"Cursed"-Rotten Sound

You feel the warm trickle down your jaw. You slowly reach your hand to your face in disbelief, but before you can even wipe off that first wound, you get hit again so hard the wind is knocked out of you. That is "Cursed" by Rotten Sound: uncompromisingly brutal grindcore that tears up cement in the fierce onslaught of its attack. Rotten Sound did for Scandinavian grindcore what Napalm Death did for American: said hey this music is hard let's make it 10 times more intense. "Cursed" does not have a song above 3 minutes; but there is a great amount of diversity on the album in terms of tempo, rhythm, vocals, and tone. The only thing consistent is the volume and noise. And the songs' titles; no title is longer than a single word. Saucy's picks: "Alone" is a great opener, setting the tone for the rest of the album, and "Hollow" starts with a great guitar solo that leads into a pounding dirge of despair.

Royal Thunder-"S/T"

If you are like me, you are snowed in, and listening to lots of gloomy, dark, heavy, loud music to pass the time. May I humbly recommend you the newest edition to the W&M Loud Rock shelves, Royal Thunder's premier "Royal Thunder." Take one look at that album cover and you know you've found the soundtrack of the winter. Check out the dope song titles: "Sleeping Witch" "Grave Dance" "Mouth of Fire" are all apt descriptions for the sound presented by this up and coming band. Sharing the stage with acts ranging from the Woven Bones to Black Tusks, and fronted by female vocalist Miny Parsonz, who also plays bass, Royal Thunder sounds like if Siouxie Sioux took vocal duties for Mastodon and decided to make all the songs about Edgar Allan Poe short stories. Yeah, that awesome. When I saw them during CMJ, I didn't remember their name (a 12 pack of PBR and 2 rum and cokes will do that to you) but I certainly remember their sound. Miny's vocals are the beauty of my worst nightmares, their guitarist bares an eerie resemblance to my friend Bobby and can produce majestical down-toned gloom, and their drummer isn't afraid to use a gong, a trait I'd like to see in more drummers. The release is not very long, so listen to all of it, and check this band out live, they were the first opener in a long while that really impressed me.

My Journey To CMJ: Cough

"What the hell?" I thought to myself as I looked around the overpass in God-knows-where-the-fuck Brooklyn. No groups of people moving to any particular place, a few small and ordinary looking bars, no signs for CMJ, no people with CMJ passes in sight. Seriously? The CMJ website said the place was called Pianos. There was NO place on the street, Union Ave., that was called Pianos. I must admit I was getting a little bit frustrated. I decided to stop in a bar, to ask directions of course. I was surprised to see a man with nearly floor length blond dreads casually sipping on a beer in the middle of this normal looking bar filled with normal looking people. "One of these things is not like the other," I started humming to myself as I followed him to the back of the bar. I am shocked to see that he goes out the backdoor to an outdoor area, complete with grass and all those other green things you sometimes forget exist in Brooklyn. To my left was a trailer decked out in Christmas lights with a small sign that read "Taco Hut" (it served awesome vegan burritos for 3 bucks, highly recommend it if you ever see a show there). To my right was a small shack where I finally see a CMJ sign and people taking money. "This, this is where the show is?" I thought to myself. This was a psychedelic metal show, how could they possibly fit all the unnecessary percussive instruments, pedals, and synthesizers (the most ridiculous instrument of the night was a gong used by the opening band). I walk up to the shack and see that CMJ had screwed up the lineup completely. Rather than Cough playing at 8, they were playing at 10:30 after three other bands, Royal Thunder (hipster metal band), Battilus (weird synthesizer crust), and Inter Arma (sludge metal thrashers from Richmond). Unfortunately for the always spectacular and darkness-inducing Cough, Inter Arma stole this show. Their drummer was one of the technical highlights of the night, taking the freedom given to him by the genre of slow-paced stoner music and exploring just how much he could either cram in conversely or leave out, a contrasting range of minimalist to Max Roach-esque cacophony. Having spent the day walking around New York by myself, it was nice to hear someone say "We're from Richmond, Virginia" and to headbang with a bunch of drunk metalheads to some of the finest music altered-states of consciousness have ever produced. Be sure to check out Cough's new album "Ritual Abuse."

"Rohnert Park"-Ceremony

Okay if you don't like this album fuck you. There's a kid on a fucking skateboard in front of a dumpy little surburban home with an American flag and he's got on what is quite possibly a Minor Threat hoodie. In all seriousness, this time around Ceremony is serious business. They've upgraded from "surprisingly good opener" to "surprisingly creative and original hardcore." It is at the same time a vehicle for 80's DC nostalgia and an interesting take on the sound of modern hardcore bands like Trash Talk. From the opener "Into the Wayside Pt. 1/Sick" Ceremony makes two things clear: they will push the boundaries of hardcore music, and lyrically they will hate on everything. Tying the album together nicely is the conceptual "Into the Wayside" songs, pt. 1 and 3 bookending the album with pt. 2 adding some variance to the middle of the album. But it isn't really necessary; just take a look at the bluesy Boston-esque hardcore of the preceding song "Open Head" which has lyrics I would compare more to Richard Hell than to Ian Mackaye. This album made me super happy in that it was such an unhappy and angry album. Saucy's picks: Listen to the album straight through, and see what tracks appeal to you most. Trust me if you like hardcore you'll find something.

"I Was Trying To Describe You To Someone" and then my band split up

"Oh boy" says the casual reader of the WCWM Loud Rock blog, "He is reviewing one of Alternative Press's most anticipated albums of the year. This ain't metal." Well first off ain't ain't a word. Secondly it isn't metal, and yeah this is the music made by grown up scene kids and mall emos. That being said, it is actually really good, probably due in large part to producer Mike Sapone who has a knack for taking the immature angst of bands like Brand New and Taking Back Sunday and making something musically credible with it. The subjects and lyrics are also darker and more mature, and the highlights of the album are when this is embraced, such as the song "Drugwolf" rather than ballad-esque emoetry (emo+poetry, patent pending) of songs like "Young." Basically what I'm trying to say is the band does best when they realize they're more mature versions of Thrice than when they think they're Bright Eyes. Saucy's Picks: interesting intro with "Queue Moderns", "Drugwolf", and riff-tastic work on "Odalisque." P.S. Crime in Stereo has broken up, so you'll probably never get to hear this album live. Boosh.

"Capitalism Is Cannabalism"-Vex

Political Filipino grindcore. That's right kiddos, and it comes with a heavy dosage of the kickass. Vex makes up for their lack of a good studio, good instruments, and good intentions with a brutal spine-snapping grind that will split your ears and make you play the 24 minute album over and over. Like a lot of grindcore albums, a significant portion of that 24 minutes is devoted to random sound bytes (mostly in Tagalog but there's one clip of some government official speaking in English about the benefits of a partnership between government and free-enterprise). Also the last 7 seven songs are all different versions of the same song, "Cum and Taste Our Revenge," but this proves to be very entertaining rather than redundant. There's even a cover of a Standfast (infamous Swedish punk duo) song, "Self-Righteous Bastard", and a jab at fellow grindcore band Agoraphobic Nosebleed "Agorephobic Saliva Spitting Basstard." Vex is what grindcore is all about, which is having fun, mocking authority, and being incredibly abrasive. Saucy's picks: "Ultra Poverty=Ultra Tragedy", "Capitalism Is Cannabalism", "Basura", "You're So Cool", and of course "Cum and Taste Our Revenge."

"Triumvirate"-Black Anvil

I'm really not sure what to write for this. I personally can't get bored of metal; if I have heavy riffs, heavy vocals, heavy beats, it lifts my heavy heart. And Black Anvil has something a lot of metal bands don't: decent vocals. But besides that they sound like most other modern metal bands, which isn't bad, just not particularly interesting. If you like stoner metal, blackened crust, or early black metal (in the vein of Venom and such)then you'll probably be pleased. The first track, "What Is Life If Life Not Now!" is the best track of the album, which unfortunately makes the rest of the album sound kind of mediocre. Maybe I shouldn't be sober when listening to this.