robustfellow productions

Initial Descent: January 21 – 27, 2018

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Tribulation
Tribulation – photo courtesy of Ester Segarra

Busy week around these parts but at least it was good and a little warmer. Almost got spring fever but who am I kidding? Cold is coming back, blah. Must enjoy it while it’s here and speaking of enjoyment, we’ve got plenty of it in this edition of Initial Descent. Starting things off is Down Below from Tribulation which has absolutely consumed me and just when I thought their brand of black tinged goth inspired metal / rock couldn’t get any better it did and impressively so. Next up is Australia’s ultra experimental death metal band Portal with their latest mind bender Ion, Abyssal Vacuum gives us three songs of extremely complex yet fully hypnotic black metal on MMXVII and Somali Yacht Club (love that name!) create an album’s worth of pure escape and bliss on The Sea, seriously, this band knows how to milk atmosphere and stretch out melodies. GREAT start but as usual we have so much more to explore so get comfy, grab a drink and hang with us for a while. Continue reading →

Profile: Larry Brent of Contra

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Contra
Contra

Does that band name ring a bell? It should, it was only one of the biggest selling games of its time. But also, if the riffs found within sound familiar but you can’t quite put your finger on it, think back to Sofa King Killer (say it slow and pay attention). Anyway, video game inspired Contra are soon to be releasing their debut full length album Deny Everything and in case you missed the reference above, this is a riff centered metal band kin to the likes of the groovier than ever Clutch and the doomy side of Down. Heavy but extremely catchy is this band’s trademark and their full length is chock full of it. Just ahead of the July 1 release date we got a chance to ask vocalist Larry Brent our set of Profile questions so read on to see what he had to say.

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Album Review: Ethereal Riffian – “I AM. Deathless” (EP)

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etherealriffian

Ethereal Riffian, despite constructing an incredibly unique doom metal sound over the past five years or so, have managed to stay completely off my radar until now. And what the Ukranian doomers have brought to the table with I AM. Deathless is a fascinatingly psychedelic doom metal sound that cleverly challenges our understanding of the genre without sounding forced. They make their point sonically, but at only two tracks we are definitely left with a lingering curiosity about how this could be expanded. Which, for an EP, is a good thing. Continue reading →