GRAVES AT SEA: “THE CURSE THAT IS”

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
Mar 172016
 

Graves At Sea-Curse

 

(Wil Cifer reviews the new album by Graves At Sea from Portland, Oregon.)

After a few splits and an EP, these guys are pulling the trigger on the full-length I have been dying to sink my doom-hungry jaws into. The nastiness they teased us with on previous releases has been filtered through a bigger production value for their debut full-length. The band still thunders into your ears, with some of the evil abrasion that coated their work now snarling at you like crystal-meth-infused stoner rock. Sometimes this even borders on the post- apocalyptic sludge of Through Silver and Blood-era Neurosis.

The vocals are the band’s meanest quality, packing ample grit into each scream. The guitar has warmed up a bit. Perhaps it is the time they took in the studio to perfect their tone versus the raw, angrier sound of previous releases. With each listen I began to appreciate the expanded musical qualities invested into the songs here; it just takes a little getting used-to. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 1): CRIMINAL, GRAVES AT SEA, UADA, INTO ORBIT

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jan 282016
 

Criminal-Fear Itself

The flood of new metal, which has been especially torrential over the last 10 days, continues unabated. We’re really not even keeping our heads above water, despite posting a slew of round-ups since the weekend, but I think we’ve at least got our nostrils in the air.

With welcome help from Grant Skelton on today’s second item, I’m again collecting lots of very good and very diverse metal discovered over the last 48 hours. A second part of the collection will appear later today.

CRIMINAL

There’s a really long, twisting and turning story behind the name Criminal. I’m sure it’s a name well-known to many of you, so I’m going to severely truncate the history lesson before moving to what really counts — a new song from a new album. Continue reading »

GILEAD MEDIA UPDATE

 Metal News  6 Responses »
Dec 172013
 

Before this morning I was already excited about something coming our way in 2014 from Gilead Media, that oh-so-tasteful little label run by Adam Bartlett in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. I’m talking, of course, about the 2014 GILEAD FEST coming next July 18-20. I’m planning to go, in part because one of my favorite co-workers is actually a native of Oshkosh and seems interested in attending the show even though he’s not a metalhead (though he has an amazing array of other musical tastes, with that one glaring omission). I’ll remind you after the jump who is scheduled to play at that festival.

But the point of this post is to provide additional reasons to be excited, because today Adam provided a full rundown of the Gilead release schedule for 2014. And man, there are a lot of gems on the line-up. For example, on February 25, Gilead will be release Heathen, the fourth album from doom titans Thou. And on the same day, Gilead will be releasing a self-titled 12″ from Geryon, the bass-and-drum death metal project of Nick McMaster and Lev Weinstein (which I’ve already had the pleasure of hearing, and it’s great). You can see the cover art for both of those after the jump.

And there’s more. Here’s the rest of the Gilead release schedule following those two lead-offs for 2014, along with Adam Bartlett’s notes about each one: Continue reading »