MELECHESH - AS JERUSALEM BURNS... AL'INTISAR (1996)

^^^ original cover art/re-issue cover art vvv


I never really pursued the music of Jerusalem's Melechesh much, probably because I read one too many ball-scrubbing reviews of their work on MetalSucks and just assumed they were crap. And, in defense of my unjustified prejudice, their later albums proved to be unsurprisingly mediocre. But I'll be dipped in dogshit if their 1996 full-length debut album As Jerusalem Burns... Al'Intisar ain't a monumental mindfuck of an album, a true standout from a time and a place where no one ever really expected it. I'm definitely glad I finally gave these guys a shot, and Jerusalem has stayed in heavy rotation around ICHQ as of late. But it's not only because these dudes sound like a more-technically-proficient, desert-ified, Nightside Eclipse-era Emperor. There are several reasons why this band (or, more specifically, this record) is exceedingly remarkable amongst its peers. Please find just 5 of these reasons below:

1) When you're listening to Melechesh on your iPod on the bus or BART or whatever, every once in awhile a guy will sneak up and shake a rattle or a rainstick or some shit in your ear (on the recording, that is). It keeps you on your toes, and, as Melechesh are actually from the Middle East, their use of "native instruments" comes off as a bit more LEGIT than Nile or whoever.

2) Sweet reggaeton beats.

3) Riffs like this one.

4) They're from fucking BETHLEHEM, birthplace of that one imaginary guy who got famous doing slight-of-hand magic tricks with baked goods and seafood. Satanic street cred AS FUCK.

5) OK, this one is kind of hard to explain, but you know when a drummer is playing a blastbeat, and then they go into a different, faster blastbeat? Not doubling the tempo or anything, just a slightly different beat, which makes the whole mess just sound that much weirder and more twisted? I love when drummers do that, and dude from Melechesh does it really well.

Go to the exact middle of the title track of this album for an example:



Fuck that rules.
Anyway, do you guys need MORE than 5 reasons to get this? I think not.

Download HERE

Metallum/Last.FM

ILLOGICAL CONTRAPTION: Deep Cuts, Vol. 1

A cake? For me? Really?
Oh my god, I can't believe you guys remembered IllCon's second birthday. That's so cool!
Wait, what? The cake wasn't for me? Oh, cool. No, that's okay. No really, it's cool. No, I'm sure lots of people celebrate Jaco Pastorius' birthday with cake and ice cream. Sounds totally normal. He would have been 59, I know. Yeah, total tragedy. No, my feelings aren't hurt. Not at all. Really, enjoy your cake. Really.


... Assholes.


What? Nothing. No. I didn't say anything. OK, see ya.


Hey, did I mention today marks the completion of our SECOND YEAR here at Illogical Contraption, "one of the most amazingly retarded geysers of intellectual circularity (the world has) ever seen" (Seth J.G. Goodkind, Lost Video Archive)? Because it fucking does, and I think everyone here at ICHQ deserves a high five. Two years is kind of a long time to sit in front of a computer screen and try to think up semi-witty shit to say about generic death metal records.

Anyhoo, if I am to believe what Sitemeter tells me, IC has enjoyed approximately four times the visits this year as it did last year (100,000ish Dec '08-Dec '09, 400,000ish Dec '09-Dec '10), which to me signals that a lot of you clowns have jumped on the bandwagon within the last 12 months or so. And THAT means that a lot of you guys missed out on tons of cool shit that happened in the first year of this blog's existence. So today, I thought we could take a brief walk down memory lane, explore the IllCon vaults so to speak and look back at a couple of forgotten jams from yesteryear. Or maybe from just the first six months or so.

DECEMBER 2008

- How 'bout a detailed history of the keytar?
Wow, December '08 was kind of a crappy month in retrospect. Moving on...

JANUARY 2009

- Catching up with Nitro
- History of "unblack metal"
- A primer on modern cryptozoology
- The first time I bagged on Burners
- Forgotten cartoons of the 1980's? Gold.
- How to survive the apocalypse

FEBRUARY 2009

- Erik Del Tigre is exposed as a closet paleontologist
- Not-so-secret history of secret societies
- Heavy metal cryptozoology
- Baldwin/Selleck Chest Hair Challenge
- Metal-est movie villains of the 1980's
- Exodus sucks at album covers

MARCH 2009

- Bow to the Illuminatus! Trilogy!
- The odor formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince
- Nobody wants to buy fucking Illogical Contraption T-shirts, okay?
- A study in race relations

APRIL 2009

- Reputation-destroying metal albums and a picture of a chick on a robot shark
- Bentonology: A Neoclassical Study of Deicide Lyrics In Regards To Etymology And Grammar (1990-1992)
- A brief history of heavy metal album covers?
- To avoid being a poser, you first need to understand Sumerian mythology
- False vampires suck (or don't?)
- Emails from The Great Kat's sister

MAY 2009

- Fun with Encyclopaedia Metallum
- Fun with suicide cults
- Fun with Dick
- Fun with amputees
- Fun with gay-porn fanfic


Shit you slept on:

DJ Drank's Greatest Malt Liquor Hits (Dec 08)
Malachi (Dec 08)
Idiot Flesh 1/2 (Dec 08)
The Carl Stalling Project (Dec 08)
Attacker (Jan 09)
Awakening: Females In Extreme Music (Jan 09)
Black Queen/Wormwood (Jan 09)
Master Control Program (Feb 09)
Hardcore Devo (Feb 09)
Death To False Metal compilation (Feb 09)
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (Mar 09)
Eyesore: A Stab At The Residents (Apr 09)
Hymns For The Hearing Impaired (Apr 09)
Pleaseeasaur (Apr 09)
Black Randy And The Metrosquad (May 09)
Fuckface (May 09)
Exorcist OST (May 09)
Born Against/Screeching Weasel split (May 09)

Good Gods, there's alot of shit to read on this sucker. My eyeballs are vibrating.
Look for another one of these retrospective-type things when IC hits 1,500 posts (probably) around the beginning of next year...


My sincere thanks to all the motherfuckers and motherfuckettes that have contributed to this thing in the last 730 days, and thanks to all you IC Bros for reading (and listening). You guys don't suck.

Lastly, a reminder to come see Seanford (below) and Huntress at the Victory Warehouse in Oakland this Friday and Bender's in SF this Saturday. Would it kill you to come out and meet Team IllCon in person? And maybe buy us a beer or two?

Fuckin' cheapskates.

Caparo Sport Cars Caparo T1 V8 engine

Caparo Sport Cars Caparo T1 V8 engine

Caparo Vehicle Technologies - a new and advanced automotive engineering consultancy formed a year ago by the rapidly expanding Caparo Group to provide carmakers globally with a centre of excellence in lightweight vehicle design - is putting the finishing touches to the first car it has ever produced. CAPARO T1 is the product of CAPARO VEHICLE TECHNOLOGIES, an arm of BRITSH CONGLOMERATE CAPARO, which is owned by Lord Swaraj Paul and CEO Angad his son who is behind this ultimate car CAPARO T1.

The Caparo T1 is a high performance two-seater sports car with highly resolved aerodynamics, which has been designed with the looks and performance close to that of a Formula One race car. With series production about to commence, the car will be built for discerning customers seeking the ultimate track day experience in a road driveable vehicle. The Caparo Sport Cars Caparo T1 V8 engine also serves as a technology flagship for demonstrating the company's high level vehicle design and engineering capabilities.

The T1 powertrain comprises of home-grown 3.5-litre Caparo V8 engine, which produces 575bhp (425kW) at 10,500rpm and 420Nm (310lbft) at 9,000rpm. Similarly, the 6-speed sequential transmission with magnesium casing is a bespoke design with a mass of approximately 30kg. The carbon/aluminium honeycomb monocoque features a separate composite crash structure at the front, while the rear sub-frame specifies aerospace grade steel.

The Caparo Sport Cars Caparo T1 V8 engine is around one-third the mass of the average family saloon. Its carbon/aluminium honeycomb monocoque features a separate composite crash structure at the front, while the rear sub-frame specifies aerospace grade steel. The non carbon-fibre steel suspension, for example, illustrates the company's ability to specify structural materials that can deliver the maximum performance at the lowest possible cost. Overall, the 190 000 GBP price tag underlines the company's ability to design and build an exclusive car at a relatively low price despite its ultra high performance.

Caparo Sport Cars Caparo T1 V8 engine

CAPARO T1 is designed for just one thing that is to go fast. It has a 3.5-liter V8 engine which develops 575 bhp. This can be found in many other cars then what is special in CAPARO T1, secret is that it weighs 550 kg which develops 575 bhp. This means that Caparo Sport Cars Caparo T1 V8 engine produces 1000 bhp for each ton of body mass, this is awesome. That it can come down from 160 kilometer per hour to zero under ten seconds. That is what exactly all the speed freaks wish to have in there sports cars.

This means the Caparo Sport Cars Caparo T1 V8 engine is lighter and faster even than a race-winning Le Mans sportscar. In terms of power-to-weight ratio its closest rival would be the latest super-bikes, which are now capable of delivering 175bhp into 185kg thereby just falling short of the magic 1,000bhp-per-tonne figure. Apart from these two wheelers and Formula One cars, no other road or track car comes anywhere close to the Caparo T1's power-to-weight ratio and highly efficient aerodynamic properties.

Caparo Sport Cars Caparo T1 V8 engine

This supreme power-to-weight ratio results in a 0-60mph time of less than 2.5 seconds and the ability to reach 100mph within five seconds. Braking performance is no less impressive with 100mph to standstill being delivered in 3.5 seconds.

Caparo Sport Cars Caparo T1 V8 engine have a price tag of US$350,000.Company had decided to make CAPARO T1 in limited numbers and they might produce only 75 examples of it.

Caparo Sport Cars Caparo T1 V8 engine

Born too late, died too soon

R.I.P Armando Acosta, original drummer of Saint Vitus, who passed away on November 25th, Thanksgiving Day, aged 58.

The man was a LEGEND.

Watch him do his thing in some footage of the Vitus reunion from 2003, before health problems lead to his departure from the band...



...there'll be a place at Odin's table in Valhalla laid out ready for him.

A Thing thing from The Thing.....

I'm gonna keep this (relatively) brief, and I'm also gonna assume that you're all fans of John Carpenter's 'The Thing'. If you ain't, then you can not entry as you are a false. G'wan, AMSCRAY!!

So. Now that it's just us non-falsers left, I'm gonna share something FUCKING AWESOME with you. Does the name Justin 'Uberkvlt' Bartlett mean anything to you? If it does, then you know he's the fuckin' MAN.
If it doesn't, then go to your record/CD collection and have a good rummage through the Black Metal, Doom, Sludge and whatnot. I guarantee you'll have at least ONE of the man's record/CD sleeves in there...Trap Them, Dragged Into Sunlight, the AMAZING new Locrian album, a bunch of Southern Lord covers...see? You know him.

Amongst other things, Justin LOVES 'The Thing', so, when he said that this Hallowe'en he was gonna give us HIS take on what the cover for the VHS version of 'The Thing' should be, well, I was excited.

When I saw it, I was beyond blown away.

Before I unveil it, let us compare the original covers that you may well have on YOUR copy of 'The Thing'



























...nothing ostensibly wrong with these. The original cover with the dude in the lit-up parka is pretty iconic, but on the whole, they could ALL be improved upon, right?

With that in mind, FEAST YER PEEPERS!





You gotta be fucking kidding, right?


I bet you'd love to be able to download and print off your own copy, so you can swap out the less awesome one for the super-awesome Uberkvlt one, right?





Well, TA-DAAAAAAA!!

Yes, it's free, BUT, if you feel like making a small donation then there is the option there. Justin is a struggling artist and the merch from the upcoming Tron:Legacy movie ain't cheap....

Download, replace and enjoy. If you need me, I'll be in my shack getting drunk.

THE MOLDY DOGS AND IC ON THE WEB

The Moldy Dogs

I don't have time right now to do a proper introduction for this post, but if anyone out there in IC land is a fan of the Wolf Roxon stories I've posted you'll definitely want to read this. It's a link to a story about The Moldy Dogs, the band Mr Roxon started in St Louis in 1972. I hope you'll read it, and enjoy it, and tell everyone you know about it.

Perfect Sound Forever

BURNING WITCH - CRIPPLED LUCIFER (1998)

Don't you guys just fucking HATE the way that every time I post a doom metal album, I'm all "hey guys, I don't even like doom metal, but this band is pretty good"? (see past examples here and here, to name just a few.) I mean, enough with the fucking back-peddling already, who cares if you "like" that "type" of music or not, just POST THE FUCKING DOWNLOAD LINK AND GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY ALREADY. It's pretty fucking obnoxious, the way I basically just write the same descriptions over and over, never adding any new insight or anything, really just taking up precious bits of your mental space like some sort of pathetic mind vampire.

That being said, I don't even like doom metal. But Burning Witch's Crippled Lucifer is fucking amazing and classic and depressing as fuck and harsh blah blah blah etc etc etc!

You know the story already: Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson post-Thorr's Hammer, before Anderson formed Goatsnake and O'Malley went on to hipster shit like Khanate and Sunn O))). There is nothing "fun" or "rockin" about this album. It is pure hate and evil. Do drugs.

Download HERE
Purchase HERE

Seriously, guys?

Metallum/Last.FM