Happy Halloween!!

Battle of Mice were a band comprised of Julie Christmas (singer of Made Out of Babies) and Josh Graham (guitarist/keyboardist of A Storm of Light and Red Sparowes, previous Red Sparowes post here), and they were scary... Julie at times sounds maniacal with her speaking, and on a dime, she'll let out these screams that will make your arm hair stand straight up... and all the while, there are great, bone-chilling riffs and spacey interludes behind her, enhancing the whole experience... I figured this was an appropriate Halloween listen, without posting the typical Misfits/Danzig/Creeps stuff that everyone has heard

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Nuke West Texas.

Knuckle Scraper were an extremely short lived (about a year or so) band out of Texas that played short-songed, pissed off powerviolence... members went on to such bands as Pretty Little Flower, Insect Warfare, and Hatred Surge, among others... GET ANGRY!!!

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Wake Up On Fire.

Baltimore, MD's Wake Up On Fire were a very underrated band that disbanded a few years back... they played a type of haunting sludge reminiscient of Eyehategod.. members went on to play in the bands Moonshine, 57 Octaves Below, and most notably Nux Vomica

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New Pelican.

Instrumental sludge/metal/post-rock from Chicago. What We All Come To Need is their fourth and latest full length. Pelican is a tough band to label but they incorporate sludge, doom, and post-rock into consistently good music. Aaron Turner of Isis guest appears on the title track. On tour throughout the US now with Black Cobra. Check their Myspace for dates.
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Hells Kitchen.

Produced by DJ Chong Wizard. Raekwon raps over Havoc's work on Hell on Earth and Mobb Deep rap over RZA's classic beats. It's a pretty tight twist to some classic hip hop. Check it out.
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Criminal Minded.

Collaboration between KRS-One and DJ Premier. Worth it.
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Cali DOOOOM.

Noothgrush are a doom metal band from San Jose, California. They formed in 1994 and broke up in 2001. Erode the Person is their 1999 LP. Re-released in 2006 through Throne Records. Be sure to check it out if you're into Grief and Eyehategod. Really good sludge. Slow, low, and heaaavyyyy. This band RULES, and I consider this their best.
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BLACKLISTED.

Because they killed it at Fall Brawl. Mosh wherever you listen to this. NYHC.
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Houses of the Unholy.

Church of Misery is a riff-driven, groove-heavy doom metal band from Japan. Most of their songs are about serial killers. They've been around for awhile. Houses of the Unholy is their latest. For fans of the almighty riff, the almighty groove, and the almighty Black Sabbath. It rules.

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Oh, what could've been....

A Life Once Lost weren't always a Lamb of God ripoff band... they were a Meshuggah ripoff band before that (A Great Artist)... but before THAT, they were an original sounding, technical metallic hardcore band... this stuff still stands out today when you hear it against what is popular nowadays... but it does kind of get depressing when you consider what ALOL ultimately turned into... still, if you've never heard ALOL before they started playing nothing but covers, check this out

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We Must Run, We Must Run, We Must Run.

Newest release from the German band Trainwreck... they play melodic hardcore with touches of crust and the 90s screamo sound mixed in while keeping everything heavy and abrasive... very enjoyable listen

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Shrinebuilder

Doom supergroup featuring:
Scott Kelly of Neurosis
Wino of St. Vitus, The Obsessed, etc.
Al Cisneros of Om and Sleep
Dale Crover of Melvins and Fantomas

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Embryonic.

new Flaming Lips.....nuff said

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Sweet Merciful Crap.

"Providence, Rhode Island's AS THE SUN SETS are true legends when it comes to their craft, taking listeners from one end of the human spectrum to another, while creating a sonically methodical weave work of brutal and harmonious rhythm patterns, crushing harmonies, and life ending prose, all with the resiliency of a condemned man going to the electric chair. In the past, As the Sun Sets have shared the spotlight with such luminaries as CONVERGE, DROP DEAD, CRYPTOPSY, DIMMU BORGIR, and HATEBREED among others... proving themselves worthy of both their present and future successes within the confines of the hardcore, noise, and metal communities."

absolutely essential listen for any fan of heavy music

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YOU... YOU'VE BEEN BENOIT'D

In the Shit is a pissed off powerviolence band from Boston... features ex-members of Throwing Shrapnel, 26 Beers, Thousandswilldie, Betrayed By All, etc... check it out if you like Spazz, Iron Lung, Asshole Parade, and hating the human race...

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E.T. PHONE HOME

Boston's We Met Aliens are a metal band that call on some eclectic influences, like Mastodon, Botch, Ion Dissonance, Opeth, Dillinger Escape Plan, The Red Chord, Meshuggah, etc.

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Look What God Did To Us.

this is the debut full length of the band City of Ships... this record takes the best parts of later Cave In (Jupiter, Antenna) and later Thrice (Vheissu) and puts big, heavy slabs of driving basslines behind it all, making it an suprisingly heavy record.. a great listen

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Approaching Oblivion.

"All out sonic bombardment of ultrafast and incredibly angry hardcore, old-school sound with nods to early UK grind and Slap-a-Ham juggernauts. Assaulting "punch in the throat" production, well-played, maniacal power-violence with blasting and uncompromising rage."

California Love are from, you guessed it, California and play angry, fast hardcore/powerviolence... this is both Can't Waste Death and Reaping the Whirlwind

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Breathing Fire - Years of Lead

you know you want this

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Of prophets and masses in fear of the truth....

Reversal of Man was a band at the forefront of the 90s screamo scene from Tampa, FL... This Is Medicine is 16 tracks in 19 minutes of raw emotion and loud, violent music... CLASSIC

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A Promise Of Revenge Whispered From Stitched Lips.

Gnaw Their Tongues is a band from the Netherlands, and they are, in a word, disturbing... they mix black metal with noise and other elements, and they are very haunting... any horror movie should have this as its soundtrack...

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Seven Stars The Angel of Death

"Brooklyn's TOMBS deliver a stunning tour-de-force with their Relapse Records debut Winter Hours. The trio tread a unique musical path that draws equally from several disparate music worlds. The austere and appropriately-titled album is a somber, sobering affair that brings together hypnotic psychedelic harmonies, lush and introspective sonic textures, and a relentless intensity found in the most blackened metal to stunning effect. Whether through driving melodies, explosive noise, or the most fragile of interludes, Winter Hours hits hard and resonates deeply within the listener."

Brooklyn, NY's Tombs are one of the more original sounding heavy bands to come out in quite some time... it is mindblowing how they can blend so many genres and styles together and still be a great band to listen to... this is their debut on Relapse Records, and it's one of my top 10 of this year

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Per Request.

Red Sparowes' first album, called At the Soundless Dawn

atmospheric instrumental at its finest

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A couple more leaks.

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There is blood on all the shoes you've worn from the people you've been stepping on...

Canada's Death From Above 1979 were a drummer/singer and bassist/keyboardist combo... fun songs about love, sex, and dirty women... they broke up way before their time...

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It's hard to take risks with a pessimist....

Portland, OR's Menomena are a great indie/art/experimental rock band... they kinda sound like TV On the Radio, Wolf Parade, Man Man, etc... fun and catchy rock

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Waiting For the Other Shoe To Drop...

"Find Him and Kill Him come from a time before punk and hardcore seemed almost mutually exclusive and it shines through in their music. Though the band hails from the sass capital of the United States, San Diego, they play a caustic mixture of NorCal thrash and skatepunk with enough biting social commentary to please straight-edge kids and punks alike. No fake images, no pretentious posing, and thankfully no make up...just straight up in-your-face old-school thrash played like it needs to be: fast and loud."

Find Him And Kill Him are an exhilirating listen... this is fun and nasty

King of Jeans.

"If 2005's Shallow was Pissed Jeans coping with moving out of their parents' homes, and 2007's Hope for Men their initial reaction to the mechanical lifestyle of a wage-earner, King of Jeans is their formal and uneasy acceptance of adulthood, by way of one hell of a rock record. From simple minds and simple fabrics comes this King of Jeans. And there can be only one."

best way I can think of to describe Pissed Jeans is a dirty, punk rock-esque Young Widows... gooooooooooood stuff

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Lick golden sky like rain......

absolute classic sludge... if you don't have these, you need to hear them

I'm seeing them on 10/25, and I cannot fucking wait

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Dopethrone.

Electric Wizard. For those who don't know, Electric Wizard is a doom metal band that formed in Dorset, England in 1993. Dopethrone, Electric Wizard's 3rd LP came out in 2000. Get totally lost in this record, it's awesome. Very slow, very low, very heavy doom.
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Treading.... Water.... Concrete... Shoes...

Heavy. Heavy. Heavy. That's probably the only way to describe Dead Black. Boston, Mass. Members of Mental and Think I care. Here's their 2007 demo, and as far as I know that's all they've come out with. HEAVY.

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Lower Da Boom.

Artifacts were a hip hop duo consisting of El Da Sensei and Tame One from Newark, New Jersey. The Artifacts created hip hop that paid homage to the four elements. Their first album, Between a Rock and a Hard Place dropped on October 27, 1994. Well received by underground hip hop audiences, it featured intelligent lyrics, and b-boy and graffiti themes. Beats were produced by Buckwild and T-Ray.
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TARPIT.

Fast hardcore from Virginia Beach. They're done, but they ruled. Here's the demo, Wake Up EP, Checkmate, and Vultures. Check 'em out.

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The Force That Gives Us Meaning.....

California's Ghostlimb is a crusty melodic hardcore band featuring members of Graf Orlock... very pissed off bunch, these guys are... DIG IT

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Scouring For Any Signs of Life......

Crestfallen was a criminally underrated band from Virginia... they played a mix of punk, thrash, hardcore, and 90s screamo (like Pg. 99 and such) and you can still feel the passion they had through their music... these are a must listen

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