I was shocked to find a stack of these compilation Cds stashed away with one of our suppliers, as we had figured the Shock Records catalog to be long sold out and unavailable. Released in 1993, White Trash Motherfuckers compiled a host of the UK's skuzziest underground noise outfits, and it's a diverse gang that is gathered together here, ranging from the abrasive improv skronk of Ascension and the sample-heavy industrial sludge rock of Cosmonauts Hail Satan to the bizarre noise dirges of Beautiful Penis and the psychedelic tribal crush of Splintered, and it's a highly recommended collection of some of the heaviest shit that was oozing out of the UK noise rock underground in the early half of the 90's, adorned with fantastically horrific artwork from Savage Pencil.

First up is Ascension with three tracks of fearsome black-hole improv. On these tracks the band moves from droning howling feedback guitar and clanging and metallic axe noise to heavy, pummeling freeform drumming that builds into a strange hypnotic skronk-fest, like a brutal Sharrock-on-steroids free-noise jam. Next are three tracks from Beautiful Penis, an obscure group that features future members of Vibracathedral Orchestra. The band plays a kind of weirdo sludge-punk slop that starts off like a Kilslug/Brainbombs style hate dirge, but then ends up in ear-wrecking noise territory, their guitars erupting into an orgy of noise, then shifting into pounding Swans-esque sub-industrial pummel.

One of my favorite bands from this era, Cosmonauts Hail Satan are one of the highlights of this compilation. Their first song "Across the River of Blood" mixes together apocalyptic fundamental Christian samples over a sinister industrial sludge-guitar dirge, buzzing looped chords, and clanking industrial rhythms. Their sound is swirled with eerie melodic feedback and hypnotic noise, and heads into the short interlude "Clubbed to Death between Two Worlds" where creepy old sci-fi movie samples are layered across trippy raga guitar buzz, looped feedback, and backwards melody. Then "Stranger In A Street Of Dogs" crashes in with AWESOME blown-out psychedelic black hole guitar whoosh and grinding evil riffage over a heavy shambling break beat, diabolically groovy and noisy, almost like Godflesh but way more druggy and effects-damaged. Their last song "New Scientific Civilization" is another groovy beat-heavy psych-industrial jam, a sitar-like melody looping endlessly over strange spacey fx and sampled voices, with a murky pounding break beat hidden below it all.

And then there are the lesser known bands like Derv and The MikePostMortem; the former was the free-noise-rock solo project from Tony Irving of Ascension, who contributes four pieces of crazed post-Sharrock/Bailey skronk blast in the vein of Ascension but a little looser and less bleak in tone, with brutal guitar noise showered over heavy free jazz drum meltdown and splattered in brain-damaged blues licks. An enjoyable avant guitar freakout, and one of the few appearances that Derv ever made. This was also apparently the only released material from the weirdly named Mikepostmortem, but their three tracks are more brutal caveman industrial low-fi dirge rock that's always welcome around here, part Swans-like pummel, part Cosmo Hail Satan-style sample driven drudge, guitars scraping against walls and distorted growling muffled vocals over piercing feedback. It sounds pretty psychotic, like Swans crossed with Butthole Surfers.

And last is Splintered, another one of my favorite early 90s UK bands. They end this compilation with a towering twelve minute tribal-industrial-sludge epic, a wall of heavy polyrhythmic percussion hammering behind a dense, swirling mass of howling vocals, druggy chanting, serpentine guitar riffing, rumbling bass and synthesizers; it's part early Neurosis, part Loop, part Killing Joke, but infused with the deranged experimentation of early 90s UK industrial rock, a monstrous filthy groove at the heart of this sinister psychedelic sludge jam.