Lav's Music Corner

Review by Lavender: Chat Pile are a noisy metal outfit from Oklahoma who were building up tons of momentum and acclaim as an underground outfit before releasing their debut album God's Country  in 2022. The album was immediately met with acclaim upon release, and I called it my favorite debut of the year. So as you'd expect I was pretty excited for a follow-up even before I heard standout singles like "Funny Man" and "I Am Dog Now." In one of the least surprising revelations of the year, Chat Pile throttles listeners once again on a follow-up that lives up to its expectations.  Let's get to those singles first, just as the album does with its lead single "I Am A Dog Now" which also serves as the opener. After a short, cloudy introduction you get right into the thumping downtuned guitars and short ripping lyrical refrains. The lyrics are fittingly animalistic and absolutely visceral making for an excellent opener. A few tracks later "Funny ...

At some point I've got to get better about reviewing metal records. Since I'm so bad at it I felt the need to do a recap of some of the most notable ones to drop this year so far.  The Promise Of Rain  - Scarcity Scarcity are a NY black metal band that I'm a bit late to the party on. They debuted a few years ago on The Flenser, which really should be enough to get me to tune into anything at this point, but I let the debut slip by me. I almost made that mistake again when this new record didn't immediately blip on my radar beyond the actually beautiful album cover it sports. Thankfully some positive coverage the album received has led to me attempting to right both wrongs with an overdue review.  Promise  serves up just 6 tracks, but with four of them powering past 6 minutes it's grand total runtime reaches 40 minutes. It opens with the bold "In The Basin Of Alkaline Grief" which wastes no time introducing its brutality and ferocity. It takes a seemingly b...

Lockstep Bloodwar  - Sightless Pit Sightless Pit is a musical project I first caught onto a few years ago as a meeting of the minds between frequent collaborators from experimental metal bands The Body and Full Of Hell alongside one of the most interesting artists in all of music in the past 5 years, Lingua Ignota. Now they've released a second album and even though Lingua Ignota is no longer involved, the record isn't lacking in interesting collaborations as a few artists I was already familiar with like Midwife, Gangsta Boo, and claire rousay appear in the tracklist. When this record is living in its comfort zone of crushing distorted textures, harrowing screamed vocals and the genuine sonic intensity of extreme metal things go pretty well. Opening track Resin On A Knife  is an early highlight and the pairing with Midwife makes perfect sense and the title track around the midpoint satisfies my desire for horrifying shrill sounds on any album associated with The Body. The rec...

  Forgotten Days  - Pallbearer The doom metal band is back in action 3 years after a record that divided fans and critics. While I liked it quite a bit the band heard the criticism apparently and returned to a bit of a stricter interpretation of their doom metal mixed with elements of stoner metal sound. With a handful of compositions that run between 4 and 12 minutes I think the band makes an impact the right way but never really brings it home. Nowhere on this record are compositions with as compelling builds as so many of my favorite doom metal records of old. While the band doesn't do much wrong on the record I also don't see it as anything necessary for metal fans to hear this year. 5.5/10 Wake Of A Nation  EP - Zeal & Ardor The bands first release of new material since wowing everyone with 2018's Stranger Fruit  came on the back of three singles and features 6 tracks with a wide range of influence. While many of the socially conscious themes persist across ...