What would happen if you allowed the drummer from garage punk band Wirms a completely free rein to record whatever he wanted with some friends? You’d get a cassette of punk noise, showcasing a handful of songs that take a loose and childish inspiration from various film titles. …And he’d then decide that Musclegoose would make a fitting name.
Bonkers.
During the first quarter of 2019, Cathedral Bells released an enjoyable debut EP, celebrating various retro dreampop and shoegaze moods. Although taking influence from the 80s, its best songs showed how their chosen genre could still sound relevant and vibrant in the present.
The band has a new full length album due for release on Good Eye Records early next year, but in the meantime, you can listen to a new single ‘Heavy Rain’.
Although on the surface Vehementor’s debut ‘Dungeons of Grotesque Symmetary’ looks like the kind of record aimed squarely at the dyed in the wool death metal fan and pretty much no-one else, the reality is somewhat different. On this album, the Macedonian band mix all manner of extreme metal influences. Huge amounts of melodic death and classic thrash metal meet elements of groove metal and occasional industrial-ish rhythms, resulting in one of the most enjoyable – and filler free – extreme metal discs you could hope to find.
Taking their name from the classic Entombed album from 1990, Romanian metallers Left Hand Path are the kind of band you’ll only have to hear once to realise they mean business. Their self-tited release from 2019 is a monstrous, riff-heavy disc that will gain an instant love from fans of the heaviest end of groove metal, as well as from those listeners whom aren’t about to let an obtuse vocal stand in their way of riff-based enjoyment.
Formed at the tail end of 2017, Hembree And The Satan Sisters was borne from frontman Zachary M. Hembree’s desires to record more punk oriented material. Teaming up with ex-members of Guff and Burns Like Fire, The Satan Sisters finds Hembree (ex Nuclear Blast signings Toro) opting for speed and crunch over traditional heaviness and their debut release is…immense. Packing nine tracks in under twenty minutes, the EP format suits the band extremely well, allowing their music to greet the listener with a genuine sucker punch.