Upsidedown Cross
Upsidedown Cross (CD) 1991 Taang!
I guess the cover of this album tells you everything that needs to be said about the band's opinion about religion. It's a picture of a retarded Buddha with clown hair and it looks like he's wearing lipstick. The lyrics too express the plain and brutal opinion that all kinds of religion, no matter which, are both stupid and useless. The attack is especially directed at different sorts of christianity (satanism included). How else can you explain lyrics like this?: "Kill for satan/While you're wasted".

This is the debut album of Upsidedown Cross and it is their only release that features Rico Petroleum. But without Rico the band would never have been signed in the first place. He was a friend of those who ran Taang! Records at that time. So the rest of the band decided to let him play with them, for long enough to get the album released. After which he got bluntly kicked out.

As for the music, it is basically just as asshole as it's creators. Upsidedown Cross go to great lengths to create music that utterly ridicules those that they attack, and this is the most extreme of all their releases. It is also the least doom of their releases. Instead the music has more rock tendencies and more weirdness in it. Larry Lifeless' Sex Pistols vocals sound sicker than on their later works. This is music only enjoyable to the most absurd doomster.

This music tampers with your brain. When it plays it slowly gives you a dizzy and almost drunk feeling. After the music stops, it takes a few minutes to let the brain recover. Listening to this cannot be healthy...
Album Cover

1. Upsidedown Cross
2. Kill For Satan
3. Redrum
4. Hanging Witches
5. Batallion Of Rats
6. Bloodmobile
7. Mass In Blood
8. The Cup

Approx. 41 minutes
Reviewed by: Arnstein H. Pettersen
Evilution (CD) 1993 Taang!
I begin this review by brutally murdering one of the myths surrounding Upsidedown Cross. This is not a satanic or occult band. In fact, lyrics like this extract from 'Black Mass In The Dark', "Ritual Burning my only Crime/I thought I was having a good time", perfectly illustrate how they actually ridicule the practitioners of this. In general their lyrics attack people with, according to them, very narrow minds. This includes bullies, gossipers, occultists, necrophiles and judgemental people.

After reading the lyrics it shouldn't come as a surprise that Upsidedown Cross is inspired by punk rock, amongst others. In the music this emerges most clearly in the vocals of Larry Lifeless, their vocalist. He has the same drunken and sarcastic voice as Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols.

But it's obvious that the music isn't punk rock, it's doom metal. Very noisy, sludgy and absurd doom metal. I must admit that I haven't heard anything less sober than this. When you add the fact that the music is dark and incredibly filthy, and you have a complete image of the maddening atmosphere of the music. It's really disturbing.

It's really hard to compare these guys to any other band. Still I suspect that people into extreme sludge/doom or Zaraza style industrial/doom, would be the right kind of audience for this. Crust fans might also find it to their liking. Just expect something very different from what you've heard before.
Album Cover

1. Black Mass In The Dark
2. Don't Think About It
3. Evil Tongue
4. Village Idiot
5. Evilution
6. Coffin Of Surprises
7. Sleazy Mary
8. Caste

Approx. 53 minutes
Reviewed by: Arnstein H. Pettersen
Sloth / Upsidedown Cross (7") 2002 None
Sloth has a tendency to do splits with all sorts of punk rock, hardcore and crust bands. They do splits with doom bands as well, but the majority of them are with bands in the three first categories mentioned. So why Sloth decides to do aggressive hardcore tracks when they at last do take a split with a doom band, is rather hard to understand. The answer is probably lies in the fact that Sloth always do things their way and none other.

Saying that Sloth is only playing aggressive hardcore on this split is kind of wrong though. Their first track, 'At The Wake', is actually a very relaxing and gloomy electonica track. The second track is a badass hardcore track which seems to be a parody on the bands that play so-called "war metal". The third track is a sludgecore track with zero doom in it. Instead it stays almost melodyless and neutral in a way. Being named 'Cunt Lust' it's no wonder that it's about sex, but not exactly in a positive way.

Upsidedown Cross is a rather original doom band. The sludgy riffs are watered out 50/50 with a mixture of psychedelic rock, early punk rock and traditional metal. A better way to describe their sound might be to say that if Sex Pistols ever played doom metal, then it would definitely have sounded like this. Actually the vocals of Upsidedown Cross are stunningly similar to those of Johnny Rotten from the aforementioned punk band.

Sloth's half of the split is interesting only for those who enjoy bastard hardcore acts, but Upsidedown Cross' side would definitely interest a lot of doom fans. Although it is hard to find normal doom bands to compare them with, it'll probably appeal the most to sludge/doom and extreme traditional doom fans.
Sloth:
1. At The Wake
2. Total War Massacre
3. Cunt Lust

Upsidedown Cross:
4. Vampire In The Mirror

Approx. 10 minutes
Reviewed by: Arnstein H. Pettersen