Antichrist - Forbidden World (2011) 🇸🇪 | High Roller Records

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One of the best modern-day approaches to an old worn-out genre, beaten to death with bad production and style and a swath of copycats who have totally missed the fucking point. Not Antichrist from Sweden though, these guys understand the sound of the 80’s and shove it up your ass. Sodomy through sonic annihilation!

It’s like the first time I heard ‘Show No Mercy’ front to back—The sheer amount of force and ferocity blew me away. This is primitive thrash that taps into that same well, do yourself a kindness and listen to this in full.

Antichrist - Forbidden World (bandcamp)

Foundation - When The Smoke Clears (2011)

Hardcore is nor ever was the genre to be reinventing the wheel… Sure, there are bands that explore the sometimes stagnant genre further than its peers. Take We Had A Deal for example, imploring an infectiously melodic approach to fast and furious hardcore, with elements that aren't normally found in a hardcore album; A three part-song with it's own intro featuring a lulling female singer and an outro that sounds like an eclectic busker band, and really a host of other subtle nuances that set it apart from other "heard this before" bands…

My point is, Foundation aren't coming up with anything you haven't heard before, and I don't think they give a shit about that. This Atlanta based straight edge band set out to assault you with all the usual suspects present; burly pissed-off vocals, power chords, two-step shit stance sections, floor-punch shit romp breakdowns, floor tom marches, crunchy tones, mid-tempo beats, etcetera, etcetera. Heavily harken with sounds of 90's hardcore, Foundation have planted their feet deep in the ground with When The Smoke Clears, setting it apart from the debut Hang Your Head (which was also really good, albeit a bit hollow in sound and lacking in breadth).

Grab if you like: Mother of Mercy, Earth Crisis, Unbroken

When The Smoke Clears (Zippyshare)

Kokomo - If Wolves (2011)

Kokomo make use of no words. They speak through instrumentation in a whirring blend of ambient post-rock, and boy do they speak LOUDLY. It's as if you are watching the world end from a birds eye view… it feels bigger than you, it's beautifully somber and bleak and you can't look away.

The bread and butter of If Wolves is the atmosphere, a dizzying hypnotic drone of palpable emotion, it all feels profound and you can't understand it, you just feel it. Maybe you don't, but maybe you're vanilla as fuck. Listen to it for yourself, if you don't once become entrenched in a series of thoughts, or feel the unsettling yet uplifting ambiance through your blood, check your pulse - you're dead.

 If Wolves (Zippyshare)
Bandcamp/Buy

LOGN - Í Fráhvarfi Ljóss, Myrkrið Lifnar Við (In depth review)

I recently did a review for my pal Birkir over at Halifax Collect, I went in-depth on Logn's "Í Fráhvarfi Ljóss, Myrkrið Lifnar Við"… below is a small except from it, I suggest grabbing the album, enjoying it, and reading the words on your screen.


- This young (albeit mature in sound) band hailing from Iceland's capital, Reykjavík, set out to assail your auditory meatus with a cornucopia of musical influences. Audible throughout the unpronounceable album Í fráhvarfi ljóss, myrkrið lifnar við (say that 5 times fast - Icelanders, you can't play) is a palatable blend of crust, grind, hardcore, d-beat and nuances of death metal and sludge that take form in a muddied, non-polished aesthetic. A grizzly host of dark and pissed off tracks that seamlessly teeter in an out of pace, one moment being lulled into a foreboding melancholy that suddenly shifts the calm of the storm and your back on your ass being barraged by a flurry of blasts, pummelling riffs and shattering screams. The tone that permeates throughout the entire album gives everything a very woeful personality further enforcing its grittiness - it's presentation is decorated with subtleties that help it escape the clutches of "heard this before"... (click here for full article)

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To head to the bands bandcamp, click this fucker. (name your price buckos!)
To waste your time, click here.