Saturday, May 30, 2020

Review: Bayou - A Cold Day In Hell

After the previous post on Sanity Slip, here's some more beatdown hardcore from Texas for you... Bayou from Houston, Texas. Bayou formed in December 2018 and plays heavy, and I do mean HEAVY, beatdown hardcore. Unlike Sanity Slip, Bayou don't incorporate all that many death metal influences tho, this is pretty much straight-forward, mid-tempo beatdown hardcore. Bayou's 'A Cold Day In Hell' EP was released in late April/early May and if you like your hardcore heavy, this might be for you!

Nikolie from Bayou told me their influences range from Pantera to Irate. The Pantera influences can be heard in some of the riffs, but there's no denying that this band has listened to Irate's discography more than a few times! I love Irate (as any sane person would) so I am digging Bayou's sound, hard! Like Irate, Bayou's sound relies heavily on the flow between the riffs and the vocals, with the bass drum in particular complimenting everything. Bayou does the same thing and they pull it off pretty well, and they know how to write some hard-ass riffs that go with this sound... They do add additional influences, there's some slam here and there as well as some semi-squeals. As far as current bands go, Bayou remind me of a less-metal version of Enemy Mind, but with the same heaviness.

The EP starts with a massive intro before launching into what is in my humble opinion the, relatively speaking, weakest track of the EP, 'Wilted'. It has some good ideas, but it doesn't flow as well as the rest of the tracks on this EP. The standout tracks on this EP for me are the back-to-back tracks 'Beaten Into Dust' and 'Slim To None', which hit like a Killer Instinct ultra combo. Awesome! There are also guest-vocals by members of fellow Houston band Torture and Chicago powerhouse Bodybag on this EP, in case you need some more references...

After the demise of Hardside, I hadn't heard of too many heavy new bands coming out of Texas. But it looks like I was wrong, there's still plenty of heaviness left in the Lone Star state! Bayou are currently working on new material, which I am looking forward to hearing! They're off to a great start however, hopefully this EP will get them some attention, there's a lot of potential here!