Not much in the way of pre album info from the record company for Swedish death, grinding punks (thanks Facebook) Child, maybe they just want the music to do the talking so with that in mind time to listen to their latest release, the charmingly titled Shitgeist.
Everything sucks, everything’s fucked, no hope inside are the first cheery lines we are greeted with they are mixed with some wailing feedback before Shitgeist kicks into life and this definitely feels more on the punk side of things all be it fast hardcore punk and it’s a delightful bundle of noisy guitars, thundering drums and vicious vocals.
Mass Crowning shows its grindcore hand now and its textbook! Fast, maniacal, and unhinged and all in just over 1 minute, beautiful! Tin Foil Party People harks back to the crusty D-beat punk styles of the early 80’s but now mixes the grind in and this is just a glorious fuck you in music form having showed both styles separately they now mix them together in a furious and fantastic way!
Right, so melo-death is probably not my favourite genre. I suppose that if you have been listening to or have listened to the originators of that scene since it came about in the 90’s and weren’t really that fussed then, like I wasn’t then it needs to come in and be the best thing I could possibly hear in that genre. The music here is good, it does what it needs to do but it just doesn’t grab me at all.
Time Island manages to lever some death metal in there and as promised we now have had what they described themselves as, all the styles meld beautifully and create an unholy assault on the listener and never give you one second of peace and this is exactly what ‘’death, grinding punk’’ should sound like!
I Will Refuse clocks in at over 4 minutes which is a bit of a shock because after the onslaught of the previous 4 tracks this is just a complete U-turn stylistically it takes over a minute to kick in and when it does, we get a kind of echoey and atmospheric 80’s hardcore punk track but its just a bit odd? It’s an ok song but just seems a bit of a weird choice.
Golden Chasms goes back to the direct grinding punk style that has played so well so far and also has a nice mid-section that’s slowed down and provides more of the death metal chug and groove before Creative Inventions Of Killing gets you 2-stepping and windmilling round the room in a beautiful and chaotic hardcore blaze and shows that this is really what they should concentrate on as when they aim for the kill they just don’t miss!
Shame, Smite, Subside is another perfect lesson in grinding death metal, its short, sharp and vicious and over in super quick time, just like it should be! Glowing Kids is another epic (3:02) but this time they manage to not change the sounds or styles they just expand them and pad them out but not lose any of the edge.
Welfare Collapse is straight back to reminding you not to take your eye off the ball and expect to be battered again and again with another full-on grind baseball bat to the face. After the previous lessons in aural brutality it seems that with final track Swiper, Child feel the need to introduce another way to punish us so decide to throw in a sludgy, slow and doomy track for another surprise but this time there is no missing the point or stunting the albums progress, this is a horrible noise but it just fits in so well and shows there are so many ways to make a listener feel uncomfortable in the best possible way and is a flawless way to end a phenomenal album.
From pretty much the first second to the very last, this album was fucking incredible! It’s a vicious and brutal attack on your ears and lasts long in the mind after it finishes, the levels of ferocity and anger going through these songs are truly breath-taking and make for a painful but ultimately rewarding listen and barring that one odd song is practically a perfect album in every way! I pondered whether that one song was worth marking this album down, but I just can’t bring myself to do that to such a magnificent piece of work! This album needs to be listened to bey everyone so they can understand just how good it is! Trust me, you won’t regret it! 10/10
Red Sun - From Sunset To Dawn (Subsound Records) [Rich Piva]
Italian trio Red Sun are a psych/space instrumental band who’s third album, From Sunset To Dawn, continues on the path of their previous discography, bringing us mind bending spacey jams from under the Italian sky (stolen from their bio). I can sometimes drift from interest with instrumental bands, lets see if that happens with this one.
The short answer is I did not drift, as the eight tracks on Sunset To Dawn kept me involved and never dragged. This is why I prefer short bursts of instrumental rock and not always twenty-minute epics (unless you are Clouds Taste Satanic). I love the chill vibes and synths on Intempesto. A Violent Dusk is the most straight-forward rocker (for them) and has a super cool vibe to it. The Sunset Turns Purple has a cool little riff to go along with the chill spacey synths. One cannot not think of Hawkwind when hearing a track like The Coldness Of The New Moon, and this is OK. The epic closer The New Sun helps to finish us the story with no words, which is what great instrumental rock bands can do (see CTS once again).
Overall, the new Red Sun record is an enjoyable psych/space instrumental listen. The band can certainly play, I love the use of synths, the vibe of the record is very cool, and the band can tell a story without words. Keeping the songs shorter and expert sequencing of the album makes From Sunset To Dawn one of the better instrumental albums I have heard so far in 2024. 7/10
Once Upon The End - Archive 200 (Independent Release) [Mark Young]
And now a cheeky 4 track poke in the eye from French Melo-death metallers Once Upon The End. Formed in 2016, the 5-piece have been consistently releasing music since 2019 that has appealed to fans of Arch Enemy, In Flames et al.
From pretty much the first second to the very last, this album was fucking incredible! It’s a vicious and brutal attack on your ears and lasts long in the mind after it finishes, the levels of ferocity and anger going through these songs are truly breath-taking and make for a painful but ultimately rewarding listen and barring that one odd song is practically a perfect album in every way! I pondered whether that one song was worth marking this album down, but I just can’t bring myself to do that to such a magnificent piece of work! This album needs to be listened to bey everyone so they can understand just how good it is! Trust me, you won’t regret it! 10/10
Traum - Traum (Subsound Records) [Matt Bladen]
Drawn from the cosmic realms, filtered through transcendental soundscapes and delivered by a four piece in sync with each other and the universe at large, Traum, the debut album bur Traum is an instrumental journey through the furthest reaches of musical exploration where, rock, jazz, electronic, prog and psychedelic all combine through the skilful playing of Luca Ciffo (guitar/bass), Lorenzo Stecconi (guitar), Luca T. Mai (synth/sax) and Paolo Mongardi (drums) who spent a month living together in an old farmhouse to make this record.
Drawn from the cosmic realms, filtered through transcendental soundscapes and delivered by a four piece in sync with each other and the universe at large, Traum, the debut album bur Traum is an instrumental journey through the furthest reaches of musical exploration where, rock, jazz, electronic, prog and psychedelic all combine through the skilful playing of Luca Ciffo (guitar/bass), Lorenzo Stecconi (guitar), Luca T. Mai (synth/sax) and Paolo Mongardi (drums) who spent a month living together in an old farmhouse to make this record.
They shared mutual influences, cohesion and improvisation to make track such as Infraterrestrial Dub bleed seamlessly into the post rock intensity of Erwachen, nothing ever sounding like a clash or something different. As this debut album progresses, there's nods to pre-DSOTM Floyd on Katabasis, some Ozric Tentacles on the throbbing Inner Space and jazz rock from bands such as Diagonal on Vimana.
There's not much to say about this album, you need to listen to it to really understand what it's all about, instrumental mastery that so often is immersed in psychedelia. 8/10
Red Sun - From Sunset To Dawn (Subsound Records) [Rich Piva]
Italian trio Red Sun are a psych/space instrumental band who’s third album, From Sunset To Dawn, continues on the path of their previous discography, bringing us mind bending spacey jams from under the Italian sky (stolen from their bio). I can sometimes drift from interest with instrumental bands, lets see if that happens with this one.
The short answer is I did not drift, as the eight tracks on Sunset To Dawn kept me involved and never dragged. This is why I prefer short bursts of instrumental rock and not always twenty-minute epics (unless you are Clouds Taste Satanic). I love the chill vibes and synths on Intempesto. A Violent Dusk is the most straight-forward rocker (for them) and has a super cool vibe to it. The Sunset Turns Purple has a cool little riff to go along with the chill spacey synths. One cannot not think of Hawkwind when hearing a track like The Coldness Of The New Moon, and this is OK. The epic closer The New Sun helps to finish us the story with no words, which is what great instrumental rock bands can do (see CTS once again).
Overall, the new Red Sun record is an enjoyable psych/space instrumental listen. The band can certainly play, I love the use of synths, the vibe of the record is very cool, and the band can tell a story without words. Keeping the songs shorter and expert sequencing of the album makes From Sunset To Dawn one of the better instrumental albums I have heard so far in 2024. 7/10
Once Upon The End - Archive 200 (Independent Release) [Mark Young]
And now a cheeky 4 track poke in the eye from French Melo-death metallers Once Upon The End. Formed in 2016, the 5-piece have been consistently releasing music since 2019 that has appealed to fans of Arch Enemy, In Flames et al.
That influence is writ large over Dying Concrete, employing a mixture of the growls and powerfully charged clean singing against melodic patterns that run between frenetic and solid staccato bursts. Its all here, the emotionally charged ascending movements, the trem picked infills, harmony parts and yes, it’s good. But only good, on the strength of this first track its perfectively functional melodic metal.
We Are The Dead comes in with a gentle non-distorted introduction before the expected speed of sound metal breaks in. At the risk of repeating myself, its good, solid stuff but it doesn’t have anything there that makes it better or worse than the other melo-death bands out there. Their main strength is the incredible voice of Ezalyr, especially when the cleans are deployed. There is an amazing power within it that elevates the music around it.
Even saying that, the drop off in the middle here does suck the energy from it before they pick the pace up again. Moon Scavengers has an Iron Maiden vibe to it, guitar lines that dart to and fro but again they enter familiar territory that doesn’t offer anything really new. I keep saying this that there is nothing wrong with the music here, because there isn’t its just not doing anything for me at all.
Final track, The Old Ones rumbles in, deploying the striking cleans and growls to equal measure. Here, they show what they can do if they try to move beyond their influences because Ezalyr’s voice has that something that gives the music something more.
Right, so melo-death is probably not my favourite genre. I suppose that if you have been listening to or have listened to the originators of that scene since it came about in the 90’s and weren’t really that fussed then, like I wasn’t then it needs to come in and be the best thing I could possibly hear in that genre. The music here is good, it does what it needs to do but it just doesn’t grab me at all.
There is a definite audience for this, because it does have that voice which gives it that edge. They just need to play to its strengths. 6/10
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