Today has had a decidedly metallic slant, although I started off with The Libertines’ self-titled second album in the car on the way to the chocolate teapot factory. Arbeit Macht Frei is still one of my favourite sub-one-minute-thirty songs.

Last night, inspired by this Guardian article I downloaded the new Grief No Absolution single/EP combo, Eurostopodus Argus/Crypsis. Lordy, it’s bleak. Only after repeated listenings do spectral guitars and keyboards reveal themselves amid the fog of noise and static. It’s great stuff, and has put me in mind of doing some more lo-fi drone/black metal recordings myself. All I need is a pseudonym and some corpsepaint…

More familiar things ensued:

• Darkthrone – A Blaze in the Northern Sky – which felt surprisingly poppy after Grief No Absolution
• Entombed – Uprising – abandoned very quickly as it hasn’t aged well and sounds very RAWK
• Melt-Banana – Bambi’s Dilemma
• Melt-Banana – Charlie – both records are immense fun. Nothing beats a head-on collision between bubblegum pop and grindcore
• Paul Heaton – The Cross-Eyed Rambler – an album I didn’t listen to much after seeing him live on the tour that promoted it. Lyrically and musically loads stronger than latter-day Beautiful South efforts
• Haydn – Symphony no. 45 in F#minor
• Haydn – Symphony no. 46 in B (both Antal Dorati/Philharmonia Hungarica on Decca) – obviously Papa Haydn decided it was time to write something in daft keys for a change. The slow movement of no. 46 is sublime.
• CD86 – indie-pop compilation. Particularly enjoyed hearing “Tallulah Gosh” by Tallulah Gosh this evening.