Griever - Inferior

Black Vinyl Clouds by Griever

Ex-Lewd Acts band Griever (bandcamp) consists of hoarse yet emotional vocals supporting stirring dark hardcore mixed with melodic punk rock guitars. Altough it’s an entirely different band, their style would compliment that of bands like Burning Love, End Of A Year, Fucked Up or even Off With Their Heads and early The Bronx or Hot Water Music, in the same gritty punk rock class, with a very distinct style of their own. hardcore sensibilities in raw as hell punk rock music that both crush as hard as any ‘extreme’ band and move as passionately as any mellow emotional music.
Last fm tags as hardcore, sludge, punk rock,hardcore punk

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Suffocate For Fuck Sake – Blazing Fires And Helicopters On The Frontpage

Blue Lights And Sunshine by Suffocate For Fucks Sake

It might be a close call, but Suffocate For Fuck Sake (myspace) seems like the most ambient atmospheric music with shouting vocals that’s ever graced these ears. This is something far beyond post rock with tormented screeching/screaming (like Devil Sold His Soul)and occasional mellow indie (like EF) singing. In fact, this release probably even has more spoken word samples, in some scandinavian gibberish, but that works for what it is, than actual singing by their vocalist. It works. All of it. The tempo or ambience don’t build up exponentially, but rather brick by brick, making the climax unbearably moving and the overall sound unrelentlessly holding its grip on the listener’s attention, with absolute awe and heart-rending passion.
This all coming from someone who long gave up on the ‘twinkly ambient post-whatever’. I adore this. All of this. I heard people think it’s boring, but I think that’s what happend when you listen but don’t pay close enough attention to nuances and such. Somebody get me this sort of band to do the vocals for.
turns out the full name to this album is "Blazing fires and helicopters on the frontpage of the newspaper. There´s a war going on and I´m marching in heavy boots"

Last fm  post-rock, post-metal, post-hardcore,screamo, sludge 

click the bandpic, above, to order their record directly from their label!

Out Of The Box On Sunday XXII

Build me a wreck by Tar... Feathers

I became fond of this band after helping the vocalist to a show for his solo-tour in which he played the songs from this release all by himself. Just this band’s voice, a clean sounding Fender Jag and the audience clapping their hands to the rythm for percussion. Tar... Feathers (their blog) is a Modest Mouse –worshipping (almost Lo Fi) indie rock band that blends the most fragile vocals with eerie -almost broken or detuned- sounding melodies, in support of extremely melodramatic lyrics. As I said the (early) Modest Mouse influences can not be overlooked, even more so in te vocals than the tunes, but it’s also not as if they shove those in your face. They have a style with plenty of personal creative input to distinguish themselves. Just wish I could get you to listen to the solo songs, my love for this band might be biased by that experience. Let me know what you think!
Last fm tags as  indie, swedish, indie rock, diy, indietronica

Damages – Unlucky Love In Lonesome Twenty-Something Hell

(Breathe Such Vows As Lovers Use To Swear) by Damages

Dude on the mic sounds like Wes Eisold, man! Damages (facebook) is a hardcore punk band with late 90’s melodic influences. Like a stripped down version of Dead Swans, or a modern version of Panic (of which they added a cover song tot his record), The Suicide File or American Nighmare, Damages keep the tempo soaring and the vocals constantly intense with personal and introvert lyrics to boot, while the total package hovers somewhere in between catchy and raw punk.

“FUCK THEM”, YOU SAID. NOW MY WALKMAN IS DEAD.
Last fm tags as hardcore, hardcore punk, emotional hardcore,canada, screamo

keep an eye on their facebook to buy stuffs

Retox - Self Titled EP

   Piss Elegant by Retox

For this Three One Gee all star band, you get The Locust’s Justin Pearson signature yelp in combination with agressive and fairly straight forward hardcore guitars by Gabe Serbian (The Locust, Holy Molar, Head Wound City, Rats Eyes), Michael Crain (Festival Of Dead Deer) and Thor Dickey. the drums alternate between a punk rock and a grinding hardcore sound. For a band featuring such alumni, the noisy elements are only hinted in the blueprint to the overall sound. Sometimes in the guitar sound and only on a relative few (when you compare it to the member's other projects) occasions more in your face, in the way the songs are rarely structured in a noise rock manner. And of course the vocals are obnoxious. Otherwise it wouldn’t really be JP’s signature voice, as featured in the band’s promo.
Last fm tags as powerviolence, hardcore, grindcore,mathviolence, mathcore

click the image above to buy merch directly from them!

The Burden – Catholic Guilt

Listening to this release, I had a revelation!
Now this might be the champagne from the office party 15 mins ago, that’s doing the talking, but I was thinking of discussions popping up about metalcore when people speak about bands like Oathbreaker and All Pigs Must Die etc. Which isn’t all that weird because it’s a popular style that mixes a lot of metal with only hints of hardcore in a relatively new way. With the ‘metalcore scene’ being comprised of the last few deathcore and the latest hype of (equally watered down) melodic Post-Hardcore bands, beside the bands that are labelled as just metal but remain to roam only the narrow metalcore or posthardcore shows, what is really left of what we would once label as metalcore?! Note that I am not taking in to account the few active bands that represent the golden years of metalcore, now spearheading Roadrunner, E1 and EMI records with their metallic pop rock, maybe because they think there’s still some money in it (I wouldn’t know if that could be true or not).
I suggest we cut the crap, and start referring to the flavour of the week hardcore metal bands as metalcore. You know, the Holy Terror –ish and the Entombed-worshiping hardcore bands PLUS the chugging metallic hardcore and the ultra-melodic crust metal bands all collected under one divison. When people refer to this ‘wave’ of metalcore, they would say it is frontiered by the bands Anchor, Pulling Teeth, Brutality Will Prevail, The Secret and Ictus! Then, all of the sudden, you would have this dispatch of hardcore music that is more militant in its animal and earth liberation, or whatever sort of socia-political points of view, than anything the entire overlapping genre has had in... well, as long as I can remember! so nothing but positive argumentation in favor of my proposition!
...Then again, I myself am starting to believe it’s the champagne that ignited this idea, now that I’m spell-checking what’s been written above.

waiting rooms by The Burden

The Burden (their blog) is awesome. Its influences alternate between the Holy Terror kind of hardcore and the Entombed kind of metal, so basically angry as hell (especially the intense vocals) and equally groovy or melodic, supported by a sound with original twists and approaches. All resulting in a welcome addition to both styles. btw, get the lyrics here
Last fm tags as hardcore, metalcore, texas, metallic hardcore,seen live 

click the image above to buy stuff directly from them!

Out Of The Box On Sunday XXI

  listen to Grandma in the Trenches by s n e e z e

In this wave of pop punk bands appealing to the hardcore kids, I wanted to do my part in getting Sneeze (their blogpage), featuring members from L'Antietam, Genders and Ape Up, some attention. This band has a refreshing grungy sound added in the mix, so this record oozes with 90’s appresh!  When you get those grunge groove with punk rock sensibilities, it feels like you get a perfect balance of catchy music that’s just that bit less poppy and rocks out way grittier. Like a  mix between Nirvana’s song Territorial Pissings, Jawbreaker’s I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both or The Offspring’s SMASH-era.

click the image above to buy a copy of the record!

Circle Takes The Square - Decompositions Vol I. Chapter 1. Rites of Initiation

Circle Takes The Square (blog) are back as well. You may have noticed.

Last fm tags as screamo, hardcore, experimental, real screamo,emo 

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Ampere – Like Shadows

 listen to Flightless by Ampere, from this album

They’re back. And how. This long-awaited release, by American pioneers Ampere (their blog), shows no compromise in their sound. This is still the crushing lighntning-speed chaos of emotional despair, socio-political angst and anxious melodies. This is unrelenting punk drums, facemelting melodic guitars that cry out on top of the endproduct and that frenzied raspy voice, into a mix of complexely organized and fast-paced screamo music. In its level of melancholy contrasting with its devastating sound, this band still remains to oversee the branch of hardcore music it represents, from their point of sheer supremacy.
Last fm tags as screamo, emo violence, hardcore, real screamo, emo

click the image above to buy Ampere stuff from No Idea Records

Fallacies - Bastille/Empty Canvas

Bastille by Fallacies

This band proved to appear very promising, with their EP that I recently wrote about. With this 2-song release, they display the same approach to entirely different form of hardcore music. These 2 songs sound like the kind of tunes you would expect from an interlude on a good hardcore record. The title track to Converge’s Jane Doe.  Mors Semper Certa Est on Gold Kids’ Ode To Youth. The intro and outro on Give Up The Ghost’s  We’re Down ‘Till We’re Underground. This is the  downtempo(almost ambient) sounding vulgar display of musicianship hardcore bands like to parade with, in their prime. Only an entire –all be it small- record of nothing but that kind of hardcore music. Closer to post-rock/post-hardcore than the actual punk rock music they are founded on.
Last fm tags as melodic hardcore, hardcore, progressive, experimental, metalcore

click the image above to buy stuff directly from the band!