Digital Mystikz - Cr7 Chamber

One of the hardest feelings to evoke in music is fear. You can turn the stereo off at any point. You can put the headphones down and walk away. It’s a rare song that doesn’t allow you to turn away, despite whatever the newest Ipecac offering might have you believe. In fact, one of the most frightening records I’ve ever heard is Photek’s Modus Operandi. On that record, the fear is borne of absence of feeling. It’s a drum ‘n’ bass lobotomy. Same goes for Digital Mystikz’s “Cr7 Chamber,” which appears on Rephlex’s underheralded second compilation of grime. That entry into the series didn’t seem to get nearly as much notoriety as the original, but has an equal amount of highlights. This track relies on Photek’s desiccated gongs and chimes. The difference is that Digital Mystikz isn’t afraid to load up the track with tons of them.

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Mogwai - Like Herod (Alec Empire Mix)

Personally, I never found wacky voices or hi-speed change ups all that frightening. Frightening to me is when you put the known and the unknown together into a place where both sound utterly alien to one another, as though they’re moving in different universes at the same time. That’s what Alec Empire’s remix of “Like Herod” sound like to me. At no point does Mogwai’s guitar line ever bother to intersect with what’s going on inside of Empire’s track. It’s as though he grafted the piece on afterwards, hoping they wouldn’t notice until the check had been deposited.

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Strapping Young Lad - Shitstorm

But maybe that’s just Empire at his finest. I’ll be featuring him in an upcoming Stycast and one of the main points that I want to make with it is the ability that he has to shapeshift into a variety of different guises at will. Strapping Young Lad’s frontman Devin Townsend is exactly the same way. Just as ridiculous too. Aside from fronting three bands, Townsend also runs the hit-and-miss Hevy Devy Records (you couldn’t tell this from the name?). “Shitstorm”’s from their decent new album. The song elevates itself to Stypod status via the children’s chorus, unwavering intensity, and humorous lyrics. It’s everything that you want from a metal group that consciously revels in its silliness at times.

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