James & The Cold Gun – James & The Cold Gun (Loosegroove Records) [Matt Bladen]
There’s meteoric rises and then there’s James & The Cold Gun, having seen them supporting Therapy? at Tramshed Cardiff in March 2022, they have become something of a supernova since then culminating in this debut full length and a support slot to Pearl Jam at Hyde Park. Not bad for a band formed by two guys called James from Cardiff Wales. James Joseph (vocals/guitar) and James Biss (guitar) are the songwriting duo behind the band formed after Joseph left Holding Absence and meeting up with Biss in a Garage/rehearsal space, jamming on a love of early QOTSA and Foo Fighters, the two men wanted to make music that was simple, guitar based rock that will create a party atmosphere without the need for studio trickery or being ultra-polished.
There’s meteoric rises and then there’s James & The Cold Gun, having seen them supporting Therapy? at Tramshed Cardiff in March 2022, they have become something of a supernova since then culminating in this debut full length and a support slot to Pearl Jam at Hyde Park. Not bad for a band formed by two guys called James from Cardiff Wales. James Joseph (vocals/guitar) and James Biss (guitar) are the songwriting duo behind the band formed after Joseph left Holding Absence and meeting up with Biss in a Garage/rehearsal space, jamming on a love of early QOTSA and Foo Fighters, the two men wanted to make music that was simple, guitar based rock that will create a party atmosphere without the need for studio trickery or being ultra-polished.
Music from their youth in the 90’s the unfiltered riffs of bands like QOTSA or The Manics closer to home. It’s an ethos that resulted in an EP picked up by American radio, heard by Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard, who then signed them to his Loosegroove label and asked for a full length in the same D.I.Y vein as the EP. So back to the garage they went, to do it themselves, amps up to eleven, a new band around them and it was time to plug in for the band called “South Wales’ Loudest”.
So what does the self-titled record sound like? Well with The Hives-like thrust of Chewing Glass, JATCG are definitely loud, the guitars biting as a piano is hit hard beneath the chorus layers building. Something To Say and Bittersweet both come from Songs For The Deaf-era QOTSA. From here they unleash multiple styles but never stray far from the garage rock/punk template as All The Wrong Places is punk rock pure and simple, My Silhouette giving me a some of The Wildhearts (who they have also toured with). The adrenaline coursing through every song, only giving you a chance to exhale on Grey Through The Same Lens before the volume is dialled back up on Cheating On The Sun which is very Manics due to the open chords and the huge echoed chorus.
Professionally louche, James And The Cold Gun are the D.I.Y band who have scored some unimaginable luck, but not without putting in bags of hardwork. Music that doesn’t reinvent the wheel but will sound great pumping on your car stereo! 8/10
Viral Tyrant - Vultures Like You (Rippple Music) [Quinn Mattfeld (@AV4Apod)]
The feeling that lingered for me after each full listen-through of Viral Tyrant's debut LP Vultures Like You was predominantly one of frustration. Frustration, not because of what they do and how well they do it, but rather for the lengthy and plodding detours they take away from what is otherwise an absolute monster of a first record. I was actually sweating listening to the first three tracks and coming to the realization that I had just given Iron Buddha’s Raze // Repose a 10/10 rating mere weeks earlier and was staring down the barrel of another perfect score, effectively obliterating the facade of objectivity that I have worked periodically to achieve.
Viral Tyrant is from Portland, Oregon. I’m from Portland, Oregon! Viral Tyrant plays sludgey-thrashy-doomy-evil heavy metal. I’m sludgey-thrashy-doomy and evil! I want to love this album as much as I love the opener The Felling Of The Doom Tree, a lumbering monster that comes into a full gallop, utterly decimating the listener with pure, unadulterated chug. Even at nine-plus minutes, the first track never feels devoid of purpose and drive as the psychedelic riff of the song’s latter half grinds you into submission while Geezer-Butlerian bass runs remind you of a better time in your life.
Viral Tyrant - Vultures Like You (Rippple Music) [Quinn Mattfeld (@AV4Apod)]
The feeling that lingered for me after each full listen-through of Viral Tyrant's debut LP Vultures Like You was predominantly one of frustration. Frustration, not because of what they do and how well they do it, but rather for the lengthy and plodding detours they take away from what is otherwise an absolute monster of a first record. I was actually sweating listening to the first three tracks and coming to the realization that I had just given Iron Buddha’s Raze // Repose a 10/10 rating mere weeks earlier and was staring down the barrel of another perfect score, effectively obliterating the facade of objectivity that I have worked periodically to achieve.
Viral Tyrant is from Portland, Oregon. I’m from Portland, Oregon! Viral Tyrant plays sludgey-thrashy-doomy-evil heavy metal. I’m sludgey-thrashy-doomy and evil! I want to love this album as much as I love the opener The Felling Of The Doom Tree, a lumbering monster that comes into a full gallop, utterly decimating the listener with pure, unadulterated chug. Even at nine-plus minutes, the first track never feels devoid of purpose and drive as the psychedelic riff of the song’s latter half grinds you into submission while Geezer-Butlerian bass runs remind you of a better time in your life.
I want to love Vultures Like You as much as I love Beloved and Beheaded with its eviscerating one-two vocal punch before an up-tempo thrash section drives the record toward Vosturan, a track that echoes one of my favorite current metal outfits, Druids out of Iowa (where all exciting things come from). Honestly, I want to love Viral Tyrant as much as I love Druids, which is unfair, unfortunate, and almost entirely my fault.
As the record moves into Beacon Omega they are still on mostly solid ground before The Great Traverse and A Savage Ensnared put a stop to all that 10/10 nonsense by muddling and meandering for almost 16 combined minutes of spoken word intros and unnecessary sound explorations that don’t build toward anything and from which the album never recovers.
Blunt Force and Sheer Ignorance is a great closer but after the previous two tracks I’m too exhausted to love it as much as I want to. Vultures Like You is a great album that can’t sustain it’s focus for it’s full 51 minute run time, as Viral Tyrant lets a near-perfect album slip into a merely outstanding album and therefore, ultimately, a frustrating one. 8/10
As the record moves into Beacon Omega they are still on mostly solid ground before The Great Traverse and A Savage Ensnared put a stop to all that 10/10 nonsense by muddling and meandering for almost 16 combined minutes of spoken word intros and unnecessary sound explorations that don’t build toward anything and from which the album never recovers.
Blunt Force and Sheer Ignorance is a great closer but after the previous two tracks I’m too exhausted to love it as much as I want to. Vultures Like You is a great album that can’t sustain it’s focus for it’s full 51 minute run time, as Viral Tyrant lets a near-perfect album slip into a merely outstanding album and therefore, ultimately, a frustrating one. 8/10
Vendetta - Black As Coal (Massacre Records) [C Hunter]
German Speed Thrash Metal band Vendetta originally founded in 1984 and have toured with thrash heavyweights such as Kreator, Overkill, Exodus and Testament to name but a few. The new album Black As Coal continues the thrash tradition. And for an album created in 2023 sounds straight out of the mid to late 80s.
As a self professed lover of Thrash Metal; Black As Coal instantly feels like a handful of thrash greats were fed into the Great Beast and spaffed back out onto glorious compact audio disk. Shoot To Kill fits somewhere between Judas Priest and early Metallica. Whereas Stranglehold Of Terror starts with a riff that could be straight out of Megadeth’s first album …Perhaps with a team up with Anthrax. Some great guitar and tom based grooves from the second half of the song. No Hands But A Gun … You know, like that Guns Akimbo film staring Daniel Radcliffe if it was thrashy as fuck. Post bass solo this song will give you neck problems if you’re over the age of 33.
To continue the theme, the next song is also about guns. And this time it’s the worlds favourite killing machine - AK-47. Used in conflicts around the globe and still seems like a less controversial title than calling a song AR-15. Philosophising aside, drums and guitar discharge like machine gun fire! The lyrics end with a spoken 47-47-47-7 . Which just so happens to add to 148 … which is about the weight of a Bull Shark in kilograms. A species that doesn’t need a gun to end you, and an equally good subject matter for a thrash song… anyway.
From what I gather, the title track Black As Coal covers how deep down, we humans are innately terrible creatures and Time To Change is it’s response. Both songs feel weaker than their predecessors until the instrumental call and response section during the late midpoint of the latter. Bass licks! Death Means Relief’s early bass groove with slow complimenting guitar chugs almost lends itself to the metal of the early 90s before pulling out and splashing the thrash back into your lugholes. Imagine if Korn wrote the intro to a Testament track.
Cheap Death argues “More coal and gasoline, more jobs and luxury, mankind is relentless and stupid, will never learn, the earth is bleeding, diversity dies, dirty air you cannot breathe, under darkened skies … Eight billion people here, Eighty million more a year, We are too many, I bet - eat that”. I agree, but what do we do? Start taking the do not consume labels off of toxic paint and cleaning products? Give Bull Sharks AK-47s ? Awaiting a song about a solution on the next album.
If you’ve got the hair for it Pallbearer has riffs for the bobbers, the bangers and the windmillers.
For dear life! For Dear Life mixes it up quite a bit from the rest of the album. I’m not sure how it could make me think of both Tool and Iron Maiden at the same time but it did. Disclaimer: This song sounds neither like Tool or Maiden … actually the chorus could appear on a Maiden album. Beast In Her Eyes = Celebrity sex scandals meet punky thrash. Riff wise it’s a very fun song with plenty of changes, contains the cleanest guitar leads of the album and also chucks in some face/off battle metal style guitar harmonies.
Vendetta describe their style as rooted in Thrash and Speed Metal. The album Black As Coal definitely does as described on the tin and the smell of worn battle jackets, sweat and stale beer can almost be inhaled through the music. It’s clearly a product of a great love and respect for a very specific genre which is why perhaps it doesn’t risk straying very far from the norm. But you know what !?! If it’s not broken then why try to fix it? 7/10
To continue the theme, the next song is also about guns. And this time it’s the worlds favourite killing machine - AK-47. Used in conflicts around the globe and still seems like a less controversial title than calling a song AR-15. Philosophising aside, drums and guitar discharge like machine gun fire! The lyrics end with a spoken 47-47-47-7 . Which just so happens to add to 148 … which is about the weight of a Bull Shark in kilograms. A species that doesn’t need a gun to end you, and an equally good subject matter for a thrash song… anyway.
From what I gather, the title track Black As Coal covers how deep down, we humans are innately terrible creatures and Time To Change is it’s response. Both songs feel weaker than their predecessors until the instrumental call and response section during the late midpoint of the latter. Bass licks! Death Means Relief’s early bass groove with slow complimenting guitar chugs almost lends itself to the metal of the early 90s before pulling out and splashing the thrash back into your lugholes. Imagine if Korn wrote the intro to a Testament track.
Cheap Death argues “More coal and gasoline, more jobs and luxury, mankind is relentless and stupid, will never learn, the earth is bleeding, diversity dies, dirty air you cannot breathe, under darkened skies … Eight billion people here, Eighty million more a year, We are too many, I bet - eat that”. I agree, but what do we do? Start taking the do not consume labels off of toxic paint and cleaning products? Give Bull Sharks AK-47s ? Awaiting a song about a solution on the next album.
If you’ve got the hair for it Pallbearer has riffs for the bobbers, the bangers and the windmillers.
For dear life! For Dear Life mixes it up quite a bit from the rest of the album. I’m not sure how it could make me think of both Tool and Iron Maiden at the same time but it did. Disclaimer: This song sounds neither like Tool or Maiden … actually the chorus could appear on a Maiden album. Beast In Her Eyes = Celebrity sex scandals meet punky thrash. Riff wise it’s a very fun song with plenty of changes, contains the cleanest guitar leads of the album and also chucks in some face/off battle metal style guitar harmonies.
Vendetta describe their style as rooted in Thrash and Speed Metal. The album Black As Coal definitely does as described on the tin and the smell of worn battle jackets, sweat and stale beer can almost be inhaled through the music. It’s clearly a product of a great love and respect for a very specific genre which is why perhaps it doesn’t risk straying very far from the norm. But you know what !?! If it’s not broken then why try to fix it? 7/10
Salem Trials – Nocturnal Creation (Seek And Strike) [Zak Skane]
Opening with Cenotaph we get some Djenty chuggy Thall shaped riffage before the band add some dissonant black metal evil with blast beats whilst accompanying the singer goes with his barking lows to Lorna Shore style man bear pig vocal gymnastic fries. The heavily inspired Fit FOr An Autopsy styled composition Never Ending consists of clever technical riffage and machine precision breakdowns and face tearing double kicks whilst the vocalist give us some fine death harrowing lows.
The thunderous Nocturnal Creation draws back on the tempos to ensure that the drums and guitars gain bludgeoning impact with earth trembling double kicks and down picked guitars transcending into the ambient melancholic chords to the vocal providing Joseph Badolato (Singer of Fit For An Autopsy) harsh vocals. Their closer Immolation takes up back in time with Black metal introductions whilst also bringing to the 2000s with it technical pedal tone riffage and 90s clancking bass tones and piercing vocal highs.
With it’s modern cutting edge riffs to it’s blackened spirit, this e.p can please both mainstream and underground metal fans with its approach to the deathcore sound. For fans of Fit For An Autopsy and Lorna Shore. 7/10