Hey brutal bangers,
it's a lot of time that I don't publish a new appointment with "Honorable Mentions from the Abyss". Finally, here you are a new episode of this column. This time you'll read about 7 bands... but they are only a part of the very stuff that I received in these last months!
Unfortunately, I must still prepare a year-end Top Ten, that now is a classic for the 'zine for some years, and I don't want to break this tradition, so expect news about this thing.
!T.O.O.H.! - "FREE SPEECH"
After even 7 years from their 4th album, !T.O.O.H.! (FB page) from Czech Republic come back with a new assault called "Free Speech". Entirely sung in their mother toungue, "Free Speech" is a rare beast that shows, through the 12 tracks of the album, a strange death/grind where there are, for example, melodic guitar solos with an heavy metal flavour, clean vocals here and there, and crazy keyboards. Lavadome Productions says that !T.O.O.H.! are similar to no bands out there because they are so original but, if you like the most progressive side of grindcore that can be compared to Cephalic Carnage, Violent Opposition or The Locust, I think that !T.O.O.H.! are perfect to hammering again and again your brains!
BAS ROTTEN - "SURGE"
Bas Rotten (FB page) dub their music as "Blastbeat Crossover Punk Grind" and, in fact, this definition is fuckin' perfect! We are talking about a quintet from Portugal (curiously, 3 of them are named Joao!) that, after their foundation in 2016, released their debut album "Surge" (Raging Planet/Live in a Lie Records) in the now dead 2020. Comprised of 17 tracks, "Surge" combines crossover thrash metal with grindcore, in a killing and creative mix between Crippled Fox and Extreme Noise Terror. Intensity guaranteed throughout the 20 minutes of this album!
DROPDEAD - "DROPDEAD"
Existing since 1991, Dropdead (FB page) released only 3 full-lenght album so far. The last of them is the simply entitled "Dropdead", that was edited in 2020 by the band's label, Armageddon. This new effort, recorded by Kurt Ballou (Converge) and Zach Weeks and mastered by Brad Boatright at the usual Audiosiege Studios, contains the beauty of 23 tracks lasting for only 24 minutes of total massacre that takes no prisoners. Essentially, you'll be bombarded by a brutal hc punk with crust punk and grindcore influences and lyrics focused on the recent terrible situation of the world, so be sure that you have no moments to breath throughout this album!
FUCK THE FACTS - "PLEINE NOIRCEUR"
In this article !T.O.O.H.! aren't the only ones to play a strange grindcore but also Fuck the Facts (FB page). They are a prolific Canadian band from Quebec born in 1999. In the end of 2020, they presented their 10th studio album "Pleine Noirceur", published through their label Noise Salvation. Strong of 12 tracks, "Pleine Noirceur" is a very bizzarre work: on a hand, it spews forth a gloomy and noisy grindcore; on the other hand, there is a more dissonant, nightmarish sound full of black metal tunes that can be listenable already in the opening song "Doubt, Fear, Neglect". Not an easy album but, surely, extremely fascinating for this band that, in according to its words, plays "Canadian Bastardized Grindcore".
HANGING FORTRESS - "DARKNESS DEVOURS"
From Toledo, Ohio, come these Hanging Fortress (FB page) offering, with their debut album "Darkness Devours" (Redefining Darkness Records), an old-school death metal focused on bulldozing mid-tempos à la Asphyx/Bolt Thrower. It isn't the classic death metal stuff I like since I prefer the faster one and, in addition, the album isn't so intense for my taste, despite its duration of only 21 minutes. But fuck that, if you like the aforementioned acts, I believe that you have no problems to like also Hanging Fortress!
PERDITION SECT - "END TIMES"
100% crust punk/d-beat madness from Ohio with Incantation's Kyle Severn on drums! In extreme synthesis, this is Perdition Sect (FB page), a quartet that, influenced a lot by the general atmosphere generated by the Covid-19 terror, recorded its debut album "End Times" (Seeing Red Records) in full quarantine. But the nicer thing is that these guys, unable to enter a studio, recorded it with the help of recording apps for phones, as I did for my noisegrind project! The result is awesome because Perdition Sect unleashed 10 raging songs full of a non-stop crust punk/d-beat destruction that sees a good alternation with guttural vocals and more screaming ones, and nice metallic guitar solos here and there. In brief, an aptly soundtrack for the Covid-19 apocalypse we're living!
INTOLERANT - "PRIMAL FUTURE"
From Rome Caput Mundi, here you are Intolerant (FB page), that replenish the still small bestial black metal hordes in Italy! Founded in the same 2020, this duo thought to destroy our broken ears with a 10-track album that is a unhuman and noisy demonstration of barbarity with regards to no one, also because there is an "Ode to Virus" as second track! In practice, Bestial Warlust meets Tetragammacide and, also only for these comparisons, "Primal Future" (Time to Kill Records) is a must have for every bestial black/death metal cultist worthy of this name!
THE BANDS:
BAS ROTTEN
DROPDEAD
FUCK THE FACTS
HANGING FORTRESS
PERDITION SECT
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