HEAVY FRIENDS ALBUM ROUNDUP: Nails / Cult of Luna / Seven Sisters of Sleep

(Heavy Friends is the segment on YPOIW where Robby talks about new music in the world of underground metal and hardcore. Sometimes album reviews are done on this segment, but today we're gonna try something different: I will be doing short, but substantive reviews of three recent metal/hardcore releases - a three-for-one, basically. We'll see how this goes!)

Nails - Abandon All Life


Nails certainly proved just how far they were willing to take the extremity of metallic hardcore in 2010 with Unsilent Death. Being that I was new to the world of underground hardcore at the time, it was a huge shell shock to me personally. But even as I've acclimated myself to this genre more and more over the years since then, that album, and Nails in general, still seem so ahead of the curve when it comes to finding that new peak of intensity and volume in heavy music. Even though Unsilent Death is only a 13 minute long album, Nails had a hell of a lot to live up to in whatever they would bring to the table for a follow up.

With all that being said, I'm ecstatic and almost surprised at just how painfully well Abandon All Life turned out. That "peak" that Unsilent Death established in sound, volume, and brutality -- yeah, all of that is just about null and void because Abandon All Life is bar none one of the loudest albums I've ever heard. The guitar tone is perfect for what Nails is doing, it's extremely thick and beefy without being muddy at all and it avoids the stereotypical "buzzsaw" guitar tone that every Entombed-worshiping hardcore band is using nowadays. And the way the guitars are mixed, they sound so loud they might as well be making static and feedback while they're thrashing about. Frontman Todd Jones is also sporting a slightly different vocal style on this LP, it's slightly more mid-high pitched than his guttural roar on Unsilent Death. I think it adds a slightly more distinctive color to his voice, and suits his music just as well.

Alot of what makes this album continuously entertaining to listen to is Kurt Ballou's magnificent-as-usual production. Whenever this guy gets behind the boards you just know you're gonna get a great sounding record, but Abandon All Life has easily one of the grittiest, heaviest sounds he's ever crafted for a band. And the songwriting is pretty great to match, with a couple exceptions these tracks almost never stagnate on any single section or riff. Most of the time they are everchanging like "God's Cold Hands", which goes from an intense buildup to a pissed the fuck off d-beat roar, brings itself to a grindcore-like flourish, and soon comes the obligatory, but tasteful, breakdown. When this band does choose to take things at a mid or slow pace, it's equally winning; "Wide Open Wound" has the most instantly catchy riff, and hell might be the best song overall on the whole album; and the whopping 5-minute closer "Suum Cuique", while being maybe the most monotonous song on the album, really takes advantage of its heaviness and becomes the closest thing to sludge or doom metal this band has gotten to. It's an extremely winning point on the album, and a hell of a way to close it out.

Abandon All Life, while being a brisk 17 minutes, manages to pack in everything that made its predecessor great and throw in so much more. And the end result is a much more potent, consistently engaging, and innovative album. When I say it's "innovative", I'm not trying to say Nails is reinventing the wheel or anything; what I am saying is that they are pushing hardcore and metal to its deepest and darkest limits in such a way that they stand out from all of their peers and make more worthwhile music too. I have no idea how Nails are going to push this genre any more forward next time, but for now the bar is raised, and Nails are right there on top.
Score: lite 9

Cult of Luna - Vertikal


Cult of Luna is a name as established as the likes of bands like Isis and Pelican in the discussion of atmospheric sludge metal, or as some would call it "post-metal". This subgenre of metal has paved the grounds for some of the most artful, and to me some of the best music that underground metal has to offer. And Cult of Luna certainly aren't rejected from this, they've definitely made their mark in this sound with albums like Salvation and Somewhere Along the Highway being highly regarded pieces of music for fans of this kind of stuff. After five years since their last album, people were expecting something huge from Cult of Luna in 2013, and for some that hope was definitely realized with Vertikal. For me though, it's just a different story altogether.

For me Vertikal just does not advance this genre from the likes of what many bands before them have already done, and it doesn't advance the band beyond what they've already done either with albums like Somewhere Along the Highway. And I wouldn't even say it's for a lack of trying, Vertikal does come out of the gate with some additions including some electronics on a number of tracks, and this band's longest piece of music yet at nearly 19 minutes. Unfortunately that track, "Vicarious Redemption", just does not have the substance and lengthy ideas to justify such a hefty run time in my opinion, and the inclusions of electronics on this album are just silly at best. It's truthfully so cringeworthy I don't even want to explain it.

Every other aspect of this album is pretty good, but honestly nothing really special or groundbreaking for the band to make the long wait for this album worth it. Even this album's best tracks like "In Awe Of" just sound like leftovers from an album like Eternal Kingdom, and there's nothing on Vertikal that even reaches the emotional heights of that album. Like I said, it's definitely not a bad piece of work, and if you're not already acclimated to atmospheric sludge and want a gateway drug into it, this album might just enthrall you. But for someone like me who's already familiar with everything this band has done before and all the other notable music in this band's genre, it's just so-so for me. It's a roller coaster I've been on dozens of times, and I know all the moves it's going to make before they're even made.
Score: lite 6

Seven Sisters of Sleep - Opium Morals

Seven Sisters of Sleep are a local (well, local to me) band that I've been following for a good while and have impressed me with their growth and their proficiency in hardcore-infused sludge. And they're really gaining a fairly big following, so much so that Opium Morals, while being their sophomore album, is their debut full length for legendary hardcore label A389 Recordings (following a self-titled EP released through them last year). That EP they dropped last year featured a tremendous boost in sound quality, production, performance, and just the overall package of what SSOS had to offer, as compared to their self-titled debut full length in 2011. I had only hoped that that EP could've been a full length, and with Opium Morals it seems like we've gotten just that. This band doesn't make the incredible leap in quality that they did from their first album to their EP, rather they have simply taken the sound and vibe of that EP and put that into a full length context.

And really, that's what I wanted in the first place, so you could say that I'm satisfied. Which I am of course, but if there is a gripe that I have with Opium Morals, it's that it is just a great, solid sludge metal/hardcore album, that it is just consistent with the quality of last year's EP. Unlike Nails, SSOS don't make the leaps and bounds to up the anti of the ferocity of their sound or performance on this LP. But like I said; it's an incredibly solid, heavy, and misanthropic piece of work, definitely a win as far as this style of music is concerned and another win for the band. I just hope that Opium Morals is more of a stepping stone towards the greatness Seven Sisters of Sleep can accomplish into the future, rather than a true culmination of their best efforts.
Score: strong 7/lite 8

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HEAVY FRIENDS: The Ocean - Palagial Album Preview

The Ocean (or The Ocean Collective, if you prefer that name) have been at it for quite a few years and are one of the most notable German acts in underground metal, especially in terms of sludge metal, progressive metal, and post-metal. After a 3-year break between their last set of albums in 2010, the band has announced a return with an album whose concept is as ambitious as the band has always been.

The Ocean are no stranger to album concepts, with some of their previous work taking on topics like the Precambrian area of time in Earth's history, and most recently their set of albums in 2010 Heliocentric and Anthropocentric being a critique of Christianity and organized religion from a historical and scientific prospective. What The Ocean takes on on Palagial is, well, the ocean. Here is the band's own take from the press release found from the album's new website:

• The title of the record has been confirmed to be Pelagial, which means “Of, relating to, or living in open oceans or seas rather than waters adjacent to land or inland waters.”

• The album will flow as a continuous 53-minute piece of music. 

• Pelagial‘s concept is largely musical. Originally intended to be an instrumental piece with linear composition (moving forward without repeating parts), the record starts light and clean, mirroring the surface of the ocean as the band gradually takes the music further into the depths of the ocean before hitting the ocean floor, where the band gets doomy, crushing, gritty, and atmospheric. 

• The album has five main musical movements: Epipelagic, Mesopelagic, Bathyalpelagic, Abyssopelagic, and Hadopelagic. These are depth levels of the ocean. 

• Mixed and Mastered by Jens Bogren, the production gets grittier as the music evolves as well, sounding polished at the beginning (Epipelagic) and grittier towards the end (Hadopelagic). The music was mixed as one piece as well rather than on a track-by-track basis, which saw Bogren mixing 288 tracks. 

• “There are track marks, and there are actual songs built into this larger structure, but the whole album is a journey rather than a number of loose tracks… some riffs appear in the first 2 minutes of the album and then reappear 30 minutes later”, comments Staps.

• Pelagial will come in 2 different versions that will be released together: with vocals and instrumental. 

• Lyrically, the concept equates the depth of the ocean with the depths of the human mind. The album’s lyrical concept is largely psychological and based on the Andrey Tarkovsky film Stalker, Pelagial is a psychological journey towards our own inner self and subconscious… “towards the essence and origins of our desires, wishes, dreams, and all the fucked up attributes inside of our own inner selves that generate and shape them,” says Staps. 

• The record will be released on April 26th / 29th (Europe) and April 30th (North America / world).

The website also includes short samples from each of the five tracks, or movements. As someone who had some issues with the band's 2010 material, I'm very hopeful that The Ocean will be able to win be back with this new, very ambitious piece of music. As stated up there, you can expect Palagial to come out next month.

(Robby would like to take you to the depths of his mind.....by following his Twitter @ClydeNut)

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HEAVY FRIENDS: Corrections House - "Hoax the System"

(Heavy Friends is the segment of YPOIW where Robby introduces you to the latest music in the worlds of heavy music)

I really hate the term "supergroup" but dammit for my tastes this is as super as a group can get. Corrections House is a collaborative project between Scott Kelly (Neurosis), Mike IX Williams (Eyehategod), Sanford Parker (Nachtmystium), and Bruce Lamont (Yakuza/Bloodiest). If you guessed this project would be of the heavy variety, you'd be correct. The first nugget of music we've gotten from the group is below, entitled "Hoax the System" which will be released on a limited 7" on Parker's own label War Crime Recordings (b/w "Grin with a Purpose"). The track might not be of such a sludgy variety as you might expect, but the tribal drumming definitely give me whiffs of Neurosis, and there's a bit of an industrial edge to the music. If you can't already tell, I'm stoked to hear more from this project, and you can give "Hoax the System" a listen below.



(For more metal news as it happens, feel free to follow Robby on Twitter @ClydeNut)

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HEAVY FRIENDS: Neurosis - "At the Well"

The good folk over at NPR have graced us with a stream of a track from the upcoming Neurosis record Honor Found in Decay, which some of y'all should remember was one of my most anticipated metal albums for this year. I'll keep this post short because you need to be listening to this mammoth instead of reading, but in short this is everything you'd want from new music from Neurosis. 'Nuff said.

Stream "At the Wall" over at NPR and look out for Honor Found in Decay on October 30th.

(Robby isn't in decay, but hopefully he finds honor. Follow him on Twitter @ClydeNut)

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HEAVY FRIENDS: Robby's most anticipated metal albums for the rest of 2012

(HEAVY FRIENDS is the segment where Robby blah blah blahs on the latest and greatest in underground or not-so-underground metal. Today, however, he will be talking about his 4 most eagerly anticipated metal albums for the remainder of this year.)

Pig Destroyer - Book Burner - Pig Destroyer is one of the most notorious bands in grindcore, and one of my favorites. We've been waiting since 2007's Phantom Limb for a new one by these guys, and we're finally getting one. I'm not huge on the album artwork, but I'm expecting the music to hopefully be just as killer as Pig Destroyer's back catalog. If you haven't sacrificed yourself to the power of Pig Destroyer's cutthroat grinding power, then do yourself a favor and listen to Terrifyer, my personal favorite from the band, right now. Book Burner comes out on October 23rd on Relapse.

Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind - Converge are simply put one of my favorite bands of all time; they just have a brand of metal and hardcore that I've seen imitated many a time, but I've almost never seen duplicated perfectly. No one can do Converge the way Converge can. Fans have been anticipating this new album for a good while, and while we don't have artwork, and we don't have any music, we know the album is completed and slated for release on September 11th on Epitaph and Deathwish, and it is called All We Love We Leave Behind.

Between the Buried and Me - The Parallax II: Future Sequence - Between the Buried and Me play a style of progressive metal that I just can't get enough of. I find their music endlessly creative and exciting. This is the follow up to the band's 2011 EP The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues and it continues a concept that I don't have the greatest understanding of, but hopefully I will after hearing the 70+ minute finished product. The Parallax II: Future Sequence comes out on October 9th on Metal Blade, and while we're at it check out my coverage of the first track to drop from the album, "Telos".

Neurosis - Honor Found in Decay - We also have no artwork or music for this one, but this is likely the release I'm most eager to hear. Neurosis is a band whose reputation is so large yet they never seem to disappoint with any of their newer material. The band already has their place in history as being pivotal to the development of underground metal, sludge metal, experimental metal, and *shrugs*post-metal, but these days they make it a point to remain inventive and ambitious. I'm not exactly an expert on their entire body of work, but I'm getting there; Honor Found in Decay comes out on October 30th on Neurot Recordings. Check out the band's enigmatic album teasers below:





(Robby can't think of anything witty to say, so.... follow him on Twitter @ClydeNut for more awkwardness and metal!)

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HEAVY FRIENDS: Old Man Gloom - No

(HEAVY FRIENDS is the segment where Robby Beck discusses the latest and greatest in the world of heavy music.)

Old Man Gloom is a band I'm just about destined to love. The lineup includes Aaron Turner of one of my all time favorite bands Isis, and Nate Newton of another one of my all time favorite bands Converge, as well as a member of Cave In, and a couple from Zozobra. You can call the band a "supergroup", but the magnitude of their releases puts the band far beyond the novelty usually associated with that term. If you want an idea of what the band generally sounds like, the closest this band sounds to any other band in their members' resumes would be the music of Isis, but the differences are still pretty broad. Old Man Gloom plays a style of atmospheric and experimental sludge similar to Isis, but the band is much more chaotic, messy (in a good sense), and adds the elements of hardcore and ambient soundscapes into the mix.

Now this is the band's first shred of new material in 8 years, and like their previous three albums Kurt Ballou has been recruited to handle production duties. Kurt is one of my favorite metal producers, because the sound he brings to his projects always has the perfect blend of grittiness and clarity. The albums he produces always sound professional, but the brutality of the bands' performances is always left intact. But the sound Kurt brings to No, and the sound he's brought to the previous work of Old Man Gloom that he's produced, have relied less on thestudio sheen and more on the grit, but also the grime, the sludge, so to speak. But that mix always works out incredibly well for them, because when the band bangs out a riff or lays on a groove, it sounds as punishing and heavy as a great sludge or doom record should.

And that level of punishment continues on this album. The riffs are crushing as all hell, the slower parts make you feel like you're being crushed by a half dozen boulders Giles Corey-style, and the more hardcore (Converge, Cave In) reminiscent moments give you the sensation that you're being caught in a viscous tornado with debris hitting you in every direction you're forced to turn. And then spots like the climax of "To Carry the Flame" are simultaneously heavy and euphoric, a balance that I wish I could've heard more of, honestly.

But the ambient passages have always been part of what sets Old Man Gloom apart, but unfortunately those seem to be the downside of this particular record for me. There are three tracks where they are used extensively, "Shadowed Hand", "Rats", and the closer "Shuddering Earth". The first two mentioned tunes seem to be weighed down by the ambient sections rather than aided by them, and that's because they're not near the best this band can do as far as creating interesting sounds. I never got bored before when OMG records went into an ambient piece, but on these two particular tracks I find myself actively bored. The passages usually don't have any interesting sounds in the mix, and when they do they're in and out too soon for them to be digested. A lot of the rest tends to sound like "airplane music", which is fine if that's all a song is, but that doesn't quite work well with the kind of sludge this band does. You find yourself impatiently waiting for guitars or drums to kick in because there's nothing much to latch on to in the meantime. At least that's how I feel.

The final track "Shuddering Earth" is the exception in the bunch though, and maybe that's because during the ambient section of the track (which is mostly the last half of the song) the band utilizes noise more so than any other, and there's an actual progression through the noise. The track really goes somewhere. And I really feel like if the previous two tracks I mentioned were as interesting in their "quiet" moments, they would've greatly benefited from it.

I guess another issue I'd have with the record is that the heavier parts don't have as much character as I think they could. I'm amazed at the sound and performances of the songs while they're on, but unfortunately I don't find as much memorability from them as I would an album from any of the members' main bands, or even older Old Man Gloom records.

But I honestly can't deny something good when I'm hearing it. I don't think No is a fantastic record, and I think some of their past ones have higher replay power than this; but it's still a solid listen, and a recommendation for anyone that wants an interesting take on sludge or doom metal.

Score: Lite 7
Stream the whole damn thing below via Bandcamp:


(Robby is a gloomy, gloomy motherfucker. Find out more on his Twitter @ClydeNut!)

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HEAVY FRIENDS: Agalloch - "Faustian Echoes"

Agalloch have been one of my favorite metal bands for a good long while. They've been innovative in the past with introducing folk and post-rock elements into conventional black metal, and have stayed relevant throughout their sixteen year career. This past week they surprisingly released their long-talked about EP "Faustian Echoes", which consists of a single, 21-minute track based off Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s epic masterpiece “Faust.”

And the track in question is very epic. If you were to be really nitpicky with this one, the band haven't evolved the sound of this one much from their previous album, 2010's Marrow of the Spirit, but who cares. This isn't a full length, so why would it need that huge of a shift in sound? What we have here is everything that's made Agalloch so great in one 21-minute package (it's a little light on the acoustics though). I just wish I knew more about "Faust" so I can understand the concept of this song more deeply; but that definitely doesn't hinder my extreme enjoyment of this EP at all.

Stream the whole damn thing below. Agalloch starts touring next month, so if they come in your area I highly recommend seeing them. I know I am.



(Robby loves brak metal. Hit him up on Twitter @ClydeNut)

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ALBUM REVIEW/STREAM: If These Trees Could Talk - Red Forest

by Robby Beck

Y'know, post-rock seems to be making a little bit of a comeback for me this year. I thought the genre to be dead for a while, with Mogwai's recent albums more-or-less abandoning the genre, and Explosions in the Sky releasing an album last year that I liked, but admittedly it was more of the same from them. I just figured that there would never be any new bands to carry on the genre to new heights and it would just fade into underground music history. But with impressive new material from Frames, Sigur Rós, and Downfall of Gaia, as well as new albums on the way from Japan's Mono and New Zealand's Jakob, this fledgling genre just might peak my interest once again.

Akron, Ohio's If These Trees Could Talk is definitely amongst the newer wave of post-rock bands that have been impressing me, their new album Red Forest to be specific. They come at the genre with a heavier angle, to the point where some might call them "post-metal". That's definitely an understandable label, as tracks like "Barren Lands of the Modern Dinosaur," "Red Forest" and the closer contain some pretty heavy riffage. However, I would never say that ITTCT carries the misanthropic and confrontational tone of bands like Isis or even Pelican at their darker points, because as heavy as this band can be there's always a triumphant feeling that comes into the balance. Take for example "Barren Lands of the Modern Dinosaur", a track I just mentioned; there are some pretty rocking riffs in that track, but also heavy effects on the guitars as they reach for higher registers as the track progresses, and the song ultimately leads up to a, dare I say it, "epic" climax.

As middle school-level as the word may be in this day and age, I think "epic" is certainly an apt description for what's going on with this album. But what's surprising is how this band can make songs with (relatively) short song lengths that can be just as much of a journey as the longer ones. You get a couple 8-10 minute epics, which make great use of their lengths, but you get some bite-sized songs such as "Aleutian Clouds". Judging by it's 3 minute length alone you'd assume it to be some kind of ambient interlude (akin to the two previously on the record), but the song contains the same highs and lows the longer songs have with, I think, similar effect.

But that immediacy brings one of my only real gripes on the album. As great as most of these songs are, I kinda miss the longer, more drawn out passages on this band's previous album Above the Earth, Below the Sky. I like that the band still maintains dynamics this time around, and ensures that it's still an essential aspect to their music; I just feel that if the quieter moments were longer and more developed, the loud climaxes would mean a good deal more.

In hindsight, I can't let that one complaint put down this record too much. It definitely gets a high recommendation from yours truly, and gives me hope for more forward thinking post-rock to come in the future.

Score: decent 8

Stream the whole thing below from the band's Bandcamp below.

FAV TRAX: Barren Lands of the Modern Dinosaur, Red Forest, Left to Rust and Rot, When the Big Hand Buries the Twelve

LEAST FAV TRACK: They Speak With Knives

(Check out Robby's YouTube page for more sweet album reviews.)

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HEAVY FRIENDS: Miroist - The Pledge

As much of a metal fan as I am, I have a good deal of reservations when it comes to instrumental metal, especially when it comes of the progressive variety. To me way too much of it just comes off as an exercise of technique and skill rather than true craft; really what I like to call "wankery". I much prefer bands like Russian Circles, who aren't "progressive" in that they aren't flashy about technicality, but the way they create vast soundscapes and a gargantuan sound while relying on dynamics more than technicality brings out a force that's far more emotional, to me, than a lot of bands that choose to be "progressive".

But it's not like you can't be technical and emotional and dynamic. One of my absolute favorite instrumental metal projects is Cloudkicker, which is a one-man DIY project out of Columbus, Ohio. Recently on his tumblr he plugged an instrumental progressive metal project called Miroist, who as recently as last month released their debut EP entitled The Pledge.

Like Ben Sharp (the mastermind behind Cloudkicker) said in his post, the EP reminds me of his project's output around 2008, but even more heavy and "chaotic" than that, to use his words. While I wouldn't call it chaotic music, as what's going on here seems pretty damn tight, I will say that I like what I'm hearing. I was initially turned off by the opening riff on the opening track "i ; Non decipies me, fortuna" because it reminded me of the recent wave of "djent" bands that some consider to be a big movement, but I consider it to be nothing more than mindless Meshuggah worship. But it doesn't take long for the track to start going through some hills and valleys. This band even lists post-rock as an influence, which definitely contributes to the dynamics of these songs. I feel like if a band hits on the same riff endlessly with no variation (like all too many of these Meshuggah-copycat bands love to do) the music grows stale and quickly. Not so with this music.


The first track is nice, but the EP really gets going with the remaining two tracks, which are longer, and to me produce an "epic" vibe that not many EPs achieve. For a project that's just starting out, I see bright things in the future for these guys if they continue down this road of being more ambitious than the average band of their style. Stream the EP below via their Bandcamp page.



(It feels like Robby's the metal contributor for YPOIW. Well, if you're interested in the genre, be sure to visit his YouTube page for some metal-related reviews)

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