Few tours offer as much MOSH as the recent Nails, Xibalba, and Early Graves tour. As usual, our regularly contributing photographer Maclyn Bean (the most technical and speedest photographer ever) attended his local show at Broad Street Ministry in Philadelphia and managed to not get his equipment broken! Photos of the show can be viewed below:
Few bands have taken hardcore by storm in such a short amount of time as Nails. Ever since their debut album Unsilent Death in 2010, people can’t seem to get enough of the bands ferocious melding of all things extreme. Their sophomore album Abandon All Life is just around the corner (out March 19th on Southern Lord), and the first taste of the record has finally come. The band’s new single ‘God’s Cold Hands’ is streaming over at Pitchfork, and if the track is any indication, Abandon All Life will be as chaotic and misanthropic as the title would lead us to believe. It isn’t much, with the song wrapping up around the two minute mark, but it’s certainly enough to get excited about.
While you play the song on repeat for good measure, check out their moshworthy headlining tour dates with Xibalba and Early Graves after the jump.
Who the hell is Famt Wang, you ask?! He’s a graphic artist who has done shirt designs for the likes of Reflections and Bound by Exile, he is the creator of a line of limited edition guitar picks for Carnifex, Dweller, and Ophidian I, and member of up-and-coming death metal band Blue Waffle (for the love of Christ, don’t Google them). He reached out to us concerning his very own Top 10 list and we were happy to oblige! Read his thoughts on the year below.
So, I wanted my top 10 list to not get lost in my 1,000,000 blog posts a day on Facebook; so I asked my friend over at Heavy Blog is Heavy to post it for me. Luckily they all think my music taste is great and that I’m funny as fuck, or I wouldn’t have been worked into the last day of publishing. 2012, has been a year full of jacking off, bad relationships, and somewhat decent music; at least for me. Communications was my focus for this year, and laying low. I think I got high more then anything in the last year and just blasted music. 2013 will be much more productive; my band will actually make real music and not fuck up splits with other bands, I’ll produce more guitar picks, and I’ll still smoke way too much weed. Here’s my top 10 releases of 2012.
What a year. Here is a summary of my most pleasurable listening experiences. Quick shout outs to Gaza, Eldrimner, Acrania (Mexico), Disfiguring the Goddess, Gods of Eden, Trash Talk, Xibalba and TesseracT who just barely missed the cut. Sorry guys.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy my list. I didn’t mess around. Just meat and potatoes. Also, I’d love it if you left a comment validating my list or insulting me for terrible taste! Either way, happy doomsday!
Trash Talk01. Eat The Cycle
02. Exile On Broadway
03. My Rules
04. F.E.B.N.
05. Uncivil Disobedience
06. Blossom & Burn (feat. Hodgy Beats & Tyler, The Creator)
07. Reasons
08. Fuck Nostalgia
09. Apathy
10. Thanks, But No Thanks
11. Bad Habits
12. Swinging To Pieces
13. For The Lesser Good
14. Dogman
It has been a monumental year in hardcore. Whether it’s the dark and harrowing approach of Gaza‘s No Absolutes in Human Suffering or the purely recreational 2 Hot 3 Handle by Heavy Blog favorites Cut Your Teeth, we have seen an incredibly diverse array of hardcore music. That isn’t even mentioning the emotionally charged and technically unforgiving Converge album or Xibalba‘s Hasta La Muerte that reinvents the term “heavy”. Like I had said, this year is monumental. Whether it be fun, emotional, technical, heavy, fresh, or innovative, hardcore has had a hell of a run this year. Rounding out these releases however is Trash Talk‘s latest offering 119. Blistering riffs that beg for stage dives and mosh pits, lyrics crafted for the most enthusiastic of sing alongs and iconography that would make Black Flag jealous, 119 has all the right ingredients to become a hardcore staple.
Harness01. Decline
02. The Agonies Of Death
03. Scorched Earth
04. Fragmented Flesh
As if Gaza, Xibalba and a forthcoming Converge record wasn’t enough dark hardcore/chaotic metalcore to supplement fans of all things raw and harrowing, Californian newcomers Harness have given us a bitesized chunk of material that stacks up against their influences. Quite a feat for such a young band and even more impressive is that all we have to judge them by is a four track EP. The EP is very reminiscent of Gaza’s latest effort No Absolutes For Human Suffering, but with more of an emphasis on punchy riffs and stop-go vocals. Essentially it’s Gaza if they played a more straight forward type of hardcore.
