Misery - Children of War EP (7", 1991)
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Jason Netherton from Misery Index has been uploading old death metal zines at Send Back My Stamps! They can be hard to digest – one doesn’t sit down at one’s computer expecting to intake an entire zine in one sitting – and good writing is the exception, not the rule. (Actually, I don’t think I’ve seen any yet.) But their historical value is tremendous. Contemporaneous interviews with many of our favorite bands in their prime – those are hard to find, even in today’s nothing-ever-dies-and-in-fact-everything-is-reissued-and-sold culture.
So in Deathcheese #1, from 1991, even though it’s tough slogging through a young Richard Johnson’s (Enemy Soil, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Drugs of Faith) interviews, as he kept every “uh” and “um”, halving the apparent IQ of every interviewee, they are a blast to read. They include separate chats with Trey Azagthoth and Richard Brunelle of Morbid Angel (pre-Blessed Are the Sick), GC Green and Paul Neville of Godflesh (touring for Streetcleaner), James Murphy when he was in Obituary, and more. The quote where Azagthoth tries to explain why he tunes down is worth the price of admission alone.
That price now, of course, is free. And with the benefit of the Internet and hindsight, the zine is even more useful as a resource. In particular, I’ve had loads of fun tracking down the demos advertised in Deathcheese #1. Sometimes they’re for now-prominent bands, and sometimes they’re for bands long forgotten. But they’re always interesting to hear, whether for the rawness of 100% analog demo tapes or to hear missing links in extreme metal’s evolution from thrash to death metal.
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Misery – “Children of War”
[audio:MISERY_CHILDREN.mp3]
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My favorite demo in Deathcheese #1 is by a Minneapolis band called Misery. Children of War came out in 1991 as a 7″ on G.T.G.P, which became Relapse. (See more details at 7inchcrust.) It features Amebix-influenced, metal-inflected crust punk. The riffs are dark and epic; check out the powerful title track above. (I can totally see early ’90s Sepultura covering it.) You can download the 7″ below. You can also download the 20 Years of Misery career-spanning compilation on a pay-what-you-want basis at Moshpit Tragedy.
I’m going to do that right now, actually. I love that feeling of stumbling across cool music and seeing where it leads. I’m not much for ads, but if you pay attention to the ones in old zines, you could find some hidden gems.
MEDIAFIRE: MISERY – CHILDREN OF WAR (7″ EP) [18.93MB .zip]
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