Hello, everyone, Welcome to That's not what you said, Kerry King,
That's not what you said. It feels like it's been a minute since we've
had a big TNN, but we are here today. We are here with
the February reviews Bag. January we had some pretty funny stuff, but I
have to say February the excitement really has begun in terms of the first really
big magnitude records. Today in our reviews bag, we are going to be
talking about the records from Chelsea Wolf, Alkaline Trio, Isan Job for a
Cowboy, Darkest Hour, Spectral voice Holder, and Slope. My name is
Perenheish, Diligent as ever, Sam Dignoon and Elliott Paisley are here with me.
We have, as well as reviews, some of the most absolutely crackers
news we may get all year, so we've got to dive into that fairly
swiftly, but very quickly. I feel like this week's live reports is very
encapsulating of the T and M dynamic because I last night I went to see
under Dark, whose last album we reviewed in I think was the last reviews
bag of last year. I still think it's one of the best heavy records
to come out of at least the UK last year. Really strong, really
intense show, like emotionally intense with those songs. Physically in the sense that
it was one of those shows where it's like a tiny venue and there's one
of those sort of like windows of space at the very front sort of like
around the stage, so Abby the vocalist kept like jumping down and using that
space, except I was at basically the very front center of where people were
actually stood, so multiple occasions it basically looked like Abby lep right at me,
looking at me in the eye, doing some kind of flying leaps.
That was intense, but you know, really strong. I know it's a
more underground record, but I do think if you like, you know,
stuff like Svalbard or whatever, like you know, which looking into our album
of the year results a lot of you do you should really get in on
this as well. This particular record was actually you know, it was closer
to getting in my twenty last year than you know, the latest Svalbard.
Was not to pick the two bands against each other. We love them both,
but you know, under Dark are really strong right now, and I
think something like a Damnation slot would go a long way in terms of giving
them like the bit of the showcase they need Sam. Meanwhile, you went
and saw the brit Rock fuckers, didn't you. Oh no, No,
that's that's next week and then next week it's tomorrow. Tomorrow is my my
little run of britt Rock really like twenty tens brit Rock celebrations, Okay,
right, with an actually really good, credible gig on the end of it.
We'll get on to that next week. Okay, So more on that
later. Then that means we can move I've just been hiding from metal cord
Twitter. That's what I've been doing, the upsetting people. But the news
we can steam roll into. Then we had, you know, some pretty
meaty stuff to talk about anyway, But obviously we are starting with something that
dropped yesterday. That was fully one of the moments where like I I dropped
what I was supposed to be doing, you know, whatever work I was
supposed to be doing, and I just sort of sat bamboosled to like an
hour just looking trying to make sense of the updates that we were getting.
Only Bloody Slayer uh announcing festival shows? What after that? Kerry King in
after everything? Like I was just like someone posted it at first, and
I thought it was a prank, it was a hoax. The person who
posts in I thought, oh, you know, some knucklehead has fallen for
a hoax. How embarrassing. And it was then me googling it and me
like, and I still don't really believe it. Yees the details they are
going to be the first one that was announced was that they are headlining Ouder
Than Life festival next summer. Then also fairly swiftly came out that they were
also going to be headlining riot Fest the ASA, which actually takes place before
the Louder Than Life when and that is like their first proper date back.
Those are, I believe, the only two that we have right now,
but it wouldn't surprise me if at least a couple more festivals in the US
popped up that kind of thing. I believe one of these has like the
it's like Midwest exclusive for Slayers, so you know they'll pop up in other
bits of at least that country. This is crazy, and there are many
reasons why, but I don't think I've ever been so flummocked by a reunion,
Like the last time it happened was Panterra. Maybe a little bit the
current Dillinger thing. But with Panterra, that was a different feeling because that
was based more in like a sort of an outright distaste for what was kind
of being done. We were speaking about the sort of you know, moral
hold up with going on with something like that whatever this was, you know,
more so like for a half hour or so before we actually got the
lineup who was in the band confirmed, I was like, I don't even
know how to begin unpacking this without more details. It is so purely bamboozling.
The thing that threw me is the first article I read on it was
it because that there is no word and if Kerry King is currently involved,
and that that quickly got you know, shut down. But I was given
as like, right, cool, So who is in Slayer? Imagine Slayer
would come back with like like Tom and like beave Lombardo back and some guy
on guitar, Like what the fuck? As I do? For a split
second was like, so I'm just on Slayer back. I don't know who's
in Slayer right now, And that really that was what made this whole thing
feel even more insane to me. It's when I thought Kerry King wasn't in
it. I thought that's completely insane, and then it's oh no, no,
don't why he's in the band. It's like, ah, no,
well questions. Yeah, and you know, before you start going like oh
you you marks, you shouldn't be surprised when any band reunites any more,
or every band will always reunite when the money is there. Yeah, all
right, we know. Not really the point we're making with this, the
idea that Slayer would one day reunite. It's not something that like, even
if you didn't expect it, that you would ever completely write off, right,
you know, for those reasons. But I think I speak for everyone
that you did not expect Slayer to reunite in February of twenty twenty four.
Like the timing of this is one of the most absolutely deranged things I've ever
seen. And like we said before, I think with the second announcement,
when they were announcedly doing riot Fest that it was like, Okay, the
lineup is exactly the same as it was when they went, oh wait,
you know Tom Kerry, Poor bos steffon drums, Gary Holt on second guitar.
But before that it was like, is Kerry out of this? Is
this? Like Tom and maybe Dave, like what the fuck is going on?
Because it seems just unthinkable that Kerry King, immediately after launching a solo
career and doing that interview piece that we spoke about, would reunite Slayer like
that. And you know, I think if you stop and think about it
and look over the information we have, there are clear, you know,
distinguishing features that make this, at least from Kerry King's perspective, something that
would you know, make sense, and you can see why he's kind of
done that. But going back to that Kerry King interview that wasn't months ago,
that was like two weeks ago. I think it was the episode before
last of this show that we spoke about that Kerry King interview piece, and
we were speaking about like the headlines of him, you know, talking about
other members of the band, and it seemed like one of those very likely
you don't wish him dead right now, Yeah, but you know, it
seemed like one of those you know, even if the door was left open
for Slayer, it did seel like it was happening right that fucking moment,
did it? And this obviously opens up this whole thing of like, okay,
like how much did he know in that moment to like, I guess
to get the logistics of this going. You know, they won't have fucking
offered Slayer this money last week, right, Like you have to imagine this
was on the cards unless that interview itself was conducted like a while before it
was published. I don't know, but just the purely the timeline of this
just sent my head reeling. I'm like, I need to know exactly what
point Danny Wimmer whipped his wallet out to get this happening. I need to
know exactly at what point in relation to that that Kerry King in did he
was done? How much did he know? You know, how much of
that was just completely fucking what absolute jokester this man is. Which particularly it's
kind of funny because when that interview came out, I thought, Wow,
it's refreshingly honest, being that upfront about how they feel. And then maybe
he's keeping a Slayer union from us in the interview, and it's like it's
it's the weirdest time because we've been waiting so long for Kerry king solo thing
to start, and then two weeks after we finally get round to it,
it's like oh well, you know, obviously I'm still doing that, but
oh yeah, sorry, Slayer's back. The reason I'm doing it's true,
like I said, remove the any of the opposing remove any of like that.
Oh yeah, you shouldn't be surprised that they've reunited whatever, everyone always
will, just purely the manner in which this has happened completely insane. Like
I feel giddy, I feel high talking about the manner in which this fucking
slayery has happened. It's so strange. What do you think about all this?
What's your reaction? I mean, I'm not gonna like be like,
oh, Slayer back. I don't want to see Slayer again, Like of
course I want to see Slayer again. I am a little bit like am
I going to Slay knowing that they all all like currently not talking to each
other and like hating each other on stage? Is gonna be one of those
ones. But Slayer, like you know, we talked about like, oh,
you'd love to see some of the great metal songs ever played live again?
So does it come to the UK? I don't know if it does,
like I will probably try and go like yeah, like maybe this detracts
from how special that final run was I didn't go to that, so that's
one thing. Yeah, yeah, But for me, like, I can't
pretend I'm not happy Slayer in the world. They might be, they might
be my favorite metal band. I just can't be mad that they're around.
Like, even though you might go, oh, it's a bit lame them
coming back and again doing like these you know, but rock festivals and coming
back in that fashion, is that ideal? No, but I would go
like, I can't say that I wouldn't. Yeah, let's dial into I
guess the kind of you know, because the talk has been about, you
know, that last Slayer run, it has been. I guess it was
the very it was almost like the dying months of twenty nineteen that they properly
played their like last show, didn't they in California? So I guess it's
been you know, if we say that this show is going to happen in
I think it's like June. That's four and a half years that Slayer were
completely off the touring map. People asking, you know, is that long
enough? You made such a big deal you never expected them to come back?
Kind of you know what changed in that time? I suppose for me
again, if I were to remove the cynical hat. Obviously we all know
money plays into it. We all know this, but to you know,
to accept that more than one thing can be true at once, which I
know is a complicated thing for people in the world, but to entertain that
idea for a moment genuinely, Tom Araya has clearly had a big sleep and
he feels better after his Big four and holt of year NAP. I would
say, is what has changed here? And I know I say that flippantly,
but I think that's clearly a major factor in terms of You've got to
think prior to the end of twenty nineteen, Slayer had been touring NonStop for
about thirty five years, and come the end, we all know who exactly
wanted Slayer to stop. Tom needs a rest. He's had five years,
and for the first time in his like adult life, I guess he has
had far five years at home, not touring, no banned responsibilities. And
you know, some people are like, oh, the kind of pandemic has
taken some years away or whatever, so it's only been like a couple I
feel like Tom Araya is one of the people who that would have had the
least relevance for at least in terms of his plans and his kind of international
activity. Right like Kerry in a solo band. Yeah, like the Pandemic,
you can factor in that shit got delayed. Tom Pandemic got no pandemic.
He was not going anywhere for the first time in his life since started
Slayer. He got that half a decade of break. That is clearly just
what he needed in order to at least want to do Slayer part time again.
Just I needed to get the fuck off the touring grid. I have
had half a decade of rest. Maybe I miss playing a little bit,
if not dedicating solely to that lifestyle. Again. This is the thing,
is I everyone st of saying, Oh, it's a cash grab, that's
all it is. You know, there's two people in the band who have
the decision to reform Slayer, and we know one of them never wanted to
go away, and like you said, we know Tom is the one that
didn't want it to go away. And you know they've got enough money to
live comfortably for the rest of their lives. I don't think it's that the
money run out. I have no idea. That's not my suspicion, Like
you say, I can understand someone being that drained but then wanting to go
out and play Slayer songs and the point of oh, we know they don't
like each other. Now. Maybe this is just me, but the appeal
of Slayer has never been that it's a band of best friends like brothers.
If Bruce Springsteen did an interview and he was like, I fucking hate the
E Street Band, I love that. That'd be so funny. But like
you know, Tom and Kerry, it's not like they were interacting all that
much on stage anyway. Yeah, So that to me as a factor,
isn't like that I wouldn't be up there. I'm like, oh, come
on, guys, hug it out, be friends. Yeah, but it's
I think if I was in the moment, it wouldn't bother me on that
point. I considered that as well. And I think that, you know,
like Kerry and Dave obviously hate each other, and that's why Dave is
involved, right, Kerry and Tom, I think is more like a kind
of coworker relationship. Like I don't think Kerry was pulling any punches ultimately in
terms of his relationship with Tom in that interview piece. But again in his
defense, he never said I have any animosity towards Tom. You may remember
he specifically said he doesn't wish Tom dead at that moment entirely, And it
is the passive aggressiveness of that remark makes me there's still something like yeah.
But also that's kind of Kerry King, you know, That's that's how he
is, that's his persona. I think that you know, they are two
guys who landed together on this special thing, and no, they're probably not
close friends. But does that matter when they're up there on stage together in
Slayer's case, I don't know if it does. You know, it didn't
stop them for the last decade plus, however long it was of them doing
Slayer the first time, you know, by the sounds of it, not
being the best of buddies in the world. So like, you know,
obviously, yeah, there is something a little mercenary about it, but it's
not a band based on a close bond. If you like you need to
get all romantic about that. I don't think that really matters a great deal.
It's more like, you know, these people again, they come together
and they contribute to the larger entity that is Slayer. Some bands are like
that, and you know, people are totally capable of getting great results together
without having to go to each other's birthday parties and you know, each other's
children's christenings or whatever. So, like I Tom and Kerry are clearly not
best friends. I don't think they necessarily actively dislike each other, and I
don't think that really has to play into again the stage dynamic or whatever that
much. I mean, no, I agree, I mean it could all
blow up on stage, is the sort of thing. I'm like, there
is that like in there. I'd be very shocked. I would be shocking
with him, but you know, there's the possibility for me though, I'm
like, because it's the fact that that like, this isn't Slayer coming back
as a full touring entity. This is Slayer coming back in a way that
suits Tom in his and how he wants to do it now, and then
like Kerry gets to come and do the big Slayer shows and then obviously do
his other stuff. It feels almost like a kind of ideal scenario for them
to get Slayer back. That's why I'm kind of like not too like,
oh, this is winning the magic of it because it just feels like it
just it just seems like a sort of lodgs go away for them if they
want to do Slayer, but Kerry wants to tour and Tom doesn't want to
do there you go, they both kind of win. Well, I'm sort
of curious now these Slayer shows being a sporadic thing, where like you say,
they're not on a touring cycle, we can't guarantee Slayer are going to
show up anywhere or again, I wonder how popular that makes them now as
a live entity. How big a venue could you said they could be download
headlined as if they were to come over here, like well, I wonder
like something like that, if it's Slayer coming back, it might be the
last time. Like it's not even a guarantee that it's the last time,
but it's just who knows. Is a reformation more alowering than a Farewell?
I think it plays more into the because again, again, if you I
hadn't considered the whole download thing, but you know the Farewell show, which
was explicitly build of that only headlined the second stage at download, I would
consider it more in the terms of the exclusivity in that Slayer, you know,
their entire existence basically had been a regular thing, right, Like you
could reliably c Slayer maybe even a couple of time, yeah, like throughout
their kind of peak. But if they are only doing you know, if
they turn up and go, yeah, this is our one fucking like European
show in this particular window of however many years they're going to be doing this
for, like you know, the exclusivity factor might play into a little bit,
but again it's just the timing. I need someone to go back to
Kerry after that interview and go, okay, let's go over everything you said
again with a forensic comb you about that just when he says I haven't spoken
to him in years, I guess maybe that could be true. This could
be entirely done through you know, agents and managers whatever. They haven't actually
got into the room together. Yet part of me was just like, how
incredible would it be if everything in that Kerry interview was just trolling lying through
his teeth, like and we even end up with like, hey, Dave
Lombardo isn't dead to me after all? Try and get the buzz for the
solo album, Yeah, trying to pass all this information. I actually I
don't think he has lied in that interview. I think he's been selective with
the truth. But I don't think anything in what he said would be contradicted
by what you've seen trying to part all this information and figuring out in what
capacity are Slayer about, because I think that majorly factors into the kind of
excitement level is immediate assessment I have is Kerry King will release albums and do
like more extensive, you know, months long tours for example the Lamb of
God and mastered on one that he was announced as being in support on,
you know, along with that album announcement. Slayer will act purely as a
legacy venture and will only perform these very limited festival appearances because maybe again Tom
maybe wants to play after having his like five years off, But I don't
think Tom has ever want to go back to Tory. That's the thing that
he completely left behind. And we've seen similar things said about you know,
the likes of Black Sabbath or whatever, where they were like, oh,
yeah, you should never rule out turning up for like one day at a
festival or something. Kerry King obviously still wants to write music and release music.
Tom probably doesn't. He probably not got that desire in him anymore.
The best comparison that I could come up with a couple other people mentioned as
well, is the original Misfits shows, because the Misfits reunited with Glenn Danzig
and Jerry Only and everyone, and it was billed as, you know,
the original Misfits, And that's that's be going for what like five six years
now at this point, and it's still only done big US festival dates or
like big you know, Madison Square Garden, whatever type kind of headline shows.
You could probably it's probably gone over single digits at this point, but
I would imagine they probably still played less than like twenty shows total with that
original Misfits kind of thing. And I think when you see are the Misfits
are back, we all instinctively know that's not a creative entity, right,
And I think that's part of a thing that it's a bit of a misnomer.
If you go, oh, Slayer of reunited, Slayer are back,
they're playing shows, They're not really an active band, right, They're the
original miss Fits. Like Emperor is the other one that I thought of,
who Emperor do exist in a live capacity? You can see them. But
Emperor, the artistic entity we all know, stopped in two thousand and one
and there hasn't been any attempt to revive that. And you know, there
are people out there clamoring for an Emperor reunion, where an Emperor reunion is
already a thing that exists that you can go and see right now, But
we all know what those people mean because an Emperor creative reunion has not happened.
And again, if the Misfits released music right now, you'll probably instinctive
reaction will be like, oh yeah, we'll just be Jerry only again,
because he's the Kerry King in the scenario. He's the guy who kind of
kept that particular element. So again there's I got a quote from Kerry King's
interview that he did where he says, will Slay a tour again? I'm
pretty sure that's not going to happen. Could Slayer play a show again?
I'm sure there's a scenario. Now, there's obviously a wink in that statement
now, but there is nothing in there that is a lie, right He
Yeah, he was sure there was a scenario because it was coming up in
the twenty twenty four festival calendar. But a Slayer becoming a full scale touring
operation right now. I think you'd have to take his word and say no,
and again when you look at Tom and what he wants, and again
what Gary Holt what he wants in terms of like, you know, he
committed to Slagh for a certain amount of years, but he's I don't think
he'd put extras on hold again for that many. He'll happily do it like
Tom part time right select dates. I think that you can say, yeah,
Slayer will exist in a very exclusive, limited handful of shows a year,
and certainly they are not back to being active releasing albums and touring them
the whole time Slayer. So I think Slayer as we knew them did stop
in twenty nineteen. This is a different thing. Yeah, I wo'd agree
with all that. I think that's fair. Like I I don't expect Slayer
to even maybe do their own shows. I don't expect there to be Slayer
dates outside of First and it's possible, but it would yeaheah. I mean,
if Kerry's writing all the music, which I think he did on You're
pretty Smure, everything w repentless anyway, Well, the records we're going to
get from Kerry King, are basically going to be what the Slayer records would
have exactly was it, except obviously he did different things whereas Kerry displayed Slayer
songs, but you know the analogy world, Yeah, it's what they did.
Yeah, And I think if they can pull that off, like the
Misfits reunion has been really frustrating as a fan in the UK, but if
loving it, well, that's it. And they have managed to keep up
that kind of aura of oh my god, the missing eight years now that
that union has been going, they and they've kept that going. Twenty sixty
was the first miss original shows. Yeah, whereas you know, even things
like guns and Roses. When that was initially announced, it was like,
oh, you're fucking joking. He guns and Roses are back, and now
people seem a bit tired of or Black Sabbath. When they brought Aussie back
within four years, people are like, oh, you know, it's sort
of it's done. It's like people can get really used to things really quickly.
And I think for Slayer emulating that Misfits model, it's not a bad
idea. Yeah. I think the only question mark would be, like Kerry
King basically sort of pulling the carpet out from under his own feet, you
know, in terms of getting his solo career running, and then within two
weeks of the first single going oh yeah, Slayer back, and I know
again for him it's different things. I can understand it being a different thing.
I will treat it as a different thing in terms of like, oh
yeah, Kerry King, We're actually going to get new music, right,
He's actually going to again be that touring throughout the year kind of guy.
I just think in terms of, again, outside perception, it's a bit
mad in terms of timing it like that. In terms of how I feel
about it, you know, considering like one of my top five favorite bands
of all time of just ann outs their coming back, I'm shockingly neutral on
this whole thing. Like, I don't really know if it affects anything apart
from like a few people this summer, maybe a couple of summers after are
going to get to see a legacy version of Slayer because going back to again,
how much does a band return if they are returning in this capacity rather
than the full creative, you know, proper comeback. For me, I
sometimes think we put a little too much stock in terms of like, oh,
you're ruining your legacy by existing and those type of things, Because recording
is one thing. If if Slayer came back and released more records, that
maybe would have diminishing returns the way you know, a lot of people already
do think that their two thousands work had and people would rather a Slayer of
stopped, you know, whether it be after Seasons and the abyss, after
God Hates Us or whatever. Yeah, I guess I would rather that didn't
happen and Slayer returned to just being exactly the way they were in twenty fifteen.
I will happily lap up Kerry stuff without kind of tampering with that,
you know, lineage or whatever. But I don't need Slayer to make albums
until they're literally dead. But this kind of reunion we've seen plenty of in
recent years in terms of like we seem to live in an era when it's
kind of become the norm that like bands can you know, in a the
commas reunites and we all immediately know that what that means is a like a
legacy appearance version of what that is, as opposed to maybe what a band
come back might have meant twenty years ago, where you go, okay,
cool, when's the new album? And even the bands which come back and
do do new records, it's not the first time or the first time they
come back that they'll come back, do a couple of years of shows,
go away again, then come back with a record like the Gates. No,
I don't think this is gonna that's gonna happen, and then say it's
all right, No, we actually are really back now, guys, we're
going to do a record. I do think, and I agree that we
put too much stock in you're playing shows again. Therefore it's not completely perfect
and that's shit. Like, I don't think it makes much of a difference
at all to the legacy And you know, do I want the norm to
be bands coming back and not making records. Not really. I wouldn't have
seen Slayer making more records if they broken up in the first place. That's
what I sort of think as well. I think if Slayer had got to
says, they would have just written out as a legacy band at that point,
whether they broke up or not. So it's almost like they're just carrying
on as they were, just with a five year gap to let certain members
get some interest in playing live again. Yeah, I think for me it
almost it creates a bit of a divide, like a kind of split in
the road in terms of like where you would judge, you know, a
band's legacy, because it's not the full thing anymore. It's it becomes a
museum piece, doesn't it. Like it's a thing that you can visit to
see what it was all about, really, and you you can have like
the most moving, important, earth shattering experience is witnessing that kind of thing.
You know, I've had that with Emperor. I fucking wish I could
have that with the Misfits, you know, more easily. But it's something
preserved in stasis more than it is like the continuing evolution of that band,
because the story stopped. And you know that there are cases where that sort
of museum piece approach can fuck with things a bit. I think you would
point at a system of a down as the band where what you were saying
sad about, oh do they hate each other is most prominent. I would
say that, you know, System actually do seem to have kind of you
know, they bump off each other more in the way that I don't think
certainly, Tom and Kerry, like I said, seems more like that kind
of just sort of like coworker type relationship. But if these shows go well
and the people have fun at them, I don't think that really means anything
for Slayer in the history. But it's kind of positive or negative, you
know, like when all said and done, when Slayer's place is judged,
They're not going to be judged on twenty twenty four reunion shows that produce no
music. You know, Rain and Blood is going to overshadow all of that
by itself, and people who discover Slayer in twenty years time are not going
to be thinking about these fucking shows. Bolt Thrower existed for like ten years
past their final record that they refuse to release follow up to, and nowadays
they're viewed as having this kind of like perfect legacy. You know. Personally,
my Slayer experience was perfect, Like I saw them. I think it
was four times between the release of Repentless and the very final New K show.
Some of those are like in my you know, Hall of Fame favorite
ever shows and again that Farewell that download last show was perfect. I don't
feel I need to see Slayer and kind of add more onto the end of
that, like, if this never leave the US the way the Misfits one
hasn't, I personally won't be sad. Like if it did and they come
to a festival, I think again, even I don't think I would even
specifically buy a ticket to a festival to see this returning Slayer show the way
I made sure I got to that download twenty nineteen last show. But if
they were at a festival, was already at you know, a Bloodstog or
whatever, of course you go see and obviously watch them, and I'd probably
lose my fucking voice again, Like it would be an amazing, unreal hour
and a half the way they always were for me. I just feel in
terms of my personal Slayer narrative, it's sort of neither here nor there,
And when that is the case, I don't really see the need to get
kind of in any kind of twist about it. Yeah, I think,
like you say, there's loads of bands who have gone away and come back
and well birds are active now who people don't seem to care one way or
the other and it's not really affecting their legacy. So if Slayer came back
and they were playing a festival. I struggled to think of really any bands
I'd go and see instead of them. I can't imagine a clash. Well,
like the last Slayer show clashed with Tall until of a band I still
haven't seen and wanted to see for about a decade, and it was like,
well, not up against Slayer. It's that sort of thing for me.
But I mean, now that you're saying it, my experience that I've
seen the last, not the very last one of Slayer shows for the last
few years all amazing, and particularly the last one is really close to my
eye in terms of the best gigs I ever went to. And as much
as I want to preserve that, like either know, I'm sort of being
pulled in opposite directions. I would love to see it. I can't imagine
missing it, but I do kind of want to preserve that that perfect memory.
Yeah, I think ultimately you've got to judge this on what it is,
you know, And I think you've got to remember Slayer not coming back
in terms of a return to exactly what they were prior to that last show
in twenty nineteen. They are not going back to becoming a full touring entity.
Which is the thing that Tom wanted to stop in the first place.
They are not releasing new music, which is what Kerry is continuing to do,
and that's what you go to that project for. These are just things
that exist that you can see and if you want to do that, then
go along. I guess why not. So that's our judgment of immediate judgment
on the fucking mental timing of fucking Slayer being back. All Right, this
was going to be I suppose it still is pretty live big live music news,
perhaps more so in the UK because that's where it is happening. Trivium
and bullet My Valentine all week have been teasing a date that you know,
we knew what it was. There was never any mystery is what this could
be? Yeah, it is of course the twentieth anniversary combined tours for the
Poison and Ascendency, which both turned twenty in twenty twenty five. That is
actually happening over here, as opposed to the Master is a world tour.
It is going to be a world I watched the whole press event. They
have said world tour is happening, but it starts in the UK because the
UK's wear Trivium and Bullet like had to their first moment. That's entirely fair
enough. That is obviously going to be happening in twenty twenty five. It's
starts in January here carries over into February. It is co headlining arenas between
the two of them. They're playing the O two in London for example,
and yeah, Ascendency and The Poison in full. I think this is always
going to be a big event for you know, certain persuasions of people out
there. How exciting are you for this? Because myself I kind of you
know, I love both of these records. In terms of like an event,
this maybe means slightly less to me than some other similar things I see.
For me, I'm like, I know, we've talked so much about
nostalgia and excessive album in fall shows and all of that sort of stuff.
But I see these two bands on a co headline of play these two albums,
and I just like the the me discovering metal through The Poison and Ascendency
and then these sort of albums, and like I go, well, yeah,
that's just going to be an amazing time. And again, like true,
it's like Trivin play most of acendency life anyway, So they like,
yeah, it's not got that as the kind of thing. But I'm also
just like I think it's as one of those you can just get caught up
in the moment of these two bands kind of having their big mom like they're
going to take a big swing and play their biggest shows ever, Like let's
just get quite up in the moment. They've been treated as a really big
deal, Like you said, you just watched a press confer a press conference
thing for it, like you know, they're they're treating this like a actual
moment in history. They talked about like the bands like excuse their ascendency,
where like they had two thousand and five where they were going from like tiny
venues the tent download game moved to the main stage, going from like five
hundred venues to bricks and academy in their first on like that first year.
They really are trying to sell this as like these are two bands with history
coming together to play a shows together for the first time and they've never done
it in a way like this, and yeah, it's really being sold as
a major event. It's interesting to me because they you know, they ascended
these two bands and got to sort of a state of public consciousness in the
same scene at the same time. But they've seen what they're in such different
places in twenty at least in twenty twenty four, who knows the next year,
But like Bullet for My Valentine are maybe the bigger band, but they
feel kind of like that feels way more like a nostalgia thing, even though
even though they're both playing their older records in full, Trivium are kind of
as popular as they've ever been and as critically acclaimed on the run of their
career. Yeah, I think that we we all knew that certainly Ascendency was
coming because Matt literally said so the last time they were in the UK.
They were right, because they said that this year twenty twenty four, they
would largely be sort of taking a year after kind of recharge. But they
always said, but twenty twenty five, you know exactly what record is.
Turning twenty you know exactly what we're going to do for that. There was
never any fucking anticipation or mystery about that. You could have told me in
twenty twenty that Trivia were going to do a twenty year Ascendency tour. In
twenty twenty five and fair enough celebrate that album. Yeah, give that album.
It's Flowers and they because they always do make such a big deal of
it. I think for me that's why I'm like, if I was at
this show and may well be, I don't know, it will be amazing.
Again, It's another one of those things. It's another of those things
where that it's clearly an amazing time, I just don't know if it necessarily
like is the most exciting thing to me in terms of like the Poison.
I have literally seen them do that record in full before. Icly, I've
never seen that. I didn't go, yeah, well there you go.
That's where your own personal prison will come into. How excited you are for
this The Poison I have seen them do before and Ascendency, as you say.
For me, that's my second favorite Trivia record. It's obviously an absolute
ten out of ten Hall of Famer, but it is the Trivian record that
they play the most from all the time. Anyway, and going to see
Trivium, you know, nearly every touring cycle for the last ten years or
so, I have seen, like I would imagine got to be almost every
single track on there's maybe like one or two songs on the album you had
the real deep cuts you haven't. That's it. So like So for example,
last year when they did that little tour and there was the sort of
like themed Shogun mini celebration where they were playing a bunch of deep cuts from
Shogun, that to me was more exciting and more exclusive for me in terms
of something I have to see than this is because this is them touring a
record that they always fucking you know again the last UK tour properly when they
did they're doing the dead Men's Dragon stuff. They were still opening with rain
rather than any of the new ones or anything. So there's there's little to
me this is a clearly great night that isn't really considering it's a twenty year
anniversary thing, it's not that exclusive in terms of seeing the material. I
think what is almost the biggest story of the fact that they are together pushing
into you know, arenas and doing something like the O two, which neither
band is able to do on their own, and I guess, you know,
and seeing something like particularly for me, is trivia in an arena is
like, oh shit, yeah, that's where you should belong. In a
just world. It's sort of thing where you can say that both bands could
reliably shift five thousand tickets and then they could sell out bricks and academy reliably.
So you go two together, that's Wembley, you'd say they could reliably
do Wembley. They're going, but they're going double that since you with the
O two. They're they're really swinging big with it, and like through this
film was like a sort of like as our last this gambit to kind of
go like, right, if we can have this tourk go, well take
us seriously as like potential down the headline the sort of style bands at this
point and fair enough if you want to, you know, just do that,
hell Mary, like, let's go for it. Let's go one last
big hurrah with it. Yeah, and I think i' mean too honest,
I'm pretty staggered that they've gone for the O two, and I admire the
boldness as well for them. Yeah, I mean, it'd be great to
see it sell out, But I don't have either of these bands headlined Wembley.
The headlined Wembley twice, but that that's not been since like twenty fourteen.
They like, right, Marst a Reena bulleted was Ali Pally in twenty
eighteen. Yeah yeah, I mean, like if the nostalgia dollar has never
been worth more so, if they're building it as a sort of it's the
two thousand and five again, then that's the thing, isn't that the baby
seals right now? Yeah? So for me, not the most like exciting
anniversary tour, even though again at least one of these records I would call
an absolute ten out of ten Hall of Famer. But it is a clearly
big old night that I hope you again goes well for everyone involved. Considering
we've been talking for a while already, this is actually, you know,
the next thing we're getting into. Not many, I guess, individual pieces
of news, but a few really massive ones. This week. Power Trip
have essentially confirmed that they are going to be carrying forward. They you may
remember, played a little secret show supporting was It Fugitive? Was officially quite
Fugitive, and you know, obviously a lot of members in that band involved.
Power Trip turned up did a secret set and the footage of that,
you know, went out, Oh my god, fucking power Trip aer back.
They had seth the vocalist Fugitive filling in, you know, for Riyling
Gale doing the vocals on that, and I think from that point, from
the moment they did that secret set, I guess it's almost been I've almost
felt like it would be a kind of like, Okay, you're doing it.
You know, like if you've made the effort to do that, you've
got Seth to fucking you know, come in and fill that role and everything.
It seemed like it would be, you know, an eventuality, maybe
sooner rather than later. But they have announce here that they are going to
be again no creative plans or anything right now, and I would certainly continue
to not rush them in that regard, but they are, you know,
they're following the Slayer route here and saying that they're going to be playing some
festival shows across twenty twenty four. The first of those is happening at a
place called No Values Festival in California, which if anyone wants to pay you
to fly me out to this particular event. They speaking of a few original
Misfits they're there. This is a fucking punk bill, isn't it. This
is this is a cool like it's a little bit when we were young for
Dad punk. It is a little bit bit at EC's hardcore. But there's
a few new names in there, mad like like like you'd expect, like
you got when they Peppering though those odd Coore new bands. You've got the
obligatory scal Soul Glow MS Paint all in their life, The Agraa boys are
there. It's mad seeing Power Trip and Dillander Escape Plan logos next to which
other on the side by side, like it is twenty seventeen again, you
know. I mean it's like Turnstile being in that top bracket beneath your two
headliners, like again, like they are just like legit massive. Now it's
I look at this like I'd have a lovely time at that. But yeah,
but obviously the big news there is that Power Trip are you know,
committing to doing you know a little bit more. And I feel like,
you know, we've kind of said everything there is to say about the kind
of the current states of the Power Trip reunion. We just sort of wish
them the best of luck and hope that things are all, you know,
grand. If they get to anything more than that, than great, But
we at least have news that there is more Power Trip in the world.
Than there was prior to this. Vogue announced this week that he is stepping
down from Machinehead, the band that who he has played a role in since
twenty nineteen. I believe that was when he joined the band. Obviously,
when he joined that band, he did not expect what then happened. So,
you know, the kind of the COVID you know, like on and
off. How many years were really kind of able to be sort of you
know, taking advantage of, I guess is a question for another day,
but this is I don't know. I feel like there are sort of mixed
feelings on both, you know, Voge's tenure in machine Head and the news
that it is now come to an end. What's your, I guess assessment
of the kind of you know, this era machine Head experiment in terms of
their you know, lineup. I guess I never expected him to be a
permanent fixture because obviously there's a whole overloaded bagage comes into capitel. But if
the cabinet are going to be you know, back, that's probably always going
to be his first kind of priority. And it's hard to juggle that with
being in machine Head, you know, one of the biggest like metal bands.
Around, so like he never felt like this was a he was going
to be with machine Head the entire time. And again, like I quite
liked that last Machine in An album. I think he did it. He
was a good fit to kind of step in and sort of steady the ship
for them, But it never felt like this is what you know is going
to be going forward all the time. Yeah, I'm kind of I think
it's a bit of a shame because his tenure feels like a bit of a
wasted opportunity. Like since Phil and Dave left, it's kind of been hard
to not see Machinehead as the Rob Flynn show. But Vog being a member
who himself has had already such a credible, respectable career in an extreme metal
he seemed like a sort of legitimate contender, a sort of person who would
have enough, even if like widespread fame, enough experience to kind of contend
with Rob. And he was such a good riff writer, and I was
really excited to hear what he could do in that band. Maybe that was
me, you know, expecting too much, but I kind of wanted to
know what hit there the way Robin Phil Demol had such an amazing dynamic I
wanted to know what it would be like with Vog and looking back at the
credits of that last album, which you know, I thought was pretty good
too, I think he only co wrote one song and it's on Hallowed,
which doesn't really sound anything like what Vog's done before. So I mean,
maybe he expects to have more of a role and hasn't been able to see
that. So just thought, well, I can either be in this band
and sort of be a session player or go back to Decapitated. The thing
that the thing that did strike me as honestly, I'm saying it had to
happen sooner or later. I don't really know why you would join a band
like Machine as a full time member if you kind of go, ah,
well, you know it's a this is only temporary. That's the bit I
actually have the no sympathy for, because again considering you know, when he
joined, he did not expect COVID then knockout, you know, a couple
of years fully of Tory and everything. I think the answer to that is
because I've seen people voice a similar, you know question, like why would
you even bother joining if you knew you were going to back to Decapitated.
You know that that quickly is it's just experiences. You know. It's like
he got to join a band who he's presumably a big fan of, who
are much bigger than his own band. He got to do, you know,
play with a different bunch of musicians, play with fucking Rob Flynn and
tour and just have fun playing those songs. And even if he then goes
back to Decapitated on a personal level, does that invalidate the great experiences that
he had being on the road with them, playing with them or whatever.
I don't know if it does, you know, like you know, when
this is very existential, but you know when whenever Vog dies and he looks
back over his life, is he going to go, I really wasted a
few their use their own machine head when I should just be in to Capito,
I know, go like, oh yeah, that was a cool thing
that I did, you know. And so that's a bit I have sympathy
for in terms of like, yeah, I sort of felt similarly, and
that, like, you know, as long as he said, like,
yeah, I'm going to be doing Decapitated as well, Decapitate is not going
anywhere I was. That's that's his baby, that's always going to be what
he prioritized in the same sense as you know, Gary Holt with Exus,
like we were saying earlier, but he got those experiences of playing and being
a member of machine there for a while, So why the fuck not?
In that regard, my concern is more with like you were saying, the
kind of machine Head and the last you know, the post Philan Davis.
The problem was always that it never quite felt like there actually was like a
solidified this is machine Head kind of identity of players. Like even the way
that they made that last record I believe, you know, was it like
Rob made most of it with like another drummer in the studio rather than the
guy they're playing live with. Something along these lines, And would I have
liked to have seen, you know, full on this is like the four
fucking guys in machine Head really coming together and making something, maybe with more
visible input from someone like Vague who has his very own distinctive writing style and
everything. Yeah, that I think would have been cool to see. In
regards to you know, Vague having any regrets or whatever, I don't think
majorly he will. I hope he and Rob are on good terms like,
I haven't seen a statement or anything from Rob's side, but I hope that
he gives them, you know, the old kind of salute and cheers for
everything you've done for the last few years. But you know, I agree
that, Like I'm glad that they had fun, but I wish a little
more I'd come out of it, certainly, And I do hope that,
you know, machine Head are able to actually properly get a fucking lineup like
a proper This is machine Head gang mentality type wine up the way that they
did for so many years prior to that. One piece of new music this
week, it is a new single from Gate Creeper. It's called Court in
the Treads. Presumably this will be from an upcoming album. This song,
I remember them playing this live at Bloodstock last year. They've been playing this
one live for a while, and it's always a good sign from that that,
like main hook of kind of the tanks roll on one by one has
been in my head and I've remembered that song from them playing them live,
which from a band debuting a new song live you don't always do. And
Gate Creeper, like they aren't, I like them a lot. They aren't
one of my very favorite go to current death metal bands, But this song
is fucking sick. It's massive. This like it's got a real like meanness
whilst being kind of anthemic by like, I don't melow death to say,
from the kind of like version that I heard, there's a lot of melody
in the back end of it where it really gets quite like grand in that
sort of sound, while still just sound like a tank rolling over everything in
its path. But I'm I think this is wicked. Yeah, Gate Creeper
would I mean like youpa and they were never one of my absolute favorites of
the new death metal bands, but that like foam, the bell tolls,
stomp and that mellow death rift like, I mean, if it didn't sound
so scuzy, that could be a kill switch riff. And hearing them go
at that pace with a riff like that, I mean, you wouldn't want
it to go any faster. You just want to luxuriate in it. This
I mean, like I've always liked Gate Creeper. I like this as much
as any song I've ever heard. From that this They've I've gone from kind
of vaguely exciting for the next record so I think this is really promising.
Yeah, I would agree. You'd have to put this up there. We're
currently the best songs they've they've released, and yeah, that's very bodes very
well for upcoming Gate Creeper material and the last piece of news we have before
we finally get into the album review show, which is what this is meant
to be. But this is quite a sobering piece of news, I guess,
along with all the other big mad headline grabbing stuff that we've spoken about
so far. But Jamie Lemmon a couple of days ago took to his social
media to post a little video in which he announced that he is essentially retiring
from music that you know, the last ten years of him kind of doing
solo, you know, coming out with that Muscle Memory record, and then
all of the years of touring and shows and records that have come since that,
that is basically something that he now wants to put behind him. You
know, are very much like I've enjoyed this, but also he talks about
there being stresses involved in things like that that kind of make him want to
move on to different things. And this is I don't know, it's a
bit like I know, that Jamie Lemmon, particularly sort of the like you
know, sort of twenty seventeen Devolver time or whatever, was like a real
sort of T and M fan favor. I know that he obviously would caninue
to be that for many people up to this point. I'd say personally,
I kind of I always enjoyed what he put out, but not a lot
of it. I guess post that particular time really stuck with me. And
it has been like some years since I've seen a Jamie Lemmon show, but
it was always was. He was a reassuring presence, you know. It
was nice to have around, and he did a lot of cool stuff and
doing things like len Mania, putting on a bunch of other bands and doing
like I remember he put out that song with Justine Jones, who was probably
like, you know, not as recognizable a figure as he was at that
point in time. And that's a cool thing to do. And yeah,
it feels like, you know, it would not be right for T and
M to not kind of take a major moment to off the cap here to
Jamie Lemmon, if he does indeed intend on retiring from from being a part
of our world. Yeah, I think he was always like a really again,
I've not cared as much for the last couple of like release he's done,
but that sort of stuff muscle memory, I still think is like a
genuine like twenty tenth class incredible. But I think him just as a presence
as a figurehead for what he kind of how he would lift bands up and
being a really just sort of like one of a kind character do like a
lot of really cool, interesting stuff that to me kind of made up for
even if I wasn't always completely sold on the music. And I think like
his presence just made this music scene particularly sort of niche of it of like
that kind of like hardcore two thousand Trees, he kind of adjacent sort of
space of like that sort of thing. He was always grateful to have there.
And I think if he is going to step back, I hope maybe
at some point he fighting again. He just needs the time away to sort
of rekindle that. But yeah, just like all the best to him.
Yeah, I think, like you say, of that two thousand Trees sort
of scene. Alway thought he's one of the most distinctive and inventive songwriters absolutely
to emerge from that world in the last ten to fifteen years, like Ruben
whenever a band I particularly clicked with. I really liked all the solo records.
And I don't know if he wants anything to do with music at this
moment, and it might be a bit early to start, you know,
guessing about that, but he is one of those people who I think could
kind of reinvent himself as maybe a pundit the way Justin Hawkins has. Because
in terms of people who I've heard talk about music who are in music,
He's got one of the most. He always has his fresh, interesting perspectives
and I think that bled into his art. So if he's I mean,
maybe doesn't want to, but I think it's something he could do if he
wanted to, and if not, then he'll just be just he'll be one
of the really fantastic figureheads of the last ten years of British rock. Yeah,
I mean he in his little announcement he speaks about wanting to basically pursue
things like voice acting and he writes children's books and stuff like that, So
he's basically he wants to do other things that aren't music based creative endeavors.
Yeah, And I think in that regard, like I I don't listen to
them like an awful lot, I guess, but Ruben I do really like,
and I think Ruben both all three Ruben records for the you know,
the sphere of rocky that they exist in, are fantastic, and my favorite
of them is very Fast, very dangerous, and the best song on it
is the closing track on that record, Return of the Jedi, which is
this huge, you know, epic, fucking seven minute, you know,
everything going on inside Jamie Lemon's head kind of odyssey and it ends and the
kind of reason is that is it ends up being this really fucking tragic song
written by a guy who kind of feels like the industry and the world is
ignoring him, and it ends on in repeating this, I won't bothered to
sing, you know, to play my music. I won't bothered to sing
my songs. And it's fucking heartbreaking. And I think when Reuben went away
that was sort of the feeling and the people who were into Ruben at that
time were like, this, that was our fucking guy, right, This
was you know, some of the best songwriting in this scene that we have,
and no one cared and it sank and it led to him kind of
you know, those five years or whatever between Ruben breaking up and Ulso maybe
coming out Jamie Lemon I think was a bit of like a ghost of like,
you know, he was not present at all, and I think that's
what made his solo you know, renaissance, so like one of the major
like heartwarming stories of like the twenty tens for the people who were into you
know, his music prior to that point, seeing him kind of get his
views the way he did at that time, and this to me, you
know, you might get a sort of a flashback at that moment, but
at the very least, you watch his video and everything, and it's going
away for different reasons, and he does seem kind of at peace with things,
and he seems kind of happy, and so while it is again you
might be very disappointed to see Jamie Leman go if you're a huge fan of
his you know, continuing records, But at the very least, I think,
you know, someone going getting the renaissance he's had and then going away
on his own terms, rather than feeling like he did at the end of
Ruben of like, oh I didn't make it and no one cares. What's
The fucking point is, you know that the last ten years of music has
certainly mattered in that sense, and it's absolutely you know, fed into that.
And yeah, we wish Jamie Lemmon or all the best with whatever he
decides to do creatively, and if he ever does make a record again,
then you know there'll be many, many people who are absolutely welcoming back with
open arms. Okay, the rest of this podcast is going to be the
reviews show for February of twenty twenty four. Already a big episode so far,
but we've got some big records to talk about. To slightly little plug
before we get to that Patreon this week, the latest mega thing that we
have over there is the Alexus on Fire Band special that we've started. You
know, if you only listen to the review shows, if you've not tuned
into the Hyperblast and you've not heard us hype this up, yeah I'll do
so. Right now. We are conducting our full epic band special treatment as
we always do, going into so much detail on one of the greatest kind
of post hardcore two thousand's rock bands, and I feel we are, really
we're digging into some really great stuff with that band. Again. Might not
always kind of be aired in terms of like what makes them who they are.
The first part we did went up to the Crisis record. We are
going to be continuing that in a couple weeks time, with everything after that
point going to all the side projects and all that business. So really good
stuff going on there. However, next week, as always follows the reviews
show, we have album club pack. I've got albums to announce to you
that are going to be in that pack. First up, Sam tweeted a
little while ago that they were getting more into Rush after watching the wrestling movie
The Iron Claw. I saw that tweet and went right cracking the knuckles.
It's fucking time that we once again return to doing a Rush album club.
But we're not doing you know, we've done moving pictures long ago in the
past. We're not doing one of the really obvious ones. We're going to
something that's a little maybe a little bit more kind of understudied. We are
talking about what are their greatest but most underrated records, Power Windows, get
your key boards out. We are going full mid eighties rush here and I
cannot wait. The next album is one that behind the scenes here I told
the other guys, what the other rams are. I kept this one until
this moment because I wanted to say so it might have fed into something from
earlier Sam that is now going to be spoken about next week, The Blackout.
There is a record that Sam has raised to me, which I am
only putting in here because I have been told it is one of these rock
bands turning to shit and absolutely one of the most disastrous out Like, I
don't hate this album, but it is a creative disaster, and I cannot
wait to have this discussion. And that's why, Yes, that's why I'm
allowing you to putting it in here. We are starting the party with the
Blackout that's coming very very soon. Then after that I did I sort of
alluded to this one last week outbreak headliners this year, the one that was
announced before the latest one, American Football's LP one one of the most significant
and influential records in EMO, but one that I sort of know exceedingly little
about musically. So we're going to get into that. I hope that some
other people, maybe you know, have more of experience with that. Maybe
we have voiags for discovery for all of us. I don't know. And
then in the kind of extreme slot. Weirdly, we'll actually be sort of
keeping it kind of soft after American football. But another band who are returning,
you know, currently I'm praying that one day we get a UK dight
Agalock are a band who currently exist, and we are going to be talking
about one of the most sumptuous, monumental, soothing, even black metal records,
if you could even call it that, I guess we'll debate that ever
made. It's called the Mantle. It's got a lovely fucking antler, you
know, deer on the front, which works very well with something that we
have coming up later. But those are the four records that we have got
an album club that have becoming Next week start that party, we will get
ready to start, we will. So let's finally do it. Reviews for
February. We are kicking off with Chelsea Wolf her record. I believe it's
her seventh record in terms of which one's technically her counter to studio albums under
her solo name. She reaches out to, She reaches out to. She
one of our favorite artists working today, someone who I think has done a
great job more than most of kind of defining a certain strand and an attitude
within heavy music over the past fifteen years, you know, when you were
looking at artists who have like really marked out that period in history and given
it a stamp. Chelsea Wolf I think is undeniably one of them. I
think now she is really you know, maybe it'd be hyperbole to say legend
status, but she's absolutely at a stage in her career where she is widely
recognized and it's basically expected that she's going to produce really great work. If
we go back to the eras of you know, something like Abyss, she
was really breaking out at that time and kind of establishing that reputation. Now
several albums down that line. A new Chelsea Wolf album to me, it's
it's almost like a death Tones album or something where it's like, all right,
show us what you've got. We all kind of know that we're expecting
something here. This feels like a slightly different era as well, because she's
made herself a little bit rarer in the last few years. Chelsea Wolf album
through the twenty tens turned up once every two years like clockwork, but it
has been five years since the last official Chelsea Wolf album, Birth of Violence.
That time in between, she's been working on Converge with their Blood Moon
project. It's seen her like scuzzy little side project, Bad Missus Piss.
It's seen her heavily work in soundtrack project scoring movies like X and the like.
So she has been busy. But I certainly felt a yearning for a
Chelsea Wolf album in a way that hadn't quite been given the opportunity to build
up before that point. Elliott, I would make the guess of you holding
Chelsea Wolf in as high esteem as this podcast historically does. Do you have
favorite albums of hers? Ooh, I think the run from Apocalypsis to Hisspun.
It's amazing. Those four in particular are basically all perfect. Out of
them, maybe Abyss is the number one, but it's variations on nines and
tens. I will say, I really like pretty much everything, but I
haven't loved something since his span. Okay, when you say there's any one
album in that time, does that include things like the Blood Project for example?
So yeah, no, it includes Blood Moved, which yeah, I
think, yeah, I don't know. Like I thought it was very good,
but I didn't go back to that one Aton and Birth of Violence maybe
a slightly middling record by her standards, which drove me nuts because I'm an
Americana. Chelsea Wolf record has so much appealed to me, but for some
reason I never quite clicked with it. That being said, those records are
both still great, it's just that echelon of like the run of twenty event
exactly from twenty eleven to twenty seventeen, it was basically all perfect. Yeah,
I love that record, And I would say for me similarly in terms
of like from Apocalypsis onwards to the present day, I would say pretty much
everything she's touched and turned to gold. And I find that she has one
of the most kind of fascinating, fluid and more thing discographies of any artists
that we talk about. Because if you say what kind of music does Chelsea
Wolf make, I guess most people would say something like kind of goth folk.
But you know that last abba Birth of Violence was acoustic based. That
was the first time she'd actually done that in several years, so I guess
that kind of speaks for itself. You know, she makes goth music that
isn't obviously just indebted to like lifting and recreating certain sounds from the eighties heyday.
You never really know whether these things are going to be metallic electronic.
I think one of the few real progenitors in that regard is someone like nine
Inch Nails, who you know, may in particularly come up once or try
throughout this album, but really it's an extremely you know, individualistic voice.
And I think this record, if you're going to look at, you know,
after Birth of Violence and then the subsequent kind of varying projects and work
she's done for a few years as that certain era, this record doesn't sound
like any of those things. I was going to think about this, like
when I had I was like, so, what Chelsea Wolf album? Because
I talk Chelsea Wolf from Abyss onwards and then worked my way back a little
bit. But this mean I was going to work out where this sort of
sits in what Chelsea Wolf does. And it's kind of like it kind of
sounds like none of her records but also has bits of several of them altogether.
It's kind of like this weird like amalgamation of, like I all these
different ideas she's had coming together a bit of way that again sounds one of
her kind in her discography. How I kind of got from this one.
First listen. Yeah, I you know, she's kind of dabbled in the
electronic thing before, like Pain is Beauty as like kind of dreamy electronic element
sort of to it. But this is this feels like to me, her
realizing something which she always had the ability to do and would kind of flavor
things within the past, but kind of jumping in at the deep end in
that haunted, sleepy synth pop style that seems that's such a natural fit for
her that it's baffling that it hadn't come before in its kind of final form.
Oh yeah, I guess it's been several years since I last did with
the Chelsea Wolf record, because you know, for me, it was like,
first lesson get to grips with a particular sound and like the world,
and then like gel with the songs afterwards and the melodies. Once I have
that understanding of what terrain we're operating in, and I think, undoubtedly,
even by Chelsea Wolf's usual standards, I think this is a record that rewards
patients. But immediately I was struck by you know, this is a return
to industrial electronic Chelsea Wolf. For me, I think it's we haven't seen
that in about a decade, right, because you know, there are key
differences sonically and there are key differences thematically too that stop it being like,
you know, it's not a sequel album or anything. But Abyss from twenty
fifteen is the record of hers prior to the last several which I think,
you know, like we said, she kind of span off into more rock
based or acoustic based here now we're returning to heavily electronic and particular. I
think what that nails is that completely like nocturnal feel where Chelsea will fight.
You know, she never makes daytime music to kind of play in the middle
of a festival field or something, but the feel of that can be different.
Birth of Violence is dusty. You know, Hiss Spun and the Missus
Piss record they're both like kind of grotty, you know, they're like unpleasant.
They're like you're in a dirty venue or like a room from Silent Hill
or something like that. What this record brings back is that total sense of
like deep, rich, dark liquid. Arguably that's the most immersive sound in
which she kind of works. It's like really cushy, like intimate, maybe
beyond even the acoustic material because it's like you're actually being transported inside her brain
or something. It's crazy. This record is produced by Dave Sitek from the
band TV on the Radio. Wolfe's usual collaborators like benchers On and the like
in the mix again as well. I think part of the reason this record
maybe did take a bit longer to you know, arrive is and I think
this is where particularly some of those unique, you know, deviations from something
like Abyss really show up as well. Is a lot of the record is
inspired by Chelsea's new frown Sobriety, which she kind of began in early twenty
twenty one. But she said about how kind of writing these songs dealing with
that kind of new path in life and taking on a new identity almost she
kind of felt like she had to live up to that first and kind of
see if it sticks before like diving into an artistic kind of project about it.
You know, I was thinking that you know, she reaches out to,
she reaches out to. She titles about kind of women helping each other
presumably and kind of sisterhood, which maybe is a part of it as well.
But I think there's a big idea about kind of communicating with yourself and
different like past and present versions of yourself, which really kind of begins to
pay off when you get inside this record. Abyss is like, it's my
favorite Chelsea Wolf record, and part of that is the kind of industrial feel.
It's like such a pitch black record. It's a record that's clearly in
the throes of something, It's locked in something. This album there is so
much more space in what it does, and it is a record that you
know, while it is in a similar electronic space, and it has that
incredibly like kind of nighttime nocturnal feel, it's more like it's coming through something,
and sonically it's like there's kind of like starlight shining through this one.
In comparison, it's really again, I don't know if you even intended to
compare them, but putting those two records side by side, it's a fascinating
kind of comparison in terms of what they do similarly and majorly differently. Yeah,
do you agree that the sort of the spacious feel of this album where
like this time you need to immerse yourself in and kind of pick up every
little detail of because at times when it can feel really minimalist, but it
doesn't feel there's a lot going on, but the moment you kind of just
start to let all of those other intricacies pick up you, they're they're just
doing so much with it. And it is this dark, sort of deep
blue like not like I said, it's not like pitch black like Abysses,
like well that is like a really oppressively dark album. There's there's a bit
more luxurious even if this is still a dark like Nocturnal album, but it
is one that like is so just full of little details. I'll catch you
here and just immerse off in it and it's so and it is again,
I think I've each listen, I've gained more and more from with songs that
I've just really caught my ear and it's there's like a pop Santi belated to
this album, even if it is very stark and minimalist. Yes, a
real sort of collection of paradoxes this record, because I think it's one of
the best sounding Chelsea Wolf records. It's so lush, crisp and you know,
that sort of crystal water clear, but it manages to be all those
things and it houses sort of genuinely unflattering instrumentation at times of like borderline atonal
harmonies and this kind of harsh static quality that seems to permere random points in
the record. And the way those those two things are balanced is as like
the whole appeal of Chelsea Wolf, where it's this artist capable of great beauty
and like real simple songwriting and also completely enveloping, frightening world building. Yeah,
I think that the darkest and most suffocating it gets sonically is probably the
opening track and whispers in the Echo Chamber, which I think that does start
the record off similar to how something like Carrying Flowers might in that it's maybe
the place of heaviness that the record has to start off and kind of recognize
before you know, kind of going beyond that. And like, my god,
the sounds that play in that track and the construction of it, you
just immediately remember that Chelsea Wolf and her collaborators are just on like another plane
with this shit. Like that is the bass, there's that slow worring almost
like Texas chains or Massacre camera sound or something, just some kind of mechanical
parts the way the real drums kind of slowly become more prominent, grappling with
the electronic beat, the repeating of the kind of the undone hook, it
is just so fucking swamping you that song is the way it like builds on
these ideas, like so it's doing that like ASMR vocal is that that's when
that sort of entices you in. But then you're getting those like that throbbing
synth and that bass, the sort of grinding industrial beats that hit where it
can sound really nasty even if it's really minimist. Other times when it builds
to that rift right at the end, which again is just kind of used
for like the last like ten seconds or so of this song, and it's
like really crushing, but it is like just this big, powerful moment that
again just hits really hard. It's what it is, like a really oppressive
intro to the record. Yeah, it's really callous and the way it stutters
is so disorienting. And for a record that what you say, something has
some of her most straightforward, poppy moments or like catchiest songs, I kind
of admire that it could open with one of them, but she's brave enough
to allow the slow build and it makes for so much more rewarding listening experience
When it all kicks off, it kind of reminds me of the way that
last Code Orange record opened, where you know, for the first song or
song and a half, even it barely feels like a song. It kind
of just about hangs together. But it means that when we do sort of
slip into the mode of you know, instantly recognizable songs, it's all the
more satisfying. Yeah, i'mdoing drops basically, and this is this first track
has again to me the kind of the undone your repeating part. It's become
one of the most like weirdly catchy songs on it. It just kind of
again, it kind of takes a moment to sink in in that regard.
She does this like spoken word part in this song, and it's like right
in your ear, you know, like it's possible to not be hooked onto
what she's saying because she's whispering it right fucking there. And then again that
guitar riff that comes out in our thirty seconds. This is not a guitar
heavy album at all, but just having that ripper of a riff in there,
like it's it's not even loud in the mix, but it just it
feels like a kind of monster or something emerging out of the darkness, the
different sounds that she plays with across I think particularly opening few tracks when you
look at them next to each other. How's her Self on doing again?
A bit kind of nine its nails, but we're jumping into stuff like bad
Witch or whatever from like the Damward Spiral in terms of just like bustling drum
and bass style beat, that beat hitting and just like full on like nine
like like I say, industrial goth parties. Yeah, but I like that
it's clearly again performed on a real drum kit, but kind of integrated into
this more kind of industrial space, you know, kind of grappling between the
organic and the mechanical. And it's such a hypnotic basis for Chelsea to kind
of weave her way over melodically, you know, how house of self I'm
doing. It's it's like that bit in Possession when she's stumbling around in the
tunnel if she was if she was shuffling the whole time, Like it's otherworldly
and kind of frightening, but that that rhythm is so insistent and infectious that
the first time you listen to it, you almost don't take into account just
how mental A lot of the sort of decoration on the song is Yeah.
But then a contender for my favorite track on this maybe is is Everything Turns
Blue right after that because she's vocally I suppose this is where this sort of
it's citterating. You've mentioned the words like pop and even synthpop at times,
which I can't necessarily deny. But I also think that like there's an it's
weird how she can be that while also being so like not pop. And
here's an example of such a paradise yeah in terms of like vocally quite high
in the mix on this compared to some other ones where she's a bit more
drowned in reverb or whatever. And Everything Turns Blue I think is maybe the
best example, because it feels like you are like locked alone in a room
with her just directly hearing, Like so you're sat on a chair opposite her
while she just says all this stuff like directly at you. It's no getting
away from any of it. And the lyrics in that as well, and
whispers in the echo chamber as well, has that bathing in the blood of
who I used to be offering up on my imperfect offering become my own fantasy
twist the old self into poetry and that kind of you know, that sort
of transition and becoming a different person. Everything Turns Blue is like she's talking
directly to that thing that she is cutting away. Like it's just so again
direct or menacing isn't usually a word I used to describe Chelsea Wolf the singer,
but there are parts this where you feel like you wouldn't want to cross
her. You know, it's really bizarrely intense. It's so soft, it's
so her vocals are whispers and like, but there is like a weird intensity
that you can't quite put your finger on how it's hitting on that when she
isn't raising her voice. But there's in the delivery and again again the chorus
on Everythington's Blue, the whole Smoke to Dance White, that's like a pop
chorus to me, that's just being delivered in a way that is anti pop,
but that chorus is still catchy. Yeah. I think it's so fascinating
that how it all clicks together. I think with that song, the verses
that they almost feel like kind of confessional or something. When the way it
gets to it's just kind of like unloading everything. And then the way you
kind of interact with the production moving into then that chorus when it becomes she
almost like multiplies and you got like that kind of choir of voices and it
becomes the more like sort of primal urge type of stuff you're talking about there.
Fascinating, Like you say, how that kind of dichotomy plays off,
Yeah, and the whole synthpop element. For me, it's not you know,
I'm not thinking this sounds like Rio, but it's got that sort of
thing like The Knife and Fever eight, where it's a synthpop song. In
many cases, you go, this is a synthpop song, but it's like
it's haunted, like something like The Liminal, which is maybe my favorite song
on the record. It's a pop ballad with huge lifts and like thick synthy
textures which are just aar candy, but the way it spirals is so unorthodox
and unnatural that you know, it doesn't feel like an Amy Winehouse ballad where
you know, it's just pleasant on the ears. It's the kind of song
where the sheer sound of it, you go, if this wasn't Chelsea Wolf,
the sort of avant garde underground icon, and this was in the soundtracks
of a big movie. People could get on with it, but it's the
songwriting itself that makes it kind of twisted and strange. Yeah, I think
for me, more so than like again synthpop or obviously the heavy kind of
industrial rock that Chelsea will have done the past, there's a lot more in
the way a trip Hoop influence on this that comes out, you know,
things like massive attack, the kind of subtle glitchiness of the rhythms, And
I guess that's what I'm talking about when I say the record has more kind
of breatheability and space while being as moody as something like Abyss. I think
maybe the busiest it gets with that element is eyes like Nightshade, which in
terms of like having your like, you know, hearing the beat come together
in your ears is incredible. That's again that sort of anti pop sensibility of
someone like Billie Eilish, you know what, She's taking a kind of mainstream
level that Again, it it feels a bit cliched called it ASMR, but
then I found out Chelsea Wolf has actually made ASMR videos, so maybe not.
But the kind of like this is the way I kind of her vocals
to like these ways to say, but like the different punching bass beats and
stuff in that particular rhythm, it's like your ear drums popping, you know.
It's like they're at war with each other. It's fucking crazy, but
they're kept under the thumb of Chelsea as that kind of overriding the rata.
But the two songs prior to that is where the full on, like spacious
trip hop thing really kind of comes out. To me. The pairing of
tunnel lights and the liminal are tunnel lights using that kind of like strange,
chopped up kind of piano chord that feels like it it's like reverberating tunnel lights
was like a jazz song that's kind of been ripped apart reassembled. Like that's
how I kind of it. Where you getting these like occasional piano notes hitting,
but it's glitched out, and it kind of like as we get that
and then it gets overpowered by like this industrial noise. It's like you're taking
the basis of like a kind of a smooth like jazz piano track. Whatever
gone, Let's let's rip it apart and reassemble it in this weird sort of
dark journey and again, it's that that's the kind of fascinating approach on this
album that I think is so constantly rewarded. Yeah, that to me,
that particular element of what you're talking about there is really akin to records like
Perdition City by Ulva, who have that kind of like really like that rainy
city ambience to kind of strange sound manipulation. It's like the song itself is
breathing, and I love when people can get that right, and that song
is just lusciously melancholy while doing it. And then the Liminal, which Elliott
mentioned is perfectly named. You know, it's the exact center of the record,
and it's it's almost muffled. It's like you're in the center of this
kind of space with all of the kind of noisy world that sort of trapped
around outside it. It's just got this like tiny like plunking like piano is
so like quiet and subtle and desperate somehow, It's that pairing of two songs
is so like it's as immersive as this record gets. I mean, the
Liminal has one of the most disarmingly catchy choruses. Again, all you was
the Liminal, just like that repeated line and the melody of it has been
stuck with me. But it's like, but it's not a big sing along
moment. It is really quite dark and depressive and like haunted, and again
I'm just like, it kind of tells me that it's so catchy, but
it they just is the way that she kind of defies any conventional approach to
songwriting. Here well, at Place in the Sun sounds like an Adele ballad
with Daryu and Sandstorm Bitch, which you know she does not want that on
the press release, like that makes it sound fucking shit. But to me
that song is a complete triumph because it's not really got a central hook,
but you can put Chelsea Wolf at the center of it and change the canvas
around her to your heart's content, And she's such a commanding presence that you
almost don't miss or you almost miss how much is going on in the background,
and it never feels like a mess. There's so many songs on this
record where you just think, in the hands of a lesser person, it
might be a bit of a cacophony or a bit of an in because it
might seem like a mess. The way it goes from lush soft soundscapes to
like you're saying about eyes like nightshade, feeling like your ear drums are being
sort of peppered tickled. Yeah, like jangling keys going on in that one.
Like yeah, it's just like having ideas like that and making them work.
To me, they just they just the work of a sort of better
artist. Yeah, Place in the Sun is really like there's that sort of
the back end of the record before the last track is a bit more sort
of subdued maybe, but the kind of it, it's that song is really
like delicate and sensitive and beautiful, and I think, you know, the
in comparison to some of her more acclaimed records in the kind of heavy world,
you know, Like I think a lot of people will turned on to
her with like Abyss because it kind of she began to interact with metal a
bit more. Maybe this one there's not like those big heavy walls crashing down
releases. It's more again, the kind of doesn't have those moments that maybe
kind of like fully makes your fucking hair stand on the back of your neck
because it's so quiet, but she is able to achieve really subtle mood shifts.
The bit in the liminal when she does that I'm the Storm and the
center part about the three minute mark, and the melody changes feels like fucking
momentous in that regard. And then dusk she does the thing that I've said
I love a few times where a single that I liked perfectly well upon release
arrives at the very back of the record. Yeah, and just fucking blossoms
before your eyes. The warm tones on that. Some of this record really
feels like it's again it's facing down some really like dark parts of the self,
and that arrives at the end, and there's this blissfulness to it,
you know, with Place in the Sun as well. It's like the record
takes you from that kind of like recognition of shit being wrong at the beginning
of it and reaches this incredible place of fulfillment with that and the way again
the organic and the electronic kind of interact, it feels like there's a kind
of harmony to it rather than the sort of struggle at other point, and
it's like this beautiful, vampiric nocturnal love song and it's so soothing and reassuring
and you get a big, like triumphant guitar. So Yeah, and again
and that's when it feels like you're coming out of the other side of the
darkness on this album, like I loved because again that really mesmerizing synth hook
that comes out of it. And how again there's this one of the moment
where it almost feels like she's the mostly bare vocally, where it's not going
to like hidden behind a whisper or something. She's actually like it kind of
has that slightly folky American touch of Birth of Violence, but with like the
eerie industrial stuff peppered into it as well, and it just feels like it's
like building up to you hit that guitar so and I'm like, oh,
this is such a huge way to end this album, and it feels the
right way to do it for me. That is one of those songs where
as exciting as it was hearing it in the first place, it's so much
more exciting having at the end of the record, and it's more exciting for
having heard it before the record came out, because when it came out as
a single, you know, we all really liked it. It was a
sound that seemed like an obvious fit for her, and it was a big
catchy song at the end of the record, it feels like dessert. It's
like such a reward for a record that you know has loads of great pop
moments, but for it to kind of have that the Sun's coming up kind
of you know, you mentioned death Tones earlier, but when omes came out
and that came out as a single and it's this the title track that there's
this bright, sort of chios rift and then when the record came out and
it's this dark, shadowy, slightly discordant Deathtones record, and then that song
comes at the end, it's so much more of a lift. Yeah,
I think particularly when the guitar comes back. That first song it was that
like snarling riff, you know, and this it's like mean again the Deathoe,
the comparrasy it's like when Jerry Cantrell turns up on Phantom Bride or something,
and it's just like this incredible, like ah fuck, yeah we made
it kind of lead guitar part, and you know, she's made some really
oppressive music. But you actively feel better by the time you finish this record
because that moment has happened, and you know, it's been really gratifying these
last you know, couple of weeks becoming just locked in the grip of this.
It's maybe not so mediately dramatic as some other other record, and again
it's not got like a deranged for rock and roll or immediate hit song or
anything on it, but like it's this record entices you back in and it's
it's fucking marvelous. It's the first kind of like real like, oh holy
shit, this is a big deal record of the year for me that I'm
like, I'm going to be coming back to this one a lot over the
year as the ear goes on, because it's just I've been working. It's
been one of those I've been working early since I've been getting up like half
five to go to work, and so in the dark I would just stick
this album on and just like lett it just be my journey to work.
And it's been the perfect time just be like yep, im in the darkness
with this album, and it's made just completely fall so in love with it.
Yeah, i haven't liked a Chelsea Wolf record this much since his,
but I'm completely head over heels for it. And it feels like we've kind
of undersold it, at least to me. But it's like, because she's
one of those artist you kind of have to because it's so subtle as an
album, I think, like yeah, but also you know, like death
Zones, like Converge, like Mastered on whoever you want to name. They
released brilliant records with such regularity that them doing another one, it's like,
oh, you know, old reliable. She's on one of my favorite creative
streets of the kind of like modern alternative music from ABYSS fulutely like from Abyss,
including Blood win thing I've not. There's been nothing something that I haven't
completely loved like She's. She's one of the artists that I look to,
is going to be like this is going to be one of the big deal
albums for me, Like I said, for me, it's from Apocalypso.
So it's like a thirteen year run of just like fucking knockouts and she's just
the absolute best of what she does, genuinely in a league of one.
The new record she reaches out to, she reaches out to. She We
thoroughly recommend you go and listen to it if you have not already. Our
second review comes from Alkaline Trio. This is the one hangover from January that
we have included here, but it felt like we should, you know,
come and come and celebrate again. One of our favorite bands of this particular
kind of school of punk bands that came out of the two thousands their new
record. It's called Blood, Hair and Eyeballs. It's the tenth album from
one of the very greatest lodic punk bands of their generation. Maybe not the
biggest, but certainly one who have a feverish cult fan base. It is
their first in six years, which is why I suppose it feels significant.
It is their first since Matt Skiber left Blink twenty two, putting his full
focus on this band again. It is their final album with Derek Grant on
drums, who has left the band. I was wondering listening to it,
you know, is this the first performance from Asam Willard following the Against Me
who has now joined the band. But Derek Grant did record this prior to
his departure. Sam, you love Alkali and Trio? Yes? Yes,
I do like Alcalin Trio a lot. There are many bands of this ilk
who you love right into their recent albums, maybe past their sort of perceived
classic gears, you know, Rise Against Against Me. You could even find
the mensings in there. What is your relation with the last decade plus of
Alkaline Trio material? I dipped out in the early twenty tens a bit and
then came back in with the is this encouraged? The last one? That
was the one where I kind of went, oh, fuck me again,
Alkaline Trio are like serious business again? That one that felt like a real
return to form album, and then I could of just came back to some
of those other ones I like, but it's felt like that was them sort
of really re establishing themselves as a band that we can celebrate. Yeah,
I don't know if it's really been recognized and such kind of en mass,
but I think if this thing Cursed from twenty eighteen, it felt like a
cult thing of like people who were in the know were like, no,
this is as good as you'd want from modern day Alkaline Trio comfortably the late
career high of this band, And I think their records pretty much always have
great songs on them, like this addiction My shame is true. They've got
a couple of backup bangers on, yeah, but is I think Curse is
like a truly strong record that was filled with the best Alkaline Trio tracks in
nearly fifteen years at the point that it had come out. You know,
plenty of them album tracks that I still remember fondly now, you know,
not just black Bird, which was a great single, but you know,
Goodbye Fire Island, throw Me to the Lions, really great songs, and
considering Matt was in Blink at the time and the band weren't the most active,
it was a very convincing affirmation Alcali and Trio could still mean business.
That was now six years ago. Elliott I seem to remember you saying when
we spoke up the single that you had not really actually checked out kind of
classic Alcalan Tria records all that much. We also, this is my first
time listening to an alkalo One Trio album in full. Wow. I kind
of couldn't be going into this, Yeah, like Crimson from Here to in
firmly any of those, I couldn't really be going into this with less context,
And to be honest, that's kind of nice because for a band of
their stature and their scene, the context can often sour it. For me.
Yeah, So I mean I suppose me and Sam can compare this to
like, you know, previous works or whatever and have the fans perspective.
But I guess you want to ask you first of all, then, you
know, first time liten to an Alkaline Trio album, what did you make
of it? I thought it was very good. I'm not in a position
to say, like what it reminds me of or oh it sounds like this
record, it's better than this when it's a better version of a worse version
of that. When I have this on, I have a very nice time,
very good this As a review, I think there isn't apart from you
know, maybe Elliott's kind of again first time hearing it, which is nice
to have, but there isn't much truly groundbreaking to be said. I think
this is as comfortable an Alkaline Trio album as they've ever made. I think
it's like there was that period when you say you were sort of dropping off
Sam where they were maybe experimenting a bit, you know, records like Agony
and Irony kind of the most I guess, like trying on some different suits
they've done, that seems to be gone, Like is this thing cursed?
Was just a real return to this is what classic Alkaline Trio sounds like.
But now we're just a bit older. This carries that on I think.
Yeah, like I said, this is more older but classic, and I
welcome it with open arms. Yeah. I think for me again, it's
worth checking in on as a kind of follow up to such a strong album.
I think this one is not as high a bar as is the Thing
Cursed was. I think that was a real standout moment, but this one
is, you know, fairly good at what they do, and there are
a few standouts on in that regard. Is that's fair to say in regards
to you know where we're coming at this, Yeah, I would say not
as good consistently. But when this album was a hot for Preacher, which
I think is just like that's what I want an alkalinetro song to be.
It's like gloomy, just like charged up melodic punk rock and that like that
brilliant balance of like just catchy pop punk hooks but with that dark, brooding,
kind of slightly gothic touch. It's what it's what I want to hear
when I when I hit on Alkaline Trio. Yeah, this record just sounds
great from the off. It's just a really charming noise and I mean,
for me, it's a nice of a record from a band of their scene
and of their time releasing records that actually sound good. That's a major point.
Yes, yeah, because I mean last year when we did the Foo
Fighters record, who sort of different thing and whenever the worst offenders for any
way, but I thought it was so refreshing to have like an organic,
crisp, robust sounding and the Blink album was fucking you know, better than
the last one. But it's like shit, which was the problem. And
even bands that are sort of lesser offenders Rise Against have great records. I've
not liked the way the last few have sounded. They're slightly too sort of
wishy washy, and you want it to sound kind of wet, like I
don't need to sound like negative approach. I would like them. Yeah,
And when this starts, it's like, ah, that's the sound of an
alternative rock band in my ears right now, Like these easily decipherable riffs,
like good guitar tone, robust basslines, drums that sound like drums, and
riffs that you know. I'm sure I've heard these riffs one hundred times,
but I'm happy to hear them again. It's just it kind of bypasses the
critical faculties in a way, it's like, ah, that's just like a
nice bowler soup. It's I'm not going to get the scoreboard out for it,
It's just nice. Yeah. I think for me the kind of the
standouts, chief amongst them is the title track, which we had as the
leadoff single. That track is the one that gives me absolutely everything I want
an Alkaline Tree as on to do, driving, uplifting, main rift,
delicate, sort of like poppy airy versus somehow, and then just a fantastic
chorus that mixes the warm and the beautiful with the morbid. In terms of
like if you measure these sort of later career punk albums with like are you
giving us one wicked single for the zetlist, they've absolutely succeeded there. Again,
I find this album to be very relaxing in a like, you know,
they're not mucking them out, and there's a very easy Alkaline Trio spot
to slip into compared to some of their other ones. Again, it's not
the most consistently rousing or energizing, but I, as somebody who has a
soft spot for this band, that super comparison you are making their I guess
particularly kind of applies half a Preacher. I think I like it. I
wish the song called Hot for Preacher was a little bit more of a slam
dug in terms of it's got a cool riff, it's got a really big
woe. I was waiting for an actual stronger like main chorus from that,
but it's still nice. I've really liked that chorus, like the whole uh
hot on Lights in Chryina townhook, because that's one again it's like the end
of the chorus bit. But I think Hot for Preacher, like it's one
of those there's like four, four or five songs this summer. I'm like,
I would happily see those slot into the cells and have a great time
with them. I think Hot Preachers it is that riff and that kind of
whoa that like really like has stuck with me. Yeah, I think again
it's that quite like every version of the Bulls will be pus all that sort
of stuff like, but it just it hits the spot of like dark,
brilliant and again I think there's sort of the gothic touches help age Alkaline show
really nicely certainly, and that's that that that that blended with the punk means
it doesn't sound like a bunch of trying to be like down with the kids
in regard, aren't they in the way that like Villa Varlow can kind of
you know, he can sing his songs and there's no concern of them becoming
like, you know, a really like kind of you know, an older
They have that velvet quality to them that he's able to really kind of age
into. I think similarly Matt Gieber or something going on like that. Yeah,
And I think I think they lean into that on this, which is
why I think it works even if it's not as immediately like oh, these
are just great songs as the previous one, because they lead into that side
of things on something like meet Me, which again has that like melodic lift
on the whole as the sky's falling off, fall into your arm. Yes,
like that all just works for me, even if it's not as immediately
exhilarated. No, I think I'm hot for Preacher. I feel like the
opening seconds of it are the catchiest part, and I was wishing for more
of like a big lift from that, but like it, it's a solid
opener. I think, you know, there's the balancing act of like the
reason I love particularly Matt's melodies so much, as they have this kind of
solemn melancholy to them, and there's a few points where that sort of downcast
vibe translates into a chorus more sort of like languidly slipping by sort of registering
it like a pre chorus. The thing that you know is this thing Curve
did incredibly well with the melody's really lifted out. I think bad Time is
my example here of one that kind of feels like it's drags its feet a
bit to really get there. I'm not quite sure why that one was a
single that they released seemingly but Meet Me, I agree. I think is
a really strong track and it's not as obvious instantaneous a banger as like the
title track, but the way it builds up and that chorus you just mentioned,
and he delivers it with that kind of gloomy love lawn quality that you
want from him is really fucking good. Yeah. I mean, we're kind
of naming all the songs that stood out to me as well, like a
hot for Preacher, Meet Me. I really like this sort of do wop
a lot of sensibility to that, so I don't know if that's the thing
they do normally, but can be. I really like that they've got that.
They like to have that kind of fifties touch every now and then yeah,
yeah, I think break is the one that takes about thirty seconds to
mention the Brider Frankenstein which and then I mean bad Time, you know,
the evil twin of a classic Halloween tune, like real fun swagger, And
again, I don't know if that's something they do a lot, but it's
the thing that suits the men. Again, I think it is that fifties
rock and roll thing that helps them sell it. And I mean, for
me, if I do have a criticism of this record, it's that about
seventy percent of the songs are kind of at the same tempo, and by
the end of the record, I kind of feel like they blur together.
And I don't know, maybe that's not an issue for somebody's like a really
big client tree find Like if ac DC put out record, I'm not gonna
go stop going for four. But I think this maybe could have been a
really excellent thirty minute record, or maybe even a better longer record if they
threw in some variety on that end. But I mean, that's not a
bad, you know, complaint to have, because I don't think there's any
songs in here where I go, you know that's subpart. Yeah, Well,
I think that they're you know, they're not the most like driving energized
versions of what they do, and I think they're at the stage now where
they're letting the melodies do the talking more than like the punk perhaps. But
I think, you know, Dan gets some really great moments to shine as
well, because they're always a great refresher in the album, because I think
Matt's Gieber is kind of much more visible publicly, but then he comes in
and Versions of You is. It's really weird. This album came out the
same day as the Lucifer album that we reviewed in the last episode, and
it threw me. There's a song on that that has like an extremely similar
chorus melody too. It's a coffin has no silver lining from that record has
almost the exact same chorus as Versions of You, the kind of but who
will where you round this? They're really weird and obviously extremely uncanny coincidence.
They came out literally the same day, but you know, I like Dan
delivering that melody just as much as I like Johannah delivering it. And Scars
is another of my absolute favorite songs on this record, even though it's like
always like a scar riff or something, isn't it, But like it's kind
of like folk punk on that little bit scar and how do they make that
sound moody? Fair play? But dan melody in that one is genuinely gorgeous
and there's really great little embellishment from the lead guitar as well. And at
this best, at their best, they have this kind of feeling of just
making your heart kind of flutter and implode a little bit again heimsk perhaps,
and that really really works. I mean, teenage heart is one with that
kind of saying that's where they now that or that whole again morbid lyricism.
Allas is an ar fifty the most alkaline triosh you've ever heard in your life.
Literally, you could not get more that. That is like an alkaline
show cliche right there, but god, it really fucking worked. Of that
just that kind of like dark look at the sort of the the candy coated
over it like sheen and the darker underside of like American teenage life and all
that. Yeah, it's it's it's it's it's classic trio for me. But
it works. It hits the spot so perfectly, Elliott as your thirsd Alcaline
trio album experience, that kind of you know thing that we've just pointed out.
Oh, that's just like the most trio shit you've ever heard in your
life. How has that hit your ears? I mean, I don't know
how I felt. I kind of felt that when I heard it. I
just felt like, I'm sure this is a thing they do a lot.
It doesn't seem like that sort of thing they'd pick up this far in And
do you know what, if this is a more middle of the pack Alkaline
trio record, I'm definitely going to go back to the ones that people bang
banging about. Because now this is way better than the last few records by
Record that we reviewed last month. This shit's all over it, yeah,
or like the last couple of No Effects records, or you know, some
of the more recent Rancid records. I think this is like really strong,
like for what it is. I mean, like I said, I have
my complaints about it, but I think it's very good. And if this
is a sort of middling Alkaline Trio record that's maybe slightly low energy that boones
well at least for me. Yeah, I think Derek puts in a really
good last performance to kind of you know, sail the Ship on Woods.
You know, they're much more interesting songs for what he's kind of doing rhythmically.
Alkaline Trio they have that kind of Smith's e quality of just like kind
of you know, of their generation of what you call pop punk bands.
They just have this really like melancholy but cumfinus of sound. The guitars have
a gritty edge, but they're you know, expressive, the basses in the
next to these little sad melodies, they have that edge, still a feeling
slightly more kind of like gravelly and more adult, but in a kind of
a carb way against those sort of bands that you just mentioned. And I
think the last two songs really strong as well, like Wonderful Melody from Dan
in broken Down in the Time Machine, and then and then we've mentioned Teenage
Heart, which I agree as another of the stronger songs on it, and
no one else is writing that chorus just take me back some of that kind
of good morning, you know, murderous smoothness. I think there are less
of the real like stick around songs on this than I think there were on
the latest record. But you know, in the same way I've said that
they're you know, like records like them American what was that cool fucking Io've
just said it's got the American scream on it. The twenty ten one this
addiction, that's what it's called. Yeah, Like records like that have a
couple of really amazing songs on them. This as you know a fair view
as well, title track is brilliant. I Love Scars, Meet Me Teenage
Heart. I think it's more like a kind of seven out of ten,
you know, sixty to seventy percent of them are really really strong Alkaline Triotype
record rather than the big standup I thought the last one was. But in
terms of carrying on that return to just kind of like classic sound, they're
doing that admirably and there is still a lot to like here. Yeah.
I think it's you know, a like legacy so veteran of that area punk
band who are still like showing that they're still at it. At least they're
not like sailing off into like all their new stuff's a bit embarrassing. Just
play the old stuff. Now I'm like, there's enough here that I'm like,
no, you know what, if I go to True I want to
hear some of these new songs in the set list, which when you compared
to a lot of their peers, they're in a much better healthier position.
Yeah, and if you have never heard from Here to Infirmary, good Morning
or Crimson, then you should absolutely go listen to them. Go and do
that. Let's move back to Big unpack a lot of stuff records because our
next album comes from Isan. It is a self titled album, and I
think I've lost count of how many solo records this actually is from Esan.
I think it might technically be the eighth album, but even though the last
one of those was in twenty eighteen, never feels like Esan's really gone away.
Similarly to Chelsea Wolf, I guess, but in terms of productivity maybe
even more so. Because in twenty twenty we had a pairing of EPs that
was the one that everyone said Taylor Swift ripped off for the focal or cover.
We had another like tiny little bonus EP last year. They completely flew
under the radar. He's obviously done work on things like the Ibaraki record,
with Matt Hafei, which was fucking great, and his contentutions very essential to
I don't think his work has necessarily grabbed the headline as much because of the
little releases like that. But Esan is so firmly established now as a solo
artist, as someone who is to be continually refreshing himself, exploring different sides
of what you can do. Going into this self titled record feels like there's
been a bit of a reset after that period of experimentation. I guess in
terms of if he'd been playing about a bit with some of these different kind
of short form releases, different styles. Certainly feels like with this record,
it's like a new line drawn under things. This record feels like a bigger
deal than anything released by Esan in a while, just in terms of like
how it's being approached and positioned. Would you agree, Yeah, I would
think so. I think in the sort of twenty tens, there was so
much high quality material coming out, you know, within such a short span,
and him kind of moving over to either collaborations and short form stuff,
returning with a self titled record that comes out accompanied with a classical music interpretation
of it. I think it says a lot about how he feels about this
record, and for me that intrigues me because he's someone who has never really
let the standard slip from the first Emperor record today, So for him to
go this is the self titled one after all this time, it kind of
helps create a kind of aura surrounding it. Isan is, of course,
one of metal's great geniuses, the front man of the greatest band in my
opinion, from the greatest scene. You know, naineties Black Metal Emperor.
His solo career has taken him too many places beyond that, there are things
in that past that this record harkens back to and draws upon. But there's
a couple of records in this reviews bag that feel like, again, some
quite large undertakings before even gauging I guess how much you personally resonate with them,
but they just feel like these sort of mammoth pieces of work with so
many layers to unpack and pull apart, and they have this degree of kind
of may and you know, awe to them before you even really approached them.
Chelsea Wolf is one. There's a couple to come, perhaps this record
I've been hearing about for a while in terms of like Esan is gearing up
to release a fucking whopper kind of way. There are two discs of this
album. The second is an orchestral version of the first metal album. I
imagine again a huge amount of efforts gone into both. I believe that he
wrote it originally as like a piano score and then kind of arranged the music
for two different you know, variants. That's the kind of the seed of
it. But our review is going to mostly focus on, you know,
the full band metal versions of the songs. When you listen to that first
disc, you are certainly not feeling short changed in terms of getting a complete
experience. It is a lot to get into your teeth. And this record
again as advertised, two discs nearly one hours forty minutes long. The first
disc of it already there are a lot of different sizes to Esan. This
is the craziest, most maximalist thing he is released in a decade. Yeah,
this is a lot. This is a mental genius going. You're getting
it all, like, not holding back for a second. We are.
This is the full sort of mad cinematic black metal experience. I kind of
love it asked because I know that there are you know, the the out
there mavericks of progressive experimental black metal. Sometimes you enjoy it. Sometimes we
get DoD teims guard. I hope that you would like there's a bit more.
I like the Emperor records, like even what's the last one I've got
that record on vinyl? Album having album is mental? And the hip planner
was like, what the fuck is going on here? Because I really liked
everyone, I was like, you get this one as well, so I
was like, yeah, cool, okay, and then was like, this
is fucking mental, even by EMPRA standards, but I'm willing to go Vi
Shan's insanity. And I kind of away expecting now one hit play on this,
and I just sort of strapped in. And the thing is, it's
still really like engaging and rewarding this album, even if it is full of
mental left turns that can sometimes leave me a bit cold, that this record
it excites the senses in just a really lively, vivid way. You don't
have to wait around for anything. It's a record that, again probably playing
it to it being self titled. I think this is if you imagine what
kind of music does Esan make ye at its most sort of cartoonish form,
this is kind of the record you visualize. It's wild, it's progressive,
it's beautiful, and it's scary. It's kitted up in orchestral instruments up to
its eyes, like if he's been trying out some of the things on recent
releases. This is like, Okay, what is my trademark? What am
I known for? I am going to take that thing to a next level.
It's like distilled and then expanded, if that makes any sense. And
I feel like it's the record that proves what we were saying earlier about,
you know, sort of what Esan has alway said about Emperor in terms of
like a reunion in the studio, why it will never happen, because particularly
at the end of Emperor, with the record you're mentioning, he was writing
all the music, and this record is absolutely what you can draw a line
from, going, Okay, that guy the very end of Emperor, what
would he be writing in twenty years Like this is that same? This is
him doing that, but with the budget and the scope and all of that
that he maybe could have done it as much with Emperor at that time.
Yeah, and there are very key differences that come from you know, twenty
years either side, But you know you mentioned it. The first time I
heard this record, and I was just so bombarded by thing inside it.
It did make me think about Prometheus, which is the final Emperor album,
and it's the most divisive Emperor album. There are some people who are only
into the early stuff who absolutely hate that record. It's those insane albums ever
Rental Like again, I was. I bought on Final because I'm like the
first few Ever records, and I was like, okay, I'll get this
one as well, and then I was like, fuck me, this is
not what I expected. But I again just kind of went along for the
ride. Yeah, I'd love to talk about it one day more in depth,
but it's truly it's the most avant garde Emperor album. It's everything that
is extreme and intense and dizzying about Emperor turned up to most mental degree.
It's so fucked up, and it's often said that it's basically the first Esan
solo album, but it's more blisteringly extreme than anything Esan has done solo,
I guess. But this record it's easier to get on with than that,
for sure. It's got the kind of the grace and the stateliness and the
more kind of coherent songwriting touch that comes from the more measured, mature isan,
But it does feel like that more seasoned artist going, what if I
let a bit of that carnage and that mania back into what I do now
and so exactly that that kind of easily traceable lineage, what would that guy
who wrote Prometheus be writing like twenty years down that path. It's more measured,
it's got more care for things like space and dynamics and hooks, and
it's not going to be shrieking your head off the whole way through. But
it roars something fucking proper, I mean, like the Promethean spark. Just
feels like that kind of picking up media from there with that song is goes
immediately weird opening rift. The song is jaunty but weirdly menacing blends black metal,
sort of screeches with a really big, powerful clean vocals like it's it's
so excess or castle plaster overplace. But it feels like, again, just
that picking up of that idea and just expanding it into the biggest thing possible.
But it even kicks into that from the least likely place because the intro
I mean, Ishan like he's been doing it for the Trivian Records recently.
He's he's like an overture. Yeah, he loves his overtues and he's not
afraid of a bit of grand journey. If there's one of the things that
marks us out. I think from something like Prometheus, which is just a
sort of unwell, frightening extreme metal record which I didn't get for years.
I was. I agree that Emperor are probably the best black metal band of
that time, and it's'll be a long time to get into the stuff after
Anthems to the Welk and at Dusk, but this record has again with the
grace and I don't know if you'd call it humor. There's gotta be some
kind of glints in the eye because that intro sounds like somewhere between an old
like nineteen forties Disney movie and a classic Bond film. It's like layers theme
from Star Wars or something like its film score is what it is. Yeah,
so much cinematics or film score yet all over this and it's not the
only time that he does that on the record. But it's building and building
and building, and you think it's going to be something explosive and dramatic and
euphoric, and then the Promethean spark kind of slumps into life. And that
sounds like a criticism, but it's just the first of many ways this record
throws you off balance. It can't even I can't read the name of the
song. Now, there's a song on Alphaville where it just feels like you're
sinking into the earth when it starts, and it's so unsettling and weird.
But it's been stuck in my head since the moment I heard it. And
Ishan's got that real signature squall in his voice and hearing that over a staccato
jazz rhythm, but then these moments of light with clean vocals and flourishing strings.
It's on one hand it's a bold choice, but with is Shan,
you're kind of prying to expect the unexpected. But even for him, this
is this feels like a mad way to start your record. That riff is
one of the things that really got me excited about this project as a whole
when I press play on it, because it's not a stock isan riff that,
if that could even be a thing, exists, but like that kind
of like icy, symphonic, black metal sound that you might associate with him.
This isn't that in terms of riffing. What reminded me of is that
kind of that sort of quirky, off stepping feel you're talking about. To
me, it reminds me of band who have mixed black metal with things like
post punk bands like Virus and stuff like that, and mixing that with like
full blown symphonic metal then is fucking wild. And that song hops around,
it's so alive. The percussion in that that sounds like fintroll, that kind
of like Nightmare Underworld carnival sense. There is that that circus made. Yeah,
sometimes annoy me a little bit, but it never tips over too fine
into ridiculous territory. For me. I love it in this k that it
keeps coming back to all of this madness just alongside, you know, lavish
again, film score type melody or whatever. So exciting. And then Pilgrimage
to Oblivion is that full insane, blasting whirlwind of like power that excited me
a lot as a single to hear him doing that again. And one of
the great things about Esan is that you know, when these extreme metal guys
get older and they have these tasteful solo careers and they start dressing in nice
jumpers like Esan does. You might assume they would tone down the extremity,
But listen to this fucking song go. It's one of the most furiously like
blustery things. It's films were living like. It has this brilliant blend of
like that full on black metal blast, but because it's got a level of
sheen and polished to it that you don't often kind of get with black mel
it feels classy at the same time. And again we'll keep going back to
it, but it's so cinematic. You're getting like these like really like low
chugging riffs are points in it with like strings dancing all over the top of
it, and it feels like just really grand and like something that you can
be in awe of the actual sound of the orchestration in terms of those strings,
it's fucking amazing. Like he's one a you know, extremely select group
of artists who can make an orchestra in metal sound this good. Like one
of the only other ones I could think of is the guitarist in Septic Flesh,
who literally like composes classical music and worked with all these like great historic
European orchestras. He sounds doing that. This is like samples of like fucking
you know, the British Philharmonic or whatever, and he's just kind of weaving
it all in there. And there's a there's an orchestral beatdown riff in that
song if that exists, part with just and the orchestra is just like smashing
you over the head on that same rhythm. It's like bruising well that the
way the song closes. To me, it sounds like Dimon Borgear in their
Pomp. But people always threw the label of that band said it's a Disney
blackmail. Yeah, this is kind of that, but it's more like Looney
Tunes. It's more wild, it's more strange. And again you say it's
samples and stuff. It sounds so good, like the Timpany. You can
feel it sort of wabbling in your ears. It's like you're lying underneath it.
It's the most mental sensation. And then for that the rest spite is
then twice Born, which is like a surf rock panic attack. It's Danny
Elfman black metal is twice born, like that is full on madness. That
one it's like stabbing an insistent, and it's just I mean, I love
Ishan solo material, but it was around this point it was, oh,
we might have one of his all time great records here. It just he's
got a knack for like insanity in extreme metal that I don't know if anyone
else quite matches. Yeah, And I remember when Trivian released In the Court
of the Dragon, which you know, again an amazing album for reasons largely
different to this one, but it had those tiny bits like Ysan orchestration,
and we were like, I wish Trivia would just push that bit harder and
make their full on, like symphonic, epic heavy metal album. And this
album is the kind of shit that we want right It's it's so absolutely untethered,
which is a thrill to listen to the chorus on Twice Born, when
Isan is just roaring from the bottom of the diaphragm and the orchestra is like
announcing him like a monster or something. It's brilliant. If you want to
hear an example of how like metal band and orchestra can compliment each other and
not just kind of play second fiddle, you know, one to the other.
That's an incredible example. The start of Hubris and Blue Devils just makes
me piss. It's so like insanely gaudy in a creepy way. It's like
a symphonic black metal version of the Twilight Zone intro or something. And that's
when, like, that's the where it feels like the album completely loses its
mind. Yeah, and again film and it's the first time I heard that,
you know, the whole the blasting part that that intro then moves into
and the riff it spirals into. It's genuinely alarming in the way that like
great symphonic metal can be when it uses all of those elements for like maximalist
overwhelming your senses. It's just fucking absolutely crazy. And there's like a fee
grinding eight string rifts in there as well to kind of smashing that piece of
prog to fucking pieces. The outro of the song, when it falls apart,
is horrid. Elliot you were talking about. Like vocally, Isan has
always and still does have this like genuinely unsettling voice that kind of makes your
skin crawl, one of those voices that like hurts your vocal cares just listening
to it. And he is eyebell popping all over that and twice born that
that song has like the main rift to it sounds like the drowning music in
Somening the Hedgehog two, which like sets panic attacks as me as a child,
where I'm like shit times running out, I'm about to die and it's
got that kind of like intense like you are about to die from like some
horrible fate like insanity to it. And again like this something where I'm like,
I can wrangle old prop for being indulgent and all that, but I
never got that feeling from this, even though he probably is being like super
indulgent because it's always throwing fun, crazy new ideas to me that I actually
get caught up in. I never found myself going like, ah, Ishan,
you didn't need to do that, like wind it in a bit there.
Yeah, it's it's it is indulgent and it's a nonlinear. But like
you said, because it's so much fun to listen to, I can't imagine
someone holding it against it like for me. The best song on the record
is a Taste of the Ambrosia, which might be one of the best solo
songs. Again that starts off with that Bond theme ballad thing were it not
for the shrieks, and but then when that kicks off again, not to
keep employing out the Disney references. It's the sort of old hallucination sequences that
used to get Alice in Wonderland and Dumbo and that kind of Elephants on Parade.
Yeah, Yeah, that so bombastic and outrageous, and it's the sort
of thing that if it was done with any less sort of quality, it
would sound like Diablo swing orchestra. But in the hands of someone like,
like you say, one of Messl's geniuses, it's just wild abandon and it's
so infectious. Yeah, that song, that expressive League guitar at the start,
you know, genuinely kind of soulful in a way that Isan, particularly
in his solo career, has become really kind a deptat. But the contrast
of that like glorious melody and him vocally crawling around like a slimy, slithery
beast is like one of those exarms of Like that's a contrast that we kind
of take for granted at this point in metal's history, but there it really
works, and he excels in those kinds of contrasts. That's why he is
the master of like you know, the guy here you get for classy high
end orchestration and also the guy you will get for the most fucked up guest
vocal slots that you can get, you know, the kind of creepy monster
under the bed way. He delivers like actual legible words in like the beginning
of Blood Trails to Love. Absolutely no one sounds like it, and he
can deliver a hell of a slick, clean melody as well. They're like
there are records in the past where he delivers genuine pop songs like stuff like
Pulse and Blood Trails to Love. I'm air grabbing the fuck out of that
chorus and sandwich between those like amazing you know choruses, there's a bridge part
that throws back to that kind of like mad sort of devil swing of the
Promethean spark, but kind of ordervillion toms, the snap in going on there,
like sometimes this record is like if SI also featured a soul crooner,
Like it's just so the eye of the storm moment amidst or the madness,
like again Huberts and Blue Devils we mentioned being just like fucking off its rocker,
but the chorus in that that that the notame for dissolution, just glide
in and it feels so cool. Yeah yeah, blood choice to love like
that's anchored by a chorus that wouldn't sound out of place on Eurovision. And
that's not to say it's like super poppy, but it's got that particular Yeah
like it and it's the sort of thing that you think could oh does that
how crazy it is? Does? It doesn't seem tacky, but it's kind
of like that Dodams God record we talked about it at length last year that
has mental choices, but it never felt like it was reaching for those mental
choices. It was just no, no, The natural thing for this song
to do now is to be a funk song, and now it's going to
be a black metal song. And listening to this this record all the moments
that the first time I listened to it I found funny, now feel completely
at home, like yeah, Hubres Blue Devils opening with that I Will Survive
piano sweep the first one was like, there's no way that's not a joke.
But now I don't want to hear that song open any other way.
It's what you go from Cubans to be like the Distance between Us, which
is really romantic, Like in comparison to the best of this album, it's
like one of the more kind of like patient sweeping songs is it is a
bit prettier and there is like a yearning romance to it that again could feel
out of place, giving just how all over the place Alm goes, but
it feels so ripe for that moment. Yeah, And the closing track at
the heart of All Things Broken is like if Hubert and Blue Devils is this
thing at its most kind of like dizzying and upsetting. This is the you
know, delicately building nine minute painting of a song, which to me,
it reminds me of a kind of condensed Esan version of like when Iron Maiden
do things like Empire of the Clouds, and it's like their most kind of
like cinematic linear storytelling, like he is scoring something in your head, like
the drama in that the kind of sumptuous early minutes and then into that middle
part when it really starts to fucking ramp up and you're in like a tiny
boat heading towards a waterfall or something. It's really amazing and like that there
are loads of people who just listen to kind of film scores in their free
time, like it helps them, you know, focus or relax or whatever.
The second disc of this, which is just the orchestration, is like
of that caliber of that kind of thing that you want to be listening to.
The first disc is, oh yeah, that guy who composed all that
also a fucking maniac. Like it's a ludicrously high effoot release. If you've
ever wanted to get into Esan solo but not known where to start, it's
you know, it's a lot to take in, but this, certainly it
does feel pretty definitive, which I think is a success in that regarding terms
of the whole sell title record, all that thing, I would say it's
the best thing he's done since twenty sixteen, which I've said before that kind
of twenty ten to twenty sixteen run of those four albums is like peak is
San solo when he was the most kind of acclaimed in that regard, and
the following album and the Partner and EPs are also of a very high quality.
This just feels like the most sort of defined statement since that kind of
insane Midas touch run he had at that point in time. And you know,
we were talking about Chelsea Wuff being on like a thirteen year run of
just absolute gold. He sounds on thirty years of absolute fucking gold. And
I don't I've not listened to all of it, but I can. I
can imagine it's the standards. Yeah, really he strikes me as one of
those creative figures. Maybe he's got a couple of other projects that you don't
listen to as much as Emperor Records or whatever, but like, wow,
and one of the barmby things that hit me doing this. He's not even
fifty yet, Like he's Fuck. I'm not saying it's like you should be
some old man or something, but what do you think about this guy having
an over thirty year career and he's been like one of the figureheads of like
artistically challenging it stream uses the whole time. He's only in his late forties.
Still, he's younger than most people in Lamb of God. Yeah,
you do viewers like the real elder Statesman, don't you? Are you gonna
go like, oh shit, No, he's not like fair play like Dude
Rocks. Yeah, the's on record is fucking amazing. You should absolutely go
and hear it. Staying progressive and heavy and mind frazzling job for a cowboy,
Job for a Cowboy, A back everybody, moon healer, Job for
a cowboy. Have not released a record in ten years, isn't that?
Bamieh? That's really upsetting. It does feel weird that's been that long.
Like, yeah, yeah, it's a bit of a It's a homecoming in
a way, because like when I was getting into extreme metal, I'm sure
you feel the same. Eliott joh for a Cowboy were just like a very
immediate presence, like if you were if you got into death metal at any
point between two thousand and six and twenty twelve, you couldn't get away from
them really, like they're kind of they were as synonymous for that particular generation
of death metal bands as the Black Dahlia Murder were, or you know,
Cattle Capitation became for a lot of people who maybe got into kind of more
metal or crossover stuff like Suicide Silence or whatever. Jos for a Cowboy might
have been a first entry point into more technical death metal. Fair it cannot
be understated how important a band they were for many people who got into this
kind of music at that point in time. Part of that is obviously the
thing they are most I guess regularly referenced in is you know, one of
the fathers of death core with the Doom EP. They are not the first
death core band, but I think they are the one who kind of embodied
the sort of generational transition point where death core became an active movement that had
loads of young people into it and loads of traditionalists turning away and discussed.
But that's not what Job for a Cowboy are overall, it's not what they
became. It's certainly not what this record is. Yeah, it's It's funny
because we sort of spoke about so what is announced this records coming out that
John for Akel, we are coming back at point where death core is as
big as it had been in well since they've gone away. But their brand
of death metal seems so removed from the kind of thing that was popular,
or at least their type of death care that they did in the first place
seems like quite an old school thing compared to the likes of you know,
Laurna Shore and all the other big bands. But then you know, I
kind of realized that, well, they're not coming back as a death core
band in all likehood, and particular when the announce it's called Moon Healer as
the follow up to Sun Eater, because by the time Job for a Cowboy
split up, they were pretty far removed already. They were a sort of
lavish, ambitious, technical death metal band that on their last record started to
flirt with the likes of like prog. Yeah. I think Joffre a Cowboy
have one of the weirdest legacies of any extreme metal band, like their peers
are thinks like the Black Dahley Murder who. Yeah. Maybe a few old
heads saw the logo and who they toured with and thought they were a death
core band, but they mainly epitomized one kind of thing, don't they.
Jofro Cowboy had this weird thing of being like one of the most scoffed at
and at other times deeply respected death metal bands of all time, because,
like Yeah, in one sense, they are the fathers of MySpace death Corps.
On the other hand, the record they left off with sun Eater over
the a of their like actual studio albums, they rapidly took on this more
technical death metal direction. By Sonny Eater, they had gone full on progressive
and their peers were now things like Cynic, you know, like full on
prog death bands, and you know, that record pretty well acclaimed when it
came out, but considering Job for a Cowboy then immediately vanished afterwards. Elliott,
do you feel like the legend of that album kind of grew in the
years while they were away? Yeah, because for me, like at least
of the circles I was operating and the press things that I was seeing,
that felt like the point where the acceptance of Job for a Cowboy not really
as a deathical band anymore, but as a credible, interesting death metal band.
That's when it finally arrived. And I think that's unfair because the records
before that were flirting with the same ideas, but a lot of places that,
like you say, would have been snobby towards someone like John for a
Cowboy before were like, holy shit, Sonny's is actually fucking great. And
it was like, oh, this we're entering a new phase now, Like,
what's the next thing Job for a Cowboy We're gonna do? Are they
gonna, like you say, go down the Black Diary? Are they going
to do this? They're gonna be more like Gorguts whatever, And then for
them to disappear in the weirdest circumstances where Hiatus wasn't it just like a photo
of all their kit had been burnt. They just put that out the lines.
I think that there was a bus incident or something. It was.
It was so weird what happened because it was just like the way they tell
it is that John for a Cowboy just stopped being a priority for them in
terms of like they had to deal with things like family, getting degrees,
life stuff whatever. But from the fans point of view, Job for a
Cowboy released this really bold album and then immediately fell off the face of the
earth. Like they didn't tour in support of it. They just blipped out
of existence, man like, no big announcements about anything. We were just
looking around, like what the fuck happened to John for a Cowboy. That's
how I remember it is they were there and then they weren't. There was
no kind of like, yeah, we're done. It was just it was
just they were there and the next moment blipped out. Yeah until now,
And the way they have decided to kind of treat this creatively is, as
you say, Elliott, they kind of bridging that gap connecting this one to
the last one, Sunny to Moonhealer, and I guess they're treating it in
that sense, like they never went away with that said, you know,
I like sounn Eater an awful lot. It's not my favorite job for a
Cowboy album. It was hard not to be impressed with it when it came
out that they'd gone there, you know, for a band as popular and
borderline mainstream within death metal as they were getting kind of like the sequel record
to that one and having to dial back into that headspace. God, these
albums are insanely fucking dense and like these are demanding to unpack. I find.
Yeah, I mean, this is basically what I want a job for
a Cowboy to do. When they came out again, I don't know if
Sunny's is my favorite, but I think it's probably the record that impresses me
the most, and it's the sort of thing that I think, you know,
I didn't want them to go and copy Laura Shure. I wanted them
to do a job for a Cowboy record. And you would be forgiven for
thinking they'd worked on this record the whole time, because, while not necessarily
the most ambitious leap into the unknown. There is no space at any point
on this record, Like it is in completely different ways that you shown record,
totally maximalist, dense, technical death MeTL. Yeah. So this is
why I come because the little bit of the philosopic because like my job of
coboy is you know, the doo BP I am the Death could days with
them. I'm not a big fan of this sort of hyper polished progressive technical
death mail. A lot of these sort of bands when I'm listening for they
don't have me. So this is what I kind of have to look and
kind of go, like I can really appreciate what they are doing here because
I think this is like super impressive. I'm not like this is the one
where I'm going to try to like I don't think this is good album.
I mean, there's so much about this you've really got admire. This did
leave me feeling a little bit cold. Yeah, And I have sympathy for
that because like, I haven't fallen in love with this record yet, Like
it is again considering there are so many times when I've kind of roasted you
a bit being like, oh you don't get it. This record genius,
And you know, I will go for those things this record. Considering they
are like a band who most people who are into death metal will have heard
of and will have listened to their records, It's one of the most dense
challenging to actually get your head around these songs records. I think we'll cover
all year, and I'm not fully there yet. I'll be completely transparent about
that. One of the things that I admire about the kind of sunny to
moon Healer directions they are. They're still tech death but they've kind of put
this focus on atmosphere that is like a rare thing to achieve in technical death
metal. Like the records, they're definitely nudely, but they're definitely trying to
create texture and mood with that, and it's kind of gradually immersing you in
something rather than kind of just like you know, fucking rings are sat in
the style louly but kind of you know, they don't sound the same,
but that's the kind of rare territory of the band's like Ulceraate and so on,
and you mentioned Gorguts and kind of you know, operate in in a
similar way, you know, job for a cowboy. I think are too
like cleaner, more visible death metal kind of what those bands are now,
it's really strange and it means that, you know, deceptively at this stage,
their records are really fucking slippery and really difficult to grasp on early listens,
and you know they are uh that they unfurl with a very slow and
deliberate sort of level of kind of grace, and there's a gradual metering out
of what they do rather than being like a full rush of blood in the
way you might associate with a you know, really full on to death metal
record. Yeah, I mean I agree with I agree with all that.
I don't like. Like you guys, I don't particularly love this record.
Yeah, I think it's good. I think it's really good. I'm kind
of waiting to get to that next stage, but I will say all of
this are saying, it's really intense and difficult and confusing and slippery. That
sort of thing evokes images of long, like winding songs and loads of self
indulgence. This record's pretty short, yeah, Like most of the songs are
between three and four minutes. And I think that's why I can kind of
like say I can appreciate this because it doesn't like doesn't actually like grind.
It's seventy minutes long, you would hate it. I no, no,
no, genuinely yeah, I can. I can take this dense, concise
version of it, even if some of the songs can be quite long and
unfurling as a package. It doesn't like drain me in the way that some
of these, like a long version of this could do. Yeah, and
this again, it's evocate of that twenty fourteen technical death metal sand which I
it was the kind of death metal that was really trendy when I was getting
into death metal. And it's never been my favorite thing, that really hyper
precise, hyper clean take on the style, So you know, it's never
gonna be my favorite thing. Ever. I always appreciated the job for a
cowboy, didn't feel like it never they turned it into some kind of warm
up or exercise. It's like they wrote really intense, ferocious death motal songs.
They just produced it as well as they could and played it as technically
as they could. And I think when there's eight songs like that three or
four minutes, there isn't a lot of variation, but they managed to keep
it sort of short, sharpened to the point, and that I think works.
Yeah, I think when you're talking about their kind of you know,
existing within that kind of sound, I think it's because they sort of brought
their own version of that and this. You know, obviously it's tapping back
into what Sunnita was. It's a revival of like, oh shit, yeah,
that was the sound that John for a Cowboy kind of managed to find
and evolve into. That is completely themselves. The record is. Again,
why it's kind of not so immediate in a death metal sense, is it's
not really a record about like rifts and grooves the way you might expect death
metal to be. Like I think the Sun gave me ashes, so I
sort out the Moon is maybe the most immediate thing on it in terms of
like that kind of nasty, churning tech riff at the start and does make
you want to kind of nod your head straight away, grinding wheels of often
in is also quite pasty and quite blasty. But like if you are a
prog nerd, this record compositionally it's just like out there and from from purely
memory. Again, maybe even more prog than than Sunnya it was, but
in terms of like tapping into like oh yeah, hearing Johnny again, like
he has such a distinctive voice. He has this insane way of like curling
his syllables and moving his tongue around his mouth. It's not pig squeals,
but he does sound to me kind of like some livestock animal learned how to
sing death metal in the avatar, you know, like I've always loved that
particular kind of grotty tone to his voice, and hearing him similar record that
to me was like the nostalgia thing, like, oh, there's that guy
who I used to love. I do. That's one thing I would say,
like that jets a bit more personality into what You've got a vocalist who
is doing stuff where like it's not necessarily like big Cross, but there are
like little vocal hooks and touches on grinding wars of a thin I can't that
one, but there's like there's like, eh, a really good riff,
Like there's one of those bits and I'm like that that that those like that's
kind of like the stupid, like brainless dec or fan in me kind of
can still go for bits like that, even if that's mixed in with the
really hyper technical, like impressive guitar work. I think he does a great
job of kind of keeping the dirt under the fingernails. Yeah, this record,
well, a lot of their peers, especially at the time, just
didn't bother too but like something like the Sun gave me ashes. If you
took the vocals away, it could maybe be like a Chimp span of song
or like one of those basic records bands that were so popular around this time.
But you just have that gurning, grinding death metal vocal style and it
keeps the intensity up, which this record isn't lacking in intensity pursue, but
it means on something like grinding wheels of often in which has a really super
pleasant melodic death metal rif that keeps appearing, but it's nicely balanced with that,
like you say, squealing pig in the abbatoir. Yeah, And I
think this record conceptually it's kind of this like psychedelic hallucinatory, pseudo kind of
alchemical sort of odyssey. It's about a guy they knew who got really into
kind of brewing his own hallucinogenic drugs to try and find some kind of like
higher understanding of consciousness and within this kind of like you, yeah, within
this kind of highly polished world they operate, and they do achieve that through
the density of music. You know, you are in this kind of weird
extra dimension, Like the songs are full of alien chords and sounds that kind
of just ring out and fill your peripheral vision. It's like trying to kind
of unpack an alien language at points, like the bass is going ape shit.
The guy is like a full funk player. He's not just doing jazzy
death metal playing. He's doing full on slap base on this record. Like
there's a big isolated moment in the single Agony Seeping Storm, but look closer
and it's all over the record. He's become like the flea of death metal
or something. So that's all in there. And the songs they do,
you know, I like because again I'm not really fully grasping them as like
instantaneous songs per se. So when they have like a turner pace, but
the last thirty seconds or so, I was like etching oblivion, that does
become quite an exciting little moment. And they just drop in these little things,
like there's a riff in the middle of grinding wheels offen him under the
solo. That's a full like seven string style, fucking like drop riff that
some metalcore bands would make the main riff of their song. And that's just
this weird little bit under the solo. But the overall sensation of the record
is it's really it's less about violence or brutality or particularly recognizable heavy metal structures.
I'm sure, yeah, it'd be considering we don't really review a lot
of the kind of We've given up on a lot of the kind of gent
stuff. It's gonna be one of the most like out there, technical wizardary
type albums that we will talking about all year, I imagine. Yeah,
I think that's cool. From the you know, the doomy Pea lads doing
knee Deep and certain sumers of machine and that sort of thing. I think
it's a really impressive leave for them to take it was back in twenty fourteen
and picking up where they left off. You know, I don't I've only
had this for a few weeks. I don't feel the same way I do
about this I do about Sunny To Yeah. Maybe it's because this is I
might find that this is maybe a bridge too far into the completely batshit mental,
psychedelic hallucinogenic realm maybe once I kind of get more of a grip on
it, which you know, might come, might need some hallucinogenics to get
there. Yes, mate, Fuck can you imagine listen to like a death
metal record after that. That's a frightening prospect. But I think overall,
I think this is a successful comeback, and like you say, in a
style something like gent which just seems so bareft of fresh, exciting ideas,
something playing with those tools at this level of intensity, I think is quite
welcome. Yeah, And my favorite Jobs for a Cowboys song is the closer
on Demonocracy, which is called Tarnish Gluttony. I think it's kind of one
of the unsung great twenty first century death metal songs because it's this point on
that album where Josh for a Cowboy really leant to kind of profound atmosphere and
a kind of like existential sorrow for the first time. It's one of those
like slightly Wyse accomplished beyond their years type tracks that is amazing horror music video
as well, And since then they've made a point of kind of doing a
similar thing ending their records. The Forever Rot feels like a particularly kind of
alien sci Fi version of that closer. They've been doing like really slow death
metal groove, which is nice for a change, kind of makes it a
bit hot, hit a bit harder. It's almost like a really regimented slow
cannibal corpse or something. But then it gets overtaken by all these weird sounds
and effects, just like full Extraterrestrial Planet. I don't even have the words
to pinpoint what those sounds are or what they're coming from. Sonically, it's
very immersive. I think around you know, you say, kind of doom
EP is your jeoff for Cowboy Sam. For me, it's like around the
kind of ruination gloom EP and Demonocracy eras when they had kind of embraced technicality
and a bit of atmosphere, but it was still very direct and violent,
and that like that for me is kind of the sweet spot. I think
that's when they were writing their best songs and they were just my band the
most sun eater. I admire a lot own healer coming back and picking that
up again also I do. And but you know, putting these songs together,
it's one of the times where I am like completely at a loss for
words, as where you would even begin writing this music, you know,
like I don't know how they did it, like how you lay down the
kind of skeletal structures upon which to base this, Like where the fuck do
you start? I have no idea how they made this record. It's it's
baffling. Is it one of the death metal records I think I'm likely to
keep like coming back to and spinning the most this year? Probably not.
They have gone so intensely cerebral at this point that I think the record keeps
me at arm's length a little bit. But it is a record that no
one else could have made, and there hasn't been a record that sounded like
this in the ten years since they last made one. So in that sense,
it is good to have job for a cowboy back and particularly insane,
Like you're saying that this is a record made by the band who are once
sort of seen as oh, yeah, they're the the death metal band for
teenagers. Yeah, and I think, you know, ten years away,
they could have come back and gone, oh it was in death core,
Like they kind of left that whole scene at its commercial peak, which is
almost the strangest bit. They helped to birth it and then right when it
was sort of getting in Billboard charts and stuff. They disappeared them coming back
with a record that I say, it's so cerebral it keeps your arm's length.
Maybe if they do another record, it'd be cool to hear them go
back to that sort of ruination, the demnocracy thing, But I find it
kind of impossible not to admire coming back with a statement like this. Yeah.
Also, the cover is the first one that does not have their kind
of like Mascot's ramshead figure as the central focus on the album cover. Longtime
fans may be wondering where that has gone. I have been told in an
interview that it is actually there, but it's hidden in like a Where's Wally
fashion on the cover. I think I have spotted where it is. But
if you want to entertain yourself for ten minutes, go and look for that.
It is kind of imprinted in there somewhere. Okay. Next up is
Darkest Hour Perpetual Terminal. We're keeping it metal as we go through into I
guess one of the closest things to sort of like mainstream metalc court we're talking
about in this particular episode. This record it feels like a slightly bigger deal
than it might have been in a different decade, because when we are looking
at a you know, a straight up metal release this month, a lot
of it is kind of more progressive like we've just been speaking about, or
more extreme like people to Come. But for something that's just really like crowd
pleasing, Darkest Hour at a point in their career where they've actually got a
bit more expectation around them for a metalcore band now entering their third decade of
doing this. I don't think you necessarily say they have been one of the
most like consistently brilliant, always at the real top end standard where kind of
like every album is an event. Bands of that ilk their two thousand stuff
is very respected. But I first heard them in the early twenty tens and
records like the self titled album, which is the one that I've seen album,
the one album I've seen them on. I think you would say far
from essential. But Elliott, you have expressed a couple of times that they're
amongst your kind of favorite bands of of this type. What's your assessment,
I guess of sort of Darkest Hours, like were saying sort of the point
they're at in terms of a level of expectation or anything like that compared to
in the past. I think they sit in a really weird spot because they
have a lot of name recognition. They're always name dropped, and some of
their songs are probably ranked among the most well known melodic death metal medical songs
maybe ever, things like Demons or Coalescence. That Convalescence that sort of thing
really recognizable. I think Demons was in on rock band. I think that's
why I first discovered them. Yeah, likewise, and I think they've got
a string of excellent records, but I think the thing that holds them back
from being considered like a true classic band is they've never had a real classic
classic records. So someone like Bleeding Through, who we all would agree are
very underrated and somewhere overlooked, they've at least got one. They've got at
least one record that people would sort of en Mass Caller classic and Darkest Hour
in lieu of having a classic have an almost unbroken track record of really high
quality records. I think the self titled is the one which it saw them
go a bit to kind of modern metalcore and it wasn't a disaster, but
it's kind of fine. Yeah, A bit flavorless certainly, yeah, And
I think you know their stock rose dramatically in that sense when their last album,
Godless Prophets and the Migrant Flora, which was released all the way back
in February of twenty seventeen. I wasn't even on this podcast. That's how
long ago it was. Seven years ago. That being a period I guess
when a lot of the metical bands of the early two thousands were not releasing
essential work. I think that one just gave a fucking rocket up the ass
to people, like they'd mean. I was said, I don't think a
lot of medical bands were releasing essential work in twenty seventeen. At that point,
we were on the downturn then, Like that's what I'm saying. And
you know they recorded it with Kurt Balou. It's way fucking harder than the
band who had just made that self titled record had any right to be.
And I think you know, of their particular level of metalcore band, I
can't remember many albums of that time that hit like that one did that Maybe
Only Love Will Kill All from Bleeding Through, which was that their comeback album.
This one didn't have the narrative so much it was just like, oh
shit, fucking Darkest Hour of released a ripper, and I love that that
record does that kind of classic two thousands metal cores album, but with the
aggression and explosiveness of that, like early twenty ten's Death Wish Southern Lord type
hardcore just fucking riping. So the follow up to that would have had more
expectation on it than your average Darkest Hour release perhaps, and then they took
seven years to make it, but now we have it. Yeah, And
for me, the comparisons with Godless Prophets that I always went to was the
sort of boom around that was kind of like night Bringers, the way after
a couple of Black Dahlia Murder record went felt like people are overlooking them,
people in oh fucking hell, that's amazing. And they followed that with Verminus,
which is another great record, but it's kind of suffer slightly for following
up what's now seen as one of their classics. I think what we have
here is another really very good Darkest Hour album that maybe suffers ever so slightly
for having to follow up one of their best after such a long period of
time. Yeah, I sort of agree. I still really love this record.
This is this has such a like sweet spot for me of again just
hearing play on this, getting that title track and it just being like,
oh these are again these are all just sounds I like hitting me like it's
just good feelings music to me. This this kind of like melodic death,
metal tinge metalcore, anthemic, hard hitting. It is not quite as good
as the People record because I think that album came out of nowhere. There
was no expectations on it. There's the expectation this time of that, like
you want Darkstou to come back, because again I think they've been a really
consistent, good at what they do band. Yeah, who like not because
the like I have the oncoming storm and I say bleating for this is love,
this is murder us. I did think dark Side I've really had that
until you could probably maybe say the last album might be their definitive classic album
at this point, and this is maybe not as definitive classic album material,
but he's just darkest Our do what they do really well. Yeah. I
agree with what Elliott was saying, and to weirdly similar to the Alkaline Trio
narrative in that regard, I think so yeah, I think of us.
I'd probably maybe have the maybe the largest sort of gulf between like the last
album and this one. For me, it's that like again that production job
and everything with the approach they went for sonically on that one, that multiple
car pile up fucking wrecking hard to achieve that a second time, especially when
you're not then working with Kurt blu So this hasn't recaptured that for me in
that sense. But I do think, you know, especially when they've taken
so long term records, it is nice to have them turn up and just
this kind of thing. It's nice to have bands remind you of why you
liked that thing, you know, So like here's a classic sound, good
level of quality, not unpleasant to hear. That first single is the opening
titled track, and that intro guitar harmony is full like a monomath deceiver of
the Gods horned in the sky. And then just like a wicked, thrashing,
highly melodic melodeth metal core type riff. They've got a bit of that
lead guitar color that I associate with like an earth kind of zombie autope pilot
type flair in there. I think this record is it's a little bit more
sort of standard metal corse, shall we say, than that previous album was,
which had that sort of Southern lord flavor in there. There's a bit
more vocal melody back in the mix as well. Whatever, but it is
a happy medium, you know, It's not as wet, for example,
as the self titled record kind of was. I was really happy when Societal
Bile hit at track two and that signal to me, Okay, we're not
just doing a complete two thousand and four nostalgia lap. I want a tiny
bit of my Darkest Hour album. I want to sound like a Nails album.
And you've got the five bombs and like, yeah, bringing a bit
of chaos, the drums actually going ham all over the place. Like even
then after a minute you do get that groove it locks into and like big
breaks on the end. But yeah, like when you've got that track one
too, for me, I was like, oh cool, you've covered things.
I want this out. I want this some to do. I'm happy.
I'll just take more of this. I mean omittedly again Nails with like
loads of like wailing heavy metal league guitars, but like that's a that's grind,
that that starts that riff, you know, like the abuse of the
guitar, and that is like a worm rock riff, the pace on the
drums, and I think just that is the thing that Darkest Hour are going
to throw in that the likes of, you know, as I lay dying,
never were and it's nice, yeah, And I think that's one of
the things that people overlook about Darkest Hour is that they have so much more
conviction and sort of enthusiasm for being heavy than a lot of their peers do.
Some August Burn's Bread, who I don't think are a terrible band,
but they never snarl the way Darkest Hour, with the exception that self titled
record kind of always have. And for me, this is just eleven tracks
and for the most part they don't deve it from the central idea, with
the exception of maybe one song which you might get to. But it's like,
yeah, dive bombs, beat downs, twin lead riffs, ferocious vocals,
but a genuine kind of punk energy and explosively powerful performance that I agree
the production job doesn't do the best job of upholding it kind of you know,
it drops the ball on that front. I think it's fine only comparing
it to the preview one, which is just explosive. Yeah, but no.
Yeah, That's why I don't think it's a bad production job by any
means. But I think it's a hard record to review this in a way
because they've done loads of records in a similar vein to this. This is
maybe a bit more lead heavy than some of the other ones, more enthemic,
I think at times I get I think the title track that I gave
everything to the night chorus, even if it's not the clean vocals, it
is browsing sor fist pumping and femic metal corn yeah chorus. It's certainly more
melodic than the previous one, and I guess there's a nice balance of that
with the again, the slightly more extreme parts. I think, you know,
love is fear. There's an almost Swede death kind of buzz saw rift,
like a blood bath song. I was expecting Nick Holmes to croak in
on that particular track. It's pretty mean. I like it, the nihilist
undone, you know, vocally quite brutal. You can hear the kind of
tear in the voice on that, like really pacy melodeth riff. The choruses
on it, like on that one as well. Sometimes there's a bit like
kind of the twenty first century in flames choruses that work like things like take
this Life and stuff like that, you know, not the kind of really
lib grating ones, but kind of where the wretch carries a bit of melody
and anthemicness to it. New Utopian Dream is kind of ugly and wretched,
but still catchy. There are you know, I don't know what one you
were alluding to, Elliott. There's the cleans On one with the void get
a little Matt Tuck doing his mean voice for me. The one I was
thinking of Mausleum Mausoleum, which I've written Matt Tuck down, which well,
that to me sounds that they're trying to do kind of like alis in chainsy
kind of grunge almost, and it's it doesn't suit them the most. Yeah,
I mean, I would never accuse him of trying to do Matt Tuck
and Bullet for my Valentine. But yeah, that's song like it's it's frustrating.
So I really admire it and I want to like it because on a
record which for the most part focuses on one central idea for them to do
this exertion that starts folk and ends as a medical song in four minutes.
I think it's really impressive. But yeah, it's just it's not flattering.
It's just it's not something's in their comfort zone. And it's frustrating to say
that because I think Darkest Hour will have loads of really great a lot of
courses, like you said, like in Flames and bands like that will kill
switch when that they're based when they're really exciting, rousing, melodic chorus.
I think Darkest Hour are frequently capable of that, and it's a bit bit
of a shitter that on this record, the bit where they really let that
aspect fly, it's one of my least favorite songs of this Yeah I did.
I was maybe thinking during this record overall, like is part of the
reason that Darkest Hour are not as big as some of the others, the
fact that they don't have as much of a really stand out vocal personality.
Like there's a couple of different kind of clean vocal tones that are a bit
sort of like who is this guy? You know? When you're like listening
to this The vocals are maybe the most identic element about this band, and
I wonder whether that sort of stops them having that real figure to kind of
hang again the personality of the band, of the way that the bands he
broke really big, you know do But you know, if you're a guitar
love where they got Shredders. The solo in a more fatty which is just
literally just the song of solo is a you know, it's worthy of these
last couple of albums that we've been speaking about. And uh, you know
again in terms of pure melod death, maybe it suffers slightly coming after that
upon Stone record last month, which is kind of rawer and more excitable,
but it can at least, you know, hang with you know, if
you like dying wish, something like a prayer to the Holy Death can hang
with that in the kind of melodic riffing department. And I was having to
it when you're talking about Wazoleim there. I was having to check the track
list to make sure you weren't talking about the last song because the epic moment
at the end where yeah, it's not esan okay, but it's pretty grand
and it's pretty explosive with melody, and I did that. I think that
the Goddess of War give me Something to Die For is one of the best
vocal moments on the album. That's things I think that they show they can
do that, they can do that kind of cleaner, more Granti and they
do Gotts give Me to his Diffault. I think Wazoleum is just that the
one moment where it falters that that you then get mind you get coming out
of Wazolium, which is just this like stomping blast of hardcore, which I
think is a really fun like shift. Again, like this album does.
Actually, there is a variety this album. It's not just doing the one
mellow deaf thing over and over again. And that's why I like, I
do. I do respect that they they are trying to mix up, and
I think some of some of those deviations are more drastic than others, some
of them work better than others. But it does feel at least there is
some effort to not just have this be the same old We're just doing two
thousand and four melow death metalcore. Yeah, I don't think this is like
one of the absolute standout darkest hour records, at least for like vocal lines
like you're saying parent, I mean, I hear what you're saying about him
being maybe a slightly faceless vocalist, but I think that's no less true for
August Burn's Red or I mean until well, we know what, until as
I lay dying, like, can you pick his voice out of a lineup?
Sure? Maybe I don't know, But for me, Darkow have been
stronger in that department and other records, and maybe that's the reason this was
a slightly middling record in their cannon. But on the flip side of that,
it's another record that doesn't really affects my assessment to the band one way
or the other. Like it's I wasn't really surprised by this record, but
it's me going yeah, Darkest Hour. The thing that's impressed for about them
for me is that they have this wealth of really strong records and now it's
one longer. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think, you
know, the most aggressive stuff on it, like Love is Fear and the
grindcore song that for me is what brings the real kind of like a fuck
yeah Darkest Hour kind of factor. The stuff that they do the other bands
and their sphere don't so much. This isn't all that, but there is
enough of it to kind of still stand out to me again, you know,
it reminds me a bit of something like the two thousands of metal core
equivalent of something like the Halo Effect album for the kind of nineties generation before
that. You know, it's not the most it's not the most like vital,
gritty revival of that sound. If you are saying that again, we
have things like the apon Stone record, for example, to kind of counterrap
that it's not quite accurate, but it is people very seasoned in the style
of Void, some of the pitfalls of other bands their vintage doing a really
respectable rendition of it, even if I think they're kind of like it lacks
the proper blood pumping factor of the previous record. That now seems like maybe
a bit of a standalone kind of like whoa kind of peak moment. But
it does go back to, as you're saying, very consistent, very reliable
darkest Hour records in that regard. We now have a couple here of the
most anticipated significant records in the underground this year. We are going much more
dingy fair after you know, more mainstream fair and jetting out into outer space
in all of that business. First off, on that kind of level they
don't get too much more anticipated than Spectral Voice. Spiagmos is the name of
their second record. This band is part of the Colorado school of extreme metal
bands that have taken over so much. They share three out of their four
members with blood Incantation, and they are perhaps the Blooding Cantation spinoff band who
have maybe earned the most kind of hallowed reputation in their own right. I
think wayfair of knock up in recent years with a really string of great albums.
But Spectral Voice released an album in twenty seventeen titled Eroded Corridors of Unbeing
that, compared to the like progressive space death of Blooding Cantation, Spectral Voice
is all about musty tombs and caverns and playing an extreme kind of death doom.
Like Blooding Cantation has flashes of color with the kind of progressive, mind
expanding leanings. This is about as bleak and dark and soul crushing as death
metal gets, and I bloody love it. Yeah, this is just hilariously
means spirited. It's like four tracks of ugly, contorted, unwelcoming disease death
doom and somehow by a margin less palatable than most bands in that genre.
Like in a genre which is almost like the poster child for unwelcoming and appealing,
this manages to be among the most unwelcoming and unappealing. It's horror.
I love it. This kind of death metal. We've not really spoken about
them on the show because they are more underground and kind of cult, but
there's a couple of really big classics that kind of inform like the tricks of
most things to have come since a record like Transcendence into the Peripheral by Disembowment
is a really big example, massively influential kind of cult death doom record.
I think you could argue that a Roader Corridors of m Being is kind of
to the twenty tens what that record was to like the nineties, like just
this Monster. That represents a congealing of those kind of approaches. And they
were one of the kind of the extended Blooding Cantation house of bands that who
looked like they might not come back for a minute. You know. Since
the debut album in twenty seventeen, we have had one Blooding Cantation album and
two EPs, three Way for Herr albums, one Storm Keep album, one
Black Curse album one like a Tone In album. I'd heard rumors that maybe
they weren't actually going to continue doing this band, you know, whether that
was kind of disconnecting the ranks, or it was in fact suggested by Paul
at one point that maybe it would just be cooler for them to do one
revered album and then just leave it and let that kind of stand for the
test of time by itself. The fact that you know, a second Spectral
Voice album has actually materialized did not feel like it was a certain conclusion at
any point. And this feels like a really obvious thing to say, but
bear with me a minute. Death metal, to me is often at its
best when it has an element of death to it. Like I do love
death metal. That is fun, and I like big, catchy grooves,
but the kind of thing I've said before about, like the recent wave of
really popular death metal coming out of the more hardcore end and stuff, this
is the kind of thing I need to balance it out, you know,
Like I like them, but it can't all be Frozen Soul and two hundred
stab wounds, because I need some genuine sense of kind of death worship that
this has. Like I like the music to have a scary aura that transports
you somewhere, and that there's a believability in what Spectral Voice kind of how
they how entrenched in suffocating darkness. It is like it feels like an exercise
in evoking the sounds of death and the tomb. It's like some kind of
funeral rite in a record or something, as much as it is a collection
of death metal songs. And you know, there have been good underground sort
of death doom records since you know, Multiferum, Undergang, whatever, but
I don't think many of them have the genuine sense of deathliness for want of
a better word, that Spectral Voice have managed to tap into. Like they
are not just disgusting, but tapping through to some kind of like other plane
of you know, beyond Spectral Voice achieving that through just like heavy heavy death
metal. And you know, I've mentioned before that I'm a bit cursed with
missing blood caantation life, but I have seen Spectral Voice and they are one
of the heaviest, most crushing, literally pitch black experiences. They play with
most of the house lights off because it's just trying to just again have that
smell of death and darkness. This album is four songs long. Like you
say, it's one less than the last album. Yeah, it's about thirty
seconds long. This is a death metal arm you have to immerse yourself in.
It is a punishing, suffocating ordeal. I mean I could echo everything
you were saying about death in death metal being weirdly and an ingredient that kind
of gets overlooked, Like if I it was a list a lot of my
favorite death metal bands, they don't necessarily evoke death. It might be war
and violence and that sort of thing. But there's a reason why. When
Suicide Euphoria came out in twenty fifteen, it was just this, like eyes
widening, it was like the fucking hell, Like this is death metal that
feels genuinely dangerous and you know, I say grotesque and like it's dying.
But Spectral Voice almost take that principle further because pis grave do at least still
sound like a band who might rehearse their songs. This record the thing you
say about job for a we're not knowing how they wrote their songs. That's
how I listen to this. I just think, how do you even know
when this is over? How do you decide the songs done, there's a
like, we'll get to it, but the song that closes this thing,
it feels like it ends for eleven minutes. It's like it moves at a
snail pace. And then you'll get these random flourishes of super fast drums that
will make any sense, riffs which, as soon as they become decipherable,
will just keel over and die. But it makes for one hell of a
ride. Like being that at the mercy of a record is a kind of
magical thing, and if you do it to this standard, I can't help
but absolutely love it. Yeah, I really value a death metal record that
puts me in a kind of trance and it feels like, you know,
it's like I'm being put on ice, Like my pulse is being lowered to
such a point where I can hibernate, you know, in this kind of
death state. And in that sense I imagined to we were probable to lose
Sam because it comes very close in spirits of funeral Doom at times. Am
I correct here? I mean, just you know, two years of like
doing this, two plus years of this for now, four songs, forty
five minute death Doom album should fill me with dread and I was genuinely just
like, are we doing this? This is the most I've liked one of
these albums. Oh thank god. I mean it's fucking brutal as well,
but it is. It is like again, I'm still figuring out this album,
but in terms of just selling you on totally just bleak, oppressive atmosphere,
riding out like a note for so long, just a riff. The
drums on Bee Cadaver are like so cavinous. They are like, it's the
sound of this band is stupid at times in how like what they do,
like the way they'll bend a note, and it just sounds so ominous.
The vocals they have that sickly, definitely like decaying quality to it, Like
you are right about this album, Like Reeking of Death. It is fully
you're in the crypt with it, and I think like that that does add
lot to appeal to it. But what it is is because it is drawn
out and slow, the moments where they do then blast or like rip out
a rip or something like that, and and the intensity they're so startling and
so uncompromisingly punishing that it's really exciting when they hit be Kadava is one of
the best song titles. Yeah, ever, I've got a story on that.
So Bekerdaver again. This is this is so in the in the depth
of death metal internet, right. But there's there's a guy who I vaguely
know through the Internet. I've met them a couple of times, and in
terms of like his presence online, he's one of the most like hilariously committed,
just like I live and breathe death metal maniac people. Years ago his
like Instagram bio. I lost my mind over it because it was just all
caps be cadaver. Like. It was like it was like a motto or
a mission statement or something like that, this is how you should be in
life. How do you become maximum death metal? Be cadaver? And I
just fucking loved that as a phrase. Fast forward about seven years, seeing
the first track of this album is called be Cadaver, I lost my goddamn
mind. I was like, is this a reference to that? Like one
death metal guy on Instagram who I'm sure that they would know. Whatever did
he like get it from? Is it like a thing on an old demo
or something that he got it from and they brought it back here whatever.
Turns out that guy wrote the lyrics to that song. He's committed to that
motto so hard that approaching a decade later, when he got given his shot
to spread his message to the world, he did it be cadaver And that
is the level of cadaverousness. I think we can all for sucking aspire to
the mission statement. So that has brought me a lot of personal joy.
But you are quite correct, it's a wonderful two word phrase. Oh my.
And then the song itself, it's like mental funeral played at one rpm,
unfathomably grueling, like it goes slower then you think a band could play
at what point are you even performing? Like and that's it is. When
it goes slow, it is so like just creaking and just like moving out
of place, like someone snapping one of your bones, and slowly literally like
and then but then, I mean it is those like short like sudden bursts
of pace that do just kind of like like you get a bit like we
will go fast, and they all just collapse back into doom again and it's
like it can't. It tries to go fast and it can't, and it's
just back to just wretching and rotten in its in its crypt like really immersive
as an opening track, and it is disgustingly heavy but evolving enough that I
didn't get bored. Yeah, I feel I feel like Bee could ever,
like genuinely could be the kind of spectral voice mission statement as a song in
terms of like the first six minutes of this twelve minute song essentially just kind
of like oscillate on these like couple of chords just ringing out over and over
while more shit piles on the top of it, and its harrowing the drums
like between each chord, and the way they make every stroke of the guitar
is just kind of shudder with this like ominous anticipation. That's the key to
making it so hypnotic. They bring in again these cleaner guitars that are like
more upsetting and more skin crawling than the heavy ones. That's that kind of
disembowelment trick the vocals are. It's just like ungodly exhalation of dying breaths.
The fucking moment on the album, all of that bill up crushing weight transitioned
into that like at that six minute mark, this more discernible mid paced death
metal rift part, and after that build it just smacks you like that is
the business man, Like, that's the kind of hellish evil I want in
my death metal. Parts of this record are just like being tied to a
post and it's now being played alive. The roars and screams and kind of
they're as much like pure horror and atmospheric effect as they are traditional vocal lines.
Sometimes the vocals on this they've become just some of these like layered over
each other whispers, like they don't even have like a central material source.
It's like hearing these voices echo around a cave or something like. Sonically,
it's so attuned and experienced that kind of like subterranean void of light feel.
And then there is this moment in the latter quarter of Bekadaver when it actually
takes on melody and it becomes like a really a legit mournful funeral doing part
and it has this really like haunting melodic based tone, kind of airy chanted
vocals. It basically sounds like Belwich just for that one moment. There's like
a two minute Belwich part in the song, and that's it's two minutes long
exactly, you know, And that is new to them for this record as
far as I'm aware, But it's not an original sound that they've invented.
But it's a hell of a fucking moment in the record to like open up
that sort of depressive grandeur at that point in the song. Yeah, And
I think that as a dimension therees so much for this record because kind of
as a reward, but it's still unfathomably heavy and slow and grueling. Again,
it's just one of those things where a lesser band might not have had
that idea or might have thought, are we sacrificing? Are we perhaps giving
away some of the you know, real mean spiritedness that makes the majority of
this record so overwhelming? Yeah? Are we kind of putting that up for
sale if we go melodic? But no, you just you're you're adding more
dementia, You're adding color, even if it's sort of a subterranean Who's green?
Yeah, And what you were saying about kind of them playing together,
you know at that kind of pace, it's like, you know, what
is the metronome for that kind of pace? You know, like it that
is fucking a fluid thing you are hearing kind of unfold in front of you
when they are paying playing that slowly weirdly and again with that added horror element
of death metal on top of that kind of trance. Like you know,
if if you found something that looks like this record sounds like that thing on
the cover, you would run the fuck away from it, Like you're entering
some kind of like blair Witch territory. You know, the tom's in the
drum kit, they feel like they're almost in the mix themselves, the kind
of like ghostly sounds like you're like a rickety mind shaft or something. The
final seconds of beakerd Aver do these like repeated roles like they're teasing you or
like taunting you, like they're about to lead into something, and then when
it finally does, the real one that leads into red Feet condensed into one
goes fucking insane, like absolute cacophony at that point, the most like ferocious,
ripping, tearing death metal phenomenally violent in that moment. Yeah, I
feel like I've kind of blown the pis Grave comparison early, because when that
opens, it's like the first one heard suicide you for it, and the
first tense that might be the most intense ten seconds of a death moraic I've
ever heard on that album, and I haven't felt that way since until Red
Feast Condensed into One opens like that, and you know, I'm aware of
spectral voices work before, but I kind of thought, oh, we're going
to be in a sort of different zone here. Well maybe, but only
last for about a minute, and then you're back in the most labyrinthine,
confusing, upturning death doom song you've ever heard. And we've talked a bit
about the sort of sound manipulation, but unless I'm hearing that wrong with there's
like jangling chains and sort of fleeting phones on that song. It's just like
it's fucking frightly. It's like the kind of like Iraq Pazuzi intro to The
Exorcist or something, just like these haunting blasts of weird instruments. That's why
you get real sense of like the ancient you know, that makes this record
authentically kind of atmospheric and scary. I mean, the first forty seconds of
Red Feast Condensed One is kind of what sold this album to me, was
when you could have that within there and I'm just like, oh, holy
shit, like that is completely inhuman like chaotic death metal. And again,
not suit doesn't last for super long, but it's such a like fucking hell
that that's gonna grab you moment. And so then when you go back into
that slow doing it and then you're back in the immersive part of it,
it kind of then never lets you settle to like even if then those bits
will go on for several minutes, I never felt like I was just kind
of like sitting there like just going yep, cool, same old slow doing
me because I was like, at any second, this this feels like it
could go completely off the rows and it's like weird manic evilness to the record.
Yeah, I mean there's a real tension where you don't know exactly what's
going to jump out of you at any moment, which I think is what
Again in terms of how the keeps engaging to me, Yeah, that very
authentic again trance like kind of way that they've approached even building the record.
It's not formulaic, and it does rattle your fucking skull with how fast it
can go when it wants to. I love sign you sensor. When it
has those really like kind of like the clean riff in, it almost feels
like it's being broken apart. In terms of like how big the intervals between
the notes are and having that to kind of like over that like Death Machine
double bass roll on the main riff really brilliant, and they do have like
the slow repeating lead parts that kind of drill their way into your head.
The slow parts in that song with that kneedling little guitar line and then death
knell rings an Eternity is like a bully of a death doom song, Like
it just crunches together on that like slow four four beat. They made me
think about Antichristes Machine at that moment in terms of like how explosive just of
this crack of the po is, but at like a fraction of the tempo,
Like it's so harsh, it's you know, the guitar tone is how
I want death metal guitar to sound, just like dripping in malice and darkness,
just this rumble that sounds like your sinus is getting infected. And then
right it does turn into pisk Grave because that vocal moment happens and I was
like, what the what is this pisk grave vibe? I'm getting it's Tim
Mellon doing a guest vocal on it, because of course it is wonder yet
and no one else could sound like that, and again, I'm probably sure
you feel similarly. It's been about five years since the last piss Grave album
now, and so hearing a new death metal song with him on it was
a really nice surprise. And his vocal style, outside of like the overwhelming
production approach of pisk Grave insane now it slots into this and it uses the
space more to become this kind of like hellish demon lurking in that sound.
It's like one of the most insane vocal moments on any record this year,
I guarantee it. It's like one of those it's almost a years behind you
and says something that makes you jump, But I always expecting him to come
in, and I'm just I'm adjusted to spectral voices sound by this point.
And then when he comes in like a guttle a whisper over your shoulder,
I just felt like the hairs on the back of my next start. I
didn't even know it was him, But now that you're saying it, it
makes us because that was the reference that meally came to mind, and this
song is I mean, I could pick any of them to be my favorite,
to be honest, but the way this changes tempo is again more so
than any of the others, Like how do you write this because it changes
tempo, but not in this exciting runaway train way where it's loads of dips
and dives. They were gonna have a beat down and then it's gonna go
really fast in a thrash break. It's like it's kind of rising into life
and then collapsing and then coming back to life, and then collapsing again and
then rotting and then coming back to life. It's not sort of dancing for
your attention it, but it's impossible to not be taken in by it.
Yeah, this is nightmare death metal, one of the heaviest records of the
year. Not for the faint heart, but I admire spectral voice a lot
for kind of like this is like as explorative of the far reaches of what
death metal can be used for as an art form as say that two old
record from last year. It's just that's a lot more kind of colorful and
expressive. But yeah, this is no less spiritual. It's just kind of
like tuning that to like the fucking blackest it can go, and I love
it. It's called Sparagmos, which I believe is a term for the ritual
dismemberment or tearing apart of someone. So that's that's the vibe. Baby.
Next up, keeping it scummy, We have got our underground black metal record
or of the month. It comes from Holder. The record is called Verses
in Oath Holder. Maybe we're overdue talking about this one in the shower.
I'm not sure, but this is one of the acts next to you,
perhaps Lamp of Murma that if you are someone with their ear to the ground,
who are the current, like really buzz acts in like you know,
actually underground black metal, they would be very quick to come to their lips.
It is a primarily one woman black metal project. She has originally Belgian,
but the band is now based in the US. I came across her
when her kind of like first album and earlier demos and stuff. There was
quite a striking asthetic of this woman in like full medieval garb taking photos with
swords and her guitars in the woods. If you have my stupid brain,
you then want to know who that person is. But you know, that
album and then subsequent EP got quite a lot of praise in the black metal
world. They saw her signing to probably the most generally seen as on form
record label in the underground right now, which is twenty Bucks Spin, and
so we now have a second bigger studio album. She's also headlining this year's
Decibel Tour on a bill that includes Devil Master and Worm. A bit weird
in itself because the Decibel Tour is normally much bigger than it is this year,
Like you will normally expected like a cannibal corpse or a Catady capitation or
someone on there, but this time they've downscaled it and they've gone for like
real underground acts and much smaller venues, which I guess that particular experiment,
you know, Holder as the band they've got kind of leading the charge,
I guess says something about her current position in the underground. I think maybe
the reason I haven't brought up Holder too heavily on the show before is there
is a bit less of a spin on this kind of music then, like
band who I've made a really like an effort champion, like Lamp of Murmur
or Devil Master for example, really have like their fucking slant. This is
a like a twenty first century channeling of very fundamental tenets of nineties black metal,
you know, listening before going in really whether that thing appeals to you
or not. But putting this record on, I was struck by Fuck me,
that is a particularly ferocious version of that thing, and I think it's
one of an example of one of the more popular things in underground metal at
the moment. It's worth checking in on. But for me, like I
had quite you know, fairly passively enjoyed Holder's work up to this point,
but this record I have had, you know, whirling around my head for
a couple of weeks. Now I think it's great. You know, when
like we've discussed off certain hardcore records and you've got like it's hardcore record,
it's kind of this is that For me, I listened to go this is
an Atmosphere black metal record. I have so little that really I can I
can say about this again. I don't think this is necessarily bad, but
I was just like, yep, that's you know, the stuff I expect
to hear from Atmosphere black Male that you made me listen to. It's fine,
but this is the one. This is the one record this this month
that I've really I didn't I nothing hooked me even like I say, like
Special Voice had that like really just suppressive dnswers, like John Cowboy had like
the crazy technical stuff, ish ant mental. This was the one where I
was kind of like, it's doing its thing, It's doing it to our
high standard, I'm sure, and it is. It is quite ferocious,
but it never grabbed me and stood out to me. Yeah, fair enough.
I expected Spectral Voice to be the record that we'd have trouble on this
time. But I think you know, you've used the word there, which
is atmospheric black metal, which yes, it is atmospheric. I think this
record is a lot more brutal and a lot more like raging like than I
think what some people might think of in that regard. And I think,
you know, Spectral Voice is one of the heaviest josph Cowboy, the most
sort of technical nudely, I think this might be one of the grimmest records
we review this year. It starts with a crow choring like we're right there
in blash it she plays a kind of self described kind of dark medieval black
metal, which is you know, very natury, very boast in folklore.
There's a lot of the medieval leaning of kind of early satiric con but mixed
in with the kind of barbarity of Dark Throne Elliott. If Sam listens to
this one and goes, oh, that's not for me, those reference points
I've just mentioned maybe are a little more you Are you with me on enjoying
this Holder record? I am somewhere between the two of you, okay,
because I really like the last record, and you know, it's not revolutionizing
anything. It's just trying to evoke that ninety sound, and a lot of
bands get close to that, but I think Holder really nail it. They
seems to have a really good understanding of what makes that sound tick, and
everything about that record felt vintage, and I think black Meilt is at its
most exciting when it feels like it comes from another kind of time and place.
And you know, luckily for me, like all those nineties records are
from another time and place. But even at the time, I imagine something
like, you know, a dark medieval times when the night side of Clips
feels otherworldly, and you know that is not a modern classic. But I
really enjoyed it and had a lot of potential. I think this record is
very good, but I have a couple of quibbles with it that might be
very particular to me that what I just said. So last summer when we
reviewed that Son's Journey through the Night record, and that was a band that
prior to that record, I they've released stuff the I absolutely loved and with
that record, And this is a totally subjective thing, and some people are
going to listen to this and thing, I'm mental that record was kind of
too clean and precise, the fidelity was too much. This record feels like
a slightly more kind of polished and honed thing, which I can totally see
why people see that as a step forward. For me, it slightly plays
against my tastes, so I don't like it quite as much as the last
one. But again, like Sam said, as a black metal record,
it's referencing loads of stuff that I like. You say, it's a tyracon
dark throne, even some summoning in there. Maybe that's the more atmospheric bent
to it. So yeah, I think this record is very good. I'm
not quite in that zone of thinking this is great, Okay, it's literally
for me, this is it's almost like she's made I really liked hold her,
and then with this the changes that are made are always what's kind of
like unlocked, it entering like really great territory for me, and I think,
you know, clean is not the word I would you for me.
It's ramped up the intensity of the production where it's really aggressive and borderline death
metal in terms of how violent and heavy it is, where for me,
it's like kind of mid nineties immortal like Battles in the North when they started
to sound like really harsh and caustic, but in with like nasty, destructive
death metal, and purely the sound on this record I find so satisfying.
It's like nineties black metal but beefed up and carved up with a chainsaw,
and it has that kind of you know, it's like a medieval atmosphere but
really fucking violent. And that's a mixture of two things there that are really
working for me in terms of the combination. Like they use synth elements that
you would kind of expect, but it doesn't you know, if you are
someone who doesn't like Cradle of Filth or Demi Borgear or whatever because you think
the anthism keyboard is like too cheesy or whatever, this never leans in that
direction. It just goes you know, I am certainly of the like,
give me all the overblown medieval castle vibes in my black metal that I can
get, But when the two collide in terms of like how just explosive it
is, hark In the End has got this really beautiful epic piano melody that's
kind of the lead on it that's been stuck in my head for two weeks,
Like legit, like that kind of do do do do do do do
do do do do, But like the guitar is so like thick and crushing
alongside that, and I think it's a really wonderful sound. Hark and the
End is one of the ones where I can kind of see what they're going
for. But that's where the keys where that that it sounds a touch cheap,
and I guess that's part of, you know, some of this black
metal stuff where it can be something that's maybe the style of it. But
that song feels like it should be a bit grand of all those elements.
But like though those in these you know, add some kind of color to
the track, which I think is all right. Actually I love the cheap
SyncE sound. I actually prefer that. I mean, I know it's probably
a stylistic choice to have that, but to be out of it a little
bit. Yeah, But on that song, like you said, there's that
sort of cheap element to it, but it kind of reminds me of some
of the stuff Enslaved were doing in the two thousands or even the early twenty
tens. That's the kind of clean vocals on it so reminds me of axiom
Ethico o'dini, which is my favorite Enslave record. I think it juxtaposed against
that rumbling, beefy black metal, it sounds great. And on Bowser Blaze,
which again is another one of my highlight songs on it, the sinse
are just such a cool juxtaposition to that, that kind of Viking rowboat swing.
That to have something so it's delicate. The word I don't know how
you explain it, because I know what you mean. Where it's not.
It's kind of less evocative because you can tell it's cheap, but it's evocative
of stuff like summoning. I think for me, the really like fucking beefed
up violent guitars, I never had that like this never gave me that like
arcassio keyboard type thing, because the overall sound is so thick and oppressive.
You know, it's like it becomes part and I think, you know,
something like the title track where it works the best for me, that's my
favorite song here. Something is really fiery, that sounds incredible. It's just
thundered. It's so stormy and viscera, and that for me has that thing
of like, you know, yeah, the keyboards and Old Emperor were cheap,
but they added into that overall like just kind of a rush of like
holy shit, and that's kind of what happens here. And the just the
triumphant quality in like Tremolo black metal riffs. You know, we spoke about
stuff like Vehemonts and stuff like that has kind of like real like victorious on
the battlefield type feel, and like the second half of Park and the end
has a lot of that in there. But there's a couple songs as well,
which I know where I maybe wonder whether this might appeal to you is
the couple of songs that are just so low and evil, like the death
metal quality is what genuinely took me aback. Vessel of Suffering is one so
heavy and it's like it's laid over with those keys and sense to kind of
give it that kind of embellishment, but it's just like so hard and enchanted.
Steel is like dead congregation levels are brutal, just like an absolutely fucking
demolishment, and particularly that the vocals as well have kind of changed in the
same way where they've gotten lower and more bestial, and they just really like
they stand out in the mix, which can be a difficult thing to do,
but they're really feral and animalistic. Yeah, I mean, you know,
it's all down to taste. I guess you know how these things kind
of hit you. But I think for me this has one of the best
sounds of a black metal record in recent memory because it doesn't feel cleaned up
at all. It's fierce and raw, like this black metal should do.
But it's using kind of twenty first century mixes and so on to achieve that
like thickness and that violence as opposed to just going for like a straight out
in nineteen ninety four production sound. Yeah, I think there's moments where I
might my quibbles with the production, but there's there are definitely moments where the
album is better for it, Like maybe my favorite song was cast into the
Well of Remembrance, which those layered vocals are really demonic and again something that
the really cashio keyboard stuff wouldn't be able to implement. And having these kind
of muscular, beefed up riffs and then putting that on it, it's all
the more intense, I think. And then one of my favorite moments is
lamentation, which sits somewhere between and insaluting a full song and that's lifted straight
off of it sounds like it could be on a current ninety three record,
which is among the most disconcerting haunting music I think I've ever heard like that
band, and just taking that flavor and putting on it it's so inventive and
so great, like really haunting stuff and just adds another dimension to it.
So there's definitely moments where I can hear what you're saying about, like it's
not a big budget black mel record, but just having that kind of flexibility
in the sort of sounds they can play with the end in a way that
like, yeah, some people might be turned off on black met that doesn't
really have that low end. Yeah, you know, there's seven like actual
songs on this. Every one of those seven I found really gripping, and
you know, I'm a sucker for that big, just epic blizzard feel,
and like the last three tracks just gets so sounds at the end of it.
Yeah, in the last three tracks get so nasty and heavy with the
riffing. You know, it speaks to my rotten cork painted heart. I
think if you liked, you know, the Dawn Raid album that we prose
so much of this this year. They're not similar in content, but they
have these sort of like quite simplistic, legible black metal riffs with a folk
emphasis in the melodies. This is another good step into black metal that is
heavier and more demonic than that. It's like a really just battlready armor clad
record. It feels like it's in case in about six layers of spikes and
chain mail. I think the track was really really good, like really fucking
good. I think it's it's easily the best thing she's done to date for
me, beginning to really sort of live up to the hype that kind of
is around her in the underground and you know, this month in general,
obviously we've been talking about fair few of them really delivered on like properly kickstarting
the great stuff in like extreme music, which is why we've got a lot
of it this particular time. If you are an American, see if that
Decibel tours coming near you, it's starting like this week. These and Devil
Master. That's a wicked combo. Also, the bassist on this, who
is married to Holder, is Buzz Osborne's nephew. Some Seattle, Washington facts
for you. Okay As said that was a fair bit of extreme metally type
stuff, because there's a lot of like noteworthy stuff this time. But last
album, we're leaving all that behind. We're going for the rest of you
guys who don't want any to do with that. What you want is the
new album from Slope. It's is it called Slope, No, it's not
called Yes. It is a fix of hardcore, but maybe kind of not
in some ways. I remember this band. They played the first outbreak I
went to in twenty eighteen. I don't even remember if I saw them or
not, but I remember them being around. My memory might be betraying me.
I don't remember them sounding quite like this again. This is this one.
I'd heard the name before, but I've never really gone in and I
kind of when they're like the old rock cleaning kind of hardcore adjacent band,
Like, I mean, like the lazy way to sum up this album is
do you like non stop feeling by Turnstile and particularly non stop feeling like like,
because I've seen a lot of people have thrown like turns on comparison to
this band, I'm like, sort of, but it's only that one album
because turn like, because this is funk hardcore, isn't it. Yeah,
there's a major fucking I could see the turns like comparison and it would not
be misplaced. But to say there's a major elements being missed there because the
worst stuff Again, what you just kind of expressed about the Wholder record,
which again I don't agree with, but that it's your right to say that
the worst stuff to review for me when we're talking about kind of hardcore or
like alternative or whatever, is the stuff that's basic and sounds interchangeable, right,
and that that that is a little bit of what I've got hold of
the record. Even if you don't agree, I completely see where you're coming
from with those hardcore bands, This right is not interchangeable. And like,
if we didn't review this, it would be missing an opportunity to talk about
something that sounds like this because Slope are I believe German if you can believe
it from how this sounds bad that made me laugh so much. Were German?
I was, like so many find out lou Bager's German. They obviously
they come from the school of hardcore that has obviously been peppered with the impact
of bands like Turnstile, you know, taking influence from other forms of alternative
music. But what Slope have done is bring something that I haven't heard quite
this blatantly in god knows how long this is funk metal to a degree,
Like I thought this would be an interesting experiment in terms of like, you
know, when we talk about the Red Hot Chili Peppers, usually it's derogatory,
but at least some of us agree that there are times in their history
when they have been exceedingly good at what they do, Like it was really
nice when we did that album Relect with James from Hell Ripper talk about Blood
Sugar Sex Magic. When we're like, oh yeah, that is a good
album, This can hit a spot. The experiment here is can a newer
band from the hardcore realm taking such obvious direct influence from the Chili Peppers,
Like what side of Lame will It Land. I was so taken aback when
I heard this on. I was like, this is not the combination of
albums I was expecting. I mean, I think I was one over almost
immediately with this Slope Gang like that shot. I was like, I was
like, yeah, cool, okay, you're doing that thing. But the
thing is is like chili Peppers are an obvious one, but I don't think
it's just chili Peppers in the hardcore. I think there's Beastie Boys. Yeah,
there is some of the weird like Mister Bungle and Faith No More kind
of elements, and it is it is that whole which again just does condroup
like particular moments of Turnstile before they really blew up and became the big deal
where they had a bit more fun to them. But this is like had
like a little bit of funk in the hardcore. This is oh, we
are slapping all the funk over this. It is silly at times, but
man, did I just have so much fun with this album. Yeah,
it's definitely a little daft, but it's maybe as fun a like funk rock
integration into contemporary hardcore that we've heard. Not there's been that many, but
like, is this maybe the best Red Hot Chili Pepper's album in twenty five
years? Like, I don't know, it might be. I think that
is an argument for it. I mean it's got hurts that again, like
you you could see don't make it mad, don't make it mad, like
you can hear Chili Peppers doing that sort of stuff and getting Cooper in it
and that but with a bit more of like a hardcore gang vocal thing just
maybe makes it a bit more like something I can really have fun with.
Funk is such a volatile ingredient, Like once it's in something, it's impossible
not to notice. So like that, like non stop feeling, Funk's a
flavor, but it's not that far in the mix, and yet it feels
like it kind of dominates the way that record moves. It just feels like
funk. And when it's done well, it's brilliant. And when it's done
badly, again, like I said, you can get the full range in
the Red On Chili Peppers, because for me, my favorite record of theirs
is the Uplift Mofo Party Plan by quite some distance, and that is almost
too funky. But when Funk being implemented is bad it like you said,
it's just it can fall so far into lamee. I had such a good
time with this record, and I like it even more now that I know
that they're German. It's just it's kind of mad enough. Like like you
said, it's not a turnstile. Have a bit of that kind of funk
smooth flavor, but it's not a particularly popular thing. This funk sound and
just the balls to go too footed into it. Yeah, it's not like
there's a bit of slap base over there. It's like it's full like a
tribe coal quest are like the hardcore guitar riffs, Yeah, like there are
similar rifts that we've heard in recent years. I can't remember hearing a band
in this realm doing the film. Do do you kind of like the way
the funk like clean guitar riff in Talk Big lights up? I just can't
help but smile. It's like more out and out funk guitar and big fat
bass lines that we have reviewed, you know, for a record on this
show in years, Like the bass line in Chasing High's just becoming full fucking
so elastic, like full toejamm and Earl. Yeah, the rhythm section,
like matching the bounce of hardcore with the bounce of funk. The funny thing
is is like it's not the drums an'swer much that kind of like Chad Smith
style kind of ghost notes whatever. It's like hardcore smacking the whole time,
like clean, funky guitar riffs. I think that's it is it is.
There's a constant fusion of the funk and the hardcore like it like they've always
kind of playing out each other and it just makes it actually like quite a
dynamic record, even if it is always on those funk guitars at times,
it never feels like it losing stuff too much that because there's always that punk
kind of slam to it. Yeah, And I for me, funky bassed
stuff lives and dies on the rhythm section, Like you can't really have a
good funk band or a good funk song with our great bass lines and a
great drummer. And they I think they steal the show on this record.
There's so many standout moments from those two players. Out of the Black Blue
and into the black sounds, like Dave Lombardo playing on Primus's kit and the
title track. The groove on it, it's a bit it's kind of like
Helmet with that bass, but the drums are just like pure fishbone nosedive,
open sounding like life is peachy. But the lead guitar that comes in after
it's so soft it sounds like wings or something. It's just it's it's weird.
It's not like it's a hardcore record that plays with funk. It is
like a funk rock record that's played with so much aggression and exuberance it falls
into hardcore. Yeah, I think you know, the vocals are like maybe
a potential sticking point if you are like not susceptible for this kind of thing.
He's doing this kind of like well, I think there's two of them,
the vocalists, all right, Well the main one he's more prominent is
he's doing this kind of like semi wrapped kedis sort of cadence, but with
like a yelpier hardcore voice. Those vocal flows can be so entertaining the chorus
in times ticking it's tricky like if they're doing that, like but again,
like that's why I get that kind of Beastie boys thing from that. With
that just the exuberant, fun, silly rapping through a punk sort filter.
I definitely got that as well, like stuff like Nosedive and hectic Life.
They start to get that like grabbing the mic, shouting over each other,
kind of you know, beastie Boys hardcore gang vibe, which is really cool.
There's a line in this which is that's why this slope Gang three sixty
funk vision hits different, which is a line cannot pull off in my accent.
I'm staggered that a German can that. That was it. I was
like, I can't. I can't hate your band when you when you're when
you're firing off that lyric as you're kind of like chorus thing on the title
track, like that title truck was weird. Just they really let the freak
flag like that's what they really like to say. We are going to be
weird and we're gonna say completely nonsensical lines like that, but it's gonna work.
Yeah. There's the chorus in True Blue with it you gotta be thinking,
baby, I got you on my mind is so catchy. The chorus
in Talk Big, the first song, it's a cooler response with whatever the
fuck that instrumental. It's so I don't know, it's so silly and catchy
and boisterous, and then they put bongos in it. Yeah, there's ridiculous
percussion breakdown at the end. There's all stuff that could sound like really really
tacky. But I'm kind of in awe of the production job on this record,
like for a small band kind of I've not heard their past. I
don't know if they've played with this stuff before, but they've completely nailed the
balance, just sort of sonically the first time around, like the drums and
the bass and bongos and that Nile Rodgers guitar thing. It's just the ability
to mix all those things together even before you get to the songs which are
which are really catchy, that alone is a pretty staggering achievement. Yeah,
And like balancing that funk with the meathead mosh parts, like it's ticking one
of the stupidest, stompiest rifts, like it's just egging you on to just
stamp your feet. It's like as instantaneous, no bullshit a riff as you
can imagine, and like nose Dive, the transition between those kind of like
freshanti style verses and they just got cross over frash, Yeah, like chuggy
chorus. It's it's more fluid than you might expect. There's a little bit
more like metal as well, in like Hectic Life and MBq. Sometimes the
record so bone headed it makes me cackle, Like the last riff in Hectic
Life, I think it is yeah, which is just like so obnoxious.
There is maybe the single least essential interlude track I've ever heard in my life.
It is twenty three seconds long and is barely audible. What makes you
go, yeah, that's essential to the record. Drugs probably and the fact
there's just a song in all caps called why Sad and that The thing is
that songs just all bounced it like coils up that that riff hits yeah,
but so far down that like Ambitie affliction just let me be sad path it
just becomes like a joke, like a I think this record is shockingly fun,
like more than I was expecting when I put it on. Occasionally it
sounds like a record the hell would write if they were German funk metals.
You know, I think you put it in with things in hardcore that are
like trying to get a different type of fun out of it, you know,
like Angel Dust. Yeah, but you know, one of the things
I haven't really got with angel Dust is like, you know, this works
because it's still crunchy as shit and it's still bounces. If you've been clinging
to those last Chili Peppers records, please for the love of God listen to
this, or if you like the Beastie Boys. You know, I think
a lot of people like this is a big bounce riff summer record. Absolutely,
I think a lot of people will gain a lot of pleasure from hearing
this. Yeah, it's it's a California summer funk metal record. Released in
February by Germans. Absolutely wonderful. A great month for slap bass, it
turns out. So that is it. Wow, what a whop episodes and
wopp a fucking records in that one. Let me tell you serious stuff going
on there. Thank you everybody for listening. Tell us what your favorites are
of these something for everyone, I think, even though that again some really
mammoth intense stuff on there, but put fucking slope on afterwards. You'll have
a lovely time. Yeah, that is it from us. Next week we
will be back with the normal hyperblast stuff here, but we will also be
back on the Patreon with the album Club Pack. With those albums I revealed
earlier in which we will be going from something as just exquisite and sumptuous and
beautifully crafted as the Mantle by Agaloque to starting the party with the Blackout.
We'll be going for some fucking rush as well. Get involved with that.
We will have the conclusion of the Elexa on Fire special shortly on the heels
of that so patron dot com slash That's Not Metal is the place to go
for all of that beersiness. Thank you everybody for being here. We will
see you for all of that. We'll see you next time. Wa