My Music Path

Last year, I wrote a review on Changeling's third record. A genius black metal album with an original almost warm sound that they can only make in America. On March 15, 2021, they released a split cassette with Everlasting Light, a black metal band from Illinois via Quarter Records.                                                                                                                                                                                  ...

Social media always helps me to find great music. On the Facebook group, There’s No Good Metal Anymore they actually share some great metal albums. And I came across this one: French deathgrind/crust/hardcore band Pilori from France. Their debut album 'À Nos Morts'  (To Our Dead) came out on the 26th of June and it is definitely something to mosh to. Tracklist: 1. Que la Bête Meure (with Dylan Walker from Full Of Hell) 2. Apnée 3. La Grande Terreur 4. Poursuite du Vent (with Matthias Jungbluth from Fange) 5. Roi des Rats 6. À Nos Morts 7. Lorsque Viendra la Nuit 8. Divine Comédie 9. Sous Mes Mains 10. À la Recherche de Temps Perdu 11. Danse Macabre The force is strong with this one, and that force is only strengthened by the fact that Dylan Walker from Full Of Hell is doing vocals on the opening track. Why? Because Pilori and Full of Hell are brothers so to speak. Their music has some similarities, they but it is their aesthetic that binds them. They both take much time to cre...

The last couple of years the USA brought forth some of the best black metal I ever heard. Bands like False and Obsequiae are making nature-inspired black metal that's aggressive and melodic. Swarming falls in another category, their music has some emotional touches but they mainly manufacture a very harsh, unnerving feeling that makes you see shadows everywhere. Their debut album ‘Primeval Arteries Of the Sacred Dead’ comes out on the 30th of June by Nihilistic Propaganda Records. Tracklist: 1. Veins 2. Womb 3. Vessel With only three songs that each last ten minutes, the album pulls you into an enormous maelstrom filled with dissonant guitar work, unnerving noise effects and thunderous bass. What stands out is the full drum sound on this album, you can hear every detail. Especially on Womb , an instrumental song that builds up beautifully, starting with this weird feedback-laden noise palette with howling guitars that weave an awfully spine-tingling dark dream.  Swarming makes you...

Artwork: Kuba Sokolski The prog-sludge band Scientist from Chicago released 'Barbelith' an album that every metal lover should hear. It has all the ingredients you need: heavy riffing, freaky solos, grungy vocals, a great variety of screams and a drummer with a fetish for drum fills. Tracklist: 1. Chokhmah Binah 2. Magic Mirror 3. Barbelith 4. Fiction Suit 5. Retrogade 6. Shed This Meat 7. (Home) at Last Scientist is, despite being a tearjerkingoff song from an unspecified English band, also a metal band and 'Barbelith' (named after the satellite with a consciousness from the comic The Invisibles) is their third album and it is simply genius. Their sludge metal sounds progressive, cinematic and I cannot understand why this band is not more popular among metal fans. The music is a combination of old Mastodon, with vocals that sound like Maynard from Tool and Layne and Jerry from Alice In Chains are having a gettogether: in the title track, ...

Artwork: Guilherme Dourart The debut album Aid To Worship  by Irish sludge metal band Iona Death Cult came out on March 28th. An album that ends with a sneeze! Hopefully right in the face of the leader of The Catholic Church? Does the Pope ever sneeze? Does he then pull out..... a satin white gold rimmed handkerchief? Nevermind. Now, does this album rock or does it suck? Well, it certainly doesn't suck. Au contraire.  Tracklist 1. The Apathy Of Ghosts 2. Slumlord 3. Whores and Thieves 4. Kafka 5. Mother Gaia 6. Inverted World Aid To Worship is the first full-length album by Iona Death Cult from Bray, a city south of Dublin. After The Cult is Real EP  which contained two instrumental metal/rock songs, the band decided to start using vocals. Bassist Ste does a fine job bellowing his conceptual lyrics: Ireland is taken over by a cult that tells everyone how everything works and where capitalism has torn humanity from within. In six heavy pounding...

Welcome to the Humanity Sucks show with today: grind/crust/sludge band The Human Race is Filth or  T.H.R.I.F. Their second EP 'Liberate' was released on April 6th and was recorded in the Oblivion Studios where Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic Nosebleed also recorded their violent walls of terrorgrind. Tracklist 1. Native Biological Warfare 2. Burning The Swines 3. Vein Full 4. Hung By Illusion 5. Chain Game 6. Capital Torture 7. Slow March 8. Concrete Soldier T.H.R.I.F. has put up a similar wall, but more crusty and stable, mainly due to the alternation between fast and sludgy slow riffs like on 'Chain Game'. This keeps the album fresh and interesting. The grunts sound sore throaty, especially in the super slow song 'Slow March' where you almost see the pharynx slowly turn reddish until there are small boils of pus that eventually snap and .....o sorry I went full goregrind mode on you there, just a sec.....ahem. The band is not so keen...

Artwork: Oliver Melville Jezus in een spuitbusje? Tsja, tegenwoordig moet je van goede huize komen om ‘plagiaat’ te voorkomen. De diepe betekenis van de bandnaam ontgaat me maar wat me niet ontgaat is de muziek op deze 20 minuten durende EP met de voor de hand liggende titel ‘Failure’.  Rauwe sludge met hardcore en black metal invloeden die niet makkelijk te behappen is. Denk aan een verroeste loods gemaakt van golfplaten die bij elkaar worden gehouden met prikkeldraad. Er is maar één klein lichtje dat boven een houten podium hangt waar de band speelt voor een handvol mensen. Tekstueel snijdt de band de standaardonderwerpen geestelijke gezondheid en depressie aan, waarin veel luisteraars zich zullen herkennen. Het taboe depressie wordt langzamerhand doorbroken en bands zoals Aerosol Jesus dragen hun steentje daaraan bij. De EP komt op 28 april uit via Astral Noize op cassette(!), dus ren naar je oma en opa of naar je dichtstbijzijnde tweedehandswinkel en koop onderweg ee...

Dagelijks komt er zoveel interessante muziek voorbij op onder andere social media en om dat allemaal bij te houden is bijna een onmogelijke taak. Om die reden zal ik per maand één band onder de aandacht brengen  in het onderdeel Ondergrondse Ontdekkingen. We beginnen met een duistere crust/punk/doom/sludge metalband uit Washington: ILSA ziet het leven in 2008. De band ontstond vanuit Time Of The Wolf, de vorige band waar Brendan, Joshy en Orion in speelden. De reden? Gitarist Dylan wilde iemand een mep verkopen maar verkocht zijn mep aan een raam. Met vier doorgesneden pezen kon Dylan een periode geen gitaar spelen en terwijl hij aan het genezen was, richtten de andere bandleden met vrienden Sharad en Garrett ILSA op om toch iets te doen te hebben.  Van links naar rechts: Orion (zang), Brendan (gitaar), Sharad (bas), Joshy (drums), Tim (gitaar) Hoe klinkt de band: De band klinkt als een enorme brok beton waar stalen pinnen uitsteken die omringd zijn ...