Album Review: From Eden To Exile – Modern Disdain

With vast swathes of blustering labyrinthine riffing and warm, throaty vocals, this smacks of New Wave of American Heavy Metal yet brings it back home with a rich, thrashed-up thread running through its core.

From the off, “Gospel Untold” offers up a rich amalgamation of groove, death, power and thrash. The scattergun riffing, winding leads, focussed roars and battering drums scramble to get at you as if from every angle. Following close behind, the title-track pulls back a little from the storming pace but is no less impacting. Think Sylosis’ on top-form and you’ll get an idea of the crush that these guys’ can produce when they hit top gear. Liam Turland’s complex and virulent drum insanity deserves a special mention as he produces panicky rolls that come at you in waves, a crisp snare, punchy double-kick and supremely tight drops and change-ups. A ‘core-loving perfectionist might suggest that the breakdowns need to smack down harder and more often, but we’re splitting hairs here..

Tracks like “Victim” and “What You’ve Done” have the instant gratification that marks out bands like Lamb of God and All Shall Perish but also mimic the longer game and offered by the tech-minded – think Black Crown Initiate or Trigger The Bloodshed. The lyrics are intense and filthy enough to fire up a crowd – “I will not rest while you’re still alive / Don’t say a fucking word” (“Victim”) even comes complete with dropout and Randy Blythe-esque “whooooop”. Or perhaps you prefer the last line from “Sentiment”… “For safe keeping I will cut out your heart / I am living all my dreams”. That’s sick, man.

Over 36 rancid minutes, this Northampton quintet produce gem after gem, alternating their attack with either a co-ordinated bass and drum power move, or by firing up their range of winding, interwoven melodics. The track “From Eden To Exile”, stripped of complexity and not nearly as playful, is about the only thing that feels a little laboured. The rest is solid gold and, having seen them live, I can assure they bring just as much force and fire to the stage too. If you dig music that puts up a damned good fight, you’ve come to the right place.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2017/06/from-eden-to-exile-modern-disdain-attic/

Album Review: Earth Ship – Hollowed

Berlin’s Earth Ship are a band that crosses genres. Depending on your state of mind when you press play, you’ll hear something different each and every time.

Firing out two parts doom and one part southern metal, Earth Ship have managed to muster an album that collects, like music nerds, a vast range of their influences. Starting out with a driven, downbeat Alice In Chains vibe they steadily ramp up the pace and the power to peak at something equating to Kylesa’s whirlwind crush before bringing it back through thrash and blackened metal to settle back into a doomy groove.

Blasting off the wall of noise with a scowling bag of nails vocal, opener “Reduced To Ashes” melts an initially gutsy, visceral sound into a driven dual vocal that mimics the melancholic laments of the aforementioned Alice In Chains. At ts heart the jerking back-and-forth swinging rhythm is a simple structure by design, so it’s a surprise to find it repeating throughout the album. Following up, the title-track introduces itself as its tonal brother, attacking from a different angle with half-paced, down-tuned chugs creating an imposing force. This looser blueprint risks demoting it to mere filler but at least it warns you just how complex their constructive thought processes are.

Deeper in, the variation continues – morose, lush verses, driven with effortless power by twin vocals, melt into a roared death attack. Surrounding it they use an amalgam of High On Fire’s immense vocal grunt, Monster Magnet’s heady theatrics and Torche’s relentless cyclical riffing to shock and invigorate.

“Conjured” provides a wicked groove interspersed with harmonised vocal “aahs” and is both accessible and memorable. Then, diving into the abyss, “Monolith” offers up a suitably menacing, rumbling undercurrent with big blackened melancholic tones. Imposing its wrath upon the listener it echoes through to violating feedback. “In Fire’s Light” is even darker, heavier and throws ever more powerful hits. It also features the enigmatically repeating line “The sands of time are running low…”. Here, they sound like a beefed-up Purified In Blood.

Wading through, the succulent, thick layers envelop you. Whichever you choose to lock onto, be it the scrawling multiple-overlaid vocal, the demonic throat-scouring or the slow, persistent driven quality, you are always plugged in. And then there’s the moments when they revert to feeding in old school elements. One particular track that will give you a shit-eating grin is the thrashed-up “Castle Of Sorrow”. The fiery, metallic tang, of the thing throwing out curses in twin-speed attack with pillar-to-post riffage is a joy. Even the monotonous closer “The Edge Of Time” has value here with its long, weighty, sustained chord strikes and maddening Acid King-esque ethereal doom.

There are negatives to consider. These aren’t so much songs as they are a series of flavours. There is an over-reliance on sheer power when the variety of attack should be the star. With trigger points supplied by the guttural roared sections they do have a tendency to batter the eardrums a little too often. A solid wall of noise each time will only drive you in one direction. And the album does rely a little too much on needless party tricks. As an example, “Safeguard Of Death”‘s automaton vocal intoning instructions over and over will drive you nuts.

Earth Ship are essentially like getting all your favourite foods and putting them on a single plate. Consume each individual part carefully and you’ll love this experience. Mix them all up and it’ll taste like something you’d give to your dog.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2016/07/earth-ship-hollowed-napalm/

Album Review: Gorguts – Pleiades’ Dust

How do you follow an album like Colored Sands? That perfect comeback album, following 12 years away from the studio, was their career pinnacle so where do they go from here? Well, here’s proof that the answer is to cling to their own coat-tails and hang on for dear life.

Pleiades’ Dust is lyrically and conceptually based on the destroyed mediaeval library of Baghdad and describes the terrible loss of scientific discovery in many fields of learning that was housed within. It extends to 33 minutes of atmospheric meanderings crushed into the spaces between the dark gnarled roots of technical death metal. Complex and convincing, to this metalhead it feels almost physical in presence. Its dips and crescendos are palpable. They hang in the air like gelatinous touchpoints, oozing with life.

Initial dramatic reverb bounces around echoing chambers before trickling its way onto the canvas. When it hits, the wall of drum and bass thunder simply smashes a hole right through it. Tugged along, as if on a chain, comes the brutalising inhuman roar of Luc Lemay and before you’ve noticed this single-track behemoth has begun the inexorable consumption of your soul.

Gorguts have been careful here to keep the central thread of the music locked into position which allows for the extraneous edges to expand and collapse, to career wildly from pillar to post, to dissolve into thin air and be plucked back out from nowhere. Fiendish in design, this conjuror’s magic trick is coaxed gently into life by the most talented heavy collective. To keep things so tight and focussed and yet elegantly organic takes skill beyond comprehension.

And yet, there are moments when the thrill of the chase wanes and the immensity of the power the players wield becomes overbearing on the listener. At times, its the overzealous jazzy elements that lurk beneath, at others its the unyielding crush as the band applies the full pressure of double-kick and electric violence to the piece.

Despite this, there are moments where either the hairs on the back of your neck or your hackles will raise. At the half way point, the listener is immersed inside the subsonic creaking bones and cavernous belly of the beast and it is an absolute thrill. At 24 minutes, the progressive hammering finger runs and slow chugs ready your senses for nothing less than impending war.

Pleiades’ Dust is a jaw-dropping experience. It’s probably the most absorbing piece of music I’ve heard since The Ocean sunk us into the expanding depths of their Pelagial. Sure its not faultless, but like the aforementioned band, Gorguts are surfing high upon the wave of their career highlight and riding it as kings.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2016/06/gorguts-pleiades-dust-season-of-mist/

Album Review: Textures – Phenotype

Dutch goliaths Textures are rapidly building quite a reputation for quality songwriting. Following the instant success of debut album Polars they have gone on to build quite the back catalogue. All that culminated in their finest work-to-date, 2011’s polyrhythmic genre-morphing Dualism. For their latest trick they are planning a conceptual diptych, album one being Phenotype and album two being Genotype with both surrounding the subject of genetics.

Let me just put on my Professor mortar board… Now, the “genotype” concerns each organism’s core genetic structure, whilst the “phenotype” concerns the morphology and development of the organism’s traits. Essentially the two albums are a study of nature versus nurture. The intention is for the musical structures on Phenotype to reappear within Genotype, only adapted to display the music’s origins – an attempt to mimic an aural version of genotype-phenotype mapping. Yes, it seems odd to release them that way around then (the “after” picture before the “before” picture), but there you go.

Heavier than Dualism, this sports a strong muscular base that draws on pistoning drums, spasming drop-chord structures and a thick, brutish death vocal roar. Echoing the immense wall of power generated by bands like Periphery and Monuments, the whole construct hammers its way into your ears, the driving rhythm rolls around in your skull and once complete emerges with a slowly dissolving echo.

Opener “Oceans Collide” grips like a vice as it builds and builds to an unbearable crush before abating like some of Uneven Structure’s more noisome compositions. Similarly, “Shaping A Single Grain Of Sand” bucks and brays like a mule, jerking from action to inaction, from clean to roared vocal. The closing Meshuggah-styled breakdown even leaps out of hold before it has had the chance to settle but gives vocalist Daniel De Jongh a chance to give it absolutely everything. Which brings us to “The Fourth Prime”. It concerns “the downfall of man” through imperfections within those in control. It is riddled with brutish chugs and zinging fingerwork and proves the switch of guitarist Joe Tal for Jochem Jacobs will ultimately be a smooth transition. Halfway through, the rumbling drop in pace reveals a vast, echoing cave of wonders which ends up being the perfect place from which to launch a renewed aural assault.

There are spots in some songs where the music begins to feel a little overwrought – “Erosion” and “The Fourth Prime” being good examples. At these moments proceedings become swamped by the multi-part construction; the sheer desire of the band to fill every available space with an army of intertwining riffs, leads and rhythms. It proves they are one talented unit of players but sometimes less is more and here there is a tendency for the natural flow to become stifled.



In a poppier, more melodious moment, “New Horizons” proves to be catchier and a heck of a lot more colourful. As vibrant as a halogen bulb, it glows like a deconstructed Killswitch Engage track. The subject matter is all about self-improvement and rising above any perceived limitation. Further relief from the thunder, can be found in “Zman” and closer “Timeless”. The former is a gentile little number that sports a sweetly-echoing, cyclical piano played by Uri Dijk. The latter provides the glorious wash of clean vocals that we were waiting for. It takes the joy of 2011’s “Reaching Home” and turns it into a mournful, emotional ride that describes the curse of a faulty genetic blueprint. It tugs at heartstrings, playing on our own perceived fears and failings with De Jongh driving home the impacting lyric “I heard you crawling, carrying your burden down the yearning hill”.

When all is said and done it’s not a faultless album. There are oddities that initially catch you out, like the drumtrack “Meander”, but even here there is much to draw strength from – it certainly serves as a gentle reminder to Stef Brooks’ incredible percussive work that goes on behind each track. The last album was a grower, and this will inevitably also take longer to fully ingest and appreciate the full impact of Textures’ constructions. No doubt, when all is said and done we have the portent of Genotype to follow and that promises to fulfil so much of Phenotype‘s true potential.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2016/02/textures-phenotype-nuclear-blast/

Album Review: Absent/Minded – Alight

Founded in 2009, this gritty German collective seem most adept at summoning up swathes of death-doom all weighed down with a depressive post and black metal gloom that lingers long after the last note has sounded out. Now on their third album, their former sludgier efforts being Pulsar and Earthtone, they’ve called in V. Santura (Dark Fortress, Tryptikon) and this time they’re really gunning to leave their mark.

Well they certainly manage to injure with second track “Stargazin'” hammering home the emotional turmoil that surrounded the events of the doomed space shuttle Challenger. It plays out as a series of sound effects and news and interview clips over a strong memorable riff and thumping chords that roll around, echo and splinter. Such simple construction opens old wounds far quicker than any set of lyrics ever could.

Further in, the album’s stuttering portfolio fails to really menace as it should with the tracks staying rooted in one place. Depressive black tones bleed into long sequences of occult psyche and death and such tracks as “Clouds” and the lyrical curiosities “Skies Of No Return” and “So Dark The Con Of Man” provide little more than music to curl up to. The latter track implies that either somebody has been paying attention to the works of American author Dan Brown or those by Norwegian hip-hop duo Madcon and most certainly it seems to imply the infestation of religious thought. As an aside, the idea to base the con around the concept is interesting as they also use Carl Sagan’s famous quote about the earth being a single organism and “an organism at war with itself is doomed”.

Elsewhere, there is their usual solid fare of steady punishing death-doom. Powering up on overdrive they load their bases with sombre riffs, occasional spasms of double-kick and a death-rattle vocal. Suddenly, something loud and obnoxious and not overwrought. “Arrivers” proves to be another gem and offers an oblique shift in purpose – suddenly the sonic blitzkrieg of chugs and intrusive grunt finally gives the listener something to sink their teeth into.

Violent, abortive and, at times, bordering on grotesque Absent/Minded manage to graft together a raft of genres without ever truly nailing their colours to the mast. The times they actually hold the attention come all too briefly and in short sharp shocks of content. The potential in their thematic choices and the simpler, more urgent constructions do prove, however, that they have the capacity to provide a few shocks. Absent/Minded they may be but they certainly won’t be forgotten.

Stream here: https://aminded.bandcamp.com/

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2016/01/absentminded-alight-sr/

Album Review: Yellowtooth – Crushed By The Wheels Of Progress

For their second stab at a long-player, Indiana’s Yellowtooth have decided to get heavy. With Year Of Desolation’s John Hehman twiddling the knobs, together they’ve produced an eminently raw-sounding recording and with it a whole world of pain. Yep, the proverbial nut gets the full sledgehammer treatment here.

Opening with a cut from a particularly vicious line from the 2003 movie Open Range, Crushed By The Wheels Of Progress sets it’s stall out early with snarling vocals spewing hate-filled lyrics. It all lies beneath a wall of the filthiest riff sludge and butt-clenching drum thunder heard since the murderous crush spewed out by the likes of Crowbar or High On Fire. With its swampy wash, Southern-tinged slowly dying open chords and thrash affectations it’s like listening to the gnarliest of Orange Goblin songs getting tortured into submission by the concrete fists of Snailking or the sonic blitzkrieg of Sepultura.

Having been beaten into a corner by the initial choking swathe of aggression and primitive lyricism, the maddeningly obtuse song construction struggles to extract the listener without walking itself down strange blind alleys. Take “Season’s End”. It contains no end of dropouts, kicks into double-time and oblique switches in key – it’s the aural equivalent of riding a three-legged horse that keeps falling over.

The eight-minute title-track builds up a pretty solid groove with a gritty chorus and digs out a sweet riff to sit alongside it. The guitar scrawl eventually picks up gifting us with a high degree of mania to wedge behind the acid-gargling vocal roar of Peter Clemens. Ramp up the volume on this beast if you want to really piss off those neighbours. Dig in further and they begin to hit a particularly evil streak as they rip into death metal territory with the deliciously dark “Spiral Stairs” inviting the headbangers to the party and the agonisingly base attack of “Before I Return To Dust” pulling the teeth straight from their Bay Area and Brazilian peers.

Yep, I bet they had a ball writing and recording this monstrous album, but sadly the end result isn’t pretty. Cast adrift somewhere between kicking the shit out of the stoner metal fringe and ramming deathly metal down the throats of the bad-ass rock n’ roll brigade, Yellowtooth will struggle to make friends with this. It’s fit to burst with macho angst and is ripped with nasty guitar lines but there’s very little that actually sticks in the memory banks. Yep, that sledgehammer did the trick, but I’m afraid that nut is dust.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/08/yellowtooth-crushed-by-the-wheels-of-progress-orchestrated-misery/

Album Review: Death Alley – Black Magick Boogieland

Well, dang, here’s an album with a full-blown strut-worthy, stomp-happy boogie backline. And yet Death Alley isn’t exactly a moniker that you’d associate with such a stone cold groove is it? It turns out that Black Magick Boogieland wasn't, in fact, created by a bunch of full-bearded rednecks sippin’ beer and drivin’ Cadillacs. No, these fellas hail from Amsterdam and have a bit of a dark side. Amongst their cultish brethren is ex-The Devil’s Blood guitarist Oeds Beydals and former members of niche punk band Gewapend Beton and psychedelic doomsters Mühr. Considering their love for a boogie and a good freak-out as much as they do a bit of rough-and-ready, they clearly form a bit of a unique marriage of styles. It’s a sound that draws influence from both past and contemporary music  – bands such as Down, Humble Pie, Audrey Horne, Blue Öyster Cult and Foghat.

From the off, they set a breakneck pace with “Over Under” gifting frontman Douwe  the opportunity to begin firing out his snarls and yells over the feisty, warm string-work of Beydals’. All good so far, yet it seems they’re not quite the “psychedelic protopunks” they claim to be either. However, there is a dark underbelly to this that should be confronted.

They really are serious about that Black Magick part, you see. There are haunting moans lurking in the background and there’s a significant degree of menace in the way he yells “You’re gonna get it!” Oddly, there’s a definite backing drop-out which accompanies such a vehement statement - it’s suddenly all a bit unnerving. Then, for the swinging title-track they invite you to peek “behind the curtain” to a place where they practice the dark arts. Here, there’s tripped-out lines such as “You’re impregnated with a magical charm, cross-contaminated to make you small” to contend with and also a real seedy tone struggling to fight through the sashaying rhythmic vibes.

As the constituent parts of the music diametrically oppose each other, it’s easy to find the vocal tone something of a jarring hindrance to the glowing bluesy wash of what lies beyond it. However, when Douwe slows his roll, as he does for “Golden Fields of Love”, it all finally begins to mesh and “Alles Komt Goed” as they say in the ‘Dam.

They do finally concede to Beydals will for the closing seven-and-a-half minutes of the album allowing him full rein to jam, solo and consequently send us grooving into a state of utter bliss. It’s the icing on the cake that makes the track “Supernatural Predator”, with its rich kaleidoscopic exterior and thick black heart, quite the formidable act to follow – headline acts beware.

There is a potential for their music to experiment and dig down deeper into the occult and summon even wilder sounds. What’s most surprising of all is that I can’t think of a safer pair of hands to get us to that point than those of Death Alley. Whilst other retro bands recreate the past, these lads pay due homage to it, then give it a damn good shake. Perhaps next time, they’ll shake a little harder.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/05/death-alley-black-magick-boogieland-tee-pee-records/

Album Review: Sedna - S/T

“No politics. No religions” screams their biography.

Italians Sedna are obviously keen for you to focus on their musical output alone and they needn’t worry. At times abrasive and antagonistic, at others soul-sapping and desolate, their self-titled debut album is going to grab your attention. In fact, its nothing short of cathartic. By pumping out exploratory, hardcore-tinged doom/sludge accented by a landslide of drums and throat-ripping screams, their music demands of its listeners.

Their pitch black tone draws influence from inventive monsters like Amen Ra, Wolves In The Throne Room and Year Of No Light, but there is also a keen, morbidly fascinating edge similar to that explored by post-‘core fiends like The Elijah and Amia Venera Landscape. Punishing initially then ebbing into a sequence of sanguine oscillations around 13 minutes, “Sons Of The Ocean” drinks deep upon these influences creating an angular construction of heart-wrenching ebb and flow, whilst “Sons Of Isolation” has an achingly slow build – although its slightly tiresome, it does put one in mind of Russian Circles’ last album, so adds some spice to the mix.

“Life / Ritual”, with bone chimes jangling and tortured chants circling in bouncing echoes around temple walls, disturbs on a whole new level. Somewhere within this band lies a deep rage and here you can feel it cracking through the crust as the vocalists combine to great effect. Then, with a final crackling flourish full of latent feedback, “Sons Of The Ancients” plucks at fresh wounds by cycling two chords until the roars of vocalist/guitarist Nil bring us raging round to an invasive sequence of powerful chugging.

There’s a fascinating range of styles at play here and it marks an enjoyable initial foray. Initially bruising, the impact of it becomes less of an issue with further listens. The so-called “sphere of deep hope” that they wanted to convey within their music is well hidden here, but I certainly felt their passion and it sparked a wide range of emotions ranging from anger to misery.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2014/11/sedna-st-drown-within/

Album Review: The Room Colored Charlatan – Primitives

The story behind The Planet Of The Apes, a French novel by Pierre Boulle, was deemed great enough to warrant a movie of its own. That birthed a 70s franchise which then kicked off a comic book series, a TV series and went on to inspire other movie-makers, novelists and Simpsons scriptwriters (“You finally made a monkey out of me!”). Then came a 2001 reboot of the original movie, followed just 10 years later by a reboot of the franchise. It seems fair to suggest that Boulle created a bit of a monster.

Of course it has also inspired musicians (Devin, I’m looking at you) and digging through The Room Colored Charlatan’s new concept album Primitives you’d believe you were listening to the same story of ape-like creatures set on some far off planet. In fact, initially, the intuitive polyrhythms, riffing, prog-addled soundscapes and lyrics that tell of “an earthly biosphere created for a species of consumption” will have you picturing The Contortionist’s Exoplanet. Seriously, if ever that world was to be populated, you could imagine that Primitives might just be describing their failing symbiotic relationship.

Of course, the revelation will hit you at some point, as it does in Boulle’s great novel, and like the ruined Statue of Liberty rising from the sands, you’ll realise this damning tale with such imaginative wordplay is about your own home planet. Of course, Primitives refers to the past and the present more than it does the future. It is describing the inexorable rise of mankind and its position as the dominant, planet-destroying beast we are today.

No matter where you look here, these Indiana-based purveyors of attack-and-release tech metal consistently warrant comparison with bands like Veil of Maya, Between The Buried And Me, The Faceless and the afore-mentioned Contortionist. Throughout they suck you in with vast, sprawling passages of ambience before gobbing you out headfirst into scrambling walls of antagonistic death vocal and hammering strings.

From the opening hit of “Instinct”, far more than just an obligatory introductory piece, the album grips you. The track yawns into life before building into a steadily thumping, abrasive monster. Layered to the gills, you’ll pick up a warbling effected by fast string-tapping, some eerily cosmic keys, a strong Steve Vai-esque axe tone evoking the emphatic styling of 80′s prog rock, bruising drum patterns and the brutal death growls of Jared Bush. It all feeds, through the curiously detached instrumental punch of “Native Habitat” into the scrambling, scattergun shape-shifting of “Apex Predator”.

The title-track struggles to find a natural cadence but heading into the second half of the album, they really get stuck into the songs. Here the songwriting is much improved with far-less opaque structuring and some sweet vocal hooks. “Questions of Origin” settles things down immediately, inciting a deep bouncing rhythm into which they tip scrambling tech, some nifty electro touches and a backing vocal that repeats something very reminiscent of Suicide Silence legend Mitch Lucker’s scathing “Wake Up” line.

“Survivalist Notion” could really be a monster of a track for them with a butch groove, an inspirational section of Gojira-esque grumbling and some curveball boy-girl harmonics. It all comes welded to a keen industrial edge. Moving on there’s plenty of added crunch and some stomach-dropping bass drops popping up throughout “The Atlas Effect” to balance out the dream-like backdrops (themselves a nod to Uneven Structure’s Februus) and leaping out of bonus track “Nexus Point” the second vocal channels the achingly-beautiful vocal of Dan “Skyharbor” Tompkins. This, here, is music for fantasists.

All told, there is something of an overdose of rhythmic dropouts and they don’t consistently nail the balance between rough and smooth. The detrimental knock-on effect is to the natural flow of the album. However, this is mere nitpicking when you consider the bustling enthusiasm of it all, the strong production levels and the players’ immense skill. Primitives is a marriage of originality and inspiration and TRCC have gifted us an album loaded with passion. As a consequence, the end result is bursting with colours, strong and rich enough to sell this incriminating account of woe to your mind’s eye. I believe an anguished cry of “Maniacs! You finally blew it all up. God damn you all to hell!” is in order.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2014/05/the-room-colored-charlatan-primitives-subliminal-groove-records/

Album Review: Servers – Leave With Us

In an age when an embattled music industry has sucked up hit after hit, record labels and their artists have found solace in the art of advertising. A brash band t-shirt, a solid tour slot, an enticing line of blurb, one fanatical album review in the right place and a strong social media presence. Any of these things can be the making or breaking of a band these days. With that in mind, you’d honestly believe that the UK trio Servers were rank amateurs. An instantly-forgettable and distinctly internet-unfriendly moniker, a face-concealing “promotional” snap and music video and a few lines of biographical waffle about cults – that’s pretty much it. It’s certainly a back-door approach to self-promotion.


Take a closer look though, because lurking back there in the shadows is an absolute behemoth spouting musical ear-worms that boast grit, melody and muscle. Some groups may mesh a couple of genres together to create something fresh and dynamic – Servers are an octopic rock band with a groping arm in every pie. They are the very definition of the band you simply cannot pigeonhole. Song by song, their chameleonic music takes in grunge, dark rock, screamo, sludge, cult metal, new wave, industrial and punk n’ roll – there are even a few 70s prog touches here and there.

The keystone here is vocalist/guitarist and former GU Medicine frontman Lee Storrar. His “all is lost” melancholics and soaring Jaz Coleman-esque (Killing Joke) throat-ripping wails lock themselves seamlessly onto his portly chugs and wild riffs, but there is solid support from Ant Nettleship’s pounding drums and Lee Wilde’s fizzing bass. This here is a debut album loaded with viperous intent, an intoxicating dark quality and shedloads of melodramatic attack.

Opening with bleak menace, ‘Save Me From Myself‘ is two-parts Cancer Bats and one-part Five Finger Death Punch. It burns with an intense heat and Storrar’s hoarse yelping rises to a scream with the crecendoing chorus whilst the pistoning rhythm rumbles beneath like a detached and hopelessly lost soul. ‘Universes & Supernovas‘ and ‘Run With The Foxes‘ are their two epic firecrackers with vast riffs that will suck you in. Both Foo Fighters-esque in construction and tone, they feature big, sparkly choruses that will aggressively weld themselves to your brain. Wedged between them the intensely gothic, Icicle Works-friendly comedown of ‘Claustrophobia‘ is utterly thrilling and it’s tonal brother, the dark, sultry creature that is ‘King Things‘, is a pulsating beauty with a powerful “breathe in, breathe out” suckerpunch.

‘Mega High‘ ups the ante as Lee Wilde’s fat bass strings combine with Storrar’s buzzing, sludge-flinging guitar to take them powering into Orange Goblin and Fu Manchu territory. This gives licence for the vocal to dial up the snarl and caterwauling as the shit-kicking rock licks come out to play. The joy of the stomp is used to great effect for the raging bluster of the QOTSA-esque ‘Do Gooders‘. Here, their bleak cult ethos that they seem to thrive on adds another more sinister tone to their appeal.

Layered deep enough to give it a potent attack, the strong production also slaps on a slick finish and yet it’s been handled lightly enough to give it real character. Listen closely enough and beneath the power and precision, there is still the odd pop and crackle that bursts forth. No matter which track you shuffle to, there is a resplendent joy prevalent in the construction and an undeniable swagger in the delivery. Here is an album that you sense is alive and breathing. It’s dark purpose may be there in the background but, thankfully, it has not been consumed by it. Rather it stands silently within the crowd, yet with arms open, ready to wrap you in its warm, loving embrace.

When the songwriting is of this kind of quality, there really is no need to go through the standard ritual of self-promotion. If the South Yorkshire trio continue along this path, focusing solely on the creation of the music alone, the rest will simply take care of itself. As their final track clearly points out with its (rather tacked on) spooky soundbite from the “Heaven’s Gate Cult Recruitment Tape” – “The only chance you have to survive is to leave with us”. One listen to this album and you will surely want to follow Servers to the ends of the Earth.

Also online @ Heavy Blog Is Heavy = http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2014/01/24/servers-leave-with-us/

Album Review: Oceans Of Slumber – Aetherial

Planets on album covers. They are becoming as familiar as bands labelling themselves “progressive” to mean forward-thinking rather than the retro-minded souls that you might expect them to be. Houston’s Oceans Of Slumber mean it in the sense that they dabble – i.e.; they are prepared to mash musical genres together to obtain a technically complex whole. The art of song construction has never been braver than here. Yes, a gorgeous gatefold sleeve with three planets to gawp at and an album that unites a grind drummer with a jazz guitarist and throws new-age prog and old-school doom at black and death metal. The result is an album that goes a bit Opeth, a bit Devin Townsend, a bit Enslaved then, at other moments, loses it altogether and heads off into Faith No More and Incubus territory. This is going to be fun.

The opening bars of Aetherial, the ragged minor chords of an acoustic guitar and the tumultuous bellow of Ronnie Allen, conjure memories of Mastodon’s Crack The Skye and Isis’ Wavering Radiant. Otherwordly, dissonant, abrasive and vast, “God In Skin” is a crushing initial blow with a huge dynamic range that stretches it’s gnarled fingers into the starry heavens and the blackened beyond. And the blacker the band go the more ludicrous they get. Elegiac maudlin becomes raw pain pouring from “Primordial” before it just throws on the clown mask and starts mono-cycling round the big-top. Oh and, yes, and if you’re looking for your hit of Mike Patton head to “Blackest Cloud” which lives up to it’s name and also goes a bit doolally, resulting in the stilted playing of the American national anthem.

The vocals attack from many different angles. We’re offered up Dalek-like gargling monotone for the line “Coffins in the sky like kites on strings, dead things” which flips to a hollow, disembodied roar for “Surrender, just go ahead and bow to me”. Move further into the album and there’s an affected bluesy, melodious male voice vying with a removed, echoing female voice. It’s a real bag of tricks this.

From the jazzy tech attack of double-kick and bass-heavy arrhythmia that rips through the heart of the jarring “Remedy” to the wonderfully straight-forward groove of “Only A Corpse”, Oceans Of Slumber clearly don’t do patterns. You could jumble the running order up and be spat out the other end with the same wide-eyed, slightly spaced-out look, having been blasted with all manner of sounds, yet still clutching the same few moments of joy. “Bleed me down to nothingness, fill me up with emptiness” from “Athereal” and the last gasp Mitch Lucker-esque “Cowards!” howl in “Coffins Like Kites” are my moments. Oh, and all of the staggeringly lush “The Great Divide”.

When extreme technical ability meets the songwriting minds of madmen you get an album like Aetherial. Some will consider this self-absorbed jiggery-pokery; something to use as a coffee-mat. Others will see this as the disjointed early etchings of potential champions. “Is this a great blow to your minds?” enquires Allen. That’s an affirmative, Captain.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/04/oceans-of-slumber-aetherial-self-released/

Album Review: Warbeast – Destroy

Formed in 2006 and “discovered” by Down’s Phil Anselmo, Warbeast have been flying high of late. Last month’s split EP with the Down frontman was my first hit of Warbeast and upon discovering it was one heady cocktail, I naturally asked for more. Ave Noctum’s Commander-In-Chief didn’t let me down.

Led by former Rigor Mortis vocalist Bruce Corbitt, it isn’t any surprise to discover that his vocal is hugely effective here. The speeding thrash assault of drums and guitars are a real fistful but its Corbitt’s enormous, gnarly snarl that marks him out as monstrously influential. Somehow he rises above the mile-thick throb with a sharp, stabbing delivery to give the listener a bloody good ear-raping.

The album itself covers plenty of ground. From bursting into life with the instrumental Megadethian “Cryogenic Thawout”, Destroy moves on to diligently lay down a multitude of heavy styles that sucks up the deathly thrash of Slayer and the crush of Sepultura to form a rousing Bay Area thrash n’ groove combo sound that isn’t a million miles off Brazil’s beastly Torture Squad. “Nightmares In The Sky” summons the balls-out thrash of Exodus to rain Hell down upon us, whilst “Nobody” is more reminiscent of Cavalera Conspiracy’s “Hex” with it’s thick groove and determined face-ripping vocal.

Highlights come in the longer form of the deathly serious 7-minuter “The Day Of…” and the 6-minute title-track. The former threads the power of Destruction through the licks of Machine Head before dropping off into a Maiden-esque trawl through man’s various atrocities on man and the natural disasters that have afflicted us – “We all remember where we were that day, from that moment our lives were never the same”. The latter piles on the thrash assault with the bass and drums thundering into our chest – here we are left in no doubt just how full-on Warbeast can get.

All this and yet they retain a strong element of fun and farce which they infuse songs like “War Of The Worlds” and “Egotistical Bastard” with. Together they are like listening to a more intense GWAR (who they happen to be touring with right now). Lyrically, it’s a mess – “You walk on air, your shit don’t stink, even when you’re wrong you’re right” – weird in the whole scheme of things but as individual hits, they work just fine.

I’ve a strong suspicion that they held back their best and heaviest material for their Anselmo split, so that might account for the dearth of quality crushers, but it wouldn’t necessarily account for its emotional mis-management or odd pacing. Truth be told, this is a real jerk of an album. Warbeast play it a bit like a teenager operates his motor. Accelerating like a lunatic, then breaking hard – it’s enough to give you whiplash. If you don’t mind them driving like they stole it, then hop on board.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/03/warbeast-destroy-season-of-mist/

Album Review: Carcharodon - Roachstomper

Carcharodon, the collective term for a species of large shark, aren’t exactly the most sophisticated band – the Italian’s debut album was called Macho Metal, for crying out loud. There is nothing they seem to enjoy more than swigging whiskey and blowing holes in their amps. When your influences range from the steady sludge of Eyehategod and High On Fire to speedier death metal bands like Entombed and Carnivore, you should expect a band with pretty big teeth and they don’t disappoint in that respect.

Their swathes of leaden distortion turn the guitars into a real conveyor belt of teeth and leave Roachstomper sounding as dense and weighty as a bag of gravel. Pixo’s “motorbass” tears lumps out of your ears and his nail-gargling “growl” and pig squeals threaten to rip them right off. And the band make all this noise with their tongues planted firmly in their collective cheek. It almost hurts to listen to the “bree, bree” lampoonery of “Pig Squeal Nation” and you’ll want to check out Pixo singing (what sounds like) “Jumbo squid you are my meal, I’ll see you tomorrow in my shit!” Now that has got to be a band playing it for laughs all the way.

Several of the tracks overstay their welcome by digging down a little too deeply. “Marilyn Monrhoid” has a fine, galloping opening that jinks into a neat, head-bobbing sway, yet it’s spoilt by a collapse into a series of needless climaxes. Also, “The Sky Has No Limits” lives up to its own name by recycling the same three chords for a full seven minutes before switching up into an incessant warble that collapses into jarringly oppressive white noise. Even “Stoneface Legacy” is guilty by spending two unnecessary minutes rotating around the same riff.

It’s a hole that their deference to country and blues (they cite ZZ Top as an influence) enables them to dig back out of. “Chupacobra” and “Voodoo Autopsy” are steeped in the genres – you’ll hear it in the snatches of slide and steel guitar and the jaunty licks emerging brightly from their sticky sludge. Their unique song construction allows them to retain the element to surprise at all times. Even taking into account the mesmeric, reverse chanting that bookends “Stoneface Legacy”, who could honestly have foreseen the sample of redneck dialogue and cosmic Mastodon-esque insanity of “Beaumont, TX” or the climax of “Burial In Whiskey Waves” which suddenly explodes into warping, euphoric melody.

Roachstomper is a brute of an album. It’s been fleshed out to bursting point, resulting in plenty of unsightly bulges, yet it’s exactly the kind of deathly bait that will tempt stoner fans into biting. Carcharodon smell blood. Will you let them sink their teeth in?

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/03/carcharodon-roachstomper-altsphere/

Album Review: The Advent Equation – Limitless Life Reflections

My love for technically-demanding modern metal means I often find myself writing words that might convince those browsing the web that I am concocting some magnificent, scientific conundrum. In the past, I have come across albums by The Omega Experiment, TesseracT, The Mars Volta, The Mercury Program and The HAARP Machine. Now, here I am writing about The Advent Equation. It’s enough to quantum your mechanics.

These particular modern metallists come from Mexico. Yep, the home of tequila and tortilla. It’s often thought of as a bit of a metal deadzone, though when you consider it’s vicinity to the noisy hotbed of North America that’s always seemed surprising. Early run-throughs of Limitless Life Reflections prove The Advent Equation are obviously keen to put that idea to bed with their accomplished combination of prog, death and tech metal. Seriously, you’ll struggle to believe this hasn’t come from the cold heart of Scandanavia (I’m not in the least surprised to learn it did pass through Jens Borgen’s Fascination Street Studio at one point on it’s journey).

Take “Afterlife Evolutionary”. It opens with a tumultuous broil of drums setting the rhythm, over which is laid a bloodlusting death roar, quickfire finger taps, dramatic piano and cutaways into melodic synth. From here, we are dragged through a rapid series of menacing, instrumental affectations and lurching timing changes. And that’s just one track. It’s clear that getting to grips with this ever-changing mixture of musical techniques and emotional tones is going to be no easy task. Other tracks like the floating melancholy of “Visons Of Pain” and “Hopeless” don't dig down so far and are less obtuse in their design. They are recognisable songs and, as such, are a little easier to gain a foothold on.

Tracks like “Glimpse Of What May Be” and “A Descent Into The Unreal” will grab you with their depth of sound. The three-part vocal harmonies and hammering switchbacks that underscore it all are intense, anthemic and at their apex, truly awe-inspiring. However, with so much that meanders and lollops around these momentary snatches of genius, it’s hard to fully get behind the songwriting – “On Darkness”, for instance, sweeps from the dull, inane and metronomic into an overpowering smack of twinkling synth and back again through an unnatural series of segues.

The album, as a whole, is best thought of as a series of tonal shades ranging from black to grey and back again. Opeth and Enslaved influences run close to the surface throughout this chameleonic collection of death-led monsters and lighter harmonic pieces with piano-dominated and stringed acoustic sections, though it’s also not hard to spot the connection with several of those aforementioned more tech-minded acts. The rhythmic anomalies and ambient texturing are, in fact, key to driving home the heart of the piece. The question is: are you hungry for Mexican? – a trip to their SoundCloud page should give you plenty to chew on.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/02/the-advent-equation-limitless-life-reflections-self-released/

Album Review: Avatar - Black Waltz

Oozing pumping melodeath from every pore, Sweden’s Avatar are now on their fourth album and yet they are a band who have, up until now, slipped right through my fingers. Naturally, I was disappointed to discover they aren’t blue-skinned Na’vi from the planet Pandora but, having scanned the album title and proto-gothic freak on the cover, neither do they sound anything like Insane Clown Posse or the craptacular My Chemical Romance. In fact, there is a band that springs to mind when you add the album’s industrial overtones to their proclivity for thick black-make up, uniforms and all things Big Top, and that band is Rammstein. Now, that is a hard act to follow.

“All Is Lost” and “Torn Apart” kick off Black Waltz with the kind of rhythmic hammering you’d associate with a powerful steam locomotive haring down the rails. Sure, those metronomic drums fire up a sweet blazing trail, but it’s frontman Johannes Eckerström, in the engine cab, stoking those fires. Scouring his lungs for more and more power, he’s like a psychotic version of Randy Blythe (Lamb Of God).

With elements of Swedish compatriots The Haunted, Deathstars and Soilwork and, from across the border, Danish rockers, Hatesphere and Mnemic, they pile on the slick production and rip into their songs following a verse-chorus-verse pattern that brushes aside any overcomplicated sequencing or wild flights of fancy. Everything they’ve got is shoved whole-heartedly into the churning drum and bass, bottom-end groove. Tracks like “Blod” and “Smells Like A Freakshow” whack up the metal and, in doing so, become their fist-pumping anthems, whilst the nifty little riffs in “Paint Me Red” and “Torn Apart” add an addictive edge to spice up the deal.

With their simplistic construction and fondness for repetition, some of the tracks eke past the five-minute mark and, consequently, tend to turn a little sour – another case of over-egging a pretty straight-forward pudding. In the main, though, things are kept fast, fiery and attention-grabbing and the band have plenty of tricks up their sleeve to keep the album cannily varied.

“In Napalm” picks up a gothic bent as the band unite to deliver a whispered verse and accompanying chanted chorus, whilst the title-track goes even darker, riding snare rolls and walking us through a stageful of power-on, power-off, slow-quick theatrics (you have to check out the video, featuring circus act Hellzapoppin’, to really understand what’s going on here). Then, Avatar don a ten-gallon, chaps and chinks for “Let It Burn” and, from somewhere, find a dirty-ass blues groove and ride that buckin’ bronco for all it’s worth.There’s a few sticky moments, such as the 30 seconds of “In Napalm”s build that starts so quietly as to almost make it dead air, or the irksome twinkly chorus that kills the momentum of “One Touch”. Oh, and the near-as-dammit 10-minute, suck-it-up, harmonica-littered utter lunacy of “Use Your Tongue” wants bagging and tagging and throwing into a padded room. We’ll take it though for that killer line of “Good morning, good morning, good morning, rise and shine, rise and shine, rise and shine!”

I’m delighted to report, Black Waltz is a bit of a nutbar. The content seemingly rebounds off genres like a helpless pinball, but when it hits a bumper cap, it hits that cap with everything it’s got and that kind of commitment to the cause is a rare commodity. Yep, it’s a bit of a beast, so don’t be surprised to find Avatar breaking the machine with this one. Heck, they may not have anything like the wanton desire for destruction that Rammstein have, but you still wouldn’t want to be trapped in the same room as them. Hold on to your hats!

Also online @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/avatar-black-waltz

Album Review: Descending - New Death Celebrity

Imagine a combination of DevilDriver’s turbulent groove, Gojira’s distinctive grinding action and Sylosis’ lust for both speed and melody – we could call them Deviralosis. That, my friend, would be my perfect metal band… the sound of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse riding out.

Now have a listen to some of the samples, just a mouse-click away, that accompany these words. The band that produced them are Descending. They hail from Athens in Greece and, as a truly modern metal band would, they genre-hop with the best of them. One album in the bag and after “a long period of intensive work”, with producer extraordinaire Fredrik Nordstrom (In Flames, Dimmu Borgir, Arch Enemy), they are now quite adept at fusing thrash, math and groove metal together to create the shape of a fist which they then use to batter you with. They also dabble in a spot of metalcore but more of that later. Their already impressive list of support slots (Testament, Gojira, Shadows Fall, The Haunted, Lamb Of God, etc.) proves just how hard their sound is to pin down.

From the get-go, the offbeat thudding of drummer Nick Vell’s feet serves to elevate the two-chord writhing action that lurks within “No Other Gods Before Me”. Throw in the swarming, layered death vocal of John Simvonis and his vocal compatriot, the bassist Noir, and you’ve got yourself a whole world of pain. Yet they can go heavier as “I Keep Returning” proves. It regurgitates an embittered, grimy veneer which empowers the choruses and brings an oppressive dark quality to the verses. Still heavier they go as this kind of damaging battery is scaled up tenfold in the mammoth crush that “The Energy” engages in. Reminiscent of Chimaira at their most violent, it provides the perfect foil to the colossal Gojira-esque powerchug stomp that rips a path through “Shared Planet”.

With so much punishment being served, the band’s purposeful move towards replacing some of this giant groove with pumped vocal hooks, lingering riffs and ‘core breaks was always going to be the album’s downfall. Tracks like “Suicide Promise”, “Until I Generate” and “How Much This Life Weights?” although catchy in the chorus, feel loose, pudgy and overwrought as the music increasingly lurches towards a kind of vaguely generic-sounding metalcore. “The Ghost Of Nation Past” pops in a disembodied old recording, a bar of clean vocal and loads up with screeching beatdowns, possibly in an effort to liven up proceedings, but from here it’s just a sinking ship.

Clearly, what we have here is an album with a multiple personality disorder – a vision divided down the middle. When they get heavy, they are an unstoppable force, slowly increasing the pressure in furiously inventive ways. When they slack off and get cute, they fall back into that familiar mold which has shaped so many bands before them. Descending’s talent is undeniable, their promise is palpable; they just need to fully realise it. My new favourite band, Deviralosis, is but a stone’s throw away.

Also online (with samples) @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/descending-new-death-celebrity

Album Review: Junius - Reports From The Threshold Of Death

You know how it is. You buy your paint, you roll it on your wall and, lo and behold, the pot runs out just before you finish. There’s a break in the colour; a hole. A small, but nagging hole. Your beautiful blood-red wall is left with a square millimetre of drab gray undercoat still showing. There’s no chance in hell you’re going back for a second pot so you cover it up with that poster you like; the one with the blonde, leggy tennis player scratching her bare backside. Still, you know the gap is there and it bugs the hell out of you.

Without me realising it, the same thing has happened to my music collection. I knew the gap was there but, frustratingly, I just didn’t know what the right colour to fill it was. Until now. Having missed out first time on their debut full-length, The Martydom Of A Catastrophist, I’m fresh to Junius but have quickly discovered their sombre, decadently expansive slow-pieces are satisfying that very hole.

Sophomore album Reports From The Threshold Of Death conceptually follows the journey of the soul after death and the echoing, gothic hallways, along which tracks like “Betray The Grave” and “Haunts For Love” sweep, evoke both the tortured spirit of darkwave and the malingering presence that inhabits doom metal. You could, for instance, namecheck both Joy Division and Neurosis, yet you’d struggle to properly qualify either due to this album’s pungent prog and post-rock overtones. Instead, it seems far more appropriate to think of Junius as a becalmed incarnation of either Cold Cave or 65daysofstatic, or a more decadent version of either Hammock or Explosions In The Sky.

And yet, the tracks on offer here rather flatter to deceive. The music swarms around your ears, but never quite manages to dig its heels in far enough. I kept expecting to have these glorious moments of introspection but the cyclical patterns never quite managed to drag me down deep into myself enough of the time. “Transcend The Ghost”, for instance, spins itself dizzy trying to go for something light and airy, but with vocalist/guitarist Joseph E. Martinez getting stuck on repeat, the track fires off its one trump card early and runs out of gas before it even gets going. The cadence and tone of each track quickly finds a rhythm and sticks all too rigidly too it and, as we all know, familiarity can breed contempt. Try spinning “All Shall Float” or “Dance In Blood” a few times and when you spot the simplistic design, you’ll begin to forget the initial tug of the chorus hook and crave greater variety.

May I recommend you close your eyes, ramp up the volume and lay waste to your sub-woofer, because the more you shut out the world, the more likely you are to realise just how spiritually effecting and deeply cathartic the music could potentially be when Junius’ songwriting finally matches their ambition. Follow these instructions and share a rare moment with me in the all-encompassing, hammering bottom-end and dying chords of “A Universe Without Stars” or the elegantly languid vocal and warbling synth which craftily conceal the sudden, yet glorious bass thrust of “Eidolon & Perispirit”. Boom, there goes my cochlea.

So Junius may not be exactly the correct band to fill my hole (just yet), but I’ve had such fun discovering what musical characteristics I need to be looking out for now that I look forward to discovering many more holes in the future.

Also online (with samples) at The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/junius-reports-from-the-threshold-of-death

Album Review: Death Destruction - Death Destruction

When I want to spin some tunes I’m often faced with a perplexing choice, ending up with me asking myself that most ludicrous of questions – what mood am I in? As a reviewer, some of the time I don’t get the choice but, when I do, I usually go for something ambient, richly-layered and rhythmically complex in nature; my “thinking man’s music”. Then there are those other moments (that usually involve some form of exercise) when I don’t need to get cerebral, I need to get neanderthal. For those moments, I’ll tend to turn to something with an in-your-face groove that makes me want to contort my face, thrust my arms at the sky and go absolutely nuts (embarrassing when you’re out for a jog). My go-to list of bands for this isn’t long, but I believe it just got longer.

Sweden’s Death Destruction were originally just a mere by-product of a particularly intense Evergrey studio session, so for guitarist Henrik Danhage and drummer Jonas Ekdahl to persevere with the material enough to want to turn it into a completely separate band is one hell of a brave move. Naturally, to complete the line-up, they turned to a couple of buddies and quickly secured the services of vocalist Jimmy Strimmell (Dead By April) and bassist Fredrik Larsson (Evergrey/Hammerfall). The result? A debut that has a groove on it the depth of the Mariana Trench and a vocalist who sounds like a fly-by from a fleet of F-22 Raptors; believe me when I say it’s a real face-melter. The music comes with a hefty bite of New Wave Of American Heavy Metal, speckled with the occasional smudge of black and blue. This is pit music for the masses.

The bloodcurdling scowl that Strimell sports is simply awesome. It’s fairly one-dimensional but you can’t ignore his passionate delivery. He has a tendency to do these low rising whoops when saying words so that “you” becomes “yoiiiiiieeeeeoooouuu”. Fine at first but, be warned, it can get a little annoying. During “Silence” he turns it up to “inhuman” level, with the lyrical patterns making it sound kinda like he’s trying to sing Lamb Of God’s “Fake Messiah” to the music of Five Finger Death Punch. Behind all this macho posturing, you’ll find some brutal music. It’s weird. I feel like I could reference every band in my collection here. Take “Kill It” and “Mark My Words”. For the former, I’m thinking Soulfly dancing to the tune of Austrian Death Machine and, for the latter, it’s Pantera trading blows with Devildriver. “Day Of Reckoning” is, simply, the sound of a Randy Blythe-fronted Down and swaggers along boxing ears at every turn.

There is also a grudging element of expansion which comes with tracks like “Hellfire”, bringing out a hint of black metal with it’s minor chords and spooked ambience, and “Kingdome Come”, with breaks and a yawning two-key riff that leaves an indelible mark. It’s not enough to suppress the energy and passion with which they play, nor is it trying to re-invent the wheel. What it does do, though, is unsettle the rhythmic flow of the album somewhat – try the dark stomping of “Chained In Thoughts” on for size and see what you think. When this happens, you’ll find an over-reliance on blast-beats and whacked-out soloing to keep the sense of attack at a consistent level; something that doesn’t quite pay off. This is only a debut, mind, so they’ve still got plenty of time to commit to a direction for future full-lengths.

By no means is it a deal-breaker and with song-titles like “Kill It”, “Fuck Yeah” and “Sea Of Blood” it was never going to be an overly taxing body of work. So much of it does, admittedly, come from that well-thumbed Heavy Music For Dummies manual but that’s not always a bad thing when it’s done so effectively. There’s a fine clutch of gang chants, choral repetition and call-and-response. (i.e.; Call: “Can I get a fuck yeah?” Response: (gang chant) “Fuck yeah!” Repeat ad infinitum.) If you just want pit-worthy power loud enough to level a war zone then Death Destruction are still most definitely the band for you. They have surely made one hell of a workout record. Stick this on in the gym and you won’t just come out ripped, you’ll most likely break every piece of equipment in the place.

Also online (with samples) @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/death-destruction-death-destruction

Free Download: Magrudergrind - Crusher EP

Accused of channeling bands like Napalm Death, Terrorizer and Carcass, the crushing grindcore of Magrudergrind has been lighting up grotty venues and blowing bedroom sub-woofers for quite a few years now. Recently released and, inevitably made freely available, this latest EP provides the perfect opportunity to give your favourite headbanger an early Christmas present.

Go visit Brooklyn Vegan to get the free download: http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2010/11/a_free_magruder.html

Then go to one of their mental gigs and thank them kindly: http://www.myspace.com/magrudergrind

You could even read this awesome interview printed in Issue #6 of Crucial Zine which you can also download for free: http://crucialzine.blogspot.com/

Gig Review + Interview: Editors @ Corn Exchange, Cambridge 17/3/2010

My review - originally published on TLOBF:

Seeing Editors perform their synth-infested, infinitely bleaker third album, intercut with older material, is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. One minute we’re thrilled and empowered by thumping tracks like ‘The Racing Rats’ and ‘Munich’ and next we’re being impaled upon the heart-wrenching slog of gloom-dwelling laments like ‘You Don’t Know Love’ or ‘The Big Exit’. Certainly the former style is far easier to swallow than the latter – the faithful pogo and batter out metronomic handclaps with the echoic tempos...

Photo © Rich E

Full review = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/03/editors-cold-cave-the-strange-death-of-liberal-england-corn-exchange-cambridge-1732010/

My interview - originally published on TLOBF:

Me: Do you still get a buzz when you see your record in the music shops?
Russell (bassist): Yeah! I mean, I check for it. It’s nice when it’s wrapped up. If I’m in a cool town, I try and go record shopping and see what they recommend, see if I can get some vinyl. It’s always nice to see your album artwork in there along with all the other records. I went into Piccadilly Records in Manchester and they had all three on vinyl and it was quite nice.

Full interview = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/03/tlobf-interview-editors-2/