New Playlist: Empire of the Eaten Sun

My new playlist on 8tracks this week is called Empire of the Eaten Sun. You can play it in the sidebar. It's named after the bad guys in one of my favorite new webcomics, Mega Hyper Ecchi Overload Groperion, by Andy Pinkard. I'm a big fan of Pinkard! Comix, possibly the biggest. When I went to look for an image to go with my mix, I found out that a green lion eating the sun is an alchemy symbol from the Middle Ages, I guess. I wonder if Pinkard knew that.

I just realized that this comic has its own soundtrack on 8tracks, made by Pinkard. 

All the tracks on my playlist were released on Bandcamp in the last couple of weeks, as usual. My playlists often get a little weird, but this one's more off the beaten path than usual.

EEPEETOO by Steady States

We start off with the afore-promised tracks from Steady States and Edgecrusher. I'm really liking this Steady States band from Kansas City, which is not to be confused with the much more popular Steady States of England. These guys plays heavy, mathy noise rock with just enough twang to get me really fired up. Love it. I chose a track called "Whitecaps."

Edgecrusher's new single "Undertaker" is dark groove metal with a big southern drawl. I've never heard such sounds from Russia before. Pretty impressive.

UI is a one-man metal act out of Oakland, as far as I can tell. His new single "Teknatura" puts death metal vocals against a progressive noise metal backdrop. It's dark and interesting, but it's a bit quiet compared to the rest of the playlist.

We get a lot louder with the new single from Texas five-piece Can't Kill the Ugly, "Verse One." I'm pretty sure this is a new release, even though it's a bonus track on their 2012 album. I think they probably stuck it on there very recently, since that album was only put on Bandcamp in the last week or so. This is powerful southern metal with yelling vocals and plenty of changes and riffs. It's great.

Then we get super loud with a track from Florida's Vileplume, an experimental garage band that just put out a three-track demo called Weaving Out Of. I don't include many demos in my playlists, but this one's pretty cool, if a tad raw. I find the track "Hialeah SuRf?GnarGnar" hard to describe. It's three minutes of punky instrumental craziness, like Hella on acid. Just take a listen.

That's followed by a heavier track called "veglia opaca" from a new Italian band called Squieti on their new album Impronte Nella Cenere. It's fairly basic post-hardcore, but I dig it.

Then we get a little crazier with some chaotic hardcore from a new Baltimore band called Neck First. They have a five-track release called I Can Feel My Skin Crawl, and I chose the last track, "Thread Through."

We stay on the hardcore path with a seemingly comics-inspired Massachusetts duo called Frank Castle., which always ends with a period. It's pretty hardcore.

Then things get especially weird with a Canadian act calling themselves Mr. Guelph. Their track "Landscape Destruction" starts fast and noisy, and then they stop and wax poetic before falling silent and then suddenly launching into more chaos. Truly crazy stuff from a three-track demo called & His Profligate Sons.

 Then we go a little electronic industrial with Induxcorp and their self-titled demo track. I really went crazy with the demos this week. Induxcorp are from Mexico, and they make dark instrumental sounds with a technical, progressive edge. I can't really tell how this was made, but it's cool.

We finish it off with a Turkish five-piece called Kinesis and a track called "Kireç." This is nice, heavy math rock with sung vocals, and I dig it a lot. Their new five-track release is called Lavdanom, and the cover art rocks.

The last one might be my favorite release of the week, followed closely by Steady States.

Enjoy!