Revisionist Western

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

Jakethehawk is a heavy psych band from Pittsburgh whose newest album, Hinterlands, came out last month, by which I mean February, because in my head it's still March, because time has no meaning anymore. Anyway, I've been meaning to write about this one for a bit because it's one of the best stabs at this kind of music I've heard anytime recently.  As someone whose tastes veer more towards the heavy-and-loud, it's tragically easy for a band to screw up psychedelic rock for me. If it starts to feel a little bit too much like I'm listening to Cream or The Grateful Dead instead of Sabbath, I'll start to lose interest. I do tend to like dreamy, psychedelic stuff, though, it just also has to satisfy my desire, nay, my demand  for the almighty riff to be prominently featured in my heavy music.  Jakethehawk kind of nails it.  I would compare them to bands like Sigils, Serial Hawk, or Dead Meadow, all of whom are good at interspersing long passages of ambient, dron...

LUME's 2018 album Wrung Out was a solid dose of heavy post-grunge, sort of like an amalgam of Floor and Hum. They delivered on that nice combination of big guitars, hooky songs, and sleepy vocals that feels like the best of the 90s with a contemporary sheen to it. False Calm, their new album, takes that basic formula and adds a whole lot more space . The album is full of sprawling sparse, ambient, soundscapes which make it feel less like a collection of individual heavy songs and more like a single, rolling, sonic ocean of soft-loud-soft dynamics. It's a really rewarding listen, and manages to be engaging and throughout, whether the band is presenting you with crushing noise or barely audible, droning whispers. It's a nice step forward for LUME and represents an impressive evolution of their sound. Head over to Bandcamp and give it a listen. False Calm by LUME

  I was a big fan of Our Earth is a Tomb's first full length. Yesterday, they dropped a new EP, titled Absentia , that doesn't disappoint. OEAT is a four-piece from Chicago who do a really nice quiet/loud/quiet thing, artfully mixing dreamy, shoegaze passage with crushing, post-grunge sludge. In a lot of ways, I think they fit in nicely with their Chicago contemporary REZN and Lume, but an even better comparison might be something like Big Brave, in that they have a real sparse, experimental quality to the heavy portions of their songs- a sound that I associate with that band. Either way, Asbentia is name your price at Bandcamp and is an incredibly compelling EP of atmospheric sludge that's easily worth giving 15 minutes of your time. Go pick it up. Absentia EP by OUR EARTH IS A TOMB

  This band from Belgium bills themselves as "chainsaw grindcore," and specifically talks about going for the Boss HM-2 pedal sound on their Facebook page.  So, I'm in. Like, I'm not made of stone. You got me. But, beyond that, this is easily one of the best demos I've heard in years. Each song is a furious slab of grind with some real songwriting chops to back it up. They remind me a lot of something like Ancst, Moral Void, or Wake- bands that do the raw crust/grind thing, but keep things interesting via crafting thoughtfully arranged songs. Right around the 1:20 mark of the second track, for example, they transition from a blur of grind into a really nicely written melodic arpeggio that grabbed my attention just as it was drifting a bit. I can't wait to see what this band drops next.  Demo 2021 by Barren