Hey look, Bandcamp Buried Treasure made it into 2014! Unfortunately I had to make this article disappear for a few weeks during the end of 2013 due to a lack of Bandcamp artists that I firmly believed you needed to hear and that I enjoyed myself. It was either that or give you albums I was indifferent about, and who wants that, right? So let's kick off 2014 with some sick metal! You know the rules of the article by now:
- I hunt down bandcamp artists I love that have their album up for Buy It Now/Free Download and give them a write up. I'm ot explicitly telling you to download the album for free since I'm a big supporter of buying your music, but I like the option for my readership to be there.
- The goal is to introduce you to smaller bands or obscure side-projects you might not have heard of. Anything to expand your musical horizons by just a little bit each week!
- And of course, for there to be a conversation about similar bands or bands you think I should be covering. I check the comments section!
I've also switched the format up a bit with two new sections, titled "The Basic Idea" and "Why I Love It." The former is a short news-style lead that paints a vivid picture of what you're about to hear to get you interested and help you understand a little why I chose the record, while the latter serves simply as a review piece.
So let's get started with some crusty, distorted, blackened punk ala Cara Neir from Arlington, TX!
The Basic Idea
Cara Neir force you to look through the portal to a better, dead world simply because they've burned down your current one and have strewn the corpses of everyone you've ever known about the place. There's blood, there's guts, there's crying and there used to be screaming… not so much anymore.
Why I Love It
The artwork of Cara Neir's Portals to a Better, Dead World drew me in initially because of its' hardcore-meets-black-metal look, and the second I hit the play button I knew it was love. After hearing the first ten seconds of the opening track "Peridot" I resigned myself to the fact that there was no way I could predict any of the music on this album. From a shiny opening chord that looses its' footing into a black metal punk song to a stumbling technical jumble of memorable melodic riffs falling about the place until the closing minute of what could be considered a slightly slowed down modern version of classic black, "Peridot" is the perfect opener. There's enough twists and turns to keep you on your toes, yet the familiarity of a band's core sound manifests itself throughout and never gets obscured.
Taking after the opener with their own sense of twisted seared-and-crusty mohawk music are the next two tracks "Closing Doors" and "Red Moon Foreboding," which give way to the slow-burner-turned-atomic-bomb "Dust Collector." Then there's terrifying blasts of "Forlorn Love (Henry and Karen)" that settle into an atmospheric kind of groove before its' split personality disorder kicks back in and looks for the adrenaline rush of blasting once more… only to go back and forth a few more times and tire itself out in the end.
So we've got blackened punk, a little traditional black metal, some disgusting grooves and a whole lot of riffs. What else do we need to finish out this trip through the portal to a dead world? Sludgy riffs that force you headbang? Well sure! "Exalting the Shadow Proprietor" starts off slow and just when you expect it to get fast, kicks into an Iron Maiden groove that smoked far too much weed that day. I have to hand it to vocalist Chris Francis too- the dude screams throughout the whole album and then all of a sudden is capable of Cannibal Corpse lows on the last two songs. Anyway, the trend of Earth-imploding slow jams continues on "3,380 Pounds," which is how much each one of these riffs weigh. "3,380" is the perfect end to an album that is gradually losing its' mind and slowing down because everything falls apart. The song devolves into guitars and soundscapes, and then guitars and whispers, and then just a sample of a voice before closing out into the silence of your listening space.
How's that for a fucking dismal listen?
