ALBUM REVIEW: Author & Punisher, "Beastland"

By: Elliot Paisley


Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 05/10/2018

Label: Relapse Records

The savagery does not dilute in the presence of melody, and instead, it complements the moments of pure mayhem that are indeed present throughout.

“Beastland” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1. Pharmacide
2. Nihil Strength
3. Ode to Bedlam
4. The Speaker is Systematically Blown

5. Nazarene
6. Apparition
7. Night Terror
8. Beastland

The Review:

There is no artist in the world quite like Author & Punisher. One may accuse such a statement of hyperbole or ignorance, but when one analyses the character of the man and the nature of his work, it is clear such art is being made without relevant precedent. Aesthetically there is influence from Godflesh, Nine Inch Nails and Throbbing Gristle, but even those bands feel entirely distant from what Stone is producing. While the project can be loosely defined as a ‘one-man industrial doom metal band’, when one discovers the story behind it and the music being produced, this feels woefully lacking.

Tristan Stone, the brainchild ofA&P, is not just a musician, but also a mechanical engineer. This may sound like unnecessary trivia, but it is important to bear in mind when listening to this album. The majority of the instrumentation and controllers he uses, affectionally labeled "Dub Machines" and "Drone Machines", are designed and constructed by Shone from raw materials and electronic circuitry. This level of individualism scares off pretenders, who are simply incapable of recreating it. His live performances employ the same tools, and visually it barelen resembles a musical recital.

“Beastland” is his 6th studio album, but it was only on his album “Melk En Honing” when the music world at large appeared to finally take notice. While it is evident that the metal community has been far more welcoming of Author & Punisher than experimental music circles, he is just at home in both. A guest appearance on Cattle Decapitation’s 2015 effort “The Anthropocene Extinction” endeared him and signing to Phil Anselmo’s Housecore Records endeared him further to metal fans, to the point where Relapse Recordstook notice and employed him on their roster 2 years ago. Following up “Melk En Honing” was no easy task, and many feared that A&P, like their influences, was doomed to fall into repetition and not explore the necessary frontiers

However, on this album, perhaps with the confidence that comes with the backing of a cult fanbase, Author & Punisher has strode into even more experimental territory. This is the most wildly diverse album he’s released thus far, and for that reason, it is also his finest achievement. Music of this nature can wear on one’s psyche upon repeated, unrelenting listens. However, “Beastland”, with its refreshing experimentation and unwillingness to compromise, cures this ill. While there are plenty of ‘home comforts’ (for lack of a better term) present here, with such songs as “Pharmacide”, “Nihil Strength” and “Night Terror”providing the unrelenting, atonal bludgeoning fans have grown so dependent on, A&P remains unafraid to explore new horizons. “Apparition” and “The System Has Systematically Blown”sees Stone channelling his inner Trent Reznor, as his will for arcane melody bleeds through to the surface. This is the closest they have come to replicating the style of another band, and it would possibly prove problematic to fans, was it not done to such a marvellous standard. The savagery does not dilute in the presence of melody, and instead, it complements the moments of pure mayhem that are indeed present throughout.


This album is also the most complete work in his discography: never before has he released a collection as all-encompassing with as an impressive a scope as here. From the opening crushing moments of “Pharmacide”, likely to liquidize your teeth if listened to at too unforgiving a volume, to the closing moments of the title track, an angular and alluring finale, the album drags you through a merciless nightmare, meticulously engineered by Stone. In the past, he has shown promise of such accomplished creativity, but all his past works pale in comparison to what has been done here.

Author & Punisherremain one of the most exciting acts in underground music, and it is only a matter of time before the world at large acknowledges the importance of his work. Whether it be in our lifetime or simply in the coming years, let it be known that Tristan Stone will receive the praise he deserves beyond his existing community, and “Beastland” is all the proof necessary.

“Beastland” is available HERE

Band info: bandcamp|| facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Uniform & The Body, "Mental Wounds Not Healing"

By: Dominic Walsh

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 08/06/2018

Label: Sacred Bones Records

Mental Wounds Not Healing” is a phenomenally heavy 27 minutes of music. Throughout the seven tracks, there are some extremely harsh vocals, mountainous droning guitar riffs and glitchy distorted beats.  This record is well worth your time if you like having your boundaries of music tested.

“Mental Wounds Not Healing” DD//LP track listing:

1). Dead River

2). The Curse of Eternal Life

3). Come and See

4). The Boy With Death in His Eyes

5). In My Skin

6). We Have Always Lived in the Castle

7). Empty Comforts

The Review:

With a title taken from an Ozzy Osbourne lyric (“Crazy Train”), Uniform and The Body have joined forces for a collaboration that pushes both bands far beyond their roots in industrial music and metal - creating an immersive listening experience that truly transcends genre. 

“Mental Wounds Not Healing”is a phenomenally heavy 27 minutes of music. Throughout the seven tracks, there are some extremely harsh vocals, mountainous droning guitar riffs and glitchy distorted beats. Think NIN, Einstürzende Neubauten, Sunn 0))) and bits of Ministry mixed together with Pharmakon and Blanck Mass. It’s a complete maelstrom of industrial noise throughout.

Most of the song titles are culled from horror literature and cinema. “The Boy With Death In His eyes” is a particular highlight at the midpoint of the album. The beat is more orthodox, and the distorted synthesizers and guitars that accompany the beat create a dark, tension filled backdrop to the despairing vocals.

“In My Skin”contains a particularly unnerving screaming sound throughout the entire track, but the track also contains one of the most notable guitar melodies that spins its web around more twisted and distorted noise. As you disappear down the hole of this track, the ending of the track feels almost serene against many other parts of the song, but don’t be fooled into thinking this is full of lush melodies! “Dead River” also has the same screaming motif that runs throughout the track. It takes you wonderfully out of your comfort zone.

“We Have Always Lived in a Castle” is pure drone. “Empty Comforts” and “The Curse of Eternal Life” are the most NIN style moments on the album as the electronic beats are clear and punchy, but the former really lacks any kind of recognisable rhythm; like a heartbeat with no real idea of what it is doing. The guitars again convene towards the end of “Empty Comforts” to show that this collaboration is not simply about making a glorious racket; there is melody rooted deep within this album – you just have to have the endurance to stick around to find it. “Mental Wounds Not Healing” is well worth your time if you like having your boundaries of music tested.

“Mental Wounds Not Healing” is available here

Band info: facebook|| facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Barst, "The Endeavour"

By: Victor Van Ommen

Album Type:Full Length

Date Released:18/05/2018

Label:Consouling Sounds

‘The Endeavour” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1. The Endeavour

The Review:

Boy! Barst has done it again. On their 2016 outing, “Western Lands,” Barstyielded stunning results when they combined post metal aggression with claustrophobic psychedelia. This Friday, Barst is going to hit the scene with a new offering, “The Endeavour.” In doing so, this Belgian band is taking their sound to unexplored territories.

“The Endeavour” is presented as one, 42 minute song. Whether “The Endeavour” actually is one, single song is up for debate. I’d go so far as to say the album is three of four movements, all tied together by way of smooth transitions. But presentation counts for a lot, and if Barst wants us to take this album in as one song, then that’s what we’ll do. Either way, the band implores the listener to give the music full and undivided attention.

As far as genre is concerned, “The Endeavour” is hard to pin down. There’s definitely a dark element to the music, and it’s heavy in its own way. Is it metal? Yeah. Industrial? Check. Psychedelic? No doubt. Heavy doom? Uh-huh. And those are just a few of the genres that Barst brings to the table.

Throughout, the guitars are laden with a variety of distortion effects. None of the guitars are ever overpowering, but they sure do set the mood. So there’s still a subtlety in the music that holds the band back from diving head first into mindless riffing. “The Endeavour” continues its foray into the unknown by introducing programmed percussion and other electronics, giving way to a rather palpable industrial influence. Sometimes an Ufomammut tint springs to mind and at other times the music gets psychedelic enough to wonder if it’s still Barst that we’re listening to.

Then there’s the emotional palette that Barst paints from. It’s probably even more varied than the musical palette. Barstspends these 42 minutes intently dipping their proverbial paintbrush in the darkest of blacks as well as the brightest of colors. The resulting painting is one that grabs attention of both its somber tone as well as its shades of hope and elation.

Despite the sprawling nature of the music on “The Endeavour,” the album is still a very concise listen. Barst’splan of attack is based on a clear vision, so much so that every note and chord and melody played is as intentional as the last. Barst’svision is so sound that they don’t get caught up in themselves, but instead are able to translate what was in their mind to a recorded format without coming across as self-indulgent.

“The Endeavour” is available digitally, on CD and LP here

Band info: facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Ministry, "AmeriKKKant"

By: John Reppion

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 09/03/2018

Label: Nuclear Blast Records

“AmeriKKKant” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1. I Know Words
2. Twilight Zone
3. Victims of a Clown
4. TV5/4Chan
5. We’re Tired of It
6. Wargasm
7. Antifa
8. Game Over
9. AmeriKKKa

The Review:

“This isn’t the future we were promised. They said there’d be jet-packs, and flying cars, and hover-skateboards, and self tying shoe-laces, and, and, and…” Yes, the films, and the TV shows all lied. As it turns out, our timeline is less Back to the Future II, more Orwell’s 1984. You know who, in a weird way, seems to have known exactly what the 21^st Century would be all about, though? Al Jourgenson and Ministry, that’s who.

Ever since their 1992 anthem “N.W.O.” sampled the then president, George H. W. Bush, Ministry have been pedalling an anti-authoritarian, anti-right-wing American message. And ever since “N.W.O.”, they’ve been hacking up the words of US presidents, and incorporating them into their patented brand of drink and drug fuelled industrial-metal. This approach culminated in the band’s early 2000s anti-Bush (junior) trilogy of albums: “Houses of the Molé” (2004), “Rio Grande Blood” (2006), and “The Last Sucker” (2007). Ministry officially split in 2008, but continued to release re-mixed and previous recorded material fairly steadily. Then Uncle Al came back with all new material for 2012’s “Relapse”, which was soon followed up with a definitely, absolutely, unequivocally, final album (their thirteenth studio album, in case you were wondering) entitled “From Beer to Eternity” in 2013. And that was Ministry done. Over. Dead.

Then, on the ninth of November 2016 it was announced, much to the amazement of many, many people in the world that Donald J. Trump was going to be the next president of the United States of America. Trump the king of the idiotic sound-bite. Trump the liar; the “lets’ build a wall around Mexico and make them pay for it” guy; the ex-reality TV star; Trump the alt-right’s leader of choice.  Had Al Jourgenson somehow tragically lost his life post 2013, I feel there’s a genuine chance Trump’s presidency would have resurrected him. His deadlocked, leather-clad corpse clawing its way through the earth, bursting forth from the grave screaming “GET ME TO THE FUCKIN’ STUDIO, NOW!”. 

“AmeriKKKant” is the album that brought Ministry back from the dead. Again.

Trump’s infamous words “we will make America great again” – suitably warped and fucked with – are the first thing we hear on opening track “I Know Words”: the ominous, middle eastern influenced, instrumental (save for all the Trump samples) introduction to the album. “Twilight Zone” is a weighty, plodding industri-stomp, very much in the “Scarecrow” mould. It too, features plenty of Trump samples, and a good dollop of that harmonica which crops up in more Ministry tracks than you remember.

When the bass comes in on “Victims of a Clown”, you could be forgiven for thinking you were listening to something off of 1989’s “The Mind is a Terrible thing to Taste”. This is very much classic Ministry, with the scratching of new member, turntablist DJ Swamp, the only real indicator that this isn’t some lost pre 90s off-cut.

Eight minutes(!) or so in, we get a final blast of the higher BMP industri-thrash stuff more associated with latter Ministry (and with much of the output of Al’s most recent side-project Surgical Meth Machine). That Burton C. Bell fella out of Fear Factory (remember them?) growls “Hey! What he say? Vomiting conspiracies. God damn the racist blind. Anti social impotence ignites”.

“TV 5-4 Chan” continues the tradition of short, sharp, “TV” titled tracks which have graced their albums since the early 90s. This time guns, racism, and white nationalist are the targets. It segues into “We’re Tired of It” which is an up-tempo thrash diatribe against “Fucking insane Christian Hypocrisy”, with Bell on vocals once again. “Wargasm”is more very classic sounding Ministry, with a chorus reminiscent of 1996’s “The Fall”. Samples talking about “the people’s war” and “the mother of all bombs”… you get the idea. “Antifa” is a chug-along anti-fascist anthem “Brown shirt little snowflakes never want to admit, Terrified of the red and black flag, Antifa's the shit”. Enough said. Oh, you want to know which old Ministry song it sounds like? A bit like “Just One Fix”, I suppose.

Closers “Game Over”, and title track “AmeriKKKant”, are a pair of mid-paced, somewhat more reflective songs. The rage of earlier tracks turned to despair at the inevitability of  just how fucked we, America, and the world as a whole actually are. There is a nice brass section in “AmeriKKKant” to offset that slightly, though. “It's like the Nazis back in '39, Like the Romans on the verge of decline. Like the Russians back in '68, How is this supposed to make America great?”

Jourgenson has referred to “AmeriKKKant” in recent interviews as “Pink Floyd on meth”. Yes, it’s a concept album, and yes several of the tracks do have rather excessive running times, but ultimately this is a Ministry album. I’m not going to say “just” a Ministry album, because that would be doing Al and company a disservice, but it’s 100% a Ministry album. Have you heard previous Ministry albums and enjoyed them? Good, then this is another one of those. Yes, some will argue that not much has changed musically in the Ministry camp for some twenty-odd years, but what’s even weirder is to think that US politics has somehow become more regressive in that time. If it feels like you’ve heard this all before, then maybe that’s just because Al Jourgenson has been right all along.

“AmeriKKKant”is available here

Band info: facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Godflesh - "Post Self"

By: Mark Ambrose

Album Type: Full-length

Date Released: 17/11/2017

Label: Avalanche Recordings

It may be a disturbing, challenging last will and testament of humanity’s futurist hopes and dreams, but “Post Self” is an invigorating, complex, and honest piece of industrial metal.  Perhaps most importantly, in a genre that can be glutted with repetitive speed metal riffs and samples of shouting despots, Godflesh stands as one of the smartest bands working today.

“Post Self” CD//DD//LP track listing

1). Post Self

2). Parasite

3). No Body

4). Mirror of Finite Light

5). Be God

6). The Cyclic End

7). Pre Self

8). Mortality Sorrow

9). In Your Shadow

10). The Infinite End

The Review:

               

Crack into any futurist, or hell, even a Neil DeGrasse Tyson wiki-hole, and all sorts of wild speculative bullshit will have you thinking we’re on the cusp of some magical utopia – a paradigm shift, or line of code, or thinkfluential bleeding edge app from unlocking the Jetsons vision of tomorrow.  The transhumanist vision of Ray Kurzweil, the cult of revelatory Singularity, is just the latest, scientific positivist take on apocalyptic rapture snake oil.  With the right tech, the right drive, the right “difficult geniuses” at the helm, we’re all going to beat death and toil and everything desperate and mind-numbing about modern life and finally have the time to bask in our uploaded consciousness for all eternity.  Nevermind the endless sequence of fuckups modernity seems to display – the relentless argument AGAINST letting mankind extend its petty bullshit ad infinitum.  If any band were to write the soundtrack for humanity’s defeat at the inexorable reality of death, it’s Godflesh.  And with “Post Self”, their eighth album, and second since reforming in 2010, Justin Broadrick and G.C. Green have crafted a distinctly industrial, metallic slab of nihilistic dread.  A haunting eulogy for a species intent on extinguishing all its potential in a solipsistic pursuit of immortality.

               

From the highly processed guitar crunch, to the inverted disco backbeat, the opening title track sets the stage for a Godflesh album that lurks in the niches of queasy anxieties.  There are few fully rocking industrial metal moments in “Post Self”, and that decision seems to be a conscious one – Broadrick and Green acknowledged they hewed closer to a foundation of early industrial and post-punk, and the ties to Throbbing Gristle, Public Image Ltd. and Einsturzende Neubautenare, perhaps, more distinct than they’ve ever been.  On a heavily dissonant track like “Parasite”, the wheedling guitar lead sounds so contrary, so confrontational, so “anti-hook” that it can’t possibly be “rocking”.  The doomy “Be God”, with vocals so processed that they sound like an entirely inhuman language, is remarkably underscored by a dreampop guitar coda, with defiantly beautiful tones that ebb and flow like an ocean of battery acid.  The shoegaze sound bleeds into “The Cyclic End”.  The clean vocals are a welcome respite in the warped hellscape of Godflesh’s “Post Self” – but of course the sweetness has to curdle by the finale.

               

“Pre Self”opens with one of the most harrowing guitar licks I’ve ever heard.  A solitary, echoing clang set against an ambient background, Broadrick adds a simple beat and clean vocal litany that, as I listened looking out across the polluted industrial skyline of Newark, was as depressing as a Lars Von Trier marathon.  This amplification of loneliness runs through the album, but is sometimes obscured by soundscapes or effects.  The deranged surf guitar of “In Your Shadow”, or the psychedelic tones of “Mortality Sorrow” can sometimes sideline the hopelessness at “Post Self’s” core.  But with the restrained synthetic strings of “The Infinite End”, the message is clear: this is a requiem mass for a humanity already doomed.  The sparks of soul or individuality within the ten preceding tracks are ghosts in a machine – corrupted, decayed remnants of mankind.  The Singularity is a pipe dream – we have already encoded ourselves into our digital tombstones, and after we leave a used husk of a planet, these vague, screeching entreaties for meaning and salvation will remain.  It may be a disturbing, challenging last will and testament of humanity’s futurist hopes and dreams, but “Post Self” is an invigorating, complex, and honest piece of industrial metal.  Perhaps most importantly, in a genre that can be glutted with repetitive speed metal riffs and samples of shouting despots, Godflesh stands as one of the smartest bands working today.  If they can look to their past and still offer an album so prescient and confrontational, there are a few things we can still be optimistic about in 2018.

“Post Self” is available here

Band info: bandcamp|| facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Blut Aus Nord - "Deus Salutis Meae"

By: Ernesto Aguilar

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 27/10/ 2017

Label: Debemur Morti Productions

what is truly most evident is an extreme music group that will not be bound to definitions, or at least is willing to experiment to ascend beyond what we think we know of a genre.

"Deus Salutis Meae"CD//DD//LP track listing

1. δημιουργός

2. Chorea Macchabeorum

3. Impius

4. γνῶσις

5. Apostasis

6. Abisme

7. Revelatio

8. ἡσυχασμός

9. Ex tenebrae lucis

10. Métanoïa

The Review:

Black metal features a handful of longtime performers in its midst. Among them is France's Blut Aus Nord. Since 1995's "Ultima Thulee," the now-quartet have grown from a vehicle for vocalist Vindsval, who began the project as Vlad in 1993, into a fully realized band crafting some of the already adventurous black metal scene's more daring music.

Most notably, Blut Aus Nord's “777” trilogy of records, comprised primarily of works led solely by Vindsval, and its “Memoria Vetusta”trio of recordings wedged in between them, put forward the pensive detail for which the act is best known. Though its discography is a thread that carries on the tradition of first-wave black metal buried within its performances, the band is almost as a rule devoted to obliterating what you think of the subgenre. Its music is hard to categorize and virtually changes with every release. Sometimes loud and caustic, songs are equally at turns sweeping and cinematic. Consider its interlocking tracks from the 2016 split "Codex Obscura Nomina," where classical influences, which have frequently appeared in Blut Aus Nord'smusic, led the way through its four selections. If you are new to the group, this is music you are undoubtedly going to be pushed by, because this is a band that refuses to let you get comfortable, and instead keeps you focused on how songs, and in fact the arc of its performance progress.

As with anything Blut Aus Nord, you can't talk about "Deus Salutis Meae" on a track-by-track basis. Instead, you have to approach it as a complete work. As such, the French group's upcoming album is both a departure from its split with Ævangelist and "Memoria Vetusta III - Saturnian Poetry," its 2014 recording. That last full length saw Blut Aus Nord return to its roots – terse guitars, rangy bass and one of the best vocal efforts by Vindsval to date. Heavy in delivery while nimble in how it was performed, this particular effort was certainly hard, yet stayed beguiling in its tonality. Like previous albums, the listener was treated to a fresh experience that made it altogether creative. "Codex Obscura Nomina" was a complicated affair that divorced the old sound in favor of multi-layered effects, synthesizer and a moody, swirling mash. Brilliant on its own, this release's outcome took some by surprise. However, with "Deus Salutis Meae," you hear Blut Aus Nord constructing onto the foundations it made on the split the echoes of the classic black metal of "Memoria Vetusta III," into something that sounds futuristic and forward.

Take a song like "Impius" or even "Chorea Macchabeorum"where both, at first listen, sound like particularly good black metal, as can be said for "Apostasis,"which was released as a preview track. On a second, third and fourth listen, it is apparent how breathtaking Blut Aus Nord'smusicianship truly is. Its masterful percussion, pulsing bass, keys that add texture and vocals that set a mood, but never dominate the arrangement, are among the most stunning for black metal this year. Blut Aus Nordhave always been masters of ambience, and the new album is no exception. The group creates a despairing atmosphere, divergent from the black metal methods of its past endeavors yet somehow not far out of that territory. It's already been said by critics that Blut Aus Nord may be veering more into a death metal or funeral doom direction here. You can hear that at turns, but what is truly most evident is an extreme music group that will not be bound to definitions, or at least is willing to experiment to ascend beyond what we think we know of a genre.

The existential joy for listeners, though, will be exploring the songs and concepts. For all its volume and flame, Blut Aus Nord has always been at its very heart an intellectual band. Its songs have always explored faith, humanity and the many shades of darkness therein. "Deus Salutis Meae," the album's title, roughly translates to "the god of my salvation." Let that sit with you as you take what is an accomplished recording, if ever there was one.

"Deus Salutis Meae" is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

ALBUM PREMIERE: Nihilistic industrial doom duo stove-in your skull with new album "Septic, Bitter and Hardbitten"

A true monument in primal sound, “Septic, Bitter and Hardbitten” the sophomore release from nihilist doom duo Phlefonyaar creeps, disorientates and lunges throughout 7 crucifyingly heavy tracks and is the product of a  two mere mortals. Full of pummelling hooks and dark visions, the end result is a maelstrom of focused noise that is starkly terrifying. Taking the blueprint of noise pioneers such as Godflesh and Ministry with an infusion of the none heavier riffs of Crowbar, Phlefonyaar’s grim diatribes are certain to disassemble your cranium with tar thick ear worm, making room 101 seem like a holiday park.

Having thrown their sound on stages across Europe on tour with bands such as Nachtmystium and Dark Fortress and providing support to Baroness on the night before their fateful bus crash, the band are set to spend the rest of 2017 gigging and touring the land. Today were excited to debut “Septic, Bitter and Hardbitten” in full for your listening pleasure ahead of the album’s official release on Friday 14 April 2017 via Cavernous Records. Here is a serious word from vocalist Paul March about the record.  Don’t you just hate rock stars JYou can order the album herefrom Friday

"So here we are. You’ve got your best boiled fox hat draped across your head and shoulders and you're skulking in the bushes trying to find the perfect soundtrack to your lost weekend.  Well fear not my luverlies as Phlefonyaar have you covered (not just in black slime) with some new ditties to lurch about to. Enjoy a first glimpse of our jigs of suffering as you do the rickets dance around the rusty swing set in the park, the perfect accompaniment to the inevitable cloud of flies and the reek of cheap Lynx Aztec deodorant and despair.”

Band info: facebook || bandcamp