Slugcrust embody everything – and I mean everything – that makes grindcore the most intense, most unique and most captivating subgenre in the entire scene. Having released a pair of EPs and the hellacious slab that was Ecocide (number 10 on my album of the year list) in 2022, the South Carolina-based maniacs have blessed us all with another EP.Continue reading
Yeah, you can score one more for the good guys up here representing extreme metal in New England. Massachusetts more specifically. And that’s not against our friends in New Hampshire, Vermont, or Rhode Island as they are also vital components of the scene, but Massachusetts just hits a little differently.Continue reading
In a new interview, Napalm Death frontman Barney Greenway has confirmed that the band plans to release a new album in 2019. The bands’ last full-length album of originals was Apex Predator – Easy Meat (Century Media). You can hear the interview below. The band toured extensively in 2018, including opening for leg two of Slayer’s farewell tour. Continue reading
For the uninitiated, Volbeat is not just an international success, but a very big deal in their home country of Denmark. Perhaps not yet as ubiquitous as more favorite sons Lars Ulrich (more about him later) and King Diamond, but pretty big. Volbeat has cool albums, but the live experience is what seals the deal (see what I did there?). The band is simply incredible live, playing up to the fans, entertaining every second and making a giant crowd of nearly 50,000 feel intimate. All while the band just jams their hits and deep cuts alike on Let’s Boogie! Live From Telia Parken (Republic). It’s a testament to why they are one of the best rock and heavy metal bands in the world right now. Continue reading
Danish heavy rock band Volbeat have announced a new live album and concert film, set for release this December 14th via Universal Music Group. The film features guest appearances by Lars Ulrich, Mille Petrozza, Barney Greenway, Danko Jones and more. Let’s Boogie! Live From Telia Parken was filmed at a sold-out show in their hometown venue, Denmark’s Telia Parken, setting the record for the biggest show by a domestic artist in Denmark ever with over 48,250 people in attendance. The album and concert film will be available in the following configurations: Blu-ray/2CD, DVD/2CD, 2CD, 3LP vinyl, and digitally through all major DSPs and features one brand new song, ‘The Everlasting’! The concert album has 26 tracks and many guest appearances from the performance. Pre-orders are live at the link below. Continue reading
Sick Of It All wrapped up their headlining tour of Japan last night in Tokyo, and had a special surprise in store for the sold out audience at ACB Club. Continue reading
British politician, Ed Miliband, recently invited Napalm Death front man Barney Greenway to his show on BBC Radio 2. During their conversation, Barney explained the merits and sub genres of metal to Ed, which led to the politician to ask for extreme metal vocal lessons. Continue reading
Given that our current Republican presidential candidate regularly spews out racist bullshit about Mexico and the Alt-Right is a thing, I guess we were really due for a new Brujeria album. And on Pocho Aztlan (Nuclear Blast Entertainment), metal’s favorite Satanic drug lords are, for the most part, back to playing it fast and filthy. Continue reading
It might be ten years since Sweden’s Gadget vomited their brilliant last album The Funeral March (Relapse) all over our collective faces, but it’s safe to say that time has most definitely not mellowed them. Charging at you with all the subtlety of a lobotomised orangutan swinging a lead pipe, their third full length release The Great Destroyer (Relapse) lives entirely up to its name.
Not so much carefully combining elements of Hardcore, Grindcore, and Death Metal as mashing them together by stamping on them repeatedly until a fetid brown liquid begins oozing out from underneath, Gadget’s only intention is to get in, get out, and leave you feeling like you’ve gone twelve rounds with a runaway steamroller.
But it’s not just unrelenting speed they hit you with. Oh no, there are other types of lovely auditory pulverization to endure here as blastbeats and frantic, slashing riffs turn into mid-paced grooves and thundering breakdowns at the drop of a hat. And just when you think you’re getting a reprieve, in comes another whirlwind of attitude, led from the front by vocalist Emil Englund, his singing style a cross between a walrus having its throat ripped out and an exasperated geography teacher venting his rage at a class of disinterested teenagers. And if that isn’t enough for you, Napalm Death‘s Barney Greenway stops by to punch you in the face with a guest appearance on the thirty eight second ‘Violent Hours (For A Veiled Awakening)‘.
If you enjoy music which leaves you with a sore head, ringing ears, a big grin, and a string of drool hanging from the corner of your mouth, then The Great Destroyer is the album for you. Got Attention Deficit Disorder? No problem. The lengthiest track on here is the five and a half minute closer ‘I Don’t Need You – Dead and Gone’, while the others rattle in around the sixty second mark.
The production is dense and claustrophobic, but also clear enough to hear the individual skill from each musician. Guitarist Rikard Olsson may sound like his arm is about to come off at the shoulder and hit someone in the face but there’s control and definition amongst the blur of speed, and rhythm section William Blackmon (Drums) and Fredrik Nygren (Bass) make playing this fast seem almost effortless.
Listening to ‘The Great Destroyer’ is like having the Drill Instructor from Full Metal Jacket spitting abuse into your face for half an hour. It’s like having to watch a repeated loop of that part in American History X where Edward Norton tells that kid to bite the kerb and stamps on his head. It’s like trying to catch a cement mixer between your teeth, and it’s like watching an enraged gorilla hurl itself against the safety glass after beating its keeper to death with the bones of its former keeper.
Enjoy.
8.0/10
GARY ALCOCK
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In Caitlin Smith’s interview series with Napalm Death’s Barney Greenway, on of the themes was change and renewal while sticking fiercely to the ideals that have always marked the band. Of the may shifts for the veteran grindcore act on their new album Apex Predator – Easy Meat (Century Media), another big change for the band was the artwork. Replacing the collages and the cut-outs, their usual punk style is replaced with a stark, powerful image of pre-packaged crushed brains.
“It was just purely because we’d done the collage and cut out thing a few times and we just wanted a change. That’s not to say we wont go back and revisit that style and develop it a little further. I mentioned the band Swans, their artwork as well as their music has a real characteristic to it. There were 2 colours to it surrounding a main image usually and it was really powerful stuff. We really wanted to try and replicate that for ourselves. The “Easy Meat” we’re talking about on the album is the people in the world that manufacture the goods that we take for granted. They have a lot of negative connotations surrounding them in terms of the production side of things and so they are the easy meat, so you’ve got the meat there in the container. One of the things the album is about is easily disposable things and I think, what is more disposable than those cheap and nasty plastic packages you find in the supermarket. To me that’s one of the icons of disposable consumerism. I wanted to combine the two things and I think it worked really well.”
CAITLIN SMITH