BEST OF BRITISH: MASTIFF / MIDAS FALL / SLIMELORD

(Andy Synn highlights three more home-grown heroes)

Some of you may have noticed (or maybe you haven’t, I don’t know how much attention you all pay to what we do around here) that my “Best of British” articles rarely feature any of the “bigger” names (relatively speaking) from the UK scene.

Partially that’s because, obviously, the site’s general ethos is to dedicate more of our time and energy to the less-exposed, less “mainstream-friendly” bands out there, but it’s also because, to be honest, a lot of the bigger names and famous faces just… don’t really do it for me.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s lots of bands whose “mainstream-friendly” sound still appeals to me – bands who play and perform with just as much conviction and creativity as any of their more self-consciously “underground” cousins – but there’s a certain formula for success, carefully curated and algorithmically adjusted for maximum appeal, that some groups follow which simply sounds hollow to my ears.

But I think it’s safe to say that none of these three bands – one we’ve covered here before, one we’ve clearly overlooked for far too long, and one making their highly anticipated (and already highly praised) full-length debut this year – are what you would call “formulaic”.

MASTIFF – DEPRECIPICE

Last time we covered snarling sludge-mongrels Mastiff here at NCS we (and by “we” I really mean “I”) made note of the group’s increasingly crushing, Death and Doom inflected, crossover sound, drawing comparisons just as much to the likes of Nails and Napalm Death as to Coffins and Celtic Frost.

On their new album (out March 22), however, the group have adopted an even more Hardcore-oriented approach – something which in your face opener “Bite Radius” immediately makes apparent – which strips things back even further (without sacrificing an ounce of intensity or impact) to unleash the leanest, meanest version of the band yet.

Songs like “Everything Is Ending” and “Worship” combine the ragged fury of classic Earth Crisis with the rugged heaviness of early Neurosis (while also throwing in some spiteful Slayer-isms for good measure) without sounding self-consciously retro – Mastiff‘s sound, while still raw and bloody as a freshly killed carcass (and there’s definitely some early Carcass in the record’s grindier moments) is too meaty and modern for it to sound dated (or jaded) – while the bruising, bare-knuckle riffs and punky, piss ‘n’ vinegar viciousness of songs such as “Void” and closer “Thorn Trauma” add an even nastier edge to what is an already ravenous record.

To be clear, Mastiff haven’t totally changed or abandoned their hard-earned sonic identity by any means – the buzzsaw-driven Death Metal massacre of “Serrated, for example, picks up right where Leave Me The Ashes of the Earth left off, while the lurching “Pitiful” reminds you that the band can be just as brutish and brutal at slower velocities as they are at full speed – it’s more of an attitude change, if anything, and while not every track hits quite as hard (or leaves quite as big a mark) as the album’s nastiest numbers, I can pretty much guarantee (speaking from experience) that these songs are going to kick even more ass live… so you’d best grab your tickets to see the band as soon as you can!

MIDAS FALL – COLD WAVES DIVIDE US

I should start with an apology to Midas Fall, as although this is (I think) the band’s fifth album it’s also the first time we’ve ever written about them (which means I/we have a lot of music to catch up on, as well as a future Synn Report to write).

Sure, on the surface the group’s spacious, electronica-inflected Post Rock sound – aided and abetted by the utterly sublime vocals of frontwoman Elizabeth Heaton – might not seem like something we’d usually cover here, but since we’ve lavished a significant amount of praise on the likes of Sinistro, A Swarm of the Sun, and Nordic Giants over the years (all of whom are relevant points of comparisons when talking about Cold Waves Divide Us) it would be churlish to deny Midas Fall the same chance to impress our readers.

And impress they most certainly will, whether that’s in the form of stunning, cinematic opener “In The Morning We’ll Be Someone Else” (think Explosions In The Sky meets The Gathering) or the weighty, expansive soundscapes of “I Am Wrong”, both of which quickly establish the album as being composed of multiple layers and facets – not all of which will be apparent on the first time around but which demand multiple listens to fully appreciate everything they offer – but also capable of capturing the listener’s attention right from the beginning.

Sure, I happen to think that the album is at its best at its most bombastic and extravagant – in addition to the previously mentioned opening pair of tracks, the electrifying shift and shimmer of “Point of Diminishing Return” and the glimmering grandeur of the title-track (which you can check out below) prove to be two of the record’s biggest, brightest highlights – but even some of its quietest and calmest moments (such as the melancholy minimalism of “Atrophy” or the simmering, Trip-Hop inspired slow-burn of closer “Mute”) prove to have just as much physical and emotional impact in the end.

The occasional lull aside (I happen to think that “Salt” doesn’t quite justify its extended run-time, despite the groups best efforts) this is the sort of album which deserves, and demands, to be listened to in full, just so you can completely immerse yourself in the wonderous sonic world the band have so carefully crafted.

SLIMELORD – CHYTRIDIOMYCOSIS RELINQUISHED

I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn here when I say that the latest wave of the seemingly never-ending OSDM revival has long-since peaked, with the returns becoming increasingly diminished and the bands getting increasingly dumber the longer things go on, to the point where even some of the groups who were originally at the forefront of things are looking for ways to diversify their sound before it all collapses.

But there’s always room for bands to surprise you, even in the most over-saturated scenes, and recent 20 Buck Spin signees Slimelord have more than a few surprises up their collective sleeve.

Although, considering how well-received the group’s three previous EPs were, and how high the anticipation for their debut album has been, perhaps this isn’t so much about being surprised as it is about the fans finally being rewarded for their faith, from the deviously discordant, doom-laden opening bars of “The Beckoning Bell” to the final fading notes of eerily melodic closer “Heroic Demise”.

And while it would be going too far to claim that Slimelord are totally reinventing the wheel here – comparisons to the likes of Worm and Spectral Voice would certainly be valid  (especially during the most gruesomely gut-churning moments of tracks like “Splayed Mudscape” and “The Hissing Moor”) – but they’ve certainly put their own warped spin on things, especially when it comes to their use of the sort of maddeningly proggy, anxiety-inducing anti-melody on songs such as the stunning “Gut-Brain Axis” and late-album highlight “Tidal Slaughtermarsh” that would make most self-described Tech and/or Prog Death bands green with envy.

If there’s one thing for certain, though, it’s that Chytridiomycosis Relinquished is at its absolute best when it comes at you from the most unexpected, non-Euclidean angles, throwing weird, Lovecraftian leads and ferocious, blastbeat-driven freak-outs at you when you least expect them, in a way which at first sounds like absolute chaos but which, slowly but surely, begins to reveal the insidious method behind the madness.

It won’t be for everyone, that’s for sure, but repeated listens – if that’s something you can handle – may end up permanently rewiring your brain.