Scumchrist: Fire In The Manger (Corley Music) https://root.theworkpc.com/music/preview?img=http://www.myspace.com/fireinthemanger This CD has to be in my top ten for 2006. This gospel according to Scumchrist sounds like sonic sludge salvation. There's a presence and feel to these tunes that has held my ears to the fire from the first listen. This sounds the way I feel. I can hear my own depression, anger, and loss reflected in Scumchrist. There's a rawness and realness on these tracks that I've never quite encountered before. I can hear bitterness, anger, frustration, disappointment, rage, hatred, and it's all-REAL. These guys aren't just playing some abstract portrayal of these emotions; they're truly living them. There's not a single happy note or chord on this CD. It's all minor chords, flatted fifths, and all the rest of the inharmonious notes described in psychiatry books as being able to release negative energies and unpleasant feelings, which means it totally slays me. Having Billy Anderson mix it down, so to speak, also adds a nice touch of gloomy, low loudness. I am amazed that these guys met, wrote out these odes to dread and despair in one day, and then recorded them the next day. When you're this real you obviously don't need months of dial tinkering and knob twisting to find the right word or note for added atmosphere and realism, because you already have it inside, authentic and genuine like Zen sludge masters, full of nihilistic and menacing vitriol. When you have internalized your music this completely your grooves flow like poison treacle and your heart and soul are blacker than deep space. I also hear a postmodern element herein that I believe is Scumchrist's commentary on the state of the world. The lyrics and malevolent metal spewed by these masters of malice speak volumes about the dehumanizing conditions we live in this modern world and how it is destroying our very souls. The purest form of creation involves destruction, and the message here demands the rejection and crushing of all things false and phony from a perspective of abject resignation that what we have now sucks shit and must be destroyed and rebuilt. This is true sludge doom despair metal that deserves the highest praise possible. - Glenn Tillman. Scumchrist features current and former members of 16, Fistula, Downspell, Rune, Hemdale, DieHard, Madman Mundt, King Travolta, Ultralord, Maxmillion, Son Of Jorel, Rue, Trenchant, and Accept Death. Andy Strickland - Guitar Corey Bing - Guitar Jason Corley - Drums Matt Rositano - Bass Tyson Montrucchio - Vocals Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.