To put it mildly, Deiphago at the best of times, sounds like Blasphemy jamming with Brutal Truth at the confluence of a wind tunnel, airplane hanger and shit-soaked sewer from 1986 Belo Horizonte preserved in a mixture of crumbling concrete and jizz lobs from the spiky schlong of Satan himself. Pure chaos.
When you hear Fear Factory, you know it’s Fear Factory, when you hear subpar Fear Factory, you know it’s subpar Fear Factory. What might be more on the shocking side of things for the many who’ve written them off as formulaic has-been geezers fronted by a dude who, a couple years ago, was having trouble hitting notes with his signing voice in a live setting, is how well put together the material comprising Genexus is and the overall excellence of the album.
Scowl’s plan of attack sees them rocketing along with incendiary volleys of rapid-fire power chord progressions, Brutal Truth inspired screech/growl vocal dualism and blasting drums all of which would have been more palatable, effective and listenable had the recording been a couple more steps above demo quality.
Watertank know how to balance melody, big riffs, mellifluously throaty vocals and down tuned heaviness, regardless of who they’re aping.
When Mutoid Man came crashing into the world at million unexpected miles an hour last year with the Helium Head mini-LP, they did it the old-fashioned way: with breakneck energy, stellar musicianship, a wry sense of humour (check out the cover art) and, most importantly, a pack of well written songs with stadium sized riffs and colossal choruses.
Ever since arising on the fringes of the black metal scene in 2010, Vattnet Viskar has done just about everything in their power to fuck with scene conventions and expectations.
I have all the respect in the world for Australia’s King Parrot. They’re a band that has basically taken the step of diving head first and full on into doing their band at 110%. The quintet has employed a combination of sheer determination, old fashioned elbow grease, financial risk and business sense and a little bit of that innate Down Under lunacy to make their band a full time endeavour.
Five years ago, when Germany’s Morgoth announced their return to active duty after a twelve year layoff, there was a pretty good chance I was one of a very small handful of people looking forward to their return. Let me clarify that: I was one of a very small handful of people looking forward to their return if, and only if, they picked up where they left off after 1996’s Feel Sorry for the Fanatic.
As reported in most corners of the metalsphere last Monday, the van carrying members of Wormreich and Khaotika, who were…
Karyn Crisis is an artistic and spiritual polymath who always seems to have various soul wrenching projects on the go, which she juggles as deftly as she summons various voices along the demonic scale with her iron-clad diaphragm and schizophrenic vocal chords. And, as supporters of, and participants in, underground culture, we should be as pleased as punch she does what she does because someone this multi-talented and dedicated to DIY should never be allowed to stagnate or sit still for one second.
Dødheimsgard have never failed to deliver challenging listens that require the listener’s time to delve into and absorb, and things are no different on this latest album.
While the background and story of Norway’s Haust may be all over the grill of the internet and supportive print publications, they don’t come across like people who’d be forthcoming about anything. As a band, their brand of caustic schizophrenia sounds like it oozes from tiny micro-fractures in the Earth’s crust and emits a fetid, sulphur-enriched haze of your olfactory system’s worst nightmare.
Kollwitz hail from the Norwegian port town of Bodø and if extreme conditions demand extreme responses, as a quartet of great men once said, then their extreme response is Dissonance.
France’s Death Engine doesn’t sound like Neurosis per se, but there’s a definite artistic aesthetic informed, influenced and inspired by the Oakland post-metal legends. Death Engine is similar in that it definitely sways to the brutal end of the scale, but sounds almost otherworldly when compared to rudimentary metal or hardcore bands.
So, there’s a new Sodom EP out, but it really only consists of about six minutes of new material.
There is one constant in all of Slayer's albums… Tom Araya's consistent vocal delivery.
Arch Stanton may not be worthy of in-depth discussions and deconstructions by music magazine editors and transcribers, but it’s full of heart, soul and the occasional rocking surprise.
Yes. London’s Haken really like Yes. That much has been evident since they burst on to the progressive metal scene back in 2010 with their debut album, Aquarius. As the sands have clunked through the hourglass, the sextet has used a big ol’ Yes-shaped lasso to round up as many sub-genre bits ‘n’ bobs, throwing in some metal glitter, a la Dream Theater, into the fray.
First things first: love the name! Normally, when bands start combining and mashing up words for monikers and album titles, it screams of uncreative minds, produces hokey results and screams the desperate scream of those trying to position themselves as ‘troo’ and/or ‘kvlt.’ Skelethal show themselves to be somewhere in the middle of this divide as they exhibit tendencies of both really awesome and awesomely average, sometimes in the course of a single song.
What more is there to say outside of "I really liked these albums"?
Having recently witnessed Generation of Vipers live and in the flesh on their home turf, it’s still amazing and somewhat surprising to know that the thunderous racket they create comes at the hands of mere trio. They put the ‘power’ in power trio, as it were.
If you still can’t understand the flowchart from Beneath the Remains, Arise and Nailbomb’s Point Blank to Soulfly and Killer Be Killed, fine, but the Brothers Cavalera are bonafide legends, deserved of respect and whenever they pair up the output should be given a cursory look-see at the very least.
Those in the know still get a perverse kick in being able to thrust this band upon the unsuspecting.
