Happy Juneteenth! In honor of the holiday, for today only, Bandcamp are donating 100% of their share of all sales to the NAACP, the legendary American civil rights organization. With your purchase going to support a good cause, here’s a small sampling of artists that you can support this Juneteenth.
Suicide Cages
Suicide Cages are a metalcore band from Denver, Colorado.
They have a new album coming out June 30 called Cascading Failure. The first single is called “Fuck City,” and it’s currently streaming on their Bandcamp where you can also preorder the record on CD and vinyl.
“Fuck City” is a taught and disciplined song played by a band that are in perfect sync with each other. It has that classic metalcore muscle to it that makes it a big, metallic punch to the ear drums. Especially impressive is the drumming, which has to switch abruptly between tempos several times throughout a relatively short track and, to use an old cliché literally, never misses a beat.
Make sure to follow Suicide Cages on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for future updates.
Punho De Mahin
Punho de Mahin are a punk band from São Paulo, Brazil. Their Bandcamp explains of the project that it’s “A project highlighting a theme little discussed in the punk scene and underground in general: the black man in society.”
They recently released their first full album called Embate & Ancestralidade. While the album is in Portuguese, righteous anger is a universal language. It’s streaming right now on their Bandcamp.
Opening track “XINGÚ” opens with a blaze of punk anger and a fiery femme vocal performance. “ESTUPIDEZ” opens on a gorgeous walking bass line that gives way to a furious hardcore track that communicates its anger across language barriers. “RACISTAS” doesn’t particularly require translation either, and the rapid-fire drumming on the track is as powerful as anything you’ve heard in hardcore. The closing track, which is the title track for the whole band, starts off with an ominous guitar intro before delving into what is clearly a favorite for the band, as the gang vocals and the exuberant energy really sell this track.
You can follow Punho de Mahin on Facebook to keep up with future updates.
Many Blessings
Many Blessings is the experimental project from Ethan Lee McCarthy of Primitive Man and Vermin Womb, and he’s also from Denver, Colorado.
This project recently put out a new album called True Love and it’s currently streaming on the artist’s Bandcamp.
This is a really experimental project that even goes so far as to pushes the limits of what is and isn’t musical. First, “Intermezzo” starts the album with some vocal tracks over ambient sounds and music to really start setting the atmosphere for the rest of the album. The ambient sounds get fuzzier as the track goes on, until it starts to sound more distorted. Then “Tarred and Feathered” leans into that distortion a bit more by drowning the whole track in a heavy distortion that leaves a deep sense of foreboding. “Prayer for Destruction” creates a sort of cyclical distortion sound that swirls around while a haunting echo develops in the background to create something that borders on the gothic.
“Tears” is a bit more sparse, building the same sort of foreboding mood but doing so with more of an absence of sound rather than a bombardment of noise. Then “Pagliacci” takes that sparseness and slowly starts to fill the void with something terrifying as the sound becomes almost like the hum of an electronic instrument. The title track closes out the album with a similar electronic hum that creates a sense of calm after a very anxiety-provoking album, but that calm is short lived before the sound gets more bass-heavy and frightening. If you’re a fan of really out-there, experimental music, this is a really great project to check out.
Follow Many Blessings on Facebook for future updates.
This is just a small sampling of who you can support today for Juneteenth. Whoever you support, make sure you do it today when your support goes to help such an important organization.
Photo courtesy of Punho de Mahin
