If my wife was ever tasked with inventing a black metal band she’d like, I have a feeling she’d conjure up something that sounds a lot like Alcest on account of Alcest sounding more and more like a shoegaze band than a black metal one. Indeed, Mr. Alcest himself, vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist/bassist Neige, has built his French band into a crystal tower with celestial reach, a golden, opulent artifact that stands warm and bright in an otherwise dark and cold world. That’s not to say, however, that Les voyages de l’âme (or, if you prefer, Journey of the Heart), is one big dreamy wash of lush sound because it so happens that it stands on a very strong foundation of aggressive folk metal, but Neige’s preference for the soft, clean vocals over the growls (skip straight to “Là où naissent les couleurs nouvelles” or “Faiseurs de mondes” if you want to hear the latter) certainly elevates the album to ethereal heights. Much like 2010′s Écailles de lune, Les voyages de l’âme magically weaves intricate and ambient guitar work with blasting tempos for an altogether fantastical marriage of romance and war, its beauty found in its strength, its strength found in its beauty.
Check out the video for “Autre temps” from Les voyages de l’âme!
Corrosion of Conformity Corrosion of Conformity
Candlelight Records
Corrosion of Conformity’s 1985 Animosity line-up of Mike Dean, Woody Weatherman, and Reed Mullin made big news when they reunited in 2010 for a two-song EP, Your Tomorrow (Parts 1 and 2), mainly because Animosity‘s punk/thrash crossover made such a monumental contribution to heavy music and because it brought an end to C.O.C.’s five year hiatus after the release of In the Arms of God in 2005.* Of course, it’s the former point that garnered the most excitement, the belief that with Pepper Keenan still toiling away in Down, C.O.C. would lay aside its Southern metal sound and return to its influential, raucous, politico-skate metal roots. Well, gray hairs and lost years be damned because the new full-length, Corrosion of Conformity, finds the Raleigh, North Carolina trio in a fresh, aggressive, and loud way, chucking around thrashy riffs like empty beer cans. I’m sure it was never the band’s intent to recreate Animosity, which they don’t do by a long shot, but what they do do is spread their innate abrasiveness over several well-executed styles of metal to create a rush of dynamic anarchy. From the traditional blast of “Psychic Vampire,” “River of Stone,” and “Your Tomorrow,” to the motor-punk of “Leeches,” “The Moneychangers,” and “Rat City,” to the sludgy doom of “The Doom” and “Newness,” Corrosion of Conformity is utter mosh pit fodder, and Dean’s vocals are perfectly vile for such destructive enthusiasm. You know, it would have been totally reasonable to expect these bastard pioneers to be a bit out of step, but this is so on point that it’s worth your biggest broken-toothed grin…and a hell of a lot of spins.
*Even though it was the last recorded C.O.C. album, Mullin actually wasn’t part of the In the Arms of God line-up. In fact, that last time this trio appeared on an album together was 2000′s America’s Volume Dealer. However, Mullin and Dean do have another band called Righteous Fool.
Listen to “The Doom” from Corrosion of Conformity!
Four-song EP from San Diego’s Griever (once Lewd Acts), who double down on the two-song single they released earlier this year. There’s actually more than one Griever out there, but this is the only one that deserves your attention, believe me, and even if you don’t think so, they’ll go ahead and take it from you anyway. Griever comes to the race with a hardcore gait but their strength actually lay in their ability to pace themselves with a sludgy, down-tuned melody, which means they’ll remind you more of Torche than they will Trap Them, but they could flank either of ‘em on the podium at the end of the day. “The Forgetter” and “Black Vinyl Clouds” are the two aggressively incessant songs here, loaded with groovy, volatile riffs, while “Stag Hymn” and “Home Again, Alone Again” showcase a gloomier Griever with a post-rock vibe. While heavy and loud, Griever keep you guessing, and that makes Inferior somewhat superior.
Alcest
Corrosion of Conformity
Griever