Summer has seemingly gone by quicker than a grindcore EP, and the quantity and quality of releases have kept pace. Before the beautiful gloom of the changing of seasons approaches, we wrap up some of the best heat of July and early August from the world of -core, with more(!!) screamo, noise, grind, deathcore and metalcore.
–Trent Bos
The Wall of Death
State Faults – Children of the Moon (screamo, post-hardcore)
Ah, 2024, the year in which screamo/skramz fans continue to just fucking eat. The latest standout effort comes from California-based State Faults, a band that has been around for over a decade now, but really characterizes this new-wave of modern screamo that is slightly more approachable than some of their earlier peers. A big reason for that is their overlap with a post-hardcore sound, including bright production, the occasional clean chorus, more melodic riffing, and a strong use of dynamics. Among contemporary releases, Children of the Moon could be compared to the likes of the latest releases from Dreamwell or Birds in row, which have had appeal to broader -core circles outside of screamo. While the rawer (rawr? xd) old-school approach to the genre is still very much alive and well, certainly exemplified by some of the brilliant lineup at New Friends Fest in Toronto last month, State Faults approach may have the potential to attract more new faces into this thriving but often misunderstood genre. The sheer quality of their latest outing Children of the Moon certainly doesn’t hurt either.
This is frankly a special album, it’s brimming with passion, resolve, and an earnestness that feels immediately connective. Like a number of screamo bands over the years, State Faults taps into some post-rock songwriting throughout including two 10-minute standouts in “No Gospel” and album closer “Bodega Head”. Post-rock has always felt like a genre that complements the cathartic nature of the vocal delivery of screamo so well. The desperation, longing and bittersweet melancholy go hand in hand with the build-and-release formula of post-rock and dynamic shifts of contemplation and rage. Johnny Andrew’s piercing, emotionally charged vocals fit that template perfectly. These longer tracks like “No Gospel” also let the instrumental side of this band really shine, taking on an especially mystical tone with drum-circle-like progressions, shifting tremolo guitars and quasi-soloing and the repeated lines “The only holy book, Is the one inside your heart” reverberating into your soul. As they slow things down it also takes on some of the spiritual nature of Eidola’s standout release Degeneraterra. A genuine song of the year contender, on an album of the year contender.
As strong as a year as it has been for this genre, Children of the Moon still feels uniquely distinct from its peers. A testament to the creativity, ambition and quality that exceeds the sum of its parts. The viscerality is infectious and inevitable. It will hurt you, uplift you, and become something that you exist inside, rather than feeling like a passenger experiencing it from a far. This is the sort of album that doesn’t come along often, and is a must listen for anyone with a taste for the emotionally-charged side of hardcore and punk.
–TB
The Crowdkillers
Mast Year – Point of View (noise rock/sludge/post-metal)
Having been absolutely inundated with quality noise rock releases this year, I think this year is nothing short of a watershed moment for the confrontational and harsh offspring of industrial and punk. However, I can’t say that I’ve heard any other noise rock band quite like Baltimore’s Mast Year. The band’s 2023 debut Knife demonstrated a lot of promise, but it was difficult to draw distinctions between that release and the myriad of other quality noise rock releases that have come out within the last few years. However, it’s with Point of View that the band has confidently carved out their own sound within the niche genre.
While the hallmarks of noise rock, such as grinding bass tones and clanky guitars, are still all present on Point of View, it’s the band’s more varied songwriting and sense of tension, pacing, and spaciousness that sets them apart stylistically from their peers. “Figure of Speech” is a perfect example of this as a nearly ten-minute epic that doesn’t lapse into aimlessness. Rather, the track explores peaks and valleys throughout it’s running time. There are slow buildups with steady bass drum hits both at the beginning and just before the mid-point of the song. Each of these buildups increases tension and leads to subtle shifts in the song. The song ends claustrophobically with a cacophonous, tremolo-picked guitar chord and stuttering drums while vocalist Eric Rhodes’ voice rising to the level of panic.
The break toward the end of “Concrete” is another example of the band utilizing tension, pacing, and spaciousness. Toward the end of the track, all of the instruments drop out except for one hypnotically repetitive note from the guitar played in a ⅞ rhythm. Eventually the drums and bass return with fractured fills and ominous swelling notes, respectively. Finally, the entire band converges on the climax as vocalist Eric Rhodes howls, “I’ll do fine if I just walk alone.”
Speaking of, Rhodes’ performance is noteworthy for the sheer variety in delivery. Rhodes’ vocal style fluctuates in wildly different directions, even within the span of one song. In “Figure of Speech”, he alternates between a baritone croon, a seething scream, and a throaty growl. Upon reading that, you might think that Rhodes hasn’t found his “voice” yet. But the sudden stylistic shifts in his voice match the
As someone who does not particularly care for filler tracks, I could do without the “Love Note” and EP closer “Timelessness”. I will admit that “Love Note” seems to work somewhat well as a breather after “Figure of Speech”, and it leads smoothly into “Erocide”. But “Concrete” is such a strong track with the aforementioned climactic ending that it would have been a perfect way to close the album. However, if the band can eventually work the droning experimentation of those tracks into their developing palette, then that would only strengthen their distinction among the swarm of excellent new noise rock bands.
-JD
Assemble the Chariots – Unyielding Night (symphonic/melodic deathcore)
Sometimes you just have to embrace and lose yourself in the over-the-top cheese of metal, and symphonic sci-fi concept albums are often a great conduit for that. Assemble the Chariot’s long-awaited (by me at least) debut full-length finally dropped last month and for the most part lived up to expectations. I’ve been following this Finnish band since the early 2010’s as their collection of EPs released back then had moments rivaling the best of early-Born of Osiris for that progressive-symphonic deathcore sound that was all the rage in the old Sumerian days.
Unyielding Night is generally a progression of that sound, but definitely leans more into the symphonic side of things with more death metal influence than djent, feeling inspired by the likes of Septic Flesh, and Dimmu Borgir. Yet, while still largely a deathcore band at heart, the song-writing here feels a little more elevated and inspired compared to some of their symphonic-deathcore peers. This thing is riffy, with some of the melodeath-influenced approach of a Shadow of Intent, while also getting especially meaty with a few breakdowns that made me slide the volume up a notch. It’s also just plain fun, the Protoss narrative voice-overs add a unique flair to the bombastic symphonies, truly giving the whole thing a feeling like you’re on some galactic voyage of life and death. While not earth shattering from some deeper, critical perspective, the album feels like you’re firing an earth shattering orbital bombardment into enemy territory, and that’s more than a lot of metal albums can say.
–TB
Stoort Neer – essensen av smärta, reflektion och återhämtning (metalcore, blackgaze)
Stoort Neer is a curious project. Originally emerging in 2018 as an instrumental side-project of Calle Thomér, best known as the guitarist of Vildhjarta and now Humanity’s Last Breath, it seemed like an outlet for them to make more post-metal influenced djent/thall music with them as the sole songwriter. Eventually however, Calle would recruit vocalist Max Francois, and Vildhjarta-mate Buster Odeholm on drums. Their sound gradually begin to shift to something more akin to shoegaze influenced blackened hardcore over the course of 3 EPs since 2022, culminating with the best of them so far in this summer’s essensen av smärta, reflektion och återhämtning. The title appropriately translates to “the essence of pain, reflection and recovery” which is a strong representation of the dynamic emotions associated with the listening experience. There’s the soaring atmospheric melodies of Svalbard, and some of the heavier hitting moments of a Cult Leader with less of the sludginess. It’s really impressive how far divorced this release is from its roots, for better or worse depending on what you want from a Calle & Buster project. However, I’m thankful it exists and am curious if we’ll hear any of this sound leaking into future Vildhjarta or HLB releases.
–TB
Hereisaropegoodluck – NOTHING TO WRITE HOME ABOUT (grindcore, mathcore)
Among this summer’s heaviest and most unrelenting releases was Nothing to Write Home About, the incorrectly-titled debut from the bluntly-named hereisaropegoodluck. This new two-piece includes guitarist Michael Carroll of the well-regarded 00’s mathgrind group Destroyer Destroyer. Nothing to Write Home About is largely a continuation of that throwback mathgrind sound, but with less sass and a heavier Full of Hell style approach to the vocals. The production quality is also about what you would expect from a modern metal release, allowing the brutality to give a truly visceral punch, and the unsettling atmospheric elements to fully take on the oppressive and disorientating form they were meant to. The album has had a bit of a boost from teaming up with Wax Vessel for the release, and for good reason. This is some of the best 23-minutes of relentless violent, mathy grind you’ll hear this year.
–TB
Respire – Hiraeth (screamo, orchestral post-rock)
I swear I’m not actively trying to convert this to a screamo column, but the quantity and quality of releases lately is just hard to ignore. Another of such examples came from our friends in the (mostly) Toronto-based Respire. Hiraeth is their 4th proper full-length (not counting the orchestra-only accompaniment of Denouement) since their debut back in 2016. You can find some coverage of those previous releases on the blog as well. Hiraeth is largely a continuation of their continually refining, unique orchestra-core post-everything blackened screamo sound. Yeah, it’s quite difficult to define or place succinctly into a genre, other than it’s powerful, emotional, and cathartic. The orchestral side of things draws obvious comparisons to the likes of Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Black Country, New Road with their prominent use of violin, viola, trumpets, saxophone, piano and glockenspiel, drawing on that side of post-rock that lavishes in self-reflection among the slow death of the earth, with tonal shifts from funereal to uplifting and aforementioned bouts of catharsis.
If you’ve heard a Respire record before, there’s not anything here that will come across as particularly new or shocking. And that’s not a bad thing, it’s a tried and tested formula that they continue to refine and tweak around the edges. The blackgaze side of things is a little more minimized, and Hiraeth might have the most consistent use of strings from start to finish that we’ve heard from them, virtually always being present to add another layer of melodies or harmonization with the guitars. The previous release had a slight shift to some heavier moments, perhaps influenced by their friends in Ostraca or Infant Island, and some of that has carried over here to good effect. There’s also plenty of variation in the vocals this time around, with both multiple-contributors on that front, and a mix of harsh and more clean-sung vocals than usual, combined with sorrowful chanting-like hymns for the lost. Given there isn’t a lot to differentiate them, whether you prefer this to their previous releases will come down to subjective tastes. But above all, this feels like some of their most deliberate and laid-bare work to date. A brutally honest expression of sinking into oblivion and emerging with a hope for a better world.
–TB
The Circle Pit (Best of the Rest)
Diploid – Mantra (grindcore/experimental)
Extortion – Threats (powerviolence)
Necessary Death/Noise Neighbors – Retributive Justice (grindcore/deathgrind)
Jorge Arana Trio – Murciélago (noise/art rock)
Controlled Existence – Out of Control (grindcore)
Exorbitant Prices Must Diminish – For A Limited Time (grindcore)
Rest Assured – Delirium (metallic hardcore)
Excrucis – There Are Collectivities That Devour Souls (screamo, sass)
Tracheotomy – Fixated Propensity for Destruction (brutal deathcore)
Detach the Islands – A Highly Magnified History (emoviolence, mathcore)
Speed – Only One Mode (beatdown hardcore)
Vower – apricity (progressive metalcore, post-hardcore)
In Hearts Wake – Incarnation (metalcore)
Sick/Tired – Whip Hand Paranoia (grindcore)
