Magrudergrind – II (2016)

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So famous that you might’ve just heard of them right now for the first time. Magrudergrind is back after a hiatus with an album that makes a potent case for keeping simplicity tightly under wraps so that we don’t risk every band with half a half-hearted interest in songwriting nabbing it from the medicine cabinet and hoarding it all for themselves.

I don’t exactly listen to much straight up ‘grindcore’, which adds to the holes in my listening experience, but II sounds pretty much like what I’d expect any half-proficient band in the genre to put out. It’s understandably a little slicker than most of the formative efforts in the genre (Napalm Death, Carcass, Repulsion, etc.), although from what I’ve heard this album trades in some of the bits of schlock comedy that “distinguished” previous Magrudergrind content from its contemporaries for more standard, basic, banal grindcore. On some scales, this is really a perfect 5/10 album; it’s exactly what I expected aesthetically, it does nothing particularly interesting, and it doesn’t even have the temerity to offend me even slightly lest I end up shaming Magrudergrind on the internet; does this sound like anybody we know? II is basically the equivalent of a blank cassette waiting to be recorded to for the first time, but like most albums of little musical merit, we can at least learn a few lessons from the circumstances surrounding it.

As I hinted at in the intro, Magrudergrind’s latest is a very simplistic album that isn’t far removed from the starkest, most deconstructive efforts in its genre. The problem working in such a limited palette is that most of the time, it’s only a sign of low effort; it takes surprising amounts of skill, ambition, or at least luck, to cut down your music and still retain some shred of coherence and communicative value. Grindcore, as a genre, is especially vulnerable to the dark side of these tendencies; once you reach maximum violence and intensity there isn’t much left to do in the confines of the genre. The various famous bands of the genre all found their coping mechanisms; I’m personally most familiar with Carcass’s rapid pivot towards pop music. Magrudergrind’s, on the other hand, was apparently to go on hiatus for a few years and then return when everyone had forgotten not only them, but also the very knowledge that they had forgotten about Magrudergrind.

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Dave Lombardo starts new hardcore punk band – Dead Cross

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In other news that beats trying to explain why My Dying Bride’s latest LP is a borehole and a psychic drain (more on that later today if all goes well), Dave Lombardo of Slayer fame has started a hardcore punk band, adding to his already substantial roster of projects. Besides Lombardo, Dead Cross also features Justin Pearson from The Locust and Retox. If the band’s lineup and announcement on Vice are any indication, Dead Cross may take more after modern hardcore punk and metalcore than older substyles of the genre. If you particularly need to hear members of Slayer performing classic hardcore punk, there’s always Slayer’s Undisputed Attitude, although Lombardo was out of the band when it came out in 1996.

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Deathwish reveal track from debut album

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Wisconsin-based speed punk crossover quartet, Deathwish, has released the title track to their debut album, Out For Blood. The band’s music comes off as a less competent copy-cat band taking heavily from Discharge in their second album Hear Nothing, See Nothing Say Nothing. Casual hardcore punk listeners might enjoy this.

https://soundcloud.com/earsplit/deathwish-out-for-blood

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Obliterations release video for “Scapegoat”

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Hardcore punk outfit Obliterations has released a video for their song “Scapegoat” from their new album, Poison.

OBLITERATIONS Tour Dates:

6/04/2015 Music Hall Of Williamsburg – Brooklyn, NY w/ Refused

6/05/2015 Knitting Factory – Brooklyn, NY w/ White Lung

6/06/2015 The Studio At Webster Hall – New York, NY w/ Give, Impact

6/08/2015 DC9 – Washington DC w/ White Lung

6/09/2015 Rumba Café – Columbus, OH w/ White Lung

6/10/2015 The Demo – St. Louis, MO w/ White Lung

6/11/2015 7th Street Entry – Minneapolis, MN w/ White Lung

6/12/2015 Underground Lounge – Chicago, IL

6/13/2015 PJ’s Lager House – Detroit, MI w/ White Lung

6/14/2015 Beachland Ballroom – Cleveland, OH w/ White Lung

6/15/2015 Mohawk Place – Buffalo, NY w/ White Lung

6/16/2015 Great Scott – Allston, MA w/ White Lung

6/17/2015 Bar Le Ritz PDB – Montreal, QC w/ White Lung

6/18/2015 Ottawa Explosion Weekend – Ottawa, ON w/ White Lung

6/20/2015 Lee’s Place – Toronto, ON @ NXNE w/ Girl Band, Mission Of Burma, California X, Grooms

https://obliterationssl.bandcamp.com/releases

http://www.facebook.com/Obliterations

http://obliterations.bandcamp.com

http://twitter.com/obliterations_

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Nausea – Condemned to the System (2014)

CD Booklet

Yes, this is a metal blog, and yes, this is a punk album and also yes, people who try to be ironic are annoying. Nausea Condemned to the System is worth your time if you enjoy energetic and powerful music of any kind. Born out of a punk album, this half-hour terror extends to grindcore and the type of speed metal touches that influenced later 80s hardcore. Unlike most hybrids of this nature, Nausea fuses its influences into a singular voice.

Condemned to the System distinguishes it from thousands that wish to be like it by maintaining a high degree of internal contrast, dialogue between riffs, and compelling tempo changes in songs that develop from a central conflict and by doing so avoid the dual extremes of riff salad and endless loop that make many minimalistic albums as boring as listening to a diesel engine idle. Instead, these songs launch into verse chorus pairs shaped around a central conflict with discursive and transitional material allowing the central loop to take more form. Grindcore-style layering of riffs and instruments gives these songs additional power.

For punk purists, there may be too much emphasis on muted chords used to end phrases, and for metal purists, there may be too many straight-up punk riffs of the 1970s style, but when looked at from a distance, the singular voice of this band emerges. Tempos stay high and vocals incoherent, keeping the guitars and drums as the center of the band with guitars leading and drums producing a pulsing violence behind. Avoiding technical playing entirely, Nausea focus on paring down their songs until a unique form emerges, then playing it with full intensity. The result is an album of short glimpses of life portrayed with the manic intensity of a paranoiac on a four-gallon coffee break, capturing the alienation of punk without self-pity and the willpower of metal without posturing.

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Wülfskol Hellshock 7″ released for Record Store Day

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Imprecation composer/vocalist David Herrera unleashes his new project, Wülfskol, with a 7″ entitled Hellshock which has been released in time for Record Store Day (today). To kick off the release, the band is handing out free copies of a CD version of their songs at local record stores in their hometown of Houston, TX.

If you are at Vinyl Edge or Sound Exchange tomorrow, pick up a free Wülfskol cd while you are there. There will be 20 copies at each store, with 2 songs “I Am The Devils Blood” and a cover song of the Dwarves “Satan”. Hails!

The band, which describes its music as “songs in the tradition of early Bathory, Sodom, Misfits and Broken Bones. All about drugs, death, and the Devil,” also released cover artwork for the new release by underground artist Daniel Shaw:

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This might kick off Record Store Day 2015 with a bit of a celebration.

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How to get into black metal

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An experienced music listener who is new to black metal asked for a doorway into the genre. This raises the question of how to appreciate black metal, which like most things in life is mostly mental preparation. Without context, black metal seems like any other loud genre, and it becomes harder to distinguish the newer tryhard junk from the original.

The best way to gain context is to walk through the history of the genre from oldest to newest. This approach, common in art, literature and philosophy, allows people to see what developed from what and what the reasoning for that was and therefore, what the reasoning is behind what is here now.

The result of this query was a simple list to urge people to explore this genre further. This list originates in the history of black metal music, but also in influences that can be identified among the bands as immediately relevant. Toward the end it extends more into general conjecture based on what shows up later in highly different form among the black metal works of relevance listed above it.

I. Proto- Metal

  1. Bathory – The Return
  2. Slayer – Hell Awaits
  3. Hellhammer – Apocalyptic Raids
  4. Sodom – Persecution Mania

II. Interim

  1. Sarcofago – INRI
  2. Merciless – The Awakening
  3. Blasphemy – Fallen Angel of Doom
  4. Von – Satanic Blood

III. Black metal

  1. Immortal – Diabolical Full Moon Mysticism
  2. Mayhem – De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
  3. Burzum – Burzum/Aske
  4. Emperor/Enslaved – Split
  5. Darkthrone – Under a Funeral Moon
  6. Beherit – Drawing Down the Moon
  7. Varathron – His Majesty in the Swamp
  8. Havohej – Dethrone the Son of God
  9. Impaled Nazarene – Ugra-Karma
  10. Samael – Worship Him

IV. Second Wave

  1. Gorgoroth – Antichrist
  2. Graveland – The Celtic Winter
  3. Ancient – Svartalvheim
  4. Sacramentum – Far Away From the Sun
  5. Ildjarn – Forest Poetry
  6. Summoning – Dol Guldur
  7. Zyklon-B – Blood Must Be Shed
  8. Gehenna – First Spell
  9. Behemoth – From the Pagan Vastlands

V. Extended Contemporary

  1. Demoncy – Joined in Darkness
  2. Sammath – Godless Arrogance
  3. Mutiilation – Remains of a Ruined, Cursed, Dead Soul
  4. Absurd – Asgardsrei

For immediate death metal background to black metal:

  1. At the Gates – The Red in the Sky is Ours
  2. Carnage – Dark Recollections
  3. Godflesh – Streetcleaner

For heavy metal background to black metal:

  1. Mercyful Fate – Don’t Break the Oath
  2. Venom – Possessed
  3. Angel Witch – Angel Witch
  4. Destruction/Tormentor – Demos

For hardcore punk background to all metal:

  1. Discharge – Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing
  2. Amebix – No Sanctuary
  3. The Exploited – Death Before Dishonour
  4. Cro-Mags – Age of Quarrel

For electronic music background to underground metal:

  1. Kraftwerk – Trans-Europe Express
  2. Tangerine Dream – Phaedra

For progressive rock background to metal:

  1. King Crimson – In the Court of the Crimson King
  2. Yes – Tales from Topographic Oceans
  3. Camel – Camel
  4. Greenslade – Greenslade

For classical background to metal:

  1. Anton Bruckner – Symphony No. 4
  2. Richard Wagner – Tannhäuser
  3. Franz Schubert – Unfinished Symphony
  4. Mozart – Symphony 41
  5. Haydn – Symphony 82
  6. Bach – Partita No. 5 in G major
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Infamous – Abisso (2015)

Much like Nordic pioneers Ildjarn, Infamous combines the sounds of Oi and hardcore punk with black metal, but takes an approach similar to that of the Southern European black metal scene: longer melodies and song constructions building up to a triumphant explosion of rage.

Infamous uses longer melodies in the recursive style of RAC bands, which builds off a simple series of intervals a phrase with quite a bit of range, achieving an effect that inverts the drone of rock/blues into a diminishing melodic interval that expands into the stronger whole note and chromatic scales. Adding to this the band dig into a vast lexicon of black metal styles and produce a language all their own, choosing one progression (much like Enslaved) to guide the song and then branching to variations and oppositional phrases to build tension before a reunion, often with a sentimental lead guitar figure over the top. This creates an immersive sound which is both highly emotional and devoid of association with the comfortable sounds of music centered on humans, sounding more like ancient processionals filtered through violent punk bands and translated into black metal. The resulting atmosphere suspends disbelief and creates a fantastic world in which themes come alive as if on a stage.

With Abisso, Infamous improve over their debut Of Suicide and Silence by varying the form of each song more and as a result differentiating melodies through their development. In addition, higher speed drumming and guitar strum gives this EP a greater intensity without falling into sawing chaos. In many ways, it presages the wider changes which were to occur with the next full-length, Rovine e Disperazione, which took the band further into Ildjarn territory. For those who appreciate the pure spirit of black metal as it explores more of one of its foundational influences, this half-hour detour into an unearthly existence will provide savage enjoyment and contemplation.

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Tau Cross releases first track “Lazarus” from upcoming album Tau Cross

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All-star metal/punk band Tau Cross — with members Rob “The Baron” Miller from Amebix on bass/vocals, Michel “Away” Langevin on drums, and members of Misery on guitars — has released the first single from its upcoming album Tau Cross. The single, entitled “Lazarus,” shows the style of this new band.

The band describes its sound as “the natural evolution of Miller’s work in Amebix,” and “Lazarus” bears this out — with one important detail that most forget. Amebix continued its evolution recently with Redux, which showed classic Amebix tracks with a Metallica Ride the Lightning treatment paired with atmospheric and ancient tribal sounds. Where Tau Cross picks up however is after Amebix Monolith, which sounded like old Amebix run through a filter of AC/DC and Motorhead. “Lazarus” returns to that point but brings to bear the full technical power and songwriting wisdom of these experienced composers.

Death metal fanatics may be hoping for a version of Amebix No Sanctuary or Arise with more technical instrumentation, but Tau Cross takes a more heavy metal approach but updates it with the high-intensity rhythms of punk and then a unique songwriting approach that can only be described as spirit or intent more than technique: a cosmic metaphysical outlook much like that of Tangerine Dream paired with a Celtic tribal feel that would make Absu drool. The problem that Miller and Away face in their “day job” bands of Amebix and Voivod is that those bands have already made a name for themselves in crust hardcore punk and progressive heavy metal already, and those expectations bestow too much baggage for material in another direction to be released under those names. So far, “Lazarus” is the only track released and it shows only a small slice of what Tau Cross will be, but there is promise in this continuation and outgrowth of the Amebix concept to a new level.

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