Author Archive
Posted in Reviews, Reviews › M on Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
Reviewers tend to get caught up in clever descriptions, mostly because it’s sometimes hard to describe exceedingly typical things. You can’t say, for example, “It sounds like average goregrind” for every average goregrind album you review. That would either be incredibly lazy or the most honest thing a reviewer has ever done, I’m not quite […]
Tags: 2011, Chuck Kucher, Grindcore, Review, Supernatural Cat Records
Posted in Reviews, Reviews › B on Tuesday, November 1st, 2011
Brutal Truth returned from their extended hiatus in 2009 with Evolution Through Revolution, an angular, violent extension of the sound they developed on 1997’s Sounds of the Animal Kingdom. End Time sees the band unleash a blistering whirlwind of grinding fury, continuing the developments of Evolution with a slightly meatier production and a noisier and […]
Tags: 2011, Brutal Truth, Chuck Kucher, Grindcore, Relapse Records, Review
Posted in Reviews, Reviews › B on Tuesday, October 4th, 2011
They took their sweet time, but Brainoil have finally unleashed the follow up to their 2002 debut. Their self titled debut was an intelligent mix of Eyehategod’s southern rock grooves, Buzzov*en’s coked up outbursts of speed and the Melvins off kilter riff structure and the result was a concise, straightforward album of pummeling grooves. Death […]
Tags: 20 Buck Spin, 2011, Brainoil, Chuck Kucher, Review, Sludge Metal
Posted in Reviews, Reviews › H on Wednesday, September 28th, 2011
Here’s some of that sweet hot fire I glimpsed while reviewing Highgate’s sophomore album Shrines to the Warhead. This collection of demo and live tracks compiles the band’s 2005 and 2006 demos along with an unreleased track and two live recordings. Normally this type of material dump is only interesting to established fans but Black […]
Tags: 2011, Black Metal, Chuck, Highgate, Review, Sludge Metal, Total Rust Music
Posted in Reviews, Reviews › M on Monday, September 26th, 2011
I heard Moab’s Dimensioner demo earlier this year and walked away unimpressed. It was decent enough spacey stoner doom, just nothing too exceptional or interesting. Round 2 is here with the release of their first full length, Ab Ovo, and the band fares much better with some very solid stoner doom that, unfortunately, features some […]
Tags: 2011, Chuck Kucher, Doom Metal, Highgate, Kemado Records, Review, Stoner Metal
Posted in Reviews, Reviews › S on Thursday, September 22nd, 2011
After trying their hand at Orchid-style screamo and early Isis-style sludgy hardcore, Sofy Major has emerged with their first full length of self described noise hardcore. I’m always suspicious when bands mash genres together to describe their music but, for the most part the noise hardcore tag works. Noise rock and hardcore are the primary […]
Tags: 2011, Basement Ape Industries, Chuck Kucher, Review, Sofy major
Posted in Reviews, Reviews › S on Tuesday, August 16th, 2011
After nine years of splits and EPs, Southern sludge stalwarts Sourvein have returned with their third full-length album Black Fangs. T-Roy and his revolving door cadre of dirt merchants have been one of the most consistent outfits in sludge and this release is exactly what fans have come to expect; tar-like riffs, subsonic bass, plodding drums […]
Tags: 2011, Candlelight Records, Charles Kucher, Review, Sludge Metal, Sourvein
Posted in Reviews, Reviews › P on Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
Pyramido’s 2009 debut Sand was a decent, if repetitive, exercise in heavy rock sludge. Salt, their sophomore release, improves on Sand in nearly every way, featuring a wider array of influences and more variety. There’s still a problem of running riffs a little too long and the throaty, hoarse roaring vocals are at times overbearing […]
Tags: 2011, Charles Kucher, Pyramido, Review, Sludge Metal, Total Rust Music
Posted in Reviews, Reviews › G on Monday, July 11th, 2011
When it was revealed The Gates of Slumber’s fifth album would be a return to the old school doom vibe of their debut, and that former Sourvein drummer ‘Cool’ Clyde Paradis was on board, I had a good feeling. I got into them in a backward fashion, hearing their last album first and their first […]
Tags: 2011, Chuck Kucher, Doom Metal, Metal Blade Records, Review, The Gates of Slumber
Posted in Reviews, Reviews › S on Tuesday, July 5th, 2011
I was listening Leechmilk’s Starvation of Locusts a few months back and thought to myself “Whatever happened to these guys?” A quick trip to Metal Archives and, lo and behold, Dan Caycedo of Leechmilk infamy is in a new band called Sons of Tonatiuh and they just released their first record. While I initially hoped […]
Tags: 2011, Chuck Kucher, Hydro-Phonic Records, Review, Sludge Metal, Sons of Tonatiuh, Stoner Metal
Posted in Reviews, Reviews › H on Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
Highgate’s follow up to their 2008 debut is like a really interesting movie you end up feeling ambivalent about. A picture projecting sickly foreboding, a sense of dread and imminent mental and physical collapse but the plot meanders and at the end you’re left intrigued with no desire to watch it again. You’re left searching […]
Tags: 2011, Black Metal, Chuck Kucher, Highgate, Review, Sludge Metal, Total Rust Music
Posted in Reviews, Reviews › S on Monday, May 16th, 2011
This is the type of stuff I wish every jam band loving hippie would abandon their Phish bootlegs for; straightforward, no-shit instrumental stoner doom jams. These dudes are riff machines, knocking out killer riff after killer riff, weaving twin guitar harmonies between blues infused, southern fried stoner rock n’ doom. Like many instrumental albums, however, […]
Tags: 2011, Chuck Kucher, Serpent Throne, Translation Loss
Posted in Reviews, Reviews › O on Monday, May 9th, 2011
This is one unholy clusterfuck of an album. OvO create all manner of ruckus on Cor Cordium and cull influences from all over the map to create something as unique as it is difficult to describe. Written as a tribute to English romanticist Percy Shelley, the duo merge droning noise, death metal, doom and noise […]
Tags: 2011, OvO, Review, Supernatural Cat Records
Posted in Reviews, Reviews › T on Tuesday, March 8th, 2011
Freed of this Flesh, the second EP from Portland, Oregon’s Trees continues the pattern of their first release: Two 13+ minute tracks of crushing, droning doom. Like contemporaries Habsyll and Otesanek, Trees occupy the outer reaches of doom, where riffs are stretched into the atmosphere and notes into decaying feedback. It’s not exactly original but […]
Tags: 2011, Charles Kucher, Crucial Blast Records, Review, Trees
Posted in Reviews, Reviews › L on Tuesday, March 8th, 2011
Going solely by their name, you’d expect Lords of Bukkake to sound like one of those shitty goregrind bands with the pitch-shifted vocals and song titles like “Shit Eating Titty Whore Cunt Semen”. Thankfully, this is not the case. Instead of tedious goregrind, we’re blessed with some seriously classy doomed out sludge. The hack in […]
Tags: 2011, Charles Kucher, Review, Total Rust Music