Artemis
Do you like your hardcore to feature ‘grinding guitars, wrenching vocals, dirty bass lines, [and] drumbeats that break you’? You don’t? Oh. Well, you won’t have any interest in listening to Artemis then. Wait, what do you want from your hardcore, if not that? Get outta here!
For those that do want that from their hardcore, Artemis advertise themselves as containing it, and their music does not make liars of them. Their recent, sold-out-on-a-limited-run, EP, Nothing Left To See, proves that with the aplomb of an atom bomb.
Highly like to blow out speakers at high volume, but that’s no reason to not have it at full blast, when their mix of angular ferocity carves faces off with such gleefully abrasive aggression. It’s hardcore, Jim, and just how we like it.
Ni
I don’t speak French, I let the funky music do the talking, so I have no hope of translating you much information about Ni, as it’s pretty much all in French. I know, I know, I should’ve actually turned up to my French lessons in school, or just paid attention when I visited France with my family as a little version of myself. However, I couldn’t even do the same for my own national language (Welsh, and I live here too), so what hope did French have? I regret everything.
Anyway, translation isn’t necessary because Ni communicate through instruments, and instruments alone. Obviously I don’t mean in their private lives, that would be weird, but awesome. No, they are an instrumental four piece that speak the language of math rock, with all its disjointed rhythms, and sharp compositional u-turns, but with added funk in the dirty bass department, spiralling hypnotic grooves, feedback squawk and squall, and head haranguing heaviness.
Wiegedood
Sure, black metal isn’t the most summery of soundtracks (unless you’re talking Deafheaven), but you just can’t do mayhem without black metal. Or is it, ‘you can’t do black metal without Mayhem’? No matter and never mind, you’re getting black metal anyway.
Belgium’s Wiegedood are fighting-ready to release their debut album, De Doden Hebben Het Goed, and tear your summer a black one. Though this is Wiegedood’s debut, the threesome is comprised of the already battle-tested Wim of Rise and Fall on drums, Gilles Demolder from Oathbreaker on guitar, and Levy Seynaeve of both Amenra and Hessian on guitar and vocals. When they’re giving it hell, this trio really are giving it Hell, and it’s pulverising. However, it’s not all fangs-bared ferocity, and Wiegedood often breakaway into deep, bleak, and haunting atmosphere.
Sworn In
Chicago’s Sworn In swear on their self-proclaimed mission statement of taking heavy music from dizzying heights to harrowing lows and leaving you speechless in the process. I can tell you now, it’s a good thing it’s impossible to leave me speechless, because mission accomplished, and how shit would this introduction to the band be if it was just empty? Then again, I’m writing and not speaking right now, so maybe I am speechless? Who knows, certainly not you.
Anyhow, Sworn In certainly hit the highs and lows they were aiming for as their songs just as often gut-punch with metalcore intensity as they soar above you with clear sky melodies.
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