Finland’s Hagalas are often promoted as a death metal band, but as with so many Scandinavian acts, their music has far more depth, and more of an interest in actual melodies than your average death-based act. Yes, the four songs on their ‘As A Unit’ EP come weighted down by some very aggressive vocals, but most of the time, frontman Kailie Kohonen’s approach doesn’t even venture into the old school growls and grunts associated with the genre. In fact, it’s fair to say that plugging them as a death band is to sell them short. Very short.
Tag Archives: metal
WEIRD TALES – Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die EP
At the beginning of 2021, Polish doom metal band Weird Tales released an EP of material based around classic blues numbers. Their heaviness was without question; their lack of compromise even more so. Unfortunately, the end results were not only as scary as hell, but actually insulting to the legacies of the Delta blues pioneers. Good or bad – or in this case, possibly awful – they definitely made an impression.
DEATHCOLLECTOR – Times Up EP
Despite changing fashions within the rock and metal community, there’s always been plenty of room for bands who like to keep things traditional. DeathCollector – a band bringing together English/Irish musicians and featuring an ex-member of Bolt Thrower – brazenly fly the flag for no nonsense trad death metal on their debut EP. There are moments where the death is peppered by other equally angry subgenres, but in the main, its three tracks bring together some massive riffs and a sense of force that calls back to many of death’s forefathers. The bulk of the material may be hugely retro, but between some impeccably played riffs and tautly wound, relentless rhythms, the band’s desire to draw heavily from the past sounds anything but stale.
MARTYR ART – Through Soundwaves, Vol. 2
Under the name Martyr Art, multi-instrumentalist Joe Gagliardi III has been making industrial and gothic tinged music since 2004. Recording prolifically since then, his work has mixed original compositions and cover tunes, often in a style that leans heavily towards a darker sound. In 2019, he released ‘Through Soundwaves, Vol. 1’, the first in a planned series of four EPs bringing together most aspects of the Martyr Art universe. A mini treat for goth and darkwave fans, a moody stomping piece ‘Halloween (The Desire of Michael Myers’ showed off Martyr’s darkest side, while a brilliant cover of the Cure classic ‘A Forest’ teased with cinematic gothic moodiness before breaking into a brilliant industrial metal crossover sound that gave the source material a severe kick up the arse. With a little bit of a dark ambient sound creeping in during ‘In The Shadows of Philadelphia’ and a particularly mechanical re-imagining of an old Type O Negative classic thrown into the bargain, the EP had plenty to entertainment value for fans of the style.
PYRE FYRE – Rinky Dink Town / Slow Cookin’
Formed over a love of lo-fi noise and trash aesthetics, New Jersey’s Pyre Fyre began making their own brand of stoner/sludge music in 2019. A pair of digital singles emerged in 2021, with each cementing the band’s commitment to a DIY brand of riffs and distortion. Despite not having the most original sound, there was plenty about the unavoidable influence from ‘Houdini’ era Melvins cutting through the heart of ‘Lobotomy’, especially, that suggested this project came with a great potential.