Monday, January 21, 2013

Chips&beer. no 4



Browsing through the English music magazines in a Taichung bookshop, Chips and Beer shouted out beneath the annoying shrink wrap "Hey shithead, despite the glossy cover, I'm an underground metal fanzine like you used to get in the mail sometimes over twenty years ago back when you had your first-time full-time job but there are also comics and horror covered". The internal debate occurs. ""Is this really worth the price? Should I pass on it and buy something with a free CD. You don't own a computer or aCD player, dickhead so what good is a free CD anyway. You like some metal, some horror and comics. Ok, I'll buy it and then see if I can get MRR too."
I part with my money and then later traipse across town and track down a January issue of MRR(which I've recently started reading again).

There's an interesting interview with the artist who painted the cover to Slayer's "Show No Mercy" album and an article about Slayer's "South of Heaven" , which was the writer's introduction to the band. The mag's best features in this issue are a lengthy issue with Bob Daisley (it's close to 12 pages), an interview with a film composer and a 30 page feature on Satanic themed horror movies which has snippets written by Fenriz, a guy from Hooded Menace and a lengthy piece from a guy from Impetigo. There's also interviews with Skullshitter, Kris Hades of Sadistik Execution, Vilifier and Degial.


I found the record reviews a little frustrating at times as often I was left with no idea as how the recording sounded other than it's underground metal, dude. They are more useful if you already have a working knowledge of both present and past underground metal bands.  The mag has a glossy cover and the pages are newsprint.  It's available for $7.



Chips & Beer on facebook

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Hymns of Despair





Tony Maim of the great black insect laughter blog made a compilation of his musical highlights from last year.  The tracks are a mixture of hardcore, sludge noise and stoner rock.   Permission was obtained from the bands and labels involved.   The great final result is available in digital for with a downloadable bookelt with band info and reviews from this bandcamp page.

Beastwars - IV

After over a year off for various reasons, we have returned solely because we wanted to review the new Beastwars album. I really w...