If you think it’s the perfect time to wider your musical horizon while the music became boring – which it’s actually f*ckin’ true -, One Morning Left might be your perfect choice and from where you kick out. Merging trance flavoured electronic layers, dubstep drops and mad wobbling, with death metal rooted extreme metal butcheries, One Morning Left delivers all. This is fun and simultaneously deadly serious. Screaming like a slaughtered pig (Mika “Miksu” Lahti), or singing loud and clear (Tomi “Tomppa” Salonen), banging on techno beats (Veli-Matti “Vesku” Kananen) or heavy basses (Tuomas “Tumppi” Teittinen), murderous guitar riffs (Ari “Arska” Levola), blood vomiting growls and total brutality – One Morning Left covers all. And – surprisingly – this sounds great and make sense! Or not really surprisingly. Geerally speaking, Scandinavians delivers quality stuffs. Eventually, in the particular case of One Morning Left, blame it on the Finnish climate, Scooter, Lauri Tähkä and the mental hospitals… Read more One Morning Left – Our Sceneration (2013)
post metal
Vuyvr – Eiskalt (2013)
Über brutality – total aggression. But it feels good and sounds murderous. Raw, unpolished, furious and totally grinding into the ground type of black metal with well determined roots back to the traditional Nordic sound, but simultaneously looking boldly into the future and exploring yet virgin outer limits of the genre. Vuyvr are the new Swiss challengers and they are definitively the most devilish offspring of some glorious predecessors as Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Samael or Coroner.
My favorite butcheries are “War Of 100 000 Centuries”, “Idolatry”, “Dead Trees Are Wandering At” and the epic “The Wyvern”. Read more Vuyvr – Eiskalt (2013)
The Phantom Carriage – Falls (2013)
Back in 2011, the debut album, “New Thing” by the French band, The Phantom Carriage, literally rocked my world, it was an exciting and tumultous mixture of black metal rooted extreme metal and jazz fueled experimental, avant-garde contortions and envelop-pushing. It was one of the best releases of 2011 and I was very anxious about the follow-up. Well, “Falls” unfortunately pulled off all the experimental tooth of the band and this second turn they focused exclusively on the post-modern, hardcore fueled, nowadays more and more trendy extreme metal side of the band. Don’t get me wrong, “Falls” it’s brutally good, but I miss those experimental, jazz flavoured passages, those dark and adventurous breakdowns.
“Falls” it’s a grinding to the ground collection of slaughters, you can run, but you can not hide, The Phantom Carriage will get you and rip you apart! Read more The Phantom Carriage – Falls (2013)
Triptych – 3 Melbourne based bands split, promo CD (2013)
3 Melbourne based bands, Asperity Within, Belle Haven and Glorified! released this free promo album, each band featuring with two original tracks. Not at least, can grab the 6 tracks for free (“name your price”) from each band’s Bandcamp page. Cool and a smart, efficient, joint way to promote their bands.
The sonic slaughter starts with Asperity Within, “Mutatio” begin smooth and quietly, but shifting into a contorted, technical and gloomy, death metal fueled butchery build upon solid riffs, schizophrenic harmonies and blood vomiting vocals. “Atrophy” starts pretty the same, gentle and misleading, but with the menacing riffs turn into another depressive and maniac metalcore massacre. The breakdown it’s very tasty, the swinging between the spacier and smoother passages and the total grinder moments it’s very efficient. The solos are also adding a nice colour to the tracks. Promising start!
“Spite Conception”, the first track by Belle Haven Read more Triptych – 3 Melbourne based bands split, promo CD (2013)
No Omega – Metropolis (2012)
Extreme and brutal, dark and raw sounding, this Stockholm based post-hardcore band will rip your head off with tones of ferocious riffs and their chaotic, contorted, furious music. Both rooted to punk and metal, this pounding, post-hardcore genre became quite popular lately and many exciting new bands proved true creativity widening the borders of the extreme, avant-garde music. They call their music “hopeless and heartbreaking doomsday hardcore punk”, which actually covers quite consistently the noisy butchery and beautiful poetry they create.
No Omega manage to define their own sound and find their own path of express their fury and desperation, although, they are recommended for fans of Touché Amoré, Dead Swans, Killing the Dream, Meleeh, Oceana and Rise and Fall.
They are also promote and support vegans and vegetarians, as well as they incorporates political ideas and civilization criticism into their lyrics. They spreading these ideas in a very open and relaxed way, but you can still enjoy their music without agreeing with their views and opinions. Best thing come last, “Metropolis” can be downloaded even for free (“name your price”) from their Bandcamp page, or can order from there the hard copy, CD for 6 Euro, respectively the 12″ vynil for 10 Euro. As I always say, artist need and deserves our support and encouragement! No Omega it’s definitively a name to keep in mind! Read more No Omega – Metropolis (2012)
Funeral For a Friend – Conduit (2013)
The sixth studio album by Welsh post-hardcore band Funeral for a Friend was released through Distiller Records on 28 January 2013 for Europe, and will be released on 5 February 2013 through The End Records In the United States.
Funeral For a Friend are considered one of the prominent influence on the British post-hardcore scene and their debut album, “Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation” it’s considered by most of the critics and fans as a release which set a high standard for the band to rival in future releases.
With diverse roots back and gathered influences from heavy metal to melodic and post-hardcore, adding emo and screamo weaponry, Funeral For a Friend have shown a progression and maturity with each record, although, some fans disliked the changes while on the way they lost some brutality and became more melodic and the howling, screaming vocals were almost completeyly replaced by clean vocals. Read more Funeral For a Friend – Conduit (2013)
Obselion – The Calm Fire, EP (2012)
The opening title track, “The Calm Fire” might be misleading. Wobbling basses and the smooth, but sober electronic layers only announce the storm to come. I think a smart exploration of those fancy elements and a proper use of them along the brutal riffing, the death fueled vocals and the metalcore flavoured build-ups would add a great support to the musical experiment of Mohammed Sawan, the brain and musician behind this Abu Dhabi project.
“The Oppressed” it’s an intense and exciting journey on the wings of progressive death metal with several metalcore taste like breaks and neo-classic, Yngwie Malmsteen flavoured, powerful guitar passages. If Malmsteen would ever try to play death metal, that definitively would sound like “FAIL! Try Again”. Even the clean vocals reminded me of the Swedish guitar hero. The breakdown it’s very classy, heavy metal fueled, but some of the riffs are also extremely power/speed metal fueled. Extremely technical, but still soulful and expressive mixture of styles and sounds. Read more Obselion – The Calm Fire, EP (2012)
Gliding Soul – Travelling With Mr. Who, EP (2012)
Gliding Soul deliver a quite contorted and dynamic mixture of modern metal heaving roots back to death metal, but revealing nu and groove metal resonances and metalcore infusions as well. While singer Benoit Derat mainly sings as Maynard Keenan of Tool, sometimes he shift into Serj Tankian, but he’s also capable of some deadly or furious death metal howls. The band’s music it’s same colourful and intense. Technical, progressive death metal, brutal metalcore and twisted out nu metal with experimental edge are efficiently merged here. Brutal riffs and acoustic breakdowns, complex rhythms and aggressive grindings are smartly incorporated and build together. Think of a mixture of Tool, System of A Down with a twist of Korn and death metal.
Very intense, very efficient and creative. Although they definitively have some solid influences, the final output it’s expressive and efficient. Technically flawless, Gliding Soul it’s a name to keep in mind if you love experimental, but brutal, modern metal! Read more Gliding Soul – Travelling With Mr. Who, EP (2012)
Converge – All We Love We Leave Behind (2012)
Sick as f*ck, fast and loud, Converge, one of the most creative and explosive metal bands emerged from the underground in the last decade it’s back with their eighth and deadliest album. Playing an extremely innovative blend of hardcore punk and modern, death and groove fueled extreme metal, Converge not only opened the path for a new generation of furious metallers, but also inspired and influenced a brand new generation of bands and consistently contributed to define many of the elements of the metalcore genre.
Their previous album, the 2009’s “Axe to Fall” peaked at number 74 in the Billboard 200 and the expectations were pretty high regarding their new release.
“All We Love We Leave Behind” it’s a new milestone in the history of the metal. This is metal f*ckers! True, raw, unpolished, stainless metal. Not that kind of s*it that the media call it metal(core) nowadays and the industry sell it labeled as “the real thing” to the naive teenagers. Surprise!! No electronic layers, no bass drops, no borrowed, Skrillex type of contortions. Fortunately! Read more Converge – All We Love We Leave Behind (2012)
Voivod – Target Earth (2013)
While both fans and critics were skeptical regarding the future of Voivod considering that guitarist Piggy (Denis D’Amour) was Voivod, three years after releasing the supposed final album “Infini” and touring pretty heavily with new guitarist Chewy (Daniel Mongrain), Voivod is back and seems and sound healthier and stronger then ever. Blacky (Jean-Yves Thériault), their former bassist who left the band in 1991 after releasing “Angel Rat” returned as well in 2008, so, “Target Earth” actually have excellent chances to be another murderous Voivod release. And it is. With serious resonances back to “Killing Technology” (1987) and their definitive mile stone “Nothingface” (1989), regarding their lucky thirteen studio album, there’s nothing to complaining about. Actually, if I would not know that Piggy passed away back in 2005, I could swear he delivered secretly all those bone cutter, maniac riffs. Damn! Some of those riffs are quite familiar. This is one of the best Voivod albums since “The Outer Limits” (1993) and a glorious return to their Pink Floyd affected, complex and schizophrenic, thrash metal polluted experimental/progressive/avant-garde (insane) metal. Read more Voivod – Target Earth (2013)
