Incendiary - Product of New York (2026) Review

Compilations like this make a lot of sense. Surely, Incendiary fans waste no time hunting down copies of their main LPs, especially since band's considerable rise in fame after the release of Cost of Living (2013), but it's always more difficult to trace smaller-scale releases, or long-time sold out mini albums. So now, we get the chance to enjoy almost all the early material (debut EP, three split releases) in one neat package, freshly remastered by Will Putney (Fit for an Autopsy, End, Better Lovers), walking down memory lane and getting fists bloodier and bloodier as it goes. 

Tracks are then also smartly placed going for the most part backwards in time, starting from the split with Xibalba in 2012, and arriving to the Amongst the Filth 7" inch, released originally in 2007. After the opener, "Not Your Prophet", which is actually an unreleased song from the sessions of the band's latest album, Change the Way You Think About Pain (yet another reason to get on this), listening to this material made me hit my head in annoyance of how I had forgotten how awesome early Incendiary were. 

Who doesn't remember the band's rampant fury on the split with Suburban Scum, where both "Victory In Defeat" and "God's Country" are absolute demolishers. The whole debut EP is a favorite, especially the guitar's short sludge adventures on "Angels With Filthy Souls", while the breakdown on "Rome Is Burning" truly is unbelievable. What I had heard the least were the tracks from the split with Unrestrained, and I was unfamiliar with "Bond and Break" (another unreleased song..?). 

The aggression is clear on the album as lyrics, voice and guitars seem to strike with an honest moral insistence, nicely showcasing the blazing early days of one of the best modern hardcore bands worldwide. Product of New York closes with an incredible cover of "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys, a track you didn't know you needed in a crushing hardcore version. What a bass sound on that one. The grand city across the water so often promises, and now also delivers. One listens, and one feels implicated. These streets are the veins of Incendiary.

Release: March 23rd, 2026 | Closed Casket Activities
Rating: 4 out of 5 

Gulch - Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress (2020) Review

Half comic, half nightmare. At first glance, the pastel palette almost softens the scene: a fleshy figure pours a torrent of crimson liquid into a pit of spikes, where a distorted head waits to be submerged. But linger for more than a moment, and the playful tones turn sinister. Skulls grin mutely from below, architectural shapes rise like fragile monuments, and faceless bodies stand frozen in ritual. 

Several references can be observed: These bizarre juxtapositions (a faceless head in a fountain, skeletal masks at the bottom, distorted anatomy) strongly echo surrealism’s embrace of subconscious imagery. Its primitiveness, topped on bold colors and disproportionate figures, is reminiscent of outsider art, while its crude intensity touches upon neo-expressionism.

Wth its flattened perspective, bold color blocking and exaggerated anatomy, the style is deceptive naïve, yet the the depicted brutality undercuts any innocence. This tension puts the artwork at the crossroads of surrealism and brut art, where raw draftsmanship is the vehicle for psychological violence. The horror is not polished, instead it’s closer to George Condo’s or Jean Dubuffet’s grotesques rather than conventional metal aesthetics.

The ambiguity is what makes the piece striking. Is the liquid blood (or something more symbolic) rage, memory, spirit? The setup feels both ceremonial and absurd, a Boschian hell rewritten through a child’s hand.

Oh, and the album itself is great too.

Purposeless matter merge into a form that's true

Rating | 3.5 out of 5 [Great]

Cataract - Cataract (2008)

Country: Switzerland
Genre: Thrash / Death Metal / Metalcore
Label: Metal Blade Records
Website: Facebook / Myspace

Cataract were originally quite hardcorish, i dislike that genre a lot so i skip their first album, however, in their newer ones, they have some modern metal elements and their music has become quite cool, one can recognize their origins on this album too, but still they have improved to a better mix of genres. Metal Blade has done its job and they've gotten quite popular, i have my doubts on that, it should not discourage you to listen the album though.

Caliban - The Awakening (2007)

Country: Germany
Genre: Metalcore
Label: Roadrunner Records
Website: Facebook / Myspace

Even if i got into this band with "Say Hallo To Tragedy", i wanted to have an original of them and i found this one around. Caliban are in the family of the first thrash metal/core bands that lately evolved into the whole metalcore genre that every "good" metalhead hates today. Along with Darkest Hour, Shadows Fall, Lamb of God, Killswitch Engage and similar bands, they formed the modern sound of extreme music that keeps growing.

Don't get me wrong, i dont like their fans or their looks, i admire some bands and thats all. Here we have a solid Caliban release but not the best, it has its melodies, its clean vocals, its heavy parts, everything. You might dig into their latest two albums and their covers EP, if you like this one. I haven't listened to their early stuff that much.