Album opener “When Sun Comes Out” is an awesome dance-oriented rock song that blows your mind with phat bass lines and a kick drum that blasts through walls like the Kool-Aid Man. Stomping rhythms and dynamic melodies coalesce into a twisted new form of pop music that is fit for kings and ladies. Complex song arrangements and infinite sound spectrums numb your ears while the sick rhythms that only someone from Austria could build together mash your guts inside out. Humorous lyrics, crunchy distortion, and industrialized beats aren’t the only attraction with Bulbul, they blend their own uniquely weird take on electronica, hard rock, indie art-rock, and bass-oriented thick melodies for something just outside of the Jesus Lizard and Mr. Bungle. Damn good combustible rock that is impossible to put into any subcategory–unless that subcategory is ‘awesome’.
Dude. Synth-pop with melodies so infectious they spread faster than HIV at a swinger’s party, Hooray for Earth just is dripping wet with fucking awesome choruses. The Boston-based group plays fun-filled and energetic melodic pop-rock that’s a clear alternative to all of those bland woe-is-me singer/songwriters that seem to dominate the underground scene these days. I love that their guitars sound as big as Lady Liberty. Amazingly tight and a complete uniform good time. Sweet!
A one-man show of old-school black metal and doom, Hellveto likes to play with odd atmospheres and build upon that ambience for something truly bruising. The guitars can range from lo-fi garage noise to something right out of a 40-man orchestra. An odd combo but one that seems to work for Hellveto pretty damn well. While “Neoheresy” is nowhere near as menacing as the album title might suggest, it does strike a nerve. I would appreciate it if more blackened metal folks would focus more on the melodic side of death and gloom than always striking for the juggular with rough distortion, screaming wails and shrieks, and grinding blast beats.
Thrash metal that is unafraid of daring to do things a little outside of the Swedish metal mold. Slightly growling vocals that kill throats and remind one of near Slayer awesome. Fast and pounding drums anthem their way into your brain causing ecstasy and headbanging. These are some mean looking fucks too on their cover art. I highly doubt any one in Guillotine would be afraid to be the executioner and purveyor of the bloody guillotine. Let the heads roll I could hear them say. But also “Blood Money” isn’t a bunch of mindless blatthering about how tough the band is, how much gore they can shove into their lyrics, or how anti-society they are. Thankfully they attack the politics of the U.S. and the ridiculous amount of money that corporations and politicians push around to one another. Guillotine refuses to sit around amid this circle jerk of influence and peddling without raising their voice. And that voice is a welcome one.
Reunions are often poo-pooped because of their high school conotations. Well Cynic’s reunion damn well is welcome, needed, and an absolute must-have. These impressive progressive metal juggernauts unleash a storm of flashy prog-metal that dominates with large guitars and even bigger drumming. All the while their vocalist stomps the vocoder pedal hard and never unleashes except for a few dozen growl belches. Niiice.
Ask yourself what happened to the honey bees, and inevitably Beehoover will never enter the conversation. But ask yourself who is doing the best job of creating the next generation’s Black Sabbath and they most certainly would enter the Top Ten List. Crunchy guitars noise their way past over-amped speakers that are cracked with so much distortion it would make the Pope an athesist. “Pain Power” and “Iron Horse” are perhaps the most enigmatic songs with their intriguing 8-bit videogames and like-minded keyboard-esque sound effects. If you like less gloom in your doom, then crash with this duo of progressive-minded underground rock stars. Guaranteed to please the distortion pedal worshipper.
Toronto’s own Nadja blitzkriegs the metal community with their brand of punishing fuzzy experimental metal opuses. Loud and crunchy bass lines up next to starlet guitar fuzz distorted into a dank underbelly of stench and rot yet still retaining that blissful state that only My Bloody Valentine could retain with such heavy distortion. Dreamy sludge metal drips from the vacant eyesockets of a skull lit by internal candles and a dizzying array of psychedelics. Imagine what would happen if your favorite sludge metal mavens got together, took a lot of bong hits laced with crystal meth and played metal until the electric company cut the power. All of this with the power of a drum machine that brings back memories of past Godflesh accomplishments. Dazzyling.
Punishing epic blackened doom metal from Portland quartet Trees, “Lights Bane” has a destiny for glacially shifting doom into a more spacial and visceral path. Smashing cymbals and pounding drums amid a humming distorted guitar and banshee screeches comprise the two epic tracks that make up this debut from one of Oregon’s most sincerely hypnotic crushers. Sick.
We all know what the Netherlands are famous for…orchestrated black doom metal of course! This intense and lo-fi abstract horror in “An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood” sounds like the lost soundtrack that never was for horror movie “Susperia“. Ranging from panic-inducing blood-curdling howls and symphonic splatterfest scores, Gnaw Their Tongues have unleashed one of the most epicly disturbing and repulsive albums of abstract mania. Perhaps “Teeth that Leer Like Open Graves” tells it best with its confession from a mass murderer amid heavy decibels of distortion and insanity-driven crunch. If you’re looking for something demented to show how ungodly you are, this is fucking it.
The joy of listening to an album by Download is deciphering and breaking down each element to the complex sound collage that makes up each and every track. “Sorcear” is a perfect example, trolling about with an almost raunchy bassline and rhythm track, there’s exhausting bleeps, noises, and distorted sounds emanating from the speakers in a random yet controlled chaotic setting. “Zass Pie” continues with yawning voice samples that seem to whisper subversive hints into each ear only to be stood up tall with a military-esque kick drum and blasts of filtered rhythms. Over the years, cEvin Key (Skinny Puppy, pLateaU, Doubting Thomas, etc.) has honed his craft into an ambient textured orchestrated chaos with fittings of pure keyboard bliss, distorted and tangled sound effects, and mangled samples that reek of bong residue. Key over the years has easily been recognized as one of the most influential artists in the electronic circuit surpassing the likes of Autechre, Nine Inch Nails, and even the mighty Aphex Twin who now seem to follow his grace with rabid fascination. Twisted acidic breakbeats haunt many of the tracks with a renewed focus on dance rhythms that are broken, tossed into the air, only to rain down upon our ears. Each album that Download seems to pen casts aside previous futuristic sounds for a chaotic future of disco breaks that no one ever sees coming. Perhaps the most intriguing element of “FiXeR” is its uncanny ability to connect with the listener on so many different planes of existence–I could easily sit still and absorb each tune, as well as get up and attempt to dance, or leave it as background music while reading; but it really gets its vibe off proper when the listener allows each cast-off melody, every broken beat, and all singularly textured and heavily effected soundwave wash over him or her seeming to will a mirror of the listener’s soul and thought patterns out in a playful way. Astonishing and perhaps one of the best all-time electronic albums.
