Hello, everybody, Welcome to that's no matter on Welcome back this time not
to a hyperblast as we have been, butts to the big reviews bag for
March of twenty twenty four. We have got some bloody, mighty fine records
to be bringing to your ears today from the last few weeks. Around about
now, we've got a little bit of news as well. But on today's
show the main port of call if we are going to be reviewing the new
records from Judas Priest, Hell yeah, Bruce Dickinson, Midnight Gowage Away,
Chapter Disease and Dudd's Reat. We have some good stuff in that to tell
you about. Let me tell you My name is Paren Haish. Joining me
on this jubilant heavy metal path today is Elliott Paisley and Sam dig Noon.
Hello troops, how are you all doing o bird about at all? I
saw Judis Priest this week, so oh ship that you actually went to that
I was. I was unable to make this one, but I guess that's
very relevant for you know this week. I bet that was a bloody lovely
time. Oh yeah, well hoped by the facts. I missed Saxon so
we'd get the full Saxon report, you missed out on the good word.
When I say missed Saxon, I got there, So I missed your eye
Heap. That sort of goes out saying they were one first. I was
at the time, Uh, well things, I quite like your eye Heap,
but I kind of rules just refused to get stressed out by them in
any way. It it was kind of antithestical to the band to make any
sort of effort whatsoever and Saxon. So I think as I did see a
little bit of Saxon, I missed most of it, but I felt kind
of bad after doing the A set of Awful and picking them as my s
and I doing that shot, I remembered all the laughs and you could visit
Denim in Leather's a good song and all that, And I got there kind
of as positive towards Saxon has ever been. And they're about two of the
thirds of the way in any way, and I just thought, I think
I'll just go and have a beer. You chose to not redeem yourself at
the end is when they're gonna be doing fucking Denim and everyone I know that
Mark was at this tour as well. This week and he reported that the
Saxon Judas Priest double bill is as fucking swinging a time. There was something
in Yeah, absolutely, as I remember it being from you know, the
time I've seen that bill together. The Saxon set that like a lot of
fun. The Judas pre set. I know that they've been, you know,
mixing it up from date to date, exactly what your Settlers was looking
like. But fucking Judas Priest. Yeah, now, the thing you're so
much changed in the Settler song. It's it's new songs or different songs.
And they did love Bites, which I wasn't expecting. I think they've only
started playing for the first time on this tour. Yeah, I love that
song. They did sort of Damacles, which do you know what. We
might get into this a bit later, but I've never really been into that
Redeemer of Soul's record. But that song in the live environment is pretty sweet.
That's exactly what I've always sad about the record. The worst thing about
that record is the recorded versions. I saw them quite a few times around
that cycle, and it was always you know, boss, yeah, we
might get into this label. That record is one of the worst produced albums
by a well known band ever, but to the point where I don't even
know if I like those songs. But seeing that, I was like,
maybe I'll either go back to what we'll go see them play in full or
something. Because but the great things was they always switch up the order they
play the songs in, so you don't really know when you're gonna get the
classics because the first three songs panic Attack, you've got another thing coming and
breaking the Law that is takes a pretty serious statement, and what trying it
gives Robert break early on having to not sing breaking the Law. We also
got you know, you don't have to be able to be wise saying I've
seen three judis prisos that the two of them have done Saints in Hell,
which isn't a particularly big song of theirs. There was one bit which stood
out slightly on when they got to the encore, and it was Electric Eye,
Hell Bent for Leather, Living After Midnight. Nothing odd so far,
but then I think they're doing this thing at every night of the mark.
We'll have to back this up. I think during Living after Midnight they show
videos of the town they're in on the screen, and that and the loaded
or Live in rocking, loving the bits where they want you to know,
put your fist in the air for the horns, And I think that might
work better in some cities than others because listen born with is nice, but
it's not all that exciting. And when it got to the bit work,
it was a love into the morning. They showed a video of Curry's PC
World, so I was about them as exciting as they could get from.
Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of a difficult band to talk about the live
show because it's you know exactly what it's going to be and it always is
that and that's great. Yeah. I think for me, I've always said
that dudes of Priests you have just in terms of the set lists, they
are very good at like bringing properly obscure songs out into the day. And
they are on those bands where I just say, if you want to go
see your favorite songs, you just have to see them a lot of times,
like it's always going to be amazing. It's just you have to go
rack up a lot of Judis pre shows to get a lot of your favorite
songs. And obviously I'm missing this particular touring cycle and I'm seeing they were
doing like Cinner for the first time ages and I'd like to see Sinner love
bites I love Yeah again, Maybe not like the I don't think they're pretty
much such a thing as a perfect Judas preset list because it always buy necessity
cuts out fifty songs that you want to hear. But it certainly looks like
a fucking good one, and I'm sure that they're on cracking form if you
know. The record we're going to talk about later as anything to go by.
So before we go into talking about all the new albums, the news
we have quite a lot of compared to the last sort of week or or
two, quite a lot of album announcements and new tracks and stuff like that.
Most significantly is of course the Hact that the Hell back I've seen less.
Uh, you know, let's ripple through the TNM verse about this Hell
released then the last Ones. But it is their first record since I guess
the Jorris Saga concluded they've just released a little EP called six six six six
six, because why not. I suppose it's the hardcore Eternal Hails. I
mean, have they gone Baddi Kore on this one? Like it's got a
little bit of that going on in there, Like, that's not what I
went to a tour. I was sort of blown away by the bloody samba
song? Was that? But the six six six six six has that that
kind of like that very modern baddycore metalcore like sympthy production on it. But
I mean, like, I don't know if that was the intent, but
I just made me think of that. But I I just you know,
the Hell can go away for a couple of years, come back when they've
kind of got another joke. The samba song in the middle of the just
like very catchy like and like, I mean, they're recycling their own rhymes
at this point on Bosh with Oh my God, yeah, the amount of
things they managed to rhyme Bosh with. Yeah, this wasn't necessarily the most
I think the most inspired Hell record ever. Part of it is that,
you know, it always relies or heavily on kind of immediately hearing the lyrics
and stuff like that, and that first track I was mainly the main thing
I was getting was five sixes and who's that? But yeah, I think
about that. It's it's ten years about since like groove Hammer and all that,
and the Hell are still fuckings who would have thought, like they just
go away and come back every couple of years just to you like when they
when they got a new bit that they want to make a joke out of,
and I'm like, I'm fine with that, Like, don't don't overkill
it. Don't you know, release a joke album every other year, because
then get fucking bored of it. But yeah, some more substantive new music
perhaps, so the Story so Far have announced they're long awaited now a new
album six years since the last one. It is called I Want to Disappear.
It's going to be out on June the twenty first via Pure Noise.
It does have a new single that's been out with it as well, but
it also includes I didn't really as how fucking long ago it was. But
we spoke about a new Story so Far song in like August of last year
that is going to be on it along Break Break there in between you know,
releasing that song and putting the album anouncement out of there. But Story
so Far album is officially on the way. A new single that we are
going to talk a little bit more about is that Paul Bearer have also announced
their new album. It's called mind Burns Alive. It's out on maybe seventeenth.
It's the fifth Paul Bearer record, and there is a lead single from
that called where the Light Phase, which is the first new Pallbearer track in
several years. And Paul Bearer are, like, I would say, one
of the essential bands of the twenty tens in terms of, like one of
the most significant and influential bands for where the underground went. I think when
you look at kind of you know, when Sorrow Extinction their first year came
out, and then the following several years and that cluster of record they released
in that decade are really a sensual I think current decade there may be in
a bit of a slower era. It feels like Paul Bearer have kind of
I guess, you know, obviously COVID and everything impacts that to a degree,
but they've been kind of less of a less near the top of kind
of bands that people are really really talking about. And I think, you
know, their last record was a good album, but it maybe didn't build
up steam in the way that their previous couple certainly had. But you know,
I am a big Pall Bearer fan, and I was thinking, like
I'm you know, I'm ready for them to kind of come back and do
something, and this track is one that kind of, maybe, you know,
doesn't exactly just do what you would predict a new Paul Bearer lead single
to do. No, I'm pretty happy with that, to be honest.
Even though I really like Paul Bear, and like you said, the last
record was good, but it kind of felt a bit like the least essential
of all the Paul Bearer albums to me, so for them to change tack
like this with their most maybe the most understated sounding music to date. It
kind of sounds like Stephen Wilson at points that I don't even know if you
could call this a metal song. It kind of builds to a crescendo,
but it's never particularly heavy or metallic, and the guy sounds like Michael Stipe
points in the song. I'm not sure I've even heard him so present in
the mix. But I think as far as bands from that scene who could
navigate their way out of being a real metal band, I think Paul Bear
could be the ones that they see. They seem like the ones that would
make the most sense. And on the strength of this, I'm really intrigued
as to what that sounds like. I think their last album was maybe like
kind of a dark, more kind of claustrophobic one after the one before that,
Heartless was more kind of you know, proggy and really really yeah,
the kind of wide screen and this again sort of swerving again. It's a
really you know, delict track, and you know, thinking about you know,
the last album again not their most immediate album, but the lead single
on it that was all fucking riff, Like that's if you heark about the
album, that riff of the first thing pops into your head. This kind
of snuck up on me because like the first like four minutes are all just
like very very kind of hushed, and you know, during that section,
I was kind of, you know, I was like vibing, well enough,
it's pretty, but I wasn't necessarily being blown away. But by the
time they get to that back end and like the heavier chords start coming in,
I did start, like, you know, I started getting some some
some chills with it. It's you know, it's the opening track on the
album as well, and I think it represents certainly a very kind of austere
start to you know this this pall Beary campaign. I mean, I thought
it was a bit of an odd choice fully single, but I guess you
say, if it's the opening on the album, that makes sense because it
is kind of like there's very two sort of very clear parts of the song.
But like I've thought it was a very nice, easy sort of listen
for the first off, and then when you hit that kind of like build
towards the end, it does get quite stirring. I'm probably, like I
say, I'm quite obviously the least sort of small like probably the least big
Paul Bearer fan here, but Heartless is one of those ams I did like
quite a lot when it was kind of just like making waves in like the
T and M sphere and beyond like and people read like that I kind of
got in on that wasn't so last one. But this, yeah, like
as nice kind of like pretty proggy Paul Bearer goes. I think it's really
cool. Yeah, I hope it's more of a flavor than just being like
an intro to the record. I hope there's some builds for crescendo and then
stays where this song ends, which I do. It's weird. It's probably
my favorite part of the song, but I'd like to see them play more
with the textures they're doing in the first half of this song as well.
I based on what the kind of little statement that's been put out with this
track about the album, I would predict that to be the case. I
think they're going to probably get a lot more focus on kind of the light
and shade of it. And I hope they kind of, you know,
again me maybe I just didn't see them live or whatever on that last record,
but you know that they were, I guess, just less of a
presence around that time, and I hope that obviously when this comes out,
they can make it over here and kind of, you know, people can
start really sort of talking about Paul Bearer in a big way again. Earth
Tone nine are a band who this week were you know, doing some teasing
gets people very excited. It has built up to their announcement of their new
album, which is their first album in eleven years. It's called in Resonance
Nexus that's also out on June the twenty first. If the story is so
far is not taking your fancy and earth Tone nine are a band who are
like really sort of not on my radar in any big way. I understand
that they are a very significant band too, kind of you know, it's
quite revered in the kind of arc tangenty type world, which I understand that
festival basically took its name from, you know, an earth Tone nine record,
But I think you know, a significant band maybe to the UK scene.
I guess just during a period when I wasn't you know, part of
it. So this doesn't necessarily mean a great deal to me. But earth
Tone nine fans, I think they're one of those bands who have a fan
base who take them very very seriously and hold them up in a big way.
So if that easy, I'm sure you are very very excited about the
return of earth Tone nine. Sam. I was gonna say you'd be excited
about this, but looking at the track list, I don't know really what
there is. It's a it's like it's, you know, the the deluxe
edition of albums that bands put out a year later. Now it's the obligatory
kind of just like Little add On. Yeah, I guess we've got two
of those. This time. We've got the Gaslight. Anthem are announcing a
brand new EP, which I think you're gonna be out today, as this
episode goes basically to coincide with the UK tour and the US tour announcement.
Yea and all that. Four track EP. Two of them are okay,
two of them are just tracks from the album that came out not long go.
Another one is a re recorded version of Blue Jeans and White T Shirts,
the I Guess One New Someone. It is a cover of Oceanized by
Billie Eilish, good cover. I like it. Yeah, they put out
like that cover I think was put out and you know, it's very much
what you'd imagine Brian Fallon covering a Billie Eilish song to sound like, which
to me pretty happy with. I'm glad that you are. We also have,
as you were saying, the deluxe edition version the Dirty Nail or getting
in that on that as well. They're putting out a new version of Free
Range of Passions and has a new track on it which is called am I
the Menace? Which I quite like as a as a song title and sam
I quite like this song. It's quite a you know, it's a it's
a bit more kind of solemn and somber and kind of introspective then your average
you know, boy stous dirty Nail song, but without losing the kind of
it's got the twinkling the eye good you know, decent, decent track.
Yeah, I mean again, I was like probably the most into free range
of passions that all of us and I having this song would have sat nicely
on that record. This doesn't feel like a kind of off cut being like
just sort of like dug up to so they can stick the amount. Again,
I think this is a really good Like again, I agree, a
bit more somber, but it's got that fun, that playful sort of twink
or that that character that I just love about the Dirty Nail. So yeah,
I think this was like a nice edition. Yeah. Big touring news
over in the US this time a couple of different counts A Data Remember have
announced their North American headline run which is called the Least Anticipated Album Tour.
Is this the first proper tour they've done since the latest album? Is that
what that is referring to? So they did obviously the tour for that album,
And to me, this is the no one's actually excited for our next
album because everyone hated I mean it's going to like a reference to that,
like because I don't think this is a tour specifically for whatever You're welcome.
Was that what the album was called? Yeah, I don't know. It
feels like a pointed title, but it's come out at a time where it's
not attached to anything and it doesn't feel pointed, which is sort of a
very strange sort of thing to dub it. Whatever. But they're gonna be
out with the story so far and for you strong for the whole run.
But I think maybe the more kind of buzzy part of that is that at
various points across all their dates they are going to be joined by a military
gun. Pain of Truth and Scowl, which you know is pretty much like
the three hardcore bands if you're throwing darts at who is currently going to kind
of turn some heads on on your tour. I just like the idea Pain
of Truth opening for the story so far essentially that is it. Yeah,
it's like scour Ministry Gon make perfect sense to me as Pain of True for
the one that I look be like, that's a bit of a that's a
bit of a pall like I would have got it if feels like speed or
someone like that, like who have got that? Who have kind of started
to get a bit of a mainstream crossover. But Pain of Truth are like
proper fuggish New York cardcore fun thing for like the story so far fans to
yeah, and if if that is the direction in which you lean with it,
where that would be the opener you'd be kind of begging for around your
hearts. You're properly also very excited about Hey, fucking heavy tour here where
Hate Breed are going out thirty years of Hate Breed and they're bringing Carcass along
with them as well as Harm's Way and Crypta, which is a nice diverse
building kind of it goes sort of metal hardcore, metal hardcore, you know,
bridges that divide, But I mean, Hate Breeding Carcass alone is like
not something I would have anticipately putting together, but you'd fucking go in a
heartbeat. You have an amazing time. What's murd about that is being thirty
years of Hate Breed. Haybreed to me seem like not a young band,
but they don't seem like the same generation as Carcass, But this putting them
together, there's only like five or so years apart between those two things though.
Yeah, you're right, Yeah, I guess Petrofaction is eighty eight.
Yeah, Satisfaction of Death of Desire is ninety seven. So there is nine
years less than a decade between their debut albums. It seems too close.
Yeah, they're certainly both veteran bands at this stage. Nothing quite of that
statute and significance announced over in the UK this week, but we do have
I think a very exciting tour that Solster Fea are going to be coming out
on a UK headline tour, which is again I've seen them back that band
recently, but not in a headlining capacity. I feel like this is probably
their first proper UK headliner in a long while. But they're bringing a ranty
Pazuzu along with them, which is another you know, cool kind of different
partnership. But also there you are getting one of the most confounding live bands
in the world to warm you up for a very very pretty lovely Solsterphea set,
So go along to that if you are so inclined. Right before we
get into reviews this week, a little shout out to the Patreon the that's
amount of Patreon, which if you are a supporter of which go and join
you know it may get access to our T and M discoor where we have
chaps all week long and all this kind of stuff, but that is what
keeps the podcast alive and running and keeps us doing what we do. This
week, you know, we have not had a new episode on there since
the Big Alexa on Fire City and Color special that we've finished off a couple
of weeks ago. But this coming week we are going to have our next
album club pack. Our last one, as we've referred to a few times,
was an absolute hoot. We are not going party. It was.
We are not quite going down that rabbit hole again so soon. But I
have put the albums together and I think that there are definitely some wonderful discussions
to be had, so coming next week to the that's a matter of Patreon.
First off, it is I have to say it is a second consecutive
edition of TNM educates You on a slightly underrated part of a classic sort of
seven ees ees rock bands catalog. But I have been trying to get this
one in there for a while now, so shush. And also, it
was St Patrick's Day this week, so there was a lot of thin Lizzy
on the television. Did you know that thin Lizzie's final album is a full
on studs and leather heavy metal album, because I'm gonna say it. The
man out there doesn't want you to know that that's the case, but it
fucking is and it rips. It's called Thunder and Lightning. So we're gonna
be talking about that. Then I've said, we have to do this,
that Part two is coming. One of the most insane, over the top
metal albums ever made by one of the silliest people in the world, Winter
sun Time one. It has been a long time coming. We've got to
get it in for Part two comes out, and oh, I know,
I know it's a meme, but oh my god, third third part in
our sort of punk and hardcore corner, I had to think after we had
a little Palm Reader discussion the other week about sort of like what album we
would like would even count as the sort of like classic album or whatever for
like a discussion, I've ended up going, we're gonna we're gonna talk about
besides the one we love, which is I think not necessarily you know,
the what will be voted on as the classic Part Reader album. I just
think it's the one that we haven't spoken about. You know, it's kind
of like an underrated one. It came out at a time when T and
M wasn't sort of you know, up and functioning, and I guess it
kind of maybe points we just talk a little bit about kind of you know,
uh it sort of pointing the way for where they might have ended up
going and the kind of ambition that that band did show. So we're just
gonna have a little bit of sort of a UK underground love in at one
point talk about reading besides the One We Love and last album, the full
on Extreme Slot. We've been talking about grind a lot lately, and I
think we need to talk about one of the most insane, fully lost the
fuck plot grind albums that could ever be made in the history of the world.
Agrophobic, Nosebleed Altered States of America. Sam, I've heard, I've
been listened to agraphering knows Me before. I kind of was there was a
PIP. I was like, what happened to them? Because they were there
was those companies, they were just like suddenly got really buzzy outside of like
you're like the dirtiest grind. Sure this album in particular we're talking about We're
going back. There is nothing like it. Okay, go go and listen
to it. You know, everyone listening to us right now, it's like
twenty odd minutes long. Oh my god, you have never experienced twenty odd
minutes that sound. It's a few songs, and it is a few songs
do as much as that album does. So again, not quite starting a
party. There's only one one hundred songs long. Yes, we're talking about
what happens when you try and grab one hundred songs into twenty three minutes.
Ag. Okay, yeah, I know I know of this album. I've
never listened to it, but yeah, So that is what is going on
this week, coming week on the that's not a Patreon with the album club
pack, and then soon after that, finally this week, some fucking horror
movies are coming out so we can do DNM. That's what I've been seeing
this week. I've been having a nice time actually watching some good horror movies
cinema. Yes, I'll be doing the same, So rest assured all of
that is coming. Thank you very much for your support. Let us spend
the remaining two hours or so of this episode talking about some new albums,
and we are going to of course start with a band that have already been
spoken about a little bit on this episode, because Judas Priest had a new
album this month, Invisible Shield is it's the nineteenth album from Judas Priest.
Will they make it to twenty, I don't know. It comes pretty much
exactly six years to the week from their album Firepower. The years between were
paved with maybe a bit of frustrat stration for some fans that the Firepower sort
of cycle wasn't able to kind of fully happen. You know, there was
a lack of Tory dates here being locked into an eternal Ozzy Osborne tour that
never happened, that kind of stuff. But there were a couple of sensational
Bloodstock dates as well, let me tell you. And as we have said
on another podcast recently, Firepower never lost its sheen. I think when an
album like that comes out, there might be an initial rush of people going,
oh my god, it's their best album in years, and then it
quickly fades in the memory. Firepower, more than half a decade ago now,
is still readily accepted, as I would say, I mean, probably
just about by everyone listening to us right now, one of the true,
you know, sort of rubber stamped like late career career classics, like yeah,
the way people talk about Brave New World in two thousand, or the
records that were coming from the Thrash Lot in sort of two thousand and nine,
twenty ten, Ye, End Games, iron Bound, whatever Firepower is,
I think probably from the last ten years, like the go to example
of like an Elder Statesman, truly classic heavy metal band achieving something similar.
I think across all heavy metal, flashment, all those kind of like classic
laxury bands like the eighties and stuff. Firepower is as good as they get
late career. Even if you think of stuff like Brave New World or Endgame
as normally Banns twenty twenty five years into a career, where I think that
was one year short of Judas Priest being a band for fifty years. I
don't think that's just a heavy metal thing. That's the thought of Elton john
releasing an album like comparable to any act, any legacy actor. Yes,
like Johnny Cash did it, and that's pretty you know, Springsteen's done it.
Yeah, we're talking about some unprecedented territory, and I think when it
comes in as far as it did with Judas Priest. You know, no
one expected a Firepower because, like you were talking about that sort of gap
between alums and stuff, we'd already had aims of retribution, like over a
decade beforehand, and that was lucky enough to get that. And I think
people generally expected maybe that kind of redeemer of Soul's quality just for the rest
of you know, Judus Priest's career, and for me, I think you
know, that would have been ultimately fine, you know, like it wouldn't
have affected their status in any way if Judas Priest had you know, just
sort of you know, glided out on Redeemed result IP albums forever. And
because of that, like I don't know how much kind of stakes people had
really invested into like the follow up to Firepower being as good as that album,
because like for me, Judus Priest, you know, knew, Judas
Priest is something I will always be interested in, whether it is Firepower or
not. Part of me felt like setting the bar again at that and going,
you know, you've got to do another Firepower in a row would be
kind of unfair, like both on me as a listener, and my own
enjoyment of these albums and them. I mean, like, I think even
before Firepower, Judas Priest never needed another classic album, Like I said,
they they could have written out on decent like sort of albums that they were
doing for the rest of their career and they'd still be legends. But like
Firepower was that kind of like, oh damn, they can still fucking turn
out. I know, the kind of question was like, is this,
you know, just a one off lightning in a bottle moment of like recapturing
something where they all then go back to just being really solid and I could
have had the I was like, I don't need ju Justiciprice again. As
iidd before Firepower, I don't need a classic Judice Priest abum after Firepower,
Like I'd be fine with Juicy Priest being just decent again. But part of
me like, even if I didn't expect it, I really wanted Invincible Shield
to be a worthy follow up more than I think a lot of other albums
that I was kind of looking forward to. I think I think for Priests,
I would rob coming back in the early two thousands and stuff. I
think like they needed Angel of Retribution to be great, and it was.
The follow up records are patchy, I think, to say the least firepower.
While I didn't want it needed to be the start of some kind of
the way Maiden in the two thousands had this second glory run. I wasn't
expecting anything like that. I'd be lying if there wasn't a part of me
that thought. But if they if they've kept Andy's sneap, the sort of
ruthless you know, cutter who make sure everything's sharp and well performed and perfect,
and if they're going in with that level of maybe like can do attitude,
like believing they can all of that stuff. Once you're fifty years in
another six isn't that crazy? I didn't think, like you said, I
wasn't expecting another firepower. That would be stupid, because I really feels like
such a lightning in a bottle. I also couldn't go. I also couldn't
say it would never happen. Yeah, and I love Judas Priest just so
much. And you give me the best songs from Nostrodamus and Redeemer Assaults preferably
produced a little bit better, like I will be very happy. And you
know I've said many times before when we're covering Metallica or Iron Maiden, whoever.
I don't need the metal gods to be producing the very best work in
the genre anymore. You know, they've done their time, other bands have
come through the ranks, but it is very nice when they do deliver.
And you know, I'd heard good things about Invincible Shield. I thought,
well, I'll be surprised if it tops Firepower, but I'll be very happy
to take one that's you know, very very good and coming close my first
listeners album. I don't know if it was just me sort of like calibrating
expectations or whatever. I thought it was fine. I thought, like,
well, that hit a spot. I don't know if I'll be raving about
it like I did the last one a few weeks into listening to it.
My assessment is that I'm not ready right now at this stage to say,
like, yes, I think this is as good as Firepower, absolutely as
classic an album as that was. But it is a cracking heavy metal album.
And even if it won't end up being like, you know, my
favorite album this year or whatever, there is something about Judas Priest coming out
with an album like this again that just makes me feel like a little gooey
eyed when I talk about it beyond most other albums that we could review.
I'm with you on that way. I'm just so like, there's something about
Jewish Priests that just makes me like I want to like they're the people's heavy
metal band. To me, they're they're again like they're their bad I want
to get behind. I always want them to be doing something great. And
I hit plan on this and I was like, yeah, this is good,
this is cool, this is this is that what I needed. I
wasn't raving back. And then a couple and these songs are really stuck.
And again, I'm not saying this is as good as Firepower, but this
is absolutely a worthy follow up. And I kind of can sinuation of like
man Judas Priest like they're on it. They're on a like they're on a
late career, kind of like they can still fucking go. I feel like
we've all of the sort of similar experience, because before this record came out,
I did see some pre release reviews saying it's as good as Firepower,
maybe even better. They're best down since Paying Killer, And you know,
I know to ignore that sort of thing now, But when I first heard
this record. Again, I'd be lying if it wasn't a part of me
that wasn't disappointed. Like again, I I kind of knew in my head
not to expect another Firepower, but when it was just a sort of good
record that ultimately ended up being disappointed, even though again first listen, immediately
thought was better than Nostro Darmis and Redeemer of Souls. Over the last two
weeks, I'm so glad we didn't review this like the day of or the
day after, because the last couple of weeks these songs have really sunk into
me. Not all of them, I will say, but this album's fucking
great now. And it's weird to say that Judas Priest, because it's not
a sound I need to get used to it. There's probably a few sounds
I've heard more than Judas Priest, do you know what I mean? Yeah,
yeah, And yet getting these new songs, it was like I needed
to kind of recalibrate my expectations. And yeah, like I'm not gonna say
it's better than Firepower, but fucking hell, it's good I think for me,
just an albums in general, I've noticed recently, like in my just
where I am in my life. I've gotten really bad at like first listen
impressions, like in terms of like specifically for albums I'm really looking forward to
because it's always like our first listen and it doesn't you know, Firepower.
I have like six years of having built that up in my brain essentially as
a thing that is great and a thing that I love and a thing that
I know inside out, and expecting the first go of something to you know,
equate to that sixty years built up of memories and everything is just not
the case. I think with this they are. There was a little fact
where they are the first like proper pure heavy metal band to release albums fifty
years apart because they're debut album, Rocke Roller, was released fifty years ago
in nineteen seventy four. Black Sabbath of course beat them out by a few
years, but they only got to, you know, just after forty years.
And I think with that little accolade in mind, you're speaking about unprecedented
achievements, it feels just that little bit more kind of tasty. That Invincible
Shield is like of its quality because it might not even be your favorite recent
Judas Priest album, but the very first died in the world heavy metal band
to release an album fifty years on from their first one, and it's not
slop, it's not turgid. It does what you want raw defiant heavy metal
power to do. Everything about Firepower basically continues I've just won in approach.
It's the first Judas Priest album that feels like a clear partner to another one
in a long while, I guess, and at that stage in their career,
I guess it's to be expected, you know. But also in this
particular scenario that happens to be a good thing, because Firepower was the best
one they've done in ages. The lineup is the same. You've got the
guitar axis of Glen Tipton and Richie Faultner power in the songs it was recorded,
Bandy sneak people up that very robust hone too to Firepower. There are
actually, I would say less deviations and Firepower. It feels like it's maybe
gone in a couple less directions and sort of consolidating more down on a core
idea. And so when it basically comes to a sort of you know,
condensing of that core Firepower sound, that's bloody good. I was gonna say
this. This does feel to me a little more focused than Firepower, Like
I don't think you know, it's it's about if you listen to the standard
versions about eight minutes short or something like that, maybe like six minutes.
Yeah, there's I agree, there's less deviation, which means maybe less ambitious.
But the things that consolidates the ide is it sort of hones in on
get to be like really like tight and punchy and impactful. Me. I
think the opening run on this in particular, like really just hits the spot,
and that was what on my first and that's what really won me off.
And then it was kind of as you got past that, I was
kind of like, okay, yeah, settled into it. But yeah,
this this just feels like taking the things that worked on Firepower and just tweaking
and refining it a little bit for something that just gives me more of that
hit I got from Firepower. I'm kind of surprised to hear that too.
You say that because for me, one of the things was so appealing about
Firepower is it was such a direct, like go for the throat attack,
Like for me, that's like paying killer crossed with screaming for vengeance with maybe
little variations along the way. With this one, it kind of feels like
a crash course those last fifty years. Well, I listened to it.
That's sustained class rif. That's a screaming for Avengers. That sounds like Turbo,
that sounds like the Fenders of the Faith. That sounds like painkilub sin
after sin, you know what have you? And I think that's really cool.
They managed to do that without it feeling like a retro throwback of Oh
I do remember when we were good. It's like now, they managed to
weave the ideas together quite seamlessly. I think with firepower. I'm thinking about
like songs like Sea of Red and stuff like that, like the really kind
of when they went into the really kind of you know, balladerie type territory.
I think this, you're right, But I think those things that generally
focuses on are like core classic judas brief ideas, whether that's kind of speedy
like fast paced metal ripper, yes, or big trap and heavy metal kind
of fist pumpers. It's kind of like training on them. Yeah, Panic
Attack, I guess, you know, Casing Point really grown on me.
As the lead single. I thought it was very good at first, but
you know, I think it is. It's still funny that it starts sounding
like a maiden song from Seventh Son or something with all those like space leads
and eighties keyboards, and the song that follows is just oh yeah, the
most to the point, judas Priest ripper imaginable and it's fucking exciting. You
know, the guitars sound great. Howfood in the verses is putting in really
brilliant vocal lines like catchy, not just in that you know, panic attack,
panic attack, but they're kind of in the wings of a leaf for
lack on birds of prey. That whole part multi tracking there, so fun
classic priest goodness. I do giggle a bit when he wails about wild neurotic
memes, which if you've seen his Instagram pages, deals in a lot of
but it's the the one that gets me is that digitally terminally. I was
like unsure when I heard that kind of like spacey intro, but then when
that main rift kicks and I was like, here we fucking go, moments
of like this is Priest. Yeah, I think Pandec's wicked in how like
this album is it sounds like almost the only a band fifty years into their
career could do with kind of when they've taken every and they've learned, but
it doesn't sound like a band fifty years into their career. And then it
is energetic and exciting in a way that other classic heavy metal bands from the
UK and don't they don't have the energy that Priests have for some reason.
Huh, I can't believe that you heard those since at the beginning and we're
unsure because I was like, oh my god, I think it sounds brilliant.
I think it's I think it's me being a little bit unsure when yeah,
I could have heard that as a stark h the riff and the thing
is that now I love that intro going into the I think it all works
really well, but it was just a little bit like, yeah, no,
what I mean is it sounds funny that starts off sounding like like space
pop and then just goes into you know, Rob Tree can Abou Paddick attacks
like it's just a very and it works. It's just funny on paper that
that's the transition. Although for sure and Judas Priest, one of my favorite
tricks of theirs is they write super catchy, memorable verses and then the chorus
will just be often like the name of the song, and yet that managed
to be catching its own way, so you remember every moment of it.
It's like a no, you only have to hear it once and it's stuck
in your head forever. And that that riff in the chorus that bam bama
part of me wants scot. I feel like I've heard that on one hundred
Judas pre songs, and yet it feels so fresh. Yeah, The Serpent
and the King was very early listens, like when not every one of the
songs had kind of crammed its way in, yet that one did go in
there straight away, because that's one where like, you know, that riff
is just straight fucking killing machine or whatever, and Rob is going insane on
that, like fully going ham painkiller mode. I mean in the verses just
like squawking, you know, and you are you're never gonna forget. Oh
yeah, which one's the Serpent and the King because it's the Serpent and the
King, which is weirdly reminiscent of the Folk Union song Whose Side Are You
On? That's covered on Kentucky Byperopticon, but I think I'll probably be the
only person to have picked that similarity in the melody up. But yeah,
just like super fucking crazy catchy songs. I think if you are looking at
this album coming out the gates, the first like seven songs or so really
come in hardly, and like on streaming, it's a fourteen song track.
LIS's like Firepower was, because there are three deluxe bonus tracks, but the
core album is just eleven and I think that that puts it at a very
strong level of consistency. The first four in particular one where like I'm to
the title track, Well, I'm like, this is really going toe to
toe with Firepower for me, and I think I'm rapidient. It's kind of
stretched beyond that. Yeah, it's funny that you mentioned the tar track because
that was one of the ones which for me on first listen kind of felt
like one of the filler tracks. Piller might sound harsh, but for me
at least compared to five, which, like you say, fourteen songs,
no complaints. The whole way through, this has fewer songs and there's a
couple on here that could have been side I think or could be an interchangeable
with at least I think one of the bonus tracks is excellent, the Lodger,
But for me it was like the title track as God as My Witness
and Sons are Thunder. I feel bad getting into the negative so eldly,
but those are the three sons of Thunder. This is what's great is I've
seen so many people saying that those are the best songs on than another of
my favorite ones, like Sons are Funded. To me, it sounds like
it should be theme dune to an eighties cartoon show that I would watched this.
It's the most power range ure, it really is, and the whole
Let's ride all Sons are Thunder like fucking let's go. Like honestly, I
was like not a Christmas saying this does sound like just like eighties like thunder
Cats and all that sort of empowered. Yeah. Yeah, you think about
how great that is because when we know, we review Metallica records or you
know, a new Maiden album, whatever, it feels like the consensus is
almost universal what the good and bad songs are, at least what the best
songs are. Everyone seems to agree, and it's pretty incredible that Judas Prices
releasing record eleven songs and already would disagree with which ones are the best.
Yeah, I think Invincible Shield the title track. Maybe part of that is
again for me, the chorus it slightly self plagiarizes Redeemer of Souls a little
bit, which you know we've called Green Day Out enough on it for that,
But I think it matters less when the song is blood pumping, which
is what is the case. It is as God is My Witness. Later
on for me, it's anover of the immediate hits because that just goes all
painkiller again, Like that's that kind of stupidly hard. Yeah. The closest
point that Priest reached to thrash when it is like Scott Travis double bass,
fucking going back in that earlier run. You know, Devil in Disguise is
a swagger Judus Priest like fucking well, lock up your daughters. You know
that riff is like absolutely British stealing all over that threat board, and it's
I think, you know, a fun level of pacing in terms of like
coming out of the gate with a few you know, like really storming double
bassed type songs, then switch up into something like that. The riffing is
great on this album, The soloing is great. The rhythm section is like
tight as anything as you want in you know, you just praised in terms
of kind of shedding that bluesy swing out of the kind of chrome steel heavy
metal way that they do. But the extra weapon that makes you just grit
your teeth that bit harder when you're listening to it is obviously Rob Halford,
and like you know, in his pomp, he's obviously a strong candidate for
the greatest heavy metal singer of all time. There'd be little argument there.
When you factor in longevity and how he's been able to stay operating at that
capacity, it basically becomes a field of two which is hanging kin diamond like
he is a treasure on this record because I don't know about you, but
Rob Halferd for me, he has this way of just delivering lines that regardless
of, like I don't know, like even the content of the line,
he just has this way of making you feel it and be like ah fuck
yeah in terms of like believing it because I always think about it like no
surrender on firepower as that like I'm only keeping it real. That's who I
am. I'm just a nun stuck fighter. And it's like that's not necessarily
an amazingly written line or anything, but you hear him delivering it's like,
fuck, yeah, Rob help and I know you are and there are so
this album, Yeah, gates of hell on this and Me is like basically
concentrated that feeling for a whole I was like the whole ride with me and
yeah where Wine is like it's a long way down the Pergod tree, Like
what a fun, character ful pronunciation. And when he just hits that chorus,
I'm like, we'll go screak him in. It's like, you know,
it's energizing in a way that you know, I think Judas Priest maybe
innately understand more than any other band. The beautiful thing about heavy metal being
a kind of transferral of energy from the songs to you. It's like songs
that make you feel fucking strong when you're listening to it, and Rob nails
that and the extra pushes on the pedal from Rob all over this album.
You know, in the Serpent and the King, the little editions of the
End is Coming soon, all that kind of stuff. When he sings in
as God is my witness, I swear they'll be hell to pay. It's
like, yeah, fucking you know it will be because he sang it like
that, like he will prevail. There's no way that that guy is not
going to prevail. He's in the perfect sweet spot as a heavy metal singer
between kind of your mate jumping on stage and a kind of operatic maestro.
Well, someone like Ossie or Lemmy, they're in the first count where it's
like, go on, get up and sing and then they bring the house
down. On the other end, you have someone like Di O or Bruce
Dickinson who's just like an unbelievable talent. Yeah, the bar's precisely, but
they don't really feel like your mate unless you at the fencing club. But
Rob Helford is like you'd go into battle for him. He also seems like
he could be your son, where when he's doing well, you're like that's
my boy and real showman sort of thing of like performing, but he's got
there's just that little bit like punk and like roughness to him that you don't
get from Bruce Dickinson, and like when he's shrieking, like when he really
goes it is an extreme sound again that like that is uncompromising for a real
kind of legacy heavy metal band to be pulling out, and it is there
is a frill to it every time he lets that shriek out, and I'm
just like, God, that is a harsh noise for a human being to
be making. And it doesn't sound like he's struggling to it. He is
still fully giving all the power to that shrike. And the way he,
like you said, I was selling certain lyrics on Devil in Disguise is that
bit where he goes pedals and stalks Machiavellian shiv amb Extra's talks. If that
was James three, you'd be like, stop with this lyrical miracle. You've
just you've just stumbled over saying it, you know. And Yeah, this
guy who was just stress is in his early to mid seventies. It's just
crushing it like makes it some of the most natural thing in the world,
that the thing of them kind of sending like the cheesiest statements over the top
into like Nirvana Crown of Horns is one of my favorite traps on this.
Yeah, it's it seems to be some kind of like Christian rock song ham
fistedly combining that with heavy metal language, so it's a crown of horns.
Horns is the horns of the heavy metal rockers they could yeah, but like
you know, it's it's a great priest ballad. And the bit for me
is the bridge because when Halford shifts into that, I'll call out to the
world tonight to raise your horns up high. It's like, yes, Rob,
they are raised for you. Whatever you say, my captain, it's
just like it fully fucking lifts my soul. It's sincere, it's genuine like
again and as that song is pure heavy metal cliche, but because he delivers
it with such like as sincere like honesty in his vocals, I'm with you
and I am raising my horns to Rob Halford and believing every word of it.
Yeah, exactly. I wish they returned to that bridge. The song
to me, it has this kind of fade out outro and I feel like
it should return to that and kind of ride out on that. But it's
a brilliant moment of like, there has never been a band more unashamed to
be heavy metal than Do You a Priest? Because they like basically fucking invented
it right in terms of like the attitude and the culture, so like there
is no part of Rob Halford that is going to like shy away or like
be a little embarrassed singing that bridge. And it just it for me,
like it cuts right through like any cliche or whatever that has kind of built
up over the years around the idea of heavy metal, and it just makes
you feel, you know, that core idea so strongly and in such a
kind of instinctive way I heard from you know, very minor sexiest, to
be fair, but some factions of the Judas Priest fandom, if you're to
call it that, who When Crown of Horns came out, we're like,
oh, they've kind of done a Christian rock song. And I was like,
oh, that's that's a bit odd. And I listened to it,
and yeah, it could be a striper song. Like you read those lyrics
and it's not that far away from going. This song's about a friend of
mine who was also misunderstood, and he had long hair and he hung around
with people that society was and his name was like it is kind of in
that ballpark. But I'll tell you what. When they played this in Born,
I thought I was gonna cry. It's like, this is a new
Judas Prix song, this is the Christian rock song that some of their fans
aren't going with them for. And it's just again, like you say,
the way he sells it and that thing about the melody just being stuck in
your head. I have sung countless things over that melody since it came out,
just like making a cup of tea, emptying the dishwasher, getting petrol,
whatever on doing you just said no, no, no, no,
no no. And it's again it's one of those you know, how have
I I must have heard that a thousand times because it's so instant and obvious,
and yeah, it feels completely fresh. Yeah, I think even like
getting into the latter portion of the album Trial by Fire, which again I
didn't listen to any of the singles past the very first ones, I didn't
know what was what Trial by Fire. Maybe a price that's a choice over
some of the others, But like it's good and I think the way,
like the verses again with how Rob comes in are exceptional. Sons of Thunder
is again the most power ranger dudes. The pre song in a hot minute,
and I think, you know, at the kind of penultimate point on
the album, like why not put in a song that's like under three minutes
and just yeah is straight to the point. I think that serves a good
purpose on the album there before that Escape from Reality, which is like,
even though Judas Priests are the band who you know, they took heavy metal
beyond what Black Sabbath were doing and kind of made its own thing. It's
always like a bit of a fun treat when they let some of that Sabbath
influence, kind of back the weird psychedelic Sabbath bit in the middle of this.
Yeah, like Rob goes full Ozzie for a moment with that psychedelic effect,
and then I know, switching back to pure Rob halford with the acadey
Escape from Reality brings you down kind of in that shrieking chorus. Fun you
know, like back and forth there with us sort of what I was saying
earlier, this was like they go through more of their castalog than the last
one. That song. To me, the riff, like you say,
Sabbath is probably the most accurate comparison, but just it sounds like the way
Priests would riff in the mid to latter mid seventies. It's Yeah, it's
a sound they haven't really gone back to all that much wit, if at
all since then. Maybe a bit on a deemer of soults, but to
hear it here with a production job that hasn't that isn't absolute dog water it
it sounds great. Yeah. And then giantan the Sky I am. I
say, I'm really happy with that as a closer. Yeah, it's another
one of the goes like heavy milk cliches of you know, the tribute to
your fallen brothers and like the lazy ve all that. But again as a
stirring, uplifting album closer, it really hits the spot in a similar way
to Crown of Horns does because again that that honesty and sincerity to it.
Well, here's the thing about that with me again, it's it's a bit
different in terms of like it goes slightly more into that sabbathy side, but
with the really triumphant sort of Judas Priest you know, touched to. I
think melodically it's great, but that sincerity, you know, as you say,
it's basically it's a heavy metal legends who have passed on song, which
we seem to be getting more and more of these days, I just because
heavy metal is older. Yeah, and I think that's already very sincere on
kind of a surface level from Judas Priest because they are of a generation where
they're talking about their friends and their direct peers in that song. You know,
you know, any Runny James dere et cetera, like people they genuinely
knew, which not everyone writing those songs can can say, but whether this
was intended or not, for me, there's something really beautiful about that song
because it's almost like they're going to eventually be describing themselves because like you know,
we don't have that long with Judas Priest left like this, this could
be the last song on the final Judas Priest full length and it has a
similar effect to me as like the last song the Garden on Russia's Clockwalk Angels
albums, which sort of ended up doubling as like a kind of Neil per
eulogy song just because he wrote it so beautifully. Like this song is great
right now, but either feeling it's going to take on like even more significant
some years down the road and Judas Priest aren't around anymore. Well, yeah,
I mean that's the kind of morbid thing about listening to bands this long,
and the tooth is every time you hear the new record, he could.
I don't want to say morbid though, because to me it's it's a
really beautiful thing in that because the song is so stirring and power elaboratory.
Yes, and you know the giants in the sky, you will never die
that whole thing, like they arguing with an to be describing themselves, but
it's so fucking kick anath and how it does it. It's just a very
it's just very Judas Priest, you know. Yeah, And I think there
must be some pressure on the band every time they do a record. I
think, how are we gonna end this one? Because, like you say,
it really could be the last one, and everyone's saying, like sat
Jude was could be the last Iron Maiden record. It en is on hell
on Earth and you're like, Jesus, I was having a nice time with
this band and now it's pretty bleak. This is, like you say,
the most if this does prove to be the last Judas Priests record, and
I'd like them tit twenty but if this is the last night around, this
is a pretty much perfect way for them to bow out. Because it's a
slower, kind of more stately song, but it's still got all the bite
and all the pomp, and again, like you say, it being a
song about their peers, it just has that extra bit of gravitas where it
doesn't really feel like a morning song. It's like they're all one thing.
Yeah, Like you know, for Judi Prief writing that song, it's like
I'm writing a song about like the people I went out to bars with.
You know, it's very like down to earth despite being obviously larger than life
in what it's you know, how it's phrasing itself. I think essentially among
the core eleven, I don't think as a we track on it. I
think it's very very consistent, and again even onto the bonus tracks, maybe
not things i'd be like desperate to sub onto the core album, but I
agree that song the Lodger really kind of stuck out. They go like a
bit horror on that song. Yeah, I can see why maybe that element
kept off the main track listing. It's a slightly different song, but that
vengeance is Mine hook, It's like how is how is that not on the
make it a twelve track album? Absolutely fine, Just get the Lodger on
there. I don't think it's cool hearing rob Lean into being a big scary
monster. Yeah. Yeah, And I'd like to give a nod to Richie
Fultner as well, who, like just by kind of virtue of the long
history of the band he's in. It's still kind of viewed as the new
guy. But if you look at the writing credits, he's in here as
a strong presence and like lead guitar wise, there is so much on here
that shows he's actually gotten more kind of comfortable and natural and kind of more
inspired a fit for the dude's presound in the years he's been in the band.
Like he's not just the kind of standing KK at this point, you
know, so, I think at this point he's pretty essential for their success.
Like if you listen to the dual harmony part that close out the last
thirty seconds of Invincible Shield, it's fucking awesome. It's just like game Hell's
got like great Julian Seas and that's one of really stuffed for me and the
solo and that is one of my favorites on the record. Yeah, I
like again Invincible Shield. It's the song is basically over by the point that
melody comes in. But they're just throwing this last part because it's fucking great.
It's kind of miraculous that they found him, because it was Glenn and
KK was one of the iconic writing duos in any heavy metal band, and
then what thirty to forty years into their career, that splits up and they
get a guy who, I mean, unless I'm just showing my ignorance here,
I don't really know anything he did before Priest, it was certainly his
his large scale breakthrough. Yeah. Yeah, and he comes through and he's
not only a great counterpart to Glenn, but just a great songwriter in his
own right because the stuff where he's had more of a presence that being the
last two Judas Priests records have both been exceptional. And again, you can't
put it all on him, because we've you know, singled out praise for
Rob and the rest of the man played great, and you know, Glenn's
never lost his writing ability at all. But I think you're quite right to
draw attention to him as a as a component. Yeah, and I think
it just this is one of the records where, like in Approach, it
is basically firepower to and I think it's a worthy Firepower to you know,
like you love this band. What an incredible treat it is to be still
getting Judas Priests albums of this quality fifty years on from their debut album.
Like I think Firepower was one thing, but like, even if you don't
think this is maybe as good as Firepower, Like who else is managing two
of these things in a row at this stage? That's what feels like the
real fucking Golden Goose here, you know, Yeah, because even you know,
with this, when this first came out, I kind of thought,
oh maybe a Firepower was the Brave New World. Maybe this is the Dance
of Death, like still a really good record, but quite clearly the love
dance to death. But that's a conversation that's a long time ago, for
another time. Oh yes, But for me, I'm not going to put
them on equal pegging now. But it's like I look at the Judas Priest
catalog and you're like, they ended fucking strong. That was true on Firepower
and it's still true now. And that's that's kind of all I wanted.
I didn't want them to follow up Firepower with something where I thought, oh
yeah, absolutely so invincible Shield, Judas Priest. This is the most denim
and leather start to reviews episode possible because this month is obviously led off by
two heavy metal titans. Bruce Dickinson The Man Drake Project is up next.
And this is a bit weird, isn't it. We've got a Bruce Dickinson
solo album. I've never had that in my time of following metal, and
I guess it's a strange thing to approach on the subject again of expectations,
because Bruce Dickinson has an established solo career, like this is not his first
rodeo, but what purpose that serves in today's day and age compared to back
then is a different kind of question, because like, this is the seventh
Bruce Dickinson solo album, but as said, it's probably the first one that
the majority of people listening have kind of experienced in real time, because the
last one he did was nineteen years ago, almost two full decades ago.
Sam, have you ever listened to a Bruce Dickinson solo album before? Never
listened to a solo album. I've heard solo songs and there's some in the
past that I've quite liked. Yeah, Elliott, you I guess have listened
to Bruce Dickens the solo album, because I've jokingly alluded to it a couple
of times, but there seemed to be a disagreement between us when this album
was announced because Bruticks and solo to sort of lay the land here for people
who aren't in the trenches of nineties heavy metal, Discourse actually has a very
good reputation on his past work because I think amongst people who were kind of
very tuned into following, you know, like true heavy metal through the nineties,
Iron Maiden are in like the roughest patch of their career critically and commercially
in the Blaze Bailey years. Bruce dickinson solo albums that came out alongside those
are very fondly remembered by comparison, and I think it's that memory of like
how good those albums were for people more than just oh, Bruce Dickinson is
this big, you know, singer from Iron Maiden. That would have kind
of powered some of the excitement about the announcement for this album amongst people who
had been, you know, following all this time. You were quite dismissive,
though, well, yeah, I mean we had that discussion on the
air where you mentioned it and you kind of looked at me to go,
and we're both really excited about that. It was like, oh no,
not really, and you kind of scolded me for not thinking the nineties work
of Bruce Dickinson was a manner from heaven. So after that, I did
I did actually go. I went back to listen to The Chemical Wedding for
the first time in at least a decade, and you know what, that
is a nice album. I'm not I'm not convinced that it's better than the
solo work of Sayer and Ian Gillen, let's say, but it was.
It was. It was quite like you say, if you were an Iron
Maiden fan in the nineties, which is not a great time to be an
Iron main fan, I can totally see why that was a special album.
Yeah, I'm specifically talking about the Accident of Birth and Chemical Wedding albums from
the late nineties. Songs off of those two album first couple of Bruce solo
albums. You know, I'm not a tattooed millionaire when he's trying to do
that kind of glam rock, hard rock thing. Not what I'm specific talking
about here Accent of Birth and Chemical Wedding. I do think they are looked
back on in the history books as very strong albums. Like there are people
who probably bought that album on day one who hold the Chemical Wedding super deer
like, insisting that it's superior to anything I have made and have done since
Bruce's return, which I do not go, you know that far in saying
I have a real soft spot in my heart for the accident at Birth,
I do, which I think if you are a big Iron Maiden fan and
you're not that infused with the kind of big, long records that they're currently
making, and you've never heard that, I really think it has like exceptional
songs, Like maybe it'd be worth an album club or something one day,
because to settle this properly, because like I would be genuinely shocked the idea
of any Iron Maiden fan not enjoying Road to Hell or Star Children and those
songs from that record. But obviously, in those years, that was Bruce's
primary venture, so it was clear why he was doing it. The next
solo album after that was Tyranna Souls. It's pretty good, I suppose more
kind of you know geared to fit the two thousands. It was the only
one to come out after we'd rejoined Maiden, but then that was it,
and having been silent for two decades, you assumed that Bruce just had his
plateful doing Iron Maiden again. And then suddenly we get the Mandrake project,
and with two decades between them, I guess you could. For me,
the sort of most natural thing to do is just draw a line under all
that and go, Okay, this is a different time. It's a guy
in a different stage of life like this does, like you know, the
follow up to fucking you know, Tyrannia Souls twenty years in the making.
It just feels like a weird way of thinking about it. Whatever we thoughts
we have on you know, kind of individual Bruce dicktson solo records prior,
I think unaffected really by this record. There's little to garner from direction or
anything from judging those. You just have to go okay, new both Bruce
Stickers and so album What's he doing? And the Man Break project. It's
all right. I suppose it's not quite invincible Shield. You're being very generous
there when you call it all right. And there are parts that I think
I'm all right than others. Saxon and Apology is what I'm gonna say.
I like the Saxon album more than this, I do. I think the
Saxon album as the Saxon trucer here. I think this makes the Saxon album
sound good. Okay, So the context here is like, you have been
very down on even Maiden's working in fairness, I wasn't. I was.
I wasn't even super harsh on sind An improvement over book. This album made
me miss Yannet girl. That caught me in a vulnerable moment. Sorry,
I had a horrible time. Wow, why does this exist? Like what?
Like, look again, I understand the criticisms of Saint Jukes, so
I think you know, like those longer songs towards the end, it really
drags it down. But there was like there was stuff on Saint Dukes I
think worked really well. Yeah, why do we need Bruce Dickinson teaming with
worst musicians who are knowing near his musically interesting as I had made And this
is like I don't think Bruce is at fault, particularly on this album.
I think he's doing what he does a bit more boring, but when I
listened to is like, how bland this sounds musically, how stodgy and lifeless.
And on production there's no riffs, there's no solos maybe from Puddle of
Mud? How did he end up with this job? Did no one else
audition to be the drummer on this album? I genuinely I have not got
a nice thing to say about this. I think there are two nice things
to say about this record, but they only really work in the context of
not really being that keen on the last two Iron Maiden albums. And the
first of those is it's nice to hear and Bruce Dickinson on a record that
doesn't sound bad, which I think sound bad. I don't think it sounds
great, but at least I feel like I know what's going on, which
I don't feel like I've had the last two Iron Maiden nams. And it's
nice to hear and play music that at least gets to the point, which
I think there's good, long stuff on the last couple. I'm not saying
all the time, but it's refreshing to look at a track list that features
Bruce Dickinson and see the numbers four and three and five, and there are
some longer ones, which I mean, we'll get to those, but like
you say, beyond that, I don't really understand Bruce dick was he sitting
on these piles of songs and going home. I'm tied down in Iron Made
and I want to go and work with the guy from Pardle of Mad,
Like, I don't really understand how this comes together. Here's the that I
guess. I like, I have positive to say about this album. I
feel like maybe on the sound point and everything, I kind of leaning closer
to Sam Maybe. I just think in terms of the line up here,
as you're saying, like the we were joking in the run up to it,
like I can't wait to hear the Bruce Dickinson album with the drummer from
Puddle of Muder because it just feels like a bit of a punchline in terms
of the downgrade is obvious in terms of who he's working so obvious, like
and you know Roy Z is the guitarist on this record and the producer of
it. He's been Bruce Dickinson's go to guys solo for you know ever,
and he's he's much more of like you know, he's a nineties rock guitarist,
and he feels more born of that era of kind of heavy metal bands
and singers like him kind of trying to do kind of heavier, meaner takes
on what they were doing in the nineties, so they down tune and all
that kind of thing. I think again, in cases of like Accident of
Birth, that turns out pretty well. I think there are riffs here that
are like, you know, fine and work well. The lineup is when
in Maiden you are used to working with the best of the best. What
obviously comes with that that's different here is that with a band like Maiden,
you have big personalities like Bruce and Steve Harris in a room together. Something
like this was always kind of, by necessity of its existence, always going
to be Bruce and people who take up less oxygen in the room because that's
what he's kind of getting away from to kind of that's just what the song
someone was always going to be at its best. I think this record can
be pretty good at its worst. It sounds like a bit of a pub
band with a pub recording. I agree on the pub band comment. I
think like that is to me, like my big one of my big problems
with this, but it's a pub band that with delusions of grandeur. Who
thinks the flu on a song makes it like everything? Well there was a
song, uh oh, I'm going from quickly. There is one where Bruce
playing bongos and stuff. They added all the Eastern like yeah, and I'm
like, oh, I swear this is just like is this just stock Eastern
music? That band can just like slap onto a song because it sounds like
every other fucking band has ever done that, like has done more interesting versions
of that thing. And I was like, yeah, this is pub band
but like trying to sound exotic and it's rubbish. I should say when I
say this album sounds better than the last Maiden records, I don't meet.
I don't think sounds like later Alice. Right, it does sound like a
pub band is exactly the way to put it. It's just there is a
kind of clarity to it that there's records of. Unfortunately, what becomes clear
through that clarity is some seriously embarrassing stuff from Bruce Dickinson, who hasn't been
the least embarrassing person for a while now, he's kind of become the sort
of foddery old you know, middle class English guy that a lot of people
paint him out anyway, And on this there's this kind of faux mysticism to
it, which I mean it's a cliche, but here it makes sense.
There's moments in it where I just thought, that's just spinal tap, like
the Shadow of the Gods. The lyric this is my world, world of
the Dead, delivered like my world off your usual illusion and then I'm sorry,
you can't have a lyric that goes this is my world, world of
the dead, this is my life, world of the dead. Excuse me?
How has that not been Really it doesn't even make any sense at all?
And it's like that's the sort of thing where you go like beyond parody
levels of bad. So the opening track I've to Go of Ragnarok, I
think is really good. I think it starts the album off well in terms
of the kind of heavier sound it's going for. Doesn't sound the worse there.
It's got a decent riff. I think Bruce doing that kind of more
dramatic character play stuff, you know. I think fundamentally one of the weird
things about this album is that that lands more naturally with Maiden than it does
kind of you know, this group of musicians and the approach, but it
works on that song. I just think it's got a really good chorus like
that when you're doing of the Sun Will Rise Again, Like that's excellent.
And Bruce, you know, he can sell a really epic vocal hook,
you know, big surprise there, the kind of after glow of regular rock
doing the hacker right at the end is a slightly different matter. But regardless,
I think that's a very very strong opener. I think it's one of
the songs where I can see what they're going for more than the others because
it is trying to be sort of a darker, apocalyptic kind of like song.
But and you say Bruce sells with every chorus, but I'm like,
he can when he's got a musical sort of canvas backing him that can do
epic, which I don't think they can here. Yeah, I think that's
fair. It's kind of punching through something trying to convey how big it is.
I think again, for me, the chorus in that song is really
it's strong enough for me to get what it's going for. When the second
track arrives was the first time I started to really feel that's kind of slight
off brand cheapness. This record, for some reason has it's got this like
rock you like a hurricane type riff, and under that the drums in that
song, the kind of tone of them and the dead thwack of how they're
recorded feels very very lumping'. And that's when I started to kind of like
really feel some problems that were gonna plague me for most of the rest of
the album. I couldn't work out if it's because I knew it was Puddle
of mad Man on the drum kit, I kept listening to the drums more
than I perhaps might do, or if the drums just that as being so
boring and so lumping on every song, and then that's may remember it was
Puddle of mad Man. Yeah. There there's a few moments on here where
you go, where has the money gone? Where? Where did did you
have any mistress of mercy? Like the sort of canvas of that and like
that, and the second song I always on repeat listens. I always thought
they'll sound like if you had a keyboard or an electronic drunk or something and
it had a backing track called something like you know, grunge jam or hard
rocking or something. It's it's so nondescript, and I think Bruce almost sounds
used to do double juicy in the character department, to almost lift it out
so that to make it not feel so non descript. But when the two
things are next to each other, Bruce the star of the show ends up
looking a bit ridiculous. Yeah, and that song you just mentioned highlighted there,
Like, I don't disagree with what you said in terms of the sound,
but I also think that's like another of the like, if you're going
to rank these songs, I think that would end up in the top half,
you know, because it just sounds a bit like some of maxim at
the Birth or something like that. And you know, the very kind of
hard rock rhythm section basic through you know again like that May Door to Hell
song. It feels kind of garage bandy, and it interferes with his voice,
like how I don't know, the drums are not quiet in the mix
and they kind of I don't know, there's something off about them that also,
like it clashes with the chorus and like you're saying it kind of it
makes Bruce sound a bit odd and strange. Raynald the Graves weirdly sounds like
something from kind of Judis Priests two thousands records, which Royseley actually did produce
one of, and that kind of like bluesy snarl. It is a bit
less suiting for Bruce Dickinson, and it's it's a weird sound man, Like
You've got like creepy spooky organs on that track, which I'm normally all for,
but it sounds way cheaper than you would expect. And you know,
the Iron Maiden record that leans into the kind of like hard rock meanness is
No Prayer for the Dying, which everyone seems to agree, is the maiden
record that suits Bruce the least. You know, I kind of bringing that
sound back and sort of clashing it in this ugly way with like attempted more
elaborate instrumentation is a very weird, like you know, when he goes more
prog again. To me, Bruce Dickinson is not, like, in my
mind, the meanest rock star in town, you know, and he suffers
a bit when he tries to be. He is the kind of grand storyteller.
But putting that guy on a record that doesn't match him in that regard.
It's all very haphazard, is how it sounds. Yeah, I would
agree. He sounds a bit like Sean Smith on Raid on the Groves where
he goes on to ask looking masters and it's like, haven't you worked out
what your skill set is? Now? Like you say, there were there
were moments in even the Maiden castleog where you go, you're not really playing
to your strengths it and that seems to be a faction while he left the
band, So it's really odd in his solo material to go into that kind
of pubby not even punk. I don't even know what you call it,
because that bit I just quoted that's followed by a really sad, lame blues
riff, and I think it just doesn't gel well with Bruce Dickinson and his
character at all. I think it's everything else around it's so bland where he
should have played these different characters in these songs, liking Rain on the Graves,
he's trying to do the storyteller thing like it does just sound a bit
naff whenever, like there's no flavor around it, like because Bruce's is again
can be a bit naff even at his pomp, like because he's being a
silly old man at times, but when he's got so much like extra flourishes
around him, it all it's easy to get swept up in it, like
on even on some people, like right on the wall on the Last time
Made Now. But he was doing the kind of like wise old storyteller thing
that could sound a bit crap on its own, but when it was in
part of the maiden sort of thing, I could kind of go with it.
Here, when he's trying to do these difig characters over the most stock
like lump and meat and potatoes four four metal riff, it just feels weirdly
disconnected, like he's he's the grand poet trying to like tell these stories over
like little scribbles and drawings that match up to the image. Like I totally
understand what you're saying. The rickety production job, like Resurrection Man has this
bit in the middle where it suddenly turned into a stone of rock sop and
like guitar wise, I think it's a you know, it's a good swaggering
riff there, it's a drums kill it sort of cool unpredictable turn, you
know, and it's a different space here Bruce. The drums in that part
are so bad. It's like Lars or Rick just woke up. It's just
fucking like yeah that that that That is the bit where I keep going back
to, like the Drummle album Being drum Is. That was where that jumps
out to me because that those rec men starts to you know, it's got
a kind of spaghetti western kind of thing. It's a little bit different,
and I was like, okay, cool, and then you got the girls
like, oh, that's what's going on behind the kit. There there are
parts and again it's not like he's just like you know, at a time
or whatever. It's just in terms of like how kind of like lump and
deliver without energy and how it's recorded. Like there are parts where like the
drums jump out in how lacking they are, and it's like how are these
demo takes making it? It's just it's bizarre, like some of this record
sounds like it was recorded in two thousand and two by some like upstart band
in Italy or somewhere where they're not getting a lot of you know, attention
and finances. And I don't know why it's only us who seems to be
kind of picking this up about this record. It's really weird. And again
I don't dislike a number of the songs. I think the first track is
really really good. I think I quite like finger in the Wounds, which
again the symphonic side is quite cheap, but in general it suits him more
than the kind of blues rock stuff. And again the chorus like is really
well delivered from Bruce, like proper conviction in how he kind of sells that.
I think that might be the song you're talking about, the kind of
Middle Eastern part, but just the core is the But how Bruce sells that
song I think is really really strong. But it does Elliet your action like
Where's the Money Gone? Is exactly fine as well, because it just why
does it come across in this way? And then like bafflingly, like on
paper, the best song on it is Eternity has Failed from the Book of
Souls, and like you know, I say it's the best song on it
because I fucking love that track as Maiden did it right, I think like
that chorus is genuinely nominal, like it was incredible as the tour opener during
those Books of Souls years. A Maiden song. Yeah, well, I
know that you probably haven't listened The Book of Souls in time, so I'll
let you off. But like, I love that chune. I think it's
a brilliant Iron Maiden song. It's one of the best on that album.
And like, I know that song was written. This album's had probably been
a long time in gestation, right, Like that song was probably written primarily
for this record and then adapted into a Maiden song in terms of like the
order of how things happened. But I think you hear stories like this sometimes
where people go like, oh, yeah, I wrote this song for like
X project, this side project, and then we realized it would work better
as our main band, and we put it over. And what happens is
they take that kind of demo seed of an idea and then through the chemistry
of everyone involved, they elevate it into something better. This is like hearing
that process in reverse to it, you know. And shitty narration. The
shitty narration is there in the original version, but it sounds cheaper than the
Maiden shittier. Yeah, And I know that, like the Maiden version,
particularly the intro was subject to a bit of piss take at the time but
he just like Bruce the room he's recording this intro part in he sounds like
less immersed in some kind of windy, you know, hilltop as he does
on that version. And when the riff comes in, which is when the
song really really gets great, right like the intro on the Maiden one,
you could take a leave it or whatever, but once the rift hits,
I don't care. The drums are not nickeo right like, they have not
got that swing. I think like, as an experiment, if you're listening,
listen to those two songs back to back and just skip to the moment
where the intro ends and the whole band comes in and the riff like moves
the whole song forward. Compare how much life in the drums and the bass
the Maiden version adds to it to like the gutted version that is here.
And when the chorus hits like Bruce is still selling it. The chorus is
still fucking amazing, but the band behind him doesn't push it and make it
expl the way that Iron Maiden do. It just sounds like a demo.
This is the problem. This is probably similar to what Bruce demoed before the
Book of souls and Steve Harris went, oh, that's great, we should
put that on the record. It's I mean, the only other time I
know they've done that in the in the main history is bring your Daughter to
the Slaughter where they went, let's put that on a mate, And you
look back and go, that's not an Iron Maiden song, Like you see,
where's this case? You're like, this isn't a Bruce Dickinson song.
This is an Iron Maiden song because when you take away everything Bob, Bruce
Dickinson, I mean he's done a Roger Waters is what he's done with him
going I'm going to do the Dark side of the Moon. I'm want to
show you all I don't need David Gilmore. And then you listen to it
and go, you should marry David Gilmore. You should never be without him.
Like you listen to this and just go, why would playing it slower
with none of the swing and then pan pipes, why would that be better?
Yeah? I understand it's seeing through the original idea in terms of how
we originally conceived this on but the offshoot it took improved it right, and
it's like we've had this fully finished flourishing version of this song, and then
nine years later we've got the demo with what might as well be the drum
Machine, and all right, Eternity has failed. It's like, yeah,
like there is there are differences in terms of like it gets to the solo
section and there's like a synth solo instead, and you know, it's a
differing idea to what has been heard on the maiden track, so it doesn't
just take away. You know, they're putting some whistles and shit at the
back end. I get there's a new arrangement, but you're waiting the whole
song really to hear. There's kind of new moments where it clicks at all.
As to White's here again and the last few songs, it slows down
a lot. And again, while I there are songs on this I think
I'm coming across like more negatively even than I have feelings on this record,
because there are a few songs that, despite the sound of them, I
enjoy the tracks. But I think as someone who does regularly go to defense
and jutsu, the song stretching here tests my patient a bit. Do you
remember when we reviewed Send Dudes and alek K It was with the wonderful anecdote
about Maiden gluing their foreskins shut right at the end and ruining it. That
like, done it again, haven't they? They's done it again? Like
I'm sure. I'm sure. I'd have to check with Alec. I'm sure
he caut with that anecdote. And I'm not gone crazy. Like the last
three songs on this are where my life. I went from disliking this album
to hating it. I can with your disposition. I can totally understand why
that occurred. Even Facing Mirror, which is four minutes long, that song
felt long. Look at your face in the mirror? Does it look the
same? Shut up, Bruce. He does repeat that line about four hundred
times. I think Shadow of the Gods, which I know you roasted earlier.
Bit Elliott, there's a part again, it's like a lengthy song.
There are parts in it that I like. There's a part where he starts
belting around the kind of three minute mark, and you know, I'm a
Maiden fan of Only Human. That's just a good sound to me. But
it's kind of a a slightly disjointing song in terms of like where it pays
off, how it gets to places or whatever, and then it's he pulls
a maiden, puts a longer epic right immortal beloved. It is the worst
thing I've heard like on and I'm released this year. We're not talking about
Wow, Lord of the Lost album. Okay, my closing track is an
abomination. I really wouldn't go that far. For me. It was just
like, I am, I'm ready for this album to end at this point.
I think, you know, it feels done at the five minute mark,
and then there's still four minutes more that are mainly Bruce talking to himself.
He repeats the lovers brought you here and love will tear your part lyric
for ages. I was like, this is I'm stuck in a time loop.
That song genuine made me feel like I was in a time loop and
there was no escape. First five minutes I think are not awful. The
fact that it's twice that length is really bizarre. I think the sequencing of
this record really hurts that song in particular. And I know that there's there's
no way you could arrange the songs on this record and go, oh my
god, it's incredible. But having like two real dirges or two of the
worst songs on the collection going into this one, and you know, in
a weird if it weren't for the Book of Souls, the id of an
epic Bruce Dickinson solo song I would find quite terrifying. But Empire of the
Clouds is the best song on that record, and it's eighteen minutes long and
it's all written by Bruce, and it's like, oh, he can deliver
that kind of balance of real drama and kind of camp in a really unique
and amusing, you know, enjoyable way. And this has a lot of
the fun of Cooch in theory, fun of Cooch mons like a spoken word,
little bit's a sound, even if it does sound cheap, and the
song has some kind of wonder to it, which I think a lot of
this record lacks. But by the time I get to this song on each
listen, I'm so done in that my enthusiasm is just completely waned. Yeah,
like this album, it does. It exult ASTs me in a way
that the previous two Iron Maiden albums don't to the same degree. And those
are albums that I fully admit and recognize are bloated and have structuring problems,
and like, ultimately, like a Bruce tickets and the solo album is not
something I needed. I'm not mad that I got it, that it exists.
I think like there are a few more good songs to add to his
very very long resume of them, you know, and like there are ticks
in the plus column that these songs exist. But I do think this album
is actually a good reminder of what is still so worthwhile in the current Iron
Maiden records, because like, you know, I've seen a couple of like,
oh, I like this way more than the latest made in comments and
you know, if you do, fine, But I think the band chemistry
and having the standard of players that that band does really speaks for itself,
because like send Dukes in the Book of Soles aren't perfect, but they have
Nicko McBrain and Steve Harris on them. They have Adrian Smith playing the guitar
solos that can't just be hand waved away so easily, I think, because
the albums are too long, and you know, while Kevin Shirley is not
perfect, this album sounds very cheap to me in a way that takes me
more out of it. And this thing is still nearly a whole hour long,
so it's not like this is some breezy, fucking, you know,
like punk rock record. No, I would agree with pretty much all of
that. I think this as much as in theory, this album being a
bit more straight to the point, and I can hear, even if it
doesn't sound there, I can kind of hear what's going on because a lot
of my problem with the last two Iron Maiden records, and in particular Senjutsu,
is I think the mix is way off. I don't know if it's
to account for something or they're trying to hide certain things in the whatever.
Either way, those records, both of them have glimmers and full songs of
like the Maiden, magic, like Hell on Earth, Empire of the Clouds,
Days of Future, passed Rights on the Wall, like they're not without
those moments where you go, fucking hell that that is Iron Maid. And
I'm listening to you know, this record, even if I'm not, I
don't hate all of it. It never has like a second of that where
you go holy shit, Bruce. For me, there's no moment Wentre I
go, oh my god, Bruce Dickinson the way we saw Rob halfl on
that Judas priestyle and you're like Jesus Christ. This guy, Yeah, I
think for me, like there are there are moments when I have that Bruce
magic again, the chorus of after Good rather up in particular, I think
he fucking sells it, but he is majorly compromised by the kind of surroundings
he's built for himself. Yeah, I mean, I don't get into that,
and it has made me really appreciate though. Even again, I didn't
mind some jets. I didn't like Book of Souls, but I would take
I'd rather listen to all of Book of Souls again than listen to this.
Like that's how much I genuinely just have a strong disliking towards it. I
don't know if it's you know, doing it alongside the Priest album has made
me look even harsh on it, so I'm like, that's how it should
sound. But I just had a miserable time. Yeah, We've got a
lovely way to round off this, kind of like nineteen eighties Heavy Out or
got that. This episode starts off with with the band not actually from the
eighties, but inspired by it, and the reason it's good this time is
are those albums too long to you? Are you Exhausted by Bruce Dickinson.
Do you want a heavy amountal record that is literally like less than half as
long twenty five minutes as either of those albums spoken about? The new Midnight
record Hellish Expectations is twenty five minutes long, fucking getting like I just ah,
I've had this is this has been one of those albums I've not stop
listening over the last couple of weeks because he's just and he's just a shot
of adrenaline, just lift of spirits, Like there's not loadar I'll have to
say about this other than like it all fucking rips, you know what you're
talking about. With the Priest album earlier, we're like every chorus is just
kind of shouting the song tide to sing the song title over. Yes again,
Well it's fucking midnight as well, I've done it, Like does that
the Expender Court Expending Mercy expect total hell? Like yeah, let's ah,
so I know what you mean. I'm not having a ton to say or
hot not knowing necessarily what to say because you've said before, are the hardest
downs to review are the ones where you're not that keen on it, you
don't love it, you don't hate it, and it's quite a generic thing
that's not true. The hardest downs to review are the ones that do a
thing that is so obvious and everyone listening will know exactly whether or not it's
for them. But it's great, yeah, because you can't even say,
well, if they work on that, or if they hone this, or
I would shave some of that off and then this would be a much better
record. Midnight on one of those bands where it's like you can't improve at
the thing. You know, you wouldn't change a thing. You could just
change a thing about this. You can just keep doing it. And every
two years I'll go, oh, I could do with a new midnight record.
Oh there's one. I've tripped over. It perfect and every fucking time
it's so sweet. Yeah. And because of that, like, if you're
not familiar with Midnight at this stage, I'm going to assume you've just started
listening to this podcast this week, which, if that's you, cool,
happy to have you, glad. We're still picking you people up. But
you know the drill now with Midnight, and the thing with that is like
the first midnight album that I reviewed on TNM was Rebirth by blashm which came
out in twenty twenty, and that was right before the COVID lockdowns at the
start of that year. The following album, Let They Witchery, released in
twenty twenty two, was basically written and recorded right after Rebirth by Blasphemy came
out, because he didn't go out touring for that album straight away, so
he just made this whole other album and sat on it for a bit until
he could tour the two of them together. This album right after the recording
of that last album. He wrote this in a weekend and we've recorded basically
right after the last album. He is literally writing and recording albums faster than
he can release them at this stage. I think the only thing holding him
back to this kind of two year schedule is like the physical manufacturing of these
albums and all the kind of logistics there and one thing to go out and
tour them. If he was just sat at home and was just only putting
these old band camp, we'd have a new Midnight album every month, I
think, and like having spoken about Midnight, you know a lot over those
albums. I think we might not have reviewed this had this come out in
a Bithia month like next month, for example, because you know, if
it's for you, just looking at the album cover right, like, there's
not a lot of surprises even by midnight A standards, because it was written
in a weekend, like the last album. I remember us joking that it
was surprisingly procky for them because the last song, sex Witchery, had like
a different riff at the end of the song that it transitioned to and it
was like sort of disconnected and it was a slightly void body feeling on it.
This album none of that. This is the midnight album that was written
in a weekend. Having said all that, I love it, Like that's
things I've realized that album. I love this and even more because this one,
it is just no bullshit gas Strape two minutes of the snotty punk like
that is just a pure like hack and sash punk for a dB and just
obnoxious fury and it fucking rips. I just again like this album they just
no no nonsense, absolutely not a single ounce of fatl fillo on it,
just pure like riffs and attitude and hooks. So good. Yeah, this
band, like they did do exactly what I want from them, the perfect
cross section of speed metal and punky black Matt. Yeah, this man has
turned the filtration of Venom and Motorhead and kill them all here in Metallica and
all these obvious things, just like into an art form that is so midnight.
What do you expect? You expect? Total hell? It has maybe
my favorite midnight album cover since the early ones, at least the nun hanging
from the bell. It's a fucking hard detail. Opening song is fantastic,
catchy riff dbat. He goes We've only come for your sleeeze at one point,
which just an amazing line. I did what I often do with midnight
albums, is I just put the album on in my headphones before looking at
the track list, and I work out what each song is called based on
what he shouts the most. And it did make me piss when in track
two he comes in yelling about gash scrapes. And that is the plus of
continuing to review all these mid night albums, because they make me laugh.
They're a good giggle. The way deliver Us to Devil doesn't put in a
the or an a. It's just us to Devil, like there's no time
for the brilliant apparently that song is about literally waiting for your heavy metal records
to be delivered to your door. So so endearing. I love Hi Master
and Deadly. When he says you will fry more, people should utilize fry
as a threat. It sounds like he's been lifted out of a time machine
from the nineteen fifties, like I'll fry for this. It's so good,
my favorite one for like just like things this shout doom, death, desire,
desire to do. I was like, yesk lyricism right there, just
like no nonre is like poetry. That to me the best one foal Like
when I saw that was like felt, fuck, we're fucking saving that for
last. Let me tell you. I mean you could just copy and paste
one about saying about basically all the songs, but it like it's just shouting
the song title over two chords and slave the blade like whatever, gash scrape
Master is a dungeon lost. It's like I just think of that kid on
the Fat Boys Slim album, which I'm number one, so why try harder?
It's like effoot is as let we don't need here right, keep it
simple. I was gonna say work smart and not hard, but you're not
working smart, You're working dumb. You stick to dumb and you can't go
far wrong. And merciless slaughter both words spelt completely wrong. Another banger,
I mean, and the bits where I was going, oh, this is
actually quite interesting or like this dungeon LUs, I was like, that's kind
of killing Joe Griff. I was, I'm amazed that that's notable that are
riff drones on a midnight record, And I'm like, ah, that's pretty
neat. Yeah to me, Like Gash Scrape feels like it should be the
kind of ignorant punk track on the record, which I guess in vibe it
kind of is because he's really flaming all over that one. But the fact
that there's actually a shorter someng on in Slave of the Blade, which is
like a trad metal song that's kind of like almost that eighties glam touched the
riffing at points, Yeah, I kind of show you, which he does,
but it's one minute fifty seconds long. It's like, you know,
fucking lift that off the kind of Ace of Spades album. Make it crustier
or something. The way he just builds into like the way the chorus comes
in and expect total hell. It's just really satisfying where you can you can
feel him building up to that title line before he actually says it, you
know, with the kind of expect you if it feels good, Yeah,
it feels good when he gets there to the total hell and that title guessing
game. I was playing first run through of Dungeon Lust. He goes webs
and dust and I thought, oh, that's it. Then I would get
jump scared, like with a fucking rabid you know, dager Last, like
the fucking Scary Vase game or something. It's brilliant and that like unhinged vocal
delivery that just sounds like a you know, a demon leading a gang of
hoodlums all cramming into yell at together, which is the perfect conduit for watching
them live. The more necro backing vocal that chimes in or nuclear savior to
complete the chorus really great. It's just it's one of the most kind of
immediately infectious sounds to my ear that there is. And the whips at the
end of Dungeon Lust. It would creep away song, and it likes a
song called Dungeon Lust. I would be disappointed if there wasn't a whip cracking
to be honest with he knows exactly he understands the assignment per se. Yeah,
I still can't believe they're from Ohio. It just doesn't compute. It's
how are they They are the most finished band there has ever been. Oh
no, to me, this really it really makes sense as one guy in
a kind of like middle of nowhere state of America just doing this one thing.
It's got a weird oh mentality, you know, it's got out.
It's probably outsider in that regard in that. Yeah, like this one dude
who just wants to make all the noise, I assue, you meanwhere like
it doesn't sound like positive in American but because it's got that punk att you
that's why I can sorta sly where like weirdo in America just wanted to make
a racket, but they managed to make it sound He manages to make it
sound so live. That's the thing that always blows me away about Midnight.
Normally you can hear when when it's one person and like that's not even necessarily
a criticism that can be for better or for worse. But there's songs on
it, and when they end, They sound like the band finishing it for
the first time was brilliant. And it's like, if you're one guy recording
everything separately, you could tighten that up as much as you want, but
Midnight understands that's in that sort of imperfection and if you don't have a weekend,
you haven't got time to tie it up. But like it makes the
whole thing feel so much more, seems more weirdly words use kind of legit.
Yeah, absolutely, I think he is a wicked solo player again,
like check out expectatle Hell or the Shredding over Nuclear Savior, But this feeling
like the most straight to the point, direct nobullshit even amongst Midnight albums,
Like there was no fact to shave off, but this one has shaved it,
you know, tempo changes in this one minus Like the one song that
made me turn my head in terms of like a new tone or approach coming
in is when Merciless Slaughter hits. That's which stomp and it's so fuggish.
Somehow the distortion on that tone just goes off the charts. It reminds me
of like late nineties Motorhead like records like Snake Bite Love or whatever, like
drawing a kind of Phil Campbell era not Fast Motorhead, and it's so thick
and nasty, it's like foaming at the mouth and just so repetitive and bludgeoning.
And once again you're saying mercy less slot all. You read the title
and how it's spelled, and then when he sings it, you go,
oh, yeah, that's how you said it. Like I want to know,
like did he spell it like that first and alter his delivery or did
he do what came out and change the word afterwards, because like, you
can't argue he says mercy less slatter all. I wonder if you take him
I didn't say merciless brilliant, you know, just put into guitar melodies,
into that very basic template. Marten Deadly is a good one at the start,
and the peak of that, which is genuinely quite magical, I think
is f O A L. Which I'm imagining the writing process for that is
hysterical to me, because like, okay, dark Throne, I've got fuck
off and die. We'll say fuck off and live because that's worse. This
is maybe my favorite midnight song. I'm not sure it's the kind of idea.
If you're a comedy metal band, you would be high fiving for weeks
for having thought of it. Why would I want you to die so you
could be free? Don't want you to don't want to see you in hell,
not next to me. This guy, he doesn't want his enemies to
die because he's already in hell and they'll be sent to while there is roommates
and he'll have to be around. That will make it worse for self acceptance
that you know you're in hell. It's so good and that was again it
was the lead single from this and that's just that's going in the cannon of
all the great midnight songs that he's built that you want to see live because
it's so catchy and anthemic. The guitar melody is actually sensational. Is the
thing like the new wave British heavy metal style melody that comes through in that
I find genuinely soul stirring. You know, the leads over that main riff
they burst with so much like fuck yeah, amps rippling with joy, and
you combine that uplifting feeling with a chorus of fuck off, fuck off and
live. You hear that once and you're ready to fucking you know, finger
in the air sing along. Like you say about the solos, it's it's
for me. It's one of the most underrated aspects of Motorhead. Who will
clear the biggest inspiration on Midnight Fast End Clott Phil Campbell, both of them
and the others at their best, they had a real way of lifting the
songs. Like the end of Overkill with the solo is just it goes from
a ten out of ten to a ten out of ten out of ten when
that solo comes in, and Midnight understands that, Like a lot of bands
would probably think, oh, it's all about the bass and the low end
riff and the double and all that. But when the lead comes in on
fuck Off and Live, I think, I am. I Am going to
fuck off and live. That's the plan, Like I just think, Like
like you say, it manages to make you feel happy when you're being shouted
at to live to avoid hell, which is where the guy is and he
hates you so much, doesn't want to be in hell with you because you
would make hell worse for him. It's just heavy metal is so fucking good.
I feel like that. That's why I find that hard time to go
like this was written in like a weekend because it has actually got like really
great moments like those shows that do lift songs. It doesn't feel have hazard
rushed and sloppy, even if again it does feel like he's just played it
entirely on instinct. It's just great spontaneity, isn't it. Yeah, that's
it. I think that's it is the greatest spontaneity. But like fucking lim
does actually like feel genuinely liberating, and again why it's why I would put
on a metal album where it's just like or a punk at it has all
of that appeal to me where I'm like, I love hardcrun punk and hay
metal, so I'm getting it all in this what like well Wind of Noise
that is just completely free of any bullshit and I think it's just like one
of the most joyous sounds. Yeah, I think, you know, one
of the best metal songs of twenty twenty fourth so far, lovely Stuff.
Midnight got more punk with this album, you know. It's like the last
several albums, which are the ones that we've been reviewing, they are actually
of a much higher recording standard and everything than like where he started off in
the really stinky underground. Like, this is a good sounding album. He
has great tones that are very recognizable. Midnight albums just immediately sound like midnight
albums. But this is, I guess, in this current era, a
step back to the more primal thing that he does. If Let There Be
Witchery was too complex and pretentious for you, you know, it's it's not
clever, it's not fancy. This might be about the best album that you
could feasibly write in a weekend. I'll say it's probably my favorite midnight album
since at least the second one, maybe the first one. Wow. I
as much as like you said, Let There Be Witchery and Rebuth by Blasting,
both of them are fucking excellent. I do just want to be clubbed
in the head, to be honest, and this does that better than maybe
any of his records. Yeah, I think the last few are fucking brilliant,
particularly re Birth by Blasphemy, I think is up there with his best.
But I think they're all good. And I like that this record made
me reference the Motorhead albums Snake Bite Love. I don't think that's ever happened
before. You know, he's on tour in the UK next month. Hikerlanda
playing with it as well. Guaranteed great times geticular with these in the pocket.
All right. Not the busiest month for like proper punk stuff. But
the most significant one we have comes from gouage Away and it's their album called
Deep Sage. It's the new album from the Floridian punk band to gage Away.
It's the follow up to their album Burnt Sugar, which was reviewed on
the show way back around when I first joined, I did not realize that
their last album was so long ago. It's been six years, which for
a punk band, you make half hour long records a staggering amount of time.
Think about the hardcore landscape in twenty eighteen versus now, Like things move
so fast in that world, Like the entire gult rise and fall happens in
that time. Yeah, yeah, I mean part of it was because,
I mean the story of this album was obviously they had this album written and
then they scrapped him, kind of quietly broke up over COVID for a while.
They all kind of went off their ways and it just wasn't working for
them. So that's why there's been such a huge gap. And then I
think like Clear at some point decided to reconvene, pick up the scraps from
this album and kind of reassemble it. Yeah, I guess it is impressive
that Goage Away have managed to maintain a sort of like name recognition after those
years. You know, like they went on a bit of hiatus that only
ended in twenty twenty two, but they have been a presence since on you
know, hardcore festivals and things like that, and it feels like there is
still a kind of, you know, a demand for Garage Away. Yeah.
I think that just because those early records and the kind of the reputation
they built up on them garnered them so much good will that if they had
to then you know, go away and becoming active for a while, there
was still going to be a level of excitement for when they did return.
Yeah, And you know, I have not spent much much timing in those
years listening to Goageway, I will be honest, but I do remember enjoying
that last album. And this is obviously our you know, like punk alternative
kind of representative for this episode, which is I guess an interesting place to
consider sort of like what part of that Goage Away actually sort of fit into
because they're they're sort of a funny band where you're like, are they a
hardcore band? Are they like an alternative rock band? They kind of meld
a few different textures. Yeah, and I think that's become even more kind
of a thing on this album, particularly where the previous albums there was there
was some a bit scrappier about them that you could always kind of like loop
it back to melicarily hardcore but punk. At least this isn't as kind of
like clearly a punk record there there's a bit I think there's more going on
here again where it does branch out and touch into a few different areas.
Yeah, and Sam, this was the album this month that you were like
keen to put on, So like, what is it about Goage Away that's
kind of made you a fan? Well, I always thought they were just
like when they emerged, they were just a really cool band who had just
such a like different energy about them. Where again, even in the hardcore
sing where they were they emerge, it was kind of like in the post
Turnstile blowing Up kind of years were they still felt totally different to a lot
of Walsh was going on around them. They weren't doing what Vane or Code
Orange or Turnstile were doing. They had their own kind of laying they were
carving out, which I found really exciting and I was really good when they
did just kind of like fade away. So them coming back was when I
was just going to be all in on and seeing where they do they again,
where hardcore has changed so much, do they pick up on kind of
what they were doing before, or do they morph themselves to fit more into
the current hardcore landscape. Yeah, And like going back to the Burnt Sugar
album, it's kind of the thing that really sort of stands out was kind
of apart from the hardcore class of twenty eighteen or whatever. It's kind of
the full on noise rock aspect of it, and that Elliot that leads me
to guess that you would probably get on very well with this as well in
terms of that kind of Jesus lizardy discordant quality when we're talking about like an
alternative record. Yeah, that's always been my favorite aspect of gouge Away,
particularly like in the realm of the hardcore outbreak adjacent alternative rock acts that maybe
they sort of they came up around the same time. I like the Melvins
of Outbreak, you know, exactly, because you know all those bands they
look at Smashing Pumpkins and Harmon the like, and I just like that Goageway,
look at Fugazia at their nassiest Jesus Lizard, Lightning Bolt, Melvin's and
all that, And for them to sit in the sense of something like between
that, which is such an austere, unwelcoming, kind of callous form of
music, and also emotional hardcore, which is so harsh on sleeve. The
way they found a kind of bisect in the middle of those two things,
I always thought was so cool. And that's why I'm kind of surprised to
hear that this they had this record written a while ago, because in some
way, this album feels like, if not a reaction, quite a deliberate
move to keep up with where hardcore's gone since twenty eighteen, because, like
you say, it's a very different place, and there's quite a lot of
bands now where they sit right in that gray area between old rock and hardcore,
and this definitely feels like they're biggest leap into that territory. They have
maintained enough of that Jesus Lizard Lightning Bolts sound. Yeah, I think maybe
that is gouge Away being perhaps slightly ahead of where you know, things were
maybe gonna go, and they were kind of, you know, organically arriving
at this place anyway. I mean it's recorded with Jack Shirley, who,
in terms of you're talking about the emotional hardcore side as well as like the
full on, you know, dark fucking, you know heavy stuff, is
someone who can thread those lines in terms of what he's worked on and stuff
like that. And I think that kind of again going back to Burnt Sugar
and hearing that element in there being like, oh that's cool, and again
the first dabblings with and stuff that they have on that record, This record,
to me sounds like a lot more of those ideas, kind of you
know, coming to fruition and sounding like a more I don't think confident is
the right word, but a more fully realized version. Yeah, I definitely
agree this is like taking those kind of noise or aspects and realism because this
is a like quite a dark, oppressive album at points in what is of
course still a scrappy punk album. Just as frequently I think like there's a
really like I didn't know if there's anyone going around in sort hargle that actually
sounds like quite what Gouge we're doing. Because there are a lot of bands,
you know, have their hardcores their base and then branch onto different things,
and like, I mean, there is you know, bits of post
punk on this, which every band seems to have to bring in it some
to some extent. But again, I think Gouage we're doing it in a
way that doesn't feel like we're doing the obvious post punk thing here, that
they're kind of just morphing into part of this like weird dark, kind of
nightmarish hardcore sound they're they're doing. Yeah, And the idea that this band
are quite popular in like hardcore circles is it's quite funny because obviously you can
see the connection, but also like you're not really gonna mosh for these songs,
you know that there are a lot more kind of like uh, you
know, sort of jagged and kind of you know, uncrowd pleasing in that
regard, someone like early post hardcore in that kind of way. The definitely,
and they've they've got the kind of you know, obviously kind of alt
rock awkwardness of Pixies and Breeders that they're more kind of like clanging and discord
and obviously not surprising given there where their name comes from, but they're kind
of bringing that into that kind of like you know, angry punk kind of
basis, and you know, someone like Stuck in a Dream, Is that
really just like anxiety attack kind of panicking elements of that kind of noise rock,
just like hammering on this idea and repeating this like central you know,
phrase and thing like it's really fucking just like in the throes of something that's
like a really rattled song where it is kind of like clanging and crashing about
like the drums. It's I'm really like rickety and ragged and like I think
we're seeing the vocally. I think she's fantastic on this album. It's like
being just like a costing and supermarket and fucking scrimthing like her screech on this
is like genuinely like pained and it's like uncomfortable to this to where it's not
like a like a proper like hardcore bark or a really like trained screaming.
It's just kind of like frantic kind of like wail from this woman who is
working through some shit. And even when it goes like softer on the like
the end of the eyes want to wake up, they're like, the pain
is still there, it's just kind of like exhausted and burnt out. By
that point, I think it says a lot that this is clearly the least
hardcore record they've ever done. And yeah, I've not seen any talk of,
oh, gouage away, I've gone soft, or they've they've gone alt
rock or whatever, because it's as like you say, anxiety inducing and aggressive
as basically anything they've done. And I'm so impressed by their ability to make
songs genuinely feel like streams of consciousness, which so many bands striveele And it's
such a it's a that Sony bands say the lyrics here, we just let
it all flow out, and that might be true, but it doesn't feel
that way. But Stuck in a Dream as an opener, it's a weird
record cause it kind of sets you up for what you're getting, but it's
so unwelcoming, Like you put that on and you just go, do you
do you want me to listen to this? I'll go, I don't have
to because it's so just I mean, the supermarket analogy works perfectly. It
just it puts you on edge so quickly. Yeah, and the singer Christina
is just putting a fucking fit in, you know, like the sharpening when
she is hollering on that like maybe it's not me, it's like Julie Christmas
in Made out of Babies or something just like that, really like you in
an intended way. He kind of nails down a chalkboard like that song is
ferocious, but it's also it's not just like unhinged insanity. She also sounds
cool when she does it in a weird word like maybe blue with that opening
line, your hair has been getting longer food and for it just going bad.
She sounds a bit like the guy from the Bronx. She's got that
kind of lack of daisical but still dangerous flare that that guy has. It's
I mean, it reminded me of the immortal fuck the gun in the yard.
I can't tend to my own dreams like lyrically, and it has a
bit more bite than that. Maybe Blue Hairs is kind of like indie dance
kind of vibe to it, but it's got that bite and aggression. That's
the thing that like cool vibe comes from, where it's quite like laid back
and playful in the music, but there is just this like it's got a
knife, it's gonna stab at you at any moment, Like there is a
there is an unpredictability that makes this album really cool and exciting. Yeah,
that's one of my favorite songs on this record. It's got that like jagged,
catchy rock riff and it's kind of you know, they've added that sort
of sense of like slacker rock cool kind of melody into the arrangement. It's
like kind of honky piano thing going through it, but the vocals are still
just like super wailing and a tonal and there's a cool sort of offset vibe
they really nail there, and they revisit that sort of like driving rock and
roll feeling spaced out later on, and it's quite compelling hearing you know,
something like that, topped off by this like dysfunctional, fuck up car crash
kind of energy with that, I just want to be spaced out all that
kind of you know, like the best song they can do in one minute
forty five seconds. I think that the lead single idealized. It's fun that
that record, that song in the record kind of transitions almost it's like the
sleepy after effect of maybe blue like but the way that song comes to life
again and prevents in the record, the kind of the first taste of you
know, kind of vocal dynamic and melody. I think that is a moment
of the record, you know, opening up. And I think that song
is it's not even what you would describe as a hit, you know,
like it's probably actually less catchy than the first two songs because it's not shouting
one kind of same you know, drilling a hook into you. But it's
a very you know, snaky type of melodic song and stuff like that or
a welcome change are you know. They don't raise their voice too much,
and I don't think, you know, not every track on this record is
electrifying. Maybe, but I think as an album with a relatively quick run
time, obviously it's literally there in the title of that song, like it's
a stronger sense of dynamics than just sort of ramping up that panic attack call
it the who Way Through. And I think that's something they really, you
know, they managed to kind of balance on this record. Yeah, I
think those like slower, softer songs that idealized We're like, I'd feel as
like it starts by winding up for like a big riff and then almost me
it kind of SLINKs back into this kind of dreamlike kind of ambience. It's
really pretty with some of the oozers for that, but again it still feels
like there's that day there where, like even on something that I does where
it's quite pretty, you get that scream of no apology that kind of just
again feels like a violent lashing out and a welcome change, has so much
like gothic kind of moodiness to it, and it's sort of where it feels
like it's again threatening to come at you, but never wanting to give you
the sort of gratification of like having that big release. And they kind of
just out these these songs in a kind of really awkward feeling, which just
adds to the kind of panic attack feeling of the album. I think they're
really get to have their cake and eat it on those two songs, because
it's they get to do these softer moments without sacrificing that tension. Because especially
idolized, you know, you are like a small festival and the stages are
too close and you're watching one band and hear them tuning up. Yeah,
this is like if you're watching some of like Phoebe Bridges or some like bedroom
pop artists and Scratch Acid are warming up on the next stage, Like just
when you're kind of relaxing, getting into the mood of it, you will
just get these little discordant stabs just running like a little bit bits of lemon
juice in your ear. And they manage to give these songs that don't never
like you say, they never really snap or unleash any bile. They just
give it that menace. Yeah, and I think you know, you could
hear that stuff sort of beginning to blossom on the previous record, But like
this covers more ground thirty four minutes than that did. There's more thought into
the sequencing, and you know, there's more chance than of arriving at something
like Dallas, which you know basically alone takes it over the half hour mark
by itself by kind of leaning into kind of a long form, full on
Shoegaz tap track, and you know, she sounds really good on that song
in terms of carrying a more tender kind of feeling, and it has some
really like ear catching, you know, kind of raw lyrics, and the
first three minutes of that are really bleak, but in this dreamy kind of
way, and then the halftime switch for the rest and the vocals getting that
bit more desperate. It kind of it's kind of heartwrenching the way it record
ends. Yeah, like Dallas for me, because one where that the vocals
really take that shift where they they do go to the full on kind of
like shoegaze haziness. But again, it still never feels that they've sounded down
the edges or made it too pretty where it doesn't feel like the pain that's
kind of like fed through the entire album has been lost, and like it
almost feels that they're trying to find a little hope at the end of the
album, but it can't fully eight from like the darker elements. Sometimes when
bands throw shoegaze or like ambient songs at the end, it kind of feels
like the credits rolling or the song playing after the gig where you kind of
get up your stretch, you go, oh, that was a nice time
I listened to. This is the longest song on the record, and yet
it feels like almost like the least planned out, and I mean that in
a positive way, because there isn't really a natural build up to it,
and it's six minutes that, like you say, the climax in air quotes
of it is really heart rendering, heartbreaking. But it changes tempo in a
really unnatural sounds kind of improvers improvis what's the word improvisational way, and no
two of vocal lines, even with the same lyrics sound all that alike.
It's really strange. Again, it goes completely against stuff like post rock and
shoegaze, where repetition and that hypnotic thing is on the agenda. It's almost
like you can't quite settle in. The nervous energy is woven into even what
should be the most relaxing song on the record. Yeah, and it's kind
of you know, arriving at that. But at the same time, I
really like the weird, oh big black type grooves, you know, like
stuff like the title track, that repetitive based groove against that kind of tambourine
or whatever it is in the back kind of moving against it. It's got
a kind of offbeat, gangly but hooky type quality. There's really bouncy punk
energy that comes out in the time like no release at its core could be
something that you'd have handed the most traditional hardcore song almost that sounds like something
that you could have handed to Milk Teeth or someone. But the way Gouge
Away you play and deliver it, it just comes out wrong in this kind
of warring like that. For me, that's my favorite song with this record,
I think in terms of like how utterly rotted it is. It's so
like it's got like a hand clap and it's like almost like yeahly, but
it's so like poisoned from the inside and like dying like slowly, and it's
like this again, that's one where I get it. It feels like you've
the whole. I took the sweetness from the inside kind of hook and all
that, and that's one of the like the whole like creeping darkness and unsettling
feeling is perfectly realized. I think I Grabbing It probably is my favorite on
the album. Yeah, It's like a catchy punk riff that's been like snapped
in two and is having another played over on the wrong Threats or something.
It's like it's just such a sickly feeling and the way they add in those
hand claps and stuff, it just makes it feel like a bit more perverse
and like the thing that's means for me is like the joyous happy moment the
song on the claps coming. It's always like, no, this is like
mangled and twisted. Yeah, I think, you know, amongst these more
kind of like olt rock leaning records, this is such a feel bad one
and not just in a you know shirt turkey Jesus Christ, I'm twenty six
way, it's more like a I'm in the fetal position, mum, I
don't feel too good, you know, way, even down to the artwork,
having that upsetting like theatre mask kind of. Yeah, like the whole
is just the whole thing is just bad vibes. Absolutely, and I think
it again, it's unique to me having a band who you can put in
with the kind of trendy hardcore a lot like that, but also couch slow
and things like that and those you know now the kind of noisy you know,
underground punk that led into grund rather than grunge itself. And yeah,
cool band. I'm glad that they are like reasserting themselves as a thing in
the current kind of punk scene because it is it's more interesting for having them
in it. So all right, we've only got six reviews this episode.
There will be a couple more trickling in in the next couple of weeks,
but it meant I did have room this time to sneak in something that at
this point is about six weeks old. But I just want to talk about
it, and I think more people should hear it. It's certainly in my
top three of everything that has been released thus far this year. It's Chapel
of Disease. The record is called Echoes of Light. I've mentioned this a
couple of times now on the show because again it's been out in the air
for a little bit. I put it in a hyperblast round up, thinking
oh, that'd be a cool release for me to check out when I get
the moment, not necessarily expecting it to force its way into the conversation here.
I then saw them at Celestial Darkness Festival in London earlier this month and
they were one of the best bands of the fest. It was all just
kind of, you know, pointing to me making other people listen to this
record at some point, because I think it's ext and I think that some
of the like some of the best underground record for us to review are the
ones that extreme metal sometimes produce, these bands that don't really sound like anything
else in that world, and you know, like, you know, we
reviewed the Holder album last month, for example, and I really love that
album, Like I was listened to it again this week and I think it's
brilliant, But you Sam were just like, well, this is just a
black metal album. I like to kind of take the ortunity to spotlight bands
who sound kind of weird and you can't say that about them. The only
elevator pitchure I really have for Chaplain Disease that I've sort of settled on is
if Tribulation, as they were transitioning out of death metal instead of going goth,
had turned to Dire Straits instead, Like Tribulation is like about the only
really obvious comparison point, and I think obviously tells you a bit as to
why I love this. But while they've had the same trajectory of like starting
off in death metal and over their albums chipping it away into something unique,
I guess you could say, you know, horrendous, something similar, someone
like Mali Carpetown as well, but the end point is different to all of
those things, and to me has arrived at the kind of fullest potential so
far of what this is. Yeah, I mean I had absolutely no clue
what to expect him play from this, Like I was kind of just what
to say. A band called Chaplin Disease, I was kind of like death
metal ball and that it echoes of like it's quite spacey cover. I was
like, well, I'm guessing this is going to be proggy, So I
was a bit like on edge and then hit playing you get these really lush,
clean guitars almost to be lining, and like that's just kind of one
flavor, Like because then I've had all the shoegazs in Customers, you get
this like classic rock stra and I was kind of like, there's a lot
of sounds coming at me within the first like minutes of this album. Yeah,
if you weren't following them and they're trajector already they put in the song,
would be a really like oh what is this? Yeah? I just
couldn't settle into this first song and was pleasantly, I guess, pleasantly surprised
by how like I found this journey. Yeah, I I properly had to
double do a double take to see that picked the right back because it's my
first balance with Chaplin Disease. But just on the name, I was like
grossy into death metal Boss Metals. The name is literally it's a combination of
Chapel of Ghouls and Angel Disease from More butan Angel. That's why he's died
off exactly. Yeah. And I didn't even pay attention to the album cover
or the album ties or anything. I just thought Chapel of Disease, death
metal hick on the rifts, and then a kind of breezy soft rock guitar
riff comes in at the beginning, and then over this record it's like I
suppose it's kind of death metal, but there's post rock, and there's like
eighty Shred and not even like like yacht rock kind of like stuff. Yeah,
and not even in like a kind of when I say shred, I
don't even necessarily mean like jak Lee. It's more like Eric Johnson. It's
kind of space rock, and it's it's a it's again, it's a death
metal record, but it's almost completely non aggressive the whole time, Like even
as its heaviest, it feels pretty breezy. It's literally death metal in vocal
only, I think at this point, like, yeah, So the first
time that I heard of this band was their last album came out in twenty
eighteen, and that again they'd started off more as a underground, you know,
attack death metal band. That record, they started to put these big,
insane classic rock guitar sections into that more jagged death metal, and I
thought that was really cool. But like now that the core death metal ripping
has been basically fashioned away into something else and for me really feels like its
own thing. Despite having vocal melody only in certain moments, this record is
all melody to me in such an exhilarating way. On pure guitar melody.
This is the best album of the year so far. The twin guitars together
are star performances. Again, I have been listening to record very very consistently
for six weeks now. I fucking love it. Don't know if I love
this because I'm still kind of wrapping my head around it and I'm the lead
again, Like its long again, what is it? Yeah? But I
will agree with you on a guitar On the guitar front, melodic guitar front.
I think this album and it's best is fucking outstanding. On that there
was some absolutely gorgeous melodies, which which is why I could really get and
that's why on the first track I was actually kind of disappointed. When I
was really loving these melodies and that ground that grunt came in as vocal.
I was like, ah, and again, I've kind of got fine with
that now, but it was kind of just a bit like kind of was
hoping for something like really lush and pretty from this. I I don't know
if I like this yet. Oh no, And I'm just going how I
hoped You've got me on side and not Elliott, what the fuck's got?
This is the rash pilling, isn't it? Like this is the thing I'm
not When you were saying earlier tribulation by way of dire straits, I was
like, oh my yes, yes, yes, yes, I fucking that
sounds so good. I I'm not gonna come hard on this record right because
it's only been maybe six to seven days I've been listening to it. There's
things that I think. It's a fascinating combination. I'm not sure where it's
landing with me just yet. But I don't want to rush it. But
there's things about this that I don't think work as of the dates. Okay,
I think that it's certainly it's a sound that because it is very unique
and it is putting some things together you might normally put together. I think
there will be definitely a degree of kind of you know, performance variation in
terms of how different people will take take it in. Again, I put
this on the week came out, and my kind of I went ooh,
okay, this is cool, and just going back to it again and again
and again. I love this album, great fucking deal. The main lead
at the start of the first track is pure like Santana just seventies rock star.
It's sensational. It sets me so in for a record of kind of
melody and pizaz and for me, it totally achieves that. The vocal dynamic
again adds a different kind of quality. But in terms of the the what
the songs are putting to the forward, those melodies and everything is so sick
to me. The main rock group that comes in on the drums in that
song and that kind of like, again, I'm not a guitarist, so
forgive the term, but that kind of like whack a whacker kind of guitar
riff. It's so cool and unique to hear in this context. It brings
in these kind of twinkly leads that are like straight off of a Cavell Attack
record. I think that's again doesn't out a Cavell Attack, but the level
of kind of like melodic rock meets like an underground yeah grit combination. And
how refreshing that was when that band broke through in a different, you know,
configuration of the things. That's kind of what I'm feeling with this.
It's that but more kind of like i'd say, more prog mind yeah,
and more kind of you know, shadowy gothy, which totally works for me.
Yeah. Yeah. The combinations are like, they are super amusing.
At the very least. There's moments one here where I thought, the only
way I feel like I can actually describe this is by doing one of those
like dumb genre jokes where it's like, oh, it's sambacore, or what
if you mixed grindcore with Latin jazz? Wouldn't that be wild? But it's
that's kind of what I'm listening to. On the song Death Through No loss.
There's a bit in the middle where I just thought, sorry, if
someone's done black and funk, it's finally happened, like we've we've reached the
end of music, because fuck me, is this a band willing to throw
some shit at the wall, Like the things they throw together are insane.
Thing for me, though, is why old the combination of elements on paper
feel very weird to me. The record has such a consistent like this isn't
this isn't the fucking this isn't the event sevenfold record right now where they literally
a wish. They've grabbed a million things that don't make sense together and put
the wall in the same songs. This has a very consistent vibe. I
think it has a kind of image that it's trying to place you in.
And for me, the way I've kind of, you know, come to
terms with what the elements are is it's it's like a completely different interpretation of
what melodic death metal could be in terms of like the melodic death metal kind
of came about with you know, death metal of the nineties, and then
they add heavy metal melody back into that sound. This has like done the
reverse where they're taking the knowledge of death metal back in time to the nineteen
seventies, and they're putting like, you know, growls and faster drums and
stuff like into that. It's like like you're hearing a nineteen seventies rock band
that contains time travelers who have like gone from the extreme music of the future
back and added that back into fucking dire straits or whatever. And for me
it works wonders. Like that mid section in the first song, it like
the guitarist es this like prog jam part. It's not something that you would
ever hero on extreme metal record, right unless you're like really out in kind
of the procy regions. And when it lets rip half that point, it
does so with a blast beat like a proper howling glass beet, and it's
like they're using some of the tricks of extremity to add this kind of new
refreshment of life into this kind of classic rock style of the past. And
that's what really really works for me. A Death Through No Loss has this
brilliant momentum, like that catchy main guitar riff to me is just so like
brilliant, galloping heavy metal barrage. It feels like flying through the stars.
On the cover, which is again the kind of main sort of mental through
line this record has, and there is for me, there's such an incredible
command of how they manipulate the kind of feels of heavy metal. When it
changes the gallop in the verses and the guy starts playing like nicker McBrain underneath
it where it's kind of like double bass skips and stuff like that. It's
like those things that they've clearly studied from again, records are all here,
but it's kind of feeding it through, you know, this kind of modern,
underground kind of content TXT. So like death through No Loss of probably
my least favorite song on the album. I mean, that's why I think
it is made. That's when that did feel a little disjointed to me,
where like I really like this sort of like flashy tapping riff at the beginning,
like all that sort of stuff. It's when it gets to sort of
the middle where it does kind of go into this kind of like nonsense prog
jam for me that I kind of lost it a little bit. That's the
one song where I kind of did find myself getting a bit like, well,
this sounds a little disjointed for me because all the other songs at least
kind of do settle on an identity and that's and even they're all wildly different.
Like Shallow Knights, is this like jazz kind of like really subdued,
like and it's gonna be like droning vocals, but it commits that that that
kind of feeling where it's like almost can like doom me at points, but
with like free form jazz and sort of stuff in there. Solenophile is the
one that that's my favorite one on the record because that one is just like,
let's fucking get the cowbell out. Well, here's the thing with this.
The vocalist is the obvious tan jible link to death metal that remains in
a similay to you know, Johannah's in Tribulation does but he kind of struts
and he swaggers. He kind of you know, lurks in the dark a
lot less and he's shaking his hips a bit, and he's we're like where
he chooses to kind of spit and put some bark into the denunciation. And
the one for that is Selenophile, which is a fucking rocker, just plain
and simple. The mule kick on that main riff, it really speaks to
the you know, the kind of the Devil's Blood or like just and the
Ancients. One fan in me this kind of like sublime, a cult rock
bucking broncho. The cowbell they bring in there, like Selom Lamuci would be
proud of that main Guitaric. That's the biggest compliment I can give. It's
fucking brilliant. And it has this like finger snapping, toe tapping chorus,
but shadows in the dark. Yeah, but barked out with this death metal
delivery with carried shadows in the dark. It's like I didn't care if he's
growling or not. You're grooving when that's happening. Like that's when that that
song for me is why why this album works, is because it all comes
together for that that song, and I can kind of then work back from
that and piece it together in the other songs and kind of do it because
that was where I was like, the death metal growl really actually makes sense
in making this be totally unique. When they're doing this full on like say,
pure classic rock cow bell strut swagger, like fist pumping chorus and all
that. It is like probably for the nighttime rockers, and I just that
song. I just had no idea this was a thing that was going to
exist, and when it came and I was just like, I think I
like this and I hate parents for like putting it off, put it on
my rainarch, and now I was kind of like recalibrate my expectations for a
lot of this on music, Well, yeah, I fully Solenophile was my
favorite as well, kind of Mark knopflow country style riff and in a super
catchy vocal, And for me, that's the most the runaway of success.
That's the song on the album I go, I see, Okay, I'm
on board for this one. But there's other moments I think a great as
well, at the end of an Ode to the Conqueror, which is basically
a post rock song towards the end of it, but it's done to a
really high standard. And even then I think they changed things up enough because
the canvas is these really frosty guitars where they've been quite warm for the majority
of the record, and the since a distinctly kind of new Age saying it
almost like one of en Ya's more ambient albums or something, but like really
unique and well placed. You know that there's plenty of moments across this record
that have that kind of charm for me. For me, and you might
correct me on this, having seen them live, I found this record quite
self serious, and it's weird because I don't mean self serious and that they
think or they think this is a deathly serious sound. There was a kind
of could you got it self importance to the record where it's like these kind
of experimental flights of fancy records for me, are at their best when they
feel really joyous, which is what I get from that Avenge seven four record.
With this one, it's like, I don't know, it's almost too
dry. I don't know about that. I mean because again, Solenophile to
me is such just like it's like a kick ass rockerber. I think there's
a commitment to a mood for a sure, but they fucking like kicks it
up when they're playing it, and it is a It has the same thing
to me of some of other bands I love, where they've kind of you
know, inserted a very very like rough and tumble fucking plug in and go
classic you know kind of rock sensibility into something that is moody and a set
at least more close to kind of things that I love in the underground,
and I think they do that in incredibly and again for me that whenever they're
just like, I don't hear any sense of like a lack of enjoyment or
pleasure in when these guys are in full flight, absolutely going as they are
on Selenophile or a Death or No Loss or that first track or whatever.
For me, that's just again just pure like heavy metal wonder but in a
way that has refreshed a lot of the configuration of the elements. The other
thing to say is that there are you know, there are now clean vocals
inserted on certain tracks. And like again, every review that I saw of
this albumen it came out from people who were familiar with this band already and
form the trajectory basically slathered all over this record, but pointed out the clean
vocals as the weak link that is not there yet. The all clean vocal
song Shallow Knights is another of my favorite songs of this You genuinely quite like
Shadow Nights, and I think because it's so committed to the mood. Wow
it was because like again, don't like it at first. That's one that
took a few listeners to grant me, but it does. It's just this
like nighttime hazy, kind of really atmospheric track that I did like when you
were that really ritualistic kind of chanting chorus. That's that's kind of one that's
stuck in my ear, and I think, like it's it's a cool track.
Again, I kind of have to agree with that consensus that the Cleans
I don't think are that great on this record. And the thing is this
is they're odd, and I don't mind that. In the extreme avant garde,
we've talked a lot about bands where you know that they have a vocalist
who's really off kilterwards sounds really strange the first time you hear it, and
then you get used to it and suddenly it's this really brilliant extra attribute to
it. But for me, it's like on the song gold Dust, these
clean vocals come in about three minutes in and they're kind of bad, like
they sound like a nervous guy at karaoke who half knows the song. And
for me, it's maybe that's where the self seriousness comes in. It's it's
a weird thing because they don't sound shy by any means. I don't there's
no shrinking violent quality to this record where you know they're second guessing this combination.
But when that comes in, there's something slightly caged about it, and
I don't think that helps. When the record is produced the way it is,
which overall I don't think is bad, but the vocals are really high
in the mix, and there are long stretches without vocals, which he was
quite a lot of space in the sound, And then when the vocals come
back in and I don't think they're that great, it can be pretty unrewarding
for me. Shallow Knights, for me, is like this gorgeous, like
space rock country ballad. I love it. It has this like Alison Chain's
lusciousness in the arrangement, and the way the vocals work for me is it's
not a huge powerhouse performance, but it has this really ghostly, strung out,
dejected kind of quality to me, And on that he sounds like he's
at like the end of a really long night and the energy has been kind
of beaten out with him. It kind of reminds me a bit of like
the clean vocals on the Wayfarer album and how those are used as a kind
of like haunted voice carrying over the planes more than like you know, a
fucking star performance. And even the way that kind of sad melody works with
you know, less emphasis on vocal power but mood. I think the way
the melody kind of you know, it fades out and there's just like that
one league guitar at the end of it, it's like he's still carrying on
the main melody of the chorus, like he's the last man standing of the
romans they've all drifted away. The Productions album, to me, is like
exactly how I want an album to sound like. I think it's gritty but
expansive. It's kind of live in fidelity, but it's beautiful and enveloping,
like it sounds perfect to me. And again I understand, like the vocal
power thing is not there, but it has that kind of haunted feel and
when that comes in on gold Dust, to me, it's like this kind
of you know, it's this cool effect in dynamic between this band going more
like kind of kick ass metal and the vocal turning is this kind of like
sad yeha cowboy thing, like adding a different kind of like trailing over the
edge sort of quality to the momentum of that song that really really worked for
me. And again, the kind of the fun and pleasure of it comes
out of the band playing and the solos. Every time there's a solo on
this record, it is like you're in heaven. Every time one plays,
like the big one in Shallow Nights and it just the music picks up Steene
that turns it's this triumphant heavy metal thing like it is absolutely sublime. And
you know, again the last song kind of a bit more like a kind
of soft Pallberry type track or something. But when it goes this record is
really victorious to me. When it goes there, I agree that the solo
and show Nights is really like epic kind of heavy metal brilliance. Again,
just sounds huge lift the song I think, like I think, even like
said Ota concre which says is the kind of more like post rocky sort of
song, still begins in like a really kind of hard rocking way, and
it's then I read like the first half of that song it's to be more
rocking, and then when it gets into the more minimalist sort of stuff towards
the back end as well, I kind of like I kind of wish you'd
kept the rocking up, but I admire their willing this to really like put
in different directions and still keep it feel like it's a cohesive mood in a
song and not just like none of the saw the turns and genres witches feel
like it's like jarring or it's pulling in a different direction and it becomes uncomfortable
to listen to, Like the worst of this sort of does for me,
like, sorry, the event's en fold where they govern the different direction that
felt really jarring and unpleasant. Here it kind of feels kind of thought out
and natural, even if I'm not entirely along for the ride. Yeah,
here's the thing with me with this in terms of like again, I would
never have ever have brought up like Events E Evolved as a comparison point,
because fundamentally I don't think this is some kind of throw shit at the wall
experimental record. Maybe it helps to have heard where they've been everything, but
this to me feels more like, you know, if the last record was
their Formulas of Death, this is the Children of the Night in terms of
them just a writhing at something that's just very singular and as obviously the sound
of it is very very unique and it is weird, and I think that
that is a good thing about it in terms of like, this doesn't sound
like any other record that's come out this year or will come out this year,
But there is such a consistency in the mood to me that I never
feel out of place in terms of any element that comes in. It all
feels as part of that again, kind of floating through the cosmos. But
you know, like at the same time watching some brilliant you know, undiscovered
for in heavy metal, bar band or something absolutely tearing shit up when they're
going through those solos. This review has not gone as well as I hoped
it would in terms of it conveying it why I think this record is so
fucking amazing to people because you got me sort of one side that No,
yeah, call that a win. I win. It's more that like every
single negative thing that's been said about this record I disagree with, like to
me, this record works on every single level. To me, I think
it is genuinely astounding. I think it is far and away one of the
best heavy even though to call it a heavy record doesn't even entirely convey what
it is because sometimes it's like again like yacht rock, but the best kind
of you know, underground, whatever releases you will hear this year, to
me, this band have grown organically into something that works in a really really
one off, special kind of way on this record. And to me,
I think it just comes down to like some of the best bands to me
are ones where they're made up of musicians where you could put them in either
like a cover band of nineteen nineties extreme metal bands, or they could play
in like a soft rock wedding band to earn some money on this yeah,
and they would excel in ivor environment. I think there's a special read of
musician that comes out of the middle of that Ben diagram, and I think
this is the record that most exemplifies that. Yeah, listen, I don't
mean to come on and rain on your parade or anything, but it is
for me. I'll say this. There's every chance in three months time this
record comes up again and I say, what a fucking incredible album. I'm
totally open to that possibility, because the way with a lot of these unique,
avant garde, forward thinking extreme metal records is sometimes it's just the time
and place it hits you. First. Sometimes it takes eighteen months and you
come back and go, wow, listen to that. Like DoD i'ms God
that last record of Theirs, which was in my top ten of year,
that was the first time they released a record that I liked the first time
I heard it, you know what I mean? I felt like I'd been
primed before to like DoD IAM's Guard, and I hadn't in some cases this
time. It is such a distinctive combination of things. I've had a week
to adjust. So could this have been my top twenty of the year?
Genuinely? Who knows. I'm not discounting the quality or the ambition or anything
like that yet. I just haven't managed to, you know, get on
the ride as yeah today, and I won't be upset if it doesn't turn
up when you talk to twenty at the end of the year. But I
want to say as well, like I, it is a I can the
identity in the sound is a weird one and it probably will make people scratch
their heads a little bit. But fundamentally, I don't think this is meant
to be a super avant garde record. It's a record that rocks. It's
a record about fucking sick solos and sick riffs and cowbell parts. It's just
a record that is fucking rad to listen to to me, and that's why
I'm just so like fully into it, and that's why it's got me like,
yeah, cowbo in there, like I'm only human, Like, yeah,
I don't think it's that difficult a record to listen to. It's fucking
fun. It's just like for me, if you like outstanding guitar leads,
it's out of this world, like yeah, for fans of Tribulation Cavell Attack,
it's for people who are fans of both Thin Lizzy and Dismember just shit
rocks, And a lot of my favorite bands are ones who start off kind
of being more kind of ensconced in a specific underground subgenre and then they kind
of, over a series of records just sort of end up sounding like themselves.
And for me, you know, Chapter Disease kind of growing into one
of those I think is a really exciting prospect. So last album before the
couple more big ones come this month that we will have coming your way in
Hyperblast in the near future. This, at least in my estimation, might
be the best month for hell yeah, guitar melody that you can remember.
Because the last album is from Dodds Reat. It is called Nocturnal Will.
It is the fourth album from a band who still formed less than ten years
ago. Speaking of bands who have kind of fashioned out a very cool identity
for themselves, I do admit the last stretch of this episode is very me
coded. For sure. Dot's previous album More Coil we reviewed in twenty twenty
one. It was my number three album of that year. I fucking love
it. Sam, I don't remember if you liked that album much. It
was with it and I feel like I need to go back to it now
because what we're about to get into. Yeah, I think that the last
one that me and Alex were just going mental was as like men with Swedish
de beat for brains to come out on that one, Like, yeah,
this was what I was kind of a bit because I'm not loving that last
Dodgery album. I did hate it. It wasn't like a kind of like
me moaning, but it was when I was just a little like I wasn't
by way back but I hit found this and then took a minute. But
the kind of like combination of things that Dodgery do on this, I was
like, Oh, I do like all of these things, and they're doing
them all at once, and they're doing some unexpected things that I like even
more, and it's all coming together to be like, Oh, this is
really fucking cool. Yeah, Elliott, do you kind of independently been listening
to the Dodgery albums prior to this one? I've heard more of Coil.
That's the one I have heard, and that album is fucking great, like
one of my favorite crossed albums of the last cops. I don't know why
I haven't gone back to the others. I think it was just because when
that came, it was such a kind of ground swell in hearing people talk
about them. Then it was, Oh, I guess this is like some
kind of rebirth. I love to go and especially on the strength of this
one, like it made me stomp around and punch the walls. But I
can't think of many dB crust bands with as much melodic nouse as them,
and I was very pleased that they they've gone on to dial that up somewhat.
Yeah. Well, here's the thing, because Dodds three is as it's
a very melodic leaning Scandinavian black band, black metal band basically, but it's
one that has kind of clearly been formed out of the Swedish crust punk scene
as well. And if you don't know exactly what that means, we're talking
about Wolf Brigade, Dysphere, Martyr Dodd, all those kind of great bands
and Dodsrey find a way too. I guess inject that like hyperactive DIY crust
energy into these like quite lengthy black metal tracks, which for me translates into
this kind of sense of epic but also being conveyed on ten in terms of
energy with this wide span, it's almost overwhelming when they get it really right.
It's like you want to run around in a circle, but the circle
is ten miles wide. Like and more, Coil managed to arrange those songs
in a certain way where the peaks in the valley is just kept like they
kept like you know, there's like a feedback loop just constantly moving into each
other an amplifying each section. They do this trick where they build up to
like an insane, heart bursting crescendo part, the kind of thing that a
post rock song would end on having spent ten minutes of fanning about to kind
of get to that point, but then to to transition out of it and
manage to keep on going. They'd switch out with the dB and that allow
them to then move and have all of these other passages come in behind that
first big downburst and then eventually they end on something else massive and epic,
like six minutes later. It makes for like a handful of my favorite musical
moments of this current decade. If you check out, like you know,
like the first track on the album, for example, how it works and
that kind of build and EBB and flow I'm talking about, this album is
not really more of the same in that exact same way that exact trick of
build, release, d beat transition, get to somewhere else down the line
is not exactly the formula of this album, but it is more of something
that Dodds do exceptionally well. Twin leads one of the best sounds in the
world ever, and for me, it was my favorite thing about that last
record, and I was kind of thinking, I hope they dial that up
more because they're really fucking good at it, and they don't just write nice
sounding ones, they write really memorable ones. And then when with iriyala,
I guess that's how it's pronounced. When that opens it up, it's like
I have not heard a better set of twin leads since to open a record
Surgical Steel, it sounds like Deceiver of the Gods at the start until the
blastby kicks in, and then when it kicks off they have the sheer nerve
to go into a better lead part, the lead coming out of like like
a couple bent's in. Like this is where I was like, Oh,
okay, this is just this blend of heavy metal, black metal, crustpunk,
even like a little bit hardcore and sort of stuff like again that kind
of ties into the cross punk DV stuff. All these sort of things are
gonna go like, oh, why do they not like this before? Why
all the pieces just slotted into places. I don't know if it's because of
the increased heavy metal twin lead guitar stuff that I just got swept up in,
but these ten minute epics felt three minutes long to me at points,
like they are whirlwinds of just like exciting, heart bursting exclarvation. There is
a moment on Nocturnal Fire where a couple of minutes in there is a rift.
That is the sort of thing that you can have on a comeback kid
album, like like saying melodic hardcore. This is burst of like hardcore punk
pace, but it comes out like it's coming from the back of like firstly
a heavy metal gallop into a like ferocious black mel blasting into like hardcore,
and it's like there's constantly progressing forward into new things and it doesn't but never
feels formulate. But it never feels like here's the heavy metal, here's the
like it just shifts back and forth in ways that is so exciting, and
then again like you go from there to kind of like almost like post black
metal soundscapey sort of bits and all that, and it's just so vast and
the sort way it pulls about that and I was just gonna like this all
just clicked for me completely here. It's so funny that you say that,
because I can see why the big increase of like heavy metal melody would grab
your ear. But this is a less punk album. I don't know.
I know that's why I need to go back to that last one. And
I think maybe it was like we've done a lot of black metal or something
and it just wasn't wasn't clicking with me, but I do want to go
back to that last album to how bod love this. The specific combination of
like punk dbat and big black metal crescendos has been toned down, so there's
a lot more like you know, melodic definitatal type stuff in this. It's
funny up at the beginning of this year has so good for that flavor because
it's like, yeah, if if you liked the Opon's Stone album from January
or even Darkest Hour fuck it, you know, they all kind of share
that like uplifting, brilliant melody factor. Again, for me, this is
two hours. I think that's why I've got so wired to that is I've
been enjoying I mean enjoying that sounds so much this year. Yeah, that
them slavering that all over this has gone oh fucking yeah, give me more
of that. Yeah, And this this is like, you know, if
the last album was again a really a motive cathartic record, this one is
like they're kind of heroic raising their sword at the top of the mountain album,
Like there are bits that stand a bit more like obsequii or something in
terms of like just big sunlight glints off the steel melodies there. It makes
sense that they've grown so close to Lamp of Murmur because even as the records
sound very different, it's that sense of like black metal that is made to
feel empowering. And the guest guitar soigner that m from Lamp of Murmur does,
or Nocturnal Fire near the end of it, feels like a match made
in heaven in terms of just like, yeah, we unders were on the
same kindred spirits in terms of the same wavelength. Didn't realize that was him
doing that solo. That is epic that so it's good, like yeah,
and it's funny. It's so funny that you said comeback kid for that track,
because I think where you're coming from. But the very first riff in
that song has this really folky tinge to it, and it's yeah, but
that's like the head a little gallop, that focus. It's one to have
a couple of minutes in where it does yeah. But that first track,
that first riff, it's like a prime Era and Sferum song or something,
which is not a flavor I would have predicted in this band A couple of
records ago and the fact that that has Ensophereum and Comeback Kid has reference points
for the same like, you know, two minutes apart, and it doesn't
actually feel jarring. But if you took away everything but the drums on that
song, I was like, this could be you could build a Penny Wise
song on the reference And then that the same is that melodic punk riff like
so good. And then the lead part that comes in four minutes in,
like that's Iron Maiden in their pomp. So yeah, that again, full
house that solo at the end. If we don't get a ghost down this
year, there's every chance that's guitar solo of the year. And it's just
on the second track on some Blackened Crust record. It's it's a motive,
it's fun to listen to, It's perfectly pitched. They do again. It's
the thing you want all guitar solos for. You want to be flashy enough
to be exciting to listen to without feeling out of place or in any way
detracting. And every single one of them feels like the morning after a blizzard.
You just every time there's a new solo, a new lead part comes
in. I have survived this night yeah, and I think that's the one
track where the d beat does still remain a prime factor. But when it
hits it, just like you know, Epic d beat remains one of the
best combinations of things in the world, you know, from Full of Efrofar
to Wolf Brigade to this and just have a sort of duel leads like that
dance together over that tempo just speaks to kind of a special bit of my
brain. It's what I love so much in part about the last record.
But the feeling of like turbo charged Epic is still really here. Like again,
earlyer Are is ten minutes long. It's blasting you in the face for
a lot of that. When it's not, it's kind of resetting itself so
it has renewed energy when it does so again the heavy metal factor again just
ramped up so much, kind of over the crust. This is like black
metal four Iron Maiden fans, You're You're, You're totally right. And there
are points in again, like three and a half minutes into that song,
the temposts witch under the leads. That kind of moment comes in at a
point where, like three and a half minutes into a Dodds Root song,
they do something like that, and that excites me because they look and there's
still seven minutes left, and I just it's not it's not you know Bruce
Dickinson effect. It's kind of I want to know what they've got in store
in those seven minutes because I know they're going to arrive at something else that's
fucking brilliant. I mean, I didn't look at the time on these songs,
which is why how like the frill was kind of there was. I
wasn't so a long songs, you know, on the Bruce Dickinson's I was
checking how long, said oh my god, this still five minutes to go
here, because it's like, yeah, just let it all. There's like
a ryfic kind of bit where like quite on that first song where it's almost
like kind of just modern commercial metal kind of like elements to it, but
it's all kind of part of this like really sweeping package where like those black
bel blasts kind of combined with that to create something that doesn't I don't think
there's anyone that really sounds like what they're doing with that. And the way
that opening song not the way it absolutely closes, but there's a bit in
that where they're kind of going to be explosions in the sky and they nail
it, and you just think the ref On one hand, this feels like
quite a pure sound, do you know what I mean? It seems like
it doesn't that last struck we were we were just talking about, we would
talk about all the different places it pulls from. It kind of feels like
the wrong approach here, and yet we've listed a dozen bands all from disparate
parts of rock and metal. They kind of rear their head here and they
nail all of it. Yeah, And the structure of the album is kind
of similar to the previous ones, where you have like four long songs.
This one does have like an instrumental break in the middle, which is oddly
split into two tracks, which seem kind of unnecessary because it's you know,
on a tiny little acoustic interlode, which is then followed by a full on
four minute metal instrumental, which again is just like, oh, look,
how many amazing guitar melodies we had, Yeah, we had enough to have
a four minute instrumental on top of our you know, bigger tracks here,
just sort of juicy melodic guitar goodness, and into the you know, the
latter tracks as Death Comes Reaping maybe has the moment for me in terms of
like the bit in a Dudsrey album where it just like comes from my emotions
with just like a particularly beautiful stirring part after the seven minute mark, when
the song has basically come to a natural conclusion, and like the first seven
minutes are good, you know, not the most exceptional parts of the album,
but like, you know, good as it all is. Suddenly they
introduced this new guitar melody. God, it's so fucking good. It's like
alcest beautiful but wearing chain mail. It's so awesome. It's just like melodies
you can imagine ten thousand resilience whoaing like their lives depend on it. It's
fucking sensational. It's like it's a cliche, but that that melody that is
properly soaring when they did but it's still got that kind of like heavy metal
battle kind of feeling to it. I think like that song because that's so
you get almost like like several minutes in before you even get like a whiff
of vocal from it. But it never feels drawn out or tedious or boying,
because it's just always moving. There's always a new moving piece that kind
of gets introduced, and it just keeps so funny. And then when you
when you build to that closing stretch and you you get hit with those melodies
that just that they just lift your soul up, and it is like,
you know, that's the reward for you know, having these longer structures,
and that's why I'm kind of like, I wouldn't change a thing about this
again. His Death Comes Reaping is the jewel in the crown for this record
for me, because it opens sound like a lost paradise loss song like Shades
of Gold, kind of its stomps with all that melancholy, not any bounce
to strike, and then when it goes in that swinging gallop, it sounds
that you're going into battle, but you're sad, like you're not at the
bassal yet but you know you're probably going to die, and you're kind of
okay with that. And then just when you think it's over and you get
a little acoustic bit, the way that builds up again into that final euphoric
lead riff, it reminds me of when I don't listen to Marster Puppets very
much now but every now and then when I put that record on and those
twin leads come in on Oryan after the bass solo, and you just go,
I feel like a cosmic entity. It's it's it's that kind of feeling
you just want to sort of stand up and applaud. Yeah, God,
I'm gonna spend so much money at Fortress Fest, aren't I. I'm so
scared. Yeah, it's not quite Mortal Coil too, and I respect them,
you know, tweaking the formula a little bit to put the emphasis on
somewhere different. This band could be an amazing one trick pony with the best
trick ever, but they are kind of organically changing shape a little bit and
bringing in some new tricks. You know, unbelievable month of guitar heroics that
make you want to belt your lungs out along with them. You know,
from Judas Prex through to through to Dodd's Reads. That is your six albums
this time. There are a couple of very notable releases coming at the very
end of this month that we will get to you also in the forms of
a hype Blast Reviews episode, so you know, keep your eyes peeled for
that. Thank you very much for listening. Let us know what sides of
the fence you are falling on with some of these records, from you know,
Chapeler Disease to Bruce Dickinson. Thank you as ever for being here.
We will be back next week as said with Hyperblasts. We will be back
next week also with the album club Pack happening over on the At'smount of Patron
where we were talking about the records that I detailed to you earlier. From
the craziest grind record that you could ever dream of listening to, to the
most the most ott symphonic metal album that you could ever dream of listening to.
It's a month of big, big stuff, and I think that is
a thing to be celebrated, So getting involved over there otherwise, cheers very
much. Enjoy your week, Tatar,