Truncheons - Demo (2011)

From last.fm:

“We play punk, deal with it.”


It just so happens I like punk so I am dealing with it!!!

From the bowels of the rawest most aggressive forms of punk, Truncheons have been born out of the ashes of Ontario-based bands After The Bombs, H.O.P.E., and The Total End. Their objective is to to do one thing and that is to melt your fucking face off. These guys kick it old school with the raw punk sound backed by banshee-like echoing vocals and at-times d-beat patterns. Anger is your weapon and authority is the opposition. So throw on your vest, tie up those laces, and prepare to pogo the fuck away.

Carry on my d-beat sons, carry on.

Download HERE

Tragedy - Darker Days Ahead (preview)

Three tracks from Tragedy's up and coming album Darker Days Ahead scheduled to be released May 8th.

Download HERE

Distastrophy - Distort the Future, Distort the Past (2012)

From last.fm:

"RAWEST D-BEAT"


Featuring Jan (Ramlord, Ultra//Negative, Felines) on vocals/guitar and Brian (Ramlord, Ultra//Negative) on drums, Distatrophy take their own spin on crasher crust and bring da noise hard with this 6-track demo of blistering d-beat and ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK!!!!!!!!!! The sound levels get fucked up at times but who cares because it's PUNK as fuck.

If you're the fan of the Ram and all their previous side projects like I am be sure to add this one to your collection!

Buy the album digitally here:
Bandcamp

Download HERE

Hongo - ...y sembrarán los campos de odio (2012)

From last.fm:

"http://www.myspace.com/fungivoro


Hongo is a four piece sludge metal band, in earlier times strongly influenced by screamo and crust punk, now playing a darker and more metallic sound with suffocated vocals.


The band born as it is in 2000 in A Coruña, Spain, in those times their line up wasn’t really formalized. First Hongo show was in 2002 in A Coruña at a place called Bar Egeo with SL’S3 with Mejuto (Madame Germen, Ictus) on drums, David (SL’S3) at the guitar, Ernesto the other guitar, Barrós (SL’S3, Destierro, Asfixia) bass and Diego screaming. 


Lately the line up changed when Ivan (Nashgul) joined to play drums and Emilio was added as a 2nd voice. 2004, In this moment Hongo recorded their first material at Studios Bonham in A Coruña.


Little bit after, Ruben (Madame Germen, Black Panda joins to play bass. Diego and Emilio left and now Hongo is a four piece band. 


Hongo recorded their first LP “Formas de Vida que se Precipitan hacia su Destrucción” in 2006 and a shared LP with a french sludge band called Aguirre 


In this project, they try to expose sincere conclusions to humanity’s guidelines and behaviours, urged by mechanisms of development of social interaction (and everything which it involves for example sociability, economy, work, suffering, wars, deaths, deaths and more deaths…) that shouldn’t exist, used to reach the so longed-for well-being state… at all costs?… at the expense of what and how many?"


There's a lot to be said here when describing this band. One of the forefronts behind the latest (not really) subgenres of punk, neocrust, Hongo have managed to broaden the aspects and set the bar for other similar bands. They have been in the Spanish DIY scene long enough through various side projects and have had quite enough experience in not being your stereotypical crust band. You can't really describe them with a few words but their musical range goes anywhere from melodic death metal to screamo. Lets just say they're Hongo.

There's something you'll notice first about Hongo that you'll either love or hate: the vocals. The vocals are the EPITOME of the band. Hell, it even took me some getting used to be eventually they'll grow on you. Their lyrical content is filled with the fallacies and misfortunes of mankind. If this won't make you feel like shit then go outside and look at at the world around you. The combination of  the bleak heart-wrenching vocals and dark downtuned guitar playing on this album will be enough to have you banging your head in frustration. One thing that I was REALLY digging were the ISIS-esque riffs in Máquinas de tortura, but without all the bullshit pretentious Aaron Turner crap involved. If you've ever listened to Reflections of Internal Rain think ROIR Army Barmy.  Unfortunately, the album is missing a god tier post-rock/violin outro like on Formas de vida que se precipitan hacia la destrucción but it makes up for it with a passionate one.

Download HERE

Felines - East Cat Paw-Violence Demo (2012)

From last.fm:

"Felines is a grinding violence band from portland, me. 


call your cat over turn it up way too loud"


It's no surprise these guys would get a massive hard-on over Infest just like any young punk.

The dudes from Ramlord are back but are making a different style of music that is accustomed to their own musical tastes. Drawing influences from Iron Lung, Man is the Bastard, and Archagathus, they put their own thoughts and ideas into their lyrics about cats, the most majestic and kvlt of all animals, into one 5 minute mincegrindviolence demo entitled East Cat Paw-Violence Demo.

Buy the album digitally here:
Bandcamp

Download HERE

Wretched of the Earth - Demo (2012)

From last.fm:


".anti-colonial d-beat hardcore from Portland.
Sean - bass/vocals
Angel - guitar/vocals
Sina - guitar/vocals
Dana Montana - drums


watch us at: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRGygm00MLI&feature=youtu.be
http://socialcam.com/v/08fTGlHF?utm_campaign=tag&utm_source=facebook"


Portland, OR is known for having some kick ass crust bands like Hellshock, From Ashes Rise, and Remains of the Day. Wretched of the Earth are no exception. One of my favorite releases so far this year, Wretched of the Earth combine everything you love about crust.

Power Concedes Nothing Without Revolution, the first track on the demo, has a very Fall of Efrafaish vibe from the beginning to the last only to be complemented with some natural d-beat. You'll notice their use of dual guitars early on, shredding everything in it's path almost as if they're battling each other to defend the d-beat arch. At times, the vocals are very clean cut but still growled, being able to shout "OCCUPY EVERYTHING!!!" at the top of your lungs. Back and forth back and forth they go from vocals to instrumentals, building up the song for maximum overkill. The fifth song, the self titled song, Wretched of the Earth, is mostly an instrumental track that throws in some traditional marching band-esque drumming style and dark sludgy riffs which sounds like it's preparing for the end of it all. Their last song on the demo, For Gender Self-Determination, starts off with a very endearing build up, with cymbals to follow. The dualing guitars are back and going at it even harder with more aggression and more passion. They don't skip a beat and make use of all their vocalists, the female one being more present than ever. The demo ends with an impressive guitar solo, yet again displaying their talent and ability to do what they want.

This is a MUST for anybody who likes anything melodic, d-beat, or metallic in their crust.

Buy the album digitally here:
Bandcamp

Download HERE

The Saddest Landscape - After The Lights (2012)

From last.fm:


"The Saddest Landscape is a band from Boston. They play an authentic style of emo, combining influences from the original “emo” sound with the more chaotic sounds of the later “screamo” bands of the 90s.

Recent activity includes a split with Pianos Become The Teeth, and another with We Were Skeletons. They did a West Coast tour with calculator summer of ‘11 and a Euro Tour with We Were Skeletons has been announced."


I've been long overdue for a new update and this latest release inspired me to do just that. The Saddest Landscape, one of screamo's most highly respected and current bands, are back with a new album entitled After The Lights. Take what you know about this band and amplify it times a thousand and that's what you're getting from this latest material. It's evident that there's a lot of emoviolence as well as some melodic post-hardcore passages. The one thing that strikes near and dear to me about this album is that they take an older band like Orchid, throw in some trve emo, some punk rock, and take you on their own rollercoaster ride of emotion. If you're a fan of screamo vocals (who the fuck isn't?) you're going to absolutely LOVE this album. The way they blend in with the passionate snare drumming for an emotional whirlwind only suspects me to think that they wanted to capture the hearts of the fans and make us feel proud to be fans and I'm proud to say that I listen to The Saddest Landscape. Just you wait, the way the album ends will have you speechless. A band that can start lyrics with "When you got home from the hospital..." and pull it off so it doesn't some 15 year old complaining about their emotional bullshit is a winner in my books. I don't know what got into these guys when making this album but it's definitely my favorite release so far.

 

Download HERE 

Seattle bound!

Just giving a heads up to those who still follow my blog I'll be heading down to Seattle! Yes, I'm still alive. IT'S A FUCKING MIRACLE! Haha. Not really though. But yeah, I just thought I'd like to let everyone know. Thanks for still following even though I'm pretty inactive as fuck!

A message to all those who read up on the blog...

This is going to be a very quick and brief message since I don't want to take away much from your time. I've been very VERY inactive in the past month or so mainly due to the fact I've been trying to get my priorities straight. I *technically* have to be out of the country by the end of this month but in about a week or so I'm backpacking to Vancouver with nothing but a sleeping bag, some clothes, and some other necessities. I won't be having a place to stay either, which I'm not TOO worried about. I'll be travelling all this summer and possibly up until next from Vancouver, BC all the way down the western coast through Seattle, WA, Portland, OR, and Sarcamento, CA. Hopefully, I will make in one piece and end up in Phoenix, AZ around mid December or so. From then on I will travel along the Southern coast, trying to make it to New Orleans and eventually going back up the East coast where I was staying before. It's going to be a long and gruling year for me but this is what I need. I'm sorry to those who were following the blog and provided for me to provide you with new music and I'm VERY sorry to the bands that have sent me material and such that I haven't been able to put up. I have listened to them though, don't get me wrong. But anyways, hopefully in a year when I'm done my travels or possibly I may find that I like one of these cities A LOT to the point where I can settle and find a place to live and get my blog back up and running. If you'd like to help me along my travels, show me around the city, or just say hi, PLEASE get in contact with me ASAP. Any place to stay is nice too. I'll be needing an adddress and/or phone number if that's the case. Here are a few places you can get in contact with me at if you're interested:

ryonikis.blogspot@gmail.com
http://facebook.com/WHYANNEWENDULLWOOLZ (my real facebook)
http://twitter.com/#!/Ryonikis
last.fm/user/L_E_D_Zep

Sorry again to all those who were dependent on my blog. It sucks leaving something behind but it's my time to do my own thing. I wish you all the best of luck and I hope you do the same for me.

Boris - Attention Please (2011)

From last.fm:


"Boris is a Japanese musical group formed in 1992 in Tokyo.As of 2010, their lineup consists of: Atsuo - Drums, Vocals; Takeshi - Bass, Rhythm Guitar, Vocals; Wata - Lead Guitar, Vocals.Michio Kurihara - Live session guitarist.Boris are as prolific as they are experimental. They are known to regularly switch musical genres between albums, drawing from a wildly diverse variety of musical styles including psychedelic rock, punk, sludge, doom metal, drone, pop, noise, shoegaze, ambient, and more. The band’s name is taken from a song on Melvins’ album Bullhead."


After my however long hiatus, I am back with the new Boris albums ready to get this shit done. If you've been following up with the news, Boris have decided to release three (four respectively with their collab with Merzbow) albums this year and the first one, New Album, was released back in March. The first thing I've gotta point out about this album is the appreciation for Wata. If you're a big Wata fan then you're going to fall in love with Attention Please. It's about fucking time they've gave this Boris babe her own album. Now don't have any preconceived connotations when first listening to this album or else it'll completely just ruin it for you like it almost did for me. The first track, Attention Please, is a rather jazzy and slow song which almost threw me off of the entire album had me going WTF because it really pissed me off as to how boring the song was. Tracks like Tokyo Wonder Land, some kind electronic fusion of industrial-esque whatever with some crazy feedback and very bluesy at times, and You, a very ambient and spacey track that'll have you lost in purgatory, save the album from being a complete disaster. I mean yes, there ARE tracks off New Album that also resurface on this one but they're all different versions and all have Wata as the main vocals. Like New Album, Attention Please heavily focuses electronic sounds here and there for the backbone of the album with a bit of psychedelic rock and ambient. This is yet another album that's unlike anything Boris as ever done and I can totally see traditional Boris fans not liking this album. It's a fucking shame though because this is EXACTLY what Boris is about -- experimentation.

Download HERE