Sweden’s Moloken have returned after six years of silence with their new self titled album Moloken. A frozen journey through the wilds of old Scandinavia presented over seven tracks of expansive sludge.
The Burden Of Our Awareness opens like a siren, warning of the carnage to come. It builds up to the edge of a cliff, until it drops into the bass led intro of the second track. Eternal Sleep creeps eerily forward until it hits like a sledge hammer with anguished call and response screams. The track gathers intensity, pummelling the listener into a bleak bliss.
21.12.21 opens with a drum led groove with drifting guitars and wandering bass before erupting into chaos. The music pushes and pulls expertly, occasional clean sung parts highlighting the quiet within the storm. Fault Line begins with a dark 3/4 rhythm, offering a different flavour. Melodic clean vocals sit well at this point in the album, before opening into heavy growls in the chorus. This track leans into the blackened side of sludge, with an interesting contrast to the melodic verses.
The album keeps you guessing, shepherding you along for the ride, like Virgil to the protagonist in Dante’s Inferno. It is supremely well written music. The production is vast, with every instrument sounding huge, and the amalgamation of it all is far greater than the sum of it’s parts.
Fragments Of Dark Matter is a steamrolling sludge beast full of tension and release. Moloken are masterful at building a track up and hitting the listener with an explosive payoff bigger than they could have expected. En Lek Med Doden is a composition of layered acoustic guitars, letting the album breathe before the final track.
A Night Of Vision Revealed (Asterion, Pt I) opens with heavy spacious doom before bringing in beautiful harmonised vocals. With lyrics of visions of the sea, temples of axes and drawn swords, the track puts you directly into the tundric wilderness of old Scandinavia.
It is hard to find fault with this record. It is beautiful, savage and wide ranging. Listened to from start to finish, it feels like not a moment hasn’t be thought through meticulously. The open spaces and moments of claustrophobia contrast each other perfectly. This is music that takes you with it, and when the journey is over it stays with you. 10/10
Wolfshead – Wolfshead (Jawbreaker Records) [Keith Boswell]
Hailing all the way from Auckland, New Zealand, are a five piece hard rocking band set up in 2022 known as Wolfshead. They describe their music as, ‘authentic and untamed’ which on first listen I am inclined to believe.
Operating with a blend of classic heavy metal, hard rock and indeed elements of thrash / hardcore within, Wolfshead have created a self-titled debut album. It consists of eight songs, two of which have been released previously as singles, totalling forty-three minutes of metal fury.
I load the album in anticipation of the first song Tyranny And The Hunter which begins with a melodic guitar strewn piece launching into a great baseline groove. The track further morphs into a great deluge of good old NWOBHM Iron Maidenish gallop, which instantly has my feet tapping. Vocals ensue with dark almost creepy tones making this song one of the best in my option.
Keeping up the quality through the album the next track Ashen Fawn delivers a hard gritty edge not reminiscent of early bay area thrashers Exodus. As I delve into the subsequent songs, I can see a definite group of ingredients that Wolfshead has in its basket to create their music, each track uses these ingredients in a different way and in differing intensity.
The use of further baseline grooves reappears for Dust And Smoke which are of a really good quality, interspersed with different vocal types and guitar riffs often of thrash in nature makes this song memorable for me.
More vocal varieties, gallops, riffs and thrash type drumming / guitar playing ensues, the album as a whole is good listening, the singer has a very interesting voice and supports the music and is delivered well.
Operating with a blend of classic heavy metal, hard rock and indeed elements of thrash / hardcore within, Wolfshead have created a self-titled debut album. It consists of eight songs, two of which have been released previously as singles, totalling forty-three minutes of metal fury.
I load the album in anticipation of the first song Tyranny And The Hunter which begins with a melodic guitar strewn piece launching into a great baseline groove. The track further morphs into a great deluge of good old NWOBHM Iron Maidenish gallop, which instantly has my feet tapping. Vocals ensue with dark almost creepy tones making this song one of the best in my option.
Keeping up the quality through the album the next track Ashen Fawn delivers a hard gritty edge not reminiscent of early bay area thrashers Exodus. As I delve into the subsequent songs, I can see a definite group of ingredients that Wolfshead has in its basket to create their music, each track uses these ingredients in a different way and in differing intensity.
The use of further baseline grooves reappears for Dust And Smoke which are of a really good quality, interspersed with different vocal types and guitar riffs often of thrash in nature makes this song memorable for me.
More vocal varieties, gallops, riffs and thrash type drumming / guitar playing ensues, the album as a whole is good listening, the singer has a very interesting voice and supports the music and is delivered well.
All in all, a good album which offers a great base to progress and I look forward to more from Wolfshead in the future. 7/10
Bombstrap – Big Enemy (Tartarus Records) [Spike]
Every now and then, a record lands on your desk that feels less like a collection of rehearsed songs and more like an unexploded ordnance going off in a confined room.
Bombstrap – Big Enemy (Tartarus Records) [Spike]
Every now and then, a record lands on your desk that feels less like a collection of rehearsed songs and more like an unexploded ordnance going off in a confined room.
Hailing from the anarchic squatter community of Rotterdam’s Poortgebouw and split between the Netherlands and Manchester, Bombstrap have spent the last twelve months carving out an underground reputation for pure, unadulterated hostility.
Their debut full-length, Big Enemy, arrives wrapped in talk of nihilism, black alchemy, and ultraviolence, a ten-track, caustic bullet aimed right between the eyes of authority, corporate greed, and modern complacency.
The intent behind this record is completely beyond doubt: it wants to tear your skin off. The album kicks straight into gear with the title track, Big Enemy, setting a frantic, primitive pace before launching into Master Alchemist.
The intent behind this record is completely beyond doubt: it wants to tear your skin off. The album kicks straight into gear with the title track, Big Enemy, setting a frantic, primitive pace before launching into Master Alchemist.
When they step on the gas here, they turn every dial to the absolute maximum. It’s got that bruised, feral spirit that bridges early 90s noise-rock and grunge with the caustic bite of classic riot grrrl, but delivered with the bone-breaking velocity of Total Abuse or No Trend.
Half of these songs barely nudge the two-minute mark, and cuts like Machiavellianism blaze through in barely sixty seconds of teeth-gnashing urgency. Meanwhile, Bakhmut brings a venomous, satirical edge that carries more than a whiff of classic Dead Kennedys, before Poppy Seeds closes out the run with a surprisingly swaggering, manic rock 'n' roll riff buried beneath the noise.
Half of these songs barely nudge the two-minute mark, and cuts like Machiavellianism blaze through in barely sixty seconds of teeth-gnashing urgency. Meanwhile, Bakhmut brings a venomous, satirical edge that carries more than a whiff of classic Dead Kennedys, before Poppy Seeds closes out the run with a surprisingly swaggering, manic rock 'n' roll riff buried beneath the noise.
Lyrically, there’s no high-minded poetry or philosophical hiding; it's a relentless, exasperated barrage of primal invective and literal "fuck you’s" aimed at the parasites at the top.
Yet, sitting down with Big Enemy for repeated spins, I can’t help feeling that the recording itself doesn't quite do the venom full justice. The rage, the grit, and the songwriting chops are undeniably there in the room, but the production across these tracks sits just a touch too flat in the speakers.
Yet, sitting down with Big Enemy for repeated spins, I can’t help feeling that the recording itself doesn't quite do the venom full justice. The rage, the grit, and the songwriting chops are undeniably there in the room, but the production across these tracks sits just a touch too flat in the speakers.
When a band is playing music this feral and dangerous, you want the guitars to feel jagged and rusty enough to give you tetanus, and the drums to cave your chest in. Here, the mix feels a little boxed in, smoothing over the very rough edges that make this kind of primitive punk so potent.
As a debut statement, Big Enemy still speaks volumes about what Bombstrap are capable of. The fury is real, the ethics are completely uncompromised, and this is clearly a band whose live performances in a sweaty, packed basement room will probably tear the paint clean off the walls.
As a debut statement, Big Enemy still speaks volumes about what Bombstrap are capable of. The fury is real, the ethics are completely uncompromised, and this is clearly a band whose live performances in a sweaty, packed basement room will probably tear the paint clean off the walls.
It’s an abrasive, promising opening salvo that makes me genuinely eager to see what they unleash once they take these tracks onto the road or when they let that bottled rage truly detonate in the studio next time around.
Scoring this one is tough I want to give the rage and potential 8/10 but the production steals a mark, so it’s a solid 7/10
Mines - Mines I (Mosaic Music) [Matt Bladen]
Formed in Manchester in 2024, Mines have had their previous releases featured in these pages, and shouldn't be confuse by the South Wales sludge noise band of the same name.
If you haven't got the time to go back to those releases (though you definitely should) the band have now released a live record which featured tracks from both their EP's, it's their way of celebrating and maybe even saying goodbye to their first two years as a band
Mines I was recorded in the band’s own studio space in August 2025, captured live with no backing tracks or click tracks, its the sound of a band showing where they've come from to be the band they are now and giving you a snapshot of what they can do on stage as well.
The rawness of this live recording is to its advantage, allowing Mines to showcase this skills without studio trappings, letting their alt metal riffs do the talking with thumping grooves that mirror that mirror Tool/A Perfect Circle and also atmospheres that stem from Muse, but without studio trickery Mines feel closer to that 2000's alt metal sound of Deftones and Chevelle.
If you've never had the chance to see Mines live then I suggest picking up this record as it as close as you can get without being in a room full of people. 7/10
Mines - Mines I (Mosaic Music) [Matt Bladen]
Formed in Manchester in 2024, Mines have had their previous releases featured in these pages, and shouldn't be confuse by the South Wales sludge noise band of the same name.
If you haven't got the time to go back to those releases (though you definitely should) the band have now released a live record which featured tracks from both their EP's, it's their way of celebrating and maybe even saying goodbye to their first two years as a band
Mines I was recorded in the band’s own studio space in August 2025, captured live with no backing tracks or click tracks, its the sound of a band showing where they've come from to be the band they are now and giving you a snapshot of what they can do on stage as well.
The rawness of this live recording is to its advantage, allowing Mines to showcase this skills without studio trappings, letting their alt metal riffs do the talking with thumping grooves that mirror that mirror Tool/A Perfect Circle and also atmospheres that stem from Muse, but without studio trickery Mines feel closer to that 2000's alt metal sound of Deftones and Chevelle.
If you've never had the chance to see Mines live then I suggest picking up this record as it as close as you can get without being in a room full of people. 7/10
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