Video Filth – “Video Filth/Mutant Itch Split”
Video Filth is a band that I’m quite familiar with, that I’ve written about numerous times before. So I’m afraid this review will just be a reiteration of the pleasure I’ve enjoyed seeing this bands’ many live performances and listening to their recorded work for many years.
(Editors Note:- Actually, Slimedog has never seen them live, nor has he ever reviewed any recorded material from them before).
Hmm, I can’t argue with that but I have investigated their Facebook page, thoroughly, and have an ample amount of information about the band to bestow upon you.
(Editors Note:- There is no Facebook page connected with this band.)
All right, all right- you got me there. So the best I can give you, are gentle kisses on all of your weary, furrowed brows!
But this I refuse to do.
As a young lad I had to take the train to Chinatown, to the Combat Zone, in order to purchase my porn. They had several “dirty book” stores there, some with booths that for a quarter played a portion of an x-rated film that intrigued you.
It was perverse, it was strange, it was humiliating.
Much like the rest of life was then and is still, now.
Only now, I just flip the laptop open. No need to hop on a train.
Video Filth made me think of this and I blame them for my life long, depraved existence.
But besides that, this is a band that describes themselves as “punk, D-beat, hardcore and noise punk.”
Which are all good words to describe them, no dirty words at all like the words found in those dirty books in those dirty stores.
Listening to this band was perverse, it was strange, it was humiliating.
But I’d also add it was wild, chaotic, exciting and intense. That’s to the band, not my life, but maybe both. I’d like to elaborate on this.
but instead I think I’ll describe the songs instead:
With sounds ricocheting and bouncing off the walls, “Eyes,” first starts with guitars screeching backwards, then ecstatic chaos exploding with an overload of sound. This travels along with a beat, obscured at first, but then thrusting into a perilous, sonic drive with a vocal popping its’ head in there somewhere. As an added attraction, a synthesizer or some kind of electronic device starts emitting high-wire electrical transmissions from up above. This is a charging, exciting hardcore/punk song that is ignited with a noise band palette. The surging, scorching sounds burn your eyelids along with the neurons in your brain. This song pounds brutally and true along with a wall of sound and an unremitting stream of passion, fury and guts that does away with any pretense or niceties. This song is original sounding and awesome, as hell.
“No Remorse” may not be connected with the Motorhead or Mettalica tune, but it’s still as awesome as both bands with its’ steamroller of abrasive notes and guttural death/hardcore vocals, that move along in an unrelenting, pulsating groove. The excitement and energy of this song rides a wave of noise and rhythm that is pure, musical bliss. There’s a few rhythmic clashes, along the way, before we move into an even faster, more exciting beat. This song combines the heaviness and uncompromising sound of a great, industrial band along with the punch and excitement and energy of a great, punk band to create, one great song.
“Third Eye” erupts with feedback and grinding guitars that make way for an excellent, dissonant guitar lick that is nearly buried under a barrage of noise and threateningly, ominous vocals. This song contains a surf lick played in grindcore style along with a hardcore/punk rhythm and an industrial/metal sound and plays like a collaboration between Dick Dale and GWAR in hell. And it is intense, overpowering, emotional and overwhelmingly great.
I like bands that send me for a bit of a loop.
I like bands that cause me to hoola-hoop.
Video Filth is of the former. (Dick Dale is of the later.)
I like bands that aren’t easily categorized and make me ponder where they do fit in?
Video Filth is definitely in that description.
I am, too.
And I have a feeling that most of you reading this, don’t fit in easily, are part of the punk scene because we represent the misfits of society.
But I never feel too bad in fitting in with a society so cruel, so stupid and so corrupt and I hope you feel okay with not fitting in, as well.
I will never fit in. I prefer to fit out! (In my outfit.)
But I will always accept bands that are as great and as uncompromising as Video Filth.
And I hope you do, too.
No remorse!
(Slimedog)
