Plaiins– Happy Faces (Longbranch Records) [Spike]
If you’re after subtlety or restraint, Plaiins aren’t your band. Happy Faces is a brash, bruising debut that bolts out of the gate and rarely looks back. Clocking in at just over half an hour, it packs thirteen tracks of noisy, post-punk swagger laced with teeth-grinding distortion and sneering charm.
The title track kicks things off with a tightly wound riff and a vocal that veers between sarcastic bark and frustrated yell. Dirty Fish and Be More Animal take that same energy and crank it further, ragged guitars, punchy drums, and lyrics that feel like they’re spat rather than sung.
There’s a wild-eyed urgency throughout, but it’s not without a sense of humour. Tracks like Hotel Biscuits and Amazon Warehouse are full of irony and grit, throwing shade with a crooked grin. Executive Me is all jumpy rhythm and twitching sarcasm, while Special K feels like falling down the stairs in a glitter jacket.
The production is deliberately raw, pushing the rough edges to the front. It doesn’t feel thrown together, but it definitely doesn’t feel polished. Everything is on the verge of collapse, and that’s exactly where Plaiins thrive. Closer Four AM slows things just enough to let the dust settle. It’s not introspective, exactly, but it’s the kind of comedown that feels all too familiar after the racket that came before.
This is music made for basements and dim corners, played loud enough to drown out the doubts in your own head. It might not hook everyone straight away, but once it gets under the skin, it doesn’t leave quietly. Loud, loose, and full of personality. Happy Faces doesn’t ask for permission and doesn’t need it. A cracking debut that deserves to be played with the volume firmly up. This stuff makes this face happy. 8/10
Benefactor Decease - Abnormal Attachment (Xtreem Music) [Matt Bladen]
Sadistic Satisfactions is quite a restrained way to open a thrash album, a melodic slow build with some classical guitar playing, only the latter part of the song really hinting to this being a metal album at all. Thankfully Archbishops Of Death erupts into some early stages thrashing and any notion of this not living up to it's billing is brushed away by pit inducing riffs.
Benefactor Decease are a band from Athens Greece and they've had something of a stop-start career so far, forming in 2007 but not releasing anything until 2015 when their debut came out vi Xtreem Music. 10 years later and it's time for the follow up, Abnormal Attachments keeps the old school thrash assault nice and strong.
However Benefactor Decease have a definite progressive sound to them reminding me of Coroner, Dark Angel and Voivod, the frantic shape changing of the latter takes full schizoid form on Imprisonment Atrocities, where constant breaks shift into other styles and ever a bit of classical music in the middle, and of course those vocals which only move on from the whispered delivery on Technophobic Syndrome where there's a hint of Slayer meets jazz.
Benefactor Decease will challenge hardened thrashers with it's intense progressive shifts, though if any of the bands I mentioned are up your street you'll be awkwardly moshing I'm your chair. 7/10
Abhorrent Expanse – Enter The Misanthropocene (Amalgam Music) [Spike]
Some albums announce themselves with a hook. Others drift in slowly before the storm hits. Enter The Misanthropocene doesn’t do either. It arrives like a building collapse, chaotic, overwhelming, and strangely captivating.
Across eleven tracks, Abhorrent Expanse blend freeform improvisation with the weight and hostility of death metal, and the unsettling textures of avant-garde jazz. It’s not an easy listen but I don’t think it was designed to ever be so. The opening title track is all fractured percussion and jagged brass, like a demolition crew scoring a horror film.
There are moments where the chaos loosens its grip just enough to reveal space, Crystal Proliferation In Subharmonic Space and Waves Of Grace both feel like falling into an alien landscape where the air itself vibrates. Drenched Onyx takes that unease and turns it into something suffocating, a claustrophobic swirl of drones, distorted horns, and bass rumble.
The album closes with Prostrate Before Chthonic Devourment, a sprawling descent into slow-motion dread, layering piano, electronics, and subterranean rhythms until the last note finally lets you breathe. It’s a record that resists the idea of background listening, once you’re in, you’re in for the whole ride.
This is music that demands patience but rewards it with an atmosphere unlike anything else. Not for the faint-hearted but utterly absorbing for those willing to surrender to the noise. 8/10
Kallias - Digital Plague (AISA Distribution/Sony Orchard) [Matt Bladen]
NY/NJ/LA prog death metal now as Kallias, derived from the Greek word kallos, meaning beauty/elegance fact fans, delivers some beautiful brutality on their new album Digital Plague which deals with and I quote: "technological collapse, internal conflict, and societal decay through a modern blend of death metal, ambient, and orchestral elements". So just the sort of thing I expected going into the record.
What I didn't expect was hits how good it actually is, having taken a few years to come together due to line up changes pandemics and the like Digital Plague is the record that strikes at the heart of the modern world with some intense modern death metal. The band draw influence from tech death, symphonic death and Djent as well with bands such as Entheos and Soreption mentioned in any blurb about them.
A good thing seeing as Entheos' Chaney Crabb provides vocals on one team and Soreption's Ian Wayne adds lead guitar to the title track. Kallias themselves are Nicole Papastavrou on guitars/vocals/production/song writing, Chris Marrone on bass/vocals, Erik Ryde on guitars and Justin Gogan on drums and this four piece lock in tight across 8 snarling, technical, extreme metal tracks.
Cinematic, djenty death metal with plenty of chug and technical skill Digital Plague is a great return for Kallias. 8/10
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