BLACKDEATH, Jesus Wept Out Through WOHRT Records

DAEMONLORD, Godless Prayers - Out Through WOHRT Records

FALLING DOWN IIV Comp - Coming soon

These French fellas have been putting out these awesome comps for a while and now they are getting closer to unleash the latest edition. As it was with the previous comps, Falling Down includes previously unreleased tracks from some pretty great artists, Karma to Burn, Rosetta, Black Sun, Year of No Light, even my countrymen of Ayahuasca Dark Trip. 

Check the trailer below...

Sci-Fi Adventures: On Wheels

This is a weird one. I have a ton of sci-fi novels I've read since my last review, but this one stood out. John Jakes is mainly known for historical fiction. He did some series that I think eventually led to the video game "North and South", but don't quote me on that even though I just did. In addition to historical fiction, he also wrote a number of sci-fi novels, but most of them apparently weren't memorable, or, judging by this one, just sadly forgotten. You'd have figured a novel touted as the next Slaughterhouse-Five or Dune would at least have a decent blurb somewhere, but even Wikishitia doesn't mention it in his bibliography. Typical for that shithole.

On Wheels is one of the strangest sci-fi novels I've ever read. The premise is incredibly stupid and it's largely boring at first, but by the end, there's just something about it. To start, check out the cover there, what in the shit is going on? I get it, it's symbolic, but I mean, you've got a naked boy with a firebird apparently getting ready to sodomize him as he rolls along the road in his car body amongst a backdrop of weird, 40s-styled artwork of cars on the road. I haven't seen a weird, inordinate sci-fi cover like this since Rena Vale's Taurus Four. So, needless to say, On Wheels sucked me in with it's ridiculous cover, which is what good sci-fi is all about. When people peruse my collection, this is one of the first I pull out to elicit some laughs.

So what's it about? On Wheels, to be brief, fits in the "Mad Max" category to some extent, so if you like that post-apocalyptic craziness with cars and road warriors, this one should get your vroooming. But the 'road warriors' here are different, much different. It's hard to reveal without giving you the "secret" behind the book, so I need to do it. If you want to keep it sacred until you read it yourself, then just stop and check out another one of our splendid articles.

Okay, so America is fighting some unexplained war with the East, presumably China. Funds are sucked dry, but people are living okay, albeit in a really crazy fashion. Really, you're not given too much of an indication how they live until the end, other than chance meetings with them on the road when they're referred to as 'stoppers'. Any time people want to hit the roads, they do it en mass to the point that there are thousands of highway casualties. So, essentially, the population of America has been strained to the point that there are so many of us we end up dying from proximity. Enter the clans. The clans are huge families with names that refer to driving and the 50s. The main character, for example, is named Billy Spoiler. All of the clans live on the roads, literally, like, they never stop driving, EVER. They have to maintain a speed of at least 40 at all times and have big parties in giant road vans, so Jakes immediately creates a very strange world. He also mixes up the action by using road signs and such to break the movement of the prose, which is a really cool touch. On Wheels has three main parts, but the plot is pretty basic.

Billy Spoiler is a boy from one clan, and you meet plenty of others. He eventually falls in love with a girl named Rose Ann, which of course causes tension with a rough-and-tumble young whippersnapper from a rival clan named Lee Ramp. Their clan is known for driving recklessly. Billy races him to win her, kills him (or so you think), and then he eventually reappears all burned and crippled after they get married. There are marriage tensions, Billy almost kills his wife after he catches her cheating on him, and in the middle of trying to get her to an off road hospital (which has never been done), you learn all about the truth of the world. During this, Billy is engaged in a race duel with Lee Ramp, who's legendary cousin Big Daddy Hardcharger races for since he's crippled. Big Daddy is a specter of sorts throughout the novel (who's trying to be the first to ever drive 50 millions miles), and when you see him he's pretty much what you expect, a fat biker dude driving a crazy car. They duel as Billy learns the truth of the world, Rose Ann dies while he's trying to get her help off the road, and then he rejoins Big Daddy in the race and kills them both.

Overall, On Wheels has this bizarre charm. It's really a fun read when you get into it, and once you learn about the clans and get used to their lingo and lives, it has a cool groove. The overall concept that the government is saving societal collapse by keeping 10% of the population permanently on the roads (the clans) is pretty silly, but Jakes keeps the writing and storyline moving along at an awesome pace, so you really can't complain. The way it's divided into three sections that give this distinct feel of a car slowly speeding up and exploding by the end is fitting. I'm excited to see what else Jakes has done, and I can only hope it's as interesting, if not as slightly silly, as On Wheels. It's a short, fast read, a little goofy, but damn was it fun.

THE POWER OF THE RIFF Mixtape

Southern Lord Presents Free 20-Song THE POWER OF THE RIFF Mix Tape

In preparation for THE POWER OF THE RIFF 2011, with five West Coast shows announced to take place later this month, Southern Lord is giving away a brutal 20-track mix tape featuring artists set to appear during the upcoming melee! The free download includes tracks from ALL PIGS MUST DIE, BAPTISTS, EYEHATEGOD, PENTAGRAM, BLACK COBRA, PELICAN, NOOTHGRUSH, WINTER, TRAP THEM and more, as well as a collection of flyers from all of the upcoming TPOTR shows.

GET IT HERE (http://www.mediafire.com/?lo12l6b50yob0ub) !

THE POWER OF THE RIFF 2011 Mix Tape:
01 ALL PIGS MUST DIE "Pulverization"
02 BAPTISTS "Good Parenting"
03 EYEHATEGOD "Jack Ass in the Will of God"
04 MASAKARI "Trapped In The Mold"
05 ALPINIST "Hak Nam"
06 SKIN LIKE IRON "Consequences"
07 EARLY GRAVES "Wraiths"
08 SEVEN SISTERS OF SLEEP "Sundown"
09 PENTAGRAM "Call The Man"
10 BLACK BREATH "Children Of The Horn"
11 PLAGUES "Breathing"
12 HARASSOR "Glory Raped"
13 ACEPHALIX "Interminable Night"
14 BLACK COBRA "Negative Reversal"
15 ÆGES "Roaches"
16 SLAVE "Rise Of Shame"
17 TRAP THEM "Carnage Incarnate"
18 NOOTHGRUSH "Oil Removed"
19 PELICAN "Strung Up From The Sky"
20 WINTER "Eternal Frost"
Southern Lord Presents: THE POWER OF THE RIFF 2011:
8/13/2011 Echo/Echoplex – Los Angeles, CA
Pentagram, Eyehategod, Winter, Pelican, Trap Them, All Pigs Must Die, Acephalix, Black Cobra, Skin Like Iron, Baptists, Masakari, Alpinist, Seven Sisters of Sleep, Aeges, Early Graves, Slave Doors @ Noon
8/15/2011 Elbo Room San Francisco, CA
Winter, Noothgrush, Trap Them, Black Breath, All Pigs Must Die, Acephalix Doors @ 7:00pm
8/16/2011 The Mezzanine San Francisco, CA
Pentagram, Pelican, Alpinist, Masakari, Early Graves, Baptists, Aeges
Doors @ 6:30pm
8/18/2011 Neumo Seattle, WA
Winter, Pelican, Noothgrush, All Pigs Must Die, Alpinist, Masakari, Aeges
Doors @ 6:00pm
8/20/2011 The Highline Seattle, WA
From Ashes Rise, Black Breath, Trap Them, Baptists + more TBA Doors @ 9:30