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Articles by Jake Walters
A SCENE IN RETROSPECT: Akercocke – “The Goat of Mendes”
‘All the best bands are affiliated with Satan’ – Bart Simpson Old Scratch and metal have a long, fruitful relationship together, that much can not be denied. Ever since Black Sabbath debuted on those dire tritones, Satan has been a regular fixture in heavy music, showing up in discographies ranging from the filthy rebellion of Venom to the metaphysical philosophical musings of Deathspell Omega (who I’m sure plenty of us loved before we found out about the vocalist).
THÆTAS – “The Irredeemable Age”
Release date: June 26, 2026 | Profound Lore | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp Hi, it has been a while. I haven’t sat down to work on a review of an album for a long time. Today, that changes.
A SCENE IN RETROSPECT: Low
Release date: January 22, 2001 | Kranky | Facebook | Instagram | Website We’ve talked about the death of a cultural icon in our last ASIR, and I’m afraid the shadow of mourning will hang above us in this episode as well. Duluth, Minnesota band Low has, over the course of almost three decades, quietly shaped slowcore into a pillar of indie rock, bringing solace to many fans and admirers. When vocalist and drummer Mimi Parker died in 2022, her sudden absence was keenly felt.
A SCENE IN RETROSPECT: David Bowie
Release date: January 8, 2016 | Columbia Records / Sony Music | Facebook | Instagram | Website How do you quantify the impact of a life? How do you measure the worth of a decades-long career in the arts, ever-evolving, groundbreaking, and influential? Maybe it’s best to approach this through the lens of the love you left behind.
A SCENE IN RETROSPECT: diSEMBOWELMENT
There’s a special magic looking back at the days of a genre’s founding. Back when no bands pulled ahead and established the official rules, so musicians only really felt the constraints of their own imagination and budget crafting their take on a developing sound. Today’s topic, Australia’s Disembowelment, is one of my absolute favorite examples of this phenomenon, short-lived as they may have been.
A SCENE IN RETROSPECT: Nile
Release date: September 5, 2000 | Relapse Records | Facebook | Instagram | Website Metal and mythology always made for easy bedfellows; after all, where else could you go to easily find some vivid, gnarly stories to spruce up your music with? And as far as mythology goes, Ancient Egypt had some of the most imaginative stories and imagery, so it’s no surprise bands like tech-death mainstays Nile found much intrigue and potential in its tales.
Vessel Awaken to Bring You Musings on Sleep, Pain, and Clarity with "The Somnifier"
Today, Everything is Noise is proud to welcome Vessel back with a full stream of their brand new album. The Somnifer, out November 1, is an ambitious concept album inspired by the underground stoner and doom scenes, diving deep into themes of trauma’s aftermath and the mysterious world of sleep.
QAALM Welcome You to the "Borderlands" With Their Unique, Captivating Brand of Progressive Doom
Today we bring you a massive sludged up progressive doom track from California’s QAALM. “Borderlands” is a sprawling 12-minute doom track that paints with a variety of hues to create one of the most forward-thinking and layered doom tracks that you’re likely to hear this year. Of the track the band had the following insight on some of the imagery and lyrical content: ‘This song is largely inspired by the spirits that inhabit ancient civilizations and indigenous land.
but did it djent?
A little more than six years ago, Everything Is Noise was born from the ashes of It Djents, a drastic change in name and image that effectively served to sever our ties with the then-diminishing (quality-wise; we all know the rip-off bands never stopped coming) scene that we were previously deeply entrenched in.
Let the Vibes of Julius Lind and His Lights Carry You to the Nearest Transcendental Beach With "Empty Bottles"
Emerging from the fertile grounds of the Norwegian alternative scene, Julius Lind and his trio have been chiseling out an identity, blurring the boundaries of genre, weaving together strands of psych, space rock, indie, and drone. Featuring members from Action & Tension & Space, The Megaphonic Thrift, and Gold Celeste, this collaboration feels like a meeting of minds who are determined to explore the fringes of this sound without ever losing roots in their rich musical traditions.
Undeath - "More Insane" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: October 4, 2024 | Prosthetic Records | Facebook | Instagram | Buy/Stream One of the biggest gripes I personally have with death metal over the last few years is the general lack of personality and identity within the genre. My high altitude take is that now that the OSDM revival seems to be slowing a lot of bands who made their bones during that surge of the old-school sound need to establish an identity beyond just that aesthetic.
Blood Incantation - "Absolute Elsewhere" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: October 4, 2024 | Century Media | Instagram | Facebook | Buy/Stream When Blood Incantation announced this new record, fans of the band were wondering which side of the band would show through more: the death metal, or the astral kosmische that they love so dear. The answer is a complicated one to and certainly not the full story, so I recruited fellow writer Iain to help me unpack this new mammoth from one of our favorite bands.
Nile - "The Underworld Awaits Us All" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: August 23, 2024 | Napalm Records | Facebook | Instagram | Buy/Stream Death metal has been going to all sorts of strange places in the last 20 years or so but Nile have been staying their course since their inception, trends be damned. Their technical and often brutal take on the genre has always been fierce and memorable due in part to the mythology that their music is couched in: the sacred texts and pantheon of ancient Egypt.
Fulci - "Duck Face Killings" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: August 9, 2024 | 20 Buck Spin | Facebook | Instagram | Purchase There are dozens of great pairings that one could identify in life: apple pie and ice cream, chocolate and peanut butter, and of course, death metal and horror movies. The latter of which is where Fulci comes in. Named of course for the Italian horror icon, Lucio Fulci, this band is one that has been pumping out records based on his lore for quite a while and today we’re talking about their new one, Duck Face Killings.
A SCENE IN RETROSPECT: Necrophagist
20 years is a mighty long time, especially in the music industry. Hell, you can be forgotten by your fanbase in much shorter time if you can’t produce something worthwhile in digestible intervals. Necrophagist would laugh at that notion. Their second (and to this date final) full-length Epitaph was released, you guessed it, 20 years ago, and nobody has forgotten about them; if anything, guitarist/vocalist Muhammed Suiçmez and co.
WFA: Oxygen Destroyer
One of the things that I love about music is just how many varied forms inspiration may take. This week we are happy to welcome one of the most unique acts in all of metal as our Weekly Featured Artist, Oxygen Destroyer. If you’re a fan of monster movies from Japan, you may recognize that name as a device which was used to subdue everyone’s favorite nuclear powered, bipedal, city-leveling monster, Godzilla. See what I mean about inspiration?
Alcest - "Les Chants de L'Aurore" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: June 21, 2024 | Nuclear Blast | Bandcamp | Facebook When news broke that Alcest would be releasing a new record this year, many of us in the EIN camp were beyond excited. They’re a particularly beloved act even among those of us who aren’t that deeply into metal, so the announcement fell like rain on parched soil.
A SCENE IN RETROSPECT: Tomb Mold
Ah, yes, death metal. A genre I, until recently, only visited when it came with fancy little addenda like ‘dissonant’ or ‘technical’. To be fair, today’s subject of scrutiny still tends towards being a non-traditional dm record, but it’s closer to the raw viscera of the genre than most of my previous consumption.
Hyperdontia - "Harvest of Malevolence" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: June 21, 2024 | Dark Descent | Instagram | Facebook | Bandcamp Death metal, you beautiful bastard. Guttural vocals, scathing riffs, frenetic solos, thumping bass, blast beats…really what more could you want? As with any genre, however, there are those who excel at arranging the building blocks of a certain style at a level which leaves their contemporaries scrambling to catch up.
Sugar Horse Have a New Simulation For Us To Try And It Will Shape What's to Come
Sugar Horse have been one of the most creative and interesting forces in post-metal for a while with their self-deprecating idiosyncrasies, unconventional song titles, and general sense of whimsy.
Gatecreeper - "Dark Superstition" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: May 17, 2024 | Nuclear Blast | Facebook | Instagram | Stream/Buy Sometimes, a band or an artist wiggles their way into your heart in ways that are difficult to express. Such is the case for Gatecreeper and myself. While this band has grown in popularity over the last decade, I was pretty isolated from their grassroots movement and just happened to see them at a show as an opener for Pallbearer and Inter Arma.
Civerous - Everything Is Noise
As a hard and fast rule, when you’re a fan of a certain genre of music, you tend to curate a set of sources that supply you with promising new acts, underground releases, and a constant drip feed to your favorite wiggly air. As a death metal fan, one such source that I regularly check is Transylvanian Recordings and around three years ago through this outlet I noticed the debut album of California’s Civerous, Decrepit Flesh Relic in one of their weekly drops.
A SCENE IN RETROSPECT: Pyrrhon
Hey everyone. David filling in for Dominik today. We got a cool-ass episode for y’all, covering a modern marvel of progressive death metal. Over the years, Pyrrhon have earned the right to be considered among the greats of the genre with album after album of forward-thinking, acerbic, and challenging music. That run arguably started with the Brooklyn, NY band’s sophomore album, The Mother of Virtues.
Civerous - "Maze Envy" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: March 22, 2024 | 20 Buck Spin | Facebook | Instagram | Buy/Stream What the hell even is maze envy? Well, newly minted 20 Buck Spin alums, Civerous have some say on the matter. After just about five years as a unit with a handful of releases and single LP to their name, this band truly deserved to be placed on the roster of one of the most stalwart labels in all of music, much less metal.
Amigo The Devil - "Yours Until the War is Over" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: February 23, 2024 | Regime Music/Liars Club | Facebook | Instagram | Buy/Stream Some acts seem like an overnight success. To some outside observers Amigo The Devil may just seem like one of those. This is an act that is lauded by mainstream outlets as well as niche metal blogs alike and if you’re prone to be looking into these spheres it may seem like Amigo The Devil is everywhere right now.
Angmodnes Expand Doom Metal's Toolkit With "The Hours"
The emotional connection that we as humans can form with art is what drives many of us to volunteer our time to express our connection to the music that we love here at Everything Is Noise. One of the most tangible feelings that one can feel is sadness and one of the best vehicles for that range of emotions, at least within the realm of metal, is doom. Yes, the subgenre that one could argue is named after a feeling.
Vitriol - "Suffer & Become" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: January 26, 2024 | Century Media | Facebook | Instagram | Buy/Stream It has been some time since we’ve gotten to review new Vitriol music over here and finally the time has come. This is a band that we’ve talked about at length on the site, from reviewing their last record to my recent chat with the band, it’s safe to say that we enjoy discussing their musical output and sharing those damn entertaining playthrough videos of theirs. Suffer & Become is a record that bears discussion.
Stella Burns Invites Us All Aboard Their Twisted Folky "Long Black Train"
Embarking on a soul-stirring journey through the realms of musical expression, “Long Black Train” emerges as the fourth enchanting single from the masterpiece that is Long Walks in the Dark. Crafted with meticulous artistry, this musical opus belongs to the visionary Italian artist, composer, and singer, Gianluca Maria Sorace, AKA Stella Burns.
Vitriol - Everything Is Noise
Vitriol. Such a small word but one that can evoke a variety of meanings depending on the context and where it’s directed. Today, Vitriol takes the shape of one of the most staggeringly aggressive acts in metal and one of the favorite modern purveyors of extreme metal. I sat down with Kyle Rassmussen, guitarist and vocalist for the band, and talked about a variety of things from the upcoming new album, inspiration, and how he never wants to stop growing as an artist.
MISSED CONNECTIONS 6: This Goes Out To All The People With Seasonal Affective Disorder - Part One
This year kind of sucked, y’all. Personally, politically, worldwide, environmentally – literally almost any metric you can pose had elements that were utterly, demonstrably unwashed ass. Except music. There was so much good music, we once again – for the sixth year in a row – overlooked a good amount of it throughout 2023. That’s why Missed Connections exists. It’s our time machine to go back in the past and write some wrongs. See what I did there? I need at least a bronze medal for that one.
Walking Corpse Embrace Growth in Their Grind On "Our Hands, Your Throat"
Encountering a grindcore album that embodies the expected intensity of this musical style is an expected occurrence. That being said, there’s a certain it factor that will entice a label such as Transcending Obscurity. Today, we are happy to bring you the full album premiere for the latest grind outfit to grace this prestigious label, one of our personal favorites here at EIN.
Cruciamentum - "Obsidian Refractions" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: November 24, 2023 | Profound Lore | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp The long sunny days of Summer are well behind us and with the arrival of colder, shorter days comes death itself in the form of Cruciamentum. Having been mostly quiet since the release of their debut album in 2015, this entity has been pacing in the shadows, waiting for their time to return.
Leonov Embrace the Catharsis and Dynamic "Procession" of Pain Through The Lens of Post-Metal
There have been plenty of comebacks this year and today, we at Everything Is Noise are thrilled to bring you one for the post-metal fans. After a hiatus of five long years since their well-received second album, Wake, the post-metal collective from Oslo, Leonov, is back with a fresh set of hauntingly beautiful and reflective post-metal tracks aptly titled, Procession.
Grinding Paranoia and Doom Are Principal Actors in "Theater of Tyranny" From Collapsed Mainframe
We’ve got a special one for you today. While there are probably mathematically finite interpretations of metal and its recognizable subgenres and having seen and heard many of them over the years, I can still be surprised and caught off guard. Such is the case for Collapsed Mainframe and their wildly original take on black metal, doom, grind, and yes, more.
Vastum - "Inward to Gethsemane" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: November 10, 2023 | 20 Buck Spin | Facebook | Bandcamp Vastum, by this point, are a household name in the burgeoning death metal underground, a status earned by the strength of their early output as well as just how consistent they have been, even if there have been some lineup changes along the way.
Gravesend - "Gowanus Death Stomp" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: October 27, 2023 | 20 Buck Spin | Bandcamp | Webstore | Instagram Changing the context of what haunts us can be an effective way to take what is known and turn into something all the more frightening if that horror is grounded in some kind of reality. Gravesend takes war metal and grind into a new direction by putting their brand of filth into back alleys and side streets of the city.
WFA: Mizmor (edited)
There’s a certain air, a certain mystery around musical entities that spring from the mind of a single individual. It’s by no means novel at this point – especially within the metal scene – but regardless of how pervasive it is there’s always something a little different going on with them it seems.
This Lush, Emotional Black Metal From Aldrig is Rife With Cartharsis and Aggression
‘The rain moves everything. The city never sleeps. In preacher like fashion, the narrator shares laments with the void. He / she once again opened their eyes disassociated in a reality that is not their own. However they feel like they are being mocked. That the effort of chasing what what they cannot catch is futile.’ Being surprised is one of the best parts about listening to music.
Afterbirth - "In But Not Of" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: October 20, 2023 | Willowtip Records | Facebook | X/Twitter | Instagram | Bandcamp Swirling guitar rhythms, ringing cymbals, a dense atmosphere punctuated by thick bass lines, and vocals from another dimension. For fans of Afterbirth this is what we have come to expect, specifically after the band’s reformation and their albums The Time Traveler’s Dilemma and Four Dimensional Flesh.
GUNSHIP - "Unicorn" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: September 29, 2023 | Independent | Facebook | Buy/Stream | Website I’m not exactly sure what the connection to synthwave is for those of us that generally enjoy the heavier genres. Maybe it’s the beats, the industrial overtones, synth’s irrevocable connection to horror movies, or something else entirely.
Cannibal Corpse - "Chaos Horrific" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: September 22, 2023 | Metal Blade Records | Buy/Stream | Facebook | Website Let’s get this out of the way really quickly: Cannibal Corpse are the standard bearers for death metal and have been for decades. Their presence in pop culture through admiration as well as disdain has made them the face of the genre and while there are plenty of other bands who may take more risks with their sound, Cannibal Corpse simply have the luxury of not doing this.
Rat King's Triumphant Return to Vie for the Deathgrind Throne on "Psychotic Reality"
Some bands change genres so smoothly that it takes a while for us to catch on. And more often than not that change sees that band mellow out to a lower key genre or sound. In the case of Seattle’s Rat King, the opposite of the latter point is resoundingly true. After several years of toying with sludge and other sounds of that ilk, the grind and death metal sounds began to take hold. Today we’re happy to premiere Rat King’s third album Psychotic Reality, in full.
The UK's Plague Rider Rip at the Seams of Reality with "The Refrain"
As a fan of metal in nearly all of its forms, I am acutely aware that finding new sounds in the heavier genres is becoming more and more rare. Lines between the microgenres blur as influences continue to overlap as new bands form with many bands sharing members and that DNA often follows them from one band to the next. Enter Plague Rider, one of the newest bands to appear on burgeoning metal label, Transcending Obscurity.
Math-Prog Duo NYOS Employ Imagination and Restraint on "Butter"
Finland-based avant-garde duo NYOS are happy to unveil their unique and intriguing music video to complement their latest single, “Butter”. This track is the final preview from their upcoming album, Waterfall Cave Fantasy, Forever, which is scheduled for release on October 27th through Berlin’s Pelagic Records.
Till The Dirt - "Outside the Spiral" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: August 25, 2023 | Nuclear Blast | Facebook | Buy/Stream As we all know by now, trends within many aspects of pop culture tend to be a revolving evolution. Ideas that were once in vogue come back again and again, albeit in varying versions of their former selves. This is the case for the new metal band led by Atheist veteran Kelly Shaefer, Till The Dirt.
Texas Trio Baring Teeth Reemerge From the Void and Proclaim Humanity's "Obsolescence"
Unleashing a sonic storm from the heart of Dallas, Texas, Baring Teeth emerge as a formidable trio, wielding their expertise in forging realms of atonal discordance and ethereal dissonance. Brace yourselves, as the countdown begins for the unleashing of their fourth opus, entitled The Path Narrows, slated to hit the sonic battlefield via the revered I, Voidhanger label on October 20th, 2023.
The Moth Refuse to Settle for Anything Less Than Your Full Attention on "Dust"
After releasing three albums under the This Charming Man label, The Moth are making their debut on Exile On Mainstream with Frost. The band has refined their straightforward approach to sludge/doom metal by adding some catchy new rhythms with ethereal vocals and a hypnotic atmosphere. Today we’re happy to present the first song that exemplifies this evolution, “Dust.” If you’re a fan of Brutus and bands that occupy that space, this is the jam for you.
Spirit Adrift - "Ghost at the Gallows" - Everything Is Noise
Release date: August 18, 2023 | Century Media | Facebook | Buy/Stream Watching bands grow and change over the course of their career can be a fun thing to observe. If the sounds stray too far from the ones that coaxed fans through the threshold to begin with, artists can either embrace the new direction or retreat to avoid fan churn.
Cast of Wonders 207: Millions Times Eight
Millions Times Eight by Jake Walters Mick looked at the letter to his parents sitting on the kitchen table. It was from the school. Outside, he heard the sounds of children laughing and a ball bouncing on the street pavement. It was late August, and in just a week, their summer freedom was going to be erased. Mick was starting seventh grade.
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