This is brutally good! Merging Deathcore with modern flavored Metalcore, but with solid roots back to classy and powerful Heavy Metal, this 5 piece band from Tours, France formed in 2010 are making their debut with a consistent 5 track plus intro EP. It’s almost like August Burns Red would play Manowar covers.
And Emile Duputié (vocals), Adrien Joulin (drums), Matthieu Dupou (bass), Mickey Martin (rythmic guitar) and Anthony Mateus (lead guitar) mention as influences bands such as: August Burns Red, The Ghost Inside, Lamb of God, Norma Jean, Pantera, Haste the Day, Chimaira, Hatebreed, The Bled, Every Time I Die, Emmure, The Acacia Strain, Comeback Kid, Cancer Bats, Trivium, All That Remains, etc.
Powerful, furious riffs, mainly death like growls and intense, pounding drums are the ammunition of Beyond The Styx and they gonna grind you into the ground. Read more Beyond The Styx – Sloughing Off The Shades, EP (2012)
Life and Living
metalcore
Beyond The Styx – Between Scylla & Charybdis, video single
Beyond the Styx is a five piece Alternative Metal/Hardcore band from Tours (France), formed in October 2010, delivering a kind of hybrid between Deathcore & Metalcore. Their declared influences are bands such as August Burns Red, The Ghost Inside, Lamb of God, Norma Jean, and Pantera. Some really intense heavy s*it!!
Beyond the Styx are: Emile Duputié (vocals), Adrien Joulin (drums), Matthieu Dupou (bass), Mickey Martin (rythmic guitar) and Anthony Mateus (lead guitar).
“Between Scylla & Charybdis” it’s the band brand new video single, enjoy it! Read more Beyond The Styx – Between Scylla & Charybdis, video single
Motionless In White – Infamous (2012)
Who wants to look like Marilyn Manson? Chris Cerulli, Motionless in White founder member and lead singer might be one of the right answers. “The Divine Infection” sounds just like a filthy Manson anthem picking up from where they left off with their 2003’s “The Golden Age of Grotesque”. “A-M-E-R-I-C-A” it’s fueled by the same fury, although some nowadays fancy Metalcore infusions are making room here and there like the worm eating up an apple from the inside. “Sinematic” it’s another quite Mansonish track; for a change, it’s a sick ballad. “Hatefuck” sounds like a murderous mixture of Manson and Killswitch Engage. The title traack, “Infamous” it’s another 100% Mansonish Industrial Rock sickness.
“Puppets 2 (The Rain)” – featuring Bjorn Speed Strid of Soilwork – sounds like a collision of Cradle of Filth with Bullet for My Valentine; a brutal mixture of Death and Extreme Metal with Metalcore, death-growling vocals and melodious choruses. They smartly incorporated blast beats and breakdowns in their Gothic perfumed atmosphere and Death Metal fueled massacres.
“Infamous” it’s like a constant race between good and evil. It’s like the beauty and the beast, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were not three, but one single person. And obviously, a headbanger!! Read more Motionless In White – Infamous (2012)
Promethee – Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes (2012)
Growing up from the solid ground of Technical Death Metal and from the sonic neighborhood of murderous bands such as The Dillinger Escape Plan and Converge, Promethee is a five-piece Metal band from Geneva, the heart of the Swiss metal scene.
Founded in the spring of 2008, and after only a few months of writing their first songs, the band started to play as many shows as they could, gaining quickly loads of local support from bands, friends and promoters.
Gathering experience, the band found it’s own personal sound in order to record a full-length album. Promethee doesn’t have a particular political, religious, philosophical message of any kind, but writes about the things that touches and effects them in this world and through their lives with the music they create.
Recorded at Conatus Studios, mixed by Vladimir Cochet and released on October 13th, 2012 through Bad Mood Records, the 10 tracks of “Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes” will grind you into the ground without mercy. Read more Promethee – Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes (2012)
Bone Dance – Self-Titled (2012)
Morgan Mechling – vocals, Phillip Davis – guitars and vocals, Kasey Richardson – guitars, Bryce Kresge – bass and visuals, and Patrick Santana – drums are here to unleash the Hell of fury and contorted, merciless Metal. Forging genres, melting into one Black Metal and (Post) Hardcore, Sludge and Doom, technical and extreme Metal, Bone Dance is not “just” a band, but an attitude, a state of spirit and mind, and they delivering not “only” music, but their work is a manifest. Back in the days, Rollins Band had this kind of attitude and energy, although Bone Dance speeding up wildly, just like you put a 33⅓ r.p.m. spinning vinyl record up on 45 while Morgan Mechling keep on howling bloody deadly.
Grinding the tooth of chaotic Hardcore/Metal, Bone Dance enforce the balance and sharpness, clarity in their music, find the equilibrium between rage and conscience, despair and revolt, gloom and grooves. And throughout this extremely consistent 10 tracks, Bone Dance manage to merge the extremes: slowly grinding moments with brutally fast overtakes; contorted and gloomy riffs with cutting to the bone sharp ones; truly distorted, twisted passages with groovy, powerful build-ups. This wild, but fluid approach keeps the listener attention sharp throughout this massacre. Give up all hopes and push play!! Read more Bone Dance – Self-Titled (2012)
Aphrodite’s Baby – 90, EP (2012)
My French is rusty ( 😆 ), so, their bio in French really did not helped me too much, but this 4 track EP is definitively pretty convincing. Aphrodite’s Baby reminds me of an unleashed Rollins Band, they managed to merged together the Punk attitude, the Hardcore rawness and the intensity and grooves of the modern Metal and delivered an ass-kicker material.
But this “90” it’s also a fun concept. Danny Madigan, played by Austin O’Brien, was the kid in the “Last Action Hero” movie, (1993) the big fan of Jack Slater, a larger-than-life action hero played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Axel Stone is one of the main character of the “Streets of Rage” series video game beside Adam Hunter and Blaze Fielding. And far as I found out, “Hocus Locust” is a skill from the “Dragon Quest” series and this skill reduces the MP of one enemy. I’m still in trouble and digging for Larry Kubiac who might be Francis Lawrence “Larry” Kubiac III played by Abraham Benrubi in the American teen sitcom, entitled “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose” which originally aired on FOX from September 1990 to June 1993, but I’m really not sure about this…. 😆
So, the music is Read more Aphrodite’s Baby – 90, EP (2012)
Abandon All Ships – Infamous (2012)
Ten tracks, 32:41 minutes, the sophomore album by the Canadian Abandon All Ships are a tumultuous merging of electronic layers and grinding Hardcore raging. Labeled “Metalcore”, Post-Hardcore, incorporating Trance and even Electro-Pop elements, this new type of Metal targeting a new generation of teenagers lost between Facebook and escapades down in the club with fake IDs. I do not mean to be Infamous, but no sneakers, no cry!!
The music is dark, furious, noisy and more heavy then electronic, the Trance inspired breakdowns, breathing pauses are only accentuate the violence and explosion of the contorted, heavy parts.
While the opening Read more Abandon All Ships – Infamous (2012)
The Contortionist – Intrinsic (2012)
Positioned right between bands as Between the Buried and Me and Cynic, The Contortionist sophomore album “Intrinsic” is a 10 station journey to the outer limits of Deathcore rooted Progressive Metal. Quite disturbing, twisted in and out, upside down and back and forth, complex and technical, but power and soulful, focusing both on intensity and subtle, gently layered atmosphere, “Intrinsic” is a refreshing search for authentic expression in a patterned, predictable and rarely creative world – strictly profit oriented music industry. Also blinking to artist as Rush and Dream Theater, and sometimes reminds me of the early VoiVod (“Nothingface”), The Contortionist deliver an extremely inspired and complex Progressive Metal product, the perfect blending of brutality and edge cutting, experimental, boundaries shattering music. Read more The Contortionist – Intrinsic (2012)
P.O.D. – Murdered Love (2012)
P.O.D. anybody? Remember them – or their hypnotic/anthematic “Youth of the Nation”? Maybe it’s just me, but it seems (at least) a lifetime ago. Although “Satellite” was the band’s fourth studio album and it was released in 2001. “Satellite” went on to become RIAA-certified triple platinum while the author of “Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music” has described P.O.D. as “One of the biggest success stories in recent Christian music.”
Their previous album, “When Angels & Serpents Dance” was released in 2008, “only” 4 years ago and that album also marked the return of the original lead guitarist Marcos Curiel and the departure of his replacement, Jason Truby.
The band’s name, Payable on Death (P.O.D.), derives itself from the banking term “Payable on Death” and they chose this name to be a direct tie in to Christianity, which explains, that since Jesus died on the Cross, Christians inherit all of his assets – Heaven. Well, I do not buy products at my door from traveling salesman, and well, I do not buy salvation from (Rock) bands. Still, they sold over 10 million records worldwide. 😆 Christian Metal actually it’s not a genre oriented music, but targeting a huge market of believers and eventually, ultimately non-believers. Read more P.O.D. – Murdered Love (2012)
The Elijah – I Loved I Hated I Destroyed I Created (2012)
When the market is full-filed with millions of same look-like, sound-like, taste-like products – not quite artists I’m afraid – sometimes (pre) judging a CD by its cover, might be a pretty strong argument. First the cover, then the title – “I Loved I Hated I Destroyed I Created” – grabbed my attention.
Dan – Vocals, Michael – Vocals, Guitar, Sean – Guitar, Orchestration, Sam – Bass, and Jakub – Drums managed to explore a quite unique path somewhere between Sigur Rós and At the Drive-In, a disturbing place where ambiental, cinematic soundscapes and turbulent, furious (Post) Hardcore collide and make an actually nice pair as only opposites are capable of. Read more The Elijah – I Loved I Hated I Destroyed I Created (2012)
