Shitapple Driving A Shitmobile

One of the first albums I downloaded after discovering Bandcamp, Teeph spawn from the northern Butte County suburb of Chico, CA. Citing influences as far ranging as Converge to Frank Zappa, the band's 2009 debut is a whirlwind of groovy tempo changes, screaming, sick guitar work and the occasional jazz drum lick while not devolving into annoyingly technical mathcore. Tough to describe, the band calls themselves "heavy math rock/post-metal" but I think they're selling themselves short. They are definitely heavy and have a few Mr. Bungle-ish proggy breakdowns but it's still linear, coherent sludgecore with enough extra shit to keep it interesting. "Hipster Killers" is my favorite - and the killer opening chord progression in "Part II" is simply awesome. Check 'em out here and give generously.

So Sic!

How To Survive A Vicious Cock Fight

Pretty decent mathcore/screamo debut from Bay City, MI denizens See You Next Tuesday (C-U-N... aw, you get it). Solid über tempo-change deathcore all pulled off at a breakneck pace, the songs are mercifully short (the entire album running time is a scant 20 minutes) so the schizophrenic cacophony never gets a chance to really fray your nerves. The band recorded a second album, the surprisingly typical death metal-ish Intervals in 2008, a disappointing musical departure from their debut. They promptly disbanded within a year.

Insert Witty Song Title Here

Umeå Hardcore

Man, what a fucking album. The prototype for a million mathcore/screamo/experimental hardcore bands to follow, Sweden's Refused rewrote the book on what a hardcore album should be. One after another epic song - I can't even name how many genres are touched upon within the tight 56 minutes of this bitch. Sadly this 1998 release was way over everyone's head at the time - Godsmack and Soulfly went on to have multi-platinum albums while Refused simply broke up. What a painful fucking shame. Enjoy.

12 Bursts