Revisionist Western

Germany's Beculted sound, to me, like what would happen if Thou was a black metal band. They have these ugly, crawling sludge riffs that just tunnel into your brain which alternate with blast beat driven grind reminiscent of something like Vanum or Panopticon . A truly dirty guitar tone gives the album a raw and churning vibe, and with only 3 songs (despite each clocking in at over 10 minutes), it's a relatively quick listen that leaves you wanting more. If you're into contemporary, blackened sludge, I would absolutely give this record a listen. I enjoyed it a lot.  Arcane Manifestations by beculted

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 mean, come on. Look at that album cover. You know exactly  what you're getting here. And yes, it shreds.  Mist of Doom is an absolutely ripping mix between raw black metal and crust. I would compare them to a more hardcore-influenced version of bands like Bütcher, Hellripper, and Bewitcher, with the same kind of driving, raw, blackened attack, but a little less-NWOBHM in the mix and a little more dis-crust going on. If you listen to those bands and wish they sounded more like Wolfbrigade or Martyrdöd, Mist of Doom is your band.  The songs on Revenge of the Ancient Gods are short, the beats are fast, the vocals are throat-ripping, and the riffs are catchy and anthemic. This is really everything I want in blackened crust, up to and including a furious album closer called "Black Metal Nazis Must Die." It's the kind of quick, brutal listen that makes it hard not to bob your head along as it pummels you.  The album is free on Bandcamp, and given that I've listened ...

I keep meaning to write a post on the occasional flirtations metal has had with what might be called "western music" (not country music, more like the kind of music that scores western films) and, were I to do that, T.G. Olson's band Across Tundras would, no doubt, be front and center in that conversation. However, he's gone ahead and released a solo album called "Revisionist Western" so I guess I have  to write something about it before I get to that, huh? Olson is, as mentioned, the main performer in the long-running and criminally  underrated psychedelic-western-post-metal-rock-whatever band Across Tundras. Their output over the last two decades has been consistently incredible and it's baffling to me that they haven't been given their critical due for such a remarkable, ongoing body of work. Olson was also in some pretty good hardcore bands back in the day, most notably The Spirit of Versailles, who I saw absolutely crush a set at a venue called ...

Not the normal thing I review, but if you're into droney, pretty chill, hip-hop beats, a buddy of mine just dropped this tape and it's absolutely killer. He's always been great at putting things like this together and I'm glad to see he's finally turned it into a full on project. I can't really do it justice, so just hit play on this one. THE DAY OF THE BEAT by DEF MAGNETIC

  Not sure what it is, but Russia just kills it  with the genre bending bands these days. На том берегу (don't ask me how to pronounce that, I couldn't begin to guess) are a new neocrust/hardcore band from over there who've recently put out what appears to be their first EP, entitled Мистраль (once again, no idea). This is easily some of the best stuff I've heard like this in a while. It reminds me of the late 90s/early 2000s hardcore (the stuff kids half my age call "skramz"), like Lack , Yage , or even City of Caterpillar, a little bit, with driving, melodic riffs under mostly screamed, impressionistic lyrics. Throughout the EP, though, На том берегу maintain an undercurrent of furious, d-beat hardcore, which helps keep the intensity ratcheted up to 11.  I cannot stress enough that I love this EP. Few records I've heard recently have been as aimed right at me as this is. If you're a fan of bands like Morrow , Fall of Efrafa , or Respire , На том бер...