Nothing to Nowhere is the debut EP from new Seek and Strike Records signee’s AASAR. Hailing from the cold mountains of Italy, the four-piece absolutely show they mean business by delivering a relentlessly dark journey of noise, with an underlying hypnotic melody that keeps you hooked from start to finish. While lyrically the record is strongly influenced by themes of Norse and Egyptian mythology, with a concept exploring the spiritual journey of a man headed towards damnation.
Deviating slightly from the science fiction themes of their first three albums, magnificently named Colorado thrashers Necropanther base their latest record, Betrayal (Self-Released), on a combination of Walter Hill‘s 1979 seminal classic The Warriors and Xenophon‘s Anabasis, the ancient Greek story from which The Warriors was originally adapted.
Having previously chosen The Terminator, Dune, and Logan’s Run for inspiration, the science fiction element might have been pushed somewhat into the background on Betrayal but the dystopian landscape of cult cinema remains firmly in focus. A story about a small group having to fight their way across enemy territory to get home is prime pickings for thrash metal and Necropanther don’t let the opportunity slip.
If you’ve ever found yourself unable to sleep, deeply troubled by an almost primal need to comprehend the diverse sociopolitical ramifications of what would happen if a ruthless, semi-robotic and fully weaponized flamingo overlord was installed as the leader of a society of subservient worker flamingos, then seek immediate psychiatric help. Seriously, just leave and come back to this later. It can wait.Continue reading
Many times in music journalism, we writers are given to hyperbole, often because it is the low hanging fruit of the field to gush about the classics with a torrent of compliments. You often read words like genre-defying, and frankly, a lot of the time they don’t land as they are meant to. However, in the case of the entire career of Fear Factory and certainty of the album Demanufacture (Roadrunner Records), the words can never do proper justice to the music. Simply stated, Deamnfacture is one of the most important, unique, and unapologetically brutal albums in heavy metal history. Continue reading