Stampkase: Mechanorganism

In the history of modern chug-a-lug, there are bands who chug, some who lug, and some who chug and lug, thus the title of this modern genre that we only now created. Being masters of both the pun and onomatopoeia, we figured we’d provide the very most in accuracy and tagging for all of you out there who are sick of ‘core’ being attached to everything from jazz to country. Plus, our version explains what it’s all about. It’s about chugging, pumping those drums, singing those vocals, and then screaming at the right, formulaic moments. Stampkase have been called ‘modern metal’ but they’re more easily placed into the slot indicated by ‘metalcore’ or ‘deathcore’. There’s that core again, you knew we couldn’t avoid it. Coming from Portugal and pulling this one off all on their own, these boys prove that, at times, the ‘core’ isn’t the worst of things to listen to, but you often have to dig through layers of dirt to find the seed that’s only beginning to germinate.

Sat on this one for awhile, one reason being that you need to oh so carefully type out the title Mechanorganism because it’s so damn awkward. Yes, we get it, see it’s a combination of the words ‘mechanical’ and ‘organism’. And yes, the cover does of course feature references to very gray post-apocalyptic something-rather with I, Robot (the movie not the book) babydoll references and brains attached to pipes. This is one of those moments we wish we could say “remember X”, filling in the ‘X’ with so many other examples of this ‘gray apocalypse’ approach many of these bands enjoy in their artistic endeavors. Really, what’s with this? Can we not take the ‘core’ to the next level past the apocalypse? Since we have no examples to show you and prove this fact, let’s just move on to the music and be done with it.

Stampkase, well, what can we say? They chug their chords, they pump their drums, they tear their vocal chords, they sing to the heavens when emotions come to the surface, and somehow they lug an album out of it. The songs refer to everything from mental illness they might have experienced (“Bipolarized”) to suggestions of the emotional torment of girlfriends who found someone not in a metalcore band (“Faded”). Once you get that out of the way, Stampkase actually pulls out some rather powerful and headbang-worthy riffage. “Random Shot”, in particular, has a killer line that runs as the general chorus throughout most of it, and it kills. Later tracks afterwards have some cool moments, but for some reason all of this is reserved for the latter half of the tracks. Because of that, it scores halfway. For this kind of music it has some decent sound to offer, and it’s well-recorded for a self-released album, but wait to see if they go anywhere with it, because ‘for free’ is really the only way you should be listening to it, via the Bandcamp link below.

 

Written by Stanley Stepanic

 

Official Facebook

Stampkase Bandcamp

 

Stampkase: Mechanorganism
Self-Released
Score: 3 / 5