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.
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.
I’ve been awaiting Asva’s follow-up for a while now. Am I disappointed? Not in the least. In fact “What You Don’t Know is Frontier” is a landmark album of vast psychedelic post-metal from a group so wrought with talent that it’s amazing that people in the metal community still have no idea who these cats are. Asva trudges through a bleak landscape of post-metal cursed with stoned-out guitar distortion, crunching mid’s, and stark harmonies. You know how there are those sample discs that you can use to test out your new expensive stereo system or home theatre outfit? “What You Don’t Know is Frontier” is the only album you’ll ever need to test your surround sound system and speakers. Blessed with the likes of Stuart Dahlquist, he of Burning Witch, Sunn 0))), and Goatsnake fame, as well as members of bands such as Earth, Mr. Bungle, and Burning Witch, this instrumental opus is speckled with faint heartaches, sinister sounding organs, and gut-wrenching guitar fuzz. Raw emotion captured and controlled by some of the brightest pinnacles of the heavy doom metal and stoner rock community. In a word, awesome.
Listen to “A Trap for Judges” [MP3]
Boston has become known as a scene of mavericks in the hardcore and chaotic metal circuits. Ehnahre further exemplifies this theory with their amazing debut record “The Man Closing Up” on Sound Devastation Records. Featuring multiple guitars and even a double bass, Ehnahre is chaotic death metal with elements of doom and experimental orchestral instrumentation dotting the album. Each song is riddled with brooding percussion that devastates with bone-crushing might. Tackling on the experimental scene with an abandonment of traditional song structures, the group seems poised to walk the distance in a similar limelight that previous mavericks Isis, Converge, and Neurosis previously journeyed through.
How many metal bands would be brave enough to write an album and call it “Ghetto Angel”? You’d think there’d be some bootilicious bodaciousness on “Ghetto Angel” but instead you just have the perfect butt-fucking down-tuned down-trodden sludgy doom one metal couple could ever ask for. Sourvein features members of Hail! Hornet, Eyehategod, and Buzzoven, and are 100% guaranteed to rock your socks off. Southern styles with crusty vocals that crank the guitar amps up to 11 and never turn off the distortion pedals. Recorded to perfection by Vince Burke (Hail! Hornet, Beaten Back to Pure), swamp metal Sourvein now brings it to the table each and every time out on the circuit. Doesn’t it figure that MTV, would only mention Sourvein amid a Michael Jackson tribute article?
Coffins is Japanese doom metal! Raw and uncanny metal that is very versed in attention deficit disorder anthems, and avoiding them at all fucking costs. Sure “Buried Death” isn’t your Grandma Metal’s cup of tea, but fuck tea when you can have caffeinated alcoholic beverages. The guitar slices and dices with psychedelic ease though Garcia would roll over in his grave a few hundred times if he heard one or two minutes of this album of sludge. Over the course of time, Coffins has really progressed into one of the more influential sounds out there. Toxic swamp metal that was written in urban squalor. Amazing.
Listen to “Under the Stench” [MP3]
