Gnarwhale is a band I regret having overlooked, back when Colour came out. It wasn’t for me, at the time, but I can now appreciate it in full. The progressive metal blended with post-hardcore on this EP – topped with the superb vocal delivery of Sam Marshall – gives this Australian release from 2015 a really unique taste that will most probably please you!
Memória de peixe is a Portuguese math jazz band, and they released their second full-length, Himiko Cloud, back in October of last year. Conceptually, it’s a collection of instrumental stories brought together by Himiko the … Read more
Mini-Reviews L
Keratoconus is a British one-man mathcore project, and 浜田EP (The Hamada EP) was released in late December. It’s a rather short release, at only thirteen minutes long, but every second here is well spent. The tracks are abrasive, intellectual, technical, and quite experimental too! Don’t be offended by the autism-core tag, it’s merely because S. A. Mudd, the mastermind of the project, suffers from autism himself, and it seems to be an extraordinary outlet from which we can all benefit by listening and appreciating the music!
Asunder is Montréal progressive technical melodic death metal project Samskaras‘ upcoming EP. Out … Read more
Matt’s Best of 2016
The ebb and flow of musical calendar years is a fascinating thing. In addition to annual best-of-year spreadsheets, I keep a running tally of the all-time greatest albums, always eager to find new things to add to that fold. I also assign scores on a 0-100 scale (which very rarely dips below 80 because why would I intentionally listen to bad music?). A score of 95 is my cutoff for distinguishing between ‘really, really good’ (94) and ‘potentially all-time great’ (95). Some years are just better than others: 2013 saw not one, but two top-ten all-time releases (Kayo Dot… Read more
Mini-Reviews XLIX
Gros groupe is a Saguenayan big band who’s released their eponymous jazz full-length in April of 2016. The twelve compositions on Gros groupe go through various genres of jazz music, and is fuelled by a dozen seasoned musicians. Songs range from the funky ‘Angle mort’ to the more experimental ‘Barry’, to the tikilke ‘Hawaï 2.0’. Each track is interesting in its own right, and utterly enjoyable for any fan of jazz music.
Forests is a math post rock band from Singapore, and they released the wonderful Sun Eat Moon Grave Party EP earlier last year. Their brand of emo, indie, … Read more
Mini-Reviews XLVIII
Krokmitën is a progressive death metal project from Montréal, and Heta is a thirty-six-minute single about how a particle collider – which can somehow disrupt stars -, rips through spacetime, and thus unleashes the most violent, primal instincts of mankind? However utterly insulting to one’s intelligence that concept is, the actual music is all right! It’s nothing groundbreaking, especially for a genre now used to very over-the-top musicianship and out-of-left-field ideas. The riffs themselves are quite mundane, if not exasperating, but the drums sound very raw, and I like that a lot. Throughout the course of the song, you’ll be … Read more