Didn't solicit any year-end lists from people this year. There are already too many websites with endless boring lists cluttering up my feeds and I could barely come up with ten records as it was. This list does not include reissues, otherwise it would be all Bohren & Der Club of Gore and Dead Can Dance LPs.
This was an ambitious year in terms of the amount releases for NA and there are still a few records currently in production that have slipped through my fingers. Those will be out in the coming weeks as well as some really compelling projects in the coming year.
Long running prog/noise-rock weirdos The Wayward return from a three year hiatus with their newest full length LP via Nerve Altar just after coming off a successful string of East Coast dates with Radiation Blackbody. Recorded by guitarist Nick Skrobicz (also of Multicult), Plutonic showcases the group’s unique take on aggressive heft and singular proficiency that they’ve been perfecting over the course of their more than decade long tenure of relentless DIY touring and recording.
Album description:
“Baltimore’s discordant riff manglers return with their fourth full length offering. A dense rhythmic labyrinth of serpentine ferocity punctuated with spidery guitar sophistication. Singular songwriting ingenuity that demonstrates aggressive skronk dexterity while maintaining an aptitude for unique melody.”
ALTAR27 - The Wayward 'Plutonic' LP - Front & Back
Pulverizing “Immigrindcore” from Nepali immigrants now living in the US. Chepang’s name is taken from the lowest caste in their native country, a formerly nomadic people who have been neglected and derided by their people and government. Their first missive, Lathi Charge, which actually translates to the brute force used by riot police to disperse crowds, unleashes the raw fury and disdain of a people suffering centuries of neglect and oppression.
ALTAR28 - Front & Back
"Chepang offer an absolutely bone-crushing take on modern grindcore that sees clever emulsions of several niche subgenres creep into the mix including goregrind, crust, noise rock, powerviolence, and more. The overall output is an exciting and pointedly profound take on the genre that should be turning a lot of heads in the weeks and months to come." http://blowthescene.com
Extremely proud to announce the 25th NA release, Disrotted second LP "Divination". Available to buy or download now.
“A megalith of churning black filth spews oblivion that slowly creeps into the minds of men, breathing the stench of hopeless dread from an ancient crumbling death factory. Unspeakable atrocities cascading down amidst the carrion haze of blank humanity forever drowning in a murky chasm. Ceaseless and unbound.”
Disrotted “Divination” LP
Available July 15 on Nerve Altar
The second full length of death/doom filth from this Chicago trio. Perpetually moving, the band just came back from an appearance in Montreal Earslaughter Fest and a Japan tour and split CD with Su19b as well as multiple local appearances in the Chicago area. Next up is a mini tour of Mexico featuring an appearance at Cadaver International Fest, QC Metal Fest and another tour of Japan as well as multiple split releases with the likes of Catasexual Urge Motivation, Moloch, IRN.
Ex and current members of Sick/Tired, Kungfu Rick, Harpoon, Winters in Osaka, High on Crime.
Album Description:
“A megalith of churning black filth spews oblivion that slowly creeps into the minds of men, breathing the stench of hopeless dread from an ancient crumbling death factory. Unspeakable atrocities cascading down amidst the carrion haze of blank humanity forever drowning in a murky chasm. Ceaseless and unbound.”
Tracklist:
01 Eternal Gaze
02 Macabre Altar
03 Beneath the Earth
04 The Arcane Oath
Credits:
Adam Jennings - Vocals
Dean Costello - Guitar, Synth
John Finaldi - Drums
Recorded and Mixed by Andy Nelson at Bricktop Recording Studio 9-10/15
Mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege 11/15
Vocals on "Beneath the Earth" by João Kombi (Test) and Tony DeLeo (Agitate)
Photos - Pato Thornycroft
Design - Aaron Nichols
ALTAR25
Disrotted “Divination” LP
Black Vinyl, Heavyweight jackets w/ card stock inserts
Limited to 500 copies
Available July 15 on Nerve Altar
The new Sea of Shit EPs are available now to download or buy in our store or on bandcamp. Promo barf as follows:
Newest missive from Chicago’s powerviolence battalion. Bitter resentment and rancor straining under a harsh suffocating wall of brutish noise. Ruined and invalidated by the mundane carnage of daily existence. The demise of hope.
ALTAR24 - Sea Of Shit 2nd EP - Front and Back
ALTAR24 - Sea of Shit 2nd EP - Matchbook Jacket Foldout
ALTAR24
Sea of Shit - 2nd EP
Black vinyl, matchbook style card stock jackets, b&w offset print
Necrolysergic deathgrind exhumed from the sewers of Brooklyn. Raw and primal blasting through an acid soaked cosmic death trip burrowing into the inner filth of your psyche. This is howling putrid death hearkening back to the days of Repulsion and Autopsy.
ALTAR23 - WAKE "Sowing the Seeds of a Worthless Tomorrow" LP
Limited Edition Screen Prints by Rotting Graphics
Calgary, Alberta-based grindcore outfit, WAKE, has completed its humiliatingly devastating third full-length album,Sowing The Seeds Of A Worthless Tomorrow, for February release through an international alliance of independent labels. The band has also deployed the first single from the LP through an official video for the track “Burn Well,” and has released that alongside word of their upcoming Trans-Canada Deathwish tour in conjunction with the album’s release.
Far from being a grindcore band that fits any one mold, WAKE envisions the genre as a starting point from which to spawn their barbaric and completely unheard of sonic vision, made of savage aggression, void-opening dissonance, and spellbinding psychedelic dirges. Shards and splinters of black metal, crust, d-beat, noise, sludge, and post-hardcore will come at the listener like a firestorm, being hurdled at them with inconceivable violence, terrifying speed, and surgical precision. As the album unfolds, exposing a massive and oozing wound of dissonant and lawless horror, the album will reveal itself as a low-end monster that stands completely on its own, engulfed in the rising flames of a wretched sonic hell, and drawing precious blood from many different influences which reach far beyond grindcore.
WAKE’s Sowing The Seeds Of A Worthless Tomorrow was recorded and mixed by Joel Grind at Falcon Studios (Toxic Holocaust, Poison Idea, Lord Dying, Abyss, etc.), mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege (Nails, The Secret, Black Breath, Old Man Gloom etc.) and features mesmerizing art and layout by Hal Rotting of Rotting Graphics (Plague Widow, Napalm Raid, Atriarch, Barghest).
"This is a band with a frighteningly realistic and downright apocalyptic vision of the future and an album’s worth of blistering material to back it up." -metalinsider.net
"...scathing hardcore and toxic grind seething with pain and rage." - decibelmagazine.com
2/26 Edmonton - Local Omnivore
2/27 Saskatoon - Vangelis Tavern
2/28 Winnipeg - Handsome Daughter
2/29 Thunder Bay - Black Pirates Pub
3/1 Sudbury- The Asylum
3/2 - Toronto - Coalition
3/3 Montreal - Casa Del Popolo
3/4 Quebec City - Scanner Bistro
3/5 Boston - Non Factory
3/6 Philadelphia - Half Moon Cafe
3/7 NYC - The Acheron
3/8 Chicago - Livewire
3/9 Milwaukee - Quarters Rock and Roll Palace
3/10 Minneapolis - Hexagon Bar
3/11 Regina
Finally available after months of delay (all my fault finishing the cover art) this beast is finally released.
"An extinguished flame burns brightly still. Posthumous final gasp from Canadian stalwarts Column of Heaven coupled with LA's resolute psychedelic freaks, Suffering Luna. A swirling cacophony of grinding primitive shrieks erodes into waves of static noise, expanding endlessly into the void. Surrendering to oblivion, darkness into light."
ALTAR18 - Column of Heaven/Suffering Luna Split LP
ALTAR18 - Column of Heaven/Suffering Luna Split LP
Seething death/grind in the vein of ASSUCK and Excruciating Terror. Loathsome punishment and damnation in a gray world of scorched bodies and ash-choked skies. To be alive is to be a lie. Mems of Triac, Defeatist and ASRA.
ALTAR17 - Writhing Mass "Human Capital" EP
ALTAR17 - Writing Mass "Human Capital" EP - Front & Back
After weeks of unexplained pressing plant delays the excruciating wait is finally over!
Grinding Swedish noise from the front lines of the ongoing campaign of musical destruction. Twelve relentless blasts of ugly scraping pandemonium from former members of Widespread Bloodshed, Sewn Shut and Crowpath. Corrupting the common good!
ALTAR20 Överviolence "Rapturous Expulsion" EP - front and back cover
ALTAR20 Överviolence "Rapturous Expulsion" EP - handcut outer sleeve
ALTAR20
Överviolence - Rapturous Expulsion EP
Black vinyl, b&w offset handcut sleeve w/ color insert
Limited to 300 copies
Available now on Nerve Altar
