Sons Of Liberty - Brush Fires Of The Mind

Sons Of Liberty is a solo project of Iced Earth guitarist Jon Schaffer. Whilst he describes it as a politically neutral project, it seems a little bit over-patriotic right-wing conspiracy-theorist influenced to me, but then to a lot of Americans I guess I'm a bleeding-heart liberal pinko (or even worse, a foreigner!).

Anyways, lyrical content and inflamatory band names aside, this album is very much in an Iced Earth vein, though sees Jon Schaffer taking on lead vocal duties himself for the first time (and presumably everything else since it's a solo project). Iced Earth will already be familiar with Schaffer's vocal style as he does a lot of vocal work on Iced Earth stuff. Think he even sang a whole song by himself when I saw them at Wacken.

Don't have a direct download link, but you can get one emailed to you by signing up to the mailing list on their website. It's only 96Kbps, but you'll get the idea from there. There are also 256Kbps MP3 and high-quality M4A versions download available for purchase. There doesn't seem to be any official artwork, so I put together the cover on this page 'cause I like to have artwork on my MP3s!

Sons Of Liberty Offical Site

Funeral Hag - Demo 2009

A bit of a special release for you today, at least for me anyway, it's the demo from my band, Funeral Hag! We play a mix of stoner rock, sludgecore and doom metal that I hope you're going to love. The demo has 3 tracks and clocks in at 18 minutes and 18 seconds long.

Funeral Hag started last year as a solo project of our guitarist Jon, who wrote and recorded Nellie Longarms by himself and demoed another song, Screams Of A Banshee, in 2008. In early 2009 Jon decided he wanted to take the band further and started looking for other members. He quickly recruited his workmate Nev of Sabazius (possibly familiar to any regular readers as I post their releases on here) to play 2nd guitar. Nev in turn suggested his bandmate Steve to play bass, and Steve got me involved on vocals, along with our old mate George on drums. Thus Funeral Hag was born.

We've now played a few gigs (videos from our first on our Youtube page) and recorded this demo, and are hoping to make something of ourselves! So download our demo and enjoy the sludge. :D

~192Kbps VBR Mp3s via HTTP from Archive.org
~192Kbps VBR Mp3s via HTTP from Rapidshare
~192Kbps VBR Mp3s via HTTP from Megaupload
~192Kbps VBR Mp3s via HTTP from Mediafire

Funeral Hag at Myspace
Funeral Hag at Youtube

The Shizit - Live At Club Spirit

The Shizit were an industrial metal band from Seattle formed in 1999. Originally promoted through the now defunct MP3.com, they sought to challenge the way the music industry worked and bring underground sounds to the masses. They released two DAM CDs (MP3.com's CDs featuring the regular CD version of the tracks alongside high quality MP3 files), Evil Inside in 1999 and Script Kiddie in 2000. They then went on to release a full length album entitled Soundtrack For The Revolution, which saw releases on several different labels (all now defunct) including E115 Records (original release) and Alec Empire's Digital Hardcore before disbanding in 2002. Two other albums have now been released posthumously through Canadian online collective D-Trash Records, Remixed For The Revolution (2004) and Live At Club Spirit (2008).

Their sound is similar to Rabbit Junk (the frontman JP's current project), but heavier and more aggressive. I always described it as gabber metal due to the relentless beats and highly distorted kick sounds, a la gabber. The result is an impressive fusion of metal, industrial, punk, gabber, hip-hop, hardcore dance and many other genres that is full of energy and just doesn't let up!

Today's offering is one I only just discovered, a D-Trash re-release of the Live At Club Spirit recording. This show was originally posted on The Shizit's MP3.com page as individual tracks back in the days of dialup internet connections and thus is unfortunately only available in 128K MP3 format. The D-Trash release sees the original four tracks supplemented by three new remixes by SLIP and a cover of Ministry's Just One Fix originally found on an Industrial compilation from 2001 called Signal To Noise: Reinforced Industrial Hits, and later on Cleopatra's A Taste Of Sin compilation and An Industrial Tribute To Ministry.

128/192Kbps MP3 via HTTP from Archive.org
128/192Kbps MP3 via HTTP from Rapidshare.com

The Shizit Militia (semi-official fansite)
The Shizit Fanbase at Myspace

Monsterworks - Spacial Operations

Monsterworks are a metal band originally from Palmerston North/Wellington, New Zealand and formed in 1996 and reformed in London in 2003. They mix a number of metal styles to form a highly technical breed of progressive metal, including elements of thrash, death and power metal. Information on them seems to be quite sparse, though their Encyclopaedia Metallum page discography lists 5 full length albums they have under their belts!

Spacial Operations is their 2007 offering, available for free from their website http://www.supermetal.net. It is one of those rare concept albums that has a sci-fi theme rather than fantasy, improves its standing in my eyes no end, even before listening to it! I've always been more of a sci-fi fan than fantasy, though most metallers seem to feel the other way. Having only found a few examples of sci-fi themed metal (Fear Factory's Obsolete and Iron Savior amongst others), I am always eager to discover more.

If you like any kind of metal, I'd thoroughly recommend downloading Spacial Operations. It's quite a varied album with some great riffs and beautiful guitar work, and of course it's free!

160Kbps MP3 via HTTP from Supermetal.net

Monsterworks Official Site
Monsterworks at Myspace

Rabbit Junk - Project Nonagon Part 1, The Struggle

Rabbit Junk are an industrial metal band with heavy punk, hip-hop and electro influences (apparently this is called hardclash) hailing from Seattle. They were formed in 2004 after the breakup of front man JP's previous project The Shizit (Myspace) , a brilliant gabber metal band who will be making appearances in these pages in the future. Rabbit Junk takes the raw energy of The Shizit and combines it with more advanced production technique, more melodic elements and a slightly punkier sound (not enough to be bad). With some catchy hooks, serious riffage and awesome sequencing there's something there for everyone!

Project Nonagon is an extension of Rabbit Junk's last album, This Life Is Where You Get Fucked. This Life Is Where You Get Fucked is a concept album in three parts: The Struggle, Ghetto Blasphemer and This Death Is Where You Get Life. The idea behind Project Nonagon is to release a 3 track EP to build on the themes of each of these parts. This first part is, obviously, the extension of The Struggle part of This Life...

192Kbps MP3 via HTTP from Rabbitjunk.com

Rabbit Junk Official Site
Rabbit Junk at Myspace

Hospital Of Death - Beer, Bitches, Blood

Hospital of Death are a heavy metal band from Cheshire in the UK. They combine oldschool NWOBHM vocals and riffs with the speed and energy of the new-wave of thrash metal. Their debut album, Beer, Bitches, Blood, was allegedly 13 years in the making (though the band split up for 12 of those years). Originally formed to play their high school graduation party, the band promptly disbanded. However, they reformed at a band reunion party in 2006 and since then have been on a neverending mission to induce drinking and partying in all who listen to their music.

The album itself is a joyous celebration of thrash and NWOBHM, with tongue thoroughly in cheek throughout. From the opening track Enter The Hospital Of Death, a metal version of the Casualty theme tune, to the final track White The Lightning, this is a great metal album in a traditional vein that doesn't take itself too seriously. And of course, any album that features a cover of Lion's theme for Transformers The Movie could not fail to be awesome!

The album is available for free online from various sources.

160Kbps MP3 via .torrent for the album at Mininova
160Kbps MP3 via HTTP download from Mediafire
128Kbps MP3 via Last.FM, streaming or individual track downloads

If you really like them, you can buy a copy off the band in two different forms from their Myspace page. The first is the Official Band Bootleg version, consisting of the album recording on CD-R in best quality in a PVC wallet with cover & flyers, £1.00 delivered in the UK, £2.00 worldwide. The second is the Bands Own Copies version, an album recording on lightscribe CD-R (it has stuff on the front) at the best quality in a jewel case with all glossy covers, which apparently takes 2 hours to make! My copy arrived this morning, and I have to say it's well worth the princely sum of £3.00 that I paid for it.

HOD at Myspace