SEEN AND HEARD: SUNBURSTER, THE SLOW DEATH, THANATOS, BARING TEETH, THE CRINN

 

I got carried away with a lot of rifftastic death metal malignancy in yesterday’s round-up’s, so I thought I’d move in more varied directions today. The following new and newish songs are among those I found in my trawling through the interhole yesterday, after siphoning off the effluent that would sicken you, plus one find by my comrade in arms Austin Weber. Prepare for brain spasms and spinal trauma.

SUNBURSTER

I enjoyed the hell out of this Philadelphia band’s last release, the 2013 EP SolarBipolar (reviewed here). Just to give you a flavor of my reaction to it (and because if I don’t quote myself, who will?), here’s an excerpt from my review:

This is the kind of music that will give your neck muscles a real workout while dosing you with a narcotic addictiveness that will pull you back for another hit, and another. I know. I have plenty of other things to do, but I’ve been jamming this little three-song smasher over and over again.

And I’ll tell you what I really want: What I really want is to hear this shit live, with the PA system turned to 11. Possibly it could liquify my guts, but I’d go out with glazed eyes and a stupid grin.

Sunburster have now followed up that pavement-busting EP with a new single named “Vague Purity”. The riffs still hit like sledgehammers, the rhythm section still punches like a heavyweight, the vocalist still sounds like someone whose genitals are being removed with a blowtorch. And the song is as catchy as that disease that’s currently got the country in a panic.

Sunburster have also recorded a song from a forthcoming split with Musket Hawk due this winter from Unholy Anarchy Records, as well as a track for a forthcoming compilation from Anthropic Records — Anthrosphere Vol. 5. I’ll be looking for those babies, too. I’m making a will for my guts, because they may not survive.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sunburster/356407564375908
https://sunburster.bandcamp.com/album/2014-fall-winter-demos

 

 

 

 

 

THE SLOW DEATH

Well, this is weird. I’ve been planning for something like two months to write a review of The Slow Death’s monumental split with Majestic Downfall — and it WILL happen (later today actually) — and instead I’m first writing about the opening track of an album that won’t be released until January 2015. That’s the story of my life — ass backwards.

The album is named Ark, and the song is “The Chosen Ones”. It slowly builds a monument of bereavement, as beautiful as it is bereft. Mandy Andresen’s entrancing vocals pierce right to the heart while Gregg Williamson growls from cavernous depths. The music has weight and poignance, and it’s thoroughly mesmerizing.

Ark will be released January 2015 on Chaos Records. The next year will undoubtedly be as abysmal and as beautiful as the one whose dregs we’re now sipping, and Ark may be its herald.

https://www.facebook.com/theslowdeath

 

 

 

 

 

 

THANATOS

The Dutch death/thrash band Thanatos came to life 30 years ago and they’re celebrating the birthday with the release of their sixth studio album, Global Purification, which was produced by Dan Swanö. Yesterday the second advance track from the album began streaming, and it’s the title song.

It’s sinister, it’s ripping, it grooves, it sounds great, and it will get the adrenaline pumping through your bloodstream. Check it out below.

Global Purification will be release on November 17th by Century Media Records. You can pre-order here.

https://www.facebook.com/thanatos333

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BARING TEETH

Baring Teeth from Dallas, Texas, will have their second album released by Willowtip on November 25. Its title is Ghost Chorus Among Old Ruins, which sounds like a fitting name for a doom record, but that’s not the music of Baring Teeth. Their music is exemplified by an advance track from the album named “Mountain”.

Both disorienting and mentally engrossing, the song sounds like the combination of a globe-spanning demolition project and a reconfiguration of matter as practiced by vast alien intelligences, transforming the rubble into something pleasing to their eyes but unrecognizable to ours.

Or, in more prosaic terms, this is progressive death metal that’s highly imaginative, wonderfully complex, and expertly performed, and you should definitely check it out below.

The album can be pre-ordered on Bandcamp (here).

https://www.facebook.com/baringteeth

 

 

 

 

 

THE CRINN

And now I turn the pen over to Austin Weber, who wrote this introduction to a new song by The Crinn.

For those unaware, The Crinn are one of the best bands to come from the mathcore wave. Their last album, Dreaming Saturn, came out in 2010 through Nuclear Blast Records, and was well-received by many critics and fans alike. Before that, the band had previously released two killer EPs. The Crinn, much like Psyopus, are in an isolated elite class of bands influenced by The Dillinger Escape Plan. But unlike many of their peers, they actually formed their own sound and style from those antecedents, while continually progressing and shedding their skin with each release.

Things have been somewhat quiet at The Crinn camp for the last few years, as the band slowly hinted and teased at the progress of their next release. Yesterday, we got the first taste of their upcoming album, Shadowbreather, in the form of “Silent Betrayer”. With “Silent Betrayer”, the band give us a chance to take in their latest evolved state, and it’s certainly a potent portent of the mindfuckery they have coming.

It’s a bewildering song for sure, yet one that slightly tamps down the chaotic side of their sound in favor of an organic flowing structure. If you like this new song, be sure to keep your eyes peeled this Wednesday when we will exclusively premiere another new track from the album.

https://thecrinn.bandcamp.com/album/shadowbreather
https://www.facebook.com/thecrinn