Dodecahedron - S/T (2012)

 Dodecahedron are a Dutch collective that seem rather intent on dethroning France as the epicenter of  forward thinking avant black metal. This slab of bad acid trip apocalyptic reckoning is as clear a mission statement as I've heard in quite a while. Many in the black metal community would consider what Dodecahedron, Deathspell, and Blut do as part of the "third wave" of black metal. Forgoing most of what would be considered "orthodox" in favor of a sound that in my opinion is far more complex and often far more frightening, these "third wavers" are pushing their genre to some pretty awesome places. Whether they're delivering riff after vicious riff or descending in to the deepest reaches of the human Psyche, Dodecahedron play with absolute conviction and force. They have arrived and everyone should take notice. Thoroughly impressed... early contender for my year end list.

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Physical
Digital

Masakari- The Prophet Feeds (2010)

Cleveland, Ohio in the house! When I think of Cleveland and hardcore, I think of two things: H100s and 9 Shocks Terror. Masakari...don't sound like either of those bands. They are however, big fans of His Hero Is Gone and Tragedy (who happen to be two of my favorite bands of all time) and it's pretty obvious when you listen to their music. Dark, crusty, D-beaty goodness and like HHIG, Masakari are as adept at playing at grindcore speeds as they are at sludge pacing. Don't really think I really need to say much more than that. Highly recommended.

Masakari recently made their entire discography free on bandcamp. If you're smart you'll grab the rest of it when you head over there to download this album and if you're not a dick you'll throw them a few bones. Make sure to check out the cover they did of the entire Fight Back Ep by Discharge. It fucking rules!

Get it here.

 Buy the LP (Tankcrimes).

Code Orange Kids - Cycles (2011)

When I was eighteen I had no idea what my musical voice was or even how to execute it with any kind of maturity and professionalism. That's obviously not a problem for Code Orange Kids. Fresh out of High School, these guys and gal write and play songs as if they've been doing it forever. Even though it appears seasoned, Cycles still has a very youthful pulse to it. This is definitely not a rehash of the old and tired. It's simple... this E.P. kills. It is violent and filthy, affirming and destructive. Combining Converge and Cursed-esque tones, D-beat feel, and a Spazz/Torche attention span, Code Orange Kids craft an onslaught of hardcore that's pretty "top of the food chain". It's pretty easy to understand this band's relatively meteoric rise through the underground ranks. Look out for their split 7" with Full of Hell coming out on Topshelf Records soon and their full length coming out in the near future through Deathwish Inc. Yep...Jacob already snatched 'em up. That should tell you something.

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Buy it:
Physical: from them on tour, seek them out!
Digital

H.B.B.R.

Ah, the early 90's...

Vinyl Fetish: When Hell Comes Home Split 7" Series Vol. 1 Thou/Kowloon Walled City

Pretty stoked about this. I wasn't interested in enough of the records in this series to order a subscription, so I was worried about having to wait for the ones I did want to pop up on eBay/Discogs and shell out a ton of cash for them. Fortunately, Hell Comes Home has decided to to sell them individually. This split features Kowloon Walled City covering "July" by Low and the almighty Thou doing a cover of "4th of July" by Soundgarden. Rob and I have been jamming on the Thou cover non-stop for about a month now, it's so good. Haven't had a chance to listen to the KWC cover yet, but this one is worth it for Thou alone.

Get it here.

Ignivomous - Contragenesis (2012)

Ignivomous' debut full length Death Transmutation was one of my favorites of 2009, so when they announced they were gestating a new one to be delivered this year, I was pretty excited. And deliver they did, this thing goddamn rules. I'm not big on the term old school death metal since it generally implies a simple rehashing of what's come before without really adding anything of merit and that's what the overwhelming majority of OSDM bands seem to be comfortable doing, so perhaps I'll call what Ignivomous does "traditional" death metal. If I had to compare Ignivomous to another band, it would be Incantation. If you know me (or Rob), you know that if someone across the room happens to mention Incantion our heads turn so fast that whiplash ensues. So having your band compared to Incantation is like getting the mother of all gold stars on your homework assignment in our book. Heavy as hell, tons of tremolo, Immolation-esque side-winding riffs and great vocals, this thing's a beast. Already on my best of 2012 list.

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Not available yet, but when pre-orders are announced I'll definitely be making a post about it.

Smohalla- Resilience (2011)

Help me out here folks, I'm still trying to wrap my head around this one. Normally I'm not one for the overly dramatic or super orchestral, but this thing, this collection of noise has drawn me in to its web and won't let me go. I know very little about this fine addition to the French black metal pantheon, except that they write incredibly interesting songs and their name comes from the Shahaptian Indian tribe. Loosely translated the name means dreamer or preacher. Imagine if you will Opeth and Alcest gang banging Mr. Bungle while Deathspell Omega and Trent Reznor spank it in the corner with Davide Tiso providing refreshments. Sounds horrible doesn't it? Well believe it or not, it isn't. It's awesome! Yeah there are definitely some over the top moments of cheesy synth, but the rest of it more than makes up for it. I find it somewhat humorous that a few years ago I couldn't imagine France as a leader in any musical genre. Now they're home to, in my opinion, the best black metal out there right now. Enjoy.

    


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Physical

Industries of the Blind- Chapter 1: Had We Known Better (2011)

Presumably none of you out there have heard of this band. That's OK, if a friend's brother hadn't played bass for them previously I wouldn't have either. From their inception in 2003 until last year, the only way to hear their music was to have seen them at one of their rare live appearances or a demo that wasn't widely circulated. One fact should reveal everything you need to know about this band: they're a 9 piece. No, they're not the second coming of pageninetynine, they're a post-rock band, as you probably surmised. Industries of the Blind aren't revolutionary, if you consider yourself a fan of post-rock you've probably heard a number of similar bands. It's likely that few of them execute as well as Industries of the Blind, however. If you're like me (and you should be) you can never have too much post-rock to put on when the mood strikes.

Chapter 1 is available for free on the Industries of the Blind website. There's a donation button on there too, so if you like what you hear send a few bucks their way.

Get it here.

The Men- Open Your Heart (2012)

Oh snap! The Men have a new record out! A mere 10 months after their Leave Home LP which garnered heaps of praise, The Men are back. With this band one should never assume anything. They've shown themselves equally adept at everything from droney sludge to shoegaze to Stooges style proto-punk to black metal (albeit briefly), so I had no idea what to expect with this album. While still showcasing The Men's ability to wear many hats genere-wise, Open Your Heart manages to sound more cohesive than either of their previous full lengths. There are a few exceptions, but this album mostly features straight ahead rockers which are more accessible than much of their previous material.

When looking for comparisons, Open Your Heart brings to mind a veritable who's who of loud, guitar-driven rock bands including The Stooges, MC5, Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth. I'll make a  few less obvious additions to that list from the punk rock and indie realms with Scared of Chaka and the criminally underrated Meneguar. Also, the first time I put this record on I thought it started out with a cover of "Suspect Device" by Stiff Little Fingers, because man, the first riff on "Turn It Around" isn't paying homage, it's straight lifted. Come to think of it "Cube" sounds remarkably similar to "Slip It In" by Black Flag as well.

Anyway, I've always thought The Men were at their best when writing driving rock tunes and apparently they can read my mind, since they've just put out an album full of 'em. Well done boys.

Try it. 

Buy it:

LP & CD 

Digital 

Thantifaxath- Thantifaxath (2011)

This was a really pleasant surprise. Thantifaxath are a black metal band hailing from Toronto. I've alternately seen this called an EP and a demo, but fret not those of you who require some level of production value, this doesn't sound like it was recorded in a trashcan underwater. If I had to compare Thantifaxath to another black metal band it would be Deathspell Omega, who are, in my opinion, the best black metal band over the last decade, so said comparison is high praise indeed. Thantifaxath share a similar predilection for dissonance and riffs that lurch and flail about in an off-kilter fashion that brings late 90's mathy hardcore bands to mind more so than early 90's black metal.

For a first release, it's remarkable how good these three songs are. Hoping we hear a lot more from Thantifaxath in the future. I just picked up a copy on red vinyl (limited to 100) from Dark Descent, you should too.

Try it.

Buy it.

Vinyl Fetish: Graf Orlock- Los Angeles 7" Pre-order

Graf Orlock return with their first release since the tremendous Doombox EP. 10 whole minutes worth of grind on this bad boy! Actually, half of that will probably be samples, but the 5 minutes will be totally worth it. Issued by the band's own Vitriol Records and limited to 600 copies on black vinyl, there are 3 different covers available. Each cover features actual bullet holes shot through it by a member of the band and comes with a fold out poster (not sure if the poster comes with bullet holes as well). These go on sale Saturday around 9pm Pacific Time.

Grind or die.

Obsequiae- Suspended In The Brume Of Eos (2011)

Wow. Yeah, wow. I somehow managed to not hear of this band until I read the totally awesome interview with them in Chips & Beer #2, but I'm retroactively adding this to my favorites of 2011.

"Classical" is a term that gets bandied about far too often."Classically trained" or "classically influenced" seem to get tossed out every time someone hears a guitarist with better than average talent who writes anything that can be considered "epic". However, the two gents from Minnesota that comprise Obsequiae are the real deal (seriously, one dude specializes in harp composition from the 13th century). Fine, maybe they're not influenced by the classical period as much as they are by the medieval and renaissance periods, but you know, most people just lump all of it together as classical music anyway.

A lot of reviewers seem to want to tag this as black, melodic black or post-black metal. So I guess I'll jump on that boat. However, other than the vocals and what adds up to perhaps a minute of blast beating and trem picking, there isn't a whole lot of black metal here, though I can see how this would appeal to fans of bands with progressive, epic or atmospheric tendencies like Krallice, Agalloch and Drudkh. Actually, if you took out the vocals, I don't think there would be anything too objectionable on this album to fans of medieval music with a soft spot for rock 'n roll or prog rock fans either.

So what does this actually sound like? Melodic black metal? Yep. Progressive black metal? Sure. Medieval music? Absolutely. You'll have to check it out to get an idea of what that sounds like all mashed together.

According to Bindrune a vinyl version is in the works for later this year! I'll make a post about that when the pre-order is up.

Try

Buy it:

Digital

Physical (CD)

SubRosa - No Help For The Mighty Ones (2011)

 Having largely overlooked this release when it came out, I found it due time to revisit this stunner. No Help For The Mighty Ones is an exceptional collection of songs. In Latin, SubRosa, is defined as "under the rose". In English, the term is used in reference to secrecy or confidentiality. Musically, this band has quite an aire of the mysterious. I can easily envision SubRosa as the soundtrack to some underground societies ritual. Shrouded figures gathered around, swaying in a joined trance-like state while vocalist Rebecca Vernon acts as the orator to the proceedings. While their approach is extremely straight forward, all the component in place make one pretty epic and captivating album. Thanks in part to their dual violinist attack. Yeah you read that right. While most bands have lead and rhythm guitarists, they have dueling violins. Their addition add an entirely different kind of heavy to this record. Beautiful, melancholy, heavy, and totally triumphant, No Help...has everything I love and look for in an album of this type. SubRosa- No Help For The Mighty Ones will most certainly be counted among some of my favorite records. This will be on serious rotation for a while.


                   


                          

Try it.

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Physical
                                                                           Digital                                                                           

A Scanner Darkly- A Scanner Darkly (2006)

I had started in on doing a lengthy writeup on this album before I went to the A Scanner Darkly last.fm page and realized that the description on said site was as good if not better than anything I was going to write. So here it is:

"As a humble tribute to Philip K. Dick (one of the greatest science fiction writers- and one of the best novelists of the 20th century) A Scanner Darkly draws influence from Dick’s hallucinogenic alternate-realities and the seemingly incompatible musical worlds of sludge, drone, grindcore and prog-rock to create their own synergetic brand of sci-fi metal that is as intelligent as it is brutal!

Alternately lightning fast, brutally crushing and whimsically self-referential, ASD’s self-titled debut is both a tribute to- and an embodiment of- the paranoid, psychotic world of Philip K. Dick."

Combining some totally awesome tunes with a devotion to all things Philip K. Dick (Dickish?), one of my favorite writers, is a huge win in my book. Don't make the same mistake I did and dismiss this band as simply metalcore and ignore them for years. 

Get it for FREE from Gilead Media's bandcamp.

This guy is out of print, but Amazon seems to still have physical copies.