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Album Stream Debut: Hollow Earth - Silent Graves

As 2014 draws closer to its conclusion, heavy music keeps on pumping out the hits. Here we have Silent Graves, the debut LP from Michigan’s Hollow Earth. Featuring past members of renowned metallic hardcore act, Shai Hulud, among them guitarist/vocalist Mike Moynihan, and vocalist Steve Muczynski. Hollow Earth exploded in 2012 with their EP, We Are Not Humanity. Boasting a sound not unlike the melodic and rivetting brand that Shai Hulud is known for, Silent Graves also takes time to ponder the chaos it creates, channelling the contemplative heaviness of Neurosis at the album’s midsection. Never grating, the album moves at a fluid pace, a headbanger as much as it is a moshing soundtrack.

The American Midwest has long been a hotbed of virulent hardcore, distinct in flavor from the genre’s offerings from the eastern and western seaboards, and while the sound’s always had its proponents, it feels like the rust belt sound, rooted in D-beats and metal riffs, is really coming to the fore, as evidenced by a seeming resurgence in interest in bands like Integrity and Ringworm, and support for up-and-comers like Enabler (of which Moynihan is also a member at the moment). Negative Approach was only the beginning. Silent Graves is definitely part of that. The album lurks in a near constant-state of climax, with Muczynski’s screams arcing high and pained, cementing Hollow Earth’s inaugural full-length as one of metallic hardcore’s best offerings this year.

Silent Graves is available today from Panic Records. Catch the stream here and mosh your vile soul to your local record store.

—Bruce Hardt