Cut to fit - Black mouth (2015)

Black mouth is the new album from the finnish grind band Cut to fit. It's another excellent release, confirming again the very good opinion I have about them (read HERE my review of their previous grind album and the interview that is going with it). After a drone album (which is ok but too minimalistic for me) they are back to their old school grind, with this time an emphasis on the hardcore groove more than on speed (but don"t worry they still deliver a healthy dose of blast beats!). As usual their songwriting is really good with memorable songs, no filler, catchy vocal lines, riffs and rythms (catchy as it can be in good ol' grind). So the more you'll listen to it the more you'll like it. If you like grind you sure won't be disappointed by this album.

The BC page. 

Pombagira - Flesh Throne Press (2015)

The contrast on the cover between the dark figure and the trippy band logo fits well with the music. Flesh throne press is Pombagira sixth album, a double album, and probably the best of the londonian duo. it's been released by Svart records (which is really doing well in 2015). This is doom with a focus on the dark, smokey and psychedelic atmosphere more than on heaviness. I'd say it's sounds a bit like a mix of Bong and The 13th floor elevators (with a 60' weird and psychedelic rock feel). I like it's ethereal vocal melodies and the basslines perfect for the quiet hazy mood of the album. One hour and a half of music that needs many listens to be fully appreciated but is really rewarding. In an saturated doom scene this is good to hear something different and Pombagira demonstrate having their own style on this really enjoyable album.

The Bandcamp page.

God harvest : an interview

God harvest is a floridian grind / punk band that recently released their first album, the really good Insulated (read my review HERE). If you're into grind / punk this is a recommended listen.  I'm pleased to post here the interview we did by mail. Read it below :

-Can you go back to the origin of the band and tell us how it happened? what was the project at the start and how have you evolved since the beginning of the band?
Well first I'd like to say thank you for offering up the interview. This stuff is always fun and we've only gotten a couple chances to do something like this. God Harvest started in 2009 with a couple friends as a protest band. At that point in time I lived in Clearwater, FL, the home of the Church of Scientology. I wanted to put together a project that was centered around dissent of the church. After some heavy thought, and watching people's lives get ruined by the their "Gestapo", I decided it wouldn't be prudent. A huge focus is put on them in songs like "Suppressive" and "Flagship" to make sure we bum out some people, but the band has come a long way since then. I think my writing has become more refined, but the goals of each song haven't. I try to write the heaviest stuff my little brain can come up with that the rest of the guys won't hate. Ha.

-What about the name of the band?

It was just the best of the other options. I actually went and asked a bunch of people where I worked which one sucked the least. God Harvest stuck.

-Can you tell us a few words about the other bands you play in?

Well, all of us have had a bunch of bands before this. I played drums in Big Rats (hardcore) and guitar in Now Soldiers (hardcore), Chris, the lead guitar player played in Shed For You (grind) and most recently Devout (hardcore). Our drummer Kyle played in Endurance (hardcore), and Can't Stand It (hardcore) with some of our good friends and some of the old members from Now Soldiers. Tyler, our singer, played bass and sang in Five Suns (sludge), No Control (crust), and Now Soldiers.

-How would you describe your music? I'd say it's based in grind / punk with also some old school death metal influence, does that fit?

This is always the hardest question in the fuckin' world. Honestly, we try to stay within the confines of hardcore, power violence, and grind-core. We all listen to a fuckload of death metal. Those are the genres that influence our playing, writing, and style. Napalm Death being my biggest influence probably shows through the most. I listen to a lot of different stuff to write the best version of those 3 genres that I can. The heavier, more hard hitting stuff is brought out by my love of Negative Approach and Crossed Out. The grind stuff we write is more like a modern take on grind, bands like Nasum, Unholy Grave, and Napalm absolutely crush their own versions of the genre. Bands like Framtid, Isterismo, and Totalitar show through in our faster stuff.  We've been compared to a lot of different stuff, but any one of those 3 are applicable I think.

-What about your new album, Insulated?

This LP.....holy fuck, what a ride. It took a couple years to get this damn thing out and recorded. We originally recorded it live and weren't blown away by the sound, and then went through a member change with our bassist, Nick. We found Brent and continued trying to get more songs written while teaching him the music. We wrote more of this record in the last 3 months before recording it than the entire year before that. A lot of life got in the way of this motherfucker coming out and we are really excited to finally see it out to press and things moving forward. The LP's 11 songs were recorded here in St. Petersburg, FL with Dan Byers at Rock Garden Studios, but we really wanted to make it special by sending it to one of my favorite producers, Greg Wilkinson at Earhammer Studios in Oakland, CA. Both of them made this sound really awesome. Not too clean, big and nasty, but audible and smashy. I tried really hard to keep the sound of the old to follow us through our music. I listen to awful sounding shit, and we don't necessarily sound like a lot of it, so it's very hard knowing where we stand. I usually try to emulate our live sound as much as possible.

-What do you want to express through your lyrics? can you tell us a few words about the lyrics of a specific song on the album?

Tyler, our singer, comes from a long history of crust bands so his influences come through from bands like Nine Shocks Terror, Doom, Destroy, Infest, Dropdead, and Modern Life Is War. A lot of our lyrics are socio-political with an emphasis on religion,  and introspective topics of depression and drug use.

The title track "Insulated" stands out to us as one of our lyrical favorites. The song is mainly about how the "PC topics" that are being talked about in circles of friends we share. Those friendships are being broken apart by cheap talking points, and everyone's so offended by everything that it's getting in the way of getting along.

- Do you think grindcore (or grind related hardcore music) can be undestood as a reaction against the recuperation and commodification of punk? (this a question about the origin of grindcore, it could be seen as a reaction against the fact that punk became coopted by the mainstream and became just another commodity. Grindcore could be seen as an effort from bands to go back to the radical / antagonist roots of punk and push it to the extreme in a way it could hardly fit with the music / entertainment industry).

I personally write the majority of God Harvest's music, but I would say I have the least amount of musical ability in the band. When I started God Harvest, my intention was to write and arrange memorable and we'll structured songs, kind of defying the logic of contemporary and classic grind. The bands that I grew up listening to and influencing me were bands that were just doing what THEY wanted and weren't trying to break down the confines of typical music writing. They wrote the things they wanted to hear. The words, the actions, the shows....those were the things that made this music important and terrible to the masses. Anyone can turn up some amps, and play fast and jump around, but the best could do it to "not give a shit".  No goals, no gain, no stardom. They weren't concerned about being liked, in fact, quite the opposite. We try to write good songs, but our live shows are why we do this. Angry music for angry people made by angry mother fuckers. I do agree that it was an answer to keep people out, but the message never changed. That's what keeps me going. I started this band to bum people out. I hope it's working. 

-Do you think that the DIY way of action could be a global alternative or do you see it more as a practical way of growing for an underground band?

DIY is a lifestyle. If you're not running every part of your band, you're just doing it wrong. I'm glad that we're inside this bracket of "try-hards". If you're planning on retiring on grind and hardcore, you're playing the wrong music. We don't tour. We have careers and families and can't risk all of it for the "fun" of looking like a professional band on the road. We release records, we like to play live around Florida, and we enjoy each others company. Unless you're killing yourself on the road for a label that put out your record, no one wants to help you when you can help yourself. So do it the right way. Work hard, write shit you want, do you what you want, and don't give a fuck.


-I already know Maruta and Sacridose, which other bands from your area would you recommend?

Maruta are some good friends of ours. We love those dudes. They enjoy the same debauchery that we do. Sacridose is a bunch of our friends and neighbors, but we never get to play with them anymore. Kinda sucks. Some friends of ours Weltesser (Tampa), I Am An Intestine (Tampa), Devalued (Miami), Ad Nauseum (Orlando), Nisroch (Jacksonville) all come to mind. All of them are currently killing it.


 -Which evolutions would you like to see happening in the underground scene?

Less seatbelts and safety. We're really tired of people being offended by everything. This used to be the place uncomfortable people went to be less comfortable. It needs to stay that way. Unfriendly, haphazard, and unbiased.


-What is planned for God harvest in the coming months?

We are playing the Grind Against Corruption Fest in St Petersburg at the end of November. That's it for 2015 until we get our release shows lined up for January. Once we get the records in, we're starting to play next years release shows around Florida. One per weekend in all of our favorite places. We'll be announcing those later.

-Something to add?

Dennis, thanks for the interview and the attention. We appreciate it. Anyone interested in getting information, visit our blog ( http://godharvest.blogspot.com).

Extreme noise terror - ST (2015)

Yes this is the new Extreme noise terror album, seven years after the previous one (Law of retaliation), and they continue in the same crust vein. No going back to their more death / grind or death metal times (Damage 381 and Being and nothing). But they were key in making hardcore evolve towards something more extreme and their crust is not of a mellow kind. the vocals are still grindcore vocals (well, in fact it's more the other way round...), the sound is more powerfull than it usually is in crust and their songs sounds more ferocious and aggressive than "normal" crust. Is it a good album? yes it is, even if they don't really bring something new at least they manage to breathe some feel of urgency into their crust and that's not easy to do anymore (I feel crust often sounds too standardised and "tired". ok that can be said of most music "styles", yes...). Overall they did better than I expected and it could be the best crust album of the year.

Alameda 5 - Duch tornada (2015)

Alameda 5 is one of the band with people composing the Milieu L'Acéphale collective (from Poland, other bands are Stara Rezka, Tien'lai, Kapital, Innercity ensemble, etc.). This album, Duch tornada, was released this year by Milieu L'Acéphale and Instant classic. It shares members with Alameda 3 but i's two distinct band making different music. What to expect from Duch tornada? Vintage synth, percussions, some sax, samples, noise, guitars, clean vocals. Krautrock (exept it's not really rock, like most Krautrock anyway...) comes to mind, but also dark ambient, new age synth, free jazz / contemporary  / concrete music, and King crimson. Science-fiction is a source of inspiration for this music and you could guess by listening to it. This is weird, most often quiet and subtly dark, and very trippy. This is really immersive and fascinating stuff. If you're up to a journey into strange ambient territories this will be perfect. I really like it.

Their Bandcamp page

Wild throne - Harvest of darkness (2015)

Harvest of darkness is the first album from Wild throne, a trio from the state of Washington (USA). It includes the songs from the Blood maker (2014) EP plus eight new songs. It sounds clearly influenced by the high pitched vocals and the psychedelic mathcore extravagancies of The Mars volta. But they don't sounds like they try to be a next Mars volta nor more Mars volta than Marx volta and their approach is more straightforward, it's less experimental and progressive. The songwriting is really good and the melodies and rythms will easily stick to your mind while the execution is like a sheer overflowing of energy, the singer sounding like in a non stop state of hysteria. which is quite communicative. Harsvest of darkness is a really enjoyable album.


their website

Utech compilation - And suddenly everything, absolutely everything, was there (2015)

Utech records is one of the best label for releasing experimental music, often ambient dark and noisy, sometimes electronic, often not, sometimes a bit metal, sometimes a bit jazz, always interesting and challenging stuff. This comp' called And suddenly everything, absolutely everything, was there was made to raise fund for an honorable cause (read more on the bandcamp page). It features many artists that released music for Utech records and some more. This is more than 4 hours of music, 41 tracks. probably you know some of the artists like Asva, Dead neanderthals, Locrian, Nadja, Theologian, probably you will discover most artists here, like I discovered Gates, Philippe Petit, Jeks Miller, Pan Gu, Redrighthand, and others. Anyway this will be an exiting journey in the underground. I think all tracks are exclusive, previously unreleased, live, or tracks created for this occasion.
Don't fail to discover Utech records if you don't know it already, and discover some fantastic music.

The bandcamp page

Graveyard - Innocence & Decadence (2015)

Innocence & Decadence is Graveyard fourth album and they keep on digging the heavy blues vibes of the 70'. Not much to add, they maintain their very high level of songwriting and musicianship, the vocals are especially good. the new album is in many ways similar to Lights out, their previous one, maybe more often they break a bit with the "pop" song structure for some instrumental brilliancies.

Beaten To Death - Unplugged (2015)

Was really excited when I read about a new Beaten to death album. Then I get slightly disappointed when I realised that it is not Unplugged as the title would let you think. An unplugged Beaten to death album was a nice concept, perhaps another time? Anyway, my disappointment didn't last for long because this album is as good as was their previous one, Dødsfest! Which means it is absolutely awesome. This is another masterpiece in "technical melodic grind". Which don't happen very often... the only comparison that comes to my mind would be Total Fucking Destruction, for its craziness and unpredictability, wild but played with great technical mastery, but Beaten to death is more polished and, yes, "pop". This is not good just because of its unique and interesting kind. Maybe your first listen will be because you're curious, but then you'll just listen to it because the grind parts are better (and often more brutal and relentless) than most grind and at the same time it's fun and catchy. It's an impressive display of excellency in songwriting and musicianship (but the way the band feature members from Tsjuder and She said destroy).   This is a great album for grindfreaks, but also a great album for everyone (well... except it's way too brutal for most people).

Mandatory listen!

The Bandcamp page 

Deiphago - Into the eye of Satan (2015)

Deiphago, the filipino trio, one of the best brutal, raw and chaotic black / death metal band are back with their fourth album called Into the eye of Satan (released by Hell's headbangers). Deiphago's music is raw and chaotic in nature but it's never an excuse for poor production and approximative musicianship, quite the contrary. Colin Marston did an excellent job on production duty (the bass is MASSIVE, everything sounds powerfull and clearly distinguishable), and the musicianship is high class. The drumming is manic and relentless but also full of versatility and never messy. The bass, with it's huge sound and the power trio format, is able to bring something more interesting than just adding some bass frequencies to the music and is a full component in the songs and in the atmosphere of the album. But the most impressive is the lead guitar parts with some otherwordly weird soloing. It's really surprising to find, in such a brutal metal album, solos that are fast, dissonant and crazy but often sounds more like jazz than metal, they are excellent and really catch you off-guard, and are surprisingly fitting well the chaotic atmosphere of the album.If you are looking for radical and extreme metal, with a unique personnality, look no further, Into the eye of Satan is the real deal. One of the best and most interesting extreme metal album of the year.

The Bandcamp page.