Anyway, the reason I bring this whole thing up is because I have a ton of filthy noise building up in my ears and I wanna share it in the hopes that it grosses you out too. In a good way. Just think of this as an In Case You Missed It/Quick Hits/Lazy Asshole’s List sorta thing. Be warned though. Some of this shit is old. Downright rank even. Anyway, BEHOLD MY EAR GUNK.
Axeman - Arrive
Horrible confession to make. I actually don’t like that much late-80s/early-90s extreme metal. Most of it is just a little to rudimentary for me. Level 1 riffs, bad vocals, ho-hum Satanism. It’s all just kinda ‘meh’ these days. Do I appreciate the lineage? Sure. But you can know and appreciate that humans came from monkeys without wanting to fuck one. That said, Axeman is a monkey I would fuck. This demo, a one-off release from west coast black metal renaissance man Volahn, most definitely rips. Each of these three tracks picks a killer riffs and rides it without over-reaching. Take with beer.
The Great Old Ones - Tekeli-li
Ah, the French. When you think about it, it’s actually unsurprising that they’re so good at black metal. I mean when you think French cinema do the words “depressive” and “monochrome” not come to mind? This shit is just in their blood. Anyway, The Great Old Ones just dropped their second full-length and it’s refreshing on two levels. One, it’s black metal that doesn’t suck. Second, it’s got some actual heft. While a lot of their blackened countrymen are plying riffs so light and shimmery they could be worn as evening gowns, TGOO are actually pretty heavy, taking equally from their sludgier American counterparts and their northern neighbors. HP Lovecraft lyrics never hurt either, even if you can’t understand a word of them.
Impetuous Ritual - Unholy Congregation of Hypocritical Ambivalence
Have we reached peak Murk? I thought we did with the release of Grave Upheaval’s last album. But here we are, still knee deep in deliberately incomprehensible guitar tones and howling cave bear vocals. Honestly, I can take or leave this style and this album (not typing that name again) is as good or better than anything else in the genre, but where it really grabs me is the solos. While a lot of cavern-core bands tend to avoid featuring any particular instrument in the midst of their murk, Impetuous Ritual aren’t afraid to shred. This thing is full twisting, howling, acid-bent solos spiraling straight out of the void. Oh, they are glorious and plentiful. Check out “Venality In Worship” and see what I mean.
Bast - Spectres
I was really on the fence with this one for a while. Bast play a weird mix of stoner doom and latter-day black metal (think Conan meets Wolves in the Throne Room and their ilk), which, when it works, works really well. It just doesn’t work all the time. That isn’t to say it’s ever terrible. It’s just that the seams sometime become very apparent, like on “Denizens” an otherwise killer song that shifts gears between monolithic stomp and shimmery black riffs just a little to quickly. Both parts are solid but the transition is just a little bit, well, artless. If you can get past the hiccups, though, you’ve got the beginnings of something special.
GridLink - Longhena
Yes, GridLink have already been blown by pretty much the entire metal press but in light of the band’s recent breakup over guitarist Takafumi Matsubara’s medical issues, it’s worth a reminder that Longhena does indeed slay serious squirrel pussy. Even if it does frequently veer dangerously close to Matsubara and Jon Chang’s other project, Hayaino Daisuki, that’s not a bad thing. In a way it’s an amalgamation of what they were trying to achieve with both projects: hyper-speed grind pop. Matsubara’s contribution to the genre will be missed but this is a pretty fucking solid legacy to leave behind.
Ok! Cool. That about cleans out my ears this week. Scoop up the filth and enjoy!
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