Lord By Sword!!!

Sticking with the Sludgy/Metal theme here's Lord By Fire from Richmond Virginia USA. I was gonna upload their stuff myself for this blog but when I was looking for a pic i discovered they offer almost everything for free at the wonderful Bandcamp! I found these guys back in the pre-facebook days on myspace liked their sludgy metal a lot and got chatting to them on there and bought their first CD "Sword" which is where their woeful tale begins the band were actually called Sword and their debut CD was called "Lord By Fire" but they came out same time as a certain other rising band and were politely contacted by now HUGE Texan stoner titans THE Sword and politely asked to change their name! So to save a lot of hassle they just switched the title of the EP and the name of the band round and became Lord By Fire! Lucky for them it's a pretty cool name or that their first EP wasn't called Brutal Shit or they would've been in trouble!

Onto the music most of the guys in this band were in a metallic Hardcore outfit called My War who only did 1 demo (Which they kindly enclosed a copy of when they sent me my Lord by Fire CD) then they broke up and became Sword then Lord by Fire. When you listen to their stuff as well as huge slabs of riff heavy stoner sludge you will also hear little flourishes of Metallic hardcore especially in the vocals which are quite raw and not your typical style you'd expect for this kinda music! Closest thing i can compare them to is some of the half decent British metal bands that were doing the rounds in the early part of the millenium like Charger, Raging Speedhorn or Iron Monkey (Though without Johnny Morrow's unique sick vocal style) Tho they are not exactly like any of them but if you like those bands and that sorta style this is right up your street!

So The Links... I've given you Bandcamp links to the Sword CD EP from 2005 , their second EP "Relics" from 2010 and a link to the $2 pay download of their 2008 7" but in order to make your little collection complete and free I've also given you my free link to the 7" so you can take it for free or pay a measely $2 and give them some support it's up to you. As a bonus i've uploaded the My War 2006 Demo as well cos it's really good and not a million miles away from what they ended up doing with Lord By Fire it's also  obscure little piece of their history and not available anywhere else online (tho they may still have some of the CD's lying around mail them through bandcamp if you really want one)

SWORD CDEP - Bandcamp

RELICS EP - Bandcamp

LORD BY FIRE 7"

Buy download for $2 Here - Bandcamp

Or Take It Free Here - Mediafire


MY WAR DEMO 2006 - Mediafire

I'm directing you to their bandcamp to save my online space for other things as these downloads are exactly the same as mine except for the debut "Sword" EP which I actually own, but on the CD the tracks are mixed into each other, the free download they are offering has the tracks separated which after downloading it and listening myself I have to say works MUCH better and quality wise theres no difference between my CD rip and their freebie. Also the first two bandcamp links you don't even have to suffer the guilt of entering 0 in the "pay what you want" box it's a simple free download just click on the links and Bandcamp will do the rest! pretty decent these Lord By Fire fellas!

13

So to any fans of heavier music I'm probably preaching to the converted here but anyway 13 were what is commonly known as a "Sludge" band from NY who were active in the early 90's and they have become kinda a cult band because they have virtually no discography yet everyone who is serious about their heavy music loves them (including me) and I'm always seeing crusty punks with 13 patches on their rags and recently saw a pic of Ste from Extinction Of Mankind wearing a 13 T-shirt (or a patch can't remember) which leads me to believe that there's prob more 13 patches and shirts out there than there are records!

So when i said they have virtually no discography what I mean is criminally this band never got to release an album just 1 demo, 1 7" on their own 3 Split 7"'s and 3 tracks on various comps a total of 12 tracks (not 13 which would've been so cool) just under an hour of music is all they left behind at least as far as my extensive searching on the net can tell me, anyone knows different let me know!
So I was looking for some 13 stuff digitally online to replace my long gone vinyls and I managed to round up all of the material I mentioned above I then compiled it in chronological order, cleaned it up a little, re -tagged it, burned it to CD and then ripped it back into the computer! Just so there was as good as possible a complete 13 discography at 320kbps for me and now for you! If you like your music Slow, Heavy, Dirty and Sludgy and you're a fan of Winter, Hellhammer, Noothgrush, Grief etc and wonder where the likes of Coffins and The Body get their ideas from this is most definitely for you! I have no idea why no one has compiled or remastered this material and given it the full official release it deserves, so until someone does, this is as good as it gets. I like to think this kinda thing is what i started this blog for great bands like this with a minimal discography and hard to find vinyl only releases, drawing it all together and keeping it available for people who want to hear great bands like 13. If I was younger and richer I'd certainly be making some sort of attempt at doing official discographies of great "lost" bands like these.And as their records are all long out of print and fairly collectable (there's NOTHING on this discography comp you could buy new) I'm hoping that if any of the band come across this then they'll have no objections to me keeping it out here on the net however if they do please contact me and it's gone please don't crush me through mediafire as i put a lot of hours into it!
My original idea for doing this post was a few days into doing this blog during a very drunken blogging session i noticed a post on facebook from Alicia Morgan of 13 saying she had received copies of the 13 releases from someone and she was really glad of it because she had lost everything 13 related in a house fire and me being drunk I thought "Heyyyy, that suxxxxxx I've got alllll the 13 stuffff in one file I'm gonna upload itttt and send her the link mannn she'll be stoked" when i sobered up i realised that I'm sure that she was stoked to get the records replaced but some uber geek fan or other member of the band has bound to have winged her a copy of her own recordings by now! anyway while the file was already in there I thought I'd do this post all the same and share the awesome sludge juggernaut that is 13 with you lot! There's a ton of bands doing this kinda stuff out there but they can't touch 13  these guys are one of the originators of this sound and one of the best.Go Get DOOMED!

13 - DISCOGRAPHY - Mediafire

*NOTE* Please don't expect super clean high quality sparkling sound from this, this is downtuned and dirty music recorded cheaply and half of the tracks are only available on vinyl so have obviously been taken from these sources, however I have just listened to the whole thing myself whilst writing this and as far as I can hear only track 9 - "Whore" and track 10 - "Wrong" (Both taken from seperate split vinyls with EYEHATEGOD) are a bit poor quality-wise but I did a bit more research and looks like both these tracks were recorded on 4 track in 1994 so I'm guessing they may possibly be rehearsal room recordings tho this is just my reading between the lines not fact! Don't be put off by my inbuilt quality control alarms going off here because other than the tracks i mentioned this is as solid and as decent quality a round up of their discography as I've heard available anywhere and i've listened to it frequently!

VICTIMS

Ok so it isn't exactly rare this album but theres a good reason this is here and it's this.... I FUCKING LOVE THIS ALBUM! Joking aside this album is not easy to come by on CD you want the vinyl you will find a 100 people from a dozen sites glad to sell it to you but try finding it on CD it's a fucking nightmare! I've been a fan of Swedes Victims since I got their "Neverendinglasting" CD in 2000 they were by far one of the best bands doing "crust" at that time it was so fast and so fucking heavy and definitely giving the likes of Skit System and Wolpack the undisputed kings of fast & ripping Swedish crust punk at the time a SERIOUS run for their money.and all this from a 3 piece band as well! Anyway by the time "...In Blood"  came out I had joined a band who weren't crusty or punk in any way and becuase I was hearing and playing something different I started broadening my listening to loads of different stuff and having a rest from punk/ etc so they had kinda fell off my radar, so when they finally returned to mind years later I downloaded this album. Now, although a 30 second google search will easily net you a free download of this album I have tried several times to download it (probably about 10-20 different links) and i could not get one decent copy of it at all. All  i could get were either really poor 128 kbps files, vinyl rips or untagged messes or in a couple of cases completely wrongly tagged! So just last year after realising that these downloads were just shit, it was doing my head in that much i decided to just bite the fucking bullet and buy it! As i said it's not easy to come by on CD and when i finally found one for sale it ended up costing me about £12 including postage (not far off what you'd pay for a new cd somewhere like HMV) but it was so worth it, first time I put this in my CD player and played it i realised that even tho i already knew the album really well that the downloads I had listened to of it had really sucked the life out of the recording! This is one of THE most ferocious hardcore albums i've ever heard ranging from fast as fuck d-beat to powerful mid paced stuff theres no let up from the opening second to the ending chords it has thick heavy guitars pounding drums and seriously great ragged vocals and the production is amazing (It reminds me of the production sound of the early Swedish death metal stuff that was done at Sunlight studios without that specific Sunlight guitar sound that Entombed made famous) theres nothing really "new" here but Victims do it with a style and ferocity that just left a lot of the bands playing this style in the dirt! I've got all the Victims albums but this one was definitely their best in my mind although the others still have that ferocious heavy sound theres a lot more melody and a bit less pace in their later releases! So backing up to the beginning of my post... my reason for putting this not so rare but still utterly fucking ripping album up here? Simply so unlike me you don't have to put up with shit quality versions anymore or pay £12 for a CD I've ripped this from my CD and uploaded it at 320kbps so FINALLY there is one version on the net that has the quality to do this destroying album justice! (I noticed that when i put this album up that the file was 3 times the size of my original download so it's gotta be good). Download and wreck shit.....

...IN BLOOD - Mediafire

Requiem

So back to the heavy shit again, Here we have Requiem from Greensboro NC USA, Here's what I've been able to find out, this is their only album as far as I know it's from 2005 and on the awesome Crimethinc. records and features people who have been in  Umlaut, Blacken The Skies, From The Depths and Catharsis, apparently the band had no intention of commiting their music to tape just playing live,according to Crimethinc. blurb about them on their page but they decided finally to make this here album and what an album it is! Even though this clocks in at only about half an hour it feels longer (in a good way) and the songs have a real "widescreen" scope to them. Take a template of Crust & D-beat add some Anarcho punk a touch of classic hardcore, a little post metal and some violin and you get this album theres everything from Raging hardcore to beautiful semi acoustic & violin parts and considering that theres no real "long" songs on this album to give it such an accomplished and just epic feel is no mean feat! The production is also sharp leaving nothing muddied or buried in the mix, it was recorded at The Jam Room (Clutch, Baroness, Kylesa etc) by Jay Matheson with Philip Cope (Kylesa) as technician.

I cannot recommend this highly enough If you wish to buy one you should be able to pick it up fairly easily (Crimethinc. Still sell it for a mere $10 and I've seen it on discogs.com on CD for about $5) it comes nicely packaged as well with a die cut stencil outer sleeve containing beautiful art script, great intelligent lyrics and text  throughout the 16 page booklet. I suppose this would probably fit the "melodic/epic crust" tag but I think these guys whilst maybe would fit that description take that format and make it something that is entirely their own, I defy anyone who likes any kind of underground punk/hardcore whatever to not find something they like about this album a truly overlooked utter gem! I'm so glad i found this.

STORM HEAVEN - Mediafire

NEW BRUTALISM

So was gonna tag this post under the "Now for something..." header but decided these guys are way tough enough to sneak in the hardcore back door! So these 3 guys are one of the most interesting outfits I've come across in a long time! Not Only do these guys play some of the best Shellac/Fugazi/Guitar noise inspired shit I've heard in a long time they are also part of a collective of highly innovative engineers (Check out their page on facebook here -> Obstructures ) they make speciality tools, wallets and the best thing they also make their own Guitars out of aluminium (see above pic, they also make them to order for customers, they use aluminium due to the tonal properties of the metal etc) I also believe some part of the collective is involved in architecture as well, if you like the music do your own digging cos they are a really interesting collective!
So the band... I came across their first collection of material "1999-2001" about 3 years ago on a blog site one day just randomly surfing for stuff I downloaded it and as soon  as I played it I was absolutely knocked on my ass and hooked there aren't that many reference points for the style they play, in the past I've said " if you are sick of the fact that there is just not enough Shellac material available then you should check these guys out!" I feel this is selling them a bit short tho as the Shellac comparison is definitely justified  they are definitely more agressive in their playing than Shellac but are definitely drawing on similar influences! And these guys sure can fucking play that's a certainty, the majority of their material is recorded with Bob Weston at Steve Albini's Electrical Audio Recordings Chicago so their recordings have a really great sound and the drums just sound awesome! So as you can see the Shellac connections just keep coming PLEASE DO NOT write them off as mere clones tho! I would recommend these to fans of Fugazi, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, No Means No, Jesus Lizard, Slint that sorta stuff cos you will hear elements of all sorts of things within their sound!
Onto your Links the first thing you need to know is that instead of track titles NB use numbers so when you extract the files don't think I've been lazy it's meant to be like that! So heres what I've given you... "1999 - 2001" CD which collects their "A Diagram Without Scale Or Dimension" & "Structural Gymnastics" 12"'s plus one unreleased bonus track."2001 -2003" CD which collects their "Turbo Record" 7" "A Record Of American Fury" LP their side of the split 7" with Hit Self Destruct and 1 bonus unreleased track. The "Territorial Reconstruction" CDEP and "Actual Record" album I 've also added the "Brut Unison" compilation CD they did which contains 7 New Brutalism tracks and 5 Tracks each from Villa Brut, Beton Brut, and Soldat Brut all of these bands are part of the "Obstructures" collective I mentioned before and all the bands on the comp feature at least 2 of the 3 members of New Brutalism and to be honest there's not a great deal of difference in the sound of each band so it's a further 66 mins of New Brutalism & Related awesomeness! This stuff amounts to almost their complete works to date
It took me close to 2 years to track down the 5 CD's that are presented for you here (in glorious 320kbps quality of course!) and because of their relative obscurity and the fact i put a lot of time and money into collecting their material I was almost tempted to be all precious about it and not to upload anything and just direct you to their stuff and let you do you're own digging but these guys are one of my total favourite contemporary artists and they are just TOO good not to be sharing! However this is not the full story there is one further double album called "Personal Record" which they posted tracks from on their myspace page from that I spent many hours on the net trying to find it to no avail.... until New Brutalism set up a bandcamp page so if you read the below blurb you will see why i was unable to download it or buy it...

THIS MUSIC WAS WRITTEN, RECORDED AND PRESSED TO A ONE OFF DOUBLE LP IN AN ALUMINUM CASE FOR STABILE AND HIS BRIDE AS A GIFT IN THE YEAR 2009. PROCEEDS FROM THE SALE OF THESE DIGITAL FILES WILL HELP TO PAY FOR THE PRESSING OF A DOUBLE LP WHICH WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE TO ALL. IT WILL EITHER BE CALLED "IMPERSONAL RECORD" OR "APPETITE FOR APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION" THOSE THAT PURCHASE THE FULL DOWNLOAD WILL RECEIVE HALF OFF THE DOUBLE LP WHEN IT IS RELEASED.

You can now buy it from their bandcamp page here... Personal Record for a mere $10 which is what i did and as i have a lot of respect for the music and the people involved I think since you're getting the majority of their stuff free here if you like the stuff I've put up here you should give them some support.
I know I'm violating my own blog rules here 1: by directing you to a "pay" download link and 2:Not giving it up for free here, but as you can see they are going to use the funds to make a vinyl version for the public (half price if you buy the download) so I really think they're not being greedy capitalists and have quite noble intentions which many bands who make you pay for their downloads most definitely do not! Anyway rant/waffle etc over These guys are fucking great go get them.....

1999 - 2001 - Mediafire

2001 - 2003 - Mediafire

Territorial Reconstruction CDEP - Mediafire

Actual Record - Mediafire

Brut Unison Comp - Mediafire

Four Tet - The Early Years

So back in the late 90's I started getting into a lot of music that is usually described as "Post Rock" if you don't understand the term bands as different as Tortoise, Shellac & Neurosis have all been tagged as Post Rock which apart from applying to Tortoise I would disagree with most well known exponents of the style would probably be Godspeed You Black Emperor but those guys are way out in a class of their own!! to me it is basically mellow mainly instrumental, slightly experimental music with a vast range of influences played by guys who really fucking know how to play but ain't showy about it (really know how to play as in the way say John Mclaughlin really knows how to play not Eddie Van Halen!!!) anyway one of the first "Post Rock" bands i discovered were a little known band from the Manchester area called Fridge, however one of the members of Fridge (drummer Adrian Hebden) achieved much more success from what was originally his Fridge side project Four Tet. I'm sure that name will be quite familiar to most? But, before he became quite successful with his Four Tet releases on Domino records home of "cool alternative" in the UK he had a few releases on now defunct and sadly missed label Output records run by Trevor Jackson (best known for his 90's remix work as The Underdog and later for his Pop outfit Playground) anyway I think the stuff Four Tet did on Output was by far their best and Output now being out of business those early Four Tet releases are mostly out of print, tho it is mostly cheap to buy Output stuff, due to the reputation of Kieran Hebden for Four Tet and by association Fridge both projects releases are usually at the higher end of the price scale, so I decided that maybe some people would like to check out Four Tet's pre Domino work if you were maybe unaware he had a fairly established career with Four Tet pre-Domino? So I've compiled all his Ouput work for you,In the first file is his debut 7" as 4T Recordings, the "Thirtysixtwentyfive" EP (which was released as a 3-sided dbl 12" and on CD the clue to this lengthy track is in it's title!) and the Glasshead/Calamine 12" I've also seperately uploaded the CD version of his Debut album on Output "Dialogue" which contains the 3 extra tracks that appeared on the "Misnomer" 12" so these 2 links/files neatly round up everything Four Tet did on Output before moving to Domino records and progressing away from the Post Rock type stuff and heading more into an electronic/dance style (albeit with his own quirky take on it). My favourite of these records by far is the "thirtysixtwentyfive" EP it's mellow almost jazz like style is a pure pleasure to listen to and is over before you realise it's been on over half an hr! Anyway check it out see what you think if you're unfamiliar with Four Tet I suppose I would recommend this as a good place to start tho I would think probably his Domino stuff is obviously more popular and maybe more accessible. Also I would recommend you go to the discogs Output Records page here.....

http://www.discogs.com/label/Output

....If you're into something different and interesting music wise theres a lot of good stuff on the label and it's certainly eclectic! I definitely recommend the DK7 album "Disarmed" and Dead Combo : Dead Combo album the former were doing similar things to Underworld but with much more "mood" and not quite so "Club-Friendly" the latter are like early Suicide on steroids crossed with the Gnarliest parts of Death In Vegas!!! or alternatively pick up one of the 4 Output comps titled Channel 1-4 or the "I Hate Music" comp boxset and work you're way from there as Output has been out of action since 2006 you can pick up everything I've mentioned used on amazon for literally pennies like i said it's only Four tet and Fridge that hit the higher end of the price scale! If i remember correctly i think i picked up all 4 of the Channel 1-4 comps for a good bit less than £10 including postage the Dead Combo album cost me about £1.50 (Inc Postage!) there's a wealth of great stuff at lunch money prices kids go get it! anyway heres your Four Tet Links....

Four Tet - Output EP's etc. - Mediafire

Four Tet - Dialogue (CD version) - Mediafire

Fugazi - RARE????

So another band that are very close to my heart and a music blog by me would not be complete without something by these guys! "But What?..." I hear you cry "We've all done the albums to death they are all over the net they even sell all their live gigs online so what could you possibly post that would interest us the typically jaded Fugazi fan eh Dave? ???" HA! well.... good question there isn't really much Fugazi that could be called Rare eh? but..... you may be surprised to hear this Fugazi having been a very self contained highly efficient well oiled machine  but before recording "In On The Killtaker" in Fugazi business as usual style they decided to try some outside production and who's services would they aquire for this awesome task but the mighty fucking collossus (at least musically speaking)  that is Steve Albini! Yep that's right folks according to the good ol' net in 1993 Fugazi recorded pretty much half of "In On The Killtaker" with Albini at the controls. Fugazi's reasons for not releasing the Albini version or pursuing the whole album with him are their own, tho I find it in one way a strange pairing and in another way a perfect one certainly in my mind the mix of those 2 elements is the musical equivalent of someones football dream team to me! So... when i heard about this I thought nah bogus internet bollocks but i actually managed to download the recording and it is definitely not the versions of these songs that were actually released on the album whether the below file is Fugazi recorded by Albini I've only got the internet's word for it and i'm sure some fucking Fugazi nerd will push his glasses up his nose and begin to shoot me down in flames with a "Actually i think you'll find...." but download it and judge for yourself it certainly sounds like Albini's hand in there to me and I'm a big fan of his work both musically and behind the mixing desk but what do I know? Judge for yourself.  And if that mighty file was not enough for you just to show you what a nice guy I am you will also find the one and only never officially released Fugazi John Peel Session from 1988 right underneath the Albini link! Go forth my friends and enjoy some prime quality Fugazi at their best!!
I'd like to add i was lucky enough to see Fugazi twice once in 87 in Glasgow and again in 2001 in Manchester The first time in 87 was probably one of the best gigs i have ever seen it was before "Repeater" and many songs off that were debuted but the highlight of the night was their version of  "Suggestion" during which they invited any women from the crowd to come up on the stage, take the mic and share their experiences and opinions on the subject matter of the song I watched this from the side of the stage and some of the horrific stories told combined with Fugazi's gentle improvisation behind them well i have to admit i had tears in my eyes! not many bands are as unique or truly special as Fugazi and we are definitely poorer in our culture for their absence.

Albini Demo - Mediafire

Peel Session - Mediafire

Whalebones

OK so i did warn you that i wasn't restricting this blog to simply punk or hardcore so here's the first of many things i plan to upload that don't fall into that category
I can't remember how i discovered this band tho i think that they were thanked in the thanks section of an album by Black Mountain and having just discovered Black Mountain and loving what they do i was doing my trainspotting thing and greedily devouring anything remotely related to them!
So Whalebones this 5 track EP which i bought here Lucky Horse Industries would appear to be the only thing these guys have done and seeing as it's about 6 years old now I'm not holding out much hope for more releases from them! I can find no info on them on the internet just links to places you can buy a download of this or buy the ep itself (See Link Above) and i'm seriously gutted because these guys really impress me the opening track "Blood bank" is an absolute explosion of hammond organ and guitar and really sets the tone for the rest of the EP they are a six piece from seattle and i would place them in the Stoner/Psychedelic/alternative style but they are far from easy to pigeonhole! and Track 3 "Don't You Know" is just so fucking lush and beautiful with a chorus and hook that will stay in your brain for days! (I can hear it in my head already and i haven't listened to this in ages) I would recommend this for fans of US Christmas, Black Mountain, Howlin' Rain etc Just check it out man It's so fucking good or i wouldn't be bothering to put it here... GO GO GO!!!!.....

Whalebones CDEP - Mediafire

Getting The Music

Ok so theres gonna be music posted on here it will most likely be posted on sites like mediafire etc in the rar format in order to extract these files you will need a program to do it I recommend this one it's free and the one i use to compress and extract I suggest if you want to get any music you download it from here...

WINRAR

CLICK HERE

it's free and simple if you don't want to use this one just do a google search for rar extractor theres a ton of free ones.

Welcome

HERE'S THE LOWDOWN...

Hi Folks, well after much putting off here it is... my blog, I'm doing this to share music with everyone that wants to hear some interesting and unusual music, it will most likely be centred around punk,hardcore and general "Heavy" stuff because for the near 30 years I've been into music that's whats moved and inspired me the most, but the main thing is to have no expectations of this blog because even I don't know what I'm gonna put on here yet you can expect to find anything from acoustic and experimental music to jazz and grindcore whatever I'm enjoying that i think is worth sharing I'll put it on here I place no labels on myself or my music tastes.Also expect maybe some videos, random thoughts,reviews and whatever the hell I feel like posting! If any artists whose music is on here want it taken down contact me and act like a human being don't send in the lawyers! If you disagree with anything I write/post whatever then feel free to contact me but again act like a human being this is my blog so it's my rules I'm open to discussion but don't send me angry mails or comments I'll just delete them and ignore you.If you want to tell me a link doesn't work, request more music from any artists/labels that get posted, again feel free to comment/contact. The main thing I want to say is not to take this blog too seriously or have any pre-concieved ideas what it's about but the most important thing is to Enjoy it!,

Thanks for your time,

DAVE.