Fuck your noiserock pt.1: Unsane - Wreck

Unsane - Wreck
2012, Alternative Tentacles

This is going to be a short review. For several reasons. The main one being this: Unsane has been around for over two decades now and have consistently released fucking killer albums, all of them shit-you-pants-intense and megarockingly groovy, in a style I sometimes refer to as stripteasecore (there's a sexy, sweaty, swagger to almost everything they do as well as let's-get-shitfaced-inducing vibe to their particular style of - yeah, I know, there's that shiatty expression again - noiserock) and if you don't know them, shame on you. Seriously. Shame on you. The second reason is this: Wreck has some of the band's strongest material to date (possibly as good as Visqueen) with a close to perfect recording and great songs that keeps growing all the time; and the fact that it's released on Alternative Tentacles is darn cool as well. Third reason: they cover Flipper's amazing, seminal slowcore anthem Ha Ha Ha! What more do you need?

Can't slow down, I've got a date with the Devil

The Love Below - Every Tongue Shall Caress
2012, A389

Wow, this threw me for a loop on the first time around. There's nothing ordinary or even remotely clichéd about The Love Below. I was half expecting something along the veins of Frightener, Nails or Full Of Hell (not that any of those bands are clichéd in any way), knowing the label's penchant for that whole area of dark and sludgy hardcore, but instead I'm completely blindsided by possibly the most unhinged, on-the-verge-of-flippin'-the-fuck-out kind of music I've heard in a long time. Basically this is heavy and, at times, fast hardcore punkrock, with a sort of frenzied, chaotic, noisy attitude that I'm instantly drawn to. All the songs are short, only a couple of them are more than three minutes long, so we are in no danger of getting bored here. Musically TLB sounds a bit like a mix of The Stooges, early Black Flag, the slower side of Motörhead, some traces of G.I.S.M. and a bit of Poison Idea. Sort of... We get awesome super-catchy punkrock riffs; some really cool straight up hardcore based on middle-to-high tempos; lots of audible, heavy rocking basslines; some heavy, almost metallic, breakdowns and tons and tons of rocking hooks.

But what truly sets these guys apart, except for a knack for writing short, instantly memorable songs, are the vocals of Jerry Wayne Woolbright Jr. (yup, that's apparently his name). I can't remember when I last heard someone so totally out there, someone so completely off the rails in his vocal delivery. To simply state that he screams is to do him injustice. He shrieks and howls - somewhere in the middle to upper register, often to the point where his voice cracks - almost seemingly out of control and yet does so with both conviction and clarity. How his voicebox is intact is beyond me. Lyrically there is some truly pissed-off, caustic shit going on here, but much of it written in a non-linear sort of ambiguous way, while hinting at a certain social and moral pathos that is interesting. But even though the lyrics, more often than not, are open to interpretation (which is fine by me), there's also the directness of songs like Nazi Uniform with it's snarling rage against police-brutality and abuse of authority ("You have the right to remain paranoid and afraid") and disdain of religion in Holy Dose ("Overdose on the love of God, choke on the light that shines so bright") to counteract the vagueness. Overall this is a great punkrock/hardcore album - and an outstanding full length debut - with lots of good points to draw you back for further spins. Get their previous releases at their bandcamp site here.

Among the ruins: Doom and beauty

Lycus - Demo CS
2011, Graceless Recordings

This amazing demo by Lycus is one of the better heavy doom releases of last year and possibly even of the last handful of years or so. It features only three songs but they are of such a quality and execution it's hard to do them justice. Lycus plays a slow, dirgelike and crushingly heavy kind of doom metal with such fantastic emotional delivery I was blown away the first time I sat through it. The riffing is some of the very best I've heard in recent time, the melancholy, solemn melodies are simply beautiful and so charged they make the hairs on my arms stand up. There are aspects to their music that are close to, or draw their influences from, traditional heavy metal (only alot slower) as well as post-metal/post-rock; and while the song structures are traditional in the sense that they use tension build-up and release there is nothing traditional to their songwriting. There are no verses and no choruses as such. Even the vocals feel secondary to the music. And save for the deep guttural growling this has nothing to do with sludge either - this is pure doom, with the exception of a brief blast of black metal aggression and speed on the final track. There is a monastic quality to some of the dirgy clean vocals and harmonies, which lend everything yet another layer of complexity and depth. Often the melodies remind me of the those of Ride The Lightning/Master Of Puppets/AJFA-era Metallica, with lots of somber emotion and majestic themes. Even though we only have less than a handful of songs here the total playtime of this demo is almost thirty minutes, which means that all three songs get the time to build and expand and develop organically in their own respective ways. I can't properly describe how eminently fucking awesome this cassette is. You NEED to hear this! It's too good to miss out on. This cassette version is all sold out but the vinyl version is available from Flenser Records and the band's Bigcartel webstore here. And if you don't want a physical copy it's avaliable as a pay-what-you-like kinda deal at their bandcamp site.

Here comes the messenger / Black crow on a tombstone

Young And In The Way - Amen
2010, self-released

The opening track of Young And In The Way's debut album Amen is called Hell Is Other People. It is definately a sentiment I can relate to sometimes (hell, most of the times, to be honest). It's a short number, more like an intro of sorts, but a heavy one, with sludgy overtones, massive down-tuned guitars alternating simple melody and heavy riffs ontop of a pulsating bass. It slowly builds, leading the way towards the sudden explosive pace-change of Dark Seed, where an unrelenting mix of sloppy punk and dark hardcore moves into near-blast beat territory, with screamed, pissed-off and desperate-sounding vocals. The attack here is as varied as it is uncommon in its blend of styles with a closing mix of crusty sludge fading into an ambient drone. Only a couple of minutes into the album and I'm already impressed as hell.

Over the following three tracks, which feel like a single continuous one, we are served the same kind of unpredictability and seething rage where no one element is too out there to explore. We get high speed rage followed by dirge-like doomy sludge; we get punk riffs, double bass drum smatterings and d-beat charged metallic hardcore. There are some black metal influences at work here (I keep thinking of Satyricon for some reason) but also the jangly slightly jarring guitarwork associated with screamo and noiserock (yep, there's that aweful word again). The voice of Kable Lyall has a caustic, swaggery hardcore/punkrock edge to it, as well as a snarling black metal vibe, which he utilises in almost anthemic vocal patterns that are quite memorable right off the bat.

Track number five, White Light, suddenly breaks the furious pace and restless momentum with a dream/nightmare-like atmosphere where simple but effective toms create a rythmic cadence over shimmering guitar tones, alongside repeated monotonous riffs over a throbbing bassline and spoken somber vocals. This is in the realm of postrock/postmetal but not quite and this abrupt change of both tone and pace is as brilliant as it is surprising. The oddities continue on the closing track. Another odd man out in this already oddball congregation, titled The Becoming, it is a thirteen plus minute Neurosis-esque epic, moving from the same kind of melancholy dreamlike shoegaze-shimmering, almost lullabyish guitars as on White Light, to a series of pulsating crescendoes of violins, driving tribal midpaced rythms of sludgy post-hardcore melodies and screamed vocals. This is probably my favourite song on the album, even though it's by far the longest one.

This is an impressive album, indeed - and one not so easily categorized. There's enough here to sate the hardcore fans as well as the postmetal/sludge crowd. Though I'm not quite sure if the black metal influences are trve enough for the quasi-suicidal, self-cutting, corpse-painted juggaloo ubercvlt hordes, but to me it's a non-issue. Taken all together this is a damn fine peice of hardcore and my first proper introduction to the band - and as such it is an outstanding one; I really feel a need to delve further into the band and their discography. Very much recommended for any fan of (slightly) progressive metal-influenced hardcore that offers more than just the genre staples. Amen is available at their bandcamp for free as well as a double vinyl package (with the also previosly selfreleased album I Am Not What I Am) reissued by A389.

We are the rats and we run this town

Gallows - Death Is Birth
2012, self-released

Brittish punk act Gallows return with some sorely needed new material, this time with new vocalist Wade MacNeil (ex-Alexisonfire) and a slightly different twist to their modern take on hardcore/punk/whatever. These four new songs are more direct than the band's previous material and definately more punk in both tone and attitude. In part, this is due to the the new vocalist; the mid-to-high range rasp in his voice and his distinctly punkish delivery and enunciation, but also has to do with the fact that these songs are crisper, shorter and more to the point than their earlier material. Opener Mondo Chaos is an old school sing-along midpaced number with a great, instantly memorable - and sweary - chorus and an awesome faster-paced UK Subs kind of feel to it. Of course there are lots of metallic hooks and riffs but the overall feel is that of snotty punk kids flipping you the finger and kicking your teeth in, just for the fuck of it.

The end is Nigh

Nigh - Nigh
2012

This great short ep showcases some impressively atavistic metallic hardcore blended with a definite old school death/thrash vibe. There's some great riffage being dsiplayed here, with an early Slayer meets Hellhammer feel, alongside some really tasteful, almost covert, NWOBHM flairs thrown in here and there, as well as some really cool Discharge-like fast runs. The production is decent with lots of heavy low end and lots of breathing space for all the instruments to move within. My only gripe is that, sometimes, the drums sound a bit dry and wooden compared to everything else, especially in the, admittedly not very frequent, blast beat parts. This sounds as if it could have been released in the late-eighties, early nineties and I'm thouroughly impressed. Had they been released back then, I guess they would've been labeled as metalpunk or some such nonsense, a label as good or bad as any, I guess. These three songs are over in a heartbeat and that's another great thing about the band's music; they write short to-the-point songs that feel complete and never rushed. There's lots of movement within the tracks and yet they never sound overly complicated or technical. This band needs to be on a label, like right now! Download.

Kill Theme For American Apeshit: +HIRS+

+HIRS+ - Worship 7''
2012

Wow! Just, frikkin' wow! For some reason I'd never heard of these guys before and I can't understand how the hell I could have missed them. They do the same thing Agoraphobic Nosebleed does, only less obviously self-medicated. I rarely use hyperbolic phrases suh as 'face-melting', 'shredding' or 'ultra-brutal' but in this case I'll make an exception, because this shit is insanely fast and vicious, and densely fucking heavy to boot. This is crazily constructed drum machine grindcore (something I generally stay as far away from as humanly possible) with lots and lots of odd twists and turns, time changes and weird fills and lots of thunderous low end guitars and howling, shrieking insane-person vocals. There's lots of dissonant riffing going on to make everything feel more than just run of the mill technical grindcore/deathgrind as well as a power violence vibe to the way the songs are constructed (not to mention all the samples thrown into the songs, which are great by the way). All their material is available for download at their bandcamp site. What the fuck are you waiting for?

Built for brutality: Eddie Brock

Eddie Brock - Brand New Day 7''
2012, A389

Eddie Brock was the name of the burly, Belgian Blue-muscled supervillain Venom, from the Spiderman comics and though I'm unsure exactly how that relates to these guys, it's somehow fitting when considering the music these guys play. It's loud, fast and most importantly, it's heavy, with a furious power violence vibe which in itself has a burly muscle-y kind of character. This ep is brief but delivers plenty in its short runtime. We get five tracks, only two of them moving beyond the minute mark, of unrelenting Slap-A-Ham-styled hardcore with lots of whirlwind flurries of high speed blasts, raging memorable riffs, loads of dirty heavy breakdowns, raspy "I-smoke-two-packs-a-day" barbwire-vocals (with some cool dual and guest vocals going on as well) and some truly vicious and angry lyrics (and some bitterly funny ones as well). This is one of those ep:s you spin repeatedly because it's just engaging enough to hook you instantly but also complex enough to warrant several listenings in a row. What's also, paradoxically, refreshing to me about this ep is the fact that the band in no way tries to reinvent anything here or inject anything new into this style, pioneered by bands like Spazz, No Comment, Neanderthal and Lack Of Interest. It's just well-written, well-played, no frills, no bullshit power violence/hardcore. That's more than enough for me. Compared to their earlier self-titled ep (which is available for free at their bandcamp site here) this is alot heavier and dirtier and the power violence influences more in your face. Highly recommended.

No cure for poisoned minds: Empire of Rats

Empire Of Rats - No Peace
2012, Get This Right Records

These guys mix vicious tough guy hardcore (think burly NYHC leaning heavily on heavy chugging mosh parts) with some old school Sick Of It All-like sensibilities as well as huge doses of a slightly darker more metallic side. The opening intro track has a biting satrical message, hinting at a social awareness that I find refreshing. The following five songs are solid and fast paced with lots of ultra heavy breakdowns and some really impressive song writing, with a great raspy midrange vocal delivery that sits perfectley in the middle of everything without being too up front in the mix. There's a definite Slayer presence in some of these tracks, both in the machine-gun style riffs and the way they blend melodies into the guitar parts, as well as in the drumming style. I also get a huge Integrity-vibe off the material, so of course I'm loving the shit out of it. More please.

Queens of the Sludge Age

Mares Of Thrace - The Moulting
2010, Arctodus Records

Stripped down and violent, detuned and hauntingly beautiful, melodic yet chokingly dense and constantly bristling with rythmical intricacies and passionate, raging guitar work, The Moulting is an intriguing album. I found it rather by chance, surfing the shallow depths of these interwebs, and I'm really glad I did. Being a duo, Mares Of Thrace consists of only a drummer and a guitarist, and it blows my mind that two people can create both such an intense, almost frenzied sludgy atmosphere and such sonic complexities and yet manage to bring to it such devastatingly beautiful textures. Their music reminds me alot of other very stripped-down-to-the-bone kind of bands, who also utilize alot of winding, sometimes dissonant or melancholy melodies and rythmical complexities in their writing; bands like fellow Canadians Nomeansno, Jesus Lizard and of course Black Sabbath (Ward's jazzy drumming, the somber, melancholy melodies of both Geezer and Tony Iommi have always had a swampy kind of blues-feel to me).

There is an impressive amount of detail to be found in the music as well, be it the often deceptively technical drumming of Stef MacKichan, the brief but constant melodic colorings thrown into Therese Lanz's often densely heavy riffs or the intermingling flurries of electronics thrown into the mix. There's enough metal here to warrant a 'metal' label on the Mares' music, but there's more to it than that, of course. Having done stints in loads of other musical constellations - Exit Strategy, Kilbourne and KEN Mode among them - these ladies know the ins and outs of the heavier, extreme styles of music like the backs of their hands. This means there are huge doses of other influences than just mere metal at work here. There's an obvious jazzy, winding noiserock (I fucking hate that word) feel to much of their music, but there are also monumental, tribal influences going on here, along the lines of Isis or Neurosis, where dense, melodic riffs, driven by awesome, primal, warlike rythms shatter everything in their path. And ontop of everything else there's also a visceral snarling punk attitude coating everything, adding yet another layer of ferocity to the music. Therese's emotionally charged vocals, sometimes sung in a clean voice, more often screamed in a deep, resonant, growl (how the hell does she do that?) are hugely impressive and tend to work rather as an added layer of instrumentation than a mere conveyor for platitudinal inanities. It's not always easy to decipher the lyrics, and though I'm convinced they're just as well-written as the music, it doesn't really bother me not knowing what she's singing. The music as a whole is so impressive and emotional the lyrical content becomes less of a concern to me. I'm really looking forward to the Mares' upcoming album, The Pilgrimage, where they hopefully have expanded on the musical ideas and themes on The Moulting. Watch the live clips below if you need any further convincing.

Massive Killing Capacity: Black Breath - Sentenced To Life

Black Breath - Sentenced To Life
2012, Southern Lord

Holy shit YES! It's just as good as, if not even better than, I was hoping it would be! These dudes write some amazing crust-influenced hardcore/metal that is at the very top of modern heavy music today. Black Breath should be as big as (insert name of hip, overly and undeservedly lauded inane indie label metal/hardcore act here) and they should be given lots and lots of money so they can tour the shit out the world. Their last effort, Heavy Breathing, was one of my very favourite albums of 2010 and it truly opened my eyes to the effortless genious of their music, and Sentenced To Life cements that impression even further. Black Breath rakes everything down in their path with raging hardcore tempos, double bass drum smatterings, d-beat dis-core, Old School Swedish Death Metal guitars and thrash-injected riffs and solos. Imagine tossing in all that was good about nineties death and thrash metal and modern and metallic japanese hardcore into a tumbler and shaking the shit out of it. Pour it into these five guys and you have an extremely dense, heavy and caustic style of hardcore that blows everybody else into the dust. If you're a fan of such disparate legendary bands as Discharge, Dismember or Disclose, you'll fucking love this. If you don't, you quite simply, need to be killed.

Serving time in the middle of nowhere

Seven Sisters Of Sleep - ST
2011, A389

Everybody were raving about Seven Sisters Of Sleep when this album came out. People everywhere seemed almost taken aback by it and the reviews were glowing. Me, I just couldn't get into it. For some reason it just didn't do it for me. Maybe it was the longish name, maybe the generally slow plodding pace or the sludgy esthetic of their music in general, or perhaps I'm just retarded sometimes. It isn't that the music of SSoS is in any way difficult or overly challenging, I just didn't, for whatever reason, click with the tunes on the album, they just drifted past me without sinking any hooks in. I recently went back and sat through the album again and all of a sudden I got it. How I couldn't before is beyond me. It's almost impossible to describe SSoS's music without using the words Black and Sabbath so I'm not even gonna try. Suffice it to say, this is some amazingly well-crafted, heavy dirty metal with nods to sludge-masters Eyehategod as well as the previously mentioned precursors of all that is heavy in metal. It's not all slow all the time - in fact there are more than a few moments of ferocious hardcore velocity - but the pervading sense is that of desperation and dread and crumbling landscapes frozen in time. The much needed sense of urgency and release in the faster-paced parts serve as a momentum breaker that infuses a definite sense of dynamic into the album. I keep thinking of Eyehategod, circa Dopesick when I hear this but with a punkier attitude and less suicidally inclined. The vocal style on display here would fit perfectly on any d-beat charged hardcore album and this works really well within the context of these songs. Everything reeks of desperation and rage, from the vocals to the constricting, dense atmosphere of the music itself, and while all the songs are short and never even get the chance to be long-winded, they're also never leave you with a sense of being unfinished. In fact, the best song on the album, Swamp, isn't even two minutes long. The band apparently features members from The Arm And Sword Of A Bastard God (whom I have both heard of and heard - got a tape somewhere) and Tafkata (whom I have never heard of). Grade A stuff.

I am the one, Orgasmatron/The outstretched, grasping hand

Lord Mantis - Pervertor
2012, Candlelight

Since I had never heard of the band before (yeah, I know, I'm a moron), I dove into Lord Mantis' latest album with a clean slate and no preconceptions (which is a rare thing these days, when info overload at times tend to remove your ability - and, to some extent, even the need - to make up your own mind what to think and feel about things in general, and music, art and movies in particular). Maybe this fact made it easier in a way to ingest the music and consider it on it's own merits rather than some pre-colored notion of what to expect. After a bit of research I found that the band features some rather illustrious people within the metal community, from bands such as Nachtmystium, Von and Indian. Which, in hindsight, probably explains the truly stellar music we get on Pervertor, I guess. Either way, Pervertor is a beast of immense proportions in all of it's aspects, from writing to production and execution. It is steeped in sludgy riffs, varied but often slow, rumbling tempos and a rather eighties-feeling kind of doom metal that I loved from the very first instance. These songs are catchy as hell, especially considering the style of music presented here. What we get is filthy blackened sludge/metal with lots of tremolo picking, rumbling double bass drums, wicked rocking hooks, earth shatteringly heavy riffs and venom-spitting, snarling vocals almost as ferocious as those of Steve Austin of Today Is The Day. There's actually more than a vague resemblance to TITD in the general progressiveness and tone of Lord Mantis' music, though they're never drawn towards the same kinds of extremes as TITD. A few key aspects that sets the band apart from the brunt of their contemporaries are the brilliant, inventive drumming and the mind blowing, almost Cobalt-esque, winding riffs and melodies, alongside the fact that all of the songs keep evolving, never ever becoming stagnant or repetitive. Songs like Levia and Septichrist has me smiling like an imbecile every time I hear them, because they're that goddamn catchy and good! Oh, and the main riff on closing track The Whip And The Body is the greatest Motörhead-riff Motörhead never wrote. We have some Album-of-the-year-contender shit right here, folks. Dig in.

Pure Rock Fury: Junior Bruce and Aussitôt Mort

Junior Bruce - The Headless King
2012, A389

These days, we as consumers of art and what passes for culture, are constantly being inundated with music and information from every concievable angle; every day, every waking hour, everywhere. Especially online where just about everything is available for free and with almost no effort and close to no expense, it's so easy to get drowned in the sheer number of available musical releases and artistical outlets. This deluge very often has negative side effects, such as numbing the listener to the point of fatigue, shortening the attention span to mere second snippets of songs and creating a general inability to appreciate quality and the effort that goes into the creative process. Every once in a while an artist or a band comes around that somehow has the ability to pierce through that thick, fuzzy, white noise wall of sound, information and imagery and grab ahold of your attention despite everything. Junior Bruce is one of those bands.

Sporting members from such hardcore legends as Bloodlet and Hope & Suicide (another sadly overlooked band) this act has that whole supergroup kind of feel to it (especially in the online blurbs) even though that was probably never the intention. And quite honestly, whenever the word supergroup is being tossed around I usually try not to get my hopes up too high, because the general outcome of those kinds of affairs are, more often than not, both disappointing and less than stellar. Here, however the band seem to do just about everything right. The music on display here is rock solid bare-to-the-bones metal with a huge dose of these-old-fucks-know-what-they're-doing feel going, with tons of AMAZING riffs and grooves. Junior Bruce's sound incorporate the slick yet fuzzy winding, riffage of HEAVY stoner rock, the intensity (and occasionally the speed) of hardcore and the melodies and framework of metal and fuses everything into a beast completely of their own. These songs are instantly accessible and head-nod inducing, while still being complex enough to require repeated spins. The first minute of opening track Defeatist had me immediately convinced I was onto to something great here and I quickly shut down the online stream of the album that was available on one site or another, and contacted A389 to get ahold of a proper digital copy of the album (will most definately be buying the vinyl version as soon as possible). Online streams are great as promotional tools but they only get you, as a fan, so far. I needed to have this available to me everywhere, on my computer, on my iPod, on CD etc etc. Because this is one of those albums that you easily get obsessive about. I had a stint of obssessive compulsive attatchment to Clutch's Blast Tyrant album a few years back, playing it over and over again (for a while, probably a good six months, it was the only thing I listened to) and I have a feeling The Headless King might be the album I relapse with into that whole obssessive state again.

Anyway, Junior Bruce is a band of veterans, and as such they know how to chisel down music to it's core and use brevity rather than endless wankery as a way to hook you. As I've said before, one or two amazing riffs and hooks in a song trumps ten weak ones every time; it's better to keep shit brief and to the point and rock the shit out everything in three minutes flat than to noodle away forever with fifty-fifty material. This is some of the solidest rocking metal I've heard in a looong while. The riffs are immediately recognizable and memorable, the rythm section is solid and to the point, the vocals are done in a gruff singing/shouting voice that works really well along with the material. There are other influences at work here, obviously, other than pure heavy metal, but they're neatly folded into the music to become something unique. I can't really draw any comparisons to other artists, except to say that Junior Bruce makes me think of bands like Only Living Witness, Kylesa, Helmet and Stompbox, even though they're only vaguely similar to either one. Another amazing release, cementing A389, as one of the spearhead labels of modern heavy music.


Aussitôt Mort - Nagykaniza
2012, Destructure Records

These french fellows blew me away clean, first time I heard them. Not having done any research whatsoever into the band or their music (being the lazy bastard that I am) I was honestly expecting something completely different - some sort of shoegaze/black metal fusion or modern take on metallic hardcore, perhaps. What Aussitôt Mort does is nowhere close to any of that. They play a very atmospheric, heavy and dense kind of post-metal/post-hardcore style with lots of slowly expanding songs where melody and aggression gets equal coverage. There's a musicianship on display here that's quite simply amazing. There are tons of grooves, dissonant swirls and lots of almost tribal drumming running alongside amazing guitar work, lush melodies and great rumbling bass flurries, in an almost Isis- or Breach-like musical construct, that's not really easy to pin down. The vocal parts are sparse and rare (although very effective), but that's ok beause the music's what's really important here. This is introspective and meditative music, although often very intense, that requires both attention and time to fully explore and experience, a rare thing these days. I am wholly impressed. If you're in to Neurosis, Jesu, Isis, Cult Of Luna, Breach or any of their likes, you should definately check these dudes out. Some of their earlier work is available for free download at their bandcamp site, here. Buy here.