Tag Archives: deathcore

Suffer The Destroyer – The Silent Majority [Review]

Posted on May 19, 2011 | Leave a comment

Suffer the Destroyer is a relatively new hardcore/metalcore/deathcore/mosh band from Boston. I wish I could tell you that I know exactly what style or genre of mosh-heavy music Suffer The Destroyer would be most closely associated with, but I can’t. In any case, they’ve played a handful of local gigs, recorded a six song EP called The Silent Majority, and are now scheming to take over the world (or so I assume).

The Silent Majority really fills more of a demo role than an actual EP, as the recording quality is pretty rough. While there are plenty of criticisms about the recording quality, they’re not really important in the grand scheme of this demo, especially considering it’s plenty good enough to hear all the instruments and what’s going on, as well as being decently mixed. What the recording quality does give you, though, is a good indicator at how well the band performs (there really isn’t any “studio magic” to be found). It also helps to capture the band’s energy without the assistance of bass drops (and thank goodness for that).

Musically, The Silent Majority is a rather odd mix of metalcore styles that range from mega-heavy beatdowns to melodic bridges. There’s some pretty original-sounding riffs and vocal lines, but also a few “tried-and-true” riffs scattered throughout the demo. Even more, there were a couple of musically surprising elements, such as the thick bass groove driving a section of gang vocals smack in the middle of “Iconoclast” right before it gets back to the circle-pitting verse. You’ll find groovy riffs, gang vocals, circle pit chugs, spacey guitar licks, brutal beatdowns and everything in between on this twenty minute demo.

As a demo, The Silent Majority is about everything you could ask for. It shows the versatility and musical interests of the band, isn’t too long, and actually has a couple of solid songs. If you’re looking for much more than that, you’re not really going to find that here. I have no doubts, however, that the next release from Suffer The Destroyer will bring the heat on another level.

In any case, you might as well download it and give it a spin. It is free, after all. Check it out below:

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The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza – Danza III: A Series of Unfortunate Events [review]

Posted on July 9, 2010 | 3 comments

Danza III: A Series of Unfortunate Events is the third full-length release from Tennessee-based The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, and was released on Black Market Activities on July 6, 2010.
TDTDE Danza III

It’s hard to imagine a band that goes by the name of The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza would make ordinary music. Luckily, TDTDE push the envelope. Straight out of the heart of Tennessee, the band has created a unique signature sound using grindcore grooves, deathcore breakdowns, face grinding guitar riffs and hokey song topics—all of which are in full force on Danza III: A Series of Unfortunate Events.

If you’ve heard any Danza songs from their last album, Danza II: Electric Boogaloo, you will experience a similarly visceral assault with Danza III. In addition to the chaotic writing on the album, the production and soundscape really brings the beast to life. Every single bass drum hit done by Mike Bradley feels like a kick to the chest, every snare shot sounds like a rifle, it’s tough to keep your heart rate low. Combine that with the shrill, angular guitar parts played by Josh Travis and the raucous bellows of Jessie Freeland, and you’ve captured the essence of rage and adrenaline in audio form.

The lyrics on the album are based on unfortunate events (whether political, social, personal or otherwise) and the musical mood of the album appropriately corresponds. TDTDE do not plead their case with Danza III, there is no pussy-footing about. Instead, they impose their will with such vehemence and force even the most iron-willed of people have no choice but to succumb. From song to song, the listener experiences an aural bludgeoning until finally, when the album has come to a close, the listener feels like they have truly been victim of some sort of unfortunate event. The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza have truly transcended any box they could have been placed in, and created what will surely be one of the most chaotic and interesting listening experiences of 2010.

Track picks: “12.21.12” and “A Trail of Tears” (though truthfully, every track on this album is single-worthy)

Overall score: 10 out of 10 devil horns

If you’re looking to be a responsible music consumer and purchase the album, check it out at the Black Market Activities webstore or on iTunes.

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Whitechapel – A New Era of Corruption [Review]

Posted on June 19, 2010 | 1 comment

A New Era of Correuption is the latest release from Tennessean deathcore troop Whitechapel that was released on Metal Blade June 8, 2010.

Whitechapel A New Era of Corruption

I would be lying if I told you that this album featured anything that is completely new for Whitechapel. That being said, this album is still drastically different from the band’s two previous efforts. From the very beginning of the album, the feel and textures of the sound are much different than the all-too-familiar sound of The Somatic Defilement and This Is Exile. A New Era of Corruption finally sounds like the band is making use of the fact they have three guitarists, rather than having three people playing the same riff simultaneously in nearly every song. There are a lot of solid guitar harmonies throughout the album, something that wasn’t used much outside of breakdowns on This Is Exile.

The next huge step Whitechapel took for this album was switching up some of the songwriting and breakdowns they used. While not overly boring, This Is Exile didn’t have a lot of variation amongst songs, but A New Era of Corruption seems pretty fresh from song to song. In addition to the songs being a bit more varied, there are also a multitude of texture and mood changes – something else not found in previous efforts. No song demonstrates this better than “Reprogrammed to Hate,” a song that isn’t simply slams and guttural vocals.

I should make it very clear that I’m not stating that A New Era of Corruption is vastly different than This Is Exile, because it’s not. There are a few tweaks made to the Whitechapel formula, such as multiple guest vocals from The Acacia Strain’s Vincent Bennett, but all of the things found on This Is Exile and The Somatic Defilement are still ever-present.

The only real complaint I have about this album is that it seems to be separated between a couple really killer songs and some other filler material. The album can be somewhat boring on the songs that seem to be the more obvious examples in which the three Whitechapel guitarists get into minor second “chug chug” mode the most. The first few tracks on the album are easily the most boring, but the album comes alive at track four with “Reprogrammed to Hate” when we finally see what these guys can do.

If you liked Whitechapel before; or just want some heavy-as-hell beatdowns with some interesting guitar harmonies, tempo changes, and solos here and there; this might be an album for you. An album that showed glimpses of maturity and progression in the band’s sound, but one that shows they’ve still got a bit more refining and growing as a band to go.

Track Picks:

“End of Flesh” and “A Prayer of Mockery”

Score:

6/10 devil horns

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Annotations of an Autopsy – The Reign of Darkness [Review]

Posted on February 4, 2010 | 3 comments

The Reign of Darkness is the second album from the English quintet Annotations of an Autopsy, a followup to 2008’s Before the Throne of Infection, and is released on Nuclear Blast records.

Among the clutter of the various metal sub-genres there lies a nice niche of bands that are a cross between deathcore and grindcore – no band embodies this better than Annotations of an Autopsy. This is known almost immediately after beginning the album when the first instrument you hear are the drums – a gut busting fill followed but a simple blast beat – then the rest of the troops fall into place. The grinding guitars and thick raspy voice follow behind the drums, and it sounds as though you’ve got a brutal death metal album on your hands. Then the tempo change, straight into the first beatdown of the album.

After you’re about three minutes into the album, you have pretty much heard the entire arsenal this band employs – the good news is that the limited arsenal does not hold the band back. All of the breakdowns are varied, the riffs never gets stale, and the drums are on point. By far the biggest letdown of this album are the vocals and lyrics. While Steve Regan’s (aka “Sewer Mouth”) enunciation is pretty phenomenal at times, he always sounds as though he has a mouth full of jello, or is simply gargling into the microphone. Every syllable of every word on this album sounds almost identical, and it becomes very repetitive and annoying.

Simplicity lends itself all to often to this style of music in terms of guitar work, but that is something Annotations of an Autopsy have decided isn’t really the best strategy to keep a listener’s attention. At times the guitar parts are very simple (see many of the verses), but when it is time for the guitars to step it up, the do so in a big way. Solos are not often a huge part of the more brutal metal styles, but this album has a few very tasteful and unique guitar licks and some very groovy riffs.

When taken as a whole, The Reign of Darkness is a pretty standard drag-you-through-the-mud deathcore/grindcore album that is not about taking prisoners or breaking boundaries. It’s a very humble album that knows what it does, what it wants, and how it’s going to do it. A solid second album from a band who put out an embarrassingly bad first album, something that leads me to believe this band has a very promising future.

Song picks: “Catastrophic Hybridization” and “Portrait of Souls”

Overall score: 7.5 out of 10 devil horns

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Anomia – ESM [Review]

Posted on August 11, 2009 | 1 comment

ESM is the latest record from Hold True Recordings band Anomia. The album was released on July 10, 2009 – in memory of their late friend, Eric Stephen Mitchell.

anomia ESM album cover

Not often does a record that could have the -core tag applied to it provide much of a “WOW” factor for me, but the boys in Anomia are far from the tried-and-true metalcore kids floating around the scene today. The album stars off the album with the standard crescendo-laden riffage as their opening track. One riff and a lead line for just shy of two minutes. On the first listen, I was almost bored with the record at this point. Then comes song two, “UVR” – at no point could I ever imagined the shift that would occur at this juncture. My excitement for the rest of the album was increased ten-fold upon hearing the first ten seconds of “UVR” when the clean guitar groove gave way to a chaotic and heavy guitar riff, and moved onto the first breakdown of the record. Very much like a PsyOpus record, it is hard to say what is coming or what just happened at any particular juncture on the album. Clocking in at ten tracks and a total of 36 minutes even, it would be hard to expect much more.

The production on this album is messy at best. Everything is mixed WAY too heavy and low, so it gets very muddy when there are the heavier breaks on the album. For those who like crystal-clean production like you would find on an All Shall Perish or Faceless record, steer clear of this one. For those who like something a bit more raw, the mastering quality on this album might actually enhance the experience.

The best part of the album without a doubt is the versatile guitar parts. Everything from breakdowns to clean grooves to pinch harmonics to angular riffing, this album has it all. Never doe the the guitar sound cheesy, over-done, or out of place. The guitar is always on-point, and sounds absolutely appropriate. The licks and breakdowns on the record are undeniably catchy, and the guitar tones deviate from the norm all throughout the record. Unlike many bands these days, the guitarists in Anomia make full use of the spectrum that are guitar tones.

All in all the album is a refreshing take on the generic world of -core genres these days, and excites me for whatever else these dudes have coming down the pipe. Definitely worth a listen. Seemingly unrefined, I think this album would have been a lot better if better recorded and mastered.

Track picks: “M51A” and “It”

Overall score: 7/10 spin kicks

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Success Will Write Apocalypse Across The Sky – The Grand Partition and the Abrogation of Idolatry [Review]

Posted on April 10, 2009 | 1 comment

The Grand Partition And The Abrogation Of Idolatry is the first full-length release from Floridian Death metal band Success Will Write Apocalypse Across The Sky. The album was released April 3, 2009 on Nuclear Blast records.


Success Will Write Apocalypse Across The Sky SWWAATS The Grand Partition And The Abrogation Of Idolatry album art

When I first heard of this band, I really thought it would be a band along the lines of The Devil Wears Prada, The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, or one of those other bands with silly names. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this band is pretty much straight up brutal death metal. IT is still a real pity that this band had to pick such long and ludicrous names for their band and album.

The Grand Partition is a particularly refreshing dose of Death metal in times where most available music of this intensity and power is littered with cliché breakdowns. The most comparable band to these guys might be Skinless. Constant blast beats and machine gun-sounding double bass, along with brutal guitar riffs and gutter vocals abound. At time the album can steer in the direction of deathcore with the amount of tempo switches, time changes, etc. but it always seems appropriate, and never switches into breakdown mode (a refreshing change from most bands these days). As far as death metal goes, this band has got the brutal type under wraps. Beyond the fact that this fits very nicely into the genre, it sounds fantastic. None of the instruments are buried in the mix, muddy, or indecipherable (something that happens a lot to bands like this).

From the second it starts, this album grabs it’s listener from the genitals, and does not let go. The intensity level knob must have been broken, because this album never comes down from eleven. That is perfectly fine, because in a brutal death metal album that is exactly how it should be. The only real downside of this album (and every other recent brutal death metal album) is that there is not a ton of originality. But, as with genres like Power Metal, this can be a big plus if that is what you are looking for. For those looking to hear some good ol’ fashioned brutal death, this is a winner. For those looking for a brutal death album that is a bit more progressive, you have best look elsewhere. Regardless, this is an album that fans of the more extreme heavy metal sub-genes need to blast into their earholes.

Track picks: “10,000 Sermons, One Solution” and “One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy”

Overall score: 9/10 devil horns

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Brutal Truth – Evolution Through Revolution [Review]

Posted on April 4, 2009 | 2 comments

Evolution Through Revolution is the sixth album from legendary Grincore band Brutal Truth. It’s release date is April 14, 2009 on Relapse Records.

Brutal Truth Evolution Through Revolution

It takes something really special for a grindcore album to be a lot better than the other albums in the genre. Bands like The Tony Tapdance Extravaganza have figured it out with their last release, Danza II: The Electric Boogaloo. Brutal Truth, however, haven’t quite got the “it” factor on this record. It’s a very solid and pleasing grindcore record, and living up to their name, it is truthfully brutal.

For a grindcore album, Evolution Through Revolution is about as long as they come, clocking in at just over forty-one minutes. There is a ton of material on the album, but nothing that is really too interesting or different. This is both good and bad. For those who are simply looking for an all out brutal face-tearing riff and breakdown festival, this album is just that. There are no breaks, no breathers, almost nothing that steps out of the very little grindcore box. For such a long grindcore album, there should be a little more going on with it.

In truth, this really is one of the most brutal records I have ever heard, but with that being said, it gets boring fast. It sounds very chaotic, but it is pretty systematic from song to song (as much as a grindcore album can be, anyway). In the end, I enjoyed the album, and recommend it to fans of the genre, but would not really recommend it to anyone else. If you’re looking to check out Brutal Truth, one of their first two records would be a much better idea. Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses is their first and best album, but their second album, Need to Control finishes a close second.

Track picks: “Detached”, “Semi-Automatic Carnation” and “Sugardaddy”

Overall Score: 7/10 devil horns

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Winds of Plague – Decimate the Weak [Review]

Posted on March 20, 2009 | 4 comments

Decimate the Weak is the second full-length album by Century Media band Winds of Plague, their first with Century Media.

Decimate The Weak Winds of Plague album art

For the first time in a long time, I am confused by the contents of a metal album. When I first put on Decimate the Weak I expected to hear a pretty much straight-up symphonic black metal album, then out of nowhere they drop an unaccounted-for breakdown in the middle of a great metal song. Now, this would have not been a huge problem for me if it only really occurred once or twice, but it seems to be a reoccurring theme. I will give the guys a small amount of credit for being “original” and doing their own thing, but at some point should you not take a step back and think, ‘What the hell did we just create?’

There are moments of sheer metal brilliance, and moments filled with brutal breakdowns, but these two things never seem to have a happy marriage. It seems to be a strained coexistence that is, at times, painful for the listener. It is quite clear that Winds of Plague are influenced by a wide variety of bands, from Dimmu Borgir to something along the lines of As Blood Runs Black. It comes to no surprise to me that Century Media would pick these guys up, since they seem to like bands that stretch the boundaries some (see also: Zonaria, The Agonist).

The major problem with the album is that it is simply too short for the bands sound to manifest itself in your brain. With only 10 songs coming in at around 37 minutes (with an intro track of 1:17) it is tough to really gain any momentum when you are clearly influenced by two completely different styles of metal. Toward the end of the album you can finally start to get the sound that they were trying for, but missed the mark through most of the album. Beyond that, most of the lyrics are simply not very strong. The most wildly uninspiring of their lyrics are the more dethcore styled, where they recite things such as “You wanna see us fail? Not today mother fucker!” or “Fuck you! Get the fuck out! My face will be the last thing you see.”

Being that they are still a young band, and this is only their first major release, this band could do great things if they can get a hold on the sound they are looking for. Clearly creative and skilled musicians, once they get the reigns on the beast that is their sound, they might have something great.

Track picks: “Anthems of the Apocalypse” and “Legions”

Overall score: 6/10 devil horns

On a side note: It pains me to say this, but the album art for this album is awful. I love Samurai. Why did you have to have such a stupid album art depicting a Samurai?

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All Shall Perish – Awaken The Dreamers [Review]

Posted on August 30, 2008 | 10 comments

Awaken The Dreamers is the third studio release from All Shall Perish, a Deathcore band on Nuclear Blast records, hailing from Oakland, CA. The album’s release date was September 16, 2008.

All Shall Perish Awaken The Dreams

I didn’t really know what to expect coming into this album. The two previous All Shall Perish albums, Hate.Malice.Revenge and The Price of Existence, were straight up deathcore albums. I went to their myspace to check out the new tracks a while ago, and these were not ordinary deathcore tracks. They felt like a mix between All Shall Perish, Necrophagist, and Between The Buried and Me. There were some crazy riffs, a few crazy bass and guitar fills, and a whole bunch of other stuff that did not play a large part in their previous efforts. Upon listening to the whole album, only then did I realize that All Shall Perish really are trying to redefine their sound an image, and break down some walls – with force.

The first track on the album is a prefect example of what I am referring to. “When Life Meant More…” is backed to the brim and overflowing with new intensity that sounds very similar to that of Necrophagist or Between the Buried and Me. The technical shredding happens while the heavy parts lie underneath, and the song does not lose touch with what it’s supposed to be – brutal. It’s still got all the staggering rhythms and growling vocals, with little extra kick.

From there, the song becomes increasingly varied, some ranging more towards the old All Shall Perish, and some that stray away from the mold even further. The next song on the album, “Black Gold Reign” moves from the BTBAM and Necrophagist sort of sound to a more As I Lay Dying and In Flames sound. At about 1:50 in, there is even a power metal wail, which REALLY caught me off guard, but seemed very necessary. There is even an airy interlude for a few seconds, which would have never happened on other All Shall Perish albums.

But, enough comparison. This album really delivers in it’s own way. As much as certain parts of the album sound like someone else, it’s never enough to really give it much thought. Combing a huge amount of styles, they bring it all together in a neat little package. Quite little, at that: the album is only 36 minutes long.

The album does not pass as though it is only 36 minutes long, however. There are so many different things that happen throughout the album that it feels like it should exceed 50 minutes. The songs fit so perfectly together, and seem very lengthy at times toward the end of the album when the more airy drawn-out sections become more prevalent, and Story/Orem get into solo mode. All in all, this album is filled with very tastefully technical musicianship, something that really is under-appreciated in many cases. The sweeps, the weeping solos, the shredding, the chugging, it’s all used tastefully in almost all cases. On the opening track, there is a very significant amount of shredding, but is is lower in volume than the rhythm guitar, which is almost unheard of.

The vocals are also very well done on this album. They’re a good as ever and about the same as always; a couple instances where Hermida switches it up a bit when he adds in the power wail (and sometimes goes other directions with it) adds a small amount more dynamic than before. Also, Hermida’s enunciation is completely flawless. There are too many instances where a vocalist will forego enunciation for a lower or faster growl, but Hermida is completely uncompromising. The same goes for the bass and the drums – nothing new or overly exciting, aside from the fact that the production quality has been improved on these for this album (this is not to say they are not impressing, they just haven’t changed from the last two All Shall Perish Albums).

I thought long and hard about what I wanted to give this album for a score, and I really still rest undecided about it. Part of me wants to give this album a 9.5/10, but something seems wrong about that, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Track picks: “When Life Meant More” and “Awaken The Dreamers”

Overall score: 9.5/10 devil horns
Since I can’t think of any good reason not to give it this score other than the length of the album, I’ll go with my gut feeling. I strongly considered a ten, but with it’s “Colors” by BTBAM nature, it simply does not live up to that, which is a ten in my book.

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