Devil's Horns Zine

  Convict Class-Demo-lition EP. FFO: Solid Hard-rocking Street Punk with humour and skill. Convict Class are a relatively new Streetpunk/Oi! band who I got familiar with from their killer live rehearsals that were streamed. These videos made it super clear that this is a band that is both super talented and made up of good blokes with a real sense of humour.  Humour or a sincere ability to laugh at yourself is clearest in the great opener We Are Not , which first hits you with fuzzy bass and wild riffs, then the mad vocal skills of Sten Gun, who delivers piss funny lyrics about not being a famous band and my fave line is: Fuck caviar, we eat pub grub!!! This is a quality and pretty hard-rock-focused opener that sits on the side of the rockier Cockney Rejects fare. But it works so well. Media is up next and has that luscious Sex Pistols and early punk style mixed with the vitriol of the Angelic Upstarts. This excellent song is a snapshot of just how solid the band is. Everythi...

  BEYOND BELIEF - GLUTTONY SINNERS album.  FFO: Mental, hectic slam/beatdown and death metal/goregrind. This is one brutal UK/USA project that is hard to describe, but so abrasively efficient. This release is like a hectic mix of brutal slam metal/death metal and almost goregrind mixed with crushing beatdown hardcore. Gluttony Sinners is one sensational horror-filled violence classic; with insane gutturals/pig squeals mixed with mental samples. It is not just one style or tempo, it has some hip-hop vocals as well as a guest by the demigod Danny Diablo just to add to the slaughtering approach of this record. Everything works so well and this band is one severe killing machine. This album would be mental live.  Is there any subtlety or breathing room on this release, no fucking way? But hey like all totally abrasive music, I just want my ears to be blown up and feel the need to inflict spin kicks to random punters. I ain't reviewing every track, because I think with this he...

  Endless Bore-Drive Not Detected album. FFO: Sludgy/Crust/Powerviolence glory!. Melbourne's glorious masters of crusty power violence hardcore return with their finest album yet. I love how with each release, they expand their sound slightly. Drive Not Detected is surprisingly their third album, and it proves their productivity is quite endless. They draw their core sound still hugely from those gritty cult hardcore 7" we all adore, particularly underground American fastcore mixed with UK crust. But the sludge element has crept in with each release and that breathing room is gold when combined with the core mayhemic tempo. And they still crush and pulverise you live. The sludgy space just balances the savage element that is the main attention, and it is done so fucking well. The band thrives on being extremely tight and you can hear on each track how well the band fits together, this is a well-oiled killing machine of a band. Dave's vocals are barbaric, but the delivery ...

  Xtinguish The Code - Matter Of Fact EP review and interview. FFO: Chunky, Gnarly NYHC with bite/skill. This gritty EP from these Bronx legends is everything you need in proper hardcore. This is free from bullshit and simply hands you on a plate what you need for a tasty hardcore release. 1054 Records is getting an absolute stranglehold on the American Hardcore scene and this is an excellent case in point. Open up the pit with the nasty beast that is The Beginning Of The War , this draws you in with a smartly placed sample to begin and the moshy riffs just attack your ears from the moment they arrive and this bodes well for an extremely confident EP. Attitude Adjustment is a crunchy, brisk song with definitive shouty, almost punk vocals and death metal-like guest vocals violently combine in the style of a nuclear weapon with a flooring effect. XTC have a solid formula of explosive drums and mean riffs that move you straight away and that dynamic energy is so damn addictive. ...

  BulletBelt Reviews: FFO: brutally diverse and intelligent music. The aim of BulletBelt reviews is concise straight to the point old school reviews in the style of MRR/old hardcore/metal zines. Today we have: Flamethrower (two albums), Primitive Knot, Vorare, Ancient Enemy, Disposal Unit, Old Grey Horror and Frayle. Flamethrower-Everyday 1 and 2.  It is certainly a challenge to fit these albums into a streamlined review, but I will try. This project which has also played live is a mix of so many heavy and otherwise genres. Literally, this is broadly(strap yourself in) jazz, metal, doom, country, blues, punk, hardcore, post-punk, black metal, psychedelic and everything in between. The brains behind this is the super skilled and musical genius Paul Lindsay of Vicious Circle fame. Now VC has over the years dipped its toes into various genres and this is a dude well into so many mixed genres/bands. And these flavours are combined in the brilliance that is this band/project. It h...

Vikvanir - On The Shoulders Of Gods EP. FFO: Fantastic, aggressive and hyper-intelligent modern Black Metal. This is one of the many releases we are playing catchup on as Sept-Nov has been hectic and so many releases have dropped. But I wasn't letting this one go astray, as this is a deep and mindblowing release. Australia has consistently produced brilliant extreme metal and this band needs all your attention. Shit like modern Behemoth gets all the press for frankly creating absolutely dull releases that are boring as hell. This is the real deal. Bio: Born from pandemic isolation in 2021, Vikvanir is the black metal project of Zachary Carlsson, an Australian musician, vocalist and composer. First conceptualised in 2018, the last few years brought with them, amongst many other things, the free time to bring this project into existence. Within the realm of black metal, Vikvanir draws thematically from the aesthetics of epic fantasy and Norse mythology (yet never referencing the latt...

  Candles, Toilets & Religious Metaphors, A Three Times Royal Analysis:  By M H Thomson 18th of November 2022   Maintaining any intimate long-distance relationship is fraught with complexity at the best of times but initiating one in the midst of a global pandemic would seem to most, to be a logistical fool's errand. Alas, even the fallout from a plague as demoralising as COVID-19 fails miserably as a deterrent for some; namely my friend and vocal coach Iris Goessens and her partner Mayson Ivy. Split between their respective homes of Maastricht, Netherlands and Los Angeles, California. This budding relationship along with other untold internal tensions brewing between the members of Spoil Engine gave Iris reason enough to part ways with them. This announcement coming mere months after the apparent (although yet to be officially confirmed) departure of Spoil Engine’s longtime drummer Matthijs Quaars, as evidenced by their last few gigs with Iris, where they have be...

  Lacerhate-Blood.Lies.Idiots.Death album review and killer interview. FFO: Perfect mix of Hardcore/metal that will slay you. This is a gem that you will play so many times, and both the songs and production will blow you away. Lacerhate drop their third album today and whilst their previous releases were epic and tough as nails, Blood.Lies.Idiots.Death is the album that will get them the attention they deserve. This is a melting pot of metal/hardcore that is so energetic and hard as fuck. Bio: Lacerhate started out in 2008, in Cremona/Bergamo (Italy) as a metal/hardcore band influenced by the Punk/HC/Metal scene (bands like Hatebreed, Sepultura, Soulfly, All Shall Perish...). After recording a self-titled four tracks demo in 2009, the band faced various line-up changes and finally, on February 2011, released the first official Ep “Reborn From Ashes?”: a six-track work that shifted their style towards a blend of crossover/hardcore. “Reborn From Ashes?” immediately gained the apprec...