Tape Review: "To the Conrete Drifts" by Fell Ruin

There was just no way this album could go wrong for me. First, the labels releasing it (I, Voidhanger and Graven Earth Records) are putting some of the best extreme music on cd and cassette and their taste tends to match my own.

Second, I’m a sucker for killer cover art and Brian Sheehan (@legerdemain_art) kills it with the crystal/mask/spine photo collage here.

A great piece written on how he does his work HERE from Cvlt Nation.

What I didn’t remember is that Brian is also the vocalist/lyricist for Fell Ruin. Like I said, this album couldn’t go wrong for me - and it didn’t for one moment. I’ve been talking lately about how I listen to music in full albums, not in tracks. For example, I can name my favorite albums by artists but not know the track listing.

Album Review: "Present Day Plague" by S.N.A.F.U.

In the early 1970s there was an R&B and funk rock band of very minor renown called Snafu.  This is not your father’s Snafu.  The present day S.N.A.F.U. and their latest release Present Day Plague are a violent trip through a post-apocalyptic landscape of human decadence.

I am not sure there has ever been a band to so seamlessly merge the hardcore punk sounds of Napalm Death with the thrash mastery of Slayer as S.N.A.F.U has done here.  The comparison to Napalm Death is obvious. The songs are each a short, explosive bludgeoning of charged anger.  Yet the lead breaks and vocal cadence called to mind Reign In Blood era Slayer.   

There are moments when Present Day Plague settles into methodic crunchy riffs of doom, but they are short lived before inevitably searing into rapid fire thrash riffs reminiscent of Metallica's Kill ‘Em All played at double time.