CZAR - Life Is No Way To Treat An Animal Review

Czar - Life Is No Way To Treat An Animal (Self-released)

Release date : January 20th, 2017

Of all the things that I love in my life being critical is one of those things I don’t get bored with easily. Sometimes, in album reviews, you already know how the music is going to sound and how you are going to write those few lines trying to point its better and weaker elements. Other times you get a real challenge and even genre description won’t even help you trying to make out of what you have listened. The case of Czar and their full length album Life Is No Way To Treat An Animal is of the later kind.

SWANS - The Glowing Man

Swans - The Glowing Man (2016, Young God Records)

Another behemoth piece of music from Swans has been released in June this year and I could not pass the fact that despite my pure enjoyment of this release and catching The Glowing Man tour in July, I deliberately procrastinated to write this review for a good six months. Frontman and band leader, Michael Gira is a generous artist that offers another double LP and lots of liner notes to his songs. As he states on his Bandcamp page, Gira will continue to make music under the Swans moniker but with different collaborators and will pull the plug to the incarnation of the band that he restarted in 2009. The conclusion of this chapter of Swans is just a way to continue into a new direction.

ATHAME - With Cunning Fire and Adversarial Resolve

Athame - With Cunning Fire and Adversarial Resolve (2016, Grimoire Records)

The Maryland/West Virginia act of Athame is a vicious and dark interpretation of Black Metal with a sheer sense of American underground Metal like Krieg. A band that would not be afraid to take Grindcore textures and slower Noise passages à la Today Is The Day.

WALL OF WATER - Wall Of Water

Wall Of Water - Wall Of Water (2016, Self-released)

The debut album of this American duo is targeting a wide audience of Metal enthusiasts and wants to be as underground as it can and we’ll find if this is a success or not. Let’s remember that when there is a desire to please everyone with a product or a piece of art this is more or less a win win situation.

LOCRIAN – Infinite Dissolution

Music Review : Locrian – Infinite Dissolution (2015, Relapse Records)

While most Black metal bands are centered about the dark themes in human nature, the new generation of American black metal bands have taken an approach near light and the human introspection. This anti-conformism of a very conformist and hermetic genre is giving a fresh breath to a genre that could have stayed deeply rooted in its origins of Satan worshipers and underground influenced bands like Discharge and Black Flag.