Nick Butcher
Bee Removal
Home Tapes
Street: 10.14
Nick Butcher = Microstoria + Can’t + Andrey Kiritchenko
Have you ever left a record on a turntable, and let it keep playing after the last song while the needle revolves around those last crackling hints of life? Upstairs, your cat paces on a hardwood floor, chattering at some birds who taunt back with their own voice. You listen from a distance, however, and the Doppler off the stairs transforms this conversation into something a bit more alien. Next door, someone tunes a guitar and plunks out single notes with pauses in-between. From softly glitching, augmented Casio melodies to machine hum to the sound between AM radio stations to all the sounds most people look past for something more immediate, Nick Butcher calls this music, crafting these elements with transparent editing into a thoroughly compelling, intimate experience when given the proper reception (e.g., put everything down, stare at the wall, headphones on). –Dave Madden

Nothing Project
one man rock band
Self-released
Street: 05.01
Nothing Project = Queens of the Stone Age + White Stripes + Xavier Rudd
Do not let the above equation fool you: Nothing Project sucks sauna-sweaty scrotums from track one to track 12. The music really does sound a lot like QOTSA, strangely so, and that’s about the nicest thing I can say about it. In Nothing Project, Marcus Connor is a one-man rock band (drums on his feet, guitar in hand, mic, you know, Xavier Rudd-style). But a semi-original gimmick just doesn’t go far enough to save this album. The first problem: Connor seems to need to keep strict time with his feet drums in order to multitask correctly. The resulting drum beat is a “bass-snare-bass-bass-snare” that is the foundation for at least TEN (are you fucking kidding me, ten?!?!) of the album’s tracks. The second problem: if one has lyrics that read like the poetry of a middle-school nerd with stage fright, one should probably not print those lyrics in one’s album jacket. Overall, the vocals fail miserably. I haven’t disliked an album so strongly in many moons: thank you, Marcus Connor, for reminding me how badly shit has the potential to stink. –Jesse Hawlish

o’death
Broken Hymns, Skin and Limbs
City Slang
Street: 10.27
o’death = Gogol Bordello – the accent
I don’t know how to accurately describe such a blatant lifting of style, but I’ll try. Something can always be said for imitators, all music deriving from works before in this century of repeated styles—not this time, though. At least o’death could have tried to throw in some Russian, or whatever the hell hodgepodge it is that Eugene Hutz speaks, to add some real “gypsy-ness” to the sound-byted fiddle they employ. No such luck. So what do you get with a Gogol Bordello “cover” band with no true Slavic influences? A Bordello cover band with no soul. I can’t imagine these pseudo-gypsy rockers spend any time anywhere close to the kind of enclaves you see Hutz journey to in the fantastic documentary, The Pied Piper of Hutzovina. For a real glimpse at gypsy music, don’t look to New York hepcats like o’death for realism. Look to the source. –JP

Order of Ennead
Order of Ennead
Earache
Street: 10.13
Order of Ennead = (Sons of Northern Darkness-era) Immortal + (Angela Gossow-era) Arch Enemy
Risen from the ashes of Council of the Fallen, Order of Ennead have burst onto the scene with a debut blending black metal, thrash and technical Florida death metal. Order of Ennead's strongest sales point is precise musicianship radiating from the drummer outward. For the debut, they've retained drummer Steve Asheim, also of the legendary Deicide. Unfortunately, the combined talents add up to a less-than-stellar whole, as this release is a dry and by-the-numbers affair. It’s as if a group of session musicians came together and executed a musically perfect rendition of songs outlined on a pie chart. Diehard fans of the Sunlight and Morrisound studios style likely can't be talked out of buying this, but I'll take mistakes with my death metal as long as it retains some soul.–Ben West

Outlaw Order
Dragging Down the Enforcer
Season of Mist
Street: 11.28
Outlaw Order = Eyehategod + High on Fire + Arson Anthem
There is no avoiding comparing Outlaw Order to Eyehategod, considering the output is from four of the band’s five members; the only one not included is Eyehategod’s drummer, Jimmy Bower, who is playing with Down at the moment. Hence the side-project here, and the output is, well, more accessible than Eyehategod. The guitars are still down-tuned to sound like hell pounding from the depths, but added is a bunch more groove-oriented riffing and well, more direction with the songs; just picture Eyehategod with hardcore and some stoner influences popping their heads in. I personally am a big fan of Eyehategod and this beast does not disappoint in the least; it impresses. Saying it again, the guitar-tone is wicked, Mike Williams does his best at spewing hate and fire tinged with Jack Daniels. It’s violent, it’s drudgingly ear scathing, it’s fast, and you can’t stop listening to it. –Bryer Wharton