Southern Lord would eat these guys up. No Salvation play a sludge/stoner-friendly hardcore that doesn't fit neatly into one category but would immediately gel on the current SL roster. For now they're self-releasing their debut EP, Faith, through Bandcamp (ie. digital only, which is where Southern Lord needs to step in… this is eminently vinyl-worthy).
What little press No Salvation have gotten so far has largely centered around the fact that drummer Brad Fickeisen used to play in The Red Chord, but appreciation for or even faint knowledge of the latter band will not really prep you for what you're about to hear on Faith.
Basically everything I know of these guys is culled from their Facebook profile, from which it appears they used to toil under the name Magdeline (good change) and have been hammering away at this material since at least August 2011. They've apparently played all of one show together back in November and still don't even have an Encyclopaedia Metallum entry.
Now you know as much as I do.
There are faint hints of the tech death Red Chord are known for in tracks like "Croweater", but at heart No Salvation have more in common with Crowbar or Buzzov*en than they do with Red Chord. The material may straddle the line between hardcore, southern-inflected sludge and mid-paced thrash but it's not an altogether unfamiliar alchemy, it's just that No Salvation seem to have mastered the style right out of the gate. There's really no reason for a band this talented to still be self-releasing their own shit… if Southern Lord won't step up to the plate I could also see these guys on 20 Buck Spin. Takers?
8.5/10
