We’ve been somewhat mystified by Spires of the Lunar Sphere‘s debut, back in 2015, so their newborn with a most megalomanic title, Siren (Take the Fair Face of Woman and Gently Suspending with Butterflies Flowers and Jewels Attending Thus Your Fairy Be Made of Most Wondrous Things), has less of that bewildering factor. That being said, it doesn’t mean it’s bad – far from it –, just that you only make a first impression once. Still jumping between metalcore, post-hardcore, mathcore, and deathcore, the duo takes its idiosyncratic eccentricity to extremes of peculiarity and heaviness. Think Arsonists Get … Read more
Tag Archives: experimental
Brandon Seabrook – Needle Driver
Needle Driver is the latest experiment of Brooklyn musician Brandon Seabrook. The hard-to-describe EP seamlessly bridges contemporary classical music, experimental jazz, and mathcore into a nasty instrumental tapestry. The trio even includes some microtonal intervals, spotted in the song “Venwhorerisin'”. The five compositions are too quickly gone, but they provide an endless amount of entertainment while they last: uncommon time signatures, odd harmonies, complex and exhausting melodies, as well as a knack for deranged structures that somehow hold themselves together. Needle Driver goes left and right, up and down, forwards and backwards, and I’m sure it also goes wild … Read more
Tvivler – Negativ psykologi #3
The punkish hardcore-n-roll quartet Tvivler, from Denmark release their third Negativ psykologi seven-inch tomorrow. I covered their first one in 2015, but since then they released #2 last year – of which I had no word –, and #3 just now! In the same line as #1, the two most recent ones range from ten to fifteen minutes and boast some aggressive neck-breaker tracks. One of the most interesting, however, is “Oprydning”, which is almost entirely a drums and vocals duo, that is until the bass hits a few notes near the end as a sort of … Read more
Five the Hierophant – Over Phlegethon
Doom metal comes in all shapes and forms. And, often, the most peculiar of them are the most intriguing. Enters Five the Hierophant, a trio from London that makes doom their very own way. The most striking aspect of the band’s sound is, of course, the use of instruments seldom heard in metal music: djembe, Tibetan horn, violin, saxophone (though this last one is now rather common sight)… Beyond this, they also take a heavy leaning on drone passages, spoken word excerpts, and a natural sense of song progression and structure. All of this can be found on their … Read more
Coma Cluster Void – Thoughts from a Stone
Thoughts from a Stone was actually the first ever teaser released for the Coma Cluster Void experiment, all the way back in 2014. Back then, I suppose it was going to end up on their upcoming full-length, with the slogan “Aural Representation of Pain and Suffering” – Mind Cemeteries –, but the composition probably expanded or reiterated to what it is now: a twenty-two-minute, six-part suite of contemporary death metal. Contemporary? Yeah, I feel that this adjective better suits their sound than the rather narrow definition of “tech-death” or the vague “experimental” and “avant-garde” tags. “Math metal” is a good … Read more