i will admit i'm not the most smartest screamo aficionado in the world but i still eat this shit up cuz i love emo music and i LOVE this raw, metallic style! the more understated alternate cover for OLTH's debut on cassette reads "OLTH NYC SCREAMO FUCK YOU" in big white letters stacked on top of one another. the brazenness of it all really fooled me--a part of my brain expected this band to express some kinda lighthearted side to counter the emotion. on the contrary, this album has ... read more

i've probably used the term "tiktok metal" before to make fun of trendy shit, but today i'm going to use it in a new way--a pioneering way, in fact--to describe the PSYCHO-FRAME experience to the good people of the world who need to know. this band's style of deathcore IS tiktok metal; not on account of its popularity or anything u might usually associate with the use of tiktok as an adjective, but because it's the most hyper-distilled and overly simplified form of deathcore ... read more

ive never known quite what to make of powerviolence besides "its cool" cuz it just goes by so fast. grind is a lil more grounded to me, whereas powerviolence is literally built on being spastic. maybe i just gotta listen to more of it...thats very possible. in any case, its the kind of genre id describe as dizzying. manifested forms is kinda disorienting in all the usual pv ways, but i do really really fuck with it. i feel like i can sink my teeth into it whatever the fuck that means. ... read more

powerviolencefrommexicothatgetsinandoutinjustsixminutesprettysickstuffcheckitoutifulovepv

see you next tuesday are back with their unpredictable time signatures, tempo changes and frenzied guitars! mathgrind heads, this is for u . disregarding an occasionally neat but mostly shaky production job, i'm really into distractions. 2007's parasite is a spazzcore classic and whether or not it's more frenetic n #freaky than distractions is kinda irrelevant to me tbh. i love that album but the comparisons are just unnecessary i think. distractions immediately makes an impression. to the ... read more

being the debut EP of a band with zero presence on sites like RYM/AOTY/etc, i was surprised to hear how complete the katechon and the unending fire sounded...until i found out pyrkagion was founded by members of bell witch, hissing, and human effluence (the last of whom i'm not familiar with but the former two i've dug to varying degrees over the years). i see now. while the style shifts throughout these 25 minutes, occasionally highlighting brutality over melody and vice versa, one of their ... read more

from the very beginning, sanguisugabogg succeeded at cultivating the slimiest, swampiest death metal out there. pornographic seizures was their debut and it was flames from the get go. i know their sound is incredibly divisive but i've been a fan since i first heard this nugget of brutality, and while i'll still defend the rest of their output, it's hard for me to deny this as their best release so far.

as fulcrum would say, i'm faded than a goddamn hoe right now my friends. i'm in the most receptive mood possible to proggy shit, so i figured what better time than right now to check out the new horrendous? i loved idol and have high expectations going into ontological mysterium. to be honest, if this album's as amazing as its predecessor, it might cement horrendous as one of my favorite bands right now. concerts may need to be attended, tshirts may need to be purchased...you know the drill. ... read more

was this seriously played on a telecaster?!?!?! i read that online and i'm choosing to believe it without doing an ounce of research because I'M TAKING CONTROL OF MY REALITY. i'm going to live in a world where doldrum and pungent stench prove that telecaster metal is secretly superior to all other guitar music, feel free to join me. on the knocking, doldrum create their own reality: a mythical american kvlt adjacent to scandinavia's own. it's every bit as self-indulgent as any passionate, ... read more

according to RYM, horrendous emerged from south carolina but have been based in philly for a while now...not quite sure how long to be entirely honest, but in any case, i'm claiming them cuz they rule. they started out as a more traditional death metal outfit before evolving into one of the best progressive dm acts in the mainstream. i've mentioned before that prog metal is hit or miss for me, even when you pair it with my favorite thing in the world, but idol is an undeniable, EMPHATIC hit. ... read more

one of the greatest & most creative OSDM albums i've ever heard, and the riffs were played on a telecaster. boss shit

LIST OF (OFFICIALLY) UNRELEASED (IN AMERICA) SONGS THAT APPEAR ON THIS DEMO

MARMALADE
FRIIK
BLUE
STORAGED

ALL ARE IN MY TOP 20 FAVORITE SOAD SONGS

FUCK THIS BAND

system's second demo truly stands as one of their best recordings in my eyes. it has competition with tape 4 as far as my favorite SOAD demo goes, but it might just be...featuring two unreleased slices of PRIMO vintage system, it showcases my favorite band of all time at their creative peak. whenever i talk about them to other metalheads, people generally think of an accessible alt-metal band that charted with toxicity; while that side of them (which i love as well) has defined the majority of ... read more

some system of a down demos are impressive enough to recommend to any casual fan of the band who's interested in their earliest work. i wouldn't say that about this tape, but diehards will find these incredibly raw renditions of classics enjoyable; sugar here sounds like an extremely sludgy, dark interpretation of korn-style nu metal, very different from the studio edition we're used to. suitepee sounds like the first slipknot album 4 years before that came out. and there's also the unreleased ... read more

writing this as i'm listening to it for the first time and i dunno...i want to like this and at first i could kinda get behind it but for over half an hour...i'm not sure i can genuinely wholeheartedly dig it. it's just too. fucking. bright. the hyper melodic singing, the overproduced guitars, the fucking trance synths, i could deal with all of them individually for a while. but 10 songs...nah, i don't know man, that's half an hour of this overbearing shit. and be real ur not here for the ... read more

this aggressively 2000's technical sound is actually really fun. it's like anime metal: definitely overproduced for extreme metal standards, so in my mind, it genuinely occupies "underoath but spicy" territory. imagine a fusion (a SYNERGY, if u will) of y2k-era christian metalcore, scandinavian melodeath and technical thrash...riffs on riffs, with corny yet almost kinda endearing sometimes vocals. harmless at the end of the day so diehard metalheads likely won't find a hidden ... read more

silicon heartbeat's second outing is much better than their first. the vocals still aren't a strongsuit by any means...they're actually still pretty weak, but nowhere near as project-tankingly lame as they used to be. as you'd expect, the songwriting and performances are better this time around as well, building on the sonically serviceable yet not particularly memorable sound of the debut. the guitars are very raw and the synths might actually be the coolest i've heard on any silicon heartbeat ... read more

ok, the vocalist straight up tanks this EP and i won't sugarcoat it. his delivery sucks. i don't even know what he was going for. he wasn't great on this band's 2023 EP i checked out, but it's clear there have been some major improvements, so props to dude! vocals are hard as fuck to do. you gotta try tho, and it sounds like he was barely givin it like 25% in the beginning. i can empathize with the instinct to drown one's own voice in effects to mask it and attempt to mold it into something ... read more

hailing from a michigan garage, silicon heartbeat play loud, meaty horror punk with mutant synths that sounds like the misfits by way of gee tee. its three tracks clock in at less than four minutes long (apparently short enough to be designated a single by streaming metadata despite being sold as an EP on bandcamp) but they leave a strong impression. splatter beach is the highlight i would recommend. the sound is every bit as spooky, gorey and old-time rock n' roll-y as one would expect from a ... read more

black metal was already the indie rock of extreme metal. then blackgaze somehow made it even gayer

if u know anything about me then u should know that a billboard charting, post-metal influenced, los angeles based blackgaze band signed to the flenser doesn't sound like my cup of tea, but everyone seems to love agriculture and i notoriously enjoy nothing more than pooping on a parade. if i dig it, it's the first record of its genre in YEARS to genuinely resonate with me. if not, i get to make ... read more