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 Rock
Sun of Nothing – Maze Review
“Few albums reveled in existential despair like Sun of Nothing’s The Guilt of Feeling Alive. While punishing in ways that recall Neurosis or Blindead, it settled heavily into tension and despondence beneath the devastation. It always hinted at something without fully grasping it, fluid and powerful heft contrasting with an overwhelming bleakness. Despite its black metal influence, Sun of Nothing did not offer a bleakness like DSBM’s passing glance at a winter landscape, but represented the grey of its troubling cover art: the day-in and day-out of a cold, tired, and worn city, shrouded in smog. For its first album in fourteen years, the Greek quartet has offered something that stands shoulder to shoulder.” Maze of tormets.
Baratro – The Sweet Smell of Unrest Review
“Baratro is a side project of Dave Curran of Unsane. If that shouldn’t clue you in on the level of sonic abuse that awaits you on The Sweet Smell of Unrest, then get outta my face. Noise rock is already a caustic breed of music, a nasty chocolate coating, but when you fuse it with the megaton weight of sludge, the heavy peanut butter, you’ve got yourself a sonic peanut butter cup of bludgeoning pain.” Two great pains that hurt even more together.
KEN mode – VOID Review
“Here we are again strung upon KEN mode’s newest, fresh-faced outing, VOID—well, as fresh a face as these Canucks can muster. NULL’s intense and twisted Red Demon has fractured into a split visage of terrified sadness and caved-in confidence. Though KEN mode has little to fret over in the performance realm, the returning four-piece lineup boasting some of the most diverse and rich talents of the band’s career, a troubled mind, this demon state, does not find solace through notes of proficiency and creativity.” Face of things to come.
Oxx – The Primordial Blues Review
“Oxx is a trio from Aarhus, Denmark, having released three full-lengths and an EP since 2012. In spite of easy recollections to mathy insanity, pigeonholing The Primordial Blues is unfair even to the act’s own discography, as the ominous sprawling of 2015 debut Bury the Ones We Love and Burn the Rest differs fundamentally to the frantic Dillinger-core of 2019’s The Skeleton Is Just A Coat Hanger.” Big, not so dumb OXX.
Mutoid Man – Mutants Review
A new Mutoid Man release means a larger-than-life double review is necessary. Why? Because we said so!
Night Goat – Totem Review
“Totem is a difficult album to pin down, probably because Night Goat are a difficult group to pin down. The promo material describes them as “abrasive, slashing, dark noise rock/death rock, with elements of goth, post-punk, and doom.” I think that’s as fitting a description as any, although I also hear no a small amount of sludge and hardcore creeping in from time to time.” Never unchain the night (goat).
JAAW – Supercluster Review
“Smashing together the legacy talents of performers from Therapy? (Andy Cairns), Sex Swing (Jason Stoll), Petbrick (Wayne Adams), and Three Trapped Tigers (Adam Betts), one would expect Supercluster to live up to its namesake in wild, noise-drenched grandeur.” UTINI!!
These Beasts – Cares, Wills, Wants Review
“These Beasts plays sludge of the stoner rock and noise rock-influenced variety—still nothing to do with dogs—right along the spectrum somewhere between the hypnotic pummel of early Melvins and the screeching chaos of The Jesus Lizard.” Bad dog!
Netherlands – Severance Review
“Netherlands has been kicking, screaming, and blowing out subs with furiously fuzzed twangs for a little over ten years now. Up until receiving this promo for their seventh album, Severance, I had no idea this band existed. Powered primarily by Brooklyn native Timo Ellis, ever busy with various groups (Cibo Matto and Morningwood, to name a couple) ranging from power pop to stoner rock to art rock, Netherlands explores the loudest and proudest of what the multi-instrumentalist has assembled over the years.” No sleep til…Netherlands!
