Artwork by: Dmitry Rogatnev

Style: Avant-garde Metal, Brutal Death Metal, Deathgrind, Jazz Fusion (Harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Cattle Decapitation, The Number Twelve Looks Like You, The Red Chord, Pathology
Country: Russia
Release date: 13 June 2025

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you took insanely technical deathgrind, the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack, and a smoky jazz joint on the harbor, then shot them through the musical equivalent of whatever hellish industrial-grade contraption processes chum? Me neither, but apparently ByoNoiseGenerator did. These unhinged Russians have crawled out from the briny depths of Perm Krai after seven years away, dripping seaweed and sheathed in the viscera of multitudinous aquatic horrors, bludgeoned into pulp and ready to serve via the stern and merciless hand of avant-garde deathgrind. Break out your bibs and fetch the butter—time to chow down on the band’s third LP, Subnormal Dives.

To anyone expecting the sultry and sophisticated sax-stylings of say, a Rivers of Nihil or Sleep Token, you may want to get back in your dinghy and row for the nearest opposite coastline. ByoNoiseGenerator, true to their name, are out here dropping sonic depth charges loaded to the gills with pure aural madness. Grooving slam breakdowns (“NULL.state = PERMANENT; return VOID;“), Primus-esque guitar funkery (“NoSuccessToday!”),  and skull-pulping grindcore all shoot through violent streaks of freeform jazz both manic and moody—often within the confines of the same track. For the first nine minutes,¹ ByoNoiseGenerator keep the pressure building as they cram multiple songs’ worth of ideas into tracks that nary crack the three minute mark. The band pull the listener deeper and deeper into this Subnormal Dive, gleefully assaulting our ears with a smorgasbord of hyper-processed violence perhaps only meant for the deepest of undersea dwellers.

It’s not until “LoveChargedDiveBombs” that we receive any surcease from ByoNoiseGenerator’s bio-organic brutality, with gentle radar pings, feathering drum and bass, and flickering saxophone doots creating an almost pleasant atmosphere. Denigrating chaos returns soon after via trampling blast beats and vocalist Tim’s inhuman growls, but the preceding forty-five seconds go a surprisingly long way towards letting me catch my breath before the band force me back underwater. The choice to slow things down in the song’s back half, showcases how—when it fancies them—ByoNoiseGenerator are capable of creating some rather captivating stretches of music. This characteristic defines more than a few songs across the platter (“Eb(D#),” “I’mNot20Anymore (21Ne),” “4-HO-DMTNzambiKult,”), and the band often nail the transitions in spite of the general atmosphere of mad-cap insanity and sonic whiplash that underscores their efforts.

Elsewhere and everywhere across Subnormal Dives, however, chaos reigns supreme. For twenty-three minutes, ByoNoiseGenerator toss and tumble the listener across heinous tempo and stylistic changes that would give even the most seasoned diver the bends. Songs are less-definable by any idea of coherent structure, and more by what fleeting strips of music that may qualify as identifiable (and palatable) to you. For my money, I love when the band cut away the deathgrind to revel in the smoky notes of playful saxophone and fluttering cymbal work that give Subnormal Dives its Bebop aesthetic. Whether that’s the funky drum-and-bass sections (“4-HO-DMTNzambiKult,” “deBroglieNeverExisted”) or back alley neo-noir vibes (“LoveChargedDiveBombs,” “5mgInspiredVibes”), these parts stand out as highlights of ByoNoiseGenerator’s glittering talent. For others, that satisfaction may come from the relentless grindcore butchery staining every cut.

Wherever you land, Subnormal Dives is a journey taken with the highest of caution. Even well-adjusted metalheads may struggle to decipher the band’s non-euclidean configurations, driven mad instead by ByoNoiseGenerator’s insistence on an almost blink-and-you’ll-miss-it approach to songcraft. There’s something to be said for not beating a motif, riff, etc. to death, but the opposite holds true, too. Take the scraping death metal ebb and flow at 1:38 in “IQ69Exaltations,” which serves well in hooking the listener—but just as you’re really starting to nibble, the moment is gone, a fish fry-flash in the pan, and we’re on to new flavors. Fortunately, with grindcore you’re never in for that long of a haul. Subnormal Dives’ twenty-three minutes fly by like a marlin on a mission. And when shit is this gleefully unhinged, it’s hard not to have a good time. Just… maybe don’t ask how they make the fish stix.

Recommended tracks: Eb(D#), LoveChargedDiveBombs, deBroglieNeverExisted, 5mgInspiredVibes
You may also like: Blastanus, Malignancy, DeathFuckingCunt, Diskord, Veilburner, Bloody Cumshot
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives

Label: Transcending Obscurity Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

ByoNoiseGenerator is:
– M1t (bass)
– NOx (drums)
– Tim (vocals)
– HaL° (guitars)
– Sh3la (saxophone)

1.  That’s five whole tracks here. Grindcore is wild, I tell yah what. ︎

The post Review: ByoNoiseGenerator – Subnormal Dives appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Artwork by: Mohammed Khoirul Anam

Style: Deathgrind, Grindcore, Technical Death Metal, Progressive Death Metal (Harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Cattle Decapitation, The Red Chord, The Number Twelve Looks Like You
Country: Finland
Release date: 20 April 2025

The first time I heard saxophone in metal was “The Silent Life”, off Rivers of Nihil’s masterwork album, Where Owls Know My Name (2018), and needless to say I was hooked on those sultry tones and how they fed deliciously into the song’s thunderous grandiosity. Since then, I’ve heard it more and more, utilized by diverse acts like Operation Mindcrime, The Anchoret, The Faceless, White Ward, and Sleep Token, each time popping up like a reward; a tasty treat for my musical palate. But, I am admittedly, on occasion, a gluttonous being, not always well-known for regulating my sweet-tooth. I want saxophone to be more than a gimmicky addition, but it often feels like a dream, one never to be realized.

Color me shocked when I discovered dreams can come true in the form of Blastanus, a DIY deathgrind/epicsaxgrind act hailing from Finland. They dropped two loads in the late aughts / early 2010s (Odd and Collapse) then promptly vanished to a changing room before returning a decade later to squat out a single “Agathusia” and full-length Beyond in 2022. Now in 2025, the ass-blasting trio of Antti Oksanen (vocals, guitars, bass), Henri Fredriksson (drums), and Kari Vakiparta (vocals) have returned freshly-britched and with longtime session brasskicker Jussi Hurskainen (saxophone) in tow for another toilet-terrorizer in Land of the Weak, Home of the Slave. Can these Finnish flatulators convince me of the saxiness of their particular brand? Or will I need to break out the Febreze?

I’m not one to normally pledge to the cause of grindcore, though I do find its compact stylings and breakneck insanity an occasional source of catharsis when the sadboi-core just ain’t cutting it. There’s an artistry to crafting bite-sized vectors of songcraft from which genuine listening value can be excised. The genre also lends itself to heightened levels of emotion (usually aggression, angst, pain, etc.), with acts like Closet Witch unloading dark matter heaps of suffering in a minute or less, leading to a hyper-injection of feelings that my instant-gratification lizard brain sometimes craves. Blastanus are certainly poised to scratch that scaly itch. On the (w)hole, Land of the Weak, Home of the Slave rips through its thirty-five minute runtime with all the jarring lethality of a post-McChicken bathroom break after clearing the obligatory mid-paced sampler platter that is opener “Inauguration”—a roller-coaster climb before the cheek-clenching freefall into the corkscrew riffage, machine-gun drumming, shredding roars and porcine squeals, and decadent saxophone to follow.

Oh, the saxophone. I wasn’t prepared for just how entrenched Mr. Hurskainen is on the album: he appears on twelve of the fifteen tracks, and in various configurations: Smooth n’ sexy (“Mephitic,” “Drones”), moody and accentual (“Bloodlines,” “Justice System,” “Janedoe”), and as a Weapon of Jazz Destruction (“Cencorship” [sic]). The way he weaves and saunters around the general chaos of his bandmates’ sonic slaughter is, quite honestly, impressive and a genuine highlight of the record. It’s nice to hear the instrument included in a full capacity rather than clinched to a particular moment or style, to be shaken down for its prog-points and then discarded.

Sadly, the rest of Blastanus’ ripping and tearing feels rote and unfortunately forgettable when stacked against the brass. Most of Land of the Weak, Home of the Slave whips through one ear and out the other; few things in its thirty-five minutes generate the staying power necessary to achieve the kind of earworm constipation I seek from music. There’s an entertainment factor here, for sure, but the realization I came to as I spun the record again and again was this: Hurskainen is the not-so-secret saxy sauce. Take him out of the mix and what remains is admittedly fun, but mostly forgettable technical deathgrind. The guitars rip like a renegade chainsaw. Fredriksson’s drumming would make The Flash quake. There are inspired moments where Blastanus clench up on the aural chaos to drop some interesting nuggets: a power metal-flavored solo on “Class Warfare,” the neo-noir bass-and-saxophone chill of “Drones,” “Justice System’s” knuckle-dragging slam, or the weirdly epic ten-minute closer “Don’t Vote,” which serves as a sort of super-cut of what the album offers across its more bite-sized morsels. But despite all the flavoring, there’s little that holds me beyond the simple dopamine hit that ridiculously brutal music can provide—not even Oksanen’s railing against our corrupt governments and generally trash society. His vocals are fun and fit the style, but lack the kind of soul-flensing evocations a’la Mollie Piatetsky (Closet Witch) capable of transporting me to states of emotional extremes. Also, why is “Jane Doe” so loud? It hits like a jump scare, feeling at odds with how the preceding tracks had been mixed.

While discussing Blastanus with my fellow Subway riders, a colleague referred to the inclusion of saxophone as a “dumb gimmick.” I didn’t necessarily agree, but repeat exposure has revealed a kernel of truth here: The biggest reason to recommend Land of the Weak, Home of the Slave is the novelty of Hurskainen’s saxophone. Without him, there’s little staying power in Blastanus’ latest gas. That’s a shame, too, because I love how fully they’ve incorporated the saxophone into the totality of the album. However, by making the sax less of a feature it’s oddly become something of a bug, breaking the album by revealing the relative banality of what surrounds it. If brutal noise and sultry tones is your jam, then you’ll probably have fun with Land of the Weak, Home of the Slave. I sure did. Like SpongeBob ripping his pants, though, there’s only so many times you can do something before the schtick starts to get old and it’s time to look elsewhere for entertainment.

Recommended tracks: Bloodlines, Drones, Justice System, Don’t Vote
You may also like: Closet Witch, Nightmare Unit, Infiltration, Replicant, Brain Stem
Final verdict: 4/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives

Label: Independent

Blastanus is:
– Antti Oksanen (bass, vocals, guitars, songwriting, lyrics)
– Henri Fredriksson (drums)
– Kari Vakiparta (vocals)
– Jussi Hurskainen (saxophone)

The post Review: Blastanus – Land of the Weak, Home of the Slave appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Genres: dissonant death metal, sludge metal, grindcore (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Replicant, Blood Incantation
Country: Australia
Release date: 19 January 2024

Birthed into existence in the late 90s with Gorguts’s Obscura, dissonant death metal is a genre that has seen considerable growth since its inception. From the seemingly barely contained chaos of genre forefathers Portal and Gorguts to the crushing, blackened atmosphere of bands like Ulcerate and Convulsing to the jazzy tendencies of Imperial Triumphant and Veilburner, chances are that if a genre exists, dissodeath has found a way incorporate it into its ever growing mass. And with Resin Tomb’s debut Cerebral Purgatory, dissodeath has officially taken sludge metal into its fold.

While not as disparate as other potential combinations, the concoction of dissonance and sludge that Resin Tomb delivers on this album is bubbling over with the trademark tendencies of both genres. Extensive use of the high pitched and, yes, dissonant chord work that runs rampant in the modern dissodeath scene is on full display here, although its use doesn’t necessarily seem to capture the ethos of dissodeath as much as it does the mere texture. Instead of the angular passages expected from dissodeath, the riffs sound as though they’ve been dragged through mud, small details obfuscated by thick layers of muck and sludge. Several times I found myself reminded of the riffing style of Morbid Angel—or Gojira for a more modern reference—but with a tone more akin to that of LLNN or Primitive Man. This formula ensures that every moment on this album is pulverizingly heavy but also difficult to distinguish from its peers, each riff a wall of distortion only a vaguely different shade of blood-spattered gray.

This issue of sameness is not alleviated by the album’s drumwork, which spends a significant amount of its time blasting away, pushing the needle of this album closer to the realms of grindcore than anything sludge related, leaving the album in a sort of limbo. The riffing style and tone especially seemingly demand a slower pace, but the rhythm section is insistent upon a speed that makes the riffs basically unmemorable. And herein lies my main issue with Cerebral Purgatory: it fails to truly capture the essence of any of the genres it employs. The dissodeath elements are textural at best; the sludge has been diluted to a runny mess with the presence of grindcore; and the grindcore leaves songs feeling half baked. When Resin Tomb finds it in their consciousness to slow down a touch, it often leads to the album’s most memorable moments, like on “Scalded” and “Concrete Crypt,” but these moments are rare since most songs on the album seem to be following a similar strophic recipe that’s unfortunately missing a few ingredients.

Now, I’m as much of a proponent for sleek songwriting as anybody, but Resin Tomb in this pursuit have pushed a few of these songs towards anemia. Songs like “Human Confetti” and “Cerebral Purgatory” play out as though they are missing vital sections, ending before they’ve really said anything. This is once again another tendency of grindcore that seems at odds with the sludge metal textures, as though the beast that is dissodeath swallowed up grindcore and sludge metal and is now suffering from some indigestion.

Thankfully, Cerebral Purgatory is not all bad. The varied vocal approach keeps me engaged during my listens, and the bass tone is actually to die for with its satisfying clack yet fully audible pitch. These two factors are consistent enough to raise this album from something inadequate to something merely forgettable, as though your brain is wiped with some “Purge Fluid” after each listen. I wish that Resin Tomb had maintained the track record of dissodeath’s calculated genre pushing, but it seems as though the successful amalgamation of sludge metal and dissonant death metal will have to come another day.

Recommended tracks: Purge Fluid, Concrete Crypt
You may also like: Devenial Verdict, Dysgnostic, Gridlink
Final verdict: 5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Transcending Obscurity – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Resin Tomb is:
– Mitch Long (bass)
– Perry Vedelago (drums)
– Brendan Auld (guitars)
– Matt Gordon (guitars)
– Matthew Budge (vocals)

The post Review: Resin Tomb – Cerebral Purgatory appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: melodic death metal, power metal, grindcore (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Imperial Circus Dead Decadence, The Black Dahlia Murder, Galneryus, Versailles
Country: Japan
Release date: 13 December 2023

3… 2… 1… BLAST OFF. That’s exactly how long you get before Bloody Cumshot floors it, and they don’t let off the gas once for the next thirty-six minutes. Hope you brought a seatbelt. Deflorantism is, in a word, absurd. From the ludicrous band name to the neoclassical melodies to the methamphetamines surely involved, Deflorantism is a wild, incredibly fun and dangerous ride. 

Bloody Cumshot have a formula and stick to it. Play a sped-up The Black Dahlia Murder riff, add a Japanese power metal lead on top (pick your poison between Versailles or Galneryus), and then toss in a dash of the absurdity of Imperial Circus Dead Decadence. The eleven tracks never veer from this formula, and despite how insanely crazy it seems, it gets old quickly, especially as the production is loud and in your face in a grind-y, Gridlink way—just a wall of sound with screams above the din. All the riffs blend into the screams and drumming, leaving room for only guitar solos to be heard above the maelstrom; they’re the highlight of every track. Junya, the person behind Zemeth and Bloody Cumshot, is wicked with the axe, slaying both crazy neoclassical solos and women with equal ease (note: I obviously do not support misogynistic violence and am 99% sure the band is tongue-in-cheek). 

In the midst of chaos, Bloody Cumshot has moments of sheer beauty in its intricate melodicism, but they’re rare. The project’s debut, 2021’s Nymphomania, was a much shorter twenty-eight minutes, and that captured lightning in a bottle with its ferocious, hyperactive melodeath riffing; this falls flat, toiling in mediocrity. The riffs on most songs aren’t interesting until the guitar leads, tracks like “Chlamydia Rain,” “Breast Ripper,” and “Eater of the Unborn” really not standing out. Only when Junya’s guitar solos come do I cum—no blood, thankfully. 

The formula is still addicting, and several songs do supercede the sonic overbearing-ness of the album: the title track has a key change midway to somehow spike the energy from lunatic to legit on meth and coke simultaneously, and “Fist Fuck Assassin” has a much punchier riff than most of the speedy riffs on the rest of the album, feeling much more death metal than deathgrind-tinged. “Tribadism” has a whistle scream that I feel with the natural fear responses in my body, and  “Eater of the Unborn” has perhaps the best solo on the album. However, given that every track is uniformly identical in structure and style without even a five second rest, the album becomes painfully lacking despite the endless energy in the performances. 

While I wish I could wholeheartedly get behind a band called Bloody Cumshot, this is not a worthy followup to Nymphonia, and you’re better off listening to Zemeth. Deflorantism has a manic energy and melodies for days, but it’s also an overbearing, painful affair like an evening with your mother-in-law. I am severely let down.

Recommended tracks: Deflorantism, Fist Fuck Assassin, Eater of the Unborn
You may also like: Zemeth, Jupiter, Gridlink, Somnium de Lycoris
Final verdict: 5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: independent

Bloody Cumshot is:
– Junya (guitars, vocals)

The post Review: Bloody Cumshot – Deflorantism appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Technical grindcore (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Pig Destroyer, Beaten to Death, Bloody Cumshot
Review by: Zach
Country: US-NJ
Release date: 15 September, 2023

Let’s talk grindcore. Out of all the subgenres of extreme music, grindcore is quite possibly my least favorite. I find it what most people think death metal to be: noise without purpose. When I was going down the rabbit hole of my music taste getting heavier and heavier, I hit a bit of a roadblock when listening to Napalm Death. I thought…well, this is garbage. Turns out, there are exactly three good grindcore bands in existence, and they all share a member. Jon Chang–of Discordance Axis, No One Knows What the Dead Think, and Gridlink–is one of the few people of the scene who has my undying respect. Not just because of his taste in anime (and excellent vocals), but because all of the projects he’s attached to drip quality like no other grind albums.

Gridlink is a strange band to say the least. Their album prior, Longhena, long (hena) remains my favorite grindcore album of all time because of how out there it is. It’s melodic in the strangest way possible, littered with post-rock melodies, and even has a violin at some points. It’s about as close to prog as grindcore has ever been, and I was heartbroken to find out Gridlink had been disbanded for years after I’d found them. Furthermore, guitarist Takefumi Matsubara suffered a brain infection resulting in total paralysis of his left hand, ending his musical career on a high note that left me wanting more…

…until he recovered. My eyes practically bugged out of my head when I saw Willowtip’s notification on my phone saying a new album from Gridlink was coming. Lead single ‘Silk Ash Cascade’ told me all I needed to know. The melodic leads of the intro, Bryan Farjardo’s absolutely insane drumming, and an actually clear mix that gave Mauro Cordoba’s bass plenty of time to shine. Gridink were fucking back, with a mecha on their album cover no less. I just know these guys have been playing Armored Core 6. 

Turns out, those nearly ten years in hibernation was just so the rest of the scene could catch up. Gridlink have catapulted themselves so far ahead of everyone else, once again. This is a grind album with purpose, infectious melodies cover all nineteen blistering minutes of this album’s runtime, some that got stuck in my head for days afterward. Despite all the melody, and dare I say, epic and sweeping feel to this album, they don’t sacrifice any of the aggression or abrasion for beauty.

What I love about this album can be summed up in the track ‘Ocean Vertigo’. At a grand two minutes and forty-five seconds, it’s practically the closest we’ll ever get to a grindcore epic. If you listen to the karaoke version (which the band have kindly included with every copy), you’ll find that Matsubara’s guitarwork is incredibly melodic for grindcore, and him slowing it down (for gindcore, anyway) adds to the song’s dramatic, violin-laden crescendo. Matsubara is honestly the star of the show on this album because he knows when to take a break from the constant tremolo assaults. In the rhythmic department, Farjardo’s unrelenting blasts and seemingly infinite fills keep the energy high, even when Matsubara chills out for a whole eighth of a minute.

The whole nineteen-minute Beam Saber-to-the-face leaves this album sitting at just the right runtime for a grind album, and it leaves me wanting more. The only flaw I can possibly find in this otherwise masterful album is the treble-heavy guitar tone. I would’ve liked something more bass heavy, like No One Knows What the Dead Think. However, even if you don’t like grind, I’d recommend checking this one out. I may even regret the rating I’m about to give in favor of .5 higher. I know my comrade Andy is gonna have the complete opposite opinion, so you can read his hate-filled rant against fun and good albums below. Or you could just listen to Coronet Juniper. I’d say go with the latter.

Final verdict: 8.5/10

Review by: Andy

In the long, illustrious history of extreme metal, no genre has been worse than grindcore. In total, six bands have been worth my time including deathgrind: Cattle Decapitation, Okazaki Fragments, Bloody Cumshot, Knoll, Strigoi, and Gutslit. Zach swore that Gridlink would join that exclusive list… He was wrong.

There’s a lot to admire about Coronet Juniper–from the viciously melodic, swaggering guitar parts to the manic energy intrinsic to grindcore, Gridlink bring it all to the table for a thrilling nineteen minutes. Like a good grind band, Gridlink waste not even a second, the opener “Silk Ash Cascade” starting things off right with a searing hot, punky-tech riff that reminds me of Protest the Hero, and the bass underneath ties all the chaos together. Especially notable is the song structure with a theme actually developed, an oddity in the grind-sphere where “You Suffer” (Napalm Death) is considered a classic. Other tracks also flash several techniques and riff-styles in their diminutive runtimes. “Anhalter Bahnhof” uses a melodic tremolo to stand out from the intensity; “Ocean Vertigo” has a sweet little guitar solo and demonstrates that drummer Bryan Fajardo can do more than incessantly blast; and “The Forgers Secede” uses swirling little guitar parts to overwhelm the senses in a more creative way than the stereotypical onslaught of grind. 

But I’ll be damned if Gridlink don’t overdo the onslaught. Obviously, I expect the band to have everything dialed up to eleven at all times, but the blast beats and ripping vocals of Jon Chang become grating almost immediately. Sporting a dynamic range of four, Coronet Juniper is obnoxiously loud and upfront about it, and the vocals still drown out everything else–thank god for the included karaoke versions I guess–and the drum tone is classic grindcore and sounds atrocious to my distinguished prog ear. Gridlink are performing at their best when they lean into the melodic, technical aspect of their sound, and while flashes of Bloody Cumshot and other aggressive yet melodic grind come through, the band always switches back to the droning cacophony of blast beats and screeches. Coronet Juniper often comes across as evoking intensity for its own sake by forcing mountains of noise into every second rather than crafting the feeling through anxiety-inducing riffs or sheer intimidating structures. Even at a prim nineteen minutes, Coronet Juniper fatigues my ears like little else. 

I wanted to love this album, I truly did. I think that the melodic sections and overall energy are out-of-this-world cool, but the production choices and relentlessly abrasive vocals hamper any enjoyment I can glean from this. In the storied history of grindcore, Gridlink is certainly a band to look out for, but thus far they’ve failed to expand my list of six to a list of seven. 

Final Verdict: 5/10

Recommended tracks: Silk Ash Cascade, Nickel Grass Mosaic, Ocean Vertigo, The Forgers Secade
You may also like: No One Knows What the Dead Think, Discordance Axis

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page

Label: Willowtip Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Gridlink is:
– Jon Chang (vocals)
– Takefumi Matsubara (guitars)
– Bryan Farjardo (drums)
– Mauro Cordoba (bass)

The post Review: Gridlink – Coronet Juniper appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Thrash metal, Progressive metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Voivod, Coroner, Havok
Review by: Francesco
Country: Missouri, United States
Release date: 23 May, 2023

Konnichiwa and welcome back to all my Japanese readers! Anarchÿ returns to the scene after last year’s debut full-length Sentience with an EP called Retching Necropolis. The St. Louis based duo (and their super cool robot drummer) bring back some of the classic Anarchÿ sounds, only in bite-size format this time around. Although lacking in 30+ minute opuses, there’s still a couple of bangers here to tide you over; Retching Necropolis delivers more of what you’ve come to love from Anarchy and their musical inclinations: technical wizardry, interesting compositional arrangements, and abrupt, absurdly titled short tracks.

I particularly enjoy the way that Anarchÿ transition within their songs to create different movements. In the opener “Blizzard and Brimstone” they start with slow acoustic guitars before the dissonant, fast-paced distorted parts kick in. “Chopin’s Nightmare” seamlessly breaks into an excerpt from Chopin‘s “Funeral March”. In the middle of “The Helix Withers” they bring out the reverberant acoustics again: first solo, and then with backing percussion, until the electric comes back playing something approximate to the acoustic bit. In this way they tend to eschew the traditional verse-chorus-bridge structure of most popular songwriting, and keep their compositions diverting and engaging.

Although Anarchÿ are often styled as neoclassical, I don’t really hear much of that influence in Necropolis beyond the last track, “Ÿ”, an 8-second grindcore rendition of Tchaikovsky‘s “Waltz of the Flowers” from The Nutcracker. The other short track on this is “Pantera’s Pizza: Ballad of the Hunk”: what could best be described as a musical stinger stuck at the end of a commercial. The last thing to mention about this EP is the inclusion of a cover of Acid Bath‘s “Bleed Me an Ocean”. It’s a pretty faithful rendition, but I’m not really one for sludge metal, and I often found myself skipping over it on subsequent listens. Probably better fitting for inclusion here rather than the upcoming full length.

Three original compositions and one cover song make for a short listen but I feel that punctuating with the aforementioned bumper music, as we heard in the last album, helps to keep a listener engaged as they go through the track listing. Retching Necropolis is a quick technical thrash metal degustation that serves to whet your appetite but leaves you hungry for another course.

Recommended tracks: The Helix Withers, Blizzard and Brimstone
You may also like: VENUS, Reverber, Quasarborn
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Instagram | Metal Archives page

Label: Independent

Anarchÿ is:
– Fionn McAuliffe (vocals)
– Reese Tiller (guitars, bass, keyboards)

The post Review: Anarchÿ – Retching Necropolis appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: experimental / cybergrind / Nintendocore (harsh vocals)
Review by: Josh
Country: US-CA
Release date: 4 June, 2021

I’m a sucker for anything avant-garde, regardless of quality. If I luck out and run into something good, I’m about to have my mind blown, and if it’s a shit-show, at the very least it’ll be an entertaining shit-show. So when Sam messaged me asking whether this album was, in his words, avant-garde or avant-garbage, I knew right then and there I had to give it a go.

Before we get into answering his question, let’s take a look at what Temenigru are doing here. Terminal blends together all kinds of extreme metal as well as metalcore, EDM, and, of all things, chiptune, and compresses the resulting sonic goulash into just under 25 minutes. There is a lot going on here. Taking a look at the album’s busiest track, “Singularity”, we kick off with a dungeon synth intro before pivoting into a breakbeat and then hard-cutting to an extreme metal groove featuring deep, growled vocals. Shortly after, a piano comes in, extreme metal drumming still present, dungeon synth ambience still present, and the vocals proceed to alternate between shrieks and reverbed-out cleans. Occasionally, the cleans are pitch-shifted up to chipmunk levels. The overall experience is akin to listening to “You Without End” by Deafheaven for the first time, but somehow with even less subtlety. Oh, forgot to mention – that’s only the first two minutes of the song.

Needless to say, there is a lot going on in this album. Most tracks switch up styles multiple times per minute, with varying qualities of execution. Sometimes you get a track like “Real Virtual”, where the aggressive metal riffage melds well with the video game-y synths and you’re left with something almost akin to symphonic metal. Most of the time, however, the band’s wildly varying sonic stylings fail to form a coherent whole. Often Temenigru seem to be just tossing out ideas, giving each a few bars before moving onto another, never looking back. This makes for a frustrating listening experience. There’s so much more that could be done here if only Temenigru would give the music some breathing room. Even worse, though, is when the band shoves two completely incongruent ideas together with no regards for how well they meld. The worst incidence of this has to be the end of “Ego Divergence”, which is for the most part dominated by a guitar solo that would be the highlight of the album, if not for the frankly baffling pitch-shifted vocals over the top of the first part of it. It legitimately sounds like one of the band members got wasted and their drunken slurring was picked up by a still-active mic in the studio. I cannot fathom why they decided to add that in.

It is important to keep in mind, though, that the style shifts are only frustrating because Temenigru‘s ideas are generally quite good. When left to blossom, the result is often great. Tracks like “Sky Knife” show what the band can do when they’re not attempting to shove as many ideas as possible into a single song, and the resulting sound is one I’d love to hear more of. They really do know how to write a good riff, and when they’re not overdoing it, the electronic influences add a lot to their tracks. However, that side of them is squared off from us, the listener, far too often. I wouldn’t call this release avant-garbage, but Temenigru really need to learn to effectively implement their ideas if they want to produce something cohesive. It was a fun listen the first few times through, but I don’t see myself coming back.

Recommended tracks: Sky Knife, Real Virtual, Fourier Possession
Recommended for fans of: MASTER BOOT RECORD? Maybe? I’m kinda at a loss on this one
Final verdict: 4.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | MySpace | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Big Money Cybergrind – Instagram | Facebook

Temenigru is:
– Vanja Venezia (everything)

The post Review: Temenigru – Terminal appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Post-Metal/Grindcore/Jazz/Avant (Instrumental)
Review by: Chris
Country: Switzerland
Release date: October 23, 2020

The term genre defying tends to be a loaded term. Too often people take it as a notice that an album or band is revolutionary or amazing instead of just a note that bucketing doesn’t work for the artist in question. I’m not sure I find Convulsif revolutionary or amazing, but I will call them genre-defying because I really can’t bucket this album. Extinct is marketed as “ever self-inventing gloomy rock in the abyss between subgenres: noise, metal, jazz and grindcore”. I’d call this accurate as the album definitely dances between these referenced areas while also including some post stylings as well along the way. SO maybe now the wack style list has at least a little more explanation now.

Extinct opens on “Buried between one” with extremely fuzzed bass laying down an ominous, doomy line while over time the electronics, guitars and other instruments provide shrieks, embellishments, and feedback on top. The drums use a sparse and loose growing tom and snare groove to back up the doom feel from the bass. As the song progresses the doom feel is eventually phased out for a grindcore-esque wall of noise and frantic energy. This kind of drawn out build is tantamount to how this album works, with 3 of the songs being above 7 minute affairs of building and embellishing on an initial motif.

The builds and motifs themselves differ for each of the long-form songs. Where as “Buried Between one” is a doomy, dirty build, “Five days of open bones” is much more post metal and jazz in nature. Much more forward pushing drums and a true bass line are coupled with legato clarinet lines and electronic elements to provide a much calmer, laid back build that the previous song. That said, it does end up in a similar place with a gigantic wall of feedback and what I assume is also clarinet screeching. The very end of “Five days” provides a first real riff (kinda) section with very low clarinet voicing, which brings along a dark jazz kind of mood.

I found myself enjoying the next two tracks the most for their brevity and simplicity in development. I would say while I like and appreciate the building nature a lot of these pretty improvisational bands do (Convulsif states a lot in their bios about being mostly improvisational live and changing every show), I do think this has the normal failing of some of these instrumental albums. Live I think this would be great to watch and experience, much like Russian Circles and their contemporaries are. On a recording some of these builds and compositions get a bit trying and long-winded without the benefit of watching the actual performance. For those really into drawn out instrumental bands this will be great. For those who prefer their instrumental albums melodic and busier, this may not be totally in the wheelhouse.

Definitely well written and performed, but not entirely attention grabbing for me personally. I will say the highs on the album are great. and when they lean into the grindcore aesthetic I’m really into it. I just wish most builds didn’t take the entirety of the songs to get to similar points. In a future release I would love to see maybe more ebb and flow of builds and more of a rollercoaster feel than a continuous climb on each track which I felt this turned into at some point.

Recommended tracks: Buried between one, Surround the arms of revolution, Feed my spirit side by side
Recommended for fans of: Russian Circles, Behold… The Arctopus
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook

Label: Hummus Records – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook

Extinct is:
– Jamasp Jhabvala (violin, electronics)
– Christian Muller (clarinet, electronics)
– Maxime Hänsenberger (drums)
– Loïc Grobéty (bass)

The post Review: Convulsif – Extinct appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: avant-garde/black metal/trap/noise/grindcore/afrobeat (harsh vocals)
Review by: Josh
Country: Kenya
Release date: 07-08-2020

As you could probably guess from the genre tags, this isn’t a metal album in the traditional sense. However, it’s not exactly a breakcore album either, nor is it really industrial, nor hip-hop. Instead of trying to make an album in any particular style, Duma pick up bits and pieces from disparate genres like tools from a toolbox, grabbing bits and pieces from whatever’s appropriate for helping them do what they’d like to do.

Naturally, the sound of this album is quite varied. At its base, though, under everything else, are the drums. The percussion takes a leading role throughout the album, taking up the role that the guitar tends to play. Instead of riffs, you have fills. To compensate for the lack of tonality in the rhythm section, producer Sam Karugu brings together sounds as diverse as trap hi-hats to blast beats to jackhammer samples, creating a sound that’s more diverse tonally than harmonically. Through this, you’re kept on your toes throughout the album’s entire runtime, as it’s impossible to anticipate just exactly what will happen next. It’s an approach I’ve rarely seen taken within the metalosphere, and it makes for a unique listening experience.

The rest of the album’s sonic palette is composed of industrial, metal and dark ambient sounds, backing up the leading drums with atmospheric tones that transport the listener into the landscape of a fever dream. Eerie tones lead into sharp blasts of noise, gradually teaching the listener that no calm moments will last. As such, even the quiet parts are tense, similarly to in a horror movie where the monster is present, but not visible. The vocals lend a face to that monster, howling in syncopated rhythms over the frantic drumming, switching wildly between grindcore squeals, metalcore shouts, and black metal shrieks. Tonally they’re a great fit for the music, embodying the aura of uneasiness that it carries.

All of this, though, is marred by the mixing. While everything’s well-produced, the mixing is downright bizarre at times. The drums are generally up-front, but it’s a crapshoot with everything else. The vocals in particular change in volume seemingly at random. At times it feels like I’m listening to a concert from several blocks away. I can’t fathom what they were going for with this production style, as in my listening experience at least it only served as a distraction. On top of this, the songwriting is quite odd at times. While some tracks, such as the excellent “Omni”, proceed coherently and have a clear sense of direction, others seemingly lack one at all. This, though, I accept may be due to me not fully getting what they’re laying down, so my opinion will probably change with more listens.

While it’s got its flaws, this record’s pretty damn spicy, so if you’re looking for something more out there, give it a few spins and see how you like it.

Recommended tracks: Omni, Kill Yourself Before They Kill You
Recommended for fans of: Suicide, Atrocity Exhibition-era Danny Brown, Whitehouse
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Spotify | Instagram

Label: Nyege Nyege Tapes – Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Facebook

Duma is:
– Martin Khanja aka Lord Spike Heart (vocals)
– Sam Karugu (guitars/production)

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