Hello everybody, Welcome back to That's normtally your weekly one stop shop that everything
rock and heavy metal related. We are back once again, this time with
a big, old hefty review show. It's a week later than it normally
is. It also means that we have some serious stuff that's amounted over,
like I guess, slightly larger than the usual timeframe of what we account for
in these There are some you know, large conspicuous contenders that kind of you
know, poked their way in. But we are going to let you know
all about that. Name is Parin Hayish with me today, Sam Dignant.
Is the two of us here today. Are you ready to talk some varied
contentious stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's it's, it's, it's it's
a I think it's quite a nice batch of albums we've got in a way
where there's actually loads of different sort of genres going on, and it is
a bit all over the things. It's gonna be like interesting discussions to be
had, even if some of the albums I'm sure won't be to everyone,
won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I'm ready for it. And then
you know, off to outbreak. So I'm in a good place at the
moment. Yeah, you know, I think there's some kind of like almost
like dark Horse good stuff in this particular batch. I mean, that's a
really good shot about some of these records. Actually, yes, in lieu
of a news section, We're not gonna be the full new thing this time,
but I guess this is a little bit different than what we normally do.
Ahead of our album reviews, which I should tell you we are gonna
be reviewing the new albums for and Bring Me the Horizon, the story so
far, Joey valanceon Bray, Candy Umbrevite, Rotten christ and July Christmas.
But ahead of all that, we have all the rare occasion the TNM movie
our Extravaganza, which we do sometimes do about like horror movies and stuff on
the Patreon, But no, this is different. This is here on the
main show because this is actual, like that's no metal music cinema going event.
And of course referring to the fact that this past week was the release
of Ghosts Cinematic Extravaganza, the Ghost film right here right now, which was
announced earlier in the year, I suppose, and we were kind of yeah,
it was announcerent like, oh yeah, like, it's awesome that ghost
have a film. It's kind of if you're going to put money on anyone,
like any band of ours who has emerged in the last like twenty years
to have a film, it would be ghost But we were like, oh,
what, what do we really expect from this, because I mean,
I personally myself, this is the first time I've ever gone to see a
concert film in the cinema, like the second one for me, I did
not go to the Era's Tour. You're missed out? Yeah, I mean
that's led to this kind of generally being coined as the Era's Tour film for
goths because of the proximity of which it came out. But yeah, like
you know, my my bands per se, they don't really you know,
go see the Collboy one. I was just thinking, like that's a good
point. Actually that one is invarian memory. I didn't for my sins,
I did not make it out to the Coolbay one. But the only comparison
we really had was like Through the Never, which you know I have seen
Through in there. I did not see it in the cinema though, But
yeah, with Ghosts, we were like, okay, we understand it's going
to be a concert film, it's going to be footage of the Emperor tour
that went over the last couple of years, but you know, they promised
some kind of narrative feature film element to kind of bump up to that status,
and you wonder, like how to what degree, what percentage? You
know, And again the only thing we had was something like Through the Never,
which I think is I don't know, it's generally viewed as being part
of kind of Metallica's strange, failed experimental era when they tried things like their
own music festival book in the Artic Monkeys, and like, we know we're
gonna make a film that has like a feature film element, and everyone kind
of looked at that side of it, and when I don't really know what
you're trying to do here, I guess you know, we both saw the
Ghost film. What did you have, like, I don't know, high
expectations for let's say, the feature film side of the Ghost concert film.
So it's old because I think you could have done some really cool stuff with
the feature film stuff with a band like Ghost, But given like what I
actually expected them to do, it kind of met my expension on that front,
but I like, I would have liked to have seen more, but
basically an extension of their YouTube skits was exactly what I expected. Ultimately,
yeah, I essentially agree, and I was, I mean for a start,
I mean, I guess we were both you know, we kind of
discussed it. Outside of this, we both like had an excellent time at
the movies, for want of a better phrase, the concert film element of
it. You know, we love ghost I didn't see the Imperial Tour,
so I was just really excited to kind of actually see what this show was
like and the concer side of it. I had an absolute blast watching it,
and I'm sure we'll dig into a little bit more of that, like
the individual parts that make it rock. Yeah, I mean, because I
saw I'm looking back at the Setlezon stuff, it might have been like the
very first night. Certainly it was the first leg of you know, the
kind of imperio tore that opened up when they started doing the UK and Europe,
like the month after the album came out, and this film was filmed
in September of last year in Los Angeles, so I was kind of I
was like, the tour has evolved you know kind of setless changes whatever,
Like this is essentially the touring cycle that I saw, but the actual film
has come like a fair way in from the dates I attended. And yeah,
the show side is you know, just like extravagant and dazzling and spectacular
and everything that I kind of you know, experience in the moment at that
show. And as you say, we will talk about kind of you know,
that side of it in just a moment. But around that my fear,
I suppose was to be very very dramatic about it. My fear was
kind of realized. I would like to downplay how negative experience actually had on
me watching it, because like, yeah, essentially it's like ninety percent amazing
you know, concert from Ghost and ten percent stupid YouTube skits, and you
know, I do have to. I feel like I have to, you
know, put my want to be film critic hat on and say that like
the ten percent of like narrative stuff that kind of bumps into that feature film
status is rubbish. I would again, like, I mean, it really
didn't affect my experience of enjoying the movie, but it is not good and
it like it like there is there was a one joke in there that made
me chuckle a little bit, and I was kind of like, oh,
if that's the you know, if that's the hit right then, because it
feels like it's a minor part of the movie, but it does. It's
like at times can feel like it's this constant kind of like stepping away from
what's really good to have a couple of minutes of just kind of pointless stuff.
Yeah, it took so long, So basically they tried to put in
like a story arc, and I think for me, there's kind of those
like stupid YouTube videos they do. Like I am perfectly fine with them as
like marketing gimmick. You know, like when they do it's like, oh,
you know the Ghost Entry, you know, zero zero eight whatever,
and it's like, you know, Sister Imperator and Paperneil and they're getting together
and chatting about some bullshit and then you know, a tourist announced or like
a new you know, seven inch single, whatever kind of you know,
pops out the other end of it. That's fine, it's a marketing gimmick
and they work very well for that. But they're like short contained busts.
They're they're they're they're fine. For what they are. Yeah, but it's
not real storytelling, is it. And the way they go, Okay,
we need to take those like YouTube you know, skits and that kind of
law that's built up around ghost but turn it into an actual like story with
like like an emotional arc or anything that you would expect from a film.
They just like barely pull it off here. The way they even try and
develop a story is because obviously it's it's a concert film. It feels so
slow to actually develop anything. It's just like every few songs it cuts away
to literally like the sister imperative character giving Papa the thumbs up, and then
they just like go on their way and eventually they'll come around to it again.
The first couple of them are like feel like, it's not until the
bit where he basically has to make his way to the like the second stage
where you actually if it was like any kind of actual development happens, it's
kind of just like ghosts backstage and like and then they hear these other characters
that like this is some perative and the ghost of Papa Na Hill and all
that, like, yeah, it's all kind of there, but nothing's actually
happening until you're about halfway through, and then they're trying to like shoehorning this
whole narrative about living in the moment and not being afraid of what tomorrow brings
and yeah, stuff, which basically feels like they've taken you know, the
lyric from Square Hammer that they've used as the title for this because it's quite
punny, right, you know, right, and they've gone, let's extrapolate
a theme out of that and kind of artificially, you know, insert it
onto the Papa character after the fact that Papanie Hill, like just there's a
bit where they jump down into like the little box that transports them, and
they just add that's a bit where Okay, something's at least actually happening now,
but it is Papaneel just like rambling, just likely, and it really
stuck out to me. The very first thing that happens is, you know,
it brings you into the story and there's narration which if I need to
go and double check this, but in the credits narration by Troy Sanders,
which you know they've toured together at various times, so it's not the total
surprise, but you know, I can't believe they did this to my man
Troy, because Troy has to deliver the most like jumbled several years worth of
YouTube skit position exposition into about a minute and a half, and the way
he does I was thinking about bizarrely, I was thinking about five Nights at
Freddy's and sump, it's all the rage, isn't it? Like Yeah,
And I was thinking but what specifically I was thinking about law dumps for people
who aren't already in on it and the kind of separation of and I think
you know, we've seen with like, you know, particularly certain kind of
you know, kind of certain gen z demographics maybe who are again into someone
like five that's of Freddy's universe. There's all of us law, and they
like there is this kind of obsessive consumption of law. And I was,
you know, again, some of the kind of like you know, random
ghost fan accounts you see on Twitter kind of operate in a very similar way
to something like that, and they're so brought into it. Yeah, And
it's like the details of the things that pop up in this movie like are
kind of part of the appeal. But in terms of translating that to like
again actual storytelling and how I don't know, obnoxious. It would appear to
someone like if someone just likes Ghosts the band and they're going to the film,
but they're not bought in on all the stuff, how annoying and off
putting. Might they find that extra element? You know? Because so that's
because I somewhat land in that sort of character. Well I'm not. I'm
not homeerent in on the ghost so I can take or leave it. Because
there was what I was like, is this gonna start to detract from management?
And I can see how for some people I think it would. For
me, I just about was able to kind of like compartmentalize and kind of
be like, Okay, give me a minute and then move back to rocking.
That's fine. Yeah, because again, like my thood, the never
comparison is through and through than ever is a lot more kind of even in
terms of like the feature film element and the concert film element, whereas this,
it was like the narrative stuff is like downplay to such a degree that
you can essentially just enjoy the concert film element of it. You know.
I was thinking again more just in terms of like how helpful this is for
newcomers necessarily, Like someone might watch this film and kind of would encourage them
to go further or would they just kind of think this is annoying and and
now probably look it as a bit nath Yeah, because and it didn't just
like visually, these like behind the scenes skits and stuff, they're just that
they're so clearly production value. It's like YouTube, and that's fine for a
YouTube video, but you blow it up on a big screen, it just
immediately rings like you're not watching a real movie. Term, So those parts
are a bit shit. And again, like some of the gags and stuff,
even though in the concert film, in the concert itself, there are
bits that when you translated to a film just feel a bit weird. There's
like throwaway gangs. There's a bit when he puts on like the kind of
rocky the you know, the boxing kind of don't be cool, like the
boxing weird sort of gown of the road. Yeah, and it's got like,
you know, Papa embrazened on the back And I can vaguely remember that
happening at the tour, but it's such a kind of throwaway moment. But
in a film, when you're like sat watching in a cinema and it's like
a two to three minute segment of him putting this robe on and then he
walks off stage and nothing happens. Out of the film him walking through the
crowd in the box walking their way throing it is like I chuckled at that.
I was. I was like, it's such a weird visual gag for
ghosts to do that. That was the one, Like, I mean,
I didn't mind the bits of comedy in the actual concept movie, the whole
what day is it? It's and the and the one in the encore is
like this is my after show jacket. I'm like downgrade it. Like so
they carricually be quite funny when he's just being a like cheesy rock front man
and sort of playing up the campside of it. And that was I think
that was actually my problem with the behind the scenes. None of it ever
felt camp enough. I wanted them to go all in on being like Sillier
with that sort of stuff and not trying like granted, and it just felt
weirdly disconnected from like on so from production wise, from right wise to what
actually then was occurring during the concert bit. Yeah, Like I said,
it's like a a small enough portion of the overall film that you can just
kind of be like over it the way I generally of the YouTube skits,
right, I kind of go, mayre fine and engage with you know what
the actual the meat of it is. The flip side of that is maybe
you wanted Ghost to be a little bit more ambitious and not just do kind
of That's what I was kind of alluding to at the start is I would
have liked throw back kind of like horror movie kind of thing that they could
have tapped into with like the sort of campier elements. I would have been
totally down for that, but maybe that was a bit out of their kind
of like zone of what they could achieve with during the production of this.
Yeah, so basically the ten percent feature film bit is naff. There is
at the very end a kind of uh, you know, tease Papa reveal
of like I've lost track of the Papa's at this point because when they stopped
doing it numerically and just put Cardinal Copier in, and then Cardinal Copier on
the fifth album cycle graduated to becoming the fourth Pappa, it's kind of thrown
it all a bit out of sync. But the very end, again,
if for you who are kind of interested in ghost album cycles and where they
go they got a new character coming, Yeah. They the Carmakopia, who
then became Papa four has now kind of, you know, taken on some
other role in the clergy, and they tease a new Papa coming in.
But the film cuts to black right before it arrives, and I shit you
not. The girl sat directly in front of me at that moment as the
film cut to black, exclaimed curse you forge. And I feel like that's
a nice representation of kind of the ghost fandom in that moment. The main
meat of it again, the concert film stuff. I do agree with some
of the criticisms that have been made about to kind of it's it's a fast
old edit. There are parts where you're kind of like, this is a
guitar solo. Let's just train the guitar on the camera on the guitar,
thank you, rather than like jumping all over the place. But essentially,
as a big, you know, glitzy, glamorous ghost concert, it did
the thing of like what a good concert film should do for me, which
is make me go, oh, the next tour that comes around, like
I have to go yeah, Like I mean, obviously I went to this
one, but like it made me go, oh, I'm due another because
it set list wise wise, as a piece of entertainment, they are just
like the most joyous thing on the rock circuit. There were just a few
select moments and that are kind of like, God, our ghost the best
rock band active right now, Like there were most while I was generally just
kind of like the set list makes a convincing case that was it is incredible,
but there are just key moments when they're dropping spill ways really early on
and you kind of go, like, God, that song is perfect when
you're getting fucking ritual in an arena and it sounds timeless. It is like
the most classic song Ghost of got years are. I'm a big Infestedimum fan.
I think that looked and so I think it's a shame they've only got
one out one sort of showing in this set list, but the verse of
years where they doing this film and they're kind of cutting in clips of maxon
O. Yeah, so satanic. I'm like, ghosts can still be proper
evil when they want to be. Yeah, that's like maybe one of my
favorite member as well, And it's the kind of thing where again I would
maybe like to see kind of more experimenting like that, because again they use
you know, the nineteen twenty two Swedish kind of famous witchcraft film Hacksan and
it's just bathed in this like kind of red you know, lighting, and
they kind of superimpose it over then playing year zero, and it is brilliant.
I mean there are I mean, there's the Mary on a cross,
there's that weird little Hannah barbera Scooby Doo fun like that was the sort of
bit where you can of the narrative stuff was interjected into the concert film in
quite a fun way. It looked quite cheap, but it stuff. Yeah,
yeah, you know it did, but it was It was a fun,
sort of campy deviation that worked really well. Yeah. For me,
it was like a nice full circle moment of like the the meme that gets
re kind of you know, Scooby do music. Yeah, the redugout every
couple of months of meaning of like, oh, go to just Scooby Doo
chase music, and it's like they've kind of acknowledged that in the form of
a having a Scooby Doo chase happening to Yeah, I was for the first
couple of minutes of that song. I was a bit confused where it was
going. I was like, why are we doing this? It kind of
ended in a nice place, but again mostly the again, the production stuff
in just there. I like the the There's a version that they do of
if You Have Ghosts, which is one of the songs I think was introduced,
you know after I'd like, I did not see this at the show
I went to. This was kind of brought in, maybe just for the
film, I don't know, but a version of their cover of Rookie Ericssons
if You Have Ghosts, which is an amazing song originally it's one of ghosts
best covers of their many very good ones. And doing on that kind of
like second lower stage with like the the cellists and the kind of the string
section who are all dressed like the Woman in black, you know, just
kind of proper, you know, gothic looking, and it just musically that
moment is just absolutely like again kind of spintingly, really really stirring. Yeah,
yeah, that was again that the complete opposite to the most like bombastic
moments of like Ghosts can be quite intimate and beautiful when they are doing something
like that, and again it was one of those like they are a special
band when they can just go take you from the these most bombastic moments to
genuinely evil stuff to moments of actual beauty. Yeah, during Twenties, which
again was a song they did not play when I saw them, but later
on they bring out all these like topless skeleton backing dancers who then re emerge
again later. I think it's're in dance per cards. That makes the most
sense. But again I was like, you know, twenties is kind of
meant to almost like a weird you know, cabaret kind of you know,
vaudeville musical theater like yeah, and I have a very strained relationship with backing
dancers at metal shows. Normally I think it looks naff as shit, But
this is one of the times and the bands, and you know, the
songs as well, where it kind of comes together and you know, when
they're all like, you know, again, a bunch of kooky skeleton vaudeville
characters are kind of you know, moving around and you're throwing each other in
the air because you know, the kind of trained dancers, and you know,
I thought the camera worked during that kind of section, you know,
portrayed that particularly well. I was like, Dan, this is like cool,
this is like watching a really cool, you know, like heavy metal
musical number. Like another thing I I I'm you know, I have a
dance background. I'm all for dancing elphings, but You're right, a lot
of the time mail bands have no idea how to properly. I just get
flashed back to seeing King eight Bueno with like pole dancers either to mail bands
and dancers like you know, let's get someone doing the fire dance without sort
shit, And I'm like, not to disparage those people doing that, they're
incredibly talented, but it is one of those things that just feel like kind
of a laser fit to the music most of the time. Yere for another
band who've done it recently where they've actually had trained dancers come and doing a
choreograph routine that fits the music. But like Ghost Twenties is like the kind
of like pinnacle of what I would want my backing dancers in a rock or
metal show to look like. And it was those I was like, Ah,
that's so wicked, and then bringing them back for dance with CARB like
the OnCore in general is like I was just like this is just celebration music
in every way, coming on and doing Kiss the Go Go, Like I
was like, oh, fuck, yeah, this is the best of about
seven inch Cross. Like, but I'm so glad that Kiss the Go Go
is still getting its moments, you know, open the encore because that song
is just joyful, isn't it. Like yeah, I mean again, like
revisiting the set list of the show that I saw way back at the Guinea
of the Imperial Cycle, they played Kiss the Go Go. They were not
playing at that point Mary on a Cross, And I guess it's because like
halfway through this touring cycle is when the world change is when TikTok happened.
And I like that they introduced Mery n across rather than dropping Kiss the Go
Go for it. You know, it's like now they're both in there.
Yeah, that's a funny thing that developed over the course of this cycle.
Again, you mentioned like ritual as well, but this you really get the
sense of like showbiz camp from this movie. You know it would be while
I do get a genuine, like you know, kind of morbid emotional reaction,
I suppose that you know the kind of satanic songs like he is and
Cammy Little Sunshine and stuff like that. You'd be hard pressed to kind of
show someone this film and convince anyone that goes to more than just kind of,
you know, a piece of kitch. And that's fine because that's kind
of what they're presenting themselves out at this point in time. But I think
it's fascinating that something that is so like again campy and schlocky still has a
song like ritual in there where in this like cinematically released film there are there's
a chorus about human sacrifices procreating the Unholy Bastard satanic inversion of the Lord's Prayer
in there and they played a conclave condio as well from the first album and
the staging for that. Loved it so cool. I mean it was literally
it's what Ghosts were the first time I saw them in like twenty eleven.
It's, you know, Papa comes out holts of swinging a kind of thing
of incense, singing that spooky satanic song and he just stands on the spot
for the whole thing, but it kind of creates an aura. But it
was like, damn, this is a this is the first ghosthuto that I
saw for this one song, but like upscaled for an arena and now it's
on a cinema screen and there is a very strange kind of you know,
journey that they've kind of gone on with something like that is that you can
like say, you can have that those moments of Emily's robe swinging, the
incense looking quite spooky. So then the dazzled sparkly jacket, full on dance
routines, like it's got everything that. I think that's my thing why I
want to see Ghosts now, because I'm like, there is genuinely just a
bit of everything if you're into spooky things, heavy music, rock music,
kitch, like it's all there and it's just something that it's just really like
celebratory to me. And I think like they it's so good that they can
translate this on the movie and kind of like still deliver all of these sort
of different elements of Ghosts. Yeah, I think, you know, as
a as a kind of piece of filmmaking, you know, it's highly flawed,
not necessarily kind of as great as maybe some people might have hoped.
But at the same time, just the show element of it I can certainly
see again for like you know, for hardcore Ghost fans out there, I
can certainly imagine this being kind of like a comfort rewatch, you know,
just kind of having the big Imperial or film kind of on in the background.
It's one that if it gets like a Blu ray release, not that
I will probably pick up because like just again wanting to watch them the final
sort of run for a square hammer and the kind of joy I felt in
that moment of are like this is this is everything in it? Like like
that that's thing. It was just companting. It was fun. I had
a great time. There was people musteem like you can kind of hear quietly
singing to themselves. People were dressed stuff. At my screening, like like
in full on Ghost guff I was like, good for you, Like,
yeah, sit there, celebrate to sit there in the dark for two hours
in a pope's robe. It's done very well as well in terms of I
think it's like top five and the UK box office currently like top ten in
the in the US doing some big numbers, which I think in terms of
just sort of making the mainstream aware that a band like Ghost exists if you
just see that kind of on a listening. But what the fuck is this
like number six at the box office or whatever. Cool there is then in
the credits as well, a new ghost song that was released as a single
you know, last week, but I decided to kind of just sort of,
you know, watch it in the film. The song I've forgotten the
name of it. It's got quite a long present The Future is a Foreign
Land. I was at present. That's a deafa Vanna album. Sorry,
deaf Evanna on the brain all times. Yeah, The Future is a Foreign
Land released from you know. The soundtrack for this plays in the credits,
which I must say, the credits like suddenly going from like this incredibly feel
good, you know, wonderful, heartwarming, even what they're trying to do
with a narrative, it's like, yeah, amazing, you know, live
in the moment to then cut to credits of like real life warm crimes and
serial Killers and Ted Bundy and John Wyne Gacy. Was weird, Like again,
a very like a jarring choice. I don't think it was entirely thought
out that well, but you know, I can see what they go for
with this song because this song, again it's kind of in the film.
They posit it as basically the third song to have been recorded back in that
like nineteen sixties version of Ghost fronted by when he was young Paperneil. Basically
the seven inch that gave us Kiss the Googa and Marion Across that had that
kind of wonderful, you know, kind of late sixties psychedelic rock flare to
what they were doing. This is meant to be like the secret third song
to have kind of emerged from that era, And to me, it sounds
like it doesn't sound like so again like the Kiss the Go Go song reminds
me of like full on psych rock stuff like The Devil's Word and whatever.
This to me, it's more like kind of like The Shadows meets Again.
You think about the kind of rock music that's that soundtracks like Vietnam war films
and stuff like that, like you know, like CCR and stuff like that,
it's like, yeah, Ghost kind of playing in those kind of territories.
I mean, for a start, it's like it's not a metal song
like it's it's kind of it's one of their sort of pre metal songs,
reminding me of like stuff like roki ericson a little bit again when that kind
of like psychedelic slightly freaky thing, but like bizarrely warm at the same time.
And yeah, that kind of like big sixties rock kind of feeling to
it, like place with that chorus. Every time it comes in you can
go, oh yeah, no, this is like just a big rock song
on that front. Yeah, it amuses me very greatly when we get to
the choir going twin twin two four, oh god, yeah, okay,
yeah, never gonna forget what year this song was released in, but yeah,
it's a very kind of sweet pop song. You know, absolutely,
I'll add that to the kind of just pile of very good ghost songs that
exists. So yeah, right here, right now, not necessarily a total
success on a movie front, but certainly a fun time event and evidence that
Ghosts are definitely a band that you know, if you've not seen them live
yet, next tour is the one to do it on. Yeah cool.
So, as I said, that kind of brings us basically into the rest
of this episode on the Patreon front for those of you who you know are
kind enough to kind of support us and let us keep doing what we do.
As I said last week on the show, this last kind of a
couple of weeks have seen the culmination of our Sepultura special that we did,
which is one of the most like considering we cordoned off three quarters of their
career in terms of timespan, still one of the absolute deepest dives. As
I said last week, we'd finished the whole thing, but we decided to
split the kind of you know, the second half of it into two parts
because it went so deep. So we had the chaos ad in a nail
bomb as well to overlook that chat out there. But also as promised,
you know, first thing, this week, I put up the second part,
which is two hours on routes going into Like I said, it warrants
that because there are quite simply you know, cultural anthropological kind of developments of
that album that we've never touched on in any of our album discussions before,
because we've never had reason to. I mean, they never again to quite
this degree, like the circumstances in which Roots was born and created and what
that even then kind of put out there into the world genuinely unparalleled, like
a band of you know, white of European descent Brazilians somehow through again of
like contacting their like you know, cultural centers and so on. Hook themselves
up with a you know, Brazilian tribe out in the jungle, go out
and organize a recording session, bring fucking maniac Roth Robinson with them into the
jungle record that, and that is just stage one of the many recording like
you know, stages that go into making Roots is an unbelievably nuanced record,
and so we had to go through and kind of you know, try and
pick apart every single thing of what makes that album tick. And then we
still had the kind of epilogue session to go because while we did again primary
took about the Cavalier fronted Sepultura records, we did feel like we had to
kind of bring ourselves up to speed and kind of you know judge in a
very abridged form what both you know, the Cavaliers and Sepultura without them have
kind of done in their absence. So again, bringing that together with the
part we did on Kosa D and the part we did before that on their
birth in you know Brazil and their thrash metal years, our picture really has
formed here of one of the you know, craziest, most one of the
kind stories that we could feasibly tell in the you know, quite humble vessel
of our band specials. I mean, this is one of those specials that
for me, I like to They've always been, you know, the big
groove metal band. I saw that thing and getting all of those of a
little dit il was back going Bay back to pop one and then like say,
the entire insane prose is the way to creating roots. They you know,
sell out new metal album and just every like insane thing they went through
to create, and that has massive cultural significance well beyond anything metal. Anything
else metal was doing in the nineties is insane and it was like hell of
a journey to go on. Yeah, one of the most one of the
kind artistic stories of any heavy band, and we you know, tried to
do it justice in telling it. So that is available over at patron dot
com slash That's not Metal. If you want to get in on all of
our band specials and other specials and things that we do, that is the
place to go. And today we're here to talk about new albums, and
we start with Bring Me the Horizon and their post Human next Gen album.
The suffix there obviously alludes to the fact that this is the second installation in
their post Human series, which started back in twenty twenty with the Survival Horror
entry of it. And you know, if you've just kind of flinched slightly
at how long ago that was, you know, that was peat covid times.
This record has had quite a journey to get to us. Last month's
review show, you know, it came about two days after Bringing the Horizon
decided to surprise drop this album, coming off the back of several years of
single drops and delays and so on. I quite admire that they just got
it out there like that, Like, you know, it was kind of
cooler to just be like, okay, it's done. There it is,
rather than announce like another release date for a couple months time. That then
would have been kind of greeted with like I really will it though, you
know from fan base who had already experienced a couple of release dates. It
missed the cut off of our like last reviews bag, and now it would
have been cramming it in at that point, wouldn't it, Like yeah,
And so you know, we acknowledge that this review is essentially a month later
than everyone else has done it. I think that maybe gives you a different
perspective because rather than jumping to get on it and get a take out there
as that would have been. As you say, we are now giving you
the take of this album. Having been out in the world for a month,
we have you know, bided our time from the immediate barrage of reactions,
and in the case of Bringing the Horizon in particular, we have bemoaned
the kind of knee jerkism of that in the past. I mean, I
would quite happily review everything The Horizon record about a month after its release,
mostly genuinely. Actually, yeah, no, they are on those bands that
like in the moment, I'm just like, I don't know, I'm disconnect
for it all for that initial week because everyone's going to be saying stupid things
on both sides of the fence, Like I remember, you know, hearing
you know, people journalists older than myself saying similar things about Metallica at times.
I feel like Bringing the Horizon are kind of our example, where you
know, okay, let it die down, will come in later, assess
the art, do a post mortem if necessary. I suppose this is like
the clear blockbuster megaband rock release of the year last year. I had quite
a few you mentioned Metallica, but you know, for the kind of download
headline of type bands, I guess it's probably the only one that we're expecting
this year. And Bringing the Horizon feel like they have a, uh,
I guess, a particular significance to the culture of right now because you know,
as we have said, the popular zeitgeist metal landscape of today pretty much.
Oh's it's like precise shape and existence to Bringing the Horizon for the kind
of like pop metal core that's taken over Bringing the Horizon are their gods,
And yeah, at this particular moment in time, it feels like that landscape
has particularly kind of taken shape and you know, taken hold again in between
these Bring the releases. Actually like Survival Horror again twenty twenty, and we
did our album club kind of post mortem on that at the start of this
year, and in hindsight, I was speaking about it as kind of like,
you know, the the twenty twenties commercial pop metal core, you know,
the baddy core era if you like, kind of you know, has
showed its head in the aftermath of Survival Horror. I actually feel like I
understand Survival Horror a bit better for that kind of hindsight and knowledge than I
did at the time. Now your spirit Boxes, bad Omens, sleep Tokens
have all kind of come to ascendency in this like slightly belated period between these
two post human releases. It makes it very interesting, even beyond just the
innate delays that happened with this record. Yeah, I think we have seen
the new kind of like form of what is popular metalcore really take over in
its various sort of guyses and it's all happened. I guess. Survival Horror
is kind of like the Inish a blueprint for that, and that's where all
these newer bands have kind of taken bits of that API, I guess,
and found their kind of particular era they want to carve out from it and
turn into their sound. And it's it's normal for me because this is I'm
at a part where I'm like, I'm looking at a lot of this,
this current state of what is modern metalcore pop, milic curab, and it's
just like feeling more and more like I was like, I don't understand where
this is, like where this is going at the time where I'm just like
I'm of like, is this what like older people felt when I was,
you know, eighteen, raving about Bringing the Horizon first coming round where the
disconnect is growing bigger and bigger of each sort of passing release of this or
sound. Yeah, I do think, you know, whether you like it
or not, I think the Survival Horror record is maybe if you can put
it down to one moment of kind of where the twenty tens then became the
twenty twenties. Yeah, it's it's it's arguably that. And like I said,
I don't know about you that it gave me a different mindset with this
too when Survival Horror was coming out, because that album for me was like
the harshest break that I had had with Bringing the Horizon, where I had
gone with their experimentation on the prior to albums, but Survival Horror I struggled
with, and at the time, considering I had gone with the last two
when so many other people were kind of jumping ship, I found it difficult
to reconcile that and why I felt that way. But again, now in
hindsight, we're doing this this album next, Jen, I can talk about
it not so much in relation to again maybe past history with this band,
but kind of in relation to the current landscape where we were at what's developed
around these bringing the Horizon records. The bizarre thing about this being the kind
of most relevant zeitgeist big arena band release this year and having that kind of
academic relationship with the current you know, zeitgeist for a couple of weeks there
in the middle of it coming out and us kind of, you know,
really knuckling down to review this, I kind of forgot about it, forgot
it was there. It's how quickly like discourse and hype and all that moves
now, isn't it Like you've got like people have to be in there with
their takes before they're done and onto the next thing. I'd kind of kept
it'd been lingering in the back of my mind, like because I listened to
this the week it came out, like the day came out, and I
was kind of like, okay, cool, and I was like, we'll
put that to one side, and then when it comes time to review it,
I will go back to it. And I just didn't think about it.
I didn't forget it was there, but I was just kind of like,
I just don't need to concern myself with what's going on there. At
the moment because it's it's doing it is doing nothing for me. Yeah,
well, you know, maybe foreshadowing the ri of it here. I think
it's because partially for me, most of the things I remembered about the album
had already been out for ages, and you know, seeing the songs live
at the start of this year again, it's it's kind of fascinating that it's
had a tormented creation. Every news headline coming around the release of this album
has been Olie Sykes opening up about the fall up with Jordan Fish, which,
you know, credit to them, they've kind of played down the kind
of more tabloidy elements of that and they've not tried to turn it into some
kind of firing shots, you know, turning something larger than it is.
But he has detailed how the delays going into this album were because the kind
of songwriting relationship between Oli and Jordan had completely broken down. Basically, Yeah,
and Olie had reached the point of like basically not wanting to work on
it anymore in that kind of environment without some kind of refresher going on.
This album is a kind of Frankenstein's Monster of songs that were created while Jordan
Fish was in the band with he and Olie forming that core nucleus that seems
to have, you know, largely shaped the direction of the last decade of
the band, and then songs that have been created since Fish's departure and Olie's
spoken about how you know, the other members of the band, Lee Mahlia,
Matt Nichols, Matt Keane have kind of become more active again and more
central in Fitz Jordan Fish's absence. The first record, post Human Survival Horror
was thirty two minutes. It was condensed in and out. I wish I
liked most of the songs on it more, but it was quite well defined
in what it was next gen. Do you feel that this record has kind
of like noticeably fragmented or ballooned beyond what it was maybe originally meant to be?
Oh? Absolutely, Like, like I said, the mission statement of
the post Human thing was the whole like four more condensed releases that each takes
a different kind of like theme and idea and lyrical kind of narrative that they're
exploring at that point, you know, Savahara being the kind of like end
times dystopian like nightmare state we were in and then like the next part going
always going to be something scited different, and I was like, that felt
like a kind of a clear idea, clear folks that they had and this
is and unrelease too has already kind of blown up into something that just doesn't
really feel like that mission statement anymore. Yeah, I struggled to look at
this as more than a kind of grab bag of singles released over a period
of three years with a bunch of shit thrown at the wall kind of in
and around it. Even though Survival Horror was labeled as an EP, it
does feel more cohesive in an album since well, yeah, next Gen for
Me strays over into that slightly nebulous mixtape territory. And I don't mean to
say that's a write off as a project, because as has been for the
you know, the last decade of bringing me output, I think it's more
nuanced than some kind of blanket statement of they're good, now they're bad and
that whatever. I do have to say that my way of appreciating this as
a project kind of comes down to bittness rather than it kind of in any
way coming together as more than some of its parts. It does feel again,
you mentioned those descriptors for the initial idea of the pos human thing.
It feels long ago that those were the descriptors. You may remember. Survival
Horror was described as like the you know, heavy aggressive horror themed release next
gen. I think they mentioned that one point was going to explore kind of
more emo E screamo influenced territory, and then Di FORI you came out and
seemed to paint that kind of concept in like the worst possible light. I
guess overall, this record does take on a shape of like a very twenty
twenty four terminally online high popped up in version of such a mood. It
is more kind of personal and more introspective than Survival Horror was, which is
more again kind of looking outwards but interpreting that in kind of so many ways,
rather than putting a rough genre descriptor on it as part of a planned
series of vps. It feels like a slightly lousing battle. That's it is.
This some doesn't have like a core defined sound or identity. Is more
introspective and self pitying, I guess than Survival Horror was. I guess,
like you can do you feel bigger on the screaming stuff. I'd agreed,
but you're right, it's so that but completely messed up and brought into twenty
twenty four with all of the bells and whistles and you're like hyper pop sort
of stuff and crazy like gen zisms that like you just got to slap on
anything at twenty twenty four. Now that it's such like attention starved all over
the place record that it is really hard to condense and put into like a
defined box of what this album actually is. One interesting thing I hadn't really
considered. And again I don't think this actually is so clearly the case.
It's not so neat. But at one point the thought did cross my mind,
was Jordan Fish actually an inhibitor on some of the the Horizon material that
we've kind of rated less because the work that he's done production, Why is
that's come out with other bands so far? We haven't been the most like
jumping out of our seats about it and looking there's any views with olly.
He cited kool Aid as the song that reignited the writing sessions after Jordan had
left the band, and what did I say when kool Aid came out as
a single, I was like this is the best bringing the Horizon single that's
been released in the past few years, like the first one from this album
that at the moment of its release, I could immediately say, I liked,
that's a really funny lining up of the timelines. I mean Amen came
up before cool Aid, didn't it because I was just because I would still
take that one. But I do see what you mean, where like Jordan
Fish went, Cale came out and this was the kind of like most kind
of like straight up this is what a big pop metalcore rock bringing the Riser
song should be. And kool Aid has grown on me since came out.
You know that chorus has actually stuck with me in a way that other ones
from the time before did not stick with me in the slightest. And I
would agree, like majority of those PRECOLLATD was with the exception of Amen,
cool Aid is way better than the rest of them. I will with you
on there, And I wondered, was what Jordan Fisher's country of the band?
Was it for the worst at that stage? Yeah, and again I
think kool Aid being the song that reignited the sessions with again you know,
Lee Mahlia and the others. I think it has that kind of energy to
it. That doesn't necessarily mean that everything they went on to do afterwards with
that kind of writing unit went in that same direction again. It's not so
neat, but bring Me, you know I I said about it as a
single, it's modern bring Me, but it's the one where I most recognize
the old band we used to note in it, you know, like the
guitar focus, the sense of kind of sem paternal esque grandeur in the chorus,
like the walls are crashing down. You can see the through line in
there from the old band to the current one, the way that sometimes we've
said that line has kind of become a little bit more amorphous. And it's
just fascinating to me that, you know, that should be the first song
of this like different era of bring Me that has emerged halfway through the creation
of this album. And ultimately I do think that is an excellent modern radio
metal single. I think it's right there next to King Slayer as my favorite
songs of the post human era. I mean, what I will say with
call it that duzzed about to me is where you can tell Lee Mallia has
blossomed down and soerly become more involved in is for you know, Survival Horror
being the guitar album when we did the album Club and we kind of went
a lot of the riffs. Are it's the same drop riff? Is it
sounds computerized? Yeah? This again there are problems I have with this album,
but I will get I will agree what Lee Mallor is doing. He
feels more involved, more energized, and he has done since Sempaternal. I
would say he's actual, like they're fucked all over with. But there are
guitar riffs and guitar licks on this album that kind of be like, God,
yeah, that that's some of those stuff that I used to really like
what Lee Malio would do, And I'm like cool. That is one thing
I think this album does have for it. That is a nice thing that
has been missing from the last couple of records. Yeah. The album starts
with Utopia, which really out of nowhere, starts with an old rock riff
which Sam a couple of my friends are pointing out to me it sounds like
sing by Deaf Havanna has one for you. Really, I would say it's
cherr of Brock, isn't it. That's not Deaf Havanna's original creation, but
it came on the album and that was a real like huh, because it
sounds like, you know, again, Smashing Pumpkins type riffs in the modern
day are not kind of rare. And you look at over like, you
know, the kind of alternative rock scene, maybe the more kind of like
outbreak type area, and it's like, you know, shit like Narrowhead and
all these bands that have been doing that for years, and it was like
the last sound I expected pressing play on this album. It's got that kind
of you know, Pixies come deaftone sound that all of those run for cover
type bands have been obsessed with for ages. And it's not bad. It
was just weird hearing like one of those songs that are all the rage over
in that kind of comparative new underground scene, but it's got that kind of
like ugly tiptop filter all over in the melodies. So this was my problem
with that song is I loved that riff when it came and I was I
was like, oh, this is no. It was such a like I
like this, Nah. They fucked it almost immediately, because again this is
why I don't know that I'm gonna feel like I'm gonna being a dead horse.
But the production and the studio fuckery all over this album is headache inducing
for me a lot of the time. It's so I don't like hypop I
don't like a hundred gets like we're purture because again, and that's the easiest
way to sum up how I'm not gonna like a lot of the decisions made
on this album. Sure, but when you had Utopia Stone, this really
warm, fuzzy or rock with riff, and that was like exciting and different
to hear from Bring Me, and I was gonna like, Okay, they're
gonna go a different route. I'm down for this. And then you get
this like AI trying to write a nineties big rock song, kind of like
sound taking over and Ollie's squeaky clean, heavily computerized vocals, and I'm just
like it was. It was a deflating kind of like I mean, like
in face of like interest followed by immediate deflation. Yeah, I think you
know. That kind of sound is one that was, you know, originally
famous for its kind of organic honesty, and stripping that out, at least
out of its sonic kind of approach is a weird idea utopia. I think
is like not bad. I think it's as a song, it's probably fairly
decent. It's just slightly uncanny. The worst one that comes in that particular
lane is na later On, which is even more like what if the Pixies
were stinky? And that is that that song is one of the ones that
makes me angry. It's one of the worst songs on this record. I
would it's on the worst songs bringing the Horizon I've ever released. I mean,
maybe that's true. I think it's just Die for You has such a
low bar, but it is it is down there, and that is that
that to me sounds like I again, I don't like the kind of gen
z pop stuff that pretends to be grunge, you know, and I know
that like you tend to like some of the stuff maybe more than I do,
like Olivia Rodrigo and all that. If it's shamelessly probably would slightly grunge
sort of dressing around it. I'm fine with that because you know, like
it's still at its core a pop song. This is kind of like this
is that weird middle ground where it's not poppy enough to be like shameless with
it, and yeah, this did like I mean the problem with NA for
me, and again I've bashed it before, but Ollie's lyricism is unbearable on
that song. I mean, that's a song that I'm allegedly on as an
attendee of the Briming the Horizon Arena tour where they recorded the big chorus gang
vocal bit, the hello all are you fucking normed? The song is real
limp. It's just it's no go yeah, no, I agree with but
again, like because it's coming from an actual like rock band sounding that wet
and limp, rather than a pop back trying to grunge up a little bit
like I'm final slightly roughing up music. When you're making rock music sound this
limp, it's the worst way to take this sound. And the sort of
self indulgent, self pitying lyricism it just is really Like I think it's because
there's so much a bit across this record. By the time NA came out,
I was so like eye rolling at every word that Olie was singing.
At that point. Yeah, I just think again, you look at the
songwriting credits. You can look at you know, Utopia and go oh,
that's a song that's written after the Fish Schism. Lee Mahlia and Matt Nichols
have got credits on that one, and you go, Okay, maybe that's
where kind of that new idea has kind of been introduced into the equation.
I don't know, again, na I do not like at all. Utopia
I think is all right, but it's kind of one of the more listenable
tracks on it, just because you know, kind of goes in that direction.
Top ten Statues that cried blood awful title as per but that has this
thing that's maybe slightly more reflective of a lot of the album, which is
this kind of chirpy assault of like kind of video gamey, you know,
Nintendo, a lot of j rock kind of influence. You know again,
I'm not adverse to it as a vibe, you know. I like when
Baby Metal will do that. I've liked songs with Mario coins in it before,
and you know, again, that kind of very you know bright.
You know, Elliott described it to us off air as kind of a weir
boo ps one thing, and it's it's very aggressive with it also occasionally kind
of nice and warming. I think, you know, that and Utopia are
not the you know, not bad examples of it. The chorus on that
song, I think is again al right. It's kind of a reflective of
the overall aesthetic choice they've made on this which is that kind of digital garbling,
but again just purely on a melodic front like Utopia. Not the worst
defender by any means. I think those two songs, I'm not wild on
them right now, but I will not rule out the possibility of those two
songs growing on me at some point. I mean tops of suchscribe, but
I mean again hate the song taw hate the type one for all these songs
on the album, like these are the little things that again just gonna get
on the skin. But not a bad chorus on that one there no one's
gonna come in. I don't. I don't like the vocal effects, but
as a chorus as a hook, pretty big. Again. I'm not here
for all of the the hyper pop, wacky electronics that are like PS one
but absolutely not pis one in the slightest and it's gonna trying to trick you
into thinking this is what video games sounded like back then when they didn't like.
That's me being a nerd, though getting that one, but like of
the kind of real like crazy hyper pop like sonic a sort songs on this
one of the ones that I again don't completely dislike. Yeah, there are
a couple of songs on this where that stuff kind of seems to compensate for
the fact that there's barely a good song at the core of it. Where
an example like that you can go, well, yeah, you might not
like necessarily the approach, but at least there's a recognizable you know, yeah,
there's a chorus there. There is elements from rock song that they fucked
with, and again I would say that with Utopia, there are elements of
song that they fucked and made me not like, but the core there I
can see why people would go with that. Yeah, I think again,
kool Aid came out as a single and then I basically immediately saw them live
in January, and that was a bit of a turning point for me.
Of like, there were singles that on the News show when they dropped at
first kind of went in one ear and out the other for me, perhaps
because of kind of the studio sound, But they then grew on me like
a fair bit dark side. I do not have like a tremendous need to
go to back for dark Side against someone who doesn't like it, because I
think it maybe shares some similar traits with songs that I like from that's the
spirit that other people have kind of like you know, poke holes in.
But I will say again that chorus is big, like that is a genuine
melodic hit. And I will say about that that the way so many of
the bands that Bringing the Horison have inspired are like struggling for the high points
on this album do kind of lay out for all their faults. Why Bringing
the Horizon are still the kings of that particular field and they are the band
that everyone is still kind of aiming to be. Yeah, I think that's
I mean, darks of Me is one of those It's it's one of the
always kind of middle points where it's like it doesn't particularly bother me, but
also it doesn't stick with me an awful lot of dark so and I think
it is. I think, like, yeah, it's fine. It's got
a lot of like this kind of naughties pop emo mellow drama, Like you
can see that there's a bit of like an Evanescence kind of influenced on part.
Yeah, I was I was thinking the way they just kind of the
way they were so obviously the natural inherences of the Throne of Lincoln Park,
like a decade ago, they're still you know, that's kind of Lincoln Park,
kind of like that sort of strain of things darks. It has that
or there and it is is totally like solomn On that one again actually pre
because and it's one of the ones that doesn't get bucked around with too much
to kind of like distract me from the core aspects of it. I was
gonna say that exact same thing about Darts. It's literally the very like final
seconds of Ollie's isolated voice get a bit garbled. But again, there's a
song there that they've not like interfered with too heavily. Amn. You mentioned
as like your favorite of the singles. I like again. I also I
like it, particularly after seeing it live. I think at first it's such
that one is such an overstuffed, glitchy mess of sounds, but the core
sense of kind of apocalyptic drama in it, it's like a bit of a
cluster. The only thing I remember about Little Loozy Verts part is he makes
a human center Pede reference, but the way it hangs itself all on.
The chorus is like big enough to work. I mean, I think Amen
is the runaway like clear best song on the album for me. Even again
as a single, I like it even more now. I think that chorus
is the best chorus bringing the Rison have done like moderns have done outside of
like kings Layer. I mean that chorus is wicked. It's so dramatic.
Again, I'm not just saying this because it's got Daryl Pulumber, and I
think the double Plumber guess pot is really cool and like he's he's always great
presence to have. I quite other little verse again not amazing, but it's
a nice di tone. But like, I don't mind that song. It's
the one where the mess of noises all happening at once. It actually kind
of lands in place for me because it fits in with this kind of chaotic,
stabby post hard gore thing. I like, so I'm down with when
I was doing that and just tacking in a like genuinely dramatic hit chorus.
I mean, it is so easy my like some moment of the record,
and it comes at a point where I've been in this like dirge of like
bad like songs are bad. Is the run before this before a men comes
in is like the worst part of the album for me, and then actually
until the song that follows it. But yeah, the song I'm most shocked
to have come around on and I do not expect to have any support here
from you, and that's fine, but I can't lie about it is Lost,
which sonically is a fucking nightmare, right, I agree, the kind
of pilled up machine gun Kelly thing, the versus, you know, like
I kind of endure those passages, right, I get it. I don't
sit there and you know, very naturally go with it. But weirdly,
at the heart of it in Ollie's delivery, I do hear that kind of
truth and honesty in it. The chorus, well, you know, the
why am I this way? Somehow? Through the kind of neon vomit nightmare.
The humanity in that does like fight its way through to me, and
the kind of you know, the kind of despair and the frustration admits,
the kind of overstimulation, you know, when he gets really angry with the
stupid medicine not doing anything. Part melodically, if you strip it back,
really strong, powerful chorus. I think again, I do not expect your
support here because sonically and on paper it doesn't work. I'm just gonna say
that again. Melodically, at the core of it, I do think the
song, the bones of it work. I see where you're coming from.
I think they fuck around with it way too. That's fine. I don't
think this is one where again like where so they can ruin like utopia and
stuff. This is the one where I'm like I wasn't so I'm not super
keen on the core bones in where I think the chorus, even without the
fuckery, is a bit grating. And again, Ollie say, I watching
even geting with a bigger SLI like KM and maybe if you removed some of
these elements I have a problem with, you could find something I could go
along with. But lost for me is a nightmare. Yeah, that's fine.
I think that I think I'm going to break down is still daft as
ship. I can't bring myself to get behind that. But against the odds,
I have somewhat fallen for that song because even with the kind of obnoxiousness
of how it's produced, ultimately it's a seriously big chorus. I think that
has a real degree of kind of human emotion to how it's put across,
and I think that speaks to like how far I am actually willing to go
with bringing the horizon if I, you know, if I connect with those
things that are there, I will even go with a song that sounds like
lost sounds. The thing I'm slightly battled with on this album is so many
of the other tracks just completely leave my brain, and I guess this speaks
to again the blabored production cycle of this album. And we were sitting around
waiting so long for songs to be finished that yain were different to the ones
we've already heard. And again, there are songs you may mentioned, you
know, top ten statues of cried Blood and Utopia and stuff like that.
They're not you know, they're not misfires. I won't call them that,
but some of the you know, results of these sessions do strike me as
kind of, if not unfinished and at least ill fitting. Limousine The Riff
is the most Steph Carpenter's demo draw you've ever heard, which is really amusing
to me. Because the weekend this dropped, there was a bit of uproar
on certain kind of corners of like metalcore Twitter, and I can't even remember
the name of the band in question, but that were people were like,
I bring me have nicked this riff and this like other small metal band,
and I listened to it and it's like these are both just death tones,
Like they didn't patent this incredibly generic, low end seven string combination of notes
that are right next to each other, like I think it is first aason
I heard losers like, oh, I like that, and then it was
kind of like, oh, I know why I thought I liked this is
because it did just MAKEE me think deathtones for for a few seconds. And
then I can't remember anything about Limousine outside of that opening riff initially catching my
attention and the Aurora guest spot being fine, if a little nebulous, Like
yeah, and again Lee Malia, we've kind of complained about him being buried
at times, and here he's front and center, but he sounds like he's
sleepwalking. It's like really like b tech version of a sound that we've kind
of already heard ripped off ad nauseum by countless bands in the last decade.
Yeah, and it's like it's that initial thing of like, oh, that's
a sound I like, and I'm gonna like this song clearly, and then
I think about it critically, I kind of go, oh oh, no,
actually I don't like that song much because I could just go listen to
Diamond Eyes and have a better experience. Yeah, And the kind of chronic
over simplification of riffs that again we spoke about on someone like Horror kind of
creeps in. And again I think about kool Aid and I go, when
bring Me the Horizon rift, It's not just that I want their kind of
guitars to be loud and proud or whatever I want them to sound like bring
Me the Horizon riffs, I don't want them doing whatever this is. And
that song barely has a chorus because it just follows that very generic riff.
The Aurora thing just comes and goes. There's like no hook to the song
apart from this three note Deaftones riff. And then there are moments that,
in comparison to the singles, feel I don't know, kind of underwritten,
where they have like fucked around with all this studio stuff, but there isn't
a strong song, you know, underneath all those kind of future sounds,
which, again for me on songs like Lost or whatever that kind of does
punch through, but there are other ones where it just kind of falls away
under itself. Rip dustcore remix whatever that means. With bring Me, I
can never quite tell if that means it is a remix or some surface level
title gimmick whatever, But that's like a straight up electronic tune essentially. It
has this like pop chorus on it that straight up when he comes in does
not sound like Ollie. It's so processed. I thought it was a different
guy and it just kind of makes my eyes glaze over that. That's all
of the kind of like really heavily electronic stuff on this, like like even
though the sort of into was like the ict Supernatural or whatever, the Pussy
and then like the IRP Dustcoryes that's the one where like they actual tend it
a full song, but that stuff, I'm just like, yeah, it
is so again it's so heavily processed and just doesn't like And then again that's
part of that point in the album before Amen, where I'm just so like
having a bad time, where that when the song like Dustry like IRP dust
Wormics comes in, I just was like I would rather less be listening to
anything else at this stage. The only thing and that they've got a reaction
out of me is when they put the fucking sands from Undertail Noise in there.
And I felt slightly ashamed of myself for recognizing it so immediately, but
I was like, how are we putting Undertail noises in our songs in twenty
twenty four? Again, it's that like I didn't even pick that one up
because I've just just tune out of that song so immediately. Yeah, it's
just kind of like that terminally online overload with this album gives you a bullet
with my name on it is like, again, that's like the kind of
chirpy, chopped up hyper pop version of the kind of Jay Rocky bringing the
Horizon song that we saw on the Statue song, But melodically that one is
like nowhere near as strong, not rescued by heroes of the hour under Oath,
Who my god, the handouts that that band keep getting from the generation
of popular metical bands after them, what they have under Oath got on the
metal core scene of today. They're not that good. One of their albums
was influential. I I came pupping up everywhere you can't fucking get him off
your shoe. I don't mind that song. It's well again I assume.
I mean, it's the sort hyped up version of that, but it's got
that kind of a bit of Naughty's post argicle sound, which again I do
quite like. So that in there, like again the Spencer man guess pot,
he blends him with Ali to the point where you like, you don't
even need him on the song. But the sound of that one, I
can actually go a bit more because they're doing a few things I'm like quite
just sort of musically coming to me again. It's something to Limousine, where
it's tricking me into reminding me of something I do like in a lesser version
of it, but it's at least it's less faceless than Limousine is I find.
I think it's one of the more like because of less egregious kind of
skin crawling songs on the album. For me, again, I'm not going
to go to bat for it as much in the same way you're you aren't
going to try and like convince me that Lost is great, because I can
understand why for you that one might just kind of come and go. But
I think my problem with it is what I was saying about bringing the horizon
rifts and how it won't sound like bringing the horizon riffs. That's the same
with choruses, right, and that fairt Lost and Dark Side and kool Aid
sound like bringing the horizon choruses regardless of whatever might be around them. This
like, is that what I want? You know? Like, I just
I just want to hear that power from Olie and that swell that makes it
sound like bring the horizon, not some kind of garbled nightmare, and bullet
my Name on does not kind of, you know, deliver in that regard.
And so there is a side about this album that wasn't released as singles
that often kind of amounts to feeling like a pile up of bits with nothing
to really kind of show for it. You know, they get a feature
like Aurora or under Oath, but they don't add any memorable X factor to
the songs. They just kind of get shoved in the washing machine and farted
out the other end. Again, I don't know how you expect me to
take a song called Pussy seriously, even if it is just a big techno
interlude. The interludes are a funny point because again there's a song at the
end called dig It the seven minute song, or like rather five half minutes,
and then you know some nonsense, but it opens with that kind of
forced video game voice and then immediately just becomes extremely boring for an extended period
of time, like a bad Post Malone kind of b side. I think
as a close, I like, such a boring way to end the record
is so like LeFarge and just has no even when it's trying to like build
to its crescendo near the end, it does absolutely nothing. I was just
it is such a like damp way to end the album. That is again
you meant you're like crazed hyperactive video game kind of like weirdo album. Are
you ending on the most kind of like lumpen dirge of the song? Yeah?
And again it goes to that like hidden track at the end after like
two minutes of waiting around. I turn it off every time the first time,
and I was like, it's a waste of time, yeah, because
you get there, like, wow, am I glad that made the record?
You know? And I feel like we need to get them away from
this fucking like anime series. Woman because it kind of awakened a further thought
in this around me because I'm like, all of this stuff that we keep
kind of rolling our eyes at the titles, the you know, the references,
all this kind of stuff, does anyone think this is actually cool?
Like the forced edginess? If Steve you seen me with the skateboard, isn't
it? It's that again? Yeah, And the thought I actually had about
this, it's like, yeah, how many like genuine believers are out there
who think that, like, hello, loading up my my CD rum?
Like, how many people think that's actually like cool? You know, contribute
to the album and so like, my thing I get with that is like
the one at the start of this album where it's like, you know,
you have these audio logus. I'm like, if you're going for Piers one
thing, audiogs one a fucking thing in video games until like the Piers three
year and when they sit down creatively, that's besides the point. I know,
I know, I know, I'm just like, you're not even doing
it right fine, that they're evoking an era that never quite existed. What
I was going to say is it made me think about again. It opened
up something about my relationship between the Horizon, and I remind you I am
generally a you know, an enjoyer of that's a spirit and AMMO and AMMO
in particular, like you know, it is a mixed bag at times.
Sure, there are songs on there that I don't love, but I've always
said the best stuff on AMMO And the reason I went with it is it
has a kind of understated sophistication to the experimentation. Like I think about,
you know, Nihilis Blues, a song with Grim's on it. I think
about there are interludes on that record where they were taken influence from, like
stuff like Burial and kind of like old dubstep and trip hoop and stuff like
that, and there's a kind of restrained touch to how they incorporated their influences
on stuff like that that at least to myself, made it a lot more
palatable. And it's all of a sudden the decade turned, these posthuman retates
to started coming out and they just immediate their personality changed into like a tongue
hanging out emoji. You know, there was just like an increased like gearishness
kind of to how bringing their aws and operate. That makes the experimentation for
me, more difficult to swallow than the stuff I was perfectly willing to go
with on AMMO. And that's the spirit. I think that's sort of thing
that's going to make this like the most dated Bring with the Horizon album,
like maybe, but maybe it's the one where like it's so aggressively of like,
as you said the term online, aren't we insane? Yeah, it's
so of that, and it is. I like it. I don't like
em, but I as see where you're coming from. Where there was a
there was a sophistication to the kind of like weird turns They took on that,
which made it feel a lot more like I guess rewarding on repeat listens
where you could actually delve into album a bit more. And this one there's
everything's so shoved in your face. There's not actually anything to really gain from
repeat listens because it's all there on the surface. There's no layers or depth
to it. The thing they do that is most exemplified by Die for You,
but it is kind of one other parts of this album where they put
like these like the ugly, really ott kind of you know, voice cracking,
heavy screams into this like overproduced sterile pop music, and it comes across
very performative for me, like very kind of like Arah, like how crazy
and heavy we're making, you know, kind of clashing with this pop thing,
and it's it sounds messy as a record. It's like an overloaded tumble
dryer of elements as again opposed to something like Amo, which, whether you
like the perments theyre doing on any given track or not, I think at
least sounds like those experiments are kind of self definitive, given space to breathe,
weren't they It was like it was age track was allowed to be its
own thing. Where it's here is some of these songs are just overloaded and
nothing's allowed, nothing's load to sell. Yeah. So those are my wider
feelings on why I think I've struggled with this kind of era of bringing the
horizon when I didn't, you know, some of the other era that people
were really fucking ready to help helters at the single I still don't like Strangers
is just boring, which the chorus, and the chorus is at least like
memorable. I can sing it to you and like whatever the hell these deep
cuts are, but it is so wet, like even seeing it irritating chorus,
Yeah, even seeing it live. They did it acoustically, so they
couldn't even say that one. And for some reason on streaming, that's the
one that's like taken off and has done the biggest numbers, and it's like
the most boring one and does that speak to I don't know. Again,
the kind of this song is really emotional, even though it's processing and into
its life kind of mindset of the current metalcore era that this is kind of
the thing that appeals and then Die for You, you know, sticks out
on this for how far moved along in other directions the other material has written
since it has gone like I wanted to be done with this song after you
know, now having heard and reviewed this album, I'd like to think of
that as the last time I will listen to Die for You outside of the
context of viting them live, and they play it, but it's it's like
the burden of Die for You jump skin in the end of the album.
It's like the burden of difi knowing that Dive for You exists and constantly being
on the upcoming schedule after three years has finally lifted from us it's in the
past. You know, it's no longer upcoming. You've cast the war ring
into the volcano exactly that It's bizarre again some of this album, even something
as garish as Lost I can I can feel the humanity in there and some
of what you're saying abou kind of lyricism and stuff, some of it does,
you know, the humanity of it does come through for me on some
of this, some of these songs, but elsewhere wrapped up in the kind
of again weird boo video game production. It just has this kind of like
XD random I'm so crazy feel that feels like very juvenile and very forced.
And I don't know the gestation of this album. I feel like I've gone
on a whole journey with it somehow before i'd even heard the actual album,
because I'd gone from like actively dreading it and starting to dismiss bring Me out
of hand when the likes of Die for You and Strangers were coming out,
to then climbing kind of back of board again with some of the later singles
and the live show, and then this album. There are more songs on
it I guess that I like and that I will keep then on Survival Horror.
The flip side is that there are more songs on it period, so
maybe that was kind of mathematically inevitable. Disappointingly, there were no surprise deep
cuts I hadn't already heard that I thought were like excellent, Some are okay,
but every song on this I really like I heard live in January,
and like almost all of the album tracks that it took so long to kind
of finish have kind of just like slipped through my fingers like soapy jelly.
Yeah, I think that's I think that's a fair assessment. I mean again,
like I'm like, cool, I've got amen from this album. That
to me is this album's King Slayer moment. I'm just kind of like,
there is, you know, a bit of gold nestled in a bunch of
stuff that ranges from its just like actively irritating. But I think it is
just one of those where I'm like, they are making music for a demographic
isn't me anymore? And I don't want to be the old person yelling about
like that, So I again, like I'm saying my opinion because you know,
we're reviewing it, but I'm not gonna like again get actively like of
the you know, the big pop modern metal core stuff. Well, the
exception of again spirit Box, who are even then their own sort of keelorfish.
I'd still rather listen to bring me you have a personality to them,
even if it's one that annoys me. Then something as faithless as bad Omens,
Yeah, I mean, it's more varied than survival horror, because again,
my one of my main compects with that was that them kind of perpetual
repeatingness of it, Like, yeah, they're perpetually repeating themselves, doing the
same drops in the same places. This has kind of like imported a truckload
of shit to put back on what they'd sounded off. At its worst,
it's like too much the wrong stuff. But you know, we were having
a conversation in the T and M Patron discord this week. I guess I'm
to what you're saying. The best songs on this I do ultimately feel are
like the best contemporary commercial metalcore songs that have been released, you know,
this year. So I would I guess say, since like that spirit Box
EP that came out at the end of last year, you know, and
it's it's because it's such a dire patch for it, you know, but
like even an extremely broken and patchy Bringley record ends up somehow like leading the
way, and I guess you know, obviously this is the the sequel to
Survival Horror that took three years to end up being twice as long. Maybe
the next one, with the kind of writing unit calming down, will focus
on something a bit more like that. There are some signs here considering I
was like I was, again the most down I've ever been on Bringing the
Horizon was around when Survival Horror was coming out, and again, the only
song I really like on it as a fucking baby metal song, it's slightly
slim pickings, but there are released more signs here of that band. Even
if at the same time, while I'm listening to this album and it hits
a song like na, I'm so down in that moment, I'm like,
now they're gone. Yeah, I just I'm just like you, just let
bring with the device and do what I'm gonna do, and I'll take if
I'm getting at least one really good song and to bring with a vice album
at this stage, I will be fine. We just kind of carrying on
with letting them track on and be the least awful band in their scene.
Yeah. Again. I put up a little poll on the T and M
Facebook group asking people what people kind of thought of it. It generally worked
out to a kind of equal you know, people really really being into it
and people not so much hating it but being kind of you know, like
it's catchy. Yeah, it's patchy. And again myself and you and again,
well from what Elliot said to us as well off air, I think
we all kind of come under that patchy thing. You know, we're not
throwing all of it out, but it's just kind of a mixed bag.
And I guess that's where my expectations are. So there you go. That
is bringing the horizon after again so many years now, the next entry in
the post human next gen thing? Are they gonna be doing this fucking post
human series for like the rest of the decade? Is this there twenty?
It's going to be a four part Like I hope they the next one is
like comes along sooner, But maybe I hope they do it down and drop
it after two and just kind of move on to something, because it feels
like, as an idea, it was conceived you know, with a different
literally different era. Is there a different lineup now? Yeah? Yeah,
But there you go. That's the next gen entry at least, and that
is obviously the mega review of this particular bunch. The next load burst up,
I guess, you know, the next biggest one or they just feel
like a bit of a step down from the where we were just But the
next biggest one, I suppose is the Story so Far, whose new record
is called I Want to Disappear. It's the fifth album from as we often
say on the show, the most ripped off potpunk band of the twenty tens.
Under Soil and Dirt and what you Don't See really set the template for
kind of a new breed of pop punk in that decade. But following that
they kind of subtly evolved their sound to indulge in some kind of slight stonerisms
at time, but also by the time of their last record, Proper Dose
in twenty eighteen, they had quite clearly shifted their like old school you know,
pop punk to sound into terrain that was you know, melodically still recognizable.
But when you think about pop punk bands maturing in that particular decade,
you know, they tweak their sound to be less kind of instantly energetic and
more to sit back with a slightly kind of alternative rock radio sort of date
to it. It's one of the goat examples back to like the self titled
Blink when two album of they're adding the kind of that cure post punky sort
of stuff in there. The storys virgin by adding in a bunch of like
Brit rock and that sort of britpop and that sort of stuff, and it
is it's just mellowing up but still being recognizable as one of the sort of
important punk bands of their era. Yeah. I remember liking that album kind
of well enough, and I put a song like out of It on you
know again in the un up to this, and I was like, yeah,
that's a great tune. But personally the story so far, they don't
take up a tremendous amount of my internal brain space. Like I like them
a fair bit, particularly they're you know, the kind of first three records
I suppose, but there is a strange element about them where they write pop
punk songs that feel more certainly in their earlier days, more built for kind
of like a stage and a punk show environment with everyone doing the finger point
and all of that. Then they do feel like the actual heirs to Blanquity
Too or whoever else in terms of like hanging with genuine pop classics like the
Way That again I love them all loathe them Enima of the State. Those
songs are as big and as catchy and as pop as like the Britney Spears
songs that they were around at the time. Story so Far I think represent
a kind of move away from that, and it kind of it made it
gives them a bit more punk credit, but it also has made their songs
less ubiquitous. I think the Story so Far they worked that. I think
the bands that then rip them off that kind of comparatively hookless approach kind of
set the stage for part of the downfall of pop punk. Well. The
thing is, like, I think a lot of the bands kind of took
the the coarse sound of what the story stear I did, but decided to
try and write bigger pop songs with it. And you know, some had
success of it neck deep think to a point, and then they went too
far and had to step back. I think you've had like, you know,
shit like State Champs so like just copied the Story so Far from but
tried to write the bigger pop songs with it, and so that some of
those bands have probably gone on to kind of like lap the stories fine terms
of popularity just by writing more kind of commercial version what they were doing.
But it's never felt like any of them have kind of captured that kind of
like just that thing that made the Story so Far feel exciting when they first
came around. I mean, I've had a look of a weird liace what
I've got into them more the further they've gone along and the more removed from
pop punk they've become. And even though I've gone back and light those early
records more as of us of it now, because I just think they're,
like I did, if there's just they like when they were breaking it was
such a buzzy thing. It was kind of like, I don't wantnything to
do with it. Stories so Far record then uh self titled Okay, I
mean self Titled is comfortably their best album. But in general, I just
I like the Story so Far more now than I did in twenty thirteen,
twenty fourteen, when they were you know, all the rage in pop punk.
Yeah, okay, I mean that brings us into you know, six
years is a long time for a pop punk band to go dormant. There
almost seemed to be a reluctance from the Story So Far to kind of be
around all that much at times, And I guess it is quite funny coming
out of that that the album clocks in under thirty minutes long. Sam,
I guess I want to know what your gauge is of how like in demand
the Stories So Far are right now, because they're clearly one of the most
significant bands of their genre of the last fifteen years, But how high a
demand and how many eyes are there on, like you know, this new
record. It feels like it's actually ticking back up after a quiet period.
I don't know if the long time away is kind of the whole absence makes
the heart grow fonder where it feels like there's been more eyes on this Story
so Far album or come across like what I've seen then there was the Proper
Dose in twenty eighteen. It feels like people are ready to kind of be
on board with the Story so Far again. I don't know if it's because
it's been like again a particularly like low point for pop punk, or or
if it has just been they've been away for so long, and everyone's kind
of like what's old is new again, and they've got that warm, fuzzy
nostalgia feeling. So when they're seeing videos of Parker can and pushing someone off
stage, they're like, fuck, yeah, the story so far are back.
Like but I don't know, it felt like just compared to what because
I thought I was expecting not actually much of a buzz around a new story
for ARM because it'd been so long. But I've seen more people talk about
this than I've seen talking about the story so far in like, like even
like I said, since the last album, Okay, I'm just gonna see
that sod like completely different circles then, because I could well be could well
be maybe from like the TNA audience. However, I haven't heard too much.
I saw a little bit of dismissal online when some of the first songs
were coming out. I don't know if that's reflective of a general attitude or
just kind of a few, you know, grouchy old school fans. And
again, this is the most recent release in our episode here, it's just
this last week came out. I've barely heard a peeple about it. To
be fair, I think Story so far are kind of reaching a point where,
despite the anticipation around it being you know, six years since the last
one and then being one of the most significant bands in their field, I
guess this is probably one of the bigger kind of alternative rock adjacent records that
will cover this year, But there may be isn't a tremendous amount new to
say about them. Like I quite enjoyed this, like I normally do so
as of our records, but I was also not really surprised or kind of
blown away by any point. So I really like this. I really like
this, but I agree it's very much just kind of like Stories of It
feels like they're kind of real of us settling into being like elder statesment of
their era of pop punkin just writing very like nice, super melodically sound,
catchy, fun uplifting, like good pop punk songs that are like guitar melodies
and every song that just kind of makes makes me smile. There are like
a couple of songs I actually have like really good choruses, which again they're
not necessarily always been a massive kind of pop chorus band. But there's like
Big Blind. I think that's got a great chorus. It feels like it's
just kind of weirdo where like it's almost a bit more pop punk than where
they were on Proper Dose, I think, but it's just that like kind
of like just more stately almost take on pop punk. It's kind of a
weird paradox, but it really works for me. Yeah, I agree.
I think if there was a surprise on this, it was like when I
pressed a play on it. Certainly the first couple of songs they started off
more old school stories so far than I remember Proper Dose being all this time
decently energetic. Again, it's kind of it's based in that kind of angst
and malaise that kind of characterizes the stories so far. But you know,
again it's energetic, and what you go is, you know, zippy.
It's like barely over two minutes long. That's got that kind of pop punk
guitar action going on in there. Again, those things did give me kind
of a throwback Letterman. I don't think it was the first single we spoke
out. I think that might have been Big Blind. Yeah, I remember
hearing Letterman at least, and that kind of moves over into that kind of
I guess pop punk emo kind of crossover territory, and there's a certain like
you know, being sad on a sunny day, like bright yet melancholy atmosphere
that works pretty well with like you know, Parker's voice and the kind of
atmosphere of the story so far. I do like that song quite a lot.
Big Blind again, that was the lead single. Another you know,
pretty standout song in terms of the context of this album, like kind of
that has a little bit of kind of blink whity two melody and the guitars
to me, but in that like emotive, grown up sort of way.
That stuff. Again, I had a pretty decent time with the acoustic songs
at the back end to in a row, I don't get a tremendous amount
of I was like, it's funny because I'm like stories of foul on the
bands who like cursed us with the awful acoustic pop punk Ballot when they did
Clairvoyant and then that got ripped off with whatever the one Neck Deep did and
then or every other band, and I was like, I hate the acoustic
popu balot, but I quite like the two of them at the end there
they were again a bit more stately the first of the two I think is
the better one where it kind of like has that kind of like building kind
of stirring it grows into it. Yeah, like the closing one, the
tar track almost closed this kind of like folky singer songwriter thing that they're trying,
and I'm like, again, I quite like that as the sort of
thing they sound quite comfortable doing it. I wouldn't put them. I wouldn't
have put the two of them in the right at the end of the record.
I agree, but I'm I would have maybe if you'd move one of
them slightly alone, it wouldn't they would stand out more. But again,
nothing on this album, like I can't say I disliked anything here. I
had a nice time listen to Living Me Like Let Them, and it was
one of those like, oh, it's nice thing that's kind of like angsty
kind of emaging thing, but without the cringe uglier side of what used to
be in the story so far, where some Parker Cannon's lyricism had had a
slightly nastier tone to it, having that like all of a more grown up
sound of them, really nice sort of thing and all the pop punk things
jump the gun where it's like there's like rush of like sugary pop punk energy.
But again, just like without sounding juvenile and like childlike, we were
a lot of like pop punk of their ear ended up going. It all
just sounds really good to me that I just for the twenty minutes this is
on, I don't have a bad thing to say about it. Yeah,
no, I don't massively either. I think what I'm saying about the stories
so far kind of generally, I always find where their choruses there's a certain
kind of blockiness to them, the way they kind of put their vocal parts
together and they multi track it, and the kind of rhythm they deliver it
with. Again, it's his famous kind of you know, imitated approach of
vocal lines where he kind of lingers on one person labal kind of you know
that kind of characterizes this kind of pop punk. It does make a lot
of it very samy to me, like not a hue amounts tend to burst
out of those kind of things. Occasionally one will, and there is this
kind of weird, vaguely uncanny middle ground between like a very over produced voice
and it just being park accounted. And that's what he sounds like in that
kind of blockiness, but yeah, it's it's those kind of subdued ear worms.
Their choruses are very rarely actually showers for a pop punk band, so
they're very rarely showstopping, but they do imbue them on that sort of alt
rock maturity. Uh. And again I found myself, you know, fairly
quickly settling into an air of kind of predictability to it. But you know,
the songs are pretty breezy to listen to, maybe to a fault,
but you know, not not unenjoyable. I have the experience that I usually
have with Story so Far album, certainly in the present day, where it's
kind of perfectly enjoyable time while it's on. How much there really is to
kind of write home about or stick around? I don't know, but you
know, I like let them in a lot. That's the song I'll take
from this. I mean, I think this is gonna stick with me a
fair bit. Actually, I think like so the of course I've rememder what
the story, but it's kind of like the outros to songs, whereas where
they always kind of like builded some of the more like catchier moments, even
going back to quicksand on, like like going back to the baby, They've
always had that kind of like build this big kind of shout along, everyone
doing the finger points for the end of the song rather than the chorus,
which is something I always quite like about them. But yeah, I again,
this is all I've had the least of a time with that with like
it's been a quick turnaround, but I think I will spend more time with
this and we'll kind of like just enjoy it again. It's like I said,
no fame minutes. If this was longer, I might find I might
then find the over familiarity of the songs would get a bit much. But
because it's so I don't mean any maybe like one song goes over three minutes.
The songs are all really in and out, really punchy, so it
doesn't have time for that sort of familiarity in stoutness to ever sit in because
it's just kind of like always moving forward until you get to the end where
it does slow down. But those songs feel distinct in their own way.
Yeah, I think, you know, if you're an old school, die
hard fan, maybe those faster tracks that like the you know, the earlier
nothing to say as well, we'll kind of scratch an itch that maybe Proper
Dose didn't. I think it's maybe a bit more of a kind of like
a half and half album with the different side stories so Far rather than kind
of that was for one of the more kind of high profile pop punk records
of the year. The album is bizarrely low profile. And I don't mean
that in terms of its breakout status, which were ting earlier. I just
mean it's personality, you know, It's like it's a kind of unassuming record.
And again it's not on them too much, because if they want to
kind of just make fairly relaxed alternative rock music with you know, kind of
not that much poke your head over the parapet sort of quality to it,
that's that's their prerogative. I think in terms of, like, you know,
if you're waiting for the first Story so Far record in sixty years to
kind of give the genre some kind of defibrillator to the heart, you know.
I mean, certainly the next deep album the start of this year has
more of the traditional kind of pop punk bounce that you might be looking for.
This is the you know, the slightly more kind of downcast kind of
take. I don't think it would do much to kind of ushery in any
particular re energizement. But it's not a bad record. I think. I
think that those of a good kind of ones going back and we're like,
good pop punk can happen, and again they're doing different things with it.
But it is nice that, like we've releast had two pop punk ams this
year that haven't made me just kind of like feel like the genre is and
they're not going to resuscitate the sort of state of it, but it's nice
that and I guess just they there was been sitting in that colcess and where
they don't they don't need to, you know, be tied to pop punk
anymore because they have I think enough of a fan base who will always be
there for them that they can just you know, prop up and do their
kind of understated take on whatever they want to do with pop punk and people
will go with it. I think they have a band who they have a
vocalist, people connect with their lyrical Their lyricism is always going to get with
people, so that that will do the job for them. Yeah. Third
review, we are venturing away from that into territory we don't normally do on
this show. But it's Joey Valance and Bray. Their record is called No
Hands, and they have been mentioned quite a lot of times on the show
in the last a year or so. These guys are a hip hop duo.
They've really like carved out a name for themselves in the last couple of
years. They're kind of here in this review's sort of you know, dock
it by popular demand, really because last year their album Punk Tactics kind of
steam rolled its way onto a bunch of your audience end of year lists.
I seem to remember it doing fairly well on the overall kind of T and
M audience poll. Didn't quite break the top twenty of that, but for
a non rock album, it did about as well as anything ever has done
in their outside of the likes of kind of Run the Jewels or Kendrick Lamar
whatever. And similarly to certainly at least Run the Jewels, they seem to
be like, you know, a hip hop act who are making heavy ventures
into what we do here and alternative culture. First of all, to give
you a kind of crash course if you've never heard of these guys, the
primary musical reference point is very clearly and unshrinkingly the Beastie Boys, who are
themselves perhaps the most t and m adjacent of like classic hip hop acts.
You know, former punk band frequently drew together the worlds of hardcore punk and
rap music. You know, we've done an album club, for example,
on the show on the Beastie Boys, and as every chance that we could
do something like that again. So the last Joey vealanceon Bray album even had
like a random hardcore song on it, like an old beast Boys album would
because of that spiritual crossover. They've also you know, appeared in you know,
our rock scene quite a number of times. They supported Limp Biscuit,
I think as in the UK some forty one's farewell tour. They've opened that
in the US alongside the Interrupters this year, those two kind of sitting together,
and so it seems like you're going to be seeing a lot more of
these guys. I guess whether you're kind of checked into, you know,
specifically hip hop culture or not. And so you know, we didn't initially
think to put this in the reviews bag, you know, the last time
out, but as we go into this one, Sam, you certainly made
a pretty compelling case for kind of us to do so this time. Yeah,
I mean I didn't this can be passed me by. I'd heard the
name, and then it was when Mark mentioned it, I think in his
Top twenty, and I was like, just listen to this stuck punk tactics
on and I was just immediately like won over by their kind of Beastie Boys
influence take on hip hop, but with like the character and personality of them
as well being such a like huge selling point to me that I was kind
of like, Okay, cool, next year ever Vans and Bram I'm going
to be there right away. And I was like, oh, didn't even
have to wait a year free, like six months after getting into them,
here's another album. I was kind of like, cool. And I was
like just because of how like not just my sofferyly liking it, but I
know quite a lot of our listeners have really taken to this as well,
and it is like spiritually, even if it's not sonically a rock, it
does hold those ties to some of the stuff we cover. I think it
would have been. I think it was a fun one to put into the
reviews bags, kind of like I actually, because how much does it.
How much is it like directly tied to this and also like, just what
are people feeling about this, this hip hop duo that have snuck their into
like punk and hardcore and rock music. Yeah, I mean I again,
I didn't think to review them last year, but personally I do, you
know, I think these guys are really fun. Everything I've heard from them
up to this point has been incredibly infectious and enjoyable, and so I wasn't
surprised to see it kind of do well and take off amongst a lot of
the listeners as well. We come to their new record No Hands, which,
as you say, they do, churn them out. It's released about
nine months after Punk Tactics, and I guess you're approaching this for the first
time in a critical capacity. Once again, I can just say they make
it incredibly easy to enjoy them, like obviously I have done, but I
don't have to turn on my kind of critical faculties too hard, because these
guys have the most innate knack of making you feel like you're in on just
some kind of incredible party. Yeah, it is like charisma and personality is
the selling point for Javilans. A break for me they make this work because
like this is so in on the kind of real braggadocious side of hip hop.
They feel they are the bollocks like they they you could not like tear
these guys ego down. But there is a wink to it. There is
a knowing yeah, like where they're quit big themselves up, but they're doing
mean form. I mean, it's got some things where like this to me
should be like annoying because it's so reference heavy, but again, some of
the references are so fun and the lyrics are so snappy, and the lines
they come out with that are kind of go like, no, make all
the video game references and drop these like things that are like fucking dated Ben
ten references, like shit like that, Like this is the shit they're pulling
from. It's it's so nerdy but so cool and fine at the same time
that its like I think you'd have to be a real kind of grumpy stick
in the mud to not get up from and feel like do you like say
you're in on the party with them? Yeah? I mean again for myself,
you know, I I love a lot of hip hop, but I
do often find myself kind of uninterested in the trends of certainly the mainstream over
the last ten years or so. And this, you know, with that
huge obviously Beasties influence the classic eighties nineties hip hop elements that they kind of
bring into their sound. There is a very refreshing throwback side to jovial Anson
Bray that I like, but also on this album they have making it sound
so incredibly contemporary, and as much as they are a throwback, I think
they're also in their own personalities an act that could only have been produced in
gen z. You know. Yeah, it is again the braggadocious, but
by way of like they're kind of they're knowing white boys. Essentially a couple
of guys who met at some kind of music college or something got together started
doing this incredibly nerdy and incredibly like self aware, hanging out in their box
of shorts in their fucking you know, dormitory or whatever, you know,
rap music. And there's a couple of real standout bangers on like the Punk
Tactics record and some like Unforgettable Bars. The bit on that record when he
rhymes instrumental with nunchuck swinging crazy mental is I mean, it's the JoJo's bizarre
Adventure bar for me, that is one that's lived in my head that now
you're going to play them because again just me being a weeb if you're gonna
drop that as a rap bar. And also the Kingdom Hearts one whatever that
when they're dropping bars out on Punk Tactics. That was why I was like,
I can't not love whatever they're doing here, and yeah, that was
that was it where just immediately the character won me over. Yeah. But
I think on this record, I think the consistency of particularly I think the
beats, like the instrumentals that are incredibly fun to listen to and to hear
them come and wrap over, I think is actually higher than on the last
album. I think this album is always refreshing. The kind of the sound
of what's going on. The opening track Busset is just like Godzilla size with
the bass that it comes in with. And then there's a song letter on
called the Baddest, which is it's a fucking Little John song like which I
must say, like, never suspected I would reference that as an influence on
an episode of That's Not Mattal. I think that might be a first,
but it's there and it's incredibly fun. Well, because I like musically this
does have a bit less in like Punk Tactics in the name had more of
the punk and kind of hard infants kind of style to the music. And
the beast this is just I think, blending a lot of modern hip hop
based of that with that ninetighties nights thing. But it is like every song
has a like a beat or an inch mental break or some kind of flavor
that makes it really interesting. Like the title track with that saxophone is just
so smooth and amazing and it sounds so good. Packer Punch is the one
for me where I'm just like that beat. I'm like, oh my god.
This This should have been on every extreme sports video game in the year
two thousand and two. It should have been on all of them because it
just sounds so that era and that that that could like the dog you know
that a pack up punch like hook and all those sort of things. All
these elements just make the album sound amazing. Yeah, that title track beat
you mention with the sax is like absolutely wonderful when it has this like laid
back, casual impressiveness that mum and hit Yeah is about not trying and being
the fucking business. Yeah, and that that saxophone is the perfect kind of
sound for accompany that. Yeah, there's the kind of like nineties dance feel
to a lot of this album that was kind of again being introduced here,
I think is really really cool, like a punk has this kind of cybernetic
prodigy feel that kind of it. Yeah, it's like splicing these things up
and the first half of that is fun, but then that really affected voice
comes in, going it's time to rave, and like you're kind of at
that point you know, it's really great again the kind of big like just
girth and production boost on on Bust Pack a Punch again featuring Danny Brown,
who is like one of my favorite rappers of kind of my period of listening
hip hop music. I guess Trusty Exbition is one of my favorite records.
That beat has that like hooky eeriness that you might find one of his records,
but melded with kind of the boisterousness of these guys. When Bray goes
don't piss your trousers, it's like as borderline menacing as a line that rhymes
it with bowser could, And then Danny comes in with that like strangulated,
cartoonish nightmare of his voice, and he just crushes that part because of course
he like it's so it's so built for him. It's it's the Boxer intro
to Danny Brown as well. That again, I can't not get hyped up
when that entering the room Brown and like that feel like an Xbox lobby all
that sort of shit. They're so Again, he's in on the same kind
of like approach lyricism that they're going for on this, but everyone has just
got so much character and personality and again he's kind of both with so different
as well. Then it does feel like, again I guess what that actually
brings something to the song, a different flavor that is really cool. Yeah,
I really like the sonic breadth of this record that's opened up from what
was there before. Again that that kind of the way from beat and that
kind of like fun eurodance nineties, you know, kind of distorted some plain
kind of element that these beats kind of tend to have. This album isn't
as much a kind of like obnoxious jump up and down all the way through
thing. It's also now quite inviting and like a quite like lush environment spend
time in Sometimes, And that's also a song that features the line I feel
like Michael Sarah in his swag era. When was that? When was Michael
Sarah's swag era? We're talking super bad? Are we talking Juno? When
was this? So many like just fucking hilarious lines that on this album,
they're so like unseerious in just a very endearing way. When the first line
on No Hands is when I was ten, I was sipping Shirley Temple present
day, I'm still, oh mate, it's so dark, but was smiling
again. I'm just saying it's so infectious. Yeah, the all the goofy
like nineties noughties nostalgia. This is again, if you had me a bayb
Blade, I let it rip like exactly reference in Bayblades Danny Phantom. Obviously,
one of the singles is called John Cena. This is like, how
to make that video game thing, bring Me the Horizon, not sound so
forced and try hard, like it just sounds like they are teenagers in their
rooms goofing about kind of Internet humor. The deep cut references the lining here
where it references the famous Frozene joke from the Incredibles. It's like peak again
like gen z hip hop in the best way, you know, the funniest
sides of that kind of internet humor. Call me Ben ten because I own
ten Bens. That's bars right there, that's it is again. You can
pick up so many and that is it is. I think if the bars
weren't delivered with such conviction and sound like so snappy, the constant reference humor
would get eye rolling really quickly. But them as just like rappers as personalities,
they constantly sell it. I just never want to like get tired of
hearing them and see again, see where else they can come up with next
time. But it is really cool. Yeah. I'm also not unconvinced that
this album isn't a concept album about booty eating. There are there's so many
lyrics about it, isn't there There are at least four or five illusions,
one of which is an attack on Titan reference that the hook in Okay is
just so funny, yeah, so good. Yeah. I think this album
maybe it doesn't have a kind of runaway single like the title track of Punk
Tactics, which has kind of done really big thing for them, But all
of these songs I like to a pretty similar degree. To be honest,
on an instrumental and production level, I think it's the most advanced thing that
they've done, which goes a tremendous way in terms of how much I'm enjoying
it, and the wrapping on top of that is just like as fun and
as infectious as everything else that they do it. They're just getting better,
And again I would always just go for the Beastie Boys. Finger of one
of them was rapping and everyone's jumping in say the last word of the line
like that shit is always gonna pop me, And yeah, this this feels
like in a lot of ways a just development of the kind of scrappiness of
punk tactics and kind of going okay, can we make this bigger? And
that they turn out in such a short space of time is actually like really
exciting. Yeah, so that's Jerry of a Lance and Bray are kind of
occasional dalliance into reviewing hip hop, but obviously a lot of you guys really
really like that act. So there's a new album for them and we recommend
it. We are gonna move into more I guess conventional you know, punk
tactics if you will, Although there's not too much it is conventional about some
of these records. Candy is first up in that particular regard. Their new
record is called It's Inside You. Candy have been kicking around for I mean
big time since their kind of debut full length Got Good to Feel in twenty
eighteen. That got brought on this podcast as kind of about feel how like
violent This record is follow up then came a little bit later twenty twenty two,
Heaven is Here and they're the kind of noise abrasion felt like it'd be
taken a lot further. That record was produced by Arthur Rizzik, and the
full on like industrial terrorism stuff got whipped up a beauty on that. This
record now mixed by Kurt Blou co produced by Michael from the band and Ben
Greenberg from the industrial band Uniform. This band, I'm I'd weirdly kind of
been in two minds about them, because like I've never quite settled on how
much of a fan I suppose. I'd like the baseline thing of what they
do. I remember seeing that outbright last year and sometimes this is the Candy,
and I think like this is well aggressive and noisy, but I don't
know how much neces necessary I have to say about that. Sometimes when I'm
feeling a little bit less kind towards them and a bit more dismissive, I
think of them as being a bit like a kind of a less graceful,
hardcore crowd version of someone like Full of Hell. But then I guess occasionally
again I opened my mind is a little bit more and they throw in some
interesting swerves and I like, go oh, okay, And hearing this album,
I was a little bit like, you know, okay, this is
kind of what I generally understand Candy to be. It's ignorant, it's loud,
it's noisy, it beats you up, but I don't necessarily know how
much staying power it has. But then you sam you again, you were
pointing out some elements within it where I was like, yeah, okay,
there are some kind of on the pulse creative things within it that do make
it dive into you know what I mean. Yeah, I mean, like
trub this is my favor thing Candy have done. I really like Candy,
But I think there are bands who aren't one the kind of one I'll just
stick on when I just want noise that I'm not gonna say, like they
haven't. They're no one you know you go to like, oh that that
album, those songs or that is particularly amazing. It is just like really
horrid, abrasive, violent, hardcore noise. This is the first one where
they've kind of gone. I actually think they've started to carve out their own
kind of like take on the kind of noisy, abrasive hardcore thing they were
doing because that, like when they were doing that, a lot of bands
were kind of coming out and just like, yeah, lots of bands can
make noise, and so I can under why someone might write Candy offers kind
of like not bad but feel a little indifferent towards them. But this album
is the first one more again, And it's funny that this album is one
that I've really gone with Candy because this does stuff that I was like saying
I'm not super into earlier, but I think Candy have found a way to
kind of sell it to me. Yeah, And it's a funny thing with
this because the the riffing is pretty straightforward, right, Like, it's pretty
it's straightforward hardcore. It's very bullish, it's pretty to the point. There's
not a lot of fancy or particularly inventive stuff going on in terms of you
know, that heavy side of it, and sometimes it kind of creates the
impression for me of it being more simplistic and conventional than maybe the record overall
is Short Circuit is like pure old school name te's metal core stomp. It
makes sense to why they've then got Aaron Who's plaquitarian integrity to kind of guesst
on that one. But you know, again, it's doing these very normal,
not reinventing the wheel riffs and rhythms, but they blend that with a
kind of heavy dose of electronica that brings it about as close as like that
kind of meaty bruising you know, Jesus Pea style hardcore has come to things
like hyper pop. Yeah. I mean, like the first two songs in
this Existens and Shorts are almost like the kind of the most straightforward hardcore the
album gets for a little while because that like they are, you know,
just there's electric beats kind of wiring around on it. But it is those
two songs are kind of more built on like clenched fists of violent hardcore.
X's being the sort of like fast one. Short Circuit sort of just lumbering
forth stomp. There's like like the old like almost Metallica guitar likeck mixed in
there as well, but it is they're quite straightforward, and though those election
touches do make it slightly more interesting. And it's then on you Will Ever
Get Me? Where this am kind of goes all right, now we're going
to probably show the hand and hump all this electronic noise all over these hardcore
songs. Yeah, exist end that the David Cronenberg song. I really like
that kind of tight bass groove, the drum part. It's got that kind
of cocoffin a snare thing that I love about like the first Vein record,
but it's got that kind of the programming sort of bouncing on and off of
like the actual human drums. The riffing again just down tuned, groovy hardcore,
but it's arranged in a kind of cool way. I think maybe my
favorite track on the record is the one with Justice Trip from It's got this
like thug bassline, but with this like proper nighties techno industrialized field of the
programming, and it's like a hardcore band playing behind this sort of digital grid.
You know, it's like a kind of industrial floor filler hardcore that's also
not kind of overtly braggadocious loud mouthed enough to upset the people who rebell against
Out for Blood, you know what I mean, Like you ever give that's
my where that is on where it's like full on like digital dance like hardcore
that it sounds really cool. You get those like I mean say, it's
not as like a basis, you get those DJ scratches going absolutely mental in
the middle of it. But I guess because it's not got that kind of
like braggadose thing about the blood, and it's still got a bit about the
blood that people hated, yea what I'm saying, Like it's still purely in
that hardcore anger. Like the beat on that one, it's like it because
it's a drum machine going off on the beat down like without how electronic and
process that sounds, which is like really almost like jarring, but sounds really
fucking cool. The Justice Trip guest spoty just comes at the end just do
It's one of those kind of more standard past the mic of hardcore guest spots.
But I'm always down for a bit of that. But yeah, this
one where I'm like those those big beats mixed with the hardcore stomp. It
sounds really cool. And this sounds like it's actually something quite fresh and new
in hardcore, which is what I'm always like, I'm always on the lookout
for. It's Harkabans who can find a new kind of thing to tap into
and still sound like they not completely throwing the genre behind. Yeah, the
title track has got kind of cool sort of thrash metally rift that then gets
sort of, you know, fucked up by that blocky industrial sort of squaring
off with everything. It's very stompy. This record, you know, to
Humanize Me is the one for that, Like that's that pure industrial kind of
mechanis. Yeah, comparing this to Heaven Is Here, their last album that
was like full on, like overwhelming, firestorm abrasive again kind of as close
to like a grind record that they've kind of made. This is more like
conventional hardcore at its roots, but then kind of, you know, injecting
all that kind of futuristic stuff into it. And I suppose as it goes
along, you know, Lovelight Snow is a all out electronic song and that
has a sort of you know that kind of turnstyle like bounce in Yeah bynd
slightly distorted shouty vocal as opposed to the kind of more traditional hard yeah scream
yeah, and it's got Marissa from Flashwater is kind of hanging around in the
background doing backing vocals as well, but it's like stripped out of the hard
correlement of it and put it over this kind of electronic thing. And I
guess maybe it's it's the structuring of the album is kind of what part of
is going for it, because again, similarly to some of like glow On
by Turnstarle, I think the thing that made glow On so kind of impressive
to people is kind of the macro level. It's kind of like the songs
they place next to each other, like it's Underwater Boy and then Holiday whatever,
that kind of macro level of the overall project becomes I guess, particularly
interesting rather than like individual moments of greatness. And I think that's similar to
how this record is kind of structured. I suppose there are there's a few
tracks on this that do kind of like pass by me without feeling they hit
on like something of huge note, but then the record veers back in the
back end to like again full on electronic experimental zone. I do like terror
Management, which is like minute and a half grinds. That's like the rusty
grind course on that rips. Yeah. Sure, but again there is a
there is a quite straightforward segment of this record, and then suddenly at the
end, d after the infinite beating Hypercore, Oh shit, it's back to
future ravetime. Is that that Dreamless Swite and Silent Collapse are kind of two
where it's like, okay, this is just more kind of like heavy hearing
hardcore beat down on Dreams that sweet goes wild that that's a really good beat
down on that one, but it is. It was what maybe want to
kind of bring this on was when you hit that final two of Dancing to
the Infinite Beat and Hypercore where they go all in the beats, getting fast
on dance to the Infinite Beat and just building up that like that sort of
cuy like pounding that throw and then hypercorre having all the crazy glitch electronics that
I don't like about hyperp but just hitting over with this really like punishing polverizing
kind of hardcore like things. We're like fitting in a beat down at the
end that it still goes super hard like that Ship is that. I was
like, oh cool, you can actually translate that stuff to me quite nicely
by blending in like this, Yeah, that song that's got that kind of
chest beating hardcore's livery again but over essentially like Pokemon Sense Lives. Yeah,
and then hyper core is again in the title. You know, it almost
feels like their exact kind of mission statement. Yeah, I would put this
like, you know, those bands who are kind of on the cusp of
hardcore sort of changing and evolving into sort of something else in them modern age,
you know, Turnstile. I guess one hundred Dex are kind of hanging
around the Piphrey somewhere. I was thinking about that MS Paint record last year
as well, that kind of like full on like digital Internet aid hardcore.
I don't always love that stuff. It's kind of interesting academically to me more
than it is my favorite kind of music. This is I guess it's a
more warlike Flamethrower sort of version of that kind of concept. And again it's
it's a little bit scattered and it's not always massively interesting, But like I
said, on the macro level, that's the kind of progressive bit about it,
and they are, you know, an interesting progressively minded band Candy who
I think they're definitely they're one of those bands who are representing those areas of
where heavy music might kind of be headed in certain ways. And so I
don't know if it necessarily land done on something that that's fully like rounded creatively
yet, but there is that element about them, no, I think that's
fair. I think like the kind of like source of talk like wanting to
be like a really violent, noisy hardcore band whilst branching out into that kind
of digital hardcore thing, because it does have simil things to that MS paint
thing, but that where that has no guitars at all. This is still
built a lot around riffs and beat downs mangled in with the electronics. But
to me that just it just makes them sound coustic and violent and dangerous,
but like kind of futuristic and interesting in kind of like where you can go.
And maybe this is kind of like the first step for Canny of doing
that, and the next record they might fully realize every aspect of it.
But I do find this like aged when I heard it on it is a
like flies By and it is an exciting listen to me. Yeah, our
next review I guess links that kind of hardcore world with some of the underground
metal that we're going to talk about afterwards. Umbra Vita and the record is
called Light of Death. Umbra Vita kind of, you know, emerged on
the scene. This is the second album from a supergroup that appeared at the
start of this decade, consisting of Jake Bannon, I hope you know him
him have converged Sean Martin of Twitching Tongues formerly of Hate Breed on guitars.
I always forget that Twitching Tongues have like an ex Hate Breed member on guitar.
That's kind of a bit of a get, isn't it. Mike McKenzie
of The Red Chord on guitars, Greg Weeks of The Red Chord on bass,
John Rice currently of Uncle Assen, the Deadbeats Bizarrely but formerly of Job
for a Cowboy, The Red Cord. Lots of more brutal metal bands on
the drums and the central pitch is you know, I guess Jake Bannon and
then Sean Martin are kind of the highest profile members on the hardcore side.
It's you know, some hardcore legends leaning into kind of more all out death
metal. Jake Bannon, I guess it's the most extreme metal thing he's ever
done. For context, it's the only band that he's has an Encyclopedia metallon
page. So that was quite an exciting pitch. You know. They released
an album in twenty twenty. It was rather short. It was just twenty
five minutes long, very hard core minded in that kind of brevity in attack.
But then the project went quiet, and I guess it started to kind
of slip to the back of our minds and didn't know if we're gonna get
another one. But now they are back, and not only are they back,
but they are back with an album that has gained twenty four minutes on
that predecessor. This is a much more feature length affair, and maybe I
guess that's kind of linked. But the first Umbravitai album, while generally well
received, I've noticed, has been tinged with a little bit of kind of
disappointment with how people spoke about it and like, oh, that don't quite
live up to what I wanted it to be this one, at least in
your kind of big magazines. The reviews have been stronger. What are your
kind of thoughts there? I mean, like I like the first on retail
because it just kind of like, oh cool, this is what almost like
no pressure side projects, super group wherever you want to label it, where
it's just it felt like not not to make the Parker Cannon pun. Yeah,
no, actually very good, very good example. But that that thing
of Jacob Bannon getting to you know, cut loose outside of converge when he's
clearly clearly has an interest in definite and then more extreme sounds. I mean,
you know, as extreme as hardcore gets sonically. Let's be real,
like they are one of the most violence having hardcore bands ever pure on the
son level, but him getting to kind of like explore death metal with like
a bunch of very like skilled musicians. I dug that first record was it
wasn't like it wasn' gonna change one, but I didn't expect it to wy.
I kind of just thought it was gonna be a fun, like cut
loose side project. So I was fine with, Well that was, But
I can see how on this one they have come back and it is more
fully formed and it does feel a bit more well realized. The ideas now
yeah, I agree with what you're saying in the first record in that,
like the album was about the level I would usually expect from a kind of
supergroup side project that rarely equates to like, hell yeah, this will be
as good as Converge, you know. Like, I didn't think it was
the standout death note a release of its year or anything, but I enjoyed
it quite a lot. And you know, I liked that got in and
out in a blast actually, and a couple of tracks on it like kind
of the mad start of returning to zero. They did stay around in my
head light of death. I am mainly struck by how much more they have
decided to kind of like attach onto the project because as a death metal album,
first of all, again I detected this on the first record, but
it has this kind of rabid hardcore inspired intensity. This has a different atmosphere
around it than most death metal that I might bring onto the show, right,
I don't think Jake in it. While he again he clearly likes death
metal, has an interest in it, I don't think Jake Bannon has it
in him to write songs about zombies, you know, yeah, or like
particularly go for that kind of horror movie, you know, death like atmosphere
of the crypt that a lot of more typical and great for it, you
know, death metal typifies. Even the cover art here, I wouldn't guess
that's the death metal album, you know, I would guess metal core I
take a part on this, But it has that kind of like slightly air
of class to it, Like, yeah, it's got this kind of stark
ultra modernness about it that does feel more like it's come from you know,
guys from the outside with a different perspective, having a gu rather than you
know, someone who's like a you know, died in the world, like
hell yeah, I'm gonna be in fucking Witch Vomit or one of those bands,
And that kind of translates to a lot of the record in some surprising
ways. Uh. Leave of Absence starts with these like escalating horror score strings,
but then it goes into this like tight grinding, kind of dissonant and
it's got that kind of gleam to it, but while being really scary.
And there's a breakdown in there as well, where which is where you go,
Okay, yeah, like X Hate Breed, the Red Cord types,
Yeah, that's where the riff thing is kind of fundamentally in their minds more
than like Morbid Angel, you know. I mean even though when when the
riffs probably kick in on leave absence and they're like, they're very stabby in
that kind of like discordant metalcore hardcore kind of thing that I obviously am all
over, and you can see they're trying to kind of like mix some kind
of like blast beats and other kind of more typically death metal sounds. But
it does it does feel like this is a hardcore band playing at death metal.
I do. I do sort of. I couldn't go like death cor
or anything like that, but you can feel that's where the sort of feeling
county they just I guess what it is. They're trying to do that,
but make it darker and a bit more. We can kind of like feel
more alarmed with death metal. But you're right, it's not full of light
crawling out of the cripreaking of death. Yeah. I mean, there are,
like, unmistakably there are full on death metal refs on it that would
you know, like belief of belief, crashing death metal riff that opens belief
of obsolstely it's wicked, yeah, that's like, that's the kind of riff
that you don't hear at all on say a converged record. So like hearing
jak against that is really cool and really fresh. And again I love that
kind of twisting gurgling because I like death metal. You know that's in there.
I think this record goes more from the first record was maybe more that
kind of tribute to things that they like. This has kind of evolved their
interpretation of it so that maybe there are those slightly more idiosyncratic elements that don't
feel so death metal kind of coming in and again like Belief is Obsolete,
that's a pitstirra for sure, it's catchy. It's got a suffocation breakdown part.
That's good stuff. I like that same energy in clear Cutter, where
again it's got that kind of vocal hooks assembled with a hardcore mindset. That
group vocal of cut them down, cut them down, but it's riding on
like a death metal groove. But again, those are basically the bits I
liked about the first album. Those are the representations of that here. The
record ends up being like a lot wider in scope than you would have kind
of envisioned from that first of all, I think there was a good variety
in just the heaviness. They've not just kind of adopted one lane of like
a death metal or grindcore riff. There's a few cases of like oh that
goes into a you know, a particular feeling like I like the kind of
punky early nineties Napalm death riff in Anti Spirit Machine, which has got a
really good chorus as well, kind of a stomper. And then Reality in
Retrograde is like a fifty five second nasom song or something they jump around.
Twenty twenty Vision has this like vaguely nostalgic metal core riff. It's like a
mix of integrity and the kind of earlier rawer metallic hardcore flavored lamb of Gold
material, but just with a little bit of a kind of bolt thorough filter
throwing it as well. And those again you can feel those things coming together
just in the purely aggressive tracks. Yeah, No, it doesn't like just
constantly do one thing like Anspeit Machine that that is one where it's like I
didn't got you in with that the name from death Thing that that's a grindcore
song just straight up isn't it? Like they they they mix it around like
again clear cutter like kind of just chugs along just like very violently, but
there are like other moms, they will take turns into more dramatic, atmospheric
moves. So it like whether they're just doing the purely heavy stuff and again
mixed up on that they this is an album that sort of sits anywhere for
too long and has time to saw gros Stelle. Yeah, but then there
are the elements that were completely unforeshadowed from the first record where you start to
I started to think, oh, like I'm not sure I entirely know what
the picture of this project is anymore, because it was sold as you know,
like death metal band, and now it's kind of evolving into this like
different, experimental, less genre Confine Beast more in the line of some of
more their main bands, Velvet Black, Black On. Basically, Yeah,
that's the one. Is it like complete wild card? Like that is one
where it's it's for the first couple of songs, Bannon's kind of sits in
one range of his vocals, like and so I was gonna is he not
doing like the more like weird kind of goggle screams and just kind of doing
that more sort of thing, and then they were black. He goes into
this like droning, clean vocal and like it it isn't like a definite song,
and then you get that final night seconds that big rift drops and it
is like, oh cool, that's where that patient build has been leading leading
us up to. But it is it is a really different turn on the
record. Yeah, it's got this like droning, kind of brooding guitar tone,
not miles off of it. I think like some of the moodiest tracks
on stuff like I Am King, that's kind of a bit of that in
it. But again, Jacob suddenly adopts this like baritone goth croon and it's
one of the standout tracks on the record. It's kind of a centerpiece for
it. But is a moment where I go like, O get the creative
track for this band kind of feels like it's been torn up a bit and
now I'm like you, I don't really know where this could go. And
I do think this record has a slightly more collage like effects, like it's
kind of I found it harder to pin down kind of a vibe of what
it's really trying to EVOKEE and Create. It's fifteen tracks long, and after
Velvet Black, you kind of feel like anything could sort of veer off anywhere.
It doesn't necessarily happen so dramatically until Cause and Effect, which has like
classical guitar into this like very twisted, you know, not quite together or
write kind of sludge crawl, doomy sort of yeah guitar harmony. But it
was a real like kind of you know, they've introduced elements in there that
I'm sort of like almost like on edge waiting for where it could go.
Yeah, no, I think, I mean, like that's why I quite
like about Sioniest was that it felt like just then like kind of having the
core of like definitely being the kind of like yugos of it, but then
feel like they can branch out and experiment a little more of it and just
try some different things that like again I mean Bannon doing the kind of goth
creon that like is on a lot of twitching tongue things, feels like that's
almost like a meeting of that their their kind of song, their sort of
projects coming together onto like Velvet Black, So it's it just feeling like the
sort of the poor of their own projects got meeting on this. Yeah,
I think, you know, at its kind of very high, highest level.
I don't think this is like as dramatically better than Shadow of Life than
maybe some kind of areas of kind of Lady to Believe. I think I
don't think they've gotten noticeably better at writing death metal songs than they were like
four years ago. They were already pretty good at that. I think it's
just this album does more, you know, it has more different things to
offer. That kind of means it's standing out a bit more for people,
and they are you know, they're different experiences because, like I said,
I kind of liked that the first album was so like a cut throat and
efficient like that thing just rips by this album like almost doubling its length,
you know, fifteen tracks. I think there are moments on this where I
look at the track it's like, damn, how far out of this into
it? You know, it's kind of introduced the room to do that.
I mean, some of those tracks go by, like the Blink for a
Night to be fair, sure, but I mean, you know, fifteen
songs, forty five minutes is noticeably bigger than where they were like twenty five
minutes. I think it's a little top heavy. I think a track like
Cause and Effect, it feels like it could reach a natural end there,
and then there's like four more tracks. Although I do like that the album
basically ends on a massive extended slam. But I think it's a fine record.
I think it's a bit more bloated than the first one, but it
also has more variety and ambition, I guess to counter at that, Yeah,
I think I think that's a fair point. I mean, I really
like this again, just for how the sort of different turns it takes,
where even at forty five minutes, I didn't find myself kind of like looking
at the clock and wondering, like, because I saw it was fifteen tracks,
I thought, oh, that's going to be a blot. But then
because the tracks I have ever moved by really quickly or going really interesting directions,
I was totally on board with each little turn it took. Yes,
next up we are moving into our kind of black metal sege of the underground.
Unusually, I think that's the most accessible and immediate of the bunch.
The populist pick this time. So if that's pizzer interest, it comes from
Rotten Christ and their album is called pro Christou Greek black metal's biggest ever band,
a legendary scene in the black metal underground of the twentieth century, alongside
Norway or Brazil, as we've spoken about in our Sepultury special. And with
that comparison, Rotten Christ are very much the sepulturer of Greece. They are
the band who broke out and defined it for the largest audience. There has
always been a comparative cap on Rotting Christ's achievable success because they are called Rotten
Christ. But if you look past that and you know that uncompromising monika,
born of the kind of you know, confrontation of the nineties black metal scene,
it makes everyone think about them like the final word in necro It's the
way people talk about like dying Fetus for the death metal scene is oh yeah,
Rotting Christ. I have long said now that Rotten Christ really have become
like black metal for a modern math fans or you know, like anything from
arch Enemy to Behemoth to modern day Creator to be bor Gear, like anything
that has that kind of crunching heavy metal with an anthemic you know, knack
for like euro Melody, the band rotten. Christ have been for like about
half their career at this stage is one of the most like soaring, inspiring,
rousing on the extreme side heavy metal bands on the planet. Sam as
someone who I imagine has been at least in passing aware of their kind of
you know, most recent output is that where you kind of put them as
well. Well, like I've never really gone dimmore in Christ because I've got
bits of them, but I was going, like I always have that,
like, oh they're ek and they never memorials. Oh no, no they're
not. And then when I hit plan on this, I had to kind
of like do that readjustment again. Oh no, wait no what Christ?
Aren't that band that you keep thinking they are the different? Yeah? This
took like this album took a moment of adjustment for me to really actually kind
of wrap my head around and settle into But when I did, melodically right
hark me, they're good, Like like this isn't like blistering, like terrifying
black metal that like he's gonna like rip your face off, He's gonna blast
all the time. The opening track just sounds so imperious. It is huge.
It is like majestic, it's stomping along. He's just kind of naming
demons and shit, I swear like, but like it is, this is
as like grand and like epic white ross metal con sound without going fully symphonic
metal. To me, this is like because it is like purely like kind
of blackened heavy metal whatever, but sounds like the biggest widescreen thing you could
possibly imagine. Yeah, there's some choirs and stuff in there, but essentially
what you're describing is what Rotten Christ have made their like territory for the last
like number of years. That just to go back to that kind of the
Greek black metal scene of the nineties, it's maybe something that you know,
maybe like we don't in Brazil. We could talk about it a little bit
more at some point, but it really it's straight away it developed its own
character away from like northern Europe, and even back in the nineties when it
was like, you know, more raw and more necro and more you know,
noticeably black metal, there was this like slightly more like Man of War
based fist pumping metal sensibility to some of it, with this kind of comparative
warmth in the guitars, you know, and if Norwegian black metal makes you
think of like vikings and church burnings. Greek black metal can be like hot
lights and spartans and like that is so like yeah, all that surface level
mental imagery. And in the twenty first century, Rotten Christ have taken that
kind of thing and like ran with it. You look at the painting they've
used for the cover art on this record, and they make music that feels
like a kind of an epic view of the ancient world. Yeah, it
can be the sound like the original God of War trilogy, like yeah,
and you don't kill zeus to this, like for sure, And they're at
a stage now where this is like the sixth record that's kind of exploring this
particular kind of feel. They remind me a little bit of Catatonia, where
they used to be quite a chameleonic band. They evolved quite a lot over
the first bit of their career and really refused to stay still and we're really
kind of creatively fearless band. And now in the latter half of their career
they've settled into a groove and records are more kind of different shades of the
same thing, kind of a similar time frames Catatonia as well. They both
arrived at that sort of general theme in the kind of mid to late noughties,
but also despite staying still a lot more, they've produced like some of
the very best records in their career exploring those things. I'm personally immensely fond
of their twenty ten's run, the one that's in Greek and the following one
Rituals are among my favorite records, And I thought, you know, it's
been a long time since we actually reviewed a Rotten Christ record. On a
record like this, I think you can sway a few more people to check
them out, and it'll be worth it, because even by Rotten Christ standards,
this one feels like they've tried to go huge, like to have the
Heretics basically again utilized a lot of the same tools, but I think thematically
it had a slightly darker, occasionally claustrophobic kind of feel to it. This
album. You know that mental scene at the end of the last Indiana Jones
movie where he goes back in time, Yeah, and he's flying like a
World War two play and over like the Siege of Syracuse, And it was
like the stupidest part of the movie, but it was also easily the most
fun part. This record makes me feel like I'm doing that. Like this
thing has this like wonderful wide screen you're standing before some great vista of some
great battle plays out the through line to the record, where again they take
their up very very seriously. And this record is about kind of ancient pagan
historical figures like across the world who resisted the expansion of Christianity into their kingdoms.
And it's kind of atmospherically it has this like pre biblical ancient feel.
But you mentioned that first track where he's shouting out the names of Middle it
Hadesbalba, but it's like all like the different cultures and places of the world
they're gonna like visit on the album to come, you know. And it
has that like just like low end drums reading you for battle fully war like
yeah, no, like the point where I was like, oh this is
it feels like it could be quite one temper of this album. But because
it's always so huge sounding, it's constantly stirring something in you. And that's
even before you get to the lead guitar. Basically like well, I was
gonna like I never found myself kind of like getting like bored of how like
it can be a bit one pace, but because there is just a majesty
to the sound that they are conjuring up, whether it's in the guitars that
like the vocals, which can be again range from the kind of bit of
a black metal croak to full on booming narration, it's always just commanding your
attention. Yeah, I mean you mentioned sort of the one pace thing.
Rotten Christ have a very like, very particular distinct style of riffing that they've
developed on these records, and they are kind of it's very like simplesticks stripped
down to kind of the essentials kind of riffing, and sometimes, you know,
they kind of get away with recycling themselves at sometimes because it's very distinct
to them. Most songs will kind of, you know, inhabit a particular
tempo for most of the whole thing. But again, the apostate of the
first song, the riff just immediately has this kind of like smack on every
single beat that does not real gallop to it, Like, yeah, it's
immediately kind of locks you in. It sounds like a fucking like a troop
of infantry all beating their shields like on every single pushing it forward, and
it's for me. They do these you know, unbelievably simplified but irresistibly primal
kind of riffs like that, and then they elevate that simplicity with these enormous
melodies, whether it's from the guitars or you know, off these kind of
really big choral parts like it again, the Aposta again, but you've got
that kind of foundation and then suddenly you're like off to the racers, but
these absolutely again. I hoped I thought you would really like Rotten Christ because,
like I said, it's you know, On and Marf Modern Creator just
huge anthemic but like hard and heavy but huge sounding heavy metal. I think
it's that's I think like if those clean guitar parts or choral parts whatever weren't
so good, I would maybe think you could find this a bit dull.
But because they're always coloring it like with something interesting, and again, like
as simplistic as the riffs can be, they are, you're right, they
are regimented and hard hitting. That combined with those apps like like I say,
genuinely like gorgeous guitar melodies that just soar over this, it is just
a really like like just uplifting, inspiring listening the way that you're right,
big, commanding heavy metal should be. Yeah, the guitar lines, because
they often based songs around, like again, a single tempo, there's a
very like unobstructed quality to the guitar lines. It's like they're just really let
those take the limelight, and there's a very like intentional, elegant simplicity to
all of what they're doing, and they repeat the melody, so they kind
of glue themselves in your head. The main guitar Meldian like Father like Son
is so fucking huge again like sort of like outdoorsy, like I feel that
and like I hear that, and my soul just kind of you know,
goes away with it. The Farewell has this like really beautiful, repetitive,
kind of hypnotic gothy riff and then to kind of again lock you into that
head nodding tempo gets bigger and wider. Vocally again, if you're used to
black metal having that very shrill, off putting approach to delivery, that's not
really Rotten Christ's bag anymore. Instead, Sakis he does this thing that's very
hard for anyone to imitate because he just kind of commandingly shouts and yells in
his own like immediately identifiable voice. I mean, there's there's the odd little
bit of that more kind of short black male vocal, but there's quite a
few different vocal proaches and those bits where he's just shouting in that way.
Again, it is attention and like again a lot of it is is in
Greek, so like that that again kind of like adds like a cool feeling
to the atmosphere of like the stories being told, even if like again no
entirely what the lyrics are, that there is a like conviction and just like
sound, like like just a tone to his delivery that makes it feel like
you are listening to this wise elder telling you these like like epic tales.
Yeah, they utilize spoken word as well, and it's like you might as
well because your front man is Sakis Tollis, who has again this like unbelievably
heavy Greek accent, and he just has this insane level of gravitars. The
intro of the Sick Day is the most Greek thing I've ever heard in my
life. He just goes on the stick day, a created man rhyth kicks
in and it's like it's it's so cheesy that no one else could get away
with it. But his voice, like you say, it's so authentically sounds
like like a wise old king from like myth or history or something. Yeah,
and even again there's some you know, quite memorable slightly broken English that
just makes it feel all the more maximum European pretty world. Pretty diyes with
a massive tune, you know, and there's a huge, like folky choir
singing that title. My favorite bit is in Yigdrasil. There is this like
mental breakdown section where he goes wolf time, wild time, act time,
sword time. It's like so fully like chest beating one hundred in the spirit
of that song, but it's amazing, like, yeah, I know that's
that's a bit nonsense called, but the conviction of the delivery is like,
yes, it is sword time, it is wolf time, wild time.
And again I mentioned the farewell that starts with that she is dead before like
the whole thinkings and it just that it really puts you in the zone.
My favorite track on this record is Le letter A del Diavolo, which uses
this wonderful again, the elegant basicness of it kind of goes back and forth
between these verses, which is just very like constant forward motion upwards and onwards,
uses a blast beep in that very militaristic, regimented way, and then
the chorus opens up with That was the one with the chorus, and that
really hit me and I was like, oh, Yeah. The choir in
the her Lulujah, it's so fucking epic, you know. And the way
they use like female vocals and opera singers often in the kind of the back
of the mix just going fucking feral somewhere. It creates this incredible sense of
place and drama. And there's things is it like the farae has this kind
of like droning sort of like thing going on underneath the ristuy. It feels
like you've like throat singing going on at points as well, and like all
of those little bits of just whatever kind of backing vocal they decide to bring
in, right, it just adds so much to the drama at any given
moment. Yeah, the closing track, Sirchia, there are so many like
choirs and voices in there. It feels like an entire civilization showing up to
belt hail freedom from the rooftops. It's sensational, and again then that song
really has a very pure head in that le gallop from there, which is
really nice. That feel was like every song they've kind of added more voices
to the choir, and by then we're on the closing track and they've got
everyone, like everyone that whole shout freedom hook bit is like unbelievably huge,
and I'm just like God that that Again. That's why I was like,
no, I could not like this, because they are just like that speaksman
and that we're all just like, ah, this is what heavy metal is
like, really powerful, stirring moment and so much like genuine heart and belief
in the sentiment they're kind putting across there. And I can't imagine anyone who
likes heavy metal not on some deep instinctive level kind of chining with these minute
melodies in the guitars and feeling, you know, not being taken away by
this. That's why I like to review Rotten Christ Records because I do feel
like there are so many people out there who don't know that they like Rotten
Christ because they're a black metal band called Rotten Christ. But you put it
in front of them, they'll be like whoa, what the shit is this?
Because that there are some like more like old school underground Rotenchrist fans who
at this stage I think are a bit kind of tired of the band like
repeating themselves a bit and kind of utilizing that simplistic approach so often. But
I think this is like one of, if not their most accessible record ever.
Like it's this one just feels so designed to be like rousing and chest
beating and huge sounding, and that they're so barely find by typical black metal
at this point. Let's be honest, if you don't like black metal at
all, but you just like Iron Maiden and shit like that, you should
listen to this record. It's just like quite you know, grandiose epic metal
of a really high quality. Yeah, I think that that is just it
is like I didn't even look at this as a black metal album. Really,
this is just big, powerful, epic heavy metal that is just bizarrely
catchy and really stirring. Yeah, they're playing the Bloodstock main stage and these
songs gonna sound so good in the sun, you know what I mean.
So that is pro Christy from Rotting Christ. And we finish with Julie Christmas
and her album which has maybe my favorite title of any album so far this
year apart maybe the Ulcerate one actually, but Ridiculous and full of Blood,
the July Christmas album she has in the last well, I guess eight years
since it was a particular album came out, it's kind of become a figure
that we all kind of know and refer to if you're at all into things
like post metal or sludge metal, post rock, et cetera. But sometimes
it's kind of hard to pin down a specific starting point or I think she's
known for in her own right. This is her new solo album, but
it's because her catalog has been scattered. To be a Judy Christmas fan,
you kind of have to spread yourself over a few projects, which is why
when Mariner happened her collaborative effort with Cottle Luna, it felt like she kind
of been around a while because she had, but she suddenly broached this massive
new audience. And you know, since then, I have become a big
fan of most things Judy Christmas related. But Marina was indeed my first kind
of exposure to her, in part because she hadn't produced a massive quantity of
work in the few years preceding it. She tends to take quite a long
time to produce these records. Sam, you also kind of introduced to the
Christmas the first time through through Mariner. What's your kind of you know,
considering we both saw her live at Damnation Festival last year as well, and
she was performing stuff from kind of all over the catalog, what's your kind
of I guess, you know, interpretation of Julie Christmas as a as a
kind of artist generally before we go into you know, this record, well,
it's only going to suddenly go into a marine. I cuddly found it
really hard to know where to go next because it was there was no clear
kind of like this is the Julie Christmas discogfree because're right, it was so
scattered, of course, all of these various projects. So I was like
never kind of like settled in and did a deep dive into anything because of
that, because it was like like difficult, and I've caught bits and piece
of it, and then like I was like I should find the time to,
you know, go back to the first Yuchrist and kind of work way
through. But when it got to a point where I was like I knew
this new album was coming. I was like, right, this will be
a kind of like good part to sort of centering on this and then really
start to branch out and explore every part of Julie Christmas rather than the little
bits of each thing I've heard. Yeah, and she's kind of just this
mad pixie queen of post metal who is like everywhere and nowhere. She's become
known for this like unbelievable voice and stage presence, but the material that she
actually produces is you know, sparse and as I say, scattered across various
projects. Yeah. To get to this point, her second solo album just
released under her own name. The first one was The Bad Wife, was
released in twenty ten. So if you are thinking, oh, I must
have missed the first one, because it was for fucking forever ago, you
know she was. She fronted the terrifying sludgy noise rock band made out of
babies back in the two thousands, who Were Wicked. She then fronted the
post metal supergroup A Battle of Mice, who also released a record back in
the naughties. She kind of creatively went quiet for a while. We re
emerged to a new generation and a new audience with Mariner I guess, which
unquestionably one of the best records of twenty tens, like I think, one
of the true ten out of ten that we will remember that decade for I
think, yeah, well again like defining albums of that era for sure.
Yeah, it real one of like the most significant artistic achievements in metal of
that particular decade. That collaboration with Cool Luna has, I guess, to
some extent kind of informed what she's done since because Johanna's person from Cottle Luna
has been playing in her life band as we saw at Damnation Festival. He
also features on this record. The gestation of this record has, you know,
formulated on its own kind of time frame, because it's been so long
ago that she did anything else. I don't think it bears too much thought
necessarily trying to pick like which of her last products. This kind of sounds
most like. There are parts of it that are reminiscent of Marina and will
kind of please people who craved a bit more on that. There are parts
of it that are more akin to her last Earlo record, The Bad Wife.
This is basically like if you only know Judy Christmas from Mariner and you
don't know what her own music sounds like. It's kind of a mixture of
like post metal and slightly more immediate sludge noise rock. Because it is so
rare that we get a record with her on I really save her getting to
hear her voice. She is one of a kind, and there are some
fantastic songs on this where she gets to you know, squirm away around them.
I mean, that's my thing with this is that like I don't even
know how to kind of describe this album. Is it feels like a real
kind of of a kind just experience with this album because a as a vocalist,
she is quite unlike anyone else in a lot of ways. But again,
sonically, it like like you don't even know where it's gonna go because
it is is it noise, is it postmail? Is it sludge? There's
even like bits of like industrial, little touches of like I guess you could
say all rock on there, like even like the odd kind of bit of
like one track has almost like synth poppy kind of touches there is. It's
a really kind of vast sounding album, but the whole thing is just this
caked in this sense of unease and darkness from the moment you hit play that
just makes this like, I really like, I think this album is fucking
incredible, but it is an intense listen. Yeah, I think it's kind
of a perfect reintroduction, to be honest, because you know, if you
know Julie Christopher from Mariner, or if you're just coming in now and you've
never heard her before, I don't think you need to be all that familiar
with like all her prior work to get this. I think there's something excellently
you know, fresh about this. It's a forty two minute noisy record that
does take you to a number of different terrains, a very kind of mercurial
sensibility to it. The first single, not Enough, opens with this like
amazing kind of clattering you know, sticks on the edge of a snare drum
rim or something kind of spookiness and this really inventive, like hooky, weirdo
guitar line. You're in such a kind of strange space before Julie comes in,
and her voice is like one of such a pure performer and I don't
mean that in a performative you know, fake put you on a character way,
but her delivery is all about the personality that is crafted and carried across
rather than like following a strict rule book of like this is how you know,
technically melodically this has to go. Just as she is on stage on
record, she becomes this like unwavering focal point of fixation. Yeah. Absolutely,
because again singing or screeching or like doing that weird kind of like I
don't want to say like squeaky, but like kind of like having almost like
childlike inflection to it. Everything. It is so dialed up, but it
feels like it's kind of like just naturally whatever's coming at her at that moment.
She's not like putting it on. She's just she'll be singing and then
she'll just have to start screeching because that's where the emotion has taken her at
that exact moment. So there's like one of the songs where she's like singing
like the like she'll be singingly quiet and then then she'll just start shrieking that
ound where the line is about screaming, and she'll just go with it.
But it could be cliche, but it works so authentically because it feels just
like that's where the emotion took her at that exact moment. Absolutely, she
definitely she kind of, you know, the the emotion of any given moment
dictates the flow of where she takes her voice. I mean, over the
first minute of that first song, it reaches this point where it kind of
you know, dissipates, and she does this kind of you know, whispers,
this kind of I have not yet begun to defile myself. That's the
one where again that I was like, okay, cool, right, we're
in and then instead of a next line after that, she just kind of
hums, just gonna goes in this very scary way, and it's like you've
walked into like the web of a black widow or something that's kind of gearing
up to snack on you. She's just endlessly compelling on this record, and
you know, you can just say this is one of the best vocal performances
of twenty twenty four, particularly in the extreme end, and you don't really
have to justify it that much, like it's just kind of evident. She
is one of those completely idiosyncratic gods of her art form, the way you
can always say about Mike Pattern or like Mayor James Keenan or whatever. She
can elevate just about anything, but also helps that she has here at her
disposal a really interesting, dynamic set of tunes and it's still catchy. I
think this is the thing that might surprise people. This record is like probably
more immediate and inaccessible than something like Mariner because it's it's ten tracks long,
most of them four between kind of three in about five and a half minutes,
and they follow, you know, readily available song strutches at the time,
Julie and her fucked up kind of way actually deliver some real choruses.
Supernatural has been stuck in my head. It's this kind of strange track,
but it anchors itself on a Supernatural and it's like a very emotive release of
all those things that are swirling together in that song. But it is catchy.
Yeah. I think something like Thin skin Like feels like quite immediate,
compactive. Where again it's just kind of like very all over the place,
but she is delivering like hooks and just kind of like the album is built
on like what is me? Like? This album you could say it's avant
garde, but it's not. Again, it's not like a difficult listen like,
it's not an easy listen because it is so dark, but it's not
one where I'm just like left kind of scratching my head at song structures,
kind of wishing they would just settle down and extends the hand for you to
kind of take it and enter it. Yeah, it lets you in on
the darkness and as long as you can go along with the mood of the
record, it's not like sonically actually an uncompromising, punishing listen. Yeah,
Texturally it's a very interesting record. Her main collaborator over the years has been
John LaMacchia from the band Candiria, but as well, Johanna's person involved,
you know, kind of in the band on this one, I'm I'm interested
in how you might be. On the composition front. They put together some
very you know, sonically enrapturing spaces to explore together. The ash almost sounds
like a kind of like alien voice or something as like the foundation for the
whole song. It's like the sound of being made of lights might make you
know, it's weirdly hypnotic and beautiful, maybe more of like a heavy shoegaze
feel than the kind of all melt you know, Nightmare Destruction on that one,
even in the way Julie kind of layers her voice to create this kind
of cushion of voices around you, you know. Yeah, No, the
ash is one where it's like like that isolated start. It's hard not to
feel a little unsettled by it because it's how unconventional it is. But why
like builds up on this there's like she has like a weird and rambling tone,
but again it is, it's not off putting. And the song,
like the drums kind of like collapsing around the guitars that they're building, and
you got those like weird backing oohs that are really ghostly. They're just coustantly
adding in textures that just make every song feel so rewarding and interesting. Yeah,
and then you've got thin Skin, which you meant which has more of
a kind of like a helmet or like quicksand or something kind of noise rock.
Yeah, you know, riff and it's a real you know, it's
a rocker, you know. Again, the bassis in the Bandish Assembled is
from Ken Mode and an unsane and ironically thick bass groove on that, and
you've got the song blast towards the end as well, which is like one
minute fifty nine seconds of this like really like maddened, queasy, seasick noise
rock rhythm Blast is like the weirdest one for me because it's like you've got
like panic chords going on, you've got this like big sludge of it,
but then you've got that like that thing. It is so again it just
sounds that they shouldn't go together, and it does just make it like a
weird kind of unsetting thing. But it is again this like really hard hitting
kind of sludge rock song at the end of the record that like does kick
off, but it just has like this childlike mocking thing going on at the
same time. Yeah, but I think it's one thing that this does that
you know, quite a lot of noise rock records, if you wanted to
call this that do not necessarily have. Is that really again that kind of
kind of the the immersive sort of factor around the you know, more kind
of laid back stretches stuff like Silver Dollars where she kind of delivers that childlike
wordless thing that she does, but it chimes in with that really idiosyncratic sort
of key sound or whatever that is. It's so transportative and that that song
it has this kind of rage that also dissipates into this like Haunted Mournfulness Kids
is a really brilliant one later on as well, which is like it's one
of the shortest songs. It's under three minutes and it's if you want to
hear what someone like Judy Christmas would do with the song, that's like,
what the fuck do you even call it? Like a punk lullaby or something
that's like it's music there. There is that kind of like synth pop kind
of brightness to it, but it is again just over this like you're right
punk lullaby where the vocals take on that childlike tone again, it's it's like
could be quite twee, but the way she does it is again just that
little bit unsettling. It's a really cool again, just like completely one of
a kind on the album track. Yeah, this happens on record like this
where you get a song and you go, what the fuck is that?
Like how did they find that combination of sounds? Like what you know,
what is that in the production to create that? And that come to me
hook that she does against those like instrumental melodies are just like other world and
again, it's like you're in a kind of like an alien nursery or something.
It's so unique if you are a Mariner fan, I think it's obviously
end of the world. That's really gonna jump out the same piece of the
album, isn't it for a reason, Like, yeah, I guess you
know where Julie and johannas from Cottle Luna they do vocals together once again.
But also you know he's just instrumentally, Wow, that track has some fucking
heft to it. It's got this like gorgeous almost like a Western edge or
something at the beginning. And then similarly to what we're saying about her voice,
the kind of whole thing moves with the kind of ebb and flow of
her voice in intensity. So when it's quiet, it's really delicate and beautiful.
But when it's roaring again, it's got like an undeniably cult of Luna
sq guitar riff that kind of accompanies Johannah's part, Julie hitting that main hook
of that just wanted to see you again and again. Yeah, he's so
like Death Britain, fraught and emotional and just fucking powerful. It's that and
it's when when the Jason's back at the end and you've got the two of
them going at it against each other. It's just like it's hard not to
get swept on. I mean that song, I think like Johannahs whenever he
comes in, he is like that is the heaviest sound in the universe.
Like his vocal is like unbelievable. He does. And the way they that
again they do let the music match up to him and go to that really
earthy, heavy, guttural coldla sound. But again it's how they don't just
do that, and they let that song then retreat back in and have the
moments of like delicacy and that that light and shade. It's so like so
like beautifully arranged, and again like that main hook is like just pause on
your emotions so hard. Yeah, And there's the strange layer of keyboards or
choirs or something in and around her, which makes that chorus sound like it's
being delivered in a tunnel of ghosts or something. Sensational song the Lighthouse,
as well as that kind of real supreme slow burn kind of melancholy to it.
It's it's so good. If you've never heard anything of Juni, Christmas
is I think you just dive head first into this one like it's It's incredibly
immediate for a post metal record. It's highly dynamic, it takes you to
a lot of territories. It's got one of the like ten best heavy vocalists
on the planet being an absolute dynamo over it. Yeah, no, I
think this is This is one of those ams that like it is like having
you want for this because it is dark, challenge this thing. But like
again, I just found it to be a pretty straightforward listening in a lot
of ways, which kind of condish I saying about how like harsh and dark
it can be. But because of how incredible her vocals are and how the
songs are written to be straightforward songs in a lot of the cases that just
do interesting things. It's such a like, right, it's such a perfect
jumping in point if you've gone you've done Mariner, but you've never been sure
where to go next. This feels like like again this one, I'm a
guy like like as a July because Athm this is the first one I've listened
to in its entirety, and it feels like I've got a much more rounded
picture of what she is now and I can kind of branch the into those
other projects. Yeah, welcome back, Judy Christmas please again. Eight years
since Mariner, fourteen years since the last actual solo album. Hopefully this has
a little bit more of a kind of, you know, period of creative
bountifulness. This might begin ridiculous and full of blood. We were going to
review the new Ulcerat album as well, but we're going to save that for
one when Win Elliott is back with us. So that is it. Thank
you very much for being here with us and listening. Let us know.
I guess you've probably already let us know your thoughts on to bring me out
in the form of that little poll I did, but everything else here like
let us know what you are vibing with. Do check out some of these
acts if you've not heard them before, and we will be back with another
you know, bunch of cool stuff in a few weeks with one of these
more immediately next week, Sam is you know about to depart for the territories
of Manchester for Outbreak Festival, So if that is where you are also going,
then have a love time. Next week we will get the lowdown from
that and uh, like I said, that's it, so thank you very
much for being with us. We'll see you next time. Rest in peace,
fifty shell shock and yeah bye bye