Crucial Blast

An independent music label/small press and online shop specializing in avant-garde metal, black noise

Crucial Blast was formed in 1999 as an imprint and web-based mailorder dedicated to documenting and releasing cutting-edge, adventurous, and downright weird sounds from the intersections of extreme metal, experimental music, hardcore, and electronics. The label took it's first breath with a handful of EP's from regional death/thrash/punk acts Strong Intention, Crucial Unit, Fisticuffs, and The Bod

yBag Romance, and then began to branch out with the debut CDEP from Ohio's Rune (Willowtip/Relapse) and a split CD album that featured a lost recording from the king of harsh Japanese noise, Merzbow. The diversity of these early releases set the tone for Crucial Blast's ongoing infatuation with abrasive, adventurous music, charting out the noisier underbelly of the international extreme music scene with releases ranging from brutal sludge/noise rock, quirky Japanese grindcrust, electronically enhanced grind, sound-collage sludgecore, compilations/chronicles of the legendary Maryland Doom Rock scene and the heavy drone underground (respectively), and including acclaimed albums from artists like Gnaw Their Tongues, Weedeater, Genghis Tron, and Skullflower.

08/09/2025

Hey Western MD area folks: CRUCIAL BLAST will be set up tomorrow at the VINTAGE EXPO: TOY & TAPE SHOW in Hagerstown,MD (event info below)....since this event focuses on vintage toys, VHS, books, games, and collectibles, the CRUCIAL BLAST stall will only feature rare horror paperbacks, obscure fanzines, unusual books, some OOP boxsets, rare VHS tapes / DVD / Blu, and other odds and ends....I won't have the usual massive music spread (LP/CD/CS, etc) tomorrow, but come out if you want to hang and check out some of the weirder stuff on my shelves.

TOMORROW - SUNDAY AUGUST 10TH
12pm-4pm
Wacohu Grange 16412 National Pike, Hagerstown, MD

I will be back with the usual giant music stall for the HORRORWEEN EXPO 2025 on Sunday October 12th, though !!!

HOSTED BY:
Captain Adam’s VHS Pirate Ship

https://www.facebook.com/events/620184910376954

Send a message to learn more

07/17/2025

Nate Garrett is a great guy. And a great musician. And if I was going through what he is going through right now, I'd be asking for help as well. His love and adoration for his wife is something I relate to immensely.
If the spirit strikes you:

My name is Nate Garrett. Some of you may know me through music,… Nate Garrett needs your support for Help Nicole: A Selfless Soul in Need for Cancer Treatment

07/05/2025

Are you reading the ANTIMATTER HALO Substack newsletter? If yer like me and obsessed with the stranger edges of underground music/art, you probably should be. It's great, and I'm always discovering new heavy weirdness thru MZ's writing.
Subscribe here, thank me later:
https://substack.com/?

The latest ish dredged up the older Crucial Blast / Crucial Blaze pro-3xCDR set from LIGHT, which MZ described as "Home-recorded black metal/ doom/ drone from a bunch of years ago. Sounds a bit like “Bloweyelashwish” era Lovesliescrushing/ Goslings/ Lycia meets the dismal ambient crypt slime of Moevot. "

Very well put. If that sounds like your kind of crumbling, dreamy subterranean crush, I still have a handful of this gorgeous, grimy release in stock over here:
https://crucialblastshop.net/album.php?ID=5550
and you can listen over here:
https://crucialblast.bandcamp.com/album/light

7 track album

07/04/2025

Here's a dig-through of the deep back catalog from the mighty Malignant Records that I have in stock. This label established itself as one of THE top purveyors of dark ambient, black industrial / death industrial, ritual drift, and occult electronics here in the US, and I've got a large selection of Malignant's catalog (including many out-of-print titles) in stock here in the CRUCIAL BLAST SHOP. I'll be doing an in-depth label overview soon on the CRUCIAL BLAST Youtube channel, but in the meantime you can check out this dig-thru of the many amazing Malignant (and side-label Black Plagve) releases I have in stock. Get your hands on this stuff either at the WWW.CRUCIALBLASTSHOP.NET webstore, or at the CRUCIAL BLAST DISCOGS STORE at https://www.discogs.com/seller/Crucial_Blast/profile .
Thank you to all of you that order from the CRUCIAL BLAST SHOP, you keep this operation going and allow me to release and stock even more strange sounds and art!

MUSIC: "Aether" from the ABATTOIR & SATORI collaboration album "Aether" (Malignant Records) - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED !!!

07/03/2025

A taste of new and pulverizing Cultic to come !!!!

07/01/2025

PAST BLAST:
NEKRASOV's 2011 2xCD set "The Ever-Present" diverged from the Australian black metal/industrial artist's usual black/noise/metal mutation, for a jet-black harsh noise epic. Spread across two full-length discs, this is closer in texture and attack to the likes of VOMIR or DEAD BODY LOVE. Massive maelstroms of churning, crushing static and ultra-distorted electronic overload.

The two discs are packaged inside of the clear dvd-style case like all Crucial Blaze titles, and include a sticker, 1" pin, and a twenty-eight page zine filled with black and white collage art, with murky, inky visions of all-devouring blackness, carcinogenic landscapes, cathedral-like tumor masses, amoebic growths, and Watchers from behind the shadows. Hand-numbered and limited to two hundred copies.

EXTREMELY LIMITED COPIES LEFT.

GET: https://crucialblastshop.net/album.php?ID=5552
HEAR: https://crucialblast.bandcamp.com/album/the-ever-present

06/28/2025

Cultic ! Philly ! DEVASTATION !

Philly friends! Get your one way ticket to midnight tomorrow. Extinction A.D. added.

06/18/2025

06/07/2025

19 years ago on this date (06/06/06), Crucial Blast released GENGHIS TRON's debut full-length album "Dead Mountain Mouth". It remains one of the most unique albums of the 2000s, combining electronica, extreme metal, grindcore, chaotic HC, and experimental sound. Nothing has ever sounded quite like it.

GET IT: https://crucialblastshop.net/album.php?ID=1875

06/06/2025

COMING SOON FROM CRUCIAL BLAST: PSYWARFARE "LIVE QUEENS NYC 2025" Limited edition CASSETTE / ZINE / POSTER SET. Featuring Dwid Hellion (INTEGRITY) and the infamous WASP terrorist Hombre, this is a full and exhaustive document of the band's FEROCIOUS New York City show, complete with full-color photozine and a poster reproduction of the show flyer from PSYWARFARE's hyper-aggro sonic obliteration.

More info coming soon.

The band is on tour this month (June 2025) - do yourself a favor and receive the beating:

Address

POB 4636
Hagerstown, MD
21742

Website

http://www.crucialblastshop.net/

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