One of the things we love most about blogging on CVLT Nation is giving back to our readers, and today we have an awesome giveaway for you – a pair of tickets to Southern Lord‘s The Power of the Riff West! The lineup for this event is killer – SUNN 0))), OFF!, Dr.Know, Repulsion, Noothgrush, Xibalba, Eagle Twin, Power Trip, Ancestors, Alpha & Omega, Gaza, DNF, Retox, Love Below, Avon Ladies, Cops, Hordes, Xaphan, Hoax, Despise You, Nausea (CA) and Bio Crisis will all be tearing the Echo/Echoplex apart on August 11th, 2012, in Los Angeles, CA. To enter to win the pair, send us an email at contest@cvltnation.com with “TPOTR” in the subject heading. The draw will be Wednesday at noon PT.

***And the winner is…Pablo Vargas! Congrats buddy!***

During the month of July 2012, San Francisco’s Wreck & Reference and LA’s Doctorshopper made a short run of the West Coast of the United States. In January, Doctorshopper self-released “Degenerate Utopia” on their Cult of Melancholia imprint, an art and music collective from the Los Angeles area. In April, Wreck & Reference released their follow up to the revered “Black Cassette” with an album called “No Youth” which is available on vinyl from The Flenser. More words and a full black and white gallery of both bands after the jump!

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It’s pretty simple – CVLT Nation has mad respect for Moshpit Tragedy and their dedication to gnarly bands. The way they set up their label, is totally artist-friendly and positive for the listener. This weekend in Pomona, California, Moshpit Tragedy, in conjuction with Scion AV, are putting on a filthy showcase featuring Morne, Phobia, Skarp, Total Fucking Destruction and Sea Will Rise (RSVP HERE). So in celebration of this event, we have put together this mega video essay with live footage from each band. After the jump, get your crust on and peep these rancid visuals!

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To say Germany’s Downfall of Gaia are on the rise is quite the understatement. Rising from local hardcore scenes into a sprawling post metal behemoth that slogged it out on their own terms DIY for years, the band recently signed with Metal Blade for their second album Suffocating in the Swarm of Cranes. This week they finished up a European tour with Washington’s Vestiges, which stopped off in Ireland for three dates and while in Dublin, Downfall of Gaia spoke with CVLT Nation.

First off, you just signed with Metal Blade so congratulations. Tell us a little bit about how it all came about?
Dominik (guitar, vocals): It was so unexpected. We never expected something like that. I was checking the mails and people from Metal Blade got in contact with us and said they would be interested in working with us. So that’s how all of this happened, it’s a few months ago and we talked with the people from Metal Blade about a lot of stuff. We’re really happy and excited for the future.

What are the details of the deal?
Toni (bass, vocals): There are no special deals. We can still choose where we want to play and when and with whom we want to play. It’s still very grounded but awesome for us. So we will see what the future brings.

Have you ever had interest in the band from other large labels?
Dominik: Not really. I guess with some DIY labels, some of them always ask. We were really fine with Alerta Antifascista, Moment of Collapse and Shove Records but Metal Blade is the only bigger [label] to get in contact with us.

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Fucking amazing!! WHIRLWIND HARDCORE Vol 2 PT.1 is showing today on CVLT Nation. This collection of live footage from the likes of Extreme Noise Terror, Cathedral, Raw Noise, Nausea, Go, Chumbawamba, Master, Concrete Sox, So Much Hate, Skeezicks, Chaos UK, Pungent Stench, Cluster Bomb Unit, Slapshot, Sick Of It All and many fucking more is priceless. All of this action was shot on VHS, but with the invention of the internet now other generations of underground music weirdos can enjoy it too. What impresses me about WHIRLWIND HARDCORE Vol 2 pt.1 is how creators were able to capture so many awesome British bands that can only be seen in this video. Now tune into a hardcore history lesson and see how the gnarly school wrecked shit after the jump!

Banner photography via the brilliant work and minds of Thomas Couderc & Clément Vauchez

Over the past few months I have had the incredible opportunity to stay quite busy with playing and attending shows here in the bay area. I am a huge fan and supporter of the underground music and art scene, this year more than ever I’ve fulfilled many life dreams and played/attended some truly spectacular shows. Here’s a collection of sights and sounds that I’ve gathered this Summer.

Starting off, on 5/28/12, The grindcore band I play with, Your Enemy, opened for the legendary Nasum on their 20 Year Anniversary and Final Tour. Here’s a video of them performing “Inhale/Exhale”.

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Written by Metaloath

I’m no good with catchy titles, so I’ll just cut straight to the chase: Plaguewidow is the best stuff I’ve heard for a very long time.

Plaguewidow’s self-titled EP released on Buriedinhell Records in February 2012 is available through plaguewidow.bandcamp.com. It offers death metal brutality beyond belief, and represents, in my opinion, one of the most sincere and hell-bent takes on extreme death metal I have heard in a long fucking time. Hal Rotter (Guitar), Danny Hynes (drums), and Marc Dickson (vocals) are, judged by the music they make, probably spawned by Satan, and sent to this earth in the sole purpose to lay all to waste, eardrum by eardrum, venue by venue.

If this band doesn’t make you seriously considering quit your job to worship death metal 24-7, you’re either unemployed or out of your goddamn mind. Or even worse: Not into metal.

The EP contains five songs and some intermezzo/ambience tracks. It’s all over in just over 15 minutes. By then, your pants are soiled and your mind is long ready to pitifully surrender due to constant death metal siege.

The tracks were recorded late 2011 at Mayhemeness Recording Studio, Sacramento, CA, US, and produced by the band themselves together with Robert Swanson who also did mixing and mastering. The result is a shock and awe experience that death metal potentially holds the power to create at its best.

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It all went down in Florida over the weekend in a very big way at the 305 FEST. We are so fucking stoked that South Florida Hardcore was on hand to film for us so that we could share this gnarly event with CVLT Nation readers! Respect due to SFHC for his video style that gives you the feeling that you are right there front and motherfucking center! Since there were so many insane performances, we are going to break this post down into parts. For this installment, we have full sets from FULL OF HELL, IRON LUNG, DROPDEAD and MAUSER, and all of them totally destroyed shit. After the jump, let the madness begin and peep how it all went down at the 305 FEST, Part One!

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They grow a lot of enjoyable things in Holland, but recently they started “growing metal”. Responsible for the harvest is Garden of Exile records, a mail order (or grow shop?) that imports metal, hardcore and grindcore vinyl from all over the world and sells it at reasonable prices. They’ve also released albums from Cobalt, Burst, Botch, Misery Index, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Cave in, Anaal Nathrakh, … on vinyl. We happen to like those bands and we happen to like small, underground labels and distros, so it’s time to get to know some of them! The Garden is up first!

Hey Tjeerd, could you tell us how Garden of Exile came to life?

That’s quite a long story actually. It started out when we were kids visiting hardcore and metal shows every weekend. First only inHolland, but later on throughoutEurope. We bought a lot of records ourselves at those shows. We started listening to music that was hard to get over here inEurope. So we started ordering directly from theUS. To make this affordable, we ordered some more copies for friends to save on postage and get wholesale rates. One thing led to the other and before we knew it, we had a couple of cases with CDs and some vinyl. We started attending shows to sell our stuff and that’s the moment it became a bit more serious. We both started writing reviews, doing interviews for several zines and got to know more and more people. We decided to spend the money we made with our distro on releasing music by bands we liked personally and music wise. At first we released 3 or 4 CDs but soon after we focused more and more on vinyl, since we both prefer vinyl and are collecting this since we were like 16 or so. It all started as a hobby, but it grew out of hand pretty fast! It’s not always easy, since we do this besides our normal daytime jobs. Besides some problems with shipping and all, things went pretty smooth and we are still trying the best we can.

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“Different Names for the Same Face” is the latest 7” EP from Vancouver’s crust/grind beasts Burning Ghats. Beast is really the best way to describe this band with their caustic hardcore onslaught. It’s a ferocious effort from the band. It was released last year so unfortunately, we’re a little late to the party but if this was a new release you’d certainly be thinking it’s one of the better hardcore EPs of the year so far. Alas. But let’s not dwell on timing because this EP is great no matter when it’s played. It’s fierce and furious crusty grind savagery. Start to finish.

The vocals really make this EP though. Vocalist Chad Jones sounds like he chews broken glass and guzzles barrels diesel to wash it all down as he spits, roars and spews out his wretched vocals. The riffs are mostly crust laden assaults but at times there’s some devastating flourishes of technicality at play that really work a treat for the bigger picture.

But the most important thing about Burning Ghats is their belligerence and recklessness, and that’s here in fucking spades. This band could kill with an LP, with more time to work with and more room to strike, straight for the jugular. For now, wrap your ears around this racket.