Booze and Frank Frazetta
After stepping out the factory doors, clothes and hair covered in sweat, oil, blood and grease, you roll up your last manager’s special pack of Bugler and hop in your half running ‘78 AMC Concord. You gun it through the backwoods because you don’t want the local sheriff catching you with that spliff in your glovebox, when that three-on-the-tree gearbox hurls you into an alternate dimension populated by forest imps waiting to tear your flesh from bone. In other words, you’re listening to EARTHLING. The Richmond, Virginia based outfit is finally releasing their debut LP after a split with Valkyrie and a few EP’s. Dark Path, a brooding Holocaustic hail-wind of slop and trudge, is one hell of a way for EARTHLING to mark their place in the contemporary metal community.
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By Bryant Schumacher Posted in Reviews EARTHLING
Press play to be the coolest dude at the D&D tourney
Rhode Island sludger-nauts, Howl, are back for a follow up to their 2010 debut, Full of Hell. The Relapse Records group is back at their doomiest with 40 minutes of pure tube sucking guitar girth. Produced by Chris “Zuess” Harris (The Acacia Strain, Hatebreed, Shadows Fall), Bloodlines pushes some serious air. Also present is some of the baddest ass artwork for a metal album ever. Check this out: there’s a three-eyed brunette chick chillin’ in this ocean of blood while bicep curling a baby, wolves swimming around like sharks, a skeleton holding a noose and giant vultures flying around waiting to fuck some shit up. Okay, come on, that’s tight, bro. Anyways, back to the album.
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By Bryant Schumacher Posted in Reviews howl
Deathcore to the Core
Hey kids, you like death metal? How about hardcore? Well you haven’t heard nothin’ till you’ve heard some good ol’ American deathcore. It’s equal parts grind, core, death, thrash, and un-showered teenager. Yeah, yeah, we all hate the term, but this is a review for a metal album, so go f*** yourself. Anyways, there are a few bands atop the food chain of the scene that loathes itself, but one would have to be Knoxville, Tennessee’s Whitechapel. After four albums, the veterans of the genre seek to breathe new life into what is probably their least recognized album, but considered by fans to be one of their finest, and purest works.The Somatic Defilement, originally released in 2007, has gotten a facelift for it’s face-melting breakdowns. Hopefully six years is enough time for you listeners to stock up on Febreze and antiperspirant, cause it’s all B.O. and Coors Light from here…prepare for plenty of column A and column B.
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By Bryant Schumacher Posted in Reviews Whitechapel
This Is Thrash, Bitch
Just like fashion, the world of metal has seen everything come full circle. With the death of the guitar solo in the late ’90s/early 2000s to a string of DJ accompanied nu-metal garbage, we are now seeing a new appreciation for technique in the Djent movement. But also, to a lesser extent, there is the denim-adorned neo-heshers that still wear 20+ year old Anthrax tour tees that only want one thing: speed. Sweaty mullets rejoice for there is Warbeast. In 2010 they released their debut, Krush The Enemy, that bared no shame in its almost lampoon-ish, over the top celebration in all things thrash. Now signed to former Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo’s Housecore Records, Warbeast have a new offering in Destroy that arms its spike bracelets with an attempt to out windmill their previous efforts. Their success, however, depends on how many 18-packs you have on hand for this unrelenting chug-fest.
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By Bryant Schumacher Posted in Reviews Warbeast
You’ll Wish You Were Unborn
In 1995, once touted “Cannibal Corpse side-project,” Six Feet Under released their first LP, Haunted. Chris Barnes was done with the Cannibal crew and was off to one up his former peers by making even more outlandishly Halloween-esque gore-metal. Album after album came out to so-so reaction from most of the metal world, but was graciously taken in and nearly worshiped by Barnes devotees. Now, nearly 20 years later, the tenth Six Feet Under album is here in all it’s dread-locked glory. Unborn is part old-school death, part early ’90s thrash, part butt-rock, and all parts predictable. Best sack up and man your fiercest power-frown for some unadulterated face-melting pretension.
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By Bryant Schumacher Posted in Reviews six feet under
Post-Nonsense
It’s been two years since Münster, Germany’s Long Distance Calling released a full length album. The post-metal instrumental specialists bring you a rather long epic of guitar slashing, prog vibing and blues noodling. So, it’s kind of what you’re expecting from the group—or the genre itself. (Sorry, not to generalize too much.) With every track averaging above the five-minute mark, you’re in for the long haul on this one—so you better like your prog zeniths.
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By Bryant Schumacher Posted in Reviews Long Distance Calling
“Null” and Void
Off and on, the Trent Reznor side project, How to destroy angels_, has progressively brought about teasers. From one EP that sprouted up in 2010, to yet another unexpected release in late 2012, to now with, in typical Null Corporation fashion, a 2013 full release. Welcome Oblivion, the first bona fide LP from Reznor, wife Mariqueen Maandig, frequent collaborator Atticus Ross, and NIN mainstay Rob Sheridan, proves that Reznor and company have the same amount of patience as has been proven over and over. It’s not too uncommon for Nine Inch Nails records to release years apart from one another. However, in the mid 2000s, Reznor was astoundingly prolific. With multiple soundtracks and NIN releases, Htda_ seemed to take a back seat. Read more…
By Bryant Schumacher Posted in High Fidelity, Reviews How to destroy angels_
As Paralyzing As It Is Lively
It seemed like the last we’d be hearing from Thom Yorke (at least for some time) would be his contributions to Modeselektor’s 2011 album, Monkeytown. Then, in typical Radiohead fashion, a track emerged out of nowhere from the long-discussed Atoms for Peace project. Suddenly, they were no longer just a random touring act, as “Default” dropped as a single in late 2012 with plans of an early 2013 album release. Enter Amok, comprised of some colorful musicians from some of the world’s biggest acts. The Atoms’ debut features the talents of Thom Yorke (of course), Radiohead producer and longtime collaborator Nigel Godrich (also of course), Latin percussionist Mauro Refosco, studio musician Joey Waronker, and Michael “Flea” Balzary on bass. Though, with all these voices in the mix, the duo of Yorke and Godrich seem to reign supreme. But don’t think of Amok as “The Eraser Part II,” or “The King of B-Sides” just yet.
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By Bryant Schumacher Posted in High Fidelity, Reviews Atoms For Peace
Not Daring Enough
Is it just us, or is there a return of instrumental post-(insert modifier here)? A few years back, there were plenty of noise duos, but here we are with trios or more. It all blew up with bands like Isis or Explosions in the Sky, but then started to get progressively more doom—and more progressive all together. It’s tempting to throw Brooklyn-based Sannhet into the bunch. However, with the brutishness of early black-metal, a drop of contemporary djent and some screeching atmospheric drone, Sannhet separates itself from the pack, if marginally. Sannhet’s debut release, Known Flood, is proof of this.
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By Bryant Schumacher Posted in Reviews Sannhet
Remastering the Masters
Eleven years after the genre-sculpting Streetcleaner (1989), industrial-doom (or “doom-dustrial”) juggernauts, Godflesh, released what is probably one of their most debated albums from fans and critics alike. Hymns (2001) marked a return to “classic” Godflesh with greater emphasis on sub-blasting guitar sludge. However, in its time, it was one of those “love it or hate it” albums that tore Godflesh fans apart, dividing them into a caste system of Hittites and the hangers-on. So did this album even deserve to be re-mastered, then? What’s so great about it? The answer: sheer Euro-hate and a reminder that Godflesh ain’t dead yet.
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By Bryant Schumacher Posted in Reviews Godflesh
