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.
There’s something about summertime and music that makes you lose yourself in the sun. Chicago’s REZN has been a band that continues to make just such music for my summer soundtrack. Their latest release, Cycles in the Infinite Dream (Sargent House), not only continues to feed that vibe, but it may just be their best work yet. I cannot ask much more of forty-three minutes, nine tracks, only one of which is an instrumental/transitional track, stellar psychedelic doom.
Artwork by Caroline Harrison
Grindcore is always a fun ride, whether you just need some audible manic episodes in your ears or a nice alarm clock to get you up and going in the morning. Gadget, a Swedish-based grindcore outfit, dropped a fiery, near-fourteen-minute crash course, Coerced (De:Nihil Records). While the first handful of tracks are absolute burners, we are met with a five-and-a-half-minute-long, harsh noise interlude, which is the longest track on the record. This kind of takes the wind out of the sails for a bit, but there are still many highlights to this record. Continue reading