Plague of Strength

When I was wrapping up the end of the last blog in this series, I knew I had left a bunch of shit out that I really wanted to get in, but figured I’d hold off a bit before hammering you guys with more of this stuff.  Alas, I can wait no longer, so here we go.  First of, I figured I’d fill you guys in on what is going on with Chaos and Pain LLC.  As most of you should already know, Cannibal Ferox and Inferno are both available for purchase over at www.chaosandpain.com.  We had innumerable problems with the Ferox, however, and so we’ve found an alternate vendor for production.  As such, we’r going to be launching two new products next month”

1. Cannibal Genius.  Genius is a nootropic blend combining 40mg of noopept with a variety of other, complementary traditional nootropics and acacia rigidula for a bit of pep in your step.  Time to ditch your amphetamines, because I’ve got that shit chumped with this fomula.
2. Cannibal Swole.  Swole is a no-stim pump product designed to be used along or in concert with Cannibal Ferox.  Frankly, I hate pump products, but I can guarantee this shit will give you a pump like you’ve never had before.  Go here and vote for which flavor you want us to make first!

With all of that corporate shit out of the way, here are a bunch of bands, books, and movies that are guaranteed to scare off any Jehovah’s Witnesses that might come calling this holiday season.

Music

Suicide Silence- The Black Crown
Though I liked their EP and one of Suicide Silence’s songs off their first album (and I think everyone can agree that you really can’t not dislike No Pity For A Coward), I found them to generally be somewhat uninspiring on the whole.  To make matters worse, their second album blew, and they supported it by touring Not so with their third album, which I just discovered simply because I wanted to see what all the hullabaloo was with replacing their original singer.  When MetalSucks gets excited enough to post a four second clip of the band jamming with their new singer, there has to be something to the band.  The Black Crown is that something.  Suicide Silence was, in my opinion, basically nu-metal repackaged as deathcore, but on this album they basically appear to have listened to Hatebreeed’s Satisfaction is the Death of Desire, taken the hardcore sentiments therein, and slapped a thick, brutal layer of deathcore on top.  What you end up with is some of the best fucking lifting music I’ve found since Annotations of an Autopsy’s last EP.  Not only that, but the album’s diverse enough to suit whichever mood you might have when you’re in the gym, be it the “fuck yeah I’m gonna lift some weights and fuck some sluts because I rule” or “I’m gonna smash every weight on Earth and burn this motherfucker to the ground when I’m done”.  It makes about as much sense as Robin Thicke’s continued existence to attempt to draw a comparison between Suicide Silence and Bulldoze, but SS is pretty much a repackaged Bulldoze for the new century- sometimes they bring the Beatdown and sometimes they remind you to Remember Who’s Strong.  For the metal snobs among you, give it this song at least 25 seconds, and bear in mind (Crom help us) that it has a fucking guitar solo in it.

Last Ten Seconds Of Life- Know Your Exits and Invivo[Exvivo]
At some point in 2008 or 2009, I was the sole white person living in a ghetto as fuck apartment complex I moved into sight unseen.  Around that time, I picked up Last Ten Seconds Of Life, and that album blasting out of my apartment and the occasional shirtless foray into the parking lot brandishing two sets of knucks and one or two bashed out car windows were the only thing that kept the fucking crack-dealing shitbirds from “gaffling” each other in front of my fucking window.  As such, I practically shit my pants when I stumbled on their newest full length and EP, as they’re both better than a K9 cop for getting gangbangers to scatter like roaches and make for an awesome soundtrack to a particularly hate-filled training session.  I don’t think I need to sell this band any more that.  Beatdown deathcore so brutal it makes gangbangers pull up their fucking pants and pretend to read books.

Nails- Abandon All Life
Like most people (I assume, as I don’t know all that many people), I go through very distinct phases with my music.  I’ll go through a deathcore phase, a beatdown phase, a dubstep phase, and on occasion, a grindcore/powerviolence/old school hardcore phase.  You might find the latter category a bit odd, as few people would lump those three genres together, but it’s my contention that what is now either characterized as grindcore or powerviolence is nothing more than the natural evolution of old school hardcore.  We’re not talking early 90s hardcore- we’re talking Bad Brains/Minor Threat/SS Decontrol style hardcore.  the kin of shit that was fast, angry, and technically proficient without being noodly.  All Nails did was add better distortion and make the shit way, way, way fucking meaner.  The result?  Fucking stab-your-mother-in-law-with-a-rusty-screwdriver-at-Christmas-dinner-for-her-awful-reindeer-sweater amazing.

Kublai Khan- Youth War
This is for those of you who appreciate my more unhoned tastes.  Kublai Khan’s not a glass of red at the end of a long working day- it’s a quadrupal shot of bum liquor at lunch you can’t shake off.  It’s the chick you fucked but didn’t really think was hot who keeps coming back to ruin your other romantic entanglements because she’s just that much of a dirty bitch and you can’t keep your dick out of her.  In other words, Kublia Khan is all that is good in life, with none of the guilt.  If you like Thy Art Is Murder, you’re going to love Kublai Khan more than chubby, pasty, middle aged white guys with mustaches like the feeling of the inside of a young boy’s anus.

Madchild- Lawnmower Man
What?  Rap?  Why?  Well, I’ll fucking tell you why.  Madchild is a former member of the group Swollen Members, he combines nerdcore and horrorcore rap, and his beats are fucking sick.  If you don’t like either of those genres, you’re likely a card carrying communist who only listens to patriotic marching music and old Propagandhi records… on vinyl, of course.  When you’ve got lyrics like this, you can only go wrong if you only take lefts when everywhere you have to go is on the right.

Books Of Which Baphomet Would Approve

Hogg by Samuel Delany
Though I highly doubt any of you will ever read this, I thought I’d put it on your radar only because this book was so fucked up it literally took me three years to finish it.  The protagonist, Hogg, is a contract rapist (yeah, people pay him and his gang to rape broads and dudes) who drags a 12 year old semi-sex-slave boy with him to participate in the festivities while he crosses the countryside raping, maiming, and killing a variety of people.  If nothing else, it’s worth reading just because you can say you did afterwards.

Vampires Overhead by Alan Hyder
I admit it- I generally loathe vampire books. Anne Rice, Twilight, etc, are all garbage in my book. To wit, the idea of a ravenous, blood thirsty semi-cannibal as a sexy creature of the night is simply a ridiculous subject for a book and generally ludicrous idea overall. This novel, however, written by a guy who’s basically an unknown pulp writer from the 30’s and takes vampires in an entirely different direction. The vampires in this book are sort of alien fire bats descend upon an unsuspecting Earth in hordes, draining every drop of moisture from people while setting everything ablaze. As such, Vampires Overhead is really more post-apocalypse than vampire novel as the vampires are totally alien creatures. If you’re looking for weak soft-core porn involving pasty faced Victorian-era Eastern Europeans, look elsewhere, but if you want a great account of a fanciful apocalypse, definitely give this a read.

Invasion by Eric L. Harry
It’s been a few years since I’ve read any of Eric L. Harry, but back in the day this guy was the king of the intelligent World War III novel.  This was perhaps the best of the bunch, in which China invades the US by sea and we have to fight back to push those fuckers into the ocean.  the tech in the book is believable if not currently extant, and the characters keep the story flowing.  If you, like me, like a good WW3 yearn, this one will sate your appetite, as they’re not really getting written much anymore.

Coming soon, more of the hormone series and a bit on how I have been training since my injury.  Keep it classy, motherfuckers.