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

 •  †  • 

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)

Foreseen - Untamed Force (2022)

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Finland's Foreseen have been around for a better part of a decade, throwing their weight around in the arena of thrash and crossover, and they have never before faltered in their approach of agitated dirge. They continue the destruction on Untamed Force upping the ante with riff after riff under a production that is right on the money here—Mirky and heavy to the point of crumbling but not brittle under its own weight.

This is what crossover sounds like when you listen to English Dogs, Crumbsuckers, Whiplash, Razor, Verbal Abuse, etc.—Drawing upon the well but never sucking it dry without throwing your own thoughts and ideas into the pot. I'm into everything about this record!

Foreseen - Untamed Force (bandcamp)

Sepsis - The Divide 7" (2022)

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Here's an illusive slab of frenetic crust punk/hardcore from the murky depths of Australia few here will be privy to but likely interested in! Drenched in reverb and grime. every corner of music is ransacked by overblown tone and bass, giving little time for reflection beyond total destruction—It sounds and feels like the halcyon days of newly-shaped hardcore, when early thrash was in its conception, but with ample energy taken from the UK crust scene of yore and what the band claims as a strong influence from the Swedish hardcore scene.

Taken from their bandcamp page: "Sepsis! A charged 4-piece crust bombardment from Naarm, Australia. Following hot off the heels from their sold out demo, they offer up 4 tracks thats are inspired by early UK crust with a strong Swedish hc backbone. For fans of Absolut Country of Sweden/ Scandinavian Jawbreaker era Anti Cimex, Hellbastard and Sacrilege. Maximum Devastation! Limited to 300 hand number copies."

Sepsis - The Divide (Bandcamp)

MORTUUS INFRADAEMONI - Inmortuos Sum (2022)

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This record came out a few days ago through the always promising Iron Bonehead Productions, and since then, I have been listening to it every day picking it apart in my head. At first I thought this was going to be another black/death record with a penchant for the avant-garde, but upon the 4 minute mark of the first song (excluding intro) it was clear to me that this album was going to wonder around in some weird musical territory. Which it does. It lives there.

After over a decade deep sleep, MORTUUS INFRADAEMONI return with a third album and its fucking banner is already hanging in the halls of great black metal records! Inmortuos Sum exists as a strong pastiche to 90's black metal, with a sound that nods to all the progenitors and early adopters but not without heavy experimentation—Obscure sonic landscapes are painted with bubbling atmospheres thick with angular and bubbling guitars building upon that putrid energy of the past but not withholding the nuances of influences that come from the newer legions like Funereal Presence, Cultes Des Ghoules, Spirit Possession or Warloghe. With the added experience from their early days in Germany's Lunar Aurora. Great band with a great track record, in my opinion. 

An off-balance freneticism often found in these newer acts permeates each track, moving feverishly between blistering, cold and garish into something slow, gurgling and decaying. It's a balance often failed by over zealous bands who don't take the time to understand the how and why of these sounds. Anyone around long enough can tell the difference. Thankfully the drums on this record are mixed perfectly, sounding as drums should, primitive and trance inducing…As is the whole production, murky, raw and potent!

•  Ω  •

If you're a fan of both old and new Darkthrone I can see no good reason you can't get into Inmortuos Sum. It has the entire wide-range of influence both Fenriz and Nocturno Culto cultivate and utilize. 

MORTUUS INFRADAEMONI - Inmortuos Sum (bandcamp)

Reveal! - Doppelherz (2021)

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Here's an album that is absolutely refusing to be pigeon-holed by arm-chair bloggers and critics alike, a giant fuck you to those of us who feel a compulsion to tie everything down with one of our genre packages—Sweden's Reveal! are one of the rare groups impure and brazen enough to traverse a rarely contested musical swath of influences running the gamut of everything declared under the banner of "Extreme Metal".

Doppelherz is a colourful mosaic of sounds both old and new, borrowed and invented, frenetic and calculated.—Throughout its entirety, creaky cathedral chords reminiscent of Negative Plane and Funereal Presence can be heard, which is not entirely uncommon, but definitely dubious when it's pressed up against something that sounds like early speed/heavy metal a la Mercyful Fate or disoriented black metal and thrash riffs in the vein of Obliteration or Spirit Possession… But somehow these guys fucking pull it off with gusto!

•  Ω  •

I'll spare the multitude of comparisons and say this, it feels like this record shouldn't work. Like there's a little too much going on and too many things being pulled and implemented for it to even feel cohesive, but there's just enough structure and swagger to make it work. And I'll be the first to admit, not having this album in my last years top albums of 2021 was an impermissible misstep, but as it usually goes with very late releases in the year, I overlooked and under-appreciated Doppelherz when it dropped mid December.

Reveal! - Doppelherz (bandcamp)

Best metal albums of 2021—Top 30

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Before I dig into my top picks for 2021, I reached out to a few familiar faces within the sphere of metal and got them to send me the albums they dug the most this year. I told them the rules for the list are pretty flippant. Here's what they sent me:



Horus aka James Brown III (Harassor, Moonknight, Vorpal Sword, Rising Beast Recordings)



* In no particular order 
10) Stormkeep - Tales of Othertime

09) Trhä - Endelhëtonëg

08) Tardigrada - Vom Bruch Bis Zur Freiheit

07) Circle of Ouroborus - Kiromantia

06) Sadness - April Sunset

05) Kuka'ilimoku - Pahu O ka Ua

04) Zhmach - Euphoria Never Leaves

03) Kêres - Flaming Ash

02) Mooschops - Adventures Above the 61st Parallel North

01) Fugitive Wizard - Obscuri Æternum



Artur de Carvalho (Forever Cursed—Best underground metal blog laid to rest (R.I.P.)


10) The Devouring Void - Hypnagogic Hallucinations


Holy shit I just realised these guys are from Portugal as well.. fuck me!

09) Sermon of Flames - I Have Seen the Light, and It Was Repulsive


Repulsive as fuck

08) Carcinoma - Labascation


Good shit from the UK

07) Gosudar - Morbid Despotic Ritual


Some good OSDM shit from Russia

06) Koldovstvo - "Ni Tsarya, Ni Boga"


Great entrancing BM

05) Fuoco Fatuo - Obsidian Katabasis


Feels like being swallowed by a black hole


04) Qrixkuor - Poison Palinopsia


A two track, total 48 minutes of filthy obscure DM? Yes please


03) Lykhaeon - Opprobrium


A more traditional approach to BM as we know it, still a banger though)

02) Labored Breath - Dyspnea


A fucking trip into the bowels of the most insane BM you’ll hear this year


01) Reverorum ib Malacht - Svag i Döden


I know these guys have released two albums this year, but I’m a huge fan of this approach

A.L.N. (Mizmor, Hell)

07) Emma Ruth Rundle - Engine of Hell

06) Hoverkraft - Schwebende Musik

05) Vouna - Atropos

04) Grouper - Shade

03) Walt McClements - A Hole in The Fence

02) Andrew Black - Welcome Home

01) Yautja - The Lurch



Mattias Alagna (Abstracter)



06) Filth Chasm - Demo 2021

05) Apostasy - Death Return

04) Grinning Death's Head - Cataclysm

03) Altarage - Succumb

02) Antediluvian - The Divine Punishment

01) Moonscape - Monolith

Big thanks for those that contributed!



•  †  •


Another year down the hatch. And another year where I am certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have overlooked a few releases (I always do) but I'd say this year in particular I have a pretty firm grip on the records that impressed me the most—I can say that in order to whittle the list down to 30 I have made some hard omissions, but that's just the nature of the beast! Pretty heavy on the black/death metal releases, which either speaks to the quality of the release or where my palette is at. It really doesn't matter, here's what moved me in order:



30) Forsman - Dönsum í Logans Ljóma (Ván Records)



Another example as to why Icelandic black metal is legitimately one of the most consistent and innervating within the second wave of black metal.







29) Abstracter - Abominium (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)



A dizzying descent into a mix of well articulated doom blackened crust, doom, sludge and sonic overall sonic hostility. 

28) Tentation - Le Berceau des Dieux (Gates of Hell Records)



An absolute nod to the old days of heavy metal and a hell of a debut.



27) Divide and Dissolve - Gas Lit (Invada Records)



2-piece doom metal enveloped in a thick cloud of doom. Hits hard and feels significant.



26) Stormkeep - Tales of Othertime (Van Records)



Much like Havukruunu, Stormkeep have managed to capture all the elusive grandeur found in pagan black metal and dungeon synth without succumbing to the frivolity often found in it.



25) Concrete Winds - Nerve Butcherer (Sepulchral Voice Records)



Fast and dizzying death metal with very intentional glances towards grind and thrash. Pretty Spot on!



24) Wanton Attack - Wanton Attack (Black Writs Records)



A potent mix of early heavy metal rife with gritty duelling guitars and speed metal vitatlity!



23) Suffering Hour - The Cyclic Reckoning (Profound Lore Records)



Suffocatingly heavy death metal from a label that knows a good thing when it sees it. I don't think this record has any weak spots.



22) Vorpal Sword - Omens (Rising Beast Recordings)

The best account of blown out raw black metal I heard all year! A pastiche of noise punk, experimental ambient and shoegaze—It's perplexing how something so abrasive and corrosive in nature can be perceived as beautiful, but it does.

21) Sermon of Flames - I Have Seen The Light, and It Was Repulsive (I, Voidhanger Records)



A bubbling cauldron of cacophonous death metal infused with sludge, crust, doom and black metal with  incredibly devastating pace.

20) Ekulu - Unscrew My Head (Cash Only Records)



Nailed down New York Hardcore with a heavy grip on 80’s metal. Why even bother with Turnstile?

19) Labored Breath - Dyspnea (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

A spiralling churn of death metal infused black metal pushing through a feral wall of sound that straddles the line of the obscure and barbaric. 

18) Labor Intvs - Sunken Crucible (Unsigned/Independant)

This has got to be one of the most overlooked albums on this list. Some of the nastiest death/black metal releases this year heavily exploring elements of doom and the underground obscure.

17) Mork - Katedralen (Peaceville Records)


Mork have pretty consistently been the best example as to how we can still successfully draw from the nearly dried up well of 90's black metal, and this year on Katedralen they prove that point yet again with a bullet.


16) Phrenelith - Chimaera (Nuclear Winter Records)

Massively over-looked death metal in my opinion. Phrenelith aren't exactly incorporating anything new into their sound, but somehow they manage to sound like nothing else—A black hole of dynamic death metal with reverence to the underground. Some of the best drumming on a death meal album this year?

15) Succumb - XXI (The Flenser)

Incredible death metal with Cheri’s possessed vocal belch being the backbone of what makes them unique from their contemporaries. I'm so glad they didn't fuck this up.


14) Fuoco Fatuo - Obsidian Katabasis (Profound Lore Records)



Crushing funeral doom with a lot of mid-tempo death metal influence that will drag you through an hour of some of the most potent and unyielding metal this year. A full listen through of this colossus will leave you bereft and beaten, just the way we like it.



13) Big Brave - Vital (Southern Lore Recordings)



Big Brave's suffocatingly plodding doom intertwined around a whirring mix of reverb-ladened guitars and vacuous space comes full-force on Vital. Beauty and brutality.


12) Koldovstvo - Ni Tsarya, Ni Boga (Unsigned/Independant)

Atmospheric black metal with heavy emphasis on the atmospheric, bordering on ambient or shoegaze. Incredibly raw, visceral and avant-garde with a lot of uncertainty surrounding any information around the band. It's hard to explain, but theres also this inexplicable feeling that comes over me when I listen to this album… Like I am slowly being consumed by madness. A mix of euphoria and malaise. 


11) Altarage - Succumb (Season of Mist Underground Activists)



This release can hang with any of the aforementioned in the department of ferocity and heaviness, clocking in at over an hour of downright unfettered black/death from Spain. 

10)  Defacement - Defacement (I, Voidhanger Records)


Back when I talked about this release earlier in September I said "This is one of those albums that drags you through the abyss—A serpentining downward spiral through cavernous death metal that is equal parts technical, murky and experimental." Yet another album of extremely high caliber that has been buried amidst an ocean of sub-par music with high pay-grades and a full marketing team throwing petals at their feet. Stick with this, you'll thank me later.


09) Fyrnask - VII - Kenoma (Ván Records)

Fyrnask have been quietly creating some of the best atmospheric black metal around for over a decade now and VII - Kenoma is at the helm of it all. Powerfully melodic and thought provoking—Something between Misþyrming, Ash Borer, Morne, and Bölzer. 


08) Voidsphere - To Overtake, To Overcome (Amor Fati Productions)



Spirit inducing black metal that takes shape through blistering riffs built upon a wall of sound. One of the best uses of atmospheric ambience, dense but not without melody or purpose. These Prava Kollektiv guys sure know how to write a record.

07) Warloghe - Three Angled Void (Northern Heritage Records)

Dizzying black metal from the nether, ugly, brutish and filled with cold riffs! I'd even go as far as saying some of the best riffing I heard in a black metal album all year, this is pure fucking armageddon.


06) Portal - Avow (Profound Lore Records)

Portal remain thee lords of hypnotically plodding and nauseating death metal. Lovecraftian obscurity in sonic form. This is up there with my favourite Portal has ever released—It sounds like a lobotomy. And It feels like a nauseating decent into the abyss. Encompassing. 


05) Sulpur - Embracing Hatred and Beckoning Darkness (Amor Fati Productions)

Blown-out black metal doing everything MGLA does but even colder. A barrage of eerie riffs against a galloping tempo with some of the best sounding cymbals in the genre.



04) Darkthrone - Eternail Hails…… (Peaceville Records)

Has everyone forgot about Darkthrone? Hardly any mentions of Darkthrone this year… Am I the only one who loves the direction they’re moving in? I still think they're one of the most important bands in all of music right now. Three decades later and they’re still moving a worn-out genre into new territory. 



03) Qrixkuor - Poison Palinopsia (Dark Descent Records)



One of the most crushing death metal albums released in 2021. Two songs of obscure death metal that drag you through a serpentining labyrinth of riffs that sound like a spiral into your own absolute insanity. Much like the Defacement release sitting at my number 10, this album is and was way under-appreciated for how good it is. I'm not sorry to sorry to say it, but it's more dynamic and crushing than 99% of the other releases that pass off as death metal. 

02) Antediluvian - The Divine Punishment (Nuclear War Now! Productions)

Few try (with little success) to be as primitive and feral sounding as Antediluvian, its not something that can (or should) be contrived. It needs to come from a festering open wound or a sincere disapproval with some inner or outward force. The Divine Punishment is a pantheon in where these negative forces can live—A barbaric pile of forward-thinking death metal built upon an altar of whirring guitars, abyssal vocals and drumming that sounds like none of its contemporaries. Plodding, perverse, esoteric and entirely new.



01) Lykhaeon - Opprobrium (Repose Records)


Bestial death metal married with black metal and doom is hardly a new concept within the walls of metal, but very few albums are able to traverse new and refreshing soundscapes the way Opprobrium successfully does—An overtone of of ritualistic rites and dirges permeate the many layers of this album as you're dragged through a swath of of musical landscapes, all  equally barbaric and mind altering. The best metal release of the year for me for sure, not a single flaw to be found.

Skourge - Hardcore Up Your Ass (2021) [EP]

•  †  •

New Skourge EP is right up my alley! Nothing new being invented here, in fact it's more of a regurgitation of things already out there  (I mean this in a positive way), because it is a mish-mash of all that good stuff in the early 90's—Exxxtremely heavy and up your ass hardcore with half a foot in the early metal scene of thrash. A pivot from the production of 'Spiritual Disrepair', trading in murkiness for a bit more bottom-end and heft? Make sense? Doesn't matter. 'Spiritual Disrepair' is very worth your time, to say the least.

I can't find a damn thing anywhere on this album except the album uploaded on YouTube.

SCALP - Domestic Extremity (2020)

•  †  •

Beatdown hardcore with it's hands dipping into the pots of influence in the way of metal, thrash, punk, death metal, power violence and the whole gamut of auditory assault. It's neanderthal in its DNA and over-indulgent from my perspective but it's executed well and does what it sets out to do very well. Imagine a mash between Mind Eraser, Foundation, Hoax, Primitive Blast and Harms Way. Preservation of sonic barbarity.

SCALP - Domestic Extremity (bandcamp)

Ekulu - Unscrew My Head (2021)

•  †  •

New York hardcore has a hype to it, there's no escaping that, and sometimes that hype is overhyped. In the case of NYHC's Ekulu there isn't a single fleck of flack that could be rightfully flung. It would all be flat air because Ekulu play with an obstinate sense of style and energy, and if that is somehow lost on you when you listen to Unscrew My Head, then I don't know what to tell you. BUST IT!

When Ekulu released their debut EP back in 2018 you knew these guys were poised to churn out a handful of great sounding hardcore releases barring the fickle pitfalls of limited run hardcore bands. Building off the foundations laid out in the 80's, Ekulu dip into the metallic brunt of hardcore like Merauder and Madball leaning into elements of thrash and going even as far as embracing subtleties from Show No Mercy era Slayer and early Accept. Much of the youth crew hardcore omitted these blatant influences and instead dug further into the punk raw power apparent in Youth of Today or Judge… Ekulu has taken some of that into their mix too and in totality the result is a ripper of an album. 

Ekulu - Unscrew My Head (bandcamp)

Barbarian - Barbarian (2012)

•  †  •  

Here's an album I just wanted to remind everyone of! I have been heavily dipping into this gem of an EP quite a lot recently—I guess black thrash/speed is high on my radar right now and this Italian beast nailed everything on this 25-minute EP, spot on production and the best release from the band in my opinion. Dig in!

Barbarian - Barbarian (bandcamp)

Skeleton - Ordainment of Divinity EP (2021)

•  †  •

There are really only two things I am certain of in this world:
1) Nothing really matters.
2) Skeleton are keeping the underground lit.

A follow-up EP to their staunch debut LP has recently been released by Austin, Texas' Skeleton and it's a forward lunge into the sonic soundscape of the incredibly raw and already unfiltered sound of the band—which had no qualms trading proficiency for energy and cohesion for a crackling atmosphere. They doubled down on Ordainment of Divinity when it comes to the production, going even further into a blown out production, especially within the drum sound, denting the fidelity as much as possible to a point where the sound is as ghastly as it is garish.

•  Ω  •

I think a lot of people will be disappointed with the decision to mess with the production to the extent in which they did but I think fans of the eponymous debut album will be even more slighted that most of the festering grooves on the debut have mostly been traded out for a barbaric ferocity with much more black metal than thrash/hardcore influence this time around. Me, I still like it. I think an EP is exactly the right time to start threshing around sounds and I think they really nailed a lot of it… The intro track sounds like a medieval funeral dirge and the way it bleeds into the first song is right up my alley! No apologies.


Skeleton - Ordainment of Divinity EP (bandcamp)

Mindforce - Reign of Terror (2020)

•  †  •

Mindforce released one new song. Just one. Not sure if it's leading to a latter full-length release in 2020 or not, but I don't care either way. Mindforce are meat and potatoes hardcore with their approach heavily grounded in the old-school Boston hardcore sound with an unrefined and gruff take on old thrash metal of the 80's. It's not reinventing the wheel or anything, but it's fun and raw and I don't need a damn thing else. Do you? Triple-B Records still got it.

Mindforce (bandcamp)

Skeleton - Skeleton (2020)

•  †  •

The formula on this self-titled is an easy enough one to pin down, a grab bag influence of first wave black metal riffs and vocals with early thrash and hardcore passages a la Venom and Bulldozer and tempo shifts with a barebones structure of early Entombed death metal and a fraction of the meatiness that Bolt Thrower had with some of the rough around the edges punk of all those bands. I was healthily skeptical of this debut release from Austin, Texas, but the more spins I inevitably cycle through, almost out of compulsion, the more I accept its unavoidable filthy and unrefined charms. it's hard not to be a sucker for an amalgamation like this, and it's done well to boot. Dig in, creeps!

Skeleton (bandcamp)

KNEEL - Infinite Worship, Slaves Eternal EP (2020)

•  †  •

Probably one of the finest EP's cut from the cloth of black metal I've heard this year, and if it were instead a full-length I'd probably say it was up there with one of my favourite releases of the year so far by virtue of it's sheer ferocity and unyielding production.

KNEEL offer up their first musical output on the sacrificial altar, and it's in the form of absolutely nailed-down raw black metal with a clear influence in ethos and sound from the more caustic aspects of punk. Not in the same vain as Raspberry Bulbs or Okkultokrati, where emphasis and structure is more simplified and unison but more akin to Morbid Insulter or Bone Awl who have traded the affects of simplicity for intensity and are built around a thicker viscosity, with more layers and dimensions floating around the bones of the songs.

Musically Infinite Worship, Slaves Eternal charges through 3-songs of densely layered black metal that pulls heavily from elements of bestial death metal a la bands like Swallowed, Teitanblood and Triumvir Foul so sonically and atmospherically everything is bloated and caked in grime and the vocals lurch between schizophrenic howls, belches and grunts which is something if not recorded and executed right it just sounds like a mess, but this is spot on. Everything is spot on!

Infinite Worship, Slaves Eternal (bandcamp)

Regional Justice Center - Institution EP (2019)

|•  †  •

Here's a blazing quick EP for you to flash through in less time than it takes for one of those office fucks to place an overcomplicated Starbucks order. (Hint; Throw it on repeat a handful of times and it will play out like a short full-length.) Straight for the throat hardcore in the vain of Mind Eraser and early Harms Way, etc etc. It's easy to sink your teeth into and is 100% guaranteed to help you crank out a few extra reps the next time you're at the gym. Get into it, or don't. I won't ever care. Thanks!

Regional Justice Center - Institution (bandcamp)

Combust - The Void (2019)

•  †  •

Very good tough guy New York hardcore. Heavyweight riffs and a kick drum that sounds like a 44 caliber round hitting a church bell all while neanderthal vocal incantations call the majority out for being kitten soft sheep. This is an easy listen if you're in the mood for a stomp or dumbbells are around.

Combust - The Void (bandcamp)

Funereal Presence - Achatius (2019)

•  †  •

A magnificently articulated sophomore album from the dude behind the skin kit in Negative Plan, aptly self-monikered Bestial Devotion, and he hit the hammer on the fucking nail one-hundred times over, in a musical pool that most don't wade in without drowning in their own shit. Achatius is going to stand out as one of those albums that should blow everyone away but probably won't because it won't reach most people, and I'm oddly at peace with that as a result.

Funereal Presence has managed to nail down a marriage between a myriad of genres; black, speed, heavy, occult, death, avant-garde, etc without coming off as contrived slop, which is often times the case when something tries to be too many things at once – Especially within the elitist walls of black metal – It's a fools errand to try and pigeon-hole this, so don't even try, or you'd sure as shit isn't always solid sound like a dick.

•  Ω  •

There's nothing on Achatius I can find fault in, the production is spot on, which is big time important for something of this nature; the drums sound primitive, the guitar tones sound like the gurgling digestive tract of a primordial beast within cathedral walls and the vocals necrotic and have that old-school mix to them. The songs are monolithic both in length and experimentation, cruising through each obscurity with the speed of satan at its back, and not for one fucking second is it dull or tiresome, and those willing to wade through each fetid nuance will be rewarded with one of 2019's most successfully ambitious releases so far, absolutely keeping the underground lit with this blast from the past!

Funereal Presence - Achatius (bandcamp)

Inculter - Fatal Visions (2019)

•  †  •

There's a lot to like about Inculter's 'Fatal Visions', predominantly among them being, it rips hell. No questions asked. Bridging the gap between thrash, speed, black metal and metal punk. Stop asking questions and just get behind this already or forever be a whore. So get into it.

Inculter - Fatal Visions (bandcamp)

Deflect - Mass Delusion (2019)

•  †  •

Found these Deflect a couple years back when they released the EP Downward Spiral and wasn't entirely sold upon first spin, I remember that much… something about the vocal cadence and delivery was off-putting, which is funny, because it's exactly those things that I like most about Deflect now. First Impressions are wolves in sheep clothing and should be questioned rigorously before entering the gates to poison your well. The vocal cadence and off-kilter howl is the refreshing take against the backdrop of Deflect (much like Unified Right), which plays a blend of hardcore, pulling stylistically from 80's thrash and punk with a sound and approach that still lends itself to sounding unique and interesting in a musical arena where the walls have been battered and pounded by copycats.

Deflect - Mass Delusion (bandcamp)

Ekulu - Half Alive (2019) [EP]

•  †  •

Second EP is by Ekulu, and man do these guys know how to draw salivary molecules out of your tongue through the power meat and potatoes alleyway hardcore, which is a convoluted way of saying, Ekulu of New York hardcore pride, bring the floor stomp, and if you had to share a house with these wild boars, you'd better pray to the gods of riffdom that you live upstairs and not below them otherwise, because there is no way in shits hell that each member of this band doesn't walk around like a gang of agitated minotaurs in steel-toe boots carrying sledgehammers and chains around their necks… They are that heavy, and they swing that hard.

NY Hardcore without a single flaw. Every element firmly in its rightful place, executed by a group that understands the inner and outer facets of what makes raw hardcore and thrash such a likeable sound. Listen to their flawless self-titled EP released in 2018 back to back after this one, and make sure none of your grandma's breakable ceramics from Romania aren't around when you do. Enjoy.

Ekulu - Half Alive (bandcamp)