Tag Archives: electronic

Diapsiquir – A.N.T.I. (End All Life Productions, 2011)

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NECRO006As an unfortunate byproduct of growing up in the asshole of the Midwest, I live in a city, but I’ve never truly experienced The City. I’ve spent pretty extensive amounts of time in places like Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis, but I’ve never fully immersed myself in the everyday chaos that is living in the clutches of of a wasteland dominated by skyscrapers and surrounded on all sides by unforgiving concrete and steel. I’ve never lived in that grotesque, hyper-active human funk that I imagine city life to be; I’ve only been a long-term guest at best, a lame-ass tourist at worst. Fortunately I can live vicariously through Diapsiquir’s A.N.T.I., an album that epitomizes what I imagine existence in the bowels of urban Hell to be.

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Anaal Nathrakh – Vanitas (Candlelight, 2012)

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AnaalNathrakh_Vanitas_rgb-e1346952747622I haven’t exactly been keeping up with Anaal Nathrakh.  Sure, I’ve heard a track here and there over the years, but the last time I actually listened to a full album was 2004′s Domine Non Es Dignus.  It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in the band, in fact quite the contrary, I absolutely loved the balls-to-the-fucking-wall slab of filth-grinding extremity that was The Codex Necro, and the aforementioned Domine… received a glowing review from yours truly when I was writing for my college paper.  But the way Mick Kenney and Dave Hunt continuously crank out albums, especially when the music is so patently assaultive, is extremely overwhelming; I have a hard enough time keeping up with metal as it is.  So, here I am revisiting Anaal Nathrakh with Vanitas after missing four full lengths, and damn it feels good to be back.
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Menace Ruine – Alight in Ashes (Profound Lore, 2012)

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In the ever-expanding world of heavy/extreme/underground/whatever music, the emergence of artists that have truly managed to forge their own sound is becoming a rarity; originality an endangered species.  When was the last time you heard a band that sounded like nothing else out there or that struck you as a group of true musical innovators?  Enter Montreal, Quebec’s Menace Ruine.  After beginning life as a heavily blackened noise band with their debut album Cult of Ruins, the Canadian duo quickly metamorphosed into a multi-headed amalgamation of black metal, drone, industrial, noise, neo folk, psychedelia and dark ambient that (at least to these ears) has no easily identifiable precursors.  Alight in Ashes, their fourth full length and debut album under the nigh-unfuckwithable banner of Profound Lore, is the most fully realized manifestation yet of Menace Ruine’s corrosive yet haunting outsider art.
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Wreck and Reference – Youth (Flenser, 2012)

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I have to admit, I was a bit apprehensive about checking out Wreck and Reference when I first heard about them.  As deep an appreciation as I have for forward-thinking heavy music, I still have at least one foot (or maybe just a toe?) stuck in the old school, which means a metal band that doesn’t wield a single guitar of any kind throws up a huge red flag.  I know, I know, it seems silly and more than a tad close minded, but hey, we all have our hang-ups; at the end of the day, I’m a guitar guy, a fucking RIFF guy, so I’m bound to approach a band like Wreck and Reference, who lack the one instrument that is in my opinion the foundation of heavy metal as the Gods (Iommi, Mustaine, Warrior, Quorthon, etc) intended it, with extreme caution.
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Dreams in the Witch House: Assessing Salem’s King Night two years later.

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When Salem’s King Night was released in September of 2010, there was so much bullshit surrounding the band that it was difficult to give the album a fair assessment.  People claiming that Salem was at the forefront of a “next big thing” genre alternately referred to by a parade of ridiculous tags including but not limited to drag, witch house and rape gaze (my personal favorite), the band literally getting booed off stage during a live set at SXSW, and at least one interview where the band came off as complete fucktards all served to detract from what really mattered: the goddamn music.
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