Monthly Metal Mixtape: February 2022

Capra – In Transmission (2021, Metal Blade Records)

Before flipping the calendar completely over, I wanna take a quick look back at one of the highlights from 2021 in Louisiana hardcore band Capra’s debut In Transmission. It felt too metal than hardcore for our regular bracket, but too punk and not metal enough to grab a place on our metal mixtape favorites. But there should be no doubt about it, In Transmission absolutely fucking rips, from whichever direction you want to approach it.

Full of great blast beats and frenetic riffing, there’s a lot to like about this sneakily good metallic hardcore debut that probably (undeservedly) slipped under a lot of radars. It is fast and heavy, with songs like “Samuraiah Carey” or “The Locust Preacher” unleashing an absolute fury. But Capra’s adept at slowing down to build tension too; look at tunes like “Torture Ship,” where there’s also an anger and aggression to those transitory moments that starts approaching the sludge level their home state is more known for. A lot of this is specifically driven by Crow Lotus’ phenomenally furious vocal delivery, with the rage and passion spitting forth with every political line, like in “Red Guillotine,” which takes on the societal treatment of women. Her performance is undeniably one of the highest points among what’s also a musically strong release. The shorter songs are explosive, cramming such an equal amount of intensity into their shorter run time and it all flows together seamlessly. It’s a thrilling debut and a wonderful example of what metallic hardcore sounds like in 2021. And even though that year sucked and we all wanna forget it, it’s worth looking back if it means getting Capra on your radar. – SteveO

Vredensdal – Silence Is Eternal (2021, Screaming Skull Records)

Total 2nd wave throwback with some killer riffs. The feeling of this album moves so naturally from melancholic to haunting to cruel and back again. I had a really hard time pinning down what this album reminds me of specifically. Certain passages migrate between early Satyricon and Marduk while other riffs capture the spirit of Burzum beautifully. Three and half minutes into the title track sounds like “Belus' Død”’s little brother. A few passages even sound like early 2000s-era Enslaved; not exactly 2nd wave but something about it reminds me. The greatest strength of this album is its use of haunting riffs and strange arpeggios. “A Forest Of Light” is a great example. At about the 2 minute mark, there are these great conflicting riffs that seem to marry the eerie and the cruel quite well. That quality is what pushes this album past being another 2nd wave black metal worship album for me. It’s the way in which the album feels like it wants to edge further into experimental black metal territory without allowing itself to lose its teeth. I think that sense of inner conflict gives this album something special. – Cry Baby Hank

Zeal and Ardor – Zeal & Ardor (2022, Mvka)

When I sat down to pick an album I wanted to talk about, I asked myself do I want to pick the easy way or the hard way? I think I’m going with the hard option. Zeal & Ardor are a band that are a minor legend at this point with arguably one of the most interesting things about them being the goofy origin of the band’s sound.

Manuel Gagneux, a Black musician from Switzerland with an African American mother, went on 4chan’s music board and asked them what types of music he should combine. The response to this question included a slur and the implication that he should fuse black metal with African American spirituals. He did just that. Much later he has stated, and now I’m just kinda admitting I’m reading the Wikipedia at this point, that the musical concept of the band is, “What if American slaves had embraced Satan instead of Jesus?”

2018’s Stranger Fruit is a breakthrough record actively pursuing this concept, full-throatedly, and deeply seriously – with a full band backing Gagneux to boot. The band’s sound was what it said on the cover: black metal and spirituals blended together. It was great and original and astonishingly well-executed for such a novel and strange concept. (Seriously just go listen to the songs “Ship On Fire” or “Servants” if you’ve never heard them; they are amazing songs).

This new self-titled record though – the band has straight up full force ran in not one, but several new directions that will be wholly confusing to many of the average metalheads who championed and loved the last album. This is certainly a refinement of the previous sound; the previous sound is still there, but the band sounds like it’s focused on deliberately not doing the same thing twice. The track listing is a head-spinning pull through song after song pushing the boundaries of what can be done with the band’s sonic concept.

I’ve seen a lot of negative takes from metalhead folks about this album, and honestly what I think it comes down to is that it is a lot less black metal-oriented than the past one. The focus and surprisingly consistent fabric that holds together this record is the spiritual side of the black metal/spiritual coin. And with that spiritual side comes spiritual-influenced music. Flashes of all sorts of traditionally Black music and Black-created genres of sound are all over this record. “Death to the Holy” is tinged with a cool as hell rap r&b swagger. “Golden Liar” sounds a lot like a bluesy pop r&b number at times. “Hold Your Head Low” uses sparse blues rock as its glue.

And then, of course, the metal side of the coin on this record. Black metal has bloomed here into a scatter shot of genre explorations track by track. I do love this. Black metal, at least good black metal in general, I think has a sense of anti-traditionalism and adventurousness. Most striking is a deep lean into and embracing of industrial metal and industrial rock permeating a whole lot here. This gives a quality to the sound that’s a little more consistent with a modern band like say Algiers than a mystical relic like Emperor. From the strange chunky factory sounds of the opener to the low end rapid palm muted riffs deeper in the record, yep, that’s industrial alongside all the black metal on the appropriately named “Feed The Machine.” There are of course exceptions that don’t really do this though.

“Emersion” is a straight up bee-line for bright, beautiful Violet Cold-esque blackgaze (I’d love to hear the band do an entire album in this style). “I Caught You” has this kinda metalcore thing going on. “Church Burns” is centered around an infectious, beefy one note alt metal groove. “J-M-B” is a punk-alt-hardcore-metal rager that apparently was an attempt to use jazz chords in metal and I think just sounds like if the band tried to sort of sound like an upbeat Turnstile song (it’s the staccato piano, man). I’m gonna be honest though: the best track on the entire listing by far really is the most black metal sounding one that’s closest to the Stranger Fruit sound – “Götterdämmerung” is a goosebump inducing, masterfully composed and performed, raging banger of bangers. It’s also followed-up by what is probably the best thesis statement of the band’s sound in “Hold Your Head Low” which sells itself by contrasting itself with that shredder of a track.

This album, so chock full of basically good interesting ideas that may or may not rub you the wrong way, is somehow completely consistent feeling. Gagneux’s excellent vocals, the crisp yet slightly raw modern metal production, and the consistently great performances by every member of the band just tie everything together and make it flow like water no matter where the album goes. This band is really, truly something amazing and the way they continue to somehow be this incredibly polarizing, novel, catchy, and blisteringly and uncompromisingly metal band all at the same time is unbelievable really. Check it out. – Mike Tri

Suicidal Tendencies - Suicidal Tendencies (1983, Frontier Records)

The early part of the year is often a time when I dig back into old records. After spending most of November and December listening to 2021 releases while getting ready for our album of the year bracket, January and February are an annual respite. This winter I’ve been playing one of the classics of crossover thrash - Suicidal Tendencies’ self-titled debut album. The band’s sound is prototypical Southern California skate punk/hardcore punk with enough guitar noodling going on to cross on over to metal territory. Imagine being a punk in the 80s. First Bad Religion’s How Could Hell Be Any Worse comes out. Later that year Descendents release Milo Goes to College. Early the following year comes Suicidal Tendencies. These albums are close cousins in their sound, attitude and were literally released in close proximity to one another. The centerpiece “Institutionalized” is a masterpiece of LA hardcore, featuring the protagonist wondering how he could possibly be considered crazy when he’s been force-fed the mainstream’s missives from day one. On the surface it’s an odd choice for the album’s only single - it doesn’t scream “radio hit”. Its acerbic social commentary and fast/slow change ups hammer the point home. The record has an edge to it that is often ascribed to this era of LA hardcore punk. Not exactly what I first heard on the Tony Hawk soundtrack in my youth. Dig back into this one if it’s been a while. - Phil Collins