Album Review: Man The Machetes – Av Nag

For a large proportion of fans, Man The Machetes are a band that require deep consideration before you attempt to tackle their music.

Q: Do you mind if there’s not a jot of the Queen’s English in your lyrics?
Q: Do you insist on a variety of attack or styling between tracks?
Q: Do you balk at any one of punk, groove or rock n’roll?

If the answer to any one of these questions is a resounding “Yes” then step away from this review. As much as they’d hate to admit, this fiery sextet play tightly-focussed, unrepentant Norwegian punk n’roll and, by association, require their English-speaking fans to have open minds, open souls and open hearts to make any kind of impact. Thankfully, here at Ave Noctum we do have acolytes of the band and we are determined to absorb all others in our joy-fuelled drunken party that breaks out every time someone slaps on a Man The Machetes track. Is album number two just as fun though?

Yep, it’s a cracking album. The band picks up where Idiokrati left off, with the new tracks whipping along at an equally dizzying pace. With the vocal tightened up and brought to the front of the mix, which coincidentally reduces the impact of the chord power, the whole feels punkier, more visceral. It certainly solidifies their position as bright young things on the scene. It doesn’t hold as many stand-out gems as their startling debut and there isn’t any sign of them experimenting with their established system of riff, chug and adrenaline-coursing roar. And yet it’s still a total mosh.

Going at this from a different angle, let’s analyse what makes the band a tour de force. In a word, it’s the “groove”. With every instrument, driving towards the same end goal, the result is an infectious, rhythmic machine like no other. It starts with the drums and in Per Christian Holm they have a pumping, pistoning machine. He drives everything with a vicious snare strike and an inate aptitude for colourfully patterning the music with cymbal strikes. The other key component is the triple guitar attack of Morton, Erlend and Markus which are layered into the music to give a startling effect of having the chugs and mini-riffs work like ripples as they each bite to the front before fading to the back or over to the left or right ear.

Also, like all good masseurs know, the key is to always retain contact with the intended recipient. Consequently, the songwriting is structured so that whenever the music drops out there is always one finger of instrumentation still tickling the listener at all times. It could be a lone, gutsy bassline, a trickle of cymbal strikes or a bare vocal but the band make sure they are always on it.

Standout moments come with the stepdown in pace to the crawling lead and sweet rock-a-bye riff on “Tung Luft” and with the crafty, constructive forethought that has gone into the humdinger “Orkenmarsj”. It’s still lagging behind their debut when it comes to hooks, raw grunt and staying power but with ever-improving production values this still knows how to throw its weight around. To this end, Av Nag clambers over the writhing bodies of Kvelertak, Feed The Rhino and Cancer Bats to grab at you. Fear not though, these boys don’t want to fight, they want to dance, chant and sing at your side – as comrades in arms.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/09/man-the-machetes-av-nag-indie-recordings/

Album Review: Blodig Alvor – Mørkets Frembrudd

Since Kvelertak’s global success with their debut album, the Norwegian punk scene has become hot property and over the next couple of months we can expect to be inundated with everything from the groovy to the gritty to the downright insane. Last week we got a taste for Man The Machetes, this week Indie Recordings offer us the youthful zest of Blodig Alvor (a band-name that translates into Bloody Serious) and next month we have yet Meir of Kvelertak to look forward to!

If you prefer the less screamy stuff then Blodig Alvor should suit you a little better. The dark guitar strikes and drum-rolling intro of the title track, “Mørkets Frembrudd”, fire into a much more upbeat “Mr. Molotow”. Here, there’s no denying the driving force of the music is that mile-wide, thick wedge of strings that locks in the groove. They piston away under Markus den Outen’s sneers and clarion calls like the proverbial unstoppable force, muddying up the waters nicely.

The music fires out a mixture of MC5 phlegm (evoked in the awesome vocal hook of highlight “Start En Revolusjon”), Hanoi Rocks’ glam, The Subways’ no-nonsense rock simplicity and The Cumshots’ enigmatic swagger (down in the dark recesses of “Solgt Min Sjel”). Put another way, If “Svik” were really a punk he/she would have a mohican and would spend most of their time in a power stance, whilst “Ordets Makt” would sport a skinhead and be either gobbing or showing you a digit. The guitars on the former are either chugging or soloing, whilst the meaner tone and gruff gang chants on the latter imbue it with a gnarly vibe.

There are very little change-ups, most of what you hear in the first track you’ll hear in the last. Sure, there are more gang vocals here, more gapping there, but other than that there’s next to no deviation in pacing or delivery. Small pleasures can be found here or there (in “Vår Resignasjon” where first, Erlend Andersen’s clanging bass gets to step up front, then den Ouden, still channeling his frustrations at society’s failings, steps alone into the spotlight), but overall there is simply way too much that just meanders. It’s a shame because the band show more potential in the closing 30 seconds of acoustic than they do on the whole album.

Of course, even trying to compare a naive, yet honest Blodig Alvor to Norway’s punk starlets Kvelertak would be a little unfair. This music has more in common with their countrymen Oslo Ess’ poppish ska or Blood Command’s driven rock, but if that’s their competition, then being bloody serious about their art might just help them in the long run.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/02/blodig-alvor-morkets-frembrudd-indie-recordings/

Album Review: Man The Machetes – Idiokrati

Oh, I love me some punk n’ roll. It’s so gritty and groovy and grimy and great. If you’re not moshing, you’re dancing, and if you’re not dancing you’re drinking! Throw in a viciously roared vocal and I’m in seventh bloody heaven, me. There’s nothing finer than watching a decent punk band sweating themselves dry and then launching their own broken bodies at you. The whole principle of “Give everything, leave nothing” always applies and, yes, that’s infectious, but most importantly, it’s something you can’t help but admire.

Norway’s Man The Machetes, like their fellow countrymen and perennial touring buddies, Kvelertak, have all of the above in spades. Now, even the best live bands have trouble translating these live qualities onto record, it’s a widely-acknowledged problem, so quite how MTM have nailed it first time around is beyond me. There’s no getting around it – Idiokrati (a cheeky reference to the concept of a government run by idiots) is all-but-perfect. It sports a suitably post-apocalyptic black-and-yellow album cover which is certainly going to help this stand out on the shelves. Diggers flattening buildings and a little girl in a gas-mask with a flower and the obligatory machete in hand – these are images, although a little obvious, that should stay with you awhile. Let’s just say you shouldn’t miss it when browsing.

The fiery opener “Sluk Det Rått” (in English, “Eat It Raw”) drives through a pistoning opening foray, before softening into a swaggering roll. Both play along with Christopher Iversen’s wall-of-howl until the band suddenly inject a surge of bass and smother the bastard. This goes at you like an attack dog – ripping bite after bite out of you. There is just no let off from the sonic assault. Album highlight, “Slagen”, is quite possibly the finest thing I’ve heard in years. Best described as a storm of rich, dissonant melody, this takes everything that’s gone before and hones it to a point where the gang chants and short rhythmic pauses for breath create a trigger for the chorus to fire its irresistible hook into your brain – “Down with the slagen!”

The crushing groove that this band generates is like an almighty weight on your chest; its acidic edges bleed into every pore. When listening to this I actually find myself struggling to breathe. It’s a monster. There is no room to think when MTM are laying down. The gunshot snare drum; the menacing sequence of minor chord changes; the harmonics that play around a central key; the crushing riff in “Karma å Brenne” (or “Karma To Burn”) – they all roll around inside your skull, endowed with the same mass as the strongman’s Atlas Stones.

If I was pushed, I would suggest that Man The Machete’s music falls into the gap between Kvelertak and Fucked Up or, in other words, between a rock and a fucking hard place. Additionally, parts of “Maktesløse” (in English, “Powerless”) put me in mind of Skindred’s ragga venom; the vocal delivery and the patterning especially, but only a hundred times more deadly, and there is a fistful of Cancer Bats lurking down in the twisted grooves that the melodies dig out. The big difference here is that Idiokrati washes away the disparate attack and quality of all these bands and replaces their filler with absolute killer.

Some will listen to this and hear too much similarity between tracks, whilst others will sneer at its measly 30-minute running time or, idiotically, balk at the Norwegian content. These people would be missing the point. The over-riding value of this album comes from the way it instantly makes you feel. That factor transcends every other. I haven’t found a moment when I’ve not been energised by Iversen getting his beast on for “Sudan” or the guitars doling out their thick menacing riffs for the homecoming of “Hjemkomst”. Point is, if you want to get pumped and you dig the idea of some scowling, spitting carnage fed through a startlingly melodious selection of strings then you simply have no choice. Man The Machetes want to own your soul and you’d be a fool not to let them have it.

Special thanks go to Swedish Max for his help translating the titles.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/02/man-the-machetes-idiokrati-indie-recordings/

Album Review: Purified In Blood – Flight Of A Dying Sun

It was I that hailed Under Black Skies, Purified In Blood’s sophomore album, as 2010′s best, calling it “crepuscular, bellicose, demented, swaggering, invasive” but, ultimately, “consummate”. In my mind, it blew away the competition that year, and I’ll stand by that opinion today. So, two years, down the line, one vocalist down and with a fervent desire to return to the raw potency of their Reaper Of Souls debut, have the band managed to retain the black magic that still gets me so hot under the collar?

Well, they’ve attempted to get around the loss of Glenn “Reaper” Rasmussen (who does make a brief showing for the track “Iron Hands”) by cramming in a few guest spots. Drummer Anders Mosness uses his Kvelertak connections to convince their frontman Erlend Hjelvik to rip into “Mot Grav” and Siberian throat singer Albert Kuvezin lends his extraordinary, never-ending rumble to the introductory “The Absolute”. Otherwise, it’s all down to Hallgeir Enoksen who, to be fair, has an absolute beast of a vocal that more than stands up to scrutiny. More than anything it’s this man’s nail-gargling roar that so endeared to me to the band in the first place.

“Storm Of Blood” is ripped with it, Enoksen digging out fury to go with the sort of drum battery and rotational guitar grot you’d associate more with the hammer and anvil stoner attack of High On Fire or the crust-covered ‘core of Black Breath. When the crush returns for “Mind Is Fire” (the thrash attack and vocal patterning on the chorus oddly reminiscent of Sylosis’ “Reflections Through Fire”) it’s even more powerful. Even that though is not the heaviest thing on the album. That honour goes to the galloping, blocky crush at the four-minute mark of the title-track; check it… it’s an utter mind-bender.

One reason for this increase in brutish weight requires a glance at the men responsible for twiddling the knobs. There’s few safer pairs of hands than those of Jacob Bredahl and Tue Madsen and they certainly haven’t impeded any of the thunderous intensity that the band have managed to knock out here. When they dial it down a notch and inject some driven groove they manage to produce the album highlights. Tracks like the throbbing neck-snappers of “Void” and “Iron Hands” come closest to matching the addictive peaks that Under Black Skies reached. Hjelvik brings along his black n’ roll spikes, and with “Mot Grav”s added thrash licks, the band dig out a real powerhouse.

Other than those rutted monsters though, the band are found to be rather wanting. At times, it is Ådne Sæverud’s frantically whining Hammond organ or Sander Loen’s wild, disconnected solos that are to blame as they succeed in derailing PiB’s chug-worthy building blocks; at other times it is the speed and noise-worshipping, a desperate search to raise the raw and inject the heavy, that has negated the neck-snapping cool of their sweetest rides. Although they manage to fish out several interesting minor chords, some swathed entirely in black, for long periods they seem to entirely forgo their fondness for structural build and plaster over any potential breaks in sound, ditching the chance for barbed hooks or sharp licks, to create yet more bulging angst and all-encompassing heavy. Worst of all, with only eight tracks to play with and running times trimmed, we get fewer changes of direction and a stingy 35-minute total.

Despite these flaws though, I simply can do nothing other than stringently insist that you try this on for size. Okay, it’s not the game-changing album of the year that their 2010 effort so obviously was, but it’s still got big, bushy chops on it and enough shades of black to make it worthy of your undivided attention. It will certainly be interesting to see how much of an impact they make on the scene this time and, more importantly, in which direction they will head with their next release.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2012/06/purified-in-blood-flight-of-a-dying-sun-indie-recordings/

Album Review: Kvelertak - Kvelertak

Kvelertak’s debut album has been kicking up a storm in Europe since the middle of last year, with U.S. fans catching only a faint backdraft of hearsay about these killer Norwegian punks every now and then. Finally, this month, it gets a proper North American release (and accompanying tour) and, for those of you who like big, brash, abrasive music and haven’t yet heard it, this is going to blow you away.

What this all means is I get another chance to big up one of the surprise debut albums of last year. I could start by using this space to remind you of all the other newbies you may have missed around the same time; folks like England’s Lower Than Atlantis or Sweden’s No Hawaii or even the stunning shot in the arm that Quebec’s Barn Burner presented us with, but that would be remiss of me.

This is all about six different blokes, with six different music tastes, making incredibly bruising punk and hardcore music, riddled with rock n’ roll affectations, that will have you name-checking straight-up noisy bastards like Black Flag and Refused one minute, Fu Manchu and Bison B.C. the next, before you move on to, say, Kylesa and Coliseum, then Purified In Blood and Enslaved. To be honest the list of bands that this lot remind me of, in turns, is endless.

One thing is for sure – the album benefits from being dialed up until you can feel the bass rattling your brain (at which point the old dude downstairs will start using his broom-handle to redecorate his ceiling). Don’t stop, keep turning it up until the drums start to make your teeth chatter (the dogs in the neighborhood should now be barking in unison). Basically you want it up where the scorched vocals of Erlend Hjelvik start to peel the wallpaper from the walls and the cops start hammering down your door. If you can hear it cave-in as the battering ram connects, it ain’t loud enough.

Put simply, Kvelertak, an apt Norwegian word meaning stranglehold, has thick meaty grooves, is ripped through with buzzing power chords and is bathed in an all-encompassing, scathing screamo. Within the melee, you’ll catch hints of something else, maybe stoner or black metal (“Liktorn”, I’m looking at you) and this leads to the album stretching out, getting steadily more epic as it progresses. The lyrics, all in their native language, generally explore the subjects of Norse folklore, tradition and mythology that are specifically related, playfully, back to members of the band. Hell, you won’t understand them anyway and you won’t care a jot. When they sing about the time when Bjarte forgot to pick Erlend up from band practice, you’ll be kicking seven shades of shit out of your own bedroom wall.

As they did with their early demos, they’ve again rounded up a few friends to help out, dragging in guest appearances from Andreas Tylden (JR Ewing), Hoest (Taake) and Ryan McKenney (Trap Them). You’ll get to hear Nattefrost (Carpathian Forest) spitting blackened venom into “Fossegrim” as the band behind him spew out a volley of rock n’ roll, all bent up with wickedly catchy, riffed licks. You’ll marvel as Ivar Nikolaisen (Silver) roars bloody murder at “Blodtørst” and listen in stunned silence as the band proceed to pound him into submission with a bass-driven force that magically splits open to reveal some warping, acoustic stringwork that tips its stained hat at The Who. And yet they are so much more. “Sultans Of Satan” is just one example – it’s a harum-scarum gang-chanted plod that flowers into a transparently melodic and fantastically addictive chorus, yet has a whole, brazenly psychedelic, nakedly old-school, cavalcade of material to follow that fleshes it out to bursting point.

This is live music bottled – I’d swear you can actually smell the smoke pouring from the cabs. You get this sense that every single band member is bouncing off the walls, and each other, as they play. It may be that bit too raw or too base for some but, for those with a strong constitution, you’ll be aping the band’s energy levels and, by the end of the relatively-reserved nod-a-thon that is final track “Utrydd Dei Svake”, you’ll be staring in awe at Baroness’ John Dyer Baizley’s superb artwork, frantically flipping it over in a fruitless search for lyrics to join in with, and panting and sweating just as vehemently. And that won’t even be the end; both a blessing and a curse – value for money generally adds on a pair of love-handles. All the same, this new release features a heap of, even-more unhinged and somewhat swarthier, BBC session and demo versions of the tracks within. Oh boy, are you in for a treat, America.

Also online with samples @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/kvelertak-kvelertak