Well, look out guys, we’re in for another brutal outing. See, a band usually lets you know they mean fucking business when they have one of them thesaurus type names. Hence Arborescence of Wrath with the surprisingly tame album name Inferno (Transcending Obscurity Records).
In these very strange, unprecedented times for the world over (and not just the music world) it must make a few of us uneasy in terms of when does “new music” stop coming out thanks to the pandemic. Well, the good news is the music we are getting right now is simply fantastic! The Acacia Strain have dropped two EPs this year after a surprise full release at the end of 2019. These new EPs entitled, simply, D and E (Rise Records) are certainly under the “short but sweet” category. Each EP only has two tracks apiece, however, this only helps in getting listeners to want more.
When I heard about this particular collaboration, I swear a little bit of wee came out. Seattle’s Un is still reveling in the success of last year’s coruscating, moving Sentiment (Translation Loss Records), while Scouse / Scottish hybrid Coltsblood have laid waste to the UK Underground for the last five years. This split, therefore, promises to be a leveller on both sides of the Atlantic.Continue reading
Epic heavy gospel blues artist Zeal & Ardor has released a new single today, ‘Built on Ashes’. The track comes from his forthcoming new album, Stranger Fruit, due out on June 8th via Radicalis / MVKA. Continue reading
A five-year gap between records and a litany of line-up changes would slow down the momentum of any band, but Michael Keene has always been driven to make The Faceless work, even if it means taking on the majority of musical roles on himself. However, with a new set of musicians backing him up, Keene hopes to push The Faceless back to the forefront of people’s minds with In Becoming A Ghost (Sumerian) and prove that, despite the trials and tribulations of the band’s history, his ambition for creating the most extravagant music possible can still lead to great things.Continue reading
On Saturday October 7th 2017, almost exactly a year after hosting the excellent Mannveira/Wormlust package, Het Bos has another delectable line-up for anyone into the dark and destructive. Opening the night are Eggs of Gomorrah, the Swiss band has a fat and muddy sound, with lower end vocals, and a clear dose of death metal influence and while the performance doesn’t have major mistakes it just fails to capture me as anything inherently special. Visually, while it’s clear the band put their most into the performance, there’s not a clear idea how to present it all. The band is relatively young though, having dropped their début in 2016, so who knows what they will develop into.Continue reading
You must respect any band that lives up to their moniker. Imagine being an impressionable metallic youth raiding the local record store and picking up albums from acts known as Poison and Slaughter. Seems metal enough, but then you get home only to realize the swindle and that those tapes were as hard as the Pillsbury Doughboy. When you listen to Hostage Animal (Southern Lord) by All Pigs Must Die, you don’t have that problem. Continue reading
If God took the seventh day off for some rest, then Satan was hard at work piecing together Denver, Colorado’s Primitive Man. The nihilistic and tortured sounds encased in Caustic (Relapse) are the proof you need that the devil is not only kicking but that his influence is still very much among us. Approach this beast on your own accord, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Continue reading
Let’s be honest – for all its talk of “extremes”, Metal is largely a pretty conservative genre. Few bands experiment beyond the controlled combination of rigorously defined subgenres, and even those who do truly push the boundaries are normally content to do so only once. Ehnahre – formed with the stated intention of creating the most horrible and perverse music imaginable – have been a dedicated exception to this rule from the beginning, to the extent that they frequently don’t sound like a Metal band at all.Continue reading
Ex Eye’s self-titled album (Relapse) is something extraordinarily different, so hold on to your hats and brace yourself! The soon-to-be-legendary group consists of renowned, experimental saxophonist Colin Stetson, Greg Fox on drums, Shahzad Ismaily on synths and Toby Summerfield on guitar and these dudes will literally blow your mind!Continue reading