Cadaver Eyes - The Acquisition of Power over Fire/No Time to Haste

This past weekend, I attended a wedding that was half Jewish. One of the Jewish customs observed was dancing the hora. If you're unfamiliar with the hora, it's a lot like a mosh pit. There's tons of circle pits dancing around the bride and groom, who get raised above the crowd on chairs - kind of like crowdsurfing. As with moshing, I didn't plan to dance the hora. But the vibe was thick, the DJ was killing it, and before I knew it, someone grabbed me and pulled me in. I practically got whiplash; I barely had time to hand my drink to a surprised bystander before I was deep in the fray.

A common hora soundtrack is "Hava Nagila," which is fucking metal. If you disagree, just check out Anthrax's "I'm the Man," which nicks its riff from "Hava Nagila." Phrygian Dominant pwns.

Jewish mosh pit

Likewise Israeli and metallic is Cadaver Eyes, a one-man grindcore band named after lyrics from Alice Cooper's "I Love the Dead." Like many drummers, David Opp attaches triggers to his kit. However, he triggers samples instead of drum sounds. This allows him to produce nearly any combination of sound at once, and he takes full advantage. Distorted bass and guitar, samples of a prison execution, straight-up noise, and traditional folk music all get the blastbeat treatment, with lyrics in Hebrew and English. It's crazy, spastic, and addictively lo-fi, like if Fantomas made Napalm Death's Scum.

Cadaver Eyes - Ba-Yom Yom
Cadaver Eyes - Dive into the Abyss

This CD, released last year on Heart & Crossbone, collects the out-of-print No Time to Haste CD from 2001 along with 2004's The Acquisition of Power over Fire EP. You can find it

@ Aquarius Records
@ Crucial Blast