Ringworm- Hammer of the Witch

Thanks to the deluge of shit commercial bands, more concerned with cranking out by-the-numbers generic breakdowns and sickly, saccharine melodies than Slayer-worship instrumentation, metalcore has become a dirty word as of late. Luckily genre progenitors like Ringworm are around to remind us it needn’t be returning with Hammer of the Witch, an album which shows that 20 years into their career, Cleveland’s prodigal songs aren’t about to rein in their sonic marauding.

Hammer of the Witch reinstates their renowned ferocity which went somewhat amiss on predecessor Scars, which while still a good listen, blunted Ringworm’s intensity and was the closest the band will come to a misstep. True to the namesake, this album comes down on the listener like a swift hammer blow to the skull, using the tried and true formula of modern hardcore-indebted grooves married with the scathing attack of extreme metal. Vocalist, Human Furnace, continues to be living proof that years of bourbon, cigarettes and relentless touring haven’t been to the detriment of his throat (in fact quite the opposite) with a voice sounding like the Furnace is caught simultaneously between a flagellation and an exorcism, spitting vitriolic, venom-laced lines like “Razor line, you feel the cold divide/Battle cry, open the devil’s eye.” Always at the forefront of the band’s signature sound, the guitars assault with all the exactness of a surgical incision, with more lacerating solos than you can shake a blade at.”King of Blood” harkens back to the halcyon days of early ’90s death metal with riffage which could have come straight out of the Florida swamps which birthed Altars of Madness. The rhythm section is equally as lethal with drumming which is precise yet bludgeoning and deep, striding bass lines on “Bleed” and “Leave Your Skin at the Door.” It’s not all denim-donning, headbanging appreciation though with the band showing why they are still favourites for basketball singlet-wearing kids the world over with tunes such as “Die Like a Pig” which at times recalls Cleveland peers and legendary hardcore band, In Cold Blood. The mixing and mastering is refined yet with enough low-end crunch that it doesn’t contrive the rawness of the product, a problem which so many bands these days suffer from.

Taken from brooklynvegan.com

Perhaps the one shortcoming of the record is that it hardly reinvents the Ringworm wheel, with the band treading the same well-worn path they have for years (“One of Us is Going to Have to Die” sounds suspiciously like “The Cage” off of The Venomous Grand Design). But in all honesty, who really gives a fuck? Where so many bands dive off the deep-end into wanky pretension and misinformed experimentation, Ringworm stay true to a sound which doesn’t show any sign of running out of steam anytime soon. It worked for Motorhead, Ramones and Slayer (to a certain degree) so really it’s a non-issue for a band of this consistent calibre. In fact in comparison to past albums like Justice Replaced by Revenge and Venomous Grand Design I probably rate it the highest out of Ringworm’s output in the last 15 years or so, a complete powerhouse of an album sure to be a favourite for everyone this year.

Stick Hammer of the Witch in your earhole and feel the ‘worm writhe inside of you.

Full of Hell- Rudiments of Mutilation (2013)

I first came across these guys a year or two ago and too readily dismissed them as another Entombed worship band because of their name, especially considering the deluge of bands playing this style lately. How wrong I was. Where other lesser grind/hardcore crossover bands follow a formulaic approach, Full of Hell, from Maryland, Pennsylvania, are sure to decimate any listener’s initial assumptions with a sound that carries identifiable traces of their sonic antecedents whilst still being hard to pigeonhole within a single genre. In a year where they have had to compete with releases from contemporaries like Noisem and Weekend Nachos, Full of Hell have stepped up with Rudiments of Mutilation, a brutal and uncompromising listen which still feels like it brings something new to the table.

Arguably Full of Hell’s number one strength is the atmosphere they conjure in their music, equal parts eerie and terrifying- it feels as if the production style was conceived in a serial killer’s basement. Claustrophobic howls and intrusive noise samples add to this effect, a central element in the album which asserts itself right from the album opener, “Dichotomy.” The vocals only evoke the horror even more through high pitched screams which could have come straight out of the wintery forests of Scandinavia, such as on “Coven of the Larynx.” The guitar work is simple and understated, working in unison with a corrosive bass tone and deadly concise drumming to create the aural equivalent of a face being bludgeoned with a blunt object, best exemplified on the track “Indigence and Guilt” featuring Weekend Nachos singer, John Hoffman. This humble approach to their instrumentation is one which benefits the band, for it is in their song structuring where the true flair of the band reveals itself. Songs blast between the ridiculously fast and the devastatingly slow with precision and unpredictability which ensure the potency of these various sections. While they play the crust-infused brand of hardcore which has become familiar in the last few years, Full of Hell take this template and smash it to smithereens, reassembling the pieces in their own twisted expression. They are masters of pace, exercising restraint and release which ensures an unsettling experience for the listener, albeit an exhilarating and fucking heavy one. There is an uncertainty as to what direction the album will go in next. Tension builds in the dirgey number “Embrace” with ominous spoken word vocals before leading into the crushing despair of “The Lord is my Light.”

The album is a noticeable evolution from their previous full-length, The Roots of the Earth Are Consuming My Home, which while being an engaging listen, is rather conventional in its execution. My only gripe with Rudiments of Mutilation its brevity, coming in at 24 minutes. Usually this isn’t a problem in hardcore punk which prides itself on cutting the shit, but Full of Hell explore such interesting areas sonically, such as in the expansive closer “In Contempt of Life,” that it would be interesting to see them delve deeper into the nuances of their sound, particularly the industrial/noise realms which are already prevalent. A true product of our Internet-era music eclecticism, this album contains something for any fan of extreme music, seamlessly mixing hardcore punk, grind, sludge, powerviolence and black metal. The band wears their diverse influences on their sleeve with a photo of the band floating around on the web showing each member with a band logo over their head- Darkthrone, Man is the Bastard, Cursed and pg. 99 respectively. The combination of these obvious influences pretty accurately sums up the unique Full of Hell sound which they have honed and refined on this record, attracting listeners who are diehard fans of these bands and their ilk but arranging the music in such a way that it doesn’t sound like a generic imitation. A recent Facebook status by A389 Records (who Full of Hell are signed to) described Rudiments of Mutilation as “the most creative, vicious and underrated LPs of 2013.” While the latter point is something which may be disproven in retrospect, the first two points are definitely applicable. Rather than being a definitive record for the band I think it suggests something more ambitious and darker lurking around the corner, marking them as a band with the potential to be in the league with genre-forerunners like Trap Them and Magrudergrind, whose success was built on their ability to breathe new life into the rancid corpse which is extreme music. Seven and a half thumbs up.  

Parents- S/T 12″ (2013)

Stalwarts on the New Zealand underground hardcore/punk scene now, Parents, come out with their first full length, a self-titled release in 12” format, which sees them taking their screamo/post-hardcore sound in the vein of bands such as Envy, Orchid and P. 99 and bringing in noticeable influences from post-punk and post-rock. Their recent live shows have been indicative of these changes, still retaining their ferocious punk energy while also exhibiting more meditative, brooding songs which build up into final, crushing crescendos. They have been able to encapsulate this diversity in their sound with amazing conciseness; sparse sonic landscapes are juxtaposed with claustrophobic, noisy freakouts…and yet most of the songs still barely touch the two-minute mark.  

 

Photo courtesy of Stacey Robertson

The album opens with “Clear Path” which begins with chiming guitars, progressing into shoegaze-like walls of sound before breaking into cathartic squalls of noise as the band return to their primordial screamo sound. There is more than a little noticeable relevance in the naming of the song as the band seems to have come into themselves with this record, exhibiting a newfound sense of direction and self-confidence. The musicianship shows an amazing level of virtuosity and interplay, with textures being crafted by the guitar playing and the intricate polyrhythms the drummer brings into the mix, two elements which are constantly working with and against each other, complimented by the abrasive, high-pitched vocals. It is an album of stark contrasts, a coupling of the chaotic with the sublime which can’t help but bring to mind comparisons with this year’s post-black metal critical darlings, Deafheaven. In “Poison Rain” melodic, appreggiated licks sit alongside dissonant, angular riffs, flitting between the two with speedy precision. They show a willingness to experiment with their sound on “Bound,” which is laced with ambient sections and intricate polyrhythms in the drumming. Finally, album closer “Insight” is an impressing, emotive track, the song continuing to swell with tension which finally comes to a head in the epic finale of the song with vocalist Simon Oswald’s repeated refrains of “I’ll never, never be like you”- sure to be a crowd favourite for sing-alongs.

It’s hard to find much fault with this album, it’s daring without being pretentious, complex without feeling too labouring. Likely to be of one of this year’s most memorable local releases, it’s definitely one of mine. Eight thumbs up.  

Iron Lung- White Glove Test (2013)

I was fortunate enough to see Iron Lung at the start of this year playing at the Winchester in Auckland and needless to say while being one of the best gigs of the year so far, it also sold me on a band which by that point I was only faintly acquainted with. The only material of theirs I was familiar with at the time was the album Life. Iron Lung. Death and even then I can probably count on one hand the amount of plays I gave it.  What immediately grabbed me about the band were their tight musicianship and the unbelievable energy they wield while only being a two-piece. They can veer from all-out, speedy hardcore riffage, to angular stop-start rhythms and crushing breakdown sections all in the space of a one-minute song or even less. Therefore I welcomed with great anticipation their latest effort, White Glove Power Test.

At 41 tracks it’s not the most accessible album and with the brevity of the song length it feels like the album passes by in one nauseating blur, albeit a thrilling, nauseating blur. In a way though this makes the listener consider the album as a singular work and the arrangement of this album lends itself to a concentrated listening session rather than fragmentary act of picking out the best songs in an album. Divided roughly into three parts, the album explores the parameters of the band’s diverse sound. The first section of the album contains their classic hardcore punk/powerviolence songs which their sound is rooted in, while the middle section pushes the limitations of this genre by exploring a more industrial/noise territory, an element which has always been present in their releases. The third and final part of the album is an attempt to merge these two seemingly opposing elements.  Mechanistic whirring and throbbing sounds find themselves thrown into a blender with the band’s existing sound, creating a claustrophobic effect which is made all the more terrifying by drummer/vocalist Jensen Ward’s cathartic screams such as on the tracks “Pain Directive (Merged)” and “Heirs to the Prize (Merged).”

The musicianship these two display is rivalled by very few of their powerviolence contemporaries as it seems they possess a strong musical telepathy with each other which has no doubt been honed over years of playing together. There is a strong interplay between Ward’s blistering drumming and Kortland’s unrelenting and inventive playing (his riffs often exhibit post-punk/noise flourishes) with the song “Containment” being a prime example as they flirt with plodding rhythms and build ups which explode into spastic moments. “Brutal Supremacy” too shows the ease with which they move through their abrupt, schizophrenic song structures, as well as other track highlights like “Stress Test” and “[sic].”

Iron Lung pay close attention to conceptual detail with their albums and this latest effort takes this virtue to its logical conclusion. Everything from the lyrics to the packaging and art of the release suggests overarching themes of the consequences of our increasingly industrialised, market-driven world. They take the overt political commentary of classic powerviolence bands and add their own brand of deep-seated misanthropy to it.

Obviously this album isn’t the easiest of listens, purposely making for an unsettling experience for the listener. The density of this album in terms of track listing, sound production and musical complexity means this album requires a bit of time and repeated playing to really get your head around it and it should definitely be listened to as an entirety. In the end though it is a damn fine listen and I strongly urge any extreme music fan to get their hands on it and if possible see them live. Get your profound hate of all things human on and jam the fuck out of this album.

Turnstile- Step 2 Rhythm EP (2013)

It’s no great secret that I’m pretty dismissive of all things ‘hardstyle’- a recent trend in hardcore which can best be described as bands which ape the ‘90s New York Hardcore sound, placing a particular emphasis on the heavy hip hop influenced elements within it. I just find it to be pretty fucking generic and nothing that earlier NYHC bands haven’t done already or more recently, Trapped Under Ice (probably the only band with that sound which elicits repeated listening by me). For that reason Baltimore’s Turnstile, who I regarded as simply a Trapped Under Ice side-project, have never done much to make me follow up on the odd song I’ve heard by them. After seeing the hype this EP has been getting on the internet I thought I’d give them another try however and with Step 2 Rhythm I find myself saying something I didn’t think I would about an album by this band- it’s actually quite good and I want to listen to it repeatedly.

Turnstile have done something which very few heavy hardcore bands are doing this day but is sorely needed and that’s experimenting. While their sound is obviously indebted to the NYHC/hip hop/Metallica hybrid which is all the rage at the moment they are expanding on this by exploring new territory. The guitars for instant, rather than simply churning out by-the-book heavy riffs, place an equal emphasis on atmospherics, breaking down into spacey arpeggiated licks which help to counterbalance the crowd moving moments and give them a greater impact. The guitar work is at its best right from the start with the first track, “7” with its ethereal guitar lead. The playing brings to mind obvious comparisons with legendary NYHC bands like Burn and Crown of Thornz however rather than being derivative of these bands they take their best qualities and give it a modern edge.

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/thatbassguykris/8088107644/in/photostream

Vocalist Brendan Yates also shows a willingness to try new things, making use of reverb heavy clean vocals and harmonies which creates a hypnotic effect especially when coupled with his bitter, personal-issue themed lyrics, musing on the album opener “Are you gonna lead me the wrong way? Take me out again? I’m not your decision, get me outta here.” He intersperses these within his trademark yelp which plays with the rhythms of the songs in a style which recalls Zack de la Rocha from Rage Against the Machine, especially when he borrows la Rocha’s tendency to punctuate songs with his classic “Oh!” exclamation. This is especially apparent in the song which opens up Side B of the release, “Better Way,” without a doubt one of the highlights of the EP and a testament to the ease Yates has in wielding these diverse dynamics. While all of these elements are hardly game-changers and have been seen to some degree in previous hardcore bands throughout the years it’s still refreshing to see a band which wants to push the contemporary mould.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this album is an instant modern classic and it still has its moments where the pit-pleasing mosh moments get repetitive such as songs like “Canned Heat” and “Pushing Me Away” which make the second half of Side A the week point of the record. However, it’s a step in the right direction and makes me all the more excited to anticipate there putting out something even better in the future. 7 thumbs up.

 

Nails- Abandon All Life (2013)

At a time when contemporaries of theirs like Black Breath and Coliseum have gone for a more groove-laden, riff oriented approach, California’s Nails have continued to crank the speed and distortion levels up (when they were already sitting at 11 to begin with.) Nails have refined their bastard crust/grind/hardcore/doom sound into something which can only be described as the musical equivalent of the world shitting itself and in doing so, created an album which will have many an extreme music fan’s tongue wagging this year.

Abandon All Life wastes no times with lengthy intros, opening the album with a split second’s worth of feedback before tearing into the aural assault of ‘In Exodus.’ This album is all about cutting to the chase and cutting the shit, clocking in at a concise 17 minutes which is most definitely a good thing. Anything further would be mind-decimating to be frank. The album very rarely relents in its hellish energy and songs like “Tyrant” and “Cry Wolf” would make you think that anything below 250 BPM is anathema for the band. This is not the case however as songs like “Wide Open Wound” show the band is more than adept at slowing things down and employing crushing doom metal sections in what is probably the highlight of the whole album. The album closes with “Suum Cuique” which seems to represent the schizophrenic nature of the band’s sound, moving seamlessly from sludgy riffs to Slayer-esque thrash freakouts and in turn highlighting the amazing level of musicianship the band has.

The production on the album typifies the thick, wall-of-sound style which is producer Kurt Ballou’s trademark, however where as Unsilent Death was more sparse and large sounding, Abandon goes for a claustrophobic approach which makes it sound like it was recorded in Josef Fritzl’s basement. Vocalist Todd Jones voice seems to be matching their (even more) caustic approach on this album, trading his rough howl on Unsilent for a muffled, high-pitched scream, which makes it easy to see why the band is often compared to Amphetamine Reptile bands, sounding like Steve Austin being exorcised. Already acknowledging the influence of such bands in the past, it seems on this album they are exploring this territory even further, displaying some overt noise-rock overtones. These are probably best epitomised by the title-track song, “Abandon All Life” and the dissonant sweep harmonics which cut through the latter part of the song. These flourishes are a large factor in why I think Abandon is slightly superior to its predecessor.

From start to finish this album is one which bludgeons the listener with cathartic noise which while alternating with tempos, doesn’t alternate the feelings of despair and cynicism which seethe through the music with anything even remotely positive. And that’s why this album positively fucking rules. Sure to be one to top end-of-year lists even as 2013 has barely hit a quarter of the way through, this album sees the band going from strength to strength with ease. Eight thumbs up.

World War Four- Demo (2012)

With only a demo out and a handful of shows played, this band from Boston has built up a lot of hype in a short time. Featuring members of notable bands like Floorpunch and No Tolerance this is hardly a surprise however and the quality of this demo shows they are more than worthy of the attention they’re getting. Dropped during last year, it’s a slab of classic, old-school sounding hardcore punk which brings to mind Warzone, Outburst and Breakdown. There’s a definite late ‘80s/early ‘90s NYHC vibe to their sound as well as smatterings of ‘80’s thrash metal influence which is obvious with their liberal use of guitar dive-bombs (always a good thing in my books).

Photo: Carl Greenhouse

The demo opens with the groovy “Intro” which sets the template for most of the other songs- blisteringly fast sections interspersed with the plodding stomp that Boston bands always seem to do so well. The vocals are standard hardcore fare, mirroring the rhythm of the songs in an East Coast holler which deals with typical hardcore lyrical subjects of betrayal and wanting to give cunts the bash. While it’s nothing new and the songs all follow a similar path, it’s relieving to hear a band playing hardcore the way it should be amid the current gluttony of shit metalcore and generic “hardstyle” bands. This band are at their strongest on the faster tracks “Can’t Take It” and “Crossed Path” which is a big drawcard when every band these days is cranking out predictable mid-tempo grooves. Definitely worth repeated listens and keep an eye on them for future releases which hopefully will be even better than this impressive first effort. Divebombs/10.