MetalSucks

It’s been a doozy of a year for metal releases already, hasn’t it?

After the jump, the records I’ve been jamming the most so far that might or might not end up on my year-end Top 10.

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Lazy journalism comparisons to Gojira be damned, there is some damn fine metal coming out of France these days. Whether or not that has anything to do with Gojira laying the groundwork for French bands to gain wider recognition in America is up for debate, but the facts are the facts: good metal = happy Vince.

• Gorod: I’ve chronicled my love of this band in this space before. If you like tech-death firestorms, you oughtta check this band out; their new record Process of a New Decline is a juicy, explosion of head-dizzying technical death metal.
• Hacride: More in the progressive/Opethian veign of the death metal spectrum, Hacride blend Meshuggian groove with the melody and aggression of the aforementioned Swedish death metal kings. Their new album Lazarus is available now.
• Eryn Non Dae: END.’s is certainly influenced by Meshuggah as well, but theirs is a more raw, visceral, dissonant, groove-laden take on what Hacride do. Axl just posted a trippy video of theirs last week which you should check out.

So that’s that. Get your France on.

-VN

Round about the time this site was jocking the wares of avant-garde prog metallers Sikth and Textures, several of you emailed us about the French band Hacride. And as usual, you were right on the money. While Hacride don’t have the frenetic nature of Sikth nor the epic sense of melody of Textures, they do have the technicality and the brutal grooves of both, which naturally just means they all have a common influence in Meshuggah. But theirs is a slower, more raw version of any of the above; in fact, the band I’d most liken Hacride to is Norway’s Benea Reach — punishing, grooving, articulate, deliberate and beautiful all the same. This is Meshuggah strung out on heroin, lounging back in a dirty old armchair with a cigarette burnt to the filter in one hand and the TV remote control in the other.

The band’s got a new album Lazarus coming out on April 20th, and they’ve posted the song “My Enemy” (all 10 minutes of it!) on their MySpace page. Go listen to that shit! It’s some of the best material Hacride have written to date. And if you like it, pre-order the record with a limited edition Hacride t-shirt on Listenable Records’ MySpace.

-VN

So a lot of you have been emailing us lately about this band Hacride, a really solid French progressive metal band very much in the Meshuggah / Textures / Benea Reach school. I think they’re pretty F’n cool, even if not entirely original (see also: those bands). Here’s the trippy Aronofsky-esque video for their song “Perturbed.”

-VN