Column of Heaven- Mission From God(2012)

Column of Heaven- Mission From God

Column of Heaven appear to be a new group on the surface, but a closer look reveals the project is really more of a reinvention then a completely new concept.  The band is really a continuation of the now defunct The Endless Blockade, it featuring former members of the project, in both sound and substance.  Both bands play noise-y, dischordant Powerviolence and Grindcore with a healthy dose of Power Electronics and pure vein-popping anger.  Listening to the bands new EP Mission From God certainly evokes the same feelings and intensity that The Endless Blockade did in their hey-day.  That's not a bad thing: The Endless Blockade were one of the best bands in the genre, and their break-up in 2010 was a painful body shot for their fans.  So it's a nice plus that Mission From God also feels like an evolution as much as a continuation: Column of Heaven is a more technical, Grindcore influenced project, something a bit darker and more monolithic then The Endless Blockade were.  This is a new experience worth checking out regardless of the project's history: the music speaks for itself.

Big fans of The Endless Blockade might even be a little turned off by Mission From God at first, considering some key differences between the two projects.  The vocals will be the first to stand out: gone are the more traditional Powerviolence vocals, replaced by a very competent J.R. Hayes impersonator.  This isn't necessarily an improvement, but the vocals mesh well with the Grindcore-focused approach and the labyrinth-dwelling Sludge sections.  The guitar sound is more metallic as well, though it remains crusty and grime covered, and it works with the complex guitar play that crops up across the album.  Column of Heaven will never be mistaken for Discordance Axis, but some of these riffs give off an early Pig Destroyer-vibe; highly dissonant and textured.  All told, it's a more metallic approach to songwriting and texture, but it's more then crusty and angry enough to remain appealing to the Punk crowds.

What hasn't changed from The Endless Blockade is the relentless aggression, hateful speed and mad electronic rampages.  Mission From God is a non-stop barrage of nihilism and disenfranchisement that clocks in at a brisk seventeen minutes.  There is very little fluff or filler, and with most tracks playing into each other, it's a seamless and satisfying album.  "Entheogen": is a cavernous and oppressive torrent of soundwaves, equal parts hypnotic and devastating.  It takes equal parts Man is the Bastard and Godflesh, fabricating a flawless fragment of Industrial Powerviolence, constructed with animosity and malice.  "Pharmakos" jumps between good ol' Violence and dissonant, atmospheric sections that are as intensely creepy as they are strangely beautiful.  It's a track of stark contrasts, a trademark of The Endless Blockade, and in this regard Column of Heaven is a worthy successor.

Mission From God is fantastic.  It's not a masterpiece, nor do I think it stands on the same level as Primitive overall.  It is, however, an album with no faults: everything works and sounds the way it should, being both instantly familiar yet fresh and dynamic.  I've said this before, but it works for Mission From God as well; this is what happens when a group of talented and smart musicians get together and make something meaningful and solid.  The foundations of this album are tempered and strong, allowing for organic experimentation and good old skull-fucking alike.  I have a sneaking suspicion that some old school fans of The Endless Blockade might not like what they hear on Mission From God, but for just about anyone else, this album is essential listening.

Rating: 8.5/10

As if this album were not awesome enough, Mission From God is also available for "pay-what-you-want" download on the labels Bandcamp page.  Stream it there, and throw a few bucks the bands way for the download.  The album will also be out on vinyl soon, so be on the look-out.  I'll put the link below.

Download Mission From God Here

Cara Neir- Stagnant Perceptions(2011)

Cara Neir- Stagnant Perceptions

Dallas, Texas based Cara Neir have a pretty interesting song writing technique. Take everything you have ever listened to, and play that. It's big, exhaustive and ballsy, but also charming and extremely enjoyable. Stagnant Perceptions can be almost overwhelming in it's diversity, but for the most part maintains a unique identity throughout, even if it doesn't have complete consistency.

At it's most basic, Stagnant Perceptions is a mix of classic Norwegian Black Metal ala Darkthrone, and the more violent, dark and crusty Screamo of acts like Joshua Fit For Battle and Funeral Diner. For some, this will lead to all kinds of retarded whimpering about "trveness" and what not. Those people are fucking stupid: Black Metal has always been about doing what others think is wrong because fuck them for thinking that way, and Stagnant Perceptions is certainly a "fuck you" type record. Classic, by the book Norwegian rawness will suddenly transform into a flurry of melodic Emo riffs before ending in Doom-y repose, all in the same song...specifically "Imperialist Design"... which would be the opening track. "Return to Torquemada" is classic Dissection at the beginning, then shifts to Crossover Thrash without any real warning in awesome fashion. The final track, "Not Enough" sounds like an unholy combination of Daylight Dies and Converge... seriously, that was the only thing I could think of to describe the song. Stagnant Perceptions could be described as spastic, and in a way it is with how often genre's shift over the albums eleven tracks. But it also really isn't all that spastic, as each individual shift feels natural and well written, not merely chaotic for the sake of chaos.

It's damn impressive, but also likely too much for some. I can easily see some listeners losing patience with Stagnant Perceptions because of how all over the place it is. Sometimes even I was a little annoyed with just how much stuff was going on. It can certainly be difficult to keep up with all of it, but Stagnant Perceptions songwriting is mostly strong enough to over-come the wide open nature of Cara Neir's style. It's a style that while a bit cumbersome is also perfectly fearless and without cynicism. Cara Neir sound like a band that actually love music; not just the esoteric concept of musical creativity, but actual music that has been recorded by other artists. One can hear a real passion for the various crusty, dark and inherently nihilistic music that only a select few of us can ever really enjoy. Stagnant Perceptions is an album for those who love noisey shit that your parent's still fucking hate. So many fans of Metal and Punk run away from those concepts, become embroiled in endless battles for the legitimacy of Extreme Music as art and become cynical pseudo-fans who would rather bicker then listen. There is no generational musical disenfranchisement on Stagnant Perceptions, only pure emotion and chilling bleakness.

Rating: 8/10

Download Cara Neir- Stagnant Perceptions At "Name Your Price" Rates Here.

And seriously, no fucking 0$ bids. The album is self-released, so all the money goes to the band.

Ives - Abandon (2010)

Ives - Abandon

Black metal has always had at least some peripheral relation to punk. Early bands like Ildjarn and Carpathian Forest used it, and when you think about it, the raw black metal style is very DIY. Still, from the past decade to the present, a much stronger surge of bands playing a black metal/punk mixture has arisen. Many of these bands have brought together the raw energy found in both punk and black metal, to vicious and often interesting ends. Florida's Ives are another recent band to try their hand at the black/punk mix, and Abandon is their second demo. It's a svelte 20 minutes with some interesting moments, though unfortunately more trite ones.

Opener “The Taste of Severity” starts with a God awful sound clip about cannibalism before breaking into some decent enough but very unsurprising black/punk. The music alternates between blackened punk chords backed by D-beat drumming and riffs that sound like Mayhem circa 1994. The vocalist growling “smear the blood on my face / taste the blood in my mouth” fails to have the emotional resonance they were going for.

From there, each track becomes longer than the last. Second track “Burning The Incense, Amanita Virosa” opens slowly and unfolds into a mix of black metal, crust punk and sludge. It's an interesting mix, like a black metal Dystopia, but the track quickly becomes more blackened Discharge worship, before switching to Mayhem/Darkthrone inspired black metal, and so on. 7 minutes in and one of the key problems with the demo becomes apparent: the music tends towards predictable shifts back and forth between riffs copped from classic Norwegian bands and Discharge inspired punk leading to unexciting ends.

The best parts of the demo occur in the last half. Part way through “Lost In The Pleasures Of Moonlight”, the music shifts into dark and droning chords which accompany a xylophone (!!!) before exploding into some absolutely fierce black/thrash riffing that blew me away, especially coming right after the down tempo bridge. Titular track “Abandon” provides interesting moments as well. Its dramatic opening displays vocal variance with some yelling taking the place of the standard black metal rasps that dominate the rest of demo. The song sadly turns into another back and forth between punk and riffs that sound like they wouldn't be out of place in Darkthrone's Under a Funeral Moon. Surprisingly though, Ives then does another bizarre 180 into unique territory when fiddle begins playing over melancholy black metal riffing before fading out (albeit somewhat sloppily) into an instrumental passage of folk consisting of acoustic guitars and haunting fiddle. The black metal comes back in, accompanied by excellent cymbal use. The fiddle stays present for the remainder of the track providing an incredibly enjoyable final minute before the demo ends.

Therein, though, lies another one of the problems. The unique moments are caught in a mire of ho-hum punk and black metal riffing jacked from early Norwegian BM records. The crust/sludge/black opening of “Burning The Incense”, the ambient bridge, creative use of xylophone and thrashy finish to “Lost In The Pleasures Of Moonlight” and the violin use, folk break and melancholy riffing in “Abandon” are excellent, but are caught between trite filler. Ives definitely shows promise on Abandon. They have the potential to pull together an interesting full length, either by making an eclectic album (similar to what Akitsa and Ash Pool have done) that tastefully displays their various ideas, or by bringing it all together into a more cohesive style. Either way, they'll need to root out the generic aspects of their song writing. I'd definitely be interested in a debut album from them, and Abandon has some wonderful moments, but as a whole it fails to thrill.

6.8/10

-Faulty

Metal Archives / Myspace

Best of 2011 Genre Awards: Punk/Crust/Hardcore

5.) Weekend Nachos- Worthless

Nasty and discordant Powerviolence the way it should sound. Weekend Nachos just consistently deliver feedback fueled Crust Punk every time they touch their instruments. Effectively disposes of posers like so many Uzi rounds.

4.) All Pigs Must Die- God is War

Basically the same album as Darker Handcraft. So yeah, I guess I am emotionally disturbed and prone to brutal violence. Nothing else can describe these vomitous waves of pure rage. I am off to mutilate my genitals.

3.) Trap Them- Darker Handcraft

Crusty, nasty, filthy hate sounds. That is all one should expect from Trap Them and Darker Handcraft. I mean really, how many mentally unstable and unhinged people are in this world, making and listening to this kind of hellish bowel rumbles? Are there really a legion of pissed off and slightly psychotic 17-25 year old's just jamming out to this and carving manifestos into frozen sides of beef? And most of all, what does this say about me?

2.) Defeater- Empty Days & Sleepless Nights

Few acts in Metal or Punk set out to tell a story. Defeater are one of those rare acts who seek to ditch the typical tough guy/sensitive guy aesthetic and tell a real story about real people. Doing this through chaotic, enraged and ballsy Melodic Hardcore just makes it that much better. The final four tracks are all acoustic and clean singing, which just makes this album that much more adventurous.

1.) Young And In The Way- V. Eternal Depression

Dripping with melancholy and despair, overflowing with anger and hatred, V. Eternal Depression is one of those records that opens your eyes to the potential of Punk and Metal. I can't think of any band that has endeavored to mix Depressive Black Metal with Crust Punk, but Young and In The Way did just that in the most beautiful and intense way imaginable. It's only flaw? It ends.

Patti Smith - Horses (1975)

‘Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine’. Thus opens ‘Gloria’, the opening track from Patti Smith’s seminal debut album Horses. The track itself is actually a cover of a Van Morrison song, originally written for Them, but Smith recreates it – including a reinvention of lyrics to include said opening line – in such an idiosyncratic manner that the song sits quite happily among the rest of the album, well-disguised as a Smith original.

But idiosyncrasy was always one of the main objectives of the then-budding punk movement; a fact which was somewhat forgotten by the better-known English bands after the original rush of ’77. Smith used the lyric as a method of rebellion against the institutionalized religion she felt had been forced upon her; the three-chord progression was the style which came to be known as the ‘punk style’, sure, but by the time the likes of the Sex Pistols attempted to see commercial success past the surprising success of Never Mind The Bollocks, their attempts fell flat – not so much, I believe, due to the lack of another full-length, but more so because the style had had its 15 minutes.

So when the Pistols came stateside, performing just down the road from Patti Smith one night and frontman John ‘Rotten’ Lydon talked about ‘some woman singing about fuckin’ horses’ (or words to that effect), it was evident that they had lost touch with the roots of the movement. The diversity in Smith’s influences is evident throughout this album – for instance, second track ‘Redondo Beach’ takes a bouncy approach akin to reggae, predating ska punk by several years, whereas the first 9-minute epic of the album, ‘Birdland’, is loosely based around a piano ballad throughout.

When she actually becomes violently passionate during a song, therefore, it comes as quite a surprise – the first chorus to ‘Free Money’ comes out of seemingly nowhere, as does the vocal attack when past the introduction to ‘Land’, which for all intents and purposes is the title track. The point is this; although the instrumentation is interesting, sure, the focal point of this album is Smith’s outstanding vocal performance – one which has not since been paralleled in popular music.

This performance demonstrates quite capability the sheer range of Smith’s vocal styles – although upon one’s first listen to the album, one might remember the ‘monkey noises’ during the chorus of ‘Gloria’ and Smith’s tendency to take her pitch sharply upwards at the ends of vocal lines, but equally memorable upon repeated listens are the cavernous vocals utilised in ‘Land’ and the percussive approach used in many verses, which really aids in the appreciation of the quality of the timbre of her voice.

In essence, the variation in this album means that the post-punk genre is here before much of the groundwork of punk itself had been laid down. It may seem strange, a ‘post-‘ genre being spawned before its suffix was fully created, but that is the only way to demonstrate aptly the full level of innovation of this album. This album was, and is, one of a kind. Patti Smith did indeed go on to make more wonderful music with the likes of Radio Ethiopia, but this is by a long shot her best. An absolutely wonderful album.

9/10

Young And In The Way: V. Eternal Depression(2011)

Young And In The Way- V. Eternal Depression

Blackend Crust Punk is a relatively new phenomenon in Punk music right now, and one that is frankly spawning some of the best Punk on Earth. Hitting it's apex in popularity last year with Kvelertak's self-titled debut, the logical and natural mix of Crusty Swedish and American Punk with very early Second Wave Norwegian Black Metal is all the rage. I say logical and natural because one only needs to listen to Mayhem's legendary Deathcrush EP, or the recent work of Darkthrone to see how much Crust Punk and early Black Metal have in common. This correlation shines through even on recent, pure Black Metal releases(Ravencult's Morbid Blood is about as true to the early Norwegian sound as it gets, and I felt like skunking my way through most of the record and throwing Molotov love letters at cop cars.) Young And In The Way, a very young group from North Carolina, are firmly entrenched in this movement. Yet their most recent release, V. Eternal Depression, sounds like no BlackCrust I have ever heard.

With an obvious ode to Depressive Black Metal, V. Eternal Depression is a pitch black little LP. There are no rainbows, high school sweethearts or big eyed Golden Retrievers bringing light into your life. Instead, there are gnarled trees, dead birds being picked to pieces by armies of black ants and overcast skies foreshadowing an even bleaker tomorrow. The tortured shrieks of Kable Lyall do not evoke a desire to mosh and fuck shit up, but to hang out in the bathroom with a bottle of sleeping pills and some Sylvia Plath collections. The opening track, "Descending the White Mountain," never moves faster than a crawl, and ends with a somber piano piece. Right before exploding into the next track "Times Are Cold" with all the fury of a drug addled and depressed rage.

Young And In The Way clearly have a higher, more somber purpose for their music. Not that there is anything wrong with the Kvelertak or Martydod method of mosh pits and 30 packs of domestic brews: an admirable mission if ever there was one, I assure you. But Young And In The Way are seeking to push an already fairly new and only recently popular genre in new directions. I never thought the words would cross my lips, let alone be typed on my keyboard, but Young And In The Way have managed something incredible: an atmospheric, multi-dimensional and layered Punk Rock album.

This is a tremendous feat no doubt, and V. Eternal Depression has become one of my favorite albums of this year. Everything about it is finely crafted and perfectly tuned: each track flows into the other, creating a constant flow of sadness and carnage few albums can compete with. How unfortunate it ends so quickly: the whole album is over in 23 minutes, with an incredible 11 minutes taken up by the last song. True, this is the bands second major full-length this year(the other titled I Am Not What I Am, which I have not heard yet.), but the whole thing ends too quickly. The last track, "The Gathering," is mostly ambient noise and drumming, and although it is sufficiently atmospheric and fits the album, I can't shake the feeling that the band could have delivered a few more tracks here.

Length aside, V. Eternal Depression is a must own album. What these young, obviously unhappy North Carolina natives have accomplished here needs to be heard by any fan of music period. No album this year has taken me to such dark places, places sealed in the confines of the mind, as this fantastic LP. You will be touched: the question is, how will you react to it?

Rating: 9.5/10

Demo: Angelcrust- Pet Sematary

Angelcrust

We here at the Curse love Crust Punk. We also love Black Metal. Combine the two, and we are creaming ourselves with uncontrollable sexual pleasure. So we have Angelcrust to thank for our now very "crusty" underwear.

These Philadelphia scuzz punks have their new demo, Pet Sematary, available free for download from Bandcamp.com, so I jumped right on the chance to check it out. I was not disappointed. Pet Sematary is a acidic mix of Disrupt and Deathcrush-era Mayhem, with a dash of His Hero is Gone for good measure. Pet Sematary is 12 minutes of unmitigated street punk blasphemy that fans of Martyrdod, Naked Whipper, or early Mayhem would be proud to jam. Some of the shorter tracks are so short, the real Black Metal influence may be lost in the fuzz, but the 2 best tracks, "Sneer" and "Dissonances of Exquisite Morbidity" take a few minutes to flesh out the blackend crust and gives the band some distinction amongst the crowd.

You can get your free copy of the demo at the bands Bandcamp page, and if you are in the Philadelphia area, make sure to head out to a show and create some hell in the pits.

Last.fm

Bandcamp page