Abiotic - 'Casuitry' (Album Review)

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 21/04/2015

Label: Metal Blade Records

‘Casuistry’ CD//DD track listing:

01. Believe the Unseen
02. Reanimated Destruction
03. Cast into the Depths
04. Violent Scriptures
05. Nightmares of Your Conception
06. The Absence of Purity
07. Falling into Obscurity
08. Molecular Rematerialization
09. Drain. Deface. Abolish.

Abiotic is:

Travis Bartosek | Vocals
Johnathan Matos | Guitar
Matt Mendez | Guitar
Alex Vazquez | Bass
Brent Phillips | Drums

Review:

The sophomore release from this impressive tech-death outfit kicks off with a churning, chugging blast and a brutal scream, appropriate, considering the ride the album continues on after.  There are enough riffs on this record to satiate probably even a Necrophagist fan.

The production of the album is superb for the genre. Punchy, articulate, and clear without the instruments sounding so far apart sonically that it’s completely sterile. There are some sterile sounding moments but, it’s because the band decided to make it sound that way instead of being dictated by the production.

Spoiler Alert: There are SO many “OH SHIT” moments throughout this record.

The arrangements vary from brutal, chaotic, and dissonant to beautiful, and even a little catchy. The drumming accents the guitars (or vice versa in some of the cool beat division changes during a few riffs), with a lot of interesting approaches to maintaining a groove across odd measures and stylistically-contrasting riffs. Vocals are quite varied in tone from part to part and are pretty intelligible but well produced with some high/low layering used to good effect. It's pretty impressive when a metal vocalist manages convincingly several different voices.

           

And guitars and bass....holy shit, there is a density sonically to even the atonal-sounding single-note riffs and dissonant parts that can only be achieved when players have reached a hive mind. Rhythmically there is so many creative little turn-arounds and fills. Harmonically there is, of course, a lot of dissonance throughout the record, with some of my favorite moments being the riff beginning at 0:42 of ‘Cast Into the Depths’, whatever the weird little “whir” sound is during the opening of the first track, ‘Believe the Unseen’ (its literally like one 8^th note and it sounds like a machine malfunctioning), and the sweet harmonized sixteenth note riff that kicks in at 1:04 of ‘Violent Scriptures’. There is some really beautiful lead guitar played over some pretty proggy chord progression in multiple places. I really like it when lead guitar is utilized equally for riffing and as a counterpoint as well as vocal-like melodies.  There is a fantastic combination of that here.

Overall, I think what really grabbed me sonically about his album though, and this is no detraction from the abilities of anyone else in the band, is the bass. The tone on the record is ridiculous and the performance is almost perfect. There is a section at 2:07 of ‘Nightmares of Your Perception’ that I had to back up and start over three times the first time I got to it, which I then had to do again for the solo about 38 seconds later in the same song. These guys don't JUST shred either, there is a plethora of down-tempo grooves perfect for moshing as well as lots of djently-placed headbanger sections.

This is a 5/5 record for Me! I think even my friends, who hate everything will like this record, A lot.  No sophomore record slump for these guys.

Words by: Ian Smedbron

‘Casuitry’ is available now

For more information:

Like: https://www.facebook.com/Abioticfl | Follow: https://twitter.com/abioticfl

Cult Leader - 'Useless Animal' EP (Review)

 

Album Type: EP

Date Released: 16/6/2015

Label: Deathwish Inc

‘Useless Animal’ 7inch/DD track listing:

1). Useless Animal (01:15)

2). Gutter gods (01:33)

3). You Are Not My Blood (06:50)

Cult Leader is:

Sam Richards | BASS

Mike Mason | GUITAR

Casey Hansen | DRUMS

Anthony Lucero | VOCALS

Review:

When I can hear two bars of music and immediately know I will be playing a record again as soon as it’s done, I get pretty excited. I was pretty excited last year when I found out members of Gaza had continued on with Cult Leader and I was even more excited when I heard the debut ‘Nothing for Us Here’. Lots of the things I loved about Gaza with a fantastically tormented vocal performance by former Gaza bassist Anthony Lucero. So, needless to say (saying it anyways?) I was pretty excited to get the opportunity to review the newest EP ‘Useless Animal’.

No disappointments here! Opening with the title track, we are immediately welcomed to a recording you can feel. The first two tracks are what you would expect from former Gaza members. Shifting rhythmic intricacies accented by the ugliest noises guitar and bass can produce together. Its impossible not to be reminded of bands like Converge (go figure, they're on Deathwish), Botch, and Coalesce as you spend just under three minutes across ‘Useless Animals’ and ‘Gutter Gods’ trying to catch up from the last jarring shift before being hit with another one. The relentless assault is augmented by a raw production that is clear and focused, but bears a good amount of hair around the edges and sounds like it could have been tracked live.

The vocals on the first two tracks sound crushing with a raw edge that shows a spirit in the delivery and puts a soul into the chaos of the instrumentation.

Track three was an amazingly pleasant surprise. A dirge-y, raw cover of Mark Kozelek/Desertshore's track ‘You Are Not My Blood’ featuring Kim Pack and Sarah Pendleton of SubRosa adding strings and backing vocals to Lucero's raw, low-register presence. The track runs over seven minutes, going over twice as long as the first two tracks combined and it feels like a journey. Though the sounds are different and there isn't the in-your-face aggression, the track doesn't feel apart from the beginning of the EP.

This is honestly brutal and purposely chaotic music that both engages and alienates the listener in equal parts intentionally, for the listener's own benefit. Cult Leader, like Gaza (at least for me), doesn't seem to wallow in the darkness and invite us in like so many heavy bands do, but recognizes that we are all waiting here in the darkness and is asking us to scream outward from it with them.

Words by: Ian Smedbron

‘Useless Animal’ is available via Deathwish Inc here

For more information:

Like: https://www.facebook.com/CultLeaderMusic

Listen: https://cultleadermusic.bandcamp.com/album/nothing-for-us-here

Putrid Offal - ‘Mature Necropsy’ (Album Review)

Album Type: Full-Length

Date Released: 9/2/2015

Label: Kaotoxin Records

‘Mature Necropsy’ CD//DD track listing:

1.       Purulent Cold

2.       Garroting Way

3.       Mortuary Garlands

4.       Gurgling Prey

5.       Repulsive Corpse

6.       Suffering

7.       From Plasma to Embalming

8.       Organic Excavation

9.       Premature Necropsy

10.   Symptom

11.   Rotted Flesh

12.   Birth Remains

13.   Outro

14.   Freddy Kruger*

15.   Sane Men**

·         Total running time: 34:10 (CD)

·         Tracks 14 & 15 are CD-exclusive bonus cover versions (of S.O.D. and Nerve, respectively).

Putrid Offal is

Frédéric Houriez - bass (M.Pheral)

Franck Peiffer - guitars and vocals (M.Pheral)

Phil Reinhalter- guitars (Division Alpha)

Laye Louhenapessy - Drums (Dehuman, Vibrion)

Review:

What happens when a band takes an extended hiatus (19-20 years, give or take) from making goregrind/death metal and then return with re-recordings of their early nineties material? A pretty brutal record happens, apparently.

I'm going to state this right away. The drums appear programmed. I don't care. They do exactly what they need to do to support the relentless riffs and grooves that pound through this record. I say do what you need to do to get what you hear in your head out there.

Everything on these re-recordings sound intense and present with some obvious benefits of modern recording techniques and the drums enhance the fact that the guitar and bass are really tight. There is a dark, minor key ambiance that permeates throughout with vocals that get so guttural I'm pretty sure you can hear shit gurgling at the bottom guitarist/vocalist  Frank Peiffer's guts at the end of ‘Garroting Away’. There are some truly disturbing human sounds throughout this record. That track also features some creepy-as-hell ambient synth-like sounds that appear a little unexpectedly and to good effect. A similar orchestration appears in ‘From Plasma to Embalming’.

There are a few lead guitar moments that lend themselves similarly to the synth-ish parts with a focus more on which notes that add to the tension of the riff, as opposed to how many notes can be played in a few bars of music. There are LOTS of great blasts and digusting, atonal slashing on the strings consistent with grind and death metal. Then there are spots like the intro to ‘Repulsive Corpse’,  which features a mid-tempo, slamming groove and later in the same track where the band gets almost a little sludgy with an actual guitar solo, that while relaxing in tempo, don't let off on the overwhelming sense of dread the band is creating. Of course we also get some great build-ups and stops and a few distorted bass breaks for good measure, like the intro to ‘Birth Remains’.

The band has a drummer performing with them live and has several festival dates lined-up starting this month through the end of the year. I imagine these veterans can slay a stage and who knows if they'll be at it again anytime soon.

I would have never guessed that some of these songs were originally written when I was 7.

Words by: Ian Smedbron

‘Mature Necropsy’ is available here

For more information:

Like: https://www.facebook.com/putridoffal | Official: http://www.putrid-offal.com/ | Listen: http://listen.kaotoxin.com/album/mature-necropsy

Cretin - Stranger (Album Review)

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 09/12/2014

Label: Relapse Records

‘Stranger’ CD//DD//LP track listing:

1. It
2. Ghost Of Teeth And Hair
3. The Beast And The Drowning Bucket
4. Knights Of The Rail
5. We Live In A Cave
6. Sandwich For The Attic Angel
7. Stranger
8. Mister Frye, The Janitor Guy
9. Mary Is Coming
10. Honey And Venom
11. Freakery
12. They Buried The Lunchbox
13. Husband?
14. How To Wreck Your Life In Three Days

Cretin is:

Marissa Martinez-Hoadley | guitars / vocals
Matt Widener | bass
Col Jones | drums
Elizabeth Schall | guitars

Review:

GRIND AND ROLL! GRIND AND ROLL! This California grind band combines old-school, crusty, thrasy D-beat riffs that reach waaaay back with atonal blasts and some of the angriest vocals around. The album starts off with -gasp- lead guitar and a pounding heavy rock riff and segues naturally into familiar blast territory without sounding out of place or forced at all. Something one does not always expect in a “grind” record is to hear straight up guitar solos with bends and stops and a true sense of melody. Which leads to something this band does a lot better than a lot of grind bands: using some actual melodic tension to build riffs along with just being stupid fast and abrasive. Each song feels like a real song, not just a collection of chainsaw riffs, and each song moves through parts in a progression that leads itself. With some songs pushing well over two minutes, and one (track #2 “Ghost of Teeth and Hair”) there are enough transitions and riffs on  individual tracks to cover entire albums in the genre.

The vocals are something that you don't always get to hear and on ‘Stranger’ you get a really angry sounding voice that hasn't been covered in piles of distortion and compression and sheen to the point of sounding fake. Just low-to-mid pitched loud and raw as f@@k venting. It's good to hear heavy music that sounds PASSIONATE in a sea of quantized, pitch corrected, micro-edited heavy music floating around out there.

The production on the album is bright, loud, and full of energy. There isn't an element present that isn't mixed to be right in your face at every turn. It's hard to pick a favorite track, as the band has multitudes of breaks and grooves and surprising transitions to make the entire 32 minutes worth listening to several times. The aforementioned “Ghost of Teeth and Hair” probably gets my vote just for the hint of a progressive arrangement and the fearless guitar approach that doesn't really often shine in this type of music.

Oh yeah, and not that it really matters, but the vocalist/guitarist and guitar player are both women. Go figure. I'm definitely not someone who gives a crap about such things, but it’s never a bad thing to see in a scene, especially when the recorded results are this brutal.

Words by: Ian Smedbron

You can pick up a copy here

For more information:

Cretin on Facebook | Cretin on Twitter | Cretin on Bandcamp

Blame Kandinsky - Pink Noise Motel EP (Review)

Album Type: EP

Date Released: 12/12/2014

Label:  Self Released

“Pink Noise Motel” DD track listing:

1). Varnish 11 st Illinois
2). Cassidy Godson Meets Christine Fallin
3). Lions 
4). Nascency.Admittance.Guilt.Rebirth    
5). Beautiful Savages
6). Death Has No Name

Blame Kandinsky is

Stratos | Screams
Marm | Makes Pink Noise
Spyros | Shreds the Gnar
Kostas | Plays that Jazz
Chris| Trolls the beat

Review:

Alright, anyone who knows me knows I am a sucker for aggressive, math-ish hardcore and this 19 minutes of wonderful nonsense called ‘Pink Noise Motel’ just made my month.

Oddball grooves, sick, rhythmic harsh vocals, aggressive percussion, and an ornate sense of dissonance and melody give this 6-track EP an urgency rarely heard since bands like Coalesce and Botch were bringing new noise and The Dillinger Escape Plan were forward-thinking kids jamming jazz, hardcore, and metal together until all three were bleeding.

Blame Kandinsky does provide a little more song craft than some mathcore bands by actually cycling back to a catchy riff every now and then and beating you to death with mantra-like riffs and vocals, like the bridge section of the opener “Beautiful Savages”.

There are great moments throughout this record where the band is playing pulsating, unison grooves that break into what almost feels like three or four different songs between guitars, drums, and bass that then reveal themselves to be intricate counter rhythms and melodies creating a beautiful labyrinthine web for the harsh, multi-timbral vocals to arc across. It sounds like Blame Kandinsky is concerned with not only creating interesting sounds and head spinning riffs, but also crafting actual songs that grab a listener and push them through the transitions and abrupt changes in direction.

The fourth “Nascency.Admittance.Guilt.Rebirth ” starts off with a layered harmony octave guitar line and turns into a sick, atonal groove with a repeating line of “WE FEAR TO SEE WHAT WE DID!” that just crushes before exploding into choppy, confusing rhythms and a dissonantly melodic mess before bringing it back around to a noisy, stomping riff.  This track in particular does an excellent job of reminding the listener of all of the elements that take over at different times throughout the earlier tracks of the record.

Words by: Ian Smedbron

You can pick up a copy here

For more information:

http://blamekandinsky.bandcamp.com | https://www.facebook.com/BlameKandinskyBand
https://twitter.com/BlameKandinsky

Haut&Court - Troffea (Album Review)

Album Type: Full-Length

Date Released: 2/2/2015

Label: Via Basement Apes industries,

 Eardrum terrorism Records,

 Grain of Sand Records,

 Swarm of Nails

 & Wooaaargh records

Troffea CD//DD track listing:

01.Sea of Shit
02. Putin
03. Caligari
04. Meursault
05. 1518
06. Ostinator
07. Chosta
08. Hienes
09. Swing
10. Feed the Fat
11. Goetz
12. JMLP

Haut&Court is:

Benjamin ‘Merko’ Simon | (bass and vocals)
Ravindranth Saint Jean |  (drums)
Arnaud Diemer |  (lead vocals)
Bernard ‘Skud’ Zurletti |  (guitar)

Review:

This stuff is filthy. The drums are alive, the guitars are probably a little too distorted to be completely audible, and the vocalist is actually angry. The short songs (12 tracks, 22 minutes) are on par for a grind band, but close listening leads to more than just blast beats and tremolo picking. There are high-pitched dissonant blasts of guitar and sludgy, dirge-like moments (~0:30 of Meursault is a great example) that seem to be put there just to make sure things don't get too comfortable in any one genre.

There are a few angular, mathcore-influenced grooves (the end of 1518, especially) and an occasional dissonant sweep flurry for good measure. The voice that provides most of the vocals is guttural and saturated, bringing to mind a little bit of early Coalesce (which is always a good thing) and there are several places where a more manic, less “trained” sounding voice adds to the correlated chaos this band produces.

The frantic, frustrated feeling the music creates is helped immensely by the incredibly live-sounding recording quality. The drums pound, maybe even pulling against the tempo a little, forcing the rest of the group along. There is a somewhat claustrophobic feeling in the record until the track “Swing” (track 9) which features eerie feedback-laden guitars that sound like they might have been recorded in a cave.

These guys aren't trying to build spiral architecture, but they will make you bang your head until your dizzy, and probably wanna circle stomp with your buddies in a warehouse. A solid grind-ish record, with enough variety to warrant multiple listens. 

Words: Ian Smedbron

You can pick up a DD/CD here from 2/2/2015

For more information:

Facebook | Bandcamp | Store | Twitter

BTK (Bind Torture Kill) - Condamné (Album Review)

Album Type: Full-Length

Date Released: 26/1/2015

Label: Self-released

‘Condamné’ CD//DD track listing:

1). Labyrinthe de Mort

2). Bain de Sang

3). Abattage

4). Condamné

5). Bestial

6). La Faucheuse

Bind Torture Kill is

Yann Alexandre | Guitars

Benjamin Garçon | Drums

Olivier Alexandre | Voice

Review:

Relentless.

Bind Torture Kill wants to induce a sense of dread and panic in the listener that is quickly achieved after the opening drone by abrupt groove changes, choosing just the right “wrong” note, and a monotone (not in a bad way), intense vocal delivery that gives the undulating attack of the music a straight cold stare into the darker parts of the world, these guys from France dwell in creatively.

Drawing equally from mathcore, grind, hardcore, and death metal the riffs throughout feature intense tremolo-picked passages, off-kilter harmonies and melodies, and an intentional lack of resolution that gives each transition the feeling of either smashing into a brick wall full speed or being hurled off a cliff. There are moments where one would think they are about to get a break from the pummeling via some prettier chords and slower tempos. It is quickly realized, however, that much like a psycho in so many horror movies, that these passages are simply there to lull you into an unwarranted security when the double kick and that insane mid-pitched, barking howl come back in full-force destruction mode.

The group creates a surreal, murky atmosphere throughout that pervades even the unstoppably brutal moments. The last track, “La Faucheuse”, opens with a haunting, darkly melodic riff that wouldn't seem out of place on a Norma Jean record and the intensity just builds over six minutes to drag the listener back into the pit the first five tracks created.

The song structures never get boring, and though not as linear as some mathcore and grindcore bands, when something repeats, you're glad it did. I have to admit I don't speak French, so I don't know the exact content of the lyrics, but the intensity of the delivery means it matters little. Nothing on this album feels contrived or forced and each track presents something different while being familiar from the last.

These guys didn't skimp on the production values with clear, articulate percussion, distorted guitars with completely audible tones, and a well-balanced, aggressive sounding mix that was attractive in headphones and through some decent monitors. There is a definite feeling of humans performing that goes missing from so many modern heavy music productions. If off-kilter rhythms, out-of-the-ordinary song structures, and disturbing atmosphere excite you, this record delivers. If the band brings the level intensity they have on record to the stage, it would be one hell of a show. I'll be keeping an ear open for anything else they'll release in the future.

FFO: Ion dissonance/Norma Jean/Gaza/early TDEP/Converge

Words by: Ian Smedbron

You can pick up a copy here

For more information:

Facebook | Bandcamp