Angry Metal Guy

Ulcerate // The Destroyers of All
Rating: 4.0/5.0 — Tons of potential here
Label: Willowtip Records | Hammerheart Records (EU)
Websites: ulcerate-official.com
Release Dates: Out for a long damn time

Being a well on the way to aging angry metal nerd, I have a stomach that is not quite as leadbellied as it used to be, and many of my friends and acquaintances are under similar circumstances. There’s only so much beer and whiskey a stomach can handle before it gets a little acidic (although I continually go back to testing the limits every now and then). Hence I’ve been quite amused by the band name Ulcerate since they stormed the realm of heavy music with 2009′s Everything is Fire, which was one of my favorite albums of that year. The title track of that album was very impressive (one of my favorite metal songs of recent memory), as well as the rest of it (that album is nasty!). Continue reading

Subrosa // No Help for the Mighty Ones
Rating: 2.0/5.0 — No Help for My Attention Span
Label: Profound Lore
Websites: subrosaonline.com | myspace.com/subrosatheatre
Release Dates: EU: 2011.03.04 | US: 03.01.2011

I consider myself a pretty open-minded guy. Sure, I’m angry and a tad dogmatic at times, but I’m certainly not unwilling to engage in new ideas or to follow along with people when they do innovative things. But one trend, or musical movement if I’m going to be polite about it, in the metal underground that I just have never been able to get on board with is sludge or funeral doom. As I’ve said before, I just get bored. My attention span isn’t up for this stuff. There is a mind-numbing simplicity that I think you can only appreciate if you’re really stoned and I, frankly, don’t touch the stuff. Continue reading

Rabbits // Lower Forms
Rating: 1.5/5.0 — Irritatingus Maxiumus
Label: Relapse
Websites: rabbitusmaxiums.com | myspace.com/rabbitusmaximus
Release Dates: EU: 14.02.2011 | US: 02.15.2011

OK. So. Let me preface this by saying that I’m not a huge fan of anything Rabbits is defined as. I don’t really like hardcore and haven’t liked it since I was in high school. And even then I only flirted with the genre and never really got into it. Second, I listen to a lot of music. I get new music every day and I hear new shit all the time. I try to be pretty open minded, but sometimes I just don’t like shit. And I really, really, really don’t like Rabbits – Lower Forms. I’m sure these guys are OK with that, though, because that’s the point of being counter cultural. Continue reading

Crowbar // Sever the Wicked Hand
Rating: 3.0/5.0 — Sharp
Label: Century Media
Websites: myspace.com/crowbar
Release Dates: Out Now Worldwide!

So I’m super unqualified to review this record because I a) don’t like sludge and b) have never listened to Crowbar before this moment. Sure, I’m sure I should have heard them, but I gotta be honest with you—I’ve been sort of busy. There are plenty of scenes that have developed since the 1990s and the slow, southern rock post-thrash stuff has never been my thing. Name bands from south of the Mason-Dixie line and I probably don’t like them unless they’re Kris Kristofferson. Always hated Down, didn’t think Corrosion of Conformity was terribly special (and this one’ll really burn your ass), I never liked Pantera or its postbellum incarnations. (Oh and I don’t like Black Label Society because they want to be a southern band even though Zakk Wylde is from fucking NEW JERSEY.) Given all of that, then, I was pretty fucking stoked that listening to this record wasn’t torture! In fact, it was really enjoyable. Let me regale you with the tale. Continue reading

The Ocean // Anthropocentric
Rating: 2.5/5.0 — On the ‘meh’ side.
Label: Metal Blade
Websites: theoceancollective.com | myspace.com/theoceancollective
Release Dates: EU: 05.11.2010 | US: 11.09.2010

I gotta say up front that I am not a big fan of sludge, I mean, you should be forewarned of this. So when I first heard The Ocean‘s controversial (and apparently much hated) opus Heliocentric I was really happy about it. It was way more shoegaze or post-hardcore than it was sludge or anything really coming near to it. Short on the hardcore and tall on the clean vocals—I was impressed. I gave it a 4.5/5.0 and I stand by that (in spite of the incessant whining of jilted fans). So I was pretty interested to take a listen to the follow-up Anthropocentric. And my worst fears were confirmed: they pulled an Opeth. Soft record. Heavy record. Blech. Anyone else ever notice that this never works? Continue reading

Mose Giganticus // Gift Horse
Rating: 3.0/5.0 — Sludgedoomstonersynthrock
Label: Relapse Records
Websites: mosegiganticus.com | myspace.com/mosegiganticus
Release Date: July 20th, 2010

Every now and then, a band comes along and I’m utterly at a loss for how to classify them in the official Steel Druhm Book O’ Metal [That's what you get for not using the Angry Book o' Metal Classifications™, n00b. — AMG]. Generally, this causes me anger and vexation, but I always give a nod of appreciation for the bands that resist easy classification. The latest recipient of the nod is Gift Horse, the second album by Mose Giganticus, for they have truly baffled my considerable pigeonholing acumen. They have forced even me to admit I’m stumped. Mose Giganticus is apparently a one-man entity created by Matthew Garfield, a staple of the Philly punk rock scene for some time. While some of that punk ethos is apparent on Gift Horse, this isn’t exactly a punk album. What is it then? Good question!! Let’s try to piece this puzzle together shall we?

Continue reading

The Atlas Moth – A Glorified Piece of Blue-Sky
Rating: 3.5/5.0 – A mix of sounds that works very well, but doesn’t stand out for me..
Label: Candlelight
Website: theatlasmoth.com
Release Date(s): EU: 21.09.2009 | USA: 10.6.2009

Sludge, and many variations thereof, have definitely been working their way into the “mainstream” consciousness of heavy metal guys for a long time.   Bands like Neurosis, Isis and all of their clones have permeated the hard skin of heavy metal, giving it something rawer, weirder and that makes heavy happen through slowness more than through technical insanity.  The Atlas Moth follows in that vein very much, blending sludge, southern groove and what sounds to me like a very Cult of Luna, Neurosis hardcore approach that is sure to please the fans of this style.

A Glorified Piece of Blue-Sky isn’t the worlds greatest piece of sludge art or anything, but they have managed to make a sound that I don’t find even remotely compelling 99% of the time, and add something to it that I really have to appreciate.  One thing that does it for me is the production of the album, which sounds like these guys are grooving in a big dark cave somewhere.  This, combined with the fact that The Atlas Moth takes their sweet-ass time getting anywhere at all with their tracks, gives this record an ambience that shouldn’t be overlooked.  In an era of pristine clean production, A Glorified Piece of Blue-Sky is a wittily titled dissertation on the understanding of groove, ambience and heaviness in the epoch of triggers and sterility.

Of course, aspects of that ambience I could do away with.  Fun space noises?  Over-rated and boring.  But the tracks themselves are well-crafted, highly convincing and there is an emotional weight which seems to overlay this record in a way that a lot of bands are missing—it’s something that I think goes missing a lot in metal.  In some ways, despite the fact that these guys don’t really sound like it, they have a big of My Dying Bride buried deep down there or something.  Another important thing that stands out about this record is how brutally heavy it is at times, despite being technically very simplistic.  I have commented in the past, and to people personally, that a lot of metal doesn’t feel like it has an edge anymore.  Certain projects sound like something middle-age women who appreciate such stellar artists like Michael Bolton would fall in love with.  The Atlas Moth does not suffer from this fatal flaw.  The sound is huge, raw and heavy, with a wide range of vocals and a thick punching low end.

There is a major drawback for me, and that’s that the songs don’t seem to stick.  Despite being heavy, groovy and ambient, there are only a few moments on this album that really stand out for me.  The rest of it feels, honestly, like I could be listening to the same song on every track.  Is it one big 50 minute song that I’m listening to?  This is an unfortunate weakness that a lot of sludge has for me.  While there are some cool things and I appreciate the ambience, it works better as background music than it does as something I feel like actively istening to.   That said, I think this album will definitely go over well with fans of the genre.  While it’s not terribly dynamic, in my opinion, it definitely offers something more than a lot of the shit I’ve heard in the genre.