I have to say, I'm not exactly surprised that I had never heard of The Idoru until recently since it's not exactly common to stumble upon bands from Budapest, Hungary all that often here in the US, but it's an unfortunate fact, because their latest EP on the Slovakian label Deadbutcher Records, "Hopeless Illusions", is fucking amazing. And furthermore, there's no doubt in my mind that if these guys happened to have grown up in New York or California as opposed to Budapest, they would be an extremely successful band in the States considering the climate of what's able to achieve significant levels of popularity right now. The key difference being that the band's lyrics are more sincere and expressive than the kind of crap you're going to get from most any American band of a comparable nature, and their music is a bit more technical and inventive as well – it's just that the songs are very melodic and catchy, with loads of soaring vocal harmonies all over the place. But the singer's got a very unique sounding voice that helps differentiate the band's overall sound quite a bit, and despite the almost constant presence of melody there are still a good number of chunky riffs and cool little layered guitar parts that mess with some metallic flare. Even the recording is almost shockingly crisp and professional. This is just a great EP, and this band really needs to be exposed to more listeners.

The Idoru "The Valley of Disappointment"

If the band's prior work sounds this strong then I definitely need to do some digging. Unfortunately I'm not seeing Deadbutcher's releases in any distros in the US, so for the time being email the label if you're interested in picking this one up.

Also from Deadbutcher Records is "Weeping of Angels", the latest full-length from Action, who hails from the Czech Republic. While a fairly standard dose of burly 90's European metalcore given a modern kick in the ass (think along the lines of the Dutch, Belgian and German scenes), this is a much improved effort from the band in terms of both songwriting and especially recording quality. I'd still like to hear more bass and a warmer and more natural drum sound, but the guitars and vocals run the show and both sound strong, so that makes a hell of a difference over the band's earlier work. Expect minor dashes of melody over a backdrop of churning mosh breaks and gritty Slayer-esque riffing with burly vocals – pretty much the standard for this particular niche of the metalcore realm, and one that Action seems to be getting quite a good handle on. It took a couple of spins to grow on me, but this record's actually pretty fuckin' pissed, and I generally tend to be a huge sucker for that kind of… ummm… action. (Sorry, it had to be done.)

Action "Dead to Me"
Action "Weeping of Angels"

As stated above, email the label if you're interested in picking this one up, I'm still looking for any ordering sources within the US.