Bastard Sapling - Instinct Is Forever (Album Review)

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 26/8/2014

Label: Gilead Media/Forcefield Records

                      

“Instinct is Forever” CD/LP track listing:

01. My Spine Will Be My Noose
02. Subterranean Rivers Of Blood
03. The Opal Chamber
04. Elder
05. The Killer Is In Us All
06. Splintering Ouroboros
07. Lantern At The End Of Time [feat. Dorthia Cottrell]
08. Every Life Thrown To The Eclipse
09. Forbidden Sorrow

Bio:

After recording and releasing 2010’s V: A Sepulcher To Swallow The Sea 7” via Tension Head and 2012’s critically acclaimed Dragged From Our Restless Trance LP via Forcefield Records, Bastard Sapling has ventured to push their creation further into the shattered abyss. After spending years crafting new material, they put their songs in the capable hands of Kevin Bernsten (Triac, Mutilation Rites, Ilsa) at Developing Nations in Baltimore, MD. Simultaneously starker and more serene than their previous efforts, Instinct Is Forever is a step forward in terms of Bastard Sapling’s traditional Scandinavian influences being warped by their own geography and a new experimental approach. The new double LP to be co-released by Forcefield Records and Gilead Media on Agust 26, 2014. Armed with guest appearances by Windhand’s Dorthia Cottrell, Evoken's Don Zaros, and Inter Arma’s TJ Childers, Instinct Is Forever is sure to make a serious impact on North America’s contribution to the medium.
 

Bastard Sapling coalesced in the summer of 2007 along the fertile banks of the James River in Richmond, VA, led by recent transplants Drew Goldy and Gregory Ernst (better known to most as“Elway"). After a handful of practices the two formed a musical bond and an undeniably shared vision for the project. Several months of songwriting later, the two progenitors began practicing with their friend Mike Paparo,vocalist of the local metal outfit Inter Arma, in early 2008. Shortly thereafter the three members found an organic fit by bringing fellow Inter Arma guitarist Steven Russell into the fold.  Current bassist Trey Dalton cemented the lineup by admirably filling in for their 2010 US Tour on short notice, and they’ve been steadily pushing their aggression forward ever since.

Review:

America loves to gorge itself. For much of the last several years a common meal has been post black metal and bands that blend hardcore and black metal influences together. A lot of those bands are excellent, and just because a style picks up popularity and gets greater coverage from bigger websites doesn’t mean it’s without merit. On the other side of the coin, it can and eventually will wear thin and people will begin to turn on it. It doesn’t seem like we’ve quite reached that point yet with American black metal as of yet, but it feels like we might be getting close. For everyone who got excited (like me) about Young and in the Way’s new album, there’s someone else who wonders when a higher percentage of American black metal bands won’t be influenced by Discharge or Weakling or My Bloody Valentine.

For that second group; your answer is Bastard Sapling. ‘Instinct is Forever’ worships at the altar of mid 90s European black metal. I’d believe you if you told me they were a Swedish band recorded at Studio Abyss, and that will always appeal to me. If all of this sounds a bit one dimensional; don’t worry. They pull from a wide range of influences, all the while managing to sound new. The album explodes out of the gate with “My Spine Will Be My Noose”, which storms full speed ahead like prime mid-90s Marduk before settling into something more akin to 12/8 Immortal from the late 90s. As the album continues you’ll hear countless other points of reference: “Subterranean Rivers of Blood” has all the majestic fury of Dawn’s ‘Slaughtersun’. “The Opal Chamber” has the icy, vertigo-inducing melodic descent of Gorgoroth at their most reserved in the 90’s. They revisit some of that same “At the Heart Of Winter” style feel on “Lantern at the End of Time”, though it’s to a much grander effect. The opening riff of that song is one of the great black metal riffs of all time, and I say that without reservation.

So, why do I continue to point out similarities to other bands? Wouldn’t that make them seem derivative or lazy? Not in the slightest. My larger point is that Bastard Sapling is a brilliant example of just how far a band can evolve a genre’s sound while staying within the confines of relative orthodoxy. They’ve found a way to improve upon established styles through additional technicality, variety, emotional depth and imagination. Each song is its own journey, whether it soars with grace or burrows into the molten center of the earth. ‘Instinct is Forever’ rages, soothes, depresses, empowers and it covers plenty of territory in between. In fact, I would consider it a minor miracle that they’ve been able to weave such a multitude of elements from European black metal’s past into such a cohesive sound.

While there are certainly fleeting moments in ‘Instinct is Forever’ that sound a bit more American—the opening of “The Killer In Us All” being one such example—but the album is a phenomenal remedy for people who are in need of something outside of the new American black metal norm. What’s old can be new again, and the result, in the case of Bastard Sapling, is one of the top albums of the year.

Words by: Daniel Jackson

You can pick up this record here

For more information:

https://www.facebook.com/bastardsapling

Yautja - Songs of Descent (Album Review)

Album Type :  Full Length

Date Released : 4/2/2014

Label : Forcefield Records

Songs of Descent, album track listing :

1). Path of Descent

2). Denihilist

3). Blinders

4). Concrete Tongue

5). Tar and Blindness

6). Teeth

7). Faith Resigned

8). Path to Ground

9). An Exit

10). A Crawl

11). Of Descent

12). Humility-Humanity

13). A Cleansing Fire

14). Chemical

Bio :

Featuring members of Coliseum, Gnarwhal, Nameless Cults and more, and hailing from the filthy underbelly of “Music City,” YAUTJA forges a potent mix of death metal, grind, and hardcore. Started in Nashville, Tennessee in January 2010 by vocalist/guitarist Shibby Poole and drummer/vocalist Tyler Coburn, the band began playing shows locally, released a live tape that August, and did some touring with then bassist Trey Stallings. In October 2010, bassist/vocalist Kayhan Vaziri joined the band, and in 2011, YAUTJA released a five-song EP, titled 2011, on Nashville-based label Tapes of a Neon God, which was followed by an East Coast tour. 2012 saw the band release a split 7” with Enabler, as well as complete a tour of the Southeast U.S.

Entitled Songs Of Descent, YAUTJA's debut album presents the band’s ultra-intense metallic, grind-infused, tone-heavy hardcore aggression with thunderous, organic recording attributes, captured at Dark Art Studios with Mikey Allred (Inter Arma, Accross Tundras, Hellbender). Burning down everything in earshot with fourteen hook-laden crushers in just over thirty-seven minutes, Forcefield Records will release Songs Of Descent on LP and digitally in early February 2014; the digital version mastered by Mikey Allred and the vinyl mastered by Zack Allen of Obsidian Eye Studios (Loss, Recluse, Sky Burial).

The Band :

Shibby Poole | Guitars, Vocals

Tyler Coburn | Drums, Vocals

Kayhan Vaziri | Bass, Vocals

Review :

Sometimes, things can be too clean-cut, too clinical.  Sometimes you need to get dirty.  Maybe even filthy.  And here is where Nashville’s Yautja come in.  Grimier than a peat bog bath, murkier than a week-old laundry basket, these guys have made an album so grim, so gripping, I couldn’t help but become totally immersed in their sludgy concoction of riffs and rage.  After all, the album’s called ‘Songs of Descent’, and I felt like getting dragged down to their eerily brilliant depths.  And I get the feeling all those who listen to this will feel the same way, too. 

For starters, this is one hell of a big album: fourteen tracks of raw, ravaging sonic anger that grinds at your flesh and rends your eardrums asunder.  Yautja’s riffs are fuzzy, frenzied and unrelenting; each of the three members shares vocal duties too, which just enforces just how intense this collective is when it comes to crafting dark music.  The playing style itself is loose and very punky, slamming chords and riffs hitting your speakers like a set of tattooed knuckles.  One set says ‘FUCK’; the other ‘YOU’. 

If you want a comparison to other bands out there, I’d say Yautja were quite like Nails: a bit rougher, a little bit filthier, but still with that sinister groove and malicious musical intent.  They also have that Melvins brand of oozing riffery, which makes for very potent musical alchemy.  Check out the track ‘Of Descent’ and feel the pounding drums of Tyler Coburn fairly smash your teeth in, as Shibby Poole’s guitar and Kayhan Vaziri’s bass put the boot in to your prone and twitching form, and see what I mean.  This song is the monolith of the album, over five minutes of snarling distortion and vicious vocals.  Once it comes to its feedback-scorched ending, you’ll have felt like a bulldozer has rumbled its way over you.  Yep.  That kind of heavy. 

In fact, each of these fourteen terror tracks is an example of crushing sludge at its most filthy.  ‘Denihilist’ is a shouting affair of bar-room brawl metal, ‘Teeth’ rocks and rolls like a ship caught in  razorblade storm, and ‘Humility – Humanity’ is a downright ball breaker of a song, designed to make you listen in open-mouthed awe at the brutal spectacle.  And these instances I’ve highlighted for you are only the tip of this iceberg of sludge: it’s up to you to delve to the depths and discover a treasure of your own. 

In short, this is an album of grime, hardcore, doom, and discovery.  Yautja is a band of purpose: their music is bold, uncompromising, and deliciously dark.  If you feel like your metal life has been too ordered of late, take a walk on the wild side and succumb to the ‘Songs of Descent’. 

Words by : Chris Markwell

You can buy it here

For more information :

http://yautja.bandcamp.com
http://www.forcefieldrecords.org
https://www.facebook.com/ForcefieldRecords

The Sludgelord News : YAUTJA: Next Phase Of Pre-Release Warfare Hosted By Invisible Oranges

In the ongoing pre-release shock-and-awe style disbursement of audio from Songs Of Descent¸ the debut LP from Nashville trio, YAUTJA, another new track is fired into the population.

Invisible Oranges today proudly joins the YAUTJA opposition, stating "Who wouldn't want to hear a mosh riff that's been kidnapped by the AmRep roster and fed a bunch of drugs?" The track being deployed at I/O is the mammoth, lurching, "Denihilist," appearing in the #2 cannon of the album's vast fourteen-track arsenal. Stating about the track specifically, the text joining the audio concludes, "Denihilist"'s live-wire crack snare and fill-heavy second half is more than a little reminiscent ofRemission-era Mastodon, which all but fools will agree is never a bad thing. So, while YAUTJA's sound is at times cozily familiar, it's also compellingly recombinant. And, sweet baby Moses in a reed basket, when they hit one of those lurches, you might want to take care that your internal organs don't just jump right through your skin. Only music with such a combination of smarts and tactile power can put your body in two places at once."

Open fire with "Denihilist" via Invisible Oranges AT THIS LOCATION.

Also revisit the previously deployed "Faith Resigned" at Noisey RIGHT HERE and "Concrete Tongue" via Lambgoat HERE.

Forcefield Records will release Songs Of Descent via download and 12" LP on February 11th, the digital version mastered by Mikey Allred and the vinyl mastered by Zack Allen of Obsidian Eye Studios (Loss, Recluse, Sky Burial). Preorders for the wax are now being taken at Forcefield's webstore; limited to five hundred copies, joined by a poster, the first pressing of the LP is available on white waxHERE or gold and black wax, HERE.

The last few shows completing the itinerary for YAUTJA's next tour in support of Songs Of Descentare still being locked down, the two-and-a-half week set to infiltrate the eastern half of the country fromFebruary 1st through the 16th, ending with a celebratory hometown record release show.

YAUTJA Tour Dates:

2/01/2014 Buccaneer Lounge - Memphis, TN w/ Seraphim

2/02/2014 CBGB - St. Louis, MO

2/03/2014 Dude, Where's My House - Milwaukee, WI w/ Falter, No Brainer

2/04/2014 Albion House - Chicago, IL

2/05/2014 The Precinct - Detroit, MI

2/06/2014 The Mr. Roboto Project - Pittsburgh, PA

2/07/2014 Crayola House - Harrisonburg, VA

2/08/2014 Wolf Cycles - Philadelphia, PA w/ Fantasy Panther

2/09/2014 The Acheron - Brooklyn, NY w/ Geryon, Psalm Zero, Kevin Hufnagel

2/10/2014 Roggies - Boston, MA

2/11/2014 TBA/help! - New Brunswick, NJ

2/12/2014 Ottobar - Baltimore, MD

2/13/2014 V.S.C. - Richmond, VA w/ Prisoner

2/14/2014 TBA/help! - Asheville, NC w/ King Dirt

2/15/2014 WonderRoot - Atlanta, GA

2/16/2014 The Stone Fox - Nashville, TN *release show w/ Ramming Speed, Cove, Act of Impalement

For more information : 

http://yautja.bandcamp.com

https://www.facebook.com/YautjaTN

http://www.forcefieldrecords.org

https://www.facebook.com/ForcefieldRecords

Source : EarSplit PR