Mountain Man – Grief

 listen to Bargaining I by Mountain Man, as a preview to the album

Mountain Man (myspace) is an extremely dark hardcore band, with former members of Last Lights. Wether the pace is swift or sluggish, from the drone intermezzo’s to the pummeling powerviolence and the raw thrashy punk in between, the sound gets under your skin and provokes the urge to wildly flail about. Every single note, squeal and word has a flavour of agression, misanthropy and emotional torment that would even ignite signs of emotion on Kristen Stewart’s apathetic face.

click the image above to buy their merch

Plague Town - Antverp Smög

Plague Town by Plague Town

When a narrow branch of music gets overflown with a very distinct style of said branch, it can get difficult to see the forest from the trees. When that Entombed-sound was suddenly the touchstone for a new breed of metallic hardcore, a lot of bands popped up that might never get the recognition because too many others are hogging the attention. (all-star bands, the bigger label bands, …) While most of the outstanding names pulled through, there comes a band who deserves all of it, and more. Plague Town (facebook) is a band with members from The Setup, Bliksem and Millions Of Them that have a melodic groove off the richter. While having only played a few shows, they put out this demo to help spread the word and everyone should take note.

click the image above to buy the demo cd-r

Out Of The Box On Sunday XIX

I am not up to speed with whatever’s happening in any division in indie music. Despite listening to a great deal of it, and mostly pretty recent stuff, I would still refer to In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, Reconstruction Site, Daydream Nation, The Sunset Tree and Source Tags & Codes as my favorite records. So I have no clue what attention these guys are getting, but I also can’t imagine it being as much as they deserve. I don’t care if they’re headlining Werchter or Roskilde, WU LYF (site) is to be absorbed with awe. The twinkly melodies, raspy vocals and dreamy feel tot hem make them one of the freshest sounds in the 2500 songs on my online streamable playlist, of office-appropriate music, that plays when I’m working at my office cubicle.
Last fm tags as  lo-fi, indie, experimental, psychedelic, heavy pop

click the image above to buy stuff directly from them!

A† DAGGERS DRAWN - New Bruises

Old Motions by At Daggers Drawn

This record, by At Daggers Drawn (website), is all about the building of momentum. Overall, in the 5 songs on this release, the ambient build-ups unleash distortion-layered havoc  with rather uptempo drumpatterns only for about 2 brief moments. Everything else is twinkly or sludgy guitars, spoken/screamed vocals and marching drums that seem to be moving towards a climax, that in 3 out of 5 songs just doesn’t show up. Much like intermezzo songs on hardcore releases, this is dreamy yet heavy punk rock music that creates an emotional and atmospheric ambience, meant to pump you up for the songs that follow. With these clever songstructures, the absence of said climax does not necessarily resolve in leaving you with an appetite for it, they hold their ground just as they are.

last fm tags as hardcore, melodic hardcore 

click the image above to go to the band's merchstore

Tempest - Passages

Death Rattle by Tempest

This must be the most apocalyptic music ever*. Tempest (myspace) play a combination of dark and straight-forward sludge with nuances of that shoegazing -Deafheaven- kind of black metal and frequently some grinding hardcore passages. The vocals are animalistic, almost like Geoff Rickley, and the final product has an intense emotive feel to it, like the breakneck-paced screamo bands of yore. Throw in some profound spoken soundsamples (The Great Dictator speech!) and this immense music would convert you from a nihilist into a darnright suicidal misanthropist. If the world hasn’t already done so.

*together with Thou

no merch yet, but you can always donate to the bandcamp via the link above

Masakari – Eden Compromised

VII. The War Within by Masakari

With this American band’s split with the Germans in Alpinist coming up, I feel everyone should know about both bands. Masakari (blog) is a hardcore/metalpunk band that leans toward the melodic crust branch. Still adding D-Beat to the mix, this is as close as that modern sound gets to the classic oversaturated anarcho metal and punk concept. Probably the most exciting thing about them is that you can’t pinpoint their influences, they just make something new out of the broad spectrum of the genres they incorporate in their sound.  With great succes!

Last fm tags as hardcore, crust, neocrust, dark hardcore,hardcore punk 

click the image above to order merch directly from them

Out Of The Box On Sunday XVII

THE PLOT TO BLOW UP THE EIFFEL TOWER "Exile On Vain Street"

Three One G spearhead The Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower (myspace) were not only the greatest and bestest bandname ever, it was also a group that represents the golden age of what was then labeled as ‘ Post-Hardcore’. The band could very well blend in with the sound of bands like Ian Svenonius’ Nation Of Ulysses, the band Antioch Arrow and later even Q And Not U or some other 31G or even the experimental Dischord bands. Out of all chaotic/complex and spastic bands in their branch of extreme music, they gradually developed into a sound that was surprisingly approachable, moving gradually from seizure-inflicting screaming music to a blend of John Zorn-esque jazz and funk-incorporating hardcore/post-hardcore music.

This, sadly, is another band that broke up shortly before a significant album-release, which never saw the light of day because of that band’s sudden inactivity.

Last fm tags as experimental, post-hardcore, hardcore, punk,indie 

support the record label via the link in the image above

White Lung - It's The Evil

 listen to Like Dad by White Lung

Surprising stuff, by Canadian band White Lung (facebook). Basically this is Melt-Banana oriented stuff, but a lot closer to a punk rock sound and mentality. Guitars smothered in an alienating effect, yelping vocals and funky uptempo drum-patterns. Especially the latter make this as catchy as any punkrock band, while the vocals remind of Melt Banana’s screeching schouts and the guitars of Hot Snakes profound post-punk/punk rock sound. I am not stating any obvious influences (although I wouldn’t be surprised if I was spot on), only trying to label their overall sound to give you a first impression. If you’re not sure, you should know I just seriously want you to check this out. It’s briljant. All killer, no filler.
Last fm tags as punk, punk rock, garage rock, post-punk,female vocalists

buy their records via this link

Matsuri - Endship

 listen to Cling to Your Lungs (Part III) by Matsuri

Matsuri (website) is a modern screamo  band, with a refreshing approach to the typical shifting between singing and screaming/melody and chaos. One moment they’re chanting some catchy lyrics with a sweet lullaby of melodic emo music, and the next everything  builds up, and eventually explodes, in a sonic chaos of manic screaming, hysterical percussion and wild guitars all clashing against eachother in an emotionally tormented cacophony of mathy screamo. Or the other way around. This band sounds like it’s a big step ahead of present-time 5KRAMZ bands, with elements that come much closer to the ancient and traditional TR00 screamo bands.

Last fm tags as screamo, usa, ambient, american, real screamo

buy this release or other stuff from their label via de link in the image above

Thou - The Archer And The Owle EP

 listen to Voices in the Wilderness by Thou, as a preview to this record

BWOOOOAAAAAHHHHH))))
Thou (site) play some uh-masing mix between drone, doom and sludge, with a melodic kind of groove that is  so catchy, it will guarantee to get heads a-boppin, but won’t get boring when stretched on for almost 10min. On this record, they included some covers from Pygmy Lush’s briljant sophomore record, to the point where the members from that band, themselves, would never recognise it.  The voice is down right gritty and create another layer of noise to this, otherwise minimalistic, raucous sound. This band has been my revelation for music coming out of the hardcore scene, for 2011. Although they have been active a lot longer. at least I got in to it in time to catch them live on tour.

Last fm tags as sludge, doom metal, drone, doom, sludge metal

too many records on too many labels, to track them all down. found most via the link in the image above