Dead Heat’s Process Of Elimination comes roaring out the gate not as a reinvention, but as a sharpening of everything they’ve been building. Eleven tracks of crossover thrash and hardcore, this full-length is their most ambitious to date, heavier when it needs to be, tighter in the songwriting, and with production that lets the aggression breathe without suffocating in its own ferocity.
Opener Perpetual Punishment starts with a misleading calm, clean guitar leading you astray before the riffs and drums crash in with intent. It’s a perfect setup for what follows: Annihilation Nation barrels forward with pummelling rhythm and gang vocals that make you want to throw down wherever you are. Hidebound slashes with edge, while The Order and Enemy mix in groove-heavy breakdowns and faster thrash elements, pulling from ’80s crossover roots but pushing the energy in a modern way.
One of the standout moments is DH Stomp, an instrumental break that gives just enough space before the chaos resumes. It demonstrates that Dead Heat aren’t just about speed, they know how to craft pacing. By My Will channels raw emotional anger, revenge and defiance and lands like a punch. The title track Process Of Elimination drags you through tension and release: tom-rolls, creeping slower riffs, then an explosion of power that feels earned. Closing with Hatred Bestowed, the album leaves you breathless, not simply from heaviness but from the weight of what came before.
Production here is big but not bloated. Clear enough that guitar leads cut through the mix, bass that fills out the low end, drums that hit with authority. The loud moments slam because there’s space around them; when they pull back, you feel the tension in the silences as much as the clamour.
Lyrically the album is varied: every song tackles something different, not just anger, but ideas of resistance, frustration, promises broken, standing up. The emotions aren’t vague, they feel personal. That helps this cross-between-hardcore-and-thrash thing land with more than just nostalgia. It feels raw, relevant, immediate. Process Of Elimination doesn’t let up. It doesn’t pause to second-guess. And maybe that’s its greatest strength: there’s a momentum here that carries through all 11 tracks.
The album demands energy, attention, and commitment from the listener and it gives back moments that make it worth showing up for. Dead Heat have made a record that both rages and breathes. If you want crossover thrash that honours its roots but doesn’t settle there, this is one to own. 8/10
Vantre – Clonocracy (Self Released) [Spike]
Shoegaze has always been a genre that thrives in ambiguity, where emotion is carried not by lyrics but by the textures and tones of the instruments themselves. With Clonocracy, Vantre take that principle and merge it with the precision of math rock, crafting a record that is as cerebral as it is hypnotic. The eight tracks on this debut EP are meticulously constructed, each one a lesson in tension, release, and pattern.
Opening with Stomak, Vantre immediately establish a sense of controlled chaos. Angular guitar lines twist over complex rhythms, setting up a push-and-pull that threads through the entire EP. The title track, Clonocracy, follows, expanding the soundscape with spiralling riffs and subtly shifting time signatures that feel both mechanical and organic. It’s music that rewards repeated listens as each pass reveals a new interlocking motif or rhythmic nuance.
Tracks like Conan The Dog and Karni Mata Temple showcase the band’s playful side, combining sharp-edged riffs with hypnotic repetition, while Menstruosterone and Netavark lean into slower, moodier passages where the layered guitars create a sense of drifting through a digital fog. In Plastic Jizz, Vantre play with dissonance and delay, producing an unsettling tension that feels almost alive, before the closing Metha pulls the EP to a cathartic release, resolving the earlier patterns with swelling guitar lines and syncopated percussion.
What makes Clonocracy compelling is the way Vantre manipulate texture and rhythm to make the listener feel something without a single word. The guitars shimmer, clatter, and coil around one another, the drums propel and punctuate, and the bass provides both foundation and counterpoint. The music is dense but never muddy, demanding attention while offering layers to lose yourself in.
For someone who has spent a career around systems and patterns, the precision of Clonocracy resonates on a personal level. Each track feels like an equation solved with emotion; methodical, rigorous, yet capable of beauty and unpredictability. The album is a perfect demonstration of how structure and feeling can coexist, and in that balance, Vantre have crafted an unforgettable debut. This is intricate, immersive, and fully instrumental, Clonocracy proves that even without vocals, music can speak volumes. 9/10
Nyos - Growl (Pelagic Records) [Spike]
It's a new week and a new record from Pelagic Records. Lo and behold it's instrumental virtuosity that can be slotted into the "post" genres with a smidge of Avant Garde. Nyos are a Finnish duo, comprised of Tom Brooke (guitar) and Tuomas Kainulainen (drums), Growl is full of contradictions, even conflict, as Get Ready sees the guitar repeat a piercing phase almost like a Fairlight synth, as the drums take the lead, playing against themselves, in jazz rhythms before it all culminates together at the end for a euphoric conclusion.
These loops, the creation of atmosphere and the sheer brilliance of the drumming has led to Nyos being a revered live act who put their entire bodies into their performances, Nyos have been basically doing whatever the hell they feel like musically since 2014, working within the experimental framework of post rock they have never put all their eggs in one basket. Yes there's always been a use of looping, the joy of repetition and the dynamism it brings a core value of what they do but on Growl they have built on the looping style to add more depth and tension to their songwriting, from the unreeving Lo4, through the funky Harder Than Rain, the lo-fi realms of Walking In Moonlight.
It's a wider, louder, soundscape than they have attempted before and on Growl, Nyos stretch their musical boundaries again with excellent results. 8/10
Omnivide - Arise EP (Seek And Strike) [Matt Bladen]
Tech? Death? Prog? Omnivide have all three of these and flex all those musical muscles on their latest EP Arise. Called their most ambitious work to date, it begins with a intro called Prelude which I'm sure a many of my colleagues may hate but from there it's all guns blazing with angular, virtuoso technicality, jarring riffs and machine gun double kicks.
From their self produced debut in 2024 they immediately cemented their place beside the likes of Obscura and Ne Obliviscaris and saw themselves getting quickly snapped up by Seek And Strike going forward. Their first release on that label is this EP and they adapt their style by adding bigger symphonic elements, more synths, more drama drawing comparisons to BTBAM and even Opeth too, the latter coming on Tyranical Saviour.
After the Prelude, Void is the first track that brings you into the progressive and frankly mind blowing world of Omnivide, time lines move faster than they do on Doctor Who, the instruments are played the very edge of what they can do, drums pummel, bass rumbles, guitars intertwine and vocals shift between hoarse screams and crooning cleans.
It's brutal and atmospheric all at once as this Canadian band, explore a wider soundscape than they have before. Omnipotent for instance is techy as all hell but begins with some brilliant acoustic/classical guitar and moves into the most brutal track here as the swelling cinematics welcome the 7 minute Arise and if any song here lays the path for the next phase of Omnivide, this is it.
Moving towards the inspiration of bands such Blood Incantation, Cynic and even Atheist, Omnivide up the epic on Arise. 8/10
Vantre – Clonocracy (Self Released) [Spike]
Shoegaze has always been a genre that thrives in ambiguity, where emotion is carried not by lyrics but by the textures and tones of the instruments themselves. With Clonocracy, Vantre take that principle and merge it with the precision of math rock, crafting a record that is as cerebral as it is hypnotic. The eight tracks on this debut EP are meticulously constructed, each one a lesson in tension, release, and pattern.
Opening with Stomak, Vantre immediately establish a sense of controlled chaos. Angular guitar lines twist over complex rhythms, setting up a push-and-pull that threads through the entire EP. The title track, Clonocracy, follows, expanding the soundscape with spiralling riffs and subtly shifting time signatures that feel both mechanical and organic. It’s music that rewards repeated listens as each pass reveals a new interlocking motif or rhythmic nuance.
Tracks like Conan The Dog and Karni Mata Temple showcase the band’s playful side, combining sharp-edged riffs with hypnotic repetition, while Menstruosterone and Netavark lean into slower, moodier passages where the layered guitars create a sense of drifting through a digital fog. In Plastic Jizz, Vantre play with dissonance and delay, producing an unsettling tension that feels almost alive, before the closing Metha pulls the EP to a cathartic release, resolving the earlier patterns with swelling guitar lines and syncopated percussion.
What makes Clonocracy compelling is the way Vantre manipulate texture and rhythm to make the listener feel something without a single word. The guitars shimmer, clatter, and coil around one another, the drums propel and punctuate, and the bass provides both foundation and counterpoint. The music is dense but never muddy, demanding attention while offering layers to lose yourself in.
For someone who has spent a career around systems and patterns, the precision of Clonocracy resonates on a personal level. Each track feels like an equation solved with emotion; methodical, rigorous, yet capable of beauty and unpredictability. The album is a perfect demonstration of how structure and feeling can coexist, and in that balance, Vantre have crafted an unforgettable debut. This is intricate, immersive, and fully instrumental, Clonocracy proves that even without vocals, music can speak volumes. 9/10
Nyos - Growl (Pelagic Records) [Spike]
It's a new week and a new record from Pelagic Records. Lo and behold it's instrumental virtuosity that can be slotted into the "post" genres with a smidge of Avant Garde. Nyos are a Finnish duo, comprised of Tom Brooke (guitar) and Tuomas Kainulainen (drums), Growl is full of contradictions, even conflict, as Get Ready sees the guitar repeat a piercing phase almost like a Fairlight synth, as the drums take the lead, playing against themselves, in jazz rhythms before it all culminates together at the end for a euphoric conclusion.
These loops, the creation of atmosphere and the sheer brilliance of the drumming has led to Nyos being a revered live act who put their entire bodies into their performances, Nyos have been basically doing whatever the hell they feel like musically since 2014, working within the experimental framework of post rock they have never put all their eggs in one basket. Yes there's always been a use of looping, the joy of repetition and the dynamism it brings a core value of what they do but on Growl they have built on the looping style to add more depth and tension to their songwriting, from the unreeving Lo4, through the funky Harder Than Rain, the lo-fi realms of Walking In Moonlight.
It's a wider, louder, soundscape than they have attempted before and on Growl, Nyos stretch their musical boundaries again with excellent results. 8/10
Omnivide - Arise EP (Seek And Strike) [Matt Bladen]
Tech? Death? Prog? Omnivide have all three of these and flex all those musical muscles on their latest EP Arise. Called their most ambitious work to date, it begins with a intro called Prelude which I'm sure a many of my colleagues may hate but from there it's all guns blazing with angular, virtuoso technicality, jarring riffs and machine gun double kicks.
From their self produced debut in 2024 they immediately cemented their place beside the likes of Obscura and Ne Obliviscaris and saw themselves getting quickly snapped up by Seek And Strike going forward. Their first release on that label is this EP and they adapt their style by adding bigger symphonic elements, more synths, more drama drawing comparisons to BTBAM and even Opeth too, the latter coming on Tyranical Saviour.
After the Prelude, Void is the first track that brings you into the progressive and frankly mind blowing world of Omnivide, time lines move faster than they do on Doctor Who, the instruments are played the very edge of what they can do, drums pummel, bass rumbles, guitars intertwine and vocals shift between hoarse screams and crooning cleans.
It's brutal and atmospheric all at once as this Canadian band, explore a wider soundscape than they have before. Omnipotent for instance is techy as all hell but begins with some brilliant acoustic/classical guitar and moves into the most brutal track here as the swelling cinematics welcome the 7 minute Arise and if any song here lays the path for the next phase of Omnivide, this is it.
Moving towards the inspiration of bands such Blood Incantation, Cynic and even Atheist, Omnivide up the epic on Arise. 8/10
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