#Creator-Destructor Records

[slrmagazine]

DARKNESS EVERYWHERE Drops “The Architect Of Misery” Video/Single Featuring Light This City’s Laura Nichol

DARKNESS EVERYWHERE Drops “The Architect Of Misery” Video/Single Featuring Light This City’s Laura Nichol. #darknesseverywhere @DEMELODEATH

To Conquer Eternal Damnation LP Nears May 10th Release On Creator-Destructor Records Oakland, California-based melodic death metal outfit DARKNESS EVERYWHERE presents the second single from their debut album, To Conquer Eternal Damnation, nearing release in May via Creator-Destructor Records. The new song and its corresponding video, “The Architect Of Misery,” features guest vocals from Laura…

[toxicmetalzine]

RECIDIVIST

RECIDIVIST: Madness Malformed, The Debut LP From Salt Lake City Death Metal/Hardcore Quintet, Out Today On Creator-Destructor Records! Get the details right here: https://toxicmetalzine.com/post/recidivis

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 11, Number 1

Jessica Pavone

Look at us embarking on another year. So much in flux, so much anxiety, and yet the flood of music continues, album after album after album (even though the album is dead, it’s doing okay). So let’s get on with it, listening and thinking and writing about the ones that catch our fantasy, and you all out there can get on with listening and reading about it and, for a lot of you, making it, too.

This time around we scratch the usual itches for death metal and improvised jazz, electronic experiments and hip hop mainstays. We’re happy to be here, and hope to continue—bear with us for another year, won’t you? Contributors included Jonathan Shaw, Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly and Ray Garraty.

Blazing Tomb — Singles from the Tomb (Creator-Destructor)

Twelve minutes of thrashy OSDM, Singles from the Tomb is a rollicking good time — if you’re looking for heavy riffage, up tempo grooves and volume that presses its knuckles right into your forehead. Nuthin’ fancy but hugely engaging, if a little presumptuous given the industry’s sense for the single. Used to be that labels bet on songs, as money makers and as marketing tools. But the idea of the single depended on a lot of context: the rest of the record from which the single was selected; the network of broadcast signals and stations, which wove together a system in which the idea of the “hit single” was measurable. The industry is in a very different configuration now. Does Blazing Tomb care about that history, and death metal’s tenuous position in it? Did a death metal band ever have anything like a hit single? Are these even the right questions to ask? The Richmond-based band provides “Tortured Minds” as a sort of response. It’s a banger, in heavy rotation in your humble reviewer’s digital playlist. It’s meaty and moldy enough to saturate the mp3 with something like the presence of the tomb. The single might be dead, but these songs lift the lid on the crypt.

Jonathan Shaw

The Brunt — Near Mint Minus (Aerophonic)

The name of this album might imply a vinyl quality rating, but this album will never rest in a crate-digger’s hands, since it’s only available as a download. Like so many 21st century manifestations, it requires you to either kvetch in vain about things taken away by time (in this case, the album’s essential thing-ness) or count your blessings. The latter option is easier on one’s blood pressure and not that hard to do, since this Chicago-based free music quartet’s debut is a rewarding listen. There’s the alternately jousting and supportive interaction of saxophonists Dave Rempis and Gerrit Hatcher, who share a determination to make heavy lifting an act of grace. But equally rewarding is the rhythm team of double bassist Kent Kessler, who has been an essential member of the Chicago scene since the days when Hal Russell helmed the NRG Ensemble, and drummer Bill Harris, whose maxi-informed drumming firmly situates the action in the anything’s possible musical milieu.

Bill Meyer

Faithxtractor — Loathing & the Noose (Redefining Darkness)

An appealing set of gonzo death metal tunes, this curiously titled LP (what’s with the ampersand? wouldn’t a simple “and” do the trick?) from Faithxtractor flirts with melodeath and blackened textures. But mostly it slashes and growls with abandon, packing more riffs in per tune than most other outfits manage across whole albums. Ash Thomas, who plays almost all the instruments and gamely gurgles and howls, is in particularly fine form, soloing with demented energy and having a palpably grand time tearing sound into meaty gobbets. The pleasure is infectious, an entertaining counterpoint to the bummed-out vibe of many of the tracks’ titles: “Noose of Being,” “Ethos Moribund,” “Flooded Tombs” and so on. For a band that sees so much hopeless darkness, they sure are having fun.

Jonathan Shaw

T. Gowdy — Trill Scan (Constellation)

The Canadian experimental artist T. Gowdy got his musical start with the American Boys Choir in Princeton, and his love of medieval and choral music comes through in this 11 track meditation on alchemy. Trill Scan melds twitchy, hyper modern electronic elements with haunting flights of sung melody. “Strewn” conjures the mystery of monk chant in ancient abbeys, then interjects a blippy, synthetic motif. In “Novus Lumen,” vocals murmur and sigh, as altered guitar patterns circle and repeat. Some of these songs are pure skitter and glitch, as in the hammering, percussive “Flit” or the architectures of polyrhythms that define “Arislei Bone.” But the two “Anonymous” cuts, IV and V, juxtapose ethereal, god-scented plainsong with the antic play of synth beats, a kind of alchemy all its own.

Jennifer Kelly

The Loft — Everything Changes Everything Stays the Same (Tapete)

Pete Astor’s the Loft was part of Creation Records’ roster in the 1980s, and he’s also recorded as the Weather Prophets and the Wisdom of Harry. He’d been mostly out of sight until the dawn of the current decade, however, when he released the marvelous Time on Earth (“applies the sounds of romantic, rain-on-windows, C86 pop to late middle-aged subject matter and by doing so achieves an unlikely grace,” said Dusted). Two years later, Tall Stories and New Religions reinterpreted songs from Astor’s multi-decade catalogue, and it, too, was very fine. Cut to 2024 and The Loft has reformed, returning with 10 jolts of clever bittersweet-ness, power pop but ruminative about it and touched with a certain amount of sadness. Boisterous, 1960s fuzz garage leaning “Dr. Clarke” is the single; it could pass for a long-lost cut from the Minus Five. But I like the yearning ones the best. Gorgeous, elegiac “Greensward Days” abuts on the Clientele’s wistful patch of baroque pop, while the languid “Killer” gestures gracefully at bands like the Blue Nile. An unexpected new chapter for a life in pop.

Jennifer Kelly

Roc Marciano / The Alchemist – The Skeleton Key (Pimpire Records)

Released in December, The Skeleton Key was meant to make a lot of EOTYs. But it didn’t happen and not because it was too late. The Skeleton Key is probably the least memorable of Roc Marciano’s tapes. None of it works as songs, and apart from a few lines and a couple of phrases nothing sticks in mind even after a dozen of listens. Marci stopped working on his music as he used to, and instead of songs we get this underbaked poetry, sadly, over even more underbaked production by The Alchemist. Marci and Al the Chemist get too comfy with each other here, and the result is a dud.

Ray Garraty

Jessica Pavone — What Happens Has Become Now (Relative Pitch)

What Happens Has Become Now is Jessica Pavone’s fifth album of solo viola music, and it shares several characteristics with its predecessors. It’s short (most of Pavone’s solo albums hover around the half-hour mark) and its pieces prioritize certain musical elements — long tones, physical vibration, repetition — which are arranged with enough freedom to satisfy both an improviser’s impulse to push past the known and a composer’s desire for organization and control. Two of the album’s four tracks are acoustic, and each is a finds a way to make you hear how wood feels and sense vibrations in your own palms and torso. A third piece for viola and pedals is straight-up noise that induces a different sensation; via sound alone it induces the feeling of being in a black and white movie, on a train, putting your head out the window and getting a blast of dry sand and dust in your face. And on a fourth Pavone also swaps her own instrument for an invented one, Ken Butler’s Sword viola, which yields distant pitches that seethe and sputter.

Bill Meyer

Silvan Schmid / Tom Wheatley / Eddie Prévost—The Wandering One: High Laver Levitations Volume 2 (Matchless)

Given the predominantly analytic tone of improviser, author and drummer Eddie Prévost’s writing, High Laver Levitations imparts an intention that one might more readily to William Parker — that the power of the music will defy gravity. But if you listen, you are likely to concede that the claim is not mere hubris. Prévost’s light touch and acute responsiveness results in music that at some points is lighter than air, but it also generates an energy combustible enough to bring about some updrafts. Joining him in the All Hallows Church in High Laver, Essex are Swiss trumpeter Sylvan Schmid and English bassist Tom Wheatley. The former’s smudges and smears give the music body and the latter’s near-subliminal rumbles a sparse but sturdy mobile structure. The recording, by noted soundtrack producer Daniel Blumberg, nicely captures the church’s clear but generous acoustic. Lift off achieved!

Bill Meyer

Vazesh — Tapestry (Earshift)

Vazesh is trio from Sydney, Australia. Hamed Sadeghi plays tar, a Persian stringed instrument whose quick decay makes it sound a lot like a banjo. Jeremy Rose plays bass clarinet and saxophones (in this setting mainly soprano). And Lloyd Swanton, best known outside of Australia as one-third of the Necks, plays double bass. Like the Necks, they improvise collectively, but there the similarities end. Sadeghi’s melodic sense is steeped in Persian traditions, and Rose takes his cues from Sadeghi. Swanton’s contributions are more overtly contrapuntal in the Necks, particularly during the passages where he plays arco. Despite the album being divided into 14 tracks, it’s one continuous performance, whose evolving, narrative quality lives up to the album’s title. During the best moments, the trio combines exploratory impulses with a capacity to project an array of emotions. The one caveat is that when Rose waxes melodic on saxophone, there’s a little too much sugar and butter in his tone.

Bill Meyer

[dnalounge]

♬️ Just announced: Sun Jun 15, 7:30pm: INTERCEPTOR https://www.dnalounge.com/calendar/2025/06-15d.html?utm_source=sp_tu #dnalounge #interceptor #doomsday #trencher #cobweb #metal #thrash #livemusic #concert #sanfrancisco Interceptor: Metal, Thrash! Interceptor is the fastest growing old school, true heavy metal band in the U.S.! Smashing together the sounds of new wave of British heavy metal, speed metal, old school power metal, and southern rock, Interceptor will send a shockwave across any crowd they face. Doomsday - Bay Area riff city bad boys on Creator-Destructor Records. A blend of dive bombs, Bay Area hardcore, thrash, and high energy performances.

[happymetalgeek]

NEWS: Brutal Death Metal/Hardcore Outfit IRON FRONT Release "Show Of Force" EP On Creator-Destructor Records

Creator-Destructor Records today unloads the merciless new Show Of Force EP from Oakland, California-based IRON FRONT. Inspired by brutal old-school death metal and NYHC/East Coast hardcore, IRON FRONT was formed in 2016 – originally as Dire Wolves until 2019 – and has since performed live across the greater Bay Area and toured across the Western US. Following several demos and singles, an EP on…

[digitaltourbus]

Snuffed On Sight (Maggot Stomp Records/Creator-Destructor Records) shows you around the van that they tour in! Watch the video at https://bit.ly/3Z8GWTR

[infraredmag]

BARBAROUS: California Death Metal Crew Joins Creator-Destructor Records; Demo Streaming, Cassette Available + Debut LP In The Works For 2025 Release

photos by Jun Aoki Creator-Destructor welcomes California death metal crew BARBAROUS to the label’s roster, issuing a cassette version of the band’s demo and locking the band in for the release of their debut LP next year. Based in Oakland, BARBAROUS is influenced by the likes of Cannibal Corpse, Skeletal Remains, Necrot, and Gatecreeper, the band hit the ground running since coming onto the…

[oneshotsideshow]

Taking it Back - Episode #14

From the Vault: Episode #14 of the Taking the Lead Media Podcast. Original release date: 02/2010 (It could have been 02/05/2011).

I was about 6 months into doing this podcast and having all sorts of fun. Myspace was still a place I did all my correspondence through. I got in touch with every single one of these bands through Myspace with the excepetion of Unit 101, I think I got Jason Miller's blessing to play this track, who would eventually be a guest (yay!) on my podcast 10 years later :D. I got in touch with Chris while he was doing Lands on Fire and got a copy of the Mr. Orange Undercover track from him. I heard Anchors on Myspace, they're from Australia and just fell in love right away. That album, Bad Juju, would later be re-released through Creator-Destructor Records here in the states. She Likes Todd was a band from Chicago that played really great punk-pop, members went on to form Set Fire to Reason. Tear the Place Apart! was a band from Spokane, Wa, and I think they may have been playing with a band from Portland, I saw them on the same bill and decided to look them up. Enjoy the episode!

On this episode: 

Anchors - Ill Glory (Bad Juju) [0:54]

Unit 101 - Cartoon (abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz) [3:25]

Tear the Place Apart! - Messages in Bottles (Live Together or Die Alone) [6:01]

She Likes Todd - Too Poor to Pay Attention (A Story Still Untold) [7:16]

Mr. Orange Undercover - Is This What You Came For? (single) [11:55]

SOCIAL MEDIA

Website: www.takingtheleadmedia.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ttlmpodcast

Tumblr: https://oneshotsideshow.tumblr.com

YouTube: Taking the Lead Media

Instagram: https://instagram.com/takingtheleadmedia

Check out this episode!

[jaybe11]

Gypsyhawk - "GYPSYHAWK" Creator-Destructor Records

[ghostcultmagazine]

Check out our preview of the new metal and rock releases coming out this week for New Music Friday, 1476 – In Exile (Prophecy Productions) Albert Bouchard – Imaginos III – Mutant Reformation (Deko Records) All For Metal – Legends (AFM Records) Blackbraid – Blackbraid II (Self-Released) Blackscape – Suffocated By The Sun (Massacre Records) Blessed Black – Seasons: Vol. 1 EP (Self-Released) Bloodbound – Tales From The North (AFM Records) Butcher Babies – Eye For An Eye &…Til The World’s Blind (Century Media Records) Degreed – Public Address (Frontiers srl) Demolizer – Post Necrotic Human (Mighty Music) Emma Ruth Rundle – Engine Of Hell – Live At Roadburn 2022 (Self-Released) Eternity – Mundicide (Soulseller Records) Fen – Monuments To Absence (Prophecy Productions) Feuerchwanz – Fegefeuer (Napalm Records) Gutslit – Carnal (Self-Released) Hatebreed – The Rise Of Brutality/Supremacy Re-Release (Dissonance Records) Hazing Over – Tunnel Vision EP (1126 Records) Jaodae – Nest Of Veins (Black Throne) Kikimora – For A Broken Dime (Frontiers srl) A Life Divided – Down The Spiral Of A Soul (AFM Records) Metide – Erebos (Black Lion Records) Nita Strauss – The Call Of The Void (Sumerian Records) Putridity – Greedy Gory Gluttony EP (Willowtip Records) Serpent Corpse – Blood Sabbath (Temple Of Mystery) Snuffed On Sight – Smoke (Creator-Destructor) Temple Of Void – The First Ten (Chaos Records) Will Haven – VII (MinusHead Records) Withering Scorn – Prophets Of Demise (Frontiers srl) Yawning Balch – Volume One (Heavy Psych Sounds) The Usual Suspects: 🎤 Micaela Superstar ⁠https://www.instagram.com/micaeladeadeyes/⁠ 💻 Omar Cordy ⁠https://www.instagram.com/ojcpics⁠ 🎵 Fahad Syed ⁠https://ift.tt/EndGbDu

[toxicmetalzine]

Blazing Tomb

BLAZING TOMB - Singles From The Tomb Promo From Earsplit PR And Creator-Destructor Records! Get the details right here: https://toxicmetalzine.com/post/blazing-tomb-singles-from-the-tomb-promo-from-earsplit-pr-and-creator-destructor-records

[m3t4ln3rd]

Slowbleed signs with Creator-Destructor; debut video for new song "The Law (Atonement Through Blood)" feat. Taylor Young

Photo by: Gabe Becerra Official press release: Creator-Destructor Records announces the signing of Ventura County, California hardcore/metal quintet, Slowbleed. Slowbleed is a band formed with a goal of achieving unrelenting extremity, bridging brutality and technicality within their blend of hardcore aggression and death metal precision. Born, bred, and raised on the bands of the Nardcore…

[bogatzke]

A WILHELM SCREAM | lose your delusion

LP on Electric Blue Vinyl

Creator Destructor Records, 2022

[saltymiraculer]

Dragon’s Wrath (pt. 2)

Previous // Next

Marinette was fucking furious. Adrien was trying to guilt-trip her into revealing her identity, the bastard. He might not know it, but the words he was saying? They objectified her.

“I deserve something nice, don’t I?” Like she was just a thing. And his last sentence? That was just wrong on so many levels.

And Ladybug? Ladybug was just done. She slipped open her yo-yo and hid it behind her back, secretly pressing the “record” button.

“What if I said yes? What would you do then?” she asked tentatively, careful to speak loud enough for her yo-yo to pick up.

“Well, I’d make out with you! You’d be my girlfriend after all.” Adrien/Chat Noir said jovially. Ladybug felt a sort of clawing inside her chest, like there was a monster raring to escape.

“Would you ask first?” Ladybug asked, praying for the right answer. Please, please, pleasepleaseplease–

“Why would I? You’d be my girlfriend, like I said.” 

Just like that, Marinette’s heart shattered into millions of little shards, each more melancholy than the last.

“What do you mean? Just because I would be your girlfriend means you could do whatever you wanted?”

“Well...yeah, that’s how it is on TV.” The Marinette in her raged, but the Ladybug sighed sadly. That ring was going to have to come off. She was going to have to trick her partner.

“I accept, Adrien.” she murmured, swinging her hips a little more than usual as she pressed herself against Chat Noir.

“Do you accept?” Marinette asked suddenly, one finger lazily tracing along his collarbone.

“Accept what, Bugaboo?”

“That you have failed at being a hero.” she said icily, yanking the ring off of his finger and swinging away (and simultaneously finishing the recording) on her yo-yo before he could react. She landed on her balcony and transformed back as she slid down the banister of her stairs, letting Tikki float around her head worriedly.

“I’m so sorry, Marinette,” she muttered, watching her beautiful, smart, amazing Ladybug break down in tears.

Because of a mangy alley cat.

Oh boy, she was going to have more than a few words with Plagg when she could get her kwami-paws on that ring.

“Marinette!” A voice screamed from downstairs. Tikki zipped behind a bookcase. Marinette’s trapdoor slammed open, revealing a very angry-looking Sabine. “Get down here now.”

Marinette wiped away her tears and climbed down the stairs. “Yes, maman?” she asked timidly.

“We got an email from the school,” Sabine seethed. “would you like to hear what it said?” Marinette nodded uncertainly. What had she done this time? Sabine whipped out her phone and recited: “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Dupain-Cheng, we would like to inform you that your daughter, Marinette Dupain-Cheng has been suspended for two weeks due to merciless bullying of student Delilah Rossi, including but not limited to injuring, threatening, slandering, and going so far as to tell Miss Rossi to commit suicide. That is all.”

Marinette blanched. She hadn’t done any of that! And she was suspended for two weeks because of it? The school hadn’t even told her!

She ran back up the stairs and flung herself onto her bed, dissolving into tears.

Tikki was boiling mad. She would totally beat the poop–excuse her bad language–out of the scum excuse of a Chat Noir if she could.

She could still distinctly hear Marinette’s sobs over the figure skating tournament she was watching, but it pained her that there would be any sobs at all. Something else that pained her was writer’s block, which was–sorry, off-topic.

Alas, until Marinette’s emotions were back under control, the ring, as well as Plagg, were out of her grasp. But maybe not? Tikki floated over to Marinette, quiet as a Multimouse, and gently prodded her forearm. Marinette’s tearstained face glanced up at her, somehow melancholy and angered at the same time. “Marinette,” Tikki whispered. “you’ll be alright. We’ll find a new Chat Noir. It'll be alright.”

Marinette shook her head sadly. “It can’t be that simple, Tikki. Master Fu told me that Adrien was the only Destruction soul in France, and he was only a partial Destructor!”

“But Marinette, that’s just not true!” Tikki wailed, starting to tear up. “You have a Destruction soul. You have a Creation soul. You’re both!”

“Tikki, I’m not!” Marinette protested. “I’m just a dumb baker’s daughter who can’t do anything right. I’m clumsy, and I could barely talk to Adrien for two years, and I don’t even have any friends, Tikki! Maybe...maybe you’d be better off without me.”

“Marinette...”

“Maybe Lila was right. Maybe I should just go die.”

“But...”

“Just go, Tikki. You and Plagg can find someone better.” Marinette said bitterly, turning away from Tikki.

“No! I won’t do it, Marinette! You’re the only pure Creation soul in all of Europe! You’re perfect.” Tears were spilling out of Tikki’s eyes at this point. Marinette had to understand, she had to push through!

“I failed, Tikki.” was the last she heard from Marinette before being trapped once again inside the earrings.

Have you ever felt...stuck? Like there’s so much you want to do, and say, and feel, but you can’t? That was exactly what Tikki was feeling as Ladybug’s cold presence cut through the clear Paris evening.

She could hear and see everything Marinette was doing. Hear her heart pounding with every toss of the yo-yo. See the Eiffel Tower growing increasingly closer as Marinette swung forwards.

Feel the fear and pain as her beautiful Creator climbed to the top of Paris’s most famous monument.

And again, the last thing she heard before feeling the air like knives on Marinette’s face was “I failed, Tikki.”

But Marinette hadn’t failed.

Tikki had.

She prepared for the blow, ready to use the last of her stored power to revive Marinette, when...nothing happened. Someone was holding Ladybug back. Tikki couldn’t turn around–you know–being an earring and all, but Marinette did, to see a curly-haired woman pulling her arms back with the assistance of everyone else on the platform. They all had tears in their eyes, and they all seemed to have the same air of alliance.

“Don’t do it, Ladybug.” the woman pleaded. “We need you.”

“We love you, Ladybug!”

“You’re our hero, Ladybug!”

“Please, Ladybug!” they all yelled until Marinette turned around. “Why?” she asked. “Why do you love me? Why am I your hero?”

That seemed to throw the crowd. “Well...because even though the Louvre gets melted every other day and hundreds of people get killed, you still make us all feel happy. You always help us after we’re de-akumatized, with positive words and a smile.” the curly-haired woman said, to the agreement of everyone on the platform.

“But what if behind that smile is the fear of letting you down?” Marinette asked. “What if behind those positive words are all the negative ones people give to me?”

“We’ll still love you.”

“Yeah!”

“You’re amazing, Ladybug.” the curly-haired woman said tearfully. “You deal with all of that and you still save the city every day. You’re an inspiration to us all, Ladybug.” Tikki would cry if she wasn’t a piece of magical jewelry attached to a teenager’s ear. Marinette already was. Tikki vaguely wondered whether Marinette would go back home after this–assuming she would make it out of this.

That gosh dang alley cat.

@elmokingkong

[infraredmag]

RECIDIVIST: Madness Malformed, The Debut LP From Salt Lake City Death Metal/Hardcore Quintet, Out Today On Creator-Destructor Records

photos by Conner Morris Madness Malformed, the debut LP from Salt Lake City-based death metal/metallic hardcore outfit RECIDIVIST, is out today and streaming everywhere through Creator-Destructor Records. RECIDIVIST embodies vocalist Zachary Williams, bassist Conner Smith, drummer Alex Humphries, and guitarists Andrew Margetts and Matt Wiliams. Together, they take the shape of death metal’s…