With strong roots back to Doom and Dark Metal, formed in 2002, Process Of Guilt bring darkness and contorted heaviness from the sunny Portugal.
After self-releasing two demos, “Portraits of Regret”, respectively “Demising Grace”, in 2006 they delivered their own-flavored debut album entitled “Renounce”.
Their second full-length “Erosion” was released in 2008 followed by performances while sharing the stage with acts as diverse as The Ocean, Intronaut, Minsk, A Storm Of Light, Katatonia, Napalm Death and Rotten Sound.
3 years after the release of “Erosion” the band release their third – and deadly – album. For only €5 you can download the digital album, five epic and grinding songs, revealing a new level of darkness, contortion and heaviness which will definitively nail you down. Be prepered for the collision! Read more Process of Guilt – Faemin (2012)
post metal
I See Stars – Digital Renegade (2012)
Merging the so-called Post-Hardcore with electronic layers and build-ups with influences from Trance and House seems to be the most fashionable recipe lately for a new generation of headbangers growing up on bands such as Linkin Park. I’m not a huge fan of this new trends, but definitively there are a few excellent bands. And I See Stars are definitively much better then 8 out of 10 of these bands.
“Digital Renegade” (stylized as [digital_renegade]) is the third studio album by the band formed in 2006, in Warren, Michigan. Their debut album entitled “3-D”, released in 2009 and featured a guest appearance from Bizzy Bone of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, has peaked at #176 on the Billboard 200. It was followed by “The End of the World Party” released in 2011.
“Digital Renegade” was released on March 13, 2012 and this time the boys take their music on a much aggressive, abrasive way, the grinding Metal rooted elements are overwhelming the electronic-melodic moments. Read more I See Stars – Digital Renegade (2012)
Reserve de Marche – The Last Twenty Years (2012)
7 tracks – 50 minutes, the debut album by this three-piece instrumental rock band from Moscow, Russia, is an excellent and colorful mixture of (Rock) genres and styles from classic, Progressive Rock to Post-Rock, Match Rock, Sludge and Shoegaze. Atmospheric, dark passages and heavy riffs, intense moments are combined and the merge of the different elements make the… difference.
If you’re looking for a groovy, still emotional, dark, but contorted and sometimes intense and heavy, modern, instrumental Rock album, “The Last Twenty Years” worth your attention. “Name your price” means you can downloaded even for free, or you can order the CD from Mals Records. Read more Reserve de Marche – The Last Twenty Years (2012)
Now, Voyager – Seas, EP (2012)
If you neighbors pissed you off, it’s time to piss back! 😆 Turn up the volume, push play and leave this EP on repeat one day or two. You will earn your neighbors respect. Joking and not so. “Seas” is a murderous EP from an up and coming metal band from Brussels, Belgium. Formed in late 2010, quickly garnered a reputation for fierce, powerful live shows and an unique, well crafted sound. If you like the technical Death Metal forged by Cynic and you love the nowadays fancy Post-Hardcore/Metalcore outfits, Now, Voyager will definitively become your new favorite.
Extremely intense, but contagious, their songs will set the world on fire and grind you into the ground. This 4 track EP is one of the most impressive debuts I heard lately, it has the perfect balance between contorted heaviness and subtle, expressive musicality. This is the best soulful fury I ever heard! The Metal never sound so grinding and fresh as it blows out from this songs. And can get enough of it, you will want more and more. Read more Now, Voyager – Seas, EP (2012)
Ihsahn – Eremita (2012)
Ihsahn – Vegard Sverre Tveitan, born in 1975, in the town of Notodden, Norway, began playing piano at seven and guitar at ten and began recording songs shortly thereafter. He began his career at age thirteen as a member of what would become fledgling black metal crew Emperor. As a band, Emperor would both define and refine metal, pushing the boundaries of what was considered possible within the most arcane of art forms and taking some of the most adventurous and extreme music of all time to a huge global audience. With albums like seminal “In The Nightside Eclipse” – recorded when Ihsahn was only seventeen, and “Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk”, Emperor obliterated all-comers and became one of the most revered metal bands in history. After the release of their final masterpiece, “Prometheus: The Discipline Of Fire & Demise” in 2001, Ihsahn announced that the band were to part ways to enable himself and his colleagues to pursue new creative avenues.
He also played in Peccatum with his wife Ihriel (real name Heidi S. Tveitan) until 2006 and has appeared in Thou Shalt Suffer, Zyklon-B and Hardingrock, and now devotes himself to his solo project, Ihsahn. “Eremita” – the latin for hermit – is the anticipated fourth solo album, which was released on June 18 by Candlelight Records.
Recorded and produced at Telemark’s Ivory Shoulder Studios, with additional tracking completed at Notodden’s Juke Joint Studio and Seattle’s Envisage Audio, Eremita was mixed by Jens Bogren (Opeth) at Fascination Street Studios in rebro, Sweden. Alongside Ihsahn, the album features performances from drummer Tobias rnes Andersen (Leprous), saxophonist Jrgen Munkeby (Shining-Norway), guitarist Jeff Loomis (ex-Nevermore), and vocalists Devin Townsend, Einar Solberg (Leprous) and Heidi S. Tveitan (Starofash). The album’s packaging has been created by award-winning Spanish designer Ritxi Ostariz. Read more Ihsahn – Eremita (2012)
Linkin Park – Living Things (2012)
Yo! I’m gonna be deadly honest: never was a Linkin Park fan, even further, I kind of consider them the (more or less) Rock version of New Kids On The Block, or any other prefabricated boy band. Now, Rick Florino of Artistdirect called it the band’s “best record and a landmark for rock as a whole”, which, we have to admit, set our expectations probably excessively high. And once again, it’s not the case. Don’t have to be a musicologist to figure it out, Linkin Park are not Faith No More, NIN, Ministry, Nirvana or name any other genre founder and envelope pusher, edge cutter band, but a smartly managed and marketed and generally pretty over-produced band. Don’t misunderstand me, the famous Rick Rubin and vocalist Mike Shinoda on their third collaboration of co-producing a Linkin Park album were done – again – an excellent job, but the sharp production and the bombastic sound can not cover the mediocrity and shapelessness beneath the surface. And once again, Linkin Park collected a million different sounds and musical approaches and blended them into their own spiced “thing”, but that still do not actually make it their own. Linkin Park might be the perfect prototype of a fully functional machine without its own soul which each time borrowing one. Imagine Mona Lisa (La Gioconda or La Joconde) without her mouth – and mysterious smile. Read more Linkin Park – Living Things (2012)
Cowards – Shooting Blanks And Pills (2012) Free download!
Gathering current and ex-members of Sickbag, Death Mercedes, Hangman’s Chair, Eibon, Glorior Belli, Dacast, Colossus of Destiny, the Parisian Cowards delivered their 38 minutes of raging fury and filth, merging Hardcore, Sludge/Doom and Black Metal into their debut effort entitled “Shooting Blanks And Pills”. The album will be officially co-released on 30 June 2012 by Throatruinner Records and Hellbound Records. The digital version is already available for free download (name your price) on the official Bandcamp page of the record label, while the 12” LP will be out in late june and limited to 300 copies on black vinyl.
Disturbing, twisted, dark and intense, the 6 tracks of the album are still impressively musical, melodious, Cowards sounds like a mixture of Black Sabbath and Motorhead with Eyehategod and Deathspell Omega, the perfect combination of heaviness and rawness with classic approach, riffing and contorted dark vibe. Read more Cowards – Shooting Blanks And Pills (2012) Free download!
John Zorn (Moonchild Trio) – Templars-In Sacred Blood (2012)
In 2006 John Zorn formed the hardcore voice/bass/drums trio of Mike Patton, Trevor Dunn, and Joey Baron which became known as the Moonchild Trio. The very same year the trio performed and released two albums of Zorn’s compositions: “Moonchild: Songs Without Words” – an album inspired in part by Aleister Crowley, Antonin Artaud and Edgard Varèse and “Astronome”. A third album with the trio, but also featuring Zorn, Ikue Mori, Jamie Saft and chorus, “Six Litanies for Heliogabalus”, was released in 2007. Their fourth release “The Crucible” appeared in 2008, and “Ipsissimus” – one of the best albums of 2010 and my personal favorite albums of all time – was released in 2010.
Now Joey Baron – Drums, Trevor Dunn – Bass, John Medeski – Organ and Mike Patton – Voice are back with the 6th CD in the Moonchild legacy. All songs was written by Zorn and they spend over one year in the making. Disturbing and tumultuous, sometimes extremely intense or silently subtle, the 8 songs of “Templars-In Sacred Blood” will take the listeners into another mystical journey. Read more John Zorn (Moonchild Trio) – Templars-In Sacred Blood (2012)
Mental Architects – Celebrations (2012)
Mental Architects are a math rock trio from Sofia, Bulgaria, formed in 2001. Tony- guitars, Niki – bass/ keys and Max – drums/ electronics delivering a very intense, but refreshing cocktail of Math Rock and Progressive Rock, heavy riffs and very technical parts, rapid passages and slow, sometimes meditative moments are smartly build together in a flowing, beautiful hurricane of music.
They reminds me of Valerian Swing and their brilliant 2011 album “A Sailor Lost Around The Earth”. “Celebrations” consist of eight songs, each one of them being a small masterpiece, a little joyful ride. Read more Mental Architects – Celebrations (2012)
Fear Factory – The Industrialist (2012)
At two year distance, following “Mechanize”, Burton C. Bell and Dino Cazares are back, they still using the Fear Factory name although the other former half of the band, drummer Raymond Herrera and bass player Christian Olde Wolbers still did not give up on their right of using the name and still pretend they are, legally and morally, still part of the band, so, there are – at least – some “legal complications”.
“Mechanize” was a very intense one, but not the best Fear factory album so far, this time Burton described the new material to be another concept album “sonically, conceptually, and lyrically”. And getting through the album for two-three times only confirmed that they definitively delivered an excellent product this time, and this is the perfect mixture of everything what Fear Factory have been. Read more Fear Factory – The Industrialist (2012)
