The Savage Winds Of Wisdom is the second album from Melbourne’s Black Lava. Two years after Soul Furnace, the 4-piece have pushed themselves further, desperate to keep the creative juices flowing.
Colour Of Death with its grinding opening as the guitars slide in and out leads you think that they are going down a tried and tested path of restrained start followed by a Superspeed attack. Not so, there is a roar of announcement from vocalist Rob Watkins but instead they subvert expectations by placing their focus on guitar parts that move the song forward, using the drums for the heavy lifting.
There is a wicked groove to this, and the avoidance of standard tropes is very welcome here. There is some fast riffing but not to overwhelm. This is setting the scene, bringing you onboard and getting you ready for what is to come. That mix of techniques makes this sound so fresh, no reliance on chug or trem picking for the sake of it.
Dark Legacy is royal, that groove is back again as well as throwing in some technical flourishes but it’s the main riff that excites. Tightly focused, heavy but with a clarity. When they let the guitars ring out, its immersive as guitarist Ben Boyle deploys a great command of what should go where. Backing up here is some supreme drumming from Dan Presland and completing that rock solid foundation is Nick Rackham with bass duties. It sounds fantastic, especially through some decent headphones.
It’s the sort of release that creeps up out of nowhere and bang, you are engaged with it. The influence of the other bands they play in, be it thrash, or death metal comes together to give them a unique approach. As I mentioned, they don’t rely on the traditional tropes but with the heady brew of melody and countermelody you don’t miss it. There are those fast parts we love and that are present, for example on Wrapped In Filth as it closes out but the work they have done leading up to that means it hits organically, like it is the logical next step without it sounding tired.
Turin - The Unforgiving Reality In Nothing (MNRK Heavy) [GC]
Of all the ‘’cores’’ deathcore is usually the most ridiculed and reviled, because hardcore fans think it’s for fucking posers and death metal fans think it not heavy enough, these opinions are both of course total bollocks! I like both hardcore and death metal, LOTS, I also like deathcore vey much but do agree that its very hit and miss and understand why a lot of people just don’t bother with it, so today I have UK deathcore crew Turin’s new album to review, lets see where they fall in the discussion.
Opener Envy definitely has the intensity needed and is a furious way to start the album rammed full of savage beatdowns they also manage to insert an elegant beauty into the waves of sonic brutality which is a nice way to start things off and following such a devastating start was never going to be an easy task but they manage it with ease on Abyssal which while it doesn’t feel as hectic or emotional it is still devastatingly heavy and definitely takes the death metal influence firmly by the horns and runs with it with more walls of thundering riffs and unrelenting drums.
Forming in 2015 Ananda Mida is a musical collective based around Max Ear and Matteo Pablo Scolaro. The collective has a variable line up with collectives from 3 to 6 members. The musical cooperative released their debut album in 2016, entitled Anodnatius, three years later they released album number two, Cathodnatius, another four years passed before the band released their last album Mythologically.
Duma Jam is a private Festival held in Sardinia since 2006. The gigs that make up the festival are held on beaches around Sardinia, and tend to have small audiences of approximately 150, giving the performances the feel of a small gathering of friends, rather than a major festival. This has had a small effect on this recording as the recording has very low levels of audience noise between the songs.
Next we get several parts of a longer composition, starting with Doom And The Medicine Man (Pt V). Doom And The Medicine Man (Pt V) is mid-paced and has a bit of a New Wave feel with fast clean guitar riffs and is full of energy. In a couple of places the song feels reminiscent of British Indie band The Libertines. Next comes Doom And The Medicine Man (Pt VI-VII-VIII) which is soft, clean folky rock.
The album comes to an end with the song Lunia, a fast driving song that is purposeful with great fast vocals and a punky feel to the rhythm. The song is a great blast of positive energy that is a great way to bring the album to an end and must have been a great way to end their set.
Live At Duma Jam is a great live album. A lot of the material is subtle, but always interesting and engaging. The material that is faster and more aggressive is full of a great energy, massively tuneful and is a huge amount of fun. The fact that the audience noise is muted, doesn’t affect the album too much, you can’t hear them that loudly, but you can feel the energy from the band to the audience and vice versa. Really enjoyable live psych rock, highly recommended! 8/10
Mothman And The Thunderbirds - Portal Hopper (Self Released) [Rich Piva]
Alex Parkinson is the mad genius behind the always fun and always a tad crazy project Mothman and the Thunderbirds, and he is back with the most complete and fully realized output till date in the form of the new album, Portal Hopper. The band’s sophomore full length is all over the place in the best sort of way, leveraging everything from prog, to shoegaze, to dream pop, to metal and lots of stuff in between, but it never, for the most part, too much for the listener to digest and is an overall delightfully weird and fun listening experience.
Portal Hopper is best experienced end to end as it is a concept album, but the songs stand quite well on their own as well, starting off from the opener, Ruby Skies, that sounds like if Mew got the drummer from Behemoth. This one rips while also being whimsical, a paradox that Parkinson excels at. The track Flatwoods Monster is one of my favourites and incorporates an almost 90s grunge feel to its spacy prog rock vibes with excellent results, even with that crazy synth part in the middle. MATT can be super catchy too, case in point the chorus of the also great Liminal Spacetime Continuum.
Dark Legacy is royal, that groove is back again as well as throwing in some technical flourishes but it’s the main riff that excites. Tightly focused, heavy but with a clarity. When they let the guitars ring out, its immersive as guitarist Ben Boyle deploys a great command of what should go where. Backing up here is some supreme drumming from Dan Presland and completing that rock solid foundation is Nick Rackham with bass duties. It sounds fantastic, especially through some decent headphones.
It’s the sort of release that creeps up out of nowhere and bang, you are engaged with it. The influence of the other bands they play in, be it thrash, or death metal comes together to give them a unique approach. As I mentioned, they don’t rely on the traditional tropes but with the heady brew of melody and countermelody you don’t miss it. There are those fast parts we love and that are present, for example on Wrapped In Filth as it closes out but the work they have done leading up to that means it hits organically, like it is the logical next step without it sounding tired.
Unsheathing Nightmares combines those delicious but brittle sounding chords with some top-class bottom end riffing. Ben is puling some heavy work here because everything that comes out just works so well and there are some mad techy bits in there too. This is where you think how the hell has he managed to get that in there.
There is just no drop in the quality of the songs at all, they have everything you could possibly want in new extreme metal, it’s a release that ticks all of the necessary boxes whilst sounding true to itself and again a top example of this would be Ironclad Sarcophagus, a gut stomper that shows more and more of what they can do as it unfolds.
Yes, there are blasts but these are set within those glass like guitar lines and I think it’s the choice of those chords that won me over. The songs are heavy without the reliance on standard arrangements or guitar lines used by everyone else. Of course, there has to be an end and it’s the majestic title track, easy going rhythm and gentle lines growing into a monster of full-on metal until they decide to stop and pull back.
The background music, the rising choir like singing as Rob goes full throated roar is a sight to hear. It’s just awesome how it builds together and is my stand-out on here. Did I mention the guest solo on here from Benjamin Baret (Ne Oblivscaris) Is completely mental. And totally appropriate too!!
A lot of the extreme music go with upping the strings, lowering the tuning to get them where a song is heavy and to an extent its true. Sometimes that approach loses something in how it sounds, where it doesn’t have that clarity and it can put you off. Not with Black Lava.
A lot of the extreme music go with upping the strings, lowering the tuning to get them where a song is heavy and to an extent its true. Sometimes that approach loses something in how it sounds, where it doesn’t have that clarity and it can put you off. Not with Black Lava.
They have managed to get the sound so spot on, so you don’t miss anything at all. Because of this, it sounds heavy in all the right spots. Even when the melodic lines are occupying that lighter shade, they is still a heaviness to them. The band should be stoked about this, it is a ripper that should take up residence on your albums to keep on rotation from now until they release something else. 9/10
Turin - The Unforgiving Reality In Nothing (MNRK Heavy) [GC]
Of all the ‘’cores’’ deathcore is usually the most ridiculed and reviled, because hardcore fans think it’s for fucking posers and death metal fans think it not heavy enough, these opinions are both of course total bollocks! I like both hardcore and death metal, LOTS, I also like deathcore vey much but do agree that its very hit and miss and understand why a lot of people just don’t bother with it, so today I have UK deathcore crew Turin’s new album to review, lets see where they fall in the discussion.
Opener Envy definitely has the intensity needed and is a furious way to start the album rammed full of savage beatdowns they also manage to insert an elegant beauty into the waves of sonic brutality which is a nice way to start things off and following such a devastating start was never going to be an easy task but they manage it with ease on Abyssal which while it doesn’t feel as hectic or emotional it is still devastatingly heavy and definitely takes the death metal influence firmly by the horns and runs with it with more walls of thundering riffs and unrelenting drums.
I Am The Truth then adds an ambience and melancholic feel to the mix of styles and adds another string to the Turin bow but, don’t think that this makes the song anything less than savage and horrible because if anything it makes it seem even heavier if that’s even possible? There is absolutely no regard or care here, it’s just pure brutality but its aimed and honed to perfection, it’s not just noise for noise’s sake, it’s thoughtful and violent and that’s what I like.
Apostate has an atmospheric and eerie feel to the main body of the song and while its not exactly melodic death metal, its probably as close as Turin will get to it and it also has a definite Swedish death metal sound permeating throughout, Ghosts is just a lull in the middle of the storm and is just a minute or so of ambience that allows you to gather yourself the next assault in the shape of Reflections which feels to me more on the hardcore side of the cores we have had so far, the riffs are big and chugging as you would want and the pace is a bit stop start but it shows definitively that when a deathcore band wants to they can 100% create a massive hardcore stomper and still infuse all the death metal goodness into it!
Title track The Unforgiving Reality In Nothing is absolutely huge and has such an anger seeping through it you can’t help but be impressed, the visceral nature of that way this song is delivered needs to be studied because from start to finish not one second is wasted and not one fuck is spared for how it may sound, truly remarkable stuff. Loss is one of those tracks that finds a way to really get under your skin and the proceeds to get better and more savage with every listen and the guest vocals of Enterprise Earth’s Travis Worland are fucking brilliant!
Hopeless Solutions is a whirlwind of visceral vocal anger, blast beats and stabbing guitars that are once again layered with atmosphere and haunting beauty but continue to always sound disturbingly heavy, so then Our Reality In Nothing comes along to finish off and does so with another song dripping in atmosphere and dread its probably the slowest and most doom fuelled track on the album and it’s a suitably bleak and emotion filled way to round off this staggering collection of nastiness.
If you are in the I hate deathcore mob, I would highly recommend you listen to The Unforgiving Reality In Nothing because once you do, you will instantly shut up and change your mind, this album is absolutely fucking world class and it should do massive things for Turin going forward because if they continue to write music as good as this then there really is no reason they cant be one of the biggest bands in the metal scene. If you listen to one album today, make it this!! 10/10
Ananda Mida – Live At Duma Jam (Heavy Psych Sound) [Paul Scoble]
If you are in the I hate deathcore mob, I would highly recommend you listen to The Unforgiving Reality In Nothing because once you do, you will instantly shut up and change your mind, this album is absolutely fucking world class and it should do massive things for Turin going forward because if they continue to write music as good as this then there really is no reason they cant be one of the biggest bands in the metal scene. If you listen to one album today, make it this!! 10/10
Ananda Mida – Live At Duma Jam (Heavy Psych Sound) [Paul Scoble]
Forming in 2015 Ananda Mida is a musical collective based around Max Ear and Matteo Pablo Scolaro. The collective has a variable line up with collectives from 3 to 6 members. The musical cooperative released their debut album in 2016, entitled Anodnatius, three years later they released album number two, Cathodnatius, another four years passed before the band released their last album Mythologically.
The band have a reputation for very interesting live performances with extensive visual aspects to their shows. So, Heavy Psych Sounds releasing this live album recorded at Duma Jam should open up their live show to people who were not lucky enough to see them in the flesh. The lineup on this album features David Bressan on bass, Max Ear on drums, Conny Ochs on vocals, Matteo Pablo Scolaro on guitar and Alex Tedesco also on guitar.
Duma Jam is a private Festival held in Sardinia since 2006. The gigs that make up the festival are held on beaches around Sardinia, and tend to have small audiences of approximately 150, giving the performances the feel of a small gathering of friends, rather than a major festival. This has had a small effect on this recording as the recording has very low levels of audience noise between the songs.
The set kicks off with the song Swamp Thing, which has a slow build up to mellow, meditative psych rock. The vocals are clean and very tuneful, there is also a great bluesy guitar solo in the softer part of the song. In the second half of the song the tempo picks up and we are now into fast, driving psych rock with very interesting guitar work. The song then goes back to slow Psych Rock for the ending which has an echoed, Dub feel to it. After Swamp Thing we get Blank Stare, a piece of fast, punky psych rock which is very rapid, a perfect fast head nodding tempo which is huge fun.
Next we get several parts of a longer composition, starting with Doom And The Medicine Man (Pt V). Doom And The Medicine Man (Pt V) is mid-paced and has a bit of a New Wave feel with fast clean guitar riffs and is full of energy. In a couple of places the song feels reminiscent of British Indie band The Libertines. Next comes Doom And The Medicine Man (Pt VI-VII-VIII) which is soft, clean folky rock.
The feel is mellow, meditative and blissful. As the song progresses it becomes tauter and more dramatic, becoming less blissful and more tumultuous. Next comes Doom And The Medicine Man (Pt IV) the final part of Doom And The Medicine Man. A piece of mid-tempo psych rock with a great guitar solo. The song drops to a softer, mellower and cleaner feel in the middle of the song, before building itself back together for the end of the song.
The album comes to an end with the song Lunia, a fast driving song that is purposeful with great fast vocals and a punky feel to the rhythm. The song is a great blast of positive energy that is a great way to bring the album to an end and must have been a great way to end their set.
Live At Duma Jam is a great live album. A lot of the material is subtle, but always interesting and engaging. The material that is faster and more aggressive is full of a great energy, massively tuneful and is a huge amount of fun. The fact that the audience noise is muted, doesn’t affect the album too much, you can’t hear them that loudly, but you can feel the energy from the band to the audience and vice versa. Really enjoyable live psych rock, highly recommended! 8/10
Mothman And The Thunderbirds - Portal Hopper (Self Released) [Rich Piva]
Alex Parkinson is the mad genius behind the always fun and always a tad crazy project Mothman and the Thunderbirds, and he is back with the most complete and fully realized output till date in the form of the new album, Portal Hopper. The band’s sophomore full length is all over the place in the best sort of way, leveraging everything from prog, to shoegaze, to dream pop, to metal and lots of stuff in between, but it never, for the most part, too much for the listener to digest and is an overall delightfully weird and fun listening experience.
Portal Hopper is best experienced end to end as it is a concept album, but the songs stand quite well on their own as well, starting off from the opener, Ruby Skies, that sounds like if Mew got the drummer from Behemoth. This one rips while also being whimsical, a paradox that Parkinson excels at. The track Flatwoods Monster is one of my favourites and incorporates an almost 90s grunge feel to its spacy prog rock vibes with excellent results, even with that crazy synth part in the middle. MATT can be super catchy too, case in point the chorus of the also great Liminal Spacetime Continuum.
This is weird 90s alt rock goodness personified. How about we get funky? Well, the bassline on Fractals is there for you, but this is space funk, as Hawkwind vibes blow in to the picture as well, but there is this underlying heaviness to this song as well. Like I said before, a lot, but never not fun. Squonk Kingdom is another fun track that shows how Parkinson’s vocals have grown over releases and includes some nice straight ahead riffing as well, but there is nothing straight ahead about the synth work on this one.
The riff on Akashic Records sounds like Prong which will always make me happy, and combines nicely with those heavy 90s alt rock vibes that are all over Portal Hopper. Harmonies too! I also love the dreamy and spacey slow burn of The Zaratan and the closing one-two punch of the quick up-tempo So Long (Portal Hopper) and the acoustic ending of the journey, Attic.
Portal Hopper is by far the most realized work by Mothman and the Thunderbirds. Be it the songs or the story, this album is end to end fun and a complete picture; a concept record that is great as a whole story but does not lose any of its quality as individual tracks. This should be the record that takes this crazy fun ride to the next level. 8/10
Portal Hopper is by far the most realized work by Mothman and the Thunderbirds. Be it the songs or the story, this album is end to end fun and a complete picture; a concept record that is great as a whole story but does not lose any of its quality as individual tracks. This should be the record that takes this crazy fun ride to the next level. 8/10
Portal Hopper is definitely in my top 10 favorite albums of the year
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