Every now and then I get hit hard with more music than I can handle at once. When that happens, I have two choices: sacrifice a few releases to make 1 or 2 full reviews, or cut corners and put out a list of shorter ones. For the sake of the bands, I prefer the latter. These were just a fraction of what I am working on right now, but I wanted to make sure that they all made their way into your ears one way or another.
Accident Prone hail from Norfolk, Virginia. They are another hardcore, technical band I found on the always wonderful and informative Mathcore Index group on Facebook. This album, Love. Hate. is a focused 11 minutes of pure sand-blasting. Violent screams and discordant guitars meet rumbling bass and frenetic drumwork. I could scarcely catch my breath. Do you like apples? Accident Prone used one to smash my teeth in, how do you like them apples?
FFO: Converge, Great American Ghost, Psyopus
Heading overseas for this one, Straight Hate is a grindcore band from Chelm, Poland. They combine the brevity and chaos of grindcore with a few other styles that makes their sound stick out just enough to catch the ear. The choice of distortion has that Kurt Ballou touch while the vocals oscilate between a brutal grunt and one of the highest shrieks I have ever heard. The drumming here is also absolutely maniacal. I don't always listen to grind, but when I do, it's because Every Scum is a Straight Arrow.
FFO: Black Breath, Pig Destroyer, Cattle Decapitation
Switching gears once more, Grimus is a brutal death/deathcore band from Elizabeth, New Jersey. They have a sound that has the appeal of the latter genre, but takes things to the more extreme territories of the former. Also, rather than focusing on deathcore groove, the instrumentation has a blackened approach that focuses on sharp tremolos in addition to the usual chug. Nothing ground-breaking, but still very fun and well-produced.
FFO: Within Destruction, Whitechapel, Suicide Silence
Our last stop is Estonia for progressive death metal band Horricane. I can't quite put my finger on what it is about this band's sound that got me on the hook, but I have been unsuccessfully trying to wriggle free ever since. Commanding death growls lay waste in a shifting sea of styles. Sometimes it's Cannibal Corpse with a djenty groove, sometimes there's an electronic/industrial vibe, and others the song opens up into a dash of theatrical clean singing and a bit of symphonic flair. Regardless, these 3 songs are hinting at some major talent and a band to watch in the future.
FFO: Meshuggah, Doomed, Barus