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Myspace: F.K.Ü.; Hail of Bullets; Misery Index; Ram-Zet; The Project Hate; Torture Division; Vomitory; Global Domination

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Introduction by Global Domination

17/05/11 || Global Domination

What the fuck is this then? Well… Since labels and bands think we are Teh Shit (and rightfully so) they send us fucken piles and piles of albums to review. Most of them suck the cocks of goats, hence why we won’t spend our valuable time giving them a 16-paragraph review since they don’t deserve it. That’s why the STUBS section has been created. Here you will get short reviews for alot of crap, with the, perhaps, occasional decent offering included. Just look at the score and you’ll figure it all out.

Yeah, the formatting is reminiscent of that of Audio Autopsy, only this is not… tada!… Audio Autopsy. Magic, huh? If your album ended up in here – you most likely suck it. Live with it. You should be happy we have decided to cover your shit band at all.

Burnsred: Burnsred

18/05/12 || gk

Why would a young band self-releasing its first album name check Neurosis, Burning Witch and Asunder? Aren’t they just setting themselves up for a big fat fail? Leaving aside such deep philosophical questions, what we have here is loads of soft-loud-soft-loud dynamics and slow, lumbering riffs that go absolutely nowhere. The songs essentially sound like collages, individual pieces of music strung together with little thought if they work as a whole or not. There are a few bits and pieces that are interesting but the songs as a whole simply don’t work. I normally like slow and heavy music but Burnsred are bland and absolutely devoid of personality. The music too often slips into the background with nothing interesting happening. I’ve given this more than its fair share of listens and this is some seriously boring sludge/doom.

2/10: And a long way to go.
Fester: A celebration of death

17/05/12 || Sokaris

All signs pointed to this album being something right up my alley despite the fact that I wasn’t familiar with Norway’s extreme metallers Fester before my initial spin of the “A celebration of death”. Considering the band’s name and title for this release, I expected the kind of dark, morbid death that used to thrive back in the band’s heyday, the early 90s. The album also greets us with excellent cover that has to come from godlike artist Eliran Kantor whose work you may have seen on Sigh’s “In somniphobia” earlier this year. Unfortunately this album left me pretty cold, and not in a grim black metally kind of way either. I just found that the whole album came off as lifeless and honestly extremely boring. That combined with probably the worst snare sound I’ve ever heard didn’t do much to bring me into the songs. Stylistically the band play a sort of atmospheric black/death, but lacking of aggression, passion or emotion. Imagine merging Dark Tranquillity and Necrophobic… and then stripping both bands of everything that makes either one interesting. It’s certainly not the worst thing I’ve heard in 2012 but it was the hardest to stay awake through.

3.5/10: Time to take a Fester siesta.
Wyruz: Fire at will

16/05/12 || Smalley

Obligatory stub-band background: Wyruz is a thrash/groove band from Norway that’s been around for exactly 10 years, but are only now just debuting with a full-length in “Fire at will”. But, considering the final result, maybe they should’ve waited just a little bit longer before recording… just a lil’ bit, mind you, not a whole lot. Cuz this isn’t bad at all, with some decent grooves, solos, and intensity (especially with the drumming), but the weak-ish production took away from it some, and their singer needs to concretely pick the sound he wants, since he goes through a number of middling styles, including one that sounds halfway between a rumbly growl and a “Load”-era Hetfield twang… which is not a good combo.

A Hetfield twang in general ain’t a good thing. But enough of my patented swinging from Metallica’s nuts; their singer actually does do a number of styles pretty well, like an epic clean style and some harsher ones, it’s just that he needs to actually pick something and stick with it. Work on that, get a better sound, and some more consistently catchy songwriting (and maybe with a few less derivative-sounding passages), and Wyruz could be a solid band.

6.5/10: We’re hearing something resembling a decent recording!
King: Forged by Satan's doctrine

15/05/12 || BamaHammer

Welcome the Kings of generic Colombian blackened death metal, uh, King! Everything about these guys is generic. They have a generic moniker, a generic pentagram inside a generic “kvlt” logo, a generic production, and a generic album with 11 generic tracks and a generic cover. That’s not to say it’s terrible, but it’s nothing that I would willfully go out of my way to hear over and over again. These guys are quite knowledgeable about how the blackened death metal shtick is done, but they just don’t ever find a way to go anywhere with it. This is 48 minutes of hyperspeed black metal with an extremely fake, triggered drum sound that leaves me feeling bored and ready to hear something else.

4/10: Store-brand, generic metal by the book. Gross.
Johnny Electric: Communication radio highway

14/05/12 || Habakuk

Johnny Electric, huh? I was waiting for the new Varg Dark, for fuck’s sake!
Well guess what, this ain’t no metal album. This is Timmy Ironic, Trevor Nostalgic and Kyle (just Kyle), sounding more like a Rolling Stones influenced 20-somethings garage troupe than anything that should be sent here. Whatever, I’m okay with rock music. This here exhibit is decently produced and somewhat catchy (but not consistently so) yet despite a little gain in the guitars and the singer trying to put in a little egde, it remains toothless, fluffy indie radio stuff – which I’ve heard done better as well. There are some trombone, harmonica and conga parts (…), but that doesn’t help matters too much on the way to a distinguishable identity yet. Unless you really want to listen to a young band doing an okay The Hives impression, steer clear.

5/10: Potential’s here, but it needs some serious developing.
Nexhymn: Black horizon

11/05/12 || gk

Nexhymn play some sweet sounding brutal death metal. The first thing that grabbed me was the very good production quality and the impressive vocals of Holly Wedel. Formed by Ivan Alcala previously of the band Throcult, Nexhymn has dropped the black/ death of Ivan’s previous band and opted for a much more focused death metal attack. The music is pretty brutal and I suppose technical but not in the “50 different riffs per song” way. The riffs are there but there’s also a strong sense of groove that helps give these six songs a bit of individuality.

There’s nothing particularly original here and the band seems to love some Suffocation, Morbid Angel and particularly Monstrosity’s “Spiritual Apocalypse” album, but it’s all done well. “Black Horizon” has just 6 songs and lasts for all of 22 minutes so it’s a pretty short and impressive debut from the band. However, the real test will lie in whether the band is capable of transferring the potential they’ve shown here onto a full length. As it is, this is a band that fans of brutal death metal should keep an eye on.

6.5/10 and we might be onto something here.
Venomous Maximus: MMIX - MMXI

10/05/12 || gk

Formed in 2010, Venomous Maximus have released 2 EP’s so far and “MMIX – MMXI” is a compilation of the two EP’s and the band’s third release overall. The music is basically some pretty good and catchy stoner rock/metal and while the band seems to label itself as doom, there really isn’t any doom to be found on this collection. The band’s influences seem to stem mostly from 70’s hard rock and the NWOBHM and it makes for a good mix.

The songs are short and filled with some catchy riffs that are more in line with current European stoner rock bands than the American doom scene. The one distinct aspect of the music is the vocals. Half shouted and half spoken, the vocals took some getting used to but in the end, they work well with the music and give the songs a little bit of originality.

The one aspect that I find a bit strange is that most young bands plying their trade in the stoner category today seem to have a complete aversion to guitar solos. It’s the same story with VM and a couple of guitar solos could have really lifted these songs up. Having said that, the production and sound is pretty good and the songs show plenty of promise. While “MMIX- MMXI” isn’t exactly essential, Venomous Maximus is definitely a band to keep an eye on.

6.5/10: And looking forward for more.
Donn The Philosophy: Horns curve into broken circles

09/05/12 || Curt

Donn The Philosophy are an ultra-low budget black metal band from the UK who bill themselves as metal/religious, according to their Reverbnation page.

As soon as the album began with a croaky voice screaming something over oh so spooky sounds, I was sure I wasn’t going to like this album. Then when the first song started I was kind of like “Well, this isn’t too bad, I guess. Kind of like “Transylvanian Hunger”-era Darkthrone”. As the album kept playing though, it started to dawn on me that I was bored to tears and not enjoying the album much at all-Intentionally shitty production does not always equal good black metal album. Don’t get me wrong, parts of some of these songs are decent, but the whole album just didn’t do anything for me.

4/10: Not my thing.
Demon Lung: Pareidolia

08/05/12 || gk

“Pareidolia” is the debut EP from the young American band Demon Lung. What we have here is some pretty basic stoner doom with a female vocalist. The guitar tone is thick and loud and pretty much drowns every other element out. Loads of mid paced chugging riffs are right up front with the vocals hovering just behind the riffs. The vocals, like it seems to have become fashionable now, are kind of flat and monotone not adding much to the songs and not laying down any memorable vocal lines. The drums are pretty pedestrian and the bass is far too low in the mix. Also, a lot of the riffs leave me with a vague feeling that I’ve heard them before. There are a few interesting bits like the softer sections on “Sour Ground” but it’s let down by the very average and uninspired vocals.

Overall, this is some pretty pedestrian doom metal. There’s nothing on this little 20 minute EP that’s actively bad and that’s a good thing but at the same time, there’s nothing here that really warrants a repeat listen. Demon Lung need to really up their game if they want to make impression on the scene and this EP does not promise much.

4/10: Really quite boring.
Chopstick Suicide: Lost fathers and sons

07/05/12 || Curt

I’ve never liked “mathcore” bands, so I’m probably the wrong person to be reviewing this as I’ve never really understood the appeal. However it would appear that plenty of other people understand it as bands like Chopstick Suicide continue to fly the flag of mathcore high.

The band is actually pretty tight musically and the singing is all right at times, but the frequent ADD like musical shifts and sudden screaming just do nothing for me. Well, it does nothing other than make me want to bang my head against a wall to make it stop. However, if you’re into Dillinger Escape Plan or even System of a Down you will probably lap this shit up like it’s manna from heaven.

4/10: I just don’t get it.