SEVEN – INFERNAL COIL Burning Prayer of Infinite Hatred
Infernal Coil is the most diabolical and fucked in the head band you will hear today!!! They hail from Boise, Idaho and have created another ULTRA strong debut with four-song tape Burning Prayer of Infinite Hatred. What you’ll hear when you press play is pure unhinged sonic punishment that will become an audio drug that will leave you in a state of disarray. You need to do the math yourself – have a listen to Burning Prayer of Infinite Hatred and tell me this band doesn’t fucking RULE!!! You better hurry up and head over to their web store to pick up a copy and a tee NOW!
SIX – CHEPANG Lathi Charge
Themes of class warfare and discontent for the status quo need to remain strong in contemporary music, and luckily, the NYC/Nepal quintet Chepang are here to grind away the capitalist class and help you unlock your revolutionary potential! The band’s newest release, Lathi Charge, is packed with raw emotion and a serious sense of urgency among lower classes of people to recognize their potential and take control of the state. Just to be clear – a lot of the content on the record deals with Nepal’s political climate, however, you shouldn’t need a fucking political scientist to tell you that class warfare and oppression intersect all over the world. It’s records like these that make heavy music and politics accessible to audiences everywhere. Because of Chepang, some kid who feels beaten down by the system has just found the motivation to give resistance another try. Sure, you can have great grindcore without any politics attached. Shit, you can even have engaging politics with no grindcore attached, but why the fuck would you wanna do that when they are so goddamn good together! Lathi Charge gets a 10/10 for being unapologetic on all fronts. Yuppie assholes go to school for years to achieve the insight this record drops in roughly eleven minutes, and what an incredible fascist-punching eleven minutes it is. So what are waiting for? Hit play below, and have a Molotov cocktail or two.
Read the full review here…
FIVE – UNYIELDING LOVE The Sweat of Augury
Sometimes, just sometimes, I feel the need to shove aside my lofty notions that Extreme Metal should mean something. That it should explore the depths of the human condition. Sometimes, I just want to hear something that is viciously callouses and devastating. Thankfully, noise-terrorists Unyielding Love recently came into my life and unleashed eight songs of shrapnel infused chaos entitled The Sweat of Augury.
Exhumed from Belfast, Ireland by the always consistent Sentient Rune, The Sweat of Augury is a voracious assault of top-notch Grind. My initial reaction to Unyielding Love was that they have some sort of Metal Ouija board and conjured forth the spirit of the legendary Discordance Axis. But honestly, as my time with this record increased, I realized that it would be unfair to draw those comparisons. And I don’t mean that as a disservice or a strike against Unyielding Love. They do pull forth from the grave of that influence. Yet, they truly embody their own sphere and sonic entity. One will find layers to be pulled back like a surgeon preparing to do open heart surgery on this release.
Read the full review here…
FOUR – WAKE Sowing The Seeds Of A Worthless Tomorrow
Calgary, Alberta, Canada’s WAKE has been a widely revered band from the get-go, receiving love from members of many popular hardcore, grindcore, and powerviolence acts and has become a duly noted grinding force of abnormal nature since their inception in 2009. With a consistent touring schedule having them trek through North America and Europe there has been a lingering wonder in my mind where the time comes to write and record several releases, which is no easily accomplished feat. They present forth a brand of ferocious grind that stands out in a crowd of bands that tend to run together most of the time, and leave you wanting more and expecting more of other future releases, both in and out of the genre. They do their best to merge the worlds of hardcore punk and grindcore, and, in my mind, do it really damn well. Everything WAKE has put out so far has been in a category of favorites of mine that last over time. I find these constantly nagging at my mind and making me itch for another listen. Sowing The Seeds Of A Worthless Tomorrow is their third full length and does not do a single thing to deviate from their path of sending their releases into my favorites bin.
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THREE – SEX PRISONER Tannhäuser Gate
From start to finish, this record puts all who attempted to make music in 2016 to shame. The Tuscon legends offer us 16 absolute bangers to fight, fuck, and most importantly, lift to. If you’ve been around hardcore/power violence at all for the last couple of years, then you already know that my rambling about the band’s sheer power is futile. The Kennedy brothers are the Salt ‘n Peppa of Power Violence; Gilbert Flores is a fucking human drum machine; and that guy they have on guitar…he’s okay, too! Look, people – at this point, it’s safe to say that there are only two kinds of records that exist in this world: shitty records and Tannhaüser Gate. Grab a drink, fight a stranger, and blast this record until you’ve lost all your friends. You won’t regret it.
Read the full review here…
TWO – VERMIN WOMB
From beginning to end, Decline violently delivers wave after wave of straightforward, interminable misanthropy with razor-sharp precision. Opening track “Entomb” lights the wick immediately, blasting away through thick walls of dissonant riffage and guttural barking, creating an atmosphere of pure disgust that will carry over all 10 tracks of this devastating piece of work. “Industrialist” follows suit, grinding bones into dust and shredding the senses before slowing down briefly, showcasing the band’s abilities to bend genres and traverse into thick and mucky doom territory. The cessation of blast beasts is brief, however, and the unforgiving stream of chaos returns for “Disrepair,” a one-minute long blast of filthy, ear-splitting grind-done-right. “Present Day” and “Rank and File” are next up, further exalting the band’s disdain for the human race with calloused rigor. There is an overwhelming feeling of negativity that envelopes this release, along with a sense of total and complete claustrophobia, heightened by drummer JP Damron’s constant signature changes and McCarthy’s sludgy, low-end riffing. The next several tracks continue to eviscerate and brutalize before closing with the monstrous “Cancer,” a summation of all of the aforementioned traits rolled into one, giant ball of cruel and abusive turmoil. Decline is a violent and threatening expression of nihilistic contempt that stands as a stark reminder of all that is undoubtedly wrong with the world that we live in.
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ONE – MAGRUDERGRIND II
Rest assured that time has been good to Magrudergrind. Their sophomore full-length, simply titled II is a voracious assault that pulls no punches. Dragged forth into the sunlight by Relapse Records, this fifteen song anthem of anger and frustration proves one absolute truth about this band: that there is no rust in their collective spokes or arthritic limbs to be found among them. II jumps well past the point of their previous records, with a more refined and mature take on the often beaten-into-the-ground sonic approach that many self-styled Power-Violence bands take. While still rooted in the bombastic, in your face attitude and delivery of their previous releases, II has a much more streamlined sound to it. I would never say that Magrudergrind’s previous albums sounded sloppy by any means. They’ve always been a consistent domestic abuser of my eardrums. But II just sounds so much more, well, tighter than anything else they’ve done. So it’s safe to say that the six years and tempering of their sound – as well as a new drummer – has payed off in shovel-loads of glorious, back-breaking Grind/Power-Violence.
Read the full review here…
