Bone Fragments: "Blood Spatter Bone Scatter"

The gimmick is the worst, and the music is almost as terrible. Spoilers.

Through a career spanning eight years Bone Fragments from moonshine country Virginia have produced a few albums of black metal with the theme of... Clowns and carnivals. I could scarcely believe what my eyes beheld in the promo material; A bunch of youngsters in varying degrees of clown-like get up, synth-based metal melodies washing ashore somewhere in the borderland between eerily cheery and creeping melancholy. With an initial reaction something along the lines of "you have got to be kidding me", the circus was on.

Silent Carrion: "Suprematism EP I: Iupiter"

The project strays from its path but makes a slight return

Silent Carrion has always been progressive and boundary pushing. It's the bread and butter, the heart and soul of the project. An amalgam of trip hop, electronica, dark ambient, prog and trace amounts of a myriad of other components. Established upon the first release, Ruins, in 2010 in Northern Italy, 2013 welcomed the beginning of an EP-based trilogy starting with IUPITER, the first Suprematism EP to carry the project further.

Avulse: "We Are All Code"

The prime example why focus is important

Patrick Hasson from Maine, USA, has numerous releases under his belt, in no small part due to his vast musical horizons which reach from doomy death metal (Black Chalice - Years of Flame, Prayers for Our Lord and Saviour, Submission) over neo-folk to black metal atmospheres (Auspicium). The next in line of Hasson's many projects is Avulse, marketed as a crusty black metal outfit with a firm punk vibe.

Twilight Fauna & Filsufatia: "Fallen Leaves in a Tide of Sorrow"

As an international effort, this split shows that failure has no nationality

Though the black metal genre is rich in history, for better or worse, many amateur musicians now seek musical refuge in hugely simplified riffs hidden behind veils of distortion and ambience. These one-man "bedroom" bands are deservedly so notorious for being awful beyond comprehension.

Various Artists: "8-Way for Destroy the Music"

Living life on the edge of music

In many ways music has become progressively more aggressive over time. There will always be individuals who seek to push the boundaries, and others asking if we have finally hit rock bottom. With genres like powerviolence and grindcore is it even possible for music to be more extreme without seizing to be music? The bands featured on this split are certainly pushing the limit with their individual mixes of grindcore, noise and droning industrial. They call it noisecore, and the term says it all for this 8-band split album.