Phoenix metallers Buried will drop their debut single this week! The bands’ debut EP, Infect and Replicate, is coming in early 2025! Comprised of veterans of other local bands in their scene, and Buried brings the wealth of their experiences! As a song – “No Saviors” is evil, and harsh, with coarse vocals, and exceptional grooves. Stream “No Saviors” here at Ghost Cult ahead of its official release!Continue reading
Providence, Rhode Island Stoner Doom duo Coma Hole have streamed their debut EP, releasing this Friday, April 22nd. The group has been building up to this moment for years, building on the foundation of vocalist/bassist Eryka Fir’s dynamic voice and weighty riffs, and drummer Steve Anderson’s strong drumming. Look out for our interview with the band coming this week. Stream the full EP now!
Kirk Hammett of Metallica makes his solo debut with Portals, a four-song instrumental EP to be released April 23rd, 2022 via Blackened Recordings across digital platforms, on CD, and as a Record Store Day Exclusive Ocean Blue Vinyl EP (including a download card). It will be the first release on the label that is not a Metallica release. True to its title, Portals is a collection of gateways to myriad musical and psychic destinations. Recorded in multiple locales ranging from Los Angeles to Paris to Oahu, Portals is both the result of musical and metaphysical journeys. An invitation to inner worlds accessible only by music and the psyche it fuels.
Progressive Post-Metal band Glass Artery released their self-titled debut EP this past June, causing a stir in the scene with their intense, emotional music, and by donating 50% of proceeds from sales on Bandcamp to the National Domestic Violence Hotline in perpetuity (https://www.thehotline.org/). This weekend, on November 8th at 3:00 PM EST, the band is going to be doing a live stream on YouTube at Backroom Studios (backroom.studio) with Kevin Antreassian (@kevin_backroom) of The Dillinger Escape Plan. Kevin is using his studio to help emerging bands during the pandemic. Glass Artery is already working on its next release, expected in 2021. Set the reminder link for the livestream, and purchase and jam out to their album at Bandcamp. Continue reading
Having suffered the ignominy of being asked to leave modern metal behemoths Trivium mid-tour, drummer Nick Augusto has wasted little time in pulling together a new project with old school friend Christopher Cussell, Corrosion, who within 12 months of forming, and despite the logistical difference of living in different continents (vocalist/bassist Tommy Hjelm and second guitarist Martin Rygge, both formerly of Intense, being based in Norway), have released their debut EP.
Yet, as the phrase goes, “marry in haste, repent at leisure”, and Augusto’s gusto may be a mis-step, as rushing out a debut release before developing a cohesive style and sound is a sure fire way to put people off and to bury your band. You only get one chance to create a first impression, and all that.
For while Corrosion (Mas Kina) may only be 3 songs, it’s a mess; hopping from Scandinavian based extremity, to ‘core, to chug, to groove, to Tech Metal, but forgetting to bring the songs with them. If it hasn’t been made clear, this is swimming in a different pool to Trivium, and possessing a progressive Thrash bent, but with the jarring juxtaposing sections and Hjelm’s vocals falling short of the standards you’d expect, slipping off key and losing bite in some of his barks, this trans-Atlantic proposition needs to head back to the drawing board and put some hard yards in, not just in terms of working out a style and what they’re trying to do, but also in how to bring their myriad ideas together while raising the overall standard of their output.
5.0/10
STEVE TOVEY
Given the uncompromising starkness of their moniker, which makes any kind of internet research on them an exercise in frustration, it’s fairly safe to assume that Syracuse, NY quartet Bleak isn’t here to make friends and win fans. According to their FB page (which can be found with effort) “The only thing we hate more than ourselves is you” and after giving their debut, self-titled EP (Blasphemour) a listen, you’d be hard pressed to disagree.
Playing a hard-hitting form of groove metal that rarely gets above mid-pace, the band also draw elements from sludge and hardcore to produce a sound that will knock you on your arse. Quite simply, wimps and poseurs need not apply. Kicking things off with the savage groove of ‘Bridge Burner’ which roils and pummels like Vision of Disorder if someone had murdered their families, the band proceed to inflict a serious of devastating body blows over the course of eighteen punishing minutes. However, they’re not afraid to take risks, as the harrowing dark ambient of second track ‘Resplendent Repression’ emphatically proves.
The short, sharp shock of ‘Simple’ employs skittish mathcore anti-melodies amid its lurching chugs, coming across like a looser Ion Dissonance while the crushing beatdowns and feral roars of ‘Outflanked’ is some of the nastiest hardcore you are ever likely to hear.
What Bleak do isn’t big or clever and it certainly isn’t that original, but their uncompromising nihilistic approach and straightforward, bloody-minded aggression is refreshingly honest. They sound like they would beat you to within an inch of your life for no reason and in a scene full of chancers who like to talk big, Bleak are well primed to make a name for themselves.
8.0/10
JAMES CONWAY