Review of Various Artists - The Music of Artisanship & War: Volume 1

Synopsis:

I hate reviewing compilation CD’s but the dude over at Diminished Fifth Records (and member of The Orchid’s Curse), is a super nice bloke, so I thought I’d do him and his super indie label a favor and review this compilation of pretty obscure acts.

Review:

What we have here is a collection of 17 pretty substandard, unsigned acts plying their trade, with most of it being some sort of badly produced hardcore, death metal, metalcore derivative. Some are decent, some are bad and some are just plain awful. So here goes:

Terrabomb-“Windtears”. Not an awful start with their brand of high octane if slightly sloppy, blackened metalcore/thrash with seething vocals. There’s some promise here.

Gallactus –“Iron Bridge”. Bluesy, stoner thrash metal was the only description I could come up with for this. It's one of the less generic tracks on the compilation and it's not bad, just not my thing. May appeal to the fans of High on Fire and such.

The Orchid’s Curse - “Goodbye is When the Casket Closes”. The founder of the label is in this band and I reviewed their EP a while ago. Middle ground metalcore with some potential.

Chara - “Woman is Danger Cat”. Crumbly chaotic spazzy myspacecore/deathcore/screamo/grind with screams and growls-you’ve heard it before and you’ve heard it waaaaaay better.

Good Lookin’ Out – “Taking it Back”. Horrible band name, decently produced slab of thrashy, punk/hardcore with gang chants and Bay Area guitar tone. Not bad.

Hellacrust – “Forsaken Rapture”. Sort of primal, grim black death/metal/thrash metal that tries hard but flounders a bit due to bad execution. With some tightening up, might be worth a look.

Pariah - “We Will Remember”. Not the Omaha metalcore/noise core band on Black Market Activities. Worse, a sloppy and unimaginative Lamb of God worshiping metalcore/thrash band.

Athymia – “Needle ‘n’ Thread”. A pretty damn good track of chunky chugging semi death metal/heavy metalcore band with intense vocals. I will look out for these guys.

Dischord – “Nuke Face”. A wanna be, mildly technical death metal outfit with annoying vocals. Pass.

War Pony –“Love Death Forever”. One of the compilation’s oddball tracks. Straight up rock and roll, a bit out of place but well done.

Bound In Human Flesh – “Again I Kill”. If you call yourself ‘Bound in Human Flesh’ and have a song called “Again I Kill”, you’d better be brutal as fuck, not a melodic death thrash act like this.

Legions of Chaos – “One Thousand Kills”. Ugh. Don’t even bother.

Laid To Waste - “The Severed”. Generic but competent track of American Metal.

In Purgatory – “Eater of Nightmares”. Growly. Screamy. Squealy. Breakdown-y. Arpeggio-y. Myspacey. Sucky.

Huge – “Pity Parade”. ?????????????????

Strange Hollow – “Bullshit”. Meh-Sort of experimental Tool-ish experimental metal.

Rusted Dawn – “Waking Streets”. Traditional NWOBHM meets hardcore? -I don’t think so.

There’s a reason almost all these bands are unsigned and are likely to remain so. With the exception of maybe The Orchid’s Curse and Athymia, partly due to the current musical climate nowadays, I can’t see ever hearing from any of these bands again. But I have to give credit to the label for giving these guys a shot and to the bands for trying.

I'm not sure we really need a Volume 2.

Release Details

Various Artists

The Music of Artisanship & War: Volume 1

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