Funeral Rain Press Corps

Genres: Doom, Hardcore, Sludge
Label: Anthropic Records

Philadelphia’s own Anthropic Records lets another free compilation CD out of it’s doors, and it’s chock full of Philly’s greatest doomsayers and sludge masters.
It features tracks from Bubonic Bear (“Throat Cancer Mountain”, 8), Wormrider (“Heroic Brew”, 7), The Green Evening Requiem (“Debilitation Tide”, 9), Ladder Devils (“Pyramid”, 8), Distress Signal (“Untitled”, 7), Thee Nosebleeds (“Fenderhead”, 7), Deathbeds (“Danny Husk”, 9), Vulcan (“Stranger in Black”, 7), and Dirt Worshipper (“The Absence of Color and Light”, 9).
In all, it’s pretty fucking sweet, and a good way to wreck your eardrums. If you’re into doom and sludge, it’s perfect, especially since it has a nice hardcore edge to some of the songs to throw in some variety.
8 out of 10.

Genre: Black Metal
Label: Candlelight

Holy shit folks. HOLY. SHIT.
Black metal without any pretense, just anger. Raw hatred. And disgust. Yeah, that about sums this up.
Gorgeous instrument work, vocals that are as violent as they emotional, and a ‘raw’ sound that does not equate to ‘shitty’. These Americans have even foregone the grim stage names and corpse paint, choosing to let their music do the talking for them.
Just fucking brilliant. This is the future of American black metal, right up there with Twilight and The Atlas Moth (who aren’t pure black metal, but whatever).
10 out of 10.

Genre: Progressive, Black, Doom, Death, Sludge
Label: Anthropic Records

I was all sorts of overjoyed to receive this particular album in the mail the other day and let me tell you why; The Green Evening Requiem and their label Anthropic Records (which drummer/vocalist Evan Madden runs) were some of the first people to send material to E-MetalSpace. It’s been about two years but still, it’s always nice to have return business!

I first heard The Green Evening Requiem through their demo from 2005. And I was head over balls in love with their sound! It was a sinister mixture of progressive blackened death metal and it left it’s scorched mark on my soul. And since then, a split, a promo and a full length have passed me by, so I’m a little out of touch with the Philly based trio. But as soon as I popped Decomposer in my player, it felt like I hadn’t missed a thing! They’ve built up a complex, progressive tinge to all of their tracks and added a heftier dose of doomy sludge to the mix! I was in metal-geek heaven! While the heavier vocals sit in this weird blackened hardcore limbonic area, there are some cleans that smooth out some of those bumps. Not to mention the progressively sludgy riffs and intriguing drum choices  that are full of hooks and jabs to your genre biases!

Overall: It’s not exactly what a lot of your would expect from a couple of the dudes in Woe and Woods Of Ypres, but it’s pretty goddamned awesome in my book!

8.5/10

The Green Evening Requiem On MySpace

Also Posted On E-MetalSpace