Monday 29 August 2011

Lords - S/T EP

The awesome guys in Lords sent me their self titled EP to review early last week, so I'm not going to waste anymore time. First things first though, an introduction. Lords are metal band from old London town, who specialise in the more hardcore variety. They are currently looking for a new drummer, so contact the band if you're interested on their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/Lordsuk.


Anyway, to the EP.The opener, Lords,begins with a slow doomy intro, before the band up the ante with death metal inspired scream and growls and forays into grindcore instrumentation, before ending with ear shattering feedback that jolts the listener. Second track Blood Money begins with a very apt air-raid siren sample amongst the music. The main song is immediately faster with the introduction of clean, technical riffing that show Lords flexing their musical muscles. The third track, La Clef De La Magie Noire, is a slow building instrumental track which makes good use of more clean, melodic guitar and also spoken word samples towards the end. 1331 starts with more slow, almost sludgy riffs before galloping off to the main verse, which includes some haunting singing which sits just underneath the mix to add another layer to the music. The use of sporadic clean singing alongside the screaming add to the despondency of the song. Fifth track Inchworm begins with off kilter, jarring guitar and segues into what is probably the heaviest track on the EP, which sees feral growls exist alongside screeching feedback towards the end. EP closer, Coup De Grace, ends with a flourish of poly rhythmic riffs and layered noise too round out a varied and interesting records.

A worthy addition to the current crop of left of centre hardcore bands currently coming out of the UK. Long may it continue!

Remember, go check out Lords on Tumblr at http://lords.tumblr.com/ and also check out their merch at their Big Cartel store at http://lords.bigcartel.com/, as well as on the Facebook link above.



Sunday 28 August 2011

Edinburgh Scene - Horrors That You've Seen


A while ago I decided to do a scene report on Edinburgh, much like the one I did on the North Brabant scene in the Netherlands. Like that report, I found that there were loads of great bands in Edinburgh, so instead of doing one report on all of them, I've decided to split it up into individual band reports. This is the first one.

Horrors That You've Seen established themselves in early 2010 and have been one of the
early constituents of the Edinburgh Hardcore scene. They are made up of vocalist Graham Caldwell, guitarists Kieran Higgins and Niall Robb, bassist Chris "Remer" Hewer and Alain Baron on drums.


While Edinburgh has good death metal and metalcore scene's (which I'll cover in later reports), the hardcore scene was fairly small, but with HTYS being able to land great gigs with the likes of Cerebral Ballzy, Dead Swans and Trash Talk amongst others, the scene has started to grow.

 
Here's what HTYS vocalist Graham had to say about the scene and what the band have achieved so far -

You've played with a lot of really good hardcore bands, what is the Hardcore scene like in Edinburgh?

The hardcore scene was lacking here, which I think may have contributed to the fact we were getting put on a lot of huge shows. Don't get me wrong we do put a lot of work in and are grateful for every show we get put on, it is just that there wasn't a lot of competition. There's dozens of "metalcore" bands from Edinburgh that seem to be doing very well for themselves, but for straight-up hardcore there was until recently, very few of them. Bands like Shields Up had made a really good name for themselves before we were a band and to see how well they were doing made me want to start this band. With the help of DEAD DEAD DEAD Music, Choices Made-Events, Firestorm Events and The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh has established a scene. There's so many great new bands coming along all the time and often, more than once a week, I have a hardcore show to go to.

You've played with Cerebral Ballzy recently, how was that?

We've played twice with them now and they are really cool guys. Although both our bands have very different styles, we're both kind of associated with skate punk/thrash so it works out well. The crowd at the last show went crazy for us, which was a surprise as we weren't too sure on how well we would go down.

What are your plans for the rest of this year?

First off we'll be launching "Breaking Hearts", we have a really amazing show lined up for that and we're looking forward for everyone to hear all the new material. The next step is to play it to as many people as we can, and play as many different places as we can. We'll be getting a tour booked up very soon so we'll just take it from there. We've also continued writing more music, and we'll be releasing that some time later this year, it could be an EP,Split or LP we have no idea!

What are you influences?

As cliche as it sounds we do draw influence from all across the spectrum. Every member of our band has a different taste in music, which we found difficult to work with at first, but once we got used to writing music together, everything kind of fell in place. Collectively we are influenced by hardcore bands that use stoner/doomy riffs such as New Lows, Weekend Nachos, Heathens, Cursed, Full Of Hell, Hang The Bastard etc. But we do try and mix things up and not fall into any specific genre.

You've recently been recording a full length record. How has that gone?

To be honest it couldn't have gone any better. We've been recording at Chambers Studios in Edinburgh, and we would highly recommend it to anyone. Graeme's done an excellent job of recording us. Also the new material sounds great, a massive step up from our previous effort and I genuinely think people won't be expecting it. 

What do you think about the metal/hardcore scene in general right now?

I think hardcore is in a great state just now. It's more popular than ever and there's loads of new amazing stuff being released all the time. For anyone that disagrees I suggest they check out Weekend Nachos new record and tell me it's not the best thing they've ever heard.  There is plenty of amazing american bands touring the U.K all the time as well, which wouldn't happen if there wasn't the demand for it. Although annoyingly the U.K tours don't include Scotland as much as I would like.

(This is the flyer for HTYS's upcoming gig in Edinburgh on the 4th of September)

Release wise, HTYS have an EP available for dowbload called Death to the Snakes II on Mediafire at http://www.mediafire.com/?ed39q5a25ax6ze3, and if you like it make sure you go their BigCartel store at http://horrorsthatyouveseen.bigcartel.com/ and buy a copy. They're only a quid! Stay tuned for a review on that soon.

They're also working on a full length at the moment called Breaking Hearts, with artwork done by Tom Lacey of The Ghost of a Thousand. Pre-oders will be on the 1st of September. Make sure you visit their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com//horrorsthatyouveseen for more info on that and what they are up to. Go do it now!


















Saturday 27 August 2011

The Way Of Purity - Crosscore


The Way of Purity have been on my radar for a while now, but I've only just sat down and checked them out recently. They are a Norwegian extreme metal band with strong and true animal rights views and are bringing a serious message to fans of their music, rather than just building an image for the sake of it. They are made up of Tiril Skardel on Vocals, Bassist Without Name, Guitarist Jeffrey, Guitarist/Keyboardist Deathwish and Wod on Drums.

Crosscore is their 2010 debut full length and it's a very varied album. At the heart of are the vocals of Tiril Skardel, who's raspy growl is similar to that of Arch Enemy's Angela Gossow, not that there is any comparison, as TWOP show their vision and musicianship to great effect and help them to stand up alongside any major extreme metal band around. The majority of the instrumentation is fast and almost militaristic at times, but the band to include electronic touches, thanks to keyboard player Deathwish, to give their music a more industrialised edge.

TWOP switch between faster, more brutal instrumentation and slower doomier passages to good effect, with a great modern production helping to emphasise their individual instruments. TWOP also employ a wide range of influences and sounds within their music, illustrated by fourth track The Rise of Noah, including singing, in the song which was written by their keyboard player. They also show they have a sense of melody, with passages in fifth track Loyal Breakdown of Souls, with poppier passages not sounding out of place amongst their heavier undertones. They also use differing time signatures and technical guitar to add further weight to the record and to make sure they don't lose the attention of the listener.

Overall, they prove that by being open to different elements and experimentation, it is possible for an extreme metal band to be both accessible and brutal, without compromising their message. Crosscore is a great listen from a band who are breaking the mould and not being led by any trends except the one's they create!


Make sure you check out and like The Way of Purity on their Facebook page  at http://www.facebook.com/#!/thewayofpurity and via Myspace at http://www.myspace.com/thewayofpurity#!/thewayofpurity.

They also have a page of Last FM at http://www.last.fm/TheWayofPurity and an entry on Metal Archives at http://www.metal-archives.com/band/TheWayofPurity. Check these out as well.

TWOP are currently writing and recording the follow up to Crosscore, which I can't wait for. They are currently signed to record label - Wormholedeath. Go check them out at http://www.wormholedeath.com.