Mighty noise specialists Southern Lord has confirmed three new releases from SEVEN SISTERS OF SLEEP, XIBALBA and PLANKS all of which are due for release in the UK this July.
SEVEN SISTERS OF SLEEP is a new band from Southern California, featuring ex-members of Tafkata and Arm and Sword of the Bastard God. This s/t debut album is loaded with pulverising riffs and hypnotic drumming in the name of the horned one! Ultra gloomy, subsonic depression delivered with a vicious kick to the skull. www.myspace.com/sevensistersofsleep
XIBALBA, another band from Southern California, effectively fuse death metal influences like Sepultura and Obituary with more modern and 90s hardcore. The group’s downtuned, heavy as fuck music is a force to reckoned with. The old world influence is only evident to the trained eye, but Xibalba gives nods to the hardcore bands they were raised on, and also to the culture which spawned them. The band not only know their roots, but make sure you won’t forget them either. The Madre Mia Por Los Dias CD contains not only the s/t debut album from Xibalba but also the material from the Earthquake comp CD. http://www.myspace.com/placeoffear
PLANKS are an intense, darkened hardcore/metal band from Germany. This exclusive Southern Lord CD release compiles both The Darkest of Grays 12” and the Solicit to Fall 12”. This is the first time any of their recordings have been available on compact disc. Whether through driving melodies, explosive noise, or the most fragile of interludes, Planks hits hard and resonates deeply within the listener. At the core of the band’s approach is evenly influenced by groups like His Hero is Gone as well as Neurosis and even Dark Throne. Their surging hardcore/punk power chords are forcefully accented by dissonant melodies. http://www.myspace.com/walkingonplanks
Other new releases that Southern Lord are unleashing later this month include:
San Francisco-based ACEPHALIX spew forth a stripped-down and tonally obliterating old-school Nihilist/Entombed death metal style infused with West Coast crustpunk angst. Featuring members of Depressor and other hellish Bay Area acts — including three members who also do time in Vastum, another act currently gaining worldwide attention from the death metal underground — ACEPHALIX already have a diehard cult following, and plan to take their terror worldwide as Southern Lord releases the band’s seven-track bulldozer Indeterminable Night in a one-time CD pressing of 2,000. [http://www.acephalix.com]
ALPINIST hail from Munster Germany, and produce crushingly dark hardcore/crust with blinding intensity. The band is meant to be understood by those who are sick of people following musical trends, those who want to live out music with dedication and those who believe in expressing their own ideals through their own art, and their socio-political lyrics are openly and strongly against all forms of fascism, racism, sexism and homophobia. Southern Lord will release Lichtlærm/Minus Mensch on CD in a limited edition run of 2,000 copies. The disc contains both of the band’s albums that were previously only available on limited vinyl releases, making this the first ever CD release from ALPINIST. [http://www.myspace.com/alpinistsucks]
Dublin’s crust behemoths DRAINLAND have also just joined the Southern Lord family for a limited edition release of their searing …And So Our Troubles Began, a compilation of two vinyl-only releases. DRAINLAND’s intense (ins)urgency is saturated with the crushing sludge of Eyehategod and the crusty punk filthiness of His Hero Is Gone. …And So Our Troubles Began will be released on a one-time CD pressing of 1,000 copies. [http://www.myspace.com/drainlanddublin]
MARK DEUTROM’S new solo album The Value of Decay…the fourth solo release from the veteran noisemonger, The Value of Decay’s bizarre passages are alive with creepy, quirky and off-kilter anti-riffage over its 15-track cerebral assassination. Deutrom, having helped found West Coast hardcore act Clown Alley in the early ’90s, is most widely known for his time spent in the Melvins in the mid-’90s, with their Prick, Stoner Witch, Stag, Honky and Alive at the Fucker Club albums. Mark D also bears producer credits under his belt for massively influential albums including the Melvins’ Ozma and Gluey Porch Treatments LPs, RKL’s Rock n Roll Nightmare LP, Raw Power’s Mine To Kill and Too Tough to Burn albums, and Neurosis’ almighty 1998 Pain Of Mind release. Presently Deutrom runs with his new band The County Bucks and continues to create musical chaos on many other levels.
