This band from Peru makes a stab at making black metal. They thankfully throw more at the wall than Scandinavian riffs that would likely melt in the Peruvian heat. Punk is at the root of what they are doing here. They cite death rock as an influence, and the only touch is three songs in when the guitar tone gets creepy. It opens with a burly Motorhead-like bass line powering a more punk-driving song that works pretty well. Then they make more of a concerted attempt at black metal on "Averno". The drummer starts off more punk, and the guitar player is obviously the black metal fan, though the vocals have enough of a scowl to pass as well.
"Almas En El Abismo" is where the guitar tone shifts to a mroe Halloween flavor, but they keep up the hard-driving backbone. Black N Roll Darkthrone is a better comparison than bringing up a band like Devil Master. Which might be what they are going for. Another Motorhead-like bass line cranks up for "Tumbas Vacias". The howl of the vocals is pretty one-dimensional. There is a more deliberate breakdown-like riff that works well.
The bass player helps set the tone on the last song. Though they speed up into a snarling temper tantrum with more punk-like blat beats than black metal, as there is little in the way of atmosphere to what they are doing as they bash it out. They tighten into the bass line, but not a huge dynamic shift. For all that they lack in melody that make up for an attitude that feels dead serious, so I will give this album an 8.5. When I am in the mood for this will likely listen to "Cvlt is Alive". It drops on September 25th on Caligari Records,
The Swiss progsters are on the more experimental side of things with a fetish for odd time signatures that form their own droning grooves. The opening track feels like a riff Sleepytime Gorilla Museum just had lying around and never developed into a song. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and wrote it off as an intro. Then on "Being Put Down," there is more of a John Zorn vibe, with chaotic horns coming in before the song slows into a whispered groove. I will say right now that if all the vocals are whispered like this, it will only take two songs before I get bored.
Jazz does seem to be firmly infused in this project's DNA. The thumping bass is the heaviest thing they have going so far, though it is dark in a weird way that has not quite come to me yet. The noir-ish shadows continue to be cast on "Sound Footing' when it hits me that this is going to be more of a jazz album than a metal album. "Facing the Fasces" does find the drumming punchier and getting the rumble of the bass to accent it. It feels more like an incomplete, though dynamic, album despite its building momentum. In some ways they are not unlike the post-2000s Swans.
The whispering is back on "Development," which feels like the Central Scruntinizer from"Joe's Garage". This song is where they forgot that to be progressive, your songs have got to go somewhere, and it is not about a quirky idea that goes nowhere. This is applied to " Grind Your Tusks " as a minute; it feels more like a grindcore ditty. More whispering as things simmer to life on "the Pitch, the Plight, the Polymer," which is over 19 minutes. I like the darker feeling explored here. Ten minutes in and not much changes aside from a swell of noise. Then the bass shifts the groove to give a more serpentine slither. I will give this one a 7.5 they have some good ideas, just need to flesh them out more into songs.
It makes sense these guys are as weird as they do metal. I reviewedtheir2023 album and liked it so much it earned a 9, putting them at the top of the heap when it comes to deathly thrash. The opening track feels more like death metal, though a few moshy riffs come in. They are taking influence from two genres known for being fast, so you better wear your seat belts. "Hungry Ghosts" is more rooted in the deliberate riff worship of thrash, and is written with more nuance than the first song. I like the robotic vocals thrown in as accents. The fast parts that do arrive are balanced by riffs with more hooks.
The title track gets caught up in speed. This might make you wonder why I listen to so many extreme metal bands if I don't like fast playing.It is all about balance and not rushing the song. The title track seems to be about vampires, which goes against the normal sci-fi themes. "Alloyed" finds a more sci-fi feel back in place and a rock vibe in the verse riff."Proprioceptor" finds things getting weird and technical with an angular curvature to the riffs. This feels more like death metal.
"Neon Metropolis" feels like old Megadeth from a guitar perspective. The robo-vocals return for this song. The last two songs focus more on the technical side of speed metal, with the only grooves surfacing on the last song. When I left this album just playing as I went about my day, it did grow on me, so for that reason I will give it a 9. If you liked the previous album, things have not changed, though this one might be faster.
This album has been on my to-do list for a while, and I'm just now getting around to checking it out. This album came out back in April on Nefarious Industries, which, on that label alone ispromising, It is more on the punk side of the Grindcore equation. There are some metal growls and death metal growls that are thrown in for good measure. There is also a higher sneered punk vocal that tends to be the dominant voice at times. It is borderline annoying. Their metal side makes them not afraid to take their songs over the three-minute mark. At times this lends itself to angular chaos that reminds me of the Locust. Where they stand apart is when things venture out into a jammy feel that goes against their punk core.
"Brain Worms" lashing out with unrestrained speed and the sound of a meth-addicted drummer, or at least that is what the frantic, manic playing suggests. Purposeful riffs attempt to balance the chaos."Rintrah Roar'does have some melodic punk layers mied in with the lashing out, bu there strongest moments come when they slow and venttheir drippingvenom.. They are more thrashing on "Obsolete Machines," which might be one of the album's best songs but it races by pretty fast.'Siege Mentatlity"has a more hardcore feel iu the vein of Converge.
The last two songs worked off the same momentum so it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began, forcing me to go back and take a closer listen. The last song works off a more feral aggression, with the drums at times blasting. I will give these guys an 8.5; they are great at what they do I just have other bands I listen to when it comes to hearing this sort of thing; they do not do much to convince me otherwise
August fades to a blur, so now you need to catch up on the month's best new releases. This might help you, casual readers, with what you might have missed. I am not doing little blurbs on them, just linking the reviews. This helps me organize my end-of-year lists by including each album's genre. This does not mean these albums were released this month; it is a list of new or upcoming albums I have enjoyed most. I have albums in my in-box that won't come out until November, so I am normally way ahead of the curve in this regard. They are ranked in order of how much I have listened to them. This month, it runs the gamut from indie folk to thrash, so perhaps you will find your new favorite among them. Here are the Top 10 albums for August of 2026.
When it comes to Jonah Matranga, I am still hung up on Far. When he puts out other music, I listen for the parts that sound like Far and gravitate toward them. Is this fair? No, but life is not fair, and he raised the bar for himself so high with that band. I have not given anything else as much of a chance, though this album touches on a great deal of what I loved about Far, but with some of the nu-metal-leaning elements dialed way down. This also brings up a fair argument about why Far was not a bigger band. It is because they were too emo for the nu-metal kids and too nu-metal for the hipster emo kids. But now is the perfect time for a reunion; they need the kind of posthumous TikTok fame Type O Negative and Acid Bath got.
There is a bit of pop-punk and 80- radio rock in the first few songs. The opening track could have been on the new Menzingers album. It is fitting that "80s El Camino" plugged into the vibes of the days he is singing about, with a Joan Jett feel to the riff. The Far moments don't start coming till "Failures Virgin" and "inbetweener," which are not him trying to recapture the past, but it organically comes out since that is a part of him. There is more of a folk rock 90s strum to "Day One EightyThree"; he adds a more vulnerable tone to the vocal and layers them in harmonies as it progresses.
"On Watering Planets" also has a more strummed ballad feel like the Menzingers. His choruses build in the expected way, does not really hold up as solidly as the other songs. The title track is another emotional ballad of sorts that feels like one of the Cure's happier moments. Thevocals are layered with some Beatles influence to them. There are a few riffs that carry a Far-like cadence but are less emotionally intense. The difference would be Everclear to Sunny Day Real Estate.
"Water in the Summer" is too happy for my tastes, but I can appreciate the songwriting. They end the album with another more fragile ballad that is not as sugary as, say, Dashboard Confessional, but heading in that direction. I was waiting for it to kick in, and it jsut kind of ambles over its introspection. I will give it a 9 as he is a great songwriter; sometimes his intentions were jsut too different from what I wanted, but we have already gone over this part.
These kids have played big stages like Welcome to Rockville. They play a fairly straightforward crossover-era style of thrash. Nothing that evolved past "Vulgar Display of Power" seems to influence them. The vocals are a one-dimensional shout, not as intersting as what Power Trip does, which sonically is a fair point of comparison. "Punk" is a pretty run-of-the-mill hardcore song. Well done but nothing new.
The title track finds them more solidly choosing their place as a hardcore band with thrash influences, though over the course of the album this flips-flops. "Snakeskin" finds their chugs dialed in but the songs all running together, perhaps due to the one-trick pony vocals. There are a few punches here and there that stand up, but by this point in the album it is so generic it is faceless. Heavy music should not bore you, but here we are. I guess if you are too young to know better, you might be impressed.
"Uncrowned" finds the band taking on more of a groove. The vocals are mostly barked; he rarely commits to a full growl, and most of the screams are more like accents. He prefers to stay in an aggressive middle range. He comes closest to singing on this song, but by and large it feels like a Temu version of Lamb of God. I will give this album a 7.5; it's not all that original, and if I were going to listen to this sort of thing, I would just put on Power Trip, as they do this kind of post-Pantera thrash better. It drops October 8th on Patriark Records.
