KINGDOMS OF DIN

Heavy metal will never die, which makes sifting through new records feel like everlasting torment. Luckily, I am here to guide your lost souls, beginning with Australian death metal trio Faceless Burial. The band has one boot in the astral plane and the other in the rotting corporeal, embracing complexity without losing their face-splitting intensity. Their third album, At the Foothills of Deliration (out on Dark Descent and Me Saco Un Ojo), deepens the band’s reach on both fronts; it’s knottier and more brutal than ever. Faceless Burial’s interplay bounces with coordinated recklessness; think of their musicianship as an otherworldly ping-pong game between two

warring demigods, and Earth is the helpless ball that’s never served a soft hit. Neither player will go out of bounds. The instrumental “Haruspex at the Foothills of Deliration” throws back to Australian death-doom GOATs diSEMBOWELMENT, with gliding synths and choral backing vocals that fade into “Redivivus Through Vaticination. ” Deliration attacks with deftness, owing more to death metal’s greater psychedelic onslaught than any specific style.

Look, metal is often brute and ugly, yet the sublime coexists within it as well. Michigan’s Cloud Rat understand this well, as they remain exemplars of modern grind on their fourth album, Threshold (Artoffact). Cloud Rat continue to make their name on grinding, melodic crust—beautiful, frayed, and delirious—nihilism with a smile that avoids devolving into straight hopelessness. Threshold resists the temptation to give up.

And here’s a last one for you. If your band reminds people of a more established act, that’s a mixed blessing—it means you’re onto a great sound, but it’s also, like, why not listen to the original? Massachusetts’ High Command are basically an Iron Age worship band. Iron Age whipped so much ass that we are simply too unevolved to properly quantify it. And so, High Command whip considerable ass as well. Their latest LP, Eclipse of the Dual Moons (Southern Lord), is sort of their The Sleeping Eye, in that it is the album where they’ve leveled up, swung sharper axes, severed more heads, pondered orbs more intently, and conquered more riff-filled lands. “Imposing Hammers of Cold Sorcery” even has some Saga Demos synth, honing in on that U.S. power metal/crossover fusion (for you new heads, “crossover” is a hybrid genre of trash metal and hardcore punk). High Command also nail what crossover is missing: epics that clock in at almost 12 minutes, unleashing an arsenal of harmonized leads, like “Spires of Secartha.” This is old-world metal fortified for 2022.

—ANDY O’CONNOR

Cumgirl8 are the best thing to happen to music since the Slits opened for Kleenex. (I’m not sure that gig ever happened, but if you listen to them, you’ll get the gist.) And like those late-’70s groups, this New York City quartet does old-school post-punk better than most.

Cumgirl8’s name, inspired by lurid DMs received by women since the dawn of the internet, is intentionally “Crass” (I’d argue that they’re cut from the same provocateur cloth as the legendary U.K. punk collective, who infamously had their 1981 album Penis Envy banned for obscenity). CG8, as they are frequently abbreviated on social media, have also been debarred, but on social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube for “sexual material,” despite censoring themselves according to content guidelines.

Anyway, here’s what you need to know: cumgirl8—four friends from various

creative backgrounds, including ballet, modeling, and playing in various queerpunk bands—are bassist Lida Fox, drummer Chase Noelle, and guitarists Veronika Vilim and Avishag Cohen Rodrigues. The “eight” is a play on their expressions of masculinity and femininity (that’s double “four”...get it?) as well as the meme-centered online personas people adopt in the digital age (which makes four people eight people...get it again?).

Cumgirl8’s music is sex-positive, political, playful, and imaginative—an intoxicating mix of macabre guitar textures and club-driven grooves courtesy of an airtight rhythm section. Their 2020 self-titled debut LP, a live-tracked post-punk fever dream produced by Uniform’s Ben Greenberg, boasts standout tracks like the Bush Tetras-esque, irreverent “Waffles” and the Birthday Party sleaze of “Cherry Nipples.”

The following year, 2021, brought about their RIPcumgirl8 EP (the title directly reflects the aforementioned controversy surrounding their moniker). It is a marked evolution in sound: The vocals on “Pluck Me” recall the legendary Nico, a stunning delivery atop mesmerizing gothic guitar overtones and a throbbing post-punk melodic structure. It’s the band’s best track yet, and I’m not biased.

That brings us to the present day: In 2022, cumgirl8 dropped “Dumb Bitch,” a caustic and buzzing electroclash-punk burner, as part of Suicide Squeeze Records’ Pinks and Purples singles series. It’s all drum-machine-driven dance beats and confrontational lyrics: “Hey, cumgirl/What’s in it for the world?/Can you teach your anarchy from the seat of your limousine?/Will you keep getting what you don’t know you want?” Of the song, Fox has said, “It’s exploring the space between romance, masochism, pleasure, narcissism, and the balance of how much we give and take in our relationships.”

Word on the street is that CG8 will be heading into the studio soon to record their next record, possibly a second full-length LP. In the meantime, catch them live; their shows are one of the most immersive and engaging post-punk experiences to be had in this current generation of bands.

—ALEX BAKER, POST-PUNK.COM

As this beautiful year comes to an end (that’s sarcasm, you jokesters), let me bring you up to speed on the world of hardcore. Take a deep breath, this is a fast one.

Austin’s Nosferatu called it quits, closing up shop in noisy fashion via their swan-song release, Society’s Bastard. In the Bay Area, Doomsday proved that crossover-flavored hardcore is alive and well on their tasty Depictions of Chaos EP.

In Idaho, Boise boys Rejection Pact’s Can VJe Wait? LP served up delicious hardcore with hooks for days. Meanwhile, in Charlotte, North Carolina, Tetanus dropped another cassette of certifiable weirdo hardcore, and that’s a compliment.

Spark kept the straight edge sharp on Supernova, the maiden LP from the clear-minded German quintet. Chicago moshmongers Si Dios Quiere welcomed new singer Ozzy into the fold with an ass-beater called “Roll the Dice.”

Out of Copenhagen come Indre Krig, whose Destroyer EP has zilch to do with KISS but does serve as a clinic on fast, gnarly hardcore punk.

Punitive Damage represented Pacific Northwest hardcore smashingly on their superb full-length This Is the Blackout. Staying in that region, Seattle’s Lexicon favored the rapid-fire stuff, and their Devoid of Light LP is over by the time you can polish off a can of Bud.

Louisville, Kentucky-based metallic hardcore crew Inclination includes Knocked Loose guitarist Isaac Hale within its ranks. On their 2022 Unaltered Perspective album, the band balances mouthwatering riffs with lyrics about addiction and the broken American health care system.

Cinderblock is a resurrected ’90s project that brings in members from Terror, Snapcase, and Earth Crisis. Their Breathe the Fire EP offers a tough, taut, and melodic-leaning hardcore sound well worth the wait.

On the new-band front, Horida’s Xcelerate laid down the slam on their Bustin Out EP, while Hungary’s fleshprison answered the question no one asked but should have: What would Rorschach have sounded like if they took speed?

Shaved Ape finds Vince Klopfenstein (Loose Nukes, Sickoids) going full-on mutant hardcore, and the five-song demo sounds like it was tracked in an asbestoscrusted basement. At gunpoint.

In one of their band photos, the dudes in No Uniform hold an assortment of

weapons, and after listening to the Atlanta outfit’s debut EP, Crimes '22, it all makes sense.

Poisoned Seeds features ex-members of Go It Alone and Blue Monday scratching a certain ’90s hardcore itch.

Hardcore lifer Peter Kowalsky (Remembering Never, xBishopx) plays guitar in new band called Heathen Prayer. Their EP The Devil and the Day Laborer brings to mind the church-burning sounds of Cursed and Rise and Fall. In other words, it’s glorious. Heavenly, even.

And in terms of the best hardcore album of the year: Mindforce’s New Lords, Excide’s Deliberate Revolver, and Soul Glo’s Diaspora Problems are all contenders.

Here’s to looking forward to next year, when I expect great things from GEL, Exhibition, T.S. Warspite, Spaced, Whispers, Ekulu, Scowl, Contention, Violent Spirit, and SPEED. See you on the merch line!

—CARLOS RAMIREZ, NOECHO.NET

Across the land of riffs there lie many realms, filled with warring factions of pagan monstrosities who thrill to the most obscure genres known to human, elf, and ore alike. Via seers, mediums, psychics, David Blaine’s T-shirt designer, and a variety of other mystic means, CREEM reached out to the high mages of music to spin the lore of their greatest warriors. And now we share these loinclothed revelations and sword-soaked recommendations.

I’m supposed to operate under the delusion that I’ll tell you about four rock records (that I know wholeheartedly are among the best to have come out this year, each of them a landmark in its way) and then you’ll take the time to check them out. Could it happen? Definitely. Will it? It’s a pretty big ask. But I guess that’s the grand experiment in which we’re taking part. I will say this, though: Any of them will make your life better, this year and beyond.

First up: one-man band Author & Punisher’s Kruller (Relapse Records). Tristan Shone is a genius, straight-up, fine. Now that we have that out of the way, the Author & Punisher auteur presented Kruller like his recertification as the spearhead of modern industrial metal. It’s a heavy record that finds melodic focus among an onslaught of beats and shouts. Postapocalyptic soundscaping and storytelling are its core elements. I know it’s a big deal to talk about Author & Punisher’s live show because the dude makes his own machines, etc., but the record is great too. If you’ve slept on it, you’ve done yourself a disservice that is not too late to correct.

It would be stupid easy to fill this column with the progressive noise/post-hardcore heavy rock majesty that Caustic Casanova create on their first LP as a four-piece, Glass Enclosed Nerve Center (Magnetic Eye). Conceptually, the record balances heart and precision—like the Melvins, but interesting. The 22-minute “Bull Moose Against the Sky” is a masterpiece. Necessary listening, if 1 say so.

And I do. The same should be made clear about Elder. The Massachusetts band are veterans of the nascent heavy prog movement, perpetually ahead of their time. And while they could’ve rested on the accomplishments of 2015’s Lore and 2017’s Reflections of a Floating World, they continue to progress, exploring new sounds and ideas. Their 2022 record Innate Passage is the best work they’ve done to date, I mean that. It offers more in vocal melody, in its sheer heft and scope, than whatever you might want to put next to it. This is a once-in-a-generation band.

And lastly, the last of King Buffalo’s pandemic-bred trilogy, Regenerator (King Buffalo/Stickman Records), positions them as one of the foremost American acts in heavy psychedelia. 1 hereby challenge you—insert glove slap—to put on “Mammoth”

or “Avalon" and name another group in this style working at this level.

Not to spoil it, but you will not. Take in Regenerator after diving into the preceding Acheron and The Burden of Restlessness LPs and complete the story of the band’s progression to date. Or don’t. Even on its own, Regenerator is testimony to the shimmering brilliance of who they are in sound.

—JJ KOCZAN, THEOBELISK.NET