Stress Test – Stress Test Review

By Dolphin Whisperer

Just as much as any genre that’s been around for 40-plus years, hardcore is not a monolith, not by a long stretch. As an unleashing of rough-and-tumble punk energy with an extra flash of sharpness and swagger, its permutations can run the gamut of high-tempo riffage, ragged vocal attitude, and instrumental histrionics, all while wearing the speed-loaded label. With a classic thrash attack and a dash of grind spirit, Stress Test wears the genre like a tattered and patched denim vest befitted with snappy pull-off runs, d-beat anthemics, and short bursts fit for a moshing audience. No one needs to reinvent the urge to start up the pit to have a good time.

Featuring the rhythm section of Unto Others, with Brandon Hill assuming guitar and vocals instead of bass for Stress Test, Stress Test lands with a polish and focus not typical of acts whose songs frequent the sub-two minute range. Though that energy presents in some of the harder-hitting cuts that Unto Others has to offer, Stress Test shares little but members in the kind of drive that this debut holds. Hill and co.’s understanding of the studio helps Stress Test find smart and punchy pockets for deep bass propulsions (“Coward,” “Bastard Behavior,” “Stress Test”), which go a long way in adding color to the snarl and shifty riffcraft that perpetuates its eighteen-minute run. And with colors that range from the early 90s death/grind of Napalm Death to the meatheaded aggro-crossover of Terror, Stress Test uses their experience to travel familiar paths with a skanking stride that sounds urgent.

Even though time-tested riffs and a cadence rooted in thrash history defines the simple appeal of Stress Test, its tracks flow with healthy variation to maintain a momentum that remains unbreakable and memorable. Embracing the smooth and sliding Exodus stomp with the brevity of Municipal Waste party bangers spells, on its own, an easy-to-enjoy, never-ending circle of punky abandon (“Coward,” “Bastard Behavior”). But that p-word attitude, alongside the other important p’s of pummel and political edge, also serves as its hissing core, fueling snarky sample punches (“Degrees of Violence,” “It Isn’t Real,” “God Sucks”) and unrelenting layered vocal assaults—a barking fervor and accompanying caveman-frenzied bellow—color the bouncing intensity as Stress Test progresses. Nothing that Stress Test rips from the sweat and beer-stained pages of thrash reads as new, but its in-and-out groove remains difficult to deny.

The choice to keep Stress Test svelte hinders how high it can fly, though. Stress Test knows their way around a whiplash tune and quick guitar hero cut-in to let accelerating tempos breathe (“Degrees of Violence,” “It Isn’t Real,” “Gullible”). And while these bite-size ragers take up a small percentage of runtime in this already low-commitment affair, they also make for the most interesting guitar parts that Stress Test can muster. Of course, it would be hard to call longer cuts like mid-album “Suffer” and “Bastard Behavior” slouching, as their vocal bite and rhythmic overload ensure swinging arms and cracking necks from start to finish. However, in their self-similar nature, along with “Stress Test,” they allow fewer avenues for Stress Test to leave a stronger identifying mark.

Yet, as a feisty debut, Stress Test makes for a powerful, practiced statement. It doesn’t take a virtuoso to make music that is fast, loud, and angry. But, as Stress Test shows, steady (enough) hands and an ear looking for the right accents and accelerations will find a grace in wild tempos that mimics the fury of an untethered mind. With a varied pool of legacy influences, these Portland-based punks hold the potential to develop their low-frills sound in just about any way that they choose. And though Stress Test lacks in extreme choices that could hoist this fledgling act to a loftier status, Stress Test has taken aim at becoming a primary form of relief for those in need of boiled-over thrash madness.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Transylvanian Recordings
Websites: stresstest.us | stresstestpdx.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/stresstestpdx
Releases Worldwide: February 28th, 2025

#2025 #30 #AmericanMetal #CrossoverThrash #CrustPunk #Exodus #Feb25 #Hardcore #MunicipalWaste #NapalmDeath #Review #Reviews #StressTest #Terror #TransylvanianRecordings #UntoOthers

Act of Impalement – Profane Altar Review

By Dear Hollow

Nashville trio Act of Impalement’s sophomore release Infernal Ordinance, in spite of the low-hanging HOA jokes, was badass. Its unfuckwithable blend of death and crust styles led to a sore neck from endless headbanging, while its passages of doom tempos and thick weight did the sludge and doom influences justice. I still spin the likes of “Summoning the Final Conflagration” and “Erased,” reliving that pummeling that hurts so good again and again. You can imagine how excited I was, then, to discover Act of Impalement has a new album.

To accurately sum up Act of Impalement’s musical arsenal is an exercise in futility, and Profane Altar amps the obscurity – although the trademark groove remains stalwart. While Ethan Rock remains the band’s pivot point as primary songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist, a revamped lineup replacing bassist Jimmy Grogan and longtime drummer Zack Ledbetter emerges with its own streamlined take. As such, while Infernal Ordinance felt almost entirely like the one-man Ethan Rock show, Profane Altar finds bassist Jerry Garner adding more rumbling weight to the riffs while drummer Aaron Hortman brings a newfound manic energy and mania to the rhythms. While the influences remain the same in death metal royalty Bolt Thrower, Incantation, Entombed, and Asphyx – and the sound is deceptively straightforward – the streamlined approach, more pronounced black metal influence, and filthier riffs offer new planes for Act of Impalement.

Act of Impalement’s biggest change is a more cohesive fusing of its sludge and death metal influences alongside its newfound obscure black metal bleakness. While opener “Summoning the Final Conflagration” from its predecessor set a precedent of buzzsaw riffs driven to a sludgy end, Profane Altar opens with “Apparition” – while the groove and riffs are similar, they are absolutely suffocating, a swampy tar filling every crevice of the sound. Act of Impalement is down with the thickness, and it grants them a fluidity that kept the disjointedness of its predecessor from truly soaring. From ten-ton bruisers dripping with patient swagger (“Apparition,” “Final Sacrifice”), filthy 6/8 death metal waltzes (“Sanguine Rites,” “Gnashing Teeth”) to vicious crust punk-influenced black metal beatdowns laden with blastbeats and shred (“Piercing the Heavens,” “Deities of the Weak”), their potentially disconnected collection of blasting and bruising is blessedly woven together by its all-consuming weight.

Brevity is the name of Act of Impalement’s game, and it no longer feels like a one-man show. No track exceeds five minutes for a total of thirty-one minutes, which is absolutely reasonable and almost necessary for this breed of intensity. While the professed styles don’t feel particularly unique, Act of Impalement manages to lay them atop the incredibly sturdy foundation of groove, which serves the brevity extremely well – the album hits hard and fast and never overstays its welcome. Better still, Garner’s bass shines throughout and Hortman’s percussion feels both unhinged in its blastbeats and steadfastly reliable in its plodding groove – both members shining alongside Rock’s riffs and hellish roars. That being said, Act of Impalement offers a brutal riff-fest with elements borrowed from death, death/doom, crust punk, and black metal, a tribute to the hallowed halls of metal history – but the product is remarkably straightforward in its punishing groove.

If you’re looking for a nuanced album that showcases a rich and layered approach to its songwriting, Profane Altar is not for you. However, if you’re okay seeing all its influences as riders of the one-trick pony called groove, it doesn’t get much better than Act of Impalement’s breed of pummeling. Profane Altar is fucking heavy, simultaneously a more in-your-face and obscure release for a band renowned for their breakneck intensity. Balance and the bravery to embrace its disparate blend of influences sets it apart from its already formidable predecessor, even though the shortsighted groove makes it blackened, deathened, crusty, doomy ear candy. Infectiously groovy ear candy.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Caligari Records
Websites: instagram.com/actofimpalement | facebook.com/ActOfImpalement
Releases Worldwide: February 28th, 2025

#2025 #35 #ActOfImpalement #AmericanMetal #Asphyx #BlackMetal #BlackenedDeathMetal #BoltThrower #CaligariRecords #CrustPunk #DeathMetal #DeathDoomMetal #DoomMetal #Entombed #Feb25 #Incantation #ProfaneAltar #Review #Reviews

Fell Omen – Invaded by a Dark Spirit Review

By Thus Spoke

If you’re especially in the know, you might already be familiar with the artist behind Fell Omen, Spider of Pynx. Having contributed hurdy-gurdy and electronica skills to two different Spectral Lore records under this moniker, he has also created cover art for Auriferous Flame, Cirkeln, and Μπατουσκα, under the name Gilded Panoply. After years of lurking about the black metal scene, with Invaded by a Dark Spirit, the Spider has the chance to step out of the background and begin their officially ‘metal’ musical arc as Fell Omen.1 Here for a good time, and not a long time, with a runtime barely surpassing 20 minutes,2 Invaded by a Dark Spirit is a lightning round in Fell Omen’s raucous take on black metal.

Invaded by a Dark Spirit is characterized by two main facets: punky attitude and crusty sound—though it’s not exactly crust-punk stylistically. While there are hints of Wormwitch here and there, this is combined with an old Immortal vibe about the riffs and vocals, as well as frequent use of hurdy-gurdy. Rambunctious rhythms and refrains abound (“Dungeon Metal Punks Besieging Digital Castles,” “Warrior Jar,” “In the Poison Swamp”). The record maintains this rough and ready tone throughout: while there is a subtly different flair to individual tracks, there’s not a lot to actually distinguish them. Opener “Don’t Go Hollow, You Have Steel,”3, showcases everything you will hear for the rest of the record, with the exception of vocals, which here are restricted to the occasional snarled “eaaaagh!” The low-fi production which brings the fuzz and distortion, and that faraway washy quality to the vocals, contributes to the album’s coarseness and the sense of a gutsy spirit. But it equally brings the above uniformity into the realm of the problematic, as well as generating some problems of its own.

Rawness itself is not the issue, it’s how this rawness negatively affects Fell Omen’s compositions. Good raw black metal is a biting assault that can be beautiful or brutal. But in the case of Invaded by a Dark Spirit, the grittiness makes everything bland or bothersome. Hurdy-gurdy, sitting right at the front of the mix, wailing its refrain through the cellophane wrapping of the master, like a fucking kazoo, is jarring in a way I had not experienced before. And it is used a lot. That being said, the actual guitar is also prone to flights of wobbly fancy that imitate the hurdy-gurdy’s mannerisms in a way that blurs the line between them. This guitar sound could be cool, and in fact sometimes actually is (“Dungeon Metal…,” “In the Poison Swamp”), but the milquetoast package it comes in saps that coolness away. Programmed and acoustic drums alike sound akin to a stock keyboard ‘drum’ noise and are thus indistinguishable. Pointlessly brief flashes of synth get thrown in for no identifiable reason other than a whim (“Dungeon Metal…,” “Forlorn Knights and Strange Flasks”, tricking the listener into thinking that something interesting might be about to happen. Even setting aside particular noises that might be personal triggers, the songs are boring: monotonous in their vaguely repetitious way and stultified by the veil of grime.

While there are some admittedly catchy grooves sprinkled around Invaded by a Dark Spirit, the above problems block proper enjoyment of them. “In the Poison Swamp” is the closest thing to a “banger” with its infectious rhythms and well-timed “rawwrr”s working well off of the bendy guitar lines. It’s a shame it comes last. Others (“Don’t Go Hollow…,” “Warrior Jar”) can get your head bobbing well enough, and if you strain your ears just right, the whining melodies (hurdy-gurdy or otherwise) sound almost gnarly. Yet nothing is gripping; nothing is sufficiently slick, raw, or savage enough to capitalize on the low-fi sound and make this the rollicking riot it could so easily have been. Rather, it all feels anodyne, distant, and placid.

For an album that only lasts around 20 minutes, Invaded by a Fell Spirit is a drag to get through; unless, that is, you just ignore it, which is relatively easy to do. Fell Omen can craft some fun grooves, and there is some cool stuff going on with the guitar distortion and hurdy-gurdy, but these are superseded by the monotony and paradoxical blandness of it all. You can have a good time with selected tracks, but it doesn’t diminish the fact that Invaded by a Dark Spirit is nothing like the boisterous, epic tale it pretends to be.

Rating: Disappointing
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: True Cult Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: February 14th, 2025

#20 #2025 #BlackMetal #Crust #CrustPunk #DungeonSynth #Feb25 #FellOmen #GreekMetal #Immortal #InvadedByADarkSpirit #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #TrueCultRecords #Wormwitch