Noise

Ara Solis, Ashvattha (Iron Bonehead 2023)

Wayne Edwards, , , , ,

The debut album from occult black metallists Ara Solis is filled with noise and suffering, Ashvattha.

The origins of the band are a bit murky. As they tell it, “The beginnings of Ara Solis are difficult to trace and are often elusive, since the band was formed from the ashes of other black metal bands and solo projects. The oldest piece of recording is a rehearsal with different members to the current lineup dating from 2015 that never was spread. It is not until 2020 that the lineup becomes stable.” No mention of who is in the lineup, however, except the intimation that they might be a duo (although the band photo would seem to refute that notion).

What’s the album about. Here again, I will rely on published sources. “An altar of golden sacrifice mightily arises ashore the tempestuous waters of Finis Terrae. At the sylvan realms of frost, the holy gate of light and darkness appears erected stone by stone to safeguard the transdimensional portal of heroic resurrection. The Garden of the Hesperides grows around. The ancient tree of life and death [Ashvattha, Yggdrasil] pours the sap of eternity in the ritual copulation of oxygenic and anoxygenic photophosphorylation. Mortals bow their heads toward the arch of heavens. The sword of the warrior reflects the light of the midday amidst the eternal dust of warfare. The moon reflects the light of the sun at night, lightening the hidden paths of the forests beyond reincarnation. War is the Essence. Living souls are reaped where the Phoenix is reborn.” That is a lot to cover in a single album.

There are three tracks on the record. “Tromo Negro do Firmamento” has an ambient beginning, a single note that eventually starts to warble then fades out. Silence. A solitary electric guitar appears, crisp and crackling, then noise loads the frame and sour movement takes over. A shrieking voice can be heard. These elements come and go, then abruptly stop. “Ara Solis” is unrelenting, longer, and similarly styled. There is more and louder screaming on this track, and it is disturbing, especially when paired with a solitary guitar. Yikes. It does have a long cooldown, so you have time to mop your brow.

The anchor piece is the seventeen-minute “Ashvattha: The Tree of Life and Death.” In some ways, this track is a bit like a combination of the first two. I got into the guitar parts more in this third piece, and I am attracted to the ambition of its magnitude. The final few minutes are quietly moving. This album is not for everybody, but if you like noise and black metal and experimentation, this one might be for you.

Ashvattha is out on Friday, May 19th through Iron Bonehead Productions in digital, with a CD coming from Zazen Sounds. Try the links below for more information on the releases.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://zazensoundspublishings.bandcamp.com/album/zzs-104-ara-solis-ashvattha-digi-format-sold-out-available-in-high-quality-digital-download

Iron Bonehead Productions, https://ironbonehead.de/

© Wayne Edwards

Ara Solis, Ashvattha (Iron Bonehead 2023)

Tina Fey – Louise, Split (Nefarious Industries 2023)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , ,

Nefarious Industries has put together a Cincinnati double-tap of hardcore with a Tina Fey / Louise split.

So, what do we have here? Four hardcore songs split down the middle by a couple of bands from the river city of Cincinnati.

Tina Fey is Shon Worthington (drums), Bryce Aasen (guitar), and Logan Nichols (guitar, vocals). The band came together just last year and, in October, released Songs About Femboys. In celebration, they have anted up for the split. The two contributions from Tina Fey are both in the three-minute radio-length range. “Nuremberged” starts with a lot of noise and a perhaps a speech, then continues with more noise. There is clanging and screaming, and what sounds like it might be a recitation. A sour, squawky guitar enters for a while, followed by feedback. A sweet, lyrical guitar takes over, riding a nice quiet percussive vamp. It weirdens up again after that, finishing in an entirely different direction. “…Officer” is a little more punky, but the screeching and dissonance turns it quickly toward a less organized subgenre. A large part of the composition is the long off ramp.

Tina Fey

Louise is Kainon Loebker (bass), Kevin Vance (vocals), Paul Estes (guitar), and Harrison Miller (drums). Haunting the same general environs as their split-mates, the band produced a demo a couple years back and now are plunking down two new ones. Louise opts for shorter tracks with hard cracks. “Desert Serpent” has an echoey sound with a heavy bottom and strained vocalizations. Just beyond the center, the song goes slow and sludgy, dragging you through the mud. Nice. “Boulder” gets the job done in eighty-five seconds. It is a lovely flowery piece topped off with screaming.

Louise

However you most like your punch in the face, there is a slug in this split for you. Recommended.

The Tina Fey / Louise split is out on Friday, April 7th through Nefarious Industries on digital and cassette. Tap the links below to get yours.

Band photos by Gabrielle Hammarlund.

Links.

Tina Fey Bandcamp, https://tinafey.bandcamp.com/album/tina-fey-louise

Louise Bandcamp, https://louisecincy.bandcamp.com/album/tina-fey-louise

Nefarious Industries, https://www.nefariousindustries.com/

© Wayne Edwards

Tina Fey – Louise, Split (Nefarious Industries 2023)

Primitive Man & Full Of Hell, Suffocating Hallucination (Closed Casket 2023)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , ,

The first studio collaboration between Primitive Man and Full Of Hell is Suffocating Hallucination.

Denver’s Primitive Man is Jonathan Campos (bass), Ethan Lee McCarthy (guitar, vocals), and Joe Linden (drums), and I have always positioned them in my head as a doom band. Full Of Hell, on the other hand, who is peopled by Dave Bland (drums), Spencer Hazard (guitar), Dylan Walker (vocals, electronics), and Sam DiGristine (bass, vocals), comes to the my consciousness as a noisier band. That’s just what is in my head. Both have been around for more than ten years and both have been quite prolific, publishing a large number of releases, including many splits with other bands. This one, though, Suffocating Hallucination, is not a split where each band contributes their separate tracks. No, this one is a collaboration between the bands where the music was created jointly by them both.

Primitive Man
Primitive Man

Side A starts with “Trepanation for Future Joys.” This song leaves no doubt about what the album will be like. It is not misleading. It is a head-on confrontation at the confluence doom, sludge, and noise. I had to look up what trepanation means. It’s drilling a surgical hole in your skull. Yes indeed. The sounds you hear are overwhelming. “Rubble Home” is the place where mystery dwells. It is uncertain in what direction the narrative will run at any given point. There are rough and ready riffs at times and chaos elsewhere. It is a perilous journey. “Bludgeon” is less than half a minute long. It is like a painful, sudden emission.

Full Of Hell

On the flip side we have “Dwindling Will.” The music begins cautiously, or so it seems at first. As you listen, you start to become uneasy, and you realize it is not caution so much as evidence of the aftermath of something awful, something that cannot be remedied. This track overall is quieter than the others, and that somehow intensifies it in the context of the rest of the music. The last twitch is “Tunnels to God,” the longest piece of the set. It appears to begin in space, or possibly an adjacent dimension. As we approach the center of actionableness, the clangs increase in number and volume, as do the sounds of the vortex. Discernable string instrument sounds enter about four minutes in with massively distorted riffs, followed by steadying percussion. In due course vocalizations and even wider guitar work joins and pushes the music forward in a seemingly endless crescendo that ultimately breaks into noise for the final two minutes. It all makes sense. Recommended.

Suffocating Hallucination is out now through Closed Casket Activities. You can pick it up at the many links below.

Primitive Man photos by Wayne Edwards.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://primitivemandoom.bandcamp.com/album/suffocating-hallucination

Primitive Man website, https://www.primitivemandoom.com/

Full Of Hell webstore, https://fullofhell.bigcartel.com/

Closed Casket Activities, https://closedcasketactivities.com/

© Wayne Edwards

Primitive Man & Full Of Hell, Suffocating Hallucination (Closed Casket 2023)

Anxious Wave, Live From The Poison Factory (Nefarious Industries 2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , ,

Punk rock foursome Anxious Wave ply their trade with Live From The Poison Factory.

Stemming from Providence, Rhode Island, Brandon St. Pierre (vocals), Mikey Belcastro (guitar), Sam Okon (bass), and Dylan Lagory (drums) make up Anxious Wave. The band has been together since 2018, issuing a demo, an EP, and a split since then. Live From The Poison Factory is their first full-length album.

There are ten tracks on the record with an average running time of about two minutes. Number one in line is “Complex Needs.” Drums enter first, then a great bass line, a riff, and punk vocals. We are off and running now. Without listening to the lyrics at all you get the attitude from the tone. The complex needs seem to be a real pain in the ass – that’s what I am taking away from it. “The Silk Fortress” puts together disparate stances and makes them dance together as the bass line seems to have a mind of its own, the vocal is sad then mad, and the riff is surprisingly linear. It is like if an earthquake somehow created a perfect portrait in the generated ruin.

“Mirror Bed,” different still, does put me in mind of classic punk music from way back. It has a nice bounciness that helps the anger move along. “Nothing Elicits Joy” sounds like the title of a comment card at a crisis therapist’s office, and then “Regards” is a lovely ballad. Sort of.

The back half is similarly variegated. Lots of great juxtapositions, but also excellent straight-forward constructions, too. I am particularly enamored with “Executive Dissector,” with its additional vocal line and the flagrant raggedness of it all. It could just be me, but I get a strong nostalgic feel for the punk I used to listen to when I first listened to punk as I listen to Anxious Wave now. Yeah. Recommended.

Nefarious Industries will let Live From The Poison Factory loose on Friday, September 2nd on vinyl, cassette, and digital.

Links.

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

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

Nefarious Industries, https://www.nefariousindustries.com/

© Wayne Edwards

Anxious Wave, Live From The Poison Factory (Nefarious Industries 2022)

Hissing, Hypervirulence Architecture (Profound Lore 2022)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , , ,

Hypervirulence Architecture is the new album from Hissing.

With three EPs and a long-player under their belt, Seattle’s Hissing brings out a new full-length album, Hypervirulence Architecture. Having begun only in 2015, this is a notable record of musical creation from the highly respected death and black metal band. The musicians are Zach Wise (bass, vocals), Joe O’Malley (guitar), and Sam Pickel (drums).

This new record is noticeably different from their debut album, Permanent Destitution (2018). The press release gets it right when it notes that, on Hypervirulence Architecture, “the trio take their sound into more nightmarish, trance-inducing, mercurial, and mind-altering sonic dominions.” They achieve a delicate balance between what we might think of as death metal and black metal, while making concerted use of ambient/noise moments constructed sometimes almost ritualistically. It is a sinister blend.

“Cells of Nonbeing” is the first of seven tracks. It sounds for all the world like a frantic casting about in a dark cave that might very well be an abyss. The farther in you go, the more mysterious it becomes. The guitars lean toward dissonance part of the time, and the vocals are not meant to be reassuring. “Hostile Absurdity” further loosens the moorings you thought were secure, leaving you to drift into dangerous regions. “Operant Extinction” is then unleashed, and it is the most impressive track on the album. An epic piece, running over ten minutes, it is fascinatingly doomy and filled in every space with dark and frightening looks.

The second half of the album starts with a transition piece, “Hypervirulence,” then kicks in the door with “Intrusion,” a song that builds tension to the bursting point. “Identical To Hunger” and “Meltdown” are reflected images – visions distorted by a warped onyx glass. Listening to these last two tracks, I began to feel appropriated by some existential object that could not be clearly discerned. This album will affect you. Recommended.

Hypervirulence Architecture is out now through Profound Lore Records. Have a look at the label’s website and/or pick the album up at Bandcamp.

Band photo by Marena Shear.

Links.

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

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

Profound Lore Records, https://profoundlorerecords.com/

© Wayne Edwards

Hissing, Hypervirulence Architecture (Profound Lore 2022)

Cell Press review (No Funeral Records 2020)

Wayne Edwards, , , , , , , , ,

Montreal [*]core band Cell Press venture out with their first EP.

The band Cell Press is only about a year old, but the musicians it is comprised of have been plying their trade for some time. The band is Sean Arsenian, Joey Cormier, Mark McGee, and PQ. If I had to label the music on the self-titled EP, I would call it Punk, but the band does not embrace a particular label and writers are calling them everything from Grindcore to Metalcore to Sludge to Noise so I am going to go with [*]core. Fast, loud, guitar-driven music, sometimes discordant.

There are four songs and a longer track that is referred to as a “noise” piece in the press materials. “Piss Police” is up first and it begins tentatively with thrilling drumming and progressively coagulating guitar riffing, joined later by shouting. “Desert Breath” is like a person running down the street in a flaming halter top who seems to be more concerned about being late than being on fire. “Blacked Out in Verdun” – more great drumming and pensive guitar riffs to twist up the personal cataclysm. “Dead at OACI.” I assume this refers to the Metro Station (but it might not), and it goes from linear, certain riffs to pure mayhem, especially as the end nears. The long track is “My Son Will No the Truth,” clocking in at 11:40 and appearing at the end of the set. It is almost as long as the other for pieces combined. It is the sort of thing you have to just listen to and let happen. Describing it wouldn’t really get us anywhere.

Noisy and enjoyable, I give this Cell Press effort high marks. I am a Punk fan from the beginning, and I hear those roots here, certainly in the attitude, even if the category is technically off. The disenfranchisement is very appealing. Recommended.

You can buy the digital at Bandcamp, No Funeral Records has a cassette and T-shirt, and Ancient Temple Recordings will also be carrying products. Links below. The official release date is this Friday, November 27.

Links.

Bandcamp, https://cellpress.bandcamp.com/releases

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

Ancient Temple Recordings, https://ancienttemplerecordings.bigcartel.com/

No Funeral Shop, https://store.nofuneral.ca/product/cell-press-t-shirt-t-shirt-cassette-bundle

Cell Press review (No Funeral Records 2020)