All posts by vladkraykulla

Active member of alternative underground scene and culture since early 1990-ies. Underground is a way of life!
Reviews

(review) Niederwelt – Deus Magnus

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Niederwelt are an entity hailing from Saxony, Germany and this is their second full length opus. This one contains kind of intro plus six songs. The music is raw black metal but with lots of atmospheric parts, slower doomy rolling parts and tortured screams mixing with angry screaming, whispering, even coughing in awesome and desperate Cult Of The Rising Moon. This may be called depressive black metal, but it is in fact atmospheric black with doom elements. Lyrics are in English and deal with apocalypse, surviving after the destruction, personal fighting with inner demons through prism of entity who questions its own humanity. Songs are rather long but they do not get boring in any case. One of my personal favorite is aggressive and blasting From The Ashes, which reminded me a lot of old school nineties Norse black metal influences, especially old Mayhem, circa Deathcrush era. But, for me the most epic on this opus is Reincarnation, long epic song with ritualistic guitar melody, thundering drums, chanting monk like clean vocals and that old school production and vibe that many black metal bands lack these days. Repetition Of Sins slows down things a bit into more doomy regions but it is such a powerful guitar riff coupled with vocal growls. Great stuff. Not to discover just all, check this one out!

8/10

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books, Reviews

(fanzine review) Out Of The Darkness – #12

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Out Of The Darkness fanzine is no stranger to the pages of this zine, because this is one of the rare hardcore punk fanzines still standing strong in this regional scene, namely from Serbia. Led by veterans of the scene, helped with couple of younger forces, this machine gets better from number to number, being one of my all time favorite fanzines besides long gone Tri Drugara, Ponos provincije and Lifeline, speaking of fanzines from this region. This number twelve brings excellent interview with Fistra, long time scene lifer, I know him from 1995 when he was singing in Verbalni Delikt, later on in AK-47 and Ljubiša Samardžić, now the interview is based on history, but also on his work with new band called Sukob, whose review you were able to read in this zine a while ago. Also, there are couple of interviews that I read, but they do not stand in memory as great, but I must also mention interview with Felix, singer of The Truth, about label Mad Schnauzer Records. Excellent, informative and inspiring. There is also beautiful special about Fugazi gigs in Yugoslavia and later on in ex Yugoslavia, great Vipera/Rules tour report, couple of columns and gig reports, also reviews. This one only proofs what I said above. How great this fanzine really is. Review of number 13 coming soon.

books

(book) Marc Spitz – Nobody likes you: inside the turbulent life, time and music of Green Day

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This one was written by late great journalist and publicist Marc Spitz who passed away in 2017. When I bought this book I actually wanted to learn more about phenomenon of Green Day, their success, rise and almost fall and then rise back. Most of all I wanted to find out an answer to my question, are they still punk or aren’t they? How much does it take to ‘sell out’ and betray the scene and ideals, did they really or is it just a mantra that is always present in this our little punk hardcore scene. Is signing up to major label betrayal? How much does it take to compromise and change your music due to request from your label bosses and men in corporate suits?

Well, this book is biography of this band, from their starts and playing at Berkeley, California and first two albums and history with legendary pop punk label Lookout Records, whose main man Larry Livermore says a lot about in this book. Besides main three protagonists, Billie Joe, Mike and Tre, lots of other punk scene alumni say a lot in this book, for example Fat Mike(Nofx/Fat Wreck), Brett Gurewitz(Bad Religion/Epitaph Records) and many more. Then of course there are major label years from Dookie to almost falling out and break up prior to first concept pop punk opera, album American Idiot, with this album this book also ends up, although there are couple of years and albums after that made this band still arena attraction. What I would like more is anecdotes from touring and some unknown and weird/funny stuff. There are couple situations here in the book like infamous Woodstock 94 mud show, trouble with shitting on balcony and beef and eternal war with The Offspring of which I would certainly like to find out more. But, did I find out the answers from the beginning of this review? Yes and no. Are they still punk? Yes and no in my opinion. They definitely kept their punk roots mixed with pop influences that Billie Joe had since his early childhood when he recorded his first single as a five year boy. Is signing to major betrayal? I would not do that with my band because there are enough let’s call them underground major labels like Fat Wreck, Epitaph and couple more to stay on them an keep your integrity. Are Green Day band with couple of anthological pop punk albums and hits, also with couple of crappy ones? Yes they are. Okay book, but nothing really insightful.

3/5