Darkest Hour ran a very successful crowdfunding campaign to fund its new album, and Godless Prophets & The Migrant Flora will be released on March 10th via Southern Lord Records. Plus, the guys have announced a massive tour in support of the new material. Continue reading
Keijo Niinimaa, the vocalist behind Finland’s grindcore group Rotten Sound, has taken his talents to a new sludge/doom metal project. Morbid Evils have released their debut album In Hate With the Burning World and it is an absolute juggernaut. This is a pure heavyweight that demands your attention.
From beginning to end the album drags the listener through pure destruction and never lets up. With the opening track ‘Cruel’ you’re treated to a steady build-up that leads into a crushing riff that could be paired with the stomping of elephants marching. About halfway through the track, the drone aspect picks up a bit of a groove making it very difficult to keep your head from moving in pace.
The next track ‘Crippled’ has more of a haunting groove to it, yet the brutality remains. This groove showcases the freshness of this album, keeping it from becoming just another boring and uninteresting doom album laden with just a simple chugging riff. My favorite track, and unfortunately the shortest of the album, would be ‘South of Hell’. Named rightly so this album will drag you down to the bowels and even further than where the sinners dwell.
In Hate With the Burning World is one hell of a debut release. Dare I say even better than all material Niinimaa created with Rotten Sound? I feel unfortunate that they ended up with the name Morbid Evils, as their sound to me really represents a creature such as a Mastodon or Behemoth. Recently it feels that doom metal has been gaining more of a following, and this album will just strengthen that interest and lust for the sound of dismemberment.
8.0/10
DEREK RIX
If musical genres could be anthropomorphized as people, goregrind would be the ‘special’ cousin who eats road kill and is a little bit too friendly with local farm animals. The four members of False Pregnancy, four self-confessed idiots with alcohol problems would seem to confirm that those who tune extra low and like to grunt like pigs won’t be joining Mensa anytime soon. Having said that, they sure can have fun, as the seventeen minutes of Dance Your Meat Off!!! (Nailjar Records) emphatically proves.
This is quite frankly one of the dumbest records ever recorded; each song only lasts around 90 seconds and features the same low-end, down-tuned chords, indecipherable pig squeals and grunts and absurd, juvenile song titles such as ‘Soft and Juicy Angelina Jolie’s Pussylips’ and ‘Spermnavigator.’ In case things weren’t stupid and offensive enough they throw in an Anal Cunt cover (‘Flower Shop Guy’) complete with falsetto vocals. If the more PC grind bands heard this they would not be pleased. But you know what, all these flaws work to the band’s advantage, for while the riffs may be generic, they are catchy as hell, the atmosphere is like one big party, and the short song lengths ensure it’s impossible to get bored.
The band clearly aren’t taking anything seriously, as indicated by occasional snippets of folk, Euro trance and Volksmusik, that will have you checking they haven’t entered into some bizarre business deal with Spotify. But the truth is they just want to have fun, and it’s likely that if they get offered a mid-afternoon slot at Obscene Extreme with plenty of stage divers on hand, the scale of their ambition will be met. Like Rotten Sound with a lobotomy, False Pregnancy is a prime example of dumbing down and they couldn’t be more welcome.
7.0/10
JAMES CONWAY
At The Gates have released their new Costin Chioreanu/Twilight 13 Media created video for “Heroes And Tombs,” off their At War With Reality CD, which can be viewed below:
Vocalist and lyricist Tomas Lindberg comments:
“I am very proud to be able to present the second video from ‘AWWR’, ‘Heroes And Tombs’. To have Costin work on one of our songs this way has been very rewarding. It’s like the next step of the album artwork, and basically more than I could have ever hoped for. Costin paints up a fevered and dark nightmare world that complements the lyrics and music up to the point of perfection. Now I just have to go convince him to do a full length movie for the whole album… ;-)”
Watch their Patric Ullaeus directed “Death And The Labyrinth” video here.
The band has also announced an extensive list of upcoming shows, which is posted below.
AT THE GATES + ROTTEN SOUND:
Nov. 20, 2014 – Tampere (Finland) – Klubi
Nov. 21, 2014 – Jyväskylä (Finland) – Lutako
Nov. 22, 2014 – Helsinki (Finland) – Nosturi
AT THE GATES, GRAVE, MORBUS CHRON:
Nov. 27, 2014 – Göteborg (Sweden) – Trägårn
Nov. 28, 2014 – Stockholm (Sweden) – Arenan
Nov. 29, 2014 – Malmö (Sweden) – KB
AT THE GATES, TRIPTYKON, MORBUS CHRON:
Presented by Visions, Metal Hammer, Metal.de in Germany and by Rock Tribune in the BeNeLux
Dec. 4, 2014 – London (UK) – Forum *
Dec. 5, 2014 – Manchester (UK) – Academy 2 *
Dec. 6, 2014 – Glasgow (UK) – Garage
Dec. 7, 2014 – Birmingham (UK) – The Oobleck *
Dec. 8, 2014 – Cardiff (UK) – The Globe *
Dec. 10, 2014 – Essen (Germany) – Turock
Dec. 11, 2014 – Hamburg (Germany) – Markthalle
Dec. 12, 2014 – Eindhoven (The Netherlands) – Eindhoven Metal Meeting
Dec. 13, 2014 – Leipzig (Germany) – Conne Island
Dec. 14, 2014 – Wien (Austria) – Arena
Dec. 16, 2014 – Aarau (Switzerland) – Kiff
Dec. 17, 2014 – Munich (Germany – Backstage Werk
Dec. 18, 2014 – Antwerpen (Belgium) – Trix
Dec. 19, 2014 – Cologne (Germany) – Essigfabrik
Dec. 20, 2014 – Berlin (Germany) – Postbahnhof
*=with CODE ORANGE
AT THE GATES – live 2015:
Jan. 8, 2015 – Istanbul (Turkey) – Garajistanbul
Jan. 9, 2015 – Athens (Greece) – Fuzz Music Club
Jan. 10, 2015 – Thessaloniki (Greece) – Principal Club
Jan. 16, 2015 – Bologna (Italy) – Estragon + HOUR OF PENANCE
Jan. 17, 2015 – Rome (Italy) – Orion + HOUR OF PENANCE
Jan. 18, 2015 – Trezzo Sull’Adda / Milano (Italy) – Live Club + HOUR OF PENANCE
Jan. 31, 2015 – Dublin (Ireland) – Academy
Feb. 9, 2015 – Tokyo (Japan) – Liquid Room
Feb. 10, 2015 – Nagoya (Japan) – Club Quattro
Feb. 12, 2015 – Osaka (Japan) – Akaso
Feb. 21, 2015 – Bergen (Norway) – Blastfest
Feb. 26, 2015 – Oslo (Norway) – Vulkan Arena
Feb. 27, 2015 – Karlstad (Sweden) – Nöjesfabriken
Feb. 28, 2015 – Umeå (Sweden) – House Of Metal
Mar. 6, 2015 – Madrid (Spain) – Penelope
Mar. 7, 2015 – Bilbao (Spain) – Sala Santana
Mar. 8, 2015 – Barcelona (Spain) – Sala Razzmatazz
2015 Decibel Magazine Tour dates with AT THE GATES, CONVERGE, VALLENFYRE
Mar. 27, 2015 – Los Angeles, CA – The Wiltern
Mar. 28, 2015 – San Francisco, CA – The Regency Ballroom
Mar. 29, 2015 – Portland, OR – Roseland Theater
Mar. 30, 2015 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom
Mar. 31, 2015 – Seattle, WA – Showbox at the Market
Apr. 2, 2015 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Complex
Apr. 3, 2015 – Denver, CO – Summit Music Hall
Apr. 4, 2015 – Lincoln, NE – Bourbon Street
Apr. 5, 2015 – Minneapolis, MN – Mill City Nights
Apr. 6, 2015 – Chicago, IL – House of Blues
Apr. 8, 2015 – Toronto, ON – The Phoenix
Apr. 9, 2015 – Montreal, QC – Metropolis
Apr. 10, 2015 – Boston, MA – Royale
Apr. 11, 2015 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
Apr. 12, 2015 – New York, NY – Webster Hall
AT THE GATES – live 2015:
May 1, 2015 – Örebro (Sweden) – Ritz
May 2, 2015 – Sundsvall (Sweden) – Pipeline
May 22, 2015 – Warszawa (Poland) – Progresja
May 23, 2015 – Kraków (Poland) – Studio
May 29, 2015 – Johannesburg (South Africa) – Carfax
May 30, 2015 – Johannesburg (South Africa) – Carfax
June 21, 2015 – Clisson (France) – Hellfest
Aug. 8, 2015 – Jaromer (Czech Republic) – Brutal Assault Festival
Aug. 15, 2015 – Cetatea Rasnov (Romania) – Rockstadt Extreme Fest
AT THE GATES online:
At The Gates Official Site
At The Gates on Facebook
At The Gates on Twitter
http://www.youtube.com/atthegatesofficial
Named after the six-tusked, one hundred feet tall, elephant-like creatures created by Tolkein, Swiss Mumakil release their second album for Relapse, the first in four years since Behold The Failure, and prove that although they may not be extending the margins of grind core in the way that Agoraphobic Nosebleed or Pig Destroyer may be in the process of doing, they are making blast beats and flailing guitar their own. Apparently motivated to get together to play in 2004, “…to have fun and play without any stress” there is evidence on this release suggesting the album was shaped with that mantra in mind. Continue reading
