SAFE Ride A New Season (MCD)by marcs77
Okay, this one hit my mailbox (the good-old-fashioned one) with a perfect timing to make it to be added in this “Italy special” reviews run.
And let me say that this 6-track EP comes pretty much as a real surprise has far as the music style goes.
Milano's SAFE is not a toddling new band or a side project thing by ex-members of (actually they populate this band too if you know Half My Time and Fumbles In Life) but they've actually been around 11 years, though primarily as a studio project deeply wanted by Dharmavit Das e Marco Mantovani, who, this time around, have Dem on drums.
Well, what did surprise me so much? You know, Safe are known to be a Krishna-Core combo, and forgetting the “core” tag for a moment and the ethereal beatific Krishna imagery of cover-artwork and back-artwork, listening to their older stuff you could say their sound well-fitted among the hardcore tout court, melodic HC okay, but now their songs have more of a punkrock feel to it (perhaps the border is subtle and it's just my personal feel).
Their recent music is bouncing, bursting out vitality and melodic, and takes as much of the So-Cal punk rock as something from the 70's punk and 70's/80's stripped down power-rock. And this counts really as a pleasant surprise in my book. Did you think cool Ray Cappo flirting with hip-hop and street sounds on the monumental “Mantra” (Shelter)? Well, Safe engaging themselves with punk-ROCK sounds so fine to me.
To pay justice to one of their influences the title track, which wraps this record up with a bang, is very much in the vein of "Attaining The Supreme"'s Shelter.
SAFE masters the craft of writing some good punk music like only a bunch of came to age Dharma punx do. Read their lyrics and thoughts as a positive drive to channel your rebellion against the lies and mediocrity of our society.
SAFE endorses a positive vegetarian drug-free lifestyle.
"Ride A New Season" is out now on Youth Crew records and Beyond This World (Europe).
Check: www.facebook.com/SAFEHC
DOGS FOR BREAKFAST The sun left these places (CD)by Michela A.
What if one day the sun ceases to shine? If the purpose of Dogs for Breakfast’ last album The sun left these places is to depict this gloomy, apocalyptic condition.. well, personally I think I wouldn’t feel that bad. Yet at first listen I realized that such an evocative post-hc/metal (infected by ill tempered sludge and noise shades) travel into the darker side of human feelings is definitely worth a while without sun. ‘Cause no room for light is left during the 50 minutes of the last LP by the threesome based in Cuneo. Out on Subsound Records last April 2013 and produced by Massimilano Moccia with the contribution of different guests including Gionata Mirai from Teatro degli orrori, -but I still prefer to remember him as Super Elastic Bubble Plastic’s leader-, “The sun left this places” shots 11 tracks packed with references which go beyond post-hc and metal (these last being the kinds of music DFB seem to be deeply rooted into), and probably beyond music itself too, making it hard to draw comparisons. I feel I can mention Botch, Unsane, 16, Converge as few easy references, but this could be restrictive as may not include the contaminations dared in this album. But actually Dogs for Breakfast are not new to some kind of “experimentation”, as featuring with Luca T. Mai-baritone sax from Mombu and Zu- in the first album “Rose Lane was Tucker’s girlfriend” and during live shows, proves.
The first step of this wander through obscure territories is a menacing hiss that suggests me the image of a solar eclipse frame played at slow motion. This image - or nightmare - (ready to come back insistently later on) suddenly leaves the ground to an aggressive sludge metal riffing assault, which will surround you building in intensity and leaving the listener on edge, as if something fatal were about to happen (January 21) . Being fond of early blues, one of my stand out tracks is the crushing, devastating tribute to one or the godfathers of delta blues, Skip James: Cypress Grove Blues, where the lyrics, dated ’30s, seem surprisingly (or not?) to be written upon the occasion. As if troubles never changed. The following untitled track brings an insisting flashback of the opening nightmare, strengthened this time by guitars crying in hallucination, slow but massive drums and suffering buried screams in the distance, shouting repeatedly the album’s anthem, as a desperate, suffocated litany.
MY DISTANCE Tomorrow Will Become Today (CD)by marcs77
L'Aquila, Italy's three-some MY DISTANCE delivers the follow-up to “Standing Against The Odds” and with the new opus possibly tries to wander with long steady strides off the Comeback Kid, Verse influenced hardcore punk of the debut full-length dated 2010.
Those marks are still out there in their sound (I can't think of Comeback Kid's “Broadcasting”) and, for easy catch-up reference, Indelirium rec. comes up with the aforementioned acts in the promo ads as well, but the sound of My Distance year 2013 got, in some terms, more tense and angular on “TOMORROW WILL BECOME TODAY” -bands like Nora come to mind.
Bits of sludgy rockish riffing, extra doses of metal-tinged-heaviness, ascending guitars are primal elements of their hardcore as well as powerful loudly backing vocals and little layers of melodic undertones added here and there, not to disturb the overall frantic pace of these 13 songs but to boost on the variety camp.
Honest and furious, this disc never lets up; it holds you down the neck for the entire duration. However, it still manages to be interesting the whole way through, because, again, the tracks are more varied than their past material.
Awe-inspiring and massive like the frozen-heavily snow-clad mountain landscape of the artwork the hardcore MY DISTANCE play will get you summoned by its confrontational intensity and consistency.
Check: www.facebook.com/mydistancehc
STRAIGHT OPPOSITION 10 OZ (CD)
by marcs77
"10 OZ" a weight glove pro-boxers over 147lb wear (I got to learn this info from internet, no, I'm not into this sport) just like uncompromising force behind the pissed off music Italy's STRAIGHT OPPOSITION, the likes of Cro-Mags, Sick Of It All and all their brutish HC peers have been good at delivering over these years.
DEAD MARKET For What It's Worth (CD)
THE DISGRAZIA LEGEND Redundance (CD)
by marcs77
I just can't remember when I got this CD for review, at some point last year, anyway I'm finally down at writing a few lines about the latest work, out in May 2012, from Milano, Italy (now Milano-Germany since a few members moved out our country in the struggle to look for better opportunities) THE DISGRAZIA LEGEND.
The six-piece isn't a new acquittance of mine, and among the Italian/European scene as well, being the band around since 2003 and the news that they had new stuff out caught me into that great anticipation mood you feel when you can't wait for something surfacing from a near past that you had just let slip in the back of your mind (because their hiatus, because of the shows I missed to attend whenever there was a chance).
“REDUNDANCE” is a solid work of noisy angular guitar work, disgraced vocals, darkish scenaries and outer-space feelings in that post-everything-you-name-it vein.
And if POST-... is your daily cup of tea you'll be finding yourselves comfortably headed on a tense disturbing trip 11-song long.
The guys quote the following bands as some of their personal influences but sure listening to “Redundance” you'll have some fun time spotting some more whether that's what you look for beside listening to a band record.
Influences list: Hot Snakes, Playing Enemy, Unsane, Breach, Young Widows, Will Haven, Breather Resist, Majority Rule, Shellac, Training For Utopia, Drowningman, Anodyne, Kiss It Goodbye, Guilt, Since By Man, Nick Cave, Kyuss, Ulver, Earth, Neurosis, Helmet, Quicksand.
Thanks to Marco (voice) for sending this CD out for review.
Check: www.facebook.com/thedisgrazialegend
DAMN CITY! No Heroes (CD)
by marcs77
"NO HEROES” but, perhaps, those who stick their middle finger to the system that suffocates everybody. Something so wickedly conceived that a multitude outhere are just so scared or brainwashed to even questioning it.
This is the first thought the cover-artwork of the debut from Bologna, Italy DAMN CITY! would suggest me. Then you turn at the back-cover where the same young kid runs up on a common dull industrial area's street leaving behind his superhero costume and perhaps the whole concept gets a bit more tricky to get (I should definitely ask for some enlightenment to the band).
Too many words about the simple yet strong artwork of this album? You say? Okay, let's move on the music thing now.
Musically-wise, Damn City! sticks to the guns of that hardcore which blends the East-coast old-school with the more metal driven wave of the 90's. Call it new-school, whatever suits you.
The vocals, that sing about brotherhood, hardcore ideals being washed up, some values they care the most of and the will to fuck the trends, are brutal as fuck and backed up for the classic gang style feel and live singalongs.
22 minutes and 9 unrelenting songs that by large don't break new boundaries (there's actually the track “Dreaming To The Skyline” which has some melody and its own feel to it) but manage to do their dirty job so well.
“No Heroes” follows up to the “Stay King” EP Damn City! released in 2011, the year they formed, and is out on Indelirium records.
Check: www.facebook.com/pages/DAMN-CITY/281083265239026
AS OCEAN/COLLAPSE Break The Silence (Digital)
by marcs77
Newbie AS OCEAN COLLAPSE, from Verona, Italy are one of the latest adding to the Myo Agency family and have their debut recording, a 6-track EP titled “Break The Silence”, out digitally.
I'm definitely not among those who slag metalcore for the pretty ridicolous number of by the number or, if possible, even under this level, bands that are chocking out the scene populated by the younger who have been grown on industrial doses of downtuned-breakdowns-engulfed-metal-tinged-hardcore. But one of the extreme fringes of the genre, that labeled as death-core, has unquestionably a trade mark which I personally find stodgy, to say the least, and it's that filtered-low-growling or the pig-squealing-shrieking.
As Ocean/Collapse ranks in death-core mob and with this album they deliver an uncompromising brutally conceived hardcorized-metal that fails on pretty much all fronts because it's predictable one-dimensional riffing and humungous growls and disturbing digital-samplers -mind, these young guys have got all technical skills together and the production is in line with the standard of today digital recording. That must be said.
Sure enough this is not my record but, perhaps, whether you're into the genre and looking for an abundant quarter of hour of heavy shit to mosh to then suit yourself. These could be your guys.
Check: www.facebook.com/AsOceanCollapse
Those marks are still out there in their sound (I can't think of Comeback Kid's “Broadcasting”) and, for easy catch-up reference, Indelirium rec. comes up with the aforementioned acts in the promo ads as well, but the sound of My Distance year 2013 got, in some terms, more tense and angular on “TOMORROW WILL BECOME TODAY” -bands like Nora come to mind.
Bits of sludgy rockish riffing, extra doses of metal-tinged-heaviness, ascending guitars are primal elements of their hardcore as well as powerful loudly backing vocals and little layers of melodic undertones added here and there, not to disturb the overall frantic pace of these 13 songs but to boost on the variety camp.
Honest and furious, this disc never lets up; it holds you down the neck for the entire duration. However, it still manages to be interesting the whole way through, because, again, the tracks are more varied than their past material.
Awe-inspiring and massive like the frozen-heavily snow-clad mountain landscape of the artwork the hardcore MY DISTANCE play will get you summoned by its confrontational intensity and consistency.
Check: www.facebook.com/mydistancehc
STRAIGHT OPPOSITION 10 OZ (CD)by marcs77
"10 OZ" a weight glove pro-boxers over 147lb wear (I got to learn this info from internet, no, I'm not into this sport) just like uncompromising force behind the pissed off music Italy's STRAIGHT OPPOSITION, the likes of Cro-Mags, Sick Of It All and all their brutish HC peers have been good at delivering over these years.
"10 OZ" marks the fourth release out for the East-coast NYHC influenced band hailing from Pescara.
A 7-track EP that proves, whether it was still necessary, what a telluric force this quartet are.
Their music has definitely that heavy punch of a fist gloved by a 10 oz though I'd be more than happy never to get any -I'm not thta fighting-typo dude.
If you know little what NYCHC is all about I'm sure you got what Pescara's SA is all about. They don't fake it!!!
A 7-track EP that proves, whether it was still necessary, what a telluric force this quartet are.
Their music has definitely that heavy punch of a fist gloved by a 10 oz though I'd be more than happy never to get any -I'm not thta fighting-typo dude.
If you know little what NYCHC is all about I'm sure you got what Pescara's SA is all about. They don't fake it!!!
The band is back from an ass-freazing Euro tour that saw the guys play places like Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia and Northeast Italy.
DEAD MARKET For What It's Worth (CD)
by marcs77
DEAD MARKET is the moniker under which Alex (JM's drums and Bedtime For Charlie vocals-guitar) wrote and recorded at his own Hellsmell recording studios this 12-brand-new-track effort after Roma's skate-punk-melodi-hardcore JET MARKET disbanded in 2012.
“FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH” is a title which can sound a bit dismissive, the feel to play it at lower level and perhaps questioning the true value of this release is there (chances are that it's been chosen on a very different purpose) but let me say I don't think the music here included wasn't worth the time and efforts Alex put in giving it life and a chance for everybody to listen to it -actually further to the CD copies Alex uploaded the record on mediafire for free http://www.mediafire.com/download/t934812h1y223c6/Dead+Market+-+For+what+it%27s+worth.rar.
“For What It's Worth” deliver songs packed of fast intricate guitar parts, ass-ripping doublekick drums, cool lead licks and lots of melody and hooks that'll likely get you singing along after the very first listens.
Jet Market has always been mixing skate punk by the likes of Propagandhi, Belvedere, LagWagon, healthy doses of melodic hardcore and some grindcore blast-beat-ing drive, and political social conscious lyrics.
Dead Market's “For What It's Worth” has all of above and makes it to draw a curtain over the story of one of most hard-working and generally worldwide recognized Italian punk bands. A name that had it's own say among the likes of A Wilhelm Scream, Astpai, Antillectual, Rentokill (a few bands that shared the same stages).
Jet Market is temporarily re-uniting for the farewell shows of their brothers in hardcore-punk To Kill.
Check: www.facebook.com/deathmarket
DEAD MARKET is the moniker under which Alex (JM's drums and Bedtime For Charlie vocals-guitar) wrote and recorded at his own Hellsmell recording studios this 12-brand-new-track effort after Roma's skate-punk-melodi-hardcore JET MARKET disbanded in 2012.
“FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH” is a title which can sound a bit dismissive, the feel to play it at lower level and perhaps questioning the true value of this release is there (chances are that it's been chosen on a very different purpose) but let me say I don't think the music here included wasn't worth the time and efforts Alex put in giving it life and a chance for everybody to listen to it -actually further to the CD copies Alex uploaded the record on mediafire for free http://www.mediafire.com/download/t934812h1y223c6/Dead+Market+-+For+what+it%27s+worth.rar.
“For What It's Worth” deliver songs packed of fast intricate guitar parts, ass-ripping doublekick drums, cool lead licks and lots of melody and hooks that'll likely get you singing along after the very first listens.
Jet Market has always been mixing skate punk by the likes of Propagandhi, Belvedere, LagWagon, healthy doses of melodic hardcore and some grindcore blast-beat-ing drive, and political social conscious lyrics.
Dead Market's “For What It's Worth” has all of above and makes it to draw a curtain over the story of one of most hard-working and generally worldwide recognized Italian punk bands. A name that had it's own say among the likes of A Wilhelm Scream, Astpai, Antillectual, Rentokill (a few bands that shared the same stages).
Jet Market is temporarily re-uniting for the farewell shows of their brothers in hardcore-punk To Kill.
Check: www.facebook.com/deathmarket
THE DISGRAZIA LEGEND Redundance (CD)by marcs77
I just can't remember when I got this CD for review, at some point last year, anyway I'm finally down at writing a few lines about the latest work, out in May 2012, from Milano, Italy (now Milano-Germany since a few members moved out our country in the struggle to look for better opportunities) THE DISGRAZIA LEGEND.
The six-piece isn't a new acquittance of mine, and among the Italian/European scene as well, being the band around since 2003 and the news that they had new stuff out caught me into that great anticipation mood you feel when you can't wait for something surfacing from a near past that you had just let slip in the back of your mind (because their hiatus, because of the shows I missed to attend whenever there was a chance).
“REDUNDANCE” is a solid work of noisy angular guitar work, disgraced vocals, darkish scenaries and outer-space feelings in that post-everything-you-name-it vein.
And if POST-... is your daily cup of tea you'll be finding yourselves comfortably headed on a tense disturbing trip 11-song long.
The guys quote the following bands as some of their personal influences but sure listening to “Redundance” you'll have some fun time spotting some more whether that's what you look for beside listening to a band record.
Influences list: Hot Snakes, Playing Enemy, Unsane, Breach, Young Widows, Will Haven, Breather Resist, Majority Rule, Shellac, Training For Utopia, Drowningman, Anodyne, Kiss It Goodbye, Guilt, Since By Man, Nick Cave, Kyuss, Ulver, Earth, Neurosis, Helmet, Quicksand.
Thanks to Marco (voice) for sending this CD out for review.
Check: www.facebook.com/thedisgrazialegend
DAMN CITY! No Heroes (CD)by marcs77
"NO HEROES” but, perhaps, those who stick their middle finger to the system that suffocates everybody. Something so wickedly conceived that a multitude outhere are just so scared or brainwashed to even questioning it.
This is the first thought the cover-artwork of the debut from Bologna, Italy DAMN CITY! would suggest me. Then you turn at the back-cover where the same young kid runs up on a common dull industrial area's street leaving behind his superhero costume and perhaps the whole concept gets a bit more tricky to get (I should definitely ask for some enlightenment to the band).
Too many words about the simple yet strong artwork of this album? You say? Okay, let's move on the music thing now.
Musically-wise, Damn City! sticks to the guns of that hardcore which blends the East-coast old-school with the more metal driven wave of the 90's. Call it new-school, whatever suits you.
The vocals, that sing about brotherhood, hardcore ideals being washed up, some values they care the most of and the will to fuck the trends, are brutal as fuck and backed up for the classic gang style feel and live singalongs.
22 minutes and 9 unrelenting songs that by large don't break new boundaries (there's actually the track “Dreaming To The Skyline” which has some melody and its own feel to it) but manage to do their dirty job so well.
“No Heroes” follows up to the “Stay King” EP Damn City! released in 2011, the year they formed, and is out on Indelirium records.
Check: www.facebook.com/pages/DAMN-CITY/281083265239026
AS OCEAN/COLLAPSE Break The Silence (Digital)by marcs77
Newbie AS OCEAN COLLAPSE, from Verona, Italy are one of the latest adding to the Myo Agency family and have their debut recording, a 6-track EP titled “Break The Silence”, out digitally.
I'm definitely not among those who slag metalcore for the pretty ridicolous number of by the number or, if possible, even under this level, bands that are chocking out the scene populated by the younger who have been grown on industrial doses of downtuned-breakdowns-engulfed-metal-tinged-hardcore. But one of the extreme fringes of the genre, that labeled as death-core, has unquestionably a trade mark which I personally find stodgy, to say the least, and it's that filtered-low-growling or the pig-squealing-shrieking.
As Ocean/Collapse ranks in death-core mob and with this album they deliver an uncompromising brutally conceived hardcorized-metal that fails on pretty much all fronts because it's predictable one-dimensional riffing and humungous growls and disturbing digital-samplers -mind, these young guys have got all technical skills together and the production is in line with the standard of today digital recording. That must be said.
Sure enough this is not my record but, perhaps, whether you're into the genre and looking for an abundant quarter of hour of heavy shit to mosh to then suit yourself. These could be your guys.
Check: www.facebook.com/AsOceanCollapse
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