The Drammen-born four-piece thefalls crafts their meticulous approach to metal in the most experimental way possible by blending in hardcore, post-metal, and sludge elements altogether. Hailing from the same town as Kambodsja, which I interviewed earlier, they are one of the rising forces that helped build the foundation of the underground scene in the said Norwegian small town.
Our goal is to bring the latest genre-pushing work from heavy and underground music’s most innovative artists directly to you, and the end of year “Album of the Year” list is a time-honored tradition that enables us to do just that. Added to the fact that we’re a big bunch of geeks who love a list, the Ghost Cult countdown also helps us highlight the bands and albums that have not only made the biggest impact on us this calendar year, but showcase the releases that have stirred something deeper and more visceral in the hearts of the Ghost Cult team.Continue reading
Whilst many in the world of heavy metal will have been spending the last few weeks speculating and gesticulating about whether the new Metallica album is any good (spolier alert: it is), a fair few at the more extreme end of our community will have also been anxiously whether Montreal extreme metallers Ion Dissonance still had it in them to produce another slab of brutal, technical deathcore after yet another extended period of career silence from these Canadians.Continue reading
Ion Dissonance will be unleashing Cast the First Stone on November 18th on Good Fight Music, but thanks to the band, you don’t have to wait any longer to hear it. Continue reading
Given the uncompromising starkness of their moniker, which makes any kind of internet research on them an exercise in frustration, it’s fairly safe to assume that Syracuse, NY quartet Bleak isn’t here to make friends and win fans. According to their FB page (which can be found with effort) “The only thing we hate more than ourselves is you” and after giving their debut, self-titled EP (Blasphemour) a listen, you’d be hard pressed to disagree.
Playing a hard-hitting form of groove metal that rarely gets above mid-pace, the band also draw elements from sludge and hardcore to produce a sound that will knock you on your arse. Quite simply, wimps and poseurs need not apply. Kicking things off with the savage groove of ‘Bridge Burner’ which roils and pummels like Vision of Disorder if someone had murdered their families, the band proceed to inflict a serious of devastating body blows over the course of eighteen punishing minutes. However, they’re not afraid to take risks, as the harrowing dark ambient of second track ‘Resplendent Repression’ emphatically proves.
The short, sharp shock of ‘Simple’ employs skittish mathcore anti-melodies amid its lurching chugs, coming across like a looser Ion Dissonance while the crushing beatdowns and feral roars of ‘Outflanked’ is some of the nastiest hardcore you are ever likely to hear.
What Bleak do isn’t big or clever and it certainly isn’t that original, but their uncompromising nihilistic approach and straightforward, bloody-minded aggression is refreshingly honest. They sound like they would beat you to within an inch of your life for no reason and in a scene full of chancers who like to talk big, Bleak are well primed to make a name for themselves.
8.0/10
JAMES CONWAY
