Trench Warfare – Hatred Prayer

Trench Warfare finally grace the world with their first full length. Building from the potential of their demo and split, the band finally manage to fuse their War metal with elements of Black and Death metal into creating a highly enjoyable listen that carries a few more subtleties than its aesthetic quality would allow one to assume.

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Thomas Hewitt Jones – Electro Cello

Thomas Hewitt Jones is a British composer mainly known for being an important figure in the realm of British sacred music. An organ scholar at the incredibly prestigious Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge before then branching off into composing for a plethora of styles that include, ballets, choirs and a notorious piece based on the few hummed notes performed by former British Prime Minister David Cameron as he resigned. Electro Cello is a new take on Neo-romanticism that seeks to focus on the joys of wonder and pensive contemplative.

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G.I.S.M. – Detestation (Dogma, 1984)

For us Westerners, many forms Japanese non-traditional music carry an awkward, or even amusing air of exotism. When it comes to metal and punk, this sense of other-ness often stems from the way European-descended musical genres get filtered through a cultural lens largely alien to its original source. Even when it comes to obvious carbon-copy tribute acts, there’s always something strikingly goofy about Japanese metal/punk. Not surprisingly, this makes for a good marketing device because even if the bands suck (and to be frank, many of them do), they still sound “unique”. Relevant cases in point are just too ubiquitous to deserve mentioning. Let’s instead talk about something that does not suck. Like Japan’s premier hardcore punk act and much-overlooked crossover pioneers G.I.S.M. While definitely goofy, G.I.S.M. succeed where most Japanese metal- and punk-acts fail by forging a highly idiosyncratic expression that not only offers something new to the table, but also manage to resonate with the deeper spirit of both punk and metal.

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Demonpalm – Demo

Metallica’s mark on metal in both the mainstream and underground still continues to grow as every riff, drum fill,solo etc has been plagiarized. As Metallica progressed towards much tamer territories, the band did the opposite of what common sense dictated at the time. Instead of reneging their previous records, they embraced them and relished their mainstream status as kings of “The Big 4”. This allowed them to exist in a bizarre duality alternating between mainstream Radio Rock and furious Heavy metal depending on the fan. Through this duality many bands have taken from both periods to create a curious mix that resonates with with a wider audience. Demonpalm fall into this category but their music carries potential for something better in some of the brief glimpses shown here.

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Mysticum – Planet Satan

Formed in the heyday of the Norwegian Black metal movement and even rehearsing with one of main participants, Hellhammer. Mysticum never fell into the trap of copying the more popular bands and though the death of Euronymous and various issues had delayed the release of their first album, Mysticum are the first band to create what is referred to as “Industrial Black metal”. Being left out the narrative due to their late entry was probably a blessing in disguise as this removed any pressure for the band to copy their first album or to completely change style. Planet Satan takes off from where In the Streams of Inferno left off and develops further the cosmic psychedelic horror that the band started to experiment with other two decades ago.

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Polemicist – Zarathustrian Impressions (Fólkvangr, 2019)

In the past, metal journalism used to function mainly as a filtering device; weeding out the bad so that the good stuff would rise to the top. Nowadays, it’s more likely the other way around. We’re now searching for potential in a seemingly endless flow of “interesting” or pleasant-sounding junk. This task often requires time and patience, because those rare and far between releases will often sound similar to their lesser peers on a surface level. One illuminating example would be the Pennsylvanian epic death/black metal act Polemicist and their debut album Zarathustrian Impressions. Their music may not appear spectacular on casual listen, but repeated and concentrated exposure reveal unexpected qualities.

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Dayton Shooter Was Failed Goregrind Vocalist, Antifa Member

As the nation mourns the deaths of 9 people killed in the Dayton, Ohio shooting on Sunday more information about 24 year old shooter Connor Betts is surfacing based on his newly unearthed Twitter profile. While mainstream media outlets such as the Daily Beast have falsely reported that Betts had no links to extremist ideology, the account contains tweets that profess the gunman’s support of socialism, Satanism, and “Antifascism.”  

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