The Melvins team up to Rodeö the new album by Melvins. Will Tarantula Heart be the straw that psychic breaks the staff’s back? Depends on who you ask.
Noise
meth. – Shame Review
“A fundamental part of being human is our never-ending growth and education. When last I reviewed meth. I was bowled over by the barbed dissonance and big noisy riffs. Mother of Red Light was a filthy brick of misanthropic noisecore that got me on challenging textures and sheer violent rage moreso than on the particulars of their songwriting. Since then, I have grown and I have learned. I cut my disso-teeth on Teeth and survived a full spin of Pyrrhon somehow. I come back to meth. a stronger, wiser frog. But the five fellows from Chicago must have grown, too, and I imagine the last 4 years must have done little to dull the edge of their vitriol. Does it still show in the music?” Same drug, increased purity.
![World’s End Girlfriend – Resistance & The Blessing [Things You Might Have Missed 2023]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Worlds-End-Girlfriend-Resistance-and-The-Blessing-01-768x768.jpg)
World’s End Girlfriend – Resistance & The Blessing [Things You Might Have Missed 2023]
“For those unfamiliar, World’s End Girlfriend has been producing a unique brand of cinematic music rooted in classical composition, post-rock sound palette, glitchy and warped electronics since 2000’s debut Ending Story—very much a stepping stone on this long and forlorn path. Though there’s plenty to enjoy in this Japanese one-man exploration, it was 2007’s Hurtbreak Wonderland that first took my breath away and signaled a string of increasingly wide-viewed, somberly-toned albums that cemented me as a WEG die-hard.” End Times and significant others.
Megaton Leviathan – Magick Helmet Review
“Look, I love drone. I love getting lost in the swaths of noise and soundscapes that pervade its classics, as albums like Earth’s Earth 2, Sunn O)))’s Black One, and Boris’ Flood offer otherworldly and mammoth wilderness to explore. Riffs don’t offer adrenaline, but mountains instead, while vocals and percussion, if there are any, are the last semblance of humanity amid the utter saturation of sound. Its utter overwhelm of sound makes it controversial, its void of relatability offers little reprieve, and its slow depiction of devastation is hypnotic. All that to say, while I was maybe hoping for the next Holy Fawn with Megaton Leviathan’s talk of shoegaze, drone, and doom, I don’t know what the fuck to make of Magick Helmet.” All noise, no sword.
Among the Rocks and Roots – Pariah Review
“Among the Rocks and Roots explore semi-free form compositions, relying as heavily on hypnotic repetition as they do shifts in style and tempo. The concluding part of a trilogy that has explored the battle to conquer addiction, Pariah fairly seethes with an unstable anger.” Rage against the hunger.
Walking Corpse – Our Hands, Your Throat Review
“Heavyweights Gridlink and Rotten Sound have led the grindcore charge in 2023, but to discount less heralded acts carving a presence in the modern grind scene runs the risk of overlooking the next big thing. Hailing from Gothenburg, Sweden, Walking Corpse independently released an EP and debut full-length, 2020’s The Fear Takes Hold, before inking a deal with one of heavy music’s more impressive modern labels, Transcending Obscurity.” Dead man walking!!
Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter – Saved! Review
“Brothers and sisters, welcome to our 9 o’clock service. I see many eager faces out there, hungry to receive the Word today. As Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew, “if two or more are gathered in [h]is name, God will be with us and hear our prayer.” If this is your first time joining us, you could have been anywhere else and we’re thrilled you decided to be here. Feel free to fill out the visitor card in the seat in front of you and drop it in the offering plate – we’d sure love to hear from you and pray for you. I hope you know that God loves you and has a plan for your life. Now, I have a real treat for you today, a guest speaker: classically trained singer and songwriter, pianist, faithful servant and friend of Christ Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter.” Altar calling…
Phantom Winter – Her Cold Materials Review
“Seldom does artwork perfectly embody a band’s sound, but Phantom Winter’s four-album streak of black-and-white portrayals of the horrific and fantastical is dead-on. While lightless and unceasingly dreary, there is a stillness that silences the cacophony. Like a barren forest in the last sigh of winter, Her Cold Materials is a scream receiving no echo, the soft “thump” of a body in the snow, the mockery of the woods’ constant and uninterested witness. In the bleak model of consistency, Phantom Winter once again proves the grit of its mettle in a frostbitten silence that proves less is more.” Winter is coming (soon).
Catafalque – Dybbuk Review
“Good drone swallows you. Drone is not meant to invoke movement or adrenaline, but to evoke a mood or place. It sweeps away like the tides, not with rhythmic intensity but with mammoth weight, and dwells with you. A dybbuk is a Jewish mythological creature that sits on your chest while you sleep, and at its best this album attaches to you like a parasite. Wailing and gnashing of teeth echo across the fray, visceral and ritualistic, and as haunting as it is devastating. The place Catafalque takes you to is not the foot of great mountains or grey cityscapes, but a shadowy place that is as possessed as it is otherworldly.” Honing the droning.
Upir – Threads of Seiðr – Seeing Under Starlight Review
“Calgary’s Upir dropped the absolutely and wonderfully noisemongering Effigy for the Fiercest Frost – Shadows Dance in the Fires of Yule, which achieved a meditative effect across two tracks in its blend of thick ambiance and raw black metal – landing as one of my biggest surprises of 2021. As another surprise, the enigmatic act dropped their first full-length proper out of nowhere.” Surprise bone call.
