Bands – Page 10 – Southern Lord Recordings

Black Cobra

Smashing up from the Bay Area underground, Black Cobra is ready to take the heavy music world by storm! Formed in 2002 by Rafa Martinez (Acid King, -16-) and Jason Landrian (ex-Cavity) this duo has been laying waste to audiences, taking on all comers, and leaving the remains to rot in their wake. Their sound is a crushing mix of High On Fire-tinged stoner metal and Buzzov*en’s Southern-fried sludge, with a heaping dash of Melvins-style drone to wash it all down.

The two piece is the product of years of work between Jason and Rafa. Both originally from Miami, Florida, work started on Black Cobra while home visiting parents over the holidays. This lead to the trading of a series riffs through the mail and visits to each others residences in NY and LA for sporadic practices. The year 2004 saw the release of a raging 3 song demo maxing out at a whopping 6 minutes in length. The year 2006 saw the release of the 11 song goliath that is Bestial followed by relentless touring in America and Europe. In 2007, the band relocated to San Francisco and released their second album Feather & Stone taking the band to Japan for the first time and again touring Europe and America extensively.

Live they are a beast like no other. Like their namesake, Black Cobra is at once hypnotic and whip-crack fast. Their two-man assault sinks its fangs into you before you even know what’s hit you. They are a touring machine, having hit the streets with everyone from High on Fire, The Sword, and Saviours to Torche and Genghis Tron. Booked by Tone Deaf Booking (Kylesa, Weedeater, Slough Feg), they don’t plan on slowing down yet.

After releasing their two incredibly well-received full lengths on At A Loss Recordings, Black Cobra has taken their rightful place atop the metal throne as the latest signing to the true home of all things heavy – SOUTHERN LORD! Their first Southern Lord release, Chronomega, finds them treading in familiar territory; working with the sound that won them raves from fans and critics alike, while refining it to its sharpest point. No longer just another blunt object, Black Cobra’s music is now a razor-sharp weapon and a true force to be reckoned with. Produced by Billy Anderson (Melvins, Neurosis, Sleep, High on Fire), Chronomega is one of the heaviest records of ’09 or, for that matter, any year! It is a raging slab of pure, unadulterated heaviness.

Black Breath

“Slaves Beyond Death” is the 3rd full-length from the new kings of Seattle Death Metal: Black (FUCKING) Breath. Like its predecessors, this album was recorded by Kurt Ballou (High on Fire, Nails, Baptists, Converge) at his infamous God City studio in Salem, MA. The heathens of the Breath have taken a decidedly more sick and evil sonic direction with their latest burnt offering. They have effectively and efficiently ripped off their old skin and left us with a more grotesque, rotting corpse of PURE filthy Death Metal. Bid farewell to any good time hardcore, punk or retro thrash vibes. Its all putrid stench and bile vomited up by THEE best current DM band that currently rages. This music ain’t pretty but neither are you.

Suit up, strap it on and get ready to get pummeled!

BIG|BRAVE

With the initial seeds planted in 2012, with no other goal than simply experimenting with the instruments in their possession, Robin Wattie and Mathieu Ball started writing subtle ambient/minimalistic folk songs together. When long time friend Louis Alexandre Beauregard joined on drums, the goal still remained to play as tranquil as possible. After an incident where Wattie’s acoustic guitar broke, and having borrowed a friend’s electric as a replacement, larger amps that Ball had in storage from previous bands started to get incorporated to the outfit. Now with amplitude as a compositional tool, BB never lost interest in the power of minimalism and fragility. It became clear that loud volume would become just as effective as the lowest possible ones and the juxtaposition of both would become something BB still uses as their main MO to this day.

After self-releasing Feral Verdure in 2014, the band had the opportunity to open for Thee Silver Mt Zion in Montreal QC. After which, Efrim Manuel Menuck found something meaningful in the members and the band and invited them to open on future shows with Mt Zion and with Godspeed! You Black Emperor.

In 2015, the band entered the studio with Menuck and recorded “Au De La”. With no home for the record, they decided to take a chance in writing to Southern Lord. As luck would have it, Greg Anderson happened upon their email among hundreds and responded. Since then, the band has had a home with Southern Lord Records. (Along with Au De La, Southern Lord has released Ardor in 2017, A Gaze Among Them in 2019 and VITAL in 2021).

After Beauregard’s departure in 2018, the band traveled down to Rhode Island with Loel Campbell on drums to make a first record with Seth Manchester at Machines with Magnets. After the album’s release, with Campbell unable to tour, Tasy Hudson joined the ranks and the band spent most of the year touring their 2019 album “A Gaze Among Them”.

In 2020, the core trio of Ball, Wattie and Hudson once again made the trek down to Machines with Magnets to record their 5th LP “VITAL”.

Battalion Of Saints

Baptists

photo credit: Ryan Walter Wagner

Vancouver Canadas’ Baptists lay down absolutely unrelenting, chaotic, punishing hardcore. This is the band debut album and we guarantee it will completely flatten you. Brutal yet cathartic.

This rages with an intense urgency that immediately grabs you by the throat and effectively kicks your ass! Following a highly revered and sought after 7” on Southern Lord circa 2011 the band took to the road and built a strong buzz in the underground scene via their vicious live shows. They destroyed at several of the Power of the Riff events over the last few years as well as other high profile shows in Canada.

They spent a good part of 2012 vigilantly writing material for their first full-length release. They traveled to Salem, Mass. to record at Godcity studios with Kurt Ballou. There really is noone who is doing a better job at effectively capturing this kind of music these days. The result is a dark, seething non stop battering. The drumming on this is without question some of the best that there has ever been.

This is a band completely firing on all cylinders and laying waste to everything in their path.

Asschapel

The band name that will not die. Something about fusing a church with an anus along with crushing riffs, double-bass and hellish screams burns the name into ones psyche forever. Started by five dudes from the Nashville punk scene in 1999 who over the course of seven years played all over the Western world, leaving in their wake crippled vans with wheels flying off, shattered heels, broken noses, torn out nipple rings, maxed out credit cards, on-stage arguments, collapsed house show ceilings, everyone’s clothes falling off at the show, and more, while impressively avoiding search and arrest from the authorities due to shear body odor coming straight from the dirty south. Members have since moved on to the likes of Pelican, The Swan King, Tijuana Goat Ride, Hans Condor, and others, but this is the legacy which was ASSCHAPEL…Amen…

Ascend

ASCEND is a new collaborative musical project between Gentry Densley (Iceburn, Eagle Twin) and Greg Anderson (sunn 0))), Goatsnake, Engine Kid).

Both have been making music that has crossed paths several times in the last 19 years.(!!!) The most notable being during the 90s when Andersons’ band Engine Kid toured with and shared a split album with Densleys’ band Iceburn. During that time both were heavily experimenting with the fusion of jazz (Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis, John Coltrane) and the dark behemoth tones of influences such as The Melvins, Gore, Slint, Caspar Brotzman.

ASCEND re-visits some of the tones, and moods of their past works as well as traveling into uncharted territory all done with the utmost focus on heaviness and power. Of particular note is the vocal performance by Gentry Densley. His voice is deep and ominous with a subtle Tom Waits influence within the growls and gruffness that is emoted. Anderson gushes enthusiastically: “we were extremely fortunate to have ALOT of help from our friends with this recording. Andy Patterson pounded the hell out of the drums, and Steve Moore (aka Stebmo, also in Earth and often times : sunn 0))) ) added some trombone (Obelisk of Kolob, + Dark Matter), organ (Her Horse Is Thunder, Dark Matter) and some amazing wurlitzer (Amplifier Within, Divine). His playing brings a dark, sophisticated jazz atmosphere to the album. On the track “V O G” we were blessed to have Bubba Dupree (Void) AND none other than Kim Thayil (Soundgarden) put down some incredible lead work!

The entire album was mixed by Randall Dunn (Earth, sunn 0))), Kinski) and mastered by Mell Dettmer who is turning into the “house-mastering wizardress” for the Southern Lord label.

All Pigs Must Die

All Pigs Must Die are far more than the sum of their parts, and their fusion of crust punk, hard core and metal is more ferocious than ever before.

The band return with Hostage Animal (October 27, Southern Lord) and an expanded lineup, thanks to the addition of Trap Them’s Brian Izzi. Bound by a shared sonic vision, APMD is comprised of some of the most well-seasoned musicians on the eastern seaboard —Kevin Baker (The Hope Conspiracy), Ben Koller (Converge), Matt Woods, and Adam Wentworth (both of Bloodhorse). Distilling aggressive music to its purest tenets, APMD craft songs that pulverize, gnash, and whirl with a punishing delivery.

APMD unleashed their first full length with 2011’s God Is War. The 30-minute rip was a nod to primeval disdain and anger. Exploring facets of human conflict one track at a time, God Is War introduced the world to a whole new spectrum of rage. In 2013, APMD upped the ante with Nothing Violates This Nature. Honing their craft with more speed and filth, APMD pushed their sound closer to the edge of the cliff.

2017 sees the release of APMD’s third full-length, Hostage Animal. Like its predecessors, Hostage Animal was recorded at Kurt Ballou’s GodCity Studio. But that is where the similarities end; Hostage Animal ushers in the most concise, yet dynamic collection of work in the band’s catalog. As a 5-piece, APMD broadens their sound without abandoning any brutality. Drawing from inspirations as diverse as Slayer, Trouble, Morbid Angel (old), GISM, Jesus Lizard, Bathory, Ulver (old), Sepultura (old), Nietzsche, Heidegger, Darwin, pessimism, fear, hatred, paranoia, THC. This is a record that will leave you with whiplash of both body and mind.

ALL PIGS MUST DIE IS:

Kevin Baker (vocals)

Brian Izzi (guitar)

Ben Koller (drums)

Adam Wentworth (guitar)

Matt Woods (bass)

Hostage Animal, Track Listing:

1. Hostage Animal

2. A Caustic Vision

3. Meditation of Violence

4. Slave Morality

5. End Without End

6. Blood Wet Teeth

7. Moral Purge

8. Cruelty Incarnate

9. The Whip

10. Heathen Reign

Agrimonia

The name of Gothenburg-based quintet AGRIMONIA will reverberate through the masses throughout the coming months as their third LP, and first for Southern Lord, is subject to be released onto the masses in May.

AGRIMONIA has lead a fruitful existence since their 2005 foundation, a steady diet of live appearances and European tours being an immediate part of the band’s ethos from day one, the ranks of the band featuring members of other notable Swedish infiltrators including Martyrdöd, Skitsystem, At the Gates and others. Their initial recording – a massive nearly hour-long undertaking — spread through the post-rock and crust legions, eventually seeing official release on European label Skuld Releases. Following their follow-up LP – the 2010-released Host Of The Winged, released again via Skuld alongside a CD release on US crust/punk mainstays Profane Existence – the band traversed on American and Mexican soil for the first time with a brief but rampant West Coast North American tour.

Having signed with Southern Lord mid-2012, AGRIMONIA bunkered into the studio over the turn of the year to record their label debut Rites Of Separation, the final product then mixed by mastermind Fredrik Nordstrom at infamous Studio Fredman (At The Gates, Opeth, Arch Enemy). With just seconds short of a full hour of material harnessed, the completed recordings boast the most mammoth and varied sounds in the band’s already diversified and expansive sound, their bustling slow-motion post-rock builds displayed with the most epic refinement.

The band’s unconcealed crust-punk ethos and scathing elements shine through the pristine devastation, with elements of Summoning, Damad, Pelican, Opeth, Crisis, Bolt Thrower, Nausea and countless more shining within AGRIMONIA’s crushing, poignant and unique new LP.

A Storm Of Light

New York metal alchemists, A STORM OF LIGHT, will unleash their long-anticipated new studio offering this Fall! Entitled Nations To Flames, the 11-track follow up to the band’s critically-lauded 2011 opus, As The Valley Of Death Becomes Us, Our Silver Memories Fade, was recorded with Travis Kammeyer (OCOAI, Generation Of Vipers) at Fahrenheit Studios in Johnson City, Tennessee, mixed with Matt Bayles (Isis, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Botch, Mastodon) at Red Room Recording in Seattle, Washington and mastered by Brad Boatright (Sleep, From Ashes Rise, Nails) at Audiosiege in Portland, Oregon. Additionally, Nations to Flames features Soundgraden’s Kim Thayil and Indian/Nachtmystium’s Will Lindsay on select tracks.

Centered around the apex of human failure, Nations To Flames bears witness to the fall of all governments, all nations, and all religions. The record is both musically and thematically captivating and marks the STORM collective’s darkest, most immediately punishing creation to date.

Comments A STORM OF LIGHT founding guitarist/vocalist Josh Graham “These songs are much more focused. Even the more ‘epic’ songs are shorter but still accomplish the same journey as the longer songs used to. We’ve ditched the rock elements of the last record and let our early influences of Killing Joke, Bad Brains, Metallica and Crash Worship seep in. We are bringing back the intensity of Black Ocean but with the speed and precision ore akin to our metal influences. While there are still some slower/sludgy tunes, some songs are twice as fast as the older material.”