“Sometimes, you don’t need nuance. Sometimes you don’t want prog-soaked journeys through inner turmoil, or post-whatever atmospherics that whisper about pain instead of screaming it in your face. Sometimes you just want music to sound like the goddamn world is on fire. Featuring members of Without Waves and site favorites The Atlas Moth, Chicago’s Motherless might have just that with their debut Do You Feel Safe?.” Save the mothers.
“Concept albums inherently have higher aspirations than the average release and therefore necessitate an elevated standard of critique. Not only must the music delight, but everything on the album—lyrics, instruments, tone, track placement, pace—must support a well-developed central narrative.” Now that, motherfucker, is what I mean when I say “set up the stakes of the review.”
March Filters bring summer bewilders when missed, so come see what we found in the iron scrapings.
Our man in the Netherlands attended Roadburn and sent dispatches from the front. Then he went missing…
Carcharodon and Cherd roll out their Top Ten(ish) of 2024 for all the metaverse to gawk at. Pay first!
Doom et Al and Dear Hollow take the stage to share their carefully considered Top Ten(ish) of 2024. Throw flowers.
“When I first came on as a writer here, I had all kinds of ideas about what bands I’d be reviewing before the reality of seniority fully hit me in the solar plexus. I wanted to review Pallbearer. I got there, but I had to wait until they…uh…weren’t that good anymore and other, more senior writers moved on. I wanted to review Panopticon. Still waiting on that one. Same with YOB. I wanted to review Inter Arma, and Grymm surprisingly took pity on a n00b, so I’m forever grateful for that. Today I get to check off another goal. When Akerblogger left these halls, I loudly proclaimed dibs on any future Thou records.” Thee, Thou, wow.
“Black Tusk is one of those bands that are eternally 3.0, and I’ve always been completely content with that. My first experience with the Savannah, Georgia veterans was 2011’s Set the Dial, a veritable riff-fest of sludge to counter the swampy slogs I had only been acquainted with. In ways, the trio stood shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Mastodon and Baroness without the lofty ambition: you come for the sludge, you stay for the riffs.” Tusk and run.
“If you’ve been following the modern grindcore scene in any fashion over the past fifteen years, then you’ve at least heard of Maryland’s high-output, low-trend grindmongers Full of Hell. Collaborating or splitting space with everyone from tough punks Code Orange to Japanese static spinner Merzbow to pneumatic pulse demons The Body, Full of Hell scrapes ideas from every corner in the extreme music space to fuel the iterative process of the twenty to thirty-minute burners that are their “full-length” releases.” Hell is home.
“The act’s history is one associated with Sleep worship. Fuzzy riffs, croons thick with weed, and mammoth drums did little to distinguish from the masses, and their moniker became a comical reflection of the music contained within. Both Temple of the Fuzz Witch’s 2017 self-titled debut and 2020 follow-up Red Tide followed this Black Sabbath but haze-filled, orange amp- and MountainKing Megalith-fueled weight.” Fuzz is the new buzz.
