unto others — Blog - Crushtor.net

In the Winter months, it can get really dirty and ugly - especially when there’s days you just don’t wanna get up and everybody sucks. To coin a phrase. It’s Winter and there’s not much fun to be had, especially when you’re stone motherless broke (I am right now, that could change in minute…) Here are some traxx I’ve been spinning:

The Last of Lucy - Godform

Weird name for a weird band. If they weren’t playing fret-melting tech death, what would they be playing? Twee indie rock? Something like that. What strikes me looking at the runtime of this disc is how short it is (a bit over 32 minutes) despite how many ideas one hears throughout. Empyreal Banisher clocks us over the head with lightspeed doublekick and riffs to match, lead breaks lifting off before crashing down, spiders emerging from the wreckage threatening to devour us limb from limb. This all happens within a taught three minutes seven seconds. Twin Flame is aptly titled as they chew off our ears and salve them with gentle clarinet solos (two of them!). Old school arsekicking (Sentinel Codex, Angelic Gateway) sits alongside new school dissonant, technical asskicking (Darkest Night of the Soul). Both work in brutal harmony by never belabouring the point. So much to love here.

Ollie Wride - The Pressure Point

The voice and face of the New Retro Wave is BACK! Ollie’s last record Thanks in Advance had a sexy, confident edge to it; The Pressure Point by contrast is lovelorn and weary. A Matter of Time is a bright, dare I say jaunty track that could’ve cut straight out of Buckaroo Banzai or a similar thoroughly entertaining, OTT, yet completely bonkers film. He struts through syncopated, Calypso-tinged (think Billy Ocean) contemporary (for the time) adult pop (a sax drenched The Way I See It), U2-style arena-filling homages to Radio Ga Ga, at least where that shuddering beat is concerned (Radio feat. The American English), and post-disco shuffle melding with New Jack Groove in electric dreams (Holy Drug).

Though all of the cuts are stellar thanks to meticulous production and knockout vocal performances, centrepiece Victoria is the business. It arrives on a wow and flutter of synth, Ollie’s breathy tones building tension as brisk bluesy licks accompany him, leading to an incredible release: an explosive chorus carried on the backs of a thousand pained voices: “First you tell me to go / then you tell me to stay / Your eyes are fixed on me / but you’re a million miles away” - simply irresistable. Like I’ve said so many times before, in the reniassance of 80s synthwave, Ollie Wride is IT!

Unto Others - Never, Neverland

From my Best of 2024 review:

From the hard yet jangly chords of opener Butterfly, Gabe Franco’s baritone croon, rich with metaphor comparing a difficult lover to a butterfly (I could win your heart with a melody / I could comfort you with a sweet serenade (I made) / Or I could lash my tongue in a criticism, yeah / Or put you down and pray for the tears in your eyes / I want you to die) you can just feel that this is album is dark magic pressed into thin perspex. It shifts from goth to crossover Suicidal Tendencies thrash (Momma Likes the Door Closed) to ironic post-punk meets Steinman pop (Angel of the Night) with such self-assuredness it’s almost criminal. This all occurs over three consecutive tracks, by the way. What’s even more incredible is that some of these mouthwatering cuts clock in at 7” 45 lengths: a punchy Fame, a punky Flatline, or a satisfying morsel of Blue Oyster Cult worship Hoops. It all feels like Lt. Tuck Pendleton’s bittersweet lament in Innerspace: “When things are at their darkest pal, it’s a brave man who can kick back and party.” So Unto Others did. And we reaped the benefits.

Aborted - Vault of Horrors

The Vault of Horrors is as close to a compliation or mixtape style album we’ll ever get in death metal. Each track features a who’s who in the gurgle-throatripper zoo and these Belgian goreanauts mould their necksnapping riffery to match. Archspire’s Oliver Rae Aleron joins on The Shape of Hate and it’s shotgun blasts of vocals and drums for four minutes straight. The one minute forty four fleshripper Insect Politics could slot in at a hardcore show, thanks to Jason Evans (ex-Ingested) throat stripper delivery plus semi-demi-breakdown in the dying seconds of the last act. Aborted is fun death metal. Put it on and mosh in your seat. Boom.

Opeth - The Last Will and Testament

Opeth IS BACK! Well, as far as their metallic roots are concerned. One minute twenty into §1 (yeah, I know) as their syncopated riffs crunch along, Mikael Akerfeldt growls for the first time in what feels ike 20 years (Was it 20 years? When did Watershed come out? 2008? Oh fuck) Of course, it’s metal with all the weird paisley and patchouli 70s prog weaved in; dizzy Camel-isms, Jethro Tull cribbed flute parts (§4), Emerson, Lake, and Palmer riff salad surgery, and a ton of other weird stuff only your hippie uncle has ever heard of. We’re never getting another My Arms, Your Hearse, but hey, they can (and have done) much more blander fare.

Sworn - A Journey Told Through Fire

Norway’s Sworn has its feet in two worlds: one planted in dark and mystic black metal imperium of Hel Vete yore; the other in the post-Enslaved, post-Ihsahn reimagining of black metal. How? Ohhh, Dan Swanö (ex-Edge of Sanity, Nightingale, Witherscape) produced this. Now it makes sense. Their blast-beaten Scandi-shred chops are uimpeachable, as is their Finnish sadboi tendency, an Insomnium-eqsue snowdrift acoustic break in Grand Eclipse sealing a frostbitten Northernmost deal. It’s melodic black metal through and through, though you’d be forgiven if half of Dissection and half of Omnium Gatherum showed up to the studio (under Swanö’s guidance), sprinkling in a little Emperor or Old Man’s Child for good measure. There are few - if any - pitch perfect hybrids of latter-day melodic death metal AND melodic black metal out there. It may have taken fifteen years of gruesome gestation, but the journey told through riff and lick (and fire) is well worth it.

I live in Melbourne. Many Melburnians have lived here almost all their lives. None of us are used to the weather. Poking your head outside to bask in a sunny morning full of promise and dreams will be quickly dashed as you jump back inside. Grey clouds gather in an instant and you’ll be soaked in misery before you can even make the two or three steps to your car. A “Melburnian weather contingency starter pack” contains an overcoat, umbrella, sunscreen, and a Twitter account (to bitch about the unpredictability of the weather, which we all knew was a thing.) Fuck me, it’s spring already. I just saw Cattle Decapitation and the venue stunk of smug veganism and flop sweat. Cos it was sold out and humid at the Croxton. Anyway, here’s what I’ve been listening to:

Sacred Outcry - Towers of Gold

A GREEK power metal band? Surely not. Sacred Outcry formed in 1998 and in true Greeka no orris boss fashion, took 22 years to release their first record Damned for All Time. A swift two years later we have their follow-up Towers of Gold. This is a BIG DEAL in power metal since it’s their first with ex-Lost Horizon and ex-Crystal Eyes vocalist Daniel Heiman, which is a very good nutcrunchy thing. When their press packet gushes about a “meeting of golden age of the 90s and 00s power metal with the 80s American scene” they mean Rhapsody or Hammerfall mixed with, well, I’m not entirely sure. First (proper) track is all stallion gallop Hammerfall, every twelfth bar worth of vocals punctuated with an off-the-chart high note. Next track The Voyage does feel more American, thrashier in parts owing much to Jag Panzer and those huge gang choruses.

When I had this blaring through my car, I didn’t really pay much attention to it. Listening back, the neo-classical mist and cape fantasy Symphony of the Night (no Belmonts were harmed in the making) caught my ear more often than not. Semi-demi trilogy The Sweet Wine of Betrayal, The City of Stone and 15-minute guitar heroes’ journey Towers of Gold are the real meat of the album. Riding like the wind then kneeling in supplication as piano gently caresses Heiman’s face like the lace-gloved hand of a lost lover (or some shit) Towers of Gold comes damn close to matching the epic-ness of Helloween, Heiman doing his best approximation of Michael Kiske (who else) and just about pulling it off. It doesn’t make the previous 40 or so minutes dead weight, but the quality in the finale show tears strips of what came before. Worth the price of admission? I don’t know, do I fire up a CD for one song?

Faceless Burial - Speciation

Spending $15 on what could have been rent or food after their set at Exhumed a couple of months ago I consider the risk of homelessness or starvation worth it. When fellow Hysteria traveller Tom MF Hersey wondered (out loud) why “Facey B isn’t as big as Parkway” I too pondered this, also. Opener Worship is everything good about technical death metal - not too showy and just the right amount of sugary guitar-lead goodness, fizzing our brains with excitement.

It’s total Chuck Schuldiner worship, though they haven’t cribbed his entire Sound of Perseverance (that was a pun), just the spirit of it. Overall, it has that ripper taste of late 90s “what if we did this”-ness to it. The same questions Atheist, Gorguts or Necrophagist would ask. Riff after riff they throw out like ninja stars, always spiking smack dab in the middle of someone’s eye, gushing fountains of blood and guts and piss and shit everywhere (all good things.) Barely 40 minutes long, it’s perfect as is. Every time you spin it, you discover something you missed the last time around.

My Dying Bride - The Light at the End of The World

After a near-disastrous flirtation with sounds ranging from blissed out Stone Roses and electronics ala Depeche Mode (though it didn’t hurt Paradise Lost any) on their previous album, the emperors of gloom roar back to re-conquer the lost territory of death-doom. Not that anyone was really posing a challenge. Not PL, not even Anathema at this point. Even so, using the Deep Space Nine font instead of chunky serifs seemed to upset a whole lot of people.

When the band chugs towards a wall of sorrowful violin and stops for Aaron Stainthorpe’s plaintive lamentations, you know shit is back and back in a big way. The Light at the End of the World hears the band crush up withered Nick Caves and Tom Waitses and snort them wholesale. She Is The Dark moves at lightning speed compared to most of their fare, and Stainthorpe’s bloodthirsty snarl rams home the anger that belies depression and grief. High drama and romanticism ensues in The Night He Died, sort of like Type O Negative dressed in blood-stained Edwardian garb; fan favourite The Fever Sea capturing a furious ocean that threatens to turn even the most steel-hearted of men insane. They do squarely focus in on death-doom’s primeval metallic nature, especially in hard-edged rocker (by their standards) Into the Lake of Ghosts, which they would expand on in later releases (especially on A Line of Deathless Kings and the albums after.) Their talent lies in creating a faultless, multifaceted funereal sound that retains classic metal elements: soaring leads and headbang-worthy passages. Like my old friend Jan used to say (often to bands, as they were playing) “the riffs are good.” Enough said.

Cattle Decapitation - Terrasite

At Cattle Decap’s show with Fallujah (The Croxton, 17 September), our Malthusian panic merchants played mostly cuts from this and previous belter Death Atlas and everyone was pretty happy about it. That said, Terrasite is brimming with everything that makes death metal so attractive to us depraved weirdos in the first place: rib-crushing sub-bass, machine-gun double-kicks, riffs coming down like mechanised cavalry, and mastery of the brain-melter leadbreak. That otherworldly Fear Factory style robo-vox Travis Ryan does is also a big plus. It’s odd to place “songwriting” and “death metal” in the same sentence, since DA RIFF is the most important element of any extreme metal combo worth their (ethically sourced) salt. Scourge of the Offspring is chained to a circular arse-kicking machine, landing blows at such frenetic speed it might make Archspire pause to catch their breath. Cattle Decap are mighty talented practitioners of the arcane death metal art. To follow up a genre classic with something so close it can smell its decaying innards is nothing short of phenomenal. Recommended.

Unto Others - Mana

Sometimes bands emerge with one core purpose: to be as kickass as possible and not give a fuck what anyone thinks. Unto Others (originally Idle Hands) is one such band. Yeah, we like Iron Maiden, yeah we like Sisters of Mercy, what are you going to do about it? Well, rock the fuck out to it, because it’s fucking awesome. You wanna Goth dance like its the 80s, go for your fucking life on industrial banger Nightfall, punctuated by slacker harmonies and lead breaks brighter than disco ball reflections off tuning pegs. If these guys released Jackie during the Cure’s heyday, they would have been on double-bills with them within a month of release. Gabriel Franco’s devil may care baritone works well whether it’s about hitting the open road (Cosmic Overdrive) or blurring himself into drug-fucked Accept-style oblivion (Give Me To The Night) or just kinda taking the Jim Steinman piss because it’s awesome (Dragon, Why Do You Cry?) A Single Solemn Rose is their ultimate fuck you to glam rock, Franco letting his voice soar above plaintive arpeggiated guitar. You know what anguish really feels like, Jon? Nikki? Axl? Fuck off.

Their Type O Negative meets Judas Priest schtick defies expectations every time you spin this one up - it exists almost despite itself and in saying that, it makes the entire disc nigh on perfect.

I forgot the sixth record. I may not have had one. Opps!

The Six Stacker: Dirty and Ugly