Australian death metal weirdos Portal, whose Outre record came in at #8 on Decibel’s Top 40 Albums of 2007 list, recently played their first live gig since the release of said album. I can’t make out the rest of the band in this image, but I’m hopping the guitarist strapped on a toaster and bassist opted for an oscillating fan to round out their headgear. Lampshades are totally for pussies!

For more images from the Portal show click here.

And now, a moment of silence for the record industry. Sure, the 8-track got overtaken by the cassette quickly. Bet you didn’t see that one coming. And the whole “enhanced CD” idea was a total dog. But we had some good times together, didn’t we? Anyway, it’s not you and your outmoded business model — it’s our own impatience. Why go through the annoyance of following your rules when artists can effectively cut out the middleman (and the whole indentured servitude part)? With MySpace and Facebook and YouTube, artists can release their own music and handle their own promotion with a minimum of effort. The label part is an afterthought (Mindless Self Indulgence as a textbook example), and record labels are looking to sign artists who have already done their A&R work for ‘em — the next Marié Digby and Soulja Boy.

And how’s this for weirdo irony: Epitaph’s recent signing I Set My Friends on Fire is the first case of a MySpace sensation inking a deal based entirely on a reinterpretation of another MySpace sensation’s work (a batshit crazy “screamo” cover of Soulja Boy’s “Crank Dat”). Good for the kids in I Set My Friends on Fire for taking advantage of those desperately out-of-touch carpetbaggers at Epitaph and grabbing the loot — they’d probably find other ways of peddling their wares without a deal, but now they can make music with less distractions. As you can see from the video above, Matt and Nabil seem like pretty funny guys and obviously don’t take themselves too seriously. And the songs on their MySpace page — despite drawing from a somewhat limited palette — are proof that ironic screamo is the only tolerable form of screamo. Since society is getting dumber by the minute, Matt and Nabil could make a killing amongst their 89,000 MySpace friends; when the actual record comes out in Fall 2008, though, they may be the only ones laughing.

I’m pretty sure that Rigor Mortis posed for this press photo after inking a contract with Capitol Records but the label decided to go with an image that featured the quartet wearing matching overalls…in a junkyard…surrounded by empty liquor bottles. I guess looking like a group of total rednecks was the right move for the Deep South market in those days, but this photo of the group having its way with a rotting corpse (and demonstrating excellent invisible orange technique) is so classic that we’re considering running a weekly photo caption contest. According to Blabbermouth, the reunited Rigor Mortis has been confirmed for a proposed two-day Ozzfest event in their hometown of Dallas, TX. Technically, the original line-up has been back together since 2005, but they’ve only played a handful of shows in the interval, so this one will probably stay under the wire. Still, a a 30-40 minute set featuring some of the gore-themed classics from the group’s limited catalogue sounds about right: the first Rigor Mortis record is a blast. These dudes wouldn’t even hang out with Pantera back in the day because they thought they were posers and now Phil Anselmo is their biggest supporter. Of course, they still sound like they’re straight from ‘88. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

MP3: Rigor Mortis, “Foaming at the Mouth” (from The Decline of Western Civilization Part II soundtrack)

What is up with the new video for Gwen Stacy’s “The Fear in Your Eyes”? It manages to come across as both inspid and overzealous, which is strange considering that the song has no explicit Christian content. Of course, the members of Gwen Stacy self-identify as Christians and almost every other song on the group’s debut — like “Jeremiah Buys a Field,” which tells us that Jesus died for our sins — sports an evangelical tone. I think there’s some sort of message intended by the repetitive close-ups of a gleaming, sun-kissed crucifix, but the treatment is really confusing: good footage of an average hardcore act interspersed with dull shots of a bunch of toothless scene kids scrambling up the Indiana Dunes and beating the shit out of each other. Yo, Wes Craven’s version was much better.

Yes, we know that this is an extremely NSFW image. However, you can’t talk about goregrind without talking about album art and we’re not going to let this awful/amazing example slide by untouched. In addition to the usual assortment of decapitated heads, zombies and murder-rape fantasies depicted here, there’s a picture of a woman in the corner with a particularly gruesome injury: there’s a fountain of blood pouring out of her right breast. That’s almost too vile and sadistic. At this point, Spain’s Gruesome Stuff Relish is one of those bands that inevitably gets 27th billing at the Maryland Death Fest (though whomever puts together the line-up posters is weird — are they seriously trying to tell us that there are a dozen death or grind bands better than Disfear?), but they also waited 6 years to release their follow-up to 2002’s Teenage Giallo Grind. Points for picking a name that encapsulates what the trio sounds like and not opting for the ol’ goregrind standby of an infectious disease that makes your penis fall off. Also, unlike every grind band that claims to sound like Impetigo, they actually do sound like Impetigo, but with much funnier song titles and the novel twist of incorporating the occasional soundbyte from a 1970s Italian/Spanish horror film (one of the guitarists is named Argento, after all). They’re even coming to the States for an appearance at MDF and a few off-dates next month. Be afraid, be very afraid:

May 19 2008 8:00P The Tritone Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
May 20 2008 8:00P Village Pub South, Amityville, New York
May 21 2008 8:00P Hartley’s, North Arlington, New Jersey
May 22 2008 8:00P Bankshots/Stanton, Wilmington, Delaware
May 25 2008 8:00P Sonar - Maryland Death Fest Baltimore, Maryland

Here’s Human Waste Project, one of better nu metal casualties/ Ozzfest second stage acts of the ’90s, performing “Dog” during a surprise reunion at Aimee Echo’s birthday party last month. Anyone who cared about nu metal ten years ago was not paying attention to Human Waste Project, but the group’s 1997 full-length e-lux has aged reasonably well. The less said about the group’s terrible duet with Jonathan Davis on a cover of the Go-Go’s “This Town,” the better. But e-lux sports solid Ross Robinson production, Echo’s weirdly-expressive vocals and the kind of spacey sound experiements that get the Deftones a “Get Out of Jail Free” card when the topic of nu metal comes up. Judging by the hoots and howls, there’s a few people who wouldn’t mind a full-blown comeback — your typical Warped Tour band is way more toothsome than the New Wave-y pap Echo has been churning out with theSTART. The timing’s much better now, too, even if the most “punk rock” thing any of these guys have been associated with lately has nothing to do with Human Waste Project:

Teddybears f/ Aimee Echo, “Punkrocker” [live in NYC, 9/27/07]

Japan’s contributions to extreme music have been sparse, but often groundbreaking. From the early grind blasts of S.O.B. and G.I.S.M. to the progressive/regressive black metal of both Sigh and Gallhammer. Now comes Kei Kunihiro’s one-man dance-metal jam known as Poetic Assassin. The following clip for “Inverti in Darkness” features perhaps the world’s most bored girlfriend in the studio background as well as multiple shots of PA’s sweet Misfits/Hello Kitty-inspired tats. But seriously, the majority of these vocals don’t sound that much different to me than Tom Waits. When Paste eventually begins covering metal, they should start with Kei.

The new Testament record The Formation of Damnation is currently streaming through the end of the week on the band’s MySpace page. It’s not as great of a comeback as the new Death Angel, but Testament can get away with pushing out some weaker tracks since the big “story” is the “reunion” (they’re billing it as such) and the band has a slightly deeper catalogue to draw on during this summer’s massive Judas Priest-Heaven and Hell-Motörhead-Testament tour. Actually, the big “story” is the return of the old-school Testament logo. At least they got the branding right. Also awesome is super-sub Paul Bostaph occupying the drum stool. His drumming (especially on “The Persecuted Won’t Forget”) is consistently the best thing about the record — and this is a band that has featured heavyweights Dave Lombardo, Gene Hoglan and John Tempesta on its last few records.

Still, am I being a killjoy for thinking that Testament peaked with The New Order in 1988? Testament has cycled through a billion different line-ups and tried on many different hats in the last two decades, but the one thing the band consistently comes up short on is lyrics. Testament as a politically-conscious entity is not particularly insightful — and not very fun (the group’s September 11th commentary “The Evil Has Landed” is particularly cringeworthy). On the plus side, Chuck Billy has toned down those moments where he sounds like he’s auditioning for Throwdown and Alex Skolnick and Greg Christian are back! Great story, not a great record, so let’s all have fun listening to the stream and call it a wash.