the Slaughtermen domain name Slaughtermen.net over to my new web host. Nobody cares about this, but it means I can start building a new Slaughtermen website soon. I have no idea if anyone is interested, but at the moment there is no online presence for that band. The Slaughtermen sounds like it should be a metal band, and it could be I suppose. If as some say, one of the most radical things people can do today is go to church, then listening to the Slaughtermen might fit the bill. Nobody in it was overly religious, that’s the caveat. It really wasn’t about religion so much as an experience of Southern gospel music that normally wouldn’t be found in a beer hall, and especially in Australia . I liked singing the songs. My religious experiences irl were somewhat tainted by the people in my family. Aunts and stepmothers put me off organized religion for life. Like in the Flannery O’ Connor novel “Wiseblood” , the Slaughtermen were almost an incarnation of the Church of Christ without Christ, “with a new Jesus that’s all man, without blood to waste, that don’t look like any other man so you’ll look at him.”
You can download this fine album online
This talk of metal brings me back to the mundane world of concert promotional emails. A couple caught my eye this week. The first one was for a band called “Goatwhore”. The band’s wikipedia page tells us, “Goatwhore was formed by guitarist/backing vocalist Sammy Duet, who was previously the lead guitarist for Louisiana sludge metal band Acid Bath. The band’s origins can date back to 1991 with Sammy and drummer Zak Nolan.” Sludge Metal? Is that what’s left at the bottom of the tank after the acid bath? I’ve not heard of that before now. I checked out one of their videos, a song called Apocalyptic Havoc. Again, like many of these bands, they seem to have raided the Hot Topic store. There they are, all decked out in leather and spikes, on a nicely crafted three riser stage with an obligatory smoke machine, going through what could just about these days be a blueprint for a standard metal song. I honestly can’t tell the difference any more. Like Hip Hop Rap music, it all sounds all the fucking same. Afficionados and Metal connoisseurs would probably be able to pick apart the finer points, but I’ve only had 40+ years of seriously listening to popular music, I obviously need to study it more.
Only $24.99, a steal
Next crap, I mean..cab, off the rank is a group who call themselves “Full of Hell”. I’ll restrain myself from telling everyone what I think they’re really full in this instance. They’re in the middle of a 30 day tour though, so they must be popular. I should be so lucky. On their official page there is a video for a song called “Industrial Messiah Complex”. There we are, are back to that religious thing again. Religion is a major feature of these bands, if not the only driving force. It’s all coming from Satan’s side though, which is fine. They aren’t ambivalent like the Slaughtermen perhaps were sometimes. There’s no doubt what the message is. Death, destruction, rage and insufferable noise. Full of Hell’s song made me LOL actually. It’s basically a wall of distortion, with demonic grunting, which I guess are the lyrics. Let’s take a look at the words.
Sword of Damocles
Hurtle down and rain asunder
Amongst these old wolds
A curdling ember thirsts for bloodied ends
Gather in fragmented realities
Future pillar of salt
Manufactured dreams
Industrial Messiah Complex
Sword of Damocles
Bludgeon of Untruth
Hurtle down and rain asunder
Industrial messiah complex
Industrial messiah complex
Rain asunder
Full of Hell. Serving Satan is serious stuff.
It obviously makes sense to someone. Seems like demonic gibberish to me, but I’ll post it below so you can enjoy is as well. What the (full of) hell, they’re just a bunch of kids having fun with it. They’ll probably all be married accountants by 2035. Or married to accountants, take your pick. I dare you to make out anything that resembles the words printed above. Wikipedia says about the other band, Goatwhore that their songs often “contain themes of Satanism, witchcraft, anti-Christianity, and the occult.” They’re all such religious zealots these metal bands. They’re the Jimmy Swaggart’s of the underworld.
Bonus bonus bonus
I was browsing Relapse records Youtube channel and the latest post is this video below. I think it’s possibly the sound track for the Endtimes. Live Paris? Are they ‘avin a laff? OMG this is COMEDY GOLD!