It’s funny how experimental, extreme, and essentially subversive genres become just as susceptible to tropes and cliches as any other genre out there. It probably has something to do with how creativity works, that most of us need a common scaffolding from which to work, leaving the truly wild explorations…
I’m on a roll with recommending new tech death this week, what with a rapidfire review for new EPs from Sutrah and Svengahli and now a full stream of the excellent debut from Aronious. As you’ll hear for yourself below, Perspicacity (available Friday, March 13, via The Artisan Era) is…
February! Last year, I called it “The Bastard Month” and I stand by that. This year though, this transitory month was chock full of amazing releases. It triggered my “oh my god there is so much music” mode many times, in part because we also started getting promos for the…
Editor’s Note: Longtime reader Remi VL is a regular guest contributor to our Release Day Roundup posts! He submitted several of the albums listed below. Join his Facebook group for more recommendations. Each month, we always seem to come to the same conclusion when it comes to our Editors’ Picks column: Friday release days open the floodgates and…
For eight years, the Canadian tech-death Megazord of Beneath The Massacre have watched their countrymen and neighbours hit the (relative) mainstream in metal with varying degrees of success. It’s a hot product. Having the most technically challenging, mind-bending material and implementing it into the most extreme forms of metal isn’t…
Editor’s Note: I’m glad to welcome longtime reader Remi VL as a regular guest contributor to our Release Day Roundup posts! He submitted several of the albums listed below. Join his Facebook group for more recommendations. Well, here we are: another year full of new releases. In lieu of our weekly Release Day…
Heavy Pod Is Heavy Cast!
This week we have a bunch of spicy ones. Noname announcing she’s no longer doing shows for reasons you’d better listen to the cast for, and a larger conversation about “intellectual rap” and its commodification. Then, Dragged Into Sunlight and their label troubles. New material from Spiritbox and Beneath the Massacre. Ihsahn’s upcoming EPs. Then, cool people time with The Irishman, Money Heist, Knives Out, and Swallow. Finally, Death Stranding discussion. Enjoy.
So, April has come and gone and now spring is here in earnest. While there was definitely a slow down in the SHEER VOLUME of releases from April, there definitely wasn’t a decline in quality. May brought us some of our favorite albums from 2016 so far and some which are certain to feature on high spots in our end of year lists. Speaking of which, next month we won’t be doing an Editors’ Picks or rather, we will but it will be a special, Worth Your Time in 2016 so far edition. In the meantime, let’s dig in to this month’s selection, featuring some heavy, some sad and, mainly, a whole lot of excellent.
What’s it about Canada that causes them to have excellent tech death bands? First Fragment is yet another one in the string of such bands, and they definitely live up to the stereotype. Their debut album Dasein, five years in the making, was anticipated quite a bit by those who had listened to their excellent EP The Afterthought Ecstasy. Playing in the lines of greats like Gorod, Beyond Creation and Beneath the Massacre, the band’s debut album is an instant classic. Full of over the top melodic technical playing, Dasein is a joy to listen through and through.
Starter Kit analyzes the ins-and-outs of some of the more obscure and niche sub-genres within the metal spectrum and offers a small group of bands that best represent the sound. Read other Starter Kit entries here. There is a subgenre of tech death that takes the ideals of the genre…
