As a defiant two fingers to the soul sapping tedium and sickening over-indulgent excess of the modern Christmas ritual, the ever perverse and contrary Martin Gray – sat at home alone and with no family to join for dinner this year – serves up an alternative indigestion-friendly banquet as a welcome antidote where all merry hell (no, not the great Wigan folk/rock collective) breaks loose. Strap yourselves in for the ride and don’t fur-get your Alka Seltzer Helter Skelters!!
Okay now look, I simply can’t be done with all of this Christmas nonsense so I’ve curated this gloriously cacophonous and migraine inducing playlist for myself to enjoy (and anybody else for that matter if they are in any way so similarly inclined), as a defiant ‘fuck that for a lark!’ to all of the shenanigans that I would otherwise be coerced into partaking against my better judgement.
All of these acts (bar a couple) are defiantly ‘uneasy’ listening, gleefully gratuitous ear scorching examples of hardcore punk, D-beat, grindcore, noise, experimental, stoner-core, death/thrash and doom at its most confrontational and deliciously belligerent. Of course they are as far away from the whole contrived spirit of Christmas as it is possible to get. Perhaps the only thing they do have in common with Christmas, if any comparisons must be made, is that they can potentially cause headaches, toothaches, and provoke some people into committing acts of violence against one another if tolerance is stretched.
A big heads up and eternal thanks go to the two record shops – and one punk rock vegan cafe – whose staff actually recommended I investigate the bulk of these. So, salutations to Vincent and Maria @ Independent Outlet (Amsterdam), Jim and Deb @ Dark Earth Records (Liverpool), and Kally and Mikey @ Guac’n’Roll (Liverpool). My gracious respect and love to you all!
ELECTRIC WIZARD : BLACK MAGIC RITUALS AND PERVERSIONS VOL. 1
(2024, Spinefarm / Witchfinder Records)
Dorset’s finest super-heavy stoner/doom metal protagonists. This relentless and utterly apocalyptic session was recorded live in one take during the lockdown of 2020 at Satyr IX Studios, Walpurgisnacht. Electric Wizard excel in making your head and body feel so weighty and overburdened that you could cave in at any minute!
DESPITE : THE DESTROYERS WILL BE DESTROYED (2000, Six Weeks)
Wisconsin, US crust punks Despite strip paint and faces with this 25-year old release which still has total relevance today given how utterly dystopian the world has become. Nothing’s changed much since this was released, except the passage of time. The righteous fury and intensity of course remains.
STRONG INTENTION : EXTERMINATING VISION (2002, Coalition Records)
Maryland/New Orleans grindcore band from the mid-1990s Strong Intention rip through 14 apocalyptic tracks in just 17 minutes on this relentlessly brutal and uncompromising album, released in 2002. The delivery of the tracks is suitably frenetic to capture the spirit of the times, but they’re still at least 20 years ahead of another, younger, chasing pack, I guess.
SNAKEHOLE : INTERLUDES OF INSANITY (2017, Wharf Cat Records)
Florida/Pennsylvannia duo Snakehole contrive a truly visceral and arresting noise/post punk/avant garde storm of primal power and unhinged unpredictability. Brutal and in your face at times, then they sidefoot the listener with weird off-kilter ambient piano interludes too as a break from all of the tumult elsewhere. Makes bands like L7 and Hole sound like k.d. Lang.
DEAD GAZE : DEAD GAZE (2013, FatCat Records)
One man band Cole Furlow aka Dead Gaze whips up the most distorted of lo-fi noise-pop maelstroms on this 2013 compilation which collects together years of his bedroom recordings before his debut album proper Brain Holiday which followed the same year. The sheer abrasiveness of the rudimentary production is intentional: this is as scuzzy as noise pop gets!
GEVÄL : GEVÄL (2022, self released)
GEVÄL – Sheffield/Nottingham/Leeds hardcore noise punks with a penchant for fast and frantic D-beat – attempt to give the rest of the genre a run for their money with this self-released 11-track one sided 12″ maxi-EP which clocks in at barely 18 minutes. It concludes with a gratuitously disfigured James Brown cover! Fu[n]ck-tastic!!
KTL : VII (2020, Editions Mego)
A collaboration between Stephen O’Malley of Sunn o))) and the late British-Austrian underground electronic artist Peter Rehberg. KTL are a doom/drone instrumental project that specialises in creating unsettling claustrophobic soundscapes that suspend tension for as long as possible whilst inducing auras of total unease in the listener. Background music it could be, but prepare to keep looking over your shoulder when shadows start flitting around the room!
DARK HORSE : TRAUMA TAUGHT SELF DESTRUCT (2021, Grindhead Records)
Australian (Sydney based) thrash/hardcore/D-beat specialists Dark Horse are masters at truly bone-rattling ferocity topped with words of sheer throat-ripping angst. Their sound often verges on pure grindcore territory and as such they straddle the boundary between all these genres. Intense and pulverising as fuck!
SCHKEUDITZER KREUZ : ISOLATED AND ALONE (2021, Bad Habit Records)
Brainchild of sole member and instigator Kieren Hills (Lawson, Australia). A one-man tidal force of uncompromising, unflinchingly brutal industrial overload played on an array of abrasive machinery. Elements of various industrial pioneers [Neubauten, NIN, Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, etc] are discernible, but also has a distinct sound and identity of his own too. There is even a Discharge cover within this album (State Violence State Control). Schkeuditzer Kreuz bandcamp.
WVRM : COLONY COLLAPSE (2020, Prosthetic Records)
One of the most relentlessly bludgeoning and incendiary examples of sludge/grindcore and death metal in recent years. This combo from Greenville, South Carolina, know a thing or two about never once letting go of their quarry once it has been seized in their jaws…. instead they shake, batter and thrash it into submission, and then gleefully trample repeatedly on its remains until it’s rendered into putrified mush. Magnificently savage and ugly as hell. WVRM will never ever be household names, and that’s a blessing!
OUT COLD : PLANNED ACCIDENTS EP (2005, ACME Records)
American hardcore punks from Massachusetts Out Cold existed between 1989 to 2009. This full-throttle, gonzoid five track 7″ lasts barely five minutes, with three of its tracks, This Virus Kills Time, The Golden Age Of Psychobabble and People Like You being barely 50 seconds long. No need in overstating the point longer than is required is there? Five short sharp slaps in the face is good enough!
TOUT SUITE : DOG GONE BLUES (2017, Pumpkin Records)
Determinedly repulsive-sounding hardcore, speed punk/thrash reprobates from Manchester creating one hell of a demented racket for good measure. But brilliantly compulsive all the same. There is even a song ‘dedicated’ to that odious swivel-eyed social pariah Katie Hopkins. Appear to have an unhealthy obsession with crudely anthropomorphised chickens on all their cover art too (first 6-track tape was titled Chicken In A Bastard). Tout Suite bandcamp.
‘All I want for Christmas is a Black & Decker cordless power drill and a K-Tel Crust and Grindcore compilation. Yeah!!’
Bollocks To Christmas playlist devised by Martin Gray
More verbose doggerel and musings from Martin can be found here
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