Metalcore is a style of music that will likely always have appeal, and always have avid listeners, but few in the genre can land a knockout at the start. Bristol UK metalcore scene newcomers In Fear have wound up and clocked quite the sucker punch to the noses of the dubious and unsuspecting.
On Devil Music (out now on Run For Cover Records) Austin, Texas three-piece Portrayal of Guilt up the ante with a thirty-minute barrage of inventively malevolent extreme metal, firmly achieving what they’ve hinted at on recent releases: greatness.
Having approached their twentieth year of being a staple in the metalcore scene, the prodigies of Atreyu still haven’t lost their spark (no pun intended) with the new EP The Hope Of A Spark (Spinefarm Records). Drawing from the commonalities of the quintet’s personal lives, each song is truly a shared effort among the five of them – not only musically, but conceptually.
Eschewing hip-hop elements and influences, Alabama hardcore outfit Gideon returns with a metallic, crunchy slugfest that is More Power More Pain (Rude Records/Equal Vision), the bruisers’ sixth full-length record.
Fifteen unfinished chapters don’t combine to make a novel.
A New Tomorrow, the debut long-player from eclectic power-violence outfit Zulu (released via Flatspot Records), feels too much like a compendium of skeletal songs that largely fail to take off to truly work. Three of the first four tracks – the exception being the introductory ‘Africa,’ a piano and strings-infused number – start off heavy and emphatic, but they all conclude with a divergence. ‘For Sista Humphrey’ turns gospel; ‘Our Day Is Now’ descends into sound clips; and ‘Music To Driveby’ is marred by soft singing.
As I was sampling the new barn-burner from Distant, the lethal vocals featured on ‘Plaguebreeder’ actually scared off my fiance (as in she left the room, not that she gave back the ring!).
LHHC, baby.
Singer Rob Watson is one of the most adept frontmen in hardcore when it comes to being able to both hype up a crowd and tell grim, streetwise lyrical tales over bouncy grooves. Nothing has changed with their latest release, Welcome To The West Coast III (Arising Empire). While the series of ‘Welcome…’ releases started with an EP, it is now halfway to keeping pace with Lil Wayne‘s Tha Carter albums. “Welcome” implies an introduction, but ironically the band no longer need one. Think of the title as more akin to an ongoing episodic documentary at this point.
In yet another striking example of music being used as an outlet for some of life’s most traumatic misgivings, Fit For A King have returned with their seventh – and quite possibly most impactful – full-length record. The Hell We Create (Solid State) is eons more than a collection of compelling, thought-provoking metalcore.
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel … thoroughly pissed off. That seems to be the thrust of Finnish metallers Lost Society and their latest If The Sky Came Down (Nuclear Blast).
I lived in Dallas, Texas for a few years and I can verify that everything is in fact, bigger in Texas. I AM does the Lone Star state proud with their third effort, Eternal Steel (MNRK Heavy), an album full of huge and murky riffs, devastating grooves, and over-the-top destruction.