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 »

OBSERVATIONS OF THE DAY: GORGUTS, SHINING, MALIGNANT MONSTER, AND TALANAS

 Album Reviews, Free Shit, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Feb 052013
 

Allow me to share with you a collection of findings that I happened upon over the last 24 hours, most of it breaking news, some of it new music I think is worth spreading around like life-giving manure, and some of it videographic in nature. News first:

GORGUTS

Thanks to a tip from Vonlughlio, I discovered that Gorguts have signed with Season of Mist and will be releasing their extremely long-awaited fifth studio album later this year. Guitarist/vocalist Luc Lemay is quoted in a press release we received as follows:

“Everything from writing these new songs, traveling to NYC for rehearsals, developing a new friendship with John, Kevin and Colin, three of the most talented people I ever jammed with…everything from this project was beyond stimulating artistically.

From this experience was born a new GORGUTS record, a concept record which is going to last over an hour. An hour of epic, ambient, dark music which doesn’t compromise its Death Metal roots. As a composer, by exploring different kind of music, it was always my goal to integrate the same writing tools in Death Metal as if I would be writing a piece of chamber music for instance.

Well, I’m really eager to share this new record with you!” Continue reading »

MESHUGGAH: “PITCH BLACK” IS NOW OUT!

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  10 Responses »
Feb 042013
 

Last week when I caught wind that Scion AV would be releasing something new from Meshuggah tomorrow, I ventured a guess that it would be a new Meshuggah song, perhaps as part of a two-track EP, maybe with a live track included along with the new song. Well, it turns out I was right.

Yes, Pitch Black is a two-song release with a previously unreleased studio recording from 2003 — “Pitch Black” — and a live track. The second track is a previously unreleased, live version of “Dancers To A Discordant System” from obZen. Both songs are very much worth hearing and having.

What do these songs bring? Here’s a partial list: brute, bruising, chugs with that reliable Meshuggah tone; spacey cosmic ambience; near-spoken-word vocals, some of it positively robotic; a fidgety, squirming guitar solo in the title track; and funky bass lines as the foundation for what sure as fuck sound like sax solos (or a guitar tuned to sound identical to one) on both songs. Continue reading »

ABRIOSIS: “VESSEL”

 Album Reviews, Free Shit, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Feb 042013
 

(Below, TheMadIsraeli provides a review of the 2012 EP Vessel by Vancouver’s Abriosis.)

If I told you we had a band on our hands here who brought to the table the genre-bending, fusing duality of Revocation, the noisy, unorthodox, massive dissonance of Gojira, and a take on composition that is very Martyr-esque, I bet you’d shit yourself. In case no one paid attention to them when Islander mentioned them back in his “girl growlers” series (here), Abriosis is that band.

This EP, Vessel, chews up and spits out anything lesser in its path in its short 20-minute run time. Abriosis bring chaos with a contradictory sense of pin-point accuracy and focus that, quite frankly, blows a lot of their current peers out of the water. This is envelope-pushing stuff, even if the territory explored here is nothing terribly new, just an exciting combination of more modern approaches to brutality.

I highly recommend checking this out, and picking it up, whatever you need to do — and it’s easy since the band have just made the EP available for free download via this link. Continue reading »

EYE OF SOLITUDE: “THE DECEIT”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, SHORT BUT SWEET  7 Responses »
Feb 042013
 

It’s not often that you get the chance to spend your money on solid metal and know that you’re making a charitable donation at the same time, but that’s the chance Eye of Solitude and Kaotoxin Records are giving you with the band’s brand new EP, The Deceit, which is now available for download at Bandcamp.

First, a word about the charity. All money raised by this EP before June 1s, 2013, will go directly to Asociaţia Nevăzătorilor din România — the Romanian Association for the Blind and Sight Impaired. The amount raised by June 1 and donated to the charity will be posted on the label’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/kaotoxinrecords.

Since Eye of Solitude is a UK-based band, you may wonder about the choice of charity, but the connection probably can be traced to the band’s vocalist Daniel Neagoe, who is Romanian born.

And now let’s get to the music. If the band’s name seems familiar, it may be because I’ve written about them before in connection with an official video for a song from their most recent album, Sui Caedere, which is available for streaming and purchase on Bandcamp here. The new EP includes three songs, totaling about 18 minutes of music. Continue reading »

ENTITIES: “AETHER”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jan 292013
 

(In this post TheMadIsraeli reviews the new EP by Entities from Sacramento, CA.)

While I think we can all agree that although djent, as an overarching fad and movement, is dying out and is in its death throes as we speak, that doesn’t say that the style in and of itself is bland or that there aren’t bands who remind us why this style got off the ground in the first place.

I am SURE, and am even willing to bet money, that djent as a whole will be a dead horse within two years and that NO ONE will give a single fuck about any of this shit nearly to the extent of the popularity it has enjoyed in years past.  However, I do think some bands are going to continue to push on and show that they are undeniable musical forces:  Vildhjarta, Uneven Structure, Means End, Born of Osiris, the list goes on.

I’m writing this piece, however, to talk about the new EP by Entities.  I think there are two types of bands within the djent community: those who want to milk the cash cow while they can, and those who sincerely have a passion for the style and all its elements.  Entities are definitely in the latter camp, bringing forth material that, while not necessarily original, is nonetheless a conviction-filled testimony to djent’s strengths and none of its weaknesses.  Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: TRENCHROT — “DRAGGED DOWN TO HELL”

 Album Reviews, Free Shit, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jan 282013
 

I know almost nothing about TrenchRot. They are from Philadelphia, and through a little web sleuthing I’ve figured out that their members include vocalist/guitarist Steve Jansson, who has split time between a speed metal band named Infiltrator and a sludge band named Grass. And beyond that, they’re a mystery. Except for their music; I do know about that.

Earlier this month TrenchRot posted a three-track demo named Dragged Down To Hell on Bandcamp. You can pay what you want to get it. The music is neither speed metal nor sludge, but death metal. TrenchRot’s beefy death metal stew has a strong old-school flavor but it doesn’t sound like re-packaged, cookie-cutter hero worship. The songs are distinctive, and galvanizing.

For the most part the three demo tracks blaze away at a thrashing pace, propelled by slaughtering riffs, squalling guitar leads, and a mix of percussive rhythms, all hell-bent on sonic demolition.  Where the pacing changes, it’s a drop down on all fours for a moaning, groaning death-doom crawl. Continue reading »

SATURDAY

 Album Reviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  12 Responses »
Jan 262013
 

I’m going to a massive bash tonight in celebration (a day late) of the 254th birthday of Robert Burns.  Whisky will be drunk, songs will be sung, whisky will be drunk, poems will be recited, whisky will be drunk, haggis will be eaten, whisky will be drunk. Also, whisky will be drunk, and we will all be drunk.

Therefore, I will be writing something for tomorrow today, because I have a feeling tomorrow will be lost to incapacitation. I will also be preparing myself today for some sort of performance tonight, and also updating my last will and testament, just in case. Between the writing for tomorrow and the preparation for tonight, I will be scarce around the site on this Saturday. But before disappearing, I thought I’d share a few recent discoveries and a few old favorites that are on my mind today, all of which are metal, even if they’re not all music.

PRAISE

Today the following comment appeared on a post about the band General Surgery that I wrote a year ago: “Thank you a lot for giving everyone an extraordinarily brilliant chance to read critical reviews from this site. It is often very kind and full of a lot of fun for me and my office friends to search your web site at the very least three times in 7 days to read the new guidance you have. And of course, I’m just usually satisfied concerning the stunning techniques you give. Selected two ideas in this article are indeed the most efficient I have had.” Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: ENSHADOWED / BURIAL HORDES SPLIT

 Album Reviews, Eye-Catchers, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Jan 102013
 

One of our first album reviews of 2013 was Andy Synn’s recent complimentary write-up on the new work by Enshadowed, Magic Chaos Psychedelia. With Enshadowed on my mind, I discovered by coincidence that they appeared on a recent split with another Greek band, Burial Hordes (whose discography is listed here). The split was released last October as a vinyl 7″ and on tape by a Greek label named Razorbleed Productions, though they’ve apparently sold out of the tape. Copies of the tapes still seem to be available through NoiseGoat Productions and versions of the 7″ can still be found here.

What caught my attention is that today Razorbleed uploaded both tracks from the split to YouTube. After listening to them, I tracked down the artwork for the split, and my eyes got really big when I found it. As you can see above, the cover kills.

The music kills, too.  I wish that the tracks could be made available digitally. Maybe if we all whine and beg loudly it will happen. Continue reading »

GROT: “I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Jan 072013
 

(Any band who names their debut EP after a 1967 Hugo-Award-winning short story by Harlan Ellison is alright in my book. But apart from having good literary taste, their music stacks up pretty damned well, too.  Here’s TheMadIsraeli’s review . . . and we also have a special treat: With the band’s permission, a free download of the music.)

We’re gonna take a bit of a break from year-end round-ups to go over a late 2012 EP I stumbled upon that I think is worth checking out.  GROT are, at their core, an Irish deathgrind outfit with a good bit of old fashioned Dying Fetus groove thrown in, but the membership actually reveals a more international collective:  GROT is composed of the mighty Kevin Talley on drums, John Roche of Gama Bomb on guitars and bass, and Eoin Broughal from Cold War and Warpath on vocals.

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is a no-bullshit collection of very mid-90’s deathy grime and venom.  The EP, at least as we have it, consists of five original songs and two covers (Napalm Death’s “Unchallenged Hate” and Misery Index’s “Pulling out the Nails”, though the Misery Index cover doesn’t come on the physical copies) that provide an immensely satisfying morsel of brutality and energy.  This band also has a shitton of meat, in the sense that their riffs, their grooves, their sections of chaotically fast double-bass saturation and grinds all have a massiveness to them that feels like a tonnage of toxic waste spill being shoved down your throat. Continue reading »

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