Best of 2013

2013 has been a bit of a mixed bag, outside of Thee Claw.
There's been a number of issues that have affected me in my personal life, meaning that after a pretty strong start to the year, things kind of petered out a little bit towards the middle and latter parts of the year, being unemployed for about six months meant that any plans we had to get to festivals (including Brofest - still gutted about that) were put on ice, but at least I managed to make it along to see Sabbath with Ozzy, who did not disappoint!
There are other things that quite frankly don't need to be brought up on here, if you know me, you'll understand why Thee Claw, which is a labour of love for me, had to take a back seat for a while.

Anyway! There were numerous release that I have enjoyed immensely this year, the best of which are in a big, long, unordered list below.

To everyone I dealt with via this website over the past 12 months, keep it up, you're the best.
 Here's to a boss 2014 - hope to see some of you out and about over the course of it!

Bölzer - Aura
Satanic Dystopia - Double Denim Shotgun Massacre 
The Jeffrey Uppercut – Live Hard
Beastwars – Blood Becomes Fire
Opium Lord - The Calendrical Cycle - Prologue:The Healer 
 Master - The Witchhunt
Crypt Lurker - Baneful Magic, Death Worship and Necromancy Rites Archaic 
Pestilence - Obsideo 
Dashwood (EP)
Darkthrone - Underground Resistance 
Wraiths - S/T EP
Ghold - Galactic Hiss 
Uzala - Tales of Blood and Fire
Artillery - Legions
Black Magician - The Pursuivant 
Motörhead - Aftershock 
Altar of Plagues - Teethed Glory and Injury 
Cathedral - The Last Spire 
Seagraves - Weight of the World 
Iron Hearse – Get in the Hearse 
Suicidal Tendencies - 13 
Gurt/Limb - Split 
Black Sabbath - 13 
Suffocation - Pinnacle of Bedlam 
Electric Taurus - Veneralia 
Trouble - The Distortion Field 
 Portal - Vexovoid 
 Complete Failure - The Art Gospel of Aggravated Assault 
Koresh – Chump 
Manilla Road - Mysterium 
Sodom - Epitome of Torture 
Biche – EP 
Deicide - In the Minds of Evil

Crypt Lurker - Baneful Magic, Death Worship and Necromancy Rites Archaic

"My hour is almost come, When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames must render up myself."

Whilst the metal world delights in the occult rock false doom of bands like Ghost and Uncle Acid, sombre, atramentous types have been gathering in the dark, harking back to traditional, funereal death/doom and writing tunes to make toes curl.
 
Crypt Lurker are one such band, drawing together elements from all dark corners of the metal world, the stygian crawl of Burning Witch, the sprawling emptiness of dISEMBOWELMENT and the harsh cold of early Darkthrone but carving their own niche with so much more than spectres of the nineties.
Opening with the mesmerising riff of "Shadowclad, Pale", Crypt Lurker conjure up a thick atmosphere, punctured by a tolling bell and ghastly vocals.This dreadful, cloying feel continues into "Bearer of the Two Torches", resulting in almost twenty minutes of slow, downtuned riffing, before the relatively short "Crossing the Abysmal Depths" with it's wardrum-style introduction, strangely majestic feel and sound of buried strings prepares the way for the epic EP closer “To the Piping of Two Amorphous Idiot Flute-Players” - a ten minute-plus journey into some form of Lovecraftian nightmare.
This is real death/doom, and should be as much of a fist in the face of metal that the Peaceville Three were to an equally unimaginative scene in their day.

Crypt Lurker have been making a name for themselves playing with the likes of Black Magician, Dragged into Sunlight and so forth, and this 12" EP is out in strictly limited numbers from Ulthar Records, to be pressed on CD by Mordgrimm Records later this month.

www.facebook.com/cryptlurker 
www.ultharrecords.com 
www.facebook.com/ultharrecords

Limb / Gurt - Split Roast EP

Frightening the neighbours courtesy of Witch Hunter Records is the new combined release from Gurt and Limb - and what a release, really showcasing where sludge is at in the UK right now. Each band has contributed an original track, a cover version, and then covered a track by the other band on the split - resulting in a unique, varied selection.

Gurt kick off the proceedings with new song "Sophisticate" Southern style sludge boogie that barrels along nicely and gets your head nodding and foot tapping (I even broke into some air drumming),  and their cover of Limb's "Gift of the Sun" is transformed into a fuzz-heavy whirlwind of a track,  but the strangely jarring cover of Talking Head's "Psycho Killer" is an unexpected highlight here - it lends itself to the heaviness in a way that I would never imagine, breaking down into a middle-of-the-pit stomp at the end. Most interesting.

Long time Claw favourites Limb debut a new track, "Plague Doctor", a mid paced barnstormer with casual, nodding Sabbath tones giving way to a heads-down middle section that picks up the pace a slightly before shuddering to a halt like a jack-knifing truck. Lesser-known Queen track "Son and Daughter" gets the fuzz treatment here, mutating into a riff-heavy, howling phantom of it's original version. Brian May on spacecakes. The EP closes with Limb covering Gurt's sweary "Soapfeast" and putting their own stamp all over it, then dragging it to it's feet and stamping on it again.

All in all, WHR have put together two of the most interesting sludge bands in the UK at the moment and done something fresh and new - a new highlight in an already impressive catalogue.

Get yourself over here for limited edition handmade CDs, NOW.

Confine - Setting Fire to the Western Hemisphere

In the vein of powerviolence bands like Infest et al, Confine's Setting Fire to the Western World is a 100 mile an hour attack that just seethes - even when they slow to a glacial crawl on Abstraction, it serves to intensify the feeling of anger apparent throughout the tracks on offer.

Eight songs in seven minutes - if you like your hardcore fast and grinding, then this staccato outing is just what you need.

Think along the lines of Total Fucking Destruction etc and you'll be in the ballpark.

Available now from the ever reliable Witch Hunter Records.

http://witchhunterrecords.bigcartel.com/

http://confine.bandcamp.com/

The Coffeen - You Must Be Certain of the Coffeen

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Koresh - Chump

Like a punch in the face, Koresh don't fuck about, straight up hateful, bass heavy sludge with a definite tongue in the ol' cheek as embodied on the cover.
With song titles like Straightedge Til Midnight and the inspired You Can Call Me Gaahl, you might be pretty sure what to expect from this London quintet.

No-messing  sludgecore in the vein of Charger or Black Eye Riot, that good old English tradition like drinking white cider on the Waltzers in the rain. You know what you are going to get from Koresh, and I know that you need it. The songs are all short and to the point - no need for drawn out riffing here.
Chump barrels into your life like amphetamine paranoia - when I imagine them playing live I imagine it looking like a fight in a cartoon - a big cloud of dust with the occasional fist, headstock or drumstick coming out.

Brilliant.


www.witchhunterrecords.bigcartel.com
www.witchhunterrecords.bandcamp.com
www.facebook.com/WitchHunterRecords
www.twitter.com/witchhunterrecs
www.witchhunterrecords.tumblr.com

Electric Taurus - Veneralia

In the press release for Veneralia, Ireland's Electric Taurus claim that they aren't trying to reinvent the wheel, nor would they want to. And they are right - why would anyone want to reinvent the wheel when it rolls like this? Wearing their influences on their sleeves, this is a Sabbath infused, Pentagram like romp through some familiar ground, yet still full of surprises (see Prelude to the Madness)
With a crisp, clean production and an all round feel good factor, this is just the kind of thing to get your foot tapping along with a couple of beers.
Very bluesy in places, with some excellent bass work and drumming that underpins the guitar, this is an excellent release that I'd proudly file next to Orange Goblin or Spiritual Beggars in my collection.

For anyone who is sick of occult rock - and that's got to be a fair few of you! - you could do a lot worse than track down this slab of trad doom, it's nice to see a modern, doom style band that look beyond Sabbath for inspiration.

Great stuff!

Electric Taurus:

Reverbnation

BandCamp

Facebook
You Tube

Wraiths - 2012 EP

Yeah I slept on it.
But It's here now.

Hailing from North East England, when a band has a logo like that and has song titles like Church Burner, they better be good, and they don't disappoint, although they might not be what you'd immediately expect. Their 2012 EP has been given a 2013 release by Witch Hunter Records, 

five tracks of metallic hardcore, true crossover, with churning guitars and hectic vocals.

Each song pummels you into submission, just when you think you are getting a handle on it, it will twist off into some other direction leaving you chasing after it.

Wraiths obviously have a lot of disparate influences, all of which come together in a claustrophobic manner on this EP, yet are hard to separate and identify, as the band have forged their own identity.

Hardcore kids will love it, executing spinning roundhouses and flailing into each other, metal heads can headbang to it, you can all slam into each other using it as a soundtrack.

There is a definite negativity permeating the songs and the sound of the band - you can sense the antagonism building at the start of Hell Ride - flattening you into the ground so that when the quiet section comes in you are completely unprepared for it, but anticipating the mosh part that you know will follow.

Album closer Monolith is a seven minute plus Darkcore epic, travelling through different musical themes and tempos, but is a strangely cathartic experience, as is the whole EP, proof that there may yet be strength through negativity.

Grab yourself a tape, a download or a bundle NOW.

Electricjezus - Грязь поколений

The pain... the pain of being dead!

Electricjezus are brilliant, and utterly bonkers.
I think that in Britain, we have an affinity for things that are slightly eccentric and off the wall, as such when I first received an email from Electricjezus guitarbass(you will understand shortly)/ vocalist Ruslan, my interest was definitely aroused:
The group consist of 2 people, but a set of instruments remains classical – guitar, drums, bass. It became possible by installing single bass pickup in the neck of guitar. Also we use a very thick strings for best bass sound and use two 22” rides or piece of metal for hi hat.
So what do we have? A record, recorded completely live, using whatever instruments were at hand.
This is the type of thing that we used to go nuts for in the early days of Thee Claw, yet this kind of thing has been overtaken in our every day listening for some reason.
But not for any longer, as I am floored by this recording and it's unique charm.
Inbetween the songs are samples from horror movies, eerie, hideous bursts of laughter in the spaces between pummelling riffs and rolling drums.
Lyrics are recorded entirely in Russian, giving an otherworldly feel to the screamed and growled vocals.  The album's name translates as Mud of Generations, and you have a good, solid hybrid of the likes of Melvins, Today is the Day and Fudge Tunnel with old Soviet synthesizers and creepy old pianos in the mix too.  Oleg's drumming blazes ahead, and you get a real idea of the guys playing together in a cold rehearsal space, using whatever they can lay their hands on to create a maelstrom of riffery.
Absolutely brilliant.

Make your way over to http://electricjezus.bandcamp.com/

Biche

Meddy (drums) and Loïck (guitar & vocals) are Biche; a sludge duo from Riems in France, and this self released album has them plying their wares across six tracks.

I can just imagine them recording this facing each other as they play through each song, stretching out the riffs and splashing the cymbals everywhere.

Opener Agrafe-moi les couilles sur une table à repasser gives way to the more frantic 75 seconds of SUSU! and across these two tracks you get a taster of what Biche are about.

For a duo, they certainly get the ol' foot tapping, ears straining to understand Loïck's gravelly vocals over the fuzzed up guitar.  A very focussed recording that sounds surprisingly warm yet sparse.

6 Millions starts slowly – but  Loïck is on fine form vocally, tortuous rasping screams giving a proper sludge edge to proceedings.

Closing with the gritty, foreboding Un bon dimanche, this release is a very enjoyable introduction to the French duo, I'll be keeping an eye on them! 

http://biche.bandcamp.com/

Artaius - The Fifth Season

This is the début album from Italy's Artaius, containing a number of different moods and even musical styles, a great way to start off our return to reviewing with such an eclectic record.
On Italy's Moonlight Records, The Fifth Season is probably best described as a progressive-folk-metal album, although those three terms tacked together don't do it any justice.
The folk overtones come from some of the more unconventional (in metal, at least) tones of the flute and violin, which give an almost mediaeval feel to passages in the music.
Sara Cucci's vocals float over the wistful, folksy melodies provided as a backdrop by the rest of the band, who will step sideways freely to more metallic sounds frequently.
There would always be the possibility of such a juxtaposition sounding forced, but not here.
There is an almost Genesis/early Marillion-esque feel to the keyboards at least in some places (see the festival sing-along of Over the Edge, for instance), and there are even elements of Jazz present in places, and sombre piano sections.
The flute doesn't sound out of place here, often trading off passages against the keyboard, and it got me thinking of appearances of woodwind in metal – surely there's not too many?
I'm prepared to be wrong though. La Vergine E Il Lupo is the stand-out track for me, showcasing everything about the band in just under five minutes.
All in all, a very European romp through some sounds probably not visited too often by Thee Claw – but a refreshing change!

Available through Moonlight Records (Italy)
http://moonlightrecords.bandcamp.com/album/artaius-the-fifth-season

Beastwars – Blood Becomes Fire

Let the Soul Awaken!

New Zealand's Beastwars return with the follow up to their critically acclaimed (not least of all by us) self-titled release, and what a follow up it is.

With Dale Cotton sitting in the chair again, the band ensconced themselves in the studio and have bettered themselves yet again with this collection of tracks.

Straight from the off, Dune conjures up images of a stricken shuttle burning it's way through the atmosphere of a desert planet, it's horrified crew staring out of view-holes as they cling on for dear life. Matt's vocals boom out from within the band, Nathan pounding the kit in time with James rumbling through the basslines, as Clayton riffs over the top sounding like a room full of guitarists.

I've seen many bands and many in-vogue styles of metal come and go, but it's been a while since a band has come along that I can just sit back, close my eyes and create movies in my mind's eye as I listen to their records.  Beastwars do just that to me, a tradition carrying on from the last album into this one.  That's not to mean that it's business as usual – obviously, expect the fuzz laden sounds that we are used to, but the record just sounds more mature and rounded than the self-titled release did.

On Caul of Time, Matt's vocals take on a tortured, wailing feel in places as the band chug away behind him, before coming to the fore to work the riff into your mind.

The album closes with The Sleeper – an epic, slightly trippy track that gradually distorts and mutates into a writhing beast of flailing bass strings and lead guitar breaks. 

Timeless.

Get yourself over to http://beastwars.bandcamp.com/album/blood-becomes-fire Now.

Beyond Description – An Elegy for Depletion

With a seemingly eternal career, Japan's Beyond Description step up to offer up some pretty powerful thrash metal, in the great eighties sense, none of this modern nonsense here.
As you may be aware, I'm not a big fan of modern-sounding thrash metal, which is why the likes of Beyond Description and the UK's Hybris appeal so much to me.
Breakneck drumming here and fast picking are the order of the day here, Hideyuki's vocal delivery is very clear, more Tom Araya than Mille Petrozza.
As with most of my favourite thrash, the music is given plenty of room to breathe, it's a very guitar-oriented album although Hiroshi's drumming is a joy to listen to and holds the songs together tightly. As with all classic thrashers, the mosh parts contain lead breaks – I absolutely love it!
Arbitrage is probably the stand-out track on the album for me, early Sepultura style riffing giving way to a No-Remorse style mosh part before plunging head first back into the speed riffs, although Provocation (in which Yusuke's bass is given more space to make itself heard) is also a top-rate track, and just listen to the drumming on Purpose!
Great stuff, out now on Punishment 18 Records.

They Used Dark Forces.

Cathedral have released their latest (and last, apparently) video, Tower of Silence. It's a fitting epitaph for a group that carried the flame of traditional doom for a long time through some very dark ages. Part music video, part Hammer/Ossorio gothic horror, the lads here at Thee Claw will be very sad to see Cathedral go. But don't just take our word for it. Have a look, and worship the riff.

Beastwars stream new track

You're obviously well aware of how highly we rate Beastwars here, and whilst I'm dragging my heels reviewing their latest belter of an album Blood Becomes Fire, here's a little bit of news for you: Beastwars are proud to offer the free download of "Caul of Time" from their critically acclaimed new album Blood Becomes Fire. Due for release April 19, Blood Becomes Fire is gathering rave reviews and is already being heralded as one of the best metal records of 2013. "Caul of Time" is available now for free download from www.beastwars.bandcamp.com Or....you could listen to it here.

The Jeffrey Uppercut - Live Hard

When an EP starts off with a sample of Begbie from Trainspotting just after he's launched a pint glass off a balcony onto some lass's head, not only are getting a taster of what is about to come, you are shitting yourself before a note has even been played. So it is with Live Hard from The Jeffrey Uppercut.

 Like the ultimate crossover album that the Exploited always wanted to make but were too busy being a cartoon parody of themselves, Live Hard rattles your speakers with some street level, hardfaced raw punk rock.
 The ferocity of the songs is staggering, straight on from the speech from King Begbie, From Order to Disorder smashes right into you before slowing down to almost a crawl with double kicks and screeched vocals, before a squeal of feedback and a one two three four into Streetlights, which is streaming at the end of this review.
The title track is a one hundred second long beating with a boss shout-along at the end, and is followed up with Get the Fuck Out of My Way - together, surely three minutes of the toughest sounds that will be committed to disc this year.
Samples of bar room brawls and just honest to goodness scrapping permeate the chugging riffs and barked vocals, I bet their live gigs are an absolute riot!
The sheer anger at the end of Naive has to be heard to be believed, too. Rounding off with Cunt, a song that slowly builds into a hunchbacked, sneering monster; the lyrics only consist of three words, and the song only needs three words to make it's point.

 Live Hard was produced by Tom Dring (Dragged Into Sunlight, Corrupt Moral Altar, Iron Witch) and it gives this punkiness a sludgy, metallic edge. If you imagine all the violent punk that you can think of (all the Boston hardcore like SS Decontrol, Negative FX, Blood for Blood, also stuff like WBTD etc for starters) and give it a rougher English working class edge, then you have The Jeffrey Uppercut. The EP should be out in the next few weeks, until then get a load of these tracks:

 
Get over to their sites and check 'em out, they are also set to play the PDSA all dayer in Kirkdale, Liverpool soon (which is a great price for a good cause):
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheJeffreyUppercut
Bandcamp: http://thejeffreyuppercut.bandcamp.com/
twitter: https://twitter.com/jeffreyuppercut

Is this the best flyer EVER?

Brilliant.
This is coming up in June at Bannerman's in Edinburgh. A flyer like this demands your attendance!

FULL OF HELL Discharges Track From Impending A389 LP Via Noisey/Vice

With a bestial eruption of noise-drenched/death-fueled hardcore which has set the underground ablaze in the past several years, crushing quartet FULL OF HELL will unload their newest sonic assault, Rudiments Of Mutilation, late this Spring via A389 Recordings.

 Responsible for releasing an epidemic of demos, singles, splits and a previous LP constantly since their inception only four years ago, FULL OF HELL create a barrage of whiplashing metallic hate, psycho-drone feedback holes, and wall noise-drenched pedal attacks a noxious brew of Converge, Cursed and Pageninetynine gone the ways of Bastard Noise, early Napalm Death and Discordance Axis. The young crew performs their live shows with incredible conviction, catapulting their energetic hatesurge into the audience and inspiring all-out melees amongst the humans. Rudiments Of Mutilation captures more of these aspects than any previous recordings, penetrating with the most corrosive blasting attacks and noise infiltration from FULL OF HELL yet, recorded with Kevin Bernsten at Developing Nations and mastered by James Plotkin (Khanate, Old, Phantomsmasher).

 Today Noisey, Vice Magazine’s music channel, drops the brutalizing third track from Rudiments Of Mutilation, the putrid “Coven of the Larynx” -- BLAST IT HERE.

 An A389 priority, FULL OF HELL will dispense Rudiments Of Mutilation on LP, CD and digital delivery June 11th alongside the massive debut from thrashers Noisem and the newest album from the iniquitous Integrity. Following very recent tours with Gaza, Code Orange Kids, Homewrecker shows through this year’s SXSW and more, FULL OF HELL already has a massive tour schedule planned for the coming weeks and more lining up through the Summer, including tours with labelmates Integrity, Gehenna, Seven Sisters of Sleep and others, performances at this year’s Maryland Deathfest and Chaos In Tejas, and a pending European tour, for starters.

 FULL OF HELL Confirmed Live Actions:

4/25/2013 Mosh Basement - Newburgh, NY w/ Raindance

4/26/2013 No Problemo - New Bedford, MA  w/ Raindance

4/27/2013 Steven’s - Hoboken, NJ w/ Raindance

4/28/2013 Gallery U - Bethlehem, NY

5/22/2013 The Zebra Club - Long Island, NY w/ Gehenna, Homewrecker

5/24/2013 Maryland DeathFest 2013 - Baltimore, MD

5/27/2013 Kingdom - Richmond, VA w/ Integrity, Gehenna

5/28/2013 Motorco Music Hall - Durham, NC w/ Integrity, Gehenna, Young And In The Way

5/29/2013 The End - Nashville, TN w/ Integrity, Gehenna

5/30/2013 Siberia - New Orleans, LA w/ Integrity, Gehenna

5/31/2013 Hotel Vegas - Austin, TX @ Chaos In Tejas w/ Gehenna

Celebrate the CruciFiction

Good Friday in Liverpool sees a gathering of Black and Doom Metal bands at the Lomax, four bands for £5.

Driving in the nails will be Chisham's PRIMITIVE GRAVEN IMAGE, Liverpool's very own NINKHARSAG (who are streaming their full album here) and CRYPT LURKER, and from the other end of the frozen M62, Mancunia's WODE (whose demo we reviewed here and you can check out here.)

I should be there for at least some of this so be sure to get hold of me and gimme copies of your demos!

I drink bitter, by the way.

Iron Hearse - Get in the Hearse

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!!!
I'm going to come straight out now and tell you how happy this CD has made me.
Much like the XII Boar and Mage CDs that have dropped onto the mat at Claw Towers this past few weeks, this has just made me think of being on summer road-trips to far off cities for gigs; it's fuzzed-out biker style world-weariness immediately becoming the soundtrack to as yet only imagined motorway races, a crate of beer between your legs as you ride shotgun.

But anyway, enough of my imagination, what's it actually like?

The lads from Wiltshire (actually not far from Malmesbury where I lived for a bit as a young lad)
 have a sound that owes as much to the darkened back rooms of pubs during the days of the NWOBHM as it does to the sunny climes of LA and Saint Vitus, and on this, their second full album, they have fashioned the skills from years of gigging into seven new tracks and a re-working of their live anthem Ain't No New Thing.

It's equal parts thundering rockers and fuzzed-out toe-tappers, in parts Sabbath-esque passages sit alongside parts that remind me of Angel Witch and so on, putting a uniquely English slant on what some would consider a more transatlantic sound.

Throughout the record there are some great lead guitar parts that put me in mind of Dave Chandler, courtesy of Grant Powell, who also handles vocals with a gruff, biker-style delivery which also stretches to almost Sean Harris territory at times.
Being a three peice, the sound is rounded out by Liam and Kev on bass and drums respectively, and this is a very low-end heavy sounding band.

A brilliant soundtrack for what looks to be a great summer for fuzzy British metal!

For Fans of: Saint Vitus, Sabbath, Angel Witch, Diamond Head, Orange Goblin

Stream it here, download for £2.50, and if you want to pay a fiver you can get a rather smart "vinyl CD" version which is an LP style sleeve with probably the coolest looking CD I've seen for ages:

Other links to check out:
https://www.facebook.com/ironhearse
https://twitter.com/Ironhearse
http://ironhearse.bigcartel.com/

DO IT!!