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[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

108 in 2010 is something of an anachronism. It’s difficult not to think of the band, best known for its affiliation to long-dead Krishna-core, in the context of the mid-’90s. A near-decade of dormancy didn’t help. An unexpected return to the stage in 2005 led to a resurrection on record in 2007. In a parade of reuniting ’90s-era hardcore bands, 108 stood out like it always had: because few bands brought the same level of musical innovation to hardcore. 108 never went for the cheap mosh part or the cliché sing-along. Its music was daring, its message was complex, and its passion was evident on record and in person.

18.61 (Deathwish, Inc., 2010) continues what 108 has honed since 1992. It measures up to anything in the band’s vaunted catalog. The band has never sounded more fully realized and confident than in its current lineup. (The core of Fish, DiCara and Cohen with recently enlisted Mike Justian.) Justian’s percussive flourishes perfectly complement DiCara’s idiosyncratic flair. This new crop of songs flows and feels fully complete.

The band could differentiate itself from current hardcore by further exploring its experimental tendencies. These include the odd pacing of raging opener “God Talk” or the pulsating, off-kilter beat of the title track. What modern hardcore needs is a band to push the boundaries of what is expected and accepted.

108 will probably not impact hardcore in quite the same way it did 15 years ago. Likely no one – band included – expects it to. But what made the band click in 1994 remains in 2010: passionate delivery of a unique interpretation of hardcore. With Fish’s recently announced departure, 108’s next step is anyone’s guess.

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It’s perhaps too easy to label Red Sparowes “post-rock”. Sure, The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies The Answer (Sargent House, 2010) features loud instrumental band essentials like crescendos. It’s not difficult to trace passages to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai, or Explosions in the Sky. But instead of depending on tension and release like their peers, Red Sparowes focus on writing songs. They do so through the power of subtlety. Understated performances rooted in rock tempos create an engaging whole. Experimentation and metallic crunch aren’t concerns. The result is a cohesion absent on previous records.

The pop fan in me hears ghost singing over just about every instrumental song. But while Red Sparowes might benefit from a lyric or two, they still meet the challenge for all instrumental bands: command attention without uttering a syllable. Music doesn’t need words to say something.

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Phoenix, AZ’s Landmine Marathon isn’t so much concerned with technical proficiency as dismay and disgust. Sovereign Descent (Prosthetic, 2010) captures a grim mood akin to the band’s desert environs. I can imagine being lost in the sun-scorched terrain with cactuses mocking my quest for shade and water. The album succeeds in part due to its unrelenting, oppressive gloom.

Though Landmine Marathon routinely garner comparisons to the death/grind trinity of Bolt Thrower, Carcass, and Napalm Death, the band’s hardcore roots add to its ferocity. Traces of former bands Unruh and Bury Me Standing seep through. Vocalist Grace Perry owes as much to death metal as to harsher ’90s hardcore.

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Sovereign Descent builds upon the band’s previous albums. Nothing represents a radical departure; the band just plays it cleaner, meaner, and tighter. Nearly every song includes shifting tempos buoyed by underrated drummer Mike Pohlmeier. The guitarists construct memorable songs with a few simple riffs, keeping leads to a minimum. This economy of riffage allows the songs to flourish free of technical obfuscation. Wooly, bass-heavy production obviates some dynamics and clarity in favor of blunt force (akin to late ’80s/early ’90s death metal records). The album serves as a tribute to and a continuation of groundwork albums such as Realm of Chaos and Heartwork. Few American bands match the power of the godfathers of death and grind this confidently.

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Daughters has grown into quite an ugly maturity. Its 2003 debut Canada Songs was a Dillinger Escape Plan-lite hodgepodge that lacked any sense of cohesion or identity. As the band evolved, it shed some of its schizophrenia. Daughters’ newest (stream here) finds the band channeling hectic fits into a smoldering rumble.

Like many bands in the ’00s, Daughters seem to have unearthed its older siblings’ AmRep and Touch and Go records. Vocalist Alexis Marshall adopts a possessed Haynes/Yow yelp that serves the bent material well. Though not quite up to the demented genius of those “singers”, Marshall matches his bandmates’ sometimes-masterful psychosis. They replace the seizures of yore with a cocksure, bass-heavy tumble.

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When the band eases up on the pigfuckfest, surprising things transpire. “The Hit” is the closest Daughters have come to crafting “pop”.Whether it’s a joke or a serious attempt to broaden horizons, “The Hit” is fantastic. It features the band’s hypnotic and heavy tendencies filtered through a pop lens. The touch of melody sprinkled on the band’s intrinsic madness works wonders.

Daughters’ Achilles heel has always been self-indulgence. To some extent, the band continues to obviate its skills with bizarre song constructions and deafening production. But drummer Jonathan Syverson holds the ship together, even when it’s on the verge of veering onto rocks. Though this band still enjoys fucking with itself and the listener, Daughters has never sounded so consistent and unified.

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Dangers doesn’t do anything you haven’t heard before. Other bands, such as Trap Them, 108, and Hope Conspiracy, have written similar screeds. Yet Dangers has a soulful fury lacking in most modern bands. Al Brown perfectly mirrors the violence of the music. His formidable scream is up there with Rob Fish’s or Tim Singer’s. He also demonstrates serious lyrical chops, with sentiments like “Me stuck in traffic after work where each car seems just like a coffin,” and “Schools for facts and figures, schools to multiply the odds of our demise / No child gets left behind, SAT’s to nonox-9 / From juicebox days to Columbine.”

The musicians match the quality of the vocalist. Guitarist Rollie Ulug throws down some serious licks. He hammers out standard power chords, but also sneaks in twists like the strange patterns in “Pyramid of Empties” and “No Vonneguts, No Glory”. His unique melodies throughout set Dangers apart from much of what is happening in hardcore.

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

As righteously thrilling as this album is, the ADD in me wishes it reduced the 19 songs down to a modest dozen. It’s 36 minutes, but still would have benefited from some trimming. Nevertheless, Dangers does hardcore right. It’s pissed and honest, and that’s the point.

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Benoit are a brand new band. This makes their demo (downloadable for free below) that much more surprising, since it boasts fantastic production that must’ve cost these kids their college funds. It perfectly captures their raw hardcore sound. Benoit crank out 15 minutes of modern hardcore, an amalgam of Bridge 9 muscle and forward-thinking delivery.

Waking Up

Part of Benoit’s charms lies in their above-average instrumental precision. “Waking Up” demonstrates the band’s approach: velocity careening into an off-kilter slow section marked by an atonal guitar arpeggio. It?s a twist that works well. The drummer deserves much credit for spicing up what could have otherwise been bland. He effortlessly delivers unexpected fills and executes stark tempo changes with ease. If only all hardcore bands could boast performances this strong and compelling. Benoit aren’t doing things much differently. But they do them better than most.

DOWNLOAD: Demo 2009 [17.28MB .zip]

I once read a review of Swans that compared them to slamming your head against a wall underwater. This description comes to mind when it comes to New Orleans’ haarp. Their ultra-sluggish sludge owes much to the anvil weight of local forbears Crowbar. On their second EP, the band plow through four inexorable songs that can be both mesmerizing and excruciating.

Durendal Forsaken (excerpt)

Similar to peers Thou (reviewed here), haarp revel in slow tempos and dense riffs. Song lengths range from 7 to 9+ minutes. Despite some variation, these epics are exercises in unrelenting repetition free of melody or optimism. With anguished vocals accentuating the dour mood, the band reflects the despair of the human condition. It isn’t pretty and shouldn’t sound it. Still, haarp could build upon the framework of “Durendal Forsaken,” which features welcome tempo changes. This heightens the impact of the molasses-thick slow sections. More of this diversity would do wonders for haarp’s attack.

Though it lasts a little over a half hour, this EP makes for a rough time in one sitting. Perhaps pyschotropic susbstances could sweeten the experience. Despite their overwrought plodding, haarp make harrowing music. When I think of heavy, I think of haarp.

In the summer of 1993, I saw Miami, FL’s legendary Cavity. Having never heard anything like Cavity, I was floored by their sound and performance. (The singer pulled off his pants and hung upside down from the rafters with dangling cock and balls, shocking the suburban teenage audience). A decade and a half later, Cavity guitarist Jason Landrian continues such musical exploits with Black Cobra.

Chronosphere

The usual names get thrown around when describing Black Cobra: High on Fire, Sleep, Melvins. In contrast to previous releases, this duo (also including Rafael Martinez of Acid King) incorporates more of Cavity’s squalid, Eyehategod demento-metal on Chronomega (Southern Lord, 2009). Though the production leaves a little to be desired, the majestic might of Black Cobra isn’t lost.

Black Cobra never seems to aspire to anything more than unrelenting loudness. This is why divagations stand out, such as the slightly melodic chorus in “Chronosphere.” The faster songs also break up the plodding, torpid passages. I’m sure this band is best experienced live. Yet there’s no reason why a kick-ass live band can’t replicate its power on record. A song like “Catalyst” is thunderous and thick; yet more clarity could have made the music sizzle.

Stoner rock and sludge tend to not care much for dynamics and details. Perhaps it’s unfair of me to demand those qualities from Black Cobra. Though I could use some tricks or risks, Chronomega succeeds in terms of sheer heaviness. Many try and fail to make anything worthwhile out of the elementary arithmetic of guitar and drums. Black Cobra offers rattle, bite and venom.

There’s only so many hours in a day, and there’s so many bands out there. No way you can check them all out in one lifetime. Many are bound to pass under your radar or slip through the cracks. But what about the ones you’re aware of but don’t bother to check out? What if one becomes a favorite and you kick yourself for not discovering it sooner? Which bands did you take forever to check out, and why?

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Minor Threat by Anthony Abboreno

The one band that I intentionally ignored for years for entirely stupid reasons was Minor Threat. They were first introduced to me in college — which is early ’00s for me — during a phase when I listened primarily to ’80s hardcore. My friend raved about them, telling me that they were awesome and amazingly fast, and threw them on in the car. He also made the mistake of telling me that they had indirectly inspired the straight edge movement, but that calling them straight edge wasn’t a fair characterization of their ideals.

In My Eyes

Okay, look: in high school, I had been an even bigger dork than I am now. I liked metal and punk, but I didn’t know much about either genre, and I dressed like Weird Al Yankovic in steel toe boots. My first encounter with the idea of straight edgers was through an anti-drug PSA I watched in driver’s ed. The teacher was a former prison guard who picked on stoner kids and told stories about torturing inmates with a car alternator, and I don’t think he cared much about the video at all. He probably just pulled it out of a stack of tapes he had lying around. So in college when my friend said “straight edge,” I immediately associated the music with institutional creepiness and tuned it out. Not fair, but that’s how it happened.

On top of that, I just wasn’t interested in music with a positive social message. “I’ve got a six pack and I don’t need you” hit the spot for me a lot better than “At least I’m fucking trying, what the fuck have you done.” I was an angry jerk. I’d avoid stuff that I thought was too “humanist.” Later on, I got annoyed by Ian McKaye’s objection to Slayer’s cover of “Guilty of Being White” even though McKaye was totally justified in being angry, and Undisputed Attitude sucks, to boot.

It wasn’t until last year that I finally went out and bought Minor Threat’s discography CD, just because I thought it was about time that I knew what people were talking about. And, you know, it is great. I’ve finally hit a point in my life where I can’t use apathy like an accoutrement anymore (even though I still try, sometimes) and Minor Threat remind me that I have options. Of course, this isn’t news to anybody, but what the fuck: it’s what I’ve got.

Napalm Death by Casey Boland

As noted in my 2009 retrospective, Napalm Death’s Time Waits For No Slave ranked high on my list of listening priorities last year. I wrote an exhaustive and rambling review of said album elsewhere. I might have insinuated in the review that I’ve been a Napalm Death fan for a long time. As music journalists, we’re supposed to possess extensive knowledge of every band we cover, especially the big names. But I shamefully admit: it wasn’t until age 30 that I fully embraced Napalm Death.

Right You Are

The Code Is Red?Long Live The Code hooked me. Someone played it repeatedly at an old job. I had no idea who it was and my coworkers rightfully pilloried me for my ignorance. I did not admit to never having owned a Napalm Death album. But I made it a mission to catch up. It pained me to ponder the lost years of neglecting this most important of bands. While cranking From Enslavement to Obliteration, I discovered that the hardcore groups I filled my ears with during my formative association with youth subcultures were not responsible for the hallowed blastbeat. Napalm Death made all of those bands look fey and puny in comparison. No, The Locust and Charles Bronson were not as fast as it got.

My long devotion to DIY hardcore led to many critical omissions and misguided life choices. Perhaps my neglect of Napalm Death looms largest. I spent more time and money on 7″s by long-forgotten bands of intensely dubious quality in an effort to support the scene. Napalm Death was not playing the basement down the street that weekend with my friends’ bands. But you’re never too old to rediscover and appreciate the greats — or to sell those old hardcore 7″s.

Church of Misery by Chris Rowella

I’m a man of simple tastes. If it’s scary or takes place in a desert, I’ll watch it. If it’s full of garlic and/or cheese, I’ll eat it. When it comes to music, write some awesome bluesy sludge riffs and you’ve got me hooked. With that in mind, I still can’t understand why it took so long for me to check out Church of Misery. They’ve been around about as long as I’ve been listening to heavy music, and are really everything I want to hear: creepy samples, songs about serial killers, and downtuned “fuck you” riffs in the key of Sabbath.

Shotgun Boogie (James Oliver Huberty)

I had heard their name kicked around for a while, but had no idea what their sound was. Since that was the case with countless other bands, I didn’t bother seeking out any tunes. It wasn’t until this past June, when I received a link to check out a track off last year’s gargantuan release Houses of the Unholy (reviewed here), that I realized I had been missing out on something incredible. I immediately sought out their discography and discovered splits with like-minded sludge fiends Iron Monkey, Deer Creek, and Acrimony. It seems like the only thing missing is a collaboration with that other institution of Japanese doom, Corrupted.

Not only were Church Of Misery an enjoyable find and new favorite, they are the kind of band I recommend to anyone who listens to metal. Not a single person has come back to me and said, “Yeah, this band sucks.” Referencing everything from Sir Lord Baltimore to Grief, these guys continue to satisfy my need for smiley-face hate.

Shining (Swe) b y Cosmo Lee

I actually liked depressive black metal at one point. The idea seemed cool: some dude — I have yet to see a one-woman black metal project — channeling his introspection into something mysterious and limited. If it had a two-toned MySpace and fewer than 200 friends, I was into it. I really got into small distros. It all felt DIY and punk.

Låt Oss Ta Allt Från Varandra

At some point, I saw through the emperor’s new clothes. The stuff made me feel like crap. It was made by people who feel like crap, for people who like to feel like crap. I don’t like to feel like crap. I like the sun. I like liking people. I like metal that makes me feel strong. Give me Manowar over a Burzum clone any day.

So I ignored Sweden’s Shining for years. Connoisseurs liked them. Fans liked them. But as far as I knew, Shining were just another depressive band. It didn’t help that frontman Kvarforth is a nutjob who cuts himself onstage and says ridiculous things in the press.

Then I reviewed Norway’s Shining for a website recently. I did some research, stumbled across the Swedish Shining, and found that the two are very different. Norway’s Shining — not their current incarnation, anyway — are not my thing. But Sweden’s is so up my alley. It’s not happy, but it’s not sad-sack music, either. Kvarforth’s suicidal shtick must be an affectation on some level, because this music feels full of life. It’s searching, lyrical, even strong at times — particularly the later, more exploratory stuff. I picture confident pros, not basement-dwelling photophobes. Since then, I’ve been furiously catching up and kicking myself for missing out.

His Hero Is Gone by Francesco Ferorelli

Memphis, TN’s His Hero is Gone were active from 1995 until 1999. I was in high school then, regrettably farting around with underground hip-hop and second-generation New York hardcore. On the insistence of a knowledgeable friend, I heard HHIG in the early ’00s. Their second full-length Monuments to Thieves is now one of my all-time top 10 favorite records.

Chain of Command

HHIG get labeled all sorts of things by all sorts of people: crust, sludge metal, hardcore, thrash, grindcore. Their scathing political conscience, DIY ethos, and negative outlook are all punk hallmarks, but their superior chops, guitar leads, and general delivery are entirely metal. Unusual song structures and a vocalist any death metal band would envy further muddy the waters of easy classification. HHIG’s blend of metal and punk was less Corrosion of Conformity and more Nausea. CoC played metal with a very punk attack, whereas Nausea’s punk had a distinctly metal attack.

Over the course of three full-lengths and several EP’s, HHIG delivered total armageddon with technical rigor and easily overlooked finesse. Musicianship aside, however, what endure about their recordings are atmosphere and confident songcraft. Monuments to Thieves is 25 minutes long without an ounce of fat. It boasts stunning climaxes and varied tones of desperation. Todd Burdette’s crushing scream both terrifies and imparts the emotional gravity of his subject matter, a trick precious few screamers manage. Listen to “Chain of Command,” a particularly kill-your-boss kind of track on a particularly kill-your-boss kind of album. Mid-track he asks, “How long? How long will we swallow? How long will they feed? How long will we follow? How long will they lead? How long?”

How long indeed?

Eyehategod by Jess Blumensheid

I once disliked doom. I found it required too much attention, replaced substance with slowness, and sounded like a mess. A slew of bands helped me overcome that hunch with time. But Eyehategod weren’t among these eye-openers. It took me almost a year to finally reconsider their worth.

Dixie Whiskey

I usually remember the first-time aversions to everything. I cringed from my first taste of Eyehategod’s Dopesick. How filthy. How ugly. How slimy. And what is up with all that feedback? My nerves preferred the smooth fizz of Saint Vitus and the like, which later proved to settle my stomach upon processing Eyehategod.

But like the worst car crash I had ever seen, Eyehategod were too hard to ignore. On Dopesick, they honked horns with piercing feedback, burned rubber with low-end riffs, and shredded glass with chaotic cymbal crashes. Then came Mike Williams’ scream, which was so intense that no amount of Grade-A smack could quiet its shiver. This wreckage was the most distressed metal I had ever heard.

My initial heartburn eventually subsided, and I was hooked. By the time I accepted Eyehategod and all their filth, they were way past their heyday. They had already become legends by the turn of the century. I was just that young kid who didn’t know any better.

“Sludge” evokes certain sounds and images: dudes with beards hammering out power-chord metal at a snail’s pace. Raise the Red Lantern’s musicians indeed have facial hair; they certainly know their way around a meaty, Blue Cheer-worthy riff. While so many bands currently tread water in this genre, Raise the Red Lantern transcend its stylistic banalities.

Ritual

RTRL are devotees of the progressive Mastodon approach. They outplay dudes who’ve been at this much longer and with more notoriety. Guitarists Kris Milkent and Dylan Patterson boast dueling melodies of unique riffs, demonstrated on excellent opener “Ritual.” Perhaps the band’s mastery of this sound should be a forgone conclusion since most of its membership creates the Emperor cabinet line common in contemporary sludge bands.

Since this is the band’s sophomore effort (and first with superb drummer Jim Staffel), I can forgive a few missteps. “Awaken” gets points for tuneful vocals, yet they so closely resemble those on Baroness’ newer offerings that it sounds like a Blue Record outtake. The vocals could use some variation. The monochromatic wailing over the course of the album grates. Instead of adding color, they hang like yellowed wallpaper. Yet those criticisms aren’t enough to mar my enjoyment of this remarkable record.