Wild Throne – Blood Maker

Photo Credit:
Ryan Russell

    There are times when an introduction to a band smacks you dead centre in the face and stops you in your tracks, one fine example being the debut EP from US band Wild Throne, only they additionally rip open your torso with great scything riffs and gnaw your insides with rhythms carrying more voracity than a rabid predator. The three track onslaught is much more than mere aggression though, lethal melodies and impossibly captivating sonic imagination just as greedily at work as the release provides an early major statement for 2014. Blood Maker is a dramatic entrance from a band destiny will have a lot of time for you suspect on the evidence of their impressive tempest.

     Though the debut release from Wild Throne, the band have since 2009 already been crafting and honing their striking blend of progressive rock and melodic metal under original name Dog Shredder. With a couple vinyl EPs and numerous tours and shows with the likes of Dysrhythmia, Melt Banana, Kylesa, Marnie Stern, Helmet, and Black Cobra under their belt, the trio of Josh Holland (guitar/vocals), Noah Burns (drums) and Jeff Johnson (bass) have evolved into Wild Throne and announced this new chapter in riveting style. Recorded with producer Ross Robinson (At The Drive In, Machine Head, The Cure) after the band completed a US tour with Red Fang and Helms Alee, the EP declares the Bellingham, WA trio as not only a proposition to watch very closely but one to devour hungrily right now.

    The Brutal Panda Records released EP smuggles all of its ready to erupt creative armoury into the imagination through the opening rhythmic intrigue of The Wrecking Ball Unchained, the coaxing dramatic beats of Burns, soon aided by the expressive potent vocals of Holland, hypnotically distracting the senses. It is a transfixing start which belies the lying in wait tempest which soon has its moment and bursts through the ears in a torrential storm of invention and passion. Riffs and rhythms stalk and incite with determination and skill whilst the bass of Johnson adds a throatiness which only further seduces but it is the fiery inventive sonic flames and twists Holland also unleashes alongside his stirring vocals which cement the captivation. It is a powerful almost tempestuous engagement with plenty to justify the comparisons to bands such as The Mars Volta, Helms Alee, and These Arms Are Snakes, Wild Throne has drawn, but also in many ways we would add Manic Street Preachers in their early days, Black Tusk, and Muse for various aspects and essences which expel their bait throughout the tremendous track.

     Ebbing and flowing like a tidal wave of energy and emotion, the opening majesty is soon equalled in presence and depth by Shadow Deserts, a track with an acidic call from its first breath aligned to another pulsating bass growl and rhythmic agitation. Like its predecessor, the song’s start is the perfect set up and doorway into the immediately following tsunami of passion and intensity. The celestial, bordering ethereal, ambience and vocals add another avenue to explore within the rage whilst the earnest vocal squalls and compelling punk fury of the track skirted by further melodic imagination and classic metal exploration, simply enslaves an already feistily hungry appetite for band and EP.

    From the exhausting and searing heat of the second song, the title track takes over and instantly opens a fiercer acrid vat of sonic exploration and senses searing enterprise. More At The Drive In than Mars Volta with a toxin of psychedelic vitriol to the expansive and unbridled fire of guitar and vocals, the track is a breath-taking plunge into rapacious creative rabidity and exhaustive passion. The song smothers and permeates every synapse and cell with an irresistible contagion and alone brings an intense spotlight upon the band, which the other songs of course only inflame.

    Blood Maker will not be the first time that Wild Throne leaves people opened mouthed you can be quite sure of that, but it makes a very important and exhilarating base to explode further from.

http://www.wildthrone.com/

10/10

RingMaster 06/03/2014

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Goatcraft – The Blasphemer

 

    Having been impressed initially and even more so since our review of All For Naught the debut album from Goatcraft, it is fair to say there was certain anticipation for its successor The Blasphemer. The new release emerges as again a potent fire of craft and expression which even more so than its predecessor improves and permeates imagination and passions over time as the artist takes the passions through an extraordinary provocative landscape. The fourteen track scenery of self-termed necroclassical sound is an enthralling and absorbing spark for thoughts and emotions, a slab of beauty which is leaps ahead of the rather good first Goatcraft release and an unveiling of maturity and a fully rounded narrative which is quite breath-taking.

     Goatcraft is the one man project of San Antonio based Lonegoat, a composer/musician who created the project in 2010 to answer and use the frustration the artist had with occult and death metal, its commercialism and loss of soul for want of a better word. Piano and keyboard driven, his unique sound and presence was soon sparking intrigue and attention live and most potently with the release of All For Naught. Released via Forbidden Records, the album was an elegant and intensive tempest of passion and creativity within an intrusive and captivating ambience which aligned shadows to emotional investigations. The Blasphemer is bred from the same bed of seeds but with a much more evolved, grown, and complete incitement. Whereas the earlier release was a collection of individual tracks which did lie well together, Lonegoat’s sophomore album plays like one immersive journey with each piece a chapter in the wide narrative of the release. Equally the tracks work as smaller investigations alone too, each experimenting within the cinematic atmospheres emerging from the pieces of music.

   As mentioned there is also a richer beauty to the I, Voidhanger Records released The Blasphemer, something All For Naught was not lacking but like everything, upon the new album it has risen with new resourcefulness to seduce and pull the imagination into dark corners and blackened reflections. A concept album, The Blasphemer is themed around the works of English painter and poet William Blake, each piece taking inspiration and hues from his compositions aligned to theological observations. A quote from Lonegoat describes the release as being “Written and recorded from July to November 2013 under the influence of William Blake’s paintings and, The Blasphemer represents my quest to reconcile the mystical side of GOATCRAFT with its nihilistic side.“

    From the invasive and brooding orchestral breath of Intro: Behemoth, the album explores and invites the imagination with every ounce of its creative and intensive expression. Temptation And Fall is the first full encounter on the album, a track which instantly envelops the psyche in its gentle shadows whilst punctuating that slow consumption with a poignant and dramatic piano evocation, its notes and melodic punches almost stalking the senses as it presses thoughts and visions into action. The following House Of Death is borne from a similar dark empathy, an instant indication that you can take songs singularly or as an extended tale to equal but different effect. Though as mentioned William Blake has inspired the release, it is hard not to involve imagery in the mind which is Poe-esque and noir kissed, all embracing melancholic and sinister gothic shadows.

     The excellent intimidating title track, with a slight discord glaze to its evocation, ripples and rifles the imagination next before both Hecate and Nebuchadnezzar challenge and seduce. The first has a cloak of darkness which is almost smoggy from where a Victorian landscape escapes and adds its own disturbed beauty whilst its successor flirts with high drama and stage bred emotiveness whilst again guiding the listener on a classically sculpted venture of shadowed elegance and erosive passion.

    Each track presents its own unique canvas but like a triptych squared, all slot into an emotive painting of sound and subsequent visualisation by its recipients mind as potently shown by the engrossing In The Arms Of Pity. The four parts of The Great Red Dragon though is a real version of that three pictured union, a symphony dedicated to Blake’s series of watercolours with the same title. It is a masterpiece all on its own, a haunting enlightenment which traps and embraces the imagination as potently and innovatively as their inspirations, and if you can study the paintings whilst listening to the movements all the better as they definitely inspire further side by side.

     The album closes around the senses and in presence with firstly the almost meditatively suffocating Eternal Prayer Of Urizen followed by the dark tonal exploration and emotions of Satan In His Original Glory, a piece like the rest which breathes torment and despair whilst bewitching ears and emotions. Finally Lonegoat brings the unique experience to closure with the brief Outro: Leviathan, a caress of music which plays like an epilogue to the shadows and dark dramas before.

    The Blasphemer is an exceptional encounter which cannot be assessed or examined in a mere handful of listens. Like a painting, the album offers something new and provocative with every flight through its dark atmospheres and almost erosive deep emotional textures. Majestic and threatening, it is an album of the year contender.

http://www.goatcraft.net/

10/10

RingMaster 06/03/2014

  Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

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Destrage – Are You Kidding Me? No.

 

     Destrage is a force which confronts and seduces the imagination with such an exhaustive vivacity of sound and adventure that it becomes a proposition which has you simultaneously confused, bewildered, and thrillingly basking in a maelstrom of sonic alchemy. Hailing from Italy, the band has forged an impressive and unforgettable once bitten presence which is ascending into more fevered attention release by release, but it is the release of new album Are You Kidding Me? No. which feels like the trigger into worldwide recognition and ardour with its Metal Blade Records release. With more flavours, styles, and imagination than a carnival in Rio, the release turns a band which was still waiting to explode around the globe into an exhilarating infection of the psyche and passions with that target in its sights. With words like unpredictable and intriguing the weakest descriptions of the inventive anarchy teasing and ravishing the senses, Destrage is a ten-legged groove machine with just as many schizophrenic characters posing as songs within its latest temptation.

     Formed in 2005, the Milan quintet has been on a charge of persuading and recruiting hearts at home and further afield since their first days, the current line-up in place since 2007 especially stoking those the fires. From their first demo Self Id Generator, Destrage has continued to evolve into a aurally spectacular provocation, the albums Urban Being of 2009 and The King Is Fat’n’Old the following year potent bait greedily devoured by more and more willing souls, though you suspect it will be nothing compared to the awakening sparked by Are You Kidding Me? No. Live too the band has left wasted bodies and hungry bodies in their wake, the undertaking of tours across Europe, Japan, and numerous festivals and shows where they have shared spaces with the likes of Every Time I Die, Parkway Drive, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Parkway Drive, Hatebreed, Unearth, Municipal Waste, Sick Of It All, Freak Kitchen, Monuments, Jeff Loomis, Penny Wise, After the Burial, Puddle of Mudd, August Burns Red, Enter Shikari, Caliban, Lordi, Moonspell and many more, increasing their stock. The new album though feels and sounds like their time to lead the pack has now come and it is not a moment too soon.

     You may be wondering what the band sound like, which we will endeavour to reveal song by song, but suffice to say it is wonderfully something quite impossible to label. Opener Destroy Create Transform Sublimate tells you all you need to know about Destrage and whether to unreservedly embrace or stand scratching your head over their voracious experimentation and invention. The track opens with a spiral of sonic enterprise courted by aggressive riffs and combative rhythms, the mix alluring and intimidating in equal measure. It is not long before the song is throwing off any restraint to stomp with entwining essences of groove and funk veining a still voracious assault of technical and carnivorous metal. The impressive vocals of Paolo Colavolpe are just as eager to tempt and savage as the music with a delivery as wide as the range of sounds around him. The song aggressively dances like a fusion of Jane’s Addiction, Red Hot Chili Peppers, American Head Charge, and French band Mucho Tapioca, but even with its gait it switches and shuffles its suasion without notice or care.

   With a climactic finale which simply thrills and enthrals, dub and techno added to the spice cupboard of the song, the towering opener is swiftly matched in quality and psyche twisting grandeur by Purania. From a charged entrance of rapacious riffing and similarly hungry rhythms, the song settles into a melodic bordering mellow stroll which lasts just the length of the impatience the band has to light the touch paper to another maze of eclectic sonic fascination. Imagine a hybrid of Mr. Bungle, Dillinger Escape Plan, 6:33, and System Of A Down and you get a glimpse of the beauty and schizophrenic glory of the song, a triumph within which the guitars of Matteo Di Gioia and Ralph Salati craft a narrative and web which bewitches and challenges, their hypnotic mix of creative frenzy and skilful acidic elegance spellbinding within the predatory frame built by bassist Gabriel Pignata and drummer Federico Paulovich.

    My Green Neighbour rifles ears next, its first breath a frantic tsunami of beats and riffs courting a bedlamic mind-set. Forcing its agitated psyche and attack into a smoother flowing blaze of heavy and melodic metal, the song takes little effort in replicating the temptation of its predecessors, merging varied flames of sound and persistently captivating detours into a brawling riot of invention and insatiable metal manipulation. The stunning tempest then has to step aside for the more primal bordering bestial presence of Hosts, Rifles & Coke, its heavy throated savagery magnetic and even more tantalising when it shares time with a contagion of melodic prowess and mouth-wateringly catchy choruses, all seared by a scotching solo to top things off.

    Both the discordant and masterful mayhem of G.O.D. and the smoother voiced mesmeric Where the Things Have No Colour unveil new scenic aspects of the Destrage’s songwriting and imagination; the first a riot of Faith No More meets Ugly Kid Joe voraciousness aligned to a mind tripping sensibility and the second a progressively honed melodic venture through rapturous harmonies and exotic melodies within an irresistible toxin of craft and infectiousness. Arguably the track is the band at its most restrained artistically but certainly no less potent and imaginative as well as exciting.

     Waterpark Bachelorette has the band squalling and rioting over the senses, grooves and lethal rhythms a blistering endeavour matched by the predacious expulsions of vocals and sound which litter the rampant torrent of rock ‘n’ roll. Guitar doodling veins the song for only the most satisfying results whilst the addictive anthemic call of vocals and hooks make a lingering bait which seeps into the breather of melodic caresses and sonic entanglement. Its excellence is soon equalled by firstly the dramatically textured Before, After and All Around and the almost hysterical invention of – (Obedience), the track verging on maniacal with its avant-garde/melodic metal ants nest of busy yet ordered chaos.

    To prove that the song is still not the deranged imagination of the band exhausted the closing title track takes all honours on the Are You Kidding Me? No. Featuring a guest appearance by Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal (Guns’N’Roses), the track is an inventive meshuga but one which knows exactly what it is doing. Fusing experimentation, jazz, funk, and pure dementia into its unrelenting crazed waltz, the track is a triumph of insanity which disorientates and seduces with perfect touch and irreverence. Ending on a sensational emotive stomp of gypsy punk with swing desires and reminding very much of Kontrust and another French band Toumai, the track is a magnificent concluding revelry to a quite brilliant and monumental release.  Quite simply Destrage has provided your probable album of the year.

www.facebook.com/destrage

10/10

Ringmaster 06/03/2014

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

Listen to the best independent music and artists on The RingMaster Review Radio Show and The Bone Orchard from

http://www.audioburger.com

Entrails – Berzerk

    As Swedish death metallers Entrails work on the creation of their next full-length ferocity of terror, the band unleash new single Berzerk, to temper the anticipation and fill the gap to their future expulsion of distinct old school ruin. Consisting of two prime pestilential tracks, the 7” comes swiftly after the band’s split release with Graveyard in January via War Anthem Records. As mentioned it comes as a break in the preparations of Entrails next full onslaught, the band explaining “With a small sidestep from our work in the massive rehearsals for the new album we decided to do a halfway release. The new song ‘Berzerk’ is a straight forward fist of fury and Death metal terror, with some eerie elements. It’s a natural step from our latest album ‘Raging Death’.  It will also appear on the next long player, slightly different in every term as this single was recorded and mixed by Jimmy in Entrails own studio.”

      After the success and power of last album Raging Death last year, it did not take long for anticipation to rear its greedy head for more of the evolving potency and adventure of the band, something Berzerk brings a small and potent meal for. From the opening caustic claws of sonic predation and rhythmic provocation, Berzerk stalks and pressures the senses, sizing them up before the ever vindictive growls of Joakim Svensson abrase with a malevolent narrative and unforgiving squall. The guitars of Jimmy Lundqvist and Pontus Samuelsson snarl and ravage from their first note too but equally as the song submerges into a haunting dark ambience, they entice and seduce with unfussy lures for a precise coaxing. Constantly driven by the antagonistic beats of Adde Mitroulis alongside the prowling rapacious throat of Svensson’s bass, the song is soon returning its voracious jaws and energy upon its prey as the track comes to an uncompromising finale. It is hard to say that there is anything dramatically new from that shown on the last album but certainly you can feel and hear sonic fingers and drifting shadows looking towards stretching the band’s existing boundaries.

    The second song on the single is a cover of the Heavy Load track Dreaming. Entrails take it through their own dark toxicity and instinctive aggressiveness, giving the track a new aspect to explore and enjoy. Though not as impacting as the title track, the song makes a worthy addition to the release and the attention of the listener, the band’s craft and sonic cynicism something different and more intimidatingly intriguing than the original.

    Production wise the release does feel more like a demo which is no real issue, its sound dense without the dangerous spark you expect from the band but with the album yet to near the recording stages you get the impression that certainly Berzerk has a little more to find and give before its appearance on the full-length. Nevertheless the Metal Blade Records released single provides a satisfying and tempting snack as we wait for the next scourge from the band.

https://www.facebook.com/Entrails666

7.5/10

RingMaster 06/03/2014

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

Listen to the best independent music and artists on The RingMaster Review Radio Show and The Bone Orchard from

http://www.audioburger.com