SHORT BUT SWEET: ANCST / CAPITALIST / MELTING / OSTRACA

(Andy Synn highlights four recent EPs he thinks you need to hear)

Today’s collection of “short but sweet” reviews features four ripping releases from across the ‘core spectrum – from blazing Blackened Metalcore and filthy, fire-breathing Crust to monstrous, Death Metal-influenced Metallic Hardcore and visceral Post-Screamo violence – which serve to remind us all that this sort of music truly lives in the moment, delivering a short, sharp (but also sweet) shock to the system devoid of pretense or pretention, each of them possessing an immediacy and intensity, as well as a sense of individuality, which makes them impossible to ignore.

Well, that’s how I feel anyway. Let’s see if you do too.

ANCST – DOMINION

Germany’s Ancst have been firm favourites here at NCS for a long time, to the point where I’m pretty sure we’ve covered almost all of their releases (barring the ambient ones) up to this point.

And while their star has risen and fallen a little over the years, I’ve never grown tired of their viscerally virulent brand of blisteringly aggressive Blackened Metalcore (which shares a significant amount of DNA with the likes of All Out War and Heaven Shall Burn, but puts its own hybrid spin on things)…which is why I’m so happy to report that Dominion is an undeniable return to top form.

The opening title-track seethes and surges like a more stripped-down and savage offcut from Endzeit, while “A Testament” blasts and booms (and also betrays some of the band’s more “epic” inclinations too) with bombastic intensity, after which “Furnace of Shackled Stars” keeps the party going with its irresistible melodic momentum.

“Divide and Conquer” is just under three-and-a-half minutes of blastbeats and breakdowns that never pulls its punches, while the mournful “As Good As It Gets” makes space for a little more melodic reflection and moody introspection amidst all the scything tremolo riffs and scalding punishing percussive power, before the chunkier, chuggier strains of “Swansong” and the hypnotically heavy “Always Night” close out what is easily one of the finest, and fiercest, collections of songs the band have ever recorded.

CAPITALIST – IN THE DAYS OF CRIMSON SUN

Who are Capitalist? Well, they quickly make it clear with the breakneck gallop and blistering ferocity of “Kuru” – replete with a seething stream of ragged, distorted riffs, clashing, cacophonous chords, and gnarly, nerve-jangling bass lines – that they’re not a band to be fucked with.

They also make clear, with titles like “Gross Margin”, “Portable Morgue”, and “Human Resources” – the first a brutish burst of gnarly Crust-Grind that pays tribute to the abrasive, anarchic spirit of bands like Nausea and Napalm Death, the second a brooding, doomy slow-burn that builds towards a scorching, blackened crescendo, and the third a sub-two-minute spitfire of bristling Black Metal Punk – that they’re not a band who are happy with the current status quo, and aren’t shy about telling you about it (if you can understand the tooth-gnashing, throat-ripping vocals that is).

And while they don’t ever seem to pull their punches (nor, I might add, should they) they’re also not afraid to come at you from some unexpected angles either, with the harsh-yet-hypnotic discordance of the title-track (where the coiled, clanking bass work takes on an increased prominence) and the haunting-yet-harrowing doom ‘n’ gloom of cathartic closer “Pale Apparition” ensuring that this is one musical beating that never gets boring.

MELTING – YOU EXIST BECAUSE WE ALLOW IT

 Aussie aggressors Melting are out to make one hell of a first impression with their debut EP… or, at the very least, leave you with some serious bumps and bruises that you aren’t going to forget about any time soon.

Make no mistake about it, these boys are in possession of some absolutely humongous riffs (not to mention some back-breakingly heavy bass), and aren’t afraid to use them, with the almost unrelenting audio assault of tracks like “Unwavered” and “874” following in the footsteps of similarly aggro artists like END and The Acacia Strain in the way they seem to view music not so much as something to be shared with others as it is something to be inflicted upon them… preferably at maximum volume and with minimum warning.

That’s not to say there aren’t a few subtleties to the band’s sound, as their occasional use of sinister pseudo-melody or unsettling ambience – with both mid-EP mini-epic “Guided By the Hand of a Witch and Corvid”and unexpectedly poignant, unerringly powerful closer “Perhaps This Is Hell” making excellent use of both – only serves to make the surrounding sonic catastrophe seem even heavier, but when you’re listening to the gargantuan grooves of “Into the Suffer” or the monstrous chug ‘n’ churn of “Oblivion”, trust me… subtlety is going to be the last thing on your mind.

Easily one of my favourite EPs of the year so far, I can only hope that Melting are already working on their next release, because I need to hear more from them ASAP!

OSTRACA – EVENTUALITIES

 Vibrant and versatile Virginia Screamoviolence troupe Ostraca are a band we (and by “we”, I mean “I”) really should have written about more often, as their steady evolution over the years has been a joy to follow.

Still, if you’re looking for a good “jumping on point”, then Eventualities is as good a place to get to start as any, since these four songs so effectively sum up the differing aspects of the group’s sound to date.

Equal parts vulnerability and venom, “Song For a Closed Door” takes its time to get going, blooming slowly at its own pace, but when it finally bursts into blazing, belligerent life the wait is more than validated, as it then goes on to build even further towards the sort of stunning Post-Metal-style crescendo that (m)any of Ostraca‘s peers would undoubtedly kill for.

“Compromise”, by contrast, gives no quarter right from the start, with even its more melodic digressions positively seething with disgust and discontent, while the brooding beauty which serves to introduce “Esau” eventually gives way to a dynamic blend of scorching Screamo and soothing Post-Hardcore whose colourful contrasts make for one of the most immersive (and, arguably, best) songs of the band’s career.

It all ends with the abrasively melodic, sublimely cathartic soundscapes of “So Do I”, a song so rich in both raw emotion and intricate instrumentation that if it doesn’t convince you to give the rest of the band’s back-catalogue a shot then nothing will!