Heavy metal’s highway is stacked ten miles deep with bumper-to-bumper EPs, demos and diversely-inched short-players. In an effort to help our readers navigate the traffic, we offer an ongoing and sporadic editorial designed to shine a light on a few of the more noteworthy candidates blipping the radar. Keep It Short, Stupid: The next installment in our continuing short-player cluster-bonk gang-bang.
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OBSCURE BURIAL – EPIPHANY
“I absolutely worship the band’s early demos, but the rest of their material is average at best.” — it’s a cliché you’ve probably heard too many times in the context of death metal. Of course, this attitude originates from the forefathers of extreme tryhardism, but there’s also the fact that death metal has a history of insanely good demos. Epiphany, the second four-song installment from Finland’s Obscure Burial, is definitely one of those.
It’s a textbook example of old school black/death metal worship honed to near perfection and a breath of old, rotten stench from way back when people were giving birth to classic recordings without even knowing what they we’re doing. For those in need of reference, Obscure Burial comes off as a sort of death metal version of what Ravencult did on Morbid Blood but with less oomph and more grit. Personally, I would even go as far as crowning Epiphany as the best demo I’ve heard all year. Even as such I hope it’s also something that paves the way for greater things to come for the band, because I, for one, would love to hear what Obscure Burial could do with a little more focus on the production quality. Well, they’ve certainly set the bar high for themselves and also given a demonstration on how exactly you’re supposed to play this kind of music.
Acquire at all costs.
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THEIST – THEIST
I’ve found Bandcamp to be a magnificent forum for discovering new bands and micro-scenes, and that’s exactly where I stumbled on Bandung, Indonesia-based Theist. The band labels itself “neocrust”, and what you get on Theist’s recently released self-titled EP is a thickset hybrid sound that’s heavy on amp-melting crossover appeal. Hardcore smashes into sludge on “Flutter Clot”. D-beat meets doom on the slower, grinding sections of “Antidogma”. Filthy thrash and death metal make an appearance on “666 Dwellings”. And “At the End of the Maze” even drags in a little of atmospheric black metal’s chill.
The EP’s hefty production ensures everything remains abrasive yet punchy throughout, and as you’d expect from a crust/metal synthesis, Theist sound incandescent with rage. The band channels wrath and fury through feedback, throwing out chunky riffs, biting vocals, and bare-bones melodies on the EP, and if you’re a fan of the old guard of crust punk warriors or the new breed of squalid and ferocious metallic combatants, then Theist are definitely worth checking out. In crust we trust: That’s my motto, at least. And like a lot of Indonesian punk and metal bands, Theist sounds driven by firm opposition to some seriously imposing socio-political forces.
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SOCIETY SUCKER – SOCIETY SUCKER
Hardcore is a hard style to write about because, aside from a few sideways steps here and there, the majority of it has a tendency towards sameness. But hardcore is an easy style to listen to, because aside from a few backwards steps here and there, the best of it is violent and vicious fun.
Enter Wilmington, North Carolina’s Society Sucker, which I’m assuming (completely without prompting or any actual evidence) is named in tribute to the Agnostic Front song. This five-piece from the land of Dawson’s Creek blends the traditional hardcore frenzy with metallic riffing — sure, it’s been done, and many times, but the formula is sound when enacted skillfully, and here it is. Society Sucker’s eponymous five-song effort is a rager of riffs and fury, all barked vocals and palm-muted chunk. The swagger of “Burdened” swings enough to get the pits moving at top speed, while literal and musical centerpiece “The Hangman” rides a crossover groove.
All in all, there’s nothing new here, nothing you’ve not heard before, but that’s not really the point. If you’re a fan of metallic hardcore, there’s much to like. Hardcore isn’t about progression, it’s about aggression. So get aggressive.
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