SH*T THAT COMES OUT TODAY: AUGUST 28, 2012
Hey there, seekers of fresh heavy, hard, harvy, and head new releases! By now u know that MetalSucks’ Shit That Comes Out Today is a one-stop gorge-party for your ears, a teeming-yet-sanitary sound buffet of each week’s new metal. But this week, your eyes need to step up to stuff down a monster portion of weird, wild artwork for dessert. I mean, look up there and tell me that shit isn’t genius as hell! You would step on your gf’s neck to party with such a stately birdman! And what’s he got there? Some weird avian booze that’ll have u cawing at the moon no doubt! More quality artage and like 150 awesome jamz after the jump >>
*
Krallice
Years Past Matter
On a playlist with: Wolves In The Throne Room, Abigail Williams, Nachtmystium
Listen Years Past Matter full stream (here)
Usually the most black metal I listen to all week is while putting together STCOT. I do enjoy me some good tremolo pickings and tin-can blasts, but an awful lot of the genre does nothing to push things forward in a remarkable way. That’s precisely why, even though not substantially different from Diotima, Krallice’s latest dish of technical/atmospheric black metal is very worthy of your collection. As dorky as the cover art is, it’s fitting: Years Past Matter is one of very few black metal albums that makes me think of shit blowing up in space rather than some face-painted doofuses gurgling red corn syrup. And that’s cool with me.
*
Katatonia
Dead End Kings (Peaceville)
On a playlist with: HIM, AFI, Evanescence
Listen Dead End Kings full stream (here)
Listening to a new Katatonia album is like ordering the steak at a five-star restaurant: you know it’ll be delicious, but you know better than to expect surprises. The despondent, technical alt-metal that these five gloomy Swedes fell into on 2003’s Viva Emptiness may have peaked on Night is the New Day (2009), but somehow it just doesn’t get old on their latest work. The loss of the Norrman brothers has changed precious little, proving that Renske, Nystrom, and Liljekvist are the nucleus of this macabre mass.
*
All Hail The Yeti
All Hail The Yeti (AFM)
On a playlist with: A Life Once Lost, Crowbar, Vision Of Disorder
Listen “The Art of Mourning” (here); “Suicide Woods” (here)
All Hail The Yeti is an awesome name (not as awesome as “Gaytheist”) and they have a pretty solid hook for a metalcore band in 2012: While southern-fried hardcore has been done in Every Time I Die’s spazzy noise, AHTY is probably the first to fold the NOLA sound of old into modern metalcore. The new AFM signees pit gravely hardcore barks against smooth Jerry Cantrell-style fourth harmonies, and blast beats vs. down-South sludge riffs. All hail!
*
Stealing Axion
Moments (InsideOut)
On a playlist with: Textures, Uneven Structure, sigh The Contortionist’s Intrinsic
Listen Moments full stream (here)
And your August edition of the “Djent of the Month” club is debut album Stealing Axion from Washington seven-stringers Moments — errr, I might have that backwards. Uh anyway if there are roughly two schools of this love-it/hate-it movement — some of its bands rip off Meshuggah and Sikth, and others rip off Meshuggah and Strapping Young Lad — then Stealing Axion falls somewhere in the latter camp. This means fans of Textures, Circles, and Mnemic will find lots to love on Moments (and I mean lots, all 70+ minutes of it). Vocals duties are split among SA’s three guitarists, and that tag team gets the job done despite some hit-or-miss moments. Mixed and mastered by Tesseract’s Acle Kahney.
*
North
The Great Silence (Cavity)
On a playlist with: Mouth Of The Architect, Old Man Gloom, Intronaut
Listen The Great Silence full stream (here)
A band from Tucson called North? Oh the irony! What are you gonna do? North plays a sludgy, technical brand of post-metal that’s plainly at home with Intronaut and Old Man Gloom. A nice mix of celestial melodies with fire and brimstone riffage drives the group’s sprawling compositions. Vocalist Kyle Hardy is the icing on the cake with his totally evil Aaron-Turner-on-a-bad-day snarls.
World Fire Brigade
Spreading My Wings (eOne)
On a playlist with: Alter Bridge, Filter, Sevendust
Listen Spreading My Wings full stream (here)
To a person like me who listens to tons of tech-y crap, it’s always surprising how a to-the-point rock album can make me forget whatever plural-noun band I’m listening to and pay attention. And heavy rock is seldom done well these days, but when that grand combination of distorted crunch and soaring vocals works, the result is pretty splendid: That’s the killer debut from Fuel and Smile Empty Soul alums World Fire Brigade. Despite its Stapp-y title, Spreading My Wings is adrenalizing, groovy hard rock in the vein of Sevendust with sweet chromatic riffs and loads of those glorious heartwrenching/faintly hopeful modal major choruses that Filter does so well.
*
OTHER SHIT THAT COMES OUT TODAY
Beardfish The Void (InsideOut) listen
»Guttural Secrete Reek Of Pubescent Despoilment reissue (Brutal Bands) listen
Paradise Lost One Second (The End) listen
Various Darkthrone Holy Darkthrone tribute reissue (Peaceville) listen
