Having recently come off a US tour with fellow Muskegonites The Omega Experiment, Technical Deathcore quintet Bury The Silence have released their sophomore EP via Rogue Records America. The Architecture Of Struggle EP retains similarities to their début Phobiotic EP, although a new vocalist has meant a shift in another direction. Taking orders from The Faceless, All Shall Perish and The Black Dahlia Murder, they cook up a 19-minute morsel filled with the mandatory noodling guitar work and breakdowns. However, never fear that this is a Beneath The Massacre castoff, there is strong songwriting to be had as well.

At first glance, the most striking element of this EP is the number of influences thrown into the pot, most prominent of which being The Black Dahlia Murder. The intro is akin to a horror-orchestral version of “Unhallowed”, sans spoken word, which sadly undersells the band as a first impression. Better to skip to the main meal, where “The Jealous Heart Of A Weak Man” provides ample twin-riffs and harmonized solos, with a strong rhythm section to back it up. New frontman Garvey has several Strnad-like moments, although his lows recall more Oceano or All Shall Perish. The song improves as it continues, particularly in Barrett’s bludgeoning drumming, and the production ties everything off well, if not quite as refined as I’d prefer it.

Since the rise of Deathcore in the ‘00s, I’ve been following the various strains of it with mild interest, seeing it develop towards melodic, djenty or brutal tendencies. Firmly in this latter camp, US quintet Labyrinthe have unleashed The Depths of Hell this year, their début for Tribunal.

Taking notes from acts such as Suicide Silence and Carnifex, the band go one stage further and incorporate some of modern Brutal Death Metal’s characteristics, taking Ingested’s Surpassing the Boundaries of Human Suffering as a navigation point. As you can imagine, this record is just a little bit heavy.

Unfortunately this band is no more. Singer Ray-Ray snuffed it in early 2011 after overdosing on heroin. It really is a pity, as The Mayan Factor’s music is a real treat to the ear!

The band, from Baltimore, Maryland played a progressive sort of Rock characterized by the use of ethnic instruments and acoustic guitars, while still sounding solid and heavy. The main contributor to the band’s feel, in my opinion and based on listening to only a handful of songs, is the bass-acoustic guitar combination that creates immense depth. Over the course of the band’s career they released two albums; In Lake ‘ch (2003) and 44 (2005). Will serve up a song or two after the jump!

Credits to Rufio for directing our attention towards this group!

So many bands have named themselves after some thing or another from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. By now it would be easy to dismiss most of them as a bunch of unoriginal bums.

Whattamistakadamake in the case of Italy’s Ephel Duath. Named after the mountains surrounding Mordor, they’ve been dealing weird sorts of Progressive “Post-Black” and Avant-garde Metal since 1998. The group started out as a two-man game and is the brainchild of guitarist Davide Tiso and has released a small stack of full-lengths since. They must’ve done something right, because through time they managed to grab the attention of bassist Steve DiGiorgio, whom we should all know from such great Metallic names as Death, Testament, Iced Earth and Autopsy, who can now be heard on the band’s latest effort, a three song EP called On Death and Cosmos.

Also on board are German-born drummer Marco Minnemann and female vocalist Karyn Crisis, also the wife of Davide Tiso and seen with him on the band pic below. Recently the group moved to Polish label Agonia Records and On Death and Cosmos is the first release to be aired through this relationship.

Progressive Metal these days, at least the sort that flies into my inbox, seems to be more about chugging a la Meshuggah than anything else. In other words, it’s all turned into this thing called Djent. Or at least that’s my modest impression.

Wings Denied isn’t all that different. They call themselves a Progressive Metal band and they’ve got plenty of down-tuned guitar jamming going on. But for once they’ve got something that isn’t just a bad copy of the above mentioned Swedes. ‘Progressive’ is a stupid name any way. It suggests the band in question completely redefines the Metal genre. Such is not the matter with Wings Denied, but neither is it with 99% of the other bands that call themselves Progressive. However, they do play themselves a decent piece of Metal that cuts out their own distinctive sound.

Awake, a three-song EP, is the recently released evidence of that. Independently released and downloadable on a name your price basis through Bandcamp you ought to give it a spin.

A few moments ago I asked myself: “Now what is the purpose of Gathering the Troop?” It has been presented as some of my own ego-trippery, but while thinking about the rules that I go by, the actual purpose would be presenting news from lesser-known bands; ones that are either unsigned, or on a smaller label. So I won’t be presenting you the new Between the Buried and Me video, but today we’ll find ourselves some news from Mizraab and some older, while still relevant, news from CAPA.

But first, to quickly familiarise you with the rules of Gathering the Troop. Firstly, I have to be notified of it, either by a reader or a friend, or I have to come across it myself, it be on Facebook or on Tumblr. Secondly, the band has to be unsigned, or on a minor label. These two rules are simply there so I’m not simply repeating what others have written, but in order to secure that we’re presenting you something original.

With my work pressures slowly decreasing, I can slowly but steadily start to think about writing again. I did a double dose yesterday, so why not repeat that for today?

This one’s been spamming my inbox for a while; must have had like 400 e-mails announcing the coming of this album. Ignored ‘em all for months: no time. However, I did really enjoy A Wanted Awakening’s previous effort, an EP called Rebirth that I reviewed well over a year ago. It had some initial flaws and was later remastered quite successfully. Now they’ve got a full-length up, Catharsis, released about a month ago.

If there’s one band that has been shaping my musical taste through the years that I’ve been actively listening to music, it’s Soundgarden.

The Seattle-based band started out in 1984, but didn’t see much success until the early nineties, when Grunge gained its position as a popular Rock subgenre. People tend to refer to their third and fourth albums when they speak about the band and praise their work. Badmotorfinger and Superunknown are indeed great records, but actually there’s another album which I think is even better, and which is the one that got me into the band. It’s the last album the band put out; Down on the Upside from 1996.

It wasn’t quite so successful in terms of sales as Superunknown, which had Black Hole Sun as a huge selling point, but it still did pretty good. And one of the copies they sold went to my dad, who was looking for ”the album that had Black Hole Sun on it”, but didn’t pay a lot attention in the record store. He didn’t play it much, but I did! Rediscovering it the other day I found out that I still dig the living shit out of this thing! Figured I’d write down why.

American Metalcore-outfit As I Lay Dying have had some recent coverage here on the Baboon and it’s safe to say that most of us are quite fond of this five-piece. Their previous release Decas was something of a weirdo with a mix of new tracks, covers of material by bands like Judas Priest and Dubstep remixes of old songs, with especially the latter being something people frowned at.

The name of the new album was revealed yesterday, and I was quite disappointed to hear that it will actually be called Awakened, which is a bit of an uninspired name in my opinion. However, with the new single released, fans of the pre-Decas AILD are able to breathe freely as what I’m hearing sounds like classic AILD material.

It’s been awhile since we rocked out, eh? I say we ease back into it with some Occult Rock. Our vehicle for this blasphemous journey will be Austin, Texas’ Ancient VVisdom. Formed in 2009 they put out their debut full-length, A Godlike Inferno, in 2011. I’ve got two official videos for songs off that album lined up ahead.