This is a hell of a noisy and contorted release, but a quite brilliant, terrifying and hypnotizing one. And once again, Throatruiner Records give away the digital version for free, “name your price” and download/eventually buy the album or use the direct link from Mediafire – everything is there on the label’s Bandcamp page. We all love the free stuffs, but still, artists are also humans and have to fill up their refrigerators, have to pay their debts, rents and utilities, isn’t it? Not to mention the costs of playing music. And well, never thought about, don’t you? – running a record label, helping bands to go on and eventually break through might be done with love and passion, but still, it’s also a quite honorable job and it must be paid too. As I said before and I will keep on telling this: if we do not support the underground it will disappear eventually and we will be left exclusively with the so-called mainstream s*it delivered by the global corporations.
Throatruiner Records and other indie/DIY underground labels bring to the surface exciting and excellent bands as Comity are. Listen “The Journey Is Over Now” and buy the vinyl, nothing sounds like an authentic record spinning on your pick-up. Read more Comity – The Journey Is Over Now (2011)
post metal
Bruthal 6 – Augenblick (2011)
Their cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” drew attention among the metal fans and users of the YouTube back in 2006 and actually, it was a murderous cover. And well, Bruthal 6 are a murderous band, they find a brutal mixture of powerful thrash, groove and nu metal grindings with strong and melodious vocals and striking, memorable alternative metal schemes. Eventually imagine a collision between Godsmack and Sepultura, a perfect balance between aggression and harmonies, between brutality and expressive melodies. This band from Buenos Aires, Argentina fined their own, catchy and criminal style of metal. Read more Bruthal 6 – Augenblick (2011)
Animals As Leaders – Weightless (2011)
Tosin Abasi’s Animals As Leaders are back. Scheduled to be released on November 8, the 12 new tracks of “Weightless” picking up where they left off with their 2009 self-titled debut album.
Cutting edge riffs and fleet-fingered solos, the energy full explosion of metalcore and matchcore with the spacy pulse and smoothness of classic progressive rock and metal acts merging different approaches and sounds from Rush to Dream Theater, but adding to it a fresh and powerful breath, Animals As Leaders became soon one of the most critically acclaimed metal act.
I’m still not an unconditional supporter of instrumental rock/metal albums (and bands), but I have to admit, Animals As Leaders have some interesting moments, managed to avoid cliches and patterns, delivering good songs and not exclusively technically brilliant self-exposures. Scaling form metalcore to jazz, “Weightless” is a power and colorful release. Read more Animals As Leaders – Weightless (2011)
Boredom – World Bores To Death (2011)
Hardcore anybody? Can download Børedøm¸m’s “World Bores To Death” from their Bandcamp page FOR FREE. It’s a raging mixture of angry hardcore-punk and dirty crust, they are fast and furious, kind of Motorhead meets The Exploited.
As they say, they are from “a shiathole called Graz/Gradec which is located in a pitiful and stupid nation state called Austria in a construct called Europe. We try to deal with that somehow.” 😀 I actually can think of worst locations and situations, but this is not the issue. Formed in the winter of 2008/2009, and after a live-recorded demo released in 2009 and entitled “NÖMEN EST ÖMEN”, several split releases, “World Bores To Death” is the band’s debut full-length album. Read more Boredom – World Bores To Death (2011)
Dub Trio – IV (2011)
Their 2004 debut album “Exploring the Dangers of” was literally recorded as a live-dub experiment and the band managed to deliver their own unique interpretation of dub and push it further to the another level of an art form. DP – Dave Holmes (guitar & keyboards), Stu Brooks (bass & keyboards) and Joe Tomino (drums & Melodica) break down the walls between raggae, dub, electronica, rock, punk and heavy metal to bring to the surface their own powerful and breathing music.
Although I’m generally avoid any instrumental rock album because I consider them usually kind of meaningless and boring, Dub Trio have some kind of secret magic power, have that primal, ancient and natural force to keep your interest constantly high, to crush you down with their massive sound and expressive compositions. Read more Dub Trio – IV (2011)
Lou Reed and Metallica – Lulu (2011)
Metallica got a new lead singer or Mr. Lou Reed hired a metal band? This might be the clash of the titans, the collaboration of the millennium or a collision and disaster. The first sing released on YouTube, “The View”, in late September 2011, got up to date (and counting) 856,775 views from which 11,433 are dislikes and only 4,050 likes. One user wrote: “You’re know what I can’t wait for ? Willie Nelson and Slayer!!!!!!!!” Clash of the generations and styles? It’s kind of odd, after all these years and attempts of eliminate the genre limitations (in music I mean 👿 ), the audience seems to deliberately refuse any “violation” of the comfortable boundaries. I hear pretty much recently that idiograma “think outside of the box” while our parents, teachers, friends, politician, economists, priests and preachers, bosses and co-workers, the media, the internet (if someone consider it the closest person to him 😀 ), in less words, everybody and everything, pushing us back inside the box. The most obvious example is the Facebook. Instead taking advantage of the multitude of the internet (outside the box), most of the people are staying more and more captive exclusively on Facebook (inside the box). Talking with ex high-school lovers, growing sheep at virtual farms, read the news, giving likes to stranger’s cats or listening music, Facebook took over and for many becomes the internet itself, even further, the home and the family, the whole universe. Our feelings resume to giving – or not – likes superficially to “things” because we’re never leave that place, never dive beneath the surface. Any box is a prison and ladies and gentlemen, don’t matter what, I won’t imprisoning myself by free will ever! Read more Lou Reed and Metallica – Lulu (2011)
Sidilarsen – Machine Rouge (2011)
Compared to Nine Inch Nails, Rammstein and Noir Désir, Sidilarsen merged nu metal and industrial rock sounds to bring their own flavored fusion of electronic and metal/rock.
Founded in 1997 in Toulouse, France, the band released their full-length album debut, “Biotop”, in 2003. Their second album, “Eau” released in 2005 reach the French albums chart and was followed by the remix album “Réactivation Numérique” in 2006. “Une Nuit Pour Sept Jours”, the band’s third album was released in 2008 reaching number 140 on the French albums chart.
The 10 songs of their new album, “Machine Rouge” further down the sound weaves of dark electronica and cutting edge metal riffs and Sidilarsen delivered their best album up to date. Read more Sidilarsen – Machine Rouge (2011)
Kerrang! Presents – Nirvana Nevermind Forever (2011)
Back in August SPIN Magazine released as free download their own version of Nirvana’s breakthrough album and “Newermind A Tribute Album” collected reinterpretations of those classic songs by artist such as Meat Puppets, Titus Andronicus, Amanda Palmer, The Vaselines, Butch Walker & The Black Widows, Surfer Blood, etc. It was a funny, but quite vivid, “hollywoodish” way to recall Cobain’s genius.
“Nevermind” turns 20 and in September Kerrang! listed 101 reasons why it still rocks and delivered a 14-track Nirvana covers CD, featuring bands such as The Dillinger Escape Plan, Kids In Glass Houses, The Blackout, Arcane Roots, Deaf Havana, Rise To Remain, We Are The Ocean, etc. Read more Kerrang! Presents – Nirvana Nevermind Forever (2011)
Kosmograd – Self-titled (2011)
As you probably already know, “name your price” means even downloaded for free and Kosmograd delivering their self-titled debut album through their Bandcamp page in these circumstances, so go for it.
Kevin, Phil, Todd, Yegor are from Toronto, Canada and their debut album consist of five epic post-metal tracks, the shortest one is “Cheeseburger Picnic” with it’s shy three minutes while “The Owl” takes you on a eleven minutes trip. Kosmograd combines heavy and sludge metal elements into a spacy, sometimes cinematic, sometimes progressive and psychedelic soundscape, shifting between different moods and grooves smoothly. Imagine Hawkwind playing Iron Maiden or vice versa. Eventually somewhere in the outer space. Read more Kosmograd – Self-titled (2011)
Eyeswithoutaface – Monotoneoteny (2011)
A self-titled EP from 2010, their debut album, “Monotoneoteny” released this year in May and a remix album, “Tone Debris”, released this month, all three for free, can grab them from the band’s Bandcamp Page. Their music is a sick blending of Nine Inch Nails with sludge metal, some twisted modern psychedelia and criminal, pitched, black metal growling. Pretty rough mixture in deed, but definitively creative and quite original. So, these guys from Toronto have no connection with Billy Idol, but eventually with the 1960s film of Georges Franju, “Les yeux sans visage”. Definitively “must have” category and not only because it’s free, but they are brilliant. Read more Eyeswithoutaface – Monotoneoteny (2011)
