Words About Things

A classic track from Descendents proving that Punk Rock can be catchy without being rubbish.

People often proclaim their hatred of genres or more accurately bands being labeled as belonging to a particular genre. Whist some bands defy explanation and exist outside of genres most great bands clearly fit into a stylistic mode. Some genres like Dubstep seem to continually evolve whilst others are fixed and have clear boundaries and norms. Black Metal is a genre that seems to be both dynamic and fixed in stone.

Some would have you believe that to be Black Metal a band must adhere to some very specific rules and any experimentation is just a dilution. Thankfully there are bands like Wolves In The Throne Room and Tulus who experiment and push the boundaries. Some band are happy to pretend it is still the 80′s and thrash away in corpse paint, releasing albums that sound like they were recorded by putting the microphones in the building next-door to the studio. This isn’t a bad thing but it is interesting to see a genre that is so split down the middle.

Like Rats are a band who mix Black Metal with Hardcore. there seems to be to be more Hardcore in the mix than Metal, I’m reminded of old Gravity Records stuff like Antiock Arrow and Heroin. The drums are fast but not helicopter blades whirring fast like a lot of BM drummers. The vocals rasp and growl and yet fit the faster tempos well.

I don’t know much about Like Rats other than that their (first?) album is avaliable for free download via their website here. I found them via the highly reccomended Invisible Organges. Guitarist Todd Nief’s blog post about the album can be found here.

A round up of interesting stuff from the internet this week.

1. Erik Elstran is a bmx rider who’s style is unique and more importantly good fun. I can’t really explain any of the moves but trust me, this video is worth watching. Skip past the first 30 seconds though because it starts out with a parody of bad Youtube bmx videos.

2. A Beluga Whale saves (?) a diver in distress in China. The diver was taking part in a Free-diving competition when she found herself unable to use her legs to swim back to the surface, luckily she was diving in a Whale tank at the time.

3. The World’s Most Bizarre Sports.

4.  Look out rubbish faux-punk bands, Buddyhead Records has relaunched it’s infamous Gossip Page (not for the easily offended).

5. The roads are packed full of caravans at this time of year but none of them are this cool. This one doesn’t need a car and manages to reach a decent speed all by itself…