Let’s face it. Bandcamp, Soundcloud, DIY digital distribution tools, affordable and user-friendly home recording software, blogs, file-sharing, affordable digital PR and all these new and often free media technologies at the disposal of bands and musicians have made making and releasing music almost laughably easy in present times. It is therefore virtually impossible to follow and cover everything that is coming out of the underground these days, let alone everything of quality there is lurking in the shadows, which, although lost in a sea of shit, there is a lot of, and unfortunately most of it goes unnoticed, lost in the bunch, or even given that it does get noticed somehow, often there isn’t simply enough time to dig into it all. Wherever you look, there are online streams, downloads, all kinds of links and Facebook band pages popping up like mushrooms from new artists trying to make their music known online. While a shitload of independent punk and metal these days is totally forgettable or just plain out poser bullshit, a lot of it is also very good and is unforgivably unheard of, and therefore deserves to be heard and talked about or even just pointed out to say the least. The problem is finding the fucking time to sit down, listen to it all, elaborate an opinion on it that isn’t just the result of a rushed first impression and then write about it. When you haven’t even finished listening to one awesome demo that’s when fucking ten more independent or super obscure releases then land on your desk and bury you.
With all the shit there is flying around, and with today’s self-publishing tools enabling even more music to be recorded and released, a human’s lifetime would simply not be enough time to cover all the good shit coming out these days with a conventional approach. Therefore, condensation is necessary and time management is essential. This new series was born for this purpose, to cover all that is worthy without having the feeling of drowning in it and or having the feeling that great shit is being overlooked. It is basically a place about music that speaks for itself. Music that is that good and worth checking out and supporting, that all you need to do is click the links provided, hit play on the streams, check it out and judge for your self. Most of the time, when the art and craft is unmistakably good, many words are not necessary, and all is needed is a place where cool shit can be found. And I like to think that this is THAT place.
DEATHWINDS: Endless Wastelands
Completely unfuckwithable, Deathwinds from Vancouver BC are a fucking war zone of a band. They play an incredibly hostile and vile splicing of d-beat crust and black metal. The riffs are starving and putrid slashes of violence that rip through your ears like rats trying to eat through your skull. Deathwinds have something in common with Burzum, Darkthrone and early Bathory, but then their belligerent and filthy black metal aesthetic gets heavily contaminated by Totalitär and Anticimex-like rhythms and song structures and driven by an unrelenting d-beat attack. At a certain point, you just can’t tell if you’re listening to the ugliest punk band ever existed or to the filthiest black metal band around, but you do know one thing: that what you’re hearing is fucking awesome. The band is formed by members of the equally awesome Radioactive Vomit, another battlefield-like, plague-like, holocaust-sounding blackened d-beat band from Vancouver as well. So, bottom line: check em out both, as it’s impossible to tell which one is better, although Radioactive Vomit haven’t come out with anything new since last year at last at this point.
INFINITE WASTE: Ghost Town
Infinite Waste are a stoned out grind/powerviolence band from Oakland, California, and Ghost Town is their first release under the new moniker and with the new lineup. The band rose from the ashes of Oakland stoner-punk juggernauts Burning Monk and have since then decided to set their music on a way more insane and intense trajectory, still utilizing their staple noisy and angular fuzz-bloated riffs, but playing them at four times the speed and with the rage and intensity of bands like Nasum, Dropdead, Converge and Burnt By The Sun. Don’t miss out on these great stoner-grinders, if you like shit to be fast and pissed off with zero pretentiousness or elitist bullshit, then this band is for you. Fast, powerful and ugly, just how it should be.
BLOODMOON: Voidbound
Bloodmoon are a trio from San Luis Obispo, and Voidbound is their second album. It’s been out for a while now, as a digital version on Bandcamp, as a handmade CD-R and on cassette tape, although it appears a vinyl version is on the horizon as well. This self-released second opus by the Californian band is a timeless splicing of early Katatonia, Yob, Primordial, Paradise Lost and some post-metal innuendos in the vein of Ghost Brigade and Mouth of the Architect. Their songs are long and winding dirges of inconsolable gloom thrust forward by frenetic drumming, restless basslines, and towering guitar harmonies. Epic metallic and soul-wrenching progressions that bring to mind Neurosis while remaining firmly rooted in gothic and blackened doom. A release not to be missed for any fans of post-metallic atmosphere and melodic doom alike.
DAKHMA: Self-Titled
In ancient Persia, a “Dakhma” was a tower-like structure used for sky-burials, where bodies were left on the top of the structure to rot in the sun and for the birds to feast on. Dakhma is also a super rad blackened crust from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and just like the name they bear, the music they play sounds like death by starvation, war, disease and exposure to the elements. Their music, seeing the light for the first time on this self-titled EP, is a fucking war zone of terror and literally sounds like decay, decline and ruin becoming sound. The bass heavy sound and angular and corrosive guitar riffs bring back to mind bands like His Hero is Gone and Iskra and the finest hour of the best nineties war-crust and of top grade Spanish crust bands like Leadershit, Ekkaia and Ictus. The desperate and hostile vocals add even more character to the music, and overall this debut demo by the band is solid as fuck and one of the best crust-grind hybrids currently out there.
