Horror

Bloody Hammers, Washed In The Blood (2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , , , , ,

It’s Halloween – you need Bloody Hammers at your party. Washed In The Blood is out now.

Bloody Hammers is the Charlotte, North Carolina horror doom rock duo of Anders Manga (vocals, guitar, drums, bass, keys) and Devallia (keys, bass). For more than a decade, they have been laying down shivering grooves beginning with their self-titled album in 2012. Five more records followed over the years, and now we have the seventh, Washed In The Blood. The new one holds as many horrors as those that came before. This time around, Bloody Hammers took the DIY approach, and the result is a high water mark in their catalogue.

There are nine killer tracks on the new record. It all kicks off with a bang on “Black Sunday.” A serious riff is followed by a big, full hard rock sound and immediately recognizable vocals. It is called a hook for a reason and this one sinks in true and deep, putting me in mind of radio leads from not so long ago. This song would be an excellent opener for a live show.

The horror movie elements are infused in every song, hitting especially solidly on tracks like “Phantasmagoria” where the clear narrative and singable chorus creates a clear path to the anthemic. “And Soon The Darkness” is a rousing rough-houser with a gruff edge that gets polished in the vocals. “At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul,” on the other hand, goes full sinister and heavy gothic.

The entire album is winner and I played it through twice on the first listen. I say in all honesty that I like every track, but the song I can’t get out of my head is “Water to the Dead.” It is a combination of the insistent guitar and the heavy melodic surety in the way that the vocals execute the lyrics that combine to make it unforgettable. “Last Rites Of Lucifer” is a top shelf contender, too, and the final piece, “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” eliminates any doubt about the album making year’s best lists far and wide. I have been a Bloody Hammers fan all along, and the new record is at the top of the queue here at Shardik Media headquarters. Highly recommended.

Washed In The Blood is out now on digital, CD, and vinyl. Check and see if any physicals remain at the link below.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://bloodyhammers.bandcamp.com/album/washed-in-the-blood

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/BloodyHammers

© Wayne Edwards

Bloody Hammers, Washed In The Blood (2022)

Acid Witch, Rot Among Us (Hells Headbangers 2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , ,

Motor City horror metalists Acid Witch are back with the perfect Halloween album, Rot Among Us.

Stemming from the northlands of Detroit, Michigan, Acid Witch is a doom-ish metal band that vibes on horror themes. Making regular use of mysterious keyboard lines, the band has put together three previous full-length albums and a passionate string of splits and EPs. Their new album, Rot Among Us, has arrived just in time for the holiday. The Metal Archives lists the band members as Tim “Shagrat” Jenkins (vocals, bass), “Slasher” Dave Monastiere (vocals, keys), and Phil Warren (drums).

“Gather Each Witch” is the invocation that begins a horrifying trip into the dark netherworld of Acid Witch. Hissing chants and creeping keys are a strong signal of what follows. The title track has a hammering hook that is wickedly groovy. An eerie goblin voice drops in to narrate while the instruments lurk in the outskirts, rather like a song from The Nightmare Before Christmas. When the music surges it is a mini volcano. There is a great little lead guitar break that echoes the sound of the Alice Cooper tune “Cold Ethyl.” Following that, “The Sleeper” has a more traditional metal structure in vocal and rhythm with excellent rolling movements. It teeters and pounces in a very creepshow kind of way.

What you get overall on this record is many different looks at heavy horror-themed music. There is a recurring hideousness ideal that could be seen as a throughline but the songs themselves are quite different. “Psychedeathic Swampnosis,” for example, works the keys in ways you don’t hear on the other tracks, and “Evil Dad” is an up-tempo rumbler that gives you a good squeeze with a notably divergent sound. The essential weirdness is there in every song. The winning formula is that different bits and angles are highlighted through alternate means. “Gundella The Green Witch” is the final step and a pure delight. I love the honking cadence and the dooming weight of it all. The breakout thrash in the middle is inspiring, as is the long, sinister walk out. This album could get heavy spins during the altered states we sometimes find ourselves in. Recommended.

The digital version of Rot Among Us is available now through Hells Headbangers Records with the physicals to follow on Halloween.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://acid-witch-detroit.bandcamp.com/album/rot-among-us

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/acidwitchofficial

Hells Headbangers Records, https://shop-hellsheadbangers.com/

© Wayne Edwards

Acid Witch, Rot Among Us (Hells Headbangers 2022)

Avatar, Blue Ridge Rock Festival, Danville, Virginia, September 11, 2021

Wayne Edwards, , , , ,

The theater that is an Avatar performance is not to be missed. The spectacle is beguiling and it enhances the musical projections. Listening to the band is great and seeing them takes the experience to a whole new level.

Check out Avatar’s music on streaming platforms, including the latest release, Hunter Gatherer. Links appear below the photos.

All photos by Wayne Edwards.

Links.

Website, https://avatarmetal.com/

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/avatarmetal

YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/user/avatartube

Spotify, https://open.spotify.com/artist/4jpaXieuls7LVzG1uma5Rs

Blue Ridge Rock Festival coverage at Ryze-Up magazine, Blue Ridge Rock Festival 2021 – (ryze-up.com)

© Wayne Edwards.

Avatar, Blue Ridge Rock Festival, Danville, Virginia, September 11, 2021

Cradle Of Filth, Existence Is Futile (Nuclear Blast 2021)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , , , ,

The new album from Cradle of Filth, Existence Is Futile, is one of the most savage an unsettling they have released in recent memory.

For thirty years Cradle of Filth has been ravaging the heavy music scene. The band’s discography is massive, with twelve previous studio albums, many live records, compilations, EPs, and early demos. Diehard fans know them all and those same fans will surely welcome this latest addition to the canon. The lineup has changed over the long career of Cradle of Filth, naturally, and musicians on Existence Is Futile are Dani Filth (vocals), Richard Shaw (guitar), Ashok (guitar), Daniel Firth (bass), Martin Skaroupka (drums), and Anabelle (vocals, keys, lyre, and orchestration).

The new album is almost schizophrenic in its richness, with absolutely mad extreme parts somehow perfectly coexisting with catchy moments and theatrical flourishes. The impact is overwhelming and entirely satisfying.

There are fourteen tracks (counting the bonus tracks) on the album, including three transition pieces. The opener is a big, eerie, dramatic orchestration designed to raise your hackles for the first big song, “Existential Terror.” When this music enters your ears it creates a picture in your brain vividly depicting both the atmosphere and the direct narrative. The lyrics tell us, “Time to embrace the inevitable / we’re all going to fucking die.” With this at the start of the album you have to expect that this is going to be a wild ride.

The next two songs were released as singles, “Necromantic Fantasies” and “Crawling King Chaos.” Great choices as advance teasers as they are in turns savage, dramatic, theatrical, and catchy – now and then sounding like a tortured Danny Elfman locked in a dungeon on acid. Later on, Doug Bradley (the actor who plays Pinhead in the Hellraiser movies) makes an appearance on two songs to reprise his earlier role on Midian, “Suffer Our Dominion” and “Sisters of the Mist.” His unmistakable voice is a pure narrative delight.

My favorite track is “Black Smoke Curling from the Lips of War” because, to my ears, it has everything. There are gruff vocals and lyrical ones, soft orchestrations and brutal percussion, and all along exceptional guitar riffs and amazing lead work. I point to this song, but all the others fall into the same category of excellence. This is an album you’ll listen to time and again. Highly recommended.

Existence Is Futile is out now through Nuclear Blast in a great variety of incarnations. The label link below is a good place to browse.

Links.

Cradle of Filth website, www.cradleoffilth.com

Facebook, www.facebook.com/cradleoffilth

Nuclear Blast, https://shop.nuclearblast.com/en/products/sound/cd/cd/cradle-of-filth-existence-is-futile.html

Cradle Of Filth, Existence Is Futile (Nuclear Blast 2021)

Rob Zombie, The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy (Nuclear Blast 2021)

Wayne Edwards, , , , ,

Zombie stalks again with a new statement of his musical hurricane philosophy, The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy.

Rob Zombie first entered my sensory orbit the way he did for most people, with the formidable band White Zombie. Those last two albums, La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Volume One (1992) and Astro-Creep: 2000 (1995), are platinum monsters. The combination of horror movie themes and dialogue clips from films was a pretty new thing at the time, and White Zombie brought them into the mainstream with a sledge hammer.

Zombie went solo after the titanic success of White Zombie, releasing the beefy album Hellbilly Deluxe in 1998, and the big follow-up, The Sinister Urge, three years later. After that, he became more and more interested in making films, and his music shifted a little. He kept releasing albums every few years, and he remained extremely popular for his live performances, I last saw him at Aftershock in 2019 and it was a riot – and incredible show of loud music, flashes and bangs.

The new album has seventeen tracks with six transition segments. The opening insinuation is uncustomarily gentle. Oh, it picks right up, never fear. The music is not far off of what you probably expect: big guitar riffs, sound effects, dialogue captures, and Rob Zombie’s commanding voice.

The themes are from horror movies and situations, along with a number of completely off the wall crossovers, like the delightfully unexpected country-western-metal fusion of “The 18th Century Cannibals, Excitable Morlocks and a One-Way Ticket to the Ghost Train.” There are bangers in there too, as in the single, “The Eternal Struggles of the Howling Man,” a super-creepy whisperer “Boom-Boom-Boom,” and even an instrumental ballad, “The Much Talked of Metamorphosis.” The closer is the longest song, “Crow Killer Blues,” and it is a little horror musical all its own. It has the most serious tone to my ears, and it is the most compositionally fulfilling. There is something in here for everyone.

One thing you know for sure about a Rob Zombie album is that it’s going to be entertaining. Box checked. Recommended.

Get it absolutely everywhere now. Links below.

Live photo by Wayne Edwards, Aftershock 2019.

Links.

Website, https://robzombie.com/

Nuclear Blast, https://shop.nuclearblast.com/en/products/sound/cd/cd/rob-zombie-the-lunar-injection-kool-aid-eclipse-conspiracy.html

Rob Zombie, The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy (Nuclear Blast 2021)

Heads for the Dead, Into The Red (Transcending Obscurity 2020)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , ,

The hallowed hand of fate delivers a reckoning through the second album from Heads For The Dead, Into The Red.

The band is Jonny Pettersson (strings and keys), Ed Warbie (drums), and Ralf Hauber (vocals). I am guessing those names ring some bells as Heads For The Dead is a trio of heavy music all-stars. Combined as they are in this form, they are creating some of their best work to date. Lurking in the neighborhood of old school Death Metal, these compositions mind no narrow parameters. Elements of speed and doom work with the black and death principles in symbiotic fealty.

The themes have a solid foundation in horror, laying on the menace to coalesce in constant unease. Songs like the explosive “At The Dead Of Night” give way to the tension of “Horror Injection” then press on to epic constructs such as “The Séance,” which is a swaying ship finding its reckless way through the ether and spiritual chaos. Short, eager pieces live among meatier juggernauts in the harmony of a renaissance port city.

The final two songs of the set are the longest, anchoring the effort with their magnitude and scope. “Transilvanian Hunger” is a bloody affair, opening with a riotous peal – and sustaining it for six minutes with enough mass to create its own weather. “Creatures Of The Monolith” is a doom-ridden happening, with opening riffs like granite cliffs. Halfway through the tempo gets dialed up and the guitar weaves a spell that is a melodious consort to the directive vocals. An excellent finale. This album deserves a spot on anyone’s Best of 2020 list. Highly recommended.

Out now from the indefatigable Transcending Obscurity, the many forms and functions of Into The Red await your pleasure. The excellence of the new album suggests a need for the earlier one, too – Serpent’s Curse can be had.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://headsforthedead.bandcamp.com/

Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/headsforthedead

Label, https://tometal.com/

US label shop, https://transcendingobscurity.aisamerch.com/

Heads for the Dead, Into The Red (Transcending Obscurity 2020)