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“Penabranca means White Feather. And is also a name of an afro-indigenous religious entity well-known in Latin America. I like that background and how the name sounds.” The artist and author behind Penabranca said the aforementioned when asked about the name and it’s origins. If you take a look at the pictures here and on his website, you’ll agree with his statement. His work conveys various elements of mirage-like deserts, southwestern motifs, metaphysical symbols and ethereal symmetry. Add a time-worn vintage feel and you’ve pretty much got the idea.

Like we’ve done before – we posed the opportunity to Penabranca to curate a mixtape that serves as the musical counterpoint to the visuals he creates. He absolutely hits it out of the park, providing a stellar mixtape that is equal parts psychedelic, ethno-ambient and more, balancing pillars of psych/prog rock (like Hawkwind and Zeppelin) with more obscure names (such as Lula Côrtes e Zé Remalho)  All this in addition to his actual musical output via his band Camel Heads – be sure to check out their music video down below (it really brings both worlds together). “The work is about having fun. But also works for me, somehow, as meditation. I like playing with the shapes and images, put them together so they can exhale a certain mood, which can be cozy and warm, or fuzzy and energetic.”

Scroll down to grab the mixtape, read the track-by-track descriptions on why these selected songs made the cut, check out some visuals and also watch the Camel Heads video:

Cryogenic Husk #69 – Penebranca

1 – Lula Côrtes e Zé Remalho – Omm

This is from a rare brazilian gem, Paebiru. An epic album divided in four parts, the four elements, in which these two guys blended rural and psychedelic vibes in such beautiful way. Still relevant.

2 – Diva Dompé – Andromeda’s Lullaby

I love the lyrics on this one. And how Diva’s swirly melodies and colors flow under boiling textures, like a cosmic waltz. 

3 – Led Zeppelin – No Quarter

This is LZ’s most beautiful song to me. Each instrument has it’s place in a sort of ethereal, deep atmosphere. The melodies also swirl around, colorful, blurry and fuzzy. Do I try to make my artworks like this? Always.

4 – Hawkwind – Mirror of Illusion

This song takes you to a desert in Mars, where the wind whistles for your attention in the stratosphere but rattles keep you listening to the words, staring at the Sun and the Earth shining on the horizon.

5 – Date Palms – Psalm 7

The way the bass is played here gives me the sense of symmetry, a quiet place where the other sounds come to play. Date Palms has been my inspiration ever since, specially for the spirituality in their music.

6 – Bitchin Bajas – Bajas Ragas

These guys can mix sci-fi-ness and psychedelia like no other. It’s impressive how they can make such colorful and rich raga-like tune using synthesizers and still sound natural. 

7 – Dharana – Joy… Sadness… Joy

Beautiful gem from 1970. So ethnic, shining symmetrically, dividing the song in three parts. Beyond inspiring.

8 -  Headdress – Skydye

Turquoise is far my favorite album from Headdress. Skydye sways the beautiful lyrics about the man in the desert and the moon on the sky in a dizzy and windy walk outside. I like the visions it gives.

9 – Barn Owl – Pale Star

I like how few elements can sometimes be enough to give you a sense of dimension. This song makes you feel tiny, staring at the night sky while the stars go far beyond, echoing, pulling your gaze so strong that you lose the track of time. 

 “Most of the songs inspire me somehow, for their structures and melodies. They all give me visions that I try to replicate within my art.”

Camel Heads – Suraj from penabranca on Vimeo.

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So this Saturday brings to a close the first half of 2012. Insanity. That means we’re halfway to Christmas. We can’t believe how fast time flies. Six months of 2012 = done. Crazy.

Anyway, here’s what we’ve been digging the most so far in 2012. This mixtape is 20 songs cherry-picked from 20 of our fav records so far this year… Obviously, some will fall off the list with loads of highly anticipated records coming out later in 2012, and even at the time of this writing there are more and more gems popping up on our radar. Anyway, we consulted our QC manager Hank Williams III (the dog, not the musician) as for the sequencing of the tracks and he went with ‘Option B’ (in this context “went with” means “ate the piece of paper with ‘Option B’ written on it” – see evidence below), which is organized by leading off with the quieter, more mellow songs that grow louder as the mixtape progresses through the 20 songs. Hope you enjoy! Please comment here or on our FB page with what records you’ve been digging the most this year.

Cryogenic Husk #68 – First Half of 2012

1) Magic Wands – Kaleidoscope Hearts This is one of those records where indie and electronic mingle so deftly it’s almost genetically impossible to separate them. We’ve been rocking ‘Kaleidoscope Hearts’ and ‘Black Magic’ for years now, and loved them, so it’s nice to finally have the real deal with this album.

2) Grimes – Oblivion 4AD is branching out more and more with their newer batch of artists and Grimes is a great case-in-point. This one-woman act plays electronic tunes, some dancey, some more dreamy, and others that are just glitchy and weird; all done with a child-like falsetto voice (imagine Alison from Cranes singing with sass to old Madonna records).

3) Trust – Dressed For Space This is going to be high up on the ‘End Of The Year’ list. Soapbox moment: when dancing, the music motivates you and you’re doing more feeling, less thinking. Some key senses are dulled in place of heightening intuition (ie. feeling the music, rhythm, etc.), it can become almost dreamy in an ethereal way – so it’s no surprise clubs enhance this experience with flashing lights, colors, smoke and other effects that play upon this same dreamy concept. However, when the music can already sound that way sans lighting/effects, it’s gonna make us happy. Lush, hazy dance tunes done in spades. Side note: a friend pointed out to us that this style, while not incredibly new, sounds eerily like old Soft Cell but with current production value – check for yourself: Soft Cell – ‘Sex Dwarf’

4) ††† (Crosses) – Fron†ier Deftones’ last record, Diamond Eyes, came out over two years ago. Lead singer Chino Moreno’s side-band Team Sleep haven’t put out anything since 2005. It’s only fitting then that Moreno’s other side-band †††, which sounds like the natural bridge between Deftones and Team Sleep, release their second EP.

5) Van She – Idea Of Happiness This is a “summer record” through and through. But, backing up: We came upon Van She years ago when we were more enamored with the Aussie quartet’s dancefloor bangers and remixes that made us wanna shake our collective booties off. They always had hooks and infectious vocal lines, but this new album ushers in the shoe being on the other foot. Sing-a-long choruses, melodic indie-isms and a shimmery/sunny energy (complete with a definite Caribbean feel on more than a couple of songs) is making this our summer “feel good” record.

6) Man Without Country – Puppets This band ding’d on our radar when we read that they sounded like M83 crossed with Silversun Pickups. Well… they do. Fuzzy electronics meet the driving hum of alt-rock with a confessional feel to the vocals (at the very least in their delivery), fragile and melodic.

7) Chromatics – Back From The Grave Breathy female vocals laid overtop electro-poprock can hardly do any wrong. However Chromatics have this vintage sheen to their music that sounds as though their tunes were run through a sun-faded polaroid photo filter. It just sounds so nostalgic.

8) A Place To Bury Strangers – You Are The One Over-driven post-punk that juggles electronic, indie, and industrial. This is probably the most “listenable” song on the album, meaning “song with the least feedback seizures.” Absolutely love the vocals on this album, they’re almost perfect.

9) Ulver – Can You Travel In The Dark Alone? So Ulver release this new “album” that’s 16 cover songs (16? Yeesh.) of psychedelic/prog rock songs and it’s GOOD. This should have been the kind of stuff that Ulver put out after their Blood Inside album, and while it’s a bit much for one record, it’s refreshing to hear psych/prog rock that sounds classic and contemporary at the same time – especially in this day and age when few are playing this style.

10) Woodkid – Run Boy Run Last year Woodkid was on our “Honorable Mention” list for his release Iron, and he would’ve been on the ‘Best Of The Year’ if it were more than just an EP (a single rather). A year later, a new song and again he’s delivering something amazing and yet difficult to describe musically. It’s dark, percussive, orchestral, grandoise and boundary-pushing. Make sure you watch the video for this song HERE, which is a sequel of sorts to the aforementioned ‘Iron’ video (which was the best video on 2011), and also hints at an upcoming third single/video(!) Mind = bottled.

11) O. Children – Solid Eyes While not as immediate as their debut album from from two years ago, there is still quality material on this UK group’s sophomore record of dark, slightly new romantic indierock.

12) Lotus Plaza – Jet Out Of The Tundra Ahh… Deerhunter, indierock’s darlings. Everyone seems to jock Bradford Cox and his solo project Atlas Sound as the core of Deerhunter. Well, FUCK. THAT. Anyone worth their salt knows that Deerhunter’s strengths are rooted in their layers of melodic, repitious jamming and instrument noodling. At the core of the songs that feature those strengths is guitarist Lockett Pundt and Lotus Plaza is HIS side project that brings those ideals front and center for a truly great “indierock” album.

13) Circle Of Ouroborus – Cast In Clay This experimental Finnish duo became more well-known with their previous album Eleven Fingers, and for some weird reason they  still are name dropped in reviews as co-opting black metal, which is strange because aside from a few snarled vocals there’s zero black metal to be found here (the purists might say there’s black metal in the “feeling” of the music, but they can fuck off). This is incredibly dense stuff sonically. Very huge and underwater sounding post-rock stuff (minus any guitars), with submerged layers that reverberate in a way you’d think being in the womb might sound like. Lush, serene and spacious.

14) Tragedy – The Feeding Hour We saw Tragedy over Memorial Day Weekend in Seattle having just got a taste of their new record shortly before. Coincidently, the show and their new record had much in common: a slightly more somber and darker approach to their brand of crusty, metallic, hardcore-punk. Billy Anderson produced this album and it sounds like the edges have been a bit dulled and corners sanded down, providing a more vintage feel to the songs. We’re still digesting this record, but even a so-so album from Tragedy is lightyears ahead of their contemporaries.

15) White Lung – Take The Mirror A friend recommend this band out of thin air. 10 songs ranging from 45 seconds to roughly two minutes apiece of energetic punk rock. There are moments of early 90s SubPop Records’ brand of grunge/punk, hints of post-punk and a faint fleeting moment from that second or two when you liked Hole in the early/mid 90s (Shh, it’s okay…).

16) Death Grips – Hustle Bones We’re fucking sick to fucking death of ringtone rap. Sick of the same boring hip-hop that doesn’t push any boundaries, doesn’t do anything daring, and is content to mime their contemporaries while letting the listener know repeatedly how much money they have, how many cars they own, bitches they smash and other ego-stroking trite lyrics. Enter Death Grips.

17) Disfiguring The Goddess – Mountain One-man project released this 7-song EP and it’s devastating in a world where the word “devastating” gets overused. F# guitar tuning ensures loosened bowels on the breakdowns.

18) Meshuggah – Do Not Look Down It’s a new Meshuggah album, are we gonna split hairs here? For the uninitiated, these Swedes invented the chugga-chugga, start-stop, insane time signature, polyrhythmic metal that gets aped everywhere these days. Oh, and they use 8-stringed guitars – CHUGG!!!

19) Pallbearer – The Legend Doom metal is normally about 5% of our hessian intake (ie. not much at all), but in the last few years this trend has been changing as more bands are delivering quality material that isn’t just about hitting a riff every minute or two in a song. Pallbearer sound epic. Like Black Sabbath at their zenith moments played heavier and slowed down a half step. Bonus points for the soulful vocals to drive home their conviction.

20) Inverloch – The Menin Road Featuring half of line-up from seminal death/doom act dISEMBOWELMENT, you can expect this to be in the same ballpark of atmospheric doom – and it is. However Inverloch have updated the sound a bit, refined their approach and surprised us with this three-song EP.

Honorable mentions:

Let downs:

Sleigh Bells – What the fuck happened? This is like Diet Sleigh Bells, or Sleigh Bells Light… I thought they were gonna tear roofs off whether making dancefloor destroyers or riff-city rockers, instead it sounds like they want to make music for car commercials.

Black Breath – This album isn’t actually bad. It’s just that when your debut shreds as hard as Heavy Breathing did, the bar is incredibly high. The riffs seemed better, more memorable and more bad ass, so by comparison and expectation alone, this one was a bit of a let down.

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If you’re a first-timer to the theme of this mixtape, we’ll paraphrase from the initial post:

“…based predominantly on the old-west. We’re talking dirty saloons, tumbling tumbleweeds, dusty trails, and hard living with a bleak twist that makes elements of danger an everyday occurrence in the old Southwest, no matter if you’re a cowboy or an innocent stander-by. These rough conditions and extreme isolation are wont to erode the edges of a person’s psyche, make them hard, yet also self-reliant.”

Hot on the heels of our one-year anniversary, we’re bringing the fourth installment of our Southwestern Isolation series. We never initially thought about multiple installments of certain mixtape themes, but now it seems sorta silly to have this slip our minds. Full credit goes to one of our fav fans Stigma Gene (Follow her twitter for funny/nonsensical/insightful musings: https://twitter.com/stigmagene), she threw this dark, dirty, gritty southwestern idea on our radar and we couldn’t be more grateful. While all of the Southwestern Isolation mixtapes have a Cohen Brothers feel to them (True Grit, No Country For Old Men, etc.), this fourth installment takes things even further back in time cinematically – more time-worn, wind-blown and sun-soaked… but we’ll let you hear it for yourselves…

Some other suggestions along the way have sparked other popular posts/mixtapes so please, if you have an idea, some area/theme you’d like to see tackled, don’t hesitate to put it on our radar.

Cryogenic Husk #67 – Southwestern Isolation Vol. IV

Special thanks for some fans/friends/readers for their input and suggestions.

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“Smokey atmospheres in shadowy speakeasies. Dark alleys and suspicious characters. Lone gumshoe detective, hardboiled crime fiction. Sultry dames and scotch on the rocks… make it a double.”

…That’s how our original Neo-Noir mixtape started over a year ago(!) and though we didn’t expect to revisit this theme, we’re sure glad we did. The mystery and suspense from this theme defies era in a way only David Lynch (think Blue Velvet) or Frank Miller (think Sin City) could pull off. Apprehension is palpable throughout these songs that span dark rock, jazz, avant-garde and more, and all could easily co-exist is a swanky, dark club.

P.S. Did you notice we’re back to a new post/mixtape every week? Give us a ‘Like’ on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, subscribe to our RSS feed or just tell a friend – all equally cool.

Cryogenic Husk #66 – Neo-Noir Vol. II

“You’re taking a ride to the underworld, Where death lurks in dark corners, And trouble is never far away

Wild gangs rule by fear and prey on the weak, Lone killers haunt the highways, And dark forces move through the shadows

In this lowlife realm of freaks and psychos, Only the tough or the streetwise survive, And you might be big, but to stay big, You’ve got to keep moving, stay sharp and hit first…”

Seriously do this: mute this video, play this mixtape at the same time = awesome.

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First of all, “deathcore” is a shitty genre name. We’ll go even further: pretty much any genre with the suffix of “core” is ‘meh’-inducing because it, whether consciously or unconsciously, co-opts the qualities of already existing genres as their own, essentially piggy-backing off the hard earned reputation and stature of the bands who came before. “Oh, your brand new band plays deathcore? You must be exactly like White Chapel in sound and stage presence.” We’ll stop now because we realize we’re entering “grandpa” levels of contemporary music snarkiness…

That doesn’t mean, we don’t love (some) bands who play this style, though. Case in point: Demolisher. These guys were getting pretty hyped for a while (from around the middle of 2010 throughout all of last year). They were getting some attention for the utter brutality they were bringing with heavy grooves, and even though there was no deathmetal in their sound or style, they got stuck with the “deathcore” tag. Century Media was smart to snatch them up and then on the cusp of what would’ve been a hallmark record for breakdown loving metallic hardcore, they imploded and broke up due to line-up instability (lame). So, their unreleased album has floated a bit around the internet-googlebox machine for a little while now – relatively under the radar, who knows if it will ever see a proper release.

However, we’ve been privy to some of the band’s songs, both released and unreleased, and it gave us an opportunity to provide some insight on the recording process. See, we figure that our mixtapes are useful for discovering new songs, bands, etc., but we also like to go one step further by going deeper into the music and the educational aspects of it. We’ve done the “informational” bit to some degree with with certain musical scenes, eras, genres, and more. This time, we’re showing a quick tutorial on the gradual evolution of a song through the recording process. Using one of Demolisher’s songs as example, we’re going to take you through it’s five phases of maturation, starting with demo, through tracking, mixing and mastering to see how the song morphed through it’s various incarnations.

Cryogenic Husk #65 – Evolution of a Deathcore Song

As you listen through the five versions of the song, from its inception to completion, you’ll see it change in some subtle and not so subtle ways. Firstly, the demo version is MUCH faster than its final metamorphosis. It sounds much more attacking and agressive whereas the finished version of the song dials back the speed in favor of a much heavier groove-oriented approach. Also, like many demos, it’s quality is diminished to a rough home recorded level of production – that’s not a diss or a bad thing at all. In fact there is a little thrill to hear a song in its infancy – who knows which direction it will evolve into.

The Pre-Production is the first sign of the song’s new sound and feel. Noticeably slower, it gives more emphasis to the lumbering bounce of the riffs. This version of the song utilizes fake drums and rough guitar tracks, the main intention of which is to serve as a “game plan” for the band as they head into the studio so they have a clear idea in mind what they’re going to record (ie. drum parts, guitar riffs, etc). It’s instrumental because its main purpose is to help the musician’s focus on the instruments that are to be tracked, and also to serve as scratch tracks for the singer to  listen to for lyric writing and vocal placement.

The first studio recording provides the basic rough tracks of the song. Nothing has been mixed or mastered so the song’s EQ reads as very neutral across the board. The fourth incarnation of the song has had mixing done, so you’ll notice a markedly more clear sound that is crisp and more three-dimensional sounding (ie. highs and lows, texture and other sonic embellishment). The mastering springboards off the mixing job by adjusting volume levels and providing a nice polish to the overall sound of the music resulting in the finished product.

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Yesterday was officially the first day this blog/site/whatever debuted in the internet-google-machine box. We could wax nostalgia and say how time is so relative, it seems like forever ago and yet like it was just yesterday (all true, by the way)… however, we’d rather say “thanks!” to the people following us on Twitter, Facebook and those subscribed to our RSS feed (if you haven’t yet, you better do so now to keep our ego’s out of the gutter).

In honor of this anniversary, we’re assembled a collection of songs from our collection that have to do with a year coming and going (as if you couldn’t tell, we’re banking this theme in the song titles). Strangely, we have basically no songs that have “anniversary” in the title… well, a couple, but nothing good worth posting, so we kept the theme with “year”.

Otherwise, stay tuned for other fun mixtapes coming soon (as per usual, we try to rock one out at least once per week), Pallbearer is gonna assemble a collection of songs that inspiried their debut album, Sorrow And Extinction (which is looking to be on our “Best of the Year” list). The Atlas Moth is re-soundtracking the classic revenge movie ‘Old Boy’ – this should be insane. Solstafir is also tackling the re-soundtracking concept with the amazing ‘Moon’. Along with some other fun ones coming up – speaking of, we need to get Lars from NPR to do something fun and weird and heavy (Lars, do you read us? We’ll be in touch)…

Thanks for reading and following!

-Cryogenic Husk

Cryogenic Husk #64 – One Year

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We’re trying something new with this mixtape , and it could turn into a reoccurring post with future installments. Here’s the gist of it: you know the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover”? Of course you do. Well throw that right out the window. This mixtape is composed of songs that SOUND just like their name suggests. We’re calling this mixtape ‘Onomatopoeia’ fully aware of it being a misnomer (said word describes words that actually sound like they’re written – ie. “buzz” or “pop”), but for brevity’s sake we’ll use it since the collection of songs, specifically their titles, sound just like their name suggests.

Example, Pantera’s classic “Fucking Hostile”, from their now two decade old classic Vulgar Display Of Power, sounds – FUCKING HOSTILE. Or in a completely different vein, take electronic experimentaler Ben Frost’s “The Carpathians” for a spin and you’ll find yourself in the swirling cold mountainous region of the Carpathians, wolves lurking, moon rising, and wind chilling. Easy enough concept, yea? So that’s why we’re hoping to get THE MOST FEEDBACK EVER in answer to our call for other suggestions for song ideas in this series. Get at us via the comments section, our Twitter feed or Facebook page. The question: what songs SOUND just like their title suggests?

Of course the approach to this mixtape is a little more nuanced than just a pile of songs that sound like their names. We balanced various genres/styles. Candiria’s “Leaving The Atmosphere” sounds as though you’re floating up through the stratosphere with its oscillating flange effects and ethereal shimmering. Dimmu Borgir offer up an orchestral piece, “Fear And Wonder”, that demonstrates both fear and wonder in equal portions, and served as a great intro to their Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia album. Night terrors usually involve someone waking up screaming from a violent and vivid nightmare – which is exactly what Cursed’s “Night Terrors” sounds like. Mr. Bungle definitely bring the weird “x-factor”, pretty much for any mixtape they’re included on, and the same applies here with their “Desert Search For Techno Allah” – at times sounding like an middle eastern desert search, sometimes bizarre techno, and sometimes both at the same time. Heroin Chic, the infamous mid-90s fashion trend, portrayed drugged out models in often dirty/grimy settings and attire that melded high-end fashion androngeny with back alleys and gutters, it makes sense that My Dying Bride penned their song “Heroin Chic” during what many call the “awkward phase” of their career.

Rounding out this mixtape is Miranda Sex Garden’s “Escape From Kilburn”, we’re assuming that’s the north-west area of London they’re referring to, though they make it sound like a daring escape scene from the London of fantasy and fairytale stories from days of yore. Failure is bleak, depressing and isolating – so Swans nail this feeling on their song “Failure”. Timber Timbre’s track “Obelsik” really captures the sense of some ritual or ceremony surrounding a monolithic obelisk with trace amounts of the occult for a good ambiance. Usually Henry Rollins is a ball of energy, but you don’t have to be clairvoyant to sense the fatigue and exhaustion he exudes on Rollins Band’s “Tired.” Wrapping up the mixtape is Australia’s death/doom legends dISEMBOWELMENT with their song “Nightside Of Eden” – Eden’s paradise existence is cast in a different light when its nightside is introduced, the sun is eclipsed and the joyous heaven is cast into a perpetual twilight of mystery and wonderment…

Cryogenic Husk #63 – Onomatopoeia

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Full disclosure: we’re a little biased when it comes to the band this post and mixtape focus on. That band is Pavement. In our defense, our exposure to the band has always been just lackluster enough for us to dismiss them. For example, when the band was peaking in popularity in the early to mid 90s our attention was already seeking louder, more aggressive outlets. Though they’ve always co-opted the “grunge” or “alt-rock” epithets, they were really more arty and somber than their so-called genre brethren. Case in point: their inclusion on the seminal No Alternative compilation (1993) showcases a good song from them (“Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence”), but we were skipping ahead/more interested in the Soundgarden, Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins songs. This symptom of being “lost in the shuffle” or “falling through the cracks” always kept the band from fully engaging us – not necessarily their fault, but still, they were relegated to the wayside. Not riffy or aggressive enough to bring the energy, and not completely strange or arty enough to have the “weird” factor work in their favor… they floated in the ether casually flirting with both but not fully partaking in either.

Similarly, when we attended the Sasquatch Festival in 2010, the band was one of the main headliners due to their at-the-time reunion (billed as the next to last band on the final day – WTF? Did this band really have that kind of a draw?). The band managed to irk the audience’s and concert organizer’s ire as a result of consciously outstaying their welcome by going way over their set time, cutting into Massive Attack‘s set – major lame and again, leaving us with the “meh” taste in our mouth. However, we’ve never really been able to musically assess the band. They’ve been routinely dismissed, deservedly or not, and we know we’re not the only ones to unintentionally pass over them (hence this comprehensive post and mixtape). So, knowing this aforementioned chip on our shoulder, and that it’s ridiculous to write them off without a proper review of their music, we sent the call out on Twitter: “Can someone explain to me the appeal of Pavement?”

Well that call has been answered. Eric Davis (who has penned the excellent Shoegaze post/mixtape) has stepped forward to provide music and insight as to WHY Pavement deserve attention. Here, he cherry-picks various highlights and important songs in the band’s career from across their catalog (from the band’s first release in ’89 to their final studio album in ’99).The timing couldn’t be better seeing how the band’s touchstone album Slanted And Enchanted turns 20 years old TODAY!  Anyway, this will be a two part post with this first post allowing the music to speak for itself while the second part will dial into the significance and appeal of the band.

Cryogenic Husk #62 – Why Pavement?

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Generally, adding the suffix “core” to anything irks most people’s ire these days, ours too. But once in a while there’s one that tickles our fancy. Case in point: Entombedcore. This gets a “pass” because, well first of all it’s pretty silly – so the comedic factor scores this high, but also there are some bands who we love doing this style/sound.

Stuff You Will Hate did a pretty good post which was excellent fodder for this post and mixtape. However, they succinctly defined it as, “Basically what happens when you take Dismember/Entombed riffs, add some Bridge 9 vocals, and throw in a pinch of Repulsion-style grind. Oh, and Orange amps [via Southern Lord].” That’s a great start. But all things being subjective, our interpretation is a little more broad. It really hinges on the HM-2 Boss distortion pedal (see above photo).

Without jocking the sound of the pedal too much, it has a compressed “buzz” that is immediately identifiable. The first three Entombed albums (Left Hand Path, Clandestine, and Wolverine Blues) exemplify this guitar sound perfectly. We’ve seen people name drop some bands that we LOVE, such as Early Graves, Cursed, Mammoth Grinder, New Lows and more, but we can’t back them as Entombedcore (and let’s face it, novelty genres are a bit of a diss anyway, so they’re probably happy for the omission), because those bands aren’t bringing the Entombed guitar sound and tone. Close, but no cigar.

What we find mysterious is when it became more prevalent to cross-pollinate this sound with hardcore? It’s one of those gradual scenarios instead of an “a-ha!” moment we’re sure, but this mixtape will hopefully shed some light on acts doing this style across the spectrum. Of course, we had to put Entombed’s eponymous “Wolverine Blues” on there as a point of reference. Rot In Hell cover the song pretty close to the original with their dark metallic hardcore, albeit with stressed vocals. If there was a “winner” for closest in sound to the classic HM-2 guitar sound and tone, it’s GOT to go to Black Breath – you can’t deny it. But shoot, if you can, please tell us who nails it closer than them. We even unearthed a nice little hidden gem from Guns Up! who sneakily tacked on a partial cover of Entombed’s “Demon” at the end of their song “Won’t Change For Me” – not Entombedcore per se, but a nice little easter egg (wonder how many HxC kids’ heads that went over when they heard it?) Regardless, they deliver the short spat in spades and it proves to be a great, yet short, pump-you-up explosion. But back to the Entombedcore tried and true sound, no one can argue any band has ushered in the sound to the masses more than Trap Them. They take the forumla, make it 1,000 times more pissed and faster – what’s not to like?

Special attention must be given to Harm’s Way. Firstly, they play Entombedcore like it’s a weightlifting regime – beefy and moshy. Secondly, they busted out one of our favorite riffs of 2011 – listen below to the 1 min 49 sec mark = you’re fucking moshing.

Cryogenic Husk #61 – Entombedcore

Bonus Entombedcore action! Watch the video below of Converge covering “Wolverine Blues” with John Pettibone (Heiress, ex-Himsa) on vocals: