Noisem - Blossoming Decay - Baltimore Loud Stuff

Maybe it’s fitting that Baltimore’s Noisem have dropped their album today in the wake of all that has been going on in their home town recently. The band have released their new album ‘Blossoming Decay’ via their Bandcamp page today, with physical copies currently available on pre-order. The band have been busy since their only other full length to date – 2013’s ‘Agony Defined’ was followed by the single ‘Defiled’ in 2014, a covers split with Occultist and ‘Consumed’ – an EP coming out in the later part of the same year.

Blossoming Decay’s opening track ‘Trail of Pertubation’ fades in discordant fuzz before launching into a bruising sonic attack that remains lovely, loud and grindy for the entire record. Second track ‘Burning’ gives you a feeling you can’t quite place, a sound somewhere in the Napalm Death sort of sphere and punishingly aggressive. Hostile End – Hollow Life finally gives you time to catch your breath, though not until half way through the track where speed and aggression gives way to a slow, harsh, creepy interlude lasting all the way into one minute into the sixth track, Cascade of Stars, where there’s an almost Slayer-ish Seasons In The Abyss type feel to proceedings before the pace is back again. Not afraid to mix in a bit of groove and a slower tempo now and then, Noisem have put together a fantastically strong release here, combining some catchy as anything riffs with aggression and harshness from start to finish.

Noisem have certainly been gaining wider attention recently, having supported Repulsion and Pig Destroyer this week, as well as attention from Decibel magazine, really showing how much this band has come on since that first release of ‘Agony Defined’. This album is hopefully what will push them to the next level, they’ve done a cracking job on it.

You can listen to Noisem’s new album ‘Blossoming Decay’ here, as well as put your order in for a physical copy : https://a389recordings.bandcamp.com/album/a389-162-noisem-blossoming-decay-12

And check out what the band are up to on their Facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/NoisemBaltimore

And last but not least come and follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bigmetalbastard

Scumguts - Scumguts - Australia's Finest

Aussie grind/death.powerviolence lot Scumguts put out their self titled album back in January, and it’s one of the most impressive things I’ve heard this year. Though only totalling around fifteen minutes, it’s a fantastic way to spend a quarter of an hour. Relentlessly savage from start to finish, Scumguts hurtle through at a million miles an hour with some of the most intensely aggressive music I’ve heard in ages, plus some of the guitar work is has a fantastic groove to it, which is perhaps sometimes a bit of a rarity in a lot of bands who put out PV stuff. The guitar riff in Blind (track 8) is simple but so infectious, giving Scumguts a different feel within the realm of PV/Grind whilst still being very much in that bracket.

Australia seems to be doing something right, every time I trawl through Bandcamp there seems to be a disproportionate amount of Aussie bands showing up, but Scumguts is certainly the best I’ve found out of Australia, and this record seems pretty likely to end up in my top 20 of the year. Scumguts are set apart from the rest by the fact that they have combined the crusty, unrelenting aggression with some genuinely musically good tracks. Picks for me are ‘Blind’, ‘Awakened’, ‘Sixty Trillion Tonnes of Shit’ and ‘Sons of Northern Queensland’ but honestly it’s so, so hard to pick favourites. The record doesn’t have weak moments, it’s an incredible solid album and one that will remain in my regular playlist for a long time. If they ever get to England I'll be there to see them play.

Do yourself a favour and download this album

Check out Scumguts on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/scumguts

Download Scumguts by Scumguts at their Bandcamp here: https://scumguts.bandcamp.com/

And come and follow me on Twitter – www.twitter.com/bigmetalbastard

Agonie - Nemesis EP 2015 - German Black Metal

Agonie – Nemesis EP 2015 – German Black Metal

I hadn't heard of Agonie until I was browsing through EP's and demo's on Bandcamp earlier this week, and of the twenty or so records I downloaded, Agonie is the pick of the bunch. That's not something to say lightly either, with Black Falcon, Basura and Scumguts all producing stellar offerings. Agonie though, with their three track EP 'Nemesis' really steals the show.

Hailing from Germany, Agonie take their brand of black metal back to the early days with a really harsh and hateful 16 minutes between two of their own songs and a cover of 'Kriecht Zu Kreuze' by Zerfall (No, I don't know of Zerfall, either but they're on my ever growing list of bands to check out.)

The title track, Nemesis is one of the strongest openers I've heard on an EP for a long time, it's powerful, it's raw, it's loud and angry, it's everything you would want it to be. Agonie have also managed to avoid falling into the various traps littered around the black metal scene. Whilst the recordings remain raw and harsh, they have achieved a fantastic BM sound without putting out a woefully underproduced record as so many bands do. By the same token though they haven’t gone the other way either, leaving that harsh sound in without TOO much of a clean up of the recording. They’ve got the balance absolutely right.

Second is ‘Aufgelost in Wohlgefallen’ – which according to google means ‘Situated Lost in Pleasure’. I’m not sure that’s actually what is being got at with the title, but it’s an ace track anyway. Continuing in much the same vein as Nemesis, the two original tracks on this EP really give you a feel for what Agonie are all about, harshness in the extreme, all superbly done.

The cover ‘Kreicht Zu Kreutze’ is also outstanding. As I’ve said, I don’t know Zerfall, the band who originally recorded the song, but the way Agonie have gone about it almost makes me not want to. It’s a great track and I almost don’t want to be able to compare the two, Agonie have clearly done a stellar job with the cover, and the original would do well to be any better.

The EP is available as a physical copy through contacting the band on their Facebook page, although only 25 copies have been made - https://www.facebook.com/agonie.black.metal?fref=ts

And you can download Nemesis, as well as 2014’s release ‘Mammon’ from the bands Bandcamp page - https://agonieblackmetal.bandcamp.com/releases

Please do check out Agonie, they are an excellent band, and this is 16 minutes of black metal that you need to hear.

Desecrated (SWE) - Oblivion EP

Sweden has produced a massive amount of quality death metal, and here in the form of Norrkoping's Desecrated, they've served up another belter.

Looking through their bio on the bands Facebook page, it's clear to see that this lot have evolved massively from their original days as a heavy metal project by guitarist Erik and their ex-drummer, although the band played under the name Metalonium at that point. Still, to have come from that to producing what they are doing now, it's obvious that they've worked hard to develop what is a truly crushing sound.

From the outset you can tell that there's a lot of Bloodbath in the mix here, but certainly drawing on them rather than ripping them off as so many new death metal bands do. Desecrated certainly fit firmly into the death metal genre but still achieve their own sound, largely achieved by vocalist Micke Karlsson's incredible visceral growls.

The track that first took me to the band was 'Infernal Evisceration' which I actually stumbled upon through Reddit's 'headbang to this' sub. I tend to only check the sub once in a blue moon but this time it really has been worthwhile. From that track I found the band's Youtube channel which has a whole bunch of other songs uploaded, including 'Oblivion', probably my favourite of the bunch, with a more black metally vocal over the top of some seriously crushing music.

Desecrated are definitely one of my favourite finds of the year so far, taking all the best parts of death metal and giving it a fresh kick up the arse to make something absolutely incredible in the form of the 'Oblivion' EP.

Desecrated are on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/DESECRATED/399689540087965

You can hear their fantastic music here on Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGQHPDXM0AQP34UUTqP4rEw

Please do give them a go if you're a death metal fan, they are absolutely fantastic. Jag tycker om Desecrated!

Big Metal Bastard is back with loads more music coming your way, after a long time away from blogging the time has come to start doing this again.

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