June 2021 Feature Release – The Sphere Edition

So just like that we find that a new month is upon us which of course means that we’ll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we’re asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. We’re really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our chosen releases so don’t be shy.

This month’s feature release for The Sphere has been selected by Ben. It's the 2004's "Internal Punishment Programs" album from Norwegian industrial metal outfit Red Harvest.

https://metal.academy/releases/1720

Fucking hell! What a powerful fucking metal album this is then! I can't believe I've never given these guys a proper run before & now that I have I'm finding it difficult to understand how they haven't gone on to bigger things. Perhaps it's just a matter of timing as they certainly missed the industrial metal boat by a couple of years when they released their first album of any note in the mid-90's. Regardless, "Internal Punishment Programs" was their seventh album to the time & it really shows as there can be very little doubt that Red Harvest knew how to write a crushingly heavy metal song by this stage in their development. If you can imagine the groove metal inspired industrial metal sound of Fear Factory crossed with the high octane excitement of Ministry & throw some aggressive sludge metal vocals over the top then you won't be far off the mark. The riffs are generally pretty simple but are inevitably really catchy & heavy as fuck at the same time which is very much in line with the classic Al Jourgensen model. Don't expect anything radical here as Red Harvest tend to tread familiar ground however they do it in such emphatic fashion that I rate them well ahead of 90% of their peers.

For fans of Strapping Young Lad, Fear Factory & Ministry.

4.5/5

This is some mean, aggressive as hell stuff right here. I'll be spending some more time with this in the coming weeks since I feel like I'll warm up to it even more than I already have after 2 or so listens today. Most of the album is a sludgy onslaught of riffs and basslines that can get a bit monotonous here and there but the album isn't stretched out to a length where it matters too much. The more industrial and scratchy electronic elements are used sparsely which I think works out considering Red Harvest's approach seems to boil down to being as Metal as possible, as Daniel alluded to. I didn't necessarily care for the sludge inspired vocals at first, but I'm starting to appreciate them more as I give the album more spins, it adds a nice new dimension to the industrial-style riffing. To me Red Harvest are more grounded in Death Metal than other Sphere albums I've heard so far, and I have to say that I dig it, kind of to my surprise. I'm normally put off from a lot of Sphere releases just due to the abrasiveness, but Red Harvest might have found my preferred middle ground between grindy, metallic riffs and slightly more clear and downtuned Death Metal riffs. Very cool album, will return to it and it has a fair chance of getting bumped up to a 4. 

3.5/5