Discharge Archives

The Metal Examiner: Harm’s Way’s Isolation

Every Friday, The Metal Examiner delves metal’s endless depths to present the genre’s most important and exciting albums.

Harm’s Way: Isolation (Closed Casket Activities, 7/5/11)

Harm’s Way: “New Beginnings”

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Though ostensibly affiliated with the hardcore scene, Harm’s Way has moved into the primitive, mid-paced territory of death-metal bands like Bolt Thrower and Asphyx. Originally formed in 2005 as a power-violence band in the vein of Crossed Out and Infest, Harm’s Way has become slower and more metallic with each of its releases. Isolation, its second full-length recording, is a definitive statement for the band, cementing its vision of the possibilities in heavy music.

Hardcore and metal have fed off of each other for decades. In the early and mid-1980s, Metallica, Celtic Frost, and other pioneering bands cited not only the new wave of British heavy metal as an influence, but also hardcore bands like Discharge. Since then, there has been a two-way street between the metal and hardcore communities, with New York-based hardcore bands like the Cro-Mags and Madball clearly borrowing ideas on heaviness from death-metal bands, and a band like Obituary claiming Merauder as an influence.

Behind the Counter: Hits and Misses (Toronto, Canada)

Each week, Behind the Counter speaks to an independent record store to ask about its recent favorites, best sellers, and noteworthy trends.

If you’re into rare vinyl, punk music, and a truly diverse selection, Hits and Misses Records in Toronto, Canada is the place to be. Owner Peter Genest is a veteran of the record-store scene, having opened shops in Portland and Seattle in the ’90s before making the move up to Toronto. We spoke with Genest to see how the Canadian metropolis stacks up against his former Pacific Northwest haunts, and to find out which records the store has been spinning the most lately.

Which albums has your store sold the most over the past month?

Hands down, the OFF! box set
The first two Discharge LPs reissued on vinyl
The Forgetters: s/t double 7″
Urban Blight: Total War 7″ (local hardcore band)
The Cramps: Memphis Poseurs
The Parting Gifts: Strychnine Dandelion
White Wires: WW II
Cocksparrer: Shock Troops reissue
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart: Heart In Your Heartbreak 7″
Iron Lung: Life. Iron Lung. Death.

What are some of your favorite new records?

The Queers: Back To The Basement
Wheels On Fire: Liar Liar
Motörhead: The World Is Yours
OFF!: s/t box set
Protex: Strange Obsessions
Ceremony: Rohnert Park
Demon’s Claws: The Defrosting Of…
Nine Pound Hammer: Country Classics

The Metal Examiner: Inquisition’s Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm

Every Friday, The Metal Examiner delves metal’s endless depths to present the genre’s most important and exciting albums.

Inquisition: Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm (Hell’s Headbangers, 1/11/2011)

Inquisition: “Crepuscular Battle Hymn”

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Initially formed as a thrash band in the ’80s in Colombia, Inquisition developed a buzz-saw, black-metal sound by the mid-’90s while simultaneously relocating to Washington. Its trademark became lightning-speed, grinding power chords and an atmosphere of ritualistic Satanism.

Since Into the Infernal Regions of the Ancient Cult in 1998, Inquisition has stuck to its sound with a Motörhead-like tenacity. Its newest effort, Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm, is its strongest output since Magnificent Glorification of Lucifer in 2004.

Q&A: Tom Warrior of Celtic Frost, Triptykon, and Hellhammer

Tom Gabriel Warrior has produced extreme metal since the early 1980s, first with seminal groups Hellhammer and Celtic Frost and now with Triptykon. In this question-and-answer session, columnist Todd Nief chats with the frontman about authenticity in music, beer cans in thrash metal, and the effect of happiness on extreme-metal composition.

Triptykon: “I am the Twilight”
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[Triptykon’s] Shatter EP and Eparistera Daimones LP are part of the same body of creative work. Can you comment on what you’re trying to accomplish with this, be it an emotional agenda, a political agenda, or any or all of the above?

Probably all of the above, but on this first album, it’s predominantly emotional. Of course, the sessions from the first album reflect some of the turmoil that existed when I left Celtic Frost. There’s no way around it. There’s some social commentary in songs such as “Goetia,” but, by and large, it’s my own feelings about leaving Celtic Frost, leaving my own band, leaving the summary of my life behind in a forced manner.

Nobody’s forced to read the lyrics; nobody’s forced to read the liner notes. We provide very detailed information, but by no means are you required to read all that. Music is music at the end of the day, and with music, you should create your own images in your head. I think it’s perfectly possible to listen to Triptykon without dealing with the lyrics or the liner notes. The music is intense and dark enough.

When I was a teenage fan, I didn’t speak English so well, so I just listened and the music created its own images in my head, and that’s the way it should be. It’s probably better that way.