River Black’s self-titled release picks up right where Burnt by the Sun’s “Heart of Darkness” left off, the riffs and instrumentation are crushing, as well as vocalist Mike Olender being the best he has ever been, For anyone who enjoys Metal and hardcore at its finest will find this record to be of their choosing.
“River Black” CD//DD//LP track listing:
1. Jaws 2. Honor 3. Low 4. Shipwreck 5. River Black 6. South x South 7. Boat 8. Move 9. #Victim 10. Haunt 11. Sink 12. Everywhere
The Review:
River Black’s self-titled release picks up right where Burnt by the Sun’s “Heart of Darkness” left off in ways that are both impressive and terrifying. The positives are that the riffs and instrumentation are crushing, as well as vocalist Mike Olenderbeing the best he has ever been. The terrifying element is that the lyrical continuity between “Heart of Darkness”and “River Black” indicates the human condition has only grown worse in the band’s absence. Fans of Burnt by the Sunwill not only welcome this new record, but also be blown away by the progression of River Black’ssound.
The album gets off to a pummelling start from the get-go with “Jaws” and “Low” are riff-oriented tracks very reminiscent of the “Soundtrack to the Personal Evolution” era of Burnt by the Sun. The album takes a turn in the middle with the self titled track and “South x South”.These songs show a more matured band exercising restraint and understanding the best qualities of their sound. It is the little things that make such an impact; particularly with the double kick pattern and the string arrangements on “South x South”, you see the growth still capable within this band. As mentioned previously, Mike Olender’s vocals are nothing short of spectacular. With “River Black”, the listener really gets the sense of a man who has had many life experiences between his studio albums. Particularly with songs like “Haunt”and “#Victim”, you get the sense Mike is not only a seasoned lyricist, but has completely mastered his craft as a metal vocalist.
For anyone who enjoys Metal and hardcore at its finest will find this record to be of their choosing.
“Godless Prophets & the Migrant Flora” finds an exact middle ground between the elegant melodicism of Darkest Hour’s earlier work and the feral muscle of their previous album. The mixture is sure to please nearly all fans of the band, both old and new.The result is twelve tracks that simultaneously capture Darkest Hour at both their most tuneful and their most assailing.
“Godless Prophets & the Migrant Flora” CD//DD//LP track listing:
1. Knife in the Safe Room 2. This Is The Truth 3. Timeless Numbers 4. None Of This Is The Truth 5. The Flesh & the Flowers of Death 6. Those Who Survived 7. Another Headless Ruler of the Used 8. Widowed 9. Enter Oblivion 10. The Last of the Monuments 11. In The Name Of Us All 12. Beneath It Sleeps
The Review
Since Darkest Hour strayed from their melodeath roots in favor a more commercial metalcore sound on their self-titled, eighth album in 2014, many new fans have flocked to the band’s base. However, older fans of their melodic death metal sound have been nervously twiddling their thumbs about what this would mean for the future of Darkest Hour’sdirection. That future arrives in the form of the Washington, D.C.based quintet’s ninth LP, “Godless Prophets & the Migrant Flora”, their first original release for Goatsnake/Sunn O))) guitarist Greg Anderson’s label Southern Lord Recordings. It is also their first album to feature Convergeguitarist Kurt Ballou behind the soundboard, and if the names associated with this album seem like they might be sending mixed messages about the album’s stylistic direction, that’s because they are.
“Godless Prophets & the Migrant Flora”finds an exact middle ground between the elegant melodicism of Darkest Hour’s earlier work and the feral muscle of their previous album. The mixture is sure to please nearly all fans of the band, both old and new. The vibrant, flowing guitar leads definitive of the band’s classic material reintroduce themselves on “Godless Prophets & the Migrant Flora”, which may be partially due to the return of former guitarist Kris Norris, who, while not a full member of the band again, does perform additional guitar layering on the album. “Godless Prophets & the Migrant Flora” also sees vocalist John Henry return to a style more closely approximating his work on early Darkest Hour, albeit a tad harsher and more martial.
These elements of Darkest Hour’s past works float atop an amalgam of their newer, metalcore influenced sound. The elements of classic melodeath that the band always impeccably recreated are set to a backdrop of vicious aggression that provide a new kind of edge to Darkest Hour that one never noticed was missing before. This is perhaps best exemplified by the album’s tenth and possible standout track, “The Last of the Monuments”, which mixes nimble guitar work, infectious melodies and ferocious attitude. “Godless Prophets & the Migrant Flora” truly finds the best of both worlds that Darkest Hour has ventured into, removes them with a scalpel, and then slaps them onto a new musical canvas. The result is twelve tracks that simultaneously capture Darkest Hour at both their most tuneful and their most assailing.
“Godless Prophets & the Migrant Flora”is available preorder/buyhere
The band deliver a breathless mix of Converge at their most knotty, mixed with a distinctly European brand of screamo/chaotic hardcore that hits hard. These tracks are really brought to life by some frantic, complex drum work that channels the spirit of Ben Koller.“Your Mess As Much As Mine” is a brief but brilliant release from Oak that shows the band are more than capable of holding their own against the heavyweights of the genre.
“Your Mess As Much As Mine” DD//LP track listing:
1). Broken Bodied
2). Garden
3). For Better or Worse
4). Elsewhere
5). Family and Friends
The Review:
Oak’s new EP “Your Mess As Much As Mine” may only be seventeen minutes long but it makes a strong impact over its short duration.
The Gothenburg trio come out of traps hard with the fierce opening trio of “Broken Bodied”,“Garden” and “For Better or Worse”. The band deliver a breathless mix of Converge at their most knotty, mixed with a distinctly European brand of screamo/chaotic hardcore that hits hard. These tracks are really brought to life by some frantic, complex drum work that channels the spirit of Ben Koller.
“Elsewhere” sees the band ease up on the gas while maintaining high levels of spite. It’s a slower track that sees Oakintroduce elements of noise rock and culminates in a crushing doom riff that is eventually overpowered by a rising tide of raw noise. “Family and Friends”provides a fitting end to the EP, five minutes of intensity that brings together the different elements explored over the previous tracks for a raucous finale.
“Your Mess As Much As Mine”is a brief but brilliant release from Oak that shows the band are more than capable of holding their own against the heavyweights of the genre.
The idea of Decades Apart is pretty simple. I’ll choose 5 different albums from 5 different decades and I’ll share a little information about them and hopefully you’ll check them out if you haven’t already. Today is 1971, 1981, 1991, 2001and 2011. Whilst some these albums may not all be considered classics, they’re certainly amazing records. So be sure to check it out.
Hawkwind - 'In Search of Space' (1971)
Growing up in the '80s I heard the name Hawkwindoften enough but never took the time to listen to them. As far as I knew they weren't a metal band, more some kind of hippie jam band with keyboards, which was a major turn-off when I was obsessing over Celtic Frost, Prong and Voivod. They seemed so twee, almost laughable in the face of the epic speed and heaviness of 'To Mega Therion' or 'Dimension Hatross. Of course, once Soundgarden and Mudhoneycame along it suddenly seemed alright to look backwards for inspiration, and when Monster Magnet released “Spine of God” and started mentioning Hawkwind in every interview I thought it might be time for a reassessment. I bought a double cassette compilation and dived in.
Trying to consume so much Hawkwind at once is sheer madness and the compilation leapt around in terms of chronology so I thought I'd work out where to start and go from there. A tuned-in workmate was so excited to be asked for Hawkwindrecommendations that he gave me a vinyl copy of 'In Search of Space' along with some valuable advice for ideal listening conditions. To this day I still get the same feeling of foreboding when the opening strains of 'You Shouldn't Do That' seep out of the speakers. To have the confidence to open with a 15 minute epic speaks volumes of just how mind expanding Hawkwind truly are/were, and to this day no-one has really done anything that comes close. Ultra creepy, doom laden, tribal, kosmich and totally confusing at the same time. What's more, there's nothing of the peace and love of American west coast psych here at all. Hawkwindwere raw, tough and incessant. I had to check the record label to see how long that song was, it felt like it was as likely to be three minutes as thirty. Totally transcendental. They didn't let up either with 'Master of the Universe ' rivalling Sabbathfor pure power, and 'Adjust Me' setting an early template for noise rock twenty years before anyone was even thinking about it.
Like Sabbath, really nothing sounded the same at the time, or since, and I can't begin to imagine how alien this record must have sounded in '71. Hawkwind's legacy has been tainted by inconsistent line-ups and releases, along with a slew of tenth rate copyists posturing as psych-rock, but there's no doubt in my mind that if the band had finished after 'Hall of the Mountain Grill' they'd be revered in the same light as Sabbath, Zeppelin and all the other Titans of the era. This record still stands up like few others. This is your Captain speaking. Your Captain is dead
Van Halen– “Fair Warning” (1981)
In 1981 an album that in my opinion is the epitome of the Van Halensound was released, “Fair Warning”. Sheer gravitas. For my money, each track holds its weight in groove, riffs, musicianship and straight up ass kicking swagger from David Lee Roth.
What in my humble opinion always gets lost in a lot of their albums and I feel especially on this body of work is how amazing the percussion is. “Dirty Movies” is a lesson in full on boogie till the fucking cows come home, sleep in the barn and prance back out to the pasture to graze.
“So This is Love”, forget about it. How many T Tops had this song blitzing from their 8 track stereos, meanwhile, engines growled like a Rottweiler in heat. The key is the smoothness of the Ted Templeman production, the sonic sexiness of the virtuoso himself, Eddie Van Halen. The tonality and growl of his axe is more potent than any espresso ever brewed.
I remember my buddyJim Delosh playing this for me and Vaugh Fachette's dad blaring “Sinner's Swing”, before going fishing. So if you are feeling sentimental, and have a 3 quarter t shirt In your drawer please put it on, get one foot out the door and become “Unchained”.
Soundgarden -“Badmotorfinger”(1991)
Having recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, Soundgardenhelped unshackle the band of their grunge tag with ‘Badmotorfinger’. While draped in that archetypal grittiness which helped characterise the movement and genre bursting from their hometown of Seattle at the time, this album was representative of a band outgrowing their early sound, building on their blues laden, doomy template with an intrinsic experimentalism which they learnt to perfect on ‘Superunknown’.
Indeed, while it was that succeeding album that helped skyrocket the band, breaking them to the masses with massive singles in ‘Spoonman’, ‘Fell on Black Days’ and ‘Black Hole Sun’, its older brother has grown into something of an underrated, cult classic. The melancholy chaos of ‘Rusty Cage’ - lovingly covered by Johnny Cash some years later - and the 7/4 thump of ‘Outshined’(a pre-cursor to ‘Spoonman’, which is also in 7/4) make a moody and impenetrably iconic introduction to a record which, while its style and feel may receive seismic shifts throughout, never lets up. Its diversity is its greatest gift, riffs leaping out at you from the dark when you least expect it, psychedelia then whisking you away from the punches.
They showed with this album a sharp and intelligent level of song writing, from the genius lyrics of Chris Cornell (“I’m looking California/but feeling Minnesota” and “share a cigarette with negativity”) to Kim Thayil’s nasty, unconventional approach to guitar playing, it may not be an album hugely revered, but that is in no way a representation of its quality. There is a progressive mindset driving the record, their playfulness with less common time signatures and often obscure, unnerving note choices defining it as something of an ugly beast. But why should rock music be pretty?
‘Slaves And Bulldozers’, ‘New Damage’ and ‘Holy Water’ are packed to the rafters with titanic doom riffs which snarl and growl like an animalistic Tony Iommi. The short and savage punk of Ben Shepard’s ‘Face Pollution’ and the bastardised, brass-tinged classic rock of Matt Cameron’s ‘Drawing Flies’, keep you guessing, keep you on your toes.
Never short of surprises, it is an amalgamation of so much, all condensed and blended into one unholy racket. Like any true classic, it is a record that no other band could write.
Converge – “Jane Doe” (2001)
Released in 2001, Converge's breakthrough 4th album, 'Jane Doe' remains a landmark in extreme music and sounds as fresh and relevant today as it did 15 years ago. Played with such ferocious precision, thanks in part to the impetus of new members Ben Koller and Nate Newton, 'Jane Doe' is a bitter, angry, scathing statement of intent from the band.
From the opening arpeggio that dips into the inhuman blasts of 'Concubine', the album barely lets you catch a breath as Jacob Bannon screams at you, telling you the story of a ruined relationship. It's so powerful and full of emotion that you can almost hear the blood pouring from the man's broken heart seep into his vocal chords.
Various twists and turns permeate the albums intensity; 'Distance And Meaning', 'Hell To Pay', 'Homewrecker', 'The Broken Vow' and 'Heaven In Her Arms' provide some of the most memorable moments, while 'Phoenix In Flight' is near perfect in its composition and placement on the album, allowing you to digest what's just been thrown your way before 'Phoenix In Flames' and 'Thaw' that follow, absolutely annihilate your eardrums. As if that wasn't enough, the album's title track is an 11 minute emotional rollercoaster, making you worry for the welfare of the song's protagonist.
Elder – "Dead Roots Stirring"(2011)
As opposed to the debut that was more of a brawny smack to the gut (or the wall, whichever you prefer), Elder’s excellentsophomore was one for the thinking-man’ stoner books. As psychedelia-ladden as it was riff-driven in its approach, this Boston trio set themselves up to be true trailblazers in the genre. Showing respect for the long-form, each track in duration 8 minutes at the very least with two nearing the twelve-minute mark, they brought a world fully their own and spent time exploring it with quieter moments but not lacking any punch either. The sheer rawness acting contrast to the intricate layering, all the while showcasing their penchant for experimenting with songwriting formulas.
The album is equal parts a plunge into murky depths – like the epically ravaging conclusion that closes the opener – as it is opting for the less travelled overgrown route, with floating guitars going off on shimmering tangents like aptly-titled third track ’III’. With rusty riffs bringing its plodding hooks, bluesy and bog-ridden coincide with the album art, sill, alongside the opening notes of ’Gemini’, or the thick earthy toned pulse that opens the title-track, it’s De Salvo’s vocals breaking at just the right moment. Concurrently melodic and raspy in their intonation, they come through as if a guide lighting the way, though showing restraint enough to let the instruments tell the majority of the story.
"Dead Roots Stirring" gave strong hints of what was to come on yesteryear’s acclaimed Lore, again proving that there isn’t a band that does it quite like Elder.
The shredding from Adam D. is spot on, Fisher absolutely destroys and Shannon Lucas does his best throughout the record to show up on a Richter Scale report, laying his, expectedly monstrous shellacking upon his kit. “Serpentine Dominion” is the perfect dichotomy split between brutality and beauty and these gents have laid down what could be a contender for best debut album, Serpentine Dominion absolutely nails it to the wall.
“Serpentine Dominion” CD//DD//LP track listing:
1. Intro 2. The Vengeance in Me 3. Vanquished Unto Thee 4. Divide, Conquer, Burn, and Destroy 5. Sovereign Hate 6. On the Brink of Devastation 7. Jagged Cross Legions 8. Prelude 9. This Endless War
The Review:
On paper, super groups sound AMAZING. What's not to love about members of your favourite bands getting together and unleashing musical loads into your ear canals? Usually, they are ok at best; that many super egos are also a recipe for disaster. However! That has changed with the SUPERBgroup, Serpentine Dominion! Featuring Adam D. (Killswitch Engage), George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher (Cannibal Corpse), and Shannon Lucas (ex-Black Dahlia Murder), these gents have laid down what could be a contender for best debut album from a new band.
The style mixes technical death metal and more modern core in a way that actually feels like adults made it. I feel good listening to it, and it seems extremely solid from first listen onward. Adam D. nails some of the best shredding, right out of the gate, with the Intro blasting some gorgeous neo-classical guitar that just dances through the air; and then it hammers into the meat of what Serpentine Dominion is about: the brutality. The shredding is spot on, Fisher absolutely destroys and Shannon Lucas does his best throughout the record to show up on a Richter Scale report, laying his, expectedly monstrous shellacking upon his kit.
For a 38 minute record, give or take, 'Serpentine Dominion' covers tons of ground rather quickly. With an intro and prelude consisting of much more classical and virtuoso bents, all the way over to technical and modern death metal, with -Core flair added as icing between the layers on this cake, the album has a wide pattern that strikes the listener any number of ways. Splitting vocals about 70/30, Fisher and D. nail a perfect balance between brutality and beauty, the dichotomy split as well as Adam D.'s guitar work. He highlights everything in both lights, from the distortedly huge chugs into lightning fast fret runs (“Jagged Cross Legions”, “The Vengeance in Me”), even incorporating some superb tapping technique as found on “Divide, Conquer, Burn, and Destroy”. As for the shred hounds, the entire album is a real highlight, as each song simply has some huge spurts of stellar musicianship.
The album has a very alive feel to it, and, considering the well balanced blend between the new and old styles, it has another huge characteristic in it's favor: it feels like the parties included had FUN. Side projects should always have a feel that the members had a blast making it, and that they needed a break from their main gigs; it makes the atmosphere pleasant and lends itself to a great finished product. Mr. D. is known for having fun with anything he's part of, and with the current way KSE sounds, this must have been much needed for him. Mr's Grinder and Lucas just made it absolutely perfect. The vocals sound like a coarse and roaring flamethrower, in that classic CC style, married with clean vocals, virtuosic guitar, all backed up by a man who could lead small nations to win wars with his drumming, the self-titled debut by Serpentine Dominion absolutely nails it to the wall.
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