Time for a bit of horror punk rock to be featured on the pages of this zine. The Deathtones are coming from Pennsylvania and this is their full length album featuring 15 songs. As the band states on their Bandcamp page, these are all the best songs from their first year plus three new and exclusive songs. But, it doesn’t matter because to me, this full length is the first I heard of this band and I am loving it. This is not your Misfits or Blitzkid clone band, this is original horror/shock/punk rock delivered with conviction. I also love the use of samples in such bands and encourage them completely. This is metal influenced, as can be heard in the awesome title song, sounding a bit like Iron Maiden in the song structure but with superb double bass drum too. There are also gothic influences, at least in singing, as I heard it in ‘All Hallows Eve’. Lyrics deal with various horror and macabre themes, so the songs like ‘The Shape’ with great Halloween sample intro, or ‘Here With Me(A Chainsaw Love Story)’, maybe for all of you ‘Imposter At The Costume Party’ are about to win you over. This is one of the best horror punk releases I have listened in a long time. Maybe there are no sing along ooohs and aaahs but it is original, dark, gloomy and melodic. Love it!
Underground never ceases to amaze and give you something special and unique to listen and to satisfy your black heart with. CRAWL is a one man entity with one Michael A. Engle simultaneously playing drums, bass, vocals, synth and samples all at once. If CRAWL performs live that is surely unique and special sight and soundscape to behold and hear. This one contains only four songs with shortest being a little under seven minutes and longest being a little under eleven minutes. But, do not despair. Hark, CRAWL has so much to offer. This is darkness pure, so thick and when listening to this one, you feel like standing in front of a black wall with no possibility to cross it only to wither and die, but also it provides darkness so touchable that you can almost feel the wall of fear and despair with the tips of your fingers. CRAWL plays something in between blackened dungeon doom with tortured vocals screams, some whispers and speak like in horror movies, many samples, distorted bass, slow and funeral drum procession melancholy emphasized with piano and synth parts and some almost ritualistic slowing down, like you can virtually feel your heart beat slowing down and some song parts for me symbolize withering and dying, hopelessness and darkness, with no end in sight only despair and anguish, also with aggression as a result of realizing above mentioned. You must listen to this one as a whole process, it is excellent.
No Point in Living is hailing from Japan and it has been in the scene since 2015. This is very prolific entity under mastermind, one individual called Yu. This is the brand new opus and it contains seven songs. Music of No Point in Living can be described as a mixture between depressive suicidal black metal, more aggressive and raw black metal and atmospheric black metal with longer songs and so many emotions in this opus, making me remember why I love black metal so much as a means of expressing darkness, atmosphere, feelings and your innermost self and demons. Lyrically this opus delves in waters of self hate, depression, hopelessness, making it out of this alive or dead, darkness and nihilism and misanthropy. Vocals are deeper in some songs like singing from coffin or beneath the earth, gloomy and dark, so is guitar work, but there are lots of tempo changes in song parts but retaining some really melodic, at times acoustic synth backed parts to make it almost a vessel comprised of soundscape black ship which takes your mind and body to other spiritual dark dimension in which you feel painful but good at the same time. My personal favorites on this one are: ‘All or Nothing’, ‘Beautiful Tragedy’ and ‘Song of Loser’.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 