After nearly three decades, Spread The Disease returns with their brand of blackened metalcore in The Darkness. The Dread. The Suffering (Hypaethral Records). Over a half hour of harsh Noise, Black Metal riffs, Metalcore riffs, and a few spicy breakdowns cover a wide variety of tastes in a mixture of varying ratios from song to song.
No review from the Colchester Arts Centre would be complete without hailing the best small venue in the UK. Able to host 400 when packed to the architraves, its post-COVID refurb has cleaned up and modernised where needed (toilets, bars), whilst maintaining the features and character that every converted church that is now a gig-hosting venue should. Added to that, great views and a powerful sound-system, and the stage is quite literally set for a much more adventurous and welcome Tuesday night than you might normally get in the Britain’s oldest (and newest – Google it) city*
*It’ll always be a town, to me.
Nothing to Nowhere is the debut EP from new Seek and Strike Records signee’s AASAR. Hailing from the cold mountains of Italy, the four-piece absolutely show they mean business by delivering a relentlessly dark journey of noise, with an underlying hypnotic melody that keeps you hooked from start to finish. While lyrically the record is strongly influenced by themes of Norse and Egyptian mythology, with a concept exploring the spiritual journey of a man headed towards damnation.