Brainbombs - Souvenirs (2016)

Yes Brainbombs are back with another album called Souvenirs, the seventh (if I'm not msitaken) in thirty years. Of course you'll find again the same formula, but since they're the only one to play it this is ok. And some songs on Souvenirs will probably stay among their best ones (I think of Darker shade of pain especially). So you'll have some noise rock with some Stoogian / Hendrixian riffing in repetitive mode (usually one riff each song, but those riffs are great) and with a bleak atmosphere. The vocals is still a guy with a swedish accent (they are swedish) telling some horrible things. But nevermind. And there's their usual moaning trumpet, really a great addition to their sound. If you like Brainbombs you'll like this one two, if you don't know them this one will be a good start. Don't fail to check it, really good stuff.

Coffin Birth / Shitgrinder split (ep/10'' 2016)

This Australian grind split is mostly interesting because it's the newer Coffin Birth release. The grind/crust proposed on the Shitgrinder side is ok and would compare favourably with many crust related releases, but after Coffin Birth it's like it's a bit flat. On the Coffin Birth side you'll have the pleasure to find that the quality is the same than on Necrotic liquefaction or Cult of the Technocrat, that is, the best grindcore / deathgrind you can find at the moment. Seven tracks, all killers no fillers. Great stuff!!

The Bandcamp page. 

Author & Punisher - Melk En Honing (2015)

What is always mentioned about Author & Punisher (or Tristan Shone) is the fact that the music is made largely with machines of its own creation, but that should not shadow that the music is really good. Of course it is literally industrial and noise music, but also we could say it's doom, because of the heaviness and slow pace (not because of sabbathian riffs, Author & Punisher is all about noise, not riffs). It could reminds NIN (when NIN was really good), especially for the ability to melt melodies into a brutal and bleak industrial metal music. Melk En Honing, released last year on Housecore Records, see the return to the use  of instruments, but the machines and the modified voice largely dominates. This is its sixth album, and as usual a bit different than the others while keeping the level of excellency high. On this one I'd say the focus shifted slightly from noise experimentation to songwriting which is more diverse and complex.

The Bandcamp page.

Sonic Poison - Harsh Demonstration (2016)

Sonic Poison is a new band from Finland which released a cool cassette (with Caligari records) called Harsh Demonstration, with which they offer a refreshing take on old school grind/death. And that's indeed a harsh demonstration, very raw stuff, I really  enjoyed this short (7 tracks, less than 10 minutes of music) blast of grind in a Repulsion vein, and any grindfreak will probably do the same. Highly recommended!

The BC page.

Bardo Pond - Acid Guru Pond (2016)

Bardo Pond has now more than fifteen years and more than ten albums behind them, and they explored a wide variety of rock / psychedelic kind of music, from doom to grunge to noise to space rock. Acid Guru Pond as its title suggest is clearly a more psychedelic / space rock oriented album. Trippy guitars a bit of female vocals, slow paced drumming, flute, something that is probably a trumpet, a touch of noise / drone elements  orchestrated in five long tracks with the sophistication the band is used to. Sounds a bit like music from Mike Vest (yes this is really trippy / stoned stuff!), but with the typical Bardo Pound elements and style. The slow and repetitive elements is combined with a diversity of sound and a songwriting that gives each song it's own flavour (or colours since each song has the name of a colour). Quality stuff as usual from Bardo Pond.

The Bandcamp page.

movie review : The Witch (2015)

Last time I reviewed a movie on Blasting days was more than four years ago (the excellent Balada Triste de Trompeta, read the review HERE). Also I usually review only things that I really like (got no time for the rest...). But the reason I'm reviewing this one is because it got me angry. Let me explain...
The Witch is not so bad, the main idea is good (and that's why the bad part makes it disapointing and frustrating) : the movie takes places in the seventeeth century New England, the characters are a deeply religious family that leave behind them the "corruption" of their town and goes into exile and isolation on a farm close to a dark forest. The movie does a quite good job in showing the struggle of the familly against the hardships that accumulates against them and their struggles to keep firm their faith and beliefs that are tested by the worsening of their situation and by their confrontation to what they fear might be witchcraft. These trials also loosen the ties beetween the family members and the role of each character in the family is also put to test. This, with a gloomy atmosphere and a growing feel of paranoia, is the successfull part of the movie, with some quite good acting, more subtle than the scenario. The characters marked by religious fanaticism are not showed as one sided and appears human. Even without sharing their beliefs the spectators cares about the characters. The dialogues in old english partly taken from texts of the time are also a good point. These elements would have made a good movie. What wastes for a large part the movie is that witchcraft is not just something that the characters suspects and fears, something in their ideology and psychology that alter their relations. No in The Witch witchcraft is a real thing, there's real witches and Satan for real. I'm not against withcraft and supernatural things in a movie, the problem is not that, the problem is that it is showed in the most simplistic, crude and caricatural way. Witchcraft and evil are depicted in a way that is as bigotted as the characters are. And while the movie manages to show the complexity in its characters, it fails completely to do so about witchcraft and even about the christian point of view about witchcraft. In the Witch witchcraft is what is is in the crudest puritanical christian ideology (same as in other religion by the way). What is evil is women and the flesh. Women fall into temptation and are led by Satan into human sacrifices, blahblah. the withches showed in the movie are just grotesque, and simplisticaly one sided, and not even frightening. I'm not complaining it's giving witchcraft a bad name, I don't care about witchcraft as, like religion, it exists only as ideology, existing only as long as it shapes the psychology and social relations of people bevieving in it (or taking profit from it...). Problem is that the christian war against "witchcraft" was in a large part a war against people being different and questionning the traditionnal social roles and hierarchies, and of course the power of the church itself. So showing witchcraft in the way the church depicts it is like renacting the christian fight against anyone questionning traditionnal hierarchies (male domination, the church, etc.).
A movie released in 2015 about witches that fails to question the puritanical religious take on witchcraft (and beyond that on women, traditionnal family, sex, etc.) is just completely wrong.
If you just edit the film and remove the few scenes with witches and "real" witchcraft you have a good movie, that's why it's a pity these scenes of "real (and caricatural) witchcraft" are just wasting the whole movie in such a way. What a shame...

After seeing the movie I read a few interviews of the director of the movie, Robert Eggers, his views on witches are not as simplistic as the movie could suggest and I suppose his purpose was not siding with the puritan christian ideology. But still the scenes of "real witchcraft", completely in line with the traditionnal ideology, are just clumsy and the movie would be a lot better without it...
Maybe you could say the absurdity of the kind of satan worshipping witchcraft showed and the absurdity of the beliefs of the characters are in itself a critique of this traditionnal point of view. Well... I maintain that removing these scenes would have made a far more subtler and convincing take on the subject.

Naive Sense - Art Failures (2015)

On this album called Art Failures, released last year by Naive Sense you have some really good hardcore. Hardcore that can't really be associated with a specific kind of hardcore : it is fast and angry (12 songs in less than 20 minutes), with a frenetic feel of urgency running through the album, but there's also melodic elements here and there (but never sounding "emo"). More diverse and original than most hardcore albums, without really experimenting. I'm bored by most hardcore albums, but I enjoy this one. Recommended stuff!
(I saw thay are about to release an EP later this month, should be good as well...).

The BC page.