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.

Hardcore cluster bomb pt 4: Short and nasty

Hatewaves - The Tombs
2011, A389

I need to state this before I go on: this EP is TOO FUCKING SHORT! It just is. It needs to be at least twice as long, and then it'd still be too short. I mean c'mon guys, The Tombs is like four minutes long! What the hell?! I need to play this fucker on repeat like ten times to even begin to feel satisfied. So I'm expecting a full length real soon, like pronto, hear? Ok, good. That's settled then. Now onto what we actually do have here on this (way too fucking) short ep. Hatewaves plays a heavy, dirty mix of hardcore and grind that borders on power violence. The songs are (too fucking) short and to the point, like miniature nukes going off one after the other, in rapid succession, sometimes pried apart by weird interludes with samples and instrumental bits (well, one instrumental bit, really). There's lots of movement from blasting speeds to rumbling slow heavy parts but they are all (too fucking) brief so there's not any chance whatsoever of becoming bored for even a microsecond. The vocals are midrange burly screams which is awesome and a nice change to all the manic, high pitched pig-like shrieks and/or guttural, cookie-monster-throws-up-in-the-toilet-bowl growls that are so prevalent in heavy music these days. Like the equally (too fucking) short Taste The Beast ep before it, The Tombs is a rumbling monster of hardcore fury, but this time the music is more narrowly focused and nastier sounding. And a shitload heavier. These guys are moving in the right direction with what they're doing. I only wish they'd do it a little bit longer next time. You know like maybe ten minutes? Is that too much to ask? Oh, and what the hell's up with the cover art? I mean, seriously?

Humanity Is The Devil

Withdrawal - Faith, Flesh & Blood
2011, A389 Recordings

Withdrawal makes writing good music seem easy. They pull it off so effortlessly and painlessly it seems like second nature to these guys to hammer out anthem after anthem of massive and emotional metallic hardcore. I've been eagerly awaiting this ep for a what seems like quite some time now, though it's probably only been a few weeks since I first heard of its impending release. I immediately fell in love with the music of these Canadians after hearing their Unknown Misery ep and I just couldn't wait to get my hands on more material by them. Because of the truly magnificent song writing the band so consistently displays and the sheer force of their metal-infused hardcore, Withdrawal (in my mind at least) stand way above the brunt of their contemporary peers in this particular genre.

Their last ep was one of the best examples I have ever heard of the modern style of hardcore that blends different flavours of metal with traditional punk/hardcore structures, bringing to mind such classic acts as Integrity, Lash Out and Rorschach and the like. But, what Withdrawal does, is to take that particular style of hardcore and make it their own, bringing their own set of inluences into the mix.

This last effort is no different. On FF&B they clearly continue on the path set upon on Unknown Misery: the melodies are there, but slightly more up front and apparent, the dry machine gun-like Slayer-ish riffing more solidly integrated into the songs, supported by short vicious solo licks and great, heavy, midpaced drumming, solidly placed into the heart of the song structures and the vocal lines always a bit more metal than hardcore: I keep thinking Swedish old school d-beat influenced death metal for some reason.

The production here is several notches above that of their previous release; it's way heavier and much clearer, as well as having a distinct feeling of cohesiveness, where all the elements meld together into something much more solid. I can't say enough good things about this release; I only wish it could have been a tad longer, because what these four tracks do is only to whet my appetite for more. Maybe it's time to consider writing a proper full length release, guys. Oh and I really enjoyed that awesome nod to Tragedy's Conflicting Ideas in the drum intro to Blood Law.

Weapon of Mosh Destruction

Pulling Teeth - Funerary
2011, A389 Recordings

As I sat down to listen to this album for the first time, I did so with slight trepidation and a vague uneasiness. It had the promise of becoming a strangely disapointing and yet somehow filling experience.

Let me explain.

I have always liked Pulling Teeth's blend of musical styles and admired the cathchy ruggedness of their songwriting; the way they pull it off without sounding forced or contrived. I've also always liked the way their albums sound, the way they're produced, how you can always hear all the individual instruments in the mix. My main problem with the band is the fact that they've never really hooked me. Like I said, their songwriting is rock solid. I just never really got into them. Which is weird, because all the necessary elements are there. The grindcore-like blasts, the classic doom heaviness, the black metal tremolo picking, the HUGE metallic hardcore-foundation, the almost equally huge old school hardcore base, the Slayer-ish riffing.

But. They just don't gel for me.

Or rather, they didn't use to gel for me. We'll get to that in a bit.

So, this was why I was hesitant to listen to the album even though I knew I would probably like it, if only in theory, rather than in practice. Or would appreciate it's various constituent parts if not their sum.

With the band's fourth and latest full length release, Funerary, something's happened. All of a sudden it clicked. Everything fell into place. Just like that. And still all those same elements are there, more or less in the same way they were before, being handled in the same way as before. But now they work for me.

The album consists of twelve songs running around 48 minutes and it's been slaying me all this past week. It starts off with an odd little shimmering melodic guitar and organ (?) intro, that circles into a vicious bristling black metal/hardcore blitz on From Birth, replete with Morbid Angel-esque tremolo picking, black metal blast beats, abundant hardcore energy, short twisted guitar solos and Mike's snarling punkish vocal attacks, unloading pure venom: "You're fucked, from birth, just left to rot and die". The following two tracks basically follow the lead of From Birth, dealing out thunderously fast and heavy metallic hardcore with loads of breakdowns and tempo changes and super memorable riffing (and at least one guest appearance on vocals). These two tracks give way to the metal-heavy The New Dark Ages, which offers up a ton of shifts in tempos and riffing styles. We're thrown from plodding Melvins-inspired chugging doom-riffs to black metal tremolo melodies underscored by smattering doubled bass drums to short furious blast beats and then back again. A couple of stand-out tracks in the latter part of this already stand-out album are the epic title track which is simply one of the better doom metal songs I've heard in years and next-to-last track, Waiting, which features an amazing chorus with great clean vocals.

The rest of the album is equally dynamic in scope and range and covers all the angles of Pulling Teeth's particular style. But this time they do it, somehow, better. Or perhaps it's just a matter of my musical taste developing and evolving, because now that I revistit the band's earlier recordings, particularly Vicious Skin and Paranoid Delusuions, I find myself getting hooked almost as easily as I was by Funerary. Time, in other words to revisit the band's entire back catalogue and give them another well deserved try.