Atriarch - Forever The End

 

Stepping foot inside of a brand new world, to most, can be a very scary obstacle to overcome, let alone facing it head on. As the newest member of The Ripple Effect, I knew that I had to review something so gigantic, so large in scale that it would take nonstop drilling of my brain to understand everything that was being fed to me. I wanted a record that would tie my hands behind my back and force feed me garbage that tastes like paradise. I wanted something so raw that my neighbors would have to call the Sebastian County Police Department and complain that the echoing disturbance coming from my house sounded like someone was being thrown around by some mysterious force. With that said, Atriarch's Forever The End was the most suitable record that I could see fit for the occasion.

As I gear up and try to prepare myself for what's about to happen while I listen to this record, I couldn't prepare myself for what actually happened. Forever The End, the debut onslaught of mayhem from this four-piece, delivers some of the most monstrous and hellbent chords in the world of Blackened Death/Doom and a very small pinch of Crust. While this record might be a shaker and a roller in the world of metal, I can't help but think that this four track behemoth  of a record is anything but spiritual. Maybe not spiritual in the sense that it's praising a higher power of some kind because is definitely not the case here, but more in the sense that it completely takes the listener to another world. A world filled with outstanding gloom, dark shades of grey that litter the ground and even though the world you just stepped into seems calm, chaos reigned behind and above you as clouds started to evaporate into rain drops of acid.

Forever The End, overall, is a nasty, filthy, disgusting piece of art. Some might say those words are negative but to me, those words are the best ones to use when describing how this record feels, not sounds. Don't get me wrong, the record itself does sound disgusting, in a good way of vibes, but it also feels very filthy and muggy. The third track, "Fracture", should be the example you look at when you try to find the outrageous scum that dwells inside Forever The End. "Fracture", along with the whole record really, provides very sluggish sections that will make you feel as if you are being drowned in misery. In the past I've been very vocal and opinionated that with the majority of Blackened Death/Doom releases, the guitarist(s) need to step their game up in major ways. I may be the only one that feels this way but the bass and drums are what really make a doom record sound like it does and Forever The End is no different. The way that the drums literally vibrated the cup of water on my desk while this record was playing, blew me away. On the flip side, the drums, or what I call them, the soundtrack to Satan entering a room filled with worthless humans, also deliver on a scale that nobody can touch nor disagree with that they sound exactly what hell looks like, in a good way.

This record provides things, as mentioned above, that I really haven't felt since I listened to Meth Drinker's self-titled debut record earlier this year. The vibe you get that everything around you is collapsing into a burning pit of flames while the smell of burning flesh is heavy fogging the air in front of you. Forever The End and Atriarch both have laid waste to everything I wanted in this record. It has the atmosphere, the horrible disease ridden riffs that will make the pictures that hang on your hallway wall fall, only to shatter into tiny pieces and this overwhelming burden to just keep blasting this record until it melts, literally.

So, as I sit confused as to what I just heard from this record, yet I completely understand and latched onto everything that was thrown at me, I ponder the question to myself along with asking you, why can't every single record I come across sound like Forever The End? Simple question, right? The only answer I can give you is that most bands, to me, want to make it huge without much effort. That most definitely isn't the case with Atriarch because if I'm judging this band from this debut full-length alone, I can't see why they won't be featured in the most popular metal magazines or be put on tours with the bands they've looked up to for years. Atriarch - The one band that grabbed me by my throat the second this record started to spin.

Buy the record here: http://atriarch.bandcamp.com/

-Nicoali

Nails - Unsilent Death

Fast, loud, angry and to the point. That’s really all one I say about Unsilent Death by the band Nails. Their 10 songs in 13 lucky minutes makes Blood, Guts & Pussy by the Dwarves seem like a Dream Theater concept opus. I’m sure crusty types can rattle off the names of hundreds of “d-beat” style bands that they sound like but to me Nails taps into the dirty source of Discharge, Motorhead, Hellhammer and Poison Idea.

Since this album is so short, the songs run one into another as sort of a brutal musical suite. The fast ones are very fast and are usually a minute or less. The opening pair of “Conform” and “Scum Will Rise” are over so quickly you barely have time to figure out if you like them or not. If those 2 annoy you then you certainly won’t like the longer, slower ones. The title track is over 2 and a half minutes of a slower Hellhammer/Celtic Frost grind with a bit of a Slayer chug thrown in at the end. The 28 second “Traitor” manages to squeeze in some tempo changes before crashing into the next blitz. The album wraps up with the lengthy “Depths” (almost 4 minutes!) with screechy feedback and negativity for all.

Production on Unsilent Death is heavy as hell. Guitars crunch all the time but squeal nicely when they have to. The bass sound is massive and the drums hit hard and fast. The vocals are guttural and screamy but never venture into cookie monster territory. Overall this is a winner if you need a speed fix and need to break a lot of shit in a hurry.

 --Woody

Buy here: Unsilent Death
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Buy here vinyl: Unsilent Death

Band website

http://unsilentdeath.com

Spotlight on Japan’s H.G. Fact

Writing for The Ripple Effect has given all of us here some insight on a bunch of labels that are cruising along just under the radar. We’re found a ton of Indie labels over the last two plus years and we’re constantly being surprised by the passion and quality of the material being released under the various banners. Some labels are approaching their releases from a place of reverence towards the music and musicians that they’ve loved for a time by releasing re-issues or unreleased material, while others concentrate on putting out music that they may enjoy, but are looking to make a few bucks in the process. No matter where these labels are coming from, the product coming out of the Indie trenches still seems superior than the majority of the stuff coming out of the major labels. Case in point, H.G. Fact is a small label based in Japan that has been putting out some quality metal, hardcore, and emotionally intense music. What seems to get me most excited about this label, though, is the honest approach to the music. The products that I have in front of me have that D.I.Y. feel to the artwork, the packaging, and to some extent, the music. But it all feels like it’s been produced with loving hands and it reminds me of the how things used to be in the various regional music scenes across the U.S. But enough about all that, here are a few words about a couple of the H.G. Fact’s latest releases. www.interq.or.jp/japan/hgfact

Age – The Scar of Lead

Holy crap! The minute I heard the first strains of chaos blast of my speakers, I knew that I was gonna’ dig on this record. There was just something about the tones of the instruments, the aggressive vibe that didn’t sound like it was image driven, the intensity of the music felt like it was for real. And then, almost instantly, my imagination went wild. I imagined a village tucked along a hillside and into a valley, filled with your average hard working peasant folk . . . farmers, bakers, ranchers . . . good, innocent people of the earth. None of them have a clue about the war machine poised precariously at the top of the ridge of their valley. A war machine constructed of solid iron, 30 feet in diameter, its tarnished surface covered with rivets, spikes, and jagged chunks of twisted metal, blue clouds of smoke burp from exhaust vents in various locations of its form. A war machine fueled by hatred for humanity and overlooking its next victim. Age’s The Scar of Lead is the soundtrack of this war machines journey down the tranquil hillside.

Sounding a little bit like early Voivod, Age’s assault on the senses is magnificent and full of techno-violence. The title track is packed with gritty guitar riffs and supersonic drums, propelling the song on its chaotic way, riding shotgun with the war machine as it makes its way down the hillside, splintering age old trees into kindling, aiming its full destructive power in the center of the tiny village. Great breakdowns in the song give it a thrash metal feel, and the overall attitude of the music is filled with an anarchic emotion. “Outside the Window” starts off with the same burst of musical violence as “The Scar of Lead” did, but the tune downshifts a little more with a piston pumping chug of palm muted strings. The mosh part to this piece is exceptional, and by now, the war machine has made contact with some of the outlying huts of the village, and those who were able to assess the terrible rumbling in the earth earlier enough have been frozen with terror. Then, there were those who never had a chance and are now impaled on the various projections on the surface of the metallic orb of destruction.

”A Ghost in the Insanity” is straight up hardcore aggression. Up tempo and blistering, the song reminds me of those great pits of the 80’s, limbs flailing about and shirtless punks throwing their weight into one another. I love the guitar work in this one because it’s just a subtle solo, nothing noodle-y or pretentious . . . just a nice texture to add a point of interest in the song. At this point, the war machine has reached it core of the village and the destruction wide spread, fire erupts in the pile of debris being strewn about by the chaos, and the body count continues to climb, and the orbs descent has cut a rut in the countryside . . . a rut quickly filling with the blood of countless innocents. “The Night Kills You” is a thrashing good time, powered by a great groove and accented by excellent vocal work. This song is a killer and the perfect way to wrap up the bands original contributions to the album. The Scar of Lead closes with a high octane rendition of Twisted Sister's “Stay Hungry” that sticks pretty close to the original version, just a little more edge-y and violent. The Scar of Lead is a quick explosion of ultra-violent attitude, clocking in at just a hair past twenty minutes . . . and guaranteed to leave you homeless, if not impaled on a spike. http://www.interq.or.jp/japan/hgfact/untitled2.html

Hellshock – Singles

This disc, from what I can gather, is a collection of songs culled from a ton of releases that these guys have put out over the years, and after listening to this compilation . . . I think I’m gonna’ do some hunting for the original releases! Hellshock are a band that’s been categorized as crust, hardcore, punk, and metal. I simply think they’re bad ass. They incorporate enough musicality in the music to make them beyond any ordinary hardcore band, working in nice bits of ambient sound and quieter interludes to break up the sheer brutality that makes up the rest of the record. They’re more hardcore moments remind me of bands like Toxic Bonkers, they’re straight up punk-y moments remind me of Discharge, and they’re metal moments remind me of the first DBC album. It all works well together and I find Singles to be the perfect mix of aggression and melody that will keep me interested in Hellshock for many years to come.

“Passage” opens this disc with a quieter and more melodic piece than I had originally expected. The second guitar wailing away in the background adds a somber tone to the music while the rest of the band builds a wall of distortion as a foundation. The intro builds and builds with tension, layer after layer of guitar creating a massive sound, and then the guttural vocals enter the mix, adding further elements of tension. Then the whole thing explodes in fury as the guitars open up into a riff and tempo that would get a floor full of mosh happy Hessians in a tizzy! I love this song from a couple of different places. First, the musical dynamics are intense and Hellshock are always doing something to make me jump up and thrash about. Secondly, these guys don’t sound forced or contrived. This song comes across as immediate and straight from the heart. Just listen to the intensity of the vocals in the latter portion of the track. My God! That’s awesome!

“Beauty” fucking kills! Opening with big bursts of crunch, the song rolls into a mid to up tempo groove that gets me headbanging, bucking around in my desk chair, causing me to overuse my spell check function. This has that hardcore feel that I grew up with and can remember feeling the urge to fucking break things as the tempo shifts to high speed and then downshifting again to provide a little extra power. Fucking brilliant! Then there’s “Wax Statues.” Two and a half minutes of wall to wall brutality, high speed destructive intensity, and musical brilliance. The mosh part towards the end of the song is as good as they get, full of power and explosive force. Though some of these songs sound somewhat under produced, I think it works for these guys. If these songs were too polished, the intensity would certainly get lost and running on pure emotion seems to be what makes Hellshock sound so vital. www.myspace.com/pdxstenchcore

 -  Pope JTE