And musically, I think it’s better.
Friend of the site Drewsif Stalin, who released an awesome tech death EP earlier this year, covered “This Fire Burns” by Killswitch Engage. Of course, he did all the instruments and vocals himself (with the exception of the talking during the breakdown) and it sounds pretty damn good. Listen and download it above.
Keep on burning, Drew.
- JR
Chronographs are a new hardcore/metalcore band out of Worcestershire, UK. The band just wrapped up recording two songs and are offering “Dutch Courage” for free download, which can be streamed and downloaded via the player below. Give it a listen if you’re into the British hardcore scene.
Outhouse Sessions by Chronographs
- JR
I’m a bit of a webcomic fan, and there is no doubt in my mind that when it comes to character development and addictiveness, no one does it better than Jeph Jacques’ Questionable Content, which stars Marten Reed (left in above pic) as he and his circle of friends… exist. It is seriously the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning; I roll over, turn off my alarm clock, and I check QC.
In the series, Marten is the guitarist in the instrumental post-metal band Deathmøle, which fans of Isis, Pelican, Cloudkicker, and Cult of Luna should enjoy. Much like Metalocalypse’s Dethklok, this virtual band releases music, and has released all of their work for free (which you can download here.)
In a surreal turn of events, I was actually able to get an interview with Marten. It wasn’t easy, and don’t ask me how, but I managed to make contact with him and ask him a few questions!
Thank you for talking with me today. First thing’s first: introduce yourself!
Okay uh my name is Marten Reed and I play guitar in the band Deathmøle.
How long have you been playing guitar?
I started when I was like 14 and I am 24 now so about 10 years!
I mean no offense, but you seem to be the indie hipster type of guy, so what made you decide to be in a metal band like Deathmøle?
Well it sort of happened by accident, the other guys in the band with me when we were starting out (Amir [Bass] and Nat [Keyboard/Sonic Texturalist], Nat’s not in the band anymore since she broke up with Amir) were more into the metal stuff and I just kind of went along with it. And it turns out that playing metal is pretty fun! Especially now that we have an actual drummer.
On that subject, what music inspires you, metal or otherwise?
Oh most of the stuff I write is pretty Isisy or Pelicany I guess, then sometimes I’ll be playing a riff and Amir will be like “dude that is a total High on Fire riff if you speed it up!” So I speed it up! My girlfriend is actually way more into metal than I am, she’s all about Behemoth and Opeth and Deathspell Omega and all these other bands. I really like Gojira, those dudes write some great stuff and their drummer is CRAZY GOOD. But I listen to all sorts of things, mostly indie rock but some electronic things too. I guess I get most of my guitar inspiration from people like Hum or Failure or Isis, those guys were all really good at doing huge guitar sounds.
Swedish death metallers Benighted Iris just released their demo EP for free. While the production quality leaves a lot to be desired, the quality of the music itself is pretty good. With proper studio time, these guys would sound killer. Their music sounds like a cross between Swedish death metal and groovy djent without being deathcore, citing influences such as Bloodbath, Gojira, and Sikth. Benighted Iris are worth keeping tabs on if you’re into the Swedish metal scene, but like I said, you’ll have to look over some of this production.
You can listen to their song “Sleep of Reason” below and download the whole EP right here.
- JR
I used to be a huge All That Remains fan. The Fall Of Ideals was one of the very few albums I paid for before ever hearing the entire thing. The last album, Overcome, was just a tad bit underwhelming, but it was still better than the latest Killswitch Engage album, but that’s neither here nor there.
But you know what is here and there? The title track for All That Remains’ upcoming album For We Are Many, which is due out October 12th on Prosthetic Records. All you have to do is sign up for the mailing list via the widget below. The song is pretty solid and worth checking out if you’re into metalcore and ATR. It doesn’t have much clean singing either, which is pretty different from what they’ve been doing lately. So check it out!
- JR
Sounding like a melodic version of The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, Tre Watson‘s new song “His Name Is Clover J. Fields And He Hates Babies” is one killer jam. The title is pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. You can blame me for that one if you hate it, in which case you are no fun and your vagina is showing.
You can check out “Clover J. Fields” below. It is from his upcoming sophomore solo album, Empirical Dichotomy. It is tentatively due out later this year, but some computer shit happened and he has to re-record just about everything. Fucking technology is a double-edged sword, man.
- JR
The drummer in my band recently discovered this group from California, and although they are unsigned, their music is so great that I couldn’t help but share them with you guys. If you like Scale The Summit or An Endless Sporadic, then you’ll probably dig this. I personally like CHON‘s music better than that of both those bands, and that’s saying a lot. They play really happy sounding instrumental metal, and it’s all very tight and technical with some catchy stuff thrown in too.
You can check the band out on their myspace or better yet, head over to their purevolume page where you can download all of their music for free! What’s better than legally free happy music?
-PM
A blog called Distractions of Living Alone has posted a recent live set by bay area favorites Cormorant, featuring two new songs. Both songs are still without vocals, but they sound great so far.
You may remember Mark Hawkins and his instrumental music project that we once featured. Well Mark is back with a new song, “Enabler,” which is available for a free download right here.
Shredtastic!
Mark is currently working on a tech/djent/melodic death metal project called Soul Cycle with Chris Catharsis, who wrote for us once! It’s sure to be an awesome project, well worth listening to.
- JR
