UNSIGNED AND UNHOLY: WEAPONEX, COLLIDER, NETHERVOID

Those arguing that streaming services like Spotify spell the death of the music business and therefore good music should take a look at our archive of Unsigned and Unholy posts. We could feed an army of metal-starved heshers for years with all the good shit we’ve unearthed (and bands have sent us) over the years. To that end, this week’s sounds for bleeding ears:

• WeaponEx: WeaponEx’s self-written description on their Facebook page reads as follow: “We Like Prog…We Like Shred…We Like a little bit of everything else too. We figured, why not play whatever the hell we want to play?” Amen. And that pretty much sums it up; WeaponEx are all over the place musically, but in a good way, as you might expect from chaps who list Dream Theater, Guthrie Govan, Symphony X, Blotted Science, The Faceless, Allan Holdsworth and Extol as equal influences. Their new video for “Gods and Sages” is extremely entertaining, too, further proving that a) interesting music videos can be done on small budgets, and b) WeaponEx have a sense of humor about themselves, which we need a little more of in metal. Watch/listen:

• Collider: If you’re among those Mastodon fans that wishes the band never stylistically progressed beyond Leviathan you’re gonna love Collider. The production is crisper than on either of Mastodon’s first two albums too, making the Collider EP that much more like the third album Mastodon never wrote. [Thanks: Joe Caperon]
• Nethervoid: Really solid, tight, and long-winded (in a good way) black metal that reminds me a little of Keep of Kalessin minus the keyboards. [Thanks: Tom] UPDATE: New album is now available for free download via Bandcamp. 

-VN