Friday 5: Five Of 2014’s Awesome EPs
Happy Friday, MetalSucks reader! Welcome to MetalSucks Friday 5, our awesome series that appears every Friday (duh) on MetalSucks (duhh) and involves the quantity of five (duhhh).
Here’s how it works: A list of best/worst/weirdest/whatever five somethings is posted by one of your beloved MetalSucks contributors or by one of our buds (like you?). Then you, our cherished reader, checks it out, has a chuckle, then chimes in with a list of the same. No sweat, just whatever springs to mind, k? (Just like that movie about those losers working at a Chicago record store!) After all, it’s Friday — the day dedicated by the gods to mindless, fun time-wasting. Let’s think today about the LP’s little cousin!
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THE FIVE
Five of 2014’s Many Awesome EPs
THE LISTER
Anso DF, MetalSucks Senior Editor
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1. The Drip
A Presentation Of Gruesome Poetics (Relapse) | April 15
It’s weird. You go though your life picking up an EP or two to jam; a few even end up in your personal hall of fame. No biggie. Then in one year, your library of EPs grows ten times bigger. Just the random collision of atoms, I guess, one reality resulting from the innumerable possibilities of an infinite universe.
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2. Epistasis
Light Through Dead Glass (Crucial Blast) | April 1
In a parallel dimension, Lamb Of God vocalist Randy Blythe makes like Phil Anselmo by fronting a extreme metal band in his downtime. Their shit would be fast and catchy. Their vibe would be all scream no commentary. And their debut EP might be as good as The Drip’s (above). Meanwhile, Epistasis’ EP is what you and I would make after spending 24 hours listening simultaneously to The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, Nothingface, and Transylvanian Hunger. We’d be unpredictable and disturbed too.
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3. Vuvyr
Incinerated Gods (Throatruiner) | July 15
May I quote myself? Thanks! On Incinerated Gods’ suffocating 20 minutes: “It’s the sound of dreams collapsing, of the great potential of a liberated soul folded upon itself exponentially. It’s the city hall of PartyVille dynamited at its base, the sexiest Saturday beach strafed by drones, and a tsunami of flesh-scalding acid vomited from the heavens onto a vista-filling field of pot plants.”
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4. Athanatos
Unholy Union (Iron Bonehead) | July 9
For Athanatos, the definition of “trippy” is weird sounds and weird tones. But their EP — which is a demo that an exciting label released — goes further than that: songs seem to brake at a corner to allow a weird old man cross, voices grow echoes in threes, its vibe suggests a four-phase suite in which each member of Venom is playing the same song one note ahead of every other member. A must-crank.
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5. Soilwork
Beyond The Infinite (Marquee) | September 24
Soilwork’s 2013 double album The Living Infinite was 20 songs at 85 minutes. So no metal dude is in dire need of new Soilwork just 16 months later, nor is it likely that the sessions for a 20-song album could yield valuable leftovers. Well, that’s what you may have figured (I did) but shit you’d be wrong (I was). Actually, their oddball EP is kicking down the door to that EP HOF of yours — even though it’s a tour-/Japan-only release. David Andersson is the jam!!
