By:
Hunter Young
Album
Type:
Full Length
Date
Released: 21/01/2016
Label:
Independent
Battalions laces up their good shit kickers on “Nothing to Lose”,
ready to walk into a punk show, empty pool, construction site, whatever, and
proceed to kick your collective teeth in and throw you into a handy wall until
you buy a shirt or something, and rock the fuck out. This is heavy music, and
QUALITY heavy music. These guys have crafted something that should get your
soul to wake up and take notice. Get this album, and keep bands like this
pumping up music to bother the neighbours with.
“Nothing
to Lose” CD//DD//LP track listing:
1).
A Cowards Manifesto
2).
Hoods up, Knives Out!
3).
You Have Nothing to Lose but Your Son and Your Souls
4).
Whisky and Wine
5).
Blood Bed
6).
Bog Faced Roy
7).
Deadbeat Dad Beat Dead
8).
Shitstorm Troopers
The
Review:
Up
on the offering block today is the new find from scorn metal merchants Battalions,
“Nothing to Lose”. Pumping heavy
metal fists into the air and throwing down some destructive riffs, Battalions
lobs a ball of fun and heavy music at our faces, filled with 8 tracks of
relentless Heavy Metal.
Battalions brings an
arsenal of influence to bear upon this album, from crunching slowness to sludge
stomping, southern raw to eerily close D Beat down riffage, Battalions
want to scrape your face off in varying degrees of metallic mayhem. Heavy on
the gain and drive, they play aggressively behind a singer drowning in his own
scorn. Your ears will be raked raw as he belts out every word, punching like a
rusted ice pick out of the speakers.
“Nothing to
Lose”
is a bounce house filled with metallic mastery, combining slowly building
grooves with the crass stress of the vocals to plant some great payoffs. Slowly
stomping towards you is the opener, “Coward's
Manifesto”. This track leads off like a power hitter, dragging your through
clinging bleakness, unrelenting and taking its own damn time. “…Manifesto” is a superb showing of what
they do when just chugging along, but is not as vicious as the next track, “Hoods Up, Knives Out”. Full of a punky energy, its mid tempo and
establishes a vortex of energy that this band would draw live. It even has a
sweet little lead and it honestly just gets more destructive from there, with
the towering “You Have Nothing to Lose
But Your Sons and Your Souls” slowly pressing down like a giant's foot upon
your back. When these guys want to, which is constantly, they bring the heavy
like they've been here for a few years.
Two
of the biggest bangers though are “Whisky
& Wine” and “Blood Bed”.
With a hint of Dopethrone
on a vicious whisky bender, grinding and chipping away with some of the most
pendulous riffage outside of that genre blaze haze, dragging you naked across
concrete soaked in beer and cigarette butts from the show. It'll be a hit at
your next social gathering, trust me! As for “Blood Bed”, pure, blues bliss. This is where their stride could go
for days, but sadly it only lasts 2 minutes and 23 seconds. This WILL get you
to move with the beat. I don't know where they dredged this up, but it's
southern as hell and it's the hit for this album. You can fight me, but I'll
put you to sleep with this on repeat.
“Big Faced Roy ” (unluckily) follows “Blood Bed”, and carries some of the same swagger, but follows more
closely with “Whisky...;” and id
another screaming meanie that has a mean riff streak running down its bared
backbone. Sliding from there, we have “Deadbeat
Dad Beat Dead”, which has the most diversified lead/riff of the album, and
is reminiscent of Brand New Sin and Juggernaut (South African southern
metal), with that brutal scraping vocal that has me with Stockholm Syndrome.
It'll have you flailing along in no time!
Album
ender, “Shitstorm Troopers”, is a
heavy as hell doomtroopin good time, as they progress up and down the frets
with power chugging and violence at the forefront. Battalions laces up their good
shit kickers on “Nothing to Lose”,
ready to walk into a punk show, empty pool, construction site, whatever, and
proceed to kick your collective teeth in and throw you into a handy wall until
you buy a shirt or something, and rock the fuck out.
This
is heavy music, and QUALITY heavy music. These guys have crafted something that
should get your soul to wake up and take notice. Get this album, and keep bands
like this pumping up music to bother the neighbors with.
“Nothing
to Lose” is available here
