Counterblast

01. Counterblast - Prospects, 1995 Vinyl, 7", Single      Skuld Releases - SKULD 023 02. Counterblast - Balance Of Pain, 1996 Vinyl, Album, LP      Skuld Releases - SKULD 031 03. Counterblast - Impassivity, 2003 CD, Album      Life On The Edge Records - LIFE 1 04. Counterblast - Faceless, 2010 Vinyl, 10", 33 RPM, EP      Alerta Antifascista - AA62 05. Counterblast - Nothingness, 2011 CD, Album      Alerta Antifascista - AA70 In a fearless diversion from the request log, let's have a reload of the heavy darkness of Counterblast. The first two records are lethal charges of metallic crusty sludgy thrash armed with the Amebix | Neurosis Big Bertha. Extremely powerful stuff that bangs and crushes, awesome! Then, from Passivity on, they dropped the fast parts and only retained the Neurosis engine, and they are every good at torturing it. If you can't get enough of the Neurosis sound, you should enjoy this a lot. But... I still find the first two records more vital. And before anyone asks, I won't post any Isis, Pelican or Kylesa, I got rid of all these. Counterblast and Agrimonia largely fill this niche on my shelves. Counterblast seem appropriate here today because I attended the Godspeed You! Black Emperor + Neurosis show yesterday, and now the weather is all grey and grim. It was a good show, very professional and artistic and decorated. Godpseed did their thing, stockpiling layers of string sounds and other analog noises in long progressions, like a conversation of disagreeing whales. It was interesting. When something is interesting, it means you appreciate its qualities and don't want to say bad things about it, but you didn't care much. I thought I'd be more into it than on records (which I did not keep, don't ask for this either), but not really: it was fun for a while, then I had to go eat something, 90 minutes of this was too much for me. Also, I don't really get the visuals, someone may explain it to me. I suppose the projected films were to immerse the audience in the fascinating universe of something and underline the absurdities of other things, in black and white. I only saw random scenes of visual noise, flowers, rail tracks, factories, words like "hope" and "I love you", dead bodies, texts displayed too shortly to read, ID photos, machinery, industrial plans, abandoned houses, hills and other things. It was interesting. Well no, actually it wasn't. "Hope" despite human industry and real estate decay? "Love" and flowers in contrast to factories and war? Really? As usual, I must have missed something. Every time a band project films, the narrow limits of my neuron prevents me from appreciating it. Was it poetry, politics, an art college student project or hipsterism? Why not project a Louis Lumière film instead, or excerpts of a good book, or a Gwar video? Then Neurosis did their own thing. No video projection, but nothing from Pain Of Mind (just kidding). These dudes are seriously serious about their recipe of heavy melancholy. They wear menacing beards and don't talk to the audience at all, these are alpha males with emotions (and sound generators). It was a very long and perfect set too, and I guess I'm not into Neurosis all that much anymore. !ZER Counterblast ZER! Remove brackets and unzip: [it's in my counterblood]