waysted time

wasting all your precious, precious time.

Caught some horror flicks the other week at the Philadelphia Unnamed Film Fest and I didn’t feel like writing about them here after I mentioned them at one of the lousy metaverse platforms. Projection and Head Like a Hole. Each have their strengths and flaws. I wouldn’t purchase physical copy of these titles although both exhibit promise for their directors should they forge forward.

Syllogomania is Anna Irena Groo’s psychotic black metal project where the Krakow native has thrown down the gauntlet, guitars, bass, drum programming to document “the daily life of a child raised amidst mould, bugs, tight corridors of bags and dusty boxes that no one could touch.” Sinister, frantic and hell bent on rubbing our faces in urban blight. This is what you expect from the Polish scene - dissonant, hypnotic, reeking venom. Great riffing, nicely textured detailing, the bass carries a lot of weight and melodic undertow. Final song is to die for, in keeping with code - nouveau gloaming gloom and dis-chordant melodicism and a vocal assist from Stawrogin (Gruzja, Odraza, Totenmesse.) Impressive debut outing.

Look what we have here… another Shedfromthebody release in 2025. Wrap these 2 around the new deftones and you could satiate your dark shoegaze crossover metal craving. The vocals here always work for me as they are in an Alison Shaw/Cranes and Kelli Ali breathy register.

Kostnatění with two songs available in advance of their November 7 birthday gift to me. Bringing the wobble and microtonal black metal with hints of Middle Eastern/Turkish folk/rhythms and vocals in Czech, the Minneapolis mad chefs led by D. Lyons go for broke - even when dialing back some of the more “out there” dissonances and experimental leanings of previous offerings - and deliver a nasty combination. This lines up with Gravenchalice, Suffering Hour and Blut Aus Nord. You wouldn’t do yourself a disservice grabbing this.

Dialing in the HM-2 and DS-1 to Entombed left hand path cement mixer meets rusted, busted chainsaw Monstru death sludge across three rough and tumble tracks. Vocals are absolutely commanding. This has a mid pace to slow pacing that is somewhere across a battlefield where Asphyx and Bolt Thrower meet. There is no law. Only death.

A case of similar but different… Finland’s Themata plumbing sewage with a deathcrush style with more “modern” Meshuggah-nic guitar attack than the Monstru classic Swede death metal tone. You may think Themata is designed in a nothing elastic grooved sludge style and I wouldn’t raise a huge argument other than hold up LLNN as another point of reference since Themata utilize textural elements drawn from the atmospheric post metal wheelhouse.

Since first mentioning Zabus in earlier posts this year, they have released the Whores of Holyrood a full length. Given the current climate being based in D.C. is probably the impetus for main songwriter Jeremy Moore’s burst in creativity and need to unleash the bats. Whores of Holyrood could be considered a solo offering from Moore. Stark and stripped down from Shadow Genesis and Floodplain Canticles. In a sense one could be reminded of Gira’s solo work when Swans was full steam ahead and prior to the first death that birthed The Angels of Light. This shares trademark elements of the full core band while having the distinction of being one person’s vision. Joy Division, Gun Club, Cramps swathed in reverb, delay and post millennial angst.

Zero Swann is another splinter from Jeremy Moore and Benefactor comes two years after the Amon Zonaris release. This project has similarities to Zabus in its approach to sound, using copious amounts of reverb and delay and vocals forward in the mix. While Zabus is decidedly post punk given the psyche treatment, Zero Swann is its more sinister, noisier, atavistic twin. Almost free form and nightmarish in approach where songs are spasms and rattles rather than crafted and honed into shape.

A recording requiring a listener’s full attention is Nerves - Iarmhaireacht. Almost feels as if it is one long composition divided into songs given its narrative flow of creeped out post punk noise rock. If this is a concept album, my guess would be the story thread follows what’s depicted on the cover art. Oh, what mysteries have we here? Scuzzy electronics, skittish rhythms, desperate vocals, when the beats come down they are propulsive and heavy. Final track, “Don’t Let Go” brings in a source of light and cathartic release from the suffocating atmospheres that came before. Superbly crafted album. Rightfully earns the Videodrome warning: “it has something that you don’t have… It has a philosophy. And that is what makes it dangerous.”

Denmark’s Heathe best sums it up on their mission statement of their latest, Control Your Soul’s Desire For Freedom, far better than I could manage to hype this up. “Based on dissonance and endless repetition, the group conjures up massive and overwhelming sonic walls of reverb-heavy and metallic-sounding noise collages, where desperation, high-frequency ecstasy, and aggressive bursts of energy echo through an infinite darkness.” First track is a shrill monologue that if you can endure, you’ll be treated to a wondrous collision of no wave, noise rock, krautrock and psyche across the next 5 journeys in darkness and light.

New one from Fed Ash released in full… funny, when I began composing this only one song was available… time marches forward, waits for no one, especially me. When I saw the album cover I immediately thought Eisenvater III only uglier. Maybe matching the grottiness of Piss Vortex and Pissgrave. Anyway, I digress. Rotting Exuberance weilds a massive guitar tone somewhere between Hate Eternal, Morbid Angel and Nasum. Songs are in the early Pig Destroyer school of thought melding grindcore and death metal aesthetics with elements of noise. The noise component here integrated seamlessly and functioning more than textural accents. All out assaults of “Laughing Mad,” “Sensation Gorger,” “Echopraxia,” have the modern disso-deathgrind intensity to match the likes of Fawn Limbs and Piss Vortex and overwhelm the old vanguard of Rotten Sound, Nasum, Napalm Death. “Dementia_43” with killer hypnotic cyclical riffing a la Plebeian Grandstand/Blut Aus Nord. Final track does have an Eisenvater feel whether they or you know it or not.

Death metal proper. Being Canadian almost always brings some sort of angular spin to things in the metal realm. Phobocosm offer a glimpse to Gateway via “Sempiternal Penance.” If anyone is to pick up after NY titans Immolation, Phobocosm is the the shoe-in with all the lurching, heaving rhythms bellicose vocals and twin guitar riffage. Phobocosm are in a curious position as they are clearly accomplished musicians that are strictly mining territory occupied by a long standing, legendary entity. Will Gateway display any deviation or if they are content to remain rough, rugged, sworn to the immolated path? I’m there either way, but, at this point in their campaign one would expect Phobocosm to display more deviation from their primary influence.

Speaking of Canadian death metal… can we have more from Phorboda? Please. This was released late last year. Burly Gorguts-ian racket. Has some of the Ved Buens Ende/Virus and Voivod informed chords and noise in Obscura herky/jerky arrangements.

New Qrixkuor? Wrapped in Santiago Caruso art? Why yes. Thank you. “Slithering Serendipity” welcomes you to The Womb of the World. The death metal on display is as cavernous and labyrinthine as one would expect. Maybe the synth patches are suspect being too my first casio recording for comfort. Funeral dirge atmosphere, classical symphonic theatrics veering between Celtic Frost to In Slaughter Natives. Invictus and Dark Descent collaborate once again.

Should be no surprise by now of my love of Ved Buens Ende and Virus… well, Strigiform obviously feel the same. They have a slightly bit caustic death metal lean into the oddball form. Another case where you can’t go wrong paying attention to this new I Voidhanger signing that is produced/engineered by Gabriele Gramaglia at his Crepuscular Sound Studios.

In a case where the past predicts the future or time travel worthy of HG Wells … Waysted’s Vice album cover. Appears to be Trump MAGAts Naziferatu Pee Wee German and Loony Loomer. Now and then I’ll revisit this album. The other weekend was one of them. And that’s when I had to laugh at the absurdity of this, ahem, artwork. Alternate timeline capture for certain. Obviously, given Pete Way being involved, there is that UFO mutability of styles. Maybe a little too schizoid for listeners or those who saw them open for Ozzy circa Bark at the Moon; but when you have a vocalist like Fin Muir navigating the way, it works out in the end. Dude’s voice slays with a soulful delivery. Musically Vices has a few decidedly killer tracks and some disposable, the odd cover version of Jefferson Airplane classic “Somebody to Love” becomes a laugh riot when Fin goes apeshit near the end. Album opener “Love Loaded” has a pre-chorus maybe too close for comfort with AC/DC’s “What Do You Do for Money Honey” and doesn’t capitalize on the infectiousness of the Back in Black song but it’s very good. “Women in Chains,” with an intro having a knowing nod to Van Halen’s “And the Cradle Will Rock,” is almost Phil Collins’ “Don’t Care Anymore” reimagined in a hard rock/heavy metal context. Easily my favorite song on the album. Most full on metal track is, as the title would imply, “Night of the Wolf.” This has a NWOBHM gallop worthy of Maiden mixed with the radio ready template of prime Ozzy/Rhoads is probably the next best song. Of course there’s the obligatory power ballad in “Right From the Start,” which coulda been a radio contender. “Sleazy” is far from that as it is full on melodic heavy metal with some Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy, Rhoads inspired dynamics. Then there’s a really bad Stones styled honky tonk bluesy number “Hot Love,” and the Thin Lizzy lite anthem “All Belongs to You.” Yes, this is all over the map. Just enjoy Fin’s voice.

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Oh, big shout out to Neill Jameson… been getting some traffic from his direction. Be sure to follow him at his fuckmusic substack.