That’s right, a mixtape download. From Invisible Oranges (via the internet infamous Sergeant D of Metal Inquisition / StuffYouWillHate). Right now I’ve got this thing playing on my old laptop I use for backup and it sounds awful on these speakers. It’s best on headphone with some decent bass response; a fantastic soundtrack for cleaning toilets (more than likely inspiration for many of these bands.) That’s how it gets on my realworld listening list, the only way a digital album can at the moment. A good comp is as good as an album to me and a well-thought out mixtape is as good as real comp—they have potential to be even better than real comps, with no commercial or label concerns. And I’m pretty slow getting on the digital train but being able to make a mixtape that sounds as good as the original CDs (under the right circumstances, and no, none of this came out on vinyl and yes my ears are probably ruined) …well, it’s exciting to me.

Plus, of course, I don’t want these song titles stinking up my last.fm charts. I think extremes in art are always defensible and much of this music is stylistically ground-breaking and technically astounding. But I’m a grown goddamn man. Even if I was 14 again, I would hesitate to broadcast the content of these records and back then I thought Deicide were making valid points about religion and Cannibal Corpse was being funny. These guys, I dunno what their deal is exactly. I don’t feel plugged into to it enough to say “these guys don’t actually want to kill people”. Like, a Cannibal Corpse t-shirt is gonna freak out some squares which is awesome, I love that aesthetic and attitude, but these guys are on some next level with some of this artwork. I’m ok on this level right here, where I will not post it. But I’ve got this thing on set up to repeat on Windows Media Player (which i never use but nothing else is set up on this other machine) just displaying the album art because I’d rather not even look at the song titles and uh, whatever, I guess is what I’m trying to say here. I believe there’s a certain segment of the internet population that uses last.fm primarily to transmit song titles at people, but I’m a believer in the pure sonic experience, my primary exposure being late-night college radio. I didn’t have a lot friends back then into the extreme stuff…

It’s…all clear to me now. All this time it was having friends holding me back from superior musical taste! What with their “fun” and “hanging out” and “having meaningful and sexually fulfilling relationships”. Bah! Try and stop me now! I can listen to whatever I want! Haha!

But srsly, this might seem like a proxy for justifying amazingly poor life choices, but I like some of these bands. Or, at least listening to them. Don’t really need the whole package here. This sub-genre is almost entirely about gross dudes trying to out-dude each other. Any legit musical innovation here was probably unintentional. And these types of bands tend to inspire bands that are ten times dumber. Still, I can appreciate teh slamz. As it were.

I’m not into the pig squeal stuff. The belching sounds are classic, and the cricket sounds take it up a ridiculous notch. Infernal Hostility I think has the most extreme vox that are still listenable. The most uniquely brutal guitar tone is I Declare Goddess, but that’s probably done trough the computer, not a real mic’d amp. Of course it’s wall to wall extreme vox and br00tal guitar tones but that’s all meaningless meathead macho oneupsmanship. Music is not a competition. The most relevant question here is: who has the the highest cranked snare? Disconformity is the winner!

So that’s settled. There’s at least two more of these but I think I lost them in my last crash. This one was definitely the best for having the Japanese bands. I’d like to get my hands on some physical copies of the Glossectomy and Disconformity records. That’s something to look for. %