U M B R A is a predator soaked in doom and sludge but equally draped with essences of black metal, noise, stoner rock, and most likely any other voracious flavour you can imagine. It is also one of the most primal and inventively addictive things heard so far in 2015. The new carnivorous proposition from US band Unmothered, the three track EP proposition brawls through ears, violates the senses, and scars the psyche from start to finish, all the time igniting the passions with its fierce turbulence. There is no escape once it takes hold but no desire to flee its uncompromising trespass either.
Starting their raucous prowl of the senses in 2010, the Austin hailing Unmothered unleashed their self-titled debut EP vinyl in 2012 to acclaiming responses across the underground scene. It brought seven atmospherically ravenous and physically cavernous landscapes to feast on the senses, laying the seeds for the even darker and in many ways more intimate intrusions to be found within the insidious temptation of U M B R A.
As its predecessor, the EP is wrapped in the artwork of UK artist Andrew Sloan, its dark toning and organic imagery a first glimpse of the creative tapestry and sonic exploration set to seduce ears and beyond. Opener Magnetar rubs ears with a lone riff to begin within but swiftly revolves and broadens into a predatory canter of imposing rhythms from drummer Matt Moulis and dark throaty bait courtesy of Joseph Barnes’ bass, both entwined in the just as gripping sonic tenacity of guitarist Matt Walker. Alone each sculpts pure drama but together they make aural pestilence whilst additionally conjuring a groove which no matter where it leads or what it twists itself into, is an unrelenting seducing within the carnal ambience and textures around it. The pestilential tones of Walker’s vocals crawl into the psyche too as they hitch a ride on the increasingly contagious grooving and tsunami like hostility swinging its way to the same destination.
If the swagger of the first song is incendiary and contagious, it is light weight compared to that of Scarp and before it Huntress. The second song scythes through ears on a sonic lure before thickening its bait within a musty swamp of noise. It is only building towards the point of greater addictive enterprise though, another flaming acidic groove with a waspish nature flirting within ears as guitars and drums spin a magnetic enslaving web. Equipped with gnarly bass tones which simply inflame the senses, the song offers whispers of bands like Ministry and Morkobot, though equally you would suggest Unsane or a Today is the Day, as many do, as a hint to the ravaging being enjoyed. The track is irresistible, a disembowelling of the senses with riveting rewards in return but quickly over shadowed by the final song.
Scarp from its first breath is a torrent of sonic nagging, Walker’s guitar a primal bee in the psyche which is rapidly matched in primeval temptation by the roguish swipes of Moulis and the throaty dissent of bass. A rhythmic and sonic virulence does not let up even as the raw tones of Walker spill their new narrative of aggression and his guitar skirts over the Killing Joke like rhythmic spine with its caustic and corrosive enterprise. A post rock like calm embraces ears midway through to wrong-foot and bewitch, the drums continuing to roll out a mouth-watering and unrelenting niggle of anthemic beats throughout. It is a mesmeric and meditative passage yet in its air, lurking in the shadows there is an intimidation and menace which bides its time before exploding in one hellacious climax of one outstanding incitement.
The track is a brilliant; a gripping end to a glorious slab of noise fuelled contagion posing as U M B R A. Letting greed have its say there is no doubting that the EP is over too soon but with the adage ‘leave them wanting more’ surely in its thoughts, U M B R A and Unmothered have opened up a vat of anticipation for something bigger and you suspect even more threateningly bolder.
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Having inflamed like so many others, our passions with their blistering intensive and thrilling album Matterhorn, Canadian noise metallers The Great Sabatini returned earlier this year with an even greater mouthwatering proposition. Third album Dog Years is a masterful tempest exuding virulently destructive and invasive sonic devilry; an enthralling examination and manipulation of the senses. Not needing to be asked twice, we rifled questions at Sean from the band to discover the depths of The Great Sabatini, talking about origins, lyrical intimacy, musical magick and much more…
Hey Sean good to meet you and thanks for giving over some of your time to chat with us.
Tell us about the birth of The Great Sabatini and the time leading up to the uncaging of the band in 2007?
Hey, nice to meet you too. It’s our pleasure to talk a bit about our dumb selves. All of us came together when bands we were previously in collapsed. We all decided to start moving away from the kind of things each of us had been doing with past efforts, musically. It seemed to come together easily, naturally. We just kind of went with the flow.
How did the four Sabatini’s meet?
Rob and I have been playing music together since we were 15 or so. We’ve played in bands together since that time. We knew Joey from other bands around town, and even shared a jam room together years before we started playing together. We met Steve in Sudbury, 2004 at a really crappy weekend fest that both of our bands at the time were playing. We became fast friends, and the rest is history.
Did the band start out with a specific intent and is that still the same driving force now or has it evolved with your music?
I think the only intent really was to move away from our previous musical comfort zones. Rob and I were used to writing more technical metal things in standard tuning, so there was a focused effort to distance ourselves from that. We bought baritone guitars and started slowing things down naturally, due to the nature of the much lower tuning and feel of the instruments. You can’t be as busy sometimes when you’re playing in a lower register, so riffs start slowing down for clarity’s sake. In regards to intent, it’s the same as it was from day one; keep challenging ourselves to create music that subverts our own comfort zones as artists. It might not be a huge leap from record to record, but there is movement, and growth, with every new project we take on
You sound is a unique brew of noise, sludge, doom, progressive rock…and plenty more. How would you describe it to simplify things?
As a kind of inside joke, we refer to our sound as “swamp trench arithmetic”. Maybe it hints at a sludgy math-rock vibe… Usually I describe us as a sludge band, because for all the variety rolled into our songs, all of it is pretty grimy or sludge-based. The end result is sort of wrapped up in this sludgy package.
We discovered you through your second album Matterhorn, a startling and riveting treat to our ears. How would you say your music and creativity has changed and evolved from your first days, through that great album and onto the just released Dog Years?
I think that, as songwriters, we focus on making things simpler; communicating ideas in a simpler way. Part of that is recognising our strengths, and reining them in. We want to include a myriad of ideas and influences into our sound but feed them through our creative process in a way that results in more a more cohesive end result. I suppose one might call it “nuance”… Not something that most folks associate with brutal, loud music, but I feel that there’s more and more depth and nuance to our songs as we go. Matterhorn was the first time I really felt like we’d accomplished a certain level of that in our music. The songs are relatively simple in structure and riffing, and seem straight forward production-wise, but there’s a subtle balance of feels and ideas stitched together throughout. I think Dog Years employs this much better. Taken at face value, it’s a loud, raw, angry record, but there’s a lot going on in the songs, in a way that isn’t like an overt genre mash-up kind of thing.
We feel the brilliant Dog Years, and it is, is less cruel and destructive than its predecessor but has a more intensive and precise examination of the psyche which makes it just as exhilarating and threatening. Is that something you would agree with?
I do agree. Matterhorn was about cruelty and violence and the harshness of life, ‘cos that’s what I felt when I heard the music we were writing. Dog Years, musically and lyrically, is kind of exploring the things that drove us to play music initially. It has some throwback moments with the punkier parts, and maybe it rocks out a little easier. I still feel like it’s a punishing, loud, angry record but maybe you picked up on the focus of the record. It’s hard to tell sometimes, as the creators of the music, how much of what we’re saying is obvious and how much is completely buried in the end result, but Dog Years is more of a look inside OUR heads and our history, to some extent.
Did you approach the writing and recording of your third album in any way differently to the previous release?
Well, we usually do a lot of writing together in the jam room but a few small bits were demoed separately and sent out via email to the guys, and then tweaked and moulded by each of us on our own time. The songs are totally malleable… they can change easily before we hit the studio. In the past, a lot of our material, especially the Matterhorn stuff, was played on the road a lot before it was recorded, so the songs adapted and changed a bit more, but almost all of the Dog Years material was written and then quickly recorded with less time to mutate. Maybe that gave it a bit more immediacy, or urgency.
I guess the studio and recording process is something always bringing new lessons and discoveries which can be used or avoided next time. Was there anything from Matterhorn which had that inspiration and any new things learned with Dog Years?
There’s always a learning curve. We’re always learning things and trying to apply them the next time around. I can’t think of any major things that happened with Matterhorn that wound up shaping Dog Years in an obvious way… we’ve always strived to make things sound more raw, natural or live-sounding on our records and Matterhorn was a nice step in that direction, but Dog Years, I feel, has a bit more of that raw thing going on.
How long was the new album in the making?
We started writing in earnest at the start of 2013. We spent a lot less time on the road that year and really just focused on writing. By December 2013 we were in the studio and by February of this year the record was mastered. It was a pretty quick turnover, for us.
Like a great many bands do you have to struggle and deal with obstacles of everyday life when it comes to creating and certainly recording a record?
Obstacles are always present. But we’ve been a band for almost 7 years and we deal with things together, in a focused manner, quite efficiently. Making records is something we’re always trying to get better at, but we’ve all been doing it for over ten years and our collective experience is constantly being employed to overcome any obstacle. Thankfully, we’re all really good friends, so we’re good at working together to accomplish our goals
There seems an intimacy at times to the lyrical side of your music which suggests inspirations often come from things close to home and personal experiences. Give us some idea of stories or situations to songs upon Dog Years.
Some of the songs relate to people or things in our personal history. Pitchfork Pete is about a guy Rob and I knew many years ago. Some of the songs deal with our rituals, our perception of our lives as romantic black-magick purveyors of the Almighty Riff. When the reality of being a penniless touring musician sets in, the thing that keeps us going is the magic. Music is total magic and we have fun projecting some kind of cartoonish self-importance onto the band. It’s much more fun to think of ourselves as traveling Riff-Warlocks spreading the unholy gospel of Satan through amplified guitar riffs than it is to see ourselves as the jaded, ageing heshers that we ACTUALLY are. We’re following our dreams. Dog Years is a glimpse into that world, we hope. Lyrically it’s all about that… the world we’ve created for ourselves, full of feral beasts, oracles, war-cries, Viking battle-lust and strange visions. But sometimes this kind of fantasy shit collides with the naked truth of our choices in life, and that’s where the “Dog Years” thing comes in. One day, maybe, we’ll be old men looking back on these times as our Dog Years, all that time we spent hammering away at our dreams.
How does the creation of songs more often than not transpire in the band?
More often than not, Rob and I write riffs or ideas in our own time, and then, when we get together, the ideas are presented and everyone puts forth their own takes on the riffs and we arrange the structures together. There isn’t any one mastermind. Everyone’s fingerprints are on the end result.
Is there a particular moment or twist in Dog Years which gives you an extra inner tingle of pride or just satisfaction?
I think each of us probably has his own moment like that, but for me, Akela was one of those. I wasn’t thinking that would be on the record, but the guys heard my demo, and wanted it to be there. It’s a pretty naked thing, for me, to have a song like that on there. There isn’t any wall of noise to hide behind. I recorded that in my room at home and everyone agreed that to re-record it might ruin it. So, I feel pretty happy that Akela is on the final cut.
Tell us about the great ‘scary’ album cover.
We wanted the cover to reflect our childhood in some weird way. We were aiming for an image that looked borrowed, from another time, not from 2014. I made the puppet, and he represents a certain aspect of our collective personality. Rather than actually steal an old image that may have worked just as well, we opted to create this thing ourselves and hopefully imbue that aspect into it in a subtle way. Really, I want people to see it, react to it, and fill it in with whatever feeling they think is best.
The album has been released on the great Solar Flare Records. How did that come about and is it true that the equally brilliant Sofy Major has some inspirational input?
We met Sofy Major first in North America when they came here to make a record and tour a bit and then later when we played with them in France. Sofy Major/Solar Flare are the raddest dudes on the planet, so their interest in Dog Years is incredibly flattering. Those dudes have been through a lot and suffered it all with a smile on their faces so that alone is a huge inspiration to us. Their music is incredible… I don’t wanna butter them up too much, but getting to work within that particular family is a huge privilege.
What is the Montreal metal and rock scene like right now and specifically in regard to your style of creative mayhem?
Montreal is always a hotbed of awesome music. In recent years, more of the sludge, doom, noise-rock and stoner rock stuff has been surfacing, which is nice, but I feel like everyone here is reacting to their surroundings, in a nice way… nobody is trying to sound like anyone else, I feel. Everyone that I know kind of does his or her own thing and tries to blaze their own trail. Sometimes it’s hard to be heard among all the amazing bands and artists, but we have our niche.
What comes next for The Great Sabatini across the rest of 2014?
We’re just about to get home from the first stretch of touring. We’ll probably do a few small things this summer but in the fall we head out again to do some touring in the U.S and then get ready to hit Europe in the spring of 2015.
Once again big thanks for sitting down with us; any final words for us to contemplate?
Thank you for your interest and support. Final words? Ummmmmmmmmmmmm……
And lastly give us an idea of the biggest inspirations on you musically and individually.
Take your basic 80’s/90’s generation stuff, all the grunge, punk, metal and hardcore, and throw our dad’s old Beatles, Zeppelin, Sabbath, and King Crimson records in there too. We’re all just disciples of this great tome of Rock. Finding a nice balance is the hardest part when starting a band, but ALL of that stuff is in our music, and album covers, lyrics etc. You could get real specific and say things like Melvins, Today Is The Day, Helmet, Jesus Lizard, Napalm Death, King Crimson, or what have you, but there’s just too huge a range of stuff influencing us to make for an easy answer.
It was with their album Matterhorn that Canadian noise metallers The Great Sabatini infected and infested our psyche, the release an introduction to the virulently destructive and invasive sonic devilry which exudes from the distorted imagination of the band. It was ‘a crippling, desensitising, and cruel intrusion’ which was exhilarating and riveting. Now the band returns with third album Dog Years, an evolution of its predecessor whilst thrusting the band into a new warped field of diverse sonic hostility and intensive imagination. The new ten track release is not as cruel and destructive as its predecessor in many ways but instead a more concentrated examination and manipulation of the senses and psyche casting a diversity in its venomous acts which is absolutely enthralling. It is a masterful tempest from a band which just gets more dangerous and impressive.
Formed in 2007, The Great Sabatini consisting of Steve, Sean, Rob, and Joey has been an uncompromising and creatively destructive force from day one, debut EP Burning Wilderness in their first year an attention grabbing notice of intent. Finding the darkest toxic seeds within doom metal, progressive rock, grindcore and much more to infuse into their unique sound, the Montreal quartet were soon recruiting feverish responses live too whilst first album Sad Parade of Yesterdays in 2009 put a wider focus on guard to the band. Live The Great Sabatini has left audience gasping alongside bands such as KEN Mode, Coliseum, Today is the Day, Fuck the Facts, Threat Signal, Psyopus, and Bionic. The No List Records released Matterhorn in 2012 drew even more eager souls towards their maelstrom of sound but even its success should pale once the Solar Flare Records unleashed Dog Years begins savaging the world.
Recorded with and mixed/ mastered by Sean Pearson (Cursed, Shallow North Dakota), the album is as raw and caustic as anything the band has done, though as mentioned earlier it is not as grievously nasty as its predecessor. That might be simply because there is an element of knowing what is going to corrode the senses this time around if not in the design it will come in. Dog Years certainly leaps out with starter The Royal We, its insidiously addictive rhythmic coaxing and snarling riffs at the start primal bait before which defences have their hands up within seconds. It is a spiteful virulence which even as it is expands its intensity and weight never relinquishes its grip. Eventually the lure has a more merciful intent though the heated vocal squalls more than make up for any drop in antagonism. It is a vindictive number which just as hungrily relishes charging with nostrils flaring or crawling over nerve ends with a predation glee, and a stunning start to the album.
The following Guest Of Honor is just as voracious and twisted in its sixty seven second long web of sonic enterprise and vitriol. Bestial in its rampage and serpentine in its enslaving grooves, the track is a blistering assault of noise and hardcore intensity which makes way for the mischievous swagger and pungent sonic binding of Nursing Home. The track whips around ears and senses with a dervish like energy but takes sludge bred breaks in between each outburst to further impose and encroach on the psyche. With disorientating rhythms, nagging riffs, and abrasing venom to its veins, the track is a bewitching protagonist which seduces as its lashes the imagination, a structure employed again in its own unique way by Periwinkle War Hammer. The new song is initially sinister in its breath and stalking but the sheltered intimidation is soon open as rhythms launch a thumping upon ears and vocals a grazing squall upon senses. There is a slight stoner-esque twang to the stride of the song which with a portentous dark breath to its climate makes for another distinct and appetite igniting foraging of the mind.
Next Reach comes with a rapacious sludge metal suasion to its lumbering, riffs a primal animalistic bait along with rhythms whilst grooves and vocals bring a lighter yet no less ruinous colour to the sonic swamp. It is a heavy handed consumption but one with a magnetic radiance which tempers some of the pressure conjured by the band and its intensity, something certainly not an issue with the following Akela. To completely wrong foot thoughts and emotions the track is a countrified croon, a bluegrass like caress which tantalises as much as it, in a good way bemuses. Whether a respite, a smile inducer, or a slice of madness, the song is an absorbing twist to the album which is soon back in full rabidity with the excellent Munera. It is another track where the heat of its passion and fury burns with every sonic note and searing groove, whilst hostility is represented by animosity fuelled rhythms and vocal friction. Contagion though seeps from its every pore and feuding note to create a fury you just want to be savaged persistently by.
Pitchfork Pete is much the same, though again it is an individual in the schizophrenic beauty of the album. Almost satanic in its vocal narrative and pestilential in it’s even paced and tempered gait, the track growls and prowls with a doom clad hunger which once more is part seduction and part malignancy. Transfixing from start to finish, it sinks down to a crawl and subsequently a sonic piercing before the wonderfully deranged intricacies of Ditch Diggers Unlimited jumble up ears and imagination. It is only the appetiser though to a darker manipulative sonic toxicant which worms under skin and psyche to chain the passions before infusing a crushing weight of riffs and intensity into its slow seducing.
The album is completed by the unforgettable Life During Wartime, a track with the quaintness of forties melodies and the predatory ferocity of a thousand conflicts. Its initial presence is raw and uncomfortable but respectful in its evocative presence yet as the track grows its narrative and descriptive resentment, it fuels a fierce and compelling landscape. It is an immense end to an outstanding release, without doubt the finest ravaging from The Great Sabatini yet and you still feel there is more to come from the band, scary!
If an unstoppable pestilence sets its sights on our souls let us hope it comes in the same manner as The Mother Of Virtues, wrapped in corrosive beauty and seductive ugliness. The new album from US progressive death metallers Pyrrhon is a destructively bedlamic onslaught of deathly malevolence, tortuous psychedelia, psyche searing experimentation, and irrepressibly addictive. It is not an easily accessible or comfortable experience, arguably the most painfully contagious and intrusively crippling of the past year but deep in such creative adventure and vicious intrigue that if it connects it is equally one of the most rewarding pestilential offerings too.
Brooklyn hailing Pyrrhon was formed in 2008 apparently after a chance meeting on a subway platform. Since that moment the quartet of vocalist Doug Moore, guitarist Dylan DiLella, bassist Erik Malave, and drummer Alex Cohen has been twisting and challenging sounds and senses. The band’s 2010 debut EP Fever Kingdoms was the first of their releases to receive wide and strong plaudits, the acclaim increasing when their first full-length album, An Excellent Servant But A Terrible Master, was released a year later via Selfmadegod Records. Intensifying their sounds and invention over the next couple years, Pyrrhon set about creating their new sonic torment The Mother Of Virtues. Tracked and mixed by Ryan Jones (Today is the Day, Mutilation Rites, Wetnurse) and mastered by Colin Marston (Gorguts, Krallice), repeating his work on the band’s previous releases, the Relapse Records released album consumes and suffocates the senses and reality with a rigorously diverse maelstrom of extreme metal, a torment to awaken nightmares and ignite impassioned slavery to its toxicity.
From its first breath the album is savaging and twisting ears and imagination inside out, opening track The Oracle of Nassau cursing with sonic rabidity and an annihilatory ravishment. Rhythms and riffs converge in a torrential tsunami of spite and eager decay, strangling senses as guitars and vocals unleash their scourge upon the wounds. The track spews enterprise and vitriol with every searing note and poisonous syllable, creating the perfect threat and welcome into the belly of the beast.
The following White Flag opens on probing beats soon joined by a stalking bass riff. Instant intimidation within a cavernous ambience engulfs the imagination, its scenery caustically painted and expanded by the initial graze of guitar which soon evolves into a bestial predation. The track prowls with a doom bred lilt and noise sculpted breath, constantly lashing ears with acidic ventures and ferocious intensity. It is a thoroughly compelling and merciless proposition, a black hearted contagion of jazz spawned rhythmic bombardment courted by animalistic riffs and synapse stripping ingenuity from the guitars, all governed by the guttural spewing of Moore. It is primal and quite bewitching, especially the stretch of melodic elegance which whispers for a brief moment at the eye of the storm.
Sleeper Agent accelerates the hunger of the rabid appetite in place by its appearance, the delirious mania of guitars and rhythms frisking then violating everything from ears inwards. Searching deep, as with all tracks, there is an order and sensibility to the unleashed viscerally driven plague, but you sure have to dig deep and with determined energy to unveil the additionally potent intent. The track is outstanding, preying on the disorientation and suffering already expelled previously with relish, as does next up Balkanized. The first single from the album firstly lays down a few seconds of cyber coaxing which is then thrust aside by a roving throaty bassline and an anarchic squall of flesh scything guitars and groaning vocals. More violent than its predecessor but employing a similarly ‘lighter’ weave of erosive invention, the track lurches and leans heavily on the senses with sounds which combine like a pack of voracious predators.
Both Eternity in a Breath and Implant Fever spiral deeper into the depths of mind and emotions, the first an invasive merger of serpentine ambiences and rapacious rhythmic enticement which casts its own growing vindictive spoils over the listener the further into its dark festering depths you go. Its successor is not as dirty as the previous song but certainly is not a light of hope and hope either, the encounter lyrically and musically a warning and warring menace. The pair turns the cerebral battleground darker with their own individual hues of inventiveness and voracity whilst Invisible Injury churns up their landscapes with its own specific institutional mayhem.
The album is completed by the exhaustive brilliance of The Parasite in Winter, a track which is lighter on the touch but heavier in the animosity with a sonic design that is mouth-wateringly infectious and barbarically controlling, and the closing epically severe soundscape of the title track. Over ten minutes of noise dementia and rancorous exploration which is all quite ingenious and thrilling, the track alone tells you all you need to know about the brilliance and nastiness of Pyrrhon.
The Mother Of Virtues will undoubtedly only be for a certain psyche or should that be masochist but if band and release find favour in your artistic aberrations and according to the press release if you have a taste for the likes of Gorguts, Ulcerate, Cryptopsy, Portal, and Deathspell Omega, then you just might be listening to an album of the year front runner.
Hailing from Russia Electricjezus creates a monster of a sound, a heavy expanse of weight and sonic oppression which absorbs the essences of multiple flavours and turns them into one exhausting corrosive pleasure. Their debut album Грязь поколений (translated as Mud Of Generations) is a consumptive introduction of their intense presence, a raw and merciless release leaving one drenched in their textured onslaughts and full promise.
Electricjezus is the two man project of Ruslan Frolov (guitar/bass/vocal) and Oleg Skorohodov (drums), two musicians who have reaped the seeds of their influences such as Melvins, Electric Wizard, Earth, Jucifer, Today Is The Day, Sunn O))), Monarch, Flipper, Dystopia, Pantera and many more , and twisted them into their individual forging of post rock, sludge and doom metal, black metal, hardcore, stoner and a further plenty of loud whisperings of other flavourings. With successful shows under their belt across cities such as Moscow, the Moscow region, and St. Petersburg, the pair entered the Go!Monkey studio in Dmitrov and recorded their debut album live using only analog equipment spanning years in age and from across many countries, the caustic, organically raw, and carnivorous results rife upon the release. With songs sung entirely in Russian, and an intriguing potent veining of audio samples from horror movies throughout, the album eats at the senses and oppresses the safety of thoughts and emotions. It is not the easiest listen to come across but one which lingers and inspires rich eager reactions.
As its title suggests, the album is a thick dirty expanse of sonic intrusion which starts with Корм. The track opens with an excellent film sample soon skirted by a resonating impacting bass provocation and sonic carving of the air whilst rhythms wait patiently to unleash their venom. As it moves forward a groove is equally just itching to expel its heart but first a filthy rub of expressive malevolence grips the ear before interchanging with its counterpart to tease and mistreat the senses impressively. Into its stride the instrumental gallops with a stoner urgency to its sludgier breath and continues to incite the senses with fluid and incendiary shifts in energy and enterprise. The abrasive air of the track adds to the pleasing scrub upon the ear and littered with the melodic flames of imagination and great synth crafted extras from guest musician Sasha Selezneff, it is a storm which pulls the senses right into its live heart.
Connected by a bedlamic soundbite the opener passes on to Петли обмана another track which immediately engages intrigue and appetite for its hungry intensity. Harsh squalling vocals bring another raw uncomfortable additive to the album and within the prowling course of the song, scars with insidious malevolence. A black metal embrace through the vocals especially, lays intrusive shadows within the piece whilst its successor Улицы twists it all again within an infectious beat inviting rampage. With the vocals enclosed in a seemingly secluded environment, like they were recorded in the bathroom compared to the hallway for the music which for most releases this would just fall flat, upon Грязь поколений it all adds to the villainous and satisfying experience.
The following intensive title track with its epic soundscape in length and malicious pressure upon the senses, the blink and be consumed swift attack of Плеть культуры, and the predatory Бассейн, all immerse the listener in their violations of sonic invention and rapacious greed. The last of the trio is a stoner/sludge/hardcore punk confrontation speared by a tempting groove and acidic blues lilted guitar, the rasping punishing vocals feeding on the passions and sore senses with further thrilling results. It is hard to pick a favourite track on the release but certainly this steps forward boldly with each deliberation.
The album ends with Все позволено, the song a furnace of sonic fortitude and flesh peeling grooves. As throughout, the guitar is a scything blade across the ear, its abrasive edges searing and cauterising the senses at every turn whether in a slow laboured intent or an urgent annihilation, whilst the drums chain and slap with unguarded treachery. The song is a great end to a great album. Its coarse breath and dirty touch will not be for all but for those it does enflame, the album pushes Electricjezus forward as one exciting prospect.
Challenging for nastiness album of the year Tarnation from British metalers Bastard Of The Skies is a thick corruption for the senses, a mugging of emotions through massive towering riffs, even heavier intensity, and a sludge driven enveloping noise of the highest order. Though the album arguably does not trigger the fiercest passions as some other similarly gaited releases it is impossible not to be impressed and in awe of the power and craft behind and fuelling the intrusive colossus.
From Blackburn, Bastard of the Skies has left immensely destructive and provocative sounds since forming in 2006. Across two albums, an EP, and a split release with Catatomic earlier this year, the quartet has cultivated and evolved their impactful sound and invention to, in the album Tarnation, create a monstrous and fully welcome violation. Released via Future Noise Recordings, Tarnation churns the insides into a swamp of primal energy to match the malevolent sounds within the release. It is corruptive, destructive, and the instigator of animal pleasure and eagerness to take part in the fully impactful corruption. The band has destroyed audiences with their towering sound, sharing stages with the likes of Orange Goblin, Harvey Milk, Kylesa, Baroness, Today Is The Day, Black Sun, Lazarus Blackstar, Volition, Conan, The Sontaran Experiment, and Undersmile for the fullest respect and acclaim, the album simply shows the band is just as powerful in the studio, the sound driving the album a raw and living brutal entity.
Drug Monarch is the first blow to the ear, its lurching discord driven melodies and dehabilitating riffs a barbed introduction. The tight hypnotic groove which pervades throughout the Sepultura like grind is magnetic and fires the consuming intensity to deeper depths within. The corrosive start is then elevated to another venomous height by the brilliant A Punch In The Fucking Lungs, the track a ferocious undulating furnace of abrasive energy and numbing riffs. The rhythms vibrate through bone with the only respite coming in the brooding oppressive slower moments when the song is even more predatory, its heavy whispers intimidating and startling.
The guitars of Matt Richardson and Rob Beesley are scathing and scraping bestial elements throughout though their use of sonic razors and disruptive melodic trespass is just as impressive and sapping. The likes of (Roasted In The Depths Of The) Sloar and the slowly crawling malevolence that is Repugnance find the guitarists scything through the senses with acidic precision within an avalanche of brute force energy, whether a rabidly paced or insidious lumbering envelopment their might and craft is merciless and erosive on thoughts and emotions. Add the pit borne unsympathetic growls of Richardson alongside the crushing basslines of Claire Horrocks and restraining beats of Matt Aldred and the result is a tsunami of aural and impassioned lyrical hate, anger, and loathing.
From the more rampant early tracks the album switches after the apocalyptic emotion of the startling instrumental title track into a more expansive tar thick devouring prowl of doom and sludge sounds. The songs Bookatee Willalee and Locklear are overbearing and forceful masses to submerge within, their intent to drive away air and light with towering waves of intensity and sonic violation.
The album ends with the too brief but riotous strike of Snapmare, its bruising breath as punishing as its astringent splattering of wrung out melodic squeals, and the tension pushing What Are You Looking At Dicknose which takes its time to arrive fully in the ear but makes up for its tardy yet unsettling slow entrance with a tempest of nasty, pervading, and claustrophobic maliciousness. The closer is a seething body of poison to hungrily consume and be assaulted by, and to end what is a highly satisfying release. Arguably its earlier presence is better than its latter company but there is never anything less than compelling if violent sounds and thrilling invention to be eagerly accepted. At times Tarnation is a testing listen but one which is immensely rewarding and makes Bastard Of The Skies a band welcome anytime to crush, burn, and challenge the senses.
US instrumental rock band Stinking Lizaveta have returned with an album in 7th Direction, which is arguably the best instrumental release in a very long time and is easily one of the best albums to be unleashed this year if not the very best. It is magnificent, a masterful vision of imagination, artistry, and storytelling. It is a collection of pieces which tell tales, but your tales, the band offering all the tools and emotions along with an irresistible invitation to write your own script, 7th Direction the perfect vibrant and inciteful canvas of sound and evocation to individual visions.
This their seventh album, follows on from the acclaimed Sacrifice and Bliss of 2009, though all their releases since forming in 1994 have generated an eagerly growing respect and following. Formed by then partners, guitarist Yanni Papadopoulos and drummer Cheshire Agusta, in the basements of West Philadelphia, the pair soon enlisted Alexi, the brother of Yanni, on upright electric bass. Together the trio have created, conjured, spawn, call it what you will such the uniqueness of their sound, a mesmeric and provocative blend of rock, fusing everything from classic, stoner and punk rock to jazz, progressive rock, heavy metal, and so much more. The years have seen them sharing stages with bands such as Corrosion of Conformity, Clutch, Rollins Band, Fugazi, Zeni Geva, Today Is The Day, Weedeater, Hidden Hand, Don Vito, Antikaroshi, End of Level Boss, and Beehoover with each undoubtedly being given a run for their money.
7th Direction is an album which takes infectiousness into addiction status and plays thoughts and emotions like a harp, gently provoking and stroking but at times twanging them for near orgasmic responses. The band writes music which is so fluid it feels like it is simply on the spur of the moment composing, the tracks organic and instinctive as they tease and ignite total captivation. They are also perfectly formed, compact or expansive when the time is right without any unnecessary flamboyance or indulgence at any point. Each song has a facet which is sirenesque whether the flaming guitar invention of Yanni, the heart firing bass strokes of Alexi, or the minimal yet expressive and relentless rhythms of Cheshire, though generally it is all three at the same time, their union a delicious and stirring feast to devour greedily.
Stinking Lizaveta open the release with the title track and immediately has the passions swelling with its thumping build to an opening crescendo…which is basically the whole song though they repeat the climb a few times to get the juices flowing first. In to its stride or rather emotive sci-fi/noir stroll, the track pulsates with a melodic shimmering which blisters the air on touch alongside the watching basslines and cagey rhythms. It is stunning, a thing of beauty speared with burning flashes of impassioned guitar and tension raising climbs once again.
From the opener alone one would be shouting from the rooftops about the release but this is just the beginning and things just sizzle and brand new memories into the mind track by track. The likes of the following View From The Moon, a heated journey through celestial atmospheres, and the evolving Moral Hazard leave one gasping in pleasure and hunger for more. The first transports one to the theme of the title and easily would make the perfect soundtrack to seventies TV shows like Space 1999 or UFO, without diminishing the quality and stature of the piece. The second is a crumbling upon the senses its flight twisting into a schizophrenic squeal through sonic fires.
Every track deserves a mention but the greatest personal highlights come with the kinetic fury of Dark Matter, a song where shadows and incendiary energies crash and burn whilst a dark snarl prowls as overlord, the hypnotic aural puppeteer that is Z which has limbs and feelings dancing a satanic tune, and One To The Head, another track to fire up every one of the senses with its moody bass tones, tingling beats, and electrifying sonics. Oh there is also the unbelievably magnetic Ten Thousand Hours, a piece which beckons and seduces with a kaleidoscope of persuasive melodic caresses, sonic kisses, and rhythmic wonder.
To say 7th Direction is brilliant seems an understatement, the songs mentioned and every one of the six not covered simply ingenuity from the deepest well, it is that good. Stinking Lizaveta show they are still the true heart and leaders of rock n roll and if after this album there are still those unknowing or disbelieving there is no justice in music for sure.
As its predecessor, the EP is wrapped in the artwork of UK artist Andrew Sloan, its dark toning and organic imagery a first glimpse of the creative tapestry and sonic exploration set to seduce ears and beyond. Opener Magnetar rubs ears with a lone riff to begin within but swiftly revolves and broadens into a predatory canter of imposing rhythms from drummer Matt Moulis and dark throaty bait courtesy of Joseph Barnes’ bass, both entwined in the just as gripping sonic tenacity of guitarist Matt Walker. Alone each sculpts pure drama but together they make aural pestilence whilst additionally conjuring a groove which no matter where it leads or what it twists itself into, is an unrelenting seducing within the carnal ambience and textures around it. The pestilential tones of Walker’s vocals crawl into the psyche too as they hitch a ride on the increasingly contagious grooving and tsunami like hostility swinging its way to the same destination.
creativity has changed and evolved from your first days, through that great album and onto the just released Dog Years?
How does the creation of songs more often than not transpire in the band?
band has done, though as mentioned earlier it is not as grievously nasty as its predecessor. That might be simply because there is an element of knowing what is going to corrode the senses this time around if not in the design it will come in. Dog Years certainly leaps out with starter The Royal We, its insidiously addictive rhythmic coaxing and snarling riffs at the start primal bait before which defences have their hands up within seconds. It is a spiteful virulence which even as it is expands its intensity and weight never relinquishes its grip. Eventually the lure has a more merciful intent though the heated vocal squalls more than make up for any drop in antagonism. It is a vindictive number which just as hungrily relishes charging with nostrils flaring or crawling over nerve ends with a predation glee, and a stunning start to the album.
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sonic rabidity and an annihilatory ravishment. Rhythms and riffs converge in a torrential tsunami of spite and eager decay, strangling senses as guitars and vocals unleash their scourge upon the wounds. The track spews enterprise and vitriol with every searing note and poisonous syllable, creating the perfect threat and welcome into the belly of the beast.
