MSRY is the band that felt like the hardcore classification simply wasn’t enough, so they branded themselves as Miserable Hardcore. I first misread that as “melodic hardcore” but melody is in short supply on their self-released Safety First EP. Misery, however, is available in spades and that’s without mentioning the surplus of rage. And how does a power trio sans bassist work up such ugly emotions? By taking a look at the world at large, of course.Continue reading
If you haven’t heard Boston natives, Vein, you have been missing out. The experimental Hardcore they produce sounds like something you might have heard a decade ago but they deliver it their own, current way. With only an EP under their belt, their debut full-length, errorzone (Closed Casket Activities)comes through with all the grit and metal grace you want from a Hardcore act. Continue reading
Depending on where you mark the stages evolution of Lamb of God, it has been twenty years since they effectively began the concentrated march towards the Metal behemoth we know and love today. Most of you will know they were originally monikered Burn The Priest, and released an eponymous album in 1999 before revamping themselves as LoG around the time of the appointment of Willie Adler on guitar for 2000’s New American Gospel (Prosthetic) – the band’s only line-up change in their history.Continue reading
How do you put to bed any doubts about your band? Come hurtling out the traps with an opener as neck-snappingly, riff-chunkingly awesome as ‘Gatekeeper’, and follow it up with a slew of hits steeped in the ultimate Black’s (Flag and Sabbath).Continue reading
Take note, kids, Wrong has the 411 on how to properly record an album in 2018. Wrong’s latest, Feel Great (Relapse), is the result of entering the studio with a set vision and ample preparation. You know your shit is tight when you can deliver 11 aggressive and tuneful tracks in about the span of time it takes for Domino’s to deliver its pizza-adjacent product.Continue reading
Heavy music and its fans tend to have a, let’s say, confrontational attitude towards the idea of change or growth. One subgenre where it’s bluntly evident is hardcore. We like it short and sweet and the more breakdowns the better. And that long-held standard has given us stone cold classics like Agnostic Front’s Victim in Pain and Hatebreed’s Perseverance. Bailer’s self-titled EP (Distro-y Records) is certainly planted in that tradition.Continue reading
Does no-one care about End Of Year Lists anymore? [shakes fist angrily]
Releasing an album like Retrocausal (Web Of Mimicry) in mid-December almost seems designed to antagonise self-righteous reviewers who freak out about making their lists as accurate as they can – but speaking as one, it’s easy to forgive Cleric when their slap comes in the form of an album this good.
As the dust begins to settle on what will undoubtedly go down in a history as a fine year for heavy and progressive music, the Ghost Cult crew present our favourite albums of 2017. While a year with only a couple of genuine life-changing, genre redefiners, nevertheless 2017 has seen an absolute plethora of very, very high quality releases. With over 400 albums reviewed this year, at an average of 7.5/10, there was a deep pool of quality releases selected and dissected throughout the year. A genuinely democratic inner sanctum here, we now present Part 1 of an official Ghost Cult Album of the Year (2017) run down that s truly representative of Ghost Cult, our writers, and our musical position as a site. Please share your thoughts and comments on the music we collectively love, as we countdown from 50 through to 26…Continue reading
You must respect any band that lives up to their moniker. Imagine being an impressionable metallic youth raiding the local record store and picking up albums from acts known as Poison and Slaughter. Seems metal enough, but then you get home only to realize the swindle and that those tapes were as hard as the Pillsbury Doughboy. When you listen to Hostage Animal (Southern Lord) by All Pigs Must Die, you don’t have that problem. Continue reading
For a band and musical landmark that is rapidly approaching its 30th anniversary, New York City’s Unsane remain steadfast to their noise/metal vision. Outside of improved yet not overwhelming production and mix, Sterilize (Southern Lord) is vintage Unsane with its jagged guitars to the blood-spattered album art. It may all seem foreign to younger heavy metal converts, but to those in the know it’s a lovely revisit to the musical wild west that were the 1990s. Continue reading