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"Brute and a little doomy, BPR (Body Part Rain) presents a mid-tempo thrash that reminds me a little of the olden days
where all that was required was rawness and heaviness. Sure, it doesn't have the technicality of modern thrash such as, say,
Shadows Fall, or up-to-date deathers, Lamb of God, but that would be to miss the point. BPR's simple, grim charm is inescapable.
Pure violent lyrics from the old school, vocals that switch between a throaty, grinding grumble and good ol' thrash yelling,
thickly distorted..... read more
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Skavinjer
"Skavinjer train wreck mish-mash of styles starts out jarring but ends up rather compelling in its own wacky way. The
flavors that jump out at me are black metal, heavy metal, punk/hardcore/screamo, grind and death metal. The speed/heavy brutality
topped off with screams that seem to come not so much from angst but from severe torture sound like black metal but infused
with a dose of screamo. Vocals drop here and there and bring you more into death/grind land. I can detect instrumental elements
that bring me back to the days of classic, straight-up heavy metal. And the raw, blathering (I'm using the word positively)
bobble head on speed approach, fuzzed up...... read more
Group Papago / Warrior
Waila GP Style (Group Papago 2001, Rock-A-Bye Records RABR-00028), Chicken Scratch (Warrior, Rock-A-Bye Records RABR-00013),
and New To Your Ears (Warrior, Rock-A-Bye Records [no number])
If Lawrence Welk played "Champagne Music," this is Kentucky moonshine. At first I hated all three albums. They're loud
and irritating like a drunken party when you're trying to get some sleep. But I didn't want to give up on Waila (Native American
polka) without giving it a chance, so I kept playing the CDs. I began to notice a real tunefulness under the noise. Then I
noticed that there were some songs that had a sensuous and sinuous quality like a shot of good Stax-Volt R&B. It turns
out that those are the cumbias -- not the sweet cumbias of Mexico or Columbia, but cumbias that smack you upside the head.
There are also polkas, played with all the energy and finesse of a good garage band. The rest of the repertoire consists of
chotes (schottisches) and mazurkas which I found less compelling. Chicken Scratch
by Warrior rates an "A" and the other two CDs get a B. All instrumental, no liner notes. [2-23-04, revised 2-24-04]
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