There’s a lot of good stuff, so let’s dive right in!
Black Crown Initiate are back with their third release, Selves We Cannot Forgive. The same crushing riffs and depressing chords that made Songs of the Crippled Bull and The Wreckage of Stars good remain, but I feel they push the melodic side a bit more in here. I can’t say I’m completely sold on this idea yet, but it’s really a bunch of great tracks! I love the jazzy section in “Again”, the more progressive “Belie the Machine”, and the buildup at the end of “Matriarch”. It’s an evolution for the band’s sound, and it turned out good! You might want to listen to the full thing when it hits, tomorrow!
Meek Is Murder have always put out stellar, chaotic, fast-paced and pissed off hardcore. Was is a collection of twelve adequately short that feel less chaotic and more suited for a wide audience than before, which is somewhat of a shame, really. Nevertheless, it’s a good addition to your shelf, and maybe they’re a bit more of a headbanger so you can just hit play and get it out of your system!
Boundaries is the new one-track album from The Night Watch, a non-Game-of-Thrones-themed post-progressive rock band. This is a thirty-six-minute track that goes pretty much all around the spectrum of progressive rock. The band can count on a full-time violinist, which immediately made me think about Indukti and how it’s been so long since their last album and why aren’t they releasing a new album oh my god, but the end result is very different. I think they really are a name to watch out for, and thanks to Heavy Blog Is Heavy for initially finding that one!
An Appalachian-themed atmospheric black metal, Twilight Fauna retells legends and stories of the area in a disgustingly heavy and muddy fashion. Fire of the Spirit comes out on August 19, and it will haunt you with weighty acoustic moments interspaced by the mud. The mud is the ominous and obscene black metal portion of the band. The guitars are low-heavy and overripe with distortion, which bury pretty much everything else: drums, voices, bass (if there is one), keyboards, and effects. But, as I am more and more into black metal, I’m beginning to be more accepting of what I used to see as flaws, and now take as inherent qualities of the genre. The effect of this is a very gloomy atmosphere, just as if you were listening to the band practice in the bowels of hell (and you know the guitarist is always going to be too loud). If you can accept that, it’s a great and deranging experience.
Here’s a country we don’t feature very often: Costa Rica! Erth is an experimental jazz fusion band, and b was released in April of 2015. The band is a quintet consisting of piano, fretless bass, two guitars, and a drummer, but other instruments are played on the record by the various multi-talented musicians: synthesizer, vocals, theremin, and guitar synth. The bass grooves are fantastic and the band easily goes from latin jazz to funk to more fusion stuff, and keeps going in multiple ways. It’s great to hear some synth saxophone for once; despite it being somewhat outdated nowadays, I think it adds a little bit of 80’s cheesiness, which fits very well with the funk. It really is a wonderful album, just listen to a few track and fall under their charm!
Even if the cover image might be a contender for shittiest cover ever (thanks, Tommy), the music is definitely worth the listen! I’ve had this album for years, but apparently never mentioned it on the website, which is a foolish mistake from me! The Bulletproof Tiger is an amazing math rock band from Toronto, Canada. You Wanna Kiss about It? is their latest album, from 2011. It’s full of cool guitar licks and atmospheres created by the synergy of the band members. Really, if you’re the least into math rock just throw all your money to these guys!
And finally, Mathcore Index‘s highly anticipated compilation: Volume 1. It’s full of – you guessed it – mathcore, but also of a lot of other music from math-related genres and subgenres. With names such as Coma Cluster Void, Dendritic Arbor, Frontierer, Instrumental (adj.), and Serious Beak, you certainly can’t go wrong. It’s more than 100 minutes of free music, so just go ahead and download that!
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