Uranium “Pure Nuclear Death”

    The American one-man savage doomsday composer behind Uranium unleashes a devastating full-length album that is brighter than a thousand suns and more devastating than anything one could have ever imagined. The mixture of agonizing black metal and surrealistic industrial elements creates a wasteland of post-apocalyptic sounding horror, making Uranium’s sophomore release, “Pure Nuclear Death,” an utterly haunting listening experience. 

    Uranium is working with Sentient Ruin once again, which comes as no surprise given the fact that Sentient Ruin was responsible for releasing Uranium’s cassette compilation “Wormboiler" back in 2021 as well as the band's first full-length album, “An Exacting Punishment.” This new release definitely continues the reign of industrial extreme blackened electronic chaos that one can hear on the previous releases, but I think this album goes even further into the entropic sounding landscapes where all light is devoured by a dark cloud of ash. 

    When I look at this album and the five tracks which are featured on it, I find that the entire release is one vivid sounding abysmal tale from beginning to end that almost traumatizes you as your mind is constantly being overloaded by these surreal arrangements. From the very first track, “Absolute Terror,” you are met with a festering swarm of raw aggressive guitar distortion and nerve pounding rhythms. Uranium holds nothing back and really begins the album with a merciless assault of sonic terror, thus grabbing your attention as the music radioactively seems to evolve into even darker sounding directions. On the second track, “Pure Nuclear Death,” you find yourself speechless hearing the crackling sounds burst out of the speakers while these sound clips discuss the grim realities of what will happen if we experience nuclear armageddon. 

    For me the album is going to be one those releases that you either find extremely fascinating, or one which will end up leaving you completely terrified and not wanting to leave your house for a week. The music is very abrasive sounding as the album progresses with song's such as “Casual Violence” and “Fortified Mass Fungus.” In terms of the explosive chaotic compositions, they only become more overwhelming as you try to make sense of the bleak reality which will befall humanity if we continue to march off the cliff and into a hopeless oblivion. The vocal parts on this album actually impressed me the most, as the vocals really compliment the doom like atmospheres that give off a very cinematic like aura at times. I really enjoyed the last song, “Black Knight Satellite,” as the Godflesh-like approach with its agonizing industrial elements aggressively shreds away at your sanity. You almost cannot imagine what you are hearing is human as the music transforms into this cataclysmic electronic onslaught. 

    Overall, Uranium’s “Pure Nuclear Death,” is a horrifying extreme warning to all of us regarding nuclear war and the impacts it will have on our world should our world leaders decide to the press buttons. I think Uranium’s unfathomable extreme creativity throughout this release was on full display. Even if you are not a fan of this type of music I believe that the attention to detail as well as the strong production made the album’s theme undeniable potent. Extreme music has always been at the forefront when it comes to calling out these topics that people tend to ignore, which is why labels like Sentient Ruin and artists like Uranium continue to gain massive support from the underground extreme music community. Highly worth checking out if you are into punishing extreme music with a very profound message! 

Check out the song "Pure Nuclear Death" :

Sentient Ruin Bandcamp:

https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/album/pure-nuclear-death

 

Ash Prison “Future Torn”

    Ash Prison is a true meeting of the most malevolent minds in the world of decimating underground extreme music and their debut album, "Future Torn," is a surrealistic sounding nightmare that invites listeners to partake in one punishing darkened industrial sounding exhibition. Featuring Matt Auxier from industrial occult themed act 6th Circle, J. Thompson from the darkwave group Child Ov Night and M. Alagna of Abstracter/Somnolent/ex-Atrament, their collaboration on this release is definitely something to take notice of if you are fan of agonizing extreme music. 

    Sentient Ruin will be responsible for releasing this sadistic electronic creation, so right away you know that the music is going to be profoundly sinister and down right unapologetic to the rotten core. Ash Prison’s sound and style is exactly what you want to hear if you are a fan of Ministry (The Land of Rape and Honey period especially), Godflesh and Skinny Puppy, as well as ambient industrial black metal artists that have come along as of recent to offer these really raw and mind altering pieces of hateful sounding music. This album speaks to those who see the world as a bleak and hopeless mess, slowly being driven to the edge of collapse. M. Alagna’s vocals tell this frightening tale of futuristic annihilation as the heart pounding industrial rhythms and gritty distortion perfectly forms these ruinous soundscapes. 

    Once I first started listening to this album, I could definitely hear a mixture of each musician’s vicious artistic backgrounds as well as their extreme sounding musical influences. The opening track, “Archangel,” commences with these thunderous bursts of guitar distortion that signal forth the hellish deafening destruction. As much as the arrangements hit and grab your attention, I can’t stress the importance of the vocals and how on songs such as, “Death Reborn,” “Eraser” and “No Return,” the lyrics inject a sense of vividly haunting realism that speaks directly to you. “No Return,” is especially one track which I really enjoyed as the hypnotic sounds as well as the abrasive straightforward guitar riffs definitely convey a harsh old school 90’s industrial metal sound. 

    As I listened to this album multiple times, I truly felt as though that the execution on each track in terms of the production and recording quality played an important role in making this release really standout. A lot of artists that experiment with extreme industrial music tend to get carried away and end up putting out atrocious sound piles of horseshit, which is why I am very selective with this style of extreme music. Ash Prison’s confident and uncompromising aggression simply demands your attention. As the album progresses, you can really hear their sadistic experimental passion on tracks like, “Scorn,” “Collapse” and “Black Horizon.” Actually, the suffocating atmosphere on “Black Horizon” perfectly captures the nihilistic nature of raw black metal, which is why it was probably one of my favorite tracks off of the album. 

    To quote Pinhead from the movie Hellraiser, “Demons to some, angels to others.” Ash Prison is an act that I can see winning over those who fiendishly desire chaotic extreme industrial music which digs deep into the endless blackened distorted depths, while at the same time striking fear into the minds of those who might find themselves lost in the abrasive sounding voids. “Future Torn” is an album that perfectly encapsulates the abhorrently creative artistic talents that Sentient Ruin continues to promote, thus making this yet another album highly worth seeking out once it is released September 22, 2023. 

Check out the song "Death Reborn" below:

Sentient Ruin Bandcamp:

https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/

Decoherence "Order"

    Sentient Ruin’s extreme aural conquest continues to rage through the summer with yet another monstrous new album from one of the most devastating acts around. Based out of the UK, Decoherence  takes elements from industrial metal, black metal and death metal to achieve an unfathomably inhuman sound that tears down the walls of reality and traverses into truly nightmarish sounding landscapes. 

    The band’s third album, “Order,” continues where the band left on their previous full-length release, “Unitarity,” but also experiments with some even more surreal sounding industrial elements to create a bleak lifeless world where chaos has unraveled to a point you feel like everything around you is spinning out of control. I also recommend checking out the band’s compilation album, “System I,” which Sentient Ruin released back in 2021 that features an exceptional cover of Killing Joke's, "The Wait." 

    From the very beginning on this new album, Decoherence seeks to shake the foundations of extreme music by going against the grain with each composition. The first couple tracks on the new album, “Closed Timelike Curves” and “An Unconfined System,” are a couple maniacal offerings of deafening distorted creativity. You feel as though all these different noises are getting thrown into this monstrous machine, which then violently hammers out these explosive ear shattering rhythms. Something I noticed as well when listening to the beginning of this album was how cold and inhumane the atmospheres sounded, as if I was hearing the soundtrack to some horrifying dystopian futuristic science fiction film where humanity has been erased by malevolent artificial intelligence. 

    Throughout the album Decoherence’s harsh unapologetic mindset is what I believe fuels this album’s eye opening sound. A track such as, “With No Pre-Existing Direction,” features a plethora of agonizing riffs as well as these raw black metal vocals that echo over hateful sounding distortion from the guitars to achieve a pure hostile overall tone. “Quintessence Field,” is another pestilent mind altering track containing some dynamic and hypnotic sounding arrangements. Musically, everything just comes together so well that the album keeps you locked into this shattered mindset where you see reality slowly slipping away into the grim distorted thunderous musical landscape that pulls you further into the inevitable abyss.  

    Decoherence is a band that you are either going to embrace right away for their willingness to create unconventional sounding joineries into dark and twist soundscapes, or one that will have your brain melting from their insidiously entropic sounding arrangements. For fans of industrial metal, black metal and extreme music that wishes to shatter normal time signatures and hacks away at deviant sounding chord progressions, then you are going to want to check out this new album. Decoherence’s, “Order,” pushes the extreme music world further into the nightmarish oblivion to provide a sense of where humanity is headed as a majority of people blindly become enslaved to the materialistic world around them. 

Check out the song "Closed Timelike Curves" :

Sentient Ruin Bandcamp (Album comes out July 28th, so go pre-order now!):

https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/album/order

8 Hour Animal "Kill Your Boss"

    The upcoming full-length album from 8 Hour Animal is a profoundly hostile sounding extreme creation. Titled, “Kill Your Boss,” the album features a plethora of dissonant electronic noises along with some sadistically hypnotic industrial rhythms. 

    The one-man act behind 8 Hour Animal dives deep into the catastrophic electronic nightmare sound established by acts such as Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Godflesh and My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, yet also incorporates some very unconventional methods into the overall mix. 8 Hour Animal simply does not follow a repetitive formula and the music makes you feel like you are experiencing a schizophrenic meltdown. Compared to 8 Hour Animal’s previous release, “Resigner,” I felt as though the songs on this album sounded even more warped at times by offering an overwhelming amount of bludgeoning industrial sounds. 

    On the first track, “Real Masks,” I liked how the artist built up this catchy metallic industrial sounding rhythm and then slowly started to throw in these disturbing burst of distortion and horrifying vocal parts. There were times during the track when I started feeling dizzy following along to all the different noises that seemed to mercilessly clutter up the soundscape. The entire album is truly a frantic tornado of distortion and harsh electronic rhythms with tracks such as, “Grind Down” and “Under the Sod,” being prominent examples of how 8 Hour Animal is not looking to captivate listeners with breath taking melodies. The music is almost a surreal reflection of how humanity is slowly starting to crumble and people are mentality becoming unhinged under the societal pressures which haunt them each day. 

    Although most of the album contains intense mind melting arrangements, I was most impressed by the track, “Thaw.” The song’s tempo at first is very slow and very hypnotic sounding, but the music goes through this unbelievably eye opening industrial metamorphosis. Towards the end of the song you become engrossed in the hallucinogenic cinematic atmosphere and soon drift into the sheer dark electronic void. The last song on the album, “Make It Easy for Me,” is a decent track as well and convey’s a more 90’s industrial sound by capturing that raw surrealistic tone. When I look back at the entire album I definitely hear the influences in each compositions, but I cannot deny the unique approach and delivery that the artist behind 8 Hour Animal is able to achieve. 

    8 Hour Animal’s, “Kill Your Boss,” is a vivid example of true unorthodox artistic creativity that strives to tear down the walls of mundane extreme music. Although there were times on this album where I felt as if the arrangements were a bit disorganized, the album’s overall presentation is all about establishing a truly entropic environment which challenges order and structure. Fans of old school industrial/experimental electronic music will really take a liking to this album’s sound, so I highly recommend checking the album out if you are into savage mind altering electronic music. Leave it to Sentient Ruin to once again present the world with an extreme act that will leave you questioning human existence, while finding yourself completely possessed by the unfathomably deviant sounds. 

Check out the song "Grind Down" below (Album comes out March 17th, 2023) : 

Sentient Ruin Bandcamp: 

https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/

Isolant "Drain"

    The harsh hypnotic sounding surrealistic distorted noises that Isolant conjures up on their new EP titled, “Drain,” slowly shreds away at your sanity until you finally submit to the captivating aural punishment. These musicians seem to capture the gloomy essence of fear inducing industrial music mixed with some old school crust punk, while also throwing in some monstrous sounding death doom elements. 

    Given this band’s unorthodox approach along with the solid production quality, I felt myself constantly engaged while listening to the entire EP. Once the first song begins you lose track of time as the world around slows down and you drift into this immense sounding industrial atmospheric realm. The members of this group have very extensive backgrounds within the world of extreme music with connections to bands like Malleus, The Watcher, Abstracter, Atrament, S.E.K.H. and Suspiral. There is definitely an open minded mentality amongst the members of Isolant and the compositions on this release demonstrate an unconventional artistic mindset which makes for one very unpredictable listening experiencing. 

    One of the most noticeable aspects about this EP is without question the catchy death doom riffs. The first track, “The End Begins Me,” is a great example of how Isolant is able to blend together these sharp dissonant industrial noises with monolith sized guitar arrangements that hammer out these addictive and abrasive chord progression. All the instruments and all the different electronic sounds you hear create such a vivid atmosphere. Also, the vocals on this album perfectly compliment the tone of the music by adding to the music's abysmal tone. Other tracks such as, “Drown in Ash” and “Inner Tomb,” explore these very simple yet utterly profound industrial sounding landscapes. Imagine the devastating style of a band like Godflesh, but then throw in some primitive crust/post-punk in the vein of Amebix and Killing Joke. 

    Another point I want to bring up about this release is that Isolant is able to effectively deviate at times from the heavy hypnotic industrial death doom barrage and take a turn down a different musical avenue. For example, I was not expecting a calming piano piece on the song, “Death Pulse,” but in the end the compositions proved to be a great solemn sounding way to finish off the track. The dynamic thought put into each track is definitely one reason why Isolant's music stands out, and also contributes to the EP’s strong haunting synergy. 

     In the end, Isolant is a group that is willing to defile musical logic and create a world with a plethora of unique sounds, while crafting these unbelievably addictive sounding riffs. I cannot tell you how many times when listening to this EP I would stop and find myself moving my head along to guitar parts. Plus, the vocals on this album are exactly what you want in terms of offering up that inhumanly sinister delivery to accompany the fiendish arrangments. Sentient Ruin will be working with Isolant on the release of the EP which comes out February 24th, so definitely go order a copy if you are into music which goes against the grain and is willing to experiment instead of simply copying what everyone else is doing within the metal community at the moment.  

Check out the song "Inner Tomb" below: 

Sentient Ruin Bandcamp:

https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/album/drain

MÆNTRA "Kundalini"

    For anyone looking for a brutal release that explores human consciousness and looks to transcend the mental barriers of human existence, I believe MÆNTRA has you covered with the release of their debut full-length album, “Kundalini.” The band explores the musical boundaries of death metal and industrial metal, while also incorporating a plethora of other mesmerizing sounds to guide you on this one of a kind extreme sounding spiritual journey. 

    The band consists of drummer Adam Houmam (Cartilage, Ghoul, Ion, Terrorizer L.A.), guitarist/vocalist Rudy Pina, bassist/vocalist Paul Ryan (Origin) and keyboardist Martin Boynton (Short Fuse). The album is rather fascinating with each track on the album exploring one of the seven chakras. One would not typically connect extreme sounding brutality with euphoric enlightenment, but I do believe that is what makes this album so unique. Also, the musicianship really stood out when I first started listening to the album, and I find that the band composes their arrangements with tremendous precision. The album flows with a tremendous synergy which helps bring together all these different sounds and compositions. 

    To begin the first track off of the album, “Muladhara,” the band provides these calming atmospheric noises that eventually get completely decimated by intense blast beats and mind crushing riffs. Throughout the song there are a lot of dynamic arraignments along with very frantic sounding industrial elements in the background. At first I was a bit taken back, but eventually I started to become more and more intrigued as the music evolved. 

    On the second track, “Svadhisthana,” the band continues to traverse across these unconventional musical landscapes, while at the same time creating a monumental avalanche of inhuman distorted sounding entropy. The band’s approach does have you questioning the direction of the music at times, however the unpredictable nature of the band’s arrangements definitely has you engaged and drifting through this unpredictable void of mind altering chaos. The brutal complex technical rhythms on songs like, “Manipura” and “Vishuddha,” sounds almost otherworldly, which actually perfectly compliments the haunting celestial keyboard parts.

    Overall, I cannot find too much to complain about this album and I believe that MÆNTRA is an extremely talented up and coming band. The caliber of musicianship along with the album’s production quality sounded very impressive compared to a fair amount of modern death metal bands that I have come across. Unlike some extreme metal artists that have this tendency to hastily throw a pile of messy sounding arrangements together, MÆNTRA really understands who to make everything sound tight and flow from beginning to end. If you want an extreme metal experience to open your mind to achieve inner enlightenment, then this album is definitely worth checking out. 

Check out the song "Svadhisthana" below : 

Link to the band's Bandcamp:

https://maentr3.bandcamp.com/track/svadhisthana

Link to the band's Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/maentr3