Archive for August 2016

The Ringmaster has gotta be a contender for one of my favorite ICP records. It marks the point where the group really start to find their feet. As much as I love Carnival of Carnage, it is a bit sketchy and the quality of tracks here far surpasses anything off that album, not to mention the Beverly Kills EP. I also think it’s one of the more under-rated jokers cards, if not the most under-rated…

Heartless is the most recent offering from bizarre, dark and menacing electronica group Bestial Mouths. Expect “darkwave” (the YouTube comments section just had a triple bypass with the use of this word) meeting ethereal pop in a world of decay, pain and seemingly endless reverb. The tracks do sound kinda similar however in a bizarre twist this only seems to cement the record together as a solid whole, rather than drive boredom into the heart…

Vulvulator are (or were) a pornogrind band from the incredibly-metal-as-f sounding Uzhgorod, which is in Ukraine. One of the greatest tragedies of the 21st century is that they only ever released one album and a couple of splits. Obscenario is a bizarre blast through the usual pastures fermenting in these particular genres (slam / pornogrind / brutal death metal), but the production style chosen by the band (or maybe the studio producer?) really adds an…

I guess this is probably one thing you wouldn’t have expected me to cover, but I was chatting recently with LIW regular contributor Burra on many things musical, and somehow, somewhere along the highway HIM came up. Burra raised the quite valid point that Razorblade Romance was a solid album in any respect, and I had to agree with him, regardless of the band that released it, or what they would become. It is eternally…

(words by Porth’s man-in-thon-know, Gareth Burra) Here we have the new 6 track release – The Great Depression Act 1 – from South Wales 5 piece Calling Apollo. What a huge sounding record this is; production wise, instrumental and vocal wise – it’s great! A very wisely chosen opening track comes in the form of “Light The Way”; I love the guitar tone in this, it’s very reminiscent of a lot of the 2000’s era…

Ahh, Burning Witch – what a terrifying band. Crippled Lucifer was one of those albums I got when I was younger simply because I thought the cover art was fucking mint. It therefore coincidentally opened up the drab underbelly of doom metal for me; not only was it slow, the absence of groove and most melody made it a painful first listen. I had no idea that doom could be so twisted, evil and harrowing….

Brutality Will Prevail are a long-running Welsh hardcore band that have, over the years, gone through several styles and line ups. Forgotten Soul is the band’s 2009 debut album (they self-released a few things before this, but this was the proper debut) and it catches the band when they were playing a really down-tempo, super-chuggy style of hardcore. I guess it is almost like slam death metal, but with the endless double kicks taken out….

I avoided Genitorturers for a very long time simply because I was aware of the fact that Vincent from Morbid Angel played in some sort of badly-named industrial side project. I was also acutely aware of his penchant for bad leather / pvc shit so on those reasons alone I gave this band a very wide berth. I know that this band doesn’t begin and end with Ol’ Vince, but when all those crapulent dance/gabba/industrial…

Black Sun are (or possibly were) a three piece from Scotland. I think (from lending CDs off the Doomfinder General) that they pretty much started out as a one man industrial/noise project before evolving into a full band. They self-released a bunch of stuff before this final full length dropped on Future Noise and Head Of Crom. Twilight Of The Gods is a solid album through and through. The best way I can quickly describe…

Pothead are a bunch of a masked crusaders from Prague (Praha!), Czech Republic, who play down-tuned death metal / goregrind infused with the wondrous sounds of hip hop and also a bit of techno. It all seems a bit ridiculous, and quite frankly it is. On the first initial listen it sounds a bit like GUT jamming with Ahumado Granujo at a Cypress Hill gig (I know, right). I caught these guys live recently, and…

Wow this shit is brutal. Probably one of the best bits of death metal I’ve heard in a while, Prenatal Massacre is the third full length album from Welsh sickos Necrocest. I remember seeing these guys supporting The Berzerker in Newport many moons ago (2008 methinks) and I had forgotten all about them until I came across them on Youtube recently, because y’know, I’m an idiot, but there you go. All that matters is that…

Gets Worse’s latest EP literally gets worse (I’m so sorry). Nah, I’m kidding – every single time I hear something from these guys they raise the bar. The sound here is absolutely fucking spot on; so crunchy and heavy but with clarity and definition. And the music? Well, it’s Gets Worse, but a little bit more grown up and defined. The fast bits are there; the powerviolence vocals, the cheesegrinder bass, and that interesting snare…

Presenting you with haunting digital soundscapes from one of the masters of the genre, the Excavation record is a true trip in ethereal ambiance and beatwork. I first spun this at about 4am on a nightshift; it was that eerie time of night when everything literally stops dead, even though I was in a room full of people. There is something about “the witching hour” – that unique stillness – that is just so palpable….

Anaal Nathrakh have been at the forefront of British black metal for years and years. I however, was fairly late to the party. The first album of theirs I heard properly was Passion, and Vanitas, their eighth, is what I consider to be their best record. From start to finish it’s a relentless, punishing affair, which is nothing out of the ordinary for this band, but Vanitas seems to squeeze more amazing songs in than…

Flux Information Sciences are one of those bands that have got me wondering – “where the hell have you been all of my life!”. It genuinely annoys me when such gems go undetected on my musical radar for so long, especially since they can attribute a sizeable portion of their success to one Michael Gira (who? Never heard of him) after being signed to Young God in the early 2000s. Hell, even Chris Pravdica, the…

Something tells me that the members of Haggus may possibly be vegetarians, or even vegans. I’m not sure what it is; I really can’t put my finger on it… Anyways, sarcasm aside, this is some top notch mincecore. Like, seriously good shit. Like, better than 95% of the shit out there. Better than 95% of Agathocles splits. I love the new wave of gory mincecore/grind/whatever coming from America and Canada, and this fits perfectly into…

Yo dawg, we heard you liked Korn so we made you a Korn to release after your Korn (but not before the other Korn). Who’s putting out all this Korn you ask? Well, fucking Korn, of course. I mean, how much Korn could a Korn fan konsume, if a Korn fan could konsume Korn? Korn obviously don’t think that kontinuing to kall albums Korn, even though they already have records kalled Korn – now totalling…

Masonna (not to be confused of course, with Madonna) is a staple and legend in the noise world. He is “famed” for his intense live performances, where his body is seemingly nothing more than a channel for pure chaos; as if some invisible higher power is playing the poor guy like a marionette and pouring the result out as harsh noise. These performances can be seen on YouTube, thanks to the wonders of modern technology….