Tag Archives: Post Metal

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The Soundshark’s Top 10 Albums of 2016

Among all of the things that 2016 brought to us, no matter how good, bad or ugly, collectively, it was a very strong year for new music, hence why I have had an incredibly difficult task assembling a list of just ten albums that have lived on repeat and high volume. My only regret is that there are still albums missed I have yet to listen to, by artists I am yet to discover that could’ve been exemplary. If I were to just leave this to albums I’ve heard this year, Lantlos’ Melting Sun or Black Breath’s Slaves Beyond Death probably would have romped away with this one, despite being out in 2014 and 2015 respectively. There are so many honourable mentions too that a cephalopod with hands need be employed to even fathom counting. But, lo and behold, here are the ten albums from one of humanity’s most troubling years, that I personally consider to be certifiable must-listen experiences:

10. The Maras – Wax Beach

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Having never met The Maras personally, it would be safe to say that the brothers from Ontario are a little hyperactive. Not purely because they’ve released a demo, an album and a brand new EP in the space of a year, but the speed, urgency and average length of their songs might have something to do with it. Though Wax Beach could be seen as an expansion of their already superb demo, the re-recordings sound a lot denser and deranged, letting their garage punk snarls and smorgasbord of influences flourish, on what is on one hand a damning indictment on mental health services, but on the other a dizzying rush of genre-bending bliss.

http://www.facebook.com/themarasband
http://www.twitter.com/TheMarasBand
http://www.themaras.bandcamp.com

9. Cruz – Culto Abismal

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From beginning to end, 2016 has seen some magnificent death metal releases, but few have been quite as memorable as Barcelona quartet Cruz’s Culto Abismal. Injecting crust punk deep into the veins of death metal’s old blood, this untameable hellbeast of an album charges fast and ceases to relent once in motion. Deep growls in their native tongue punctuate the onslaught as a cavalcade of riffs over 40 minutes keeps the monster moving, the perfect balance of speed, technical ability and sickeningly heavy tone serving as Culto Abismal’s addictive centrepiece. Spain may not have the most renowned history in death metal, but on the basis of a debut this strong, Cruz sees reason for that to change very suddenly.

http://www.facebook.com/cruzmetalpunk
http://www.cruzbcn.bandcamp.com

8. Maeth – Shrouded Mountain

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With every stride that Maeth take musically, it surpasses and obliterates the last, ensuring their status as one of metal’s must-hear bands. Shrouded Mountain is their third gargantuan footprint and maintains their unique, boundary-warping compositions which straddles the planes of psychedelia and sludge like no other band before them. They also play a mean flute too, to boot. So however Maeth choose to construct their stunning, mostly instrumental journeys, whether taking you soaring through the vast reaches of space or crunching hard down into the Earth’s crust, you can bet that it will be with an energy, passion and talent that you can scarcely conceive, and Shrouded Mountain does not disappoint. Not by a long shot.

http://www.facebook.com/MaethBand
http://www.twitter.com/WeAreMaeth
http://www.maeth.bandcamp.com

7. Bossk – Audio Noir

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Always a looming presence on the UK’s stoner/doom scene, even during their split, Bossk’s first release outside of their seminal EP trilogy has catapulted their gorgeous ambient passages and pummeling riffs to unprecedented new heights. Though can be listened as an entire conceptual soundscape, the fragmentation certainly aids the quartet’s longest opus to date and makes every change of pace and tone a stellar moment. Even vocals, while used sparingly, are utilised at their most impactful, shifting what already sounds like ripping your throat out intensity, into ushering in a new Armageddon. Bossk undoubtedly stamped their authority through live performances over the decade their name has existed, but Audio Noir distills that very essence into an immensely satisfying anthology, proving that they are here to stay.

http://www.facebook.com/bosskonline
http://www.twitter.com/BosskUK
http://www.bosskband.bandcamp.com
http://www.bosskonline.com

6. Vodun – Possession

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Lifting its name from the homophone of voodoo, as well as incorporating aspects of its lifestyle and culture into this very music representing it, this trio from London perform an ungodly racket that’s equal parts punchy to pulse-raising. In arguably one of the most original takes on big, fuzz-saturated grooves in years, the literally spirit-fuelled Vodun drags stoner rock by its ankles and imbues it with a staggering amount of soul. Think Aretha Franklin fronting Kyuss and you’re damn near close. The presentation of the album in a semi-documentary form, with a ritualistic thread running throughout, is a neat touch and grants deeper immersion into Vodun’s already enchanting sledgehammer of force and one of the best hard rock debuts of the decade.

http://www.facebook.com/VODUNBAND
http://www.twitter.com/vodunband
http://www.vodunband.com
http://www.vodun.bandcamp.com

5. Losers – How To Ruin Other People’s Futures

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With an album title that scathing, you wouldn’t be wrong thinking there is intense subject matter here. Suitably riled up trio Losers, well versed in their weaving of expansive, luscious atmospheres, frightening buzzsaw synths, distorted guitar attacks and truly thunderous percussion, unleash one of the most adrenaline-surging bouts of electro-rock charged catharsis you could ever hope to listen to. While How To Ruin Other People’s Futures features several bursts of pounding rhythms and explosive instrumentation, it allows enough breathing space for a whirlwind of ambience to take shape, for every conflagration and slow-burner, all with Paul Mullen’s dynamic vocal delivery giving a touch of humanity where chaos could spiral out of control at any given moment. A simply tremendous listen.

http://www.facebook.com/losersuk
http://www.twitter.com/losersuk
http://www.losersband.co.uk

4. Youth Code – Commitment To Complications

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Certainly one of the most talked about bands of the year and for excellent reason, the Los Angeles duo’s sophomore offering builds upon the vintage analogue synths and drum machines of industrial’s heyday and cleverly sprinkles the zest of their own hardcore upbringings into the formula. The results are nothing short of spectacular. The growth from their debut is undeniably evident, not just as tempos vary and tones are more exploratory, but their whole sound is gigantic on this album making every notion of rage and every raw nerve amplified tenfold. When beats vibrate your skull and melodies claw into your brain like Youth Code’s do, it instigates that addictive property that all EBM enthusiasts have been raving about all year.

http://www.facebook.com/youthcodeforever
http://www.twitter.com/youth_code
http://www.youthcode.bandcamp.com

3. Noisia – Outer Edges

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After mentions for half a decade, then seemingly nonchalantly announced three months before its release, Dutch drum and bass production maestros Noisia have compiled their second studio album, far more abstract and experimental in approach than the trio’s previous Split The Atom. While you will find the same mind-altering, visceral bass lines associated with the Noisia name, it’s the deeper, darker and noticeably slower beats that become the show stealer here. Often quirky in nature and exquisitely composed to emphasise the very best of every minuscule detail, the heavy gestation period for every track, especially the beats-driven numbers, brings a world class finish to what could filter through as an oddity, but arrives as a masterpiece in sound design and further reason to immortalise Noisia as the one of the best the genre has ever seen.

http://www.facebook.com/noisia
http://www.twitter.com/Noisia_nl
http://www.noisia.nl

2. The Qemists – Warrior Sound

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In the six years since the Brighton drum and bass rock outfit’s last album, they’ve been honing their skills to create dancefloor anarchy on the live circuit, a tenure that has seen their reputation skyrocket as one of the UK’s best independent live acts. Now that energy has finally metamorphosed into The Qemists’ strongest, most consistent blockbuster yet. Fixing both live vocalists as permanent band members, has only benefited the original lightning strike of a production unit, and makes every word have purpose against the backdrop of all-out mayhem. Unforgettable, unbelievable and unflinching in the pursuit of perfect crossover bombshells, Warrior Sound is a sonic shockwave explicitly targeted to induce pleasure at an intoxicating level.

http://www.facebook.com/theqemists
http://www.twitter.com/TheQemists
http://www.theqemists.bandcamp.com
http://www.theqemists.com

1. All Hail The Yeti – Screams From A Black Wilderness

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Three years on from their scorching debut, the Los Angeles metalcore mob return with a follow-up that is perpetually more terrifying in every imaginable way. Spinning narratives so gripping and ghastly, the lines of fact and fiction dissipate into black mist as imposing, monstrous roars with some mightily impressive clean vocal support coalesce their strength as bloodthirsty wordsmiths. Though horror and the occult is the given flavour, Screams… exhibits a previously unseen versatility in All Hail The Yeti, in that their sound features much broader influences from rock and metal, that fires on all cylinders and mellows in acoustic gloom. A hard-hitting, yet gruesome landmark of metalcore, All Hail The Yeti have once again established that they are one of the most essential bands in modern metal.

http://www.facebook.com/officialallhailtheyeti
http://www.twitter.com/allhailtheyeti
http://www.ahty.bandcamp.com

If you liked the look of this list and want to hear more, then here is a handy Spotify playlist for you (except Maeth, whom you can find on their Bandcamp page):

And in the mean time, if I feature anywhere in a top ten for you, or you enjoy what features on this site, then by all means feel free to give me a like, a follow or a subscription to the site by clicking the link below:

http://www.facebook.com/IAmTheSoundshark
http://www.twitter.com/The_Soundshark

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8 Great Bands To Listen To While You Wait For The New Tool Album

Ironically, it almost seems like 10,000 days since we saw the last Tool album. Well, 10,000 days is the equivalent to 27 and a bit years, so not quite that far yet, but it has at least been a decade since the previous album from the LA masters of progressive metal. And understandably, there’s a lot of hype growing towards it, as on and off progress continues to be made, and has been for at least three years, not owing part to the now resolved lawsuit that had hung heavy over their heads for a lengthy period of time. There’s also an awful lot of impatience. So far, the only trace of new material we’ve had is a two-minute long instrumental jam, tentatively titled Descending, which by the band’s own admission is only a fragment of a song in progress. Yet the memes, anger and remarks persist. So I thought I’d offer an alternative to those dismayed by the lack of answers or have grown tired of waiting, by rounding up eight excellent, lesser known bands to listen to in the mean time whilst the new Tool album materialises:

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Track of The Week: Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster – Orogenic

I’ve made no secret my feelings on this band, detailed in my token of amour-cum-landmark 100th post on this blog. Know simply that their name isn’t just to identify a curious structural collapse in the 1940s. Their name is an event, and the music of such a striking namesake matches the grandeur, completely and absolutely. It’s been three years since the release of their phenomenal sophomore album Exegesis, an album I hold as being the best album I’ve ever listened to. Line-up tweaks and performances aplenty have taken place in that time period, but appear to not have not blunted their drive whatsoever to reach for the stratosphere. Hot off the heels of their heralded ArcTanGent appearance comes the much anticipated third album Wires/Dream\Wires.

For those who have never crossed paths before with the mighty Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster, what you are essentially getting is a colossal atmospheric waltz through life, the universe and everything via an awe-inspiring progressive post-metal masterclass, mentioned in the same breath as Isis, Pelican and Tool. Such interstellar impact and beauty seemed inconceivable until I first came across their art of graceful annihilation. 2009’s Collapse was an earth-shattering introduction and Exegesis was a rift-inducing exclamation point, where does Wires/Dream\Wires stand in the timeline of this incredible band of musicians? They remain as stalwart as ever. Wires/Dream\Wires actually returns to ground level for their third instalment, but in no way possible do they falter with their stopping power. It may be shorter than their previous efforts, with only one track breaching the 10 minute barrier, but it’s far more emotionally involving than previously encountered, almost inferring an air of tragedy unlike previous albums. Precision engineered to strike with riffs that crush you fifty feet underground and an ambience that makes you pilot of a world in melancholy and mourning, these are nine songs of inspiring musicianship that flick the switch to conquer in the face of adversity and personal loss.

In an album completely devoid of lulls in quality, the decision to cherry-pick one track of a shining collection was tough, like trying to decide which child to eat and cook for dinner tough. But I think there’s a unexplainable but highly satisfying pacing in the seven and a half minutes of Orogenic that leaps out at me as the favourite on this album. Swirls of keyboard lead in a vulnerable sounding series of notes, a warm bass groove shortly coursing through the musical veins with a toned down but still rhythmically complex skin-clattering joining the fray too. If this is your first Tacoma Narrows experience, then strap yourselves in. Their musical build-ups are world-class, insanely tight compositions that slowly raise tension before combusting into a flare of seminal, scorching playing ability. A sorrow-tinged melody weaves in and out of the first mesmerising musical passage, before the heavier artillery arrives in a fierier guitar bombshell and double kicks that sound off like high calibre rounds. This is only two minutes in. Succeeding the first siege is a smaller, but far tenser build-up of just the bouncing of fingers on bass and a more primitive-sounding drum pattern that still holds its complexity, like spurring on competitors in the hunt. Then they pounce. What follows sounds like they’ve successfully acquired a trophy from an encounter with Mastodon, the sheer seismic scale of the barrage reminiscent of the metal heavyweight’s prowess. That incredible bruising moment then transitions back into another build-up, splitting the guitars into a distorted riff with a nature of assertiveness to it and the second into an ominous, soothsaying voice of caution, with drums mediating between as a powerful pacemaker. The isolated last calls of that second guitar voice, like a haunting doomsday trigger word, is one of the best moments on the entire album. It unleashes the final inferno, a blistering explosion of all the instruments decimating anything within a 10 mile blast radius. The lead guitar, almost screaming above the density and incomprehensible force of the sound, is just astonishing, bringing that emotional turmoil to full fruition in the wake of musical devastation. Several more destructive hammer blows later and this cinematic experience comes to a close.

For something to be orogenic, it would cause a structural deformation, such as destabilising the ground we walk upon, of the outermost shell of a planet. This song visually speaking does just that, and does that job jaw-droppingly so. As previously noted, the music of Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster is an event, an event of such magnitude that sometimes it becomes unfathomable to sum up into words. Orogenic and Wires/Dream\Wires as a whole not only cements TNBD’s place as one of the best in UK post-metal, but to be as bold as to say as one of the UK’s best bands around.

Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster officially launch Wires/Dream\Wires on the 4th September at The Black Heart in London. Go buy a ticket. In the meantime, everything else you could ever want from them can be found on their Bandcamp page, including digital and physical copies of Wires/Dream\Wires. I would like to politely implore that you do it.


https://www.facebook.com/tnbduk?fref=ts

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Cloaca

Biology time! So what is and where can you find the cloaca in the body, or in a body? I realise I’m essentially talking to myself here, but it’s a word that looks like it could mean something in Spanish to the uninformed. Like it’s some sort of species of mollusc in Latin or something. A cloaca is actually the cavity most commonly found in vertebrates and some invertebrates that serves as an exit for the digestive tract or for genitalia. Exactly what you needed to know at 10 in the morning. But Cloaca in this instance, setting aside some other acts with the same name, including an up-and-coming Pennsylvania group, are an Ipswich-born metal group, whose focus involves the creation of an awe-inspiring but undeniably crushing ambience and expanding that construct over extended intervals.The music is the equivalent of watching a candle in darkness, witnessing the wick slowly diminish whilst the flame breaks down the pillar it stands upon. Yet as you focus upon the fiery flicker, you start to see a world burning from it, a world of hatred, turmoil and devastation whilst the screams of a tormented and tortured soul narrate these visions, trying to rip his throat out in utter agony. As bleak as it sounds, the screams are few and far between, leaving the constant repetition and build-up of ambience an incredibly hypnotising affair to listen through. Though the album Lassitude only spans 5 songs, it is still over an hour of music, built as absolute escapism in absolute decimation. The Golden Path absorbs over a fifth of that running time, the titanic wall of sound leaving no pause for breath and no survivors, leaving enough humanity in the guitar to seep sorrow into the dense ambience, before it’s eviscerated. You may label it as depressing or even unlistenable at times, but this is very much an extreme form of music as performance art. Cloaca are among a special breed of metal musicians, ones that are capable of exploring soundscapes not conceivable by conventional means, but can infuse it with the harsh realities of life, either discomforting or rewarding if you can bare it.

Cloaca are most likely defunct as of right now, but Lassitude, their sole album is available from most respectable online music retailers in physical and digital format.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cloaca/38337023181?fref=ts