Christoph de Babalon - Hectic Shakes (2019)

After rereleasing his works from the nineties in three compilations (heavily recommended) German producer Christoph de Babalon is releasing new music again, like this new four tracks EP Hectic Shakes. And the quality of his dark atmospheric drum'n'bass/jungle (a tag he uses is "gothic jungle", indeed...) is still there!
Excellent old school jungle beats over dark ambient synths, and with de Babalon it works really well. Interesting and good release.

The Bandcamp page.

Human Humus - The Obligatory Struggle (2017)

Human Humus is a grind band from Slovakia (why do eastern/central Europe produced so many great grind band since the nineties? do they learn grindcore at school?) and The Obligatory Struggle is their latest album (released in 2017). Simple old school grind done right, just how I like it, with good riffing, good drumming, good old school vocals, good songs. All that makes an enjoyable grind album.

 The BC page.

The Dogs - Before Brutality (2019)

The first album I review for 2019 is from The Dogs it's a garage band from Oslo (Norway), Before Brutality is their seventh album (they are releasing an album each january since 2013!). I discovered them with their previous album Death by Drowning which was excellent and this one is really good as well so I had to review it. They play some garack rock with good Farfisa organ melodies, they write good songs and have a really good vocalist able to sing raw a bit like Sparky from Demented are Go but can also be melodic, nearly crooning. They're among the best band around in this style and are doing it with their own personnality. Good stuff.

Their website

My 13 favourites releases in 2018

After my list for favourite releases in grindcore (HERE) and in death matal (THERE), this is my list for my favourite releases for all other styles. Some you will find also in other lists, some others probably not.
I give it in alphabetical order, click the name of the album to go to my review.

Abjection ritual - Soul of Ruin, Body of Filth

Anguish - Anguish

Author and Punisher - Beastland

B.Abuse - Memories of Better Days are Gone

Christian Kjellvander - Wild Hxmans

Dylan Carlson - Conquistador

H880 - God Is Dead

Hank von Hell - Egomania

La Muerte - La Muerte

Oltretomba - L'Ouverture des fosses

Sammal - Suuliekki

Turbonegro - Rock' n' roll Machine

Uniform - The Long Walk

Anguish - Anguish (2018)

Wow! Anguish is an awesome collaboration for an awesome result. You have the Will brooks, aka MC Dälek, Mike Mare, guitarits/keyboardist in Dälek, Mats Gustafsson on sax (who recently collaborated with Chaos Echoes, read my review HERE)with his drummer form the Fire! orchestra Andreas Werliin, and Hans Joachim Irmler on synth from the legendary krautrock band Faust (who already collaborated with Dälek). This is a very promising association and the album does not disappoint. It does sound like what you could expect from a Dälek/Gustafsson/Faust collaboration and that's a good thing, no real surprise, but a great result with the heaviness and groove from Dälek the weird trippiness from Faust and the free/noise both raw and trippy from Gustaffson. If you like at least one of the artist featured you probably will like this album. And if you know none of them that will be a good discovery. This album will enters easily in my list of favourite album's for 2018 that I will soon post on this Blasting Days. Mandatory listen.

The Bandcamp page.

Full of Hell - Intensive Care - split 7'' (2018)

A pity this split is just a 7'', it makes you want more from Full of Hell and Intensive Care. Full of Hell demonstartes on their 3 tracks a concentrated dose of their agression and that's good, whereas Intensive Care end on a less explosive, but not less good, note with their excellent noise/industrial rock. As could be expected those two goes very well together (Full of Hell often add  noise element to their music even though not really on this split, whereas Intensive Care is from ex Column of Heaven, a band that could well have inspired Full of Hell, or at least was also in similar powerviolence/noise territory, just more experimental and less brutal).
Excellent stuff.

The BC page

Redbait - demo (2018)

Nowadays I rarely post about hardcore bands (I don't count grind/powerviolence) because I'm so bored with all those samey hardcore bands that I don't follow it very closely and the little I listen to rarely convince me. The first Redbait demo, released in 2018(from Saint Louis, Missouri) is an exception. Those four songs have something special, great vocals, god songwriting with some diversity combining rawness and aggressivity with a touch of melody here and there. It just sound more heartfelt and fresher.

The BC page