Rancid – Honor Is All We Know

Over time everything becomes jaded (just ask Bob Dylan), yet Rancid has been on a streak of 8 spectacular albums in a row. For me, they are the archetype of contemporary American punk. Honor Is All We Know is an awesome album with 14 tracks spanned over 31 minutes.

Tim Armstrong is a fantastic story-teller with his definitive punk drawl. His Epiphone guitar riffs tell incredible tales themselves. In my opinion Matt Freeman is the greatest bassist alive. It would have been nice if he sang a song on the record. Branden Steineckert is their current drummer since the departure of Brett Reed in 2009. Branden recorded drums on Let the Dominoes Fall, which signified the new era of Rancid.

Tim and Matt previously played in Operation Ivy. Matt's side project is called the Devil's Brigade, with an awesome release in 2010. Lars Frederickson's side-project The Old Firm Casuals released This is War earlier this year, and it is a spectacular punk album.

As it has been 5 years since the previous album, the first song Back Where I Belong is very applicable to their style and contemporary stance. On Raise Your Fist, Lars provides alternating vocals through numerous anthems. Collision Course is a mix of skater punk and ska without a brass-section.

The song Evil's My Friend has amazing synth riffs. Honor Is All We Know starts with joyous guitar riffs with Tim's voice drawling the verses. A Power Inside is a positive punk melody, also emphasizing Tim's drawling voice. The song In The Streets contains cheery harmonies on the vocals. Face Up is the shortest song on the album, for me it is similar to the song Roots and Radicals.

Already Dead is my favorite song on the album. It is a damn catchy song with Lars excelling on vocals. It sounds like a song from Lars Frederickson and The Bastards, but with a Rancid polish. The song has profound lyrics such as "I am the bastard son of Christ, and I'll see you all in hell, 'cause I'm already dead". The song Diabolical starts with a pounding bass-drum. It is catchy dance music with a junky punk feel.

Malfunction contains awesome alternating vocals. Now We're Through With You is a euphoric punk song, quickening in pace throughout the song. Everybody's Sufferin' presents depressing lyrics such as "Everywhere you are going, people they are so fucked. Everybody's Sufferin'" in upbeat tones. Grave Digger is a very lively song to end the album. It contains fast-paced, heavy vocals and distorted guitars along with walking bass lines.

Since 2004 when I first heard …And Out Come The Wolves I became a super-fan of Rancid. I vouch my respect to this band until death.

Decapitated – Blood Mantra

"Blood Mantra is the most heavy and mature album we ever did in our career" - Vogg 

Decapitated is a death metal band from Poland. Blood Mantra presents their sixth studio album. I really like their 2011 release, Carnival is Forever. For me, Decapitated produces non-bullshit metal, displayed by a structured average of 5 minutes long songs on the album. I especially appreciate the vocals on this release. Decapitated are signed on Nuclear Blast Records (with bands such as Meshuggah, All Shall Perish, Carcass, Exodus and Thy Art is Murder).

My experience of Blood Mantra is that it’s less tiring than other death metal records. The album is overall groovier with extreme metal elements and atmospheric parts. Live, these songs will be a treat. The album is 45 minutes spanned over 9 tracks. Krimh played drums on the previous record, but has been replaced along with the bassist. For me, Vogg remains the dominant force behind Decapitated.

Exiled in Flesh is the first song of the album, a 4 minute long song that closes with an ambient outro. The Blasphemous Psalm to the Dummy God Creation is the powerful single and being 2:30 long it is a no-nonsense metal song. Veins starts with a heavy intro, Rasta enables a powerful song with his diction on the vocals. 5 minutes end with “fuck the system” reiterated as a cap to one crazy, cool song.

Blood Mantra is the title track of the album, a fast and angry song with impressive drum patterns at the end. Nest’ intro contains erratic riffs. The precise arrangements of beats creates a lively song; ‘a fist-punching circle-pit song’. The ambient rhythms on Instinct blend well with the shredding leads. There are extreme metal-esque riffs on the song and an accomplished verse. There is also an impressive solo in the first half of the song.

Blindness is a somewhat melancholic song, but with powerful and dynamic vocals. Red Sun is a 3 minute long ambient, instrumental song. The vocals on Moth Defect only start 2:30 into the song, forming part of an extensive 6:21 composition. For me, Decapitated as band are the heralds to the Polish death metal scene.

John 5 – Careful with That Axe

I really enjoy the previous six studio releases from John 5. In my mind, he is the greatest contemporary solo guitar artist in metal with a vast musical repertoire. The 2008 release, Requiem is my favorite John 5 album. It contains an awesome blend of nylon strings, banjo effects, flamenco guitar and full-force thrashing. It remains an all-time favorite reference to great solo albums.

I think Careful with That Axe is a less broody album than some of the other releases. The album only covers 30:54 as a blitzkrieg of exhibitionist riffs. The album’s title and a song is reference to an actual person, Sidney Sloan who murdered his father with an axe in 1906. He struck his father several times in the head. At first he claimed ignorance and later were sent to a criminally insane institute. Years later he bragged he would do it again if he could.

We Need to Have a Talk about John starts with modern day news samples of axe killings, and others samples, including one from the movie Full Metal Jacket. It serves as a striking intro to tribute Sidney Sloan as a theme on the album.

This Is My Rifle is the second longest song on the album. It starts with samples of machine guns firing to a beat. The incredible solos are true to John 5’s style. The song, Flight of the Vulcan Kelly starts with an erratic intro, building and breaking with sweeps and impressive bass work. This song is definitely of the more experimental songs in John 5’s musical repertoire.

Jerry’s Breakdown has a country music, carnival-type theme to it; a hillbilly-esque song. The awesome riffs in the middle of the song confirm a happy tune with impressive builds to amazing solos. Villisca is a straight forward good rock and roll song. Portrait of Sidney Sloan has a broody, fast intro with a fitting horror movie feel to the song.

Jiffy Jam is happy country music type song with banjo and steel-string acoustic riffs throughout the 3 minutes. It is well thought out and almost cheery bar song. Six Hundred And Sixty Packers in Hell contain groovy riffs and fitting bass guitar work. John 5 displaying his ability to scream his guitar.

El Cucuy covers the flamenco guitar song. A classic build signifies being near the end of the album. The Dream Slayer is surprisingly the heaviest song on the album as the final song. With harsh guitar screams and pounding drums it serves as closure to an impressive musical exhibition.

John 5 Website

Boargazm - The Backoning

My first impression of Boargazm was that they are just another alternative metal act. Boargazm is a 4-piece band from Pretoria and I admit I am oblivious to decent metal from Pretoria and I do not think Boargazm is per se a metal band. The Slipknot-esque influence on most of the songs and the varying arrangements of a noise band, makes me purposefully steer away from bottling them into a genre. Whatever they are, their album is full of it and it starts with the very graphic album art.

The Baconing is the follow up album to their first album The Aporkalypse. The 9 songs on The Baconing averages on 3:20 a song, which exposes a template of conceptual planning on the album. The drums that are recorded live on the album gives a raw dynamic to the songs.

The Intro is a mediocre 30 seconds wasted. Underverse follows as a lively song with groovy riffs. I assume the ‘underverse’ reference is from the Chronicles of Riddick. An underverse is a constellation of dark, new stars. The song that follows, Rebel Slave is my favourite song. With a lot of Slipknot influence, the pounding riffs and queer sludge sounds are unfortunately undermined by the escalating harmonic vocals on the chorus.

In Days of Yore carries the album with Slipknot-ish screams and sounds, ending with the guitars fading from left-to-right to give a nice effect. Of Mice and Men is another lively track, that starts with faint pig squeals. The instrumental track that follows, Breach starts with a weird intro and is an overall weird song. One could mistake it for an Evanescance track. The longest track on the album brings the momentum of the album to a near halt. There are ascending melodies that thickens the song a bit.

Star Overseer has chugging riffs, switching to wailing screams that powers the way to an erratic verse. The song contains a unique bass solo. Ideals of a Fool features Herman le Roux from Juggernaught, who provides weird blues hooks on the song. Ending the song with pig squeals.

Not gonna get us is a Tatu cover and can just rightly fuck off! It is silly to have it as track 9 on an 11 track record. It fucks with the composition of the album. There is a weird solo fused over the original hooks of the song. The best thing about this song is the fart and snot sounds at the end. Empire of Doom contains solid bass riffs and is an overall good song, I like the crashing vocals on the verse. Aftermath as an outro is utterly irrelevant.

Live, their stage presence occupies more space than four people tend to. I rate them as the type you want to have a braai with. At both shows that I saw them perform at, they held their own with the best punk and metal bands in the Western Cape. Live, Cicero Carstens accomplishes triplet slaps on the bass with ease. Jason Hinch playing drums, also performs for the Black Cat Bones and Chris Danger Thundervolt, the second guitarist plays bass for Dead Lucky, as well as the Black Cat Bones.

I am indifferent to the pig masks and the overall leitmotif of the aporkalypse. They have an amazing stage presence and are known for wild antics such as jumping higher than they should. I rate they will always be uncomfortably cramped on the metal stage at festivals; but would just be as ill-fitted on a main stage.

Their soundcloud

Corporation - Shadows of the Corporation

The past years I have been less vocal about punk, something I do not enjoy defending that much anymore. Shying away from the punk label, particularly after seeing the opening ceremony to the London Olympics where dolls bobbed their oversized heads to Pretty Vacant, commenting that they do not want cheap comments. I just wanted to call the punk attitude quits.

Most punk bands have transposed their style, appropriating a more sanitized image. The milieu is scattered with essentially rock bands, few bands playing heavy music that is not metal. The ethos and attitude of punk are transplanted to something very trendy or it is invisible. Crust Punk bands are only nostalgically referred to today.

Crack Rock is a positive pole to punk’s recent clean image. Dirty, vulgar and anti-capitalist, true Crack Rock bands are the dirtiest punk can offer. I think Corporation is a Crack Rock band, with a healthy lenience towards rock contained within its finer sounds. The album contains powerful chords with full-bodied, memorable songs. The 2009 album Return of the Corporation was an awesome album, high on my list of favorite punk albums.

Bank Korrupt opens the first 20 seconds with a weird intro that spill over to familiar riffs and heavy vocals. The song is about being bankrupt and the bank being bankrupt, with a long sample about debt. Quarter Life Crisis is a melodramatic and anxiety ridden song to have as a second song. Venom contains 4 vocal parts with 31 words between no vocals parts in 19 seconds.

I Hate the Radio’s intro is more than a minute long. The chorus is gang vocals of “I hate the radio” repeated 4 times embedded between two bi-vocal verses that serve as anthem. The song progresses to a weird reggae bridge with final chorus and outro. Fuck the radio, I fucking hate the radio. The radio is an advertising medium with no altruism that works tit for tat.

9 to 5 sings anti-work and anti-capitalist sentiments, such as “would you let your child self beat the shit out of you?” The lyrics reiterate the plea to not sell your soul for cash “9 to 5 are you even alive?”. Menstrual Envy is a very weird song. It is the longest song on the album, with a hypnotic and angry feel.

Jesus and Santa is a 180 degree change in mood to happy-clappy street punk. The songs’ carrying bass and trumpet sounds beautiful. It is skater music with attitude, unfortunately only 1:25 long. You Lose contains fast riffs and furious vocals. It sounds a lot like previous songs, such as Land of the Free. An anxious beat presses down on the vocals.

Last Calls’ brass section qualifies the song with jazz-ish elements inserted with rocking guitars. An organ builds to full-on fast and happy skater music. The song is about fucking up songs while drinking till last call and passing out. A cheesy 10 second guitar solo is followed by a solid 10 second bass solo. Consider this my Resignation starts with a very fast intro with clean 90’s type punk vocals. It is a classic punk song that ends the album, probably the most archetype punk song on the album.

The album leaflet states the album was recorded in basements. With 10 songs that span over 28 minutes, it did not take long for me to familiarize myself with the structures of the album. I predict a quick decline in listening of this album and I soon started skipping Quarter Life Crisis and Menstrual Envy. I don’t rate this album as impressive as Return of the Corporation was on the first couple of listens. Nonetheless, this is one of the best punk albums this year.

Authenticity: 8/10 Overall: 7/10

Bandcamp

Soreption - Engineering the Void

1. Reveal the Unseen
2. The Nature of Blight
3. Breaking the Great Narcissist
4. A Speech to Survival
5. Utopia
6. Monumental Burden
7. I Am You
8. Engineering the Void

Swedish technical death metal is not a familiar and comfortable genre for me, and the genre itself is limiting to explain why I like this particular album. With a logo that is decipherable and the album cover that is relatively mellow, I like it because it's contemporary. Established in late 2005, this contemporary band trump a lot of tech death forerunners (I dare not veer to compare Necrophagist [to avoid a fear-of-life dilemma]).

Engineering the Void is the album that have captivated me most in 2014 so far. Presenting technical precision with a groovy feel embedded in dynamic composition. Ample sweeps on the guitar, with some awesome slapped bass, insanely fast guitar riffs and technical double-bass drumming. The vocals are audible with a high level of production. 8 tracks being just enough to captivate me by not being too long with ambient, undecipherable samples and fillers that usually just gets in the way in the genre. The surprisingly audible vocals breaks my face, whilst retaining that tech death feel.

The power from technical precision is sustained throughout the album. Engineering the Void comprises of 8 very complete songs. Full-bodied songs that is usually lacking for me in technical death metal. In essence Engineering the Void veer from any excessive bullshit.

The second half of Breaking the Great Narcissist contains a morbid synth that progress into an awesome melody, quickly shattered by double-bass drumming and thunderous vocals. A very weird synth fill in Monumental Burden builds to seemingly endless sweeping on the guitars. The title track Engineering The Void present a guest vocal appearance from Trevor Strnad (The Black Dahlia Murder), and together they sound very angry.

Soreption released Deterioration of Minds in 2010 and Illuminate the Excessive EP in 2007. I rate Engineering the Void a 8/10, mostly for presenting a very pragmatic album.