#thehumanabstract — Public Fediverse posts

Once upon a time, before I was a battle-jacket-wearing, corpse-paint-adorned, trve-metal warrior of the highest order, I was a high-school prog nerd. The djent wave was cresting just as I began to really delve deeper into music, and the hordes of technical, djenty bands with ultra-modern production and surprising amounts of melody still sit near and dear to my heart, even if I rarely reach back into the Sumerian-scented pile in my regular listening habits. 1 That’s why when I saw the promo for Hiraeth, the 2nd album by Brazilian prog metallers Abstracted, with comparisons to The Contortionist, The Human Abstract, and Between the Buried and Me, I couldn’t help but get a little excited at the prospect of newer music tapping into those formative sounds. Abstracted have been a band since 2013, and their long-gestating debut record, 2022’s Atma Conflux, was an effective and varied slab of djenty progressive death metal, marred by tepid production and less-than-stellar clean vocals. More than anything, though, it showed potential as a record brimming with ideas that was so close to being great. With Hiraeth, can the Brazilian group finally unify their influences into something more than the sum of their parts?

On Hiraeth, Abstracted demonstrates a thorough understanding of contemporary progressive metal styles and integrates them into something all their own. The band’s main sound is a djent-fueled take on modern progressive death metal, closest to early-era The Contortionist in its blending of odd-meter riffery, post-rock-influenced textures, and an enticing contrast between melancholic space-age cleans and technical 6-string chugs. Abstracted balance this with more traditional Haken-esque classic prog turnarounds and jazz breaks (“Sirens”), fast-paced Between the Buried and Me riff marathons (“To Quench This Insatiable Thirst”), and harmonic nuance within darker moments à la Persefone (“Requiem”). The result is a varied and dynamic set of tunes that glide effortlessly between impressive riff-fueled aggression and cathartic melodies. Songs like “The Utter End” and “The Barren Grave of God” demonstrate the band’s ability to naturally move from strength to strength without missing a beat, unfolding across expansive guitar arpeggios, delightfully off-kilter breakdowns, virtuosic solos, and powerful musical climaxes.

Hiraeth by Abstracted

This level of fluidity and genre cohesion on Hiraeth is only made possible by the high level of musicianship Abstracted display. Guitarists José Consani and Leonardo Brito give varied performances that successfully meld more djent-centric playing with classic death metal sensibilities and demonstrate keen melodic ears with dense jazz chords and powerful lead lines. Drummer Fernando Pollen blends Latin grooves with acrobatic modern metal flourishes, and the production’s more natural drum tone allows his dynamic nuances to guide several songs. 2 On bass, Riverton Alves turns in a thoroughly warm and jazz-based, Cynic-flavored performance that shines during quieter moments, while keyboardist Carol Lynn supplies plenty of atmosphere through subtle synth textures and steps to the forefront a few times with quirky, but effective synth lines reminiscent of Diego Tejeida. Together, this ensemble breathes plenty of life into a style of music that can often feel over-processed, and their performances help to unify this collection of songs into a cohesive whole.The only elements of Hiraeth that aren’t immediately impressive are the vocals and the production. Rosano Pedro Matiussi delivers an impassioned performance, and his vocal lines often fit the songs well, but his clean singing lacks a certain impact or personality to elevate good moments into great ones. Initially, this was enough to deter me from really digging deeper and appreciating the songcraft on display, but the singing grew on me quite a bit with time. Similarly, his death growls are solid, if not one-note, and they feel like they exist more so to fill a role than to accent particular sections. This could potentially be the production’s fault, as Hiraeth sounds generally good and more natural than the swaths of overproduced modern prog 3 but lacks a certain sonic clarity, occasionally making especially dense sections harder to parse. There’s a distinct lack of reverb on the harsh vocals, and I can’t help but wonder if a stronger mix could fit the layered clean singing a bit better. Matiussi’s vocals are far from bad, and there are parts like the somber intro to “Requiem” where he sounds great, but when everything else is operating at such a high level, they feel like a weak link.

With Hiraeth, Abstracted have delivered an impressive piece of modern progressive metal. This record is a grower for sure, with dense and layered compositions often revealing their clever construction and intense interconnectedness only after repeated spins. Even if the vocals leave a little to be desired, the Brazilian group has successfully combined the sounds of several of the best modern prog bands into something exciting and nuanced.

Rating: Good
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: M-Theory Audio
Websites: abstractedmetal.bandcamp | facebook.com/abstractedbr
Releases Worldwide: February 20, 2026

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

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Today In Metal History 🤘 August 22nd, 2024🤘
ALICE IN CHAINS, LIVING COLOUR, RATT, DEICIDE, LAMB OF GOD

https://bravewords.com/news/today-in-metal-history-august-22nd-2024-alice-in-chains-living-colour-ratt-deicide-lamb-of-god

#AliceInChains #LivingColour #Ratt #Deicide #LambOfGod #LayneStaley #JuanCroucier #VernonReid #DCCooper #LAGuns #EnuffZNuff #TheGathering #Gorod #TheHumanAbstract #MiserySignals #Terrorizer #Unexpect #WallsOfJericho