Lock Up are an international grindcore band and this is their fifth album.
Lock Up contain members of bands such as Napalm Death, At the Gates, The Lurking Fear, Brujeria, Brutal Truth, Misery Index, and Pig Destroyer. Yep, here’s a band that have a lot of experience with extreme music. The Dregs of Hades is a ferocious collection of tracks that showcases the band members’ expertise well. Across 38 minutes we get Continue reading “Lock Up – The Dregs of Hades (Review)”
This is the début album from this Italian death/thrash metal band.
Gnosis mixes the death and thrash styles and adds a bit of progressive metal into the mix as well.
The songs merge their thrash and death metal heritages together, taking aspects from both and adding some progressive structures into the gritty mix. There are some classic metal Continue reading “Psycho Scream – Gnosis (Review)”
This is the second album from these Death Metallers, who hail from Ecuador.
With an album cover that screams 80s death metal, possibly with a bit of thrash mixed in, Epidemia actually reveal themselves to be much more of a brutal 90s proposition. Leprocomio is raw, ugly and mercilessly aggressive.
The songs on this 35 minute excursion into the torturelands are savage and give the listener a right old battering. When they’re not ploughing ahead at full speed, they have a rhythmic brutality that recall Continue reading “Epidemia – Leprocomio (Review)”
Mano Humana are a Metal band from Chile and this is their début album.
Mano Humana play modern Metal that fuses aggressive Thrash Metal with the cold machinery of Meshuggah and the groovy heaviness of Soulfly.
The harsh shouted vocals are barked out in quite an abrasive, anti-social way. Mano Humana are not really on the commercial end of the Metal spectrum at the best of times, but these vocals really tip them over the edge into harsher territories. In my mind, of course, this is only a good thing.
Occasionally the brutality shifts up a gear too, and the vocals descend into deep growls and the entire thing is one hair’s breadth away from Death Metal at these points, recalling some of Brujeria’s work.
There’s some interesting parts in the music, with the band trying out all manner of different ideas to keep things from becoming formulaic as they tear through the 45 minute length. They take the time to add plenty of experimentation with the bass and guitars to their songs, resulting in relatively long tracks, (for the style), that keep their core Thrash Metal from becoming dull or one-dimensional.
This willingness to go that little bit further for some added depth ensures that Sombras is a more enjoyable listen than I was expecting, based on what most bands who can be described as Groove Metal offer.
Sombras is a very good listen and much more of a grower than you might think for the style. It’s brutal, heavy and full of good ideas and riffs.
Highly recommended.
Hard Charger are from Canada and play Crossover/Thrash Metal.
Thrash Metal raped by Punk. Or the other way around? Who cares; either way this is raw, underground and Metal.
The songs are short and full of confidence and have an Old-School Hardcore feel to them whilst also having sufficient metal licks to keep the mosh-crowd happy.
This reminds me of a more Hardcore-influenced Brujeria more than anything else actually. There’s something about the vocals; the fact I keep thinking the singer’s going to start shouting La Ley de Plomo at any given point.
Regardless, this is a decent listen and unlike a lot of bands who play this genre it’s slanted more to the Hardcore side than the Thrash side, which, as much as I love Thrash, works in the band’s favour.
Some of the tracks have a more rock and roll feeling to them as well, adding a cocksure swagger to the proceedings which shows that the band know how to have a good time. The solos are a welcome addition also.
A band to watch out for. A couple of refinements here and there, as well as upgrading to a fuller, bigger sound and their next release will be a monster.
Wonderbox Metal 