Nailbomb - Point Blank (1994) + Proud to Commit Commercial Suicide (1995)

Nailbomb was a short-lived side project of Max Cavalera of Sepultura (and a bunch of shitty bands) and Alex Newport of the perennially underrated Fudge Tunnel. Point Blank is their only studio album, and it's fucking brutal. It's a great mix of sludgy industrial pain and straight-ahead, heavy thrash/groove metal. Proud to Commit Commercial Suicide, a well-recorded live album, documents Nailbomb's first and last show, and tacks on a couple of previously unreleased studio tracks. Awesomely, they cover Doom's "Expolitation" and Dead Kennedys' "Police Truck". I couldn't decide which record to post -- Point Blank is way more essential, but Proud to Commit Commercial Suicide is harder to find -- so I went with both.

Track listing:
-Point Blank-
1. Wasting Away
2. Vai Toma No Co
3. 24-Hour Bullshit
4. Guerillas
5. Blind and Lost
6. Sum of Your Achievements
7. Cockroaches
8. For Fuck's Sake
9. World of Shit
10. Exploitation
11. Religious Cancer
12. Shit Piñata
13. Sick Life
-Proud to Commit Commercial Suicide-
1. Wasting Away
2. Guerillas
3. Cockroaches
4. Vai Toma No Cu
5. Sum of Your Achievements
6. Religious Cancer
7. Police Truck [Dead Kennedys cover]
8. Exploitation [Doom cover]
9. World of Shit
10. Blind and Lost
11. Sick Life
12. While You Sleep, I Destroy Your World
13. Zero Tolerance

Throw it all away and destroy it all

James Ferraro - Cold (2013)

Desolate, warped electro R&B. Slow, industrial beats, stuttering samples, and autotune/pitchshifting abuse make for the kind of music that an android might make while strung out after a two-week, molly- and blow-fueled bender.

Track listing:
1. Intro
2. Fade
3. Blood Flow
4. E178 TH
5. Light Skinned
6. Dove
7. Sentinel
8. Slave to Rain
9. Coda (Let Me Burn)
10. Gargoyles
11. Plated
12. Tinted Windows
13. Rata
14. C Lord
15. Turned Opp
16. Vapor Weight
17. Outro

Hell

Klaus Schulze - Shadowlands (2013)

Synth music legend Klaus Schulze's forty-first solo studio album. Two and a half hours of pulsing synths punctuated by Thomas Kagermann's violin, flute, and vocals, as well as vocal contributions from Lisa Gerrard, Australian singer Julia Messenger, and femme fatale Chrysta Bell, whose album I posted the other day. At such a length, and with only subtle variation in sound, Shadowlands undoubtedly requires patience, but, given the proper mindset, it can take you to strange and beautiful places.

Track listing:
-Disc One-
1. Shadowlights
2. In Between
3. Licht und Schatten
-Disc Two-
1. The Rhodes Violin
2. Tibetan Loops

At the angle of an angel

Malvery - Mortal Entrenchment in Requiem (1999)

The first and only official record from Quebec's Malvery, Mortal Entrenchment in Requiem is one of the most singularly bizarre black metal records I've come across. Ever-shifting, seemingly stream-of-consciousness tremolo picking, nervous, almost jazzy drumming, and a harrowing, theatrical vocal performance -- made all the more chilling by the fact that the man behind it, Amer LeChâtier, committed suicide shortly after the album came out -- that runs the gamut from hushed rasps to high-pitched shrieks to aggressive howls to pained, semi-operatic groans.

Track listing:
1. As Drowning Came from Horizon
2. Drowned in a Dried-Up Lake
3. Suicide the Only Solution
4. I Am the Prophet of Fatality
5. L'Hysterie
6. Incantation Hysterique

It is the most sordid, the cruellest
That which makes the shores pile up
Illusion drinks of what it will lose

Inferi - Shores of Sorrow (2006)

Slow, melancholic Finnish black metal. Simple drum patterns, tortured vocals, and thick layers of acoustic, clean, and distorted guitars. Very much in tune with the Burzum school of black metal. Great music for sitting around wallowing in the infinite misery of human life, or just for listening to while you get high.

Track listing:
1. To the Once So Sad World
2. Dance of Shadows
3. Burned
4. What Once Shined

Surfin' on down to the shores of sorrow

Vardan - Lifeless Shadow (2013)

Some truly painful, raw, depressive black metal by way of Italy. Lifeless Shadows is one of three LPs that Vardan released last year, each of which represents a perfectly pure, minimalistic distillation of DBM -- mournful leads repeat endlessly over two-chord riffs, drums plod along like a funeral march, and vocals hang overhead like lost spirits in agony. Still, through all this morbidity, it's nice to be treated to an ESL classic the likes of "Self-Destruction Feelings".

Track listing:
1. Unpurity
2. Spirit Without a Body
3. Self-Destruction Feelings
4. Lifeless Shadows

Living my funeral

Chrysta Bell - This Train (2011)

An album of darkly alluring, hypnotic, Americana-infused dream pop. Yes, it is produced by David Lynch, whose haunted compositions always sound better when fronted by tragic, emotive chanteuses (see also: "Pinky's Dream", "I'm Waiting Here", Julee Cruise's first two records). Really stoked on this one, can't believe it took me so long to hear about it!

Track listing:
1. This Train
2. Right Down to You
3. I Die
4. Swing with Me
5. Angel Star
6. Friday Night Fly
7. Down by Babylon
8. Real Love
9. Bird of Flames
10. Polish Poem
11. The Truth Is

I got a glow on me, baby
Glow on me, baby
When you hold me tight

The Professionals - I Didn't See It Coming (1981)

The Professionals were formed by Steve Jones and Paul Cook shortly after the breakup of the Sex Pistols. Following an aborted first album, they completed I Didn't See It Coming, a should-be classic album of anthemic, pop-leaning punk rock. This reissue includes a bunch of singles, B-sides, and songs from the incomplete first album.

Track listing:
1. The Magnificent
2. Payola
3. Northern Slide
4. Friday Night Square
5. Kick Down the Doors
6. Little Boys in Blue
7. All the Way
8. Crescendo
9. Madhouse
10. Too Far to Fall
11. Just Another Dream (bonus)
12. Kamikaze (bonus)
13. 1-2-3 (bonus)
14. Mods, Skins, Punks (bonus)
15. Join the Professionals (bonus)
16. Has Anybody Got an Alibi (bonus)
17. White Light/White Heat (bonus)
18. (You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care (bonus)

It's just a matter of losing
An everyday sort of thing

Gigan - The Order of the False Eye (2008)

Chaotic, dissonant tech-death. Don't be fooled, though, as Gigan's style of tech-death is way less about trying to wow you with pointless displays of technical prowess (read: noodling) than it is about generating a gigantic, swirling, cacophonous atmosphere of clashing, slippery riffs and quasi-melodies. Features Erik Hersemann (ex-Hate Eternal) on bass, guitars, and synths.

Track listing:
1. Undead Auditory Emanations
2. Occult Rites of the Uumpluuy
3. Still Image Symphony
4. Imprisoned within Duality
5. Hiding Behind the House of Mirrors
6. Chrysalis
7. Interstellar Inversion of Consciousness
8. Space Coffin Hallucinations
9. [Secret track, sshhhh, don't tell!!!]

In the tentacled grasp of a buried behemoth

Andrew Hill - Black Fire (1963)

Pianist Andrew Hill's classic second LP. Over fifty years after its release, Black Fire still sounds fresh and exploratory. Some of the best music, right here.

Track listing:
1. Pumpkin
2. Subterfuge
3. Black Fire
4. Cantarnos
5. Tired Trade
6. McNeil Island
7. Land of Nod
8. Pumpkin (Alternate Take)
9. Black Fire (Alternate Take)

Dedication

Tad - God's Balls (1989)

Tad were one of the best and heaviest of the OG Seattle grunge bands. God's Balls was their first full-length, and it's about as grunge as it gets.

Track listing:
1. Behemoth
2. Pork Chop
3. Helot
4. Tuna Car
5. Sex God Missy (Lumberjack Mix)
6. Cyanide Bath
7. Boiler Room
8. Satan's Chainsaw
9. Hollow Man
10. Nipple Belt
11. Ritual Device (bonus)

I'm just a pork chop, baby
That's all I'll ever be

Michael Shrieve - Stiletto (1989)

Previously on OPIUM HUM
Stomu Yamashta, Steve Winwood, & Michael Shrieve - Go (1976)
Michael Shrieve & David Beal - The Big Picture (1988)
Michael Shrieve & Steve Roach - The Leaving Time (1989)

Stiletto is a first-rate album, led by drummer Michael Shrieve, of icy, atmospheric jazz that would have sounded right at home on ECM. Fans of Terje Rypdal will appreciate the shimmering, swelling guitar work of David Torn, an incredible guitarist whose work I really should have posted on here by now. Also, if you haven't already, I highly recommend checking out The Leaving Time, Shrieve's collaboration with Steve Roach, which I have linked above.

Track listing:
1. Scratch
2. Moon Over You
3. Las Vegas Tango
4. Gauguin's Regret
5. Stiletto
6. Four Winds
7. Bella Coola

The invisible architect

The Fits - You're Nothing, You're Nowhere (1982)

Punk.

Track listing:
1. Nothing and Nowhere
2. Too Many Rules
3. Disease
4. Man at Dawn
5. Cat's Dinner
6. Prostitute
7. Makes Me Wanna
8. I Don't Need It
9. The Time Is Right
10. You Named Us
11. Jumpin' Jack Flash
12. Listen to Me
13. Straps

The end

Millie Jackson - It Hurts So Good (1973)

I've had a bunch of shit going on, not the least of which is graduating from ye olde community college, so the dumb music blog has gone on the backburner. But while I have a minute, here's an excellent gem of melancholic but funky old school soul.

Track listing:
1. I Cry
2. Hypocrisy
3. Two-Faced World
4. It Hurts So Good
5. Don't Send Nobody Else
6. Hypocrisy (Reprise)
7. Good to the Very Last Drop
8. Help Yourself
9. Love Doctor
10. Now That You Got It
11. Close My Eyes
12. Breakaway (Reprise)

Cause, baby, these things you're doing to me
It hurts so bad but it's worth all the misery

Steve Tibbetts - The Fall of Us All (1994)

The Fall of Us All is the album that introduced me to the wondrous world of Steve Tibbetts, and it's still probably my favorite in his catalogue, as well as his darkest, most intense album. The first half of the album is all thunderous percussion, wailing guitars, and wordless choral vocals, then the bottom falls out, and the music slow burns through to the brilliant, wandering "Travel Alone".

Track listing:
1. Dzogchen Punks
2. Full Moon Dogs
3. Nyemma
4. Formless
5. Roam and Spy
6. Hellbound Train
7. All for Nothing
8. Fade Away
9. Drinking Lesson
10. Burnt Offering
11. Travel Alone

Burning temple

Steven R. Smith - Owl (2008)

Grainy, droning guitars and simple but forceful vocals. Humid, ritualistic sounds for nature worship.

Track listing:
1. Across the Flats
2. The Pity of All Things
3. Bindery
4. Whistling
5. The Tree King
6. Cleft
7. O, Blessed Night Your Sunrise Has Burned Me Down
8. In Light
9. Upon

This is the world we know

Alice Donut - Bucketfulls of Sickness and Horror in an Otherwise Meaningless Life (1989)

It's a beautiful day, I'm stuck inside half-assedly working on a stupid essay for a stupid American history course, and someone in my Facebook feed just posted "My Life Is a Mediocre Piece of Shit", which really resonates with me right now. Jaded, noisy, but strangely melodic punk rock for those times when every little thing in your life is a drag.

1/6/24 update: Listening to this LP and realized that the chorus of "What's in My Head?" -- the signature song of Ty Segall's band Fuzz -- is practically identical to the bridge on "Dorothy". It's not the most uncommon chord progression, and I know these things often happen unintentionally, but goddamn.

Track listing:
1. Lydia's Black Lung
2. Testosterone Gone Wild
3. Sinead O'Connor on TV
4. Dorothy
5. Sky of Bones
6. Egg
7. Consumer Decency
8. My Life Is a Mediocre Piece of Shit
9. Incinerator Heart
10. Buckets, Forks, Pock
11. Demonologist
12. Lisa's Father (Waka Baby)

Pregnant with a fascist baby

Unholy Crucifix - Black Mass Metal (2012)

Simplistic, raw, beastly black metal. Nearly constant blasting and tremolo picking, caveman riffs, ghoulish vocals. Tracks 1-9 are studio tracks, the rest are even rawer rehearsal tracks. And unfortunately, as much as I wanted it to be, the last track is not a Pink Floyd cover.

Track listing:
1. Introcation Ceremony
2. Black Mass Metal
3. Iniquity Flames
4. Ram
5. Defiled Temples
6. Befoulment of Sacrament
7. Ritual
8. Impurity Crown
9. Chaosatanic Outromancy
10. Desecration Priest
11. Ritual
12. Befoulment of Sacrament
13. Sadosatyrical Slavegoat
14. Impurity Crown
15. In the Flesh

Nurture the entrails of sacrificed children
Pentagram blaze in the heavens
Conjuration of damnation and blackness
Angel rapes angel in the pit of desecration

Kate Bush - The Kick Inside (1978)

My lady is performing at a Kate Bush tribute event next week, so I've been listening to a bunch of Bush's stuff, and keep coming back to her first LP, The Kick Inside. It's not as musically adventurous as The Dreaming or Hounds of Love, which I'm going to assume you've already heard; it's more like a prog-ish take on 70s pop/rock. But it's a remarkable record in its own right -- pretty much every song is mixtape worthy -- and possibly the most unfortunately overlooked record in her catalogue.

Track listing:
1. Moving
2. The Saxophone Song
3. Strange Phenomena
4. Kite
5. The Man with the Child in His Eyes
6. Wuthering Heights
7. James and the Cold Gun
8. Feel It
9. Oh, to Be in Love
10. L'Amour Looks Something Like You
11. Them Heavy People
12. Room for the Life
13. The Kick Inside

James, come on home
You've been gone too long, baby
We can't let our hero die alone

Magnum - Fully Loaded (1974)

How 'bout some soulful, funky, psychedelic, mind-expanding tunes on a sunny June day? Put this on a playlist, grab some intoxicants, and get somewhere nice. This I command.

Track listing:
1. Evolution
2. Your Mind
3. Natural Juices
4. It's the Music That Makes Us Do It
5. Witch Doctor's Brew
6. Funky Junky
7. Composition Seven

Regeneration across the nation

The One - I, Master (2008)

Greek black metal. Hoarse clean vocals, deranged solos, and a dramatically evil, cacophonous atmosphere.

Track listing:
1. I
2. II
3. III
4. IV
5. V
6. VI

Lustful, abnormal images that captivate the reflection of death

The Church - Hologram of Baal (1998)

Been listening to this one a lot the past few days. If you know the Church, you know what to expect -- glistening guitars and dark, dream-like lyrics, the sound of painkillers and a star-filled sky -- and if not, this is as good an entry point as any. I'm including the bonus disc, Bastard Universe, which consists of a single, extended instrumental jam that's divided into six sections.

Track listing:
-Hologram of Baal-
1. Anaesthesia
2. Ricochet
3. Louisiana
4. The Great Machine
5. No Certainty Attached
6. Tranquility
7. Buffalo
8. This Is It
9. Another Earth
10. Glow-Worm
-Bastard Universe-
1. Stage One
2. Stage Two
3. Stage Three
4. Stage Four
5. Stage Five
6. Stage Six

It was so pleasant, incandescent
It's over now
We should get going