Last Gang, 2010

Containing two previously released EPs – Corporate Occult and $$ Troopers – Prevenge serves up seven tasters for the Finnish producer’s full length next year. That taste is a dark and seedy (if noisy) electro one, full of urgent rhythms and elicit beeps and glitches – good stuff, although it does make you feel as if you should be hiding the record under your mattress.

Souterrain Transmissions, 2010

The debut full-length from the Illinois duo is groove-laden, sludgy, poppy, somewhat retro, surely drug-addled, gratifyingly heavy, and, most of all, a shitload of fun. Like Torche, they keep their tracks short and unpredictable – there’s as likely to be a psychedelic sax solo around the corner as there is another gleefully meaty riff. Bonus points for the mildly homoerotic cover art, too.

Big Scary Monsters, 2010

Adebisi Shank’s second album in a word: powerful. Each song is a steady groove with huge off-kilter riffs piled on top, occasionally helped along by weird vocals and a few synths. If you’re looking for a new album to blast while you’re cruising down the highway, look no further. RIYL: Battles, Maps & Atlases, Sargent House.

Self-released, 2010

Inside, Embers Glow… is a most fitting title for Earthtone9’s choice cuts. Ingrained in the late 90’s firmament that formed what we now consider ‘progressive heavy rock’ (Neurosis, Mastodon, Isis, Tool, etc), Earthtone9 were arguably one of the brightest burning flames. Exploding back to life 8 years after they disbanded, this collection of songs reminds those who were familiar, and entices new listeners, with material so adventurous, ambitious, and bold that we can now look forward to seeing this most original of bands reclaim their profound, powerful, and unique musical domain. Every track is stellar, white hot with integrity.

Self-released, 2010

Along the lines of Appleseed Cast, Settlefish, Bear Vs Shark, and something more experimental, the Michigan trio’s debut is a fairly messy and raw – but impressively ambitious – endeavour. There’s plenty of head-nodding jazzy melodicism, and you can sense the passion that’s gone into the record. To say it’s worth the free download is an understatement.

Kscope, 2010

If their previous EP served to exhibit their lofty ambitions, Grappling Hooks shows the Scottish trio’s feet aren’t anywhere near the ground yet. Their debut full-length is a similarly enigmatic record, bathing in synths and fuzzy guitars, driven by an excited clamour of percussion, narrated by oddly detached vocals. The eleven tracks touch upon indie, electro, pop, and rock, but in general categories are unwanted ballast on such an airy and free record.

Self-released, 2009

Highly atmospheric, technically coherent, and intoxicatingly groove-laden, this taster EP from French/Swedish outfit Uneven Structure presents 21mins of extremely convincing modern metal. Taken alongside Periphery, Chimp Spanner, Animals as Leaders, etc, Uneven Structure are flag bearers for the more sophisticated and purposeful metal we yearn for. Pragmatic note: any Meshuggah references only evoke I and Catch 33, material so enigmatic and complicated Meshuggah themselves rarely discuss or perform it. Enjoy 8 free now from band’s website before full-length debut Februus arrives later this year.

Rabid, 2010

Written for a Danish performance group, Tomorrow… is an opera soundtrack based on Darwin, and is weird even by The Knife’s standards. It’s a (fittingly) pioneering voyage of a record: 90 minutes of electronic glitches, unsettling ambience, abstract drone, Amazon samples, operatic singing, and unpredictable rays of musicality. I don’t get a lot of it, and I’m probably not meant to – but still I find myself transfixed.

Big Scary Monsters, 2010

This UK trio seem intent on defying expectation with their debut EP; the flamboyant synths and indie-pop of the opener could well be from a different band to the next couple tracks, which take an instrumental (except for spoken samples) math-rock route. The consistent quality and energy in the songwriting makes up for any inconsistency in genre, though.

Monotreme, 2010

Macabre, bleak and beautiful: so goes the experimental folk project of Toronto’s Liz Hysen. A melancholy trio of piano, cello, and acoustic guitar provide the unnerving atmosphere to Become Secret, a kind of gothic austerity over which Hysen’s downbeat vocals preside like a doomsayer whose prophecies are coming true around her. Gloomy and addictive.

Gustaff, 2009

Following up the stunning Treny, Pentral sees Poland’s Michal Jacaszek attempting to describe a gothic church interior via sound. What results is a much more difficult record; less richly textured, less coherently musical, more capricious. There’s plenty of darkly meditative ambience, but this is interrupted by blasts of discordant organs, as if the church harboured a melodramatic villain within its rafters. Fascinating, if not the masterpiece that Treny was.

Chocolate Lab, 2010

MTIO’s debut full-length is well-named – it’s a kaleidoscopic and psychedelic trip through jazzy post-rock, with the sparse, mostly indecipherable vocals sounding as if they’re worshipping some rare cosmic event. Keyboard and guitar solos roam the dense mix like hyperactive thoughts on a record that’s as retro as it is rife with modern experimentation. Gratifyingly weird.