Von Cosel - The Yarmouth Telegram EP

Year: 2005
Genre: Screamo
Label: Self-released
Note: Sorry for the sudden halt in updates. I don't really have much of an excuse for it too. It's been days of procrastinating or finding other, more preferred things to do. I've been doing a lot of writing for ACRN.com, my blog (which I also need to update), and I've been all over the place. The break stops now... for the time being.

Looking at this album cover immediately took me back to the sweltering summer of 2005. My friend and I checked out a nearby battle of the bands thanks to another friend of mine - on whom I had a small crush at the time. Also around this time was my obsession with anything on Robotic Empire, Level Plane, and Ebullition records. So I jump out of my friend's SUV and practically ran to the stage when I heard this band play midway through their set. They had everyone encircle them and flail around like it was some Hot Cross show, I thought. I was pretty stoked because the high school music scene in my town had no knowledge of this spectrum of music, except for metal and jam bands. Anyways, long story short I booked them in Athens five months later and they broke up sometime afterward. From the ashes of Von Cosel came Landmine/Enzuigiri, the drummer's current project that has a heavier, yet similar, style to the former. They have a demo under the former name (Landmine), which you can download here, and pre-orders for the new 7" can be purchased here or on the drummer's blog.

Songs on The Yarmouth Telegram EP are poorly recorded, but I know there are some curious Von Cosel fans out there who have been looking long and hard for their other releases, other than the "xJKx" song featured on the Emo Armageddon comp - which is also included in this package. If you're down for some screamo and/or want to know where Enzuigiri came from, then download this shit.

The Track listings:
1. Weapons of Math Instructions
2. I Survived Extreme Bible Burning School
3. Become New
4. Crucified on a Cross of Spiders
5. When Model Trains Become Monorails
6. The Yarmouth Telegrams
*7. xJKx (from Emo Armageddon comp)
*8. A Hand at Cards (though labeled "It's OK" in package from some reason) unreleased track

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Rika's Holiday Mix 2009

As posted on my blog: It's not a straightforward holiday mix, but I tried to package a celebratory essence into this mix with songs that range from party-starters to contemplative. There are four songs that are most relevant to Christmas: the new Julian Casablancas cover "I Wish It Was Christmas Today", which I talked about in this post, the sewage-washed "Happy Holidays, You Bastard" song by Blink 182, Fucked Up feat. almost every hip artist out there "Do They Know It's Christmas?", and my personal favorite Rob Halford of Judas Priest "We Three Kings" off his Christmas album (yes, he has a Christmas album) Winter Songs.

The track listing:
1. Julian Casablancas "I Wish It Was Christmas Today"
2. Andrew W.K. "Long Live the Party" from The Wolf
3. Blink 182 "Happy Holidays, You Bastard from Take off Your Pants and Jacket
4. M83 "Graveyard Girl" from Saturday = Youth
5. The Mountain Goats "Heretic Pride" from Heretic Pride
6. Boris "Six, Three Times" from Pink
7. The Ramones "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World" from All the Stuff (And More) Vol. 1
8. Van Halen "Eruption" from Van Halen
9. Rob Halford "We Three Kings" from Winter Songs
10. Goat Horn "Rotten Roll" from Storming the Gates
11. Pentagram "The World We Love Again" from Be Forewarned
12. Megadeth "In My Darkest Hour" from So Far, So Good, ... So What!
13. Junior Senior "Move Your Feet" from D-D-Don't Stop the Beat
14. Reggie and the Full Effect "Mood 4 Luv (feat. Fluxation)" from Under the Tray
15. Party of Helicopters "Cover Me" from Please Believe It
16. Lemuria "Home for the Holidays" from Demo
17. Rivers Cuomo "Lover in the Snow" from Alone: the Home Recordings
18. Fucked Up "Do They Know It's Christmas?" which if you personally buy in iTunes, will fund one of the three organizations the song is fundraising.

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As always, please purchase albums from selected artists you fancy if your money flow allows you to do so.

Shikari - 1999-2003

Year: 2004
Genre: hardcore/metal-infused screamo
Label: Level Plane (click link to purchase)

It's the itch that needed to be relieved. Netherlands' Shikari (Japanese for "body hunters") dared to tag a ton of tremolo and chainsaw riffage, d-beats, and tasteful breakdowns to the screamo genre. Hell, it's much faster and heavier than many bands in that genre, but that's not really too difficult to pull off, right? All one has to do is tap on the shoulders of several others and ask them to join a band that would blast away all chances of igniting sissy steps and the arbitrary finger dance. I guess that's not the best description one can give of this compliation. If you're curious to see what elements of grind, black metal, and hardcore can add to a screamo band, then download this album. They've recently reunited, playing two shows over the summer. There's a rumor going around that a tentative US tour is in the talks!

Track listing:
1. Post Student Syndrome
2. Copycat
3. Robot Wars
4. ...And Just When I Thought I Had It All Figured Out
5. Written In Some Depressing Mood
6. Encounters
7. You Know So Well
8. Fuel
9. In Existence
10.The Kids Shouldn't Be Playing With Fire
11. Tekila
12. Attitude
13. Dead Men
14. Morning Wood
15. Utopia Dismantled
16. The Last Thing
17. Biela
18. Fall On Proverb (Unbroken)
19. Ons Land

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Photo provided by band's website

Downcast - s/t 7"

Year: 1990
Genre: Hardcore
Label: Ebullition (You can buy here, but you need to buy $100 worth of stuff...)

It was the start of an era of baggy pants, metal ball necklaces, and hardcore bands getting sludgy and a little "too serious." Downcast was a Californian band who did all this before your typical 90s hardcore roster. You can easily get a hint of their Metallica influence in this very short, four-track release - one of the first from Ebullition - and more particularly in "Schedule" and "Lie." In reference to perhaps a more "relevant" time frame, "Hate Comes Easy" may remind people of early Zao when they were established in Parkersburg, WV and not Pennsylvania - except Downcast doesn't go on all fours for Jesus. Doesn't it sound beautiful when metal and hardcore merge? My favorite tracks are "Hate Comes Easy" and "Lie."

Track Listing:
1. Hate Comes Easy
2. Schedule
3. Lie
4. Force

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Photo provided

I Hate Myself - Ten Songs LP

Year: 1997
Genre: Screamo/"emotional hardcore"
Label: No Idea (Click here to purchase CD)

Ah, good ol' I Hate Myself. Like The Smiths, here's another band that could make a grown man cry. I Hate Myself hails from Gainesville, Florida, the capital of PBR, cigarettes, and beard-inspired punk rock - yet the frugal guitar strums instead the soundtrack of falling snowflakes and desperate tears trying to roll out of the eyes of a troubled soul. I'm not kidding. I couldn't imagine witnessing them live and see some skinny kid with broken pipes screaming over a hush crowd. Well, yes I can, I've been to plenty of shows with that magnitude of (awesome) awkwardness. But really, the tears roll because Ten Songs' package of power chords, cheesy lyrics, slow drumming and choked-up vocals is really rather beautiful regardless of its angle. The first two songs back-to-back is quite the emotional roller coaster.

Track listing:
1. This Isn't the Tenka-Ichi-Budôkai
2. Urban Barbie
3. Polar Bear Summer
4. ... And Keep Reaching for Those Stars
5. Caught in a Flood with the Captain of the Cheerleading Squad
6. Kind of a Long Way Down
7. Not Waving But Drowning
8. Destroy All Monsters
9. Conversation with Dr. Seussicide
10. Secret Lovers at the Heaven's Gate Ranch

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Photo provided

Death - Leprosy

Year: 1988
Genre: Metal
Label: Combat (click to buy release)

One of the pioneers in death metal, Florida's monster child Death has experienced more member changes than a gas station money jar. This second full-length released immediately after Death's debut album Scream Bloody Gore and certainly steps away from said album's grittiness in tone and production. Singer Chuck doesn't sound too much like a squealing pre-pubescent boy in Leprosy - as he had a handful of those moments in Scream Bloody Gore. This album brings the headbangs, with freakishly fast sweeps and spastic guitar solos. I love "Leprosy" and "Left to Die" - the latter contains a sweet intro and an "eagh!" moment. The more I listen to this, the more I yearn for a perm.

Track Listing:
1. Leprosy
2. Born Dead
3. Forgotten Past
4. Left to Die
5. Pull the Plug
6. Open Casket
7. Primitive Ways
8. Choke on It

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Photo: Amazon

Song of Zarathustra - The Birth of Tragedy

Year: 2000
Genre: Screamo
Label: Blood of the Young/Troubleman Unlimited (click link to purchase)

Song of Zarathustra is a great screamo band and, judging from the date of this full-length's release, experienced its hay day before I was allowed to go to shows. (Well bummer!) Unlike your typical picks Saetia and Orchid, this band isn't as well-recognized as its contemporaries - they're quite underrated within the genre. What I find fascinating about this band is the keyboard addition, because the band syncs in gothic organ lines as if the relationship between screamo and church organs has been meant to be all along. You're more likely to headbang bodybang to this one than cry. I am obsessed with "Mess of Zero".

Track listing:
1. Intro
2. Mess of Zero
3. With Hands That Bleed
4. The Great Longing
5. The Evening Beat
6. Deep Yellow and the Burning Red
7. The Birth of Tragedy
8. Science, Science
9. Cry of Distress
10. The Stillest Hour

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Photo: Amazon