• MASSIVE REVIEWING CAPACITY • is our latest short review column focusing on stray quality releases a few times a month, or, roughly every two weeks depending on the current month’s release schedule. In an attempt to be more conversational these are easygoing and casual thoughts for the most part, so relax and think for yourself as I attempt to find something, anything to say about multitudes of new releases relevant to my interests. — If you find a record 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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In building a psychic bridge between old and new Gdańsk, Poland-borne black/death daimones BEHEMOTH offer a couple of new songs, a couple of re-recordings, a leftover from their prior album, and a couple of covers (Venom, Bathory) on this latest 12″ EP. The title track “I, Scvlptor” should catch the ear as a loudest contribution to the general black metal nostalgia of this release beyond the re-recordings which pull from ‘The Return of the Northern Moon‘ (1992) demo tape and the band’s third LP ‘Pandemonic Incantations‘ (1998). Their 90’s material sounds great in any context, any acknowledgement is a boon as a fan. Otherwise the sort of gothic rock/dark metal rattle through “Begotten” makes sense as unfitting in tone for ‘The Shit ov God‘ album, though it doesn’t stick out any less as an oddball here. “Lord ov the Horizons” touches upon some similar ideas but is far more focused, up to the band’s ~2018 standards at the very least. The inclusion of a “studio rough mix” of the song kind of overtakes the final polished version as I find Behemoth far heavier when all but the vocal theatrics are stripped down to pure. If the title track is the loudest indicator of where the band are headed next I think that bodes well after the last two LPs felt lost, or, unclear in their path.

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Tampere, Finland-based “psychedelic post-gaze” troupe POLYMOON expand upon the prog-adjacent hypnose of their first couple of records with their most sublimely lucid vision to date in ‘Mariposa Magic!‘. Though I’d loved their debut album, ‘Caterpillars of Creation‘, I’d somehow missed the follow-up ‘Chrysalis‘ back in 2023 so the leap between creations is all the more intense from my perspective as these seven songs are more prone to lock eyes with the listener so to speak versus the introspective jams they’d started out slinging. These more readily active and oft vocally driven pieces are almost uniformly ebullient, nigh celebratory in their emanations across the board. As a result the experience is less an exploration and moreso an exhibition for the senses meant to be connective. It might cheese out folks looking for a darker side or jammed fluidity but I’d enjoyed the extroversion applied.

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After demolishing all with their second LP, ‘Haematophoryktos‘, last year German subterranean black/death metal duo HADOPELAGYAL return with a similarly shot 12″ EP release in ‘Zalmathic Necroichorion‘. Chaotic in movement, steeped in suffocating atmospheric clime and coughed forth via animalistic utterances their work remains an obscured cacophony from the depths of these four pieces. The militaristic trampling of “Dakryopneumatic Canticles” best exemplifies the drowned, horrifying bestial source of the band but every piece here offers similarly possessed performances, once again showing a broad range of freakouts and hammered-down percussive action within their expanse. If you’ve enjoyed their work, particularly their most recent longplayer this is a vital addition.

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Alchemizing a blurring agent between slinky walking garage psychedelia, broken-armed noise rock scuffling and post-rock addled dissociation this self-titled debut from Brooklyn, New York-based duo EXP walks a not-so precarious line between the experimental and the absurd. Lead by vocalist/bassist J. Natz (Cop Shoot Cop) and joined by family and auld cohorts alike ‘EXP‘ finds its bopping and shuffling voice pretty quick, hitting like a late 80’s grunge adjacent deep cut built on simpler rock hooks and decent psychedelics. In fact the psych’d pieces here (“Isle of Skye”, “Speed of Light”, “Radiant One”, etc.) offer necessary atmosphere to break up the first person storytelling available otherwise, lending easy-shouldered pacing to what could’ve just as well been fraught with tension or lost n’ stoned musings. Give this one a couple of passes and some patience, it doesn’t all sew together neatly so much as pool together into one headspace.

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Every time I head into a damned MR. PHYLZZZ release looking for freakout stank they’re pulling something far more unnerving, inadvisable than I was after (re: “Plea”, “Rodeo Clown”) and their latest deal ‘Fear the Lord‘ isn’t so different. That said the Chicago-based duo’s kinda Gaythiest-esque arena sized hurl on “Build to Nothing” and “Switch Bitch” yank me into the right niche, something like noise rock in righteously abstracted take and without a taste for the riff. The mathy skronk tunneling of “Emma Draws a Dog” the frustrated chunk of “Over and Over Again” might be singular, unrelated rungs on their ladder but it all adds to the unwell, six-fingered characterization available. I don’t know if I’ve found substance in any of their stuff to date but I prob won’t forget their name.

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Themed on the excesses of the privileged and their capacity to self-destruct this second full-length album from Brooklyn, New York-based noise rock quartet FOREIGN BODY is more my speed when it comes to deranged, confrontational anti-rock noise generation. Lots of guitar feedback, backward gripped chords, obsessive rhythms and lyrics which’re about as grotesque as they need to be to make their point… all of it coalescing toward new extremes which define ‘Libertine‘. The inebriated midpaced punk trundle of their debut is still there but layers of caustic effects and uglier, canned rhythm section containment amount to an angrier mouthpiece which is compressed beneath fraught and furious existential collapse. The mechanics of their work isn’t all taut howling wrath, though, as you’ll get slow swingers like “Hind Legs” and the harsh stamp of “Man Was Meant to Take Advantage” along the way but don’t expect a direct recreation of the more straight forward cut of ‘Fixed‘. Favorite piece here is probably the title track, doesn’t really fit within its surroundings and probably stood out more for that reason.

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Münster, Germany-based quartet DISCOURAGED invoke the sombre romanticism of early 90’s melodic death/doom metal on this inspired debut full-length album. ‘A Farewell in Stages‘ offers a far more apt than usual delve into the dirging and rocking hilt of the niche, emphasizing its melodic values without turning toward gothic metal tropes setting strong rhythmic variety and aggression as their default mode. Comprised of folks more recently known for death metal band Crypts the main composers here seem to have roots which run as far back to the late 90’s, experience which seems to add to the authenticity of the album’s greater shape and expression. This impresses most outright as the opener and “Descension” find their rhythmic interest and leaden atmosphere quickly and maintain said interest throughout within a couple of different formats. The more ambitious entanglement of “or All Things Must Die” or the lead driven edge of “Emptiness (Haunted House)” later on offer the biggest highlights per my own taste but the opener should be enough to key folks into their gig. The album is somewhat single-minded in its focus and that’ll either be boon or detriment to your own expectations of the sub-genre, I’d appreciated that the instinct to indulge melodramatic filler was basically void here ensuring a cohesive if not slightly overstated presence.

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San Francisco, California-based deathgrind quartet CARTILAGE bring some additional urgency and intricacy into this thrashing fourth LP. Though these folks largely share brutal death experience under belt their work on ‘Operating Altar‘ sounds like it was pulled from the mid-2000’s as they incorporate groove metal, thrash n’ roll and even heavy metal riffs into their spastic take on death-grind. If you’re a fan of Impaled I don’t doubt you’ll get a pretty immediate thrill off of this album’s fast-moving slate of ~3-4 minute swingers as there aren’t many groups that pull this sort of action together in such a tightly wound way. Vocalist Mark Wallace has this sort of Macabre-esque spasticity to his snarling and shrieking approach and this slowly intensifies across the face of this concept album, hitting its best storytelling notes nearby “Among the Offal”. They’ve done a fine job tightening up their gig and ramping pace within reason, achieving a new found intensity in the process. Only complaint was I’d been left wanting even more of the technical and thrashing side of things overall, they could push it even more and still hold up.

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Ramping their efforts beyond a well-received Maggot Stomp-juiced debut EP Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based brutal death metal quartet VULGAR MEPHITIS arrive upon a similarly short but ruthless assault via this debut album. Though the general scratch through ‘From Dust‘ reflects a shared foundation of brutal death (Post Mortal Possession, Riparian) you won’t miss the deathcore in their bones (Immortal Disfigurement, Signs of the Swarm) propping up their compositions here and there. That shouldn’t deter the old heads entirely, though, as their somewhat technical and noisome chop through these songs never sparks it on the dummy side of mosh. The bass drop from outer space on “Exterminating Profane”, the grinding spasm through “Peer Into the Abyss” and the heady drift within “Scorn of My Flesh”… each piece here finds some manner of showcase (“Wounds” is just bizarre) as the album blazes past, dodging cohesion for the sake of clobber-rich push and odd spectacle. I’d particularly appreciated the motif carried from “From Dust” ’til “To Dust”, more in that vein would’ve hit harder. Kind of a short whiff for a debut LP but about eighty-five percent of it pushes hard.

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