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I’ve got some really special unsigned picks for you this week. I know what you’re thinking: “But your taste in music is impeccable, Vince, and your picks are great EVERY week!” I know, I know, I know! It’s tough being me and having to out-do myself every week, but just you wait until you hear this new music from Town Portal, Anuryzm, Shturm and A Little Bitter.
I know that’s a bold statement, but I’m so confident in it that I don’t feel the need to back it up — the band’s music will do that for me.
Towards the end of 2011 I saw Reading, PA’s Rivers of Nihil absolutely destroy the tiny basement of NYC’s Lit Lounge. PULVERISE THE FUCK OF THAT BASEMENT. We see a lot of unsigned bands, but it’s rare I see one as tight and as singularly focused as Rivers of Nihil. I was dumbfounded, staring their in awe at this phenomenal band steamroll through their set of brutal progressive death metal that actually has something new to offer the scene. No scene, no djent, no -core, no bullshit breakdowns… just pure, crushing modern death metal. Think: the best parts of Aborted, The Red Chord, Decrepit Birth, Nile and Gojira all rolled into one. Lots of bands attempt to do this, but none do it as well as Rivers of Nihil.
Stream some songs from Rivers of Nihil’s two EPs below; track 5, “Sea of Neurons,” if my favorite. The band gave me a copy of their latest EP, Temporality Unbound, and I haven’t been able to stop streaming it since.
-VN
Thanks to No Clean Singing for inspiring me to stop being lazy and finally write this post.
Dave Hester likes Unsigned and Unholy. Don’t you?
Yuuuuup!
Let’s check out some ripping new death metal from Plague Widow and Corpse Garden and some proggy goodness from Issachar after the jump.
Yow. Here we go.
There seems to be some confusion about how to get featured in an Unsigned and Unholy column. So how about a few friendly tips?
1. Do not attach mp3s to emails or link to a .rar or .zip that has to be downloaded, unpacked, and loaded; both are very annoying and will decrease the chance we check your band out. Link us to a page where we can easily stream some audio in one click. Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Reverb Nation, Facebook (with some kind of streaming app) or your own website are all acceptable… shit, even MySpace is fine if anyone still uses that.
2. We are not professing our love for your band that we’ve never heard of to the whole world via a Facebook “Like” just to hear your music. Make sure your tunes aren’t behind a “Like” wall (this is also just good general advice… why would anyone “Like” a band they’ve never heard of? You’re actively turning potential new fans away.)
3. Keep it simple. Two or three sentences that briefly describe your band’s sound are plenty; we don’t need your life story.
4. Only contact us once. Believe it or not, we do get to everything, although it would be impossible for us to respond to every email.
OK then! How about some bands who followed the common sense instructions above over the past couple of weeks and particularly tickled my fancy?
Check out the above cover to Wildernessking’s The Writing of Gods in the Sand EP. Sweet, huh? After the break, check out what Wildernessking and two other unsigned bands — Tharsis They and Transilvanian — sound like.
I recently had a lengthy debate with a friend about the future of music. His argument: with declining sales of recorded music, the industry will shrink (already has) and will not be able to bring as many good bands out to the masses. My argument: the other side of the piracy coin is the incredible power of the Internet to spread music and super-cheap recording technology, which means there will be plenty of good bands in abundance in the future, easy discoverable, more than ever before. He’s probably right that as marketing dollars dry up there will be less casual listeners — most people need new music to be delivered to them, be it by radio, press, word of mouth, or otherwise, and it’s only us die-hards that really put effort into seeking it out. But MetalSucks gets so many good unsigned submissions on a daily basis that I believe, at least for us die-hards, there’s gonna be tons of great stuff out there to find if you’ve got the will to search for it. To boot:
I’ve some special treats for you today, loyal Suckalos. Our latest batch of unsigned gems includes the Devin Townsend-inspired Beyond the Epilogue, a bludgeoning blackened death outfit from Kenya (!) called Absence of Light, and Polish solo-instrumentalist grumusic. Listen and learn:
Just because the big boys on record labels have stopped releasing albums for 2011 doesn’t mean the unsigned world has come to any sort of slowdown whatsoever. Let’s take a look at three of my recent favorites after the jump.
All of today’s featured unsigned bands share a commonality: they’re all influenced by classic death metal in some way, but don’t play by-the-numbers death metal by any stretch. All three of them take their influences and build upon them with other styles of metal, both new and old. Let’s take a look at new music by Descension Rate, Unbodied, and Last Transgression.
It’s no secret that a number of people on this site have a sizeable admiration for Deftones and a handful of other bands that aren’t quite metal by the standard definition.
I’m a fearless advocator of this clique of bands, and I’m always interested in left-of-center heavy rock bands that aren’t Tool or Deftones but share their inexplicable appeal. It just so happens that one these most delightful discoveries lives only a few hours away from my native Connecticut and has a killer debut album in serious need of some attention.
A word to would-be U&U submitters: fer chrissakes, I am not “Liking” your band on Facebook just to listen to it. Any band guilty of not checking to make sure the songs on their Facebook music page are available for public listening will be summarily ignored.
Now that that’s out of the way… we’ve got another really good batch of unsigned bands this week with Solace, Mordenom and Water on Mercury. Check ‘em out after the jump.
It was way back in January that I forecasted face-fucking awesomeness from Scorched-Earth Policy’s 2011 record. At that time, it was slated for an April release; but Summer passed and still I was left jamming to only the tantalizing album sampler and its cruelly brief tastes of sharply melodic and modern Bay Area thrash jamz. And just as I began despairing for S-EP to deliver on the sampler’s overwhelming promise — and perspiring about the integrity of my reportage that it’d be in 2011 that the album fucked faces — I was informed by guitarist Mark Lamb that the six-song set, titled Millennial Delusions, will be in stores Tuesday. Hellz yeah!
But you need not wait ’til Tuesday (ha) cuz our brahs-from-other-ma’s at Metal Insider are streaming the monster EP free right here. Give it a few spins and tell me if I’m wrong in my perceptions that a.) singer Judd Henry Mason is a nuclear warhead of awesome harmony vocals; b.) holy shit at least eight of Millennial Delusions‘ riffs are among the killerest, slammingest of the year; and c.) S-EP is an experienced act with the skill, identity, and cocksureness that will also come to awesome, developing bands like Lazarus A.D., Trivium, and Revocation. So they’re already overdue for a sweet label deal and a tasty triple bill with Lamb Of God and Soilwork :) We’ll call it the Anso No Pants Tour you’re welcome very much!
-ADF
Get Scorched-Earth Policy’s awesome Millennial Delusions record here.
There’s more good unsigned metal out there than there’s time to listen to it, so I’ll stop yapping so you can get to listening: this week’s slate features The Armed, This Time It’s War and Vyathist. As it so happens, two of these bands were written about by two separate “Run MetalSucks For A Day” contest winners in consecutive years. Maybe Axl and I should just quit.
Last time we featured young-gun experimental instrumentalists Chon in December of 2009 you guys seemed to really, really like ‘em, as I did. So you should all be happy to find out that Chon have a brand new song called “O.G.,” which you can stream below:
I can’t find any info about whether this song is part of an upcoming album or not… but who needs albums when each individual song is this good? I did find this tidbit, posted on their Facebook wall:
Yoooooo homies! We are recording and releasing ANOTHER NEW SONG AND AND AAAAAAAND RELEASING A MUSIC VIDEO next month!!!!! You as stoked as we are?
So at least there’s that to look forward to. Enjoy the new song above and let us know what you think.
-VN
Must… listen… to… everything… to… find… the… diamonds… in… the… rough! It’s exhausting but ultimately worth it. These unsigned bands made me raise an eyebrow recently:
In a perfect world all the bands I feature in these Unsigned and Unholy columns would have legions of fans supporting them, appear on worldwide tours and rake in bucketloads of cash from their music. Unfortunately our world isn’t perfect, but I do what I can to get the word out and hope that all of these excellent bands continue making music despite a market that’s incredibly over-saturated with mediocrity (even amongst signed bands). This week we look at new music from Blue Ox, The Fallen Divine and Damascus.
Unsigned bands continue to kill it! Three of my recent favorites, Skull Fist, Exemption and Caligula’s Horse, are briefly reviewed after the jump.
You guys continue to impress me with the caliber of unsigned talent out there in the world. Keep it coming!
In this edition of Unsigned and Unholy we’ll look at ESM, Karhu and Ninjaspy, three of the most talented bands to hit my inbox in recent weeks.
