• SHRT REVWS • This condensed version of short(er) reviews focuses on releases arriving in the first week of June covering stoner rock, doom metal, death metal, experimental rock, brutal death metal, old school death metal, and black metal. // In an attempt to be more conversational these are more easygoing and casual than longform reviews, so relax and think for yourself. — If you find something you dig go tell the band on social media and support them with a purchase! If you’d like your music reviewed, read the FAQ and send promos to: grizzlybutts@hotmail.com

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Cagliari, Sardinian-based stoner rock quartet FUZZRIDERS kick off this debut LP shaking out their weird ass heavy blues with a simple but heavily inflected approach that should take old heads back to the 90’s in most respects. Though the cover art reads kinda odd to start, it looks like a generic prop from a video game or movie set, but both the undead space warrior and the band grew on me somewhere in the midst of the first three songs as they’d hit. The vocalist has some serious projection in his work, even pushing beyond the belt of their 2020 EP on these songs and sometimes it overtakes the phrase with the accent in hand, in a good way. Most songs here are chorus driven, so, the emphasis on “worm” on the chorus of “Like a Worm” stretches it into five syllables in an ear-itching sort of way, and I could say the same for the choice desert planted garage-level pump of “Your Infection” and its less frequent chorus. Give ’em an early Soundgarden cover and I’ll bet they’d pull it off with ease though this album as a whole will probably appeal to folks after the mid-to-late 90’s California stoner rock sound. They haven’t overworked their gig but haven’t lazed either with this debut, the production is choice for this style and I wouldn’t consider any of it filler or time-eating nonsense.

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Bologna, Italy-based doom metal quartet WASTE CULT aren’t out to pick a lane here on their debut LP release as they take us from Amorphis-inspired riffs, a stoner-slung groove, and a healthy dose of 90’s British doom malaise all within the first three pieces on ‘Blame‘. A pandemic era formed project between folks from lesser known punk and metal groups you can tell these folks’ve some experience to pull into this work though the tone of the album is somewhat inconsistent with their myriad inspiration, not having fully tamped down those obviate influences. The best of this record oscillates between the fitting angst of post-‘Gothic‘ pre-‘Draconian Times‘ era Paradise Lost levels of serious gloom and fuzzier, stoney Sabbath grooves available to their dire vocal cadence. The least interesting stuff for my own taste touches upon the dramatic shapes of post-metal or strays from the riff (“Pictures”) in ways that congest the experience. Though I’d felt they were a bit lost on the second half of the album the first half left an interesting enough impression and their sound has some great potential when everything lines up with purpose.

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Pindamonhangaba, Brazil-borne death metal quartet OPHIOLATRY return after seventeen years with a third full-length album, sure to stoke folks around my age who’d been there for the Krisiun dominated rush of brutality out of the country back in the early 2000’s. These folks were initially known for a blasphemic classics-infused form of brutal and technical death with ‘Anti-Evangelic Process‘ (2002) and moreso tech-death on their 2008 record. I was a fan for the sake of the riffs they’d brought in every case. Here they’ve preserved the anxious brutality and focus upon the riff, intending to chill on the technicality of their work to some degree yet you’ll feel the guitarists wilding on their grooves by the time the second song (“Revenge”) calls for some type of flair. This record could’ve been about a half an hour in length and self-released and it’d have probably been just as high impact but at ~47 minutes and thirteen songs it is too much of the same thing. That said I’ve no real negative thoughts on the actual content of their work, the new guitarist smokes and shreds with a fury and the new vocalist is perfectly suited for this style. Though I’ve been hit much harder by records in this style this was a fine listen and a worthy return for a band most folks have likely forgotten about.

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I am just along for the ride as German electronic-kosmische post-punk/noise rock duo YASS thrill the mind with this third and thickest-cut full-length. Though the high energy bops greet us it’d been songs like “Suit” and “Feel Safe” that’d struck with tension and discomfort, enough to balance the whole deal into some kind of anxious dancepunk ritual which somehow transcends the whole hunched over laptop feeling one’d typically get from this type of configuration. Every song stands alone but the progression of the full listen is the treat here, an experiential drift which emits a trapped, contained state of mind despite the throbbing movement carried through. If you were big on the echoic voice and craning guitar tones of USA Nails and appreciate the electro-exploration found on more recent Psychic Graveyard (or, the split from those bands a few years back) but want more of an electro/post-punk venture you’ll find a lot to like here.

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Rochester, New York-based brutal death metal crew DISSONANT SEEPAGE lean into the groove-heavy, slapping and slamming spectrum of the craft and they don’t at all struggle for riffs in the process. This second LP kinda takes it from body-melting motion sickness toward a showcase for the talents of the guitarist wrangling out those low-tuned cables into sense and the vocalist impressing with his range and ability to gnarl each phrase with unbelievable control. The peak of this for my own taste is probably “Gargling Nails”, just how over the top it is from every angle despite the slow-stomped bap of the rhythm. Of course they’ve pulled out every trick in the book after a handful of songs so by the time we’re in the twilight of the record the bass drops and slams don’t hit quite as hard as they did on the first half but the experience is consistent and ruthlessly dense in its action for a ~30 minute grind. The title track/closer is kinda nuts in its pace but kinda had me wanting more of those fast-as-shit whippers on the album rather than so many 1-2 stepped through grooves. Entertaining, senses-exploding stuff either way.

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Hyvinkää, Finland-based death metal quintet DEATHGOAT return for a sophomore full-length album once again built in service to ye olde Scandinavian death metal tradition centered around the nuclear buzz of the Boss HM-2 distortion pedal. Of course the only time I mention a band in this specific style/sound is when they’ve got riffs and their own take on the action. Though I didn’t like the band’s earlier work ‘Dragged into Realms Below‘ is a worthy, just above-average early Swedish death metal inspired record front to back. It isn’t anything I haven’t heard before in any sense but there is of course some pleasure to be found in the rotten spiraling riffs of a song like “Congregation of Disease” where the old Dismember spirit is engaged and enlarged. They do eventually switch things up in terms of pacing, such as “Compulsive Cannibalism” and its doomed stretch or the more brutal clap through “Flashback Psychosis”, so if you’re a fan of Vomitory of Fleshcrawl but still want to hang with the early 90’s Swedish classics too you’d probably dig their whole deal. Even if you’re not into this sound all that much give the second half of the album and some of its later tracks a chance as there are some more interesting outliers on the back half.

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