Steven Blush’s American Hardcore: A Tribal History is one of the great rock n’ roll history books. And now it’s bigger. Originally published in 2001, the Feral House book nails the golden age of old-school hardcore, from the movement’s inception to the watershed year 1986. The book inspired a documentary, the 2006 film American Hardcore. The movie is a must-see that has inspired as much griping and controversy as the book.

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Every metalhead has a favorite Slayer album. Mine just so happens to be Undisputed Attitude, the band’s 1996 tribute to their undeniable hardcore influences. Featuring resurrected material from Jeff Hanneman and Dave Lombardo’s Pap Smear project alongside covers of songs from artists like D.R.I., Minor Threat, and Verbal Abuse, the release met with considerable controversy and even disdain from longtime fans and critics alike for being such an anomaly in the band’s catalog. Yet nearly fifteen years later, the record sounds like it could have come out yesterday, a testament to the quality of the covers and of the production value. (“Gemini”, the sole Tom Araya/Kerry King original, still feels oddly tacked on and out-of-place.) The prospect of owning it on “180 gram audiophile vinyl” as part of the now-available boxset The Vinyl Conflict – collecting all of their American Recordings studio LPs and Live Decade Of Aggression–seems too delicious to pass up, even at the roughly $150 price point.

Hop in the Slayer Wayback Machine, watch the simple yet effective video for “I Hate You” (originally by Verbal Abuse) above and weigh in on the record below. How do you feel about Undisputed Attitude? An underrated gem in the catalog? A failed experiment that never should have been?

-GS

So the whole internet was abuzz about that Justin Bieber track that sounded aw’ight when someone slowed it down 800% — I guess if anything will make J-Beeb OK, that’s what it takes.

I tried to ignore that shit… until the kickass sci-fi/fantasy website i09 linked to a bunch of sci-fi themes slowed down 800%.

The idea still sounded stupid, but I decided to check out the version of the Brad Fiedel’s classic Terminator theme. And damned if it didn’t sound pretty fargin’ good. I’m on a big kick of listening to music you can ignore. And the slow jams are great, atmospheric background white noise. Slowed down 800%, pretty much all sci-fi themes sound like the Vangelis’ score for Blade Runner. (Did I just reference Vangelis? I meant “FUCKIN’ SLAYER!!!” Anyway…)

So I started wondering what extreme music might sound like when slowed down to 12.5 percent of its regular velocity. In honor of my recent MetalSucks interviews with D.R.I. and C.O.C., I tried a couple tracks by those bands.

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To celebrate the release of Sick of it All’s awesome new album, Based on a True Story, we asked SOIA vocalist Lou Koller to compile the definitive list of quintessential hardcore albums. Luckily for us and all of you, he agreed! So we’ll be running one entry a day from Lou’s list of the top-ten (+1) hardcore records of all time for the next couple of weeks. You can catch up on previous installments here; the tenth one is after the jump…

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So what was your entre into the world where denim, leather n’ demonology reign supreme? Where you adore the goat and sway to the symphony of deee-struction? Every man (or woman) has a tale to tell. Here’s mine. You’re gonna hear a lot of names you might be unfamiliar with, especially if you’re a member of Attack Attack! (Or just plain anyone under 23!) You’re gonna be thinking, “Damn, this fucker is old!” Yeah, well just remember that I’ve seen seen stuff that would make you shit Perrier with jealousy. I’m definitely old enough to have seen Minor Threat, Cliff Burton-era Metallica… the list goes on… before most of you were a tadpole in yer pappy’s population paste.

Let’s start at Discharge. I could go back and trace the whole history of early 80’s hardcore for you, but neither of us have the time or attention span. Let’s just say, the minute I heard these Stroke-on-Trent monsters of the nuclear reactor riff on the monstrous Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing album, I nearly pissed my pants. It was the gateway to something far heavier than I had ever heard on a scratchy 7” from the new record store that had opened in Boston called Newbury Comics.

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Just because it’s short doesn’t mean it can’t kick your fucking ass. Eighteen and a half minutes after I started listening to their new album Bearing & Distance (Level Plane Records), it ended; so I simply listened to it again.

Through those 18 minutes and the course of 15 tracks — 5 of which are under a minute and the longest of which is 2:08 — California’s Ghostlimb proved that they’re doing something really fucking cool and different. I can’t quite put a finger on their entire palette of influences because there’s a really strong hardcore flavoring, and frankly I just don’t have the musical vocabulary to go there. But fuck it, at the risk of making myself look really stupid and non-versed in the history of punk and hardcore (this is true), I’ll try: Minor Threat, Bad Religion (on coke), Paint It Black, and even NYC’s Wetnurse, but with big, clear production Matt Bayles would be proud of and a whack-you-in-the-nuts metal sensibility that’s also hard to place. Think a faster, non-stop alcohol-fueled Bronx, blending anthemic punk chord progressions through highly overdriven Marshalls and some dude passionately screaming his fucking lungs out on top of it as if he had a fist shoved up his ass and singing these songs was the only way to get it out.

Find out for yourself and check out Ghostlimb on MySpace.

-VN

(four out of five horns)