ALTERED STATES are a new band from Dublin who came out of nowhere towards the end of last year. Sharing a member with fellow Dubliners Crows, there’s still a hardcore element to this young DIY band, but Altered States are primarily more of a sludged-out, doom-driven raucous affair than the straight up fast hardcore of their brother band. I caught up with guitarist/vocalist Dave King to get the story on these fresh faced, volume loving riff mongers.

So Dave let’s start at the start – how did Altered States come into being?

Altered States formed in the back of a mitsubishi colt in August 2012. We were listening to Type O Negative and hot boxing the car when decided that we should start a band. We’ve known each other since we were about 12 and had played in shitty bands together so we knew it would be a laugh. Although we sound absolutely nothing like Type O.

Stream Altered States’ raw two song demo here!:

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One of the first international bands that we ever featured on this zine was Italy’s HIEROPHANT. They blew my mind then with their vicious, raging form of music, and now they are about to rip the faces off of the gods with their new album Great Mother Holy Monster for Bridge NINE Records( pre-order HERE!) that comes out on March 26th. I have had this record on repeat because it really fucking crushes, but it’s the insane breakdowns that get me ultra hyped! CVLT Nation has the honor of streaming “Son of the New Faith” below…It would be sick to see them live this year stateside – I hear they are amazing live!

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Check this out: get your DEATHWISH Inc download on!

Deathwish are proud to present the Punk/Hardcore/Metal soundtrack to your spring aptly titled “Spring 2013″, our newest FREE Digital Sampler. “Spring 2013″ is a monstrous 26 song (hour and a half long) dive into the Deathwish world. Listen to great songs from Deathwish artists, as well as Deathwish Distributed labels Black Market Activities, React!, Sealegs, Secret Voice, and Six Feet Under.

Bands in order of appearance: Touche Amore, AC4 (unreleased), Blacklisted, Loma Prieta (unreleased), Code Orange Kids, Heiress, Birds In Row, Narrows, Gaza, Oathbreaker, Converge, Hesitation Wounds, Punch, Living Eyes, Mindset, Vigilante, New Lows, The Mongoloids (unreleased), Palm, Whips/Chains, Single Mothers, Stomach Earth (unreleased), Deafheaven, Cold Cave (unreleased), Self Defense Family, and Dad Punchers.

There are no words to describe how excited we are about the CVLT Nation 2nd Anniversary show on Friday, April 26th, 2013 at Unit B in Santa Ana, CA…but I’ll try anyway! With the help of Crash the Clubs and LACE Pickups, we have put together a fucking killer lineup of bands to celebrate our two years as a purveyor of all things dark and musical! Starting with doors at 7pm, the night will open with some heavy LA County locals: Whip Hand, Stoic Violence, Children of God and Youth Code! We are so stoked to see all of these bands live!!! Then we are bringing you the legendary Seven Sisters of Sleep, whose performance will be no doubt epic since this show will also be their official record release for OPIUM MORALS! All of this musical mayhem will culminate in a crushing performance by the Infamous GEHENNA, who will bring the walls and halfpipes down at Unit B! You can RSVP for the CVLT Nation 2nd Anniversary Show HERE and pick up the pre-sale tickets from Unit B HERE. It’s $8 pre-sale and $10 at the door, and this lineup is sure to sell out so pick yours up quick!

Review and Video Essay by Ted Reckoning

As it often is in Vancouver this time of year, it was rainy and shitty outside. It was one of those nights when you don’t want to leave your house for any reason at all once you’ve gotten home from work but you know that you’ll be kicking yourself if you don’t. I grabbed my gear and begrudgingly headed down to The Biltmore, a small capacity venue in East Vancouver. Once at the venue, I walked down the stairs and to my left, set up at Baptists’ merch table, was an amazing selection of vegan baked goods for sale. I was pleasantly surprised and knew that this was not going to be an ordinary show, not in any sense of the word.

Full review and photo essay after the jump!
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Start digging in your closet for that multi-colored Anthrax shirt (size XL) you bought in the mid-80ies, search for your Adidas high tops and better flip that bill of your cap because when the first note of this 7” resounds the laws of physics will be suspended: You’ll be immediately brought back to a time when bands like DRI, SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, NUCLEAR ASSAULT or MOD merged Hardcore and Thrash Metal to create an urban soundtrack for endless skate sessions, wild mosh-pits and out of control house destruction parties.

FORESEEN’s new 7” Structural Oppression is stuck knee-deep in the 80ies and reproduces this classic crossover sound so well it’s hard to believe that those two songs were actually recorded in 2012 and not 25 years earlier. Besides sound-wise similarities to the aforementioned bands (and a shitload of others, I can’t help but think of the German Hardcore phenomenon TRUE BLUE for example) there are also the excessive vocals which are almost drowned in reverb and the downright hilarious cover artwork that totally support this 80ies-feeling. The sound of the recordings is quite rough, but very lively and direct – as I’ve heard these tracks have been recorded analogue, so that might be an explanation. And it’s great, most important.

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The UK is the home of a bunch of awesome, and very promising, bands. If you pay enough attention, then bands like SONANCE, Light Bearer, Strangle Wank, The Nepalese Temple Ball and Iron Witch, just to name a few, are on your radar and you know that what I’m saying is the purest of truths. Opium Lord is another exciting name to join that list. And what a name…this band is fuckin’ awesome. Really! But let me explain a little better why the fuck I’m so excited about a band who have just released one EP with two songs (9 and a half minutes) on it, The Calendrical Cycle – Prologue: The Healer.

It all starts with “Heroin Swirls” and this song’s title makes all the sense in the world. How can you help yourself from thinking about swirls with that opening guitar riff? It (the riff) sucks you in to Opium Lord‘s world. Later, you will discover that there’s no way out. The huge riff will metamorphose to an even stronger and more incisive thing, it’s marvelously supported by a fantastic rhythm section who open spaces and help the atmosphere to become even more suffering and dark. Talking about suffering and dark…the vocalist is fuckin’ amazing. His voice so damn right and meant to be that it’s almost impossible. The singer purges demons with a dark hardcore approach. Amazing!
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The pre-sale tickets are up now on the UNIT B facebook for the CVLT Nation 2nd Anniversary on April 26th! Save yourself a coupla bucks by picking your ticket up now for what is definitely going to be one of the shows of the year! You can’t get any better than The Infamous…Gehenna, Seven Sisters of Sleep, Youth Code, Children of God, Stoic Violence and Whip Hand at the Unit B skatepark/art/show space in Santa Ana, CA. We are super stoked to say the least, and so happy to be working with Crash the Clubs and LACE Pickups! Stay tuned for some awesome features coming up in the next couple of months and remember to pick up your tickets before the show!

PERFUME RIVER – CONCRETE WINTER CS by curtainfire

Perfumer River returns yet again with a tape release through Curtain Fire titled Concrete Winter. This five minute long hail of noise disorientation is the band’s second release of lofi hardcore d-beat noise much in the same vein as their last release, No Wind.

The tape starts of with the intro song “Raise the White Flag,” sounds of planes flying by screaming at high pitch and the vocalist’s reverberating overdriven yells pounding through like mortar fire. Making it through the opener, the next song “My Only Master” kicks in with the buzziest of guitar riffs. Ferociously the vocals attack,  the words are almost unintelligible besides the fact that there are only two lines of lyrics repeated constantly over the fuzzy guitar, straight forward hardcore drums and droning bass that pound the message into your ears.

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Winnipeg’s KEN mode mean serious business and that business is mean. This band needs little introduction, but to the uninitiated I will oblige. The end of last year played to the paranoia of a hot air apocalypse. Had this portentous event happened, KEN mode would have been the symphony. This particular brand of noisy hardcore sighs with sludgy malevolence and agonizes with a post-hardcore fervor. “Entrench” is KEN mode experimenting with the darkest of sounds, a record made for dark times.

“Entrench,” their first for Season of Mist, is an attention strangler. Each song retains a unique identity, with a dash of that kill-everyone-now flavor maintaining the overarching theme. The record’s foundation is its balance of terrible beauty and awe-inducing violence. As simple an emotional shift as running your hands from sobbing eyes to ripping out your hair, KEN mode’s latest effort is a mental breakdown made elemental. The myriad influences flow into a cohesive whole that at moments struggles within its boundaries, making for a exhausting but refreshing listen. Of the record’s eleven tracks there are few one can call “favorite.” Mind you that is a good thing. While “Entrench” has all the power to bugger itself with chaos, KEN mode reigns the beast in and have their way with it. Below have a listen to “The Terror Pulse” and behold self-destruction at its finest.

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