Menace Ruine - Venus Armata (2014)

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One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. After selling your soul for a quart of raw ether and a back-alley tug the devil will simply ignore your extended hand, for he will not shake against the weight of post-cum depression, and anyone, especially the devil can pick up the scent of lost cause and moral ineptitude better than anyone, anything, anyway.

Menace Ruine from Montreal, Quebec are one of those bands that harbor a soundscape I hate to try and describe, searching my dull brain for trite platitudes a hundred other bedroom bloggers have used more than their toothbrush. I'll do it anyway, and I'll hate myself today like a soul-sucking vacuum because of it.

The duo create a sound fit for cathedral ceilings and soulless robed zealots humming strange juju, the candles lit in thirteen, the virgin flayed upon the alter, in a sweat and semen soaked, surrounded haze of incense smoke bellow Geneviève's pipes sounding like the songs of sirens and carrying the same force that draws one to be hopelessly and beautifully enamored. All of this beauty cloaked in a gothic atmosphere fit for a music box that once belonged to Elizabeth Báthory and can't help but run backwards on moral premise. The drums play out like a dirge and the organs may as well be emanating out of a Transylvanian castle because everything is bleak and life sucks, right Todd?

Kudos to Chris Bruni of Profound Lore Records for taking them on and putting out the hidden gems. Today I'm going to run along the Toronto boardwalk to this, the Hour of 13 self-titled, Lunar Aurora's Andacht and Drudkh's Autumn Aurora… Do the same, or not. Gloom dopamine brothers and sisters.

Invoke; Menace Ruine - Venus Armata (bandcamp)

Krypts - Remnants of Expansion (2016)

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Krypts from Colorado have a guitar tone akin to the grimy filth in your toilet bowl and a plodding movement speed like old people fucking but it hits real heavy and the recording on the drum kicks sound like distant battles being fought. Tight artwork too.

Krypts - Remnants of Expansion (bandcamp)

Auroch - Mute Books (2016)

Auroch are 66.6% Mitochondrion, the number of the breast. I don't know man, Mute Books is coming out in a week and it sounds like it's going to be a barn mucker.

Mute Books (pre-order/bandcamp)

Trap Them - Crown Feral (2016)

What's the difference between a lobster with a boob job and the Manhattan bus station?

One is a busty crustacean and the other is a crusty bus station. Yes. Trap Them are back and the album is better than Blissfucker and not better or worse than Darker Handcraft. They traversed weird territories on Blissfucker and that's always commendable but we didn't want that, we wanted Darker Handcraft 2.0 deluxe version with a goddamn rotten cherry on top. Crown Feral promises to be the return to form we wanted and needed, crustier than grandmothers underwear after Sunday soup. Nah.

Crown Feral (bandcamp)

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(I'll throw up a temporary link in the Cbox for those that are broke but still want to be a fan)

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Fange - Purge (2016)

Fange, blackened sludge full of savagery and malcontent. These dudes wouldn't be caught dead petting kittens or shopping for produce at an organic farmers market. At least that's how I hear it... No whimsy, no charm and certainly no fucking hope. This is how I want my d-beat crust to sound; negatively charged with a cinder block on the gas pedal... If I wanted my crust any other way I'd eat a pizza.

Matthias Jungbluth (of Calvaiire and founder of Throatruiner) handles the vocals with primal bursts that take shape in shrieks, wails, yells and screams that sound more like feral wolves snarling over a fresh kill while the drums are almost smothered to death by bass noise and guitar fuzz. The last minute of the last song, Girone Della Merda sums the entire album up very well.

It's official release date is September 02 but you can get it digitally earlier, essentially for free at a 'name your price' option on bandcamp, or the gentleman fee of a couple bucks so these dudes can sleep at night knowing their loved and appreciated. Another Throatruiner release, and like the Plebeian Granstand album posted last week, it is everything this blog stands for. Dig this or dig your grave, bud.

Purge (bandcamp, name your price)

Plebian Grandstand - False Highs, True Lows (2016)

French label Throatruiner Records is a festering womb, giving wide births to mired vitriol and dissonant discontent a la a crudely conceived albeit well plucked roster in; Bone Dance, Elizabeth, Birds In Row, Fange, As We Draw, Calvaiire, etc. etc.

Among the legion are Toulouse based, Plebeian Grandstand, hell bent on churning out discordant black metal with a strong basement born hardcore sentimentality rather than the bleak vampiric ilk born in mountains and thawing forests. It hits you hard and it hits you fast and gives little room in way of reprieve, yet still takes a few opportunities to froth the atmosphere to a foaming over, acrid air colliding with a primordial intensity.
This album was released months ago, but I haven't given it enough attention until now, spurring this post, which will be followed by another Throatruiner backed album set to release soon in Fange.  

False Highs, True Lows (bandcamp; name your price)

Vanhelgd - Temple of Phobos (2016)

Sweden is better at making repulsive death metal than they are meatballs and sub-standard furniture. All we know is there is something in Sweden's water supply that causes the country to churn out a smörgåsbord of good old school death metal and elite hockey defensemen.

Vanhelgd opted for a deceptively clean cut to the throat to sever the head from the shoulders rather than hack at the stump with complete savagery like you'd expect from brutalists Revenge or Swallowed, instead we have low-gimmickry death metal with a seriously thick layer of filth. But not entirely minimalist; The song Den Klentrogenes Klagan has a horn section tooting underneath a layer of buzz-sawing riffs. 

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Temple of Phobos (bandcamp)

Mizmor - Yodh (2016)

Set to release on Gilead media 08/12/16, Mizmor's Yodh.

Yuppies - Yuppies (2013)

I've been sitting on this album for quite some time, hoarding it all to myself, listening to it frequently and silently applauding myself even more frequently. Noisy and brooding atmospheric punk that sounds like it was floor recorded in a dark and dingy basement. Sometimes sounding something like spoken word against erratic instrumentation, the combination works really well. I'm not going to dissect it, these guys nailed this debut album and everyone needs to listen to it and agree with what I say. Hail, all thee fucking Yuppies!

'Big toms, sharp sheets of metal. A dimly lit open room, noise and ruckus together again, as the members unite, to percuss the air. Now, the empty streets, they march in unison, clutching their weapons, destruction for, destruction safe, they do not neeeeeeeed. They speed off through the dark…

Alright, alright. We're going for a ride, whether you like it or not, grab your things collect your thoughts, we're going for a ride alright, alright.'



Yuppies

Hammers of Misfortune - Dead Revolution (2016)

Hammer of Misfortune's Dead Revolution was unleashed on planet earth yesterday and as expected, it's riff soup. I'm trying to find something I don't like about it, just so I can remain 'transparent' and 'like, true to the people maaan' but I don't think there is anything on here that is egregious or susceptible to the charms of my infinite hatred. It's really good.

The production might be perfect; soaring ethereal guitar tones that ride greasy choppers on astral planes, beautifully symmetric vocal layering that range from sonic avenues like an acid trip highway to volcanic quarrels amongst ancient gods with vocal-chords made from honey, silk, butter and appropriately (for good measure) a gravel pit. The keyboards groove effortlessly between a drug addled Ray Manzarek like psychedelia to the frisson fueled synth romp from 16-bit video games, and those drums have a perfect sound all while avoiding all the typical drum tropes you'd expect from a progressive NWOBHM album albeit the song 'Flying Alone' exposes a missed opportunity for a sweet cow-bell ride.

Listen to it fully on bandcamp or maybe buy it, $7 USD isn't too shabby. I'll see about sharing a link to the album on the CBOX there for us poor knaves, or maybe someone can beat me to it… I seemed to have resolved the issues it was having before.

Dead Revolution

Sun Worship - Pale Dawn (2016)

Dearest Droogies,

Ever since Lars sent me a very righteous picture disc vinyl of the Surpass Eclipse EP in the mail I knew my allegiance would forever align with whatever these dudes put out, even if it was bad… especially if it was bad. Sun Worship have never been bad and they never will be bad, which means Pale Dawn is good. This is simple mathematics.

A departure from their ambient tinged black metal of yore and more thee straight to the throat blistering black metal rife with galloping drum fills, strong like ox and fast like cobra riffing and distant vocal shrills that split the hairs on your shoulders.

Sun Worship, thank you.

with admiration and respect, your friend

Chieftain and High Warlord of Severed Heads Open Minds, Chris D'Alessandro



Sun Worship - Pale Dawn (bandcamp)

Cape of Bats - For The Ruin of Souls EP (2016)

It sounds filthy, like fecal matter splashing around in the piss broth of a pigeon stoop. It's not good but it is quick and sleazy… like a one-night stand with your friends grandmother.

Muck - Full Performance on KEXP at AIrwaves 2013 (video)

We've all been hearing about Iceland's most recent success story of how a viking nation with a drinking problem gave the Euro cup and every soccer nation a new chant/salute to steal.

But let's not forget about Muck, everything these youngsters do is good and we should be paying attention.

No Sir - The Future Is Bright (2013)

No Sir is the bastard child of a few punk/hardcore bands making noise out of the California bay area, most notably Sabertooth Zombie which I said in a post back in 2011 "they are the musical equivalent to beef jerky purchased at a late night gas station in Milwaukee." and sure I'll stand by that.

What matters most here is that The Future Is Bright is a hard-hitting cut of hardcore with a punk upbringing and twinges of thrash in there with every element in place.

Support the lower echelon slugs, the album is 'name your price' so put in a few bucks or $0 for a free download if you're ramen broke. Get into it!

The Future Is Bright on Bandcamp (name your price)

Weekend Nachos - Apology (2016)

I am not a very consistent man. I am noble in thought, weak in action. Thankfully, Weekend Nachos are consistent. You can always rely on them to shit directly into the chasm of your ill-tempered soul, sub-human. Death to all your whimsy and flip-flops. I fucking hate flip-flops… I mean, you have no human versatility in those fucking things, you can only stand there with a sloppy grin on your face as a cool breeze passes over those crusty fucking toes. I am going to start a steal-toe gang; Our sole mission will be to stomp on your shitty feet.

I digress, that little diatribe was genuine. It was genuine because I am listening to Weekend Nachos Apology at uncomfortably loud volumes. I'm not even having fun, but I am enjoying myself. Know what I mean?

Unfortunately these dudes from Chicago are splitting the sheets, calling it quits, divorcing, moving on to bigger and heavier things, separating, breaking up. It's done, so enjoy this last album and go to their last shows. Bring your flip-flops.

Weekend Nachos Apology

Cobalt - Slow Forever (2016

I had no idea that Cobalt was in the midst of releasing a new album, all I knew was that I have been listening to a lot of Cobalt's Gin lately, which means nothing. Listen to Gin in its entirety and then listen to Slow Forever. Appreciate the differences, mourn the absence of Phil McSorley, celebrate the substitution of Charlie Fell and revel in Erik Wunder's talent for pushing a tired out genre into a type of creative stupor.


Slow Forever

Bismuth - Unavailing (2015)

I'm still running around the virtual astral planes of the internet like a fucking asshole, chasing down releases from 2015 that weren't caught in my field of vision during my tenure as a certified specter of the current music world. I was either too busy reading rather than writing or too busy amassing old punk and rock albums rather than peeking my head into the sewers of underground metal. It was pure fucking tunnel vision man, and this place was Armageddon.



With that being said, here's another release from Dry Cough Records that flew under my radar, or sonar, or bonar… boner. Bismuth is incredibly dense sludge and doom with tinges of hardcore and bouts of hypnotic drone. Within these four bulky tracks songs sink and swell between moments of gnashing doom - the type of doom with its roots fertilized in a sludgy soil, rife with fuzz and drenched in reverb, gain and undiluted ire - smothered in the will to go patiently slow and devastatingly heavy, which leaves me waiting for the froth and foam to finally brim over into the megaton swell of constant energy, a wall of sound that pummels and submits my ear-drums to its ferocity… This does happen, albeit only partially on the last track, leaving the listener to his or her thoughts rather abruptly. This isn't a shortfall however, slow like the sloth and powerful and heavy like the hippo, we have enough bands out there doing the rest.

Follow up on Dry Cough Records here.
Follow up on Bismuth's Bandcamp here.

Garotting Deep / Fōr - Void Asceticism [Split] (2015)

Here's another Split birthed from different parts of the worlds primordial ooze with equal parts of enmity and mysticism, Canada's Garotting Deep and Sweden's Fōr. The sonic windows are draped in freshly flayed elk hide while balsam fir incense burns inside the wolf skull and ancient entity's share in jubilee a toast beyond mans comprehension.

This album sounds nothing like the above sentence. I don't feel like using words for this one, it's overwhelming and I'm heading to the seedy bliss of Toronto's Parkdale to see if the used record store still has Gorilla Biscuits Start Today on plastic.

Moloch / Lich - Spilt (2016)

After listening to this split from filth monsters Moloch and Lich you'll need to hop in the shower and take the steel wool to your skin to scrub the grime off.

I've been following everything Moloch has released since I got a hold of their 10" released in 2008 and everything they do appeals to me in some way. Maybe it's because I'm a troglodyte deviant in search for slow and stupid sludgy doom or maybe these guys just get it; rot heavy and muck slow.

Lich are getting their hands incredibly dirty with any band out there willing to share space on a split; Resurrectionists, Moloch, Human Junk, and Man Hands. Never compromising their fast and pissed-off attack on the ears.

The split is a tandem with absolute nefarious harmony, a yin and yang if you will; Contrasting the murky plodding of Moloch with the straight to the point, beat down of Lich.


Have a listen over at the Dry Cough Records bandcamp.

Vorpal Sword - Pain (2016)

Rising Beast is out there busting its ass making every single mother out there with six children look like they are caught relishing a languorous work ethic. A DIY label to its core ran by a dude named James Brown aka 'Horus' – who I only just discovered plays in both Harassor and Moonknight, which are both bands I've been supporting through Rising Beast since I found Moonknight's 2012 release Ligeia. Rising Beast is the cream that is rising to the top in the realms of seedy underground black metal and death metal, keep up.

Vorpal Sword is the labels latest release, and I have Bandcamp to thank for turning me on to this one. I'm not sure why it matters, but the intro to the noisy deluge that is Pain is something to behold; No wide birth is given in building atmosphere, instead the crowing begins with a heavily distorted garbled sound that sounds like the disgruntled radio transmission from another life-form upon entry into earths atmosphere, it's overbearingly loud and feels like water hitting your eardrums. This noise is then pierced with the warm coursing of a black metal riff played at 25% speed and the shared duty of the snare and bass drum, if any symbols are being pounded, it's lost in the fray. The result is something I'm really into right now.

The entire 16 minutes is a whirlwind of tone, noise, reverb, delay, gain and hell with no discernible start and end to the tracks within the track, but take note at the 04:40 mark how this shit rips into itself with a stripped down punk and black metal ethos and the vocal layering resembling a tenacious howling wind. I am reminded of the 'Just Fuck off' era of Malveillance (posted here six years ago) with the bleak tonal accuracy of later Lunar Aurora despite the blatancy of a synth.

You can support this at bandcamp with a minimum purchase of $1 or if you're really feeling that Canadian dollar struggle input $0 for a free download and the intention of supporting these releases  at a later date when you're not too busy justifying why you vastly over-tip the pretty bar maiden rather than support underground music.

Vorpal Sword - Pain (bandcamp, name your price)

Algor - Úder pohanského hnevu (2003)

I have posted Úder Pohanského Hnevu on SHOM before, but this was over a half decade ago (which is my way of saying 6 years) and I'm resurrecting it to follow-up the Infernal Slave album I just posted. Go get that one now.

This album remains to be one of the best examples of frigid puritan black metal. The name Algor is Latin for 'frost' but the band is of Slovakian descent, which is befitting to mention because Slavonic black metal has forever maintained this different type of cold atmosphere to their sound, inexplicably different than the archetypal Norwegian black metal style let's say. Both styles are rife in cold imagery, albeit a different sense of cold; The Slavonic way has always felt more barren, bereft of hope, like a torpid winter with no fucking end in sight.


Algor's sound is stripped down and stark with a different emotional breadth than the more familiar Slavic bands like Drudkh, Kroda, Nokturnal Mortum, Hate Forest, etc.

Úder Pohanského Hnevu has some of the best mixing of drums I've ever heard on a black metal album, the snare and toms are some of thee most savagely crude around which resonates well with the many rolls, fills and blasts on this record. I'm sure I can go into detail as to how the vocal shrill is different than the Norwegian vocal shrill typically emulated, but what would be the point? And the riffs are cold enough to turn your day into complete shit.

If anyone knows of any albums similar in sound please name drop in comments.

blackest black

Infernal Slave - Oppressed By Inferior (2013)

Again, I have Haxan over at Forever Cursed to thank for turning me on to this heap of black metal filth. 

Every sound bows its allegiance towards the progeny of black metal coming out in the early 90's of Norway; ice cold riffs battered to hell by crudely sounding drums, with drum fills showing absolutely no regard for refinement and the vocal screech of a diseased wolverine shouting its blasphemous cacophony with a putrid charm. The production is shit, and it's exactly what I want.

SHOM has always been about supporting this type of underground, DIY filth to the bitter end, and if I can help guide others to support it then it's all worth the 20 minutes it took out of my mushroom foraging study's to do.



Inferal Slave bandcamp (name your price)