Adrian Smith And Project (A.S.A.P.)

1989 LP Silver And Gold UK EMCG3566 EMI
MC Silver And Gold USA 7 73572-4 Enigma
CD Silver And Gold USA 7 73572-2 Enigma
CD Silver And Gold JAP TOCP-5928 Toshiba EMI
7” Silver And Gold UK EM107 EMI
1989 7” Silver And Gold UK EMG107 EMI
Gatefold picture sleeve on clear vinyl.
12” Silver And Gold UK 12EM107 EMI
Simulated live version of ‘Blood Brothers’.
12” Silver And Gold UK 12EMP107 EMI
Poster sleeve.
12” Silver And Gold UK 12EMPD107 EMI
Silver and Gold vinyl. Picture card backing.
CDEP Silver And Gold UK CDEM107 EMI
1990 7” Down The Wire UK EMS131 EMI
7” Down The Wire UK EMPD131 EMI
Shaped picture disc.
12” Down The Wire UK 12EM131 EMI
12” Down The Wire UK 12EMP131 EMI
Poster Sleeve.
MCS Down The Wire UK TCEM131 EMI
CDEP Down The Wire UK CDEM131 EMI
2006 CD Silver And Gold UK CMQCD1164 Castle/ Sanctuary
Eight bonus tracks

ACRIMONY Advance 7" Tracks '93

"Hippy Doom from the hills of Wales"

"Airmong? Any good??" as my Dad said, responding to my new t-shirt. I used to badger guitar star Stu O'Hara for the latest Acrimony rehearsal tapes and he always obliged. The wiley old chap left me a track by British progsters at the close of one of the tapes... and that alone adjusted my listening preferences for some considerable time. Another story!

In April 1992 five taffy bois entered Sonic Studios with producer Tim Hamill (he of Tortoise Corpse) and recorded the 'A Sombre Thought' demo. Those three tracks of mid-paced death-tinged doom metal did rather well on the circuit and live shows in the local area attracted a small yet loyal following. Exposure in fanzines - including local zinester Peter J's very own Verbal Aggression and Spud's (he who discovered Fear Factory) Beyond Death Zine from the North East - led to a strong underground pen-pal base. As young Welsh bois from the valley do they blended Cannabis and Mushies with the splendid street-nectar Buckfast and emerged, a year later, with some much-livened transatlantic stoner/ hippy doom. Taking their cue from Cathedral at their grooviest, a dash of Hawkwind and Sabbath they presented to us, and Shiver Records (Belgium), four tracks of twisted, struggling, groovsome down-an-dirty doom.

I only ever really liked 'Herb' at the time - and that's an instrumental. 'Eternally Mine' was a crushing doom-monster... but didn't make it onto the vinyl, Shiver preferring 'Solstice Sadness' and 'For Morrow' only for the 7" record.

The rest is history. Acrimony had their four-and-a-half minutes of fame on an Evan Seinfeld (Biohazard) presented 'Triple Thrash Treat' on MTV with 'Spaced Cat #6' in the Summer of 1994 (album 'Hymns To The Stone on Godhead soon to be reissued on vinyl via Leafhound). The video... typically... shows the 'bois stoned to f*** coated in swamp-mud, gazing at tombstones and looking hysterically blank and yet entirely bewildered at the same time...

"Just rock, innit?"

ALIEN KULTURE Asian Youth 7" '79

"Stephanie Villalba, the former Merrill Lynch executive who has lost the bulk of her £7.5 million discrimination claim against the bank, ought to have known her former boss Ausaf Abbas was made of fighting spirit. He was once a mean bass player in punk rock band Alien Kulture, with songs including the racism protest song 'Culture Crossover'. With that form, Abbas was never going to let Villalba get away with her allegation of Merrill's institutional sexism..."

Precursors of today's Asian Dub Foundation, Alien Kulture were formed around the nucleus of outspoken youth Ausaf Abbas and his two Asian friends. And there was a Welshman too.

The Asian Youth record (b/w Culture Crossover) was released in 1979 on Rock Against Racism. Disputed listings also mention a pressing in 1981 with the cat. no Kulture1. BBC Birmingham commissioned a feature on the band in 1980 for their Art Asia slot. The band... despite the encouraging response to the single disbanded and the Welshman returned to his homeland.

“I couldn’t play particularly well but that didn’t seem to matter. We released a single and once we were third support to Siouxsie and the Banshees...”

- Ausaf Abbas

DECOMPOSED The Funeral Obsession 12" '92

"Take my soul... awayyyyyy...!"

Frontman Harry Armstrong (once of Reactor and Lord Of Putrefaction, then Collapse and Hangnail now heading End Of Level Boss) had a serious case of taphophilia back in his death/doom metal days! From 'Sermons Of Morbidity' to 'Hope Finally Died' there was a strong and definite... theme you could say!

This two-track 12" vinyl record issued by The Record Label (REC2) in 1992 was a classic among those who were in the know. Remember, this was a time only a couple of years before the underground tape-trading scene died in the UK. Decomposed were the proud sons (see The Reign, Gomorrah, Incarcerated, Winter Of Torment, Nightlord [jury's out], Anathema [maybe]) of the first wave (Napalm Death, Cerebral Fix, Bolt Thrower etc.) and were part of the Underground Titans Tour '92 led by Gomorrah and Underground oligarch Jose Griffin.

Spawning a debut demo (in those few months between 1990 and 1992 where a demo tape was the primary currency for a time) called 'Sermons Of Morbidity', a brow-raising follow up - 'Ego Sum Lex Mundi' ('I Am The Light Of The World') and a will-it/ won't-it/ where-is-it 7" record (some white labels, some in sleeve - crappy shitty mess on a kiss-and-a-promise-label from the USA) DECOMPOSED let slip an almighty slab of scratches which... SILENCED... the underground for a matter of minutes in the Summer of 1992.

'At Rest' is the opener... and it thunders like Bolt Thrower awoken from their strummy chugging slumber, weaving a massive riff over some (much improved Tim) pounding drums. Just the energy of the first minute, the intro riffage, is enough. Play that and file away. Lest you want more of course and there is the entire track. A rumbling monster enthralled with its warm, cosy, dripping vinyl resting place. This is British death/doom metal! This is early Anathema in a bedsit with the shits and they're more angry that woeful. This is 80% death. On the B-side rests 'Spawn Of Maternal Cadaver' and it comes rolling at you under the earth in chunks. Doomy death metal with a little groove.

You won't believe me... but this is a classic. This one gets the protective plastic sleeve treatment from me. This one I slide carefully back on to the shelf next to 'Hope Finally Died'. But this is the better record. This has stronger, grittier production and it roars! The album... staggers a while and protests... is great for winter mornings but this record - 'The Funeral Obsession' - this one... is Decomposed.

THY SINISTER BLOOM Thy Temperate Veil/ A Vanity Lost Demo '95

"There was once a dream I had..."

And here it is. An epic (22:32mins) exploration of romantic, ambient and soul-sodden doom metal from Dublin, Ireland recorded in 1995. The sleeve artwork and concept (courtesy of vocalist Jeff O'Reilly) was perfect for its time and origin. The atmosphere is bleak yet crisp, growing from a genesis of ambient bleeps, tones and whispers. There is a sense of majesty here as the song develops, somewhat inspired by Anathema's 'Crestfallen' EP issued only a couple of years earlier. Indeed, this recording is a re-recording of the material initially committed to tape in 1994 but lost, somewhere in the studio.

Jeff's vocals are soaring and often fragile, tempered by, once again, 'Crestfallen'-esque (Damien White) growls and earnest declarations. I love it when he rolls his Celtic "rrrrrr"'s! This is ambient stuff - easy to get lost in but at the same time a little torturous. This is doom metal you have to listen to in hindsight. A couple of plays and you'll be pre-empting the movements, soaking it all in. Taken as a whole - as a concept - the music of Thy Sinister Bloom was unique and individual. I remember listening to this on my headphones in bed as a... 19 year old and patiently sweating it out. The rewards... oh yes... lay there at the end - not only in the pushing away of the clammy earpieces but the realisation that for the listener there was/ is a real sense of achievement. Magnificently dreary and yet commanding, bitter, engrossing and ultimately enthralling stuff!

TSB recorded a further demo called 'Fragrant Suncry...' issued in 1996. From a rehearsal tape circulated in 1996 we also find 'Catching Fireflies', 'Glass Galaxies' and 'In Beauty Bound'. Unreleased material for the 'Serein Falls' record saw the band develop into something more ambient and just-out-of-reach. A recorded rehearsal in March of that year lets us in on a raw version of 'Lunar Seas Rising', a track which opens quietly and weaves a little before blossoming into a devastating riff which, according to the inlay of the tape is the blistering version of 'Splendour Flights Gather Like Swine'. And that riff, that explosion, always sets the hairs tingling along my arms and the back of my neck. One of those (mostly) unheard classics.

The band's material is slowly being revealed on MySpace so get your Google fingers tapping in the details.