Amebix always had something that other crust bands lacked, a sense of the mystical or something existing beyond the consumerist, political, atomized, and individualistic modern world. It seemed to be connecting to something both ancient and futuristic.
5 CommentsTags: amebix, crustcore, Hardcore Punk, Heavy Metal, Industrial, tau cross
Revolutionary but traditional metal/punk band Tau Cross — continuing, among others, the legacy of legendary hardcore band Amebix — unleashes its forthcoming album Messengers of Deception on December 4th, but has released a teaser track for the song “Burn With Me,” featuring a video by Jakob Moth which showcases some of the imagery and aesthetics behind the band. This continues the search for a single voice between punk, metal, and hard rock that avoids both commercialism and indecisive polyglot, instead creating a powerful sound of dissent and exploration.
12 CommentsTags: amebix, crustcore, Hardcore Punk, Heavy Metal, tau cross
With the exception of borderline subgenres such as grindcore and thrash, metal bands generally compose songs that exceed the standard pop-template in terms of longevity – a feat largely inherited from progressive rock, where compositions often reach for the conceptual and/or epic. Therefore, the full-length album comes off as an ideal format for metal. In the case of punk music, things tend to work differently. Punk – especially hardcore punk – thrives on raw energy, purity of expression and a to-the-point manner. This code of conduct produces some of the most intense music around, but also places certain restrictions on its modes of expression.
10 CommentsTags: amebix, anti-cimex, chaotic end, Hardcore Punk, hellbastard, skitslickers, Χαοτικό Τέλος
Hardcore supergroup Tau Cross has come under fire for bassist/vocalist Rob Miller citing an off-narrative thinker in their liner notes. Band members have distanced themselves from Miller, and Relapse Records has dropped the band from its roster in response.
66 CommentsTags: amebix, gerard menuhin, rob miller, tau cross
Tagged as a death/thrash sort of cross-over band, Amok, at least in the present album, sounds much closer to hardcore stemming from the tradition of Discharge Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing and filtered along the line of Amebix Arise!. Some gestures of 80s heavy metal show up but only briefly and not prominently enough to turn this into one of the many kinds of so-called “melodic death” bands out there. In Necrospiritual Deathcore a healthy, coherent mixture of different punk and metal expressions collide to form an enjoyable album.
Like any hardcore album worth its salt, we find fragments of speech taken from television or radio, snippets of urban audio, coughing, among the rough scream-barks of the vocalist. All this, combined with the great pains to which Amok goes to give this album musical variety despite the fact that the music is primarily percussive (and simple in its percussion). Commendable are the smooth tempo changes in the album that are never abrupt even though they change the music drastically. Voice and instruments conspire so that the “line” is never broken when going from a faster speed to a slower one. When it comes to accelerating, though, the punks show themselves.
On the other hand, given the simplicity (and I mean real simplicity) of each song and the fact that the album is a song-collection (rather than a concept album, or a greater work, or a set of variations), the staying power of this kind of record is very limited. Sounding like a more single-minded, less flexible Amebix, Amok Necrospiritual Deathcore will please and entertain, but there is little reason to continue listening to it when there are albums like Arise! lying around. All in all, it is a refreshing hardcore album with heavy and death metal colors done by expert musicians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBosT9rPRPk
No CommentsTags: 2015, amebix, Amok, arise, discharge, Hardcore, Necrospiritual Deathcore, norway
A supergroup comprised of members of Amebix and Voivod among other bands, Tau Cross emerged just a few years after Amebix returned with a radio heavy metal album named Sonic Mass in 2011 that used the Iron Maiden styled epic take on heavy metal to deliver a traditional Amebix point of view. That album also revisited the second album from the band back in 1987, Monolith, which showed a Motorhead influence repurposing the raw energy of the crust punk from earlier albums. Together, those two albums from after the “pure” crust era of Amebix demonstrate a direction toward heavy metal that combines the best of the early 1980s with the energy and concrete focus of punk. Tau Cross picks up from that point with a more varied approach, spanning from quality indie rock (non-emo) through modern metal like Filter with a host of minor influences as varied as Killing Joke, Metallica, Celtic folk music and Oi punk. This intensely varied album manages the best form of emotion, which is subtly built and keyed by a shift in the entire song, and not just vocals, creating an avalanche effect once it hits its trigger point and all of the previous material starts making sense in that context. Much of this will appeal to fans of Queenrÿche and other bands who specialize in taking mainstream styles, recombining them, and then dominating them with an ethos that originates in underground punk or metal but thrives in a more listenable form. Vocals are often reminiscent of Nirvana crossed with Minor Threat applied by Motorhead at a later Discharge pace, while guitars alternate between high-speed punk in the style of Cro-Mags but with more on-beat energy, but songwriting comes from the same intensely visual style that appeared on Sonic Mass, as if designed for an epic video that leaves the listener wondering for the next few days if they correctly interpreted the song. Song structures are formed of roughly verse-chorus patterning that is interrupted and redirected at key points, with interludes and pauses. Paranoid and cynical, lyrics seem to reflect a sense of total frustration with the modern condition converted into a bittersweet discovery of meaning in opposing it and going another way. First listen to this album let it be written off as hard rock, much like Monolith at first, but Tau Cross shows the benefit of years of experience in songwriting and working with melody, in addition to more flexible tempo changes and supporting instrumentals, and so takes that style in a more powerful direction. In many ways, this album picks up where the modern mainstream metal like Filter should have gone, which is to take the emotionality of alternative rock, the energy of hardcore and the epic structures of early 80s metal and blend them together into something terrifying and beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL6mFQybNJI
1 CommentTags: amebix, Heavy Metal, punk, tau cross, Voivod
CVLT Nation is very proud to present the seventh covers compilation of their CVLT Nation Sessions series with AMEBIX’ Arise! This reinterpretation of a genre-defining classic is up for exclusive streaming and free download via CVLTNation.com, and features Plagues, Abstracter, Druglust, Coltsblood, American, Agrimonia, Okus and Larvae! These young musicians have done astounding tributes to one of the most iconic bands in punk and metal history.
Check it out at THIS LOCATION.
The CVLT Nation Sessions is a musical project with the aim of reinterpreting iconic music that has influenced a wide spectrum of genres, while also widening the audience for the participating bands. CVLT Nation has recruited some of its favorite underground heavy bands from around the world to record covers for free distribution and download via CVLTNation.com. All mastering is done by Black Matter Mastering in Nashville, Tennessee.
AMEBIX Arise! – The CVLT Nation Sessions Track Listing:
1. Plagues – The Moor
2. Plagues – Axeman
3. Abstracter – Fear of God
4. Drug Lust – Largactyl
5. Coltsblood – Drink and Be Merry
6. American – Spoils of Victory
7. Agrimonia – Arise!
8. Okus – Slave
9. Larvae – The Darkest Hour
http://www.cvltnation.com
http://www.cvltnation.
http://www.facebook.com/
http://www.
Tags: 2015, amebix, arise, covers, cult nation sessions
All-star metal/punk band Tau Cross — with members Rob “The Baron” Miller from Amebix on bass/vocals, Michel “Away” Langevin on drums, and members of Misery on guitars — has released the first single from its upcoming album Tau Cross. The single, entitled “Lazarus,” shows the style of this new band.
The band describes its sound as “the natural evolution of Miller’s work in Amebix,” and “Lazarus” bears this out — with one important detail that most forget. Amebix continued its evolution recently with Redux, which showed classic Amebix tracks with a Metallica Ride the Lightning treatment paired with atmospheric and ancient tribal sounds. Where Tau Cross picks up however is after Amebix Monolith, which sounded like old Amebix run through a filter of AC/DC and Motorhead. “Lazarus” returns to that point but brings to bear the full technical power and songwriting wisdom of these experienced composers.
Death metal fanatics may be hoping for a version of Amebix No Sanctuary or Arise with more technical instrumentation, but Tau Cross takes a more heavy metal approach but updates it with the high-intensity rhythms of punk and then a unique songwriting approach that can only be described as spirit or intent more than technique: a cosmic metaphysical outlook much like that of Tangerine Dream paired with a Celtic tribal feel that would make Absu drool. The problem that Miller and Away face in their “day job” bands of Amebix and Voivod is that those bands have already made a name for themselves in crust hardcore punk and progressive heavy metal already, and those expectations bestow too much baggage for material in another direction to be released under those names. So far, “Lazarus” is the only track released and it shows only a small slice of what Tau Cross will be, but there is promise in this continuation and outgrowth of the Amebix concept to a new level.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M3Y6AimGqs
1 CommentTags: amebix, celtic metal, crust, Crust Punk, crustcore, Hardcore Punk, Heavy Metal, michel langevin, misery, progressive heavy metal, progressive metal, rob miller, tau cross, tribal rhythms, Voivod
Members of Amebix and Voivod have joined with other experienced underground musicians to launch Tau Cross, a new project already signed to Relapse Records and planning to release its debut album in 2015.
Recorded in three different countries over several months in 2014, the Tau Cross album will see release in spring. According to the official press release, Tau Cross formed in 2013.
Rob Miller (Amebix) spoke of the new band: “The music that evolved over this time is difficult to categorize, as there is clearly a lot of Amebix in the songwriting as well as some elements of gothic, Joy Division, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Industrial and hard fucking old-school punk rock. This is an entirely original work that is the organic fusion of four unique people. We decided to let the songs form themselves around the original demos and allow people to bring themselves into the mix, to allow the bark to grow around the tree.”
Line-up:
“You know kid, uhh, usually when someone pulls shit like that my first reaction is I want to punch his fucking lights out. But you know something? You’re all right!” Most re-visions of older works by popular musicians end in tears and terror. This one re-creates three classic Amebix tracks in a form the band suggested was always intended but was not possible owing to the primitive production and living conditions of the day, and Amebix surely knew that their fanbase — who grew up on the versions as they were — would approach this with trepidation and skepticism. But there is no easy review for this disk.
Redux does not fall into the usual trap of making a glamorized and overly-slick version of the past. Instead, Amebix restyle their foundational songs more as if Metallica and Prong had collaborated to emit a dystopian metal album. Double-picked muted downstrumming and faster tremolo strumming all make an appearance, along with approximately half the vocals which are a hybrid of the Amebix style of Motorhead-influenced distorted vocals and the bassier, gnarlier death metal vocals to follow. But what is really surprising here is how these songs work very well given the high intensity treatment, which transitions them from a kind of contemplative and mournful look at our world to a savage Nietzschean attack of those who want to hoist the black flag and slit some throats. There are times when, much as happened on the first Burzum LP, these vocals are simultaneously so vulnerable and savage that they convey a sense of total commitment to desperate acts.
In addition, the more rigid playing of these riffs and uptempo approach gives the entire EP a malevolent vibe. These songs were great in the past, and they would be known as great here as well had this been the past. That being said, it will offend many punk purists and metal purists alike, despite having faithfully upheld the spirit of both genres. Not only that, but the haunting and unsettling sense of peering under the skin of our society and seeing underneath the makeup and credentials a swarming mass of crawling horror remains and may be intensified by this more assertive re-creation. While I liked the album that followed, I would gladly sign up for a full album of Amebix songs in this style as well.
1 CommentTags: amebix, crust, Hardcore Punk, Heavy Metal, profane existence, Speed Metal
