One man project
Author & Punisher has returned with dark and clanking album number eight.
Beastland is darkwave as only machinist-by-trade Tristan Shone could make it, building each song on mechanical percussions that replicates the demoralizing, dehumanizing rhythms of a factory assembly line. This is the most literal interpretation of industrial music I've heard this year. [$10]
Altar of Plagues mainman James Kelly continues to push the boundaries of metal with his new project
Bliss Signal. On this eponymous debut, AoP's atmospheric black metal is deconstructed and given a digital makeover, layering droning guitars over electronic beats in a way that recalls the cold fury of Red Harvest. It may not be completely black, but it is bleak through and through. [$7.99 CAD]
DoC friends
MoE have a new release out, collaborating with Norwegian noise artist Marhaug. Over the course of its four droning noise tracks,
Capsaicin ratchets up the tensions with nary a recognizable riff or drum beat to anchor it. By distilling "noise rock" to its component parts and discarding the "rock", MoE and Marhaug have achieved something infinitely more unsettling. [€8]
There's no mistaking what fuels
A Storm of Light these days.
Anthroscene
is a screed against the current state of American politics, taking aim at the Trump administration's various SNAFUs with an apocalyptic sound that owes at least as much to Ministry and Killing Joke as it does mainman Josh Graham's previous band Neurosis. A confluence of 90's alt-industrial and turn-of-the-millenium post-metal. [$9.99]
