Thursday, December 8, 2011

The Fucking Wrath - Valley of The Serpent's Soul



Hybridization often produces interesting results but often predictable results.  Just look at fairly recent DVD releases like Sharktopus.  Before even seeing the movie, there's some preconceived idea that the film is a horror or thriller featuring a monster that is a cross between a shark and an octopus.  The Fucking Wrath create their own monstrous music by crossing the eighties hardcore of Black Flag with a heavy dose of  modern stoner metal of High on Fire.  


As the band name suggests this isn't supposed to be easy listening music and a continual anger rages throughout the album.  There's the driving sound of  Zeke in the intro to opener " The Question" and there's no denying that the vocals have the dope-smoking chest-beating caveman throaty roaring spit of High on Fire's Matt Pike. It's not all stoner metal and hardcore as snippets of Maiden ring though the stuck in mud sludgy heaviness of the appropriately titled "Swansong of a Madman".  The Black Flag influence mostly travels though in the chaotic yet controlled instrumentation especially in "Neuroddyssey", which is divided into three parts with the last named "Caverns of Black Flags".


The Fucking Wrath might not sound like the most original band but what they've done with the Black Flag blueprint beats the likes of Bl'ast and Career Suicide due to their fitting more into the heavy stoner metal category than hardcore.  Take the journey to the Valley of the Serpent's Soul and feel the burn The Fucking Wrath.

4/5

Band website here.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Buffalo Bangers- Blockader 7"





Atlanta's Buffalo Bangers play an 80's style gothic-death rock on this 7" single from Private Leisure Industries.  Largely owing to the stylish female vocals similarities comparisons to Siouxsie and The Banshees  will wash over this lot and this short review is another of many likely to come although I do also hear the likes of Bauhaus.  "Granite Grandma" strikes me as the straighter rock song with its steady but basic beat and is definitely the stronger of the two songs.


The band have made a couple of videos for both songs.


Granite Grandma





Blockader





This band gets bonus points from me for having their own website.


3/5



Monday, December 5, 2011

Monogamy Party - Pus City



"Pus City" is far from the possibility of a scenic place as they eye can see.  This metropolis is the creation of three piece Seattle band Monogamy Party.  There is nothing kind or beautiful in their music.   The bass and drum driven trio stab the listener in the ear with a fork and then twist it around a number of times with pliers with screaming being the objective.  Exactly whose screaming it is, really doesn't matter.  If the sound were personified it would be a rancid green-toothed puke covered  hobo living out a teenage mutant ninja turtle fantasy in a sewer puking out philosophy whilst unknowingly regressing to a toddler's mindset.

Check out "Covenant of Brother's" repitition of the phrase "This life is worse than death" because comparing this band to Old School came to mind but they're noisier than those nine and ten years old ever were and aren't as given to traditional song structures.

   This is the type of band who would be proud as punch to be told by their parent that their music sounds similar to a toilet flushing and would attempt and succeed at getting even noisier comparisons however sometimes there's often an early Beastie Boys type rap fighting imprisonment of the chaotic trio's mind-bending weirdness.

3.5/5

You can order the band's 10 inch vinyl and hear their music here.

Beastwars - IV

After over a year off for various reasons, we have returned solely because we wanted to review the new Beastwars album. I really w...