Bulwer-Lytton Fiction

So Wednesday in my Short Story class, my professor had us write some Bulwer-Lytton style fiction. For those of you who don't know, the goal with this is basically to write as poorly as humanly possible. I was proud and at the same time ashamed of what I wrote, so I figured I would put my prompts here for the world to see:






Romance


Even years into their marriage, Ronald was smitten by Maria. She was the zig to his zag, the “ah” to his “choo,” the Pepto Bismol to his diarrhea, the bullet to his brain if his brain was JFK’s, the flies to his horse dung. Each morning, he tenderly kissed his heaping pile of equine feces before setting off to work at the Maserati factory on the Amalfi Coast where the employees ate meatballs soaked in marinara sauce during breaks and left at night when the moon hit their eyes like big pizza pies that’s Amore did I mention this takes place in Italy? That’s romantic right? Italy. Italian things. Milan. Pasta. Fascism. Fabio. Italy. Romance novel. Give me my money, middle aged and sexually frustrated white women.






Adventure


It was a sunny, peaceful, and therefore depressing Tuesday morning when Trent set off from his home to search in the woods for his father. Or was it Wednesday? Actually, it might have been Monday. No, it was Tuesday because I remember I stopped to grab a donut for breakfast that morning and that bitch Irene was behind the register again. I have no idea what crawled up her ass, but my God does that woman have an attitude. I’m actually getting hungry again, I think I’ll go to Zuppardi’s for pizza on the way home. Wait, I’m getting off track. Trent died. He got mauled to death by a bear.






Fantasy and Horror


The Orc king sent three orc assassins, Blorp, Skrezzan, and a third whose name was literally just a high-pitched screaming noise, to eliminate the local carpenter after he called the king a “Dorc” online during a particularly heated match of Team Fortress 2. No one would help the carpenter. He was widely disliked due to his rude personality and the fact that his Facebook page was a treasure trove of disturbing comics and strange drawings of anthropomorphic animals in Waffen SS uniforms.






Sci-Fi


Vincent knew he had a job to do, but that didn’t diminish his disappointment in the selection provided by Space Netflix on the Interplanetary Space Station. One could only watch Lost in Space, Space Raiders, Space Jam, and Spaceballs so many times. Bored of the limited entertainment provided, Vincent stared out his cabin window into the void of nothing. I can’t set the scene because there is nothing there. He’s in space.






Crime/Detective

The first responder to a murder scene at the local gas station was Officer Jerry. Jerry was a sad, sad man who never amounted to much in life. How could he with his name? What kind of name is Jerry? The name deprived him of his childhood, as when he was born, he already had the body and mind of a 35-year-old man, as is the norm with Jerrys. Seriously, have you ever met a child named Jerry? No, of course you haven’t. That’s because they don’t exist. Jerry walked around the crime scene with his camera and took pictures of points of interest, touching and rearranging objects in the scene without gloves as he did so. The investigators couldn’t process the evidence as it was all contaminated and the perpetrator was never found, all thanks to Jerry. Fuck you, Jerry.

California Record Store Haul

So last month I went to Hermosa Beach, California to visit my sister and brother in law. Hermosa Beach is an awesome beach town that is close to a ton of the hotspots in Cali so I got to go out to some record stores while I was out there and found some interesting stuff.

The first store I went to was Fingerprints Music in Long Beach. This is a huge store with a great selection of all genres. There were some great finds in the metal section, but that isn't where I got most of my stuff. I asked an employee if they had a bargain CD section. He directed me to bunch of stacks of disks hidden behind the large front desk. The disks were 92 cents each, so I got on my hands and knees and dug through these mountains of old CDs. Thankfully, the venture was not fruitless.

My haul from Fingerprints Music

My most notable find from the store was a signed copy of Skeletal Remains's Condemned to Misery. That album is a personal favorite of mine so picking this up was a no brainer. I also found a copy of Ripping Corpse's Dreaming with the Dead (a criminally underappreciated thrashy OSDM release) and the Dark Descent reissue/remaster of A Descent into Hell by Cianide, which is a really cool death/doom release from the mid 90s. 

The bargain stacks were very good to me, so I'm happy to report getting down on the dirty floor and rummaging through them was worth the trouble. Here's a quick rundown of what I found:

Falling Cycle - The Conflict: Some pretty solid Christian metalcore. I saw the Facedown Records logo on the case and figured it was worth picking up. It definitely leans more toward the metal side and also has that early 00s metalcore charm from before the genre exploded and turned into a vague clusterfuck of different styles.

Slayer - Divine Intervention: I'm a massive Slayer fan, so when I saw this for less than a dollar I figured "Why not?"

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath: It was pretty surprising to find a CD copy of the first metal record ever in this cheap CD pile, so I picked it up.

Sick of It All - Cool as a Mustache: This was a promo from just before the release of Built to Last that has Jungle, Closer, and one exclusive song. The song is basically more SOIA, which I can never get enough of. A pretty neat addition to my collection.
A Life Once Lost - A Great Artist: Great metalcore with kind of a prog thing going on too. Quite an improvement over their first album, which I thought was just decent. After going through their whole discography, this album actually ended up being my favorite.
Outspoken - Bitter Shovel: This is the promo version of this album, which is neat. I picked this up because I thought it was the hardcore band Outspoken. It's not. It's some dad rock band from New York. It's not absolutely terrible but still isn't my thing, just generic butt rock. Sounds kind of like a shitty Pressure 4-5. I'm pissed at myself for not double checking who it was.
Aftermath of a Trainwreck - Horseshoes & Handgrenades: Really good metalcore. Not what I was expecting given the artwork. Straight Edge band too, which is always a plus in my book.
Peach - Giving Birth to a Stone: Specifically, the 2000 reissue. This was Justin Chancellor's band before he joined Tool. It's a neat alt metal album that definitely gives me Soundgarden and Helmet vibes, though it isn't quite as heavy as Helmet even if the band has a similar riff driven approach. Some parts do make me think of Tool as well. Check this out of you're into any of those bands.
The Esoteric - Subverter: Pretty decent experimental metalcore. Kind of goes back and forth between post-hardcore and metalcore with maybe a little post-metal here and there.
Draw Blood - The Calm Before the Storm: Not the most original EP out there, but still pretty solid hardcore, pretty much what you would expect from early 2000s Boston HC.
Hand to Hand - Breaking the Surface: This is pretty much just really generic and bad metalcore/post-hardcore. Nothing this band does impresses me. I guess the cleans are okay but the screams are poor and instrumentally the band just goes for that overdone good cop/bad cop post-melodic metalcore sound with some stop-start riffy stuff. It sounds like bad nu metal at times, mediocre melodic hardcore at others, and even still bad metalcore at others. It is at the very least listenable (Bullets For Teeth is actually a somewhat decent track), which is more than I can say for the band's debut album, which I turned off after 2 songs.
Gone Without Trace - Gone Without Trace: Some hard metalcore. Not quite beatdown but heavy as fuck with a ton of breakdowns and palm muted riffs. Great stuff.

 Picture I took outside the store

The other store I got to go to was the Amoeba Music location in Hollywood. Amoeba is actually the largest independent record store in the world, emphasis on large. This place was fucking huge. Music and movies as far as the eye can see and the sheer volume could keep me entertained for days. They even had their own underground metal section that made me wish I had like $500 more dollars on me. Below is everything I got. I again mainly stuck to the bargain bin stuff. A lot of this is more on the hardcore side since the metal clearance section was stupid small and had nothing interesting.

My haul from Amoeba

Death - Human: Let this be a cautionary tale for my fellow collectors out there. I found this album and it was labeled "original issue." I opened Discogs and checked the case for the original pressing, which was identical to the case I was holding (keep in mind, I couldn't check the matrix markings on the disk itself because it was in one of those plastic security package things). Death is one of my favorite bands, if not my favorite band, of all time and Human was the first album from them I heard, so after checking the case to make sure it was legit, I was like "fuck yeah" and bought this for $25. When I got back to my AirBnb, I looked at the disk and it had IPFI markings on it, which meant it was not an original issue from 1991 and could not have been released earlier than 1994. I emailed Amoeba and luckily, they were sympathetic and I ended up sending the album back for a full refund after I got back home. Just make sure you know what you're getting what you want when you pay good money for something because this was a professional record store that fucked up, so it can happen to anyone no matter where they are.
Open Fire! - Built To Abandon: Really sick metalcore/melodic hardcore hybrid. Think early The Ghost Inside but heavier. I've only been able to find two more copies of this online that are on Amazon and the cheaper one is priced at $89.99. I literally picked this up for two dollars. Looks like I may have stumbled upon a sought after treasure. It didn't exist on Discogs, so I put it up there myself and I'm interested to see if I can gauge the album's rarity by how many people want it.
Signs of Hope - Choices Made and First And Foremost: This is a great CTHC band from the mid 2000s. I actually own a copy of their demo that came out in '03. I was pleasantly surprised to find both records at Amoeba so far from CT.
Skitsystem - Enkel Resa Till Rannstenen: For those of you who don't know, this is actually an At The Gates side project and one of my favorite D-Beat bands. They play a really intense and catchy blend of D-Beat and Swedish death metal, something I wish more bands would do. Never thought I would be able to find physicals of any of their stuff out in the wild.
Altercation - Phase None: Interesting deathcore/groove metal hybrid EP from 2010. Sounds a bit like generic groovecore at times but at others it sounds pretty creative and technical.
The Answer - You Had Your Chance: The only vinyl I picked up on this trip. It was only a dollar and I had heard this band was good so I decided to take the gamble. Really paid off too, this 7 inch is killer. Great 2000s straight edge hardcore.
Trial - Foundation: Trial were one of those great 90s hardcore bands that never got their due. If you like that 90s metal-tinged style, be sure to check this out along with their full length.
Follow Through - Taking It Back: A CTHC classic. Great 90s youth crew band from my home state.
Wrong - Wrong: If you miss 90s Helmet, I have good news for you: There is a band that sounds exactly like them, and that band is called Wrong. I've been a fan of these guys for over three years now but didn't have any physical copies of their stuff until I found this for dirt cheap.
The Break In - Unbowed: Sraightforward and aggressive metalcore, I'd say even borderline deathcore since they're throwing in a ton of extreme metal influences. Awesome stuff.
Onward - In A Different Place: Onward were the first Norwegian straight edge band to release a record, which is pretty damn cool. This album is great no bullshit straight edge hardcore, a little bit heavier than the youth crew stuff that was everywhere in the 90s.
Right Brigade - Right Brigade: Rock solid CT/Boston HC. A few members of Follow Through went on to be in this band after their breakup.

I wish I could've gone to more but I was plenty happy with what I got from these two stores. My trip to California might be an annual thing now, so I'm looking forward to next year to get more stuff. Here's hoping I can make my way to another state sometime soon so I can go record store hopping there.

Review: Contrast of Sin - Summer Promo

Okay so when it comes to hardcore/metalcore, Delaware has been popping off lately. I don’t know whether it was always this good over there and Year of the Knife just woke everyone up or if the locals were inspired by the band’s success and rejuvenated the scene, but either way there are a ton of great new bands coming out of the state. In addition to the previously mentioned Year of the Knife, Delaware has birthed several notable young acts like Foreign Hands, Simulakra, and the subject of this review: the Delaware/New Jersey metalcore outfit Contrast of Sin. This 3-track promo is the band’s first release, up on Bandcamp and all streaming services. There was also a tape release of the promo, limited to 40 copies, sold by Arduous Path Records. I snagged my own tape and as of this posting, there are still a few more up for sale, so grab one if you're interested.

My personal cassette copy.

CoS first came to my attention via hardcore Twitter, where just about everyone in Year of the Knife, Rain of Salvation, and Simulakra was screaming at their followers to listen to the band. After spinning this promo, I understand why. This shit rips. Contrast of Sin has a very thick, metallic, and dissonant sound, not unlike that of Holy Terror bands. This shouldn’t be surprising considering their name was almost word for word ripped straight from an Integrity album. The Integrity influence is obvious in the vocals, which are highly reminiscent of Dwid’s howls while sounding a bit more raw and intense. The chaotic, frantic vocals also remind me of the raspy yet powerful delivery of Tyler Mullin from Year of the Knife. The songs, for the most part, are mid-tempo barrages of breakdowns, though the band will pick up the pace for brief periods and serve up some thrashy passages, adding a bit of variety to their sound. The band also utilizes the dark metalcore convention of using guitar feedback in an atmospheric manner, which works pretty well and doesn’t sound forced. I was pleasantly surprised by how prominent the bass was in the mix. It’s audible for every song and sounds great while not taking attention away from anything else. In fact, the production as a whole is really good for a promo. The band was able to find a great balance between rawness and clarity where the recording gives off a cold, dark vibe while still sounding good and packing a punch. The drums also sound punchy and intense as the drummer performs tempo changes with ease and pounds away during the many breakdowns. I don't have any complaints, everything about their sound just comes together extremely well and I'm glad I discovered these guys so early.

This is a seriously good first release from a new artist I'm genuinely excited about. Contrast of Sin have the potential to be a heavy hitter in the East Coast hardcore scene after a few years, so get on this and support the guys. They just played their first set at the This Is Hardcore 2019 preshow last month and have said more shows are on the way. I'm definitely seeing them whenever they make it to Connecticut.

FFO: Integrity, Year of the Knife, Holy Terror Bands.

My Late Start at Live Music

I started listening to metal in 2011 and hardcore in 2012. Despite this, I only started going out to metal and hardcore shows this year, at age 21. My first concert was the New Haven date of Hatebreed's 25th anniversary tour in April, of which I posted a small review on this blog and Metal Amino. Most people attend their first as a teenager, but I had some barriers I had to overcome. As I have mentioned in a prior post, I'm autistic. For me and most others, symptoms include social awkwardness, social anxiety and heightened sensitivity to stimuli. This made me very apprehensive toward going to live shows, since I would be around a ton of people I didn't know and exposed to very loud music. God knows what would have happened if I couldn't handle it. Previously, I had attempted to make plans to see Slayer, one of my favorite bands, twice, once in 2014 and once on their farewell tour in 2018. Both attempts fell through and after the 2018 instance, I promised myself to not let this happen to me again when I could easily see a band I loved. That's why when I saw the lineup of Hatebreed, Obituary, Terror, Cro-Mags, and Fit For An Autopsy coming to New Haven in April 2019, I told myself I was going and asked my sister to get me high fidelity earplugs for Christmas. 

I went with one of my best friends on the day of the show to College Street Music Hall knowing that I was taking a huge risk, but after so many years of wondering, I didn't care. I needed to know if this was something I could do. At that show, my friend and I sat down at our seats and eventually Fit For An Autopsy took the stage and started playing the intro to "Hydra". My heart was racing. Eight years of waiting was about to come to an end and I would finally hear live heavy music for the first time. The moment when the band played the opening breakdown of "Hydra" was a moment that changed my life. With my earplugs firmly in my ear canals, I realized I was able to do it. I was listening to some of the heaviest breakdowns in deathcore played right in front of me and I wasn't overwhelmed. When the other bands came on, I was still fine. Even when Obituary were onstage playing extremely fucking loudly and giving my non-earplug wearing friend tinnitus, I still had absolutely no issues. I felt so many emotions throughout that night: delighted that I finally knew I could see bands live, anger at myself for not having the courage to attempt to go as a teen, relief that I didn't wait any longer to start going out. The show was around five hours long and every band was awesome. I left the venue that night with a whole lot of newfound confidence and no hearing loss.

I'm so thankful I finally went out and did it, but I can't help but also be filled with regret as there are so many bands I love that I will never see because of how timid I was. I'll never see Black Sabbath. I'll never see Motorhead. I'll never see Expire. I'll never see Backtrack. I'll never see The Dillinger Escape Plan. Bar some miracle I'll probably never see Slayer. I'll never be able to get over missing out on some of these bands. On the bright side, that realization has pushed me to be more active and consistent in going to shows. Once my semester ended, I started going to a lot of local hardcore shows and so far, I have seen a number of bands that I have been a fan of for a long time (thanks to the promoter Seventh Circle booking awesome out of state bands) and made a few friends in the scene. I can't wait to spend my final year of college going to shows and having fun, especially since now my time management is much better than in years past. To my fellow autistic music fans I have this to say: Try it at least once. Please. Especially if you're younger than me. I don't want you to have the regrets I have. Get good earplugs, go with a friend or family member, and have an emergency plan in case the music is too much. Even if it's a disaster, at least you won't spend years wondering what could have been.

Where Am I?

If you stumbled on this blog and are wondering what it is exactly, I created this to be an outlet for whatever I wanted to write. It'll be nice to have a place to write a post about whatever I want.

The name "Neuroshock" was chosen because I am on the autism spectrum and wanted a name that reflected neurology in some way yet also sounded cool. I originally saw this name in the comments of a YouTube video, saying that "Neuroshock" would have been a much more suitable name for the 2017 video game Prey, which had nothing to do with the 2006 game of the same name and greatly resembled 0451 games like System Shock and Bioshock.

The main topic for this blog will probably be music, things like reviews, showing off stuff in my collection, talking about bands and albums super important to me, stuff like that. After having an entire week's worth of work deleted off of Metal Amino a few months ago for no reason, I thought about posting things elsewhere as well. I also see myself writing about video games, life with autism, and writing more general rants too. Other topics may also come up in time. I also plan to post pieces I have written on different platforms in the past to this blog in an effort to have everything I have worked on archived in one place. If I find something I worked on years ago that isn't super embarrassing, I'll put it up here. I've had an internet presence for a very long time, so who knows what I'll find as I look into my past? I've been mulling the idea of starting a blog for years now. Today, I decided to pull the trigger. I don't know how active I will be, but I at least want to have this here. This is for me more than anything else, but if you find something enjoyable, informative, or discover something new because of anything I post on here, that's awesome. As a disclaimer: everything posted before this is archived from another source, and each post's origin will be stated in an editor's note. Thanks for reading and enjoy the blog.

Concert Review: Hatebreed, Obituary, Terror, Cro-Mags, and Fit for an Autopsy

Editor's note 8/11/19: Originally posted on Metal Amino. I didn't disclose it at the time but this was actually my first concert. A blog post explaining why will be coming soon.

Hey again, all!

I know it's been a while since I've posted a blog. I was working on a huge one a while back and when I went to put it up, the app deleted my blog instead of posting it...for some reason. So yeah, I was pretty pissed and didn't blog for a while because of it. That's what I get for not backing my post up, I guess.

Anyway, a couple days ago, I went to the last show in Hatebreed's east coast 25th anniversary tour at College Street Music Hall in New Haven with a friend of mine. As you can see, the lineup was stacked so it was a no brainer for me. I'm going to go through the performance of each band along with the crowd reaction to try to paint a good picture of what every set was like.
First, I'll talk about the venue. College Street Music Hall is a smaller venue that holds about 2,000 people and there isn't a bad seat in the house. We were sitting on the far side of the left balcony and could see everything clearly. Security there was nice and professional for the most part, plus they answered any questions, which is always good to see. Food and drink prices there are stupid though (they charge $6-8 for a soda for example) and selection is very limited, so I recommend eating before going to the show if you find yourself attending one there. There were also some minor technical issues that I will get into later, but overall very nice venue. Now, let's get into the bands.

Fit for an Autopsy

Fit for an Autopsy are one of my favorite deathcore bands and the friend I went with really likes them too, so I was super excited when I saw they were the opener. The band did not disappoint live either. From the first few notes of Hydra through the entire set they sounded tight as fuck, like they were in the studio. Their energy wasn't super high, but at the same time they weren't shoegazing the whole time or anything. To tell you the truth, they sounded so damn good I didn't even care. Interestingly, Joe (their vocalist) does pretty decent highs live that aren't on their studio releases. The band was super humble as well, thanking the audience for coming early and checking them out while shouting out the other bands and talking about how well they were treated on tour. The band played some of their best songs IMO, like Murder In The First, Thank You Budd Dwyer, and Black Mammoth, though I would've loved it if they played song off their first album, which I am a total sucker for. I will admit, I was super salty that no one moshed during their set. The crowd was dead the whole time, though they did seem to enjoy the band. Just conserving energy I guess. The band definitely did a good job though, I was very happy with their performance.

Cro-Mags

Up next were the Cro-Mags, or the Faux-Mags according to Harley Flanigan. It took me a while to figure out who was in this lineup besides John Joseph because of the whole legal battle between him and Harley. Just for the record it was John, Mackie on drums, AJ Novello from Leeway on guitar, and Craig Setari from Sick of it All on bass. To make things even more confusing, they didn't have their own banner, so we just saw Terror's kind of half hoisted so we expected them next. Confusion aside though, John and company did a great job. They sounded good, though the crew fucked up the mic a bit and John's vocals were a little drowned out as a result. John's energy onstage was incredible! The dude's like 57 years old and moves as much as a teenager, plus he kept the energy up all the way through. Most of what they played was off of Age of Quarrel. I personally wish they played more stuff off of Best Wishes, but I love Age of Quarrel too so I can't really complain. The crowd responded well to the band, thankfully. The second they started playing, the pit opened up a little bit and was present for their whole set. I'm very happy I got to see the legends themselves perform because who knows how much longer they're going to be here?

Terror

Terror played next and holy shit I was not prepared for this. Since it was kind of a multi genre show, there were a ton of hardcore fans there as well as metal fans. Once Terror came on, the hardcore dudes went absolutely nuts. Their energy was infectious and pretty soon everyone in the place was losing their minds. Even in the balconies, everyone was standing up. Scott and the other guys in Terror had crazy energy and were jumping all over the place while sounding perfectly in sync with each other and playing stuff from all across their catalogue. The crowd, like I said before, was really into the set and Scott made sure to egg them on as much as possible. In addition to the pits, there were people crowdsurfing, trying to rush the stage to sing along with Scott, and some dudes were even launching themselves all over the floor. Terror made Security earn their pay that night, that's for damn sure. If you like Terror and have a chance to see them live, do it. They're something else.

Obituary

Obituary were up next. When they started playing I was very thankful I was wearing my high-fidelity ear plugs because these dudes are loud as fuck live. They opened with Redneck Stomp without John Tardy on stage to set the mood. As the song ended, he came out, grabbed the mic, and the band went straight into Threatening Skies. The band played a pretty diverse set from across their catalog, roughly one song per album. They also played a pretty sick cover of Celtic Frost's Circle of the Tyrants, which is probably the closest I'll come to seeing Celtic Frost live. To the surprise of no one, they killed it. They sounded half their age and had incredible chemistry. Seriously, John was going around hugging other band members in the middle of songs. They just looked like they were having a blast playing for us. It was a great set, though I will say I felt like they were trying to give everyone a seizure with all the crazy light shit they were doing. The crowd was into it, though the pit was pretty small for their set. I will also say that I thought their set was too short. They only played for like 35 minutes and ended half an hour before Hatebreed went on. I was very happy with their performance other than those minor gripes.

Hatebreed

Now for the hometown heroes themselves. Hatebreed were introduced by a radio host who started spinning them in the mid 90s when they were still playing basement shows. Once they came on and started playing Empty Promises, the place erupted. The set got off to a rocky start because once again someone fucked up the mic and Jasta's vocals were barely audible for the first three songs. After this was fixed, the performance was great. To my delight, Hatebreed's setlist leaned heavily toward their first three albums, which I view as pretty much the holy trinity of metalcore. Their stage presence was awesome too, especially Jasta, who was extremely enthusiastic and animated, though that may have to do with the fact he was playing his home state. The crowd was loving every minute of it, obviously. Every time there was a breakdown in any song, the pit doubled in size. Oh and by the way, I remember seeing some washed up hardcore DudeBro on Facebook comment on an announcement about the show something really stupid, hipstery, and vague along the lines of "Hatebreed used to be cool in 1998. I used to watch them play in backyards. They forgot their roots." After seeing them live I can tell you with certainty that that is utter bullshit. Between songs Jasta was shouting out local bands and venues, thanking some random old lady who let Hatebreed practice in her basement when they started out, and getting into arguments with fans over the best New Haven pizza. The band even brought out original Hatebreed members to play old songs and their chemistry on stage made it seem like they never left the band. They still seem very in touch to me. Really kickass set and show.
So there you have it, pretty much everyone was awesome. Great venue, great bands, overall a really good time. Hatebreed and Obituary are heading to the West Coast next month with different support so if you dig both bands I highly recommend going. As always, thanks for reading and I'll see you all again soon.

Review: Ossuarium - Living Tomb

Editor's Note 8/6/19: Originally written for Metal Archives.

Ossuarium's Living Tomb got my attention when it was featured as Album of the Day on Bandcamp. I gave it a listen and was thoroughly impressed. This is an awesome death/doom monolith that isn't afraid to venture off into somewhat uncharted territory. The band's sound is essentially a more varied version of the style of death metal played by bands like Incantation and Disma, going back and forth between slow, crushing doom passages and faster ones resembling classic death metal. The production on the album is also reminiscent of that on albums by the aforementioned bands as it has that same raw, echoey sound, particularly on the excellent, powerful growls from vocalist Daniel Kelley.
This album has its share of straight up death/doom tunes, namely Blaze of Bodies and Malicious Equivalence, but what really makes this release stand out is how the band will draw influence from some pretty unexpected places. For example: Writing in Emptiness has an Autopsy-esque beginning before melodeath style riffs and an almost nu-metalish guitar passage come into play to end the track. There is also a spacy somber passage a few minutes into Corrosive Hallucinations interlaced with melodic and heavy guitar. The last three tracks demonstrate the unique nature of this album the best: Part 1 of End of Life Dreams and Visions demonstrates the band's eclectic nature well, morphing from bleak and heavy to melodic and foreboding before Malicious Equivalence punches the listener in the face with classic death metal brutality. Part 2 of the former track then follows and rounds out the album with haunting melodies and devastating riffs that play off of each other before fading into a straight up doomy assault. Putting the two parts of a track around another is a bizarre choice, but one that I think pays off here with the no-BS Malicious Equivalence serving as an effective contrast with the more experimental 2 part track.
This album seems to be making the rounds in the metal community and I'm glad because this band deserves the praise they're getting. If you want more music like Incantation or are sick of waiting for Disma to release a new album, pick this up. You will not be disappointed.

Cool Bands You've Never Heard Of

 Editor's Note 8/10/19: Originally written on Metal Amino.

Hey everyone! I saw this weekend's challenge and read some great blogs over the last couple days, so I figured I would talk about some of my personal #UnderratedGems. In this post, I'm going to talk about bands and not specific releases. My taste is also kind of all over the place so I'll try to put a good variety of bands in here so there can hopefully be something for everyone.

Sectioned

Mathcore

If you're into mathcore at all, you probably have heard of Sectioned's sister band Frontierer, who released one of the best albums of 2018 in my opinion. But for some reason, Sectioned don't get nearly as much attention as Frontierer despite sharing most of the band's members and being nearly as good. Definitely check these guys out of you like chaotic, pissed off mathcore like Frontierer, TTDTDE, or The Chariot. 

Asphalt Graves 

Deathgrind

Asphalt Graves are a deathgrind supergroup consisting of members and ex-members of Misery Index, Dying Fetus, GWAR, and The Black Dahlia Murder. They released their debut album a couple years back but it largely flew under the radar, so I want to talk about them here. The band all around sounds super tight (especially Shannon Lucas's drumming) and Jason Netherton sounds as good as he did on Misery Index's stuff. Highly recommended if you like MI, Napalm Death, or Nasum.

Tongue

 Post-Black Metal

One of my favorite random Bandcamp discoveries. Tongue are a band from Germany that play melodic, yet pulverizing black metal broken up with post-rock and doom influenced passages. The band just announced last week that they're recording their second album right now, so looks like more is to come from these boys.

Painfield

Nu Metal/Hardcore

Here's something a little different for you. I don't think I've ever heard a band that sounds like Painfield. They were a Swedish group that played a very weird hybrid of nu metal and heavy hardcore that I really dig, though I'm not quite sure how to describe it. The best I can come up with is: Imagine early System of a Down on crack. 

Disfear

D-Beat/Crust Punk/Melodic Death Metal

Disfear started off playing d-beat in the vein of Discharge, hence their dis-core name. But when their original vocalist left in 1998, Tomas Lindberg of At the Gates joined and their sound drastically changed. Instead of pure Discharge worship, the band started playing d-beat/crust mixed with melodic death metal and it works really well. They were also my gateway into d-beat, so I have them to thank for my love of Discharge.

Set Before Us

Melodic Metalcore

I gotta be honest with you guys, I fucking hate modern melodic metalcore. There are some exceptions (Bury Tomorrow, Any Given Day, Feed Her To The Sharks, and a few others) but I really can't stand most of it. More than anything it's the insane number of bands with atrocious cleans that turns me off. Anyway, Set Before Us are another modern melodic metalcore band that I don't hate. What I really like about these guys is the way they incorporate melody in the majority of their music effectively instead of doing the scream/sing/scream/sing thing so many bands do. You know, the thing where they have heavy tough guy verses and then melodic choruses with clean singing and whatnot, but then every single song on the album follows that exact pattern. SBU are still relatively new, but they have impressed me so far with what they've put out and I'm excited to hear more. As a sidenote, I also love how they film their music videos while wearing the most casual clothes you can imagine. It really shows how these guys don't give a shit about looks and just want to play.

The Sound That Ends Creation

   

Mathcore/Experimental Grindcore

  

I literally discovered this band a few days ago and I love it so much. TSTEC is a one man mathgrind outfit from Texas and another one of my random Bandcamp finds. The project's first two albums are just kick-ass mathgrind but on their latest offering the band just went bonkers, taking influence from a shitload of different genres like jazz, screamo, and even lounge. I can't recommend enough if you like any kind of weird grind band.

Lesser Key

Progressive Rock/Alt.Metal

Rounding out my list, may I present Lesser Key. These guys are best known for having Paul D'Amour, the original bassist of Tool, in their band but I assure you their music stands on its own merit. The Tool influence is obvious, but there's more to it than that. I think the band is best described as a mix of Tool, Deftones, and A Perfect Circle. I love the vocalist the most. He reminds me of a deeper Chino Moreno and his voice fits the moody atmosphere really well. There's also some really cool guitar work in their stuff that can give me chills. Unfortunately, they only released one EP like five years ago and there's been no sign of them the last couple years, which really bums me out since I love that EP so much.

That's all for me and my personal Gems. Props to the higher ups for this cool challenge. I hope you guys found a couple bands you like in this very spastic blog. Thanks for reading!