Episode eleven already! 2024 already! Still, as messrs Emburey and Greenaway once said Time Waits For No Slave, so that’s enough of the new year platitudes – we’ve got heads to bang. Let’s go!
BESOMORA
Sydney natives Besomora released a six track mini-album at the arse end of last year which kinda got lost in all the end-of-year chaos at Sentinel Towers. I’m glad to put that right and bring Delusional Monster – for that is it’s name – to your attention right now, however. I think you’ll be pleased I did once you give it a listen!
Blistering death/thrash is the order of the day, with the band attacking the task at hand in exciting fashion on thunderous opener Vagabond and the perhaps more traditionally minded second track No Remorse, which I know has been receiving heavy airplay over on Editor Scott Adams‘ Death Deck in the sentinel daily office…
The release also features guest interjections from Archspire’s Tobi Morelli and Joe Haley of Psycroptic, but in all honesty, good though the contributions of those blokes are, you get the sense that this is a band that’s going to get where it needs to be in the near future without the need for celebrity leg-ups. Well worth a listen, and Besomora is obviously a name well worth keeping an eye on!
THE VICE
Filthy rock! Blackened metal! Death-ridden Pop!
Obviously, they had me at ‘filthy rock’, But Swedish death n’rollers The Vice offer all that and more on new album Dead Canary Run. It’s a bollock-bursting, chest-crushing, head-mashing melange they’ve cooked up on tracks like opening stomper Another Future, but thankfully the fun doesn’t stop there as the band absolutely lets rip over the course of eight sulphurous belches of glorious, death-affirming noise. Second track Tomorrow Will Mend is even better, led by some spectacularly bottom ended bass from Charlie and Rickard‘s on-the-edge-of-obliteration six string attack.
Rickard also offers up tar-pit tonsil torture, while Petter‘s drums drive the whole thing forward like some sort of Satanic tank formation bearing down on a First World War Trench. It’s irresistible stuff, to be sure, but crucially, at the black heart of the noise maelstrom the band come up with some spine-tingling, if completely chaotic, melodies to cause even more mayhem and stop the namd becoming just another groove-obsessed bunch of bozos. This is genuinely accomplished stuff we’re talking about. In a genre increasingly peopled with posers and clowns, The Vice sound dangerously, tantalisinglyl like the real thing. Give them a go!
SVDESTADA
To Madrid now, and the more straightforward charms of Svdestada, who purvey a teeth-rattling brand of blackened crust with a gleam in the eye, froth on the lips and evil intent in the heart.
Bands operating in this area often pay no heed at all to the niceties of the studio recording process, so it’s refreshing to hear a band who’ve clearly not shied away from getting that side of things right. It’s a while since I’ve heard such a well-produced slab of obscenity from a band at this level, so kudos to Iván Ferro, who gets every instrument sharply into focus. This is great, because Jorge Urosa‘s bass work is brilliant, as are the unhinged vocals of Mario C. Vaises, a man who clearly has a variety of bees in his bonnet and vents accordingly.
Etimero is probably my fave track here, a ripping mix of grind, thrash and crust that sets the bar high for everybody following in this genre in 2024. The band also cheekily throw in an eleven minute epic to round things out, further enhancing their credentials in this revieers eyes as being a band with a bit of the old ‘X factor’ going on.
KILL THE THRILL
French duo Kill the Thrill will probably be a name that’s familiar to a fair few of you reading this, and I’m glad to report that they have a new album, Autophagie, scheduled for release at the end of the month!
If you aren’t au fait with this delightful band then I suggest you make good on that heinous error pretty bloody quickly so that you’re up to speed when the new album comes out. Only then will you be able to fully appreciate monstrous slabs of post-punk grandeur like Capitan, an absolutely magisterial nine minute epic that, to my mind at least, is as good as anything the band has come up with in a while. Nicolas Dick‘s world weary vocals are quite, quite, superb as he emotes over the top of a droning, angst-filled backdrop that brings to mind names like Joy Division, Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground and Scott Walker.
Obviously this isn’t metal, despite the clanging guitars and big drums, but my word it packs just as intense a punch as anything else in the column this time around. If you’ve an ounce of soul in you, I defy you not to be moved by the absolute scenes this band paints in musical form – utterly mesmeric and completely fabulous!
DOOMCRUSHER
Much more modern sounding are our last act for this episode, Germany’s Doomcrusher. Newly signed to uber-label Arising Empire, the band have dropped this rather sparkly slab of modern metalcore, Breakout.
It’s a chest-beating belter of a track, natch – watch the video below if you don’t believe me – but at it’s heart, it’s pounding metal heart – there’s a gratifyingly traditional commitment to songsmithery, good playing and good, leather lunged bellowing.
Of course, it’s all swathed in ‘drops’ ‘breakdowns’ and the like, but my bottom line is always ‘can I bang my head to this’ and, when you strip the electronica back the anser to that has to be a resounding yes! As a first taste, this is pretty tantalising, and I can’t wait to see what else these guys come up with when they get around to dropping the full-lengther on us, hopefully in the not too distant future. Good work you blokes!
That’s all then for this episode. As ever, I hope you enjoy at least some of what we managed to dig up this time around!
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