Born in 2012 Bloody Hammers are a husband and wife gothic/doomy metal duo from North Carolina, founded by singer, guitarist and bassist Anders Manga with said wife Devallia providing the keyboard, organ and synth sounds. They may be new but by Jove are they productive, as this album Lovely Sort of Death (Napalm Records) is their fourth in as many years.Continue reading
Valient Thorr has released a lyric video for their new single, ‘No Count Blues’, from their forthcoming album Old Salt, due out on July 29th from Napalm Records. You can watch the lyric video at this link or below:
Front man Valient commented on the new album:
“Alahoyus Thorriors! If you pre-order the album today you get an instagrab of one of the tracks today! It’s called “No Count Blues”. It’s a fast paced jam meant to help you shake off that feeling you get sometimes when the worlds beating you down. Shake it up & shake it out! Grab your copy HERE.”
Pre-order your copy of Old Salt in exclusive bundle packages.
Old Salt track listing:
1. Mirakuru
2. Lil Knife
3. Cut And Run
4. No Count Blues
5. The Trudge
6. Worm Up
7. Spellbroke
8. Linen Maker
9. The Shroud
10. Looking Glass
11. Jealous Gods
If we accept the cliché that absence makes the heart grow fonder as truth, than fans around the world miss Life Of Agony in their lives like you wouldn’t believe. Unless of course, you saw one of the sold-out shows the band put on for two brief concert tours of Europe this past spring. Playing select shows and festivals the last few years, on stage their shows are the stuff of legend. Now armed with a new record deal from Napalm Records, 2016 will mark the return of the band as a studio entity with their new release entitled A Place Where There’s No More Pain. It will be their first new music in over a decade. At the Electric Ballroom on this night LOA played a set of mostly “hits” with a few deep cuts sprinkled in. It will be interesting to see how the band incorporates new tracks into future headline shows, after playing the old-school jams for so long. They were captured on this night for Ghost Cult by Jessica Lotti Photography. One thing is certain for the veteran act; the passion the band plays with is matched only by their fans intensity and love directed back towards them. If you missed them this time around , they will be back in Europe this summer for festivals such as Out And Loud in Germany and Dynamo Fest in The Netherlands.
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It was twenty years ago that Satyricon had released their masterpiece Nemesis Divina. Most would agree that not only is Nemesis Divina one of their best albums (if not the best), but that it is also one of the best Black Metal albums to ever be recorded. To celebrate it’s twentieth anniversary, Satyricon have decide to release Nemesis Divina remastered through Century Media Records. Usually I’m rather iffy when it comes to a “remastered” release due to the fact that there is not much of a difference and in the end it feels more like a cash grab than anything.oncert. That would definitely be money well spend to attend that performance.
I would use the term remastered lightly with this release. While yes there is definitely more clarity to the music I wouldn’t say it’s much of an improvement. In fact at times you would really have to listen to notice any difference at all. To me it feels more like a re-release than a remastered edition, which comes right back to my point that it feels more of like a cash grab. If I had to pick the most notable tweak would be that on the original album, around the 2:36 mark of “The Dawn of A New Age” there is the sound of a sword being sheathed. The new remastered release has removed that sound effect. You could argue that it was a pointless addition in the first place. Problem is when you listen to a song so many times over twenty years and have grown used to it, it really throws you off to not hear it.
The remastered Nemesis Divina in my opinion could possibly cause more disappointment than Satyricon would hope for. After their self-titled release in 2013, a decently large portion of fans are very reminiscent of their earlier sound such as Nemesis Divina. This release will just further those fans to hoping for a return to form. I am also assuming nearly all fans of Satyricon already own this album unless they’ve been living under a rock. If you already own Nemesis Divina then I don‘t believe you need this release unless you want to shell out the dough for a slight improvement. Especially if you’re one of those serious Black Metal fans that favor a more poor production quality much like early 1990’s Norwegian Black Metal.
I feel Satyricon should jump on the recent bandwagon and celebrate the twentieth anniversary by playing Nemesis Divina in its entirety in concert. That would definitely be money well spend to attend that performance.
6.0 / 10
DEREK RIX
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Otep has a new album out titled Generation Doom (Napalm Records). As a longtime Otep fan, I’m always well chuffed when they release new music. Music of course being a derivative term as what Otep does is more art for the ears than anything. The first thing I noticed with Otep’s Generation Doom is that it’s heavy! Generation Doom is a heavy metal album. You can head bang and thrash about the living room whilst listening to this album. The album opens with the track ‘Zero’. It doesn’t take long before you are screaming the refrain “I don’t give a fuck!” along with lead singer Otep Shamaya. The guitars are just gobsmackingly amazing. The drumming is heavy and thumptastic.
‘Lords of War’ was one of the first singles released. It is political in nature without beating you over the head. Otep raps above some dark and heavy backing tracks. But again, you end up singing along with her by the chorus. Another song that tugs at your heart-strings is ‘In Cold Blood’. It’s angsty for all the right reasons. ‘Lie’ is another intensely personal song that breaks your heart. All the anger and frustration at having to deal with a love that lies to you is embedded in ‘Lie’. The song strips you bear and says everything you wish you could say. Otep Shamaya’s writing style on Generation Doom is a thing of beauty as she can articulate the feelings and concepts most of us stumble over. In addition, her vocals range from the haunting to the guttural and it’s her vocal range that make the songs on Generation Doom an epic album. For me, the best part of the album is that it’s sing-along-able. In direct opposition to Otep’s last album Hydra, Generation Doom is a musical album. By that I mean that it’s less art and more music in a traditional sense. Each song is a bitchin’ collection of lyrics and metal arrangements. Generation Doom will please strict metal fans and longtime Otep fans alike.
8.5/10
VICTORIA ANDERSON
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“Fortunately Blood Eagle (Napalm Records) was a half-decent album and people really enjoyed it,” chuckles Jon Paul Davis, six stringer and larynx of British flag-bearers of crawling, cavernous, treacle-thick, cavern-sized, continent-heavy Doom Metal, Conan. “So people think we were under pressure to write the next big album, but, to be honest, the only pressure we put on ourselves was to make sure it felt like a ‘new’ Conan album.”
“I could go in the studio now and write songs that sound just like ‘Krull’ (from the band’s 2010 debut EP, Horseback Battle Hammer – Throne Records), and we could do that 10 times over, and it’d be dead easy, and people would be made up. But we ask ourselves is “Is this album different to what we’ve already put out?” And if we can say yes, we can be happy. We hate the idea of repeating ourselves and sticking to tried and tested formulas.”
And Revengeance (Napalm) manages to do just that. And more. With a greater focus and attention to detail in terms of dynamics and the ebb and flow of an album, the band have taken a more cerebral approach to the use of pace and planning. Emerging from a deliberate, slow, beginning, the album slowly unfurls with miasmic patience while building then launch into the fervid, emphatic title track halfway through. Such deliberate album dynamics works with savage effect. Wear them down, smack ‘em in the head, skulk through the fetid, brooding torrent of pained slabs, before bludgeoning again.
“We were going to put the track ‘Revengeance’ first…” muses the effusive Davis. “It was the first song we wrote when Rich joined – it was the first one that we three in the current line-up wrote together, which was one of the reasons we felt it was important to call the album after it. But it seemed like it was a bit too fast to put as the first track, we didn’t want to throw people, so we figured it’d be nice to put it halfway through the album to wake people up a little bit; we thought it’d have a better impact at track four.”
Another development in the Conan sound is Davis’ continued development of how he (ab)uses of his vocal chords. “The vocals are different. I’ve gotten a bit better at “singing”, I suppose. Not that I want to sound like a good singer – I’m still just shouting in tune. It’s great. I love the attention… I’m really good looking so I get all the girls now! I’ll start dressing a bit more smart…” jests the laidback riff-meister. “Ha, no, it’s cool. With myself and Chris… I never class myself as the frontman, though. We are the front “men”. Visually we’re both singing. I do most of the singing, but I like to think me and Chris are just as important in that respect. We’ve started to do a bit more of a vocal back and forth”
“(the vocals) are now not just something that’s happening while the riffs are going on! Compare it to Horseback Battle Hammer, which is just me straining my voice and doing one note – on this album there’s a bit more melody to it. If you look at the song ‘Revengeance’, there’s a part where I’m singing the line “All this is infinite, we rot inside of it” the actual melody for the vocals there is from the track ‘All By Myself’”. That’s where that came from.” (You’ll have to judge that for yourselves…)
“We toured a lot with Blood Eagle (Napalm) and listened to a lot of Weezer and Rainbow… bands with really good vocals. We haven’t tried to deliberately copy them, and we’re miles away from being able to do something like that, but we’ve definitely been able to add more melody into the vocals which has worked really well.”
To the outsider, it definitely seems like Blood Eagle was a career-changer in terms of raising the profile of the band…
“It was, but the profile of the band goes up a notch every time you release something and every time you play decent festivals, your profile improves. Obviously, if you release an album that’s total dogshit, then those increments aren’t too big… But we’ve been lucky enough to get some good reviews on the back of that, we played Hellfest and High on Fire asked us to tour with them, we played Roadburn for the second time, did our first US tour, our first Australian tour.
“It’s cool. That album helped improve our standing if you want to be competitive about it, but it did just as much for us as the previous ones did in comparison, but over time you rise towards the top of the pond you’re in. If you look at how much it progressed us, probably the same amount as Monos (Burning World) did… Monos took us from Level 1 to 2, Blood Eagle took us to level 3.”
And it stands to reason ReVengeance will continue the bands ascent from the heaving depths, particularly when wedded to the increasingly affirmative reports of Conan’s burgeoning live reputation?
“Something that’s really started to become apparent is that when you record more work and get a bigger pool to choose from live, we’ll play certain songs live now, and if we stay clear of the slower tracks then we tend to get a much better response live, people get more into it.”
“So, as a result of that, it has changed the type of set that we play. ‘Foehammer’, ‘Gravity Chasm’, and ‘Revengeance’ have a few points like that. We think it’ll be a lot more fun to watch us live on this tour as we’re not just playing crawling songs anymore”
STEVE TOVEY
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Atlantic City heavy metal outfit, Hammer Fight, returns with their sophomore full length, Profound and Profane (Napalm Records). This album is a great party album for crushing some cans of suds with the buds. A great blend of classic heavy metal, a bit of hard rock, and a dash of trash/punk really bring Hammer Fight’s sound to a level of deliciousness for your ears. From start to finish, the energy level is turned up to eleven with no letting up.
Every song tries to add its own twist to stand out from the other tracks on Profound and Profane but I found the following to really stick out from the rest. ‘Good Times in Dark Ages’ is one of the high energy tracks that most of the songs contain but the bridge really stood out. About halfway through, the tempo slows down and some catchy guitar riff work explodes over a head bang worthy beat. ‘Low & Broken’ slows us down a bit to finish off the first half of the record. Acoustic guitar work starts off the track and slowly but surely the distortion finds its way in. This is the one break on the album so take it in and enjoy before the second half hits. ‘The Crate’ is the sole instrumental track on the album but it is quite the journey. Hammer Fight channels their inner Iron Maiden with leads after leads that play on for just shy of five minutes and is the longest track on the record. For guitar fans, staple your faces to your skull as they are about to melt off during this song.
Overall, this is a solid release from that is certainly enjoyable, but nothing new. I found that each track did just enough to differentiate from each other which is always a good sign as every band will have its formula for success but you can only drink from that well so often. Profound and Profane will continue to be replayed on my driving playlists as we approach what hopes to be an enjoyable summer between some great weather, tours, and upcoming releases.
6.5/10
TIM LEDIN
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Hard to believe that’s it’s been 8 years since The American Dream. Not the American Dream you’re thinking of. I wouldn’t know anything of that as I share a house with way too many roommates and pinch pennies for booze money at the end of the week.
Sagging economy jokes aside, it has been nearly a decade since we heard any new music from Walls of Jericho. And while the Michiganders have been busy starting families and with other musical endeavors, they apparently haven’t lost an ounce of the fury that brought them notoriety in the mid aughts. One Obama presidency later and Walls of Jericho are still spitting venom on latest album No One Can Save You from Yourself (Napalm).
With the exception of album bookend ‘Probably Will’ that venom is still potent. And ‘Probably Will’ is a well put together song, but its clean vocals and orchestral arrangements just don’t gel well with the rest of this sulfuric set.
But allow me to clarify to both naysayer and cautious devotee alike; Walls of Jericho are not on a mission to reinvent themselves. Much to my heart’s delight, frontwoman Candace Kucsulain still has those varnish peeling vocals. If you were expecting a post-hardcore or tech makeover then this album is not for you. That said, if you enjoyed With Devils Amongst Us All and All Hail the Dead then you’ll be dancing to your hearts content on tracks like ‘Relentless’ and ‘Cutbird.’ ‘Damage Done’ follows suit as it switches from gradual pummel to short Slayer blitzes. ‘Reign Supreme’ as a title may seem like an easy hardcore wink and nod, but its suffocating groove will kill any cynicism.
It’ll be easy for the dismissive and jaded to file No One Can Save You from Yourself as derivative. But to do so would be to disregard quality work from a band who’ve long paid their dues. And if we’re going to adopt that philosophy then we might as well expect musical metamorphoses from Ringworm or Integrity. Who wants that?
7.0/10
HANSEL LOPEZ
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German instrumental space rockers My Sleeping Karma have toured relentlessly for the last year behind their album Moskha (Napalm Records), and recently hit the UK for a string of dates. The bands blend of psychedelia, stoner metal and incredible instrumental prowess, makes their shows much more lively than your average band of navel gazing, self-important nerds. MSK gets the “rock” part of this and they always put on a fine show. Opening tonight’s show was Aussie no-nonsense heshers Mammoth Mammoth. These guys know how to write party rock anthems and feel good jams. MSK’s Napalm Records label mates Greenleaf of Sweden, themselves have a brand new album they are promoting, Rise Above The Meadow. Their blend of Sabbath-like retro grooves and well written psych explorations are as intoxicating as the many beers consumed in the bar this night. At The Garage in London recently, all the bands packed the club to nearly sold out, further proving the worth of this type of bill. Thanks to Jessica Lotti Photography for capturing the show for Ghost Cult.
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OTEP has released a stream of their new single, the first from their forth coming new album Generation Doom. You can hear the track at this link:
April 15 marks the day that Otep releases Generation Doom, their seventh studio album on Napalm Records. The hard to categorize band is led by vocalist Otep Shamaya ‘Lords of War’’ is an industrial spoken word metal track that sucks you in from first listen. The guitars are heavy and head banging-tastic while the bass and drum lay down massive riffage. Shamaya says this about the first single:
“Lords Of War is a cry of defiance against the ever-encroaching military industrial complex, against police brutality, against tyranny in politics, against CAFO’s, against the injustices our people face on a daily basis. Revolution is the opiate of the artist. We’d rather be in battle than at peace. We’d rather be a wolf than a sheep. They’ve had their chance to reign. But this is our time, our moment. We are Generation Doom.”
Generation Doom track listing:
1. Zero
2. Feeding Frenzy
3. Lords Of War
4. Royals (Lorde Cover)
5. In Cold Blood
6. Down
7. God Is A Gun
8. Equal Rights, Equal Lefts
9. No Color
10. Lie
11. Generation Doom
12. On The Shore
Pre-orders are live now at this link:
VICTORIA ANDERSON
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