nu-metal

In todays musical climate, genres are often fluid things with bands dipping their collective toes into all manor of varying branches of music in an effort to sound original. Sometimes this works and sometimes it sounds a bit messy and convoluted. So, it’s nice sometimes to know exactly what you are getting and in what style of music, this brings us onto the new album from Central Florida outfit NoSelf. Who very much stick to the Nu-Metal template laid down all those years ago by the genre’s originators. Nu-Metal has gotten a rough ride of things over the years, but when it’s done well, it can be very good, so how does Human Conditions fit into things? Well, you’ll be pleased to hear very well indeed.

Things kick off with bouncy opener Signal Flares with crunchy drums by Drew Miller and thick chugging riffing supplied by guitarist Justin Dabney. The influences are front and center here (as they are throughout the album) and every time I hear this track, I keep thinking that Chino from Deftones does guest vocals on the chorus, indeed the vocal delivery by front man Dylan Hart Kleinhans really is uncanny in its similarity every time he starts screaming.

Things continue apace with tracks ratD4GG3R (I don’t think I’m every going to get behind the replacing letters with number thing) which has a very catchy chorus and a nice groove to it. Order_66 starts like a lost Korn track circa 1992 and indeed continues like one too. Next track #RAGE has a groovy guitar track and excellent bass work by Glenn Desormeaux and a great breakdown towards the end of the song.

​Master Manipulator gives us more of the same, these guys really can write a catchy chorus! Dying star does nothing to upset the template laid down in the first half of the album. Penultimate track Nothing ups the F Bombs considerably and would not sound out of place as a B side from Around the Fur era Deftones, it’s really rather good. Album closer tries Glow starts off with some slower paced song craft and flirts with pop sensibilities with cheery synths, Linkin Park would be a good touch stone for this song. 

Overall, how you respond to this album depends entirely on how you feel about Nu-Metal music. If you like Nu-Metal and a catchy chorus, groovy bouncy riffs with crunchy drum sounds then there is a lot to like here. If you do not get on with the genre then I don’t think there is going to be anything on here which changes your mind. 


Simon

ambient / drone

industrial / metal / drum & bass

classical

metal

grindcore / crust

ambient / techno

new wave / alternative rock

black metal

bandcamp

black metal

classical / post rock / jazz

facebook

drone doom

hard rock / metal

black metal / noise

dark jazz

Serge

industrial

nu metal / hip hop / metal

stoner doom / sludge metal

black metal

elements of its sagacious and vividly spontaneous sensitivity all over its universe of demanding intonations, Diluvienne presents to its audience a mature, whimsical, cohesive sentimentally realistic and marvelously artistic atmospheric BM work. With wonderful harmonies that can lead you to an imaginary world encircled by the shadows of a permanent desolation, Diluvienne is the perfectly envisioned sonorous conflagration for this sinister, but exceedingly pleasant journey, made entirely on elegant and sophisticated melodies, that exposes on the peripheral parameters of its principles all the hidden beauty of a mystery inserted at the most fantastic abysses of the human conscience.   (W.)

black metal

this EP is a fantastic, lucid and poetic sonorous everlasting declamation to the universe, with all the sincere odes of ordination and vividly sagacious harmonies, that makes this work so ostensibly brilliant. With greatly devised, ascendant and almost medieval melodies, Valiant has created a lugubrious, but marvelous masterpiece, with this half an hour long EP. Definitely, a majestic and fundamental work, that will enchant the genre’s audience.   (W.)

black metal

bandcamp

sentences, the sound of Tides of Emptiness is deeply consistent and thoroughly reverberating. Rearranging in more crude patterns the sinister excellence of the genre, the group exposes at the sonorous horizon of its lancinating artistic patterns a cataclysmic sobriety, upon which every ghost that lives by the shadows of its harmonies should die, or accept the volatile integrity of its fate, at the request of a rhythm that disperses fatality in each and every one of its notes.  (W.)

black metal

bandcamp

While honoring tradition with a fabulous ordeal of acrimonious excellency and wisely restrained rhythmical barriers, Vindorn deflagrates at the epicenter of the harmonious convergences of his expressive splendor the uplifting urgencies of melodies amazingly conceived at the height of a true black metal insurgency. (W.)

metal / stoner rock

place for air in your lungs and thus generates more power. Other than that, I don't think I have a lot of advice for these guys. They have been going to setbacks and delays releasing this EP but they pulled through. Now all they need to do is rehearse, write, rehearse, play live and rehearse again. They have the talent, it just needs to bloom. (S.)

rock

black metal / hardcore techno / industrial

that is the recipe for this unique output. Of course, that techno escapade by Morbid Angel often comes to mind but here it's brilliantly executed. In that, perhaps it's not even such a bad idea to compare this to Zeal and Ardor. Both acts successfully managed to put two seemingly incompatible genres together. So yeah, this is unique and undoubtedly comes highly recommended, not only to my sister-in-law but to all extremists with an open mind. (S.)

experimental / ambient

Sombre Soniks

black metal

from these respective artists. I stopped following all these bands quite a while ago but Dark Archive makes me hungry for blood again. Opener 'Cultivate Our Blood In Aeon' and 'Godfear Eradication' are brilliant pieces of late nineties inspired black metal. 'Unohda ei ikinä' is pure and utter chaos, dressed in immersive extreme music. I'll leave the other two up to you, but I'd definitely recommend this thing. (S.)

shoegaze / post punk / noise rock / black metal

doom / rock

sludge / doom 

shoegaze / dreampop

new wave

pop / rock

black metal

bandcamp

post rock

punk / crust

nu metal

drone / jazz

Serge

metal / nu metal

You know, I have never really believed in nu-metal. I mean, Korn are amazing, Limp Bizkit have a few decent party songs, System Of A Down are brilliant and Linkin Park wrote some excellent metal tunes but to me they're all metal bands. I don't give a damn about the "nu" thing.

Take this new Motograter album for example. These guys have been around since 1995, be it in different line-ups. Now, they return with the follow up to their self titled 2003 album. It reminds me of Korn, Fear Factory, Pain, Treponem Pal, Meshuggah and perhaps a few metalcore bands too. So, this is metal.

It's pretty bloody good metal too, well written songs, great vocals and delicious riffing. Opener 'Parasite' immediately sets the tone and tells us that we're in for a wild ride. Growls alternate with clean singing and the sneering riffs blast through the speakers with sheer power. 'Dorian' and 'Victim' follow that example, each perfectly capable of getting the party started. On 'Bleeding Through' the band takes a little step back, for a short while. 

'Misanthropical' is one of my favorite songs on this album. It's a Nine Inch Nails meets Korn tune and perhaps the most nu-metal one on 'Desolation', and quite possibly even a landmark in this sub-genre. You can headbang yourself into a coma on this tune. As far as electronics are concerned, my favorite song is 'Daggers', another epic track. Come to think of it, this album really starts growing on me, getting better and better.

You know, these days Korn and Slipknot are respected metal bands, regardless of their subcategory. In my opinion, so is Motograter. They mix typical American metal, death metal, metalcore and industrial into an intense and immersive own style, something which I can only applaud. So yeah, I can only recommend this one to all you metalheads out there. For all your headbanging needs, Motograter delivered the goods...


​Serge