STAMPIN’ GROUND “Carved In Stone”
Wow, this is some sick, extremely heavy metalcore from the UK in the vein of SLAYER and HATEBREED joining forces. It’s not straight-up speedmetal or anything like that, but it’s amped up to 11 and the mosh parts are totally insane. The English accent is kinda cool, but a bit weird with some of the growling going on – definitely different from the standard American fare. These guys have been bustin’ heads for quite a while, and I have an old split they did with one of my favorite bands, INDECISION, from a few years ago. The 10 songs on “Carved From Empty Words,” cover more than 40 minutes of music, mostly in that deep, kickbox your face off style – incredible double bass included. Lyrically, these guys are far, far from that tough guy image the music portrays, covering dark and serious topics such as religion (“Fundamental Truth,”) and societal brainwashing (“Officer Down,”) in eloquent but hard hitting manners. The production on “Carved From Empty Words,” is very strong and upfront, but fortunately, the sound engineer realized that this is a band that needs to have it’s power restrained somewhat in regards to preventing speaker blowout. STAMPIN GROUND are terribly underrated in the US, and I really think that can change if people just got the word out. File under MOSH.
Thorp/Chord
