When Entombed followed Uffe Cederlund’s vision and produced the divisive Same Difference in 1998, the direction and sound that incorporated a hefty dose of Unsane and Cederlund’s other project, Haystack, was quickly parked following an overwhelmingly negative response -it’s genuinely not a bad record at all, with hindsight – Senior Ed], and the Stockholm massive returned to their HM-2 Death n’ Roll stylings. 

Haystack, too, fell by the wayside for over two decades, too. The resurrection continues, though, with second album since their return, and fourth overall, Doomsday Goes Away (The Dogma Repertory Institute/Threeman Recordings). 

Taking elements from Unsane, Helmet, Quicksand and Dinosaur Jr, and specialising in grunged-up noisy garage rock with an abundance of looseness and Cederlund’s punky vocals existing in and around the notes in lip-curled whisky croaks and snarls, “Wastermakers” lives around a clanking bass and crashing chords, the title track rocks out, and “Going Under” sits into a mid-tempo groove. There are downbeat highlights, too: “Neglected” sets a jangling refrain against discordant crashes in a drawling psychological headache, while “Winter” sits weary to close us out.

While Haystack play loose, and are more than happy to throw down under the tattered umbrella of “rough and ready”, Doomsday Goes Away balances that enjoyment of what Haystack are doing with the life-weariness and realism of today. 

7 / 10

Buy the album here:
https://soundpollution.net/

 

There’s something in the waters of Northern England (aside from the excess toxic sewage, fluoride and whateverelse the government is turning a blind eye to) that is hydrating and refreshing the UK’s hardcore scene. Led, of course, by standard bearers Malevolence, whose influence on Rough Justice goes deeper than sharing a member (guitarist Josh Baines is the drummer of RJ), their debut full-length is released on MLVLTD (Malevolence’s label), and the songs, some of which date back to demos from the 2010’s, were reworked in a shared rehearsal space. 

But Faith In Vain, whilst rooted in metallic hardcore, is no homage to their Sheffield brethren, with the five piece looking to collate their influences into a sound of their own. Seven songs, one interluding calm-before-the-storm, and twenty-four minutes of predominantly uptempo, twisting, turning, contemporary power; Faith In Vain is a beast. 

“Coward” sets the stall… a minute of bouncing chuggery breaks down to a jangling mid-section, an angular bridge, a post-Thrash rhythmic stomp, a discordant string-scraping part… riff follows riff follows motherfucking stomp to help connect the dots, and the songs don’t standstill. Double the length of most of its bed-fellows, our opener strides through a sea of bodies, always connecting in an impressive array of different strikes, a swirling ocean of moving parts and rhythms. 

It is fair to say the component parts of a barrelling bruiser like “Overruled”, or the urgent “Boa Constrictor” may not be unique of themselves, but Rough Justice do a strong job of welding them together into their own vulgar display of malevolence, with an even stronger sense of song-writing, hooks and powerful dynamics, three pieces of the magic puzzle not all bands are able to piece together. Not averse to trying something different, the title-track is pinned down by the sort of chorus and vocal that made Drowning Pool’s Sinner such a success (the DP reference is used here as a compliment, I promise) that helps it stand out. 

Faith in Rough Justice will not be in vain. 

8 / 10

Buy the album here:
https://mlvltd.bandcamp.com/album/faith-in-vain

 

In line with their name, having dragged themselves up from the underworld of recovering from a shooting that occurred during a live set, injuring vocalist Matt, Crawling Through Tartarus have paid more than a penny to the ferryman to cross back over the River Styx to the land of the living, and return with their debut self-titled full-length (self-released), two years after the Libations EP launched them. 

It is fair to say, their sound is as fiery as the Hades their moniker refers to, and is chock full of relentless heaviness with nary a let up. Straddling the line between contemporary Death Metal and Deathcore (minus the over-reliance on sub-drops and breakdowns), the quintet certainly know what they’re doing, and, whilst there is at times a monochromacity to their output, they do know to add in shades of grey and other embellishments.

“The Beast Within”, placed midway through the thirty-minute pummelling, flies out the traps, powered by drummer Joseph, then hits a slab-heavy groove, before the latter-part jags into some early-Gojira rhythmic juddering and once again picking the ante back up and the pummelling commences again. “The Fall Of Atlas” has a melancholic sepia tone to its staccato punch, and “Into The Depths” sees Matt slither where the slime lives, as CTT hit some slippery Strapping Young Lad grooves. 

All in, a very worthwhile release with which to relaunch themselves, and one which marks significant progress from their previous EP. 

7 / 10

Buy the album here: https://crawlingthroughtartarus.bandcamp.com/album/crawling-through-tartarus

 

In the world of Dwarrowdelf, the name of the melodic black metal project of Tom O’Dell, epic synths dance and entwine around surging heroic guitar-lines, folkier passages and underpin chanted motifs, and sparkle around harsher tones as blackened crescendos rise, and tremolo mountain peaks hug the horizon. 

The Fallen Leaves (self-released) may be O’Dell’s fourth sojourn, but it shows a marked step up in terms of versatility, scope, and, most of all, quality. 

“To Dust, We All Return” throws in the first real curveball, and it is welcome early in the adventure, with a down-tuned churning riff that gives way to a holocaust of drumming underneath a clean and reflective vocal – not stylistically too far adrift from the first Astronoid in a way – the juxtaposition and composition holding strong as the song builds to melodeath chorus, guitar leads setting the melodies under harsher vocals (that have more than a hint of Alexi Laiho to these ears), in the way that stalwarts such as Insomnium have perfected. 

And from there, the landscape is rugged, fantastical and varied, majestic in places, rough and hewn in others, yet always immaculately presented and crafted, and while a melodic blackened spine keeps The Fallen Leaves coherent and corporeal, the mind is drawn back to the golden age of post-second wave black metal and works such as the second and third Borknagar releases, Gehenna’s Seen Through The Veil of Darkness and Old Man’s Child’s peak, with flourishes of Summoning, where melody, atmosphere, and the telling of a glorious story were the key aims. 

The Fallen Leaves is a powerful realisation of the imaginations of one instrumentalist, forged through the fire of a history of great, near-forgotten music, and aligns to the tales of the greatest fantasy writer of them all, and is all the more fantastic for that.

8 / 10

Buy the album here:
https://dwarrowdelfuk.bandcamp.com/album/the-fallen-leaves

STEVE TOVEY