Hannibal Montana – Self-Titled It’s not every day that you get a chance to listen to a band that lists both Wu-Tang Clan and Fugazi as their influences… Hannibal Montana are a trio of New Yorkers who play their own brand of rock music which is almost entirely instrumental (save for an occasional sample here and there). “Fantasy Elbow Ride” almost sounded like a reworked version of one of RATM/Audioslave and have a little Tom Morello (or his twin brother, in case if he have one) hiding in there somewhere. The rest of tracks, however, sound like more standard post rock workouts and while there’s hardly a trace of aforementioned Wu-Tang Clan in them, they do, indeed, bring to mind bands like Fugazi . While the band itself might not be there yet in terms of identity, all of this sounds like a solid effort, especially given that its a young/new band. And so, HM should be added to a growing list of bands intent on doing things their own way. Further Points of Interest: Official Site / MySpace Hypnotic Hysteria – Feed On Me Italian band whose music bear a lot of resemblance to Tool (the vocalist also reminds me a bit of Jonanthan Davis from Korn, but thankfully Korn they’re not, so no downtuned guitars here). All in all, they rock fairly hard and its definitely worthy to keep an eye on those guys. Oh, and this one got an excellent album cover too. Further Points of Interest: Hannibal Montana on Bandcamp / MySpace / Stonerobixx / Infernal Masquerade Kings Destroy – Kings Destroy EP Slow and sludgy Sabbath worship is on display here – music is OK, but vocals are not quite up to par (KD vocalist tries to sound like Ozzy, but isn’t as good as him). Decent stuff, but nothing to recommend to anyone who had already heard a dozen of other Sabbath-inspired bands. Further Points of Interest: MySpace / Underground Television