I just drug my self out of bed and came here to find…nothing. I guess life is pretty busy right now for all of Baboon-kind. So, I’m throwing y’all another “name your price” album. This one’s from Autolatry. Formed in 2009 in Connecticut, they make Black Metal with some Death Metal, Hardcore and Progressive ingredients stirred in. They top it off with some lyrical themes about New England history. I just got this two or three days ago and have only listened to it a couple of times, but I’ve enjoyed those couple of times and as soon as this post is published I’m gonna listen to it with my second cup of coffee!

I looked at the posting queue and to my abhorrence, there was no post left for today. So I decided to make one on the spot. I’m able to because I just got my hands on the above bands EP. Well, at least it’s two songs, but together, they make for 24 minutes of absolute pleasure. One afternoon, I ended up at Threnodies, who mostly cover Metal genres coming from the North (think Folk-, Black-, Pagan-, and Viking Metal). They caught my attention however with their classification Black ‘N’ Roll, as I’m always in for some innovative Hybrid genres.

First up was a positive review of a band called FALSE, which got me interested, although I didn’t actually read it. However, the fact that their EP is a freebie kinda helped me over, of course, as I’m Dutch. The music FALSE display on their self-entitled is superb. It seems like where Death ‘N’ Roll gets it’s pounding force from rolling beats, FALSE get their drive from blast beats, although they still roll of course. Not only is this EP quite unique, but also very pleasant to listen to.

Metalcore is a genre often despised by metalheads, but personally I’ve never seen the problem with it. The origins of Metalcore, Metal and Hardcore Punk, are both great genres and the resulting combination of melodic lines and brutal rhythms certainly appeals to me. So why the hate? We don’t hate on Melodeath either which, although taking a slightly different approach stylistically and structure-wise, does the same thing; combining melody and rhythm.

Well, enough ranting for today, let’s move on to take a look at Ruled By Reason. Again they come in via my Tumblr page, where I posted a text-post on my favourite Metalcore band Still Remains. Assuming I posted similar stuff all the time they followed me, but sadly (for them), I mostly do pictures and sometimes a Black Metal post (sorry guys). Anyways, listening to their stuff, I found that their music is really interesting.

This is going to be a really short post text wise. I’ve been sitting on this for a while and wanted to do a little better presentation of these guys, but time is currently slipping by too fast for me and I just want to get this out there before I forget.

Cara Neir is a Dallas, Texas based duo who’ve been active since 2008 and released their second full-length last year. Titled Stagnant Perceptions it is today’s feature. Just under forty minutes of a Blackened mix of many Metals. There are the Black elements, Progressive elements, elements of ‘post’ rock / metal and even hints of hardcore-punkish type vibes. I’ve found it to be a very interesting listen time and again. So, jump ahead to stream the whole thing and get your own “name your price” download!

It’s weird, considering the name of this blog, but for some reason I’m not doing too many Death Metal reviews. I think I this is my second or third one, and to be precise, it’s my first Brutal Death Metal release. Exciting.

About half a month ago the boys themselves approach us via Facebook, and their description of “Death Grind / Black Metal / Melodic Brutality” appealed to me, so I took the job. At first though, I was hesitant as in my experience, Brutal Death Metal bands got fairly low grades. That is, in comparison to bands from other genres like Black Metal and Hardcore. However, when I first turned on this 17-minute long piece, I was quite surprised to hear something which grabbed me. Usually, I feel that in Brutal Death Metal, the heaviness is drowning out in its own blood, and together with this, my interest for the music. Corpse Filled Caskets does not contain the loudest riffing, but there is some really interesting drumming and riffing going on which, together with the witty dialogues in between make for an enjoyable quarter of an hour.

Another one from Bridger’s pack. American again, from one of the various towns throughout that nation called Elizabethtown. No clue which.

Another similarity is that we’re dealing with ‘cory’ stuff again, though not quite as obviously this time. It’s crunchier, more brutal and will touch upon more progressive / technical forms of Metal, meaning it’s got a certain Djentiness to it, in addition to a strong focus on melody in the choruses. It’s good eating listening!

I got a couple of suggestions by Bridger some time ago. Like nearly three months or so. It’s just that I haven’t been able to look at these any sooner. Honestly, I’ve got so many bands to cover that I could turn this thing into a full-time job and still lack time.

Anyfuck, let’s focus on a band. This one’s called Steryle and they’re from North Carolina, USA. Despite that they’re listed as Metalcore, and also clearly are, they’re still featured on Encyclopaedia Metallum. Now the naïve reader could read that as if the band must be doing something right, but before we jump to conclusions, let’s note that Encyclopaedia Metallum doesn’t actually have a claim on the (Metallic) truth. That said, Steryle is doing something right.

The Sacrificed is one of those bands with which I don’t know whether I like them or not. I picked some of their songs from different samplers, since their name seemed to be big in the Christian world. For some time I couldn’t be bothered with it, but when news came out of their upcoming album III, I picked out their song Offended and started to listen. Now, this song is supposed to be on that album, but apparently I had it already a year the before was out. Now a year later label Roxx Records released another song, called Fallen. Like Offended, this song actually surprised me, and makes III a very promising album.

The Sacrificed are an American Heavy Metal band from Florida, who have been around since 2005. With their album’s The DaVinci Hoax (2007), 2012 (2010) and now III, they seem to be taking their time in order to make an album. Style-wise they seem to be taking a Heavy Metal approach, with a very big splash of Modern sounds incorporated, which makes for a very nice, and enjoyable listening-experience.

Ok, I’m just quickly typing this up otherwise it will roam my desktop for half a year and then the magic and the news are gone. Minenwerfer are a surprise, surprise American band, from California to be exact, who play a form of semi-NS Black Metal. This is as they sing about World War One Germany and not about the Third Reich. Their album Nihilistischen is bound to come out, and the guys have one single roaming the web.

A Minenwerfer was a German short-range mortar mostly used in the First World War (so much for Middle School History). Pretty interesting name, and more German names pop-up when skimming through their discography, which also features an extensive use of black and white pictures from the Second Reich-era. Interesting.

I know, I know, some people will not be happy with what I’m about to write, but this groups debut has had seven spins in total in the past week, so I didn’t want to keep this to myself. Walking With Kings are a four piece Hard Rock / Heavy Metal outfit from the States, which features frontman Terry Chism, ex-Stuck Mojo/ex-Adrenaline Mob guitarist Rick Ward, ex-Stuck Mojo drummer Frank Fontsere (the latter two were also in Heavy Metal band Fozzy), and last but not least ex-Furyon bassist Simon Farmery. One hell of a long list, but some (semi-) great names are to be spotted, which means that Walking With Kings should be blowing some people’s minds here.

Although one would expect some Rap Metal to be made here, but I advise you to look towards Bon Jovi, and other Modern Hard Rock outfits. I’d like to say that if the overly melodic approach, and blatantly Christian lyrics put you off, don’t just walk away, because this really is good stuff. I didn’t like it at first either, but now it’s on non-stop.