Various Artists / New Heavy Sounds Volume One

Various Artists
New Heavy Sounds Volume One
(New Heavy Sounds)

Scene-making is a suspicious business, but it’s no coincidence that as we move into a new decade several of the acts compiled on this New Heavy Sounds (NHS) compilation are lodged in Artrocker’s records of the year chart; we’re all familiar with Pulled Apart By Horses, Bo Ningen and Chickenhawk, the latter of whom start this record off like a metal group performing impossible stunts; agile, but loaded with force.
Let’s be clear with each another then; this compilation is not an act of scene-making, rather a joining of the dots between heavy riffing acts, which, over the last 12 months, have overspilled from Hardcore Stages onto Main Stages. What’s more, as we move into 2011, there’s going to be more where this came from.
The mark of any decent compilation is that you’re lured in by the acts you know, then knocked out by the ones you don’t. The best bands here are still lurking under the watermark; These Monsters ‘Harry Patton’ is a striking work of composition, hitting the heart strings in the seemingly most unlikely of ways; via a breezy head-bang. Also instrumental is Mugstar’s ‘Technical Knowledge As A Weapon’, another work of compositional magnificence, and an adrenalised hymn to tough times.
Invasion offer a fresh and youthful twist on early British metal with ‘In The Midst Of Madness’, while Holy State lend some Iggy-shaped depravity to the addictively dark stomp of ‘Palms’. Then there’s Buffalo, whose ‘Flash Of A Photograph’ mixes up absolute rock carnage with innovative alien effects, all hung on a simply fantastic song. Holy State’s ‘Palms’ switches between hyperspeed riffing and slow-motion string bending, which will tend to disorientate the mind somewhat, while We Rock Like Girls Don’t take no prisoners with their mean and sludgy contribution ‘Violence.’
All these bands (too many to mention) are united by stealth and a take-no-shit attitude, which when you think about it, is just what we need in these anarchy preceding times. Get ready to get heavy!



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