Sh*t That Comes Out Today: September 10, 2013
Hello MetalSucks readers! Welcome to this week’s Shit That Comes Out Today, our Tuesday round-up of hard and heavy new releases. You may already know that cuz you visit STCOT on the reg. That’s cool thanks!! If not, that’s understandable too; after all, STCOT gets you interested in so many albums that you’d have to quit your job so there’s time to jam them — and take on additional work to quietly fund all those album purchases. Huh. That’s quite a paradox. A contradiction, an impossibility. A “catch-22” if you will. A “cake and eat it” thing. Okay forget it, check out that ladybutt up there and let’s jam!
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Fit For An Autopsy
Hellbound (Good Fight)
On a playlist with: Fleshgod Apocalypse’s Oracles, Upon A Burning Body, Decapitated
Listen “Still We Destroy” (here) “Thank You, Budd Dwyer” (here)
Hellbound is a world-class album and one of the best things you’ll hear all year. Long story short: FFAN just went from the top 1% of deathcore to the top 1% of technical death metal. Lemme explain: 2011’s The Process Of Human Extermination is all slams and power, but it never resorted to ultramega bass thumps and core-generic breakdowns. You listen to Process and don’t feel like a) you’re being convinced to like it, and b) this is exactly the album that FFAN wanted to write. With Hellbound, take all of that good shit, and then add a delicate technicality amid the violence from Process. I’m sold.
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Katatonia
Dethroned And Uncrowned (Kscope)
On a playlist with: Opeth’s Damnation, October Tide, Anathema
Listen “The One You Are Looking For Is Not Here” (here) “Buildings” (here)
Here’s your non-metal metal release of the week! My thing with a clean album by a metal band is that it is actually metal. The song construction, the production, the mood — all very metal, but minus screaming and distortion. And that’s Dethroned And Uncrowned, a powerfully gentle and rapturously gorgeous redux. One of those chill-down albums that won’t put you to sleep.
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Gemini Syndrome
Lux (Warner Brothers)
On a playlist with: Scar Symmetry, Fear Factory, Disarmonia Mundi
Listen Lux full stream (here)
The Gemini Syndrome is the fuckchild of rock and thrash, so there’s some, well, identity confusion. On one hand, Lux has no shortage of throwdown, descending-style modern thrash riffs. But on the other, its choruses are really swoony and hard rock clean sung. It’s like Fear Factory in a way — really sick verses are ruined by subpar clean vocals during the choruses. So Lux is a mixed package.
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Human Improvement Process
Deafening Dissonant Millennium (Memorial)
On a playlist with: Impending Doom, Carnifex, My Autumn
Listen Deafening Dissonant Millennium full stream (here)
You’ll run the first tracks of Deafening Dissonant Millennium and swear that you’ve heard ten albums exactly like it. Uh, kind of comes with the territory of bands trying to be 110% extreme. But take for example the outro of “Erase,” the intro to “Empty Eyes,” and all of “Etheral” and you’ll see that we’re dealing with something a bit more futuristic. I love the right-handedness of Deafening Dissonant Millennium — the riffs themselves play a secondary role to the drum-centric guitar patterns which underlay them. Some guitar solos are wonky and the vocals verge on amateurish, but hey, nobody’s perfect.
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Ranger
Knights Of Darkness (Ektro)
On a playlist with: Running Wild, Tyrant, Grave Digger
Listen “Touch Of Death” (here)
Zomg yes guys, bands like this still exist. Maybe I don’t come from the generation that lived through classic thrash, but I hella respect it. And like its cover hints, Knights Of Darkness exudes old-school — except for production quality, and that’s a good thing. What’s great about bands like Ranger is that you get what you expect: Nutty high vocals, drums with too much echo, and mega-fast riffage in standard tuning.
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Test Of Time
The Price (Bridge Nine)
On a playlist with: A visit to your otolaryngologist
Listen “Riptide” (here) “The Price” (here)
Stop reading this and do me a favor: Click play on one of Test Of Time’s two singles new singles (above). Now tell me you don’t think that vocalist sounds like a Tom Araya who got punched in the balls. And his tongue cut out. And triple-painful diaphragm surgery performed with sporks. Very rarely do I hear something that is literally unbearable. This is. Anyone who disagrees can make themselves heard below.
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OTHER SHIT THAT COMES OUT TODAY
Altars Paramnesia (Nuclear Winter) listen listen
Balance And Composure The Things We Think We’re Missing (No Sleep) listen listen listen
Bobaflex Charlatan’s Web (BFX) listen
Dark Design Prey For The Future (Heaven And Hell) listen
Dave Martone/Glen Drover Live At Metalworks (Magna Carta) listen
Death Ray Vision We Ain’t Leavin’ Till You’re Bleedin’ (Bullet Tooth) listen
Dissension Of Time And Chronic Disease (Believe) listen listen
Down To Nothing Life On The James (Revelation) listen listen
Ensnared Ravenous Damnation’s Dawn EP (Nuclear Winter) listen
Goldfrapp Tales Of Us (Mute) listen listen
Helms Alee / Ladder Devils split (Brutal Panda) listen
Hollow Haze Countdown To Revenge (Scarlet) listen listen
The Howling Wind Vortex listen
Lalu Atomic Ark (Sensory) listen listen
Ministry From Beer To Eternity (13th Planet) listen
Peelander-Z Metalander-Z (Chicken Ranch) listen
ReinXeed A New World (Doolittle) listen
» The Ruins Of Beverast Blood Vaults — The Blazing Gospel Of Heinrich Kramer (Van) listen listen
» Scythe Subterranean Steel (Primitive Reaction) listen listen
¤ Sinner Touch of Sin II (AFM) listen
» Transient Transient (Six Weeks) listen listen
Turbocharged Area 666 (Chaos) listen
