Apr 102011
 

I may not be able to write much during the next two weeks, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be completely invisible. Every now and then I’ll expose myself, figuratively speaking of course,  just so you don’t forget me. However, the exposures will mostly be fleeting, hit-and-run, guerilla-warfare incursions. In other words, my posts will be even more half-assed and unoriginal than usual. The only plus side for you is that they’ll be short.

This post will set the tone for more to come. First, it’s completely unoriginal — I stole the idea from The Living Doorway, which is a blog you should check out if you haven’t already. Second, it’s very short, because I haven’t even listened to the album in question, just the one song featured on The Living Doorway post. And third, because I wrote it, it will be half-assed by definition.

The band is Blood Freak, from Portland. The album is Mindscraper, now out on Willowtip Records. The song is “Pink on the Inside”. The style is “a splattery hodgepodge of bass-heavy goregrind, campy thrashiness, and grooving horror-fueled death metal.” I’m quoting The Living Doorway post because I can’t improve on that description. My own half-assed opinion? I love this song. You may listen to it after the jump.

So, here’s the song — and the cool thing is, you can download this song and one other from the album at the Willowtip site (click here) — for free. At the same place, you can also order the CD.

  42 Responses to “EYE-CATCHERS: BLOOD FREAK”

  1. haha I love how you make it sound like we had to ask for permission to check out the song.

    “You may listen to it after the jump.”

    And FYI: Nothing wrong with reposts. Some days you have slow news days and rely on other sources. I’ve done it through this site before. It’s all about showing the love and sharing. Sharing is caring.

    All that said, this certainly whets my appetite for some obscurity. I’ll have to check out more. Bands that don’t take much seriously, always seem to be the most fun to listen to. Save the seriousness for Black Metal. HA!

    Keepin’ it Wolf.

    • I find that too many metal bloggers tell their readers what to do. I’m experimenting with politeness by granting permission and then allowing readers to decide for themselves, which of course they otherwise would have no power to do.

      • Very noble of you.

        I think I enjoy this site the most out of all the rest of other blogs because it’s truthful, it covers exactly what it says it will and the people who come by and comment not only share new and interesting things, but are strangely and refreshingly devoid of any sort of flaming.

        Metalsucks is nice, sure. But it’s one LONG troll and flame fest about why this band sucks and this band rules. I go there for the variety, but I come here for the community.

  2. Holy fuck.
    You brought the moar brootulz i was looking for!!!

    I might buy a physical cd, if there are no digital downloads.

    I officially hate physical media now.

    Also: what rob said. Though i havent been as impressed with MS’s variety recently.

    • The new Blood Freak album is available on iTunes and Amazon MP3 (at least, the US versions of those things). I’m a dinosaur, so I ordered the CD after listening to more songs. Nice and brootalz, but you can tap your toes to it, too.

  3. That was a nice song to listen to after finding out the depressing news that for the first time ever, I have to pay Uncle Sam after doing my taxes. A bunch of money grubbing bastards, all of em.

    • Ah yes, the sublime obligations of citizenship. Next thing you know, you’ll be getting a summons for jury service. At least we don’t have a draft any more.

      • I havent paid american taxes for years!

        Japanese taxes though….

        Fuck.

      • Jury duty is fun. I want to convict a murderer to death row. We are still averaging two executions a month or so. Business at Huntsville State Prison is clicking right along.

        • ‘Fraid I have to part company with you on this dude. Putting aside the moral issues raised by state execution, the judicial system and the prosecutorial machinery aren’t good enough to trust with life and death decisions. Check this out as an example — and this story actually had a (sort of) happy ending. It’s on my mind because I met this dude in Texas last week. Amazingly, he’s not bitter — just wants to stop what happened to him from happening to other people.

          http://www.anthonygraves.org/
          http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Anthony_Graves_and_the_Long_Struggle_to_Freedom.php

          • Dayyymn, Shit got real.

          • Can I ammend my statement to completely 100% without a reasonable doubt guilty? What happened to that man and the West Memphis Three is appalling. Thanks for putting that out there, Islander.

            • Didn’t really intend to jump you with something this heavy, but like I said, it’s been on my mind a lot since I met Anthony Graves. I would have gone insane if I’d been on death row for 18 years for a crime I didn’t commit. I asked him how he kept from going crazy, and he credited his naivete: he just couldn’t believe that an innocent man would be put to death and had faith that because he was innocent, he would one day be freed. I wouldn’t have had nearly that much faith in our judicial system.

              • It’s all good man. And Mr. Graves has more faith then I ever will. While I have no faith in humanity as a whole, its great to see somehting like this happen that gives you hope that maybe it’s not as bad as we think and the human race can change.

                • Agree — this is an amazing story. Graves’ conviction finally got overturned on one of the numerous appeals, because the original prosecutor failed to tell Graves’ defense lawyers that the main witness against him had actually denied that Graves had anything to do with the murders. (There was no physical evidence, no motive, and there were other witnesses who placed Graves at his home when the murders happened.)

                  After that, the DA’s office in the county between Houston and Austin where the murders happened decided to re-try Graves anyway. They hired a top-gun prosecutor from Houston as a special counsel to handle the new trial — a tough woman who had obtained a long string of capital murder convictions. After she looked at all the evidence, she announced there would be no new trial because Graves was innocent. Lots of other people had a hand in freeing this guy, but who knows what would have happened if that woman hadn’t stepped up and done the right thing.

                  • The universe was looking out for Mr. Graves, that’s for sure. Just glad it worked out the way it was supposed to for him. I just hope the West Memphis Three get their convictions overturned. If you don’t know anything about them, check out what happened to them here: http://www.wm3.org/

                    They were railroaded about as bad as Mr Graves was, but the kicker is that they were teenagers, who happened to like metal and were pegged as satanists and convicted with nothing but a false confession and an prosecutorial expert on the “occult” who didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

                    • Good lord — and those dudes have been in prison for 15 years, and counting. At least it looks like the one on death row is now being given a chance by the Arkansas Supreme Court to argue for a new trial based on the DNA evidence.

                    • The trial is slated to start the first of October. It will be something that I am going to keep an eye on. If you can find a copy of “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills”, I highly recommend picking it up. It is an excellent documentary. There was also a sequal made called “Paradise Lost 2: Revelations”, but I haven’t seen it.

                    • So they got a new trial? I should have known there’d be a decision on that by now since the Arkansas Supreme Court decision came down last November. Do you know if it’s for all 3 or just the guy on death row?

                    • What these stories, and others like em, show is that other innocent people who weren’t so lucky (maybe because they met their fates before DNA testing became available) have been executed in the past for crimes they didn’t commit — poor people (usually black people) with mediocre lawyers who got railroaded, sometimes by unscrupulous prosecutors who just wanted to win. And even today, once there’s a conviction at trial, it’s a huge uphill battle to get the conviction overturned, even when there’s significant evidence of innocence.

                    • They are having an “evidentiary hearing” to have the DNA at the scene tested against all three defendents. Depending on what those test results and hearings on all of the other evidence given by the prosecution will determine if they get a re-trial. All three kids will go through the evidentialry hearing together. And as an interesting note, two of the prosecutors from the original case are now judges in the district that could potentially be selected as the judge to preside over the evidentiary hearing. The thrid prosecutor was elected as a judge and is know a state senator and this case during his election. If there is a hell or some kind of torment in the afterlife, I hope that those three attourneys rot there for eternity.

                    • I agree that the legal system is borken. But nothing short of dismantling the government will change it. Until then, we have to do the best we have with what we have got. I know innocent people are convicted and punished (or even killed) for things they didn’t do. But in the end, would you set all of the people that are truly guilty free to save a couple of innoncents? I realize that if it was me or someone I loved in that situation then I would change my mind in a heartbeat, but if you look at the cold, hard facts and take emotion out of the equation, you have to accept that their will be mistakes that are made that will cost people their liberty and their lives, but in the end, we do what we have to do to try and make everyone safe as we can. It’s far from perfect, but it’s what we got.

  4. @ deaths_embrace:

    Thought I’d move this back over to the left margin. On your last thought, you make the case for a cost-benefit justification for the imperfect system we’ve got. I understand that errors are going to happen in the criminal justice system, but when the cost of errors involve someone’s life, I just think that’s too great a price to pay. Funny you mentioned how we would feel if it was us or someone we loved about to be executed for something they didn’t do, because that’s what Anthony Graves said to me: If we could get people to realize that it could be THEIR innocent brother or father or son at risk of execution, people might think twice about the death penalty.

    • I’m not intending to jump in y’all’s conversation,though I find it interesting. I’m torn on the death penalty myself because when people commit a particularly brutal or child related crime I think they deserve to die. We don’t need our tax dollars feeding these fuckers while children go hungry. Something needs to be changed (in my opinion) in the sentencing phase to take the death penalty off the table when the evidence (or lack of it) can’t absolutely prove guilt 100%. Of course, I have no idea how to go about that or if it’s even feasible.

      An example would be last week here in Chattanooga, Tennessee a police officer was fatally shot in the head while responding to an armed robbery in front of witnesses including staff at the business being robbed, other responding officers, staff of neighboring businesses aswell as patrons and bystanders. The shooter had a history of armed and violent crime and I think he should be put to death.

      Free the West Memphis Three!

      How’s that for not bustin’ in on a conversation?

      • Man, not bustin’ in at all. By definition, nothing’s private in the Comments. I was hoping someone else would join in, especially since about the only subject we ever discuss seriously around here is metal. The example you give is like the flip side of my last comment: if it was your child or your sibling or your parent cut down in a senseless murder, how would you feel about the death penalty then? I guess maybe the point is that it doesn’t advance things much to bring in emotional reactions on one side or the other.

        I’ll tell you that the other thing about the death penalty I have trouble wrapping my mind around is this: if it’s so wrong to take another person’s life, then are we really sending the right message, are we really expressing our goals for our society, by taking a life as punishment. I know this is an old debate, and I got nothing new to say about it, but that does bother me. And at a gut level, knowing the State has the power to take a life just makes me very uncomfortable.

        • I was wondering when somebody would bring this argument up. I can see how somebody would have an issue with the moral qualm of taking a life in punishment. I look at it this way. The constitution states that every person is guaranteed the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If you are convicted of taking a life, you have forfeited your rights to life just like a common felon has to forfeit his right to liberty.

          Byrd also raises a interesting point when you look at the cost aspect of feeding and housing a prisoner for life. Why should the ordinary, law abiding citizen finance keeping a convicted murderer alive for decades. Yes that person is deprived of liberty, but most do nothing but sit around all day working out or continuing to run their criminal enterprises from jail. Precious few actually take the initiative to better themselves and work to become a productive member of society. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my hard earned money going to keep a convicted multiple child murderer alive because the state says he can’t be killed as a punishment.

          I guess my point that I am trying to make is that there are no perfect solutions. Either way, innocent people will be hurt. The question you have to ask is which path lessens the risk to the most amount of people. When you get right down to it, just like everything else in this world, it eventually becomes a game of numbers and how well you can sleep at night with the decisions that you make.

        • I think if the evidence is indisputable and only if it’s indisputable then capital punishment is acceptable, sadly that line isn’t drawn. I personally don’t see the advantage to keeping someone who indisputably doesn’t value the life of innocents alive. On the same hand if the evidence is at all disputable, we must protect possible innocents even in conviction.

          “I’ll tell you that the other thing about the death penalty I have trouble wrapping my mind around is this: if it’s so wrong to take another person’s life, then are we really sending the right message, are we really expressing our goals for our society, by taking a life as punishment.”

          Personally, I feel it’s only wrong to take innocent life and when you indisputabley do, you give the right to your own away.

      • Byrd hit the nail on the head. Even knowing that I would change my mind if I or my family were involved, I still favor the death penalty when the evidence against a person is indisputable. The problem I have is when there are cases like the West Memphis Three and Mr. Graves. They were convicted based on very flawed evidence. I think the prosecutors that work to defend us should be held accountable in situations like this. I don’t know how that could be accomplished, but if a couple of these knuckleheads get punished, and severely, it might make a difference and stop some of these blatantly ridiculous convictions from occurring.

        • I’m definitely with you on your last point. As long as we’ve got the death penalty, something needs to be done to make sure the people charged with enforcing it fully realize the gravity of what they’re doing and don’t get to skate when they manipulate the system and ignore the rules in order to notch up another “victory”.

  5. My problem with capital punishment is that it’s so base. We feel like it’s right. Im against it, and i still find myself thinking let the fuckers swing. But as far as i know it doesn’t do anything to prevent violent crime and we spend more fighting appeals than life timers.

    It might feel good, but it doesnt bring the dead back….and it doesnt help our society.

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