Invalids – Fulfillment

by Dæv Tremblay

The Music

The Words

After delegating the bass duties to Nick Shaw of Black Crown Initiate and using programmed drums for years, I’m glad to see guitar virtuoso Pete Davis move his project Invalids to a full band formula. As the first release under this new lineup, Fulfillment has a lot of expectations to… fulfill.

I won’t be pressing F for the programmed drums, as you’ll have guessed, and the stellar performance of Joe Scala means that you won’t even look back to the days of yore. On bass, Nick too left big shoes to fill, but I’m glad … Read more

Chaos Echœs with Mats Gustafsson – Sustain

by Dæv Tremblay

The Music

The Words

Mats Gustafsson is a giant in the world of free and avant-jazz. One of his latest works, on Fire! Orchestra’s Ritual, is just purely mind-blowing, as is the album in its entirety. Seeing his name alongside Chaos Echœs, one of the best contemporary forward-thinking black metal bands — their album Mouvement made it onto our February recommendations —, is just as much as a surprise as it is cause for excitement.

The collaboration, titled Sustain, is made of two parts of equal length that achieve a deranging, dense atmosphere that’s as far from … Read more

Lingua Nada – Snuff

by Dæv Tremblay

The Music

The Words

Leipzig-bound Lingua Nada just put out their fifth release, Snuff; an eccentric, energetic album that takes elements from shoegaze, surf rock, post-hardcore, and noise rock, and blends them all together into a palatable musical paste. This full-length album sends similar flavours to the then-peerless Brooklyn band Sheen Marina, who were a favourite of mine, last year. Lingua Nada perhaps go farther than them in terms of harshness, sprinkled here and there throughout the ten tracks on Snuff, but this only works in their favour, as every time they do it feels like a … Read more

Et Moriemur, Them Moose Rush, Bernhard Meyer, Order ov Riven Cathedrals, Noir Voir, Nightmarer, Lou Kelly, Tierpark, and Æpoch

by Dæv Tremblay

Et Moriemur – Επιγραμματα (Epigrammata)

Czech atmospheric doom purveyors Et Moriemur released their latest album, inspired by Ancient Greece. The music hardly sounds Greek (at all), but the concept, imagery, and a few excerpts here and there definitely are. Επιγραμματα is funerally slow, and what I like is that they often include acoustic passages, which offers a nice change of pace. The vocal work is also of note: it often sounds like monophonic choir chants, and that’s always a good thing to have in a doom album!

Them Moose Rush – Don’t Pick Your Noise

We don’t often get news … Read more

Hardcore Anal Hydrogen – Hypercut

by Dæv Tremblay

The Music

The Words

The Monégasque duo known as Hardcore Anal Hydrogen just released their fourth album, under the Hypercut title. I wasn’t enthralled by any of their previous output, but I might have to reconsider, given that this one tickles my fancy! The HAH duo delivers more than forty minutes of experimental death metal that lies somewhere between the breakcore of Igorrr (which I still can’t stand) and the cybergrind of Psudoku (which I adore!) Hypercut is filled with inhuman shredding (both figuratively and literally), glitch aesthetics, genre-hopping sections, and distorted, high-pitched harsh vocals. You know, I don’t really … Read more