Third Time's A Charm...

First off, my lazy non-posting ass got burned for being lazy and not posting. I had planned to upload Pathology's brutal Awaken To The Suffering tonight but discovered both The Living Doorway and Slamming Brutal Death beat me to the sucker kidney punch by a cunt hair. Like my bank account these days, a day late and a fucking dollar short, no? So I decided to fall back on a guilty pleasure - the final statement by Boston rapcore homiez Reveille - 2001's Bleed The Sky. I've waxed poetic of Reveille in the pages of this blog before; easily my favorite rap/metal band; to me they had enough of a snotty Bah-stun punk vibe to make their oft-cheesy nü metal sound work. And the guitar playing is hands down amazing. Their riffs fucking roll up and down the neck like nothing I've heard before or since. I caught Reveille opening for fellow nü-metallers Primer 55 at a club downtown many a year ago (on the fucking Wednesday before Thanksgiving, no less) and was amazed by how damn young they were! Christ, I was almost embarrassed shaking their hands after the set, worried they'd be like "who the fuck was that old dude?" But enough of whatever quarter-life crisis issues I was dealing with at the time - this album absolutely rules. Poetic, heavy, kitschy and weirdly Irish (listen to it and you'll kinda hear what I'm talking about), Bleed The Sky is an amazing 70 minutes. "Plastic" has got to be in the top 10 of the most amazing songs ever recorded - it is that epic and easily worth the download. 

Hope Wears Away

Currently watching: Dexter (Season 5)
Currently listening to: Luigi Russolo Die Kunst Der Geräusche

Boston Basement Bliss

Shit, no sooner than I ran out of stuff to post that I found this gem... the few followers of this blog may know my devotion to Boston's rapcore legends Reveille - I've been searching for their four-song self-produced EP for ages. Known as the "Basement" demo, two songs ended up on 1999's Laced (in pretty similar form) while the others died a quiet death in demo purgatory. A great look back at one of my favorite bands, what a perfect way to start the New Year.

7th Rail

 
Currently watching: Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King

Currently listening to: Eazy-E Str8 Off Tha Streetz Of Muthaphukkin Compton

Resurrection

To my dismay, Boston's excellent nü-metal outfit Reveille broke up in 2002, a split spawned from the typical "creative differences" that left a (recorded?) third album on the shelf. Soon after, however, vocalist Drew Simollardes and guitarist Greg Sullivan got back together to create Genuflect. Boasting a sound similar to their previous band, Genuflect released Rough Mix Demo in 2005, a septet of songs planned for their future album, 2007's The End Of The World ("Move" doesn't seem to have made the cut so it's an exclusive on this album). In my opinion the tunes sound much better then anything that made it onto World, they are raw, underproduced and angry.  A little more rap then metal but still listenable - I doubt Genuflect will ever put out a record as good as Reveille released but you can't have everything I guess.

Check It

Currently watching: A Perfect Getaway
Currently listening to: Jimi Hendrix Electric Ladyland

Massachusetts Metal

 

Coming out of the Boston suburbs the late 90's, Reveille is a personal favorite - their first full length Laced is a wicked solid dose of rap metal adrenaline. Pretty much every song on it rocks, even the few which start out a tad lacking make up for it with a solid breakdown at the end. The lyrics suffer a touch of "white boy rapping" syndrome here and there but can you really dis a band who gets B. Real to drop vocals? The band broke up in 2003 and some of the guys went on to form Genuflect (who to me sound exactly like a second-rate Reveille playing boring songs) and a few other bands... oh well. Probably my most-played CD of 1999, here's to a band that did more with two albums then others do in decades.

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