Dresden- Final Hour

When I first heard Wartorn, I instantly disliked it.  The same went for Dresden.  Strangely enough, the moment I saw both bands live (who share members) I was totally impressed with the power each band conveys in a live setting.  In both cases, I bought their records immediately.  Subsequent listens of the records in question left me less and less interested each time. 

I decided to pull out this Dresden LP since I hadn't heard it in quite some time, and I was in the mood to listen to some heavy apocalyptic crust.  I was comfortably seated in my chair reading a book that I haven't had a lot of time to enjoy, but I found this record so drab that I wanted to get up and shut it off halfway through the A side.  It seems weird that a band could come across so well live, and then come off so blah on their record.  Here's the thing- the song structures are actually pretty good/ interesting, but there are never any stand-out riffs, and it's devoid of any inflection or emotion in the way it's played.  All of that is not the case live, however.  All of the songs are played just barely fast enough to lose some of the power it'd otherwise have, and somehow the heaviness that I know is intended doesn't translate well. 

If Dresden were playing tomorrow down the street, I'd go, but this record might not survive my next purge.  The biggest issue here, and the reason I bothered to commit my opinions, is that I want to like this record.  It's just not happening. 

Warfair?- Earmageddon LP

I still like this album just as much as the first time I heard it.  It also reminds me of a time when I understood what the fuck was going on with grindcore, or at least it felt that way.  It was an exciting time for me.  I wanted so badly for my band of the time to go on tour, and in the process get to play with Warfair?.  That, sadly and predictably, never happened.  I remember this band having a post on myspace that said something to the effect of wanting labels to release the stuff they had recorded, but all labels were too busy releasing even more Agathocles and Unholy Grave records.

This record not only sounds good, but looks cool.  The black cover is printed with grey ink, and the front and back sides are fucking SEWN TOGETHER.  The song titles are cool, the artwork rules, (especially the poster, which was on my bedroom wall for quite a long time), and what an awesome album title!  The drumming is pretty good, which is absolutely necessary on a grindcore record.  It's got the perfect snappy snare that so many bands do wrong.  The guitars are thick, and the big-dog/ little-dog vocals are well balanced.  The songs, and the record as a whole, have good momentum.

From time to time, I hear murmurs of this band getting back together, or releasing more material that was recorded back when, or all kinds of other things, but it never seems to get past the rumor stage.  I would be really happy if any of it were true.  The full album is on Youtube, but for some reason I can't share it properly on here, so here's one song instead. 

Giuda- Senza Paura, Senza Domani

I hadn't listened to this in a while, and I decided to dig it out when I realized I was wearing this shirt.  My first exposure to Giuda is when they they played here, and I hadn't heard them previously.  I was completely floored by them, though.  They were touring on their second album, Decadenza, which I still love.  Their set was full of a lot of dark, slow chugging and they never really sped up the pace while keeping a lot of momentum.  The guitar players would hold their guitars up vertically over their heads in some of the heaviest parts.  All in all, it was really cool.

Some time after that, probably a couple of years, this record came out, and I ordered it right away.  It came on a cool yellowish and green splatter, and had only 5 songs on it.  I wasn't totally in love with it when I first heard it.  Listening to it now, I'm not quite sure what made me think they were listening to too much Metallica when they wrote this.  It's got a couple of faster, or more upbeat parts or something compared to Decadenza.  I think it was that there were less of those stomping chuggy parts that I loved so much when I saw them that first time, and they added a little more melody, especially in the leads.  I also didn't like the vocals on this, any of the previous material, or live because they weren't the type of gutteral, deep vocals that I tend to prefer.  The singer has more of a hardcore style to his vocals.  I've come to accept how the vocals sound, and it's definitely not a dealbreaker for me.  The standout track is definitely the last one which takes up all of the B side- Siamo Demoni- We Are Demons.  True to Giuda form, they're not in a hurry to go anywhere with the song structure, but it's also not unnecessarily built-up either.  This track, along with the others, is well-constructed.

 There is definitely a strong metal influence to all the songs, but not excessively so.  All of this record exemplifies exactly what I want in my music- punks playing metal with a punk attitude. 

I could only find one track from the album on youtube, which is too bad, but I think that any of them would be a fair representation of the record.