Tag Diving: Madness
Tag diving is a lot like dumpster diving. But instead of digging through garbage and finding a perfectly good wig that’s just missing the hair, I browse a tag on Bandcamp and share neat music with you. Today’s tag is madness. Let’s get mad.
First up, we have Voidfiller. These guys have TOILETOVHELL written all over them. Actually I think that’s a symptom of some kind of disease, so I’ll avoid using that from now on. Anyway, I figured all our grind fiends out there would have been all over these Swedish madmen when I stumbled across their 2016 self-titled album, but a quick search revealed we haven’t talked about them around these parts. I think they’ll be a big hit with our dear readers with their furiously dirty d-beat aggression. The vocals alternate between a wild shriek and a barking, swampy growl and it absolutely kills. Mix that in with no-nonsense riffage, ripping solos, and a chainsaw bass, and you’ve yourself a fantastic grind-meets-crusty-punk album.
While we’re in the realm of fast, furious, and punk, let’s go to Russia. That’s the third time this week I’ve said that for unrelated reasons. Antreib released Cut The Heads Off! last year and it fits the “madness” tag top to bottom. Hardcore punk isn’t a sound I dive into very often, but there’s enough raw energy in these tunes to hook anybody. As you might expect, there’s a beautifully simplistic and memorable melodicism to each riff that burns hot over a fire of furious drumming, and catchy solos streak through at just the right time. The vocals lend a lot to the madness, being almost entirely in Russian and manically shrieked at an always anxious pace. A rare glimpse of English is found in the track “Circle Pit,” and hearing vocalist Sasha Raikov yell “CIRCLE PIT” in a thick Russian accent makes me want to do exactly that. Have a blast with this one.
Switching gears entirely, we travel to The Netherlands to find Weemoed. I looked it up, and the name is Dutch for “weirdo sad metal.” That’s actually not true, and it’s also not true that I looked it up. I prefer to let the mystery sink in for the rest of my life. There really is a fair amount of mystery here, because while the band’s sound is certainly rooted in DSBM, there’s a feeling that Weemoed doesn’t want you to know what they’re going for. I can’t really describe a vocal style due to the sick, sad, amorphous howling that comes and goes and sometimes absolutely consumes you. The music is often frantic and unsettlingly dissonant on occasion, but a consistent feature is the hypnotic feeling that slithers and shifts into different forms throughout the long album. If you have to ask, you’ll never know.
Back on the plane, nerds, we’re going to Italy. Here we meet RieXhumation, a band that should satisfy the needs of anyone with an itch for fast and furious modern death metal. Under The Serpent’s Dogma is the band’s first EP, so fans of Nile, Tyranny Enthroned, Hate Eternal, and the like should keep their eye on these guys. Razor sharp riffs, machine gun drums, and satisfyingly brutal growls are the name of the game for this release, which has me really looking forward to a debut full length. And I did say Nile, so yeah you’re gonna get some sweet shredding here and there. You also get some keyboard textures, but like the soloing I just mentioned, none of it overstays its welcome. If you somehow don’t have time for the six tracks on this EP, at least hit the title track.
As a parting gift, we’ll make out last stop in Switzerland and check out Helslakt again. They were featured in my last tag diving post and just so happen to also have the “madness” tag I’m diving through here. We sometimes need reminders of great bands amid the constant flow of new music, so have a listen to their raw and supremely bitter demo from 2008.
