BUSY BUSY BUSY

Today on PTW:

CONCENTRICK
"Sacred Texts"
from Aluminum Lake (Drag City)
It’s a shocking thing indeed to find oneself with a single positive thing to say about anything produced by a member of the Fucking Champs, a band that exemplifies all that’s wrong with indie rock’s appropriation of metal tropes. But Tim Green’s side project has plenty to offer it seems. [Read the rest here.]

This week in the Voice:

HASTA LA MUERTE
Vintage thrash metal is back with a vengeance, and it's speaking Spanish

MySpace is a baffling labyrinth—it'll consume your whole day if you let it, and you'll usually come away depressed by what you hear and see. But click the right link, and you can be neck-deep in a wondrous new world before you realize what's happened. Or, in this case, a very old world that's somehow revived itself and gone bilingual.

For some reason, '80s-style thrash is making a major comeback in the metal underground, led by a wave of Latino-dominated bands from Southern California, Mexico, and South America. These new disciples are hardcore, sporting the Metallica-circa-'83 look—denim vests, bullet belts, tight jeans—and generally paying heartfelt tribute to the old school in their band photos, logos, and demo titles. Almost all these groups are unsigned, playing tiny shows with each other and maintaining a Net-based scene. Whereas their '80s counterparts mailed home-dubbed cassettes out to a circuit of zine-writing pen pals, these bands all stream (often downloadable) music on their MySpace pages. [Read the rest here.]