Lokust - Infidel (Self Released)
Guitarists Alexy Khoury and Jeremy Pringsheim, formed Lokust 2017, starting out as an instrumental duo they found drummer Euler Morais, bassist Patryk Kopo recording music together before finding Alex Da Costa as vocalist. Infidel is their debut album and it's an aggressive, groove driven, modern metal record recorded with Justin Hill of SikTh, Mark Lewis (Devildriver) brought in to mix and master. Musically similar to Devildriver, Lamb Of God and Machine Head, track such as Parasitic bring the huge bass drops in the breakdowns while Guiltless is a blistering thrashfest.
The band want to merge modern with the old school and you an hear them do that with this album from the rampaging Anima to the techincal War Of Opposition. Infidel is an extremely polished example of modern metal music. Explosive drumming (Jinn) and bass so big it'll move your organs, there's guitar interplay that is melodcally driven but will crush when needed, the rhythmic style of song writing making the songs build and drop with atmosphere, a track such as Jinn showing this while Sacrosanct closes the record with that same level of intensity that The Sin Of Doubt starts it with. Infidel is muscular modern metal workout, a strong debut album filled with promise. 7/10
Girlschool - WTFortyfive? (Silver Lining Music)
The link between Girlschool and Motorhead has always been strong, they ahve toured together multiple times and even recorded a split EP together. It shouldn't come as a suprise that Girlschool have chosen to cover Motorhead party anthem Born To Raise Hell on their 14th studio album. If that's not enough the track features Saxon's Biff Byford, G'N'R's Duff McKagan and of course Phil Campbell who played on the original.
They aren't the only guests though as Alcatrazz's six stringer Joe Stump plays up a a storm (and cowrites) Are You Ready? The album like all Girlschool records are packed with defiant rock tracks where Kim McAuliffe's sneering vocals and choppy rhythm guitar interlinks with Denise Dufort' heavy handed drumming the co-founding duo in perfect sync with Tracey Lamb on bass (a two time member of the band) getting their punky metal brew bubbling as long term lead player Jackie Chambers intercuts with some searing six stringing on tracks such as Barmy Army.
You know what you're going to get with Girlschool, it's raucous rock n roll born on the streets and honed by years treading the boards of every toilet venue in the UK and Europe. Music should be about having a good time, Lemmy knew it, Girlschool know it. Play it loud! 7/10
Gateway - Galgendood (Transcending Obscurity Records) [Mark Young]
As is usual, I try to go with bands that I have no knowledge off, or of a genre that I don’t normally dip into. It’s a bit hap-hazard on my part but it keeps me on my toes with bands I should be keeping tabs on. It also should be noted that doom / sludge and the various sub-sets of that genre doesn’t always hit that well with me.
Looking online, Gateway are / is a one man wrecking ball of a band, and this album comes at you in much the same way. With tags such as tormented, death and dark doom this is slow, dense and is probably the aural equivalent of being trapped in sinking sand or sucking swamp, as you are slowly dragged below the surface to your inevitable end.
This is possibly melodramatic on my part, but as a scene setter I think it works. The whole album is positively oozing in slime, dripping in slow motion. It moves at a rumble, without approaching anything resembling a running speed but just mows down with its colossal weight anything trapped in its path. Its possessed of a thick, monolithic sound that sometimes loses definition but not its overall attack but what you do have is a building sense of familiarity as we traverse through each song.
I’m not sure if that is a by-product of it being a one-man outfit, where the prescence of another to spark off may have changed things but as this stands its possesses one of the strongest one-two openers with The Coexistence Of Dismal Entities and Sacrificial Blood Oath In The Temple Of K’zadu which sets this bar high but its not sustained. Once we get past Nachtritueel (Evocation) with seems to be a doom place holder the remaining three songs just seem to be too close to the openers and they seem to drag.
Now this may have been the desired effect in the first place and as I’ve said before doom isn’t my thing but I couldn’t split Scourged At Dawn from Bog Bodies Near The Humid Crypt because they both share almost exact builds. This is not to say there isn’t good things going on here, there is some good, heavy riffing going on and it will no doubt satisfy those who love this genre but it’s a case of familiarity breeding contempt for me 6/10
TakaLaiton - Mindfection (Rockshots Records) [Mark Young]
And now, metal from Finland as TakaLaiton bring us their newest full-length release, Mindfection which seems to be drawing from the well of Pantera as well as some thrash influences. And for an added bonus you get songs in both English and Finnish.
Right, I’m going to start off with the negatives, or rather start by telling you I just didn’t like it all. I think its because of the opening sample that accompanies Rip ‘n’ Burn about some ‘Bitch deserving what she got’ or whatever the fuck it says and that was that. Hate on sight. I thought we’d left that behind as a song trope, apparently not so here. The song that follows is just standard thrash posturing so let’s move onto the next one.
Same again, It just seems to be trying to hard but without the actual tunes in order to put something together, so it comes and goes and then onto the third song which is energetic, but it is similar to the ones before. Hopeareunus comes in with a keyboard, a ‘happy’ chord passage, emotional guitar melody part and is the first song delivered in Finnish. I’m assuming it got a positive message of love and inclusion so onto the next one, Ambassador Of Revenge steps up and shows some good stuff going on, and attacks with a more muscular approach which really works and Mies Miest Vastaan seems to be a loose interpretation of New Level and its ok.
The remaining tracks come and go, thrashing here and there without really igniting my interest. The damage was done with the opening salvos and the whole thing suffers from an identity crisis as different themes are brought together with none of them landing sufficiently well. I appreciate having the songs in both languages as it gives them opportunity to stretch in how they are delivered and the Finnish ones hit harder, so the potential there is that if they were all in Finnish they would collectively sound better.
If you read my reviews then you know I desperately try to find positives anywhere I can because the band in question have been able to put their ideas down and get them released, hopefully allowing them to continue to write and release more music. Here, I’ve got one song out of 10 that is a good one which is a pretty poor return. Also, because of that opening sample and I’m not for one second suggesting they condone domestic violence or violence against women in any way, it just felt wrong because I couldn’t tell if the song that followed it was glorifying it or coming out against it. 4/10