16...

The holidays are a busy time for me, working in retail, you just come home with no energy at all. That and the combo of nothing new or interesting to me in the bargain bins recently has stalled my quest. But at Everyday Music, I spied the first album by 16, "Curves That Kick", on Pusheads' Bacteria Sour label. I know it's just a CD, but I would have thought as prestigious a label as this one, with the excellent Pushead art on the cover would command a much higher price, but $5 is a bargain no matter how you look at it. 16 are nominally a metal band, but with some pretty clear ties to Hardcore as well. Kind of similar to what Helmet was doing at the time as well with their "Meantime" album. Lots of groove, crash cymbals, slightly distorted vocals, and buried bass (like all good metal bands do), which is more than fine with me, but the processed guitars are little distracting to me. Whatever though, "Curves That Kick" was ubiquitous when it came out, everyone I know had a copy, it was playing all the time, so I never bothered to track one down for myself. 16 were one of those "flagship" type bands for me, when you started to figure out that playing any type of aggressive music, be it punk, hardcore, grind, whatever was legitimate, and that you didn't have to bog yourself down with labels. Not that I consider 16 as extreme as other bands that sort of fit into that category, like Cavity, EyehateGod, Swarming Hordes, Don Caballero, etc, but still, a great album to throw on now and then. Worth tracking down. Copies of this (this edition, and subsequent ones) are pretty easy to come by, you shouldn't have any problems tracking this down.

12 songs makes the count at 17871...