New stuff from SycAmour and Winters Wish

I feel I have to star this off by quoting a movie called Mercury Rising.  "I'm so glad I missed the whole (djent) thing, so my (ears are) virgin territory for (punchy riffs and soaring melodies)". 

If you are unfamiliar with the recent wave of djent music, I can offer some insight on what the term implies.  Djent is a sub genre of metal built from fragments of metalcore, groove metal, and thrash.  It gets its name from the way it sounds, because the riffing sounds like the word djent.  It mostly earns a negative connotation these days amongst fans of extreme metal music due to how popular it became a few years ago where bands began to copy each other.  It seems that the basic template is the early work of Meshuggah.  This style of music is pounding, groovy metal music with both extreme and melodic vocals.  Michigan's SycAmour does not list Meshuggah as an influence, but you can hear it in their music.  This is heavy music with low, growling vocals during the verses, and uplifting clean vocals for the chorus.  I never was a fan of djent or anything related to it, but I am a huge fan of both Textures and Gojira, which take the Meshuggah sound and adapt it to their own philosophy on heavy music, therefore earning them a sound all their own.  I'm not willing to say yet whether SycAmour has their own style nailed down, but what I do hear is pretty good.  Take a listen to the stream from their bandcamp page below.


Winters Wish is a Sydney-based pop outfit that creates haunting melodies with slow, layered pop vocals over a stunning wash of ambiance.  This is not your average drone ambient, either, as the music is rich is soul and texture, something that drone is not.  The problem with this group is that their self-released EP "Persia" is so fresh that you cannot seem to buy it anywhere.  What is a person who likes the music to do?  At least they do have a full stream on their bandcamp page, which I am embedding below.  This music has a great balance between pop and ambient that I find to be unique and intriguing.  Listen below.  Enjoy!