Bolt Thrower Peel Sessions

A couple of years ago, Naomi got me this fantastic Earache Peel Sessions compilation. I had been waiting for it to come out, and she gave it to me for Christmas.  This 3-cd set is basically my grindcore scripture.  It could have a couple more UK bands on it that I really love, but it's about as good as it gets otherwise.  The CDs live in my car, and occasionally, when I'm looking for a change of pace, or to break out of the mp3 flash drive rut that I sometimes get into, I pop one of these suckers in for my old standby favorites.  Lately, I've been really digging on the Bolt Thrower tracks. 

One of the beautiful things about these Peel Sessions is that they sort of let the listener (me, in this case) get a peek behind the curtain of what was going on as these bands progressed, changed, or whatever between albums.  I was just a boy when this shit was happening, so I sure as hell wasn't there.

When I first received these CDs, I was familiar with the Napalm Death, Heresy, and Extreme Noise Terror, and Intense Degree Peel Sessions already.  So, I was really excited to dig into the Godflesh, Carcass, and Bolt Thrower sections.  Upon first listen, I wasn't really feeling the first bunch of Bolt Thrower tracks, and I quickly forgot about them, and favored some of the other discs in the set.  The thing about the first Bolt Thrower Peel Session was the vocals.  They're not what I know and love.  The vocals are way more punk sounding, not as deep, and definitely not angry sounding. They're more desperate than anything.  The one really cool thing in the first session (the In Battle...one) is that in the beginning of Attack in the Aftermath, the part with the toms (ugh, love me a bunch of toms!) is when the singer whispers  rise,  RISE, RISE BAABAA BAP BAAAAAAA.  That sends me into a frenzy every time!  Another thing I've come to appreciate in the first session is the drumming.  I love hearing the hi-hat going full-tilt in the background of all the songs chitCHITchitCHITchitCHIT.  The whole drum performance comes off more blasty than on the album.  I've come to accept the vocals, and these other few treats are enough for me. 

The second session really stands out to me.  I really really love Realm of Chaos.  It's a great compromise between grindcore and death metal, which is what grindcore is all about in my opinion.  I love the choppy blast beats, and how awful the guitars sound.  It's really murky, and some of the riffs are totally obscured by it all.  It's amazing to me to see that the dates for the first and second sessions were only 3 months apart.  It seems like a huge leap to change so much in song structure, guitar tuning, and vocal tone in such a short time.  Listening to the first two sessions back to back makes a little more sense out of the drumming, though.  It seems like a logical step to have so many blasts on the Realm of Chaos stuff as opposed to the earlier material.  On the album, the progression of World Eater, Drowned in Torment, Realm of Chaos and Prophet of Hatred is one of the best of anything I've ever heard.  With that in mind, I think the four songs that they chose for the second session were pretty good.  I love the part of Drowned in Torment where Karl sings through the catches and into the full riff with the drums that's on the album. On the Peel Session, he doesn't quite have the timing right yet or something, but I love how it came out.  I was never crazy about Eternal War, but this version sounds better to me.  It must be the way it's mixed or something.  Haven't quite figured that one out yet.  The big question mark is Domination.  Either I'm oblivious, or that song doesn't appear anywhere else.  Oh well.

Finally, the War Master-era Peel Session-  not crazy about this one.  I like the album pretty good, but the Peel Session isn't doing it for me, except maybe Lost Souls Domain.  This session doesn't really have any tasty morsels for me, but instead just sounds like the regular album stuff but maybe not quite as rehearsed or something.  The great thing about bands like Bolt Thrower is that if I overplay any one album at any given time, I can just listen to a different album from a different era without being sick of it.  Giving these Peel Sessions a listen this last week gave me a break from the recent spurt of listening to only Realm of Chaos. 

Krypts- Unending Degradation

About 6 months ago, my friend Nick told me that I should check out this band Krypts from Finland.  The last band that he told me about, Icon of Evil, was right up my alley so I checked out a few songs.  They ruled.  Nick was spot-on.  I tried for a while to chase down the Unending Degradation 12" to no avail.  Finally I gave up and bought the CD.  I think I got the CD in an order with some other cool(er?) stuff like the Timeghoul discography, and the Krypts CD finally got a listen.  I didn't get very far into the album and turned it off for whatever reason.  It didn't seem to suit my fancy any longer, and I couldn't figure out what it was that I had originally liked about it.

Months passed.  Then recently, Nick mentioned still wanting to get the album and I hastily told him not to bother.  I quickly retracted that statement and told him I'd spin it again and check it out more critically.  BOY AM I GLAD I DID.  I realized what it was about this stuff that gripped me initially, and what my problem was when I first received the CD.  I tend to still buy music somewhat impulsively despite being able to listen to full releases for free on the internet almost all of the time.  It's because that's how I've always done it, and there have been plenty of times where I'd listen to a whole album and then decide not to buy it.  That led to me not buying new music and getting stuck listening to the same old stuff all the time.  So, I decided to throw caution to the wind.  Sometimes, I still get stinkers, and sometimes I get sleepers- like this Krypts disc.  OK, so the intro and the first full track weren't doing it for me, basically at all.  It didn't have the tempo and the feel that I remembered from the tracks I previewed.  I left the CD on while I was washing dishes so I could get an uninterrupted listen and was likely not to change it if I got bored.  When the third track "Open the Crypt" came around, I started to remember what it was that I liked about this band.  Then the fourth track "Dormancy of the Ancients" kicked in, and it had all the stuff I like- plenty of chugging, gross bubbling vocals, and some murky leads that sounded like they were wafting from a submerged cave. 

The rest of the album continues in a similar fashion.  I've been listening to this pretty regularly for the last week or so after rediscovering it.  It seems silly that I couldn't get through those first two tracks and basically discarded this album for so many months.  So, cheers Nick!


All of this album is streaming on their bandcamp page if I remember correctly, and it's all on youtube, too.  For some reason I can't link to Dormancy of the Ancients like I wanted to, so go look it up yourself.