A Certain Taste

My Ad Nauseum record came in the post last week and I was excited as hell to slap that baby on the turntable and blast my brain with dissonance. As I was ripping into the packaging like an over-eager toddler, my mother-in-law stopped me in my tracks and asked me what it was. Not that she doesn't know what records are of course. I showed her the artwork and the transparent smokey double LPs for Imperative Imperceptible Impulse and explained that it was avant-garde death metal, and it was interesting to me because it pushes what is already a very challenging genre close to breaking point. " Phew, that was a tricky question, " I thought, and immediately went back to planning my escape from the family for approximately 57 minutes. Then I was hit with an even harder question. " What is it you like about death metal then? " Where do you even start with a question like that?! I love hard and fast music. But gabber is both hard and fast and I'm not a fan. I love th...

The lads in Allfather know how to make the most of a good riff. Their 2018 record And All Will Be Desolation  was dedicated to Hannemann, Pike, Cavalera and Cantrell and their merch is adorned with " Fuckin' riffs mate ". So what happens when a riff-heavy guitarist and a metal vocalist get bored during a pandemic? Apparently, they get together and write a five-track love letter to hardcore punk. All in the name of beer too! The motivation behind this project was to " find a way to put a positive spin on the emotions we have all been feeling over the last year or so, and have fun doing so ". In that regard, I think that the guys can call this a success. Guitarist, and I assume chief songwriter, Alan Cordner flows effortlessly between classic NYHC riffage and slower stoner and rock grooves, such as in the EP opener Unstoppable Hertz . His lead work across the album lifts this from simply being Sick Of It All worship to a strong and distinctive work in its own righ...

I hate corporate talk and jargon. I'm sure you do too. But when you want to make an organisation successful it really does help to have some sort of mission statement: who you are and what you want to be. Take Unique Leader for example. It's not by accident that they are blowing fire up the arses of the industry's standard purveyors of heavy music. It's a shared vision and focus. I imagine they have a "live/love/laugh" style wall vinyl in the office that reads "go harder" because every release seems to be competing to be the heaviest thing I hear that month. Osiah is the latest band to fight that battle with Loss, their third full-length and second with Unique Leader. The band are looking to build on the reputation they have gained among deathcore fans during tours with Cattle Decapitation and The Faceless by bringing in genre heavyweights Jason Evans (Ingested) and Ben Duerr (Shadow of Intent) for guest spots. The band note: "Loss  is  Osiah ’s...

I think comparisons between Hail The Sun and Dance Gavin Dance are unfair. True, there are similarities between the HTS' post-hardcore and what has been dubbed "Swancore" after the Dance Gavin dance guitarist and primary songwriter Will Swan. And it's also true that Hail The Sun was previously signed to Blue Swan Records and have played at Swan Fest. Oh, and members of both bands played together in the all-star side project Sianvar for a time. But... but! From the start, Hail The Sun have stood out from the crowd of copycats and pushed a myriad of influences into their sound to accompany the disconnected, spasmodic guitar that typifies the Swancore sound. Alongside the mathy and proggy elements HTS has displayed over the course of their 12 years together, the influence of the undeniable driving force that is Donovan Merelo cannot be underestimated in terms of shaping this sound. As the drummer, his apparent inability to play a straight beat adds a frenetic and janky s...

I'm relatively new to funeral doom. In the past, I was mainly interested in the fastest, most technical music. I completely ignored this other side of extreme music. But when I dived in, I went deep. I've gone all the way back to proto funeral doom, with Cathedral's Forest of Equilibrium, and Lost Paradise by seminal gothic doom legends Paradise Lost all the way up to Bell Witch's epic Mirror Reaper and the "funeral steel" AOTY contender Stygian from Atramentus. One thing I appreciated from Atramentus' Phil Tougas was his devotion to remaining true to the roots of the genre. Reading acts he recommends and lists as influences proved a wealth of fantastic new (to me) material. Portugese black/doom newcomers Sepulcros (or their label Transcending Obscurity) note some similar bands as a reference point for what to expect from their debut, Vazio - including Atramentus.  So naturally, I was intrigued. The intro and outro track don't do much for m...

I don't know why, but the UK isn't really a place I would instantly associate with black metal. Yes, I know about Venom. I know they exist thank you. I'm also somewhat familiar with others; Cradle of Filth, Winterfylleth, Akercocke, Anaal Nathrakh, The Meads of Asphodel, and a few others. It still feels like a very small scene with few established acts. With this third album being released by 20 Buck Spin, we absolutely need to add Wode to that list. If you already had Wode up there as one of the best black metal acts to come out of the UK, then you probably think you know exactly what to expect. Shit, you've probably pre-ordered the vinyl and tell everyone you saw them playing a pub in Machester in 2016 before the first album came out. Nerd. You're also probably wrong. Burn In Many Mirrors is still recognisable as a work of Wode, but feels a lot like a band getting comfortable enough in their leather jackets that they can start adding less kvlt patches and showing ...

I think we've got this weird duality with pop culture where we see it as both an art and a commodity. We (sometimes) appreciate the creative talent put in to make our favourite tv shows, movies and music, but we also expect some aspect of re-use from them. It's a rare movie where you'll see the end credits roll and think "fuck that was incredible" and know you won't ever watch it again. We have this with music the most. Replayability will play a big part in how we rate an album or even a song. I think we should re-normalise appreciating music as a singular experience. A good place to start is this absolutely punishing 3 track, 44 minutes of funeral doom from Atramentus. It tells the story both of the lead guitarist and vocalist's seasonal depression and a fantasy epic about a man who steals a sword from the sun god to gain immortality, but inadvertantly drops his world into a perpetual winter and has to thus walk endlessly through a dead world on his own f...