A SCATTERING OF SCARS: THE GARDNERZ, POSH CUNT, AND REX SHACHATH

I’m sitting here fresh from a restful 5 hours of sleep, with my eyes feeling like spider monkeys sandpapered them while I was asleep, but rapidly feeling more alive as I slurp on my second cup of Deathwish coffee (read about that shit in this post). In an effort to shock myself awake even more quickly, I’ve been listening to the three songs in this post. They kind of make me feel like alien larvae are burrowing under my skin, some slow and some fast, but all of them inexorably headed toward my gut where they will seek nourishment before exiting explosively through my intestinal wall.

Shit, maybe I shouldn’t have poured that second cup of Deathwish. Anyway, check out the scarring music while I get something sharp and start opening myself up to look for those fuckin’ squirmy larvae. The bands: The Gardnerz (Sweden), Posh Cunt (US/UK), and Rex Shachath (Ireland).

THE GARDNERZ

The sharp-eyed among you will recognize that cover art at the top of the post, because I included it in a previous feature about album art about six weeks ago. The artist is Daniel “Devilish” Johnson and he created this awesome image for a new EP by a Swedish band named The Gardnerz. The six-song EP, entitled It All Fades, will be released by Abyss Records this fall.

Today, the Axis of Metal blog began streaming a song from the album by the name of “Don’t Look Back”, and that’s kind of how I felt listening to it — something was on my heels, but it was a fuckload smarter to keep running than to risk a glance over the shoulder.

At the beginning and again later, there’s a skittering, shambling, staggering quality to the riffs, and an oozing of minor-key illness in the guitar leads. In between, the pace drops and doom descends, with a mixing of clean and harsh vocals and the wet fog of crawling chords. You’ll also find find some unexpected clean solo’s that provide a striking contrast.

Maybe progressive death-doom is the right characterization? Whatever you call it, it’s an interesting variation on an old-school theme.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/56240170″ iframe=”true” /]
 

Here are band links:

http://www.facebook.com/thegardnerz
http://www.thegardnerz.com/

 

POSH CUNT

I’m assuming that most people who read this blog know who Grim Kim Kelly is. For those who may not, I’ll just say that she’s badass on many levels. She’s a terrific, widely published metal-focused writer and interviewer, she’s a publicist for Catharsis PR, and she’s a road-dog and merch hawk for bands like Saint Vitus, Corrosion of Conformity, and Black Tusk. She is also now in her own metal band.

Thanks to MaxR from Metal Bandcamp, I discovered a Grim Kim tweet over the weekend announcing that she, Al Bulmer (Acral Necrosis and other UK bands), and Ryan Kasparian (awesome graphic designer and musician) had combined forces to inflict aural damage on the masses.

The name of their band is Posh Cunt, and with a name like that you can quickly narrow your guesses about the genre of the music. You know it’s not gonna be prog or shoegaze.

Posh Cunt have recorded one song, and yesterday it went up on Bandcamp as a free download. It’s called “Kill the Pheasants. Fuck the Peasants”, though honestly I think it would have worked just as well to fuck all of them.

The song is a 108-second collision of hyperblasting grind, black metal, and just overall noisy brain fuckery. Worth hearing. Listen below and go HERE to get that shit.

 

REX SHACHATH

Rex Shachath are a new band from Northern Ireland who plan to release their debut EP, Sepulchral Torment, on September 7 via Hostile Media. Yesterday the band started streaming a track from the album entitled “The Bastard Prophet”. A few weeks back, they debuted another song, “Seven Serpents”. This morning I checked out both of them.

I pretty much knew I would eat this up from the early moments of “The Bastard Prophet”. Ah yes, the comforting sounds of vicious chainsaws grinding their way through a big fuckin’ pile of corpsemeat with ghoulish vocals and knee-capping percussion. The music is spiced up with tempo dynamics and a dose of technicality in the riffs.

Check out this new offering of old-school death metal from the Emerald Isle just below:

Band linkages:

http://www.facebook.com/rexshachath/
http://www.rexshachath.com/