I’m always surprised by how little I like Kreator’s ’90s releases. ’87’s Terrible Certainty is one of my faves, right up there with Slayer’s Reign in Blood.
With a pedigree this impressive, you can imagine this reporter’s frothy drool upon seein’ some ads around trumpeting the forthcoming Knoxville Girls release.
A breath of fresh air in an angrier-than-thou biz. Like The Donnas is/was to punk, Kittie bring youthful exuberance to a genre that speaks to angry youth.
Half Japanese, half American hardcore, many of the names here are familiar, and the others are the Japanese bands that make this comp worth listening to.
How better to offer tribute to a band that criss-crossed punk, hardcore, metal, and reggae than to have a long and diverse comp that’s practically unlistenable?
As usual, there’re a few moments of beauty, and a lot of bands you’ve never heard of doing covers of songs that were just fine before they touched them.
It’s good to hear traditional hardcore punk rock, especially since punk rock has turned into peppy pop and hardcore has turned into poorly-written metal.
As if Kiss weren’t enough of a parody, here’s the Dwell Records treatment of Kiss classics, as performed by mediocre death’n’growl bands you’ve never heard of.