Review: Gatherer: "Postcards" EP (2012, self-released)

Genre: Post Hardcore

Location: NJ, USA

Band Website: Bandcamp 

Label: - (self-released)

I just want to throw it on the table, that I am not such a big fan of post hardcore. However, when records are THAT GOOD, I can't help but get in line and accept the fact that some post HC bands out there are really doing something great, and something new.

Gatherer belongs in this category of bands who are pushing the agenda and are making music that is truly great. This EP of theirs contains 4 songs, each one of them displaying its own personality and conveying a unique set of feelings. The overall atmosphere Gatherer creates is one of desolation, loneliness, even despair. But they manage to escape the melodramatic, sad bastard category that so many other bands inevitably fall into. And this is because Gatherer gives off an air of intelligence, intricacy and progression. All the songs are short, beautiful and straight to the point, in and out before you know it and leave you wanting more.

The production sound throughout this EP is very nice and clear, with mildly distorted guitars doing their discordant thing, while the bass fills all the gaps with a warm and rounded sound. Indeed, this is how to do stuff. By paying meticulous attention to their sound, Gatherer succeed to present their work without being lost in translation (i.e. a bad recording or a sound that belongs to a different style). The drumming is also very well placed, changing a lot of rhythms but mainly staying on the slow to mid tempo, with clever patterns sticking to that aforementioned post HC notion. Last but not least, the vocals have a lot of personality and speak directly to you, letting all bottled up feelings out (but without trying to much to sound like the problem child on behalf of the vocalist). Just straight out HC kids doing a different thing, that's all.

Summing up, it's a rare thing these days to put a record on and get the feeling that it ended to soon. This is when you want to stop whatever you're doing at the moment and play the record again. This is what I've been doing in this case, and I am very glad about it!

Gods of Chaos - "March into Perdition" stream

Genre: Grind/Post Hardcore

Location: Zagreb, Croatia

Band Website: Bandcamp

Label: The Path Less Traveled Records

These guys take the lead from pioneering post-grind bands like the Locust, and add their own extra level of craziness and multi-layered noise. You might need to approach records like this with a certain level of patience and an open mind, but it's all worth it; after all, I know that there are enough freaks out there who are constantly looking for the most innovative and extreme forms of HC. So here it is!

P.S. Record Label The Path Less Traveled needs a special mention here, as it has been releasing lots of mind-twisting modern analog noise (including Imbroglio, one of the nastiest and most intriguing metal/hardcore bands to hit the streets in our times). Make sure to check them out!

Review: Putrified - "Neurotic Necrotic" (2012, Full length, Hellthrasher Productions)

Genre: Old school death metal

Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Band Website: Myspace

Label: Hellthrasher Production

Most of the death metal that circulates these days has a clean production and tends to focus on technical proficiency and whatnot. This has nothing to do with the type of death metal that Putrified proudly churns out. What we have here is a celebration of unholy and cultish death metal, which focuses more on the deliverance of an unholy feeling rather than a display of crunchiness and speed.

Like all old school death metal, Putrified contains a certain amount of thrash. But fear not extreme metalheads, this is not the kind of lame Bay Area type thrash rehash going on. On the contrary, it is the thrash that bands like Possessed, Hellhammer or even very early Sepultura played back in the day: filled with blood, guts and other wonderfully disgusting ingredients that make simple thrash step up to seriously evil thrash. Of course these elements are melted into the unforgiving death metal pot, creating a fearful and crushing mix of pure old school death. There are enough blastbeats to satisfy you, with a perfect sound on the drums that really needs to be praised and studied. Fuck yes. The snare drum will mercilessly open a hole in your skull if you play this record loud enough. Like you'd expect from a record like this, the guitars and the bass are of course 100% distorted, with a rough but also very meaty sound.

I very much like the fact that some death metal bands still stick to the occult themes and topics. It shouldn't all be about gore and/or and social hate. We need to stay down with the occult! And this is what Putrified does. Song titles like "The Land of Pharoes" and "Temple of Vomit" may convince even the most sceptic out there. There is a good dose of humor but also a lot of nastiness and this is just what we need in death metal today. Enough with the serious posing, make death metal that is extreme and fucking necro! I shouldn't forget to mention that all these dark as fuck themes are sung with furious death metal vocals, which have a very thick, hateful and face melting approach.

Neglecting this record in the pile of "to review" during the last few months makes me regret not looking into it earlier. Boy had I been missing from the real action. From now and on, I'll make sure to review all Hellthrasher Productions records as soon as I get them!

Lose the Life (Sweden, SXE Hardcore) Live in Athens!

Tonight, if you live in Athens and are looking for some brass knuckled hardcore action, you got a place to go. Lose the Life is a Swedish band that plays hateful straight edge hardcore, in the vein of what used to be called "Clevo-core" (short, heavy & fast, based on hardcore bands from Cleveland with a trademark heavy SXE orientation). Lose the Life will be accompanied by some very good local acts ranging from grind/fastcore to modern crust/dbeat. The show is brought to you by WAK, a label/promoter that has been constantly bringing good ol' underground HC to our country for a long number of years.

This show is also co-powered by Bamboo Vegan, a shop I happen to be a part of!

Record Review: Dephosphorus/Wake Split 7" (7 Degrees Records)

Genre: Crust/Black Metal/Post-Grind

Location: Greece (Deph.) / Canada (Wake)

Band Websites: Dephosphorus, Wake

Label: 7 Degrees Records

This 7" split between Depshosphorus and Wake, released by post-grind label 7 Degress Records (Keitzer, Gadget, Zodiac a.o.), is an abrupt display of excessive sonic violence. This assault lats just below 11 minutes total, and it is an equally chaotic and tight grind punch to the gut. Simply put, this music is mayhem put on wax.

To take first things first, Dephosphorus blast off with their brand of psycho crust grindcore meets black metal. I swear I can't decide if this is furious blasting BM, or if it's sped-up crustcore with gind elements. In either case, this shit is good! All of the songs are around the 1:30 minute mark, providing just enough time for the chaos to be splattered before it's all over. The whole sound is tied onto a dirty, underground production with an uholy black metal tone. The crusty black vocals remind you that this is pure underground evil, but they don't forget to include some HC spoken parts! This is what we need, people. As a cherry on the cake, there is some intelligent riffing too, adding a nice touch of modernistic post grind notion. It is really a nice example of the oldschool meets the new!

Canada's Wake have a wholly different sound and approach. Their three songs are closer to modern Euro grindcore, but with an emphasis on the "grind" part of the definition. They interfere a lot with the change of tempos, splitting things evenly between the slow & groovy, the pure grind blast and of course the beloved crusty d beat! These guys go even further with the intelligent parts, to the point that they could even be considered tech-grind. They have a nice bass-heavy production and an overall sick sound which makes you imagine cold, dark hospital rooms filled with zombies. The vocals on this side of the split are more loyal to the grind tradition but also have a guttutal HC style that is better than the gore/brutal death vocals that are more common on this type of grind splits.

Summing up, we've all heard many grind 7"s and what unfortunately happens in many cases is that the two sides begin and end with the sole emphasis on ferocity without sunstance, that leaves you with nothing much. This, however, is NOT the case with this split. Both bands have paid a lot of attention to their sound and have worked a lot on the tracks, and have maintained that very much needed level of grind catchiness. Fair enough, grindcore is an extreme form of music, but that doesn't mean it should be incomprehensible! So if you want to learn how it's done, check out this 7"!!!