Immolate - "Ruminate" CD Review (Impedance)

Australian power-trio Immolate expanded to a four piece for the release of their second full-length Ruminate. This new disc’s sound is lumbering noise-metal that is directly akin to the sound of AmRep bands (Hammerhead, Helmet, Unsane) from the 90’s.

To get into the details of the music, vocalist/bassist Nick Irwin has a vocal style similar to Bruce Loose (Flipper) and his angry, spoken-word vocals are mostly buried beneath a wall of guitars and walloping drums. Guitarists Justin Irwin and newcomer Dave Achille wrap repetitive, noisy dirges of guitar feedback around each song but occasionally break into some wild soloing. It is a raw and primitive disc that is helped along by Billy Anderson (Sleep, Eyehategod) who mixed the disc.



The band changes up tempos and song structures across the disc and deftly avoid sinking into a sludgy quagmire. For example, the opening track "Heathen" rumbles like a classic Melvins track and it is followed "Hot Hot Heat", which is an up-tempo alt-rock/grunge track with clean(er) vocals. Almost all of the disc's tracks race by around the three minute mark and the almost nine minute psychedelic dirge "Code" wraps up the disc.

Ruminate was recorded by Russell Pilling (who worked with Immolate on their debut full-length) at Damien Gerard’s studio in Sydney.

Links:
Immolate

Hy-Test: "Dishing Out the Good Times" CD Review (Impedance Records/MVD)

DOWNLOAD: Impedance Sampler (w/ Hy-Test's "Girl in Black", Nick Oliveri's "This Isn't Love", etc.)

Following up on their 2006 EP “The Little Band That Could”, Wollongong, Australia garage-punk outfit Hy-Test have just released their debut full-length, Dishing Out the Good Times (Impedance Records). This disc finds the band on the same label as Nick Oliveri and Hy-Test bassist/vocalist Luke Armstrong and guitarist/vocalist Mick Curley were most recently members of Mondo Generator’s 2010-touring lineup.

The tie to Mondo Generator gives a good indication of what to expect from Dishing Out the Good Times. The brunt of the disc is fuzzed-out garage punk but there are significant elements of hardcore toward the later half of the disc. The disc’s eleven tracks barrel by in just under 30 minutes leaving the listener with barely enough time to catch their breath.

Here is a live video from a few years back that gives a good indication of the ferocity of the band’s live show.



While the band sticks to their high-energy format across this disc, there are enough stylistic surprises to keep the listener's attention. The disc starts strong with the driving, grungy opening-track “9 Volt” and goes from there into the hard-edged power pop of “Girl in Black”. “Crazy for You” starts with a spoken word/funk groove which leads into an explosive breakdown. From here, the band goes through alt-rock (“Magnet”), MC5-style R&B (“Goodbye”), and straightforward hardcore (“Our Career”, “Smokeskull”). Finishing up the disc is the instrumental “Rambling of a Mute”.

There is more than enough to like here so…fingers crossed for a US tour sometime in the near future.

Links:
Hy-Test

Nick Oliveri - Death Acoustic CD Review (MVD/Impedance)

Nick Oliveri is currently touring behind his second solo CD, Death Acoustic, and the tour stops at Piano's next Saturday night (Jan. 23rd). Oliveri is playing with Weird Owl (Tee Pee Records) and Goes Cube (The End Records) and advance tickets are $10.

Death Acoustic is a collection of mostly covers with the majority of the songs coming from bands that Oliveri has played with in the past. While this is an acoustic collection, there is nothing soft or gentle about some of Nick's reinterpretations of some of these songs. Nick attacks songs like Raw Power's "Start a Fight" (the disc's opener) and new song "Invisible Like The Sky" with an aggressive brutality that will make listeners never again associate acoustic with emo. From this point, Oliveri goes into a raw cover of The Dwarves' "Dairy Queen" and melodic stripped-down version of QOTSA's "I'm Gonna Leave You".

I don't think I've appreciated the diversity of Oliveri's vocal styles prior to this release. Nick delivers a cover of Kyuss' "Love Has Past Me By" in a gutter punk voice and goes from there to frenzied screamed/spat vocals on a cover of the Moistboyz's "U Blow". One of the highlights of the disc is a melodic and lilting cover of The Misfits' "Hybrid Moments" which features double-tracked vocals.

The disc wraps up with a fuzzed-out version of Mondo Generator's "Unless I Can Kill" which captures the intensity of the original song, a straight-forward melodic cover of The Dwarves' "Follow Me" and a reworking of G.G. Allin's "Outlaw Scumfuc". On this last track, Oliveri goes beyond the song's original version and gets closer to the outlaw country sounds of Hank Williams than G.G. Allin was ever able to.



Links:
Nick Oliveri's MySpace Profile