Agowilt "Clocks Made Of Their Own Bones"

"Clocks Made Of Their Own Bones" seems to be the first release of California based band Agowilt. Agowilt play this dark, chaotic, primitive mixture of powerviolence-meets-sludge-meets-black metal kind of sound and behind it lays a very DIY-Anarcho-Nihilist spirit. Imagine for example a crossbreed between bands like Clinging To The Trees of a Forest Fire, Bucket Full Of Teeth and Thou... on speed. "Clocks Made Of Their Own Bones" will be released on a one-sided LP by Human Resources Records in the very near future. One 17 minute song compromised of a noise introduction and three parts. It kills. Check it out.

osteoarthritis

Black Mass "Of First and Last Things"

If you're into the brutal and dark side of hardcore and you still haven't heard of U.K's Black Mass then you are clearly missing it big time...

Black Mass have been around since 2010 and have at this point released a Demo, an EP and a Split release with Host. "Of First and Last Things" is a compilation and re-recording of all their recorded material to date, plus one previously unreleased track.

Well, what can you expect from a band that states on their Facebook page that their influence is "Horror, disgust and anxiety through tonal abuse and overwhelming volume."? Ridiculous and brutal drum discharges filled with the most dirtiest of the riffs that will carve into your flesh while fierce and vicious vocals will make your bones almost shatter. Black Mass aren't fooling around. They have got to be one of the most underrated bands in the midst of this darkest faction of hardcore. These lads grab a handful of genres like hardcore, crust, death metal and grind and blend it into this furious and evil potion to which is impossible to stay indifferent.

It's impossible to hear "Of First and Last Things" without banging your head or tapping your foot to the sound of it. The minute you start hearing the first track "To The Cross", they immediately grab you by the neck and throw you around like some rag-doll. The sound is perfect. Very dirty, sludgy and crusty. That's the kind of production i love. Just ugly, in-your-face and raw. You get all the evilness you can get from bands like Trap Them, Entombed, Cursed or even one of the bands mentioned on their page that i miss a lot, The Power And The Glory, all in one, but Black Mass is not just one of those copy-cat bands that follow this genre. Their tunes are fresh and never fall into boredom, just look into tracks like the infamous "W.P.P.V.B.T.Y.B",  the Entombed worship in "Left Hand Pass" and on the unreleased track "Corporal Imprisonment", tracks that clearly have a more death metal vibe attached to it. And one of my personal favorites, "Our Father" where they begin by introducing something else than just slamming powerviolenced hardcore, instead of physical damage here we get psychological terror as well, it almost seems the kind of stuff Column of Heaven creates. And i fucking love it. I can only imagine this band live: a wall of noise, bodies flying and thrown around, sweat, blood.

Listen, these kids can really play. By doing so, they are simply one of the best acts that the UK has to offer in this field of heavy music right now. Seriously.

"Of First and Last Things" will get a physical release coming in the near future through Witchunter records. Not sure if in vinyl although it deserves it for sure. For now, the band has made it available for free download via their Bandcamp. Until then the band will be writing, recording and playing shows over the coming months. Be sure not to miss anything through their Facebook page. Show some love and support the Mass.

Blackest of the Mass

Column of Heaven "Mission From God"

Picking up right where Endless Blockade left off, Column of Heaven released the more-than-impressive "Ecstatically Embracing All That We Habitually Suppress" demo in 2011, and has now returned with their highly anticipated debut 12”. While Endless Blockade hinted and flirted with the mix of noise/experimental music with power violence, this 12” sees those ideas taken to their endpoint, fully incorporating noise, dynamic samples, extra instrumentation, and experimental soundscapes into a metal-tinged power violence framework. Blasts of harsh noise and brutal hardcore mix with quieter, creepier atmospherics to make for an engaging and powerful listen from start to finish. This record fits nicely in line with the current crop of bands taking power violence in exciting new directions (Gas Chamber, Iron Lung, Hatred Surge, Suffering Luna, etc).

I've been into this release by Column Of Heaven since i knew it was out, and have been into it since then. Can't stop listening to it. The whole atmosphere is brutal. Whether you get blasts of powerviolence grind with cutting death metal riffs layered with blasts of harsh noise and really disturbing samples. What this band accomplishes here, to me, is something really and very exalted. It's not just killer riffs and insane drumming, it's beyond that.

"Mission From God" is a conceptual album influenced by “The Yorkshire Ripper”, from 1969 until his arrest in 1981, Peter William Sutcliffe attacked and murdered women in Yorkshire, England. Sutcliffe claimed God had told him to murder the women as he heard God's voice in his head. God sent him on a mission. The most brutal facts were yet to come and with them the consequences that would stretch throughout the years in that community.

The overwhelming majority of his victims were caught in the suffocating poverty that defined much of Yorkshire at the time. Many were involved in the sex trade. All were eventually united by Sutcliffe’s clear and extreme hatred of women which erupted as he bludgeoned, stabbed and beat his victims.

And that's precisely what i "see" as i hear "Mission From God". Thousands of images run through my head in a flash of seconds... the face of the victims, the clippings of the murders news taken from the newspapers at the time, Sutcliffe, the blood. Never an album made me feel like "Mission From God" did. Besides all of this conceptual background, the sound is perfect. We get these cutting death-metal riffs that reminds me older Napalm Death material and also the smashing brutality of Slaughter Strike, layered with harsh noises whose duty is to enhance this sonic experience to pierce deeper into our subconscious, while our brain is constantly hammered with brutal powerviolenced/grind drum beats.

But why would they write about a serial killer? Well, there are member(s) of this band that experienced life in the time and place of Sutcliffe’s activity. This work is intended to help purge oneself of the poison and unease that comes from growing up in Sutcliffe’s shadow, and to remind oneself of how that environment is inexorably part of our being. In a society that is absolutely saturated in violence, much of it directed towards women by men, it is easy to be unaffected by the truly horrific nature of Sutcliffe’s crimes. Years have passed since then, but the reality is that women violently lost their lives. Some survived attacks by Sutcliffe only to pass their remaining years tormented by trauma, fear and depression. Family members of victims took their own lives. The bureaucratic and police reaction was a disgusting farce: Sutcliffe was interviewed by police nine times and was ultimately caught only by complete accident. And this is curious, because in one of the tracks you can hear an interview with Sutcliffe where he states how he once failed to commit suicide, apparently his car got stuck in some rocks. How could a man, that deceived the police, failed on something like that? The police and powers that be simply didn’t care that someone was murdering poor women. It’s a reprehensible reality that sadly continues today all over the world. It’s a cold, terrible place and will likely always be so.

What is the Mission of God? To heal or to kill? There will be always wolves among the lambs of God. A mandatory album based on true experiences. Highly Recommended.

To feel this experience as a whole i also strongly recommend you to also get the "Soldiers Field" EP featured on the Survivalist Deathcult Bandcamp. Both releases are on "name your price" mode, so feel free to support if you want. For the real collectors, you can buy "Mission From God" on vinyl here. Thanks to Survivalist Deathcult for sharing this awesome and unique album and also the whole concept behind it, from where i took some of the paragraphs above.

wolves among lambs

Torchrunner "Committed To The Ground"

Can you hear it? The sound of the Apocalypse?

Fucking Torchrunner... bringing one of the most devastating albums of the year. "Committed To The Ground" is the band new full length that will fuck up everyone and everything. Really. Everytime i hear this album i'm automatically possessed with an unexplainable urge to destroy and spread anarchy.

Delivering 12 tracks in about 22 minutes, you won't even realize what hit you. Bringing an incendiary blend of grind, crust, hardcore Torchrunner's formula to chaos is on "Committed To The Ground" is absolutely devastating. Following these guys since day one, i knew that they were on to something and what they accomplished here is really impressive.

Grab some Converge and some Trap Them and then add some Napalm Death, blend it well... after that, double the dose. You won't get one second of rest after getting on this one, even the slow, sludgiest tracks like "Canon Cast", "Committed to the Ground" or "The Holy Are The Broken", that invoke the ghost of my deceased and beloved Cursed, will crush you deep into the ground in the middle of this whole this frenzy wave of destruction that is "Committed To The Ground". I'm more than excited about this album, it quickly became one of my favorites for the year and we will see it on very "Best Of 2012" lists for sure, i know that it will be in mine... without a shadow of doubt. Fucking Torcherunner... All i see on this is chaos, screams, pure fucking destruction, with this release these guys are way ahead of the rest of the pack. Along with YAITW, Torchrunner have got to be one of the most powerful bands in the dark/crust/hardcore/whatever-you -wanna-call-it scene.

 Don't listen to this, it will fuck up your life. I believe it will be released on vinyl (with a digital code) soon. Stay sharp here.  Highly Recommended!

head of the goat

Dr Doom "Everyone Is Guilty"

You like Nasum? Rotten Sound? And other acts that fit in the same profile? Then i present Dr Doom, delivering true grindcore from the Netherlands. Dr Doom features current and ex-members of Aborted, Atrocity, Dodechahedron and Herder.

The music on this album is in a perpetual state of explosion; every note is another package of C4 going off on your doorstep, and it is package full of surprises, but no happy birthday here! The riffs are fast, crusty, very diverse and occasionally technical, but always filled with a bestial ferocity. Drums echo the riffs astoundingly, with an incredibly human and frantic performance on the kit giving even more life to the music and animating even the most calm sections. The greatest departure from the established Nasum style is in the vocals: here the music is accompanied by aggressive unhinged screaming, where every word feels like it takes five lungfuls of air to be voiced. Just when one brief track has completely used its musical ideas up, the band shotguns into the next, never leaving the listener space to breathe or comprehend what happened until the disc has finally finished... and leaves you gasping for air...

If you enjoy razor sharp grindcore with a hint of crust/hardcore, this should be the next item you add to your collection. Dr Doom is alarmingly good at this style of music, and it’s rare to see a band in this style never lose step even for a moment in their race towards self-destruction and chaos. Buy it here.

march into chaos

Sküll "Demo"

Another band that I could not help noticing, in consequence of that previous band Katechon, are Sküll. Featuring 2/5 of Katechon, this band delivers some really heavy and brutal Grind/Death/Crust. These guys are also preparing a 7'' soon, so it's better for you to stay updated and follow their activity here. Sharing the same occult imagery as Katechon, this band successfully passes that dark universe to their music, making them to sound as bleak as a Francis Bacon painting. Loved the sound of this band and i hope to hear more from them really soon.

listen & download

Standing On A Floor Of Bodies "Hostile Carbon Units" Demo

Described no their Bandcamp as "sharp-as-fuck apocalyptic horror grind // equal parts bass, drums, vocals (male & female) // the end is extremely fucking nigh", Standing On A Floor Of Bodies (SOAFOB) play this lightning fast and sharp as a sawblade, grind. Their sound can be described as putting your head into a wood chipper machine. Pretty much it. Their name reminds me that sort of bands from the early metal/grind/chaoscore stuff like Found Dead Hanging, Bodies In The Gear Of The Apparatus. But SOAFOB's music sure takes no prisoners, It's 7 tracks in a total of 4 minutes for you to get the picture. Some of these tracks will appear on their upcoming full length called "Sacrilegious & Culturally Deficient". While that doesn't come out, prepare to be blasted to pieces with some serious fucking horror... Follow them here.

listen | follow the dead bodies road

Plague Widow "Plague Widow" EP

Nothing better than starting your sunday morning with some of the best new Death Metal that is being made across seas. Besides that, some of my blogger buds have already done their duty on spreading the word and now it's my time, although this one is too good to pass it by. Plague Widow are a very promising new Death Metal/Grind band hailing from Sacramento, California, and they play this awesome, blasting, bone crushing Death/Grind. It's like a crossbreed between Wormed and Portal and add that chaotic blasts from bands like Robinson or Rotten Sound, and the result is this. A vile, heavy-as-fuck, EP. The EP features 9 tracks, including an intro, some scary interludes and an outro, the songs are pure blasting voids of the best Death/Grind i've heard, and the sound of it is just awesome, that drum doesn't even sound human, it's sick. Can't wait for a full length coming out of these guys. No download for you guys this time. Go straight to the band's Bandcamp and buy this awesome EP, c'mon... it's cheaper than a caramel machiato at Starbucks and it's totally worth it, besides you are supporting these guys. You can also get a physical copy of the EP here and some more goodies here. Be sure to follow them also on Facebook here, in order to stay updated on what the band is doing. Absolutely recommended. 

listen & download

Skinfather, The Hunger & They Are All Dead

In for more of that dark hardcore? Yes? Ok, let's go.

From Orange County, California, come Skinfather. This quintet delivers 5 tracks of the most evil and furious hardcore, each tracks weights like a fuckin' ton and leads us into the realms of that abyss where the most vicious hardcore lies hidden. It reminds me a lot of Integrity but with more elaborated passages or a slower, sludgiers version of All Out War. So i guess that's cool.. uhn? 

listen & download

The Hunger is a relatively new hardcore band from the north of the Netherlands. Their sound can be best described as extremely heavy hardcore with a rocking twist. Influenced by bands as integrity, Ringworm, Cursed, Converge, Entombed and much, much more, you surely can get an idea. This band has been around for a couple years but i only discovered them a few weeks ago. I must confess i really enjoyed this 7''. Their sound reminds me a lot of Black Ships, Black Haven or even Rise And Fall. I just wish they would launch some new stuff soon.

listen & download

Next are They Are All Dead. A more heavy and powerful proposal. These guys come from San Francisco and this "Corporate EP" was launched in April 2011. These guys deliver Grind, Crust, Hardcore, you name it.. they will do it, really heavy. That's the key ingredient to their formula. Grind all the way...

listen & download

All of these releases took time, passion and money from all of the bands. So if you please, go to their shows, buy some tees, support them in any way you can. Do not just love Music, live it!

Knelt Rote "From Without/Insignificance"

Knelt Rote is a band that mixes a lot of genres, from Death Metal, Black Metal, Noise, Crust and Grind,  that in the end, forms this huge wall of vicious sound. It's two releases in one. You get the first one, "From Without" that came out in 2008, filled with short and furious songs, it's a more powerviolenced crust/grind that bring to my mind acts like Man Is The Bastard, Raw Radar War and early Napalm Death, but in a more incisive way... "Insignificance" (tracks 11, 12 and 13) sound more into Death Metal, the first two, "Immeasurable" and "Age" sound almost kinda like Flourishing material while "Constituent Of Oblivion" is a more darker, evil as fuck track... It may sound a little bit inconsistent, or not. You judge it. But i think these fellas are still testing the waters. I prefer a lot, i mean, A LOT, what they have created with "Constituent Of Oblivion". Fuckin' awesome track. You can get Knelt Rote stuff at Parasitic Records although "Insignificance" will be launched this year through NWP. Stay alert on these guys. Sorry about the low quality on this one, but it was all i could get... think that in this way, its sounds more kvlt.

listen | kneel before the wolves

World Narcosis

I'm tired as hell.. but still, i gathered some strength to share this dose of violence with you guys. This is ridiculously brutal. World Narcosis is a band brought to me by my friend Ægir, the drummer of Logn that also shares drums in this band. Crossing borders between grind and powerviolence, World Narcosis spit all of their hate towards the World in a 10 minutes manifesto. Imagine a crossbreed between Botch, Coalesce and add to that a little bit of Pig Destroyer. Short bursts of powerviolent grind that with the help of distressed screams will give you a frantic feeling in your ears. The production of this 7'' is awesome and every instrument is exactly where the should be. World Narcosis have shaped with success their own vision of hell. Take a look. Buy it here.

bandcamp | parade of death

Logn

LOGN: adjective 1. without rough motion; still or nearly still: a calm sea. 2. not windy or stormy: a calm day. 3. free from excitement or passion; tranquil: a calm face; a calm manner. 

From Reykjavík, Iceland, arrives one of the most exciting new bands that i had the pleasure to discover this year, Logn. Formed by a couple of young enthusiastic friends who just wanted to play heavy music bringing, each one, to the band their own musical influences, whether it was grindcore, crust or death metal, a storm was forming.. Unlike many other bands, Logn had that DIY attitude since the beginning, if they weren't booked for a show, they would create their own. And so they started giving gigs in their hometown, where soon they would start to draw attention to themselves. So after a split with the local band Manslaughter and a Demo entiled "Haust", the band sees finally their first full length out this year, "Í fráhvarfi ljóss, myrkrið lifnar við". With the help of good ol' Google Translator, the album title should mean something like "with the absence of light, darkness comes alive", something like that.

The album opens with the track "Klofnun sakleysis", half intro/half song, a heavy, dirty and caustic riff is about to crack the floor beneath our feet. The drum is just relentless, almost sounding like something truly primeval and the voice is so harsh that it could open cracks on the thickest wall. The attack continues over and over with a brutal mix of blastbeats tangled around some heavy crust riffs while we are systematically punched in the stomach over and over..

Suddenly the dark clouds open, and there's room to breathe, some peace arrives it the track "Í fráhvarfi ljóss" a much slower, dragged song, so it seems.. but just when we're gasping for some air, the sky closes in again and the storm rages on.. thats one thing i admire about this band, the ability to turn what seems a slow, sludgy song into furious grind blasts in a very well executed way. Not technical but almost in a very raw way, honest.. with guts and passion. "Salt í sárin" is a disturbing instrumental that with the help of the cries heard beneath, makes us imagine some twisted set. From there on we are hit with short shards of dirty grind violent songs. 

The end arrives with "Illspá II", what starts full of rage soon becomes melancholic, like a wounded and tired beast that refuses to die but just won't resist the lethal wounds anymore.. In Icelandic, the word logn is used in reference to a calm weather – peace - lull. The calm veiled a looming threat. The storm fades away, for now. Thank so much for Aegir for sharing this awesome album. You can tell it took a lot of work and true passion to bring this to the light (or darkness?) of day. So support them by buying this here. Super cheap price for a damn good album or if you would like a physical copy, contact these nice fellows at their Facebook. You can hear their other releases on Logn's Bandcamp and while you're there you can download "Haust" Demo for free. For a young band on the scene they surely demonstrate a lot of maturity on what they deliver. Highly Recommended!

bandcamp | in darkness there's no escape

At The Heart of the World & Quills

This is a split release between noise black doom influenced band At The Heart of the World who performs a slow harsh noise, with some sludge in it, but it's clear that it holds some Black Metal influences. In this split it presents some tortured songs not suitable for the weak. Meanwhile the grinders Quills, that feature members of well known Misery index and hardcore band Ruiner, is a straight forward grindcore band, who aims at playing super fast short songs. The more blast beats the better.. and thats exactly what you'll get in this split. They have a website with a hand full of releases you can get for free, but remember that all that is at hand took time and passion. So support them.

at the core of the noise

Rotten Sound

You know the following Finnish boys, Rotten Sound, they have released one of the most fast and heaviest albums of 2011, "Cursed". This is a special edition of the album, it contains 2 Bonus tracks. So if you're in for more 1 extra minute than the original album length, grab it!

myspace | fast music for slow people since '93

Fuck The Facts

I was talking to a friend of mine about the new Fuck The Facts "Die Miserable" and then he told me about this.. this "Misery EP", and i: "What??? Another one??". So i decided do to some research and really found it. It seems that the "Misery EP" was recorded back in 2010 and consists of b-sides and some other stuff that didn't made the cut for "Die Miserable". And since i didn't see this floating around the blogosphere.. well here you go. And what's the deal about their artworks lately?? Holy shit... Fuck The Facts gentlemen and dame, I'm available for freelance.

bandcamp | fuck the miserable artwork

Flesh Lord

"Codex Gigas" is the first release (i think) of the band Flesh Lord, there isn't much info about the band floating around. Basically in "Codex Gigas" these guys deliver an death/doom/grind sonic assault thru nine tracks all around the same concept: Satan is a cool, kill God. An avalanche of schizophrenic guitars comes just around the corner coordinated by a drum that seems to be in another division of the room, the voice is almost imperceptible, drowned in that wall of noise. I just wished the recording/production could be better, but let's wait and see what Flesh Lord will deliver in the future.

 bandcamp | Hail Satanas!!

Flourishing

Há bandas que realmente conseguem-nos espantar.. ou deixar estupefactos. Ainda por cima uma banda que nunca tinha ouvido falar até agora. Pois os Flourishing fazem parte desse pequeno e sagrado grupo de bandas que ocasionalmente conseguem causar esse impacto. A primeira reacção que tive quando ouvi este "The Sum of All Fossils" foi: "Fooooooooodasssse... o que é isto???" embora a primeira reacção ao ver o artwork do álbum tenha sido: "Que cena foleira... mais uma banda de indie/folk?" Mal sabia eu que estava redondamente enganado. 

Escapou-me o EP de estreia da banda, intitulado "A Momentary Sense of the Immediate World" que vou já tratar de ouvir, e de facto a sensação ao ouvir este "The Sum of All Fossils" é como se de repente estivesse a boiar em águas paradas e subitamente sou apanhado num turbilhão. A banda não segue regras, eles fazem as suas próprias regras. E esta é uma estratégia arriscada, pois bandas que não seguem este caminho geralmente acabam por ter um tempo de vida bastante curto, mas os Flourishing quebram esse molde e conseguem oferecer-nos um belíssimo e excelente álbum de death metal mais técnico com grindcore, extremamente bem executado em todas as partes, seja do ponto de vista instrumental e mesmo a nível de construção das músicas assim como as letras. 

Nos elementos da banda consta Garett Bussanick da banda nova-iorquina Wetnurse, que dá a voz que surge por entre os riffs acrobáticos amparados e desamparados pela bateria, as músicas são agressivas mas por vezes surge sempre aquele twistzinho mais melódico criando uma atmosfera mais emocional no meio de tanta brutalidade. Meus senhores estamos perante um dos sérios candidatos a melhor álbum de 2011. Ponham os olhos e de preferência os vossos ouvidos nisto. Altamente Recomendado!!

myspace | don't judge a book by its cover

Suffering Quota

Bolas.. tenho mesmo que começar uma rubrica dedicada a bandas descobertas pelo bandcamp. Esta é mais uma delas, Suffering Quota. Vindos de Groningen, Países-Baixos, consiste em quatro veteranos vindos da cena hardcore e metal. Esta Demo arrebatou-me por completo. Que poder. O som é bruto, qual pontapé na face, o som traz-me à cabeça bandas como Nasum, Rotten Sound ou Phobia. Como a banda aliás refere:

“We all like good music, whether it’s the hardcore from His Hero Is Gone and Cursed, grindcore from Assück (of course) and Phobia, the ‘screamo’ from Orchid or the death metal from Entombed or that once so famous ‘Bremen’ style from bands like Systral. We like it all. We even like punkrock as well! Eh… except the whimpy kind ofcourse!”

Muito bom. Venha mais!

get your quote of suffering

Dephosphorus

Os gregos devem estar loucos... e não é só devido à grave crise na qual já estão enterrados até ao pescoço. Esta loucura já lhes está no sangue, fruto de anos e anos de guerras, invasões, etc. Este álbum de estreia dos Dephosphorus, "Axiom", é um autêntico hino a essa loucura, definido como "astrogrind", feroz, brutal e atmosfericamente doentio tudo resultado de uma autêntica miscelânea de influências de black, death, punk, sludge, grind. A banda teve a bondade de disponibilizar o álbum gratuitamente para download mas convém salientar o belíssimo álbum que é na sua forma física e além disso têm à disposição algum merchandise que pode ser aquirido aqui. 

bandcamp | dephosphorize