Black Breath - Sentenced To Life

Southern Lord clearly wanted to start 2012 off strong. Thus they decided to unleash Black Breath's new crustcore beast Sentenced To Life onto unsuspecting fans of punk and metal alike.

Sentenced To Life. The album has a very Entombed-esque ring to the title, and the ultra-recognizable Sunlight Studio sound is certainly present on here. Like a buzzsaw through cranial plating, the guitar tone on here is crunchy, distorted, and all around heavy. In fact this is probably the most heavy crustcore album I've heard in a long time. The obvious Swedish death metal influences are probably enough to make it qualify for that award.

The whole album feels as relentless as it is heavy. Your only salvation comes in the form of "Endless Corpse" which is a plodding, horror-influenced track. The rest of Sentenced To Life is high octane aggression, especially the more crusty tracks like "Mother Abyss," the title track, and "Forced Into Possession." These tracks are pure unbridled fury and the mix of the two styles makes them feel that much more pissed off. Not in a negative way mind you but in a positive, energetic way. The album embodies this aspect really well for that reason.

The production is obviously dense and electrifyingly addictive. The distortion is great and the d-beats echo appropriately. The mixing is pretty solid as well, but I honestly wish the bass was a bit more present. It's there but buried underneath the buzzsawing guitar. It manages to make an appearance on "Of Flesh" which oddly sports a blastbeat as well. Sentenced To Life otherwise is a pretty solid exercise in crusty d-beat death that is at this point the strongest crust release of 2012.

8.0 out of 10

Tracklisting:

1. Feast of The Damned
2. Sentenced to Life
3. Forced Into Possession
4.  Home of the Grave
5.  Endless Corpse
6.  Mother Abyss
7.  Of Flesh
8.  Doomed
9.  The Flame
10.  Obey

All Pigs Must Die - God Is War

All Pigs Must Die caught my ear with their self-titled EP last year. Their first full-length God Is War caught my ear and kicked my ass as well. Here crusty kids All Pigs Must Die are as abrasive and chaotic as ever, with all the raging disdain that the genre is known for liberally sprinkling throughout its music. "Pulverization" hits like a truck, "Third World Genocide" slices with intense arpeggios, and the phenomenal "Sacrosanct" will have even the most ignorant neo-conservative Baptist joining in on the pit calls.

Did I already mention that "Sacrosanct" is phenomenal? I can't stress that enough. The track is everything crust punk should be. To summarize it's a fun, d-beat track with a great bass solo and some killer tremolo riffs slightly akin to those found in black metal. This gives "Sacrosanct" a unique feel that most crust tends to lack. All the praise I'm heaping on that one track doesn't make the rest of God Is War any worse. As I mentioned a few of the other tracks share the same themes and aggression. The opener "Death Dealer" builds into a hardcore monster and "The Blessed Void" descends into a crossover thrash riff that had me headbanging the first time I listened to it. Surprisingly the weakest track on the album is the title track, which is slower and a bit more repetitive. The closer "Sadistic Vindicator" shares some of those elements but is a bit more interesting musically, riff-wise and in exposition.

The anti-religious themes are something I find interesting. Not because they're unique themes, but they're slightly more unique when brought into this kind of music. They link these themes lyrically with the traditional crusty whining about corporatism, which is pretty cool. Another thing that I can attribute my like for this album to is the dense, highly abrasive production. The guitars are heavy, the kicks have some bass to them, and the bass itself is overdriven and apparent on nearly every track. It's a nice touch that covers the entirety of God Is War. If I had given this a listen last year I would've included it in my top 25 of 2011. It's that damn good.

8.5 out of 10

Tracklisting:

1. Death Dealer
2. Pulverization
3. Sacrosanct
4. God Is War
5. The Blessed Void
6. Third World Genocide
7. Total Extinction
8. Sadistic Vindicator

Pulling Teeth - Funerary

Been really busy these past few days. There was the Super Bowl which I didn't give a fuck about, rampaging fans all over the school with riot police, flashbangs and rubber bullets, class work, and a bunch of other shit. I also acquired around 2gbs of hip hop and have been listening to a lot of crust lately.

And thus I shall begin my triumphant return to the blogging world with Pulling Teeth's aptly titled final album, Funerary.

Pulling Teeth plays ballsy hardcore punk that is often similar to (real) metalcore or crustcore. Funerary is my first foray into Pulling Teeth's music, and it is exactly what I expected based on that description: heavily riff-based hardcore with some intense breakdowns and pissed off vocals. Following the worthwhile keyboard intro "A Bitter Harvest," crustcore anthem "From Birth" unleashes a full myriad of furies upon the listener. It's got all the fast, metallic riffing of crust as well as the soloing, the absolutely ferocious vocalwork of Mike Riley, and it all coalesces into a breakdown. The song clocks in at just under three minutes, and on the first half of Funerary that's pretty long.

The tracks following the awesome opener, "Extinction" and "Brain Drain," are both further exercises in the style. The former opens with a grinding riff followed by a breakdown, while the latter is an exercise in more traditional hardcore with its d-beats and shouts. As you can expect from the label "metallic hardcore," some of the tracks on Funerary are a bit more metal influenced, like "The New Dark Age." This isn't a bad thing by any means, but these tracks are a bit more slow to mid-paced. They're placed in the middle of Funerary as a transition. As the album closes, the tracks get longer and much more slow-paced. "Funerary" is a droning exercise in doom-structuring that continues through "At Peace" and the clean vocals and solo-driven "Whispers." It's a fitting conclusion to the band's career and the name of the album applies perfectly here. However these songs are a bit slower and more predictable, and often delve into sludge territory.

Musically speaking Pulling Teeth doesn't do this doom-influenced style perfectly despite it being fitting for the album, but since it fits the dismal atmosphere of the album so well I'll cut them some slack. The production is also very "metallic" for lack of a better word, with high gain and reverb, which adds to this atmosphere. Shame to see these guys go since the album is pretty awesome, even if the later tracks are a bit weak in their execution.

7.75 out of 10

Tracklisting:

1. A Bitter Harvest
2. From Birth
3. Extinction
4. Brain Drain
5. The New Dark Age
6. Grudgeholder
7. Plastic Tombs
8. Funerary
9. At Peace
10. Whispers
11. Waiting
12. August 29

Necromorph - Grinding Black Zero

Necromorph started out as a German black metal outfit, switched to death metal, and slowly progressed to a very Scandinavian grindcore sound. Their first full-length Grinding Black Zero is a pretty predictable mishmash of grindcore, crustcore, and death metal with a lot of that buzzsaw fuzziness that we all associate with the Scandinavian death metal and grind scene. And this shit is better than the new Rotten Sound, so don't be too quick to dismiss it just yet. Also the name "Necromorph" is applicable to the Dead Space graphic novel and videogame series, which is awesome.

Badass orgo-evil shit. Be glad it's common knowledge how to use simple power tools.

As with most grindcore albums, there's not really much to write about considering the genre is generally comprised of a flurry of blastbeats and d-beats, crunchy riffing, and aggressive vocals. The musicianship displayed by these German grind-brutes is pretty competent. "Brainless" opens with a pretty killer bassline littered with some fun rests and a solo, while "Convicted To Breath" has some almost rock-ish riffing towards the end. "When A Whisper Breaks a Neck" is a pretty melodic track as well (especially with those harmonized guitars that pop up for ~10 seconds), but its still got all the aggression of Nasum and then some. Necromorph do enter deathgrind territory a few times on the album which could be a negative for those who only like their grindcore punk influenced, but nobody likes those people anyway.

The production is goddamn chunky like Campbell's soup. Like bonesaws grinding into skulls, the guitar tone reaches a level of intensity similar to that of Entombed. Overall Grinding Black Zero is pretty derivative, but it's also pretty fun. If it pops up on shuffle, well then fuck it I'll listen through all twenty-eight minutes, but its not really something I'll find myself going back to from 2011 unless I listened to the new Rotten Sound and wanted to fix my ears...

6.5 out of 10

Tracklisting:

1.	Nautic Noise
2.	Idiotus Maximus
3.	Convicted to Breath
4.	Serve to Lead
5.	Exclusive Suffering
6.	Diary of a Disease
7.	Brainless
8.	Shot
9.	Stagnation
10.	When a Whisper Breaks a Neck
11.	Panic Worldwide
12.	Necroville
13.	Forthcoming Emancipation
14.	Black Zero