Insanity – Toss a Coin

If there is brawl you really want to be at the heart of, it is Toss a Coin the new album from Swiss hardcore outfit Insanity. It brings eleven insatiable confrontations to the ear; a clutch of spirit raising, defiance driven roars which refuse to take not today sir for an answer.

With a sound bred in the New York hardcore scene at its height, Insanity has sonically bullied and physically roared their way to a potent reputation and presence within the European punk scene over the past five years, one now sure to be re-ignited again by Toss a Coin. Since emerging, the Lucerne quintet has surged from their homeland across Europe into international waters, sharing stages with the likes of Hatebreed, Agnostic Front, Madball, Sick Of It All, Terror and many more along the way as well as headlining their own successful tours. Their debut album, No Limit, set down a certain marker in their ascent, its well-received presence matched by that in success by the Ready To Row EP. Released through Bastardized Recordings is a new powerful statement from the band, in sound and political/social quarrel as well as simply rousing punk ‘n’ roll.

With gang shouts, body manipulating grooves, and addiction forging hooks as prevalent as raw antagonism and instinctive antipathy to the world’s ills, Toss a Coin snarls and harasses from its initial second and opening breath of first up No Tolerance For Intolerance. The gnarly tone of Pery Zemp’s bass instantly has ears lured, riffs a great dirty backing before both collude with the rapier like swings of drummer Raphael Renggli and the first of involvement enticing band shouts. Vocalist Tobias Küng is soon to the fore directing middle finger reply to prejudice, the guitars of Yannick Balmer and Michael Portmann casting a mesh of grouchy riffs and animated grooves. There is no escaping the swift influence of its attitude and body, a submission subsequently given to song after song in varying but certain degrees thereon in.

The excellent start is matched by the caustic stomp of Find A Way, its intensive assault a furious charge compared to the swagger of the previous protagonist but veined with melodic tendrils and scythes and twisting spirals of noise. For all the rage, already an inbred infectiousness is as powerfully commandeering reactions, Insanity entangling both with imagination and zeal. It is a quality as rich within the album’s title track and indeed What I See after that. The first of the pair points and challenges with every syllable and note, band cries and neck muscle testing catchiness a particular trespassing incitement within nothing but while the second flows from its predecessor upon another deliciously grouchy bassline into a web of seriously grooved and rapacious punk rock with the instincts to rock ‘n’ roll.

Four tracks down and we would have forgiven any upcoming slip-ups such the potency of the quartet but no second is wasted in allowing ears and attitude a moment to relax, With My Friends an immediate air punching, hip guiding announcement of kinship stoking the fires. Again pleasure is ignited by Zemp’s bass, its metallic grievance manna for personal taste more than matched by the rest of the band within the inflammatory holler.

Down consumes ears in a cantankerous bawl next but one delivered with deliberate restraint carrying a perfect level of volatility; a blend lifting the body to its feet and vocal chords to their highest decibel throughout. Such success is an easy finding for All I Need too; its badgering riffs and probing rhythms herded into greater feistiness by Küng and listener by the ever persuasive and addictive gang clamours.

Through the mercurial but persistently wilful and stormy climate of One Day and the surly belligerence of $laves, there is no let-up in disdain and disobedience or imagination lit invention which may at times take a while to reveal it’s surprises within the tempests but hungrily makes each track distinct and riveting incitement; What’s Hardcore just as eager to prove the point with its punk ‘n’ roll revelry. Like a vipers nest, the song writhes with grooves, their snaky lures even flirting away when the song is running headlong with punk predation.

The final ignition of defiance and unbridled pleasure is provided by Die For, a body stomping charge riding thrash nurtured riffs like a surfer as melodies flare and rhythms prowl. Musically, the senses feel like they are being stalked by the track, vocally being willingly drawn with the spirit into mobilisation, both whilst rocking like a hound in heat to their combined militancy.

It is a glorious end to an outstanding encounter entwining the familiar with instinctive contumacy and enterprise resulting in one of, if not, the most enjoyable and manipulative treats heard so far this year.

Toss a Coin is out now through Bastardized Recordings @ https://bastardizedrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/toss-a-coin  or http://insanity.ch/store/

http://insanity.ch/    https://www.facebook.com/insanity.metal

Pete RingMaster 26/05/2017

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

Life’s December – Colder

It is probably apt with it being called Colder, that ears feel like they are amidst an unstoppable sonic avalanche listening to the new album from Swiss metallers Life’s December. It is a proposal which devours and obliterates the senses, leaving them bare to the emotional trespass and creative enmity which fuels the band’s raw deathcore tempest. It is a punishing proposal even more intimidating with the band’s embracing of djent bred animosity within their sonic savaging but equally a release which given time makes an increasingly compelling persuasion on the imagination.

Hailing from St. Gallen, Life’s December consists of vocalist Rico Bamert, guitarists Dave Mühlethaler and Valens Wullschleger, drummer Jérémie Gonzalez, and bassist Simon Mäder, a quintet which quickly has the imagination involved with album opener Final Speech. It is a scene setting, sonic landscape laying introduction with a portentous narrative being embraced by sonic mist before breeding a moment of predatory ferocity in vocal and sound. Instantly showing the band’s penchant for djent and down-tempo trespasses within a deathcore shaped animus, the track leads the listener into the initially subdued but soon ravenous jaws of Lest I Forget. Quickly in full venomous prowl, the track entwines corrosive riffs and toxic grooves, immersing them in a death charged tempest of sound and emotion driven by guttural vocals and a web of guitar and bass hostility. All the while though, an underlying sonic intrigue and adventure lurks, never quite breaking from the storm but persistently flirting and coaxing closer attention to match the lure of the vocal variety which also emerges.

It is hard to say that Life’s December is yet offering anything boldly new in sound but from this song alone there is plenty of fresh resourcefulness to get the teeth and appetite seriously into; a potent and dynamic persuasion which continues with Memories and World Of Blame. The first gets right under the skin in no time with its steely grooves and grouchy riffs. Once in control it then uncages a rapacious torrent of melodic intrusions and rhythmic rancor which in turn is soon involved in a net of more welcoming and emotively lively exploits. Across the song, the band seamlessly slips into mellower or more cancerous endeavours, contrasts and extremes skilfully woven together to create one of the more dramatically unique and memorable passages within the album. In comparison, its successor is a carnal tempest of noise and spite; a fall into sonic causticity and vocal ire which without matching up to its predecessors still has ears fully engaged especially as it expands its stark and increasingly cancerous landscape of sound and emotion.

The brief melodic seducing of Interludium allows a moment to reflect and engage with calmer essences within the band’s imagination before Snow Falls Silently envelops the listener in sonic and emotional confrontation. Once more, there is no major moment of uniqueness involved with the track but its virulent tide of riffs and invasive grooves grip attention, success whipped up further by the throat shredding vocals and their pungent intent and variety.

The austere yet intimately melancholic landscape of My Existence is revealed next, a passage of sound and emotion littered with melodic lures and primal eruptions within a chilled and ravaged ambience. From there, the album’s title track explores similarly evocative scenery of thought and tone but within a far more grievous soul sucking doom soaked climate equipped with rabid assaults of raw guitar and biting rhythms perpetually accentuated by the bone shuddering resonance of the bass. With mouth-watering spirals of sonic toxicity veining its body too, the song hits the spot whilst numbing the senses before the instrumental Hero Missing brings the album to a sombre close with, in many ways, its most disturbing emotional moment, certainly its most haunting.

There are moments within Colder that truly ignite a greedy appetite and other times where fascination takes over; successes which together ensures Life’s December, a band with striking potential, is worthy of proper attention as equally its re-release through Dark Wings.

Colder is out now via Dark Wings across most online stores.

https://www.facebook.com/LifesDecember

Pete RingMaster 11/04/2016

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

For more exploration of the independent and promotional services check out http://www.zykotika.com/

Dog Days – Heat

Pic_Christophe Dutoit

From its first inflamed note, the debut album from Swiss stoners Dog Days is a sonic mutt in season; a furiously rocking body of insatiable intent sculpted with sexily invasive grooves and a collusion of heavy boned riffs and rhythms. Consisting of eight instrumentally fertile slices of rock ‘n’ roll, Heat is also loaded with severely addictive hooks and immersive textures ensuring, in our experience, that a mating between release and the passions is inevitable.

Heat swiftly stirs up body and emotions from the off, quickly showing why the Fribourg trio of bassist Marie Riley, guitarist Vincent Yerly, and drummer Julien Vonlanthen are kicking up a potent buzz around themselves. Recorded with Sacha Ruffieux over two sessions of 5 days each at the Studio de la Fonderie, the band’s first album comes fuelled by the band’s intent “…to create an instrumental stoner album that shows our love for the sound we can generate with our instrument.”

It begins with Saluki which instantly soaks ears in the thick fuzz of guitar and bass whilst a spicy groove nags and rhythms punch. As a sign of things to come, the air is seriously muggy which just adds to the swift drama lacing the virulence of dirty riffs and splintered grooves sculpted with repetitious persuasion. In no time though, the song is really swinging with fully fledged, intoxicating grooves escaping the stomping rock ‘n’ roll incitement. Fair to say, the imagination and appetite are hastily involved and as greedy as ears as the song from start to finish unloads a rich catchy tempest with a hungry swagger.

The excellent start is superbly continued by Shiba and its heavily bruising and similarly contagious intensive boogie. There are no escaping essences of bands like Kyuss and Queens Of The Stone Age as a flirtatiously salty scything of guitar streaks through the brooding invasion of cantankerous bass and swiping beats, but with its gripping atmospheric theatre and ravenous intensity the track is uniquely a Dog Days beast.

Malamute wraps ears in sultry and evocatively sonic tendrils next, that persistently dramatic lure soon joined by the dark rumble of beats and a gorgeously carnivorous bass tone; it all springing a punk infused splatter of temptation as much post punk and noise rock as it is heavy punk ‘n’ roll upon ears. The track is instant slavery, a magnetic fusion of gnarly and sweltering contrast with one thing in mine, to seduce the senses whilst twisting them inside out. The pinnacle of the album, it is closely matched by the dark tempestuous trespass of Broholmer. Straight away, its invasive challenge prowls with leaden grooves and abrasing riffs tempered by the stirring up of a thickly and imaginatively layered lava-esque swamp like temptation leaving the body breathless and enamoured before Hovawart sonically shudders into view with pungent beats for company. There is tribal scented enterprise to the new track’s rhythms which continues to blossom and grip as the guitar caustically resonates and the bass links its own slightly bestial bait to the brewing storm of raw and mercurial suggestiveness.

Throughout new breeds of sound and invention are explored within the volcanic stoner genus of the album, Lancashire Heeler an incendiary groove train with creative rabidity to its infectious fire and thunderous trespass whilst Kyi Apso raps keen attention with its opening rally from Vonlanthen before Yerly and Riley nets that perpetually incitement in their webs of roasting and feral prowess respectively. As all songs within Heat, it is pure rock ‘n’ roll caked in tar like energy, set afire with sonic acidity, and given an off the meter voltage of raw aural electricity.

The album is concluded by the almost eight minute flirtation of Komondor featuring guest guitarist Sacha Love. The song is an uncontrollably bewitching proposal merging mesmeric surf rock with rich intoxicating melodic smoulders and sultry grooves; an exhilarating end to a release destined to be one of the year’s big highlights. Heat is one of those jaw dropping treats which are unexpected but quickly rapaciously devoured. The Dog Days bio calls the band’s sound “Stoner with a boner”; that tells you all you need to know.

Heat is released January 15^th on vinyl and as a name your price download @ https://dogdaysband.bandcamp.com/releases

http://www.dogdays.band/   https://www.facebook.com/dogdaysfuzz

Pete RingMaster 15/01/2016

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

For more exploration of the independent and promotional services check out http://www.zykotika.com/