TECH DEATH WEEK PART III: Artificial Brain - Labyrinth Constellation (2014)

I'm gonna phone this one in a bit because I spent all day chilling and had no time for horrific death metal, but that shouldn't deter you from checking out today's tech death band.

Meet Artificial Brain, hailing from New York. This band gets one thing right from the get-go: the cover art is an accurate depiction of the music itself. Just look at this massive Warhammer 40.000 inspired monster: you've got some cybersoldiers looking a lot like Necrons battling weird robot insect-like creatures on a crumbling planet with explosions and solar flares going on in the background. I was sold instantly just by looking at the cover.

And the music is just as crushing as the cover suggests. Take the dissonant, angular riffs of Portal, further mangled through a futuristic filter, replace the Curator's otherworldly vocals with some bowel-churning, gravel-throated vocals fit for a cosmic war between hostile races, drench all instruments into cavernous reverb, add a ton of crypto-scientific lyrics about colliding planets, cyborg sentient molecules and billions of worms exploding out of human carcasses and you end up with Labyrinth Constellation. Technical death metal to invade haunted, barren planets to.

PROS:

- That fucking Warhammer 40k artwork

- Strong sci-fi lyrics and imagery

- Recommended if you like cavernous death metal with a technical edge

- Their vocalist looks like a fat Riddick

CONS:

- Necrons were my favorite race but idk they were kinda expensive and too god damn slow

Get The Shot - No Peace In Hell (2014)

What would you do if part of the building where you happen to work is blown to bits and pieces and you suddenly get some unexpected time off? I'd listen to some hardcore punk, of course!

Which is exactly what 'Get The Shot' deliver throughout the course of twelve angry songs that focus on, well, basically shouting at anything or anyone that stands in their way, hoping to prove a point. 

Which they do. I don't know exactly what that is, however they have big-ass choruses where you feel compelled to scream along and throw your fist into the air in approval. And I'd say that's pretty much all that you need from this kind of music, right? With an occasional shred here and there, 'No Peace In Hell' is the kind of album to which all hell would break loose if played live (get it? the intended pun?).

And by that definition alone, they deserve a place on Tzeeeac. Mosh on!

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TECH DEATH WEEK PART II: Aeon of Horus - Existence (2014)

CHESTER

Tech Death Week continues with a new album from an old favorite of mine, the Australian band Aeon of Horus. Existence is only their second full length album, even though they've been active since 2006. The first impression the new album left on me wasn't particularly good: it sounded kinda muddy and same-y and rather uninspired. I was a bit bummed out, but I decided to keep going and gave it a few more listens, hoping it would click along the way.

However, my initial thoughts haven't swayed much in the album's favor. I must give credit where it's due: the guys are obviously highly proficient with their instruments. The playing is tight across the board and the highlights are all the little futuristic synths and keyboards that pop up in the background. You must pay really close attention to hear them, but once you do, you realize just how big of an effect they have on the sci-fi atmosphere of Existence. The guitarist also has a knack for punctuating his playing with enough melody and variation to break through the monotony that otherwise plagues most of this album.

He can't save an entire album single handedly, unfortunately. Like I said in the beginning, the songs tend to sound very similar, which I think might be due to the unfortunate mixing which puts the interesting melodic riffs and futuristic synths in the background while making sure the drums (the drummer is very competent, but the kit sounds flat and lacks the power to really propel the music forward) and vocals (which are, simply put, boring, with very little variation from standard, run-of-the-mill growling) are right in your face. I feel like the most exciting parts of this album have been ignored by accident and the band has put their capital on elements that fail to help them distinguish from the mass of death metal bands across the world. The lyrics are pretty cool, though.

Forever cycled through the absolute zero

Warping, twisted through the mental fabrication

Stemming from star fused active biochemistry

....then spiral, centre, radiate

This new state of matter... its conscience

While its intentions are good, listening to the entirety of Existence becomes tedious, with memorable moments being few and far between. You're better off listening to early Aeon of Horus, like a true IMN.

PROS:

- Some interesting guitar work

- Cool futuristic synths (if you listen very closely)

CONS:

- Horrible cover art; where are the robots and aliens??

- Lacks variety and exciting moments

- Uninspired vocals

- Flat mixing, conveying no sense of power and motion

- "i liked the demo better"

MUSIC NOTES: The Hotelier - Home, Like Noplace Is There (2014)

• Anti-pop anarcho-punk-emo thingie outfit from Worcester, Massachusetts.

•  Home, Like Noplace Is There takes cues from numerous midwestern emo and screamo acts, both mainstream and independent, such as Sunny Day Real Estate, Jimmy Eat World, Crash of Rhinos, to name a few.

• Consequently, the album has a timeless feel; it's so rich in influences that you can place it in basically any period of the emo timeframe.

• The obvious drawback that comes with being so tied to its roots is that it doesn't push the envelope in any way. Not that I have a problem with that.

• The energy on this damn thing is mind boggling.

• Top-notch production and instrumental work.

• Emotional and highly introspective lyrics that deal with issues such as losing friends, coming from broken homes, anxiety, depression, etc. It's been done so many times that it has become a staple of the genre by now, but who cares, right?  

• Brilliant writing and storytelling. The lyrics are so rich in details that they might as well turn them into a script and make a movie starring Michael Cera and Ellen Page.

• Your Deep Rest, which is about a guy who's trying to invent excuses to not go to his best friend's funeral is the most creepy and uncomfortable up-beat song I've ever had the chance to listen to.

• Life is a Drag is a two minute long scream-a-thon about life being a drag. Who would've guessed, eh?

TZEEEAC RATING: would listen while smoking a blunt and contemplating on my life/10

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TECH DEATH WEEK Part I: Archspire - The Lucid Collective (2014)

If 2013 was the year I got back into black metal via the advent of Marco black metal, 2014 is shaping up to be the year I once again become interested in technical death metal. It looks like a ton of tech death bands have put out new albums while my back was turned, including some old favorites of mine, so I think it's time I got back in the game.

Having said that, we're kicking off a week-long series of daily articles, each focusing on one tech death album released in 2014. For the first time, I will be using a pro/con system to rate every release, so it's easy for you to figure out which albums you're most interested in. 

So if you're a fan of technical death metal or just looking to get acquainted with the genre, join me for a week of dick-snapping drumming, mind-bending guitar wizardry, gut-puncturing bass lines, throat-ripping vocals and lyrics so science-y they would make Stephen Hawking's head spin!

This Monday, we're blasting this series off in full force with the sophomore album by Canadian tech death neuromancers Archspire, entitled The Lucid Collective. The original "sweet bros" initially made their name known in 2011 with their first album, All Shall Align, which was an enticing cut of quality technical death metal constructed out of sweep picking, cargo shorts and shaved heads. The Lucid Collective sees the Vancouver outfit upping their game every way imaginable: this whole album is an outstanding display of technicality and aggression.

The sci-fi theme of the album is a perfect vehicle for showcasing the band's skills: there's pretty much non-stop drum kit abuse, with blast beats and interesting fills flying around like shrapnel; their guitar-work is more creative than ever, with numerous tempo and mood changes, ranging from futuristic guitar lines to artillery-like riffs that pound away at your very sanity; the bassist lays down intricate grooves to compliment the spaced-out atmosphere and the vocals are the most impressive element of this album. They're very varied, with percussive, violent barks, growling and high pitched shrieks constantly rotating across songs, providing even more dynamics to the tracks. You only need to hear the song Fathom Infinite Depth to know these guys are really on to something: it starts off with what I can only describe as death metal rapping, moves on to all-out sonic warfare, morphs into an atmospheric ambient piece then quickly resumes the carnage. All in all, The Lucid Collective is an awe-inspiring album and one that will surely place Archspire in the great pantheon of tech death masters. 

Oh, and they've also included a song which references I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Nerd status: confirmed.

PROS: 

- amazing cover art 

- sci-fi themed songs that RIP

- jaw-dropping technicality

- next-level vocals
- br00tal snare sound

- BLEARGH!!!

CONS:

- ????

Ornamental Headpiece - Masks of Ash (2014)

Man, I love bands with weird names - it's actually one of the things that draws me ever deeper into the extreme metal hole. Imaginations run rampart and bands sometimes land on the craziest, oddest possible choices to represent themselves as one musical entity. 

And it doesn't get much weirder than naming your band Ornamental Headpiece. I could maybe see this name fitting a goofy, spazzed-out electronic outfit, but these guys play ass-ripping war metal infused with some good old punk tinges. And make no mistake: there is way more to this band than just their name. Their music is some of the best and most honest metal I've heard recently. They manage to masterfully go from blast-beating and all-out sonic warfare one second to some the catchiest, punkiest riffage to ever disgrace your ear drums, pretty much forcing you to pull your t-shirt over your face, run outside and scream at people like a maniac. 

Boots on the Ground is hands-down my favorite track from this 4-song release. It starts off as pure Immortal worship and, at around the 0:35 mark, the song suddenly turns into a groovy punk anthem urging you to pray to death. The filthy, lo-fi vocals are the final nail in the coffin. Or is it maybe the fact that midway through the song, the band switches gears again and does a smooth, almost ambient passage, only to go back into bulldozer-mode a few second later and lay waste to the battleground once more? These dudes know how to craft a good song. 

So if you're a fan of trippy blackened punk and enjoy people asking you in bewilderment "what the fuck are you listening to?", you should definitely blast some Ornamental Headpiece. These guys rip!

MIDWEST NOSTALGIA: The Feel Bad Hit of the Winter - Self Titled (2014)

Are you having a nice day? Is the sun shining down on your face? Are kittens and rainbows dashing out of your ass and you feel like the whole world is a beautiful place and everyone is part of one global family? ARE YOU FEELING OKAY ABOUT THINGS?

Then meet The Feel Bad Hit of The Winter, a three-piece group from Kansas City that will make you feel nostalgic for virtually every past moment of your life, including the most mundane of them, like that time when you accidentally washed your teeth with shaving cream. Not even the best weed in this world will make you feel better after listening to this damn thing. They're also big fans of Queens of the Stone Age, as their name indicates. 

The Feel Bad Hit of the Winter reminds me of every coming-of-age movie I've watched in the months preceding my high school graduation. You know those montages that show random moments of one's life that we always dismiss for being too cheesy or tear-jerking, but we watch in private whenever we feel like shit? That's how this album feels. It'll leave such a bittersweet taste in your mouth that you'd wish you were a kid again, when you could easily solve that problem by taking a sip from a bottle of Gatorade and digging a hole in the backyard. It won't make you cry, but it'll surely bring you into that awkward mental state when you can't decide whether to cry and eject all the misery out of your system, or to stubbornly plunge yourself even deeper into the depression by munching nachos and watching Louie in your underwear for the remainder of the weekend. It's good, is what I'm trying to say.

The production is as lo-fi as you would expect from a garage album -  distorted guitars, vocals soaked in reverb and craaazy drumming. Although the album kicks off with the adrenaline rush of a track, Lend A Hand, it gets progressively slower and more experimental. The three minute long jam-a-thon, Chato,  is the perfect example on how to build a song in such a way that it tells its story through the power of sound and rhythm. Weirdly enough, that's also the biggest complaint I have with Feel Good - the vocals are, let's just say, not really on par with the instrumental work. It feels like they went out of their way to create this dark, almost cinematic atmosphere by piecing and polishing the instrumental aspect till exhaustion and they couldn't decide which way they wanted to go - fully instrumental or not. This issue becomes blatantly obvious once you reach Mind The Monsters, a track with which they might as well have taken the ''fully instrumental'' route - strewing an otherwise great instrumental with tiny bits of vocals makes it really distracting. It's not like the lead can't sing, don't get me wrong - it's more of a quantitative issue rather than a qualitative one. 

Still, Feel Good Hit of the Winter is a solid debut and it's surely worthy of your time. Just keep in mind that no matter how gloomy and depressing this album might get, it doesn't shy away from giving you a nudge and a friendly ''it's gonna be okay'' pat on the back. But don't worry, it'll still leave you with a general feeling of sadness inside.

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RUDIMENTARY PENI - Death Church (1983)

"Rudimentary Peni are a band so fucking good that no one will ever understand them; I doubt they understand themselves." - Steve Albini, 1993 

Cold hard facts first: this is the fourth Rudimentary Peni re-release on Southern (after Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric, Cacophony and Archaic), remastered and repackaged. And while it's about fucking time that these classics are being made available again (if you don't count the, yes, agreed, very well done - to put it nicely - "fan club releases“ on the notorious Noise Not Music label)... well, to quote George R.R. Martin: “There is strong shadow where there is much light."

Death Church was originally released in 1983 on Corpus Christi, the sister label of Crass Records, home to UK Decay, Conflict, Icons Of Filth and even Crucifix, and quickly became a heralded underground classic and influence to artists as diverse as Chelsea Wolfe and US Black Metal legends Krieg (who will soon release an EP of Rudimentary Peni covers). Primarily the brainchild of Nick Blinko, Rudimentary Peni did not only push the barriers of punk itself, but created a world of their own through sound and vision. It's hard to imagine their morbid and haunting sounds without the stark black and white nightmarish art of Blinko - all part of the package, a Gesamtkunstwerk. It really comes as no surprise that Rudimentary Peni and Death Church in particular sound the way they do: at the time of the recording, Nick Blinko was diagnosed with Schizoaffective disorder and guitarist Grant Matthews was struck with cancer.

"No longer want to listen to your insane lies, or call for the blood of those who've died, or lust for the tears of another to be cried, no longer want to suffer this pain inside. No longer feel the need to crush all in sight, or play any part in a cruel and bitter fight to maintain a blood stained curse of pride, no longer want to suffer this pain inside. No longer want to suffer this pain inside."

Nick Blinko creates his art when he is not on medication, letting his inner demons run free, creating visual nightmares that would scare the living shit out of Goya and Bosch, a macabre world of disfigured spectres and skeletons. The music of Rudimentary Peni sounds just like that: it's punk, yes, but it's so much more. The songs explode with sheer energy and lunacy, part early 80s UK anarcho punk with angry diatribes against religion in general and the plague of Catholicism in particular, part spaced out "art rock" for lack of a better term, not in a Cream or King Crimson kind of way, but more like the more experimental moments of (of course) Crass.

Death Church does not serve as a vehicle to exorcise inner demons, it proudly wears on them on the sleeve, quite literally. The Socialist Patients' Collective proudly demanded "Turn illness into a weapon" in Germany of the 1970s, and along with the homonymous Australian industrial pioneers, Rudimentary Peni might just be the soundtrack for it.

Now speaking of the reissue here, at least the CD version that I have here is fucking terrible. I am not a friend of remastered classics to begin with. If a record sounded good in the first place, leave it the fuck alone. If ain't broke, don't fix it. A good song is a good song is a good song, and it will remain a good song, no matter if you play it on an expensive audiophile high fidelity stereo system or an fucking wax cylinder. Yes, I have to agree, there are a few nice touches to the "new" sound, everything sounds a bit cleaned up, but please... if you re-release a classic album, stay true to what it was. And while the "improved" sound is just a minor complaint here, it's the packaging that is pure garbage. The once amazing full fold out cover artwork has been reduced to a meager 5 x 5" piece of toilet paper. However, that does take away from the genius behind the madness.

To this day, 31 years after it was first released, Death Church remains one of the greatest albums ever written.



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Tumbleweed Dealer - Resurrected Yet Again (new single)

No idea how I've managed to miss this, but the bongriffic (it's a combination of the words bong and riff and terrific, get it? I'm a wordsmithing genius, the voice of a generation) weedians from Montreal, Quebec's Tumbleweed Dealer have released a re-recorded version of Resurrected Yet Again, the final track from their excellent debut EP, Death Rides Southwards. It sounds better than ever, with crispy guitar lines and perfect mixing. It really breathes new life into the track. The song comes with a sweet poster to go along with it, designed by Alexandre Goulet. 

Tumbleweed Dealer are actually gearing up for the release of their second full-length album, for which they just finished recording. It is now in the mixing stage and, if this new single is any indication, it's going to be their best work yet. I'm psyched to hear it and if you haven't heard this amazing band yet, it's high time that you do! For fans of Earth, stoner rock and bluesy grooves. 

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We have a new Tumblr and it's about band shirts!

Well, the title of this post pretty much says it all. 

I was bored at work the other day and seeing how I catch myself looking in awe at various band shirts a surprising amount of times, I decided to dust off my old Tumblr account and repurpose it as yeahbrobandshirts! - basically a photo dump of cool band shirts. Useful for design inspiration or simply gawking at all the cool merch floating around the world. I usually try to include at least a Bandcamp or Facebook link to the band, so if anyone ends up actually buying a shirt or listening to the bands I post, all the better! 

Here is the link to yeahbrobandshirts as well as the official TZEEEAC Tumblr page. If you like what we post, follow us and spread the word. Thanks. 

PS: I'm preparing a special series of posts that will run for one straight week, so be on the lookout for that.

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