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| FEATURES | THE GOOD THE BAD THE UNSIGNED XV | |||
IT'S A 7 INCH EXTRAVAGANZA IV |
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Alright this is a pretty even bunch. With the exception of one British band that sucked donkey balls, either all the included rocked hard in their own way or tore shit up like Turkey's Skatat, who really should be paid attention to. Another mixed batch here, from wild grind to gneric hardcore with a girly side to American emoish super gay stuff to even Costa Rican occult black metal. So here it is..enjoy it..while you can and as always, read on and spread the word.... |
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Rightfully described as ‘raw as fuck old school grindcore’, Sakatat (pictured above) is an incredibly wild and obnoxiously loud trio from Turkey. These guys are hysterical and their songs pretty much self-destroy in a few seconds. Yet, despite all the evident chaos and mayhem there is something tying the sound of Sakatat down. The music though insane and pretty much constantly set to hyper mode does show structures and a tendency to clearly show skills that for the most part would go unnoticed in the work of other grind bands. There is no bassist in the band, so guitarist Onurcan may have learned a few tricks of the trade just to help cover all bases. Sakatat’s website says that this Turkish man handles bass duties in the studio as well, but checking this Western European Tour Edition (which contains their sides on two splits from 2010) CD I can’t notice any throbbing basslines. All I hear is sick drumming, fast as all fuck guitars and maniacal screams. There are some thrashy parts spicing things up, and judging by how wild and cohesive these songs are is safe to say that Sakatat could give grind greats like Brutal Truth a run for their money in the live setting. Official Site |
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San Francisco’s Decayed Race don’t fuck around. They are in an ugly business and they know it, and they want to represent it. Their 2010 demo Oppressed Violence introduces us to their sick ilk of powerviolence; nine cuts of virulent nastiness (as if that wasn't redundant), only two of which pass the 30 second mark. And then there is the closer “Chained Up” which goes on for about three and a half minutes and for Decayed Race’s standards it's a bit of an art project. In it, Decayed Race turn in some mighty sludge and for a few second even show a bit of a blues sensibility, all without showing any sign of gluttony or pretension. Decayed Race's metal influence is all over the cut and is by far the most memorable. Recorded in their practice space, Oppressed Violence is in its end a short fucker of rage and vitriol. Bandcamp |
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To some, the oppressive sounds of Costa Rica’s Ordo Caper may come off as true aural hate, evil incarnate in Central American shape and yet to others, like yours truly, it emerges from the blue seas as a big fucking question mark. Sono Satus, their 2011 demo, comes off as a veritable attempt at recreating the dank auras of Void Meditation Cult with the early excesses of Mortician. It works as a whole but when dissected and upon closer inspection proves to be a rather musically inept effort. The guitars of Danyyel are confusing and lackluster, and not in like a technical way, but in like a ‘oh shit, I fucked up but I ain’t got time to play it again’ way. Spontaneity is key in punk, but in metal this fucked up sounding stuff leaves listeners demanding for a tad more dedication. Vocalist Alcazar has a deep cavernous stomach voice. In a couple of moments he extends his lines and ends up sounding like a Franciscan monk at the shitter. It’s cool though. Doubts emerge as the man is listed as the drummer and by the sound of it, there ain’t no drums to hear. Unless of course you count programming as drums in which case you are wrong. Facebook |
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Adrenechrome. Ooohhhh, now that’s a big word, right? One would think these fellas are all pretentious and shit, wearing black specs and shit, listening to like Rush and shit, being capable to like, add and substract and shit. Ooohh… Wrong, Adrenechrome are dumb as fuck and I can tell because one of the members owns a Black Label Society T-shirt. Actually, delete that, I couldn’t tell for sure. Their name translates to a ‘naturally occurring chemical formed during oxidation of epinephrine’ so, oooohh, I did not get that at all. Maybe I am dumb, but I doubt it because I quite enjoyed Hideous Appetites, a thrashy affair with more twists and turns than a snake in a knot. Straight up, these guys can play like the best of them. Melodically speaking, they soften their aggressive passages with melodic parts that do not puss out and even when at full rage mode seem like they have been designed with a soft heart and a hardline attitude. Hence, Adrenechrome may not appeal to many thrashers who solely dig the rambunctious German style, but may be more of the cup of tea of people who think that because they say ‘forward thinking’ that means anything. Somewhere around Locust Wings Adrenechrome reminded me of Scatterbrain, a band I hate. This though, I can swallow. Facebook |
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San Antonio’s Ecocide are no more. A shame because they had a few things going for them. Their first-full-length was self-titled and shows a pretty raw take on crust doom. By raw I mean their songs do not gel very well and their dynamics are zero. Again, since there is something utterly crusty and rusted in the way the songs are played it kind of matches their punk politics and the way they tackle their metal, which by the way is with zero pretension. The guitars are stripped down and let’s not even get into the rhythmic base, which is austere, primitive and in moments seems to struggle to keep up. Vocalist Heidi also goes for the throaty approach and colors Ecocide’s sound by adding a violin in a few parts. At times, the addition gives Ecocide certain Celtic flavor, at others, it seems to awake some sense of groove in the band that is otherwise absent everywhere else. Guitarist and infrequent vocalist Brian Gordon was kind enough to send Ecocide’s unreleased LP as well. It is not listed in Metal-Archives and I am not even sure if there is a name for it. Production-wise is more lively and performance-wise everything has been stepped up a notch, from the way the instruments interact, to the tempos to the individual execution, there is a conscious attempt at keeping the vocals necro and at making the music still quite melodic. Not as doom as on their first recording, nor as punk as first thought of, this second recording makes me weep a little because Ecocide is no more. Bandcamp |
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It would sound totally fucking ridiculous to call Assyrian an ‘advanced’ metal band but on their Self-Portrait debut, the Puebla, Mexico quartet shows an extremely developed approach to metal. True, the album starts at one point and finishes at a very different one, but the way in which the band makes the transition and how they never lose their identity is what should count. Assyrian starts off rather harshly with “Impromptu”, a cut that by all accounts could just be that, an improvised experiment, well-captured on proverbial tape. There is not a melody, nor a tempo, just random notes that never quite gel. “Empathic Narcissus” then ventures into some very nicely layered death metal. It is slow but there is a sense of ambience that’s quite unsettling and then somehow between takes, Assyrian make the transition to jazzy metalgaze. Assyrian is clearly a highly technical band, but more than on chops they are very methodical on songwriting and that’s an accomplishment for such a young band. Auspicious debut for sure. Facebook |
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Something about the clean aesthetic design on the glossy package of Skin the Pig’s first full-length Article XIX truly irks me. Maybe I have grown to expect gross designs or spectacular ridicule that screams of metal and when I receive a digipack that’s got some sort of shield (crows, eagles and red, a lot of red) I just think of things I shouldn’t think. I was also in doubt with the name of the band. It reads as too obvious and when in Metal Archives I found them listed as sludge metal post hardcore the whole ordeal just turned into a prospective nightmare. It is all on me though, as these Brits do not fall strictly under what I would expect. Alright, not much sludge here and when they say post hardcore, they mainly mean metalcore. But don’t be scared, clean vocals and all I wasn’t too repulsed. OK, that ballad ”Room121” has got to go really fucking far because it is about the corniest shit a guy with a tattoo sleeve could play without either getting his ass kicked by a 30-pound girl or his mouth French-kissed by another boy with a white belt. I mean fuck that song! The rest of Article XIX is formulaic and melodic. To their credit there are some great hooks on “I Rise You Fall” but elsewhere…don’t mean to be a dick but I guess you either had to be there or have to love this kind of dated metalcore. Official Site |
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First half belongs to Oceans Apart, a British Columbia quintet who have gone the way of the screamo. The kids have got some ideas, they just need to develop their taste, and find a personality. That’s what it boils down to, Oceans Apart make entire songs out of breakdowns and the vocalist is so fucking generic we could give him a name, any name. Oceans Apart maybe scream because of the age we live in, in any other decade, say 2002, they would have been just a furious hardcore band that liked to drag their riffs, which they do OK on “Jersey Shore” a song about…really, I don’t even wanna find out. Castle Wolfenstein on the other hand are the reason why you are reading this. They were kind enough to send this split along with a copy of their first demo. The problem with the latter is that once I took the disc out of the slipcase I was unable to slide it right back in. It sucks. Regarding their half of this split, it rocks much harder than that of their counterparts. They do not entirely escape the tag screamo but musically speaking their tracks are not comprised of obnoxious breakdowns. The guitar work shall be duly noted; it’s got good layering and reveals great ideas. The start of “Past” is killer, short riffs, great expressiveness. Castle Wolfenstein lose points because the band insists in boxing itself by featuring generic raw hardcore vocals, but oh well, when paired with Oceans Apart, they sound genius. Bandcamp |
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