10 Best Free Bandcamp Downloads #3: Dead and Dripping, FACS, Sulaco, Frontierer, Earthbøund
Strapped for cash but hungry for great music? You won’t have much luck camping out at the grocery store these days; Bandcamp is a way better destination. Here’s a rundown of 10 rad releases, about half of them newly released, that The Bad Penny recently came across on Bandcamp.
(Note: If you do have some green to spare, please show your thanks to these deserving artists and labels.)
1. Dead and Dripping’s Nefarious Scintillations (Transcending Obscurity)
The physical editions of this release by New Jersey’s brutal death metal band Dead and Dripping aren’t out till tomorrow, but the always-generous Transcending Obscurity Records granted us the digital version early – and for free. Fans of Suffocation and Wormed will eat up this latest journey into the grotesque courtesy of Evan Daniele, who is responsible for every lick of music and even the artwork that comes with Nefarious Scintillations.
And here you thought “Billie Eilish” was difficult to pronounce. We’ll make it a little easier on you: The band also goes by the name “Sleepwalker” (which we’re guessing they probably didn’t cop as a tribute to the 1997 Kinks album of the same name) and they have a far more accessible alternative title for their fourth LP too: Skopofoboexoskelett. That word translates to “Scopophobic Exoskeleton,” which in turn roughly refers to the fear of people staring at your outer skeleton. If your mind isn’t sufficiently fucked trying to figure out all that demented but hey, at least original, insanity, just wait till you give the psychedelic black-metal behemoths a listen.
3. Various artists’ The State of Canada (Artoffact)
Artoffact’s remarkable and highly admirable new compilation, The State of Canada, is a snarky response to Trump recently declaring he wants the country to be America’s 51 state. It features 51 Canadian artists – Theo Vandenhoff, Kontravoid, cEvin Key, KEN Mode, Ghost Twin and Front Line Assembly, to name just a few – professing their love for their homeland.
4. FACS’s “Teenage Hive” (Physical Medium Remix) single (self-release)
Hailing from Chicago, the outfit—featuring bassist Alianna Kalaba (who amicably departed the band after recording Still Life), drummer Noah Leger, and vocalist/guitarist Brian Case (whose illustrious CV also includes projects such as 90 Day Men, Poison Arrows, and Disappears)—call themselves a “modern art rock” project. More specifically, they sound as if The Black Angels yanked a Communist hammer from one of Putin’s henchmen and socked him right where the Sleepy Sun don’t shine (checkmate, Dennis Miller). In other words, if FACS aren’t on the bill for the next installment of Austin’s Levitation festival, something will be amiss. This remix is of a song featured on the band’s 2020 album, Void Moments.
5. Sulaco’s Live Noise (self-release)
Per the band’s description: “This is a live recording from October 12th, 2022. Captured on a phone at the Rosen Krown, it is 21 minutes of us completely improvising as we took part in Rochester Experimental Week 2022. It was the only time we’ve done this in front of a crowd and not in our jam room. Listening to this now since we have lost Lon is bittersweet. About halfway through the recording he and I link up. It felt like magic that night. Listening now, it brings tears, but is special to us nonetheless. Spoth Forever!”
6. Délirant’s Thoughteater (Sentient Ruin)
Spain’s atmospheric black metal project Délirant has three free albums available on Bandcamp, the most recent of which is this one. Released in February, it actually took seven years to make, with the instrumentation recorded in 2018 and 2019, the vocals tracked in May 2023, and mixing and mastering handled by the artist in 2023 and 2024. The esteemed underground label Sentient Ruin Laboratories put out the vinyl, CD and cassette editions.
7. Depravity’s Bestial Possession (Transcending Obscurity)
Another brand-new release from our friends at Transcending Obscurity, Depravity’s Bestial Possession is a must-listen for fans of Morbid Angel, Nile and Suffocation. Artwork handled by Cryptopsy collaborator Paolo Girardi accurately captures the intersection of vintage and contemporary brutal and technical death metal churned out by this Australian squad, who had been silent for five years up till now. To say they’ve roared back is an understatement.
8. Earthbøund’s “Separate Existence” single (self-release)
Progressive metalcore from Melbourne, Australia arrives in the form of this song by Earthbøund, who posted “Separate Existence” yesterday but whose entire catalog is available for free on Bandcamp. They also put out a zany video for the tune, and you can expect to be reminded about it in our monthly roundup of best music clips that we’ll publish in a few days – so long as our head isn’t still spinning from this listen and watch.
9. Boyracer’s Live at Staches (Sarah)
In the words of the pop-punk band’s frontman, Stewart: “The legendary ‘Live at Staches’ gig released in its entirety 28 years after the original release! Only eight of these tracks were previously released as a one sided 12-inch LP on the immortal Blackbean and Placenta label, edition of 300, with hilarious and cringey liner notes heralding our bands (first) break up (in November 1996). This is one of our releases that I get asked about over and over, I was legitimately asked randomly to release this on Bandcamp, just days after I found the full unedited tape. I think it’s of interest possibly because who the heck would release an LP recorded live in Ohio? Or maybe, (I would prefer to assume), it’s because of the sheer velocity of how we delivered the songs that night. I’m not one to blow my own trumpet, but crikey, we didn’t half belt it out back then on that ’96 American tour.”
10. Frontierer’s Orange Mathematics (Redux) (self-release)
Issued by the Scottish band, which fuses technical death metal with noise rock, Frontierer revisit their Orange Mathematics album by remixing and remastering it 10 years after the band initially released it. Generosity is a through line between all the roundups of free Bandcamp music that The Bad Penny is putting together, but that Frontierer released this gratis is kinda ridiculous. Again, thank this band and all the others mentioned in this article by tossing them some coin if you can.
Go here and here for the previous rundowns of The Bad Penny‘s recommended free downloads on Bandcamp. Stay tuned next week as we try to post free Bandcamp roundups on Thursdays of each.
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