New Music – Drown In Blood
As the iron-based substance pours over your head, Gulch is ritualistic in their ability to submerge the listener in torture from start to finish. With their newest eight-track LP, Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress is just as deadly as a lethal injection but saves the audience from anticipation.
Opening with the self-titled track, “Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress” immediately thrusts into the listener with pinging snare hits and rampaging howls directly from the gut. Almost as if it was recorded to destroy, Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress takes what makes Gulch such an impressive hardcore force and displays it in full flash. Every track amounting to the 15-minute runtime has purpose and malicious intent. Where bands can embody full chaos, Gulch is here to promote it and prominently worship it.
The following track “Self-Inflicted Mental Terror,” while sounding like a badass horror show, is tense from start to finish and etches emotional scarring. With lyrics that describe, “Slither down the rabbit hole, a birthing canal of mental terror. Temptations, seduction, reflections in the blood. Showing the face of true corruption, swallowed secretion, spreading the infection.” The snapping breaks of organized walls of noise, then sudden stops is a jerking motion that snaps the neck quickly, then is able to reposition it back for more misery. While Gulch is an aggressive powerhouse that is meant to be as off-putting as possible, the experience of Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress is more enjoyable because of this willingness to adapt new techniques of punishment.
Through persecution and ridicule, Gulch heads straight into a cinderblock barrier with “All Fall Down The Well” where belligerence lives inside the mind of the band. The instrumentalist are ripping here and then the vocals are able to glide over a war-torn battlefield. Nothing seems approachable here, but for fans of short-winded grips of power, Gulch is the poster child for excessive force. The swirls that occur on the strings that bounce back in retaliation against the percussive aspect continue to inspire not just feelings of hate, but more importantly, paints vivid hell.
Final moments spent with Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress creates a more sluggish build that ditches the obliterating assaults on the ears and instead draws out the performance to be a swan song with “Sin In My Heart.” Honestly, one of the strongest tracks here from Gulch, the desire to draw last breath in this sense is more for the aftermath of reflection rather than illustrating any more introductory flames. Even the last seconds which adapt to some quicker percussive beats feature a sudden short breath before the head is completely removed for autopsy.
Through emotional dissonance and a desire to kill, Gulch is the fast riser in hardcore that earns a spot not just on the Santa Cruz circuit, but as some of the more promising acts to feature lately. While still stuck on the inside looking out, not even global pandemic can slow the 15 minute funeral from Gulch.
Listen To Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress Here!!! – BandCamp/Spotify/iTunes
Classic Day – Use Some
By 1980, the third studio record by British born punk band Magazine was able to spawn a conversation with their faster, more agitated riffs and percussion that was able to both control and also crack through the pavement. The movement that ensues from The Correct Use Of Soap is not as much of a statement on current pop trends, as it was for a monument to post-punk in a minimalistic performance.
The more energetic rhythms like on the opening track “Because You’re Frightened” is riddled with the 1980’s gloss, but is able to hold a torch to some of the punk-inspirations that predate the record. With the catchy kick-snap of the percussion that works to incorporate a one-two step or the strings that are both flashy, though also hit low-tuned spelunking ventures. The overarching package of Magazine falls in line with The Correct Use Of Soap, shaping some organized chaos throughout the piece.
Later tracks like “You Never Knew Me” ditch the rapid succession and instead opt to subtly shift through the crowd in a dancehall number, gleaming with synths and glimmering vocalization. Magazine who is made up of Howard Devoto on the vocals, John McGeoch on the guitar, and Barry Adamson on the bass. Alongside comes Dave Formula on the keys and then finally John Doyle on the drums. While The Correct Use Of Soap is not going to shatter any backboards with flash or powerhouse production, the record is sufficient enough to form 14 tracks over 52 minutes. The remaster is more clear, creating a remix of sound that can strike through the speakers and detail that was once flicked over.
One of the more strange tracks comes on “The Book” where spoken word and atmospheric works are the main way of description until the segue where “Upside Down” jumps into frame and escapes this personal hellhole. The track is a strange outlier 
for The Correct Use Of Soap as it cuts into the action and brings the record to a dead stop. While not entirely unable to be enjoyed, it just suddenly feels like an introduction to a whole other record without the gentle build-up.
The final moments of The Correct Use Of Soap involve “Upside Down” and “The Light Pours Out Of Me” which are both fairly uppity tracks that bounce alongside rather than create brakes upon the record. The delivery on “Upside Down” especially is built for movement and performs with fresh, almost crisp turns that make the track easy to digest for the listener.
When the record finally hits the endpoint, however, The Correct Use Of Soap is a fairly diverse record that is surprisingly engaging even 40 years later. As the dials continue to turn and Magazine becomes a passed medium, they can live in the pages of history for their approachability to sound.
Listen To The Correct Use Of Soap Here!!! – Spotify/Amazon/iTunes
STREAMING // (Album) Freshie – “Ready Or Not”
Listen Here – Soundcloud/Spotify/Amazon
Featuring: ZELLYOCHO
Track List: Karma, Dont Wanna Be Right / Moon Light, Be Alone, The Old Me, Phone Ring, DIRT, Lets Do It, Billion, Toxic, Whole Other, Mad At Me
STREAMING // (Video) Code Orange – “Under The Skin”
Listen/Watch Here – Twitch
Track List: Bleeding In The Blur, Who I Am, Autumn + Carbine, Ugly, Only One, Down In A Whole, Dreams 1 + 2, Sulfur Surrounding, Under The Skin, Hurt3
Misc. Day – Stygian Dusk
Deserts can be one of the most inspiring pieces of biomes that inhabit not just sprawling landscapes with areas shaped by years of erosion, but the desolation factor is at times, unbearable. Holy Death channels this unsustainable environment, molding much of the Mojave into M M X I X through four tracks and 23 minutes.
While never fully compiling as one complex machine, Holy Death instead can springboard from the systematic bass and low-tuned guitar where the percussive elements become backing crashes of sound. Even on the opening track “M M X I X” that is more of a tension-building pour-over, Holy Death here is straight-forward and prefers vanquish to be a theme over charcoal easels.
The transition that “M M X I X” has into “Guillotine Baptism” is fairly sudden and warps the pulsing instrumentation to become something much more sinister with each step. The record as M M X I X is shortened for a doom metal record, but packs this want to be revisited for its almost clean-cut harshness that is frank and does not develop much of a break in style till the final moments of the album. But through the slick string work and 
somewhat jazz-infused riffs on “Guillotine Baptism,” Holy Death burns and etches jam sessions onto wax.
Where the construction is more about the build-up and foundation before the final product, M M X I X is a shining example of how doom can be quite inviting at times. The piece of “Dream Reaper” is so closely related to the surge of desert heat and a sluggish demise under the sun’s ray. Then about two minutes later, the track erupts as swells of noise and backing static engulf the listener and become daunting. The method changes frequently which to Holy Death’s effort and benefit, is a foreseeable return for the record.
As M M X I X begins to shut the parlor doors, the theme of solitude within one’s self is present continuously. The mind begins to play tricks on itself, forming an untrustworthy bond to burnt extinction, withering away under warmth.
Listen To M M X I X Here!!! – BandCamp/Spotify/Amazon/iTunes
STREAMING // (Video) Rejjie Snow – “Cookie Chips”
Listen/Watch Here – Youtube
Featuring: MF DOOM + Cam O’bi
Directed + Edited: Machine Operated
Producer: Nat Baring
DP: Harry Wheeler
Production Designer: Jabez Bartlett
Art Department Assistants: Ellen Wilson + Harry Beedle
Stylist: Calvin How
Steadicam Operator: Jake Whitehouse
1st AD: Joe Jones
1st AC: Mike Linforth
2nd AC: Saskia Dixie
Production Manager: Ana Castellar
Colorist: Luke Morrison at ETC
Color Producer: Oliver Whitworth at ETC Production
Assistants: Toby Baring, Fynn Baring, Cassian Taylor, Ben Harris
Production Company: Back That
STREAMING // (Video) JPEGMAFIA – “ROUGH 7”
Listen/Watch Here – Youtube
Featuring: Tommy Genesis
Directed By: Peggy
Shot By: Unholy-Chan, Peggy + Tommy
STREAMING // (Video) Marilyn Manson – “We Are Chaos”
Listen/Watch Here – Youtube
Directed, Photographed + Edited By: Matt Mahurin
Out On Loma Vista Records
STREAMING // (Video) Smokepurpp – “Ends”
Listen/Watch Here – Youtube
Featuring: Young Nudy
Directed by All The Smoke, Tyler Benz, Justin Staple, Albert Lago
Produced By: Cosmo Orlando
Edited By: All The Smoke
Director Of Photography: Sam Robinson
Make Up + Mask Art By: Missy Munster
Production Design By: All The Smoke
Casting + Model Styling By: April Rivera
1st Assistant Camera: Matt Smith
Gaffer: Chad McClellan
Key Grip: Elisee Laurenfant
Stylist: Grace Bukunmi
Color: Quinn Alvarez
PA: Phil Miller
Commissioned By: Albert Lago
THIS IS A LIST OF THE MOST RECENT STREAMS...
The complete list of all past streams can be accessed here as well
(Click Here)
MATT'S MUSIC MINE - MERCH FOR SALE
VIDEO REEL 2
LIVE PHOTOGRAPHY – JESUS PIECE AT BABY’S ALL RIGHT, DECEMBER 6TH, 2022
SUNDAY SAMPLER // (Playlist) “12/04/2022″
(Track) Jake Mason Trio – “Rib Eye”
(Video) Lightning Bolt – “Dead Cowboy @ TAICOCLUB 2014”
(Video) The Velvet Underground – “After Hours”
(Video) Mac Miller – “10 Years Of You”
(Video) A$AP Rocky – “Same Problems”
The complete list of all past streams can be accessed here as well
(Click Here)