Champion - Promises Kept (2004)

Champion, a band that used to be. From the gloomy city of Seattle where everything grungy, droney and sucky spawns. Promises Kept however, is the exception. This is one of my favorite hardcore albums, partly due to the nostalgia of my hardcore youth straight edge days and partly because the energy on this album is infectious...like yawning, or gonorrhea.

Instrumentally it gravitates to fast paced, melodic hardcore brimming in positivity. The structure almost seems as if it were to be tailored for live shows. After all, hardcore is all about the strength and unity within the scene, a live set is like the ultimate hangout session for these dudes. A hangout filled with stage-dives, sing-a-longs, high jumps, head walks, jumping jacks, and hardcore pride!  And there isn't a fucking thing wrong with that.

Grab if you like: Bane, Have Heart, Verse

Champ

Land of Ice & Vikings

This Monday, me and three friends embark on a two week trip to Iceland. Arguably the coolest place on earth. Geysers spout, waterfalls topple, fjords weave, volcanoes erupt, mountains peek, obsidian's ridge...you get the idea. This place rules.

I'll be trekking along the same lands as the vikings had during the 8th century, so a plethora of viking/folk/power metal will be accompanying me on my 32 GB iPhone. Not Björk or Sigur Rós, fuck that.

Here, a list of albums I am most stoked to listen to whilst in the land of ice.

________________________________________________________________


Fortid - Voluspa Part III: Fall of the Ages

 
Folkodia - Forgotten Lore

Butterfly Temple - Earth

Empyrium - Weiland

Lemuria - Tales Ale & Fire

 

Winterfylleth - The Mercian Sphere

 

Heathen Foray - The Passage

Satanakozel - The Sun of the Dead

Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini

Neun Welten - Destrunken

Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit

Avven - Kastalija

Borknagar - The Archaic Course

Crom - Vengeance

Wuthering Heights - Far From The Madding Crowd

 

Nàttsòl - Stemning

 

Wodensthrone - Loss

Wolfchant - A Pagan Storm

Svartby - Riv, Hugg Och Bit

Nydvind - Sworn To The Elders

Voluspaa - Åsa

Falchion - Chronicles Of The Dead

 Galar - Til Alle Heimsens Endar

Ásmegin - Hin Vordende Sod & Sø

Svartsot - Mulmets Viser

Geist - Galeere (2010)

Atmospheric black metal from Germany, with emphasis on long drawn out frigid atmospherics. I would like to reference Wolves In The Throne Room when describing the ambiance, but there is much more at play here. At times elements of Vreid, Ulver, and Lunar Aurora. These are ambitious song lengths, but with allowed time to grow, they are quite good.

Grab if you Like: Orlog, Wolves In The Throne Room, Lunar Aurora

Galeere

Low Places - Spirtual Treatment (2011)

Fast and furiously paced sludgy hardcore with a dash of doom thrown in for good measure. It sounds pissed.

Grab if you like: Gaza, Mind Eraser, Pulling Teeth

Skeleton

Shroud Eater - Thunder Noise (2011)

Grainy sludge hailing from Florida. I have been listening to this one a lot lately, I have decided you should too. Shroud Eater is 65% female, 100% crushing.

Grab if you like: Kylesa, Electric Wizard, Subrosa

Eat Shroud

Malachi - Wither To Cover The Tread (2008)

Doomy, cello-driven sludge from Wisconsin.


MALACHI

Syphilic - Behind Bars (2010)

Take a good hard look at that album cover, click the picture to enlarge it and let it sink in. Yes, yes that is a pregnant legless woman riddled with bite marks having her newborn baby skull-fucked by a corpulent fellow in a wife-beater while the rest of her baby is still inside of her, essentially fucking her at the same time. Multitasking like a champion.

I'm sure it's quite obvious already that we have us some brutal death metal in our midst. To me, it doesn't offer anything groundbreaking or refreshing, but it is littered with samples from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia". Everything is over the top gore and brutality, here is an excerpt from song "Robalni"

When she pushes out its head slides down
Forward I thrust back into her cunt
Further out, its brain now a messy joke
Umbilical cord wrapped around its throat
Newborns head completely out of the slit
I nail its tongue to its moms clit
Cord decapitation and its mangled head taken
The rest of the remnants I shove all the way back in 

All I could think of (A Serbian Film)

It still gets a spin every now and then, I admit though, I grabbed it for the album art, not the musical prowess. Maybe you will like it...you sick fuck!

Grab if you Like: Eardelete, Repulsive Dissection, Being Killed

NEWBORN PORN!

The Great Old Ones

 

The Great Old Ones, in the Cthulhu Mythos are known to be colossal extraterrestrial beings with interminable power, worshiped by deranged humanoid cults and non-humans progeny in the Mythos.
These cosmic beings have a physical form, but not of matter that we mere humans could fathom, their forms are built around principles similar to true matter so that they appear to be material in their nature.

The Great Old Ones, are also a black metal outfit from France. Heavily inspired by H. P. Lovecraft, these Frenchmen build their sound around colossal atmosphere and highly ethereal soundscapes barring similarities to Wolves In The Throne Room. It all sounds very promising, with a debut LP on its way this upcoming fall, you can find three pre-production songs to tide you over at this location...

Grab if you like: Valdur, Altar of Plagues, Wolves In The Throne Room

The Great Old Ones

The Great Old Facebook (Support these dudes and keep up to date.)

Myrkgrav - Trollskau Skroemt Og Koelabrenning (2006)

Sometimes I know I have too much music in my collection because often times hidden gems will reveal themselves to me when I do my daily shuffle of my entire collection. This is a good way for me to stumble on an album I may not have payed enough attention to the first time around. Trollskau Skroemt Og Koelabrenning by Norway's one-man band Myrkgrav is a good example of this.

I actually do recall downloading this something like 4 years ago thinking it was pretty fucking awesome, but must of lacked in the "catchyness" side of things like it's folk metal cohorts Finntroll, Lemuria, Runic, etc. Shit, I absolutely hate when someone likes a song or band simply because they're catchy. (fuck that)

Here we have archetypal Norsk black metal firmly rooted in the Scandinavian folk elements. Vocals range from harsh and cold growls to a more somber clean vocals, all sung in the olden Norwegian dialect. I can find not a single complaint. 

Grab if you Like: Windir, Galar, Svarga

Myrkgrav

Bacchus - Bacchus (2011)

Bacchus isn't interested in becoming friends, nor do they require that they get to know you better before fucking your ear sockets like a rusty 10$ hooker. Incorporating elements of crust, doom, sludge, and hardcore to form the beast. Shifting paces allowing songs to breathe for a moment before they crawl right back into a crushingly heavy segment with a soundscape littered in reverb.
(*righteous album art bonus points awarded*)

Grab if you like: Hellhorse, From Ashes Rise, Planks

Bacchus

Bandcamp