Three Extreme Projects You May Have Missed Launch Into Exciting New Musical Territory

If you find your musical empowerment from the bizarre and extreme — you’ll probably find something here that you like.

Keep scrolling for everything from grinding harsh noise to somehow beautiful blackened screamo to wild otherworldly noise pop.

CHRISTWVRKS

Scotland’s Jamie Christ is the vocalist for the blackened mathcore (or something) band Sectioned — and has now got a new project called CHRISTWVRKS that delivers demanding, wild musical mayhem perfectly suited to those sick of waiting around for something exciting to happen. The project’s currently available debut single “Terminal Uniqueness” rockets through utterly extreme grinding, harsh noise soundscapes where danger consistently lurks on all sides. There’s a steady undercurrent of sludgy, slow and steadily building beat that’s absolutely drowned in harsh mania, although definitely still adding to the havoc.

This song doesn’t just feel like it packs the screams of those already in some kind of hell — it’s the menacing meltdown of a figure on their way there and determined to make it count. They sure as anything aren’t about to sink through the muck into the abyss without putting up a fight, and you can join right in with this wild track. Thanks to the endless convulsing going on within the bounds of this creation, the song packs a sense that nothing is sacred and it’s all up for grabs, which allows for some kind of darkly “empowering” new creation to come up. Through all the craze, there’s an almost surprisingly clear drive that opens up a path for the elements to come crashing down with a thud.

The project’s got a full-length album coming on October 11 along with a host of other material like art available from the “Terminal Uniqueness” video, which you can check out below.

A Tiny Spider

The Massachusetts band A Tiny Spider’s currently available material feels absolutely stunning. Within the space of at least comparatively “short” heavy songs, they’ve packed an exhilarating range from ethereal beauty to the grim gravity of stomping through “blood soaked mud,” like shows up in the lyrics to their summer 2017 release Sub Lumina at one point. You might say that they play a sort of blackened screamo, and the band themselves have described their sound as what would happen if Deafheaven had to make their songs shorter — which is pretty on point. The vocals feel taken right from some generally black metal-feeling project like Deafheaven or something harsher, but the music is packed with atmospheric sweeps of heaviness that are focused like a drill into the soul.

These songs ultimately just drip with emotion, like the musical encapsulation of stumbling upon some long forgotten garden in some gothic feeling property someplace in the norther regions that while seemingly empty, has clearly been occupied and might even be now. Considering the band are actually from Massachusetts, the frigid but occupied feel they carry in their music seems definitely on point as well. These elements coming together truly culminate in an elevating experience — while their might not be psychedelics in here, it’s an emotional out of body experience, pushing into the mental rooms we might have otherwise been keeping locked away.

Check out the experience:

White Petals

The apparently Virginia-based project White Petals play a unique form of “noisy pop,” which feels like much more of its truly own thing than either one of those descriptors might suggest. As their 2018 release Continual Ritual gets underway, they deliver a steady but irregular drum beat right alongside somewhat otherworldly electronic touches that come together in some kind of space adventure possible from wherever you happen to be listening in. While they’re “bizarre,” they keep their musical prowess going and stay on course, with their sometimes intense beats providing a welcome sort of framework for the adventure.

While they’ve embarked into this new sonic territory, unifying some of the essence behind each of those artistic trends, they’ve kept their music truly quite interesting and accessible to the curious listener, which feels like a cherry on top of sorts. You can come along for this ride through these bizarre machinations of time, space, and ourselves — and in fact, you’re invited. In delivering their noisy experimentation in this accessible package, White Petals seem like in the very existence of their music itself they’ve encapsulated a sense of alienation from self and whatever “others” happen to be surrounding. Their music feels like a portrait of isolated human condition in 2019 — and even if it’s not entirely pretty, isn’t it useful to know what we actually look like?

Behold the music: