Seven Sisters Of Sleep/Children Of God split

Seven Sisters of Sleep - Almighty Black Talons from Eddie on Vimeo.

Bled Dry from adrian castillo on Vimeo.

An interesting duo to form a split record, Seven Sisters Of Sleep (facebook) and Children Of God both show amazing styles of sludgy down-tempo hardcore music. As dark as much as it is both raw and hard, either bands is quite the match for the other and they compliment one another’s style when both contributing to a single record. Combining droning power-chords and post-rockish tremolo-picking, this music is the emotional equivalent to getting your tooth pulled, strapped to the chair, while you are witnessing your dog getting run over. Seriously, fuck dentists for ‘just doing their job’. GOD!
Last fm tags as hardcore, punk, riot, powerviolence, slowcore, hardcore, sludge, metallic hardcore, doom metal, real metalcore

click the image above to be redirected to a store of the label that carries SSOS and COG records

Out Of The Box On Sunday XXIX

Command Of The Formless by Pale Chalice

BWWWOOOO))))AAAAAHHHHHH
Last fm tags as black metal, usa black metal, usbm, metal,american black metal

Young And In The Way – V. Eternal Depression

The Great Blue Norther by Young And In The Way

This is a band who, on previous releases, reminded a lot of the blackened crust subdivision, with only hints of hardcore music. On this release, Young And In The Way (website) seem to have shed any links to any form of punk music to play an all out blackened metal style of auditory onslaught. From the uptempo crispy but still melodic tremolo-picking guitars to the suicidal atmospheric style of ambience, they pull out all the stops and give a genuine signature touch to all of the above. The growling vocals are straight up nasty and the varying tempos in between songs pulls you back and forth like a bungee-cord.
Last fm tags as crust, hardcore, blackened crust, black metal,sludge

click the image above to buy this record directly from their record label!

Hourvari – 2011 EP

I by Hourvari is half of the EP, so it should give you a good impression

With members from french titans As We Draw as well as Birds In Row, Hourvari (bandcamp) depicts a style of dark music that seems more like the culmination of those projects, in stead of a compromise in between. Trespassing the usual limits of ambient elements in extreme music, this release goes slower, darker and deeper than extreme bands rarely dare to go, with great succes. With droning elements, slowly building up to the point where down-tempo hardcore bands usually start, this is a journey far beyond the confinements that had been set up for a band in that ‘scene’. Moving the touchstone for this style of music miles from where it had rested for a long ass time. Pioneers they are, I tell you!
Last fm tags as post-rock, ambient, post-hardcore, post-metal, french 

check the bandcamp to give them some much deserved support!

Accept The Change - Escapism Is A Dying Art

 listen to Inhibition by Accept the Change

Second time I post about this band, they are almost unrecognisable on this album through the progress they've made between this and their past release. Accept The Change (blog) is a modern hardcore band, pushing the envelope of the melodic branch in the direction they've chosen for themselves. To say they play an amazing mix of dark, emotional impassioned and intense music, in today's musical landscape, is like a drop on a hot plate. So you'd have to hear for yourself what sets them apart and way ahead of a lot of bands that get way more credit. Honesly, it's weird to think of these kids as the same people that made a record that's up there with my favorite ones for this entire year. But that's just exactly what they did.

Also, they've got a tour coming up with Manbearpig which is an awesome combo in two touring bands.

Last fm tags as melodic modern hardcore

click the image above to buy this album from Assault Records!

Out Of The Box On Sunday XXVIII

Out

Certainty by Procession

labelling themselves "vegan shoegaze", shoegazing indie pop band Procession (facebook) is all the right music with all the right ethics. DIY, vegan and punk rock radicals playing mellow indie music. occasionally the voice or guitar sound nearly out of tune because of the discordancy that oozes out of this sound, which is the major element in this band's brilliance. that, in combination with the oxymoron of this raw, minimalistic and unsettling versus dreamy and rich, all balanced in one consistent, signature sound of this band and record. 

click here to buy stuff directly from the band!

Grazes – Myths

Rex Anglorum by Grazes

Bringing the old school mosh, are the Brits from Grazes (facebook). These guys blend nearly classic hardcore punk with the right amounts of thrashing metal. It almost becomes hard to place them in a contemporary hardcore environment but, at least sound-wise, they’d give any band they share the stage with (supporting or headlining) quite the run for their money. This sounds way more pissed off than modern bands with any fancy gimmicks or catchy hooks and less macho, but more mosh-worthy, than chugging mosh-praising bands.
Last fm tags as hardcore, under 2000 listeners, punk, hardcore punk, spotify

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

Mediocracy – ASOMA

Age Of War by Mediocracy

This is a melodic thrashing metal band with hardcore influences, so basically metalcore, that came out of crust, from what I’ve been told. The songtitles,and the lyrics seem to support this statement(at least ethic-wise). This is Mediocracy (facebook) from Bucharest. Extremely catchy melodies at constantly t(h)rashing fast rythms, unhindered by the always generic breakdowns and whining clean vocals that bands in this genre desperately cling to. This leaves you wishing this was the norm for the metalcore genre in stead of what it once was and, even worse, has become.
Last fm tags as crust, hardcore, sludge, neocrust, dark hardcore

We’ll Die Smiling – Avant Garde

We’ll Die Smiling (myspace) plays chaotic punk music with angsty screaming vocals like it hasn’t been done in ages. The spastic start/stop dissonant guitar-patterns are wielded to the point of perfection, quickly changing to mellow clean parts or violent chugs, and back again, while the vocals constantly harshly soar above the end product. This reminds a lot of what smaller bands did within the confinements of term ‘mathcore’ around the time we bridged from the 20th to the 21st century. Somewhat like Shoemaker Levy 9, Path Of No Return or As The Sun Sets, to give a few examples that won’t mean anything to most people. But there, I said it anyway.

Out Of The Box On Sunday XXVII

listen to Hate, Rain on me by Andrew Jackson Jihad

Andrew Jackson Jihad's Knife Man is my favourite AJJ record to date. the basic principles remain the same, campy folk music with radical lyrics. intro- or extraverted, the messages in every song are allways very profound and generally brilliantly relevant. it's 70% all about the lyrics!

Last fm tags as: folk punk, acoustic, folk, punk, plan-it-x 

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