Tag Archives: Mathcore

Bleak – Bleak EP

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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

Bleak on Facebook

 

JAMES CONWAY


…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – IX

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In their 20 year history, Austin, Texas act …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead have never been a by the book kind of band, always shifting and turning in unpredictable directions. An incredibly hard band to pigeonhole, one that has over time been adorned tags such from hardcore, to prog, to indie rock and even mathcore; trying to quickly define this band is a waste of time.

This ‘trend’ of the unexpected continues on ninth album, IX (Superball Music), with songs that were originally intended for use in film and television as instrumentals, before the creative rivers flowed some more. Also surprisingly is how refined and near simplistic it all is (in comparison to previous work at least). Still far from being an AC/DC template like band but IX does relinquish their sense of indulgence and expansion for a more streamlined approach, somewhere between their punk influences and indie rock, with the merest suggestion of prog. ‘A Million Random Digits’ is one of the more up tempo moments and has an aggressive streak in comparison to the synth driven ‘Jaded Apostles’ that precedes it.

On the first instrumental effort, ‘How To Avoid Huge Ships’ is where we are reminded just how bombastic this band can be when they turn up the prog; with piano and strings bolstering and building the song over its course, bigger and bigger. It is in this latter half of the album where the band’s extravagant side rears its head again, with these instrumentals and the long players like ‘Lost In The Grand Scheme’, in contrast to the short and sharper blocks in the previous half.

IX is another turn in this band’s very winding road and one that sees many of their sides come together, and at times in an all new perspective. There are signs of their punk like volatility and their whimsical prog side and a little in between. Another fine addition to their already captivating catalogue; this band simply refuses to be boring.

 

7.0/10

And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead on Facebook

 

CHRIS TIPPELL

 

 

 


Seizures – The Sanity Universal

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It doesn’t take long for The Sanity Universal (Sun Terrace) to highlight that Seizures are neither your run of the mill act, nor are they here to make your life easy. Right from the start things aren’t all that they seem, opening with the moody instrumental ‘Chanter’ which invokes thoughts of metal’s doomier spectrum, hinting at possible elements of black metal and even shades of prog before it then turns everything on its head.

Despite the very misleading opening statement, The Sanity Universal sits firmly with the likes of hardcore with the bewildering complexity of mathcore. Taking hardcore and punk’s sense of unbridled rage and raw brutality but with The Dillinger Escape Plan’s sense of controlled chaos and unpredictable structures; a formula which by its very nature is both challenging and stirring.

That being said this does have its drawbacks. Sonically the influences are very easy to pinpoint and the aping of the likes of Converge and the aforementioned Dillinger is nothing new. But the most taxing part of it is all is how overdrawn it is, at approximately an hour in length and after a while this becomes more an exercise of your patience than an essential purchase.

In short doses this album shows a band with a chops and more than a dash of danger, but the fact that The Sanity Universal feels like it is never ending is major problem.

 

5.0/10

Seizures on Facebook

 

CHRIS TIPPELL