Category Archives: Reviews

Portrayal of Guilt – S/T (2017)

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Portrayal of Guilt – Portrayal of Guilt (Miss the Stars Records / Contrition Recordings, 02 May 2017)

 

Recently I got a message from this band called Portrayal of Guilt, with barely any information other than the fact that they had a brand-new EP out, and a link to their Bandcamp page. So, armed with that miniscule amount of knowledge, I went to check it out, as one does. There I learned that the band is from Austin, Texas; a bit more poking around revealed that they seem to be a relatively new group: all of their social media presence dates back no further than January of this year. Oh, and also I found that one of the keywords they use to describe themselves is “screamo.”

Now I don’t know about you, but that word tends to make me feel a bit trepidatious. After all, just like its predecessor “emo” and distant ancestor “hardcore,” what originated as a great concept became completely perverted and bastardized over the past few decades — to the point where, in modern usage, the term came to be applied to something completely unrecognizable when compared with its archetypal format. But I decided the EP was only three songs — barely more than six minutes altogether — so I might as well give it a shot. And to make a long story short, as you could infer from the fact that I’m writing about it now, that concern turned out to be completely unfounded.

 

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Apostle of Solitude – Of Woe and Wounds (2014), Devil to Pay – A Bend through Space and Time (2016)

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Apostle of Solitude – Of Woe and Wounds (Cruz del Sur Music, 04 November 2014)

 

Devil to Pay – A Bend through Space and Time (Ripple Music, 12 August 2016)

 

So — maybe you’ve noticed a running theme this week — but once again I’m sharing some music with you from a band that will be playing at The Maryland Doom Fest this weekend! That would be Apostle of Solitude, whose latest album Of Woe and Wounds has been hovering on my to-do list ever since it was released nearly three whole years ago. And while I’m at it, there’s another album I’d like to bring to your attention, last year’s offering by a band who are Indianapolis neighbors (and even overlap by one guitarist) with Apostle of Solitude, and whom we’ve spoken of highly in the past, Devil to Pay.

 

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Hollow Leg – Murder, He Whose Ox is Gored – Paralyzer, Cave of Swimmers – The Sun (2017)

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Hollow Leg – Murder EP (digital: Argonauta Records, 03 March 2017; cassette: Southern Druid Records, 16 June 2017; Crown, Murder Edition CD: Argonauta Records, 30 June 2017)

 

He Whose Ox is Gored – Paralyzer 7″ (Chain Letter Collective/Void Assault Records, 16 June 2017)

 

Cave of Swimmers – The Sun 7″ (Southern Druid Records, 03 July 2017)

 

Today I’ve got three different releases to share with you. Don’t worry, I won’t take up too much of your time — each of these has just two or three songs. But more importantly, all three come from bands who have had some pretty incredible previous releases we’ve already talked about: Hollow Leg, He Whose Ox is Gored, and Cave of Swimmers. So you can already be guaranteed these will all be great, too!

Oh yeah, and if you scroll on down to the comments section, you can take a peek at the dates for Hollow Leg‘s current tour which centers around an appearance at The Maryland Doom Fest on Saturday (24 June)!

 
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Borracho – Atacama (2016-17), Beastmaker – Inside the Skull (2017)

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Borracho – Atacama (Kozmik Artifactz, 02 December 2016 CD/digital, 10 March 2017 vinyl)

 

Beastmaker – Inside the Skull (Rise Above Records, 19 May 2017)

 

Hey folks, let’s take a look at some recent (and semi-recent) releases from another two bands who are appearing were scheduled to appear at this weekend’s Maryland Doom Fest, one of whom will still be performing* — specifically, they’re both kicking off the festivities Thursday night at the Pre Fest Party. Representing the east coast, D.C.-area heavy-fuzz dealers Borracho, clearly no strangers to this website, dropped their third full-length at the tail end of 2016, while left coast doomsters Beastmaker saw the release of their second LP just last month. Listening to either of these would absolutely be time well-spent, so please feel free to continue reading …

Beastmaker has announced that they will be unable to make it to this year’s Doom Fest. Borracho is still slated to be there Thursday night!

 

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Wretch – Wretch (2016)

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Wretch – Wretch (Bad Omen Records, 26 August 2016)

 

From the instant I first heard 2008’s Conqueror, I’ve been a huge fan of Indianan doom titans The Gates of Slumber. Certainly one of the greatest highlights of running this website was getting the opportunity to chat with that group’s founder, guitarist and vocalist Karl Simon, back in 2013 — and then a few days later actually meeting him and bassist Jason McCash in person before their incredible performance at the Winter’s Wake festival in Pittsburgh. Tragically, the following year would see the loss of iconic bassist McCash, and a grieving Simon decided to put the band permanently on hold.

Since that time, though, he seems to have felt the need to continue expressing himself musically, and with the help of bassist Bryce Clarke and drummer Chris Gordon (who has done previous tours of duty with both TGoS and fellow Indianapolitans Devil to Pay) formed a new trio named for his previous band’s final album, 2011’s The Wretch. By last summer this new group had put together an album’s worth of material and released their self-titled debut, which happened to be one of the best things I heard last year. And now I’d like to share that record with all of you, in advance of Wretch making an appearance at The Maryland Doom Fest later this week (along with a handful of other shows — scroll down to the comments section for more details) …

UPDATE 21 June 2017: all Wretch shows that were scheduled for this week have been cancelled.

 
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The Pod – The Pod (2017)

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The Pod – The Pod (Accident Prone Records, CD/digital 02 June 2017; LP 25 August 2017)

 

I’ll admit, I don’t really listen to electronic or synthesized music, because I have trouble getting into anything that’s too inorganic or artificial. Just a matter of personal taste, I guess, but whenever something shows up in my inbox that’s full of bloops and beeps and (especially) fake digital drums, it generally finds its way to the trash folder pretty quickly. Not intending to offend anybody here, I mean I understand there is certainly a market for that type of thing because it does appeal to a lot of people, but I just happen not to be one of them — and it wouldn’t make any sense for me to waste my time trying to write about something that I just don’t understand (or for you to waste YOUR time reading it).

However, when I find out that there’s a drone-ambient-synth project created by Mr. Scott Endres, guitarist and one of the songwriters for MAKE (one of my favorite bands, as you surely have noticed by now), and someone with whom I know (via the magic of social media) I share a rather large overlap in musical taste — well, I’m going to take notice, and give it a chance. I’m glad I did. Now I’ll share it with you, and I think you’ll be glad too.

 

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Faces of the Bog – Ego Death (2016)

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Faces of the Bog – Ego Death (self-released, 04 October 2016 / vinyl DHY Records, 22 September 2017)

 

Okay, stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Band from Chicago, influences are a blend of all things heavy (including a generous helping of noise rock and post-metal), and they just happen to be produced by Sanford Parker.

It doesn’t matter to me how many times they keep remaking this same movie, I’ll keep coming back to see it every time. Here’s Faces of The Bog‘s debut album, which they released in fall 2016. Tour dates for Ohio and western Pennsylvania THIS WEEKEND, plus a few more throughout the midwest over the rest of the summer, can be found down in the comments section.

 

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Unkirk – .burial (2017)

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Unkirk – .burial (Tartarus Records, 31 March 2017)

 

Hello,

There are a lot of new releases coming up.

Because of this I’m offering a 30% discount on all orders to make more space at Tartarus HQ.

This includes all of our latest titles and distro items.

Visit tartarusrecords.com and use the code KEEPINGITREEL before checking out to apply the discount.

This discount ends on Saturday June 10th.

Oh, and we priced all of our shirt designs down to 9 euros for the time being 🙂

 
Thus reads the press release that just came from Tartarus Records this week. Their sale of 30% off runs through TOMORROW, so we wanted to make sure you nice people heard about this and had the chance to take advantage of it. And if you need a suggestion of where to start shopping (aside from previous Tartarus releases we’ve already discussed), might I suggest this megalithic wall of noise from Scottish dirge-drone duo Unkirk?

 

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Tethra – Like Crows for the Earth (2017)

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Tethra – Like Crows for the Earth (Sliptrick Records, 11 February 2017 EU / 23 July 2017 US)

 


In recent years, many small and medium-sized clubs dedicated to metal music have closed or changed their genre because of the low attendance at the concerts.

It’s a global phenomenon that, if it does not have a clear turnabout, will oblige all industry employees to make drastic decisions.

We would like to raise awareness among all fans of this genre about this topic, assuming a catastrophic scenario for the next future: what will happen when the last live club will also close? Will emerging bands play no more or will they totally rely on aseptic live streaming from rehearsal studio and improvised venues?

For this reason, Thursday 8th June at 22pm (Italian time), we’ll play a full set Live Streaming show in a real live venue open just for us; furthermore, to give everyone the opportunity to participate in this event, we’ll keep the video online for 24 hours.

You can follow the event through our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/TethraHell

This is our particular contribution to the cause, hoping to be able to induce a reflection before this catastrophic scenario becomes a reality, because that night we will create a paradox that more than one band has had to endure in its career: playing in an empty room … will you be with us?

 
With these words, Italian doom metal band Tethra (who formed nearly a decade ago in Novara) have announced that they will be playing a show in an empty room, to be broadcast live on Facebook TONIGHT (actually, THIS AFTERNOON if you live in the U.S. — click here to see when, in your own time zone) as a scheme to draw attention to the trend of falling attendance levels at shows. Which is kind of an interesting concept, if you think about it — if the event ends up being wildly successful it will definitely get their message across, but at the same time, it seems like that would only be reinforcing the band’s dire assessment of the current live music scene?

In any case, I did want to share this information with you, so that you could watch the performance and take part in this grand experiment. And I also wanted to take the opportunity to talk about Tethra‘s new release, which has been out a few months in Europe by way of Sliptrick Records in Latvia, while the label’s American division is scheduled for a release next month.

 

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Tengger Cavalry – Die On My Ride (2017)

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Tengger Cavalry – Die On My Ride (M-Theory Audio, 02 June 2017)

 

Hey folks! Got some breaking news for you: I’ve just learned that Tengger Cavalry, famous for blending traditional Mongolian music within the context of modern metal, have put out a brand-new album a few days ago and simultaneously embarked on a North American tour! So of course I wanted to take this opportunity to pass along the information to all of you. First, we’ll address the new music, which they’re now streaming in full, then down below (in the comments) I’ll share the list of dates …

 

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