Labels: Big Mountain – Power Negi
Review by: David Giles
My first impression of this demo was that it sat upon a bridged gap between chaotic German hardcore bands (Ding Dong Dead, Ressurrectionists”¦ Carol if you want to go further back) and early Converge. Which means that right off the bat I can imagine hoards of Euro kids going off the rails about this band. I’m not sure if that Converge comparison holds strong beyond the first track although they definitely revisit the near-atonal “Petitioning the Empty Sky’ sound once or twice throughout. On the subject of maybe-weak comparisons, a lot of reviews seem to describe this as black metal influenced. Honestly, I know what they’re talking about (the octaving fast guitar parts), but it sounds more crusty than anything to me. Perhaps there is a tinge of that “new-darkthrone’ sound but I don’t know if it’s prevalent enough to warrant a debate about what constitutes black metal or not. There’s definitely a pretty dark feel to a lot of this demo though (its good!). Its sick that they’ve managed to incorporate a lot of different sounds without to do something (and man I hate that I’m writing this in a review for c-z) pretty original. I’m not saying that its total groundbreaking or mind blowing but I can’t imagine it ever being described as derivative and there’s definitely enough going on in these four tracks to leave me wanting more. I’ll tell you what: when I saw artwork nuked with upside down crosses I was expecting total boring Trash Talk worship and this came as a pleasant surprise. Nice to see also was the lyric insert which included explanations and further reading: nice, never-done-in-2010 touch! Oh, and the last track has violin and sax but doesn’t suck. This rules. Check it out.