Mainly in rock/metal circles the mention of Brasilia bring up almost exclusively the name of Sepultura. Cliche or not, that’s a fact. Ratos de Porato for many still remains an unknown name. Anyway, a few days ago I was excited (and surprised) by MindFlow, a powerful and intense progressive (post) metal/hardcore band, now I’m listening into this “Realidade Aumentada” by The Tape Disaster and it’s quit a pleasant surprise. Waving around progressive and indie rock tunes, The Tape Disaster put together a beautiful world of images and sounds, they write a couple of nice tunes and some great songs shifting between moments of calm and dynamic twists. Unfortunately they don’t have a singer, but even exclusively with instrumental resources they managed to fill up the spaces and create a colorful and flowing material. Read more The Tape Disaster – Realidade Aumentada (2011)
Yearly Archives: 2011
Iperyt – No State Of Grace (2011)
Called “extreme terror hardcore techno” it may sound even sicker than a sick innovation that it is. These guys from Poland delivered a contorted blend of black/death metal with merciless industrial noises. Grinding tempos, killer guitar riffs, Slayer like screaming vocals seems to be their winning recipe. And it’s working like a chainsaw. More important, they managed to write not only powerful mixtures of furious black metal and death/grind slaughters with industrial after touch, but they have a couple of great songs: “A Pocket Size Armageddon”, ” The Antithesis”, “Scars Are Sexy”,”Keep Your Eyes Closed”,”The Player”.
Iperty sounds just like a killer jam between Slayer and Bile. Read more Iperyt – No State Of Grace (2011)
A Swarm Of The Sun – Zenith (2010)
I actually miss this one last year, but thanks to Erik Nilsson, I had the pleasure to listen this Swedish duo’s full-length debut album now. A Swarm of the Sun was formed in 2007 in Stockholm by Erik Nilsson and Jakob Berglund and they released the EP “The King of Everything†in the same year on Erik’s independent record-label Version Studio. “Zenith” was released on August 30, 2010 and their influences including a number of different genres from post rock and indie rock to assorted electronics and film score like music. It’s a gloomy, but colorful blending, their music shifting from slow glowing textures and spacy dimensions to powerful rock explosions, it’s flowing and floating, warm and cold moments, elements are melting down or sometimes frozen into a strange, touching soundscape. Read more A Swarm Of The Sun – Zenith (2010)
Thursday – No Devolucion (2011)
If someone still recalls the “genre” named AOR, then Thursday probably may be labeled as adult oriented hardcore. From emo they come a long way, but up to date, Thursday are a mature band, their music is dense, but still mysteriously airy, discrete pianos and nervous guitar riffs are nicely overlapping and shifting from mood to mood. “No Devolución” it’s like Sigur Rós plays some Fugazi songs. It’s strange, but beautiful, almost hypnotic.
Thursday was formed in 1997 and in the summer of 1999, teamed up with MP3.com for their first official release, the 1999 “Summer Tour” EP. Their debut album, “Waiting” was released on December 6, 1999 on Eyeball Records without any singles or support from television or radio. Hesitant to join a larger label, but with full support from Eyeball Records, Thursday signed to Victory Records and released their second album, “Full Collapse” in 2001. Victory Records filmed a music video for “Understanding in a Car Crash” consisting of live footage of the band and marketed the song as the band’s first single, without the band’s authorization. The video for this song received heavy airplay on both MTV2 and Muchmusic. The song gained the band a large underground following. Read more Thursday – No Devolucion (2011)
The Residents – Lonely Teenager (2011)
The Residents are for a quit long time around and since the end of the 60s they explore the experimental/avant-garde area of the music releasing over 40 albums, but also they explored the multimedia area. Pioneers in exploring the potential of CD-ROM and similar technologies, The Residents have won several awards for their multimedia projects, and Ralph Records, a record label focusing on avant-garde music, was started by them. Actually they are more an art collective than a classic band. The Residents – as they declare – are “four people who dabble in the arts, they make music, videos, perform, and generally have a pretty good time.” Well, “Lonely Teenager” is pretty dark, but still colorful, surprising and exciting material. Mostly navigating on some strangely colored space rock/psychedelic fields, “Lonely Teenager” is a trip into a dark labyrinth of conscience. Read more The Residents – Lonely Teenager (2011)
Rafael Toral – Space Elements Vol. III (2011)
Toral plays experimental electronic instruments like electrode oscillator, modified MS-2 pocket amplifier feedback, glove-controlled computer bass sinewaves, filtered feedback circuit, modified MT-10 portable amplifier, modulated noise, modular synthesizer and tamtam. Sometimes it sounds like R2D2 are talking to you. Strongly interested in phrasing, he calls his style “post-free jazz electronic musicâ€, described as “a brand of electronic music far more visceral and emotive than that of his cerebral peersâ€. His music actually it’s kind of abstract, but interesting, you never really know what to expect in the next moment. And some of these experiments are quit exciting. The music is not congested, it’s airy, Toral know to use the silence and he’s colored it with interesting noises and all sort of elements to create atmosphere without being overwhelming. Read more Rafael Toral – Space Elements Vol. III (2011)
Contemporary Noise Sextet – Ghostwriter’s Joke (2011)
This is a vibrating, colorful, sometimes film like, but in the next moment explosively intense jazz album from Poland. The Kapsa brothers, who earlier formed the legendary emo-hardcore band called Something Like Elvis, established originally the Contemporary Noise Quintet transformed afterwards into Sextet. Their debut album called “Pig Inside The Gentleman” was released in the autumn of 2006. The variety of sounds does not allow pigeonholing their music style unambiguously. Smooth and hard elements crossing over in a dense texture of colorful elements, it’s like kind of film music without movie and jazz music without being quit jazz, but still, very classy tunes and elements are perfectly built in into the improvising and sometimes quit jazz-rock fusion taste like music. There’s actually no “noise” in their music, but definitively this is absolutely contemporary, breathing and alive music with exciting turns, moods and charming pulse. Read more Contemporary Noise Sextet – Ghostwriter’s Joke (2011)
Asking Alexandria – Reckless And Relentless (2011)
Expected to be released tomorrow, on April 5, 2011 through Sumerian Records the second studio album by English metalcore band Asking Alexandria consisting of 12 brand new songs, rocks hard. The so-called euro trance twists are still there, but they turn them into much heavier, industrial like sound, the band seems very determinate to kick big this time. They have actually a pretty busy agenda taking over the clubs one by one promoting their new album in US and from the end of the month they will return to UK and Europe and they will play constantly the whole summer spending their time on tour and hitting all the major festivals. “Reckless And Relentless” is an intense, powerful release and Asking Alexandria took a winning step further. Generally speaking, the second album of any artist/band is the most decisive one, the one that proof – or not – if the band previous success was deserved or only an accident of conjunctures. Read more Asking Alexandria – Reckless And Relentless (2011)
Den Brysomme Mannen aka The Bothersome Man (2006)
“A delightfully droll… black comedy”. Well, actually I didn’t laugh, but well, there was a few funny scenes. But still, it’s kind of creepy and weirdo. Hey! What the heck, I’m a weirdo too, a freak with some twisted tastes, so kind of like creepy movies! And this film won 20 awards and had 4 other nominations, so… Written by Per Schreiner and directed by Jens Lien, the story presents forty-year-old Andreas as arrives as the only passenger in a bus in a strange city where he is aspected and even welcomed. He’s got an apartment, clothes, a job, and he got even a girl-friend. But Andreas realize that something is wrong, everything seems some kind of fake. Makes an attempt to escape the city, but he discovers there’s no way out. He tried to harm him self, but that attempts also failed. Finally he met another person who seems to share his worries and who has found a crack in a wall in his cellar, a possible connection to “another world”. Read more Den Brysomme Mannen aka The Bothersome Man (2006)
Vessels – Helioscope (2011)
Vessels are a post-rock band from Leeds, UK, born from the ashes of the band A Day Left in September 2005. The band members are: Tom Evans – guitar, Tim Mitchell – drums, Martin Teff – guitar, bass, synth, Lee J. Malcolm – guitar, synth and Peter Wright – guitar, keys, bass.
The debut album “White Fields and Open Devices” was released through Cuckundoo Records in 2008 and a compilation called “A Cheery Wave From Stranded Youngsters: An Instrumental​​/​​Post​​-​​rock Compilation” is available on their Bandcamp page for download.
In May 2010 Vessels recorded their second album in Dallas, Texas, with John Congleton, known as a Grammy Nominated producer/engineer/mixer and through his own band, The Paper Chase. Read more Vessels – Helioscope (2011)
