California deathcore band Suicide Silence throw down another raging album with Remember … You Must Die.
Suicide Silence was formed twenty years ago by musicians who were working at the time in other bands. One of the early deathcore acts, Suicide Silence had a big impact on the heavy music scene, releasing several critical albums. After some controversy over the direction of their self-titled album in 2017, the band hit back with Become The Hunter three years later, and now the new record rings with solid echoes of their earlier work. The band is Chris Garza (guitar), Mark Heylmun (guitar), Hernan “Eddie” Hermida (vocals), Ernie Iniguez (drums), and Dan Kenny (bass).
There is an intro piece, “Remember…,” and eleven songs after that on the new album. “You Must Die” starts things off with a savage kick to the knees. Hurricane percussion and shrieking, screeching, croaking vocals exist in a syncopated blizzard of rhythm and riff. That is your wakeup call. “Capable of Violence (N.F.W.)” cranks up the brutality and weakens your lifeline. The first lead guitar work bleeds in and wails out. “Fucked For Life” is a chugging street anthem that gets you stomping along then throws you in the wood chipper. The moderated riff returns but now you know not to trust it – some crazy crooked change could happen at any second. Defying precedent, a melodic and lyrical episode ensues, then swells, then explodes.
Other stand-out tracks for me are “God Be Damned,” a song which functions at an apparent pace that exceeds its actual speed. “Endless Dark” is mined in that same vein. The closer, “Full Void,” is a journey that begins with a mystical energy then devolves into a dark spell gone wrong and finishes with an extremely creepy outro. Beautiful. This album is caustic. It roughs you up, grates against you, and takes what it likes. Recommended.
Remember … You Must Die hits the streets on Friday, March 10th through Century Media Records. It is available everywhere, and good descriptions of the extant physical variants can be found at the label’s store (link below).
Max Cavalera and Soulfly put a crack in High Street outside Skully’s in Columbus this week on their Totem tour.
Soulfly
Skully’s Music-Diner is a regular stop for metal bands when they are in the middle of the country. With no pit and not even a barricade, really, fans can get right up to the stage. When the circle pit swirls open, it can engulf the bulk of the room, putting everyone in play – or in jeopardy, depending on how you look at it. If that sounds good to you, now you know where go.
Soulfy brought two bands with them on this leg of the tour. First up, Skinflint, a three-piece metal band from Botswana. I had heard of them but had never seen the band in action, so I was ready go. Their new album is their seventh, Hate Spell, released just days before the show. Their music is infectious metal with incredible rhythm and masterful guitar. They played a couple cuts from the new record, and dipped into their deep catalogue for a few well-seasoned favorites, too. Great set.
Skinflint
Bodybox middled. Bodybox is a Florida deathcore band, and they are a very different act compared to either of the other bands. I didn’t know anything about them before the show, so I went in unencumbered by expectations. A relatively new group, they have released a demo and an EP so far. Their sound was tight while it lasted, but they unfortunately experienced technical difficulties for a large part of their time on stage, leading vocalist Harry Brown to riff off the top of his head and to drink a number of beers handed up from the crowd while the troubles were addressed.
Bodybox
Soulfly has been on my bucket list for a while now. I saw Max Cavalera last year and that show was a highlight of my concertgoing for 2022, no question about it. Soulfly released a new studio album last year, Totem, and that was one of the better albums last year, too (there is a link to our review of that record at the end of this article). My interest in the band has therefore been heading toward a peak in recent months. Max with his four-string ESP was joined on stage by Zyon Cavalera on drums, Mike Leon on bass, with Mike DeLeon playing guitar.
Max Cavalera
The show opened on “Back To Primitive,” and the packed room starting jumping immediately. The pit opened on that first song, which doesn’t usually happen – even with the headliner, there is often a song or two of grace before the pushing starts. Not this time. Everybody was ready to party with Soulfly.
Soulfly
They went back to the beginning next with “No Hope = No Fear,” and there was never any hint of slowing down. They did play a couple of songs from Totem, but mostly this night was a greatest hits affair, with a couple of covers thrown in the mix as well. I thought the Max and Iggor Cavalera tour was great last year, and it was, but this Soulfly performance cranked up even a notch higher. It was a great show, and now I am scanning the calendar to see if there is any way I can see them again before this tour is over. Highly recommended.
Max Cavalera
Soulfly is on the road through April Fool’s Day. Check out the dates and cities on the tour poster below and make plans to catch the show.
Thy Art Is Murder brought their Decade Of Hate tour toColumbus, Ohio, with Kublai Khan TX, Undeath, I Am, and Justice for the Damned.
Thy Art Is Murder
If you live anywhere near The King of Clubs in Columbus, Ohio, you must go see a show there. It is an excellent venue with a generous open floor in front of the stage and a mezzanine-level horseshoe balcony that has a dedicated bar. It is the only place I go to regularly that has an announcer who, between sets, gives you a run-down of the drink specials. Every time I have been there the crowds have been great and the staff are always fantastic. While they host all manner of shows, they have a special affection for heavy metal, and the list of acts that hit their stage is very impressive.
Australian deathcore upstarts Justice For The Damned opened the Thursday night show. They told the crowd many times how they have been wanting to come to the US for years, and how they were fired up to get on the tour with fellow countrymen Thy Art Is Murder. They played like they meant it, stomping the stage and chewing the rafters. The show in Columbus was my first time seeing Justice For The Damned and they made a great first impression on me.
Justice For The Damned
Apart from the headliner, I Am is the band I most wanted to see. I had caught there act last year in Fort Wayne at Piere’s. Ever since then, I have been on the look-out for another opportunity to hear them live. They put out a new album recently, Eternal Steel, which we reviewed favorably here at FFMB (link to that review below). This Dallas, Texas death metal band is one of my absolute favorites working today, with their huge , resounding riffs and just the right amount of groove. They played music from the new album as well as crowd pleasers from their previous two records. In the second slot of five, I Am ratcheted up the expectations for the rest of the night.
I Am
Undeath is a straight-ahead death metal band from Rochester, New York – they’ll tell you that themselves from the stage, “We play death metal. That’s all we do.” Supporting their 2022 album It’s Time…to Rise from the Grave (Prosthetic Records), they were on the mark and deadly in their attack. Raucous and ready, the did the deed and got the pit roiling.
Undeath
Kublai Khan TX is on tour for the first time in a while and, judging by the reaction of the crowd, they have been sorely missed. I was very surprised by how many fans knew the words to their opening number, “The Hammer,” and sang along on the punchlines. Hard- and metalcore pounding is what was served up and their was nothing left over when they left the stage. The band’s latest record is the EP Lowest Form Of Animal, and it’ll give you some idea of what you missed if you weren’t at the show. But really, seeing Kublai Khan TX live is the best way to go.
Kublai Khan TX
Kublai Khan TX
Australian metal masters Thy Art Is Murder are stalking North America once again. I haven’t seen them for a few years, the last time being at Higher Ground in Burlington. The new tour, the Decade Of Hate Tour, is shaping up to be one that will be talked about for years to come.
Thy Art Is Murder
Starting off as usual, in the dark with blasts of strobing light, front man CJ McMahon came on stage and sang around a pedestal of the damned, laying is head back and crooning at the night. The intensity of his performance shines through is rolled-white eyes on brutal killers like “Reign Of Darkness” and “The Purest Strain Of Hate.” The show at The King Of Clubs was the second stop on the tour, but already all the bands were firing on all cylinders, and Thy Art Is Murder was ready and waiting to pounce. This was my first metal show of the year and I could not have asked for more.
Thy Art Is Murder
Thy Art Is Murder
The tour runs through to the ides of March, crisscrossing the country – see the tour poster below for dates cities near you. It is a must-see for heavy music fans. Grab your tickets before they sell out.
Salt Lake City deathcore band Chelsea Grin releases part one of the suffer pair, Suffer In Hell.
Chelsea Grin started out around 2007, releasing their first EP the following year. The band experimented with different approaches to the heavy and sharp music they were creating over the years, and there were a couple of schisms leading to major line-up shifts. Indeed, no founding members remain in the band today. Up to now they have released five full-length albums to go along with the pair of EPs, the most recent long-player being 2018’s Eternal Nightmare. The new project is coming out in two pieces, the first of which can be had now: Suffer In Hell.
“Origin Of Sin” offers a dramatic introduction to the album. Sinister and dark, it sounds a bit like a battle in a medieval fantasy movie is about to begin. Almost like a Danny Elfman soundtrack, except meaner. The hissing and gravely vocals are what really send the music over the cliff into the land of cruelty – you get a genuine feeling that there is going to be no respite to the dread, and that terrible, terrible things are about to happen. Very creepy. “Foreverbloom” follows and does not brighten the atmosphere at all. The music is more actively brutal, and there is a playful brutality wherein you get the feeling that whatever horrors are being perpetrated are indeed intentional and well planned out. “Deathbed Companion,” in contrast, inspires a sense of deep hopelessness more than fear.
This album, then, has a deliberate and calculated wickedness. The most obvious expression is in the singing, but don’t overlook the ravaging percussion that rears up periodically to the forefront, and the maniacal guitars that have their own irregular gravitational pull. The songs are all on point and brand, yet they purvey delightful differences. Notice, for example, “Floodlungs” with its aquatic oppression and “Mourning Hymn,” an unfathomable divinity. “Suffer in Hell, Suffer in Heaven” is the final track and is perhaps a bridge from this beginning to the second album where we will reach the end. At the finish, which is the middle, I felt a little sore but I still wanted to know how it will all turn out. Recommended.
Suffer In Hell is out on Friday, November 11th through OneRPM Records. For the record, part two, Suffer In Heaven, will be released on March 17, 2023.
Florida’s Bodysnatcher is a deathcore band touring for their latest album, Bleed-Abide, which is one of my top picks for 2022. Their performance was a mesmerizing combination of muscular metal and laid-back confidence, and it resonated with the growing crowd in Hartford. They could have played for an hour and a half and still we would have wanted more.
The seventh album from Ingested is one of their best so far, Ashes Lie Still.
UK death metal band Ingested has been on a tear these past few years, releasing three albums in as many years. This is a picked-up pace even compared to the steady track they were on. The band is now a trio – Jason Evans (vocals), Sean Hynes (guitar, backing vocals), and Lyn Jeffs (drums) – but the sound they produce is just has heavy and brutal as it has been since the beginning sixteen years ago.
There are ten tracks on the new album. Guest musicians augment the core band on many songs. On the opening piece, “Ashes Lie Still,” Julia Frau adds a melodic interaction to the brutal, cross growling vocals. Languid lines float over the killing attacks, like blue skies during a stabbing. The syncopation and the periodic entry of hissing black metalish vocal passages further bend and curb any potential subgenre descriptive labels. This one plumbs your depths. “Shadows in Time” seems at first a little more straight-forward, but it is ravaging and relentless, rather like having your teeth cleaned with a shotgun. And, too, here, there are disequilibrium forces at work pushing the musical narrative this way and that. No respite.
The entire album is challenging and entertaining, cracking off in different directions with darkly gleeful abandon. I am especially impressed by “All I’ve Lost,” a song that has a guest appearance by Matt Heafy. Its early quiet attitude builds tension given the music that has come before – you know it is going off the rails soon and that makes you dig your fingernails into your leg as the sound builds. Excellent. “Scratch the Vein” is another one to look out for. It has a more measured tempo overall, and an added weight. Altogether, this record gets high marks and is one of my favorites from the band so far. Recommended.
Ashes Lie Still is out now through Metal Blade Records. Explore its many forms at the links below.
Danish deathcore band Cabal release their darkly charmed album Magno Interitus.
Springing up not long ago in Copenhagen, Denmark, Cabal is a relatively new band. Their two previous long-players, Mark Of Rot (2018) and Drag Me Down (2020), had all the signs anyone would need to see that Cabal was a rising force and that it had the potential to erupt. The new album, it turns out, is as deadly as spewing lava.
The show starts with an excellent sentiment, “If I Hang, Let Me Swing.” It is noisy, and loud, and sounds a little like what might happen if Disturbed and Breaking Benjamin were smashed together in an industrial hardcore press. There is a lot of shouting and screaming. Clanging abounds, and spacy warbles enter and exit. It’s a situation. “Insidious” leans at first toward the black metal domain before crooking a groove. The title track, next, is a sinister whisper, a dark insinuation, that turns brutal fast and lifts your hide away. The pace is down shifted a bit even as the sentiment harshens and penetrates. This album is a raking.
If you are in the proper frame of mind, this music will affect you. Watch out for “Blod af Mit” because it has a strong industrial stance and a plying energy. Listening to “Like Vultures” is a lot like taking a beating. “Plague Bringer” might be the clearest statement of musical intent on the record, and, in any case, it is the final word so it carries weight. This is not a casual album. It is not something you can take lightly. If you have darkness inside you that needs getting out, this music might be your catalyst. Recommended.
Magno Interitus hits the street on Friday, October 21st through Nuclear Blast Records.
Spanish grindcore band Ernia release their second album, How To Deal With Life And Fail.
Formed initially from a couple of the members of Wormed, Ernia is a blasting grindcore band from Logroño, Spain that appears to value variegation, and perhaps chaos, in their musical compositions. Mainlining death metal into the grind framework and then cracking it in every direction has worked out for them. Following up on their self-titled debut (2016/18), How To Deal With Life And Fail might just be the ticket they are looking for because it is a major accomplishment. The band is Omar I. Sanchez (vocals), Gabrial Valcazar (drums, bass), Daniel Espinosa (guitar), and Daniel Valcazar (guitar).
There are thirteen tracks on the new album, all save one running under three minutes. “Farewell Sputnik” begins with a tinkle and a scream before moving on to flat out belligerence. “Q,” up next, has a very punk feel to it, and it goes out on a thrashing ravager ramp. Very nice. “Room Full Of Paper Cranes” is like a car that didn’t pass a state safety inspection going at a high velocity on a rough road until it breaks apart, with a nice little bass romp in the middle.
By now your senses are becoming a little frayed and you are only six minutes in. Suddenly, “Frustration Theory” brings the doom, and then “The Deer Chaser” pops it up for a while, making sure to slip in multiple chops and hacks. “Dharma” is a devastating deathpunk piece. “A Mute Florist” is a chainsaw in a beehive. It is one outlandish expression after another. The final song is the epic “Ikigai,” twice as long as any other on the album. It is surprisingly somber and sad in its first half, then otherwise after.
I am not sure what I expected from this album, but it definitely delivered – which makes little sense because I didn’t know what I was looking for. But there you have it. Recommended.
How To Deal With Life And Fail is out on Friday, July 22nd through Transcending Obscurity Records.
Flying Fiddlesticks Music Blog 