From Corners Unknown

Greetings fleshy void inhabitants of planet Earth. This week Ryan and I crawl from the concrete wreckage of ZILF’s The Album. This absolutely zany “pop sludge” album had us trapped in a neon green-hued stasis of engorged fun. Lately, I’ve been on a spastic vocal delivery bender and this band scratches that infected wound. It’s even funnier since my own word delivery in this podcast episode is comparable to a four-year-old (no offense to four-year-olds) trying to talk while eating Go-Gurt.

The two-piece, comprised of Joe and Bret (now a three-piece post The Album‘s release), creates a vast and awesome world rife with scalpel-sharp guitar work. You got mathy, skronk-laden riffs that compel you to sumo slam off a flying saucer and splat upon the gravel below, and progressive djent melodies that emerge and enhance the outlandish adventures the music grooves through. You’ll want to ride a tarantula hawk into battle as it lays its eggs in a poor and hairy eight-legged victim.

Their lyrical content ranges from politics to Half-Life to who the hell else knows what (I just recommend checking it out). Both members deliver multiple styles of vocal attacks and they fuse so damn well with each other. To list but a few, we got growls, screams, whacked-out and zany crackhead Elmo, and some singing that reminded us of Greg Puciato. At one point I even note that a track reminded me of some fucked up Nightmare Before Christmas jingle. This album is a wonderful breezing by of time and I think you should all check it out. Trust me, I’m a doctor!

Shortly after this album’s release, ZILF added a new bassist Pete Petit and they are hoping to eventually add two more members to become a full-fledged quintet. These England-based bloody Kool-Aid Jammers have been busting out catchy metal since around 2015. The Christmas Present singles are also quite the curdled milk and cookies treat, worthy enough to give Santa splatters. The Album was self-released on June 5th, 2020.

How goes it deranged, vomiting meat skin buddies? This week Ryan and I indulge ourselves in Fleshvessel’s Bile of Man Reborn. At first glance the album artwork made me think I’d be diving into a disgusting spew of brutal death metal. This was not the case. Instead, I found myself listening to a dynamic, experimental, and atmospheric epic. There are moments of destructive brutality but the incorporation of unexpected instruments made this release stand out. Have you ever heard a door harp or a Puerto Rican Cuatro in death metal? This is your opportunity and it is awesome!

Bile of Man Reborn consists of a singular twenty-five-minute track, which is separated into three distinct portions. The instrumental section (my personal favorite) is absolutely mind-blowing with its neoclassical like darkness and beauty. This evolving concept, of course, leads to Ryan and I coming up with our own bizarre tales via the music we hear. Despite the actual lyrics being quite vivid and serious, I went the route of fabricating some screwed up science fiction tale. Ryan stayed true to the overall tone and came up with an equally as vivid pus-filled hellish image. My story involves a blistered man named Blart who’s people were taken into slavery to mine an alien moon. After hundreds of years of misery, they decide to start an uprising. If that intrigues you, I narrate this tale on and off for the duration of the podcast as we dork out on the stunning instrumentals.

Fleshvessel is an experimental death metal project based out of Chicago, Illinois. The project was formed in 2019 by Alexander Torres (guitar, viola, Puetro Rican cuatro) and Sakda Srikoetkhruen (fretless bass). They then added members Amos Hart (vocals, keyboards) and Gina Hoetzer (flute) to form the whole body of the band. Bile of Man Reborn is their debut EP released via I, Voidhanger Records on June 26, 2020. There are workings of a debut LP, which is set to release sometime in early 2021.

Hey there everyone, this week we bring to you yet another track reviews episode! Ryan, Derek, and I select various new singles, EPs, splits, and the like, and then rant about our selections while going on wild diatribes.

This time around we get dragged into the noisy dust pit caused by Evaporated Sores’ “Claimed by Inertia”. The harsh noise-infused death metal takes your arm, bends it back, and snaps it like some kindling. That arm flesh kindling is then thrown into the fire with abrasive riffs, bits of doom metal, and squawks of feedback. This track will leave you scorched but wanting more! I even imagined a derelict dude in the forest doing peculiar things (nothing unusual for the brain of Connor).

Batting next is Quaranteam’s debut EP Coward Cocoon. This is a fun little groovy banger with only bass, vocals, and drums. We were stunned on how awesome a bass leading the riff assault could be. Each short track delivers a catchy groove to jam to while maintaining the heft. There’s also a track that opens with a magnificent sample from the movie Sling Blade with an accompanying puppet music video. We don’t got no god damn guitar Randy! At least some stupendous stuff comes out of being stuck at home.

We bring the tempo down to a simmer with Sprain’s “Constant Hum”. This alternative noise rock track is like nothing we’ve ever covered before. It’s slow and noisy but full of emotion; at times I felt as if I was wandering through the high deserts of southern California. The melancholic dazed instrumentals brought up old memories and times of personal strife for us. Moments of beauty are contrasted with constant noise to create a landscape that one cannot help but reflect on. This track had me instantly checking out Sprain’s backlog.

If you want some crude graphic imagery in your life, then look no further! The brutal death metal band Goratory returns after many years with the track “I Shit Your Pants”. We found the lyrics to be absolutely disgusting yet utterly hilarious. The music itself is full of technical skill and crushing energy (also, the first time I’ve listened to something with pig squeals in awhile). The album artwork for their upcoming LP Sour Grapes is something worth scanning closely. We all look forward to reading the lyrics for the rest of this release down the road!

“Quarantimes / time for you to not go out into the world / I know who I want to listen to at home.” Alright, enough with the bad quarantine parody of Semisonic’s Closing Time. Quarantimes, Vol. 1 is actually a compilation album produced by Learning Curve Records. It’s full of noise rock awesomeness! The proceeds go to the National Independent Venue Association (because we want to fucking see live music at our favorite venues when this is all over).

I decided to pick out three of my favorite Quarentimes tracks for us to talk about. First is Super Thief’s “Dale Gribble”, mostly because I recently binged through every season of King of the Hill. It’s a frantic ramble about Alex Jones and his insane conspiracy theories. The next track is from one of my noise rock favorites, Grizzlor. Their song “Playing Shows Blows” is witty and hilarious. I feel like many musicians can relate to it too. The last banger chosen was bbigpigg’s “Baby Boom”. This one was just upbeat and fun with a brain worm of a chorus. I do recommend checking out the other ten tracks on this compilation too!

The final release that we talk about is another long-awaited comeback by psyche-noise avant-punk band An Albatross with Return of the Lazer Viking. Being only slightly familiar with this outfit, we were all stunned by the insanity they bring. Indescribable wacky instrumentals are accented with funky synths and psychotic vocals, yet we found the madness to be clinically well-crafted and in-sync. Your mind will most likely be transported to somewhere odd.

Below you will find Bandcamp embed links to peruse each track, EP,

Imagine a nice weekend in the wine-filled golden valleys of Napa, California. There you are: laid back, enjoying a nice blood-red glass of pinot noir in your salmon cashmere button-up. Down the road, you spot a silver faded Hyundai Santa Fe rolling down the grapevine hills, and your peaceful birdsong and fancy cheese-eating Sunday is suddenly crushed underfoot by some absolutely destructive hardcore blaring from this asshat’s windows.

I’m sorry, but this asshat is me, Connor “Burrito Boy” Benson, and the music ruining your trip is END’s newest release Splinters From An Ever-Changing Face. In my defense, you can’t help but blast this delicious ruinous music, and well… my AC is broken, so my windows had to be let down.

Ryan and I both agree that you must crank the volume dial so far right that the knob shatters in your hands (I hope that’s a cheap repair). END constructed this beast with bone-snapping riffs, jaw-cracking drums, and a mix of garroting vocals. There also lurk various tension-grabbing atmospheric textures and peculiar asylum-like recordings just to set the mood. The lyrics are well crafted as they unleash frustration with religion and the self. The vocals themselves are bled with emotion, and at times are layered to inflict double the head trauma. At one point on my way back from camping above the Napa region, I found myself listening to the track “Sands of Sleep” several times over. The grooving apocalyptic vibes it gave off really made me want to off-road into the scorched pine landscape. Of course, you know I would be thundering the album for all the woodland critters to hear!

END is a hardcore supergroup based primarily out of New Jersey, with other members spread across the country. The project is led by guitarist Will Putney from Fit For An Autopsy. Other members consist of vocalist Brendan Murphy (Counterparts), guitarist Greg Thomas (ex-Misery Signals, Zombie Apocalypse), drummer Billy Rymer (The Dillinger Escape Plan), and bassist Jay Pepito (Reign Supreme). They released their first EP From the Unforgiving Arms of God back in 2017, and their newest release arrived in this world on June 5, 2020. I can only hope that once all this pandemic crap ends, I can experience END in person, only to get pink-misted by their amps.

Well, hello and welcome to a podcast about a death metal band. But not just any death metal band. These bois are one of the key progenitors of that sub-genre (of a sub-genre) known as brutal death metal. But more importantly, they converted me, Duncan, to the dark side of all things that SLAM. But this should come as no surprise, considering they have released what is, at the time of writing, my favourite album of the year. It is fresh, it is creative, it is emotive, it is invigorating, it is ALIVE (contrary to the deathly genre of which it belongs), and it is something I have listened to pretty much every day of this lockdown after a hard day’s toil at the virtual office.

As you would have already read in the title, I am, of course, referring to the album Four Dimensional Flesh by Afterbirth. I’ll just put it out there right now and say that right off the bat, this album absolutely fucking slaps. These guys have managed to create an album of brutal death metal which is somehow as beautiful and ethereal as it is repulsively heavy. And Jeebus be praised, it does this without venturing into the realm of melodic death metal.

So give the below podcast a listen and hear Ryan and I incoherently ramble about how fucking much we love this album, and how we are in total awe that these musical maestros have somehow managed to bridge the gap between brutal death metal, post-rock, ambient, and shoegaze. We discuss and try to understand every sound, every tone, every fill and every riff on this album (don’t worry, the album is actually super short and we probably only actually cover about 5% of this), and we pay tribute to the legendary Will Smith for both his excellent lyrics and frog-like gutturals. But ultimately, in this discussion, we try to figure out how these guys managed to pull off this genre-defying release of epic proportions. How did they do it? What makes it so good? And why does more Death Metal not sound like this? In the words of a particular Norwegian friend-murdering racist: “Let’s find out!”

Hello there good people, you may actually need a sanity check after this one! This week Ryan and I dive into the bramble-filled rabbit hole that is Insanity Check’s debut album, Unrecoverable Reality. We once again get lost in unfamiliar territory within a dark beat-driven, industrial synth electronic, metal-tinged soundtrack-like concoction. The intense music brought up memories of many–and I truly mean many–video games of our past. We drift everywhere within the pixel-based universe, and of course, add in our own distorted thoughts. To name a few games… Luigi’s Mansion, Time Splitters 2, Duke Nukem Twisted Metal, the list goes on.

Despite a lack of terminology to describe the electronic elements within this release, Ryan and I try our best as we ride the vapor waves through each distinct track. Each song unpackages a rich layered landscape for the mind to explore, like the carnival nightmare synth or the hard-hitting metallic beats that drag you into a jagged junkyard. While you’re nursing your rusty tetanus-filled wounds, be prepared to dance your way to a cyber beat. Then you find yourself smashing buttons within a ghoul-filled arcade as chiptune fragments dart in. With each listen I found myself intrigued by a new noise, melody, or beat.

Insanity Check was conjured up by the Finnish DJ Topias Svärd. He is also known as “DJ Backstabber” and “8-Bitape”(a chiphop project within the Scandanavian chiptune underground). Unrecoverable Reality took five years to produce and captures a dark time in Topias’ life has he struggled with mental health issues. He also notes that it could act as an alternative mix to a Command and Conquer Red Alert soundtrack, so maybe Ryan and I aren’t too far off with the video game chatter. Now gear up, deploy some pylons for the Zerg rush, and listen to our nerd ramblings.

Hello there unbeaten apocalyptic city dwellers! This week we bring to you chatter regarding Imperial Triumphant’s new album Alphaville. This release is an absolutely stunning and dynamic piece of tumultuous avant-garde metal. I’d describe it as metropolis-toppling black metal jazz with atmospheric technical death crushing experimentation. The album is also filled with interesting audio clips and neoclassical movements. Ryan and I imagined various scenarios of post-apocalyptic futures and the inhabitants within, such as a bustling undercity of scavengers or an inner sanctum of cannibalistic sewer mutants.

The combination of grooving bass lines, insane vocals, noisy instrumentals, and faint city ambiance captures the filth and beauty of large municipalities, particularly New York. This inspired thoughts of modern-day corporate CEOs abusing their employees to gain endless amounts of wealth; the lyrical content within the track “City Swine” furthered these notions. We then reach the “Atomic Age”, and the bombs are dropped in the title track. The bloodied screams stand out in my memory whenever thinking back to this album (seriously, check that track out).

The skillful composition within every track creates something to be remembered. I also must mention the absolutely nightmarish cover of The Residents’ “Happy Home“. For some screwed-up reason, I pictured all of my favorite childhood cartoon characters swarming me in Central Park with Tommy Pickles gorging himself on my intestines.

Imperial Triumphant allegedly arrived on the scene in 2005, yet did not debut in full form until their 2012 release Abominamentvm. Several EPs and albums later, we reach Alphaville. Speaking of genre, the band initially established themselves more as an experimental black metal project, but over time have transformed into the diverse avant-garde craziness that they are today. The overarching theme of the trio’s music in recent years has been to capture the auditory essence of New York City. From high-rise ivory towers of elites to seedy alleyways, they somehow encapsulate this sonic theme through their eccentric, cerebrum-liquefying metal. They also embody a mysterious aura that I can’t fully describe in my utterances. Do yourself a favor and ride the innumerable floor elevator that is Imperial Triumphant.

Greetings interstellar travelers of the void. With this episode, we transmit to you Cryptic Shift’s debut LP, Visitations from Enceladus. Coined as “phenomenal technological astrodeath,” this intelligent sci-fi-themed album is quite the space trek. Ryan and I enjoyed reading the complex lore crafted within the lyrics as the sound waves immolated our cerebrums. From inter-dimensional space travel to celestial ancient space beings, I note several times how I could read a whole book on this content. Throw in some atmospheric laser guitar riffs, warped bass grooves, theatrical growls, and asteroid pulverizing drums, and you got yourself one galaxy-obliterating album.

Cryptic Shift is a four-piece that hails from Leeds, United Kingdom. They first transmitted us earthlings an EP titled Beyond The Celestial Realms in 2016. Establishing themselves within the sci-fi-driven theme, they then released another EP, Cosmic Dreams, in 2017. This release starts the immense space-traveling venture we see in Visitations From Enceladus. The band crafts a monolithic variety of genres and sounds such as aggressive thrash metal, grooving progressive instrumentals, and bleak atmospheric landscapes. These are just a few fragments within this wide-ranging album that will leave you withered in the vacuum of space by the end. Man, existing as a frozen space raisin would make a quality concept album.

Hey, Dad, look at me!

Welcome to another track reviews episode. For uh… reasons, Ryan, Connor, and myself (Derek) decided to study the choicest cuts from Buzz Ballads Vol. 2, a series of comps you might have seen commercials for on cable around 2 AM.

Folks, this was tough. This hurt. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but even though a good chunk of how we even got to this point was my fault… I have legitimate regrets. Gaze long into the abyss and it gazes back at you, me, and all of the people with nothing to lose and nothing to prove… NOOOO, IT’S INSIDE ME NOW.

Most of these songs are the pinnacle of single-draft-no-rewrite musicianship. Why is the guy from Fuel so upset about spilled coffee and a broken shoelace? You can take care of both those issues for less than ten bucks, easy.

Normally Ryan would write something like “we hope you enjoy these tracks, etc.” but honestly I hope you’re better than that, and if you aren’t you probably at least read the room well enough to not stan out loud. These were all unjustifiably massive hits and on major labels, so there’s no Bandcamp. Instead, we’ve provided links to the music videos below. We get into some of the videos in the discussion, so it might be worth ruining your YouTube recommendations to take a look. But maybe don’t do that because these songs will get stuck in your head despite how objectively bad they are. (Protip: If you DO watch the videos, do it at 2x speed for fun and efficiency).

Note: All opinions of Springfield, MA, and Florida, in general, are Derek’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FCU as a whole.

Load your cannons and prep the gunpowder, we’re getting weird! For this episode, we recruited our humorous childhood pal and first mate “Dilly” to join us on an outlandish voyage. You may remember him if you listened to our Amon Amarth episode a year back.

This time we lay down our Viking helmets and adorn our pirate hats with Alestorm. Much like the last episode with the Dilster, we nerd out hard on all topics relating to the album’s obvious themes. Another aspect similar to the Amon Amarth episode is Ryan’s lack of experience with the band as he endures Dillon and I speak. Having listened to the band since Captain Morgan’s Revenge (2008), we tell a handful of stories and call back to many tracks in their discography.

Despite not being huge on the power metal scene, we find much love for the goofy antics and folk instruments Alestorm throws in the mix. Like a blunderbuss full of miscellaneous items, Curse of the Crystal Coconut (2020) is full of interesting textures: accordion synth-filled dance beats, hurdy gurdys, cannon shots, and a rap track? There’s also even a chiptune version of the album. Walk the plank, grab some rum, and prepare your earholes for a scurvy filled episode!

Alestorm set sail unto the world from Perth, Scotland in the year of 2004 as Battleheart. The power metal lads changed the name to Alestorm in 2006 after the success of a pirate-themed track. They quickly found success as a pirate-themed band by joining Napalm Records in 2007, followed by the release of Captain Morgan’s Revenge (still their most solid album to date in my honest opinion). Over the last decade, they have released a handful of albums and lapped around the world. I myself have seen them twice on tour and find them to be one of the most entertaining metal acts to see live. They deliver a show of dorky onstage antics such as rum shots and the entire crowd singing tracks. This band is all about having a jolly roger of a time. Yar har I got a wooden leg, wooden leg!