The Asteroid Bullet Belt

Frothing at the mouth and chomping at the bit.  Like most people in the world, I am not a native English speaker. Yet, given the increasingly globalised nature of the world – and especially the internet – I inevitably partake and interact with content and websites that by and large could be defined as part of “the Anglosphere”. It’s impossible to avoid, and despite my misgivings with it, it has its benefits, but that’s neither here nor there. One peculiar characteristic of these digital spaces is the fact that foreign languages stick out like a sore thumb when used, a non-Latin script being a surefire way to catch someone’s eye, which was precisely what happened to me with Λύσσα Κακιά ( Literally “Mean Rabies”, an expression used to describe excessive obsession or indiscriminate anger). Seeing the band’s name pop up on Metallum’s “New Bands” tab made an impression on me, and the death/crust classification only served to further pique my interest, considering how specific this niche...

Forever locked in a war of attrition. (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on February 7th 2024)  Chances are I’ll get my “death metal fan” licence revoked for this, but I’m not a huge Bolt Thrower fan. Sure, there’s a couple of their albums I enjoy, but ultimately they never resonated with me quite as much as they seem to have with most extreme metal fans. What’s even weirder is that I have found myself to be more engaged by bands inspired by them, which cropped up with metal’s revival in the 21st century. Among these bands is Trenchgrinder, whose debut, Peace Is Forfeit is a release I found myself listening to far more often than I ever expected for some reason. Now as one might have gathered from my prologue and the band’s name, this is some exceptionally militaristic death metal, filled to the brim with drumming and riffs that, like their main inspiration, sound like a tank running over you. That being said, while they do take a lot of influence from Bol...

The house is on fire, and there's no key on the door. (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on December 21st, 2022)  Despite the two genres occupying different spaces in the modern day, it’s no secret that punk and metal flirted with each other a lot in their heydays. Whether it’d be its latent influence on thrash and some early NWOBHM, or some more rollicking and extreme stuff like Motörhead and Bathory, there’s been a lot of crossbreeding between the two. Which makes it all the nicer when the two are brought back together 40 years later, both having at this point become full-fledged genres with subgenres of their own. Qwälen, and their debut, Unohdan Sinut is one such case, an album that combines two sounds in a way that wouldn’t have been possible without such a long history to look upon. As we’ve already established, Unohdan Sinut is a stylistic marriage of metal and punk, more specifically the black and crust variations respectively. It’s a uniquely c...

 Plumes of death and ash. (Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on January 17th, 2021)   Over the past decade, there's been a slow, yet steady stream of old-school blackened speed metal. Bands like Midnight and Hellripper have been carrying the torch of early Bathory, Sodom and Hellhammer, with a punk-like attitude permeating their music. A lesser known band in this field is Florida's Hot Graves, who has been kicking around since 2008. Unfortunately, they haven't quite reached the same level of popularity as their peers, which is a real shame, because the Haunted Graves EP is a great mix of black metal, thrash and crust, that took me by surprise when I first listened to it. Things kick off with the title track, which is the best song on offer. With its excited drumming and riffing, along with a very catchy chorus it's the textbook definition of punky black metal done right, as it oozes character and energy. The highlight of the track is the lead sect...