Tuesday 5 April 2016

***.GIF FROM GOD album premiere***

exclusive album premiere

Members of CaustCage You Call A ChestKaoru Nagisa and Truman.

For fans of: Me And Him Call It Us, Caust, Norma Jean, Love Lost But Not Forgotten, Truman, Tetola93, Jeanne, Seventeen Again, Letters To Catalonia and Gas Up Yr Hearse!.


What is .gif from god? This is an amazing group from Richmond, Virginia that play a very heavy and abrasive style of screamy hardcore that is more like Norma Jean meets Me And Him Call It Us and Love Lost But Not Forgotten, so pretty much metalcore/emo-violence with grind/powerviolence, some massive breakdowns and lots of screamers. After jamming these 8 songs check the .gif from god bandcamp page here to hear/download their 2016 Tour Tape with two new songs. They've also got some plans for the near future which have me salivating.

When Christopher Morgan messaged me about being involved with their new band's release I was excited because Virginia has been putting out mad screamo/emo-violence as of late, but nothing could have prepared me for .gif from god. Seriously these 8 songs absolutely blew me the fuck away. Like holy shit, I'm still reeling nearly six months after the fact. Below I have done a brief synopsis of each song along with 3 embedded videos and a link to the full stream of the incredible '...defragmented...reformatted'. Hold on to your butts, cuz this shit will blow you the fuck away.


(1) "adios bozo, this time i'm downloading you straight to hell" begins with bleeping and booping until the 43-second mark, at which point you are presented with a perfect, quick and violent example of what .gif from god has in store for you.

(2) "self pwnage for a narcissistic nutjub" is a clusterfuck of ideas, tangents and eruptions (both big and small) that tie loosely together and are a completely devastating lot. As one of the longer tracks on the album (2:51, to be exact) there is more time for buildups and follow throughs that can pull the listener in while also catering to those who are distracted easily, as you don't have any time to breathe during its tenure.

(3) "rats" would probably be touted as the single because it's fucking awesome. Also probably because it showcases the surprisingly expansive spectrum of the band with spoken word and slow, screamy hardcore guitars that lead into very catchy clean vocal territory. At 1:15 the song explodes and the embers and debris make for a beautiful, incendiary show before they all return to the Earth with a catastrophic impact.

(4) "let's look at the plague" was the song I used on the Zegema Beach Records Zampler #6 and was also the first track sent to me by the band. It's unreal. In a mere 55 seconds .gif from god manage to tear the listener's head off for the first half and then implement one of the heaviest breakdowns I've ever heard. The song ends up sounding like a grindy version of Botch and Norma Jean.

(5) "physics problem: sucking nothing but vacuum" is another song under a minute that reeks of Me And Him Call It Us and has a comedic/amazing juxtaposition with yelled/growled vocals from 10-17 seconds. Oh, and fucking breakdowns.

(6) "technology will kill you 111111" is another of my favourites, perhaps because it reminds me of Seventeen Again. This onslaught takes a breather 28 seconds in and wavers like a dehydrated drunk in the desert until the songs conclusion, boasting excellent vocal interplay and placement.

(7) "empty grave, shallow mind, i'm still alive but my head is full of shit" is the second longest song on the record, clocking in at 3:53, with a myriad of styles, speeds and textures. The first half is mostly ambiance with screaming and right before two minutes in we are met with Love Lost But Not Forgotten-esque metalcore/grind that rides out the remaining two minutes.

(8) "maybe none of us understand what we have lived through"
Oh my lord, this is the closer from my fantasy. The slow and epic buildup rotates around a repeating riff that encroaches and then recedes cyclically, but the song always gets a little closer each time around. Eventually dual vocals are added to the mix and the riff picks up a little and the line I've repeated hundreds of times over the past few months makes its first appearance, "six feet under in the blink of an eye". I have yet to really attempt to get across how unbelievably good the screaming is in this album...and the time is now. The screaming is unbelievably good on this album. This screaming and the building instrumentals culminate at 2:17 with a wall of noise and another brief and surreal encounter with beautiful, raw and emotionally charged singing amidst the pummeling instrumentals and multiple screams. The song then fades into noise and thus closes one of the greatest debuts I've ever heard.

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