Heavy, yet groove-laden, Bloodywood brings to the world Rakshak (Self-Released). Bloodywood marries classic Bollywood strains with some serious riffage and wicked heavy metal. Everything about Rakshak is loud and in your face. The listener has a primal urge to hear and see Bloodywood live. Every track on Rakshak is gobsmackingly amazing.
In the last decade or so, the state of Colorado has gifted the world with uncommonly exceptional, heavy bands. The Denver based act, Vale of Pnath is one of these young groups that have brought a fantastically particular Death Metal sound to the scene. With two full-length albums under their belt, the band is going back to the EP format for their newest release, Accursed (Willowtip Records). It’s been three years since their last record and this genre-dodging ensemble is finally bringing more of their innovative work to light.
It has been a year since the final notes of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s final live performance of their twenty-year career rang out at a sweaty, bloodstained, tears and beers soaked Terminal Five in New York City. While bands reunite all the time and no one should ever say “never”, this one retirement is pretty final. Ghost Cult staff was in attendance all three nights for the final dates of their illustrious career, it still felt so surreal at the time. As Ghost Cult scribe Hans Lopez penned so eloquently in his review of 2016’s Dissociation (Party Smasher Inc.) Dillinger was one of the most polarizing, but also most important bands of all time. Those final shows were performances for the ages. Thoughtfully planned, immaculately performed, with the highest levels of musicianship, a total disregard for the human condition, and most of all fun. Dillinger proved in the final throws of ecstasy and art that music can be dangerous, fun, and emotional all at once, without selling out or sacrificing anything. Our worlds are still rocked a year later., and no, it’s still not okay that they are gone. Thanks for the bruises on our bodies and scars in our minds, Dillinger Escape Plan.Continue reading
With the Progressive and Tech Metal climate being so crowded and, at times, stagnant, any new breed of band has the unenviable task of trying to stand out from the hordes by bringing in any resemblance of freshness or innovation. Whilst there is undoubtedly an abundance of quality talents out there, all too often acts fail to leave much of an impression in comparison to many of their peers.Continue reading
If anything, The Dillinger Escape Plan’s latest LP, Dissociation (Party Smasher Inc), serves as a comprehensive anthology of the various dynamics and styles that this New Jersey act has explored in just about 20 years of existence. This is further compounded by the recent announcement that Dissociation will be the last release before the band collectively buys the farm, so to speak.Continue reading
Since forming in1999, Canadians KEN mode has not been strangers to receiving feverish acclaim and devout attention for their intrusive and impacting albums and continually inspiring invention. With the release of their fifth album Entrench the trio from Winnipeg has sculpted their most intensive and compelling, not to forget impressive creative statement yet. With sonic alchemy the band has fused the most incendiary essences of hardcore, noise rock, and their imagination, to create an inflammatory and barbarously contagious incitement which leaves the passions in a delirium of manic and tempestuous glory.Continue reading
Shall we start by getting the superlatives out of the way first? One Of Us Is The Killer is the finest record that The Dillinger Escape Plan have released. Period. It is a record so good you keep pinching yourself that this isn’t just some kind of weird extreme music dream where everything you love about this type of music arrives all at once and in beautfully realised fashion. One Of Us Is The Killer is a record of such blistering, visceral power that it will have you screaming your lungs out, dancing like a maniac and generally throwing yourself around your room with carefree abandon at the sheer bloody marvel before you.Continue reading
