Earthburner – Stoned at Birth

I don’t think babies should be allowed to smoke marijuana. They can’t roll their own for a start…

NOT the Kyuss rip-off you might expect with a bandname and EP title like that.

Instead we get satisfyingly fearsome crusty, sludgy hardcore-inflected metal that draws from the same wellspring that nourishes great bands like Black Breath and Trap Them.

While these Ohioans (is that even a word? Google says yes, so that’s good enough for me) certainly share traits with some popular beat combos du jour, their take on this sound feels their own.

Black Breath and Victims: Live in London, UK

Black Breath in the process of staving in my skull. I’m clearly no photographer but hey, it’s an original pic so cut me some slack bitch!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He stumbled from the shadows, blinking, rubbing his eyes. They were red-rimmed with black hammocks slung beneath them like scars of lost time.

Shambling into the light, the hunched figure muttered and twitched as he repeatedly jamming his fingers in his ears. This involuntary rummaging dislodged flakes of dried blood that fell like rusty snowflakes only to catch in his stubble.

The freshly-showered and laundered commuter crowd parted easily around him as if subconsciously aware of the foreign body in its midst, slipping him through with nothing but a few sideways glances to hinder him. 

Those close enough to hear the murmuring from his cracked lips could make out the simple mantra, “Black Breath, fucking hell”, repeated again and again.

Black Breath – Mother Abyss

OK, so I am about a billion years late with this but there’s a new Black Breath album teaser floating about called Mother Abyss.

Press play and you can hear for yourself but if you can’t be arsed, here is an approximation of the decimation in puny verbiage.

• Revving motorbike engine thrash riffs.
• More pounding and dense than before.
• Less crust, more thrash
• Their trademark groove is less obvious
• The infectious flourishes haven’t been entirely sheared off though
• A particularly impressive sustained screams brings the song to a climax.
• It’s definitely decent but doesn’t hold a candle to anything off Razor to Oblivion or Heavy Breathing.

Enough with the bullet points already.

The new Black Breath album Sentenced to Life drops on Southern Lord on March 27 and is engineered by King Midas of guitar tone himself Kurt Ballou.

They best not let me down or I might give them a bit of a dirty look at their April 2 gig. Yeah, that’ll show ’em.

Kylesa, Black Breath and Victims Live in London

Laura Pleasants, that is all gentlemen, that is all...

Wooooh yeah, motherfuckeys! I’ve just bought tickets to Kylesa for later this month and Black Breath and Victims in April. I think my head might just explode at the sheer awesomeness I am in for.

Kylesa are playing with KEN Mode, who should be pretty decent if last year’s Venerable is any indication, at theO2 Academy Islington on February 23rd. There are still tickets left if you want them. Only 11 squid plus a ridiculous booking fee of almost four English pounds.

Black Breath and Victims are set to obliterate Camden’s Underworld on April 2 for a cheeky £12. I keep pinching myself that the two bands are on the same bill. As Shakespeare once said, FUCK YEAH!

Here is some classic Kylesa to remind you how fantastic they are:

Top 10 Emerging Classic Albums

This is a bit of a suspense killer but hey, I needed a pic

Over on Sawtooth Wave, hhbrady poses the following excellent question: what albums are you still listening to at least once month from the past few years?

Nothing from 2011 is allowed onto the list. Essentially, it’s a challenge to name your top 10 emerging classic albums. Which recent records will be hailed in the same breath as Reign in Blood, Master of Puppets or Number of the Beast in another decade?