Tithe are an extreme metal band from the US and this is their second album.
Inverse Rapture is a 29-minute cocktail of foul filth made up of black metal, death metal, sludge, and grindcore. Tithe’s sound is grim and dark, yet wonderfully abrasive within this. Their extreme metal style is hard to pin down, and it’s definitely a hybrid of the abovementioned genres. Blackened sludge with a grindcore edge? Something like that. Hell, I’m just going to call this extreme metal and be done with it.
This is the debut album from Wanderer, a hardcore band from the US.
Liberation from a Brutalist Existence contains 23 minutes of violent aggression and dark intensity. Smashing together grindcore, crust, sludge, doom, mathcore, punk, and metal into a scathing hardcore assault, Wanderer’s debut album is an exceptional slice of abrasive darkness. Continue reading “Wanderer – Liberation from a Brutalist Existence (Review)”
Une Misère are an Icelandic metal band and this is their debut album.
Sermon mixes together gritty modern metal and violent hardcore, along with a touch of powerviolence, (and some other styles), and does so very convincingly. Continue reading “Une Misère – Sermon (Review)”
Throes are a sludge metal band from the US and this is their debut album.
Throes don’t mess around. The band mix together hardcore, sludge metal, and post-metal to create abrasive, harsh music that sounds like the aural equivalent of sandpapering your skin. Continue reading “Throes – In the Hands of an Angry God (Review)”
Mastiff are a hardcore/sludge metal band from the UK and this is their second album.
Mastiff play the kind of pitch-black ugliness that I really like. Mixing styles and genres into an extreme metal mass of festering hatred and misery, Plague contains elements of doom, sludge, hardcore, and grindcore, all hatefully mixed together and vomited onto the listener with scorn and bile. Continue reading “Mastiff – Plague (Review)”
This is the third album from Mantar, a German black metal band.
I’m a latecomer to Mantar’s work, but I can tell you that if you’re looking for filthy, ugly blackened metallic punk that’s still catchy as fuck, then they stand head and shoulders above most of their peers. Continue reading “Mantar – The Modern Art of Setting Ablaze (Review)”
Leeched Leeched are a hardcore band from the UK and this is their debut album.
Leeched play violent, aggressive hardcore that’s shot-through with punk, crust, grind, and powerviolence influences. Continue reading “Leeched – You Took the Sun When You Left (Review)”
Beldam are a blackened doom/sludge band form the US and this is their second album.
Pasung offers up 48 minutes of gritty, American sludge metal, replete with plenty of doom and an ugly blackened patina. Continue reading “Beldam – Pasung (Review)”
2017 was an amazing year for music, with so many top-notch albums seeing the light of day. I pretty much say this every year, of course, but that doesn’t seem to stop it being true. With this in mind, the 2017 list was especially hard to put together, and I agonised over this one more than I did for any of the lists in previous years.
As is traditional, I also want to mention some releases by bands that could easily have made it onto the list, and should have by many rights, if only I could have somehow managed to fit them all in –
Abhorrent Decimation, Amenra, Apes, Artificial Brain, Au-Dessus,
Celeste, Desecrate the Faith, Earth Rot, Earth Witch, Falls of Rauros,
Full of Hell, Gnaw, Gutslit, Helpless, Henry Kane,
Hundred Suns, Ingurgitating Oblivion, Into Orbit, John Frum, Karne,
Kval, Livid, Morbid Angel, Primitive Man, Craven Idol,
Slow, Soulskinner, The Kennedy Veil, Ulsect, Wildspeaker.
I urge you to check out all of the above releases, in addition to the ones in the actual list below. I could probably keep adding more bands you should give a listen to, but a line has to be drawn somewhere, I suppose.
So, without further ado, let’s get right down to it… Continue reading “Wonderbox Metal End of Year List – Best Metal of 2017”
Friendship are from Japan and play blackened grindcore/hardcore. This is their debut album.
Reeking of corrupted dark hardcore, blackened brutality, scathing powerviolence, and virulent grind, this is an album that’s perfectly titled. Continue reading “Friendship – Hatred (Review)”
Wonderbox Metal 