Fuck me, there is a LOT of music out in the world.
Friends, it has been a few months since we fucked our Friday together. Our mission here at Fancy Yarn Factories & Fuck You Fridays has not changed: to present you, the savvy, luminous listener, with sincere musical recommendations made insouciantly, if not insincerely. Sometimes there is a theme to these recommendations but mostly there is not and mostly they happen on a Friday but sometimes they do not and what business of it is yours anyway?
Speaking of business, the vibe of Fuck You Friday (On A Monday This Day) is like a reverse mullet: party in the front, business in the back, except the party is a couple of alleycats fighting over a half-melted pistachio ice cream cone, and the business is like, what if you tried to sell phonebooks from 1987 out of the back of your uncle’s Geo Metro? We’re doing great here, thank you very much.
Fuck you, why not go listen to some of THIS music?
Grozov – Bedeviled
If you are the sort of person who looks at a band called Grozov and wonders exactly which Klingon NPC from a buggy late-90s Star Trek computer game they took their name from, then friend I think there is AT LEAST a 500% chance you are also the sort of person who will love the rickety racket that this Philadelphia band makes on their tremendous debut album.
Grozov plays a raw, crude, rickety, speedy, shreddy, traddy sort of proto-thrash on Bedeviled, and I mean they play it ALL OVER. Depending on how you point your ears at it, maybe it sounds like early Iron Maiden, or maybe like Hammers of Misfortune’s Bastard, or maybe like Slough Feg via fellow filthy Filadelphians Morgul Blade, or maybe like Slayer’s Show No Mercy crashing into Christian Mistress’s Agony & Opium, or maybe even a little bit like if somehow Cirith Ungol’s Frost and Fire had a urethra and you tucked a black/thrash firecracker up in there?
The good and true thing here is that no, Grozov doesn’t actually really sound like any of that. Grozov sounds like a new thing from a lot of awesome old things. Can’t that be enough for you? Fold your hands, child, you walk like a fucking peasant.
Myaelin – The Obligatory State of Agonizing Existence
First of all, please notice that even though the band is called MYaelin and not YOURaelin I am sharing it with you so that it can be OURaelin. The Belgian group makes dizzyingly psychedelic, wholly improvised, bad trip jams exclusively, and on this trio outing the instrumentation howling into the void is bass, drums, keys, and voice. These are hypnotic, undulating trances that nibble at your sanity like a dainty dog at a tray of snacks not quite pushed far back enough on the kitchen counter: you want to yell, “No! Bad!” but they’re just so cute and also you know it’s mostly your own fault.
More to no point, with “Night at the Museum of Exceptionally Exciting Flesh Rituals,” I am thrilled that someone finally had the guts to hoist a proper “fuck you!” to the goddamn Museum Of Just Basically Regular Flesh Rituals. This might not be metal and it’s probably not jazz but it’s also definitely not a cucumber sandwich cut into tiny triangles so please stop trying to put this digital product into your mouth. Fair warning, though, that if you catch the Myaelin bug, there are close to 50 other full-length jam-nightmares to spiral into, so it might just end up being the fucking life pursuit.
Squelch – Eternal Hiss of Hatred
If you ask me, there aren’t enough bands out there whose names are onomatopoeia. Where is Squish? Slurp? OOUGH? Woof? Snort? Where is the Wolverine-themed band Snikt?
Squelch is a new duo from California, and on this debut demo they play a dry, transparently gnarly sort of caveperson death metal. Especially worthy of your time and esteem is the booming thud of vocalist/drummer Rowe’s bass kick, which sounds exactly like the muffled flup of a band sound-checking from inside a rock club while you’re outside in the alley with your friends on a smoke break even though you don’t smoke because ♪♪ your body is a wonderland ♪♪.
In these 20 minutes, we’ve got most of the essentials: riffs, thuds, gurrrrrrrrrrms, a swooningly dank atmosphere. I am a simple man and these are enough of the simple things I need. With a title like “Repugnant Transfiguration,” it’s heartening to know Squelch is on the case of clarifying what kind of transfigurations they’re interested in, but with tones this dialed-in, they could just write about fucking love and I’d squelch along.
Boarhammer – II: Chemognosis – A Shortcut to Mushrooms
Here’s the thing. I’m not here to nitpick. (I am.) But, is it a hammer that one only uses on boars? Is it a hammer made from a boar? Is it a machine for making ham out of boar? These are the questions that unpopular children everywhere are asking.
Boarhammer the band is from Germany and I do not think any of their instruments are made out of pigs or hammers but I cannot be certain. Chemognosis, across its eight blazing, rollicking, wheezing tracks, vibrates on a similar weirdo frequency to first-wave black metal oddballs like Root and Master’s Hammer alongside several eras of Darkthrone and early Malokarpatan.
The vocals are a rambling, cantankerous holler that might sound a little like Aura Noir or Urfaust or even Furze but if you find yourself at the spoken word section on “Tree Transvection” and wondering just who in the hell it kind of sounds like, take a look in the mirror and whisper “…Shrek.” You might be mad, but you won’t be wrong. If riffy, ritually psychedelic first-wave black metal grooves are your jam, then Boarhammer can be your peanut butter. And if you don’t want to mess with any of the high-falutin concept stuff, all of this is just a modern fucking rock song.
Axiomatic Dematerialization – Absolute Elimination of Existence
Imagine, if you will, an international competition that brings together athletes from every country – each at the top of their game. Fierce rivalries, nail-biting finishes, interpersonal bonhomie in the midst of geopolitical turmoil. Let us assume that you guessed 100% correctly along with me: friends, it’s the Slamlympics. We’ve got all your favorite events, too – the 400m Hurtles, the Sewer Slalom, the Low-End Luge, the BREEBREEBREElay Race, the Hammer(Smashed Face) Throw.
New to this year’s games is Russia’s (of course) Axiomatic Dematerialization. The Muscovite trio hits just about every convention of contemporary technical/brutal slamming death metal perfectly, from the toilet gurgles to the constipated Godzilla stomping to the malfunctioning garbage disposal bass guitar to the drums like the Gutenberg printing press desperately trying to clank out one last copy of Chicken Soup for the Idiot’s Soul before being melted down to scrap. It’s loud and fast and clear and thick and about as subtle as a 50-pound bag of grout shot from a cannon directly into your sternum.
On the lyrical front, so much brutal death metal often comes up with topics that distill to “boys in wartime want to fuck,” but Axiomatic Dematerialization writes technological and existential themes that are equally rude and destructive to people of all identities. Time enough, I think, that we had such excellent slams for when girls in peacetime want to fucking dance.
Lucera – Satanass
Synaesthetes aside, you ever wonder if music has a smell? The band Lucera (originally from Colombia but now based in the U.S.) plays music that smells terrible, I’m pretty sure. Lucera’s crude, intentionally regressive proto-black/death metal reeks of first wave black metal, black/thrash, South American war metal, so if your Bingo card is missing things like Beherit and Bathory and Hellhammer and Morbosidad, it’s about to get filled. Put it a different way, Lucera plays goat metal – there’s such a sweaty, horny, goat-y aura around Satanass (yes, this is the real name, yes, this is why and how we are here) that it’s a wonder the album hasn’t set up an OnlyRams account and started dabbling in hoof stuff.
With their emphasis on crusty doom riffs and charismatic vocals, Lucera evokes a sort of degenerate porno mag version of recent Darkthrone, and if that doesn’t sound wonderful then I just don’t understand what butters your biscuit, friend. After just a few minutes sinking into the willful sleaze of Satanass, you’ll be surprised that you haven’t already heard your idiot friend Gasmask Joe jabbering about the NWN! die-hard edition that he had to work double shifts at the Yankee Candle Company to pay for. If you’re feeling fucking sinister, pal, plant your flag with Satanass.
No Men – Fear This
First off, maybe you’re the kind of sore-head who’d like to cry foul because Fear This was first released in 2023 and is only now pinging this writing knuckle-jug’s radar because of an LP reissue. No Men is fair game here, though, because just like an African antelope carrying a high-end suitcase, it’s all gnu Tumi. (Yes, I will see myself out.)
This Chicago trio plays a tumbling, hypnotic sort of riot grrrl-influenced noise rock, and on Fear This, Steve Albini’s recording puts every twist and thump front and center. No Men’s unusual instrumental setup gives them a potent focus, with bassist DB’s six-string bass the only stringed instrument, backed by Eric on full-kit drums and vocalist Pursley doubling up on extra snare and toms. Sitting with Fear This at unwise volumes is a little like standing in the rippling tunnel of air formed by a powerful jet engine, which is to say – obviously – it’s awesome. Tune into No Men for Shellac or Sleater-Kinney vibes, for early PJ Harvey raw grunge-y power, for the idea of Siouxsie Sioux fronting a slow-motion Unsane, or (on heavier tunes like the standout “Proper Roach) an alternate take on sludge in the vein of Jucifer, Divide and Dissolve, or Mares of Thrace.
If none of that lands with you, then I need to return to a bit of fucking previous wisdom and call you a sore-head. Why bother with being so disagreeable when all of us on this precariously spinning rock are just like the rabbit playing around with Wilhelm Reich’s experimental psychotherapeutic invention: hare today, orgone tomorrow.
