Hematovore - Untitled

Tha Dirty Souf\'s instru-metal guitarmy! Hailing from the deepest, darkest jungles of the 'Bama Bible Belt, this 3-guitar slinging quintet breathes a vibrant breath of fresh air through the realm of instrumental metal, bridging the gaps between numerous musical subgenres while rocking the collective panty to the collective ankle. Leaving no musical stone unturned, their imaginative arrangements are densely packed with ideas...an encyclopedia of riffs ranging from the intricately complex to the irresistibly anthemic. Startlingly catchy but never coming off soft, Hematovore turns even the most jaded music fans\' heads--whether they\'re sporting corpse paint, white belts, mohawks, or nerd glasses. Metalheads, hardcore purists, punks, and indie rockers alike--Hematovore invites them all to the table, pats them on the back...and destroys them. Artwork by Aaron Turner (Hydra Head / ISIS / Old Man Gloom) and mastered by John Golden (Neurosis / Craw / Sonic Youth). ---------- Guitar Player Magazine - April 2006 By Darrin Fox Whether it\'s Molly Hatchet, Black Oak Arkansas, or the almighty Lynyrd Skynyrd, there must be something in the Southern water that spawns three-guitar bands. But even though they hail from the South-Auburn, Alabama to be exact-the tri-guitar attack of Hematovore will change your perception of Dixie-bred guitar faster than you can say, \'Jim Dandy to the rescue.\' The group\'s debut, Untitled [Acerbic Noise Development], is an instrumental metal tour de force that is equal parts lockstep thrash riffery and fist-pumping, anthemic power. \'We\'re used to the drunks in the audience yelling, \'C\'mon sing something,\' but, fortunately, that\'s happening less and less,\' explains guitarist Jamie Uertz. \'It\'s liberating to not have a vocalist define your sound. Besides, our music is simply a result of what we\'ve always wanted to hear other people do.\' \'Growing up, we listened to a ton of death metal,\' chimes in guitarist Rob Stewart, the man responsible for writing the bulk of Hematovore\'s sprawling, yet tuneful material. \'And that music\'s appeal is that it is constantly cool riff after cool riff. But without a singer, it\'s tough to not riff yourself into a corner. The guys in the band always ask, \'Where is this tune going?\' And more often than not I say, \'I don\'t know!\'\' Enter ex-Trust Company guitarist, James Fukai, Hematovore\'s third guitarist. \'I\'m good at structure,\' says Fukai, who, like Stewart and Uertz, plugs into a Mesa-Boogie Dual Rectifier. \'If there\'s an odd chord progression or a sprawling riff that needs to be reigned in, my job is to tie it all together and make it flow. I\'ll either trim the idea down, or add a melody over the top like sprinkles on a cupcake.\' \'James is a master arranger,\' says Stewart. \'He has the ability to hear when a riff should be a reoccurring motif, when we should move on and, say, change keys, or when we should just wrap the tune up all together. Being a three guitar band doesn\'t always mean each guy solos, or that there\'s a bunch of crazy three-part harmonies. We never even jam. The three of us simply enjoy writing together.\' ----------- Decibel Magazine CD review: Issue: April 2005 - No. 006 Hematovore - Untitled Acerbic Noise Development \'The instrumental boys of Alabama\' Bands in sleepy college towns usually conform to a model: get five or six guys together, learn a Bob Marley cover or two and a few \'60s classic rock tunes, top it all off with a 45-minute reggae version of Don McLean\'s \'American Pie,\' and wait for the chicks to start tunneling through your dorm\'s foundation. Given the rule breaking essence of Hematovore, it\'s a wonder they haven\'t been lynched. Untitled, the mathematically-inclined band\'s first release as well as it\'s label\'s, finds the Auburn, Alabama-based instrumental quintet exploring the cracks between Isis, King Crimson, and The Fucking Champs in such a resolutely ebullient way, they\'d probably get laid all the time if they weren\'t so obviously practicing. \'Witherspoon Pt. 2\' opens with a rolling pastoral interlude that hints at what Marshall Crenshaw might have been like had Ma Nature elected to make him a three-guitar precision metal band, morphs from crunchy poly-rhythms into a stuttering waltz, sashays back into Crenshaw country, and closes the thick canopy of stars on a river of honeyed sour mash. \'Earwigs (EWWW)\' finds the frothy scamps reversing the strategic polarity, starting with a slow quickie in the president of Auburn University\'s back seat and traversing a convoluted route that finds them burning guitar strings like bibles, finally thrashing their way to 11th base in a synchronized-melody line blaze of glory that makes Wishbone Ash seem like Wesley Willis. If Untitled had been playing when you were conceived, you\'d probably be quintuplets. -Decibel Magazine ---------- Crucial Blast Review: HEMATOVORE s/t CD Acerbic Noise Development Excellent instrumental metallic indie rock from freakin\' Auburn, Alabama that\'s heavy on monster major key hooks and mathy, genre hopping riffmash. Somewhere between the horizontal march and melodic highs of PELICAN, and the galloping, anthemic Indie Maiden heroics of THE CHAMPS, sits HEMATOVORE. One of the reasons why this self titled debut kicks so much ass is the excellent pacing of the album...the band strikes a perfect balance between crushing and catchy, juxtaposing angular metal freakouts,driving thrashy momentum,huge double-and-triple axe harmonies, and extremely slow and heavy metalcore parts with the softer indie rock/post-rock melodies, mellow acoustic breaks, and ridiculously catchy and exhilarating pop hooks and arena rock rapture...dig that crazy Journey/Boston-esque, fully 80\'s hard rock hook on \'Arachnophilia\' that\'s been lodged in our heads all week, right before it morphs into a floor-caving,right-angle chuggernaut. It seems like we\'ve been fawning over alot of instrumental heavy stuff lately for whatever reason, but this is just so good. If you at all into quality singer-free power crunch like Pelican, The Champs, Suzukiton, and Trephine, then this comes with our highest recommendation.Also features rayola-apocalyptic, Aaron Turner (ISIS) designed packaging. -------------- WREK Review Rating: 8.5/10 Recommended Tracks: Witherspoon Pt. 2, Blastin\' Through The Back Nine, One Unit, Whole Blood What pops in your head when you think of Auburn, Alabama? College football? Tractor pulls? Beered-up rednecks with their hairy guts spilling out of their overalls? Trailer parks? Inbreeding? All of the above? The phrase \'good metal music\' probably didn\'t pop in your head, but maybe a Deliverance-style banjo solo did. Hematovore is ready to change all that though and make you forget about everything else that sucks - they are easily the best thing to come out of Alabama since I-85, and definitely sound a lot better than the grunting, groaning and pig-calling you\'re likely to hear everywhere else in the state. Hematovore play a heavy, sludgy style of wordless instru-metal that, upon initially hearing it, sounds just like a Pelican clone. Indeed both bands are similar in that their two most recent albums feature no words and riffs so thick and fuzzy you can just feel the bong water dripping off of them, but where Hematovore differs is they venture all over the musical spectrum instead of staying in the slow, doomy Pelican atmosphere. Untitled features bits and pieces of furious thrash, prog-metal technical wizardry, long, drawn out spacey riffs, and a lot of other aural surprises. If you like Pelican but wish they were a little faster and heavier, say hello to Hematovore, your new favorite band. Let\'s go through some of what you\'ll hear on this album, as there truly is something for almost everyone on here. You like breakneck riffing and drumming that matches the pace? Check. Heavy hardcore-style groove-laden breakdowns? Check. Rock solid riffs that will have your head nodding like a narcoleptic with a bungie cord attached to their neck? Check. Trippy acoustic sonic dreamscapes? Check. Lyrics? Well... 4 out of 5 ain\'t bad. The best part is, literally every song features most if not all of these styles all within the same song, shifting effortlessly between genres and showcasing a level of songwriting rarely seen or heard from heavy metal bands. Another thing that is very refreshing about Hematovore is that the band refuses to take itself seriously. In the current metal scene full of trendy woe-is-me emo-puss metalcore where most songs are about how hard high school is or something or other, Hematovore is content to just let their music fly all over the place with no questions asked. Take the song (and clear album highlight) \'Blastin\' Through The Back Nine\' for example, which may just be metal\'s first ever song to incorporate golf sound effects. The band plows through thick heavy riffs and speedy doule-bass thrash work for about a minute, then everything comes to a complete stop, a second of silence, then a golf ball is heard being smacked off a tee, then back to the music. Some cool spaced-out riffing follows, then a repeat of the earlier thrash a few minutes later, only this time it\'s a golf ball dropping into a cup when everything stops. It\'s originality like this, which is on display all through the album, which makes this a not only memorable but fun listen. In fact, I almost passed on listening to this album because I read the goofy song titles on the back and thought it was some crappy indie-rock album, little did I know that it\'s all part of the Hematovore don\'t worry, be happy vibe. A few of the tracks here and there fall prey to overwinded experimentation (namely the two 8-minute plus songs, which both could have benefitted from having a few minutes trimmed off of each), but overall this is an excellent album that definitely deserves your attention if you\'re looking to stay ahead of the metal curve. This is the perfect album to spring on your non-metalhead friends since there\'s no cookie monster vocals to scare them away, just good, solid driving heaviness and quite a few monster riffs. Indeed, it\'s the rare kind of album which would sound at home not only in the Wrekage library but also WREK\'s daytime rock library as well. Here\'s hoping Hematovore helps lead the charge against the current metal mediocrity of the masses and puts Auburn, Alabama on the map for some other reason than being the armpit of the country. - Greg - WREK, Atlanta --------------.

1) Witherspoon Pt. 2
2) Blasting Through the Back Nine
3) Arachnophilia
4) Blue Darner
5) Blue Darner : Coda
6) Kamacuras and Spiega
7) One Unit Whole Blood
8) Earwigs (Ewww!)