Friendship – Hatred

Sentient Ruin Records - 2017

As a less experienced powerviolence fan, I'm always slightly proud when I actually recognize a name in the scene. I was blown away by the dirty, raw half-hour assault that I&II was, and Hatred is quite the successor.

Friendship have foregone the unclean, fuzzy sound in favour of a cleaner, more hardcore-oriented sound. This choice is reflected in the riffs, which have a more beatdown feel when compared to the messier sludgy style of the previous album. The slower parts and breakdowns, as well as the riffs they transform into have a punk approach to heaviness, going straight for the throat and leaving the details behind – and it's effective as hell. The rare leads that do appear are atonal nonsense, reinforcing the whole hellish, unnatural aspect of the record. The clearer soundscape also gives the drums some room, enhancing the guitars with blasts and floor-punching, air-kicking beats – the bridge in Life Sentence reminded me why I don't go into those moshpits.

The vocals are what you'd expect, a cross between an angry bark and a motorcycle screaming bloody murder - the introduction to Grief is a great example of just how primal it gets. There's a bit of clean texture from time to time, giving the vocalist an angrier, less controlled and more punk sound. Sure, there's only one note being sung during the entire record and yeah, the delivery is divided into staccatto and faster staccatto, but I wouldn't want anything more from Friendship.

The overall feel of simultaneous dread and pain makes for an uneasy, intense record on par with other legendary acts of musical oppression like Vermin Womb or Wormrot. In the past 2 years, Japan's been putting out a number of instant classics in many extreme subgenres, and while I wouldn't dare define Hatred as such given my limited experience with the genre, it certainly feels like it's got that extra element that pushes it into the realm of memorable albums – there's a soul in this record, and it's tortured. It's an experiment in hate and aggression, at a level not many bands live up to.

Giuseppe Fitzsimmons

Comments

Sulphurous - Dolorous Death Knell

Sulphurous – Dolorous Death Knell December 2018 – Dark Descent Records 90s revival and cavernous death metal started gaining popularity about two years ago, with bands such as Phrenelith and Pissgrave being propelled into quasi-mainstream success thanks to a couple of public figures introducing their audiences to an otherwise relatively underground facet of death metal. Dark Descent Records have certainly capitalized on said revival, signing giants of the genre like Blood Incantation, Spectral Voice, and previously Chthe’ilist (and Mitochondrion to a certain degree). As with any other cavernous death metal record, the production is the first thing you’ll notice – it’s all suffocated, as if the amps were draped in thick curtains. Few effects and no triggers are applied to the drums, giving the whole package a very live/practice room aspect. Despite the apparent muddiness of Dolorous Death Knell, everything’s quite audible – even the lower registers somehow retain

Kataplexia – The Rise of the Unknown

Kataplexia – The Rise of the Unknown January 2019 – Rotten Music Kataplexia is Finland's best Indonesian brutal death metal band. You read that right, Indonesian is now a valid qualifier for brutal death metal. For those unaware, I explored and wrote about the Southeast Asian brutal death metal scene two years ago, discovering a gigantic scene with an uncharacteristic public acceptance. One of the members of Jasad began a side-project, Kaluman, which is the definition of high-quality Southeast Asian brutal death metal. A couple seconds into Kataplexia's latest, I expected to see Rottervore or Extreme Souls as their label, as every element pointed towards Indonesian origins – the tone, production, vocals, riffs and even album art all felt like Ferli Suferli (Jasad, Kaluman) was behind the project, yet Helsinki is listed as their base of operations. Admittedly, there's only so much one can actually say about the music without endless comparisons. A modern

Uboa, the interview

UG You’ve gone over the “Jouissance” title in the past. Would you mind going over Coma Wall? It’s got quite grave and final undertones. First, Coma Wall has no totalised meaning for me, but death of the author could suggest otherwise. But there are themes. The Coma Wall, also known as the CfA2 Great Wall, is a galactic filament - thread-like structures composed millions of galaxies - of and one of the largest structures in the observable universe. It’s 750 million ly high x 200 million ly in width x 16 million ly in thickness. There are few structures bigger than it before you get to the “End of Greatness”, where the universe no longer is seen in discernible structures (filaments and voids, which combined look awfully organic, almost like clusters of interconnected neurones) and you get undifferentiated noise, like static on a TV or white noise. Basically, in cosmology, there seems to be an upper limit to how big things get before the universe seems to become pure undifferentia

Undergrind Metal

Search This Blog