Revisionist Western

There are a few things I love unequivocally:  Two person sludge bands.  Two person sludge bands with no guitar.  Two person sludge bands with no guitar that you could imagine kids skateboarding to in the 90s.  Thosar is, decidedly, all three.  Hailing from Weiz, Austria, Thosar play a manic, energetic style of bass/drums sludge that feels like a cross between 90s groove metal bands like Unsane, Helmet, and Quicksand, and noisy, stoner skate punk like California X or Bummer. The thing I like about bands like this is they often have a shaggy sort of "hey, dude, let's start a band" vibe to them that I find incredibly endearing. There's something about two people playing sludge with just two instruments, neither of which are the instrument we most associate with the genre, that feels like the fun of a basement show distilled to its essence to me. Thosar captures that feeling very well on Elementa. The album has an almost improvisational feel to it, with the son...

I have a theory that most  bands are a mix of genres, even if some of the genres are subtle, and the secondary, more submerged genres often make a difference as to whether or not you like something.  For example, I like a lot of sludge and post metal, but a lot of the (big scare quotes, here) "big sludge bands" aren't the ones I like (for example, I can't really get into The Melvins). I think the reason why is that I'm just, frankly, not that into a lot of the submerged genres that lots of the big sludge bands are built on and which seem to be a lot of people's way in to listening to that sort of thing. Grunge, prog rock, dessert rock, etc., none of those genres do much for me. So if you're a sludge or post metal band that has an undertow (see what I did there?) of one of those genres, I'm almost certainly not going to like it. Nothing personal, you do your thing, but it's just not something that resonates with me. Liträo, on the other hand, are sl...

I tend to think that musical barriers that are highly pronounced in one generation tend to fall in the next because young people are musical sponges, soaking up all kinds of different influences that might seem antithetical to older generations. For example, I can't imagine trying to explain to someone who is 21 now that there was a point where mixing metal and hardcore was controversial. Whether  to incorporate metal and, if so, how  to incorporate it into hardcore were open questions when I was a kid. Now, a band like Portland's Screwed just throw chainsaw grind, metalcore, d-beat, sludge, and thrash in a blender like there'd never be a question all those things should go together and we're all better for it. On Terror Cycle, Screwed churn their way through eight menacingly ugly songs, reminding me of something like Moral Void, on the hardcore end, or Primitive Man, for the sludge influence. The guitar tone is spot on HM-2 worship, but they tend to be slower and chugg...

  Out of nowhere, one of my favorite dark hardcore bands just dropped a new album and it's exactly what I want from them. Dark Circles put out a number of fantastic, raging crust albums about six or so years ago. I remember the timing explicitly because, when they were dropping albums, it was when I was living somewhere I wasn't thrilled about living and Dark Circles where one of the bands that really got me through that time. This album picks up exactly where they left off, with a punishing chainsaw-crust sound that manages to keep an undercurrent of melody running through the songs to keep them interesting, even as they pummel you with noise. I would liken them to bands like Barren, The Secret, and Trap Them. I would also note that they were a direct influence on my hardcore band, in particular the first album which was written while I was mainlining their first two albums. Please, please check out Dark Circles. It's PWYW so you have no excuse not to.  Frantic Death by D...

  I've never been that into chuggy breakdowns in hardcore for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. When I was coming up, it felt like two out of every three bands put out albums that were mostly just jud-jud style mosh part after jud-jud style mosh part for 25 minutes straight. I tended, on the other hand, to gravitate towards fast, chaotic hardcore or sludgy riffs. As such, the chuggy breakdowns never did it for me. Even I have to admit, though, that Mastiff has really cracked the code on this genre.  If I were to theorize why I like this record so much, despite it being on the far end of chuggy for what I normally listen to, I would say the following: (1) It rules, and you can't argue with good. (2) A lot of the bands, historically, that pile breakdown on top of breakdown tend to be pretty clean. You know the sound I mean: scooped guitar tones, tight and technical playing, that sort of thing. Mastiff, on the other hand, brings a much darker aesthetic to their breakdown...

As someone who is old enough to personally remember and have participated in 90s hardcore (aka "screamo," aka "skramz"), I look at a lot of the bands doing that sound today with ambivalence. Most bands playing this sound now don't quite recreate what I appreciated about the music at the time, leaving me feeling a little disconnected from what they're doing. This isn't a critique. It shouldn't  recreate that feeling for me. I was a kid, and it was a different time, and they're doing what makes sense to them, not to me.  Having said that, there are a handful of bands that somehow manage to absolutely nail the vitality of that sound to my ears. Portrayal of Guilt and Frail Body, for example, both come to mind. There's just something about both those bands that captures the earnestness of 90s hardcore to me. Add snag. to that list.  What now gets called "skramz," at its best, always feels like it's about to come apart at the seams. ...

Currently driving cross country, but just stopping in to say that Barren and DAHTM, two bands I have written about previously, and who are both quite good, have new releases.  Barren has an EP of furious grind that delivers on the promises of their demo, and DAHTM has released two new churning songs from their upcoming full length. You can stream both below.  Some longer posts coming soon.   Kurungaituku by DAHTM And Then There Were None by Barren

Just a quick note to say that this EP by Swiss hardcore outfit Lifecrusher dropped last week and it's glorious. Four songs, under ten minutes, complete and total fury. If you like any kind of contemporary hardcore, it's worth checking out. They nicely sit at the intersection of crust and thrash, with both full-on fastcore parts and much chuggier breakdowns comprising their relatively short songs. On top of that, it's NYP. Go check it out.  Soul Separation by Lifecrusher

Dumange is a Spanish neocrust band and this appears to be their first release. Dropping a single, 40 minute song as your first release when you're a crust band is a gutsy move, but Dumange pull it off with this release. Writing long songs when you're a hardcore band always means that you have to use every trick you have to keep things interesting in a genre whose tools are designed to give you minute long bursts of energy. Dumange combine a variety of sounds and textures in this song, ranging from driving, post-rocky parts, to gentle passages with whispered vocals over them, to full on raging d-beat. The end result is something that, to me, sounds like melodic crust like Remains of the Day or Deszcz mixed with Envy or City of Caterpillar. If any of that is your jam, this is PWYW over at Bandcamp. I'd recommend it.   Entre ratas by Dumange

Okay, kids. History time. There was a point, back in the 90s, when a genre called "screamo" didn't exist and most bands that played what now gets called screamo actively rejected the label (because, let's be honest, it's an embarrassing term). Those bands (including bands I was in that sounded like that) typically thought of what they were doing as good old hardcore, albeit slightly outside the box hardcore. Then, somehow, the "screamo" label started to stick, and then later generations needed a whole new word (skramz) to differentiate original pretty good screamo from later much worse screamo. Which I get. If I were 22 I wouldn't want to admit I listen to a lot of "screamo" from the the last ten years, either. Anyway, where I'm going with this is that Lagrimas is a band from Los Angeles that sits right at this intersection in a way I really appreciate. What I think people responded to about the 90s hardcore that gets called sk...