Hailing from Finland, Heathen Hearts play an absolutely crushing brand of hardcore. On this debut EP, their sound takes the guts of bands like H2O and Agnostic Front and applies a huge metallic crunch. The result is a sound that’s sometimes blisteringly fast but always oppressively heavy – a musical sledgehammer where the riff is king, and the guttural roars clear everything in their path. It’s the kind of introduction that’s both unsubtle and brilliant.
Tag Archives: metal
WITNESSES – The Holy Water EP
Essentially a vehicle for multi-instrumentalist Greg Schwan, this EP from Witnesses takes goth and doom metal traits and applies them to a cohesive narrative based around the lives of characters found within the text of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’. An obvious subject matter for a gothic metal band, yes, but the way Schwan and his assorted friends present their material very much shows that the tried and tested – whether musically or lyrically – need not feel too stale.
HEREAFTER – Fires Of The Flame EP
Formed during the global pandemic, US metal band Hereafter is a side project for two members of Corners of Sanctuary. As with all good side projects, it marks something of a shift for the musicians involved. Despite still sticking within the metal realm, this project trades in Corners of Sanctuary’s high octane, traditional 80s sound for something slower, groove laden, and almost doomy in places.
The four piece band teams Corners’ Mick Michaels and Mad T (guitars and drums, respectively) with ex-Blood Feast vocalist Chris Natalini and Burned In Effigy bassist Robert Bigler to create a heavy sound that values a steady riff above all else. To ensure an even bigger shift from the members’ day jobs, the songs even employ a very stylised vocal to accentuate a lot of the music’s very rhythmic heart.
FISSURE OF RIDDLES – The Marble Realm
Four years on from their ‘Nemea’ album, UK progressive sludge merchants Fissure of Riddles make a particularly intensive noise on their 2022 release ‘The Marble Realm’. Four of its six songs take a very long time to sometimes do very little, but for fans of such a slow and oppressive style, that moody and methodical approach to a riff results in the kind of album that’s almost guaranteed to make an impression.
PAUL DI’ANNO’S BATTLEZONE – Killers In The Battlezone (1986-2000)
Paul Di’Anno’s contributions to the first two Iron Maiden albums would be enough alone to secure him a legendary status. His rough edged, almost punky style did so much to give those now classic recordings a real energy, and both ‘Iron Maiden’ and ‘Killers’ have continued to receive a massive amount of love, even decades after fans heard them for the very first time.