Hello everybody, and welcome back to That's Not Metal and welcome back to the
Big Review Rhymes and all. We are, of course, your weekly rock
and heavy metal podcast. As the title they're just sort of suggested, we
are here today talk through some of the most interesting, most high profile,
maybe most slightly going under the radar as well records that are coming your way
over you know, these kind of a few weeks in the middle of July
that we are looking at right here, and we have some other to talk
about as well. So thank you being here. My name is Parenhiesh.
Sam Dignon is here. Elliott Paisley is also back here on the podcast.
I think the last time you were here when we were like finishing up the
Sepultura Special like a month ago. So hello, what you been up to?
Mainly grilling is Oh? Is it big barbecue Summer? Oh? I've
gotten so into it, which I do wonder color some of the reviews.
But if my music tastes seems irre, irregulably different from now, it's because
most off is done. Most of stuff I listened to now is with the
barbecue grill. So if I suddenly start liking you know less than Jake.
That's that's why. Yeah, you were the ultimate grill master and I guess
you know I'm My mind jumps to like some of the couple like end of
the show here reviews, we're doing not optimum barbecue music. Maybe a barbecue
in your underwear to see Queen who Knows. I was a couple of shows
over the last week. I went to see Grave Miasthma, which, let
me tell you talking about not optimum barber key music. Gravemy Asthma, who
are one of the most kind of you know, influential underground death metal bands
from about sort of ten years ago. They were doing a set where they
were playing like their first couple of EPs and first album only, but it
was in the weirdest venue, which is Satan's Hollow in Manchester, which is
not only a string sort of in the round venue because it's just a stage
in the middle of a club floor, but also because it is like a
club. They don't seem to be able to change the lights from like Rainbow
Rave Mode watching Grave of Asthma, do that not the correct atmosphere for very
deathly death metal. Then a couple nights ago I went to see Alkaline trio,
which was very very nice. Indeed, they came out, you know,
they were wearing their wearing their nice suits. It was way too hot,
as most things currently are. And is it atom the dun Willard.
Yeah, he was wearing like a like a black shirt with like a red
tie on, very you know, kind of American idiot three cheers coded.
But let me tell you that black shirt was absolutely slick. By about like
the quarter mark of the set. It was gross in there. But Alcal
and Tria we were very good, open with hot for preacher with that what
and then straight into We've had enough. So that was fucking cool. Turns
out like because I'd never seen Alklentrier before comes out weiber like because that's the
kind of the thing with them now as a live band. I was going
to mention that he sounded good to me, and you know, I've not
heard any complaints on this particular run, but he sounded good. And you
know, I looked back at like a video I took and I was like,
yeah, he sounds pretty solid there, So you know, maybe he's
in a kind of better period right now. I think seems to be going
well for them there. Well, because I saw like twice, like like
you in a bit ago a couple months apart, or like two years ago.
Now good times weird, but and one time he was great, in
the next time it was awful. So I just think it is just like
what extent the tories out or something, but that that's the kind of the
make up break froma now like yeah, no he was he was fine and
the show was good. It turns out like that quite a few of what
I would consider to be the best Alkali in Tria songs are not necessarily staples
that you would see every time. So like I said, you know,
they opened really really well, but when looking at the songs they they didn't
play, it's like this could be love wasn't in there, which is one
of my absolute favorites, the Poison, uh, this addiction nothing actually,
like I was gonna say Blackbird, but nothing off of this thing is this
than Cursed, which I thought was like, you know, they had quite
fair fair off the new album, and then everything else was like Crimson or
older. Actually I think they played one from Agone and Irony but you know,
kind of two thousands or or older. So yeah, quite a few
songs I would really like to see them play. But this sounded good.
They were they were, you know, as said Skiboard, was in you
know, good, good spirits slick. They also like they had a cool
stoner rock band playing supporting them, this band called slow Mosa, And I
quite enjoyed, you know, going to a punk show as sensibly, but
seeing like a full on like you know, fu manchu Kaya style big riffstone
up. I know they're they were enjoyable as well. So yeah, that
was that was nice. More of that behavior, Yeah, and that was
where I was today. We are talking about new music, new album reviews,
and what we have got for you on this particular plate. Really you
know who says we can't be you know, dynamic or cover every corner you
imagine. We are going to talking about Scene, Queen, Speed, Speed,
Cross Faith, two hundred, Stab Wounds, ulcer Rate, Crypt Sermon,
and Blind Girls. We're just going to fly through a little bit of
news up top, most of which are album announcements. I guess I'll get
those out of the way first to kind of you know, blitz through them.
Unto others have announced their new album. They've obviously released two singles prior
already as every band seems to do now. But their new album is gonna
be called Never Never Land. It's going to be out on September twentieth,
which is about four days and three years away from to the day when they
released the last one, and it's going to be out on Century Media because
of course the road run I deal didn't you know last for whatever reason.
What's's going on there? But good stuff there on the deluxe edition. I
can see that there is a recorded version finally of the awesome pet Cemetery cover
of the ramone that they often do live, and I hope that that means
we get recorded versions of every cover that they do live, so they do
Cold Sweat and all the other stuff that's out there. But yeah, that's
coming soon. The Smashing Pumpkins can't stop release an albums. I god knows
how fucking you know many of those atom records we got out there, and
how much of it people actually kind of tuned in to listen to. I
can't remember when the last one of those came out, because it feels like
it was just a constant, you know, never ending stream of them exactly.
But they've announced a new record, which is you know, I guess
the follow up to the collective Atom Records. This one's only ten tracks long.
Wow, thank god. I love the Smashing Pumpkins. But we need
to send a Negotia into the studio or something, just like, Billy,
give me the gun. It's okay, everything's okay, because this is just
like what is it? The fifth No So Sea was a double album,
was a triple album, and then this one I think that's inside. Is
that six albums in three years. Billy, you've got a wrestling promotion to
run. Focus on that for a bit absolute buckethead behavior going on there.
But the new one is called a Gory Maury May that is going to be
out on August the second, and apparently it's a bit more of like a
rock old school looking back to some of their kind of, you know,
nineties material for inspiration. So either it's going to be a like hoot and
holler and return to what everybody loves about the Smash and Pumpkins, or it
will be very very depressing, indeed, but they can't stop. And there
it comes look into some more upcoming bands back again, Chat Pile. I've
got their new album come out, which is called Cool World. That's coming
out on October the eleventh. I guess, you know, it's two years
from the last one. It feels, you know, as a normal level
of time, but it does feel like, damn, they're coming back,
like you know, hit Striking while the eye is hot, Chap Pile are
still you know, kind of on the you know, the edge of people's
tongues a lot of time and Drug Church. I've also got a new album
which has also come out in October, and that's called Prude. Right,
the Big Rocks story, I guess it's one that, like, in a
weird way, I'm kind of loath to comment on, or at least,
you know, kind of draw down the sides on, because it's a whole
fucking thing unto itself. I don't know if anybody saw someone tried to kill
Donald Trump or recently crazy thing to you know, walked out of the cinema
seeing I think it was long Legs or something when it happened. Then I
came out and I was like, oh God, a piece of history has
happened right there. Tenacious D is where we are going for this, because
they were on tour in Australia as this happened. Kyle Gass, the other
member of Tanisous who is not the Hollywood movie star, made a joke on
stage that the guy you tried to shoot Donald Trump should not have missed.
And then immediately afterwards, particularly the kind of Australian you know, media political,
you know circle whatever, kicked up a lot of stink about it,
prompting Jack Black to essentially, from what we can see right now, put
Tenacious D on hold. The tour was immediately canceled, and he said that
all creative plans whatever have been you know, indefinitely halted. And man,
obviously this is so connected to stuff that's way, way bigger than fucking Tenacious
D. Of all bounds, Taos D are not the important part of this
story. It's just the part that relates it to us in some way,
I suppose. So, I mean, people have been you know, up
in arms about this. People have been up in armed obviously people up and
I was about Carl Gass's comments in the first place. Then loads and loads
people currently seem to be really really angry at Jack Black over like you know,
throwing his friend under the bus. Whatever, how we gonna interpret it,
I think ultimately you you can't wish murder on a no matter how much
you don't like the guy, and god knows we don't like Donald Trump at
the best of times. But you can't publicly wish murder on someone when you
in a celebrity space. Do it in your own time, I don't care,
right, but when you are like on stage, you can't do that
and not expect to face some kind of repercussions. And Jack Black is again
a very entrenched Hollywood actor who probably has some kind of damage control there to
deal with. So I'm not i don't have a stake in it. I'm
not shocked that it happened this way. I don't think it's fucking mental that
after everything that we've said about TENACIOUSD over the years, the thing that might
finally have seen Tenacious D tumble down and be vanquished from the download second stage
forever maybe is that someone tried to kill Donald Trump. Who the fuck had
that on their bing go card? There was just appeared when I was like
preparing to sort of like having to process Tenacious be Tenacious D being these shocking
provocateurs who are like causing one of that for and then we'll be like before
I could even get around to like processing that they were done. I was
like, oh, cool, jack Back is spineless, Like fine, Like,
I mean, I've just thought the whole the action has been in because
the people who are the most avage of this are the same people who will
say, like, you can't make a joke about anything, comedy's dead,
counts calorture, blah blah blah blah blah. They are that crowd who are
the ones who are now trying to be like how dare they? And like,
was the joke in bad taste? Yeah? Sure, but like if
you if you want to argue that, like you can make all your racist,
homophobic transfer jokes all the time, and then you want to get like
your panties in a bunch because one of the Tenacious d made a joke about
Trump getting shot, then you're a stupid hypocrite. But yeah, just people
went mental over this and I was like, I don't really want to get
involved. It's weird because well I was, so you left the cinema.
I was sat in the pub and I just got a text from one of
my friends in America saying I think Trump's been shot, And we were sat
there and it was that kind of you're in that weird zone with the world
could be completely different tomorrow in seventy two hours, who knows what's going to
happen. And Tenacious D disbanding was not one of the first things. Yeah,
came to mind. And you made that brilliant meme of like the guy
tipping over the dominoes, and it was like the Democratic Convention or republic convention
whatever, dot dot dot Tenacious D disband It's like, how did that events
occur? And I just the thing is, yeah, I mean, we've
all agreed it's a dumb thing to say. And Kyle Gas he's not even
tried to defend it, Like, thing is I kind of I do sympathize
to an extent because he's on stage at a kind of comedy show and he's
being expected to improvise a joke, and it's like it at the very least
it wouldn't bomb like people might ooh and boo. But that's that's at least
something. I think. The thing that gets me about this is people pretending
it's not a joke. Like like you said, it's bad timed, it's
in poor taste. It's kind of icky thing to say. But seeing like
you said, the sort of Australian pundit media pretending that he wasn't joking when
it is Kyle Gas of Tenacious D blowing out the candles on a cake,
yeah, held by a robot. And then it's like it's like it's fucking
like it's Salmon Rushty or Sam Harris or something delivering a speech at a university.
It's like, come on, let's not let's not be wilfully ignorant about
what he said. Like you can criticize what he said and if you think
it's something that shouldn't be joked about ever or whatever, you know, fair
enough, But to pretend that it was serious is that that feels kind of
delivered almost almost don't believe that you're that sort. I don't believe that culture
war bullshit. Isn't it like it's just smoking that side of things? Like
yeah, I don't want to I'm not really interested in, like, you
know, trying to pass judgment on, you know, whether the joke should
be whether Kyle gashould be you know, kicked at tenaious D or whatever,
like that's for people with far more time on their hands than I have.
I am simply marveling as I said that Tenacious D a band who have inexplicably
become, you know, one of our most consistent you know, like Wembley
Arena playing rock bands for the past like twenty years or however long you know
that they've been around. This of all things, is what, at least
in the meantime, seems to be put a halt to. I mean,
I just like, if it was gonna happen at any point, I wish
it happened before they won Mastered onto Grammy, But like I guess, now
is the time that it happens anyone else winning a Grammy. I checked out
their spotify because I liked what was Tenacious D's swan song? And it's the
Kung Fu Panda the four version of Hit the Baby One More Time, So
that comes out. Oh, I quite like that song. What happens to
that band? Oh the guitar player made a comment about the President's assassination.
Oh I see right, Okay, that's like Black Star levels of swan song,
isn't it. That's like the perfect time and everything aligns for that to
happen. Yeah, rip, maybe Tenacious D, unless they you know,
just ride out for a few months. But yeah, the latest instance of
well that happened in rock news, and I think what is potentially very interesting
for people is the Gathlight Anthem have put out a new version of their album
from last ye history Books, which they have essentially said, you know that
it's it's the fixed mix version, which no, I know you okay,
I know what you're about to say, and actually think it's it's I can
see what they're saying. So but they've basically said that the original version,
which many people Gas Anthems and you know, non Gaslan Anthem fans alike,
did kind of complain about the mixing on it and how it subdued a lot
of the material. They have said here that they were basically like that that
mix was made with the vinyl in mind, and they were very excited abou
how it sounded on vinyl, But then they agree that as it went out
on digital streaming services wasn't really what they had intended. So they put out
there so that you know, they're not reassuing on vinyl or anything because it's
not not needed. But they've put out a you know, a ramped up
sort of digital version, and you know, I've I've, shockingly I've not
been listening to that album for you know, six months straight, but I
did. I briefly did a little comparison, and I can see how,
like, you know it did you know, the the new versions as played
on Spotify did sound like, you know, a little more less like kind
of unmixed demos than the original versiment I heard was yeah, no, I
would be songs like Positive Charge, which like the more rocking stuff, they
sound a bit more driven. You can actually pick up on like little like
piano and synth touches on some of the slower songs that were kind of completely
lost in the original mix. So like there is a actual difference. I
mean, I've listened to that album so much since it came out. I
still listen a bit fairly regularly on vinyl. I have the vinyl that I
do like listening to. But there is like a noticeable defension. I don't
like it doesn't like if you didn't like the album, this is probably won't
change your mind drastically, but I can see how, yeah, the new
mix would be a bit more like for people who just want to hear an
album that sounds like an album and not a like forty year old vinyl dug
out from your nansatic like like that's what you're looking at. I think it
makes it easier for people to like, you know, yeah kind of to
again to grab onto those songs or whatever. So if you did bounce off
of you know, and you were only listened to it on stream, so
student of the Vinyl whatever he bounced off of, you know, history books
last year, I would you know, say go and listen to you know,
the new version of maybe you will like it a little bit more.
So that just leaves what we're mainly here to do before that are a quick
little plug for the Patreon, which the last thing that we have did I
mean, you know, mentioned it early with Elliott rejoining us here. The
sepulcher A Special is still going down a treat amongst the Patroon supporters, which
we're very very grateful for, huge, huge undertaking of it. Yeah,
but you know, if you are interested in the story of that band,
the artistic heights that they reached, the places they went to, there is
so much you know, Sepultury gal Law to get stuck into over on the
Patreon. The latest thing that we put up there, me and you,
sam Is. We did a little t and horror for the Little Highest here
on the Quiet Place series, which was one of those that were like,
was on our schedule for basically years. I was like, eventually we gonna
have to do that. It was always with a sort of tentative like not
only do me and you have some kind of different views on it, but
also like the internet conversation around it at large felt quite daunting for some reason,
because, like I said on the show, they're like not offensive,
like you know, particularly intellectual movies, but it's there. But I think
we did a very good crack at talking through that stuff. I mean,
I established so much I hate children apparently on this how much I hate terminally
ill people. So if you want to hear the context for that, and
you know, not cancel us for saying that, because I promise you it's
that is over there, and I can say that this coming week, in
the next few days, we should be having a guest on the show,
which we will, as you know we always do when we have guests on
the show, We'll go up there for early access for people and then follow
shortly after that. So that's what's happening there. Let's talk album reviews.
July tends to be the kind slowest month for big releases, So the big
kind of mainstream rock or metal talking point came just at the end of June.
They're kicking us off this time seeing Queen and a selection of words.
I didn't anticipate saying on this show, but here we are hot singles in
your area. Where do we start with this one? Yeah? Like,
we are absolutely the target audience we're talking about Scene Queen. Aren't we really
really digging into her album fully? Scene Queen is an artist whose name started
being bounded about a couple of years ago. Primarily her first major releases were
the Bimbo Core Volumes one and two EPs, which came out in twenty twenty
two. Three. Yeah, and Sam, you were the first person to
mention her on this podcast in a you know, brief little you know,
flighty capacity. So for anyone who is a bit like, who is this
Scene Queen person? All of a sudden, who is of everywhere? Now?
Can you explain who she is and what the vibe around her emergence was?
I mean, I guess like, so she's like a solo artist,
She's part of the sort of the TikTok kind of like aut pop wherever you
want the sort of thing you can kind of fit in there. Essentially,
she is doing Naughty's mainstream metalcore mixed with Oh No Sorry twenty Ten's i'd say,
like mainstream metal corep mixed with like early naughties pop music like the whole
like imagine Britney Spears, Cross of Arsking. Alexandria is like the sort of
like the kind of initial picture I guess you sort of like some up the
sound of what Seeing Queen is doing. It is very tongue in cheek.
It is very kind of like feminine rage, kind of like bubbling over and
all of it. It's very sort of aware of its sexuality. So like
there is a lot of kind of like talking points I guess when it comes
to Seeing Queen and how she is going about what she's doing. Yeah,
and you know, I think you know, the first mentions which you know,
you and you and Mark were making on T and M were in a
kind of fun way, you know, like here's this new artist doing this
kind of slightly provocative tongue in cheek fusion of on the surface and quite daft
styles of music. It's very it's kind of knowingly obnoxious in a lot of
ways. The last twelve months though, I've really kind of put her into
overdrive. And now, like I said, it does seem like she is
kind of everywhere in like the rock and metal press, you know, prominent
positions on festival bills, whatever, And you know, very much after the
likes of course of you know, bad Omen, Sleep Token, etc.
She's not at that level of selling tickets or anything left yet, but she
is one of the real kind of breakout alternative stars, I suppose, of
the kind of current moment. Prior to you know this, this album coming
out, I was quite content to sort of just not engage with it very
heavily, just kind of have a chuckle here or there as it crossed my
path. I thought the song eighteen plus, which came out well over a
year before the Sexual album, that was funny, wasn't it. It was
a like slyly funny takedown of predatory behavior in the alternative scene, you know,
specific bands alleged to be targeted in it. But you know, it's
very catchy as well, which kind of helped put its point across more.
I think that's a song that everyone can look at and go, that's a
pretty on the money song, which, whether you like the music or not,
kind of warrants its existence. And that is about the extent I cared
about seeing Queen like, here's a slyly funny track here or there wrapped up
in this like very garish confrontration confrontational aesthetic. Now she has been positioned as
such a central part of the kind of current metal zeitgeist. Though, and
we have a full length debut album to here to to talk about. It's
crunch time, you know, it's time to actually judge how good the art
is. And uh, that seems to be dangerous business. I'm a little
tentative about because for some reason, the internet discourse around doing so it can
be tetchy territory. There are dug in their trenches, like yeah, there
are tons of terms flying around this to do with gatekeeping and things like that.
But nonetheless, you know, here we are walking in front of those
cannons, and I'm sure most of you listening understand that anything that we say
is in like, you know, it's in good faith, and it's purely
about reviewing an album on the merits of the music I have. Like I
said, I primarily observed Seeing Queen from Afar as this like big character now
purely talking about the music in front of me, I think this is one
of the worst albums that we will review this year. I don't feel that
strongly about it. But as the sort of the initial Seeing Queen supporter of
the podcast, I do think this album is a miss like coming in and
swing big for Seeing Queen. Well, I mean, I wondered Sam,
how far you would manage the case for the defense on this, because I
will defend songs on this album, but I think as a whole I found
there were more problems than I was hoping I would find. When you're going
through this album, Yeah, it'scause I know there's a bit of a sort
of turn your brain off fun factor to it, and again like I know
that like maybe things around the you know, the the content, and again
the kind of personality of it. I could see you really chining with.
But also considering some of the criticisms you've made around bands like Electric call Boy
in the past, Boy, does this album you know, show itself in
a lot of those regards. Elliott, I couldn't wait to hear what you
thought about the music. Got this O God, I just I feel like
we seeing Queen. I almost don't know how to I don't know how to
describe what I think of it, because it kind of feels like the goalposts
keep moving in a way with I get you, yeah, where it's like
I kind of got, oh, dumb fun. You know, it's sort
of like you know, Olympuscuit, Hollywood, dared Attilla, you know,
kind of we're rocking out in that way. It's like, no, it's
a revelatory, subversive socio political statement. Oh oh, okay, Well I
don't really I don't think she hits the mark that well, oh, it's
just dumb fun. It's like, I don't. It kind of feels often
like a bit of a trap, and I think that's a shame because I
like that she's doing something genuinely different in a space where I thought there were
non ideas, you know, that kind of metalcore thing. That stuff is
so gray and lukewarm at the moment, it's it's actually kind of refreshing to
have something so obnoxious. And I mean, I think stupid, but listen,
I'm I'm not apprude. Okay, I don't think this is just quite
beyond the pale or anything like that, but a lot of it just kind
of sounds like, like you say, sort of feminine rage lonely island,
and that doesn't sell that well to me, I'm afraid. Yeah. So
the whole thing about the scene Queen is obviously it's like unashamedly hot pink music,
right like she as a performer represents this like unabashed loud femininity. That's
what the whole bimbo core thing is. It's a lot of reclaiming the kind
of you know, the airhead, blonde bimbo thing that was projected onto a
lot of women, particularly in that time of the early two thousands, when
she's drawing on a lot of those you know of y two K reference points,
and the songs are you know, unabashedly hyper sexual. That's the way
she wants to take her content. And you know cis Man speaks here,
cool, I get that it's obviously not meant to lift me up or empower
me in a specific way, you know, acknowledged in a perverse kind of
way. It's not unlike say the Falter Camera album, which we reviewed recently,
which is this black metal record all about this like idea of like the
sexually dominant woman, and how that figure can you know, come for or
terrify the conservative establishment that they are a musical yin and yang of a similar,
you know, kind of thematic concept. Well, I mean my defense
of like that side of sing Poeen is it comes entirely on the sort of
the metal core period she's drawing from, which is like say that late noughties
early twenty tens metal core is some of the most misogynistic music you'll hear in
a lot of cases, Like those bands were just like horrid in their lyrics
towards women. And like I'm not like I'm not goton. I didn't like
law of that music at the time, Like I I can't. I liked
you know, Amure in twenty ten, fine whatever, Like, but like
I can also look back and go like, yeah, man, those songs
are dodgy as fuck. And so I like the idea of women kind of
like completely inversing that and like singing about her own promiscurity, like her own
kind of just enjoyment of sex all that sort of stuff. And I think
that is a really fine inversion of the really horrid shit that was kind of
plaguing a lot of Melk at the time. And again and also the kind
of like violence towards men, which again is again in an inversion of like
a lot of death corps and stuff like that. So totally find all that
stuff. I think, like I welcome that, and like I think it's
my problem is it's just it's a lot of the execution across these songs.
Is there are ideas I really like something, There are songs I think are
great that like, I don't dislike this album like entirely. I don't want
to give it a kicking. I just think good ideas and things I want
to get behind and raally and again it's really queer in a lot of places.
I'm all, I'm totally like here for that. I want to live
with artists. But the execution just like shoots itself in the foot over and
over again. Yeah, like what you're saying about the kind of sort of
you know, reclamation of that kind of era and attitude or whatever. Yeah,
I appreciate that, And I don't think it's my place really to kind
of make a critical comment on like whether it is you know that is side
is particularly well done or not. My criticisms of this album are all on
the grounds of songwriting, news, and musicianship and production, which for something
being pushed as like part of where the genre of metal is going, are
staggeringly low. You get eighteen plus early on, which, as I said,
I think is a very funny song, right get the Children off your
bus from there? My got this thirty six minutes. To me, it
feels like a Belwitch album. It is unrelenting. It's again my problem with
this comes in there. It's like there's fifteen songs here, like I've this,
and again a lot of the songs are only like two minutes long because
there is so many songs and they're all just kind of like these kind of
big garage kind of like ideas I would. I was like, you could
cut five of these tracks and actually just focus on taking the ten sort of
best idea you had here and actually fleshing out, Like eighteen plus is the
only song here that feels like a like properly fleshed out, fought out song
and not just kind of like two minutes of ideas kind of slapped on there.
I think there's I can't believe I'm want to be the one who sounds
like they're defending this record out of us three. But like for me,
in the first half of this record, there are a couple of songs where
it's like, Okay, that's a fun idea, Like there's a premise which
is unique to that song which I realized, like yeah, Pink Push Up
Bra that's kind of got this like big new metal bounce, and that's kind
of just like here, you know, we're gonna have this one sort of
heavy chance sort of song that just is not doing much else, but it's
like big, kind of like just crowd pleasing, stir up pit up live
sort of track, and I think that works. Yeah, and it's it's
got a clear concept for that specific song that it follows through. On eighteen
plus, obviously we've discussed that same thing, like there's a very clear comment
it wants to make, and I think it does so successfully. Mutual masturbation,
I think like that is it's not a particularly serious idea, but it's
a fun one, like a song about just about it. And the more
vocally sort of cutting ones that did make me did make me laugh actually,
like yeah, he's in a local band hook Like that really made me laugh.
That was for me, the most entertaining bit on the whole record.
And just a song about making fun of guys who good guys and bands who
like hype each other up backstage. That's like, I've not heard a song
about that before. That's quite a fun idea for me. It's sort of
beyond that song. It kind of nose dives into the same kind of song
over and over again, and that's when it gets exhausting. Like the sound
of the record being so garish is kind of tiring anyway, But past track
four or five, it's like we're not even getting new ideas here, We're
just it really does just feel like because I've seen people say, oh,
it's like Steel Panther but for feminists. So it's not that that's Steel Panther
could fucking play their instruments, and Steel Panther had riffs right, and like
it's all done with this like again obnoxious genre mash up thing. But the
metal part of the equation. And I would say, from you know,
moments one is like the minimum effort side of it. I mean, I'm
a bit unsure as to what the writing process for this is because see Queen
is like, you know, the front woman, the character, and she
has a band and she plays what live with? Who is the kind of
behind the you know, the production of this record, the riff writing,
etc. I'm not aware of the information. I don't know who writes what.
The metal at all times, though, is just slop like it is
essentially novelty, low guttural, brutal breakdown that is used to just sort of
like, you know, gracelessly bring out maximum garish. Contrast with like the
pop or hip hop elements. Even eighteen plus, which is very, very
catchy and is definitely the best written structured song on the record, is obviously
this like brick Wall, the blown out thing in the production in a style
of a lot of you know what would be you know, the kind of
contemporary olt pop whatever, where a lot of it sounds like this kind of
like ugly overproduced, like remembrance of what two thousands old pop sounded like that
rather than the real thing that's kind of everywhere now. On that song,
she ironically goes, you know, if you want to be famous, then
write a bit of hook and then the album from there is just full of
the most like bare bones, minimum elegance songwriting, just plopping things next to
each other. The hip hop stuff like Whips and Chains is like stock plug
in hip hop beat, where she's hardly a lyrical miracle over the top of
it, and then at the the end of a barely two minute song eventually
slapping a like shit nothing metal drop. And that's just very illustrative of the
problem. I think, you know, this record feels like to me the
logical product of an environment where we have commented many times, putting a zero
zero zero regurgitated metal riff onto something unrelated and not even very good in the
lane that's moved into is considered some kind of high genre experimentation. The guitar
riffs on this make a mur you mentioned sound adept like it's fucking mental,
how brain dead this is. And the thing is is like I think that
side of things is a step back from what was on those first two EPs,
Like I think there was a better kind of like because it was trying
to do less. It was kind of just like here is just the pop
and here is the metalcore. Like she wasn't doing nearly as much with the
rapping and all these other kind of like different genre blending ideas that she kind
of throws out here. So it was a bit more, it was more
focused. It was like his kind of bubblegum like noise pop melodies over pretty
stock basic metal corep but on those EPs when it was kind of like a
new kind of arts coming up, but you could kind of look past that's
kind of like, well, this is the formation of an idea, and
it was still giving us better hooks than ultimately what we're getting on this album.
That's the thing is, I think the songwriting feels like it's taken a
step back when it's trying to do it across fifteen songs. I mean,
the songs are so static. You mentioned Pink Push up Bra, which I
guess, you know, if you're judging purely on like the quality of the
hook I probably is probably on the you know, upper tracks on the record,
but it's it's a complete one idea song. It's like, and it's
for me this record everything is so right there on the surface, this sort
of lack of dynamism and that is the whole thing. And the songs are
so static all the way through, and you know, the hip hop stuff
where she tries to rap just like, clearly no one outside of this specific
alternative music corn that this has been marketed to would take that element remotely seriously.
Like it's low quality, there's no getting around it. And when you
have that glue to the actual metal part, which is the part we should
all be familiar with, that is also very low quality. I just look
at this and I go, what's the point? No, I agree.
I think the other problem is like structurally the songs are so disjointed, where
again it like I kin't youally feel that so many these songs are just written
with the get your thirty second TikTok out of this part, because there's so
many times where it just kind of stops and then the next part the shift
happens into into something else, and there's no kind of like there's nothing to
kind of like actually gel these ideas together properly. It's rap part pot bit
breakdown, like and that's the thing that's where I think there is the songwriting
and the quality of the and the elements just doesn't sit together in a way
that is like that they none of it compliments each other. And then in
isolation, it's not the strongest of like what it should be. I think
there's all kind of points to what my major letdown with this record is.
And I didn't go in with super high expectations because you know, I think
a couple of songs off the EPs of fun or whatever. But I thought,
if see Queen's going to do a record, we could actually explore this
character. If it is a character, I don't know how much of it
is a persona or what have you, And you know, you could add
more dimensions to it. You could, you could say a lot more.
There'd be a lot more room for the kind of social commentary aspect that people
really seem to proclaim seeing Queen four. But the feeling I got was for
the first few songs, you go, oh, yeah, this style of
music is stupid, and then by the end it's like, well, maybe
just see Queen's just stupid. Like I kind of I didn't come away with
any sort of like larger impression of this character or a person or as making
a point. They kind of make a decent point at the beginning and then
kind of spend the next eight to ten songs walking it back. Yeah.
I mean, you know, even at the end it tries to do kind
of you know, some some serious emotional stuff on that closing track, and
it sonically it just comes out of nowhere because while Oboly, I'm sure that's
a you know, part of what she's exploring with this, you know this,
this, this project, the song, like the sonic construction of the
pieces is so flimsy and so two dimensional that like hard shifting into that zone
feels like a weird kind of you know, jump, And they're not not
even original idea of what a genre blend half the time, Like I swear
I have heard that Black Skinhead rip on pav done like several times over by
other bands, and the song from there does nothing. It's like one shitty
idea. It rise the whole way through and it ends up landing stretched as
a song at one minute and fifty six seconds. I'm just I'm so drastically
unimpressed with the music, Like there's no level of quality troll control at all.
Certainly, you know, I guess is what you were saying about kind
of how your impression was not an artist who needs to exist for more than
like a four song EP at a time, like because fifteen tracks of this
raises the curtain very quickly on how empty of ideas it is musically, I
mean, like you know, as we'll get to in a while, Girls
Gone Wild wasn't even the best song featuring Wargasm on an album released that day,
like one of the universe, you know, lining up in that regard
that the smashing together of stuff is just so graceless, like you'd think Wargasm
and Scene Queen like again irrelevant of quote, that would feel like quite a
natural kind of like meeting of ice in a similar sort area coming together.
And that song outside of the chorus, there is nothing in that song I
can remember as soon as are they the dangerous dangerous? That bit the only
thing in that song that has stuck me. I can't anything how it goes
and just feel was like again, just a real wasted like idea of a
clib action that probably would get a certain type of person not us very excited.
Yeah, just this record is the most I have felt, you know,
from a certainly a you know, kind of large, slightly pushed artist.
The thing of the style shifts, feeling like they've literally pressed a button
on a computer to shift over to the other bit, you know, the
kind of Naughty's old ballad elements in the title track, and the way the
metal then crashes through the wall is so predictable and so clearly not part of
the same world or room. But just you know, here we go switch
to the other one, and that contrast is just the entire point of the
song. And again, not either element on their own is anything. That's
the song where the album kind of like where it kind of clocked me where
it wasn't working. Was it was like, because it began, you had
that kind of like Avrilavne opening kind of person I was, I was like,
cool, okay, this is something different, see this fim. But
then it just totally elegantly shifts to something completely different, and I was,
well, I was like, ah, so like yeah, this is where
I was like the ideas that are just you can't see an ided for and
you've kind of got fall back onto the same breakdown, same kind of like
like hip hop beat it that you've just got attack on all that sort of
stuff, and it was just a bit of like a no real cohesion between
these parts. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'll tell you when I
had that realization, and again I was open to whatever would be on the
record, but I started to get those feelings last year when I don't blame
people for forgetting this because I wasn't expecting to pick up this thread more than
six months later, but the point where I was like, okay, I
think I know what I think of this scene queen thing. Some of you
may remember on the T and M Awards last year, I was shortlisting the
candidates for Worst Song of the Year and there was one that I mentioned being
released as a single that was coming out the following year, and I was
like, I'll put a pin in that and save it, Like I said,
here we are. It was milf from this because that song being released
as a single was where it clicked for me. I was like, okay,
I get the joke, but this is a joke song, right,
And the joke there is I've got a metal riff and I've got a country
chorus, and I've put them together. And when that song was released,
the talk was like, oh, these are the two most like highly gate
kept genres, So it wouldn't it be funny if I riled up the maximum
amount of people by gracelessly jamming the two of them together like that. And
that's all well and good, but what are we actually doing here, you
know, like, and I don't mean Singe queen, I mean us as
you know, the kind of a heavy music community. What are we doing
because like, as listeners of heavy music, we have to have some standards,
right, like yeah it is you know, yeah, like this is
the lead off single for one of the bigger like alternative debut albums of the
year, and it's a Jared Olonge novelty YouTube video. Gee, you know,
nobody blending metalcore with another genre that like is bad. We never seen
people hyping that up before. Yeah, I mean it was done with a
lot lot more tact and a lot lot more care there, which is wait,
this is ship that's all this is. This is shit post. So
like I would Milk is an Electric Collboy song. It's where they've done the
country Electric Callboys song. Sure, Like it's the level as Electric Boy,
the level of production and playing quality in the fusion of country and metal there,
particularly the metal side, where it is like the most completely stock air
dropped in stodge of that, Like look, how ott this beatdown is riffing?
You actively feel like the song awkwardly pick itself up and plunk itself over
here at the second it switches mode. It's so poorly inelegantly done, and
again my alarm bells are my fear here was This is the obvious natural result
of an era when the standard of like actual heavy metal playing has been allowed
to drop so low, like you know, for from emphasis on the metalcore
beat down as the primary source of like heavy and therefore also quality to the
you know, kind of pro tooled production. When that becomes the norm,
you're gonna let the dregs like this be it accepted as the norm. And
if this was just the silly way like throwaway song from musician who otherwise had
a lot of substance, that'd be one thing. But the rest of the
album is barely any better than it. It's just this like inelegant lack of
craft again and again. The next song, the very next song, is
Amateur, which is like arguably even worse. It's just the you know,
cute see ideas for a song with very simplistic concepts. This meets this smash
them together with that either of them being cared for a big joke of like
what if we took olt pop and brutal breakdowns and slammed them together? And
if you want a ship post where your lead single like, fine, have
that it, but you can't what Eli was saying about the Goldpost, you
can't also expect to be taken that seriously when you're shit posting with your lead
single. This is this is part of it for me because I think the
metal community and ununderstandably I mean not to generalize on that level maybe, but
there's a large wing of it where being a gatekeeper is so unfashionable. You
know. It's like to the point where bands trip over themselves to tell you
that they like Mumford and Sons and Lana Delray, you know. I mean
like there is a large contingent to that, and the kind of irony of
it is that something like milf gets a pass because there were enough people who
aren't gatekeepers in mel do you know what I mean. It's like if you
show it to a country music fan and you went, but yeah, I
bet you hate this, they go, yes, they wouldn't go, oh,
well, you know, maybe it's trying to make a point and you
know, I should kind of take on its own merits. I'm not want
to judge. It's like, well, if that's the case, and scene
Queen like whether it's good or bad means nothing because we don't feel equipped to
judge it. And like you say, once you get to amateur finger hot
singles in your area and whatever, it's like those songs are so dumb and
that's fine, but I you're not gonna find me saying it's brave subversive for
being that dumb. The one thing is going back to whips is if you
were to play that to a hip hop fan, they would laugh at you.
Yeah, And that's where I think the problem comes to this album is
like we are like tune what so like like eager to not be gapers that
they want all of these genre blending arts. They want every artist to mix
everything together without actually like, okay, are you doing hip hop? Well?
Is the the electronic stuff the country wherever you're blending with the metal,
like even ignoying the metal being like low tier because there's so much of that
shit now that I'm like, I've come to just kind of accept like basic
zero metal core things mixed with something is you know, what's it? But
I with these advis look at the the genres they're bringing in now and kind
of judge on that and be like, could you put this in front of
a fan of that genre and expect to be taken seriously. And most cases
on this scene record, I think, with a few decent pop choruses,
all of the other kind of like deviation and stuff and genres are where this
would kind of get laughed out the building. Yeah. Well, the most
apt comparison that I could think of there in terms of how this sounds is
is it's Millionaires. It is. I mean, stuff is full on like
Crunk or Revival with I don't know who barely Human is, but that like
when they're coming, I was like, have they just got Jeffrey Star sounderlike
of like oh nine neon crunk course shit. Yeah, and like I'm I'm
alright with Millionaires I don't know having existed because it's just like bad daft music,
you know, Like they were these girls at the height of Crunk Corps,
which was, as you say, a very largely misogynist state era,
and they did this like aggressively caricaturist party girl version about just like loving money
and alcohol and whatever your opinion is on what millionaires I know did for the
cause of feminism, right, like that they were out there doing that at
that time. And they were a laugh. Right, I can take that,
but no one actually says millionaires were like producers of great art and here
we are doing it again. But somehow that's well, the narrative has become
like if you took millionaires, updated the metal for the dregs of twenty twenty
four, and you made the material more socially conscious rather than the kind of
over actually made me like scene queens. It was the like millionaires but kind
of aware and trying to kind of like have a bit more to say.
And I was like, that's actually to me, that was actually quite a
fun pitch and that's what was the kind of the selling thing for me.
Yeah, And in terms of the content, I'm not saying that that is
a bad idea, but as a record, that's the level of what's going
on here. And again, even the mentional song as you mentioned, like
Mutual Masturbation or PEG or whatever, it's music where there's like a clever idea
of like a metaphor that can be used as a takedown or something, and
it is match to music that is just you know, just absolute bottom of
the barrel. You know. She's obviously she's a big performer and that's what
it is live. But you know what, if Crunk Call was woke tied
to the clunkiest, least imaginative genre mix you've ever heard, I'm not sure
that is a great idea for an album that doesn't immediately paint itself into a
creative chorder through how blatant the creative gimmick is. I just think this whole
thing of you know, at least she's aware and this, that and the
other. I think the whole thing of them being self aware. I understand
why that can be a defense for some of the stuff of this record,
but it actually kind of lowers your for some of the other criticism you might
face, because I mean, you just mentioned it with that song peg,
which I honestly think and I'm not trying to do the whole like, oh,
if if it was a man doing it, people wouldn't like it.
But I think there is stuff on there where it's like I can understand someone
taking issue with it, like asking Alexandra to song with a similar premise,
well like wanting to see someone degraded or whatever. I'm not sure people would
think it was cool. And it's like, if you're self aware, if
you're not self aware and it's just dumb fun. Then you go, Okay,
well they're an idiot and they've made a dumb song. If you are
self aware and you're trying to make a comment, well you've kind of left
yourself open for criticism. I think. I mean, for me, that's
one where I kind of get it. It's all about playing the character and
doing the inversion of the shit that was done for so long. But I
kind of see where you're coming from. From me, I was kind of
like, when's that past? I was like, there was so many years
of yeah, this ship being sung that, Like if someone wants to for
one album kind of go, we're gonna flip the script and you're gonna have
to listen to me talk about like degrading men for it. Yeah, yes,
I get I can fully get behind that. But I think it's a
bit that runs its course very quickly. All the things I'm not saying like
oh, you know, you shouldn't do a song like this, or or
the ethics or anything like that, I honestly I don't care. Like I'm
not offended by it or upset by it or horrified in any way. The
thing is, it's like if you're gonna make yourself a sort of or present
yourself in some way of kind of like an aware not I don't even know
if spokesperson is the world, but like, if you're trying to make a
comment, it kind of has to be fully thought through, and I'm not
sure it is. I think after this I will go back to like simply
not carry or engaging with See Queen all that much in the way that I
don't with millionaires, right, because it's it's not for me, and people
will, you know, people will tell me it's it's not for me.
And you know, her being out there spreading these messages, you know,
empowering people, that's what she does with people. That's fine, right,
you know she can go and do that, but just talking on a critical
capacity as a piece of music that has been served up to us, we
have to have higher standards than this for the artists that we collectively really champion
and lift up in our genre, or they will feed us slop. And
that is what I think is kind of the bottom line of how I view
it. And I mean I was willing and ready to champion sin Queine and
now I'm kind of like more hesitant because I do think in terms of like
what she was doing on those EPs is kind of like a promising first step.
There hasn't been an evolution from that. I think in many ways,
I think this album is a step back from those first two EPs and that
that's where again it just it's as simple as that you saw first two proof
of concept EPs being more well realized and willful out then your daily four length,
that something's gone wrong there. You might need to actually reevaluate. And
again, like I want to like Scen Queen, but I'm not going to
give this This is one of those alms where I'm going to like give it
a pass for the things it so blatantly gets wrong. Yeah, I just
I mean kind of mentioned them earlier. But to draw the Steel Panther comparison
again, I kind of feel like the feel of Steel thing where they ailed
all the archetypes, you know, they made all the points they were going
to make, if you want to even call them points that they you know,
all the satire was kind of realized on that record, and then by
the time they got to balls Out and everything afterwards that you're just you're kind
of just a crude glam mel band. I kind of feel like that's already
happening to Scene Queen, where it's like all the good points and interesting stuff
is in the first four songs on this record and on the songs she's put
out on past releases. By the end of this you are kind of at
lower the bar level Steel Panther, which isn't great. Basically, Scene Queen
needs to do a lingeric nota and transcend to a different artistic project where that
Scene Queen and Hot singles in your area if you choose to accept them.
Right next up, I suppose I'm probably the longest you know, piece of
discussion of any of these reviews. But our next kind of high profile one
is I get in and out fairly quickly, speedily. In fact, you
can say it is Speed and only one mode. It's another debut album this
time, but again there has been quite a lot of hype around Speed.
We saw them Outbreak Festival last year and they were pretty popular, but certainly
in the years since then and in the runs album, things have gone further
to the point where this is probably the most anticipated like hardcore debut album of
the year. They're on Flat Spot Records, which along with the likes of
Scowl and Zulu have kind of put together a sort of crew who are collectively
like the buzzy everybody wants to be seen to be liking it thing in hardcore
right now? Is that right? Sam? Yeah, I would say that's
fair that. Like, I think particularly Speed have been the one to really
like take center stage on that sort of thing. But Flat Spot is one
of the labels to be seen on. Yeah, Speed are the Australian contingent
of that particular crew. There's a lot of like branding and sloganeering going on.
Gang called Speed. The cover art for this album. It presents them
looking a lot more like the cover of sort of Straight out of Compton or
Grave Diggers six feet Deep or something like very clear Sydney gang mentality branded on
everything they do, and that has been perpetuated so far that I think most
people who are like, you know, sort of vaguely aware of Speed probably
have heard of those things because people spout them at them, but without maybe
actually knowing what they what they sound like. How anticipated on a like you
know, what is it on a musical level that has made Speed kind of
exciting to people's sound. I the thing is it's just straight up hardcore,
just done really well. Like I can't explain it to me the close comparison
I could point to make that the close comparison I can made. This is
going back to twenty twelve when Trapped under Ice dropped Biggest good Night, and
it was just and it was just a strap hardcore album, but it was
one that just captured the new wave of hardcore fans myself included coming into hardcore
at that time. Hardcore's going for a boom. You had this one band
who dropped this one album that everyone's gonna goes, Yo, that's my hardcore
album. Speed feels like the sort of the new wave of kids who've come
into hardcore post COVID. You know, in twenty four Speed have dropped this
and everyone's gone, Yo, that's my hardcore album. Yeah. I think
that's a very very apt comparison. Record is just shy of twenty four minutes
long, which is nice going for a hardcore record. I you know,
I didn't really have any musical expectations for this because, like I said,
we saw an outbreak. I thought, you amongst some very sterling hardcore band,
they were one of the more sort of rudimentary ones. Yeah, I
mean I thought they were of the sort of more rudimentary hardcore bands. They
were the one that probably stood out the most of the newer crop, like
a very high energy, but you know, musically, I was like,
you know, I'm waiting into something a little bit more remarkable here, you
know, compared to obviously Scowl or Zulu with their immediate peers, they have
a little bit more going on. I wasn't really sure what their theme musically
was that was going to stick them out. In the build up to this,
we had a few extra elements rear their head. I guess the immediately
viral flute breakdown. This was an answer to my question of what the Speed
thing is. I didn't see that coming. I must say, no,
that that was the one I like, of all the hardcore bands to drop
a flute breakdown. Speed were not the one you would you would have paid
because they were the ones who were like just the most kind of straight up,
no nonsense, like old school hardcore. Yeah, and the first track
on this Real life love starts with I guess might be a digital doo or
something. It's like you've turned on a documentary about the Australian outback or something.
It just goes like Samurai movies when I hear that like opening, Yeah,
like very like that sort of thing. But yeah, like there are
definitely like I don't want to say, like world, but there's a little
bit of feeling of that just kind of like whatever sounds can we just sprinkle
on too distrub hardre thing just to add some texture and that that's kind of
been what Speeds thing has done here. Like yeah, and it's I guess
a very sort of you know, you know, classic you know, sort
of new at hardcore or something by way of Australia that kind of time.
I think this is decent fun, if rarely anything revolutionary or exceptionally high quality.
I think in a in a landscape where hardcore bands can get very very
buzzy, indeed seemingly off just being you know, like decent hardcore bands,
this is perfectly suited and happy with being that, if a bit more par
for the course than again several of us out there. But yeah, it
hits what it does. Yeah, I don't discive anything you said that.
I just love this because it just hits that spot for me. Like I'm
not gonna like come out and say that this is a game changeing for hardcore.
But like when those beatdowns hit, like every time they shout speed,
like when they end the first song going gangled speed and then immediately start the
second song going speed don't need I'm like, yeah, fucking this is it,
like all of that sort of stuff. When they like spell out speed
at one point before shang speed again, like all those dumb I look at
it and I go, how much like branding over I don't know, I'm
not trying to be aggressive here, but how much branding over quality it is
happening here? But also I like those bits. They're funny, so it's
a kind of two sides of a coin I would have give you. But
like they said that, there is there is nothing here beyond those like odd
little touches. But at the same time, that breakdown at the end of
the first test, like is so good, even before you get to the
flute bit, Like that breakdown just makes you want to, like fully just
be stomping across that stage. And it's not just got blue, it's got
like DJ scratches in there as well, like it fucking rocks. But otherwise
there's nothing else here I can say is revolutionary or new, but because I
like hardcore and it's hearing hardcore and it is like the hardcore as really much
is done to a really high standard. I think like they've got riffs,
they've got character, all of the gang vocal chants, everything. It kind
of just burst out the speakers to you. It makes me feel good this
album. I I agree with all of that, but I don't think they've
really got the songs yet. Personally, Yeah, that's what I think,
like because again comparing it to be Kids good Night, that song that album
for me that's got Pleased to Meet You, and that's got like actual hardcore
hit songs on there, I do agree this is this has not quite got
that yet. But there's still really good stuff on this for me. Oh
yeah, no for sure. And listen, I've kept half an eye on
Speed, but to be honest with every hype hardcore band, I now keep
at arm's length until someone I really like, until I kind of give it
a go, because how many times have we been told like this band are
the best new thing in hardcore. You listen to and it's you know,
it's a good hardcore band, but it's not that well and Speed have absolutely
everything down perfect, like the drip is turn out of ten. I love
the album cover that a band called Speed like it's just perfect and I get
the name of an album only one mode. It kind of sets it all
up very nicely. And all the stuff was saying about you know, they've
got didgeridoo's and like some of the kind of percussion they throw in at different
points. It's like if I was in a hardcore band, this is probably
the kind of thing that I'd want to make. Me and my mates just
go get a rain maker on it, get that fish with the scrapey put
out on the record, and the thought that you know, on a different
continent someone will be coming on going yes, but I don't nothing. What
the songs down right? If you think I'm having a good time, I
don't give a fuck what you think. I've got a fishing with a crapey
bit. What do you get. I listened to this and listen, the
barbecue was going okay, it was perfectly set up. This is a chicken
sim of music. To me, is like, yeah, the chicken thighs
one the grill, we had the long green beans. It was they had
a leg up when it came to me enjoying this record, and I enjoyed
it while it's on and I've listened to it about half a dozen times it
but I don't really remember much of it except for the really eccentric stuff.
Almost all of it has kind of disappeared for me. Yeah, I agree,
I think, you know, the riffing is just very purely in that,
you know, it's not grotesquely heavy, hard or anything, but just
music to silly walk, to throw some fists around. They're like hate breed,
They're like mad ball. They probably like trapped on their ice. It's
good fun, you know, it's got that kind of boisterousness. I do
like the little extra touches of No Love but for our Own has like you
know, again it's big stompy stuff. But then there's that chorus with the
bizarre sort of affected yeah quiet. I don't know if there's a there's a
Kesher single that's out at the moment where she's got this weird like choir thing
and it sounds like that. It's got like cow bells clanging in the back
as well, and I think with that stuff you can tell there's like a
there's a kind of a quirky humor to it, which is very endearing because
it's not as like Matcho Bravado serious face on, like you know, with
their kind of aesthetic. It could go that way, but instead it's gone,
you know, almost like Jerry Valance and Bray or something that kind of
you know, like very you know, having a good time thing. And
I think that also the fact that that stuff is sort of sprinkled over the
record rather than just having the one really random Jarry inclusion on the flute track.
It is fully there. And you know, I like those moments.
I like the dive bomb in real life love that's good. I do like
the opening seconds of a Don't need the Spirit, don't need just yapped out
before moving in there. That stuff is fun. I think when it comes
down to it for me, is I agree that the hardcore is it's it's
perfectly well done. It's not very memorable, and I do like a bit
more in my hardcore songwriting in that regard. I think the riffs are largely
interchangeable. There's quite a few songs that I feel quite stop start like that
even where they transition, it feels like they's don't build up a particular center
momentum. It's like a collection of moments. There are quite a number of
bits where I actually thought another track was starting, only to realize it was
like an extra bit on the end of a previous one. And it feels
like a collection of rifts for him to shout speed over more than it does
a collection of song which I totally agree that, you know, the Big
Kiss good Night thing, that's one of the comparable records, Big Kiss.
That's the the separating factor is you know a record like that has those like
genuine anthems that you want to fucking you know, be on stage and shout
those words to. This is a collection of risks to jump about to and
occasionally someone goes speed and occasionally there's like a digit redo. Yeah No,
I think those I having those all totally valid criticisms, like and I think
this is one that maybe isn't gonna have the longevity of some of the other
albums that I really like, But I can't deny that for the twenty four
minutes this is on, I do not have a bad feeling in my body
when it's fair that hits. It is like totally just like not to those
old tubes have fun, but it is just like I don't need to bread
because I'm like engaged with the music and having a good time. But it's
just it's just doing the thing I like, and it's like of a good
enough quality that I can go like, yeah, yeah, this is this
is this is rocking. Yeah. I mean, I'm glad Baron that you
mentioned that some of the sections felt a bit tacked together, because that's something
I've kind of notices with a lot of hype particle bands, is you can
sometimes swap parts in and out for one another and it doesn't feel like they
build to a crescendo. I think we reviewed the Not Loose record recently.
We're all really positive about it. One of the things that I wasn't so
sure about it was the fact, if I it was all built around the
beatdowns. But at least it was like you would move, You could feel
yourself moving towards a beat down, even if you knew it was coming with
then payoff, Whereas it kind of feels like, I maybe I've got the
timeline wrong, but it feels like since Turnstile, where they've got these really
off the wall song structures and stuff. A lot of the bands coming up,
they sometimes just throw on riffs that don't quite match the tonal you meant
with the song, and I think, like live, that's super exciting because
you just go from brilliant rift to brilliant riff. Whereas stood at the barbecue,
it's it's not kind of I don't know, it doesn't hang together so
naturally. Yeah, there's not quite the conducive sense of kind of inner track
momentum, like you know, send them to Sydney. The main riff goes
pretty hard, barely lets itself be a full song. It's like a riff
and then a joke at the end of him to go speeded at the end.
I think I'm filing them next to someone like Pain a Truth right now,
where I like their vibe. I'm hoping their songs get a bit more
memorable. Obviously, speed are again like the kind of kind of funny,
goofy version compared to Pain the Truth, like you know, New York violence,
like shove a gun in your mouth thing. So the wider hype,
I don't know, is it particularly justified right now? It feels more a
symptom of like how highly platformed hardcore as as a whole right now. You
know, musically it's pretty bare bones and it happens to have a few let's
do a silly one in it. But it's pretty playful and it's competent.
I agree that, you know, it's at the very least it's likable.
Yeah, No, I mean that's that they seem likable. The the vibes
and the energy they can really well on. The music is just a good
time. Yeah. So that is only one mode the deiut album from Speed
right, we're gonna rattle through. I guess we're gonna jump over into our
slightly more metal sections here, although this first one has got a whole lot
of fucking simps and rave drops and everything else that you might not like in
your metal. But is Cross Faith and their record arc the return of the
Japanese electronic core if you still want to use that word masters. This is
their first full length album since Ex Machina in twenty eighteen. I believe that's
correct. It comes hot on the heels of our recent album Club we did
on the Zion EP, which you can find over on the That's Not Metal
Patreon, wherein we were revisiting the year of twenty twelve, and when bands
like Cross Faith we're doing that like heavily yeager themed apparently SYNTHI, keyboard,
drum and bass, etc. Infused metal core, and I guess that,
you know, obviously leading us transitioning us into this, we were sort of
pondering what place that class of bands has in the kind of modern landscape.
Yeah, I mean moved to all that obviously that is so of that era,
and then how do those bands do they adapt? Do they find a
place in the sort of the modern world. I mean, I think it's
no sugar that Cross Faith are not the flavor of the month like they like
they were all the rage in twenty twelve to twenty fourteen, they're not that
banned ten odd years later. But you know, how does the music hold
up? Yeah, and cross FAFE have had this bizarre feeling recently where it
feels like they've they've gone away and also never quite gone away at the same
time, because as said, it's their first full length in six years,
and they did recently have some time off and then had to go back and
regroup and had some lineup changes and stuff. But also I guess, you
know, through the COVID period and everything. There was a fairly steady stream
of material in the way of EPs and one off singles and stuff like that,
and the effect has been to me that they kind of became a bit
of part of the wallpaper, which was not necessarily intended effect. But as
you're saying, Sam, cross Faith, I think definitely in the years since
let's say twenty fifteen Zeno was the last they had a particularly high media presence,
they've kind of fallen too, being background noise for a lot of to
recap here, Sam, longtime fan of Cross Faith, myself, not quite
as intensely so, but also a fan from those like early twenty tens days.
Elliott on our Zion discussion, you were also quite misty eyed about those
days of like dubstep core and everything else. So I think we all have
kind of good will for Cross Faith going into ARC. I don't know about
everyone else, Like, I don't know if this is an album that will
gonna, you know, shake up their place on the metal ladder or anything
compared to what we've just said. But the time off, having like gone
away and regrouped and come back with this, I think they've come back with
their most reinvigorating record in quite some time. In fact, if I was
to use the word reinvigorating, if they're like early twenty ten's work like that
period we spoke about before, is like really them sort of light in the
match. I think this is the first time they've kind of been able to,
you know, refresh that. Yeah, I would. I mean this
from those albums that kind of made me sad that I'm like the world of
modern metalcore, like You're not gonna have a place for this, but Cross
Faith, I will always have a place for you in my heart. Because
I don't know if this was me just being misty eyed after doing that zion
EP thing. I love this. I have just completely just come home and
be like, man, cross Faith, you have like again my love and
modern metal core has been tested. You are the band. You've come along
and just done that again very like not you're not trying to sound like poison
the world and all that metal core. That's the only thing I like now.
But you've come along and gone sad, we got your back here.
Go have some big like wipe out simps and web webs and riffs and you
know, have a good time. And yeah, Cross Faith, I have
had a great Time. What they do is still front and center. They
are a party metalcore band born of the sort of cross section of rave culture
and metal in the late Northeast and early twenty tens. But some of their
other records I have enjoyed, but they have a you know, maybe a
degree of nostalgia goggles with it. I was impressed with how much they boosted
things like the production quality on this one. I think that's it. This
sounds fantastic. This is a good level of what I would hope Cross Faith
to sound like in twenty twenty four. Yeah, and I thought this might
be a pretty sad record. Like I just thought, if they stick to
the dubstep core thing in twenty twenty four, you might think you might just
kind of go, oh, it's it's been done, lads. And alternatively,
if they tried to adopt any of the new modern metal core tropes,
I mean, that would be heartbreak. It could be their self help,
like I like what's good time. They would be them trying to do it
whilst you sleep self hell moment, Yeah, that would have That would have
been just like the other you know, twenty tens medical band that I like
fully loved, just deciding to become embarrassing. Well, yeah, and I
don't have the same long standing love for Cross Faith that like certainly you do,
Sam, but I think they're a very difficult band to not root for.
And putting this record on, I was so pleased with how much sort
of exuberance came flooding out of it. Just Cross Faith seems so unfhazed by
the lay of the land in metalcore at the moment. They're just going to
make the most up, sort of positive and at it record they can make,
and it's very hard not to get swept up in that thing. Yeah,
and part of the reason we did the Ziony be on an album club
and you know, that's sort of spoken at as being sort of their defining
moment. They're not usually an album banned. Cross Faith like they pull together
a wicked collection for the live set. Sometimes sitting and listening to thirteen tracks
of them can be a bit much, And certainly, looking at a record
like X Machina, which is forty five minutes long, it's got some highlights,
but I do feel that about that record. Yeah, this is easily
their most sort of jam packed track list since at least apocalyse right, and
it's it's very concise as well, like eleven songs only thirty five minutes,
and you know, there's a couple of exceptions where it does deviates, but
it you know, sustains the energy very well. The first sort of like
three quarters of this album at it is just like the only way to describe
the sound that again, the only time it sort of takes a break in
the first half is like the reggae break in in the fucking fucking Warriors,
Like that is like that, I mean, that song's fucking mental, but
for the moment you get that, like the final call robot voice over big
simps, it's like, yep call, This is the kind of cinemat cross
safe intro I was gonna g ed up and then zero kicks in those tribal
drums and that chart and I was going like, oh, wicked. It's
it's something just a bit more like a bit different sounding for plus Faith,
and then when they kind of just hit that groove and it is pulverizing,
like they're still playing hard with more extreme than a lot of what is going
on in sort of modern metalcore, just alongside the mental simp stuff. I
mean, like my good will was already was already there, and it kind
of kicked into high gear when during the final court it goes to that symphonic
bit too, the most WUKD techno bit you've ever heard, and I was
like, I kind of trusted that's what they do, and then for them
to deliver on and like you say, when Zero kicks in that kind of
programmed tribal drums in that vocal kind of vibe on it. Yeah, And
like, I mean, maybe it's a bit of a sideways reference, but
the way it came out of the traps it reminded me of the ongoing concepts
and the way they open Saloon. It just it was so at it and
so full on and so cross Faith one oh one proof that you kind of
any hesitation I might have had about how you know, elegant this record might
be or how dignified it might sound, it just went out the window.
It no longer mattered because Cross Faith have committed to their sound and they're doing
it basically as well as I've ever heard them do it. Yeah. I
think sometimes the other problem with Cross Faith is for all their crazy high energy
and you know, dance bits and everything. They don't always pack that like
killer chorus to seal the deal, and you know, I don't think that
will ever necessarily be their number one strength. But Zero, I think is
definitely next to stuff like the Evolution. It's like one of their best ones.
And the explosion is you know, it's catchy from from the beginning,
the clean rock apart, really big, the payoffrom the areas, the kind
of the right back to Zero, Yeah, so good, and then even
into the hilarious drop parts. But the other thing this is is, you
know, I think you've both sort of touched on it. This thing is
brutal by cross face standards, right, Like this record is like charged up
and vicious. Zero has like little traces of death metal in the riffs,
and then when it goes into the electronic drops, it does it with like
so much violent gusto that you just kind of find yourself like whipped up in
it. It's just nicer a metalcore band still, you know, kind of
go we like melodic death metal. Here is a like mellow deaf riff in
and amongst all these like just like big ravy synth drops and like that shit
has been so missing from a lot of like the more kind of like commercially
minded, highly produced modern medical But it didn't sound as nostalgic as cross Face
sometimes do I either for that stuff. It did feel like it was quite
well brought into the overall hole. But you know, can you mentioned Warriors,
which sounds like a chorus of Spartans on a Saboton song or something before
you even get to like the ragga rap versecause you're very bizarre, But the
run of tracks like after that point, he's like genuinely aggressive, Like Headshot
is like one of the most crazy violent cross Face songs maybe ever. It's
like a kind of souped up twenty twenty four version of New Breath from Fear
Factory or something like or you know, you know that that their version of
the Bringing the Horizon like hyped up video game world thing that and like is
it dummy system, Like yeah, the silly fun those two are so like
legit savage at times. Yeah, like more of a feral edge than you
know what I just mentioned rifts in there, Like I was thinking about decapitated
rifts in that song. I was thinking about the weird like malfunctioning bends they
have. I was thinking about Code Orange. In there, Kena goes like
genuinely evil with his vocal in a very surprising way on that and then again
right after the song you mentioned exactly, it's like remember when metalcore had like
some fucking death metal in it. It's pretty savage. No, I was
just said, like, like that song is like just got this like really
maniac energy like him doing that that really like guttural screaming to a beat down.
Like again, it just it feels way more punchy and just actually going
for your throat in a way that like too many bands that they're too afraid
to sound that that aggressive now because they just want to send it down and
just sound as like Christine and Pol as possible. And this album again,
it is polished up in a old places, but it's never to the point
where they have sanded off any edge. Well yeah, I mean Dummy's system
like when panic cords Like I've not really heard Cross Faith try and be menacing
before, and it was such a fun flavor. And when it kicks off,
the first thing I thought was it sounds like pray for plagues. Like
again, I wasn't expecting. I just wasn't expecting it to go with that
hard and headshot. I mean again, it couldn't be more twenty twelve if
it was called yeager Bomb. But in terms of juxtaposing the stars, which
I've always been good at, like you say, stuff like Decapitated and a
lot of death metal or whatever, and then that song also has a rap
verse over a Sega racing game. Like it's just like and that's kind of
like as cornball as it gets. But I'm I'm more than happy to play
along when when they do go hard, they go that hard. Yeah,
they're not fucking out, you know, they've not come back to just sort
of you know, play very meek with it. There is an actual fire
in the belly with this, which is you know, for a band in
there kind of laying these rare to hear at the moment, and you know,
a band who had been around the block a fair bit at this point,
it's really cool to hear from them the way that uh you and Shikari
kind of are consistently praised for like being able to sort of reinvent their like
electronic and pop elements and stuff and bring lots of stuff. I think Cross
Faith has been able to do a little bit here while keeping it sounded like
cross Faith. The synth in my own salvation is like straight off of Photosphere,
right, like it's old school. Yeah, but the recording quality feels
like higher than it has been at times, and agin another really good chorus
in there, and you know we alluded to it earlier. I can't believe
that one of like the best mainstream metal tracks of the year is one featuring
Wargasm, But Cross Faith did it, like, I mean, I think
they like again, miv walk has been I don't mind her. I want
him to buger off, but like Milky being used to that that godspeed yeah
like hook, Like that's really good use of her over that kind of like
high pitched female, very vocal that you know you'd get on like what did
your track to that? And it feels you kind of real throwback to that
kind of like like just drum and bass or like like rave kind of like
sound that I'm just like, yeah, No, Wargasm actually sit nicely in
this and it's just a big party track for me. I think it's still
in spite of them a little bit because I know that you always say it's
the blokeer the problem. I still recoil a little bit of her parts because
she sounds she sounds like the women voices in Pretty Fly for a White Guy.
But I have to say that all of the featuring Wargasm songs that we
have been subjected to in a like constant tirade, this is the best one.
It's much better than Shikari one. And it's just because like the sheer,
like you know, tops off party energy of that synth line and that
chorus and that drum and bass sort of pump beneath it all. It is
you know, classic cross faith, the standard of which is the highest since
like Wildfire with Benji Webb, Like it's they've come back with another fucking big
party tune there. Like that is how you do a party electronic metal song.
It's so consistently high energy, but it's sonically sounds great. It's not
a sloppy mess of parts sort of glue together. It's great. That's again,
there is just an actual cohesion to a lot of these songs. Even
when they again like Warriors, takes hard genre pivots, it doesn't feel just
kind of like the energy doesn't drops. Yeah, the energe doesn't drop,
and it doesn't feel just kind of like a weird like Tac tom Bit.
It actually feels like because again like Warriors, you go to that reggae break
and then it starts to actually build back up into the chorus again, so
it feels that you're building to a crescendo after you've had this genre privot So
it's always like there's just always kind of afford momentum to these songs. They
never feel like they mean to or just kind of like stop, start tack
bits together and and like have without any kind of care or thoughts. So
I think, like the first time, like eight songs, just the good
vibes don't let up for me, and I know I'll give a good but
balances have never been processed strong sweet. But again, I think the ones
at the end of this aren't actually as bad as they've often been with Cross
Faith, Like there's no I enjoy the whole thing. Yeah. So the
weird on this happens at track nine with a song called Nate Waves, where
all of a sudden, all that high energy kind of does dissipate because it
goes into like a Cross Faith does chill Wave track, which is a sort
of strange choice. I thought it was strange that they basically do two in
a Row with after Glow, like doesn't for me those songs, it doesn't
feel like they have much of their own to really add to that style of
music, Like it is just kind of like a side step, like you
know, Kent Do's not great paciato. It kind of pulls the rugout from
under the record. It was just a very sort of sudden, like,
oh, we're we're somewhere else now. So like the thing with after Goo
is like after Go is actually like you could almost have that as part of
the closing track because they use that, like they bring that main hook back
in from after going to that into the final crescendo. I just think like
Nightwaves cross Off doing that kind of chill SYMPI think much more probable to me
than cross Weaft doing a piano ballad like yeah, I agree, like I
would Swagon, I actually quite I like it is a weird pivot by most
like in a way, I think it'd be weirder if you'd had pie Pie
pipe pipe, then that in the middle and then back to the party.
It would kind of kill the momentum of the record. I'm fine with,
Like big old like whip whip it around your head, have a good time,
chill for me, And then you get a Canapus, which is like
this big kind of like grand conscendo track. I don't mind the sequencing on
that, Yeah, I mean it's it's hard to know how they would do
it differently, to be honest, because like you say, if they peppered
it through, it would be weird to have like head shot chill wave song,
dummy system. I don't know how you could sequence it in a way
where those would splice it nice it. It does mean that for me,
the only time I maybe interest starts to wander a little bit is towards the
end of the record, and not not because it's bad by any means,
but you know, it's it's the energy is such a sudden drop off.
I guess, yeah, that's it, and it's I don't know. But
then because they're not bad songs. If there were bad songs, you said
I would just drop them and just have the party songs and have a shorter
record, that's fine. But because they're decent, it's it would seem wrong
not to have any of that representation on there. So yeah, I think
it's one of the maybe slightly quibbly mote aspects of the record. But I
think that's pretty good going like the fact that there's a couple of songs towards
the end that are a bit low energy and not as good as the others.
That's that's okay. Yeah, I would only cut Nightwaves. I think
it's it's such a sudden stop to the record, and like I said,
it's them doing anything, which I don't think again, I probably would prefer
it on the ears to them doing like a piano ballad. But I think
it's such a sudden change of lane into things which they just don't do anything
special with it, right, I would cut that one song. I would
still have, you know, have after Glow prelude into the closer Shore because
when that hars shtop happened, I was like, oh no, what we
do in here? Like is this? You know? Is the end of
the record? On a Fall for Cliff, the last track is one of
my favorite songs on it, like that like skate punk drumming that comes in
on that last track, it all momentum. It reminds me of like cross
Face take on that kind of astronoidy like Devin Town's end high Speed flying through
the Clouds, you know, bright proggy guitars, like it's really wonderful,
and that is a like, you know, a sort of a left field
pivot into something that really to work for them, because it, you know,
plays into their kind of energy. So you know, there's at tops,
there's a few minutes of this record that I don't think belong. Shall
we say? I think it's still impressive how consistently they are able to sort
of mix up the template and so much of it does work. Yeah,
No, I I think that's fair. I mean, I think front Backers'
album this is up there with the best stuff Crosswave have done. And I
think coming at this sort far into their career where like they've just felt like
kind of just another medical band for so long, and again I think it's
a shame that it's come this stage where the eyes aren't on them, where
I think if this is the album they dropped in like twenty fifteen instead of
Xeno, that momentum could have carried on as it did because it it.
But I like, again I'm coming this is someone who has such a huge
cross Wave I have just felt so vigorated coming back to this album and kind
of being like man, cross Wave even even if anyone else is gonna be
there for them, I'm gonna be here with your cross if your fucking killing
it on this album for me anyway, But I like, yeah, I
just again, it's not one that just it's just a good time from when
I've put it on. Yeah, I didn't need a Cross Faith album to
be especially like above standard. They're not, like you know, they're not
the band I am looking to to be like the creative cutting edge quarter force
there. But I would I would say this is the best one. It's
boc alize. Yeah, No, I definitely agree. And I think again,
in a genre that we are, we've ragged on quite mercilessly when we're
talking like like I say, the modern prost milk Corps, this has been
the first one films that one was kind of united in like yeah, like
actually like again, we you know, you guys weren't into the Berry Tomorrow
album. We had split opinions on the TGI album. Any of these sort
of bands that are like modern Milkcorp that we cover generally it's not a nice
conversation. Well, here's the thing here. Cross Faith aren't like, for
want of a better term, they're not selling out and putting themselves into a
different lane to do this. They they this thing is cross They've been true
to themselves. They've just found a few new touches and the end results are
like, we'll just see for yourself, Like this is like the best Cross
rever done in a decade. To prove to me that you can go far
on Gusto, you don't necessarily need to be doing the most zeitgeisty thing,
particularly when the current medical zeitgeist is so beige and unappealing, you know,
at least to us here. But just do your thing and commit and write
great songs and you'll go far. And I mean you're saying, like the
best since Apocalypse. I like this pretty much. I like this as much
as I think any Cross Faith full length. Sure. Yeah, I think
if you were to put together like the top ten Cross Fay songs two or
three here, that would have a shout at cracking that. And yeah,
I don't think it has been especially pushed by the press or anything like that.
But you know, if you like high energy dancing, even metalcore,
but you're maybe not all that impressed with what he is in the zeit guys
all the time, give us a try, I think they, you know,
certainly. The other thing that we haven't compared this to is like there's
the sort of post baby metal Kuwaii coor thing that's going on, and that
sort of stuff like cross Faith. I think I think can still write a
song a lot better than you know, all of those who aren't baby metal
essentially that sort of come out of Japan of like, so, you know,
give it a go. The record is called Arc now where you're going
to go further down than the metal rabbit hole. And next up we have
two hundred Stab Wounds with manual manic procedures, one of the most hotly anticipated
records in death metal this year or you know, of recent years. Even
there's a lot of expectation on two hundred dab Wounds, Yeah, which I
think it's basically come from the singles they put out in twenty twenty two,
because it felt it before that. At least, my perspective was they were
kind of comfortably operating in that maybe b to a modern death metal band with
Blood Incantation, two Mold Piss Graver, the s Tier likes of Frozen Soul
and Sanguine Sugar Bog in the a O always like two hundred stab Wouns were
kind of comfortably in that bata producing cool music, but nothing that ever really
struck me as potential fronts on a status. And then they put that Masters
of a Mobility single and all of a sudden it was like, oh fuck,
two hundred stab Wounds are brilliant songwriters, and for me that was a
moment where it went from even if they weren't bumped up, then an expectation
that they might make the record that would do that for them. Yeah,
I don't know exactly when they sort of like, you know, leap frog
their way to being like the most popular like death metal band. That's kind
of what they know. They caught the hardcore crowd, I think is one
part of it. Like they they caught that crowd alongside the death metal fans,
so you were bringing two two fan base together. Yeah, But it
didn't feel like there was a particular moment where it happened. It's just sort
of like the fact, oh yeah to Hunstad Winds like really popped them really
big. They are. I don't think they were the first one. But
you know, there was the sort of school of bands who went from the
underground label Maggot Stomp onto them being you know, bigger metal label. So
Sanga with super Bog and Frozen Sol did the same thing. You know that
a wave of death metal bands arrived around twenty twenty, primarily emerging from that
label, playing very meaty, not quite slam, but slam adjacent death metal
that has really popped off, you know, very popularly cross appealing to the
hardcore crowd, as you're saying, evidenced on you know, certainly a moment
of this album. One of them played in that bad home Wrecker as well.
Who hadn't thought of in a hot minute that you all know the thing
we're talking about it. We've mentioned it so many times in recent years as
the kind of prevailing winds of death metal has shifted that way in recent years.
Two hundred Staboids only formed in twenty nineteen, first EP in twenty twenty,
first album in twenty twenty one. After that they then made the jump
to Metal Blade Records, who are releasing this and now we have the second
full length album with all those resources behind them, and in that wave of
you know, death metal to un Staboids are definitely one of the most regularly
name dropped kind of up and comers. I've kind of always thought that they
were decent, Like, I think the thing I enjoyed the most was the
thing that they put out last year, the Masters of Morbivity seven inch that
I think was the third thing, the Patter through Metal Blade. We spoke
it on the show. There was a Slayer influence on that that I really
liked. I think kind of finding their thing in that field is kind of
the nebulous bit because like Sangue super Bog, I like the most openly fucking
stinky of the bunch. Like obviously we all know that that's the kind of
love it or hate it thing about that. Their sound is obviously very pushed
to an extreme frozen soul have that like particularly cold Bolt Throw infused now on
their newest album actually slightly more of a mainstream here as well, with that
assist from from Matt Heathy Undeath. If you want to put them in there
are like the really catchy pure death metal songwriters Gatecreeper on, then you woul
obviously gone to that really like turbo charge thing to under Stab Wounds I think
I kind of just cut down right the middle of all of it. It's
like this record is skinless, jungle Rot, Broken Hope, Internal Bleeding,
just kind of like the most no frills groovy meathead but not too meathead brutalish
death metal there is. Yeah, that's kind of my thing with them as
well, Like I mean, I really like this, but it also it
kind of feels like them kind of doing a bit of like a tour through
death metal at times this album without kind of like finding their thing like there
is like they're still we know, like that kind of like hardcoreing from its
death metal approach that they're that they're doing, which again I really dig,
but yeah, it just it feels kind of like we're kind of like,
do you know there's a bit of autopsy. I think, like carcass you
can find on like some of the things that this non more melogic touch and
stuff like that, like and it's kind of all just really good to this
like death mel but I don't find anything about this that necessarily pops on and
goes like yeah, that's the thing that makes two hundred stab wounds like a
band to really like hype up and get behind Yeah. I mean, there's
no wild formula here, There's no like Elevator Pitture. It's this meets this,
it's you know, they're kind of in some sense following the rule.
But like you say, it's the Jungle Rop, Skinless, all of those
bands. I'm glad you mentioned Carcass because I think the riff style of Bill
Steer is a huge influence on Two Stab Wounds. But to be honest,
for being one of the less original and maybe less artistically bold records we're discussing
this month, it might be my favorite. I have gone so hard for
this record. It's just maybe this is like my version of the Speed thing,
where it's like, yeah, I know, it's not magic. I
complete, I complete because I think this is like most comparable to the Speed
record, Yeah, in its own in like the death metal version of it,
in that it's doing death metal, and if you're down with that,
you will have the best time when you stick this on. Yeah, and
I do, because it's just that the sound of it is just the business,
and they have that unhinged quality that I think makes the best death metal
really special. And there's a lot of death metal bands I love now,
but I do think maybe that real edge of the seat playing is lacking.
I wouldn't even say lacking, but it's not explored so much by a lot
of the front running bands. Two hundred stab Wounds have that kind of black
darling murder runaway train thing, but they strip away all the lights that that
band have and it's all just like hellish, Yeah, I'm sort of with
you. I'm not sure I feel what you're feeling on that last element that's
sort of you know, edge of your seat runaway train thing. I found
this to be quite settled. I Alsos thought about the Speed Record basically for
similar reason. I think, person when we bring death metal to the show,
it's because it's either a like really buzzy or popular, be we're really
passionate about it. I think that sort of criteria for me probably makes this
the most like bone average death nut a record will cover this year. And
that's not to say it's not good. It's just that it's a popular new
band whore Albays gonna make room for. But in a very very busy lane.
As a man who has heard plenty of jungle, Skinless records or whatever,
like, I'm perfectly home with this, it's a you know, it's
a it's a meaty time. I think it settles into itself, and to
me it kind of, uh, it doesn't often kind of really grab me
by the throat and go fucking listen to this. I am just sort of
like, you know, in that sloppy you know, sloshing around on the
album cover Autopsy table Time having you know, a fairly decent time. But
I haven't fallen in love with it the way that you have it, huh.
I mean like thing as I get all that, and when I say
the runaway train thing, it's not necessarily because from one moment to the next
there's this wild shage you have no idea what's coming. It's just the sort
of it's maybe runaway trains not the allegory for it, but it's that sensation
of slamming as hard as it does and then going as fast as it does.
And I think they've they've got such a knack for hooks on this record
that I think, you know, I really like Sangue super but I think
they're excellent. I can listen to a Sangue super Bow record and there's not
that many moments that stand out for me sure writing the notes for this,
there were just so many quick sometimes just ten fifteen second sections. Was like,
that's fucking exceptional, and for me, you get them right from the
off, like Hands of Eternity as an opener, I think is already great.
And the way it barely settles on a riff for more than thirty seconds
at a time while still being really catchy, there's a bit on there.
I think it's literally three minutes in. There's a kind of call and response
between the vocals and the riff and the way it slides back and forth in
the groove. It's like Cannibal Corpse level sort of death metal groove playing.
It's it's so good. And when you're doing that, I don't really need
a fresh idea. I don't need Oh, this is a band where their
concept is this or they can bin from this, that or the other.
That thing you're doing is actually hard enough. Yeah, I mean that's what
someone like Undeath doing that first track. I was impressed with the the kind
of what you're saying about, how it almost like doesn't allow you to settle
for too long. For that track, the most ambitious track on the album,
I'd say Hands of ten. Yeah. I mean there's a few moments
where they kind of deVie it and try something different, and I applaud them
for all the things. I like that it starts with that kind of clean
guitar spookiness that sounds why Mega Death or like you know, Slayers or something
like that. It's you don't expect that on a you know, kind of
more meat and potatoes death metal record, that kind of eighties thrash spookiness.
And it's got some like you know, tolling bear bells, atmosphere and stuff,
got drama, which again, you know, not necessarily expecting from a
hardcore influenced death metal. Yeah. I think maybe my part of it is
sonically, I think it's well produced. I don't find it to be explosively
produced. I think it kind of into a sort of third gear, you
know, neutral death metal soum for most of it. I think the drums
particularly feel very relaxed and it doesn't feel like they're hitting that hard. And
I guess maybe it doesn't help that I'm still listening to Anti Crisis Machine record,
but it just it's pretty steady going this and I wish the drums are
a bit more whacking them to really like I mean again, that Cannic Corps
thing I think you were saying is a good parason off as a band,
they're you know, evoking, but Cannical Corps now still like sound like I'm
in the fucking car crash scene in death Proof more than this does they like
actually cave my head in with how we intense and powerful the sound is.
Whereas this, it's kind of you know, taking that two thousands brittle death
metal, making it very clear, very crisp, about as presentable as possible,
Like it makes it a little un extreme for want of a better word,
like this is like as clear cut as anything approaches a particular sort of
sub sub genre can be. And I think that is obviously that is also
what makes it appealing to a lot of people. And I'm not saying I
want them to you know, take these at times fairly advanced bits of songwriting
they've done and like you know, render them indecipherable or anything. It just
this record does kind of mostly sit into like a cool, yeah, steady
head nodding third gear for me rather than really like making me ship my pants.
I think it can like vary from song to songs I think someone like
Devil Gestations where it does get you know, a bit grotty and a bit
like more gore soked like, whereas a song like gross Abuse, that's where
it's kind of more just like meaty like grooves and is a bit more kind
of like instead of it. So I think like there's not I think like
it never kind of sells them something for too long and it does mix up.
But I dosum mean where some songs do just feel a little bit like
not pleasant by Death noel Standers, but just kind of like you know,
pleasant for me, No, no, no, but like but I agree
with you where I think like this is some of these songs are as easy
to listen to as Death mel Can Get like, which I think I think
is a good thing for this album. I think it's what's gonna you know,
help them go. But I do think I do think like they at
least are on certain songs not afraid to kind of like scus it up a
little bit more so it never feels too nice. Yeah, I think Abuse
is one of my favorite traps on the record. There's a riff in there
that reminds you of like a slam version of them bones or something like weird
ascending part that's pretty cool and like we said, the sort of like you
know, the sort of traces of like thrash technicality you get in hands of
eternity a nice as well. I'm kind of I'm kind of taken aback by
the sort of struggling at the production because I think this thing sounds like really
great and not in a way we're death metal record. Like you say,
you're kind of going, why have I not shot myself yet? Like there
is an element of that where it's not that heavy or that frightening. To
me, it just sounds like a big, well produced metal record. But
five years ago I see you coming from there like I don't mind the production.
I think like it's fine, yeah, iven that partt thing is where
it comes right, I said, like where you can actually hand this to
someone who might like death met and they will just enjoy it as a sort
of good sounding metal record. But I don't understand where like if you want
to that is that more extreme. This doesn't quite cut or like kind of
cave your skull in as much as say, I don't know, like Angry
super Bowl or Frozen Soul or pick any other band. Yeah, I think
for me again, it's like comparison points are some of my favorite, like
genuinely terrifying death metal bands of the moment are bands like a Feather and Bone,
and you know that they're not around anymore, but try and beer fowl
and stuff like that. And then the flip side is again how insanely hard
Eric Rutan has managed to make those you know, veteran Chemical Cause records sound
again, this kind of it cuts down the middle, you know, And
I'm not saying it's badly produced. I think that, you know, it's
a record I'm more than happy to you know, sit in and it's pleasing.
It just that's what kind of stops me feeling that, like you know,
really you use the word unhinged element about it. That's for me what
kind of stops it feeling too much in that regard. It feels it a
bit more comfortable than it does like genuinely dangerous. Yeah, And I think
sometimes I think that's what works for its advance, Like that we mentioned gross
Abuse, which at least has that real slamming bit, and for me,
one of the thrills of it is so one of my favorite kind of underrated
modern death metal bands is this band called flesh Shot from Texas. I think
one record out that they're fucking wicked, and this song takes the sort of
thing that they're doing but makes it sound big, like they've got this real
caveman bass tone and sort of nasty riffing style. But it's like they've taken
that and they've mixed it with Burned my Eyes or something it's like, and
it makes it sound glorious and it's I mean, if Fleshrot never become the
hype band, I will take this as a win. It's that sound done
or muscular. And then on the title track it goes from sounding like the
nastiest material on hard Work to the stupidest material on Eating Back to Life.
It's just running the death metal grnolet and coming out triumphant. I think there's
as much as we said, oh, there isn't really a thing that marks
them out. It's for me, it's how adept they are at, like
you say something, all the different styles. I think they just they nail
that. Yeah, I said, I do give them credit for again sort
of analyzing this an academic man. I do give then credit for some of
the technical advancements on it where you know, the title track or you know,
led to the Chamber slash Liquefied, which is in the mental track.
Yeah, it takes on some of the kind of frozen soul that that's kind
of sort of you know, horror score, morbid ambience bit of times,
and it takes a bit of that. There are parts of this where you
can clearly see that they are like pushing their songwriting in this particular realm.
And you know, I can't not like an album to some degree, an
album that has a song called release the Stench on it, like maybe the
most self consciously kind of old school like pure slam that's also got like a
real sort of like wild Kerry King worshiping side at the start of it,
like which again and a big beat down like I think like songs that I
think like they're just cool to listen to. Yeah, And it's comfy,
pleasing, familiar death metal for me that never goes over the line of like
really fucking blowing me away. But even you know, as you settle into
the rhythm a little bit at least, I do you do get you know,
the stand up moment that pops up later on of Ride the flat nine
flap line featuring Jamie Morgan on vocals, which just you know, coming late
in on the record, I'm glad they put it there. Sounds very you
know, different and recognizable as he comes in. And again here is that
guy in a death of context doing you know, the most kind of venomous,
tormented, bestial voice that he can while still sounding like Jamie Worgan.
He fucking tears that out of him. I mean not to just you know,
be like, oh, I like the song with the codonsk on it,
that's my favorite song on the album. I think that song absolutely rips.
I mean the first thing he says in his verses three naves like he
knows what he knows what he's doing, but I think like him just kind
of coming at it like a little bit more of savage thing great, and
then you know him skimming over that sort of like bass and at the end,
like the dive bombs going off and like the beat down, and like
it just has brings all the bits of hardcore like into a more kind of
like ferocious death metal sound. I'm just like this is like this like real
shot of like just fucking go that that's when he does feel a little bit
like runaway train unhinged, kind of like burst of energy at the end of
the record that just like grabs him, kind of goes like, fucking pay
attention to this. Yeah, yeah, I mean I didn't even have the
truck list stop when I was listening to this, so I had no idea
Jamie Morgan was making appears. When that voice comes in, it's he grabs
he does, And it's such a cool flip because it's an extreme vocal but
in a completely different style, and the band of kind of made an effort
to match him where it's not just a standard death metal song where Jamie is
to try and find space. They've clearly geared it somewhat to that sort of
thing anyway, so it sounds like a really natural fit. And it's just
again, it's just it's so exciting I think, I mean, specially for
someone who didn't even know it was coming and then suddenly you're listening to a
death metal code orange song. I mean, what's not to like? Yeah,
it's crowd pleasing this, I think it's certainly it's a good step into
death metal. I wish I was as wowed by it as you are,
Elliott, Like, I think you know, if you go on Spotify listens
for example, these guys like win out in this curarticular crop, like they've
got more than sangui Superbowl, literally several tens of times more than undeath frozen
soul vomit fourth, Like, these guys are the fucking arguably the biggest ones
of these currently and I they're kind of not the most remarkable one to me,
Like, it's not the heaviest, it's not the catchiest, the most
ambitious, the energetic. I think it's just sort of the exact middle of
the diagram. But it is, you know, fairly good. And I
think, you know, I can certainly say why you know them being that
just kind of coming through in the middle and being adept in it, which
I do think they are to a solid degree. Why you know, it
would be some particularly kind of you know exactly for people. Yeah, I
think I don't even really disagree with anything you've said that, Like, like
you said, they're not the catchiest, they're not the heaviest, they're not
the most frightening, they're not the most extreme, they're not the most ambitious
or anything. But when it comes to just having a good time when something's
on. This has been one of the standouts of the last few months for
me, just like it's funny because they've not done anything in particular way.
You go, that's why they're the most popular, And I'm kind of stunned
to you say that they're that much more popular when it comes to streams,
even with the new record out. But I think they just for me,
they capture what makes death metal satisfying, and I think ultimate maybe that's what
people even who like death metal, that's what they're looking for. They're not
everyone's always looking to be challenged or whatever. They just want a moment like
that thing I mentioned, Hands of Eternity, where oh that's just super catchy,
super fun, super exciting, and sometimes that's enough. Yeah, my
got recommendation for people. Listen to the new Necra album if you like this.
We didn't get to review that one back in April, but that'll be
like a great next step if you like this. It's super straightforward and catchy,
but you know, great songwriting, vocal hooks. Yeah, that's two
hundred stab wounds. Perhaps not what your immediate next step the death metal would
be, but nonetheless some death metal that you will frankly never be able to
interchange with anyone else. Next time we go to Ulcer rate and Cutting the
Throat of God easily the best album title of the year. If that was,
if anything, hardest album title of the year that fucking sounds good on
the TNM Awards, that would easily be the runaway winner. We don't have
to do it New Zealand's runaway greatest metal band if you're keeping score. Ulcer
eight have been around for like a good you know, fifteen plus years,
making pretty critically acclaimed experimental death metal. But as we said that in the
in the twenties, they have reached a sort of new kind of pedestal that
they're on. Twenty twenties album Staring to Death and Be Still is I think
their best album. I raved about it on the show, and now with
the follow up, they are in a position where for many people in the
underground they are like one of the extreme metal bands to beat, one of
sort of the big events of the calendar is this record. And you know,
even the fact that this is I've seen it get like main website reviews
on the likes of Kerrang and metal hammer, which for a band this like
unabashedly underground and like, you know, not crowd pleaser or buckling to make
people like them in anyway is good going for what was already a pretty recognizable
sounding band in this period. With these two you know, latest albums,
I think they have stepped into becoming even more like one of the most completely
unique, one off sound bands in the entirety of metal, to be honest,
Elliott. When we were putting these reviews together, Ulcer eight stood out
as like, yeah, we got to talk about that. What are you
know, sort of Alter eight to you? In terms of everything I've just
said, I mean, you've basically nailed it. Like they've never been a
big, big band, but it feels like those in the know know that
one of the best death metal bands of the twenty first century. It feels
like since since everything is fire onwards where everything is fire like, it's a
great and there. I think what makes them so brilliant is that their particular
brand of death metal scratches too, which is the so often you have to
choose between where it's like they have that fiery, imperious sound that's not too
dissimilar to things like Immolation or day Aside or even like Behemoth at points,
but they've also got that super obtuse surreal thing or something like Portal where you
really have to sit down and make an effort to penetrate its walls. And
I think, like you know, I flipped on my favorite record of theirs
is, but I think there's a very good argument we made that Staring to
Death and be Still is their best record so far. And it felt like
a bit of a wake up moment for people because suddenly, I mean,
like you said, there'd be kind of a critical darling for a while in
certain circles, but it felt like they were starting to get traction in places
where you wouldn't normally see experimental, post progressive death metal band getting interest,
if you want to call them that. And I think that was a particularly
good year for forward thinking, unique extreme music like Imperial Triumphant, Oh yeah,
all my favorite, Like you know, I remember my Top twenty that
year. I had, you know, fucking I had that, and I
had Imperio Triumphant, and I had on the black Mail side, there was
a Ranti Pazuzu. Like a lot of my favorite stuff that year was on
the kind of pushing at the weird ends. Yeah, I mean I went
back to my top twenty of the year list. I thought, you fucking
nerd like all this, it's just like Neptunian maximalism and all anyway, And
maybe LS eight benefited from the uput tick in that, but I don't think
it would mean much if the record they came out with wasn't spectacular, and
that record could hang with any of those standout records we mentioned. And it's
I'm saying that and I'm not even sure it's their best album. I think
they are like an easy contendo if you talk about best death metal bands of
the last twenty years. I think that that record was really magical for how
they managed to introduce like a stronger sense of melody into their like completely warped,
one of a kind sound. And for me, part of what's smart
this sort of you know transition into a new decade with Ulcer raight is and
it is the thing that I have particularly resonated with on these records is they've
gone from that like intensely just crushingly heavy at all times to now you know,
remaining heavy, but like also taking on this like borderline spiritual kind of
quality. Like you have to listen to Ulcera in a very particular way,
like it it is death metal, but it's not death metal like two hundred
Stab Wounds that crushes and bludgeons you and is all about that kind of sense
of headbanging, you know, violence there is you know that again, there's
melody in there, but it's not about catchy songs so to speak. Is
about a like deeply overwhelming sense of like sonic breadth and darkness that kind of
occupies this you know, conceptually, there's a lot of stuff that kind of
sort of the year, the overlap state between life and death and kind of
you know, it was about looking into this like incomprehensible maddening abyss and the
use of melody and again, all these records sort of more laid back,
even tempos at times, creates this like incredibly meditative state. And like,
I love their music on these records because through this like absolutely fucked up sense
of you know, playing and arranging everything, they make everything seem so huge
and thus you seem so small, you know, And the way on these
records they've kind of stepped the foot off the gas a bit, but while
keeping everything really just like dense and dizzying. It's so hard to compare it
to anything else, Like I draw the appeal close to like the likes of
Tool even in terms of just like sinking into an album of dense musicianship that
evokes this, you know, more spiritual space like you know ten Thousand Days
or Theory Inoculum or something, or you know Gajeira even but like in this
much you know, more impenetrable, hard to get stripted with extreme alien world.
This record is hard work, Like it's it's taken me like the last
month of listening to even feel like I begin to really you know, understand
it. But it is one of the most like advanced works of heavy music
making on the market this year. Yeah, I just like they continue to
even when I now I go into an ulcerat record expecting to be impressed,
I just continually am And I think you were saying about long stretch of being
more meditative and patience and all of that stuff. They've definitely been moving into
less arcane and more emotional territory, you know, over the last two records,
But there's long stretch to this record where it's almost more like a post
metal album than is a death metal record. And if you'd have told me
that, like before I went into it, I might have been disappointed.
And not because I think Osra couldn't do it, but I think I burnt
myself out on that style of music quite a while ago, and I have
almost no interest in new post rock or postmodo, to be honest, and
the prospects of one of the best death metal bands going into that territory,
I could have been hesitant, but the way they kind of they've worked,
they've needed that into their music. They make something that I think can often
sound kind of limp and formulaic, sounds so alive and dangerous, and I
can't think of anyone else who's doing that with these ingredients. Yeah, I
think it's kind of remarkable how like widely acclaimed their music has actually become considering,
how like difficult to unpack. It is, Like there are there are
zero conventional hooks or anything like that in this record, but it is so
one of a kind. And like even if the song so to speak,
arsub Dude, the emotional headspace of their music is sort of quite evident,
and I guess sort of permeates everything as you listen to it, Sam,
you know the things are talking about. I imagined this could basically be an
imperial triumphant situation with you, because this is like beyond the pale of conventional
Bethntal songwrating. It is operating in a mentally exhausting realm. But you know,
how did you get on with us? This might be one of the
most I've liked to get one of these really experimental like death metal bands you've
bought on, because I could sit, I could sit in the like emotional
space the album is going for. I've still probably got more to learn from
the album as I saw to dig into it. But like I was a
bit like, oh, this is gonna be when I hit play on it,
and like and so I saw like long songs, all this is this
gonna be like a journey of an album and all that, and I was
like, fifty chance, I'm gonna go with it. I mean, it
is devastatingly heavy when it goes heavy, but there is like this really gorgeous
melodic kind of through line there as well, just kind of like again,
it's getting suffer under the blinkers of habit is but like the first song,
there is some amazing melodic guitar work in there, like the sort of something
that it feels like it could be a chorus, but it's like not because
it's being like just part of this wider hole of these songs. The moment
where I fully clicked with this album is what song is there to see Death
just once? Which is quite a way into it, but it's the moment
where they go like super fast and heavy on that sort of song and else
coming like Okay, they like this is like crazy, how good this is?
Like like if it becomes with like disgusting wretch for screen before like they
get this twisted rip out and like you get like it goes in fast and
the blast's coming, Else come out. I was like, right, cool,
I'm getting fully sucked into what they're doing here. I mean the suck
zone we're recorded the week that the movie Twisters has come out. If that
completely self out for anyone else, yeah, I mean it's a weird thing
with because like they're a kind of contradiction because like the records are really monotonous,
Like well that's what I was was gonna happen. When it was like
because I realized a couple of songs and it was kind of like, it
feels like it's going to be at one place. And then that song came
in and was just this hard shifting something like just showed me back in and
from there I was kind of just hooked and again like and that that song
comes quite late in the record, but it put everything that came before it
more into context and kind of like settle me in for the rest of it.
And then I went back to them and I was like, I'm finding
more and more of each listen that is actually like this is this is not
as monotonous as my initial kind of like thoughts. Yeah, And I guess,
you know, it would be totally you know, subjective what parts do
that for you? Because you know that song you mentioned there are a couple
of like proper like stand out like oh shit, the you know, the
heavens open moments on this. For me, that song wasn't one of them,
you know, but the people will, you know, it will happen
for people. But I was gonna say, like the records are monotonous,
right, they make really strange experimental records the kind of do mostly the same
thing all the way through, but they are about making this like gargantuan inhuman
sound, and they've almost like, you know, they developed their own kind
of musical language to do it. And it has the effect where like there's
a I can't remem which one it is. I think it's the second to
last song or around there. There's like a nine minute thirty second song on
this record from memory right now. I have no idea what happens specifically in
that song, but I know how I was feeling, you know, That's
what I can't like. That's why I picked up to see Deference, because
that was when we're like there were moments that did this you grabbed song as
we're like, moments instally grabbed me. But I wasn't distracted. I wasn't
kind of looking at the like how long is left of the song? I
was kind of just there in the moment, kind of just been like fuck
what it like? This is like the end of the world I'm listening to.
In a way, it makes us a really difficult album for review,
considering it's one of the albums I was really looking forward to and I really
wanted us to do one here. I kind of didn't account for the challenge
of knowing even how to discuss it, because normally you can on, oh,
this song sounds a bit like this, this song draws on this.
I hear some Blardie blow on this track. Or if there's about Ulcrat who
have kind of established their sound and are trying new things with it, you
can say, hey, you know it's ulcer right, you know what to
expect. You know, it's just business as usual. And it's like,
what is business as usual? There's nothing usual about it? Like every song
is this oppressive, violent, frightening for a into some combination of I would
say postmel death metal and prog at where the most atonal things can sound beautiful
and the most if you want to call it standard riff when they occasionally appear,
sounds totally otherworldly. It's it's usual in a place where none of the
usual rules apply. Yeah, and the way the record like you know,
rolls in with to flow through ash and hearts, there's a lot of those
like you know, kind of gothic sounding like clean passages and stuff that they
kind of pop up throughout songs to kind of center them and know there's almost
like kind of they occupy that kind of liminal space, you know, just
unbelievably atmospheric. And I can listen to that stuff for hours because it's like
the record almost has this effect of like lowering your heart rate, like a
sort of quasi hibernating kind of state. It sounds fucking unbelievable. Like if
you want to hear high quality, extreme yet production, listen to this,
my god, Like every like strike of a symbol is like it's echoing out
in some like vast blackness. Magnus Limberg from Cottle Luna involved in the mastering
on this, and he's done similar work for Tribulation as well, so you
can see, like, you know, it's the highly technical death metal band,
but you can see what they're going for that makes them different to any
number of you know those And when a song like that open, it brings
in its wall of death. Metally, it is a natural evolution of those
like clean melodies that were in there, and they create this tremendous wall of
sound. But with that you know, slow controlling your breathing kind of idea
at the heart of it, and so it means that you know, the
songs become so insanely busy and frenetic with like buzzing guitar parts in different lays
and stuff, which you know, considering the fact I always have to remind
people that this is a three piece, is I'm not quote for a free
piece. One of the most like defised belief sounds of like the drummer is,
without hyperbole, one of the like elite guys in the world right now,
Like he for me, like he's next to TJ. Mint Armor in
terms of like easily the most advanced metal drummer right now, coming from the
kind of more underground extreme sphere that you would put next to your you know,
Marriadi Plantier's Elo Casa Grandez whatever on that level. He and he's just
fucking unbelievable, and he's like the spotlight grabber that everyone goes to. But
as a trio, every one of them, like imagine if any one of
these guys left and they had to recruit someone else to somehow understand what they
do, like fucking nightmare, right, every one of them is a player
that you cannot replace. I guess this feels like the sort of combination of
like they've been a band for again, how long you said that they've been
going twenty years? At this point. Yeah, yeah, so this is
this is like the combinations they've played to him for so long. They have
really pushed each other, like the limits of that, and now they're sort
of stretching him further. You so this is kind of like this Obviously,
this is the one Altra album I've heard. I have no context for anything
else. I want to go back and listen to that previous one. If
I was sort of saying, this is like kind of following on from where
that kind of invent them, But it does you feel like you can't replicate
what each member is doing here. They are like such a like unit of
just like sonic devastation, and trying to pull one out and fit someone else
in there. It would just feel like this is you can't recreate the sort
of power they're getting from it. Yeah, I mean the vocalist is terrifying.
He've got this really like horrible rattle to his voice. That is,
you know, for want of a better word, it's very deathly, you
know, kind of inhabiting these these dark corners. The guitars are like just
riffing in a completely other realm to what you would usually think of as death
metal. It's more. He's like he's making balloon animals out of guitar notes
or something, or like producing glasswork or something. It's unbelievable because I was
like, does this kind of a fit Like I saw some of the like
tech deaf, and I'm like, this doesn't sound like technically like tech different
anything like that I've ever heard, because it's so against existing in its own
world. It's it's wild the way the riff writing style that this band have.
It's because there's certain things where you think, if you're trained as a
guitarist, which you think you'd have to be to be this good at the
guitar, there's sort of rules that get kind of woven into your playing where
to the point where you don't make mistakes and they're not mistakes, but some
of these rifts. It goes from like open zero on the on the low
e if is the lower, I don't know, to fifteen on the high
and it's just the way that he goes. You're a riff around that,
you think, no, that's those notes are not to be played next to
each other, these are this is not where rifts come from. And yet
he finds a way through that and then Jamie on the drums, like I
mean completely Ecko everything you said paring about being one of the best metal drummers
going. He's got that thing where he plays with immense power, but it
also sounds really lightfooted, which I think is the mark of all the best
metal drummers. And when you get those guys to other and then with Paul
who I mean you mentioned kind of rastly toe into his voice, iwous think
he sounds a bit like if nordle you if you're squeezing him too tight,
Like every time he kind of exhales, he's kind of constricted a bit more
and kind of physically it makes it all sound quite suffocating. But the interplay
between these guys, like even if they weren't good songwriters, you kind of
had to have to marvel at what they're putting down. Yeah, Like people
use the word glacial a lot, but this has the feel to me,
particularly again on these records where they've likely slow down their tempos of like something
impenetrably vast, like slowly, you know, creeping out across your view,
like how a glacier moves, and they create like I came across a quote
from one of them where he was saying, they're aiming to create a transcendent
sense of scale, and that's it, right, It's it's aiming and that
is like that's like the pitch right there, transcendent sense of It's like we're
going to manufacture a sonic landscape that is so vast through this like hyper technical
dissonant death metal somehow that it goes like beyond you as a physical body,
you know, and in creating this kind of sense of grander you know,
or and in terms of what you're saying, like, you know, is
this even deafnitely? I think they're one of the only bands to have really
evolved the idea of like technical or dissonant death metal into like a totally new
emotional possibility if it's as well, because like technical death metal is some of
the most emotionally cold, dull music to me that that that I don't connect
with. There is emotion to this, There is so much emotion through all
of this, and that again, that's where this is grabbing and kind of
gone like yeah, settling in. Yeah, the appeal is more like listening
to a Neurosis record or something like that, where it's kind of just sort
of you know, absorbs you as a body and does weird things to your
state of mind. And for me, the big like the moments of like
Payoff, where I go, ah, fuck, it all comes together.
You know, I'm floating away in some other death metal realm or something.
I don't know where I am what's going on, but there are select moments
where, like it's often towards the end of a song, they'll bring it
all together with like a riff or a part that just seems to like push
it through a specific wall. And those are like a couple of my favorite
moments of metal on a record this year. One of them is in Further
Opening the Wounds, which is a very you know, busy, ever flowing
song like they all are, that has some of the sort of cool thrash
breaks in there that you were talking about Sam as well, but the rift
that really like sends that song another level in the last two minutes almost like
sits on like a backbeat or something for one of the rare times on the
record it just locks in so hard. And then the title track right at
the end of the record, which at that point you know you've been in
the sort of swirling abyss for so long, You're lost, You're dizzy,
But something about that opening rift of the title track just kind of snaps me
in for like one last go on the record, and then the rift that
that arrives at about the six minute mark and the vocalist does the only vocal
hook on the entire record when he does the cutting dark throat, Oh god,
and it slides over the edge into that like spine tingling, little hooky
guitar part. It's extraordinary, Like the climax the end of that closing track
again that it is almostly they kind of like recent you in and mean that
this again fifty five minute however long the album like never feels like I'm kind
of likely. I never felt like I was clock watching I was looking at
the time. I was like I was just so much and then like I
don't know how long this record is. Alf the time, I was like
weird temporal feel of like I'm just suspended something that's something so that's me I
like, and that like I'm I'm so often want to lean into like oh,
you know I was doing. But I just never felt that because it
was either like really immersive or then there would just be a moment that's kind
of goes listen to this and kind of just basking its glory, and that
that final crescendo on that closing track is like one of that A plus moments
on the record. Ye. I mean, I've made almost no notes about
the actual music on this record, like going song by song, because it's
in a way how do you sum it up, Like each song is that
not one song goes below seven minutes. There's no room here for anything really
quick and to the point, every song is this kind of singular journey into
some hellish miasma, and if you're up for it, they're delivering you.
I mean, like the moments I did pick out we've already spoken about,
like this record is the wave of view and Alstra record seems to be they
do this one thing. Have they done it again? Yes or no?
And the answer, you know, thankfully and predictably is yes. Yeah.
I mean I think you know obviously the last record was when they've kind of
changed it up a little b anyway, Oh cool, there is a you
know, they're finding any possiblities here and this one, you know, continue
to go through the door that that one opened again. Those two moments I
mentioned are like the stand up bits, which I've been going back to like
again and again. But it is about the overall experience and it's this is
just like Olympic level heavy music, isn't It's like, you know, whether
it's you know, for you or not, you just have to admire it
because like, no chancer can come in and make this record. It's unbelievably
committed artists and you kind of have to have like the mental training to be
able to go to the record as well. But you know, I've been
able to go with it, so I don't know if it is like as
I don't think this is nearly as challenging as someone like Imperial Triumphant. I
think there is okay, a like maybe maybe it is, but there is
there was again something I could immerse myself into on this record and have like
and really come to appreciate it, whereas like some of those other albums sometimes
like the Evans Pursues You Appeal Triumphant, they just may me kind of going
please make it stop. Yeah, this record is you know also in general
as about that kind of sort of you know, obliterative quality of death.
You know, it demands everything of you it will exhaust you this record,
but it's the kind of thing that only heavy music is particularly equipped to explore,
and that is cutting the throat of God from Ulcer eight. Next up
is Crypt Sermon and the Stygian Rose, a first T and M appearance,
I think for this band. Although some of you may be familiar if you're
been kind of following doom and sort of traditional heavy metal in the last decade
or so, Crypt Sermon are one of the main names in the kind of
revival of sort of trad doom that we've seen in you know, particular sort
of post Paul Bearer years. They have two albums prior to this one,
both of them rather good, but five years apart, and I think,
you know, the landscape of the music has sort of come on a bit
more since then as well. This album for me was the first time and
it selt like a bit of an event release for them, Like in that
circle of the underground, it feels like, you know, people have expectations
of them. They have become quite respected, like the likes of you know,
Chemists or Spirit A Drift whatever. Some of them play in some other
you know, prominent bands in the underground. The bassist Matt Knox plays in
the Wonderful Horrendous, his his second record on the show Within It When in
the Year Here, the keyboardist plays in Obsequii, and this album, The
Stygian Rose, has received some rave reviews in kind of circles of like,
you know, epic heavy metal appreciators. I believe he've got a ten out
of ten in Decibel magazine, and if you like epic doom metal, I
would imagine that this would be the record to beat this year. So I
thought I would ask you guys what you thought about it. I was really
just like worried when I was searing playing this, and then the moment that
riff kicks in on Glimbers of the Underwe, I was like, all right,
no, cool bucket, let's go. We're worried. But every time
we talk about a heavy metal record, you're like, oh, I actually
really like this. No no, but I was. I knew nothing about
it that I was kind of expecting really slow, ponderous doom, and I
was its gonna be like, uh was gonna be like that. This is
like I have come sorry around. But that's why I love this, because
I meanly hit played. It was heavy metal, and I was kind of
like, oh wicked, Like when it was called Krypton and that I didn't
Again, the band of knew nothing about, so I we haven't gotf of
But the moment the heavy metal star, I was like, yeah, no,
parent has just got me back into my heavy metal phase. And I
had a great time with this. Like but again, there is it's not
just kind of like just so there is like the kind of more like doomy
stuff in there. There's like big gothic melodies and all that sort of shit,
But all of that coming together with like just big heavy metal rocking guitar
leads and all that sort of stuff, this is a great time. Yeah.
So like the thing that when I saw this rockle getting loads of buzz,
everyone seems to be leading with the doom things. So when I saw
that we were doing, I kind of thought, I'm I've not really been
in the mood for doing recently. The Sun's out grilling music. It's not
really a grilling music. And I saw that it was six songs in forty
five minutes, and I thought, okay, this month, that was what
worried me. Six songs in forty five minutes. I was like, oh
God, damn it, Perrin. But the moment for me was when the
Spotify profile picture came up. I thought the boots, the boots, but
also there's six of them, which means one of these lads is going to
be on keys, which means we are gonna have a good time because it's
not gonna be Frank Delgado, Jordan Fish atmospherics. We're gonna have keys,
keys, boys. And I was already pleased at that, and then when
this thing came on, it just blew past all those expectations because this thing
is sick. It's well good. I certainly like you know what you were
saying about the kind of sam are the really slow, ponderous or whatever?
You know, we reviewed the new poll Bar record recently. If that record
has like gone over into the much too sort of you know, soft side
of that for you, You've definitely got to check this out if you like
Candle Mass, particularly if you like the kind of cult bands, Solitude of
Turnus and that kind of sort of nineties continuation of that like eighties epic doom
sound. Although if you are a Solitude Turners fan, I imagine you're already
all over this band, but like they've gone like proper epic doom on this
one. They've gotten darker, they've gotten heavier than they were before. I
think, you know, some bands on the kind of heavy met revival thing,
like Smolder for example, who you know we've spoken very fondly in the
past. They kind of started off doomia and they've gone a little bit more
sort of triumphant on the more kind of rousing side. Cripsomon. I think
here have found what really suits them, which is that like candle massy and
darkness and that like epic sensibility with really fucking spooky you know, ter range.
The fact there's a song here called Scrying Orb, which is of course
essentially the same as the Candlemass song Crystal Ball, right, the same thing,
but it's that kind of you know, exploring a dark library, pulling
out cursed, dusty tomes, that haunted sound. It's really nice to have
someone doing that so well at the same time as we also have Eternal Champion
whoever else doing the swords out stuff, even if it's all part of the
same kind of you know, complimentary sphere. I mean, like Scrying Orb,
when has that the full on like eighties fantasy synth going full creepshow vibes,
like well, you know, I think I'm more like like eighties fantasy
movies and that's all thing going on, like some of the like creeping around
the dusty like yeah, like cobwebs adorning everything. Like I'm surprised you said
this is them going dark heavier, because like that is definitely like a flavor
of that is really cool. It's pretty fucking heavy, isn't it. Like
the tone is nasty, but it is so triumphant and epic at the same
time. Like again, like the openings on this is He's got this great
big year at the start off at the vocalist like proper rockstar Coriisma on the
vocalist, and that combined with the like darker doomia bits just kind of makes
it like again like really like say heavy but really catchy and absorbing and fun.
But we are, you know, at the end of scrying or when
it goes we are demons in the darkiet angels and the light. It feels
a bit we are the world like lighters in the air swaying to the music,
which is not why I expect to find myself doing when I put the
record on, and like you said, I do think that this is my
rock, a step darker than a lot of their contemporaries. But I think
their flair for still being triumphant and upbeat does kind of stop this from being
not not single handly, but it helps prevents it from feeling like a dirge.
I get the thrill of this of a great heavy metal record as well
as a great doom record. Yeah, I mean basically what's happening on the
Fantasy character creation screen. They've selected the wizard class rather than the barbarian,
right, But yeah, but that doesn't mean it doesn't rip, right.
Wizards can rip too. And you know the first track, Glimbs in the
Underworld, Storming at the Gates, loads of like andula roche king diamond vibes,
impeccable league guitars, quintessential heavy metal. The way they brilliantly switched from
that into that mammoth doom gait, I mean heavy is the crown of bone,
fucking heavy like with that you know tone when that verse riff hits fucking
wo. But you know there's some really wonderful delicate bass playing as well,
like Semi Basso at that point. But you mentioned about, you know,
the singer having this rock star thing. Yeah. Absolutely. In that first
track, the way he goes raiding raising chariots is amazing. And those years
he mentioned in the back to you in Scrying Orb and stuff like that,
there are like big, like rockstar vocal hooks that I think are just really
fun. But he's just doing like you know, Una Shamed heavy metal wizardship,
and he's and he's flexing with it, and it's great and he's he's
done very well at adopting that lane of like high drama like you know,
eighties nineties heavy metal, Bravados, spell weaving, and he gives you know,
big present in the chorus as you know, like Glimmers in the Underworld,
these big like life or death kind of proclamations that I love in you
know, Candle Mass and bands like that. Yeah, And I think one
of the things I really like about Struggles, even though it's fairly laid back
temper wise, it sometimes feels like the band are playing at three times the
speed within the tempo, like that Glimmers of the Underworld. Every time there's
a frill or a flourish, it's like they've tried to crawm thirty seconds of
nonsense into a second and a half, and it's like they want to play
the song so much faster, and again, I think it makes those those
moments which to some people they might find a bit sort of cumbersome and unexciting,
It just injects a kind of flare and fire into them that I think
prevents it from feeling that way. I means, what like the keys another
one like on a song like Please Thunder perfect Mind, when the piano's coming
at the end of that, it just again just adds this real like flare
and drama to it. That means that the song that is like like a
bit slower and a bit more doing it. It never feels kind of like
stodgy and sort of one note there again you got that as above so below
bit like big vocal hooks in there, and then there's these like big just
like gothic theater sort of coming to life of coross this album, like of
course that song in particular, and it just means that there is always something
to sort of spice it up and never feel like it's too much of a
dirt. Yeah, Down in the Hollow, has this really creepy prog intro,
but then it hits this like all our awesome metal rift and they do
this thing really well of like you know, balancing that kind of swirling atmosphere
with just like really catchy metal hooks, and there's like basically a doom metal
breakdown in that song, like it proper like crunches at the end there,
and you feel like they know the tricks right, like they understand the language
of how this music works. They adopt this brilliant thing that again, Candle
Mass use a lot of like vaguely ancient egypt sounding like Phrygian mode stuff in
their guitar riffs to give it this like really grand imposing kind of sound.
Sort of late period death use that a lot as well, and you hear
it in the rifts here, like Thunder and Scrying Orb. It's got that
flavor in there, and Thunder's also got a bit of like weird almost like
kind of disembowelment spectral voice, like dissonant death doom guitars like clean guitars in
the background as well, But the main riff is that pure like nineteen eighty
seven trad doom. You know, the heaviness I think it's one of those
great records that feels like very scholarly of its chosen lane. You know,
they've they've they've pulled out the book from the library, they've done the reading,
they know what to do. They've gone to Doom University and they've written
their dissertation. And this is what it sounds like. You know, clearly
excellent musicians that have you know, the trips of all those great bands live
on in this. They feel like very natural airs to all of that stuff.
Yeah, and I think there's there are moments on this for quite a
few of them where they do go kind of above and beyond that. I
think the title track, the eleven minute closer, I think as far as
I doom inflected heavy metal song goes, it's pretty much perfect. Like there's
opening chords on the piano do sound sublime, and the way they kind of
juxtapos out with those evil synth stabs and then that giving way to an almighty
riff. And again, I don't know if there's a musical theory term for,
but one of those kind of newly rainbow style riffs come in. I'm
just I'm just a sucker for it. I kind of can't help it.
And I mean for that song, for the whole eleven minutes, there's so
many brilliant throwaway lead lines and the wait each if Trash transitions into the next
one, so well, I think, yeah, like you say, scholarly
might be the right word, but I think there's a bit more. There's
a lot of strike away for us. It's more flair and excitement than that
might suggest. Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's the thing that
just kept me, Like again, even in the the like perhaps two epic
eleven minute closer like there is there were just there's there was always something like
a guitar like line that was sort of insuring a corpiano to there just there
was a sense of like just like we need, like we can do something
cool and attention grabbing. So it never feels like we're drifting too much off
into like sort of like a dirge or like a drawn out passage. It
never it never felt drawn out, dull or anything like that, because it
just there's just always something like to spice it up. Yeah, we need
to get Sam to listen to Nightfall by Candle Mass or an album. Oh
yes, At some point I need to stop saying I like these albums because
coming out like old ones that I will likely I'll have to stop pretending I'm
abu all this stuff. Yeah, excellent records. Check it out if you
like big riffs. And lastly we are going to go to Blind Girls and
a record called an Exit exists. Another Australian band a big reviews episode for
the Continent of Oceana Sam This one was all you who are Blind Girls?
So they were a band I discovered the day this album came out. When
I was just kind of like I was like just because someone was like,
oh, scream o band, I was like, okay, cool, I'll
give us some one. And then like, so they're an Australian scream o
band that says you're like emo violence, whatever, like people want to brand
it as these days, but like I just kind of like stumbled across this
the day it came out, listen to it and was immediately kind of captured
by the sound of what they're doing. It is this is like really emotionally
fraught, horrid, intense kind of noise and nothing pleasant about this. This
is like you like when we say screamo, like wait talking about the really
like page and I'm like horrible sounding kind of sort of stuff like, and
that's what Blind Girls are sort of throwing back to. Is that kind of
like scream of like the sort of naughties and that sort of time. But
yeah, No, this was just when I was like, I think this
is really cool. I kind of want to, you know, talk about
it a little bit. I don't know if anyone else is gonna like go
this quite as much as I have, but it's a like really emostly pained
record. The Vocus and she talked about how she wrote this like in between
the sort of abusive relationships of that, and it's her kind of just channeling
that pain into twenty two minutes of just horrible noise. Yeah, you know
the terminology, you know, something like emo violence, like you know,
I know from the olden days, you know, I know about you know,
Orchid and page ninety nine and stuff. But it's not a genre that
I know a Tremendous'm not an expert on like the current names and where it's
at. I think I guess the closest we've spoken about heavily on the show
is probably the like portrayer guilt. Yeah, who kind of sit at that
weird confluence of like scream oh and hardcore and death metal and classical chamber music.
On the last album, you know, bits of like early converge as
well. I'd have a little bit of that in there. But you know,
as a sound, you know, I like it. You know,
this thing is horrid and very upsetting Elliott's I think this kind of emo scremo
stuff is a bit of sort of a pet genre of yours, right,
Oh yeah, I mean I can't listen to it for too long without getting
a bit glob Well, luckily it isn't too long. I don't think you
can listen to this too long because it is like it is bleak, like
like it's almost like the kind of like the Yinni Yang and the also which
is like that is like this like horrid bleak sort of epic, and this
is kind of like the condensed kind of just like much more basic but still
just kind of like emotionally exhausting. Listen. Yeah, I mean, I
can go on about this for a while, but I think it's tragic what
happened to the term screamo, the fact it became a pejorative because you think
emo with screams Screamer. It's perfect, and now we have to call it
what emo violence. It's embarrassing. But like emo violence I still think is
a pretty good term in terms of having to rebrand in it like a genre
to something with a worse name. I think certain nettle genres have certainly gone
you know, the world through than emo violence. It just doesn't sound like,
I mean, it's stupid. I have a teacher's nord vestigal violence on
it, so, I I mean, emo violence sounds like one that was
invented because we needed to come like the one needed to come up a new
name. And it's the metallic hardcore to metal core of Screamo, isn't it
yah? You know yeah? Fully is that like like it's always like arbitrary,
but like I get it. It'd be like if you're in the marketing
team for that would be a name that got thrown around and you go out
that put then the maybe pilot. Then someone says screamer and you go,
okay, yeah, no, forget that. But either way, the fact
it was just a pejorative for so long and it kind of disguised bands like
Orchid Page ninety nine, Saytia Lobo preet or whatever. They kind of they
didn't have a home that was respected because it was all just Screamer, which
is well, that's designed the skyline, isn't it. And it feels like
in the last like maybe six or seven years that started to switch back and
now revival on like yeah, like you proudly be a Screamer band. And
I think I still think it's underrated as a star when it comes to producing
harrowing music because things like black metal and death metal those are kind of shortcuts
to extremity or like grindcorets anything like that. But when Screamer has done well,
it can be about as alarming and devastating as any form of alternative music.
And I'd never heard of Blind Girls before it was picked for this month's
review show. But I'm always thrilled when a new screamer band come on to
my radar and yeah, this is so up my street, like noisy,
upsetting screamer that draws on things like Slint and Jesus Lizard and portrayal of guilt,
just sign me up. Yeah, her scream on this there is like
and he's just the most feral noise a person that making that there's no efforts
can like do a proper metal scream. She is just like wailing and like
exising every bit of pain over, just like violent stabby music with the very
odd occasional kind of like molodic lime thrown in for a few seconds. Yes,
twelve tracks, many of which are like one minute something, many of
which are you know, very uncomfortable dissonance actually named obviously weird spider ifs.
And the vocals like at first they're almost like the body levels of ah.
But you know she does these things where vocal parts kind of tail off into
like you know, sobbing, moaning, you know, very unsettling, you
know, saying I like it would be the wrong word, but you know
they have an effect. They make you feel fun. Yeah, and it's
very you know, skin peeling, and I do I like the parts on
this where considering it is such a you know, at it violent record,
some of my favorite parts in it are when it kind of detours into like
proper just like sorrow, just like you know that the mid part of Blendished
Memory, which goes fully like you know, I'm crying in a dark room
with the curtains closed and there's a horrible rancid smell somewhere undetectable in the room.
There's a real like ebb and flow of sort of anger and distress.
I supposed you'd call it like the way the songs move, They kind of
move her state a lot of the times, like when she is crumbling,
the song crumbles, when the song is, when she is flying the song
flies. Less than three is like nearly three whole minutes, and it feels
like, oh my god, this one's like, you know, standing around
a while, but it has you know, again those that real passages to
it, Lilac as well. It's got some like panic card galore stuff in
there, but it's also really pretty and very very sad. Yeah, for
real, I think like loveless beginning like again, it's like really queezing,
creeping, and again you're like the mood of the music does just kind of
fit up her, Like I think like vocally, the most affetive moments are
when's less in the kind of like really hints screams, and it is those
kind of like just sobbing and kind of like it reminds me of again,
Like I'm not going to say it's on the level of that, but like
oh freak are rail When like Carau goes like the more kind of like just
like wailing pained moments like that, there's a feeling of that kind of similar
approach where like this is just like on this moment of the song led all
the real emotion and like even if it sounds like wrong and how the scream
comes out, that's the like real feeling in that moment and it like captured
that, and the music again just compliments it really nicely. Yeah, I
thought about that, Uh make me nothing. Yeah, the sludgy darkness in
that riff made me think about like where I live from Raya with that kind
of again hot horror show tearing itself apart. Forts on the top you mentioned
Loveless. Loveless maybe my favorite track on this, which again transitions at the
first track really well with that kind of skin crawly guitar. There's just loads
of that. You know, the way one track slips into another is kind
of a highlight of it. But really when they bring out that kind of
you know, more atmospheric element on there is really well done. And it's
sonically super well recorded as well, which I feel they need to point out
because like the difference between this and you know screamo and emo violence back in
the day, right, Like this is extreme, but it's also very high
fidelity, and you know, listening with headphones on, you can really feel
the kind of cool warring, you know, strange parts going on. The
guitars are really warped and mangled and loveless. Has I guess what you'd call
a breakdown, but it has like the strings of being hacked at it so
discordantly. It's like some kind of machine surgery or something. And I really
love that. And yeah, in terms of the recording songs like less than
Three, which is that's when we actually have some like these almost like twinkly
emo guitar melodies. Is this kind of like brief a spite in the middle
of it, where again they you get those moments that can actually they can
kind of shine through because of the higher quality, and then the album will
just tear them apart in the final sort of part of that song, like
like it just means that like the push and paar of the elements, it
all just like it just traps you in the emotional space and the higher fidelity
recording it's not just there to make the pretty things sound pretty. It allows
them to do really ugly, right, Yeah, that's what I liked about
it. Yeah, because Closer to Hell, which is basically a two minute
dirge, they do this trick with the guitars where they kind of sound out
of tune bagpipes, and I can't even refer to another band as a reference
point because I don't think I've heard another band do that. And then on
the following track, when the AI generated love Letter, it's like they make
the sound of an organ out of pinched harmonics. It's wild, and it's
the sort of thing where you know, on a basement recording on a tape,
maybe it would sound more feral and those not that it necessarily needs,
and those extreme moments would be even harsher. But by allowing the band to
flex that muscle, I think it makes it a lot more impressive because her
vocal performance alone and the lack of sort of self preservation that you can hear
in it means there's no need for this to sound rougher around the edges,
and by having a decent recording, you're able to show the full range of
what you're capable of. Yeah, less than three as well, kind of
the you know, inventive guitar playing almost I draw into mine kind of like
post black metal at times with I'm thinking about like an ortum for cripper children
and stuff like that in that particular kind of regard. Yeah, it's like,
you know, twenty one minutes of rocking back and forth, losing your
mind some kind of odd moments of beauty. It's pretty cool. The band
are called Blind Girls. The record is an Exit Exists, and it is
our final review for this particular episode. So thank you very much for being
here, Thank you very much for listening. Go and check out like that.
I think July is. I really felt this last year. July is.
Often you don't get the massive records, so we can kind of go
throw around some stuff you've probably not heard before. So go and check those
records out. Let us know which ones you're really vibing with. There is
a really good, you know, selection of stuff, particularly the last handful
of reviews that we've done there, and let us know in a friendly way.
Please if you agree or disagree on you know, our scene queen positions
and and everything else. Yeah, cheers. We will be back next week
with I mentioned that we're going to be you know, doing an episode over
on the Patreon and we with that with Hyperblasts and then damn August rolling around,
so we're going to start to get the post summer at the end of
it. You know, release is really picking up again. There are more
festivals to be had, so you know, stick with us over over that
and we'll see you again. Bye bye mhm.