South Shore of Massachucetts-based Death / Thrash metal band Cetragore has released theri debut EP “Chancellors of Death”. Recorded from August to September 2021, the EP shows off their penchant for crushing riffs and killer grooves. The impressive young band ranges from Old-school Death Metal to thrash influences and will find fans from bands such as Obituary, Immolation, and Jungle Rot, as well as more modern sounds. Stream the EP here!
New Jersey metallers Behind The Horror have been keeping busy in 2021. With a series of covers (recently Sepultura, Audioslave, and Nightwish), playthrough videos, and now their new Podcast series, the band has been keeping their fans entertained and themselves sharp, as they work on new music for their next release. In the first few episodes, which you can see below, the brothers Gabriel and Lucas Alves continue to explore their earliest years as fans, their first forrays into making music, and much more! Watch it now and be sure to like and subscribe on YouTube to support the band!
Minneapolis Death/Thrashers Obsolete are dropping their debut album, Animate/Isolate, this Friday, April 19th, 2021 via Unspeakable Axe Records. The band’s brutal technicality and uncompromising songcraft are on full display and will find fast fans of OSDM originators, Melo-death legends, and even some modern like-minded heroes. You can catch the full album stream early right now, courtesy of Decibel Magazine.
Baltimore grind band Noisem has completed their new album, their third, Cease To Exist. Due out on March 15th via 20 Buck Spin, the album promises to be another banger from this rising band. Check out their new single, ‘Eyes Pried Open’ right now. It slays! Continue reading
(Editor’s note: The editor staff of Ghost Cult acknowledges the story of Deafheaven guitarist Kerry McCoy and his past homophobic tweets: which we find deplorable and unacceptable. This review was completed before the story broke, and we await McCoy’s apology and explanation for his behavior.)
Deafheaven is the most polarizing popular band in metal since Ghost. While it’s easy to take a common side in the hipsters versus troo kvlt versus mainstream metal fans war, this is unnecessary. Good music is good music. This band has been putting out genre-redefining music for some time now. This is not disputable if you have ears and good taste. The fact that they have gotten as huge as they have and the backlash that has come with it only serves to illustrate what a time this is in the world as a music fan. Fifteen years ago this band would surely have had much less of a chance to come from the underground and become huge. Let’s measure Deafheavan on their merits, new output and their impossible to top 2013s Sunbather (Deathwish Inc.) album, and not some intangible stuff that has no place in the world of music lovers, shall we?
Rather than try to top their best album, they just continue to stay in their own bubble and build out the sound they started. So if you already love this band, there is a lot to love on New Bermuda (Anti Records). Opening up with the harsh ‘Brought To Water’, this track serves notice that this band is immune to the weight of outside influences or trolls. Blastbeats and waves of frotsy riffs greet your ears, before a straight up death thrash riff blows you away. George Clarke’s vocals are even more gnarly than ever before, and Deafheaven’s best asset has raised his already choice lyric game considerably on this album. ‘Luna’ is the track most in line with Sunbather and is a quintessential cut for this band. Black metal and shoegaze melded together to form something sick and lovely all at once. Once again, the Jack Shirley’s production aesthetics are immaculate. He is one of the most in demand producers for a reason. Guitars shimmer and scream when they need to, while the drums sit in the mix perfectly with the cymbals never taking away from the high-end of the guitar army.
‘Baby Blue’ is the best track found here. Fooling you with its sneaky dynamic power: lush post-rock beauty juxtaposed with destructive chords of death. The buildup and release of this track is overpowering. Clark reaches a new level of grotesque with his vocals, invoking the spirits of all of his influences. It also has an excellent thematic guitar solo part, that is more akin to Soundgarden or Metallica than USBM. The final outro of the track has one of the most righteous, head-nodding riffs* this year. ‘Come Back’ will surely be another one holdover fans fawn over, a lot. The final stanza of the track has one of the most righteous head-nodding riffs this year. Closing out with the shortest cut on here at 8:22, ‘Gifts of Earth’, the band puts a brilliant exclamation point on this album and in some ways, their legacy as a band. A sprawling mini-opus, one that tells us much of where this band can really go musically both now and in the future.
While not as groundbreaking or original as Sunbather, which any band would be challenged to follow, New Bermuda hits you in all the right G-spots musically and emotionally for one of 2015’s undoubtedly finest releases.
8.5/10
Broken Limbs Recordings brings us this raucous Black Metal and Punk hybrid split seven-inch, with Boston’s Human Bodies and New Hampshire’s Leather Chalice.
Featuring two tracks from each band, this hallowed-out and thrashy LP takes you on a raucous ride through grimy streets, riddled with the echoes of Venom, Discharge, and drugs, and harkens back to the days when punk was still pretty dangerous.
Tracks one and two are donated by Human Bodies and are appropriately quick and dirty. Track one, entitled ‘Only the Sigh,’ and track two, entitled ‘Malice Prepense,’ are vitriol-fueled black metal and Hardcore hybrids curated by a little D-beat for immeasurably catchy shit.
New Hampshire’s one-man punk project known as Leather Chalice chimes in on tracks three and four with impossibly unpolished Blackened Crust. The project, which features Jann from Ramlord, takes to the extremes of the genre-meld, garnering hues of grime and gray, and garbage can tin-sounding percussion, and in sum, is the sound of impassioned, unimpressed, abandoned youth.
This mash up is due out September 22 on 7-inch vinyl and is released in cooperation with Prison Tatt Records.
Information on oerdering this split seven-inch vinyl can be found over at the Broken Limbs Records Website at www.BrokenLimbsRecordings.com.
6.0/10