Clandestine Blaze - Deliverers of Faith

1. Beyond the Reason
2. Falling
3. Grave of Gratification
4. Psychopathia Sexualis
5. Tormented
6. Winter of White Death

There's no telling how many thousands of bands have produced how many thousands of Darkthrone rip offs/tributes, but Clandestine Blaze manage to make the rest look like they suck ass with a straw. Deliverers of Faith is the 2004 effort and fourth full length of one man band CB. The lone Finnish swordsman here is the Mikko Aspa, also the current vocalist of French black metal band Deathspell Omega, who have been getting much press as of late, mostly in part due to the amazing Kenose EP. Where Deathspell chooses to stray from the left hand path taken by so many BM bands, the Clandestine Blaze project stays the course, and doesn't offer much in the way of surprises. What CB lacks in stylistic originality is more than made up by the raging quality of the black metal on display.

The production is raw, and defiantly lo-fi. This really sounds like a Finnish black metal record ought to. Another element sticking out of the singular entity is the drumming, which is sloppy at times and loose, but this does not work to Clandestine Blaze's detriment, rather adding to the chaotic maelstrom of hate and misanthropy.

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Bomb 20 - Field Manual

1. The Fall
2. Burn the Shit Down
3. Don't You Know
4. Ultimate Supremacy
5. You Killed Me First!
6. Anyday
7. We Can Fuck
8. Donutz & Blood
9. Innocent Bystanders
10. Lory vs. Bomb 20
11. No Left
12. If I Go Down
13. Round 2
14. Made of Shit!
15. La Belle
16. Just Came Close
17. Edutainment Break
18. Dumb
19. Hoover Boogie
20. Wonder What it Takes?

Since the Fever record is so fucking good, it made me think to dig a little deeper into my own DHR archives and see what I can find. Field Manual is the product of David Skiba, a one time antagonist of DHR head honcho and Bomb 20 muse, as well as the only full length produced under the Bomb 20 name. Digital Hardcore heads will recognize the sound instantly: frenetic breakbeats pushed to the breaking point, vocal samples chopped to fuck and blown apart, distorto synth gurgles and farts, all at tempos that make gabber seem like a Melvins record.

What sets Field Manual apart from the rest of the DHR pack, is not the politics (the firmly anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian, anti-everything stance embodied in most of the label's roster), but the fact that this record bludgeons the listener so thoroughly over the head and never really lets up for the twenty track entirety. This is harsher than any Atari Teenage Riot single, jungle more fucked than any Cristophe de Babalon track. Field Manual manages to operate on a level of being so over the top, it reaches a plane populated by noise artists Masami Akita and Dominic Fernow. While the comparison may not be apt in the way that Bomb 20 is infinitely more danceable than either of the two former, the sheer amount of abrasion on display is impressive.

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