Hell - Hell (2017)

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Since I've heard Hell II in 2010 I don't know, or even care for that matter, whether or not the ambiguity surrounding the name of this band is intentional to dredge up confusion and mystique for brownie points with us grumpy metal stalwarts but I'll stick with referring to it by the name ov Hell instead of MSW (initials of sole member) because I hear Hell is pretty hot this time of year.

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A lot of great things going on in an overwhelming 50 minutes of fuzz drenched glacial doom with a heart full of ire and grime in it's cigarette smile. The bulk of it feels suffocatingly raw but the entirety of the mix isn't washed out or in anyway tinny, especially with those chunky riffs, beefier than a cow farm. Think of mashing something like Meth Drinker, Thou, Moloch and Bongripper together and running it through a meat-grinder. 

Hell (bandcamp)

Saiva - Markerna Bortom (2017)

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Markerna Bortom is the debut from Saiva and it's been an ear worm for me the last few weeks and will likely continue to be until I inevitably go back to the dire portent monolith that is the new Amenra. Something like atmospheric folk metal with hues of occult rock and druid rock. Listen to the second track'Nordmarkens älvar', it is riff worship and flourishes of beautiful melodies and hums and proves Petterson's ability to write infectious hooks... to deny this album is to refuse the riff. Having guest features of Austin Lunn of Panopticon and Gärdefors of Grift is only the cherry on top of a Abba themed angel cake, buds.

Markerna Bortom (bandcamp)

ARSE - Primitive Species (2017)

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Here's a raucous and rompin' broth of punk from ARSE of Sydney, Australia yuh fuckin' good ol' cunt aye... Primitive Species hearkens to Ceremony's magnum opus Rohnert Park, albeit with it's own personality crisis of it's own. Maybe it's just the song 'NRVSNRG' that reminds me a lot of Rohnert Park's opening track 'Sick'... Doesn't matter man it's a good listen, so throw a shrimp on the barbie and shoot yourself in the foot yuh slogger.

Primitive Species (bandcamp)

Grift - Arvet (2017)

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Grift's Arvet is an almost perfectly executed example of a sonic language that will resonate with those who are moved by affections of the wilderness, flora and fauna, the smell of burning spruce resin in cold mountain air to that of minimalistic atavism. Erik is the sole cog in the neo-folk imbued atmospheric black metal of Grift, which is a breath of fresh air in a genre that has been pulled in every direction with great to dismal results by those teeming with an affinity to nature and tradition.  

It's sound is poignant and raw and Erik seems to have a cerebral intention by every detail, with the incorporation of a old Swedish instrument known as the Psalmodikon, which retains an undeniable eerie sound, as well as recordings Erik took in the nature around his home in Sweden; the screaming of a fox, the hooting of a tawny owl and a variety of ambiguous earthly sounds. But like Henry David Thoreau said about owls in the 'Sounds' section of his magnum opus, Walden (and something that I definitely dog-eared when reading);

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"When other birds are still, the screech owls take up the strain, like mourning women their ancient u-lu-lu. Their dismal scream is truly Ben Jonsonian. Wise midnight hags! It is no honest and blunt "tu-whit tu-who" of the poets, but, without jesting, a most solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual consolations of suicide lovers remembering the pangs and the delights of supernal love in the infernal groves. Yet I love to hear their wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the woodside; reminding me sometimes of music and singing birds; as if it were the dark and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would fain be sung. They are the spirits, the low spirits and melancholy forebodings, of fallen souls that once in human shape night-walked the earth and did the deeds of darkness, now expiating their sins with their wailing hymns or threnodies in the scenery of their transgressions."    – Walden

Arvet (Bandcamp)

Incendiary - Thousand Mile Stare (2017)

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Incendiary man. I've been listening to this album at least a couple times a week since it came out, which is impressive, I think, because I have spent the last couple of months listening almost solely to podcasts and The Velvet Underground. Thousand Mile Stare isn't your cookie cutter one-two punch hardcore album for kids in BANE gym shorts to two-step to, but it can be that too, with a few huge No Warning windmills for good measure. Remember Buffalo's Wrong Answer? probably not, but it's like them meets Foundation. Bust it.

Thousand Mile Stare (bandcamp)

Vulture - The Guillotine (2017)

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Man, it will be no doubt, when all is said and done and the hammer of blasphemy strikes 2018 that Vulture's The Guillone won't be in the venerable echelon of my top ten most played and most digged.  Every serving purpose of imagery associated with Vulture points a finger to the past as does the entirety of the sonic scope; Speed, heavy, thrash, black, whatever man. Mercyful Fate playing like Deathhammer covering Agent Steel. Nostalgia will never go out of style, and neither will thrash, so frig off if you ain't havin' it.

The Guillotine (Zippyshare)
The Guillotine (support) * No Bandcamp because this is the 80's (just pretend)

Gatecreeper - Sweltering Madness (2017)

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Here's a good example of an EP that forces the appreciator to be patient for a new full-length, with all the promise of heavier than thou hardcore for something like thirty minutes but feels like one hour of chest pounding neanderthal hardcore that sounds like dudes who like Bolt Thrower but want to play Buried Alive songs. The production is mirky as a swamp and the entire mix is meaty as a butcher shop in Utah, which is, I think, what makes it better than the release Gatecreeper put out on Relapse in 2016. I'm hoping they stick with Closed Casket Activities for the next release.
Move like a troglodyte, listen to Sweltering Madness.

Sweltering Madness (bandcamp)

Exit Order - Seed of Hysteria (2017)

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Just got turned onto this one a few days back, and It's hard for me not to like something that sounds like Norway's Dark Times playing an amalgamation of punk and hardcore throughout the years caked in a filthy noise carapace. It's easy to get into, so get into it.

Seed of Hysteria (bandcamp)

Svartidauði - Untitled (2017)

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Found this Svartidauði EP in my email today and felt coagulated blood rush to my private parts in anticipated excitement, as is appropriate whenever Svartidauði release anything new. They have earned that response from me and everyone else with a brain inside their skull. I've seen these guys live a few times and every time earns them unequivocal future loyalty from me, and yet I still don't know who the members are, despite definitely having a few Icelandic friends who do. I'm just curious to know if the drummer is half man half adderall induced octopus. Birkir?

Dig in you runts.

Untitled (bandcamp)

Soupcans - Pleasure Overdose (2017)

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I spelled my name with a Ouija board and crawled to the mirror only to find out I was possessed all along and it is all because of Montreal Speeeeeeed, bud. It ain't Soft Party but Soupcans remain tight since 2010 and Pleasure Overdose is more frantic and sloppy (good sloppy dumbo) and all over the map pulled apart in every direction and Blank Jello sounds like a song Dean Dirg would write, so that's pretty tight too .Ontario punk has me thinking Strange Attractor should have an album out soon? Drink to forget.

Pleasure Overdose (bandcamp)

Amenra - Mass VI (2017)

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I sure as frig haven't listened to the bulk of releases that came out this year, but I gotta say I've been really optimistic with what I've heard thus far and Mass VI by Amenra is right up there with the fuckin' cream of the crop man, maybe even the album of the year for me, it's what I needed to hear when I didn't even know it. Absolutely floored and covered in my own piss and semen, I don't know why I am, but I am.

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It's important to talk about the atmosphere of Mass VI, because it's heavy like a dead dog on your birthday and as digestible as steel wool slathered in cheese whiz and it's to the credit of everything that makes this album so good; Mass VI makes me want to care less than I already do when I'm at my worst, even with the many driving sections of incredible optimism lies something languorous, dragging like an emotional anchor, dead fucking weight albeit not fatalist and whiny. It's hard not to tie in your own negative emotions, using the rancorous wall of sound as a battering ram to form a cathartic like state because somehow this feels personal, and that's what a great album does, it resonates, negative or not.

The absolute desperation in Colin's vocals are what set Amenra apart from other similar bands, strikingly palpable as he heaves up bile and wrings out emotions with his tortured delivery, and the moments of clean singing provide a different type of dismal backdrop, harrowing and visceral in their own right that strike a chord of emotion; ennui. This contrast is rarely achieved with similar success. It's a well oiled machine all the way down to the snare pop and the gurgle of the bass to the dissonant wall of guitar whirr, which is to say the production is impetuous and the songwriting is impregnable, with no faults to speak of. Everyone wants to slap around 'best album of the year' to anything decent, but Mass VI is above such objective opinion, it is known fact that this is one of the strongest releases  in an all encompassing sense dummies.

Can't help but appreciate that album cover as a piece of dreary art worthy of castles and mortuaries.

Mass VI (bandcamp)

Rope Sect - Personae Ingratae (2017)

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Listening to Rope Sect reminds me of when I first heard the Ghost debut album, back when they were good, and unmoved and a breath of fresh air in a stale musical cellar. That's the only comparison between the two bands I wish to draw comparison as I imagine other bedroom bloggers have heinously done and I think it's wrong. Rope Sect is instantly catchy, and that only festers and gestates with each listen. Sounding like nothing and everything all at once, it wouldn't be right to pigeonhole Rope Sect as it seems the pot they draw their collective tastes from is a big bubbling cauldron, the stock prominently being a post-punk blend of gothic rock.

I'm completely contented with myself for stumbling onto this, and I'll probably listen to this album too much instead of taking the time to digest the new Bell Witch or the entire 'Mass' collection by Belgian gods Amenra... or maybe not. You'd be a real meathead to ignore this one though.

Personae Ingratae (bandcamp)

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And here's a very tight two song EP they put out a few months after this one;

Wending Tide - The Painter (2017)

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Wending Tide put out their debut EP at the end of this month on the venerable Naturmacht Productions label. Expect ferocity from these guys. I surmise most of you reading this can get behind it.

The Painter (bandcamp)

Horn and Hooves - Morbid Lust (2017)

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Found this EP on the Whisper from the Coffin page and figured this blog crypt needed more filth and sleaze in the form of thrash and black metal executed like a sloppy orgy among maligned lepers and plebs. Invoke, Morbid Lust.

Morbid Lust (bandcamp)

Yellow Eyes - Immersion Trench Reverie (2017)

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In order to be more consistent with my posts I am going to forfeit my nature to be a dummy idiot that is overly pertinent and pedantic and just get to simplifying the post at hand. Here it goes.

This is Yellow Eyes, they come from New York and they play a very unique style of black metal that, like most black metal, is of a different cloth than its progenitors, and like a lot of other unique black metal, it works well. Woe to the purists. I have been listening fondly to Yellow Eyes since they put out Silence Threads The Evening Cloth, and I remember one particular riff from the title track song  (right at the 02:00 minute mark in the song) would get lodged in my head with a unknown ancestral potency to me, until I finally realized it shared the exact melody to a old Hungarian song that I was forced to sit through at church in my tortured youth.

I'll summate. Yellow Eyes don't churn out cold and grim black metal, instead the tone is that of warmth but still bleak and all for nothing. Join the void.

Immersion Trench Reverie (bandcamp) digital $6

Cepheide - Saudade (2017)

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I haven't listened to all of Cepheide's Saudade as I write this, but from what I have heard thus far I think they have generally succeeded in exactly the way they intended; Ephemeral sounding black metal rife with atmosphere inside a post-metal exoskeleton. I quite liked the release on Fallen Empire (as I generally do with most releases on Fallen Empire) they put out in 2015, and even though they jumped labels (?) I'll be giving this one a chance.

Saudade (bandcamp)