SEEN AND HEARD: BLACK CAP MINER, EXHUMED, COFFINS, AND TWO AUTHOR & PUNISHER REMIXES

Here’s a collection of selected items your humble editor witnessed and heard while stumbling around the interhole yesterday. As usual, the stuff is all over the musical map.

BLACK CAP MINER

Black Cap Miner is the side project of West Virginia vocalist/guitarist Chris Ojeda of the mighty Byzantine (whose 2013 release ought to get some kind of award for comeback album of the year). The objective of the project is to get you to headbang like it’s 1988. To be more precise, OJ and friends are recording covers of some old school thrash songs. But not just any songs, and not just any friends. Check out his list of guest performers:

JAMES MALONE (Arsis)
GREG BURGESS (Allegaeon)
TONY ROHRBOUGH (Byzantine)
JAY HANNON (Gizmachi)
KYLE THOMAS (Exhorder, Trouble)
CHRIS POLAND (Megadeth)
CHUCK BILLY (Testament)

I think a robust HOLY SHIT! is in order, don’t you?  I mean, not to take even one little thing away from Chris Ojeda, but that’s a mighty fine group of comrades to assemble for the recording of some thrash.

And here’s the list of songs that will be covered on the album:

ANNIHILATOR – Allison Hell
KREATOR – People of the Lie
MEGADETH – The Conjuring
TESTAMENT – Greenhouse Effect
VIOLENCE – World in a World
WRATHCHILD AMERICA – Climbin’ the Walls
EXHORDER – Legions of Death
NUCLEAR ASSAULT – Brainwashed
M.O.D. – True Colors

Chris Ojeda is a working man, and even labors of love come at a price, so he has set up a Black Cap Miner Indiegogo page in an effort to raise the relatively modest sum of $1,000 to make this album a reality. The funds will help pay for the cost of making CDs, shirts, and even a limited edition vinyl. In essence, contributions function as pre-orders for the album and related merch.

Yours truly has already made the pledge, and I’d encourage you to consider doing the same, because this thing has got sweetness written all over it. Go HERE to check out the donation options and show your support.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-Cap-Miner/203548156374298

 

EXHUMED

As you know, California carnivores Exhumed have a new album on the way. Entitled Necrocracy, it’s due for release by Relapse on August 6. Yesterday, the band premiered an official video (via Bloody-Disgusting) for one of the new songs, “Coins Upon The Eyes”. It’s a rollicking, thrashing, kidney-punching attack of high-speed death/grind that I found pretty irresistible.

The video is billed as NSFW, but not because it’s loaded with special-effects gore or gratuitous nudity. No, it’s just a montage of archival film footage showing the results of war-mongering and death-dealing by everyone from the Axis Powers in WWII to the current US president. Watch:

https://www.facebook.com/ExhumedOfficial/

 

COFFINS

Yesterday Terrorizer started a full-album stream of the new album The Fleshland by Japan’s Coffins, which comes out July 9 via Relapse. It’s one motherfuckin’ heavy death/doom beast and you should listen to it. That’s really all I have to say about this.

 

GORE TECH REMIXES AUTHOR & PUNISHER

This next thing is not usually my kind of thing, but it has at least temporarily re-ordered my neurons into a state of acceptance. It’s a re-mix of “Flesh Ants”, which is a track by Author & Punisher from his stupefying 2012 album Ursus Americanus. The remix was created by Gore Tech, out of Manchester in the UK. It will be released as part of a remix split EP with Bong-Ra on the Ad Noiseam label.

If I had any talent in remixing, which I don’t, I would be afraid to tackle “Flesh Ants”, or for that matter anything else by Author & Punisher. There would be a risk of having the A&P music turn on you and eat you alive, spitting out bone splinters like watermelon seeds. But Gore Tech bravely gives it the gas in an accelerated take on the original. The cover pretty much casts off the doom shroud and replaces it with a febrile ant swarm. Flesh is still eaten.

I decided to add the original right after the cover. I had some fun listening to them back-to-back. Hope you will, too.

P.S. I also found that Bong-Ra remix (or at least an edited version of it). It’s for another Ursus Americanus track, “Terrorbirds”. It punches many holes in the cranium, so I’m putting it down below, too.