HOT GRAVES: “FASHION VICTIM”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  9 Responses »
Feb 172013
 

Have you reached a point in life when you’ve busted your gut in pursuit of a dream and it’s still out of reach? Have you thrown your heart and soul and every ounce of your energy into chasing a goal, only to fail?

Have you honed your talents through endless practice and steadfast perseverance, flushed yourself dry in the expenditure of your creative juices, done your absolute best work . . . and not another soul seems to care?

Are you on the verge of sliding down into a cesspool of self-loathing and bitter regret, resigned to a life of flipping burgers at Mickey Dee’s or slaving away in some cubicle for a pompous boss who can’t tie his own shoelaces? Have you almost convinced yourself that you’re nothing but a mediocrity, or that, even if brimming with genius, your talents are beyond the understanding of mere mortals? Are you about to abandon your passion. now and forever?

Well, don’t give up! Take heart! Renew yourself! Listen to this inspirational anthem by Hot Graves:

There now, you feel better don’t you?
Continue reading »

PTAHIL: “THE ALMIGHTY PROPAGATOR OF DOOM AND DESPAIR”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Feb 152013
 

Ptahil’s new album The Almighty Propagator of Doom and Despair is a withering sonic assault on the conventions and constraints of tight-ass whitebread existence. It’s raw like a bleeding laceration, caked with grime, and loaded with grit in every crevice, like a battle tank that’s crossed a hundred battlefields. Dripping with venom and fueled by satanic contempt, it unleashes a destructive storm of hellfire that will leave your head smoking — and banging.

Ptahil don’t go in for subtleties or nuance. Their brand of hot black metal is primal and feral, and they roll like a corroded and corrosive steamroller. The utterly filthy production coats the guitars and bass with a massive static charge, and the muffled drums resemble the thumping beat of a behemoth’s heart heard through the density of flesh and bone.

The music exerts a primal appeal, too. Whether they’re galloping and thrashing like an enraged hell horse, rocking out like punks from the netherworld, or lumbering in a heavy-booted doom stomp, Ptahil have created songs that are powerfully infectious. They’re also powerfully infernal, in the most literal sense of the word. Continue reading »

PHRO REVIEWS CHEMICAL TOMB, AGAIN

 Album Reviews, Phro's Posts, SHORT BUT SWEET  11 Responses »
Feb 132013
 

Phro has reviewed the music of UK-based Chemical Tomb for us before. Amazingly, they sent him their new 7″ split with Corrupt Humanity, which was released January 15. Allegedly, you can pick it up from GRINDFATHER PRODUCTIONS, Black Lake Records, and Aural Onslaught Records & Distro. You can also stream it on Bandcamp. The cover art is by Skillmatik.

Phro delivered unto me another of his now-legendary video reviews. Go ahead. Watch it: Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: DEPTERA — “GRAVITY”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Feb 122013
 

(TheMadIsraeli provides this short and to-the-point review of a debut EP by Russia’s Deptera.)

Deptera are another sign in the increasing proof that Russia is turning into a musical hotbed of awesome.  The band play a brutal style of piston thrust force old school death metal in a very Polish vein.  Leaning toward the not quite death metal or thrash stylings of Vader, their debut EP Gravity is an adrenaline rush of pure fuck-you-up face rape.

Vocalist Baalothneekh has a vocal array very similar to Daniel Mongraine of Martyr, while the rest of the band attack with a ferocity that reminds one of a combination of Vader, Death, Exodus, and Forbidden.  It also should be noted the drummer is officially identified as “Garigus the Mighty Blastbeaster”.  He turns your brain to mush with an assault that’s the equivalent of a cranial jackhammer.

This is sick shit man.  You can either stream it and buy it off Bandcamp, or download it for free here.  Also, they’ve done a brutal cover of Limp Bizkit’s “Break Stuff”.  No really. Continue reading »

KATAKLYSM: “PREVAIL” AND “HEAVEN’S VENOM”

 Album Reviews  11 Responses »
Feb 092013
 

(After a bit of a break, TheMadIsraeli completes his reconsideration of the music of Kataklysm. To see what this is all about, check out his introduction to the series here. Previous installments can be found via this link.)

Alright! Now that we’re finally getting back to this, it’s time to wrap it up with the final two albums in Kataklysm’s present discography. Prevail and Heavens Venom are albums that, until this point, I never even listened to, but about which I always heard extremely mixed opinions.

Starting with Prevail, this was pretty much an attempt to recapture what Kataklysm had channeled on In the Arms of Devastation. I don’t blame them, because that album was definitely the best work of their modern era. Prevail is not as impenetrably unstoppable as In the Arms…, however it is still an extremely solid, excellent piece of work. I really love the opening song (title track) especially; it’s full of bulldozing groove and surging power.

The problem is, this album is obviously trying to cash in on the mark its predecessor left. The songwriting is as solid and MOST of the songs are as good, but this album suffers from a couple of draggers that really harm the consistency factor. That’s a flaw this album couldn’t afford, given that In the Arms… was a perfect record, insofar as their current sound is concerned. Songs like “Taking the World by Storm” just feel shamelessly phoned in. Contrasted with trailblazing numbers like “Chains Of Power”, they just feel a bit off as you listen. Continue reading »

THE SCHOENBERG AUTOMATON: “VELA”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Feb 092013
 

 (Guest contributor Austin Weber reviews the new album by The Schoenberg Automaton, an Australian band we last featured in June 2011.)

The Schoenberg Automaton is a group I’ve followed intensely ever since I first heard rumblings of their bizarre brutality from Australia. The name alone had me hooked, as my love for composer Arnold Schoenberg runs deep. He was a brilliant man who conceived the twelve-tone writing technique still used today, including in metal by people such as Ron Jarzombek. He also made very atonal, dissonant music unlike anything previously heard and was a huge influence on composers from the 19th century to the present.

The band’s 2011 self-titled three-song EP was a powerful notice to the world that something big was coming. Vela delivers in spades and builds upon their unorthodox mix of Ion Dissonance-style mathcore and Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza grooves covered in technical death metal. Vela is overwhelming and full of amazing massively crushing tracks like “Arecibo,” “Pineapple Juice & The Tough Stuffed Olive”, and “All Roads Lead To Rome.”

You have to give them credit for the sly additions and updates when re-recording songs from the EP for the album. This adds some replay to those of us like myself who have already played those songs into infinity. The haunting reprieve of instrumental “Stopping A God Mid-Sentence” emerges from the storm and into the calm. They use sparse meditative bridges to break up the full-throttle intensity that bleeds from the ferocity on tracks like “Ghost Of Mirach,” “The Worm Engine”, and the extraterrestrial overload of  “Ultimatewhirringendmachine.” The Schoenberg Automaton eschew the norm with songwriting full of innovative arrangements. Continue reading »

BATILLUS: “CONCRETE SUSTAIN”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Feb 082013
 

Sometimes musical success is constructed upon the simplest of foundations. Take the new Batillus album, Concrete Sustain, for example. Specifically, take the first two tracks. They start with a simple drum rhythm or bass riff — but not just any rhythm or riff, only Grade-A Prime body-movers.

Then they strap on a standard fuckton of 100% radioactive beef — low-slung, fuzzed-out riffs that provide the demolition counterpart to those foundational rhythms. On top of that they judiciously layer electronic noise and corrosive, fingernails-on-the-chalkboard vocals (though you’ll eventually also come to some horrifically deep vox, too). And voila! Black industrial funk, the dancebeat at the end of the world.

Seriously, try to resist the viral drumbeat that courses through “Concrete” or the compulsive bass line in “Cast”. I dare you.

But don’t be misled into thinking Concrete Sustain is nothing but a vat of sludgy industrial doom. If you do, you’ll get a big skull-crushing surprise when you come to “Beset”. You listen to that one, you’ll feel like you’ve flown too close to a massive goddamn gravity well. After a comparatively subdued intro, it begins a slow, relentless pull into uber-distorted doom oblivion. Simple, but slaughtering, with only an echoing melodic guitar lead to kiss you goodbye. Continue reading »

THE ZYGOMA DISPOSAL: “THE FORGOTTEN”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Feb 082013
 

(NCS guest contributor Austin Weber returns with a review of the new album by a Belgian band named The Zygoma Disposal.)

The few years after Calculating Infinity were a rich period for bands following in the footsteps of The Dillinger Escape Plan. Even better than the bizarre rhythms was the progressed chaotic nature of the style, which was understood by bands like The Number Twelve Looks Like You, Into The Moat, and Psyopus, who continued this songwriting aesthetic based on non-linear structure. Since the golden era of mathcore, few modern groups have released anything in this style that holds fast to the unpredictable foundation on which it was formed.

The Zygoma Disposal return to the aforementioned aesthetic and of course bring a lot of their own to the table. The music schizophrenically shifts through a variety of sounds and styles,  giving The Forgotten an unhinged attitude that could easily be a transmission from the gates of a subterranean hell.

The lounge jazz on opener “The Lost” is a trip through speakeasies of the 1920’s until a rising samba pulse takes hold, amping up the intensity, with the first metal moment culminating in djenty grooves, and  raucous trumpet playing slithering into the climax. The real insanity begins on track two, “Minus Infinity,” where you’re slammed in the face with tap-a-thon shrillness meets grind drums and lounge jazz feasting on death metal. Continue reading »

BARKS AT THE MOON – BRIEF REVIEWS

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
Feb 072013
 

(Our man BadWolf is trying a new review format with these quick takes on new releases by Portal (which I reviewed at length here yesterday), Head of the Demon, and Shai Hulud. Leave a comment and let us know what you think of this idea.)

 

Portal – Vexovoid

By this time many of you are already familiar with Australia’s Portal. They play a technical, alienating brand of death metal, a bit like Pyrrhon but sludgier, with more blunted riffage. The band’s imagery–hooded members and vocalist wearing a clock on his head—made a big splash at Maryland Deathfest. So big an impact, in fact, that I’d wager more people are familiar with the band’s image than their music—Portal is the only death metal band I can say that about, come to think of it. I found their 2011 album, Swarth, pretty unremarkable—another substance-free death metal record that sounds like it’s coated in mucus. That Swarth came out on Profound Lore, normally the best label I can think of, irked me more.

Now Portal’s back with Vexovoid, and maybe I was wrong to dismiss them. A little clarity in the production really shows off the technical aspects of their music—my inner Deathspell Omega fanatic did a little backflip while listening. I especially liked the song “Plasm,” which opens with a flurry of hypnotic blasting,  then degenerates into foghorn distortion. I still hold some qualms: the titles and vocals still sound essentially like word-vomit, and Portal are aware that HP Lovecraft wrote fiction, not prophecy, right? Still, Vexovoid impressed me enough to warrant giving Swarth a second chance. Continue reading »

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