It was just a couple of years back when Corrections House were putting out their debut album, Last City Zero. Comprised of veterans in extreme and experimental music, including Scott Kelly, Bruce Lamont, Sanford Parker and Mike IX Williams, the band ventures forth into the realm of electro-industrial, encompassing elements of metal and noise in the way to reaching their dystopian vision. The concepts of Corrections House originate from Parker's loops and beat generation, with Kelly and Lamont adding on the heavy riffs and sax and Williams topping it all off with his sickening concepts. In terms of comparison with their debut album, Know How To Carry A Whip comes across as a more complete record, more well-rounded and cohesive. The structures are more dense, the underlying themes come across in a more striking manner, filled with despair. The spine of the music is well rooted within the industrial dimension as the manner in which the opening track kicks things off suggests. From that point on it all seems to be a matter of mood on how Corrections House will approach their mechanical concepts. There are times when the track will take a slower, more towering approach, as happens in … Read more
Sometimes you follow a musician for years, only to learn something that should have stood out at the start. Today’s … Read more
Similar to how people said, “Alright, I guess we’re done with the novel now” after James Joyce’s Ulysses, I thought, … Read more
Back in early 2014 Elder Giants dropped like a bomb in the midst of the black metal scene. The German … Read more
Forming in Brooklyn in 1995 as a collective based around abstract sound, Pas Musique translates to “Not Music” in French, … Read more
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Mass Movement of the Moth is a band doing it the right way. Playing together for years and making a name for themselves in the DC hardcore scene and to some extent the whole Northeast, the band's first official release came just last year. Once the releases started, they didn't stop, and the hardcore world as a whole was introduced to what Mass Movement of the Moth had to offer. With their debut full length CD, Outerspace, Mass Movement of the Moth has hit a milestone as a band that started years ago, as well as shown the hardcore community why rushing into early releases may not be the best route to take. It would be impossible to describe Outerspace, or Mass Movement of the Moth as a whole, in … Read more
Without doubt, one of my favorite musical discoveries of the past few years has been British singer-songwriter Craig Taylor-Broad. After first unleashing an (apparently, now deleted) EP under the name of the noises we make we no one is around in mid-2014, Taylor-Broad has continued a string of undeniably difficult yet definitively fascinating work – 2014's three-track Suicide Song EP … Read more
When you hear the term "industrial" in regards to music from the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Rammstein or Ministry, Foetus (a.k.a. Jim Thirlwell) is who you have to thank. Making cacophonies of the highest order since the early eighties, Thirlwell's music in all its incarnations has become more and more visual. Visual, that is, in the sense of the … Read more
There appears to be a quite mysterious aura surrounding the existence of PC Worship. The band itself has left a trail of albums and EPs, within just a small margin of time, navigating through the seas of alternative music. It is a really difficult task to give a description of PC Worship's music. On one hand it contains a lot … Read more
How much hatred can be produced within 48 hours? That is how long it took apocalyptic sludge outfit The Body and the main man of black metal sonic force Krieg, Neil Jameson, to record their collaboration. The Body are not new to the field of collaborative albums, which includes works with Braveyoung, Vampillia and Thou. However, there is something much … Read more
Murray/Smith King/Hanneman Tipton/Downing These are just a few of the lead guitar duos from Iron Maiden, Slayer and Judas Priest respectively, that dominated heavy metal music of the 1980s and beyond. Perhaps lesser known, but by no means lesser in all other areas is the guitar duo do Michael Denner and Hank Shermann from Mercyful Fate, the band whose music … Read more
Nice little split 7” here from Dead Tank that I’ve admittedly been sitting on way too long. Technically this is a 2014 release, although I don’t think it started hitting the shops until 2015. Rose Cross is really awesome. One of my favorite discoveries of this past year. They’ve been around for a while but I wasn’t acquainted with them … Read more
Back in 2010, Make Do and Mend were taking over top 10 lists with their debut, End Measured Mile. The band went on to shake things up with, Everything You Ever Loved. They slowed things down and focused on finding the right formula for their songs to burst and bloom. Their newest record, Don't Be Long, takes every chance it … Read more
I can remember very clearly when I first heard of Flotsam and Jetsam. As a young hesher growing up outside of Vancouver, Canada in 1986, some bands were on my radar and some were not. Flotsam and Jetsam were the latter. Until the end of that year, when I heard that their bassist, a certain Mr. Jason Newsted had left … Read more
I admit it: arguably the guiltiest of my guilty pleasures is Euro disco, a genre which found (sometimes quite dubiously-talented) European musicians exaggerating the basic tenets of '70s dance music to the point of near-absurdity. Hard as it is to resist the infectious but undeniably cheesy keyboard lines in many of the genre's songs though, it also would be difficult … Read more
In 2014 Mamiffer, the project of Faith Coloccia, released Statu Nascendi, which was described as a transitional album, leading to the next full-length the band would eventually release. Statu Nascendi definitely felt like an album of change, with Coloccia and collaborator Aaron Turner stepping further into the realms of minimalism and drone. It might still be a while until The … Read more
Side projects aren’t supposed to invite other band comparisons, they’re supposed to separate, to show artisticrange. Who are we kidding here? Basement Benders is a punk project out of members of This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb, Hidden Spots, Future Virgins, and Black Rainbow—DIY bands who live the scene, meaning that being themselves and having fun with friends probably outweighs … Read more
In the time before Pinkish Black there was The Great Tyrant. The latest album of Pinkish Black came out a few days back, establishing them as one of the more interesting experimental acts out there, encompassing psychedelia, post-punk and new wave influences, a blackened perspective and even a doom approach. Their first, self-titled album was released through Handmade Birds, but … Read more
Dilly Dally is a four-piece rock band from Toronto who describes themselves as “#softgrunge” on their Facebook page - I'm not sure how serious it is, but it seems to be relatively accurate (and in a good way, believe it or not!) Their debut Sore gives me two things I’ve been looking for in modern-day rock: (1) more girl rock … Read more
Extinction A.D. rose like hellfire from the rubble of the, now listless, Long Island hardcore outfit This is Hell. In a rare move, the entire musical backing of This is Hell packed up and moved into the world of thrash, leaving the band’s lead vocalist in the dust. The result was Extinction A.D., an immaculate four-piece thrash metal juggernaut. The … Read more
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