Metal Riot

Hether Fortune brings gravity and grace to Saint Vitus Bar

I’m on three hours sleep today from taking the late train back Upstate after seeing Hether Fortune at Saint Vitus Bar, rounding out a series of East Coast performances that included a stop at Basilica Soundscape (alongside the likes of Insect Ark, Spellling and Lightning Bolt) before she headed back West. The fucked up-ness of the MTA notwithstanding, it was definitely worth attending one of Fortune’s solo performances hot on the heels of the Wax Idols hiatus. I am bummed I had to run for the train before Hilary Woods and the other act so I could get home in time to scrub bar toilets in the morning like a true starving artist. Some strong coffee and an AK-47 vape from a delivery guy from hippie country and I was able to get through most of the overcast day in a sleepy, if reflective gothy haze, so don’t feel too bad for me. I am also proud of myself for not drinking anything but a club soda and a Japanese matcha tea with tapioca balls all night. It was fun to text with my friend Grasshopper from Mercury Rev about how rad the show was last night while he was telling me about how good a time he is having in Madrid right now eating awesome food, haha. I got him and a super talented trans violinist friend to both agree to be on my next solo album last night, so it’s been all win in my neck of the woods today between that and the concert.

It is SO inspiring when a performer can have a lot shift in their life (such as a band hiatus) and bravely manage to not skip a beat and creatively still go deeper than some fear to tread even at their most confident circumstances. I have a ton of respect for that because I know when bands I was in that I spent a lot of emotional energy on went on hiatus over the years I have done everything from just lock myself away doing speedballs (granted thankfully 20 years ago) to being less destructive but unable to be seen in daylight hours without ugly snot crying. So big kudos to Hether for sticking it to the man and just continuing to rock without missing a step. You slay.

Fortune played a short set but it was full of powerful material from a solo album she has been working on for months. A new song “Sister” is as strong as any of the best material she has been a part of over the years with through the roof emotive vocals from a genuine place. There was also a to die for song about The Joker that, honestly, Warner Bros and DC need to just fucking call her now. It would make me almost forgive them for that fucking awful, awful “Purple Lamborghini” video with Skrillex and Rick Ross with Jared Leto’s anemic mall joker on a speedboat, if I recall. Just do the right thing and call Hether up about using this song. It takes the famous “one bad day” Alan Moore theme and adds serious real world emotional weight with Fortune’s trademark melodic vocals that manage to be both mournful and yet uplifting at once.

Anyway, it was awesome to finally see Hether live. Major shout out and never stop what you are doing. Truly one of the most inspiring performers out there who I listen to much more than most other artists. It meant a lot to finally see live someone who has created a lot of music that has moved me even in these jaded ass cynical times. There were some looping difficulties Fortune tweeted about today during a cover of The Verve’s biggest hit “Bittersweet Symphony”, but it really wasn’t the end of the world at all. One small part was a little off time but Fortune made it work by sort of elongating the vocal cadence and it just came off as just more fuckin’ punk and sort of trippy, though she was being a little self deprecating about it afterward. For real though, there was so much pathos, cool ambient guitar sounds that would have raised even Trent Reznor’s eyebrows and poetry packed into that set that I am sure no one there felt anything but stoked.

On November 23rd, Cattle Decapitation will release their new rarities collection, Medium Rarities (that’s fucking hysterical), via Metal Blade Records. Featuring 6 previously unreleased pre-Human Jerky (1999) demos with front-man Travis Ryan on guitar (while also handling vocal duties), plus the long-sought-after To Serve Man (2002) bonus track, “Rotting Children For Remote Viewing” – in addition to other rarities (including the 6 songs from 2005’s split EP with Caninus!) – this compilation spans the band’s 22-year long career and is a must-have for any Cattle Decapitation fan.

Travis Ryan comments: “‘Medium Rarities‘ is a project we started about 10 years ago, and we’re thrilled to see it finally happen! In 2008, I started compiling unreleased tracks, import bonus tracks and 7″ releases for a rarities release – and even had the art created by the legendary Wes Benscoter, when we discovered that a key track was missing that we wanted to include on it. Our album ‘To Serve Man‘ had a bonus track ready in case there was a Japanese version released, but that never happened – and the band members’ copies of the track got lost, seemingly forever! We felt a rarities compilation released without that bonus track would be a weird idea, and so the project got shelved until recently. Heather Parsons of Metal Blade finally was able to unearth the track from an old disc that was tucked away in the Metal Blade vault! The lyrics to the song were unearthed along with it, and so we quickly got to work with compiling and mastering the rest. This is a nice, concise compilation of unreleased and hard-to-find tracks, complete with lyrics and cheeky vinyl color variant schemes, based on how people like their meat prepared. The European vinyl variants also resemble diseased meats…But my favorite part is the cassette, which was created to look like the vintage cassette releases we grew up on – complete with the old school Metal Blade axe logo! A lot of thought and work went into this release, and we are pleased to finally be able to present to you…’Medium Rarities‘!”

For a preview of Medium Rarities, “An Exposition of Insides” (a Japanese bonus track from 2012’s Monolith of Inhumanity) can be streamed now at: metalblade.com/cattledecapitation – where the collection can also be pre-ordered.

Lastly for today, I wanna make sure you all know about great news from Philly post-metal pilots of the subconscious Rosetta!

Both The Anaesthete and Quintessential Ephemera will be reissued on 2xLP on various color variants via Pelagic Records October 5th. For North American preorders, go to THIS LOCATION. In Europe go HERE and in Australia go HERE.

If you haven’t heard this band I want to actually take the rare moment to make myself shut the fuck up and instead of trying to cram a word salad on rye into your ears I am gonna insist you go look them up on Bandcamp and just let them paint worlds for you.

With legendary blast drummer Pete Sandoval ready to revive TERRORIZER for another momentous grinding onslaught,  the groundbreaking band have united with The End Records for the release of their long-anticipated new full-length, Caustic Attack. Produced by Jason Suecof (Deicide, All That Remains, Kataklysm, Battlecross) at Audiohammer Studios in Sanford, Florida and featuring the apocalyptic cover art of Timbul Cahyono (Rotting Corpse, Pyrexia), the record serves as the band’s first studio offering in six years.

“The original TERRORIZER didn’t have solos, so we took the same approach,” Lee Harrison says. “It was just riff after killer riff. That was an interesting challenge for me – to keep the music fresh without relying on solos. But the great thing about not having solos is it allows us to keep a dense sound as a three-piece. When you put leads in there, you need a second guitar or else the bottom falls out. Staying a three-piece makes it easier to travel and tour, and we didn’t want to mess with that formula.”
 
Now that Sandoval is devoting all his time and effort to TERRORIZER (he left Morbid Angel in 2013), he plans to tour extensively and then record another album. The six-year curse is officially broken.

“It feels so great to be back playing every day,” Sandoval says. “I worked really hard on my recovery and all that work is really paying off now because when I play these songs I feel the same way I did in 1990 or 2000. I feel young again and I can play with no problem. And that’s hard to do because this new album has a lot of changes, double-bass, fast blast beats. You name it.”

TERRORIZER’s Caustic Attack will see release via The End Records this fall. Further details including track teasers to be unveiled in the coming weeks. In the meantime you can never get enough World Downfall, a stone cold mandatory classic that still smokes most stuff released now.

Grindcore legends Napalm Death released Coded Smears And More Uncommon Slurs recently, a collection of rarities that is as good as most of their records and earned a very high review from yours truly. We should thank our lucky stars that the band remain so high up in the ranks of important acts to this day, a standard-bearing group if ever there was one for how much metal can mean in a day and age when many heroes let us down. The perfect trustworthy go to band for headbangers hoping to survive dystopian times.

“Standardization” is positively ferocious and the video imparts a severe sense of frantic rage struggling to be so fierce that it is actually heard, cutting through and above the racket of the apathetic mental smog of society. It is all I could ask for from the band. Check it out below.

This past summer, Cattle Decapitation embarked on a European trek, during which the band filmed a tour documentary, directed by Paul McGuire / Obscenery Films (https://obsceneryfilms.com/). To watch the behind-the-scenes and live footage from Cattle Decapitation on the road, please visit:http://www.facebook.com/cattledecapitation, where the video is now streaming live. Fans can also watch on YouTube HERE.

Guitarist Josh Elmore comments: “For several years now, fans have been asking the band to release a video chronicle with live performance footage and enhanced or ‘behind the scenes’ documentation. During a recent European run, our friend Paul McGuire of Obscenery Films traveled with the band and captured glimpses of what day-to-day life on the road is like for Cattle Decapitation and spoke with the members as they reflected on years of touring and what their future holds. The result is an entertaining, humorous and informative documentary that shows the band as a live entity and also what goes on during their down time on tour; play-throughs, interviews, concert chaos, Euro-tourism and more. We hope you enjoy it!”

Excellent UK cult label Blackened Death Records will release their next big extreme music comp VERY SOON! Grinding Aural Torture will drop October 6th and will feature 27 bands and will clock in at just over an hour. Some very colorful band names and song titles can be checked out below.

01. Cadaver Soiree – Cordyceps 03:18
02. Hellacaust – Lung Ripper 02:15
03. Baphomet’s Cunt – Through Layers of Seething Flesh 01:27
04. Carnivorous Forest – Stop Supporting Racist Bands 04:16
05. Midnight Parasite – Indignant Storm 02:23
06. Clit Eastwood – Jizzus Crust – The Second Cumming 01:15
07. Experimentalis Animali – Pubescent Scum 03:01
08. Cranstøn – Nothing is Nurtured 01:25
09. Cryostasium – Stalwart 01:49
10. Hatefilled Kids – Bring Down Yer Upbringing 01:36
11. Olivia Neutered John – Long Knives for Short Dicks 00:51
12. Dellamorte – Slave to the Cannibal God 02:05
13. Pustule Secretion – Pustule Secretion 03:59
14. Pantsu Senshi – State of Fornicate 00:39
15. Throw Stephanie in the Incinerator – Sex Offender 03:30
16. Shiteater – Shrine of Strangulated Infants 00:46
17. Qoheleth – The Hypocrisy in You is the Hypocrisy in Me 04:42
18. Schlitzkrieg (Featuring Seth Putnam) – I Smoked Crack With Anal Cunt 00:38
19. Discord – Cop Crusher 01:30
20. First Forgiveness – Watch Them Fall 04:14
21. Stormland – GN-001 (Conflict Child) 02:49
22. Shrug – Endless Ages of Molestation 01:45
23. Walking Bombs – Mike Pence Sings “Mother” While Getting Pegged With a Crucifix (Hypocrites for Christ) 00:47
24. Syphilitic Retard – Suffer the Little Children 01:07
25. SVNEATR – Trance 05:29
26. World Controller – Pigfucker 01:37
27. Void Tendril – Shivering Residue 06:46

I wish I wasn’t writing this but Trap Them, miles better than the vast majority of bands in the extreme punk and metal genre, are calling it a day. If you never had a chance to see ’em live you should try to get into one of these shows come Hell or high water. Trust me, they are one of the sickest live bands I ever saw, or I didn’t just wake up from a weird dream where there was a Gene Simmons Demon wrestler (I did and, incidentally, turns out there WAS once. What does it all mean?). Check out the handful of show dates, pick up their last slab Crown Feral or an older one if you haven’t – I just grabbed Seance Prime – and let’s send them off with a great big thank you for the killer memories and music.

November 10 NYC @ Saint Vitus:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1754000631563775

November 11 Montreal @ Turbo Haus:

event info coming soon

November 12 Boston @ Sonia:

https://www.facebook.com/events/472387189802825