of America, dubbing it “100 hits of pure acid,” and damn is it ever. Picking out single tracks is near impossible (though I’ve memorized pretty much every note of the album in the five years I’ve spent listening to it), as the work acts more as a forward-churning storm against everything from Apocalyptic Buddhism and Catholicism to Third-World poverty and extremely dangerous hardcore drug use. It’s a trip, and it’s one you won’t soon forget. Pig Destroyer‘s Scott Hull provides the riffage and programs the drums while vocalist/electronics whiz/complete maniac Jay Randall, vocalist Carl Schultz, and vocalist Richard Johnson spew venom over some of the most demented passages in extreme music’s canon. It’s an important album and it’s completely gonzo. It’s also the first album that really delves into “drive-by blowjobs” and “mass Northern migration.”

The album is absolutely essential. Even if you don’t like this brand of cybered-out grindcore, it’s a crazy experience you need to experience at least once. Like the LSD that fueled its creation, it’s at once great, terrifying, and longer-lasting than you’d wish or expect.

- Nick