In music, the term ‘side project’ is all too often synonymous with ‘pretentious and execrable waste of time’. Not so here – although given that we’re talking about a member of Between The Buried And Me (who even managed to put out a non-shitty covers album), it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Read more…
Hacktivist defy categorisation. Their music is a mix of djent’s brutality and hip-hop’s flamboyance – but it’s impossible to merge those two genre labels without generating results that are…well…pretty shit. ‘Hip-djent’ reads like something you’d spot in an out of touch news rag whose contributors only feel truly comfortable with shameless fearmongering and casual racism, while ‘djent-hop’ sounds like a dance move guaranteed to alienate all but the most loyal friends. Read more…
As the originators of the metal style known as djent, Meshuggah are one of the most influential heavy bands in existence today. If you’ve ever sat and scratched your head at an ultra-complex riff until you listened to the cymbal pattern and suddenly it all made sense, you were most likely listening to a band paying lip service to Meshuggah – if not a track by the Swedish maestros themselves. Djent bands the world over owe their rhythmic and tonal signatures to Meshuggah, although the origin of the genre-encompassing word itself is the subject of much controversy. Read more…
Cute. Cheerful. Bright and sunny. Nice. Win Some X Lose Some is none of these things. Read more…
This isn’t so much an album as an unforgiving barrage of beyond-heavy ultra-distorted guitars, cage-fighting drums, utterly guttural bass, and brutalising vocals. If you’re only interested in nice and friendly finger-clicking tunes, Badlands is not for you – but if you’re pissed off beyond reason and your tastes tend toward the corner of musicland labelled ‘Extreme Metal’, it most certainly is. Read more…
Hardcore isn’t normally the kind of music I can get into outside of live shows – but with this track, Palm Reader just became an exception to that rule. Maybe it’s the ultra-complex DEP-meets-the-theme-from-28–Days–Later vibe; maybe it’s my fresh, indignant anger at YouTube’s incessant insistence that I spend my time on their site consuming some Creationism-endorsing crapfest; or maybe it’s the bleakly abstract video below efficiently complementing this track’s relentless and ear-rending catharsis. Well, whatever – I Watch The Fire Chase My Tongue is fucking excellent, and if this is just a taste of what to expect from Palm Reader’s next album (Beside The Ones We Love, due out in 2015), then it’s also a reason to get very goddamn excited indeed. Read more…
Some shows are born special. Although I’m relatively new to The Hell, I’ve already become hopelessly addicted to their latest album (reviewed here) – so nothing short of a bad case of death was going to stop this show (the first of The Hell’s A Shitemare Before Christmas tour) from getting featured on TMMP. Read more…
The first time I heard about The Hell, I was advised to imagine The Lonely Island – only metal. Well, The Hell might not have Justin Timberlake crooning about how “Every Mother’s Day needs a Mother’s Night”, but they do have a bottomless bag of fat grooves and slightly less than serious lyrics. And they’re called The Hell – which should really be enough for any self-respecting metal fan. Read more…
Bursting out of the gate with a crystal-clear salute in Meshuggah’s direction and really coming into its own from second track 91367 onward, No Sleep is a dense album easily penetrable to fans of modern progressive metal, and worth the time and effort for the curious. Read more…
Welsh alt-metallers Kyshera have a lot going for them right now. Their fans are true fanatics, getting hyper at shows and spreading the good word about their favourite band all over the world; the respect and love afforded them have been hard earned through two albums and countless shows; and 2015 is looking bright and promising, with third Kyshera LP Circles on the way. TMMP caught up with frontman James Kennedy to find out more. Read more…