Reviews: metal

(metal / industrial crossover / punk / stoner)

Vision Bleak, The – The deathship has a new captain

Only seldom do I listen to metal music anymore, and in even less occasions to gothic metal. The Vision Bleak (new band by ex Empyrium member Schwadorf) did however draw my attention with this debut album…

Nadja – Skin turn to glass

Nadja is a one man act of Aidan Baker, Canadian multi-instrumentalist. As Nadja this is his second release, after releasing “Touched” on Deserted Factory Records from Japan. Nadja is all about ambient doom, drone metal, or any contamination of those words. Aidan Baker uses heavy doom riffs to create a drone like atmosphere…

Wolfmaster – Murder and religion

Wolfmaster, the name sounds rather metallish. But the 6 tracks on “Murder and Religion” sound different than that. Electronica play the most important role musicwise. The dominant string sounds convey a feeling of drama, at times sounding rather bombastic. The midtempo songs are rather heavy…

Dank – The Fallen/Not everyone wins

Dank is an American project apparently influenced by Twiztid (?), Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson. They combine hiphop and electronica, with influences from industrial and modern dance. The vocals combine singing and rapping. This debut of Dank is quite ambitious. It’s not just a collection of 20 songs, but it tells a story…

Punish Yourself – Disco Flesh: Warp 99

This French band knows how to tackle cyberpunk. Their mix of industrial, metal and punk is explosive. Disco Flesh: Warp 99 is a loud album that cannot be called enlightened, but it is very effective (for the dancefloor). Bands like Ministry and KMFDM sound very relaxing compared with Punish Yourself…

Little Match Girl – Little Match Girl

Little Match Girl was formed in 1999 and was named after the Hans Christian Andersen tale. They have been playing live for a while, but this is their debut album on the new label PlanetGhost Music from Leeds (UK). Their music can be described as industrial (metal), with ‘a twist of retro-sleaze and a pinch of nu-goth’…

Phantom Limbs, The – Displacement

Despite the fact that I was really charmed about the first album (Applied Ignorance) by this band, I was even more impressed by their side project Black Ice. By that name some members of The Phantom Limbs play a darker and more old-skool gothic orientated variation on post-punk music…

Popular Shapes – Bikini Style

Recently the album At Crystal Palace by Erase Errata was released. On that record a late seventies post punk sound could be heard. Bikini Style is the debut cd from the American band Popular Shapes, which has a somewhat comparable sound…

Curse of the Golden Vampire – Mass Destruction

Since Godflesh officially died it was quiet for a long time around Justin Broadrick (who is also behind projects like Techno Animal, Ice, Final, etc.). Now Mike Patton’s Ipecac label finally released the second album by ‘Curse of the Golden Vampire’, a project by Justin Broadrick and Kevin Martin (God, Ice, the Bug, Techno Animal)…

ISM – Mind collapse

This cd has an appropriate title, because this is indeed music to make your mind collapse. ISM from Italy makes industrial/metal crossover on this demo-cd. The heavy guitars form a dominant factor on this cd, with more atmospheric synths in the background. The vocals are low and mean. The music does not sound very original, though the song structures are not too straightforward…

Meschalina – Something 2 die 4

Electro rap core from Rome, that’s the description I read before listening to this cd. I must say that this was not a very attractive promise for me, but when hearing the music of Meschalina it was not as bad as I feared. The Italian band mixes all kinds of styles in one big crossover sound, from drum & bass to rap, from hardcore to dance…

Friction – The next chapter

The Funprox headquarters seem to get a more and more eclectic musical menu everyday. This time we are treated to a new Dutch punkrock band, The Friction. Last year they made a first demo, and now they have recorded three solid songs for this mini cd, which they released themselves. The band consist of two guitarists, a bassplayer, a drummer and a vocalist…

Fast Forward / Jet Jaguar KR3 Kill Spree – Split lp

Here we have a very noise split record on the London-based label Lofi or Die. The release is looking nice, with flashy violet vinyl and a very crowded fold-out sleeve with violent manga-type drawings and many writings on it. On the A-side are 5 tracks by Fast Forward. I can assure you that you can torture your neighbours with it…

Blood Machine – Violent music for violent times

A loud project from Connecticut, USA. I don’t know if it’s intentional, but my cdr starts with 20 min. of silence. Track 2 is a little less silent, it contains harsh industrial/metal crossover. Fast beats, distorted screaming vocals, loud machinery. Think of classic Earache/Napalm Death-style music. It is not a coincidence that the device of the band is ‘violent music for violent times’…

Phantom Limbs, The – Applied Ignorance

Alternative Tentacles is well known for its punk rock output. Applied Ignorance the debut album by The Phantom Limbs is no standard piece of punk music. This band plays a surprising sort of post-punk music. Their sound is very chaotic and has a lot of spooky undertones like horror-punk acts used to have…

Drug Honkey – Honkeys

The Drug Honkeys consist of BH Honkey, Ma Honkey and Honkey Head and they recorded this album in Chicago. Together the Honkeys create a rather violent type of electronic music. Extemely distorted screaming vocals, strange samples, violent beats, weird effects and rhythms, live drums and other curiosities. The songs are certainly not very straightforward, but rather unusual and inaccessible…

Zwangslage – Zwangslage

A self-released cdr by Zwangslage, but taken under the guard of The Rectrix. They perform 5 tracks in only 11 minutes. Already at the first tones I had to run to my cd-player to put the volume down. Jesus, what an extreme piece of black metal noise. That guy really is shouting at the top of his lungs…

V/A – Wasp Factory labelsampler 2003

Wasp Factory is an English label that has been around since 1999. The label was founded by Lee H., from The Chaos Engine, a band with a sound somewhat like Nine Inch Nails and Pitchshifter. After having experienced the disinterest of the (mainstream) music industry Lee decided to begin an alternative label of his own…

Sepia, the – Sampler

The Sepia is an electronic act from the UK that has been producing music for quite sometime. With their music they don’t try to reach the mass audience but prefer a smaller following instead, to keep in control of their own (artistic) freedom. This 7-track sampler makes clear what the band means when the say they make industrio-ambient electronic music…

Dissecting Table – Memories

The Japanese Dissecting Table generally has two kind of releases, one is more ambient-noise oriented soundscape stuff, the other is a combination of rhythmic-industrial and noise. I’m not sure if this new CD also presents new material, as it sounds exactly like older stuff by Dissecting Table, but this CD certainly falls into the second category of his releases…