MIND INVERSION

The Sunday Metal Minute is back for another week, and yet again the underground metal mainstream has failed to provide me with any new media that I’m anxious to post (..I’m holding out on a Municipal Waste post until we either get some more tracks to leak or see a music video..), so I’ve decided to dig back into the Mind Inversion vaults. Without the albums released by this week’s pick, Starkweather, metal as we know it likely would not exist.

Though they are still relatively unknown to this day, early releases by Starkeweather such as Crossbearer and Into the Wire united the ferocious styles of death and doom metal with the no-bullshit straightforward hardcore of Youth of Today and Minor Threat and eventually contributed a directl influence current darlings including Converge, Mastodon, and the Dillinger Escape Plan among others. In fact, for those who need a comparison, I’d liken the plight of Starkweather to the same one that afflicted Anvil back in the 80s, where the most enjoyable aspects of the band’s abrasive, hard-rocking metal sound were co-opted by others to propel their success while Anvil continued to dwell in obscurity (at least until this year, that is..). However, unlike Anvil, Starkweather’s output from the early 90s still sounds ahead of its time today and could easily garner comparisons to recent output from the like-minded boundary pushers in Kylesa – and they still haven’t received their big break.

“Shroud” is a great example of the emotional depth and vicious ferocity that Starkweather was capable of. If you have never heard this band but enjoy any others that I’ve mentioned in this post, do yourself a favor and download this and then begin to search for more to add to your collection; recent reissues and a new album via Candlelight Records in 2006 have made it easier than in past years.

DOWNLOAD: Starkweather, “Shroud” (from Into the Wire, 1995)