Cut to the point.

More Swedish dark wave for you, this time in the form of Cut City. Hailing from Gothenburg They seem to be the next big "Interpol" band, and on pure songs they have it. They keep it dark enough, but dance enough to keep you engaged and interested with a well mixed/produced bass vocal combo. I always think it's quite an achievement when a band can be very serious while making you want to dance. Kudos to these fellas.

This track: Numb Boys really stuck with me and made it into my latest mix.

Check out their album Exit Decades. (Like Ashes, Like Millions, and Such Verve are highly recommended!)

Ture northwestern black metal.

Leech is the newest strain of black metal interpretation, or at least Americas ever struggling integration of the genre through out all of our metal subcultures. It's black metal without the NS taint, the worship of odin or satan, and the love of all things green. Crusty hippie evil, if you will.

With bands like
Book of Black Earth
Wolves in the Throne Room
and Fall of the Bastards
It seems that cult metal has found a progressive center on the west coast and stripped out all preconceptions of euro-viking posturing. Something most nations with a love for black metal (Columbia, Greece, and even china) have failed to do.

Or as leech puts it:
"We take no influence from snowy mountain peaks or satanic imagery, but instead from environmental devastation, anti-modernism, and the bleak, monotonous drudgery that is everyday living in a dying world driven by ignorance, corruption, and greed."

That's pretty fucking metal to me.

Streaming myspace tracks