Layback are from south London area and this is their latest e.p. containing five songs. What to expect here? This is pretty raw old school street hardcore, fast and furious with angry shouting vocals, but with also a touch of melodic hardcore, skate punk and metallic influence in the song structures. The e.p. is short but energetic with groove, moshing parts flying by and joining fast hardcore which dominates this release with fast drumming, some background guitar solos behind the verses reminding me of early Suicidal Tendencies. My personal favorites are ‘Back in the Bits’, ‘Times Like These’ and ‘Streets of Fire’ Good UK hardcore band and their e.p. Check this one out.
Pantheon from Arkansas are relatively new band in the US extreme metal underground scene, this being their second full length opus. But members of Pantheon are in no way new to the scene playing or having played in Empyrean, Genocide Winter, Epoch of Unlight and many more. This one contains 9 songs. The music is that American school of death metal with lots of black metal and thrash metal influences, I can hear Slayer influence in awesome ‘Man-Infestation’. There are blast beats, blistering thrash death solos and brutal growled death metal vocals. But, there are also some epic melodies on this one like in my favorite Absence of Light with that great main guitar melody and this time vocals are black metal screeching not growling. With songs like heavy hitters ‘Death Is In The Air’ or ‘Eviscerate Desecrate Cremate’ there is no mercy, no holds barred blackened death thrash metal and I am really happy having discovered this band. Right on good record.
Sermon are Turkish band hailing from Izmir and their roots date back to 1997, but after a hiatus band reformed and this is their new full length opus. This one offers 8 songs of doom metal, basically it is melodic epic doom metal with lots of gothic influenced parts, also there are some death doom nineties influences, through some UK legendary bands’ influence. Vocals are growled but there are also some gentler clean parts and this growling so fits to guitar melodies that it is perfect. These guitar parts and double bass rolling drums create an atmosphere of darkness that you can almost touch with your hands. Lyrics are about darkness, space, inner demons, emotions deep within and one other plus is that vocalist is mainly understandable in many parts of the songs. There is also violin like for example in Flawless Entropy and calls to mind My Dying Bride, but with more melody and epic parts. Songs are pretty long but do not get boring for one second. My personal favorites on this one are: ‘Silver Splinter’ and ‘Destined To Decline’. This is doom metal just made for listening and daydreaming under steel grey January sky as the cold wind sweeps around you.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 