Heavydeath - Eternal Sleepwalker (Album Review)

Release date: 6^th March 2015Type: Full-lengthLabel: Svart Records.

Members:

Daniel Moilanen – Drums
Johan Bäckman – Bass
Nicklas Rudolfsson – Guitars and vocals.

Eternal Sleepwalker - Track listing:

1. Ascending.
2. Road to the Fire.
3. Bow Down.
4. Eat the Sun.
5. Eternal Sleepwalker.
6. Heavy as Death.
7. Beyond the Riphean Mountains.

Review

If there’s anything more menacing than the sight of a longboat full of bloodthirsty Swedish Vikings, it’s the sound of three bloodthirsty Swedish death metallers. We’re currently experiencing an era in extreme music where the almighty riff is taking a backseat to dense, sonic atmosphere, and that is never more apparent than in the fresh Death Metal being peddled from all four corners of the globe. Where coherency and orthodoxy fail to push certain boundaries and can no longer hold the attention of fans and musicians endlessly searching for a stronger dose, the realm of ambiance and atmosphere is as deserving of further experimentation as anything. The Swedish Death Metal bands of old knew this long ago, and the tradition is being carried on by the aptly named Heavydeath.

Heavydeath have been incredibly prolific with their releases since 2014 and the long slew of demo tapes speak for themselves, all of which seem to act as a kind of countdown to this, their first full-length, Eternal Sleepwalker. Recorded in the summer of 2014, there is a certain impression that this record, as well as everything that lead up to it, has been planned and meticulously executed to the band’s liking. You only have to look briefly at what they’ve done in their short time as a band to see what kind of work ethic is at hand, and listening to Eternal Sleepwalker is evidence enough of their devotion to this dark, crypt-dwelling sound. This is a record that is every bit as somnambulant as its title suggests.

Each track melts and solidifies into the next with arches that go mostly unnoticed, just as time and place hold little effect in dreams and nightmares. “Ascending” kicks in like a hypnotic sedative, sluggish guitars moan over driving, but not overly enthusiastic, bass and drums, before giving way to “Road to the Fire”, a nightmarish and weary charge that exemplifies Nicklas Rudolfsson’s truly haunting vocal style. “Bow Down” twitches to life as the album begins to wake up, to a degree, a fact made even more apparent when “Eat the Sun” arrives on the scene surprisingly with something of a more traditional driving crunch to it. The album’s title track halts the speed and brings us back to a kind of comatose Thrash sound that stomps and stumbles in drunken anger which leads us to the appropriately titled “Heavy as Death” that bogs down even further to a slow, hammering discharge that evokes all the best of Celtic Frost. Eternal Sleepwalker comes to a close with psychotropic booms and echoes, titled “Beyond the Riphean Mountains”, and its feedback swept gloom acts as a kind of end credits to the funerary rite.

As stated previously, there seems to have been a lot of work put into Eternal Sleepwalker in order to make it quite literally sound like a nightmare. It’s not in the sounds, but in how the sounds are born and how they die in the wall of sound. Notes materialize and disappear in spectral fashion throughout and this compliments Rudolfsson’s gaping and horrific vocal delivery, and this marriage not only proudly represents the Swedish Death Metal sound, but actually takes it to different places. It’s a menacing piece of work that will be met with arms wide open by those with a taste for Death and Doom, but would certainly prove too dense for a first-time listener.

Written by Liam Doyle

Thanks to Nathan for the promo. Eternal Sleepwalker will be available to buy on Vinyl from Svart Records on March 6^th 2015.

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THAW - Earth Ground (Album Review)

Album Type: Album

Date Released: 10th October 2014

Label: Witching Hour Productions

Earth Ground – Track Listing

1. First Day
2. Afterkingdom
3. Sun
4. No Light
5. Second Day
6. Soil
7. Winter’s Bone
8. Last Day

Members

M. – Bass, vocals.
A. – Bass, guitars, noise.
P. – Noise.

Review:

One of my main gripes with modern Black Metal is that many of the artists choose to abandon weight of sound in favour of something as surface as ‘necrosound’. It’s all been done, raw aggression doesn’t need to come from recording quality anymore. Of course, there is always a time and place for that kind of rigid, tape-quality Black Metal forged in €400 studio apartments, just like there is always a time and a place for a can of beer to take the edge off a hard Monday’s office work. It’s easy to find, it’s easily digestible, and you’ll probably forget all about it by morning time. In trying to stand out, bands have become just as communalized and expendable as the old school death metal they rebelled against.

That’s why excessive levels of necrosound just doesn’t do it for me anymore, it’s self-sacrificial, a mere chop and screw so that one’s music can fit into the back-pockets of the blogger elite. Don’t get me wrong, I love pulsating noise just as much as the next moustachioed weirdo, but it’s always refreshing to hear a black metal band embrace themselves rather than offer themselves up, that’s what made Black Metal relevant in the first place. That’s why Thaw’s second full-length, Earth Ground, has made such an impression on me.

This is a completely vascular record, veins taut as razor wire, and it owes itself not only to its obvious Black Metal influences, but also to the sheer obesity of Sludge that coagulates beneath its ferocity. Its meticulous production value allows for each instrument to roar and scream and perform their individual tasks effectively in the overall scheme of things, and it even harks back to the alpine majesty offered by bands like Emperor, though without any symphonic overkill.

The cavernous bass of ‘First Day’ produces a tension that soon manifests as the first ravenous blasts of ‘Afterkingdom’, a track that serves not so much as a taster of things to come, but as a blind plunge into the depths of what Earth Ground has to offer. ‘Sun’ is an invisible orange grabbing classic, throbbing with the sinister energy that could only be produced by that colossal, thunderous breed of guitar riff known to all second-wave Black Metal fans. ‘No Light’ writhes snake-like throughout, M’s cancerous vox fighting through the waves of noisome contortions. Thaw are quite vocal about their position as a noise band, and this self-proclamation is crystalized in the insane and abrupt murmurings of ‘Second Day’, a brief excursion into wailing feedback eventually leads to ‘Soil’, yet another, and I’m raking my eyes with one hand as I type these words, “frost-bitten” assault on the senses.

Driven by a striking percussion that drags the boots of this track through heavy snow, ‘Winter’s Bone’ is the most obvious piece of experimentation on Earth Ground, aided by spectral electronics and string conjured miasma. Album closer ‘Last Day’ arrives solemnly before totally combusting into heavy, knuckle-dragging chaos that crawls on its belly from the primordial soup and hardens as one final imposing riff.

I do not give bad reviews, I simply find that slating a band, no matter how terrible they are, is lazy and serves no one. You may as well be wiping your arse with a child’s finger painting. As such, I’ve spent more time describing what I hear than whether I like it or not. With Earth Ground, I can honestly say that every minute of this record was a pleasure, and it’s a slab of malevolence that everyone should kneel before at least once.

Words by Liam Doyle

Thanks to Witching Hour Productions for the promo. Earth Ground is available to buy now.

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Hombre Malo - Persistent Murmur of Words of Wrath (Album Review)

Album Type: Album

Date Released: 14^th November 2014

Label: Disiplin Media

Persistent Murmur of Words of Wrath – Track Listing

1. L’Etranger.
2. Crosses And Marching Feet.
3. Golden Calf.
4. Vladislav.
5. Reaching The Shore.
6. Elena.
7. Deathbed Conversation.

Members

The Meurto (Vocals)
Boris (Guitar)
Tom (Bass)
Joakim (Drums)

Review:

I’ve heard a lot of people discuss their interpretations of what the term ‘heavy’ means when attached to a song, band, or musical genre. It is most commonly associated with audio alone, the volume and texture of a band’s music, something that is designed to hammer the senses and create a controlled space of discord akin to a studio apartment rumbling with the engine of a fighter jet. In other words, the weight of sound has always been considered the ‘heavy’ in heavy metal. In other circles, you might hear the scarf-choked indie raja refer to his or her favourite acoustic act as ‘heavy’, in which case they are referring exclusively to the myriad of powerful emotions on the display during a performance, and the execution of such a performance. Not to say that metal is devoid of extremely passionate, blood-letting thoughtfulness, quite the contrary, I just haven’t heard a band that sounds as ‘heavy’, and as ‘heavy’, as Hombre Malo, in a long time.

Hailing from Oslo, Norway, this four-piece mob of aggressive sludgery have been peddling audio nastiness since their formation in 2008 and have been quite consistent in their output, despite Persistant Murmur of Words of Wrath being their only full-length in six years. You can forgive them for the tardiness, however, because this fucking bastard of furor is nothing short of punishing and provoking. The album’s artwork, which depicts a young man, naked all but for a noose around his neck, playing a harp amidst a flock of ravenous vultures, acts as something of a mission statement for the following 40+ minutes of heavy.

‘L’Etranger’ opens up the record with some familiar stoner sludge riffery that melts, crystalizes, and eventually shatters into a razor-sharp assault with more than just a nod in the direction of their motherland’s infamous black metal sound. ‘Crosses And Marching Feet’ comes to life with a truly mean-spirited, bully, pounding detonation that acts as the first of many obvious criticisms of religion and the violent intolerance associated with it, a theme that continues throughout the album, but perhaps never quite as striking as on ‘Golden Calf’. The third track is a snarling, turbulent assault from every direction, one that breaks down and gives reign to a truly painful, arresting sound bite of a news report regarding the violent murder of the young homosexual, Vladislav Tornovoi, in Russia last year.

‘Vladislav’ comes off as something of a lamentation framed by a slow, pulverizing beat until a foot finds the accelerator pedal that speeds us through a barrage of rock n’ roll punishment. Kicking off with something close to clean singing, ‘Reach The Shore’ is perhaps the most melodious and progressive offering on the record, completed by glimmering guitar work and that near-mesmerizing coalescence of blustering bass and percussion. ‘Elena’ is an interesting one from the beginning, boasting a truly far-out drum pattern that sets the building blocks for discordant murmurings that soon erupt into a deeply convulsive head banging frenzy. ‘Deathbed Conversation’ is the longest and final track on this ditty and is haunted by ethereal guitar chiming, ambient gentleness, spoken-word purring, and ending with one final gasp of crushing, emotionally spent hostility.

With this offering, Hombre Malo have built something that will not only please the headbanger, but something that also radiates with truly organic fury. Perhaps it is the sound bites, the overall theme, perhaps it’s The Muerto’s gruelling vocal delivery, perhaps it is the general air of torturous animosity, but there’s something about Persistant Murmur of Words of Wrath that really rings an uncomfortable bell in the mind of the listener. It’s a heavy record, take from that what you will.

Words by Liam Doyle

Thanks to Viral Propaganda us a promo to review. Persistent Murmur of Words of Wrath will be available to buy on Vinyl/DD from Disiplin Media from November 14^th 2014.

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Hornwood Fell - S/T (Album Review)

Album Type: Album

Date Released: 23^rd April 2014

Label: Avantgarde Music

Hornwood Fell – S/T - Listing

1. Cerqua
2. Tempesta.
3. Meca.
4. L’ira.
5. Mutavento.
6. VinterFresa part one.
7. VinterFresa part two.

Members

Marco Basili – Guitar, vocals.
Andrea Basili – Drums.
Andrea Vacca – Bass.

Review:

It can almost be considered a tradition within the black metal sphere that bands release a long slew of demos, splits, and rehearsal tapes before getting down to the nitty gritty of a full-length slab. Vlad Tepes had such a great time of it that they simply never bothered to put out anything on a label at all, opting instead to independently release demo after demo, building up an underground following, until finally deciding that the most nonconformist act they could possibly do was to stop playing music as Vlad Tepes. That’s tradition for you, and it’s still as strong today as it was in ’96. Obviously no one forwarded that memo on to Hornwood Fell, whose first s/t full-length, released February 2014, comes at you as confidently as a band who has had all the time in the world to demonstrate how noxious and frost-bound they can be.

Hailing from Italy, this is a trio of musicians who have played with each other in many different projects before finally arriving at Hornwood Fell, so it makes perfect sense that they wouldn’t need to spend much time demoing material as most new bands would prefer. Instead, much like the music itself, cutting right to the chase was their modus operandi, and this 42 minute venture to the impenetrable heart of the forest is every bit as orthodox as anything I’ve heard from the abyssal depths of European black metal. If you want experimentation, you’d best see Mirai Kawashima, because this is as text book as it gets.

This bastard kicks off with absolutely zero warning, opener ‘Cerqua’ blasts into action with as little build-up as you put into pressing “play”. Immediately you’ll find yourself battered down by rapid, coarse drumming that will continue torturously for the duration of the record, very rarely letting up and never softening in timbre. ‘Tempesta’ thunders in after a short breather, delivering spiteful, despondent and monotonous guitar work save for moments of technical finger trickery here and there to shimmer over that ceaseless, breakneck percussion. ‘Merca’ follows on with much of the same venom, though a moment of acoustic discordancy catches you off guard, a sound that the band will make great use of over the rest of the record. The track ends in ghostly, opiate tones and ambiance before kicking into bizarre furor with ‘L’ira’, a track that once again collapses into divergent folk madness.

‘Mutavento’ and ‘VinterFresa part one’ assault you with one last sustained outburst of hostility, making use of every caustic riff, hammering beat, and pound bass line left in the band’s arsenal before ‘VinterFresa part two’ tells a gentle ode with forlorn guitar strings and the desolate snapping of forest ground underfoot.

Hornwood Fell’s first offering is a very static, atmospheric record that refuses to change in tone barring moments of intricacy that break it up into noticeable segments, and this approach is certainly befitting for a sound evoking images of nature and isolation. It will either have you hooked from start to finish, or its repetition will irritate you. Favouring speed and aggression over sheer weight, this is certainly for fans of the ‘second wave’ black metal that has defined the genre for the past 20 years. It’s a pleasing dose for the speed junkie, and hopefully a sign of good things to come

Words by Liam Doyle

Thanks to Avantgarde Music for sending me the promo to review. The album will be available to buy now

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Hands Up Who Wants To Die - Vega In The Lyre (Album Review)

Album Type: Album

Date Released: 25^th Sept 2014

Label: Learning Curve Records

Vega In The Lyre - Tracklisting

1. Now Beacon, Now Sea.

2. Scoops.

3. Burnt Yesterday.

4. False Dawn.

5. No Big Deal.

6. Dreft.

7. The Brotherhood.

8. Beauts Malone.

Bio

HUWWTD are four. Based in Dublin. Make abrasive noise-rock which has been described as "all angles and noise, edges and respite, razor riffs, visceral vocals, heinous hooks, yet on the face of it, as smooth as a mirror, as sheer as cliff-face", "Big'N and enablers in a blender" and "socially aware slab punk with constant discordant meanderings".

- 2 tracks on a Richter Collective Singles night CD with Guilty Optics & BATS released in 2009

- 10" Split with I'll Eat Your Face from Cork released in 2010 on Richter Collective

- LP 'Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo' released on Richter Collective in 2012

- Second LP 'Vega in the Lyre' released September 2014 on Learning Curve, Art For Blind, Whobrain, Gabu, Triplejump & Wahshtuff

- Split 7" with B.O.B. from Montpellier for release late 2014 on Gabu

Members

BL - Words

PC - Guitar/Bass

MH - Bass/Guitar

JB - Kit

Review:

You really have to be absolutely sodden with audacity, to release a two-year-old record that ends up trumping some of the most touted noise rock releases of the last six months. Hands Up Who Wants To Die have essentially proved themselves to be that little shit that arrives late to an exam, leaves after the first half an hour, and you just know deep inside that the little fucking prick has aced it.

Setting a foot firmly back in reality though, it’s easy to imagine the weight a band may have to carry on their shoulders when they’re on the cusp of releasing a record that they’ve had a long time to lay in bed with. Weight, pressure, anxiety, none of them necessary if there ever was any, because 'Vega In The Lyre' is an unhinged joy, more perversely deviant than 2012’s Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo, but every bit as hazardous.

This ditty gets started up with very little foreplay, straight in, no kissing. ‘Now Beacon, Now’ jerks and rattles to life with abrasive math-rock strings, a controlled discordancy that carries on over to ‘Scoops’ and sets you up for this audio equivalent of a malfunctioning robot. ‘Burnt Yesterday’ twitches anxiously before finally fracturing into a full-blown panic attack, vocalist Barry Lennon’s deranged yells caught hopelessly in a current of inhuman distortion that thrusts and batters.

If ‘Burnt Yesterday’ indicates that 'Vega In The Lyre' is an incredibly moody record, then ‘False Dawn’ seals that deal with pounding bass and percussion that frames and marries a sepulchral, cumbersome drone. ‘No Big Deal’ arrives all jittery with its dancing shoes on, boasting of a good, stout bass sound that turns disgracefully heavy and ominous on ‘Dreft’, a track that really embodies the musicianship on this bad boy.  Harmony and noise clashing in a melodrama that’s as despondent as it is aggressive.

‘The Brotherhood’ is helter-skelter restlessness that only takes time to breathe right before ‘Beauts Malone’, a strident bastard of a track that pummels and shudders with the reminiscence of Croatian noise rock baby-makers, Sexa. A rush of digital noise and feedback brings this monument to dissonance to a close, and you’re back.

Alongside psychedelic maniacs, Wild Rocket, HUWWTD have offered up another reason why everyone should be keeping an ear out for new Irish tunes. 'Vega In The Lyre' is the sound of a band who have had been able to put out exactly the kind of record that they wanted to, no rushing and no fussing, and it’s clearly evident in the quality of the recordings and in that of the musicianship and song writing. It’s a writhing, snarling mutant that shows moments of humanness throughout, but never for long enough to trick you into thinking it’s benevolent. This is one that I’m sure will go down a treat in the live arena as well, and I look forward to spilling booze all over myself to it. It’s been a good year for wholesome, home-grown Irish turbulence.

Words by Liam Doyle

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KRIEG - Transient (Album Review)

Album Type: Album

Date Released: 02^nd September 2014

Label: Candlelight Records

Transient - track listing:

1.Order Of the Solitary Road

2.Circling the Drain

3.Return Fire

4.To Speak With Ghosts

5.Atlas With A Broken Arm

6.Time

7.Winter

8.Walk With Them Unnoticed

9.Ruin Our Lives

10.Home

11.Gospel Hand

Band Members

J. Dost (Drums)
N. Jameson (Vocals, Various Instruments)
A. Poole (Guitars)
D. Sykes (Bass)
D. Zdanavage (Guitars)

Review:

In an age where black metal is widely coupled with the ‘experimental’ sounds of harsh electronics, shoegazing post-rock, synthesizers, or pretty much anything that deviates from the blueprints designed in the early 80s, it takes a band with gusto and imagination to really tread the line between orthodox and heterodox and do so with a smooth grace. Then again, when you really think about it, you could say that Krieg were there from the beginning. So should it really be a surprise that, 20 years later, they’re still summoning up the frigid and mean-spirited black metal that we’ve all come to savour? Should it be a surprise that even though they’ve retained that very sound, one can still hear the signs of the age-wreaked schism that visits right before the urge to adventure and experiment?

Then again, is it any surprise that this isn’t the same band that recorded those early demos? No. That’s because this hate-fueled machine from Somers Point, New Jersery, has seen more members come and go over the years than Gene Simmons has seen vagina. About the only constant within the band has been vocalist Imperial, otherwise known (on this record in particular) as N. Jameson. Switching to his real (?) name for this release is quite symbolic of this record’s maturity.

With Transient, Krieg are a two-headed serpent. One head represents the old, the orthodox, the malignant black metal sound carefully crafted by drunken teenagers under Norway’s frozen moon. On the other head we have dark ambiance, deep and cavernous soundscapes that haunt the entire record and subsequently culminate in bizarre, spoken-word passages that jolt and buzz with noise and feedback. It’s rough and heavy enough for the sexless, joyless, mountain-dwelling kvltists, and modern enough for the sexless, joyless, city-dwelling hipsters.

That was a joke, by the way. Smile for fuck’s sake.

Transient eases in with eidolic waves of feedback and alien static before erupting into a full sonic barrage including cancerous vocals, an obese drum sound, and forlorn strings that give-way to the odd headbanger riff here and there. The first few tracks, most notably ‘Return to Fire’ and ‘Atlas with a Broken Arm’, keep the kettle boiled, and you’re given a warrior’s performance of cataclysmic metal skulduggery throughout. However, a promise is made during ‘To Speak with Ghosts’ and comes to fruition during the second half, as we begin our descent into the outré of the record. But not before we get our teeth into a cover of Amebix’s ‘Winter’, which I must admit sounds pretty good considering I’d rather give myself a facial with a tub of hot wax than listen to Amebix for any longer than three minutes.

As previously stated, the second half of this record is batshit insane as most black metal records go. It isn’t ‘Sigh insane’, but it’s still delightfully bizarre and atmospheric. ‘Walk With Them Unnoticed’ elaborates further on the shoegazing element introduced earlier on in the album, right before snapping back into snarling, black metal form. ‘Ruin Our Lives’ arrives despondent and canorous before mutating into a drug-induced wall of digital noise complete with a slow, resonant drum machine pattern. There really are a lot of small instances of experimentation, or more accurately the employment of electronics, towards the end of Transient, and it’s hard to tell if this is an adventurous move or simply keeping with the zeitgeist. Album closer, ‘Gospel Hand’, bites back with vicious fervour after a seven minute and thirty-eight second long detour into a spoken-word dream sequence titled ‘Home’.

As stated previously, this record has something for both the fans of traditional and the new wave of scientists floating around your local metal boozer. It’s not too ‘out there’, but it’s just odd enough to stay interesting. It’ll either be a hit, or it’ll send the Internet forums into a rage-drunk frenzy. Both outcomes are good.

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Written by Liam Doyle

Thanks to Darren at Candlelight Records for the promo. Transient will be available to buy from Candlelight Records from 2^nd September 2014.

Live Review: Venus Sleeps, Wild Rocket, Slomatics, Headless Kross. Fibber Magees, Dublin, Ireland. 8/8/2014

As a foreword, I’d like to first make it very, very clear that this will undoubtedly be my most decrepit live review ever. My memory was, on this night above others, reserved mainly for vibrations and sensations, nothing solid and easily digestible, so to take a stab at delivering a totally sound and accurate “journalistic” review of this gig would be to stab in vain with a knife made of sorrow. Have a look at the line-up for just one second. Now you know. Proceed.

I arrived late into Venus Sleeps’ set after alighting from the bus too early and getting caught in one of Grafton Street’s infamous human floods, those bastard teenage girls must be out to fucking ruin me. I eventually get to the venue and am instantly treated to what can only be described as some orthodox, Sabbath-worshipping Doom metal for frying brains. It was my first time hearing Venus Sleeps, but it didn’t take much of their set to convince me that these guys fit on the bill like a hand mark on a cheeky step child’s face. I wish I could have heard them from the beginning, but as they say; ‘arrive two hours late to a Doom gig, first band are still on’. Regardless, Venus Sleeps appeared like a well-oiled machine on the stage and with squealing lead guitar work and monolithic tones and battery behind them, they served up enough swollen riff pie to keep me humming for the rest of the night, I think.

Next to the party was Wild Rocket, and by Christ you could get whiplash watching their momentum since the release of Geomagnetic Hallucinations in early July. The only thing stopping this band from taking off from their stage launch pad came in the form of some minor but annoying sound problems which at one point saw the vocal mic cutting out towards the end. Other than that, it was every bit the extraterrestrial wall of sound the crowd had been hoping for. It’s not often you see people dancing, swaying animatedly even, to music in a predominantly metal venue. That’s exactly what you get at a Wild Rocket gig. Animate enough to move slightly, too fucking spaced to move entirely. One of my friends turned to me and gave me ‘the nod’ during their set, this most sacred of nods is reserved for when a band has reduced your brain to a warm dew clinging to the inside of your skull. He was most pleased, we were all most pleased.

During Wild Rocket’s space-synth spiked rock n’ roll trek, I began to fall in love with a gorgeous redhead shaking it in the front row. I never did get her name, as lady alcohol had already dug her nails deep into my flesh at this point and rendered any words I may have had for Red completely useless. If you’re reading this, Red, I bet I can bench more than your boyfriend can. No, no I probably couldn’t.

At this point I can’t remember exactly what space shuttle Slomatics arrived on, but I could certainly hear it landing from the smoking area. Slomatics are more than just rivals to Conan’s colossal and barbaric sound, they bring so much more to the table and that’s very apparent tonight. Splicing cumbersome Doom weight with spacey drones and passages, Slomatics are essentially the sound of a fully operational death star, and it translates to the live arena with fantastic ease. The tracks from their new album Estron are played at harmful, poisonous levels, and those powerful vibrations were rattling us all up like human cocktail shakers. I’d love to give you a definitive set-list here, but I’m afraid that even attempting to pinpoint when one song ended and another began would serve only to send my already fragile mind right into a portal of madness from which it will not return from. There’s no point in trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together in the dark.

I was legless at Headless Kross, and as such; I have only memories that manifest themselves as blurry dream sequences for evidence that this band destroyed. I was definitely punching the air at some point and that can only mean good things. The fact of the matter is that Headless Kross delivered the first time I saw them (It was dangerously close to the same line-up as tonight’s gig as well) and they certainly delivered this time as well. Filthy, rawboned Sludge riffs ricocheted off the walls and provided the perfect drinking soundtrack for those of us beyond help. Headless Kross are a majestic kind of bestial, they make knuckle-dragging Sludgery sound almost regal at times and even though my head certainly wasn’t all there, it’s very, very hard to miss something as polluted and pronounced as this trio from Glasgow. Their sharp as a knife but drunk as hell grooves were the perfect way to end the gig and top off a night defined by pints of Jägermeister and surreal and heavy soundscapes.

According to my long-suffering friends, I ended up striking death poses all the way up the hill to my mate’s road. Death poses, though the body lives on, God help us. If these bastards come back again next year, I may not live to write about it.

Written by Liam Doyle

Fourth Seal - Book XIV (Album Review)

Album Type: EP

Date Released: July 12th 2014

Label: Self Released

Book XIV - track listing:

1.Track I 13:43

2.Track II 18:24

Bio

The Fourth Seal. The final step in the Apocalypse. Once broken, the Fourth Seal will unleash the final horseman, Death, upon the Pale Horse. As he rides across the world, Hell shall follow him, swallowing all who fall.

Fourth Seal is a solemn representation of that coming event; a cacophonous memorial to the fate that awaits all men.

Band Members

All members anonymous

Review:

Did you know that Dog the Bounty Hunter is from Denver, Colorado? And correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Dog the Bounty Hunter once famously proclaim; “My wife fucks like a hungry reptile when I start spinning those groovy, satanic sounds”. He didn’t actually say that, as you might imagine, I’m just scraping the bottom of the barrel for a humorous lead in to something that’s not one bit funny at all. It’s loathsome and callous and it comes from Denver’s Blackened Doom duo, Fourth Seal.

Fourth Seal’s first offering is over half an hour’s worth of amorphous horror. Two tracks map out the journey for you, but that’s about as close to tradition as you may find on this one. Fourth Seal inject poisonous doses of Black Metal into a bloated body of Doom, marrying the two in an entirely different manner than most have in the past. There’s nothing fancy or over-the-top about Book XIV, in fact, it comes off immediately as the complete antithesis to the epic, melodious “Funeral” sound that many bands have gone for over the years. It’s both hypnotic and rough as a bear’s arse at the same time.

The very first thing you may notice about Book XIV is that it was recorded on a child’s hand in a studio made of Styrofoam boxes and razor wire. This bad trip of a slab is made only more noxious by its recording quality, and that’s what hooked me from the beginning. I’m a salivating pig for lo-fi when it’s cooked just right. It has to have just enough grain to give the overall picture some character, but enough clarity so I can still see what’s going on in it. While there’s always improvements to be made and sounds to experiment with, Fourth Seal definitely have the right ears for that “kvlt” quality and that’s apparent from the moment this fucker’s engine starts coughing up blood. Though it would be interesting to hear what the band would sound like with a little more muscle on the guitar tone, the coarseness of Book XIV is, as I said before, a creature all unto itself.

You’re dragged through the nettles throughout the album’s thirty and something minutes, a guitar howls madly one moment only to snap into place with a solid riff the next while the frosty and dominant percussion constantly remind you throughout that you’re listening to a metal band. The absence of vocals on the album was a good decision as the music itself is so busy and often chaotic that vox, even just the odd wail here and there, would just be absorbed into the wall of sound already molesting your senses. I don’t like name-dropping or making too many lazy comparisons, but if I could indulge for a moment, I’d recommend Fourth Seal to any Ramesses or 11Paranoias fan, if horrific, barbarous psychedelia is to your masochistic tastes.

In the long run, Book XIV is great first offering made only more interesting by its ballsy direction and execution. It constantly climbs and descends through an icy landscape, bringing you on a guided tour through the bleak picture they’ve painted for you. A deep, cavernous Black Metal demeanour on the face of a Doom album.

Check the Band from Links Below

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BandCamp

Written by Liam Doyle

Wild Rocket - Geomagnetic Hallucinations (Album Review)

Album Type: Album

Date Released: July 1^st 2014

Label: Self Released

Geomagnetic Hallucinations - track listing:

1.Layers 08:11

2.Blowholes 05:01

3.A Better Place 06:39

4.Interplanetary Vibrations 09:24

5.Sulphur Assassins 05:13

6.Don't Ask When 04:56

Band Members

Bres - Rythmic Pulses

Jon K - Psychoacoustic Timbre

Moose - Sub Octaves and Communication

Niallo - Phase Changes

Review:

It was around this time last year that I found myself standing in front of a little stage in Dublin’s then “go to” heavy metal venue, The Pint. I’d made the journey up to good ol’ capital city to see Belfast’s Slomatics open up a fucking black hole right in front of my face, and that they did, as they always do, but they weren’t alone. Headless Kross were the headliners of a sickeningly appropriate line-up featuring Slomatics, Lurch, and Wild Rocket. So I’m there, facing the stage, body frozen in Wild Rocket’s suspension beam, unable to move an inch, forced to watch them glide through electric freak-out after electric freak-out as a projector screen flashes hypnotic images before our eyes, and I’m thinking; “What have you done to my brain? This is fantastic. Where am I?”

Listening to Wild Rocket’s Geomagnetic Hallucinations brings me right back to that venue on that very night. I remember vividly the hyperactive rock n’ roll space opera taking place on the stage, from start to finish. This album sees Wild Rocket’s electricity bottled, no added sugar, and it still tastes sweet a year later. I’ll try and keep the sci-fi references to a minimum.

Geomagnetic Hallucinations is ceaseless intensity and psychedelia with a larger-than-life, big sound that propels it far above the countless generic stoner/psychedelic slabs released every year. There’s no rehashed Kyuss tunes here, sorry folks, you can find that anywhere. Laggard Doom riffage and wailing space-synth meets Punk rock in hyperdrive on this forty minute joyride through the cosmic plasma pool, and you may be scraping your brains off your shirt by its end.

The album’s opener, “Layers”, sets the scene for you with some sluggish, doped-up, desert-evoking Doom, but that’s just the take-off sequence and after that it’s practically non-stop “I’m sweating fucking bullets, lads, get me off the wall” intensity. The record does take a detour from the helter-skelter on its longest track, “Interplanetary Vibrations”, however, offering up some riff that would fry the heads off Flower Travellin’ Band. For the most part though, this record is controlled chaos, every instrument bleeding into one another and feeding the sonic engine that drives it forward. Album closer “Don’t Ask When” shows one last ditch effort by the band to bum rush the sun, merging all of what makes the album great into one (just under) five minute sustained explosion.

In a few words; I’m excited about Geomagnetic Hallucinations. It’s an exciting record that never becomes a chore to listen to and offers up a few surprises along the way. It’s the sound of a band that’s, hopefully, ready to burst out of Dublin’s chest and brainwash their way to wherever the fuck it is they want to go. See you when the smoke clears.

Check the Band from Links Below

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BandCamp – Available to buy on DD/VInyl

Written by Liam Doyle

Live Review: Zom, Malthusian, Inquisition. July 16th 2014, Voodoo Lounge, Dublin

 

Review: 

It’s a warm afternoon in the Emerald Isle, July 16^th of 2014, and though the songbirds are busking happily in the trees and the sun is throwing us a wink and a smile, my mind’s eye is concentrated on a thick, sinister fog in the distance beyond the hills of sleepy Rathdrum. It’s a dark one and it’s threatening to block out whatever little tidbit of summer we’re having today. That colossal fog, I imagine, is emanating from our capital city, and most likely because black metal titans Inquisition have brought it with them.

In about three hours I’m going to hop onto a bus en route to Dublin for the Inquisition show in the newly refurbished Voodoo Lounge, a venue that has seen some serious shit in its time. My last visit was for a Gorgoroth and Vital Remains show which ended abruptly when Gorgoroth/Taake vocalist, Hoest, smacked a bottle of wine across a man’s face, leaving a pool of blood and shards of teeth all over the pit. So to say that I’m both terrified and excited for tonight would be an understatement. There’s no feeling in the world quite like knocking back plastic cups of the devil’s ambrosia and wondering if you should get your dentist on the phone before or after the gig.

Considering the recent controversies surrounding the band, which in my opinion are completely ridiculous, I’m not sure what kind of reception Inquisition will get or what kind of crowd will show up to the event or if there will be any kind of trouble like the last time I was there. What I do know is that tonight’s line-up is more dangerous than any one drunken arsehole with a blunt object.

We arrive at the Voodoo Lounge about twenty minutes before the first band are to hit the stage, and much to my relief, as soon as we enter the venue we are met by four leather-clad dudes chilling out and chowing down on some chicken noodles (the venue seems to double as an eatery). So noodles are here, this is a good sign. I can think of no possible conflict that cannot be abated by a warm bowl of noodles. We hear the screech of amplifiers and a howl of drunken approval from the hallway, the show is about to kick off. We make haste.

ZOM

Our opening act, Zom, have become a staple part of the Irish metal scene in their short few, but turbulent years. They’ve consistently delivered each time I’ve seen them perform, a power-trio that hammer out some of the most ghastly, knuckle-dragging death metal you could fathom. Theirs is the sound of primitive man discovering fire and immediately using it to burn his fellow man alive. This is a band who draw their water from the well of barbaric old school death metal, harking back to a time when speed, brutality and ghoulish ambiance alone were slung into the cauldron. The blood of Brazilian archfiends Sarcófago and Mutilator run through their open veins and that’s apparent from the moment they start blasting away into their set. There’s nothing fancy here whatsoever, just unrelenting barbarism and blast beats. Tonight is no different.

The crowd is thin, as is common for the first band of the night, but there is of course the one enthusiastic reveller (we all know the one) standing alone front row, banging his head and punching the air as though his life depends on it, and rightly so. I’ve never known Zom to interact with an audience, they simply arrive, crush all whom dare stand close enough to them, and leave. Again, tonight is no different and no one is left disappointed. Actually, the only disappointing occurrence during the set was the mistake I made in thoughtlessly ordering a pint of Stella while caught up in Zom’s “The Horror from Beyond”. Turned out that the Stella was served in those tiny plastic cups for babies with anemia. It’s a mistake I won’t be making a second time, I promised myself.

Malthusian

Much like the majority of promises I make to myself, before Malthusian have even hit the stage, I’ve already guzzled back another pygmy beer with giant’s price tag. Malthusian, whose 2013 demo “MMXIII” sent shivers through the spine of the Irish death metal scene, seemed to take to the stage like men with a very grim mission at hand. Their malevolent sonic assault slows only at times to allow the audience to breathe in the poisonous levels of bleak density that is the undercurrent of their sound. ‘Bleak’ being the key word when describing the music of Malthusian, unsurprisingly so as this is an outfit comprised of members of some of Ireland’s most heavy and funereal bands (Mourning Beloveth, Abbadon Incarnate, Altar of Plagues, to name a few).

For some reason though, my heart wasn’t in the show. Maybe it was because I’d chosen to relocate to the bar and allow photographer, Julian Palmer,(who, due to insurance issues, was reduced to using a mobile phone. We’re very professional) to go about his business front row. So I propped myself up by the bar and nodded my head to a music that, on any other night, I would’ve been basking in like a dog on sun-baked patio. Malthusian’s brand of frenzied demonism was exactly what I was looking forward to, but something came over me during their set, and so I sat for the remainder of their set. Even though I could feel myself sinking into my pint, there was at least one other person in the building who I knew wasn’t fairing half as well as I was. I spotted him, we’ll call him “acid guy”, for the first time towards the end of Malthusian’s ritual. He attempted to throw his arms around two pretty young ladies, who promptly shuffled away from him as though he had just crawled from the leper pit. It was the first I saw of him, but most certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Inquisition

By the time Inquisition had made their way to the altar, I had picked myself up and was more than ready for the final act in what had so far been one of the most bestial gigs I’d attended in recent memory. I was already very much aware of Inquisition, the band, but nothing could really prepare me for Inquisition, the live band. Never before had I heard a black metal band, never mind a duo, perform as intricately and with as much white hot fury as Inquisition did that night. Not a single beat was missed, not a moment’s worth of ambiance lost to poor sound and not a pair of eyes straying from the hypnotic spectacle taking place on stage. With a set-list comprised of songs new and old, you could tell that the band were bent on doing much more than simply promoting their latest release, they were all about putting on a show, and a show they did give. What struck me most about their performance was singer/guitarist Dagon’s perfect vocal delivery, his famous and powerful croak crowned the sonic offensive and gave the overall display a character that one would be very hard-pressed to find in another band of Inquisition’s kind.

I stood there among the modestly sized crowd and, maybe it was the booze, but I couldn’t help but feel as though we were all experiencing a rare moment of community. That what we were seeing before us was incredible, and even the most joyless and indifferent of us couldn’t raise a nose in the air or let out a scoff. Though Inquisition have been dished out some negative press as of late and have no doubt been dealt all the trouble that comes with such negativity, it most certainly didn’t show in their live performance. This band was simply spot on, and no controversy can supersede their ability to absolutely fucking tear your local metal den a new arsehole.

As we were leaving the venue, all smiles and laughs, I caught a glimpse of acid guy, a deflated and defeated look on his face. As though the world around him was collapsing, or he was coming down way too early for his liking. I found out later on the next day that he’d taken four knuckles to the face from a member of the crowd who had simply had enough of his touchy-feely approach to socializing. And so it was, noodles and all, that violence lurks in every corner of our bleak, crumbling society. 

Words by: Liam Doyle

Check The Bands from Links Below

https://www.facebook.com/inquisition.official

https://www.facebook.com/malthusianDM

https://www.facebook.com/pages/ZOM/195971213790266