SHORT BUT SWEET: TEMPLE OF VOID — “DEMO MMXIII”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jun 202013
 

This is the first of two short, new, doom-flavored offerings that I’m reviewing today, both with the name Demo MMXII. This first one comes our way from Detroit’s Temple of Void, and it’s their first recorded output. However, you wouldn’t guess that in listening to the three songs, because they already sound like mature, self-assured creations.

I’ve already slapped the “doom-flavored” label on the music, but let me hasten to add that doom is only one of its ingredients. It does indeed feature some truly staggering, mega-weight riffs, a blanket of indigo melodies, and an often lumbering pace. But that’s not all. Also in the mix you’ll discover elements of viscera-draped death metal a la Autopsy, you’ll be pummeled by hammer blows of Bolt Thrower-style riffing, and you’ll be transported by some inspired psychedelic guitar solos.

The tempos never reach the pace of a gallop, but they do vary. The first two tracks, “Beyond the Ultimate” and “Exanimate Gaze” are fine examples. They start with massive riffs that are so damned infectious someone ought to notify the Center for Disease Control (and holy hell, the bass guitar in the intros  is absolutely titanic). And while “Beyond the Ultimate” eventually falls heavily into a dirge-like crawl, “Exanimate Gaze” spools up into a ghoulish charge that will get heads banging vigorously. Continue reading »

TERATISM: “LA BAS”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jun 172013
 

Mark Riddick’s cover art for Teratism’s new MLP La Bas tells you something of what you need to know about the music: It is, in many respects, far out on the frontier of bestial extremity, dwelling in a poisonous landscape where demonic entities howl for the manifestation of the Adversary. Yet there are depths in this musical inferno, and the more you listen, the more you discover of its otherworldly dimensions.

The vocals are the most challenging aspect of the music, yet they are also a vital ingredient in the occult atmospheres that La Bas generates. In a word, they’re horrifying. V. Wrath delivers a series of distorted incantations, condemnations, and satanic proclamations that range from roars to shrieks to cracked, whispered chants. Often, the vocals are layered, producing harmonies that invoke sensations of bedlam. Whether agonizing, despairing, or furious, the ferocity of his delivery is convincing evidence that Teratism have indeed opened a fearsome channel to hellish realms.

Much of the accompanying music is also ferocious, with distorted, swarming guitars and blasting drums generating a dense cloud of evil noise, perhaps most intense and overpowering in the EP’s relentless third track, “Thy Swill Be Dung”. But La Bas isn’t thrashing black metal; it is instead mainly devoted to the creation of bleak, damned atmospherics. “Shadows Flee the Burning Sons of Light” becomes dirge-like and doomed, a miasma of contagion, soaked in illness, and “Gospel of the Heliophobe” splices its whirlwind of cacophony with moments of crawling malevolence. Continue reading »

UNEVEN STRUCTURE: “8” (Re-recorded)

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Jun 172013
 

(In this post TheMadIsraeli reviews a re-recorded EP by the French band Uneven Structure.)

2013 marks the return of “that word” (THALL). First we had the Means End debut, we have a new Vildhjarta EP on the way, and as of right now we have a new (and old) offering from Uneven Structure. I wrote a short review and hosted a download of the original version of Uneven Structure’s first EP known as 8, a twenty-plus-minute song, Meshuggah Catch-33 style, that presented a much different band than what they turned into on their debut Februus. Re-recording 8 was probably the best thing Uneven Structure could’ve done, in terms of offering people something until the next album is finished.

8 was a piece of work that deserved a new makeover. It was a great piece, but it had a sub-par production and it was kind of an oddity that the vocalist was none other than one of Vildhjarta’s two. Now we get 8 re-recorded with a new mix, vocalist Matthieu Romarin working his vocal magic, and the music enhanced with the lush ambience this band has become known for in the backdrop of what is otherwise still the heaviest thing they’ve written.

What the re-recording of 8 really does in the end is solidify it as a true Uneven Structure work rather than an outlier that merely served as a stepping stone for the band. The more aggressive, slightly industrial harshness is still prevalent, but by mixing in the atmosphere and ambience of their current sound, the band have turned it into a whole new beast. As a matter of fact it’s even more overwhelming than it was before. Even with Matthieu Romarin’s clean vocal incorporations amidst his zen-focused roaring, the music has a much darker undertone than anything on Februus did, adding also a bit of eeriness or unease to the mood. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: MONOTHEIST — “GENESIS OF PERDITION”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  5 Responses »
Jun 162013
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the debut EP by Florida’s Monotheist.)

Checkmate atheists, creationists win again.

No, I kid. However, it is a shame we never got to Monotheist’s debut Genesis of Perdition before now. We posted about it, like, once or something, but this has been a very sorely overlooked EP. It’s even more impressive considering this is a Christian band, and we all know how most Christian “metal” is. The thing that originally made me curious about Monotheist was the fact that 7 Horns 7 Eyes and Ovid’s Withering vocalist JJ Polachek is also the vocalist for this band. He has a record of taking part in exemplary musical projects. Turns out Monotheist are quite excellent, and if there was ever an EP to check out this year, it’s Genesis of Perdition.

Monotheist play a progressive style of death metal that is unrelenting on the br00tz scale, creating a mix of tech-death, slam, and black metal with occasional surprise moments and oddities. There is also a huge emphasis on classical drama within the music, even incorporating strings, pianos, and the like to add flavor. In fact, the album opens with a full string intro in the form of the title track. That’s followed by the first song, “Subzero”. The menagerie of tremolo-picked riffing, crushing chugs, and drama-filled technical expose’s is quite impressive, as Monotheist know their death metal very well. Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: PLANKS / O SPLIT

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Jun 072013
 

I first heard the music of Germany’s Planks last September and wrote about them here. What I heard then was a Bandcamp stream of Planks’ amazing 2012 album, Funeral Mouth. Not much later I discovered that Planks had recorded a split with a band named Lentic Waters that was released on vinyl in June 2012 by Apocaplexy Records, and was made available for free download via a link on this page. I wrote about that split here. Now, Planks are on the verge of releasing another split with a band named O.

For this new split both bands recorded cover songs. Planks picked “A Forest”, which was originally recorded by The Cure and appears to be one of the all-time favorite songs of the band’s vocalist/guitarist Ralph Schmidt. Mike Hill from Brooklyn’s Tombs contributed guest vocals on the track.

The other band, O, consists of members from the border region of Germany, The Netherlands, and Belgium. The song they picked to cover is the “Laura Palmer Theme” from the David Lynch TV series Twin Peaks. It appears that show is a favorite of everyone in O (I like it a lot too). Continue reading »

LOW: LYCUS AND ORTEGA

 Album Reviews, Eye-Catchers, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  8 Responses »
Jun 062013
 

This is the second part of a two-part post about new music that swallowed me up last night. By blind chance, all four of the songs I heard sound like granite must feel, sitting on your chest or coming down in an avalanche on your head. Part 1 (here) dealt with Geryon and Hollow Leg. This one focuses on Lycus (Oakland) and Ortega (The Netherlands).

LYCUS

In addition to delivering crushing music, all four of the bands featured in this two-part post bring us striking cover art for their new releases. As you can see, the debut album by Lycus, Tempest, is adorned with the awesome painted art of the Italian madman Paolo Girardi (go past the jump to see more of the album art).  Tempest is scheduled for release by 20 Buck Spin on July 9 (digitally and on CD/LP).

I haven’t yet carved out time to listen to the album, and nothing from it is yet available for public streaming, but I did check out the first song from the band’s Demo MMXI. That demo was released two years ago by Graceless Recordings (run by Mike Meacham of LOSS) and on vinyl by The Flenser Records, and it’s a name-your-price download on Bandcamp. Continue reading »

FUCK THE FACTS: “AMER”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  7 Responses »
Jun 052013
 

Just so you know where I’m coming from: I like grind but I don’t consider myself an expert in the field. Many people are far more passionate and knowledgable about every nook and cranny of it than I am. I do know enough to know that there is considerable variation in the music, despite what some people even less knowledgable than I am might think. I also know that Fuck the Facts aren’t your average grindcore band. Over the course of more than a decade’s worth of records and with a line-up that has remained stable for about the last five years, they’ve evolved into something exceptional, and the qualities that make them so worthy of attention are on full display in their forthcoming EP, Amer.

Amer’s music is complex, technically demanding, and in a near-constant state of flux within each of the EP’s seven songs. Those songs aren’t long — five are in the two-three minute range and two are less than two minutes long — but the band pack a lot of variety into those relatively small containers. They can definitely explode with blast-beat shrapnel and a blistering wall of accelerated guitar noise, but that’s only part of the story.

Fuck the Facts also come at you hard with industrial-strength jackhammer riffs and a ton of pulverising groove, accented by a massive bass guitar that oh-so-briefly even takes a lead role in the music. They rush ahead with convulsive rhythms, like a freight train with the trottle open. They drop heavily into slow, lumbering movements that produce a sensation of being slowly crushed into dust. They even weave swirling, near-clean lead-guitar melodies through the heavy explosiveness of the other instruments. Continue reading »

HARDBANGER: “FOURSOME”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Jun 052013
 

I’m late to the Hardbanger party. This French band started releasing singles and accompanying videos back in the spring of 2012, beginning with “Neck”. Before the year ended, they released “She Says” and “Civilization” (a cover of a song by a French band named Justice). And then this past April they collected those three songs plus one more new one (“Shapes of Envy”) and released it as a debut EP in an unusual format, with the title of Foursome. I finally paid attention only yesterday. But believe me, in the case of Foursome, late is much better than never.

There are many things to like about what Hardbanger have done, beginning with the music of course. It doesn’t fit neatly into any recognizable sub-genre, which is part of its attraction. The sinister, mid-paced songs are built on a foundation of huge, beefy, stomping riffs, crushing bass tones, and relatively simple but utterly brain-thumping, low-end, rock-style drumbeats. The songs come at you like a blunt meat cleaver, and they’re about as instantly headbang-inducing as you could imagine.

The vocals are uber-deep, growled, and somewhat distorted. It’s like listening to Peter Steele doing harsh vocals, and I don’t mean something like the sound of his Carnivore vox. I mean that rich bass voice for which he’s best known in the music of Type O Negative, but rumbling like a cement mixer loaded with gravel. Yet the vocals are almost completely intelligible, with lyrics (particularly in the chorus) that make you want to sing along. Continue reading »

GO WORSHIP “THE WORSHIP” BY TORTURE DIVISION

 Album Reviews, Free Shit, Metal News, SHORT BUT SWEET  6 Responses »
Jun 042013
 

Fuckin’ Torture Division have just released a new, free, three-song demo — The Worship — and it fuckin’ destroys, as pure Grade A undiluted death metal should.

For those who somehow remain ignorant about Torture Division, here’s a quick primer: The three members of the band – Lord K Philipson (guitar), Tobben Gustafsson (drums), and Jörgen Sandström (bass/vocals) — collectively have over 60 years of combined death metal experience, including membership in bands such as Grave, Entombed, Vicious Art, The Project Hate MCMXCIX, Vomitory, and God Among Insects.  In their words, “we know what we do, we love what we do and that we will keep on doing it until the end of days.”

They also have an unusual approach to recording and distributing their music. Their modus operandi is to release short demos and give them away for free. And today they made available The Worship as the latest installment in the series. It was again mixed and mastered by the masterful Dan Swanö, and is now available for download (along with a booklet) from his Unisound web site.

But first, you really need to read Torture Division’s introduction to The Worship, which is funny as shit. Plus, if you love what Torture Division are doing and how they’re doing it, as I do, then you need to throw them a donation to help finance the continuation of this fine demolition project. And to do both of those things, go HERE. Continue reading »

TRAITOR: “SHADOWHEART”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jun 022013
 

(In this post guest writer Kim Rosario reviews the latest EP by Traitor.)

Black metal, hardcore, and grindcore…  Who on earth would combine those 3 genres and how would it even work?  Black metal, for instance, is very dark and brooding at times and at others is played at blistering breakneck speeds.  Hardcore is upfront and honest brutality with thundering rhythms and powerful grooves.  I could see those two combining, but when you throw grindcore into the mix, that’s when it starts to get tricky.

Here you have two regimented genres that have a focused, articulated sound and you want to add grindcore to the mix?  A high-energy, no-rules, just go genre?  Yes, this does sound brave and challenging, but one band decided to do this.  Metro-Detroit’s own Traitor just released their EP Shadowheart, which combines black metal, hardcore, and grindcore.

The album starts with the song called “Heart Of Gnarled Roots”. An abrasive shriek and the fury of pummeling hardcore riffs bombard the listener, with punk-fueled blast beats.  The elements of each genre constantly fight each other in one giant sonic assault.  While Traitor’s main focus is hardcore, this band’s emphasis on black metal makes appearances at all the right times. Continue reading »

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