Funeral Rain Press Corps

Genre: Crust Punk, D-Beat
Label: Southern Lord 

Ah, d-beat. You and I haven’t been the best of friends for the past little while, have we? I’ve neglected you quite a bit in favor of more… mainstream tastes and for that, I am sorry. To make it up to you, I have spent the last two days straight listening to Swedish d-beat mavens, Wolfbrigade and their latest offering to the crusty genre, Damned.

Since I wasn’t a huge fan or Prey To The World, I wasn’t expecting too much from Damned. And to be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to think about this album at first. I mean, it’s super aggressive and has a true, grimy crust punk feel to it from beginning to end, but  it’s fairly simplistic instrumentally (no real surprise there, but I meant “more than usual”) and the vocalist’s style of “let’s see how long I can strain my voice like this” vocals get irritating pretty quick.

There are a few classic d-beat riffs going on in Damned (the latter half of the album especially) and as stripped down as some of the songs can get, it doesn’t really detract from the dark mood that Wolfbrigade has set up. Another check in the Pro box would be the drumming. While it’s not particularly mind-blowing, it is inventive. If I could just isolate the drum track and listen to it as is, I probably would every once in a while. Lots of fun to be had in Damned if you’re a fan of manic drumming in a gloomier setting. I know that I mentioned earlier that the vocals got on my nerves. Yes, they did… but they aren’t really all that bad. Sure, I’m concerned that the vocalist isn’t going to be able to speak for a week after replicating them live, but he seems to be cool with it so who am I to judge, really?

The major flaw of this album is it’s inability to stick with me after I turn off my player. I listened to Damned for TWO DAYS STRAIGHT and I couldn’t recite a single lyric or hum a single melody as of right now. All that kept happening was I would hum something off of Death Songs (When Tigers Fight)… I’m not sure if that a dis to Wolfbrigade (Sorry!) or a testament to how awesome When Tigers Fight are (still sorry WB).

Overall: From what I can remember at any given time about this album, it’s definitely a solid effort and something that should belong in any d-beat enthusiast’s collection. But I probably won’t be returning to Damned for a while. I’ll just go ahead and say that part of that is because of the repeated listens. Seriously though, don’t let my whining keep you from checking this album out.

7/10

-  Typhon

Wolfbrigade On Facebook

Genre: Black Metal, Crust Punk, Doom
Label: Independent

I’ve always had a long standing fascination with The United Kingdom. Everything from it’s incredibly rich history, beautiful countryside, interesting cuisine and it’s influence on American music. The most so being the latter with the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal… but you already knew that one, right? Anyway, both bands on this split are from the U.K. and both fit into that influential slot as well… at least, I believe they will over time.

Old Corpse Road (The Bones Of This Land Are Not Speechless) - What jumps out immediately about the tracks on this split put out by OCR is the greater variation in vocal styles. Sure it’s still got rasps by the hearse full and some spoken word bits, but the addition of more growls and some group chanting is very welcome indeed. Other than that tweak, this is the same Old Corpse Road that I went gaga over in the last issue. I do want to add this though; as unsettling and generally creepy the story told in The Witch Of Wooky Hole is, the title reminds me of a game the missus and I play in zee boudoir…

The Meads Of Asphodel (English Black Punk Metal) - Seven tracks: two original, five covers… Kind of an odd combo of songs chosen for this split. But hey, it totally works for The Meads Of Asphodel. This newly signed to Candlelight Records threesome of black metal warriors pump out some sonically twisted covers here. Some great (War Drum by Skeptix), some ok (Nazi by Hellbastard) and some offensive (You Really Got Me by The Kinks). The original tracks are really where it’s at here, even if there are only two and one is a droning intro track of profane insults about sucking Satan‘s cock. With the first two tracks, you get a feel for who The Meads Of Asphodel are and what the style has to offer the metal community at large. A unique blend of crusty black metal and underlying doom and avant garde tones. You have to actually listen to them in order to pick up what I’m laying down here…

Overall: There’s definitely a good thing going on in this split. The balance between these two groups of black metal geniuses is damn near perfect! It’s worth a listen if you’re a casual fan and ranks high on the “Must Own” side of the scale for those of you who love to dig for splits.

8.5/10

Old Corpse Road On MySpace
The Meads Of Asphodel On MySpace

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