Early February, 2023. I just looked up what was going on in the world at the time because I couldn’t remember. We had war, environmental disasters, economic crises…basically all the same depressing shit we have now that makes listening to hideously ugly sludge metal feel life-affirming by comparison. I can tell you one way Feb. 3, 2023 was “the good old days”: Gimme Radio was still online, streaming metal 24 hours a day for free. Real DJs digging deep, guests from bands big and small playing their favorite music and chatting with the listeners in real time. It was a whole thing, a genuine community just like Tyler Lenane envisioned. If you were there, you know. I can’t speak for any Gimme staffers or other DJs, but I had no idea at the time that in about three months, Gimme as a streaming radio station would be no more.
My show Grave Convulsions started on Gimme Radio in September 2017, which is where it existed and mutated until the very end. Episode 128 was the seventh-to-last episode to air on Gimme if we count the punk special I did for the Gimme Punk channel that had recently launched (and we should, it’s my show and I say it’s canon because that shit was sick). When word came that Gimme was shutting down streaming, I had the opportunity to get an archive of an episode. I wish I remembered why episode 128 was one of the ones I asked to get, because it’d make for a way better blog post, but it’s the one I got. (Maybe because it’s the one where I say the sentence, “I’m a sicko freak.”) Listening now and looking over the playlist, I think it’s a solidly representative episode: underground black and death metal as the meat and potatoes, if you will, with some grindcore (Disgusto, Brutal Truth) and noisy industrial weirdness (Uranium) to keep it spicy, representation from all over the globe, New Jersey content, and someheavy synthesizer use because that’s what I’m into.
This is a good time to acknowledge that every episode of Grave Convulsions comes together thanks to labels that send promos and pals who have cool projects and recommendations. Friend of the show Jim Knot, also part of regulars Primitive Knot and Trial, sent along the EP by his death metal project Astral Church, and Disgusto was a recommendation from the homie Paolo of the P2 label after his goregrind band Miasmatic Necrosis played with them in Mexico. (Fun fact: A photo of Paolo’s copy of the Disgusto LP was the image for it on the Gimme app and website, there wasn’t a photo of it online because GxCx is THAT underground). Listening to this show will likely doom your mortal soul to hell, but, I mean, what are you gonna do? Enjoy!
Intro: DJ EONS ONE
01. Thou Shalt Suffer – Spectral Prophecy (Into the Woods of Belial)
02. Astral Church – Ingress of Chthonic Decay (Fleshstar)
03. Apostasy – Jus Primae Noctis (Death Return)
04. Häxanu – Death Euphoria (Totenpass)
05. Nigrum – Murderer, Dweller (Elevenfold Tail)
06. Overthrust – Freedom in the Dark (African Warriors)
07. Altar of Gore – Descent Into Charnel Depths (Infinite Visions of Violence)
08. Ashen Tomb – Graveless Abomination (Ashen Tomb)
09. Act of Impalement – Specters of Unlight (Infernal Ordinance)
10. Chovu – Kithutu Walk (African Warriors)
11. Demoncy – Hidden Path to the Forest Beyond (Joined in Darkness)
12. Dryad – Brine Pool Aberration (The Abyssal Plain)
13. Μνήμα – Disciples of Excremental Liturgies (Disciples of Excremental Liturgies)
14. Sanguinária – Ária V: Matriarca Sandia (Caída em Desgraça) (Árias Sanguíneas)
15. Embalm – II (Demo ’95)
16. Rottrevore – Incompetent Secondary (Iniquitous)
17. Innumerable Forms – Deified Tyrants (Philosophical Collapse)
18. Rigor Sardonicous – Terra Mota Est (Praeparet Bellum)
19. Disgusto – Dictadores Muertos (Nuestra Realidad)
20. Brutal Truth – Die Laughing (Sounds of the Animal Kingdom)
21. Sonic Poison – War on Drugs (Eruption)
22. Nile – Hittite Dung Incantation (Those Whom the Gods Detest)
23. Corpse Molestation – At the Graveyard of God (Descension of a Darker Deity)
24. Misþyrming – Engin Vorkunn (Með hamri)
25. Mysticum – Black Magic Mushrooms (Audiopain/Mysticum)
26. Uranium – Gnawing at the Bones (An Exacting Punishment)