Buried Under Noise 001: Dragged Into Sunlight

What is Buried under Noise? Buried under Noise is a segment where we showcase profile of bands that deserve greater attention. These are bands that have created unique, distinct sounds and pushed extreme music in a subculture stereotyped with stagnation.

This week, we look at Dragged Into Sunlight (UK).

Dragged Into Sunlight

Source: Prosthetic Records

Nocturnal creatures reign at night. They lurk behind the shadows, plotting beneath the moonlight. Drag them out during the day, they screech at high pitch and you get a glimpse of how horrendous they are. The wrinkle on the skin of bats, make you understand why they hide behind the darkness.


Dragged Into Sunlight, like their name suggests, are like those bats, vampires or what other ghouls exist in the night. The subject matter of their lyrics is exposed under the light and they crawl back into the darkness.

Source: Bleeder Magazine

If other extreme Metal bands sing about darkness in the supernatural sense, Dragged Into Sunlight uses sound clips from our actual media. Repeating in the background like in a post apocalyptic movie intertwined with white noise.



Dragged Into Sunlight is an extreme Metal band from the UK that manages to combine Black and Death Metal with the knuckle dragging intensity of Sludge Metal. Their aim seems to be to create the most terrifying sounds you can combine from the most evil subgenres of Metal. This band is the British equivalent of Lord Mantis and one the front runners of this new wave of Blackened Sludge.

Source: Exclaim Canada

Playing with a sense of paranoia, the band also refuses to reveal their identities. All members wear balaclava and the band prefers the word "collective" instead of band. Meaning, the band is rotational and no number is fixed, making it harder for people to pin down who's who. So don't bother try figuring out who they are. They probably don't want you to, and hate the breach of privacy in the process.


With the combination of high shrieks, at times furious double bass gets dragged across sludgy fields at a devastating slow pace. Traditional Black Metal, especially the Norwegian branch employ blast beats and snare abuse. Making them good friends with Thrash, thus cross pollinating to create Blackened Thrash. It wouldn't be a stretch to hear Marduk and years later, someone can easily conjure something closer to Skeletonwitch.

Source: Metal Made Fitness

The "Blackened Sludge" Dragged into Sunlight employs, takes a look at Sludge from New Orleans, one of the more underlook genres in Metal. While bands under that moniker sing about drug abuse, depression and entrenched poverty in rural America, Dragged Into Sunlight injects the grim British weather and amp up the psychological torture.


Their debut album, Hatred for Mankind eschews plays upon nihilistic poetry; something that lives up to the name of the album. Even the first few seconds using torturous samples, that are ubiquitous in Sludge and Industrial manages to create that dreaded atmosphere.

Source: Noisey

Dragged Into Sunlight recently released a collaborative album with Gnaw Their Tongues, their French counterpart. This is not your regular split album. This is them writing songs alongside Maurice, the sole member of the band to create the most menacing concoction of this new wave of Blackened Sludge.


They will be touring extensively in 2016 with dates across Europe and the United States. Be sure to check them out if you have chance.


So for those who think extreme music is stagnant, try checking out Dragged Into Sunlight.

The Dead - Deathsteps To Oblivion

Note: Physical CDs will only be released on November 14. This review was done based on a Digital Promo from Transcending Obscurity.

For a genre that is commonly known for challenging rules and convention of music, the fan base for Metal has been very strict in what can be mixed and could not. There are many genre purists who become very vocal of what is not permitted (such as that in Black Metal) and some are implied just out of scene associations (like Death Metal).


In fact, one may joke that the fan base is the most irate rule-obsessed group of fan boys ever. However, all of that is understandable. This whole elitist attitude is a reactive measure towards the encroachment of other influences into the genre that may not be in line of the vision of what its creators seek. It is a culture that a group of young people created and decided to call their own.


To have another person to steal that tag and appropriate it for themselves was blasphemy of the highest order. But what happens when you have a scene that has pre-internet, relatively been isolated to the rest of the world? Their only window to that scene is probably through the tapes they traded across the specific and publications could possibly several months late.


They may have an understanding through reading zines about the respect people have for the purity of genres but they also don’t have the same form of emotional attachment with those who grew up the scene.


Enter, Australia. Implied genre conventions don’t carry the same weight here and Australia’s The Dead pays respect to their American counterparts, but blurs the rules. While Sludge Metal has been an active effort to stay the opposite spectrum of Death Metal, The Dead combines the two while maintaining the characteristics of both subcultures.

This is the happiest band promo photo ever in the history of this blog.

The Dead’s willingness to combine 2 sides of the coin of Metal, is like combining water and dirt; while those two components are easily distinguishable from the other, but the two combine to become mud. That is how The Dead works.


What are two distinct genres becomes into one puddle of filth, with an excess of Sludge, making it the thickest mud pool you have to walk through. From the beginning the guitars are deep down heavy, that reminiscent of the thickest and heaviest doom-laden Sludge riff you can imagine. This is like taking Eyehategod out of New Orleans, and the blues is replaced with an Old School Death Metal layer.


While mentioning Sludge could conjure images of breakdowns into a listener’s mind; this album won’t be filled with the continuous interjection of long dragging depressive breakdown. The riffs resemble a darker Isis with an emphasis of evil sounding melody. While one guitar lays the groundwork and team up with the bass player, the lead guitars create the tinge melody.


It’s like the subtle after taste of flavoured vodka. The thick punch of the alcohol wakes you up but the subtle fuzzy after taste lingers in your throat. They don’t become the dominant flavour but it reminds you it is there. It’s the same with leads here. It never becomes the overpowering narrative that one might expect from say, a thrash album when a solo is about to come in.


Here, the leads follows the main riff on a higher pitch, as the riffs come crawling to you slowly. There are no abrupt changes in speed here, but dirge laden mid-paced riffs. One could say that these guys didn’t read the memo that Death Metal learned to run a long time ago and still stayed at the same pace the slow parts of what Obituary had in 1990.


Despite the Sludge connotations, vocals in no way are like your average Sludge band with Hardcore screams. While they didn’t get the memo on Death Metal’s speed the bad definitely get the memo for deep guttural voices. The vocals could easily work even in a Grindcore context. The drums come pounding in at an appropriate pace, like a riflemen firing at the orders of his official.


Organized and only fired when necessary. While on most parts the drum just plays to keep the flow of the soing going in, it does not mean the band is afraid to play around with percussions. On the track Terminus, watch out for tribal sounding drums and an intro session where one could recall rituals of native Indian tribes, giving off an exotic and trippy vibe.

 I am pretty sure, there is somebody in the crowd that is insisting that they play faster.

However, most of the points this band gets is the creative song writing capabilities. None of the band members get into a spotlight and do their magic but the band worked together to actually create a composition. Every single line has a deliberate method.


At times it is to create a melodic lead or everyone slowing down (after the already slow verse) in the bridge and just mesmerize us into a dark prog-like atmosphere that you could lay back too, then they start to assault your ears again as they step onto the distortion pedal. This has created what should very well be something that is unconventional feels acceptable in this album. (Well, at least in Metal-terms.)


An amazing part of this album and probably the highlight track is during “The God Beyond” where the track starts off with a short (and surprising) Black Metal part, the only “fast” part of the album but the goes into a long droning Atmospheric Sludge Metal guitar melody. Right somewhere in the middle, a weird sound in the background appears to add another layer of hauntingly beautiful melody.


It could be a woman wailing or some weird instrument accompanying the band but that element turned the track into a Sludge Metal, almost Post-Rock equivalent of Pink Floyd’s “The Great Gig in the Sky”. In fact, the whole album does sound like Pink Floyd trying their hand at Sludge/Death and like the Dark Side of The Moon, needs to be listened as a whole to get the whole experience. Every track is weaved into each other but you can still feel where does one start and where does one end.

At the end of the day, what this band embodies is the ability to smash convention and demonstrate to us what happens when you turn around the genre conventions many in the culture grew up with. Not only it breaks down barriers of the genres but it also shatters the image on how Death Metal can be carried. Unlike how most bands go on the mantra, faster is better for Death Metal, this band does the opposite but still sound Death Metal. Like how the isolation of Australia lead to the unique evolution of its animal inhabitants,


Australia has benefited from the mindset of these metalheads from down under. In fact, I would say this is the most exotic sounding album I've heard all year. This is a Isis, Death Metal and Pink Floyd rolled into one.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lordofthelivingdead
Bandcamp: https://transcendingobscurity.bandcamp.com/album/deathsteps-to-oblivion-death-metal-sludge

Terence A. Anthony commutes between Kuala Lumpur and Kuching. Co-Founder of Aural Chaos. He also writes for Greater Malaysia and Opinions Unleashed.

Rapid Fire: EP01: Theist - Self Titled // Dance on Your Grave – Paper Guns

What is Rapid Fire? Rapid Fire is a series of reviews for short EPs or Demos that the Audiocancer team does not feel the need to write a three thousand word essay on. It does not automatically mean your EP or Demo was horrible, it’s just that there are limited amount of things to state about your 20 micro-song 7 minute Grindcore EP. So seat back, and enjoy the Rapid Fire.

For this week’s (inaugural!), Rapid Fire we have Theist (Bandung, Indonesia) and Dance! On Your Grave (Kuching, East Malaysia)

Theist - Self Titled

Theist is a Crust Punk band (they call themselves Neo-Crust) from Bandung, Indonesia. While most Crust Punk bands attempt to get a lo-fi aesthetic, akin to their fore fathers, Amebix, Theist decides to discard this for a much more modern production. To be fair, in this day and age, it is easier to get that modern production, judging from the availability and range of production tools at the disposal of the average man.


While Amebix took their harsh production qualities from old school raw Black Metal, Theist seems to be from the camp that tries to modernize that crossover sound. Like the evolution of Black Metal also, Crust Punk has evolved from the raw abrasive melody to more complicated pieces. Theist embodies that concept, thus the tag neo-crust. While in essence, the faster power-chord charged parts are the embodiment of Crust Punk/D-Beat, the slower parts carry an atmospheric feel with riffs that are almost Doom Metal like.

Source: THEIST.NEOCRUST

In fact, if the band were to have riffs that were to be bluesy, the band will be able to pull off as a Sludge band. That however, would take away from the dirge environment they attempt to create. While not the first band to play in this style, the riffs of the band are not second-grade throwaways. It manages to be hard and uncompromising.


The feedback continues to ring in the background while the guitar goes into a melody line in the lower strings, almost Post-Punk like. As you are about to get ready to be adjusted into the doom-laden vibe, the band then pushes the tempo a few notches up but not turning the knob until its fullest extent.


The result being a transition between slow to mid paced rather than an abrupt change in speed like most Hardcore bands would do. The closest there would be to a snare-centric blastbeat would be in the track At the End of The Maze but it quickly dissolves into an old school Hardcore breakdown. All in all, a good listen for a few spins. Neo-Crust isn’t for purist but those who enjoy a good modern interpretation of Post-Punk influenced Crust now and then will love this.


Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/THEIST.NEOCRUST

Bandcamp: http://theistsludge.bandcamp.com/

Dance On Your Grave - Paper Guns

Dance! On Your Grave (DYOG) is a band from Kuching, Sarawak. While we had a Crust Punk in the first of this article, Dance! On Your Grave plays a cheery (for a lack of a better term) version of Hardcore Punk. What struck me at first was the band’s name which sounded similar to Motorhead’s song “Dancing On Your Grave”.


Judging from how the scene has gone through so much crossover the years, it won’t be that surprising the band got their name from the song. However, if one were to listen to the music is far from Lemmy’s Jack-Daniels charged brand of Metal.

This two track EP consists of two catchy mid-paced Hardcore Punk. Don’t expect the micro-songs of Minor Threat nor their ferocity but they have more in common to modern day Punk Rock like The Distillers and an almost Garage Rock like vibe in the verses or leads.


The guitar work isn’t your simple power chord centric you might expect from a Hardcore band but they contain amazing melody-lines. The bass comes in and does not blindly follow the guitar by playing root chords but liberally comes in with its own amazing lines.


In fact, I was half-expecting a solo like in Hellacopter’s Paying the Dues. What I really love about these two tracks are the extremely catchy chorus with the double vocal attack. On one layer, you have a female vocalist starting off with a percussive method of sing talk, compressed and filtered like an old microphone, only to be accompanied by another half-screaming male vocal in the chorus.


The chorus of Paper Gun, while the vocals may come off with those rough sing-a-long qualities, the lead guitars joins the trip and becomes the base melody. On the track El-Matador on the other hand had an almost Post-Hardcore vibe when another vocalist comes in with a repressed scream.


If you enjoy some Garage Rock influence in your Hardcore (and I assume the band does listen to those kinds of bands), just get this EP. This is a nice alternative to your library of aggressive Hardcore bands and let those amazing guitar melody take control instead.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danceonyourgrave

Bandcamp: http://danceonyourgrave.bandcamp.com/
(It's free by the way)

Terence A. Anthony commutes between Kuala Lumpur and Kuching. Co-Founder of Aural Chaos. He also writes for Greater Malaysia and Opinions Unleashed.

Slow Southern Steel (Documentary)

How do you define a good documentary? Do you judge it on the new info it brings or do you judge it on how it opens up a niche with scarce information? The problem then also gets harder when it comes to music-related documentary where most of the people who will be watching are those who are already part of that niche.


However, documentaries have to be accessible to outsiders or else it becomes just another video reporting about a certain event or just another video log. To become too accessible would also incur more problems. In the case of a subculture that is too vocal for their own good like Metal, you will end up with hate mail and youtube insults consisting of how the documentary only covers beginner’s material.


That was the very case that Sam Dunn had to go through when filming A Headbanger’s Journey and the Extreme Metal episode of Metal Evolution. To be fair, his Metal genre tree was questionable. I think I did a better one when I was 15 at the back of my science exercise book. Not to mention the glaring omission of genres like Sludge, Doom or even Stoner probably pushed the wrong buttons on some people.

Considering how volatile the scene is at the end of the day, the very act to pull off a documentary on such a touchy subject like the Metal scene in the Bible belt states of America, are already good enough grounds to applaud.

Referring back to metric stated in the first few lines above, Slow Southern Steel, managed to open up the scene that could unfamiliar to the rest of the metal scene while not dumbing down too much for general viewing. While a normal viewer may get lost at the nuances of what the south stands for, Chris Terry managed to spread out everything into bite-sized pieces.


The documentary is divided into several parts; one part talking about how different is the music from the scene while another part talks about the impacts of living in the South and how it affected the music. While here and there we could already tie up the strings based on the stereotypes that people have on the South based on what has been presented on television.


However, despite what we already know, like stereotypes of fire and brimstone typed families dictating the lives of others into their Christian ways, what is interesting is to what extend it has affected the music. One could say, even on a theological level, Christianity still had a strong foothold.


It becomes part of the identity of the scene where one person may take what has been taught to them about Christianity, filtered through their rebellious moments in their teenage years. Result being some of the musicians interviewed became “moderate” Christians instead where religion becomes something personal. Others than totally rejected it and went the direct opposite, up to the point of Satanism being an attractive idea to them. This could be said an interesting study on the clash of cultures, with Metal being the conduit between the two.

However the more interesting part is how the scene grew as it was portrayed here. While in bigger cities, higher population density meant it was slightly easier to get into a band, the South didn’t have that privilege. The exploration how bands got their first taste of music through church groups sounded very different from how the “city folks” who are able to get into more secular means.


The influence of country and folk while may be obvious to an outsider to the music of the South, the reach of the music told here shows how it becomes an identity. While in other areas, other music that were considered mainstream is rejected and Metal is perceived as an alternative to that culture. Country still remains as a culture that is embraced, despite how mainstream it is in those areas. It further strengthens the notion of identity the South has and something that many scenes struggle to find.

All in all, Slow Southern Steel is something that everyone who tries to find an identity in theirs should watch. It is more than just the music, it is an exploration how cultures collide and create new ones that amalgate the old and the new. While it is accessible, but the stories found here are eye-opening, such as how the scene grew up after Katrina in NOLA.


The bands interviewed here are no longer bands hidden in the tape trading scene but now are big bands like Eye Hate God, Kylesa, Zoroaster or even the now defunct Acid Bath but the scene didn’t come from an easy path. At times, there are lesser known bands that were interviewed and it could also act as a gateway for some. Their path was harder than usual and should be the inspiration for the other scenes out there.

Check the documentary out for free in the link below.

Terence A. Anthony commutes between Kuala Lumpur and Kuching. Co-Founder of Aural Chaos. He also writes for Greater Malaysia and Opinions Unleashed.

Fistula - Vermin Prolificus

I am not going to lie; this has instant replay value. It’s like a drug that pulls you back over and over again. That’s something when one of the tracks is 9 minutes long. I dare say that this is catchy Sludge, despite being on the heavier side of the spectrum. I wouldn’t say it’s the best Sludge I’ve ever heard but it is one of those that I could remember well. While most Sludge requires you to breath after one album or EP, because of the sheer enormity, this EP will get you to click play all over again. When the after effects of drugs aren’t that pretty but like all addictions but the idea of stopping isn’t that easy.


The album’s experience is similar to that thought too. You as the listener get immersed into something that feels like a person being forced into rehab, relapse and back again, but for some weird reason, you want to go back and re-immerse into that experience.


It’s like there’s a little alarm clock in your head reminding you when you need your next fix. Maybe Fistula managed to plant the idea in my head with the constant samples of a girl screaming “Drugs are more important than you” in which I assume was a reverse psychology therapy session that got reversed. The first sample in the EP encapsulates what Fistula wants to achieve. “Some metal rock groups extol the virtue of drugs and kids worship them.”

As soon as the sample kicks in, the sludgy guides the listener to the trip. The heavy bluesy chops come crashing in, with a wailing vocalist that rips his throats just enough to punch you but never starts to scratch your face with a high screech. None of the excessive distortion on the vocals like Electric Wizard; this is raw throat ripping screams that is ravaging your ear. The bass sits heavily on top, like a steamroller crushing all the materials to path a way. It does not shy away and that is how exactly thick, slow flowing Sludge should be. But slow Sludge isn’t just what the band is capable of.


At times, the track just burst into modern day Crust Punk madness when there is a need to bring out the jackhammer. At one point the band slows down to spread out the doom riffs, slowly digging into your head, like the agonizing pain of listening people confessing during rehab sessions. But then, our rehab patient just flips out, throws the tables around, flip the bird and let Hardcore Punk flow through the veins.


Then when the patient gets his mind calm down again, you know that there is still some form of anger as he mutters under his breath his resentment. That situation is exactly how the band feels as the band transition between tempos. You won’t hear high speed drumming here but the band keeps it well by transitioning between punk like drumming while keeping the pace up but willing to let the drummer just hit the snares and cymbals when the bass hits the heaviest notes.

One thing that needs to be commended is how the voice samples are used well here. While most bands that uses samples sound as if they add the samples as a last minute resort to fill up some time or even just to add random shock value to the track. The way Fistula does it is by using the samples to tell a story instead.


At one point, you have a doctor conversing with rehab patient and at another point in the same track, there is a commenter talking about the effects of drugs, combining them to a singular narrative. To add up, some of the samples are repeated at certain specific riffs, making it feel like the voice samples were meant to be pseudo choruses, emphasizing the message that samples carries. It’s like one of those taglines in a movie that gets repeated after time.

In general, this is one Sludge EP that has replay value. The riffs are enormous and their samples were not just thrown in at random intervals. Each sample has a purpose, like the dialogues in a film, while the bass is the heavy orchestra, electrified, haunting you in the background. By the end of the record, even you replay this thought in your head; “Dr Gale, the drugs are more important you.”


PS/ Special internet points if anyone could tell me where the samples are from. I have no idea where did they come from.

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/fistula666

Terence A. Anthony commutes between Kuala Lumpur and Kuching. Co-Founder of Aural Chaos. He also writes for Greater Malaysia and Opinions Unleashed.