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BLACK CROSS HOTEL Feat. THE ATLAS MOTH, STABBING WESTWARD Members Channel “Robocop” In New Song “Eyes From Nowhere”; Lyric Video

https://bravewords.com/news/black-cross-hotel-feat-the-atlas-moth-stabbing-westward-members-channel-robocop-in-new-song-eyes-from-nowhere-lyric-video/

#BLACKCROSSHOTEL #THEATLASMOTH #Feat #MembersChannel #album #video #vinyl #BraveWords #metal #music

Motherless – Do You Feel Safe? Review

By Samguineous Maximus

Sometimes, you don’t need nuance. Sometimes you don’t want prog-soaked journeys through inner turmoil, or post-whatever atmospherics that whisper about pain instead of screaming it in your face. 1 Sometimes you just want music to sound like the goddamn world is on fire. Featuring members of Without Waves and site favorites The Atlas Moth, Chicago’s Motherless might have just that with their debut Do You Feel Safe? 2 Promising a slab of riff-driven sludge metal with “driving intensity that reflects both personal darkness and industrial urban weight,” Motherless seems poised to deliver a batch of vile tunes for the end times. Can these scene veterans succeed in making a compelling and punishing debut, or will they find themselves crushed under the fuzz-drenched weight of their own riffs?

The brand of sonic violence Motherless specializes in owes just as much to the depraved lineage of crust punk and d-beat as it does the virulent brand of blackened sludge from fellow Chicagoans Lord Mantis and Indian. Do You Feel Safe? eschews the aimless downtuned wandering often found in the style, instead careening between powerlifting-ready sludge killriffs and mosh-inducing hardcore parts at a breakneck pace. The result is a riffstorm that hits with the immediacy of Thou’s Umbilical, but cranked to about double the RPM (that’s riffs per minute, naturally). Even on longer songs, Motherless keep things interesting by injecting a slice of post-metal shimmer (“Darling, You Don’t Look Well”) and the serrated edge of Black Sheep Wall’s post-hardcore abrasion (“The New Romance”). Do You Feel Safe?’s brisk 33-minute runtime blows by in a way that sufficiently encourages drywall-punching, but its 8 tracks mix things up just enough as not to grow stale.

The core aggression of Do You Feel Safe? is driven by its formidable guitar work. The bludgeoning force of Anthony Cwan and Stavros Giannopoulos is as delectable as it is vile, adapting the expansive three-pronged guitar attack of The Atlas Moth and condensing it for maximum destructive capability. When they’re not blasting ahead on punkier cuts like “Reptile Dysfuntion” or the blackened aggression of “Abrupt Violence,” Motherless’s core riff flavor is that of sinister groove; built on open string intervals and syncopated chugs. Tracks like “You Seem So Damn Sure,” “Christian Math” and “Insect Politics” all center around devilishly infectious riffs, downtuned appropriately and engineered to ensure maximum headbangability. Bassist Alex Klien sticks close to the guitars, augmenting their effectiveness with a massive bass crunch. The central riff package is expanded with consistent lead guitars, which add atmosphere and textural nuance to the mammoth sludge on display.

This twisted display of aural decimation is matched by an equally punishing production job. Do You Feel Safe? features an all-star mix by Sanford Parker (Eyehategod, Yob, Darkthrone) and master by Brad Boatwright (Sleep, Obituary, Kylesa), whose impressive abilities are on full display. 3 This ensures that every palm-mute and distorted power chord from Motherless hits with the sonic impact of a freight train and ensures that everything feels as massive as the compositions demand. Giannopoulos’s powerful shriek is given enough space to shine, which lets his caustic delivery and repeated lyrical declarations of vitriol explode with a deserved venom. Drummer Gary Naples boasts a commanding drum tone, with enough modern punch across the kit for his tasteful gallops and tom work to shine through, while preserving a raw attack that serves the band well. Overall, the mix allows Motherless to sound like a cohesive unit, readymade for aural annihilation.

With Do You Feel Safe?, Motherless have released one of the strongest sludge metal albums of the year, one that lives up to band member’s impressive pedigrees. It’s a record which is as aggressive as it is addictive, that beckons repeated descents into its depraved sonic labyrinth. It’s a perfect soundtrack to a year where it’s felt like everything has gone wrong and all you can do is scream into the void as a response. If you need something to encapsulate the anguish of our modern era, Motherless are here for you, waiting with walls of distortion and clad in urban decay. When they shout “Do You Feel Safe?” you’ll whisper back “no.”

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s CBR MP3
Label: Prosthetic Records
Websites: motherlesschicago.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/Motherless-Chicago
Releases Worldwide: September 12th, 2025

#2025 #40 #AmericanMetal #BlackSheepWall #CrustPunk #DoYouFeelSafe_ #DoomMetal #Indian #LordMantis #Motherless #ProstheticRecords #Review #Reviews #Sep25 #Sludge #TheAtlasMoth #Thou #WithoutWaves

Black Cross Hotel (The Atlas Moth / Stabbing Westward) announce new album; unveil “The House God Doesn’t Visit”

#BlackCrossHotel #TheAtlasMoth #StabbingWestward #OctoberReleases #TheHouseGodDoesntVisit #NewSong

Link: https://metalinsider.net/video/black-cross-hotel-the-atlas-moth-stabbing-westward-announce-new-album-unveil-the-house-god-doesnt-visit

Industrial Puke – Alive to No Avail Review

By Saunders

Usually, the illustrious Mark Z deals with the vomitous streams flowing through the promo sump. But for the second time for this particular act, I’m taking one for the team. However, the subject is not in the vein of vile underground death or hellraising blackened thrash. Rather, Sweden’s Industrial Puke rip through a nasty collection of crossover hardcore/crust/death metal on second LP, Alive to No Avail. Featuring a chunk of the Rentokiller line-up and charismatic, raw-throated vox of Burst frontman Linus Jägerskog, Industrial Puke pull no punches in their bid to fuse genres and bust heads in one hefty swing. The band’s short and sweet debut, Born into the Twisting Rope, was a solid outing that didn’t break boundaries but executed with oodles of pissed off attitude and breakneck efficiency, resulting in an entertaining listen. Can they capitalize on a promising debut to deliver something more intense and well-rounded on their second opus to match the awesome on paper love of Dismember and Disrupt?

Alive to No Avail treads similar worn territory to its predecessor, while sharpening the points of their sound. Again, the formula skews more heavily towards their hardcore and crust influences. However, refreshingly, the old school Swedeath, thrash, and occasional melodeath influences add spark, heaviness, and versatility to their aggro, frantic attacks. Overall, it’s a more adventurous, fully fleshed album, dripping with spiteful aggression, speedy gallops, punchy riffs, and thumping grooves. Alive to No Avail is every bit as vicious as its predecessor, yet by the same token, everything feels bigger, beefier, tighter and altogether stronger in writing and design. Compact in length like the debut, this time around Industrial Puke have upped the runtime to lengths more closely associated with full-length territory, allowing more time to develop and expand their sound across a near half-hour smackdown.

Immediately, “Daily Chest Pain” goes straight for the throat, nasty belligerent riffs take hold as Jägerskog’s acidic snarls and gang shouted backing vox lend the song a vicious edge. A short, nifty solo rips through the controlled carnage, adding a welcome melodic spark. While boasting a more pronounced death metal influence, the hardcore crust vibes remain the focal point, thus tolerance towards these influences will likely determine the mileage. Integrating their dueling influences into meaty riffs that pack a solid punch, Industrial Puke leverage their stomping hardcore riffs and motifs, with Slayer-esque thrash chops, gnarled Swedeath riffs, and raw Gothenburg throwbacks (“Alive to No Avail”). Whether incorporating seething hardcore meets sludge tones on The Atlas Moth-esque “The Regretful Climb,” ripping through Slayer-indebted thrash with crossover attitude (“Flaccid Provider”), unleashing violently stomping grooves and punchy gang shouts (Biblical Curse’), or embracing the d-beaten Swedeath fury and dueling vox of “Average Dicks,” Alive to No Avail marks a consistently raucous, nasty ride.

Musically, Industrial Puke play fast and tight, demonstrating steady, experienced hands. The influences are broader than the debut, the scope has expanded. However, the raging, jugular ripping directness and amped up speed reign supreme. The death metal influences are slightly more forward, though again the hardcore and crust elements take center stage, generously dosed with old school thrash and snippets of buzzsawing death. As sharp and gnarly as Industrial Puke sound, moments arise where I crave a little more death in the mix. Jägerskog’s vocals are very good, and the recurring gang vocal trade-offs and occasional lower variation lend variety. However, it would be nice to hear more low growls and death vox to complement Jägerskog’s aggro snarl (such as those used to great effect on “Average Dicks”).

Industrial Puke write fast, fun, bruising music, featuring the songwriting smarts and raw aggression to draw in listeners from both hardcore and death metal worlds. Alive to No Avail marks a step forward for Industrial Puke, building from the solid groundwork laid on the debut, to punch out an album of deeper substance, stronger riffs, and tons of brawling aggression and headbangable anthems. Metalheads opposed to hardcore influences or put off by the higher-pitched, strained vocal style of Jägerskog will be unlikely to be swayed. On the flipside, fans of crossover styles and hardcore forward metal with a death crust should find much to enjoy here.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Suicide Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: March 28th, 2025

#2025 #35 #AliveToNoAvail #Burst #crossover #Crust #DeathMetal #Dismember #Disrupt #Hardcore #IndustrialPuke #Rentokiller #Review #Reviews #Slayer #SuicideRecords #SwedishMetal #TheAtlasMoth #ThrashMetal

Eye of the Golem – Nigredo Review

By Carcharodon

Italian post-metallers Eye of the Golem cite quite the range of influences for their debut record, Nigredo. Now, post-metal is a broad church, with a lot of touch points and sub-sub-genres ranging from delicate instrumentals to harsh, abrasive post-hardcore. And I will always applaud a band for trying to garner attention for their new record by citing eye-catching influences. But, I’ll be honest, I’m not hearing a lot of Katatonia or Amenra in Eye of the Golem. And, while there were perhaps (very distant) shades of Type O Negative’s debut on their poor 2021 EP, The Cosmic Silence, these have been abandoned for Nigredo. None of this needs to be a bad thing, but I think we need a dose of realism here. So what, exactly, do Eye of the Golem serve up on Nigredo?

For the most part, Eye of the Golem operates at the post-hardcore end of the post-metal spectrum. Nigredo majors in chunky, chugging guitars, underwritten by big, distorted bass lines and a lot of reverb. And within that, we are closer in tone to The Atlas Moth than we are to Cult of Luna or Isis. There’s a shimmering intensity to some of the material on Nigredo, with moments of the psych-sludge that The Atlas Moth brought to Coma Noir surfacing here and there (most notably on album highlight “Starvation” but also on the closer, “The Abyssal Zeitgeist will Tear You Apart”). Bright, feedback-laden guitars (handled by Marco Testino and Alessandro Di Gloria) layer up walls of sound that are almost claustrophobic, reminding me of a stripped-back Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean in places (“Absence of Body doesn’t Mean Death”). It’s when Eye of the Golem amp up the melodic guitar lines, as they do at the mid-way point of “Black Cathedral” and the back end of “Starvation,” that you get glimpses of what Nigredo could have been, namely something in the vein of Beak’s glorious Let Time Begin, or maybe even a sludgy Crippled Black Phoenix.

The most divisive part of Eye of the Golem’s sound on Nigredo is sure to be the vocals. Handled jointly by Di Gloria and bassist Andrea Giuliani, they vary between a sort of strangled howl (“Psychic Walls of Desperation”) and a gruff bark, closer to what one would expect from post-hardcore (“Quantum Prison”). At their strongest (on “Starvation” and “The Abyssal Zeitgeist Will Tear You Apart”), the vox have a sort of (very) rough, smoky melodicism to them that is vaguely charming. At their worst, the amateurish warblings feel strained. Lacking in both power and intensity, they sometimes actively undermine, rather than enhance, the heaviness delivered by the guitars and bass (“Quantum Prison”). The addition of echoing background spoken-word musings (“Absence of Body doesn’t Mean Death”) does little to improve the experience. Hari Di Giangiacomo’s drums work well enough as the rhythmic backbone Nigredo needs. However, they are also straightforward and, rather than offering anything by way of adornment, simply form a part of the background soundscapes.

Despite Nigredo only running to 45 minutes, I feel like I’ve spent a lot of time with Eye of the Golem. On the positive side of the ledger, the first two tracks (“Black Cathedral” and “Starvation”) open Nigredo with its strongest material, showing intent, and Eye of the Golem close proceedings relatively strongly also (“The Abyssal …”). It’s the intervening three tracks—or 20 long minutes, as I like to look at it—that hits the other side of the ledger. However, Nigredo is so flat and undifferentiated that the margin dividing the stronger material from the weaker is narrow. The production is actually stronger than I’d expect for a record of this type, with the guitars sounding warm and melodic, at least when they rear out of the ocean of reverb. The mix is also decent, feeling relatively balanced.

Overall, Nigredo was a hugely frustrating record to review. It represents a significant step up, in pretty well every respect, from The Cosmic Silence EP but Eye of the Golem show flashes of what they can do, while resolutely refusing to play up to their strengths. “Starvation,” while not a song of the year contender, is a genuinely great slab of sludgy post-metal, with a good chug and a rough melodic edge, bordering on psych stoner. Where was this on the rest of the album though? Recruiting a better vocalist would make a massive difference but will not fix all the issues.

Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Argonauta Records
Websites: eyeofthegolem.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/eyeofthegolemstonerband
Releases Worldwide: October 4th, 2024

#20 #2024 #ArgonautaRecords #Beak #CrippledBlackPhoenix #EyeOfTheGolem #ItalianMetal #Nigredo #Oct24 #PostHardcore #PostMetal #Review #Reviews #RussianCircles #Sludge #StonerMetal #TheAtlasMoth