May 292025
 

(Andy Synn continues to play catch-up with everything he missed this month)

Oddly, but pleasingly, one thing which has come up a few times over the last few weeks is how much many people – from our regular readers to the bands we cover to various people in the industry – appreciate what we do here as, and I quote, a more “curated” experience than what some of the larger and more (in)famous sites provide.

And while I don’t disagree with this, it does slightly overestimate things… after all (and I hope I’m not giving away any trade secrets here) there’s definitely a degree of randomness (you might even call it “chaos”) to what we do here, since we only cover the things we like and which catch our ear(s) – regardless of any external pressures or inducements – each month.

Sure, sometimes there’s a bit of forward planning involved, but what you see and what you get here is most often the result of a spontaneous reaction to new music… which, I suppose, is how we like it!

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Feb 262018
 

 

The connoisseurs of extreme metal brutality at New Standard Elite are poised to detonate an obliterating new destructive device, in the form of the second album by Italy’s Unbirth. Entitled Fleshforged Columns of Deceit, the album is projected for release in April, but we have an electrifying burst from the album today through our premiere of the record’s opening track, “Tumults of Collective Anguishes“.

This new song is a fine example of Unbirth’s capacity to mount sonic assaults that are both savagely brutal and technically eye-popping. Flying at rocket-fast speed and with razor-sharp precision, the band create a feeling of heartless, frenzied viciousness, combined with skull-fracturing explosions of power. Continue reading »