Movie Review: We Are The Best!

Long time no see, dear reader. I'm going to skip my usual "hey guys I know I haven't posted in X weeks/ months/ years and I'm really sorry, I've just been really busy" spiel and jump right into this post. As always, obligatory SPOILER WARNING. I'll try my best to spoil as little as possible. It's not like there are any Usual Suspect caliber plot twists in this indie drama.

We Are The Best! is a Swedish-Danish film released in 2013 about three 13 year old girls who start a punk band in 1980s Sweden. It's based on director Lukas Moodysson's wife's semi-autobiographical graphic novel Never Goodnight. If that isn't enough to convince you to watch this movie, then I don't know if we can call ourselves friends anymore. On a more serious note, We Are The Best! follows two adolescent punks, Klara and Bobo as they stumble their way through school, home life, starting their first band, and generally being young, angst-ridden kids. Klara and Bobo start their band solely out of spite of a group of teenagers at their local youth center, and despite not knowing how to play any instruments, fall in love with the idea of playing in a band.

What this movie captured perfectly is the idea of being a young kid with something to say and finally finding a legitimate outlet for it. Klara and Bobo are written like true 13 year olds, where they know that they're young, angry, and want to take down The Man, but they're not quite sure what their fighting against, what the real facts are, or what causes they should really support. They don't know shit, but they don't care because they're too wrapped up in being passionate about something for the first time. Once they get hooked on making loud, incoherent noises and writing angsty, terrible punk lyrics they find a girl in the year above named Hedvig to round out their trio so they can start writing some real music. Hedvig is an outsider at school too, but she plays some mean classical guitar, so the girls befriend her to use her expertise to help them along musically. Also, something to note: I'm not sure if the actresses were 13 years old at the time of filming or older, but either way, they're young and they don't suck. They're actually pretty solid actresses. Hollywood, take notes. This is how you should cast children and adolescents in your movies.

Something you'll notice quickly in We Are The Best! is that the movie isn't really about punk music or punk culture. It's mostly about what it's like to be a young teenager and how they live their lives in a constant hyperbole. Finding an outlet for your feelings in the form of a band is the greatest thing in the world, this cute guy you just met is making you go head over heels in love, and getting into a mundane argument can be the absolute irreconcilable end between you and your best friend. And in typical teenage fashion, these major life-or-death crises blow over in a matter of hours or days. It's these dynamics between the three girls that makes this movie fun to watch, because deep down, you knew you were that bad when you were younger. Sure, if you're into punk or hardcore, it may feel nostalgic to see a couple of kids learn to play their instruments and fall in love with music, and stick their middle fingers up to the world just like you did, but even if you never went through a phase like that (like your's truly), there's still plenty to love here. A small detail that I loved was that almost all of the music played by Klara, Bobo, and Hedvig looked and sounded like it was recorded live on location. You can hear all the little nuances of recording on location, where everything you see matches up perfectly with what you hear. Nobody is randomly mashing their fingers on a guitar with a totally different track being played over top. It's nothing too big but in most movies, including movies about music, they just throw in some studio recordings so they don't need to teach the actors how to actually play the instrument being played on screen.

So there you go. We Are The Best! is definitely one of the best movies I've seen in months, with the only other being December's The Imitation Game. This movie is legitimately fun to watch, no matter who you are. It's adorable, genuine, and to top it off has one of the most punk as fuck endings I've seen in a movie. You can find it on Netflix (the Canadian version at least), which is where I found it, and I'm sure your local movie store carries it too if you feel like spending some cash.

That's all for now, folks! Go out and start a punk band with your friends.

-DG

Album Review: Rasplyn - "Scenes Through the Magic Eye"

Today's review is going to be of some music a little left of center. No grindcore, no brutal slamming guttural death metal, no smash-everything-around-you hardcore rap. Today we're going to look at something droning, psychedelic, and transporting. Today, we're reviewing Rasplyn.

Rasplyn is the solo experimental music project of Carolyn O'Neill, who is quite the busy bee these days. Between featuring on other releases like John 3:16's 2012 release Visions of the Hereafter - Visions of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, co-founding the Logan Square New Music Ensemble, directing short films, and managing Resolution Digital Studios, Carolyn still manages to put out a great debut album under the Rasplyn moniker.

Now, don't let that album cover fool you. I judged the book by it's cover on this one and went in to the album thinking it would be some cheesy new age music with some ham fisted middle eastern influences. Little did I know, Scenes Through the Magic Eye would contain some of this year's most interesting sounds.

The album is mostly classical or orchestral pieces composed by Carolyn herself, each accompanied by here reverb-laden, stereo-panning vocals flowing in and out of the tracks. The album does have a middle eastern flair to it, but it is definitely more subdued than I thought it would be. These influences are precisely that, influences. Rasplyn isn't defined by middle eastern tones and melodies, but uses them to her advantage. The tracks more often than not have some droning strings in the background with everything else floating overtop, creating a sort of shoegaze effect. The closest pieces of music I have to compare Magic Eye to would be John 3:16's Visions and to a lesser extent, some of Sunn O)))'s experiments with classical instruments. If Visions transports me to an isolated pond at night, Magic Eye brings me to a temple at the break of twilight. Something ancient and well before any of our times, but still preserved. While it's been overgrown with vines and foliage, it still stands, monolithic in the distance. As the album continues I explore the temple, finding remnants and fragments of the peoples and cultures that have visited it before me. Some morbid, some less so, but all of them engrossing nonetheless.

Rasplyn's debut album is something that definitely surprised me in a good way. To me, her music should really be a part of a soundtrack to a movie or video game, with its massive production and transporting qualities. 

Scenes Through the Magic Eye comes out on Mythical Records on November 30th. You can check out Rasplyn on Bandcamp, Facebook, and on her personal page.

That's all for now, folks! Jeremy, I'll see you in court.

-DG

Blastbeat Reviews: Hammerdrone, Maze of Terror

Usual spiel: school's been eating up all my time, I've promised a bunch of reviews, so here are some quick ones for you. 

HAMMERDRONE - CLONE OF EUROPA

Y'all remember Hammerdrone, right? Those Canadian boys riffing out some good old fashioned death metal with heavy melodeath and blackened death influences? Well, they're back with a new full length to tear your faces off. These guys still rock their heavy Behemoth and Goatwhore influences from before, but on Clone of Europa they're bringing in some Gothenburg melodic death metal sounds into the fray as well.

In pretty much every way, Clone of Europa is a giant step ahead of A Demon Rising. The musicianship is tighter, the production is heavy as fuck, and the songs flow better, showing some serious soundscaping and atmosphere building abilities on the band's part. If you're into death metal or melodic death metal at all, I can't recommend Clone of Europa enough. Check it out on Bandcamp here, and visit them on the Facetubes here. Overall Score: 4/5.

MAZE OF TERROR - SKULL CRUSHER EP

Maze of Terror hail from Lima, Peru and play thrash fucking metal. No, not thrash metal. Thrash. Fucking. Metal. These guys are relatively new on the scene having only formed in 2011, but they're firing on all cylinders on their first release. They've got their own style of old school Bay Area thrash mixed with the neo-thrash movement started with bands like Toxic Holocaust and Warbringer, with just a hint of European thrash sprinkled on top. The result is some heavy, fast, and vicious thrash metal that can appease any headbanger. Skull Crusher reminds me heavily of Needs More Noise Gate favorites Termination Force and Zafakon, and as I wrote that sentence all I can think about about is how freaking wicked it would be to have a Termination Force, Zafakon and Maze of Terror tour, but I digress. Maze of Terror kicks all kinds of ass, and you should listen to Skull Crusher right now. You can check them out on Facebook, and listen to some of this EP on Youtube. Score 4/5

That's all for now, folks!

-DG

EP Review: Miserable Failure - "Hope"

We're back with the first review of 2014! I'm pumped for all the awesome music coming out this year, and I figure we should start with something awesome to kick off this next revolution around the sun.

I'm sure you all remember France's Miserable Failure from my review of their three-way split with F Stands for Fuck You and Infected Society. These dudes play some outrageously brutal nihilistic grindcore at speeds that rival those of the mighty Agoraphobic Nosebleed.

Honestly, this review is going to be super short, because there's not much to say other than that this EP is some top notch grindcore. It clocks in at just a few seconds short of 4 minutes with each song taking about a minute to pour out of your speakers rip off your ears and throw them in a meat grinder. The album comes across as a blend of Magrudergrind's self-titled album and the newer material released by the aforementioned Agoraphobic Nosebleed. I legitimately believed that for this release, Miserable Failure were a drum-machine grind band, but after looking it up, I was pleasantly surprised to see that drums are credited to one Elvis Jagger Abdul Jabbar, whom I believe to be the first human able to break the sound barrier simply by moving their arms.

The riffs are chunky and pretty groovy (at least as groovy as grindcore can allow), which is in part where I draw my Magrudergrind comparison from. The production gives the guitars and bass a thick, wall of sound tone and everything is mixed and mastered surprisingly well for an underground grind band EP, especially since this is their second release, ever.

On a Playlist With: Magrudergrind, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, GridLink

Overall Score: 4/5

Hope is a hell of an EP, made only more impressive by how new Miserable Failure is on the scene. Kaotoxin Records found a gem by signing these guys, and I'm real fuckin' excited to see what they're going to put out next.

You can download Hope for the awesome price of free over here, and be sure to throw Miserable Failure a like on their Facetube page. The EP will be out on extremely limited CD and cassette pressings that will only be available directly from the band sometime soon. I'll let you guys know once I figure out the date.

That's all for now, folks! I hope you guys have a kick-ass 2014!

-DG

Blastbeat Reviews: Protest the Hero, Exivious, Snakes Get Bad Press

Time to rapid fire off some quick reviews. My to-listen list for this year's records is on the order of dozens, so there might be a fair few of these quick reviews before the year is up. Up on the chopping block today are prog-metalcore dudes Protest the Hero, Exivious, a jazz-fusion metal(?) supergroup featuring members and ex-members of Cynic, Textures, Dodecahedron, and Pestilence, and Aussie underground spastic hardcore group Snakes Get Bad Press. Let's get the ball rolling!

PROTEST THE HERO - VOLITION

I've never being a huge Protest the Hero fan (even feeling lukewarm about one of their most highly praised albums, Fortress), but everyone and their mothers has been telling me to get my ass in gear and check out Volition, their newest album. I put it off long enough, but when I finally got around to listening to it, man, I wish I had checked it out sooner.

Volition is an absolute banger of an album, dishing out massive songs in the usual spastic and super-technical vein we're used to, but focusing more on making the songs catchy as hell than just wowing people with how well they can sweep pick in 27/16 time. The songs are all real fast, and super high energy, making this album feel more like a super proggy pop album than a metal record. After a year of pissed off grindcore and doomy sludgy metal, it's nice to have a record that's so much fun to listen to. Score: 4.5/5

EXIVIOUS - LIMINAL

I love Cynic, and in 2009 when I discovered ex-guitarist and ex-bassist Tymon and Robin's jazz-metal-fusion project called Exivious, I was pumped. Their self-titled debut was absolutely awesome, and I'm super happy to see they were able to crowdfund their second album to completion.

Liminal is like Exivious 2.0. The album is even more diverse, flows more beautifully, and sounds crystal clear. The boys build amazing soundscapes and textures (get it?) with their music as usual, with some great solos from all instruments, written or improvised. There are some bits on this record that are total surprises, keeping Liminal from being too much like Exivious, but honestly, I listen to so little of this jazz fusiony stuff that even more of the same is fine by me. This is an album made by musicians for musicians, but I wouldn't be surprised if just about anybody picked this up and enjoyed it. Score: 4/5

SNAKES GET BAD PRESS - RESIDUES

I've barely been exposed to the Australian hardcore scene. Other than bands like Fat Guy Wears Mystic Wolf Shirt, Jackals, and these dudes, there isn't much else I've heard hailing from down under. Snakes Get Bad Press follow their Aussie brethren by taking things in the spastic/ mathcore direction, working dissonance, shifting time signatures, and odd song structures into their music like nobody's business.

Obvious comparisons that come to mind are bands like Dillinger Escape Plan and The Chariot, but I hear a bit of Converge in the music, and just a touch of Pig Destroyer in the vocals.

Residues came out on Art As Catharsis Records on September 20th, and can be streamed over on the label's Bandcamp page. Check Snakes out on Facebook, too! Score: 4/5

That's all for now, folks!

-DG

Album Review: Grind-O-Matic - "Flower Power"

Everyone shut up. I know I've been gone for a while. School is happening (that reminds me, I have robotics and signal processing labs to do, fuck), I've started recording a project with a friend, and I'm now writing for the online zine Cinema Terrible. I only have so many hours in a day, so I'm trying my best to balance not failing my courses, keeping creative content rolling on weekdays, and feeding my borderline alcoholism on weekends.

As many of you regular readers know, the French grind scene is fucking nuts right now. Tons of wicked bands are surfacing and pumping out rad EPs and albums like no tomorrow. If you want a taste of the French scene, check out the compilation In Grindo Veritas released by Kaotoxin Records, and Grindhouse: Vol. 1 put out by your's truly. I recently got a CD in the mail all the way from France of Grind-O-Matic's newest album, Flower Power.

GOM have been around for ten years now, and have been steadily releasing music for nine of them. They hail from Paris, France and have shredded onstage with bands like Cloud Rat, Chiens, and Yattai over the years. I really don't have much of a bio for them, so I'm going to jump right into the album.

First thing's first. This album is fast and loud. The album might churn through 20 tracks in just under 40 minutes (mid paced for grindcore standards, for those of you who don't know),  but this band can play blisteringly fast. I usually tap along to the drumming of my music with pens and pencils in hand, but sometimes here I can barely keep up. Don't get hung up on speed here, though. Unlike mechanical speed demons Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Grind-O-Matic blends a nice amount of mid-paced and slower chaotic dissonance into the fray to break up all the grind. Majority of this album sounds like a cross between Nasum, Gridlink, and early Dillinger Escape Plan to me. Sometimes, all three influences come together into a giant clusterfuck of sound that makes me stop whatever I'm doing and audibly say "holy fuck". Paired with the band's great choice of samples before and after songs, the band sets the bleak and twisted tone of the album.

Speaking of tone, I really have to commend these guys for the themes presented here. Flower Power is a testament to how much we've fucked up the Earth in all our years of greed as a society. It's nothing that hasn't been done before, especially by grindcore bands, but the atmosphere crafted by the music, samples, lyrics, and artwork is definitely more striking than a majority of other socially conscious bands out there.

On A Playlist With: Nasum, Discordance Axis, (early) Pig Destroyer

Overall Score: 4/5

Flower Power is a grindcore album with some real substance behind it. All the power and perversion of the French grind you love, mixed with some awesome chaotic guitar and drum playing and top notch sampling makes Grind-O-Matic a winner in my books.

Flower Power came out on Grind-O-Records on September 13th, 2013. You can listen to it here, and you can check the band out on Facebook and Reverb Nation.

That's all for now, folks!

-DG

Split Review: Infected Society/ F Stands For Fuck You/ Miserable Failure - "Miserable Fucking Society"

Kaotoxin records has been rocking it recently with their grindcore releases. After dropping Nolentia's new album in March and the amazing french grindcore compilation In Grindo Veritas (listen here), they're dropping a three way split from the depths of hell (or Amiens, France. Same thing.) between french grinders Infected Society, F Stands For Fuck You, and Miserable Failure cleverly titled Miserable Fucking Society.

Get it?

Infected Society

Infected Society have already released their debut two years ago in the form of an EP and Snuff Fetish Infection, their first split on Kaotoxin, and Miserable marks their second release on this label. Infected Society contribute the first seven tracks on this 19 track split, and take up about 11 of the almost 30 minute running time.

These guys bring in a heavy and hard style of grindcore, blending the old school Carcass style goregrind with more modern riffs. They've got only got one vocalist, but holy fuck does he have a wicked growling range. Capable of Bill-Steer-pitch-shifted-like vocals, raspy Jeff Walker highs, and some powerful hardcore yells and screams, vocalist Brett is a monster behind the mic. The riffs are definitely more on the punk side of grindcore than the metal side, with tons of shifting power chords and groove laden bridges and breakdowns bringing in the circle pits. There no drummer in Infected Society, but instead a drum machine programmed by guitarist, Fack. I've gotta say they're programmed pretty well, because in addition to the usual machine gun blasting, Fack busts out some solid grooves and even a tribal beat here and there.

Production is about as heavy and thick as you can get it. Everything is mixed pretty well, but as usual, I'd love to have the bass a little higher in the mix. The drums are mixed really well into the human-manned guitar, bass, and microphone, and they don't have that usual sterile, clicky sound most drum machines are known for.

Score: 4/5

Infected Society's third of the split is definitely the strongest, with the hardest hitting music paired with awesome, awesome production.

F Stands For Fuck You

F Stands For Fuck You is a wicked hardcore/ grind project started by Adrien Guérin (guitarist of Benighted since 2012) and Kevin Foley (drummer to Mumakil, Nervecell, and Benighted. Not to be confsed with Kevin Motherfucking Talley of every fucking deathgrind band ever). This is the band's first release, and it's a damn good one. 

Adiren leaves his guitar duties to take up vocals on this split, and he does a pretty solid job. He lays out more an old school hardcore punk scream, which does along really well with the punkish riffing of Alexis' guitars. The riffs are groovy and angular, keeping you on your toes with their their shifting tempos and time signatures. Luckily, the music doesn't devolve into incoherent noodling, and Alexis manages to keep everything pretty fluid and natural sounding. The drums keep up with the guitarwork, grooving, double kicking, and blasting all the way through, sticking to the twists and turns like a fat kid sticks to the all-you-can-eat-buffet line.

Production here is a lot thinner than with Infected Society, and it really takes a huge shift aurally once the first section of this split is up and FSFFY's portion begins. There is no bassist in this band, and it really shows. If this band were able to get some Scott Hull magic going on to thicken up their sound, they'd definitely be a force to be reckoned with.

Score: 3/5

F Stands For Fuck You definitely has piqued my interest with their debut release here, but unless they do something to fill out their sound, they'll always play second fiddle to the heavyweights.

Miserable Failure

These dudes are the least well known group on the split, and the promo package I have has nothing about them other than they are "a modern Grindcore failure by miserable fuckheadz". So uhh, Miserable Failure, everybody.

The music picks up in intensity again here, going back to a more pure grindcore sound, and it definitely reminds me of an old school Pig Destroyer sound. The riffs are razor sharp and technical, the guttural vocals are absolutely gut retching, and the production is pretty thickened up. It's not as heavy as Infected Society, and a fair bit muddier, which is a little distracting, but nothing too, too bad. Contrary to Infected Society, Miserable Failure's riffage is more metal oriented than punk inspired. There's a lot more tremolo picked speed riffing than jumping power chords, and more riffs in the higher registers, which for some reason remind me of Behemoth. I dunno why.

I do want to touch on the vocals here for a second, though. There are two vocalists, Bleu handling lead vocals, and Maldito manning the backing vocals. Bleu reminds me of Jon Chang from Gridlink, except not quite as terrifying, and almost mismatched against the heaviness of Miserable Failure's music. That being said, Maldito's brutal lows fucking shred, and are definitely reminiscent of good ol' Bill Steer's vocals in Reek of Putrefaction and Symphonies of Sickness.

Score: 3/5

Miserable Failure is the weakest of the three parts to this split, if only slightly. They bust out some solid grind jams, but the mix of muddy production and blindsiding high vocals distracts me too much to fully appreciate the awesome drumming and riffage.

Overall, I think this is a really solid split. It's another release that is slowly solidifying Kaotoxin's foothold on the French grind scene, and showcases some pretty varied, but consistently enjoyable music. You can check out the bands on Facebook (Infected Society, F Stands For Fuck You, Miserable Failure) and you can listen to the whole split for free(!), here. A CD version will be available August 5th, 2013, and I highly recommend you pick a copy up.

That's all for now, folks!

-DG

Blastbeat Reviews: Clutch, Nails, Wandersword

School sucks. Since I don't have much time to write full reviews consistently, I'm going to run a series of posts called Blastbeat Reviews, which is going to be a bunch of really quick reviews of albums I was planning on reviewing but never got the time to, all together in one post. Since a majority of my in depth reviews are lesser known/ obscure/ hipster bands, I'll include some more mainstream stuff in here, too.

Clutch - Earth Rocker

Clutch, for those of you  who don't know, is one of the best bands on the planet. It doesn't matter if you're into brutal, bone crushing deathcore, whimpy-ass indie hipster shit, or swagalicious gangster rap, you like Clutch. If you think "Gee willikers David, I don't like Clutch!" You clearly haven't listened to enough Clutch loud enough, yet. This four-piece lays out the best groove laden rock I've ever heard, and their classic albums like Blast Tyrant and Robot Hive/ Exodus get near-daily plays from me.

I think Earth Rocker is a step up from their previous effort, Strange Cousins from the West, and shows the band laying out those danceable grooves and riffs all over the place. You can't listen to songs like "Crucial Velocity", "The Wolfman Kindly Requests", or the title track, "Earth Rocker" without shaking your hips, bobbing your head, and tapping your feet. Earth Rocker allows you to adjust your pants so that you may dance the good time dance, and send the onlookers and innoccent bystanders into a trance. Score: 4.5/5

Nails - Abandon All Life

Man, oh man. Nails. Fucking Nails. Abandon All Life is the 2013 follow up to 2010's Unsilent Death, which I thought was flippin' amaze-balls. Abandon showcases even more pissed off grindy, powerviolence-y hardcore than before, causing a massive outbreak of fist sized wall-holes across the nation.

Kurt Ballou of Converge has used his production wizardry to make Nails sound even heavier than before, which I thought wasn't even possible. The drums and guitars are freaking huge on this record. I have to be honest and say that I prefer the vocals on Unsilent compared to Abandon because while Todd Jones still sounds like a maniac on the brink of causing a mass homicide, his voice just gets lost a bit in the giant wall of sound pouring out of your speakers. Overall, it's still a great album that will destroy necks everywhere.

Wandersword - Waiting for War

Wandersword is a Russian melodic death metal band with a viking/ folky  theme. Taking cues from bands like Equilibrium, old Wintersun, and Ensiferum, Wandersword bust out some catchy and energetic tunes on Waiting for War. The musicianship is really tight and the songwriting is pretty solid to boot for the band's debut release.These guys really remind me of local folk metallers Unbowed, but with a slightly less atmospheric sound. Wandersword plays a more straightforward style of metal based more firmly in old Scandinavian melodic death metal.

I've got to pick on the vocals a little bit, though. The harsh vocals don't vary enough for my tastes, and sound a little too thin to me as well. They're deep growling vocals, but I feel like the vocalist doesn't show any dynamics, so they wear out their welcome before the album finishes running its course. Other than that, I think Waiting for War is a solid, lean release from these guys. I hope to see where Wandersword go from here.

That's all for now, folks!

-Grave Dave