#mathcore — Public Fediverse posts

Torque (WIP)

Added 16 more bars to the last main section because it sounded kinda incomplete/out-of-place. It's basically another melody that's the intersection of two previously played melodies, and by "intersection" I mean the set theory concept - playing notes that were in both melodies and subduing the other notes. Also added some sine wave tones, and wrote more of the bridge.

#Music #MusicProduction #Electronica #ElectronicMusic #AvantGarde #Experimental #Mathcore #Musodon #MastoMusic

Torque (WIP)

Major new developments for this track. I created a mathcore structure where certain pairs of melodies are combined in either a union or intersection fashion, most notably playing two versions of a melody, then their union, and then their intersection. I also started developing the short bridge part into its own thing, with some binaurals added in.

#Music #MusicProduction #Electronica #Electronic #ElectronicMusic #Mathcore #HipHop #WIP #Indie #IndieMusic #Musodon #MastoMusic

PECULATE – Bouazizi
#Metal #avantgardemetal #experimentalmetal #mathcore #progressivemetal #technicaldeathmetal #USA
CC BY-NC-SA (#CreativeCommons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike) #ccmusic
https://peculate.bandcamp.com/album/bouazizi

Sorry I'm going hard on psychedelic posts.... Here's one. youtube.com/playlist?lis... #mathcore #jazz #mathrock #music

KARTOSOEWIRJO? | Sepertiga Mal...

L.M.I. / Unsucked / Mercure @ L'Hemisphere Gauche - June 15th, 2026

Hemisphere Gauche, Monday, June 15 at 07:00 PM EDT

Viridian Cult Productions presents:

Get ready for a quick n' dirty Monday night ripper on June 15th at Hemisphere Gauche with Pennsylvania stoner punks L.M.I., local sludgegrinders Unsucked, and newcomer hardcore punks Mercure!

Monday, June 15th, 2026
@ L'Hemisphere Gauche
221 Rue Beaubien Est
Doors @ 7:00 PM
Show @ 8:00 PM
$15
18+

L.M.I.
https://lmiband.bandcamp.com/album/failed-to-feel-it

Unsucked
https://unxxsucked.bandcamp.com/album/vagittarius

https://montreal.askapunk.net/event/lmi-unsucked-mercure-lhemisphere-gauche-june-15th-2026

With a name like that and an album cover featuring a vivisected human head, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Nequient play a form of knuckle-dragging brutal death. Instead, the Chicago four-piece specializes in a brand of chaotic, grinding metallic hardcore that recalls the frenetic math explosion of the early 2000s. Avarice is the band’s third full-length and promises a “unique synthesis of extreme metal and hardcore” to “blast listeners out of complacency with withering screeds against the malignant forces ravaging our world.” Despite some solid releases from last year, it’s been a while since new mathcore shook me to the bone and reminded me of modern existence’s inherent fragility. Nequient have the requisite political bile coursing through their veins—the same volatile fuel that powers the genre’s most unhinged eruptions—but is Avarice actually worth your time, or just another flailing heap of panic chords destined to suffocate beneath a pile of white-belt-era clichés?

On Avarice, Nequient paints an anarchic arras with a dizzying amount of stylistic touchstones. The band combines the unhinged frivolity of The Sawtooth Grin with the fast-paced stop/start violence of The HIRS Collective, and loads their tracks with riffs that actually stick, echoing early Converge at their most surgical. The twist? These songs feel coherent. Longer runtimes turn what could be scattershot spasms into fully realized compositions, bolstered by a wide palette of metallic textures. Blackened tremolos (“Christofascist Zombie Brigade”), demented odd-meter thrash gallops (“Brain Worms”), and sludged-out funeral dirges (“Splenetic And Moribund”) are all threaded together with mathy convulsions Nequient execute with unnerving precision. Throughout the record, the band moves between ideas at a dizzying pace, consistently impressing with bewildering moments of aural chaos.

More than just a collection of moments, the songs on Avarice are propelled by relentless pacing and tangible chemistry among the band members. Nequient’s secret sauce lies in the interplay between Patrick Conahan’s disorienting guitar cascades and drummer Chris Avgerin’s dextrous, fill-heavy style. Conahan glides between mosh-ready grind parts (“Mad King / Fool”), undulating, deathy descents (“Rintrah Roars”), and unsettling noise-rock lurches (“Siege Mentality”). Avergin follows along expertly, always mirroring the spastic guitarwork with tasty, intuitive drum parts that guide the ear and ground the anarchy. Aaron Roeming provides the low-end thunder and adds a purposeful heft that thickens the chunkier riffcraft while vocalist Jason Kolkey leads the charge, alternating between a sassy, vitriolic spew and full-bodied death growls while delivering caustic epithets about the horrors of modern life. Kolkey’s acerbic lyrics pull the whole disgusting package together, melding poetic death metal abstraction with punk’s immediacy and sharpening the record’s nihilistic aura into a potent weapon aimed at a broken system.

In fact, Nequient is almost too adept at channeling the noxious undercurrent of societal id, leaving precious little room to breathe across Avarice’s full-frontal assault. Longer tracks usually ease up on the throttle and inject variety with less frantic, slower sections, like with a menacing sludge-into-breakdown (“Rintrah Roars”), or a hazy, chordal comedown (“Stochastic Terror”). Still, I find myself wanting just a touch more space to find my bearings during full-album listens. Avarice is well-paced, and there are more than enough ideas to keep the 40-minute runtime interesting, but it’s missing one or two blissed-out melodic ideas1 or jaw-dropping displays of contrast to elevate it to the peak of the mathcore mountain. This doesn’t prevent Avarice from being a stunning display of technical aggression, but it does mean more than a few spins to decipher its labyrinthine heaviness.

Nequient really impressed me with this one. Avarice is a nerve-flayed, teeth-grinding listen that captures the low-grade panic and spiritual exhaustion of modern life with alarming precision. Rather than settling for dime-a-dozen mathcore spasms or rote metallic bludgeoning, the Chicago crew stitches together dissonance, groove, chaos, and razor-wire technicality into something far more purposeful. It’s punishing without being empty, intricate without disappearing up its own ass, and memorable enough to demand repeat spins. If you’re craving chaotic metallic extremity that does more than regurgitate the usual suspects, Nequient have your number.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Nefarious Industries
Websites: nequient.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/nequient.band
Releases Worldwide: April 24th, 2026

With a name like that and an album cover featuring a vivisected human head, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Nequient play a form of knuckle-dragging brutal death. Instead, the Chicago four-piece specializes in a brand of chaotic, grinding metallic hardcore that recalls the frenetic math explosion of the early 2000s. Avarice is the band’s third full-length and promises a “unique synthesis of extreme metal and hardcore” to “blast listeners out of complacency with withering screeds against the malignant forces ravaging our world.” Despite some solid releases from last year, it’s been a while since new mathcore shook me to the bone and reminded me of modern existence’s inherent fragility. Nequient have the requisite political bile coursing through their veins—the same volatile fuel that powers the genre’s most unhinged eruptions—but is Avarice actually worth your time, or just another flailing heap of panic chords destined to suffocate beneath a pile of white-belt-era clichés?

On Avarice, Nequient paints an anarchic arras with a dizzying amount of stylistic touchstones. The band combines the unhinged frivolity of The Sawtooth Grin with the fast-paced stop/start violence of The HIRS Collective, and loads their tracks with riffs that actually stick, echoing early Converge at their most surgical. The twist? These songs feel coherent. Longer runtimes turn what could be scattershot spasms into fully realized compositions, bolstered by a wide palette of metallic textures. Blackened tremolos (“Christofascist Zombie Brigade”), demented odd-meter thrash gallops (“Brain Worms”), and sludged-out funeral dirges (“Splenetic And Moribund”) are all threaded together with mathy convulsions Nequient execute with unnerving precision. Throughout the record, the band moves between ideas at a dizzying pace, consistently impressing with bewildering moments of aural chaos.

More than just a collection of moments, the songs on Avarice are propelled by relentless pacing and tangible chemistry among the band members. Nequient’s secret sauce lies in the interplay between Patrick Conahan’s disorienting guitar cascades and drummer Chris Avgerin’s dextrous, fill-heavy style. Conahan glides between mosh-ready grind parts (“Mad King / Fool”), undulating, deathy descents (“Rintrah Roars”), and unsettling noise-rock lurches (“Siege Mentality”). Avergin follows along expertly, always mirroring the spastic guitarwork with tasty, intuitive drum parts that guide the ear and ground the anarchy. Aaron Roeming provides the low-end thunder and adds a purposeful heft that thickens the chunkier riffcraft while vocalist Jason Kolkey leads the charge, alternating between a sassy, vitriolic spew and full-bodied death growls while delivering caustic epithets about the horrors of modern life. Kolkey’s acerbic lyrics pull the whole disgusting package together, melding poetic death metal abstraction with punk’s immediacy and sharpening the record’s nihilistic aura into a potent weapon aimed at a broken system.

In fact, Nequient is almost too adept at channeling the noxious undercurrent of societal id, leaving precious little room to breathe across Avarice’s full-frontal assault. Longer tracks usually ease up on the throttle and inject variety with less frantic, slower sections, like with a menacing sludge-into-breakdown (“Rintrah Roars”), or a hazy, chordal comedown (“Stochastic Terror”). Still, I find myself wanting just a touch more space to find my bearings during full-album listens. Avarice is well-paced, and there are more than enough ideas to keep the 40-minute runtime interesting, but it’s missing one or two blissed-out melodic ideas1 or jaw-dropping displays of contrast to elevate it to the peak of the mathcore mountain. This doesn’t prevent Avarice from being a stunning display of technical aggression, but it does mean more than a few spins to decipher its labyrinthine heaviness.

Nequient really impressed me with this one. Avarice is a nerve-flayed, teeth-grinding listen that captures the low-grade panic and spiritual exhaustion of modern life with alarming precision. Rather than settling for dime-a-dozen mathcore spasms or rote metallic bludgeoning, the Chicago crew stitches together dissonance, groove, chaos, and razor-wire technicality into something far more purposeful. It’s punishing without being empty, intricate without disappearing up its own ass, and memorable enough to demand repeat spins. If you’re craving chaotic metallic extremity that does more than regurgitate the usual suspects, Nequient have your number.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Nefarious Industries
Websites: nequient.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/nequient.band
Releases Worldwide: April 24th, 2026

With a name like that and an album cover featuring a vivisected human head, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Nequient play a form of knuckle-dragging brutal death. Instead, the Chicago four-piece specializes in a brand of chaotic, grinding metallic hardcore that recalls the frenetic math explosion of the early 2000s. Avarice is the band’s third full-length and promises a “unique synthesis of extreme metal and hardcore” to “blast listeners out of complacency with withering screeds against the malignant forces ravaging our world.” Despite some solid releases from last year, it’s been a while since new mathcore shook me to the bone and reminded me of modern existence’s inherent fragility. Nequient have the requisite political bile coursing through their veins—the same volatile fuel that powers the genre’s most unhinged eruptions—but is Avarice actually worth your time, or just another flailing heap of panic chords destined to suffocate beneath a pile of white-belt-era clichés?

On Avarice, Nequient paints an anarchic arras with a dizzying amount of stylistic touchstones. The band combines the unhinged frivolity of The Sawtooth Grin with the fast-paced stop/start violence of The HIRS Collective, and loads their tracks with riffs that actually stick, echoing early Converge at their most surgical. The twist? These songs feel coherent. Longer runtimes turn what could be scattershot spasms into fully realized compositions, bolstered by a wide palette of metallic textures. Blackened tremolos (“Christofascist Zombie Brigade”), demented odd-meter thrash gallops (“Brain Worms”), and sludged-out funeral dirges (“Splenetic And Moribund”) are all threaded together with mathy convulsions Nequient execute with unnerving precision. Throughout the record, the band moves between ideas at a dizzying pace, consistently impressing with bewildering moments of aural chaos.

More than just a collection of moments, the songs on Avarice are propelled by relentless pacing and tangible chemistry among the band members. Nequient’s secret sauce lies in the interplay between Patrick Conahan’s disorienting guitar cascades and drummer Chris Avgerin’s dextrous, fill-heavy style. Conahan glides between mosh-ready grind parts (“Mad King / Fool”), undulating, deathy descents (“Rintrah Roars”), and unsettling noise-rock lurches (“Siege Mentality”). Avergin follows along expertly, always mirroring the spastic guitarwork with tasty, intuitive drum parts that guide the ear and ground the anarchy. Aaron Roeming provides the low-end thunder and adds a purposeful heft that thickens the chunkier riffcraft while vocalist Jason Kolkey leads the charge, alternating between a sassy, vitriolic spew and full-bodied death growls while delivering caustic epithets about the horrors of modern life. Kolkey’s acerbic lyrics pull the whole disgusting package together, melding poetic death metal abstraction with punk’s immediacy and sharpening the record’s nihilistic aura into a potent weapon aimed at a broken system.

In fact, Nequient is almost too adept at channeling the noxious undercurrent of societal id, leaving precious little room to breathe across Avarice’s full-frontal assault. Longer tracks usually ease up on the throttle and inject variety with less frantic, slower sections, like with a menacing sludge-into-breakdown (“Rintrah Roars”), or a hazy, chordal comedown (“Stochastic Terror”). Still, I find myself wanting just a touch more space to find my bearings during full-album listens. Avarice is well-paced, and there are more than enough ideas to keep the 40-minute runtime interesting, but it’s missing one or two blissed-out melodic ideas1 or jaw-dropping displays of contrast to elevate it to the peak of the mathcore mountain. This doesn’t prevent Avarice from being a stunning display of technical aggression, but it does mean more than a few spins to decipher its labyrinthine heaviness.

Nequient really impressed me with this one. Avarice is a nerve-flayed, teeth-grinding listen that captures the low-grade panic and spiritual exhaustion of modern life with alarming precision. Rather than settling for dime-a-dozen mathcore spasms or rote metallic bludgeoning, the Chicago crew stitches together dissonance, groove, chaos, and razor-wire technicality into something far more purposeful. It’s punishing without being empty, intricate without disappearing up its own ass, and memorable enough to demand repeat spins. If you’re craving chaotic metallic extremity that does more than regurgitate the usual suspects, Nequient have your number.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Nefarious Industries
Websites: nequient.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/nequient.band
Releases Worldwide: April 24th, 2026

With a name like that and an album cover featuring a vivisected human head, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Nequient play a form of knuckle-dragging brutal death. Instead, the Chicago four-piece specializes in a brand of chaotic, grinding metallic hardcore that recalls the frenetic math explosion of the early 2000s. Avarice is the band’s third full-length and promises a “unique synthesis of extreme metal and hardcore” to “blast listeners out of complacency with withering screeds against the malignant forces ravaging our world.” Despite some solid releases from last year, it’s been a while since new mathcore shook me to the bone and reminded me of modern existence’s inherent fragility. Nequient have the requisite political bile coursing through their veins—the same volatile fuel that powers the genre’s most unhinged eruptions—but is Avarice actually worth your time, or just another flailing heap of panic chords destined to suffocate beneath a pile of white-belt-era clichés?

On Avarice, Nequient paints an anarchic arras with a dizzying amount of stylistic touchstones. The band combines the unhinged frivolity of The Sawtooth Grin with the fast-paced stop/start violence of The HIRS Collective, and loads their tracks with riffs that actually stick, echoing early Converge at their most surgical. The twist? These songs feel coherent. Longer runtimes turn what could be scattershot spasms into fully realized compositions, bolstered by a wide palette of metallic textures. Blackened tremolos (“Christofascist Zombie Brigade”), demented odd-meter thrash gallops (“Brain Worms”), and sludged-out funeral dirges (“Splenetic And Moribund”) are all threaded together with mathy convulsions Nequient execute with unnerving precision. Throughout the record, the band moves between ideas at a dizzying pace, consistently impressing with bewildering moments of aural chaos.

More than just a collection of moments, the songs on Avarice are propelled by relentless pacing and tangible chemistry among the band members. Nequient’s secret sauce lies in the interplay between Patrick Conahan’s disorienting guitar cascades and drummer Chris Avgerin’s dextrous, fill-heavy style. Conahan glides between mosh-ready grind parts (“Mad King / Fool”), undulating, deathy descents (“Rintrah Roars”), and unsettling noise-rock lurches (“Siege Mentality”). Avergin follows along expertly, always mirroring the spastic guitarwork with tasty, intuitive drum parts that guide the ear and ground the anarchy. Aaron Roeming provides the low-end thunder and adds a purposeful heft that thickens the chunkier riffcraft while vocalist Jason Kolkey leads the charge, alternating between a sassy, vitriolic spew and full-bodied death growls while delivering caustic epithets about the horrors of modern life. Kolkey’s acerbic lyrics pull the whole disgusting package together, melding poetic death metal abstraction with punk’s immediacy and sharpening the record’s nihilistic aura into a potent weapon aimed at a broken system.

In fact, Nequient is almost too adept at channeling the noxious undercurrent of societal id, leaving precious little room to breathe across Avarice’s full-frontal assault. Longer tracks usually ease up on the throttle and inject variety with less frantic, slower sections, like with a menacing sludge-into-breakdown (“Rintrah Roars”), or a hazy, chordal comedown (“Stochastic Terror”). Still, I find myself wanting just a touch more space to find my bearings during full-album listens. Avarice is well-paced, and there are more than enough ideas to keep the 40-minute runtime interesting, but it’s missing one or two blissed-out melodic ideas1 or jaw-dropping displays of contrast to elevate it to the peak of the mathcore mountain. This doesn’t prevent Avarice from being a stunning display of technical aggression, but it does mean more than a few spins to decipher its labyrinthine heaviness.

Nequient really impressed me with this one. Avarice is a nerve-flayed, teeth-grinding listen that captures the low-grade panic and spiritual exhaustion of modern life with alarming precision. Rather than settling for dime-a-dozen mathcore spasms or rote metallic bludgeoning, the Chicago crew stitches together dissonance, groove, chaos, and razor-wire technicality into something far more purposeful. It’s punishing without being empty, intricate without disappearing up its own ass, and memorable enough to demand repeat spins. If you’re craving chaotic metallic extremity that does more than regurgitate the usual suspects, Nequient have your number.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Nefarious Industries
Websites: nequient.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/nequient.band
Releases Worldwide: April 24th, 2026

With a name like that and an album cover featuring a vivisected human head, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Nequient play a form of knuckle-dragging brutal death. Instead, the Chicago four-piece specializes in a brand of chaotic, grinding metallic hardcore that recalls the frenetic math explosion of the early 2000s. Avarice is the band’s third full-length and promises a “unique synthesis of extreme metal and hardcore” to “blast listeners out of complacency with withering screeds against the malignant forces ravaging our world.” Despite some solid releases from last year, it’s been a while since new mathcore shook me to the bone and reminded me of modern existence’s inherent fragility. Nequient have the requisite political bile coursing through their veins—the same volatile fuel that powers the genre’s most unhinged eruptions—but is Avarice actually worth your time, or just another flailing heap of panic chords destined to suffocate beneath a pile of white-belt-era clichés?

On Avarice, Nequient paints an anarchic arras with a dizzying amount of stylistic touchstones. The band combines the unhinged frivolity of The Sawtooth Grin with the fast-paced stop/start violence of The HIRS Collective, and loads their tracks with riffs that actually stick, echoing early Converge at their most surgical. The twist? These songs feel coherent. Longer runtimes turn what could be scattershot spasms into fully realized compositions, bolstered by a wide palette of metallic textures. Blackened tremolos (“Christofascist Zombie Brigade”), demented odd-meter thrash gallops (“Brain Worms”), and sludged-out funeral dirges (“Splenetic And Moribund”) are all threaded together with mathy convulsions Nequient execute with unnerving precision. Throughout the record, the band moves between ideas at a dizzying pace, consistently impressing with bewildering moments of aural chaos.

More than just a collection of moments, the songs on Avarice are propelled by relentless pacing and tangible chemistry among the band members. Nequient’s secret sauce lies in the interplay between Patrick Conahan’s disorienting guitar cascades and drummer Chris Avgerin’s dextrous, fill-heavy style. Conahan glides between mosh-ready grind parts (“Mad King / Fool”), undulating, deathy descents (“Rintrah Roars”), and unsettling noise-rock lurches (“Siege Mentality”). Avergin follows along expertly, always mirroring the spastic guitarwork with tasty, intuitive drum parts that guide the ear and ground the anarchy. Aaron Roeming provides the low-end thunder and adds a purposeful heft that thickens the chunkier riffcraft while vocalist Jason Kolkey leads the charge, alternating between a sassy, vitriolic spew and full-bodied death growls while delivering caustic epithets about the horrors of modern life. Kolkey’s acerbic lyrics pull the whole disgusting package together, melding poetic death metal abstraction with punk’s immediacy and sharpening the record’s nihilistic aura into a potent weapon aimed at a broken system.

In fact, Nequient is almost too adept at channeling the noxious undercurrent of societal id, leaving precious little room to breathe across Avarice’s full-frontal assault. Longer tracks usually ease up on the throttle and inject variety with less frantic, slower sections, like with a menacing sludge-into-breakdown (“Rintrah Roars”), or a hazy, chordal comedown (“Stochastic Terror”). Still, I find myself wanting just a touch more space to find my bearings during full-album listens. Avarice is well-paced, and there are more than enough ideas to keep the 40-minute runtime interesting, but it’s missing one or two blissed-out melodic ideas1 or jaw-dropping displays of contrast to elevate it to the peak of the mathcore mountain. This doesn’t prevent Avarice from being a stunning display of technical aggression, but it does mean more than a few spins to decipher its labyrinthine heaviness.

Nequient really impressed me with this one. Avarice is a nerve-flayed, teeth-grinding listen that captures the low-grade panic and spiritual exhaustion of modern life with alarming precision. Rather than settling for dime-a-dozen mathcore spasms or rote metallic bludgeoning, the Chicago crew stitches together dissonance, groove, chaos, and razor-wire technicality into something far more purposeful. It’s punishing without being empty, intricate without disappearing up its own ass, and memorable enough to demand repeat spins. If you’re craving chaotic metallic extremity that does more than regurgitate the usual suspects, Nequient have your number.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Nefarious Industries
Websites: nequient.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/nequient.band
Releases Worldwide: April 24th, 2026

Agent Seven (WIP)

Latest progress on the new song I was working on then shelved temporarily in favor of another song. Now that the other one is finished, I've resumed work on this one. Tell me what you think. 😜

#Music #MusicProduction #Electronic #ElectronicMusic #Electronica #AvantGarde #Experimental #SoundDesign #SoundEffects #DnB #Mathcore #MIDI #MIDIMusic #WIP #FutureBeats #OriginalMusic #Indie #IndieMusic #IndieMusician #IndieArtist #Musodon #MastoMusic #MusicMonday

Jeg sånn… lurte på å dra på konsert med #Archspire på #JohnDee i november. Ingen jeg kjenner setter pris på sånn.

Er det noen her som skal?

Er det veldig stusselig å dra på konsert aleine eller er det innafor (for en i midten av 40-åra) i 2026?

#mathcore #deathcore #metaltut

Hi, Fediverse (& BSky)! My name is Aiden and I run a small recording studio that I call Scrape the Skyline. The first full project I've worked on is Gohma's Sonic Putrefaction by Means of Temporal Erosion (more below).

Nice article about one of my favourite music genres.

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/dear-hollows-mathcore-madness-things-you-might-have-missed-2025/

#RandomMusickMayhem #Mathcore #AlbumsOf2025

cranial incisored – Lipan's Kinetic
#DeathMetal #Metal #avantgarde #avantgarde #chaotic #freejazz #funk #jazz #mathcore #mathmetal #Yogyakarta
CC BY-NC-ND (#CreativeCommons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives) #ccmusic
https://cranialincisored.bandcamp.com/album/lipans-kinetic

GOT A WOLF – GOT A WOLF
#Punk #black #chaotic #hardcore #mathcore #metal #noise #CzechRepublic
CC BY-NC-ND (#CreativeCommons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives) #ccmusic
https://gotawolf.bandcamp.com/album/got-a-wolf

Morrn 🤘

The debut album of #CarBomb guitarist Greg Kubacki under the moniker #SunGuts is out now digitally. Physical media comes later.
He describes it himself as 'Mathcore for aliens". Much more groovy and melodic than his main band, but it still kicks ass.

Special shoutout to @TG_Esq

https://sunguts.bandcamp.com/album/kilonova

#RandomMusickMayhem #Mathcore #Aliencore #Metal #Djent

Morrn 🤘

The debut album of #CarBomb guitarist Greg Kubacki under the moniker #SunGuts is out now digitally. Physical media comes later.
He describes it himself as 'Mathcore for aliens". Much more groovy and melodic than his main band, but it still kicks ass.

Special shoutout to @TG_Esq

https://sunguts.bandcamp.com/album/kilonova

#RandomMusickMayhem #Mathcore #Aliencore #Metal #Djent

Morrn 🤘

The debut album of #CarBomb guitarist Greg Kubacki under the moniker #SunGuts is out now digitally. Physical media comes later.
He describes it himself as 'Mathcore for aliens". Much more groovy and melodic than his main band, but it still kicks ass.

Special shoutout to @TG_Esq

https://sunguts.bandcamp.com/album/kilonova

#RandomMusickMayhem #Mathcore #Aliencore #Metal #Djent

Morrn 🤘

The debut album of #CarBomb guitarist Greg Kubacki under the moniker #SunGuts is out now digitally. Physical media comes later.
He describes it himself as 'Mathcore for aliens". Much more groovy and melodic than his main band, but it still kicks ass.

Special shoutout to @TG_Esq

https://sunguts.bandcamp.com/album/kilonova

#RandomMusickMayhem #Mathcore #Aliencore #Metal #Djent

Wolves – Self-Titled Review

By Dear Hollow

Remember when hardcore was, like, hardcore? Wolves does. The generically named yet tongue-in-cheek UK hardcore gang makes antiestablishment music cool again, but not in the tired way. It’s not the noise-and-noise-only approach of early punk’s darlings Sex Pistols or Black Flag, but it ain’t pop-punk’s catchy anthem either. It’s jerky, jagged, unhinged, and doesn’t give a fuck about your feelings – it’s angular!1 But it’s also melodic, heartfelt, and overwhelmingly sincere. Calling out fascism and nationalism and the assholes who tote them, while getting personal and vulnerable with themes of parenthood and heartbreak, Wolves offers a scathing forty-eight minute romp through both the unfriendliness and melodicism of hardcore’s storied history.

Wolves is hardcore in a traditional way, but that doesn’t forego on experimentation. The quintet at its core recalls the hardcore fury of Gallows or Verse in their punky politically inclined foot on the gas, but they toss in a generous helping of post-hardcore, healthy cup of mathcore, and a drizzle of post-metal into their stew of titles. Furthermore, four out of five members are also vocalists2 and panic chord abuse runs rampant alongside a groovy swagger. It recalls Every Time I Die, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Poison the Well without committing to them completely, creating a hardcore album that rides neatly on the borders with intensity when needed and thoughtful melody when the situation calls for it. Both bolstered and hindered by their four vocalists and a gratuitous runtime, Self-Titled is math-curious, -core-furious, and genre-spurious debut LP.

Wolves justifies its lengthy runtime with some tasteful experimentation. While the backbone of tempo-abusing furious hardcore punk, a hefty amount of melody adds a heartfelt ache to the tracks (“All or Something”), while post-metal’s dirge-like hypnotism appears to slow things down in a far more somber and dreary tone (“New Liver, Same Eagle”). These moments can be hit-or-miss, however, as the more Intronaut-inspired expanses that rely on clean vocals fall drearily flat (“A Stolen Horse”), the bluesy riffs can grate after so many reiterations (“A Guide to Accepting One’s Fate”), and the more chaotic mathcore faithful can derail the otherwise interesting grooves (“Nicaea to See You (To See You Nicaea)”). Furthermore, although the melodic nature recalls the yearning moments of Counterparts or The Ghost Inside, the four-vocal attack does not bode well, the fry vocals feeling particularly grating against the layered plucking (“All or Something,” “A Stolen Horse”).

Thankfully then, the bulk of Self-Titled is one hell of a beatdown romp that toes the line between its influences in a relentless blend of mathy and groovy. Wonky panic chords and dissonant technical sweeps courtesy of The Dillinger Escape Plan add a desperate and unhinged dimension (“LEECHES!,” “Emergency Equipment”), while bluesy swagger that recalls the heyday of Every Time I Die makes riffs sound “yuuuuge” against the backdrop of blistering hardcore tempos, resulting in some seriously mosh-worthy content (“Thirteen Crows and One Pigeon,” “The Rich Man and the Sea”). Second track “Reformed (Try Love)” is of special note, that while its groovy riffs are rad, the spoken word callout is the most hardcore thing I’ve heard this year, calling out those who are “one step from Nazi propaganda” and nationalism-flirting politicians, businessmen, and influencers, British and American: “Mate, they don’t give a fuck about you, but you′ve let them whisper in your ear… ’cause it′s easier to hate than to look in a fucking mirror.” In Wolves’ words, “Christ, what a shower of cunts.”

Wolves’ Self-Titled is all about balance, as their unapologetic brashness blends surprisingly well with their tongue-in-cheek vibe and vulnerable melodics. At its core, it’s a math-curious hardcore romp that fits neatly alongside the likes of both Gallows, Botch, and even Stray from the Path, so it’s easy to forgive the overloud vocals, mediocre cleans, periodically gratuitous repetition, and album length. When its experimental edge succeeds, it’s a home run, but that’s not the star of the show – its political edge and weaponized mathcore influence will rip you a new one. Wolves is here to make sure you’re not “duped by absolute scumbags” and have a rip-roaring time doing it.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Ripcord Records
Websites: theycalluswolves.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/theycalluswolves
Releases Worldwide: September 5th, 2025

#2025 #30 #BlackFlag #Botch #BritishMetal #Counterparts #EveryTimeIDie #Gallows #HardcorePunk #Intronaut #Mathcore #PoisonTheWell #PostMetal #Review #Reviews #RipcordRecords #SelfTitled #Sep25 #SexPistols #StrayFromThePath #TheDillingerEscapePlan #TheGhostInside #Verse #Wolves

My review of an incredible debut album from Igarka. Think Kayo Dot meets The Crest - yep, that good!
.
.
.
.
#music #musicreview #newmusic #avantgarde #baroness #darkwell #deftones #depechemode #duranduran #dynamic #folk #garynuman #goth #gothic #grunge #igarka #italy #jamesbond #kayodot #lacrimosal #LeavesEyes #mathcore #metal #posthardcore #shoegaze #silvery #sinsofthybeloved #society #thecrest #TheatreOfTragedy

https://npryan.com/2025/08/28/igarka-dopamine-ocean/

My review of an incredible debut album from Igarka. Think Kayo Dot meets The Crest - yep, that good!
.
.
.
.
#music #musicreview #newmusic #avantgarde #baroness #darkwell #deftones #depechemode #duranduran #dynamic #folk #garynuman #goth #gothic #grunge #igarka #italy #jamesbond #kayodot #lacrimosal #LeavesEyes #mathcore #metal #posthardcore #shoegaze #silvery #sinsofthybeloved #society #thecrest #TheatreOfTragedy

https://npryan.com/2025/08/28/igarka-dopamine-ocean/

My review of an incredible debut album from Igarka. Think Kayo Dot meets The Crest - yep, that good!
.
.
.
.
#music #musicreview #newmusic #avantgarde #baroness #darkwell #deftones #depechemode #duranduran #dynamic #folk #garynuman #goth #gothic #grunge #igarka #italy #jamesbond #kayodot #lacrimosal #LeavesEyes #mathcore #metal #posthardcore #shoegaze #silvery #sinsofthybeloved #society #thecrest #TheatreOfTragedy

https://npryan.com/2025/08/28/igarka-dopamine-ocean/

My review of an incredible debut album from Igarka. Think Kayo Dot meets The Crest - yep, that good!
.
.
.
.
#music #musicreview #newmusic #avantgarde #baroness #darkwell #deftones #depechemode #duranduran #dynamic #folk #garynuman #goth #gothic #grunge #igarka #italy #jamesbond #kayodot #lacrimosal #LeavesEyes #mathcore #metal #posthardcore #shoegaze #silvery #sinsofthybeloved #society #thecrest #TheatreOfTragedy

https://npryan.com/2025/08/28/igarka-dopamine-ocean/

My review of an incredible debut album from Igarka. Think Kayo Dot meets The Crest - yep, that good!
.
.
.
.
#music #musicreview #newmusic #avantgarde #baroness #darkwell #deftones #depechemode #duranduran #dynamic #folk #garynuman #goth #gothic #grunge #igarka #italy #jamesbond #kayodot #lacrimosal #LeavesEyes #mathcore #metal #posthardcore #shoegaze #silvery #sinsofthybeloved #society #thecrest #TheatreOfTragedy

https://npryan.com/2025/08/28/igarka-dopamine-ocean/

BYONOISEGENERATOR (Rússia) presenta nou àlbum: "Subnormal Dives" #Byonoisegenerator #BrutalDeathMetal #Grindcore #Mathcore #JazzFusion #Juny2025 #Rússia #NouÀlbum #Metall #Metal #MúsicaMetal #MetalMusic

Tangents, Drainstar, Compactor, Paresis @ L'Hemisphere Gauche - July 16th, 2025

Hemisphere Gauche, Wednesday, July 16 at 07:00 PM EDT

Viridian Cult Productions presents:

Come down to L'Hemisphere Gauche on Wednesday, July 16th, 2025 for a night full of abrasive sounds that know no bounds. Ontario mathcore wizards Tangents will be joined by New York industrial noise insurgent Compactor, supported by local hardcore and post-hardcore from Drainstar and Paresis respectively!

Tangents:
https://tangents1.bandcamp.com/album/molt-2025

Compactor:
https://compactor.bandcamp.com/album/institutionalized-genocide

Paresis:
https://paresisnoise.bandcamp.com/album/demo2k50

Wednesday, July 16th, 2025
@ L'Hemisphere Gauche
221 Rue Beaubien Est
Doors @ 7:00 PM
Show @ 8:00 PM
$15 / PWYC
18+

https://montreal.askapunk.net/event/tangents-drainstar-compactor-paresis-lhemisphere-gauche-july-16th-2025

Stuck in the Filter: March 2025’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

Spring is in the air, and with it comes… an insane number of cicadas! Yes, that’s right, Brood XIV spawned this year and is currently overwhelming my staff as they trudge through embuggened ducts to clear out the Filter of semi-precious metal. I bet it’s fucking loud in there…

…. eh I’m sure they are all fine. Just fine. Anyway, enjoy the spoils of our toils!

Kenstrosity’s Gloopy Grubber

Acid Age // Perilous Compulsion [February 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

Belfast’s wacky thrash conglomerate Acid Age came out of absolutely nowhere back in March, unleashing their fourth LP Perilous Compulsion and equipping it with one helluva van-worthy cover. This is some funky, bluesy, quasi-psychedelic thrash metal that pulls no punches. Riffs abound, bonkers songwriting pervades, immense groove agitates. From the onset, “Bikini Island” establishes Perilous Compulsion as a no-nonsense, balls-out affair which reminds me heavily of Voivod and a simplified Flummox informed by Atheist’s progressive proclivities, and expanded by a touch of Pink Floyd’s nebulous jams. Of course, thrash remains Acid Age’s hero flavor, as choice cuts “State Your Business,” “Revenge for Sale,” and closing one-two punch “Rotten Tooth” and “Hamster Wheel” clearly demonstrate. While their fearless exploration of style and structure maintains a sky-high level of interest, it also introduces a couple of challenges. Firstly, this material can feel a bit disjointed at first, but focused spins reward the listener greatly as all of Perilous Compulsion’s moving parts start to mesh and move in unison. Secondly, Acid Age throws a spotlight on a few brilliant inclusions that, over time, I wish were more often utilized—namely, the delightfully bluesy harmonica solos on “Rotten Tooth.” Regardless, Acid Age put themselves on my map with Perilous Compulsion. I recommend you put them on yours, too!

Owlswald’s Desiccated Discoveries

Verbian // Casarder [March 21st, 2025 – Lost Future Records]

It’s unjust that Portuguese rockers Verbian—who have been producing quality post-rock since 2019’s Jaez—haven’t received the attention they deserve. Fusing elements of post-rock with metal, psychedelic, and stoner, Casarder is Verbian’s third full-length and the first with new drummer Guilherme Gonçalves. Taking the sounds and inspirations of 2020’s Irrupção and enriching it with new permutations and modulations, Casarder’s largely instrumental character rides punchy riffs and roiling grooves—à la Russian Circles and Elder—to transmit its thought-provoking legitimacy. Dystopian and surreal séances, via echoing Korg synthscapes (“Pausa Entre Dias,” “Vozes da Ilha”) and celestial harmonies, permeate Casarder’s forty-three-minute runtime, translating Madalena Pinto’s striking Aeon Flux-esque cover art with precision. Ominous horn sections and crusty recurrent vocals (“Marcha do Vulto,” “Depois de Toda a Mudança”) by guitarist Vasco Reis and bassist Alexandre Silva underscore Verbian’s individuality in a crowded post-rock domain. Gonçalves’s drumming—with his intricate and enchanting hard rock and samba rhythms (“Nada Muda,” “Fruta Caída do Mar”)—adds a new dimension to Verbian’s sound, assuring my attention never falters. The group describes Casarder as communicating the “…insecurities of artistic expression and personal exposure when it comes to fearing being judged for something that is somewhat outside of what is done in each artist’s niche.” Indeed, Casarder reveals Verbian is unafraid to forge their own path, and the results are gripping.

Symbiotic Growth // Beyond the Sleepless Aether [March 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

Beyond the Sleepless Aether, the sophomore effort by Ontario, Canada’s Symbiotic Growth, immediately caught my attention with its dreamy-looking cover. Building upon their 2020 self-titled debut, the Canadian trio hones epic and long-form progressive death metal soundscapes, narrating a quest for meaning across alternate realities in mostly lengthy, yet rewarding, tracks that blend technicality, atmosphere, and melody. The group frequently employs dynamic shifts, moving between raging brutality and serene shoegaze beauty (“Arid Trials and Barren Sands,” “The Sleepless Void”). This is achieved through complex and vengeful passages alongside atmospheric synth lines and softer piano interludes (“Sires of Boundless Sunset,” “Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights”), cultivating an air of wonder, mystery, and ethereality that permeates much of Symbiotic Growth’s material. “The Architect of Annihilation” echoes the style of Ne Obliviscaris with its blend of clean harmonies and harsh growls meshed with tremolo-picked arpeggiations and catchy hooks (the guitar solo even features a violin-like quality). “Lost in Fractured Reveries” evokes In Mourning with its parallel synth and guitar lines giving way to devastating grooves that make it impossible not to headbang. Although some fine-tuning remains—the clean vocals could use some more weight and tracks like “Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights” and “The Architect of Annihilation” overstay their welcome at times—Beyond the Sleepless Aether shows Symbiotic Growth’s burgeoning talent and signals the group is one to watch in progressive death metal.

Dear Hollow’s Drudgery Sludgery Hoist

Spiritbox // Tsunami Sea [March 7th, 2025 – Pale Chord Records | Rise Records]

From humble beginnings in a more artsy-fartsy djent post-Iwrestledabearonce world to becoming the darlings of Octane Radio, Spiritbox has seen quite the ascent. While it’s easy to look at their work and scoff at its radio-friendliness, sophomore full-length Tsunami Sea shows Courtney LaPlante and company sticking to their guns. Simultaneously more obscure and more radio-friendly in its selection of tracks, expect its signature blend of colossal riffs and ethereal melodies guided by LaPlante’s siren-then-sea serpent dichotomy of furious roars and haunting cleans. Yes, Spiritbox helms its attack with the radio singles (“Perfect Soul,”1 “Crystal Roses”) in layered soaring choruses and touches of hip-hop undergirded by fierce grooves, but the meat of Tsunami Sea finds the flexibility and patience in the skull-crushing brutality (“Soft Spine,” “No Loss, No Love”) and its more exploratory songwriting that amps layers of the ethereal and the hellish with catchy riffs and vocals alike (“Fata Morgana,” “A Haven of Two Faces”). It’s far from perfect, and its tendency towards radio will be divisive, but it shows Spiritbox firing on all cylinders.

Unfleshing // Violent Reason [March 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

I am always tickled pink by blackened crust. It takes the crusty violence and propensity for filth and adds black metal’s signature sinister nature. Unfleshing is a young, unsigned blackened crust band from St. Louis, and with debut Violent Reason, you can expect a traditional punk-infused beatdown with a battered guitar tone and sinister vocals. However, more than many, the quartet offers a beatdown that feels as atmospheric as it is pummeling. Don’t get me wrong, you get your skull caved in like the poor guy on the cover with minute-long crust beatdowns (“Body Bag,” “From the Gutter”) and full-length smackdowns (“Knife in the Dark,” “Final Breath”), both styles complete with scathing grooves, squalid feedback, climactic solos and punishing blastbeats, atop a blackened roar dripping with hate. But amid the full-throttle assault, Unfleshing utilizes ominous black metal chord progressions and unsettling plucking to add a more dynamic feature to Violent Reason (“Cathedral Rust,” “One With the Mud”). The album never overstays, and while traditional, it’s a hell of a start for Unfleshing.

Ghostsmoker // Inertia Cult [March 21st, 2025 – Art as Catharsis Records]

Ghostsmoker seems like the perfect stoner metal band name, but aside from the swampy guitar tone, there’s something much sinister lurking. Proffering a caustic blackened doom/sludge not unlike Thou, Wormphlegm, and Sea Bastard, the Melbourne group quartet devotes a crisp forty-two minutes to sprawling doom weighted by a crushing guitar tone that rivals Morast‘s latest, and shrieked vocals straight from the latest church burning. Beyond what’s expected from this particular breed of devastation, Ghostsmoker infuses an evocative patience reminiscent of post-metal’s more sludgy offerings like Neurosis or Pelican, lending a certain atmosphere and mood of dread and wilderness depicted on its cover. From the outright chugging attacks of churning aggression (“Elogium,” “Haven”) to the more experimental and thoughtful pieces (“Bodies to Shore,” instrumental closer “The Death of Solitude”), Inertia Cult largely feels like a journey through uncharted forests, with voices whispering from the trees. Ghostsmoker is something special.

GardensTale’s Paralyzed Spine

Spiine // Tetraptych [March 27th, 2025 – Self Released]

Is it still a supergroup release when half the lineup are session musicians? Spiine is made up of Sesca Scaarba (Virgin Black) and Xen (ex-Ne Obliviscaris), but on debut Tetraptych they are joined by guests Waltteri Väyrynen (Opeth) and Lena Abé (My Dying Bride). Usually, so much talent put into the same room does not yield great results. Tetraptych is one hell of an exception. A monstrous slab of crawling heaviness, Spiine lurches with abject despair through the mires of deathly funeral doom. Though I usually eschew this genre, my attention remains rapt through a variety of variations. The songwriting keeps the 4 tracks progressing, slow and steady builds, and the promise of momentary tempo changes working a two-pronged structural plan to buoy the majestic yet miserable riffs. “Oubliiette” is the best example here, going from galloping death-doom to Georgian choirs to a fantastic bridge where all the instrumentation hits only on the roared syllables. Xen’s unholy bellows flatten any objections I may have had, managing both thunder and deepest woe in the same notes. The subtle orchestration and occasional choir arrangements finish the package with regal grandeur, and the lush and warm production is the cherry on top. If you feel like drowning your sorrows with an hour of colossal doom, this is the album for you.

Saunders’ Stenched Staples

Ade // Supplicium [March 14th, 2025 – Time to Kill Records]

Sometimes unjustly pigeonholed as the Roman-inspired version of Nile, the hugely underrated Ade have punched out a solid career of quality death metal releases since emerging roughly fifteen years ago, charting their own path. Albums like 2013’s ripping Spartacus and 2019’s solid Rise of the Empire represent a tidy snapshot of the band’s career. Fifth album Supplicium, their first LP in six years, marks a low-key, welcome return. Exotic instrumentation and attention to history and storytelling are alive and well in the Ade camp, as is their penchant for punishing, unrelenting death, featuring a deftly curated mix of bombast, brutality, technical spark, and epic atmospheres. Edoardo Di Santo (Hideous Divinity) joins a largely refreshed line-up, including a new bassist and second guitarist since their last album. Line-up changes aside, familiar Ade tools of harrowing ancient Roman tales and modern death destruction remain as consistently solid as always. Top-notch riffs, intricate arrangements, fluid tempo shifts, and explosive drumming highlight songs that frequently flex their flair for drama-fueled atmospheres, hellfire blasts, and burly grooves. The immense, multi-faceted “Burnt Before Gods,” exotic melodies and raw savagery of “Ad Beastias!,” spitfire intensity of “Vinum,” and epically charged throes of “From Fault to Disfigurement” highlight more solid returns from Ade.

Masters of Reality // The Archer [March 28th, 2025 – Artone Label Group/Mascot Records]

Underappreciated desert rock pioneers and quirky stalwarts Masters of Reality returned from recording oblivion some fifteen-plus years since they last unleashed an LP. Led by the legendary Chris Goss and his collaborative counterparts across a career that first kicked off in the late ’80s, Masters of Reality return sounding inspired, wisened, and a little more chilled. Re-tinkering their familiar but ever-shifting sound, Masters of Reality incorporate woozy, bluesy laidback vibes featuring their oddball songwriting traits through a sedate, intriguing collection of new songs. The Archer showcases Masters of Reality’s longevity as seasoned, skilled songwriters, regardless of the shifting rock modes they explore. While perhaps lacking some of the energetic spark and earworm hooks of albums like Sunrise on the Sufferbus and Deep in the Hole, The Archer still marks a fine return outing. Goss’ signature voice is in fine form, and the bluesy, psych-drenched guitars, cushy basslines, ’60s and ’70s influences, and spacey vibes create a comforting haze. The delightfully dreamy, trippy “Chicken Little,” laidback hooks and old school charms of “I Had a Dream,” lively, quirky grooves of “Mr Tap n’ Go,” and moody, melancholic balladry of “Powder Man” highlight another diverse, strange brew from the veteran act.

Tyme’s Unheard Annunciations

Doomsday // Never Known Peace [March 28th, 2025 – Creator-Destructor Records]

March’s filter means spring is here, mostly, which is when I start searching for bands to populate my annual edition of Tyme’s Mowing Metal. There’s nothing I enjoy more than cracking a cold beer, sliding my headphones over my ears, and hopping on the mower to complete one of summer’s—at least for me—most enjoyable chores. A band that will feature prominently this summer is Oakland, California’s crossover thrash quintet Doomsday, and their Creator-Destructor Records debut album, Never Known Peace. Doomsday lays down a ton of mindless fun in the vein of other crossover greats like Enforced and Power Trip. There are riffs aplenty on this deliciously executed hardcore-tinged thrashtastic platter full of snarly, spiteful, Jamey Jasta-esque vocals, trademark gang shouts, and, oh, did I mention the riffs? Yeah, cuz there’s a butt-ton of ’em. Leads and solos are melodic (“Death is Here,” “Eternal Tombs”). Within its beefily warm mix, the chug-a-lug breakdowns run rampant across Never Known Peace‘s thirty-one minutes (seriously, there’s one in every track), leaving nary a tune that won’t have you at least bobbing your head and, at most, causing your neck a very nasty case of whipthrash. I’m going to be listening to Never Known Peace ALOT this summer, on and off my mower, and while I don’t care that the lawn lines in my yard will be a little wavier this year than others, I’ll chalk it up to the beer and the head banging Doomsday‘s Never Known Peace instills.

Rancid Cadaver // Mortality Denied [March 21st, 2025 – Self Released]

Another filter, another fetid fragment of foulness; this month, it’s up-and-coming deathstarts Rancid Cadaver and their independently released debut album Mortality Denied. Adam Burke’s excellent cover art caught my eye during a quick dip into the Bandcamp pool and had me pushing play. A thick slab of murderous meat ripe with fatty veins of Coffin Mulch and Morbific running through it, Mortality Denied overflows with tons of bestial vocals, crushing drums, barbaric bass, and squealing solos, all ensorcelled within the majesty of Rancid Cadaver‘s miasmic riff-gurgitations (“Slurping the Cerebral Slime,” “Mass of Gore,” and “Drained of Brains”). Fists will pump, and faces will stank during the Fulci-friendly “Zombified,” a pulverizing slow-death chug fest with an intro that landed me right back on the shores of Dr. Menard’s island of the undead.2 This quartet of Glaswegians has plopped down a death metal debut that ages like wine, getting better and better with consecutive spins. Surprisingly, Rancid Cadaver is unsigned, but I’m confident that status should change before we see a sophomore effort, and you can bet I’ll be there when that happens.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Unsophisticated Slappers

Crossed // Realismo Ausente [March 21st, 2025 – Zegema Beach Records]

Timing means everything in groove. I know that some people say that they have a hard time finding that kind of bob and sway in extreme music. But with an act like Spain’s Crossed, whose every carved word and every skronked guitar noise follows an insatiable punky stride, groove lies in every moment of third full-length Realismo Ausente. Whether it’s on the classic beat of D (“Vaciar Un Corazón,” “Cuerpo Distorsionado”), the twanging drone of a screaming bend (“Monotonía de la lluvia en la Ventana”), or the Celtic Frost-ed hammer of a chord crush (“Catedral”), a calculated, urgent, and intoxicating cadence colors the grayscale attitude throughout. But just because Crossed can find a groove in any twisted mathy rhythm—early Converge and Dillinger Escape Plan come to mind on quick cuts like “Cerrojo” and “Sentirse Solo”—doesn’t mean that their panic chord-loaded crescendos and close-outs can’t rip your head clean off in banging ecstasy. Easy listening and blackened hardcore can’t go hand-in-hand, but Crossed does their very best to make unintelligible, scathing screeches and ceiling-scraping feedback hissing palatable against crunchy punk builds and throbbing, warm bass grumbles. Likewise, Realismo Ausente stabs into a dejected body tales of loathing, fear, self-rejection, and defeated existence—nothing smiles in its urgent and apathetic crevices. But despite the lack of light at the end of the tunnel of Crossed’s horror-touched vision of impassioned hardcore, an analog warmth and human spirit trapped inside a writhing and pleading throat reveal a presence that’s still fighting. It’s the fight that counts. If you didn’t join the fight last time, now’s as good a time as any.

Nothing // The Self Repair Manifesto [March 26th, 2025 – Self Released]

If you noticed a tree zombie heading steaming through its trepanned opening, then you too found the same initial draw I had to The Self Repair Manifesto. Nothing complex often can draw us to the things we desire, yet in Nothing’s particular attack of relentless, groove-based death metal, many nooks of additional interest exist. The Self Repair Manifesto’s tribal rhythm-stirred “Initiation,” in its bouncy play, does little to set up the double-kick pummel and snarling refrains that lurk in this brutal, Australian soundscape. The simple chiming cymbal-fluttering bass call-and-response of “Subterfuge,” the throat singing summoning of “The Shroud,” the immediate onslaught of “Abrogation”—all in under 30 minutes, an infectious and progressive experience unfolds. And never fear, living by the motto “no clean singing,”3 Nothing has no intention of traveling the wandering and crooning path of an Opeth or In Vain. Rather, Nothing finds a hypnotic rhythmic presence both in fanciful kit play that stirs a foot shuffle and high-tempo stick abuse that urges bodies on bodies in the pit (“Subterfuge,” “The Shroud”), much in the same way you might hear in early Decapitated or Hate Eternal works. With flair of their own, though, and a mic near the mouth vessel of each member (yes, even the drummer!) to maintain a layered harsh intensity, Nothing serves a potent blend of death metal that is as jam-able as it is gym-able. Whether you seek gains or progressive enrichment, Nothing is the answer.

Steel Druhm’s Massive Aggressive

Impurity // The Eternal Sleep [ March 7th, 2025 – Hammerheart Records]

Impurity’s lust for all things Left Hand Path is not the least bit Clandestine, and on their full-length debut, The Eternal Sleep, they attempt to craft their own ode to the rabid HM-2 worship of the early 90s Swedeath sound. No new elements are shoehorned in aside from vaguely blackened ones, and there’s not the slightest effort to push the boundaries of the admittedly limited Swedeath sound. The Eternal Sleep sounds like the album that could have come between Entombed’s timeless debut and the Clandestine follow-up, and that’s not a bad place to be. It’s heavy, brutish, buzzing death metal with an OSDM edge, and it hits like a runaway 18-wheeler full of concrete and titanium rebar. One only needs to weather the shitstorm of opener “Denial of Clarity” to realize this is the deep water of the niche genre. It’s extremely heavy, face-melting death with more fuzz and buzz than your brain can process. Other cuts feel like a direct lift from Left Hand Path and/or Clandestine (“Tribute to Creation,”) and fetid Dismember tidbits creep in during “Pilgrimage to Utumno,” and these feel like olde friends showing up unexpectedly at the hometown watering hole. Swedeath is all about those ragged, jagged riffs, and they’re delivered in abundance over The Eternal Sleep, and despite the intrinsic lack of originality, Impurity pump enough steroids and Cialis into the genre archetypes to make the material endearing and engaging. Yes, you’ve heard this shit before. Now hear it again, chumbo!

#AcidAge #Ade #AmericanMetal #ArtAsCatharsisRecords #ArtoneLabelGroup #Atheist #AustralianMetal #BeyondTheSleeplessAether #BlackMetal #BlackenedCrust #BlackenedHardcore #CanadianMetal #Casarder #CelticFrost #CoffinMulch #Converge #CreatorDestructorRecords #Crossed #Crust #DeathMetal #Decapitated #DesertRock #DillingerEscapePlan #DoomMetal #Doomsday #Elder #Enforced #Flummox #Fulci #Ghostsmoker #Hardcore #HateEternal #HideousDivinity #Impurity #InMourning #InVain #InertialCult #InternationalMetal #ItalianMetal #iwrestledabearonce #LostFutureRecords #MascotRecords #MastersOfReality #Mathcore #MelodicMetal #Metalcore #Morast #Morbific #MortalityDenied #MyDyingBride #NeObliviscaris #Neurosis #NeverKnownPeace #Nile #Nothing #Opeth #PaleChordRecords #Pelican #PerilousCompulsion #PinkFloyd #PortugueseMetal #PostRock #PostMetal #PowerTrip #ProgressiveDeathMetal #ProgressiveMetal #ProgressiveThrashMetal #PyschedelicRock #RancidCadaver #RealismoAusente #Review #Reviews #RiseRecords #RussianCircles #ScottishMetal #SeaBastard #SelfReleased #SixpenceNoneTheRicher #SludgeMetal #SpanishMetal #Spiine #Spiritbox #StonerMetal #Supplicium #SymbioticGrowth #TechnicalDeathMetal #Tetraptych #TheArcher #TheEternalSleep #TheSelfRepairManifesto #Thou #ThrashMetal #TimeToKillRecords #TsunamiSea #UKMetal #Unfleshing #Verbian #ViolentReason #VirginBlack #Voivod #Wormphlegm #ZegemaBeachRecords

Stuck in the Filter: March 2025’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

Spring is in the air, and with it comes… an insane number of cicadas! Yes, that’s right, Brood XIV spawned this year and is currently overwhelming my staff as they trudge through embuggened ducts to clear out the Filter of semi-precious metal. I bet it’s fucking loud in there…

…. eh I’m sure they are all fine. Just fine. Anyway, enjoy the spoils of our toils!

Kenstrosity’s Gloopy Grubber

Acid Age // Perilous Compulsion [February 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

Belfast’s wacky thrash conglomerate Acid Age came out of absolutely nowhere back in March, unleashing their fourth LP Perilous Compulsion and equipping it with one helluva van-worthy cover. This is some funky, bluesy, quasi-psychedelic thrash metal that pulls no punches. Riffs abound, bonkers songwriting pervades, immense groove agitates. From the onset, “Bikini Island” establishes Perilous Compulsion as a no-nonsense, balls-out affair which reminds me heavily of Voivod and a simplified Flummox informed by Atheist’s progressive proclivities, and expanded by a touch of Pink Floyd’s nebulous jams. Of course, thrash remains Acid Age’s hero flavor, as choice cuts “State Your Business,” “Revenge for Sale,” and closing one-two punch “Rotten Tooth” and “Hamster Wheel” clearly demonstrate. While their fearless exploration of style and structure maintains a sky-high level of interest, it also introduces a couple of challenges. Firstly, this material can feel a bit disjointed at first, but focused spins reward the listener greatly as all of Perilous Compulsion’s moving parts start to mesh and move in unison. Secondly, Acid Age throws a spotlight on a few brilliant inclusions that, over time, I wish were more often utilized—namely, the delightfully bluesy harmonica solos on “Rotten Tooth.” Regardless, Acid Age put themselves on my map with Perilous Compulsion. I recommend you put them on yours, too!

Owlswald’s Desiccated Discoveries

Verbian // Casarder [March 21st, 2025 – Lost Future Records]

It’s unjust that Portuguese rockers Verbian—who have been producing quality post-rock since 2019’s Jaez—haven’t received the attention they deserve. Fusing elements of post-rock with metal, psychedelic, and stoner, Casarder is Verbian’s third full-length and the first with new drummer Guilherme Gonçalves. Taking the sounds and inspirations of 2020’s Irrupção and enriching it with new permutations and modulations, Casarder’s largely instrumental character rides punchy riffs and roiling grooves—à la Russian Circles and Elder—to transmit its thought-provoking legitimacy. Dystopian and surreal séances, via echoing Korg synthscapes (“Pausa Entre Dias,” “Vozes da Ilha”) and celestial harmonies, permeate Casarder’s forty-three-minute runtime, translating Madalena Pinto’s striking Aeon Flux-esque cover art with precision. Ominous horn sections and crusty recurrent vocals (“Marcha do Vulto,” “Depois de Toda a Mudança”) by guitarist Vasco Reis and bassist Alexandre Silva underscore Verbian’s individuality in a crowded post-rock domain. Gonçalves’s drumming—with his intricate and enchanting hard rock and samba rhythms (“Nada Muda,” “Fruta Caída do Mar”)—adds a new dimension to Verbian’s sound, assuring my attention never falters. The group describes Casarder as communicating the “…insecurities of artistic expression and personal exposure when it comes to fearing being judged for something that is somewhat outside of what is done in each artist’s niche.” Indeed, Casarder reveals Verbian is unafraid to forge their own path, and the results are gripping.

Symbiotic Growth // Beyond the Sleepless Aether [March 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

Beyond the Sleepless Aether, the sophomore effort by Ontario, Canada’s Symbiotic Growth, immediately caught my attention with its dreamy-looking cover. Building upon their 2020 self-titled debut, the Canadian trio hones epic and long-form progressive death metal soundscapes, narrating a quest for meaning across alternate realities in mostly lengthy, yet rewarding, tracks that blend technicality, atmosphere, and melody. The group frequently employs dynamic shifts, moving between raging brutality and serene shoegaze beauty (“Arid Trials and Barren Sands,” “The Sleepless Void”). This is achieved through complex and vengeful passages alongside atmospheric synth lines and softer piano interludes (“Sires of Boundless Sunset,” “Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights”), cultivating an air of wonder, mystery, and ethereality that permeates much of Symbiotic Growth’s material. “The Architect of Annihilation” echoes the style of Ne Obliviscaris with its blend of clean harmonies and harsh growls meshed with tremolo-picked arpeggiations and catchy hooks (the guitar solo even features a violin-like quality). “Lost in Fractured Reveries” evokes In Mourning with its parallel synth and guitar lines giving way to devastating grooves that make it impossible not to headbang. Although some fine-tuning remains—the clean vocals could use some more weight and tracks like “Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights” and “The Architect of Annihilation” overstay their welcome at times—Beyond the Sleepless Aether shows Symbiotic Growth’s burgeoning talent and signals the group is one to watch in progressive death metal.

Dear Hollow’s Drudgery Sludgery Hoist

Spiritbox // Tsunami Sea [March 7th, 2025 – Pale Chord Records | Rise Records]

From humble beginnings in a more artsy-fartsy djent post-Iwrestledabearonce world to becoming the darlings of Octane Radio, Spiritbox has seen quite the ascent. While it’s easy to look at their work and scoff at its radio-friendliness, sophomore full-length Tsunami Sea shows Courtney LaPlante and company sticking to their guns. Simultaneously more obscure and more radio-friendly in its selection of tracks, expect its signature blend of colossal riffs and ethereal melodies guided by LaPlante’s siren-then-sea serpent dichotomy of furious roars and haunting cleans. Yes, Spiritbox helms its attack with the radio singles (“Perfect Soul,”1 “Crystal Roses”) in layered soaring choruses and touches of hip-hop undergirded by fierce grooves, but the meat of Tsunami Sea finds the flexibility and patience in the skull-crushing brutality (“Soft Spine,” “No Loss, No Love”) and its more exploratory songwriting that amps layers of the ethereal and the hellish with catchy riffs and vocals alike (“Fata Morgana,” “A Haven of Two Faces”). It’s far from perfect, and its tendency towards radio will be divisive, but it shows Spiritbox firing on all cylinders.

Unfleshing // Violent Reason [March 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

I am always tickled pink by blackened crust. It takes the crusty violence and propensity for filth and adds black metal’s signature sinister nature. Unfleshing is a young, unsigned blackened crust band from St. Louis, and with debut Violent Reason, you can expect a traditional punk-infused beatdown with a battered guitar tone and sinister vocals. However, more than many, the quartet offers a beatdown that feels as atmospheric as it is pummeling. Don’t get me wrong, you get your skull caved in like the poor guy on the cover with minute-long crust beatdowns (“Body Bag,” “From the Gutter”) and full-length smackdowns (“Knife in the Dark,” “Final Breath”), both styles complete with scathing grooves, squalid feedback, climactic solos and punishing blastbeats, atop a blackened roar dripping with hate. But amid the full-throttle assault, Unfleshing utilizes ominous black metal chord progressions and unsettling plucking to add a more dynamic feature to Violent Reason (“Cathedral Rust,” “One With the Mud”). The album never overstays, and while traditional, it’s a hell of a start for Unfleshing.

Ghostsmoker // Inertia Cult [March 21st, 2025 – Art as Catharsis Records]

Ghostsmoker seems like the perfect stoner metal band name, but aside from the swampy guitar tone, there’s something much sinister lurking. Proffering a caustic blackened doom/sludge not unlike Thou, Wormphlegm, and Sea Bastard, the Melbourne group quartet devotes a crisp forty-two minutes to sprawling doom weighted by a crushing guitar tone that rivals Morast‘s latest, and shrieked vocals straight from the latest church burning. Beyond what’s expected from this particular breed of devastation, Ghostsmoker infuses an evocative patience reminiscent of post-metal’s more sludgy offerings like Neurosis or Pelican, lending a certain atmosphere and mood of dread and wilderness depicted on its cover. From the outright chugging attacks of churning aggression (“Elogium,” “Haven”) to the more experimental and thoughtful pieces (“Bodies to Shore,” instrumental closer “The Death of Solitude”), Inertia Cult largely feels like a journey through uncharted forests, with voices whispering from the trees. Ghostsmoker is something special.

GardensTale’s Paralyzed Spine

Spiine // Tetraptych [March 27th, 2025 – Self Released]

Is it still a supergroup release when half the lineup are session musicians? Spiine is made up of Sesca Scaarba (Virgin Black) and Xen (ex-Ne Obliviscaris), but on debut Tetraptych they are joined by guests Waltteri Väyrynen (Opeth) and Lena Abé (My Dying Bride). Usually, so much talent put into the same room does not yield great results. Tetraptych is one hell of an exception. A monstrous slab of crawling heaviness, Spiine lurches with abject despair through the mires of deathly funeral doom. Though I usually eschew this genre, my attention remains rapt through a variety of variations. The songwriting keeps the 4 tracks progressing, slow and steady builds, and the promise of momentary tempo changes working a two-pronged structural plan to buoy the majestic yet miserable riffs. “Oubliiette” is the best example here, going from galloping death-doom to Georgian choirs to a fantastic bridge where all the instrumentation hits only on the roared syllables. Xen’s unholy bellows flatten any objections I may have had, managing both thunder and deepest woe in the same notes. The subtle orchestration and occasional choir arrangements finish the package with regal grandeur, and the lush and warm production is the cherry on top. If you feel like drowning your sorrows with an hour of colossal doom, this is the album for you.

Saunders’ Stenched Staples

Ade // Supplicium [March 14th, 2025 – Time to Kill Records]

Sometimes unjustly pigeonholed as the Roman-inspired version of Nile, the hugely underrated Ade have punched out a solid career of quality death metal releases since emerging roughly fifteen years ago, charting their own path. Albums like 2013’s ripping Spartacus and 2019’s solid Rise of the Empire represent a tidy snapshot of the band’s career. Fifth album Supplicium, their first LP in six years, marks a low-key, welcome return. Exotic instrumentation and attention to history and storytelling are alive and well in the Ade camp, as is their penchant for punishing, unrelenting death, featuring a deftly curated mix of bombast, brutality, technical spark, and epic atmospheres. Edoardo Di Santo (Hideous Divinity) joins a largely refreshed line-up, including a new bassist and second guitarist since their last album. Line-up changes aside, familiar Ade tools of harrowing ancient Roman tales and modern death destruction remain as consistently solid as always. Top-notch riffs, intricate arrangements, fluid tempo shifts, and explosive drumming highlight songs that frequently flex their flair for drama-fueled atmospheres, hellfire blasts, and burly grooves. The immense, multi-faceted “Burnt Before Gods,” exotic melodies and raw savagery of “Ad Beastias!,” spitfire intensity of “Vinum,” and epically charged throes of “From Fault to Disfigurement” highlight more solid returns from Ade.

Masters of Reality // The Archer [March 28th, 2025 – Artone Label Group/Mascot Records]

Underappreciated desert rock pioneers and quirky stalwarts Masters of Reality returned from recording oblivion some fifteen-plus years since they last unleashed an LP. Led by the legendary Chris Goss and his collaborative counterparts across a career that first kicked off in the late ’80s, Masters of Reality return sounding inspired, wisened, and a little more chilled. Re-tinkering their familiar but ever-shifting sound, Masters of Reality incorporate woozy, bluesy laidback vibes featuring their oddball songwriting traits through a sedate, intriguing collection of new songs. The Archer showcases Masters of Reality’s longevity as seasoned, skilled songwriters, regardless of the shifting rock modes they explore. While perhaps lacking some of the energetic spark and earworm hooks of albums like Sunrise on the Sufferbus and Deep in the Hole, The Archer still marks a fine return outing. Goss’ signature voice is in fine form, and the bluesy, psych-drenched guitars, cushy basslines, ’60s and ’70s influences, and spacey vibes create a comforting haze. The delightfully dreamy, trippy “Chicken Little,” laidback hooks and old school charms of “I Had a Dream,” lively, quirky grooves of “Mr Tap n’ Go,” and moody, melancholic balladry of “Powder Man” highlight another diverse, strange brew from the veteran act.

Tyme’s Unheard Annunciations

Doomsday // Never Known Peace [March 28th, 2025 – Creator-Destructor Records]

March’s filter means spring is here, mostly, which is when I start searching for bands to populate my annual edition of Tyme’s Mowing Metal. There’s nothing I enjoy more than cracking a cold beer, sliding my headphones over my ears, and hopping on the mower to complete one of summer’s—at least for me—most enjoyable chores. A band that will feature prominently this summer is Oakland, California’s crossover thrash quintet Doomsday, and their Creator-Destructor Records debut album, Never Known Peace. Doomsday lays down a ton of mindless fun in the vein of other crossover greats like Enforced and Power Trip. There are riffs aplenty on this deliciously executed hardcore-tinged thrashtastic platter full of snarly, spiteful, Jamey Jasta-esque vocals, trademark gang shouts, and, oh, did I mention the riffs? Yeah, cuz there’s a butt-ton of ’em. Leads and solos are melodic (“Death is Here,” “Eternal Tombs”). Within its beefily warm mix, the chug-a-lug breakdowns run rampant across Never Known Peace‘s thirty-one minutes (seriously, there’s one in every track), leaving nary a tune that won’t have you at least bobbing your head and, at most, causing your neck a very nasty case of whipthrash. I’m going to be listening to Never Known Peace ALOT this summer, on and off my mower, and while I don’t care that the lawn lines in my yard will be a little wavier this year than others, I’ll chalk it up to the beer and the head banging Doomsday‘s Never Known Peace instills.

Rancid Cadaver // Mortality Denied [March 21st, 2025 – Self Released]

Another filter, another fetid fragment of foulness; this month, it’s up-and-coming deathstarts Rancid Cadaver and their independently released debut album Mortality Denied. Adam Burke’s excellent cover art caught my eye during a quick dip into the Bandcamp pool and had me pushing play. A thick slab of murderous meat ripe with fatty veins of Coffin Mulch and Morbific running through it, Mortality Denied overflows with tons of bestial vocals, crushing drums, barbaric bass, and squealing solos, all ensorcelled within the majesty of Rancid Cadaver‘s miasmic riff-gurgitations (“Slurping the Cerebral Slime,” “Mass of Gore,” and “Drained of Brains”). Fists will pump, and faces will stank during the Fulci-friendly “Zombified,” a pulverizing slow-death chug fest with an intro that landed me right back on the shores of Dr. Menard’s island of the undead.2 This quartet of Glaswegians has plopped down a death metal debut that ages like wine, getting better and better with consecutive spins. Surprisingly, Rancid Cadaver is unsigned, but I’m confident that status should change before we see a sophomore effort, and you can bet I’ll be there when that happens.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Unsophisticated Slappers

Crossed // Realismo Ausente [March 21st, 2025 – Zegema Beach Records]

Timing means everything in groove. I know that some people say that they have a hard time finding that kind of bob and sway in extreme music. But with an act like Spain’s Crossed, whose every carved word and every skronked guitar noise follows an insatiable punky stride, groove lies in every moment of third full-length Realismo Ausente. Whether it’s on the classic beat of D (“Vaciar Un Corazón,” “Cuerpo Distorsionado”), the twanging drone of a screaming bend (“Monotonía de la lluvia en la Ventana”), or the Celtic Frost-ed hammer of a chord crush (“Catedral”), a calculated, urgent, and intoxicating cadence colors the grayscale attitude throughout. But just because Crossed can find a groove in any twisted mathy rhythm—early Converge and Dillinger Escape Plan come to mind on quick cuts like “Cerrojo” and “Sentirse Solo”—doesn’t mean that their panic chord-loaded crescendos and close-outs can’t rip your head clean off in banging ecstasy. Easy listening and blackened hardcore can’t go hand-in-hand, but Crossed does their very best to make unintelligible, scathing screeches and ceiling-scraping feedback hissing palatable against crunchy punk builds and throbbing, warm bass grumbles. Likewise, Realismo Ausente stabs into a dejected body tales of loathing, fear, self-rejection, and defeated existence—nothing smiles in its urgent and apathetic crevices. But despite the lack of light at the end of the tunnel of Crossed’s horror-touched vision of impassioned hardcore, an analog warmth and human spirit trapped inside a writhing and pleading throat reveal a presence that’s still fighting. It’s the fight that counts. If you didn’t join the fight last time, now’s as good a time as any.

Nothing // The Self Repair Manifesto [March 26th, 2025 – Self Released]

If you noticed a tree zombie heading steaming through its trepanned opening, then you too found the same initial draw I had to The Self Repair Manifesto. Nothing complex often can draw us to the things we desire, yet in Nothing’s particular attack of relentless, groove-based death metal, many nooks of additional interest exist. The Self Repair Manifesto’s tribal rhythm-stirred “Initiation,” in its bouncy play, does little to set up the double-kick pummel and snarling refrains that lurk in this brutal, Australian soundscape. The simple chiming cymbal-fluttering bass call-and-response of “Subterfuge,” the throat singing summoning of “The Shroud,” the immediate onslaught of “Abrogation”—all in under 30 minutes, an infectious and progressive experience unfolds. And never fear, living by the motto “no clean singing,”3 Nothing has no intention of traveling the wandering and crooning path of an Opeth or In Vain. Rather, Nothing finds a hypnotic rhythmic presence both in fanciful kit play that stirs a foot shuffle and high-tempo stick abuse that urges bodies on bodies in the pit (“Subterfuge,” “The Shroud”), much in the same way you might hear in early Decapitated or Hate Eternal works. With flair of their own, though, and a mic near the mouth vessel of each member (yes, even the drummer!) to maintain a layered harsh intensity, Nothing serves a potent blend of death metal that is as jam-able as it is gym-able. Whether you seek gains or progressive enrichment, Nothing is the answer.

Steel Druhm’s Massive Aggressive

Impurity // The Eternal Sleep [ March 7th, 2025 – Hammerheart Records]

Impurity’s lust for all things Left Hand Path is not the least bit Clandestine, and on their full-length debut, The Eternal Sleep, they attempt to craft their own ode to the rabid HM-2 worship of the early 90s Swedeath sound. No new elements are shoehorned in aside from vaguely blackened ones, and there’s not the slightest effort to push the boundaries of the admittedly limited Swedeath sound. The Eternal Sleep sounds like the album that could have come between Entombed’s timeless debut and the Clandestine follow-up, and that’s not a bad place to be. It’s heavy, brutish, buzzing death metal with an OSDM edge, and it hits like a runaway 18-wheeler full of concrete and titanium rebar. One only needs to weather the shitstorm of opener “Denial of Clarity” to realize this is the deep water of the niche genre. It’s extremely heavy, face-melting death with more fuzz and buzz than your brain can process. Other cuts feel like a direct lift from Left Hand Path and/or Clandestine (“Tribute to Creation,”) and fetid Dismember tidbits creep in during “Pilgrimage to Utumno,” and these feel like olde friends showing up unexpectedly at the hometown watering hole. Swedeath is all about those ragged, jagged riffs, and they’re delivered in abundance over The Eternal Sleep, and despite the intrinsic lack of originality, Impurity pump enough steroids and Cialis into the genre archetypes to make the material endearing and engaging. Yes, you’ve heard this shit before. Now hear it again, chumbo!

#AcidAge #Ade #AmericanMetal #ArtAsCatharsisRecords #ArtoneLabelGroup #Atheist #AustralianMetal #BeyondTheSleeplessAether #BlackMetal #BlackenedCrust #BlackenedHardcore #CanadianMetal #Casarder #CelticFrost #CoffinMulch #Converge #CreatorDestructorRecords #Crossed #Crust #DeathMetal #Decapitated #DesertRock #DillingerEscapePlan #DoomMetal #Doomsday #Elder #Enforced #Flummox #Fulci #Ghostsmoker #Hardcore #HateEternal #HideousDivinity #Impurity #InMourning #InVain #InertialCult #InternationalMetal #ItalianMetal #iwrestledabearonce #LostFutureRecords #MascotRecords #MastersOfReality #Mathcore #MelodicMetal #Metalcore #Morast #Morbific #MortalityDenied #MyDyingBride #NeObliviscaris #Neurosis #NeverKnownPeace #Nile #Nothing #Opeth #PaleChordRecords #Pelican #PerilousCompulsion #PinkFloyd #PortugueseMetal #PostRock #PostMetal #PowerTrip #ProgressiveDeathMetal #ProgressiveMetal #ProgressiveThrashMetal #PyschedelicRock #RancidCadaver #RealismoAusente #Review #Reviews #RiseRecords #RussianCircles #ScottishMetal #SeaBastard #SelfReleased #SixpenceNoneTheRicher #SludgeMetal #SpanishMetal #Spiine #Spiritbox #StonerMetal #Supplicium #SymbioticGrowth #TechnicalDeathMetal #Tetraptych #TheArcher #TheEternalSleep #TheSelfRepairManifesto #Thou #ThrashMetal #TimeToKillRecords #TsunamiSea #UKMetal #Unfleshing #Verbian #ViolentReason #VirginBlack #Voivod #Wormphlegm #ZegemaBeachRecords

Stuck in the Filter: March 2025’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

Spring is in the air, and with it comes… an insane number of cicadas! Yes, that’s right, Brood XIV spawned this year and is currently overwhelming my staff as they trudge through embuggened ducts to clear out the Filter of semi-precious metal. I bet it’s fucking loud in there…

…. eh I’m sure they are all fine. Just fine. Anyway, enjoy the spoils of our toils!

Kenstrosity’s Gloopy Grubber

Acid Age // Perilous Compulsion [February 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

Belfast’s wacky thrash conglomerate Acid Age came out of absolutely nowhere back in March, unleashing their fourth LP Perilous Compulsion and equipping it with one helluva van-worthy cover. This is some funky, bluesy, quasi-psychedelic thrash metal that pulls no punches. Riffs abound, bonkers songwriting pervades, immense groove agitates. From the onset, “Bikini Island” establishes Perilous Compulsion as a no-nonsense, balls-out affair which reminds me heavily of Voivod and a simplified Flummox informed by Atheist’s progressive proclivities, and expanded by a touch of Pink Floyd’s nebulous jams. Of course, thrash remains Acid Age’s hero flavor, as choice cuts “State Your Business,” “Revenge for Sale,” and closing one-two punch “Rotten Tooth” and “Hamster Wheel” clearly demonstrate. While their fearless exploration of style and structure maintains a sky-high level of interest, it also introduces a couple of challenges. Firstly, this material can feel a bit disjointed at first, but focused spins reward the listener greatly as all of Perilous Compulsion’s moving parts start to mesh and move in unison. Secondly, Acid Age throws a spotlight on a few brilliant inclusions that, over time, I wish were more often utilized—namely, the delightfully bluesy harmonica solos on “Rotten Tooth.” Regardless, Acid Age put themselves on my map with Perilous Compulsion. I recommend you put them on yours, too!

Owlswald’s Desiccated Discoveries

Verbian // Casarder [March 21st, 2025 – Lost Future Records]

It’s unjust that Portuguese rockers Verbian—who have been producing quality post-rock since 2019’s Jaez—haven’t received the attention they deserve. Fusing elements of post-rock with metal, psychedelic, and stoner, Casarder is Verbian’s third full-length and the first with new drummer Guilherme Gonçalves. Taking the sounds and inspirations of 2020’s Irrupção and enriching it with new permutations and modulations, Casarder’s largely instrumental character rides punchy riffs and roiling grooves—à la Russian Circles and Elder—to transmit its thought-provoking legitimacy. Dystopian and surreal séances, via echoing Korg synthscapes (“Pausa Entre Dias,” “Vozes da Ilha”) and celestial harmonies, permeate Casarder’s forty-three-minute runtime, translating Madalena Pinto’s striking Aeon Flux-esque cover art with precision. Ominous horn sections and crusty recurrent vocals (“Marcha do Vulto,” “Depois de Toda a Mudança”) by guitarist Vasco Reis and bassist Alexandre Silva underscore Verbian’s individuality in a crowded post-rock domain. Gonçalves’s drumming—with his intricate and enchanting hard rock and samba rhythms (“Nada Muda,” “Fruta Caída do Mar”)—adds a new dimension to Verbian’s sound, assuring my attention never falters. The group describes Casarder as communicating the “…insecurities of artistic expression and personal exposure when it comes to fearing being judged for something that is somewhat outside of what is done in each artist’s niche.” Indeed, Casarder reveals Verbian is unafraid to forge their own path, and the results are gripping.

Symbiotic Growth // Beyond the Sleepless Aether [March 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

Beyond the Sleepless Aether, the sophomore effort by Ontario, Canada’s Symbiotic Growth, immediately caught my attention with its dreamy-looking cover. Building upon their 2020 self-titled debut, the Canadian trio hones epic and long-form progressive death metal soundscapes, narrating a quest for meaning across alternate realities in mostly lengthy, yet rewarding, tracks that blend technicality, atmosphere, and melody. The group frequently employs dynamic shifts, moving between raging brutality and serene shoegaze beauty (“Arid Trials and Barren Sands,” “The Sleepless Void”). This is achieved through complex and vengeful passages alongside atmospheric synth lines and softer piano interludes (“Sires of Boundless Sunset,” “Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights”), cultivating an air of wonder, mystery, and ethereality that permeates much of Symbiotic Growth’s material. “The Architect of Annihilation” echoes the style of Ne Obliviscaris with its blend of clean harmonies and harsh growls meshed with tremolo-picked arpeggiations and catchy hooks (the guitar solo even features a violin-like quality). “Lost in Fractured Reveries” evokes In Mourning with its parallel synth and guitar lines giving way to devastating grooves that make it impossible not to headbang. Although some fine-tuning remains—the clean vocals could use some more weight and tracks like “Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights” and “The Architect of Annihilation” overstay their welcome at times—Beyond the Sleepless Aether shows Symbiotic Growth’s burgeoning talent and signals the group is one to watch in progressive death metal.

Dear Hollow’s Drudgery Sludgery Hoist

Spiritbox // Tsunami Sea [March 7th, 2025 – Pale Chord Records | Rise Records]

From humble beginnings in a more artsy-fartsy djent post-Iwrestledabearonce world to becoming the darlings of Octane Radio, Spiritbox has seen quite the ascent. While it’s easy to look at their work and scoff at its radio-friendliness, sophomore full-length Tsunami Sea shows Courtney LaPlante and company sticking to their guns. Simultaneously more obscure and more radio-friendly in its selection of tracks, expect its signature blend of colossal riffs and ethereal melodies guided by LaPlante’s siren-then-sea serpent dichotomy of furious roars and haunting cleans. Yes, Spiritbox helms its attack with the radio singles (“Perfect Soul,”1 “Crystal Roses”) in layered soaring choruses and touches of hip-hop undergirded by fierce grooves, but the meat of Tsunami Sea finds the flexibility and patience in the skull-crushing brutality (“Soft Spine,” “No Loss, No Love”) and its more exploratory songwriting that amps layers of the ethereal and the hellish with catchy riffs and vocals alike (“Fata Morgana,” “A Haven of Two Faces”). It’s far from perfect, and its tendency towards radio will be divisive, but it shows Spiritbox firing on all cylinders.

Unfleshing // Violent Reason [March 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

I am always tickled pink by blackened crust. It takes the crusty violence and propensity for filth and adds black metal’s signature sinister nature. Unfleshing is a young, unsigned blackened crust band from St. Louis, and with debut Violent Reason, you can expect a traditional punk-infused beatdown with a battered guitar tone and sinister vocals. However, more than many, the quartet offers a beatdown that feels as atmospheric as it is pummeling. Don’t get me wrong, you get your skull caved in like the poor guy on the cover with minute-long crust beatdowns (“Body Bag,” “From the Gutter”) and full-length smackdowns (“Knife in the Dark,” “Final Breath”), both styles complete with scathing grooves, squalid feedback, climactic solos and punishing blastbeats, atop a blackened roar dripping with hate. But amid the full-throttle assault, Unfleshing utilizes ominous black metal chord progressions and unsettling plucking to add a more dynamic feature to Violent Reason (“Cathedral Rust,” “One With the Mud”). The album never overstays, and while traditional, it’s a hell of a start for Unfleshing.

Ghostsmoker // Inertia Cult [March 21st, 2025 – Art as Catharsis Records]

Ghostsmoker seems like the perfect stoner metal band name, but aside from the swampy guitar tone, there’s something much sinister lurking. Proffering a caustic blackened doom/sludge not unlike Thou, Wormphlegm, and Sea Bastard, the Melbourne group quartet devotes a crisp forty-two minutes to sprawling doom weighted by a crushing guitar tone that rivals Morast‘s latest, and shrieked vocals straight from the latest church burning. Beyond what’s expected from this particular breed of devastation, Ghostsmoker infuses an evocative patience reminiscent of post-metal’s more sludgy offerings like Neurosis or Pelican, lending a certain atmosphere and mood of dread and wilderness depicted on its cover. From the outright chugging attacks of churning aggression (“Elogium,” “Haven”) to the more experimental and thoughtful pieces (“Bodies to Shore,” instrumental closer “The Death of Solitude”), Inertia Cult largely feels like a journey through uncharted forests, with voices whispering from the trees. Ghostsmoker is something special.

GardensTale’s Paralyzed Spine

Spiine // Tetraptych [March 27th, 2025 – Self Released]

Is it still a supergroup release when half the lineup are session musicians? Spiine is made up of Sesca Scaarba (Virgin Black) and Xen (ex-Ne Obliviscaris), but on debut Tetraptych they are joined by guests Waltteri Väyrynen (Opeth) and Lena Abé (My Dying Bride). Usually, so much talent put into the same room does not yield great results. Tetraptych is one hell of an exception. A monstrous slab of crawling heaviness, Spiine lurches with abject despair through the mires of deathly funeral doom. Though I usually eschew this genre, my attention remains rapt through a variety of variations. The songwriting keeps the 4 tracks progressing, slow and steady builds, and the promise of momentary tempo changes working a two-pronged structural plan to buoy the majestic yet miserable riffs. “Oubliiette” is the best example here, going from galloping death-doom to Georgian choirs to a fantastic bridge where all the instrumentation hits only on the roared syllables. Xen’s unholy bellows flatten any objections I may have had, managing both thunder and deepest woe in the same notes. The subtle orchestration and occasional choir arrangements finish the package with regal grandeur, and the lush and warm production is the cherry on top. If you feel like drowning your sorrows with an hour of colossal doom, this is the album for you.

Saunders’ Stenched Staples

Ade // Supplicium [March 14th, 2025 – Time to Kill Records]

Sometimes unjustly pigeonholed as the Roman-inspired version of Nile, the hugely underrated Ade have punched out a solid career of quality death metal releases since emerging roughly fifteen years ago, charting their own path. Albums like 2013’s ripping Spartacus and 2019’s solid Rise of the Empire represent a tidy snapshot of the band’s career. Fifth album Supplicium, their first LP in six years, marks a low-key, welcome return. Exotic instrumentation and attention to history and storytelling are alive and well in the Ade camp, as is their penchant for punishing, unrelenting death, featuring a deftly curated mix of bombast, brutality, technical spark, and epic atmospheres. Edoardo Di Santo (Hideous Divinity) joins a largely refreshed line-up, including a new bassist and second guitarist since their last album. Line-up changes aside, familiar Ade tools of harrowing ancient Roman tales and modern death destruction remain as consistently solid as always. Top-notch riffs, intricate arrangements, fluid tempo shifts, and explosive drumming highlight songs that frequently flex their flair for drama-fueled atmospheres, hellfire blasts, and burly grooves. The immense, multi-faceted “Burnt Before Gods,” exotic melodies and raw savagery of “Ad Beastias!,” spitfire intensity of “Vinum,” and epically charged throes of “From Fault to Disfigurement” highlight more solid returns from Ade.

Masters of Reality // The Archer [March 28th, 2025 – Artone Label Group/Mascot Records]

Underappreciated desert rock pioneers and quirky stalwarts Masters of Reality returned from recording oblivion some fifteen-plus years since they last unleashed an LP. Led by the legendary Chris Goss and his collaborative counterparts across a career that first kicked off in the late ’80s, Masters of Reality return sounding inspired, wisened, and a little more chilled. Re-tinkering their familiar but ever-shifting sound, Masters of Reality incorporate woozy, bluesy laidback vibes featuring their oddball songwriting traits through a sedate, intriguing collection of new songs. The Archer showcases Masters of Reality’s longevity as seasoned, skilled songwriters, regardless of the shifting rock modes they explore. While perhaps lacking some of the energetic spark and earworm hooks of albums like Sunrise on the Sufferbus and Deep in the Hole, The Archer still marks a fine return outing. Goss’ signature voice is in fine form, and the bluesy, psych-drenched guitars, cushy basslines, ’60s and ’70s influences, and spacey vibes create a comforting haze. The delightfully dreamy, trippy “Chicken Little,” laidback hooks and old school charms of “I Had a Dream,” lively, quirky grooves of “Mr Tap n’ Go,” and moody, melancholic balladry of “Powder Man” highlight another diverse, strange brew from the veteran act.

Tyme’s Unheard Annunciations

Doomsday // Never Known Peace [March 28th, 2025 – Creator-Destructor Records]

March’s filter means spring is here, mostly, which is when I start searching for bands to populate my annual edition of Tyme’s Mowing Metal. There’s nothing I enjoy more than cracking a cold beer, sliding my headphones over my ears, and hopping on the mower to complete one of summer’s—at least for me—most enjoyable chores. A band that will feature prominently this summer is Oakland, California’s crossover thrash quintet Doomsday, and their Creator-Destructor Records debut album, Never Known Peace. Doomsday lays down a ton of mindless fun in the vein of other crossover greats like Enforced and Power Trip. There are riffs aplenty on this deliciously executed hardcore-tinged thrashtastic platter full of snarly, spiteful, Jamey Jasta-esque vocals, trademark gang shouts, and, oh, did I mention the riffs? Yeah, cuz there’s a butt-ton of ’em. Leads and solos are melodic (“Death is Here,” “Eternal Tombs”). Within its beefily warm mix, the chug-a-lug breakdowns run rampant across Never Known Peace‘s thirty-one minutes (seriously, there’s one in every track), leaving nary a tune that won’t have you at least bobbing your head and, at most, causing your neck a very nasty case of whipthrash. I’m going to be listening to Never Known Peace ALOT this summer, on and off my mower, and while I don’t care that the lawn lines in my yard will be a little wavier this year than others, I’ll chalk it up to the beer and the head banging Doomsday‘s Never Known Peace instills.

Rancid Cadaver // Mortality Denied [March 21st, 2025 – Self Released]

Another filter, another fetid fragment of foulness; this month, it’s up-and-coming deathstarts Rancid Cadaver and their independently released debut album Mortality Denied. Adam Burke’s excellent cover art caught my eye during a quick dip into the Bandcamp pool and had me pushing play. A thick slab of murderous meat ripe with fatty veins of Coffin Mulch and Morbific running through it, Mortality Denied overflows with tons of bestial vocals, crushing drums, barbaric bass, and squealing solos, all ensorcelled within the majesty of Rancid Cadaver‘s miasmic riff-gurgitations (“Slurping the Cerebral Slime,” “Mass of Gore,” and “Drained of Brains”). Fists will pump, and faces will stank during the Fulci-friendly “Zombified,” a pulverizing slow-death chug fest with an intro that landed me right back on the shores of Dr. Menard’s island of the undead.2 This quartet of Glaswegians has plopped down a death metal debut that ages like wine, getting better and better with consecutive spins. Surprisingly, Rancid Cadaver is unsigned, but I’m confident that status should change before we see a sophomore effort, and you can bet I’ll be there when that happens.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Unsophisticated Slappers

Crossed // Realismo Ausente [March 21st, 2025 – Zegema Beach Records]

Timing means everything in groove. I know that some people say that they have a hard time finding that kind of bob and sway in extreme music. But with an act like Spain’s Crossed, whose every carved word and every skronked guitar noise follows an insatiable punky stride, groove lies in every moment of third full-length Realismo Ausente. Whether it’s on the classic beat of D (“Vaciar Un Corazón,” “Cuerpo Distorsionado”), the twanging drone of a screaming bend (“Monotonía de la lluvia en la Ventana”), or the Celtic Frost-ed hammer of a chord crush (“Catedral”), a calculated, urgent, and intoxicating cadence colors the grayscale attitude throughout. But just because Crossed can find a groove in any twisted mathy rhythm—early Converge and Dillinger Escape Plan come to mind on quick cuts like “Cerrojo” and “Sentirse Solo”—doesn’t mean that their panic chord-loaded crescendos and close-outs can’t rip your head clean off in banging ecstasy. Easy listening and blackened hardcore can’t go hand-in-hand, but Crossed does their very best to make unintelligible, scathing screeches and ceiling-scraping feedback hissing palatable against crunchy punk builds and throbbing, warm bass grumbles. Likewise, Realismo Ausente stabs into a dejected body tales of loathing, fear, self-rejection, and defeated existence—nothing smiles in its urgent and apathetic crevices. But despite the lack of light at the end of the tunnel of Crossed’s horror-touched vision of impassioned hardcore, an analog warmth and human spirit trapped inside a writhing and pleading throat reveal a presence that’s still fighting. It’s the fight that counts. If you didn’t join the fight last time, now’s as good a time as any.

Nothing // The Self Repair Manifesto [March 26th, 2025 – Self Released]

If you noticed a tree zombie heading steaming through its trepanned opening, then you too found the same initial draw I had to The Self Repair Manifesto. Nothing complex often can draw us to the things we desire, yet in Nothing’s particular attack of relentless, groove-based death metal, many nooks of additional interest exist. The Self Repair Manifesto’s tribal rhythm-stirred “Initiation,” in its bouncy play, does little to set up the double-kick pummel and snarling refrains that lurk in this brutal, Australian soundscape. The simple chiming cymbal-fluttering bass call-and-response of “Subterfuge,” the throat singing summoning of “The Shroud,” the immediate onslaught of “Abrogation”—all in under 30 minutes, an infectious and progressive experience unfolds. And never fear, living by the motto “no clean singing,”3 Nothing has no intention of traveling the wandering and crooning path of an Opeth or In Vain. Rather, Nothing finds a hypnotic rhythmic presence both in fanciful kit play that stirs a foot shuffle and high-tempo stick abuse that urges bodies on bodies in the pit (“Subterfuge,” “The Shroud”), much in the same way you might hear in early Decapitated or Hate Eternal works. With flair of their own, though, and a mic near the mouth vessel of each member (yes, even the drummer!) to maintain a layered harsh intensity, Nothing serves a potent blend of death metal that is as jam-able as it is gym-able. Whether you seek gains or progressive enrichment, Nothing is the answer.

Steel Druhm’s Massive Aggressive

Impurity // The Eternal Sleep [ March 7th, 2025 – Hammerheart Records]

Impurity’s lust for all things Left Hand Path is not the least bit Clandestine, and on their full-length debut, The Eternal Sleep, they attempt to craft their own ode to the rabid HM-2 worship of the early 90s Swedeath sound. No new elements are shoehorned in aside from vaguely blackened ones, and there’s not the slightest effort to push the boundaries of the admittedly limited Swedeath sound. The Eternal Sleep sounds like the album that could have come between Entombed’s timeless debut and the Clandestine follow-up, and that’s not a bad place to be. It’s heavy, brutish, buzzing death metal with an OSDM edge, and it hits like a runaway 18-wheeler full of concrete and titanium rebar. One only needs to weather the shitstorm of opener “Denial of Clarity” to realize this is the deep water of the niche genre. It’s extremely heavy, face-melting death with more fuzz and buzz than your brain can process. Other cuts feel like a direct lift from Left Hand Path and/or Clandestine (“Tribute to Creation,”) and fetid Dismember tidbits creep in during “Pilgrimage to Utumno,” and these feel like olde friends showing up unexpectedly at the hometown watering hole. Swedeath is all about those ragged, jagged riffs, and they’re delivered in abundance over The Eternal Sleep, and despite the intrinsic lack of originality, Impurity pump enough steroids and Cialis into the genre archetypes to make the material endearing and engaging. Yes, you’ve heard this shit before. Now hear it again, chumbo!

#AcidAge #Ade #AmericanMetal #ArtAsCatharsisRecords #ArtoneLabelGroup #Atheist #AustralianMetal #BeyondTheSleeplessAether #BlackMetal #BlackenedCrust #BlackenedHardcore #CanadianMetal #Casarder #CelticFrost #CoffinMulch #Converge #CreatorDestructorRecords #Crossed #Crust #DeathMetal #Decapitated #DesertRock #DillingerEscapePlan #DoomMetal #Doomsday #Elder #Enforced #Flummox #Fulci #Ghostsmoker #Hardcore #HateEternal #HideousDivinity #Impurity #InMourning #InVain #InertialCult #InternationalMetal #ItalianMetal #iwrestledabearonce #LostFutureRecords #MascotRecords #MastersOfReality #Mathcore #MelodicMetal #Metalcore #Morast #Morbific #MortalityDenied #MyDyingBride #NeObliviscaris #Neurosis #NeverKnownPeace #Nile #Nothing #Opeth #PaleChordRecords #Pelican #PerilousCompulsion #PinkFloyd #PortugueseMetal #PostRock #PostMetal #PowerTrip #ProgressiveDeathMetal #ProgressiveMetal #ProgressiveThrashMetal #PyschedelicRock #RancidCadaver #RealismoAusente #Review #Reviews #RiseRecords #RussianCircles #ScottishMetal #SeaBastard #SelfReleased #SixpenceNoneTheRicher #SludgeMetal #SpanishMetal #Spiine #Spiritbox #StonerMetal #Supplicium #SymbioticGrowth #TechnicalDeathMetal #Tetraptych #TheArcher #TheEternalSleep #TheSelfRepairManifesto #Thou #ThrashMetal #TimeToKillRecords #TsunamiSea #UKMetal #Unfleshing #Verbian #ViolentReason #VirginBlack #Voivod #Wormphlegm #ZegemaBeachRecords

Stuck in the Filter: March 2025’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

Spring is in the air, and with it comes… an insane number of cicadas! Yes, that’s right, Brood XIV spawned this year and is currently overwhelming my staff as they trudge through embuggened ducts to clear out the Filter of semi-precious metal. I bet it’s fucking loud in there…

…. eh I’m sure they are all fine. Just fine. Anyway, enjoy the spoils of our toils!

Kenstrosity’s Gloopy Grubber

Acid Age // Perilous Compulsion [February 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

Belfast’s wacky thrash conglomerate Acid Age came out of absolutely nowhere back in March, unleashing their fourth LP Perilous Compulsion and equipping it with one helluva van-worthy cover. This is some funky, bluesy, quasi-psychedelic thrash metal that pulls no punches. Riffs abound, bonkers songwriting pervades, immense groove agitates. From the onset, “Bikini Island” establishes Perilous Compulsion as a no-nonsense, balls-out affair which reminds me heavily of Voivod and a simplified Flummox informed by Atheist’s progressive proclivities, and expanded by a touch of Pink Floyd’s nebulous jams. Of course, thrash remains Acid Age’s hero flavor, as choice cuts “State Your Business,” “Revenge for Sale,” and closing one-two punch “Rotten Tooth” and “Hamster Wheel” clearly demonstrate. While their fearless exploration of style and structure maintains a sky-high level of interest, it also introduces a couple of challenges. Firstly, this material can feel a bit disjointed at first, but focused spins reward the listener greatly as all of Perilous Compulsion’s moving parts start to mesh and move in unison. Secondly, Acid Age throws a spotlight on a few brilliant inclusions that, over time, I wish were more often utilized—namely, the delightfully bluesy harmonica solos on “Rotten Tooth.” Regardless, Acid Age put themselves on my map with Perilous Compulsion. I recommend you put them on yours, too!

Owlswald’s Desiccated Discoveries

Verbian // Casarder [March 21st, 2025 – Lost Future Records]

It’s unjust that Portuguese rockers Verbian—who have been producing quality post-rock since 2019’s Jaez—haven’t received the attention they deserve. Fusing elements of post-rock with metal, psychedelic, and stoner, Casarder is Verbian’s third full-length and the first with new drummer Guilherme Gonçalves. Taking the sounds and inspirations of 2020’s Irrupção and enriching it with new permutations and modulations, Casarder’s largely instrumental character rides punchy riffs and roiling grooves—à la Russian Circles and Elder—to transmit its thought-provoking legitimacy. Dystopian and surreal séances, via echoing Korg synthscapes (“Pausa Entre Dias,” “Vozes da Ilha”) and celestial harmonies, permeate Casarder’s forty-three-minute runtime, translating Madalena Pinto’s striking Aeon Flux-esque cover art with precision. Ominous horn sections and crusty recurrent vocals (“Marcha do Vulto,” “Depois de Toda a Mudança”) by guitarist Vasco Reis and bassist Alexandre Silva underscore Verbian’s individuality in a crowded post-rock domain. Gonçalves’s drumming—with his intricate and enchanting hard rock and samba rhythms (“Nada Muda,” “Fruta Caída do Mar”)—adds a new dimension to Verbian’s sound, assuring my attention never falters. The group describes Casarder as communicating the “…insecurities of artistic expression and personal exposure when it comes to fearing being judged for something that is somewhat outside of what is done in each artist’s niche.” Indeed, Casarder reveals Verbian is unafraid to forge their own path, and the results are gripping.

Symbiotic Growth // Beyond the Sleepless Aether [March 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

Beyond the Sleepless Aether, the sophomore effort by Ontario, Canada’s Symbiotic Growth, immediately caught my attention with its dreamy-looking cover. Building upon their 2020 self-titled debut, the Canadian trio hones epic and long-form progressive death metal soundscapes, narrating a quest for meaning across alternate realities in mostly lengthy, yet rewarding, tracks that blend technicality, atmosphere, and melody. The group frequently employs dynamic shifts, moving between raging brutality and serene shoegaze beauty (“Arid Trials and Barren Sands,” “The Sleepless Void”). This is achieved through complex and vengeful passages alongside atmospheric synth lines and softer piano interludes (“Sires of Boundless Sunset,” “Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights”), cultivating an air of wonder, mystery, and ethereality that permeates much of Symbiotic Growth’s material. “The Architect of Annihilation” echoes the style of Ne Obliviscaris with its blend of clean harmonies and harsh growls meshed with tremolo-picked arpeggiations and catchy hooks (the guitar solo even features a violin-like quality). “Lost in Fractured Reveries” evokes In Mourning with its parallel synth and guitar lines giving way to devastating grooves that make it impossible not to headbang. Although some fine-tuning remains—the clean vocals could use some more weight and tracks like “Of Painted Skies and Dancing Lights” and “The Architect of Annihilation” overstay their welcome at times—Beyond the Sleepless Aether shows Symbiotic Growth’s burgeoning talent and signals the group is one to watch in progressive death metal.

Dear Hollow’s Drudgery Sludgery Hoist

Spiritbox // Tsunami Sea [March 7th, 2025 – Pale Chord Records | Rise Records]

From humble beginnings in a more artsy-fartsy djent post-Iwrestledabearonce world to becoming the darlings of Octane Radio, Spiritbox has seen quite the ascent. While it’s easy to look at their work and scoff at its radio-friendliness, sophomore full-length Tsunami Sea shows Courtney LaPlante and company sticking to their guns. Simultaneously more obscure and more radio-friendly in its selection of tracks, expect its signature blend of colossal riffs and ethereal melodies guided by LaPlante’s siren-then-sea serpent dichotomy of furious roars and haunting cleans. Yes, Spiritbox helms its attack with the radio singles (“Perfect Soul,”1 “Crystal Roses”) in layered soaring choruses and touches of hip-hop undergirded by fierce grooves, but the meat of Tsunami Sea finds the flexibility and patience in the skull-crushing brutality (“Soft Spine,” “No Loss, No Love”) and its more exploratory songwriting that amps layers of the ethereal and the hellish with catchy riffs and vocals alike (“Fata Morgana,” “A Haven of Two Faces”). It’s far from perfect, and its tendency towards radio will be divisive, but it shows Spiritbox firing on all cylinders.

Unfleshing // Violent Reason [March 28th, 2025 – Self Released]

I am always tickled pink by blackened crust. It takes the crusty violence and propensity for filth and adds black metal’s signature sinister nature. Unfleshing is a young, unsigned blackened crust band from St. Louis, and with debut Violent Reason, you can expect a traditional punk-infused beatdown with a battered guitar tone and sinister vocals. However, more than many, the quartet offers a beatdown that feels as atmospheric as it is pummeling. Don’t get me wrong, you get your skull caved in like the poor guy on the cover with minute-long crust beatdowns (“Body Bag,” “From the Gutter”) and full-length smackdowns (“Knife in the Dark,” “Final Breath”), both styles complete with scathing grooves, squalid feedback, climactic solos and punishing blastbeats, atop a blackened roar dripping with hate. But amid the full-throttle assault, Unfleshing utilizes ominous black metal chord progressions and unsettling plucking to add a more dynamic feature to Violent Reason (“Cathedral Rust,” “One With the Mud”). The album never overstays, and while traditional, it’s a hell of a start for Unfleshing.

Ghostsmoker // Inertia Cult [March 21st, 2025 – Art as Catharsis Records]

Ghostsmoker seems like the perfect stoner metal band name, but aside from the swampy guitar tone, there’s something much sinister lurking. Proffering a caustic blackened doom/sludge not unlike Thou, Wormphlegm, and Sea Bastard, the Melbourne group quartet devotes a crisp forty-two minutes to sprawling doom weighted by a crushing guitar tone that rivals Morast‘s latest, and shrieked vocals straight from the latest church burning. Beyond what’s expected from this particular breed of devastation, Ghostsmoker infuses an evocative patience reminiscent of post-metal’s more sludgy offerings like Neurosis or Pelican, lending a certain atmosphere and mood of dread and wilderness depicted on its cover. From the outright chugging attacks of churning aggression (“Elogium,” “Haven”) to the more experimental and thoughtful pieces (“Bodies to Shore,” instrumental closer “The Death of Solitude”), Inertia Cult largely feels like a journey through uncharted forests, with voices whispering from the trees. Ghostsmoker is something special.

GardensTale’s Paralyzed Spine

Spiine // Tetraptych [March 27th, 2025 – Self Released]

Is it still a supergroup release when half the lineup are session musicians? Spiine is made up of Sesca Scaarba (Virgin Black) and Xen (ex-Ne Obliviscaris), but on debut Tetraptych they are joined by guests Waltteri Väyrynen (Opeth) and Lena Abé (My Dying Bride). Usually, so much talent put into the same room does not yield great results. Tetraptych is one hell of an exception. A monstrous slab of crawling heaviness, Spiine lurches with abject despair through the mires of deathly funeral doom. Though I usually eschew this genre, my attention remains rapt through a variety of variations. The songwriting keeps the 4 tracks progressing, slow and steady builds, and the promise of momentary tempo changes working a two-pronged structural plan to buoy the majestic yet miserable riffs. “Oubliiette” is the best example here, going from galloping death-doom to Georgian choirs to a fantastic bridge where all the instrumentation hits only on the roared syllables. Xen’s unholy bellows flatten any objections I may have had, managing both thunder and deepest woe in the same notes. The subtle orchestration and occasional choir arrangements finish the package with regal grandeur, and the lush and warm production is the cherry on top. If you feel like drowning your sorrows with an hour of colossal doom, this is the album for you.

Saunders’ Stenched Staples

Ade // Supplicium [March 14th, 2025 – Time to Kill Records]

Sometimes unjustly pigeonholed as the Roman-inspired version of Nile, the hugely underrated Ade have punched out a solid career of quality death metal releases since emerging roughly fifteen years ago, charting their own path. Albums like 2013’s ripping Spartacus and 2019’s solid Rise of the Empire represent a tidy snapshot of the band’s career. Fifth album Supplicium, their first LP in six years, marks a low-key, welcome return. Exotic instrumentation and attention to history and storytelling are alive and well in the Ade camp, as is their penchant for punishing, unrelenting death, featuring a deftly curated mix of bombast, brutality, technical spark, and epic atmospheres. Edoardo Di Santo (Hideous Divinity) joins a largely refreshed line-up, including a new bassist and second guitarist since their last album. Line-up changes aside, familiar Ade tools of harrowing ancient Roman tales and modern death destruction remain as consistently solid as always. Top-notch riffs, intricate arrangements, fluid tempo shifts, and explosive drumming highlight songs that frequently flex their flair for drama-fueled atmospheres, hellfire blasts, and burly grooves. The immense, multi-faceted “Burnt Before Gods,” exotic melodies and raw savagery of “Ad Beastias!,” spitfire intensity of “Vinum,” and epically charged throes of “From Fault to Disfigurement” highlight more solid returns from Ade.

Masters of Reality // The Archer [March 28th, 2025 – Artone Label Group/Mascot Records]

Underappreciated desert rock pioneers and quirky stalwarts Masters of Reality returned from recording oblivion some fifteen-plus years since they last unleashed an LP. Led by the legendary Chris Goss and his collaborative counterparts across a career that first kicked off in the late ’80s, Masters of Reality return sounding inspired, wisened, and a little more chilled. Re-tinkering their familiar but ever-shifting sound, Masters of Reality incorporate woozy, bluesy laidback vibes featuring their oddball songwriting traits through a sedate, intriguing collection of new songs. The Archer showcases Masters of Reality’s longevity as seasoned, skilled songwriters, regardless of the shifting rock modes they explore. While perhaps lacking some of the energetic spark and earworm hooks of albums like Sunrise on the Sufferbus and Deep in the Hole, The Archer still marks a fine return outing. Goss’ signature voice is in fine form, and the bluesy, psych-drenched guitars, cushy basslines, ’60s and ’70s influences, and spacey vibes create a comforting haze. The delightfully dreamy, trippy “Chicken Little,” laidback hooks and old school charms of “I Had a Dream,” lively, quirky grooves of “Mr Tap n’ Go,” and moody, melancholic balladry of “Powder Man” highlight another diverse, strange brew from the veteran act.

Tyme’s Unheard Annunciations

Doomsday // Never Known Peace [March 28th, 2025 – Creator-Destructor Records]

March’s filter means spring is here, mostly, which is when I start searching for bands to populate my annual edition of Tyme’s Mowing Metal. There’s nothing I enjoy more than cracking a cold beer, sliding my headphones over my ears, and hopping on the mower to complete one of summer’s—at least for me—most enjoyable chores. A band that will feature prominently this summer is Oakland, California’s crossover thrash quintet Doomsday, and their Creator-Destructor Records debut album, Never Known Peace. Doomsday lays down a ton of mindless fun in the vein of other crossover greats like Enforced and Power Trip. There are riffs aplenty on this deliciously executed hardcore-tinged thrashtastic platter full of snarly, spiteful, Jamey Jasta-esque vocals, trademark gang shouts, and, oh, did I mention the riffs? Yeah, cuz there’s a butt-ton of ’em. Leads and solos are melodic (“Death is Here,” “Eternal Tombs”). Within its beefily warm mix, the chug-a-lug breakdowns run rampant across Never Known Peace‘s thirty-one minutes (seriously, there’s one in every track), leaving nary a tune that won’t have you at least bobbing your head and, at most, causing your neck a very nasty case of whipthrash. I’m going to be listening to Never Known Peace ALOT this summer, on and off my mower, and while I don’t care that the lawn lines in my yard will be a little wavier this year than others, I’ll chalk it up to the beer and the head banging Doomsday‘s Never Known Peace instills.

Rancid Cadaver // Mortality Denied [March 21st, 2025 – Self Released]

Another filter, another fetid fragment of foulness; this month, it’s up-and-coming deathstarts Rancid Cadaver and their independently released debut album Mortality Denied. Adam Burke’s excellent cover art caught my eye during a quick dip into the Bandcamp pool and had me pushing play. A thick slab of murderous meat ripe with fatty veins of Coffin Mulch and Morbific running through it, Mortality Denied overflows with tons of bestial vocals, crushing drums, barbaric bass, and squealing solos, all ensorcelled within the majesty of Rancid Cadaver‘s miasmic riff-gurgitations (“Slurping the Cerebral Slime,” “Mass of Gore,” and “Drained of Brains”). Fists will pump, and faces will stank during the Fulci-friendly “Zombified,” a pulverizing slow-death chug fest with an intro that landed me right back on the shores of Dr. Menard’s island of the undead.2 This quartet of Glaswegians has plopped down a death metal debut that ages like wine, getting better and better with consecutive spins. Surprisingly, Rancid Cadaver is unsigned, but I’m confident that status should change before we see a sophomore effort, and you can bet I’ll be there when that happens.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Unsophisticated Slappers

Crossed // Realismo Ausente [March 21st, 2025 – Zegema Beach Records]

Timing means everything in groove. I know that some people say that they have a hard time finding that kind of bob and sway in extreme music. But with an act like Spain’s Crossed, whose every carved word and every skronked guitar noise follows an insatiable punky stride, groove lies in every moment of third full-length Realismo Ausente. Whether it’s on the classic beat of D (“Vaciar Un Corazón,” “Cuerpo Distorsionado”), the twanging drone of a screaming bend (“Monotonía de la lluvia en la Ventana”), or the Celtic Frost-ed hammer of a chord crush (“Catedral”), a calculated, urgent, and intoxicating cadence colors the grayscale attitude throughout. But just because Crossed can find a groove in any twisted mathy rhythm—early Converge and Dillinger Escape Plan come to mind on quick cuts like “Cerrojo” and “Sentirse Solo”—doesn’t mean that their panic chord-loaded crescendos and close-outs can’t rip your head clean off in banging ecstasy. Easy listening and blackened hardcore can’t go hand-in-hand, but Crossed does their very best to make unintelligible, scathing screeches and ceiling-scraping feedback hissing palatable against crunchy punk builds and throbbing, warm bass grumbles. Likewise, Realismo Ausente stabs into a dejected body tales of loathing, fear, self-rejection, and defeated existence—nothing smiles in its urgent and apathetic crevices. But despite the lack of light at the end of the tunnel of Crossed’s horror-touched vision of impassioned hardcore, an analog warmth and human spirit trapped inside a writhing and pleading throat reveal a presence that’s still fighting. It’s the fight that counts. If you didn’t join the fight last time, now’s as good a time as any.

Nothing // The Self Repair Manifesto [March 26th, 2025 – Self Released]

If you noticed a tree zombie heading steaming through its trepanned opening, then you too found the same initial draw I had to The Self Repair Manifesto. Nothing complex often can draw us to the things we desire, yet in Nothing’s particular attack of relentless, groove-based death metal, many nooks of additional interest exist. The Self Repair Manifesto’s tribal rhythm-stirred “Initiation,” in its bouncy play, does little to set up the double-kick pummel and snarling refrains that lurk in this brutal, Australian soundscape. The simple chiming cymbal-fluttering bass call-and-response of “Subterfuge,” the throat singing summoning of “The Shroud,” the immediate onslaught of “Abrogation”—all in under 30 minutes, an infectious and progressive experience unfolds. And never fear, living by the motto “no clean singing,”3 Nothing has no intention of traveling the wandering and crooning path of an Opeth or In Vain. Rather, Nothing finds a hypnotic rhythmic presence both in fanciful kit play that stirs a foot shuffle and high-tempo stick abuse that urges bodies on bodies in the pit (“Subterfuge,” “The Shroud”), much in the same way you might hear in early Decapitated or Hate Eternal works. With flair of their own, though, and a mic near the mouth vessel of each member (yes, even the drummer!) to maintain a layered harsh intensity, Nothing serves a potent blend of death metal that is as jam-able as it is gym-able. Whether you seek gains or progressive enrichment, Nothing is the answer.

Steel Druhm’s Massive Aggressive

Impurity // The Eternal Sleep [ March 7th, 2025 – Hammerheart Records]

Impurity’s lust for all things Left Hand Path is not the least bit Clandestine, and on their full-length debut, The Eternal Sleep, they attempt to craft their own ode to the rabid HM-2 worship of the early 90s Swedeath sound. No new elements are shoehorned in aside from vaguely blackened ones, and there’s not the slightest effort to push the boundaries of the admittedly limited Swedeath sound. The Eternal Sleep sounds like the album that could have come between Entombed’s timeless debut and the Clandestine follow-up, and that’s not a bad place to be. It’s heavy, brutish, buzzing death metal with an OSDM edge, and it hits like a runaway 18-wheeler full of concrete and titanium rebar. One only needs to weather the shitstorm of opener “Denial of Clarity” to realize this is the deep water of the niche genre. It’s extremely heavy, face-melting death with more fuzz and buzz than your brain can process. Other cuts feel like a direct lift from Left Hand Path and/or Clandestine (“Tribute to Creation,”) and fetid Dismember tidbits creep in during “Pilgrimage to Utumno,” and these feel like olde friends showing up unexpectedly at the hometown watering hole. Swedeath is all about those ragged, jagged riffs, and they’re delivered in abundance over The Eternal Sleep, and despite the intrinsic lack of originality, Impurity pump enough steroids and Cialis into the genre archetypes to make the material endearing and engaging. Yes, you’ve heard this shit before. Now hear it again, chumbo!

#AcidAge #Ade #AmericanMetal #ArtAsCatharsisRecords #ArtoneLabelGroup #Atheist #AustralianMetal #BeyondTheSleeplessAether #BlackMetal #BlackenedCrust #BlackenedHardcore #CanadianMetal #Casarder #CelticFrost #CoffinMulch #Converge #CreatorDestructorRecords #Crossed #Crust #DeathMetal #Decapitated #DesertRock #DillingerEscapePlan #DoomMetal #Doomsday #Elder #Enforced #Flummox #Fulci #Ghostsmoker #Hardcore #HateEternal #HideousDivinity #Impurity #InMourning #InVain #InertialCult #InternationalMetal #ItalianMetal #iwrestledabearonce #LostFutureRecords #MascotRecords #MastersOfReality #Mathcore #MelodicMetal #Metalcore #Morast #Morbific #MortalityDenied #MyDyingBride #NeObliviscaris #Neurosis #NeverKnownPeace #Nile #Nothing #Opeth #PaleChordRecords #Pelican #PerilousCompulsion #PinkFloyd #PortugueseMetal #PostRock #PostMetal #PowerTrip #ProgressiveDeathMetal #ProgressiveMetal #ProgressiveThrashMetal #PyschedelicRock #RancidCadaver #RealismoAusente #Review #Reviews #RiseRecords #RussianCircles #ScottishMetal #SeaBastard #SelfReleased #SixpenceNoneTheRicher #SludgeMetal #SpanishMetal #Spiine #Spiritbox #StonerMetal #Supplicium #SymbioticGrowth #TechnicalDeathMetal #Tetraptych #TheArcher #TheEternalSleep #TheSelfRepairManifesto #Thou #ThrashMetal #TimeToKillRecords #TsunamiSea #UKMetal #Unfleshing #Verbian #ViolentReason #VirginBlack #Voivod #Wormphlegm #ZegemaBeachRecords

Popular this week:

#music #crust #horns #djent #mathcore #deephouse #nantes #bedroompop #postrock #energetic #deathcore #indiepop #screamo #blackgaze #janglepop #jangle #metalcore #hardcore #dark #piano

https://getmusic.fm/l/O7CNZw

For @DXMacGuffin's #ProgTuesday:

#TheCallousDaoboys: I Don't Want to See You in Heaven

https://album.link/i/1794618631

#Mathcore #Partyviolence #PostMetal

FFO #9FootSuperSoldier #Botch #TheDillingerEscapePlan

New this week

#music #psychedelia #vermont #crust #dystopia #anime #horns #upbeat #noire #djent #punkrock #rpg #cloudrap #bedroompop #mellow #samples #jazzy #mathcore #instrumentalrock #lovecraft

https://www.getmusic.fm/weekly/2025/05/20?utm_campaign=new&utm_source=mastodon

Airlock – Funeral Gatecrasher
#Metal #beatdown #breakcore #cybergrind #mathcore #powerelectronics #powerviolence #Australia
CC BY (#CreativeCommons Attribution) #ccmusic
https://airlocknoise.bandcamp.com/album/funeral-gatecrasher

Dear Hollow’s Mathcore Madness [Things You Might Have Missed 2024]

By Dear Hollow

The equation above is AMG’s freakishly rigid and completely objective algorithm for scoring albums and determining quality. We incorporate statistics and abstract algebra, which I understand are very complicated maths, in order to get you the highest quality extreme music this side of the Hudson or Atlantic or Yangtze or wherever the hell you are. The trouble is, you bastards don’t listen to math (i.e. “hurr durr, Wilderun is so much better than this shit.”).1 So I listen to math because I’m a contributing citizen and patriot – I listen to mathcore for you. I wade through the cesspools of skronk and sass – RYM and Reddit – for the best of the best. I do it for the, like, three of you who dig it and the, like, eight billion of you who tell teens to turn it off before shuffling back inside for a bowl of Great Grains. What I do is super mathematical so you know it’s super serious. Mathcore is about as unlistenable and scathing as it is a total sellout – so you can offend nearly everyone who hears it. Random rhythms, migraine-inducing tempo shifts, painful squeals, no sense of melody or counting, vocals a la cheese grater to the throat – it’s skronk. So enjoy my bounties, you three. The rest of you can fuck right off.

Commence panic chords!!

Better Lovers // Highly Irresponsible – Last year’s barnstormer debut EP God Made Me an Animal set one hell of a precedent for Buffalo’s Better Lovers, and their debut full-length does not disappoint. Yes, it’s a revenge album against Keith Buckley’s lesser rival project Many Eyes, but Highly Irresponsible is soooo much more than petty Every Time I Die drama. Amplifying every facet of their sound, you get more manic barks and charismatic croons from legendary former The Dillinger Escape Plan vocalist Greg Puciato, more chunky riffage from Fit for an Autopsy’s Will Putney, and more of a southern fried good time from three-fifths of the defunct-and-dramatic Every Time I Die.2 While unafraid to embrace hooky rock sensibilities (“Deliver Us from Life,” “At), the punky, bluesy, and sleazy all-out assaults of tempo-abusing insanity (“A White Horse Covered in Blood,” “Love As An Act of Rebellion”) collide with fret-squealing riff fests of the highest caliber (“Lie Between the Lines,” “Future Myopia”) in an insanely catchy, dynamic, stupid heavy, and stupid fun album with legendary status awaiting.

Frontierer // The Skull Burned Wearing Hell Like a Life Vest As the Night Wept – Look, I get that it’s a thirteen-minute EP released super late 2024, but, c’mon, it’s fucking Frontierer. Somehow seeming more punishing than usual across its four tracks, thick-ass slogs hit like sledgehammers to the temple – translating well across its more frantic moments and slower menace – while rhythms attack with the ferocity and doomed inevitability of a swarm of locusts and vocalist Chad Kapper spits blood, vitriol, and insanity into the mic. Channeling the glacial suffocation that coursed through Oxidized, it doesn’t matter if the tempo is more upbeat and energetic (“As the Night Wept”) or if it’s content sludging in its own muck (“Wearing Hell”), or indulging in both (“The Skull Burned”), the vibrant dissonance swirls in dizzyingly mechanical intensity and the down-tuned riffs smother with ruthless arrhythmic beatdown chugs. While comparable to Ion Dissonance, Car Bomb, and this year’s Weston Super Maim in emphasis on down-tuned mathcore punishment, Frontierer remains one of the genre frontrunners and trendsetters by a significant margin – in a short thirteen minutes.

The God Awful Truth // All That Dark & All That Cold – Denton, Texas’ The God Awful Truth is likely everything love or hate about mathcore. Dissonance spilling sloppily across its shaky breakdowns, deathcore gut-punches, vocal attacks as insane as the squawking panic chords that paint the background like Jackson Pollock on too much crack, and rhythms jolting about like a toddler on a go-cart. Alongside these traditional The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza-isms (“Hail Paimon,” “Street Rat”), there is a lighthearted banter guided by vocalist Jordan LaFerney’s cowboy vocals and resulting poppy rhythms, punky tempos, and loose grind-esque composition (“Symbology,” “Slicked Back,” “Bad Tooth”), though the menacing still manages to punch through when least expected (“The Rainmaker,” “Omelette du Fromage”). It’s brutal whiplash of an album, not a semblance of traditional melody to be found, with deathcore breakdowns acting more as the punchline of a song-long joke. You’ll get a headache, but you’ll have fun along the way.

meth. / See You Next Tuesday // Asymmetrics – Mathcore and noisecore have a lot in common, namely unlistenable blasting. Your favorite Michigan deathcore/mathcore darlings See You Next Tuesday teams up with Chicago noisemongers meth. for Asymmetrics, more a collaborative experiment than a split. Each band records three songs, then shares only the drum tracks with the other, who records another song over that drum track. Toss in guest spots from The Red Chord’s Guy Kozowyk and Memphis-based sludgecore act Nights Like These, and all elements practically topple under Asymmetrics’ blazing intensity and immense weight. CUNT’s influence in relentless blasters (“The First Steps of Suffering,” “Syntax Error”) and blasting deathcore chug-and-squeal-fests (“Breaking Under the Weight of the Heaviest Burden,” “Tomb of Woe”) collide with meth.’s more ominous slow burns (“Succumb,” “Guest,” “Willing Participant”) in a surprisingly well-rounded package, all wrapped up in a tidy – and fuckin’ noisy – twenty-seven minutes. It’s the best of both worlds!

Utopia // Shame – A breed of technical metal recalling the fretboard-frying abilities of The Human Abstract or Scale the Summit, this UK-based group (including prolific bassist Arran McSporran of Virvum) balances a jazzy warmth and lush atmosphere to balance out the Dillinger rhythmic attack and Psyopus-inspired shredding, made further vicious by vocalist Chris Reese’s attack of frantic fries, manic shrieks, and ghastly roars. From intense attacks of intensity and brutality (“Shame,” “Social Contracts”), wonkier exposes of dissonant motifs and jagged rhythms (“Never Argue With an Idiot,” “The Gift of Failure”), and lush vistas of warm fretless bass and jazzy chords (“Sun Damage,” “Zither,” “Moving Gently Towards the Grave”), the dark themes of shame and morbidity are offset by a truly transcendent atmosphere that ties Shame together into something beyond mathcore.

Missouri Executive Order 44 // Salt Sermon – Absolutely unhinged mathgrind with a religious theme both belying and echoing their LDS missionary aesthetic (short-sleeved white button-ups, ties, shorts, and bicycle helmets) and ominous black masks, anonymous Independence collective Missouri Executive Order 44 approaches a morbid history of religious intolerance with the goal of utter annihilation. Cramming eleven songs into a mere sixteen minutes like blasters Sectioned or Fawn Limbs, you can expect it to hit hard and fast, complete with unhinged mathy meltdowns that spill across the face of concrete rhythm, meatheaded powerviolence chugs (“Christian Pornography,” “They Built a Bass Pro Shop in Our Zion”), surprisingly groovy riffs (“The Unbuckling,” “Seven is a Holy Number”), tied together with vocalist Jarom’s cult leader shrieks and sinner wails, alongside wickedly distorted Mormon spoken word and gospel samples. Posing no stance of their own aside from the dethroning of tyranny, Salt Sermon stands with all its tragedy and iconoclasm, both utterly devastating and utterly enticing.

Shiverboard // Hacksaw Morissette – Aside from the silly genius of the album name, New York’s Shiverboard eludes easy definition. Most consistently planted in grind, art-punk, screamo, and mathcore sensibilities, Hacksaw Morissette deals with fifteen tracks that feel like a shotgun blast. Punk is a common thread coursed through this tapestry of asininity, ranging from Sex Pistols-with-animalistic-snarls (“All Black Snoopy,” “Stain Remover”), complete collapses into noisecore (“Cryptic Bismuth,” “Chastity Jeans”), over-the-top deathcore blares (“Chainsaw Fruit Punch,” “Angelina Shit Ton”), math rock and Midwest emo musings straight outta Delta Sleep or American Football (title track, “Drug Test,” “The Garbage Stork,” “Vitamins of Darkness”), and complete grind and mathcore meltdowns (“If I Can’t Have Love I Want Power,” “Torrential Drencher”) – there’s something for everyone aboard Hacksaw Morissette. With just enough dynamic to keep things interesting but not too much experimentation to throw listeners (thanks to the tasteful brevity), Shiverboard could stand to throw some more my way.

Traveller // Broken Home – Sometimes bumping mathcore is just an excuse to include djent, and Germany’s Traveller falls into this category. Utilizing Erra’s Impulse-era formula, Architects’ melodic sensibilities, a touch of Northlane’s ethereal moments, and a DIY grit whose “loud and ouchy” weight is sure to be divisive. Guided by ferocious roars, sporadic cleans, and “thicc thiccly” breakdowns galore it often emulates that mid-2000s metalcore that recalls a djentier Feed Her to the Sharks (“Never Cared (2002),” “Mismatch,” “Limbo”). Other times, it incorporates a groove and technicality that recalls the shenanigans of last year’s MouthBreather, making it a curb-stomping affair with an edge of the menacing melodies and ethereal keys (“Acheron,” “Orpheus”). Traveller is more djent and less mathcore, sure, but (1) you’re getting a lot more with Broken Home and (2) that’s why it’s at the end of this list.

#2024 #AllThatDarkAllThatCold #AmericanFootball #Architects #BetterLovers #BrokenHome #DeltaSleep #Djent #Erra #EveryTimeIDie #FawnLimbs #FeedHerToTheSharks #FitForAnAutopsy #Frontierer #Grindcore #HacksawMorissette #HardcorePunk #HighlyIrresponsible #ManyEyes #Mathcore #Meth_ #MissouriExecutiveOrder44 #Mouthbreather #NightsLikeThese #Noisecore #Northlane #Psyopus #Punk #SaltSermon #ScaleTheSummit #Screamo #Sectioned #SeeYouNextTuesday #SexPistols #Shame #Shiverboard #TheDillingerEscapePlan #TheGodAwfulTruth #TheHumanAbstract #TheRedChord #TheSkullBurnedWearingHellLikeALifeVestAsTheSkyWept #TheTonyDanzaTapdanceExtravaganza #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2024 #Traveller #TYMHM #Utopia #Virvum #Wilderun

Dear Hollow’s Mathcore Madness [Things You Might Have Missed 2024]

By Dear Hollow

The equation above is AMG’s freakishly rigid and completely objective algorithm for scoring albums and determining quality. We incorporate statistics and abstract algebra, which I understand are very complicated maths, in order to get you the highest quality extreme music this side of the Hudson or Atlantic or Yangtze or wherever the hell you are. The trouble is, you bastards don’t listen to math (i.e. “hurr durr, Wilderun is so much better than this shit.”).1 So I listen to math because I’m a contributing citizen and patriot – I listen to mathcore for you. I wade through the cesspools of skronk and sass – RYM and Reddit – for the best of the best. I do it for the, like, three of you who dig it and the, like, eight billion of you who tell teens to turn it off before shuffling back inside for a bowl of Great Grains. What I do is super mathematical so you know it’s super serious. Mathcore is about as unlistenable and scathing as it is a total sellout – so you can offend nearly everyone who hears it. Random rhythms, migraine-inducing tempo shifts, painful squeals, no sense of melody or counting, vocals a la cheese grater to the throat – it’s skronk. So enjoy my bounties, you three. The rest of you can fuck right off.

Commence panic chords!!

Better Lovers // Highly Irresponsible – Last year’s barnstormer debut EP God Made Me an Animal set one hell of a precedent for Buffalo’s Better Lovers, and their debut full-length does not disappoint. Yes, it’s a revenge album against Keith Buckley’s lesser rival project Many Eyes, but Highly Irresponsible is soooo much more than petty Every Time I Die drama. Amplifying every facet of their sound, you get more manic barks and charismatic croons from legendary former The Dillinger Escape Plan vocalist Greg Puciato, more chunky riffage from Fit for an Autopsy’s Will Putney, and more of a southern fried good time from three-fifths of the defunct-and-dramatic Every Time I Die.2 While unafraid to embrace hooky rock sensibilities (“Deliver Us from Life,” “At), the punky, bluesy, and sleazy all-out assaults of tempo-abusing insanity (“A White Horse Covered in Blood,” “Love As An Act of Rebellion”) collide with fret-squealing riff fests of the highest caliber (“Lie Between the Lines,” “Future Myopia”) in an insanely catchy, dynamic, stupid heavy, and stupid fun album with legendary status awaiting.

Frontierer // The Skull Burned Wearing Hell Like a Life Vest As the Night Wept – Look, I get that it’s a thirteen-minute EP released super late 2024, but, c’mon, it’s fucking Frontierer. Somehow seeming more punishing than usual across its four tracks, thick-ass slogs hit like sledgehammers to the temple – translating well across its more frantic moments and slower menace – while rhythms attack with the ferocity and doomed inevitability of a swarm of locusts and vocalist Chad Kapper spits blood, vitriol, and insanity into the mic. Channeling the glacial suffocation that coursed through Oxidized, it doesn’t matter if the tempo is more upbeat and energetic (“As the Night Wept”) or if it’s content sludging in its own muck (“Wearing Hell”), or indulging in both (“The Skull Burned”), the vibrant dissonance swirls in dizzyingly mechanical intensity and the down-tuned riffs smother with ruthless arrhythmic beatdown chugs. While comparable to Ion Dissonance, Car Bomb, and this year’s Weston Super Maim in emphasis on down-tuned mathcore punishment, Frontierer remains one of the genre frontrunners and trendsetters by a significant margin – in a short thirteen minutes.

The God Awful Truth // All That Dark & All That Cold – Denton, Texas’ The God Awful Truth is likely everything love or hate about mathcore. Dissonance spilling sloppily across its shaky breakdowns, deathcore gut-punches, vocal attacks as insane as the squawking panic chords that paint the background like Jackson Pollock on too much crack, and rhythms jolting about like a toddler on a go-cart. Alongside these traditional The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza-isms (“Hail Paimon,” “Street Rat”), there is a lighthearted banter guided by vocalist Jordan LaFerney’s cowboy vocals and resulting poppy rhythms, punky tempos, and loose grind-esque composition (“Symbology,” “Slicked Back,” “Bad Tooth”), though the menacing still manages to punch through when least expected (“The Rainmaker,” “Omelette du Fromage”). It’s brutal whiplash of an album, not a semblance of traditional melody to be found, with deathcore breakdowns acting more as the punchline of a song-long joke. You’ll get a headache, but you’ll have fun along the way.

meth. / See You Next Tuesday // Asymmetrics – Mathcore and noisecore have a lot in common, namely unlistenable blasting. Your favorite Michigan deathcore/mathcore darlings See You Next Tuesday teams up with Chicago noisemongers meth. for Asymmetrics, more a collaborative experiment than a split. Each band records three songs, then shares only the drum tracks with the other, who records another song over that drum track. Toss in guest spots from The Red Chord’s Guy Kozowyk and Memphis-based sludgecore act Nights Like These, and all elements practically topple under Asymmetrics’ blazing intensity and immense weight. CUNT’s influence in relentless blasters (“The First Steps of Suffering,” “Syntax Error”) and blasting deathcore chug-and-squeal-fests (“Breaking Under the Weight of the Heaviest Burden,” “Tomb of Woe”) collide with meth.’s more ominous slow burns (“Succumb,” “Guest,” “Willing Participant”) in a surprisingly well-rounded package, all wrapped up in a tidy – and fuckin’ noisy – twenty-seven minutes. It’s the best of both worlds!

Utopia // Shame – A breed of technical metal recalling the fretboard-frying abilities of The Human Abstract or Scale the Summit, this UK-based group (including prolific bassist Arran McSporran of Virvum) balances a jazzy warmth and lush atmosphere to balance out the Dillinger rhythmic attack and Psyopus-inspired shredding, made further vicious by vocalist Chris Reese’s attack of frantic fries, manic shrieks, and ghastly roars. From intense attacks of intensity and brutality (“Shame,” “Social Contracts”), wonkier exposes of dissonant motifs and jagged rhythms (“Never Argue With an Idiot,” “The Gift of Failure”), and lush vistas of warm fretless bass and jazzy chords (“Sun Damage,” “Zither,” “Moving Gently Towards the Grave”), the dark themes of shame and morbidity are offset by a truly transcendent atmosphere that ties Shame together into something beyond mathcore.

Missouri Executive Order 44 // Salt Sermon – Absolutely unhinged mathgrind with a religious theme both belying and echoing their LDS missionary aesthetic (short-sleeved white button-ups, ties, shorts, and bicycle helmets) and ominous black masks, anonymous Independence collective Missouri Executive Order 44 approaches a morbid history of religious intolerance with the goal of utter annihilation. Cramming eleven songs into a mere sixteen minutes like blasters Sectioned or Fawn Limbs, you can expect it to hit hard and fast, complete with unhinged mathy meltdowns that spill across the face of concrete rhythm, meatheaded powerviolence chugs (“Christian Pornography,” “They Built a Bass Pro Shop in Our Zion”), surprisingly groovy riffs (“The Unbuckling,” “Seven is a Holy Number”), tied together with vocalist Jarom’s cult leader shrieks and sinner wails, alongside wickedly distorted Mormon spoken word and gospel samples. Posing no stance of their own aside from the dethroning of tyranny, Salt Sermon stands with all its tragedy and iconoclasm, both utterly devastating and utterly enticing.

Shiverboard // Hacksaw Morissette – Aside from the silly genius of the album name, New York’s Shiverboard eludes easy definition. Most consistently planted in grind, art-punk, screamo, and mathcore sensibilities, Hacksaw Morissette deals with fifteen tracks that feel like a shotgun blast. Punk is a common thread coursed through this tapestry of asininity, ranging from Sex Pistols-with-animalistic-snarls (“All Black Snoopy,” “Stain Remover”), complete collapses into noisecore (“Cryptic Bismuth,” “Chastity Jeans”), over-the-top deathcore blares (“Chainsaw Fruit Punch,” “Angelina Shit Ton”), math rock and Midwest emo musings straight outta Delta Sleep or American Football (title track, “Drug Test,” “The Garbage Stork,” “Vitamins of Darkness”), and complete grind and mathcore meltdowns (“If I Can’t Have Love I Want Power,” “Torrential Drencher”) – there’s something for everyone aboard Hacksaw Morissette. With just enough dynamic to keep things interesting but not too much experimentation to throw listeners (thanks to the tasteful brevity), Shiverboard could stand to throw some more my way.

Traveller // Broken Home – Sometimes bumping mathcore is just an excuse to include djent, and Germany’s Traveller falls into this category. Utilizing Erra’s Impulse-era formula, Architects’ melodic sensibilities, a touch of Northlane’s ethereal moments, and a DIY grit whose “loud and ouchy” weight is sure to be divisive. Guided by ferocious roars, sporadic cleans, and “thicc thiccly” breakdowns galore it often emulates that mid-2000s metalcore that recalls a djentier Feed Her to the Sharks (“Never Cared (2002),” “Mismatch,” “Limbo”). Other times, it incorporates a groove and technicality that recalls the shenanigans of last year’s MouthBreather, making it a curb-stomping affair with an edge of the menacing melodies and ethereal keys (“Acheron,” “Orpheus”). Traveller is more djent and less mathcore, sure, but (1) you’re getting a lot more with Broken Home and (2) that’s why it’s at the end of this list.

#2024 #AllThatDarkAllThatCold #AmericanFootball #Architects #BetterLovers #BrokenHome #DeltaSleep #Djent #Erra #EveryTimeIDie #FawnLimbs #FeedHerToTheSharks #FitForAnAutopsy #Frontierer #Grindcore #HacksawMorissette #HardcorePunk #HighlyIrresponsible #ManyEyes #Mathcore #Meth_ #MissouriExecutiveOrder44 #Mouthbreather #NightsLikeThese #Noisecore #Northlane #Psyopus #Punk #SaltSermon #ScaleTheSummit #Screamo #Sectioned #SeeYouNextTuesday #SexPistols #Shame #Shiverboard #TheDillingerEscapePlan #TheGodAwfulTruth #TheHumanAbstract #TheRedChord #TheSkullBurnedWearingHellLikeALifeVestAsTheSkyWept #TheTonyDanzaTapdanceExtravaganza #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2024 #Traveller #TYMHM #Utopia #Virvum #Wilderun

Dear Hollow’s Mathcore Madness [Things You Might Have Missed 2024]

By Dear Hollow

The equation above is AMG’s freakishly rigid and completely objective algorithm for scoring albums and determining quality. We incorporate statistics and abstract algebra, which I understand are very complicated maths, in order to get you the highest quality extreme music this side of the Hudson or Atlantic or Yangtze or wherever the hell you are. The trouble is, you bastards don’t listen to math (i.e. “hurr durr, Wilderun is so much better than this shit.”).1 So I listen to math because I’m a contributing citizen and patriot – I listen to mathcore for you. I wade through the cesspools of skronk and sass – RYM and Reddit – for the best of the best. I do it for the, like, three of you who dig it and the, like, eight billion of you who tell teens to turn it off before shuffling back inside for a bowl of Great Grains. What I do is super mathematical so you know it’s super serious. Mathcore is about as unlistenable and scathing as it is a total sellout – so you can offend nearly everyone who hears it. Random rhythms, migraine-inducing tempo shifts, painful squeals, no sense of melody or counting, vocals a la cheese grater to the throat – it’s skronk. So enjoy my bounties, you three. The rest of you can fuck right off.

Commence panic chords!!

Better Lovers // Highly Irresponsible – Last year’s barnstormer debut EP God Made Me an Animal set one hell of a precedent for Buffalo’s Better Lovers, and their debut full-length does not disappoint. Yes, it’s a revenge album against Keith Buckley’s lesser rival project Many Eyes, but Highly Irresponsible is soooo much more than petty Every Time I Die drama. Amplifying every facet of their sound, you get more manic barks and charismatic croons from legendary former The Dillinger Escape Plan vocalist Greg Puciato, more chunky riffage from Fit for an Autopsy’s Will Putney, and more of a southern fried good time from three-fifths of the defunct-and-dramatic Every Time I Die.2 While unafraid to embrace hooky rock sensibilities (“Deliver Us from Life,” “At), the punky, bluesy, and sleazy all-out assaults of tempo-abusing insanity (“A White Horse Covered in Blood,” “Love As An Act of Rebellion”) collide with fret-squealing riff fests of the highest caliber (“Lie Between the Lines,” “Future Myopia”) in an insanely catchy, dynamic, stupid heavy, and stupid fun album with legendary status awaiting.

Frontierer // The Skull Burned Wearing Hell Like a Life Vest As the Night Wept – Look, I get that it’s a thirteen-minute EP released super late 2024, but, c’mon, it’s fucking Frontierer. Somehow seeming more punishing than usual across its four tracks, thick-ass slogs hit like sledgehammers to the temple – translating well across its more frantic moments and slower menace – while rhythms attack with the ferocity and doomed inevitability of a swarm of locusts and vocalist Chad Kapper spits blood, vitriol, and insanity into the mic. Channeling the glacial suffocation that coursed through Oxidized, it doesn’t matter if the tempo is more upbeat and energetic (“As the Night Wept”) or if it’s content sludging in its own muck (“Wearing Hell”), or indulging in both (“The Skull Burned”), the vibrant dissonance swirls in dizzyingly mechanical intensity and the down-tuned riffs smother with ruthless arrhythmic beatdown chugs. While comparable to Ion Dissonance, Car Bomb, and this year’s Weston Super Maim in emphasis on down-tuned mathcore punishment, Frontierer remains one of the genre frontrunners and trendsetters by a significant margin – in a short thirteen minutes.

The God Awful Truth // All That Dark & All That Cold – Denton, Texas’ The God Awful Truth is likely everything love or hate about mathcore. Dissonance spilling sloppily across its shaky breakdowns, deathcore gut-punches, vocal attacks as insane as the squawking panic chords that paint the background like Jackson Pollock on too much crack, and rhythms jolting about like a toddler on a go-cart. Alongside these traditional The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza-isms (“Hail Paimon,” “Street Rat”), there is a lighthearted banter guided by vocalist Jordan LaFerney’s cowboy vocals and resulting poppy rhythms, punky tempos, and loose grind-esque composition (“Symbology,” “Slicked Back,” “Bad Tooth”), though the menacing still manages to punch through when least expected (“The Rainmaker,” “Omelette du Fromage”). It’s brutal whiplash of an album, not a semblance of traditional melody to be found, with deathcore breakdowns acting more as the punchline of a song-long joke. You’ll get a headache, but you’ll have fun along the way.

meth. / See You Next Tuesday // Asymmetrics – Mathcore and noisecore have a lot in common, namely unlistenable blasting. Your favorite Michigan deathcore/mathcore darlings See You Next Tuesday teams up with Chicago noisemongers meth. for Asymmetrics, more a collaborative experiment than a split. Each band records three songs, then shares only the drum tracks with the other, who records another song over that drum track. Toss in guest spots from The Red Chord’s Guy Kozowyk and Memphis-based sludgecore act Nights Like These, and all elements practically topple under Asymmetrics’ blazing intensity and immense weight. CUNT’s influence in relentless blasters (“The First Steps of Suffering,” “Syntax Error”) and blasting deathcore chug-and-squeal-fests (“Breaking Under the Weight of the Heaviest Burden,” “Tomb of Woe”) collide with meth.’s more ominous slow burns (“Succumb,” “Guest,” “Willing Participant”) in a surprisingly well-rounded package, all wrapped up in a tidy – and fuckin’ noisy – twenty-seven minutes. It’s the best of both worlds!

Utopia // Shame – A breed of technical metal recalling the fretboard-frying abilities of The Human Abstract or Scale the Summit, this UK-based group (including prolific bassist Arran McSporran of Virvum) balances a jazzy warmth and lush atmosphere to balance out the Dillinger rhythmic attack and Psyopus-inspired shredding, made further vicious by vocalist Chris Reese’s attack of frantic fries, manic shrieks, and ghastly roars. From intense attacks of intensity and brutality (“Shame,” “Social Contracts”), wonkier exposes of dissonant motifs and jagged rhythms (“Never Argue With an Idiot,” “The Gift of Failure”), and lush vistas of warm fretless bass and jazzy chords (“Sun Damage,” “Zither,” “Moving Gently Towards the Grave”), the dark themes of shame and morbidity are offset by a truly transcendent atmosphere that ties Shame together into something beyond mathcore.

Missouri Executive Order 44 // Salt Sermon – Absolutely unhinged mathgrind with a religious theme both belying and echoing their LDS missionary aesthetic (short-sleeved white button-ups, ties, shorts, and bicycle helmets) and ominous black masks, anonymous Independence collective Missouri Executive Order 44 approaches a morbid history of religious intolerance with the goal of utter annihilation. Cramming eleven songs into a mere sixteen minutes like blasters Sectioned or Fawn Limbs, you can expect it to hit hard and fast, complete with unhinged mathy meltdowns that spill across the face of concrete rhythm, meatheaded powerviolence chugs (“Christian Pornography,” “They Built a Bass Pro Shop in Our Zion”), surprisingly groovy riffs (“The Unbuckling,” “Seven is a Holy Number”), tied together with vocalist Jarom’s cult leader shrieks and sinner wails, alongside wickedly distorted Mormon spoken word and gospel samples. Posing no stance of their own aside from the dethroning of tyranny, Salt Sermon stands with all its tragedy and iconoclasm, both utterly devastating and utterly enticing.

Shiverboard // Hacksaw Morissette – Aside from the silly genius of the album name, New York’s Shiverboard eludes easy definition. Most consistently planted in grind, art-punk, screamo, and mathcore sensibilities, Hacksaw Morissette deals with fifteen tracks that feel like a shotgun blast. Punk is a common thread coursed through this tapestry of asininity, ranging from Sex Pistols-with-animalistic-snarls (“All Black Snoopy,” “Stain Remover”), complete collapses into noisecore (“Cryptic Bismuth,” “Chastity Jeans”), over-the-top deathcore blares (“Chainsaw Fruit Punch,” “Angelina Shit Ton”), math rock and Midwest emo musings straight outta Delta Sleep or American Football (title track, “Drug Test,” “The Garbage Stork,” “Vitamins of Darkness”), and complete grind and mathcore meltdowns (“If I Can’t Have Love I Want Power,” “Torrential Drencher”) – there’s something for everyone aboard Hacksaw Morissette. With just enough dynamic to keep things interesting but not too much experimentation to throw listeners (thanks to the tasteful brevity), Shiverboard could stand to throw some more my way.

Traveller // Broken Home – Sometimes bumping mathcore is just an excuse to include djent, and Germany’s Traveller falls into this category. Utilizing Erra’s Impulse-era formula, Architects’ melodic sensibilities, a touch of Northlane’s ethereal moments, and a DIY grit whose “loud and ouchy” weight is sure to be divisive. Guided by ferocious roars, sporadic cleans, and “thicc thiccly” breakdowns galore it often emulates that mid-2000s metalcore that recalls a djentier Feed Her to the Sharks (“Never Cared (2002),” “Mismatch,” “Limbo”). Other times, it incorporates a groove and technicality that recalls the shenanigans of last year’s MouthBreather, making it a curb-stomping affair with an edge of the menacing melodies and ethereal keys (“Acheron,” “Orpheus”). Traveller is more djent and less mathcore, sure, but (1) you’re getting a lot more with Broken Home and (2) that’s why it’s at the end of this list.

#2024 #AllThatDarkAllThatCold #AmericanFootball #Architects #BetterLovers #BrokenHome #DeltaSleep #Djent #Erra #EveryTimeIDie #FawnLimbs #FeedHerToTheSharks #FitForAnAutopsy #Frontierer #Grindcore #HacksawMorissette #HardcorePunk #HighlyIrresponsible #ManyEyes #Mathcore #Meth_ #MissouriExecutiveOrder44 #Mouthbreather #NightsLikeThese #Noisecore #Northlane #Psyopus #Punk #SaltSermon #ScaleTheSummit #Screamo #Sectioned #SeeYouNextTuesday #SexPistols #Shame #Shiverboard #TheDillingerEscapePlan #TheGodAwfulTruth #TheHumanAbstract #TheRedChord #TheSkullBurnedWearingHellLikeALifeVestAsTheSkyWept #TheTonyDanzaTapdanceExtravaganza #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2024 #Traveller #TYMHM #Utopia #Virvum #Wilderun

Stank face engaged. #Music #Metal #Metalcore #Mathcore #RoloTomassi

Dear Hollow’s Mathcore Madness [Things You Might Have Missed 2023]

By Dear Hollow

Y’all ready to skronk? Cuz it’s ’bout to get skronky. I had a realization about midway this year that all I was doing was contributing mathcore releases to Kenstrocity‘s Stuck in the Filter pieces. So instead of painting myself as a one-trick pony who can only do math three times a month, I decided to reveal my cards as a mathcore sellout by the end of 2023. I have been given an incurably bad taste this year, and a spotlight under which I stand alone while commenters and colleagues alike chuck tomatoes and copies of Mercyful Fate’s Dead Again and Saxon’s Rock the Nations at me (saying, and I quote, “get some culture, you sellout”). See, when the inimitable Kronos left, he took with him the taste for the mathy skronk. I suppose Dolphin Whisperer has some math love built into him, but we’re too busy squabbling over details most of the time.1

Thus, I have compiled a list of some mathcore releases you might, uh, tolerate! Because I have filtered and expressed opinions over acts like See You Next Tuesday, Sleepsculptor, Soulkeeper, and Squid Pisser (I’m not sure why I picked all mathcore acts that start with S, but here we are) you can go find ’em yourself if you’re soooo upset why I didn’t include them. Without further ado, let’s get skronky (another S!).

Better Lovers // God Made Me an Animal – Look, I get it’s an EP, but when your band consists of the instrumental section of the defunct Every Time I Die, the guitarist of Fit for an Autopsy and End, and the vocalist of the legendary The Dillinger Escape Plan, we can make some exceptions. Charisma and sleaze drip through the southern-fried leads of these four songs, while Greg Puciato’s unmistakably charismatic vocals rip across, formidable cleans gracing melodic noodling with a catchiness that contrasts with the dense groove. Speaking of the groove, they hit at just the right moments, recalling I Am Hollywood-era He is Legend in “Sacrificial Participant,” while punk speed graces “30 Under 13” with a franticness, while the riff in the title track is absolutely mammoth. Quite the lineup, and while the sound is what you’d largely expect from its ranks, the five-piece makes its debut EP just damn good mathcore.

Chamber // A Love to Kill For – Nashville’s Chamber enters the fray with a sound that weaponizes mathcore for maximum punishment, a tad like Frontierer meeting late-era The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza in a knife-fight behind the old Kmart: down-tuned thuggishness, chunky and bruising rhythms, noodly riffs, and squealing leads.2 Vocalist Jacob Lilly offers a vicious performance, his roars and fry vocals dripping with vitriol, while the cutthroat axework collapses and crushes around him, and drummer Taylor Carpenter hits the kit balancing rock-solid anchoring and pure mania. A Love to Kill For is a relentless metalcore attack barbed with hardcore punk, mathcore, and hints of deathcore: carefully calculated, intensely brutish, and worth every concussion Chamber can muster.

Euclid C Finder // The Mirror, My Weapon, I Love You – A balanced affair unafraid of the noisemaking, Baltimore’s Euclid C Finder (presumably named after the Fallout weapon) releases a grind-tinged math attack of viciousness and oddity in equal measure. Nineteen minutes of wonky rhythms, blasting percussion, manic dissonance, panic chords aplenty, and insane vocals greet the ears with the subtlety of a five-car pileup. It would be easy to dismiss The Mirror… as just another Dillinger– or Converge– worshiper, but then the groove hits. The trio balances its treble trouble with a chunky hit of downtuned intensity and gruff barks that gives respite to the million-miles-per-hour of noodly technicality. It’s a toothy and intense affair that never takes itself too seriously (i.e. “Jonathan Davis 10000 BC”) and never overstays its welcome.

Telos // Delude – What makes Copenhagen’s Telos unique is its blackened and noisy take on mathcore. Or, if you please, a mathy take on blackened hardcore – whatever floats your boat. A bit like if Hexis (with whom they released a split this year) and Botch had a scary-looking baby. Misanthropy oozes from every orifice and hostile noise fills negative space, ominous leads and dissonant plucking wearing haunting grooves into the brain. Tracks like “Bastion,” “I’ve Been Gone for So Long,” and “As Atlas Stumbled” are full-on assaults of intense proportions, while the more subdued ritualism and atmosphere in “I Accept / I Receive” and “Throne” show the depths of Telos’ lurching and rumbling depravity. Fans of mathcore and blackened hardcore would do well to do a headlong dive into this particular abyss.

Thin // Dusk – Mathcore gone grind. Reveling in tight descending patterns of insanity, with a fearlessness of skull-caving death metal, New York City’s Thin will beat you senseless with every weapon in its arsenal. A wall of noisy noodling, panic chords, and squalid feedback is erected with every attack, collapsing for death metal-inspired weight and dissonant plucking throughout that feels like homage to this year’s Asystole. Screamo orientation fuels the fire and brevity is the name of the game, but toss in formidable performances from all forces involved, with howling screeches giving way to gravelly gurgles, groovy riffs giving way to frantic tremolo, and the rhythm section cutting through the darkness. As the cheery acoustic strums of closer “Mangrove” sound in final respite, Thin revels in its sonic and lyrical pairing of nostalgia and trauma – a dark night of the soul.

Dead Soma // Pathos – A more rhythmic and atmospherically spidery but nonetheless viciously punishing take on mathcore. Best described as Loathe covering Converge songs, the sepia-toned and mysterious Deftones influence is unmistakable, but Sweden’s Dead Soma is unafraid to embrace the intensity. Hinting upon djent not unlike countrymen Vildhjarta and weighty rhythms like Car Bomb, the grooves are palpable and punishing, guided by the dead hands of electronic glitches and pinch harmonics and dragged by manic barks and screeches. Chino Moreno-esque whispery cleans and subdued mumbles add to the glitching and warm synthwork in the more laid-back tracks, which add further dynamic to the relentlessly fat riffs and mathy noodling (see: “Life and Limb” to “Error Blemish”). Warmly atmospheric, it carries a vintage tone by the vocals and synth, but is ultimately uncompromising in its brutality.

MouthBreather // Self-Tape – This one is less mathcore by sound and more by name. The Boston collective’s debut LP I’m Sorry Mr. Salesman (another filter cleaning I contributed to) was Coalesce-meets-Converge-core through and through in a groovy take on mathcore, but after a come-to-metalcore-Jesus moment they go straight for the jugular with a nu-infested, groove-infected -core sound for Self-Tape. The viciousness is front and center, with aggression and fury spewing from every chug and growl, with its storied mathcore history offering its energetic bite. Now featuring more deathcore weight and nu-metal influence to slam into your sorry-ass ears alongside the ghosts of Christmas skronk, Self-Tape reflects a descent into madness through its very reasonable twenty-three minutes of film references. Maybe you’ll think it’s just metalcore with no mathcore in sight, and you’d be right, but (a) that’s why it’s at the end of this piece and (b) your head will be bobbing so hard you won’t care.

#2023 #ALoveToKillFor #AmericanMetal #Asystole #BetterLovers #BlackenedHardcore #Botch #CarBomb #Chamber #Coalesce #Converge #DanishMetal #DeadSoma #Deathcore #Deftones #Delude #Dusk #End #EuclidCFinder #EveryTimeIDie #FitForAnAutopsy #Frontierer #Gideon #GodMadeMeAnAnimal #Grindcore #HardcorePunk #HeIsLegend #Hexis #Loathe #Mathcore #Metalcore #NuMetal #Pathos #SwedishMetal #Telos #TheAcaciaStrain #TheDillingerEscapePlan #TheMirrorMyWeaponILoveYou #TheTonyDanzaTapdanceExtravaganza #Thin #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2023 #Vildhjarta

Dear Hollow’s Mathcore Madness [Things You Might Have Missed 2023]

By Dear Hollow

Y’all ready to skronk? Cuz it’s ’bout to get skronky. I had a realization about midway this year that all I was doing was contributing mathcore releases to Kenstrocity‘s Stuck in the Filter pieces. So instead of painting myself as a one-trick pony who can only do math three times a month, I decided to reveal my cards as a mathcore sellout by the end of 2023. I have been given an incurably bad taste this year, and a spotlight under which I stand alone while commenters and colleagues alike chuck tomatoes and copies of Mercyful Fate’s Dead Again and Saxon’s Rock the Nations at me (saying, and I quote, “get some culture, you sellout”). See, when the inimitable Kronos left, he took with him the taste for the mathy skronk. I suppose Dolphin Whisperer has some math love built into him, but we’re too busy squabbling over details most of the time.1

Thus, I have compiled a list of some mathcore releases you might, uh, tolerate! Because I have filtered and expressed opinions over acts like See You Next Tuesday, Sleepsculptor, Soulkeeper, and Squid Pisser (I’m not sure why I picked all mathcore acts that start with S, but here we are) you can go find ’em yourself if you’re soooo upset why I didn’t include them. Without further ado, let’s get skronky (another S!).

Better Lovers // God Made Me an Animal – Look, I get it’s an EP, but when your band consists of the instrumental section of the defunct Every Time I Die, the guitarist of Fit for an Autopsy and End, and the vocalist of the legendary The Dillinger Escape Plan, we can make some exceptions. Charisma and sleaze drip through the southern-fried leads of these four songs, while Greg Puciato’s unmistakably charismatic vocals rip across, formidable cleans gracing melodic noodling with a catchiness that contrasts with the dense groove. Speaking of the groove, they hit at just the right moments, recalling I Am Hollywood-era He is Legend in “Sacrificial Participant,” while punk speed graces “30 Under 13” with a franticness, while the riff in the title track is absolutely mammoth. Quite the lineup, and while the sound is what you’d largely expect from its ranks, the five-piece makes its debut EP just damn good mathcore.

Chamber // A Love to Kill For – Nashville’s Chamber enters the fray with a sound that weaponizes mathcore for maximum punishment, a tad like Frontierer meeting late-era The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza in a knife-fight behind the old Kmart: down-tuned thuggishness, chunky and bruising rhythms, noodly riffs, and squealing leads.2 Vocalist Jacob Lilly offers a vicious performance, his roars and fry vocals dripping with vitriol, while the cutthroat axework collapses and crushes around him, and drummer Taylor Carpenter hits the kit balancing rock-solid anchoring and pure mania. A Love to Kill For is a relentless metalcore attack barbed with hardcore punk, mathcore, and hints of deathcore: carefully calculated, intensely brutish, and worth every concussion Chamber can muster.

Euclid C Finder // The Mirror, My Weapon, I Love You – A balanced affair unafraid of the noisemaking, Baltimore’s Euclid C Finder (presumably named after the Fallout weapon) releases a grind-tinged math attack of viciousness and oddity in equal measure. Nineteen minutes of wonky rhythms, blasting percussion, manic dissonance, panic chords aplenty, and insane vocals greet the ears with the subtlety of a five-car pileup. It would be easy to dismiss The Mirror… as just another Dillinger– or Converge– worshiper, but then the groove hits. The trio balances its treble trouble with a chunky hit of downtuned intensity and gruff barks that gives respite to the million-miles-per-hour of noodly technicality. It’s a toothy and intense affair that never takes itself too seriously (i.e. “Jonathan Davis 10000 BC”) and never overstays its welcome.

Telos // Delude – What makes Copenhagen’s Telos unique is its blackened and noisy take on mathcore. Or, if you please, a mathy take on blackened hardcore – whatever floats your boat. A bit like if Hexis (with whom they released a split this year) and Botch had a scary-looking baby. Misanthropy oozes from every orifice and hostile noise fills negative space, ominous leads and dissonant plucking wearing haunting grooves into the brain. Tracks like “Bastion,” “I’ve Been Gone for So Long,” and “As Atlas Stumbled” are full-on assaults of intense proportions, while the more subdued ritualism and atmosphere in “I Accept / I Receive” and “Throne” show the depths of Telos’ lurching and rumbling depravity. Fans of mathcore and blackened hardcore would do well to do a headlong dive into this particular abyss.

Thin // Dusk – Mathcore gone grind. Reveling in tight descending patterns of insanity, with a fearlessness of skull-caving death metal, New York City’s Thin will beat you senseless with every weapon in its arsenal. A wall of noisy noodling, panic chords, and squalid feedback is erected with every attack, collapsing for death metal-inspired weight and dissonant plucking throughout that feels like homage to this year’s Asystole. Screamo orientation fuels the fire and brevity is the name of the game, but toss in formidable performances from all forces involved, with howling screeches giving way to gravelly gurgles, groovy riffs giving way to frantic tremolo, and the rhythm section cutting through the darkness. As the cheery acoustic strums of closer “Mangrove” sound in final respite, Thin revels in its sonic and lyrical pairing of nostalgia and trauma – a dark night of the soul.

Dead Soma // Pathos – A more rhythmic and atmospherically spidery but nonetheless viciously punishing take on mathcore. Best described as Loathe covering Converge songs, the sepia-toned and mysterious Deftones influence is unmistakable, but Sweden’s Dead Soma is unafraid to embrace the intensity. Hinting upon djent not unlike countrymen Vildhjarta and weighty rhythms like Car Bomb, the grooves are palpable and punishing, guided by the dead hands of electronic glitches and pinch harmonics and dragged by manic barks and screeches. Chino Moreno-esque whispery cleans and subdued mumbles add to the glitching and warm synthwork in the more laid-back tracks, which add further dynamic to the relentlessly fat riffs and mathy noodling (see: “Life and Limb” to “Error Blemish”). Warmly atmospheric, it carries a vintage tone by the vocals and synth, but is ultimately uncompromising in its brutality.

MouthBreather // Self-Tape – This one is less mathcore by sound and more by name. The Boston collective’s debut LP I’m Sorry Mr. Salesman (another filter cleaning I contributed to) was Coalesce-meets-Converge-core through and through in a groovy take on mathcore, but after a come-to-metalcore-Jesus moment they go straight for the jugular with a nu-infested, groove-infected -core sound for Self-Tape. The viciousness is front and center, with aggression and fury spewing from every chug and growl, with its storied mathcore history offering its energetic bite. Now featuring more deathcore weight and nu-metal influence to slam into your sorry-ass ears alongside the ghosts of Christmas skronk, Self-Tape reflects a descent into madness through its very reasonable twenty-three minutes of film references. Maybe you’ll think it’s just metalcore with no mathcore in sight, and you’d be right, but (a) that’s why it’s at the end of this piece and (b) your head will be bobbing so hard you won’t care.

#2023 #ALoveToKillFor #AmericanMetal #Asystole #BetterLovers #BlackenedHardcore #Botch #CarBomb #Chamber #Coalesce #Converge #DanishMetal #DeadSoma #Deathcore #Deftones #Delude #Dusk #End #EuclidCFinder #EveryTimeIDie #FitForAnAutopsy #Frontierer #Gideon #GodMadeMeAnAnimal #Grindcore #HardcorePunk #HeIsLegend #Hexis #Loathe #Mathcore #Metalcore #NuMetal #Pathos #SwedishMetal #Telos #TheAcaciaStrain #TheDillingerEscapePlan #TheMirrorMyWeaponILoveYou #TheTonyDanzaTapdanceExtravaganza #Thin #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2023 #Vildhjarta

Johnny Booth – Moments Elsewhere [Things You Might Have Missed 2023]

By Dear Hollow

The phrase “metalcore” strikes fear in the hearts of the most hardened metal fans.1 Breakdowns and faux badassery collide in the most listenable shit this side of the pond. New York DIY metalcore abusers in Johnny Booth know this. While yes, there are breakdowns, one-liners, and enough technical wankery to make a Converge fan drool, every element is weaponized to the full extent to accomplish an unhinged and vicious quality (“loud and ouchy” in the words of inimitable Dolphin Whisperer) that recalls acts like Knocked Loose, Sworn In, and Frontierer – without committing to either cumbersome down-tempo hardcore or headache-inducing mathcore. Encapsulating just enough reprieve from the devastating pummel, through a tasteful sprinkling of jazzy keys, skronky electronics, and subdued cleans, third full-length Moments Elsewhere’s weight is through its expertly dynamic writing.

Contrary to the squeaky-clean stereotype of modern metalcore, Johnny Booth embraces weight and filth through its self-released aesthetic. Guided by Andrew Herman’s desperate fry vocals and soothed by his croons, the true stars of Moments Elsewhere are guitarists Adam Halpern and Ryan Strong and their impressive repertoire. While rooted in the chunky chug-happy metalcore template, nearly every moment feels like it might fly off the rails or is enhanced by impressive dynamic songwriting. In perhaps the best example this dynamic, “Only By Name” starts off with a rather unassuming and harmless wonky Dillinger-esque riff that guides the proceedings before cascading into a devastating riff that slides like a semi-truck on ice. Even the cleanly sung tracks like “Why Becomes How” and interlude “The Mirror” inject their respectively subdued approaches with both scathing melody and vocal harmonies or earworms and enough heft to move the album along. More balanced tracks like “Collapse in the Key of Fireworks” and “The Ladder” are tasteful in their fusions of melody, skonk, and catchy choruses. Bassist Steve DiModugno contributes technical fills and noodles to “Bright Future” and a jazzy runs in “The Mirror,” and drummer Adam Ingoglia is a rock-solid anchor throughout, constructing intricate rhythms while derailing them across the board.

This dynamic allows tracks to gather enough for the punishing storm, and breakdowns are realized to their fullest potential and never overstay their welcome. In easy highlight “Full Tilt” an opening distorted cheery sample and a later passage of a trip-hop beat offer respite, only to tread the path of Loathe with an absolutely stellar buildup and utterly satisfying closing breakdown.2 “Why Becomes How” is immediately followed up by the no-holds-barred hardcore-infused “Ring Light Altar” and the somehow heavier “Gatekeeper”3 and the unhinged “No Comply” whose morphing math-inflected riffs add a jolt of viciousness. Closer “Modern Dialogue” features a tasteful range of guitar tricks that align perfectly with the percussion, adding grueling punishment and dynamic across the board.

What makes Moments Elsewhere is its nearly untouchable range of tracks – only the mathy Risecore caricature “Bright Future” is a bit of a weak link in its lack of tangible weight. Don’t let the “metalcore” tag scare you: Johnny Booth offers some of the most punishing tracks of the year. Amplified by a smart inclusion of dynamics and homage to influences that avoid mimicry, it somehow feels heavier than could possibly offered when the atmospheric passages implode into skull-crushing weight. Contending with 2023’s heavy hitters Sylosis, MouthBreather, and The Acacia Strain is no easy feat, and they do so on their own terms in a handcrafted album with a unique sound – one of 2023’s best.

Tracks to Check Out: “Full Tilt,” “Only By Name,” “No Comply,” and “Modern Dialogue”

#AmericanMetal #Converge #Frontierer #Hardcore #JohnnyBooth #KnockedLoose #Loathe #Mathcore #Metalcore #Mouthbreather #SelfRelease #SwornIn #Sybreed #Sylosis #TheAcaciaStrain #TheDillingerEscapePlan #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2023 #TYMHM

Johnny Booth – Moments Elsewhere [Things You Might Have Missed 2023]

By Dear Hollow

The phrase “metalcore” strikes fear in the hearts of the most hardened metal fans.1 Breakdowns and faux badassery collide in the most listenable shit this side of the pond. New York DIY metalcore abusers in Johnny Booth know this. While yes, there are breakdowns, one-liners, and enough technical wankery to make a Converge fan drool, every element is weaponized to the full extent to accomplish an unhinged and vicious quality (“loud and ouchy” in the words of inimitable Dolphin Whisperer) that recalls acts like Knocked Loose, Sworn In, and Frontierer – without committing to either cumbersome down-tempo hardcore or headache-inducing mathcore. Encapsulating just enough reprieve from the devastating pummel, through a tasteful sprinkling of jazzy keys, skronky electronics, and subdued cleans, third full-length Moments Elsewhere’s weight is through its expertly dynamic writing.

Contrary to the squeaky-clean stereotype of modern metalcore, Johnny Booth embraces weight and filth through its self-released aesthetic. Guided by Andrew Herman’s desperate fry vocals and soothed by his croons, the true stars of Moments Elsewhere are guitarists Adam Halpern and Ryan Strong and their impressive repertoire. While rooted in the chunky chug-happy metalcore template, nearly every moment feels like it might fly off the rails or is enhanced by impressive dynamic songwriting. In perhaps the best example this dynamic, “Only By Name” starts off with a rather unassuming and harmless wonky Dillinger-esque riff that guides the proceedings before cascading into a devastating riff that slides like a semi-truck on ice. Even the cleanly sung tracks like “Why Becomes How” and interlude “The Mirror” inject their respectively subdued approaches with both scathing melody and vocal harmonies or earworms and enough heft to move the album along. More balanced tracks like “Collapse in the Key of Fireworks” and “The Ladder” are tasteful in their fusions of melody, skonk, and catchy choruses. Bassist Steve DiModugno contributes technical fills and noodles to “Bright Future” and a jazzy runs in “The Mirror,” and drummer Adam Ingoglia is a rock-solid anchor throughout, constructing intricate rhythms while derailing them across the board.

This dynamic allows tracks to gather enough for the punishing storm, and breakdowns are realized to their fullest potential and never overstay their welcome. In easy highlight “Full Tilt” an opening distorted cheery sample and a later passage of a trip-hop beat offer respite, only to tread the path of Loathe with an absolutely stellar buildup and utterly satisfying closing breakdown.2 “Why Becomes How” is immediately followed up by the no-holds-barred hardcore-infused “Ring Light Altar” and the somehow heavier “Gatekeeper”3 and the unhinged “No Comply” whose morphing math-inflected riffs add a jolt of viciousness. Closer “Modern Dialogue” features a tasteful range of guitar tricks that align perfectly with the percussion, adding grueling punishment and dynamic across the board.

What makes Moments Elsewhere is its nearly untouchable range of tracks – only the mathy Risecore caricature “Bright Future” is a bit of a weak link in its lack of tangible weight. Don’t let the “metalcore” tag scare you: Johnny Booth offers some of the most punishing tracks of the year. Amplified by a smart inclusion of dynamics and homage to influences that avoid mimicry, it somehow feels heavier than could possibly offered when the atmospheric passages implode into skull-crushing weight. Contending with 2023’s heavy hitters Sylosis, MouthBreather, and The Acacia Strain is no easy feat, and they do so on their own terms in a handcrafted album with a unique sound – one of 2023’s best.

Tracks to Check Out: “Full Tilt,” “Only By Name,” “No Comply,” and “Modern Dialogue”

#AmericanMetal #Converge #Frontierer #Hardcore #JohnnyBooth #KnockedLoose #Loathe #Mathcore #Metalcore #Mouthbreather #SelfRelease #SwornIn #Sybreed #Sylosis #TheAcaciaStrain #TheDillingerEscapePlan #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2023 #TYMHM

There are a handful of bands bands out there that rip your heart out, crush it with their rage, anger, desperation, and pure pain, and fix it up again with the most amazing melodies known to mankind. One of those bands is #converge.
.
My fav track is "To The Lions" - what's yours?
.
#mathcore #janedoe #hardcore #newschoolhardcore #gig #live #music #bandphotographer #musicphotographer #concertphotographer
#livephotography #concert #concertphotography #mastodonaustria #mastodonvienna